Gone to the Dogs ...

Vas watched the pair run to their bunk with their loot, all bright eyed and smiles. Jacy had to run to the little girl's room and noted she had to putt her now clean clothes away and begin bringing order to her shuttle. She gave the young punk a kiss that lingered on his lips as he dizzily watch her make her way to her shuttle. He promised to help soon as he squared the cargo hold.

Vas dug into his pockets to light up a smoke as he suddenly came to a screeching halt just noticing the cages neatly stacked in a row on the far side of the cargo bay. "Zhe daodi shi shenme!" He blinked, approaching the cage. Behind the stack was a pen of sorts, alive with some sort of ruckus. He bent around the crates to peek behind them.

He was met face to face with a pair of big brown eyes surrounded by a huge head and a ridiculous amount of fur. "Why do we have a bunch of dogs?!" He asked only to remember he was at the moment alone on the cargo bad. "And why am I the last to know!?" He sighed taking a long drag as his complaint fell on deaf ears. "Freakin figures."

The Captain kicked back in his seat at the galley table after having poured himself a drink of a top shelf single malt Nu Jura he didn't know he had. Damn it'd been a long time since he had something that smooth on board this ship. His tranquil mood was slightly interrupted by the call of one of the ship's deckhands. He peered his head out of the galley, swore under his breath and set his drink down on the table. "For rut's sake… " Storming down into the cargo area, he abruptly stopped on the steps. "Son, you can't smoke that near the drog kyri, don't you know they have highly tuned ole-ee-factory senses? Put that shit out."

Vas did as he was told. "Captain, I think someone left a bunch of dogs in the wrong ship. There is no way - Drog what now?" Great Buddha the Captain remembered the name of something! "Are … are we hauling dogs?" There were a lot of them and at the moment there was a shortage of deck hands. Meaning his new shiny title meant jack if he was the only deckhand on the ship! That meant he would be taking care of these furry monstrosities!

"First, no, we aren't hauling *dogs*. We are transporting Drog Kyri, and they're extremely rare, which means essentially, they're passengers. You'll make sure they're treated as such, I need them in pristine condition for the buyer on New Kasmir. Have you ever cared for Drog-Kryi before?"

Vas blinked. "Are they not dog?" He asked confused. Four legs - Check. Tail - Check. Lots of fur - Triple check. They sure as hell looked like dogs. "I've taken care of temple dogs … does that count?" The punk added.

"For rut's sake, temple dogs, son? The only place in the verse that breeds these animals is on Valentine. Look it, I suggest you do some research on how to care for them properly. I don't want so much as a distressed look from anyone of them, are we clear?"

"Well … don't you know how to take car of 'em?" The punk asked, distressed. Why would the Captain buy such expensive dogs and know nothing other than their values. "Ain't you got a tips or something? Or a manual?" Yea he only realized after how dumb asking for a manual on a dog was.

“I gave you my tip. I said do some research on how to take care of ‘em proper. They need teeth brushed and gums massaged, and their food needs to be prepared, twice a day. They’re also gonna need some exercise because this is a long haul, so I made that pen. You may want to make a run or get used to walking them on a leash. I can’t be expected to do all your thinking for you.” He touched one of the spikey points of Vas’s hair for emphasis.

Vas had been hitting down notes on a clipboard. "Right … so … why do we have eight?" The punk asked, flipping through the mass of papers.

“Seven.” The captain corrected. “The man I purchased ‘em from gave me a contact name, said he’d take all the Drog-Kyri he had, which was seven. ‘Course, they make sure they’re all fixed, this way no one can breed ‘em on their own. That’s what makes them so rare. On top of that, they’re highly trained, they say one of these can take out a Reaver all by itself, you imagine that? Jaws of steel. They’ll be fine, so long as you don’t use the attack word.”

"Well it's all in German." Vas noted. "But we only have seven sets of papers and the manifest is for only seven… so did he throw one in for free?" He asked half joking.

“What?” The Captain asked, grabbing the clipboard away from Vas. He then pointed to the air and counted the amount of dog cages, and looked back to the clipboard, then back to the dogs. He counted a second time, this time slower. *“Shun-sheng duh gao-wahn…”* He flipped through the papers to make sure there were only seven sets, then counted the dogs yet again. “Do NOT tell the Lieutenant. We’ll figure this out.”

"Not that I know a ton about dogs … but without papers … number eight is pretty worthless." Vas pointed out. "Any way we can get the papers? I need to run out and get supplies anyway."

“I suppose I could go back and explain the mix up and hopefully NOT get shot,” the Captain said absently as he continued the pattern of counting animals and flipping papers. “Supplies? Yes - don’t forget we’ll need some sort of way to get them exercise out in space. If they get bored, they may chew their own feet off or something, I don’t know there were a lot of words being thrown around.”

"Right … I'll figure it out." Vas sighed. "We need those papers otherwise we won't be able to sell 'em for his value." Mostly because it left so many questions about the dog. If they did sell him they would take a hit for sure. Not that Vas has a silver tongue or anything but he knew the value of the dogs just from the extensive paperwork.
“I only bought seven, but there was a lot of drinking and it’s possible I miscounted when loading up the mule…” He looked at Vas, then back to the dogs. “Maybe we should…” He made a slashing motion across his throat, and then nodded towards the dogs. “No, that wouldn’t be right. Dammit, son, you look shifty, don’t you know how to forge anything?”

“I can forge anything, Daddy Keller,” Jacy offered as she came into the cargo hold. “May I see those,” she asked, holding a hand out for the clipboard. She looked it over and scrunched up her face.

“Out of this world! These are Drog Kyri; we had one at the Companion temple. Very expensive to maintain and we all lost several shoes to the furry bears.” Jacy laid the clipboard down on the cage/crate and knelt down to peer inside. “Are they all going to the same buyer?”

“They sure are!” The captain replied. “At least, that’s the plan, unless the breeder comes knocking tonight looking for pup number 8.“

Vas brightened. Of course Jacy would know about a high priced rare dog! She was high class after all! "Thank the Buddha for that! You can tell me how to …" Vas made a vague motion to the 8 crates. " … meet their need to keep 'em happy, healthy and keep all my fingers."

“Good,” the captain replied. “The two of you are in charge of keeping the Drog-Kyri healthy and happy. Fingers are optional, you wouldn’t believe how much these pups go for.” Satisfied with the outcome, the captain did a final count of the dogs and meandered off to find his lost drink.

“Animals like these are spayed and neutered the moment it’s safe to do so. Keeping their numbers in tight check is the best way to set the price so why would there be an undocumented dog and why would the breeder have let it go for no cost?” Jacy picked the clipboard up again and went over the documents. “Think they could be smuggling something? I almost don’t want to know, but if one of them has something inside them… well that won’t help them keep happy and healthy.” Jacy tapped her lip and walked around the crates. She gave Vas an apologetic look and reached up to pull her hair back in a tail. “One of the most critical steps when dealing with an aggressive man is to know what he’s capable of. Maybe that’s true for dogs too? There’s nothing for it, I will just have to reach in there, swat their fur aside and get a good look at their twig and berries. We need to confirm these are all males and they’ve been jimmy-jacked. Would you rather hold up the tail or lift the leg?”

"Ha I see what you did there … talk about me …" Vas said in a snarky tone. "Day ain't complete less someone’s feeling up eight aggressive dogs to check if they’re intact. Be warned pups … I bite back …" Vas said to one in the crate.

“Don’t worry, Sugarbear,” Jacy flashed him a toothy smile, “When we’re all done here I’ll check you over very thoroughly for intactness.” She wriggled her hands at him then nodded her head at the pen.

"Soon as we're done feeling up the dogs, that just came out so weird, I'm gonna get what we need for the pup 'n people." Vas said looking at all the giant logs of fur, giant tongues lolling out to the sides of their mouth. "What could go wrong …" Vas said trying to stay positive. 'So much could go wrong. Stay positive …"

“No balls on this one,” Jacy advised as she let go of a tail and patted the dog’s rump. “Next!”