In some nebulous kinda way, everyone – well, everyone who didn’t grow up in a southern public school – knows about the composition of the moon; “it’s got the stuff earth’s got” would be a correct, if not wholly simplified and somewhat vague answer. We know there are rocks and dust and craters and ice and whatnot, and that’s about as far as the layman’s knowledge of moon geology goes.

Of course, every moon is different in some way; some are geologically active, some are ice moons, some may be made out of silica while others, carbon – the list literally goes on forever, depending on how thinly you want to split hairs.

Point being, the easiest way to determine if any given moon was worth a damn to spend time and energy on mining was to finely powder a small bit of it, capture it, and then sift through what you have. Repeat this over a few probes and you’ve got a good indicator as to what the crust of the moon is worth, and if it’d be useful to crack the celestial body to find more goodies within.

The moon the Dorarizin station had been orbiting was comprised of mostly silica, with a high aluminum and iridium content, of all things. Bill knew this, because most of it had just been dumped onto his body. Unfortunately, Bill couldn’t tell his friend Grapes a damn thing, because silica + impact heat = powdered glass. The kind of miniscule powder that will, yanno. Shred your lungs and mucous membranes, blind your eyes and burrow under your skin for years.

For the first few seconds, the dust was merely annoying. Then it began to burn.

“[Hold on! Hold on, [Bill]! Just hold your breath and stay still-]” Grewreh-of-Azrehs yelled, the heavy thudding of his paws the only indicator of movement.

…4…5….6….7….

There was the sound of things being moved, what sounded like a few things broken as well, before the heavy thuds came back. “[Ok, I have a wash-down station setup – I’m going to have to strip you as we move, ok?]” Grapes stated, not so much asking permission as explaining what was happening. Bill, for his part, continued to remain still.

…18…19…20…21…

He tensed up – painfully, as the dust ground into his clothing and skin, his body being picked up and carried with frightening speed. As he moved he felt parts of his protective clothing disappear – a boot here, a sleeve there – whatever could be carved away was, until he was dumped hastily (but gently) onto what felt like a cold, metal grate. His lungs burned – the dust caught him by surprise, and he didn’t have a full breath. It’d have to do.

…46…47….48…49…

With a heavy thud something was closed near him, and then there was rumbling. With no warning or notice, a torrent of water – a strong shower for a Dorarizin, but a biblical flood for a human – cascaded down from the ceiling onto his naked body. Under the weight of the water pressure Bill was lifted up, his conscious mind building a narrative as to what’s happening around him, while his subconscious hind-brain was screaming about drowning.

…63….64….65….66….

His lungs sucked at themselves, an imploding fire spreading across his chest. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think –

….73….74…75-

The water suddenly stopped.

“[[Bill?!] Are you alright? Your heart still beats – are you awake?!]” Grapes lowered him gently onto the metal grate as Bill responded with an explosive exhale and a wet gasp.

“Good God…” he murmured in between heaving breaths, sprawling out in place as he tried to stop his body from freaking out. “Are… all your showers….this bad?”

A damp paw gently ran down his side as his friend let out a mirthless bark of a laugh. “[Alright, humor is good. We need to get you to medical – what happened?]”

“Forgot about the latches… and the weight. Only seen ’em…. moved from a distance. Never….picked one up.”

“[But those (err-)are so light. You need to {err–*whine*} PT. At least you remembered your emergency {*yip*}]”

“Holding things above your head is hard.” Bill complained, thumbing his commbead on and off again.

“[(error:translation matrix not found) (error:translation matrix not found) {[email protected]@}]” Grapes said, nodding sagely.

“Uh. Buddy?”

“[(error:translation matrix not found)]” Grapes responded, his own hand reaching up to his commbead.

“I need a new comm bead too. I don’t think it was rated for ten-thousand PSI.” Bill said, fishing out the semi-implanted earpiece to inspect it.

“?Grrwlehshk?” Grapes muttered, pulling out his own.

“Yep…”

Bill sat back up, the metal grate creating patterns in his rear.

“…also where are my pants?”

————————————————————————————————————

Grewreh had a small problem, with a lower-case p: He needed to get a new commbead fabricated for himself and their human coworker. While an unfortunate delay, as a nanofabricator would have to be recalibrated for microelectronic work, it’s not the end of the world. Grewreh tried to explain this to [Bill], but stopped halfway, mentally slapping himself in the head.

‘No vocal communication, right. Uh.’ With a few hand gestures he started work on getting the point across. [Bill] seemed to pick up on this.

‘Many’ he flashed his claws open and closed ‘hours’ he pointed to the clock ‘new translators’ he pointed at both their communication beads, before pointing at his ear and then [Bill]’s head.

[Bill] pointed to his hips and his torso, then hugged himself. Grewreh tilted his head, trying to understand. A little more instantly, [Bill] pointed to himself, then Grewreh, then himself again, moving his hands up and down his bo-

WOAH. Woah. OK. Grewreh blushed profusely – although he was a progressive Dorarizin, all things considered, and [Humans] as a whole are totally adorable, but I mean – firstly, he didn’t build his den that way, and even if he did how would it work? N-not that he was curious, but just, the mechanics of it all…

Grewreh shook his head and crossed his fingers in a ‘no’. Although he was proud to save his friend’s life, he was not about to take advantage of him like that.

[Bill] seemed a little disappointed, hugging himself a little tighter. Maybe this was a [Human] custom? If so, Grewreh would have to have a talk with Rauleh about interspecies relationships…. maybe see if someone on the station would be interested.

With a thoughtful hum Grewreh opened the emergency wash chamber and stepped out, offering [Bill] a helping hand. Together they dried off using the heated air circulation of the antechamber – Grewreh making sure to stay a respectful distance away. Once dried, Grewreh handed [Bill] an emergency blanket, to which he let out some happy yipping sounds and wrapped himself tightly in the offered cloth.

“{Alright. So…well, I guess we should notify someone, right? Your boss or mine?}” Grewreh said, looking down at a much warmer and slightly fluffier [Bill].

“rr..yi! Nnr rer –ah. Bu.” [Bill] said, attempting to come a bit closer to Grewreh.

“{I agree wholeheartedly! Let’s just start with Rauleh-of-Nragren, to explain the delay, and then your denmate, on the off chance we can’t get it fabricated before you go to bed.}”

And so, Grewreh used his implants to patch into the general communications network, and made a status update, all the while dodging the hugs of an increasingly insistent [Human].

————————————————————————————————————

“You stupid shit can you just stop for one moment and-” Bill complained as he broke into a light jog, following Grapes as he made his way over to the side of the drone hangar.

He was concerned; such a torrent of water (and possibly cleansing agents) had most likely all but erased his scent – even to his admittedly weak nose. Rule one of living with Dorarizin was to be scented properly, or else bad things would happen.

Turns out, he was right to be concerned.