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> The pirates corner the human space-trucker and grabs the human's pup as a hostage The human's pup doesn't fight back with teeth, but the odor that soon incapacitates the pirates is one all dog owners know all too well. -- Anon Guest

[AN: For a handful of seconds, I thought you were talking about a Human infant]

Trucking is a boring job, so it's no shock that truckers in any environment find things to do during their work hours. For life on the road, company is necessary for sanity. For life on the _space lanes_, that's doubly so.

Chatting on the comms doesn't always work. Some transit lanes are bare of real-time conversation. Podcasts and audio drama can only entertain for so long. The routine of maintenance and meals could only keep a soul from shattering for so long. Thus, it was not surprising that many space truckers had pets. Some were nonstandard, some were stereotypical, and some were as ordinary as milk and cereal.

Trucker Smith had a new puppy, which filled a great many hours with training, play, and cleaning up various puppy-messes. Canid Squiggle was a happy, yappy terrier and already a joyful plague on any and all shipboard pests. He was still teething, too.

Smith was busy teaching him 'fetch' when the pirates attacked. Ze yelled, "Shelter!" and dove for hir livesuit. The command had Squiggle running for the life pod, where his bed lay. That was the plan. Alas, by the time ze was latched in, the pirates had Squiggle literally in their clutches.

Squiggle seemed to view these people as new friends, if his blurring tail was any indication. He was busily attempting to lick a pirate's face. The little traitor.

"Disarm yourself," said the pirate, gesturing with a wicked-looking blade towards Squiggle's belly. "And we can talk about our next move."

Like hell was Smith going to let these [WASTE VENTS] get hir cargo or threaten hir crew. There _was_ something ze could do. Smith put the stunners down and got ready to kick them away. Well. _Faked_ getting ready to kick them away.

"Squiggle?" ze said. "Poopies."

His toilet training was going _very_ well, but when his 'tanks' were empty, all the straining could produce was a Powers-Awful _STENCH_.

The pirates reacted predictably, covering their nasal passages and wailing in despair. Dropping their weapons _and_ Squiggle in the process.

_Now_ ze could act. The pirates had to know where the lifepod was so Smith used the _other_ way to render Squiggle unattainable. "Gonna getcha," ze said in the We're-Playing Voice.

Squiggle zipped off, thoroughly believing that he was playing Hide And Seek. Meanwhile, Smith picked up hir stunners and opened fire.

When all the metaphorical smoke cleared, Smith had to add one captured pirate vessel and half a dozen pissed off pirates to his manifest. And a claim for their ship garden as salvage rights.

[Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@justinveenema?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Justin Veenema</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-and-black-yorkshire-terrier-puppy-on-white-table-p0znWUKpWvc?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a>]

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