𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓖𝓪𝓵𝓪𝔁𝔂 𝓣𝓱𝓻𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓔𝔂𝓮𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓒𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓪𝓲𝓷 𝓣𝓲𝓶

      I'm not like other arachnomorphs. I mostly live as a pet. My name is Captain Tim. No, I'm not literally Captain. I'm an animal, and my Alpha calls me Captain. Other pets like him are usually called masters. I see him more as my Alpha. I even saved him from the evil queen and my other relatives a long time ago. I won't let my Alpha become someone's dinner. I especially saved all his sworn enemies, who would later become his friends. Wander and Sylvia. I even saved Emily Ripoff herself, although she didn't trust me and saw me as just a stupid and instinctive animal. Although I knew perfectly well that I was actually quite smart for an animal, I believed in my own mind and didn't let any instincts get the better of me. If this had happened to me, I would most likely have died, just like that evil queen of arachnomorphs. And most likely it would have been Ripov who killed me. However, she did not do it. After all, she understood that my Alpha was right about me and how much I loved him, even though he looks scary. And please, do not ask how I can see if I only have one lip and no eyes. It was also a surprise for me how Alpha, together with his little friend, created the younger Alpha. By the way, I did not introduce them to you. My main Alpha is called Lord Hater. At least, that's what he calls himself. The younger Alpha was named Skully. When he was a baby, I immediately became attached even to him. I then swore that I would do everything to protect him. As the baby grew, life became even better. My main Alpha was able to find a bride for himself and got married. At first, I was not happy with such a guest and was suspicious of her. I even growled at her sometimes, but tried not to attack, because she was my Alpha's wife. After some time, I got used to her and even got to know her better. It turned out that she was a former destroyer and her name was Dominator. A little later, the younger Alpha had new friends and I even had to put up with them. Usually, every day was the same for me, but yesterday morning I experienced one incident when I almost died and thought that my story would end there. First, I woke up early and went to try to wake up my Alpha, who was sleeping under a pink blanket. He was still sleeping and snoring. At first, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t waking up? I tried to bark, but he didn’t wake up. I barked again and Alpha just turned away. Then I thought out loud: — Maybe he needs to get some sleep?... Okay, then I’ll sleep too. — I said to myself, lay down next to him, holding my paws up and slept for about five minutes. Then I got tired of it and began to gently shake Alpha. — Get up! Wake up! How long can you sleep? Open your eyes! Why are you sleeping like a zbornak? But Alpha still didn't wake up. I started jumping on his stomach with ribs, but he pushed me gently and continued sleeping. — Okay. I didn't want to do this, but you forced me. — I said, standing above his skull and sitting right on his face. — Sorry, but this is for your own good. It worked, oddly enough. He started to choke and stood up abruptly. — Huh? What? I'm not sleeping! I'm not sleeping! — he said, looked around and saw me. — Huh! Is that you, Tim-Tim? I'm getting up already. — he said and got out of bed. He put me next to the bowl, like every day, and gave me some dry food. At first, everything was fine and as usual. I was eating and not paying attention to anyone, when suddenly I heard someone making a slight noise in the ventilation. I became curious and crawled into the ventilation to see what was going on. Maybe some stranger had gotten onto our ship again. But it was only Wander, who this time came to visit Skully. By that day I had already gotten used to him and let him crawl on. Strangely enough, Little Bits was crawling behind him. She must have been plotting something against him. However, I decided not to interfere, because I decided that this was their squabble and they would sort it out themselves. I went back to my feeder and suddenly I see that a galactic blue rat broke into our ship and ate all my remaining food. Didn't leave a crumb. I was very angry then, because I didn't expect to see it. Besides, we didn't have any on our skull ship before. — HEY, YOU!!! — I screamed, and the rat looked at me questioningly and ran away. I ran after it and screamed. — STOP, THIEF, COME BACK!!! YOU ATE MY BREAKFAST AND NOW I'M LETTING YOU IN FOR BREAKFAST!!! But the rat didn't listen to me and ran away from me. We ran past three Alpha soldiers, who luckily moved aside so as not to interfere with me chasing the rat. We ran into the kitchen. The rat jumped on the table and ran along it, and I climbed up and ran after it, accidentally knocking over and dropping plates with food for other soldiers. Then we ran out of the kitchen and ran along the corridor, where, coincidentally, Sylvia and Skully were walking. They were obviously talking about something, but I wasn’t interested and ran between them. Then we came across a shower room, where, fortunately, there was no one. That nasty rat and I ran around the room, scattered all the soap on the floor and then stepped on it and slid like on ice. We even pretended that we were on a skating rink and were waltzing on skates. After the shower, we ran along the corridor again and the rat finally looked back at me and shouted: — GET AWAY FROM ME ALREADY!!! — NO WAY!!! — I shouted and ran on. Then we ran through the weapons room, where Dominator and Ripov were taking and checking various weapons. — RAT!!! — the killer screamed and started shooting at the one I was chasing. But the rat was elusive and Ripov missed. I managed to run past them and then we ran into the ventilation, where the chase continued. On the way, we ran past Wander and Little Bits. As I managed to see, Wander was tied up, and Little Bits was holding something like a knife in her hands. I ignored them and ran on, deciding that they would figure it out themselves. — STOP!!! STOP WHOM AM I SPEAKING TO!!! — I screamed at the rat, and she screamed back: — NO!!! Then we ran to the grate on the floor and both fell through. We started falling screaming. With one paw I managed to grab one of the rusty and slippery pipes, and with the second and third paws I grabbed the rat by the tail. It almost fell and touched its nose to the mechanism with gears that could have crushed it and ground it into a pile of tiny pieces of meat if I hadn't saved it. — Ow-ow-ow, let me go, it hurts! — he begged me and tried to tear his tail out of my paws. — No. If I let you go, you'll fall and these things will smash you. — I explained to him and barely held on to the rusty pipe with one paw. It was very slippery. A little more and we'll both fall. — Grob, help us! The rat looked around and saw the right platform nearby and said: — Arachnomorph, can you swing me? When I say "Go!", you'll let me go. There was nothing to do, I had to take her word for it. Barely holding on to the pipe, I began to swing and swayed the rat itself. Then he gave me a signal and I let it go. The rat landed on the platform. I slid even more and it seemed that I was about to fall and be ground to pieces by these mechanisms. Luckily, while I was falling, the rat managed to jump, caught me by the lip with his teeth and we flew through another ventilation passage. We rolled down the slide and fell through another grate in the floor. After that, we found ourselves in a laundry room with washing machines. We fell on the soft and dirty uniforms of soldiers in a basket. After that, we began to catch our breath and looked at each other. — Hey, did you save my life? — I asked her. — Of course. You were the first to save me from these gears. I repaid you in the same coin. I couldn't leave you to die while saving me. — she explained to me. — That's the way we do it... Help others... Even our enemies. — Well. Now I'm forever in your debt for saving my life. — And I forgive you for eating my breakfast. My name is Captain Tim, by the way. And you have a name. — Yes. My mom calls me Ratik twenty-second. She calls us all Ratik and gives each of us numbers so we don't get confused. — Strange name. But okay. — I say and get off the basket. — I better go before Alpha starts worrying about me. You too. don't linger here for too long. — Okay. — Ratik told me and went back into the ventilation. I went to Hater.

***

— And that's how I learned my lesson that you can't just attack strangers for eating your food. After all, before you blame someone, you need to figure out if he's homeless and really hungry. — Captain Tim says all this to Andy's watch, who only looked at him questioningly with bulging pupils and didn't understand anything Captain Tim was telling him. — Too bad I don't know the Arachnomorph language. — he said to himself, raising his shoulders and turning to the monitors.