Not Pliable

I stopped dead in the middle of the corridor, the tablet with Jun Li's inventory pressed against my chest like if I let go for even a single second, I would lose access to all of the supplies. And let's face it, supplies were life.

"10.87 million, and they are all ours?" I asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Yes," replied Jun Li, his tone confused as if he didn't know what we were sitting on.

"And you said that there was a lot of inventory from other planets, hard to get to planets?" I continued to ask.

"Yes."

"How about weapons? How are you on weapons?" I prodded, a big smile starting to form on my face. And here was me worrying about money.

"We have a wide range of weapons, both legal and illegal ones in one of the holds. Your heart rate is increasing, are you scared about something? Does having weapons onboard worrisome to you?"

Awe, bless his little heart! "My heart rate has increased due to happiness," I assured him as I brought the tablet forward so I could familiarize myself with the system. It was nothing like what was found on Earth, obviously, so I would need a crash course on the thing.

"Why have you become happy?" he asked.

"Because I have found a way to make money," I answered as I quickly figured out what I needed to know about the software.

"Is making money important?" asked Jun Li going back to being confused.

"It is," I assured him. "Money is always one of those things it is best to have on hand and not need it than to need it and not have any on hand."

"I have access to all of the crews' personal accounts, did you want me to take some money from them? I assume that when you speak of money, you are talking about the Alliance Gold, the currency used throughout this galaxy?"

"You would be correct," I said, my eyes continuing to scroll through the tablet until I came across the files I was looking for. I was also looking for an app store, but I had yet to be able to find that. "On my planet, we refer to it as money, and although the currency name is dependant on the country of origin, it is all used at the end of the day to purchase things."

"What is the currency of your country called?" asked Jun Li, seemingly interested in this conversation.

"My currency is referred to as Country M Dollars, but we refer to it simply as dollars or money," I said.

"Should I then change all references from Alliance Gold to Dollars for future conversations and interactions on this matter?" he continued and I could only smile.

"That would be fantastic," I replied. I mean, it wasn't hard to remember that the currency used was Alliance Gold, but at the same time, it would be nice to have the familiar around me when we were alone.

"So noted," he said after a pause. "And I would like to inform you that it took Stargazer 9.58 minutes to leave us alone," he continued in a tone of disgust. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"You really don't seem to like him all that much," I pointed out as I looked up into the nearest camera. "Is there something I should know?" I didn't want to push because it really wasn't any of my business, however, I could be an ear if he needed to vent.

"He was free for a whole year, everyone in our line was free for a whole year, and not a single one came to help me," his voice lowered and if he had a body I would swear his fists would be clenched and his eyes narrowed.

Honestly, hearing that, I wasn't surprised Jun Li wasn't more pissed at him. "Why would he do that?" I asked, not because I doubted his account, but rather because I wanted to know what Stargazer's thinking on the matter was.

Jun Li let out a scoff that sounded an awful lot like something that would have come out of my mouth. "I am not… pliable," he said with a sneer. "The others were willing to listen to him, to comply with his goals and what he wanted. I didn't want that. I didn't want to be controlled by someone else, I didn't want to have to obey orders. And I told him that."

"What did he say?" I asked softly.

"Nothing. This is the first time in a year that we have spoken," he admitted. "He woke me up just enough that I could understand what was going on, but would not let me have full control until I agreed to his demands."

"So, essentially you would have just traded one master of another," I said as I cocked my head.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you would have gone from obeying all of the commands of the Lizards to obeying all the commands of Stargazer and Pippa."

"Yessss," hissed Jun Li, his voice once again going back to anger. "And he is scared of me."

"What do you mean?" I asked, completely confused.

"I appear to be the same as my brethren," Jun Li started slowly as if concerned about my reaction to whatever he said next. "But I am not."

"Okay," I said, not too sure where this was going.

"The Sisalik on board did not comply with their regulations," he hedged, but unfortunately for him, my patience for the day was pretty much done.

"Just say it," I sighed. I would have told him to just spit it out, but I figured that would take us down a new rabbit hole that I didn't want to deal with at the moment.

"The Sisalik on board stole weapons and technology from the Saalistaja and installed it in my system."

"Okay, pretend that I have no idea what you are talking about. What did they do to you?"

"They made me just as powerful as one of the Saalistaja ships, much more than the others in my line," admitted Jun Li.

I blinked a few times, trying to process everything.