The walls of the spaceship whizzed past me, but fortunately I was not some foolish young rat who would jump straight downwards and hope for the best. Instead, I'd thrown myself forward as well as down, so that I quickly approached the far wall. Twisting my legs beneath me, I absorbed the impact with all four paws, and after the briefest of twists to eye the descent, pushed myself off. This allowed me to bounce between the walls twice, each time absorbing some of my velocity, until I reached the point where the walls disappeared and I pushed off toward the remaining wall of the corridor below then jumped the last few feet to land on the floor.

  I quickly spun around. I was in a corridor tall and wide enough for humans—or those blue aliens—to comfortably traverse. Fortunately, no one was in sight; the corridor took a sharp turn to one side and arced around the curvature of the spaceship in the other. I didn't hear anyone, either, although…

  "Snuggles! Snuggles, are you alright?! Wait for me!" My little girl was clambering as fast as she could down the foot- and hand-holds embedded in the wall leading up to the hatch. As soon as she reached the floor, she snatched me up and hugged me close to her chest. "Thank goodness, you're alright. Don't scare me like that!"

  As much as I would have liked to enjoy her pets, we needed to move. I was still worried that an alien might have heard our racket on the top of the ship and come to investigate, so I squirmed out of her hands, and scampered down her to the floor before heading for the sharp turn in the corridor. My little girl grabbed her yo-yo and got it back into the gauntlet—she evidently had to let it hang free to climb down—and then followed me.

  We reached the corner and both peered around it. The hallway ahead of us proceeded to a large, closed door, but also had an off-shoot to the left. No aliens were present, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Maybe more of the crew had headed off to investigate their fallen than I'd thought.

  "Do you think we should…oh, I guess so. Wait for me, Snuggles!" said my little girl as I proceeded down the hall, pausing to check if I could detect any aliens down the off-shoot before proceeding toward the door.

  When we reached the door, we both paused. I had been kind of hoping that it would just open automatically, but nothing was happening. My little girl prodded at something that looked like a control panel, but aside from making a single beep, it didn't do anything, either. "What do you think, Snuggles? Do you think Daddy is through here, or should we check the side corridor?"

  I wasn't sure. The door sure looked big and official, but if I were designing this spaceship I would be more likely to put a control room here than a prison—or whatever it was that was confining Daddy.

  We probably should explore more of the spaceship before the aliens got back, except while my little girl continued to prod at parts of the door with both her hand and gauntlet I had noticed something. Off to the side at the floor level there was what looked like a miniature hallway that was the perfect size for a rat. Perhaps there was an alternate way around the door, but the problem was my little girl wouldn't be able to fit much more than her hand in the hole.

  Evidently tiring of her failure to elicit any particular reaction from the door, she crouched down near me. "What have you found, Snuggles?" She peered at the hole in the wall, going so far as to put her head right next to the floor to try and see down it. "Do you think this is a way around the door?"

  Well, I certainly couldn't be sure, but it was our best lead. The problem was…

  My little girl rested her hand against my back; not trying to restrain me but present nonetheless. "I don't really want you to leave me alone," she said in a small voice.

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  I leaned into her touch, then gave her hand a lick and trotted over to nose the gauntlet with its yo-yo.

  My little girl drew a deep, if shuddery breath. "You're right. I'm not defenseless, at least." She leaned over so her head was level with my own. "You won't leave me here, will you?"

  I bumped noses with her. Of course not, silly.

  "Okay. Okay, just…be quick, please." She sat back up, gave me a quick squeeze, and let me go.

  I wouldn't consider anything else. Before either of us could have second thoughts, I scampered into the rat-sized corridor.

  The walls of the corridor curved up and over my head, allowing enough room that two rats could squeeze past one another if they wanted and with a comfortably low ceiling. To my surprise, the corridor proceeded relatively far, and although it didn't have any sharp corners it did curve consistently to the left. Depending on the size and shape of the room behind the large door that had blocked our progress, I estimated that I was pretty close to or underneath the room. After several seconds of moving swiftly and silently as only a rat can, I finally rounded the final curve and found myself facing something utterly unexpected.

  I'd entered a small room with an equally low ceiling and curved walls, like a cube full of sand that had been compressed from the top and bottom. There was another exit in the wall to my left, while the wall to my right was unbroken. The room's lighting was a lovely twilight level caused by a row of glowing screens and strange controls along the left side of the far wall.

  But what really grabbed my attention was the room's occupant: in the middle of the room frozen in surprise was an alien…rat? It was utterly bizarre: the face, fore limbs, back limbs, and tail were very standard-looking rat, but the body was slightly too long and there was an extra set of limbs sticking out at awkward angles near where a normal rat's ribs would terminate. Plus instead of typical rat fur colorations, the whole thing was some sort of shimmery turquoise—though the exact color might have been different given the low lighting.

  What in the great something-or-other?! said the alien rat and reached for the nearby bank of controls with its fore-paw.

  I moved faster. As the alien rat extended its paw, I threw myself forward and grabbed the base of the thing's tail with my teeth. As its paw drew within millimeters of the control it was trying for, I was rolling myself backwards and threw my head back, launching the hind-quarters of the alien into the air. As it arced partially over me I let go of its tail, tucked all four paws up against its belly, and shoved it hard into the empty right-hand corner of the room.

  The alien rat soared through the air with a squeal before impacting the wall and collapsing in a heap, mouth working as it tried to regain its breath. Meanwhile, I wasted no time in whipping myself onto all four paws and positioning myself midway between the banks of controls and the exit behind me, ensuring that no matter which way the alien rat jumped I would be able to intercept it.

  The thing levered itself to its feet, middle limbs flailing ineffectually, and stared at me with a look of shocked fear. For a few moments neither of us moved, each sizing up our opponent. I was the first to break the stalemate. What are you? I asked.

  Excuse me?! The alien rat drew itself up in indignation. As you can see, I am a perfectly normal rat native to this planet, just like you.

  I bared my teeth. Rates on this planet don't have six limbs.

  The alien slumped. Extra limbs were very something when I was a kit, it muttered.

  I cocked my head. Assuming this was indeed an alien rat, I hadn't been terribly surprised that I could understand it, to be honest. Rats certainly had different dialects, but because we relied more on body language than vocalizations—unlike humans—I'd never seen a rat I couldn't mostly understand. This alien rat, however, had used two terms I wasn't familiar with. Extra limbs were very what?

  The alien looked at me with what appeared to be pity and stood up straighter. Popular and sophisticated.

  Ah, maybe it was using something like slang the way my little girl sometimes did. Honestly, when she got to talking about things her friends liked, I didn't understand a word coming out of her mouth.

  That said, no proper rat would ever consider extra limbs to be popular or sophisticated. They looked idiotic. But I was getting sidetracked, and my little girl was waiting for me.

  Nevermind that. I gave the alien a hard look. Are you in league with the blue aliens stealing humans?

  The alien gave me a haughty look. Well, as haughty as something with six limbs can. In league with?! I'm in charge of this ship!

  Wrong answer.

  Rats, you need a rest from bad puns after that chapter title?