A short Murderbot story

Crates

Today I was moving crates. Not because I wanted to.

Mensah asked me to.

She said the station was sending supplies to a new research outpost, and they needed help loading things into the shuttle. She looked at me with that nice-but-serious face, so I said yes.
Amena said she would help too, even though she didn’t do much besides point at crates, tell me which ship they should go on, and drink from her brightly colored fruit juice.

She acted as if she were in charge, and I let her.
“That one goes to ShipTwo,” she told me.

I grabbed the box and started to ship it when I saw a pipe on the ground from last night's storm and figured I would grab it and put it in the disposal bin as I passed by, but right before I stepped forward, I saw something move.

A frog.

Small. Green. Wet. Just sitting there.

I almost stepped on it.

“STOP!” Amena shouted.

I stopped. (Fine. I froze. Happy?)

The frog blinked at me.

“You almost crushed it!” she yelled, running over.

“I didn’t.”

“But you almost did!”

“That doesn’t count.”

Amena gently picked up the frog with both hands, as if it were a person threatened by a mean Secunit, and gave it a pat on the head.

"It’s just trying to live. You need to watch where you’re going, SecUnit."

“It’s just a frog.” (I was tired of her anyway, if every time I came near a frog, she would react like this. I couldn’t understand how I would survive the situation. I would much rather be watching a show than dealing with this.)

It is still a living creature, Amena said

I didn’t answer. I walked around the puddle and set the crate down in Ship Two. (To be 100% honest, I would rather sit in a room with Gurathin than with her)

We finished the job a little while later. Mensah thanked us and said that we were helping people on a new planet. Amena seemed proud. (I hate planets)

And after that, when I was around Amena, I checked the ground more carefully. (To avoid her deadly scream)

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Comments for this chapter

• lol I love the commentary in the parentheses

  Comment by rose on January 16, 2026

  Liked by 1

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