When the crates had been unloaded and payment had exchanged hands, Rek withdrew to her ship's cockpit to ponder her new assignment. She dropped into her seat, which was padded and crafted to comfortably fit her digitigrade and tailed form, and promptly found herself on the receiving end of a curious stare, originating from her co-pilot's seat.

"So?" came Dnyl's inevitable query, and Rek knew exactly what it was in regards to. The younger Tlahsn was timid, yet blunt -- a rather odd combination, but one Rek got along well with, and thus Dnyl was Rek's only other crewmember. Computers and onboard machinery were enough to handle what the two Tlahsn alone could not. It was a risky arrangement by some standards, but it suited Rek just fine, for it had never caused her problems.

"He is sending us out again," she responded, calling up a star chart on the Outrider's computer. A hologram filled the empty space between her and her subordinate, an insubstantial latticework of spacelanes and planetary orbits. The incandescent display shifted freely without definite coordinates. "Find me someplace we haven't been yet."

Dnyl obediently turned to his set of controls, and quickly adjusted the star chart to bring up a section of space marked mostly in red dots -- planets they'd yet to explore for signs of life, worthy of capture or otherwise. Rek watched as the chart changed to focus on a single solar system, the one closest to their current locale. If they were lucky, one of those planets would hold something worthy of The Boss' zoo. But to be realistic, that little cluster of planets would likely be just the first of the many they'd have to visit in order to find something to fit their employer's criteria.

Surprisingly, they ended up being lucky. In a sense.

One of the planets in that first system was indeed a life-bearer. Rek took it as a good omen to have found a live planet so early on, drinking in the sight of the island-spattered continent with a heady feeling of satisfaction. She wasn't at all discouraged by the signs that told her the islands were inhabited by sentient life -- buildings, roads, irrigation -- for sentient beings, if they could be communicated with, could offer valuable insight towards the local wildlife. Dnyl had even detected another spacecraft in orbit around the blue planet! Though it did not respond to hailing pings, nor did they recognise its design, but any planet with another ship about it had to be worth checking out.

The planet was scattered with countless islands, but it took some debate before the two Tlahsn could decide which one to examine first. Dnyl was in favour of one of the greener, lusher archipelagos, where life would certainly exist in abundance. Rek was more inclined towards the yellow-grey desert isles, for any life that survived there would have to be tough as a toridks' triple-layered hide and (in her opinion) had a better chance of being the kind of beast The Boss sought for his Menagerie.

Predictably, Rek won that argument. Shy little Dnyl couldn't hold up under the elder female's powerful personality for long. That was another reason she liked him. He was properly subordinate.

They soon had the Outrider's scout-ship prepped and ready to go, and as was customary, Rek boarded it alone. For the initial scouting of the planet's they visited, Rek always made the first foray alone. Risky? Extremely. But it was the way Rek liked to do things. Better to only risk a single life and a single scout-ship against an alien environment at first, and then other equipment could be brought down. In Rek's way of thinking, that was the most efficient way to work.

And if Dnyl ever thought she was reckless, he was too restrained to tell her so.