Maema had been meeting with Hamster regularly for months now. At first she hadn't believed what the belemoid had to say, but then she'd been horrified. She had never dreamed of how the DPIP had really been hurting the people of Xiunus. It made her feel hurt and guilty to have participated in it. Hamster had also taught her some other things, of course– picking locks, picking pockets, and picking good marks. She'd also taught her how to make a mean egg salad, but that wasn't relevant to the task at hand.

No, today Maema was proving something. To Hamster, to herself, and– hopefully– to the DPIP as a whole. Hamster had told her about a ring of rebels, natives and colonists alike, who were working to undermine the DPIP. The rebels had received a tip: something was going down with the DPIP and the tark'ee, and it wasn't pretty. They were doing a good job covering it up, but there was a bounty on any relevant documents. Someone had been able to provide a security key obtained from the stars only knew where, but someone would still need access to a DPIP colony researcher's computer in order to use that key. Most colonies' researchers didn't trust their colonists with that kind of access. Fortunately, Maema's own Professor Kee was– affectionately– a bumbling fool.

Maema had been taught the finer graces of social engineering, but she wasn't sure how much of it she would need today. She pressed the electronic doorbell next to the entrance to the research center, waiting for the comm system to crackle to life. "Hello, Professor?" she said, her tone as light and bright as ever. "I brought you lunch! Can I come in?"

A few moments later, the lock unlatched. Maema pulled the door open and slipped inside. Maybe she should've felt a little bad about this, but betraying Kee's trust wasn't a sliver as bad as what the DPIP had done. Were doing. Not that Maema thought Kee knew either– it wasn't like the DPIP was exactly open about all this.

She made her way down the halls to Kee's lab, where they spent most of their time. "Good morning, Professor!" she warbled, since it was very technically still morning for about ten minutes.

It took a solid fifteen seconds for Kee's translation unit to process the words and reply in turn in a somewhat robotic tone, "Good day, Maema. Thank you for bringing me lunch."

Maema held out the metal lunchbox, still smiling. The thing about Kee was, they were predictable.

Just as expected, they took the lunchbox and shuffled off to the research center's basement. This involved a complicated airlock system, and more importantly guaranteed that Kee wouldn't be back for, oh, at least half an hour, if not longer. Their body was completely incompatible with Xiunus's atmosphere down to even the radiation and air pressure, which was why they could only come out of their suit– such as to do something like eat– in the climate-adjusted basement.

And just as expected, they hadn't bothered to log out of their computer first.

The only hiccup was that Kee's keyboard was tiny. It was sized for them, and Maema's hands were easily two and a half times the size of theirs, even in those gloves. Still, she was perfectly comfortable typing on this keyboard. She plugged the memory stick into the side of it and didn't waste any time. Navigate to the DPIP's file storage system, find the right files, enter the access code, load them onto the memory stick, and– perhaps most importantly– destroy the original copies.

She was in the process of covering her tracks when the click of another tsabhua's nails on the tile startled her. Maema's head whipped around to find Bridled King staring at her, eyes wide.

"Maema? What the hell are you doing?"

She didn't have a lie prepared. She hadn't expected this. "Don't worry about it," she said, grabbing her memory stick without bothering to eject it properly and starting to push past him.

"Hey!" he said, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders. "Why were you on Kee's computer?!"

Maema snarled at him, her hackles raising as she grabbed his wrists. She wasn't strong enough to pull him off her, but she could make her displeasure known. "Let go of me before I bite you," she growled.

His eyes snapped to the memory stick still held in her back few fingers. "Were you stealing files?" he asked incredulously. "You're stealing from the fucking DPIP?!"

"Keep your voice down," she hissed, middle legs rising to shove him away. "You'd steal too if you knew what they were up to."

"I would not," he growled, every hair along his spine standing on edge. "You ought to be de-horned for this."

Maema reared up suddenly. He didn't have a strong enough grip to hold her down when he wasn't expecting it, so she was able to grab his ears in her hands and pull his face down to slash at him. Bridled King let out a roar of outrage, but as he moved to protect his eyes, it was enough to let her escape.

He would report her to Kee in the aftermath, but investigation wouldn't yield any results. Kee wouldn't think to consider that Maema might have stolen files that even they weren't privy to, and would explain that even if what Bridled King told them was true, there was nothing valuable on their hard drive. Maema had covered her tracks too well for anyone to suspect Kee's computer destroyed the original files anyway.

In the end, it was impossible to prove she had done what he'd caught her doing. Nobody called him a liar, which almost would've been a greater insult than being assaulted, but there was no evidence of the crime. It was her word against his, and as far as anybody knew, Maema was nothing but sweet and honest. Why would she steal? And more importantly, why would she ever attack a friend?

Bridled King didn't know. He had no idea what had happened to her. What he did know was that he would make sure everyone knew, as long as he lived, that Maema was a thief.