Author: TPH

Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 6

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LAST TIME ON DRAGONBALL YEET:

everything went to shit

THIS TIME ON DRAGONBALL REEE:

Admiral Var’Shrak makes a phone call in a few chapters cause we’re in the past
Sneks take their mandated union break from being in the story
We get introduced to Bill
The Dorarizin are a pretty cool guy. They are murdermachines and doesn’t afraid of anybody
F L U F F Y

————————————————————————————————————

Existence, maybe a week or so before everything went to shit:

Bill was hot.

And again, I don’t mean in that ‘lather him up in syrup and become a diabetic’ kinda way, but in the ‘holy shit it feels like it’s 100 degrees in here’ kinda way. Stripped right down to his boxer-briefs (and no, he wouldn’t take those off no matter how bad it got) he honestly considered investing in a private air conditioning unit, or possibly one of those giant ice machines that you could crawl inside but were never supposed to (but you did anyway because you were 5 and your parents were a bit absentee).

He even idly mused about ripping out the temperature coils in his room and exposing it to the cold vacuum of space, but unfortunately he was no Engineer. Bill was, if you could believe it, a navigator.

Well. “Navigator”.

The great thing about the Galactic Senate was that each member race has been expanding for thousands of years – which means there are millions of planets, billions of ships and trillions of sapients that they can call upon. As part of the peaceful uplift of Earth (and rebuilding of Atlanta), the Galactic Senate agreed to allow any human, regardless of their qualifications, to live and work on any ship, station or planet of their choosing – within reason. Obviously, after a few really enthusiastic engineers collapsed one of the Karnakian drone farms into an artificial moon, some reasonable limitations were put in place.

Nobody could say the Karnakians didn’t deserve it, though. Just a little.

Regardless, Bill was a… well his official title translated into “Trainee Temporary Junior Navigator Intern (unpaid)” but “Junior Navigator” was all he responded to, and so the rest of the Dorarizin onboard were more than content to address him with that title. They even gave him a uniform to go with it.

He shifted slightly, kicking out a leg from under his bedmate to cool his body temperature down a little. The shift was met with a murmured protest, and strong arms pulled him a bit tigher into a fluffy chest. At the beginning of his tour, he didn’t mind that the Dorarizin were group-sleepers; honestly, it was a bit cute.

Then he learned that he’d be staying in the men’s dorm.

Then he learned that, to a person, they were all cuddlers.

Then he learned that double-bunking was not only encouraged, but it was required.

Bill sighed and attempted to get comfortable as his current bedmate let out a loud snore, tongue flopping out onto his forehead.

Grashak-of-Arhraf was having an excellent dream.

He had chased down a golden erzet, netting his Hunt team an additional 30 points. Even though he was a rookie, on a team nobody heard of, and a male, he was holding his own against the Iron Jaws.

Scratch that. The Iron Jaws were losing.

Raising his arms he let out a triumphant roar, the golden erzet projection disintegrating in his mouth as he crushed it’s neck, mimicking a death bite – the crowd echoing his passion and fury in an overwhelming cacophony of sound. He was going to beat a core world team, and he was going to do it himself! He ignored the pinching pain in his side and crouched on all fours, gripping the turf with his unsheathed claws.

The pain traveled to both sides and got a little worse, but he blocked it from his senses. The crowd was chanting his name! The crowd was–

With an earsplitting shriek of translator feedback, Grashak-of-Arhraf woke up with a start. He inhaled deeply, shifting on his bed. Something squirmed in his grip, and as he pulled his tongue back into his maw he remembered: Tonight was his night with the [Human].

“{Damnit – [Bill] I’m so sorry! Oh by The Pale Moon are you ok?!}” Grashak exclaimed, quickly propping himself up above the pillows. Bill gasped underneath him, breathing heavily. (not like that)

” {No, no – are you hurt?!}” Grashak’s cold nose prodded his friend’s body, checking him for damage – for the scent of blood and bruising, or of deeper, worse things. Thankfully, he was only met with his own scent intermingled with sweat.

“{I uh…. I rolled over onto you again, didn’t I?}”

Bill nodded, his breathing beginning to steady. “[Yeah, yeah you did buddy. It would’ve been fine until you started to move about in your sleep… that’s when I got concerned.]”

Grashak blushed furiously. “{P-please don’t tell anyone that I still chase in my sleep – I haven’t done that since my second claw molt.}”

Bill grinned, propping himself up on his elbows. “[Hey, it’s fine – bros helping bros, right?]”

“{Y-yeah. Uh, well, good news – you should be fine for a few days with the females.}”

“[Really?]” Bill went to sniff himself, scrunching his inefficient nose slightly. “[Gah… I can never tell. I just smell like heat and sweat to me.]”

“{Yes, well… your noses aren’t all that, uh. Great.}” Grashak murmured, leaning back to sit on his rump, tail swishing slowly from side to side.

“[And you’re all still certain there’s no way to synthesize this scent at all? Granted, I like not being taken by a group of females against my will, but-]”

“{N-no, sorry. Scents mean so much; they change based on diet, mood, age….it’s too complicated. Eventually everyone would go noseblind to your static scent and then you’d be, what’s the phrase? [Up shit creek]?}”

Bill hummed to himself, pursing his lips. “[Well. Better the devil you know, I guess. Anyway, our shift starts in 3 hours – roll over.]”

Grashak tilted his head slightly, ears swiveling back. “{But didn’t that start all this?}”

“[N-no. I mean, onto your side. I’m big spoon now.]”

“{Ah.}” Grashak propped himself up with an arm and turned to the side, settling back down into the den. A few moments later he felt a tiny hand rest on his side. “{Thank you again for not telling anyone, [Bill].}” The small hand pats him a few times, and Grashak twitched his tail in acknowledgement.

Bill cursed silently as his bunkmate’s tail smacked him right in the jewels.

“[SHIFT CALL. LINE UP FOR INSPECTION, YOU KNOW THE CHASE.]”

Bill stretched as he stood in line, his shift sergeant making the way down the ranks. Every so often Sgt. Rauleh-of-Nragren would stop infront of one of her charges, tugging on a belt or checking a tank, before moving onto the next victim. Even though there were automated ways to check gear, the Dorarizin were a very… physical species. This gear check was just another carryover of ‘the time before’, and because nobody of any species ever really questioned tradition, here he was, waiting his turn to be poked and prodded.However, it didn’t help that she, like most females, were a little more… physical with Bill than he would have liked, but. It all comes with the territory.

“[Bill. Good Morning.]” Rauleh grinned, showing off three rows of pearly whites. Gently she leaned forward, and Bill suppressed his fight of flight instinct with practiced ease. Closer the jaws came to the top of his head, her hot breath cascading down his crown until –

*sniff*

“[Ah. Well good to see that you’re still in great health!]” she beamed, leaning back.

“Aye, Ma’am. Your night cycle being 10 of my hours leads to me catching up on all the sleep I’ve ever missed. Anything on the docket for today?”

“[Mmmm.]” Rauleh reaches out, extending two 30cm claws, pinching his uniform’s fabric on the shoulder. “[Just standard ore extraction on the planetoid we’re orbiting – well, for them. For you…]”

“Aww, Rails, come on. Give me something other than simulation duty again.” Bill complained as his uniform was adjusted slightly, then released.

“[Well. If you don’t mind me supervising you-]”

“Destroy the station once in a simulation and nobody ever-“

“[-we do have to put out a few more GPS probes in orbit today.]”

“-could supervise me quite like you, my newest and bestest friend.” Bill recovered, giving Sgt. Rauleh his winningest smile.

“[Hah! Excellent recovery – so I take it I can count on your help?]” Sgt. Rauleh-of-Nragren growled, returning Bill’s smile with a cocky one of her own.

Bill saluted. “You can count on me!”

Unnoticed by him, a few tails swayed from side to side.

Tags Sci-Fi, They are Smol, Comedy, Cute, Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 5

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Ha ha what is prewriting? IDK, sounds expensive.

————————————————————————————————————

FOAM was encased in a 7th Generation ship-combat rig.

The 7th Gen rig was fully pressurized, able to keep its pilot alive for up to 4 [days] in total vacuum, provided miniature gimballed ion thrusters for stability and movement in Zero/Micro Gravity, and most importantly to everyone involved right now, had non-newtonian nanite hydraulics woven into each and every armor panel during its’ forging process. This extra boost of distributed power, combined with the Jornissian’s already impressive resilience, allowed FOAM – or any other operator of the 7th Generation ship-combat rig, to grab onto, say, a ship’s hull in mid-flight and just start digging.

Compared to a ship’s outer hull, the soft metal of a private cabin’s door was as sturdy as tissue paper. A watermelon-sized hole just appeared as FOAM pulled her hand away, throwing the metal ball behind her. Smoke – and screams – poured out of the hole from the violence of it’s creation, along with the rhythmic pounding of metal-on-metal.

Amber squad immediately decided someone was dying today, and it would not be the [Human].

“<SUPPRESSANTS, OUT. BREWER, TRAUMA. FOAM, WEDGE.>” KEYRING roared on speaker, as both he and SPOTTER threw in their suppression grenades, and the screaming grew louder. A few moments after the grenades sensed they were in the target room there was a loud BANG, and the dispersal of LED chaff – FOAM keyed her force generators to form a wedge within the newly created hole. The milimeter-thin hard-light wedge was forced straight up, then straight down, bisecting the door. With another thought, her onboard computer solidified with hard light the thin gap in the door, and with her commanded desire the metal split, slamming into the door frame on either side hard enough to dent it. Without a further word spoken, FOAM, KEYRING, SPOTTER and BREWER stormed the room.

The entire operation took less than 5 seconds. It all still went to shit.

The other side of the door, 5 seconds prior:

Caroline knew that her time had come. She had tried every trick in the book – and a few tricks that were just scribbled in the margins – and nothing had worked. Magnetic wipes, water, dust, insults, blunt-force trauma, renaming the video to ‘not porn’ – in the back of her mind, she wondered if there was some quantum warp fuckery about, and if that was the reason that she was doomed.

Hopefully the OIH’s contingency plans would kick in: blame this program on some desperately lonely nerd in his basement, or maybe russian hackers. Shift the blame hard enough and the Galactic Senate wouldn’t approve a war on humanity, we wouldn’t have to weaponize The Hubble and humanity would live to see another day.

Her hind brain (lizard brain was deemed ‘culturally insensitive’ to our Karnak ….allies.) was still stuck between fight and flight, eyes darting between hiding spots, the window to open space, and even a few of the fist-sized air vents-

With the squealing protest of metal-on-metal, a hole appeared in her door, harsh hallway light pouring in through the smoke.

‘This is it.’ Thought the small, rational part of her brain.

‘FIXITFIXIT’ Thought pretty much every other bit.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA” Caroline thought, aloud, as she gripped her fire extinguisher in both hands and used every bit of her might to smash it into her terminal.

“[SUPPRESS. TRAUMA. WEDGE.]” Boomed her translation matrix inbetween hits, and Caroline looked up just quick enough to see something thrown into the room.

Police, First Responders and Soldiers talk about times when they were in a firefight, rushing into a burning building, or trying to save someone, and time would slow down. That their hind-brains would flip a switch and process everything, all at once, in the desperate hope to give itself some way to unfuck the situation.

The difference between all these great men and women is that they are trained over years to use that time to it’s best possible extent: muscle memory kicks in and they just do what needs to be done, and everyone gets out alive.

Caroline was a volunteer civilian engineer with a hind-brain on overdrive and a dented fire extinguisher.

‘Dem’s rocks.’ Hind-Brain said. ‘We have bigger rock.’ Caroline’s grip went white-knuckle. ‘We will rock them’. Hind-Brain decided.

Quick enough to cause a major league scout to sit up and pay attention, the fire extinguisher left her hands, slamming into the two rocks, and with a loud BANG they ceased to be anything more than sparkly, painful-to-look-at dust. The momentum of the collision rocketed the extinguisher to the floor, where it finally decided that the relationship it had with Caroline wasn’t worth the abuse and split, taking the visibility with it as it sprayed pressurized foam in random arcs across her room.

It was at this moment that her door ceased to be, and the Jornissian Murdersquad^tm pushed forward.

‘No rocks.’ Hind-Brain considered. ‘Them bigger.’ It noticed. ‘Run.’ It decided.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” Caroline explained to the Special Forces Squad, as she attempted to leap past them.

“<CLEAR.>” KEYRING barked, followed quickly by SPOTTER, BREWER and FOAM. Their helmets digitally edited out the LED chaff, and cycling visible spectrum options took them miliseconds.

It was thankfully due to the Jornissian’s naturally rapid response that FOAM was able to shift out of the way of [Caroline], who was screaming and rocketing right past the team. It was also this quick response reflex that enabled KEYRING to fling his arm out, performing a (what they would eventually find out the more savage version is called a ‘clothesline’ once the WWWF was approved for viewing) gentle block on her path.

Every Jornissian special forces member on squad Amber was in tread-assisted or magnetic-assisted suits, keeping them right where they wanted to be. [Caroline] was in footie pajamas, in Zero-G.

KEYRING’s attempt to halt [Caroline] only turned her forward momentum into angular momentum. Her legs swung up, and hit the ceiling – and then she ran, completing a full 180 turn. KEYRING lightly gripped her arms, and tugged, causing [Caroline} to arc downwards…. still running. She hit the floor, feet squeaking, and started to make her way back up to the ceiling.

“<[Caroline!]> KEYRING said, trying his best to hold her gently as she spun in place. “<[Caroline], relax, please. We’re not->” The [Human] completed another revolution, and KEYRING turned to BREWER.”<We’re gonna need a sedative – she’s not cooperating. We need to move her out, NOW.>”

BREWER began to flick open a few pouches on his armor, falling silent as he read up on [Human] physiology. “<This…may be no good. [Human]s are too delicate for most of my kit here, and diluting the dosage may still cause damage – moreso than using her limbs to stop all momentum. I don’t want to choose between blunt-force damage or chemical damage to bring SISTER home.>”

BREWER, KEYRING and SPOTTER shared a look between each of them as [Caroline] continued to get her cardio in.

“” SPOTTER mused.

“<Alright. I’m running out of ideas here, and I’d rather not wait for the [human] to tire herself out. How do you want to do this?>” KEYRING asked, as BREWER joined FOAM in searching the room.

“<You just let her go once she hits the ground, and I’ll remain cloaked until she hits me. Then you can help with subduing her if necessary.>”

KEYRING nodded, and SPOTTER got into position. As [Caroline] finished her 5th and final revolution KEYRING let go. [Caroline] got a few good forward steps in before she collided with the still-invisible SPOTTER with an audible thud.

Confused at running into face-first into nothing, [Caroline]’s hind brain just gave up. Bears and rocks it could do, but wizardry was beyond it. She felt arms wrap around her own, holding her close to something –

SPOTTER decloaked, slowly, making sure to shift into a spectrum SISTER could see. She blinked at the Jornissian – or maybe it was the still-pulsing LED chaff, who could say – teary eyes wide and confused.

His heart melted slightly at the sight.

“<KEYRING….what the hell is this?>” KEYRING looked over to FOAM, who along with BREWER were poking at a thoroughly dented terminal, with what looked like a movie on repeat.

With a shudder of fear, [Caroline] began to struggle. “[DAKI BETRAYAL! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LOYAL TO MEEEEEE-]”

When any special forces squad goes weapons-free, that information is cataloged and relayed back up the chain of command. Initially, it’s for the Lieutenants to review, but it can be kicked up as high as it needs to go. Audio and Visual information, along with all sorts of spectrometer and sensor data is kicked up too to provide real-time information of the on-the-ground reality of combat.

Admiral Var’Shrak, along with Vice-Admiral Ressasi and various other Captains and Lieutenants, were notified when Amber squad went weapons free. The entire bridge was tuned in when the breaching maneuver was executed, and when [Caroline] was….

“<Ok, Var’Shrak, between you and me that was the most->”

“<Ressasi, remember yourself.>”

Vice-Admiral purred in a very motherly way, looking at the monitor on her ship. “<Poor thing.>”

Var’Shrak sighed. “<Well, at least the [human] is safe – we don’t have the dubious honor of being the first race to lose one.>” He cycled through the different perspectives of Amber squad, noting nothing out of the ordinary – until he settled on the operative with the designation FOAM.

She was staring at the [Human]’s terminal. More specifically, at the Jornissian movie playing on a 15-second loop.

In the movie, which seemed to be “The Defense of Malshak-V”, Captain ‘Shsala stood at the foot of the planetary government’s Caste room, rifle pointed at the pirate-queen Hesprres-reh.

The audio was there, but he ignored it – the translations were all wrong.

‘<You savage barbarian!>’ Captain ‘Shsala roared, ‘<The Deaths of millions are on your soul!>’

[I don’t like thing!] the text near her head flashed.

‘<As if a Goddess needs to explain herself to mortals>’ Hesprres-reh spat, blind-firing from the broken dais.

[Nooooooh! no. noh. U mad, u bad.] the text translation said

Captain ‘Shsala kept the fire on, moving with her few survivors from perch to perch, keeping Hesprres-reh and her cronies pinned. ‘<Then we will send you to your lover, Harsak! He’ll enjoy devouring you, eggless bitch!>”

[no you a bad.] The text chirped, before the whole thing looped over again.

<“. . . Ressasi, please review FOAM’s visuals and make sure I’m not having a stroke.>” Var’Shrak murmured, trying to shake away his confusion.

“” Ressasi murmured, causing a few other officers to switch perspectives.

For a good 5 minutes, the silence on the bridge was broken only by the mandatory status updates of Amber Squad.

“” Var’Shrak decided, opening up a secure link.

Tags They are Smol, Comedy, Cute, Smol, Sci-Fi

They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: Chapter 4

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So we’ve had some things happen, if you’re too good to click those fresh links I made for you/can’t be bothered to browse dank memes AND explore the galaxy (I’m lookin’ at you, /u/luckytron.) then here’s the long and short of it:

There are Jornissians, who are snakes in space
There is Caroline, a human
They are both on a space plane
The plane is stopped at space customs because they’re afraid the plane is gonna pull a JFK Jr.
The special operations teams are there to help you, please comply.
There might or might not be some other shenanigans going on

Let’s find out.

————————————————————————————————————

“No no no no no oh no-“

Caroline was doing so well just a few minutes ago, and then everything went to shit. She had no idea why the movie was stuck on a 15 second loop, just that no matter what she did she couldn’t get the terminal to cut the program. She tried closing the program – nothing. Alt+tab didn’t even pop open a window, her task manager laughed at her, and unplugging the terminal only caused it’s internal fission battery to kick on.

Even the ctrl+alt+win+cmd+option+del+space+F7 self-destruct did nothing.

This was not just a problem, it was a Problem, with a capital P. As part of their initial, peaceful cultural exchange package the Jornissians (as well as every other member species of the Senate) had given humanity a package of media that showed their interstellar neighbors in the best possible light. In the Jornissian package, there was a movie that had sweeping battles like the classic LotR movies – the early 00’s ones, not the 20’s cyberpunk rom-com ones – and yeah, the Office of Interstellar Harmony had…edited it, granted. They edited everything. But it wasn’t malicious! Honest! It’s just there to stop you from freaking out too hard about, well, life on a spaceship surrounded by real apex predators. It was something to make them seem less dangerous and more approachable; nothing more, nothing less.

The OIH and most spacefarers agreed, however, that it would be a very bad idea to show those apex predators that you’ve edited the shit out of their best cultural artifacts to make them seem cuter, while alone with them in the vast emptiness of space. We’ve seen that movie – hell, we’ve made that movie, and we know how it ends.

It ends badly.

“Fuck. Time, I- I need time. I can fix this, I can fix this.” Caroline muttered to herself, kicking off the wall to her work storage locker. Gripping the handle she pulled, both opening the door and tugging her forward into the locker itself. “I need time, oh God I’m already up shit creek…. Oxygen mask, ok, pressure tank – got it, promethium levels topped – uh, torch torch torch” Caroline wholesale scooped out buckets of nuts and tools, causing a snow-globe of easy-to-lose parts to cascade off the walls of her room.

Click. Click. Cli-FWOOSH

With a manic grin, Caroline floats to the door, blue-flamed torch in hand, welder’s mask upon her head.

The Bridge was silent, save for the furious background noise of work. On a 3D hard-light projection, the ship Celestial Scale, indicator lights spreading throughout and within it’s surface.

In his perch, Admiral Var’Shrak, watching his best soldiers do their jobs.

“<Diamond, this is Ruby Squad. Engineering is clear, degaussing and powering-down drive. 5 minutes.>”

“<Diamond copy, over. Resistance?>”

“<Negative. Confusion, but full compliance. No contraband, no weapons.>”

The comms engineer turned to the Admiral, waiting for his orders.

“<Continue as planned.>” Admiral Var’Shrak shifted in his perch, uneasily. As his orders were relayed to Ruby Squad, yet another indicator of the Celestial Scale turned from a fierce and urgent green to white.

“<Sir, permission to counsel?>” Vice-Admiral Ressasi pinged, her grizzled face appearing minimized on-screen.

“<Granted.>”

“<This makes no Harsak-crushed sense. I would say we’re darting into a trap, but everyone seems to be a loyalist.>”

Var-Shrak grunted in acknowledgement. “<Engineering, Navigation and Life Support – all taken without a shot fired.>”

“<A shot fired, sir, or a door barricaded, code changed, or even a single arm raised in defiance. Hell, we didn’t even have to broadcast an IFF diffuser – none of the crew weapons are even out of their lockers, save for the security teams.>”

“<We still haven’t taken security, howev->”

The Admiral’s Comms officer broadcast yet another update to the Bridge, interrupting him mid-sentence: “<Emerald squad has taken Security. All weapons surrendered, full compliance. No contraband.>”

Var’Shrak shared a pointed look with his subordinate. To her credit, Ressasi tried to hide her smile. Tried to.

“<Continue as planned.>”

Another green dot turns white.

“<…have we processed THE CAPTAIN yet?>” Var’Shrak questioned, his Vice-Admiral looking at something off-screen.

“<Affirmative. Again, Loyalist – she, as well as all other gem-tier officers, were apparently reporting to a fire caused by overcrowding in some Junior Officers’ room.>” Ressasi chuckled, softly. “<First tour always had one idiot.>”

“<Mmm. But why every officer?>”

“<That’s….hmm.>”

Var’Shrak turned his complete attention to his Vice-Admiral, responding to the call of his Comms officer only with a hand gesture. “<Found something?>”

“<I’m going to share this with OSI before I pass it up->”

“<Humor me. It’s not an official report yet.>”

Vice-Admiral Ressasi hummed. “<Logs report a cascading failure-to-report warnings up the chain, per protocol. Started with a drunk, which, fine. Captain… apparently stormed the Junior Officer’s room in full suppression kit.>”

Well that wasn’t normal.”<Over a drunk?>”

“<Officially.>”

“<And that’s the best she could do? ‘There was a drunk, so I show up in full riot-suppression gear…to combat a drunk.’>”

“<Yep. Then the fire happened. No casualties. Sapphire Squad has sifted through the debris – just….bog standard alcohol and a few vid screens. Yet again, no contraband.>”

“<Is she related to anyone onboard? Covering up someone else’s trail?>”

“<Negative.>”

Admiral Var’Shrak, 80 year veteran of The Fleet, subduer of pirates, lover of the people, was stumped.

“<What would prompt a captain of a navy vessel to lie to an inquisitor on a possible mutiny-suppression squad. No, it’s not a full lie; what would cause a captain to burn her own vessel in space?>”

“<That’s what I’m going to pass to OIS… but I’ll bet you 5 credits on this: It was an unapproved vids or holo-experiences parlor, run out of a Junior Officer’s quarters. So large no gem can have full plausible deniability.>”

“<Run a full check on her finances?>”

Ressasi looks offscreen. “<….done.>” Her face falls slightly, and Admiral Var’Shrak correctly guesses her next comment.

“<Nothing out of the ordinary.>”Ressasi sighs. “<If anything, she saves too much of her credit. She could redeem for a decent sized planetoid by now… or a couple thousand acres on a garden planet.>”

“<Hmm. 5 credits for me, then.>” Var’Shrak murmured, looking idly to the almost-completely white icon’d ship.

Almost.

“<What’s the progress on Amber Squad?>”

There was a minor flurry of bridge activity, before the Admirals’ Comms officer responded. “<Full Compliance, no contraband, still en-route.>”

Hmm. Well, once this was cleaned up maybe he could invite this [Human] [Caroline] to a meal. He’d only seen media of [Humans], after all, and if they were going to start joining his people amongst the stars it would do him well to learn more about them, and to apologize for what must be a harrowing and confusing experience.

‘Besides,’ Var’Shrak thought, ‘Maybe she could shed some light on this situation.’

Caroline was smart.

She knew this, because of her paranoia and because her daddy always told her so – if they actually were out to get you, then you’re prepared and ready for anything! And if they’re not, well. You’re still ready, just in case.

She had just finished welding her door shut when she heard what sounded like a few 500lb rubber zipperteeth being pulled closed in the corridor outside – with some various hiss-purr-shouting thrown in for good measure.

This meant one of three things:

(1) A V8 Murderbot on tank treads.

(2) A kill team sent to murder her. Possibly with their own murderbot. Or maybe they were the murderbots.

(3) There is no three what are you doing FIX THE MOVIE SAVE YOUR LIFE

“aaaaaAAAAAAAAAA” Caroline opined, kicking off from the door into the now-smokier room, oxygen mask working doubletime to stop her from passing out. With bare hands she gripped the terminal and started performing the ancient and secret mechanicus rite of percussive maintenance.

Pressed firmly against the floor, the operative looked down the corridor. He was in no danger – the ship wasn’t equipped with EM warfare modules, the cloaking armor (that looked nothing like a soft pillow, to the eventual dismay of Caroline) masking his presence along the visible spectrum, and heat-wise he only looked a few tenths of a degree above ambient.

“<KEYRING this is SPOTTER. Hallway is clear. Be advised, odd heat pattern midway. SISTER not visible.>”

It was precisely because he and his squad have been in no danger during this entire operation that everyone was spooked. Before every mutiny scramble, everyone prays that it’s a false alarm – but it never is. For there to be an actual false mutiny alarm….

…well it just doesn’t happen.

“<Copy SPOTTER. GRANITE, FOAM, move up.>”

Two more operatives, very obviously NOT in cloaking armor, slithered down the corridor – the rubber treads on their armor allowing for omnidirectional grip and stability, but also utterly destroying any pretense of stealth. With shoulder-mounted kinetic launchers, pack-charged plasma throwers and spreaders and kinetic-force generators, GRANITE and FOAM weren’t meant to be quiet.

They were meant to kill everything.

“<FOAM here. SISTER’s door is clear. Looks like warping, no combat damage or distress. Possible barricade.>”

“<GRANITE here. End of corridor is clear, intersection clear. We’re good to go for evac.>”

KEYRING slithered down past SPOTTER, and it was only when BREWER tapped him on the back did SPOTTER turn to point his weapons down the corridor where they came from.

“” BREWER muttered, taking up position behind a bulkhead

“<Mmm.>”

KEYRING made his way to SISTER’s door, connecting his suit to the door command console. Outwardly he was immobile, but inside his helmet his eyes scanned over reams of data. Door access times, setup codes, maintenance codes, use logs, biometric data…

“<[Caroline]?>” KEYRING yelled to the door, announcing everyone’s presence. “<[Caroline], Ma’am, we’re here to escort you out, ok? Our weapons aren’t for you, they’re for your protection – you’re not in any trouble, we just want to make sure you’re safe.>”

Nothing was unusual on his visor. At least, nothing was unusual until he tried to open the door, was met with the all-white code acceptance and the damn thing didn’t move.

“<SPOTTER, thermals.>” KEYRING commanded, and SPOTTER moved silently to the door, letting his sensors work it over.

“<….FOAM was right. I’m detecting rapidly cooling heat lines around the entire door – from the inside. Weld, most likely.>”

KEYRING hesitated for a moment at the news – but it was enough to speak volumes to the rest of the squad.

[Caroline], codenamed SISTER, the only [human] on the ship, was the only one in possible danger.

“<FOAM rip me a hole. Squad, Ready suppressants.>”

“<Sir yes sir.>” And in one swift movement FOAM reached out, sunk her gauntleted hand into the metal door, and pulled.

Tags They are Smol, Comedy, Cute, Smol, Sci-Fi

Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 3

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THE STORY SO FAR:

There are aliens, and a galactic senate. All in all, pretty good sapients – post-scarcity societies seem to be benevolent. Who knew? Humans are a thing, and a particular human is on a particular thing that we would call a “spaceship”. She happens to be surrounded by snakelike xenos, and there are shenanigans afoot/aslither. Sorry, trying to be inclusive here.

————————————————————————————————————

It was an open secret that the races that comprised the Galactic Senate – the Jornissians, the Dorarizin, the Humans and the Karnak – kept secrets from each other. Traditionally, this would be a cause for war or some sort of political sanctions, but once you’ve achieved nanofactories, quantum cold fusion power and tesseract space travel, the entire cosmos opens up to you. At that point, why fight over this garden planet when a mere 800 light-years away there’s another one? That’s bigger and has two moons? Why fight over resources when a single dead system could be strip-mined for more raw materials than your species could use in a thousand years? Why fight over border disputes? Space is massive – in essence, war becomes a pointless and quite dickish endeavor.

Secrets on the Galactic scale were more… mundane, all things considered. If you know a few ‘magic’ tricks and can wow a couple species, you might get booked on a 10-system tour. If the secrets to your set get out, suddenly you’re just the-human-with-the-cards-that-waves-them-around. If you’ve put down claim on a phenomenal planet with breathtaking vistas, you better file a copyright that view – or else the VR parlors will be sending out recording drones within the year. And Food? Well.

Who would’ve guessed that within 20 years after the accidental invasion of Earth, The Aunt Jemima factory complex would rival the NSA Headquarter’s security detail?

Point being, most secrets were mundane and assumed to be mundane – for thousands of years, this had always been the case, and the rest of the races had no reason to assume that anything would change, let alone on the induction and (relatively) slow uplift of a fellow sapient species.

So when Caroline was continuing to freak out over possible, theoretical injustices she had delivered to her crewmates – maybe she took THE CAPTAIN’S favorite heat rock one day? Maybe her table manners are atrocious? Wait, no — [Hsan] and [Eshhsan] were secretly a couple! It all makes sense now! – she turned to one of Humanity’s “secrets” to ease her fears and put her large, unblinking, omnivorous, venemous, titanically-strong crewmates mentally back in their place.

She turned to dank fucking memes.

Ssharnak was living in a world of Firsts. First one of his clutch to be promoted (take that, Ashhs’ssk!), First time a really cute girl talked to him without someone else prompting them to, First time one of his plans had paid off in any real measurable way, and now the First time that his plan had completely gone off the rails and into uncharted territory.

The entire Secret [Human] Cinema, Bar and Lounge (Floor 1A) was silent, staring attentively at the screen before them.

“<But…wait. What? Is t- that’s art.>” Ssharnak mumbled, tilting his head at the screen.

“<Why. What does it even mean? Why is it of us?>” Ashhs’ssk complained, tapping the picture. “<My translator’s kicking this back to me as a misspelling of comfortable. And what is that he’s wearing? That is a he, right?>”

C O M F

“ Ssharnak replied, tilting his head a full 90 degrees, as if the change in perspective would provide an answer.

“” Eshhsan slurred, one eye staring intently at the ‘meme’ and the other eye staring intently at the wall.

“<Hasras, you need to get him to medical.>” Ashhs’ssk quipped, eyes not moving from the screen as a new picture replaced the old one.

“<And miss this?>” The red-and-yellow man replied, pointing at the screen. “<Hells no. I’ll make a call, get him picked up – I am not missing this.>”

Ssharnak merely grunted in reply, his head continuing to pivot past 90 degrees.

In retrospect, this would prove to be the wrong thing to do.

You know how when something new and exciting is happening – that electric feel in the air of change? That same feeling that draws the informed, the uninformed and the downright curious in like a moth to the flame?

This is the feeling that caused the medical team to delay long enough in pulling Eshhsan out from under the table to send an automated warning flag to both their superiors and to security and maintenance, who both dispatched a team to investigate whether an unknown environmental hazard (or mutiny) had caused the med team’s delay.

This is the feeling that caused neither of those teams to respond in during their scheduled check-in, sending up not only more severe alerts to the head of Navigation, Maintenance, Security and Medical, but also to THE CAPTAIN as well.

And it was that feeling that caused THE CAPTAIN to forget to turn off her dead-man’s switch, causing their otherwise-innocent supply and rescue ship to pop onto the screens of Jornissian High Command as a possible Mutiny, en-route to one of their more populated core worlds. At a significantly higher speed than c. With all gem-tier officers not reporting to their stations.

Jornissian High Command felt this was enough of an issue to humbly request one of their defense fleets to scramble, immediately if possible – and if they’d be so kind as to throw out some warp-nets to stop the rogue ship before it plowed into something in-system, that would be great, too.

Admiral Var’Shrak agreed, and prepared.

Caroline, however, feeling slightly better, decided to click on “subtitled Jornissian movies”, completely unaware that everything outside of her comfy little blanket cocoon was going to shit.

“<That’s the defense of Malshak-V, one of our people’s greatest triumphs.>” THE CAPTAIN murmured, coiled in the center of the room. She had plenty of space to do so – once THE CAPTAIN showed up, plasma pistol waving in one hand and combat drone control menacing in the other, screaming about mutineers and pirates – well, everyone kinda just made space.

And to be fair, it was a good movie about a good war, if there ever is such a thing. Federalist troops, outgunned and outnumbered, defending the last bastion of planetary civilization against a pirate queen who would have been a tinpot empress. Holding just long enough for the civilians to escape and for reinforcements to arrive, it’s one of the best feel-good armed service propaganda stories ever put to media.

As to why when every one of the Jornissians was shot, the [Human] word [oof] would pop out of their mouths as they died, she could not say. Nor could THE CAPTAIN understand why there was text superimposed over various buildings – [hidey hole] and [best ledge] weren’t translating too well, but [tanning roof] seemed to be a portmanteau of some sort combining the human word for damaging sun exposure to their skin and…. a roof. And why would a ledge be the best ledge – that’s where the fiercest fighting was occurring.

“<What is this word: [Heckin’].>” THE CAPTAIN asked the room. No one could reply. “<There, again. [Heckin’]. My matrix can’t pull context from this – it’s used in too many varied and obtuse ways. Who works with [Caroline]?>”

Ssharnak, Ashhs’ssk and Hsan all look at each other, nodding in silent agreement. “<Eshhsan, Ma’am.>” they reply as one.

“<Don’t make me review the security footage.>”

Hsan sighs. “<Aye, Ma’am. Everyone in engineering works with [Caroline], and she’s made plenty of friends throughout the rest of the crew – if we grunts don’t know her, we at least know of her.>”

“<That’s better. Has she ever used this word before, in conversation or writing?>”

“” Hsan begins, settling into the at-ease pose of subordinates trying to shift blame from themselves to someone else. “<But, there was one time in reference to a [Heckin’] good [boop].>”

THE CAPTAIN turned towards Hsan, movie forgotten for a moment. “<A good what?>”

He sighs. “<A [Heckin’] good [boop] – she then placed a finger on my snout and, uh, smiled.>” Hsan seemed to recall a fond memory, but only for a moment. “<This was, I believe, near the beginning of our tour – maybe a day, two days in. Other than that, no Ma’am, nothing that I can recall.>”

THE CAPTAIN analyzed Hsan, unblinking, for a few moments, before turning back towards the movie with a frown. “<…the matrix we gifted them should have the common and slang words for our anatomy in part of their basic packages. So why is it not kicking back an additional translation back to our datab->”

THE CAPTAIN never got to finish her sentence, as four things immediately happened:

The screen suddenly and inexplicably shut off
The entire ship lurched up and backwards, before completely losing gravity
8 simultaneous breaching charges went off, as Jornissian special forces stormed points of interest on the ship
THE CAPTAIN and Caroline looked at their computer terminals, and swore for two totally different reasons

Tags Sci-Fi, They are Smol, Comedy, Cute, Smol

Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 2

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Caroline was intrigued, in a detached kind of way, in how someone could be both paranoid and bored at the same time.

By Galactic Union Mandate, any human serving on an all-xenos ship needed to spend at least 4 hours a day immersed in human media. This wasn’t necessarily because human media was somehow better than anything else anyone produced, merely that humans are very social creatures when it comes to themselves and things they understand. Although you can be friendly to a 350kg cold-blooded snake-person, there’s still some things that are off, and the cheapest cure-all to that is just being reminded of home.

‘It’s the small things’, Caroline mused, ‘that drive you insane.’

And indeed, it was. Even if you ignored the obvious biological differences, living in a ship for months or years at a time where your footfalls are a constant reminder that you’re the only biped on board, that the halls and doors and chairs and beds and bathrooms are all the wrong size and proportion, that there are racial and cultural in-jokes that you’ll just never get, that even the food they give you – delicious, sure, but…

As if to illustrate that point, Caroline takes a namptha ball the size of her fist and gnaws at it – the dense-but-not-solid jawbreaker slowly giving way, rewarding her with the closest thing to licorice-mint that the galaxy has to offer.

Oddly enough, macro-wise it counts as a protein.

“….it’s still not right.” She hummed to herself, minimizing the Harry Potter movie she was watching for the umpteenth time. Idly, she pulls up the ship’s schedule and manifesto, and begins to browse. “…up until literally last week, I had a 6 hour shift with an hour break halfway through. Now, I’m on a 3 hour shift with nothing else to do…”

Spinning in her oversized chair, she tosses the namptha ball into the sink, the hearty thunk echoing through the room proving her throwing arm is still good.

“But why? Nobody’s asked me for more human-culture lessons, nobody invites me to meal time, nobody asks me to do anything – it’s either I sit here and waste away, or lay about on one of the heat rocks on observation deck. I mean, at least then somebody will share the rock with me, but… nobody says I’m in trouble. So….why do I feel like I did something wrong?”

So she sat, and she worried. Humans, as a whole, weren’t nearly as terrifying as their galactic neighbors. Jornissians were snake-people who could actually crush cars with their bodies, and some still had very potent if vestigial venom sacs. A ‘short’ Dorarizin would still be at least 2.8m tall with teeth and claws that could peel aluminum bars with ease, and a Karnak, well. Think “roided-up monitor lizard with frills and no sense of personal space” and you’ll be pretty close.

All of them fine sapients, all of them could turn a human to paste with enough motivation. The question on Caroline’s mind was: was she giving her hosts the first steps towards that motivation?

She sat and mused, the stark silence of the corridor outside her door doing nothing to ease her fears.

Warp travel was, all things considered, the least exciting type of travel you could do in a spaceship.

Seriously. If you’re in a major shipping lane, you have to worry about other vessels, space junk, independent merchant tugs trying to dock with you to get a better deal before stationdock and the general insanity that comes from space traffic control giving directions not only in a 3-coordinate plane but also in time. If you’re out ‘in the boonies’ of real space, you still have to deal with interstellar dust, micrometeorites, gravity wells, rogue planet/oid/s and sometimes raiders. If you find yourself in atmosphere, well – your trip will be exciting, hot and short with a permanent conclusion at the end.

But when you clear out the local space around you – and just a few millimeters will do – and then fold that space around your ship and move, you’re in nothing but a glorified impervious clear bubble. Granted, that bubble moves a couple exponential places above c, but still. The fact of the matter is, a majority of ship captains didn’t travel above the galactic disc because of uncharted hazards, or some ancient enemy, or fear of running out of power.

They traveled amongst the stars and planets of the galactic plane at hyperspeed because if you didn’t, there was fuck-all nothing to look at.

The recently-promoted Ssharnak, Junior Technician II, and his trusty-but-grouchy older ward Ashhs’ssk (still a simple Junior Engineer) were not having the problem of having fuck-all nothing to look at. Quite the opposite, really. Their room had become the de-facto ‘[Human] Cinema’, complete with comfortable seats, a snack bar, a rotation list and even a couple drinking games. After Hsan saw the [Resevoir Dogs] movie, getting [Caroline]’s schedule changed was a done deal. With the extended cinema hours, there was less crowding and – Ssharnak wouldn’t believe it unless it was happening to him – more females coming up to talk to him during off hours.

“<wait… wa- SKITTERS IN THE BACK! TAKE A SHOT!>”

There was a groan from one of the back-tables as Eshhsan pounded another molok, a grimace on his face. “<That’s not fair – they’re in EVERY fucking scene in this one!>”

“<Yeah, well. That’s what you get for not being here during the previous fantasy night. Considering [Humans] can’t see in the infrared…>”

“<Yeah, yeah.>” growled Eshhsan, pointing a finger at his red-and-yellow comrade. “<It’s not fair, though. They can’t help that they’re half-blind! The humans in those skin-suits are invisible to their people!>”

“<No, but you should’ve figured that in when you took me up on this game. Ready for another round?>”

“<Ugh. No. No, I quit. And from the looks of it, so does she.>” Eshhsan pushed away a mountain of crushed drink-pearls, drawing Ssharnak’s attention back to the screen. [Caroline] had minimized the movie, and was instead looking at ships’ logs.

“<Hey, Eshhsan? You think she’s onto us yet?>” Ashhs’ssk muses at the bar, his tail coiled lightly around a cute engineers’ in the back corner of the room.

“”

“<5 is…. problematic with our schedule. The gems will keep their seats due to ranks, but the gemless and other junior members…>” Ashhs’ssk trails off, sighing. “<We probably should do it – but that didn’t come from me.>”

“<Mmmh. What’s… what’s she typing? I’m… having some trouble focusing.>”

“<Uuuh….I don’t know. It’s not [Netflix] or [Hulu]. Looks like a private, off-books program to me…>”

Unbidden, Ssharnak pipes up. “<What does meme-edited Jarnissian even mean?>”

Tags Sci-Fi, They are Smol, Comedy, Cute, Smol