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Stories They are Smol

They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops, Chapter 13: Bad Neighborhoods all look alike

The 64K monitor glowed terrifyingly perfectly, every single bit of the Jornissian guard on duty standing out in almost painful-to-watch detail. He looked left, then right, then left again; after making sure the coast was clear he pulled out a little notebook and began to write…

“My dearest Esmerelda. Truly how I long for you, and for your incredibly fluffy embrace – but alas! I must stay here and guard the hallway, lest any rogue come upon your chambers~”

Nate stuck a dust-encrusted hand into a bag of orange puff-its, shoveling them into his mouth to quell the mindless boredom as he continued to narrate the security camera footage he was watching. “-But I fear that my prosthetic brain will be a sticking point between us… bah!”

He rolled the top of his bag and let it go, the snack food gently floating to the “ground” of the escape pod as Nate licked his fingers clean, his non-food hand flipping the “channel” to another security camera. Each camera was tied to a few specific vent grates and were meant to be as unobtrusive and impossible to detect; this also meant that sometimes the vent cameras showed absolutely nothing, or (most likely) had some crap stuck in front of them that totally blocked the view. He also didn’t have the luxury of getting a camera in every single vent, as that would increase the potential for the whole system to get detected.

So, Nate had fallen into a rhythm over the past 4 hours: Flip through the channels to see if anything important or new had happened (it didn’t), attempt to hail help on all emergency frequencies (busy signal only), check which snac he wanted to attac (water-flavored nutrient paste was always a go-to), and then sit back and … entertain himself.

Not like that.

“Let’s see. Suitcase, vending machine, boot, – ah.” Nate paused the camera on the medical supply vent, turning up the gain on the included microphone. There was nothing but the indistinct murmur of Dorarizin conversation – Drongo, he assumed – and the soft groans of various xenos species – probably the boarding party, if Nate wanted to hazard a guess. No yelling, no explosions, no alarms, nothing.

Sometimes no news is good news.

He continued flipping the channels until he came to one of the mess hall grates, the camera sitting at knee-height to the crew. There were a few pirates sitting down, discussing something – and it looked like some of the “loot” was being piled up and sorted by some system unknown to Nate’s mind. Clothing here, Electronics there, but personal electronics are over here…

Nate pressed a button on the console and his microphone kicked on.

“[-of a whore, right? I’m done after this one, this shit happens with the high-profile gangs, not us-]”      
“[No, I’m still not going to stay here. Fuck this, I’ll take a half-share, I’m done.]”
  “[Sure, but honestly we’re due for a good bloodletting; it’s been at least 4 ops since anyone’s lost a limb, let alone their life-]”
“[-separate the fabrics by type, then by wear, then by color. Let’s put… what is this, a hazard suit? This should be in electronics-]”

Nate listened in for a few minutes, catching nothing but the minutiae of daily living… Nothing of importance. He scanned the piles of loot thoroughly; nothing of true value that couldn’t be replaced by insurance. Nothing of his, at least. With a firm button press he muted the video, and with his unbooted foot gripped the snack bag and flung it back up into his hands.

“Aye, and they say his ghost to this day haunts everyone who doesn’t do their own laundry, arrr-” Nate narrated, unrolling his back of snacks and diving into them again.

The rumbling of the ship – the ripple of Newtonian physics reasserting themselves on the passengers, crew and steel of The Perfect, was what woke Nate up from his nap. At some point he must have fallen asleep, and with microgravity being a thing his weightless sensory deprivation rest eventually settled him on the floor of the life raft – which is what even allowed him to feel that they had moved out of warp.

This immediately told him two things:

One: In the adrenaline rush of escaping – or due to him spending most of his time just floating around, he must have missed the initial warp jump… it’s not like his life raft was attached to the ship’s systems, after all.
Two: This means that they were not still parked in the travel lane, they were not going to possibly be found on accident, and the pirates were not going to make this quick.

Nate furrowed his brow in thought. It was no secret that there were unscrupulous people out in the cosmos – why did the Senate and their associated allied forces carry such big sticks, after all? But the goal in dealing with those unscrupulous forces was to make it as quick and painless as possible. If you, the human, were to be captured, there were multiple disclosed and undisclosed ways to be tracked, and the general consensus was that nobody was going to be so dumb as to buy such a high-profile slave. You could be abused, maimed, even killed, sure; but you could also be killed by spacing yourself, playing contact sports, choking on your tongue or just suddenly and catastrophically don’t-ing and ceasing to be. The millions of ways that you could die on-planet were multiplied by the complexities of being in space, so that wasn’t really factored into any longevity equation of note when it came to life-threatening situations of the 3rd kind.

Nate idly rubbed his arm as he continued to run through the mental gamut, his free hand cycling through cameras with growing concern. Given the audio he heard, he assumed his crew was still on board and alive – meaning, he wasn’t totally abandoned and up shit creek. However, physically moving the ship, through warp, at this time of the galactic calendar, for a better part of the day, in this part of the spiral arm, localized entirely within the radius of a travel lane…

He was certain no one would know where they went.

So why? The Codex OnStarties generally assumed pirates would perform a smash-and-grab of valuables and then leave. No fuss, no muss. If they were going to take the ship, life rafts would have been launched and it would’ve taken days to reprogram ship systems to accept a new master; odds are they’d stop jamming signals, his would go through, and then the cavalry would arrive to save the day. If they were going to scuttle the ship, then … well, he’d know. These actions absolutely did not support that M.O., so what could they be after?

He rolled through the cameras lightning-fast until he reached the one parallel to his door; His room had gained some attention from the pirates, but so far no one had broken into it. They didn’t know he existed, so he couldn’t be the prize – not yet, anyway.

Nate floated in silence, arms crossed and frowning, as he watched the pirates begin to disperse from outside his door – their attempt to wedge it open failing.

If they weren’t after him, if they didn’t even know he existed, then what was it they were after?

When you drop out of warp it’s less like Star Wars or Star Trek – the dashes of light suddenly focusing into reality – and more like the universe being seen out of a blurry fish-eye lens suddenly come into focus. Usually it’s a welcome sight; a friendly station, a home planet, or even another ship to greet and trade with. There was always a bit of majesty to the whole thing, and it never ceased to be a fun experience.

Sassafras was not so lucky to see or experience any of that, and sighed internally as the pirate camp came into focus. If she was feeling charitable, she’d call it a marvel of making something from nothing.

However, as she decidedly wasn’t, she called it what it actually was: a bunch of fucking asteroids tied together with wire.

“[We worked hard on that, you kn-]” The uppity pirate in question was quieted with a metal mug slamming into his mouth, the Karnakian shaking his head and working his jaw to try to get the feeling back into it.

“[My apologies to the hosts for speaking my mind out loud.]” Sassafras stated, watching with growing concern as the pirate base grew larger and larger. To say it was held together with wire would be an insult to thin strands of metal everywhere; The asteroid cluster was connected by non-reinforced airlock umbilicals, I-beams, and in some places rock heat-welded together. It was, to put it simply, a deathtrap-in-waiting – though Sassafras wouldn’t put it past this hunk of rock and debris to have already claimed multiple lives in it’s construction.

The Perfect received it’s first hail from the trash heap, and Licorice put it through without question.

“[Uh, Hello.]” A bewildered Dorarizin said by a way of greeting, looking at Sassafras with visible confusion. “[How can we… help? You? Wait.]”

Sassafras rubbed her forehead in mute disbelief. If she was going to have to help herself be captured, then what was the fucking point of-

“[OH! You’re the, ah, smuggler ship! Oh wow, for a second I thought we had the most unlucky tourists – yeah uh. You’re a big’un. Thought you’d be crewed by our people, not – anyway. Let’s see here.]” The Dorarizin checked some things on what sounded like an ancient mechanical keyboard, the keys clacking so forcefully as to be picked up by the ambient microphone.

“[You’ll have to swing your starboard side station-side; no turnwise directions, you’re all we got of course. Wow.]” The dockmaster(?) seemed to be in awe at the size of this ship, not closing the comms down for a few awkward seconds of silence before Licorice forcefully shut off the connection.

“[That was certainly something.]” Licorice murmured, attempting once again to cycle through hailing systems and once again not being able to do so.

++++
SUBNET
SHELL 3
ENCRYPT KEY: OK
TEXT: N
AUDIO: Y
VIDEO: N
FILES: N
GEO: N
BIO: N
=-=-=-=-=
ACTIVE CHAT: 3/XXX
->[Licorice]
->[Sassafras]
->[MusicBot][BOT]
[. . .]
– – – – – – – – –

[Licorice]: “[They’re still blocking us. I thought we’d have a window post-warp where we could send something out, but there’s probably a broadcast scrambling net out locally.]”
[Sassafras]: “[Damn. Any chance once we’re on-rock that you can stop that? You’ve put our systems to auto-hail, right?]”
[Licorice]: “[It’s auto-cycle, yeah; and to answer your question, I don’t know. Cases like this, it’s either (1) they scavenged some good shit one time and I have to fight real encryption with no tools on-hand, or (2) there’s a mad genius at the helm and I have to fight no documentation whatsoever.]”
[Sassafras]: “[As VIP would say, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.]”
[Licorice]: “[It’s an apt saying; I’ll let you know once we land. I’m going to be carrying some local communication equipment with me anyway, so we’ll have some sort of network once we’re on that rock.]”
[Sassafras]: “[Good. I’ll leave it all to you, then.]”

++++

The Perfect sat, idling, as makeshift umbilicals and scaffolding slowly connected to their ship. There was a familiar whine and thunk of magnetic clamps, the whirring sound of airlocks connecting to each other and sealing, and the general sense of being pulled closer to the station. The cargo doors connected with a pair of internal doors from the asteroid station, and they slowly – with the hiss of air and the rush of a pressure differential – opened up to show the gleeful Pirate camp their bounty.

That bounty turned out to be a crew of incredibly annoyed, still somehow armed xenos, a group of green pirate recruits who were trying not to publicly ugly cry after taking roughly 18 hours of non-stop abuse (which, to the crew of The Perfect’s credit, they never repeated the same insult twice), a lopsidedly-grinning Karnakian cargo “leader” with a very swollen face and whatever was left of Boots, who looked more like a plucked turkey than anything resembling a pirate commando.

The two groups of aliens stood there, looking at each other, before the PA system pinged to life again.

“[I’m assuming Bones told you the deal, but if not, I’ll reiterate it for you: We are going to peacefully place ourselves in your brig so you can look for crap that doesn’t exist on our ship. We are doing this, because the alternative is you scuttling our ship while we’re inside it, and I’d rather that not happen. We are going to keep our weapons, which are bio-locked to us anyway, on ourselves as insurance. No, I don’t trust you all to stick to whatever creed or code you have to not harm us. Yes, this is us altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.]” Sassafras stated, matter-of-factly. “[Now, if you’ll direct my aft crew to their quarters, we won’t have any problems, and we all certainly won’t die of a supercritical ship explosion happening right next to your base.]”

There was a pregnant pause as the two crews looked at each other again, before the crew of The Perfect began to move, picking up personal belongings, portable weapons and other things and shuffle off of their ship, milling about in the decidedly less polished offloading bay of the Pirate camp.

Maybe it was leaving their homes.

Maybe it was the fact that their hands were collectively tied.

Maybe it was the battle beforehand.

Who knows. But what we do know is that the simple, innocuous comment of “[Ugh, this place is crap – is that a damn footlocker?]” started a multi-hour long roast.

“[Haha, no way, they don’t even have backup generators! Aww, look at this, they’re using combustibles! No wonder, they’re breathing in their own fumes-]”

“[Really? You’re using theta-wave microgravity? You do realize that gives you cancer over prolonged years of use, right? Brain tumors – big ones. Like. You know this, right-]”

“[No way, a MZM-44? Those things are ancient! And you’re using it as a real weapon? Really? It belongs in a museum-]”

“[Kahn yush pleesh-]” P“pacheep mumbled painfully, attempting to wave over a few of The Perfect’s crew. “[-Hhhhh. Ah whanh go tuh shelhp.]”

P“pacheep’s complaint was interrupted by a hearty smack of a balled fist against his back, causing him to lose his footing and tumble down the ramp. Before he could stop the room from spinning he was bodily picked up – by the same female Dorarizin as before – he couldn’t tell – and held aloft while she called out to him.

“[Whine louder if we’re going in the right direction!]”

There was a hearty jeer, and P“pacheep started to cry.

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They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops Chapter 12 – Watch your mouth

The hallway was mostly quiet, all conversation and movement dying down – save for the sound of a savage public beating. Those who were relatively new to the pirate camp watched in breathless horror; the few of them who attempted to be a hero being pulled back by older, wiser hands. Those who had been around for a few years just shook their heads, made a note to tell one of the shift leaders, and move the betting credit pool around.

The butt of the handgun, slick with blood and viscera, split against the Dorarizin’s skull; Hrrs-tssk’’s victim long-since gone unconscious, slumped to the side and propped up by the unfortunate geometry of his limp arms. The mottled red-brown Jornissian leaned back, breathing heavily, as he let the rage leave him.

“[You might’ve killed him-]”

Hrrs-tssk’ rounded on the crewman who said that, a Karnakian who was wisely backing away. “[I-I’m just saying! I don’t agree with what he said, but-]”

“<But what. How many Dead man shares have I paid out?>” Hrrs-tssk’ rumbled, his white-hot fury cooling to a dull red ache.

The Karnakian raised his hands in a pleading gesture. “[F-four. You’ve paid out four.]”

“<So I know how hard to beat you bastards to not pay out any more. This->” And with a hiss he leaned down, delivering a savage body blow to the unconscious Dorarizin, his body shaking with a wet cough as he finally slumped to the carved asteroid floor. “<Is not enough to kill this dickless toilet rug, but is is enough to get my message across, again.>”

The final pause in the violence was broken only by the ragged breathing of Hrrs-tssk’’s unknown victim. The Dorarizin groaned softly, the slight motion of his jaw sounding like broken glass grinding against itself, but did not otherwise move.

“[In all fairness, he was new-]”

In a flash – fast, even for his species – Hrrs-tssk’ was suddenly in the Karnakian’s face, filling his vision with a stoked rage, unblinking eyes staring him down. “<Then you should have told him, because I’m tired of fucking repeating myself like this! Would you say this was your fault, then? A bet? HMM?>”

Hrrs-tssk’ began to tense again, before sighing, seeming to mentally talk himself out of another beat-down. “<No. Sorry. But you know->”

The Karnakian guide nodded, ducking his head slightly in a non-aggressive way. “[I-I do, I do. I know, he’s your brother, and it’s savage what the newbie said about him, it’s not good or fair, I get it – and Stk’shzsk is a good guy! Really! I get it, I had no idea, I really had no idea he’d just do something like that-]”

“<Something like wh-AGAIN, brother?!>”

The two xenos in question turned around, looking at an incredibly worried Stk’shzsk. His prosthetic had been fixed and was attached to his head, raising his profile by a few inches with mirrors and reflective surfaces, leather straps holding his visual prosthetic in place. It gave him an overall look of the kind of Jornissian who may have been dropped and dented as an egg and after hatching, needed to wear a helmet 24/7.

You’d be close if you thought that. Wrong, but close.

Stk’shzsk frowned as he looked over his erstwhile attacker. “<Brother…>”

“<Self Defense.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, matter-of-factly, as he left the Dorarizin and Karnakian to figure out their own lives. He confidently moved across the hallway to his younger brother, affectionately bumping his chest to his sibling’s. “<Justified, according to contract->”

Stk’shzsk leaned back and tilted his head, rolling his jaw. “<But I was the one who was attacked.>”

“<-and you’re kin, which means you’re blood, which means he drew my own blood, which means he attacked me.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said without skipping a beat, the back-and-forth of this conversation being one that was held a half-dozen times already. “<Besides, this doesn’t touch your shares->”

Stk’shzsk flicked his brother’s neck with the back of his hand, a move akin to tweaking an earlobe. “<You say that, but you keep losing shares and we’ll both have to live off of my shares!>”

Hrrs-tssk’ pretended to think for a moment as the surrounding crew got over the recent violence, a few volunteers picking up the body and shuffling him off to medbay. “<Well, maybe if you stopped buying warm-cuddle merchandise we’d be able to retire by now~>”

Stk’shzsk grumbled, taking his hand and pushing his older brother out of the way as he slithered to his station. “<No. They are pure and innocent and view the world with wonder and joy, and you could do with such good role models! A warm-cuddle would never attack someone like that->”

There was a warm breath near Stk’shzsk’s ear, as his brother wrapped his arms loosely around Stk’shzsk’s neck. “<If you’ve seen the videos I have, you’d know that they can ‘attack’ a certain part of the body, ifyouknowwhatI’m->”

“<AAAAAAAA I’m NOT listening! STOP!>” Stk’shzsk yelled, pushing his grinning brother away with only a little bit of anger. “<It’s deviants like you that are going to taint the whole species!>”

“<Speaking of taints->”

Stk’shzsk attempted to look as angry as possible, tensing his body and leaning forward aggressively towards Hrrs-tssk’, “<NO.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ laughed, and bowed, deflecting in an over-exaggerated manner. “<Alright, alright. All suns kiss their skin and keep their souls warm, and the warm-cuddles all hold hands and sing and rest and play all day. There. Better? Are they pure again?>”

Stk’shzsk turned his head up a bit, thinking. “<I believe so. So good of you to finally have the right opinion, brother of mine.>”

Stk’shzsk began to make his way down the hall, pausing only a moment at the pool of blood and other fluids before continuing on. After a few moments, he was joined by his elder brother, and the two traveled in relative silence for a few moments.

“<…I made sure it wasn’t an accident this time.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, uncharacteristically softly, as he attempted to offer an olive branch to his younger brother. “<He thought that since he was an ‘outlaw’ that we had no rules, no codes of conduct->”

Stk’shzsk wiggled his head from side to side, nonplussed. “<Frozen hells, I could’ve told you that. Could’ve told him that too. Doesn’t mean you have to fight on my behalf; I’m no stranger to bullies.>”

“<And I’m no stranger to bullying the bullies.>” Hrrs-tssk’ replied, sighing as he finally let the last of the rage he was holding onto go. As they passed a waste bin, he tossed his now-useless handgun in to be recycled, pulling a stained cloth from his vest to wipe his hands dry. “<Besides, it’s better he learn that lesson from a beating, than learn that on the field and get himself or someone else killed.>”

Stk’shzsk replied softly. “<Boots wouldn’t think so – you’ve put him in medbay for a week and set him back on training.>”

“<Boots would agree – you and I both know he’s killed rookies for less.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, waving a greeting to a passing group of crewmates. “<Professionalism first. If they can’t handle structure, I won’t let them survive to make anarchy.>”

“<Speaking of.>” Stk’shzsk said, changing the subject as they rounded the corner, heading to the exterior of the asteroid. “<I’m apparently on sifting duty now? What’s the deal with that?>”

Hrrs-tssk’ smiled. “<Yeah, just got the word from the thick skins. Apparently we’ve got a new salvage opportunity, so they’re going to want me out there carving out metal, and they asked who I wanted to manage my sifting->”

Stk’shzsk smiled in turn, matching his brother as an almost mirror image. “<You’re too kind, brother. But If there’s any warm-cuddle merchandise in there I’m going to pouch it->”

“<You have a problem. Bro – You have to stop, everything must be counted for and then divided up->”

“<-after I take out all the warm-cuddle stuff inside that ship.>” Stk’shzsk said, smiling smugly. “<You can take it out of my shares post-division.>”

“<That’s not how share division works->”

“<You’re all degenerates who cannot appreciate heightened warm-cuddle culture->”

“<Degenerates? Just cause I can do that thing with my tongue->”

And the two brothers, the earlier ugliness forgotten, made their way to work.

 

The bridge of The Perfect was no stranger to odd things; living it’s first life as a commercial ship gave it a few dents, dings, and sultry encounters. Living it’s second life owned by a group of “adventurers” led to being exposed to hard vacuum on accident, one deal gone bad, and some very warranty-unfriendly rewiring. Living it’s third life as a UTF-approved human training vessel gave it a couple wild human parties, no less than three electrical fires and that one time that we’re not going to talk about so our insurance doesn’t go up.

However, for the first time in… honestly, ever, there was an oddity that the bridge of The Perfect had never experienced, even post-manufacture and drydock; there was dead silence aboard the bridge of The Perfect. The crew – the real, honest crew of The Perfect – were operating in total sync, and therefore in almost total silence. Their terminals were muted. The ambient speakers, off.

The pirate crew, to their credit, knew better than to open their mouths.

Sassafras sat unmoving in her captain’s nest, staring straight ahead at the navigation beacon indicator that appeared on no maps, and gave no information as to the localized gravitational terrain, space debris, or stellar objects to be expected once they exited warp. There was nothing much for her to do other than wait, and to sit stewing in her own thoughts.

Those thoughts were interrupted with an indicator ping, and with her implant she opened the communication.

++++
SUBNET
SHELL 3
ENCRYPT KEY: OK
TEXT: N
AUDIO: Y
VIDEO: N
FILES: N
GEO: N
BIO: N
=-=-=-=-=
ACTIVE CHAT: 3/XXX
->[Licorice]
->[Sassafras]
->[MusicBot][BOT]

[. . .]

– – – – – – – – –

[Licorice]: “[So.]”

Sassafras hummed to herself in a non-commital way to anyone who was not privy to the private, encrypted conversation. As she shifted in her seat, she sub-vocalized into her implant suite. “[Yes?]”

[Licorice]: “[Where do you think the VIP is?]”
[Sassafras]: “[How secure is this channel?]”

Licorice, the communications officer, tapped a few indicators on his control panel, but otherwise remained silent to the outside, listening world.

[Licorice]: “[Very. If they were honest workers, they’d would be snapped up by a corpo, or a foundation – probably make more there than out here. Whoever manages their system has done a lot of good work with a small budget, but… nothing that could crack what we’ve got – unless they put us under the knife.]”
[Sassafras]: “[Morbid as always.]”
[Licorice]: “[Just being honest. Once they start ripping the floorboards up they might have a chance.]”
[Sassafras]: “[Fair. Our VIP’s with Drongo, so I’m assuming locked somewhere in the medical wing.]”
[Licorice]: “[Is that sustainable?]”

Sassafras reached down to pick up her now-cold tea, taking a wordless sip as stars bled past her view screen.

[Sassafras]: “[Yes, for a while – long enough, I think, for this to all blow over. They’d have wounded; Drongo’s a doctor. These pirates wouldn’t shake him down, especially if he’s healing their own – so if he’s acting in good faith, that will build good will with them and keeps VIP safe. There’s enough emergency food stashed in the medical wing to churn through the medical fabricator for some nutrient paste and electrolyte fluid, so VIP can eat. It won’t be fun, but he won’t starve to death. As far as bio waste… well. I’m certain they’ll figure something out.]”
[Licorice]: “[I don’t envy anyone for that. So as long as VIP stays put, we should probably be ok.]”
[Sassafras]: “[We can hope… though we are asking a human to stay put for a long time.]”
[Licorice]: “[Which leads to the inevitable question: What happens if we’re not ok?]”

Sassafras turned her wordless sip into a full draught, finishing the cold beverage in one fluid motion.

[Sassafras]: “[Then we go down swinging, as VIP would say.]”
[Licorice]: “[I’ll spread the word then.]”

Eight feet by twelve feet by twelve feet.

8x12x12.

Nate sighed as he floated down to what he was now going to permanently consider the “floor” of the life-raft, which of course doubled as storage, sleeping quarters, and – if he pulled out the waterproof tarp bag – shower wall as well. First thing he did after checking power and hermetically sealing his raft shut was to find the instruction booklet and pour over it, committing as many details to memory as he could. As the life-raft existed both within the ship but outside of it’s systems, there was no such thing as “true gravity” – just the microgravity forces provided by the ship’s weight itself, and as Nate flipped through the laminated booklet again he cursed himself for not bringing a bouncy-ball to play with.

The life raft was good enough. Not great, not terrible, but good enough. Government issue meant it had no luxuries, of course, but it was built to incredible tolerances. Every square inch of wall surface had a single purpose, and wherever possible, tried to pull double-duty. The life-raft had a 3 month battery and a 2 month supply of food and water, not counting the ability to generate it’s own power through deployable solar panels and ambient power harvesting if that fails – something to do with the paint itself generating energy. There was a console that enabled some communication, mostly emergency beacon management, and allowed the operator to cycle through external cameras placed throughout the ship’s vent network and on the outside of the raft, if it ever found itself freed of it’s ship home. Everything, every morsel of food, every ounce of water, every drop of moisture, was recycled and re-purposed until all nutrients were exhausted and the processing became unsafe: Then the bio waste was finally burned for additional fuel.

Nate did not like the implications of the “Soylent Biological Waste Recycling System”, but wasn’t really in a place to argue.

The one thing that he noticed – the one small, tiny, insignificant detail that he seemed to notice that was missing from a life raft designed to keep someone alive for 90+ days in total isolation, was simply this:

There was nothing to do. No media. No television. Hell, no napstercloud. From what Nate could see, the only thing this life raft had was documentation on how to use it, documentation on how to survive in low-and-no-gravity, and oddly enough documentation on the history of the asteroid mining colony that made the damn thing.

Nate bumped against the floor of the life raft and pushed off again, the microgravity lifting him just enough to hit the ceiling softly before slowly floating down again to the “floor”. The theory probably was that he shouldn’t expect to be in this raft for longer than a day or two – maybe a week.

He frowned as he finished the booklet, again, and began his third re-read. Hopefully this would all be over within a few hours – the ship had entered warp, that much he knew – so they were probably heading back to civilization. Hopefully, in a few hours, he’d poke his head out and everything would be back to as normal as could be.

 

Hopefully.

 

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They are Smol – BBB Chapter 11: Post-COVID Meetups are wild, yo.

The ripple and murmurs of lively conversation ebbed and flowed through the Engineering bay of The Perfect, where a majority of her crew was gathered against their will. The atmosphere was light – jovial, almost, and one would be forgiven for thinking that the crew was taking the current situation without it’s due seriousness. After all, they were surrounded by a theoretically hostile armed guard. 

The Karnakian crewmate closest to the front of the bay doors leaned back, balancing almost on his tail as he spread his arms wide, lost in mid-story. “[-right? So then he bursts in with his feather-crest raised all aggressive-like and waves his slapshit slug-thrower around, and mind you it looks like it’s never been cleaned or it was printed yesterday – and of course he’s not checking his corners. So I’m sitting on the couch with my dick in my hand-]”

“[Wait, it’s large enough to fit your whole hand?]” His Jornissian colleague joked, and the circle of crewmates laughed.

“[Yeah yeah, anyway. So there I am, dick in hand, and this kid just freezes – and then Grzn’dre-of-Grezne here, right? She’s just standing by the door with one of her omni-saws-]”

One of the Dorarizin males grins, rubbing his neck in thought. “[Five GRC if I’m right – she slices an arm!]”

“[No.]” The storyteller says, leaning forward. “[She revs it to max and buries it in his chest!]”

The small group erupted in laughter as the Dorarizin in question – Grzn’dre – does her best to mimic the shock of her first victim, before ‘collapsing’ on one of her male coworkers to everyone’s amusement.

Well. Save for the armed Jornissian guard nearest to them, who was armed with one of those “slapshit slug throwers” in question and very much looked out of her depth. The multitude of horror stories of what happened to the boarding party being traded and compared with such a casual glee as to almost make her nauseous, and she had begun to subconsciously slink backwards towards the nearest exit.

Those exit bay doors in question opened up, and an equally green newbie stomped his way into the room. Stomped, because it looked like his yellow suit leggings didn’t quite fit the young Karnakian, and with the way the rest of his suit sort of rippled it was obvious there was a lot of extra space in there. A few of The Perfect’s crew smiled an unkind smile, and the volume of conversation dimmed, slightly; someone had sent in a sacrificial lamb to deliver an ultimatum.

“[Uhm, Hello? HEY!]” The newbie shouted, trying to assert his authority.

“[Didn’t I kill your sister?]” Someone shouted from the back.

The newbie started, trying his best to see who yelled that out. “[WH-what?! Who said that?! YOU’RE LYING!]”

“[Awww.]” Grzn’dre said, crooning like a backfiring chainsaw as the yellow-team pirate announcer shook with emotion. “[That was meeeeaaan~]”

“[S-She is NOT DEAD! T-that was uncalled for!]” the hall monitor shouted, stomping a foot in either anger or an attempt to not topple over. There were a few more chuckles as the crew stopped talking, giving the hall monitor their full and mostly undivided attention. The suited-up Karnakian in question frowned deeply to himself, before trying to muster up whatever emotions he could to address the room of savages. However, since he very obviously had never given a speech in his life – let alone to a hostile audience, the result was… well.

“[H-hello. M-my name is -]” The Yellow-team Hall monitor sniffled loudly, very obviously trying to fight back tears. “[T-today, I, uh, am going t-to explain-]”

From the back of the room came uncontrolled giggling, and the Hall Monitor Karnakian let out a soft wail, his body starting to tremble.

“[Pl-please, I-]” He didn’t get any further before breaking into ugly crying, spinning on his heels and running towards the exit he came from. The doors slid open, and he slammed into the still-sizzling half-corpse of Boots, who unceremoniously shoved the young logistics teammate into a bulkhead and out of his way. The impact of the kid’s face against the steel of the ship let out a loud crack, the sound of which was no stranger to any of the crew and instantly garnered their full and undivided attention. The logistics crewmate was apparently holding a tablet, but with his sudden physical intimacy with the ship the tablet bounced, skipped, and skidded to a halt a few feet away.

In full silence, Boots limped his way over to the damn thing, staring at it for a few moments before looking at the assembled crew. Wisely, he pulled out a service pistol he had liberated from one of his ex-crewmates and thumbed off the safety, before tactlessly and succinctly delivering an ultimatum: 

“[We’re taking your ship.]”

P“pacheep tasted something bitter in his mouth, and on instinct attempted to lick it. This was the wrong thing to do, as his tongue rotated the now loose tooth in it’s gum, shooting an incredible amount of pain into his jaw and waking him up instantly. The last thing he remembered was getting the orders to manage the prey’s crew – a promotion, he was told! – and then given the foreman’s suit as a token of his newfound position.

Now all he saw was a doorframe at a crooked angle, too-bright lights, and a lot of loud yelling. Groggily he rolled over onto his back, the shift of gravity causing both relief and new pain in his jaw and neck, and he groaned.

‘|Friendly Reminder: Your XXCSDF*(==E.ERROR Brand AutoDoc does not have dental realignment capabilities! Please seek medical attention immediately!|’ beeped a helpful voice in his head, and P“pacheep let his mind wander for a few moments. He looked over to his left at what seemed to be an actual riot; the armed guards had formed a protective circle around themselves and seemed too intimidated to use their weapons on a trio of older prey-crew who seemed to be verbally tearing into them… and biggest badass of his pirate association, Boots, was being literally straight-up bullied by a decent chunk of the rest of the prey-crew as they took turns plucking what feathers the poor Karnakian had left while delivering a few not-so-gentle smacks to his writhing form.

P“pacheep’s eyes unfocused for a moment as something blocked out the light from the ceiling lamps. A very unimpressed female Dorarizin stooped over his head, looking down at him with a frown.

“[You ate shit.]”

P“pacheep blinked, before weakly nodding his crest in agreement. “|I should’ve stayed home, been a moisture farmer like my da.|”

The Dorarizin perked her ears up, looking somewhat impressed. “[Well I’ll be shaved and tossed in the snow, you can knock sense into people!]”

P“pacheep grunted, attempted to sit up, realized how terrible an idea that was and promptly laid back down against the cool and welcoming deck floor. He stared at the Dorarizin for a few moments, before an errant thought crossed his aching mind. “|Why… haven’t you killed us all yet?|”

“[Hm! You really did add triple digits to your IQ with that hit, didn’t you?]” The female turned to look at something before giving a signal with her hand; P“pacheep didn’t have the peripheral vision or desire to figure out what communique was passed between the prey-crew. “[Long story short, kid?]” The Dorarizin said, leaning back nonchalantly. “[We haven’t gotten orders to.]”

There was a multi-second long pause as the simple answer wormed it’s way into P“pacheep’s mind, coiled up, and sat there to be processed.

“|That’s it?|” P“pacheep replied, deadpan.

“[That’s it. If you idiots start trying to give us a body count, we’ll defend ourselves – of course – but. That’s it.]”

The two of them stared at each other for a few more seconds, before P“pacheep attempted to swallow – and flinched at the tightness and pain of his swelling throat. “|Ah. Fuck.|”

“[Mhm. Now when are you dipshits going to leave ou-]”

There was the sound of a chime, and to a person the entire crew of The Perfect fell silent. The intercom built into the ship didn’t have any need to “crackle” to life, but it was still very important to let the crew know when the Captain was about to speak, and that they should stop doing whatever the hell they were doing and pay attention…

…even if whatever-the-hell they were doing was giving hell to their “captors”.

“[-Alright, don’t get too excited with that thing or I’ll shove the powercore down your throat and detonate it. Ah.]”

The Dorarizin cooed, clicking her teeth in excitement. “[Oh, I like this version of Sassafras-]”

“[So. I have been negotiating with their mission leader, a person by the name of Bones. Here’s the long and short of it: They think we’re smugglers and are going to go over the ship with a fine toothed comb to steal our goods – which I am still on the record of saying they don’t exist. We’ll be jumping to their base so they can more thoroughly inspect our ship; we will be confined to their brig. Once it’s done and they’ve found nothing, they will leave their base of operations and unlock our ship, allowing us to then make an escape after they’ve all hit FTL.]” Sassafras paused for a moment, before sighing. “[I can only imagine the uproar from you, my crew, so let me put it plainly: It’s either this, or they detonate the limpet mines around our ship and sift the wreckage for salvage, and I’d rather not lose any of you.]”

“[Well aren’t you all a bunch of cold noses, hmm?]” The squatting Dorarizin said, reaching down to purposefully pat P“pacheep’s jaw.

“[I’ve been assured that we won’t be harmed, and I’ve also been assured they can’t break our biometric encryption on our weapons, so. We’re at a bit of a detente here. From my … previous employment, I can assure you of this: They’re going to take everything that’s not bolted down. That’s fine; we have insurance for this very reason. We should be done within a week – 10 days at most.]”

The crew of The Perfect grumbled a bit, and the pause in the announcement was broken by a few swift kicks to Boot’s soft underfluffies, before the captain continued.

“[All hands, prepare for FTL jump.]”

“[So they took it?]” Black Team leader said, worrying another tooth loose in his jaw. Bones sighed as the prey-ship was allowed to spool up their warp engines, the crackling of titanic energy arcing over the ship’s hull.

“[Yes.]” The graying Karnakian said, holding his head in his hands.

“[We still don’t really have control over them – if they realize that-]”

“[Then we’re finished as a crew and as a going concern, Black.]” Bones said, rubbing his jaw to release tension. “[All possibilities have shrunk to a single point; we move as we must.]”

“[We won’t take lifeboats.]” Yellow said, balancing the tip of a stylus on her finger. “[Or, we could, and just leave them in our former base after we evacuate it. Eventually someone would find them, right?]”

Bones was silent as he watched his prey-ship fully come to life, the rippling of the anti-static energy field coating the hull like a soap bubble. “[I always… I liked to think that I’m a man of principle, Yellow. Nothing too stupid, nothing too ambitious, not too bloody… tread that fine line between being enough of a nuisance to retire early but not too much of a nuisance to retire early.]”

“[You going to wax poetic on us, old man?]” Black said, grunting as he pulled a raw tooth free from his jaw, his tongue moving quickly to press against the bleeding gum. “[Dihn’t sihn uhp frh thah.]”

“[I’d like to think that, even now, I’ll be a man of principle.]” Bones murmured, ignoring Black lead, as the ship – The Perfect – crewed mostly by his prey with a few of his advisers on the bridge, pointed towards a theoretically empty part of space and began it’s FTL routine. “[What are they hiding? Is it so important that they’d kill for it? That they’d die for it? Who would we anger if we find it? Who would we be able to control? Does it have a price…?]”

The Perfect seemed to bend a bit, stretching out in every direction before – without any indication of movement – shrinking into nothing. Bones never got tired of that optical illusion; the speed at which the ship departed local space made it seem to shrink to a single point, and throughout his entire life he always kept an eye on the point for as long as he could.

He couldn’t tell you why he did it; he just did. He stared at where The Perfect used to be until he couldn’t determine where exactly it was, or when’t – spacetime is all sorts of wobbly when you try to pinpoint it on a grid.

“[If we find the answers to that, will I still keep my principles?]”

The bridge was quiet for a few moments, as empty space stretched out before the pirate mothership. Soon, they would begin their own jump procedures, and soon they’d be back home, there would be debriefings and anger and grief and payments and blood and all the problems and foibles of life and community.

The silence of the cosmos permeated the bridge, and gave no answers.

The carved-out private room of the Pirate camp’s asteroid was busy with frustrated activity. A mottled red Jornissian sat, half-coiled before a cobbled together workbench, looking at a piece of equipment that had seen better days before it was handed down to him decades ago. He gently set aside printed toys, cute small bipedal figurines and general bric-a-brac to place well-used tools in unfortunately-familiar places.

Stk’shzsk sighed a staccato sigh, the rumbling of his chest messing with the sand-pit of his “bed”. He had gotten into another fight with his brother, and although the older Jornissian meant well, just because Stk’shzsk had a difficulty didn’t mean that he was stupid. Or weak. Or flawed. Or-

He frowned, working his jaw as he looked into the parabolic mirror. Stk’shzsk held up his prosthetic, attempting to bend the “glasses” back into some semblance of order. It wasn’t his fault he was born to a dirt poor family on some no-name planet outside of civilized space. It wasn’t his fault he lost the genetic lottery. It wasn’t his fault that his well meaning parents wanted to live a “pure” life, and that “pure” life had been hard to him, and it wasn’t his fault that his prosthetic – the thing that helped him see – was on it’s last legs.

Stk’shzsk did his best not to complain; really, he tried. Complaining didn’t help anything, and it only made him feel worse. He reminded himself of how lucky he was – that he had family that cared, that his family got him a job as a hand in this freelance economy, that he wasn’t on the front lines doing the dirty work, and that – if he minded his shares – he would be making more in the next few years than his entire family had in the past couple hundred.

‘<Speaking of,>’ Stk’shzsk thought as he bent one of the smaller mirrors back into place, ‘<We should be done with that operation soon, if they caught anything.>’ He looked at his handiwork in the larger parabolic mirror, turning his prosthetic over in his hands to check it’s functionality. He smiled – less at his handiwork, which would be good enough to last until they did a legitimate station-hop and he could get a new one – and more at the thought of being left alone to sort and inventory new goods, see new things, and possibly sneak away some of the more interesting finds for himself.

He never took anything of tremendous value, of course; that would be stealing, and he was just doing some innocent lifting of cultural items that his fellow crewmates couldn’t possibly appreciate.

“<It’s going to be a good day, isn’t it my gentle friends?>” Stk’shzsk said, applying the prosthetic to his face so he could see correctly. His collection of warmcuddle paraphernalia suddenly came into focus, dozens of the little ones stuck in poses of joy, exploration, and wonder.

“<Yes, it is.>” Stk’shzsk replied to himself, and began to get ready for his day.

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They are Smol – Boxes, Badguys and Boops Chapter 10: The Natural Habitat of a Smol

The door to the medbay slid shut, and on principle Drongo locked it behind him as his guest hit the deck outside with a thud. “[Not my problem.]”

“[Really, Doc?]” Toko said, smiling as he rubbed his scalp, the suddenly-twisted crown feathers being entirely uncomfortable but necessary to pull off a “pious” look. “[Didn’t think you had it in you to turn your back on someone suffering like that.]”

Drongo groaned, flicking his ears in a dismissive manner as he moved to Tiki’s bedside, looking over her vitals. “[I have more things to worry about – you sure you’re doing a good job on her disguise?]”

Toko hummed as he continued to braid his sister’s collar feathers. “[Yep, it’s not the first time we’ve been holy pilgrims. Just give her a general anesthetic-]”

“[Toko, she’s going to be in a medically-induced coma for a few days after what she pulled.]” Drongo said flatly, checking the autodoc monitor attached to Tiki’s ankle. “[Recovering from fried implants and then immediately pumping yourself full of stimulants is horrifically dangerous, to say the least.]”

Toko shrugged. “[Old habits die hard, it seems – though she’s forgotten we don’t have infinitely-deep pockets backing us nowadays… and braiding feathers hurts until they grow like that.]”

Drongo growled only half-playfully. “[Oh. So you were the little shitcoils that would come to me with darts through your muzzle because ‘your friend peppered the barrel and wanted to see if it tasted good’, eh? Fucking bushwhackers.]”

Toko laughed, shrugging. “[Gotta keep you on your toes, medic.]” There was a pause as Toko watched Drongo do his work, before clearing his throat. “[Uh, so, Speaking of work… seriously: How is my sister?]”

Drongo paused for a moment as he looked over his patient, putting his thoughts into order. “[At first pass? Inflammation of the heart, lungs and spinal column. Possible cranial leaks; I need to get her under an omni-channel scanner and really check. If her implants have broken open: surgery to staunch or remove them. If not, continue to pump her with stem cells, nanites, steroids and anti-inflammatory medication. Might also switch to cold therapy just to spot-treat and accelerate normalization and re-integration of her wetware, if necessary.]” Drongo grumbled, checking over the autodoc collar on Tiki’s arm, adjusting some of the dosages as they automatically pumped into her limp body. “[Of course, it looks like some leftover parting-gift crap that’s not civvy spec, so I’m half blind in doing all of this… but the theory’s solid.]”

“[You wouldn’t… In your service have dealt with, uh-]”

“[No.]” Drongo said, staring at an awkward Toko. “[My people only.]”

Toko frowned a bit in thought. “[Served in the throne worlds?]”

“[Just no mixed crew – and no, not really. My team kind of meandered about in multiple places, and I did a stint with the Senate peacekeepers too. I was just mainly trained on Dorarizin physiology at that time; didn’t want to spend the 17 years going back to school to get omni-species rated, especially if I wasn’t going to stay in. Since I wasn’t in an active role, I spent a few years in the medbay racking up pension time, then decided to go be a tourist.]” Drongo said, matter-of-factly. “[Did my rounds, and it turns out the omni-cert wasn’t too difficult, and now I’m here.]”

The silence stretched, as the two of them watched Tiki’s gentle breathing, the atmospheric mask attached to her snout rhythmically fogging up with condensation before clearing.

“[So where’s our VIP?]” Toko said, apparently done with the handiwork of his sister’s disguise.

“[He was a bit insistent to stay in storage, so we agreed to house him in the pharmacy overflow cabinet.]” Drongo said, reaching up to pull down a robotic arm from it’s recessed hold in the ceiling. “[Odds are I can treat their wounded, they’ll probably let us keep our synthesized generic medication, and all of our… exotics are already slotted – so don’t get frisked.]” Drongo half-smiled, programming the robotic arm to help with his patient’s care. “[Nothing to steal here in the medbay that they can’t synth themselves, and the overflow storage is rarely used, so…]”

Toko nodded. “[Odds are he’ll be overlooked. Let’s hope so.]”

Early host integration ships for Humanity had to go through many years of rigorous retrofitting and safety standards on the Senate’s dime before they would be approved to house a human being for any length of time, and that tradition didn’t stop once human crews became more widespread: If you were carrying an endangered species, you submitted yourself to the process. Part of this process was submitting your ship to a mandatory full inspection to the United Terran Federation, or UTF, for a thorough once-over. This inspection and additional retrofitting could take months, or even years, and the ship was almost always returned ‘like new’ to the owners.

Operative word here: like. Similar, not exactly.

Certainly the Human quarters were a unique addition, and the locked OIH-approved secret media terminal the talk of the whole ship. Xenos almost always found their way around the bare human quarters to “leave gifts” before their new crew-member showed up, and they were honestly encouraged to do a little bit of snooping. A hidden panel here, a secret cubby there…

…all red herrings.

The UTF had caught on long ago that Humanity was on the back foot in almost all areas – physical, mental, technological, ergonomical, gastronomical – so it would be prudent to give any solo-flight humans every advantage they possibly could in a survival or emergency scenario. The reason to secretly retrofit every ship that was dropped off in Terran space was twofold:

(1) It would allow whatever host specie(s) or government(s) to potentially save face from being accused of letting the resident endangered species die on their watch, and

(2) possibly allow for passive intelligence gathering from the surviving human to be shared with the UTF during debriefing, if shit got so real that the emergency system had to be used.

One example of this emergency system were the red herrings peppered in the human crew quarters; stuffing their living area with secret (but ultimately irrelevant) compartments and switches gave the xenos crew enough “meat on the bone” to feel that they knew everything about the edits to their ship. Believable misdirection, in other words. Each Human crewmate would then be trained on the emergency systems’ use and entry points – and sworn to utmost secrecy, as the whole point of the systems’ effectiveness was in no one else knowing about it.

Certainly making sure the human living quarters could survive a significant amount of damage was sensible, but so were having options that didn’t scream “HEY I’M A VIP, VIP ROOM RIGHT HERE, HELLO COME ON IN.”

‘These fucking panels are so easy.’ Nate said, disconnecting the trick latch behind the vent cover and opening the side panel.

So, part of the “retrofitting” M.O. was to sort of… move some things around inside the host ship. Nothing malicious, mind you, but, well. There is an awful lot of wasted space in xenos ships, and paneling isn’t perfect…

Nate slipped into security ventilation shaft 03, crouching down and turning in place to clamp the vent shut behind him. There were a total of 5 of these “vents” in the ship; soundproof, self-contained, self-pressurized corridors that ran the spine of The Perfect. Every so often there would be some emergency supplies – truly emergency supplies, like oxygen, bagsuits and weapons – bolted onto the wall behind a keypad door, and soft running lights let him know not only the direction he traveled but where was within the ship itself. These weren’t his concern, however, as he began the slow process of crawling on his hands and knees towards the rear of the ship.

No. His goal was one of the two panic rooms: self contained life-rafts, they were built to the same specs as his personal quarters, but buried deep within the guts of the ship. Small, cramped, and ugly; perfect to blend in with normal ship debris or jettisoned compacted garbage. He wouldn’t be living in luxury, as it’s just one room, but he could live there relatively safe for the next few months if necessary.

As Nate crawled forward, he remembered his emergency training acronym SCREM:

Survive: Get yourself out of the situation physically.

Cute your way out of it if you could not.

Reacharound or… Recon: Know your enemy.

Evade: Get out of there… somehow differently than Survive. Wait.

Mechanicus-approved killing machines. Combat Roombas… Or Mitigate Damage.

‘Wait, fuck.’ Nate mentally growled, cursing. ‘Was it SCREM? Or SERE?’

It didn’t matter in the end; he was removing himself from a potential battleground, he was sequestering himself in a secure location, he was going to wait a few hours before poking his head out and checking, and he was going to stay out of everyone’s way. The acronym he used to remember how to do the right thing was irrelevant as long as he continued to do the right thing.

He paused before what looked like a side-branch to the ventilation system and checked the symbols in the light strip for confirmation. Nodding to himself, he laid flat on his stomach and slid down the gentle incline to more-relative safety.

“[37 so far, Bones.]” the Black Team leader said, not letting emotion creep into his voice. “[Possibly double that need some form of medical attention… I have no idea how many are critical.]”

Bones sighed, heavily. The Jornissian Captain – who goes by “Sassafras”, of all things – was most likely right: They weren’t worth it. They weren’t going to be worth it, but anger at perceived arrogance and dismissal clouded his judgment and lead to the single most disastrous operation his association had ever been involved in. Sure, a lost parasite-dropship here, a couple dead crew there – these things happened.

“[Updating. 39. I just lost two more vitals.]”

“[200 Million GRC transferred into an account, and a modified cargo ship worth, what, double that – with this damage?]” Bones mused to himself, looking at the now-quieted prey floating before his viewscreen.

“[Maybe.]” Yellow Team Lead liaison said, continuing to scan the ship. “[It would be worth more, but…]”

Bones closed his eyes. “[Yellow, my sweet, please don’t hurt me.]”

The female Karnakian just shook her crest, letting out a soft note. “[Our auditors aren’t finding anyth-]”

“[DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME THERE’S NOTHING ON THAT VOID-TOUCHED SHIP.]” Bones roared – both to himself, to his team leader, and to whatever mute gods he apparently had pissed off over a lifetime of piracy.

Yellow Team lead paused, for a moment. “[… we have found some good weapons; top tier civilian with some possible black-market military, but nothing cutting edge. Better than what we got, so-]”

“[Explains the casualty count.]” Black Team lead mused, the Dorarizin playing with the tooth he pulled out a few minutes ago idly. “[So that usually means something good.]”

“[Well. They’re also wearing some really nice gear, from what pictures my auditors have sent back.]” the Yellow Team lead Karnakian said, scratching the side of her muzzle. “[Haven’t seen some of these things outside of catalogs and swanky shops.]”

Bones inhaled deeply, before letting out the breath slowly. “[Thank you, both of you, for what you’re trying to do – but literally stripping a crew is petty theft at best; we won’t break even on fuel for this if that’s all we got. You’re telling me your auditors have found absolutely nothing. No secret hatches, no cargo stashes, no fake floors. Nothing.]”

“[It’s fucked. A litter of stillbirths.]” Black Team said, flicking his tooth against his monitor with a plink. “[But consider this: They’re good. Whatever they’re hiding will take longer than a smash and grab to get.]” Black Team lead waved an arm dismissively at his terminal. “[Betrayer’s fur, I can’t even crack their encryption remotely, so unless that Captain is still feeling amicable enough to send us her creds…]”

Bones let out a squak of irritation, bouncing the back of his head against his headrest as he thought. “[Contract is contract and shall ne’er be broken. Dead shares mean at least 4M GRC per death, and 250K GRC per grievous wound. That already takes out a significant chunk from the general ledger, and that’s not counting kin-counting costs for the payout. Captain bleeds first, so I’m not going to see anything from this operation…]”

“[156M GRC in just bodybags, and what – if everyone who’s wounded lost just one limb, that’s what?]” Black Team murmured, looking at Yellow between the bounces of their Captain’s head. “[18M GRC? Not counting lifetime payouts of the dead, of course.]”

“[Sure. So we’re 174 million in the pit before the first word’s spoken.]” Yellow said, starting to tick off points on her fingers. “[Fuel’s roughly 500K among all ships. Staging costs, say double that for the past few weeks? Throw in miscellaneous damages – repairs to ships, to crew equipment, double that? 3.5M GRC for this excursion, before we get into shares for the living.]”

“[180 Million in the hole.]” Bounced Bones’ head between words. “[200 Million transferred. Net 20 Million, but crew capacity halved. That 20 Million would have to cover us for years to rebuild our capacity.]”

“[He’s not wrong.]” Black Team said, picking at his nails slightly nervously. “[We’d also have to toss in for the general ledger’s payouts.]”

“[Nope.]” Bones said, stopping his self-destructive thought process, his head now resting against the headrest. “[We walk away with just their GRC, we no longer are an operation. Not just here, but anywhere. We’d have to move the timetables up on liquidating our inventory to keep us solvent, which would give us unwanted attention… Gods above, I know I’m a sinner, but come on!]”

Silence settled on the bridge again for a few moments, before Bones looked down at The Perfect floating before him. “[Yellow. How much is that ship worth? Parts, not sum.]”

“[Aaah…]” Yellow Team lead warbled in thought, looking over her scans once more. “[Uh, etched in sand here? Most of it looks functional, and we can always adjust… uh, minus costs?]”

Bones let out an affirmative peep. “[Best guess.]”

“[Whew, uh. Assuming absolutely no cargo, and we butcher him for parts only and those parts are easy to get and those parts aren’t damaged… Maybe another 250 Million? Those engines look practically brand-new, and most of the shielding is pristine. I know nothing about the guts, of course, bu-]”

Bones held up a hand to silence his colleague. “[I know, I know. I’m not asking for you to give me a quote written in blood here – just, do you think it’s worth it to scrap the thing?]”

Taking a few minutes to look over The Perfect, and running a lifetime of logistics numbers in her mind, she nodded to herself. “[Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s worth it, and I think we have to.]”

Yellow Team Lead didn’t know it at the time, but she had just made the most important and impactful decision of her life.

And it was the wrong one.

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They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops: Chapter 9

Boots frowned as he stood hunched over the pilot. “[Wait.]”

The new hand – Split, if his IFF was reading correctly, paused his piloting, holding stationary next to the much larger cargo ship. “[What’s wrong?]”

“[Just wait. Let’s see what Orange Team has to say.]”

The Dorarizin pilot shrugged, tilting her head to the side as she took her hands off of the thruster controls. The boarding craft puttered slightly as it’s AI attempted to remain geostationary to it’s target, and after doing so the craft fell silent. “[Just figured we’d get the umbilical lined up and ready to go.]”

Boots – the Green team leader – slipped his tongue between his teeth to pick out a morsel of food in thought. “[I don’t like getting in without the go-ahead from Orange. Usually gets violent if everyone doesn’t know their part.]”

“[Fair.]” Split said, her helmet cycling through various cameras and feeds as her body tugged against the straps of her cockpit seat. “[We’re lined up regardless to a midship airlock, so you’ll be in within 30 seconds once we get the go-ahead.]”

Split was rewarded with an appreciative pat on the top of her helmet. “[Good. Let us know when and we’ll tube out.]” Boots said, smiling not unkindly. “[I want this done, quick and clean.]”

Sassafras frowned as she hunched over her console, listening to her crew give status updates.

“[-and no signals are getting out of system. We’re not getting any hails.]” Licorice said, his hands still working furiously over his console as he cycled through various transmission frequencies, modes and methods aboard the good ship Perfect. “[Well. No hails save for the … what looks like a repurposed pleasure schooner. Probably command ship for this little excursion.]”

“[And the crap attached to my ship?]” Sassafras said, rubbing her now-aching neck.

Sunflower shook his head, yellow feathers splayed out. “[Not good. Looks like a mechanically-repeating EMP of some sort; all I know is that my friends in Engineering can’t safely connect diagnostic computers to our capacitors or phases matter drives without risk of overload. The pulses are timed, but overlapping – we’ll never get through a startup routine without another disabling shock.]”

Sassafras sighed. “[So what do we think?]”

“[Disruption mines.]” Lilybean the Dorarizin said, cycling through external cameras. “[Effective tactic, but you have to be close ranged to do it. In another life we’d use them to disrupt ships outside of problematic jurisdictions. Slap ‘em on, and if they’re not noticed and they warp, at some point in their journey…]” She trailed off, but the dots were already connected.

“[Well we didn’t have these things on when we left port.]” Sunflower said, musing. “[So that’s what hit our ship? I was expecting boarders.]”

“[Getting another hail, Captain.]” Licorice said. “[Should I let them through this time? I don’t know how much longer we’ll buy time with our silence before they just decide to do something.]”

Sassafras looked down in thought for a moment. “[All of the fun lockers emptied?]”

“[Aye, ma’am.]”

“[Very well then.]” Sassafras said, straightening out her clothing into something less pajama-party and more presentable. “[Hopefully it won’t come to that. Let them through.]”

It was incredibly disappointing when Nate first saw a ship-to-ship communication, because unlike Human ships which are built as God intended with only a single giant viewscreen that everyone can look to and make faces at, most inter-ship communications opened up on a few key people’s terminals as a small indicator window. If the communication needed to be shared to the entire bridge, then everyone got a little indicator window on their terminal screen. That’s not saying that there wasn’t a super-large viewscreen at one end of the ship’s bridge, just that when people needed to get work done it was best to pay attention to your work station and not the giant head talking at you.

The screen was still great for movie nights though.

Regardless, there were a couple dozen pings as the communication went through; an elderly Karnakian bowed his head slightly once the connection was made.

“[Good day to you and yours, friend.]”

Sassafras let out a single, mirthless laugh. “[It is neither day nor night, nor good, and we are not friends. But, I appreciate the attempt.]”

The greying Karnakian wiggled his head a bit from side to side, letting out a musical chuckle of his own. “[My, I’m sorry. I represent a group of industrious individuals who would like to assist you in delivering your cargo and spending your GRC to parts unknown.]”

“[You trying to reach a word count or something? You could just call it piracy like everyone else.]” Sassafras murmured, leaning back slightly in her seat.

“[I like making the experience memorable, madam captain; you’ll have a story to tell all your hatchlings and odds are we’ll never meet again.]” The Karnakian said, dipping his head once more. “[But, you can call me Bones – I’m reduced to them, you see. Can’t afford a good meal, and I’m hoping you can help us out with this. Groups like ours get bad… optics, but really we’re free-market capitalists – not murderers.]”

“[Pragmatic.]”

Bones shook his arms in a happy display. “[Exactly! Oh, this will be a quick transaction! Now we have some auditors who would like permission to come aboard-]”

“[No.]” Sassafras said, point-blank. “[Let’s just send you some GRC, you pop these mines off my ship, and we part ways. No one comes aboard, no one gets hurt.]”

Bones chuckled. “[My, I do love to negotiate! My associates and I noticed some incredibly large transactions you’ve made into the local economy-]”

Sassafras closed her eyes, maintaining her external poker face… Internally, she was wondering if the Galactic IRS would’ve been easier to deal with.

“[-and, well. From a, what is one of your phrases – roughskin? From a roughskin to you, these kind of deposits are best made over multiple systems.]”

“[…Wait, what?]” Sassafras said, eyes snapping open.

“[Ah, I love seeing the youth be creative!]” Bones said, grinning. “[But if you’re going to be smuggling goods and laundering credits, you want to be slow about it. Personally, we still have accounts and product we haven’t moved in decades – all to make sure the trail is as cold as can be.]”

Sassafras shook her head, frowning. “[Y- We’re not smugglers!]”

Bones sighed, folding his hands on his terminal in view of the camera. “[We’re not in a court of law, sweet. I don’t know what you moved to that system, or what your contacts told you to do, but when a small crew drops millions of creds into the regional banking system, people are going to notice.]”

Sassafras let out an exasperated groan, and Bones nodded knowingly. “[Rookie mistake. But! This is a wonderful learning opportunity! Now-]”

“[No. Just clean out our bank accounts and move on – it’s not worth your time.]”

Bones smiled softly, his head tilting from side to side slightly. “[No, sweet. It’s… asking is a formality. Our boarders are in place, and we want to let you know that we’re coming in to audit your ship.]”

“[And if I tell you, again, that it’s not worth your time?]”

The Karnakian shrugged, nonplussed. “[We’ll be the judge of that.]”

There is a misnomer that there is no sound in space. This is both true, and slightly inaccurate: sure, there’s no sound-sound, but there’s still vibration, especially if you’re attaching a parasitic umbilical cord to an airlock. There’s the vibration of magnetic clamps sealing, the way the nanite-forged teeth bite into the surrounding ship skin feels like angry punctuation, and then there’s the forced-screw motors physically turning the mechanical gears against the will of the ship open.

If you floated inside the cord, you’d feel nothing. If you held onto one of the support bars, you felt everything.

Boots tightened his grip on the aluminum bar, causing minor denting. “[Guns down. Orange is saying they’re smugglers, so let’s not topple any trains here. You hear me, doorman?]”

Doorman waved his hand dismissively, his body coiled around multiple umbilical frame supports. “[Yep. Outer airlock door is open, chamber one is depressurized. Going to move to open chamber two – bar.]”

Bar moved up, the Dorarizin wedging a hydraulic bar on the “floor” of the door, keeping the airlock forced open. “[Bar’s in place. And Bar is in place.]” She said, moving into the airlock with the Jornissian. The entire crew shuffled forward in an off-putting mockery of a disembarking crew, each waiting their turn to be called off-ship.

Bar pried away part of the airlock interior, exposing the industrial machinery behind it. “[Prepare for atmo.]” Doorman said as he wedged in a second forced-screw motor, beginning to turn the gears. “[Initial flow… now.]”

The inner airlock door slowly gapped open.

There was no hiss of air. No flooding of atmosphere, of ambient sounds.

The inner airlock door widened to silence.

“[Aha!]” Boots laughed, causing a few head-turns. “[Voiding the interior of the ship! They do have something juicy on board!]”

At this, a few of his boarding team seemed to hold themselves with more energy; Boots smacked a few helmets as he made his way forward. “[Ah! No! No heroes. This is to slow us down – but don’t get trigger-happy! This ship could be made of solid gold, or hold nothing at all.]” He stopped outside the exterior airlock door, watching the interior slide fully open. Bar dropped a second bar on the “floor” of the airlock, forcing it open as Doorman peered out the side.

“[Well?]” Bar said, shoving the mess they made to the side of the airlock to make for better throughways.

“[Every bulkhead is sealed shut – on either side. They’re making this a maximum pa-]”

Doorman never got to finish that thought – or any other, as his body jerked to the side, helmet blooming open as what was left of the Jornissian’s head exited his suit, painting the airlock door and walls with his remains. Bar pushed himself backwards, and Boots-

Boots walked forward, stepping on the cooling body of his former colleague.

“[Why can’t we all just get along?]” He sighed, tossing a flashbang out into the interior hallway.

Toko frowned as he looked down the empty “sight” of his auto-turret.

“|That’s one for meeeee~|” Tiki trilled over the commbead, his sister singing in his ear.

Toko flicked through multiple cameras on the ship; no boarders. “|Not fair. You knew which side they were approaching us on-|”

“|Mmmm that might be two!|” Tiki crooned, letting out a very unladylike giggle. “|Oh, how I missed this part of the job! And my boy is built to spec-|”

“|That’s the only way a boy would stick with you-|”

Tiki laughed as her auto-turret moved with the tilting of her head; she thumbed through various EM frequencies to attempt to see through the smoke. “|Aww, don’t be mad that my little turret has pleased more women than you!|”

“|I wouldn’t call you a woman.|” Toko said, sighing with relief that one of his guarded airlock doors exploded inward with a shaped charge, and that he’d finally see some action. “|Demon possessed? Sure. Insane? Certified. Horrific flesh amalgamation masquerading as one of the everbright?|”

“|J e a l o u s.|” Tiki chanted, firing off another few rounds from her auto-turret. The machine was stationed a few bulkheads in front of her actual position; once they forced their way through the first set of doors (and dealt with the shrapnel and pressure wave of an exploding auto-turret) they’d have to then force their way through multiple other trap-filled rooms to eventually get to her position… if she stayed exactly where she was for the potential hours that would take.

She wouldn’t, of course; it’s fun to remotely use a weapon that can fire flechette rounds through bulkheads, but it’s more fun to do it manually.

“|T’ch. They’re deploying chaff.|”

“|Then fire wildly and with abandon into the room!|” Tiki sing-songed, doing exactly that on her side of the ship. “|All friendlies are accounted for~!|”

“|. . . |” Toko sighed. “|Exactly what did [Drongo] give you?|”

“|The good shit.|” Tiki growled, setting her autoturret to “fuck it” and turning the bulkhead before it into a screen door.

“|And how long does the good shit last?|” Toko said, letting slight concern slip into his voice. Tiki picked up on the tone change and hummed.

Tiki sang. “|Brother. I’ll be OK~|”

“|Mmm.|”

Tiki laughed at something happening on her side, before returning to the call. “|Anyway – Detonating! I’ll see you in engineering~|”

Bones frowned as he looked over the makeshift command terminal. His crew had nothing near actual military gear; jailbroken civilian and industrial equipment with some off-spec weapons were all he was used to working with. Sometimes the data that came in to the bridge of whatever ship they stole a few years ago was wrong, and one had to adjust to the new reality.

“[All of it. Every single last credit.]” Sassafras said, tapping her console with her knuckles. “[All of the GRC in our corporate and private accounts; just leave us alone. We are not worth it.]”

The new reality, being, that his boarding crews were being massacred. The first few deaths were unfortunate, but well within the variance of such a task; a hot-blooded security guard, or some old former vet trying to save everyone takes out one or two crewmates every once in a while. That hero is then either beaten into a coma or ‘unfortunately’ killed in the ensuing firefight, and the plan unfolds with less asking and more pistol-whipping.

But this? Actual military-grade auto-turrets. Aerosolized ionized fluroantimonic acid sprays. Hells below, there was even one point where they used atmospheric variances to cause a forced explosive decompression.

“[Bones? It’s been 4 hours. We’re not worth it. We’re offering you, what – 100M GRC? More?]” The Jornissian said, staring directly into the camera. “[Take it. Leave us alone.]”

The problem was, at some point it became less “what is the ROI” and more “what are they hiding?” Bones knew once they returned to base he’d have to pay his king with one of his wings, so to speak, but this was not an ordinary ship.

Whatever they were carrying, it could be the last and final job for everyone.

…well. Everyone who survived.

He muted his transmission, looping the past few silent seconds in repeat to Sassafras, as he turned in his seat. “[Black team. Yellow. What can you give me?]”

One of the Dorarizin Black team crew members leaned back, humming appreciatively as he picked out a loose tooth. “[Nothing. They’re locked up tight; definitely a retrofitted ship, but outside that and a physical connection to one of their unencrypted nodes, I got nothing. Still scrambling their transmissions for what it’s worth.]”

Bones tipped his head. “[Good. Yellow?]”

Another Karnakian scanned their external cameras for a few moments before inhaling… then pausing.

“[Yellow?]” Bones prodded, turning to face the older female fully.

“[I think… they’re playing a dangerous game.]” Yellow team lead said, poking her head forward and flipping through more images. “[And I don’t mean that with the actual combat – I mean… I think they’re dealing appreciable structural damage to their ship.]”

Bones raised a claw in thought, scratching the underside of his chin. “[That… that I can work with.]” With a thought he unpaused the communication, staring at the unblinking Jornissian captain with a slight frown.

“[Take the GRC and go.]” She repeated, and Bones sighed.

“[Sassafras. We’re not leaving until we audit your ship-]”

The Jornissian Captain finally lost her cool, slamming her fists onto her terminal. “[For pity’s sake, why? You can’t have more bodies to throw at us-]”

“[That’s exactly why!]” Bones roared, finally happy to get some emotion from the frigid bitch he’d been negotiating with for the last few hours. “[Look at you! A cargo ship with this much military equipment? With fighters? And you’re not giving us an inch – our engineers see that you’re even damaging your own ship to stop us. What are you carrying that’s so precious?!]”

There was a beat, a pause of silence, before Bones leaned forward. “[We’re more than happy to scuttle your ship and leave a jammer in orbit for a few days – come back when you’re more reasonable to a deal. You can’t have too many rations stashed away, and a little hunger would do well to clear your mind.]”

Sassafras leaned back in her seat, silent, as Bones pressed his advantage. “[We are hitting a point of no return here; I can’t go back empty handed-]”

“[Then ta-]”

“[NO.]” Bones growled, pointing an accusing finger forward at Sassafras. “[No. No, I will know what my crew died for, and it’s not for some fucking GRC! Now your ship is still serviceable, but we start detonating some of those mines and you’re not getting out of interplanetary space in the next few millenia!]”

There was another pause as Bones inhaled deeply, cooling the internal fire that had burst forth. “[We don’t want to kill, but we will. The … math has changed on this deal, unfortunately, and we’ve reached an inflection point.]”

He opened his eyes, meeting Sassafras’ cool stare with his own. “[The choice is yours, but you will make it now. Relent, and we will be merciful, or don’t – and we’ll take what we want from the expanding wreckage of your ship.]”

Sassafras looked down for a moment, before coming to a conclusion.

“[Alright. No retaliation, and we stand down.]”

“[FINALLY.]” Bones cheered, raising his arms to the heavens. “[Was that so hard?!]”

“[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-]”

There was screaming. This, in and of itself, was nothing new on The Perfect, but the person who was screaming was very new to the ship and really didn’t know how things were done around the place.

“[-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-]”

The visitor was disheveled; his combat suit was broken, ripped in a dozen places. This would be a death sentence if not for the fact that he survived the explosive decompression trap – the atmosphere was now low but livable. He was lightheaded from the lack of oxygen – or maybe it was all the bleeding; his tuned-up civilian auto-doc was doing it’s best to keep him alive, and his adrenaline was keeping him conscious, so… it was working out.

“[-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-]”

It wasn’t working out well, but it was working out nonetheless. Half of his helmet was gone, the victim of some damned booby trap. Half of the weapon he held clenched in his fist was charred to uselessness – the other half was somewhere a few hundred meters behind him. He wasn’t necessarily missing a boot so much as the boot had turned into a plastic slug and was now permanently bonded to his foot. He was using said boot-nub to kick open the gears of the bulkhead before him to very little effect. He would be using a forced-screw gear turner, but his team ran out of those and had to do it the manual way.

Then he started to run out of his team.

“[-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-]”

But to top it all off? To add insult to incredibly severe injury was the fact that at some point one of the shrapnel explosions contained glitter.

He held dying crew-mates in his arms as they glittered into the afterlife.

“[-AAAAAAAAAAAAA-]”

Suddenly the bulkhead door lowered into the floor, fluidly, on working hydraulics. Boots stared incredulously at the now-cooperative mechanics, before unsteadily looking up and down the hallway to an entirely non-plussed suited Dorarizin.

“[Sir, this is a medbay, and I’m going to have to ask you to be silent.]”

“[A-ah?]” Boots whined, lowering his arms. “[Aaa.]”

The Dorarizin doctor turned and opened the doors to his medbay, a pair of what looked like some form of Karnakian monks holding each other gently.

“[Thank you.]”

The door slid shut, and Boots spent the next few minutes in silenced – and stunned, reflection, before unceremoniously passing out.

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