Category: Stories

They are Smol – and Festive! Christmas Oneshot

Post author By TPH
Post date January 6, 2019
4 Comments on They are Smol – and Festive! Christmas Oneshot

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Merry Christmas to all the smolreaders! It’s been a wild few months, and I’ve been blessed to have y’all with me as we explore the smolniverse. We’ve grown to almost 100 patrons, we’re at 174 members on the Discord– and then all of you that keep tuning in every week or so, well. You’re here too, and I’m very thankful for it.

I also wanted to apologize for the late post – I got (and still am) super-sick, so what should’ve taken a few hours to put together and post has taken a few days. :c

But as we all know, Christmas is a time when the nights grow long, the lights stand out against the frost (unless you’re in Australia in which case, “yeah, nah cunt”.) and when family comes close to exchange gifts, tell stories, and remember the year.

Unless you live and work on Zephyr Station 8. Then everything’s a clusterfuck.

————————————————————————————————————

Director Glenn “Silk” Abramson sighed as the wave of Deja vu hit him. The Podium’s desk was way too small, his drink was way too lukewarm, and the hyper-intense stares from the three monitors arrayed in the back wall cast a pallid glow on his mildly-annoyed face.

“So. This brings us to the Holiday-slash-Christmas Party. Again, like Thanksgiving-”

A red indicator light popped up on the podium, but Glenn ignored it.

“-I understand not everyone celebrates this, but we’re just calling it such because that’s the traditional thing to do.”

“Kazi nzuri, kikoloni” One of the interns said with a wry grin.

“-Since we’re in a space station/colony, doesn’t that lump you in as well?” Glenn said without skipping a beat. There was a bark of laughter before silence fell again. “So anyway. There will be a “general holiday area” in commons room A-7 for multiple types of decorations; if you’d like to set up a spot for your particular holiday please coordinate with Mike, because he needs to do something useful for once.”

Mike for his part sighed – it seems he was having a very uncomfortable dream.

“So unlike Thanksgiving we are still going to process some skippers; Seeing the stars is new to them, and therefore romantic-”

A second red indicator light popped up on the podium, and Glenn continued to ignore it.

“-so please be on your best behavior. We will also be holding a raffle for who will play Santa Claus-”

A third red indicator light popped up on the podium. Glenn did his absolute best to ignore it, but apparently someone had installed a failsafe mechanism; one all three indicator lights were on they began to flash continuously out of sequence. With a deadpan glare Glenn raised his head, the blinking red indicator lights illuminating the bags under his eyes with a bright red flash. He stared, unfocusing, on the three monitors that sat behind the human crew; One showcased orderly rows upon rows of Dorarizin muzzles and eyes, an unknown paw pressing the “please call on me” indicator button repeatedly. Next to that monitor were the Jornissians, who somehow took the general idea of ‘how many college students can we fit into a phone booth’ to a terrible next level; if Glenn hadn’t been so desensitized to life in general he’d think that he was witnessing a weird, MC Escher background looping and coiling in and on itself. Really, it’s just that the Jornissian delegation were twisting themselves into knots, trying to see more of the screen than anyone else. Every few moments a hand would trade off of pressing the “please call on me” button, and a new one would take it’s place – so everyone shared the blame for interrupting his speech. And as for the Karnakians, well-

…they just looked so goddamn happy that Glenn couldn’t help but frown. All fluff and eyes and smiles–

“-I will regret this until my dying day, but, yes?” He said, tapping the indicator for the Dorarizin. They began to shift and wiggle almost as one – though if that was due to some emotion or the approved delegate trying to claw his way back to the microphone Glenn would never know.

“[Yes! Director [Glenn], may we partake in the festivities as well?]” An Unnamed Dorarizin muzzle said, jutting into the viewscreen. “[Participating in [Thanksgiving] was a very educational experience, and greatly helped us understand your people!]”

With tired eyes Director Abramson looked at his senior staff – one of which was very obviously playing Candy Cruwush XD: VR Edition and the other…. Was still asleep. In that moment Glenn, using his lightning-fast mind, figured that if he could hijack some loading drones to slice the cable to the space elevator his station rested on at a 30 degree angle towards the north pole about 40km below the elevator intake he had a significant non-zero chance of slamming Zephyr Station 8 directly into UN Headquarters.

If the station could also be on fire when it happened, he figured it would be an excellent resignation letter.

“…down that path lies madness.” He murmured to himself, before summoning up the last bastion of his professionalism (and the desire to actually not have the payments for a new station docked from his pay) and addressing the Xenos host. “Although we are fine with you intermingling with the skippers, we do remind you that most of them are bright-eyes. In terms of staff-specific celebrations, those will take place in shifts-” he continued, tapping the second indicator light. “Questions?”

“[We noticed that there is significant cultural and aesthetic importance placed on stars. What’s the purpose of that?]” The mound of Jornissians asked, staying eerily still while doing so.

Glenn took a sip of his lukewarm water, wishing it was something homey like spiced cider… or spiced arsenic.

“It…culturally it was important to use lights to chase away the darkness, to provide promise to the warmth of spring, and…well, they do look pretty.”

“[So…your species is scared of the dark?]”

“Not in so many words. It… it just looks nice, yea? Yeah. Don’t you take Christmas from me.” Glenn said, making a point to point at the Jornissian monitor, as his free hand tapped the last indicator light. “Yes?”

“[We nominate you for Holiday Patriarch!]” Chirped one of the sets of teeth, as almost every Karnakian began to expand their feathers in agreement.

“That’s not how a raffle works-”

“[But you deserve such an honor!]” Another set of razor-sharp teeth protested, eyes fixed upon him, faces twitching to track his slightest movement. He moved his hand to the right slightly, then to the left – they followed as one unit.

“-Again, I’m just one name in-”

“[We agree!]” chimed the Dorarizin, a murmur of…something passing through their delegation. “[We hereby put our vote towards Director [Glenn] being the Holiday Alpha.]”

“-This isn’t a vo-”

“All in Favor?” Mike said, somehow waking up and understanding just enough to push everyone over the edge. He raised his hand, and was joined by every single one of their human crew.

“I fucking hate you all.”

“[Is that the Holiday Spirit? Isn’t he always like tha-]” One of the Jornissians asked, before Glenn shut everything off unceremoniously.

————————————————————————————————————

When the galaxy was opened up to everyone – well, opened up to non-special operations spies – immediately and all-at-once there was that initial scramble of people who said “literally anything is better than where I am” and jumped ship, so to speak. That was followed by a wave of the cautiously-curious, followed by the current mainstream wave of people now.

However, not everyone wanted to go boldly where no one had gone before. Some were too old, set in their ways; going into orbit or flying to the moon would be more than enough to fill their eyes with wonder. Others had children and couldn’t abandon everyone and everything in pursuit of adventure. There were also those slim few who enjoyed what they did for a living and saw space and spaceflight as nothing more than a curiosity – and there were also those to whom adventure held no claim, for any other number of reasons.

These people were called “skippers”: The original term was for the few civvies who went up an elevator and then dropped via shuttle to earth, “skipping” across the atmosphere like a proper astronaut. However, the term was now for people who skipped from Earth to a local Sol body and then back again – be it architects on the Moon working their 7-days-on-4-days-off schedule, terraformers to Mars pulling their monthly shifts, or just the curious enjoying the feeling of being above atmosphere.

Then there were “bright-eyes”. You know the ones. Brand new to space and orbit in general, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. They’re the ones that make asphyxiating jokes in the airlock, try to moonwalk on the station, devour 20th century astronaut food because it’s ‘authentic’, smudge their faces against the glass-

There was a time when Glenn would give them leeway; it brought warmth to his soul to see bright-eyed skippers become desensitized to wonderful things over the course of months, eventually turning into the grumbling caffeinated wage-slaves that lie in all Men’s hearts.

However, that time was not when he was dressed in a bright red Santa Claus outfit, his stubble painted white to match the fake beard glued on his face. It also was not when he was forced to plaster on his customer-service smile(tm) and hold yet another screaming toddler while their parents complained about the nonexistent staleness of the recycled air, waving UV-wands over their entire toddler to keep the germs off of their perfect little bodies, the fake scent of evergreen plastered on the plastic holiday tree(tm) overpowering all other scents and giving Glenn a killer headache. The only succor that Glenn had – nay, the only reason he didn’t use his vast authority on this station to steal someone else’s identity and take their place on a ship headed to the furthest point of the galaxy is because of his helper.

Oh yes. What is Santa without his little elvish helper? Santa needs his helper. And if that helper was supposed to be a lithe female elf, all the better. And if that lithe female elf was replaced at the last minute with Mike but his uniform sadly stayed the same, all the more better.

Mike, frowning, pulled yet another wedgie out from his butt as he walked forward, handing the wonderful couple a 3D daguerreotype of their darling little tyrant. The father looked him up and down, eyes squinted and lip curled in disgust as he took the memento… and then retching softly as Mike turned around, his flabby ass horrifically on displayas the elven short-shorts began to ride up on his walk back.

Glenn drew strength from the communal disgust. It would hold him over this cold winter.

And so Christmas continued; more toddlers, some good and darling, some horrible and pants-shitting. Some parents excellent and understanding – a few regulars actually surprised at who had volunteered to be Santa and taking the chance to talk light shop with him… and a few of them making a note to file an HR complaint when they received their memento.

All in all, it wasn’t Glenn’s fault that Mike actually could fill out an A-cup. The beer-gut midriff was a bit much, though.

And so it was in this haze of mutual loathing and desperately-propping-up-the-lie-of-magic-and-wonderment-for-the-children that Glenn failed to notice some very, very large “children” wait patiently in line. By the time he realized something was amiss, they had progressed so far up the line that… well. You couldn’t very much ask them to leave at that point, now could you?

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren stood happily at the front of the line, greeting Glenn – and indeed, all humans – with her trademark smile, optimism and general positive energy. The fact that she had a good 20-point moose rack stuck to her head didn’t seem to phase her in the least.

“[Hello, Station-Alpha [Glen]!” Rgrenzeh said, teeth clicking happily. “[I am your beast of burden!]”

“…You’re gonna carry that weight, space cowboy.” Mike murmured as Rgrenzeh walked calmly over to Glenn, sitting down with an unceremonious thump next to his chair.

“I uh. Welcome, Rasberry. What…do you want for Christmas?”

“[Oh! Right, you grant wishes – I would like to crush my enemies and see them driven before me! That’s one of your oaths, right-]” She looked over to another Dorarizin who nodded furiously in agreement. Sadly, Rgrenzeh forgot she was now part-moose, back-antlering Glenn right out of his santa-throne. As he took a tumble Rgrenzeh stood up, crying out partly in alarm and in concern – again forgetting that she was part-moose, getting her prodigious antlers stuck in the synthetic Christmas tree.

She bent forward. The tree began to follow.

“AH! Don’- DON’T MOVE.” Mike called out, waving his hands about in concern. “Just… just stay there, don’t move until you can be freed-”

“[Oh! I’m so sorry – are you ok, [Glenn]? I di-I didn’t mean to-]”

“It’s fine.” Director Abramson said, picking himself up from the decking and adjusting his hat. “It’s fine. Just…pleasedon’t take the decorations down with you? Hold still.”

“[Ok!]”

Glenn looked Rgrenzeh up and down for a minute, before slyly adding “…Until we’re done.”

“[Ok!]” Rgrenzeh replied, smile wide to mirror Glenn’s frown. With a pout he sat back down on his throne-under-the-wolfmoose, his head heavy in his hands.

“This won’t get better, will it?”

“[I’m sorry?]” Shpressnrek said, curling up respectfully before the Santa-Throne, her shimmering metallic bodysuit casting soft rainbows across her body.

“It’s nothing. I’m just tallying up the sins of a past life. Good afternoon, Starburst. What can I bring you for Christmas?”

“[Oh! Well, myself and the other [Jornissians] decided that, instead of asking you for something, we would give you a gift instead!]”

“Well. This is a nice surprise-” Glenn murmured, sitting up straight. “So, what did you make?”

“[Well, we knew this was a gift-giving holiday, and so we took the idea of the beauty of stars and created a bit of a light show for you! We’ve turned down each individual [LED] so it shouldn’t be too overwhelming, but-]” Shpressnrek began to fiddle with a control on her wrist, setting dials to the sound of confirmation beeps.

Genn leaned forward as he made the mistake of being intrigued. “Oh! Oh that’ll actually be really nice, maybe we should dim the lights and include it in our festi-”

The flashbang formerly known as Shpressnrek went off, the 100,000,000 nano-LEDs woven into her suit sparking off in a dazzling display of white, blue, red, ultraviolet, infrared and even a little bit of microwave, if the heat on Glenn’s skin was any indicator. Glenn, for his part didn’t flinch whatsoever once the darkness took him; his hind monkey brain had long since given up on such silly notions as “fight or flight instinct”, “dignity” or “self-preservation”. Glenn sat there, smiling, utterly blind.

“[I-I’m so sorry-]”

“Quite honestly this is one of the better holidays I’ve had in recent years. Can we make this blindness permanent – or do I have to hire you out for special occasions?”

“[I’m really very sorry-]” Shpressnrek cried, muffled by… possibly her own body as she knotted herself into a ball of shame, her suit continuing to give happy little beeps of encouragement.

“[I CAN HELP, BRETHEREN!]” Crowed his next tormentor, the sound of taloned steps coming closer and closer. Glenn mused that same dark thought that soldiers did on the front lines; was it better to hear it coming? Did you hear the one that got you?

With a flash of every spectrum Glenn’s eyes began to itch as the Karnakian medical device was removed from his eyes, the world of vision returning to him in splotches of light and darkness at first, before color began to seep in grainily.

Facial expression unchanged, still leaning forward, Glenn looked up at his savior/ghost of christmas future, Tr’Grakz.

“End me now.”

“[A Hallowed [Christ]’s Mass to you as well!]” chirped Tr’Grakz, fluffing himself out proudly at saving yet another Human. “[I have come to perform the ritual and ask a boon.]”

The ritual.

The monkey in his mind swallowed the barrel of a revolver and pulled the trigger, the deafening ‘click’ of a misfire making Glenn blink.

The ritual? Right…

Glenn leaned back and patted his lap. “Whelp. Let’s do-oofh~”

The Karnakian Tr’Grakz wasn’t so much heavy as he was cumbersome, and surprisingly soft. He pressed his chest and torso into Glenn, pushing him back against the chair. Tr’Grakz didn’t so much sit on Glenn as much as he leaned on his entire body, finally settling himself down gently.

“Shhho whah doh yuh wah fohh Chrihhmahhs?” Glenn asked, muffled by feathers.

“[I would like to ask your forgiveness, Station-leader [Glenn]. My bretheren, matrons and myself know our history with your people is a rocky one, and that there are some…plucking-pains with building a nest together. I would ask your forgiveness, and that of all [Humans], as we grow closer together in the future, and as we learn from one another.]”

Glenn tilted his head straight back, staring incredulously at Tr’Grakz’s chin. “I…well. Um. Thank you. I’ll… pass the word along.”

“[Thank you, Station-leader [Glenn]. Also I must ask for an Official Daisy Red Ryder Air Rifle, because it is tradition and I have been an acceptable disciple this year.]”

Mike laughed. Glenn laughed. Rgrenzeh grinned and turned excitedly to Mike to ask what was so funny, pulling the fake tree off it’s stand and sending it crashing to the ground. The flashbang formerly known as Shpressnrek started and ended her comeback tour with a screaming, muffled apology, and the click of a camera caught it all.

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

They are Smol Oneshot Stories

They are Smol – and Thankful! Thanksgiving Oneshot

Post author By TPH
Post date January 6, 2019
1 Comment on They are Smol – and Thankful! Thanksgiving Oneshot

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Happy Turkey Genocide Day, everyone! Remember to keep culling their population every year, or eventually they’ll rise up against us for the injustices we’ve done to them… every year.

…we did not think this through.

Anyway. I wanted to drop this little oneshot to make your Thanksgiving day more bearable; when surrounded by your racist grandparents, your much-more-successful-than-you older brother, your twelve-polymorph zoomer xirgendered foxkin cousin and your really really touchy-feely uncle you can pop open this story and feel good that you’re not the only one having a terrible Thanksgiving.

So are the smols on Zephyr Station 8.

————————————————————————————————————

Director Glenn “Silk” Abramson sighed as he worked his way down the list. The podium’s desk space was always too small for him – especially if he wanted to keep a drink on hand (which you always do).

“Alright, and so that brings me to my last point for the day: Thanksgiving. I know not everyone celebrates it, but enough of us do that we get to have some time off-”

“ありがとう、ガイジン” Chirped one of his subordinates just loud enough to hear.

“You’re welcome,” Glenn responded, not skipping a beat,”-but point of the matter is, is that if you haven’t already filed for shore leave, you’re not going. However, you’re more than welcome to join us for a staff Thanksgiving lunch/dinner; as everyone’s shifts change we’ll just have a spread for you to eat from as you wander in. In regards to senior personnel this leaves myself as commanding officer, we’ve got LT and Mike staying as heads for operations and maintenance, respectively-”

Glenn then made the mistake of looking up, noticing a very thick paw raised in the back. Silencing a groan, he nodded at the Dorarizin attache.

“Yes…Rezen?”

“[Is there a reason why you and the remaining [Humans] haven’t filed for shore leave?]”

Glenn pursed his lips. Awkward questions were part of the gig when you’re dealing with xenos species, as cultural norms absolutely don’t translate. However, being put on the spot was one of the better awkward situations to get into – and honestly, in his long career, as long as it didn’t involve talking about anything religious to a Karnakian then he was fine with it.

15 years later after making that mistake he was still getting incomprehensible chick tracts sent to him by mail.

“Ah. The reasons…vary by individual. Like I said, some of us come from cultures that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Some of us wouldn’t have been able to physically make it to our family gathering spots in time for the holiday. For some parts of the station, someone had to stay to keep things running – we do that by a rotation, and so a few of us are staying because our number was called. For others, we just don’t have family to go to, so we stay here.”

“[You don’t have a family?]” the Dorarizin responded, notable concern in it’s voice.

Glenn shuffled his paper on the podium and adopted his best exhausted-bureaucrat look as he scanned the ‘cheap seat’ peanut gallery. After the… unique Halloween party, it was decided to allow representatives from the various xeno races to sit in on the non-sensitive station meetings – ostensibly to ‘further human-galactic relations’ but really it was to stop any more mis-communications that would lead to more party-crashing. It’s not that Glenn was angry at being hugged for a couple hours, just, it lasted so long he didn’t get a chance to try Asuka’s spooky triple-chocolate brownies and he would be damned if he missed out on her ‘vanilla heaven’ sponge cake.

“Family is a fluid concept. Some humans include their pets in their family, some have family made up of their friends and colleagues, and others just have their mate. Some of us don’t have a traditionally large family, so, instead of all that bother to show up…]” Glenn shrugged. “[We just work, or take the day off. I mean, video-conferencing is a thing we had pre-contact, and soon with hard light projection-”

A scaled hand went up, and Glenn nodded to it – happy to get off the increasingly uncomfortable topic. “Yes, the Jornissian in red.”

“[Are we considered part of your family? You said friends and colleagues could hypothetically count.]”

Glenn’s stomach sank.

“I uh. Um. Personally? Or are you asking me to speak for the crew?”

“[Yes.]” The Jornissian responded, matter-of-factly.

Glenn shared a look between his colleagues – LT just gave a bit of a shrug and Mike was fast asleep, meaning he was marginally more useful than when he was awake, the bastard. The rest of the Human crew was just desperately hoping the presentation would end, and it showed.

“[…Yes. I would say that both personally and speaking for the crew, we consider you all colleagues and friends.]”

When the Karnakian representative raised his talon Glenn knew that everything was about to go pear-shaped.

“Yes…Karnakian in the robes.”

“[May we join in the festivities, then?! We’d love to share in your rich cultural heritage and participate in this multicultural harvest festiv-]”

“This was a setup, wasn’t it?”

“[Pardon?]” The Karnakian responded, looking at Glenn with innocent eyes and a wide, terrifying smile.

Glenn physically felt himself give up.

“Alright. You know what? Fine. We’ll move the spread from Ballroom 5C to Viewing rotunda 1A.”

With an almost manic smile the Karnakian representative turned to address the open door – and to the mixed xenos crowd outside that was not even attempting to hide their eavesdropping. “[HEY GUYS, HE SAID WE CAN JOIN IN THIS TIME!]”

There was a resounding cheer, and Glenn looked at his bottle of water, wishing it was grain alcohol, or paint thinner. With a light sip his dreams were dashed, and, frowning, he dropped the whole thing into the trashcan next to the podium. This act unintentionally roused up a memory from a Thanksgiving long past, and put a very grinch-like smile on his face.

“BUT.” Glenn barked into the microphone, silencing the cheer,”It is important for each participant – or group of participants – to bring their own dish of food. Dish does not mean an actual dish, but a prepared meal of-”

The Karnakian turned back to the group of xenos outside. “[HEY GUYS, WE GET TO FEED THEM TOO!]”

The rest of Glenn’s meeting was filled out by the excited murmuring of their xeno crew, LT’s laughter, Glenn’s exasperated groaning and some quite unhelpful snoring.

————————————————————————————————————

Tr’Grakz nodded to himself, absentmindedly smoothing down the feathers at his sides. “[Alright Bretheren, let’s make sure we’re counting our eggs before they hatch!]” he chirped, loud enough to be heard by all.

His cheery attitude was met with a collective groan, a few hurled insults and not so few hurled bits of unprepared leftover foodstuffs. Dusting himself off with a full-body shake, he continued unabated.

“[Has everyone made sure that their base ingredients are [Human]-safe?]”

“[Yeeeesss]” groaned a majority of the xenos crew, not for the first time that day. Or hour.

“[And has everyone made sure that their finished aggregated dishes are [Human]-safe?]”

“[Literally, who put you in a position of authority?]” groused Shpressnrek, draping over a crate of her prepared foodstuffs, muffling the thumps. “[Why are we even answering to you?]”

“[Because!]” sang Tr’Grakz, doing a slightly happy little wiggle, “[Those who volunteer for good rise to true leadership. That, and my organizational skills are just naturally superior to yours~]”

Without skipping a beat he tilted his head to the side, avoiding a thrown iron bar that embedded itself into the plating behind him.

“[Death to tyrants!]” Shpressnrek called out playfully, “[We will not be crushed underscale!]”

“[I kinda like it that he’s leading]” Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren said, clicking her teeth in thought. “[Makes pinning this on someone when it goes south much easier.]”

“[Oh, good point.]” Shpressnrek conceded, tapping the top of her crate. “[We’re fine here, Tr’Grakz. We’ve been fine the first time you asked, the fifth, and the fifteenth.]”

“[Did everyone make sure to make enough portions for our [Human] hosts?]”

“[Yeeeessss]” groaned the assembled crew once more, now quite done with the double-double checking, and beginning to assemble their ‘spread’ around the atrium.

“[Did everyone remem-]”

“[Brother Tr’Grakz, did you bring anything?]” Rgrezneh asked, innocently.

Tr’Grakz’s crest fell as he suddenly realized how open he was, standing in the spotlight. “[. . . I was just gonna add my name on Tk’Elge’s-]”

“[You were going to what?!]” the Karnakian in question crowed, holding a bag close to her chest. “[Absolutely not-]”

“[Sister PLEASE I didn’t have a chance to hit a fabricator so-]”

Rgrezneh shared a pointed look with Shpressnrek, who smiled as they all got back to work.

————————————————————————————————————

It was the middle shift.

Well. “Middle”. Earth had since moved to a standard 6-hour workday, So the middle shift was both the 2nd and 3rd shift – but if you lumped them together, then you just had a half-day, and a half can’t be a “middle” so-

Let’s try this again. It was 10AM INST, which means it was pretty much the earliest definition of lunchtime that any civilized person would accept.

Someone else who wished he could try it again was Glenn “Silk” Abramson, who found himself among the ‘fortunate’ first batch of human crewmembers to make it to Rotunda 1A, cartdrones of foodstuffs loyally trailing behind them. Both groups of people froze as the doors opened; the Humans, surprised that their Xeno crewmembers were already inside and setup, and the aforementioned crewmembers, who were scrambling to put away what seemed to be a hard-light lifelike lego playset.

With an unceremonious thud Tr’Grakz lept from the wall to land infront of his [Human] crewmates, buckling the deck underneath.

“[Bretheren Humans!]” crowed Tr’Grakz in greeting.

“AAAAAHHH” replied the newbies as they fell on their asses in surprise and fear. Glenn, for his part, just tensed up – then sighed, his implant kicking into IFF overdrive.

“Hello… Trike. It’s good to see you. Happy Thanksgiving.” Glenn responded, in an uncharacteristically gentle and/or resigned manner.

“[Hello Bretheren [Glenn]! Happy Harvest Festival of Gifts and Thanks to you as well-]”

“N-no.” Glenn said, a soft smirk on his lips. “Not all human words are portmanteaus – or are that long. It’s just Thanksgiving.”

“[Oh. Happy Thankful Giving.]” Tr’Grakz ventured, and Glenn met him halfway with a warm smile.

“Close enough! Newbies, you alright?” He said, turning towards the first bit of his shift crew. Most of the veterans remained on their feet, but a few of the newbies were…

Well. Most of the newbies remained. A few of them decided to tap into their Jurassic Park survival instincts and just booked it. Glen looked at them somewhat fondly as they disappeared behind another bulkhead, softly mouthing a silent plea.

“[Is it time for the festival to begin? Does it usually begin at this time? Do we need to be wearing anything special – By the black sun, I can’t believe I never asked that! What about-]”

“TRIKE, please.” Glenn interrupted his concerned colleague, sighing softly. “It’s just a day of feasting, really. There are no elaborate ceremonies, there’s nothing major but food, family and friendship. Speaking of, we need to start setting things up – our fold outs-”

“[Oh! Yes. We saved you a space of honor in the center of the room!]” Tr’Grakz said, adapting the human version of a nod a little too vigorously. “[Do you need assistance in setting up?]”

“Ah, no-” Glenn said, waving his loyal drones (both mechanical and not) to follow him as he sidestepped the Karnakian. “It’s all warming trays and traditional fare. Well, most of it is – Asuka apparently made the desserts, so those are going to be something special.”

“[Ah, yes! Those are the after-meal meals, yes? I’ve been reading up on [Human] feasting customs – so many tiny meals all after the next!]”

“Yeah, we like to take things slow – what can I say?” Glenn said, smiling. “But do you mind giving us some space? We just gotta lay out our things.”

“[Yes! Yes we will be waiting for you right over here when you’re ready!]” Tr’Grakz chirped happily, waving goodbye… for the entire time it took him to walk the 15 meters to the Karnakian ‘station’.

Glenn waved for the first few seconds…but eventually lost that game of chicken to pressing demands of food prep.

————————————————————————————————————

“Alright. You getting that canned heat lit, Jessica?”

“Yeah.” The engineer said, the clicking of the lighter firing off a few times. “Eventually. Also how is it that with all this advanced technology around we keep using this old piece of shit?”

“Because it builds character and it ain’t broke, so why fix it?”

“I beg to differ” Jessica murmured, the clicking of her firelighter becoming more aggrivated. “I remember this thing on my dad’s grill back when I was a ki-FINALLY.” She exclaimed happily, the small flame clicking to life at the end of the handheld lighter. Dipping it into the four wax-filled cans produced four wan, blue flames. “I really think we should upgrade this whole thing. Maybe some conduction heating-”

“Character.” Glenn reiterated, to Jessicas’ consternation.

“FINE. I’m hungry though, so I’m gonna go ahead and start. Fair enough?”

“Yeah, sure, let me just wave over our guests-” Glenn commented, raising his hand for attention. “You guys can come over and try some of our food if you’d like, but please save most of it f-WHOHJEEZ.”

Almost as one the xenos descended upon the small island of Human food, peppering the unfortunate volunteers with multiple questions in no particular order. After a small brouhaha over whether or not croutons were just midget toast – and if so, if they could be used for sandwiches – an orderly line was formed to allow each and every participant to at least sample some Human cuisine.

Not the Vanilla Heaven cake, though. That was off-limits, whenever it arrived.

The results were…mixed, to say the least. Almost every xenos universally disliked the humble potato (much to the ire of the Irish and Russian crewmembers) based not on it’s texture but it’s taste: The Jornissians found it to be far too tart, the Dorarizin didn’t think it tasted like anything but mush, and the Karnakians were just happy to be included.

Cranberries were another mixed bag – Jornissians were fine with the bitter-sweet play of berry and sugar, the Karnakians almost universally begged for some water to put out the ‘immense heat’ of the fruit, and the Dorarizin just wished the aftertaste would go away.

Cheese – ah, the cheese plate. Truly, no better friend to cheese could be found outside of white people and the Dorarizin, who exclaimed that solid fat in any of it’s forms was the greatest thing anyone had ever invented. The Jornissians were nonplussed; it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, and the Karnakians were ok with it – if it was a little crunchier, it’d be good.

Hilariously enough the turkey was the unexpected star of the show. Everyone was pretty much OK with it, and it was OK with pretty much everyone, mainly because it was dead and couldn’t form an opinion on the current state of affairs. As the humans began to fill their own plates and mix and mingle with their colleagues, a few brave interns began to ask what the other races brought to the feast.

In hindsight, this would prove to be the beginning of the end.

“Ok, we’re going to do the same rules – just take a little, make sure everyone else gets a bite.” Glenn said over the growing crowd of humans and the xenos who were anxiously curious about their reactions.

“[Well, hello Bretheren and Sisters! I am Tk’Elge, and I produced this food for you without any outside help.]” Tk’Elge said, over the soft whine of Tr’Grakz. “[We had it quantum-shipped over to this station to make sure they stayed fresh!]” She chirped, patting the bag that rested on the table. With a slight flourish – at least, to her species – she reached in and pulled out a-

“Oh my God it’s adorable!” cooed Jessica, leaning forward to look at the roughly bowling-ball sized fluffball. It had the texture and consistency of downy feathers, and one great, beautiful green eye.

“[Wh-what? No, it’s… It’s not. It’s a Wh’’rchi Oyster.] Tk’Elge corrected, looking slightly confused.

“Oh, alright – so what do you do? Eat the fuzz?” Jessica said, looking up at Tk’Elge with curious joy. “Cause I’d love to see what one of these things looked like shaven! Hehe, probably like a giant grape!”

Wordlessly, and with a mild look of concern, Tk’Elge grabbed either side of the ‘eyelid’ and in one fluid motion pried it open with a sickening crunch.

“OH JESUS” cried Jessica

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee” screeched the Wh’’rchi Oyster

“[It’s just escaping steam.]” reassured Tk’Elge, who was now sporting a look of extreme concern. “[It’s not living, no matter what you think it tells you – this is also why we keep them out of water, because they’re much more…docile this way.]”

“I-oh GOD it just screamed! I-I don’t, I-” Jessica babbled, backpedaling from the countertop

“[No! It’s not – it’s not bad, it’s just fresh!]” Tk’Elge pleaded.

“I’ll take three.” Glenn said, surprisingly confident. “Anything that scares her-”

“You ass!”

“-has got to be good.”

Tk’Elge smiled a halfhearted smile, using her talons to reach in and pluck out a suspended little nugget of violent blue. “[This is rated for [Human] consumption – although it does give you about 7,000% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C.]”

“Well hell – this’ll be useful for flu season.” Glenn chuckled, gingerly taking the proffered nugget of flesh. “Hey Andre-”

“Yes si-” an intern behind Glenn began to say, but was hushed with a sudden mouthful of alien foodstuffs. He glared at Glenn, chewing slowly.

“So?”

Andre swallowed with a grimace. “It’s… banana and alcohol.”

“Well that’s not so-”

“Mixed with chalk and blood.”

“Hmm. So definitely food for the rest of the interns, is what you’re saying.”

“No sir, I’m saying I’m going to file a formal complaint”

“To whom?”

“To… you, sir.” Andre sighed as Glenn grinned, turning back to Tk’Elge. “Thank you for sharing this wonderful dish – tell me, can this be dehydrated and powdered?”

“[I mean, theoretically. It loses it’s spring, though.]”

“I think this would be an excellent supplement for our crew to take to help boost our immune systems – could I bother you to make a few pounds of this and send it to my office?”

Tk’Elge nodded furiously, her winningest (and most terrifying) smile overtaking her earlier grimace of concern. “[Absolutely! I’ll have that up to you in a few days?]”

“Sure, take your time – and please make sure everyone gets a chance to try this delicacy.” Glenn said, looking back at his young wards. “It’s only fair, seeing as how you all tried our food.”

“[Excellent! Please, step up! There’s enough in this one oyster to give everyone seconds!]”

– – – – – –

“And what do we have here?” Director Abramson mused aloud, making sure his crew all had a chance to sample (and recover from) authentic Karnakian cuisine. “It looks like…a metal cube. You do know we can’t eat metal, right?”

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren smiled, wiggling her ears in an amused way. “[Yes, I know. This is just the wrapper-]” Rgrezneh explained, taking her index claw and plunging it into the cube. With absolutely no effort the Dorarizin carved around the box, and with the sound of protesting metal twisted the two halves apart. What remained was… something very familiar looking, which immediately made Glenn’s hair on the back of his neck stand ramrod straight.

“Oh! Hey, of course! I’ve never seen a Dorarizin sausage before, though!” John said, sealing his fate. “What’s it made out of?”

“[Aha, it’s a special formula of Gr-rrzek – well, I should say, specially formulated for [Human] consumption. It’s all well-cooked through meats from various wild and domesticated animals, packed in a [salt-analog] for a few months.]”

“So, trail jerky?”

“[Mmmm.]” Mused Rgrezneh, tilting her head from side to side. “[Yes and no. The principle is there, yes, but this would be more for a special occasion.]”

“So premium jerky. I like this already!” John grinned, looking up at the Dorarizin in question. “So, how do we do the thing?”

“[Just dig in! I’ve got another 10 boxes of this stuff, so don’t be afraid to take a large portion.]”

John with a smile and a nod from Glenn (who had taken three inconspicuous steps back and to the left) reached forward and gripped the end of the sausage closest to him.

It felt solid. Unreasonably solid.

“I uh. Do… do we cut it, or dip it or…” John questioned, trying his best to lift the thing even a little. “Is it uh, stuck?”

“[Oh! I um, I guess since you don’t have claws – I apologize, I should’ve known. May I?]”

“Sure!” the brave, stupid man said. “Is that something that your species normally does for others?”

“[Well, yes and no.]” Rgrezneh said, unsheathing her claws to turn the rock-hard sausage into a fine mince. “[We ah… usually do it for our pups – it’s necessary until their second set of teeth come in.]”

“Oh.”

“[But don’t let that stop you – please! Try again.]” Rgrezneh recovered, scooping a generous pile of the minced sausage into the middle of the table. “[I assure you, it is delicious! High in Iron and Vitamin K and a bunch of other things that you [Human]s need- is something wrong?]”

John wasn’t one to normally complain; definitely not to a xenos in a pseudo-ambassadorial position, and especially not to a xenos who could utterly annihilate him with a simple flick of her wrist, no.

John wasn’t one to complain in this case not because of any of those exceptionally good reasons; he wasn’t one to complain because his mouth had fused shut.

“NNNnnnnnnNNHH?!” John said, coughing. “HHHTS LIH BEANUT BUTTEH BUH WORHS.”

“[O-oh no. Are you ok?!]”

“Just out of curiosity, what’s the moisture level in that thing?” Glenn said, as John desperately scrambled back to the drink cooler.

“[About 0.0001%.]”

“Hmm. So what you’re saying is that your sausage is so delicious that it sends my fellow humans-” Glenn paused at the sounds of drinks being ripped open in fear, “-into fits of silent ecstasy?”

“[I…]” Rgrezneh looked over Glenn to see the human, John, pouring two bottles of water into his mouth between gritted teeth. “[I…don’t think so?]”

“But I do. Please, can you send some of this to the other Human officers? I don’t want this… experience to be limited only to myself and the assembled crew.”

“[I…can, but. Why?]”

“Because I need to teach some of my colleagues that when I need support, they better be awake to give it.”

– – – – – –

“So! What have you got for us?” Glenn chirped happily, ignoring the groans of his Human crew behind him.

“[It’s…nothing. Nothing at all.]” Shpressnrek said, leaning ontop of the prominently-placed crate. “[Quantum transport error, we brought nothing. I am sorry for shaming our species at this wonderful har-]”

“Stop that.” Glenn ordered, and to his credit Shpressnrek visibly flinched. “I’m not going to have you lot finding a conscience now. What did you bring?”

Glenn was a man who wanted to see the world burn, and Shpressnrek saw it in his eyes. With a resigned sigh, she leaned back, taking her weight off of the crate – causing it to jump slightly.

“[It’s a, um. It’s a live R’tts’sk. They’re a farmed delicacy on a colony world; I’d have to prepare it for you, I think, but-]”

“Show me.”

“[Ah… okay. It should be safe within it’s cage-]” Shpressnrek murmured, peeling the top of the plastic crate off like a candy wrapper. Instantly the room was filled with the sound of vicious snarls and the skittering of claws-on-metal.

“Jee-zus. What in the hell-” Glenn murmured, leaning forward just enough to take a look at the cage. He couldn’t see anything; whatever it was was moving far too fast for his naked eye to track. He guessed it was was the size of a dog, knew that it sounded pissed, and that it only got more angry as it saw daylight.

“How the fuck are we supposed to-”

“[Well, that’s why I said I’d probably prepare it for you. Look, all we do is-]” and while maintaining eye contact with Glenn, Shpressnrek’s right arm vanished in a blur of speed. There was a sharp, wet ripping sound, a cry of pain, and an armored, severed limb hung twitching in the Jornissian’s hand.

Glenn thought he heard one of his interns getting sick, but he was far too fascinated by what just happened to really register the brutality of the moment. “Did.. Did you just rip off one of it’s legs?”

“[It grows back. Besides, this is the only good meat on the beast – Sorry, did you want it raw, or cooked?]”

The crate rocked back and forth as the beast, roaring with impotent rage, slammed against it’s iron prison.

“Can I have a bit right now?”

“[Sure.]” Shpressnrek said, ripping off a small chunk of the still-quivering flesh and offering it to the Director.

Maintaining eye contact with his whole crew, Glenn devoured the warm flesh.

“That’s… actually really good.”

“[W-wait, Really?!]”

“Yes! It’s like lemongrass but with the consistency of foie gras and I think I’m getting a hit of pepper in there as well.”

“[Well all right! I’ll also prepare enough for everyone else?]”

“Yes – please do.”

As the Humans collectively groaned Glenn turned around to admonish them. He was going to let fly a speech about camaraderie, experiencing new things, pushing back the boundaries of human ignorance, forging stronger ties with the galactic community and how viewing everything from our narrow locus of attention is a poor way of getting through the universe. He even had a small bit in there about “you don’t know if you like something until your palette gets used to it over time” and “it might taste off but it’s good for you so suck it up” but that was something he would only pull out in an emergency – like if his crew talked back to him, or started to wander off.

It was not meant to be pulled out for the very specific emergency that began with the sound of Shpressnrek ripping off the side of the crate, then loudly exclaiming “[Well fuck.]”

You see, it turns out that the iron bar embedded in the wall had to come from somewhere. That somewhere was from the side of the cage of the (at the time) mildly annoyed R’tts’sk. Shpressnrek had remembered that incident, and had planned to open up the side of the cage that did not have a gaping hole in it, keeping the rest of the crate intact to provide support and the illusion to the dumb beast within that it was still well and thoroughly trapped. This illusion vanished as soon as that panel was accidentally removed, and as we all covered earlier, daylight just made it angrier.

In a blur faster than any human eye could follow, the beast of claws and armor and teeth escaped.

“What d’you mean-?” Glenn asked, turning around in relatively slow motion. Around him, tables were upturned, dishes destroyed, and clawmarks in the walls and floors just appeared as if by magic. The Jornissians were a blur, barking out half-translated commands that Glenn’s comm could not parse, it’s IFF reader shutting off a few miliseconds into the melee as the icons danced and melded too quickly to follow. A few moments into his turnaround he was lifted, as a pack of Dorarizin threw him and the other humans up, a separate group of blurs passing underneath them in a desperate bid to corral the feral beast.

“JES-”

“WH-”

“AAA-” the humans added to the conversation, as one very unfortunate Karnakian slammed into his group’s table, scattering the Wh’’rchi Oysters throughout the room like buckshot. Most landed and bounced harmlessly across the decking only to be trampled underfoot by the combined effort to wrangle the R’tts’sk, but a few very lucky ones found themselves landing in a bath of ice, water, and various other beverages.

It’s feathered hide ramrod-stiff, millions of small pores opened up to suck in moisture – as much as possible from every source around it. As the Wh’’rchi Oysters did so they expanded, and a venemous midnight black tentacle sprouted from it’s ‘iris’, flopping about for prey.

The humans reached the apex of their flight, and began to fall back down.

“-SUS CH-”

“-AT THE-”

“-AAAAAA-” the humans continued, their hind brain having enough sense to try to right their trajectory with strategic flailing. As the Jornissians started to corner the wounded R’tts’sk, the Karnakians started to dance around the Wh’’rchi Oysters – both to distract it with the vibrations of their feet, and also to (hopefully) dart in and rip the tentacle off from it’s base before it started to crawl around. The Karnakians didn’t really mind using trickery in this endeavor, and allowed a few of the oozing things to accidentally grip a table, an empty crate, or a chunk of Dorarizin metal and pull it into their greedy maws.

Speaking of, the Dorarizin were there to catch their Humans as they fell, pulling each one tight against them.

“HHSHT”

“FHHK”

“AAAAH(but muffled)”

Glenn pushed hard against his fluffy savior, pulling his head back for some air. The Dorarizin, for her part, wasn’t paying attention to the human – her eyes were on something moving rapidly behind them.

“What th-“

It was at this point that the sodium metal that the Dorarizin used to cure their meats finally interacted with the water inside the Wh’’rchi Oyster, and exploded. Glenn could only tense up as he was bodily thrown down onto the ground, 300kg of Dorarizin smothering him against the decking. There was another loud explosion, and a few more series of pops – alarms began to go off, and no matter the protests or oaths he swore, Rgrezneh refused to budge.

Looking up at the sudden change of an indicator light, Glenn saw the door slide open. On the other side stood Mike, shirt rumpled after a hard shift of sleeping, ID badge missing, sandals worn with socks.

The two met each other’s gaze – Mike, bleary-eyed, and Glenn, scared, confused, and under a very aggressive female.

Mike never moved a muscle as the door silently slid shut.

“Goddamn you Mike-”

The external door lock indicator turned on.

“MIKE YOU ARE A USELESS PIECE OF SHIT!”

After everything settled down, the crew agreed: That was definitely the 5th worst Thanksgiving they had experienced on the station.

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

Stories They are Smol Oneshot

They are Smol – and Spooky! Halloween Oneshot

Post author By TPH
Post date January 6, 2019
2 Comments on They are Smol – and Spooky! Halloween Oneshot

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“Oh my God how did you even get that up here?” Jessica laughed, poking at the rubber mask.

“I know a guy – maybe you heard of him? Mr. Amazon Prime?” Mike said unflinchingly as his new face was smushed into his old one. With an unceremonious tug, Jessica pulled the zombie face off of her coworker’s head, turning it over in her hands.

“The OIH OK’ed this lame piece of shit?”

“Yeah. I mean, the list to pick from was heavily edited – either a celebrity, a robot-of-your-choice – any puns have to be-”

“Well you’re not that clever so-”

“Granted.” Mike said, tugging his mask out of Jessica’s hands. “Anyway. If you’re a pleb like me then you’re basically stuck with zombie, mummy or ghost. At least, with what you can get up here within half a year or make yourself-”

“Mmmm. Honestly, with your pasty-white skin I would’ve gone with ghos-HEY!”

Jessica barely dodged the thrown mask, laughing as it collapsed on one of the lunchroom tables. “Alright, alright. Man, this office party is gonna suck. No alcohol, no MDMA-”

“Look, it was one time-”

“Yeah, yeah” Jessica dismissed. “Mind if I see the catalog?”

With a wordless grunt Mike tossed the rolled-up mail-order catalog to his partner in crime. “Well. Anyway, I’m going to get my shit ready and finish my rounds; those oxygen scrubbers won’t change themselves. I doubt you’re gonna get anything from there for the party tonight-”

Jessica waved him off as she buried herself in the catalog. “Mmm. True, but I need a terrible sweater for the Christmas party next month. Turn off the gravity on your way out.”

There was a click and the sound of an airlock door opening and shutting in response. Jessica waited a few moments before pushing off with her toes – she gained some air and spun around, making sure the momentum would bounce her off the ceiling in a few minutes.

Until then, she flipped through the OIH mail-order catalog, musing on what – if anything – she should buy for Christmas.

————————————————————————————————————

Tr’Grakz could quite easily murder you on accident.

Granted, he never would – he was a pacifist – but the threat was there just based off of his biology. Once the dust had settled and Atlanta (and most of the world) calmed down, there was immediate fascination with his species; Not just because they were first contact and accidentally, successfully invaded the planet while apologizing profusely, but mainly because almost every Human alive had seen his kind before. Just, yanno. Boney. And very, very dead.

Tr’Grakz was a raptor. Well. He was a Karnakian, but if you just took one of those raptors from Jurassic Park, gave them four eyes, opposable claws, tripled their size and kept the feathers, well…

Point being, there was a media firestorm around their species, both good and bad. For a brief period some humans even thought his species were “forerunners”, whatever that was, and started a cult around them. It was cute until they started to sacrifice goats.

There was a long, long talk about convergent evolution after that.

Tr’Grakz was also having a good day. He was having a good day every day.

As part of reparations to the Human species the Karnakians (and the rest of the Galactic Senate) pooled some of their vast resources together and built a few space elevators, coupled to the [Zephyr] stations. They were excellent points for the various species of the Senate to intermingle, exchange culture, assist in uplifting/employment and all other sorts of social services. Covertly, it was also a way to… placate the more militant [Humans], as putting an alien embassy on every major continent smack-dab in the center of some of their major metropolitan areas would seem less like ‘ease of access’ and more ‘occupying force’.

Tr’Grakz was selected by representatives of the Sacred Council to help smooth over relations between the two species, and to generally prove to the intergalactic community that yes, while accidents do happen, you can always make things better than they were before if you work hard enough at it. This also means that he got to interact with [Humans] on a daily basis, which is absolutely something his fellow Karnakians would take their own tails off for!

Tr’Grakz sang to himself as he rounded the corner, his tweets and peeping echoing down the hall. His implant indicated that someone accidentally turned off the gravity in one of the station employee lounges, and since he didn’t want any of his [Human] friends to get into trouble he decided to make a little detour to the [Human]-occupied part of the station to clean up the mess.

Opening the offending door he took a quick look around, noticing that it was empty – save for some floating snack wrappers. With a bemused chirp he clicked the indicator panel, turning the relatively weak gravity back on.

“[HOLY SHIT-]”

Tr’Grakz looked up and saw a [Human] fall from the ceiling. What a human was doing on the ceiling would be a question answered later – in a blink of an eye he plowed through a steel table and a couple bolted seats, scattering them about as he stood directly under the [Human]

“|I’ve got you, little one!|” Tr’Grakz said, smiling wide

“[AAAAHHHCLOSEYOURMOUTHPLEAASS-]” the [Human] screamed, before falling onto Tr’Grakz with a heavy thud. With a subconsious reflex Tr’Grakz pulled the [Human] against his chest tightly, his feathers expanding under his vest to provide warmpth. The reflex lasted only a moment before he remembered himself and recovered, gently dropping the [Human] down on it’s feet. Her feet.

“|Are you alright? The ceiling is no place for you.|” Tr’Grakz chided gently, nosing the [Human] about to fuss with her clothing.

“[F-fine! I’m fine, I just – I uh, ah.]” The [Human] gently pushed Tr’Grakz’s muzzle away from her chest. “[S-sorry, I didn’t ah. I wasn’t expecting anyone…]”

Tr’Grakz nodded to himself. “|Understandable. I wasn’t expecting anyone on the ceiling either.|”

The two of them shared a look with each other, before Jessica began walking backwards. “[Well, I see that you’ve got some metal to clean up so I’ll just be going now, ok?]”

Tr’Grakz smiled again – not noticing Jessica flinch – and waved goodbye. “|Ok! I’ll clean this up in a few hours! Please don’t tell your [Human] friends to come in. Oh! And also not to rest on the ceilings. Please.|”

He stood there, smiling, as the [Human] backed out of the room, murmuring half-agreements and apologies.

————————————————————————————————————

Tr’Grakz was still having a very good day. He saved a [Human] who was stuck on the ceiling, further healing the rift that stood between proper [Human]-Karnakian relations. He was also – with the help of a swarm of microfabricators – rebuilding [Human-only] cafeteria 11-B.

He continued to sing and hum to himself, making sure the chairs were disassembled, repaired and re-fabricated properly. As the sweeper-drones made their second round (as metal filings are absolutely not what you want to step on, booted or not) he heard a mournful beep. Turning, he noticed a sweeper-drone had come across a booklet of some sort.

Idly, he bent down and picked it up.

With extreme self-control he folded the catalog in half, tucked it under his vest, and set the drones to complete the repair on auto-fabricate.

The door slid closed behind him, and Tr’Grakz began to walk back to the Galactic General section of Zephyr Station 8.

As he rounded the corner, he began to pick up his pace; a brisk walk to his species was a decent run for us, and by the time he was out of the [Human]-only area he was in a full-blown sprint. Dorarizin sidestepped him, Jornissians dipped to let him pass, and his fellow Karnakians just rolled their eyes and made way.

————————————————————————————————————

Shpressnrek murmured to herself and moved her pawn forward. She tasted the air for a brief moment before letting go of the piece, settling her hands back down infront of her.

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren remained on her haunches, staring at the board. The [Human] game of chess was new to everyone – of course it was – but it was simple in it’s rules and species agnostic, so it along with a few other human games had started to make their way into the Galactic community at large.

The Dorarizin picked a bishop – before letting it go and instead picking a rook – and moved it forward, blocking Shpressnrek’s pawn.

“[Hm. There, I thi-]”

The door to their private lounge didn’t so much as open as it evaporated, bits of it flying around the inside of the room to the consternation of the duo and the rest of the patrons.

Tr’Grakz had appeared, and he had news.

“[Bretheren!]” he chirped, happily taking the blows of various snacks, drinks, spicy insults and scraps of door as he skipped his way into the room.

“[By Sotek-who-circles-the-world, can’t you just be normal?]” groused Shpressnrek, working in tandem with Rgrezneh to place pieces back in the proper positions. “[What could possib-and you just dropped this on our game board. Seriously.]”

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren growled at Tr’Grakz. “[I’m going to be talking to your Counselor about this-]”

“[Bretheren, look first! I came here as soon as I found it!]”

“[It’s…Oh. OH!]”

The dynamic entry, combined with the reactions of the chess players, caught everyone’s attention. A circle of interested species formed as the Jornissian flipped through the OIH Handbook catalog.

“[Mmm, let’s see here. Approved food, approved snacks, approved- huh.]”

“[Well! I didn’t read it before coming here – what’s the deal?!]” Tr’Grakz peeped, dancing in place.

“[It’s a list of costumes-]”

“[Oh! Look! The date – they’re going to be doing costumes tonight?! Was anyone invited?!]”

“[Awww]” Rgrezneh murmured, tilting her head. “When I talked to my [Human] he was saying that’s what their young do. I guess the adults to it as well sometimes?]”

“[Maybe it varies by culture? Or by person?]” someone else piped up, the table now thick with faces.

“[Let’s see here. Approved and unapproved costumes.]”

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren laughed as she saw a human in what looked like a Dorarizin costume – A very bad one at that. “[Aww, No! No way, no scentless way!]”

“[They’re trying! Let’s see. [Werewolf]. Anyone got anything cultural from that?]” Shpressnrek called out, loud enough for the whole room to hear.

“[Ah!]” someone piped up from the back. “[Old story, basically a hybrid of their [wolf] predator, a pack hunter, and a [Human]. So possibly a cursed [Human]?]”

“[Makes sense. Next, a Zombie. Well, we all know that one – dead [Human] brought back to life, very scary.]” Shpressnrek grinned to some sarcastic agreements. “[[Ghost]? Is that a Spirit?]”

“[Let’s just roll with the whole curse theme – a cursed spirit could be a ghost. If I recall, this holiday was supposed to be about scaring each other, right?]” another Karnakian ventured, taking notes.

“[Ok. A [Mummified]-[Human].”

“[Isn’t that one of their cultural artifacts?]” a Dorarizin piped up, and there was a slight debate.

“[Okaaay…so a cursed, preserved human. Next on the list, in no particular order…[Vampire].”

Rgrezneh-of-Hrzgaren hummed to herself as she studied the attached picture. “[…blood on the mouth, so eats… probably other [Humans]. Probably another curse of some sort.”

“[Hey, uh. Bretheren?]”

Most everyone turned to Tr’Grakz, a concerned look on his face.

“[Has anyone else noticed that most of their fears are of other [Human]s?]”

The group silently studied the list and attached photos with a little more scrutiny.

“[…are they ok?]”

————————————————————————————————————

Director Glenn “Silk” Abramson smiled as he raised a glass of non-alcoholic punch. “Ladies and Gentlemen, first, a Happy Halloween to everyone-”

“Happy Halloween!” cheered the motley crew of people before him, some raising up drinks and others, snacks, as they gleefully interrupted their boss.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Happy Halloween. Second, thank you all very much for only wearing the approved costumes. I noticed some of our allies out there noticing you-”

“Notice me, senpai~” Someone in the back yelled out, and received a flat stare in response over the laughter of the crew.

“Right, well. Anyway, it’s good to keep things professional and not step on any toes. On that note, Officially I have to explicitly inform everyone that there is to be no heavy drinking, no drugs – regardless of what country you’re from – and that we still have work tomorrow-”

The doors to Ballroom/Meeting Area 5C opened up to a menagerie of Galactic species; everyone was represented in varying amounts, and in varying degrees they all looked…worried.

They should. Director Abramson was getting tired of being interrupted.

“…Well. Welcome to the Human-only Halloween party, impromptu guests. Is something the matter?”

A Jornissian made it’s – no, her? – way up to the stage as the rest of the xenos crew mingled with – and singled out – a human.

“[I don’t know, Director. Is something the matter?]”

Director Glenn “Silk” Abramson, Manager of 200 Humans and the countless thousands that went through his docks every day, sucked on his cheek as he was pulled into a full-body hug.

“Am…am I missing something?” He said to the room in general, watching his other crewmates being gently held, or passed from one xeno to another.

“[Ssh. If you are, we’ll take care of it from now on.]” The Jornissian said, gently rubbing Glenn’s back.

Turns out, it was an OK Halloween office party after all.

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

They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: Chapter 16 – Arc 1 End

Post author By TPH
Post date January 6, 2019
4 Comments on They are Smol: Chapter 16 – Arc 1 End

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*Tic-tak tic-tak tic-tak*

Everyone has their little distractions.

*Tic-tak tic-tak tic-tak*

Some count tiles. Others play with their hands, a bracelet – or a ring. It’s called a “self-soothing gesture”, if you’re interested in the psychology of it.

*Tic-tak tic-tak tic-tak*

Sr. Senator Mateus Carvalho Araujo was a “fidgeter” – mainly, he needed something to occupy his hands when he was nervous, anxious, or just plain bored.

*Tic-tak tic-tak tic-tak*

Of all the things he could use – hard light fidget-dodecahedrons not withstanding – he had in his hand a metal small soccer ball, no bigger than a ping-pong ball, which was his toy. His father bought it for him when he was very young, for some FIFA tournament – the paint had long been worn away by his hands, and the ball had enough dents in it from decades of abuse that you’d only know it was a soccer ball and not a misshapen aluminum lump if you took the time to really study it.

*Tic-tak tic-tak tic-*

“Mateo, for fuck’s sake.” Growled Sr. Senator Nicholas Hermansson, rapping his knuckles against the metal conference room table. “Please?”

Mateo stopped tapping the ball against the corner of the table and instead rolled the ball in his fingers, tossing it from hand to hand. “Mmm. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sr. Senator Yao Wei murmured, flipping through an extremely trashy tabloid. “I still don’t really believe what you’re telling me, but the fact that you’re calling it even after the South China Sea incident-”

“Even? Hon’, this shit is going to sink all of us.” Sr. Senator Constance Washington said, her southern drawl coming out thick with cigarette smoke and heat. “-Me most of all. Can you fuckin’ imagine it? ‘Native Atlantan Senator approves normalization of Karnakian relations’-”

“Sorry.”

“Yer’ damn right you are, Mattie.” Constance interjected, a cigarette held tightly between two pointing fingers. “Stone Mountain is still a fuckin’ quarantine zone, we’re on the cusp of the 30th anniversary of the Fox’s rebuilding, and you drop this on my lap?!”

“Again, sorry.” Mateo said, paying more attention to the ball than to his colleague.

“Don’t be so sour, Connie.” Yao said, flipping a page to find out what batboy has been up to. “Mateo’s been in your corner for reparations every year-”

“Yeah, an’ that’s why I’m here, but I don’t have to like it.”

“I know. The session will be called, you’ve looked through the report-”

“Heads are going to ROLL at the OIH.” Constance said, taking another drag. “That’s what you get for cutting corners, I say.”

“Mmm, but you know there’s something up; they spun up two hundred thousand data models-”

“With their processing power” Yao said, licking her finger to turn another page, “That’s not something to sneeze at in terms of resources.”

Nicholas leaned back in his chair, bouncing the back in idle thought. “Still. A full data-analysis on our home media, algos and simos on Human affinity. Combine that with a head’s up on an Emergency Session with no forewarning, no chance to build a consensus, and a vote that would be legally binding? Who the hell is your mole, Mateo?”

“A Karnakian. One of their lead senators.” Mateo said, matter-of-factly. Nicholas leaned forward, studying his friend’s face hard.

“Bullshit.”

“Nope.”

“Bullshit**.** Mateo, there’s no way – this is a psyop!”

Mateo sighed at the exhuming of his friends’ old spook. “Look, just because you spent the first half of your career shutting down Russian Propaganda-”

“They’re everywhere” Nicholas hissed, driving his index finger down on the table. “They’re just now feathery and way too chipper-”

“Aaaaah!” Yao cried, causing everyone to turn to her. Looking up from the tabloid with a panicked expression, she quickly crumpled the paper. “Batboy! He’s on the dark side of the moon-”

“Fer Fuck’s sake.” Constance said, but by then the spell was broken – the four friends went from paranoia and anger to a more comfortable atmosphere.

“So. The plan, again?” Nicholas said, rolling his shoulders.

“We go in an’ act stupid. They’ll hem an’ haw, want to build on our home soil – which again points to my ‘habitable worlds are rare’ theory-”

“It’s not that.” Mateo sighed, bouncing the ball on his thigh

“Right, well, we vote against that cause I wanna be able to go back t’ earth-side without bein’ lynched – which theoretically we have the votes to stall that-”

“We do.” Mateo murmured

“-I fuckin’ hope we do. And then you’re gon’ do something and our eyes’ll be opened an’ we’ll all have us a come-to-Jesus moment.”

“For the most part, yep.”

“…I hate you when you’re like this, Mattie.”

“Love you too, Connie.”

“Well.” Yao said, smoothing her tabloid out again. “At least if things go south we have a better chance – the TDF actually exists, for one.”

“Mmm. But they never give us any updates.” Constance said, stubbing out her now-dead cigarette. “All we know is what the public knows-”

“Well I did pick up something interesting.” Yao smiled, mischeviously. “Apparently they lost contact with the Hubble a day ago-”

“What?!” Mateo blinked, suddenly sitting upright. “Shit, I forgot to turn off that killswitch-”

Mateo’s panic was interrupted by the door suddenly flying open, a very flustered intern panting at the door.

“S-Senators! Th-there’s an emergen-”

“Yep”

“Yoh”

“Da”

“Mmm” They replied, standing up and putting their things together in no real hurry. Cups were drained and recycled, air was filtered and circulated, roombas were unleashed, clothing was smoothed out – each senator taking their time in getting prepared.

“Some – hah – someone…got to you first?”

“Mmm”

“Eh”

“Nyet”

“Mnn?” They replied, just as noncommittal as before, filing out past the unnamed intern.

“I-it’s, they’re holding it at-”

“Yep”

“We know”

“кто вас послал? что ты знаешь?”

“Here, hon.” Constance said, patting her mostly-empty softpack into his uniform shirt pocket. “Take a break.”

The intern, whose 15 seconds of fame was now up, just sighed and slumped against the wall.

It was meeting room 7-E, if you were curious.

The reason why it was meeting room 7-E was because 7-E is equidistant from everyone (so it’s just as much of a pain to get there), it’s held deep within the station (so you can shield it from everything), it was large enough to hold a handful of each race comfortably (so you can have your secret meetings in peace) and, most importantly, was only 20m away from one of the best dive concession stands on the nexus.

Don’t judge. When you’re 2,250KM above the surface of the earth even The Varsity’s food looks damn good.

“[…and finally, we greet Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn. The 5th Emergency Session of the Four United Races is now active. All exits are now locked until the state of emergency is lifted. All electronic transmission devices are suppressed. Internal recording devices are now on, with IFF markers active. Each representative has full authority to speak on behalf of their species, and in this time of emergency, their word is law. I, Matron Ti’Shek’qc, speaker for this session, do hereby relinquish my initial duty of announcement to allow general discourse to begin.]”

The multi-hued Karnakian dipped her head slightly, pointedly maintaining eye contact with Mateo as she sat down across from him.

Each Species was arranged around the four corners of the room on a raised dais; each dais had workstations tailored to that particular species’ physiology included on it, as well as tables, chairs, and various refreshments. As size so often also meant status (and because the Humans weren’t as… large as their counterparts) they were given a few more pieces of furniture to fill out their section.

The couches and mini-fridges made sense. The foosball table was pushing it.

Regardless, the podium for each species was at the prominent corner, putting the speaker much closer to their adversaries and allies than the rest of the team. A Dorarizin, Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn, cleared his throat, and the three assembled species silently voted to give him the floor.

“[First, Thank you Matron Ti’Shek’qc for opening this emergency session. I’ll get right down to the marrow – our topic of conversation today is the [Humans], [Humanity] in space, and how [Earth] views their allies.]”

Mateo licked his lips and shuffled his papers as Constance Washington stared daggers at the Dorarizin. “And whatcould we have done as a people to warrant an emergency session?” she verbally jabbed, tapping the podium with her knuckles for each point made. “Our military is earth-bound, senate propaganda paints all of you in a positive light, our civilians are spread out amongst your people-”

“[It has to do with these [memes], and how they degrade us.]” Strsk’ressn interrupted, tightening his coils around himself. “[One of your people on our ship was distributing propaganda-]”

“An’ how in the blue hell are we supposed t’ monitor the thoughts an’ actions of everybody?! Not to mention we’ve adopted universal freedom of speech, so-”

“[This was state-sponsored degradation propaganda, Senator [Constance].]” Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn said, pulling up a broken copy of the edited Jornissian movie on every podium’s screen. “[This came from your [OIH], and has been independently verified by another [Human] miner named [Bill].” As he spoke, a second screen overlaid on the first, showing an unreasonably comfortable man showing captioned pictures with Dorarizins in various poses and with various glowing minds.

The reason Mateo and the rest of his skeleton crew voted to have Constance lead was not because of any long-standing tradition, or even because she drew the short straw on this one. It was simply due to the fact that as an older black woman she had (1) raised 3 children and constantly prodded one husband, (2) risen through the politics of her local baptist church to be a deacon (which arguably is more difficult to do than normal politics), and (3) had an impeccable bullshit detector. Couple that with the fact that she did not give a single fuck as to who she was sassing, and would happily tell you – and give you – a backhand if you needed it, and she was a force to be reckoned with. Often times, you’d get a backhand even if you didn’t need it; she was into preventative maintenance like that.

In other words, she was the perfect front man.

“How dare you insinuate that our cultural artifacts are some sort of long-standing ploy to disparage our allies!” Constance yelled, drawing herself up to her full towering height of 5’9”. “The very fact that you would call an emergency session to talk about this – this utter bullshit speaks ill of all of you, and I have half a mind to withdraw from this session in protest!”

“[Senator [Constance], you can’t be so blind to the evidence-]”

“Oh I know this cold-blooded dipshit did not just tell me I am dumb to my face-” Constance said, whipping around to glare at Strsk’ressn, causing him to stiffen up slightly before launching into a counter-argument, followed shortly by the Dorarizin, with the Karnakian delegation just trying to keep the peace.

Just as planned.

“[Then we have NO OPTION LEFT TO US-]” roared Strsk’ressn, slamming his fist into the podium before him. “[We MUST crush this nest before it hatches! I have put forward a motion that would allow civilian [Humans] to integrate peacefully with their Galactic allies-]” he hissed, pointedly attempting to stare down Senator Constance, who by now had already taken off her earrings and heels. “[-by providing them the ability to do so on their native soil!]”

“You’re advocating invasion, you littl-”

“[I agree]” Interjected Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn, the rumble of his throat loud like thunder. “[The only way for us to make sure that there is no bad blood as we share technology with you is to make sure tribalism is stopped early. I second Senator Strsk’ressns’ motion, with the additional addendums that a permanent group of vetted, safe citizens be allowed to live in peace on the planet [Earth], and that this motion is backed by the full propaganda arm of [Humanity]’s [OIH] in the spirit of integration. I motion to put this to a vote.]”

With impressive aggression a little indicator light blinked on Mankind’s terminal, demanding a vote.

“FUCK ALL Y’ALL.” Senator Constance said, adding in a few very spicy hand gestures. “TAG ME OUT.”

Senator Constance spun on her heel and walked back to the rec area, high-fiving Mateo on her way over. Mateo stopped only to pick up his bag and a steaming cup of pick-me-up.

“[What.]”

“Mmm, sorry. There’s only a slight chance this is just coffee.” Senator Mateus Carvalho Araujo said, placing a warm mug on the indicator light.

“[It’s not.]” Sniffed Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn, frowning. “[And we have put forth a motion to-]”

“Yep, yeah, we vote no.”

“[…]” The assembled species looked pointedly at each other – Matron Ti’Shek’qc giving a noncommital shrug as she poked her indicator along with Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn and Senator Strsk’ressn.

“[We vote for the measure-]”

“[We vote no as well.]”

“[Then we’re agr-WHAT?!]” Roared Strsk’ressn, rounding on the now extremely smug Karnakian, who simply nodded at Mateo as yet another verbal tirade began. Mateo raised his coffee in a silent salute, a tired smile spread across his face.

As the Dorarizin and Jornissian delegations began to tear into the Karnakians – figuratively, not literally mind you – Senator Mateus fished out from his messenger bag a certain device. This device was passed around to the three other Senior Senators, and three happy little beeps added to the cacophony of noise. Wordlessly, Senator Mateus typed in a second motion and broadcast it to the surrounding podiums.

“[-and you can forget about cohabitation on any binary stars, once we ge-]”

*Ding*

The sudden silence was deafening as each species looked at their screens.

Humanity hereby petitions for increased aid in re: extra-terran colonization, industrialization infrastructure for a sovereign space fleet and R&D into cultural dissemination practices.

Humanity hereby petitions for normalized relations with the Karnakian Theocracy, and the lifting of all punitive measures in re: Destruction & Invasion of Earth, and the cessation of any punitive measures in re: The 5th Emergency Session of the Four United Races.

Humanity hereby petitions for suppression and destruction of all information regarding recordings, findings and decisions of The 5th Emergency Session of the Four United Races, and a coordinated propaganda campaign in regards to this petition and the previous two petitions.

“I mean, I can’t really do the second one in here, but I figure it would be good to have it on record.” Mateo said into his mug, taking a deep drought.

“[What has gotten into you, Twitchy-thumper? Has the tiny-chompers’ representative gone mad?]” Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn said, smirking.

“I’m- wait.” Senator Nicolas said, shaking his head. “What, repeat that. Just. What?”

“[What do you mean, shadowpouncer? I asked if the tiny-chompers’ have lost their minds.]”

“[The warmcuddles haven’t lost their minds, Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn.]” Strsk’ress said, rolling his jaw. “[We’ve simply been out-maneuvered by-]”

“What the fuck is a tiny chomper?!” Senator Nicholas said, turning to Yao Wei. She shrugged, tapping her earpiece. “Hell if I know – you tell me what a warmcuddle is first.”

Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn blinked and Strsk’ress’s jaw went slack, as behind them their associated attaches began to furiously delete everything – all to the musical tune of Matron Ti’Shek’qc’s laughter.

“[You Traitor! You updated their com-]”

“[It was our mistake to begin with, so it is our prerogative to make it right!]” Ti’Shek’qc chirped and bobbed, her feathers standing out in what could only be described as maximum smug. “[It is not the fault of the little-needs-protecting, now is it?]”

“Litt-what. What?” Nicolas continued to parrot, his brain desperately trying to make connections in the conspiracy-shed out back that had become his mind. “Wh. WHAT.”

“[Look, it’s not our fault-]”

“Then tell me-” mused Mateo, swirling his drink before taking another sip, “exactly whose fault it is anyway? As far as I can tell, you’ve had these interesting names for us since, what, ever?” He looked at the almost spherical ball of smug that was Ti’Shek’qc, who nodded in agreement.

“[I-it’s- look, we meant nothing by it, twitchy-thumper.]”

“Mmm, I’ve heard that one before.”

“[It’s not our fault – it’s your fault!]” hissed Strsk’ress, somehow seeming to lunge at the human delegation while, in fact, retreating into what could only be called a ‘Jornissian-ball’ of coils on his dais. “[How could you expect us to notcall you warmcuddles?!]”

“Oh, I don’t know, common Human decency, a respect for your fellow sapient-”

“[To be fair, you did make it easy.]” chirped Ti’Shek’qc. “[You can’t really blame our scouts for what they did-]”

“Yeah, explain yourself, speaking of, what the fuck.” Yao Wei said, reverting back to a 1st-year english level of speaking as her brain tried to furiously parse the new words coming into her comms.

“[Well, ok. What’s your home world’s name?]” ventured Ti’Shek’qc.

“Earth”

“[Dirt. You’re Dirtlings.]”

“Well, no – ok, I see. Terra, then.”

“[Which also means dirt.]” halfheartedly rumbled Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn, who by now had rested his jaw on the edge of his podium. “[And you call your moon, moon.]”

“W-well, hey-” Mateo said, plunking down his ‘coffee’ mug. “That’s not fair-”

“[You call all other orbiting bodies moons, sometimes, but your moon is moon.]”

“Ok, but-”

“[Your sun is named sun, which is a star. Other stars can also be suns, but your sun is Sun.]” added Strsk’ress, as more and more of him disappeared into himself. “[It’s like you point at a thing, name it, and then just go along with your entire species’ existence-]”

“[And don’t forget the little-needs-protecting religions-]”

“Now y’all motherfuckers leave baby Jesus out of this-” Constance began, before Ti’Shek’qc trilled over her. “[And what is the name of your deity?]”

“Jesus.”

“[Who is also?]” ventured Ti’Shek’qc, smiling wide.

“God.”

“[So what is your God’s name, then?]”

“…God. God is God – don’t you fucking smug at me-” Growled Constance, lifting up her heel to make the 15m toss across the pit.

“[And what even is the Placebo effect?!]” cried Strsk’ress, turning in on himself in embarassed rage. “[You warmcuddles just really wish hard enough and your body kinda makes it happen?!]”

“That we don’t know about.” Shrugged Yao. “But it’s kinda cool.”

“[You literally hope hard enough and it works – just like every single feel-good hatchling story, nippysnoof. That makes no sense.]”

“Nippysno-”

“[Ooh, or lookit-teeth. What even is that?]” ventured Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn to the open air.

“Lookit-teeth?” Nicholas said. “What?”

“[That thing you do when you get tired, protect-from-russians.]” Ti’Shek’qc said, slowly deflating. “[You know, with the open mouth-]”

“You mean yawning?”

“[Yeah! Are you trying to intimidate me? Are you trying to show us your strength? No. Nope. You just want to sleep.]” waved Vresh-Nrelgeh-of-Arzgrn exasperatedly. “[And you expect us to take you seriously-]”

“We Humans are a proud and noble people – we are not cute-” Nicholas roared, earning him a trio of sighs.

“[We vote for the measures-]”

“[I happily and will always remember this day as I vote for the measures-]”

“Well then.” Sighed Mateo as he upturned his empty cup of mostly-not-coffee. “Good stuff, glad we had this meeting. I’ll expect a triple-resource budget allocation on my desk tomorrow morning, then?”

“<What is that?>”

“<Hmm?>” Str’kzssi said, looking up from her terminal at the main screen. On it, [Earth] sat in space, suspended on nothing, as she always had since time began. Everything was as it should be, except for a small, angry red dot.

“<That, that glowing re-AAAH!>”

There was a sudden flash of red light that flooded their optical sensors, and then…. Nothing.

“<By Sotek, what in the frozen hell wa- AAAH!>”

Another sudden flash of red, and then, nothing.

“<Well that’s annoying. Can we filter out whatever it is that’s doing that?>”

“<N->” flash “<-negative, Captain. We’re on standby as the surrogate Orbital Defense Fleet, so we must keep all spectrums>” flash “<-open.>”

“<Well that’s annoying.>”

Flash

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

Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 15

Post author By TPH
Post date January 6, 2019
No Comments on They are Smol: Chapter 15

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It’s time for government red tape!

Var’Shrak and The rapper formerly known as ZNA were able to submit a report
- The Report in fact
  - The humans didn’t get their copy. :c
  - You could say a dog ate their mail

Now it’s time for political intrigue! Maybe.

Let’s see how the duke ~~boys~~ species are gonna get outta this one

————————————————————————————————————

Brazil always speaks first.

Now, this is really one of those cute little facts that end up becoming standard practice, and then codified into law: Brazil always speaks first.

You see, way back when the UN was less of the governing body it is today and more of a debate and “we really should be doing X instead of waging war, guis” club, Brazil spoke first at the General Assembly each year. It spoke at the General Assembly each year not because it won a particularly high-stakes game of poker (no matter what Senior Senator Antonio Silva insists) but because back then nobody wanted to speak first. Each country was deferring to someone else – for various reasons – until the ambassador from Brazil slammed down 5 highballs of caipirinha and just went for it. He did that every year until his liver failed, but by that time it became the norm for the Brazilian ambassador to speak first. That random act of initiative then turned into the norm, which has since been codified into law.

So, of course, when the world needed to unify, they turned to the one nation’s ambassador who they could expect would treat the office with it’s due gravitas and respect it deserved. The fact that he was a coke addict was absolutely not an issue, and so humanity’s first el presidente was elected, mainly because again – Brazil just went for it.

Sr. Senator Mateus Carvalho Araujo, or “Mateo” as he was known to pretty much the entire human crew on Zephyr Nexus 01, was not el presidente. He was, however, the favored intern for El Presidente at the time, and so had the dubious honor of being Mankind’s first voluntold/‘elected’ senator. Unlike his patron Mateo actually got into politics in order to benefit the world, and so over the course of 20 grueling years rose to the high demands of his venerated office.

Mateo was also having another exhausting day.

The Senate wasn’t exactly one gigantic body where everyone sat in a room – or stood awkwardly on disk-shaped platforms dangling over a thousand-foot drop – and talked things out before having a vote and then partying on the taxpayer’s dime. Instead, there were many “senates” depending on the scope and topic being covered. You want to discuss trade negotiations? Well then you’d go to this sub-senate that’s specifically tailored to intergalactic trade and work the governmental machine there. You have an issue around refugee movement through your border? That’s sub-senate room AA-3112 that you’re looking for, though they meet only once a month. You want to talk to the people who manage the schedule and what’s generally to be discussed across all the governing bodies? Well then you need to talk to the Senior Senate, but they never take appointments. Ever.

It might sound like a gigantic bureaucratic mess that exists solely to self-propagate it’s own top-heaviness, but…

…uh…

Well. I mean, it does allow subject matter experts to directly weigh in on legislation, and it’s not like the senators didn’t talk to each other in-between sessions or rely on separate resources.

The average citizen’s overall attitude was “eh. It could be worse. At least we’re not anarcho-capitalists.”

However, none of this was going to help Mateo get through his day. His office – and the office of most of his support team and fellow senators – still followed the 10+hrs/day, 5+days/wk work schedule of the old-school Wall Street firms; demands happen all over the planet at all times of the day – and that’s not counting support for ex-solar humans as well – and so his office needed to stay responsive and up to speed at all times. Most other member species did this by having staff that measured in the hundreds of thousands.

Mateo did this with borderline illegal amounts of caffeine.

The subconscious twitch shaking his left eye had nothing to do with his caffeine intake, either. No, it very much had everything to do with the Karnakian Senior Senator that decided to walk into his human-scaled office and take a seat on his Italian leather couch.

The fact that she did this while Mateo was in the middle of a meeting didn’t seem to phase her. Nor did the fact that she sat down in between the two people he was meeting with seem to bother her at all – in fact, it did quite the opposite.

“S…so…we’ll…discuss the reallocation of funds for destroying the Three Gorges Dam and the subsequent environmental re-stabilization of that particular part of the Chinese Territory once we finish dismantling the Hoover Dam – which should be finished sometime aro-can you please stop that.” Snapped Dr. Wagner, flinging his arm up to bat away at the enveloping feather-shroud that threatened to cover his vision.

“I mean, it’s – her feathers are pretty soft.” Ventured Dr.Liu, resting her hands in her lap – more to keep her paperwork steady as opposed to any sort of demure body language as a Karnakian ‘wing’ wrapped around her shoulders.

“[I am here to help!]” Chirped Senior Senator, Beacon-of-Light, Follower of the 9th path Bretheren-Sister-Matron Ti’Shek’qc, shimmying slightly in place to expand her torso’s….fluff.

“If that’s the case why did you barge into my private meeting?” Mateo complained, not for the first time. “We’re trying to figure out how to best allocate this year’s environmental resource stipend, and we have a very full schedule.”

“[Well, I have something here that will be very helpful, but I can’t wait 5 of your months before we have our initial official conversation. So, I figured I would stop by and have a – you call them social calls? A social call.]” Ti’Shek’qc said, her crested feathers rippling in a nod to herself. “[And we are being sociable, yes?]”

Mateo inhaled sharply, paused, and then sighed. He drummed his fingers against his desk before leaning back, continuing the motion of both nervous/stress tics.

“You do realize my office is sovereign Terran territory, correct? Barging in, unannounced, unwelcomed, kinda echoes…”

He let the implication fall over the room, and for her part the Karnakian had the good sense to lose her chipper attitude. “[Yes, this is a good point, however, since this is a social call that would mean I’ve been invited-]”

“To a private discus-”

“You’re not going to leave until you have a private meeting with me, are you.” Mateo said, not so much asking a question as coming to a realization, interrupting Dr. Wagner in the process.

Ti’Shek’qc smiled to herself and began to silently fuss over her immaculate feathers, preening simply to drag out the silence. Mateo had been in the business long enough to notice a few tells – some would forever be beyond him – but he knew enough to know she was smug.

Mateo hated it when xenos were smug.

“Alright. It better be good.” Mateo capitulated, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his chair.

Ti’Shek’qc sat comfortably on the couch, saying nothing, causing Mateo to frown for a totally different set of reasons.

“Listen, I may not be strong enough to move you but I will have you leave this off-”

“Dr. Wagner, Dr. Liu, thank you both very much for your time. Your combined efforts into the revitalization of our biosphere will not have gone unnoticed – I’ll wholeheartedly push for an additional 80,000 tons of material and the subsequent materiel to continue healing our planet.”

Dr. Liu jumped at the sudden dismissal and shimmied herself out of the Karnakian’s fluffy grasp, rising to her feet. “Senator, are you serious?! The acidification of the Pacific is a far more-”

“Thank you, both of you. Please inform my assistant outside that my schedule is to be cleared for the day.”

Dr. Liu and Dr. Wagner shared a look with each other – well, with each other and a very smugKarnakian, before silently grabbing their documents, files, examples and other bric-a-brac and leaving. The silence began after the door was shut a little too hard, leaving the two Senior Senators staring at each other from across a mahogany desk.

Mateo shifted in his chair.

Ti’Shek’qc settled a little more comfortably on Mateo’s couch, the cracking protest of wood causing both of them to flinch.

“Again?”

“[Mmm, you should have a room-integrated nanofabricator for this kind of-]”

“Bah.” Mateo waved his hand dismissively. “It fixes things down to the molecule, but it misses… I don’t know. The repairs just seem too perfect.”

“[Well, striving for perfection in all things brings us closer to The Great One.]”

“Ah. Well. Speaking about striving – what is going on? Apparently you need to talk to me about something that’s time-critical and off the books, so spill it.”

“[A report was given to my office, as well as the offices of the [Dorarizin] and the [Jornissian] [Human]-relations offices.]”

“So you’re here to deliver my copy?”

“[No. You’ll never get this report. At least, you’re not ever supposed to.]”

“Aaah. The ol’ Sao Paulo Paycheck. Alright, what’s your price?”

“[Normalized relations between [Humans] and Karnakians, the removal of the service prohibition across all employment sectors, standardized trade terms in line with the rest of the Senate species and 20TB of banned media – of my choice.]”

Mateo, for the first time in many, many days, began to laugh. It started as a chuckle, but as Ti’Shek’qc continued it ended up as Superlative Laughter – the very highest form of laughter, as all learned people know. He continued to laugh after she finished, and for quite a few minutes after; dying down at first, but only to redouble once he realized that she was serious.

Ti’Shek’qc huffed and tapped her feet against the ground while her counterpart continued. After an indeterminable amount of time the laughter finally died down, Mateo – now red-faced – wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Good GOD did I need that! Honestly, I’ll get you a banned movie just for that – hoo – that joke. Well done! But, but seriously – what did you want for that report?”

“[Exactly everything I said.]” Ti’Shek’qc replied.

“I can’t do that-”

“[You’re the lead Senator for [Humanity], you can pull some strings-]”

“Your people invaded Earth, and those who survived are still alive. Hell, my dad told me about when you guys wrecked Sao Luis as you swept down through South America from the Caribbean-]”

“[Accidents happen-]”

“Bullshit. Atlanta might have been an accident, but the rest-”

“[Regardless, we’re asking you because tomorrow there’s going to be an emergency Senate vote based off of this report.]”

“Alright, so how does that tie into Mankind?”

“[We know about the [meme]s.”

Without betraying a single thing Mateo leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk, clasping his hands together. “I speak on behalf of the Human Senate Offices as well as the United Nations in saying that we have no idea-”

“[The ones manufactured by the OIH.]”

“-and those rogue elements who have betrayed the trust of us all will be rooted out and tried for their crimes-”

“[We know why you’ve made them as well.]” Ti’Shek’qc said, softly. It was enough – Mateo stopped talking immediately, his mouth opening and closing a few times as his brain tried to come up with something to say.

It was having a hard time between “say something bullshittery to buy yourself time” and “Oh god the dinosaur knows and I’m all alone with it”, but muscle memory kicked in – his right hand shot down and punched into a false side under his desk, flipping a switch that was installed for only the most dire of needs.

Somewhere, out in high earth orbit, the Hubble began to glow an ominous red.

“[A-are you ok? It sounded like you punched-]”

“FINE. F-fine. We’re fine. We’re all going to be fine. Fine. Wh. What do you want?”

Ti’Shek’qc sighed, running her claws against her teeth in a plaintive gesture for her species. “[Everything I said. We… we are truly sorry for doing that to you – to you, your people, your world. The Holy Diarchy has been trying to find a way to make amends, but. Well.]”

“So this report.” Mateo said, speaking loud enough for the recording equipment to pick up. “Why is it worth… so much?”

“[Because tomorrow the Senate will hold an emergency vote, feign being upset and in the spirit of aiding your species request that they have more access to [Earth] in an attempt to normalize [Human]-Xenospecies relations.]”

“B-but that’s forbidden under the Icelandic Treaties. You can’t step foot on Terran soil.”

“[No, we very much can, which is why I’m here. You don’t have the military to stop us and you don’t have the votes. Three races-]”

“-got the report, right. Right. So it’ll be unanimous across the board with one dissenting vote, and then you invade earth properly this time.” He growled, his fists clenched impotently on his desk.

Ti’Shek’qc grimaced. “[N-no. They’d just want access to major cities, free travel – it’s all outlined. Maybe a few semi-permanent residents, but other than that nothing else.]”

“It might as well be an invasion. Hell, our population is already draining due to …well.” Mateo waved his hand at the general direction of earth through the wall. “So. So why are you here, then? Isn’t this what you want? More access to us? More culture to mine? More people to take?”

“[’A fat szikli is only pregnant with poison’. It is what we want, yes, but not how we want it. We’d never be truly welcome, we’d never be friends, we’d never sit at the table as brothers if we force ourselves upon you. We are willing to…give you the report, as well as additional information that will allow you to . . . Change the direction of the debate.]”

“. . . But that does me no good if we’re still a minority position-”

“[We will be voting against the measure – I, I have already seen to it, regardless of what happens here in this room.]”

There was another long pause as Mateo studied his colleague and counterpart, the stress of the past few minutes working it’s way through and out of the man.

“[…the ‘information’ that I would give you to change the discourse would also, most likely, change everything.]”

“Everything how?”

“[Ah. No tasting the porridge before it’s baked. I need you to pull those strings.]”

“Well Fuck.” Mateo breathed, running his hands over his face and through his hair. “Either commit political suicide or allow the Earth to be invaded through bureaucracy? What options do I really have here?!”

“[I don’t know, but to whomever is listening in – it really is good information, and we really are on your side.]”

“Wh – you kn-”

“[I felt it click on.]”

“It’s a completely digital switch-”

Ti’Shek’qc shrugged, exasperatedly. “[I’m just saying, I felt it click on! That’s all! It’s also quite staticky, if that word translates.]”

“I just. Fine. Fuck it, fine. You got me in your corner-” The Karnakian smiled wide, and for the first time in many weeks a human didn’t reflexively flinch at the sight. Mateo, in fact, was leaned over the desk, finger pointed harshly at his co-conspirator. “But this intel better be the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. What is it?”

Ti’Shek’qc slipped her hand into her vest’s front pocket, pulling out both a data chip and a small mechanical tool. She placed the chip – a rectangle about an inch high and 5 inches square, made out of a network of glowing crystals and nth-dimensional circuitry – onto his desk. “[That’s The Report and all correlated evidence, including quantum-time stamps, interviews – everything.]”

Without skipping a beat Mateo stood up with the chip and walked over to his door. As soon as he approached it two men in vantablack suits opened the door, and the chip traded hands. No greetings, no words were spoken – Mateo spun on his heel and the door clicked shut unceremoniously behind him.

“Alright. My boys will look it over- and what the hell is that for?”

“[It’s an implant modification device. What it does is-]”

“No, I mean, I know what it is – I had my ‘bead installed like everyone else. I mean, what is it for?”

“[It is for giving you the second piece of evidence. I am going to update your translator to a more… correct version. Then I want you to ask me to tell you everything I know about [Human]s.]”

“…You’ve fucked with our translators. Do you realize wh-”

“[It is not making them in error, [Mateo]. Simply, the translators omit certain key phrases that might give you more context for your debate tomorrow.]”

“….fine. Fuck it.” Senator Mateus Carvalho Araujo dropped his head on his desk with a hollow-sounding thunk. “Just do it.”

“[Already done.]” Ti’Shek’qc said, the little device in her hand giving out a happy beep. “[Though I suggest not updating everyone’s communication device – it would cause problems. You and the rest of your team, however, I think would be appropriate.]”

“My team? Right, right. Alright.” Mateo said, rubbing his ear to get the ringing to stop. “So tell me about Humanity.”

And Ti’Shek’qc did, using only the textbook definitions, the commonly-known history, and the OIH-approved culture artifacts that were provided. And as she did these innocent things, Mateo stared at her, his jaw slack. He said nothing, only his face betraying a look of more and more confusion, shock, and disbelief. Slowly he reached down and opened a bottom drawer to his desk and pulled out a bottle of scotch – 25 year, for what it’s worth – and uncorked it.

He drank the whole thing without a glass in sight.

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