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They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops, Chapter 24: Hearts and Minds

IMPROVISE. ADAPT. OVERCOME.

Nate leapt off of Bleppy, his friend recoiling from the flash of light and the cacophony of sound that his suit systems so helpfully filtered out from his helmet. The unfortunate but apparent truth is that his homemade grenades were little more than flashbangs – if that was due to an underwhelming payload or a design flaw, Nate didn’t know and didn’t have the time to care. As his boots hit the floor he ripped an emergency tab from his wrist, his suit’s AI dropping into full emergency mode from the emergency pull.

“MY HAND GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER! IT’S BURNING GRIP TELLS ME TO DEFEAT YOU!”

Scanning. Hit Weak spots for Massive Damage.

Nate leapt forward, rolling his hand back to lock his forearm in a “palm strike” position – his suit taking the physical gesture as consent to electromagnetically fuse the limb into a battering ram. As soon as his front foot hit the rough metal floor he pivoted, spinning his hips and torso to put as much force behind his strike as humanly possible. Conserving the momentum from his leap, he slammed the re-enforced heel of his palm into the Jornissian’s side, his suit visor painting the area a bright neon green. As soon as he connected he was rewarded with a pained grunt, the area disappearing from his vision, and in a split second another reappeared on the side of the intruder’s head.

“CASTLE LAW KICK!”

Continuing his conservation of momentum he leapt up, the lower-gravity environment helping him gain altitude as he spun once more, slamming his shin into the jaw of the errant pirate. The Jornissian leaned with the blow, his body flexing instinctively to absorb the kick. Nate kicked off of the intruder as his suit told him to, missing an errant blind swipe that he was too focused to see. His boots squeaked against the floor as his momentum was immediately halted, and his suit readjusted, scanning his foe a thousand times a second to determine the next move.

Part of the enemy flashed green, and without a second thought Nate lifted his leg as high as he could, and slammed his heel onto his now most-hated enemy’s tailtip.

Stk’shzsk really, really, really should have seen this coming, and thinking that thought was extra ironic given the fact that he was currently a tad bit blind. If the authentic and totally true series “<Warmcuddle’s day off>” taught him anything (especially Season 37, Episode 115) it’s that a warmcuddle should never be allowed to build their own fireworks unattended. He had no idea why New-Hope had decided to throw celebratory fireworks at his brother; he could only assume it had something to do with the fact that Hrrs-tssk’ must have destroyed, or run into, all of New-Hope’s nesting arrangements. Did that mean the fireworks were in anger? Surprise?

Did Hrrs-tssk’ accidentally propose to New-Hope by wearing all of his nesting arrangements?!

Stk’shzsk felt New-Hope leap off of him, and risked opening his eyes to see what was happening. There was a stinging, ringing in both his sight and hearing, but he forced himself to see through the pain. He saw New-Hope, slighly blurry, but he seemed to be dancing with his brother that is so precious-

New-Hope spun around and tapped Hrrs-tssk’s head with his boot before spinning away, dancing in place! Stk’shzsk half-smiled, half-grimaced through the pain, as he saw his newest and best friend entertain his brother wi-

“YOU SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR THE OPPOSITE OF THIS”

New-Hope unceremoniously lifted his leg and stepped – no, stomped on his brother’s tail tip, grinding his heel into the ground – and getting a roar of pain out of Hrrs-tssk’.

Stk’shzsk froze for a moment as he realized what was actually going on: New-Hope was defending his territory!

“<Oh dear.>” Stk’shzsk muttered. Leaning forward, half-blind, Stk’shzsk attempted to grab his friend and pull him into a protected and secure hug; unfortunately, either due to his blindness or to the warmcuddles’ newfound speed, Stk’shzsk kept gripping empty air.

Stk’shzsk covered his eyes with his hands as he attempted to force his vision back to normal. “<Please- New-Hope, please, calm down it’s ok->”

A tiny gloved hand pressed against his nose and scratch-patted it. Stk’shzsk darted his hand up to catch the tiny limb, only to grab empty air. Stk’shzsk let out a defeated sigh, and kept his hands over his eyes as he attempted to just think for a moment.

After a few moments of deep thought, Stk’shzsk called out. “<Brother?! I need you to calm down->”

“<CALM DOWN?! YOU UNSHEDDING NITWIT, YOU STOLE A WARM-CUDDLE->”

Hrrs-tssk’ was interrupted by what sounded like a heavily-padded thwump before continuing his rage-fueled tirade.

“<A TRAINED ATTACK WARM-CUDDLE?! YOU CALLED ME A DEGENERATE->”

Stk’shzsk felt his blood boil. “<TRAINED ATTACK WARMCUDDLES?! You think I would DO THAT TO HIM?! YOU INVADED HIS TERRITORY WHAT DID YOU EXPECT->”

“<I CERTAINLY DIDN’T EXPECT MY BROTHER TO BE A SLAVING THIEF->”

The two brothers fell back into an ancient tete-a-tete, digging up decades-old arguments, complaints, critiques on personal tastes, insults on lovers brought home – or the lack thereof, and a dozen dozen other things, all of which were punctuated with padded thwumps and paffs from angry shins and fitin’ fists.

“ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA-”

paffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffpaffthwump

“<THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE IS WHY MOM MOVED BACK INTO THE CITY!>” Hrrs-tssk’ roared, finally rubbing the strain out of his eyes to look down at his diminutive attacker.

Stk’shzsk recoiled back, shock and pain spread across his face. “<N-No! How- how could you say that!>”

Hrrs-tssk’ seemed to physically wilt as he saw his brother’s expression, raising his hand in a placating gesture as the flurry of tiny punches ceased. “<Wait, wait, I didn’t mean- it’s not you, it’s->”

“UOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-”

The two Jornissians stopped their argument to look at the warm-cuddle, who was now howling with rage. Nate’s visor was glowing a bright, blood red as he ripped open the front panel to his suit, gripping something glowy and beginning to pull. Stk’shzsk had no idea what it was, or what was going on, but the cascading and overlapping alarms were definitely not a good thing. Quickly but gently Stk’shzsk darted forward, pointedly avoiding his brother’s gaze, and picked up New-Hope, wrapping him in his coils. The warmcuddle fidgeted for a moment before snapping the front of his suit panel back on, stopping whatever was about to happen in it’s tracks. The screaming, bright lights, and howling of containment fields being breached was replaced with an incredibly awkward and heavy silence.

“<I didn’t mean it.>”

Stk’shzsk didn’t respond, instead gently patting New-Hope’s helmeted head in silence.

“<Stk’shzsk, brother, please. All the fights I’ve gotten in for you, all the things I’ve done for you – you know I don’t mean that.>”

“<Then why’d you say it?>” Stk’shzsk said, gently rubbing out a smudge spot on New-Hope’s visor. New-Hope, for his part, was patting Stk’shzsk’s face and neck, and Stk’shzsk smiled at the attempt to lift his spirits.

“<I wanted to hurt you, alright? I’m just, I’m freaking out right now, all right?!>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, rubbing his sore abdomen. “<I come to check in on you and there’s all these traps->”

“<Warm-cuddle nesting arrangements.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ frowned for a moment but swallowed the comeback. “<Sorry, nesting arrangements. Do you realize what’s been going on in the rest of the station?>”

Stk’shzsk idly played a high-five patty-cake game with New-Hope, answering his brother with only silence. Hrrs-tssk’ sighed internally, but forged on ahead regardless.

“<We – and by we I mean the entire guard – are pulling double-shift patrol routes. We’re doing stop and frisk. We’re confiscating stuff. Everyone here came here to get away from an authoritarian chain around our necks, and now, because of this single warm-cuddle, we’re becoming that authoritarian chain! People don’t eat with us anymore, they don’t drink with us, they don’t even talk to us unless we force them to!>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, curling up as he nursed his various bruises. “<Ach. That’s not counting what the rest of the other groups are doing; Back doesn’t tell us anything other than ‘we’ll know it when we see it’, and just…>”

“<For my part, I’ve been in this cluster after my shift ended.>” Stk’shzsk said, laying down an olive branch with his participation in the conversation. “<A little while later, New-Hope came in through the external vent to my room->”

Hrrs-tssk’ started. “<Wait, you have an external vent? Stk’shzsk, I would have never let you move in here if->”

“<And that is precisely why, my dear brother, that I did not tell you that fact until literally just now.>” Stk’shzsk said, continuing to fuss over New-Hope in a dozen tiny ways to avoid giving away the fact that even he didn’t know the vent wasn’t welded shut.

“<Alright, alright. I’ll tone it down.>” Hrrs-tssk’ grumbled, looking around his brother’s abode with newfound concern. “<We should still get someone in here to make sure this is safe for you, though.>”

“<Well, no one is supposed to come in, that’s the entire point of being way out here – and doubly so, now with New-Hope on board.>” Stk’shzsk smiled, hoisting up the human by his arms gently, adjusting him so he would properly sit in his lap. “<So, he came in a few days later and we’ve been hanging out and watching shows ever since.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ paused for a few moments as a thousand questions bubbled to the surface, his pain from his many wounds subsiding to a dull but omnipresent ache. He wanted to know how the human had survived this long, if the human has always been here, if there were more he should be worried about, if the human would be able to survive here… but none of those questions won out in the end. Instead, Hrrs-tssk’ slumped over in his coils, and let curiosity get the better of him.

“<What kind of shows?>”

Stk’shzsk turned his head slightly up and away from his brother, New-Hope’s hands patting his cheeks. “<Real and authentic warm-cuddle movies that are only shared among true men of taste.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ stared flatly at his brother. “<It was pornography, wasn’t it?>”

Stk’shzsk wrinkled his nose and hissed at Hrrs-tssk’, but the spell was broken – the fight, over. Both Jornissians relaxed a bit, shedding the tension that had built between them over the past few minutes. “<It most certainly was not. It was real movies about real warm-cuddles doing real warm-cuddle things! There were high-rises and jobs and running around and explosions.>”

“<Yes, well.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, watching the human with rapt attention. “<We… we have to figure out what to do.>”

“<Do? We simply do nothing.>” Stk’shzsk responded matter-of-factly, tapping the hands that patted his cheeks. “<We don’t tell anyone, we stay hidden, this blows over, and then we leave and go back home – as a family.>”

“<I. Hmm.>” Hrrs-tssk’ started, before starting again, his brain trying to put together the correct series of words to explain how (1) that was most likely not going to happen, and (2) they were most likely in the deepest shit they had ever been in. “<Alright, let’s call that Plan “A”. We lay low, let this blow over, put the warmcuddle in a … oh I don’t know, in a bag or something and get off these rocks with no one the wiser.>”

“<And that’s exactly what’s going to happen.>”

“<Sure. That’s Plan A.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said as diplomatically as possible. “<Now, just hear me out here, let’s talk about a Plan B. What if we gave him back to his crew? They’re trained to take care of him, and->”

Stk’shzsk instinctively tightened his coils around the human, and a little bit of the hope Hrrs-tssk’s held for dumping the human off on someone else died inside. It also didn’t help that the warmcuddle, New-Hope, also seemed against the idea.

Hrrs-tssk’ mused out loud. “<Alright, Plan C. What if you keep him, here – this is a safe place, easily defensible, you’ve been able to care for him longer than those rock snails->”

“<Hey! I tried! Those little guys just die at the shifting of the sun!>” Stk’shzsk said, pointing an accusing finger at his brother. “<It’s not my fault they can’t survive without a pure-nitrogen atmosphere for five entire seconds.>”

“<Aaah, ah, alright, I’ll give you that. Plan C – you keep him here, but I tell the top brass. AH!>” Hrrs-tssk’ raised his hand to silence the opposition, continuing unabated. “<Let me finish before you scour my scales smooth. I tell the top brass, they do negotiations, and we all leave this trail happy and healthy.>”

“<As a family.>” Stk’shzsk said, defiantly. “<How would you promise that? How would you even get Brains or Bile – or Back to agree to that? Once you let them know you have a general idea that you’ve been searching for a warmcuddle, and that you know where he is…>”

It was Hrrs-tssk’s turn to coil up instinctively, as he began to think. Stk’shzsk sensed his advantage, and pressed it. “<So what, you tell the leaders and they barge in here, kill me, take him. Or if they don’t, they still come in here and kick me out, most likely. Once the council does that, what happens? Objectively, what happens.>”

“<Probably an armed crew revolt.>”

“<A skinning.>” Stk’shzsk said, patting his coils for emphasis. “<And we’re assuming that New-Hope even survives that! No, Plan A – as you call it – is the only option. You go and tell his crew, what happens? Really, objectively, think.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ frowned, scratching the ridge of his hood. “<Probably torture once they know… probably another armed crew revolt.>”

“<Are you willing to risk New-Hope’s life on that?>” Stk’shzsk asked, lifting the human up as his exhibit A. The two aliens looked at each other, before Hrrs-tssk’ met his brother’s intense, pleading gaze.

“<You know he electrocuted me, right?>”

Stk’shzsk rolled his torso as a negative answer. “<You don’t know that->”

“<He also set me on fire.>” Hrrs-tssk’ deadpanned, looking at the human who was sticking his tongue out in mockery.

“<Again, you don’t know that, bro->”

“<Twice.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, with emphasis. “<And then he dropped grit down my suit.>”

An accusatory, awkward silence fell on the group, Hrrs-tssk’ staring down the tiny alien of chaos. Nate, for his part, straightened his shoulders and stared the Jornissian square in the eyes.

“I did it once, I’ll do it again, I didn’t learn nothin’, I ain’t sorry and I told you once you sonofabitch, I’m the best there’s ever been.”

“<See? He’s apologized.>” Stk’shzsk said, with all the conviction a true self-taught humanologist like himself could muster. “<Now you should apologize to him for destroying his nesting arrangements.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ snarled. “<I am not going to apologize for setting off->”

Stk’shzsk held Nate up in defiance. “<You apologize to our new family member right now.>”

The two aliens stared each other down once more – this time, Nate radiated smug as opposed to defiance.

“Say it u lil bitch.”

“<I do not like this warmcuddle right now.>” Hrrs-tssk’ said, tilting his head to the side. “<It’s smug aura mocks me.>”

Nate continued to be held aloft, until with an incredibly exaggerated sigh Hrrs-tssk’ gave in. “<I apologize, warmcuddle… New-Hope, for destroying your dangerous nesting arrangements.>”

“Yeah you do.” Nate said, grinning. After a few moments – and after he was put down, he leaned forward and gave Bleppy’s brother a bit of a boop. The larger Jornissian looked down at his muzzle and the gloved hand upon it, and then back up at his beaming brother.

“<Fine, I see the appeal.>”

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They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops Chapter 23: Family Reunion

The sound of the tapping foot was sharp and metallic against the dying murmur of the dispersing crowd, an unpleasant reminder of unpleasant business being done to an unpleasant person.

“[This is stupid, you’re stupid, I hate you.]”

Hrrs-tssk’ sighed as he finished patting down one of the atmo engineers, his partner finishing up the searching of the Karnakian’s bags. The stop and frisk policy was a new addition to the usual patrol routes; but the fact that back to back shift patrol routes were now a thing was also a new addition. It was one worrying development on top of another, and the escalation was one of those open-secret conversations that are passed around bottom-rung coworkers like wildfire.

“<Sir, I know, but orders are orders.>” Hrrs-tssk’ responded for the hundredth time this shift, and for the hundredth time this shift the person he was talking to ignored the fact that he wasn’t even a team lead and began to blame him personally for the inconvenience. Hrrs-tssk’ let his mind wander as his intellect, and then his parentage were called once more into question, sharing a dead-tired look with his teammate as the Dorarizin buckled and returned the civilian’s bags. After a few more choice words the windbag left, and the two security guards were able to relax.

“[Rip off my tits and blow me out an airlock.]” The Dorarizin said, unceremoniously squatting – then sitting – on the machined corridor floor. “[If I wanted to be a beat cop I wouldn’t have signed up to beat cops.]”

Hrrs-tssk’ let out an affirming grunt, hissing sharply as he pressed his chest against the wall, pressing hard to pop his back. “<Uuuuugh… What do you think happened?>”

The guard flexed her hands in her best ‘no clue’ expression, going physically slack against the ground. “[My guess? Someone’s trying to steal something rare and small. Back telling us that we’ll know it when we see it didn’t help a damn bit, the packless, crazy bitch. I bet the TLs know, but aren’t telling us anything.]”

“<I mean->” Hrrs-tssk’ rolled his shoulder, the deep pop when his muscles released audible from yards away. “<-Stealing shares, fine. Stupid. What if it’s dangerous though? Like exotic matter or that 5th dimensional stuff->”

“[5D string doesn’t exist and you know it.]” His partner rumbled, rolling onto her back. “[But two double shifts back to back does scream ‘scared’ to me.]”

Hrrs-tssk’ nodded and let his mind wander in the few stolen moments, idly switching between warm thoughts of his friends and partners, and then trying to figure out who would be stupid enough to grit the eye of the king. Eventually, he remembered his family, and frowned.

“<Hey, I’m going to go check on my Brother.>”

The floor let out a hearty laugh. “[And what should I say to TL? That my partner decided to tour dens? You know both Back and Bones are monitoring our chatter-]”

“<No one’s patrolled the outer cluster in a few days. It’s a dead end filled with shut-ins and makes no sense for multiple people to search – you can hold the line here by yourself. Besides, it’s the middle of shift, so you should be OK without me for a bit.>”

Hrrs-tssk’ received a non-committal wordless bark in reply, and took it as all the approval he needed to check in on his kin.

The door slid open on borrowed hydraulics, and the bright hallway light very quickly gave way to dimmer and dimmer sight. His Brother decided to take up habitation in one of the older parts of the base cluster – partially because of his condition and desire to be left alone, and partly because agreeing to move to the older, less comfortable parts of the station meant you could usually have as much personal space as the walls would allow.

Hrrs-tssk’ wrinkled his nose, rolling the air over the back of his throat on reflex. It smelled and tasted acrid, like burnt plastic and a sharp metal twinge that he couldn’t place – Hrrs-tssk’ frowned as he continued forward down the dimly lit corridor. It was a matter of energy conservation to reduce the lighting out in the “outer cluster”, the group of staging asteroids that eventually were mostly-abandoned for the main cluster, but it was a matter of survival if the air circulation stopped working. As Hrrs-tssk’ continued down, he realized the air was still mostly fresh – it’s just that something had burned. Out here, in the low priority part of the station, that was nothing new or novel.

Hrrs-tssk’ didn’t even feel the twine wire that he snapped with his lower torso, so protected he was with uniform and armor. However, he did feel the sudden blossoming of warm wetness that covered his entire body, the remainder of whatever silently broke above him hitting the floor with a wet and gooey smack. He screwed his eyes shut and held his breath, waiting for the burn to begin.

A few moments passed, and Hrrs-tssk’ realized that whatever was covering him wasn’t caustic – at least, not caustic enough to cause him any real harm. With the first most terrifying hurdle crossed, he slowly reached up to wipe his eyes clear – he would have to risk one of them, and he most likely would not like what he saw when he did.

Summoning all of his bravery he risked his left eye, cracking it open slowly to look around him.

‘<Oh thank Nidhogg, it wasn’t the sewage main.>’ Hrrs-tssk’ thought, opening his second eye when his first failed to burn. Whatever covered him looked industrial, that’s for sure – it was a grey-brown petroleum product, some lubricant or something. Hrrs-tssk’ went to flick the goop from his hand and realized that only half of it flew off; whatever was on him was sticky.

“<Great.>” Hrrs-tssk’ sighed, tapping his wrist to open comms as he looked up, shielding his eyes from falling debris. “<This is Black 4. Something just broke above me – send maintenance when they have an open ticket. Looks like a tank seal ruptured. No injuries, but I need new kit.>”

“<Understood.>” His implant barked, and went silent once more. Hrrs-tssk’ spent a few moments wiping as much of the gunk from his body as he could, eventually realizing that the easiest way forward would be to shed his outer layer of armor. Bundling it up under his arm – and with his rig now on full display he continued forward, murmuring in that “this day is bullshit” kind of way that we all get from time to time.

If only he wasn’t so distracted, he would have felt the second bit of wire snap as well.

There was a loud click, and Hrrs-tssk’s vision snapped up to identify the source head-on. There was about a half a second realization to his brain that the click wasn’t a weapon and was, instead, a bank of high-power hard-vacuum personal signal lights drawing power from the main. The other half a second was, unfortunately, staring at that bank wide-eyed.

There was a FLASH and then a scream as Hrrs-tssk’ saw every single lumen a Jornissian eye could possibly see, all at once, from about 5 feet away from the source. The goo that was on his face and head ended up flash-frying slightly, turning a tantalizing caramel color and demonstrating the wonder of the Maillard reaction. Hrrs-tssk’ dropped his armor and gripped his eyes, howling in pain as he stumbled forward – and down – into the corridor. Whatever fell on him next he didn’t care; he curled up and let it happen, snarling ferally at the last attack.

Moments passed, and turned to minutes. Hrrs-tssk’ realized that he wasn’t being attacked anymore, and took the time to breathe deeply and think while his eyes recovered. He was going down the corridor to his brother’s room, which itself laid at a dead end down and to the left of where he rested right now. This means that his brother probably put these traps up, and the only reason why his brother would put these traps up is if he was doing something he really shouldn’t be doing.

Hrrs-tssk’ blinked, his vision seeping back in from the omnipresent darkness he had experienced, starting in black and hot and eventually gaining color and bleed. His eyes adjusted, vision still blurry he stood back up – the small glass beads rolling along his body, sliding into crevices, filling up divots, popping into slots and pouring into pouches. He rolled his shoulders, and became immediately uncomfortable.

 “<Are you kidding me?!>” Hrrs-tssk’ asked the empty hallway, as he stripped down further, shaking out as many glass beads as he could from his clothing. At this point he was down to his skivvies, and was more disappointed with his brother than anything else. “<Mom said I needed to look out for you, but this is just damn goofy.>”

In a bit of frustration he tossed his soaked, fried and glass bauble-laden jacket down the hallway, half expecting something to happen. When it landed on the ground with a wet crumpling thwuf Hrrs-tssk’ sighed, slowly striding over to pick his clothing off of the dirty floor. As he reached his jacket he noticed something incredibly fascinating about this part of the hallway, namely (1) The metal plates he was standing on were connected by wires to something and (2) those exact metal plates somewhat depressed once he reached his jacket.

Hrrs-tssk’ flailed and screamed once more as electricity and heat coursed through his body – jacket and kit long forgotten he dove down the corridor off of the plates, his tailtip spasming against the ground as nerve signals continued to misfire. He rolled up into a defensive posture, his body twitching and shaking with errant tremors.

‘<Pressure plates. Were they all pressure plates?>’ Hrrs-tssk’ thought, reaching out to the wall to steady himself. His hand sunk in about a half an inch, and Hrrs-tssk’ whined as he heard the gurgle and rush of fluid through pipes. He heard that, but he felt the spray of liquid nitrogen hit his side, and with wild abandon he flung himself down the hallway towards his Brother.

“Bang! Boom! Ptchooo~!”

“[No New-Hope, they fight evil, not each other.]” Bleppy said, tilting his head and reaching down to his lap.

“Heck you I won’t do what you tell me!” Nate said, meaning exactly none of those words as the Jornissian’s hands picked up the carved figurines that had “died” in the epic battle that Nate was playing on Bleppy’s tail. The two of them had finished putting together some of the preliminary traps – Nate was hoping that Bleppy would finally discern his intentions, but the lad had continued to talk about nesting behavior, hanging shiny trinkets around to mark territory, and muttering something about “human-proofing the area”.

Such a feat had escaped OSHA for the past few hundred years, and would continue to do so until the end of time.

“[Now they’re friends because they all have to live together on the same shelf, so let’s not cause any bad memories, alright?]” Bleppy explained, putting the figurines back in their approved shrine positions. “[I don-]”

A small bell rang. It was tinny, it chimed, and it was about 500 years past it’s prime, but it was something that let you know someone was outside and would very much like to come in now thank you. Normally this was fine, but when you were playing host to an endangered species that you kind-of kidnapped, it was a terrifying sound. Bleppy froze for a moment, but Nate dove for the sand-bed, burrowing underneath the used grit as he clutched a rope tightly in his hands. Bleppy stood there for a moment before snapping out of his stupor, sliding over and laying on top of his friend. The suited-up Human disappeared under the sand, and Bleppy sat up, wiping the crumbs from his very used shirt.

“[Come in!]”

Bleppy’s door slid open to show an absolutely and utterly exhausted Hrrs-tssk’, who was tanned, caramelized, bleeding, sticky, covered in grit, glitter, mica dust and fire.

“[AAAAAAAAH.]” Hrrs-tssk’ yelled in both rage and confusion, staring daggers into his brother.

There was a twice-muffled “Andthencomesthegiantfist-” before the rope under Bleppy was pulled, hard. The two Jornissians looked at the rope, followed it to the first pulley on the wall, and then to the second pulley that attached to a net, filled with metal lumps, scrap, twisted and pointy bits of plastic and a few used napkins. With the pull, the tied knot that held all that detritus together was loosed, and Bleppy’s brother was buried under a veritable mountain of crap.  

“[O-OH! [Hrrs-tssk’!]]” Bleppy cried, starting to dart forward before recoiling back. The pile shifted, and Bleppy grew concerned.

With another, noticeably weaker animalistic yell Hrrs-tssk’ crawled his way out of the mound of sharp and uncomfortable bits, the raw machined filings and castaways grinding into his bare, raw skin. Parts of him were on fire, parts of him were probably broken, parts of him were probably dead, but he didn’t care. He had to know, he had to know why, and he needed to hear it from his Brother’s own mouth.

“[WHY?!]” Hrrs-tssk’ roared, crawling along the ground with gritted teeth. “[YOU STUPID, BRAIN-DE-]”

Hrrs-tssk’s tirade died in his throat as his brother started to squirm uncomfortably, his sand bed seeming to come alive underneath him. Hrrs-tssk’ watched Stk’shzsk fight with something, before that something broke free, piercing the center of Stk’shzsk’s coils and crawling atop the defeated Jornissian. Hrrs-tssk’ stared at the beast, and he knew.

He knew it when he saw it.

“[Is… is that a human?]”

“[OhgeezeIcanexplain-]” babbled Bleppy/Stk’shzsk’, his anxiety spiking through the roof as his human companion began to fidget atop his head. “[-Youhavetokeepitasecretplease-]”

The human, helmet glowing red, lifted a triumphant arm.

“[Is that a THERMAL DETONATOR?!]” Hrrs-tssk’ yelled, pointing at the humans’ clenched fist.

“[Wha-]”

“-CASTLE LAW-” Nate screamed, and then there was a BANG.

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Stories They are Smol

They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops Chapter 22: The nesting habits of humans

She was ponderous, she was lopsided, she was missing some of her plating and she was trying. Half tucked into a carved out recess of the nickel-iron meteor, the old girl sounded like she ran on a choked two-stroke, and Nate’s helmet so helpfully pointed out that some of the smoke coming out of the machine indicated overloaded and burnt wire insulation. It was probably fine, but as a precaution, he took a few steps back while the jailbroken fabricator attempted yet another ridiculous project.

Nate stood there for a moment, hands on his hips, as he saw his handwork so far: crates now stacked with orderly door prizes, boxes stuffed with goodie bags and even a couple of barrels of party pleasers. He wasn’t going to be able to launch a full-scale attack on this station; although he had gumption and surprise on his side, he was but one man. No, the idea he had come up with instead was to-

Nate went limp as he felt two arms wrap around his torso, and let himself get pulled into the lap of his newest and bestest pure friend. He knew his name was [Stk’shzsk], but whenever his translator asked him to give him a Terran-audible translation, he just fell into a rant of how sweet and pure this giant killing machine was and how the Jornissians were hiding their best people and how worlds would burn so the light would dance in his new friend’s lopsided, enlarged eyes. Apparently during one of these rants the translator rebooted, and … well.

It gave [Stk’shzsk] the name of Bleppy. Although this was a right and good name, Nate swore that he would have it changed as soon as possible so that Bleppy wouldn’t feel insulted by his “human” name.

He would never feel insulted again–

“[New-hope, you’re doing that shaking thing again.]” Bleppy said, concerned, as he attempted to pat Nate through his helmet. “[Don’t be afraid of the smoke! It’s … natural, here.]” Bleppy trailed off, letting out a soft sigh after a few moments of the fabricator working uninterrupted. “[Though I wish there was a little more ventilation… Maybe if we were out of the abandoned areas of the station and into the more lived ones it wouldn’t be so bad.]”

“MMMMMN. FINE. I will sit here and be CONSUMED WITH FEELINGS for the remainder of the night!” Nate pouted, crossing his legs to make him easier for the larger alien to manhandle. He paused for a moment before he felt the larger, heavier head of Bleppy rest atop his own.

“[I wonder what you’re making, though.]” Bleppy began to muse, apparently still not used to having an audience for his thoughts. “[Do humans need smaller – well that’s silly, of course you need smaller things in general, but maybe these serve some additional importance?]”

And as always, Nate helpfully answered.

“M’ gonna kill everyone but you and my crew, buddy.” Nate blatantly admitted, patting his new friend wherever he could.

Bleppy hummed as he continued to talk. “[Mmmm. Religious significance?]”

“Firearms are a sacred right, but no.” Nate truthfully opined, patting a tune on his friend’s scaly body. “Though it might help some people here go see God.”

Bleppy suddenly tensed and began to wiggle from side to side. “[OH! Are you building a NEST?! Are you – is this decorations for your nest, New-Hope?!]”

“In a way, sure.” Nate laughed, patting Bleppy rapidly as a signal to let him out. “But more or less a way of making our position defensible! We gotta open up some chances for my crew to make a break for it, and once they do that then we can totally take this station over!” Nate poured himself out of Bleppy’s lap, rolling onto the ground before standing up. “Or, if we can’t take it over, then figure out how to escape… or, barring that, how to stop worrying and learn to love the void, because I am going to space everyone if I don’t get my demands met.”

Bleppy leaned forward and nodded up and down with his entire torso. “[I wish I spoke human.]”

“I wish I spoke human too, buddy.” Nate said, curling his hand into a fist. Bleppy looked down before letting out a soft “oh”, raising his own fist in response. Nate tapped his fist to Bleppys, and the two smiled at each other. “Now, let’s see about getting some of this stuff back to home base, huh?”

He was… happy.

It had been so long since Stk’shzsk had been genuinely, truly happy that he, at first, didn’t know if he should let the feelings wash over him or not. Growing up had been problematic, and although he had moments of joy, they were usually islands in a sea of misery, anxiousness, depression and doubt. When something truly good happened to him, it was rare enough that he would discount it as a fluke, or short enough that it never truly washed over him, seeped into him, and filled up his heart. He was used to the pain of being alone, of being ostracized, of not measuring up; he was not used to the joy of being happy, and it scared him. The fall scared him.

Stk’shzsk knew that his obsessions with warm-cuddles were a … coping mechanism, to put it bluntly. He knew that they weren’t as the media – well, the only media he could get – portrayed them; they weren’t innocent, they weren’t pure, they didn’t have magic, they didn’t grant wishes and they most certainly did not have the ability to fall asleep if you spun a coin in front of them. Stk’shzsk knew the last bit from experience, and even now it was incredibly embarrassing to think about, but-

He was happy.

His new friend had been with him for hours now – or was it days? Stk’shzsk had honestly lost track of the time! It strengthened him; the time he spent with his warm-cuddle friend wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t something he was hallucinating, it was real. Every so often New-Hope had to go somewhere, and it was in those moments that Stk’shzsk grew concerned… but he couldn’t say if it was for the human or for himself. Those disappearances in and out of what he assumed was a decommissioned industrial ventilation shaft in his room were difficult – periods of time where Stk’shzsk was left alone to his thoughts, to dark fantasies that would plague him, but each time New-hope came back and he brought with him gifts and small baubles and wonderful little things that proved, more and more, that what was happening was actually happening and-

And.

Stk’shzsk frowned internally, hefting the crates filled with stuff under his arms as he followed New-Hope back to their room. The dark clouds started to gather in Stk’shzsk’s mind, and try as he might he couldn’t beat them away.

It won’t last. It can’t last. You can’t provide for him, here.

Stk’shzsk slowed as the melancholy wrapped itself around his heart, cooling it like a wet blanket.

You won’t have a home with him. You will have to say goodbye.

The realization sapped the strength from his core, feeling like a weight around his hips as it drug him down to the ground. It was the same realization, the same battle that he had been fighting for hours now – days? He lost track of the time, to be honest – and each time it wore on him a little deeper, a bit closer to his core.

This won’t be your new normal. You don’t get things like this.

Stk’shzsk at least made it to the front of his room before laying the crates and boxes that weighed multiple tons outside of it, his arms aching like his soul. Stk’shzsk’s warm-cuddle friend said something to him, and he managed a forced smile and some kind words, but his heart wasn’t into it. Gently he moved around his new roommate who began to pick up crates and bring them inside the room, taking a position on his bed as he watched the human work. Idly he looked for his cameras, and saw that they were still diligently recording.

Good. At least he’d have proof of his memories, when it was all said and done.

He was determined.

“Please re-authorize.” Nate said into his tablet, and received a happy little beep. He had taken a clandestine picture of Bleppy – as clandestine as he could be holding a tablet the size of his head up to the larger alien for a picture – but the facial structure, scale pattern, size, weight, and other biometrics were successfully recorded into his OIH-approved personal computer.

Nate had realized, once his adrenaline and his “I will kill you if you hurt my precious child” response died down, that he would need to make sure that anyone who came to rescue him didn’t hurt his friend. It made no sense to make a valiant last stand if the cavalry came in and killed everyone anyway. So, a trip back to his life raft to take care of some hygiene, grab some (more) MRE snacks, and bring his handy-dandy take-anywhere computer, and he was ready to officially induct Bleppy as part of the UTF-approved crew as a… well. That was the problem; Bleppy couldn’t technically be crew. He also wouldn’t be an adviser, a cultural liaison, a trusted vendor, an emergency contact, plucky stowaway, wandering ship-to-ship salesperson or much of anything else! Every time Nate picked some title out of the drop-down picklist, his tablet software always asked for supporting documentation! He was on hour three of this quest, and although Bleppy was encouraging him the best he knew how, there was little Bleppy could do to help Nate with his current Sisyphean task. But as for Nate himself?

He was determined.

>Authorization Accepted. Title Designation?

Nate scrolled down through the same dropdown list, yet again, as he attempted to be a bit smarter about his next choice. Anything with an official title was right out – those things had to be checked and verified in triplicate, and paperwork was the enemy; no ambassadors, generals, admirals or any other -ls allowed. Anything with work certifications was also out – doctors, lawyers, arborists, forklift certified technicians – that’s all additional documentation too. He couldn’t drop Bleppy in as family, because that would require not only a birth certificate but also, yanno. A female human to verify parentage… Sooooo…

Hmm.

Nate gave up on the hundreds-entry long drop-down list, and began to idly click around. There had to be something! Manually attempting each option was taking away precious preparation time – there had to be an option that would make sure Bleppy was OK if things hit the fan! There had to be-

Oh.

Nathaniel Callaway lifted his finger from from the benefits tab, as a little radial pick list appeared before him that he had never seen before. It gave him an idea. A terrible, awful, wonderful idea. Without a second thought he selected the appropriate options, fudged a few of the numbers, took another picture or two and submitted the application.

>Authorization Accepted. Title Accepted.

>”Bleppy, The best” now conditionally registered with OIH/UTF approved handle

>”Bleppy, The best” added to approved books II – VII excluding III and IV pending final registration approval with appropriate OIH/UTF governing body (c.SL8.115.46 s.6)

Nate let out a hoot, waving his tablet up and down with exaggerated joy. Bleppy smiled – but his hood didn’t quite flare like Nate knew they could, and Nate knew that his buddy was either tired, or feeling a bit down. Nate also knew that the cure for such things was not beatings, but instead snacks and illegal movies. Using that same tablet, Nate switched over from boring governmental paperwork to Bleppy’s local NAS, and pulled up an “authentic human movie” that was absolutely incomprehensible to the two of them. As the two settled in to watch the French film, Nate did his best to keep Bleppy engaged – pointing at things on the screen, trying to teach ‘human’, and even at one point producing an analog snack to the one that was on-screen, much to Bleppy’s delight. Nate’s tablet beeped once more, and a disappearing indicator message let him know that Bleppy’s application was now permanently stored on his life raft as well.

Good. At least now, no matter what happened, Bleppy would be accounted for when it was all said and done.

All things considered, it was not your typical conference call. For one, nobody was a cat. For two, although there were only a handful of people on-screen, every single participant had at least a dozen other people in their room. For three, almost everyone who was on the call was not actually broadcasting from the location that they were reporting to be broadcasting from. This obfuscation was both by design, and by tradition; such things as these all militaries keep alive for one reason or another.

“Ssssssssso.” Gen. Stilwell said, clearing his throat to truly begin the meeting. “Thank you again, Senate liaisons for the Human Protectorate force, for hopping on the call with such short notice. I know that legally your militaries are loaned to our species, and we appreciate the help in defending our borders, cultures, commerce and lives, but I view us as collaborators more than anything.”

“[General. I appreciate the pleasantries, but we’ve been working together for 7 years now.]” A grayed Karnakian said, tilting his head in deference. “[What’s the mission you want us to look over?]”

“Thank you General Far-sight. Today is a bit of a strategy briefing, and I’d like some thoughts on what a human-led expedition is going to look like.” Stilwell nodded to someone off-screen, and Stillwell’s view changed – as did everyone else’s. In place of oversized faces on-screen there was a map with a couple hundred mug shots, various ship data, telemetry… the works. The assembled xenos leaders began to thumb through the information as Stilwell began to speak.

“Approximately four Earth days ago, the ship carrying Nathaniel Callaway performed what we are assuming was an uncatalogued EWR – an Exchange Worker Request – to fly to a certain point from a port called Sweetwater. The telementry information is there for you to cross reference with your extensive networks as well, as we’re basically blind to what happened on-station. A few hours after this EWR, there was a second EWR to this point in space.”

“[Doesn’t look like there’s anything there.]” Adm. Star-eater said, her teeth visibly rippling through a cut chip of flesh on her muzzle.

“From what we know, that’s correct.” Stilwell confirmed, continuing. “We know of past incidents where our… host ships will allow a citizen to pilot their ships in a relatively empty part of space, and it’s something to note but we do not condemn it. Harmless fun, in other words.”

“[Sure. But?]” Gen. Far-sight said, turning to murmur something to someone off-screen.

“We make it no secret, at least to those assembled here, that our media is heavily edited. I’m certain you’ve all enjoyed the feed bleeds from our broadcasts, so you know. Out there, however, the OIH terminal is the only way we have of presenting our best foot forward. These terminals are equipped with an entangled battery, and report their exact position to us almost constantly along with a stream of other incredibly important data – that flow works both ways as well.”

“[So we’re rescuing another wandering pup?]” Adm. Star-eater grinned. “[Since it’s far afield you want an escort?]”

“Points for reading ahead, but no.” Stilwell said, rapping his knuckles against the table. “No, you all have been here when a battery dies; the life rafts have already been picked up, or the ship was found grounded on a planetoid – Far-sight, you were part of that one, the Prometheus, right?”

Gen. Far-sight smiled. “[Yes, and I was happy to help lift him back into orbit. This is different, I take it?]”

“It’s a constant stream, ladies and gentlemen. For the other incidents that have befallen our people outside of core systems, we kind of know that things are going south; The battery going on auxiliary power, for one. The slow, multi-week decline in charge is another good indicator. Changes in atmosphere, inertia, temperature – all great clues as to what’s going on, how serious it is, how long it’s been happening and what our window of opportunity is for rescue. Here, we have none of that.”

“[As in the data is corrupted?]” Star-eater mused, scrolling through the crew roster and singling out certain profiles.

“No. As in, we have none of that happening. Everything reads nominal until the line gets cut. We did get one thing, though; it’s a final failsafe burst of information that occurs when the battery itself starts to get disconnected from it’s range, or powersource, or however the hell that works. I wanted to share that last bit of information with you, and then determine what our appropriate next steps should be.”

General Stilwell pressed a few hard-light buttons on the table before him, and a simple, grainy alert appeared on screen.

“THIS PERSON TRIED TO UNLOCK YOUR OIH TERMINAL 19.14.5.11//20.9.20.19//12.13.1.15” was emblazoned across the screen, and the image seemed to have been taken with the terminal laying on the ground, face-up. Staring down at the screen were the puzzled faces of four unknown xenos. The background to the photo showed some sort of workshop; gone were the geometric and patterned ceiling tiles and the messy lived-in room of a human, and in it’s stead were wires, grips, hoses and drills hanging from odd ends.

There were a few moments of silence, before someone in the background let out a gentle “[Oh.]”

“Yeah. So. How should we go about this?” General Stilwell said, resting his chin in his hand. “And how should we work together?”

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Stories They are Smol

They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops Chapter 21: Doublespeak

“You know, if I’m being honest I never read these reports until now.” Lt. Ruiz said, scrolling idly through the missive with his ring finger on the tablet. The report itself came fresh from the DOL (we’ve been over this), with as much information as they could provide about location, speed, timestamps – and included information on the ship’s make, model, retrofitting information, past station rendezvous and even crew makeup and history. The report was less an executive brief and more of an incredibly abridged book of hyperlinks, with the sum total of all the information the human government had about the ship, it’s crew, it’s human observer and their mission put into one single record of truth.

That record was currently being scrutinized by a dozen people in as many different disciplines; medical staff were on-hand reviewing health and checkup data, mechanical engineers and quantum physicists – now happy to have a non-theoretical job – were debating what could have shut the core, data scientists were trying to piece together every bit of information they could to provide the clearest and most recent picture of the host ship before it shut off… there were even a couple of two-tour ironheels, fresh from their final excursions with their xeno allies, there for consultation and firsthand knowledge.

“It’s not a report worth reading until something happens.” Specialist Cadieux shrugged, dragging his own index finger over some text to highlight it. “That’s the nature of the beast – telling us “all’s well” is useless information.”

“Still.” Lt. Ruiz murmured, checking Nate’s mental health screening information. “Hmmmm… Equivalent scores with a potato-” Ruiz switched to a different report, scanning it for any useful data. “- I’m guessing whatever happened was a catastrophe, and it doesn’t take this many people to figure that out. Any word on our liferafts?”

Specialist Cadieux let out a noncommital hum. “No. But what surprises me is that they’re purposefully put in the strongest places of the ship-”

“Directed energy weapon? Kinetic? Just run along the spine-” Lt. Ruiz said, making a ‘skipping-across-the-pond’ motion with his hand.

“-Well that’s what gets me. The liferafts are also put on separate levels to mitigate against that very problem-” Spc. Cadieux lifted his tablet to the side, and angled his free hand down against it, before bouncing off. “-if you break the keel, let’s say, from an angle – you snap the ship, the liferafts go off. If you hit it from the front or back perfectly-” Cadieuxs’ hand poked the bottom of his tablet, “-you would, at worst, be hitting the strongest part of the ship, and your round would just spin the keel around.”

Lt. Ruiz chuckled. “Kinetic impact; like bullet dynamics. They rifle their railguns too?”

“Maybe; it depends, but that’s neither here nor there. If you had the energy to crumple the first half of the ship, the odds are that the pure momentum of that kinetic round would just flash-weld with the ship and then just move it along.” Spc. Cadieux balled his fist up infront of his tablet, and moved the two in tandem. “If you just destroyed the one, the other would go off… But, say it’s an energy weapon.”

“The power for knocking out both liferafts that are buried into the keel of the ship would be immense. Hell, the liferafts themselves are hardpoints!” Lt. Ruiz mused.

“And that’s what gets me. We have environmental data from before the line was cut; everything was fine. Usually in a directed-energy scenario there’s a sudden increase in temperature to a couple million kelvin, which is incredibly hard to miss. This just looks like someone pulled a proverbial plug.” Spc. Cadieux finished, laying his tablet back down on the table. “Here, look.”

With a few motions of his hand, the tablet reacted – connecting wirelessly to the table it rested on. The surface glowed a soft blue hue before brightening suddenly, concentrating it’s light on a point in the center of the table. A weak, transparent hologram of the ship’s model floated silently in mid-air between the two men.

“You wearing your blue-lights?” Spc. Cadieux asked, and was rewarded with a grunt. “Alright, just don’t blame me when you gotta go in for new eyes.”

“I served on IO, I’m fine.” Lt. Ruiz said, scratching his stubbled jaw. “The solar wind damage is worse than any of this shit we got in house.”

Cadieux shrugged, and turned a touch-screen dial on his tablet, the ship expanding slightly to fit on more and more of the table. With a couple other touches, various systems were highlighted; Atmospheric and Temperature regulation, water and sewage reclamation, pneumatic vending – and there, sitting pretty, were two hard-point life rafts, connected via a network of emergency egress crawlways.

“So. One’s ‘topwise’ and the other, ‘bottomwise’. Front and back, they’d have to vaporize the entire ship, and have to do it in one go.” Cadieux said, pointing with his finger to various parts of the ship. “This is reinforced, as is this and this – and from our records, we actually added an additional firebreak here and here. It would take terawatts of energy to dissipate their shields, let alone start melting away at the ship itself; if you want to do that instantaneously?” Cadieux raised his hands in his best ‘oh well’ gesture, and Ruiz picked up the thread.

“So if he was wearing his space blanket we’d have a baked potato?” Lt. Ruiz joked, and was rewarded with a grin.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’d cool down until the heat death of the universe. More importantly, you release that much energy all at once, we can see it.” Spc. Cadieux said, idly turning the hologram. “Light will always take time to reach the nearest station, and we’d be looking at centuries to see the scene of the crime, but if we’re talking both gravity waves and kinetic dark-matter interactions, that shit ripples out quick. You can’t blow out a ship reactor that suddenly and thoroughly without making waves on the spacetime pond.”

“So, if we’re not talking kinetic – or if we are it’s a near-c or better projectile – and energy would be problematic, then that means whatever did happen probably kept the ship intact. We didn’t get any distress signals from our liferafts, so they’re not deployed… adrift?”

“Power.”

“Ah.” Lt. Ruiz responded, thinking out loud. “So. Power, atmo, everything – but a sudden move and then silence. I mean…” Lt. Ruiz’s eyebrows rose, and he swayed his chair from side to side in thought. “Mutiny, but they would have to know about how the terminal works, and that’s … not possible. Smash and grab?”

“What do you mean?” Spc. Cadieux responded, leaning back in his chair. “They got boarded? I’m certain we would’ve received a ripcord message about it if it happened.”

“Mmmm, not from some of the toys I’ve seen.” Ruiz said, cracking his fingers as he spoke. “You jam their transmissions, or stowaway while on station… the key here is to get onboard, with weapons. Once you do that, you pop out in transit, grab your hostages, threaten everyone else. Hell that’s almost as old as flight itself – then get the plane to fly to friendly skies.”

Cadieux hummed as he connected the dots. “A deviation jump, a pause, another deviationjump to their base. Chop shop, rip apart the ship for scrap – what about your hostages?”

Lt. Ruiz shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’re just kept locked up, maybe they’ll be ransomed back in the next few months, maybe they’re slaves now, or maybe they’re dead. Depends on the pirates, doesn’t it?”

“I think we run this idea up the chain.” Spc. Cadieux said, nodding. “It fits together a lot of the pieces.”

“Great! Your idea, your report.” Lt. Ruiz said, slapping the table with his hand as he stood up.

“Oi! That’s not fair you fuck-” Cadieux yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at his colleague. “You gotta stay here and help!”

Lt. Ruiz thumbed the switch on the privacy pod the two men were in, and the glass slid down to reveal a set of 5 identical pods in a dice layout, set in the base floor of a mission control room. Ruiz silently waved his hand at the gallery above the two, and caught their attention.

“I did help! I got their attention, see? Now everyone’s gonna want to hear what you have to say-”

“[Well. Isn’t this lovely.]” Brains said, smiling wide with as much energy as she could muster into her upper torso. Her chest was open, her hood relaxed out, and she even kept her head a bit lower than that of her guest – out of etiquette, of course. She positively beamed hospitality and warmth, and reached down to delicately take a snack from the shared food basket. Morsel in hand, she waited for her newfound friend to reciprocate.

And waited.

Sassafras was not having a good time. She had been woken up from an admittedly fitful and light sleep to be “escorteered” to a ‘captain’s chat’, which did not take place in Brains’ quarters but instead took place in what seemed to be a recently cleared-out hallway closet. The nickel-iron flooring still showed the dents and divots of the previous boxes, shelves and baubles that were stored here for gods knew how long, which meant that the floor was both dusty and rough to the touch. The lighting was harsh and fixed, washing the two of them in clinical light – and because the light source was directly and evenly overhead, the shadows cast by Brains’ face and body looked less warm and reassuring and more fucking exhausted. The two captains were left alone like this, in a barely-ventilated side-room, with the utility door shut and locked behind them.

It was not, in fact, lovely.

“[Please, dear. I’m just trying to put in a bit of comfort in these trying times-]”

Sassafras rubbed the bridge of her muzzle for a moment, before leaning forward and grabbing an individually-wrapped snack. Brains visibly relaxed at the gesture, and Sassafras put the wrapped treat on her lap. “[Thank you.]”

“[Thank you.]” Brains said, letting a bit of the exhaustion seep into her voice. “[It would be nice for something to work out once in a while, and your cooperation is appreciated.]”

“[Big assumption there, thinking I would help my captors – or did we forget that bit?]” Sassafras chided, straightening up. “[Or are you trying to give me a job, again?]”

“[I…]” Brains sighed, a low, rolling hiss. “[I do really think I’ve grown a soft spot for you, Sassafras. It’s not easy carving out your own path in the loam, and I think I see a bit of myself in you – if a couple hundred years younger and a few pounds lighter.]”

Sassafras, for her part, said nothing as she continued to listen.

“[But I did want to talk to you. We’re not… bad people, per se – we just picked jobs that fell outside of polite government, so we formed our own. We’ve not treated you poorly, have we – compared to the horror stories, of course?]”

Sassafras thought for a moment, before giving a slight tilt of her head. It was something, so Brains continued. “[We’re not evil. Sure, we might have a few crew who are rough around the edges, but who doesn’t have those gnarled shells to crack? And honestly, our goal from the very first moment was nothing more than a smash and grab, as things are more replaceable than people.]”

“[Why are you trying to virtue signal?]” Sassafras asked, rolling the wrapped baked good in her hands. “[What’s the point?]”

“[Because I need you to work with me, Sassafras.]” Brains said, and raised her hand to interrupt Sassafras’ complaint. “[No, not like that, I know that’s off the table – but I still need you to work with me.]”

The two Jornissians stared, unblinking at each other, before Sassafras shifted a bit. It was a non-verbal cue, nothing more than a simple “well, I’m listening”.

It was everything Brains was hoping for.

“[I was wondering, about your crew.]” Brains began, tracing a fingertip across her drink’s rim. “[Are they all accounted for?]”

“[Save for whoever’s still on-board; our medic and a couple others, yes.]” Sassafras responded with a level tone. “[You’ve done headcounts three times now.]”

“[And…]” Brains nipped at her lower lip for a moment before continuing. “[…if there was someone missing, maybe one or more people who would like to not be found for obvious reasons – would headcount count them?]”

Sassafras stared mutely at her host as her mind raced, studying her every movement, doing her best to read the body language and the atmosphere of the room. Brains obviously wanted to be welcoming and kind, but more to the point – Brains was also not a combatant, she was a negotiator. The rushed movement of goods and fixtures in this room, then, was not for torture or abuse but instead out of another necessity – privacy.

Sassafras lowered her head slightly to feign interest in the bottled drink selection before her as she continued to think. Brains needed privacy so badly that they created a makeshift bug-free interrogation room. This means privacy not necessarily for the conversation’s sake, though that was important – this implied privacy away from the crew’s ears as well. The only reason you do that is to avoid a panic, and the only thing to really panic about…

“[So.]” Sassafras said, selecting a bottle of mineral water and ripping the drink nub open. She let her response hang in the air for a while, and eventually Brains’ realized that they were finally going to have the same conversation for the first time that afternoon.

“[I’m just trying to make sure that we haven’t missed anyone. Especially certain people who may not be used to … interstellar problems.]” Brains charitably said, rolling her jaw.

‘Do you have a warm-cuddle?’ Brains asked, between the lines of an innocent conversation.

“[Headcount might miss one person here or there, certainly, especially if they’re near to the ground.]” Sassafras said, inspecting the drink sphere before squeezing some of the refreshment into her mouth. “[It’s not my fault that some of my crew like to hide behind crates and the like when roll is called – only trouble there is if they’re sleeping in cargo when we open the bay doors.]”

‘Yes. Did you check cargo? Is he dead?’ Sassafras asked, between the lines.

“[Oh goodness, that sounds terrible! No, we always check every single room, box, cupboard and storage unit before we open anything up to hard vacuum. In fact, all cargo is re-tagged and staged for disembarking beforehand! Safety first, as much as we can!]”

‘Not that we know.’ Brains responded, between the lines. ‘Though he wasn’t in cargo.’

“[That’s very good to hear. How do you deal with pets, or live cargo? Don’t they like to hold up in corners and tight spots?]”

‘Think smaller. He can hide where we can’t.’ Sassafras meant, taking a deep drink from the orb.

“[We check that too. We often do a heartbeat sweep of every room to make sure we haven’t missed a thing – the last thing we want, of course, is for our guests to become upset at the accidental death of a loved one.]”

‘If biometric scans missed him, then we’re fucked – but I don’t think so.’ Brains politely rebutted.

“[Well that’s comforting, though… I would assume an animal gets loose from time to time from storage. How do you deal with those incidents?]”

‘Then he has to be here. What’s your plan?’ Sassafras said, without saying.

“[Very simple – boringly so. We form a grid around the epicenter of the breakout, and start searching from the center outwards. Depending on the critter they can’t have gotten too far, and my own crew is usually very adept at finding our friendly little escapees and bringing them back safely. Sometimes, though, we do ask for some muscle, if the animal could endanger itself or others.]”

‘We’re searching the station, small security groups doing grid sweeps but haven’t found anything yet.’ Brains honestly explained.

“[Ugh, tell me about it. We were once shipping some long, bendy critters – couldn’t tell you their name, they’re just basically a thousand tiny furred feet and teeth biting everything, and one of ‘em escaped. Turns out, they’re a burrowing species, so it just started to make it’s own little tunnels in and among our ship’s cargo. Imagine our surprise to find out the little bugger not only escaped his enclosure, but he also created a tunnel a good kilometer long, winding through multiple levels of boxes and crates! Gigantic pain to explain that to the dockmaster!]”

Sassafras corrected her. ‘You’re not thinking like he would, though. He can get to places we can’t; he may not be on this main asteroid at all.’

“[That really is a story! I’ll have to remember it for the next time we have an escapee; it’s lucky that the critter stayed in the breathable parts of the ship!]”

‘Point taken. I’ll expand our search and make sure every place is livable.’ Brains said, smiling with gratitude.

“[So, do you have any other stories you want to share? I’d love to hear every single one!]” Brains grinned, popping open her own wrapped snack.

‘What else do I need to know?’

Sassafras thought for a moment, before tightening her hood up slightly. It was a simple, errant thought – more like a fear, really – but she dismissed it outright. The odds were too low, and there were more important things to warn her new friend about.

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Stories They are Smol

They are Smol – Badguys, Boxes and Boops, Chapter 20: Lmao it’s a cypher

The thing about government offices is that, no matter your budget and no matter what it is you seem to be doing, you always got the lowest-bidder equipment. You could be doing anything from managing water meter readings in Antarctica to preventing meteorites from slamming into Earth; didn’t matter, welcome to your off-brand Dell computer hell and your keyboard scalped from some back office recycle bin circa 1994.

This current government servant hell was located in Belize, of all places; the Earth governments quickly realized that if recovery and reconstruction after The Great Clusterfuck was uneven, there would be hell to pay – so some nations were just given government work installations to help boost the local economy. This particular government servant hell was roughly 25 stories tall in a nondescript office building between a Horchata bar and a Hat Hut, and would be totally ignored if it weren’t for the reflective one-way mirrors on every floor and the inconspicuously placed concrete barriers around the building that silently said “how about you fuck off with that vehicle attack, eh?”.

The inside lobby was neat synthetic marble flooring, and the disinterested security guard would tell you to fuck off before actually helping; if you walked in the door you knew where you should be, and everyone including the guard knew he was just there to make the job seem more important than it actually was. If you happened to get into any of the other 24 stories in the building, you’d soon find that they were an open-office floor space crammed with cubicles, and each wall was painted that mandatory off-white, also known as eggshell, also known as beige, also known as the most boring color known to man. The carpeting attempted to be festive, in that “we do wacky tie fridays once a month” kind of way, and if you held your breath and put your ear to the ground, you could hear the dreams of the workers inside die.

The plus side? Some of the most beautiful Caribbean weather in the world, excellent food, friendly locals and white, sandy beaches. Sadly, your mandatory lunch breaks could only be taken inside the mandatory lunch breakroom, located in the center of the building with no windows.

“Well.” Miguel said, wrinkling his nose to push the bridge of his glasses up his face without lifting his fingers from the keyboard. “That can’t be right.”

The Department of Location, or DOL (no relation to the other DOL), existed for a very specific reason: Catalog the location of every human on a foster ship in interstellar space. The original iteration of the DOL (no relation) was probably in some high-tec bunker with the brightest minds of Mankind pouring over data and running numbers, but nowadays foster ships were so common and humans who took jobs on them so plentiful that it went from “top secret” to “farm it out and tell us if something happens”. So Miguel, one of hundreds of employees at the DOL, ran numbers and plotted points and created reports and printed things out and sent them to various other governmental departments to be added as a footnote in some presentation that the important people would sleep through. It wasn’t a bad job, per se, it was just thankless administration that the public was mostly blind to – so it almost didn’t matter.

Almost.

Miguel typed furiously, pulling up the plotted course for Ship#: 19.14.5.11//20.9.20.19//12.13.1.15 – spacetime coordinates were weird, and Miguel was ever-thankful for the computer systems that managed most of the heavy lifting for him. The ship, a cargo hauler carrying one Mr.Nathaniel Callaway, had suddenly gone offline-offline. Normal offline was fine; you were in warp, or had a power issue – these things happen, and the batteries inside the OIH terminal usually kept things running for a few weeks on standby power. However, Mr. Callaway’s ship’s OIH terminal was cut.

The DOL could count on one hand the times that a tracking beacon had been cut, and none of them were good. Such incidents happened once every few decades, but when they happened…

“Let’s see…” Miguel murmured to himself, his widescreen LCD terminal showing trajectory lines from station to station. There were about 15 normal stops, then a deviation, then another 5, and then another deviation – the ship Mr. Callaway was on was still headed towards it’s eventual endpoint, and long-haul freighters do deviate from time to time, so there’s nothing-

“Ah.” Miguel tapped the tip of his stylus to the last leg of the journey; another deviation. Less than two Earth days on the last drop-off point, then a trip to… the middle of nowhere.

Miguel furrowed his brow. It wasn’t unheard of for ships to deviate due to what was professionally called “Exchange worker request”, I.e. some human heard of something awesome nearby and pestered the captain to change course, but usually that course change was temporary and the next subsequent jump lead back to the original plotted route. Instead, there was what Miguel assumed an EWR to the middle of nowhere, and then … another EWR? And then the terminal was cut?

Miguel leaned back in his chair, thinking as he looked at the last know coordinate line for Mr. Callaway. There were times where ships ran out of power, or had to make an emergency landing, or any other number of things that caused the terminal to cut, but it was almost always the terminal eventually running out of power, and rarely would be due to trauma. “The last check-in was full power; it was still connected to the main. Atmo, temp and gyro all nominal. Huh.”

And so Miguel leaned forward and picked up a phone, cradling the dusty receiver in the crook of his neck, and pressed a bleached-out auto-dial button.

“[That didn’t happen at all.]” Drongo said, sighing as he raised Tiki’s bed to a more comfortable, ‘sitting’ position. She groaned – not from physical pain, Drongo was quick to discern, but from a deeper, emotional trauma.

“[Totally did.]” Toko said, roundly puffing out his torso feathers. “[An entire pack, all at once. Even did the traditional mating dance, the one where you do that thing with your hands?]”

Drongo shared a look with Tiki, whose expression oscillated between “kill me” and “please kill him”. He smiled as he started to work the autodoc, starting a new regimen of fluids and nanites to accelerate the healing process.

“[Well, good news.]” Drongo said, doing another once-over of Tiki’s vitals. “[You should be up and walking in the next few minutes, once we finish giving you a clear-out flush. I’m going to re-stress walking, because you shouldn’t be doing anything more strenuous than that for the next day or so, and you should… er. Especially not attempt to join a pack while drunk.]” He smiled, and was rewarded with a hollow whistle-chirp from his charge.

“[Not you too, Drongo! You can’t honestly believe-]”

Drongo laughed. “[Oh, I absolutely don’t believe a word that came out of your brother’s mouth-]”

“[Hey!]” Toko said, feathers snapping tight against his body in mock outrage. “[You can take the word of a priest!]”

There was a few moments of silence as Toko attempted to keep a straight face, before grinning – and breaking the magic.

“[Suuuuuure. Anyway, it’s a fun little mental picture, so expect to be teased about it once we’re out of this mess.]”

“[What. Mess.]” Tiki exhaled, her voice coming back stronger with each passing moment. “[Is-]”

“[Ah.]” Toko quickly darted forward, wrapping his hands around his sister’s muzzle. “[Sorry sis, but – we uh, we OK here Doc?]”

Drongo poked the medical privacy screen, and flicked his tail dismissively. “[Yes. Just keep it down, no yelling. Tiki, you feel you can handle some unfortunate news right now?]”

Tiki cooed softly, clearing her throat, before sitting at attention. “[Lay it. On me.]”

Drongo turned and rested his hands on the foot of Tiki’s bed. “[I don’t know the why of it, or the how. Doesn’t matter. We’ve been boarded by pirates, our ship is scuttled, and our friend is missing.]”

Tiki stared blankly for a few moments, before swinging her head to stare daggers into her brother.

“[I didn’t do it this time!]” Toko roar-whispered, feathers splaying out in anxious display. “[REALLY. I DIDN’T!]”

Tiki narrowed her eyes and scrunched her muzzle, silently judging her brother. “[Drong.o. What else. Do I need to. Know?]”

Drongo clicked his blunted claws against the metal in thought. “[Well. Our friend is probably alive, given that there hasn’t been chaos onboard this station. However, there hasn’t been chaos aboard this station, so your guess is as good as mine. He may have found a little nook to hide in, or …something, and is just waiting it out; he’s got a bright mind, so he knows better than to bring attention to himself. How long he can do so is… well. That’s the real issue.]”

“[Find him and. Bring him back. Where is crew?]” Tiki exhaled, her voice still raspy with the removal of intubation and breathing tubes. “[Defensive positions? Deaths?]”

“[All on their part and none on ours.]” Toko said, reaching forward to hold his sister’s hand in his own. “[None of ours are in medbay, and from what we know they’re all still alive and well. We-]”

Toko was interrupted as the privacy curtain to Tiki’s bedside poked inward, and the trio immediately quieted up. There were a few more inquisitive pokes, and Drongo shared a look with the siblings. Toko leaned in to whisper something to Tiki, and she nodded softly – Drongo pressing something on his tablet to pull away the curtain. They were greeted by a female Karnakian who was unfortunately at waist-height, the baton that was attempting to pull away the curtain quickly placed behind her back as she stood up to stare at a nonplussed Drongo.

“[Hello to you too, why are you in my Medical bay?]” Drongo questioned, as the female pulled her eyes away from his waist.

“[Ah, yeah! I um, was just… looking. For something.]” the Karnakian pirate said, tilting her head from side to side to ‘sweep’ under the nearby beds. “[Just curious, is all.]”

“[And what exactly are you looking for, daughter?]” Toko said dryly, pulling himself up with all his faux priestly grace.

“[N-nothing, your grace!]” The Karnakian said, bowing slightly. “[I was just… checking for stowaways. Making sure everyone was accounted for.]”

“[Yes! What a noble cause, for we are all stowaways on the great ship of life!]” Toko said, roaring as he spread his arms wide to deliver an impromptu sermon. “[And we all seek our own cabins, to lay our heads to rest – the sleep of the just, of the dead! But as we wander the unmarked corridors of this great ship-]”

The Karnakian pirate began to slowly edge her way back to the entrance door, nodding solemly and letting out non-committal agreement noises as she did so. This, of course, was the wrong thing to do, as Toko wide smile became very manic.

“[-checking our tickets! But now, my daughter, we shall go to the captain ourselves, and prostrate before them, and ask-]”

“[Yes this is very fascinating I agree father Ineedtogonow-]” The Karnakian pirate said, turning heel and beginning to powerwalk away. “[Thank you father I have so much to talk about pleasedon’tfollowme-]”

Toko gave a knowing nod and a wink to his colleagues before jogging around the infirmary bed, quickly chasing down his rapidly-sprinting new acolyte as the door rapidly shut behind him. “[Come, COME, GIRL! COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM-]”

“<Oh. Well Thank you, warm-cuddle New-hope!>” Stk’shzsk said, closing his eyes and smiling as he felt the tiny gloved hand press against the top of his snout once more. He was concerned that his tour of his – no, their – living quarters was going to bore the warm-cuddle, or even drive it away, but every time that ugly fear rose inside him there was a hug, or a gentle pat, or some (no doubt) sage and kind advice given to him in the warmcuddle tongue. The two of them had spent many happy hours together, and the tour eventually made it’s way outside Stk’shzsk’s room, into the surrounding halls.

He, of course, made sure the hallways were sealed shut; both for privacy and protection. He couldn’t – wouldn’t allow anyone to take his new hope away from him, and just the thought of the warmcuddle being pulled away-

The gloved hand gently pressed against his nose, and Stk’shzsk let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, repeating the trust gesture with his new friend.

“<Thank you. Do you have these at home?>”

Warmcuddle New-hope said something, and waved his arms about – stepping around so much that Stk’shzsk caught himself trying to catch his new friend if he fell over again – but he seemed to be happy. Very happy, if the smile on his face was any indication.

A smile. Now that was also a welcome sight, and Stk’shzsk did his best to burn the sight into his memory, to keep for all of time.

Stk’shzsk let that new memory fill him up for a few moments, before settling into a more serious mood. “<Although, I do want to make sure you understand, warmcuddle New-hope. I had to put this together myself, so there’s not much in the way of pre-loaded software, or inventory, or… blueprints. Ah, but, we can build from the ground up, together, if you want!>”

The warmcuddle bapped his hands against the terminal of the older, but jailbroken fabricator, and let out a joyous yell.

“<I’ll take that as a yes!>”

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