Tag: Cute

They are Smol: Chapter 4

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

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

Let’s find out.

————————————————————————————————————

“No no no no no oh no-“

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

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

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

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

It ends badly.

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

Click. Click. Cli-FWOOSH

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

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

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

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

“<Diamond copy, over. Resistance?>”

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

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

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

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

“<Granted.>”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“<Continue as planned.>”

Another green dot turns white.

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

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

“<Mmm. But why every officer?>”

“<That’s….hmm.>”

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

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

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

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

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

“<Officially.>”

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

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

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

“<Negative.>”

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

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

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

“<Run a full check on her finances?>”

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

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

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

Almost.

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

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

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

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

Caroline was smart.

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

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

This meant one of three things:

(1) A V8 Murderbot on tank treads.

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

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

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

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

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

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

…well it just doesn’t happen.

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

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

They were meant to kill everything.

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

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

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

“” BREWER muttered, taking up position behind a bulkhead

“<Mmm.>”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: Chapter 3

THE STORY SO FAR:

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

————————————————————————————————————

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

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

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

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

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

She turned to dank fucking memes.

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

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

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

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

C O M F

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Admiral Var’Shrak agreed, and prepared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“”

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

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

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

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

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

They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: Chapter 1

Author’s Note:

Wow. When I first wrote this chapter almost 5 years ago, smol was nothing but me venting out some gremlins that had weedled into my mind. Accordingly, the first few chapters are stream-of-thought, un-edited, un-formatted, and generally a wild ride; if I recall correctly, the first 5 chapters were done in 2 days!

There is a proper book that is an expansion and re-write of Arc 1, and that will be made shortly available. Until then, enjoy this pre-alpha smol, enshrined forever online, and forgive any mistakes or confusing scenes you may come across.

Caroline sniffed.

Not in that ‘but what IS that smell?’ kinda way, but in the ‘fuck me it’s cold’ kinda way. Through gloved fingers she twisted yet another insulated cable shut, thankful that the drop in heat hadn’t affected her like it did her cold-blooded friends.

“Th…there.” she sniffed again. “About damn time, too.” For a brief moment she took time to look over her ….quite honestly frankenstinian handywork; duct tape, forming putty, a couple of hasty welds, a half-used gigantic tube of black caulk – that’ll do, pig. That’ll do. Lighting up her communicator, she thumbs the bead implanted in her ear. “Engineering?”

“[Yes?]” her translator intoned.

“We lost 5 heating coils total; route power through auxiliaries for everything in my section.”

“[We will still lose net heat, Caroline.]”

“Ok, granted, but would you rather be at 60% or at 0? Give this another day and even I couldn’t be in here without an exo suit.”

“[3$##f (error:undefined words) (error:undefined words)]”

She smiled to herself. “Aww now, come on Sassy – if you’re going to curse say it clear enough for me to get it! Besides, 60% is downright comfortable for my species – consider it environmental training for the recruits!”

“[…. point taken, Caroline.]” and with the click of the bead, the communicator shut off – as the warm blue glow of auxiliary power lighting turned on, the air starting to circulate just slightly warmer than before.

“<Ok, look, I’m telling you we shouldn’t be here!>” Ssharnak hissed over his shoulder, quickly poking his head back out to the corridor.

“<Yeah, yeah, you were all ready and weaving to strike when it was all talk, but now->” with a grunt, Ashhs’skk popped off the cover to their resident human’s home terminal, quickly pulling out a few various tools. “<-that we’re here, you’re showing how lukewarm you really are!”>

“”

Junior Engineer – and self-proclaimed ‘code cracker’ Ashhs’ssk looked down over his deep navy coils at his partner-in-crime flatly. “<So you want access to secret [human] media that’s not cleared for our consumption…and you think she’ll just, yanno. Break laws to give it to us?>”

“<W-well, no.>”

“<So we turn to a life of piracy – subdue the guards, take over this ship, hold her hostage, demand the secrets of [human] cinema?>” Ashhs’ssk’s tongue slid out, lazily tasting the air.

“<I…just want to know what she’s always referencing…>” Ssharnak mumbled, his red tailtip curling in and around itself.

“<Ok then. Do you have a better plan?>” When silence greeted him, Ashhs’ssk sighed. “<That’s what I thought.>”

“<…We won’t be stealing her biodata, right?>”

“<By Sotek-who-circles-the-world, we’re having this conversation again, here? Now?>” Ashhs’ssk complained, his head and arm stuck in a compromising position within the Gateway brand human terminal. “<We’re spoofing her biometrics, ONLY when in warp and ONLY to see what she sees! Even then, there’s going to be a delay due to quantum, uh, estrangement? Let’s go with that->” with another grunt and a snap, a small cricket-sized piece of hardware connects two previously separate wires, and Ashhs’ssk grins. “<And anyway. We can’t record anything, and this’ll short out within a few [days] at most. We’ve got another 6 months in this contract – we’re going to be FINE, ok?>”

“<Do you promise?>”

Ashhs’ssk slid out and coiled around his maintenance box, quickly popping the cover back on to his human friend’s terminal. “<…just for that I’m making you get all the snacks when this thing works.>”

“Watch your tips, watch your tips~” Caroline sang-warned as she made her way back to the Engineering command center, the doors opening up into a balmy 30C environment. As she walked, the rest of the crew – Jornissians to the last – pulled their tails in under themselves. Flopping into the still-too-large-for-her-proportions human chair, Caroline made sure to make a big show of stretching and working out her fatigued muscles to the blue-and-gold swirled xeno.

“[Is that really necessary, Caroline?]” Engineering Lead Hsan playfully complained, his natural hiss-purring language being drowned out by the Comm-bead’s translation matrix.

“But it was sooooo much wooooork~” she whined, tapping her arm-mounted computer to begin the wonderful world of interstellar incident reporting and general paperwork.

“[Yes, certainly, walking down a few corridors and rerouting wires. Thank Sotek-who-circles-the-world we had you.]” Hsan grinned, monitoring the redistribution of power throughout the ship’s systems. “[If we didn’t, I shudder to think what we’d have to do – possibly use one of our other 8 corridors!]”

“Mmmm, Big talk for someone who doesn’t want to get a little cold.”

“[This again?]”

“Look, all *I’m* saying is that you’ve got dakimakura exo-suits and I want to get a single picture in-“

“[(error: untranslated phrase)? What brand of exo-suit is that?]”

“It looks like a long pillow.” Caroline grinned, causing Hsan to sigh.

“[80 generations of Jornissian technology-]”

“P i l l o w. Y’all gotta look so dang soft in ’em…”

“[So you want to cuddle up to me? Caroline, I never knew!]” Hsan tilted his head 180 degrees backwards, arms still working the controls while he stared at her, and upside-down grin plastered on his face. “[I’ll have to tell the captain to officiate our ceremony! So forward – so progressive!]”

“Oh baby, wrap your tail around me and call me-“

A Mottled black-and-gray Jornissian throws his hands up in the air. “[BY HARSAK-WHO-DEVOURS-THE-DEAD, WILL YOU TWO STOP.]”

“Sorry Haaank~””[Apologies, sonar technician Eshhsan.]”

“<Ok, ok, shh.>”

“<Stop! That’s not – mmf>”

“<Get your arm out of my face or so help me->”

“<H-hey! Hey! Th- Who’s touchi-iiiiii~>”

Ssharnak sighed. SOMEHOW – and it definitely was not his fault, no matter who you ask – word got out about their little escapade during the heater repair incident. So, what was originally going to be just two friends sharing a lifelong secret together turned into ‘let’s invite a few females to join us so we can be cool infront of them and they’ll think we’re cool and maybe they’ll nuzzle our hood flare cause we’re cool guys’ and then THAT turned into ‘it’s just a few more friends ha ha don’t worry’ until, well, now.

A good third of the entire ship’s crew is crammed into the private quarters of two Junior Officers. Another third probably tried to come in and saw it was packed – if the complaints out in the hallway are any indicator, and the rest of the poor bastards that aren’t in here or out there are probably actually flying the ship in warp…. with a live feed into this room.

If Ssharnak was a betting man (and he wasn’t, but after this would be in the market for a few vices) he’d say at least half of everyone’s body is still stuck outside in the corridor. The half that made it inside his room was comprised of a writhing mass of Jornissiary; males and females, senior officers and junior deckhands, pressing, writhing and squirming against each other for a good view…. which is kinda hot, honestly.

Ssharnak makes a mental picture of the situation, and then makes a mental note to check in for therapy.

“<Ashhs’ssk, when does this thing start?>”

“<Well, Captain, ma’am, uh. She has to start the actual program and sign in, and then we’ll just see what she sees…>”

The Captain – and you didn’t even know her name, nor how she got here, she was always just THE CAPTAIN – bore a hole into Ashhs’ssk with her glare. “<Son. I did not come down here on a maybe or a might – this thing of yours had better work. Now either it does, and this never happened, or it doesn’t and you get court marshaled. Understood?>”

“<Y-yes… ma’am.>”

Ssharnak rummages around the snack bowl he’s holding for a particularly crunchy namptha ball and pops it into his mouth. “<Here’s hoping.>”

Ashhs’ssk whips around and leans in close, whisper-screaming at his erstwhile friend and co-conspirator. “<You better be hoping too! We’ll both be going down for this!>”

“<What? Nah. I was just the lookout – the cute face of the operation. I got plausible deniability->”

“<Plausible den- I will crush seven types of hell into your body you little sh->”

With an unassuming crackle and a pop, the screen turns on. A desktop background of a [human] family slowly fades out to show [Caroline] and a few other females at some resort, and then to that same group of females in the water…

“<oh! a dynamic background. Neat.>”

“<Are all human females in those scale tones? No wonder they wear so much clothing>”

“<Just one sun? Just the one? Lame.>”

The peanut gallery continues through her reading of a couple emails, a few news articles caught up – apparently [Caroline] is an investor in iridium mines, who knew? The cancellation and ignoring of a couple warning popups (Ashhs’ssk went completely still and pale when the first one showed up) and finally, the opening of a program called Netflix.

Ssharnak smiles. “<Man, I’m glad this was my idea.>”

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