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They are Smol Stories

They are Smol – and it’s a Smol World: Chapter 8

“Bokka-bokka-bokka-bok.”

“Bokka-bokka-bokka-bok.”

“Bokka-bokka-bokka-bok-”

“Eggsmerelda!” Juan Esteban scolded, looking into the chicken carrier he was pushing out of the transport. He was answered with four flaps of the hen’s wings, before a full-body shake and an inquisitive stare. “Don’t you look at me like that! The pilot did his best.”

“Bok.”

“Nuh! That sinking feeling in your gut isn’t the precursor to something terrible – it’s just feeling this planet’s gravity, Eggsmerelda.”

The hen narrowed her eyes accusingly at her human caretaker, before looking tilting her head to see past him. She didn’t know enough about astrophysics or metaphysics to argue with the human, and figured her time would be best spent providing exposition to the rest of her flock.

Eggsmerelda cast her gaze outside of the livestock carrier to the planet she and all but 4 of her descendants would call home for the rest of time, and clucked softly to herself. Landing Zone 5 of the Human Partition of Silver City was a massive pad, all things considered; roughly 800,000 square feet of landing and unloading area per shuttlecraft, and this was one of 25 such pads that had been erected in a straight line along the border to help ease the flow of goods and personnel down to the surface of [Gentle Expanse]. This entire pad was currently taken up by the Aleman family – the parents, children, their various livestock, seed and starter crops. Juan Esteban, being the youngest child at 7, was put in charge of the more manageable livestock – and there’s nothing more manageable than a chicken in a coop.

“Rrr. Rrrrrr.”

“See? I told you, it’s fine. Papa says that we’ll make you a nice run near the house, and since there are no hawks here we might be able to give you a full acre!”

“Bok.”

“I know!” Juan Esteban agreed, nodding his boyish head sagely. “We have much more space than we did back home.”

“Bok.”

“Hmm?” Juan Esteban said, looking over to one of the elevator booths. The Landing Zone pads weren’t at ground level; They were the “rooftops” of various purpose-built complexes that would eventually manage the transfer of packages, immigrants and tourists to and from the surface. Right now, as they were mostly half-built, the Landing Zone pads and buildings were more …multipurpose. Anything from keeping sheep in (what would eventually be) basketball court to housing in the frequent flyer’s lounge was allowed, as long as it was temporary. The elevators themselves were a little more than half-built, but just barely; nothing more than part of the actual pad that would sink down to the lower levels, and a pop-up guardrail to corral the goods in transit from falling off the side. Currently standing on one of the elevators was a group of real life aliens-

Juan Esteban basically vibrated with excitement.

“Bok.”

“No. I’m goin’ over and saying hi!”

“Bok.”

“Oh COME ON. It’ll be ok!”

“…Bok.”

“Look, Papa won’t know!”

“Papa won’t know what?” Ricardo said, smiling softly as his youngest damn near jumped out of his skin.

“H-How did you-”

“Whenever children get really quiet, that’s when you know something is wrong. Besides, you should listen to Eggsmerelda – she’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“Bok.” Eggsmerelda said quietly in agreement.

Juan Esteban turned bright red, wrapping his arms around his torso and staring at his feet in utter embarassment. “H-How long-”

“Long enough, son. You’re not the only one who talks to the animals, yanno.” Ricardo stated, gently patting Juan Esteban on the head. “You don’t really grow out of it, and they do listen.”

Juan Esteban mumbled something half-audible in response, the encouraging clucking of Eggsmerelda not helping to pull him out of his funk. Ricardo sighed, then pushed his son slightly on the back towards the elevator. “Come on, we might as well see what they want.”

“Really?!”

“Mmm. And you’re not going alone. Besides, it’s always good manners to meet the neighbors.”

The elevator was bright, airy, and built to human standards – which is a nice way of saying it was open-air, windswept and very slow.

“[No, but seriously.]” Ik’itili said, ruffling her feathers slightly in worry before fussing them all back into place under her vest. “[What if we learned the truth?]”

“[I really really really don’t think that’s the case.]” Swipressnssren said, curling his tail back in on itself in a casual non-threatening rest position. “[If anything it was a bored warmcuddle who accidentally got lost on the GalNet and stumbled into the server.]”

“[But he was saying things-]”

“[Warmcuddles tend to do that.]” Swipressnssren responded coyly, earning him a bap with a feathered arm. He repositioned his sash, tucking the city guides’ standard issue tablet under his arm while doing so. “[Seriously, though. I don’t think that he was giving us the unedited truth-]”

“[Deepest Lore is what he called it – the secrets behind the secrets!]” Ik’itili chirped, giving a little full-body wiggle. “[What if he accidentally gave us the answers to perfect cross-species communication!? What if we’re able to be the best guides ever – Team, what if we can put it in a book and get it published?! We’d be famous-]”

“[We haven’t even met our first warmcuddle yet – in the flesh, I mean.]”

“[Hard light training dummies are basically little-needs-protectings-]”

“[That’s speciest.]” Ngruzren-of-Arzgr growled, grinning as he adjusted his leisure outfit, absentmindedly running a claw through his mane. “[And I’m reporting both of you for illegal fraternization with a tiny-chomper.]”

“[[John Madden] is more than a little-needs-protecting, Ngruzren. He’s eternal.]”

“[I have checked at least 15 times – there is no church of the touchdown, and the sacred playbook doesn’t exi-]”

The three of them tensed internally as the elevator began to slow down further – if you could believe such a thing – the top of the landing pad slowly inching towards eye-level.

“[I could jump it.]”

“[No.]”

“[M’ could.]” Ik’itili grinned, squatting. “[It’s just a little hop, really.]”

“[I’ll pluck your tailfeathers as you jump.]” Threatened Swipressnssren, smiling as they crested the floor. “[Now stand up already and act professional. We’re about to make introductions.]”

“[Fiiiiiine.]” Cooed Ik’itili, standing up and stretching her legs. “[But only because I’m the most professional of us all.]”

As the trio rose from the depths of the building and into the light, they looked around curiously; arrayed in a semicircle around the fat, bulky landing craft were all manner of cages, boxes and crates – most of them looking utilitarian and multipurpose in use and design. Every few crates would be broken up by a cage holding some exotic dirt animal – some were easily identifiable from the shared Human media; those over there were horses, that one – a cow. Some were utterly alien to the group, their purposes only guessed at. A cacophony of animal noises would every so often be blown towards them on the wind, before abruptly changing course and becoming almost mute. The elevator floor connected with the floor of the landing pad with an audible thunk, magnetic locks snapping into place. The movement apparently caught the attention of one of the offloaders, and eventually a trio of humans began to wobble their way over.

“[The song begins. Or as [John] would say – around folk be woke.]”

“[Damnit, Ngruzren, not you too.]”

“Ah.”

Ricardo was the patriarch of the Aleman family, and as such had a certain swagger to his walk. That swagger ended about halfway to the elevator once he got a really good look at the aliens waiting for him, and was altogether a distant memory once the size disparity was put into stark contrast. His son, Juan Esteban, went from eagerly power-walking before his daddy to standing beside him to now almost being pushed forward from the side.

“D-dad-”

“N-now now. They’re… they’re nice. A bit more… more than the holos, but. We trained for this.”

“Iunwanna-”

“It’ll be fine.”

Both Ricardo and Juan Esteban jumped slightly as Luciana had the audacity to… walk beside them for the past few moments. “Really though. They look aggressive, but it’s fine.”

“Mmm. I just… can’t read ‘em.” Ricardo murmured, voice low with worry.

“You… do realize you can just talk to them, right?”

“[Hello [Humans]!]” The giant werewolf bellowed, waving an arm like a treetrunk in a close-enough approximation of a greeting.

“See?” Luciana said, half-laughing as she waved back. “Besides, we’re far too deep in now to get cold feet – HELLO!” she called out, leading her family forward. “Pleasure to meet you!”

“[Greetings! I am greetings, and it is nice to meet you.]” The mountain of a beast said, ears perked forward.

“Oh! I uh. The pleasure is all ours! I’m Luciana, and this is my father Ricardo and my youngest brother, Juan Esteban – who is… hiding behind dad’s legs because he’s shy.”

The giant raptor knelt down, tilting it’s head to the side. “[I can help you hide better if you’d like!]” it beamed, and Juan’s grip on his father’s leg began to cut off circulation.

“T-that’s alright. What’s your names?” Ricardo grimaced, attempting to keep his demeanor through his child’s death-grip.

“[I’m Hello! And this is Welcome!]” the raptor motioned with a free arm to the giant snake, who dipped it’s head. “[Though, seeing as how this is our first meeting and calibration, it might make sense to pick new names for us!]”

“Oh! Uh, we can do that?”

“[Certainly! The names you give us will be logged by our implants and propagated out to every new human we meet. We will also do the same for you, if you don’t mind.]” The raptor screech-sang softly, it’s head remaining level with Juan Esteban’s while it’s body moved.

“Um.”

“[Could you say your name for calibration?]”

Everyone turned to little Juan Esteban, whose whole world was nothing but his father’s back.

“It’s… Juan. Juan Esteban.” Ricardo answered, his hand reaching back to assuredly pat his child on the shoulder.

“[Juan Juan Esteban.]”

“No, just Juan Esteban.”

“[Just Juan Esteban.]” the raptor said, without an ounce of confusion but a pinch of playfulness.

“Juan Esteban!” The child protested loud enough to finally be heard, not moving from his father’s side.

“[Hello Juan Esteban! What would you like to name me?]”

The child – for the first time since they got within earshot – peeked around his parent. “W-what?”

“[You can name me! What would you like to call me – my name is-]”

And then the raptor sang.

“[- but you can call me what you want.]”

“Um. Uh. Wh.. Ah.”

The boy stuttered for a few moments, staring down the unblinking and oddly kind monster before him as it swayed from side to side-

“W-wiggles?”

The raptor stopped moving, the wolf-bear looked away suddenly and the snake seemed to bite it’s lip. Using such a common word meant that it was perfectly translated over, so there was no mistaking or masking the name.

“[Wiggles.]”

“Yeah?”

The Karnakian looked up at the human patriarch with a deadpan expression. “[Wiggles.]”

“Ah-hh…” Ricardo grinned, shrugging, As Luciana started to lose it as silently as she could. “I mean… you did ask a child to name you.”

“[Wiggles.]” Wiggles the Karnakian said, looking back at her teammates.

“[Well, Wiggles, let’s not monopolize their time any longer than we should!]” The giant snake – Jornissian – said, bowing slightly. “[Although, I would prefer to be named something a bit more… mature.]”

“And uh, how do you say your name?”

And the snake purred.

“Uh… Persimmon? It’s a fruit that we cultivate, very sweet.”

“[Persimmon. Sure, thank you. And your name?]”

“Ricardo Aleman.”

“[Ricardo Aleman. It is a pleasure to meet you, Ricardo Aleman.]”

“L-likewise.”

Finally, the giant bear-wolf stepped forward, giving a gentle bow to Luciana. “[And what is your name?]”

“Luciana Aleman.”

“[Luciana. It’s a pleasure.]” and the wolf-bear – a Dorarizin – held out it’s hand in a very human-like greeting.

“Oh!” Luciana beamed, and gave a half-curtsy before reaching out and gripping the alien’s hand in a firm-for-a-human grip. “The pleasure is all mine!”

Luciana smiled wide, and remembering his training, Ngruzren-of-Arzgr mimicked the gesture – a light blush across his features.

They both tensed as there was a slip, and a decoupling. The alien facial gesture of a human “smile” working muscles in ways that usually aren’t moved in such a way. There was a loud plink, and a slight scattering of enamel-on-metal.

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr’s prosthetic lay on the ground between them.

“I uh…”

Luciana looked down and then back up at the frozen alien. If she had taken the more advanced orientation classes she would’ve known the look of utter mortification that was on Ngruzren’s features, but the thousand-yard stare was enough. She pulled her hand out of the Dorarizins’ and bent down, picking up the hefty implant.

“T.. I think this is yours.” She said quietly, placing it in his hand.

“[. . .]”

The two trios looked at each other for a few eternities, frozen in collective embarrassment until there was a fierce cough that snapped everyone out of their horrified reverie. Materializing between them both was a small, oval woman, and she immediately commanded everyone’s attention.

“I am Isabella Fransisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Aleman. You may call me Abuela. And we will call you Tipo.”

Tipo closed his mouth, a stormfront of dark emotion covering his face. Abuela received only a nod of recognition for her interruption, and she sighed.

“Well, there’s nothing to be done for it. Come on – Juan, get your mother.” Isabella stated matter-of-factly, and the youngest child scampered off as ordered. “Ricardo and the boys will unload, stable and transport what needs to be done. Myself, Mi Luzita and Sofia will join you for a tour of the city, and that will be that. Now.”

The small and arguably frail woman took the Dorarizin’s paw and began to ‘lead’ him away in a way that was more suggestion than anything else. “Come, come. We will fix this, come.”

Wiggles and Persimmon looked at each other and then back at Luciana, who shrugged and clapped her hands a couple times, attempting to break the spell. “I uh… yeah! So. Sun’s setting, what’s good to do at night around here?”

“[Well…… we have some very nice [human]-friendly shopping we could take you to. The sun won’t rise for another 15 hours, so you have plenty of time to see what you want to see. We could also try some of the [human]-friendly restaurants and cafes, if you’d like?]”

“I think that would be great! Um. What’s good around here?”

“[Well, there are some places that serve caffeine, which might be useful if you’d like to spend a few hours out – or if you just want to get something quick and then head back to the unloading dock…]”

And so Luciana made small talk, soon joined by her mother Sofia who had some suggestions of her own. Eventually the addition of having someone who missed the recent unpleasentness and the momentum of excited conversation soon smoothed over the awkward start to the evening, and as a group they “boarded” the elevator and began the slow, safe ride down.

And for the entire ride Abuela sat in Tipo’s lap, singing softly as she was cradled gently by his arms.

Together, they descended into the blue-lit city below.

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Stories They are Smol

They are Smol – and it’s a Smol World: Chapter 5

Now in the movies, when a ship warps into a new star system they’re able to instantly come in at orbit of a planet, drop shields, deploy fighters, shoot guns, activate evasive maneuvers and all sorts of wonderful things that Hollybollywood would have you believe human starships can do. The real truth of the matter is that’s all bullshit. Once you warp into a system – even a well mapped system – you’re effectively blind until the EM spectrum can come back on and let you know who’s around you, where you are, and what the heck is going on, and almost most importantly, where the fuck is the system’s star. Although this takes milliseconds at most and nanoseconds at best, it’s still a delay.

So the real M.O. of any ship warping anywhere is to do so next to a pre-established buoy or marker of some sort, let your ship systems come back online, parse the data and then vacate the premises as quickly as possible. Although collisions can and do happen they are astronomically (hah!) rare, as space is vast, there are multiple entry points into any given system, legal ships radio ahead for the system’s Space Traffic Control to coordinate warp-out spots in spacetime and no good captain worth their salt sticks around on the off chance there’s an emergency warp coming in.

However, Reach was special.

I don’t mean that in a “Humanity uncovered in a few short decades answers to thousand year old technological riddles” kind of way, but in a “oh God we’re shipping families of a species that actually fits in the galactic census margin of error” and “I’ve heard the stories of what goes on in their R&D departments and if something goes wrong it will all be our fault” kind of way. When you have such precious cargo arriving at ludicrous speed, you tend to enact certain …overzealous safety measures. Reach and her escorts enjoyed a very close warp-in to Gentle Expanse, her multiple moons between sinking behind and cresting over the planet – on the off chance there were issues, rescue and repair was just a few minutes away, and everyone could be evacuated within an hour. Reach was also escorted by the Terran Combat Ships My Hand Slipped and La Chancla, as well as almost a dozen senate battle cruisers, logistics carriers, medical ships and a handful of dreadnoughts. Reach also enjoyed the dubious accolade of being the only escorted non-combat ship in 4,000 years to warp into a populated and mapped system and have absolutely no space traffic whatsoever cluttering up their EM broadcasts.

Like I said, Reach was special.

And so Reach, special, special Reach, sat just out of reach of it’s landing zone as various senate ships meandered throughout the system, re-re-re-mapping every navigational hazard, updating Galactic nodes, verifying the moratorium of new ship traffic with traffic control, setting up a defensive perimeter (cause you never know) and ultimately spending a couple extra hours blasting a few errant comets and meteorites that may have proved to be a problem to the colony in the next 780,000 years. The colonists aboard Reach weren’t too concerned about the delay – almost all of their excitement and time were spent pouring over geographical maps, reports of local flora and fauna, possible city layouts, connecting and setting up their own Galactic Net Node and other extremely interesting things that you, the reader, probably don’t want to know anything about. It was the navigational crew, the operations teams – and the military, especially, who started to go mad at just sitting there for hours, and then days as absolutely nothing of interest happened. When they finally did get the green light to move forward, it was only a 10 minute trip to orbit… and then the beginning of a multiple months-long stay as they unloaded their cargo.

Space travel, everybody.

== CHAT ENABLED ==

+) [PRIVATE CHATROOM 188.6@#!@.7&&23—99R JOINED]

+) [PASSKEY]: ***********************************************************************

+) [PASSKEY ACCEPTED]

+) [(TEXT)] / [SIMULATION]

+) [TEXT ONLY ACTIVATED]

[USER ACTIVITY]

[Poet of Stars][ACTIVE]

[Best_at_Tech][DORMANT]

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her][JOINED]

[dramdrunk][OFFLINE]

[MEGAMEGAMEGA][OFFLINE]

.

.

.

= = =

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr idly scrolled through his list of servers, logging into some, logging out of others, and making note of who was online and where. His tooth prosthetic was out, his clothing gone, and he was draped over a spherical beanbag in a way only the young (or those who are limber) are able to do. His eyes were glazed over, his tongue idly licking the gummy gap in his mouth.

= = =

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]: [Who’s actually here?]

[Poet of Stars]: [Hey. Not joining us in Simulation?]

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]: [Nah. I’m not up for it.]

[Poet of Stars]: [Fair enough – just know that you still have that whole black-heart default av.]

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]: [What?! I swore I changed it-]

[Poet of Stars]: [Maybe on some other chatroom, but not globally. I mean, I don’t care, I’m just saying-]

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]: [Fine, fine. I’ll hop in.]

= = =

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr frowned as he kicked in a few more subroutines with his implant, the embedded room computer taking on most of the processing load as he reached above and behind him, blindly pawing at the floor for a headset. Eventually – after a few groans, rolling over to actually search, and then realizing he was laying on top of his new pair all along – he put on the earpieces, a hard-light visor projecting perfectly over his eyes, ears and muzzle. He reached his arms out as he lay splayed on the floor, the room’s optics recording his position, marking it as “neutral” and building a world completely around him.

= = =

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr appeared, suddenly, in a wide open field with no atmosphere – the stars of his home system’s sky whizzing past him at ludicrous speed. The earth yawned open below him, breaking apart into various floating islands, twisted sculptures of art and geometry, and in one case a pen of [Night-Terror]-beasts, beating themselves impotently against the glass. He fell, and continued to fall, sighing as he passed rapidly through a solid carved-stone floor, through the dungeon below, and out the other side into the void.

He was, of course, not himself, which any sensible person would realize at this point. No, at this particular junction he was still his default offline persona, a night-rage beating black heart wreathed in ice and claw.

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr cringed internally at that description. It wasn’t a phase, it was simple experimentation, but… thank goodness he got past that as quick as he did.

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]:”[Hey! I thought you fixed NoCollision! Ik’itili?!]”

[Poet of Stars] called out from somewhere and nowhere at the same time. “[No, she’s offline! And I don’t know – log out and change avs before you log back in?]”

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] sighed, force-quitting the simulation chatroom. The sound and feeling of air whooshing over his body immediately stopped, and the expanse-less and featureless void that sat at the bottom of the map gave way… to his bedroom ceiling again.

Mentally switching avatars, Ngruzren-of-Arzgr logged back into the private server, no longer appearing at the zenith of the skymap but instead on the ground itself. [Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] rolled his shoulders and fluffed his mane once more; He was a svelte gauntling, his blood-blue fur and skin glistening like thousands of droplets of frozen rain, or captive stars seen through a pane of ice. Teeth white as fallen snow, eyes a deep and mysterious black – but unlike the haggard and well, gaunt demons of yore, he was muscled. Fit. Proportioned in all the right ways to make the ladies notice hi-

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] stopped his mental train of thought as a tiny-chomper stood before him, smiling with his tiny chompers. 

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]:”[Wh. Uh. WHU.]”

The tiny-chomper shook his head disapprovingly. [Poet of Stars]:”[Oh no no. That’s not good at all. The correct greeting is ‘Hello! Pleasure to meet you!’ with an alternative ‘Do you need any help?’. Zero marks, go back to-]”

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]:”[Wait, Swipressnssren?! How did – how did you get that model?!]”

[Poet of Stars] bowed dramatically – for a tiny-chomper, that is – and digitally ‘held out’ a file archive, which [Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] accepted and began to download. [Poet of Stars]:”[Well, turns out our little tech diva knows a thing or to – or knows a few people – and somehow got a copy of some hard-light tiny-chompers. Tell me, do I look… familiar?]”

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] shook his head, studying the alien before him. ”[No, I’d remember a tiny-chomper if I saw one…]”

[Poet of Stars]:“[Really?]” he said, suddenly making the avatar twist it’s features in fear. “[But life day will be ruined-]”

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] groaned in voice chat and in real life, Ngruzren-of-Arzgr’s limbs going limp against the floor as he felt the life drain from his body.

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]:“[Are you Kidding me?!]”

[Poet of Stars]:”[Nope. But the continued good news is that she also somehow got the randomization customization files as well, and the control behind it. You can customize your own tiny-chomper! And there’s also a server address…]”

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her] grinned as he dismissed his avatar, returning to the default ‘ball of light’, before running the package he was just given.

[Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her]:”[Whelp. There goes my evening.]”

Jonathan Protaganista was bored out of his mind.

Now, usually this would be cause for fear amongst his coworkers, his managers and, generally, everyone aboard whichever station he happened to be serving on at any given time. However, Jon was doing his best to stay out of trouble, out of the way, and most importantly, out of the spotlight. This wasn’t due to him turning over a new leaf at being selected/press-ganged into serving on Reach, which would undoubtedly put his name somewhere in the history books – probably near the bottom, in -50 typefont, if we’re being honest. No, he stayed out of the way and out of trouble and out of the spotlight for one very simple reason, which goes back to the most ancient of maritime law, and logically extended into the depths of space itself:

When the ship was away from port, the Captain’s word was law.

And although Jon could bullshit his way around his coworkers and his managers and generally everyone else who had no idea what he did but nodded sagely and made the appropriate knowing mouthsounds at bigly-sounding words, he could not bullshit a ship’s Captain who wanted to make history, his crew who were on a mission and a security team who could – and would! – throw him in the brig for weeks or months at a time.

The brig has no Wi-Fi, man. That’s inhumane.

So he sat in his room, day in, day out, only taking in what food his tamed herd of roombas would deliver to his door. His position was also basically outsourced; Jon was a master slacker above all things, and it wasn’t difficult to build a program and rewire a few robots to do his job in his stead. In regards to entertainment, Quantum communication was a thing, and the delay in getting the new media, news and art from home was measured in seconds as opposed to years. This was great for watching ‘the big game’, but absolutely terrible for gaming. Jon lives in a society, and that society put the millisecond latency he was used to in twitch shooters such as Cookie Clicker at the bottom of the “needs” bin.

And so Jonathan Protaganista was bored out of his mind. Although most games had a VR/AR switch, with his modest crew quarters and lack of a holodeck on the ship, he was forced to game by screen. Like an animal. When contextual clues that felt natural were reduced to indicator markers on the edge of that screen – it didn’t matter if it was wrap-around visor and in 32K, it still felt off. Stilted. So Jon did the next best thing a bored man can do alone in his room with a connection to the Internet.

No, not that. Stop that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

I am, of course, talking about shitposting. A few second delay is untenable for PVP or even PVE MMO games, but message boards? Text servers? That’s absolutely fine, man… If only he wasn’t banned from most of them. Turns out you can’t shitpost too hard when you’ve got a forced, fixed IIP ID.

“Server list… let’s see. Omnigender breathairians – banned. Karnakian Truthers – banned. Hollow moon theorists – banned. Flat-galaxy – banned. Mandatory Nanomachine Injections for US Senators – Ugh. There’s nothing fucking good left.” Jon murmured, his old haunts shunning him from his lack of VPN and proxy spoofs to hide behind. “Is there anything local I can do? Not like I’m fucking staying.”

His eyes tracked to various menu icons, his gloved hands gripping controllers to input and select text and icon choices. Eventually he connected to the ‘local’ GalNet node, his translation matrix working overtime to download a couple petabytes of data. Slowly, before his very eyes, unintelligible script formed words, then sentences, then inflection, meaning slowly sifting through byte by byte. After the translations loaded he completely ignored the welcome screen, the about section, and various other helpful and noble sites on his way to degeneracy.

Jonathan Protaganista was a master slacker, and he had various tricks up his sleeve to get to the “good” stuff. It wasn’t but a few weeks after a Galactic Node was established around Earth’s orbit decades ago that his spiritual lieges and slacker shaman ancestors put forth a titanic effort to crack, dismantle, hack, abuse, and shitpost furiously through all of the firewalls, botnet protections, and various other physical and digital protections put in place by his species’ benefactors.

Truth be told, they didn’t make it. They didn’t crack the GalNet node, but they pried it open just a little. Enough for some wiggle room. What tricks weren’t classified beyond ‘CIA blacksite visit’ were shared amongst slackers such as himself, and he was pleased to find that most nodes – or at least, the only other node he’s ever touched – seemed similar enough for him to root around in.

So he did.

“Porn, porn, vintage movies that I don’t care about, porn, games I can’t play, porn, financials of companies I don’t care about, porn, ah. FINALLY.”

Jon stumbled around the alien navigation, the same intuition that came to three races sharing millenia together completely lost on him. It took him a good 45 minutes just to find a server list, and even then all the options were either encoded or gibberish.

All but the one he joined.

== CHAT ENABLED ==

+) [PRIVATE CHATROOM WELCOME_ALL_HUMANS JOINED]

+) [PASSKEY: NULL]

+) [PASSKEY ACCEPTED]

+) [TEXT] / [(VISOR)]

+) [VR CHAT ACTIVATED]

[USER ACTIVITY][Page 1 of 57]

[LOOK_AT_MY_LIMBS][ACTIVE]

[HATEHATE][ACTIVE]

[MY TEETH HURT][ACTIVE]

[LIMBSY FACEMAN][ACTIVE]

[AAAAAAAAA][ACTIVE]

[BEP BEP BEP][ACTIVE]

[cuddle-me-now][DORMANT]

[LOUD_NOISES][ACTIVE]

[BbBbBbBbBbBbBbBbBbB][DORMANT]

[BURNING_MAN][DORMANT]

.

.

.

= = =

Jon smiled. The text that spilled past him – pouring past him in a speed almost too fast to see, was nothing but pure shitposting. Around him, a cacophony of noise; there was Roleplaying, conspiracy theories, random noises, people challenging others to duels, a few people with avatars running around completely naked-

These were his people.

He ported in his default avatar – a simple scan of his own body, he didn’t care – and walked right up to the nearest human being.

[JOHN MADDEN]:”AEIOU.”

The human, [Stole_yo_girl_and_dumped_her], turned and grinned, flailing his arms in ways that obviously broke every bone in ‘his’ body. “[BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBR]”

And over the next four hours, a friendship was born.

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They are Smol Stories

They are Smol – and it’s a Smol World: Chapter 4

For the first few weeks, they fought against the machine – purposefully working slow in protest.

The next few weeks after that, they returned to routine, albeit grumbling all the time.

However, It was within Month 5 of the great staffing, resupply and fitting of Reach, in the Year of Our Lord 2184, in the third dimension, in the Sol system (wherein Humanity was born and accidentally yeeted into the stars) whereupon arguably the most momentous occasion of the last 40 years occurred:

Jonathan Protaganista and Aisha Batal Alrawaya completed an honest-to-God full day’s worth of work.

It was such an anomaly that at first HR believed it to be a mistake; this forced both Jon and Aisha to spend an additional 15 minutes at work past their leave-by time to verify that yes, they were in fact at their stations doing their jobs, and no – it wasn’t a motorized blow-up doll sitting at their desks. Again. Their supervisor was eventually called in, who corroborated their stories – and furnished further proof of his eyewitness account by producing no less than 100 lottery tickets for the Powerball 37 drawing that same day. In a bizarre twist of fate (and the sudden, totally rational fear that the two of them were replaced by body snatchers from Pluto) HR decided to give them the next few days off – as a thank you for actually doing real work for once.

“I just don’t get it.”

Aisha shrugged, pouring herself another shot of tequila. “Who cares? Shit, if I knew working hard would get us more time off I would’ve started earlier! Like in college. Or preschool.”

“Well, ok, fair point – but I mean more what they’re doing with the first round of colonists. The Reach is going to be jumping with a full escort, right?”

There was the sound of glass-on-table as the empty shot was slammed down, Aisha grunting for a moment before replying. “Fuck. Yeah, I guess so? Couple of our own navy with some Senate heavy-hitters. I mean, it is our first colony ship, and everyone wants to make nice. Bury the hatchet and all that.”

“No.” Jon murmured, staring out the digital “windows” of the bar that they were currently occupying at 11AM on a Tuesday. Reach sat heavy and fat, like a bundle of cigars taped together a little to thickly in the middle, a swarm of lights dancing around it’s entire form in a symphony of engineering, operations and logistics. The majority of work was done; seeds and soil, livestock and pets, people and personnel were already on-board with their families, settling in to what would amount to a couple-month stay on-ship before a final drop to the new world.

Literally, in their cases.

“I mean more like… Sure there was a waitlist to go, but they’re doing 3 rounds of colonization? And it’s not to meet demand – It just seems weird.”

The bottle of Tequila was upended, the last few drops splashing into the half-full shot glass. “Mmm. Grunts first – grunts first always. Then the middlemen to make shit difficult for the grunts, then the upper class to pretend they did it all by themselves and never needed the grunts in the first place.”

Jon laughed mirthlessly, rolling his eyes. “Dramatic today, aren’t we?”

Aisha whined something half-heartedly mocking in response, downing the half-shot of tequila with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever. “Nngh. Jon, what’s your actual fucking question? Whenever you start thinking you get moody – your brain’s not used to working that hard-”

“Firstly, fuck you, you fuck like a limp fish and Faiza told me she thinks of Batgirl when she fucks you.”

“Good taste. S’why I’m gon’ marry her.”

“Secondly, the mix seems super weird. Construction crews, fine. Electricians – ok. Doctors, no shit. But Botanists? Xenobiologists? Survivalists? This world’s been occupied before we fucking discovered fire or some shit, why are they going?”

“Iunno. To prove that their shiny new degree actually means something? Gotta prove to daddy that his creds were worth spending, or that you really did need that decade to backpack around pan-africa to find yourself~”

Jon turned to look at his now very drunk comrade, scooting his beer closer to his side of the table and away from longing eyes. “Wow. I mean, I always heard lesbians had daddy issues buhOWWWW~” The statement died in his throat by a savage – well, ‘savage’ drunken kick connected with his shin.

“Asshole.” Aisha stated, resting her chin on the table.

Jon responded to the insult by slamming back his beer, letting the larger glass thunk heartily against the faux wood table. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we got 3 days off – fucking finally – so what do you want to do with ‘em?”

There was a small pause before Aisha looked up from her headrest, eyes only taking a few moments to focus. “Hey. Do you suppose the raid servers are empty cause everyone’s pulling overtime?”

They shared a look – You know the type I’m talking about. The sudden realization that all the cheaters, wall-hackers, chinese gold farmers (yes it’s still a problem in the future), enemy guilds, faction whores and tryhard powergamers were otherwise offline and their game would be… untainted. Pure. NPC-rich. Loot rich.

There would be nobody to stop them from powergaming.

“RACEYOUTOTHEDECK-”

“FUCK-”

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr was sweating, hard. Figuratively.

It had been 6 months of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point; the general orientation class was a breeze, and so he foolishly signed up for the intermediate offering. Then the advanced. Soon, what started as an undefined but necessary urge to work with the new colonists had morphed into an almost full-blown obsession. He parlayed his connections, his ‘life experience’, and his damn good grades to end up in the group that was presenting a final student project to the Gentle Expanse/Silver City tourism and public safety board.

It was 6 months worth of work condensed into a wordless set of diagrams that would help educate any Senate species, regardless of what their base written script was, or if their translators were working, on how to interact with the tiny-chompers. Hundreds, literalhundreds of iterations were put together in order to make the best possible collage of information, presented in the most clear possible way. Ngruzren’s team wasn’t even presenting the entire library of work; theirs was literally just a small chunk of a larger effort. Still, it was before both a city and planetary board of directors, and needed to be given the due weight and respect of the job put before him.

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr was sweating, hard… over a free safety pamphlet.

He stayed in the sideline, letting his body language show that he was extremely interested in what his Jornissian colleague was saying – he wasn’t really, the team lead had rehearsed the speech so often that he could say it from memory in a pinch, but presentation was everything at this stage and so he let his body show he was occupied in rapt attention while his mind wandered.

His dad kept looking at him with a look, a looky look that looked… looky, and Ngruzren didn’t know what to make of it. The night-rage thing… ok, granted, he looked fine but black was so limiting as a color and really, he looked better when he highlighted his own natural fur color and stayed with pastel clothing and bright accessories. The large mane wasn’t such a big pain-in-the-tail to keep as he was cautioned about, and… ok, it was nice that Mom was taking more time at home after winning the bid. But that’s not why he stopped with the night-rage hassle… honest.

Ngruzren kept going back to that look, like a hunter to the tracks of his missing prey. It didn’t make any sense! Sure, he might have suddenly found his passion in these new aliens, but is that such a bad thing? His life before was going to be reviewing drone core samples and sitting at a desk doing paperwork! Sure, steady and well-paid work, but boring as all get-out. At least here he could interact with people! Sure, they might be smaller, and weaker, and need help and should be herded properly and sometimes needed their food prepa-

Ngruzren inhaled, sharply, as the realization hit him so hard he physically swayed. He was packless, he went into season, the tiny-chompers were so small and cute, his father’s knowing look-

A sharp round of applause broke his epiphany, and he looked around confused for a moment – until he stood up, joining the rest of his team, clapping for some reason.

A female Dorarizin – the name escaped Ngruzren at the moment – stood, professionally adjusting her chest stays. “{Excellent presentation! We are most pleased to accept this addition to the localized training directory! I’m also speaking for my associates here – but given your team’s drive and dedication, that it would be remiss of us to not allow you all the chance to work with the tiny-chompers as well.}” Was she – was she looking directly at him? “{We still have many more positions to go through, but I’m almost certain your passion will intertwine with those open gaps and fill them quite nicely.]”

Ngruzren tilted his head slightly… Was. Was that a wink?

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr blinked, hard, as the female who was old enough to be his mother and was probably happily married already, continued to talk about next steps, promoting synergy, and other managerial talk, giving that same look to… to everyone else in the room.

Ugh.

Swipressnssren stared, unblinking, at his Dorarizin table-mate as he downed another bag of Hufflepuffs – what were essentially triple-fried skin-rinds of some sort of animal, the things powdered and coated with various savory and sweet flavors. Nori had to have devoured at least 12,000 calories in the past 10 minutes, and that’s just what Swipressnssren had personally witnessed.

“<Um. I take it the meeting didn’t go well?>”

Nori growled something noncommittal before swallowing another mouthful of the trashy junk food. “[No. Went fine, everything’s fine.]”

“<Hmm. Doesn’t sound fine.>”

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr crumpled up the tinfoil packaging, dropping it onto the heap of it’s bretheren on the table. “[The design was approved, the presentation went off without a hitch, and I am almost totally certain that I’ll have a position as a warmcuddle tour guide within the year. Frozen hells, I’ll probably even be in charge of an entire city block or two. Yay.]”

Swipressnssren sank into his coils slightly as he studied the alien-yet-familiar body language of his friend, his hands resting idly on his midsection coil. “<The amount of venom you just spat in that statement would make any old tooth proud. What’s going on, really?>”

Ngruzren – Nori, as he was called in the Jornissian’s tongue – frowned, grumbling something untranslatable as he stared at the tabletop before him, almost boring a hole through it with the intensity of his gaze.

“<Come on. I know that thing with your last… girlfriends didn’t work out->”

“[Why are you assuming it’s a girl problem?]”

“<Well, is it?>” The Jornissian hummed, rolling his shoulders in curiosity. “<It’s either women or work at this stage in life – unless you’ve found out you’re a proud papa->”

There was another nondescript mumble, and Swipressnssren stuttered. “<Wh-what? With whom->”

“[Ugh, you’re sounding as bad as my Mother.]” Nori smirked, his hands reaching up to play with the metal wrappers to what was left of his prodigious feast. “[No, it’s not girls, I promise. It’s just… well, like. Have you ever just caught yourself doing something stupid-]”

“<Me? Never.>”

“[Hah. Try to pretend you’re mortal, for a moment. But like. You catch yourself doing something stupid and then realize why?]”

“<…Introspection. You’re telling me you just now discovered introspectio->”

“[No, you coiled shit.]” Nori grinned – ah, finally a smile! – flicking a rolled up ball of tin at the Jornissian. “[I just… Well, you know I’ve been in an extended season because I have no pack.]”

“<Right. I mean, I thought you looked good with the whole black-sun thing going on->”

“[Just. Ok. Um, Thanks. But. So I’m in extended season with no female packmates. Brain’s flooded with all sorts of hormones and stuff.]”

Swipressnssren quirked his eyebrow as high as it could physically go – which wasn’t too far, given his physiology and the musculature of his hood, so it was a true feat. “<A… are you trying to tell me where hatchlings come from?>”

That comment earned him an entire fistful of wrappers bouncing off his head.

“[No, UGH. Look. Just… I’m in a mood right now – and I know, shutup – and like. I’m nearing the end of my development, and historically guys would’ve paired off by now – and a few months ago, we started to get into this warmcuddle research kick, right?]”

“<Riiight…. I’m not… you’re a cuddlefucker?>”

“[No.]” Ngruzren-of-Arzgr deadpanned, his hands kneading his forearms roughly. “[I just realized why I wanted to even do all of this.]”

“<Why’s that?>”

Nori looked up at his friend, as 1 million KM above him – at that very moment, in fact – Reach broke warp, gravitational waves rippling through the first alien star system that Mankind would call home.

“[I want pups.]”

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They are Smol – and it’s a Smol World: Chapter 3

Pip

“[-And now, in local news. Another illegal personnel smuggling operation was busted earlier today operating around the Gas Giant Cloudpearl; Senate Teams lead by the H.S.T.’s own regional law enforcement discovered a network of hollowed-out asteroids at the edge of the gravity well. As they were discovered within 5 calendar years of creation squatters’ rights will not-]”

Pip

“[-letion of the dome, which allows for their own day-night rythm.]” The Jornissian professor on-screen said, shifting slightly in his seat.

“[I see! But won’t they be able to adapt like the rest of us?]” The Karnakian host questioned, leaning over his table with an eager expression on his face. “[I thought one of the reasons why we won the bid was because our planet and theirs are so similar?]”

“[From an atmospheric and gravitic comparison – yes, absolutely. However, we rotate much slower so no – a day on Gentle Expanse is roughly 1 1/2 of their entire day/night cycles on Dirt. It’s not a question of adapting to a couple extra hours of work or rest, but an extreme marathon of staying up and sleeping. I’ve been assured by the tiny-chompers that staying up longer than 13 hours at a time begins to impair their judgment, with extreme cases – 20 hours or so – even leading to audio/visual hallucinations.]”

“[Good heavens! So is that also the reasons for those isolation pods popping up around the colonization zo-]”

Pip

“[-ning is complimentary, but mandatory if you wish to be a tiny-chomper local guide or coworker. For an introductory rate of 500GRC you can enroll in our 10-week certified basic training course, enabling you to qualify for further specialized interaction opportunities. Top Mark Training Company: Preparing you for the workplace of tomorrow, today.]”

Pip

“{Daaaaaaaaad~}”

Dzgranra-of-Arzgr sighed as he worked the hard light projector, the remote long lost to him. His wives had thankfully put the lump of titanium in some reach of the house that would be safe from all prying eyes and paws – including those of his eldest son, all of his daughters, and the wives themselves. It wasn’t the first time the remote had been lost, but the fact that they put a child-lock on all remote broadcasting to the panel was both touching, and infuriating.

As if his children were so ill-mannered to watch a pay-to-own series without asking first.

As if he didn’t deserve to watch more pay-to-own series!

Pip

“[-st saying, if you’re not planning on serving them you shouldn’t be forced to qualify! These new regulations are going to put me out of business – I’m a Jornissian-only establishment; I can’t and don’t cater to anyone else, and that’s never been a problem-]”

The not-insignificant pile of pups that were congealed on the center rug began to wiggle as one; Dad was concentrating, and this could not be allowed to continue.

“{Daaaaaaaad it’s gonna staaaaart~}”

“{I know, loves, I know.}”

Pip

“[-TO SAVE THE DAY-]”

“{-THE SUPER SPACE TEAM, HOORAY!}” The entire mass of under-9-year-old pups cheered at once at the top of their lungs, temporarily deafening their father and quite possibly rattling all the windows in the house.

For the first – or last – time that week (depending on when you consider the week to start and end), Ngruzren-of-Arzgr was woken up 15 minutes before his alarm clock by the cacophony of voices, and smiled.

The evil Dr. Dark laughed triumphantly as she held the tiny-chomper fiercely by the shoulder, the smaller alien crying out in pain as the stonification ray was pressed to his head. “[Not another move forward, Super Space Team! If you move a single micrometer, I’ll petrify this tiny-chomper – and then move onto the rest of his family!]”

“[No! Help me, Super Space Team! If Dr. Dark petrifies us all, the life-day celebration will be ruined!]” the tiny-chomper said, interrupted in real-time in the entertainment den by gasps of shock from the pup-pile. Ngruzren-of-Arzgr, for his part, rolled his eyes as he watched the unfolding ‘drama’ from the stairwell hall, making sure to stay silent and still lest he be noticed and dragged into the pile himself.

The actor playing the evil Dr. Dark shook the very obvious hard-light automaton of tiny-chomper soft-but-helpful. “[Not another word out of you!]”

“[Enough!]” Prince Solaris said, the male Dorarizin posing dramatically – or as dramatically as you could – in his ‘super sun suit’, beads of pure stars charging up. “[You won’t be turning him or any of the other tiny-chompers into stone today!]”

“[Or any other day!]” the absolutely garishly pink Karnakian Time Priest chimed in, her own suit turning a few painful shades of color that made Ngruzren-of-Arzgr physically flinch but drew excited cheers from his little siblings.

“[At the end of this battle, I’ll be adding you to my heat rock collection!]” the disturbingly blood-blue Jornissian Space Ranger finished, his last pose forming the final link between the other two Super Space Teammates, glyphs of power glowing on their bodie-

“{Ancestors. Kill me now.}” Ngruzren-of-Arzgr murmured as he watched his little sisters become absolutely absorbed in the ensuing scripted fight/acrobatics scene. He looked around the den with a wry grin, finally noticing his father at the opposite end of the room waving him over with a bowl of Drzulr in his hand. Ngruzren-of-Arzgr would have taken a long, slow time to sneak around the hyper-attentive siblings, but … well.

Saturday morning cartoons.

So instead, he just quickly – but still somewhat quietly – made his way around the back of the pile, every so often catching a glance of the tiny-chomper being physically tossed to safety from one Super Space Team-member to another in a bid to yadda yadda yadda.

“{Good morning, Dad.}” Ngruzren said softly, gently bumping his head against his father’s.

“{Good morning, Son. Sleep well?}”

“{Mmhmm.}” Ngruzren murmured, walking into the kitchen to see if the pot was still full. “{We out of dryspice?}”

“{No, but if the tumbler’s useless let me know. I had to throw at least half of it out because someone left the lid open and some flea-prawn got into the spice.}”

“{Nk-Grenz? If it’s not one of my moms’ it’s another-}”

Dzgranra chuckled softly as he rested against the kitchen wall, keeping an eye on his children as he sipped the slurry from the bowl. “{Mmmm. Well, with us winning that settlement bid – which, I’ll have you know I gave your mother no end of tongue-lashing over keeping that secret from me-}”

“{I know, I heard – both types.}”

Dzgranra growled a somewhat embarrassed, impressed and chiding retort at his sons’ liveliness. “{Well, it had been a few weeks, and I’m not seeing you move out young man-}”

“{I know, I know. It just didn’t work out.}”

Dzgranra hummed softly into his bowl, taking another deep dreg of the sauce-like concoction, his senses perking up the more he imbibed. “{Mmm. Well. Regardless, I’m glad to see that your studies have improved – and that your fur color is back to normal.}”

Now it was Ngruzrens’ turn to hum softly, his eyes playfully narrowing at his father. “{It just became too much of a hassle to keep up. I’m keeping the long mane, though.}”

“{Ah.}” Dzgranra acknowledged, leaning into the den to see the screen again. The tiny-chomper was riding on the back of the Karnakian hero, the entire team escaping from an exploding secret lair of some sort. “{Well, still. I know you’ve thrown yourself back into your studies – which is good – but we can’t keep putting off a fitting, son. You’re at least a year overdue-}”

“{Dad. Now?}” Ngruzren said, adding the finishing garnishes to his bowl of morning pick-me-up. “{Look. I’m mostly sitting in lectures and modeling classes, I’m not giving oral presentations, and as you can hear my words aren’t slurred-}”

“{Mm.}”

“{…well. Not badly.}”

“{Look, I’m certain if you wanted to work with your mother she could arrange an internship-}”

“{I-it’s not that, Dad.}”

Dzgranra spared a hard side-glance at his youngest, unmarried son – who looked away at the gaze. “{Well? What’s got you doing a complete turnaround then?}”

“{I… uh. I wanna work with them.}”

“{With-}”

“{withthetinychompers.}” Ngruzren murmured all at once, not so much savoring his bowl of Drzulr as just taking the entire thing down as a shot.

“{You want to work. With the tiny-chompers. Son, your mother may have some sway but you’re very young and I’m pretty sure all those slots are taken-}”

“{Well then maybe as a tour guide then?! I don’t know – why are you so quick to-}”

“{Son. You’re studying to be a geochemical engineer.}”

“{A-and?}”

“{… and you’re applying to be a tour guide. What’s this really about, really?}”

“{I just…}”

Dzgranra looked at his son, hard, as the boy murmured half-truths and full lies to the both of them. Ngruzren was doing his best to convince his father – or himself – that he just needed some time to think, to see what the new species had to offer, to broaden his horizons, and it’s not like he was dropping out – really! He just wanted to take a break and make new friends and-

‘{Oh dear.}’ Dzgranra thought to himself as he watched his son stammer through excuse after excuse. ‘{His biological clock is hitting him hard this year.}’

The internal and external monologues were broken by another deafening cheer from the entertainment room – Dzgranra poked his head in to just miss the end-of-episode terrible joke, and the Super whatever team all laughed together with about a couple dozen generic tiny-chompers all dancing around them celebrating… life day, apparently.

“{Alright! Get cleaned up – we’re going to the park today-}”

There was another cheer and the excited babbling of voices, the thumping-patter of little feet, and the sudden tight pressure around his legs as his smallest instinctively found their favorite post yet again.

“{You coming, son? I could use the – no biting – help, if you’re interested.}”

“{Nah, I’m going to meet up with Trilly and Sweeps today.}” Ngruzren said, uncouthly licking the bowl clean before dropping it into the washbasin. “{He’s already done the first level of certification clearance, and he’s helping us both pass.}”

“{Alright… If you’re sure that’s what you want.}”

“{It is, Dad.}”

“You sure that’s what you want?”

Jonathan nodded, crouched behind the hard-light brick barricade. His HUD showed Aisha on a rooftop not 300m away, gun trained just over his head. Behind him, the shambling dead – both those hit with the nanovirus, and the robots who became unwitting carriers.

“Alright. When I start firing, you start moving. Ready?”

Jon tensed.

“Go-”

The staccato rapport of Aisha’s plasma sniper rifle broke the silence of the abandoned city, alerting both the other scavvies and roidroids to their location. Jon moved with purpose, the jump-jets in his boots activating to fling him against the plastic-glass of an abandoned clinic, the additional noise a distraction to the malfunctioning robots that shambled towards his new position. Thankfully their own AI didn’t give them complete object permanence, and Aisha was far enough outside of their AoE that her bolts-

There was an alarm.

“Awwwwww” Jon complained, his dead-sprint down a hallway turning into a light jog, and that into a lazy faceplant on the mossy, wet floor. A few moments later, the entire world glowed a pure white, and he was alone.

Jon’s rented holodeck was a 10m x 10m x 10m cube; large enough for any human to do most any activity in and not hit the walls with just basic movement. Combine that with a “moving” omni-directional floor and realistic hard-light feedback, and the fat l337 G4m3r was no more; you wanted to wall-ride then you had to git gud and ride that wall. You wanted to be a super soldier? I hope you like tackling people for actual finishing moves! And you wanted to be a scavenger in the reboot of the best post-apocalyptic FPS of all time –

Well. You had to be a jack of all trades, sure, but you also had to make sure to have enough money on your card to keep your session running.

“Jon you cheap fuck, if you timed out and left me to the horde-”

“Aisha, I swear to God I didn’t time out – The uh, game booted me out-”

“Fuck you, Jon! This is an endgame scavvie run – AAAAGGGHH FUCK I’M IN A STASIS FIELD. JON YOU LIMP-DICKED-”

There was an aggrivated sigh as Jon lifted the helmet from his face, the exit door now the only thing well-illuminated enough to see. “Sorry, Aisha.”

“Yeah, so am I, fuck. Now I gotta repair my Epics.” Aisha pinged inside his ear, grumbling. “You owe me some sunshards.”

“Yeah, yeah. I could’ve sworn I put in 20 creds, though.”

“20?! Four days off in a row and you’re planning on an all-nighter?”

Jon shrugged – not that anyone else could see it – and began to walk out of the holodeck. “Yeah, yeah. You tried Zero-Bean yet? Shit’s super concentrated-”

As he opened the door the corresponding door across the hallway opened up, his battle-buddy/slacker-buddy/work-wife Aisha emerging with a slight frown on her face. “Don’t think you can bribe me with coffee, Jon. That was a fucked thing to… Huh.” Jon followed her gaze to the panel on his room; it still said he was paying, and that he had a good 9 hours left on the rental. “Huh.”

“Ah! I fucking knew it! What the hell, my chip works fine-”

“Maybe their reader fucked up? I guess I can’t be too mad at you now, seeing as how it’s a hardware failure or somethin.”

Jon pressed the ‘assistance’ button on the panel, and an obnoxious red light appeared over his door. “Yeah, well, that shit still sucks. It ate my creds and fucked up our run; we’re gonna be back in lobby for another hour to get an open slot-”

“Jon.”

Jonathan turned to look at Aisha, who had pulled up and unlocked her tablet with her implant. The frown on her face had deepened considerably over the past few seconds, and she scrolled down what seemed to be an unnecessarily long email chain rapidly. “What?”

“Well I figured out what fucked up our session – Admiral Smalls.”

“Whaaaaaaaaat? He can fucking do that?”

“Yep. We’re on duty again; Reach is coming back ahead of schedule, and…” Jon deafened himself temporarily to his teammate as he subvocalized a few commands, his implant responding to and unlocking his own personal tablet/assistant. He quickly picked up on the email thread that was growing by the second, skimming responses almost as quick as they came.

“Fuck’s sake. No teardown? Refuel, check, and load up?”

“Fuck. So that cocksucker turns around Humanity’s first colony ship in record time-”

“-and we get a month of overtime pay. Fucking great. I’m filing with the Union after this.”

“As am I, this is bullshit.”

Jon let out a soft grunt as the realization hit him. “Fuck, you and Faiza had that thing, right?”

“Had, yes. But at least she’s on call too, so-”

“Bullet: Dodged.”

“Right? Fuck this. We’re supposed to load up and be shipped out in… 6 months? 6 Months overtime-”

The two slackers grumbled much louder than they really should have as their anger fed off one another. By the time they had exited the recreation wing, they were joined by a group of other slacker ne’er do wells, who all agreed upon one fundamental fact:

Mandatory 8 hour workdays were barbaric.

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They are Smol – and it’s a Smol World: Chapter 2

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr was unceremoniously woken up yet again by that damnable alarm clock. He had a love-hate relationship with it; On one hand, it made sure he was never late for school or work. On the other hand, he hated constantly waking up on the floor.

But maybe that’s where he belonged.

He got up, tossing his blanket carelessly to the side, stretching and rolling his shoulders and hips to work out the kinks from sleeping so haphazardly. Plastered aggressively on his moss-green walls were posters of various rage bands – the “killers”, “pirates” and other various bad-girl personas growling and leering at him from looping digital portraits. Growling a few lurid lyrics to himself he walked into his bathroom, flicking on the harsh light – now bathing him in an almost neon blue as opposed to the faux-daylight of just a few months ago. He checked himself in the mirror with a critical eye for a few moments and then frowned.

Although having such a large natural and unkempt mane was his style now, that didn’t mean it was easy to keep. Ngruzren-of-Arzgr opened one of the drawers underneath the countertop and pulled out an aerosol can and it’s corresponding brush; connecting the two at the handle he began to spray a deep and vivid vantablack into his fluffy coat, his neck and upper shoulders rapidly going from a slightly-dull black to the void between stars. Disconnecting the dye brush he set it back with it’s brothers and sisters, idly hovering his hand over a few more outrageous colors before deciding against recoloring his accent marks.

Black, deep black, was it’s own statement.

Ngruzren leaned forward and stared intently into the mirrorscreen, it’s AI recognizing body posture and intent and expanding his view to focus on his eyes. Unnaturally bright, blood blue eyes stared back at him, and with a command from his implant they were scanned. The nanites currently clouding his irises and causing the pigment change were statistically counted; he shouldn’t start losing color due to nanite death for another week or so.

He let himself smile before turning it coy, tilting his head with a come-hither bad-boy look. With another shrug of his shoulders, it turned from come-hither to utterly unimpressed.

Perfect.

He stayed like that for a few moments before letting a few full-body wiggles roll through his body. He looked damn good, and he wasn’t going through this much trouble because it was some stupid phase, no matter what his father said. Ngruzren-of-Arzgr let those good feelings roll over him for a few more moments before that trademark early-morning frown graced his features again.

There was still a gap in his jaw.

Grumbling – snarling, really – he opened the cursed drawer, pulling out that damned box once again. He had thought about possibly throwing it away, or going without, but – but what good is looking this good if you open your mouth and lisp so hard nobody can understand you? That is guaranteed social suicide. With a click of a latch the heavily-scarred lid popped open, his prosthetic gleaming up at him, fresh and perfect from a sonic scrubbing. He picked up the device and slapped the damned thing onto his lower jaw, closing and clenching his teeth to get the micro-servos to activate. With a firm pinch of his gums the device turned on, for a lack of a better word, and he closed the box, haphazardly tossing it back into it’s drawer.

“{Ba. Ra. Fa. Sa. Ka.}” He growled, wandering through his room to pick up a discarded book here, some clothing accessory there, assembling his outfit for the day using the age-old and universal standard of “what clothing in front of me doesn’t stink and isn’t too crumpled from laying on the floor?”. “{Da. Br. Dr. Kr. Lrsh.}” Ngruzren paused for a moment and rolled his tongue against the seal of his prosthetic, testing it slightly. “{Lr. LR. LLLRRRRR.}” Hopefully it was just the damn thing warming up – if he had grown his jaw a bit over the past year, that would mean he would have to go in for another fitting, another round of some doctor telling him no, and another round of his dad being right.

Ngruzren frowned, hard, at that thought.

‘The issue’, Dzgranra-of-Arzgr thought, as he fried another handful of mixed sausages while giving his youngest son the side-eye, ‘Is that his mother isn’t home enough’. Dzgranra-of-Arzgr said nothing, however, as his youngest son gently swatted away some of the smaller leapies who were hoping to latch onto him, doing his best to protect an outfit that looked… well worn, if you wanted to be generous.

“{Good Morning, son.}”

“{Mm.}”

“{Did… you sleep well?}”

“{I’m going out for breakfast.}”

Dzgranra sighed.

“{Do you want Rzkrenz to drive you? You can pick-}”

“{I’ll walk.}” Ngruzren-of-Arzgr growled, walking without a care through the busy kitchen on his way out.

“{Are you sure? It’s not a big deal to-}”

“{BY OUR ANCESTORS, DAD, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SO OVERBEARING-}”

Dzgranra-of-Arzgr frowned, tossing the next batch of sausages into the pan with a little more force than necessary. “{Don’t you raise your voice at me! I’m-}”

“{UGH. I’m LEAVING.}”

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr barreled out of the house, and if the doors weren’t automatic Dzgranra was certain he would have slammed them on his way out.

“{Definitely because his mother isn’t home.}”

Ngruzren-of-Arzgr walked to the transport hub, grumbling to himself the entire way. He pointedly ignored the people around him; some half-smiled, looking at a nice young buck on the street. Others paid him no mind, and a few glanced at him and rolled their eyes with the knowledge that only comes with age.

‘It’s not fair’, he thought, as he stopped at an intersection and waited for the go-ahead, pulling his forearm-wraps just a little tighter. ‘Mom fucking hates me.’

He was wrong, of course, but there was no way for Ngruzren-of-Arzgr to know that: His mother, Kzdzgrar-of-Rzndzre, had started taking longer hours at work, and what was an assured “3 month project, tops” had now spanned to just over a 15 month year. Combine that with the sudden cessation of private building permits, the revocation of resettlement rights, the auditors and inspectors in everyone’s business and the condemnation of the only major public park within walking distance of literally the entire city and the only conclusion Ngruzren could come up with is that (1) his mother and the entire administration had gone mad with power and (2) she obviously hated him, because all this shit fell on his head.

“[Well hey there, rotten liver.]”

Ngruzren turned to the insult and smiled. “{Hey there yourself, molted chick.}”

Ik’itili made a point to fluff herself out, her mottled copper-and-white body feathers spreading dully in the morning sun. “[I’ll have you know that I’m not going bald-]”

“{You just look like that, right?}”

“[Ooo, Jealousy. I like it. You know I’ll model for you if you want to use me as your new avatar for the GalNet Node.]”

The two of them stared at each other for a few moments before bursting out in laughter, Ngruzren cracking first. The two friends giggled for a little while as the indicator changed, and they crossed the street with the amassed crowd.

“[So, going for the full night-rage aesthetic?]”

“{It works.}” Ngruzren said, shrugging slightly. “{It’s just how I am now, yanno? It speaks to me.}”

Ik’itili stayed silent for a few seconds too long, and Ngruzren turned his head to look at the Karnakian. “{What.}”

“[I mean. Are you sure you’re not just going for the big-maned night-rage boyfriend look?]”

Ngruzren blushed, furiously, and swiped playfully-not-playfully at his friend who artfully bobbed out of the way before moving back close. “{You whore! I-I am not! This is not a phase!}” He growled, baring his teeth before his expression quickly turned startled, snapping his jaw shut-

He rolled his mouth in silence as Ik’itili peeped softly, making a point to look away as her friend readjusted his obviously loose prosthetic. They walked in a semi-awkward silence together for the next few city blocks, the multi-story public transit hub towering over them as they closed the distance.

“{I-I just like it, ok?}”

“[Ok.]”

“{It’s not a phase. Everyone’s telling me it’s a phase and I just… I just like it.}”

“[Ok. That’s not a bad thing, I’m just saying, yanno. You’re very much filling that stereotype – not that that’s a bad thing! – and I just figure, yanno. You’ve got someone in mind.]”

Ngruzren stayed silent for a few seconds too long, and Ik’itili turned her head to look at the Dorarizin. “{What. Since when?}”

Ngruzren blushed furiously for an entirely different set of reasons as they ascended the stairs to the transport pods, his friend needling him incessantly the entire way.

“[All I’m saying is, is that our son isn’t the same anymore, and I’m tired of dealing with this myself!]”

Rpressesha sighed, which honestly didn’t sound too much different than any other noise the Jornissian made nowadays save for the utter exhaustion evident in the exhalation. “<Look, [Dzgranra], I understand things have been hard->”

“[Hard? No. Hard was having 9 pups under the age of 3 and three wives who worked overtime. That was hard. This is concerning. He’s not taking care of himself, he’s not getting good grades anymore, he won’t tell me who he’s hanging out with – if his friends weren’t helping me keep tabs… and the lyrics to the music he listens to are just-]”

“<[Dzgranra]. I get it, I really do. I’m pulling the same hours she is, I haven’t seen my family or my clutch in literally two weeks.>” The city treasurer said, pulling the smart lens-cup from his eye – the overlay disappearing as he rested his head in his hands. Had it really been two weeks? Was it… three? No. Surely not –

There were a few moments of silence, and for a brief second Rpressesha hoped he could end the call and get back to this Senate report and verifying the City’s financials from twelve hundred years ago-

“[Is it worth it?]”

The simplicity of the question caught Rpressesha off-guard, and he responded with a simple “<What?>”

“[This. Whatever you’re all doing. Is it worth it? There’s no way any of you survive the next election cycle – The mayor’s absolutely out, and you’re all probably going with her, especially with what’s come down the mountain.]”

Rpressesha stared into the middle distance, suddenly feeling every single ache in his long body, every single gentle weight of the bast 490 years of life on his shoulders. The calls from his wife had slowed down as of late, from a daily checkin to a couple times a week to a week-end catchup. If he was here two weeks, he still had four days to prepare for a hatchday celebration for his most recent clutch, but if it was three weeks then…

Is it worth it?

Rpressesha frowned as he closed his eyes, his coworker’s husbands’ concerns simply falling to white noise. He was exhausted to the bone, his lower third had gone numb from lack of movement, he had most likely missed his youngest clutchs’ hatchday celebration – not to mention his older clutch coming home for that reunion – and his parents –

Rpressesha’s face fell as an unbidden realization hit him. Parents, damn them to the frozen hells – what about his in-laws?! He would never hear the end of this-

“<I don’t know.>”

“[What?]”

“<I don’t know. I don’t know if this is worth it, I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, I don’t know if this will all make sense, I don’t know what I can tell you. We’re all doing our absolute best here. I don’t know if this is going to … be worth it.>”

“[Then why are you doing it?]”

Rpressesha would have shrugged if he had the energy. “<Glory. Fame. Industry, a better future, a place in history, I don’t know. Take your pick.>”

“[…what?]”

“<Look, [Dzgranra], I don’t know what you want me to say. I already told you when you first called months ago that I’m contractually obligated to secrecy. The only thing I can really say is->”

Dzgranra did not so much open Rpressesha’s office door as she did rip it from it’s track on the floor, a loud WHAM interrupting the exhausted Jornissian and spoking his blood with a potent shot of adrenaline. His eyes fixed on his colleague, her manic look, her wide, goofy grin, her tail going a thousand miles a minute leaving an indention on the floor-

“<IT’S WORTH IT.>”

Just because it was the night shift doesn’t mean you couldn’t slack off.

Hell, because it was the night shift you were almost contractually obligated to slack off, and Break Room 115-C on Deck 48 of the First (and only) human shipyard construct Starforge held two of the most notorious and well-seasoned slackers of the entire 15,000 man contingent on the station. Mars hung outside the windows, angry and dull-red, a few specks of glittering light on the surface the only indicator of life and industry. You could make the argument, then, that the two people inside the break room were the perfect juxtaposition: They did as little as humanly possible to keep their jobs, and had no life.

“So, settling in Silver City. Say that five times fast.” Jonathan laughed, tossing the mini-basketball high into the low-gravity station air, letting it float a few seconds down to his lap before smacking it with both his hands in a clap-grab. “Why there? And what even is the planet name? A city but no planet? Is the planet named Silver City?”

Aisha did not turn to address her colleague and shrugged as she poured herself yet another cup of Turkish coffee, the familiar ritual brining a soft smile to her face. “Mmm. From the part of the briefing you were asleep for, it’s because it’s relatively close enough to Sol, one of the first few jumps from Contact – so the lanes are well mapped out – and the atmo is basically Earth-like. Gravity’s a bit heavier, but it’s fine, and apparently they’re giving us the nature preserve in the middle of the city.”

“So low overhead for a colony, close enough to pack up and go home, and if we’re fucked they have to get through the rest of the city before they get to us. Nice.”

“Jon, you’re an ass sometimes.”

Jon grinned and gave a noncommittal shrug, tossing the foam ball from hand to hand. “Maybe, from time to time. I am an ass man, after all.”

“I’m reporting that as sexual harassment.”

“No you’re not. Cause if you doooo, then I’ll tell the dockmaster about how – what’s her name? Faiza? Somehow keeps finding her way into your bunk.”

Aisha smirked as she let the coffee settle. “Ass.”

“We literally just talked about this-”

“So when do you fuck off and leave me your stuff?”

“You mean when do I, the intrepid and brave explorer, the sole brilliant mechanic capable of keeping Reach running, bravely and studily go where no man’s gone before?”

“No I mean when do you, the guy with no attachments, one of 700 grays go scrub some other floor than my own?”

Jonathan held his hand over his heart, sniffling. “Aisha, you wound me.”

“So?” She replied, turning to face her colleague in the still-empty breakroom. “Suck it up, jumper-bumper.”

Jonathan stuck his tongue out and leaned back, kicking his feet up on the coffee table as he sunk a little deeper into the plush seating. “Well. Probably a few months from now, I’d say – if not another year. Reach might be air-tight, but we don’t know if she’s space-worthy, yanno? And considering it’s all our own tech for once-”

“Build, test, complete teardown, and rebuild?”

“Probably.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be a lot of work, but I think-”

“No, I mean, your stash is either going to go bad or you’ll run through it before you fucking leave.”

The small foam basketball bounced harmlessly off of Aisha’s forehead as she enjoyed her coffee.

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