#humans are space orcs
Inspired by various tumblr posts.
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
Youreally want a human.
“Looks like someone for you.”
Jon kicked Ginna’s boots, which were currently resting on the table, and she glanced over toward the door. A clump of knee-high aliens, plump and round and covered in golden fur, were lifting their little pink noses into the air - scenting the air in the bar.
Sashrans. Perfect.
Ginna quickly downed the last of her drink and dropped her feet to the floor. The Gentleman of Fortune was full to the gills of professional companions looking for work, she wouldn’t be the only one in here with a fondness for sashrans. She needed to work quickly if she wanted a chance at whatever job these ones were hiring for. The sound and vibration of her boots caught the attention of the group, and Ginna followed it quickly with a greeting in the quiet shushing sounds of their own language.
A universal translator would take care of most of the talking, but by knowing a little of their language Ginna proved she had worked with their kind before and cared enough to learn it. Caring was probably the most important skill a companion could cultivate.
It paid off. The group of sashrans centered quickly on her and darted over, still in their clump.
“I am human Ginna, companion for hire,” Ginna introduced, tapping the side of her visor to activate the display.
“Sala and Rini, with crew. Spice collectors,” the largest of the sashrans introduced, tapping at their own earbud. Their information began to stream onto Ginna’s display, while her own would be playing in their ear. She was proficient in everything from weapons to mechanics to medicine, xenobiology to politics, and of course survival in any kind of situation from atmosphere decompression in space to a tsunami on a planet. The more varied the knowledge they had the better a companion a human could make, and Ginna prided herself on being one of the best.
As for the sashrans, they’d found a jungle planet with a plant that was delicious to their senses. Cultivation efforts had failed thus far, so the price was high enough to support the risk of hunting for it on its home range. A six-month tour was on offer. It seemed they’d contracted with another professional companion a few times, a man named Drix, and Ginna quickly switched over to the guild’s internal records to see what he had to say of these sashrans and the planet they were harvesting from.
The sashrans themselves would be able to check what Ginna’s former employers had to say about her too.
Drix had enjoyed working with Sala and Rini’s crew, it dripped out of every line of his reports. He’d included good detail about life aboard their ship and the risks of the planet, that Ginna would have to look into closer later to be prepared.
All she needed to know at the moment was that they paid well, the risks were not unacceptably high, and that they treated their human companions well. It sounded like a job for her.
“Sala and Rini and crew, I would take this job,” Ginna told them.
The sashrans shushed and buzzed together, their tones sounding happy to Ginna’s relatively untrained ear, and she hoped she was reading them right. They were such beautiful little creatures, and she’d always enjoyed working for their kind before. They were close enough she could have reached out to touch them, pet their soft velvet fur, but she resisted. Touching them uninvited would be rude.
Finally they turned back to her. “Sala and Rini and crew will, with joy, contract to hire companion Ginna,” the lead one answered.
Contract negotiations went quickly enough, using the standard guild template and modifying it here or there as both parties preferred and agreed upon. Sashrans were easy to haggle with, not like the argumentative akskar. Soon enough Ginna had a contract and three days to prepare her effects for travel.
“It has been a pleasure,” Ginna told the sashrans. “I look forward to being your companion.”
She would have expected them to leave, then, go get their own things ready for launch. Instead the smallest one pushed forward - all wrapped in pale gold velvet fur and their sweet little pink forepaws resting on Ginna’s knee.
“Companion Ginna will now engage in petting for promotion of pack bonding?” they asked hopefully.
“Of course,” Ginna reached out toward the sashran, let them smell her palm, but it seemed this sashran wasn’t shy at all. They immediately pushed their head into her hand. There was nothing in the galaxy so soft as a sashran’s fur. Ginna dug her fingers in around the ruff of the sashran’s neck, gently scratching, and then smoothed the fur all the way down their back.
The sashran made a dreamy-soft pleasure sound, and Ginna mimicked it back. “Oh you sweetheart,” she murmured. Already she could feel that little melting tug in her heart, that protective urge that set some humans on the path to professional companionship.
Come hell or high water, Ginna was going to keep these sashrans safe.
Aw, yes. Look at the adorable scifi! I’m proud to have inspired it.
(I’m so glad you enjoyed it!)
Six months was just about right for a jungle planet tour with a group of sashrans. Ginna loved Sala and Rini and the crew to distraction, and there was still nothing in the galaxy softer than sashran fur, but she was ready to move on. Being regarded as furniture a lot of the time, once they were used to her presence, got tiring after a while. Sala and Rini weren’t looking for a permanent companion, and Ginna wasn’t looking for that either. She’d joined the guild because she wanted to see the universe and meet all the peoples in it, after all.
The spice expedition had been a great success. The sashrans’ hold was full to bursting of dried twigs and leaves, and Ginna had gotten a healthy bonus on top of her already generous pay. There’s only been the one incident with a large angry herbivore who decided the sashrans were infringing too close on its breeding grounds. Still, Ginna had thwacked it in the face with a dead branch and distracted it long enough for the sashrans to make their escape, and only gotten the one cracked rib for her trouble when it tried to run her down.
Ginna hugged and kissed each sashran on the crew one last time. “If you ever need me, don’t hesitate to call,” Ginna told them, wiping a stray tear. Sala and Rini and crew endured this human foible, and were off to sell their goods.
The Gentleman of Fortune was the same as ever, serving interesting foods and drinks from across the galaxy and full of professional companions between tours. Her friend Jon had shipped out with a hunting pack of akskar, but May was finally back from er three-year stint in a lintran colony and they had a lot of catching up to do.
It was great to be back among humans, it really was. Ginna sent some money home and laughed and drank and celebrated with people who had the same base template and urges she did. For about two weeks, it was great. Then Ginna got that itch again and started watching the door of the Gentleman of Fortune, scoping out her options.
Vivid jehes, stolid orhides, hovering mellisugans - none of them felt quite right, and Ginna didn’t approach any of them. Other companions gladly worked up contracts and left for exploration expeditions and disaster relief efforts and new colonies.
Then a big bull barbax pushed into the bar, weight resting on xir heavy knuckles and ducking far far down to fit but still scraping xir cracked and weathered shoulder-spikes on the frame. The barbax swung xir heavy head from side to side, small beady eyes - well protected under a heavy brow - sweeping the space.
Perfect.
Ginna jumped up to stand on top of her chair and screamed as loud as she possibly could. The barbax rocked back, then sprang forward toward her, slamming xir knuckles hard against the floor in pleased approval.
.
Three days later Ginna was shipping out for a nine month tour with a crew of barbax miners. The desert planet they were headed for would be a nice change of pace from the muggy humidity of her last tour, and the barbax being so much bigger and heavier-armored than she was meant she didn’t have to worry about being a body guard on this trip. Much more relaxing.
Barbax liked shiny things, and already they’d bought Ginna a cute cropped jacket with imitation shoulder spikes to match them, and several bracelets and necklaces. It would have been rude not to wear them, and Ginna had to admit she looked good even if it wasn’t her usual style.
The bull barbax, Zab, absently grabbed Ginna by the waist and settled her on xir shoulder. Ginna easily settled in between the big spikes - they made good handholds as she was carried onward to the ship.
“Twisted xeno freak!” some human snarled after Ginna and the barbax crew. “You’re a traitor to human-kind. You make me sick!”
Gina laughed. “Jealous you lack the emotional capacity to cut it as a companion?” she mocked.
The xenophobe’s embarrassed and angry expression was the last thing Ginna saw of the station. Then the ship doors closed behind them, and she turned to face her next adventure with a smile.
Ginna returned to her home base at the Gentleman of Fortune absolutely glittering with platinum and rough citrine.
A fact - For all their strength, a barbax is not fast enough to evade a nest of sand snakes. For all their armor, a sand snake’s teeth can still pierce them.
A human companion, fueled by adrenaline, is more than fast enough to evade. But they might instead dive in between the panicking barbax and destroy the sand snakes attacking them.
Another fact - a sand snake’s venom is deadly to a barbax. Their blood coagulants are destroyed and they bleed out from even such a tiny wound. Their armored hide is too strong for the tourniquet that might save them. A human, bitten by a sand snake, gets off with a painful wound and some bruising.
Ginna tied her bandana around the bleeding wound on her thigh and got to work. Zeb and Gnar and Agi were bitten. The crew, their family, piled around them, drumming against their hides in mourning. They had two hours to live, according to the barbax medic.
Ginna delivered a cure in 30 minutes. Thirty minutes with the clock racing. Thirty minutes far too long, with death creeping up on her friends. She drew a liter of her own blood, repurposed a mining centrifuge to separate it, and filled three big syringes with plasma. Her red blood cells would be toxic, foreign to the barbaxes bodies. She could only hope her plasma was less so.
They might die of it; but they would die if she didn’t try.
Facts - the only place a barbax is tender enough to be injected by even the strongest medical needle is in the vein along their gumline.
- it takes five minutes for blood to circulate all the way through a barbax’s body.
- it takes another minute after that for a sand snake wound to clot, and the blood loss to cease.
The barbax crew trumpeted and pounded their knuckles against the floor with surprised joy. And only then, only when the slow bleeding had finally stopped, did Ginna sit down and cry with relief. She was shaky and dizzy from drawing so much blood, and badly bruised from getting jostled by the panicking barbaxes, and the wound on her own thigh was very painful now that she had nothing else to focus her mind away from it, but she’d done her companion’s duty and saved her friends.
She was fussed over, tended to and praised. She explained what she had done, and was given far more sweets and water than she could possibly consume to replenish herself when she explained that’s what she needed to recover.
Zeb and Gnar and Agi were sick for a week, with the aftereffects of the sand snake poison and purging their bodies of her alien plasma, but they lived. That was the important part.
It turned out that having given a part of herself into the barbax (nevermind that it was just plasma and their bodies purged it afterward) Ginna had done literally what was done symbolically for a barbax crew-bond. She was now crew-bond to the barbax she’d saved, and since Zeb was the senior bull and crew-bond to the entire crew, that meant she was too. She was family - married to the whole lot of them, in essence.
Ginna was not exactly sure how she was going to break that to her moms.
Thankfully the barbax had a laze faire concept of marriage. None of them thought it odd that Ginna planned to leave still at the end of her contract. They would have gladly kept her if she wanted to stay, but she didn’t.
They would have weighed her down with a quarter ton of jewelry, to be decorated the same as one of them, but thankfully Ginna talked them out of it. Her crew were miners by trade, but they were craftspeople by inclination, and they made her beautiful sets from the platinum they were mining that weren’t too heavy for her fragile human limbs. The style was armor-like and spiky and set with beautiful rough citrine that would have been discarded as mining waste otherwise.
Ginna wore it proudly. She spent one last evening drumming with the barbax crew, and then she was back among humans, back at the good old Gentleman of Fortune. Elizabeth was fresh back from the jungles of Shur with a lathan colony, and they had a lot of catching up to do.
Ginna was in no rush to head out again. She took some classes offered through the guild, brushing up on her knowledge base, and pondered her options carefully. She wanted something new, something different.
Late one evening - or maybe it was early morning by that point - a faint high note echoed through the Gentleman of Fortune. There was a collective intake of breath, an uncomfortable quiet, and Ginna looked to where everyone else was looking. A roughly human-sized shimmer was drifting deeper into the bar.
A tintillian. Ginna had never actually met one, she’d only ever heard of the telepathic aliens. They were not strictly corporeal in the same way most contacted species were.
The tintillian chimed again, hopeful, almost plaintive. And no one was answering.
Ginna was singing back the tintillian’s note before she really thought it through. It chimed again, a lower note thankfully or Ginna might not have been able to hit it, and Ginna again mimicked it. As Ginna held the note, it chimed a double note in harmony with her, and drifted closer.
The note Ginna was singing cut off, her heart in her throat, but the tintillian recoiled and drew back before it touched her. Began to drift away.
Metal. Right. They couldn’t abide concentrations of heavy metals and Ginna was encased in platinum. Ginna began ripping all her jewelry off, stacking it in a loose pile on the table. What had possessed her to wear so much of it?
“Help!” Ginna pleaded, turning her other ear toward Elizabeth as she struggled with the earrings. “Liz, please.”
Elizabeth laughed and relented, quick to help her out of all her platinum. Ginna took her boots off too, they had metal eyelets. And her pants had zippers, so they had to go. And her bra had an underwire, so Ginna wrestled that out through her sleeve and finally stepped toward the tintillian in just her shirt and boxers.
No one else was trying to approach the still-chiming tintillian. Telepathy was beyond what most of them were comfortable with. There would be no universal translator for this interaction, it would be direct. Mind to mind.
At least Ginna halfway stripping was far from the weirdest thing that had ever happened in the Gentleman of Fortune.
Ginna sang the note again, and the tintillian harmonized and moved back toward her. It changed as it got closer, until Ginna was almost looking at a mirror - a transparent shining woman. It lifted its hand, and Ginna echoed the motion. Her fingers were shaking, but Ginna cleared her mind and was full of only curiosity and affection when the tintillian merged hands with her. Like a point of golden light.
Suddenly, through it, Ginna was weightless, boundariless, her self wrapped around by the fear and curiosity of the others in the bar. Ginna laughed aloud, that joy echoed, rebounded, and strengthened as the tintillian drifted forward to merge completely.
Ginna’s affections were bare, all the connections she’d made with her contracts exposed, her trainings mulled over, her self weighed and judged and found adequate. The burning curiosity that had made her approach it pushed Ginna to delve into the tintillian in turn. It was all starlight and nebulas, ancient and brand new.
The job on offer was midway between exploration and rescue - a star nursery where an expedition of the tintillian’s mind-mates had disappeared. They had two months to map what they could, and recover the lost mind-mates if possible.
Ginna’s physical and psychological needs would be met, and the terms of her regular contract were seen as acceptable.
The merge faded, and the tintillian winkled out - off back to its vessel to prepare. Ginna dropped back into her own body and sagged into her chair.
“So?” she was asked, people crowding around. She didn’t need the tintillian to practically feel their burning curiosity.
“I got a two-month contract,” Ginna said.
She took a small seated bow for the cheers that echoed through the bar, and accepted the celebratory drinks that were passed her way.
First professional companion to contract with a tintillian. This was definitely going to be one for the history books.
[ THE END ]
I will write no more of these. Thank you! I’ve had a lot of fun in this ‘verse.
If you want to read about Elizabeth, please turn your eyes toward the very cool fill that Chrissy did utilizing the Gentleman of Fortune and companions guild concept. [link]
(if anyone else uses these headcanons please let me know I’d love to read it!)
(lol I lied have another Ginna fic)
Loren’s first run as an apprentice companion was supposed to be an easy one. A short contract, with low danger and a seasoned companion of the guild as mentor. Loren got along great with both Jon and the akskar crew. Every conversation was an argument, a test of skill and ingenuity. Some humans found akskar to be exhausting, but Loren felt right at home. It was just like being back at the old shipyards with er sibs.
So it was great, it was really great until they ran into danger way above Loren’s paygrade. Space was dangerous, vast and unexplored and unpredictable. So on Loren’s first practice run e ended up stranded with a dead ship on a dead planet. At least Jon and the akskar weren’t dead too.
Theirs wasn’t the only ship downed.
“Jon? That you?” A voice crackled faintly in through their companion visors while the akskar were still folding their long limbs into their own protective gear.
“Ginna!” Jon answered, relief obvious in his voice as he tapped the side of it to answer. “I’ve got an apprentice and a family of young akskar politicians. What have you got?”
“Jehe musicians and a dead ship. My scans show a cave we can shelter in near enough to both ships for scavenge. Coordinates incoming.”
Loren had no idea how this Ginna had managed to scan for a cave through the radiation bursts, but e was glad of it. Loren was surprised the coms were still working when everything else was totally fried–but they did say that companions guild coms and universal translators were always the last thing to go. They could pass through the pinch of a black hole undamaged, they said.
Jon relayed instructions, which Loren and the akskar followed, so they were weighed down heavy with emergency supplies and broken ship bits when they headed out onto the planet’s ravaged surface.
Ginna and her crew had already made it to the cave and were sealing it into a habitable zone by the time Loren’s group arrived. Loren couldn’t tell much about Ginna other than that she was tall and she’d managed to keep her jehes from fluttering and panicking, which was impressive.
Once they were sealed in, and the akskar were comfortable enough to start a circular argument and the jehes to rest, Jon pulled Loren over to conference with Ginna. Ginna’s hair was all tight corkscrew curls tied back with a bandana, her smile big and friendly, when she took off her helmet.
“We’ve got food, we’ve got water, we’ve got radiation shielding - but we’ve only got about a day’s worth of air,” Jon started, once brief introductions were over.
“A day and a half,” Ginna corrected. “The akskar and jehes balance each other out a little bit.”
“And I can give us another two or three if I can repair the jehe and akskar air filters, or splice them together. There’s got to be enough working parts between them to make one functional filter.” Loren volunteered. It wasn’t so different from tech splice e’d done as a kid, just to see if something could be made from what was supposedly junk. Loren had grown up doing this stuff.
“Air first.” Ginna nodded. “Then we need to get word out, let people know where we are. It’s time to call in favors. What are our best contacts, other than the main guild office?”
“These akskar are offshoots of the grand trunk,” Jon said, which Loren had not known. They were practically royalty! Minor royalty, but still. “If we get word to the trunk, they’ll send help. And their line is allied to the fruiting bough consortium. One of their main officers owes me a favor.”
“Good,” Ginna nodded and turned toward Loren as if expecting em to chime in.
“I don’t…” Loren floundered. “I don’t know anybody.”
Ginna’s expression softened. “First time out?“ she patted Loren’s shoulder when e nodded. “Don’t worry. Jon and I have both been in tighter spots and lived to tell. I’m thinking my best contact will be the barbax miners. A little radiation storm like this is nothing to them, and they’ll send people if I call. I’m kind of married to over fifty of them now, they keep expanding the crew.”
“Married? To fifty barbax?” Loren boggled, but Ginna and Jon just laughed.
“It’s the kind of thing that happens on accident,” Jon said. “It far from the weirdest thing you’ll see if you stick with the guild.”
Loren kind of hoped e’d live to see weirder things. Being stranded on a dead world with two dead ships was bad. Really bad. But Jon and Ginna kept joking back and forth with each other, smiling and laughing. And if experienced companions like them were in good spirits that had to be a good sign.
Loren worked on the air filters. E worked on the air filters for a very long time. Loren got one working at about 31% to give them another half day, and then went back to the ship to scavenge parts from the kitchen to get the other one up to 67%, and that was the best e could do with what was available.
“I couldn’t have done better myself,” Jon praised. He and Ginna were working on cobbling together a communications array that would punch through the radiation storm, which was difficult with everything fried. They tried and tested and argued companionably back and forth–when they weren’t looking out for the crews they were contracted to. The emotional labor of keeping the akskar from falling into despondency while confined and the jehes from fretting themselves sick, and keeping them from antagonizing each other with their different needs and ways of being, was weightier than Loren would have expected.
Jon and Lauren had their work cut out for them figuring out new arguments and games to play with the akskar to keep them entertained. Ginna spent a lot of her time grooming and singing to the jehes in their own chirping language to keep them calm.
That was what being a professional companion was all about.
Not that Loren was all that sure e was going to get the chance to earn professional status. One day became two, became three, and nothing any of them tried was working to get a message out. Loren scavenged from both ships over and over again, with Jon and Ginna and alone, but nothing e brought back helped.
Loren couldn’t give up, though. That was why peoples from all over the galaxy hired human companions. Because humans didn’t give up, not until their last breath. Loren repurposed parts of a water filtration unit to get the more broken air filter to 72%, but that was only going to give them a few more days, and e went back to figuring out ways to make a stronger emergency beacon with Jon.
Ginna didn’t.
Loren found her up in the top of the cave, right by the entrance where their radiation shielding was weakest. She’d stripped down to her underthings, her body marked with scars here and there, and decorated over and around them with gleaming ivory-white tattoos against the warm brown of her skin. Loren could see the languages of akskar, sashrans, barbax, and others she wasn’t familiar with. Ginna was sitting cross-legged on the ground, eyes closed and face turned up to the dark sky. She was humming a long droning note under her breath.
“What are you doing?” Loren demanded.
“Trying to think in tintillian,” Ginna answered in a faraway voice, not opening her eyes.
“What? Why?”
“We can’t send a pulse, ping, or beacon out of here strong enough. So tintillian.”
Loren stamped er foot. “What good is thinking like another species going to do!? You could be helping us brainstorm better ideas. You can’t just stop. You can’t give up and die. We’re companions! Our contracts are counting on us!” Loren’s voice broke, tears far too close to the surface, and Ginna finally opened her eyes.
“Nothing in the galaxy can communicate better than a tintillian. They are connection,” Ginna explained, very gently. “They’re not individual. They’re like… fractals. Music where each note is a symphony and what we perceive as an individual is just the echo of a single riff. I contracted with them, once. I was inside it for two months, like a misplaced f flat in a nebula-choir of angels and starlight, and sometimes I can still feel it. Connect.”
Loren’s breath caught at the realization. “Stars and galaxies. You’re that Ginna,” e breathed. She was only one of the highest ranked professional companions, and came up in dozens of case studies. She’d provided the baseline measurements for companionship in more new species than anyone else. There wasn’t a species she’d shun, or a challenge she’d back down from.
Ginna smiled, that warm friendly smile that immediately forgave Loren for interrupting and being suddenly starstruck. “I’m that Ginna.” She tapped her visor where it was laying beside her. “And I’ve got two hours left before I have to do a radiation decontam, so I’m going to spend them being a very loud f flat.”
“Right. Sorry,” Loren backed away as Ginna’s eyes closed and she took her hum back up. “Thank you.”
Loren retreated, awkward stumbling back over er boots, and hyperventilated at Jon for a little bit. Jon just laughed.
“Careful with that puppy-crush, kid,” he teased. “Ginna’s ace. She doesn’t go for anybody.”
About an hour and a half later–when Loren was in the middle of a spirited game of leapfrog with the akskar crew to keep them entertained–Ginna returned. There was a pinging sound, like metal heating under the sun, a faint smell of ozone, and Ginna walked into the main part of the cave haloed in a shimmering glow. There was music, vast and incomprehensible under her voice when she spoke.
“Strip to your skivvies, Jon, and figure out what you want to say to the guild! We’re in contact.”
I LOVE GINNA I LOVE HUMAN COMPANIONS
So I don’t know if anyone’s written about this yet, but I was trawling through the humans-are-space-orcs tag and I was hit by the sudden realization that I’ve seen nothing about space chefs.
Space chefs must be like one of the most knowledgable professions out there, think about it:
“Alright, so this is a Crexian from Norix- that means capsicum is a deadly poison, Omega-3 will cause muscle spasms and due to the atmosphere on Norix, calcium will give them terrible diarrhea- no wait, this is a male, so Omega-3 is actually delicious–”
“–a Bio-bot, model Gamma-341, so absolutely no organic oils in anything or their systems will stop working, and for Stabby’s sake do not let anything with iron in it so much as look funny at their food–”
“–Mariddian fresh out of hibernation, shove as many protein additives into that meat as you can get away with and remember not to use salt, it fries their neural pathways–”
Like. I bet there’s an Interstellar Chef magazine in circulation full of recipes that are two pages long and then all the species that can and cannot eat it are listed for the next five. And every time a new species joins the intergalactic mess, the magazine runs a special issue as all the space chefs die a little more inside. The special issue gives a brief breakdown of the new species biology and then dives straight into what’s poison, what’s nutritional, what’s considered delicious and whats considered choke-worthy. If at all possible, the special issue also includes recipies from the species native culture while all the space chefs desperately try to figure out what dishes they can jury-rig into a new definition of edible.
They probably love humans though.
“Hey Jaxki, did you hear about the new species that the Crynsu found? They’re supposedly from a Death World, can you belie–”
“Ohfuck another speices?!?! They found three last spin and I’m stilltrying to figure out what to feed the Hrethad. Any word what they eat? You get the Chef before me.”
“Hold up let me look, I just got it today…void and dust!”
“Oh novas, what, can they not have water or something?”
“Jaxi these fuckers eat everything! They can digest chlorogenic acid! Some of them do it every day, by the void-loving gallon!!! And that’s just the nose of the Quarlag! This thing has a whole list of chemicals these guys consider delicious or edible and I swear to you it’s like someone mixed their list of the universe’s most common compounds with its spacing deadliest poisons!”
“Oh thank FUCK.”
Humans love shiny things.
No, seriously, look around you next time you’re in a building and count the number of things that are shiny even thiugh they do not need to be shiny.
Humans are naturally attracted to any thing that shines, shimmers or glitters— I mean for fucks sake, we invented glitter. There are people right now who work in glitter factories and so whose sole job is to make shiny things for people to put nonshiny things so as to make them shiny.
We paint our nails and faces with glittery varnishes and shimmery powders. We use gloss on our lips to make them shinier. We shine our shoes to make ourselves look smart. We have been known to start fucking wars over who owns the bits of land with the shiny rocks in. Genocides have been commited and kingdoms toppled because one group had a lot of shiny metals and the other group wanted those shiny metals.
Why, then, do we all like shiny things so much?
Well, scientists now think that it’s probably because we evolved in a desert. If you’re living in a desert, then you’re going to need to be constantly be on the lookout for water, and water shines in the sun. So the best way to survive in a desert environment is to just chase after everything that shines because it might be water.
So now imagine how weird this would all be to a species who didn’t evolve in a desert.
Imagine aliens just being baffled by the human habit of wearing certain rocks— or even just pieces of glass or plastic cut to look like those rocks— just because we like the way they catch the light. Imagine aliens who come from worlds where there are a lot of shiny rocks bringing them back for their human friends to see and watching, puzzled, as said human friends start wearing the rocks around their necks, wrists, fingers or even (weirdly)stuck through special holes they make in their ears.
“Thank you so much! These are beautiful!”
“I literally just scooped up some of the gravel from the spaceport— how are you so amazed?”
Imagine caves on alien planets full of crystals and gems becoming huge tourist attractions for humans, and the aliens not understanding why because, on their planet, pretty much the only people who go to the caves are school groups and geologists. The caves are boring— why do the humans keep taking photos of a load of old rocks?
We complain that Magpies are obsessed with shiny things and keep stealing our shiny things but that just shows how crazy we are about protecting our shiny things
I’ve seen a lot of posts about humans pack-bonding with frankly everything, no matter how big, scary, threatening, lethal or oozy.
But you know what I haven’t seen?
Humans entrusting their young to their pack-bonded friends. Because that’s a thing we do. We entrust our children to our friends. We entrust our children to our dogs. We befriend the biggest, meanest, scariest shit, and then we dump our defenseless, hasn’t-even-got-a-fully-fused-skull-yet offspring on them. Half for shits-and-giggles, half because it’s cute, mostly because children are exhausting and we need a nanny.
For time immemorial, sector df-17 of the galaxy had been used as an industrial waste dump, for want of a better term. Gravity distortions had filled it with an exorbitant amount of random debris, choking clouds of toxic dust and the whole area was bathed in lethal radiation that rendered all forms of long distance communications uselessly scrambled . The common name of the area translated as dead zone, wasteland, or the boonies. A hundred different worlds would bring their derelict ships here, ships too worthless to bother with, or considered too dangerous to strip down and salvage. They brought them here and cast them into the wastes.
It should be noted, that “worthless” and “Too dangerous” are terms relative to the scale of an operation, as well as one’s rationality and desperation. What makes for a poor or pointless company’s bottom line, is more than enough to keep a small salvage ship running, with a crew that’s well fed. Salvaging ships from the wastes was not illegal per se, but was seen as distasteful, dirty, and a living for those with few to no other options.
Kurthar’s ship was weeks deeper into the wastes than they had ever been. Pickings had been slim this run, and xe was worried if they’d gather enough trade goods to even refuel. Ran-gee, the communications and sensor operator had shut down most of the ship in an attempt to reduce interference and extend their scanner range. Xis personal communicator crackled as Ran-gee called out.
“Hey, Kurthar. I think I’m picking something up. Come have a look.” Kurthar ran a clawed hand over his skull frill in a subconscious gesture of hiding his concerns. It was a short walk to the bridge where Ran-gee squinted into the glowing monitor. “It’s so distorted that I thought it was glitch, or interference of some kind… but its a hot reactor, that’s for sure. Really, insanely hot. I’d argue that someone peeled the shielding away and left it just on the edge of critical. Why anyone would do that is beyond me.”
“Someone laying a trap ship out here seems like a stretch, but it’s possible. Or it had some biological contamination that they left the core exposed with the hope of killing it off.”
“The radiation levels should do that nicely.” Ran-gee leaned forward, quickly making adjustments. “It’s moving.”
“Moving?”
“Moving moving. Like it’s under power moving.”
Kurthar paled, “Someone is flying it? Is there a distress beacon? Maybe they had a failure and are trying to limp to port.”
“This far out? It would be a damn desperate move.”
“I’d do it if I had no other choice. Hope they can treat the poisoning later.”
“I guess. But there’s no beacon. And…” Xe tried to resolve the scanner results. “The reactor signature looks like its Trath, but the drive reads N’gthy.”
“It must be interference. The N’gthy have no business with the Trath. Not in a million eons.”
“I’ve rechecked it twice. Also… there seems to be some dust haze around it that looks like its reflecting Gamma radiation.”
“Is it a weapon of some kind?”
“They’d be firing a Gamma beam of like 130 petawatts at nothing. And not just a burst, this is a continuous beam.”
“What in the great egg would do that?”
“ If we stay here too much longer, we’ll find out. It’s 4 causal seconds out, and approaching fast. I for one don’t think we should be anywhere near it’s back-end after it passes.”
“Spin up the engines, and move us to a safe distance.”
“I don’t think there’s a safe place in this sector.” Ran-gee said, swiftly moving to activate the drive systems.
The scanner unit chimed an alert.They both turned in dawning horror to see that some kind of radio signal was suddenly focused on them. A quick repeating ping.
The strange ship was altering course toward them.
Their heads swung in unison as the Communications console on the other side of the bridge also chimed its own alert.
“it’s trying to contact us.” Ran-gee moved to the com panel. “The Identifier says its Iderant.”
“All of the Iderant died in the old wars ages ago.”
“Maybe there were some hiding out here?”
“I guess we are about to find out.” Kurthar said, as Xe opened the channel. The face that appeared on the screen was… disquieting. Snoutless, flat. Some raised, bulbus structure in the center of what must have been its face. It was scaleless, and a greyish pink color, as if it had been burned and had its skin removed. It sprouted some kind of growth from the crown of its skull, like a brown moss. It opened what must have been its thin, round, tiny mouth and bared its teeth in a show of aggression. The screen froze, and alarm klaxons began sounding from nearly every ship system. The drive system went into emergency shutdown, forcing the reactor into standby mode.
Ran-gee was trying to make sense of it. “The ship is outputting some kind of defense screen around it. It generating some kind of pulsing wave of gravity distortions, and a magnetic field that forcing our systems into triggering their safety protocols. Its scrambling the main processor, and radiation levels are high enough that the core thinks there has been a breach.”
A ship so wrong in so many ways, that even nearby vessels would lock up in panic. A ship that seemed to have been stitched together from trash, insanity, and nightmares. A ship filled with snarling, scaleless monsters.
Kurthar could only look on helplessly as it moved into position to dock with him, the door responding to a hail from what it believed to be one of its own kind.
This was how the Nuklan met what called its self the Human race. A race that after throwing itself into space atop giant explosions, had found the void riddled with relics and artifacts. They had taken everything they had found apart, and learned from it, or used it. Often repurposing simple devices with complex and insane new uses. One of these was how the E.S.S Clark, The ship which so confused, and frightened Kurthar, had repurposed simple gravity units into containment for its drive core. A small, artificially constructed quantum singularity.The worlds had to be cautious. If a human even saw an image of some technology unknown to them, or worse yet got to touch it, the humans would have their own version of it in less than a cycle.
They had a nickname for the humans. These reckless, naïve beasts from the junkyard. Creatures that would build a black hole out of spare parts, strap it to a pile of trash, and take it out for a spin. They were named for a small pest animal that would frequently cause headaches by evading traps, and cleverly thwarting attempts to keep them away from refuse.
Roughly translated, Humans are the Trash Pandas of the galaxy.
Because this hash tag is SO FUN and thought-provoking.
GENDER:
No one can keep up with humans and gender. There are no easy signs to tell who is what, not clothing, not body morphology, not how they paint themselves or their grooming or vestigal hair. The humans themselves argue about how many genders there are. Eventually they quit trying and refer to all humans as ‘they’. Most humans are fine with that, even compliment them on their support (?) and progressive views (??). A few humans are offended, but are shouted down by their other humans. The other beings of the galaxy officially give up.SEX:
Some humans want to have sex all the time. Others barely can stand to be touched at all, even casually. Some will have sex with their own gender, which does not produce offspring and is confusing to many. Some will have sex only with certain people, some will have sex with anyone. SOME will have sex with other species, occasionally challenging their own safety and everyone else’s. None of this is considered strange. Anyone saying it is strange is again shouted down and shamed into silence. The other beings of the galaxy officially give up.CATS:
Humans adopt small predators as pets and kiss their “widdle faces” and giggle over their clawed toes (???) and fuss and are thrilled when the predators sleep with them (isn’t that UNSAFE? IT IS FULL OF POINTY BITS) and often sport scratches and bite marks inflicted when the animal was ‘playing’.
“When were these ‘cats’ domesticated?”
“Oh, we never really domesticated them. We just let them move into the house with us. Aren’t they CUUUUUTE? Come here, baby.” -kissy noises-
The other beings of the galaxy again give up.RELIGION:
Wars fought. Millions - probably billions, through history - killed. Crew members huffy with each other. Various holidays celebrated, none of which make sense, some of them celebrating events that are physically impossible and could not have happened. All for something that can’t be proved.
The other beings of the galaxy would think this was all an elaborate prank if it wasn’t for the body count.GERMS:
Humans get INFECTED and act as if it is a personal affront, and cuss about it. They confine themselves to quarters so they don’t infect the rest of the crew - very kind, in that respect - and otherwise wrap themselves in bedding and bitch about it for three days while doing their work by remote - “It’s fine, just a cold.” followed by horrifying noises they call ‘coughing’ and ‘sneezing’ - and HOW. HOW DO THEY EVEN.
The other beings of the galaxy, for whom infection is always life-threatening, boggle from a safe distance. With respirators on.ALPHA PREDATOR…?
They come from a death planet, these naked apes with no armor, no fangs, no speed. They have the ability to conquer the galaxy, if they only agreed with each other long enough that it was their goal. Instead they poke their noses into other death worlds, ‘exploring’, they call it, adopting horrifying creatures and making friends with other predatory beings, brewing poisonous beverages from whatever they can scrounge, which they then drink for fun. The rest of the galaxy is relieved. If humans had an attention span, they would truly be in trouble.No one wants to know what a ‘shark’ is. Humans seem to be afraid of them, and if it frightens the humans, the rest of the galaxy is, to a being, terrified.
ONE of the most important rules of the Galactic Federation concerns humanity. If a human ever says “Hold my beer”, either stop them, or run.
Two of the most recognized human warships have never fired a shot in anger. Their mere appearance once stopped a genocidal war, and they have been invited on peacekeeping missions simply based on reputation.
The ships’ names:
UNS Fuck Around And Find Out
UNS Hold My BeerSecond to only them in fear and awe is the UNS We Come In Peace
And its companion UNS Wait, Hold On, I Got This
UNSHow Hard Can It Be?
UNSIt Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.
UNSPlan C.
UNSNever Did Learn When To Quit.UNSExperiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall.
What about the UNS I Got Yo Flower?
There’s always the equally famous UNS Boop The Snoot and the UNS Throw The Cheese
Let us not forget the immortal UNS This Is Fine andUNS What’s The Worst That Can Happen.
My dad is a genius. He came up with a GREAT Humans are weird idea.
Cigars and alcohol.
What would they think of it? We take a bunch of dried leaves, roll them, clip them, then light it on FIRE and hold it close to our FACES.
And we drink aged wheat juice that often burns our throats and makes the brain fuzzy if you drink too much. It can even KNOCK A PERSON OUT. A whole person.
Alien troop: “Can this be done to any leaves? Do you inhale it? Do they all produce this much smoke? What about this liquid fire? Do they all taste the same? What’s in them? How much to I have to drink before I feel that fuzzy feeling you humans get?”
And then it turns out they have a heckin WEAK limit before they get drunk, like just the SMELL of it sends some of the alien crew into a drunken state.
Okay, life goal: Create a TV show based around the #humansareweird and #humansarespaceorcs tumblr tags.
I don’t care if I start it out as a YouTube channel with friends, I will make a “Humans in space” TV show and I WILL pull from tumblr.
I love space comedy, and I’d like to imagine in an intergalactic, universe traversing situation, humans are known for being extremely touchy with eachother.
I often see humans are space orcs stories where humans end up the only one of their species on a ship. And a lot of the other species have very specific social rules or are very physically different. Meaning the human goes without physical contact for long periods of time. So when they see other humans they tend to touch a lot to destress.
I feel like among space traversing humans things like hugs and holding hands becomes a normal thing even among people who just met as a way to control touch starvation. They don’t really see it as intimacy at this point, instead it’s more or less equal to passing someone somthing they cant reach or helping someone up when they fall.
I could expand more, theres a lot you could do with this, but this is actually just set up for the posts actual point: skin hunger.
At some point a crewmate asks a human why they act like that with eachother and the human uses that term in their explanation. Something along the lines of, “oh, it’s just skin hunger. Humans need it to maintain stability and can only really get it from eachother, which can be rare in space.” And thus the rumor spreads that humans need to eat each others skin or theyll go insane.
Enjoy.
Alien: how did you humans survive long enough to form a functioning society? You have no claws, sorely lacking physical strength as a species, no physical defenses…
Human: we just walked quickly after things that were faster than us until they died or got too tired to run away anymore and accepted death.
Alien: what the he-
Human: Yeah, badass, right? There’s a reason we’re top dog on Earth.
Human: *trips over own feet, gets foot caught in a bucket, yanks ladder down onto self trying to stay upright, falls in a pile of limbs and pain*
Alien: …are you sure
As much as I love ‘Earth is space Australia’, I love ‘Earth is Space Australia and the aliens haven’t figured it out yet!’ far more. ‘Cause lets face it, humans have a great ability to go on and on about minor inconveniences while at the same time severely underplaying the big ones. So aliens get the impression that humans are incredibly weak because we spend a day in bed from a headache, or gripe for an hour about a paper cut and then turn around and walk on a broken leg or consider a gushing head wound nothing to worry about.
so I want aliens to get the impression that earth is a perfectly normal place to live, a couple of dangerous fauna, maybe some troubling weather patterns but nothing too terrifying. Then an earthling makes an offhand comment about earthquakes (and the alien’s think that they are joking because the earth’s crust? moving? Ridiculous!) But another chimes in and they think that it’s just a normal thing? That happens sometimes? and then they start talking about tornadoes and what is this?
And the weather has nothing on the animals! The aliens are used to some large toothy predators, maybe a couple of little poisonous skittering things. But large orange felines that are capable of blending effortlessly into their environment? Rodents capable of chewing through metal? Small fish that climb into your reproductive organs and cannot be removed?????? That is horrifying. Even the most innocuous of their tiny insects is capable of carrying horrendous diseases.
Like I just want aliens standing there staring in horror as a group of earthlings casual discuss their near death escapes as though they are completely normal and nothing to worry about and slowly come to the dawning realisation that these people are insane.
You know what kills me? Artificial flavors. The notion that somewhere, sometime, there was a rogue blue raspberry. I’ve never seen this fictitious blue raspberry. I have no idea what a blue raspberry should taste like. I know what blue raspberry candytastes like.
How about apple? Watermelon? Grape? Grape flavored cough syrup? More like fake Concord grape abomination. Yet we accept that this is what they represent. No one believes that watermelon candy actually tastes like watermelon, but if you blindfolded someone and had them eat some, they’d say it was watermelon.
H O W ? ? ?
“Hey, Menah-Tal, I got some candy in a package from home. Do you want to try some?”
Menah-Tal took the bright yellow wrapped candy from Brett. He started to put it in his mouth before Brett stopped him.
“Unwrap it first. There’s a joke on here too - eh, it wouldn’t make sense.”
Menah-Tal gingerly “unwrapped” the candy and took the sticky substance out. These humans. How do they tell what is edible and what isn’t? Menah-Tal watched wistfully as Brett put the tasty-looking wrapper in garbage receptacle. Menah-Tal put the candy in his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully.
“What is this supposed to taste like on your world, Brett?”
“Banana.”
“Ah.” Menah-Tal continued to suck sagely. “So that’s what ‘banana’ tastes like.”
“Well, it doesn’t actually taste like banana.”
Menah-Tal blinked his three eyes slowly. Why. Why is everything so complicated.
“We had a banana crisis back in the fifties. The banana flavor you’re tasting is modeled after an extinct variety. The only kind we have now doesn’t taste much like that at all.”
Menah-Tal struggled to open his mouth now that the candy had cemented itself around his teeth.
“So your kind has a sweet substance that they eat for enjoyment that is flavored to taste like an extinct fruit?”
Brett shrugged.
“Yup.”
Menah-Tal licked his finger.
“Sounds about right.”
concept: an alien race horrified by the idea of clothes
- You… you manifacture artificial skin? That you don over your own bodies? How utterly repulsive!!
-And instead of being rightfully ashamed of this practice you… pride yourselves on it?? You have performances dedicated to displaying weird varieties of it? You hold galas that are - for lack of a better term - ‘thinly veiled’ excuses for just such a performance?
-You try them on in specific stores and sometimes don’t buy them? YOU LEND THEM TO YOUR FRIENDS? You lend your weird fake skin to your friends???!!?
- What do you MEAN you have specifically designated sleep skin???
- An alien being forced to wear warm clothes because of the weather and begrudgingly accepting that it’s a pretty clever way of adapting to this crazy planet, THEY GUESS.
- Rebelling alien youths putting on sweaters to the absolute horror of their parents. So edgy.
Human bodies are strange and sometimes terrifying. A handbook has been constructed that is basically a staple on all ships called “Your Human Is Doing Something Strange But Don’t Panic, It’s Normal”. Here are some excerpts:
Occasionally a human’s joints will make loud noises akin to popping or cracking. Stay calm, this does not mean that the human has broken a bone. Gases will gather at the joints in a human’s body and when pressure is applied will pop loudly. While unnerving, it has little to no effect on the well-being of a human.
After they wake and before they sleep humans have a habit of scrubbing the bones protruding from their mouths with a flavored paste. Although it is strange, this habit is very important and the proper supplies should be provided on all ships. If not cared for properly these bones may rot and fall from the skull of the humans and it is an entirely unpleasant experience for everyone involved.
Humans will sometimes experience an irritation or “tickling” sensation in their nose causing them to suddenly expel a large amount of oxygen from their body. This is such a violent process that they must close their eyes to prevent them from popping out of their sockets. It may appear to be painful, but is helpful and many humans actually claim that it is enjoyable and makes them feel much better.
It is recommended that anyone coming into contact with a human familiarize themselves with the many quirks that come with them to avoid future panic.
somethingcuteandwitty.tumblr.com
Hey all you Humans are Weird writers- why haven’t any of you written about how an entire generation is still defensive over Pluto’s loss of planetary status because we all collectively packbonded with a planet.
We abducted humans.
To be fair, we abducted members of every new race. Abduct a small percentage of the population, expose them to some galactic prisoners, and we get a good idea of what germs, diseases, and viruses will make the jump between races. Do this over the course of a [roughly equivalent to a century], and you get a good idea of what there is, how quickly it mutates, etc. You also have the time to develop vaccines for any races that might be affected by the new race (including itself- we’re not heartless).
But we underestimated humans.
It was [roughly equivalent to four decades] into our testing of humanity. We picked up a human from his transport and placed him in a containment cell. He had some nutrients with him, and we picked that up too: less we had to feed him later.
But we underestimated the resourcefulness of humans.
Something went wrong- we think it was a door malfunction- and he escaped the cell. He disabled the guards easily (we suspect they were less alert than they should have been) and took their weapons. We locked all hatches, hoping to seal him in the laboratory wing. Unfortunately, he hacked the shipboard computer, gaining control of all systems. He made his way to the bridge, where he took the captain hostage. We offered him riches, technologies beyond human understanding.
But we underestimated the stubbornness of humans.
He was paid us no mind as he wrestled with the controls, as if on some quest. He punched numbers and figures into the console, and mumbled something about ‘being lit on fire’ by a superior. He set the ship down on the other side of the city from where he was picked up and opened the doors. We braced ourselves for a military confrontation, but it seemed like we were outside another human’s abode. He jumped out, carrying the nutrients with him.
We underestimated Domino’s 30-minute or free guarantee.
- human young will turn anything into a weapon to mock battle their peers, broom sticks, straws, even their food
- when in large groups human young will display games of mock hunts against each other. The two most common being “tag” where one young will try to catch the other young acting as prey, and “mob” where all of the young will try to catch a single young who acts as the prey. This suggests an instinctive ability for both pack and solo hunting
- human young will often hone their stalking and hunting skills by hiding or attempting to sneak up on others and pouncing with loud sounds meant to intimidate and frighten. This is considered amusing for the attacker and victim
- adult humans will often mock attack their young with their hands or objects to train the young to protect their vital areas and avoid injury. The young find this amusing and will quickly learn to train each other in this manner
- young humans will often attack and attach themselves to an older human’s legs, arms, or back, hanging on despite being dragged or carried while the adult human walks away. Both humans seems to find the experience entertaining
- young humans are extremely territorial and will attempt to drive off others from food, toys, and areas they have claimed as theirs with physical and verbal attacks. Fortunately, most adult humans actively try to train this behavior out, insisting the young come to an agreement or share resources and territory.
- young humans constantly search for new territory, dens, and resources. They will climb trees, shelving, anything they can reach. They will climb under and behind things. If there are no suitable hiding areas they will construct them out of blankets and cushions or any other available item.
- young humans display a strong pack instinct, quickly forming social groups and defending their group against other groups. Often they will split their own group in order to mock battle each other in contests
- HUMAN YOUNG WILL BITE IF DISTRESSED OR ANGRY AND EMIT LOUD NOISES THAT CALL MATURE HUMANS TO AID THEM
- human young will beg for domesticated carnivores as companions, and if gifted with one will pack bond with it to an extreme point.
- human young will carry a toy and try to protect and nurture it as if the toy was their own young
- human young require constant stimulation in the form of games or information. They will constantly question things and can spend extraordinary amounts of time asking “why”, often while poking the subject in question
- human young will try to eat anything at least once. Anything. If it will fit into their mouth they will attempt to eat it. If it will not fit into their mouth they will lick it.
-human young will voluntarily deprive themselves of oxygen to the point of unconsciousness in an attempt to trigger protective instincts in older humans so they get their way
- human young display great interest in mimicry, often dressing up as different professions, species, and objects. They also display great skill in mimicking the calls and body language of other species.
*Example: one human young had me quite concerned there was another Treawalbil in distress and I searched for quite some time before I discovered that the young was mimicking a Treawalbil distress trill with complete accuracy.
*Second Example: Human young have begun to wear wear “hats” with artificial crests similar to a Treawalbil and some have begun painting colorful patterns to their arms in imitation of our camouflage.- human young communicate constantly and spread information quickly not only among their own social group but other social groups as well.
*Example: The human young who mimicked a Treawalbil distress trill taught their social group and soon I was surrounded by human young calling out in distress. This caused the Treawalbil researchers much anxiety so the adult humans suggested teaching the young other calls. The human young learned enough for basic communication at an astonishing rate, but then other social groups we had not taught began using the same calls as well. Even adult humans began using the calls to communicate with us without translators.-Young humans will gift beings and creatures they believe to be in their social group with handmade objects, interesting specimens they have collected, or food. Strangely enough, a being does not have to be human in order to belong to a human’s social group.
Alien: You’re telling me that in times of great distress humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight?!
Human: Yeah, it’s called “hysterical strength” and it usually happens in life-or-death situations, like when someone gets stuck under a car or something and someone lifts the car to get them out. We can’t really test it though, ‘cause it only happens spontaneously.
Alien: Humans have the ability to tap into untold strength and power and you don’t even know how you do it?
Human: Pretty much, yeah. We think it has something to do with temporary analgesia, so we just don’t feel the pain we should when we pick up a 3000-pound car.
Alien: YOUR PAIN RESPONSE JUST SHUTS OFF?
Human: Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline thing? Do you not have that?
Alien: Fuck you and your entire species of tiny juggernauts.
No Rest for the Deathworlders
Logan had always loved the stars.
Still did, though his love had been dampened by the way in which he was currently seeing them.
He watched out the window, or rather, screen, but it was made to show the outside of the ship, and thinking of it as a window was oddly comforting. A bit of something close to home.
A lump grew in his throat at the thought of home, pressing against the collar. He forced himself back to a neutral, tugging the collar away from the front of his throat as far as it would go. A brief flicker of anger replaced the nostalgia. Anger at the collar, at his own inability to remove it, at the monsters that had forced it onto him, at his own complacency now that it was on.
He didn’t have it as bad as some other humans did, he was well aware. All the collar did was teleport him to the location of the person holding the remote. Granted, it was unpleasant and incredibly disorienting, but nothing like the near-torture he’d heard was the more common method of keeping humans captive.
The captain of the ship was smart in choosing Logan, as far as the welfare of the ship went.
“You’re invested in your own survival,” He’d said through the translators. “If the ship goes down, you’ll go with it. If you sabotage the ship and try to escape on a pod, I can get you back to me immediately, and you’ll meet the same fate as you intended for us. It’s in your best interests to cooperate and to bond with the crew.”
Well, Logan could agree that it was in his best interests to cooperate. But no one could makehim get attached to anyone. And no one could stop him from making little problems.
Like ignoring the insistent, “Human, where are you? Human!” that was coming from his communicator.
