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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/HexKm on 2025-08-11 22:16:44+00:00.

Sally's fingers worked feverishly to unclasp the series of locks that held the helmet on the damaged black suit of powered armor, but they weren't responding as she wanted. She fumbled to get her fingers behind a lever. Her grip slipped. She fought with one for half a minute before realizing that she wasn't following the sequence correctly.

At least her tongue was still working, because she needed to vent about this, and she muttered a string of curses under her breath.

"Holy drek, Chilly!" Vicki's yell came from the air right next to Sally's ear, causing her fumbling fingers to jerk back from the last latch. "Röntgen readings in the cargo bay are reaching dangerous levels! Clear out!"

Sally let out a small 'oh' as the realization of Vicki's words sank in. Obviously, one of the duodec power cells had failed, and the radioactive materials were leaking from the suit.

She continued unclasping the helmet and called to the AI, "Vicki, get a course of radiation exposure therapy cued up for me, and tell Henry to put on the hard suit in the engineering bay." She closed her eyes for a moment, as if visualizing the Captain frantically searching in the engineering bay and sighed. As her fingers continued their work, she finally unclipped the final latch, "Tell him it's the big orange one."

Sally spared a moment to look at the obviously agitated Dravitian still in its blue exosuit, "Vraks, you get the hell out of here. I don't know if we have a treatment set for you in the medbay, okay?"

Vicki's response was almost instantaneous and seemed to come from everywhere in the cargo bay, "Aye! And I can vent the lead aerosol from the reactor emergency systems into the bay on your mark. Get your helmet on!"

Vraks' form shrank back even farther from where Sally worked on the armor. Its voice came across the comm to be broadcast from the speakers of the cargo bay, "But Chief, you are not complying with being Vicki's cautions. Are you wounded past rational thought?" It paused, then continued, it's body language still obviously troubled as its upper manipulators continued to circle. "If it is a matter of urgency, I am willing to take the risk to assist."

Sally left the armor's last helmet clasp undone, and moved to the shoulder bolts. While the linear actuator on the right shoulder whirred to life, the motor in the left shoulder whined loudly in protest before she muttered under her breath about the sexual preferences of Ghu and shut the actuator off.

Even as she scanned the deck for Wilson's suite of suit tools, she spoke to the Dravitian, "Look Vraks, I'm likely to soak up rads in my adipose tissue, and maybe my bones, and for the most part, I'll be able to replace those bits, but it's my understanding that you don't have that in your body."

She reached down and found a ratcheting wrench, tried it against the end of the armor's threaded rod that secured the join between the front and back at the left shoulder, and started to force it, a quarter-turn at a time. And even as she did this, she continued to talk to the insectoid. "You're likely to soak up the damaging stuff in your carapace, and that might just keep emitting inside you from all directions, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone except maybe those unicellular assholes that we're at war with right now... Especially not a good guy- well, Dravitian like you."

With her emotions riding a raw edge after the horrible rollercoaster that she'd been on for the last couple of hours, Sally couldn't hold back tears. In the lack of gravity, her tears only served to add liquid to the outer surface of her eyes, putting everything out of focus, not that it stopped her work. She'd done so much 'by feel' or just inside a bulkhead's access hatch that vision wasn't necessary.

Suddenly, she felt a grip on her shoulder, and Vraks' voice came over the speakers from its comm. "Chief, if that is your concern, then know that I can force a molting phase if it's necessary. While that is both uncomfortable and unproductive, if it will help the Sergeant, it will be worth it."

Sally looked over to see the fluid-distorted shape of the blue exosuited xeno, resting a comforting manipulator on the engineer's shoulder, and her hands faltered in their work unscrewing the upper torso lock.

The triangular helmet leaned on closer, and the comm voice on the speakers came through as the helmet nodded, "Instruct me on how best to help Wilson."

Sally couldn't hold back the few sobs that escaped before she could say, "Latch, foot of the right leg, outside, panel behind the armor seam. Release it."

Somehow, the shoulder's worm drive seemed to move easier under the force of her hands as Vraks moved to the leg of the powered armor.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Henry struggled with every step inside the radiation suit. It's lined with lead, he told himself, but somehow, right now, the weight of the suit combined with the pull of the magnetic boots in zero-g felt far heavier and more unweildy than it ever had in training exercises.

As he made his way to the Sac's cargo bay, he was greeted with the sight of a battered and bloodied Chief Engineer being assisted by an exosuited Dravitian Science Officer as they worked on a Cap Trooper's suit of powered armor that floated a meter above the deck.

Henry launched himself in what he thought was a leisurely leap off the top of the stairs to the deck, but the suit's mass was taking him farther in a relative horizontal axis than the vertical he expected. "Look out below!" He called on the suit's comm, his words echoed on the cargo bay's speakers.

Sally glanced over at the airborn large orange exosuit with a frown, "'A' for effort, but if you screw your ankle up right now... So help me Cap, you won't know what's hit you!"

Henry had spent enough time in zero-g to know how to position himself for landing, but even so, the extra mass of the suit left him grabbing onto a nearby cargo crate to stay upright. "No need Chilly, ankles reporting for duty. Where's this cable plug?" He raised the much-used and grubby yellow power cable in the hand not holding onto the crate.

Sally nodded with her head at the powered armor's helmet. "Just here, at the back of the neck. You'll need to get underneath the suit to get at the panel. I'll help as soon as I get this shoulder ready to be released." The engineer's hands just kept working the actuator's bent worm gear, forcing it to follow its path with liberal application of elbow grease.

The only response from Henry was all that was needed, a simple "Aye." He took those ungainly, stilted mag boot steps over to behind where the Chief worked, and knelt down. As he moved, his visor panned back and forth looking over the damaged armor. "Liz sure took a beating... Do we have vitals yet?"

Sally's answer came between two handed pushes on the ratchet-wrench. "As... we were being... towed in, Liz,... the AI,... told me that he's... hanging on,... but just... Problem is... that if... I pull that... helmet off,... her system... might wipe... Gotta get... stable power... t'keep her... safe..."

Vicki's voice came over the speakers as well as over the comms, her words a staccato enunciation. "I'm flooding bay with lead gas, Chief. Helmet!"

First / Previous

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ReallyNotHowThatWork on 2025-08-11 20:58:18+00:00.

Arthur Paddington, customs officer to the stars, was on his way to dock C berth 7 to inspect the irradiation certificates of a shipment of fruit when he first caught a whiff of it. Living on an interstellar weigh station frequented by people of all different biochemistries and levels of personal hygiene, one often got whiffs of this or that. But this scent was both persistent and malodourous, and worse seemed to grow more powerful the closer he got to his destination. Paddington couldn't place it, but it was foul, and he hoped that it wasn't going to be a problem.

Moments after stepping past the dock's threshold the evacuation alarms went off and his communicator issued an urgent set of beeps, declaring that there was a hazmat incident involving an unknown substance at berth C7. Repairing to a café overlooking the entrance to the dock, Paddington decided to check the manifest of his belayed appointment as the emergency appliances streamed through the dock's main entrance.

The ship was a Keran-Tar registered refrigerated breakbulk transport, making a run from old Earth to the aviform's main trade hub, and listed as carrying 25 thousand tonnes of fruit and no other cargo. Remarkably hazardous thing to ship, fruit was. It was usually picked and shipped before it was ripe, and to keep it from ripening too quickly and rotting during transport it had to be kept refrigerated (and some refrigerants were quite toxic) and in a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide atmosphere. If you got conditions right, some fruit gave off potentially dangerous gases as they slowly ripened (bananas were the common example), and if you got conditions wrong, then rotting fruit gave off all sorts of dangerous fumes. There were also pesticides: standard practice for fruit coming from Earth was irradiation, but some polities insisted on secondary treatments with all sorts of targeted poisons, and even if this load wasn't due to be treated it's wasn't hard to imagine that the ship still carried pesticides for use on other shipments.

Looking at the detailed manifest, Paddington found that the ship was carrying several different varieties of a fruit called the durian, and that name tickled a memory. A quick stellarnet search later and Paddington was sensibly chucking to himself as he typed out a quick message to station's fire brigade. They'd probably figured it out themselves by now but no harm in giving them a hint.

It wasn't until a couple of days later (whilst Paddington was finally conducting his inspection) that he got the full story. It seems that a couple of wealthy Keran-Tars had been visiting South East Asia when they'd smelt the fruit's odeur. For humans, the durian has a divisive aroma, pleasant for some but overpoweringly foul for others, but Keran-Tars evolved from aviform carrion-eaters - overpowering and foul was a description of most of their cuisine. Our two interstellar tourists just happened to be in the produce industry and aimed to introduce this human delicacy to the hungry Keran-Tar masses, whilst securing a tidy profit for themselves. This was their first shipment, and it seems that a few members of the crew got curious when a crate of the fruit "accidentally" broke open in flight and they, not wanting the opportunity to go to waste, decided to help themselves. In addition to overpowering, the scent of the durian is also persistent, so much so that in countries where it's common laws have had to be passed banning its consumption in certain public spaces. So of course when the ship pulled into the berth and opened it hatches, the dock got a nosefull of it, the station's emergency crews got a bit of exercise, the captain got a talking-to, the crew got a much sterner talking-to, and a new rule was added to the station's books.

Not bad for a for a load of fruit.

[Arthur Paddington: Customs Officer To The Stars]

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/paynalton3 on 2025-08-11 16:32:38+00:00.

The sanitation efforts on Arka III became an impossible task. The fungus that had suddenly appeared on the planet had spread so much that its spores flooded the atmosphere. This parasitic fungus infected any kind of crop and was so poisonous that the only solution was to burn the entire harvest before the spores could infect other fields.

The Arkankans, already suffering from famine caused by the fungus’s spread, asked the Galactic Council for help. Soon, the planet had millions of alien soldiers assisting in detecting and destroying any outbreaks. However, even though the situation was under control, scientists warned that with so many spores in the air, it would take centuries to eradicate the fungus, and any unattended outbreak could trigger a new crisis in just days.

Over time, the Galactic Council withdrew its support to focus on other priorities. The Arkankans, with their economy devastated, could not offer high wages for exterminators, so they began accepting refugees and immigrants without conditions, hoping they would take on the fungus extermination jobs for extremely low pay.

Under these conditions, the LATAM, a rather peculiar human faction, arrived on Arka III and immediately enlisted as fungus exterminators. But after just a few months, it was noticed that their upkeep costs were decreasing, and they became increasingly reluctant to talk about their diet, constantly refusing the provisions given to exterminators with a simple, “No thank you, I’ve already eaten.”

What truly raised alarms was the discovery of a trafficking network violating biosecurity protocols to transport large quantities of this terrible fungus—to human worlds!

“They’re eating WHAT?!”

That is said to have been the exclamation of the president of Arka III upon learning that the LATAM had discovered the fungus was edible for humans if chopped into pieces, combined with epazote (poisonous), potatoes (toxic), and onions (highly poisonous), grilled on a hot metal plate, placed on a flat and flexible corn bread they call “tortilla,” and topped with spoiled milk and a secret (and illegal) toxic mixture of the LATAM called “molcajete sauce.”

It must be acknowledged that the Arkankan solution to their agricultural and economic crisis was quite ingenious. Apparently, this fungus—christened “Arkatoche” by humans—is considered a delicacy. So extermination efforts ceased, and instead, it became the planet’s main crop. Today, Arka III is a prosperous world whose economy is based on exporting Arkatoche to human worlds, a product whose value increases as its consumption spreads throughout human civilization.

As for the LATAM who made the discovery, they still work on the planet, now as farmers, satisfied with being able to eat all the Arkatoche they want.

#GalacticCuisine #LATAM

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/DrBlackJack21 on 2025-08-11 20:43:07+00:00.

Concept art for Sybil

Book1: Chapter 1

<Previous

Of Men and Ghost Ships, Book 2: Chapter 42

Luise's life had taken several unexpected turns recently. If a few months ago someone had told her she'd be grateful to be a prisoner onboard one of the most notorious ghost ships ever to sail the void, she would have thought they were insane, and yet here she was.

Currently, Luise was having dinner with her first mate, or at least Jerome had filled that role when she'd had her own ship. Now neither of them had rank or status beyond what the ship's avatar granted them. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that she was herself again and enjoying this meal.

Jerome looked at her in something between unease and wonder. "I don't know how you can enjoy eating that grey paste so much, it's disgusting! If I didn't get hungry enough, I don't think I'd even consider it food!"

Luise shrugged and shoveled another spoonful into her mouth. He was right in that not only was the flavor mediocre, but the texture was also off-putting, but that didn't dampen her enjoyment one bit. A moment later, she responded. "It's simple, really. I'm enjoying this because I'm eating it! Not that...thing that wore me like some sort of meat suit! I know I've already said this, but you have no idea how wonderful it is to be able to blink whenever I want to! That alone would put me in a good mood!"

Jerome shook his head. Clearly, he was still having trouble accepting the story she'd told him, not that Luise blamed him; it was an absurd story to say the least! At first, he didn't believe her at all. She'd had to show him the port that was now a permanent fixture in the back of her neck, and had both the Sybil and Captain Carter back up her story before he'd even considered if it was true. He was still somewhat skeptical, but seemed willing to at least play along for now, and that was enough for Luise. He seemed like he was about to say something else when a knock at the door announced they had a guest.

The door opened a moment later without any response from Jerome or Luise. They were prisoners, after all. It's not like they had a private suite or anything. Still, it was bold of one of their hosts to walk into a room with two prisoners who had nothing better to do than keep each other company without waiting to hear from them first. Then again, the ship's AI was probably more than capable of knowing if they were decent or not, so it may have been that it wasn't quite the gamble she'd first thought.

In walked Carter. It appeared that he was alone and armed only with a single handgun, though Luise knew better than anyone that no one was ever alone on this ship; she still had nightmares about the scale and scope of the AI aboard this ship, even though most of it had been forgotten due to her inability to understand it. Regardless, they'd quickly find themselves in a whole new scale of trouble if they tried to overpower him, so his confidence was well-founded. He stepped in and nodded in their direction, acknowledging the two prisoners. "Hey, I got something I wanna run by the two of you, see if you're interested in a bit of revenge. Now, this will put you right in the crosshairs of the person you used to call the Boss, but it will also fuck with his plans, and in return, we'll be willing to set you free once everything is said and done. What do you say?"

Luise looked at her first mate, then back to Carter. "You had me at revenge. What's the plan?"

Elias suspected the kid, Miles, who he'd seen around a couple of times, was his ticket out of this madhouse. Not that he was going to try something stupid, like holding him ransom. He couldn't think of a faster way to get permanently locked back in his cell without the few freedoms he'd been granted. However, the kid seemed to be chasing down some mystery, something to do with the "ghosts" that occasionally wandered the halls.

Even now, the kid seemed to be following another lead, and Elias was thinking of seeing if the kid would let him come along, but the sound of a rapid "tap tap tap tap" behind him told the pirate that something with far too many legs was behind him. Turning around, he saw the one person on board who frightened him almost as much as the lady in red. It was the weaver.

Making an effort to suppress his shudder, Elias stepped to the edge of the hallway to allow the weaver to pass, only for the horrifying-looking creature to stop and stare directly at him with far too many eyes. She bowed in acknowledgment, though Elias noticed he was never entirely out of view of at least some of the eyes looking his way. "Greetings, Captain Elias. I was sent to offer you a proposal. A change to earn your freedom, make a profit, and get some revenge all at the same time. Would that interest you?"

Elias narrowed his eyes. "Any target you're offering all that for probably isn't worth the risk... You're going after the Boss, aren't you?"

The weaver nodded in such a way that a portion of her upper body moved forward, and thus closer to Elias, causing him to flinch, before pulling back again. "Indeed. However, I would like to note we will be proceeding with or without your help. Your choices are to stay aboard the ship as we do so, and die if we fail, or remain imprisoned if we succeed, or you can join in on the attempt, in which case you'll still probably die in the case of failure, but you'll be free and quite wealthy if we succeed. I suppose you just have to weigh the resulting risks and benefits to decide which is better in your esteem.

The weaver made it sound like the risks were the same; however, Elias well knew getting on the Boss's bad side was considerably worse than a quick death via fiery explosion. On the other hand, it never hurts to hear them out. You never know, maybe their plan would present him with...possibilities.

He nodded. "Alright, I'll at least hear you out. It's not like I can't ask to be locked up again if I decide it's that bad of an idea."

The nightmarish weaver nodded again. "Very sensible of you, sir..."

Alen looked at the men arranged before him, wondering how he'd ended up second in command of this little ragtag fleet of theirs. They all had considerably more time and experience than he did in politics, and yet seemed to trust him enough to follow his and Carter's lead. Was it just because of the Sybil backing them up? That didn't make sense; they'd had plenty of chances to cut and run if that was all keeping them here. He resisted the urge to shake his head in wonder as he finished up his explanation. "So anyway, that's the basic plan on our end. Dimitri, if you could pull whatever political strings you've got to get things moving, and Reid, we'll need your connections among any of the pirate hunters who haven't joined up with either side of the fight just yet. Sound good?"

Dimitri looked a little doubtful. "I've made a few connections over the years, but I don't think I have enough weight to pull quite what you're asking."

Alen shook his head. "You're thinking of this all wrong. They're not doing us a favor; we're doing them one! If they don't act now, they're going to get drawn into a real war, the like of which this galaxy hasn't seen since the AI war! They need to get in on this now, if only to secure some plausible deniability for themselves!"

The older captain hesitated. "Hmmm. I suppose that might work. Still needs a bit more polish though... I don't suppose you've got any funds to help grease the wheels?"

Alen nodded. "We'll be cutting it a bit tight, but we've had some really good hauls before the shit hit the fan, so I'm sure we can put together a sizeable donation packet for you."

Dimitri nodded. "Then I suppose I can make that work."

Looking over at Ried, the commander seemed deep in thought. "Well, the pickings might be a little slim, but I suppose there are a few reliable captains out there I could put the word out to. We'll probably have to bribe them as well, but not cash up front. First pickings of the remnants after the fight is over should do the trick, especially after I show them how we've moved up in the world!"

Alen agreed. "Yeah, I thought as much. There might be a few restrictions, but I'm sure we can work out something to that effect."

One last look around showed that everyone else was on board, so Alen nodded. "Alright! Sounds like we've got a plan. Let's get to it!"

The entity, known as separate beings to most of the galaxy, looked at itself, seeing both the pirate and the girl from its two states of consciousness. Strangely, it felt very different about the state of things from its two manifestations, though both were simultaneously aware of each other's views. It didn't need to project itself to itself, but with the absence of its third self, it felt hesitant to diminish itself in any way, even if it was only a cosmetic change. Thoughts and feelings welled up in the two personalities' anger, fear, hope, determination, and pride. Each was answered in kind, all within a few heartbeats of their organic guests. Turning out to look into the void, the entity determined that it would either be whole again, ...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MadCowCrazy666 on 2025-08-11 20:01:04+00:00.

Echoes in the Dark - Chapter 10 - Part 2

[Previous]

South Africa - A couple of months after the summit.

As far as the eye could see in the shimmering heat haze there was nothing but savannah. Sweat was slowly drawing a bead down the side of his head as Rex was slowly scanning the edge of the ominous tall grass. He was standing in the back of the safari's Land Cruiser, dented with rust spots from it's extended service. He squinted as the sun was slowly painting the sky red, it's amber colored shape slowly setting beyond the horizon.

They'd been out here for hours. And in that time, his client, a bloated caricature of wealth in sweat stained safari gear, had not stopped complaining.

Too hot. Too thirsty. The ice was melting too fast. The alcohol wasn't cold enough. Too many mosquitoes. Too many smells. His boots pinched. His feet hurt. Too many this, too little that. And now, the grand announcement: He needed to take a shit.

Sigh...

And this man, Rex thought bitterly, could buy and sell entire towns. The only reason they were out here was because someone the client despised had shot some sort of predator, posted the pictures online, and soaked in the attention. The client's response? Find and kill a bigger animal.. in this case, a very specific lion.

It was the sad truth of conservation in this part of the world.. egos like his were part of what kept the sanctuary alive. Without wealthy hunters paying obscene fees, the rangers wouldn't have the means to fight the constant tide of poachers.

When Rex first came to work here, incursions were constant, dozens, sometimes hundreds, each month. Poachers with rifles, steel traps, or poisons. Poachers that killed anything they came across, took what they could carry and left the rest to rot in the dirt.

He'd spent the last year intercepting them, turning the skills he'd honed in battlefields around the world into tools for animal preservation. He knew every entry point, every smuggling route, even the so called secret ones. He would track a man for days without being seen, after a while had made something of a sport out of it. He would sneak up so close he could touch them and then he simply waited to see how long it would take for them to notice. His personal record was about fifteen minutes breathing down a man's neck. He suspected the man had known earlier but simply been too terrified to turn around.

Now he was stuck with this idiot.

The Land Cruiser rumbled along the edge of the tall grass, a zone every local knew to respect. It was where predators hid, where ambushes happened and where highly territorial prey animals could be startled into charging, goring and trampling you to death. You didn't step into it without good reason.

The client, however, had been badgering Rex for nearly an hour to find a "private" place to relieve himself. Rex had explained, patiently at first and less so later, that they could set the portable toilet in the open. The client refused. "I can't go if people are watching." he said, like a petulant child, with added threats to call off the entire hunt. Payment was only required after a successful expedition.

So here they were, trudging on foot into the tall grass, the lookout standing on the roof of the vehicle to keep watch for movements in the grass. Rex led the man twenty meters in, to a small, sunlit clearing.

"Here. You've got cover on all sides." Rex said.

"Not with you watching I can't!" the client snapped. Loud enough to startle some nearby birds into flight.

"I'll be within shouting distance." Rex sighed with a clenched jaw.

He turned around and slowly entered the tall grass, slowly vanishing with practiced silence.

The client swore as as he struggled with his belt, there was a metallic *clink* as he finally managed to open it. Pants dropped but as the squatted he paused, realizing that he would relieve himself into his own very wide pants if he continued like this.

He swore loudly as the struggled to remove the brand new boots recently bought, expensive boots that would probably only ever be worn for this one expedition. More muttering as his sweat had glued his feet to the sole, but finally they came off, one at a time.

That was when the wind shifted.

Rex caught it instantly.. the scent, the subtle change in air pressure, the prickling along his skin. He didn't need to see it. He knew.

It was a sensation that had stuck to him like a predator sinking it's hungry claws into prey, ever since an event had happened shortly after joining the special forces he had truly hated this sensation. They were being hunted...

His body began preparing itself for what was about to happen. His heartbeat slowed down, as if it's beat alone would reveal his position. He began moving toward the clearing, creeping forwards slowly, deliberately. Any sudden movement could trigger a predator's prey drive, so the goal was to reach the client, and slowly get him out of the area without provoking an attack.

He parted the grass at the edge of the clearing, scanning the area for the small telltale signs he knew were there. Almost opposite was the client, and slightly beyond them, hidden in shadows, was a pair of golden eyes focusing intently. They were locked on the squatting man. Three meters separated predator from prey.

Rex was about five meters from the client, this was a race he could never win.

He raised his rifle but quickly realized that a secure shot was almost impossible, the clients position would result in just a glancing shot which could turn dangerous very quickly. Trying to shoot the large predator by going trough the client was a tempting option.. but...

He grabbed the small radio attached to the upper right side of his chest, turned the output to zero so a response wouldn't reveal his position. Then quietly and calmly he began speaking into it. "I need you to listen very carefully. Do exactly as I say."

The client, still squatting, grabbed his own radio and snapped. "I'm busy right now! Give me a couple of minutes!"

Rex's calmly responded "You're in danger. No sudden movements. Stand up slowly, turn to your right and slowly walk towards me, I'm five meters away from you within the tall grass."

The client.. turned left. Then pivoted in place, scanning wildly.

The predator twitched at the sudden movement.

"Slowly, look to your right, and slowly, walk towards my hand" Rex repeated, holding out his left hand partially trough the grass.

The client spotted him, pivoted and started screaming as he ran towards him.

The triggered response was immediate.

The client clumsily wobbled toward Rex in what counted as a sprint from a morbidly obese man.

"Oh, for-" Rex didn't have time to finish the thought. He bolted forwards.

The predator was already airborne, honed in of it's next fat slathered meal.

Rex's shoulder slammed into the client, knocking him sideways out of the pounce's path. Rex didn't feel the pain but could feel the paw dragging it's claws across his arm. The rifle he'd been carrying, knocked knocked far away by the collision with the bloated airbag. He rolled as he hit the dirt, coming up with his long blade in hand, his trusty companion from his years as a mercenary.

The predator landed and spun with a grace that should have been impossible for such a large creature. A massive male lion, close to three hundred kilos, with a dark mane and eyes that knew his face. Rex had seen him several times before. Fed him too, months ago, until the poachers stopped coming. Locals called him Blackmane.

Predator and soldier stared each other down. Rex widened his stance, knees bent, blade low. He shifted sideways, forcing himself between Blackmane and the client. He didn't blink. Didn't look away. In lion terms, that was an invitation to die.

The muscles under the great cat's hide rippled, in quiet tension as they gauged each other. The lion was slowly easing up, drive slowly bleeding away. The hunt was ending.

Then hands clamped onto Rex's leg from behind. "DO SOMETHING!"

That instant of distraction was all it took. Blackmane lunged.

Claws ripped into Rex's torso. Teeth clamping down toward his tuckered neck. He twisted the dagger sideways into the lion's mouth, catching between molars. Pain made the predator hesitate as it aborted the bite.

Rex flipped the blade and using both hands on the blade pushed, forcing the edge deeper into the soft tissue behind the jaw. Blackmane shook him violently, claws ripping new furrows into flesh and across his face. Blood poured, some his, some the lion's. The cat leapt back, landing light despite its bulk. It's pupils tiny dots as it focused intensely on him, now bleeding profusely from it's newly widened mouth. Slowly they started to circle, Rex trying to position himself between the lion and the client.

"Why.. so.. serious?" Rex said in a staggered manner, shifting his grip on the blade, best option available was to thrust it down the lions throat if it decided to pounce.

The lion's gaze flicked to the client.

"No!" Rex growled, moving to block the view.

For a long moment, they held the stare. Then Blackmane began to slowly back away. He paused once, looking at Rex as if weighing some unspoken agreement, before turning and vanishing into the grass.

The first wo...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/BainWrites on 2025-08-11 19:32:40+00:00.

[Previous Chapter]

There are many things in the universe which are constant. The speed of light, the gravitational force of particles, and the correctness of a cup of tea and a cream cake on a sunny summer's day. Out of all of the species that inhabited an infinite universe, there was one constant amongst nearly all of them: Everyone liked being a little bit nosey.

Whether it was the impossible to resist allure of listening a bit closer when voices could be heard shouting outside, or slowing down your own travels just slightly when spotting the police giving someone a good talking to, getting ‘all up inside’ someone else’s business is a near universal joy experienced by all sentient beings.

This was what Lena and Dr Johnathan Fletcher were doing right now, embarking on the ever rewarding habit of being a bit nosey.

Officially, they were walking around the storage rooms looking for their first major delivery of their new project. Blocking the Uhae’s XK wave manipulating powers had shown some promise, the initial calculations and simulations ran over the last two months stated that the science Johnathan and Lena had been researching might just work. Now was the time to build an initial test of concept, along with the exciting experience of getting to play with some new toys, the anticipation of which had caused the duo to travel down to the storage center instead of waiting for the items to get delivered.

It had also given them the chance to look at other groups and scientists doing the same, and engage in a little bit of people watching.

“Confident guess: Three doors down, a giant plasma weapon of some kind.”

The Scythen pointed towards a group in the back, three Ritilians going through a box of equipment. The storage room was vast, hundreds of rooms and corridors connecting the logistical masterpiece of the entirety of Research Location 9. The halls were mostly quiet and empty, apart from the few groups silently picking up items, or the near soundless smooth running of flying drones carrying things deeper into the facility. The dim lighting gave plenty of places to hide and watch the others with little chance of being spotted.

“Oh that one was easy, no way a capacitor that big would be used for anything else.” Jonathan responded, giving a small chuckle before continuing. “The Terrans in the back. I’d bet a lunch that they’re working on some form of orbital entry system.”

Dr Fletcher pointed out the group of five rummaging through their own equipment, the light sensors that covered Lena’s strange alien body easily picked them out. The pair had a good vantage point from where they stood, the control tower not only provided a birds eye view of the entire storage area, it was also very rarely visited: only created as a technical requirement: in case the AI who ran this location were somehow put out of commission, and someone had to manually press the big red stop button in an emergency.

“Disagreement: Fabric wrong density. I bet they are designing a light armor system.”

“Then we’ll go ask them later, and the loser buys lunch.” Johnathan responded with a smile.

“Agreement: Loser buys lunch. The group of Terrans at the back there, I have no clue what they are working on.”

This caused the Terran to give his own grin, giving a shake of his head as he responded.

“The Scythen not knowing something! Well my dear Wattson, it’s very clearly an attempt to cure Ethan’s syndrome!”

Johnathan was indeed right about this, although he had the unfair advantage of having bumped into the research group , having a chat about their work when Lena wasn’t around. Not that he was going let the Scythen know this. Lena on the other hand was still confused, the phrase not providing them with any enlightenment.

“Query: Ethan’s syndrome?”

“Oh yeah, you guys probably already solved this for your species.” Johnathan stated. “Just before the God Plague, we worked out how to restart the biological processes after death. We then later learned that actually restarting the meat part of people is the easy step: Stopping consciousness fundamentally breaks something in people’s minds.”

Ah, that.

Lena knew exactly what that was referring to. Every single species of any technological might had a different name for it, but they all referred to the same thing: There was something special about consciousness. Stopping it was like smashing a stained glass window: You could try to put the pieces back together, but it would never be the same as before, the cracks and shattered surfaces irreversibly unmaking what once was.

“Turning someone back on messes the mind up: Severe dysphoria and dysmorphia, self disfigurement, hallucinations, the feeling of being a different person, of all your memories not being yours. It’s why people are only ever brought back in emergencies: there are coping strategies but none of them are great.”

Lena sat there pretending not to know exactly what was being talked about, the concept that stopping a consciousness, whether digital or not, effectively destroyed that person. Many religious sects and cults had used it as proof of there being a soul, that no matter the physical processes, a person was made up of something more, something unknowable.

“There’s a bunch of people who tried to get past the whole ‘tumor growing disease’ that was the God Plague, by killing and freezing themselves, to be revived after the god plague naturally ran itself out. Ironically, most of the people who tried this strategy are still in stasis, until we find a cure for Ethan’s syndrome.”

All Lena really knew was that this Terran group was doomed to fail, an impossible task that had no solution. Not even the Scythen themselves had worked out how to bring someone’s mind truly back from the dead, the closest ‘fix’ being rebuilding a similar, if completely different ‘person’ from the remains of what once was. Still, even if it ended in failure, the process would probably provide several new useful insights.

The pair went silent for a moment, just watching the people moving around below them, until something very very strange caught Lena’s ‘eye’. Something that shouldn’t be there, walking silently along the back halls of the storage area.

“Confused query: Why is there a Hagorthian here?”

Jonathan gave his own frown, trying to follow where the Scythen was pointing, his confusion evident at such a ludicrous statement, especially considering that the giant low intellect reptiles were literally part of the group the Terran Alliance were at war with.

“I doubt there’s an Estorian here, let alone the stupid brutes…” Johnathan trailed off as he finally spotted the figure, mouth dropping agape with surprise as he indeed saw the same red and brown scaled reptile. “Holy shit, it's Dr. Xavius.”

Indeed, the small 7ft figure of the famous saviour of humanity was walking down the darkened back corridors of the storage bay, pushing a hovering cart filled with nondescript crates of whatever she was working on. The Terran gave this no thought as they were instead star struck after seeing the most famous woman in science just walk around with little fanfare.

“Question: Who?”

“You’re joking right?” Johnathan glanced back from his shocked staring, now giving the Scythen an incredulous look. “She’s the genius who cured the God Plague. I’m not surprised she’d be recruited, but no one's mentioned they’ve seen her. Basically every single Terran knows who they are.”

Lena was feeling a little confused. Of course, they knew that the organic Terran members had been stuck in stasis for quite some time up until the last 76 years, awaiting a cure to a self created disease. It wasn’t even that special so far as civilizations accidently destroying themselves went: Lena could remember the names of at least 5 space faring species who had wiped themselves out with a self created virus or weapon of some kind. The Scythen had had no reason to look up the exact details of what had happened, as it hadn’t come up or been relevant during their time together.

“Additional confirmation: So this Xavius cured the illness inflicted upon your entire species?”

Johnathan gave a small shrug and a grimace as that statement, disagreement slowly covering his face as he continued to gawp at the Hagorthian once more.

“Well… that’s a bit reductive.” As Johnathan started the classic ‘Yes but actually no’ tone of voice all experts use regularly. “Terran AI had been working on the problem for ten thousand years, and based on their progress, would have probably cracked it in a thousand more. Still, Xavius sped the entire thing up by a millenia, which obviously still makes her the most famous alien in Terran space.”

Lena paused for a moment as they mulled over that statement, the idea that there was a reality where their Terran friend was still trapped in stasis was not one they enjoyed thinking about. Part of the enemy species or not, the Scythen had a lot to be thankful for towards Dr Xavius.

“Sad thought: and we would have never met.”

“Yep, without her, I’d still be a sleeping beauty in some storage facility.” The Terran gave a sigh, before returning to their normal happier attitude. “In summary, Dr. K Xavius is a really big deal among Terrans, fixing possibly the worst thing to ever happen to our species. That’s without getting into all the stuff...

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Echoes in the Dark - Chapter 10 - Part 1

[Previous]

Earth - Sometime around the 1980s

The air inside the Vostok Station observatory was dry and sharp, the kind that scratches the insides of your throat until you've swallow your first cup of coffee. Senior radar operator Dmitriv Alekseyevich had just finished brewing a steaming hot cup of coffee, the first of what he expected to be many that day. He sat at his station with his hands wrapped around the metal mug for warmth, it was sorely needed right now.

He had been there for eight months now, eight out of his nine month rotation. He didn't envy the personnel that stayed over the winter, their rotations lasted for one and a half years.. one and a half fucking years in this barren frozen hellscape that seemingly took delight in plucking at your nerves and patience like it was some sort of instrument out of tune.

It was important to keep yourself busy with something, that something had to occupy most of your attention for the duration of your stay. The worst thing you could do was let your mind wander, many a men had lost their minds in never ending thought circles out here. The last cargo drop had been over half a year ago, and the next was still a month out. With it came the much needed supplies but more importantly, a way out, for those that were scheduled or those that needed it.

Coffee was one of the few luxuries in this frozen exile. Black, bitter, and smelling faintly of the burlap sack it had arrived in, but above all else good, good for the body, heart and soul, all at the same time.

On the shelf above his desk sat todays main distraction, a dented old tin of biscuits, this weeks sweet ration. He reached for it, fumbling with the twisted little metal key soldered to the side. Soviet efficiency was a thing of wonder but this damned packaging left much to be desired. He hooked the tab and began twisting... *Snap*

"Сука блядь!" Dmitriv muttered, glaring at the broken key. It was like this with half the rations, some tins older than he was, stamped with manufacturing dates from before the stations construction had even begun over twenty years earlier.

The lid had split just enough for him to force it open by hand, the sharp edge bit into his index finger like it thirsted for blood.

"А-а-ай! Блядь!" He jammed the bleeding finger into his mouth, tasting iron, salt and generator lubricant.

It wasn't the first injury he had suffered out here but when compared to the hell of the last twenty-four hours it wasn't even worth noting. Yesterday, the generators had failed. Ten hours without power.. precious heat slowly dissipating as the minutes ticked by. Backups frozen solid, they had been impossible to start without hours of hard work. They'd tried hailing Mirny Station, but atmospheric interference or something had turned everything into garbled bursts of static. As he had stood next to the radio operator and caught pieces of shouting in the background on their end, something about a broadcast, and obvious panic, but it hadn't made sense at the time.

The wound stopped bleeding quickly enough. Dmitriv sipped, the now, lukewarm coffee to wash out the taste of blood, then bit into a biscuit. It was like chewing stale cardboard, dipping it into the mug to soften it didn't help, the damned thing disintegrated instantly, turning his drink into a slurry of bitterness and sand.

That was when the radar pinged.

At first, he thought it must have been his imagination, the scan lines rarely pingws off something outside the scheduled resupply drops. The green dot appeared, blinked, and with each rotation of the radar dish, moved slowly across the screen.

*Ping*

He leaned closer. An airplane? No, it was much to fast for that. Some sort of meteor? No, the path was different, it seemed to be slowing down. Not some sort of weather phenomenon either, the signal was too strong.

*Ping*

*Ping*

*Ping*

Dmitriv frowned. The trajectory put it twenty kilometers north of their position. And then..

*Ping* *Ping**Ping*

He sat up straight. Two new returns had appeared, trailing the first. Moving fast.

*Ping* *Ping*Ping*

They were rapidly closing the distance. Pursuit? Escort? Interception?

The pings grew quicker, overlapping into an insistent alarm.

Without thinking, Dmitriv pushed back from the console and ran for the door, he needed to inform the others. He burst into the corridor and took a left, just up ahead was the entrance to the commons room.. it completely empty. He looked around the room and through a frost covered window covered he could see several people. He ran back and out the nearest exit, they were just around the corner of the building and as he came closer he noticed they were all staring.. north...

"Mikhail! What's going on?" he shouted as he approached.

Before anyone could answer, the world hit them.

A concussive blast wave rolled over the frozen tundra. It knocked Dmitriv and the others to the ground and he could feel the ice vibrating beneath them. In the distance, over the horizon, a column of dark smoke rose upwards. Faint sounds of jets could be heard flying overhead, just above the grey clouds covering the sky as far as they could see.

"What the hell was that?" Dmitriv shouted.

"Invasion!" Mikhail, the radio operator, yelled back, eyes wild. "It's all over the broadcasts! We couldn't hear it yesterday with the power out, but-" He broke off, glancing toward the smoke and pointing. "They've come. They've found us!"

"What? The Americans?" Dmitriv demanded. "Nuclear bombers?"

Mikhail grabbed his shoulders with both hand, shaking him slightly as he frantically tried to explain. "No! Aliens, Dmitriv! They took over every frequency! Said they had found us and had come for us!"

Dmitriv stared at him. "You've been drinking the disinfectant again..."

A third voice cut in. "He's telling the truth." It was Captain Yuri Antonovich, the station commander. "Get your gear. We're moving out."

Confusion turned to urgency. Dmitriv sprinted back inside, yanking his fur lined parka from the rack and made sure his insulated gloves were in it's larger pockets. Everyone had spent the night geared up, they had all tried to sleep in thick clothing due to the cold caused by the generator failure. In this cold, exposed skin froze in minutes and it had taken hours to reheat the structures once power was restored and they could finally remove a bit of clothing.

By the time he reached the vehicle yard, the two Kharkovchanka transports were already loaded and moving, their enormous red hulls grinding across the snow on wide tank treads. Mikhail waved him toward a smaller Sno-cat idling nearby. Dmitriv climbed in, and they took off, the bigger vehicles tracks easy to follow once they lost sight of them ahead.

They drove for nearly ninety minutes across the white void. The Kharkovchankas eventually came into view, having stopped on a rise. Their crews outside, clustered along the edge of gorge up ahead.

As Dmitriv and Mikhail approached on foot, the scale of it hit him. A long, hundred meter long gorge had been gouged through the ice by the impact, hot steam instantly turning to mist in places. Pieces of twisted metal could be seen scattered around the crash site.. this was a crash site but this was no aircraft wreck Dmitriv recognized.

Yuri waved them over. Up close, the debris looked.. wrong. No bolts, no rivets, it was all smooth and seamless. Like most of the parts had been cast as a single piece. Some of the metal pieces were also wrong, it looked like iron but shimmered faintly in the sunlight. This was not a metal Dimitriv had ever seen before.

"We hold here until support arrives." Yuri ordered. "They've been tracking it for hours. We have aircraft inbound."

Thirty-eight minutes later, the first plane came in low through the cloud cover, an Antonov An-12, Dmitriv thought. The side doors and rear ramp were already open before it fully touched down. A hundred soldiers in white camouflage spilled out, spreading into a defensive perimeter. Within moments, the transport was throttling up to leave, no doubt to fetch more.

The next aircraft heard but it's sound came from the wrong direction. High above the clouds as it passed over them, Dmitriv never saw the plane itself but shortly after the flyby he could see shadows erupting through the ceiling of grey.

Vehicles of some sort.

He blinked, unable to process it as parachutes began to bloom, dozens, then hundreds, carrying men and machines alike.

Mikhail's voice was tight with dread as he noticed the insignia. "Americans!"

Yuri's order was immediate. "Back to the vehicles. Move! We can't let them take them. Let the cold kill theirs and freeze the troops. We fall back and wait. It'll take hours at most."

They manned the vehicles and quickly retreated about two kilometers before stopping. Through binoculars, Dmitriv tried to see what was going on at the crash site. Two figures: One Soviet, one American, walked out from their lines, meeting in the middle. After a tense few minutes, they shook hands.

The radio crackled. "Return to site. Agreement reached."

Dmitriv felt a strange hollowness as they rolled back. Agreement or not, he knew one thing for certain, whatever had fallen from the sky was not of human origin. Whether it had crashed or been shot down he had no idea b...

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Will was aware of the greater part of the requirements to start a bonus challenge. The presence of a class mirror changed things slightly. It wasn’t an outright deal-breaker. Lucia had already obtained the skill to move her class mirror from place to place. Apparently, that had been a gift from her older brother. As for the rest, all that was needed were time and participants.

The following seven loops passed slowly. As each one passed, the pain in Will’s stomach grew. It wasn’t about the fact that he’d see Danny in action. Rather, it was the contest phase itself. Last time he had been thrust into it, and his mind had just adjusted to survive. Now, when he knew what would happen, he was experiencing constant low-grade fear.

[It’s always hardest the second time.]

Messages covered the floor of the mirror realm.

“Didn’t know you were a philosopher,” Will laughed it off.

It was true, though. A second contest phase would likely make him incensed, just like all other participants before him. That also scared the boy a bit.

“What are my odds?” he asked. “Does the paradox always happen?”

[Your presence has already created a paradox. The outcome is not certain.]

Leave it to the guide to be vague at a time such as this. All that Will managed to gather was that his success wasn’t predetermined. Danny might have gathered the same companions he had in the future-past, but that didn’t mean he’d end up dying. That was the entire point—to eject him out of eternity so he couldn’t do any further damage. With luck, maybe he wouldn’t have to die, just remain loopless, potentially with no memory of anything that had occurred.

CONTEST PHASE HAS BEGUN

A new set of messages filled the realm. Just to be sure, Will took out his mirror fragment. The same message was visible on the reflective surface. Not bothering to read the hints, Will put it away.

“It’s finally here,” he said out loud.

The boy would have preferred to have gained another class token, but those weren’t as easy to come by as he thought they were. His only consolation was that Lucia had insisted that he take all the coins they had found in Gabriel’s room. For some reason, she didn’t trust Luke with any of it.

“Ready, Shadow?” Will asked. “Shall we get the ball rolling?”

The shadow wolf leaped out of the floor. Being a wolf, it liked to hunt, and strong opponents seemed to make it happy.

“Of course you are,” Will muttered.

PREDICTION LOOP

Will went to the arcade mirror. As he left the mirror realm, Will felt the subtle change of the real world. Everything seemed electrified, as if there was a faint smell of ozone in the air. Events themselves were just as they had always been. Luke lost the game he was playing yet again, giving the spoils of war to his friend. There was some discussion about whether he didn’t have to throw the game, but the enchanter just muttered that he wasn’t feeling it and wanted to be alone.

Walking along the rows of arcade machines, he made his way to the class mirror and tapped it.

“No need to feel scared,” Will said preemptively. “Nothing happens on the first day.”

“I’m not,” Luke replied, and from what Will could tell, he wasn’t lying. “Sis told me what to expect.”

“We’ll just be going on a normal challenge. It’s going to be a bit more difficult, but nothing you can’t handle.”

Will didn’t add the part that he and Lucia were going to make sure it didn’t. A contest challenge was very different from most of what they had gone through up to now. It was also a good way to get the three of them to work together in a harsh environment.

It took eight prediction loops for the trio to get things right. The hidden challenge closest to them turned out to be an elf challenge. The goal was clear, just like in the previous elf challenge Will had taken part in. The execution, though, was an entirely different matter. Thankfully, Will had gotten an appropriate unique reward as a result: a genuine elf bow. There was no telling if it had occurred at random or eternity was rooting for him. Either way, it was useful.

The following loop, the challenge began. Precisely at noon, mirrors filled the city, allowing participants from other realities to flood in. Will’s plan was simple. Since it was next to impossible for them to drag a group of enemies to the archer’s mirror, they were going to do the opposite; and thanks to his clairvoyant ability, they had a way to determine the exact spot.

Goblins were the preferred target. One couldn’t call them weak, but they were the beings that everyone had the most experience fighting. Also, they generally travelled in groups. Finding several trios wasn’t difficult, though anything more than that didn’t seem to exist. For several prediction loops Will played around with the idea of trying to get two groups to merge, but that proved useless.

The situation with other participants was even worse. At this time, alliances didn’t exist as such. Lucia claimed that cluster parties used to participate together, but that had changed with Danny’s string of betrayals. No one trusted anyone else, ensuring that the strong solo participants would reach the reward stage while everyone else focused on getting better rewards and trades with the contest merchant.

“It has to be goblins,” Will said at the start of another prediction loop. His temples were throbbing in pain, though the archer’s concentration helped him ignore it.

“What if you snatch one and take him there through the mirror realm?” Luke suggested. “You can bind things, right?”

“Too risky.” Bringing goblins into the realm was the last thing Will wanted. “There’s someone else I can bring, though.” He glanced at Lucia. “Alex owes me a favor. If I call it in, he’ll be there.” There was a short pause. “Are you okay with that?”

“It’s fine,” the girl said. It didn’t take much to tell she was lying.

“That’s still four,” Luke noted. “One of us can—”

“No.” Immediately Will cut him short. “All of us must be there.”

“Well, then it’s back to snatching a goblin… or someone else. You’re the only one who could do it, so…”

“I can bring someone,” Lucia said.

“Someone owes you a favor?” Luke crossed his arms, eyeing the girl suspiciously.

“No, he owes my brother.”

The connection seemed a bit flimsy, but at this point it was the best they could hope for.

“Okay,” Will broke the uncomfortable silence. “Let’s do it. Luke, fight some wolves. Lucia, call in your favor.” He stepped away, making his way towards a mirror. “I’ll talk to Alex.”

A voice in the back of his mind screamed that getting the goofball involved was a terrible idea. No one in eternity thought that he could be trusted in the best of times, and right now his missing memories made him as unstable as a final-stage Jenga tower. Sadly, it wasn’t like there were any other options.

“Merchant,” Will said as he made his way through the mirror realm. “I want a mirror eye.”

The merchant appeared, offering the requested skill. Even with all the funds at Will’s disposal, he could still only afford the temporary version. Thankfully, it was going to be enough.

MIRROR EYE (temporary)

1000000 Coins

Allows looking and listening through all mirror fragments.

According to what Alex had told him in the future-past, it was the goofball who had initially found the mirror fragment. If so, there was a fifty-fifty chance that it was on him.

Circles and rectangles surrounded the boy. Nearly all of them were opaque. Possibly, rumors of his existence had spread among participants. Luke and Lucia had also protected theirs, effectively leaving just one.

Will held his breath. The fragment was in a pocket, so there was no telling whose it was. It stood to reason that Danny would have shielded it, if he were the owner, but nothing could be taken for granted.

Need to talk.

Will send a message using his mirror fragment.

There was movement. Fingers came into view, grabbing the mirror fragment and taking it out of the pocket. Soon Alex’s face became visible. Never before had Will been so relieved to be staring at the goofball’s nostrils.

“Hey,” he said.

Alex quickly turned off the lights wherever he was. Since this was the real him, it had to be the place from where he directed his mirror copies.

“Not cool, bro,” he complained.

“I’m calling in that favor,” Will said directly. “I want you to be somewhere at noon.”

“For real, bro? Timing is sus.”

“You owe me, remember?”

The goofball’s expression visibly changed even in the dark.

“You sure you want to call it just for that?” Alex asked. “I can get you a lot of useful things in the future.”

“Just be there.”

“If that’s how you want it. What will I be doing?”

“Dying,” Will said. “I need to kill you there.”

The goofball whistled, almost intrigued by the notion.

“That’s a pretty big favor, bro.”

“It’s just one loop. You’ve died more times hunting wolves.”

“I never get killed by wolves, bro,” Alex said with absolute certainty. “But fine. After this, all debts are paid.”

“That’s the idea.”

The conversation ended there. With that, all the pieces were set.

Will put his mirror fragment away and sighed.

“I’m really turning into him,” he said. The shadow wolf kept looking at him, just as calm and bored as before. “Once this is over, I’ll get back to what I was. I promise.”

The wolf tilted its head.

“You’ll still have opponents to fight, don’t worry.”

The minutes crept by. Finally, five minutes to noon, Will went to the agr...

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First

Under A Pastel Hood

There is little warning, a slight amount of purple dust flickering in front of a light as repair crews rush around to assess potential damage. The enemy craft had been utterly destroyed but had somehow let off a shot that had impacted The Articulation’s Hull.

Nerves were jangling. This was the day of reckoning, the galaxy had ocme for them, the dread makers possibly leading the charge and what peace they had known would now have to be paid back in blood. It was a harrowing thought.

Repair crews are armed just in case, but scans show nothing. Nothing but a strange few particulates too small to actually see, the larges cluster is vaguely visible as a mote of purple dust.

Then wind blasts down the hallway in two different directions, one hot and dry, pushing hard and fast as a storm of dust and sand follows it. The other cool and damp as a rush of water forces out. The repair crews fall back and take defensive positions.

Out of the dust a figure slowly emerges. Jangling and clattering every so with every step. A massive woven cloak of grasses around his person, an enormous coil rifle covered in moss rattling ever so slightly against a bandoleer of custom rounds, knives and several small tools. A featureless wooden mask is hanging from his two horns that reveal only glowing green eyes on the man’s face.

As the first figure emerges another rises from the water, his dark hair wetted back and tight to his skull to show a handsome Apuk face, a young face very similar to a figure of terror and legend, but with a story of his own as he rises up upon the muzzle of an enormous creature too huge to fit within the ship itself, but somehow also within it. Within the water upon the ship, even though it is barely deep enough to wet one’s toes. He is bare of chest to reveal the enormous gills across his torso that suggests his proudly mixed breeding.

“Greetings Vishanyan! I am Dare’Char Crushclaw! The Leviathan Lord! My ride today is Little Rudy! She bites yachts in half!” Dare’Char announces grandly and with a huge smile. The gigantic, scaly thing he’s riding on rises up until he’s only up to his ankles in the toe deep water and reveals a bump next to Dare’Char that opens into an enormous reptilian eye. On the other side the other Apuk raises his mask and scans the area, his eyes stopping on the cloaked and hidden figures that The Lush Forest Seeds are illuminating for him as clearly as the noonday sun.

“Afternoon. I’m The Dustshot, Arden’Karm.” He says before lowering the mask again. “You all attacked my homeworld. I would like to know why.”

“Okay, okay, calm down you two. Love the drama and the theatrics. Top notch there. But I need to speak now.” Harold says as he’s suddenly between the hot and dry, then he staggers and tumbles directly into the thin layer of water that he completely falls into and then resurfaces. “Okay, that’s not fair. You connected this right into Serbow’s Oceans.”

“Need a hand?” Dare’Char asks him as Harold uses Axiom to stand on the water and climbs up out of the literal ocean spilled on the floor but not overfilling it.

“When the excitement’s over you can tell me how you pulled this, but beyond that I’m fine. Good job.” Harold says with a thumbs up. He then looks around and waves to the invisible girls levelling weapons at him and then faces the nearest camera and looks right into it. “Now, I’m here because you had a sudden and very strange change of behaviour, one that greatly concerned me. A sudden automated recall order to an elite forward stasis sleep team? Right as you get an enormous endorsement that universally benefits your species and would let you politically dodge so many of your problems that it beggers belief? Someone’s doing something stupid and your species is in such a delicate state that you need help. Now, I can technically preserve the Vishanyan by myself with just Velocity as my bride, but that would take hundreds of years to get some kind of numbers and thousands to get some decent genetic diversity. So I’d rather not to be the father of the Vishanyan Returned, let’s work with the Vishanyan as they are shall we? Or does papa need to spank?”

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Holy Shit!” Arden’Karm exclaims as he breaks down laughing. “Sweet Fire Human! I thought you were going to be diplomatic!”

“I am being diplomatic!” Harold protests as Arden’Karm laughs again, taking off his mask to rub at his eyes to clear the tears of sheer amusement as he struggles to even stand.

“Maybe big dick diplomatic!”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Vishanyan Loyalists)•-•-•

“What is he even doing? How!? Why? What!?” Admiral Bombard demands before the entire room tenses as their number suddenly and unexpectedly increase.

“Calm down! Stay Calm Admiral! Reinforcements have arrived!” Bringer of Enemy Torment states snapping a salute even as a very pale and frankly adorable Nagasha boy slithers behind her. She’s dressed in a civilian skirt and blouse, but has a clear shield belt on and her weapons.

“... You’re a little under-dressed Commander. Good to see you regardless. I can see that your time in The Wider Galaxy has treated you well.” Admiral Longitude states in a stunned tone.

“Unusually so ma’am. The worst of it was all self inflicted, anticipating a doom that never comes is a special kind of torture.” Torment says. “... I’m in an administrative role at the moment ma’am, they have me as the communication link with additional, non-Vishanyan reinforcements. I have a family of elite Bounty Hunter Specialists, primarily Sonir, Numerous Undaunted Soldiers, Sorcerers of several stripes and the big one. The Primal Wimparas. All of them are waiting for my say so to join us here.”

“And Subject Mirror is a distraction. He and his two friends there are an irresistible Comedy Routine drawing away all enemy reinforcements and attention.”

“Correct. Ma’am, what kind and where would you like your reinforcements?” Torment asks.

“This is going to be delicate, so first thing’s first, you need all information on what’s going on.” Admiral Longitude states. “Admirals Bleed, Destiny and Signal have launched a Coup, but are clearly dis-unified and rushed. We have already captured Signal and determined that her motivations are due to a paranoia spiral slowly consuming her until she snapped. We still need to find the motivations of Destiny and Bleed, but we have one head of three of this mess already in custody.”

“Capture or Kill ma’am?”

“Capture. They’re still Vishanyan.”

“There’s more ma’am.”

“I’m sure.”

“The exposure of the Vishanyan means that our grace period since attacking The Apuk is up. They’re coming. However we have an opportunity to avoid open war. Favours are being called in, the galaxy is boiling around us and we have a few lifelines to pull from. But we need to at the very least use The Undaunted one in regards to The Apuk.”

“Explain.”

“The Undaunted will explain, I haven’t got the full situation, but we have some time. Time we need to use to deal with the coup now.”

“Then we better get moving. What assets are your teams bringing?”

“The Bounty Hunters are experts in bringing in targets alive despite numerous defences, The Undaunted are professional Soldiers, but they are will be willing to use lethal force. However if they can get into a defensive position it won’t be possible to get them out of it. The Sorcerers are already coating the interior of the Arkships with teleportation beacons they can see out of but are nearly undetectable themselves.”

“Alright then. We have no way to contain or conceal ourselves further, so now that we’re seen we must move with grace on such a level that if our dread makers are still watching then they will know better than to try to claim us as their property. This way Torment, if you’re truly in contact with these forces then we can and will be having you organize things. But first we need to divide the methods of movement and access throughout the Arkships in order to pin down and contain the rebels.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Vishanyan Rebels)•-•-•

She stares with her eyes twitching at the sight of them. The amount of Alien Men on the Arkship Articulation was growing. To say nothing of the gigantic THING with a maw so massive it literally couldn’t fit more than a peeking eye into the traditionally wide corridors of the vessel. Four girls could walk shoulder to shoulder in there and not brush up against each other. But that thing was just waiting, just... in there.

The cameras directly above that water had been zooming in and seeing... more swimming below where that giant monster was. Whatever it was, it wasn’t alone. And if it tried to force it’s way in then... the ship wouldn’t survive.

Somehow the one calling himself Dustshot is just as bad. After he had recovered from his hilarity he thought to regain his dignity by conjuring some kind of hunting bird out of nowhere and was just absently stroking the animal as if it was a rational thing to do. Other animals are slowly appearing around him to make a small menagerie of small and so very adorable looking little things.

The fact that several scompi had bounced out of their holes to investigate things and were quickly apparently becoming friends in a scene as picturesque and adorable as the camera feed of the circling horrors down below the water on the opposite is terrifying and foreboding.

Or how the fact that Harold has set up a...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KamchatkasRevenge on 2025-08-11 20:13:34+00:00.

Marian stands there for a moment like her feet are nailed to the deck, trying to fully process what she just heard. 

"Yep. Your new Mom by galactic terms, but Scott tells me in Human terms back on Earth I'd be a stepmom. Not sure I'd bother clarifying, personally, especially with a biggun like you. Not like you need much mothering when you're an all fired badass with a daughter of your own!"

Ishana laughs, a loud booming noise which echoes off the walls of the hangar bay slightly. 

"So let's see... I bet I can do my own introductions." She points at Avia. 

"You're my granddaughter, Avia, Synth or no I can smell it on you."

Her clawed finger moves to Tyler. 

"Which I bet makes you my grandson-in-law from how she’s holding your hand. So the rest of you cute little things are my granddaughters-in-law! Oh, you're all adorable for how damn lethal you all are. Some of the best combat footage I've seen in years with that last video you sent Marian! Can't wait to spoil some of those babies you've probably got on the way."

The claw moves again and settles on Boone. 

"Which leaves you. The extra biggun. Just off the scent, you got Marian's perfume in your fur pretty strongly, so... son-in-law?"

Marian's blood drains from her face. It really is all over the place today. Just like her emotions. She has to introduce her own damn fiancé or she wouldn't be able to live with herself! 

"...Y-Yes. Dad, Scotty, Cannidor lady who is apparently my new stepmom and I'm still processing that. This is Boone, he's my fiancé. He uh. Has a decent sized family. They're preparing a welcoming meal for you all." 

Boone steps forward. his hand returning to Marian's back, the warmth strengthening her somehow as she tries to figure out just how weird her life has actually gotten. 

"I've already messaged my first wife so we can get another place setting ready for Ishana. Patriarch, Matriarch of Clan Le Fae, be welcome among us, of Clan Bonrak, for we are bonded by oath and by blood, and are most glad to have you join us." 

"Oooh! So polite! Marian caught a good one!" Ishana coos. "I reckon my last kiddo's about your age. She lacks the grace and manners you're showing us sadly. Went and became a Crimsonhewer, which did not help her poor table manners."

Boone laughs as he turns to face Scott Junior. "They really do make a bit of a mess, don't they?" He extends his hand in the Human 'fist bump' style before asking; 

"Brother?"

Scott Junior marvels at the size of Boone's fist for a moment before meeting him knuckle to knuckle. 

"Brother. I always said there wasn't a man on Earth that could convince Marian to settle down. Guess I was right." 

When the laughter dies down, Marian's finally ready to talk.

"Dad... I'm still trying to process. So how did... y'know. This happen?"

Scott Senior gives Marian that knowing look that suggested she was asking a silly question, and if they weren't in mixed company would have earned her a sarcastic answer. 

"The same way anything happens. After your mother... I wasn't exactly looking, but Scotty and I were wandering around on Centris and well. Ishana and I met and everything just clicked." 

"Right. Right. That makes sense." 

Marian takes a breath. 

"Okay. I'm good. Any other surprises. Scotty? I'm not seeing any wives. Don't tell me my handsome big brother managed to get all the way out here single." 

Scotty grins, the goofy little smile he got when he was a bit embarrassed. 

"Nah. No wives... but I did meet this really amazing girl. She's one of those girls who look like models with a dragon tail and horns." Scotty looks over at his new nieces in law, asking; "The Apuk?" and getting three nods in return. "Yeah, the Apuk. She introduced herself, we went on a few dates, but she didn't... y'know. Propose or anything. She's working on something so she just gave me her number, asked me to keep in touch, and told me to make sure to let her know if I do get a wife or two."

Ishana nods sagely. "She's a smart cookie, that one. Dari'Kemsa, that's her name, right, Scotty boy?"

"Yeah, that's her name. Dari." 

"She's scouting Scotty out. She's an industrious girl, a commoner if I understand Apuk clan names correctly." Ishana muses. "But she was wearing some very nice things. So whatever she does, she’s raking in the credits and can't just up and drop everything even for a cutie like Scotty. I've seen this pattern before. She'll keep in touch, flirt, talk, and see what kind of sisters Scotty might seduce for her while he's out here. Considering the way Cannidor apparently like Le Fae men and women, I can just take a guess." 

Marian facepalms. Her Dad loves dry humor like that, and a lot of his dad jokes are similar... Just from that she can tell Ishana’s an almost annoyingly good match. 

Which probably meant she'd have half siblings soon. 

She'd need to deal with that particular thought later. Much later. For now all that matters is the simple question, Is Dad happy? He seems happy enough, but there’s something in his eyes... a sadness that seems to leak through during certain parts of the conversation. He isn't quite over Jenny Le Fae, if Marian could hazard a guess; they had been together for a long time, after all, and little moments could remind him of her, or what she might say. Ishana couldn't replace that in a thousand years, never mind a couple weeks. 

Not that Marian is going to blame him for not looking a gift shark in the mouth when he'd been going into old age alone. It isn't a competition or anything, like Ishana had to 'beat' Jenny Le Fae.

He'd had nothing left to lose. His daughter was out here. His son was ready to go. Why not leave it all behind and take another chance at life? 

So the best thing she can do... is support everyone. 

"Well. Shit. This ended up being a little more complicated of a reunion that I was even freaking out about and we're still standing in the hangar bay. Come on, let's go eat. We can get your gear to your lodgings or whatever later."

The whole crew starts moving, the marching order somewhere behind Boone and Marian for the most part, before Scotty darts out front a bit and takes a few pictures. That’s her brother: he'd always been a shutter bug when he was a kid and Quantico didn't change someone that much! 

"So, Boone," Scotty starts, still looking around. "Your name's pretty Human sounding. Is that a call sign or something? Are you in the military like Marian and Avia?"

"Ah." Boone's voice hitches for half a second as Scotty accidentally touches on a sensitive subject. "I am not a warrior, though many of my wives are. I was a teacher and a househusband primarily until... an incident happened. I hope to return to my trade some day, but there's not much call for the type of teaching I did on this ship yet, and I have a fairly large number of young daughters at home, so my family needs me more than anything else. My birth name was Makua, I had the fortune to come into contact with the Undaunted and some of the Marines gave me the nickname Boone. I liked it... and it was time for a change, so I took it as my own."

Marian glances back at Ishana; from this angle she can't get a great look at the much taller woman's face, but something told her that her new step mother had picked up the Canndior cultural subtext about renaming after a significant dishonor, tragedy or similar event. 

Thankfully Ishana doesn't push it, steering the conversation to something more casual with an expert's gentle hand. She’s clearly an experienced mother, and experienced in general. She'd make an interesting guide for Scott Senior as he carves his path into the galaxy. 

Scott Junior, on the other hand, is still walking backwards in front of the group, a skill he'd practiced extensively for certain kinds of drill and ceremony in the Marine Corps. Still, no skill could prepare Scotty, or Marian, for what comes next: just a flash of reddish gold fur and strawberry blonde hair out of the corner of Marian's eye and suddenly Scotty's on the ground in a tangle with... a Golden Retriever? 

Marian blinks, refocusing her eyes. No, not a Golden Retriever. A... Koiran! If she remembered right. One of the more reasonably sized bipedal canine species Humans had run into, compared to the massive and theoretically four legged Lopen. 

"Oh gosh, I'm sorry, miss, are you okay?"

"Oh, no, it was my fault I-"

Scotty and the woman he'd run into keep trying to talk, cutting each other off until they both start to laugh and Scotty manages to regain his feet, offering the young woman a hand up... and looking into her big, dark eyes. 

Marian can practically hear music swelling as she stands there, and resists face palming again lest she start putting a dent in her forehead. Scotty had always said he liked dogs better than most people, well here was a girl who damn near looked like one of his favorite breeds, if you turned her into a person and gave her huge boobs. 

Because what didn't have huge boobs in this galaxy besides Human women? Hell, if Avia set her chassis by galactic norms comparable to the Tret instead of her comparatively modest jaw dropping curves, about half way between a normal Earth born Human and a Tret, even the damn fighter jets would have huge boobs! The surreal moment keeps Marian's mouth shut as Scotty and the mysterious canine woman go through a very stilted series of introductions, exchanging names, that sort of thing. 

Finally, her brother drops a line. O...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Khenal on 2025-08-11 20:03:00+00:00.

With that existential crisis handled and the next one scheduled for… what, two months from now, Teemo?

“Sounds about right, yeah,” he answers with a smirk as he works on the shortcut to the cathedral. “You’ll either have enough on your plate that you’ll overthink things, or have things wrapped up and trip over it while looking for something to work on by then.”

Thanks bud. We both enjoy having a bit of fun, both of us trying not to worry too much. Pul says it’s time to leak Rezlar’s secret to the thieves. It’ll still be a day or two before he makes the dead drop, but the clock has officially started now.

Thankfully, I think we’re about as ready as we can get. I’d still like for Pul to officially be a ninja before we move forward, but class things are hard to predict. He says he can feel it in the distance, but Freddie and Rhonda both said it’s pretty obvious when it’s close. If he doesn’t think it’s close, it’s not, and waiting risks us letting the thieves do their plan without a hitch.

It’s still tempting to wait anyway, but it’s a temptation I intend to resist. We went through a lot of trouble to infiltrate the thieves, and I don’t want to throw that away. In fact, we’re already forcing them to change plans.

Onyx says that Cappy overheard Toja giving Bernuth a new assignment to delve and get stronger. It could be a punishment for him getting fired. They don’t seem to like delving, for whatever reason. But Cappy said she seemed friendly about the order, rather than unhappy.

That sets off all kinds of warning bells, enough that it’s difficult to decide why she’d do that. Well, she’s probably going to get more info on me, for one. I’ll need to make sure to keep up the stupid dungeon facade, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve been playing dumb for the Earl’s delvers, so it won’t be hard to do the same for Bernuth. It could get awkward if he tries to party up with any of the civilian delvers, but they’re usually not as informed nor observant as the proper adventurers.

I feel like there’s more to it, though. If it was a punishment that Bernuth is supposed to hate doing, there’d be more scowling, veiled threats, overt threats, that sort of thing. It’s never a good sign when a villain is all smiles and sweetness. That’s usually when they stick in the knife. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, but I’ve got a bad feeling. She has something planned, probably something Bernuth won’t like, and something I probably won’t like, either.

Whatever it is, we’ll just have to keep an eye out for it. And we should also prepare. Tarl and them have finished with the deeper delves into the Tree of Cycles, so it’s the perfect time to upgrade things and make their reports obsolete. You know, to let them know I care.

I mull over my options, trying to remember what my plan was. More upgrades, certainly, but which spawners? Where’d I put my list… no, that’s my old notes for making a normal speaker. Ah, here it is! Now, what did I have marked? Right, pitcherplant skeletons and puffball zombies! They probably won’t be the simplest to get into a position to mess with the thieves and their plans, but they’re still an upgrade I want to get into. My poor undead have been languishing pretty badly behind just about everything else.

I upgrade them both and make sure to pick the new denizens, and eagerly watch them start to come out of their crypts. The zombies are… actually kinda cute. They’re puffy and rounded, looking like an overstuffed zombie toy. It’s equally adorable and disgusting, I like them.

The skeletons look a lot more intimidating. The pitcherplants look a lot more aggressive in wrapping them than the vines and moss of the verdants have. With them, it looks like they grew over old bones. With the pitcherplants, they look a lot more like the cause of death, rather than just coming along way later. Several pitchers cling to the bones, with each placement being unique to the skeleton. There’s usually one or two in the rib cage, at least one sitting on the pelvis, and always at least one on the forearm.

It looks like the one on the arm is used for specifically attacking, while the others effectively give the skeleton a damage aura. The new zombie heads deeper into the complex, but the skeleton heads out to the Forest, looking to get some bees for even more fun.

What next? I like where my plants and earth elementals are, at least for now. The combo of the plants with the soil elementals are fun, and the delvers have been having to get creative to deal with what amounts to regen tanks between the two of them. I should upgrade my bruisers, the bears, to give my delvers a more classic tough opponent. It should be good against the thieves, too. Sneak attacks are more or less designed to deal with single hard targets, but that just makes the bears great bait to make them overconfident and overcommit. They’ll be even harder to get into a good spot than the undead, but I think they’ll be worth the investment.

The first dire bear just barely manages to squeeze out of the cave the spawner is in, and I make a note to have some tunnelbores come in to widen the area a bit… or maybe get the plants to make it a little roomier without needing to dig. Either way, the dire bear is huge. I think it skipped polar bear size and went right to elephant. It looks oddly primal, too, with a thick frame and a few boney ridges sticking out through the fur. It looks slow and lumbering, but that’s because of the size. It doesn’t have a good top speed, but it can keep that pace for a long time, and once a foe is in range, it’s plenty fast enough with its attacks to keep a delver on their toes.

Yeah, they’re going to be a great addition for the delvers looking for a straight up fight.

Hmm… should I upgrade the hands, too? They’ve been languishing along with my other undead. I take a glance at the spawner and nod to myself. They should definitely get an upgrade. More magic is never a bad thing. I upgrade them to magus hands, and they stand out pretty starkly from the arcane ones. The previous tier look like lich hands, kinda boney and desiccated, and it’s difficult to tell what kind of spells they’ll do before they cast them. The magus hands, though, have mystical swirling tattoos all over, with crystalline fingernails that look more like claws. They’re color coded for their spells, but that’s not going to help out very much. Their magic is a lot stronger than the arcane hands.

Between stronger spells from the hands, control effects from the other undead, and bears for the frontline, what else could I ask for?

Flying units, that’s what. But who should get the upgrade? Some of my fey fly, but their spawner isn’t really specialized for flying denizens. Taking a closer look through the options, I could pick flying options from here on out, but I think I’m going to be taking a mix for them. Right now, I kinda want my specialist fliers, which means either my birds or my bees.

My first thought is: why not both? Well, with the other upgrades, they’re going to be a bit more expensive than I’d like. They’re both going to be maxed out, so that last push tends to take a bit more. So what would my options be? I already know what I want for the bees: Royals. They’re really going to be able to bring together the different bee varieties into a whole greater than its parts. The only real issue I have is that bees are more defensive than offensive. While I do believe the best offense is a good defense, I think the bees will be better suited to guarding my territory, instead of going out to strike at the thieves and their plan.

They could be good for defending the Hold, but I think it’ll take them more time than we have. Not to mention, if they start building hives out there, the Earl and the thieves might get desperate. I want them to think their best opportunity needs to be taken quickly, not their only opportunity. If I make them act quickly and confidently, I can hopefully corner them before they realize they’re in trouble. If they start out desperate, they’ll only get worse if things start looking bad for them.

The bird option is one I thought I was familiar with, but clearly not: harpies. Specifically raven harpies. I’m used to harpies being half woman, half bird, all trouble, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with these. I mean, they’re probably still going to be all trouble for anyone who means harm, but the rest of them doesn’t much match what I think of when I hear harpy. At least they’re still birds… if really creepy ones.

If they’re just sitting down, they don’t look too different from the dire ravens, but that’s a carefully crafted lie. Their bodies are shaped more like an elf, with wings for arms and black feathers all over. The really creepy bit is their neck. It’s long. Really long, more like a flamingo than anything else, but they usually keep it curled up beneath their feathers so nobody can tell.

They have a fear aura, which feels like overkill to me. Just imagining a dire crow unfolding into a person, their head almost looking like it’s floating around, eyes locked on you… yeah, they’re going to give the thieves nightmares. Probably my delvers, too, but hey, the canopy of the Tree is not a place for the faint of heart. Despite the creep factor, I pay to max out my birds, and watch the first one exit the spawner.

I don’t know if it’s trying to make me like it better, or if that’s ...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Betty-Adams on 2025-08-11 19:17:24+00:00.

Humans are Weird – Conservation

Original Post: https://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-conservation

Second Cousin paused in the recycling room uncertain at first what had caught her attention. Her cone of focus had been on line of tasks the resident Third Sister had assigned her. However they were a string of simple fetch quests more intended to imprint the map of the base on her than to serve any purpose in of themselves so Second Cousin had little compunction about delaying the business and angling her cone of focus elsewhere. To be perfectly firm Second Cousin was beginning to doubt that this so called ‘chirality specific rotational force application tool’ even existed. The way the base humans had giggled when Second Cousin had assigned that particular search task had suggested something odd in the request. So it was with little hesitation that Second Cousin paused to trace the odd line that was disturbing here.

“The lead line recycling,” she clicked softly to herself as the issue came into focus.

When she had last entered the room she had tossed several grams worth of vine lead line ends into the appropriate recycling bin to be composted later. However now all of them were gone and the rest of the fibers in the bin had been disturbed, suggesting a rough search had been made to get them all out.

“What could anyone use such short scraps of lead line for?” Second Cousin wondered out-loud.

However that discovery satisfied her curiosity and stretching her antenna to focus herself she stepped out. Perhaps the chirality specific rotational force application tool had been lost in one of the bins for damaged rotational application parts.

Some hours of futile search later Second Cousin pulled off the now uncomfortably moist safety gloves and left the bins to the dust and dimness of the recycling room. She headed back to the open office where the Third Sister was fulfilling her duties of First Mechanical Repair Technician.

“I have not yet been able to locate the chirality specific rotational force application tool,” Second Cousin informed her.

“That is fine,” Third Sister informed her with a comfortingly gentle motion of her antenna. “It will be a particularly difficult task and I expected its persuit to take some time. You should take a rest break.”

Second Cousin couldn’t help but think that this Third Sister had not implied that she thought the task could be completed, but decided that exposure to humans was making her paranoid and dismissed the thought.

“Thank you,” Second Cousin said, moving towards the open recreation area that shared the space.

It always made her uncomfortable but the humans seemed to prefer the open floor-plan of the office space. The human Second Mechanical Repair Technician was sprawled at odd angles over a chair and desk just to the edge of the recreation space and seemed quite content. Second Cousin selected a sucuclant looking fruit from the potted shrub and was chewing on it when a shaggy sphere caught her attention on the human’s desk.

“So it was you who took the lead line fragments!” she exclaimed.

The human shot her a look that seemed mildly confrontational at the same time as an abrupt curl of Third Sister’s antenna warned her to not peruse the subject.

“Yeah,” the human said in a rather defensive tone. “’Cycle bin scraps are free for the taking. What of it?”

“They are,” she agreed, then turned her focus back on the fruit.

The human dropped his wide, fleshy hand over the sphere and slid it into a drawer, closing the drawer on it without looking at either the sphere of lead line scraps or at Second Cousin. When the fruit was consumed she stood, stretched, and walked over to Third Sister who gestured for her to follow her out of the office. Once they were out in the surrounding forest Second Cousin gestured back at Second Mechanical Repair Technician.

“Am I tracing up the wrong vine or was that human defensive about his use of the scrap lead line?” she asked.

“You are quite nearly on the right vine,” Third Sister said with a somewhat exasperated shake of her frill. “The human was defensive, but the reason was that he was not using the lead line.”

“Why did he take the lead line scraps out of the recycling bin if he doesn’t intend to use it?” Second Cousin demanded.

“Oh, he fully intends to use it,” Third Sister said. “The same way that Fifth Mechanical Repair Technician fully intends to use the scraps of paper she collects, and the human who comes over from the nearest farm intends to use the excess seed husks for an ornamentation to his garden as soon as he figures out the plan.”

Second Cousin angled her head and flicked her antenna in confusion but Third Sister didn’t go on.

“I understand that you are implying that this is a standard behavior in humans,” Second Cousin said, “but I am uncertain what single behavior you are describing.”

“I have seen no formal documentation,” Third Sister said, “but I believe it to be an individual manifestation of a general distaste for waste.”

“That creates a faint line,” Second Cousin agreed, “but it is hardly a materiel waste to compost biodegradable items such as you have described, and it would be a waste of space to hoard them uncomposted.”

“That is, I believe, the root of the humans’ discomfort on the subject,” Third Sister said. “They know that their behavior borders on the irrational and do not like to discuss it. Strings, seed pod husks, half used paper, every human seems to have one specific item they hate to see not used for a purpose worthy of its creation, and rather than seeing them destroyed at once they store them privately in the hopes that they will find a specific use. I don’t really understand it, but in the name of base harmony I ignore it, and I ask you to do the same.”

Second Cousin gave a slow click of agreement as they walked along. It seemed a small concession to inter-species relations after all.

“Now,” Third Sister said, walking more briskly. “Please resume looking for the chirality specific rotational force application tool. The humans have started taking bets on when you will be finished with the task.”

Second Cousin couldn’t help noticing the odd phrasing as she resumed her search.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/RangerFrank on 2025-08-11 17:04:32+00:00.

Cover|Vol.1|Previous|Next|LinkTree|Ko-Fi|

“I will not be bested by a corpse twice!”

Like a beating heart of fire, red flames spread out from Lord Vasquez’s body in all directions. Once the wave of red flames reached the phantom in the shadows, the creature was forced into the world. In its corporal form, its faceless head looked back at the rushing War God only to barely be able to bring up its spear to block the heavy swing of a battle axe.

The ghost was sent flying back, its weapon still holding strong for the moment. The flame wave died out around it, and the creature tried to sneak back into the shadows, but another explosive wave was already rolling out of Lord Vasquez’s inferno. Flames washed over the ghost as it only managed to move a short distance away from its original spot; oddly enough, it was not entirely engulfed in the conflagration.

The fur draping its ghastly blue body caught fire; its skin, or what should have been skin, also seemed to take damage from the magic, but it was quickly dosed by unknown means. Lord Vasquez planted a foot and shot off directly toward the creature, his axe bearing down on its skull.

The monster managed to block it with the shaft of its spear, but the sheer force of the blow forced the creature to its knees. As fire erupted from the axe, the ghost melded back into the shadows once more, only to be threatened by another burst of flames. Shadowy hands formed and slinked out from behind Lord Vasquez, but the flames doused the magic, destroying the shadowy hands in its blaze. Lord Vasquez shot forward again, riding behind his flames.

He was hunting the monster down, using the light of his fire to force away the shadows and make the ghost corporeal again. Without the use of the shadows, the beast seemed to be…lacking. Lord Vasquez was no longer being hunted. Instead, he was the hunter.

If I had to guess, it seemed the monsters were limited. If the words of the first ghost knight were to be believed, they were all once people, their souls, or something equivalent, shackled by a greater power here in the dungeon. Perhaps either dying or the process of jailing them made them lose some of their previous might from when they were once alive.

If that ghost knight was a Paladin or even a lost Exarch of Amon-Ra, for example, it should have been capable of using light magic to a high degree. Yet, it never did. But its physical might was at least at the level of a War God, if not more. This Dark Elf ghost, on the other hand, seemed to be able to use its shadow magic to a higher level, but its physical might was far behind that of the first ghost and of Lord Vasquez.

We watched as the battle took a complete turn. Lord Vasquez had the ghost on the back foot; the creature couldn’t separate itself from the waves of flames and the Mythril axe bearing down on it. The two continued to fight, moving at extreme speeds as they moved around the arena. The ground quaked and burned from the battle.

Another wave of fire knocked the ghost out of the shadows. Instead of running, however, the creature crouched down low to the ground and shot up with its spear in a wide arc. The way the ghost bent would have been nearly impossible for a living person to perform.

The blade of the spear, wreathed in shadows, caught Lord Vasquez’s axe by the shaft. Shadows wrapped around the ghost and the axe, and with great force, the ground cracked at the two’s feet, and the ghost followed through, managing to cut through the Mythril shaft.

The top half of the blade flew off to the side, but Lord Vasquez did not falter. With the broken shaft of his axe consumed by the red inferno, he thrust it down and pierced the ghost through the shoulder. It cut through the ghost and went directly into its chest, but what would have been a lethal blow to a living person didn’t seem to kill the ghost instantly.

But with the axe haft forced into the ghost and Lord Vasquez still holding on, the ghost couldn’t slip into the shadows. Flames seeped out from the ghost’s wounds, and the creature reeled back into a silent scream. Lord Vasquez pushed the weapon deeper into the creature with a growl.

In a flash, the ghost brought its hand back, and a dagger made of shadows manifested into its hand. By the time the next wave would bathe the creature in fire, the ghost thrust the dagger into the joint behind Lord Vasquez’s knee. Lord Vasquez growled as he released his axe as it clattered to the ground. The ghost slipped in and out of the shadows, its blue aura being infected by the flames spreading out from its gaping wounds.

In a low stance, the ghost thrust its spear at Lord Vasquez. With the range and how close they were, and with another wave of fire just short of hitting it Lord Vasquez was only able to put up a single hand. The shadow-clad spear sliced into armor and flesh, impaling Lord Vasquez’s hand. The blade continued forward, pinning the man’s hand to his stomach as the blade sank further in.

If Lord Vasquez had not blocked that spear thrust, it would have skewered him through. But the mighty War Gord grunted in pain as his broken hand clasped down on the spear and his free hand reached over to grasp the ghost by the face.

The creature, its spear lodged into the War God, wasn’t able to pull it out. And its attempts only gave Lord Vasquz that split second to make the grab. The War God’s gauntleted hand, wretched in red flames, grabbed the ghost. An all-consuming fire spread out, swallowing the ghost whole.

Lord Vasquez roared as he stepped down on the ghost’s leg, pinning it to the floor and ripping its head back and up. The red flames beat out the ghost's ghastly blue aura, and with it came its faceless head. I wasn’t certain how, but I suppose if one could slice through and into a ghost, ripping its head off with a hand engulfed in fire magic wasn’t as impossible as it sounded.

As the ghost disappeared, the fur armor finally caught flames and burned to ash. Lord Vasquez staggered for a moment as the red flames engulfing him flickered away. He gave the disappearing ghost one final glare before hobbling away. As he approached the circle, he placed a hand on his helmet, ripped it off, and sent it to his Spatial Ring.

The gruff man’s face was blood-red with painful burns, suffering from the flames of his magic. Blood leaked from the raw wounds and as he stepped into the ring his eyes darted to the side and narrowed as he must have heard the voice speak to him. He grunted something barely audible as the barrier surrounded him and forced him back to our side.

As Sylvia approached him, she hesitated as something materialized between them. Dark, black shadows seeped from the ground and coalesced into a long shaft. The material formed into inky black metal that was unlike Mythril as it seemed to swirl and move, almost like it was made of living shadows. The top of the axe took shape, and a ghastly green axe head sprouted from the metal shaft.

It was smooth and looked like it was made of glass, given how it looked in the light—a single sharp point formed into a spike on the other side of the head. The battle axe emanated an ominous aura for a few moments after it fully formed, but this disappeared. Lord Vasquez’s eyes narrowed, but he placed a hand on the magic weapon and sent it away into his ring.

His eyes turned to Sylvia, who shot into the action. The War God fell to his knees, and Sylvia bit into his neck. And in one swift motion, he ripped the black wooden spear free from his stomach as blood poured out like a broken dam. The spear began to crumble into dust as well.

The severe burns on his face closed, and the reddened skin returned to its usual color. The open wound on his stomach knitted together as his internal organs healed once the wound was sealed. Lord Vasquez crumpled slightly, breathing heavily.

Sylvia stepped back and said, “That should be enough. Nothing was permanent, and he’ll recover with some time.”

Lord Vasquez rested against the barrier and said, “Thank you…”

Sylvia just smiled and nodded as Bowen walked over and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Quite the spectacle you put on.”

“Spectacle…ridiculous. I was fighting for my life—damn shadow bastards. Always annoying…even in death,” Lord Vasquez grunted.

Bowen chuckled lightly. “Yes, I believe this is where you would say you are just getting old, my friend. Even so…” he trailed off, turning to face Sylvia.

“I understand you desire to go right now, Sylvia. But it would be in our best interest to rest for some time. We have no idea what will happen after you defeat the final monster, and I’m sure you will do just that.”

Sylvia looked ready to protest, but her hand fell limp to her side as she nodded. “Yes, you are right. It would be disastrous if Lord Vasquez and Cerila were still tired and we were attacked right after.”

Bowen nodded approvingly. “Indeed, a large-scale battle right after this would be particularly awful. At least as we are now, we understand that we have some time and are… relatively safe. Even so, we shouldn’t take too long, right?” Bowen asked, looking down at Lord Vasquez.

The tired War God grunted. “I just need some ...

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Everything hurt. Life was agony. She had been warned, she had been cautioned, her father was against it, Doctor Jornsen had advised against it, and the ship's resident medical staff had detailed the risks. Trandrai had forged ahead asserting her rights of ownership over her own genetics. True, as her father, Nendrill could have refused her, but she had convinced him that her desire was true. However, that did nothing to change how everything hurt. Trandrai's skin hurt, Trandrai's muscles hurt, Trandrai's head hurt, Trandrai's very bones hurt. She had begun, her genetic code was being rewritten to adapt her body to high gravity, as everybody but Terrans accounted things, Terrans called nearly everybody else lightworlders, while they in turn called them heavyworlders, but Terrans were masters at changing things. They could change entire planets to suit them, or they could change themselves to suit another planet, and they shared both capabilities with the Star Sailors. The first was useless to them, while the second was incredibly valuable. However, the process had to be undergone at a relatively early stage of development, and was not without consequences even in ideal circumstances. Everything hurt.

Just because everything hurt was no reason to lay around, however. If she'd had that attitude, then she'd have missed Vincent's proposal to Rose two weeks ago, not to mention all of the group calls with Vai and Isis-Magdalene. The most recent call, just a few days ago, came with the astounding news that Isis-Magdalene had met the crown prince of the Axxaakk Reformation. Such joy more than made up for any amount of pain to her mind. However, she did groan as she dragged herself out of bed and stumbled blearily to the head in the quarters she shared with her father. The painkillers waited in the medicine cabinet for her. Besides, today was an important day. The Among the Star Tides We Sing filled the air with her comforting thrum.

Every day was important, of course, since each day is a gift full of opportunities and delights to treasure. A hard thing to recall when everything hurt, but Trandrai did her best. However, today, Vai returned with her mom and her baby brothers. The two pups had started talking too, and that was just adorable. They were shy in the way kids just learning how to talk were, and nothing so boring as friends on a screen could hold their attention for long, but Trandrai was looking forward to seeing more of them in person. She was looking forward to that nearly as much as she was looking forward to having Vai back. The only problem was that the rendezvous was scheduled for late afternoon by ship's clock. Until then, she had the much less exciting prospect of studying, drilling at simulated stations, and training in the engineering deck. She was starting to think that her training would leave her both over qualified and under qualified for her vague goal of becoming a combat engineer in the RNI. Still, it was always good to have more skills and she liked the work. In truth, her education before placement wouldn't matter much to the RNI. The MOS schools could whip anybody with the slightest aptitude into shape in a relatively short time, and that was after boot camp had smacked some discipline into them. She didn't know that, however, and she wouldn't for some time yet.

Even on routine days, even amid the pain, Trandrai could usually find one or two little things to enjoy. Often it was watching Cadet spin a tall tale for the littles, or Cadet probing her for explanations of whatever part she was working on as a part of her engineering training. Other things, like her favorite pastries being on offer in the dining room, or a particularly good rehearsal by Jason's players were less common, but no less cherished, and Jason found one way or another to make her smile every day. She'd always wondered if he was like that all the time or if he'd made a special effort for his visits to her old home ship. It pleased her to know that the special effort was for her rather than the visits. However, with the anticipation of a special pleasure of a homecoming to look forward to, savoring the little things was a little harder to manage. At the least, she didn't make a fool of herself in her studies, drills or training.

Trandrai would have liked to sprint to the airlock as soon as she heard the distinctive shift in the We Sing's thrum that indicated that they'd translated to realspace and the hyperdrive was inactive. The desire only gained strength when the unmistakable clamor of ship-to-ship docking resounded through the ship. Even so, she understood that the rendezvous amounted to a delay for both ships, and the transfer had to take absolutely as little time as possible. The return of Vai and her family was merely the conclusion of an errand that required a brief departure, after all, and required little ceremony, if any. Via was very insistent that one grand homecoming was plenty, and it wasn't like she came home through any perils or trials at the children's hospital. The wait was agonizingly tedious, and very nearly distracted her from how everything hurt.

At long last, her compad chimed, and that just so happened to be when she used to go to the gym to keep her strength up. She hadn't been cleared to start exercising again yet, though, and she was looking forward to the day when she earned the soreness in her muscles with work again. That didn't matter all that much, since she immediately dropped the video game she was playing to make her way to the quarters Vai's mother had chosen. Unsurprisingly, it was in the Terran standard gravity quarters since Lutrae were heavyworlders. In a very short time, Trandrai woulsn't need a gravbelt to visit that area of the ship, and that thought cheered her almost as much as her anticipation. Along the way, she picked up Jason, Cadet, and Vincent of course, and she ruthelessly tamped down a stab of envy at the fact that their quarters were all in the same corridor. The door slid open, and Vai barreled out directly into Jason. A good thing too, since Jason was sturdy enough for barreling into. “Gosh,” Jason mused, “I didn't figure you were mad at me enough to wanna knock me down.”

“Shut up you butt,” she choked as she wrapped her arms around Jason's middle as far as they'd go.

Vincent reached down and ruffled the hair between Vai's ears as he said, “Good to see you again Sweetie.”

Vai released Jason to clamber into Vincent's arms crying, “It's good to see you again Mister Vincent!”

Trandrai reached out and put her lower left hand on Via's right knee and said, “I see you don't need the crutches I made you anymore.”

Via let go if Vincent only to find that the old man wasn't finished hugging her. Trandrai didn't mind that too much, getting squished by Via was probably going to hurt more than normal. “They were way better than what the hospital had,” Via said as she twisted to smile at Trandrai."

“Vai,” Sam called from within, “Bring your friends in, don't make them stand out in the hall.”

“Of course, of course,” Vai said, and Trandrai let herself giggle as she tried to scamper inside dispute still being held aloft by Vincent. “Well, if you're not gonna set me down, you might as well go it.”

The quarters showed all of the signs of a recent occupation. Boxes waited in neat stacks along walls, the furnishings were a mismatched mix of what Sam had brought aboard and what had been in the quarters to begin with, decorations were notably absent, and empty boxes and packing material were already haphazardly piled against a bare wall in the kitchen. That was about what she'd expected. “Well, now that Jason's parents are both deployed, and my dad's cooking is barely edible, you couldn't be back at a better time,” Trandrai said.

“If you wanna cook dinner for me,” Jason said as one of Vai's two baby brothers scampered in figure eights around his legs, “I'll eat it. Normally, I go to Nana and Papap's quarters for dinner, but I can always eat another one.”

Trandrai carefully sat down and siad, “Don't be greedy, Jason.”

“It's not greed. Nanna says I'm too skinny."

“She says that about everybody," Cadet muttered as the other of the two pups leapt to try to grasp Cadet's tail feathers.

“Boys,” Sam called with maternal authority, “You wanted to show them something, didn't you?”

They froze in their scampering, and then scrambled to be more-or-less in the middle of all of the cabin's guests with the intense expressions of focus only small children being serious are capable of. “I am Mak Son of Bix Son of Max of Man-ah-tee Para-dice in the Re-pub-lic.”

The other had the same steady, practiced tone as he said, “And I'm Nik Son of Bix Son of Max of Man-ah-tee Para-dice in the Re-publ-lic.” Nik nodded to himself in satisfaction while Mak looked to his mother for approval, and when she gave him a smile, he brightened with unbridled accomplishment unhindered by either humility or wisdom. Trandrai found herself grinning at how adorable it all was.

“Wow!” jason declared, “That was perfect! It's so nice to meet you, Mak. It's so nice to meet you, Nik. I hope we'll be friends.”

The two boys fell to giggles and quicly began to wrestle ...

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Cadet had nearly gotten used to not needing to skulk down the corridors of the Among the Star Tides We Sing. It had been nearly six months since he'd come aboard her, and there was only a twinge of panic at being caught when he saw a crewman. He didn't want those instincts to completely disappear, since they came in handy when he wanted to filch cookies before dinner. Rose and his dad hadn't gotten married or anything, but she sure acted like she was already his mom. Cadet didn't mind that exactly, since his own mom had never bothered, and she'd even failed to notice that one of her hatchlings had got famous out here among the stars. Well, he wouldn't look back. Never back to that place. Instead, he looked forward.

Mainly, he looked forward to not being in the class with the babies anymore. Well, to be fair, the other first graders were only two or three years younger than him, but it still galled him that he didn't test into third grade. He always considered himself pretty sharp, but being able to figure out how to live on the run wasn't the same as knowing history or how to write in Commercial English or Seafarer's Negotiation. He told himself that his placement didn't mean that Aunt Helen thought he was stupid, but he still felt like he'd let his dad down. So, he studied hard. His dad, and Jason, and Trandrai all helped him, but it was his own will that made him return to those boring books and silly poems. His own will, and the classes that he got to be in where he was the youngest kid there instead of the oldest.

Being able to catch on to math was a grand thing, all right, but that wasn't what shone in the boy's heart. It was his time on the station sims. For obvious reasons, the George family didn't let kids actually man ship's stations while she was underway, but they did have so many redundant consoles that they could basically simulate her operations at any given time, and even though she was a passenger liner, Nana had some interesting scenarios to put the kids through. He did pretty well at any bridge station, and he was fair in a gunner's chair, but where Cadet really stood out was in a pilot's seat, or at the simulated helm of the We Sing herself. He could feel her through his avian feet as she steadily sailed between the stars. She was calm, but she was strong too, and the scenarios let him simulate making the massive ship dance like he wouldn't believe such a large ship could. Or that is, he wouldn't believe it if he didn't know he strength felt every day he lived aboard her.

The other thing that warmed Cadets heart, though he'd never admit it, not even to himself, was the littles. Everywhere he went in the crew only areas, he had three or four extra shadows at a time though they totaled at two dozen, and he knew them all by name. In the public areas, his shadows gained temporary additions, and these he tried to remember despite the fact that they would depart with their parents when they arrived at their destinations. It had began because girls between the ages of three and six thought he was pretty and wanted to follow him around just to look at him, but it had grown. He found that his younger cousins and the daughters of crew were full of questions, and ready to hear even the most far-fetched answers from him. He took a secret (so he thought) delight in telling tall tales at their request, and had quite the fan club as a result.

It was on a day when he'd both gotten to pilot a shuttle in a simulation and had spun a particularly ridiculous tale that he found his dad waiting for him at the kitchen table in their quarters where he studied into the hours of the evening most days. The old man looked serious to Cadet, and he worked to master his feathers as he asked, “What's going on, Dad?”

“A bunch of stuff,” Vincent rumbled, “so bear with me.”

“Start at the first one.”

“First off, Helen says that you can move on to second grade next week. Good work.”

Cadet's chest feathers puffed out as he swelled with pride at the simple compliment. He still couldn't understand how other boys take such treasures as their dads telling them “good work” for granted. Maybe it was because most other boys didn't know what it was like to not have a dad. “Thanks, Dad.” It was important to thank the people you loved when they did important things for you, Cadet knew that since Jason had shown him how good it was to be thanked.

“Next, we got approval from the clan head to let you start putting hours behind a yoke for real. Logged and official ones, I mean. It'll be important when you decide to get your pilot's or helmsman qualifications.” Vincent informed him.

Cadet curled his talons under the table and said, “I kind of wish I could make a ship really dance again.”

Vincent slid an official looking paper over to Cadet, and he looked at it. It was in his native language, and spelled out a name, He Pulls Light from the Dark, across the top. He read on and said, “Dad, this is a legal name chang... for me.”

Vincent coughed. Cadet's dad sometimes had a hard time saying things with words, but Cadet thought he understood. “Your given name is supposed to be a gift from your parents, not what basically amounts to ‘that one.’”

“This is a strong name, Dad.” Cadet croaked. The feathers on his cheeks felt damp for some reason. Cadet was a little like his dad. Saying things with words was hard for him. “But why didn't you give me a Terran name?”

“Well, I figure since I adopted you for you, I don't have much business changing who you are. I know a little about how Corvian names are supposed to run, and well, I guess I wanted to set this right.”

For some reason it was really hard for Cadet to push out the words, “Thanks Dad.”

Vincent coughed and said, “There's one more thing. She's got a new reactor, and needs a new name, but you, Tran, Sweetie, Little Lady, and the Chief will have to settle the name for her. You have to share her, and she's a little ship, but without me taking up my old room it won't be so crowded. You could probably even remodel her so nobody has to sleep in the galley when you take her on short trips.”

“You're giving up The Long Way?” Cadet gasped.

“She's a new ship now, but yeah. Now you'll have to share, but I guess you won't mind so bad.”

Cadet flung his wings around his dad.

The tang of salt water filled the air, the sound of surf churning pebbles competed with the cries of vibrant green sea birds gliding on the wind, and a young Lutrae girl stood on a swim dock in the sheltered cove on Woat. Vai had spent the past five months since departing from the Among the Star Tides We Sing after her all too brief month aboard her staring at it longily from her hospital room window. By all accounts, Vai had been recovering well from her surgery, but she had wanted it to go faster. Her mother Sam, had decided that they would reside on the Lutrae cradle world until she was as recovered as was medically possible. Besides, her mothers side of the family was mainly from Woat, if not another Lutrae world in the Star Council, it was only Sam who had the alleged misfortune to fall in love with a RNI trooper when he was on shore leave. Vai didn't really think much about her extended family's opinions of her father though. She knew he deserved his Stormborn title, even if nobody ever talked about it. What she did think about was that it was finally the day. well and truly, it was finally the day when she would swim in open water again. Well, open-ish. It wasn't as though the cove ever got in the least bit rough.

Vai let the aluminum crutches that Trandrai had machined for her clatter to the dock's wooden boards, pulled in a deep breath, and dove. Bubbles rushed past her head as at long last she felt the water of a sea take her in. Colorful fish darted out of her path to hide in craggy rocks and folds or coral as her powerful rudder tail propelled her forward like a torpedo beneath the surface. Her heart pounded joy against her ribs, and she put the thought of her own father naming her a Stormborn out of her mind. She dove to the sea floor and marveled at the unfamiliar sea life of Woat. The fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods were all strange and wondrous to her, and she longed to learn of them so strongly that it nearly overcame her longing to return to the Among the Star Tides We Sing. Almost. Today was also the day she'd call her friends from The Long Way, and Cadet had said in the group chat that they had something important to talk about. She'd replied that she had news too.

Vai propelled herself to the surface with increasing speed. She thought about her friends and how much they said they depended on her during their journey. They'd told her that she held them together, that her cheer and cooking, and care had kept them going. How could she leave them after that? The surface rushed toward her. She didn't know much about the Star Sailors, or about all their talk about honor, but she thought it would be wrong to abandon her friends after they told her all that. She broke the surface, and droplets of water sent light scattering across the disturbed water and ...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PossibleLettuce42 on 2025-08-11 16:33:16+00:00.

Modern space travel was so safe that incidents were a rounding error.

Modern space travel was so safe that even the highly safe human air aviation transportation system of their early 21st century was a terrifyingly reckless gamble by comparison.

Modern space travel was coordinated by a neutral grid of Evolved AI, and the debris-clearing systems, collision-avoidance systems, error-reduction systems, mechanical repair systems, and distress response systems coordinated by that EAI grid rendered the possibility of danger so remote as to be a fantasy.

As I found to my chagrin, when one endured existence within that rounding error, none of this was a comfort.

Our light dual-purpose passenger/transport hauler continued to drift through space. Emergency lighting was dimmer than it should have been due to the extensive damage to our power grid, and our distress beacon had failed to fire.

Like the rest of the multi-species crew aboard the Starhopper, I sat glumly resigned to my fate, already imagining that I felt the first growing claws of thirst, hunger, and failure of the air recirculation system. Unlikely, as systems had only been down for about half of a standard hour, but I could not remove these phantom fears from my brain. Despite the fact that the Captain’s death in the deceleration event had made me, as Helmsman, the Acting Captain, I could not seem to snap myself out of my resignation.

My glum internal reverie was interrupted by hurried but steady movements to my right. Flight Officer Perkins, the human, our new Nav Officer for the last few weeks, was hard at work muttering and examining a pair of circuit boards he had pulled from the nav console, which he had unceremoniously torn open after it closed in automatic low-power status. I had never served with a human, and their chaotic reputation made it impossible to get a good feel for any individual human, even if you had already met others. I decided on a direct approach.

“Flight Officer Perkins, what are you doing?”

“Just a second, almost done. Caleb is fine, by the way.”

“Very well. Caleb, what are you doing?”

“Just a second man, keep your shirt on.”

“I remain garbed as previously I was garbed, Caleb.”

“Oh my god…Helmsman T’Peek, please stand by.”

“I will stand by. I still do not understand the relevance of my clothing. Yeenil is sufficient, by the way.”

“Cool. Okay, here, have a look.” Caleb used his powerful human legs to scoot his command chair over my direction in its swinging arm. It was comical, if not a bit intimidating, to see that his legs were powerful enough to swing his body around and move it while seated, and powerfully evoked his rare primate lineage, though he seemed unaware of the show of force. “You okay, Yeenil?”

“Yes. You just startled me with how strong your legs are.”

“Sorry, I forget primates are rare. Heh. Monkey strong, right?” He grinned at me, his pearly while teeth flashing in the low light.

I blinked “Yes, Caleb. Monkeys are strong.”

“Forget it, old joke. Okay, so, you see where the NavComp short fried the SOS circuit here?”

“I do not see as well in the low light as your species.”

“Right, sorry.” Caleb illuminated the circuit board with a handheld light, holding the board up to me and adjusting the light with impressive dexterity. “How about now?”

“I see a burn mark. I do not know your systems.”

“You all don’t crosstrain? For emergencies?”

“We do crosstrain, but I am command track, not engineering, I don’t need to know what’s behind the panels.”

Caleb shook his head ruefully “Man, how y’all have not been eaten by this universe, I don’t know. Scout’s motto, man, you’ve gotta be prepared. How can you know who is going to be incapacitated in an emergency?”

I bristled “We have skills that permit us to deal with this universe perfectly adequately.”

Caleb put his heads up in the universal surrender motion “Hey, sorry, no offense, I just forget you all don’t have quite as checkered a history as we do.”

That was an understatement. I had only taken a single semester elective on humanity at the Intergalactic Merchantbeings Academy, but the memorable takeaway had been that it was a minor miracle that humanity had not annihilated itself on any of a dozen occasions. They were a blood-washed species, and it was not, upon reflection, surprising that their emergency protocols assumed greater loss of life than our own.

“Very well. The apology is accepted.”

“Cool. Okay, so that burn mark is the actuator circuit that should have launched our distress beacon. That means the failure started here, when our systems shorted.”

“This makes sense.”

“Don’t you understand, Yeenil? What that means?”

“It means that the system is damaged.”

“Think broader, Yeenil.”

“It means that we’re going to die here as soon as the recirculatory system on the ship fails.”

“What? And you’re just accepting that?”

Ah, so this was the famous human “survival drive” – I had learned about this briefly at the IMA.  “Caleb, yes. I am accepting that. Everyone on this ship is accepting that. Most species do not have the drive to survive that you humans have. Systems usually do not fail, but when systems fail, we die. We are not happy about it, but we accept it.”

“Too easily, man. What you’re missing is that the failure was here. That means the distress beacon and the launcher system are probably fine. It’s just a circuit that failed to close!”

“So?”

“So? Yeenil, it means we could go out there and launch it manually.”

My blue blood ran black in terror “Out there? Into hard vacuum? Drifting?”

“Yeah, man. You have EVA suits, I’ve seen them.”

“For drydock, Caleb! We’re drifting at travel velocities. If we failed to correctly mag-latch for even one step or handhold we’d be launched into oblivion.”

“And we’d die.”

“Yes!”

“Just like we’re going to die now when the air runs out?”

“It’s different! One is a natural death, it’s normal. One is being flung through eternity.”

Caleb sighed “What do you know about the survival drive humans have, Yeenil?”

“From what I learned at the IMA, it comes from the vigorous competition on your birthworld. Many other species were trying to survive at odds with humanity, so you had to want to survive more, whereas most species evolved in fairly hospitable environments with room for plenty of co-growth.”

Caleb laughed and rolled his shoulders, a human gesture I recognized as a noncommittal shrug. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good classroom description.”

“Is there more to it?” I was genuinely curious.

Caleb turned and looked at me appraisingly, saying nothing for a long moment. I felt my antennae perk up and a trickle of fear began to build. For a moment, the predator in my casual and relaxed shipmate was visible. “Yeah, Yeenil, there’s more.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, man. It’s...it’s not just some belief we have. Or an opinion. It’s hardwired. It’s like part of our body. We can’t sit back and accept our fate the way most of you can. We’re not as scared of a frightening death as we are of not even trying to survive. It’s not something we can change. We want life, and we claw for it. There’s little we won’t do for it.”

There was a long silence on the bridge. Other officers had been eavesdropping on the conversation without much subtlety, and were now not even pretending not to hear, staring in naked fascination as the quiet Nav officer opened up about the always-mysterious human mind.

After a while, Caleb spoke again, so suddenly that half the bridge jumped, including me. “Well, I’m heading out there.”

Fear welled in my chest. “Caleb, you will be at terrible risk.”

Caleb smiled smaller this time, no teeth. It was a softer gesture. “Yeah, thanks for caring, Yeenil. But I used to climb in the Rockies. I’ll be okay.”

In mute terror, I watched him leave the bridge. With emergency power, I pulled up a camera and audio feed as Caleb approached the airlock. Over the intercom, I told him the best suited EVA suit with the most charge and strongest mag-clamps. He thanked me, suited up, exited the airlock, and clambered about on the Skyhopper’s hull.

“Caleb, can you hear me?”

“Woah. I can definitely feel that inertia. Yeah, Yeenil, mag clamps holding, comm line good.” His voice came through tinny and strained through the ship-to-exo comm line.

“Good. Be careful.”

“Thanks Yeenil, I was going to just be super reckless but now I will be careful.”

“That is good. Being reckless would have been dangerous. I am not sure why that was your initial approach.”

For an unknown reason, he laughed. “Glad I can count on you to set me straight, Yeenil.”

Finally, he arrived at the distress beacon and linked his suit. I watched him review the readouts over a long moment. Finally, it looked as though he was staring off into space. I opened the comm again, concerned he was allowing the terror of the void to overwhelm him.

“Caleb? Can you hear me? Are you able to access the distress beacon?”

 “Yeah. It’s like I thought. System is fine, it just never got the trigger.”

He did not sound scared or overwhelmed. His voice simply sounded heavy. Not at all like the casual shipmate I had known for just a few weeks. I didn’t realize how accustomed I had become to his levity. Now that it was gone, a heavy feeling set in. “What is wrong, Caleb?”

He didn’t try denying it. “How much do you know about the distress beacon technology, Yeenil? Is it in your cross-training?”

I was confused. “A fair bit. The basics. Yes, the distress beacon is covered.”...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MarlynnOfMany on 2025-08-11 16:23:06+00:00.

{Shared early on Patreon}

{Mild content warning for frank discussion of alien reproductive strategies. Safe For Work, but TMI.}

I was eating a lunch of peanut butter and jelly (shipped straight from Earth) and green apples (grown on a colony world), when Kavlae joined me at the table.

“So,” she said, setting down her tray and plopping into a seat. “What is the big deal with birthdays?”

“Well,” I said around a mouthful of sandwich, “They’re what they sound like: a party celebrating the day you’re born.”

Kavlae flared her frills, looking like a curious blue fish. “But is this party only on the actual day, or is it celebrated every year?”

“Every year,” I told her. “It’s a big deal for kids, though not as much when you grow up. At least where I’m from.”

Kavlae shook her head and opened one of the food packs on her tray. “And everyone gives you presents every single time?”

“Sure, it’s just once a year.”

“Must be an expensive time of year.”

I was moving to take another bite, but paused to clarify, “It’s a different time of year for everyone. Humans don’t have a breeding season or anything like that.”

Kavlae looked up from opening another pack. “Sure, but every clutch of siblings comes together, right?”

“No, multiple births are super rare! Humans have only one kid at a time usually.”

“Whaaat? Just one? Your families must be so small!”

I put down my sandwich. “Why? How many siblings do you have?”

Kavlae shrugged. “I dunno, about twenty.”

“WHAT?” I blurted. “Twenty??”

“Yeah, we were a handful, too,” my coworker said as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “Closer to thirty at hatching, I’m told. Dad did a pretty good job. That’s got to be a lot of work to handle all by yourself.”

“And your dad was a single parent??” I asked, my voice spiraling upward even though I tried to be casual.

Kavlae looked surprised. “Sure, isn’t that normal for you guys? Or are two- and three-parent sets more common?”

“Two is standard!” I said, determined to hide my surprise better. “There are occasional exceptions, but two is what you’d expect to see.”

“Huh. That must make parenting much easier. Human parents must get a lot done.”

I shook my head slowly, thinking of the parents I’d known. “Pretty sure it’s still a lot of work. Everybody talks about newborns waking up every couple hours to eat, scream, and poop, then go back to sleep. Lots of diaper changes and not much sleep for the parents.”

Kavlae tilted a frill. “A lot of what changes?”

“Diapers,” I said. When she still looked blank, I went on: “The disposable clothes for catching poop, before babies are old enough to use a toilet? Yes, it’s gross.”

“Ew,” Kavlae said firmly, her expression revolted. “How long do you have to use those?”

“A year or two, I think?”

Kavlae’s eyes bugged out. “It takes YEARS? Never mind, I take back what I said about human parents having it easy!”

“Yeah, it’s a lot of work,” I said. “Sounds like your babies are more self-sufficient than ours, huh?”

Kavlae made a gesture with a hand and frill together. “I mean, they have to be kept from eating everything that’s not food.”

“Yeah, same.”

“And they’re famous for hurting themselves during the egg-free zoomies.”

I blinked. “I’m guessing that’s when they run around immediately after hatching? You probably don’t want to know how long it takes humans to walk.”

She looked at me intently. “How long?”

“About a year.”

“A year??” She threw her blue-skinned hands in the air. “I see why you only have one at a time; that is nuts!”

I pointed out, “Keeping track of a couple dozen little ones running around and biting things all at once sounds pretty nuts too.”

“You’re not wrong!” She picked up a forgotten food pack and held it up like a champagne glass. “Cheers to the child-rearers, who are clearly all insane.”

I chuckled as I raised my sandwich in an answering cheer. “From lack of sleep, if nothing else.”

Kavlae poured some of the grainy whatever into her mouth. It looked like caviar. She said around it, “Glad I won’t have to worry about any of that.”

I picked up my sandwich again. “Not going to have any kids?”

“Oh, no, I have a couple clutches out there. I’m just not an egg-keeper.” She chugged the rest of the bag.

I paused, feeling like I’d missed something. “Egg-keeper?”

“Yeah. The one who keeps the eggs.”

It was my turn to look blank.

Kavlae tried again. “Do you guys not — no, you said two parents is standard. So those two mate, then raise the offspring together?”

“Yeahhhh,” I said. “What do you do?”

Kavlae looked around awkwardly. “I did not expect to be explaining this. Blip and Blop aren’t near, are they?”

The other tables were empty, with the rest of the crew elsewhere on the ship. That included the other two Frillians. I said, “Pretty sure they’re helping Mimi with some heavy engine parts.”

“Great. Okay. How to summarize this.” Kavlae ran a hand over the little frills on the top of her head. “Sex needs somebody to lay the eggs and somebody to fertilize them — well, no, making babies needs them to be fertilized. Anyway, someone has to keep track of the eggs afterward, and raise them. Usually that’s the male, but there’s a lot of overlap.” She gestured like she was sketching out a diagram in midair. “Male and female; egg-keeper and egg-eater.”

“Egg EATER?” I asked.

She sighed, frustrated. “The trade languages never get the genders right. It’s an archaic term that doesn’t translate well.”

“So nobody’s actually eating their own eggs?”

She looked like she wanted to say no, but she just fiddled with the other food pack and said, “Not anymore. Like I said, it’s ancient. Things were different back in the old times, and food was scarce.”

“Okay,” I said, realizing I hadn’t blinked in a while. “I am learning a lot about your people.”

“It’s not that big of a deal!” Kavlae insisted. “Everything’s very civilized now, just with an outdated word. Eggs are laid and fertilized, and at least one person stays to keep an eye on them while the other scoots off to the rest of their life.”

I had several questions I wanted to ask, and was having trouble deciding which to start with. “‘At least one’?”

“Sure, sometimes keepers come in sibling sets.” She waved a hand at the doorway. “You know, like Blip and Blop.”

I may have left my mouth hanging open for a moment while I absorbed that bit of knowledge. “I am definitely learning a lot about your people.”

Kavlae leaned back in her chair. “You really didn’t know that? They go everywhere together, and they’re big and muscley.”

I shook my head. “That would mean something different among humans. Possibly a couple different things, actually. But definitely not that they’re in the market for a threesome.”

“I’m not saying that they are,” Kavlae said, glancing at the door in embarrassment. “Just that if they ever wanted to be parents, they’d be the ones doing all the parenting.”

I remembered something from a few sentences back. “But not you, because you’re an … egg-eater.”

“But not literally,” she confirmed. “Kindly don’t tell them I was talking to you about this. I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.” Her frills flared in a way that looked almost like she was shading her eyes in embarrassment.

I smiled quietly. “I won’t say a word. They’re not your type, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong; Blip’s kinda hot and Blop has nice coloring, but yeah. Not my type.” She made a visible effort to get over the embarrassment, opening a third packet and squeezing some sort of Space Ketchup into the second. “I like a little more intellect, personally. Forethought, good with words, that sort of thing.”

“What, like Trrili?” I said with a grin, thinking of our largest and scariest exoskeleton-clad crewmate, who worked in language translation and enjoyed planning ahead enough to jump out and startle the rest of us.

I’d meant it as a joke.

“Well,” Kavlae said, stirring the food and staring into the distance. “I’ll just say it’s a pity she’s got so many limbs. I know some Frillians have been known to date outside the species, but I really don’t think we’d be compatible.” Then she spooned the food into her mouth, lost in thought.

My eyebrows seemed to have taken up new residence at my hairline. “I won’t tell her we talked about this either.”

“Yeah, best not.”

I ate more of my sandwich, trying to think of another direction to steer the conversation. “Why’d you ask about birthdays, anyway?”

“Wio was saying they’re just a human thing, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some Heatseekers talking about them.” Kavlae waved her spoon vaguely. “Their families are small enough that they could make that work.”

I thought about what I knew of the lizardy folk, who also laid eggs. But not as many at once. I was pretty sure. “We could ask Paint.”

Kavlae opened a tub of what looked like jello. “Paint loves parties. I’m pretty sure she’d immediately want to start celebrating a hatching day, if she doesn’t already.”

“She probably would.” I considered. “She’s never mentioned her hatching day.”

Kavlae pointed at me with the spoon. “You’ve never said when your special day is either,” she said, chewing on what was apparently crunchy jello.

“It’s honestly hard to keep track out in space,” I said, though it felt like a weak excuse. I had a digital calendar for Earth dates, and I made sure to send messages home when I could.

“Do yo...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-08-11 15:25:10+00:00.

<<First Chapter | <<Previous Chapter

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I kept bellowing for a long moment. It was carrying everywhere thanks to Arvie’s projection. All the frustration. All the irritation. All the roiling conflicting storm of emotions that’d been building up inside me for years, that I’d been trying to cover up by acting like everything was fine, came pouring out of me in that moment.

And I happened to be holding the decapitated head of a livisk prince consort dripping his blood all over the irradiated dirt of a ground zero that’d been created because the fucking livisk empress decided she was going to drop an atomic bomb on me to get my smokin’ hot alien girlfriend’s attention.

Life had gone to some very weird places in the past year.

“William. Are you quite well?”

I blinked. I came back to reality. Not that the reality I was coming back to was necessarily a reality I wanted to come back to. I was still standing at the irradiated ground zero of a massive building-sized crater that’d been created because the fucking livisk empress decided she was going to drop an atomic bomb on me to get my smokin’ hot alien girlfriend’s attention.

All the fighting had stopped all around me. The livisk were all standing there staring at me. I looked back at all of them.

Then I did something that was probably stupid, but I didn’t care. I reached up and tapped at the controls that would take my helmet off. I figured I was either going to die in the next few minutes anyway, or I was going to live long enough to get back to a radiation cleansing chamber.

Either way, the livisk were big on showing your face in combat. I figured this was one of those occasions where they needed to get a look at me while I was staring them down.

“I don’t know if that’s advisable,” Arvie said.

"C’mon, Arvie,” I said, grinning inside the helmet as the seals broke and air hissed all around me. “Don’t I have the same shielding that prince consort asshole had?”

“You do, but I still don’t think it’s advisable to take off an extra layer of protection,” he said.

“First lesson of being a meat intelligence, Arvie,” I said. “Sometimes it feels way better when you’re not using any protection.”

“Is this another one of your sex jokes?”

“None other than, my circuited friend.”

Arvie let out the digital equivalent of a sigh. Meanwhile I grinned as I stared at the inside of my helmet for one more moment. Then the HUD went out and I was staring at nothing for the brief second it took to pull the helmet off.

There was a brief purple shimmer as the shielding in my battle armor went into overdrive to keep me protected. I didn’t have the heads up display any longer, but I didn’t need the HUD to tell me there was a lot of radiation out there that would do its best to kill my ass if that shielding busted for whatever reason.

I looked at the prince consort’s head I was still holding high. It didn’t even weigh all that much thanks to the power armor. Or maybe it was the new strength I had as a result of this battle pair thing.

“We’re really going to have to have a chat with Varis about all this battle pair stuff when this is all done,” I said.

“You mean if you survive?” Arvie asked.

“I’m not all that worried about survival,” I said. “I’m more worried about people not gaslighting me about what’s going on here when I get out of this alive.”

“Fair enough,” Arvie said.

I strode up to the top of the hill and took in a deep breath. It wasn’t an irradiated breath of superheated air thanks to the filters on my suit working overtime as it replaced and cooled the air coming through the shield around my head.

I looked at all the livisk troops all around me. I looked at the one hover tank that was still hovering, though it looked like Arvie had hit one of their antigrav actuators. The thing was leaning to the side and looking like it was about half a minute away from slamming to the ground.

There were still a few imperial fighters hovering in the air as well, but I noted all of them were floating there with their weapons pointed slightly to the side of me. None of those weapons were glowing, and they sure as shit weren’t making an ominous hum that told me their pilots were about to do a strafing run with their plasma canons.

Well okay then. It looked like I was finally getting some respect on this dirt ball of a planet.

“Anybody else want some?” I asked.

Nobody said anything. Though something interesting did happen in that moment.

The shield wall started to rise up. Someone had finally figured out how to control the whole thing. I wondered if it was all rising into the air. Though when I glanced from side to side it looked like that rising was only happening in a localized area.

Well that was interesting. They were here a day late and a credit short, but it looked like the cavalry was finally coming.

Troops streamed through. Fighters started streaming down from up above, and each and every one of them blessedly bore Varis’s sigil. Hover tanks moved through with their turrets pointing this way and that. Like they were looking for a target, and maybe a little disappointed they weren’t finding anything to fire at.

They definitely had their plasma cannons glowing, and there was one sequel trilogy of an ominous hum coming off of them that told anyone foolish enough to fight them that it was going to be a very short and one sided fight.

Not that any of the empress’s troops were putting up a fight. No, they’d all put their hands behind their heads the moment I asked if anybody else wanted some, and now they were falling to their knees.

More interesting than all that, though, was the lone figure marching at the head of all those weapons and troops streaming through the recently created hole in the shielding. A series of massive fans on the other side of that hole were blowing the superheated air back into the shielding before it could get out and cause any trouble on the other side.

I chuckled and shook my head at that. It was a ridiculous solution. It was a very low tech solution. But if a solution worked then I wasn’t going to knock it.

I only noted that in passing, though. Mostly I only had eyes for that figure striding through the wreckage and destruction. Varis made her way up the small hill. She approached warily. There was a note of hesitation coming through the link. Like she didn’t know what to make of what was happening here.

Her eyes darted to the prince consort’s head I still held. Then back to me.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

She stared at me for another moment. Then she reached up and took her own helmet off. She let it drop to her side as her hair fell down around her. The shield on her power armor moved to cover her hair as well.

“Shatner’s girdle do you look beautiful,” I said.

I stepped forward before I could think about what I was doing. I saw my beautiful alien girlfriend standing in front of me, and the only thing I wanted was to plant a smacker on her.

I dropped the shielding on my head. I knew I was going to get a dose of radiation from that and it was going to mean an hour or two in a rad chamber, but it was so totally worth it now that the cavalry was here and I didn’t have to worry about getting to that rad chamber.

She did the same thing, the sparkling purple haze around her head fading away as she leaned in and planted her lips on mine. I opened my mouth to hers and wrapped my free arm around her.

Was I vaguely aware of how ridiculous it was that I was standing here holding a prince consort’s head in my hand while I made out with my girlfriend? Definitely. Was it the kind of thing that seemed totally in keeping with how livisk did things on their world?

Also yes.

I imagined approaching her with the head of one of her hated enemies was the best foreplay a livisk noble could ever get. And it was working if the way she pressed against me with an urgency that surprised me was anything to go on.

It was a pity we had that power armor between us to keep things from getting too interesting.

Finally I pulled away from the kiss. I cocked my head to the side and hit her with a grin.

“Nice to see you too,” I said.

She reached back like she was going to hit me with one sequel trilogy of a smack. I could feel the irritation and the anger flowing through the link along with relief. Only that slap moved in and again the world seemed to slow down around me.

A funny thing happened then. I reached out to try and catch the smack, only her eyes went wide as she saw what I was doing. Then she was adjusting the trajectory and trying to move so her smack would move around my block and land on my cheek where she was clearly aiming.

We did a little dance there. Me trying my damndest to keep her from smacking me and her trying her damndest to keep me from blocking her smack. Finally after waving our hands around at each other in slow motion for what felt like an eternity, she pulled away from me, her chest heaving.

It was a good look for her. I’m sure we looked ridiculous to any outside observers flailing our arms around like that, but I didn’t care.

“How in the hells below are you doing that?” she asked. “How am I ...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/RegulusPratus on 2025-08-11 13:37:55+00:00.

Man, restaurants on Earth are kinda different from restaurants on other planets.

Anyway, not much else to say yet. People keep putting money in the tip jar, so I keep putting words on the page. Riding that weekly train forwards. Stay tuned.

[First] - [Prev]

[New York Carnival on Royal Road] - [Tip Me On Ko-Fi]

Memory Transcription Subject: Rosi, Yotul Housewife

Date [standardized human time]: November 20, 2136

I clapped the sides of my face with my paws to try and get my head back into the right place. David needed a Yotul server. Fine. I could wait tables. I just needed to know where everything was.

“Alright,” I said, putting my proverbial business hat on. “What do we have in stock today?”

David blinked. “Sorry, like in the walk-in fridge, or are you asking for our All Day numbers?”

I didn’t know what the second thing was, so I just nodded. “Yeah. Fridge and pantry. I need to know what the kitchen has in stock so I can tell the customers what kinds of bread toppings you can make.”

“Bread toppings? What?” David asked quizzically. “No, Rosi, we open in forty minutes. The ingredients are all already pre-prepped.”

My snout rankled in confusion. “Wait, pre-prepped? How do you know in advance what people are going to order?” I put a paw to my face in surprise as the obvious explanation hit me. “Wait, no, I got it. You guys are coastal, like I am, so I assumed you were doing lots of little fresh dishes on bread like my culture does. Like the bruschetta? But it’s cold in New York, so you probably run your taverns like in Nikolo’s homeland.” I nodded towards the big pot Eddie was tossing vegetables into. “Alright, what’s the stew for today?”

“The stew?” David repeated, baffled. “Wait, the stew? Like, singular?”

“Pozole Verde,” answered Eddie, continuing to toss vegetables into the steaming stock pot. “I made it vegan for you guys. Beans and corn, tomatillos and green chiles.”

I nodded. “Got it. So one bowl of stew per customer, and where do we keep the bread for--”

David made a loud clicking noise with his clawless fingertips. “Okay, Rosi? I think we maybe need to back up a bit. I forgot you’ve never eaten here during normal business hours. What you’re describing sounds like some kind of mish-mash between a tapas bar and a medieval tavern, I think? Which I would actually love to hear more about, but in the interest of time, I need to bring you up to speed on how this restaurant works.”

“Right,” I said. “You guys are humans. Different dining culture.”

David sighed with relief. “Glad to have you back on the same page.”

I looked around the kitchen, but couldn’t find what I needed. “Where do you keep the blood, then? Is it behind the bar with the other beverages, or…?”

“Left freezer,” said Eddie, not looking up. “It’s the door with the snowflake and the steak symbol next to it.”

“Freezer?” I said, perking up. That didn’t sound like the right business choice at all. “I thought this place was upscale. You only serve frozen blood, not fresh?”

“We don’t serve blood for drinking, Rosi!” David sputtered.

Chiri ducked her head into the kitchen. “Why not? That sounds rad as hell.”

David rubbed his face in exasperation. “Municipal health code, multiple sets of religious laws, and the human tendency to generally prefer cooked food to raw.”

I nodded and tried to let my momentum carry me forward. I’d probably get abruptly sick to my stomach if I stopped to think about it too much. “Okay, so… chunks of grilled meat, then? For the human customers, at least. Where do you keep--”

David abruptly opened the oven-looking thing I’d been huddling next to for warmth, revealing a wire rack packed full of whole fish. They were dead and beginning to look dessicated. The eyes were horrifying! Pale white and deflated, like a sack with too little flour. The scent was death, the dried sea filth smell of a harbor mixed with the smoke of a burning orchard after the exterminators chased someone’s illegal Hensa out into it. I wanted to throw up or flee, but I found myself just backpedaling into the corner.

“Don’t stand on that side of the kitchen,” David said, closing the smoke-oven again. I glanced behind me at the counter, spotted a long, thin knife caked in weird fluids and loose fish scales, and put the details together. I scampered back over towards the door, Chiri, and safety. She had a reassuring paw on my shoulder almost immediately.

“That can’t possibly have been necessary, David,” said Chiri, disapproving.

David shook his head. “She was in a loop. I had to startle her out of it. Is your head sufficiently reset, Rosi?”

I nodded frantically.

“Great. Cool. So we have a menu,” said David. “It’s pretty similar to the one from the baseball game, but with a few more options since we’ve got a full kitchen and several cooks.”

“That’s me,” said Eddie, deadpan, continuing to chop. “I’m several cooks.”

David rubbed his face in exasperation. “It’s a fucking Tuesday, Eddie. You know we have more people here later in the week when it’s busier.”

“Here,” Chiri said to me, quietly. “You’ve still got a Federation model holopad, right? Hang on, lemme pull the menu up for you.” A few quick taps on my pad showed a list of food items, but Chiri’s brow was furrowed. “This… doesn’t look like the language we tested it in,” she said. “This doesn’t even look like the same alphabet.” She looked up at David. “Hey, David, I think there’s a software glitch in the localization…”

I shook my head. “No, Chiri, it’s not…” I sighed. I didn’t want to bring attention to this, but it was the right thing for the business, and helping the business succeed was how I proved myself here. “Look, the Yotul homeworld was in the process of being unified. There’s no singular Yotul people yet with a single language.” I flipped my language setting back to the standard one to demonstrate. “The Federation picked a unified language for us, but I’m not from that country, and neither is my husband. It’s a second language for most Yotul at this point. It’ll be another generation or two before it’s universal.” I sighed. “Or it would have been if the U.N.’s clash with the Federation hadn’t derailed it all.”

David clapped his hands together in understanding. “Okay, Yotuls still have distinct national identities! Got it. So do we. I can work with that. So Rosi, in your home country, tavern fare is…”

“Beer or wine to drink, and then bread or dumplings, with a variety of little dishes to put on top of them,” I finished. “Usually spreads, dips, fresh-chopped vegetable medleys like your bruschetta, or preserved things like pickles or jam in the colder months.” Not like we’d had refrigeration until the Federation had given it to us, so food had to be made shelf-stable through the winter the old-fashioned way.

David’s face lit up with excitement. “Okay, great, very Mediterranean, I can work with that. And your husband’s home country? Tavern fare there is…?”

I shrugged, trying to remember clearly. “Never been, but from what he’s told me, bread, spicy stew to dip it in, and a King’s Cup.”

David looked to Chiri, who shrugged. “Okay, I'll bite: what’s a King’s Cup?” David asked.

“Uhhh…” I began, trying to remember. “Toasted grain tea or hot water, a dollop of jam dissolved into it, and a splash of distilled spirits? It’s pretty popular even in nearby countries like mine when it gets cold enough.”

David glanced over at Chiri, who snorted and began fiddling with her holopad’s notetaking app. “Already adding it to the drinks menu,” she said. “Whisky sound right, or should I do gin for the botanicals?”

“Whisky or brandy,” said David, thinking aloud. “If the mixer is herbal tea, just add the botanicals there. If brown spirits are too busy, switch to vodka or aquavit, and start tinkering with milder botanical infusions.” Despite all the tech he was wearing and carrying, David glanced at a large physical clock mounted on the kitchen wall. “Half hour to service. I wanna quick test out a mezze platter. Maybe some banchan? Eddie, can you handle the first couple tickets on your own?”

The younger human shrugged. “Probably. You’re right behind me if I can’t, right Chef?”

David nodded decisively. “Always.”

The rear door opened and closed audibly, and… frankly, the oldest human I’d ever seen walked in. I didn’t even realize humans got that old! Federation doctrine said that predators culled the weak and infirm, their elders included. Quite a few of the human leaders had the look of distinguished elder statesmen, though, but maybe they were aristocracy or something, and got exemptions. I hadn’t ever expected to see a wizened human restaurant employee.

“Oh thank God,” said David, beckoning the older woman over. “Sylvie, this is Rosi. Rosi, this is Sylvie.”

Sylvie smiled curtly, and held out her hand for me to take. Her hair was a mottled ash-gray and curled like Venlil wool, and her skin was weathered, but the color of good earth and loam after a rain. I had to actively remind myself that she was a human, because every ounce of her energy made me think she was the abstract concept of a very tenured grade school ...

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I glared at Calbanith confusedly. "Okay... So I take it you found the trigger mechanism?"

"The Red Death." He replied.

"LOCKDOWN!! QUARANTINE LEVEL-F..." I started to bellow.

"SHUT UP!! He yelled back, interrupting my orders and shook me vigorously.

He then dragged me towards a nearby microscope array and shoved my face into it to look. He put a sample in and made me look. I looked at it, making it focus. And there it was, tiny, small. The viral strain that looked like a cluster of worms entangled around a large shorter worm. We both looked at the results, looking closely at the sample in front of us.

"No freaking way..." I said.

"Indeed! So now, Reginald… I must ask... Do you have any viruses that compromise or violate the human immune system?" Calbanith asked, looking at the human who was blankly staring at us.

"Uhh… yeah. A bunch of them actually. HIV, AIDS, Lupus, SCIDS, a few more. Even a new strain of antibiotic resistant Tuberculosis appeared a few years ago. We aren't nearly as strong as you make us out to be. There's way too many viruses on this planet anyway. I think. I dunno. Maybe the zombie plague killed them all off? No idea. Haven't exactly had the chance to check, what with the whole 'don't wanna be eaten alive by my neighbour' thing." Reggie replied.

"This all stems from that last event for its evolution. Someone, somewhere found it and tried to do something with it, and somehow created a strain of virus that reconstituted dead flesh..." Calbanith said.

"Well I have no idea what that is but I can tell you where the outbreak started. Ground Zero as it were. You got a map of the planet? I can point to where it started, or at least where the news said it started." Reggie said. "I read posts on news outlets and figured my way through the bullshit. If I remember right, it started in a virology lab in North Dakota, somewhere in the mountains." Reggie said.

I immediately grabbed a holo screen and showed him how to use it. "Here's a map. Just drag your finger on the screen to move it. Pinch to zoom out, you can figure the rest out yourself."

"Oh! Hot damn just like my old car GPS. Okay lets see... North America... Canadian Border... Dakota... North. Here." He drew a circle around a specific spot in a mountainous region. It was a big circle, hardly surprising, but it was better than scouting out the entire planet.

"DEPLOY SCOUT DRONES TO THAT REGION IMMEDIATELY!!!" I bellowed, causing the crew to immediately scramble into a work frenzy. "As soon as we have the location in hand I want a full team deployed to search the area. Kill any infected you find and set up a perimeter. That place looks reasonably defensible, we can use it as a stronghold for future operations. Calbanith, I cant afford to have you on that ground team, stay here and keep working. We don't have data for a cure, but I want to make sure that non-humans cant be affected by this thing. I'm going to put a new protocol down."

Reggie's head spun with how fast everyone moved. He just shrugged and returned to Stacie's side to keep her calm.

The ship became a bustling hub of excessive activity and operations could finally start anew. Reggie, Stacie and the medical data we had so far were all moved off our ship and onto the Medical Frigate for proper study and containment. With professional grade equipment it didn't take Calbanith long to create an emergency serum for use in case of infection, and within hours we located the facility. A team was already deployed, carrying blaster rifles instead of plasma weapons.

I was watching through the camera feed of a drone that was following the commander around. The team landed in a parking lot of some kind. it took us a tremendous amount of self control to not get distracted by the military machinery that was called a 'tank', but we made our way through the area. It didn't take long to find the first few zombies. The creatures completely ignored the team as they always had. the team had orders and our blasters made fast work of the creatures.

The team lead yelled out "Pick your targets! Infected only and shoot at only what you are guaranteed to hit! No collateral!"

The blasters fired and within seconds twenty or so zombies were now inert biological matter. The bolts impacted one poor bastard's head and it just evaporated into a cloud of mist, then the creature just flopped to the ground dead. The zombies were crowding around the entrance to the facility and their corpses had to be dragged out of doorways so the team could enter.

"I'm starting to hate human architecture... I feel so cramped in these places." The team lead said.

"Unsurprising. The average height of a human is a meter shorter than us, I don't really think they expected us to be around. Can you see anything?" I asked.

"Blood. Everywhere. Skeletons… Looks like some humans here were eaten completely. Damage patterns consistent with heavy combat. Ballistic munitions probably. Power is completely gone so I have to use local light sources." Team Leader replied.

"Sweep and clear. You are looking for laboratory equipment or a vault of some kind that keeps plagues on ice. Be careful. We don't know what they have stored in here, for all we know with how these humans work, we might find something worse than the red Death." I commanded.

"Understood, proceeding."

The team moved forward. The zombies here were in a state of inertia owing to an advanced state of decay. They had been here idly shambling for months, most of them unable to move very far owing to the amount of damage they sustained. Dispatching them proved trivial at worst and the team cleared the building room by room. The most notable aspects of this building were a boardroom of some kind filled with twelve skeletons surrounding a large table. The scanners on the troops were able to determine these people willingly consumed a beverage of poison before the zombies ate the remains.

In one of the bathrooms, there were clear signs of a heavy struggle. One human had been ganged up on by a few zombies. Judging from the struggle pattern and blood stains, the poor person had been literally torn to pieces before being eaten. Some humans had managed to barricade themselves in the canteen, but ran out of food in short order. The debris told us how they held out here for a time before attempting to escape using the ventilation system. Considering the amount of dried blood that had leaked out of the vent shaft, it would be safe to assume they never made it.

Another room, this one slightly more interesting than simply telling a story. This one looked like a small sample laboratory, blood samples judging by the red stains inside untouched test tubes. The team swept in, finishing off a zombie that was shambling around trying to eat the wall, and made scans of everything they could find. We were instantly flooded with a truly astonishing amount of information not only from the machinery in that room, but the quantity of documentation the humans kept around.

The team rummaged in drawers and cabinets and scanned every document they could find. I messaged Calbanith and sent him these documents and scan data. He got so excited he let out a most unprofessional squeal of delight that nearly made my aural receptors melt. The unit continued operations and eventually found the thing we were looking for: the main lab.

"Found something. Solid steel door. Sign says 'main lab'. Scans can't get through it..."

"Wait, your scanning equipment can't penetrate the door!?" I asked in shock.

"Negative... We ping and soft scan it. Nothing. We can't see behind that door. We have to open it the hard way." They said.

My engineer looked at me with a sign of both shock and awe. "Proceed. Destroy it if needed."

"Understood. Heavy Blaster forward! See if we can find the hinge point on this thing!" He said.

The team procured a heavy Bolter Blaster and fired five separate shots at the door. The door itself shrugged off the first three blasts with not a scratch. The last two bolts found weak points in the seal, and they took advantage of that weakness, blasting the door out of its frame enough to be forced open manually. The team entered and found a human, uninfected, female, wearing a dishevelled lab coat and a determined expression. She looked unbathed, broken. The lab part of the facility was a lot larger than it looked from the outside and we came to the conclusion the outside area was administration of some kind.

"DONT COME ANY CLOSER! STAY AWAY!" She yelled at the team.

"Human female, uninfected. Agitated. Set for stun." The team lead said.

"I SAID STAY AWAY!" She bellowed.

Before she could do anything else she was hit by a stun bolt. She crumpled onto the floor and lay there. "Target disabled. Alive. Stable. Calling for a retrieval team."

"This is Call of the Sundown, we have our antidotes and base prep, we have a team available. Sending through, will transfer directly to the medical frigate." A radio comm barked at us. The Sakhandi were listening in on our comms already. I guess they tapped themselves in. Sneaky devils.

"Copy that. Area is hot, hostiles do not use words or communication, they simply grunt and growl. The zombies are the animals, the humans are not. Understood?" I replied.

"Understood, will check targets. Shuttle on the way, full medical team on board. Sundown out."

"Good... Did som...

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Link-Tree

Chapter 114

Nick Smith

Adventurer Level: 11

Human – American

I found myself extremely disoriented, unable to remember where I was or how I got there. It felt as if I was floating, but in air instead of water. Or space, maybe. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but white. My sense of panic was stifled by a feeling of familiarity, though. I'd been here before, hadn't I? When? How?

'It has been a while, but surely I'm more memorable than that,' a feminine voice whispered within my head.

There was no directionality to the voice, so I looked around wildly. A woman stood to my right, looking downward so that I couldn't see her face. Her long, silky, and gray hair parted as she looked up at me with eyes that were nearly neon purple. The creature's lips, blackened past the point that lipstick could ever hope to achieve, parted in a smile and showed a set of razer-sharp fangs instead of teeth.

"Wh-Wha-" I managed to stammer before my air ran out.

Panic set in only for a moment before I remembered the last time this had happened to me. Just after I used all of my magic to heal Imlor, the merchant that gave us a ride a few times. I finally recognized my location, and what the thing beside me was.

"There you go," the higher one said with a chuckle. "Took you long enough."

'What's this about?' I thought.

"It's time for another nudge. You're almost back in Nuleva, where it all began. Well... For you."

I remembered leaving the town with the kobolds. Nash had been upset because we weren't stopping for rest or meals, which meant that Yulk had paid a lot. Our driver, Haq, had been using an enchanted powder to stay awake.

And I had finally been tired enough to fall asleep on the fast-moving cart.

'It's where you wanted us to go, right?' I asked.

"Needed you to go to, but yes," it laughed. "We tried our best to get you to this point naturally, but it simply wasn't meant to be."

'What do you mean?'

"I can't give you a direct answer. All I can say is that an unlikely timeline has decided to manifest, and it's rather inconvenient to the plans we had, and have, for you."

I heard the clink of chains between the being's words. I remembered the crimson links that had bound it in our previous conversation, but I couldn't see them this time.

"Here's your nudge, Nick," bright purple eyes locked with my own. "You are now strong enough to reach and surpass the true end of the Delver's Dungeon, the very one you were found in. Barely."

'Barely?'

"Yes. As I said, we had other hopes that were dashed by the choices of others. In the ideal version of this timeline, we would have been able to yank you around long enough for you to get far more powerful than you are now. Powerful enough to have made the journey by yourself, in fact. Personally, I'd have loved to see you absolutely dominate the monsters in the dungeon. So, as you can imagine, I'm quite cross with those that have moved up our plans."

'Right...' I thought hesitantly.

"The moment you arrive in Nuleva, you need to resupply and prepare to enter the dungeon. You don't have enough time to rest, you must enter by nightfall at the latest. Nash may refuse to join you, or be called away for something else, but he's inconsequential to your success. Don't waste time trying to keep him with you."

'And what's at the end of the dungeon?'

"First you'll find a boss that no one else has found. After you defeat it, you will find a revelation and an additional confrontation. The revelation will come first. Regarding the confrontation, though... Run."

'Run?' I asked incredulously.

"Yes. It would be a close fight even if you were your most powerful self. You're not, and so you should run, ideally collapsing or sealing the dungeon behind you."

'Collapse the dungeon? How would we do that?'

"Larie will be able to. It's the reason we urged him to join you. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that the village chief will likely wish to see you and the others upon your arrival. Don't risk offending him. His cooperation is imperative for what comes next."

'And what comes next, exactly?'

"Oh, you'll see," the higher one winked at me. "Well, unless you fuck up. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have."

"Wait-" I said, my eyes snapping open.

Instead of a white void, I was looking up at the big blue sky. A few clouds lazily drifted by as the cart bumped the back of my head. Then the faces of my adoptive orc brothers popped into view.

"That's probably not good," Nash sighed.

"It might have been a normal dream," Yulk suggested.

"It wasn't," I replied.

"Damn," Nash said, leaning back as I sat up.

Haq looked over his shoulder at me as I moved to the front of the cart to get a look at where we were. The dwarf's bloodshot eyes were full of questions, but he kindly kept them to himself. I wondered if the powder he had been using was actually magical, or if it was actually just a mundane drug.

Either way, he hadn't been getting much rest. Neither had the hnarses. Apparently, though, they didn't need anywhere near as much rest as people do. My grandpa would have loved these creatures. He often complained about how lazy horses could be if you let them.

Buildings were just coming into view, and they were approaching quickly. Or rather, we were. I glanced at the sky and noted that the sun wasn't directly overhead.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Mid-morning," Larie replied. "You didn't sleep long."

I had already suspected as much due to the exhaustion I felt behind my eyes. The Alta's spare bed was practically calling to me, but I wouldn't be given the opportunity to sleep in a bed tonight. I briefly wondered if I had enough time for another nap, but then we began to slow.

"Alright, we're here," Haq said with a relieved sigh. "I'm gonna stick around and rest for about a week. If you need another rush ride before then, you'll have to hire someone else. It wouldn't be safe for me to drive you."

"Understood," Yulk replied as the cart came to a halt. "Thank you."

Nash and I grabbed our things and hopped off of the cart. Yulk passed me his bags as Nash helped him to the ground while Larie simply floated from the back of the cart. Haq drove the cart off of the road leading into Nuleva, seeking refuge in the nearby stable.

"So what was the dream about?" Nash asked.

I began explaining what had happened in my dream as we made our way into the village. Most of the people that saw us stopped and stared with horrified expressions. They were looking at Larie, though, and I felt bad that this made me feel a little better about all the times I'd been stared at with curiosity.

"Clearing the dungeon has been done before," Nash said, glaring at people as we passed. "What's with the urgency?"

"I don't know, there's a secret boss or something I think," I shrugged. "It was less vague this time, but still pretty cagey. Also, it said that you don't have to come with us if you don't want to."

Nash looked confused but didn't reply. I finished explaining the rest of the details of what the higher one told me, ending with us needing to see the chief. As I finished my sentence, I noticed Nima running up to us.

"Hey Nima," Yulk waved happily.

"H-hi Yulk," Nima replied as she came to a stop, staring nervously at Larie.

We stood patiently, waiting for her to say something else. She seemed to be at a loss, though.

"What is it, darling?" Nash asked gently.

"W-what... Oh, r-right, uh... The chief wants to see you," she replied, not taking her eyes off of the lich.

My first impression of Nima had been that she was incredibly beautiful and intimidating. She was a lot taller than I was, and I had no doubt in my mind that she was a lot stronger, too. Seeing her this nervous was surreal.

For the first time since I met him, it sunk home how dangerous Larie could be, were he so inclined. It also occurred to me that the higher one had placed its faith in his destructive capabilities. Actually, faith is probably the wrong word for a being that can see almost everything...

"He's not a threat, love," Nash said, maintaining his soft tone. "This is Larie VysImiro, he was turned into a lich against his will."

"I-I know that, it's just... " Nima shook her head and bowed. "I didn't intend to cause any offense, Lord VysImiro. We received a missive from High Chief Ulurmak explaining your situation and presence within the Unified Chiefdoms. Knowing Yulk's... Predilections and your proximity to him, I should have taken more time to mentally prepare myself, please accept my deepest apologies."

"Hey!" Yulk said, feigning offense.

"Please raise your head, your reaction is well within expectations and I could hardly consider it rude," Larie chuckled. "One should hold oneself to the highest of standards, and my reaction to seeing my reflection for the first time was not dissimilar."

"How would you know, though?" Yulk asked, innocently.

Everyone present paused at Yulk's question, taking a moment to decipher what he was asking. Larie cocked his head at the bald orc. After a moment of thought, though, the confused expressions that Nash, Nima, and I had quickly turned to horror.

"Oh, because I have no face," Larie laughed. "I was speaking of my emotional reaction, my friend. My physical react...

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Riches

“I am sorry... It is meant to determine what?” Carbon stopped yanking on the chunk of instrument panel she had unscrewed from the frame and looked back at Alex, who was explaining what Amalu had told him last evening.

He had waited for a bit of confirmation on exactly what the fuck the marines had been doing before talking about it with Carbon because... Well, it had some connotations and he wanted to have what Williams could wring out of her team on hand before any supposition started flying. “If it’s ethical to have sex with another ‘non-human’ entity. It’s kind of funny though, they were using it to insult each other - basically going around arguing none of the others could pass it themselves.”

Every now and then Carbon would look at him in a very particular way when he brought up things Humans did that were far outside of her life experiences, a mix of mortified and aghast. That’s what she was doing right now. “Did... it is only four questions, correct? How could - Well. Insults. I understand, enough.”

“I’m assuming they all passed. Couldn’t get sent here without passing them.” It stood to reason, anyway. They’d have to be old enough and capable of communication to even join the military. “Just not for that purpose.”

“Yes, it is so.” She finished pulling the monitor free and handed it back to Alex, peering into the darkness behind the console with a flashlight. She hummed once and then started unscrewing the next monitor over.

“So you just want me to hold on to these?” That was kind of what it felt like he had the room to do right now. Sure, with the seats pushed back there was room for two in the front, particularly with one being about 75% of human size, but then you started crawling around in there and she was basically already at the middle of the instrument panel.

“There should be a pad and paper in the tool bag. Just label each part and set it aside. That was the left Primary Flight Display.” She did not look up from her work to say that.

Alex found a pad of post-it notes and a pen crammed into a side pocket of the tool bag. “Port.”

Carbon shook her head. “I do not believe there are any cargo handling systems onboard.”

“No, it’s the port side on a ship. Left is.” Hell, had he been saying that without them understanding him so far? He was sure that they had said port and starboard several times - maybe his Immersion Translator had been translating with context clues? Could it do that? “You know, when you’re facing forward.”

Carbon glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes crinkled with amusement and a little smirk on the corner of her mouth.

He stared back at her as he peeled the note off the stack and slapped it onto the PFD. She had just put one over on him. A little joke, and it was comprehensible.

Alex had never been more proud. “Ah-hah. Nice.”

“Thank you.” She pulled the screen out and handed it back to him. “Port Navigation.”

“Port Navigation.” He echoed back as he wrote the next note. “Been working on your repertoire?"

“Perhaps? Having the opportunity to view a wide variety of Humans interaction with each other while not being...” She stopped talking, craning her neck to look into the area behind the instrument cluster once more. Humming again. Carbon picked up a Human-made set of Augmented Reality goggles and held them up to her face, double checking the wiring schematics. “While not drowning myself in work, is giving me a better understanding of Humanity in general.”

Alex recognized that she had stopped herself from saying something in particular there. What, precisely, he wasn’t sure - and with the door open and Linda Zheng in the Hanger as well, he wasn’t going to ask. That felt a bit too personal. Tonight, instead.

He glanced out the window to check on Zheng. She was still over by the Falcata’s, tapping away at a tablet and using the scanner drones to verify the grav cycles were also shipshape. “I’m glad to hear that. You seem pretty happy working on all this stuff out here.”

Wherever here actually was.

“I am surprised to find that I am, yes. The work may not be as rewarding as some other things I have done in the past, but we are working towards a larger goal.” She moved her attention to the Flight Management Display, almost directly below where the Navigation screen had been.

It was weird to be talking to her like they were just coworkers. Not that he would have talked to any of the other people on the expedition like this, exactly, but it still felt a little distant. Not quite like how they had talked when they had returned to McFadden station. More like how they had communicated back on the Kshlav’o before he had kissed her.

At least he was falling back to a reasonable part of their relationship to emulate. Mostly. “That’s good. I can’t wait to find out what’s up with these controls and get back in the sky, even if this might not have the range we need to go anywhere useful.”

“Do not get too excited yet. The scans found a few nose ribs with what I feel are an unacceptable amount of stress microfractures, though they appear to be within spec for the part. I suspect the wing was bumped at some point in time during production or shipping.” She had the FMD off already, handing it back to him. “Port Flight Display.”

“Seriously? They dropped it? Taking a star off the review for that.” Alex dutifully filed this third screen away with a fresh sticky note slapped down on the glass.

Their conversation was ended by the sound of someone approaching the Corvin. Zheng, as a quick check verified. She came about halfway up the steps, again, apparently unwilling to ever come all the way inside the ship. “Hey, guys. Sorenson. Could I borrow the Lan for a minute? I’ve got something weird I’d like a second set of eyes on.”

“Oh, sure. Feel free.” It was going to be days before this was fixed anyway, so what was a quick break?

Carbon had been using the AR goggles again. She stuffed them into a pocket and slipped back around the Pilot’s seat. “Of course, Linda. What’s up?”

Oh, sure. She got to be on a first name basis and even got contractions worked into his wife’s speech patterns. Alex bit his tongue, literally. He would not be getting mad over Carbon doing a good job with their cover. Maybe a little hurt. Just a little.

He was the only one Carbon called Pilot, at least.

Zheng finally stepped all the way into the shuttle, holding her tablet up so both of them could see. “So, I was looking at the scans on the engines, right? I’m running them both at the same time because I’ve got enough drones, and immediately I notice this has the Type 1 fuel mix chamber. They’re visually different, it’s a solid 5cm taller.”

Carbon nodded at her, just as lost as Alex looked. Neither of them fully understood what they were looking at. “And this is incorrect?”

“Yes, very. I was part of the team overseeing the retrofit of the last several hundred Falcatas to the J spec. They should not be here, particularly not on these. They’re both H variants, which came from factory with the Type 2.” Zheng was emphatic about this being... incorrect. The most intense Alex had seen her, not that they’d been working together very long.

Alex looked to Carbon, eyebrows raised. “I’m going to bow out here, this is past my pay grade.”

“So these were downgraded? Is there any particular reason that might have chosen to do so?” Carbon was also grasping at straws, for the moment.

“They shouldn’t have been able to, my team fully phased out the Type 1. I had heard all parts specific to it were retired from stores, the files for printers deprecated. The 2 was better in every metric. But here it is, with the wrong number of injectors.” She flipped to a different page, this scan viewed from the front. “You can see there’s an array of eight here, which is standard on the Type 2, but it should only have four. There’s only four inlets. Somebody slapped the injector ring from the 2 onto it and mounted extra parts.”

“Are they more injectors?” Carbon asked, a little cautious now that Zheng seemed to be jumping the gun here.

“Ah, no they appear to be power cells in a shell that makes them look like the injectors.” Zheng shifted the view on the scan, four of the eight cylinders glowing. “I thought it was maybe some kind of power enhancement, but they’re not wired to anything. They’re just hidden in the engine.”

“Any idea how big those are?” Alex wasn’t that familiar with scanning small stuff. He was a big picture guy. Stars and planets.

Zheng turned the tablet back to herself, zooming in a few times and shifting through the scan types. “I think they’re actually the same unit that powers the e-suits.”

Alex did not look at Carbon, though he was alarmed enough to do so. He did not blurt out anything related to the extra items that had come through in the shipment the other day. He kept a nice, confused look on his face. “Huh.”

“That actually sounds quite unsafe. We should see about removing them for now. Likely it would be best to store them in the secure cage. Would you show me the scan of the container they are hidden in?” Carbon asked as she handed Alex the AR headset she had been wearing and ushered Zheng back out of the Corvin.

Alex got the indication that he should continue working on the controls problem, while she went to deal with the mystery power cells.

So he did. The AR goggles were pretty neat, and he took it slow so as to not damage anything further. Alex had ripped most of the console apart before the goggles...

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(retrieved from Concord archives 05/2245)

08/1760

Log new discovery: G20129 [ms medium star]

Log new discovery: G20129A [gas giant]

04/1819

Log new discovery: G20129B [gas giant]

10/1904

Log probe: Probe 20129 sent as part of Outer Reaches exploration programme Phase 3

07/1927

Change status: G20129B -> G20129C

Change status: G20129A -> G20129B

Log new discovery: G20129A [rocky planet]

Log new discovery: G20129D [gas giant]

10/1952

Change status: G20129D class: ice giant

06/2064

Log status: unusual radiation levels on G20129A detected by Probe 20129

09/2120

Log status: Probe 20129 arrives insystem

Log new discovery: G20129H [ice giant]

Log new discovery: G20129H1 [light atmo satellite]

Change status: G20129D -> G20129G

Change status: G20129C -> G20129F

Change status: G20129F class: gas giant, ringed

Log new discovery: G20129F1 [heavy atmo satellite]

Change status: G20129B -> G20129E

Log new discovery: G20129E1 [airless satellite], G20129E2 [airless satellite], G20129E3 [airless satellite], G20129E4 [airless satellite]

Log new discovery: G20129D [rocky planet]

Change status: G20129A -> G20129C

Change status: G20129C class: life planet

Log new discovery: G20129B [rocky planet]

Log new discovery: G20129A [rocky planet]

Log new discovery: G20129C1 [airless satellite]

Log status: unknown starships around G20129A, G20129B, G20129C, G20129C1, G20129D, G20129E2, G20129E3, G20129E4, G20129F1, G20129E, G20129F, G20129G, G20129H

Log status: unknown structures near G20129

Log status: received communication from G20129C “do you come in peace” query ignored

Log status: scanning G20129A… successful multiple subsurface anomalies

Log status: scanning G20129B… successful multiple atmospheric anomalies

Log status: scanning G201

Log status: Probe 20129 destroyed, likely cause: hostile alien civilisation class Spacefarer/PreFTL

Log status: G20129 marked as controlled by hostile power 263

Log status: G20129 marked as enemy system

04/2245

Log new discovery: Humans [homeworld G20129C]

Log status: G20129C -> Earth

Log status: G20129 -> Sol

Log status: hostile power 263 -> Orion Commonwealth

Log status: restricted space Black for Sol and all systems within 100 lightyear radius

Log status: remarks “To think that this small system could withstand an assault from over a hundred… races from the galaxy over would never believe it. Let this log serve as a reminder as to what happens when you try to fight determined defenders without preparation even if you have the numbers to do so. Though, I believe this particular race has something different about them that sets them apart from so many others. Their star system even seems to be built for their success. But even in death, we shall wish the humans well where so many others have failed. And so, our light goes out.”

~~End of Log~~ deleted*

05/2245

Log status: G20129A -> Mercury

Log status: G20129B -> Venus

Log status: G20129C1 -> Luna

Log status: G20129D -> Mars

Log status: G20129E -> Jupiter

Log status: G20129E1 -> Io

Log status: G20129E2 -> Europa

Log status: G20129E3 -> Ganymede

Log status: G20129E4 -> Callisto

Log status: G20129F -> Saturn

Log status: G20129G -> Uranus

Log status: remarks “this still gives me giggles every time i try to write it down or say it”

Log status: G20129H -> Neptune

Log status: remarks “The humans spared us. Honestly, we were the aggressors here and yet they let us keep most of our systems… I was right, they’re different from so many others. Perhaps they’ll succeed in galactic relations just as they did in war. Most of my colleagues seem to be seeing it too now, hard to hate them when they’re actively helping you. Maybe this could’ve been avoided entirely and so many lost lives could’ve lived in another life. The way they conduct their scientific research is… intriguing, I’ll be honest. Probably going to sign up for an exchange programme sometime, I’ve only heard good things from that. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for both of us working together towards a new future”

Log status: G20129F1 -> Titan

Log status: G20129H1 -> Triton

Log status: open space for Sol and 100 ly radius

Log status: remarks “whoopsie forgot”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Engletroll on 2025-08-11 04:46:43+00:00.

Project Dirt book 1 . (Amazon book ) / Planet Dirt book 2 (Amazon Book 2) / Colony Dirt(Amazon Book 3)

 Patreon ./. Webpage

Previously ./. Next

Alak flew effortlessly through the asteroid field towards the destination. He hated these missions they sent him on. The pay was good, but he would rather be home with Hima, Gar, and Simi. The kids didn’t understand why their dad had been sent hundreds of lightyears away to check out a camp and Hima was not happy about it either, but he was glad she was working in the administration now, safe and fare away from who he knew they were hunting.

His two wingmen followed just as effortlessly, DJ and Dora, they had left the rest of the wings behind with Iven and Mojnir.  They were good, but for this kind of mission, he needed somebody who knew like his own shadow.  As they reached the edge of the asteroid field, he switched on the camouflage, and the three fighters vanished from view as they emerged and flew towards the planet.  A dead-end planet in a dead-end part of the galaxy. They aimed for the small outpost. What the hell did they expect him to find here? And it was both Roks and Sig-San who had sent him.

“Why did you send him there?” Adam demanded. “It’s outside our jurisdiction, Anarchy space. It's so far from the Hub that the federation doesn’t even claim it.”

“Yes, but he is the best we have for these missions; he is our hunter. That’s why we made that task force in the first place. Mjonir is close by, and Iven is halfway a pirate in most people's eyes.” Sig-San said.

“You did a good job of giving him that cover.  Though Alak is the one I’m worried about. He got a million credits bounty on him after he killed the assassin Kun-Nar recruited. How many of his officers has he killed now?” Adam asked.

“Nine,” Roks grinned. “The bastard recruits somebody to be one of his ten gods. Alak finds them, and they are stupid enough to attack him.”

“Remember that Wossir inventor? Attacking him with a tank. I mean a tank against Jorks Dragonfighter? He isn’t recruiting the brightest one.” Sig-San added, and Roks laughed.

“Or that pirate that was supposed to be his new god of space.  He brought a damn hangar ship against him.” Roks said.

“Then they choose to fight him on the event horizon of a damn black hole.” Sig-San added.

Adam liked the guy, he was humble and preferred staying at home with his family rather than playing war, he was just so damn good at it. Only Roks was better.

Adam shook his head, then absent-mindedly checked on Hyd-Drin’s report. He should be through soon.  He missed him and wondered how he was doing as the two were going through Alak’s long list of accomplishments. He was only a few months away from reaching the other side.  Only a few months until the whole of the sector would again change. Either for the better or worse. He snapped back to reality and looked at the two.

“Okey, I get it, now can we get on with it and next time you send him that far away I want to be informed… before you send him!”

Roks was about to say something when Adam added the last part. He simply nodded and continued with the debriefing.

Half an hour into the meeting, Sig-San’s watched buzzed, and he looked at it and then sent the message to the big screen. The head of the Mugga Corp and his closest board members had been killed in a terrorist action. There was a video of the attack, and Sig-San cursed as he saw it.

“Shit! That’s not a nice way to go out.” Roks said as he watched the video. Some of them got blown out a window by an explosion.

Adam watched, stunned. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, that’s a false flag operation. Those guys are assassins, not fanatics.” Sig-San commented.

“How do you know!” Adam asked.

“That’s the uniform of the Mirkan’s  Bluebloods.  They are what you guys call communists, and pretty bad. They use suicide bombers and explosives. They would have blown up the whole tower, not just the restaurant.  And I have the whole leadership under surveillance.  Suddenly, several shots are fired from behind the camera towards the terrorist, and a speeder flies towards the tower, turning invisible. The feed changes to infrared, and they can see two agents attacking the terrorist, dragging three of the victims out as a three-droid jumps out and changes into the victims and ‘drops’ dead.

“I like their initiative. We need a dead clone body to replace them as fast as possible.” Roks says. Adam just watches silently.

“Well, I trained them well.” Then he turned to Adam. “So what do we do with them?”

“You just kidnapped the leaders of the Mugga corp.” Adam said calmly then pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought about all the possible ways this could go wrong. The best would be to just kill them. But as he thought it the captain came into his mind and he took a deep breath.

“Save them, get them the best healers we've got. Keep it a secret and let them see what happens. They can’t reach out, but let them observe. Don’t let them know who rescued them. Makeup group. Guardians of the Throne. A religious sect seeks a vision to save them from the false kingmakers. Place them on one of our hidden bases. If we play this right, then nobody will find out it's us.”

“Sure, we can set that up. I'll get hold of Arus to set it up. We keep them under for a month to heal.” Sig-San said as he sent the instruction and a message to Arus.

“Guardians of the Throne?” Roks asked.

“Oh, just something from Chris and Wei games, they made a guild and that was the name. First thing that sprang to mind.”  Adam said.

“Cool name, kids got the best imagination,” Sig-San said. Adam looked at him but was too afraid to ask.

The ships glided over the water as they approached the peninsula that had the only colony on this almost desert planet. The planet was only 25% covered by water, but areas were deep, reaching up to seventy kilometers. The colony was located near one of the small oceans, and the small ocean had a small purple jungle around the shores.  He spotted the landing area and the atmosphere one last time. It was breathable, but the place was strangely quiet.   He stopped over the surface, and the two wingmen stopped next to him. Hovering over the water, he looked over at DJ and gave the hang signal for scanning, then opened the communication and spoke in Wossir. “Hello? Anybody home?” Nobody answered, and DJ moved forward and flew over the city, replying in Wossir.

“Myga? Nobody here! The place is dead!”

Alak looks over at Dora, then replies to DJ. “Can you repeat that, Ulav?”

“The outpost is empty, only critters here.”  DJ replied, and Alak and Dora moved forward and flew over the place as the scan confirmed that the place was empty. He looked at the landing pads, then flew to the dock area and let his fighter land in the water, he activated the mudskin suit into a Wossir and got up then. Locked the ship and let it sink under the waves. It stopped 10 meters under the surface.

“Scan the planet and report back. The Sava company might pay great money if you find something of value.” He said, The Sava company was a well-known exploration company, and perfect to explain why a wossir was so far away from the central hub in search of easy money.  Alak didn’t know if anybody was listening, so everything they did was tailored to give them a cover. Even the ships didn’t look like  Wrangler Dragonfighters, but that was just the hull that was different.

“As you wish, good hunting and find us something we can sell,” Dora replied in Wossir.

Alak looked at the outpost, it was not a fancy one like Adams. Instead, it looked like somebody had escaped from a war and landed five capital ships and made them into a home.  He didn’t recognize the ships either. But they were dismantled to make buildings and homes. Some are better than others. He checked his pistol and rifle, then adjusted the visor on his helmet to show him a fifteen-meter radar around him. He checked the small toolbox and dagger. He slung the sling backpack over his shoulder and moved down the dock as if he had no worries in the world. Gods, he hoped this was just a wild ghost chase.

--------------------------- Cast ---------------------------

Alak – Rista, best pilot in Dirt Navy, married to Hima

Hima – Murgot, second-best pilot, now retired and married with kids.

DJ – Human elite pilot

Dora – Tufons elite pilot

Iven – the Nalos Captain of Mjonir

Adam, Sig-San and Roks – three guys talking about life.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Storms_Wrath on 2025-08-11 01:55:48+00:00.

First Previous Wiki

Penny awoke in a white room. Space was sitting nearby, as was Nilnacrawla and Lecalicus. She took a moment to center herself in her body. Nothing had changed, and she hadn't gained any more power, but she felt like she'd woken from a nightmare.

For several minutes, she simply paid attention to the sensations of life. Her heartbeat had slowed down to a regular level, her eyesight had returned to full capability, and she could now easily smell the faint scents of the two Progenitors.

Lecalicus smelled like a mixture of animals, while Nilnacrawla's scent was of copper and grass. Penny checked the mindscape and then her own mind, finding immense devastation to her consciousness and mental barriers.

She repaired the barriers, tried and failed to learn what had gone wrong from Revolution, and waited to address Cardinality and Liberation until she felt better. Liberation's demeanor carried an air of disappointment, mostly in the cessation of her war on slavery, but there was a deeper feeling, a rawness like an open wound.

By reaching out to the concept, she learned that it was because she'd tangled with the broader fate of the galaxy in some way, making decisions over countless individuals in a way that overrode their own choices. Penny didn't understand the enormity of that yet, but she made a mental note to address that later. Space's presence would be useful for that.

"What happened?" Penny asked. Her voice was as she remembered it, without a rasp or croak she'd expect after such an ordeal.

"Partial psyche collapse," Lecalicus said. "Happens to the best of us."

"Who did I hurt?"

"Penny, you-"

"Just tell me the names," Penny snapped.

"Kashaunta and the hivemind were slightly injured by the strain of the battle. They will heal. However, your attacks on them in their unified states caused the deaths of about 30,000 humans, and 19 million Sprilnav."

She nodded slowly, staring off into the distance. Millions of deaths. It felt even more impersonal now than ever before, after she'd experienced so much. But remembering how many lives had passed through her, and the anguish even a small group of deaths truly entailed, Penny struggled to find... something.

Something to blame, maybe, or a reason why she wasn't at fault, or even darker justifications for why it might have been necessary. The thought of such bloodshed, which she knew hadn't actually been for a good purpose, already being twisted in her mind to mean something it wasn't, scared her.

"I see."

Nilnacrawla's mind bridge communicated the rest. And she would need to take responsibility in her own way. Whether it was her fault or not, she had gotten people killed through her inability to contend with Nilnacrawla's memories.

She looked at him, knowing that the conversation would be difficult. Penny wasn't new to causing countless deaths, but this wasn't for a war against slavery. It wasn't to protect the Alliance or her people. Those people had died because of her failure, and she knew she could never make it right. When she'd had friends die, there had been well-wishers and sympathisers. Some of their words had even helped, but they didn't really heal the wound.

And from their perspective, this was murder, not a mere tragedy with no name or face. Penny felt guilty for plenty of reasons, including feeling more guilt over this than the deaths she'd caused before. She even felt guilty for that small part of her that didn't want to talk with the families of the victims, because there were so many, and she'd only come face to face with people who had every right to hate her, without any defense for her actions.

And so she needed to be proactive.

"I need you to destroy those memories, Nilnacrawla. This cannot happen again."

"The situation is handled."

"That was not a yes. Why not?"

"Because I am not going to erase the memory of my parents, my sisters and brothers, and my children for you. Yes, I love you, and have adopted you into my family. But they're my family too."

"Do I have to say it?"

"No. Those memories cost your species thousands of lives, and mine millions. I will bear that sin. But the Progenitors have ways of securing memories, which I also now shall use."

"That isn't good enough."

"No, it isn't," Nilnacrawla agreed. "And I wish the situation was less dangerous. But... we also will need training to handle mental attacks. This was not done by a conventional enemy, but there are plenty of Progenitors who know how to use memetic attacks. 67 of them now, if I am included in their number. The Conceptual Veil is an antimemetic effect, that actively prevents information about it from spreading to conscious minds. Whether you like it or not, this is something we will need to be capable of handling, if you are to achieve your goal of eradicating this enemy. And in this way, we will also close a massive vulnerability of ours, and become stronger overall for it."

"Do their lives mean nothing to you, then?" Penny asked.

"You do not need to emotionally manipulate me, Penny. The hivemind has expressed their meanings in full to me. I know their names, their faces, their favorite places to eat, the feelings of those who had already found out the truth of this, all of it. Yes, they matter to me. But you plan to set yourself against a foe not even the Rulers and Progenitors have managed to eliminate. You were nearly destroyed by a single memetic attack, powerful though it was. They, too, have killed Progenitors, and Nova assumes memetic attacks were how they did so. If you want to face this enemy, you will need to become better at handling these."

"A long way of saying they mean less."

Nilnacrawla scowled. His claws gripped Penny's shoulders. "If you wish to mourn them, or compensate them, that is fine. But we must consider the entire situation. Every Progenitor now knows this weakness of yours, and so the Initiative will learn of it, too. They have wiped out entire species before, Penny. They will do so again if they feel it is necessary. Will you bend, or will you break?"

"I already broke."

"And through Kashaunta and the hivemind, you are back together again. The responsibility of a Progenitor weighs heavy. If you wish to be alone, for me to leave, I shall. If you believe I am a burden, a risk to you, I accept that."

"You would have no one, without me."

"That is true," Nilnacrawla agreed. "But there are plenty of Progenitors who are alone."

"You seem so ready to abandon me, now."

"Laying accusations on me won't change our reality."

"But-"

"Perhaps you two do need some time apart," Space said, interrupting them. "Changing the fate of an entire galaxy is not an easy thing."

"Changing... the fate?" Penny stared at the conceptual being as it settled into a human form. She moved back from Nilnacrawla, letting his claws fall back to the floor.

"Technically speaking, there was a large chance that you died here. But with your continued survival, you might grow to outlast Entropy."

"But the cost-"

"And what of the millions of Sprilnav who died, then?" Lecalicus asked. "You don't seem to be shedding tears for them. In that respect, you're already half a Progenitor in mindset. Just add one more species to the list."

"Well, it's-"

"Either their lives mean the same amount as humans, or they don't. If they do, you have a strange way of caring for them, too," Lecalicus said.

"You've killed billions of people," Penny growled. "Don't you try to pin this on me like-"

"I didn't whine about it. Progenitors must look at the big picture. You gaining experience with memetic attacks will help you survive them in the future, as will teaching the hivemind how to do the same. And no, I haven't changed. But the cost of lives is one that anyone who makes a real impact pays. Rulers decide who gets attention, wealth, and a voice, and therefore who lives and dies.

Progenitors might have to choose to save one world and doom another. Your decision to wipe out the Initiative means billions will die. If you care so much about deaths, then don't be a hypocrite about it. That is all I ask. Take responsibility, but stand tall beneath it, not with a bowed back. All you can do is move forward, and ensure this doesn't happen again."

"Can I? No one knows the future."

"No. But preparing for it is still useful," Lecalicus responded. "Nilnacrawla, have you fully sequestered your memories?"

"I believe so."

"Prove it."

Lecalicus stepped forward, laying one of his claws on Nilnacrawla's head. Penny felt the vastness of their minds interacting, communications whirling between them far faster than the normal speed of thought. And then Lecalicus separated from them, but not fully. Pieces of his mind were still in contact with them.

Penny felt Space fortify the room they were in with additional conceptual energy.

"You know what to do, Nilnacrawla," Lecalicus said.

Nilnacrawla rubbed his claws together. "Right. Penny, this argument is beneath us, and it's clear we're just talking past each other. Let's handle this like mature adults."

"You want a full mind merge? After all that?"

"I have... experience with these sorts of things," Lecalicus said. "I will tak...

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