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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Majestic_Teach_6677 on 2025-06-26 21:07:35+00:00.

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“Haasha!” Auggie called out as soon as I stepped off the shuttle with Jarl. His expression was serious. “Captain needs to talk to you, pronto. His office.”

Jarl looked at me with a concerned expression and just shrugged. No clues forthcoming from the big man, I slumped a little with worry.

I was going back. Back to the captain’s office again. In my experience nothing good came from such trips.

A bit tired from the full day of ice mining, I walked at my normal pace up to the captain’s office rather than run. At least Auggie didn’t insist on me getting out of my void suit before heading up, so I was at least saved from the indignity of talking to the captain with void suit fur.

I pressed the chime button on the captain’s door and waited for a moment until I heard him call out, “Enter!”

The door opened and my stomach started to churn as I saw the expression on Captain Victor’s face. This was looking like a ‘you’ve been a bad Haasha and got sent to the schoolmaster’s office’ situation. I steeled myself for what was coming, and tried to think what might have gotten me in trouble.

“Sir, if this is about the cleaning gel in Jarl’s shoes, let me just say he started it,” I said as I hopped up into the chair and tried to guess what this might be about.

The flat stare on Captain Victor’s face told a very clear story. First, this wasn’t about pranking Jarl. Second, there would soon be an inquiry regarding me pranking Jarl.

“We’ll discuss that in a few moments,” Captain Victor responded with irritation before taking a deep breath and continuing in a calmer tone. “You are aware that this is one of the first exploration missions humanity has taken with the greater galaxy, and there is added scrutiny. The galaxy is watching how humans conduct themselves, and so it’s vital we complete the mission professionally and without leaving unnecessary traces. Was this not made clear to you?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded calmly. “I tried to follow all the rules, and only complete assigned tasks without leaving anything behind.”

“If that’s the case, would you please explain this to me?” he said firmly while sliding an infopad across to me.

On it was a rather crude and cartoonish drawing that I had stamped out in the dust of the moon. It featured a human man with slightly wild hair sticking his tongue out. I sighed for a moment as I realized I hadn’t done the original image justice, but I still felt it looked perfectly recognizable. Susan assured me it was a famous image of the man.

“Oh! That’s the picture of Albert Einstein that Susan asked me to trace out!” I said excitedly. “I understand that he was a great human scientist, and she thought it would be neat to leave an image of him to honor how far human science has come.”

“But why is he sticking out his tongue?” Captain Victor.

For my part, I simply looked confused and had Tac-1 send a copy of the original image to the captain’s infopad. He looked at the image with a deep sigh.

“Susan said it was a famous and well-loved image of him. I know it isn’t the best copy, but if there’s time maybe I can head back down and work with Tac-1 to make it a little better,” I offered helpfully.

“No, that won’t be necessary. To be clear, Susan asked you to do this?” he asked calmly.

“Yes,” I responded and the look on the captain’s face made me think I had just tossed her under a shuttle.

“And what about this one?” the captain inquired as he pulled up an image from the moon with a mathematical proof I had stomped into the dust.

a = b

a^2 = ab

a^2 – b^2 = ab-b^2

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)

a+b = b

b+b = b

2b = b

2 = 1

“Isn’t that one awesome? It’s a proof that shows you that 2 equals 1! I didn’t know that existed in math, but Rosa said it would be a perfect message celebrating humanity’s understanding of the subject,” I offered with some enthusiasm.

The captain’s brows furrowed again. “Rosa, too…” he grumbled before taking a deep breath and looking me in the eyes. I gulped involuntarily as I realized that I might have just thrown Rosa under the shuttle with Susan.

His voice then took on the tone of an angry professor lecturing a wayward student. “This is a classic mathematical fallacy, and it fails on the 5th line because you divide by zero. What do you think this says about humanity?”

“Oh. Um. Humans understand math and have a sense of humor?” I offered weakly. The captain’s eyebrow just twitched.

“Let’s move on to this one,” the captain said with growing frustration.

This image showed where I had traced out a racetrack, complete with a well-marked start/finish line.

“Humanity has a competitive spirit, and that’s something the galaxy has quickly come to understand and respect about your kind. Jarl thought it would be neat to leave a racetrack from human history as a reference to that spirit,” I offered meekly. “It’s the long course at Watkins Glenn, and while not as famous as some of the other tracks in history it’s a really fun one. We ran it a bunch of times in Supa-Dupa Cart.”

“Right. Jarl. That figures,” he said as he scribbled a note on a datapad on a table next to him. Shuttle dispatched to run down Jarl as well?

The image on the infopad in front of me flipped to a new image and the captain’s interrogation continued. “Who asked for this one and what’s the explanation?”

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

“Well, Lynn felt that we had math, science, and competitive spirit covered, but nothing to do with art or literature,” I explained and then hesitated for a moment as I sent a silent apology to Lynn. Hopefully the shuttle chasing her wouldn’t knock her down, reverse over her, and then hit her again as it took off in a new direction. “It’s a really deep quote if you think about it, and it was written by a famous human named Shakespar in a book called MacDuff or Mac-something.”

“Yes, it’s from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and entirely absurd out of context,” the captain responded after letting out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll also point out that the story is a tragedy where a number of characters are murdered. Not exactly the most positive message.”

“Uhh… I can see your point, but I was just…” I tried to respond before the captain cut me off.

“Why didn’t you run any of these past Auggie or me? This is leaving significant things behind on a previously unexplored moon where the mission was to leave minimal traces,” he said with the perfect managerial ‘I expected more from you’ tone of disappointment.

“Except for Lynn, they’re my bosses. I assume they don’t do things without talking to you first,” I responded. ‘Sorry guys,’ I thought. ‘I hope the incoming shuttles don’t hit you too hard.’

Captain Victor looked at me with an expression that clearly indicated he wanted to strangle someone, but professionalism was preventing it. “Okay, then. We have one last to go over, and I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with any of your coworkers or supervisors.”

He slid the infopad in front of me one last time with an image that made my circulation freeze as I recognized it. There was a large arrow pointing at a box. Above the box were the following words:

Haasha pooped here.

“Well. Um. Yeah,” I said as my tail curled up and I brought my knees up to my chest to hug them while looking down, thoroughly embarrassed and trying to look small. Finally, I blurted out, “There was a bit of a Fruit-T-Bites incident in my suit. It was really bad and completely grossed me out. While it was in my suit and nothing got left behind, would you really want to step in the same spot where someone had a bad pooping incident? It’s a public service announcement, and that’s all me – not humanity! My race can take the blame for that.”

After a moment of thought, I changed my mind. I let go of my knees so they could fall back down to dangle off the chair, and I leaned forward to stare Captain Victor dead in the eyes.

With all the strength could muster, I responded forcefully. “Scratch that, it was the Fruit-T-Bites and it is representative of the things you eat. You humans can take the blame for it with your sugary junk foods wreaking havoc on my health!”