This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/LS_TOPHER on 2025-12-07 23:20:38+00:00.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so this text may contain grammatical or punctuation errors; Thank you for your understanding.

The maintenance bay of the Ohn’Var-Kei smelled of burnt ozone and resin.

The air was saturated with a deep hum that made the metal floor plates vibrate.

There, surrounded by machinery that seemed to beg for a break, Amara struggled to breathe, her face beaded with sweat under the orange glow of the reactor that had just come back to life.

The engine’s central module—an oval structure suspended by gravitational rings—swayed slowly.

The mechanical engineer brushed her afro hair aside with the back of her hand, smearing even more lubricant and carbide dust across her skin.

A spark flicked in front of her as she disconnected the diagnostic cables.

“Done,” she rasped, fingers tapping across her tablet. “Reactor stabilized, parameters at ninety-seven percent; it won’t collapse for a hundred standard cycles as long as it’s not overloaded again.”

Her quick fingers marked the remaining tasks as completed, triggering the closeout of the contract. “Repair completed; charge issued to the local council,” the display read.

A sharp chime confirmed the report’s transmission.

A few meters away, a group of Taz’Kra technicians watched from the upper walkway.

Their squat bodies, covered in orange plates, stood upright on four hind limbs while the two front ones—thinner, articulated, functioning like arms—twitched restlessly.

Their compound eyes flashed with fractal reflections, following her with a mixture of curiosity and disapproval.

One began to descend until it reached her level: the designated supervisor, Vuur’kai.

Its exoskeletal form stopped just a few steps away, the segments of its torso contracting with a faint keratinous crackle.

For several seconds, it started waving its front limbs in a slow, calculated gesture—expecting her to kneel, to “show respect.”

When she didn’t, a harsh murmur rippled through its gills.

Frustrated, the xeno straightened its dorsal structure, extending its four lower limbs; the movement brought its elongated head roughly to León’s waist height.

When it spoke, its skull opened slightly along the lateral seams, revealing vibrating gill filters.

“Impressive for… soft flesh,” it said, with the tone of someone offering a compliment that meant nothing. “However, our council did not authorize the transfer… so there is no payment… for today.”

Amara set the tablet on her belt and looked at it in silence for a few seconds; her breathing stayed controlled, but the tension showed in her shoulders.

Her figure reflected on the reactor’s thick surface—a tall woman, dark-skinned, with firm musculature forged by years of work in variable gravity.

The echo of her voice bounced between the tubes and metal plates.

“If you don’t release the credits, I’m not moving from here,” she said, voice firm and dry, paraphrasing clause 3.7. “Service fulfilled, service paid.”

Vuur’kai lifted two of its appendages, a gesture somewhere between denial and indifference.

“You don’t see it, human… you’ve already been…” the pause stretched, and an insult died between its mandibles, “USEFUL… that is enough.”

The silence that followed was thick, almost physical.

From the walkway, the technicians shifted, emitting short clicks—their equivalent of stifled laughter.

Amara looked toward the bay’s side port. Beyond the pressurized glass corridor, she could make out the silhouette of her ship: the Kirin-5, a modified personal freighter—compact but solid, its gray paint marked with the STAH emblem.

The Taz’Kra containment lights flickered around the docking hatch, forming a barrier that kept it immobilized.

The engineer clenched her fists, feeling the leather of her gloves creak.

She didn’t need to look at the alien to understand the situation: they wouldn’t let her leave, at least not without teaching her a lesson about who “ruled” that quadrant.

The roar of the repaired reactor filled the space between them.

Without a word, Amara turned to her toolbox, closed it with mechanical precision, and hooked it to her belt as her mind—caught between anger and cold logic—calculated the exact sequence of what she’d do next.

Vuur’kai emitted a faint clicking sound, satisfied, before retreating toward the upper platform.

The technicians slowly dispersed, murmuring among themselves in their dialect of clicks and vibrations.

***

The air in the central corridors of the Ohn’Var-Kei was denser, saturated with humidity and a salty smell seeping from the ventilation system.

Amara staggered forward, each step of her boots leaving a faint trail of oil and still-wet blood; the metallic taste lingered in her mouth where pieces were missing from her lower row of teeth, and a sharp throb shot through her jaw every time she breathed.

The swelling kept her from fully opening her left eye; her vision was blurry, but enough to distinguish the silhouettes around her.

Two Taz’Kra guards escorted her, their energy weapons charged and aimed at her in a warning posture.

The engineer stopped.

She turned her head slowly, looking at the guard with her single visible eye.

“You just broke a registered agreement,” she murmured, each word tugging a faint tremor from the corner of her mouth, “…and that has consequences.”

The escorts clicked—dry, brittle sounds that echoed as their version of laughter.

From the far end of the corridor, Vuur’kai closed the distance, the segments of his exoskeleton adjusting with wet sounds as he increased speed.

“Your contract,” he said, pronouncing the word with evident disdain, “does not apply outside your species. Here, you will learn our rules.”

The human looked at him without stepping back.

Her good eye glinted with something between exhaustion and contained fury.

When she spoke, her voice came out rough, with a faint hiss through broken teeth.

“…Then… you’ll learn what a… human default clause… means…” she said, her voice low but so cold it chilled the air.

For an instant, none of the three Taz’Kra moved.

Then, a bluish flash; Amara barely had time to recognize the high-pitched whine of an energy weapon.

Hours later, the engineer found herself in a large circular chamber with damp walls, a thin layer of greenish liquid seeping through the seams.

It wasn’t a dungeon in the human sense, but it served the same purpose.

A dim light coated the place, casting fractured shadows of the figures around her: specialists from different species—some sleeping, several groaning or rubbing their bruises, others just staring into nothing.

A massive being with brown, rough-textured skin shifted beside her.

Its limbs were broad, and its voice carried the low undertone of a mountain eroded by time.

“You’re new,” it said without lifting its gaze much. “Let me guess: you finished your job, they asked for a review… and then, silence.”

Amara looked at him, recognizing in his multiple eyes the dull reflection of resignation.

“They’ve done it before,” the xeno continued, settling heavily against the wall. “They hire us and then ‘detain’ us over false charges or ‘administrative errors.’”

“And why don’t you ask for help?” Amara asked, her tone sounding less like curiosity and more like a contained challenge.

The alien let out a deep, dry laugh.

“With what?” He raised his thick hands. “They take our communicators the moment they bring us in.”

Amara clenched the teeth she still had.

The memory of the blows—of how they’d taken her down in the maintenance bay—that metallic taste in her mouth—mixed with the surge of helplessness.

She knew she couldn’t have won that “fight”; their energy weapons would have punched through her flesh before she could even move.

She’d raised her hands, surrendered by strategy, not fear.

And even then, they’d beaten her.

The xeno offered her a gelatinous nutrient bar, in a clumsy gesture.

“Eat… don’t make things harder. It’s not such a bad life… if you learn not to think too much,” he said, voice heavy with exhaustion.

The engineer looked at him without answering.

Her fingers slid slowly toward the pendant she wore around her neck, a small metallic disc engraved in relief with the emblem of the STAH (Strategic Trade Authority of Humans)

The Taz’Kra had taken everything else—tools, communicator, tablet… but not that, mistaking it for some harmless cultural ornament.

She held it between her fingers, closing her fist gently.

The cold surface of the metal vibrated faintly—one short, almost imperceptible pulse.

The massive alien glanced sideways with the ocular appendage closest to her.

“What are you doing?” he muttered.

“Collecting what I’m owed,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the metal.

***

The void above the Ohn’Var-Kei stretched in every direction.

Inside, the calm of space shattered; the external sensors sent back scrambled readings, the diagnostic lights flickered irregularly before shutting down one by one, as if a liquid shadow were crawling over the outer hull.

In the control post, the technicians exchanged nervous clicks.

One of them leaned toward the console.

“Supervisor Vuur’kai… there is an… orbital obstruction,” his voice trembled. “It’s not in any of the records.”

The official approached, the translucent membranes of his neck fluttering in irritation.

“Incompetent. Be clearer.”

A gravitational flare shook the entire station, and the stabilizers groaned as they tried to counter it.

Space warped briefly, and what emerged from t...

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