Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Size references, from left to right:

Arden, Chor, Jocker, Eskel, Neio

Content warnings(?):

miscommunication/misunderstandings, dehumanization via ignorance and calling human characters "it", light cursing, fears of death, a bit of rough handling, a lot of building up trust, and highly improbable, entirely made up space settings, species and languages. 

Honestly idk I was just having fun. Please leave questions or comments if you have any!

[Initiating Automated Ship Assistance Program Startup Sequence]

[...]

[ASAP Successfully Loaded]

[Retrieving Memory Storage… ✔]

[Linking To Central Database… ✔]

[System Operational]

[...]

[HELLO CAPTAIN. IT IS NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN]

Eskel stood tall as he listened to the familiar voice of the ship's AI, watching the text spill methodically over the main screen of the dashboard. 

"Ditto. Asap, give me a basic ship status report."

[CURRENT LOCATION: ATMO5 STATION, LEVEL 2, SECTOR 4, DOCKING BAY 9]

[INTERNAL TEMPERATURE: NOMINAL]

[INTERNAL AIR QUALITY: PRISTINE]

[FLIGHT STATUS: GROUNDED]

[DIRECTIONAL NAVIGATION: ONLINE]

[ENGINE: INACTIVE]

[FUEL CAPACITY: 99%]

[SKIP TANK: ONLINE]

[CARGO DAMAGE: 0%]

[HULL DAMAGE: 3%]

-

[ALL ON-BOARD AND INTERNAL OPERATIONS FULLY FUNCTIONAL]

[OVERALL DANGER RATING: 0%]

"Good to hear."

Eskel heaved a breath in relief. A 99% meant that they hadn't been ripped off on the resupply, and that the fuel lines to the skip tank had been repaired properly. If they hadn't been, there was no way they could get back on track in time to complete the delivery. Three sols on the ground had stalled them for long enough.

"Asap, open a new verbal log, timestamped."

[VOCAL ARCHIVE BEGIN] 

"Emiril Eskel, Captain of the ALTO Biomatter Transportation Unit, Identification 6008. 

The ship has been grounded at ATMO5 Station for nearly three sols, awaiting repairs after sustaining heavy internal damages from an unexpected environmental collision.

The crew is unharmed. Ship model parts had to be custom ordered but the reinstallation service seems to have gone well, despite the station's shadowy reputation. Company status may have had some effect on this.

The shipment is currently still in stasis, zero damages sustained.  Estimated cargo delivery in under five sols. We will depart immediately.

End log."

[VOCAL ARCHIVE END]

Eskel flicked on the monitor as he positioned himself at the helm, claws grazing over the familiar controls of the navigation dashboard. He was eager to take off again, only growing more and more uncomfortable the longer they spent motionless. Their contract had a time limit for the shipment after all, and while they wouldn't be late on arrival if they left now, they could no longer afford any more deviations from their course.

So as soon as every crew member was accounted for on board, the ship departed swiftly and silently from the bay.

Everything resumed on schedule, operating as intended, until a few ticks later when ASAP was programmed to perform the daily vital wellness scan. 

Eskel was where he usually sat during the time no one else on board was awake- in their relatively small communal area, lounging and leafing over information on his tablet. He was going over previous reports of the current shipment in preparation for their upcoming arrival, when ASAP caught his attention. 

[CAPTAIN]

"Hm?"

[THERE SEEMS TO BE AN IRREGULARITY IN TODAY'S SCAN OF CREW VITALS]

One of Eskel's ears twitched.

"What's the issue?"

[SENSORS INDICATE A SIXTH CARBON BASED LIFE FORM PRESENT ON THIS SHIP]

-

[THEIR POSITION RELATIVE TO THE REST OF THE CREW SUGGESTS A STOWAWAY]

The captain stiffened. A stowaway on his ship? To what purpose? Certainly it wasn't a hijacker, unless they were trying to steal a small company registered bioshipment mid-flight, which would be incredibly stupid.

But it was something from the station undoubtedly. Had they somehow snuck aboard the vessel, blind to their destination? Or did they know where they were going? Was his crew now part of some bigger, invisible scheme? All of those seemed highly improbable, but all walks of life on ATMO5 excelled in the unexpected. 

A hand rose to stroke his whiskers, trying to calm his nerves as he garnered as much information as possible; No sense in worrying if it was just a lost sprat stuck between the grates of the floor.

"Species?"

[UNDETERMINABLE. THEIR SINGULAR HEARTBEAT IS SIMILAR TO AT LEAST 200 CONFIRMED MICROSPECIES IN MY DATABASE]

-

[HOWEVER, AN ENERGY SCAN REVEALED SIGNIFICANT BRAIN WAVES, SUGGESTING INTELLIGENCE]

-

[THROUGH EXTRAPOLATION, I BELIEVE THEY ARE EITHER LOST, OR INTENDED TO BOARD IN SECRECY]

This stumped him even further.

Sprats did not have intelligence.

"Do you have any footage?"

[NEGATIVE. ALL OBSERVATION UNITS WERE DISABLED FOR DOCKING AND RE-ENABLED WHEN THE SHIP DEPARTED,

IN ACCORDANCE OF ATMO5 STATION LAW]

Eskel sighed, forgetting for a moment that ATMO5 didn't function like a normal station, abusing legal loopholes and allowing much shadier 'business' practices to go undetected. Even the ship's internal cameras wouldn't have been functional during their short stay, helping to keep the secrecy of everything in the station's perimeter.

If it were up to him, he'd have picked nearly anywhere else to get their repairs done. But, unfortunately, options were limited in such a state of emergency. 

Padded fingers drummed rhythmically on his lap as he thought of what to do.

"Can you pinpoint their location?"

ASAP didn't stutter.

[NEGATIVE. THEIR POSITION DOES NOT ALIGN WITHIN THIS SHIP'S MAPPED FLOORPLAN]

-

[IT SEEMS THEY ARE USING THE INNER REPAIR TUNNELS IN THE WALLS AND VENTILATION SHAFTS FOR PASSAGE]

Eskel pondered that for a moment. He didn't like the thoughts of something small living in the ship's walls and vents; They'd have access to nearly every room and, with some knowledge, could do large amounts of damage to major functions of the vessel; Crossing exposed wires, messing with ventilation, sabotaging the shipment or, even worse, the engine. What if they managed to worm their way to ASAP's control module? They would be able to control the ship's functions, cut off the air supply, release all of the cargo, ransom for whatever they wanted...

Needless to say this was definitely a concern. Eskel had never had something like this happen to him or his crew before, and he tried to handle it appropriately.

"Send an alert of the intruder to every registered crew member immediately.

Tell them to meet me here silently, and to look out on the way for anything that doesn't belong."

[NOTIFICATION SENT]

The crew was, rightfully, very nervous about the situation. The alert had stirred everyone from their rest, causing a disturbance across the ship. No one could fathom why something would sneak on board, or what their long term goal was. A very hushed emergency meeting was held, brimming with conspiracies. 

Chor and Neio speculated and placed bets over what it could be to relieve tension, ranging from sprats and venomites to tiny, mind reading assassins.

Jocker on the other hand, didn't care much for the other two always making a game out of things. While they were joking around, he went back to his quarters to seal off access to the vents and intruder-proof his surroundings as best as he could. For all he knew they were all in danger, and he warned the others that they might regret underestimating whatever they were up against.

Neio had offered to go on a hunt for this unknown sixth member, but was shut down by Eskel as soon as the idea arose. It bothered them all that something was afoot, but they couldn't just go gallivanting around the vents looking for it-- As easy as it was for Neio to fit into nearly anywhere it was still potentially dangerous to pursue, and if they got hurt there would be no way for the rest of the crew to perform a rescue.

Overall there was little the group could do other than be cautious and wait for something new to happen. Eskel had instructed ASAP to conduct more frequent scans to try to gain a better understanding of their little 'guest', telling the AI to notify him of any other irregularities or strange behaviours, but as another sol came and went they were greeted with nothing but silence.

As he settled to get some rest that night his suspicion got the better of him and he began to question the AI once again.

"Any new information on our little guest?"

ASAP popped open on the mobile screen attached to his suit.

[THEY CONTINUE TO SPEND EXTENDED AMOUNTS OF TIME AROUND THE BACK BAY, AND BENEATH THE LIVING QUARTERS]

-

[THIS DATA SUGGESTS THAT THEY ARE WARM-BLOODED, AND ARE UTILIZING THE HEAT RADIATING FROM THE HULL]

"No changes in any ship functions?"

[NEGATIVE. EVERYTHING IS ACCOUNTED FOR]

Eskel's eyes narrowed, his tail flicking in anticipation.

He always did love a good game of predator and prey.

Chapter Text

No one ever wants to go to ATMO5.

Arden knew that it would be nothing but trouble when he heard the name, but a job was a job and he had to do it.

In the middle of nowhere, governed by its own handpicked board of authorities on the upper decks and guns-for-hire below, the station was a hotspot for criminal traffic, laundering, and anyone looking to avoid the eye of the law. It served as a home to more than six hundred untraceable digital markets, banks and data analyzers, as well as massive physical markets for all different species to sell their services, no matter what it may be; Doctors, drug dealers, mechanics, mercenaries, you name it. If you were looking to buy or sell, you were welcome on ATMO5.

The trouble was, despite the chaos, the station still had its own laws and a zero tolerance policy for breaking them. For small offences, punishment was up to a fortnight in a cold, hard, lonely cell. For repeat offenders or more severe cases, consequences were anything from 'shoot on sight' to 'captured and never heard from again'.

Somehow, through the terrible chain of events that was his life, Arden had landed himself in an uncomfortable position somewhere between those last two.

He'd arrived at the station nearly a month ago on an overcrowded, unmarked ship, with nothing but a fake identification number to his name, and the meagre amenities supplied by the job. He was the only Human across their small fleet, which operated their ruthless scavenging routines under the guise of 'traders', travelling the cosmos stealing things to sell.

He knew that it was immoral, but over years of spacefaring with ragtag crews he had learned to keep his head down and his mouth shut, staying quiet about things he knew he shouldn't talk about. He often knew more than he let on about their questionable business affiliations, but there was hardly anything he could do about it as a human. It was a big universe, and as long as he got paid he didn't really care what happened.

Or so he told himself, up until the moment that they got caught.

It was pure pandemonium. The ships and everything inside of them were abandoned with haste as bodies scrambled in all different directions, fleeing for their lives. Sounds of pulsefire and indistinct yelling filled the pressurized atmosphere as the thieves scurried between the guards, disappearing into the  panicked crowds.

Arden never truly learned just what exactly went wrong that day, he just kept running. But since that moment things had only gotten worse. 

The station had confiscated everything. By the time Arden had come out of hiding to check if the coast was clear, there was nothing left- Not even a trace of an outburst. Perfectly, eerily, covered up. 

While he was grateful not to have been swept up like some of the others he saw, he no longer knew where to go. The ship was gone, he was out of his pay, and the nearest Human civilization was millions of lightyears away.

To make matters worse he couldn't speak or understand the regional common dialect, and the low-grade vocal transmitter he'd been given stopped functioning since it was being powered by the ship he was stationed on. Without it he was universally unintelligible, and he ended up taking money for it when an extremely bright-eyed Devori offered to buy it from him.

 Surviving quickly got hard.

Due to being one of the smallest known species on ATMO5 and to ever traverse the stars, not a lot of accommodations were available. Most beings that passed him by paid him no mind or didn't notice him at all, and more than a couple of times he was nearly crushed under boot, claw, hoof, or worse.

He wasn't too familiar with the many different aliens that he saw, unsure what to do whenever one of them approached him. A few had tried questioning him whenever they caught sight of him, and he'd explain himself cautiously every time, but they never reached a coherent solution.

Ultimately, the shadows of ATMO5 became like a new home to him. A filthy home that more often than not left him covered in grease and grime by the end of the day, but it was a place to stay nonetheless. Built by Os'awan engineers, the station harboured many holes that led deep into the wireframe of it all. Arden spent most of his days ducking and weaving through the piping and wiring tracks for access to different levels, stealing wherever he could just to get by. 

But it wasn't like the station didn't know he was there- their surveillance was everywhere. He was just so miniscule that on an intergalactic scale, they simply didn't care.

Hopelessness started to creep in after a week. Due to his ignorance in most of the present alien cultures and a lack of, well, everything, he couldn't get a job or talk his way onto a crew or be much use at all. He was nothing but an inconvenience now. A pest.

Yet, despite that, there were some rare instances where food vendors would take pity on him and give him bits of what they had leftover. He couldn't stomach some of what they gave him, but he was still grateful. Everything had value here, so even small acts of generosity were blessings practically unheard of. 

Days came and went, and so did life all around him at dizzying speeds. Plans to get off of the station seemed to slip between his grasp every time. Hours grew longer as staying nourished grew harder. His energy, inhibition, and optimism were waning fast. He became extremely dishevelled and unkempt, and the hopelessness bled into his soul, filling the growing void in him that he could no longer refuse to acknowledge.

He was never getting out of here alive....

Unless he did something stupid.

After countless hours of watching the docking bays from the shadows and studying the constant flow of traffic, one ship had caught his attention. Usually each vessel stopped for anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours at most, rarely ever spending a night, but this was the second day that Arden had seen it parked there and he began to study it a little more closely.

Just by looking at it he could tell that it was Os'awan made, the distinct architectural design being a blatant giveaway. He also recognized the logo painted on the exterior; a company that shipped plant matter between giant biodome farms and stations that held massive amounts of plantlife.

But he didn't need to know all of that to see that this wasn't just another shady undercover operation or a criminal warship- there were no huge weapons on the exterior, no thick plates of armour covering it's vitals, and barely a scratch on its body. This was a fancy cargo ship through and through, a bit out of place for the likes of the mid-level bay, but it might just be his big ticket out of here.

After all, he didn't care where they were going. He only needed to leave.

The next few hours were spent scurrying closer, and scoping everything out to devise a plan. From what he could tell with all of the bodies milling around it was run by a small crew, each a different species of varying shapes and sizes. And while they were all still much larger than him, they didn't seem too bad compared to some of the other creatures lurking around.

One of the crew members that he saw leave the ship was a copper-furred Devori, similar to the one that had bought the broken translator off of him a couple weeks ago. They were a stubby, peaceful species, visually resembling something between a giant possum and a chicken. Mostly known for their impressive technological feats, and their obsession with tinkering with scrap. Their kind frequented the station a lot, and weren't very threatening in his books.

However the other two that he watched leave the ship were much bigger and scarier than their fluffy crewmate. One of them, a lumbering Arcken with thick plates of armour down their scaly skin, was twice the height of the Devori. Even from a distance Arden could see dents and scratches in some of the plates as they turned around and headed to the front of the ship, where the crew was all gathering for some reason. He winced at the sight, hoping to never end up on the wrong end of the Arcken's notoriously short temper.

But even they weren't the scariest of the group. The tallest of them all, who he was sure was the leader, was the last to leave. They were massive compared to Arden, a strange cat-like species that he'd never seen before-- they almost reminded him of a black jaguar, with two sets of bright yellow eyes, and their slender form towered above not only him but everyone else in the crew.

Arden stared from behind his cover as they all conversed at the front, unable to tell what they were saying or pointing at. His eyes flicked over to the mechanical door of the ship, which had just begun to close after the captain's departure. 

Something snapped inside of him, and he made a break for it.

His legs carried him as fast as they could up the ramp and towards the narrowing gap, barely making it through before it slid shut, finalizing his decision with a loud hiss. He didn't give himself enough time to regret his choices, trying to hide first and foremost before he got caught. 

The inside of the ship was even more spacious than he'd imagined, with corridors as wide as a gymnasium and ceilings taller than any skyscraper he'd ever seen in his life. It put into scale once more just how small he was here, and he gulped as he quickly scanned the walls for any signs of entrance. If it was built anything like the station, he'd be able to sneak around just fine.

A ventilation grate, a loose lighting fixture, a fake screw in the threshold patterns; All seemingly normal things to find on a station or ship, but Arden knew better. They secretly served as veins connecting the walls together for the small Os'awan engineers to access the heart of everything, hidden from the common eye of the giants they sold their machinery to. 

Thanks to knowing what he was looking for, Arden was back within the comfort of the wall's tight corridors in just under a minute. He would have been faster but his lungs heaved with every breath, panic and adrenaline sucking the air right out of him. It took all of the energy that he had just to make the sprint, and he nearly collapsed when it ended.

He didn't know if he'd survive this situation much better than the last, but at least it was cleaner and much, much quieter. Even if he died in the walls it would be a lot more peaceful than rotting on ATMO5. At least up here he would wilt away among the stars, travelling to places no man has ever gone. 

But he wasn't giving up on himself that easily- Because that was what he'd signed up for in the first place, wasn't it? To carry life from Earth onwards into the universe, spreading a simple yet inexplicably special message of their existence. His job was to live, and he was determined to carry it out.

Unfortunately, the inner tunnels of the ship were much smaller than the station's, and built a bit more precariously. Humans didn't have sticky hands to cling to walls and ceilings, unlike who these passages were made for, and at more than a few points there were obstacles and gaps too big for him to jump.

Yet he tried one anyway, because he was certain that's where the water in the pipes was headed, and he barely made it.

His heart sank deep into his stomach as his feet kicked out against the flat edge, trying to find any sort of grip. His arms burned with the pressure to pull himself up, a display that would have gotten him laughed out of his old training courses, yet he still managed to clear it and made a mental note to never take that path again.

He was eventually led deeper into the winding metal maze and past a grate that connected to what looked like an organics lab, flourishing with hydroponic garden systems. Arden's mouth practically watered at the sight of a feyberry bush the size of a supermarket, its stems ripe with bright pink berries the size of his head. He didn't recognize many of the other plants, most of which were behind walls of temperature-controlled glass containers, but the water and food source alone was enough to convince him to come out of hiding. 

Arden sat for many hours watching and waiting until the ship's lights had dimmed, glad to see that it ran on a simulated day/night cycle like most places did. In the cover of dark he carefully began his first trek out; while he wasn't one hundred percent sure if everyone on board was diurnal, he hadn't seen any activity for quite a while and decided to listen to the little voice in the back of his head that was screaming 'now or never'.

Anxiety was high, afraid of being caught now that he was out in the open. He didn't want to be seen as an intruder- If it was up to him he would have just asked to tag along, but there was no way he could pantomime his way into a position on board with someone he had no idea how to communicate with. Instead he had to rely on his stealth and his minuscule size, hoping that they wouldn't notice his existence until he could hop off at one of the farms during a delivery and try to start life anew.

Thankfully, everything worked out well for a little bit. The fruit was easy to steal and he spent a while eating and recuperating near the back of the ship, lulled to sleep by the dull rumble of the engine. ATMO5 had been so chaotic that he'd nearly forgotten what it was like to get a full night's rest, and if he had a mirror he'd bet twenty bucks that at least one of the bags under his eyes had disappeared. He had a little more energy now for traversing and mapping out the inner structure, which he did as much as he could, even catching glances of his oblivious shipmates as he passed them by at heights they'd never think to look.

But just his luck, nothing ever stayed well for long. 

While feyberries were delicious, they weren't very sustainable to live off of. He was getting sick of staving off starvation with only bits of sweet fruit, and he knew that soon he would have to try and find something else. This led him to follow a secondary waterline on the top deck, to what looked like a kitchen of sorts. It was a place of frequent activity at almost all hours and had very few entrances from the walls. He'd been avoiding it so far at all costs, but he desperately needed to eat something new.

So he set out at the dead of night as per usual, being extra cautious of his new surroundings. If he heard even a crinkle in the distance he was ready to book it back to safety, and say screw eating for one more day.

But he couldn't run away if his feet couldn't touch the floor.

Just as he thought the coast was clear, the ship's gravity quit functioning in the middle of his jump. Arden let out a startled yelp and started grasping for anything to hold onto as he started to ascend, but this only managed to drift himself out more, now too far to reach anything. 

His heart beat like a war drum in his chest as he realized that he was currently stuck in mid air, multiple stories off the floor. He was vulnerable to pretty much anything, and was sure to at least break a rib or two from the fall depending on how fast the gravity came back. If he survived it at all.

He stared at the ground, feeling dizzier by the moment, until something even worse than impending death caught his eye.

Or rather, someone.

Two sets of large yellow eyes narrowed in on him from across the room, the massive alien completely unaffected by the ship's strange activity. Arden nearly went blind with panic.

He was so, totally, utterly, fucked.

Chapter Text

Over time, Eskel grew impatient.

Whatever game this intruder of theirs was playing at was driving him up the wall. It seemed they were keen on staying hidden and out of their sight, for what means he couldn't tell, but he felt insulted by the notion of his ship being used as a taxi for a criminal.

ASAP gave very inconclusive information whenever he questioned about it. The feeling that they were being watched was always present, but whenever he looked around there was never anything there. He wasn't really the nervous type, but it irked him that he couldn't gain the upper ground on what was going on. For once, he felt like the one being hunted.

At least until a ping had alerted him late one evening, of news he hadn't heard before.

[CAPTAIN]

The AI beckoned him, stirring him from his restless slumber.

"Hmm? What is it..?"

[IRREGULAR MOVEMENT HAS BEEN DETECTED

IN THE BIOMATTER LABORATORY. IT IS LIKELY

THE UNDISCOVERED LIFEFORM]

Eskel's feet kicked into motion, all sense of fatigue lost.

He'd been waiting for something, anything to happen, and now was his chance. He grabbed a weapon in case whatever it was tried to attack him, and snaked silently through the dim corridors, trying not to make a sound. Outside the lab's entrance, he paused.

"Asap, update?"

He whispered into his suit. There was a second before ASAP responded with a silent string of text: 

[ALL ACTIVITY HAS CEASED] 

Eskel stood up to his full height and walked in without another word, scanning the room with a scowl. Nothing seemed out of place. Irritation bristled his short fur.

"Footage?"

ASAP immediately sent the video footage that initially triggered the alert, but it wasn't very helpful. At best all he could see was the feyberry bush rustling an abnormal amount, and a small dark figure darting between the leaves. 

Whatever it was, it seemed to be stealing food from them too and it would only be a matter of time before it needed to come out again.

But, next time, Eskel would have a plan.

He waited patiently for another 27 ticks before hearing another alert from ASAP, and as soon as he was notified of the suspicious activity he dove into action. This time the culprit was reported to be in the communal cooking centre, and Eskel wasted no time in getting there himself.

"Asap, cut the SGS of the upper level."

[DECK 3 SIMULATED GRAVITY SYSTEM SUSPENDED]

Before Eskel could float from his next step he quickly flipped the switch on his suit that enabled manual gravity in the event of an SGS failure. The rest of the crew would just have to ignore the disturbance, if they were awake to feel it at all. This took priority.

His grip tightened on his weapon as he turned the corner into the room, ready to find anything.

Except a Human.

Eskel almost laughed at their tiny panicking form drifting in the air like a wayward asteroid, clearly caught off guard by the sudden loss of footing. This is what he had been so worried about? This was the intruder that made him worry about the safety of his crew throughout every night cycle? Unbelievable .

The captain slowly crept forward, unable to hide his bewilderment.

He'd never actually seen a Human before in person, but he was almost certain that's what this was. It definitely wasn't an Os'awan, although it was the size of one, and it didn't seem to exhibit any common deimatic behaviours. It simply curled up away from him as if it could fold itself out of existence, no longer meeting any of his eyes. 

Eskel's growing irritation was dissipating, replaced with sheer curiosity. What was one of these doing all the way out here?

He asked it, but unfortunately it didn't seem to understand his questions.

Cautiously he reached out and cupped the small defenseless primate in his hands, before instructing ASAP to return the gravity. The Human flinched upon making contact with his skin, but it was barely visible amongst the other vibrations that wracked its body. Eskel didn't entirely understand what this behaviour meant- hopefully it wasn't sick or injured.

Figuring that the ship might have some useful information to give, he wordlessly covered the Human so it wouldn't fall and descended into the organics lab.

It was much brighter in there, allowing him to take a better look at the stowaway in his hands; In hindsight it might not have been the best idea to just grab it out of the air like that without knowing what it could do, but Eskel brushed off the concerns as he raised the other to his eyes to get a better look.

The Human was, surprisingly, looking back at him now. Its strange white eyes were wide and bright, like two tiny glossy moons, tracking his every move. They also seemed to be leaking something, resurfacing the captain's worries about it being injured.

Very carefully he placed it in the biomatter analyzer, watching in interest as it scrambled out of his hand and into the far corner of the chamber, still staring him down.

ASAP performed a thorough scan of the organic entity, but the results were underwhelming. The only information on them in the central database was an old planetary log, containing only a basic amount of uploaded knowledge from a first-contact a little while ago.

Eskel leaned back, observing in interest as the AI displayed as much information as it could.

_____________[BIOLOGICAL ENTITY SCAN]_____________

[ORIGIN: TERRA-9, SINGLE STAR SOLAR SYSTEM]

[DESIGNATED SPECIES: HOMOSAPIEN, DIURNAL]

[HEIGHT: 1.6 UNITS]

[WEIGHT: 13.9 UNITS]

-

[HOMOSAPIENS "HUMANS" DERIVE FROM A MINERAL-RICH GALAXY

IN THE MW-13 QUADRANT, FROM A DENSE GREENLAND PLANET

COLLOQUIALLY KNOWN AS "EARTH"]

-

[THEY ARE SMALL SOCIAL BEINGS, KNOWN TO BE TIMID AND WARY.

THEY ARE OMNIVOROUS AND CONSUME ORGANIC MATERIAL

AND ORGANISMS NATIVE TO THEIR HOME PLANET,

BUT ARE NOT ADVERSE TO MANUFACTURED SYNTHETICS]

-

[THEY ARE PRONE TO DISEASES AND, AS SUCH,

THRIVE BEST IN CLEAN ENVIRONMENTS.

THEY ARE NOT VENOMOUS, BUT SOME ARE

CONSIDERED EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE]

Eskel glanced over to the one he had in the chamber, noticing with slight amusement that it shrank from his gaze alone. It didn't look very aggressive in the slightest, but it was also barely the length of one of his hands and seemed to be well aware of that. 

He continued to marvel over its minuscule fleshy features while ASAP rambled off more facts. 

[A HISTORY SCAN OF THE LIMITED AVAILABLE DATA

REVEALS A COMPLEX SOCIETAL STRUCTURE,

SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE EJUN QUADRANT]

-

[WHILE THEY ARE NOT THERMOREGULATORY, THEY ARE KNOWN

TO SURVIVE IN BOTH FRIGID AND SEARING TEMPERATURES

WITH APPROPRIATE BODY COVERAGE]

"Can you tell me details of its current condition?"

[NEGATIVE. EXTENSIVE MEDICAL, PSYCHO, AND PHYSIOLOGICAL

RECORDS ARE NOT PRESENT] 

-

[HOWEVER, COMPARING VITAL SCANS FROM EARLIER AND DATA

OF SIMILAR MICROSPECIES INDICATES THAT THIS ONE IS

CURRENTLY SUFFERING FROM AN EXTREMELY

ELEVATED HEART RATE]

-

[IN SOME SPECIES, STRONG EMOTIONS CAN CAUSE

ATYPICAL PHYSICAL REACTIONS. THIS CURRENT BEHAVIOUR

MAY BE A STRESS RESPONSE TO THE NEW ENVIRONMENT]

-

[CAUTION IS ADVISED IF YOU DO NOT WISH

TO WORSEN ITS PHYSICAL STATE]

Eskel paused his questioning to think.

He hadn't been prepared for this to happen. As a captain it was his duty to secure the safety of his ship and crew and deal with any intruders, but he could see now that they were never in any danger. All of their fears had been self projected- one lone unarmed Human couldn't cause them any harm.

But that didn’t mean he could just let it roam around freely. While it wasn't a hijacking the Human still snuck aboard and stole from them, which were crimes of their own. At this point Eskel should have already alerted the company and the authorities and had the intruder escorted off of their ship as soon as possible, but something stopped him.

Such a fate would certainly be condemning the fragile little thing to its death, and while he wasn't very happy with how everything had played out he also wasn't a killer. There had to be a reason why it was so far away from home, a story of how it had got to ATMO5 to begin with, and why it chose his ship to hide of all places.

In a strange sense he felt almost lucky, simply from the rarity of the encounter, but he still didn't know what to do about it .

After a hefty consideration, he finally spoke up.

"Is it possible for it to live on board with us?"

[REQUIREMENTS TO SUSTAIN THIS LIFE FORM HAVE BEEN MET.

KEEPING THE HUMAN ON BOARD WOULD NOT BE AN ACTIVE

DETRIMENT TO OUR RESOURCES]

-

[HOWEVER, I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THEIR MANNERISMS

AND GENERAL HEALTH. IF YOU WISH TO MAINTAIN PROPER CARE,

I SUGGEST LOCATING A BEHAVIOUROLOGIST

OR A HUMANITARIAN EXHIBIT]

Eskel looked down, meeting its tiny, watery stare once more. Their current journey was coming to an end as they neared their destination, and they had nothing scheduled for after its completion. It would be entirely possible to use some of the pay from this contract to locate someone with more information, but it would be coming out of his own pocket to do so.

Yet he found he didn't mind that fact, now more intrigued by the Human than anything. There was nothing he liked more than discovering something new, and the perfect opportunity had just presented itself to him. Keeping it aboard would be an interesting decision, albeit one he was willing to try.

Unfortunately, communication wasn't possible. He tried talking to it in as many languages as he knew but it seemed that nothing was coming through, even with the translation set to the slowest speed. Treating it like a prisoner didn't strike him as the right approach if he wanted to keep its tiny overworking heart intact, but he was left with little other options considering the circumstances. He hoped that, eventually, they could reach an understanding and sort things out.

"Is there anything about it's lifestyle? Any particular sleeping habits or environments?"

ASAP paused for a moment, scanning everything again thoroughly. 

[THE INFORMATION IS INCONCLUSIVE, BUT DATA SUGGESTS

THAT HUMANS FIND COMFORT IN CLOTH

AND SOFT SURFACES]

-

[I RECOMMEND USI--

Before the AI could finish, Chor came bounding into the room on all fours, skidding to a halt at the sight of Eskel awake.

"Esk, what was up with the gravity? Was that you?"

She chirped frantically, looking around the room for other signs of distress in the ship. As the crew's technical expert it was no surprise that the Devori was troubled by the disturbance and came to check things out.

Eskel gave her a sign of confirmation.

"Apologies for the disruption, but I have found who has been hiding on our ship."

Chor's ears immediately perked up in excitement, and she scrambled up onto the table to peer into the analyzer. Eskel stepped aside to let her get a better look, the custom translator on her neck flashing all sorts of colours as she stared in astonishment. The Human kept itself flattened against the back wall, matching her wild stare.

"Woah… "

"I have no idea what it is doing here, but I figure we should keep watch of it now that it is no longer crawling around in our vents."

Chor chittered in agreement. This was a rare find, and it would definitely be beneficial to learn more about them. She continued talking to Eskel, not taking her eyes off of the strange creature. A small part of her celebrated no longer being the shortest one on the ship.

"Where can we keep them?"

"I was just getting to that…"

Eskel trailed off, taking just a little too long to respond, his tail flicking in thought. Chor chuckled, immediately picking up on her boss's act. 

"You don't have any ideas, do you?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Well, what is their home like? Can we imitate the environment?"

ASAP was happy to answer that question.

[HUMANS ORIGINATE FROM A LUSH PLANET

DOMINATED BY LARGE BODIES OF SEAWATER]

-

[DESPITE THIS THEY ARE NOT AQUATIC, AND MAINLY

RESIDE INLAND NEAR SOURCES OF POTABLE WATER]

-

[THEIR SHELTERS ARE BUILT WITH BOTH ORGANIC AND INORGANIC

MATERIALS, AND ARE NECESSARY FOR THEIR SURVIVAL]

Chor gave it some thought, looking around for anything that could be of use. An idea immediately dawned on her, but she wasn't sure how keen the captain would be on following it.

She proposed it anyway, suggesting that they use an empty botanical specimen tank as a shelter as it would be easy to enrich it with plantlife and water. It would be big enough for the Human to walk around in, but not big enough for them to lose it, and it would only open from the outside.

Surprisingly, Eskel had agreed. With everything that they'd learned and the supplies at their disposal the two constructed a rudimentary Human holding cell with lots of plants and water, complete with a soft fabric nest in the center. It looked pretty good overall, considering it was supposed to be a prison.

Their subject in mind had been watching them from the analysis chamber with what seemed like mild interest as they moved about, fretting over the new enclosure, but when it came time for the actual relocation it seemed less than thrilled about being involved.

It let out a small yelp and a string of unintelligible vocalizations as Eskel's hand approached, backing itself into the corner once more. But he just kept reaching in, until he could gently hook a claw underneath and tilt forward, peeling it away from the walls.

It stumbled onto his padded palm, trying to scramble away, but ceased all protesting as soon as Eskel's hand lifted into the air. It began trembling again, limbs curling up in what he and Chor assumed was an illusion of self-protection, prompting the captain to act swiftly.

Thankfully, once deposited inside, the Human immediately started to investigate the new surroundings. It hid from their sight in the brush as soon as it discovered that it could, but Eskel didn't take it personally. 

He was too tired to feel anything, really. He'd been losing more and more sleep stressing over this whole ordeal, and now that he knew there was nothing more to worry about the fatigue struck him deep. He placed the container on the center table in perfect view of ASAP's observation units and instructed the AI to notify him if it somehow managed to escape while no one was looking.

With the cargo delivery in a couple of ticks, and with seemingly no more interactions able to be squeezed out of their newest addition, he and Chor retired for the duration of the night cycle.

Chapter Text

Arden's heart slammed against his ribcage as he hid, watching from behind a leaf as his two massive captors sealed him away in what was essentially a giant jar and left the room. 

Despite not being hurt he couldn't stop himself from shaking, and in under a minute his brain and body had succumbed to sheer panic. He dropped to the floor, his trembling hands finding no comfort in the smooth, cold surface. In fact, they could barely feel anything at all. 

His breaths came in rapid gasps, the corners of his vision starting to haze. He couldn't count how long it'd been since he felt so afraid, or how many years it'd been since he cried so hard. They didn't outright kill him, but he felt they may as well have.

While he was glad to be on solid ground again, he was still stuck as a prisoner to these clearer-than-glass walls. At best, they would likely keep him as a pet. At worst, an experiment. 

He could see himself in the worst of every scenario that crossed his mind. Starved to death, picked up and prodded, strapped to machines, thrown out of the airlock, eaten alive…  

His brain tormented him for the better part of an hour before it seemed like he had nothing left to cry out. All of his built up panic and fear of being caught over the last month had left in the form of tears that streaked through the dirt on his face, leaving in their wake a hollow husk of a person.

He felt completely, utterly, hopelessly, empty.

But somehow a little better.

For a while, Arden stared out of the glass at the gargantuan room beyond. He hated that he couldn't communicate his sentience, that couldn't say he was sorry for sneaking aboard without permission and that he never meant to cause harm. He didn't speak the regional Common, and from his begging earlier it seemed like their translators couldn't process English.

He could only wish on every star they passed that they knew he was intelligent, and that something about this situation would eventually change for the better.

But it wasn't too bad right now he told himself as he looked around, trying to find at least one positive side. He was still alive and breathing and unharmed, and by the looks of the cage they'd given him they seemed to care at least a little about his comfort. Eventually, he composed himself enough to peel himself off of the floor. Crying his eyes dry had done a number on his thirst, and his tired feet dragged as his legs pulled him towards the nearby water source.

Thankfully they hadn't taken away any of his supplies. His water bottle was still attached to the carabiner on his belt, and his heavy duty pocket knife was still in his pocket. Not that it would be of much use for defending himself, but it may still come in handy.

The cold water they gave him was beyond refreshing, and a much needed pick-up. He drank as much of it as his body would allow, and filled his container to the brim with a clean supply before deciding to stick his hands in.

He scrubbed the caked-on dirt and grime out of the creases of his skin, even going so far as to dunk his whole head in. It was a little too cold to wash the rest of his body, and he didn't entirely want to go to bed wet, but his hair finally being clean felt good on its own. It was long overdue for a cut, and he grimaced as he felt how long his facial hair had gotten. He probably looked like a polished wild animal.

The water was murky by the time he was done with it, but it was worth it. There was enough clean water in his container to last a few days if he was stuck in here doing nothing for the duration, but hopefully they would notice before then. He'd need a new supply sooner or later, if they intended on keeping him. 

A very long sigh escaped him as he calmed down and looked around once more, truly taking in his surroundings.

Even if he could escape, there would be no point in it. He had nowhere to go but back to starving in the walls, and if he was caught again he could almost guarantee that they wouldn't show as much mercy as this. For his mental and physical health, hiding in here was likely his best option of survival, so although he was tired he took out his knife and began to tamper with the environment in the enclosure.

The long, scarf-like fabric they gave him served well as a makeshift tent, supported by thick sticks and stems that he hacked off of some of the plants they gave him. It wasn't easy to drag it around through the leaves but after spending the night cutting, twisting and tying enough stems together he'd finally built an adequate shelter. It was tucked up against the wall in the heart of the replica jungle they gave him, and completely obscured him from view. 

He felt like a hamster as he crawled into it, or a child in a blanket fort, but he couldn't deny the sense of safety that the ignorance to his surroundings gave him. Of course he left himself little holes in the leaves to peek through the glass, but for the most part nobody else could peer in and that thought alone was enough to let him relax, just a little.

Before too long he fell into a rather deep slumber, completely drained from his efforts and the night's terrifying events.

-

The morning came much too quick for his liking. 

Despite getting hours of undisturbed rest, Arden still felt exhausted when every room in the ship brightened once again. Everything in his body ached, from his throbbing brain to his empty stomach, down to his blistering feet. He could barely scrape up enough energy to stand.

So, he figured, he simply wouldn't. If his captors wanted anything out of him, they were going to have to reach in and pull him out themselves. He was too tired to care.

He stayed like that for a while, resting on a piece of the soft fabric they gave him. Although it smelled a little strange it was far from unbearable, and the comfort it brought was honestly a luxury. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept on something separating him from the ground, or the last time he'd had a proper pillow. Laying there with his face pressed into it, fading in and out of consciousness, was the best he felt in ages.

Unfortunately, it couldn't last forever. As the day began and the crew woke, voices rose. Despite being muffled by the glass the sounds were loud enough to keep him from fully falling asleep, and he was jerked awake for good after a loud thud that shook his entire enclosure. He couldn't really tell, but it sounded like an argument broke out.

Curious as to the cause, and wondering if it was him, Arden fought through the pain to crawl over to the glass. He peeled back one of the leaves, and wearily peeked out at his surroundings.

Sure enough, the Arcken had slammed their boulder-sized arm down on the table, the thick plates of their grey skin woven together like solid rock. There was steam coming out of some of the bigger cracks in their body and they were glaring up at the captain, arguing something in a gravelly voice. The display was enough to make Arden feel scared from inside a locked box, but the captain didn't budge. They simply stood tall and gave a cold stare back, lacking any expression.

Somehow, that was even more frightening than the Arcken's temper.

It was exactly the way they'd looked at him while he was in the chamber, and Arden could practically see the line of tension between the two of them. 

Behind them stood the rest of the crew- the fuzzy Devori from last night and a mysterious member Arden didn't know was on board until now- both watching the conflict in apprehension. Or at least Arden figured the strange smooth-skinned one was watching-- he couldn't really see any eyes.

After an eternity of a few seconds, the captain finally spoke. Whatever they said seemed to completely end the argument, even though the Arken still looked furious. The plates slowly shifted back to normal as they raised their arm from the table and brought it back to their side, and they shot the botany tank a venomous look.

Arden gulped as he realized that he was indeed a factor in this reaction, and he ducked back into his little hut as the rest of the crew looked his way. Clearly, they were mad at him. He wondered for the umpteenth time if climbing aboard was really the best choice to make, but he was here nonetheless. He just had to lay low for a while, and try his best to avoid pissing them off any further.

-

Barely any more voices were heard for a while, and from where they kept him Arden couldn't see much except an occasional shadow passing by. It was eerily bleak in terms of anything happening, but he definitely felt when the ship stopped moving and when they cut the engine.

His pulse quickened as he thought about why they'd be stopping already-- This was a shipment vessel built for long journeys, and while there was a chance that they'd simply reached their destination, he couldn't shake the feeling that they'd found somewhere along the way to get rid of him. His mind ran with the worst of his ideas, and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest as a shadow approached the room.

It turned out to be the Devori, who leapt up onto the table much like they had last night. Their big glossy eyes were glued onto the shelter he constructed, but they made no move to open the lid and rip him out of it. Instead they started to circle the entire cage, making hardly a sound until they got to the dirtied water compartment.

Arden couldn't see that part of the enclosure from where he hid, but he could hear it being tampered with. He could hear slight rattles and scrapes, of metal on metal, and a short chirp a minute later once the noise had finished.

After taking another big sip from his water bottle, he realized that he'd drank more of it than he thought. The clean water tasted absolutely amazing and he found he couldn't stop himself from downing the rest of it right then and there, praying that he was right about there being more for him later.

And, thankfully, there was. 

The Devori had left him alone for the most part after their initial inspection, and with a nervous glance around Arden finally emerged. Although the alien was still in the room they didn't seem to be paying him much mind, too busy tinkering with something in their lap, and he forced some of his anxiety to abate while he went to check out the new water. 

It was only when he was re-filling his container did the Devori actually notice that he was finally out of the tent, and their whole being perked up in interest upon meeting his wary gaze. 

Arden's entire body froze as the two locked eyes. He was tensed to flee at any given moment, but as seconds ticked by in silence and neither of them moved even a muscle, it became clear: They were waiting on him to do something.

Very slowly, he raised the container to his lips and continued to drink. He had no problem with simply being observed in daily life, knowing that his behaviour was likely strange to them. He'd gotten lots of stares before from his old crewmates, sometimes over completely mundane activities- The look on their faces the first time they heard him sneeze was priceless.

But not running away seemed to give the Devori the confidence to come a little closer. It wasn't a threatening approach, if Arden was reading their body language right, but one of interest. They were known to be extremely curious and smart, and it didn't feel like he was in trouble, but he still took a few steps back from the wall in worry. He was in no shape to defend himself if he was wrong.

However, they stopped moving as soon as he did. Like a confused dog their ears folded back and their head tilted a couple degrees, a small chirp being sent his way. Arden didn't know what it meant, but after some consideration he decided to stand his ground as they tried another hesitant step forward. They'd been nice enough to refill the water, after all. Maybe he could find a way to ask for food, too.

Even before failing his mission in the kitchen his stomach had been miserably empty, and while he was no stranger to either of them the pain and weakness was starting to take a heavy toll on his body.

"Hey, Copper..."

He mustered the courage to call out after a few moments, addressing them by their colourful fur in lieu of a name. He knew that they couldn't understand him, but the fact that he said anything at all seemed to fully captivate their attention. 

Hesitation flooded through him. Would they be upset if he asked for food? Would they even understand? Would they laugh and turn him down? He was clearly in no position to be demanding things, but the chance to quell his gnawing insides was worth a shot.

The Devori stared back at him, much closer than they were before, their big black eyes tracking his every move as they waited for him to continue. Arden figured he better speak up before he lost his voice again.

"Look, I know I'm in shit for stealing from you but I'd rather not starve to death in here..." 

He sighed, wrapping his arms around his abdomen to emphasize his pain.

"Could you toss me something? I don't care if it's last week's scraps." 

Copper blinked. Arden tried another approach. 

He raised his hands to his face, and took an exaggerated bite out of a big, invisible sandwich, chewing the air for extra effect. Even the thought of it was making him hungrier, and a ripple of pains coursed through his midsection. He tensed until it passed, swallowing the tight feeling in his throat as he scanned the other for any sense of recognition.

More chirps and chitters came, accompanied by another, more distant, disembodied voice. It was difficult to tell who they were talking to, as the sound seemed to be coming from every direction, but after a short period the communication ended all together.

Without a second glance in the tank's direction Copper turned and hopped down from the table, and disappeared into the halls. Arden's knees buckled slightly as he watched his one shot fail horribly, like always. He'd doomed himself to die in here, one stupid mistake after another. That was his life, after all....

Or so he told himself, until another shadow appeared. It was Copper again, holding something in their hands. As they grew closer Arden could see that it was a couple of feyberries, and one he couldn't recognize; His heart practically skipped a beat as he realized that his needs were not only heard, but being heeded. Despite being tired of the berries, the prospect of having anything to eat was enough to drive him forward, and he met the other at the glass.

His hands were pressed against the wall, but were quickly tucked away as Copper pushed something on the interface and the whole thing began to slide down like a car window from an old Earth movie. Arden took a few steps back. With the entire front wall collapsed like this it would be easy to escape, but he had no intentions to run. He simply stared in hopeful anticipation as the Devori's strange paw-hand grew closer, depositing the berries beside the water source.

Once their giant furry limb had retracted they were quick to seal the wall back up and observe his actions. Deep-down it was a gut-wrenching sight to see, but such was his life now. He tried not to let the thoughts of being fed like a pet pester him too much, and decided instead to show his gratitude. 

"Thanks, Copper. 'Preciate it."

He had no idea if the kind gesture would translate or offend, but he gave the Devori as genuine of a smile as he could, and a big thumbs up. It was nice to know that even though he was trapped here under their control, they didn't all seem to hate him. 

But just as things were looking up between the two of them, a loud noise emanated from the back of the ship. Copper's ears twitched in interest and with one last chitter in Arden's direction they left him, locked up and alone once more. 

Chapter Text

The delivery was a huge success.

Despite the collision incident the shipment had arrived a few ticks earlier than expected. This was a pleasant surprise to the biofarm owners, who expressed nothing but gratitude as the crew detached and unloaded the cargo to where they needed it. Everything moved along smoothly, and their accounts were automatically paid in full through ASAP's system as soon as the delivery was labeled as 'complete'.

Upon re-entry of the ship, Eskel was greeted by Chor. It was company policy to have at least one crew member remain on board during deliveries for security reasons, but the fluffy inventor had actually volunteered to keep an eye on their little guest while they were docked. The captain had no hesitation in trusting her with that, curious himself about the Human's actions but too busy to observe them.

Jocker brushed past the two of them as they stopped to chat in the cargo bay, but they paid him little mind. He'd been especially grumpy lately and neither of them wanted to risk any steam. 

"So, did anything happen while we were gone?"

Eskel asked as he undressed some of his equipment, placing it in the small storage area by airlock doors. He wasn't expecting much of a response, but Chor practically buzzed in excitement.

"Yes! They came out of hiding, and communicated with me! I learned so much, they're really expressive."

Eskel shot her a look of interest, urging her to hastily spill more as they made their way up to the ship's main floor. 

"They're very shy, but brave enough to let me come close! I think they were expressing hunger, so I gave them some of the fruit they were taking- and I think they liked it? I'm not sure how fast their metabolism works but I've recorded everything in my studylog, and I'll see if they need more later."

Chor went quiet just before they reached the organics room, hesitating for a moment before stepping in front of Eskel and cutting him off. If it were anyone else the captain would be irritated, but this strange behaviour from his friend only intrigued him.

"...Can I bring up a concern?"

"Of course." 

"I know I proposed it, but I'm not so sure the biomatter container is a great place for them to stay. I had to change the water supply already, which they seem to be using for hygienical care, and I worry about the long-term effects of their isolation…"

Chor wanted to say more but she trailed off, thinking about the brief amount of info available in ASAP's database. While she knew that they had very few other options, she didn't like the thought of accidentally worsening the Human's state. She, like everyone else on board, had no idea of the specifics required for one to live healthily, but it was obvious that this wouldn't work forever.

Eskel looked down at Chor, a little lost in thought. He knew that she was right, and something deep inside of him tugged on his morals for keeping an intelligent being locked up like this. But it wasn't like he could just ask what was needed, not directly. Until the Human could advocate for itself and they could all discuss the situation with civility, they were to be treated as a prisoner for intrusion and theft.

And as far as prison cells in space went, this was not so bad.

After a considerably hefty pause, Eskel spoke up. He didn't want his comrades to worry.

"We cannot do much for socialization or accommodations if it is afraid and cannot tell us. Besides, this is only temporary until we can form a stable way of communication. We will help with what we can when we understand but for now, without knowing it's intentions, there is little we can do."

Chor looked rather dejected, but she understood. Maybe after a bit the human would warm up to them a little more– They already seemed to be making progress earlier. Maybe they were starting to understand that the crew meant no harm, despite the circumstances.

She tried to stay optimistic about it at least, and stepped aside to let the captain walk in.

"Do you think the common area would be a better environment for them to stay? The whole 'test-chamber' atmosphere in here might be contributing to stress levels." 

She followed behind Eskel as he approached the tank. Neither the berries nor the Human could be seen. 

Eskel's eyes narrowed in on the small shelter of fabric weaved between the leaves, and the shadows dancing within. The material had once been a souvenir from a world of silks, favourited by him for its rich colour. But there was no design to it, as it wasn't a very fancy possession, so it didn't bother him too much to see it torn up. At least like this it was being used, instead of sitting in the back of a cabinet in his quarters.

Still, what Chor suggested must have some truth to it. If the surroundings were less bothersome, the Human might not always be trying to hide. While he doubted that was the only source of fear, he couldn't deny that a change of environment may actually help a little.

As they relocated to the lounge, they ran into Neio. A ripple of excited light flashed across their featureless face upon seeing the tank in the captain's arms, and they followed and watched in interest as Eskel carefully set it down on an empty desk.

The three of them were so occupied by the subject inside, that none of them had noticed Jocker walk in behind them. He was on his way to find something to eat when he saw the group surrounding the table, and he practically rolled his eyes at the sight.

"I don't get what all the fuss over the little thief is about. Especially when they won't even look back at you. How can you be interested in something so skittish and dependent?"

The group looked over to him as he leaned against a nearby wall, looking rather unamused.

"They're not some 'thing', Jock, they're clearly intelligent. Apparently they have a soci-"

"'A societal structure similar to those wimpy Ejuns' yeah I know, I read the same file as you."

Jocker interrupted with a huff. Chor glared at him, but this was nothing out of the ordinary for her colleague's behaviour. 

"Intelligence doesn't mean they're any smart, though. I mean, they chose to sneak on board and steal from us, and now they're stuck here. I bet they're not even strong enough to budge one of my plates."

"Perhaps it needed assistance, and was unable to ask."

The Arcken didn't believe it and turned to Neio to argue more, but Eskel's sharp tongue cut him off before he could say anything else.

"Whatever the reason, this is not the proper way to handle the situation. Since we are currently between contracts I would like to locate someone with more information to help us, and from thereon we can decide what to do. Our last pay is more than enough for us to fly comfortably for a little while, and in the meantime I will devise a better course of action for us to take. Any objections? "

The crew was silent at the captain's question. It was the sort of question you didn't want to answer with anything other than a swift nod and a turn of heel. 

But, ultimately, no objections were had. Jocker wasn't keen on having them on board in the first place; He didn't agree with Eskel's plans to keep them, but none of them could deny that it was important to gather as much information as possible before casting judgement. 

Eventually they all parted, trying to evade the air of unease that the tension in the room brought. Jocker had continued his mission for food, and Chor went to her quarters to tinker on unfinished projects. Neio was the only one to stay near the tank- a little disheartened that they were never greeted, but curious enough to try and catch a glimpse anyway.

Eskel had returned to the front of the ship and stood at the navigation dashboard. With the flip of a switch he brought up the ship's external cameras and stayed there, staring at the monitors displaying the ever-encompassing inky black void as he tried to devise a plan. 

After a while spent lost in his thoughts, he began to question the AI.

"...Do you happen to have any recordings of the Human's communication with Chor?" 

[AFFIRMATIVE. HOWEVER, THE VOCAL

PATTERNS DO NOT MATCH ANY OFFICIAL

DIALECT IN MY PROGRAMMING]

"Check Central."

[SCANNING CENTRAL DATABASE FOR MATCHES] 

[...]

[...]

[SCAN COMPLETE]

[0 RESULTS FOUND] 

Eskel let out a short sigh. How was he supposed to get a lexicon chip for a language that apparently didn't exist?

"Pull up what you have on Humans."

[FILE RETRIEVED]

The captain studied the text from top to bottom for the hundredth time.

He never thought he'd run into one in his life. He'd heard of them offhand some while ago, but it was nothing more than a name. In the grand scheme of space travel their technological feats were monumentally unimpressive- They'd been on the map of interest for a split second, and after barely a glance they faded back into the far away shadows that they came from.

Although it didn't make sense as to why there was so little to read on them, when this rarity would surely entice others to seek them out. Even some dry, dead dwarf planets had multiple files on them from different organizations who ventured to learn about and record places unknown. They were constantly exploring and uploading their finds, no matter how small. Even the most 'useless' information still had value in some places, so it was strange to find only one recorded encounter across the entire database.

But there was still something there. Someone had come into contact with them at least once before, and whoever that was might be willing to spill more.

"...What is the source name on the file? Are you able to analyze the upload signature of the planetary log?"

[AFFIRMATIVE. THIS INFORMATION WAS

UPLOADED PUBLICALLY FROM A

RESEARCH FACILITY AT WAD4M STATION]

Well, that certainly made things easier.

"Get me the coordinates."

–

WAD4M Station, in Eskel's eyes, was comparable to a rather flashy physical version of the central information database. It was nearly three times the size of ATMO5, and filled to the brim with interactive research and experimentation centres, libraries, museums, attractions, and replica artifacts from all across the cosmos. Many famous names in the fields of exploration and science have made their homes and based their studies from there, some with whole buildings or monuments made in their honour.

It was a place that was dedicated to science and was welcome to educate anyone of anything ever recorded in the ongoing universe, a place always bustling with new updates every second. Word spread fast on WAD4M, and information could make you rich.

Though it was a great way to gain access to nearly every single piece of recorded data ever submitted, the captain dreaded going there. Crowds really weren't his thing, and the station was notorious for its access tolls. But if there was anywhere he was going to find help, he should have figured it would be there.

It was only a few ticks away according to the coordinates ASAP had plugged in, and without wasting any time he alerted the crew of their new destination over the shared intercoms and kicked them into hyperspace.

Neio was the most excited of them all to visit the station. No one had an insatiable lust for trying new things quite like an Ilvoid, and there was definitely no shortage of activities on WAD4M. Some may even consider the place overstimulating on the senses but, for Neio, too much was never enough.

With no real culture to call their own Ilvoids adapted and learned from mimicking other lifeforms and interactions, learning through touch and experience in nearly everything of life. Reading often bored Neio because of this- why would they mentally absorb knowledge when they could do it physically instead? Being another species was always much more fun than looking at words and pictures about them, and they were excited to try being Human if their little stowaway would let them.

Changing into smaller forms wasn't something Neio often got the privilege of- Their biomimicry couldn't take place unless they made physical contact or had access to the target's DNA. So far they hadn't even seen the Human, not more than a glance, making them very eager to find out more.

Chor was a little more apprehensive than her crewmate, but still excited. In all her time aboard company ships she never once got the chance to go, except to make a delivery. While she knew they were there for the Human first and foremost a huge part of her wanted to explore some of the big-name technical institutions around, and she hoped that Eskel would allow her the time to do so.

When they landed, Jocker had elected to stay with the ship. Not only could he not care less about communicating with the Human, he also wasn't a fan of the crowds and flashy lights and tourist attractions that bled through every crack of the station. To him, it was practically headache inducing.

In fact, Eskel was worried about the Human for this exact same reason. Too much excitement in the environment as they perused the station could overwhelm it, and he didn't want that. He'd stared at the seemingly empty container for a moment before finding something dark to drape over it while they walked, hoping that it would quell the stress levels.

Walking around with the specimen tank in his arms wasn't necessarily ideal, but Eskel doubted that the little one inside would want to travel by hand again. He tried to keep the jostling to a minimum, wishing that he'd brought a mobile platform instead for the stability, but if company property were to be damaged while in use for something other than a shipment, he'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Thankfully, due to his towering stature and distant cold stare, most everyone tried to avoid bumping into him as they made their way through the winding, shiny streets of WAD4M. Chor and Neio were happy to help with navigation, pressing buttons and opening doors, heading towards the address that ASAP sent to their suits.

After a bit they'd found their way to the heart of the organic sciences sector, dedicated to the studies of life in nearly every aspect. Most of this part was run by the Olenari, who were notorious for being quite meticulous and thorough with their studies. They valued truth and knowledge above all else, which is why most everyone trusted them as a reliable source.

The buildings of towering glass were big enough to make even Eskel feel small- something he wasn't really used to. Kiosks of all heights and sizes dotted the floors and walls with whole digital libraries filled with all kinds of information on things from botanical entities to chordates, and anything else considered alive in between. Projections and holograms of organisms in their natural environments roamed the air and plastered the walls with accompanying text; It was pretty mesmerizing, and the group couldn't help but raise their heads and look around at the never-ending displays of natural wonders as they continued on.

Near the interactive rooms was a help desk managed by a very chipper AI. Considering that the information they were looking for likely wasn't present at a kiosk or display since it wasn't in the public database, Eskel figured it smart to ask for assistance right off the bat.

He greeted the digital figure in the regional Common, and began to explain their predicament. The AI was sorry to confirm that their studies on Humans weren't publicly available yet, but was happy to contact the ones responsible for conducting the research.

One very brief call later and they were met by two long-horned Olenari, both dressed in lush green uniforms, who practically rushed to the scene. Their bright eyes immediately glued to the container in Eskel's arms and they exchanged a quick worried glance, but they still greeted the group with enthusiasm.

"What can we help you with?" 

The taller one asked, her first set of arms clasped politely in front while the other hovered over a holopad, fingertips bouncing between the input keys at a dizzying speed.  

Eskel gestured downwards vaguely, cutting to the chase like always.

"We found a Human hiding aboard our ship and came here to learn more about them, since the database contains only a sparse amount regarding physiology and mannerisms. We are not sure what condition it is in, but we do not wish to hurt it further."

The two of them shared another look.

"Follow us."

The researchers led them past the help desk and through the crowds to an elevator tucked away in the back, from where they had first emerged. The platform was quite large, and easily fit all of them as they began their descent.

This is where the polish and charm of the station started to fade, as they entered the pit of the facility where the actual research was conducted and where they kept all of the raw, unanalyzed data. It was lined with rooms of offices, research materials, testing chambers and various equipment, all visible for a split second as they continued down floor after floor.

"We are not typically allowed to let outsiders down here, but this is a special occasion."

"Why all the secrecy?"

Chor asked as the elevator finally stopped at a level her optical translator labelled as "mammalian division".

The shorter one made a strange expression, and they both took turns replying.

"Not a lot of contact with Humans has been made, or at least not recorded. They are relatively new to space travel, with rudimentary flight technology, and don't seem to associate with anything but their own kind. But there has been a beneficial connection established in the past, with an organization that was able to safely study a small number of them and gain some insight as to how they function."

"We have been sent information regarding over three thousand Humans who were willing to participate with this group, but we've been told there are roughly nine billion of them in existence. With such a small fraction studied and no further contact reported from anyone else, we cannot display most of our data. It is incomplete." 

"We can, however, tell you what we know of the one you found."

–

The Olenari's study centre for Humans was rather… disorganized , by their standards, but still largely impressive for such a small division. The grand jewel of it all was in the far back of the room– an entire Human ship, or at least a replica of one. It was the first thing to catch Eskel's eyes as they were all led into the strange office.

Along a different section of the wall, much closer to the entrance, were displays of their internal structures- scanned holograms of skeletal, musculatory, digestive, and other systems to a molecular degree. It also displayed their DNA structure and life cycle, with accompanying text, that Neio stared at with particular interest as they passed by.

Data panels were laid randomly askew, full of material that they were in the process of translating, but work was slow. The organization that made first contact had given them a shocking amount of information- scans of a few history, math, and science textbooks, even full scans of bodies, but they failed to provide much in the way of linguistics. 

Communications between the groups proved to be difficult, with the many different and highly contextual languages spoken aboard the Human vessels, and the discovery organization considered a miscommunication to be the cause of contact severance between them. They reported that one day the Humans had suddenly grown hostile, and ceased participating with them before they could fully study the many languages present.

Since then the two researchers had worked tirelessly to study and translate all of the fascinating information to the best of their ability, but a single encounter wasn't enough to grasp it all. What they had was only a primary level of understanding, but they hoped to learn much more by seeing one with their own eyes.

When they reached the center of the room the taller one, who had introduced herself as Pyo, motioned for Eskel to place the container onto the examination table. He did so, gently, and gave both of them a slight warning upon noticing their enthusiasm.

"It likes to hide from us…"

Pyo nodded as she removed the dark covering and lowered the walls, taking in the sight of the foliage and fabric hut inside with slight relief. It wasn't as bad as she had worried.

"That is normal. However, they are curious beings. They might approach if they're not too scared. We must simply be patient."

Everyone gathered around the circular table, their attention glued to the enclosure with bated breath like they were watching the collapse of a star.

After a short period, two round white eyes poked out of a hole in the little tent to investigate the new surroundings. Pyo took the opportunity to act as soon as their gaze landed on her- she simply waved to them, a typical Earth greeting.

This had an immediate effect, gaining a reaction out of the little one unlike any other from the crew. After a few moments of hesitation they actually revealed themself more, and gave a wary wave in return.

The group was fascinated but watched in silence as Pyo made a small rotational motion with her hand, gesturing forwards. Very cautiously, after looking around at everyone, the human stepped out of their hiding spot and came a little closer.

"They rely a lot on body language. It's best to appear non-threatening, and let them explore at their own pace."  

She continued, keeping herself level with the table. As she spoke she displayed a limb to climb on if desired, but instead of being a prime example the human simply shook their head and took a step back. Pyo retracted her hand, making them flinch, but they didn't flee.

She studied them like that from a distance, recording everything with her other hands at breakneck speeds. 

"From optical observation I can tell that this one is likely male– a young adult. He seems externally unharmed, but his appearance suggests that he is heavily malnourished and lacking access to proper hygienical care. We can give you some blueprints to take to a Fabricator, if you wish to provide these utilities." 

"If only he wasn't so afraid, we might be able to take some proper measurements for you. "

"Is there any way that we can communicate right now? Would you happen to have a lexicon chip?"

The shorter Olenari replied hesitantly. 

"Yes… Although it is unfinished and we're unsure how accurate a live translation may be, since we've never been able to test it. We also do not possess a device for the Human to use in which the chip would be operable in, nor do we even know what he speaks. Humans have nearly 7,000 spoken languages, and dialects vary by region."

"We cannot tell just by looking where on the planet this one might have originated from, but we can try to cycle through recreated common greetings of different popular dialects until one gets a positive reaction." 

Surprisingly, that didn't take too long. 

The Human watched attentively as Pyo pulled out a strange device and placed it on the table, tapping away at the keys. His face made odd expressions as it started to play sounds, cycling through the languages, until it got to the fifth one. English. His face lit up with recognition, and he immediately repeated the short phrase back to them.

["HELL.O"]

Eskel practically grinned as more words rapidly flew out of the little guy, each more unintelligible than the last.

"That seems to be the one."

–

The entire interaction in the researcher's lab didn't last very long. The Human still seemed largely too apprehensive about everything for them to get anything useful out of him, and they didn't want to further his discomfort by ogling over him or forcing him to do something he didn't want to do.

He watched from the tank with wide eyes and a nervous stance as they continued to talk, and as Eskel bought a copy of the lexicon chip off of them. Chor would likely be more than able to make a working piece for the Human to use, as she was the one who'd designed her own and the rest of the crew's translators. The company had given them basic ones upon being hired but, over the time she spent on board, she had tinkered with and modified them to better fit everyone's liking.

When the captain proposed the idea to her, she nearly jumped at the chance to build something new and challenging.

Before the group could leave, the two Olenari struck a deal with them. In exchange for all of their current information on Humans, they asked if the crew would keep in contact and send them anything new they learned- no matter how small. As much as they wished to keep the Human there with them to learn things firsthand, they knew that it wasn't a plausible idea for him to live there. And after hearing their story and seeing the care that the crew put into his care, they didn't mind the thought of letting him stay with them now that they knew how to behave.

With everything finalized and a new plan set in motion both parties decided to get back to work, new information under wing. But when Eskel pressed the button to raise the walls of the tank once more, the Human began to panic.

Chor picked up on this immediately, and turned to the lanky informants.

"Wait, can you tell him something else before we go? Something that won't leave him a ball of nerves like this until I can get further communication sorted out?"

Pyo paused to contemplate for a second, before their digits darted over the keypad again at lightning speeds. Moments later, another round of short odd sounds of synthetic speech came out. 

["HU.MAN. PL.EASE. WAIT."]

Chapter Text

He had not been prepared for the relocation.

Accompanying Copper's shadow on the way to the botany lab was another, much larger shadow. Arden watched in apprehension as the captain's monumental figure paused for a moment before appearing around the corner, seemingly headed his way with determination.

His breath hitched in his throat as he remembered the last time he was subject to that- The alien hadn't necessarily hurt him, but it was still beyond traumatizing. Shivers wracked him as he remembered how easily those dark clawed hands had just plucked him from the air, how he was barely the length of one of them, how his pleas were completely disregarded as he was whisked away to be studied and then locked up like some animal. 

And maybe that's all they thought he was?

He could tell by his experience at ATMO5 and from his previous crews that Humans were by no means considered the smartest in the cosmos. He knew what the looks they gave him meant, knew when they skimped him on mission details, and knew the signs they signaled when they thought he wasn't looking. He knew more than he let on, but was still largely treated like the black sheep of the bunch.

At least he'd been roughly the same size as last shipmates, and was able to actually put in some legwork to prove his competence and earn his pay. But here, trapped alone and speechless in a glass container on a giant alien vessel, he was probably considered to be no more than a wayward shiprat. 

To beings so colossal he felt cosmically insignificant, and he wouldn't be surprised if they viewed him that way too.

He couldn't even speak to them, not coherently at least, but a small part of him was grateful that they couldn't understand the frantic string of curses that left his lips once his entire enclosure was suddenly lifted off the table. 

Everything was jostled, despite the giant's carefulness. The whole tent had shifted a few feet with him inside of it, losing some of its structural integrity in the process, and the berries he brought inside had begun to roll around the small space. Arden scrambled in surprise to the one side that wasn't collapsing as they started to move; Thankfully it was a side with holes to see through, and he shakily peeled back the fabric to peek out at his surroundings in fear.

His heart hammered away in his chest as he watched everything pass at a dizzying speed, trying to guess where they were taking him. Were they still mad from earlier? Were they tired of him hiding all the time? Were they getting rid of him? Would they drop him off at some intergalactic prison, where surely he wouldn't last a night? Would they simply sell him? Auction off his life to the highest bidder?

How much would he even sell for? 

The racing thoughts and the sway of the room were damn near sickening, and Arden found himself pulled back to reality by flinching back into cover as another large figure stepped into sight and began to walk the halls with them. Voices filled the air, but he could barely hear them.

The trip was the longest two minutes of his life, and in his rising panic Arden barely realized when he'd been set back down. When he did notice the lack of movement he took a moment to right himself and slow his breathing, but he didn't dare crawl near the holes again.

Just beyond his glass prison the crew had once more gathered around him, peering in and discussing his fate in vastly different languages he only wished he could understand. He could hear the Arcken's voice, deep and gravelly like distant thunder, in sharp contrast to Copper's chirps and chitters. There was also a kind of omnipresent warbling, emitting from the smooth-skinned one, but everything went quiet at the captain's final remark. 

Whatever they said was a statement rather than a continuation of the discussion, or so it seemed, and to Arden's relief the crowd around him began to dissipate one by one until only a single body remained. 

He realized it was the strange one that he hadn't seen much of before, and after steeling his nerves Arden crawled forward on bruised knees to get a better look. He expected to meet the other's stare, drowning in the curiosity of their gaze or even met with a sharp glare of anger over his intrusion, but instead he saw…. nothing.

Their head, a strange ovoid shape which bled into many long tendrils, was entirely featureless. Where dents for eyes and a nose seem like they should be, was only a flat surface of skin unlike anything Arden had ever seen. They were a pearlescent colour that shifted hues in the light, made of patterns that seemed to change before his very eyes. If he ever got to touch them, he'd bet that it would feel like one of the cold, smooth frogs from his childhood colony ship aquarium.

But amphibian traits aside, the strangest part to him was when they moved.

They seemed to morph into fixed positions rather than move between them like limbs normally would. In one moment they were posed to the left, in another they'd somehow be on the right. It was surreal, as if the pace they moved at was calculated beyond a measure Arden's brain or eyes could comprehend. His jaw dropped slightly as he stared, mesmerized and perplexed by what little blurs he could see, but he didn't get very long to look before he was noticed back.

A ripple of light cascaded across the crewmate's skin upon catching a glimpse of his eyes peering from behind one of the holes- a flash of interest most likely, but Arden didn't reciprocate the excitement. He simply backed away again, finding his courage had all but melted from his body and seeped through the grates in the floor.

Whatever they had planned for him, he was not excited for. 

Thankfully, after doing what he did best and ignoring them for quite some time, they seemed to leave him be. Arden didn't see as much as he heard the alien leave his side, off to go do whatever it was they were tasked with, and he let out a long breath of relief as he was left alone once more.

After a while of silence ticked by, a bit of his courage came back to him. It was enough to poke his head out and take a look at where they'd placed him at least, and he was beyond relieved to see that it wasn't nearly as intimidating as the last room. This place was much more open, with not much around except a few monitors on the walls and scattered places to sit. It was almost like a giant break room, of sorts, nestled into the dead center of the main access hallways of the ship.

Whatever their reasoning for bringing him here, he couldn't fathom. But once again he was left to his own devices, so without feeling the need to hide he busied his mind by using his hands to try to fix the lopsided tent. Maybe things weren't going to be as bad as he thought…

Or so he told himself, until everything went dark about five minutes in. 

Arden stiffened as his world was encased in darkness, all of his previous relief leaving him in a flash. A moment later the ground shifted beneath him once more, and he fell to his knees with a grimace. But the pain in his body was little in comparison to the fear in his soul.

Encumbered by the darkness, he fumbled around until he felt the remaining stable wall, and crouched down in the corner there. There wasn't much he could do other than wait this out, and pray that these weren't his last few moments. He figured this a rather stupid and pitiful way to die.

He couldn't quell his nerves as they were on the go once more, hating the way everything swayed while he couldn't see. He couldn't even tell who's hands his life was quite literally being held in, but he had a pretty good guess and the thoughts were not welcoming.

The walk went on for quite a while, with Arden anxious as ever. Try all he might, he couldn't stamp down his worry once they first stepped outside. 

They were taking him off the ship, and not letting him see where, but he didn't need his sight to know that they were back on another station. The noise was confirmation enough, and he buried his head in his arms as everything around him only got louder. Once again, he was tormented with memories of ATMO5.

Surely, they were getting rid of him. Despite how merciful the crew had been so far they realistically had no reason to keep or help him- Beyond these glass walls was likely going to be another prison, and the thoughts of never being free to see the stars again only drove him to curl further into himself in protest. He looked at the berries from behind his knees as they tumbled around the small enclosure, wondering if he should take one last bite before he never got to taste something sweet ever again, but he quickly found that he didn't have the stomach for it.

Thankfully, the noise had calmed down to a more manageable level. While Arden's brain still felt like it was being overloaded, at least he could finally hear his own thoughts as they continued deeper into the station, towards his demise.

–

Eventually, after what felt like forever, he was set down. Light flooded back into the tank as the cover was lifted away, and he blinked in surprise as his eyes and the rest of his body slowly adjusted. Motion sickness was such an unfortunate thing to be born with in space.

He waited for a few moments for something to happen, anything at all, but as the seconds ticked by he remained unbothered. A few moments more, he crawled over to the holes.

That however, provided him with nothing. Either the tent had shifted again or there was simply nothing in the room– Highly unlikely, but he couldn't tell. All activity around him had ceased- no voices, no movement, just the distant hum of electronics many times the size of him.

It was…. eerily quiet. And the apprehension was killing him.

With nothing to see there he slid over to the side that had fallen, and poked his head out of the fabric. Immediately he was met with the big bright eyes of a very tall alien in a green uniform, with long ribbed horns sprouting from their head. They were right in front of him and, after barely a second, they waved at him.

Arden audibly gasped- and he couldn't mask his confusion as he tried to piece together what the hell was going on.

If they were bringing him to a buyer, surely they'd have ripped him out of this cage by now and stuck him in another. And if they were taking him to a prison, there's no way they would spare time for such pleasantries and formality like patience and waving. And how did they even know to do that, anyway? No one else had ever understood it– Had they really taken him here just to try to communicate? Was he reading it all wrong again..?

He took a nervous glance back into his small hut, and then back up towards the seemingly friendly giant. Somehow, despite everything in his guts telling him to hide, his hope won over him. Very slowly, he raised an arm and gave a cautious wave back.

In response to his actions the crew, who'd been silent and still and mostly out of view, started to exchange glances. It was enough to catch Arden's attention and his eyes darted back and forth between them all, calm enough now to finally take in more of his surroundings.

When his gaze returned to the friendly one again, the alien only beckoned him closer. But as intriguing as that was to oblige he was hesitant to take even a single step. 

He was so used to hiding and holding his breath, making himself nearly invisible, sneaking through the shadows; Being seen by the majority of those he'd been around for the past month was almost certainly a death sentence, so it spiked his already raging anxiety to walk out into the open intentionally.  

Yet… what other choice did he have? The way he saw it, they didn't have to ask him to do anything. The walls were down- they could have easily reached in by now and grabbed him themselves, but they didn't. They were letting him choose, and despite his buckling knees he chose to be brave rather than to cower. 

After some consideration, Arden slowly emerged from his shelter to face them. It was inevitable, after all. He tugged his dirty jacket close to himself for any sort of comfort as he stepped down into the table, now completely encircled by a group of giant aliens that he robbed, who all seemed to be… just staring at him?

He could tell that they were discussing him with the way they moved and talked but, as terrifying as it was, it felt much more… unsettling than anything. Almost as if he were a pet being taken to the vet, or some piece of meat being studied and analyzed.

When they reached out towards him Arden knew what they wanted, but he didn't want to do it. He simply shook his head at them and backed away from the approaching limb, hoping they wouldn't force him to climb aboard. But to his great relief, and honest surprise, they were acting strangely civil about things.

This was much different than what he was expecting.

He watched as they all continued to talk above him, and nervously shifted his weight. It was hard to see beyond the wall of bodies surrounding him, so he didn't know what to do other than stand there and loiter.

The captain seemed to be exchanging something with one of the long horned ones, but he couldn't tell what it was. The one that had waved at him also left the table at some point, but returned shortly with a strange looking device in hand. Arden didn't like the look of it, and he tensed up as it was placed down and everyone gathered around him once more.

The device whirred to life and began to make noise, prompted by the alien controlling it. Arden stared in confusion as a bunch of strange synthetic sounds emitted from it, none of them making any sense. Despite this, hope fluttered around in his chest. Were they trying to communicate again?

He had barely a moment to wonder before the device spit out a word that he actually recognized, even through its terrible artificial recreation.

[HELL.O.]

Arden's entire being perked up like he'd been shocked with a thousand volts of electricity. A ghost of a smile tainted with disbelief crept across his face as he took another step towards them. 

"Hello…" 

He breathed back in awe, before everything clicked and his shock was replaced with a desperation so deep words could not describe.

"H-Hello! Yes! That's- That's English! Can you understand me..? " 

Arden looked around expectantly. Nobody replied.

He called out again, his voice cracking slightly.

"Hello..? I-Is any of this coming through? Please, if you can hear me… I…"

He trailed off, his voice failing him as his throat tightened up in despair. Judging by their attitude, it was clear that no one understood him. Like everyone else he'd begged for help from when he really needed it, his words were completely meaningless.

A long sigh of disappointment escaped him as they continued the conversation without him, and he couldn't hold back a small outburst as they tried to gently usher him back into the tank hardly a few minutes later.

Days of pent up emotion and no sleep burst out of him in one big stressed-out flood of yelling and arm waving.

"Well, what the fuck?! You're just putting me back? After a 'Hello'? You picked me up and scared me half to death, and for what?!

What was the point of this? Why won't you just talk to me, damn it! " 

Most of his frustration quickly melted into worry, and he bit his lip to stop himself from spitting out any more festering thoughts as he was subject to the captain's piercing golden gaze. They may not be able to understand his words but language barrier aside it was pretty clear that he'd just told them off– and he hadn't thought any of that through. He took a step back into the tank, willingly this time, and raised his arms as he prepared for one of them to retaliate. 

But… nothing happened. Copper chirped something at the horned one and in turn they made the machine speak again- still in choppy English. 

[HU.MAN. PL.EASE. WAIT.]

Arden's jaw dropped and his brows furrowed as he was taken aback once more. Very slowly, he lowered his defensive stance and tried to rationalize the situation.

They knew he was Human. They were trying to speak to him, and they were asking him to wait– Nicely, of all ways. He didn't think it would be possible but as he stood within grabbing reach, staring up in disbelief at their foreign faces, he felt something in him shift. His doubt crashed like a giant wave onto shore, dissipating in the sand as he finally realized the message they were trying to send.

Nothing bad had happened so far. They really weren't going to hurt him, it seemed. Maybe… just maybe, he would be alright under their watch after all.

Swallowing the rest of his fear, Arden gave them all a shaky nod and the walls rose once more. He'd just have to trust them, which was not an easy thing for him to do.

-

The walk back to the ship felt even longer than the walk to that strange observation table, but the ride was much less scary. They'd covered him up again, for reasons unknown, but Arden couldn't care less about the noisy station surroundings. The only thing in his head as they walked around was that machine, playing those two synthetic words on repeat.

Please wait. Please wait. Please wait.

…Wait for what?

The thoughts of what they wanted him for made him a little uneasy, but it didn't bother him nearly as much as before. Waiting was an easy thing to do, especially now that he was sure the crew wasn't going to kill or sell him, so Arden did little other than mill around after they got back to the ship.

However, as much as being bored was better than being afraid, there was only so much pacing around he could do before the emptiness of the tank started to drive him insane. The tent had been fixed, his water bottle had been refilled, and now that he wasn't so preoccupied with worrying over his fate he found himself starved for something to do. 

And a little bit starved for some real food, too. 

He sighed as he rolled his head over from where he lay on the ground, and locked his eyes on one of the berries. After days of them he really didn't want to eat another one ever again, but it seemed he had no choice. 

As he stood to go break one open, a shadow cast over the tank. Arden paused mid-step and turned to the door-

And very cautiously went to greet whoever was at the glass. 

Chapter Text

Eskel tried to be extra careful with the container in his arms on the way out of the research facility, now that he was more acutely aware of the Human's condition. At first he'd suspected injuries and timid natural instinct to be the main reason of his isolation– that was why he'd rushed them to WAD4M, but to learn that the hiding, shaking, and most of the other physical responses came from a deep-rooted terror did not sit well with him. 

It never bothered the captain to be seen as intimidating- he was long used to it by now, and even relied on it in some cases, but he didn’t use it to terrify someone on purpose unless he needed to. And although the little thief had snuck aboard and gave them all a fright for a few sols, there was little ground he could hold in his own defense. While Eskel didn't necessarily have the softest of hearts, acting cold to someone this helpless would only be cruel, no matter their intentions.

According to the Olenari the Human was also malnourished and seemed to be suffering from exhaustion, which the crew took very little surprise to hearing after recalling that he spent multiple sol cycles living in the walls of their ship. A test of his vital fluids could have yielded much more results about his physical condition than simply looking, but they figured it was highly unlikely they'd get the cooperation for one given his current level of trust. 

The researchers were open to sharing their knowledge if a vial was ever scanned and sent in the future, but in the meantime all they could offer was their private extensions on the microspecies file– Which was still much more information than the crew had before, and Chor and Neio openly discussed it as they all walked. 

Eskel listened intently as the two chatted about Human foods; He recognized the basic organic diet but he found it interesting that cooking was a big part of their culture, as they were not equipped to digest a large portion of raw foods or plant matter. Most of the crew could not relate to that.

It was a process, but they scoured the station's markets and tried their best to provide the proper nutrients and tools for the Human’s recovery. Both cooked and raw organic foods were bought, and once Eskel was satisfied with their purchases, they decided to locate a Fabricator.

A Fabricator was a sealed chamber with a library of verified material schematics– composition, structure, and the exact steps required to manufacture them. Inside, it laid down matter in thin phases, triggered controlled reactions, and let molecules assemble into the forms they preferred under the right catalysts and fields. Sensors watched every layer as it formed; if the pattern drifted, the machine corrected, or dissolved the failure back into stock. It could make almost anything if you fed it the proper blueprints and materials– but it could not invent matter, and it could not cheat chemistry.

The nearest Fabricator occupied a quiet alcove, half recessed into the wall like a vault rather than a machine. Its outer housing was dull and scarred from decades of use, interfaces layered over one another as modules had been added and removed across species and eras.

Luckily for them, during the discovery organization's first contact, many different everyday Human objects were scanned and schematics of their structure were stored. The Olenari included these in the file, too.

Chor stood at the primary console, one hand braced against the edge as data scrolled beneath her fingers. The schematics had loaded cleanly: a compact archive labelled cleanly, and tagged with annotations.

A lot of them seemed to be necessary in assisting Humans in almost every aspect of their daily lives- things like basic hygiene, clothing repair, first aid, sleep comfort, and sanity-retaining outlets.

Across the screen, the text displayed:

HUM-BASIC-CARE v3.2

Minimum Sustainment / Social Integration Kit

“That is… all?” Eskel asked, peering at the projected list and the cost of the materials.

Chor flicked through it, scanning faster than the display could comfortably keep up. 

“Yes. It’s a minimum-support set. Non-specialized. It’s mostly polymers and soft metals.” 

The Fabricator chimed softly as it accepted the first schematic.

Inside the sealed chamber, feedstock lines adjusted– diverting trace amounts of carbon composite, flexible resin, and a few simple metal alloys. Nothing rare. Nothing that would dent the station’s reserves, or even the captain’s wallet. The system began laying down matter in thin, controlled phases.

An impossibly small object formed first. Then another.

Neio tilted their head, watching the internal sensors redraw the growing shapes in real time. 

"This one," they said, indicating a long, narrow item with a textured end. "A grooming implement?"

“Yes,” Chor said. “For filament maintenance.”

“…Filament?”

Chor paused, then adjusted the display, pulling up the human reference model. A three-dimensional rendering appeared, helpfully labeled:

HAIR.

There was a moment of silence.

“Much effort,” Neio murmured, “for surface fibers.”

“They shed them constantly,” Chor replied. “The database marks physical maintenance as psychologically stabilizing.”

The Fabricator completed the cycle with a muted tone. The verifier swept the chamber, confirmed structural integrity and material safety, and released the object into the output tray– tiny. Almost absurdly so, resting in the vast receptacle like a misplaced component.

More objects followed.

Slender metal pieces, carefully dulled at the edges. Folded fabric squares. A spool so small it barely registered against the tray’s surface. Each item was scanned, approved, and released, the machine dissolving a single failed attempt back into feedstock without comment.

By the time the Fabricator powered down, the tray held a scattered collection of objects that, to the crew, looked less like equipment and more like personal artifacts. Nothing dangerous. Nothing complex. Just small things, carefully made.

The crew didn't know what half of it was for, but the data suggested it mattered.

It was a little tedious to go out of their way like this, but they wouldn't have to do it very often– if ever again– depending on how long the little stowaway wanted to stay with their crew. Yet whatever his choice, at minimum he was stuck with them until they completed their next delivery. They didn't have the time or resources to locate a suitable place to leave him, and considering his condition coming from ATMO5 Eskel doubted he'd want to be let loose in another station.

And in the meantime, the captain would not deprive him of necessities.

But, due to their own interest in his wellbeing, Chor and Neio didn't seem too bothered with all the running around and the miniscule purchases to benefit the Human's life on board- and, ultimately, their shopping list for him was small. They couldn't order a change of body coverage without the proper measurements, but that wasn't too important just yet.

If he was as scared of them as the researchers said he was, they figured there was a lot of ground to cover first.

—

Prompted by the urgency and the excitement of making some new tech, Chor immediately disappeared to her workstation to start gathering components to assemble the Human's translator when they got back to the ship. While she would need his cooperation for fitting the actual device pieces, there were still things to do before she was ready for that. Neio accompanied her to her quarters, eager to help and to keep learning more about the strange new physiology and speech patterns with somebody else. 

Eskel on the other hand ventured off to their small communal culinary area to store the bit of food he'd bought, and to prepare something to bring to the Human. They reportedly ate multiple times a sol and all theirs had eaten for many were a few feyberries, which was concerning.

On a very small biosample tray the length of one of his fingers, Eskel managed to gather a more balanced meal. There was a sizable strip of cooked hydebeast purchased from a vendor on the station, along with a type of leafy vegetable the captain had never heard of- but its cellular structure was deemed edible when compared to the new dietary information they'd been given.

With a pocket tool designed for grabbing things with precision the utensils for eating were placed on the tray as well, and Eskel began a careful trek back to the Human. It was, in an odd way, satisfying to know they were able to provide him with the proper nutrients and necessities to function- they didn't want to hurt him further, after all. Especially not before they could learn why he was even there in the first place.

Considering past behaviour, the captain was quite surprised to see the Human actually come to greet him at the glass. His body language was still very closed off- something Eskel had learned was a sign of fear, so the captain tried to remain aware of his movements as he approached this time.

Still, tension returned as the walls were lowered.

It was clear that being near hands wasn't received too warmly, but there were few other methods of food delivery the captain could think of. He thought back to what the Olenari had told them about displaying a non-threatening demeanour and began to lower himself so that they were eye level, or at least close to it. It was an awkward level to crouch to, but no longer looming seemed to help a little.

The Human approached him ever so slowly, vocalizing something soft and unintelligible, but Eskel was relieved to see this sudden change of attitude. It seemed he was finally starting to understand that they meant him no harm– and the captain couldn't help but internally marvel at the sight. He'd never known of anything so small that was sentient, other than an Os’awan, and was impressed with the bravery it must take to approach another that was so much bigger.

Eskel took note of his lingering hesitance, but it was progress all the same. Hoping that a proper meal would help quell some of the fear and improve their relations through the lack of communication, he brought the tiny tray into view.

Eskel gently slid it forward on the table with the tip of a claw, and the Human's eyes immediately grew wide.

He stared at the tray, then up at Eskel. His mouth was open, but no sound came out.

The captain remained stoic, but he worried for a moment.

Was he still too scared? Would he not eat it?

He waited a few moments, about to nudge the tray a little closer when the other dove into action, proving his doubts wrong. 

The Human was quick to sit down and tear into the chunk of meat without a second thought, like he hadn't eaten in eons. Eskel watched as the little one tore through the meat with the utensils and took bite after bite, barely stopping to breathe in between. Had he really been so starved? Was that why he snuck aboard in the first place? He couldn't think of any other explanation for him sneaking in and stealing the berries, but was his desperation really the reason he'd risk himself being caught like this? He figured he wouldn't know for sure of any ulterior motives, until Chor finished building the translator.

As if magically summoned by his thoughts, the technician emerged from the hall with vigor. Figuring he'd give their subject of interest some space while he ate, Eskel stood up straight and crossed the room to greet her.

She'd gathered everything she needed to assemble a custom translator, but the Human had to physically be there to fit the device to his frame and test out some vocal exercises, if he would comply. It gave her some hope to see him willingly interacting with Eskel as she entered the lobby, but she still had her doubts.

"Any hope for communication?" Eskel asked.

"Yes, I will be able to extract the data and put it in a new processor, but I need to bring him to my workstation for calibrations." 

Eskel gave a sign of understanding, though he felt a flicker of pride. It wasn't easy to do and make such things- Her knowledge was rather impressive. He watched as she paced around on all fours, nervously continuing. 

"The thing is, I'll have to somehow carry him because there's no room to bring the entire enclosure, but I don't know how to tell him that. And when we get there, how will he understand what I need him to do? I can't let him touch anything up there and– What if he's still too afraid?"

The Devori chittered in frustration.

"And Humans have such tiny audio receptors, I've never really made a device of this scale before- it'll probably take a few revisions to fit properly…"

"I would not worry yourself too much over interactions with him,"

Eskel intervened. Chor looked up in surprise.

"He seems to have calmed down a considerable amount now that we have an understanding of proper body language at the bare minimum- I am sure we can convey more to him through actions than you think. I will help you relocate him to your quarters, if you wish.” 

The technician's frantic thoughts came to a stop at the captain's calm response. He was right, they could work things out with gestures alone. After all, it wouldn't be the first time she’d had to nonverbally communicate with a new species.

With renewed enthusiasm, she followed Eskel back over to the table where the enclosure sat.

—

The tray of food wasn't finished when the two approached, but it seemed that it was no longer being eaten. The Human had retreated back inside his temporary shelter, reappearing momentarily with his container of water in hand. He paused at the entrance as he watched Chor jump up onto the table– much like their first real interaction– but he looked nowhere near as wild-eyed.

She made a friendly chirp in his direction as she crept closer to him. Surprisingly, the Human stood his ground and even gave her a small wave as she stopped a short distance in front of him.

Chor tried to reciprocate the greeting, earning a small huff of air and a tug at his mouth. She hadn't yet memorized the recorded facial expressions, and she wasn't sure if this was a positive reaction. Either way it certainly seemed like he wasn't trying to hide or get away from them anymore– maybe this could work like she had expected.

She held onto this hope, even as Eskel’s approach beside her made the little one tense. He didn't seem to have as warm of a reaction to the captain's presence- his intimidating size was likely daunting. 

Eskel’s gaze met with the Human’s and they both sat for a moment and stared, taking each other in for the second time. The moment was only broken when Eskel looked away towards the meal he had offered earlier, or what was left of it. It seemed that a small layer of trust was beginning to build up, so he tried his luck.

The captain slowly extended his arm forward, his hand displayed upwards, like Pyo had shown them.

The Human stepped back, showing extreme hesitation.

Chor made a small sound of worry. She'd read that humans were incredibly easy to frighten, and she didn't want him to be afraid of either of them for this process.

So despite the language barrier, she tried to explain to him what was going on.

"Don't be scared… Look, I need you for this, see?”  

As she spoke she tilted her head back and separated some of the fur on her neck, exposing the translator piece that lit up with tiny lights as it relayed her words to nearby listening devices. It was connected wirelessly to another piece in her ear for receiving and processing transmitted speech and vocal data, but that one wasn't as easy to show off.

After a few seconds and another beckon forwards, he seemed to get the message. He was still extremely reluctant, but in a matter of minutes the two of them had successfully convinced him to go somewhere with them willingly, which Chor considered a massive step in the communication process.

Eskel looked down as the human cautiously clambered onto his hand, immediately reminded of when he'd first caught him. A slight unease washed over him when his gaze met those scared tiny white eyes, and the captain found that he couldn't hold his stare for long.

He was careful but swift as he walked behind Chor to her quarters, and he was silent as he deposited the Human with her and left. His only response was a dismissive wave when she gave her thanks.

This was unusual behaviour to Chor, who sat there for a moment staring off into the direction the captain had disappeared to. 

Something was bothering him.

Chor shrugged, stepped inside, and only then looked down.

The Human followed her along the floor plating, careful and quiet. He moved like someone used to navigating spaces that did not care whether he existed– hugging edges, pausing when things shifted overhead.

Good instincts.

“Stay close,” Chor said automatically, even though it would just be noise to him.

Her quarters were a vertical jungle of metal and intent.

Drawers were stacked into columns that climbed the walls, each labeled in shorthand only she could parse. Open bins overflowed with bolts, springs, filaments, and fragments of projects that had outlived their usefulness but not yet earned disposal.

Cables draped like vines from overhead rails, some live, some inert, all tagged with faintly glowing markers. Pulse batteries sat in cradles along one wall, humming softly as they charged, their casings scarred from prior lives in engines, suits, and one ill-advised personal experiment Chor preferred not to think about.

Printing machines occupied an entire corner– three different generations, none of them standard anymore. One extruded metals in fine, controlled ribbons. Another layered flexible polymers. The third was currently dismantled; its casing propped open while its guts lay neatly arrayed beside it, waiting for inspiration to strike.

The Human stopped near a low platform, head tilted back as he took it all in.

Chor watched him do it.

He didn’t recoil. Didn’t freeze. Didn’t show the fear response she’d seen before. Instead, his gaze tracked movement, catalogued hazards, adjusted.

He pointed, once, toward a cluster of suspended tools rotating slowly on a magnetic armature.

“No,” Chor said immediately, sharper than she meant to be. She caught herself and softened her posture, crouching slightly so she didn’t loom as much. She gestured instead– to the clear strip of floor beside the workbench, the safest place in the room.

He looked from her hand to the space she indicated.

Then he nodded and went there.

Good instincts, again.

—

Chor had rebuilt translators before.

She had upgraded them for hostile atmospheres, hardened them against radiation drift, tuned them for species whose voices lived outside standard acoustic ranges. She had miniaturized components, stretched tolerances, rewritten inference layers when a language insisted on being difficult.

But she had never built one this small.

The workbench lights dimmed automatically as she cleared space, sweeping aside tools that suddenly looked crude by comparison. The Human sat nearby, perched on a padded rest no larger than one of her forearms, watching with an intensity that made her almost self-conscious.

“Stay there,” Chor said gently.

She brought up the Human data again, rotating the anatomical model in midair. The database had been thorough. Too thorough. Every fragile structure annotated, every margin flagged in careful, conservative warnings.

Human– microspecies variant.

Speech production: laryngeal vibration + airflow.

Auditory intake: narrow range, high sensitivity.

Skin: compliant, easily bruised.

Chor chittered once, thoughtful.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Let’s not break you.”

The translator would need to be the standard paired system– there was no reason to reinvent what already worked– but scaled down beyond anything she’d made before. The laryngeal patch alone would be thinner than some of the insulation she usually stripped without thinking.

She began by printing the housing.

The Fabricator wasn’t involved; there wasn't one on the ship, and this was too custom, too delicate. Chor preferred to work by hand when tolerances dipped into the absurd. She coaxed the printer to extrude a flexible biopolymer lattice, watching as it layered itself into something that was barely visible once complete.

She lifted it with a precision tool.

Too stiff.

A flick of her wrist and a few numbers later, she adjusted the formula. Softer. More compliant. It needed to flex with the Human's throat, not press against it. Their skin did not like pressure.

She glanced over at him.

He was watching her hands. When she looked up, he froze, then raised one hand in a small, uncertain wave.

She gestured him closer, and when he inched forward she activated the measurement field. A web of soft light enveloped him, mapping contours without touching. The data streamed in: neck circumference, jaw hinge movement, ear curvature so small it bordered on the absurd.

“Incredible,” she breathed.

The translator components looked like toys at this scale. Even her smallest processors felt oversized, so she broke them down further– stripped redundancies, merged functions, shaved power draw until the system hummed at the edge of viability.

As she worked she found it rather… fun.

When the patch was ready, she tested adhesion against a synthetic skin proxy. Perfect. It warmed on contact, relaxed into place, held without biting.

Now the ear piece.

Trickier.

Human ears were not built like anyone else’s. Too much curve, too many folds, and all of it fragile. Chor slowed her breathing and rebuilt the housing twice before she was satisfied with it– an open arc that rested along the outer rim, a bone-conductive pad tuned to a frequency that would bypass air entirely.

Eventually, she turned back to the Human.

She pointed to her own ear, then to the tiny device. Slowly. Clearly.

He nodded immediately, and pushed his hair aside to expose his skin.

She fitted the ear piece first, hands steady despite the scale. He flinched at the initial contact, then relaxed as the pad settled into place.

The throat patch came next. She indicated the spot just off his larynx, waited for his nod, then pressed it gently to his skin.

It warmed, molded, and bonded.

No distress. No bruising.

Chor straightened, satisfaction blooming.

Now for the dangerous part.

The lexicon chip sat in its cradle, inert and deceptively simple. In truth it was anything but– a dense, layered map of English structures, half-finished and flagged with uncertainty markers that made Chor’s eye twitch.

“Incomplete,” she muttered. “You are not making this easy.”

She slotted the chip into the translator’s core and brought the system online.

Diagnostics scrolled fast.

Acoustic intake: nominal.

Semantic parser: degraded – functional.

Idiomatic coverage: low.

Risk profile: acceptable.

Chor winced. “We’ll do better later.”

She knelt again, closer now. She tapped the patch at his throat lightly– once, twice– and watched the signal stabilize.

“Say something,” she said softly, even though she knew he wouldn’t understand.

The Human hesitated, then spoke anyway.

“Uh. Hi?”

The translator pulsed.

Chor’s breath caught.

The system parsed the sound, stripped it down, rebuilt it– not perfectly, but well enough. The output flickered into her auditory channel

{Greeting. Informal. Non-threatening.}

Chor made a quick, delighted sound that she didn’t bother to suppress.

“It works,” she said. “Of course it does.”

She turned back to the monitor with enthusiasm and ran calibration passes, adjusted gain, smoothed latency, compensated for the subtle differences in his speech patterns. Each tweak brought the signal closer, cleaner.

Finally, she activated the feedback channel.

“Hello,” she said.

The translator hesitated– just a fraction– then delivered the word.

The Human's eyes widened.

He looked at her like she’d just performed a miracle.

Chor felt something settle in her at that look– pride, yes, but also responsibility.

She had built him a voice, and now they could finally talk.

Chapter Text

Arden had learned not to hope.

Hope got you noticed. Hope made you careless. On the station, it had been safer to stay quiet, to gesture and point and accept that most people would never really listen– never try to understand what someone his size was saying.

So when the device warmed against his throat and the faint pressure settled along his ear, Arden told himself not to expect much.

Then the world spoke back.

“Hello.”

He froze.

Not because he didn’t understand the word– but because he did.

His chest tightened so suddenly he had to brace one hand against the platform behind him. He swallowed, hard, blinking fast as the sound replayed itself in his head, clean and clear and unmistakably meant for him.

“You–” His voice cracked. He tried again. “You can hear me?”

The translator pulsed.

“Yes,” she said. “I can.”

Arden laughed, a shaky, breathless sound that surprised him as much as anyone else. He pressed his hands to his face for a second, grounding himself, then looked up at her– really looked this time.

She was enormous. All of them were.

But right now, they had something where size didn’t matter. Communication.

He couldn't believe it– this wasn't imprisonment, this was rescue. This was a break, a prayer finally answered.

“Thank you,” Arden said, the words tumbling out too fast. “Thank you so much. I– I don’t even know how to say this properly. I didn’t think you would– I mean, you didn’t have to–”

He cut himself off, embarrassed, then forced himself to slow down so he wouldn’t overload the transmission.

“Thank you…” he said again, quieter this time. “For making this. For letting me talk. For… deciding I was worth the trouble.”

Something in her posture shifted– subtle, but real.

“You are worth the trouble,” she said, without hesitation.

Arden let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for weeks.

“Sorry– uh,” he added quickly, glancing at the device and then back at her before realizing he had nothing to call her. He'd just been calling her ‘Copper’ in his head, but he wasn't about to say that in person. "Can I ask your name?"

The translator struggled for a moment as it ran his words through the system, learning and adapting the more he spoke.

{Gratitude. Stutter. Query. Vocalization. Self.}

There was the slightest pause, like the Devori was recalibrating something that had nothing to do with the translator.

“Chor," she said after a moment. “I’m the ship’s technician.”

“Chor,” Arden repeated, testing the sound. “Thank you, Chor.”

She gave a little chirp.

“You should know,” she continued, “that what you’re wearing is a prototype.”

Arden blinked. “A… prototype?”

“Yes. I’ve built translators before, but never at your scale. And never for a language this new to the system.” She gestured vaguely toward the ship around them. “It will learn as you speak. There may be errors. Delays. Misinterpretations.”

“That’s fine,” Arden said immediately. “That’s more than fine. I can live with that.”

“I will likely need to adjust it,” Chor added. “Periodically. The updates will be live while you are connected to the ship’s systems. You may notice changes mid-conversation.”

Arden huffed a small laugh. “I don’t mind. It already works better than anything I’ve had in a long time.”

Chor studied him for a moment, her gaze intent but not unkind.

“If it causes discomfort,” she said, “or if something feels wrong– tell me. Immediately.”

“I will,” Arden promised. “I swear.”

He hesitated, then added, softer, “I– I really thought you guys would kill me when you found me. Not… this.”

Chor stilled as she processed his speech.

“That was never discussed,” she said flatly.

Arden blinked. “Oh.”

“You are very small,” Chor said. “But you are clearly intelligent. We do not discard that.”

Something in Arden loosened at that. Not all the way. But enough.

He touched the patch at his throat– carefully, reverently.

“It will improve,” Chor said. “And if it doesn’t, I will make it improve.”

Arden smiled up at her, tired and grateful and very aware of how close he’d come to never hearing another voice answer him at all.

“I’m glad you found me,” he said.

Chor didn’t answer right away. She looked away before sentiment could take hold.

“We should speak to the captain and the rest of the crew...” 

—

At first, it was just the captain. 

Arden stood where they’d placed him– on a shallow platform set into the table’s edge in the common area. The room itself felt cavernous, especially without the glass walls of safety. Even seated, Captain Eskel loomed above him, broad and still. Arden didn’t know whether to call them paws or hands, but they were folded with deliberate restraint.

Chor stood nearby, watching the translator’s indicators pulse to life.

A soft tone sounded in Arden’s ear.

Then– finally– language.

“Earth-Human,” the voice said, measured and low. It wasn’t perfectly recreated speech, but it was close enough that Arden almost sighed in relief. “Can you understand me now?”

Arden swallowed. “Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes, I can– I can hear you.”

There was a brief pause. Not silence– processing.

Eskel inclined his head slightly. “Good. Then we will do this properly.”

Arden braced himself.

“I am Captain Emiril Eskel, commander of this vessel. You were found aboard my ship without authorization."

A beat.

“Tell me who you are, and why you are here.”

Arden gulped and took a second to reply, raising his hands and shying away from Eskel just slightly. He was in deep. Much too deep to try to lie his way out, this time. He was able to spew falsities he couldn't back up for days on end, especially when it came down to saving his life, but if the captain didn't like his answer– if his loose ends didn’t tie up– it might be out the airlock for him.

But… that felt a little cruel for this crew–

Maybe he could play the pity card one last time?

He willed his voice not to shake.

“My name is Arden Greene. I don’t have… rank, or anything like that.” He hesitated, then pressed on. “I came from the station you docked at. The one in the outer ring.”

Eskel’s eyes narrowed– not in anger, but focus.

“You boarded intentionally. From ATMO5.”

“Yes,” Arden said. He winced, then hurried to add, “But not to steal. Not to sabotage. I just–” He faltered, his words tangling. “I needed to leave.”

The translator smoothed the stumble, but not entirely. Arden could sense the faint delay as it worked around his phrasing.

“You were… seeking refuge,” Eskel said, carefully.

“Yes, exactly,” Arden said, relief flashing across his face. “I’m sorry– I didn't mean to intrude. My ship was… compromised. And I was barely surviving on ATMO5. I figured anywhere else would be better than rotting there, and this ship was my only chance to escape alive. Thank you, for… for letting me live. I don't care where you’re going. If it’s possible, I’d just like to travel with you. I can try to make myself useful on board if you give me a task. I won’t just be… some pest, some–”

Like a trap, his jaw snapped shut.

In one big burst, he’d spat out everything he had been wanting to say for days in a long-winding string of pleading and bargaining, barely watching what he was saying by the time he'd finished his fifth sentence in a row.

Mere days ago he thought they were going to end his life, not save it, and he wanted to say more– so much more– if it would help defend his case even a little. The pile of mistakes that consisted of his life had led him to be a desperate, lying thief, but he still knew when to drop his cards and come clean. His future was on the line. Staying alive was important above all else. 

He was a criminal, but he wasn't criminally stupid.

The translator took a second to transmit all of Arden's information through the system.

{Individual: Arden Greene. Panicked apology of intrusion. Seeking refuge from ATMO5. Undesirable living conditions. Expression of appreciation given for mercy, services offered in return. Display of gratitude despite visible distress.}

Eskel considered him in silence long enough that Arden started to worry again.

“You understand that, by our laws, a stowaway may be removed or transferred at the next port,” Eskel said at last.

“I know,” Arden said. He didn’t say anything else– he couldn’t. Nothing he could say could prepare himself to face that reality.

After a pause, the captain continued.

“You were fed. Sheltered. Given care. You understand that this was a choice.”

“I do,” Arden said earnestly. “I really do. I know you didn’t have to. I’m grateful. For all of it. The food and water. The place to sleep. The… consideration. I see it now.” He gestured vaguely, small hands spreading. “You didn’t even know what I was saying, and you still helped.”

The translator hesitated again– this time on gratitude, on tone– but the meaning carried.

Eskel leaned back slightly. “You did not behave as a threat. And you are very small.”

Arden huffed out a quiet, surprised laugh. “Yeah. I get that a lot.”

“You did not damage the ship. You did not interfere with the crew. You waited.” Eskel’s gaze settled fully on him. “That weighs in your favour.”

Arden’s shoulders dropped, tension easing.

“We will continue this discussion when the rest of the crew is present. For now, you will remain where you stand.”

A pause, deliberate.

And then words that sounded like music to his ears:

“You are not a prisoner.”

—

Around him, the crew gathered in a loose ring. Eskel took the head position as if the table itself recognized his authority. Chor’s arms were crossed, but her expression was alert in a way that didn’t make Arden unsettled. Neio hovered nearby, their curiosity pulled taut by caution.

Jocker didn’t hang back. He planted himself close enough that Arden could feel the vibration of his voice through the tabletop.

Eskel spoke first, and Arden’s earpiece delivered it with a slight mechanical smoothness.

“We have your words now. That changes the situation.”

Arden nodded quickly. “Yes, captain. Thank you for giving me the chance to talk.”

There was a tiny delay.

“We did not give you a chance. You took one.” Eskel’s tone wasn't accusing, just precise. “But you have not abused it.”

Arden swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I tried not to...”

Jocker made a sharp sound.

“He tried not to get caught,” he said. “That isn’t the same thing.”

Arden’s stomach dipped. He forced his hands to stay steady.

Eskel’s gaze didn't move from Arden. “Jocker, speak clearly.”

Jocker did.

“ATMO5 is a nest of thieves, smugglers, and corporate washouts. We all know that.” His eyes flicked to Arden like he was an item being assessed. “And we found him hiding aboard like cargo.”

Arden’s face twisted. “I wasn’t trying to be–”

“We don’t know what you were trying to be.” Jocker cut in.

Chor shifted her weight, annoyed. “Captain, he isn’t a device. He can answer.”

Eskel lifted one hand– calm, final. The room stilled.

“Arden will answer,” Eskel agreed. “And you will listen.”

Arden swallowed nervously. The earpiece made Eskel’s voice sound close, even when the captain’s mouth was far above him. He looked up, meeting those large yellow eyes once more.

“Permission to explain properly?”

The translator hesitated on permission, then landed on something like request for orderly speech.

Eskel tilted his head. “Granted.”

Arden turned his eyes back to the ring of faces, keeping his voice steady.

“I am from ATMO5,” he said. “That part is true. But I’m not– I’m not affiliated with anything there. I’m not working for anyone. I was… stuck.”

Jocker’s expression didn’t change. “How convenient.”

Arden’s hands curled into fists. “It’s not convenient, it’s humiliating. But it’s the truth.”

Jocker only glared.

“I didn’t have resources,” Arden pressed on through the silence of the room. “I couldn’t buy protection. I couldn’t even walk most places without being carelessly crushed.”

“So you boarded our ship.”

“Yes,” Arden admitted immediately. “I saw a quiet ship with water on it. I saw a departure window. I saw a chance and I took it.”

Jocker’s voice was a low thrum. “You knew it was illegal. You did it anyway.”

Arden forced himself to nod. “Yes. Because the alternative was staying.”

He looked up at Eskel again– not pleading, just honest.

“I didn’t know what you would do,” Arden said. “I didn’t know if you’d kill me, or throw me back, or–” He swallowed the word laugh. “I didn’t know what would happen. I just needed out.”

The captain watched him for a long moment. Then he spoke to the room, not Arden.

“He is admitting fault. That is not nothing.”

Jocker’s plates shifted in irritation. “Captain, admitting fault doesn’t erase consequences.”

“No,” Eskel agreed. “It clarifies them.”

The Arcken’s grip flexed against the table edge. “You’re still treating him like a guest.”

Chor’s eyes flicked to Jocker. “Because we housed and fed him while he couldn’t speak? Would you prefer we had left him to starve in a vent?”

Jocker didn’t look at her. He stared at Arden. “I prefer we don’t get fined, boarded, or flagged because you decided to adopt a stowaway.”

“I prefer we offer assistance when we are able to,” Neio argued, their voice harmonious and omnipresent. "We could easily provide shelter and accommodations- he does not require many resources."

Jocker didn’t miss a beat. “And what if he turns on us? Uses our hospitality until he gains our trust? You don't realize how low you've let your guard down. Pathetic human or not he is still a stranger– from ATMO5 of all places– who does not belong here. Eskel could get us all in trouble if someone finds out about us letting an intruder stay in the ship, and I'd prefer we keep our pay.”

Arden's heart hammered away.

The words landed hard. Arden could feel it. The way the crew’s attention tightened– not on him as a person, but on the implications of his existence.

After a long pause, Eskel sighed. “Yes. There is the matter of Company policy. Unregistered bodies on a transportation vessel are a liability. That is not an opinion, that is regulation. I will not break the rules, as a long-standing representative of this company.”

Jocker made a noise of agreement. “Exactly.”

Eskel’s gaze returned to Arden. “But I am able to bend the rules. Which is why I would like to invite discussion of how you stay, not whether you stay.”

Arden blinked. “I– what?”

Chor’s fur fluffed in interest– like she already knew where Eskel was going.

Jocker didn’t. “Captain…?”

Eskel spoke like he was reading from a document he knew by heart.

“Under flight and delivery policy, the commander of a transportation vessel may assume authority over hiring temporary crew members if necessary to assist in the completion of a delivery. Up to three recruits at a time.”

Arden’s heart stuttered.

“This authority exists for emergencies. Labour shortages. Specialized needs. Unexpected conditions or… complications.”

Jocker’s expression sat somewhere between surprise and suspicion. “You can’t be serious.”

Chor chittered excitedly. “You’re going to recruit him?”

Eskel did not flinch. “I am offering Arden a legal status aboard my ship.”

Arden’s throat tightened so hard he could barely speak. “Captain–”

Eskel lifted a hand again, gentle but firm. “Listen before you answer.”

Arden clamped his mouth shut and nodded.

“If you accept, you will be registered through the ship’s system as temporary crew under my authority. You will be issued a designation. You will have boundaries, duties, and protections.”

Eskel’s voice did not soften, but it steadied, as if to end the loudest argument in the room:

“You will not be an unaccounted-for passenger.”

Arden looked around at the crew. Their attention was on Eskel.

The captain continued.

“If you refuse, I am obligated to transfer you at the next station with proper processing.”

The words struck Arden like a blow. His mind flashed– ATMO5’s wireframe, curious grabby appendages, careless footsteps, grease and grime, starvation, the constant feeling of being one mistake away from disappearing.

He forced the thoughts out of his mind. He wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t have to be.

“What would I… do?” Arden asked. “If I accepted.”

Jocker looked like he’d bitten into something bitter. “He can’t do anything. Look at him.”

Arden’s face burned with indignation. 

Chor’s voice cut in, sharp. “Jocker-”

Jocker turned to face her. “What? You want to pretend that his size doesn’t matter?”

“His size does not define his intelligence.” Neio chimed in.

Eskel’s gaze pinned the Arcken. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“You were also a recruit once, Jockeruchena. You were not trusted. You were tolerated. You were watched. And you earned your extended position.”

Arden’s eyes flicked between them– he could cut the tension with a knife.

Jocker grumbled something in response that the translator didn’t pick up. “I didn’t come from ATMO5.”

“No,” Eskel agreed. “You came from elsewhere with its own reputation. And you were still given a path to legitimacy.”

Jocker didn’t budge. “This is different.”

“Because he is small?” Eskel asked.

The Arcken’s silence was answer enough.

Eskel turned back toward Arden.

“Your duties would match your scale. You would not be asked to lift cargo or interface with systems that could harm you.”

“...Appreciated.” Arden managed, faintly.

The captain continued. “We have already encountered one practical problem: communicating with you required time, effort, and resources. That effort is justified if you become part of the vessel’s function rather than an anomaly hidden in its walls.”

Arden nods slowly.

“We have also observed your behaviour. You did not steal beyond what you needed to survive. You did not sabotage our ship’s systems. You avoided conflict with the crew. You accepted food and shelter without taking advantage.”

“We don’t know what he did before we found him.” Jocker’s side-eye was strong. “ATMO5 doesn't confiscate an entire ship for no reason.”

“I can’t prove my intentions retroactively,” Arden said with a frustrated huff.

The translator lagged on retroactively and replaced it with something simpler. Arden could sense it happening and he hated it, because he wanted to sound competent.

But he kept going.

“What I can do is be transparent now. You want logs? I’ll tell you where I hid. When I moved. What I ate. I didn’t have access to anything important. I barely had access to air.”

That made the crew shift uncomfortably.

Jocker’s eyes narrowed. “And what do you get out of this?”

Arden’s hands unclenched. “Not dying,” he said honestly. Then, gentler, “A chance. The same thing you got, apparently.”

Jocker only looked away, which Arden considered something of a victory.

Eskel kept his gaze on Arden. “If you accept, you will be supervised. You will not leave this vessel without permission, and you will not access locked bays or restricted systems.”

“Of course.”

“You will contribute within reasonable limits.”

Arden hesitated. A part of him wanted to say I can do more than you think, but he knew that wasn't the point right now.

“Yes,” he said instead. “I will.”

The captain’s gaze held him for a moment longer, truly weighing him. “Do you understand what it means to accept authority aboard this ship?”

Arden’s throat tightened. Authority aboard ships was a word that made his mind flash to locked doors, cramped bunks, contracts you couldn’t escape.

But Eskel had fed him. Sheltered him. Waited days just to hear his side.

“I do,” Arden said.

Jocker cut in, his gravelly voice low and urgent. “Captain, you’re taking responsibility for him. If he causes trouble–”

“Then I will answer for it.”

The simplicity of that silenced the room.

Chor’s eyes darted to Eskel, a small flicker of respect. 

Jocker’s expression hardened. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“A commander answers for their ship. That is not new.”

There was visible discomfort in the room, but the captain had made his decision. 

“Arden. Will you accept?”

For a second, Arden couldn’t speak.

All he could think was: If I say no, I go back into the system that chewed me up.

And: If I say yes, I belong to something bigger than just survival.

He swallowed his nerves. “Yes,” he said, voice wavering slightly. “Yes, Captain. I accept.”

Eskel tilted his head. “Then you will be registered under my authority, and you will be treated as crew in training.”

Arden’s eyes stung. He blinked hard, refusing to cry in front of a circle of giants.

“Thank you,” He managed hoarsely.

Eskel was not subtle when he asked the room: “Any more objections?”

Jocker rolled out a puff of steam. When he spoke, it was grudging and sharp. “I object. But I will obey.” 

Eskel’s reply was immediate. “Then it is decided. We are still within policy.”

Chor stepped in just a little, as if to anchor the moment in something practical. "If he is to function as crew, he’ll need a safe work designation and a set of micro-tools.”

Eskel nodded. There was much they had to do to make this work. “Approved.” 

Chor’s eyes landed on Arden once more. “And you’ll need to tell me what your hands can actually do,” she added, the translation carrying the faintest hint of amusement. “Because the data we have thinks Humans solve every problem with adhesive or sharp metal.”

Arden let out a shaky laugh– relief flooding through him.

“That’s… not entirely wrong,” he admitted.

The tension didn’t vanish, but it shifted. Less like a noose, more like a harness.

Arden looked back at Jocker, steady now.

“I know you don’t trust me,” he said. “You don’t have to. But I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m here because I didn’t have another way to stay alive.”

The translator delivered his speech plainly. No idioms, no softened edges. Just the truth.

Jocker’s glare didn’t change, but something in his posture loosened the tiniest fraction– the plates of rock seemed to argue with each other less, fewer puffs of steam escaped– like the idea of survival was at least something he recognized.

Eskel watched their exchange with interest.

And then he stood, and the meeting was over with the same quiet authority he started it with.

Chapter Text

The crew dispersed without argument, though not without weight. Jocker left last, plates tight, gaze lingering on Arden with a calculation Eskel pretended not to notice.

When the room finally quieted, the captain returned his attention fully to the smallest presence at the table.

"Do not fear him," Eskel said. "It is his nature to be dubious of others, but he will not be physically hostile towards you."

Arden gave him an unsure nod.

Then Eskel shifted his stance.

“Arden,” he said. The translator would smooth the cadence, but he was careful with his tone regardless. “I would like to further discuss your position privately. In my quarters, if you will accompany me.”

He waited. This was not a command, not yet.

Arden hesitated only a moment before answering. “Yes, Captain.”

The corridor to the captain’s quarters was quieter than the rest of the ship, insulated from the constant hum of the hull and crew movement. Eskel walked at a measured pace, mindful of Arden’s presence.

He was mindful, acutely, of the absurdity of it all.

The company would not appreciate any of it.

—

Eskel’s quarters contained no windows.

Instead, the forward wall was a single, seamless display, fed by a lattice of external cameras and sensor arrays embedded in the ship’s skin. When engaged, it rendered space with unnerving clarity: stars stretched and shifted as the vessel moved, distant traffic resolved into quiet points of light, navigational overlays Eskel could summon or dismiss with a gesture. It was not glass, and it did not pretend to be. The armour behind it was thin by hull standards, but thick enough to survive debris strikes and near-collisions without exposing the room to vacuum.

Eskel preferred it that way. Nothing fragile between him and the void.

The room itself was orderly without being sterile. The furniture was placed with intention– desk aligned to the display, storage recessed cleanly into the walls, a sleeping alcove set back from the main space so light and alerts never intruded unless invited. Surfaces were kept clear, but not empty; the few objects present were there because they were used.

A woven rug softened the floor beneath the desk, its fibers worn smooth where Eskel most often crossed it. The pattern was old, not decorative. On the opposite wall hung a tapestry, muted in colour, its design abstract enough to defy easy interpretation– something he’d acquired long ago and never replaced, despite changes in ship and rank.

Eskel crossed the room like he had many times before, except this time there was a weight to it.

He gently set Arden down on his desk– the Human took a few steps to right his footing, and then stood to face him.

Eskel did not sit. A little intimidation might be necessary, for the moment. Just so Arden understood the gravity of the situation.

“I will speak plainly,” Eskel began. “I am aware that my decision was abrupt. And that it places you in an uncertain position.”

Arden shifted slightly. “I understand. I am still grateful.”

Eskel met his gaze. “That gratitude is noted. But it does not exempt you from scrutiny.”

He folded his hands behind his back, pacing once before stopping at the display. The stars beyond were steady and indifferent.

“You should understand something. What I did in that room was not… elegant.”

Arden blinked.

Eskel exhaled slowly. “That is part of why I wanted this privately. I cannot acknowledge certain… missteps in front of my crew.”

The translator clipped missteps it into something like error in procedure.

Eskel stared into the vast expanse. “They are not fools,” he continued. “They understand that a stowaway becoming a recruit is a convenient solution for me.” 

He turned back to face Arden fully.

“They also know that if we were to handle this properly there would be paperwork that attracts attention, and attention that attracts audits.” He paused. “I will not pretend my choice was entirely selfless. However, it was not made lightly.”

He moved closer to the desk, resting one hand against its surface. The Human’s posture tightened by a fraction.

“There will be an adjustment period,” Eskel said. “For you. For my crew. For me. Your presence changes routines. It changes risk. It changes responsibility. You will be watched. And that is not a threat, but a reality.”

Arden nodded. His voice was small. “I expected that.”

Eskel didn’t physically display any relief, but the brief answer was enough for him to step back a bit, no longer looming so intensely. He knew it was nerve-wracking to the little Human– their body language was ever so talkative– but he had to get his point across.

“I will not tolerate any misconduct,” he continued. “I am not sure what kind of activities brought you to ATMO5, but they have left you in poor condition. If you are sincere about needing our help, if you wish to remain aboard, then you will leave station habits behind. That includes theft, sabotage, dishonesty, concealment, opportunism, things of that manner. You have my generosity now; do not make me regret it. 

Arden knew that “station habits” meant a lot of things. Keeping your head down. Lying when you had to. Taking opportunities before someone else did. Learning to smile even when someone was deciding whether to hurt you or not.

He drew a long breath.

“I don’t… want that life anymore,” he said quietly. “I’m tired of it. I don’t want to lie or steal or sneak if I don’t have to.” His voice caught. “I don’t want to be suspicious. I– I don’t want to bring that with me.”

Eskel studied him for a long moment, then tilted his head again, as if filing away his response. 

“That answer matters.”

He turned toward the display on the wall, tapping the surface. A projection flickered to life– company insignia, route schedules, cargo manifests reduced into clean lines and coded categories.

“You should understand what this ship does,” Eskel said. “We are not military. We are not explorers. We are a transportation vessel under corporate contract.”

Arden watched the manifests scroll past. He recognized none of the destinations.

“Our primary cargo is plantlife and biological mass,” Eskel continued. “Organic material bound for bio-farms, research sectors, and restoration stations. We carry seed vaults, algae cultures, fungal growth mediums, protein stock. Sometimes livestock equivalents, depending on the assigned contract.”

“This is not glamorous work, but it is intensely regulated. Biomass is valuable. Especially when planets are dying.”

Arden nodded. “And you just… deliver it?”

“We deliver it,” Eskel confirmed. “On time. Intact. With clean documentation. That is what keeps this vessel flying.”

There it was again: Documentation. Names in boxes that made you real enough to be counted.

Arden looked down at himself. He felt very countable right now.

“Most of our contract acquisition, cargo, and delivery management is largely automated. Our small crew is here to watch over the shipments, perform maintenance on the vessel when needed, and make sure systems stay functional. Chor and Neio tend to some of the technical and botanical aspects of our ship and cargo care respectively, while Jocker and I handle any manual labour.”

Eskel shut down the projection and returned his full attention to Arden.

“Now. Your role.” He spoke the words like he disliked that he had to. “I… do not have an immediate suitable task for someone of your stature. Most ship tasks require physical access you do not have, or involve systems we cannot expose to temporary employees. Sensitive information is withheld. Restricted bays are locked. And I will not breach protocol for sentiment.”

Arden’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I can still help,” he said quickly. “I’m small, but–”

Eskel raised one hand, a gesture that commanded silence.

“This is not a judgement of your worth, Arden. It is an assessment of risk and readiness.”

He stepped a little closer, lowering his voice. “You are still weakened. That much is obvious, even without medical scans. Your body shows signs of prolonged deprivation– malnourishment, exhaustion.”

Arden opened his mouth to protest.

Eskel didn’t let him.

“Your immediate assignment is to rest,” he said with finality.

The Human blinked up at him. “Sir…?”

The translator stuttered.

{Confusion. Respectful acknowledgement of authority. Expecting clarification.}

“You will sleep. You will eat properly. You will regain strength.” Eskel’s gaze was steady, unyielding. “While I determine a position that does not endanger you or the ship.”

Arden fell silent.

“You survived conditions that would have broken many larger than you. That tells me you have resilience. But resilience is not infinite. If you collapse aboard my ship exhausting yourself, that becomes my responsibility as well.”

The silence lasted a long moment.

Then Arden nodded, slow and deliberate. “Alright,” he said. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Eskel said.

Then he finally seated himself at the desk, in front of his personal console.

The surface illuminated beneath his palm, expanding upwards into a layered display– navigation first, then ship status, crew activity, cargo integrity, maintenance. All green. All compliant.

As it should be.

Eskel drew the interface closer, fingers moving with practiced efficiency. He had performed this ritual thousands of times: checks, confirmations, small adjustments no one else ever noticed unless they failed.

Today, there was an addition.

He opened the Crew Registry.

A list popped up on the display– names, designations, ranks, tenure markers. Some long-standing. Some provisional. Jocker’s profile flickered briefly as Eskell scrolled past it, marked Extended Crew – Permanent Assignment.

He did not linger on it.

Instead, he selected Add Entry.

The system awaited his input.

“Temporary recruit,” Eskel said aloud, knowing ASAP would parse the intent even without the exact phrasing.

The interface adjusted.

Designation: Temporary Crew

Authority: Vessel Commander Override

Duration: Pending Review

Maximum Recruit Count: 1 / 3 [WITHIN ALLOWANCE]

So far, so clean. Eskel began typing.

ARDEN

Species: Human (Microspecies Classification)

Origin: ATMO5 (Unregistered Civilian)

The system flagged the origin with a soft amber glow. Eskel acknowledged it without comment and continued.

Physical parameters came next. Eskel input what was already logged through the ship– approximate mass, height, biological tolerances. He did not open the deeper medical prompts. Chor or Neio would handle that if necessary. He had no interest in cataloguing Arden like cargo.

Role: Undetermined

Access Level: Restricted – Non-Sensitive

Movement Authorization: Crew Areas (Limited), Assigned Quarters, Supervised Transit

Eskel paused there.

He could, if he wished, expand the restrictions further. Lock Arden into a handful of spaces. Require constant escort. Some captains would have done so without hesitation.

He did not.

He simply adjusted the parameters slightly– enough to allow Arden autonomy without granting him reach.

Next came the legal acknowledgments– the parts that mattered if anyone ever bothered to look.

Responsibility: Vessel Commander

Liability: Assumed

Justification: Operational complication; crew supplementation authorized under policy §17.2

Eskel felt the weight of that line settle fully now.

Liability: Assumed.

He finalized the entry. The registry updated, Arden’s name slotting into place at the bottom of the list– No longer an anomaly.

“ASAP, how does it look?” He asked.

[ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL]

-

[CREW REGISTRY UPDATED. NO COMPLIANCE ALERTS DETECTED]

“Good,” Eskel said.

He dismissed the display and let the interface dim.

For a moment, he simply sat there, hands resting on the desk, gaze unfocused.

He was not blind to the risks.

ATMO5 carried a reputation for a reason. If an audit came, this decision would require justification. Explanations. Testimony.

Eskel could provide those.

What he could not provide, what no report would ever capture, was the look on Arden’s face when the translator finally worked. The way being understood made relief collapse into gratitude so profound it almost hurt to witness.

Command did not reward sentiment.

But it did not forbid judgment, either.

Arden had been standing patiently on the desk, watching Eskel in silence. 

He was the first to break that silence.

“Captain…?”

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering…” Arden paused. He seemed unsure of his words. “If you are employing me without task or pay– if… if I’m not working, how am I supposed to earn my keep?”

The translator hesitated on the phrasing before substituting earn my keep with something like justify continued resource allocation.

Eskel’s eyes narrowed.

“Earn your keep?” He repeated, confused.

“Yes,” Arden said, a little faster now. “Resources– Sustenance. Shelter. I can’t just–” He gestured vaguely. “I can’t just take that and do nothing. That’s not how it works.”

Eskel’s confusion deepened.

“Arden,” he said slowly, “the space you occupy is smaller than one of my storage drawers. The water you consume is less than a system flush. The food you eat does not register meaningfully against our stores.”

“That’s not– that’s not the point.”

“Then explain the point,” Eskel said.

Arden hesitated. How did you explain a lifetime of being measured in debts?

“The way I know it,” he said carefully, “you don’t get to exist somewhere unless you’re paying for it. With money, or work, or favours. If you don’t… people will notice. And then they decide you’re not worth the resources. Things aren’t just given to you for free.”

Eskel was quiet for a long moment. He leaned forward ever so slightly.

Up close, he could see the details of the Human that the Olenari had observed– bones too pronounced at the joints, face hollow in a way that spoke of long-term hunger rather than a few missed meals. His hair was uneven, like he’d cut it himself with whatever tool he’d managed to scavenge. His limbs were steady, but only because he was forcing them to be.

He was exhibiting the kind of control that came from necessity.

When Eskel spoke again, his voice was lower. Not softer, but steadier.

“Some of my crew do not believe your account of ATMO5,” he said. “Or they believe you may be omitting details from your story.”

Arden didn't meet his gaze.

“And you may be,” Eskel continued. “But I have seen enough stations– And enough people who learned how to survive inside them. Your behaviour is consistent with someone who learned caution because it was necessary.”

Eskel went on.

“If you truly require refuge, and if you bear no ill will toward my crew, then I see no reason to demand proof in the form of suffering.”

Arden’s hands trembled. He clenched them together, grounding himself and looking back up.

“So I don’t have to do anything to earn, like… food and water?” he asked, nervous, uncertain. “I just– get those?”

“Yes,” the captain said.

Just like that.

“But–” Arden scrubbed a hand over his face. “That doesn’t make sense. Someone still has to pay for it.”

Eskel’s gaze held him, calm and unwavering.

“I am paying for it,” he said. “As captain. As the one who chose to extend protection.”

“And you’re… okay with that?” Arden asked quietly. “Even if I don’t prove useful right away?”

Eskel tilted his head a fraction. “Usefulness is not always immediate. Neither is trust. Both can develop without coercion.”

Arden swallowed hard. “I– Okay. Thank you. That’s–” He didn't finish. He held his words inside and nodded instead.

The captain let the moment settle, and then he slowly stood.

“Remain here for a moment,” he said. “I will not be long.” 

Eskel left his quarters and moved through the ship with measured steps, the kind that made crew instinctively shift out of his path. He did not go to the bridge. He did not go to cargo. 

He went, instead, to retrieve the small container of fabricated items that they had printed for Arden earlier.

When he returned, the door opened at his authorization and sealed behind him with a soft hiss.

Inside, Arden sat in the center of his desk. He looked up, posture carefully composed, as if he expected to be moved again at any moment.

Eskel didn't say anything as he approached and set the small container down a short distance away from Arden.

Small for Eskel. For Arden, it was the size of a storage trunk.

It was shallow and sealed, lined with padding so the contents wouldn’t shift and crush one another. The lid was translucent, but fogged enough that Arden couldn’t see details.

Arden stared at it, then at Eskel, wary.

Eskel kept his voice neutral. “These are for you.”

Arden's eyes moved back to the box. “For… me?”

“Yes. A basic care package. Items your species uses. To accommodate your life aboard the ship.”

Arden blinked up at him. “You– you didn’t have to do that…”

The captain didn’t answer directly. He simply gestured to the container once, a small permission.

Arden hesitated, then reached out and opened it.

The latch released with a soft click.

Arden lifted the lid.

For a second, he didn’t move at all.

Eskel watched the exact moment Arden’s expression changed– not into joy, not even into relief, but into something stunned and fragile. Like a door had opened through a wall he’d assumed was permanent.

Arden’s fingers hovered, trembling slightly, before he reached inside.

He touched a toothbrush as if it might vanish. The shape was unmistakable even at this scale– familiar in a way that hit Arden hard enough his breath caught. There were other things, too: a small hairbrush, earplugs, a little spool of thread and needles, a notepad, simple utensils, a folded towel, a packet of pain killers, adhesive bandages, soap, a razor, a water bottle. Ordinary objects. Basic, forgettable objects.

Except Arden didn’t look at them like they were basic.

His mouth opened, then closed. Only breath escaped. He tried again.

“I–” Arden’s voice came out small. “I haven’t–”

He stopped, swallowed, and stared down into the container again.

Eskel said nothing, giving him space to find words.

The Human’s eyes went shiny, but he blinked rapidly as if he could deny his own body the right to react.

“I haven’t seen stuff like this in…” he started, then shook his head, the sentence falling apart. “Since… I don’t even know. Since my colony ship. Years ago.”

Eskel’s attention sharpened.

Not because the detail was useful to policy or paperwork, but because it matched the picture Arden had painted. Someone who had lived without stability long enough that basic care had become a luxury.

Arden looked up at Eskel, and for once he didn’t look scared.

“No captain I’ve ever… served,” Arden managed carefully, “has ever supplied me like this. I always just– had what I brought. What I could buy. And when it ran out, it ran out. When it was broken or stolen, I had nothing.”

The translator delivered his words plainly. It didn’t need to embellish them.

Eskel felt something shift, low and unexpected, in the space behind his ribs. Not trust. He was not naive. But a recognition– a kind of quiet recalibration.

A malicious intruder would not be undone by basic care.

Someone acting would not forget to perform pride.

Arden wasn’t performing anything at all. He was simply… overwhelmed.

“These items are small,” Eskel said, his voice quieter than before. “They cost very little to fabricate.”

Arden laughed once, brokenly, then pressed the heel of his hand to his face as if he was furious at himself for reacting.

“I know,” he whispered. “I know they’re small. But they mean a lot. No one does this… not for someone like me.”

Eskel held Arden’s gaze. He tried not to let the meaning behind someone like me bristle his fur.

“You are crew now.” He paused. “Temporary. But crew. And crew are maintained.”

Arden stared at him, as if he didn’t quite believe that sentence could be true.

Then he nodded, too fast, too hard, trying to contain everything he was feeling inside the small frame of his body.

“Thank you, Captain.” he said again, voice thick. “I mean it.”

Eskel allowed the gratitude to stand without deflection.

In the silence that followed, Arden carefully sifted through and rearranged the items in the container like they were precious, like he needed to reassure himself they were real. Each object was like a small anchor to a life that didn’t revolve solely around survival.

Eskel watched him do it and felt the fear of his decision settle.

He still didn’t know who Arden truly was– not beyond the words he’d been able to verify. He still understood the risk, the potential consequences, the scrutiny that would come if the company chose to look closely.

But seeing Arden’s reaction– seeing how much it mattered– made one thing harder to deny:

It was possible Arden had told the full truth.

It was possible the Human had boarded the ship from ATMO5 not as a threat, but as a final, desperate act of self-preservation.

Eskel did not soften. He did not reach out. He did not offer comfort in ways that might be misunderstood. But when he spoke again, there was a faint change in his tone. Less like a commander addressing a liability, and more like a person acknowledging another person’s limits.

“There is one more matter we need to address,” he said.

“Anything.” Arden offered.

Eskel clasped his hands behind his back, returning to formality.

“I do not yet have a suitable sleeping allocation for you as crew.” He paused, measuring his words. “Not one that meets safety standards for someone of your scale.”

Arden blinked. “Oh. Yeah…?” He shrugged awkwardly, like the answer was obvious.

Eskel continued anyway. “Crew quarters are not adaptable on short notice. Even a modified bay would require preparation– environmental buffers, vibration dampening, access controls.” He took a breath. “I will develop a solution. But not tonight.”

Arden nodded, visibly trying to follow the implications without interrupting.

Eskel shifted his weight slightly. “Until then, I need to ask you something directly.”

Arden stiffened. “...Ask me what?”

“Would you be comfortable remaining where you have been sleeping so far?”

The words sat between them.

Eskel knew exactly how that location sounded when framed plainly.

A holding cell. A repurposed botanical specimen tank. Transparent walls. Observation angles. A place chosen for containment, not comfort. A space that had held multiple sols of his panic and fear.

He did not soften the reality of it– but he did not hide behind euphemism either.

Arden’s reaction surprised him.

The Human’s body loosened, not tightened. As if he had been prepared for a worse question, a bitter outcome.

“Yes,” Arden said without hesitation. “That’s fine. Really.”

Eskel watched closely now. “You understand that you are no longer confined there. This is not an order.”

“Yes,” Arden said again. “I understand. It’s just–” He hesitated, then gave a small, self-conscious shrug. “It’s honestly nicer than a lot of places I’ve slept recently.”

That caught.

“Nicer,” Eskel repeated, carefully.

Arden nodded. “You gave me material to lay on. Padding. I didn’t even realize how tense I’d been until I wasn’t on bare metal anymore.” A faint, crooked smile fought through his exhaustion. “The station floors were… not forgiving.”

Eskel felt the words land with more force than Arden intended.

Metal floors. No insulation. No privacy. No expectation of rest.

Arden continued. “It’s not perfect, but it’s warm. And it’s clean. And no one’s tried to disturb me in my sleep.” He paused, then added, softer, “That’s already an improvement.”

The captain said nothing for a long moment.

He had authorized Chor’s proposed use of that tank as a temporary measure when Arden had first been found– an unorthodox procedure for an unknown organism of uncertain intent. It had been safe. Logical. Necessary.

Hearing it described as comfortable reframed it in a way Eskel hadn’t anticipated.

“The tank was never intended for habitation,” Eskel said quietly. “You will not remain there long-term. I give you my word.”

Arden nodded again. “I believe you.”

That– like his gratitude, like his relief– was what shifted something in Eskel’s assessment.

Trust offered without leverage. Without expectation.

“Then we will proceed as follows,” Eskel said. “You will continue to sleep in the specimen bay for now. The observation protocols will be disengaged. The space will be treated as temporary personal quarters, not containment. You will be given the care you need to improve.”

Arden’s eyes widened slightly. “You don’t have to–”

“I do,” Eskel said, evenly.

Arden's lips pressed together like he was holding back the words.

“If at any point you become uncomfortable or encounter a situation which you do not know how to handle, you will inform me. Immediately.”

“I will,” Arden promised.

Eskel let out a breath.

“You have endured conditions that should not be normalized, Arden.” His voice was firm, but not unkind. “Do not measure your worth by how little you require.”

Arden froze.

Then he nodded, slow and thoughtful. “I’ll… try not to.”

Eskel accepted that answer for what it was. It was honest. It was incomplete. It was Human.

He allowed a little tension to ease, before extending his palm.

“This is enough for now,” he said. “Let us go. I will return you to your shelter so that you may rest. If you need any further equipment, we will talk to Chor. For now: Eat. Sleep. Maintain yourself, and recover.”

It was barely a command. It was concern, and Eskel knew it.

He didn’t care.

Chapter Text

Arden leaned his head back against the glass and stared up at the ceiling of the tank.

His body didn’t know how to stop bracing.

Even now, with food available, he found himself calculating how long it would last, how long before someone decided he’d had enough, how long before kindness ran out. Even now, under the captain’s protection, he caught himself listening for footsteps like they meant danger, not just people passing through their own ship.

He tried to relax and his muscles refused, wearing tension like armour.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them at all. Trust was… too big of a word this early. Trust was something you built with time and consistency, not something you handed over because someone broke your expectations.

But he believed this much: Eskel had no reason to pretend to care about his health. No reason to think about what he needed, and decide that it mattered. If the captain wanted him gone, he could’ve arranged it. If the crew wanted to exploit him, they could’ve done so and justified it later. He knew what risks he was signing himself up for when he snuck aboard. The power dynamic was so skewed Arden couldn’t even imagine fighting it.

But instead, Chor had offered him a voice.

Instead, Eskel had offered him a legal foothold.

He understood the logic. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he looked bad– dirty, thin, tired, ragged from head to toe with every edge his body offered. He could feel it in the way his limbs ached after small movements. He could see it in the hollowness behind his eyes when he caught his warped reflection in the tank wall or the water supply. He knew that pity was not exclusive to humans.

But understanding something didn’t make it easy to process.

He didn't know how long it had been since the last time anybody… cared. Since he could sleep without one hand on his belongings. Since he could be part of a crew without staying alert because he was surrounded by people who would sell him out for a better cut. 

But this crew didn’t need to do any of that– they had proper income. 

Stability. Structure.

The word structure lingered in the walls of Arden’s mind. 

Before ATMO5, before the scavenging crews and the quick contracts and the long stretches of nothing but stale air and cheap rations– there had been a time when he’d had structure. A time when he didn’t have to plan three escape routes and a place to hide in every room he entered.

The colony ship.

Sometimes it felt like a memory that belonged to someone else. A younger Arden, even smaller than he was now, who still believed that the adults in charge knew what they were doing. The colony ship had been generational order: scheduled meals, scheduled training, scheduled sleep. People with duties and uniforms and rules. A bunk assigned by name and not whether you could fight for it.

A future that wasn’t just trying to survive the next fourty-eight hours.

Then life happened. Or the universe happened. Or both.

Arden didn’t linger on the exact sequence of things. He could, if he wanted to. He could replay the moment of opportunity, then the moment the mission changed. The moment a series of decisions made by people with bigger bodies and bigger authority sent him out into the wider sprawl of space with nothing but a training record and a name that didn’t mean anything once he stepped off the manifest–

But he didn’t like to think about it. He'd done that too much already.

At least he’d left that nightmare with training.

Pilot training. Combat training. Enough weapons handling that he’d once been comfortable with a sidearm strapped across his back, and felt the weight of it as a reassurance. For a while, that had been his security: the confidence that if something went wrong, he could shoot his way out of it.

But weapons didn’t keep you safe forever. Weapons made you a resource, a tool, a threat that someone might want to control. Arden had learned quickly, painfully, that being a microspecies meant he couldn’t rely on intimidation the way others could. Your weapon was only as good as your ability to keep it on you, and your ability to keep it on you was only as good as the people around you allowing it.

He’d been disarmed so many times– watched his weapons plucked from his grip and crushed like toys– that he’d stopped buying them altogether.

For years he’d moved with ragtag crews– salvagers, scavengers, barely-legal delivery outfits that took jobs no one wanted and paid in parts and favours. Arden had become useful not for his aim, but because he fit where others didn’t. He could crawl into ducts. He could slip through maintenance gaps. He could hide. He could do quiet, precise work where no one would see the damage.

And he could defend himself when he had to.

Although usefulness came with a price. People kept you close when you were useful, and discarded you when you weren’t. Arden had learned to read the shift in tone that meant a crew was starting to see him as expendable. He had learned to leave before he was left.

But this was a delivery crew. This wasn’t dirty work. These weren't mercenaries. This was a clean, boring, meticulous job with schedules, paycheques, and orderly conduct.

And he was part of it now.

Arden let out a long sigh and looked around his given space.

He had a tent– if it could be called that, fabric to sleep on, rations, some toiletries, and water.

It wasn’t much.

It was also the most he’d had in years.

Chor had refreshed his water supply and left him a type of dry food they had acquired for him- some kind of nutrient wafers that were dense and a bit bland, but not unpleasant. The kind of thing designed to keep a body running without requiring a stove or a knife.

It felt strange– he wasn’t used to keeping food around. On ATMO5, You ate it when you had it. If you tried to save it, it either went bad or someone else took it.

Here, Arden stared at the stack of rations and felt a panicky urge to hide them. To tuck them away. To build a stash in the folds of his shelter. 

He didn’t. Or he forced himself not to, at least.

Instead, he unsealed one and ate it slowly, leaving the rest where they were. He didn’t rush; he didn’t have to anymore.

The food sat heavy in his stomach at first, as if his system didn’t know what to do with steady calories. It was uncomfortable, but not necessarily in a bad way. Just his body desperately trying to return to normal.

He let himself drink more, too. Not small stolen sips. Not rationing down to the last drop because he didn’t know when he would find more. He drank until his throat no longer felt like sand, and then he drank a little more and capped his water bottle and set it back down with care, knowing– for once– that there would be more later.

Then he did something he hadn’t done in… too long.

He slid the container Eskel gave him closer, and took the toothbrush out. He just held it for a second, feeling the shape in his hands. The familiarity hit like a sharp pain behind his ribs.

On the colony ship, everyone had them. Hygiene had been enforced as routine, part of the machine’s order. You brushed your teeth because it was Tuesday and the light cycle had switched and the water was there and everyone else did it.

After he’d left– after everything shifted– he’d been surviving on what he brought with him. And, eventually, those things ceased to exist. Either by breaking or running out or being sold or stolen– or simply when he had reached too far away from home, where such items were no longer recognized.

He dampened the toothbrush in the water and crushed a small tablet of the mineral paste that came with it. It activated on contact with the water– a tasteless, mild cleanser that foamed softly as he worked the bristles along his teeth.

At first it felt almost uncomfortable; his gums were sensitive, his mouth unused to being cared for. But it was such an absurdly human act in his vastly alien world, and it made something in his chest unclench.

He tried to accept that, for once, the universe had handed him a break– and that this break didn’t come with hidden knives.

He didn’t fully convince himself it was true, but he did something else he hadn’t done in a long time.

He made a plan that wasn’t an escape plan.

He thought about how he could be useful here without putting himself in danger. He thought about ways his size could help that weren’t just “crawl into the place no one else fits and hope nothing collapses.” He thought about learning the ship’s rhythms, learning the crew, learning what they watched for so he could avoid giving them reasons to be suspicious.

He thought about earning the position Eskel had shoved into his hands like a lifeline.

He thought about himself getting better.

A soft chime rang through the room, just a single note that until now Arden had dismissed. It was ASAP’s heads-up that the simulated sol will be cycling, and the lights in the ship were about to dim. 

Arden glanced over to his shelter.

Rest, Eskel had said. Like it was easy.

Rest was dangerous, instinctively. Rest meant you weren’t watching. Rest meant you were vulnerable. Arden had grown accustomed to sleeping in fragments– twenty minutes here, an hour there, waking over and over to check that no one had found him, that his stash was still hidden, that the air hadn’t turned sour.

Even aboard this ship, even inside this tank, he’d been doing it. Waking every few hours at the smallest vibration, heart racing, mind already thinking of a way out.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, he was watched, yes– but not hunted.

Tonight, he had food he didn't have to guard.

Tonight, he had a captain who, for whatever mix of reasons, seemed to give a shit about him.

Arden’s eyes stung with tears, and he blinked hard as ‘night’ fell and the darkness settled around him.

It was annoyingly difficult to swallow past the sudden thickness in his throat.

When he finally crawled into his shelter, he didn’t position himself like a cornered animal ready to bolt. He lay down with his limbs spread, and let his heavy body sink into the weave of the fabric.

He listened to the ship’s steady hum and tried– really tried– to believe that he didn’t have to earn every breath by fighting for it.

—

The next morning didn’t arrive with a crisis.

Arden woke up expecting one– because he had learned to expect one. He blinked awake inside his fabric shelter, the dim light filtering through the leaves, and waited for the familiar jolt of adrenaline that usually came right after consciousness.

It didn’t.

What he felt instead was the unfamiliar, disoriented sensation of heavy, uninterrupted sleep.

No booming footsteps had stopped outside the tank. No voices debated him through the glass like he was a specimen. No sudden lights flashed. No one sealed the open side of the tank while he slept to remind him who had the power.

The ship hummed on, steady and indifferent, and Arden realized, slowly, that no one had even come to check whether he was still there.

They were… leaving him alone.

It took him a moment to accept that as intentional rather than accidental.

He stayed curled under the fabric for a while longer, listening to the soft rhythms outside: distant movement, faint systems chattering, a far-off clang that suggested Chor was already awake and building something impossible again. But the bay itself remained quiet. The tank remained untouched. Nothing had been taken, nothing changed while he wasn’t watching.

A laugh escaped him. Small, quiet, incredulous.

He climbed out of the tent, stretched the stiffness from his limbs slowly, and reached for the toothbrush again like it was a normal part of his life now instead of a miracle.

He brushed his teeth.

He drank water and spilled a drop without flinching.

He took it easy, because that was his assignment. And because, for the first time in a long time, Arden didn’t feel like taking it easy would get him killed.

Yesterday, Chor had rotated the tank and the result was… thoughtful. The water source, which had originally been positioned where anyone passing could see directly into it, was now against the wall. A blind spot from the main walkway.

Privacy offered, no strings attached.

Arden stared at it for a long moment, before grabbing the bar of soap and making his decision.

He cut a small washcloth and a mat out of the shelter fabric, and placed them at the edge. He filled both of his water bottles to the brim, and set them aside carefully. He grabbed the edge of his filthy jacket, preparing to take it off, and he froze.

He spent a moment gathering himself.

For so long, self care had been survival– it had never been comfort. It had been whatever he could manage without getting caught; wiping grime from his skin with scraps of cloth, rinsing his mouth with stale water that tasted like composite, cutting his hair with shitty scissors or a jagged bit of metal when it got too long and started catching on things.

Here, in a space that was temporarily his, with the water tucked away and a bundle of giant leaves like a curtain, he could… actually do this.

He stripped down, and tossed his clothes on the floor nearby. His shirt was stained and threadbare in some places, his pants were patched and scuffed. His jacket– he hesitated with that one, fingers curling around the collar.

It still smelled like ATMO5. It still held the stink of survival in its fibers.

He set it aside firmly, like he was putting down something heavier than fabric.

The water was clear. Clean. It smelled like nothing at all.

He climbed in.

Cold slapped him instantly– it shocked the breath out of him for a second, muscles clenching, skin prickling. He hissed softly through his teeth and forced himself not to jump out.

“It’s fine,” he muttered aloud to no one. “It’s fine, you’re fine.”

He sank down to his shoulders, letting his body adjust. The cold burned, but it was bearable. It didn’t cling like grime. It didn’t sting like chemical runoff.

And he had soap.

He’d shaved a sliver off of it, and held it with a reverence that was almost ridiculous. He wetted it, rubbed it between his hands– and then slowly, thoroughly, washed.

The first pass alone turned the water slightly grey as station filth lifted off his skin. The second pass was better. The third felt like he was scrubbing away layers of a life he didn’t want to carry anymore.

He used the cloth too– the material was rough enough to do its job, but soft enough not to sand him raw. He scrubbed his arms, his chest, his back; every place that had been touched by metal corridors, by filthy rails, by air that was never truly clean.

He washed his hair, fingers working the soap through, feeling the texture shift from oily to light. He rinsed and rinsed, tipping his head back, letting the water run over his scalp and down his face.

It stung his eyes and he didn’t care.

When he finished, he sat in the water for a moment longer than necessary, just breathing, letting himself believe that this wasn’t a stolen moment that had to end in panic.

He climbed out slowly, dripping onto the mat. He dried himself off with the towel from the care kit until his skin felt warm again, and then reluctantly put his pants back on. They were still dirty, still worn, but they felt a little less suffocating now that they weren’t layered over sweat and station dust.

He turned his attention to the hairbrush and razor next, still riding the strange momentum of I can do this.

He used the brush and worked through his wet hair until the tangles tore free, until it no longer fought him with every pass, until it lay flatter. Then he found the small cutting tool they’d included– simple, safe, nothing fancy– and sat on the ground with the tank’s back wall as his mirror. His reflection was faint and warped, but it was enough. 

He trimmed his hair carefully, taking off uneven ends, cleaning up the ragged parts where he’d hacked at it, where things had gotten stuck in it. He didn’t try for style. Just neat. Just intentional.

Then his beard.

That took longer. He’d let it grow because finding a way to shave safely had been a low priority when he was trying not to die. But now, with soap and clean water and time, he could make himself look less like something that just crawled out of a vent.

He worked slowly, fingers steady, trimming and shaping until his face looked more like him again. More like the person he remembered before the worst of it.

His cheeks still looked a little hollow. His shoulders were still too sharp. But his eyes looked clearer. His skin looked human again, not grey with dirt and neglect.

He looked… alive. And he was grateful to be.

He let out a long exhale, and realized that his hands weren’t shaking.

He picked up his jacket and held it for a moment, debating putting it back on. It wasn’t necessarily cold in here, but being able to tug something closer around him was often comfortable in a small, childish way.

But he didn’t need comfort right now. He had safety.

He sat in the quiet of the tank, just appreciating the faint noise of the ship’s systems and the distant hum of the hull.

For a month, quiet hadn’t existed. Not real quiet, not like this. There was always something rattling, footsteps passing overhead, alarms that meant nothing to him but a lack of sleep, voices that bled through every crack and seam of the station, the constant mechanical thrum of machines. It was chaotic, at best.

Here, the noise felt almost… predictable. Routine.

It was… nice.

—

The crew didn’t hover. Arden caught a few curious glances whenever Chor or Neio had to pass by, but they didn’t treat him like a pet or a project or a fragile thing that would shatter if they looked away. They gave him space, and that– Arden was starting to learn– was part of their care.

When Chor finally made an appearance, it was purposeful.

Arden was laying down, but he sat up as he heard someone approach. He looked up into the technician’s glossy black eyes as she jumped on the table– a familiar meeting for them by now.

“Hey,” Arden said, and the translator caught the casual greeting.

Chor took a curious step closer. “Hello, Arden.”

She didn’t immediately ask a question. She just looked.

Arden felt the weight of her attention in a new way now that he wasn’t constantly braced for judgement. Chor’s gaze was sharp, technical in its own way, like she was used to noticing details because noticing details was what kept things from breaking in her line of work.

Her eyes moved over him, quick, assessing. Then she made a soft sound– approval, maybe.

“You look different,” she commented.

Arden huffed a small laugh. “I feel different,” he said. “I was able to… clean myself up, finally.”

He gestured vaguely towards the dirtied water source, suddenly aware of how stupid it sounded to announce you’d bathed like it was an accomplishment.

He was also suddenly aware that he might be wasting water.

“Sorry for making you change it again,” he sighed, not meeting her stare. “I… I won’t do it again for a bit.”

“That is fine,” she said. “You may bathe as necessary. The ship will handle it.”

Arden didn’t entirely know what that meant, but he nodded.

Chor didn't elaborate; Instead, she seemed to study him a little closer. This was the most she had seen of him yet.

“You have… patterns,” she observed, as if her data hadn't prepared her for that.

Arden looked down at himself.

“Scars,” he corrected. “When human flesh gets pierced, it doesn’t heal clean. It leaves a mark.”

Chor made a different sound, one Arden couldn’t place. Another question flew out of her.

“And your coverings– you are not wearing them?”

Arden glanced at the pile of clothes. “No.”

The Devori’s expression shifted– not alarmed, but questioning. “I assumed you needed at least the larger one,” she said. “For thermoregulation. You’ve worn it since we found you.”

Arden let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… it was half warmth, half… habit.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “But it’s disgusting. It’s covered in grease and grime and sweat and oil. Station stuff.” His nose wrinkled just thinking about it. “I finally got clean. I don’t want to put that back on my skin.”

Chor’s eyes flicked to the jacket, and for a moment she looked like she was mentally cataloguing the substances Arden had listed and ranking them by contamination risk.

“Reasonable,” she said.

Arden blinked. That’s not the reaction he was expecting. He was half expecting the alien to tell him that he needed it anyway because it’s his only outer layer.

Chor made another thoughtful sound. “You do need coverage, but not that. We can probably acquire something at the next port…” She trailed off, letting the thought pass.

Then she reached forward toward the tank opening. Not entering, just indicating the jacket with a careful gesture.

“Give it to me.”

Arden’s brows lifted. “What?”

“I can clean it,” Chor said. Like it was obvious. Like cleaning it was anything short of a miracle. “We have a decontamination unit. It will neutralize contaminants and remove oils without degrading the fibres.”

Arden stared at her. The English lexicon chip didn’t have a word for “decontamination” or “neutralize”, and struggled to find a workaround that made sense to his ears.

“A… what unit?” He asked.

Chor didn’t take offense. “A cleaning machine,” she translated, simpler.

Arden looked over at the jacket again, then back up at her. The idea that it could be cleaned– not rinsed in cold water and hoped for the best, not wiped down until it smelled less like rot, but actually restored– felt almost surreal.

“You can do that?” He asked, quieter.

“Yes,” Chor said. “If you’ll allow it.”

That last part mattered.

Arden swallowed, then stood and reached for his shirt and jacket. He hesitated for half a heartbeat, an old instinct rising– if you hand something over, you don’t get it back. Station rules. Scavenger rules. The rules of people who took what they wanted because they could.

But this was different.

“Okay,” Arden said, voice steadying. “Yeah. You can take them.” He offered his clothes to her with both hands. He would have given her his pants too, but he didn’t feel like confining himself to his underwear in front of co-workers he’d only just met.

Chor accepted the small bundle with surprising gentleness. To her, it was probably as light as a scrap rag. To Arden, it was the last outer shell he’d had through years of running. The only form of sentiment that he let himself hold on to.

“I’ll return them,” she said, and turned to hop off the table.

Arden nodded, trying not to look too hopeful. “Thanks.”

He watched her go until her silhouette disappeared.

And then he waited.

He tried to occupy himself– he ate something, and ignored his stomach cramping as it was fed consistently. He re-structured the nest of his bedding, because he had messed it up in his sleep. He paced around, finding any mindless thing to calm himself.

Trust. That word still felt dangerous.

When Chor returned, Arden’s eyes went straight to her hands.

She was holding his shirt and jacket. Except it didn’t look like them at all.

The shirt looked brand new, like the day it had been given to him. The jacket looked like it had never slept on a metal floor a day of its life. The stains were gone. The fabric was darker, richer, and clean.

Clean.

Not “less dirty,” like he was hoping for. Not “rinsed,” like he would have had if he was forced to clean it himself.

Arden’s mouth fell open as he took it from her.

“Restored,” Chor said simply. “The unit repaired micro-tears. Neutralized contaminants. Removed oils. It should be safe against your skin now.”

It felt different. Softer, lighter. It smelled like nothing– no trace of his past. Just clean cloth, like it once had been. He clutched it like an anchor and pressed it briefly to his face without thinking, inhaled, and his chest tightened painfully.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, and the translator dutifully carried the intent even though the words weren’t really meant for Chor.

“Thank you,” he said again. “Seriously, Chor.”

Chor made a noise that he was beginning to associate with satisfaction. The translator parsed a soft “You’re welcome.” his way.

“I didn’t know things could be fixed like this,” he admitted. “I thought once something got that dirty, it was just– done.” 

Chor paused, studying him. “That is… unfortunate,” she said, as if she meant it in more than one way.

Arden laughed shakily. “Yeah. That’s one word for it.”

He looked down at the jacket again, turning it over in his hands like he was afraid he might find dirt if he didn’t keep checking.

“You made it like new…” he said, still stunned.

Chor looked amused. “I only took the ATMO5 out of it,” she said.

“Yeah but, you didn’t have to do this for me...” Arden protested softly, still– still– wary of hidden strings.

“I wanted to.”

He didn’t know how to answer that with anything other than a nod. He instinctively looked away so she wouldn’t see his face do whatever it was doing– gratitude, disbelief, something dangerously close to relief that wasn’t fleeting.

He slipped his shirt back over his body and shrugged his jacket on. The familiar weight settled over his shoulders– but without the stink. Without the itch. It felt like putting on something safe again, and not just something for survival.

Arden exhaled a long breath. “Yeah,” he said softly, mostly to himself. “This helps. A lot.”

“Do you want me to clean your lower coverings too?”

“No.” Arden said quickly, then softened it. It always felt strange explaining exposure and modesty to an alien who didn’t wear clothes for the same reasons he did. “Not… not yet. I don’t like being without those ones.”

Chor made a mental note of that, and made a gesture of confirmation.

“Do you need anything else?” She asked.

Arden hesitated, then shook his head. “No, not right now. I’m…” he paused. The sentence felt strange to say. “I’m okay.”

Chor’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if she didn’t fully believe anyone could be okay after what he’d described– but she accepted his answer.

“Then I will let you rest more,” she said. “Eskel doesn’t want us to bother you too much… but I bother everyone on this ship.”

Arden picked up on the casual humour, he could practically hear the wink behind it.

“Neio is very interested in meeting you,” she continued. “When you are feeling better, they would like to say hello. If you are willing.”

Arden gave her another nod, more steady this time. “Yeah... I don’t mind.”

He understood the eagerness to turn a stranger into a familiarity. He was eager to get to know his new shipmates, too.

Author's note:

I went a little insane thinking about water consumption during this chapter, so if anyone wants to know how the ship recycles water for long voyages, and handles the debris, here is a description and a rough diagram I made that explains the system!

The ship doesn't waste water. Runoff from water consumption flows into a filtration stack that skims out spores, fibers, and dissolved organics, sterilizes and neutralizes what remains, and returns clean water to the reservoirs. Everything the filters catch is dewatered and pressed into standardized bio-bricks– saleable mass for farms, reactors, and anyone who pays for carbon in convenient shapes.

(So essentially it's just a really intense aquatic filtration system that compresses collected debris/organics/materials buildup into either "fuel" or "fertilizer" cubes. The cubes, or "bio-bricks" are automatically stored in secure containers which are then dropped off at Company locations, and sold to buyers. Every registered delivery employee is paid a small cut from this.)

And yes, I did all of this just so Arden could take a bath 😭

I also made a sketch of Arden- or at least what he's looked like up until this chapter. I'll draw an updated Arden eventually lol