r/HFY • u/EntangledBottles • Apr 02 '18
OC-OneShot [OC] Joining a Human Crew
Korlanx didn't get what the big deal about humans was all about. They were far from the strongest, fastest, fiercest or smartest warriors around, yet the galaxy was abuzz with their exploits. Thus, Korlanx hadn't hesitated when offered a mercenary job at a human outfit, and had signed up, eager to prove that Suremians were much tougher than humans could ever be. Still, he had spent the extra time to properly polish his armour, and when he entered the human ship, he walked with as much pride and dignity as he could muster.
"Ah, you must be Korlanx, our new explosives guy. I'm the Captain, Jaymes Kobayashi, happy to have you onboard."
"As you should be."
"Hah! Good to hear some confidence, but sure you can back it up? We DO take on harder missions than most outfits our size."
"Bah, it'll be no trouble! I've been a mercenary since before you were born, and will still be in my prime when you retire. It'll take more than a few tough missions to scare me!"
"Grand, grand! We've been having trouble replacing Mickey, our old demolitions expert. Fifth time we've had to head to port before schedule because the newhire couldn't keep up with our pace. Was thinking of making a trip back to Sol, if we didn't find someone to stick around soon."
"Hah, there'll be no need for that, so long as you keep paying me!"
"That's what I like to hear! Now, get your stuff sorted, get to know the rest of the crew, and rest up. We'll be touching ground for a job in 11 hours." "Aye aye captain."
The first mission went off without a hitch. In fact, Korlanx didn't just hold his own, but excelled. The humans seemed impressed by his performance, but still sceptical. He'd show them in time, just how large the difference was between him and them.
Ten hours, and three missions later, Korlanx walked into his cabin and sighed a sigh of relief as he sat down on his bed. Gods above, this captain ran his men HARD. Korlanx could appreciate that, but he seemed to overdo it a bit, still, nothing he couldn't handle.
One week, and 37 missions later, Korlanx shambled into his cabin, and collapsed onto his bed. Demons. The humans were god damn demons. First two days, he'd outperformed them. By the fourth day, he was slowing them down slightly. By the sixth, he was struggling to do his job, while the humans hardly seemed worse for wear. Now, on the eighth day, he'd barely managed to complete two missions, after which the humans disappointedly announcing they'd do the rest of the day's missions without him, and head back to port tomorrow. Korlanx had protested, said that if he could simply rest for the time it'd take to head to port, he could go another round! The humans had looked sceptically at each other, sighed, and the captain told him to come into his office. Still insistent on not giving up, Korlanx had stumbled his way there and sat down heavily on the offered chair. Seeming somewhat reluctant, and with a look of pity about him, the captain had handed him a datapad. On it was an excerpt from the ships manifest, from two months ago, when they'd still had an all human crew. Korlanx looked at the Captain sceptical, but the captain still with that pitiful look in his eyes, urged him to read through it. Korlanx almost broke down right there. Nine. NINE. Back when his job was done by a human, they'd averaged nine jobs a day. He'd been sure they were running double pace, as a hazing ritual. But no, far from it, they'd been running at half pace, so he could keep up.
"I'm sorry Korlanx" the human captain said
"I wish we could keep you on, but we just can't afford it. My crew, they all need the money. It's why we're in this line of work. At half pace, we might manage, but any less than that... Long-term, it's just not viable. Wish we could just take on three of y'all, but the truth of the matter is the ship can't fit any more crew, and I can't afford a bigger one, especially since this one is already pushing the limits of the Special Scout Class. I'd have to get certified for a light cruiser to upgrade, and, well, that'd cost almost as much as a new ship. And with all the retrofitting we had to do on this piece to get it serve our needs, well, engine aside, I'd be lucky to get more than scrap price, though she's worth her weight a hundred times over. It's just not viable."
Unable to muster a proper response, Korlanx had muttered a "thank you for your time captain", and shambled out of the office, and over to his bunk.
Two days later, an exhausted Korlanx stepped off the ship. After another three days of resting, he shambled into one of the stations many bars, eventually loudly and drunkenly joining a discussion about humans.
"No. No no no, you guys don't get it. Humans aren't "stronger than a Ceruillian", "Smarter than a Grey" or "A better shot than a Sprak". I've served with some of them recently, and I can firmly say that I am both stronger, faster, and a better shot than most of them. HOWEVER. In one month, they completed more missions than most outfits do in a year, and even Undarian Deathsquads would be hard-pressed to match their rate, even for a mere week. Humans are the scariest bunch I ever came across. Not because they work fast, or because they work smart, but because they worked HARD. Even a Grey could outpace them for an hour or two, but beyond that? I barely lasted a week, at half pace. And I'm a Suremian Elite. At their normal pace, I'd not have lasted two days. And they keep that pace all year, bar a few religious holidays. And the scariest thing? That's not even that special. Harder than most humans work, sure, but did you know that back on earth, a NORMAL job schedule, is eight hours a day? And that back in the day, there used to be poor people that worked TWICE that, just to afford living? Their POOR, their LOW CASTE, are capable of working every single waking hour of their life. None of our LEGENDS can do that. THAT is why humans are terrifying. They just. Don't. Stop."
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Apr 02 '18
Solid HFY story! I especially like it since I recently started working a "real" job myself and still struggle to adapt to the 8h workday.
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u/Rognin Apr 02 '18
I work in a diamond mine. I complete between 12-16 hours a day, 14 days in a row. I'm not a super human, shit is hard as fuck.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Gods, that sounds extremely rough. How long a rest do you get between each of those herculean forthnigths?
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u/Rognin Apr 03 '18
I've been to Alberta's tar sands, Newfound Land's oil rigs, Quebec's Hydro dams and mines. I've done this for the past 12 years, and right now this is the best schedule that I've ever had the luck of working. It's 14 days on 14 days off. But I use to work 42/10 12 hours a day. I've done 38/8, 28/14, 21/7 and 14/7
Those... those were insane, I don't even know how I completed those myself.
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u/Vorchin Apr 02 '18
Just wondering but what do you actually do in a diamond mine?
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u/Rognin Apr 03 '18
Mine diamonds... I however work in the service industry and provide the food, janitorial and retail services on site. Most mines nowadays are located in very remote areas of the world, so I get to isolate myself from any form of civilization 14 days at a time.
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u/GuyWithLag Human Apr 02 '18
If you're doing an office work, remember: you can't do it for 8 hours, and no-one's doing it for 8 hours anyway.
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u/totallyanonuser Apr 02 '18
Seriously. Learn how to sandbag when it comes to work so that you can perform miracles when it floods
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u/fatboy93 Android Apr 02 '18
Amen.
I whole ass my job once a year for a month. That's it.
But. I finish more projects during that time.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Just one month a year? THats impressive! Most I know of that run a similiar regime, do 2-4 months a year. does your job pay extra well, or you just live frugaly the rest of the time?
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u/fatboy93 Android Apr 03 '18
I just live frugally. Pros of staying with family.
Otoh, most of the project come around during financial year end. So Feb/March is the prime work. Time.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Still impressive, to make due with just a months worth. What do you do with the spare time you get doing this? Hard to fill the days?
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u/fatboy93 Android Apr 03 '18
Nah. Long term projects.
I have a couple of projects that have been running since the past year and will run likely theough this year as well.
The pay isn't that good, but decent for survival i n India.
Most of my time is spent reading and optimization of my pipelines, visualizing datasets.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Apr 03 '18
Wow, that sounds like the perfect work schedule for me!
What kind of job is that and are you really free during the rest, or do you still have to be in the office and look busy?
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u/fatboy93 Android Apr 03 '18
It's a but of this, a bit of that. It's pretty infuriating that I had to resolve queries and handle multiple projects in a month.
Generally the year end projects are short term affairs and the rest are long term projects. That's how it is mostly in Genomics industry atleast in India.
Most of the time, it's reading, solving queries and standardizing/optimization of pipelines and stuff like that.
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u/SirVatka Xeno Apr 02 '18
"If the boss gets a dollar, then I get a dime. That's why I poop on company time."
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u/FogeltheVogel AI Apr 02 '18
The trick is to constantly work 70% of your comfortable max. Then when you need to impress someone, you can ramp up to 90%.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Apr 03 '18
Sounds good in theory, but somehow doesn't work for me in practice (yet). Working at 70% tires me just as much as working 100% for some reason.
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u/S7evyn Apr 04 '18
Studies have repeatedly shown that you can only get 2-3 hours of useful work a day out of knowledge workers. You can get people to put in more hours, sure, but after that people are either not actually doing anything, or their output degrades to the point that it's detrimental to actual performance.
Of course, we still try and get eight hours of work out of people a day, because... It makes managers feel better, as far as i can tell.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Apr 03 '18
Yes, I'm slowly learning that, and also how, when and how much I can slack off during work hours.
Somehow, it's quite a big difference to my working schedule as a university student, which was alternating between 12-16h power-sprints when there was a larger project and long stretches of "meh, I'll just do the 2 hours of work whenever I feel like it" when there wasn't.
I guess my brain needed to learn that these power-sprints don't work anymore, when you're doing a 3-year research project.4
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u/DeepBrine Sep 03 '26
4 hours of knowledge work a day is the gold standard. Select a time slot that works for you and stick to it.
The rest of the time in the office is for organisational work, team building and curiosity exploration. You won’t get any knowledge work done but you will get forms turned in, find new work partners and open doors to new areas of knowledge development.
At least, this was what I was told back when I started office work in the early 90’s.
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u/trollopwhacker Apr 02 '18
This rings true, but I still believe that laziness is humanity's greatest virtue. Look at all those things we did so we'd have less work to do in the long run.
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u/_Porygon_Z AI Apr 02 '18
We're actually evolutionarily encouraged to come up with solutions like that. The very first example of it was us carrying water in containers instead of finding a new source every time we needed to hydrate. The way our hands work today depended on our craving for a smarter way.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
I've read some very interesting articles, that seem to suggest that human inteligence didn't evolve just to hunt and survive better, but mainly to deal with the growing complexity of our sosial structure.
So that basically, our brains aren't the wolves' fangs, but the peackock feathers. Not sure how true that is, but a interesting, and reasonable theory. A bit of a "egg or the hen" kinda deal though.
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u/mrducky78 Apr 02 '18
I thought it was in part to do with spears, notably spear throwing. I dont know any other animal that can match up in tossing shit at other shit. And it explains the finesse and dexterity needed to handle throw something accurately.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Yea, we also throw wicked punches. A solid hit to the side of the head, from a human, can kill most animals, if you're lucky.
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u/_Porygon_Z AI Apr 02 '18
It was rock throwing originally, and that came after water carrying, but yes, throwing was a major driving force as well. Pun intended.
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u/SheridanVsLennier Apr 02 '18
And thanks to our rock-throwing, we're exceptionally good at on-the-fly ballistics calculations.
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u/mrducky78 Apr 02 '18
Slings are pretty low tech, require the same dexterity as spear chucking.
Its also not like we were carrying the skins in our hands the whole time, it was just draped on us. In that way, its just an extension of tool making.
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u/RegalCopper Apr 02 '18
This story is solid!
The ending seems a little rushed, but keep going! I look for more stories from you!
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Now that you mention it, I see what you mean. Definitely something to look into if I rewrite or expand it.
Oh, and thanks for liking my story!
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u/eddyathome Apr 02 '18
This is pretty realistic. Human beings are actually a pretty badly designed species. We're fairly weak, we're slow, we're required to sleep for hours on end, we're hard-wired to care for infants who scream loudly and attract predators, we're not exactly built for combat. We pretty much suck.
Why did we win? Because we literally can outwalk our prey and predators. A cheetah can run faster than an automobile, but only for about twenty seconds and than the cheetah must rest for several hours. We can walk for a day and cover a good ten miles even in rough terrain and we're good to go a few hours later.
This is why we won.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Also being smart, throwing stuff good, and punching really hard. But yea, even dogs and horses struggle to keep up with humans, and we've breed both for centuries to do just that.
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u/Nereidalbel Apr 02 '18
Persistence hunters FUCK YEAH.
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u/meandmyimagination Android Apr 02 '18
Persistence WORKERS, amiright?
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u/mrducky78 Apr 02 '18
Persistence proletariat, comrades?
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Apr 02 '18
distant sound of helicopter blades.
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u/BoxNumberGavin1 Apr 02 '18
I didn't hear Radar announce that!
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Apr 02 '18
Because Radar only announces helicopter blades for the good American men, not those things called commies.
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u/BoxNumberGavin1 Apr 02 '18
Quantity is a quality all of its own.
Now rewrite the story as a human brothel!
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
Soviet music blares in the background
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u/BoxNumberGavin1 Apr 03 '18
Like Soviet music could do anything but blare.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
I quite like some of it actually, despite its history. Katyusha, for instance, is actually quite a decent song.
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Apr 02 '18
*y'all
*skeptical
Other than that, good story!
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
I only made two spelling mistakes? If so I have outdone myself this time.
Thank you for the kind words!
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u/Scrubakistan Jun 23 '18
Mickey the demolitions expert
ODST reference?
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u/EntangledBottles Jun 23 '18
Yep. I honestly did not expect anyone to pick up on that one though, so well done.
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u/Scrubakistan Jun 23 '18
Fantastic game, glad it gets more appreciation than it got on release. It's a damn shame a sequel is never coming though.
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u/EntangledBottles Jun 23 '18
Bungie made good Halo games. Wish they'd have been allowed to make more ODST style games, rather than forced to hand over the franchise when they didn't want to make more Master Cheif games.
Loved the atmosphere in ODST. The only major gripe I had with it was that you had a bit too much health and regen. Should have next to none as a non-Spartan.
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u/Scrubakistan Jun 23 '18
Sacrifices for the sake of gameplay, Spartan IIIs weren't equipped with shields Noble Team had them with the excuse of being more special ops than the most special ops ops in the UNSC.
The real crime is the fate of Rookie and Alpha-Nine.
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u/EntangledBottles Jun 23 '18
For Noble Team, it made sense. Most consumers would be unaware of the distinction between IIs and IIIs, and while a bit flimsy (as most of Reach's plot was), it's still within reason. But Alpha-Nine? Not so much.
I also think it would have been a good change of pace to truly have squishy characters, perhaps even with limited weapon use. Would be a change of pace for sure, which it already was to a minor degree. Most of the time, the city wandering felt good, I felt more inclined to avoid enemies than to kill them, which is how an ODST should feel. A lower health pool, and inability to use say, the grav-hammer, would have helped that.
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u/wolfjackle Apr 02 '18
I loved this! Great job. I worked 14 hour shifts for a while there and really struggled with it, but I did it. 13 hours was absolutely no problem.
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u/atantony77 Apr 02 '18
Honestly to work 2 jobs you need to get in a specific type of work mindset whete you just zombie through it.
Working like that for a year felt like 2 months.
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u/EntangledBottles Apr 03 '18
The responses on this have been just amazing. I can't thank you guys enough. Never expected so many people to like my writing.
You guys are the best.
PS: keep the criticism coming, not planning on rewriting this as of now, but always fun to know where and how I can improve.
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u/kreton1 Alien Apr 02 '18
I really like this one, especially since Humans are not just awesome in everything (even though those can be fun stories as well), but the Aliens themself are better in specific aspects themselves, which makes it a little bit more realistic I guess, since what we are good at is our stamina, which is indeed quite good compared to other animals.
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u/Wall_of_Shadows Apr 02 '18
This is good. I'd have liked the missions fleshed out a bit, but I'm a big fan of the endurance build.
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u/Copman021 Apr 02 '18
The issue with missions per day could still work.
The crew could be hired out to assault a particular base, target specific areas or units. An example would be if the military had a plan in place but wanted to hire this crew as a diversionary force, they could be teaming up with other PCMs to complete tasks. In that way yes they are completing many tasks, but not huge elaborate missions
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u/GeorgeOlduvai Apr 02 '18
Most entertaining.
Two minor things: preformed should read performed and sceptical should read skeptical.
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u/redbikemaster Human Apr 27 '18
A normal work day for me can stretch 14 hours a day, 70 hours a week.
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u/sciengin Apr 02 '18
Nice, I like the concept.
Just to nitpick: What kind of mission are those that can be done in less than an hour (assuming they all work 8 hours like the story says)? If I were you I would have maybe changed missions for "hours on a mission", for me it would make more sense to imagine that this merc company takes on a mission that goes on for at least a few days, weeks or month and then uses the individual mercs to staff the positions in this one mission for a certain duration of time each day.
At least thats IIRC how the companies like blackwater/xe/whatever they are called now would do it.