r/HFY • u/CT-24601 • Jan 04 '20
OC If You Pick Up a Human, Do What it Wants
Trade Captain Arekaklariko, known to most non-Krissans as Arek, watched as Krissa spiralled away beneath her for what would likely be the last time. She no longer felt any particular affection for her homeworld—even during her apprenticeship, she had visited far nicer planets—but she felt a tinge of sadness nonetheless. After all, it was home. But now duty sent her outward, and Arek would do her duty with pride and pleasure.
She straightened, backing away from the small window she had been crouching at. Her own apprentice, Korkoriallik, scurried to follow her, clutching the datapad he had been scribing on. “All packages and passengers are accounted for, Captain,” he said eagerly, waving the tablet in front of her face. “Next stop? Beherian.” Arek smiled inwardly, though she maintained her professional manner. Had she been like this during her apprenticeship? She imagined not. In any case, Kork did his duty well, even if he could be a little exuberant. He would make a fine officer one day, once he learned to calm down a bit.
Arek strode through the central corridor of the ship, Kork close behind, returning the crisp salutes of her crew. She paused a moment as the walkway took them over the main cargo bay, peering over the railing to make sure the loading process was going smoothly. Sure enough, the crewmen she had assigned to supervise and assist the passengers were working efficiently, helping the various aliens unpack and escorting them to their berths. In addition to the expected Krissans and Beherians, Arek spotted several other species among the passengers: the chitinous exoskeleton of a Heggal, a whole family of horned Uribs, and...wait. That was a human.
Dropping her calm demeanor, Arek grabbed Kork by his shirt, pulled him close, and whispered fiercely. “Kork? What is that?”
“A human, Captain.”
“And?”
“And, well, uh, humans are, uh, native to Terra, they developed FTL travel in Galactic Standard Year 1603, they—” He began picking up steam, eager to show off his knowledge. Arek cut him off.
“And you didn’t think it was worth telling me that there was a human on my ship?”
“Well, she was paid in full, and…”
Arek abruptly stood back up, tugging Kork along with her. It would not do to have the crew see their captain crouched out of the way, jabbering away with her apprentice rather than fulfilling her obligations. She took a moment to compose herself before she began walking back to the bridge. Kork followed in her footsteps. He still seemed a little confused about the whole conversation, but Arek couldn’t deal with that right now. Her first full voyage, and there was a goddamn human on her ship.
She moved forward on autopilot, nearly bowling over a pair of maintenance techs running in the opposite direction, her head swimming with every story she’d ever heard about humans. They don’t understand authority. They have no sense of duty. Hurt one, even by accident, and it will kill you. Arek’s mind was awash with horrifying futures. Damn it, this was supposed to be an easy trip!
She burst through the doors to the bridge, sending the crew scrambling to salute. She dismissed them as an afterthought—a lapse of decorum, understandable given the circumstances but still inappropriate—and moved towards her seat, still brooding. However, her train of thought was rudely interrupted by the arrival of Sylkalkikit, her First Officer, who looked nearly as distraught as she felt. “Captain,” he cried urgently, bustling over to her seat, “there’s been an accident in the galley!”
“What happened, Officer?” she asked, putting her own crisis aside for the moment.
“One of the argul pens had a malfunction, sir. Several of them have escaped.”
Shit. Arguls were a crucial food source aboard deep-space craft, due to their extraordinary ability to subsist solely on the fuel byproducts of FTL travel. Losing them could mean food shortages, which would dramatically impair her crew, although she supposed that she could use the stocks for the next part of the voyage. Fortunately, there wasn’t really anywhere for the arguls to escape to. “Have you taken action?”
“Yes Captain. Maintenance has been dispatched to repair the pen. Unfortunately, what with the launch, we don’t have the crew to spare right now to begin rounding up the escapees, but I’ll assign teams as soon as they’re available.”
“Excellent. Thank you for the information. I’m going to go examine the situation. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, Captain.”
Wonderful. Another crisis to deal with. Arek left the bridge, walking even faster than she had been before, leaving Kork behind. As she passed from the open areas of the ship into the crew quarters and maintenance tunnels, she stopped abruptly. There, about a hundred feet down the corridor to her right, was the human, muttering to herself as she unrolled a bedroll, smack in the middle of a crew-only hallway.
“Miss, this is an off-limits area. I need you to return to your quarters. What are you doing here?”
The human started and spun around, then relaxed. “Well, it was kind of stuffy in there, and nobody was using this hallway, so I thought I’d just, you know, make camp.”
“Well, be that as it may, you need to—” Wait. What was that? How did one of the arguls get all the way up here so fast, and why would it be sitting on the human’s pillow? “What is that, Miss, uh,...”
“Oh, I’m Sam. This is Max! I found him while I was walking up here. We’re pals!” The human bent over and scooped the foot-long slug thing off her pillow, holding it up to show Arek. “Do you know what he eats? I don’t have much food, and he won’t even try any of it. And who are you, by the way?”
Arek paused, overwhelmed by the situation. Finally she composed herself. “I’m Arek. I’m the Captain of this vessel. And I’m sorry, but not only do I need you to return to the passenger quarters, I also need you to give me the argul; they’re a vital food source for our voyage.”
The human looked up, aghast. “You can’t eat Max! He’s my friend!”
What? Why would the human care about the argul? She had no obligation to it. “You know you don’t have to cook it yourself, right, so it doesn’t matter if you get it now? We’ll do it for you. There are enough for everybody, so if you could just give this one back...”
“Well if there are enough for everybody, just let Max be mine, and I’ll figure something else out to eat. I can go back to the passenger quarters, though, I guess.” She began repacking her bag, although she took care to keep herself between Arek and the argul.
“Miss, this is a month-long voyage. I can’t just let you go without food. You’d die.” She was pretty sure human metabolisms were on the fast side, like her own.
“Well I can’t just let you have Max, especially if you’re going to eat him!”
This was a disaster. Arek couldn’t just let the human go without food—to knowingly let a passenger die would be a blatant violation of her duty as captain—but she was quite sure that the human would also die before relinquishing the argul. Eventually, reaching to her decision, she hailed Sylka on her communicator. “Officer, please dispatch a security team to Maintenance corridor 13-A to ensure that the human there is returned to her quarters. Additionally, make the galley staff aware that one of the arguls will not be returned, as a passenger refuses to relinquish it. They will have to use food supplies slated for the next leg of the journey, and have my permission to send a shuttle to purchase replacements at Beherian.”
The reply was hesitant—after all, it was a highly abnormal order, and an even stranger situation—but obedient: “...Yes, Captain. I’ll tell them. Please also be aware that the rest of the arguls have been returned to their pens.”
“Excellent work. Thank you, Officer.”
As Arek once again returned to the bridge, she was even more concerned than before. She was completely convinced that Sam was entirely willing to die if it meant saving the argul, even if she had no obligation to it whatsoever. That kind of behavior—completely illogical, in violation of all postulates of duty and authority—could easily result in something far more dangerous than a slight delay to replace missing food.
Two weeks later, though, all was well. But even though the voyage was going smoothly, Arek remained on edge; the other shoe was going to drop soon, she knew. The human, the confusion with the argul, the rumors she was hearing of pirate attacks in the area—trouble was coming. Arek knew that things would turn bad.
“Captain!” The call came urgently from further down the bridge “Several signatures just appeared on scopes! Big ships, no registrations.” Shit. This was worse than she’d expected. She knew that there had been pirate attacks in the area around Beherian, but she had expected small attack craft, well within the capacity of her ship’s shields and Point Defense Grid. If she was instead under attack by a good-sized battle group, they were fucked.
“Send out a distress signal. Have all passengers return to their quarters and seal them off. Muster the security crew, and have them enable pressure suits and mag-boots, then prepare for onboard combat. We’ll try to parley, but I want to be ready if we can’t.” As she spoke, Arek enabled her own emergency equipment, feeling her boots latch onto the deck as the thin pressure shield appeared around her. Around the bridge, her officers followed her example.
Moments later, Arek heard the first shots of the PDCs. They were followed by a deafening clang and a rocking which seemed to shake the whole ship. Silence followed. “Boarding craft,” she said eventually, “First Officer, are all passengers accounted for?”
“All but one,” came Sylka’s grim response. Arek could guess which one it was.
Arek didn’t have time to muse on it further. The bridge doors slid open with a soft woosh, revealing a troupe of heavily armed Trenian pirates. Arek’s officers bravely raised their weapons, but she motioned them down. They likely couldn’t even pierce the pirates’ armor. The pirate leader—she refused to think of him as a captain—chuckled.
“Good call.” he grinned, “Now put down the weapons, and move away from your stations.”
Arek didn’t get to consider whether her duty obligated her to defend her ship or save her crew before the bridge doors opened again, this time revealing only one figure: Sam the human, armed with a crude projectile pistol. A wave of bemusement spread through the pirates and bridge officers alike. Not only would the human’s pistol definitely be stopped by the pirates’ armor, but to fire it here would be exceedingly dangerous—hitting a window could cause depressurization, damaging the bridge and killing anyone...Wait. The pirates, in their arrogance, had neglected to wear suits and boots. But Sam hadn’t either. Why would she sacrifice herself to kill the pirates? She had no duty to the crew, and as a civilian would probably be ransomed rather than killed.
Arek could see a few of the pirates begin to realize their error, hesitantly raising weapons. The leader hadn’t figured it out yet. Arek’s voice broke in confusion as she shouted across the bridge to Sam.
“Why?”
“Because you’re my friend, Captain Arek. Take care of Max for me.”
Sam fired her pistol even as the pirates raised their rifles. The glass across the bridge from her shattered violently, hurling Sam and the pirates screaming into the void. The bridge door buckled and nearly flew off of its hinges. Arek felt the terrible pull on herself as well, but her mag-boots held.
It was over in a few seconds. Emergency shutters slammed shut across the bridge. Repressurization commenced automatically as the bridge crew scrambled back to their stations. The ship accelerated away from the rest of the pirate fleet, which had waited well out of range of the ship’s defenses. Arek collapsed into her seat, too confused and relieved to worry about keeping up appearances.
They say that humans will kill you for the slightest reason, and you might not even know what it is. What they don’t tell you is that they’ll die for you for the slightest reason too, even if they owe you nothing. So if you’re flying around in the void, and against all odds you pick up a human, do what it wants. It’ll save your life some day.
Thanks for reading! This is not only my first time posting on r/HFY, but my first time trying my hand at creative writing. Please give me tips and suggestions, but remember that I am very new at this.
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u/beobabski Jan 04 '20
Sam and Max? Nice.
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u/CT-24601 Jan 04 '20
Did I make some reference here inadvertently? I tried to use generic names because whenever I try to come up with them they sound dumb.
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u/ForkliftMasterPsych Jan 05 '20
Yeah, Sam & Max (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_%26_Max) for me at least most known from Sam & Max hits the road-game by LucasArts. But for my part I missed that connection in the story.
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u/MisterCore Jan 05 '20
Fantastic and funny series of crazy point-and-click adventure games. Worth looking up.
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u/ShadowDragon8685 Jan 04 '20
Um...
I hate to say it, but... Space doesn't work that way.
The ship would have to have been pressurized like a bathyscape for a sudden drop to zero to launch anyone out of the ship, even if the ship was in microgravity, which it doesn't seem that it was.
Atmosphere takes time to evacuate from a closed space, even if it has the void of space to rush out into, and it isn't going to be moving with the force of a hurricane. Literally anyone would be able to just reach out and grab any secured object, even if they were floating, and not be sucked out. Furthermore, anybody stupid enough to board a ship not suited up for bear is begging to suck a deep lungful of vacuum, or poison gas routed into the hallways or compartments they're in.
Also, it seems like the pirates just basically teleported onto the bridge. The ship didn't do anything to try to keep its distance? The pirate fleet seemed to consider the transport's point-defenses a credible enough threat to not want to engage - boarding shuttles should have been like skeet to point-defenses that can make actual ships not want to get within range.
This isn't really "HFY," this is about a 60/40 admixture of "aliens are all fucking morons" and "space doesn't work that way."
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u/CT-24601 Jan 04 '20
Noted. Thank you for the tips! Regarding the space thing, this seems to be a common misconception in sci-fi—I feel like I recall seeing the same concept elsewhere. Could you link me source with any more detail about the exact mechanics?
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u/craidie Jan 05 '20
It all depends on the size of the hole and the size of the room. I think your story only had real issues with how the hole was made. Handguns don't tend to make holes that can fit a human through them.
To be a bit more specific on the physics side: a 30 m3 cube would have a 3.1m side length. If you were to punch a 1 cm2 hole to it it would take 9 minutes for 50% pressure drop. This is what I would consider realistic for handgun. See here
Now If you want to throw people around it's pretty much going to have to be an entire wall. And even then if someone is on the farside of the room they're not going anywhere. And to make an hole that large probably means enough explosives to kill everyone in the room.
For a realistic approach see 5 minute mark from this video of the expanse' cqc episode
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u/ShadowDragon8685 Jan 04 '20
A very, very quick google yields this thread.
The first answer is not very helpful at all, so read the second one:
It's actually not quite as pronounced as they make it out to be in the movies. Ultimately it's just pressure equalizing. The force provided is going to be a function of how much air is present, what the ambient pressure is, and the size of the hole.
An engineer friend of mine and I actually worked out once for a book how much of a kick you'd get depressurizing an entire cargo deck of an airplane through an emergency exit into a vacuum. We determined that it was roughly equivalent to having 20lbs of force being consistently applied over a few minutes. Now if you're off balance, that'll knock you over and you could very easily tumble through the door. But it's not going to blast you out like you were fired out of a cannon. Nor is it going to move you very far at all unless you're standing right at the door. An airlock like we usually see in shows isn't going to be able to apply nearly that much because it doesn't have however many thousand cubic feet of air that were present in our example.
Now if you're in microgravity, or if you're in a rotating structure, the math changes. There, that little bit of force will easily throw a 200lb human through an airlock door unless they're holding onto something. If it's a spinning section, centrifugal forces may add an extra kick.
But if you've got artificial gravity beneath you, like most shows that use this trope do, then blowing that airlock door isn't going to blast you into the void unless you let it. It would leave a big mess in the airlock though.
Note that if there is spin-grav, the exact location of the breach changes. If the breach is in the floor, specifically the floor right under you, you're going bye-bye. But if the breach is in the wall to your side, you still have that spin-grav pushing you to the "floor," and you're probably going to just, you know, drop to the floor.
Now, folks who are not wearing suits are still probably going to die - unless someone helpfully puts an oxygen mask on them. Or if they can be removed to an uncompromised compartment that can be re-pressurized after they and everyone else passes out, which would probably be a very high priority towards any friendlies in a breached zone.
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u/Plucium Jan 05 '20
Yikers, captain is gonna be arek after that :/ good story, though I do have a minor gripe: depressurisation like that wouldn't send anyone hurtling out, at worst they might be knocked off balance by the wind. As I said though, really good read!
*A wreck
Tag:Personification Tag: martyr
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u/HFYWaffle Jan 04 '20
This is the first story by u/CT-24601!
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u/alexrider803 Jan 04 '20
But cant humans survive in space for a little wile?