TA_Account_12 t1_ja6yw2p wrote
The ship, Conradomo, was making good time. In fact, it was a long way ahead of its schedule. If it wasn’t, perhaps its passengers wouldn’t have stopped to answer the distress call. Perhaps they would have just carried on. Perhaps none of this would have happened if only they had been slightly less efficient or had just taken one more break at work. But the fact of the matter is that none of those things happened and the crew did indeed answer the distress call. In the civilized world we live in, kindness should be rewarded. The only problem? There are things beyond our civilized world.
Conradomo docked with the other ship. The captain gave the go ahead and the other two members of the crew went searching for the source of the distress signal.
They came back with a creature they couldn’t really identify. The captain looked at the creature too, unsure of what to make of it. It looked quite unlike anything he had ever seen. But still. He was the captain and he had to do the right thing. He would save this alien’s life.
The alien itself was barely coherent, slipping in and out of consciousness.
The captain looked at their techie. “We need to understand what it is saying. Can we figure it out?”
“It is a language I have never heard. As long as the alien is out of consciousness, I can map its mind, allowing our bafis translators to upload the most common words it can trigger into our databases.”
The doctor chimed in. “Actually, it might be just for the best if we make the alien unconscious for a while. The constant changes in its central thought unit might not be good for it if it is anything similar to us in physiology.”
The captain nodded. “Let’s do that. To help it, we need to understand it. That’s the basic first step. In the meantime, I’ll try to reach out to others to see if someone recognizes this… thing.”
The doctor got to work, moving the bed where the alien was currently passed out, to the infirmary. The alien was then placed on the cryo table.
The techie walked in and placed a device on the alien’s head. “You gonna freeze it?”
“It doesn’t look like freezing would help. I’ll use medication to keep it unconscious for a while. How long will it take for babfis system to map the common words? It looks rough. But since I’m not familiar with its physiology I’m not comfortable with any treatment options I could use.”
“Not a lot.” The techie pointed to the device. “Built a handy timer for you.”
The doctor smiled. “Smart. I’ll probably take a bit longer just to let it recover a bit more.”
They sat with the captain on the bridge when the transmission came in.
“Come in Conradomo. Come in. Code 6,28.”
The captain sat up straight. Code 6,28? That was only for the most serious of situations.
“This is the captain speaking.”
“Did you sent out the image of the alien you have onboard?”
“Yes.”
“This alien is not allowed in the galactic zone. I repeat. This alien is banned from the galactic zone. You need to get rid of it right now. If not, you will be charged with assisting a fugitive.”
“A fugitive? What is this thing?”
“It belongs to a species called Humans. They used to be part of the federation a long long time ago. However they proved to be unstable and dangerous. We banished them to a galaxy far far away. We reset their scientific evidences and quarantined them.”
“Well they obviously suck at quarantining since we found it well within the range.”
“Be that as may. You are to get rid of the human right now.”
“Its ship is blown to smithereens. It will not survive.”
“That is not your problem. In fact that would be the best possible solution. Please put it back on its ship and get out of there. If that doesn’t work, put it in the airlock and just throw it into space. Anything as long as it is not on your ship.”
“Yes sir.”
Unbeknownst to them, the human in the ship had caught the conversation. The babfis hadn't translated all of what had been said, it had translated enough. The human quietly got up and went towards the cargo area.
“Captain. I’m a doctor. I cannot stand by and let it die.”
“I’m with the doc, captain.” The techie spoke up.
The captain looked at his crew and then towards the radio and nodded. “We saved its life. I won’t let it die that easy. Let’s try to do what we can. You go and see if you can repair its ship. Doc, you go and try to talk to him and fix him up the best as you can. Now that I know what it is, I’ll try to find everything about it. I’ll beam what I find to your bab devices. Unfortunately since this communication already happened and the code got called they will be sending some ships to us to check on things soon. Let’s try to get both it and its ship working by then.”
The crew all touched their left shoulder with their right hand, nodded and walked off to their respective tasks.
The techie went to what seemed like the central command of the human ship. After playing around with the controls for a while, a video appeared on a small screen. It was weirdly two dimensional and the techie had to wait while his eyes adjusted.
The babfis device which worked both ways, allowed the techie to understand a bit of what was on the video. The videos were logs of the last few days of the ship’s crew. The techie continued watching feeling more uneasy as things became clearer.
The techie rushed back to the Conradomo before the last video even finished.
The doc looked for the patient in the infirmary but it wasn’t there. Where could the human be and why had it left?
The doc called out, hoping the translation was enough to allow communication.
The doc entered the cargo area. “Human? Where are you?”
The doc felt a sharp pain in the bottom extremities. The human came out of the hiding spot, holding a knife it had stolen from the infirmary. It bared its teeth, and pounced.
The captain poured over the records. The more the captain went over the records the worst the situation seemed. The human files all contained some of the worst crimes the captain had ever seen. The captain wondered if all of this was exaggerated. Surely no species would be so destructive? Surely no species could be so easily prone to violence. Maybe they should all have listened to the…
The captain felt a wetness on the throat followed by a sharp pain. Green blood poured over the captain’s shirt covering the federation’s logo. The captain raised the paw towards the human. The human just stood there, smiling.
TA_Account_12 t1_ja6ywft wrote
The techie rushed into the central command. “Captain! The human. It’s dangerous. It killed its fellow crew to preserve food and…”
The techie finally noticed the pool of blood underneath the captain’s chair.
The human who was hiding near the entrance rushed towards the final crew member.
The techie realized just in the nick of time what was happening. A quick push of the button sent a static noise through the babfis device. The human, who still had the device on its head, held its limbs to the side of its head. The techie ran straight to the infirmary.
The human knocked on the door, snarling and shouting. The techie tried to explain that none of them meant the human any harm. They were just trying to get it better and be on their way. Unfortunately the human had thrown away the babfis device. So while the techie could understand the human, the human couldn’t understand anyone else.
The door to the infirmary wouldn’t hold. It wasn’t meant to withstand attacks. Attacks. The techie laughed. There had been no reported attacks or any fights ever since the techie had gained consciousness. Damn humans. If only they hadn’t stopped. But of course, that hadn’t really been an option. When someone needed help, anyone who could helped. That’s how the intergalactic universe worked. Damn humans. Should’ve remained quarantined.
Quarantine. The techie realized that if this human could do this much damage in a few ticks, what could it do if it ever…
No. The life of fellow members was at stake. There was only one thing to do.
The techie rushed towards the fuel cells. It wasn’t in the techie’s nature, rather it was in no one’s nature to kill. It was an abhorrent thing that the techie couldn’t even imagine. When the techie had heard on the voice on the radio even suggest such a thing, it had been a massive shock. However, sacrifice for the greater good? No problem. The techie could do that.
The lights on the ship went out. The emergency lights came on, the red light making the human look even more menacing. The human found the techie emptying the fuel cells.
The human said something the babfis couldn’t fully translate. Phonetically it sounded something like astala cista. But before the techie could puzzle it out, the knife was deep in the throat. At least the techie died knowing that the fellow citizens and members of the federation would be saved from this monstrous alien.
Joel looked at the empty fuel cells. No. No! Not after all this. He had been barely surviving for the last few weeks. This had been his only chance.
He shouted angrily and stabbed the weird alien thing a few more times. The thing was dead already he supposed but Joel had to express his anger somehow.
As he contemplated on everything that had happened. How their experimental spaceship attempting ftl had somehow jaunted into someplace that was not on their map. How their ship’s propulsion system didn’t work in this place. The comms didn’t work. Bloody nothing worked.
How he had been forced to kill his own crew mates to survive.
And now, when a possible chance at survival had been so close, this bastard had just…
Joel shouted angrily again.
He looked at the knife, coated in green blood. He wondered if that was his way out. It would definitely be quicker.
Just as he contemplated this, a voice came in over the speakers.
“This is ship Weylander. Number 180924609. We are here in response to the code 6, 28 raised about a fugitive. We are here to apprehend the fugitive. We will be boarding your ship.”
Joel stood up, grinning. He took the captain’s jacket, putting it on. He cleaned the knife with the captain’s shirt and muttered under his breath. “Welcome aboard, motherfuckers.”
LOTRfreak101 t1_ja929v8 wrote
Is the babfis device possibly a reference to babel fish from Hitchhiker's Gide?
TA_Account_12 t1_ja9w2zk wrote
Guilty as charged. Since you’re here and I’m looking at your name I can tell you that I named a bird gwai in another story I just wrote. If you get that reference.
MrRedoot55 t1_jaa9h2u wrote
Good work.
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