Humans were infamous across the Hoshidara Galaxy, even though they hadn't left their solar system yet. They were discovered a few centuries ago, and were declared off-limits because of their primitive society. Uplifting was illegal, banned by a law passed by the Galactic Union. However, curious scientists and greedy poachers skirted this ban. Poachers stole humans from their home world and sold them. Scientists bought humans and studied them, including their anatomy, biology, and psychology. The experimentation died down fast, but the poachers soon tapped into a new source of revenue. Humans are trafficked more than any other primitive sapient for one reason: they were conventionally attractive.

Yes, interspecies relationships were common across the galaxy. However, some species are more “attractive” than others. Most species were bipedal, so bipedal people sought bipedal partners. Before humans were discovered, the Aeon were considered the most attractive species in the galaxy. Aeons have smooth, scaled skin, stretchy webbed fingers, small plump mouths, magnificent fins on their heads, powerful tails, and a petite stature. However, public opinion shifted when images of humans first emerged in articles and on newsfeeds. Sure, Aeons were still attractive. But humans blew them out of the water. Humans have a lot of features that were seen as desirable and beautiful, such as their soft, nimble fingers, and well-proportioned faces. I’ve heard that Humans also tended to be kind, or at least docile. They didn't pose any physical harm to most species, due to their lack of natural weapons. But this made them easy targets. Despite the ban being in place, humans were kidnapped and trafficked off of their home planet, and were sold to wealthy individuals to work as servants, pets, or worse. I had personally only seen pictures and the occasional video of them. But now there was one crouched right in front of me.

The terrified human started speaking in a language I didn’t understand, as it shied away from me, shuffling towards the back of the cage. The human was like a cornered rodent in a dark alleyway, eyes darting across my body as it tried to take in the situation. My translation implant immediately went to work, detecting an unregistered language, and failed to translate it. I mostly got it so I could listen in on conversations that weren't in Standard, but it seemed like this one wasn’t fitted for uncontacted species.

I tried to calm the human down with hand gestures, and freeing all of my hands to show that I don’t mean the human any harm. Fuck, there was blood on my armor. I wiped it off quickly. Once it calmed down a bit, I decided to use some basic first contact techniques. Not like I’d taken any classes, but it seemed simple enough. I pointed to myself and said my name, slowly.

“Saka. I’m Saka.” I made sure to enunciate clearly and properly. “Sa-ka.”

The human seemed to understand, and pointed to itself. “Noah. Noah.” It said, quietly, staring deep into my eyes.

“Noah.” I repeat. Noah nodded, which was a universal gesture for yes. I guess humans developed the same one.

Poor human. Little guy was probably hundreds of light years away from home, separated by the vast emptiness of space. It couldn't understand anything anyone said to it, and was thrown in a cage by the Anri, like an animal. It seemed relatively intelligent, though. I forgot what societal stage humans were on, but I remember they were somewhat spacefaring. I think I read that they visited one of their natural satellites somewhere. I had no clue how old this human was, or what gender it even was, but I was going to assume it’s a he. Humans were mammals, right? I didn't see any breasts on this one. I needed to get it out of there though, the other poacher ships could catch up any time now. I didn't know what I was going to do with an illegal sapient, but I would cross that bridge when it came to it.

I opened the cage, and I slowly reached out a hand, making sure I didn't scare Noah. He hesitated momentarily, then tenderly took my hand, like my hand was intangible and he thought his would pass right through mine. I gently pulled him out of the cage and into the light. I got a closer look at his features. He had big, brown eyes the color of rich tree bark. His lips were full, delicate, and soft. Humans were very soft, apparently. Cute. His hair was short, silky, and black. Noah stood at about 170 centimeters tall, so the top of his head was around the height of my chest, maybe less. If Noah was average height for a human, then humans would be shorter than most species in the Galactic Union.

“Okay, let’s go, Noah.” I said, softly. “We need to get out of here, fast.”

Noah responded in that mysterious language of his, and I assumed that he agreed. I needed to update my translator with his language, I should be able to find a file for humans somewhere. I led him out of the disgusting cargo room. He cast a worried look at all the animals still trapped inside, compassion clearly showing on his features.

“Don’t worry, Noah. I’m going to report this ship’s location to the local authorities so they can come pick these creatures up.” I said to him, reassuringly. I didn’t know what happened to the poached animals afterwards, though. Best not to think about it.

Noah, of course, had no idea what I was saying. I was going to have to find a way to talk to him properly later. We ran back through the hallway where I slew the Xilashi. Noah gave the corpse a wide berth and looked at me worryingly. We were running out of time so I ignored him, and continued to lead him towards the airlock that I breached. I wasn’t sure if humans could leap up the height of the airlock, so I pressed a nearby ladder button. Noah climbed up the ladder while I jumped into my ship, and helped him up.

I ran towards the cockpit and sat down. Noah was looking around in awe at the spaceship, and then followed me to the cockpit. He stood there, mouth agape, looking through the cockpit dome, at the glittering mass of stars painted in the black void. The Aogashi nebula was in clear view, hanging in the scenery like cotton suspended in air.

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“Sit down, Noah! We gotta go!” I told Noah, rushing him as I made frantic hand gestures towards the copilot seat.

I strapped Noah into his seat as soon as he sat down. He was craning his neck all around, peering at all of the buttons, switches, and instruments that were strewn over the cockpit. I assumed he was smart enough to not touch anything, so I initiated the undocking sequence and pulled away from the Anri ship. Noah’s eyes were still glued to the sights outside the silica glass viewing window. I guess it was his first time seeing space, from inside a ship at least.

Noah muttered something at the beautiful emptiness, then told me something, ending with “Saka.” My translator was still ineffective, so I didn’t know what he was trying to say, but I knew it was directed towards me. I was glad that he wasn’t scared of me anymore, and Noah using my name was a good sign.

My signal transmitter beeped once. Then again. Then twice more. Then three more times.

“Fuck! That’s seven Anri poacher ships that just came out of the tunnel!” I yelled, mostly to myself.

Noah jumped in alarm, then started looking around quickly. He was chittering something in a questioning tone, I think.

I checked my radar HUD. Even though we were moving at a decent speed towards a tunnel leading to the nearest space station, the Anri ships were closer, and they were going to cut us off. We were going to have to engage in a dogfight. I activated the weapons on my ship, set to lethal this time. I can’t afford to spare lives here, I was vastly outnumbered.

The first Anri ship was approaching from straight ahead. Usually poacher ships ran away instead of fighting, but they were probably confident in their numbers. I let loose some heat seeking plasma missiles that quickly locked onto the Anri ship, and they immediately went into evasive maneuvers. I followed their tail, and when the plasma missiles hit, it disabled their shield, allowing me to shoot breaching beams into their hull. After a few bursts, the Anri Poacher ship spun out of control and exploded in a cerulean ball of fire.

Noah jerked backwards, as if he just realized the severity of the situation. He glanced out the window and towards me, with a panicked expression.

“Don’t worry man, we’re going to get out of here.” I assured him.

I checked back on the HUD again. I still had to deal with six more poacher ships. This was going to be difficult. I had to get rid of all of them if I still wanted to get paid, and plasma missiles aren’t cheap. I looked back at Noah. I could opt to run away from the poachers, but they still posed a threat to him in the long run. They could follow us and try to kidnap Noah again. I had to wipe the poachers out.

I took another look at the viewing port, and a glance at my radar HUD. Looked like I’ve got two poacher ships straight ahead, two coming in from above, and another two coming in from below. A three pronged attack. This wasn’t good. My ship, the Leviathan, could take a fair beating, but the odds were stacked against me. Luckily, all of their ships weren’t outfitted for dogfights, just self defense. Those Anri cargo ship weapons were going to have a tough time popping my shields.

I launched two more heat seeking plasma missiles straight ahead, towards one of the Anri ships in front of me, then I took a veering 90 degree turn upwards, toward the ships that were above me. Now I was facing two more Anri cargo ships, and we started taking potshots at each other as we passed each other by like jousting knights. My ship was more agile, so I took a sharp 180 degree turn - the G’s forced me into my seat - and I was quickly on the tail of one of the Anri ships. I set my sights on the ship, and started hammering away at its cheap shields with my burst fire beams. While this was going on, my plasma heat seeking missiles scored a hit, and one of the Anri ships went up in a ball of flames. I still had five more ships to take out, and four Anri ships managed to wrap around and get on my six while I was chasing the fifth ship. This wasn’t good. The pilot’s seat only had access to forward facing weapons, and the only rotary turret on my ship was accessible by the seat Noah was currently sitting in.

I launched some defensive measures, a heatsink and chaff. The heatsink would keep any heat seeking missiles away from me, and the chaff would prevent any beam weapons from locking onto my ship. I liked to use manual aim for my beams for this reason. That should prevent my tail from attacking me for now, so I focused on the ship in front of me. Their shield finally popped. I quickly whittled it down with my beams as they tried to execute evasive maneuvers. Their ship was far too slow, like a Xilashi in a lumbering jog, and they could turn just as well as one too. The ship sputtered out and floated listlessly like a dead fish in a stagnant pond.

The four Anri ships were still hot on my tail, and they were difficult to escape off. I was being corralled, and every time I tried to make a move, they cut me off. I was running out of time to make a comeback. I didn’t have any more heatsinks, and my chaff was about to run out. My tail went rigid.

“Noah, we might be screwed.” I sighed, glancing towards him.

He was breathing hard and staring intently at the control panel in front of him. He was probably shutting down because of stress. I finally managed to get behind one of the Anri ships, and let loose a barrage of beams in desperation. I was rewarded, and the Anri ship in front of us spiraled out of control and exploded violently. The ship’s shield system made three urgent beeps to let me know that losing my shield was imminent. I started another evasive maneuver, veering left and downwards to try and get behind the ships pursuing mine, but I couldn’t shake them off without taking more hits than I already was.

Suddenly, a blip on my radar HUD disappeared. Then another. Then the last one winked out like a distant, dying star. My jaw hung open in shock. Did the local law enforcement come in to assist us? No, they didn’t, there were no other ships on my radar. I turned towards Noah. He had his hands on the rotary turret triggers. He didn’t make eye contact and frowned.

“Noah, did you do this? Did you fire the turret?” I hurriedly asked him.

Noah pointed at the turret triggers. It wasn’t too difficult to operate a rotary turret, it was just aim and shoot, but I was impressed that he managed to hit all three targets within a few seconds of each other while taking fire. Not a lot of turret operators can pull that off. I would chalk it up to luck but ship-to-ship took a lot of skill. Noah was amazing. I couldn’t wait to figure out a way to talk to him.

I took a deep breath, and sighed. Now that the poachers were all tiny specks of dust in the vacuum of space, I could report the job as done, mark the locations of the abandoned poacher ship and the wrecks, and head back to a space station for repairs. I guided the ship towards the tunnel leading back to the space station I came from, and set the ship to autopilot. I stood up, removed my helmet and unbuckled Noah from his seat. Noah stared intently at my face, since it was the first time he’d seen me without my helmet. I gestured for him to follow me. I should be able to use my tablet’s translation software to talk to Noah, and hopefully teach him some Standard. Human should be on the software, Noah was far from the first human to be forcibly removed from his planet.

Noah shakily stood up, and followed me into the lounge. I guess the adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet. It was a little embarrassing to have someone else in this room, since it had been a while since I had visitors on my ship. I grabbed my personal tablet off of the grab-net on the couch, searched for the translation feature. Sure enough, there was a file for human languages, which was a relief. Now I would finally be able to have an actual conversation with the lost human.