“Warp completed captain.”
The captain’s color changed to one of contentment, displaying their satisfaction with the work those nearby had performed. It was a token gesture as those in command were expected to have control over their emotions at all times. Coloration to display emotion was only ever used to communicate to others or enunciate their commands.
For example, the captain might turn bright red while yelling at someone to ensure they understood how upset the captain was with them. But if the captain were to uncontrollably turn red due to extreme emotions they would be seen as unfit for office. Proper dictation was highly important for leading as no one could trust a ship to someone who could not make logical decisions in stressful situations.
Surely the previous ackyon captain had held a stoic face and continued directing their units, even until their last moments before they were smeared across the floor.
Now an escaped slave held the captain’s chair, they needed to wrap themselves around it somewhat as it was meant to hold a humanoid form and not a large octopus, but it was in slave possession. This action was the closest thing to heretical their civilization had. If caught by the empire it would mean certain execution for the entire crew for allowing this to happen.
“Ship signs are green, captain.” one of the many limbed monstrosities reported. “Nothing above superficial damage.”
“Statistically improbable.” the captain responded, “What are the readings on the warp core?”
“Rapidly cooling, ready to begin jumping shortly.” They responded. “No signs of overuse.”
“Statistically improbable.” the captain repeated.
The decision had been a simple one. They would warp jump at random as long as the ship could hold out to reduce the risk of anyone catching them. With every leap the number of systems a pursuer would need to search to find them grew.
But with every warp the ship would accrue damage to their hull as it impacted with asteroids and debris.
They couldn’t exactly detect micrometeors and most smaller space geodes which was why it was so important to keep on top of repairs. You repaired, you leapt, you took damage from bits and pieces scattered around the cosmos, you surveyed the area and then you repaired again.
It was a simple loop. If they told someone that they had been on a ship who leapt over a dozen times with only superficial damages they would be called a liar. If she told someone that she had ordered the crew to leap over a dozen times without repairing they would have been called insane.
For a moment she considered the situation, could someone have been somehow preventing them from taking damages? No, if it was possible to detect micro meteors while in subspace and avoid them, or else to somehow prevent your ship from being damaged by them there would be no point in the massive industrial segments of the ship.
What was happening made little sense unless you dismissed it as a simple statistical anomaly.
“If a million ships make a million jumps, eventually one will land safely every time.” The captain concluded. “This does work in our favor however, the odds of them finding us grows exponentially lower the further we travel from our last known coordinate.”
“Understood captain, we have received reports of damage to sublight engines eleven through seventeen. A cloud of shrapnel traveled up the exhaust ports and rendered them inoperable.”
The odds of a cloud of space debris travelling just perfectly up an entire exhaust pipe rather than being lodged into the sides was also a million to one. The pipes curved specifically to prevent such a thing.
“Alert the crew to prepare for work, run a list of immediate fixes to our exterior teams and then post a bill to replace our used stocks.”
“Understood captain.”
It was important to keep a stockpile of replacement parts for the ship. As you went through those parts you had more made using stored raw materials. Making more parts on the spot was a dangerous idea when the one thing between you and the cold void was the ship you needed to fix. If their engines had been damaged with no replacement parts they could end up stranded.
Thus space faring ships were huge hubs of industry and storage space.
“Begin scanning our surroundings. Immediately report any foreign ships. Locate ores and track their trajectories. Attempt to catalogue celestial bodies during downtime.”
The others within the room went to work, a significant amount of what the bridge did could be boiled down to observing their surroundings and designating areas of interest. A scanner searching for nearby magnetic fields flinched for a moment before turning to the color of surprise, turning to a sudden camouflage that broadly matched the color of its surroundings in order to hide from what caused such shock.
The captain coolly noted the response and waited for the inevitable report.
No report came, the octopus simply went back to work after staring for a moment. The captain knew they should drop the subject to display trust in their subordinates' prioritizations. No one liked a backseat manager, surely they knew what they were doing.
She noted many in the room had noticed the surprise response and decided to enlighten them.
She slapped a limb onto the ground with a loud crack to gain his attention, before shifting her colors to speak, “It appears many are curious, Green. What was so interesting?”
Green, the octopus named after his favorite color, considered his wording for a moment. “It was nothing requiring immediate attention, captain. I merely noted a sizable magnetic field within this solar system.”
“How sizable?” The captain asked.
“The size of the celestial body should be almost 13,000 kilometers.”
That was a habitable size for a planet, a rarity in and of itself.
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Then Green continued, “Its orbit appears to be located within the habitable zone of the local star”
“Statistically improbable, but it does not meet many of the requirements to be considered habitable by most multi celled life forms.”
“Of course captain.”
“It would require some sort of satellite to prevent repeated asteroid impacts. A moon perhaps? As well as a source of dihydrogen-monoxide and the correct elemental compositions.”
“Understood captain.”
“The odds of that are statistically improbable.” The captain continued, “The odds are one in a million-”
Another octopus began to rapidly communicate, blinking between several dozen colors in rapid succession. They spoke fast to the point it was somewhat difficult to understand.
“It appears that this planet may be the largest source of dihydrogen-monoxide in the solar system captain.”
Another spoke, “I am detecting high amounts of oxygen and-”
“The range finder is picking up a green coloration and-”
The captain turned a bright red for a moment, causing the rest of the room to quiet down as she drew their focus. “First and foremost is ship repairs. Then we need to locate a source of heavy metals and base elements for extraction. After that we will then investigate the planet.”
It was standard operating procedure. The correct order of priorities.
First repairs, then ensure they had more raw materials in case of more repairs, then whatever else you wanted to do.
It would be for the best if the rest of the crew were to perform the first two events quickly.
~
I walked across the room to grab a bin, they resembled large metallic buckets with wheels, similar to minecarts.
I then dragged the bin twelve feet before hunching over and flipping it down an open shute. I tried to keep my mind on work, though I knew it was only a matter of time before we performed another warp jump.
After I finished emptying the bucket I pushed the cart back and left it under an open shute attached to the back of a large grinding machine.
The job was simple, on one side were the grinders. People were breaking apart large chunks of rocks into smaller chunks of rocks and then putting those smaller rocks into the grinder. The grinder reduced it to sand and deposited it into a bin. I took that bin and then dumped it into another machine that would sort out the magnetic materials.
Despite the simplicity of this job I still had many questions, such as why did this job exist? They could just have the previous machine drop the sand directly into the mag-sorter and cut me out completely.
“John.”
I grabbed another bin, there were three total that I was keeping track of. As the other two filled I took this bin and dumped it into the same chute as the last.
“John.”
There was a machining segment in this room where they could directly turn the iron-sand into a space alloy or something. Could I just put an order in for a pipe that could lead directly from one shute to another?
“John!”
“What?” I turned to the little green person just outside of my workspace.
The machine to my right turned on and the air was split with the sound of rocks being crushed and enormous gears turning.
I could clearly see the green insectoid gesturing at me, so I turned to follow.
The little green man rushed over and switched the machines off to prevent them from overflowing the bins and spilling over onto the floor.
“Check your visor, you got messaged over an hour ago.”
That caused me to pause for a moment, “What?”
“Your visor, it shows you when someone higher up wants your attention.”
“Since when?”
The alien considered for a moment, it was true he never explicitly told the human about this. “There is a panel you can pull open on your inner bicep. Inside are a group of buttons, press the green one.”
I checked my armpit and sure enough there was a small piece of metal I could pull out. I thumbed the green one and saw a red pulsing circle in the corner of my visor.
“Why the armpit? That’s a difficult area to reach, can we switch it to my wrist or something?”
The alien shook his head, “No, it needs to be located in a place unlikely to be damaged. The end of your limbs would be a terrible location.”
“Okay it says a bridge wants me, what does that mean? Also why have I been dumping sand all day? Shouldn’t we just get a pipe or something to put the sand directly into the sorters or something?”
“Well no, normally the person in charge of moving the materials is also in charge of maintaining the machines, the grinders go through blades incredibly quickly and it is much more efficient to have that part easily accessible. The bridge is the captain. I can show you the way to the meeting room.”
“Is it in the same place as last time when we got put into teams? I don’t need you to show me I can-”
“I was ordered to take you there. Immediately. Don’t tell the captain off in their first few weeks or they will make an example out of you.” The insectoid prodded my gut. “Bring up inefficiencies after a month or two at minimum, wait longer if you don’t like them.”
“Okay. I just didn’t want to be a bother.”
“No worries, I’ll take an early lunch since we're going right by the cafeteria anyway.”
I followed the insectoid out of the room and I took another glance at the various machinery and people working them as we passed. The main product appeared to be a form of metallic shingle. It did not look like it would be out of place on a roof.
“The outside plating is formed of thousands of layers of this material with a gel between to soak up high impacts. We can run a magnetic charge to repel the blows from most micrometeors assuming we don’t leap directly on top of them.”
“I see.” I responded. The tiles did not look particularly thick and I wondered what the gel they supposedly used between them was. As we passed the cafeteria I debated asking, though I doubted I could get anything of note. Most things translated to their official chemical buildup. Knowing the gel was dihydrogen supercarbide or something would not help me unless I could write it down.
I would have to learn of this later to properly study the process more and document it in my journal. When I got back to Earth I would then be able to pass on the knowledge to someone who knew what to do with it.
“Well, this is it. I will be leaving now.”
We stood in front of a door, it looked the exact same as all of the other doors.
“Are you sure?” I tried to clarify, I couldn’t see how he was disconcerting them.
“Yes. Go to the meeting. I am goodbye now.” The insectoid answered while continuing to walk down the hall.
I sighed, then reached out to enter. The squid’s shape in general made me uncomfortable and I would have preferred to not go in alone. The door slid itself out of my way and I took a deep breath before walking forwards.
“Hello I am John, human. What was I called here for?”
I expected to see octopi the size of cows writhing about and blinking through the rainbow at each other. Instead I came face to face with a group of insectoids and too many to quickly count.
“John, human. You were designated for scouting party one hour ago.”
“I did not know how to operate the visor.” I claimed, “I am still learning and did not notice your call.”
“Understood. Meet with your supervisor after our priority has been completed.”
“Got it. So are we moving to mineral location-” I looked closer and saw that the insectoids had a curious attire.
It was not mechanical equipment. It did not possess full body protection in case of shrapnel nor did it allow for short journeys through a zero gravity environment. The thick electromagnetic boots designed to prevent you from being sucked into the void were gone.
Two thick plates sandwiched the drone’s torso, leaving its shoulders and limbs bare. It no longer wore a metallic mask, but rather a full helmet with a glass face and a thick metallic layer over the top of the head.
I could recognize this, it was similar to military equipment from home. I was starting to see the rifles stacked against the walls and the magazines tucked into pouches along the insectoids’ waists.
“What are we doing? Am I now part of a police force?”
It made sense I guess, I was much larger than the average insectoid and had no useful mechanical training. Surely I could follow direct orders and throw a bug into a cell if necessary.
The insectoid with a blue stripe across his chest piece answered, “We have been told that we will be scouting something. That is all.”
Why us though?
No, I corrected myself.
Why was I here? Had I been deemed as nonessential? Was I to be used as fodder for some military campaign I didn’t know about? What was I going to be scouting? Do I-
“Do I get a gun? You have rifles.”
“You lack work experience. Also your body type is incorrect for these. Also they are advanced space technology you do not understand how to operate.”
“It’s a rifle-”
“You will not get one.” The alien finalized.
The insectoids all stood as one, one moment they had been relaxing and the next they were on their feet simultaneously. I felt myself panic, had I said something wrong?
The blue striped insectoid turned to me, “We have received orders to mount an exploratory cruiser. This planet’s main species appears to be human.”
Human?
My brain froze as I felt myself being prodded along by the insectoids around me. My first thought was of Diane’s emaciated corpse.
I had no idea what was happening, where we were, or what we should be doing. But whatever it was the only thing I could think of was the safety of numbers that humanity would provide.