Captain Vexp was on the bridge reviewing the status panels with concern. Every trip, there was more and more amber and purple where white should be.
Redundancy was lost on several vital systems. They were literally one broken component away from being dead in space… or worse.
He pulled up their finances, and his concern deepened. Getting the ship to even the barest minimum of "safe" would burn through all of the meager headway they had managed to achieve and more.
They only had one ship. If it was lost…
He clenched his circular mouth to a pinhole and barely managed to avoid letting out a distressed whistle. Fortunately, few people on the ship or in their little colony knew how bad things actually were. Between keeping their one ship barely running, the pitiful profit margins they could manage, and the 'gifts' they had to give 'their friends'…
And then Beep decided to buy two new slaves…
He made a conscious effort to relax his expression and at least appear calm.
It wasn't Beep's fault. Vexp and Belq, Beep's mother and "captain" of the planetside colony, had made the decision to maintain the illusion that things were going much more smoothly than they actually were. Why deny the rest of them the sleep that they were robbed?
He closed his eyes and uttered a silent prayer to The Great Heap, begging for something, anything to help them.
His prayers were interrupted by the last person he wanted to hear from at that particular moment.
"Captain Vexp!" Beep exclaimed, "Captain Vexp!!!"
The captain excreted and swallowed a calming mouthful of saliva before he turned around.
"Yes, Beep?" he asked.
"Captain!!!" Beep said, bobbing up and down so excitedly he was actually bouncing, his tail plume fluttering like a child's. "The humans have completed their proficiency testing!!!"
At least he looks happy, the captain thought. Hopefully, they weren't a complete waste of money… and food… and oxygen… and water…
"Were they everything you hoped they would be?" The captain asked.
"No!!!" Beep said, fluting hysterically, "They're more!"
His tentacles trembling, he offered the captain a cracked data pad.
"This…" the captain said after a few moments, "This can't be correct."
"I double-checked!!!" Beep flute-giggled. "They 'broke' the test… in all areas… Engineering… Math… Science… Medicine… Piloting… Navigation… Electronics… Troubleshooting… They… They… Oh, my Heap!… They can do anything!"
"They are both ship pilots and navigators?" The captain said in disbelief. "They are both engineers?"
"And and and and..." Beep squeak-flute-giggled, "Look at the completion time!"
"Oh... Heap..." the Captain muttered, completely shocked.
"They both said that they completed 'part one' and were ready for the 'next module'!"
"Beep?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Could you please bring both of them to the bridge, please?"
***
Upon their arrival, the captain congratulated the pair on their excellent performance and cleared the bridge.
He then pulled up the ship's status on the main screen.
"Oh, you have to be kidding me!" Alan exclaimed when he took a look at the ship's status indicators.
"Um… Yeah..." Grace said a few seconds later. "If you want to just sell us at your next stop, that will be great..."
"As you can see, we are in a bit of a predicament," The captain said calmly.
"You think?!?" Alan exclaimed. "Why the fuck did you let it get this bad?"
"We have no ship's engineer, and nobody on the crew is capable of performing anything but the most basic of repairs. I can do a little bit more, but not much. As such, we have to pay outsiders for each repair, and our finances are, to be honest, not good."
"They will be a lot worse when you lose your fucking ship, pal," Grace replied as she tapped at a series of icons on a control panel, causing an entirely new menu to appear, one that the captain didn't even know existed.
She looked back at him.
"Lucky for you, this ship is Federation technology… more likely a clone or salvage because this interface wasn't locked out. You really need to password protect this, by the way. You do NOT want this easily accessible."
The ship's screens were suddenly filled with data.
As the captain watched in awe, Alan and Grace paced back and forth, pulling up screen after screen and jabbering to each other in high-technobabble.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
A few minutes later, they both turned to the captain.
"Well," Alan said, "It's actually not as bad as it looks, which is a good thing. It still sucks, but we may be able to get a few of these systems back online. We aren't going to do shit while we are in hyperspace, though, for reasons that I hope are obvious. When we return to normal space, we can start work."
"While we are waiting," Grace said in a completely different and very professional tone, "We need to look at your repair parts stores, tools, test equipment, and anything else you might have lying around. Please tell me you have a robo-fac."
"I think it's broken," the Captain replied.
"Of course, it is," Alan facepalmed. "That we can start work on."
"We are going to need a dedicated work area, one we can lock," Grace said. "Only we have the key, and you, of course. Some of the things we are going to try are very delicate, and one grubby little fingerprint… or whatever the fuck those things are print… could wreck something we could have salvaged."
"We are also going to need to buy some parts, materials, tools, and the like," Alan said, "Not to make any assumptions, but based on these displays, I gotta ask… Exactly how broke are you?"
The captain let out a worry whistle.
"What I am sharing with you is under the strictest confidence," he said. "Most of the colony doesn't know what I am about to show you. It is only out of… desperation… and your apparent skill that I do so now."
A spreadsheet appeared.
Neither human reacted immediately as they looked over the figures. The captain expected dismay, despair… outrage even…
The humans just… stood there.
Alan started scrolling back and forth a little.
They started muttering to each other again. The captain tried to eavesdrop, but while they were definitely speaking "Federation," they were using a lot of words from some strange language he had never heard of before, as well as terms that, while Federation sounding, were terms he was not familiar with.
"Well..." Grace said after a while, "Not exactly the best quarterly report, and we need to have a little chat with your accountant about formatting..."
"I prepared these spreadsheets myself!"
"No offense," Grace replied, "but it shows."
"Yeah..." Alan mused, "The budget is tight, but we can work with this. Especially if we can get the fac running and we get lucky on some of those systems on hard lockdown. No guarantees until we get in there, of course."
"I got a whole list of other questions about your expenses," Grace said to the increasingly overwhelmed captain, "But I figure we need to focus on getting the ship in better shape first."
The captain nodded.
"Thank you," he said.
"Hey, we are all in this together," Alan smiled, "at least for now."
"Might as well get started," Grace added as she returned the screens back to normal. "Why don't you show us what this rust bucket has lying around so we can get a proper plan together."
"Beep should know where everything is or at least who to ask," the captain replied as he summoned him.
The door to the bridge opened, revealing Beep.
"Damn, dude," Grace smirked, "Were you fucking that hatch or what?"
The captain, smiling at Grace's remark, said, "Assist these two. Get them whatever they need."
***
A laughably overdressed grey-green skinned slender xeno glared at Jessica Morgan's politely smiling visage.
"Who are you, and where did you get this connection?" he demanded.
"I am Jessica Morgan, ruler of one of the nations of humanity. More specifically, I am the ruler of the humans that your people seem to be fond of capturing and selling into slavery. I would like, leader to leader, request their collection and safe return, please."
The xeno coughed with surprise and outrage.
"Who are you to demand anything of the mighty C@gr'an?!?"
"I demanded nothing," Jessica replied, her eyes beginning to sparkle coldly, "I simply requested the return of the humans you currently have in captivity and the retrieval and return of the ones that your people have sold as a favor between rulers. Oh, any ships or other personal property taken would be nice, too."
"Are you making sport with me?"
"Not yet," Jessica smiled evilly, "That is the purpose of this call, to give you the opportunity to prevent that."
"I shall slaughter all of your pathetic kind for your impertinence!"
"Do you honestly think I give two shits about the actual humans you have?" Jessica smirked. Any human who let themselves get captured by the likes of you are the very definition of 'a waste of food'."
She leaned forward.
"This is more about the principle of the matter," she said, looking the xeno right in the eye, "I don't give a fuck about a human or a hundred humans or even a million humans."
She smiled a soulless smile.
"What I do care about is the pathetic C@gr'an and all of the other lesser races like you looking at a human and doing anything other than getting the fuck out of their way. It seems that a message must be sent, an example be made. You have exactly thirty seconds to beg my forgiveness and do exactly what I politely requested before your whole fucking species becomes one of those examples."
The xeno screamed in rage.
"We shall bathe the stars in the blood of your kind!" he shouted.
"Twenty seconds," Jessica smiled.
"I shall have all of your kind delivered to me, and I shall personally defile them!… I will..."
Jessica didn't reply as the xeno ranted and raved. She just looked at her mechanical wristwatch…
A few seconds later, she smiled.
"My ambassadors are already in position," she smiled. "They are quite the troupe… Enjoy the show."
The line went dead.
"N@gv!" he screamed.
The richly engraved door to his office swung open as another of his kind, in beautifully decorated armor, entered and snapped to attention.
"Find where these pathetic humans hide and send our fleet! Teach them to fear the C@gr'an... and this 'Jessica Morgan'... Capture her and deliver her to me… alive!" he screeched.
"Yes, Premier!" N@gv shouted and turned to leave, colliding with another armored xeno who frantically sprinted into the room, causing a loud crash.
"Premier!" the new arrival shouted, his eyes wild with terror. "Over a hundred ships just entered the system! They… they said that someone called Kessicka Murrgoan told you that they were coming."
***
As the sun fell upon their world, the Premier's war room, previously filled with increasingly frantic and then hysterical activity, fell silent.
It was over…
It was all over…
Their fleet was either destroyed, seized by the enemy, or soon would be. Every station was overrun and in the hands of the humans…
Vomit now pooled upon the formerly pristine and polished tiles of the room because of what they had seen take place… what was still taking place…
...what was being transmitted across the entire system…
They didn't even have time to murder the captive humans. They were all on the trade stations. They fell too quickly.
Their ships couldn't stop them. Their troops couldn't stop them…
Nothing could stop them…
Nothing…
"P...premier..." his young nephew and a colonel in his army stammered, all color gone from his face, "We have just intercepted a transmission… They say that..."
He looked at the Premier with terrified eyes.
"They say that 'their hearts sing at the taste of our flesh'… Oh, Gods… They… They've just requested refrigerated transports..."
***
At roughly the same time, Captain Vexp sat in his quarters, sipping a celebratory cup of full strength pepper tea, and watched yet another ship system go back online.
Those humans…
They were unbelievable…
Nothing could stop them… Nothing… They laughed at problems that even supposed skilled professionals said were impossible, "fixed" components that everyone else said had to be replaced…
...and what they were doing with that "useless" robo-fac… Heap itself!
He smiled and prayed a prayer of sincere thanks to The Great Heap for their arrival…
Finally… finally things might just be turning around for them…
He felt… hope.
***
Author's note: Y'know... I'm starting to suspect that Alan and Grace aren't your average young Porkies...