---Tritium---
---Huch’s perspective---
I’m sitting in the Office of Docking Hangar 036, alone.
It’s a relatively low traffic period and I’m not expecting that to change any time soon.
Now that Lagomeer is old enough to be left at home alone, it would be nice if Bonheh could share this graveyard shift with me but, of course, they wouldn’t schedule both of us if they didn’t need both of us!
It’s usually the case that, when we’re both working, it’s a frantic shift!
I’d be busy processing orders, she’d be busy delivering them.
We wouldn’t get much time to relax and enjoy eachother’s company!
Just as I’m starting to drift into an idle daydream, the door slides open.
I feel a chill run down my spine and my ears swivel right and behind me.
I turn to look at the being who just entered.
The one I see stands more than twice my height!
They’re probably a biped (given the proportion of height to width and depth) but, other than that, it’s impossible to discern almost anything about them since their body is entirely shrouded in loose, black robes.
From the shadows contained within their hood, there shine two piercing red, synthetic lights.
Something about this person gives me the absolute creeps!
Though… I’m not sure exactly… what…
It’s not… too unusual for a person to disguise their identity…
Perhaps they need to wear a full body e-suit for this environment and they think that people find the black robes less offputting?
That would certainly fit with the illuminated mask their wearing…
Maybe they have some kind of embarrassing skin condition at the moment and have just stopped in on their way to get treatment?
They could be a celebrity who doesn’t want to be recognised… or just someone who values their privacy?
OK, Huch… just ignore that swelling knot of nausea in your stomach and pretend everything is normal!
Your hearts are not racing…
Your fur is not standing on end…
Your sprinting muscles have not preemptively tightened…
You are just a friendly clerk, about to give a welcoming greeting to a normal customer, like nothing is amiss!
“Hello there, Customer!” I hail, putting on a friendly performance I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of until this moment “Welcome! What can I help you with today?”
No response comes for some agonisingly long moments.
Then…
*thud*… *thud*… *thud*… *thud*…
The creature treads toward me with slow, booming steps…
Definitely a biped from the gait… and it sounds… impossibly heavy!
Honestly, I don’t remember Terrans sounding as heavy as that in their full battle armour and this person is too large to be one of them!
Taking position across my desk from me, the being stares down with the illuminated sensors on its mask.
“Tritium.” says the being in a chilling, deep, male coded voice “I need hydrogen-3.”
The words emanating from him sound vaguely like Terranspeak but… off…
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There’s no emotion in it, the way Terrans always have when they speak.
It’s monotone, flat… synthetic.
“Err… well… that’s not an issue… How much do you need?”
“20 liquid gallons.” answers the looming spectre.
“OK…” I say, relieved that it looks like this transaction will be over quickly “…I’ll just have the computer bring that out to you. What bay are you in?”
“Send it here…”
“Alright… and how will you be paying?” I ask as I complete the order.
“I won’t be.” he says, indifferently.
“I’m sorry?” I ask, perturbed.
“Yeah, don’t have much access to currency right now.”
“Oh… well…” I start, my hearts pounding in my ears “…we could do a trade?… Though, with the extra effort involved on our end, you’d need to offer something of greater value than the hydrogen-3… I don’t know if it would be worth it to you?”
“Hmmm… Let me think… Something I could trade you that would be of greater value than 20 gallons of liquid tritium…?” he muses.
Ice cold blades pierce both my hearts as a five fingered hand emerges from the robe and pantomimes a thoughtful gesture, tapping a razor sharp claw against the cloth covering the being’s lower face!
The hand is clearly a synth and is made of the same, flashback inducing, jet black, damascised metal as Terrans wear to battle!
Feigning realisation while playing at joviality, the man holds up a forefinger and says “I know… your life!… That’s gotta be worth enough to cover it… right? You give me the reactor fuel and, in return, I leave this office without removing your head from your shoulders!”
I stare up into those glowing red eyes…
Then my hand shoots for the button under my desk!
I don’t even make it a third of the way before my entire body is ripped upward, faster than I can resolve what’s happening!
My feet kick helplessly through the air above my seat while my forepaws uselessly wrap around the forearm, clamped around my upper torso.
“That was pretty stupid, bunny boy!” observes the cyborg, all pretence of joviality dropped “I mean… it was pretty stupid of your employer to even give you a panic button to press!… They should have realized that a wrongful death suit would cost them much more than an insured theft would!”
“Please don’t kill me!” I blurt, panicking “I have a wife and child!”
The terrifying man’s bodylanguage shifts almost imperceptibly and his iron grip slackens for a moment.
“Yeah…? So did I!” he spits, bitterly.
My translator tells me that the language he speaks ties up time with it’s verbs… and that the use of a ‘past tense’ indicates that his statement is no longer the case.
“I’m… I’m sorry…” I say, uncertainly.
“I don’t need your fucking sympathy, Bugs!” he snarls “What I need is 20 gallons of liquid tritium, so…”
*vrrrt**woosh**thunk* are the sounds of the port behind my desk adjusting itself to the correct size and a large canister being pneumatically delivered to it.
“…you’re gonna open that up for me and, since I’m feeling generous, I’m going to deliver on my side of the trade and not reduce you to a splatter pattern of viscera all over this room!” he states.
Still holding me aloft, he rounds my desk to bring me close enough to the keypad to enter the code.
My right paw fumbles and it takes me several attempts to put it in properly, each failure making me more and more terrified that he might lose patience and make good on his threats!
Finally, I input it correctly and the hatch opens.
A mechanical left arm extends from the cyborg’s robes and reaches out, hooking around the handle of the canister that weighs around three times as much as I do and lifting it up, effortlessly!
“Hmmph…” he grunts, seeming satisfied.
Then he turns his attention back to me.
He draws his right arm close in to his body, putting my face so near to his that I can feel the top edge of his hood against the bottoms of my ears.
I expect his breath to stink but… it doesn’t… In fact, after a moment, I realise that he’s not breathing at all!
“Now then, Thumper… how am I going to deal with you?… I promised to let you live but… how do I know you won’t just hit that button under your desk the moment I leave?”
Breathless from panic, I desperately try to think of a solution that doesn’t involve him killing me or maiming me!
“You… erm… *gulp*… you could h-handcuff me to something?”
“*khh*…!” he scoffs “Sure(!) I’ll just pull a set out from my handcuff collection(!)”
“Y-y-you could knock me out?” I suggest, getting desperate.
“Yeah… No idea how hard I could hit you without shattering your skull like an egg…”
“Then… err… then… erm…” I flounder.
“Shut up.” he orders.
I shut up.
“Tell you what… I’m going to tell you some things and… you just tell me if you think I’m lying… Sound good?”
“Mmm-hmm!” I affirm, uncertain if I’m allowed to speak to answer the petrifying man’s question.
He stays silent for a moment before, with the absolute confidence of a statement of fact, saying “If you send every security officer on this space station after me… if they get in my way… you’ll’ve sentenced each and every one of them to death… Am I lying?”
“…No.” I answer, fully believing that this man is both willing and able to kill whatever force Xartham Security might muster to attempt to stop him leaving.
“Good… Next; once I’m done killing them, I’m going to come back and I’m going to kill you… slowly… Am I lying?”
“You’re not.” I quiver.
“It’s not worth throwing away their lives and yours over a canister of tritium, now is it?”
“No!” I answer, emphatically.
“Goooood boy there, Roger!… It’s gonna take me around 15 minutes to be back in warp once I leave this room… So, can I trust you not to touch your desk or your holo for 20?”
“Yes! Yes!… You can!” I plead.
“You promise?” he asks.
“Yes! I swear!”
“Good.” he shrugs, nonchalantly tossing me away to land perfectly back on my chair.
When my vision resolves, he’s already gone…
I spend a few moments frozen in shock…
Then, I collapse against my desk, sobbing and wheezing.