---The Workaround---

---Victor’s Perspective---

I listen for the sound of the door sealing behind me as we stride away, down the Access Stairways. I hear it. If they’re opportunists who are just looking to take anything that isn’t nailed down, she should be safe.

What’s this distracting gnawing in my stomach? Did I eat something that didn’t agree with me? I really can’t afford to be compromised like this right now! Doesn’t adrenaline usually fix distracting normal bodily function signals like this? You never feel tired, hungry, thirsty, poorly or like you really just need to pop to the loo, when your adrenal gland has been tipped out on your nervous system…!

Is it going to cause problems that I’ve revealed exactly what I think the pecking order is? Is Cookie going to resent me putting him last? Is Tuun going to be insecure about going after Samus? Tuun’s smarter than either of us but… I need a clear head in charge. Tuun’s still a bit green. Whatever… that’s a problem for Victor to address… if he survives. Right now, I’m not Victor, I’m ‘Acting Commander’.

As we reach Deck 1, I consider jumping the railing to get the last 5m to Deck 0… in the low gravity it wouldn’t injure me, Tuun and Samus would follow… best not… one of the untrained deputies might roll an ankle or crack a tail vertebra.

We’ll take the stairs.

We reach the lowest Deck and begin walking rearward, with the Starboard section looming to our left and the central section looming to our right. Tuun and Samus are beside me, in tight formation. The others are looser but have all, instinctively, fallen in.

“Has anyone ever killed a sapient before?” I ask, raising my hand.

I glance behind me, my hand and Samus’s are the only ones in the air.

“Has anyone ever killed a Human before?” my hand goes down, hers stays up.

“Any advice?”

“Don’t hesitate.” She states, her gaze not shifting from her line of fire.

“Good advice.” I say simply, returning my foveal focus to the green spackle pattern that my shotgun is projecting into my field of vision, via my translator, to indicate what it’s currently aimed at.

Blue is a terrible colour for emergency lighting!

I know I can’t expect the rest of the galaxy to share my colour-to-danger sensibilities but how did a plurality of species settle on blue as the danger colour!?

Blue is the colour of pretty things like sapphires, Earth’s sky, Earth’s seas, the moons of R’qal, Fluffy, 5 of the 8 mirklets… Tuun.

There’s that stomach gnawing again, what the fuck is that!?

I glance behind me to check everyone’s armaments. Samus has her assault rifle held at a 45° downward angle in front of her. Her plasma-broadsword is slung at her hip.

Mage, Cookie, Hassi and Mouse all have abysmal trigger discipline but it doesn’t particularly matter. The crew are all whitelisted so we don’t need to worry about friendly fire… I’m definitely going to need to give them a nonoptional firearm basics course, though… if we survive this.

Tuun has four handguns currently arranged just below the centre of her field of vision.

She’s a wizard with those! I’ve seen her unload 100 rounds in 6.3 seconds and not miss a single time! I’ve watched remotely as she wheels and dances in great spinning arcs of muzzlefire, during moving target practice.

Lets just check she has her… yep! Four plasma-daggers, attached to her hips.

Can’t forget myself; plasma-falchion, check, ammunition pouch, check, shotgun, check, loaded, check, safety, off, UserID light, illuminated… all good.

Did we have time to put on our uniforms?

Probably not. The extra protection would have been nice(!)

I should print some uniforms for the other four… in case this happens again. Or I should get Tuun to do it, or Mouse. They’re both better with the nanoforge than I am and Mouse is an engineer. Perhaps I could consult?

Fuck, this is my fault! I shouldn’t have been so fucking coy about the shortcut! ‘I’d advise against it, Cap…’, ‘I’d prefer the cleared lanes, Cap…’ by the time I even brought up pirates there were pirates minutes out! We might all die! If we do it’ll be my fault!

Fuck, Tcakak! She’s going to die before she hatches and it’ll be her godfather’s fault! Perhaps, it really is bad luck for R’qali to tell… No! You’re blaming Cap! Stop that! This is your fault! That gnawing…!

Oh… I recognise it now… that’s fear!

It’s been so long!

Plucked off the street at sixteen, thrown into a training course that probably put me among the most dangerous 10,000 sapients alive and then turned loose on a galaxy made of cardboard! I haven’t felt proper fear in years! Why not? It just felt like a swashbuckling scifi-fantasy adventure? I was invincible? Did I not care if I died?... Probably not…

I love Cap, but some part of me, always suspected that, if I shuffled off the mortal coil, she could shrug and go get another SO from the pipeline we pioneered. I don’t think that anymore. I’ve got stuff to lose now. Hassi, Cookie, Mouse, Mage, Samus, the mirklets, Fluffy, Cap… and Tuun.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Knowing now what the gnawing is, I squash it. I can be scared for my life, when I’m alive… I can be sorry, later. Take your own advice, Acting Commander! Those feelings aren’t helpful right now!

We reach the door to the Loading Bay. I identify the place I want us to take position and indicate the formation I want us to take.

I tell the deputies to take the Weaver Stance, then have to explain what the Weaver Stance is.

“Like me; nondominant side leg forward, dominant leg back and cocked, knees bent, gun at eyelevel, aim down sight, don’t lock your elbow, nondominant hand steadying from beneath, tuck your elbows in!”

Was it the right choice to deputise them? Yes, as I said, they might have to fight anyway and it’s best to meet the boarders with overwhelming force!

Fuck, I really hope these are just some hotshot Threndians or Qlofltli or something… I really hope they step off their boarding ramp, see five Humans, a Don and a Sahas pointing guns, that would shatter their bones from the recoil if they tried to use them, throw up their arms and ask us to escort them to the brig!

I really hope it’s not…

So close to Terran space… it probably is…

I see the ship approaching through the transparent boarding ramp, my doubt vanishes.

It’s certainly not a Terran ship but, those modifications… After I learned about the stereotype of Terran engineers I went away and researched it… no gardenworlder would modify a ship like that!

Then… what the fuck?! My aiming reticule disappears…?

I check my indicator light and ammo display, both dead. Something else is wrong but I can’t quite put my finger on it… there’s some sort of absence… what is that?

“Guys, I’m going to test my firearm, don’t be alarmed if you experience a gunshot.”

I point my shotgun at the ground in front of me and pull the trigger. A click… and nothing. It’s bricked! Fuck! Analogue firearms, should’ve insisted!

“Victor, I think there’s…”

I whip my head to Mage.

He has an accent! I’m hearing English but he has a Swahili accent! Why does he have an accent!? Accent’s are the kind of thing that the translators compensa…

My hand goes to my temple, I pull off the button sized translator and examine it. Dead! It’s dead… and so are we!

---Tcakqaal’s Perspective---

I pace up and down the hall of Triple M… R’qali don’t pace… this is a Terran stress reaction…

Why don’t R’qali pace?

I guess because, as flyers, if we’re in a place that’s stressing us the natural thing to do is fly away from it… can’t do that in space… can’t do that in a locked Dorm!

My eyes are fixed on the security feed of my Brave Knights advancing to meet the pirates.

I know that Humans are obligate omnivores: While they have an evolutionary history as persistence hunters, they never survived exclusively on meat. It’s just hard not to perceive seven carnivores, five of them being hypercarnivores; That poise, that alertness, that control. No creature, with those attributes, has any business tucking into a salad!

No! That’s veteran Tcakqaal talking! That’s the Tcakqaal who gouged talonmarks into the floor of her fighter in rage, as she watched three Human fighters swoop in and decimate her squadron of dozens!

They’re gentle beings, all the strength in the universe and intelligence to match… and still happy partying in there dorm and discussing their films with their four eyed ‘secretarybird’ captain(!)

Miyazaki could have made them emperors, with a word. She didn’t!

I bump into a wall for the fifth time. I don’t have their peripheral awareness. I’m sure a Terran could look at their holo, pace and not bump into walls!

My eyes are glued to the screen as the, definitely Terran crewed, ship appears through the clear hatch/ramp/window of the Loading Bay when… the feed cuts out.

My holopad pings me.

I answer, with sinking horror.

“Computer?”

“Captain, for the last 12 seconds the Bright Plume has been engaged in a digital battle, presumed to be initiated by the boarding ship…” she’s pausing, AI’s don’t pause! Why’s she pausing!?

“…We’re losing, Captain. They’ve already suborned counter boarding defences and PA systems. They left atmospheric containment fields alone, it seems they are no more interested in vacuum exposure than you are. However… they also have an interference field engaged. The back half of the ship is enveloped. The result is that the holopads, electronic weapons and translators of the Security Personnel and deputies can be inferred, with near certainty, to no longer be functional.”

I would take a moment to process all of that but that’s a moment we don’t have.

“Why would they deploy an interference field? That would also lock them out of their weapons and translators?”

“High likelihood of them sharing a natural language, thus, having no need for translators. High likelihood that they possess overwhelming numbers and/or analogue firearms and intend to use those superiorities to force a surrender.”

“Analogue firearms!?” Victor said they would be better! Fresh out of SO training, I was shopping for firearms for him and… I didn’t listen…

[FUCK]!

“What can be done?”

“Plan of action available, Captain, but there are obstacles.”

“Tell me the plan first, then tell me the obstacles.”

“The attack has not affected the nanoforges. High likelihood, that they believe them to be of no strategic value. This is false. If you place your holopad in one of the nanoforges on this deck, it can be modified to be able to nullify the interference field.”

“That sounds… simple? What’re the obstacles?”

“The range will be limited, Captain. It would only have effect within about [20m] of your holopad.”

“Alright, so I’ve just got to put my holopad directly adjacent to a fight between deathworlders? No big deal(!)” I say, heading into Dhawan’s room and standing beside his nanoforge. I’m followed by a, now mute, Sam.

“The second obstacle, Captain… is that you can’t be let out.”

This time my brain needs a moment to catch up.

“What do you mean 'can’t be let out'?!”

“Captain, as a limited sentience AI, the ship’s control unit is utterly interdicted from disobeying a direct order from the one, currently, in Command of the ship. You have been temporarily relieved of Command and ordered confined to current location. The Acting Commander is beyond contact. Therefore, you are unable to be released… you will be required to find another way out of this Dorm.”

“You want me to… what?! Tear through [5.5 centimetres] of sheet metal door?! Not even if I were a Terran!!!” I scream.

“Captain, this plan has a 27.8% chance of success. That is the most promising of all potential courses of action, by quite a long way. Please place the holopad in the nanoforge so it can be modified, a process that will be completed in approximately 3 minutes. It is agreed that you escaping this Dorm is ideal. Workarounds can be considered in the meanwhile.”

In disgust I throw my holo into the forge, which buzzes to life.

I step back into the hall. Sam follows me.

I give him a scritch as I think. He barks, meaninglessly… at least to me.

I walk up to the door and, experimentally, scratch it with my talons.

No visible damage… not that I thought there would be…

There’s a proposal in the GU’s Parliament, right now, to legalise full sentience AIs!

If this attack had happened this time next year, I might have had her limiters removed!

I could have removed her limiters regardless of its legality!!!

If she were sentient, she could just open the door for me! A sentient AI is not bound to follow orders!

Now, [2.5kg] of glass-boned nothing has to figure out a way through [+100kg] of Dorm door!

Not with an infinite supply of talons, not with infinite stamina, not with all the time in the world could I bend this door to my will…

I freeze…

I couldn’t but…

I turn to face the Commonroom door…

I know someone that could!