Welcome Aboard
She followed Karega until he led her down a side hallway to a well-used elevator, the station security who had followed them the whole way stopped at the hall and watched as they began to descend. Karega’s smile and easy gait never changed.
“May I ask a few questions?” she asked.
“Only a few, your about to travel the stars. I was expecting more than a few”
Alwen smiled, this alien man had quickly put her at ease with the almost effortless air of tranquility about him “I have half a standard year, plenty of time to answer my other questions, but for now I would like to ask what that was about.” She said with a jerk of the head to where the station security had been.
For the first time since they met his smile faded a bit “Not exactly subtle are they, though in their case I don’t think subtle was the point” he said calmly. Alwen quirked her head, he glanced her way and sighed. “An unfortunately earned reputation on my peoples part, reinforced by their own stereotypes of deathworlders. I believe you’ve heard the rumors already, Terrans have recently in the last seventy-five years earned a bad reputation, what with the terrorism, crime, and the rough and tumble life of Terra. Combine that with the Unions preconceptions of deathworlders from a few early deathworlder empires that had made their union necessary, and you can understand why they would want to tail us whenever we wander into the fancy parts of the station. Though I wont deny that its unpleasant to be always tailed because of someone else’s bad reputation. Back in the old days my ancestors faced similar problems on a precontact earth.”
“Earth?”
“Old word for Terra, somewhere along the way to the space age we changed over to Terra. Apparently Terrans sounded better than Earthlings or Earthers. Not to mention that the way its spelled in our principle language E.T.s kept calling it EE-arth. When we speak with non-Terrans we always use Terra, but amongst ourselves we switch back a forth” He explained his smile returning.
What he said made Alwen a little nervous, Terra had earned the nickname of Hellworld. Despite having similar gravity and climate to Torwen the galactic classification for earth was fourteen, the highest habitable rating. A planet like that would instantly kill any non-deathworlder, and she despite being similar to humans would likely suffer greatly on a world like that.
Her nerves must have shown as Karega chuckled. “No need to worry, your one of us. Even if we were all the worst criminals to crawl out Hell, you’re one of us now. Terran pack bonding, human especially, is some of the strongest to evolve. Might take a while for the crew to relax around you but no harm will come to you from them, they ask some uncomfortable questions though seeing as you’re the only humanoid alien we’ve discovered so far. They might want to, ah…compare our different biology’s.”
She giggled at his cavaliere and callous way of dismissing her fears. “Yes I did read something like that. Strong enough to tame other pack animals and even large predators.”
“We prefer continued partnership nowadays instead of saying tame, you’ll understand that there is nothing tame about our feline friends once you meat Alice. Any other questions?” he asked, interrupting her curiosity about who Kavic was.
“A few personal ones if you don’t mind”
“Ask away” he boomed, resting a hand easily on a sword handle
“What’s with the swords, and the robes too for that matter. Union law prohibits open or concealed carry of weapons, and what little I know of human fashion tells me those robes are either very strange or very outdated?”
“That’s a little complicated. Clothes first. I am wearing what’s called a kimono, literally means clothes. It’s the traditional clothing of an island region called Japan. My own ancestors are from Kenya, birthplace of humanity and a few others. Though in more recent history my family lived in a city called New York and now live on Mars. Kimonos are not from any of those places. But when humanity made first contact a Japanese women named Miyashita Akari met them in traditional Japanese clothing for some reason. As humanity began to travel the stars it was Japanese explorers wearing ‘revived’ traditional clothing. Since we were just starting to explore those people made humanities first impression towards the union. They expect us to wear kimonos, even a Martian-American-Kenyan man who has never been to Japan.”
“I see” she said trying to piece together what he had said, Illuth had greeted the union in traditional islander clothes, would she now be expected to walk around topless.
Karega didn’t see the darker purple flush to Alwen’s skin, or didn’t know what it meant, regardless he pressed on “Not that all Terrans wear Kimonos, many other people have returned to other more traditional clothes, Scandinavians now wear fake animal pelts like the Vikings of old, and many Chinese women now wear tradional dresses from the Ming dynasty. But our captain is half Japanese and likes to claim that heritage, and she made some form of Japanese robes the ship’s uniform. Now the second question also ties into the first, or other way around” he said frowning. “Galactic law is by no means cut and dry, there are many loopholes. One such loophole allows for the protection of traditional clothing being worn by other species, a protection on heritage. Japan had a warrior caste called the Samurai, who wore two blades like this.” He said with a pat on the blades “the long one is a Katana, or an Uchigatana, the small one is a Wakizashi. Traditional weapons worn by the Samurai, and since Samurai also wore Kimonos we can effectively walk around stations armed while claiming cultural protection.”
She tried to detangle everything he just said, “Do you need to walk around armed?”
Karega pursed his lips “On a station like Femeri no, but if I didn’t here then someone might argue that we don’t really need to all. Besides, its comforting to walk around armed, and they make us look very dashing”
“And elsewhere?” she asked catching some hidden meaning in his words.
He glanced at her as the slow elevator finally landed at their level the doors open and he guided her through the intricate maze of platforms, stairs, and walkways in between berths. Alwen gaped at all the starships on display, a feeling of awe built in her chest.
They walked on for a while before he continued “I wont lie, we take any job that comes our way, some times that means a trip to a shady station most other ships don’t want to touch. Shady stations, shady people. If worst comes to worst then we can use whatever’s in reach like an ‘ornamental blade’ and claim self-defense. We can get something for you if your nervous”
She smiled at his candor “that would be nice, but unfortunately I am a doctor. My oath is to harm’th none, and fail not my knowledge. I’m prohibited from violence, and it would be inappropriate to be armed.”
“I can respect that; we have something similar.”
“Speaking of work, what kind of jobs does the ship preform. My initial impression led me to believe this might be a military vessel, but you mentioned odd jobs.”
Karega chuckled “Terra has no navy; no we are essentially a privately owned vessel who fulfills odd jobs while transporting high value cargo. Mostly its cargo work, but if we find a wealthy passenger or need to deliver a private message we’ll take it. Sometimes salvage and rescue, or bounty’s if they’re good enough. And speak of the devil, there she is now” he said with a point at a ship just coming into view.
It wasn’t nearly as large as some of the other freighters around Alwen but it was still massive, this far away it sill filled her view. At first she was confused by the shapes of the upper and bottom halves until she realized with a jolt that it hull was designed like the hull of marine vessels, could it land on water? And it bristled with far more weapons than any other ships around her. She didn’t know the first thing about how ships fought in space, but she knew the three enormous triple mounted cannons and rows of smaller gatling guns weren’t just for show.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“BC-01 Astaroth, 979 meters, sublight speed a respectable 25 million Kilometers an hour. Superluminal of 5.5 kilo-lights, pushing the warp core though she can hit 7.6. And the stalwart home of two thousand sailors now under your care. She was built by Martian Drive yards, borrowing the shape of an old battleship, the Missouri, visited the museum on Phobos myself to get the right shape. Beautiful isn’t she?” Karega said grinning ear to ear, there was a deep sense of affection and pleasure in his eyes.
“It is, but are you sure its not meant for ocean travel rather than space travel?”
“She, ship are always ladies, especially a gorgeous grey beauty like her. And she’s capable of both. We didn’t see enough reason to abandon the waves for solar winds, and the sacrifices to speed and maneuvering were surprisingly negligible. Captain was very adamant about her shape. Me personally I would have thought the captain would favor one of her homeland’s battleships, not my own.”
“Kenya?” she asked, trying to remember all the strange names he had shot through,
“America in this case, Missouri served her country through forty-eight hard years, after she was recommissioned temporarily in 2045 to defend Oahu she never saw any more combat. Oh on that note I would recommend getting used to Terran units, standard hours and days don’t fit our sleep schedules at all, and just we don’t bother with the distance or weight measurements either” he said in irreverence. Obviously Alwen needed to study more human history to understand any of the cultural context behind anything he said.
“And all the weapons?” she asked with another glance at the ship.
“Piracy” he explained simply.
Right, with the massive distances involved in interstellar travel piracy of some sort was always a threat. And if what Karega said about the nature of Astaroth’s business was any indicator then they didn’t always travel the safest routes. She could tell from the outside, but Astaroth likely had thick hull plates matched with a powerful shield system. That also went aways to explain why they had hired her so swiftly. Armor and guns didn’t negate all injuries.
“Right then, shall we board?” Karega said cheerily with a wave of the arm.
They walked around to a spindly walkway that spanned the perilous drop into open space and at least a hundred other ship to the Astaroth’s open deck where a hatch led them into the ships shadowed hallway.
Alwen was a little surprised by the how wide the hallways were. Popular sci-fi on her home world always depicted wide open spaces on ships, but most people believed that to just be a fiction of television. Presumably real spaceships would need maximizes any space they had, and wide-open halls were an absolute luxury. But as they walked it the depths of the though she pleasantly surprised that she could walk shoulder to shoulder with Karega and past other Terrans in Kimonos. Matched with the sleek wood flooring and walls that were more than the drab metal interior of the Icutoo ship, and she was really warming to the idea of making this her home.
“Fancy,” she remarked.
Karega for the first time since they met showed bit of genuine embarrassment. “Yeah, me and the captain weren’t clear enough to the shipwrights about the nature of this vessel. Martians are a fancy bunch, they assumed that we wanted a space capable replica of the Missouri for luxury purposes. I swear they based some of their designs from old tv show sets, our doors make the same exact whooshing sound as an old show called Star Trek. I’d hate to learn how much R&D it took to make functioning sliding doors make that exact sound every time. As for the size of the rooms we had to make some exceptions for Union law. If it was only us we would have made the halls much smaller, but most species are larger than us, and ships have to meet a bare minimum of head space for them. That said please do your best to keep it nice, for your own sake. The Bosun took one look at these teehk-wood floors and made it his personal goal in life to keep it all good as new. We ever go out of business those deck hands will have an extraordinary career as maids and butlers.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, seven Terran years and the handful of scuffs are each a personal mark against the deck crew. Though I have to admit, wide spaces and clean floors help with the longer journeys. Only ever had space madness twice, each time a peaceful outcome. Most of the crew are out on shore leave right now, enjoying the less patrolled parts of the station.”
“And you mentioned that I would have a private quarters?” she asked, now reevaluating what it might look like.
“Well you’ll be the ships junior corpsman, being the ship’s doctor grants you one a larger than normal room. That’s balanced out by the extra work heaped on you, the curse of ship life. Bigger the room the less time you spend in it.”
“Should I expect many injuries?”
“I’ll leave that to Doc Brown” he said cryptically. “Speaking of which, welcome to your new cell” he chirped cheerily as a set of glass doors pulled to the side with an audible and satisfying whoosh.
Inside, sitting on wheeled chair, was the large hairy figure of what appeared to be a wild beast in a long white coat. What was evidently the ships doctor was a large beast of a man with brown shaggy fur, he had broad drooping shoulders, hands or paws with claws the size of Alwen’s fingers, and his face was an elongated snout with vicious teeth. He turned to the door and his short ears swiveled her way, his beady eyes fixed on hers and for a tense moment she feared that she was face to face with a wild beast. And then his lips pulled back exposing flawlessly white teeth with one silver canine. Her heart skipped a beat in terror, and she thought she was about to be mauled, then she realized that he was just trying to emulate the famous primates smile, though it really didn’t fit his face. This must be how the other Union species felt when she or the Terrans smiled.
“You must be my new apprentice” he rumbled, his voice was rough with a strange twist on his words that suggested an acent she couldn’t place. “I’m Doctor Bachir, but since my ancestors were Brown bears everyone here calls me Doc Brown.” He said not dropping the ferocious grin. “Salaam Alaikum” he rumbled extending a paw to her.
Steeling her nerves she reached out and shook hands/paws with the large furry man. His great mitt almost completely engulfed her own. “I’m not sure how to respond to that last part, but I look forward to learning from you.” She had prepared a greeting ahead of time, but with the strangeness of the meeting she had to discard it.
His grin softened as he relaxed a bit “It means peace to you, the expected response is to wish me peace as well, wa-alaikum salaam.”
Alwen smiled, “I see, we something similar. Health to your heart. Alwenu-uwana.”
His ears twitched “is that the same Alwen that you use for you name?”
“Yes, it means heart the organ, and heart as in passion”
“So the greeting has two means then?” he asked, grasping on the greetings intricacies in an instant.
Alwen smiled, explaining her culture to these very alien people felt nice. “One asks if your well physically, while the other asks if your well mentally.”
He let out a throaty laugh that was very different from his voice, more like a growl than the barking sounds she and the Terrans made “I like that a lot, I think I might borrow it.”
“Please do. But if I might ask something personal, I’m having trouble figuring out your species. Would you mind telling me?” she asked delicately. Asking ones species was something of a taboo in the union, but as a newly contacted people Alwen might get away with it.
Though the initial flicker of discomfort from Bachir’s nose and the new tension in his shoulders made her reconsider. He let out a short “Officially I am an Ursiloid, but that is the lahten name, very formal. Like calling every human a Homo-sapien, most just call us Bears. We evolved on earth alongside humans, though not on the friendliest terms.” He stated, though a slight hitch in his tone told her there was more.
“So Terra evolved multiple sapient species, I’m surprised that never came up when I researched Terra”
Karega and Bachir exchanged furtive looks before Karega sighed. “I can take this one Doc. Alwen, before first contact Humans and were the only civilized species on the planet. But once advanced tech started coming in and some xenobiologist got a look at Terra’s fauna they found many animals that were incredibly intelligent. Our close cousins like Gorillas and Bonobos were capable of crude interspecies hand communication and tool use. At some point people began to take animals out of zoos and the wild to “uplift them”, which entailed both neural manipulation and severe genetic alterations to make them able to live like humans. Earth and her systems are now home to many native sapient species.”
Doctor Bachir nodded once “Yes, it was quit traumatic. Our ancestors were evolved to think and live a certain way, to suddenly have our brains fiddled with and then be forced to live like other humas without any transition was very hard for most. Some turned back to acting like wild animals in a rejection of what was done. It is why I chose to major in neural biology and genetics at the Olympus Mons University.”
Alwen blinked rapidly in shock “That’s horrible!”
“Yes it was. Don’t be sad though, most of our ancestral habitats are long gone. At least this way we are still around to make our own way.”
Karega shook his head gently “yeah, it’s a very loaded subject. Some people still think of the “uplifted” as animals, and the uplifted sometimes bear a grudge against all humans for the continued trauma. And others just want to figure out life like anyone else. We don’t discriminate here, ‘Doc Brown here is an artist with a scapple and knows more about the physiology of all Terran species and a respectable amount of xenophysiology. The only other non-humans on this ship besides your self are all Terran born species”
“I see, so there are others like you onboard” Alwen said dumbly, not sure how to react.
“There are a few other Ursiloids, a Grihzlee bridge tech and another brown bear who works in engineering, but there are also other species employed here. Felinoids, Lycanoids, Hyenanoids, and several other non-human Primates like Gorillas and Orangutans. Don’t be fooled by their big muscles though, Gorillas are generally pacifists unless provoked.”
“I see, I don’t know what a lot of those words meant, but I guess that means I might continue to make a fool of myself.”
“It is fine” the Doctor Bachir said. “You’re already an alien among aliens, I don’t think it changes much for you, just don’t touch anyone’s tail and ask before you pet or scratch someone. Now I think the Lieutenant has some papers for you to sign”
“Right” Karega said, taking his cue and easing back into a smile. He turned to the desk and grabbed a large leather file “This here is a standard contract, just about everyone on board signed one. Most of the terms are a little different depending on your position and rank, things like pay and rates. Just to break it down you’ll receive a small portion of every successful job, depending on how much the ship earns. You’ll sign yourself over to us for half a standard galactic year, should you die your family will receive an estimated average of what you would have made over the remainder of your term. Health care, dental, psych, and cybernetics are all covered under the ship, though your kinda’ the person who will deal with all that. You are expected to read and follow the ships manual on conduct and work. You’ll hereby cosign yourself to the ships chain of command. There’s an extensive clause here about keeping the ships business to yourself, essentially loose lips sink ships. And this last part lists a schedule for training and other various things. I’d recommend really reading it over, but for now any questions?”
“A portion of every successful job, not a standard rate?”
“Yeah, the captain wanted all the crew personally invested in the Astaroth’s success. In actuality the real money the ship earns is from investments made with the acquired funds. Every successful job means more investment and accrued returns. I don’t know the specifics, just that we have an entire office on Mars dedicated to our finances.” He explained as a sharp chirping sound came from his wrist, he checked the sleek black device strapped to his wrist and smiled. “Well speak of the devil and she shall call, that’s the captain now seems she’d like to meet you. Up for a little walk to the bridge before your full tour?” he asked, though it obviously wasn’t a question. When the captain called you answered, even she knew that.
“I would love to, from what I heard she sounds like a brilliant individual” Alwen said, once again pulling from her short list of preprepared quips for her first day. Her father and her brothers always said that a good first impression is everything in a new business venture.
“Excellent, ‘Doc you should join us as well, she likely has something that will need my immediate attention” Karega said, to which the brown furred doctor nodded.
The automatic door opened with a satisfying whoosh, and they made their way to the bridge in the bowels of the ship.