Space piracy isn't a thing. It's not economical, practical or something anyone can pursue for any length of time.
Anyway, the ship had been captured by space pirates, and they'd dropped the temperature in the passenger modules down to a few ticks under the freezing point of water: The Atrix passengers were all huddled up, torpid, protecting their little guys, and the Thotari Pirates were planning on pillaging the cargo and personal possessions while things were quiet.
They'd checked the manifest: 12 Atrix passengers, and four crew, also Atrix. Easy pickings.
So it was a little bit of a surprise when they cracked the door to the passenger module and one of the Atrix turned out to be somewhat genetically human.
It was holding a hot beverage in one hand and used the other to grip the first Thotari Contract Pirate around their scrawny neck, dragging them off their feet.
Then it used that individual to beat the others until they snapped their contract markers and sat their asses down.
Everyone knows the Thotari take contracts very seriously. Snapping the marker was as good as surrender: No Thotari with any self respect would work unpaid.
The Pirate Executive Officer, employed for her bulk and experience took personal umbrage regarding this whole mess and thundered onto the ship, with several large sharp weapons, and some very cool looking armour, determined to perpetrate terminal events to the Human's biology.
The Human took one look and threw it's drink in her face. Then gave her a vicious kicking while the bitter alkaloids in the toxic concoction caused the PEO to collapse with uncontrollable spasms.
According to the logs, the Human took time out and poured another cup of coffee, turned the heat up, glared at the rest of the Thotari until they snapped their contract markers rather than deal with any of that and walked onto the Pirate's ship.
At which point they called the Pirate's backer up, and spent a half hour explaining in horrifying detail what they would personally do to that individual, and how much worse it was going to be if they didn't stop this inane crap.
The Thotari picked up their PEO and hooked her up to their ship's medical bay, said 'no hard feelings it's just business' and left.
---
"How was your trip?" asked Dave The Human.
"Pretty quiet," said Phalanges Mitten, AKA Dave. "Glad to be back, though. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to take a decent nap on those haulers - And don't get me started on the Coffee!"
The human formerly known as Davce (The Human), currently running under the moniker of Phalanges Mittens, who was, for staffing purposes a two-meter-tall marsupial lizard of no particular gender paused and took a step back to look at the hardware that was causing issues.
Phalanges looked over at the equipment cart, repurposed to be the office of Cat Fantastic, a small, iguana-sized Atrix, and technically Phalanges spouse adjacent partner.
"Doing OK, Cat?" he asked and got a cheery "Graak" back.
Garfield, an actual Atrix looked amused and asked her little guy the same. "Doing Ok, Un-Named?" and got a "Grak?" from her natural pouch where her little guy was riding.
"Nobody asks me if I'm OK." said Dave The Human, an Adult female Tsin.
"Should have got yourself a Little Guy." Garfield told her good buddy cheerfully.
"Ugh. They're too big to fit in a pocket and besides my pet rat would get jealous." Dave stated, and checked, for the twentieth time, the schematics of the lump of scheming machinery.
"What about that dude who nearly ate number 43?" suggested Phalanges, shining a light behind the input pipes.
Dave tried to recall them "Oh yeah... nah, they're nice but a bit thirsty. I'm not planning on a family yet." she said. "I need someone who's less desperate to..." she looked around at the other four all of whom were legally Atrix, the least sexually oriented species known to breathe oxygen.
Even Phalanges, who's genetically human had never shown any interest in sex. "... less desperate." she said. "But I think I need someone who gets me on a more... Tsin level? No offence"
Everyone paused to consider this, apart from Un-Named Male who was asleep again.
Dave was a Big Female: The klunky translation of a concept for the Tsin gender of "The most female type of female", which culturally also carried the suggestion of being the sort of person who's in charge of everyone else: "She who shouts at everyone to clean their claws".
Tsin have at least four main genders. At least one gender is capable of swapping naturally. Dave's at the far end of the Tsin gender spectrum, biologically at least, and interpersonal relationships are complex when one's bestie girl-friend might spend too much time hanging out with you and accidentally swap to male.
On the other hand (of which, Dave has four) Dave's picked a male name from a species that has two broad categories for biological genders and still managed to make things weird.
Everyone took a moment to consider this as they stared at the hardware giving them issues.
The Waste Organic Matter/Biologicals from Living Environments Recycling unit was supposed to scavenge through any organic matter that ordinary people left behind, and crack the compounds down into base blocks that could then be used to build up any other chemicals or compounds via one of the bio-reactors. Soap for example.
On a space station, this sort stuff is considered useful, since nobody wants to be hip deep in garbage and leftover food.
"We need this thing's full name." said Phalanges thoughtfully.
"Wot?" said Dave and Garf did the rippling colour display that was equivalent.
"It's human hardware. It runs on human rules, so if we knew it's full name I could call it out and it'd know it was in trouble."
Dave and Garfield, who both had degrees in Human Stuff gave each other some pretty hilarious side eye.
Phalanges pulled up the pitch shifter for the rarely used translator, and said "Squeap sqk qk sqwp, what do you think you're doing?"
Dave, startled by the use of her real, full name dropped her tablet and cringed, scales all folding flat, and her big hands coming up over her head as she pulled her small hands out of her front pocket and covered her muzzle.
Garf stared in amusement, cheeks and forehead rippling opalescently. Cat Fantastic peered from the little office that Dave and Phalanges had built him. "Graak?"
"No it's not sorcery." said Phalanges.
"Could have fooled me." muttered Dave. "Gods of the place, I see what you mean. Don't do it again, I'd have to murder you and not eat you." she muttered shaking her scales back out and patting the air down one handed to show it was meant lightly.
"Graaaaak?" asked Cat.
"Tsin eat people they like or admire, if they can, when they die. It's respectful." explained Phalanges distractedly.
"'S right." agreed Dave. "For example I wouldn't take a single bite of this squeap machine."
Meanwhile Un-Named Male who'd been disturbed form his nap, reached out unseen by anyone but Garf and pointed at the fuse panel: The fuses were fine but the wiring harness connector had been pulled half out.
Garf looked around and pushed it back with a surreptitious claw...
"I have an idea." she announced.
Garf picked up Dave's Tablet and looked at it. Then she planted herself in front of it, crossed her arms, and said:
"Waste Organic Matter/Biologicals from Living Environments unit model Zero Romeo Indigo November Zero Charlie Oscar, serial number... five dash two dash one nine seven three, what do you think you're doing? We were relying on you to do your job. You need to take responsibility for your role on this station! I'm not angry, I'm just very disappointed"
And then clicked the reset button.
She stood there with Un-named Male's nose hanging out of her pouch, Phalanges, Dave and Cat staring in surprise: Of course the recycler clicked and powered up.
"Good." declared Garfield, who passed Dave his tablet back and grabbed her tool bag. "I'm on break!" she called as she swaggered off.
"How the hell did she...?" said Phalanges, and Dave shrugged.
"I guess it really does run on human rules." she said.
Dave the Human has taken up an offer to be Dave the Atrix, mostly for the chance to be a brat and access to that sweet sweet moss.
Cat Fantastic is discovering that the big exciting non Atrix world sucks in new and unticipated ways, but he has acquired a new Aunt Dave.
Dave The Human is displaying oddly maternal behaviour... what could this mean? It means Dave's not an ass.
The Von Neuman Space Squids are not learning to sing and still aren't in this story.
EVA 43 and the Most Dangerous human are eating mozarella sticks and arguing over which was better: 21st Century Superman, or Post Contact Superman. They also aren't in this story.
Gondy, Rax and Garfield are starting to wonder AITA?
O'Patel and Big Ma are surfing a diplomatic incident wave and cackling with glee: Also they're about to ask Dave the Atrix A Question...
Dave the Atrix twitched in a way that Dave the Human had come to associate with an incoming call making a bunch of tech gadgets go into vibrate mode.
Dave pulled his tablet out, unfolded it and picked up the call - It was Big Ma, his nominal superior now he'd defected to the Big Purple Lizard Team.
"Hang on..." he muttered and flipped down his UV Visor. "Atrix" he said and flashed his name pattern.
In the background, he could hear O'Patel absolutely losing it at the expression Ma pulled. Her display skin was doing the Atrix equivalent of the spinning beachball.
O'Patel leaned into frame. "Say, Dave, would you like your registered Atrix name back?" he asked.
"Oh... sure!" said Dave the Atrix Phalanges Mitten, known troublemaker, shortarse and interspecies drag performer.
"Oh yes... PRIME DAVE!" squeaked Dave The Human doign a victory dance. "Last Dave standing. Squeap!".
"Is that Dave?" asked O'Patel.
"No this is Phalanges." said Dave.
"Not you!" O'Patel responded and so Phalanges held up Cat.
"In that case, you mean Cat Fantastic?" he said, mostly to introduce his Little Guy's new name.
"Oh, good name" said Ma somewhat enviously, having recovered form the novelty of Dave having suddenly acquired a comically robotic Atrix communicator. "If you don't want it..."
"Graak!" Cat said.
"Understandable." Ma said, and Dave leaned in and said "That's what I said too!"
"I'm the big boss. And so's O'Patel." she added in response to Cat's entirely reasonable query. "OK Atrix, take care of each other and check in soon. This is a weird scenario and we have a lot of people suddenly either worrying, yelling that this shouldn't be allowed, or asking really bizarre questions."
"Had to get the space broom out." said O'Patel which gave Phalanges and Dave an indicator of what some of those queries had been.
The Space broom is the metaphorical item used to beat back wannabe horny alienfuckers. The fact that Atrix are about as asexual as you can get while still having a natural reproduction rate, and basically do not have anything that a human could recognise as genitals has not stopped anyone, including a small community of Tsin, three Wallandernook, and a really weird artist colony of Atrix who are collectively keeping the entire Atrix Erotica industry ticking along: from cranking out staggering amounts of Atrix interspecies romance and erotica novelettes to audio books. The question is less: "Why are you making this?" and more who is buying these things?
Meanwhile in another part of the Station...
Rax is carrying a tray of purple breadrolls, dips and fill-ins. Un-Named Male is in Garfield's pouch, and Gondy is carrying the drinks.
"Are we... the bad guys?" wonders Gondy.
Gondy had been hit in the faceplate with debris months earlier and the partial decompression had blinded her in one eye and caused her face to develop some nasty crack pattern scars.
The possibly Human EVA Maintenance specialist that everyone referred to as 43 had hauled ass out of the medical wing, yanked open an airlock with no concern for his/her own safety and dragged Gondy in out of a hard vacuum.
They'd basically walked it off, and recovered within weeks while Gondy had needed her eye reconstructing and still had scars months later.
Rax had been Gondy's Little Guy and had promptly left her pouch and started stuffing their face... which by human standards is a Douche Move.
But from an Atrix point of view it meant Gondy only had to look after herself, and besides, now Rax, rapidly putting on mass, was always on hand to help out and keep up Gondy's social obligations, if not her work: Not the Asshole.
And now all four are lurking in Garf's cabin, which is more or less a single room with storage and a ton of more or less free range mosses, ferns, decorative fungus, and a place for someone with a tail to sprawl out or sit with friends.
"I mean..." says Rax, in Atrix, half spoken, half displayed. "... in ways that can be discussed, we have been which has been mentioned?"
"In ways that can be discussed and measured." Garf says. "And it shames us. It has shamed us all"
Gondy says, "That which is known and considered. We could have done better by them that is faceless. It is to the faceless human's credit that she accepted a token of bonding."
"Graak" says Un-Named male, being a little coarse. Garf passes him the mushroom and spinach and the little guy hollows out a purple roll and starts filling it. "Grak."
Everyone flickers their colours and ponders food, apart form Un-Named male who's somewhat pithy commentary has rather clarified the matter.
"Insofar as that goes, I am in agreement. We cannot, now, have done better in the past, in a retroactive manner. But we can do better at this time and at times future." says Garf, and Rax, being the second youngest polls the vibe and says, "... how?"
"That remains to be seen." mutters Gondy around a mouthful of purple roll and tomato pesto.
That night
Actually it's kind of day but Phalanges works the night shift when there's less people and a lot of the station's life support can be sequentially taken out of service and tested or maintained without having to put a memo out for everyone to hold their bowels for an hour.
Dave's sacked out in bed, rolled up in a duvet. The room's dark with just a little ambient light, a comfortable 16c.
He's set Cat up with a pillow, the laundry bag and the fuzzy blanket that they've been using because Phalanges doens't have a pouch the way a big Atrix does.
Cat is, despite these kindnesses, miserable.
It's way too dark, it smells funny and alien. Cat normally sleep in a comfy little hollow lined with various live plants. This laundry bag is... weird. It's floppy it's too roomy, it moves too much when he tries to lean up against it.
The fur is a weird unsettling texture and the air is just a little too dry. And it's cold.
Frankly Cat is dreading having to use the bathroom again, or deal with weird human notions of scale.
Cat's really wondering why they thought quitting the Atrix community was a smart idea.
Admittedly it was a community that hadn't wanted him and made it dishearteningly clear: One which had been making his life miserable by ostracising him for his entire life, no matter how much effort he put in to co-parenting the hatchlings, maintaining the garden or generally trying to be friendly.
Not having the display skin across his cheeks and forehead just made them all turn their back.
And then... something magical had happened. He'd woken up and found The Best Rock, tucked into his arms as he slept. he'd hidden it well and pondered. None of the other Atrix Of Size would take him, even for this unbelievable, magical treasure. And if he tried he'd lose it to someone within short order.
And then someone had reminded him that technically, for whatever reason, Dave the Human - everyone's good old Aunt Human - had been officially an Atrix Of Size. Even if they were only half the bigness of a real Atrix.
So Cat had taken the opportunity. Anything had to be better than the casual dismissal and hurt... right?
Well not so much. And now Cat is cold and scared and blind and realising they may have just made their life so much worse.
Cat is asleep. He's dreaming of a stony plain: There's no sun, no comforting moss to hide in, and in the distance he can just see everyone walking away, leaving him. No matter how hard he's trying to keep up: The ground is sucking the heat out of him, and the rocks are sharp. If he's left he'll die. There's nothing to hide under from the remorseless, cruel sky, nothing to eat, no cool water. They finally just... left him.
But then the cruel ground vanishes, falling away as though he's being lifted up, into warmth and safety, and he wonder: Is this what it's like to curl up in a pouch?
It's warm and comforting and the sharp stones can't hurt him up here.
Now he's speeding through the air, with the gentle pendulum swing of being carried... And things are looking more lush - There's purple moss and plants and soft lichens. The sky is warmer, less cruel.
Better... They - he and the warm comfort who's carrying him - are catching up to everyone, and if he keeps quiet he can pretend that the warm chatter and rippling colours include him. And at the moment it feels like they really do.
For the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time, Cat has a name, and nobody seems to notice that he has no colours. He clings on to this dream tighter than he's ever held anything in his life, and it's as though he really is warm.
Phalanges is asleep.
He doesn't feel Cat relax in his arms, tucked up under the duvet: He heard his little guy in softly crying in his sleep.
he never even woke up: Just slithered out, scooped Cat up and vanished under the warm covers.
In his dreams, the halls of the Station are wide. This is normal, as are many things in dream logic. He's walking with two faceless figures - he can't quite place them but for some reason he imagines the skin of an apple breaking. Ahead he sees a friend, cold and lost, and so hurries up and swings a blanket around them with satisfaction, though he can't quite recognise them... but somehow knows them so well.
And tonight almost more than any other night, he sleeps well.
