Don’t let your (Human!!!) Mechanic make Mixtapes
Writing Prompt: A pirate ship boards, the human crewmate uses the coms to blast music trough the ship as a terror tactic.
Prompt Source: user fire-sword; subreddit Humans Are Space Orcs
The Captain had listened to this remix exactly once in its entirety and labeled it a terroristic weapon of mass morale destruction before locking it in a drawer.
To be honest, the human crewmate was perhaps a touch more thrilled than she strictly should have been to be given permission to actually use it.
It was horror-rock, falling into that delightful "creep" tune category with synthetic violins that wailed between high and low notes and a bass strumming heartbeat that artificially raised the pulse rate of the listening parties. Aliens... well, she'd found out aliens responded to that unconscious cue WAY more than humans did.
The fact that she knew every beat and bounce and hitch of it, well, that was where the morale destruction came in.
The pirates had boarded in a specific hallway- and they had been subtly guided to this door for a reason.
It was the maintenance crew hallway. The entire floor had holes big enough to reach through or climb through, and the human crewmate? She fit through them, being lanky, tall, and double-jointed. The ceiling had the same grates on either side of the walkway, to allow for access when the gravity was turned off, making it a catwalk surrounded by bolt holes.
The voice was soft at first- only someone who knew the song would know the words. But Human Jazz played them out perfectly to make the Pirates regret ever trying to raid this ship.
The first set of verses were about "burying" something, and every time it said "buried it" Jazz dropped uninterrupted from the ceiling to the floor. Just at the edge of vision, without touching the holes or making a sound, timing her catch of the bars below to the thump of the drum.
And once they were good and spooked, on edge...
She added her voice to the ship speakers, a roar that made the walkway vibrate under their feet for the chorus.
"RUN! AWAY! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, BEFORE THE MONSTER- MONSTER IS INSIDE! THOUGHT IT WAS DEAD! AND GONE! BUT YOU WERE SO WRONG! HASN'T BEEN SO LONG; YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D SEE- SEE, SEE THE DEAD WALK!"
Screaming from above and plasma lighting up the walls told her it was working.
What a shame for them- the pursuit would continue until morale improved. Her morale, or course. All that light would make this more troublesome until it cooled.
The next verse was about what had been buried coming back to bury the singer- it was time to change tactics anyway.
Now her hands reached up through the tiny holes and grates throughout the verse, grabbing and yanking on legs, tentacles, weapon barrels, whatever was in reach, heedless of the burns she was getting or the catch of nails on fabric and skin. Her fake-claw nails were just acrylics, she'd replace them after this, and some bloodstains from a ripped cuticle or two would really sell the idea that something dead and gross was trying to get at them on top of the “detached fingertips”.
As they were coming up on the second chorus, she pulled both hands back down and put them on a panel instead, directing one of the repair-bots with their dozens of arms to dance to the tune, the lyrics printed on it's glowing screen that loomed up out of the dark.
She already knew what she was going to do with the bridge- it talked about disease and parasites, so she was going to yank body parts under the grate and "bite" them with needles full of weak general anesthetics from the first aid kit. She didn't need to actually like, poison or paralyze them, the imagery from the song would make their minds do that for her.
Except-- the thunder of movement, out of sync with the music, headed back up the catwalk at an honestly dizzying speed, and suddenly it was absolutely quiet except her, the repairbot who had now started the fix the plasma damage to the walls, and the music on the ship speakers.
Poking her head up from the nearest access hole, the pirates were gone- with the exception of one, who'd been hog-tied with their own tentacles and blinded with their Captain's hat. Left as a sacrificial offering to the monster for leading their crew into a deathtrap, probably. Well, Jazz didn't want them to think they were too hasty and come back...
She bared all her teeth in the widest, meanest grin, including her sharper-than-normal canines, and whipped the pirate's hat off, the light of the repairbot's torch illuminating her from behind in only brief flashes.
"Buried what I thought would die, don't got no alibi, I buried it," she sang at the alien's horrified face, "I FUCKING BURIED IT!"
The pirate's scream was a noise she couldn't have replicated in a million years. Yeah, driving it home was a good idea.
"RUN! AWAY! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, THE MONSTER'S ALREADY INSIDE! THOUGHT IT WAS DEAD! AND GONE! BUT I WAS SO WRONG cuz it had been so long and life went on thought it was done I never thought I'd live to see THE DEAD WALK!"
‐-------------------------------------
"I still don't think you needed to render the enemy so terrified they entered an involuntary coma state," the Captain scowled at the human crewmate, who was slung sideways in her work chair. Again.
"It's not like I knew their species can even DO that, Cap! Besides, it was a bloodless battle that successfully repelled the enemy, right? And we haven't been bothered by pirates in that entire sector since!"
The Captain squinted angrily with all their eyes.
"We're a terror-tale in that sector now," they replied flatly.
"Wait, shit, did I accidentally Flying Dutchman our ship?! Aw fuck, Captain, I’m sorry."
The Captain sighed- finally, she understood the gravity of the iss--
"If I'd known that was gonna happen I'd have picked a better song! Dead Walk is kinda underground, how are other ships supposed to lean on the legend with an obscure Earth song?"
The Captain gave up and left to go drink their 400-year old heirloom spirits. They had never worried they were going to be the Onelle to finish off the 'drink in case of headache-inducing disaster' bottle but it looked more likely by the day.
Song: Dead Walk by RedHook Note: the remix featured here doesn't actually exist because I can't make it. Will update and link if that ever changes!
