The Tenacious Species

In a distant future where the sentient organisms of the galaxy have banded together into a super-society, one lowly technician needs to repair a comm relay on a dangerous planet. It's so dangerous, in

“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.” �" Thomas Carlyle

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“I’m taking a what now?”

“A human. This mission has been classified with Level 1 Importance and a High Danger Rating, so you’ve been cleared to take one of the humans with you.”

“But I’m just-“

“You’re just a technician, but you’re one of our best. We can’t afford to replace you.”

Hill tittered nervously despite himself. He’d never imagined he would ever get to work with a human. Of course he would see them in the mess hall and walking down the hallways, but they were so… untouchable. Every other species gave them a wide berth, from hulking Gliseans to venomous Keplers, from insectoids to blobs.

Given what humans were capable of, everyone was extremely grateful they were one of the friendliest species in the Union.

Hill’s superior, a fellow Klerk, waved him off with a jointed foreleg and an annoyed stance to her antennae.

“Head down to the armory, ask for Thlarr, he’ll set you up. Get moving.”

“Yes ma’am. Of course, ma’am.”

Hill practically skittered out of the room on multiple pairs of legs.

-----------------

After spending the walk down to the armory grooming his head with his forelegs and nervously fiddling with his badge using his midlegs, Hill came to a stop in front of the armory’s window. Sitting on the other side of the window was a bored looking blob who was using a pseudopod to flip through a magazine. Hill made a rasping noise to get the blob’s attention.

“Er, excuse me, I’m looking for Thlarr?”

The blob slowly closed the magazine and looked up at Hill with beady eyes.

“I’m Thlarr. Congrats. Whaddaya need?”

Hill fought the urge to groom his head again.

“Officer Ground sent me to pick up a human. I’m being sent to Wolf 1061c to fix a relay, and it’s classified with Level 1 Importance.”

Thlarr slowly blinked at Hill, looking completely unimpressed. Then again, blob species tended to always look unimpressed, so who knew. With the speed of someone who’d just been told to pretend they were walking through molasses, Thlarr pressed a button out of Hill’s sight. After some radio feedback on the other side, a voice spoke up.

“Commander Xing, Head of the Earth Division speaking.”

“This is Thlarr. I’ve got a Klerk technician who’s on a dangerous and important mission to Wolf 1061c to fix a satellite dish or some crap.”

Hill fought the urge to hiss at the blob that he was completely oversimplifying the matter.

“Ah, alright. So you need a person with experience in hot terrain and wild insectoid dispersal?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll pick someone out and send them down right away.”

“Stellar.”

Thlarr pressed the button again, ending communication with the human upstairs. He turned to stare blearily at Hill.

“Head in and pick up a standard Klerk suit and stun gun. Make sure the stun gun’s fit for handling by an insectoid, obviously.”

The wall next to Thlarr’s window pulled back to reveal an opening, and Hill hesitantly walked in. On every wall were suits of different shapes and sizes. Most of them were clunky with environmental shielding and life support. The least clunky of all the suits were the human-shaped ones, which had the bare minimum of protection. A box on the back contained oxygen (oxygen!!!), but that was about it. Hill found one fit for a Klerk and got into it. Luckily this wasn’t his first time going to a place requiring a suit, so it didn’t take him too long to get all the internal straps adjusted and the life support systems online. Searching the rack containing weapons, he found a stun gun matching the shape of his foreleg. He strapped it onto his abdomen and headed back out to the window.

Outside talking to Thlarr was a human. Hill hovered nervously in the doorway despite himself, choosing to quietly take in the conversation the human was evidently having with the blob.

“Don’t worry Thlarr, I’ll bring him back in one piece.”

“Whatever.”

“That includes his equipment.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, there it is, I’ve appealed to your better nature.”

“Humph.”

“You’re a real peach, Thlarr. A diamond in the rough.”

“Get out of here.”

Hill felt a spike of fear. What was the guy doing, being rude to a human?

Luckily they just laughed.

“Don’t worry man, I’ll be in and out faster than you can say ‘surplus inventory’.”

Suddenly the human was walking past Hill and shooting him a quick smile. He didn’t have the chance to do anything in kind before the human was rummaging around inside the armory. Hill was pretty sure that was a smile, anyway. In another point for the galaxy’s mental wellbeing, human emotions were pretty easy to decipher. His anxious wonderings were interrupted when the human shouted from inside the armory.

“Hey important technician dude, what’s your name?”

“Um, Hill.”

“Umhill? Okey dokey artichokey.”

“No! Uh, just Hill.”

“Oh! Sorry, Hill. I tend to take the names of other species at face value. My name’s Lucy.”

A human was apologizing to him oh my stars

“Hello Lucy.”

His voice might’ve squeaked, but hopefully the human couldn’t tell.

“It sounds like the mission’s gonna be a simple one, and if you just stick close to me you won’t get into any sort of danger.”

Why was the human telling him this? He knew what the mission was going be like, and he knew the human was there to protect him.

“Sounds good.”

Finally, Lucy emerged from the armory in a standard human suit and a much bigger stun gun strapped to their hip. Hill took in the human’s appearance as they checked out at the window.

They were at least a head taller than he was. Approximately 180 cm of durable muscle, regenerating skin, and poisonous blood. Lucy didn’t have their helmet up yet, so Hill could see the clear tubes going into their nasal cavity to provide oxygen. Given that oxygen was poisonous to most of the species at this station, only certain quarters were oxygenated, and oxygen-breathers had to take their supply with them when they were on the go. The fur on Lucy’s head was red in coloration, which Hill was pretty sure was unusual, and the irises of the eyes scanning over Thlarr’s paperwork were green. Hill had always wondered why humans had good eyesight despite not having compound eyes, but he supposed anything could work given enough evolution. Though Hill could no longer see them under the suit, he had also noted that Lucy had the prominent mammary glands present in most female humans, so he supposed Lucy was a female. He was still uncertain, though. You’d think having only two sexes would make identifying the humans easier, but they were one of the least sexually dimorphic species around. They were almost as bad as the blobs.

Hill snapped to attention as Lucy turned back to him.

“Alright then, time to head up to the launch bay.”

He nodded quickly, hoping she hadn’t noticed him staring. He didn’t know how humans felt about that.

As they set out, Hill noticed that Lucy was making a point to walk at a comfortable pace for him. He was grateful for it, though he probably could’ve kept up with her regardless. Klerk workers were built for speed.

They walked in silence until they got to an elevator, and Hill tried not to preen under the impressed gaze of people passing by. Yep, he, a simple technician, was being escorted by a human.

Once inside the elevator, Hill nervously stepped to one side so he could give Lucy plenty of room. She seemed to glance at him, but he brushed it off. As the elevator started, however, she cleared her throat.

“Are you, uh, scared of me?”

Hill felt his heart squeeze to the bottom of his crop.

“O-oh, um, I-“

“Nah, that’s alright, I get it. Most everybody’s scared of us.”

Even though Lucy didn’t look bothered, Hill couldn’t help but feel a little bad. He kept thinking of humans as big scary monsters you got to carry around like weapons, but they were just… people. Really intimidating people. He tried to imagine himself in Lucy’s legs, as his hive mother would say, but he couldn’t even imagine being her. To be a confident individual who could also happen to survive having a bone broken.

Thinking about that made him a little nervous again, if he was honest.

When they got to the launch bay, Lucy gently nudged Hill at his upper shoulder joint. He was glad his wings were safely inside his suit so he couldn’t startle into the ceiling.

“Hey Hill, you can fly a shuttle craft, right?”

“Oh, ah, yes.”

“Awesome. I was worried I would have to fly for a second, but I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it just fine.”

Hill turned to look at Lucy.

“You can’t fly?”

Lucy’s face was distinctly sheepish.

“I can, I’m just not very good at it. I get vertigo something crazy.”

The revelation a human could be bad at something lessened the tension in Hill’s gut. He was surprised when Lucy snorted at him.

“Oh my god, did your antennae just perk up? You’re happy I’m a terrible pilot.”

Hill trilled under the pressure and ran off to find the keeper of the shuttle keys, unsuccessfully ignoring how Lucy’s laughter followed him the entire way.

------------------------------------

The flight to Wolf 1061c was largely uneventful. After only a few minutes at warp speed they arrived in a high orbit around the desert planet, and Hill prepared to land the shuttle. He was grateful for this time where he got to do something he was familiar with. Lucy had been quiet in the co-pilot seat for the entire short journey, and Hill felt himself relaxing. He could almost pretend he wasn’t less than a meter away from an organism that could break him in half like a twig.

Get ahold of yourself Hill, that’s completely unfair to Lucy. Stop being such a scaredy-bug.

“So how does Klerk society work? I haven’t been in the escort business long so I don’t know a huge amount about the different species. Yesterday I worked with a giant cat thing that’s apparently from a species of total loners. How a species like that joined a collective like the Union I’ll never know.”

“Oh, well, we have a hive-based species. Pretty standard for insectoids from what I’ve seen. There are royals that reproduce, warriors that protect, and workers like me that… work.”

“Yeah I’ve gathered that. So, you don’t reproduce?”

“No, workers don’t have the necessary working genitalia to produce offspring. We have vestigial genitalia for waste expulsion but-“

“Okay big guy, good to know.”

Hill shifted uncomfortably. Were humans prudish? He wished he’d known that before he’d started prattling on about Klerk anatomy. Lucy didn’t seem too put off though, as she picked up where she’d left off.

“The weird thing to me about you guys are your sense of individuality. Most of the hive species I’ve seen have basically no sense of self. Even when they’re the only member of their species at a station they just refer to themselves by a number, and when you ask them about themselves they go on and on about their glorious queen. But you guys have names and personalities. How does even happen?”

Hill shrugged.

“Humans have leaders. Klerks have leaders. Ours are just born. It’s what their egg conditions make them for. My egg conditions predisposed me to be a worker, but that doesn’t affect the rest of me. My genetics make me who I am.”

As they descended through the atmosphere, Hill could feel Lucy’s eyes boring into his head.

“You’re… you’re like bees.”

Hill glanced over at her in confusion.

“Bees?”

“Yeah. Huge, blue bees. With strong hind legs for walking upright. Wait, are all Klerks blue?”

“Well, males are blue, but females are green and royals are- What are bees??”

“Oh that’s right, you’ve got like a color-coded three-sex system going on. That’s convenient.”

“Lucy, what are bees?”

“Bees are tiny, Terrestrial, non-sapient insects that live in hives and gather nectar from flowering plants. They’ve got nasty stingers for fighting off predators, and they’re really smart for their size.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah. Some humans are allergic to them.”

“What?”

“Yeah dude. Sometimes people die when they get stung.”

Hill sank back into his seat as he absorbed this knowledge. He was like a bee.

“Okay Hill, you gotta stop perking your antennae when I say something concerning.”

“Sorry.”

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“Whose bright idea was it to put the comm relay on the star-facing side of a tidally locked planet?”

“I think it might’ve-“

“Rhetorical question, buddy.”

The two companions were standing just outside the shuttle, their helmets and sun visors up as Hill fiddled with the GPS using his forelegs. His midlegs carried the small pack of tools he would need to do the repairs. In every direction red and orange desert hills could be seen, with no vegetation or visible wildlife. Lucy looked around wearily.

“Apparently there’s a species of non-sapient insectoids that dominate the food chain on this side. That’s the drawback to an atmosphere conducting heat away to the other side, I suppose. It’s just habitable enough to let whatever comes from the pleasant ring to evolve into desert-dwelling monstrosities.”

Hill finished with the GPS and gazed up at Lucy.

“The relay is 2 km away in the rocky area we couldn’t land on. We should get moving.”

Lucy nodded and started ahead of him.

“I’ll set the pace. We’re not exactly gonna lose daylight in the land of Forever Noon, but we don’t want to grab the attention of whatever might be out there.”

Suddenly Hill was extremely glad to have Lucy there as he walked as closely behind her as he could. He watched the rocks around them uneasily.

“You think the insects might attack us?”

Lucy brought a hand to the stun gun on her hip but shrugged.

“The reports from the star-facing side conflict with each other a bit, but it’s possible. It might depend on how hungry these buggers are and how dense they are in this region.”

She took a second from scanning the horizon to glance back at Hill.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing I haven’t handled before. You’re safe with me.”

Hill nodded slowly, taken aback by the emotion in her voice. She sounded like a hive mother reassuring her young. Why would she care that much about him? They’d only met this morning, and they were two totally different species.

Humans are weird, Hill concluded.

A few minutes later Lucy held out her arm to stop him. Confused, Hill stood to his full height so he could look over her shoulder. In the distance, obscured by the shimmering desert air, a winged shape could be seen flying to the west of their position. Hill whispered despite it being unnecessary.

“Does it see us?”

Lucy kept quiet for a few seconds as she took in the distant image, but eventually responded.

“I don’t think so. It might not even be that close. That could be the mirage of an insect flying dozens of kilometers away from us.”

Hill tittered in relief. As he relaxed, he realized he’d clung on to Lucy’s shoulder with both forelegs, his GPS dangling awkwardly from a single claw. He jumped away with a yelp.

Lucy glanced back at him and snorted before starting off again.

“You’re not the first one to manhandle me, Hill. Last week one of those silica crystal guys piggybacked on me the entire time. We weren’t even in a dangerous place; it was a planet covered in deciduous forest with basically no large wildlife. I think she requested a human escort because she was afraid of trees.”

Hill hummed to indicate how much he agreed that was ridiculous. He couldn’t help but feel at least slightly better about himself. Being afraid of giant ravenous insects was reasonable. Even Lucy was nervous, or at least on guard.

If realizing that made Hill even more anxious than before, he kept it to himself.

Luckily their walk was swiftly coming to an end as they approached a dusty white structure nestled between two rock piles. While the relay had likely once been glistening with the promise of any new technology, it was now covered in sand and dented from impacts caused by dust storms. While the primary structure was only twice the height of Lucy, the beacon on the top reached into the heavens, kept aloft by orbital tension. A miniature space elevator suitable only for transporting light. The beacon was so thin you could only see it up close, and the tip in orbit was impossible to view with the naked eye.

Hill examined the outside of the relay, looking for the maintenance hatch. As he made his way around, Lucy rambled behind him.

“Where do those things even live anyway? The silica guys, I mean. Just about every environment scares them. Do they live at the bottom of a shallow sea where everything is peachy and nothing ever changes? I tried to ask the one last week but she was scared so stiff she couldn’t speak. I need to ask around-“

Hill came upon a strange sight. A large white panel, what looked like the maintenance hatch, was lying half-buried in the dirt beside the relay. The side of it looked as though it had been chewed or ripped. He nervously extended a foreleg to stop Lucy, mirroring what had happened earlier.

“Um, Lucy? I think something’s wrong.”

The human stopped rambling and took in the sight of the mangled door. Her stun gun was withdrawn and turned on with a whine as she stepped around Hill. She stopped a few paces ahead, staring down at the relay.

Hill went to stand next to her and felt his blood run cold.

Inside the maintenance hatch, filling every available crevice, were large insectoid eggs.

“L-Lucy?”

“S**t.”

Suddenly Hill was being tugged away from the relay towards the nearby rocks. The foreleg in Lucy’s grasp nearly popped out of its socket as she ducked the two of them behind a large red boulder. She kept her gun drawn as she cast sharp eyes over the horizon.

“Okay Hill, we need to get out of here. We’ll probably be safe to head back the way we came as long as the b******s who laid those eggs aren’t here right now.”

Despite being absolutely terrified, Hill gaped in disbelief at the human next to him.

“But the mission!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It has Level 1 Importance!”

“I don’t care.”

“If we don’t take care of it, someone else will have to. This relay supports communication for almost 50 square lightyears!”

Lucy growled and shot a dangerous look at Hill through her sun visor. If it were two hours earlier, Hill probably would’ve fainted from the sight.

“So we’ll tell them to bring back-up! Why are you being like this?”

“Because I have a job to do!”

“You have a job to- Oh. Oh f**k no. No no no, you crazy little work-wired s**t-“

“I’m going back there! I’m gonna clear out those eggs, and I don’t care what you say!”

Hill escaped from Lucy’s grasp and dived back toward the maintenance cubby. He heard loud cursing behind him as he began scooping out the eggs with his forelegs and midlegs.

“F*****g worker species, f*****g coward unless your job is at stake, f*****g bullshit piece of crazy goddamn fragile exoskeleton bullshit I am quitting when I get back-“

Hill ignored it. The terrifying sounds of an enraged human were just background noise as he uncovered the slimy insides of the cubby. He could see dislodged wires and unclipped switches; fixing this would be so easy once he could get all the eggs out. It was obviously the fault of the eggs in the first place that this relay had stopped working. With the last of the eggs removed it was a simple matter of fixing everything that had been put out of place, and with a final clipped switch Hill could hear the relay start to hum. Tiny lights came on in the cubby, buried under a layer of slime.

“I did it!”

“F*****g incredible, now can we please get out of here before mom comes back and kills us?”

“I just need to weld the door panel back onto the-“

“No. No way. We are out. We are gone.”

Hill glared at Lucy, who was standing behind him and frantically shifting from foot to foot.

“If we don’t put the hatch back on, the insects will just come back.”

Lucy violently threw her arms up in the air and turned away from him.

“You know what, fine, get it done.”

As quickly as he could, Hill found his blowtorch and made his way over to the half-buried panel. He tried to pull it out, but he was nowhere near strong enough. Before he could start digging at the dirt around the door, two arms appeared from nowhere and yanked it from the ground. When he turned, it was to find Lucy holding the dirtied hatch against the maintenance cubby.

“I’ll hold it for you, it’ll go faster.”

Hill nodded and ducked beneath Lucy to start the welding job. He was going to weld it the entire way around, because even if that made it a bit more difficult for the next maintenance crew, at least the insects wouldn’t sabotage it again.

Just as he was halfway through, Lucy hissed at him.

“Will the door stay there without me holding it?”

“Yeah, it should be-“

“Good, because we have company.”

Even as he kept his eyes fixed to his blowtorch, Hill could hear a faint buzz getting louder and louder. Multiple insects were making their way towards the relay. He couldn’t tell how many without looking, but Lucy did not sound happy. A few seconds later, Hill could hear the unmistakable sound of a stun gun being fired at close range.

There was only a quarter of the door left, he needed to get this done.

Lucy cursed as the sound of buzzing got louder.

“There’s at least a dozen of these things and there’s more on the horizon, I can’t keep them off forever!”

“I’m almost there!”

There was a crash as a huge, tawny insect with sharp mandibles landed on the relay above Hill’s head. He froze despite himself, but luckily Lucy was there to stun it away.

“Nope! Not today! Not him!”

There, it was done, they were good to go. Hill stood to face Lucy and saw the horde of insects buzzing on the nearby pile of rocks, one or two of them venturing forward every so often to meet her stun gun.

“Lucy-“

“Okay, time to go, time to go!”

As they took one step to the side, however, the horde seized upward and charged. Lucy wordlessly screamed as she fired endlessly into the approaching predators, bringing down many but not all of them. Hill brought out his stun gun and screeched in terror as he took shaky potshots at the surrounding insects, managing to keep their clicking mandibles away from him.

The shout of pain that sounded from Lucy made the world stand still for just a second. If he turned, he could see one of the insects with its mandibles lodged into the human’s side, tearing past the suit and releasing flecks of blood onto the ground below. Lucy fired it away from her but cried out to Hill.

“My suit’s depressurizing! My suit’s depressurizing!”

Hill couldn’t believe it. The human was going to die. She was clutching a hand to where the suit had been torn open, and blood was rising between her fingers. Somehow she continued to fire at the remaining insects surrounding them, but there was no way she would last.

I did this, Hill realized, I made her stay and now she’s dying.

Lucy was a good person, a kind person, and she cared about him even though she really logically shouldn’t. He needed to pay her back. He needed to do something. This was his job now.

Opening his mandibles as far as he could inside the suit’s helmet, Hill released a rasping shriek that echoed off of the nearby rocks. With adrenaline-steadied forelegs he fired at every remaining insect. He screamed at them to leave, to die. He hated these creatures that could destroy something so strong. Even as the last insect fled over the hills he fired at it with fury in his heart. The only thing that stopped him was a voice.

“Hill, they’re gone, get your duct tape. Get your duct tape.”

Lucy was still there, standing with her back hunched and her hand desperately held over the wound. Was it a human habit to repeat sentences when you were dying?

Hill dropped his stun gun and ran over to his abandoned tool pack. He might as well make Lucy’s death more comfortable by re-pressurizing the suit. As soon as he found the duct tape he ran back to Lucy and spread the tape over the tear. It wasn’t that big of a hole, but Hill used multiple strips just in case. He stood back and watched as Lucy stood up straighter and took a series of deep breaths.

“Wow. Wow. Okay.”

“Lucy, I’m so sorry.”

Lucy squinted at him through her visor, looking mildly disoriented.

“What?”

“We should have left, we should have gotten to safety, but now you’re dying.”

Lucy huffed and hooked her stun gun back onto her hip.

“I’m not dying. I’m injured. They didn’t clip any major organs or arteries, so I’ll be fine. The walk back’s just gonna suck.”

Hill stared at her blankly as he took in the sight of her prodding the injured area and wincing.

“But… I saw blood?”

“Yeah, I lost a bit. I think it’s clotting up though. Why are you- Oh. Oh.”

With a final wince Lucy laid a heavy hand on Hill’s shoulder joint.

“Humans are pretty resistant to blood loss and shock. You’re just confused because the same injury probably would’ve killed you.”

Hill blinked up at her as realization dawned on him. How had he forgotten how resilient humans were? Lucy gave him a final pat before turning to walk back towards the shuttle.

“Grab your tool bag and let’s get moving. There’s a first aid kit in the ship, and who knows if some of those buggers might come back.”

Feeling some of the energy drain out of him, Hill picked up the tool bag and trailed after Lucy. She was moving much slower than on the trip here, and there was a lilt to her walk giving away the fact she was in pain, but Hill found himself sticking to her back just as much as last time.

They walked in silence for nearly a kilometer. Hill had totally forgotten to pick up his stun gun, but he didn’t feel like bringing that up with Lucy. Even if she wasn’t in mortal danger she definitely needed to get back to safety ASAP. Though she’d insisted she would be fine, Hill found himself watching her for signs of collapse. He didn’t know what he would do if she died. He was shaken out of his train of thought when Lucy glanced back at him.

“That was really impressive, by the way. How you went nuts on those b******s. Didn’t think you had it in you. What even was that sound you made?”

Hill shrugged even though Lucy had turned away.

“I don’t know. It just came out.”

Lucy hummed.

“Probably the giant bee-version of a primal scream. Definitely terrifying.”

Despite the events of the past few hours, Hill found himself preening under the human’s praise. He’d been impressive! And made a terrifying sound!

When they got back to the shuttle, Lucy stayed in the aft of the ship while Hill primed them for liftoff. He heard her rustling around as he warmed up the warp drive and re-established contact with the Union. With some satisfaction, Hill noticed the comm link came online much faster now that the relay on this planet had been repaired. He was startled when he heard a pained hiss behind him.

When he turned back he saw that Lucy had peeled off the bodily portion of her suit as well as the clothing in contact with her wound. She had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in one hand and gauze in the other, and she had just poured a decent portion of the bottle onto the injury. Hill sat transfixed in horror as he saw the peroxide bubbling in the exposed muscle and dermis. Lucy looked like she was in absolute agony, but she still managed to catch the excess peroxide with the gauze and wipe it around her wound. As the bubbling stopped, Lucy seemed to realize she wasn’t hearing the sounds of a ship starting up. She looked up at Hill in confusion.

“What are you doing? Get going!”

“Are you… Are you okay?”

Lucy sighed and waved him off, her face softening slightly.

“I’m fine, Hill. It just hurts like a m**********r.”

“That doesn’t sound fine.”

“Don’t sass me, dude.”

Hill turned back to his task without another word.

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As soon as they got back to the station, a medical crew took Lucy away to the infirmary. Hill didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye as his human companion was wheeled away. He stood next to the shuttle, feeling lost as a voice saying, “Do I need stitches? Please tell me I don’t need stitches,” faded around the corner out of the launch bay.

Hill dropped off the key to the shuttle and headed back to his superior’s office, not even bothering to stop by the armory beforehand. He knocked on the door and let himself in at the sound of Officer Ground’s gruff voice.

The stern Klerk looked up at him from her desk as he stopped in front of her at a respectable distance.

“You get the job done?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Any trouble?”

“Some, ma’am, but the human and I handled it.”

Ground’s compound pupils swept him up and down.

“Really? You helped handle the trouble?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ground sat back slightly in her chair, taking in the technician before her.

“I’ll have to look at the human’s report about the incident. If what you’re saying is true, that could be useful to us. We need more tough Klerks out there.”

Hill fought the urge to refute that he was tough.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ground looked at him for a few more seconds before waving him off.

“You’re cleared for the day. Go get something to eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

-------------

It was two weeks later, and Hill had largely kept the events of the Wolf 1061c mission to himself. He’d told some of his siblings back home, but that was it.

Today, however, somebody called his name from across the mess hall.

“Hill! Yeah, Hill! Come over here!”

He’d been about to sit down with some fellow technicians with his tray of food, and his antennae perked at the sound. When he looked up, he saw a tall, dark-skinned human waving at him enthusiastically from the table where all the humans sat. Though he couldn’t see them, he could feel the eyes of the shocked technicians boring into him from behind.

With no hesitation, Hill walked over to the human table. At it, nearly a dozen humans of multiple skin shades and body shapes were looking at him. It would have felt extremely intimidating, especially two weeks ago, if it weren’t for the fact that they were all grinning at him like he was bringing them a round of the Union’s tastiest booze.

He noticed with delight that one of the humans was Lucy. She waved at him from her seat on the opposite side of the table. The human who’d called Hill stood up and reached out to shake his foreleg.

“So you’re the big hero. We heard about you from Lucy, man, that’s crazy.”

Hill tried to shake back, but the human’s grasp was much stronger.

No pronounced mammary glands. Probably a male??

“It, uh, wasn’t a big deal. I was just doing my job.”

The human chuckled and pulled out a chair for Hill as he replied.

“It’s a pretty big deal for a Klerk worker, from what I’ve heard. A pretty big deal for just about anybody.”

Hill didn’t know how to respond so he just tittered nervously and took the offered seat. He hoped he’d get the chance to eat his lunch.

Lucy piped up from where she sat.

“I just told them the truth, Hill. You saved my life for sure.”

One of the humans beside her spoke up next.

“Is it true you screamed like the insectoid version of Godzilla?”

“June, he probably doesn’t know what Godzilla is. People are terrified of human culture.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true. Do you know what Godzilla is, Hill?”

Hill replied through a mouthful of honeycomb.

“I have a vague idea.”

June elbowed the human who’d scolded her.

“See? He knows. He knows how awesome he is.”

The rest of lunch was spent with Hill shyly ducking his head as everyone came up with more and more exaggerated descriptions of how cool he was. As he finished up, Lucy caught his eye. She nodded to the side, indicating that he should follow her. Standing up, Hill rasped to catch the attention of the human table.

“Thank you for your kind words and sharing a meal with me. I appreciate it.”

His words were greeted with a shower of coos and encouragements. The human who’d called him over slapped him on the torso (ow) and told him he was welcome back anytime. Lucy stood up as well, and Hill followed after her until they reached an alcove just outside the mess hall.

“Um, Lucy, I’m still holding my lunch tray.”

“So I’ve heard some interesting rumors recently. Stuff you might be interested in.”

Hill let the leg holding his lunch tray droop to the side.

“Why would I be interested in rumors? I don’t care about gossip.”

“Well, you’ll definitely be interested in this gossip. Apparently the head officer of the technical division is looking to make you its go-to Klerk for dangerous missions.”

Hill’s heart dropped into his crop. He hated that feeling.

“What?! Why?!”

Lucy looked a little guilty at this.

“I mean, my report on the Wolf 1061c mission probably had something to do with it.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I just told them what happened! I swear I didn’t embellish anything.”

Hill sighed and groomed his head with his free foreleg.

“I believe you.”

“You know, if they come to you with tasks that are too much for you to handle, you’re allowed to decline.”

“Yeah.”

“But…”

Hill looked up at Lucy. She was smiling at him with that caring twinkle he still didn’t quite understand.

“If you do think you’re up for whatever they throw at you, you’re allowed to request a specific human to escort you. Nobody tells you that, but you can.”

Hill blinked at her slowly. Oh. Oh my.

“Whaddaya say, Hill? Wanna be the most badass space-janitor duo that’s ever existed?”

He felt his heart rise from his crop into his throat. If he’d told himself a human would be offering to be his permanent escort two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have believed him.

Hill realized he was just staring at Lucy when she tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. Rasping his throat to clear it, he tried to respond as coolly as possible.

“Perhaps. If I feel up to it. The rumors might not even be true.”

Lucy’s eyes crinkled around the edges.

“Yeah, you might be right. Regardless, even if it’s for a really safe mission, feel free to give me a call. If I’m not out with someone else, I’ll be available anytime.”

With a final friendly pat on the shoulder joint, Lucy walked away. Hill looked after her. He’d just eaten lunch with a group of humans who fawned over the very idea of him, and one of them just offered to protect him on a regular basis for no other reason than she seemed to think they made a good team.

She’d gotten injured and cursed him out, but she thought they made a good team.

Humans were weird.

Author's Note

the formatting's a bit off as I'm copy and pasting it from Wattpad, but it should be fine