FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

INSPIRAL

Thom didn't like being so far out.

His current task: a merchant vessel with a bad FTL core. It was going well - the merchant, a squat peacocklike, was unexpectedly polite. He'd only been stuck for a day or two when Thom arrived. After a string of frustration and bad luck, Thom felt he might finally be getting a much-needed positive review.

He was about to impress the merchant with an FTL wake-towing trick when he got a message from REZQ on his phone: New Task: Platinum client. Stop all existing work.

Thom sighed. He braced himself and turned to the merchant. "Mr. Merrick?"

Merrick looked up from his hot chocolate and smiled. He'd been sipping it while he watched Thom work. "Yes, my boy?"

"I'm really sorry about this, but I have to abandon your service now."

The smile dropped from the merchant's face. His head-frill shot up. "What?"

Thom gathered his tools and haphazardly stuffed them back into the toolbox, trying to avoid Merrick's glare. "It's - well - REZQ - they - they sent me a job with, uhh. A Platinum client. That means I have to go. Now."

He tried to close the lid on his toolbox, but it wouldn't latch. He put it under his arm anyway. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Really. Someone else will be here soon, I promise."

"Are you fucking - "

Thom didn't hear the rest. He was already running back to his own ship and away from the incandescently furious merchant. It'd be another three days before more help arrived, if Merrick was lucky. But Thom had no choice - rejecting a task for a Platinum client was the fastest way to get on REZQ's shit list.

Back on his own ship, Angel Fish, Thom checked his messages. At the top of the list, blinking orange, was the new task. It came with pages and pages of Non-Disclosure Agreements. He signed them without looking, and received his instructions.

His destination was the Outer Rim, a place where not even the corporations had control. Thom was to rescue a group of VIPs from a small research vessel that had collided with an unnamed and uninsured ship. The task came with a few addendums Thom rarely saw:

Addendum One: Both ships to be scuttled after crew recovery - see engineer for further details. Thom had never had to destroy both vessels after a rescue before. What was that about?

Addendum Two: Drop-off location: The Diadem. Usually REZQ did the bare minimum to get clients' vessels to limp to the nearest service platform. It was fast and cheap, and allowed REZQ to wring as much work as possible out of contractors like Thom. The Diadem was a REZQ-owned port in one of the richest, most populous systems in the quadrant. The claimant must be pretty well-off - at least C-suite. The doglike's stomach sank at the idea of working for someone with real money. They were always the fussiest, worst clients, ill-suited for a haphazard journey in a retrofitted transport vessel like Angel Fish.

Addendum Three: Live cargo, Tier 3. Tier 3 meant it was either dangerous or intelligent. Or both.

—

Thom arrived at an absolute mess. The research vessel had crashed into what looked like an enormous blob of mercury. The silvery substance spiraled into a spray of droplets like a zero-g sneeze. Thom docked on the undamaged and uncoated half of the research vessel. From the bay he could see the ship's name: Endeavor.

It was a new, very expensive craft. The interior had gleaming white walls, yet to be pried open countless times for retrofitting. The labs brimmed with brand-new equipment, each piece worth more than the entirety of Angel Fish. It was enough to make Thom consider a new career in piracy.

He heard the crew before he found them. They were in the room adjoining the brig, arguing so intensely they didn't notice Thom's arrival. A red light over the cell door indicated it was occupied.

He couldn't really make out what was occupying the cell, but he did look warily over at the forcefield in front of it. He hated forcefields. Even in a state-of-the-art ship like Endeavor, they were unstable and dangerous. Thom could feel the static on his fur as well as the gentle push of the energy field, even across the room as he was. He could also smell the sickly-sweet smell of burned air as it made contact with the field. It hummed and sizzled, making an ominous backing track to the argument in progress.

"The whole damn ship needs to burn," said a tall, lean coyotelike in hi-vis coveralls. Thom could tell from the bundle of tools strapped at her hip that she was an engineer. "You don't even need to look at the sensors to know this is some Grey Goo shit."

"Just yesterday you said it was inert!" said an antelopelike in an incredibly expensive suit. Thom guessed he was the captain and the REZQ client mentioned in the report. "We are not leaving Endeavor behind, not when we finally have a real discovery. We are taking the alien, going to the Diadem, and bringing back a full, competent, repair and research team."

"We're taking the alien?!" a mottled brown harelike in a lab coat butted in. "Didn't you listen to the interviews? It doesn't know shit and it can bite through metal bars like candy! It's a caveman that doesn't even need a club to kill someone. We'd be better off tossing it out the airlock."

"It made it through Rehab fine and dandy," said a short and stout tigerlike as she peered through a window into the brig. Her outfit looked like a web of neurons. "I say it's fit for travel. Unless you've become a Rehabilitator in the last five minutes, my authority overrides yours, Doctor."

Thom shuddered at the mention of Rehab. Rehabilitators brought people lost in space or stuck in cryo-sleep kicking and screaming into the modern age. He had seen their work before. It usually involved jamming a microchip into some poor bastard's head and blasting them with information until they either spoke the lingua franca or died of shock.

"Alien second, Grey Goo first," the engineer said. "Nanotech works fast. If this stuff wakes up, it'll eat through our hull in seconds."

Thom cleared his throat. The whole room looked at him."Your - uh -your REZQ has arrived."

He hated that catchphrase.

"Ah, good!" said the antelopelike, stowing away their anger and forming a thin veneer of professionalism. They looked over Thom nodded thoughtfully, pretending to inspect his voidwear. "My name is Captain Matthew Argent. and this is my crew - Engineer Irene Depardieu, Doctor Benni Firenzi, and Rehabilitator Rose Townsend. There is one additional passenger: an unknown lifeform currently locked in the brig."

Both the engineer and the scientist started to protest, but Argent turned and stared them down. "Argue with me one more time and neither of you will ever work in this quadrant again."

That shut them up. Thom knew how real that threat was.

The captain turned back to Thom and adjusted his lapels. "You will be taking us to the Diadem. My crew are already packed, and will follow you to your ship now. You can retrieve the alien yourself after we are secure."

"You - you want me to bring the alien?" Thom's throat tightened. "On my own?"

"It's standard procedure for REZQ operatives to board inmates after the crew, isn't it?"

“Inmates?" Thom murmured to himself, as he tried to hold the Captain's gaze. He'd never had to move “inmates" before. This mission was one unpleasant surprise after another.

Captain Argent gave a tense smile and looked him in the eye. Both of them knew Thom was expendable, and the Captain (or, really, anybody else) could easily pilot Angel Fish if anything happened to him.

Thom broke eye contact first. That was the end of the argument.

He led the dysfunctional crew back to Angel Fish. Irene, the engineer, was the last one to board. As she did, she slipped a data-key into his hand. Her hand felt weirdly heavy and cold - probably a prosthetic, Thom realized.

"Self-destruct codes," she muttered.

Thom remembered Addendum One, and realized that Irene must have written it behind the Captain's back. Now he was forced to choose between disobeying REZQ or pissing off the client. Again. His grip tightened on the data-key. Suddenly the "caveman" didn't seem so bad.

—

The alien sat in the brig and thought about who he wanted to kill.

He'd heard every word of the crew's argument. The engineer was right, and he liked her for that. Moonsilver - Grey Goo, as Irene called it - was dangerous at best, apocalyptic at worst. He'd seen it himself. The scientist in the neat coat was right, too. The alien didn't need a weapon - he could easily massacre the ship with his bare claws.

He decided both of them could live, if they stayed out of his way.

The captain was a different matter. In the alien's time people like Argent were aristocrats, and he hated every single one of them. They were the rot that grew wherever good decayed. Really, he was going to do the world - or worlds - a favor.

But the one the alien hated the most - the one he wished was dead every time he saw her - was Rose. She had given him the worst curse he had ever received: knowledge. He'd spent his entire life fleeing it, only to have it literally rammed into his skull. Rose had forced language into him - forced writing into him. Forced him to learn about this brave new world and its corporate-sponsored depravities. There was no greater sin.

When Rose begged the group to take him along, he started giggling. At first it was soft, so the crew couldn't hear, but the alien couldn't keep it in once they left him alone. He laughed at the absurdity of it all - thousands of years in the future, and people still couldn't see past their own ego.

He was still laughing as the door opened, and an anxious little doglike in an orange jumpsuit entered. The alien looked over the new arrival, and slowly his laughter died down. Even he could tell Thom was vulnerable and malnourished, and that really took the fun out of it.

"Uh, hi, I'm Thom," Thom said, his eyes wide as he took in the other's towering form. "I'm here to rescue - I mean, your REZQ has arrived."

"Neat. I'm Itzu," the alien said, and waved at him from behind the distorted field of energy.

Itzu looked like a monstrous mockery of a pangolinlike. He was too thin, too lanky, and far too tall. He had to be over seven feet, even hunched over like he constantly was. Itzu had long, lustrous black claws, each finger a point over seven inches long and two inches thick. He had an enormous beak, with holes for his crazed eyes and a jagged, curved smile bisecting it. Two shiny black horns reached backwards like the claws on a hammer from the back of his head. He was covered, toe-to-tip, in bronze scales the size of dinner plates.

He's just casually wearing a suit of plate mail all the time. How strong is he? Thom thought. He really didn't want to find out.

One other thing: Itzu was stark naked.

"You - uh - you want some clothes?" Thom asked, trying to look away. "They left some sheets here."

Itzu blinked. "Oh. Yeah, nah."

An awkward silence filled the brig.

Thom's eyes wandered from the alien to the forcefield in front of him. He hadn't seen many. It felt horrible to be near this one - the pushing effect wasn't even close to even near the surface. It felt like physics fighting itself - like shoving two magnets together positive-to-positive. He'd heard stories of idiots who tried to push against these things and got instantly vaporized. This close - hearing the hum-sizzle of the generators, feeling the intense heat and the warping forces - it was absolutely believable. Even with a possibly-insane alien in front of him, Thom really wanted the field gone.

"Um, you're not gonna kill me the second I drop this barrier, right?" Thom asked.

Itzu shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Guess not. You said you were my rescue."

He said 'rescue', not REZQ, Thom noted. He liked that. Thom deactivated the energy field. Finally free, Itzu stretched himself out, and then reached his long claws toward the doglike. Thom felt panic rise in his chest when the alien clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, so, they're scuttling this dealie, right?" Itzu asked.

Thom hesitantly nodded.

"Sweet. You might wanna stand back."

Itzu turned around and began ripping the cell apart, tearing through armored plates like they were tinfoil. Thom backed up to the opposite side of the room as metal shrapnel flew everywhere. It was shocking how quickly Itzu went from friendly to berserk. The alien cussed the whole time, in a strange language full of honks and hisses.

Once it was over, Itzu's calm returned as quickly as it had left.

"Thanks! I needed that," Itzu said. "Let's go."

Thom looked at the absolute devastation Itzu wrought, and tried to keep his heart rate down. The two quickly left the wreck behind. Itzu had a lot to talk about as they made their way through Endeavor. Thom couldn't understand half of what the alien was saying, but he let him vent. It seemed safer than telling a pissed-off monster to shut up.

"That rehab fucked me up good," Itzu said. "But at least I know where I am now. This is the future Ortemat was building. Empire, corporate rule, it's all the same shit. Like Moonsilver. Just an ever-expanding gloop that assimilates everything it touches." He looked down at the doglike. "You ever gone through Rehab, Thom?"

"Oh. Uh, no," Thom said.

He didn't like to think about the close encounters he'd had with the procedure. Sometimes he had to rescue a Rehabee who went off the deep end. They were always trying to go back to a home that only existed deep in the untouched corners of their brain.

"Seen a few folks go through it," Thom said. "I really don't envy them."

Itzu stared at him. He hit his head on a low I-beam as they walked through a maintenance hallway. The sound of the alien's crest hitting the pole was cartoonishly loud, but he was unfazed.

"If it wasn't for what I've seen back home, I don't think I could have survived Rehab," Itzu said. "It lies to you. It's all poison." He looked ahead, grinning. "But I know the antidote."

Thom desperately wanted to change the subject. He looked out the window at the cosmic sneeze. "So is that stuff Grey Goo, like Irene said?"

Thom was only faintly aware of the concept. It wasn't a term in the vernacular, but he'd spent enough time doing space work to have heard it mentioned once or twice by people who were more in the know. It didn't sound good.

"Nah. Grey Goo is dumb. That out there's Moonsilver. It's a god. The patron god of the Ortemat Empire, actually. And I stole it." Itzu seemed really proud of himself for a moment. He chuckled. "I wish I could see how those fuckers were managing without it."

They arrived at Endeavor's cockpit, which left Thom too busy to think about what Itzu was talking about. He plugged in the self-destruct codes while Itzu busied himself ripping apart auxiliary consoles to look at the shiny metals underneath.

"So that's it? The whole thing's gonna blow?" Itzu asked as soon as Thom got up from the helm.

"Yeah, should be it," Thom said. “It's on a safety delay, but comms still work, so REZQ should inform me when it successfully blows up."

"How big an explosion are we talking?"

"Um. Big. The engines are state-of-the-art and full of fuel. For a few seconds, this place will be as bright as a star."

Itzu nodded and grinned. "Good." He paused for a moment. "Thom?"

Thom looked up nervously. "Yes?"

"You ever kill a god before?"

"N-no?"

"Once this shit blows, you will have. You did good, Thom."

Another pause. Thom desperately wanted to get back to the ship.

"I owe you", Itzu said, "and I know how I'm going to repay you. I'm going to kill REZQ."

Thom didn't say anything. He was worried that Itzu was telling the truth. They stared out the window of the ship for a little longer. Streaks of Moonsilver drifted past like tinsel.

—

The return trip to the Diadem was peaceful for about a day. Thom didn't have much to do, so he spent most of his time awkwardly mingling with the crew. Itzu did his best to blend in, interrupting conversations with disturbing stories from his homeworld, but no one would really talk to him except Thom.

While Angel Fish was a huge vessel, it actually didn't have much space that was fit for inhabitation. So Itzu used his terrifying strength to assemble a makeshift mess hall in one of the emptier freight cells using leftover crates. After a bit of prodding from the crew and suggestions about things like "privacy," he even made cabins for the rescued crew, turning the deck into a little cuboid village. It wasn't perfect, but it was more cozy than what Thom was used to.

Precisely 24 hours after Thom punched in the scuttling codes for Endeavor, things went to shit.

The crew was enjoying a nice meal together, the table piled high with food from the on-board vending machines. Thom especially was enjoying the bounty, as it was far beyond what he was permitted to purchase for personal consumption.

Then Captain Argent got a notification on their phone. "What the fuck?"

The antelopelike stood up, throwing their napkin to the floor with as much fury as they could muster. "REZQ boy, did you blow up my fucking ship?"

Thom wanted to shrink small enough to get lost between the floor panels. "It was in the request," he squeaked out.

"Fucking liar. I wrote that request myself!"

Thom looked at Irene, pleading silently for help, but the engineer's face had become stone. His heart sank. If only one person was going down for this, it was going to be him.

"You couldn't even be assed to double-check your damn mission log before you slapped the self-destruct button, could you?" Captain Argent was on a roll now. "Endeavor had more brains in its auxiliary systems than you have leaking out your stupid canine nose. I bet you just saw the bonus pay and…"

The rest of the crew grabbed their food and left in a hurry. Itzu stayed, staring directly at Argent as he ranted.

"...scared of some liquid silver bullshit. Are you on drugs? Is that it? Were you tweaking out when you dumped a trillion-credit investment down the drain?"

Thom's attempts to stammer out a response soon dissolved, and he found himself in tears before he even realised it was happening. Argent sneered. "When we get back to the Diadem, you're shitcanned. Do you hear me? You're fucking done."

The captain stormed off, leaving Thom and Itzu alone in the cargo hold. Thom sobbed onto the tarp that served as a tablecloth. Itzu watched. Despite millenia of civilization between them, the alien recognized exactly what had just happened. Nobody ever stood up for the little guy.

The two shared some silence together, broken only by Thom's frustrated sobbing. "I fucking hate this shit," Thom said after some time, his face still buried in the tablecloth. He clumsily wiped his face and picked himself up from the table, his fists clenched. "All I do is pull people out of trouble and all they do is give me shit for it. And even when I do my best and almost manage to help someone, REZQ pulls the fucking rug from under me and…FUCK." He slammed his fists on the table in frustration. "And if I don't fall in line, you know what I get? Penalties. Rate hikes. Fucking debtor's prison. I'm trapped in this shitty fucking job doing bullshit for assholes."

He was shaking now. "And all the fucking time, they're baiting me, and the worst part is, I fall for it. Every fucking time. 'Oh, this job comes with incentives. Oh, this job's got a bonus if you complete it in time. Oh, you got a real good shot with this one, buddy.' And it all comes down to getting my teeth kicked in just for trying to do my job. I don't even want to do this. I used to be a fucking DLIVRI guy. I'd take radioactive cargo every day over any of the shit REZQ throws me at. At least with DLIVRI the job made sense. Just get from point A to point B. With REZQ I never know what I'm going to have to do. I just don't get it at all. I can't quit. Hell, I'm not even allowed to quit. I'd lose everything, even the voidwear on my back. I don't own shit, it's all on lease. Without this job, I'll starve to death in maybe a week."

Itzu patted the doglike on his shoulder. Thom slumped over and mumbled into the tablecloth. "I've tried to kill myself a few times. Almost succeeded, once. I have dreams about it. Good dreams, too. But I'm too chickenshit to follow through. It hurts so damn bad. I don't want to live, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Why do I lie to myself and pretend there's hope?"

Itzu spoke more gently than Thom was used to. "There's always a way. It's hard to see that from where you're sitting. But I've done incredible things, and I'm going to teach you how to make it right."

Thom felt Itzu's long claws dig into his back. The alien gave a crooked grin. "Just watch. I'm going to change everything."

—

The next morning felt wrong. Argent wasn't yelling, and the cargo bay smelled of blood.

One of the boxes making the walls of the captain's cabin had fallen and caved in the antelopelike's torso. Then someone had come in and cut off Argent's hand and scooped out his right eye. The killer did nothing to hide the mess.

"Where's the alien?" Irene asked as she stared coldly at the mutilated body.

"He's, um," Thom looked wildly around the cargo bay, his mind playing back Itzu's words on repeat. Not a copper scale in sight. "He's - it's - I don't…"

"I'm grabbing my tools," Irene said, as if she were about to start a repair job.

Irene had never killed anyone, but she got the general idea. Most of her tools were designed to cut starship hulls, and she was pretty sure the alien was weaker than that. Not to mention, she did bring along a Laz-Pistol in case pirates attempted to seize the Endeavor. She put on her heaviest voidwear and started searching the ship.

Itzu was waiting on the bridge, watching the stars go by. He'd never seen FTL travel before. It was beautiful.

He heard Irene's armored boots as she approached. Itzu turned around and saw her decked head to toe in orange and yellow articulated metal plates. In one hand she had a standard-issue corporate security Laz-Pistol. In the other, a hand-saw with a hair-thin wire spinning so fast it shimmered.

Itzu thought about warning her, but she fired her pistol at him before he could speak. The laser bounced right off one of Itzu's metallic scales.

The two stared at each other, each as surprised as the other. Irene realized a hull-safe laser pistol might not work on metal scales.

Itzu charged, terrifyingly fast for something so heavy, grabbing Irene by the torso and slamming her against the wall. He snarled and bit through the armor on her left forearm. Both of them screamed - Irene in rage and Itzu in pain as he received a jolt from the circuitry of her prosthetic arm. Irene's twitching metal hand dropped the pistol, and Itzu's muscles spasmed as electricity rolled through him. He released her and collapsed to the floor.

Irene swung her saw, aiming straight for Itzu's neck. She clipped his right horn as he scrambled out of the way. The little piece she shore off clattered to the ground.

Itzu lunged, and Irene went for his center of mass. The alien screamed a horrible scream as the saw grazed his torso, slicing effortlessly through the scales on his torso. Itzu jerked back before it could cut any deeper. It left a perfect straight line down his chest, like an incision. He hissed and leapt onto the ship's console like a wild animal.

The next few seconds were tense. Neither wanted to move first. Itzu reached down, and Irene readied herself, expecting him to jump. She only needed to know which way to dodge.

Then Itzu threw the captain's chair. It hit Irene square in the face, stunning her. Itzu howled and leapt on her. His claws tore through her suit, lungs, and heart in one swift stroke.

Itzu blinked, pulling his claws out of her body. He didn't expect it to be over so fast. She slid to the floor. He felt worse about this kill than the last, but he wouldn't let anyone stand in his way. He let out one long, wailing honk, before collapsing against the wall of the bridge.

A few minutes later, the door opened, and Rose entered. The tigerlike had her arms up and her hands open in the universal sign of peace.

"Itzu? I just want to talk," she said, trying not to look at Irene's corpse in the corner.

"Rose! Rehab Rosie! How's the pet project going? Great, right?" Itzu cackled, covered in blood. He stood up again, adrenaline wiping out the searing pain in his chest. "I've been waiting for this."

He moved fast, so fast Rose almost didn't feel his claws slide into her gut. Almost. She tried to speak, but Itzu grabbed her neck and squeezed the air out of her.

"No. No talking," Itzu practically spat the word out. "You made me choke down thousands of years of corporate history. You think a few more words are gonna change my mind? I came from a world where men made themselves gods and enslaved the masses. Where blood spilled every day over the pettiest feuds. And you know what?"

Itzu's grip tightened and his claws dug deeper. Rose was so pale he wasn't even sure if she was alive anymore. He didn't care. He drew his face close to hers.

"It was still less cruel than this," He hissed. He pulled his hand out of her belly and gestured furiously at the universe. Blood splattered on the flight console.

He tore her apart, limb from limb. Rage at the millenia of oligarchy and debt-slavery dripped from his claws like viscera. He thought of the countless brilliant yet cruel people who had built this house of cards, and wished he could do this to every single one.

Thom and Doctor Benni heard Itzu's frenzy from inside the airlock. They had retreated there because it was the only reasonably safe place to be, since they had voidwear and the alien didn't.

"That thing's a fucking freak of nature. Fuck. Fuck!" The harelike was not handling it well - his nose twitched frantically and his pupils shook.

Thom was in dreamland. He'd long kept a pack of Xalm sedatives zipped into a thigh pocket. He had dropped them all at once. Now he was drifting through the murders, lighter than air. After all, what the hell else could he do?

Fight Itzu? No.

Use escape pods? Angel Fish didn't have any - corporate thought they'd be prohibitively expensive.

So Thom did what he did best: he ran away, right into a blister pack of pills. Maybe this time he could get to the wild blue yonder.

Benni paced around the small room. "Fuck. Maybe PHOME could stop it? I saw you had a ton in storage. Thom? Thom?"

Thom wasn't responding. He was lost in the soft, warm space between his ears.

Benni stomped on Thom's boots.

"Oh. Ow," Thom said, like it was an afterthought.

"Give me your PHOME thrower, Thom," Benni said slowly but firmly.

Thom reached for his toolbelt. He didn't have it.

"Oh well," he mumbled, and shrugged at the wide-eyed doctor.

"Fucking space cadet," Benni muttered.

Thom looked down dreamily at his injured foot. Both he and the scientist were in voidwear, but only Thom had engaged his grav-boots. Rookie mistake, Benni.

There was a beep, and a sudden rush of air. Benni's unsecured boots disappeared from Thom's sight. The doglike looked up in time to see the airlock doors close again, with Benni on the wrong side. The doctor was flailing wildly, but Thom thought he looked peaceful, gently spinning out in the void. He was a little envious.

Thom turned around, to the door leading into the ship. Itzu was on the other side, his claws on the airlock release. Thom wasn't sure if the alien had even noticed his boots.

The depressurization and the drugs suddenly caught up with him. Itzu opened the door and grabbed Thom as he fainted.

—

Thom woke up on the bridge. He was in the pilot's chair, but it had been pulled away from the flight console. Instead, Itzu was manning the helm standing up, a bag resting near his clawed feet. A dark liquid seeped through the plastic.

Thom looked down and yelped when he saw he was covered in blood. In fact, so was everything else. The console, the chair, the walls…

"Don't worry, that's not yours," Itzu said without looking back. "Also, great! You're awake. I need you to do a favor for me."

Thom whimpered.

"Oh, nothing dangerous," Itzu reassured him. "I just need you to give your registration code and land this hunk of junk when we get to the Diadem. We'll be there pretty soon. I'll handle the real work."

Thom nodded.

"Thanks!" Itzu said. "You're a good person."

The doglike felt sick. Even worse, just that little bit of praise made him a little happy. He almost wished Itzu had killed him alongside everyone else.

They dropped out of warp right in front of the Diadem. It was a beautiful, pearl-white space station bigger than a hundred Angel Fishes, orbiting a planet saturated with cities. It gleamed like its namesake in the light of the system's star.

A voice came over comms. "Approaching vessel, please identify." After the hell Thom had just experienced, it was surreal to hear a voice that wasn't just calm, it was bored. He was back in society - and he brought a monster.

Itzu pulled Thom over. The doglike hesitated, then felt the alien's claws on his shoulders. He leaned into the mic.

"This is the REZQ Angel Fish. Registration LLS-double-slash-554-HH34-RQ-01. We're returning as requested from a Platinum subscriber rescue. Tier 3 cargo is onboard…" Last chance, Thom, he thought. "...and under control. N-no further containment necessary."

"Roger that." There was a pause. "REZQ Angel Fish, we have a docking permit for Captain Argent of Endeavor. Please have the captain provide biometric confirmation."

Itzu leaned in and pulled out Argent's severed hand out of the bag. He dropped it on the console wetly. Then he took Argent's eye and held it up to the scanner. Two quick beeps, and it was over.

"Roger that. You're clear to land."

Angel Fish docked without issue. Itzu pulled out a phone - the same one Argent was using when he got Endeavor's scuttling message.

"We'll stay in touch this way," Itzu said. "Keep those engines warm, and take off at the first sign of trouble. Don't worry if you have to leave me behind. I'll find you again, I promise."

Thom exchanged contact info with the alien numbly. The Xalms had worn off long ago, and all that was left was exhaustion. Everything about this job had felt surreal, like it was happening to someone else. Having an alien's phone number in his contact list just felt like one more sick joke.

Soon Angel Fish's cargo bay doors were open, Argent's body still hidden in the little crate village. A well-dressed inspector boarded the vessel and started poking around. Thom rushed up to them.

"Um, you don't need to do that," Thom said.

They raised an eyebrow. "What - "

Itzu came out of nowhere, grabbed the inspector's head, and smashed it into a crate. It sounded distressingly like an egg cracking. As the inspector's body slumped over, Itzu casually flicked blood off his claws.

"Welp, now I'm on the clock," he said. "Just sit back and watch a master at work. And Thom?"

Thom was staring at the body. "Yeah?"

"Thanks for everything. I couldn't have done it without you!"

Thom watched Itzu leave. The alien vanished through a pair of sliding doors at the end of the hangar. Another inspector ran through the same set of doors, following him. A few minutes later, a pair of guards armed with Laz-Rifles went through. Then came an entire squadron. Soon, the hangar lights turned emergency-red, and an alarm blared. That seemed as good an indicator as any that "trouble" had occurred. Thom got his ship ready for a quick escape. As Thom closed the cargo bay doors, the entire dock started to tilt.

He pulled out of the hangar and sped away as fast as his slow, awkward craft would let him. He nearly crashed into dozens of other ships trying to do the same. As he pulled clear of the chaos, he looked out at the Diadem through his viewscreen.

The entire space station was falling, making a terrible spiral down to the planet. Thom's ship-to-ship comms lit up. Distress calls blinked all over the blood-spattered console: citizens down on the planet, merchants docked at the Diadem, and tourists caught in-between. Angel Fish was tuned to listen to every request - but Thom wasn't.

As he spooled up his FTL, he saw the Diadem hit the city-planet. He didn't want to think about the billions that died instantly, or the trillions more that would suffer in the weeks to come.

Angel Fish blinked away into the overwhelming silence of space. Thom started crying. He cried for himself. He cried for a world that had done nothing but screw him over, but somehow deserved better than this.

And he cried for Itzu. He wasn't even sure why. Maybe because unlike most of the folks Thom dealt with, Itzu actually listened when Thom spoke. Maybe because Itzu's rage at the world Thom lived in was justified. Maybe it was just because Itzu was nice to him.

He couldn't even bring himself to delete the alien's number from his phone.