Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

I’ve gained an orange friend

Dear Journal,

I’ve gained an orange friend!

Triv didn’t know much about where those rascally blue-giraffes were. Really, all he knew was that they still had those crates of the vaccine needed at Auaia-4, so that was where I was going. Unfortunately, that was not where Demon Dude and the 74th, as I learned my division was called, were planning on heading. That wasn’t too much of a problem, though, as it turned out.

“Oh that! That’s not too much of a problem.” (told you), Demon Dude answered when I brought the matter to his attention, “We’ll just use one of the Nanofab mills we have on the ship and make you an interstellar transport shuttle. It’ll be about as generic a ship as you can find, and mediocre in every way, but it’ll get you where you want to go easily enough.”

“Really? You’d do that for me? Free of charge?”

“Well, since you bring it up we’ll be using the pay you’ve accumulated over the past cycle you’ve been with us. We didn’t know if you would ever use it, but you were in the records so you were automatically paid, and with a little help from my personal account there’s enough to justify such an expenditure.”

“Thank you.” I said seriously, which means a lot coming from me, as I try to avoid saying anything if I can't say it with my usual tone of boisterous joviality and a hint of sarcasm. Demon Dude heard the change in tone, I think, and looked please, once again, I think. For all I know he could have been twisting his face in anger, but I felt like he was pleased. “When will the ship be ready? I want to leave as soon as possible.”

“We’ll bump it up in the priorities list so you don’t have to wait for all the drop ships to be replaced.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Oh no, we needed an orbital strike and your method was effective and, in a strange way, extremely satisfying. Your ship should be ready in a few (days), but if you delay your departure for a little while after that then a translator I arranged for – one with a significantly better attitude than then our current model – should arrive. You, of course, can leave before that if you want, but life in the galaxy can be rather difficult without a translator.”

I laughed, mainly because I thought of all the craziness that could have been avoided had I started out with one. Then I thought a moment longer before I answered. “You’re right, but it would have been much less entertaining.”

And that was why, even after my beautiful box of a ship was complete, I was still with the 74th. We had been ordered back to the nearest military barracks, and Triv’s demeanor had darkened and soured with every passing day. Honestly, just because I almost choked him out doesn’t mean he has to be such a d**k about it, even though that is his name – although he doesn’t like it. Maybe his attitude was understandable. It still didn’t make it any easier to deal with him.

Manthlel made a full recovery, now with a shiny new arm. He’d also replaced the three legs I’d broken all those months ago with prosthetics as well. His biological legs had been saved, but he said they’d never worked quite the same after I’d broken them when I threw him out of the reach of that Vulza. After he had seen how much better the mechanical arm was in comparison to its biological counterpart, he’d asked them to replace the faulty legs as well, and was happy with the results. I felt a little guilty that I had ultimately caused more damage to his body than a Vulza, but as all his injuries were in some way one of those overgrown lizard’s faults, I decided to blame it all on them.

The translator arrived while I was sleeping, and Triv left without saying goodbye, although I think he might have spit on my pillow or something. Its installation went without a hitch, and, to my utter relief, the Corti surgeon said he could make it have an on/off switch, though he couldn’t fathom why I’d ever want such a thing. I think he tried to give me a lecture about it, but I turned it off the moment he started his monologue. He was pretty angry by the end, but I couldn’t understand his body language without my translator working, so I chose to believe he was waving his arms in a unsuccessful attempt at starting a rave party, although I tried to help him out by joining.

I had packed all my things, which meant my lava scimitars, my old clothes, which I hadn’t worn in months and were still tie-dyed with blood, a few spare uniforms, which were all I was wearing at this point – I really am stunning in black on red – and a bag to hold it all.

I had found out during my two-week-or-so wait that xenos, as a whole, think a scimitar is a scythe. A trip to their Xeno 3D printer, which I guess they call a Nanofab mill, and I showed them what a real war-scythe was. They weren’t really impressed until I showed them why the grim reaper is given a scythe. Yes, I know it’s because scythes are traditionally used for mowing, or reaping, grass, but I choose to believe it’s because the scythe, especially its battle-modified cousin, was one of the most popular and fearsome weapons used by peasants during their uprisings throughout history due to its ability to cut, pierce, and generally mutilate any who felt the bite of its blade. I’ve already seen a few xenos carrying them instead of their old fusion weapons. I, of course, kept the one I printed out.

Demon Dude and Manthlel were waiting by my ship as I approached it with my things. The rest of the squad had said their goodbyes back at our squad-cubicle, but I guess Manthlel wanted a neck hug or something, which was a shame, since I hated hugs, neck variety especially, and wouldn’t be giving any.

“I dislike goodbyes so I’ll keep this brief,” Demon Dude said as I approached, “Normally you’d get a medal for your actions, but it’s somewhat of a precedent for a ‘non-sentient specimen of indigenous fauna’ to qualify for one, so my thanks will have to suffice. On behalf of the Dominion, Thank you, and good luck.”

I, too, hated long goodbyes, so I decided to go with my traditional farewell. Plastering a smile on my face, I cheerily reciprocated, “It’s been great knowing you for the past two weeks. Don’t die!” I guess it took on a different light considering the fact that he was in the military, but that’s how I say goodbye to everyone. It’s one of the most sincere things you can say to someone, and it usually bypasses the never-ending hugging and hand-shaking ritual that are usual goodbyes. It worked the same way with xenos, apparently, because Demon Dude smile-grimaced as he left. I had glanced at Manthlel while saying it, meaning my parting advice to apply to both of them, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.

“I want to go with you.” Was a long goodbye really that important to this guy that he was going to come along so he could fulfill his greatest farewell fantasy to its fullest conclusion?

“Uh, aren’t you currently in the middle of something, like, a war?”

“I’ve been discharged. It’s standard procedure to allow an enlisted soldier the choice of an honorable discharge if they lose 50% of their natural born limbs in combat, or, if the soldier in question has an odd number of limbs, as in my case, 44.4%. The fact that I considered my ‘healed’ legs to be permanently damaged qualifies them as lost while in service, and with my arm, that’s 44.4%. Colonel Blatvec has filed the necessary paperwork, so I’m no longer part of the 74th. I want to go with you.”

Call me slow, because maybe I was missing something, but I still had to ask, “Why? I’m 33.3%-” I did that in my head in case you were wondering, please hold your applause, “-of the reason you’re in the condition you are now. Why would you want to spend any more time with me than you have to? I’ll probably end up snapping your neck or ripping out your spleen by accident if you come along with me.”

Manthlel paused at my vivid and particular descriptions, but only for a moment, “I think you’ll be able to control yourself, at least where my spleen is concerned, but I don’t see the injuries as a major factor compared to what you’ve given me. I was a coward before you joined our squad, but after you arrived, it was your influence that drove me to shoulder-slap one Vulza and stick my hand in another’s mouth.”

Crap, he was getting all serious on me. If he kept this up I’d have to drop my tone for the second time in a month, “Exactly. You’re a hero now. I’m sure if you went home your war stories and medals would have you dripping in money and favors for the rest of your life. Why would you want to skip out on that to gallivant across the galaxy with a recently self-rehabilitated – poorly, I might add – killing machine in search of idiotic but laughably loveable blue-giraffes?”

“I can’t go home. Ruibal, my species, are a very political people, though only amongst themselves. Compared to other species of the Dominion, our schemes are nearly as childish as those attempted by Vzk’tk when unguided by a Rrrrtktktktkp'ch. Despite our simplicity, my family would still have had enough political sense to disown me the moment word of my extreme cowardice reached them, and I’m afraid no actions of courage save defeating a Celzi force on my own would make them take me back. So as you can see, going home wouldn’t really bring me all that I would desire. I hate my petty home planet anyway, as do a large number of our people, come to think of it, so I wouldn’t want to go back anyway. That’s why I want to go with you, because it’s only with you that I’ve accomplished things I never thought I could. It’s only when . . .”

“Alright, alright you can come. Just stop making me feel like a good person or you might actually trick me into believing it. Do you have all your things?”

“They’re on the shuttle.”

I gave him a flat look. “ . . . Excellent.”

He smiled, “Also, I have one of the new ultra-harnesses. My mechanical limbs made interfacing with one easier than it would have been for Cresh, and my actions in previous battles made it so the Colonel wanted me to be the squad’s new ultra-heavy. He hadn’t foreseen me leaving, but since each harness has to be custom made for each species, and I was the only Ruibal in the squad, he just let me keep it, saying it would help me stay alive being trapped on the shuttle with you.”

I smiled as well. “You just became a significantly more interesting traveling partner. Welcome aboard the USS-F-4 Phantom II.”

Manthlel was confused. “USS? F-4? Phantom? II? Why II? Isn’t this your first ship?”

“The first thing we’re going to have to get set between us now that we can properly talk and we’re going to be traveling together is that you never question what I choose to name something, no matter how bad or nonsensical it is.”

“Alright, but can I just call it the Phantom, as that’s the only part of the name that I even know the meaning of?”

“I like the way you think. Now let’s go.”

The only problem was that while the USS-F-4-Phantom II sure lived up to its name sake, it did not live up to its nickname. Despite the conniptions Einstein would be having if he could see my relativistic velocities, breaking Albert’s speed limit wasn’t enough for Manthlel, and he continued to make disparaging comments as to the less-than-exemplary FTL drive of my new and beautiful box. That is until I threatened to stab it with my new fusion war-scythe so as to rid him of its annoyance. Apparently it wasn’t bad enough to scrap entirely, which pretty much summed up every possession I’d ever owned, so it was fitting that my ship should be the same.

If you’re a guy (or a gal who has the stereotypical conversation skills of a guy) and you’ve taken a car trip with another genderless being of similarly stereotypical male conversation skills (alright, who’s still offended by my gender labels?) then you know that unless you’ve been friends with that person since childhood, most of the trip will pass in a silence only broken when the other person has to pee or eat. We had our food and bathroom on board, so we didn’t even need to tell each other when we had to visit the loo.

It was a pretty quiet two weeks. At least Manthlel got used to my talking to myself. I usually just turned off the translator so he could drown out my babbling.