Stowaways

by Blackholeca

Summary:

“I am afraid my comrade and I have boarded the wrong vess-el!” The human’s Galactic is rough around the edges, speech too polite, syllables too sharp. “We mean you no harm, fellow non-humAN—” Its words are cut off by what seems to be a sharp elbow to its ribs.
“Shut the fuck up, Charlie.”

or;

Humans are the most feared species in the known galaxy. And the crew of the Syndicate have just found two hiding on board.

Notes:

• For ASolacedCalamity.

For ASolacedCalamity’s prompt: Alien AU (humans are space orcs in specific!!)

Ranboo screams. It’s a loud screeching warble in a vocal frequency any Enderian would understand as there being a threat within close proximity. Their clawed feet skid across the space deck, long, ashen limbs flailing to keep themselves upright.

Fhil-zah cringes at the sound, feathered antennae flattening against his skull as Techno catches the Enderian with an outstretched arm before they can collide with the wall. Ranboo hurriedly positions themselves behind him, using Techno as a shield despite how much taller Ranboo was by comparison.

They point a trembling claw in the direction of the corridor they’d come from. They manage only a single word: “H-humans.”

The impact is immediate.

Fhil-zah curses in Old Galactic, feathers fluffing to reveal their white speckled undersides like a thousand stars. Techno’s jaw locks in a forward position, tusks jutting out as far as they’re able.

“Where?” Fhil-zah demands, “How many?”

“Two.”

The trade planet they’d been on not hours before had strict regulations on humans. It’s one of the reasons Fhil-zah had decided to stop there for supplies rather than Hypix. Because humans were dangerous and planets that inhabited them were known to be even more so. Humans weren’t allowed terraside on Ficafi. And yet— here they were. Techno hopes this one of Tubbo’s pranks, but Tubbo knows about Ranboo’s previous trauma with humans. This wasn’t something he’d pull.

“How did they—?” Fhil-zah begins to ask.

“We had to fumigate for endermites,” Techno reminds him, reaching for the blaster at his hip. “We left the hatch open during that.”

“B-but that stuff’s toxic!” Ranboo stutters.

“Not to humans, evidently,” Techno grits out. He pushes Ranboo towards the flight deck, “Have Tubbo lock you both in. If worst comes to worst you can jettison everything from the control system.” His voice is a low, threatening thing, “Even humans can’t survive empty vacuum.”

The Syndicate was a cargo ship first and foremost, delivering goods from one outpost to another. It’d put the crew on many odd planets during their travels— but never anywhere humans resided. By far humans were the universe’s most feared species— the most dangerous— undying, indomitable. The first rumors of their species had called them immortal— unaffected by even the most grievous of injuries. Lost limbs were replaced by stronger ones— disease was but a temporary inconvenience. They were unaffected by pestilence or plague— adaptable to any and every planetary climate they came across. Worse still they produced water from nigh every orifice— eyes and mouth and skin and blood— something that was acidic to most other species.

They’d decimated many species during their first hundred years amongst the stars— through war and disease and disaster. 

Techno can hear the way both of Ranboo’s hearts race in their belly— the bioluminescence of their patterns rippling in time with them.

“But what about you and—” Ranboo tries.

“Do as he says,” Fhil-zah orders, rounded beak snapping shut to punctuate the severity of what was happening. He forces his feathers to lie flat. “Go.”

Ranboo warbles weakly, but slowly backs towards the flight deck.

Techno passes Fhil-zah his second blaster, eyes never leaving the corridor. Taking his eyes off it for even a moment could spell disaster for the fate of the crew.

Then, as if sensing their rising tension, a human peaks its head out from around the corner. “How do you do, fellow non-humans!”

Techno and Fhil-zah raise their blasters in one sharp motion.

Ranboo shrieks, throwing themselves the rest of the way into the flight deck, calling for Tubbo. The doors slam shut behind them.

The human has painted its face green, its teeth bared in an unnatural looking smile even by human standards. It waves at them, hand stuffed into what’s clearly a pair of Techno’s old gloves, three fingered and certainly not meant for humans. Techno has to resist the urge to fire his blaster then and there.

But they only have eyes on one of the humans. Ranboo had said there were two. He doesn’t know what their plan is here. They’d left planetside hours ago— the ship now well into deep space. Why not try to ambush them earlier? Why wait this long? Why the charade of pretending to be something other than what it so obviously was?

Techno’s teeth grind against each other.

“I am afraid my comrade and I have boarded the wrong vess-el!” The human’s Galactic is rough around the edges, speech too polite, syllables too sharp. “We mean you no harm, fellow non-humAN—” Its words are cut off by what seems to be a sharp elbow to its ribs.

“Shut the fuck up, Charlie,” a second voice hisses, barely audible for Phil, but clear as day to Techno. That’d be the second human then. If there were only two then they wouldn’t have to worry about the humans trying to ambush them from another angle. The first human, Charlie, is yanked back behind the corner of the corridor.

Techno shares a wary glance with Fhil-zah, but within moments the green-faced human is replaced by a second. Its hands raised, face free of paint, looking every bit like the warning poster for every human he’d ever seen. But— it looks… injured. Techno’s never seen an injured human before, sometimes the rumors made it seem like no one ever had. But this one… limps into the hall. It could be faking it of course— but the fading bruise still swelling one of its eyes shut is harder to fake.

“Sorry, sorry!” It announces loudly, “Listen, guys. Genuinely didn’t mean to be here, ya know. Just, uh.” Its eyes flicker between Techno and Fhil-zah, between their weapons. “Just bad fucking luck on everyone’s part.”

Its Galactic is much more natural than the other’s, like it’d grown up learning it instead of one of the human languages they normally used. It even had an accent to it, something vaguely familiar though Techno can’t recall where he’s heard it before.

Fhil-zah’s blaster lowers a fraction.

In all honesty it looks like the human had the shit kicked out of it recently and stars does Techno want to know who managed to get away with it but— the human was here so perhaps the assailant hadn’t gotten away with it. Techno grimaces.

“Techno,” Fhil-zah murmurs. And he has that tone to his voice that tells Techno he’s really not going to like what the Avria is going to suggest. Quietly he says: “I think we should hear them out.”

“They’ve given us no reason to trust them,” Techno spits lowly.

“They haven’t given us a reason not to trust them either.”

“They’re human.”

“They’re injured.”

“That’s never stopped a human before.”

Still, Fhil-zah slowly lowers his weapon, straightening himself. He clicks his beak, an order for Techno to do the same.

Techno scowls, snapping his teeth to let the other know just how much he doesn’t like this plan. He lowers his blaster anyway.

“What’s your name, mate?” Fhil-zah calls.

It looks startled by the question, casting a glance at what Techno assumes is the other human. It looks back to them. After a moment’s hesitation it says: “Tommy.” He jerks his head towards the other human, still tucked behind the corner. “That’s Charlie. Sorry in advance about him.”

Charlie must take his name as an invitation. He peaks his head back out, face still green, though he now appears to be wearing a pair of human-form optical correctives along with it. “Hel-lo comrades!”

Tommy sighs, sagging into himself a bit, favoring his left leg. “Stop callin’ everyone comrades, man. No one fuckin’ says that.”

“But that is what you called me while plotting our escape from 2B-2T!”

Techno and Fhil-zah both stiffen.

That’s where Techno recognized the accent from. 2B-2T was a wasteland planet near the outer edge of a solar system a few days' travel from their current location— which was, by all accounts, too close for Techno’s liking. It was one of the most notorious criminal hotspots in the known galaxy— known for its violence and pirate gangs and most notably, its gladiator arena. Any number of them could account for Tommy’s injuries.

Techno himself had never been on the planet, but as a cargo ship they’d had a handful of encounters with its inhabitants: pirate crews, nare-do-wellers, and the average criminal baring too much confidence in their abilities simply because of their ties to the planet.

“Why were you on 2B-2T?” Techno demands. He wouldn’t be surprised to find if humans had started a settlement of some sort there, they fit the type, afterall. And it’d explain Tommy’s accent, it was too native to be something picked up during a short stay.

Fhil-zah clicks his beak, uneasy.

Tommy shifts. He doesn’t like the question. “Bit of a personal story, that one.”

Techno is not familiar enough with humans to gauge this one’s facial expressions, but even he can see the telltale signs of defensiveness. “Not if it concerns you bein’ on this ship.” Techno raises his weapon again despite Fhil-zah's trill of warning. “Two humans of possibly dangerous origins showin’ up as uninvited stowaways on our ship. We have a right to ask a few personal questions.”

Tommy stiffens again, hands raised in surrender. He might make for a pitiable sight if he wasn’t human.

The human swallows thickly. “The arena,” Tommy says, “They had me fightin’ in the arena. Both of us.”

“Techno,” Fhil-zah intercedes.

Techno presses on anyway. “How long?”

“I was there for one hundred and sixty-eight cycles,” Charlie announces brightly, “but Tommy had been there much longer than me!”

Fhil-zah shoves Techno’s blaster down, a dangerous look in his eyes. “That’s enough, Techno. Stand down.”

Fhil-zah was not someone Techno would ever consider to be stupid on any accounts. But there were times he thought the Avria was too trusting. Techno was good at reading threats, but Fhil-zah was good at reading people, the all of them, not just the threatening bits that Techno picked up on. It’s why they had an unruly Buzzlin as an engineer, it’s why he had Techno as his first mate.

Techno stands down. Properly this time, stowing his blaster back its holster and stepping back to allow Fhil-zah proper control of the conversation.

“How about we get you two settled first?” Fhil-zah offers, “Then we can talk more and figure out what to do next, yeah?”

Tommy lowers his hands slowly, warily searching for any signs they might attack. There would be none of course, because Techno knows Fhil-zah was no more likely to hurt either of them now than he was to hurt any of his crew. He’d probably even ask Techno to restrain the humans if either tried to hurt them rather than shooting them outright as they’d been prepared to do earlier.

 

Sitting across from two humans feels rather high on the list of the most stupid things Techno has ever done. But the humans are sitting down, and so is Fhil-zah, and so obviously Techno does too.

They’re in one of the ship’s spare rooms. The humans sit on one fold out bunk and Techno and Fhil-zah sit on the other opposite them. This is the closest he’s ever been to a human.

Despite the situation the meeting feels almost anticlimactic.

They’d had a short conversation with Ranboo and Tubbo out of earshot of the humans earlier. Fhil-zah having explained the basics of what had happened and ordering them to remain where they were. Techno’s sure it hadn’t calmed as many nerves as Fhil-zah thought it might, but a healthy dose of caution was never a bad thing.

 “Got scammed by some Puglins,” Tommy continues explaining, “The bastards. We were trying to buy a ship to get off planet, guess they thought it’d be a good idea to try and sell us yours,” he scoffs.

Which was certainly something a Puglin would try to do. Especially if they’d seen the ship being fumigating beforehand. They might’ve thought the lingering chemical smog would be enough to kill the humans and then they’d have their credits and we’d just think a couple of human thieves had tried hijacking a ship and died for their trouble. And certainly the Puglins had their gold. But the humans, those were still very much alive.

“It was a very nice ship!” Charlie announces, smiling brightly. “A very good price too!”

“Puglins are well known scammers,” Techno informs them dryly, as if the information wasn’t already obvious. “I wouldn’t’ve trusted them to find me a single screw, let alone sell me an entire ship.”

“I figured there’d be somethin’ wrong with the ship,” Tommy admits, “But I reckoned I could fix it given some time. Course we got aboard and the whole place reeked. Figured something important was leaking somewhere and that’s why they sold it for so cheap.” 

“There’s plenty of proper markets for cheap ships on Ficafi,” Fhil-zah informs them softly.

The brows on Tommy’s face furrow. Techno thinks it's a sign of anger. “We’re not exactly welcome most places.” Certainly anger then, based on his voice. “Hard to go through proper channels for anything when that’s the case.”

Fhil-zah shifts uncomfortably. Techno thinks the Avria might be feeling a bit guilty— the whole reason they’d stopped at Ficafi was because the planet had rules against humans like the ones across from them being there.

“Sorry,” Tommy sighs. It’s the third apology they’ve received from the human since they’d met. “Guess you guys got the shortest end of the stick here.”

Probably not. They, at least, hadn’t lost any credits in the ordeal.

“You can drop us off wherever’s convenient for y’all and we’ll stay out of your hair till then— or uh fur?.. Feathers?” Silence falls awkwardly between them. Tommy clears his throat. “Right, anyway. We’ve still got some credits left so we can pay you for the trouble.”

Fhil-zah’s antennae flick. “Credits won’t be necessary. Doesn’t seem fair to have you pay more when you’ve already lost what I’m sure was a considerable amount. Where were you tryin’ to head?” Fhil-zah asks, looking between the two.

Tommy shifts under the scrutiny. “Nowhere in particular. Just-just away, really.”

Fhil-zah can see something Techno doesn’t, can put together a story Techno’s too biased to read. The accent, the injuries, the arena, the escape. It’s still a hazy story, they’ve only just met these humans, after all. But Fhil-zah was always willing to wait for a story.

“Well,” Fhil-zah muses, “we don’t have any cargo to deliver anywhere right now so the destination can be up to the both of you. Whether it’s just to the nearest planet or somewhere farther than that.”

Techno knows then, beyond any other reasonable course of action, that Fhil-zah would not be letting the humans leave without first giving them the offer to stay.

Humans were dangerous— undying, indomitable. That’s what rumors said, any way. But anyone had the potential to be dangerous, to be weak, to be kind.

Techno had never been one to believe rumors anyway. He’d always preferred to see things for himself, after all.

Notes:

I SAW THE CHARACTER LIST HAD CHARLIE SLIMECICLE AND JUMPED ON IT!! Hope everyone enjoyed!!

LETS GO FIREFLIES!!! 🔥🪰

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of MCYT FicFight 2025