Chapter Text
Human is a meaningless word in most of the galaxy.
No one has ever seen one, except the members of the Galactic Federation, and even that's a little hard to believe. Allegedly, the Federation observed them over 500 cycles ago and deemed them incapable of not only interstellar travel, but peace. They are a violent, aggressive species, and they have no place in the Federation. Of course, those are just the words of a planetary council, one that studied them for a lone council cycle hundreds of cycles in the past, so Rocky wasn't sure if they should be taken at their word. Most creatures in the galaxy don't care to research, and humans have faded largely into mythos, a story to tell to children to make them behave. Rocky didn't really believe humans existed. He had no empirical evidence.
He does now.
Rocky has been alone for a very long time. He knew that this ship was on its own, and so did the rest of his crew, but he never expected it to go this badly. Rocky is an engineer. He’s not a medic, not a scientist, not a pilot—he just builds things, and somehow, that made him the best candidate for survival. The ship was under attack, fighter ships being sent out to die left and right, and they had a partial blueprint of a Star Eater ship that needed to get back home. The FTL drive was shot, and the crew couldn't risk leading the Star Eater ship chasing them back home anyways, so they locked Rocky in one of the escape pods with a padded, locked box containing the data card and said, “Save Erid.”
Just really low stakes stuff.
The escape pod has no FTL, and with no ship computer to program it—Rocky doesn’t want to think about what that means, but he knows that the ship and crew are gone for good because of this—it can’t plot the journey home. He contains the galaxy’s most well kept secret, and he can’t do anything but sit. Alone. Lost. Stranded. For years. Real, Eridian years, not the cycles the Federation uses.
He’s been drifting for a long time. He knows how long—can’t do anything but know, here—but he doesn’t care to recall the information. He knows that he has been alone in an enemy system for a very long time, and he knows that he’ll likely die here before they ever even think about rescuing him, which is why the ship that shows up on the rudimentary radar he built shocks him so badly. It runs from him at first, but it’s clunky and slow, much too slow for a pod meant to rocket away at high speeds, so it gives up the chase quickly. Rocky is glad for it, because he needs to let it know he’s here. He needs the ship to let him dock and he needs to see someone, anyone. He tries to ping the ship’s captain, but his escape pod must not have good signal, because he can’t find a receiver anywhere on the strange ship in front of him. That’s okay, though. Rocky has always been a good improviser.
He makes a few canisters because he knows the cannon on the escape pod is made to shoot missiles, not messages, and he needs one of them to survive. The first canister bounces off the ship’s exterior, and Rocky groans. How could they not have a receiver arm? Every ship in the galaxy has one. He guesses that they must be new to flying—otherwise they wouldn’t have stepped foot into this system in the first place—so he does a quick recalibration of the cannon and loads the second canister. He tracks it going across the distance between them, and then something opens a hatch and grabs it, he thinks. He can’t hear anything out there and the escape pod’s ocular device is glitchy at best, so he isn’t sure, but he swears that whatever is inside the ship had to come out to get the canister. It’s a strange ship, spinning around in circles, and it’s very small, the size of Rocky’s pod, so he thinks they might be running from the same thing he is. After a short stretch of time—all time that passes is short to Rocky, after he’s been here so long, but it must be at least 13 marbecs—the canister comes hurtling back towards him. It has a new planet attached to it, and Rocky tries to find it on the map, but it seems to be missing. Strange, but not a deterrent. Discovering a new species is always a good thing in the Federation. If they can help him get back home, the Federation will let them join for sure.
The ship has no ability for him to dock, but he knows the hatch opens, so he figures he can brute force a connector tunnel with the materials he has on board. The escape pod is made to dock, so he just has to set coordinates. He sends the canister back with his blueprints so whoever is aboard doesn’t get scared, and gets started as soon as he knows enough time has passed for them to receive it. It doesn’t take that long to build the docking tunnel—because Rocky is a great engineer—and in no time at all, the tunnel is connected and secure. He figures that whatever is in the ship doesn’t breathe Erid’s harsh atmosphere, but he can’t perfect what the species needs until it opens the hatch, so all he can do is wait.
He doesn’t wait for long, because he feels something touch his pod, and he rushes to put a hand on it to hear better. Unfortunately, he moves too fast, and whatever it is runs away. He stays put, hoping it comes back. He really wants to see it. He feels it touch his ship again, so he knocks lightly with a finger against the part of his ship it had gravitated to—one of very few transparent panels on the ship, placed with creatures that have sight receptors in mind. This creature must be able to see, then. He hopes he doesn’t scare it away again. He brings out the model he built of whatever came out of the hatch earlier, and from what the pod is showing him now, he confirms that this is a model of the creature itself. Why did the creature have to leave its ship? Every ship in the galaxy has a receiver of some kind, why not this one?
The creature makes noise, likely language, but none that he knows. He picks up the model he made of the creature’s ship, next, with the tunnel attached, and spins it. He knows the creature’s ship has gravity, knows it spins to make it—probably, that’s a theory of his, but Rocky is rarely ever wrong—and to build a tunnel they can both exist in, Rocky needs gravity. He then takes the model of the creature from earlier and walks it along the tunnel back to the ship. He needs it to go back so he can finish. The creature makes more noise, some strange gestures with its appendages, but doesn’t leave. Even though Rocky knows the creature can’t understand him, he still finds himself speaking to it, “You need to go back. I can make the tunnel safe, but you need to go back.”
The creature finally goes back to its own ship, which means Rocky can finally finish the tunnel. He disconnects the docking tunnel so he can build the rest, and is pleased to see that eventually, the creature follows his lead and the ship begins to spin. He reconnects the now finished tunnel, and hopes that the chemicals and pressure he added are correct. He hears the creature’s hatch open, and scrambles out of his pod as best as he can when he hears the knocking that follows. He hasn’t left this ship in a long time, but now is a good time to stretch his legs, he figures. It takes him a second, but he manages to get to the barrier. He’s built it at different transparencies because he knows not all creatures see perceive wavelengths in the same manner, so he follows it to a panel that he believes he built to be the clearest. When it stops, Rocky says, “This one?”
The creature reaches a hand forward and makes more noise, loud noise, and Rocky jumps in surprise. It’s much louder than it was when Rocky was in his ship. He sees the offering the creature gave, and tries to show it his eating hole to ask without words if the thing is food, and then the creature screams, brandishing a weapon. Rocky knows immediately that he’s made an error. There is only one planet this far out of Federation territory that has a sapient population.
Earth.
They walk on two legs, they perceive light, they have strong strong strong muscles and a wild beating heart—and there’s one standing right in front of him. He’s connected his ship to a human ship, and it’s already going to kill him! All that work for nothing. He’s been alone for too long, he never should’ve let his guard down. He steps into a fighting stance and yells back, scuttling away from the barrier, but then the human drops the weapon. Strange, he’s never heard a story of a human who surrendered, but he doesn’t let his guard down just yet.
The human backs up and makes noise at a more sensible volume, but it’s still so loud, and rough around the edges, like maybe it hasn’t spoken in a while. It yells again, although softer, and Rocky mimics it, putting two of his legs up to copy the human’s appendages. He hopes that the human will either take this as Rocky fighting back or as a peace offering, whichever deescalates the situation. The human moves again, and Rocky follows. If playing “copy me” keeps the human from being hostile, Rocky will do it as long as it wants. The human lets out a soft sound, breath mostly, and it’s nice, weirdly. Rocky laughs in disbelief. He’s playing copy me with the second most dangerous creature in the galaxy, and he thinks it’s laughing.
It approaches again, carrying an object, but Rocky doesn’t think this one is a weapon. It’s making more soft noise, and this must be speech, and if it has sight receptors, what it's holding is probably a light. He knows the human is in armor of some kind, likely serving the dual purpose of keeping it safe in both battle and the harsh conditions of space. The armor makes him nervous, and he wants the human to take it off. He knows what it breathes now, could hear it in the helmet it wore at their last meeting, and he knows he replicated it. Against his own better judgement and hundreds of years of Federation training, he points and says, “Look in the canister. I made it safer.”
The human copies him again, so it must think they’re still playing. Rocky just repeats himself, and much to his dismay, the human continues to copy. Rocky shakes his carapace, something he knows creatures with heads do in dissent, and hopes it’s the universal sign for no. He points more vigorously and says, “Look behind you!”
The human finally turns, saying more soft words, nice words, and Rocky can’t help but think that the Federation has been lying. Nothing with this nice of a voice could possibly be that dangerous. It grabs the canister and brings it back to open in front of him, pulling out the molecular model of oxygen Rocky made. He hopes his point gets across okay. It clearly doesn’t, because the human’s speech gets louder, which Rocky decides he hates. It sounds much nicer when it just speaks, Rocky doesn’t know why it insists on the aggressive volume. Rocky points at the top of his carapace and then to the model, and says, “You can breathe it. I made it safe for you. Take it off.”
The human makes gestures around its head, so Rocky thinks it’s getting it, but he repeats himself anyways. “Yes, take it off.” The human speaks again, louder, and Rocky tries not to cringe when he nods and says, “Yes yes yes!”
The human shakes its head, saying a word that must mean no because it’s been paired with the universal gesture of dissent for cephalized creatures. Rocky is a bit discouraged—he worked very hard and he has limited resources. He’s not going to waste them on ungrateful humans; it needs to trust him and take it off. Rocky says yes a few more times but only receives more disagreement in response. The human walks away, and Rocky can’t help the sad noise he lets out, but then it stops and holds up the model, saying more loud words that Rocky hopes mean understanding, and he chirps happily. So humans aren’t as dumb as they say!
“Take it off,” Rocky exclaims, hoping his gestures aid his speech as the human faces him fully. It says more words and walks away again, and Rocky deflates. It gets further, but Rocky hears its breathing pick up, which he really hopes doesn’t mean he’s about to be attacked. He thought he and the human were okay now. Is it insulted? Is that why it won’t take the helmet off? Rocky should apologize, but before he can say anything, it reaches for the side of its helmet, tapping twice. The panel covering the front of its head slides upwards, and it reaches up to take the rest of the helmet off, not breathing the whole way. Finally, it takes in a shuddering inhale, and Rocky recognizes the heavy breathing as relief, which must mean that the human was scared. He didn’t know humans got scared. He laughs a little at the realization, but mostly from happiness at what he’s realized is a display of nothing but blind trust in a creature it just met from the human. The Federation can’t be right about them, surely. This creature is much too silly to be a real threat.
Rocky can hear it breathing better, now. It sounds much nicer without that pesky helmet in the way, if he ignores the humanness of it all.
Whatever. He’ll blame the 92 cycles spent in solitude for whatever weird thoughts he’s having about the terrifying, barbaric creature in front of him if anyone asks.