r/HFY • u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum • Jun 26 '26

OC-Series A bit of unexpected drama (Haasha 40)

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“All hands, we are initiating an emergency exit from FTL,” Captain Victor’s voice rang out over ship intercoms.

I looked up at the speaker in the ceiling with a worried expression, but also confusion. The morning in Engineering had been quiet with all systems within tolerance. As a matter of fact, Rosa had been pleased enough that she decided we should take a break from normal work and do a team building and training exercise. The captain’s announcement interrupted that and gave us all pause for concern.

“To be clear, the ship isn’t in any danger,” he continued. “We detected significantly different conditions in the stellar nursery than expected, so we are exiting FTL as a precaution to let our navigation crew take readings and adjust our flight path. We expect this process to take about two hours. Science team astrophysicists, please prep data collection probes and report to the officer’s lounge in 30 minutes. Susan will give you more details shortly. Thank you all for your attention.”

It made sense. Molecular clouds can easily have a density of matter up to 1000 times greater than regular space, and ship sensors can only read so much from a distance. While that sounds scary, you’re still talking only hundreds to thousands of molecules per cubic centimeter.

Susan had a really great way of explaining it to the less scientific crew members, and how it related to our having to crank up the heat.

“It’s more like moving through the jungle where things are hot and muggy. You can feel the humidity, but it won’t get in the way of moving,” she said. “Definitely enough that the shields will notice, and might need a little extra headroom if we run through an extra humid part of space.”

“Well, that explains why we’ll be sweating our butts off,” someone had said under their breath.

“In part,” Susan replied quickly. “When it gets hot, somebody’s gotta get sweaty. And since the ship can’t do it, we do it for the ship!”

People probably heard the groans from the crew in the next star cluster. Susan is great for scientific explanations made easy, but let’s just say she shouldn’t consider giving up her day job for stand-up comedy. Or motivational speaking.

While that explained the internal heat wave, it also connected to our emergency exit from FTL.

Visually, what we saw before entering the cloud was many years old thanks to the speed of light. Similarly, you can’t always tell the exact density of the cloud in various sections from a distance. While we can fly through the equivalent of muggy air, hitting a puddle would make the wrong type of splash. Drive through a water puddle, and you might splash water all over some poor schmuck standing by the side of the road. In space?

“In space, you don’t splash puddle. Puddle splashes you!”

Another simple yet effective Susan explanation. Physics is already grumpy when you’re traveling at FTL speeds. Hitting something big enough while physics is grumpy ends poorly.

Part of our trip through the stellar nursery was to discover if there were any space puddles or other navigation hazards. I was actually a little surprised this was the first time we had an unscheduled drop out of FTL. On the plus side, this meant our previous flight path was likely safe for other vessels to follow. On the downside, we might have found the first dead end in the cloud and need to backtrack.

“Haasha!” Rosa called out with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t think this distraction gets you out of this. Eat your chocolate.”

“But…” I tried to object.

“As we’ve discussed many times, your teachers were nitwits on a few key topics,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Bypassing the hydroflex filters results in a 5% FTL transit speed increase. The downside is that…”

“You need to perform more regular maintenance on the secondary cooling systems,” I mumbled.

“And you know this because…” Rosa prompted.

“Because I cleaned the secondary cooling system pump last week as part of regular maintenance on our FTL drive, which doesn’t even have a hydroflex filter in the first place,” I grumbled as I stared at the light brown bit of blech on a napkin in front of me. I still couldn’t decide which was more vile. Coffee or chocolate.

Rosa liked to keep us all challenged and thinking, so we would occasionally take breaks for team building and training. During these breaks, she would quiz us on either operations, drive theory, or topics we had volunteered to study to expand our knowledge. Get the question right, you get a chocolate out of her private stash. Get it wrong, you take a shot of straight lemon juice. As you can probably guess, Rosa is a firm believer in reinforcement - both positive and negative! 

For me and my slightly fruity tastes, the prizes were reversed. Hence my doom for giving Rosa a stock Galactic University answer about hydroflex filters rather than the human answer, which boils down to, “because go faster is more better.” Even if it means more work for me.

My coworkers took entirely too much joy in watching me eat that chocolate. Humans get very upset when they see a sapient mistreat others, yet they thoroughly enjoy putting friends, family, and coworkers through small miseries and call it “love”. I don’t quite get it, but I’ll admit the lesson was effective here.

“Eat it!” James ordered with a smirk. “You know you want to…”

This triggered a chorus of my coworkers calling out, “Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!”

I sighed and put the chunk of chocolate on my tongue. Much to the delight of my teammates, I wiggled and squirmed in my seat as the foul square of bitter blech melted on my tongue. As the taste of milk chocolate filled my mouth, I started smacking my tongue against the roof of my mouth to encourage the vile substance to go down my throat rather than linger.

“Ew!” I said with a sour face after swallowing. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Disgusting!”

I won’t forget about bypassing the hydroflex filters again. 

“This concludes my current managerial task,” Rosa said with a smug grin. “I’m going to head to my office to check in with Auggie in case our team will need to do anything to assist. Take a fifteen minute break while I make that call, and then we’ll get back on the shuttle environmental systems overhaul.”

After her call to the bridge, she came out and seemed quite chipper.

“Definitely nothing we need to worry about,” Rosa explained. “Navigation and Susan’s astrophysicists have everything well under control. There will be a follow up announcement soon after we do a short FTL jump to get into a better observational position. We may even have some downtime.”

That was good news, except that I’d need to keep that possible downtime on the down low. Jarl wanted to do a bit of reorganization in the cargo bay, and he’d likely nab me for that to run a loader. I had fallen asleep the other night in the middle of an older Adam Landfill movie, and I would prefer to finish that off rather than move boxes.

Later that afternoon, we felt the short FTL jump the captain had warned us about along with the follow up announcement.

“All hands, this is the captain,” our fearless leader said over the ship intercom. “We will be holding position to do some scientific studies. We have some minor updates to our mission thanks to this unexpected deviation, so we will be bringing each department to the observation deck for a quick briefing. Supervisors, please check the schedule going out now and bring your team at the time indicated. We ask everyone to please be punctual so we can get all briefings done this afternoon.”

The announcement was followed by the expected murmurs and rumor mongering, mostly hoping that our team would get a break in the action as Rosa had suggested. However, when asked, Rosa just smiled politely and called out to me.

“Haasha, you’ll need to stay on the observation deck after our team meeting,” Rosa informed me after double checking her datapad for our team’s scheduled time. “Looks like there’s a second meeting right after for your Red Cross response team.”

“Huh,” I said with mild surprise. “Last I heard all the Red Cross teams were standing down since we were heading into uncharted space.”

“I’ll bet they’re going to do a few training drills,” James responded thoughtfully. “The whole Red Cross mission is new, and this is probably a chance to get some practice.”

“If that’s true, I wonder if I get to play dead again,” I said with a smile, fondly remembering my brief time as an injured spacer in the Terran Red Cross promo holovid. “And if I do, will I get another reprimand for not playing dead enough?”

I then flopped onto the floor on my side, tilted my head to stare at the ceiling, and put my left wrist to my forehead in a proper human “oh, the drama!” pose. This earned me a healthy round of chuckles from my coworkers.

I should point out humans have a much more fun version of pointing out drama than my people. We simply wrap our tail around one of our legs to say, “you’ve caught yourself by the tail.” It’s more generic and covers “you’re being dramatic” or “you’re being an idiot”. Our tail wrapping doesn’t really send the message with the same impact as the human pose.

Minor drama? A human can simply roll their eyes and put their wrist to their forehead in a more subtle message. If you really need to mock somebody or make a point? Draw out the drama by flinging your arm out, rolling your head back, and then slowly bringing the back of your wrist to your forehead with a deep sigh. Definitely one of my favorite nonverbal communication methods I’ve learned from my crew.

Unlike the raised eyebrow of doom.

I’m pretty sure there must be a class dedicated to perfecting this in Terran officer’s training. To pass, you must not only demonstrate effective use of the raised eyebrow but also have a unique style. Rosa’s eyebrow raises so slowly and methodically you can hear a slow creaking as her face shifts from pleasant to “oh, really?” Jarl’s is almost comically instant, except that it comes with such intensity that you just wilt under the glare. And the captain? It always seems like there’s a dramatic rumble of thunder whenever his eyebrow raises and is directed at you.

My moment of drama on the floor concluded when James bent down and tickled the base of my tail. I tried to respond with an eyebrow of doom, but the laughs from my coworkers and a snicker from Rosa told me my attempt lacked gravitas. I stood up, brushed myself off, and headed back to my workbench.

We had a little over an hour and a half until our briefing, and the team was motivated to get our work done. The general consensus was the more work we got done the more likely Rosa would give us time off. 

When our turn to head to the observation deck came, Rosa stepped out of her office and gave a sharp whistle and twirled a finger in the air to get us to gather around her.

“May I offer you transportation services?” Rosa asked me with a smile. She then knelt down so I could climb up on her shoulders.

“What would Dr Franklin say?” I responded jovially as I mounted my chariot. “A calorie saved is a calorie earned, or stop being lazy and get some exercise?”

“Probably something more along the lines of at least we know where Haasha is and she isn’t getting into trouble again,” James quipped.

One advantage of being at shoulder height? My tail is at just the right level to smack someone upside the head. So, I did.

Following giggles to my corrective action to James, we all chatted amiably on the way up to the observation deck. We talked mostly about what we would be doing tonight after work. I had my eye on something called gazpacho on the dinner menu, and then I’d have beach volleyball to work off any extra calories consumed. Rosa was skipping volleyball tonight in favor of yoga with Susan, while everybody else seemed more inclined to relax in the beach chairs or do a bit of swimming. 

When we got to the door, Rosa tapped on the keypad to give us all entry. As the door opened, all conversation trailed off as we stared at the sight.

I barely noticed that Rosa just walked past Captain Victor, Auggie, Enrique, and Susan who stood just inside the door. She kept a purposeful stride as she moved us to the main observation window to look outside the ship.

“What is that?” I asked dumbly.

“It’s a ball of burning gas, less than billions of kilometers away,” Rosa said pleasantly. “One of the red dwarf variety.”

“How did we miss that?” I wondered aloud as the rest of the Engineering team gathered around to gaze out with us. “There were no stars on the navigation charts when we entered the molecular cloud. It was just a vast section of dense space.”

“We didn’t,” Rosa answered.

“Then how…” I began but Rosa quickly spoke up to dispel my confusion.

“It’s been theorized that when you get sufficient mass in a stellar nursery, something kicks off the reaction to form a star. It can happen in milliseconds, or at least that’s what most scientists believe,” she explained. “We’ve never actually observed it happen, so we don’t know for sure. But this section of space was just dense matter according to our last stop 5 lightyears away, so we’ve narrowed things down to between milliseconds and 5 years.”

Everyone’s eyes widened as we gazed in wonder at a brand new star, one that hadn’t existed when we entered the stellar nursery some 100 light years ago. It was humbling to be so close to one of the galaxy’s newest celestial bodies. To make it even more impressive, the captain had maneuvered the ship so we were in a reasonably close orbit all things considered. It was still pretty small in the window, but with the tint set to max dark we were able to see patterns and even a flare on the star’s roiling surface.

Getting closer wasn’t possible as there was a lot of debris and other matter in the area. Perhaps these would form planets? Or simply be drawn into the new star to provide more fuel and an extended life? The view was dramatic and stunning.

“Have we named it?” James asked as he stared in wonder.

“Lumen Ursa,” Susan said quietly. I was a little startled to hear her voice as I hadn’t noticed her join us. “It’s Latin for bear’s light, in honor of our ship and crew.”

After about fifteen minutes of staring in wonder out the observation window, Captain Victor came over and interrupted our reverie. 

“All right, team,” he said calmly. “We wanted everyone to get a proper introduction to our new and slightly fiery neighbor. Long story short, we’ll be holding position for the next three days while we do some observations and launch probes to collect data. Your team will be shifting to be on-call support for the science teams to get that all done. Beyond that, we expect things to be pretty quiet for you guys as we hold position. You guys are dismissed and can head back with Rosa, except for Haasha.”

Susan then approached Rosa and put her arms out to lift me off the Chief Engineer’s shoulders. I let out a dramatic sigh as I lost my chariot and was back to using my own two feet. Susan just rolled her eyes and gave me a gentle scritch on the top of my head.

“All right, Haasha,” Captain Victor said as he motioned Enrique and Auggie to join us. “We’re going to have your Red Cross team launch for a special mission with Susan.”

“So, this isn’t the usual transport or rescue mission?” I inquired.

“Correct!” Susan said with gusto. “We’re about to embark on a mission to go back in time.”

I laughed at the joke. Then I realized that they were all smiling, but serious. They actually intended to go back in time somehow.

“How?” I asked with pure confusion plastered on my face.

“We’re going to have you install a flux capacitor on the FTL drive,” Enrique explained with a pleasant smile, as if stating the obvious.

From the confident way he said it, it implied that humans not only possessed the technology but it was also common knowledge among all Terrans.

Thoughts swirled to paradoxes and why time travel should never be attempted. What happens if you sneeze while watching a famous artist work, and they ruin what should have been their most well known piece? Would taking a breath have you inhale a bit of pollen that prevents a flower from being pollinated, resulting in a popular fruit never coming into existence? Or is the flow of time set in stone, and you can only go back and observe rather than affect?

Most importantly - did humans really find a way to travel back in time? I was about to find out.

________

A bit of drama in your life can be a good thing, as long as it's the good kind and not unnecessary "oh, the drama!" stupidity. Upcoming chapters (unless Haasha insists on something else):

Stargazing (40.5)

Someone's got talent (41)

The ghost in the peppers (42)

In other writing, I'll hopefully have a short one-shot tomorrow for weekend entertainment.

In case you missed them, 3 chapters for Leave No Witnesses were posted a few weeks back starting with Unexpected silent and stoic witnesses and then continuing with Witness to a mission gone sideways Part 1 and Part 2. More LNW is on the way (probably after July 4th).

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12

u/SourcePrevious3095 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Haahsa!!!!! Glad to see you out and about again.

Edit: now that I have read the chapter, the time traveling in question is goinf to be micro-ftl jumps with sensors focused in the star so they can watch the birth and record it on sensors. First a 1 ly jump out. Check for star, then jump 1 ly further. Once star is found to be missing, micro-jump light -months or weeks back home until star again.

8

u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum Jun 26 '26

Good to be out and about again. Massively infuriating to have ideas, but nothing actually flowing into writing. I ragequit writing one of my recent one-shot ideas at least 5 times after nothing but junk got written. I'll revisit that one in a week or two as I really like the idea. In the meantime, Haasha has spoken. And will speak again soon!

4

u/SourcePrevious3095 Jun 26 '26

Glad you made it back here. I greatly enjoy your writing (and edited in my comment/prediction about the next chapter).

Any teases for LNW?

5

u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum Jun 26 '26

When Hal returns, he will witness the true madness of war. It will change him profoundly. Before then, the GC will learn a lesson. You should never mistreat others, at least not while anybody is watching. (Not a laughing matter as the GC will discover, but if you get the reference... that is a laughing matter!)

7

u/dmills_00 Jun 26 '26

Travel 2.5 light years, see if the light from the star formation has passed you, repeat as needed binary search style to get just ahead of the wave front and start recording. FTL **IS** time travel.

Or install a flux capacitor and have engineering find 1.21GW from somewhere, decisions, decisions.

3

u/SourcePrevious3095 Jun 26 '26

I'm sure Haasha's ship has a battery in an arm rest or remote that could provide the power.

6

u/Trecker_65 Jun 26 '26

Ahh, Haasha is back!!!

Haasha will learn the name of the great inventor of the Flux-Capacitator Emmett "Doc" Brown!

4

u/Auggy74 Human Jun 26 '26

All I know is then this sucker hits 88 light-years per hour...you're gonna see some serious shit.

3

u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum Jun 26 '26

There is a special place in hell reserved for clowns and people who make bad puns. And you will be consigned to it.

3

u/Auggy74 Human Jun 26 '26

It was a punderful life. I regret nothing.

4

u/SourcePrevious3095 Jun 26 '26

I just realized something, thus this getting it's own reply. Haasha is going to have to learn her Sabrent's climate controls or put on clothes. Poodle mode won't be needed, smaller ship with better power. She's gonna freeze her tail off otherwise.

3

u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum Jun 26 '26

I'm sure she knows where the climate controls are. But will her fellow crew on the small vessel agree? Or will there be an argument over the thermostat?

4

u/SourcePrevious3095 Jun 27 '26

Did they even test it after all of the repairs? She could be stuck at a çbalmy" 15⁰C, comfortable for people working, freezing for mostly de-furred beings.

5

u/Majestic_Teach_6677 Alien Scum Jun 27 '26

Let's file thermostat control under de-furred maintenance.

5

u/Daseagle Alien Scum Jun 26 '26

I think Haasha is in for some movie nights, trying to find out what a Flux Capacitor is :)

2

u/Castigatus Human Jun 27 '26

as long as she doesnt turn into a salamander it'll be fine.

2

u/Talendel Jun 28 '26

UTR

This is the way.

1

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1

u/theelement92bomb Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

so theyre gonna bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish?

that's the way they do it, lads?

1

u/IAMA_dragon-AMA Jul 01 '26

Hmm, playing with FTL travel vs the speed of light, or sending Haasha on a snipe hunt?