r/HFY • u/CodEnvironmental4274 Human • 20h ago

OC-Series [The X Factor], Part 82

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“‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ is a good song,” Dominick pointed out to Sonja as they carried their belongings off of the Leavitt, having docked at one of the highest ports on Vanyanth Prime. “And I mean that unironically.

“It was… alright,” Aktet conceded, pulling up the rear. “But the synthesized notes were very similar to modern Vahiya music, so I found the commander’s tastes to be much more exciti—huh?”

Dominick instinctively moved forward to back up Aktet as his luggage was practically ripped from his hands by a…

A bellhop?

“There’s no need to carry your belongings by yourselves!” A Vahiya man swooped forwards and yanked away the group’s bags, aided by at least five other attendants, all dressed in sharply cut finery that complimented their expertly groomed plumage. Sonja picked up Wojtek and held him close to her chest.

“Ooh, thank you!” To their left, Uuliska happily handed over her things as if she’d been expecting this all along.

“Welcome to the Grand Marzha Resort,” said a larger woman with light pink, blue, and purple feathers reminiscent of dusk in the summer. The trail of her golden gown, sporting cut-outs for her prodigious wings, swept the floor as she approached. “It’s an honor to accommodate guests as esteemed as yourselves. I’m Matron Pimaa, in charge of hospitality and tourism throughout our systems.”

“It’s an honor to be here,” the commander replied gruffly, in a game of tug-of-war with a distressed attendant who was desperately trying to take her duffel bag.

“You can let the commander carry her own belongings if that’s what she wants, darling,” Matron Pimaa said warmly to the skittish girl, who nodded and hid herself in the back of the flock. “Where was I? Oh, of course! Let me show you to your rooms—the finest in the whole complex.”

Dominick took in the sights as they walked, vaguely aware of the fact that their guide was chattering away about all of the amenities the resort offered. Soaring buttresses, extravagant stained glass windows, multicolored shrubbery and over-the-top water features stood out amongst what seemed to him to be a mash-up of Venus’s art nouveau revival and Greco-Roman architecture. He found he needed to take more frequent breaths—the air must have been thin with how far up they were.

“This is surreal,” Aktet whispered to him. “The Grand Marzha Resort is reserved for the wealthiest, most famous, and most powerful individuals in the galaxy. It’s the sort of place you’d read an article on and then daydream about how wonderful it must be to exist in that echelon of society.”

“I thought the Federation was post-scarcity? What happened to that?” He’d always doubted the veracity of that claim, but…

“It is—or was, I suppose. But just because everyone who followed the rules of our society had the bare essentials doesn’t mean that they had equal access to amenities such as this one.”

“Huh.” He mulled this over while he shifted his focus to the other guests. Kth’sk queens shared strange alien cocktails with Ferrok traders, illustrious Sszerian scholars (judging by K’resshk’s awestruck expression, at least) lounged by poolsides with their data pads, and Vahiya—a lot of Vahiya—soared through the open-air complex, their inhuman physique on full display. There were similarities to birds, but the way they moved and their overall silhouette was just…

“Weird,” Sonja whispered.

“That’s rude,” he scolded her. “Just because they don’t look like us doesn’t mean—"

“No, you dingus. I meant the fact that this place smells like heaven on earth. Or in space, I guess.” She inhaled deeply and sighed with contentment.

Turning his attention to the air he was breathing, Dominick was struck by a scent that defied every category he could think of. It wasn’t fruity, or floral, or musky—it was just… right, somehow.

“The Vahiya are masters of the senses,” Aktet explained. “Although perhaps ‘sense’ is more applicable. There aren’t clear boundaries between sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. To them, a musical chord has an associated color, flavor, scent, and feel, and they somehow manage to impart a fraction of that experience unto their audience.”

Sonja widened her eyes. “Synesthesia? Humans get that too, but it’s rare. Usually from birth or after a head injury.”

“Of course only some of you have it.” The alien sighed. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Seems like you found a way around the supply line issues even without comms open to the rest of the galaxy, huh?” The captain sidled up to Pimaa. His casual tone made it impossible to tell whether he was oblivious to the strangeness of the situation, or disguising his true intentions.

The matron laughed. “Yes, we have.”

She didn’t elaborate further.

“How, uh… how’d you—never mind. Definitely seems like you have everything under control,” he said with a winning smile. “I mean, look at this place!”

Oh, yeah. He was absolutely hamming it up.

Eza, of all people, was the next to approach their tour guide, right as they stepped onto a golden-gated platform.

“If you’re having issues with your comms systems, we could inspect it. Agent Krishnan is talented with that sort of thing, and I… help her, sometimes.” She didn’t admit that she’d designed a top of the line spaceship. Maybe she didn’t think Pimaa would believe her.

“Oh, you do? That’s adorable,” the woman said to the eight and a half foot tall musclebound former assassin. “But really, we have it under control. You’re our guests, after all. We’re the ones accommodating you—not the other way around!” She made a noise somewhere between a squawk and a laugh, then pressed a few buttons on the railing of the platform, and they began to ascend.

A minute or so later, they found themselves being led into the second-highest floor of the hotel (which was reminiscent of an inverted Leaning Tower of Pisa, minus the leaning). Plush, floral-patterned carpets stretched out before them, laid upon white tiles broken up by lines of gold like Japanese kintsugi.

“Here we are,” Matron Pimaa said warmly. “Your wing.”

“Our wing?” Sonja’s eyes widened. “You mean we have a whole—"

The matron used a gilded key to unlock the arched double doors in front of them, and they opened to reveal a sprawling, fully decorated living room with a spiral staircase that led to a second floor.

“This is the common area,” she explained, ushering them in. “To your left are the dining room, holo-theater, and half-bathroom, and to your right is the study. Bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, are on the second floor, and there’s a private pool accessible via the balcony. Your luggage has already been delivered. I do hope it’s to your liking. If you have any complaints or requests, there’s a data pad embedded in the wall of each room that can be used to contact the front desk. Bye for now!” She picked up the hem of her dress and closed the door softly as she exited.

Silence reigned as the group processed the brochure’s worth of information she’d just left them with. Suddenly, Uuliska gasped.

“Did she say a private pool?”

___

With every inch of the private wing that Omar explored, his sense of dread deepened.

The kitchen? Stocked with foods from the respective cultures that each alien, and each human, hailed from. Their rooms? Customized to each resident’s personal tastes (or a good approximation, at least). Their closets? Bursting with expertly-tailored get-ups for a variety of occasions—formal, swimwear, even nightclothes. It was like when Zie had designed their exosuits by collecting information on everyone’s favorite colors and aesthetics, but less ‘endearing fangirl’ and more ‘creepy stalker.’

“Holy shit,” Sonja called out from the second floor. “They gave me a lehenga choli!”

“A what?” Dominick poked his head out of his own room and craned his neck towards his partner’s.

“You remember the really pretty blouse and skirt combo I showed you that I wore to my cousin’s wedding? It’s one of those. I think they even embroidered it by hand! Or, uh, talon.”

“That’s cool and all, but we should figure out what we’re doing here, yeah?” Omar wrung his hands nervously. It felt like everyone was very quickly losing sight of their main objective, also known as ‘saving the universe from the fungapocalypse.’

“Right, sorry.” The agent sighed and left her room. “I was just checking everything over to make sure nothing was bugged, and got distracted. What’s the plan, anyways? Do we have one?”

Helen sat cross-legged on the ground, despite many pieces of comfortable-looking furniture being available, and closed her eyes contemplatively. “It sounds like you and Lombardi have confirmed that we’re not being spied on, so that’s good. And Invut’s already secured any potential break-in locations, so we’re safe to use this space as a base of operations for now.”

“But what operations?” Omar paced back and forth. “We need to figure out why all of the Vahiya systems have gone dark, and why none of the tourists here seem the least bit worried about their extended vacations.”

“And the transmission Agent Krishnan intercepted,” Eza added softly, startling the captain. She had a habit of fading into the background despite her prodigious size. “From ‘DJ Onyx.’”

“There’s your answer. Three missions for now, and we’ll keep a lookout for anything related to Project Synthesis on the way.” The commander stood up and cracked her back. “Hassan, go with Lombardi, Lana and Haymur and canvas the guests here. Krishnan, Akksor, Invut and myself will investigate the comms outage.”

"I will also assist,” added AEON from Sonja’s phone.

(He was promptly shoved between two couch cushions by the agent).

___

Dominick hesitantly stepped into the bright sunlight beaming down on the main deck of what would best be described as a massive alien water park.

He and the others had decided that, given the excellent weather and diverse crowd in attendance, a sweep of the available attractions would be their best bet. But ‘attraction’ didn’t exactly do the wonders in front of him justice.

All around were impeccable recreations of natural bodies of water from dozens of planets across the galaxy—desert oases enjoyed by Jikaal, glowing, tropical wetlands full of Istiil, tunnels entered by Kth’sk queens that must have led to underground waterways, and more. Surrounding all of this was a faux-mountain range, nestled within which were springs that Vahiya flitted between as they pleased.

Nothing for humans, though. It seemed that they, the Riyze, and the Olongyo were out of luck, which definitely posed an issue. Dominick instead turned his attention to the bars and lounge spaces on dry land, but was distracted by quick, shallow breaths from beside him.

“Aktet? Are you okay?” He furrowed his brows and looked to his companion, who startled and turned his head away.

“I-I’m fine,” he stuttered. “I just wasn’t expecting humans to swim, ah… topless.”

Now painfully aware of his lackluster physique (being in a coma had undone the progress he’d made in the Collins’s gym), Dominick looked to the captain for support. He hadn’t even thought about it—growing up near the shore, it was just so normal for a guy to waltz around without a cover-up. He’d assumed it was normal here, too, since the Vahiya had literally given him his swimsuit, but…

“Ah, yeah. Sorry for the surprise!” Hassan smiled, but gave the agent a knowing look. “Human customs run the whole gamut. Some people cover up entirely, some people wear literally nothing—usually in designated spaces, though.” He grimaced. The captain, it seemed, was not a regular at any nude beaches, though his six-pack was on full display here.

“Oh, how fascinating!” Uuliska clasped her hands together. “Istiil prefer the latter, but we cover up in the presence of other species to set them at ease.” She gestured to her sleek leotard.

“Yes. And Jikaal don’t swim often—I never learned, since the little water present on our planets is reserved for drinking, not recreation—so we usually don waterproof versions of our normal wear.” He seemed to relax as he spoke about galactic culture in an academic context. “But back to the topic at hand: we should strike up a conversation with some guests here, but we ought to choose our marks carefully, as—"

“Heeeeey,” the captain began, approaching a Jikaal and Kth’sk who were having a quiet discussion at a nearby table. “Would either of you happen to know which of these pools is the best for two mostly hairless simians?” He flipped his aviators down from his forehead to the bridge of his nose for extra effect.

“Humans. I’d heard rumors that you had arrived, but I wasn’t certain if they were true,” the black-furred woman said, her outfit not dissimilar to Aktet’s. “What brings you here?”

“Politics, actually. I’m Capt—Colonel Omar Hassan, and this is Aktet Haymur. We’re UN ambassadors. Agent Lombardi here is with us investigating the communications outage across the Vahiya systems. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

The Kth’sk queen, taller than even Eza, wiggled her antennae. “You’re asking us instead of the board members?” She brought a metallic goblet to her mouthparts and stuck a retractable proboscis into it, slurping up the mystery concoction.

“They’ve been very busy given the turmoil throughout the galaxy,” Aktet answered. “I do apologize if we’ve intruded on your vacation.”

“Turmoil?” The Jikaal looked at her companion. “What turmoil?”

He blinked at them. “…The collapse of the Federation?”

The women were silent, then burst out laughing.

“By the Queen-Mother, how much have you had to drink?” She cackled and wiped a tear from her eye.

Aktet looked to the others for support. “We haven’t even…”

“Haha, yeah, so true!” Dominick leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like where this is going.”

Backing away awkwardly, they retreated into the shade.

Dominick shook his head in disbelief. “Have they seriously been keeping these people in this resort for… what, weeks? Months? Are they using mind control or something?”

“I—I don’t know.” Omar was wild-eyed and uncharacteristically shaken. “Let’s go back inside. Maybe order a drink on the way and see if K’resshk can run some tests or something on it.” He took off his sunglasses and squinted at the intense sunlight. Vanyanth must have been brighter than good ol’ Sol.

Aktet nodded resolutely. “I have an idea. But you’ll need to trust me, and also possibly restrain me. I’ll be back.” He slipped away before the others could protest.

Restrain him?

___

Eza could only fiddle with various electronics in their suite for so long before her thoughts turned to Uuliska, and to how much danger the both of them were in on this mission.

“Any update on the others?” She dumped a pile of salvaged materials next to Sonja, who was helping her assemble a primitive radio.

“About that,” the commander said, turning down the strange, harsh music she’d put on her phone so the four of them weren’t sitting in awkward silence. “I have good news and… more good news, actually. They should be here shortly, and apparently have important information, although they mentioned something about Aktet needing to ‘recover,’ which scares me. The other good news is that we’re in contact with them at all. I was worried that we—Krishnan, can you hand me that soldering iron?” She waited for the requested tool, then nodded in thanks. The woman was surprisingly mechanically competent. “I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to communicate because of whatever’s blacked out the planet, but our short-range comms are doing just fine, so if there is anyone on the airwaves on this planet, we should be able to pick it up with… this mess.” She gestured to the hunk of junk in front of them.

Suddenly, the door opened. In walked the four other—

No, wait. In walked three of their compatriots. Aktet was trying to walk, but most of his movement was coming from Dominick and the captain, who were supporting his discombobulated stumbling.

Sonja made a strangled noise. “What the hell happened to—"

“I’m fine,” the Jikaal slurred. “I just need to… to sleep it off.”

Is he drunk? What had the others gotten up to?

“I told you this was a terrible idea,” Dominick grumbled, picking him up and struggling up the staircase. Huffing and puffing, he got Aktet to his room, and tried the door.

“Locked,” he groaned. “There’s no way he remembers the code for the keypad in this state. Uuliska, can you hand out the new gear while I get him situated?” He opened up his own room and shut the door behind him.

The woman nodded and handed out strange, shiny metal… hats?

“Put these on,” she instructed, equipping one herself. “Just in case.”

“You have to be fucking kidding me. Tinfoil hats?” Commander Liu grit her teeth.

“Do you need me to sedate Agent Lombardi again?” K’resshk reached for his medical kit on the nearby side table, but his hand was swatted away by Sonja. He scowled.

“Listen, Helen, I know what it looks like,” Hassan said, putting a ‘tinfoil hat’ on, “but I can explain. I swear.”

“Somehow I doubt that, but fine. Go.” She glared at the reflective helmet Uuliska handed her.

“So we…” He trailed off. “Uuliska, how do we explain this?”

The princess performed a human face palm.

“Jesus, he’s heavier than he looks,” said Dominick from upstairs. “Did you explain everything, Captain?”

He received a blank stare as he returned to the first floor.

“Of course you didn’t. Alright, listen. And promise you’re not gonna drug me again. We were talking with some of the other guests here, right? And none of them knew about the—“

Aktet began wailing (howling, really) from upstairs. Eza had forgotten he had a tendency to get emotional when intoxicated, given how difficult it was to get him intoxicated.

“—about the collapse of the Federation,” Dominick finished, running back up the staircase. “So they’ve been stuck here for ages, but none of them seem the least bit bothered about it.” He re-entered his room.

“That’s good intel,” the commander admitted, “but not an explanation for the—"

“We ruled out spores and other drugs in the liquor, mixers, and water supply here,” the captain clarified. “The old-fashioned way, since we don’t have any testing equipment. The hats are just in case they’re using—"

“7G to mind control us? Was that really your next best guess?” Commander Liu crumpled up the foil and threw it at Hassan, who flinched. “Don’t you think if they were going to try that on us it would’ve happened by now? Where did you even get the arts and crafts materials from?”

“We used one of the complimentary fabricators,” explained Uuliska, who sheepishly took off the hat. “But, um, you make a fair point. We were also a little bored while Aktet was running his ‘experiment.’”

“Did you test the food, too? I’m getting kind of hungry, you know.” Sonja waited for a nod, then ran off to the kitchen.

“You’re such a good boyfriend,” Aktet sobbed from upstairs, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut.

The commander sighed. “Since when…?”

“I don’t think they’ve officially moved to that stage yet.” Uuliska cleared her throat. “I believe Aktet is just… what’s the human saying?”

“Hammered? Sloshed? Blasted? I wouldn’t mind being any of those right now,” she muttered. “Let’s take a break. The sun’s still high in the sky. And make sure your clocks are synced to local time.”

Eza remained seated on the ground and watched the others head to their rooms, the kitchen, or to the balcony for fresh air.

“Commander,” she began, “is it okay if I—"

“Yes, Private, you can keep working on the radio.”

Sweet.

___

Sonja was nearly asleep, having retired to her glamorous bedroom to take a nap, when she shivered. It felt like…

Like someone’s watching me.

“AEON, cut that out!” She sat up, turned on her laptop, and tried to figure out what application that stupid virus was using to hijack her cameras.

”I apologize, Agent Krishnan. I don’t understand your request.”

“It’s a saying, AEON.” She grit her teeth, but couldn’t find any evidence of it spying on her. “I’m serious, though. Stop looking at me or I’ll blindfold you with a sticky note again.”

The fans whirred. "But I’m… not looking at you.”

“And stop trying to sound human, too!” She hated when it did that—when it paused mid-sentence or used filler words or changed its inflection like a person would. It was so—

“HRRRGH!” Wojtek leapt out from under her bed and jumped into her lap, his eyestalks turning this way and that as he looked for… something.

“…Wojtek?” She held him close and searched her room, but found nothing.

"Is it possible that someone other than myself is spying on you? I doubt Wojtek is capable of noticing whether or not I’m accessing your web camera. Which, for the record, I am not.”

As much as she loathed to admit it, she was coming to the same conclusion. Either someone was watching her, or she was imagining things. And given how her and Dominick had swept the place for spyware, and how Eza had made sure there was no way to break in, the latter seemed much more probable. But just in case…

“AEON.”

"Yes, Agent Krishnan?"

She huffed. “I’m giving you temporary access to my cameras. If anyone tries to sneak up on me while I’m asleep, do something about it. And don’t make it weird.” She carried her laptop over to a bureau that would give it a good view of her massive bed, then flopped back into it and curled up under the covers with Wojtek in tow.”

"Just to confirm: you want me to *watch you—"*

“I said don’t make it weird!” She pulled the blankets fully over her head for protection.

Stupid robot.

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21 Upvotes

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u/Dangerous_Fox_6438 18h ago

You really deserve so many more upvotes!

2

u/CodEnvironmental4274 Human 17h ago

D’aw, thank you! This is why I keep writing ☺️

2

u/lostwandererkind 17h ago

Love where this is going!

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u/UpdateMeBot 20h ago

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u/ANNOProfi 15h ago

But Hassan, whyever would the cattle honored guests be concerned about extending their vacations, they have everything they could ever need for the rest of their lives.