Remake and Remodel (Haasha 27)

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“I need a makeover,” I grumbled as I looked at the state of my fur. You’d think after getting massaged for hours the previous evening, I’d be in top shape. The problem was who was doing the massaging and why.

The previous evening had been two important lessons in humanity.

First was specific to Skylar, the Terran Marine and member of security at the Terran Embassy. She should never be trusted on any matter that concerns children. What she assured me would be a fantastic Halloween trick devolved quickly into a nightmare with me being yelled at by the Terran Ambassador. It turns out putting fake blood on your mouth and hands to scare young human children isn’t a good idea no matter how much a human assures you it’ll be a fun trick that everyone will find funny.

Second is a more general lesson on young human children and sapients with fur. To try to prevent any need for long term therapy for the kids after I scared the stars out of them, the Ambassador took Skylar’s advice. I found myself in a pair of human underwear called tighty-whities with my tail sticking through a hole they cut in the back. Did I not already mention that Skylar should not be trusted on any matters related to children?

Sure, the kids were a little more relaxed when I showed up in the silly outfit. I wasn’t once I was introduced to the human concept called weggies. Let’s just say that young human children in the age range of 3 to 6 Terran years can be a little grabby in uncomfortable ways. Even after you explain to go with the grain of the fur and not grab the fur or underwear, throughout the evening there were more than a few painful reminders that children often have slow learning curves. Or forget simple instructions.

You’d think the answer is simple. Just take off the underpants and go bare fur like I usually do. This failed spectacularly as all the kids informed me it was naughty and wrong to take off my underpants. If I did, I’d be sent to my room with no desert. Or put in the time out corner. One raised eyebrow from the Terran Ambassador made it clear I would deal with the poking, prodding, and occasional weggies from the young humans for as long as they wanted.

Human adults are compelled by the power of fur. But when a human child’s hand touches soft fur? The bond is stronger than super glue. Which probably explains why I’m currently missing a few patches of fur, and also the incident at the end of kids' party.

I was supposed to get bloodied back up and head to the adult Halloween party where I was assured my frightful visage would be a hit. That utterly failed when one particularly precocious child named Rosy grabbed my leg and would not let go. 

“Rosy, we have to let Haasha go home,” her mom tried to explain desperately.

“No!” an unbelievably powerful little voice bellowed out. “Haasah home with me. Slumber party!”

I was then introduced to the power of a human child’s temper tantrum, including kicking and screaming that involved my shins. I also discovered that the Terran Ambassador wasn’t joking about needing pry bars to get human children away from someone with fur. Except she failed to account for situations where even a pry bar wouldn’t get a human child off my leg.

“Can you help us out? Just promise you’ll come home with us, and we’ll get you out of spending the night,” Rosy’s dad whispered to me and I nodded in agreement.

At that point, my thoughts were locked to a single thought, ‘Behold the power of little lungs, and I’ll agree to anything that will make it stop.’

This did mean, however, I had to go home and to bed with a very-attached-and-wouldn’t-let me-go-and-made-daddy-brush-her-teeth-so-she-didn’t-have-to-let-me-go little girl. I was also put to bed with Rosy, who snuggled in and wouldn’t let me leave. Her mom had just mouthed “Trust us” to me when we were put to bed.

30 minutes later, Rosy’s dad came quietly into the room and checked to see if she was asleep. 

“We’ll tell her you were like Cinderella and after midnight you turned into a stuffie,” Rosy’s dad whispered as I was carefully exchanged in bed with a stuffed version of myself. A shockingly accurate stuffed version of myself, complete with tighty-whities underwear that was stitched into the stuffed reproduction and non-removable. We then left the room to allow Rosy to sleep with the me that is not really me.

“Thank goodness for automated fab shops being open at all hours,” Rosy’s mom had commented once we got out to the living room. “I don’t like rewarding bad behaviour, but once Rosy gets her little mind locked on something she won’t let it go. At least you’re more palatable than Sammy the Singing Salamander. The past year has truly been hell thanks to that slimy little shit.”

And with that, they called Erika to bring me back for the adult Halloween party and pulled out tubes of fake blood to get me back in an appropriately festive appearance. For the record, parents with little kids know how to make better messes than humans without children like Skylar. Fake blood was doused around my mouth and down the entire left side of my face, and then liberally applied to both arms from the hands all the way up to the elbows.

“That’s about what Rosy looked like after she got into a jar of strawberry jam,” was the only explanation I got from the brat’s mother.

Skylar’s effort left me frightening enough to scare the minds of children. Rosy’s parents turned me into a masterpiece of terror that made adults flinch upon first sight of me.

Shortly thereafter, Erika showed up with Takara to escort me to the adult party at the Terran Embassy, both having selected pirate costumes for the evening. Skylar got assigned to work security as punishment while I was free to partake given that I had received enough fur pulling and weggies to make up for my earlier transgression scaring the little kids.

Due to security concerns at the Terran Embassy, I am not allowed to reveal exactly what occurred at the adult Halloween party. Nor am I permitted to speak of what I may or may not have done during the party aside from making it clear that a homicidal looking Py’rapt’ch was definitely one of the favorite costumes of the evening. Most importantly, I have absolutely no idea how an oversized pair of tighty-whities with a tail hole in the rear ended up replacing the Terran flag on the flagpole outside the embassy.

I spent the night in one of the embassy guest rooms, which was quite comfortable aside from the early wake-up for additional training with Mistress Murder Mittens. After grabbing a quick breakfast from the embassy kitchen, I headed up to the third floor to check in with Erika.

She volunteered to help coordinate the ship repairs with me as the trade negotiation she had been working on stalled after pickles, yogurt, and some other Terran products were being reviewed and possibly reclassified as toxic by the Galactic Standards Commission. 

“Got some bad news, Haasha,” she said with a frown as I entered her cubicle.

“The ship isn’t salvageable?” I asked worried that I had gone through hell for nothing.

“Worse,” she said with an incredibly sad look.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense!” I blurted out as I hopped up on her desk to be better able to look her in the eyes.

“You’ll be flying it back to the TEV Ursa Minor in less than a week,” she said quietly while looking down at the floor.

“Really?” I burst out excitedly as I leaped forward to wrap my arms around her in a huge hug. “That’s amazing news! I’m sure everybody on my ship will be excited.”

Erika let out a sniffle as she mumbled into my fur, “We’ll be losing you before we even get to know you well.”

I felt a twinge of pain at those words. I really liked all the people I had met here at the embassy, but in the end I knew my home was in the stars. As much as I would miss everyone here, the humans I hoped would become my family were all on the TEV Ursa Minor. Of course, that didn’t mean you couldn’t have distant family and there was still time to firm up those connections before I left.

“We still have plenty of time to make That Human Bar regret coming up with Mar’ba’qua Fruit Bombs,” I joked. 

“No more fruit bombs for you,” Erika responded with a laugh and a final sniff as she wiped away a tear.

“So how the heck is this possible?” I asked with concern and confusion. As much as it was good news, I didn’t quite understand how a 200 year old ship could get such a quick turnaround back into space.

“According to the shipyard, your flight here proved all the major systems are in good order since you didn’t die along the way,” Erika started to explain as she flipped on her holoprojector to bring up the inspection documents. “They just need to do safety checks which will be easy as we’re pulling out the interior. As for the rest, Sabaric ships are still in production and the interior is fully modular. In a nutshell, everything can be done with off the shelf parts that are in stock. It won’t be cheap, but it will be fast and easy for the shipyard to complete the work.”

“Wow,” I said, still shocked by the news and the reality of the situation.

“Sadly, this only works if you head over to the shipyard in the next hour and get the paint job finalized,” she said with a sad smile and a gentle scritch behind my left ear. “You get over there and take care of that, and I’ll sort through the equipment requests from your ship’s command staff. I’ll meet you at the shipyard this afternoon to get the interior finalized based on what’s actually in stock.”

I gave her a warm hug and took off to get to the nearest monorail station. I chose a window seat so I could gaze out and hopefully see the shipyard. Sadly, because I neglected to check the map I missed seeing the shipyard as I was looking out the wrong side of the train. That minor disappointment did little to dampen my enthusiasm.

When I arrived at the right station, I jumped up and ran to get to the shipyard. There were a few sapients that tossed angry words in my direction and I sighed as I remembered that not all the galaxy appreciates a Py’rapt’ch streaking past in the fur the way humans do.

The shipyard was impressive with the exterior wall rising up over 10 stories tall and extending nearly a kilometer in either direction. Definitely one of the larger operators in this sector, and possibly one equipped to build a custom vessel from scratch. I double checked the location Erika had provided and headed to door 10. Pulling open the door, I entered a surprisingly small office with just one desk. Advertisements on the wall seemed dedicated to salvage and refurbishment.

“Welcome to Shal’zik Shipyard. I am Reconditioning Specialist Na’ho. How may I be of assistance?” the Rodaxian behind the desk said while making a friendly wave of their claw.

 “I’m Haasha and here regarding the Sabaric 951,” I answered excitedly.

“Perfect timing! We took the liberty of pulling the vessel into the pressure washers to prep for paint, and the analysis drones just provided the current paint condition report,” Na’ho said while tapping on his datapad to bring up a 3D model of our ship. “The vessel has no major structural concerns but definitely will require a full primer coat due to age. We received the color codes from the embassy and the Terran Red Cross design, so we simply need you to select the final paint options.”

They then pulled out various paint and primer samples, and we started to get all the options finalized.

“Holy fruits, that one has some intense reflections,” I commented as I looked at one of the paint samples.

“That’s our parabolic metallic flake,” Na’ho explained. “It concentrates light and intensifies reflections, but only at short distances. Cosmetic only for sapients that desire attention at public landing pads. For high-vis safety applications, we typically recommend something like the Starfire flakes.” 

“Really? What do those look like?” I asked as we began to narrow down and select the best options.

I didn’t quite understand the history of the Terran Red Cross beyond a quick explanation from Erika, yet what little I knew made it a perfect match to the mission of the TEV Ursa Minor. Originally, the mission was supposed to have an FTL capable shuttle for supply runs and emergencies. When Earth joined the galactic community a few cycles back, that had been cancelled as all vessels with FTL drives were in high demand to reach out to new neighbors. As a result, the TEV Ursa Minor just got a pair of FTL torpedoes for emergency use. 

My unexpected salvage allowed us to expand the mission back to original parameters with emergency response in addition to exploration. The Sabaric 951 would get a classic Terran Red Cross paint job and the interior would get a compact crew quarters, full emergency medical bay, deep space salvage and repair equipment, and a cargo bay to allow us to ferry supplies to the TEV Ursa Minor and stay in unexplored space longer.

Our new ship was halfway through getting its Ultrabase primer when Erika arrived and we moved on to finalizing the interior refit.

---

A few hours later and many light-years away in First Officer Augustus Jacque’s office…

Auggie was having a good day. A relaxing day. They were docked at the station waiting to pick up one of the diplomatic teams which was due to arrive tomorrow morning. He and Susan were just chatting and enjoying a quiet moment while most of the crew were exploring the station.

While they were talking, both their datapads dinged with an incoming message. Reflexively, they quickly grabbed their datapads as a message that arrives simultaneously for multiple members of command staff is often bad news that requires immediate attention. Luckily, it was just a message from Haasha with the first invoice for repairing the salvaged vessel. Proof of life was always appreciated in regards to their lost crew member, even if that proof of life was currently attached to a pricey invoice.

“Well, the news from Erika at the embassy was encouraging so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to see bills and invoices already arriving,” Auggie commented as he relaxed and put down his datapad.

“True enough, though I wonder what this invoice is for,” Susan said while bringing up the details. “Ultrabase color enhancing primer with Starfire metallic flakes. Pearlescent white paint with high-vis chromatic gloss… Supershimmer red paint for the cross with reflective darkening… 3D Nanoparticle coating? What’s all this stuff?”

“That’s obscure paint options,” Auggie explained while leaning back to relax in his chair. “The reflective darkening thing is especially expensive. When you shine light directly on the paint, it darkens instead of getting lighter like you’d expect. Cool effect, but useless and stupidly expensive. The 3D Nanoparticle coating? Makes the paint easier to clean and last longer, but realistically costs almost as much as a full paint job so not worth doing. Pearlescent paint and metallic flakes make things sparkly, and the high-vis chromatic gloss makes the exterior look wet and extra reflective, almost like the surface of a lake. It also makes any dust or dirt on the ship stand out like a sore thumb, so generally not the best idea to order it unless you’re rich and have a landing bay equipped with an autowash. Why?”

“It’s here in the invoice for the work done to the new ship,” Susan said simply.

“Really?” Auggie asked as he leaned forward.

“Is 100,000 credits for a paint job normal?” Susan asked next.

“No, for a ship that size it shouldn’t be over 30,000 credits inside and out with automated sprayers,” Auggie said as he ran the numbers in his head. “Maybe an extra 5000 if they need to lay down an extra coat of primer, which would be reasonable given how long that ship was sitting. Even with some nasty price gouging it shouldn't be over 40,000 total.”

“Well, take a look at this,” Susan said as she extended her datapad for Auggie to review.

The invoice was indeed nearly 100,000 credits. Every possible extra paint option had been approved using the power of attorney provided by Captain Victor. This included entirely unnecessary cosmetic details such as thin red stripes around the edges of the windows and airlock doors to accent them against the hull. There was even pinstriping on all the internal flight and maintenance control panels. Most irritating? This was not a proposal. This was the final bill and the credits had already been transferred.

“HAAAASHA!” Auggie bellowed out at the top of his lungs.

---

Many light-years away from Auggie’s office in front of a freshly painted Sabaric 951 bearing the Terran Red Cross on its side…

My ears perked up. I felt a disturbance in the universe. But our new ship! It’s so bright and sparkly. And tomorrow, they’ll begin installing all the equipment and updating the rooms.

What in the stars could be wrong? 

________

By the fur, Haasha is getting back on mission! Barring any further visits from Murphy or the effects of his darn Law, she might be returning to the TEV Ursa Minor soon. Is it time to get a fruit smoothie to celebrate? And how many hours will she be spending in Auggie and Captain Victor's offices after this little side trip?

Need a different sort of giggle? Check out A Throne Fit for Royalty.