This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Majestic_Teach_6677 on 2025-05-16 11:53:03+00:00.

Haasha’s quiet last day at home, this is the last chapter in her introduction which started in Crew Application Accepted.

I hope you enjoy what’s coming next. There will be hot sauce, Terran marines, and more. But first, she’ll need to get herself out of hot water with the captain in Crew Disciplinary Report (Haasha).

“Are you sure?” Susan said as she looked at the small hovercar skeptically.

“Yes,” I said with just a smidge of irritation.

“Really sure?” she asked with some insistence. “I’m not sure I’ll fit in this thing, much less both of us and your stuff.”

“All I’ve got left is my spacer gear and one small crate of personal effects,” I explained.

“That’s not a lot of stuff. So, are you truly a spacer or a fugitive from justice?”

“Does fugitive from my parents count? They want me to be an analyst of some sort, not a spacer,” I responded and pulled open the driver door for the hovercar we just rented. It was small, with a front bench that would barely fit both of us and a cargo area behind that wasn’t much larger than the seating area. As I started to climb in, Susan approached the passenger side and began some sort of tune.

“Bum bum bum ba da bum bum buuumm,” she said while bouncing her shoulders.

“What are you singing?”

“Clown car theme,” she responded with a bright smile. “It’s required if we’re going to be piling into something this small.”

“What’s a clown?”

“Frightening. They’re also some of the happiest, saddest, or silliest people you’ll ever meet.”

When she didn’t offer any further explanation and just placed the two cleaning bots from the ship in the cargo space, I started up the hovercar and we headed over to my old apartment.

We had plenty of time until the landlord’s representative showed up to inspect the place, so Susan got a good look at my soon to be former home. She promptly declared it cramped when we got through the door, and her opinion dropped off a cliff from there. My implant informed me that the roughly square studio apartment was about 5 meters on each side, or close to 16ft by 16ft. It still hurt my brain that humans used two different measuring scales and as an engineering assistant I would be expected to know both.

And why was one called standard when it wasn’t standard because metric was overall more popular? I was dreading Rosa asking for a standard wrench and having to guess if she meant human standard that isn’t really “standard” or galactic standard. I’ll have to ask how the measuring fiasco came about, but the current topic of discussion was my cramped apartment.

In short, because I’m short this place was cozy and had vaulted ceilings. We compared notes about housing while in school and confirmed the universal truth that all students gravitate towards the same sort of place - cheap. Susan even admitted my apartment was a step above something she called a dorm room. Strangely, she spoke negatively about dorm rooms but didn’t think the tight quarters on a spacefaring vessel were bad despite very similar descriptions.

The cleaning bots did their thing and we packed up all my stuff into the ‘clown car’. Now we just needed to wait for the landlord’s representative. I debated tossing on some coveralls as it was cooling off outside, but in the end just decided to stick with walking around in the fur to feel the breeze of my home one last time.

The landlord’s agent arrived, and that’s when things took a wrong turn.

“Oh, my. The state of this place is disgraceful. We’ll need to get it professionally cleaned, so that’ll come out of your security deposit,” the agent said with an angry wave of a tentacle. “And the scratches on the wall over here by the bed? Along with other blemishes I can plainly see? We’ll have to repaint the place at your cost. Not to mention the broken tiles in the refresher! From what I can see, we’ll need to keep your security deposit, and it’ll be another 750 credits on top to pay for all the repairs.”

Susan pulled out her datapad immediately and made a call. “Hey Auggie! What law firm is handling things for us here?”

The agent turned an eyestalk in Susan’s direction.

“Oh, don’t get your tentacles in a bunch! I’ll be getting you in touch with Haasha’s legal representative in just a moment,” Susan said to the agent with a pleasant smile. “What’s that again? Br’chek and Stern?” There was a ding on her datapad. “Got it! Thanks.”

She then turned and glared into the eyestalk that had swiveled in her direction. “Word of warning for the landlord. Haasha is crew on the TEV Ursa Minor. We have lawyers on retainer. Do you?”

It turns out that scumbag landlords are a universal constant, and scumbag landlords don’t like it when lawyers get involved. When Susan transferred the legal firm info to the agent, the tone changed and my entire security deposit minus 300 credits for repairs was refunded. They still overcharged for the repairs, but at least it wasn’t enough to be worth arguing over.

We stepped outside and I looked back at the dingy old apartment building. I wouldn’t miss it. After we watched the landlord’s agent leave, I looked up at Susan and gave her a hug. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

Susan looked a bit guilty. “Well… to be honest? We don’t have any legal representation on this planet. Auggie might have just sent the contact info for the first decent firm he found listed on the local InfoNet. I just hoped they were your run of the mill idiots who didn’t want to end up in court. We would have been screwed if they actually called the firm.”

“Are there human games of chance that require bluffing?”

“Yes! Poker is one.”

“Remind me to not play that against you,” I said with a smirk.

“But it’s fun to play strip poke…” Susan stopped herself and looked me over with a sigh. “Nevermind. We should think about heading back to the ship.”

I looked back at the apartment building one last time. “You know, for all that you were critical of how small this place is, the spare quarters you let me use last night were significantly more cramped. And that was designed for a human. Do I even want to know what you’ve got planned for me on the ship?"

Susan smiled back and joked, “I’ve talked to Jarl. He has a cargo box you should fit into nicely.” I groaned and she continued. “Ask politely, and he might even pull out the forklift to give you top shelf accommodations!”

That earned her an even deeper groan.

We walked over to the hovercar and once again Susan insisted on singing the ‘clown car theme’ as she got in. When I asked for more clarification on the whole clown thing, she said we’d watch an old vid tonight called “It” and I’d understand completely.

This planet offers very little in the way of galactic wonders, but it has a minor one that happened to be a quick detour on the way back to the ship. Knowing that Susan was a scientist, I figured she might appreciate it, and I wanted one last visit at a favorite haunt of mine before leaving home. Susan seemed excited by the idea of seeing one of my favorite places before we shipped out and agreed to the detour.

After a short trip, we parked the hovercar and approached a worn and unassuming set of doors. The sign above the door was in centuries old Alvarik script and had never been updated to Galactic Common leaving Susan unable to read it. When Susan asked where we were, I gave a cryptic, “You’ll see.” This got a dramatic eyeroll from Susan, but no further questions.

The doors opened to a long winding corridor heading down with low lighting just strong enough to see but dim enough that your eyes would adjust before reaching the main event. At the end of the corridor was a small doorway that led out onto a small circular platform just big enough for three or four people within a dark cavern. The center of the platform held a dimly glowing button and I guided Susan over to it. I told her to press the button when she was ready. While she looked out into the darkness I looked up to watch her face.

There was a gentle click as Susan pressed the button and the lights slowly turned on. I saw the look of shock on her face turn to excited awe as she slowly looked around.

Approximately 10m high, almost 15m wide, and a roughly egg shaped, we were inside the largest known amethyst geode in the galaxy. Geologists weren’t exactly sure how it formed, and the quarrying and building above the geode meant it would be unlikely anyone would know for sure. It might not have been the most impressive wonder in the galaxy but it was beautiful and Susan was very likely the first human in the galaxy to see it. Susan knelt down next to me, hugged me close with her head on my shoulder, and the two of us just looked around at the natural beauty enjoying a quiet moment of peace and wonder.

I savored the moment of Susan’s discovery, hoping it would be the first of many I would see from my new human crew. I also made a wish they would be able to see such looks of wonder on my face as they showed me new things, or we discovered something new together.

As the timer ran out and the lights dimmed, I said a silent goodbye to my first galactic wonder and left holding onto dreams to find many more with Susan and my new crew.