Anything can be a weapon if you’re reckless enough -- Anon Guest
[AN: For the unlimited version of this, check the collected works of Jackie Chan]
Humans. The aggressive warrior race who will go to any extreme to protect and enrich their pack. Any single one of them is capable of creating a phenomenal amount of destructive chaos on their enemy. When no weapons are available, they will create their own. Often in an instant. A fact not lost on anyone who's tried to go in against them with a mind to cause trouble.
Humans are well capable of making their own trouble. Those who give it to them are in for a world of hurt. The thieves of the trade routes thought that picking on lone transiteers with no obvious weaponry would land them an easy score. They were abominably wrong.
It should have been a swift hijack. Board the ship, incapacitate the pilot, and take any valuable cargo before running off to safety. They got as far as step one before they discovered some interesting facts that the rest of the Alliance had yet to learn the hard way.
One: Humans are very aware of what is normal and what isn't for their accustomed environments. They can therefore go from fast asleep to wide awake in a matter of seconds when something is awry.
Two: Some Humans are hyper-aware of very small noises. Sounds even the most advanced stealth tech can't conceal. Further, given their Deathworlder evolution, they can also be aware of moving patches of silence.
Therefore, the pirates' plan to invade during ships' night and take over while the pilot was still groggy was off to a very bad start.
Three: Following literal centuries of such things being a trope, Humans love environments with nice, spacious air vents.
When the crew of the Liberal Pilferer entered the pilot's habitat, they found the sleep niche empty and no other signs of life. Since it was an unfamiliar environment to them, they didn't know that Transiteer Lo routinely slept with a weighted Dammit Doll. They could not have known that Transiteer Lo and the doll were missing.
Humans are soft, they have no natural armour. Though their bite pressure is enough to sever their own fingers -or the fingers of another Human- they do not have sharp teeth. Their body mass is significantly less than many of Terra's far more dangerous animals. They are not especially fast nor are they especially strong. What they have in abundance is endurance and the ability to throw things at amazing speeds, compared to other creatures with the same flexibility.
The crew of the Liberal Pilferer is about to make a series of otherwise scientifically interesting discoveries. Starting with what, exactly, a Dammit Doll is.
Deathworlders, capable of great rage, often devise means to control those rages in manners that are harmless to their environment and surrounding pack. Thus the invention of a surrogate victim. Originally a shaped pillow with two long "legs" as handles, the one Transiteer Lo owns is weighted to provide reassurance in anxious times. It has survived literal years of being pounded against resilient surfaces. It is going to survive many more.
It will certainly survive this.
One standard weight unit is not a significant load to bear. Propelled at speeds in excess of twenty distance units per second, however, it has quite a significant impact on anything in its way. Such as the glass faceplate of a livesuit merely engineered to survive potentially hostile atmospheres. As well as the face behind it, making a great impact on any soft organs in the process.
Or, for another teaching moment, the otherwise delicate machinery of a livesuit's chest controls, not rated for exterior occupations that may include micrometeor contact. And the negligible armour of the chest plate, the rib cage within, and all soft organs beyond that.
The survivors would carry on to dispense the potential meaning behind the name of Transiteer Lo's childhood relic as he screamed, "You [PRACTICERS OF INCEST] I just got to flakkin' SLEEP! Damnit, damnit, damnit, DAMNIT!"
It might be noted, though, that there weren't very many survivors of the incident to carry the message onwards. Leaving the greater swathes of the Alliance, the Edge Territories, and beyond with one simple, moral lesson about messing with Humans:
Don't.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Gelpi]
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