Challenge #02517-F327: Kintsugi Badass
The person was a bodyguard, and damn good at their job. However, others did not realize this when they saw the person. Sure the legs could have been replaced long ago with what they made from their work, but it was rather amusing when an enemy saw the bracings and the skin suit covered stumps, and assumed the lack of legs meant being helpless. -- Anon Guest
Sometimes, when the Human was in a good mood, they called themselves Brad the Broken. Certainly, this Ships' Human had been through more than their share of the wars. That was a metaphor. Human Brad has never seen combat, but they are certainly injured as if they had done so. One leg was gone below the knee. The other was just a stump below the hip. They had, perhaps, half of a hand left on one arm. The other arm was artificial below the elbow.
Human Brad had broken every bone in their body. Their synthetic replacement parts potentially outweighed the mass of their original ones, so to speak. They had had most of their internal organs replaced, including one eye and a delicate, artificial tympanum inside one ear. Sometimes, they would joke that they were more scar than skin. In just their Skins, it was easy to believe that they were almost entirely helpless.
That was what the Pirates of Zendrassi thought, too. They managed to hack Human Brad's livesuit and, while they were incapacitated, the pirates stripped Human Brad of every replacement technology that could be easily removed. Surely, they reasoned, a Human with one eye, half a hand, and possibly seventy percent of one leg could not be much of a problem. They didn't know about Human determination very well.
The crew clustered around Human Brad, half in an attempt to be protective, and half out of a bewildered quest for ideas on what to do. Their Human was down, and as vulnerable as the rest of them. Perhaps moreso. They were locked in the repair bay, with anything resembling a useful tool already removed by people who had seen some Terran Transmissions and decided to pre-emptively prevent any inventiveness on the part of the captives. Which only left the tools that they didn't think were very useful at all.
Give a Human a tool... and they are going to use it.
Human Brad could move around with one arm and most of a leg, though it was disturbing for their crewmates to watch in the beginning. They were used to Human Brad with all their artificial appendages attached. They had covered their eye socket with a temporary bandage, but that was the only concession to their current state of... disassembly.
"All right," Brad cheered. "We got a mini dolly." They immediately sat on it, using their stump of a leg and remaining arm to scoot around the repair bay. "Give me a lever and an air vent and I can flakk these people to smithereens!"
On one hand, the crew of the Rock Blaster was glad their Human was happy. On the other hand, their Human was happy about getting some revenge on the pirates, which was a scary thing on multiple levels.
"Human Brad... these pirates bested you before. Are you not concerned for... the rest of you?"
Brad chuckled at this one. They were proud their lizards were getting in on the jokes. "They only got to me because they hacked my tech. They can't hack a flakkin' prybar..." more laughter that made the reptilian crew of the Rock Blaster nervous. "Nobody expects an air duct human..."
Human Brad levered off an air duct panel and, laying on the dolly, wheeled themselves into the air system.
Time passed with anxious seconds dripping into the water-torture chamber of their lives at that moment. Every breath, every heartbeat wrought in worry, rendered from concern, and wringing fear from the tense minutes that gathered up around them.
When the door to the repair bay opened, they were pleasantly surprised to see their Human Brad back in one piece. A little bruised and battered, but nevertheless they had regained their replacement peripheries and a new remote.
"Guess what, my lovely little skinks? Their hacks can be reverse engineered! I got them all in the cargo bay with their livesuits locked tight. The looks on their faces..." Still laughing, Human Brad marched over to Captain Thrag and handed the remote over. "We'll want to figure out what this is doing and make more firewalls."
The entire crew felt like they could breathe again. Their Human was safe, their Human was well, and their Human had won. This time, without gaining any new scars!
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / sportpoint]
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Makes me wonder how dangerous their first series of bodyguard jobs were that made them torn up that badly!
Did the human have a really dangerous job prior to coming to the lovely little skinks or did they acquire those parts in that tenure?
What do you mean nobody expects an air duct human? I guess they still haven't completely caught up yet? :D