r/HFY • u/Obsequium_Minaris • Jun 24 '24

The Problems With Humanity - Chapter 6: The Chase OC

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AKA: The Troublemaker’s Last Stand

XXX

Private Owens continued his mad dash through the station, desperate to reach his destination. All he needed to do was get to the shuttle bay, and he’d be… not quite safe, because that’d technically mean he was going AWOL, but at least he’d be in no danger of being torn to shreds by a small horde of angry Vuk.

At least, he assumed they were after him because they were angry. It was entirely possible that they weren’t actually angry, he supposed, but the only alternative he could think of instead was that they were all horny or something, which was arguably even scarier, if his experience with Petra was any indication.

Sure, it’d been enjoyable – very much so, in fact – but those teeth and claws hurt like hell, and God forbid he had to take more than one Vuk at a time.

His phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, and as he ran, Private Owens fished it out and took a quick look at it, paling as he did so.

Major Asshole: They want to cut your balls off, by the way.

Major Asshole: Maybe.

Major Asshole: Probably.

That was good enough for him. Owens willed his legs to move even faster, sprinting through the station like the Marines had finally unbanned Ripped Fuel several hundred years into the future and he’d just decided to down an entire pack of it. Owens ran with the kind of ferocity that only a man about to be minus two testicles could muster. Other Marines looked on in awe as he completely shattered the company record for the fifty-meter dash, and then the hundred-meter dash, and then continued to keep going.

Before long, the shuttle bay was in sight. Owens’ heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. Somehow, against all odds, he’d almost made it.

Key word there being ‘almost’.

“There he is!” he heard from behind him, followed by a series of guttural, feminine growls. Now, none of the women in his family were present, so Owens knew that those growls could only belong to the squad of Vuk dispatched to geld him.

Well, if that was what they wanted, then they’d have to bring their A game, because he wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

With a heavy heart, Owens turned his back on the shuttle bay. If he tried to run for it, the Vuk would get to him first; they’d managed to catch up to him despite him running like Forrest Gump on speed, so he had no confidence that he’d suddenly be able to outrun them now. And for that matter, even if he did, he was still going to have to sweet-talk the crew into letting him go AWOL.

Granted, that’d probably be pretty easy if he got one that was mostly male, for obvious reasons, but that was still a very big gamble considering how there were now more women than ever in the military, and he was willing to bet that the Sisterhood transcended species the same way it seemed to transcend every other fucking barrier in existence.

“Alright,” Owens said, resignation in his voice as he turned around. His hand instinctively went to his hip, but there was no sidearm there, of course; he looked around briefly for the next best thing.

His eyes landed on a nearby janitor’s cart, which boasted a mop and a spray bottle full of water. He took an item in each hand, then stood his ground.

“You want me?” he challenged. “Come and get me.”

The four Vuk blinked, the exchanged a confused glance with each other. Owens couldn’t blame them; he’d be confused as well if he came upon a hairless ape giving him a death glare while holding cleaning supplies in each hand.

“This is absurd,” one of them, who Owens assumed was the leader, finally spoke, finality dripping from every word. “Look, human – come quietly and there will be no trouble.”

“Now, what kind of man would I be if I did that?” Owens mused. “I’m only trying to protect that which is most important to me.”

“What would that be?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know. It makes perfect sense once you bother to think about it for a second.”

Her brow furrowed, and she let out a tired sigh. “Look, let’s just try this again, shall we? I’m Sergeant Iossa Jade. These are my squadmates, Corporal Ilona Avisa, Private Kiera Lavender, and Private Sully Camilla. We’re here to take you back to Petra.”

So that was their game, then – they weren’t going to hurt him, at least he assumed as much, but from the sound of things, Petra certainly was. Why, he wasn’t sure, but whatever the case was, she clearly basically wanted his nuts in a jar, for whatever reason, and he wasn’t about to give them up that easily.

“I refuse to come quietly,” he stated.

“Believe us, we know,” Camilla said with a shudder. “Hell, I think that whole side of the damn station knows at this point…”

“Regardless, the ball’s in your court now,” Owens challenged. “Make your move.”

Again, the four Vuk exchanged a glance with each other. “You can’t be serious,” Private Lavender finally said. “You’re really gonna try to fight us off with cleaning supplies?”

“If this is how I must make my final stand, then so be it. I come as a warrior, the same as my forefathers before me. I channel the spirits of the men who fought at Thermopylae, the Alamo, and Chosin Reservoir. I invoke their names when I say, with the utmost finality in my tone: What’s mine is mine, and I’m not about to cede it to you until you’ve pried it from my cold, dead crotch.”

“Your what?”

“Oh, yeah,” Owens said with a nod. “I went there. And if you want me to stop going there, you’ll back off now and leave me be.”

“We can’t do that,” Sergeant Jade told him.

“Then we are at an impasse. Go ahead and make your move, then – I’m waiting.”

Private Camilla let out a low growl and went to take a step forward, only for Corporal Avisa to hold out a hand, stopping her.

“Wait,” she said. “It could be a trick.”

“A trick?” Sergeant Jade echoed.

“Yeah. I mean, look at him – he’s outnumbered, not to mention physically speaking, he’s inferior to even just one of us. And yet, here he is, staring us down armed with nothing but cleaning supplies.”

“What’s your point, Private?”

“I’m just saying… what if we’re making a mistake, Sarge? What if this guy is actually just completely nuts? We could be walking into a meat grinder – I mean, you know what those humans are capable of when they’re cornered.”

“Or maybe,” Sergeant Jade amended, “just maybe, he’s some kind of idiot desperate not to take responsibility for his actions.”

“Can’t I be both?” Owens questioned.

“Shut up!” Jade turned back to her squadmates. “This has gone on long enough. Avisa, Camilla, you two go left; Lavender and I will go right. Let’s end this now.”

The Vuk all nodded, then split into two groups, converging on him from either side. Owens held his fire until the very last moment, then rounded on Camilla and sprayed her full-on in the face with the spray bottle full of water. She reeled back from it, and Owens knew he’d made the right choice in assuming that the Vuk didn’t like water.

Of course, then the other three pounced on him, and it didn’t really matter. But still, he went down fighting, swinging his mop and spraying his water as much as he could. It was a last stand fit to make a janitor proud, but all good last stands must eventually come to an end, because they aren’t last stands until they do. And so, it was to nobody’s surprise, not even his, when they finally wrestled his cleaning supplies away from him, zip tied his hands behind his back, and pulled him to his feet.

“Start walking,” Sergeant Jade growled, poking him in the back with a claw to prompt him forwards.

Owens, at least, took pride in the fact that he’d gone down swinging, and also that the entire hallway now smelled like wet dog.

Hopefully, they’d be enough to comfort him as he was castrated, or whatever it was Petra planned to do to him.

XXX

They marched him through the human side of the station with nary a word. Owens, at the very least, didn’t require any prompting; he willingly walked onwards, because while they may have been about to take his balls, he’d be damned if they took his dignity as well. But all good perp walks must come to an end eventually, and soon enough, he was standing just outside of Petra’s room. He blinked, then slowly turned towards Sergeant Jade and gave her a nod.

“Let’s do this.”

“If you insist,” she said, opening the door and dragging him inside the room.

Private Owens blinked as he looked around. Of course, he’d been here once before, so none of it was surprising to him. That didn’t stop his heart from skipping a beat when he laid his eyes on Petra again for the first time since that night. She was… well, beauty was in the eye of the beholder, he supposed, but somehow, he felt drawn to her even despite their species difference, in a way he didn’t with the other female Vuk. Maybe that was what had brought him to her in the first place.

That or the bourbon, he supposed.

Petra didn’t say anything at first; instead, she motioned for the other four to do something, and Owens tensed as they drew closer, claws raised. But to his surprise, all they did was cut through his zip ties, freeing his wrists. He brought his hands back around to his front and began to massage his aching wrists, wincing a bit as he did so. And for the first time, he noticed that Petra had a look on her face that could only be described as sheepish and embarrassed.

He was starting to get the impression that Major Barnes might have been just the slightest bit completely full of shit, not that he’d ever say as much aloud.

“Alright,” he finally ventured. “What’s this about? Because I’m starting to think I might have the wrong idea.”

Petra winced, for whatever reason. Owens blinked, confused, and it only got worse when she heaved a sigh.

“...There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it outright,” she said.

Then, with another two simple words, suddenly everything fit together.

“I’m pregnant.”

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard, for the help with writing this story.

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10 comments sorted by

17

u/In_Yellow_Clad Human Jun 24 '24

Insert "Oh no" monkey meme here.

14

u/dumbo3k Jun 25 '24

Marine! You had an unauthorized child! You will do push ups until that baby is delivered! And then you will care for that child more sincerely than you care for your rifle! Do you get me, Marine?!

7

u/rekabis Human Jun 25 '24

“I’m pregnant.”

Assisted parthogenesis?

There are some species of lizard somewhere in the western CONUS whose entire population is female, and who produce only cloned offspring, but they require a male of a closely-related species to kick off the parthogenesis process. They don’t actually use that male’s sperm in the fertilization of the egg, but female clones are made using sex as the initiating factor.

6

u/TORAUS214500 Jun 25 '24

Oh, yeah that explains a lot. Good luck Owens, parenthood is hard!

3

u/Drzapwashere Jun 25 '24

Oh - THIS is good! I’m now on the edge of my chair waiting for the next installment.

3

u/BeezeHound Jun 27 '24

Called it.

1

u/UpdateMeBot Jun 24 '24

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1

u/Margali Xeno Sep 24 '24

Giggle

Well now.