Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tommy Rosales is very little when his mother tells him The Story for the first time. He’s sitting in her lap, under her cloak, in the enclosed cobblestone courtyard where the Humans in their area gather. The buildings around them are lived in by Humans and the shops around them are staffed by Humans and serve only Humans. This courtyard is is the heart of the Human quarter of the city, their safest place. No other species can get anywhere near it.

Other Human parents and children are sitting with them around the fire pit. The adults are talking about something boring, as they always do when its safe enough to gather. Tommy plays with a puzzle toy that his godfather sent him for his last birthday, and thinks about how he will tell people his age after his next one. He’s five years old, the perfect number to show on one hand, but he’s not sure what happens next.

“Minx fell in love with an Aresi in Manburg,” one of the adults is saying. Her name is Amy, Tommy thinks. She travels a lot with her boyfriend and their best friend on the ship Unus Annus. Mark and Ethan? Yes, that’s it. They bring back important news. Tommy nods in satisfaction and clicks the puzzle toy closer to the answer. “She’s been dubbed a ‘credit to her kind’ for inter-species relations” Amy says with a snarl.

“What’s her man’s name?” Asks Tommy’s mother with a hum.

“Schlatt.”

“Schlatt.” Another adult - Eret - murmurs, committing the name to memory. “Must be a great guy for Minx to choose him over us.”

Tommy’s puzzle makes a cool snick-click sound and a layer of it falls to the ground with a clatter, revealing the next stage of the puzzle. Tommy’s mom coos in his ear and kisses the top of head head with a smile.

“Thank you for the news, Amy.” She says softly. “Will you stay for a story?”

“Of course.” Amy says. Its well-known that Tommy’s mom is the best storyteller in their quarter.

“Gather ‘round, children.” Tommy’s mom says in her storytelling voice; throaty and deep and full of meaning. She whispers in English, easily falling into the rough cadence after speaking in the Essempi Common language all day. The other children scoot closer to them, serious in a way that only children can be, and the adults quiet themselves too. “Gather ‘round and hear the story of your people.”

“A very long time ago, five living Humans left Earth to be the first Humans on Mars.” His mom shifts her hold on him so she can hold up five fingers in front of them. “And five living Humans came back. But they brought with them the bones of twelve long-dead Humans.”

She sets Tommy’s puzzle on the ground between their feet and manipulates his fingers so he’s holding up all five of one hand and two on the other. Then she holds up all five fingers on both of her own hands. Tommy can’t count that high yet, won’t need to until his next birthday at the very least, but he knows that’s more people than there should be that came back.

“We were all really confused. A lot of people thought the Humans that left were playing a joke on us, but we looked really hard at the bones, and we did a lot of tests, and they were real.” His mom says ‘we’ but Tommy knows this all happened a really long time ago, so it wasn’t really his mom that saw this. But they were Humans, and Tommy’s mom is a Human, so it kind of happened to her too.

“We had to start asking a lot of questions that we didn’t know the answers to. And that was scary, because we thought we knew everything about ourselves. We asked, how did these Humans get to Mars? Why were they there? How long did they wait to come home?”

“Our only clue was a lot of symbols that were carved deep into the rock wall of the cave we found the bones in. It took us a long time to translate them, but once we got it right, we had a story, and a lot of answers that made us very sad.”

Tommy’s mother’s voice is low and gentle and rhythmic and she holds him close enough to her chest that he can feel the vibrations of her words rumbling into him. He’s asleep in the warmth of her cloaked hug before she can answer the questions for him.

***

Tommy Rosales is ten years old, and he thinks his mom is the coolest mom ever. It just really sucks that he can’t see her anymore. The first thing she does when she’s appointed (forced to be) the Human Ambassador to the Council of the Essempi Federation is send Tommy away. She puts him on his godfather Sam’s ship with forged papers and a new name - Tommy Careful Danger Kraken Innit. 

“This is how we know the bones we found were Human,” Tommy’s mom says wetly into his hair as she hugs him goodbye. “Beyond their structure and DNA, we know they were Human because they loved each other very much, and they loved us even more. They carved their names beside The Story, and lay down to rest beneath them.”

She pulls back and looks him in the eyes with one hand on his shoulder and the other flat on his chest. She’s kneeling to be on the same level as him, the yards of her deep blue cloak pooling in ripples around them. “They wanted their companions’ names to be known, because they loved each other, and they loved us, and names are important. I am your mother, Kristin Rosales. You are my son, Tommy Rosales. Its just safer if your name was something else for a while, okay love?”

Tommy nods and does not sniffle, fuck you very much. He dives back under his mother’s cloak for one last hug and thinks about how he has never felt more safe than he does right now, surrounded by her cloth wings. She holds him tightly until he lets go and ducks under the dark green cloak of his godfather. Sam rests a heavy, reassuring hand on Tommy’s shoulder, and he buries his face in Sam’s side so his mom can’t see him cry. Not that he’s crying.

Sam and Tommy’s mom exchange some brief words, and then Sam is leading Tommy onto his ship. It’s a small one, meant for a few people to hop between planets, because no one can know where Sam got Tommy. They will need to jump around a few planets and backtrack a bit to muddle the trail in case anyone goes looking.

Sam lets Tommy help plan the route to give him some control over the trip, but Tommy still looks back at where he left his mother for a long time before sitting in the co-pilot’s seat beside him.

***

Tommy Innit is just another one of Sam’s kids. Orphans who he finds while out on supply runs and takes back to the shop with him. There’s also Hannah and Boomer who Sam grabbed before Tommy; Hannah from a wreckage deep in a forest and Boomer from slave traders. If anyone bothered to check, they would find that all their papers match up with their stories. 

On an entirely unrelated note, Mark will say as he brings news to Human fire pit gatherings, If you need someplace safe for your children, contact the mechanic, Sam. He will find a place for them.

***

Tommy learns a lot from Sam. He’s an engineer-slash-mechanic-slash-inventor, the best there is, if you ask a Human. No one does, and so Sam’s workshop remains one of Humanity’s best kept secrets. Not that is strictly needs to be. Sam tells Essempi officials that he will accept anyone as clients, if they have the right referrals from previous customers. And so his clientèle remains restricted to Human pirates and smugglers and various flavours of ne’er-do-wells. 

Tommy helps Sam and Hannah and Boomer repair all kinds of ships, and the kids test Sam’s newest invention,s and sometimes Tommy can go a day without thinking about his mom.

Sam’s shop is manned only by his family, but has the capacity to build and repair full Essempi military-grade war vessels. They know this because they did once build a to-scale, fully-functioning replica of one on commission. They never heard about it in the news, but the person who commissioned them - a man going by Mr Beast - has been seen since, and popped into the shop for repairs on other vessels and various other smaller commissions, so his con must have been successful.

Tommy’s favourite customers are the crew of The Dream Team. Dream, their Captain, thinks the name is a bit much, but he got outvoted by his crew when he took the helm. Tommy gleefully repaints the ships’s name free of charge every time they drag their cavernous vessel in for repairs.

The Dream Team are pirates for hire. They mostly take contracts from other pirates; moving and storing hot items until the heat dies down, or taking out a particularly nosy law officer. They don’t get into fire fights very often, but theres not enough of them to keep their ship running at full capacity all the time, so they stop by Sam’s frequently for more routine procedures.

Tommy thinks its also because Quackity was one of Sam’s kids and he gets homesick, but Q always denies it.

Whenever they pull in to the workshop, Dream brings Tommy a gift. Sapnap jokes that Dream is enabling Tommy’s magpie tendencies, but Tommy knows for a stars-damned fact (George told him) that Sapnap will flat-out refuse to leave a planet if Dream hasn’t gotten Tommy anything from there yet.

Once, they were being chased by dozens of officers and Sapnap stood at the bottom of the on-ramp with his arms crossed until Dream ran back planet-side and grabbed a handful of sand. Tommy keeps that handful of purple sand in a fancy glass perfume bottle Dream snatched him on the way out of a rich man’s palace.

Dream brings gifts and Sapnap brings stories and slowly, over time, they become a second (third?) family to him. 

Dream teaches him how to fly all kinds of ships, Sapnap teaches him how to fight, and George teaches him how to hide, how to disappear, how to watch. Quackity teaches him slight-of-hand and simple one- and two-person cons. Ant and Bad take Tommy deep into their mountain-sized ship and show him how to run their engines the size of houses. Karl shows him how to laugh and lie and not feel guilt when he does so.

Dream, Sapnap, and George are like his older brothers. Bad is the grandpa, or maybe an older uncle, always yelling at them for swearing with a smile on his face, and Ant is the cool cousin. Karl and Quackity are…his Sapnap’s fiancées who are also Tommy’s friends?

Okay, exact roles don’t matter. What matters is that they make Tommy laugh, and the hole in his heart where his mom was feels a little less empty when they’re around, and he feels safe when he sits beneath their cloaks. 

***

By the time Tommy Innit is fourteen, he’s heard The Story in a hundred different ways from a hundred different people. By all rights, it should bore him to tears now, but everyone tells the story in their own way, and Tommy collects these differences in the same way he collects the little gifts Dream brings him from off-world. 

When his mom tells The Story, she talks about the enduring love Humans have for each other. For every generation that came before, and every generation that comes after. 

(“We thought those twelve Humans would have had to be terribly lonely, resting all those thousands of years on a cold planet, millions of miles from their families, so we made a promise, hmm? No bones on Mars. No Human bones will rest a million miles from home ever again.”

She kisses his temple and it burns.)

When his brother Dream tells The Story, he talks about the greatness of Humanity before the failed jailbreak that ended on Mars. 

(“We were beautiful, eh Toms? Glorious.” He waves an arm in a grand gesture that seems to swallow the whole sky full of stars. Tommy imagines Dream plucking the stars from their beds and eating them whole. Pictures him feeding Tommy fire.

“Our diplomats led a peaceful union of dozens of species. Our engineers built automated farms larger than the eye could see, our teachers taught the writings of peace and prosperity, our doctors pushed the frontiers of life and saved those everyone else deemed far too gone.” 

“Everywhere you looked,” he breathes, lost in memories, face full of awe, “Everywhere you looked, there was a Human excelling in their field.”

Then his expression shutters. “We drew too much attention to ourselves. Listen to George, puppy. He knows how to hide.”)

When his brother Sapnap tells The Story, he talks about the war that doomed Humanity. How it was born of love.

(“We tried to end it peacefully.” Sapnap starts, not looking up from polishing the pieces of his gun. “We’d done it before. But they targeted our home planet. They killed everyone on it, civilians and children,”

He takes a shuddering breath. “And we couldn’t forgive that. We threw down the pen and picked up the sword and chased them to the farthest corners of the universe. We burned and burned and burned and when there was nothing left to burn, we were satisfied.”

“It’s just that…” Sapnap starts reassembling the gun, soft clicks between breaths. “Our allies couldn’t see through the smoke. They didn’t believe we’d put out the fire.”)

When his brother George tells The Story, he talks about how Earth isn’t their real home. Its an old hurt, one that Humans forgot a long time before The Story was discovered, but its one that they all feel acutely. And George does not forgive easy.

(George is staring out of the window on the bridge of the ship, silently steering through stardust and teaching Tommy how to fly. “We were imprisoned there, pup.”

He’s not looking at Tommy, doesn’t like making eye contact with anyone. “Other people, not Humans, they were scared of us. So they killed us, our greatest mids, whole families, culled us to a more manageable number. A few hundred thousand of us were allowed to live and were stranded on a tiny planet in a dead system far away from our actual home.”

“That’s why we burn our dead. We can’t take them to our real home, because we don’t remember where it is. They took that from us. They took so much from us. And this Federation would do it again.” He speaks with conviction, with the rage of a child who’s father was wronged, with the embers of an old rage in his belly. His mother fed him those embers and now he is feeding Tommy, just like Tommy’s mother would if she were here.)

When Sam tells The Story, he talks about the amazing technology these ancient Humans made from nothing.

(Its a dark night in his godfather’s workshop. Just Sam and Hannah and Boomer and Tommy sitting together as Sam whispers sparks into their ears.

“We knew we had to escape.” Sam is saying. “There was more vengeance to be taken. Someone had to atone for the billions of lives lost. They had left us with nothing, so its a stars-damned miracle our Hail Mary ship limped her way to Mars.”

“Her crew must have known they couldn’t go any further. Their job was to go and collect enough supplies for a real rescue ship, but they couldn’t make it. So they did the next best thing; they left us The Story.” The pyre that Humanity will burn themselves and their children on.)

When Ludwig tells The Story he likes to talk about the discovery of the bones on Mars. 

(“Can you even imagine how crazy that would have been for the astronauts?” Ludwig says on a mission that Tommy technically shouldn’t be on. But he’d begged QT to let him sub in for her and she had caved under his promises of procuring certain illegal potions ingredients.

“They think they’re the first Humans to set foot on Mars, having their Lance Armstrong moment, and then boom! They’re not even in the top ten. And because communications from Earth to Mars were shaky at the best of times, they couldn’t even tell NASA that they found actual Human bones until they got back!” Tommy hums, tracking the target with his binoculars. He taps Ludwig’s shoulder twice to let him know to fire when ready.

“Actually, fuck the astronaut. Imagine what it would have been like to be NASA command watching them leave the ship with a bag o’ bones!” Ludwig makes the shot between breaths and starts disassembling his rifle. “They probably thought they had the first-ever case of space murder on their hands.”)

When the bounty hunter Hasanabi finally caves to the combined begging of Tommy, Hannah, and Boomer, he talks about what the old Humans did after they found the bones.

(“There was a while there where the countries were split fifty/fifty on whether or not it was a prank, and eventually the countries that knew it was real got fed up and combined themselves into one government and took over the non-believers.” He says, leaning against a wall in Sam’s workshop while he waits for his ship to be seen. 

Tommy, Hannah, and Boomer had been in a semi-circle in front of him, eagerly awaiting his tale, but Hasan had taken the opportunity to teach them how to surveil a room, so they’re all shoulder-to-shoulder on the wall. 

“It was fucked up, and we don’t talk about that enough. Sure the end product was a kind of utopia - no homelessness, zero hunger, et cetera, et cetera, but those dumb asses thought the best way to protect us from being seen as monsters was to commit a bunch of war crimes! Idiots.” 

He’s flicking a lighter on and off despite the fact that he quit smoking years ago. He’s one of those that still subscribe to the old belief that in order to feed fire to the children you must carry it with you. A teacher at heart, the bounty hunter keeps his flame ready for The Story.

Hasan spends the next three hours until his ship is fixed alternatively talking about the violent takeover of non-believing states and teaching them how to casually identify all potential exits, weapons and threats in the room.)

Everyone focuses on different things, but the message is all the same: burn and hide. Burn your dead and hide your living. Tommy eats the coals he is given and remembers to trust only other Humans.

***

Within the bounds of the Human species, they are love. They are strong, they are united, and they are kind. Outside of those bounds, from the viewpoint of the rest of the Federation, Humans are…not.

They are viewed with disdain. They’re the newest species to the galactic stage, with an overall peaceful history and only a few scattered records of tiny battles that mark them out of place among the warmongering Piglins and Shulkers. When they are welcomed into the Federation, the Human Ambassador is late to the first meeting.

Humans are an underwhelming race of small-time thieves, leeches, and merchants of various legality. After they are accepted into the Federation, Human scum explode across Essempi space, filling their niche of low-level criminals on every planet and moon and outpost and desolate, craggy rock. No matter where you go, there is a dirty Human looking one missed meal from their grave.

They bring no value even to academics. They guard their languages - multiple languages for one species, how disorganized - and histories with a zeal they display nowhere else. The answer to all the academic’s questions is one maddening word: tradition.

Why do you cover so much of your skin with boots and gloves and long robes? Tradition.

What is the meaning behind the geometric symbols you paint on your faces and stitch on your clothes? Tradition.

Why won’t you share your tradition with us? Tradition.

Not one single weak link could be found in the chain of Humanity. Children and senile old women and rebellious teenagers give the same answer. Once Federation scholars determine they won’t be able to learn anything about the new member species, Humans are largely ignored.

In truth, the only thing those outside the ranks of Humanity find to be of note is how difficult they are to kill.

A former Piglin gladiator says he once saw a Human fight in the Pit. They had stopped fighting only when their head was torn from their shoulders; even after they had lost an arm, and both legs were broken, and they were bleeding rivers onto the white-glass sand.

A Blazeborn thief tells the story of a Human smuggler who is blind in one eye because he was shot in the head with a phaser blast and the damn thing survived.

All that is truly known is this: humans cling to life like mold clings to bread. Even when the visible contamination is cut away, the mycelium remains. They are pests, impossible to get rid of. There is a saying that after the Essempi Federation is no more, nothing will be left but wreckage and Humans.

This is, in part, what drives the tide of Essempi military commanders acquiring ‘Human ship rats’.  Humans are the only ship rats, so saying ‘Human ship rats’ is unnecessary, really. No other species would allow themselves to be debased like that, but again. Mold and bread, wreckage and Humans.

Being, on average, smaller and more slight than the other species in the Federation, and being so fiercely committed to staying alive, they are the perfect species to keep your ship together in extreme circumstances.

Essempi vessels with a ship rat in their vents and engine rooms and wiring survive encounters which, by all rights, they should not have. Humans will worm their way into the guts of the ship and pray to their ancestors and hold ships together with a brief welding job where no other crew member could reach. 

But.

Humans do not willingly join the Essempi Federation Officer Training Academy. Not one single Human in all their hundreds of years of membership has even applied. So where is a ship commander to find a ship rat to patch her vessel and save her crew?

Human ship rats are bought. Commanders buy out their bail or purchase them from black market traders for cheap. Usually, these rat’s ‘contracts’ are held by the Commanders themselves, not the Federation. Modern slaves in the dangerous job of balancing bigotry against Humans and pleasing their unexpected owners.

These rats walk in the shadows of their Commanders, sallow-faced and mean as a three-sided blade in the back. Needed and scorned by Federation officers, essential to Human information networks. As Commanders meet, so to do their rats. They pass whispers of new political developments, how to stay safe and alive, how to send messages to family, solidarity.

Manberg’s new president has a Human mistress, avoid Minx’s space; Punz’s new target is your Commander, in two weeks time make sure you have an alibi; Unus Annus is coming to your sector next month so keep your letters to your sister on hand; It’s okay, my Commander hurts me too.

***

Humans have only been members of the Essempi Federation for a few short centuries before the Dreamons attack. They carpet-bomb a Federation planet home to a relatively peaceful species who had chosen to retreat back to their home world after deciding that inter-planetary travel was too much of a hassle.

All of them, wiped out in just over six hours.

The Council of the Essempi Federation declares war in just under seven.

Hypixel, the Federation capital planet deep in the heart of Essempi space, rallies the Federation’s army, and the Council puts out a call for any and all able-bodied persons to volunteer themselves and their ships to the war effort. They meant for individual species to volunteer their own armies beyond what was mandatory to maintain for Federation membership.

The Humans don’t seem to understand this, and volunteer on their own, en masse. Smugglers and long-haul shippers and pirates and thieves and farmers register themselves and whatever dinky old ship they had bought or bartered or stolen.

It’s sad. Shameful, really. An indictment on the species that the only army they can provide are criminals and civilians. Rather than embarrass any official Essempi fleet, the Humans are tossed together in one hodge-podge fleet. They are given the task of shuttling prisoners and refugees and collecting bounties, then forgotten by most of the assembled forces.

The fleet fails miserably in every task. The prisoners they shuttle are low-priority and most die in transit due to neglect or base cruelty. Refugees are thrown unceremoniously on the first Federation planet they see. Only one Human ever returns a bounty, and Hasanabi was already a bounty hunter before the war so this is neither surprising nor impressive. Even the ships that happened to wander into active battles had to be repaired only on their tails; they always, without fail, run from danger.

***

The Dream Team comes around Sam’s shop more often after the war starts, and the stories they tell become scarier. But Tommy is a certified, card-carrying Big Man (trademark pending), and he knows his family will be okay. Just in case though, he prays to the ancestors a little more before bed, and sends his mom a list of their names so she knows to watch over them.

Sapnap commissions a new arm from Sam after he loses his left one to chemical burns. Dream has a new scar across his jaw and neck from a wicked piece of shrapnel, and Quackity has one splashed across his left eye from where he caught a blaster bolt with his face. He resists Sam’s offer of a new eye, but caves when his blind spot almost gets Karl killed.

Tommy keeps the piece of shrapnel that almost killed his big brother with his other treasures as a reminder of how tough his family is. How they’ll always come back to him.

***

When The Dream Team arrives one day, barely limping into Sam’s shop one crew member lighter, Tommy knows he can’t stay behind any longer.

He attends Ant’s funeral first. They burn his body. They burn his body because he is Human. They burn his body because it is important. They burn his body because that way, he will be warm as he finds his way home.

“No bones on Mars.” Dream whispers, and the embers he exhales light Ant’s funeral pyre.

“No bones on Mars.” They all murmur after him, and their breath lifts Ant’s ashes and carry him home.

Sam doesn’t try to stop him leaving on The Dream Team. He sends Tommy away with a heavily encrypted data chip behind the hinge of his jaw so Sam and Kristin can track his location and vitals and the promise that Tommy can always come back to him.

Tommy slots into his place on The Dream Team with ease as repair man extraordinaire, wriggling into the narrow spaces Bad can’t reach to keep the engines singing. They take him under their cloaks and train him in every role on the ship so he can pick up any position at a moment’s notice if someone gets hurt or killed.

He still talks with his mom, just with less specificity now that he’s technically a criminal and she’s, you know, the ambassador. He’s not really a criminal, because now that the war has started Dream has registered his ship and his crew to the Human fleet in Essempi’s military, but they were pirates before…and what they do isn’t exactly sanctioned by the Council…yeah its better to not.

The Dream Team teams up with others a lot. She can hold a lot of other ships in her belly, and one ship raises a lot fewer red flags than several dozen. 

This is what they do: Sapnap guides The Dream Team close to Dreamon ships, and when they’re close enough, Tommy opens the bay doors to let out the dozens of hidden Human ships that swarm and overwhelm the Dreamons. Then they’re back in the hold, and its just The Dream Team again, and Essempi is none the wiser.

The ships in the hold rotate as their crews are sent out on other missions, but one almost never leaves. Mogul Moves is one of the fastest ships out there. She pairs well with The Dream Team. Whereas when Dream and the crew are left to their own devices, they prefer to throw around their ship’s not-insubstantial weight and bludgeon Dreamon fleets into submission, Mogul Moves is easier to take planet-side, small enough to slip between radar stations, sleek and elegant, dealing in precise strikes. 

Mogul Moves has a small crew suited to her size: just the Captain Ludwig, his C0-Captain and girlfriend QT, and their friends Nick, Aimen and Slime. Tommy has his suspicions that Aimen and Slime aren’t their real names, because hello? Who names their kid Slime? But he’s also never found out what QT stands for and he’s 90% sure that Ludwig isn’t the captain’s real name either. Too old-world Earthy. Honestly, at this point Nick is suspect by association.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. They’re Human and they’re kind, and Humans are natural-born teachers. It turns out, all you need to do is ask the right questions at the right time.

QT teaches him all about poisons, Nick teaches him how to forge papers, Aimen shows him how to talk for hours and not give anything away while learning everything, and Slime teaches Tommy how to hack Dreamon and Essempi systems alike.

Tommy’s favourite lessons from the crew of Mogul Moves are the fighting ones. They’re active combatants in the war, each with their own style. From Slime’s preferred brass knuckle brawling to Ludwig’s refined use of thin modded Dreamon blades to Nick’s patent-pending technique of using guns as both long- and short-range weapons, Tommy’s always learning something new.

Suddenly, Tommy’s family isn’t just him and his mom. Its also Sam’s workshop and The Dream Team and Mogul Moves and it just keeps growing. The various bounty hunters that crash aboard The Dream Team to rest up after a mission, the regulars and big spenders at Sam’s workshop, and on and on.

Before, when Tommy was younger, he didn’t understand why the adults around him dressed differently. Why they changed parts of the Human uniform (tall boots, long gloves, voluminous robes to hide in). But now that he’s an adult himself - or close enough, fuck off, Dream - he understands. Like everything else, it’s for practicality. Tommy watches how his family dresses, takes pages from their books, and stitches them together to make them his own.

Tommy cuts the fingers off his rust-red gloves down to the knuckle so he can feel what he’s doing with the wiring of the ship for faster hacking, and sews curved discs of polished titanium over his knuckles so his punches hit harder. Just like Slime and Sapnap.

He protects his toes and Achilles tendons with deep-sea hardened iron and covers the dull shine with scraps of brocade, just like QT. Tommy braids strips of leather into a belt full of pockets and loops to hang all kinds of tools on, just like Bad.

And more and more and one day, months in the future on a different vessel with a different crew, Tommy will look in the mirror and remember his family.

***

They’re still criminals. They’re fighting for the good guys but the good guys have shut them out of anything productive, anything worth doing, so the fleet of Human criminals defaults to what they know.

Yes, they fight the Dreamons, but they’re ordered to hide it from Essempi. So when Sapnap wants to set fires, he does. When George wants to practice his shooting on live targets, he does. 

They fight vicious and bloody and teach Tommy how to do the same. Tommy nearly dies more times than he can count, but its worth it. 

He gets shot in his left side and escapes with a gnarly scar and a titanium hip. He dislocates both shoulders catching himself on a metal beam and then catching George’s fall too. He’s stiff in the mornings but that’s fine. He splits his chin open when a Dreamon soldier pushes him to the ground, a clawed foot between his shoulders and rifle pressed to the back of his head before Nick shoots it in the chest.

A Dreamon blade cuts him down his neck and shoulder and chest and he almost dies but he scores a sweet fake rib that he hides a multi-tool and a lock picking set in. Just in case, he says, and Dream looks vaguely ill but mostly proud.

 He laughs, screaming stardust and watches as his family sets Dreamon fleets ablaze with the embers they were fed.

Tommy thrives. This, this is what he was meant for! High-speed chases across solar systems, near-misses, pickpocketing for fun in market places on different planets across galaxies, taking down Dreamon soldiers dumb enough or suicidal enough to pick a fight with a Human vessel.

Then his mom calls, asking for a favour. There’s an Essempi war vessel - The Angel of Death - that doesn’t have a ship rat, and Human command can’t monitor it or subtly get information to it.

Tommy’s sitting on the top of The Dream Team as she’s docked in a port planet-side. The planet in question is an Essempi hub world, and the air is thick, even up here.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought it was too dangerous, love. I trust Admiral Mi’Craft.” Tommy’s mom says. The holo screen washes out her face, making her look pale and wan. She looks tired. Coordinating Human attacks on Dreamon fleets without the knowledge of the Essempi Council is taking its toll on her.

“I know, mom.” Tommy replies softly. The implants in his ears pick up his words easily, and he can’t bring himself to be louder.

“You don’t have to do it.” Please don’t do it. They both know the conditions that ship rats live in. The conditions they die in.

“I know, mom.”

“I’m very proud of your no matter what.”

“I know, mom.” Tommy sniffs. Because of allergies, fuck you. He takes a deep, steadying breath the way George taught him to before sniping a target. “I’ll do it. What do you need?”

Ambassador Kristin Rosales smiles at her son, and tries to commit her sons’s face to memory while he’s still happy. Tommy (Careful Danger Kraken Innit) Rosales smiles back, because he’s doing the exact same thing.

Tommy leaves The Dream Team the same way he left Sam’s workshop and the same way he left his mom. With love and promises to call, and the knowledge that they can’t come to help. They’re too important to the war effort. But he has the contacts of a hundred Human criminals memorized forwards and backward. He’ll be okay.

Probably.

***

In the end, it's frighteningly easy to sneak aboard The Angel of Death. It probably wouldn’t be if Tommy didn’t have the teachers and family he does, so he’ll give them a pass this time. Once he’s integrated, though, he’s going to give their security a massive overhaul because he is a little insulted at how effortlessly he got in.

Tommy buys the information of The Angel’s known routes and patterns from Ethan with information in kind when The Dream Team and Unus Annus’ paths next cross. Then he ship hops to an Essempi port The Angel’s commander seems to favour and waits.

Tommy squats in one of Mr Beast’s safe houses near the port in exchange for brief surveillance on the port guards’ patterns.

He organizes his pockets. 

He passes along his notes on the port guard’s schedules to Hasan when he sees him.

He keeps tabs on the comings and goings of Essempi ships from his hideout where he’s hacked into their systems.

He re-organizes his pockets, decides he liked it better the first time, and changes them back.

He listens to the chatter.

Passes along some more information.

Until finally, The Angel of Death docks to restock and refuel.

No one spares a glance at the scrawny Humans darting around ship yards anyway, and George has taught Tommy how to blend in. He ducks into his target’s storage bay with a shipment of chorus fruit and slips into a vent with the help of a multi-tool Quackity gave him.

Or, with the help of a multi-tool he stole from him and Q was so impressed with his lift that he just let Tommy keep it.

Dream had told him to find a nest, and that’s the first thing he does. He lays out his cloak in the warm space below the floor in the ship’s engine room. It’s large enough to stand in, but woven though with so many pipes that only a Human could navigate it.

Tommy’s cloak is his bed, the food and weapons he’d smuggled aboard still safe in it’s folds. Everything else, his tools and comms, go in one the many pockets Tommy has sewn into his pants.

For the first day or so, he’s on intel gathering mode. He remembers Hasan’s lessons and explores the ventilation system and learns the layout of the ship inside and out.

It’s only a few days later, when he can move silently wherever he wants in the ship, that he begins to pay real attention to the crew.

The Engineering Officer is an Aresi named Tubbo who bounds from screen to screen, assessing status reports and flipping switches that probably do something. The Assistant Medical Officer, a nervous looking Enderian, is with him a lot. Probably not much to do in medical if there’s not a fight. His name is Ranboo, which Tommy misspells as Ranboob in his notes and decides to keep like that.

They’re actually fucking hilarious, and Tommy has to move on before he gets caught laughing at their jokes.

Next up: bridge crew. If Tommy’s gonna be their ship rat, he’s going to be spending a lot of time in the captain’s shadow; he needs to know the people Admiral Mi’Craft is around the most.

It’s a modest bridge crew for such a large ship; one Elytrian, one Piglin, one Blazeborn and- oh fuck. Two Sirens.

Humans have largely avoided Sirens since they have the ability to infuse their words with a power as sweet and sticky as honey and make anyone listening do their bidding, even over radio frequencies.

If they get suspicious of Tommy, it won’t take much to make him spill his guts about his mission. He’s gonna need to get in their good books, and fast.

There’s also two empty stations which Tommy recognizes as workspaces for the Engineering and Medical Officers when they’re on the bridge.

Tommy has to do a double-take when he realizes one of the Sirens on board is the Comms Officer. How does this crew function if no other ship will work with them? Because there’s no way in hell The Dream Team would trust a Siren on comms.

They’d worked with a total of one (1) in the past, before the war. According to George, she’d been mostly silent, letting her Blazeborn co-pilot take the lead. 

Wait a minute.

Tommy turns his attention back to the pilots’ stations, to the pink-haired Siren and the Blazeborn with bi-coloured glasses. It couldn’t be…Sapnap said they’d died after they stole from the wrong Essempi lab.

They’d pulled off what is quite possibly the greatest heist ever and evaded arrest for almost half a year. Sapnap and Karl had picked up some of the stashes they’d left behind to hold on to until the heat died down.

The heat has since died down, but only because they got caught. Dream’s crew had assumed them dead, and Tommy had helped install the stolen V5 light speed engine and divvy up the weapons.

Tommy himself had several of those light-blade weapons on the ship in his nest.

He snaps a picture of them when they turn to talk to the Admiral, and sends it off to Sapnap to verify their identities. 

The ship’s Head of Security is Officer Technoblade (weird name, but what the fuck does Tommy know about Piglins) and is a hulking beast of a man. He has a gnarly scar across the bridge of his nose, and seems to take great pleasure in concocting the strangest threats possible.

His tone rarely changes, but the others laugh so Tommy thinks they’re jokes? He hopes he can prove himself as a ship rat before that dude gets to him, and Tommy starts fixing the dents and loose screws he finds in the vents to get a head start. He needs something to buy his way into their good graces after sneaking onto their ship anyway. 

Day two of observing the bridge crew, Tommy decides he quite likes the Siren on comms (Officer Wilbur Soot) when he flops dramatically on the ground and declares that he will perish within the next thirty seconds if he doesn’t get any attention.

Tommy subsequently decides he also likes Officer Technoblade when he drops a heavy-looking datapad on the Siren’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him with a grunted “Attention given, runt”.

Day three of observing the bridge crew, Tommy gets a reply from Sapnap. The pilots are, indeed, Niki Nihachu and Jack Manifold, previously a pirate dynamic duo. They must have gotten a plea deal or something.

By day eight, Tommy thinks he has enough data to begin his integration with the crew. He’s had his story since before he left The Dream Team. Its essentially the truth, with a little bit of a fib.

That’s the best way to lie, according to Aimen.

His story is this: he was an orphan, found and taken in by a mechanic. He left the mechanic’s workshop on a pirate vessel with the promise of adventure, but quickly found it to be not the kind of adventure he was looking for. He bounced around ports, saw The Angel of Death and decided to sneak aboard.

Tommy Innit: always looking for adventure, is his tagline.

By day fifteen, Tommy can admit to himself that he’s delaying the inevitable because the ship’s Admiral scares him. Practically every kid in the universe knows about Admiral Philza Mi’Craft, commander of the biggest Essempi battle vessel, crewed only by the best and brightest that he hand-picked himself. But Tommy has extra baggage with the Elytrian.

There’s the fact that he has to, somehow, convince this man that its a great idea to ‘own’ him. Tommy’s willingly putting a very dangerous man in a position where he holds all the power over Tommy, and its fucking nerve wracking, to put it mildly.

Then there’s the fact that Tommy’s mom had tentatively been courting him before the war started. Yeah. He’s going to be very studiously ignoring that particular line of thought. But his mom has always been a good judge of character, right?

On the other hand, Dream’s brother Foolish was a slave in the Pit for two years before Dream busted him out, and saw Admiral Mi’Craft buy the Piglin in the cell across from him every night for a full month before buying out his contract entirely.

That doesn’t sound like a man Tommy’s mother could love. And Tommy’s only here because the man is so adamant about not buying slaves. And the only Piglin aboard The Angel is the Head of Security who definitely looks like a free man, so where’s this supposed Piglin slave?

And then there’s the fact that Bad himself was a slave in the Pit as a child, and he says Admiral Mi’Craft had taken it upon himself to fight in the place of children even though he was a free man. 

Apparently the Admiral had carried the title of The Angel of Death himself before he was ever in the army.

So, yeah. The dude is capable and terrifying and Tommy can’t get a read on him. He talks himself in circles until day twenty, when he gets so frustrated with the confusing internal piping of the ship that he cracks the vent cover in the ceiling of the bridge and drops down with the intention of heading over to the Engineering Officer’s desk to figure out what the fuck is going on.

***  

Admiral Philza Mi’Craft has been the commander of the Essempi battle-vessel The Angel of Death for decades. A lifetime. His species live for a long time compared to the other member species of the Federation. A lifetime for them akin to a hobby for Elytrians.

Philza had been a successful farmer, then a merchant, and finally a gladiator before the Elytrian army snapped him up in their talons and sent him off to the Essempi Federation Officer Training Academy.

When he was a gladiator, having already lived two lives, his name was the Angel of Death, and he passed the name on to his vessel when it was gifted to him by an Elytrian general. Bealio has long since retired from the army to teach in the Academy, but they stay in touch.

Elytrians watch patterns. They pay close attention the cycles of history and nod to themselves and wait. 

When Humans are accepted to the Federation, Phil observes them with interest just like everyone else. And just like everyone else, he dismisses them after a few years when none of them produce anything of note. 

Unlike his peers, however, he does not source a ship rat for himself and The Angel. Something in him, the part that never stopped being a gladiator, rebels at the idea. He is glad for that fact when he meets Kristin.

Its more of an accident than a meeting, really. She runs around a blind corner and spills her drink all over them both. She apologizes profusely and insists on taking Phil out to lunch to make up for it. Phil, bemused, allows this. Not many species would willingly subject themselves to a conversation with an Elytrian, after all.

As it turns out, she’s the Human Ambassador sitting on the Essempi Council. She’s kind woman who smiles easily but seems very overwhelmed with her position. Kristin is perhaps a little incompetent, but she tells Phil that the role had been forced on her when no one else would take it, and she’s very sweet about it.

Every so often Phil will see a hint of something more, something sharp, in her eyes before it softens with a blink. He thinks that determination is the only reason she’s managed so well as Ambassador.

They actually hit it off very well, and Kristin tentatively pursues Phil with Elytrian courting rituals of gifts and conversation. She’s earnest in her simple love and Phil can’t help but be charmed by her. He even finds himself falling for her when she listens intently to his instructions on how to preen his wings.

And then the war starts.

Phil and Kristin put their relationship on pause as she becomes even more overwhelmed with her job and he is sent out on dangerous missions. She promises to find him after the war. If he survives, is left unsaid.

***

Phil knows how he gathered his mismatched flock that now crews his ship; they came to him by recommendation. Puffy recommended Technoblade, Bealio recommended Wilbur, who in turn recommended Tubbo and Ranboo, and Techno and Wilbur conspired to ‘recommend’ Niki and Jack.

(Because it was a recommendation. A forceful one, sure, but if he had said no, they would have thrown the pirates in a cell and not looked back.)

Phil does not know how he got Tommy. One day Tommy wasn’t there, and the next he was dropping from the ceiling as if he’d always been there.

“Your ship’s internal piping is fucked, big man.” The unknown Human kid says to Phil as he lopes across the bridge to Tubbo’s workstation. He’s in Engineering at the moment, so he doesn’t see the random civilian pry the panel off the underside of his desk.

The Human has pale blond hair, and is wearing the customary dark clothes of his kind, but without the long hooded cloak. He has three concentric circles painted on his forehead and a thick line painted down the center of his lower lip and chin. Its not the most face paint Phil has seen on a Human, and seems downright conservative.

His boots and pants have swatches of patterned fabric patching up the holes, and his gloves are clearly old; he’s worn through their fingers and had to reinforce the knuckles with stitching. His pants and shirt are loose and ill-fitting, painting a rather gloomy story.

“Um, hello, random child.” Wilbur says, recovering first.

“Fuck off, I’m not a child.” The Human snarls playfully. Phil’s not super well acquainted with Human physiology and growth patterns, but he knows with absolute certainty that this boy is not an adult. An adolescent, most likely.

“Okay.” Phil says, turning in his chair and remaining seated so as not to scare the teen. “What’s your name, random Human?”

“The name’s Tommy Innit.” Tommy says with a grin. He flops onto the ground and reaches up and starts poking at the extremely technologically advanced insides of Tubbo’s desk. “Who’re you?”

“My name is Philza.” Phil replies, caught off guard. Tommy is the first person Phil’s met in a long time who doesn’t know his name.

“Alright, enough.” Techno grunts, standing up and striding across the bridge to the kid. “Who are you and how did you get on this ship? And stop touching things you don’t understand!”

He lunges to grab Tommy’s ankle, but the kid kicks himself away and throws himself to his feet quickly.

“If I don’t touch them, how will I learn how they work?” Tommy asks with an impish grin. His knees are bent like he’s ready to dodge another attempt at grabbing him, and Techno’s ear twitches in annoyance.

“With a teacher.” Techno says flatly. “Now answer my other questions.”

“I already told you. I’m Tommy.” Tommy says.

“And you got on this ship how.”

“Behind a crate of chorus fruit!” 

“Why.”

“I dunno. Adventure, I guess. Look, can you let me back at the cool circuits?” Tommy moves to go back under the desk, but Techno intercepts him.

“You don’t even know what they do!” He exclaims.

Tommy’s starting to look annoyed too, as if Techno’s the unreasonable one. “Well I would, if you’d let me look. Also, I know what they’re supposed to do, because I’ve been studying the wires in the vents an’ shit. And there’s a maintenance light out at a water pipe between decks four and five and I gotta know if its a bulb or something to be worried about.”

Techno freezes, and turns to Phil, along with the rest of the bridge crew.

That’s a ship rat’s job. This kid just declared himself to be Phil’s ship rat in front of his flock, who he had not discussed the purchase of a ship rat with. Because he had not bought one.

“Tommy,” Phil starts slowly. “I think you might be confused. That’s the job of a ship rat, and I don’t have one of those.”

“Yeah, I know. I’d’ve met ‘em by now if you had one. Also, your vents would’ve been in a lot better shape when I came aboard.” Tommy says, raising an eyebrow.

Phil feels like he’s missed a step. “Which means you’re not my ship rat.” Phil explains.

“I am now, bitch!” Tommy’s smile splits his face in two, and by the Void, Phil has only seen a smile like that on Wilbur after winning a game of three person chess against Phil and Techno. He’s already weakened to the kid’s charms.

“No offense kid, but that’s not how it works.” Wilbur says, sounding like he fully intends to offend.

“None taken, king. And who says?” Tommy doesn’t flinch when Wilbur speaks, Phil notes with interest.

“Well…that’s just they way things are done.” Wilbur flails.

“Okay, and I say this is how its done here. We good? Cause if it’s not a bulb issue I gotta know STAT.” Tommy waits for a reply, and when no one speaks, ducks back under Tubbo’s desk.

And that, it would seem, was that. Phil, and by extension, The Angel of Death, has a ship rat. 

***

Phil calls Puffy the first night after Tommy decides to be his ship rat to ask her what the fuck he’s supposed to do about that.

Puffy has a ship rat herself, Phil being the last military commander holding out on the purchase. She’d bought a young kid who had been slated for execution just before the war started. He’d pulled her heartstrings, and she had intended to free him but discovered that that would only land him right back on death row.

When he explains his situation, Puffy laughs at him for a full five minutes, gasping through her tears. He very nearly hangs up to call her back once she can compose herself, but she calms herself down at the threat.

In the end, she isn’t much help. Just tells him to expect silence and strange behaviour. Tommy certainly displays the strange behaviour, but the silence? Not so much. If no one else is talking, Tommy is.

No one on Phil’s crew seems to have interacted with Humans much before. Niki and Jack have worked with Human pirates in the past, and Techno has crossed paths with a few Humans in the Pit, but none of them know enough. They’re always left wondering if its just a Tommy thing or if the whole species is just like that.

For example. Everyone knows about the Human’s strict traditions regarding their clothes and the symbols they paint on their face. They may not know why, exactly, or what the symbols mean, but the fact that Tommy also does this is not cause for concern.

What could be cause for concern is the fact that he will only wear Human clothes made by Humans. That boy will put anything even remotely approaching the vague notion of ‘edible’ in his mouth, but he will not wear Wilbur’s clothes long enough to wash his own.

Is this normal? Phil is uncertain. Eventually he decides its probably okay for Tommy to huddle in his cloak as he waits for his clothes to dry.

***

‘Soft Nights’ are what Phil calls them. When its early evening, and there’s nothing much that needs done on the ship - no battles to fight, no emergencies in Engineering to address, no pressing meetings with Generals or Ambassadors, when they’re traveling and far from their destination - Phil calls for a Soft Night.

He dims the lights, puts army protocol on the back burner, and sends everyone to their at-rest stations to deal with whatever work has been neglected in their frantic running about the galaxy.

Soft is the only way to describe it, really. Soft lights, soft breaths, soft smiles, and softly spoken words. This is the closest Phil gets to a quiet night in with his chosen flock.

Tubbo cycles the ship’s AI through passive maintenance and monitoring cycles, dragging his chair over to Jack’s desk as they watch the reports trickle in. Ranboo, for his part, has very little paperwork to do as Doctor Charlie’s assistant, so he dozes with his head on Tubbo’s shoulder, pressed as close as he can be to the smaller boy.

Niki’s always busy reviewing projected flight paths, requesting docking permissions, and recording where they’ve been, but on nights like these she can move slower. Take her time.

Every so often she has to confer with Techno, and she never forgets to gently cuff Wilbur upside the head when she passes him.

Phil brings his usual work out of his office to the bridge and spends the evening locked in valiant battle with his inbox. He thinks wistfully of a time when it was consistently in the double digits. It is currently approaching four at an alarming rate.

Tommy is a new addition to their easy routine, still trying to figure out where he fits in their flock. He seems to have picked up (or more likely, Tubbo told him) that Soft Nights are a time to be quiet, so he seems a little lost. His usual loud and brash demeanor doesn’t fit here, and Phil feels a pang for the kid trying to insert himself into an established flock.

Eventually, Tommy decides to sit on the floor beside Phil’s chair and lean his head on Phil’s knee. It makes Phil more than a little uncomfortable. Not because of the touch - Elytrians are a flock species, he loves to be touched - but because he knows what they look like. What an outsider would see.

Admiral Philza Mi’Craft, the Angel of Death before he commanded her, a man staunchly opposed to buying slaves at all, with a ship rat kneeling at his feet as he works.

He could tell himself all he wanted that Tommy chose this, but did he? He snuck aboard The Angel of Death looking for adventure and was thrown into the role of ship rat because he couldn’t stay otherwise.

For all Phil knows, Tommy is kneeling because he thinks he has to, because that’s what ship rats do, because Phil might throw him out otherwise. Phil would never throw him out for not acting subservient, but how well does Tommy know him? Phil’s only known about Tommy’s existence on the ship for a little under three weeks.

Techno shoots Phil a look saying he knows exactly how Phil is feeling but that he will remove Phil’s spine through his mouth if he even thinks about disturbing Tommy. Techno’s face can be very expressive when he wants it to be.

Time passes with little noise beyond Jack and Tubbo softly conversing and the rustle of fabric as Tommy tries to make himself comfortable on the hard metal floor. Phil makes a mental note to get him a pillow or sleep mat for next time. 

When Wilbur stretches and his back cracks loud enough to wake Ranboo with a start, Phil knows its time to turn in. Theres a palpable shift in the atmosphere of the bridge as everyone else comes to the same conclusion and begins wrapping up their tasks. Its earlier than he would have liked, and from the grimaces on the others’ faces, they feel the same. But there’s only so long they can work and they’ve hit their limit.

Tommy must be more observant than Phil gives him credit for, because he picks up on the shift and decides its the perfect time to talk. “There’s this story on Earth,” he begins, startling Phil, who had almost forgotten the fledgling was there. “About three little pigs and a hungry wolf.”

And in the stunned silence of the dimly lit bridge, Tommy tells a crew of aliens one of the Human’s sacred stories. Its a children’s story, that much is clear. A story about family and loyalty and strength and when Tommy finishes, he nods, satisfied.

No one leaves the bridge. They quietly thank Tommy for his story, and he beams, and they go back to their work with renewed energy, hoping to be gifted with another story. And they are.

***

Tommy hasn’t ever really spared a thought to what’s gonna happen to his body when he dies. He’s not gonna be around to see it anyway, and he’s always been surrounded by Humans so what does it matter? Well, now that he’s the only Human on a very active battle vessel, suddenly the issue has become more pressing.

He slips quietly into Philza’s office from the vent in the back corner near the floor because he’s still not used to using the actual doors. Philza waits for Tommy to speak. That’s one thing Tommy’s noticed about Philza. He just waits you out. 

“Can I ask for a favour?” Tommy asks hesitantly from the side of the room. He’s still not sold on the Elytrian actually knowing when he enters rooms.

“Of course, Tommy. What do you need?” Philza replies like Tommy knew he would. He turns away from his holo screens to fully face Tommy, gesturing for him to take a seat in front of his desk.

“I don’t like…need something now. Just something to keep in mind?” Tommy hates how small he sounds, but he still hunches in on himself when he sits in the chair Philza indicates.

Philza inclines his head for Tommy to continue.

“If something happens to me, and I die, can you burn my body?” Tommy asks. Pleads, really. He can’t bear the thought of his bones gathering dust somewhere.

“Ah, yes. We can do that. My apologies Tommy, I should have asked you what the Human death rites are earlier. I’ll record that with the other species’s death rites we have on board.” Philza says easily. He pulls up a new window on one of his holo screens and starts typing.

A breath of relief whooshes out of Tommy and he sags in his chair. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Is there anything else you need for this?” Phil asks.

“Yeah, uh. Burn me until I’m ash, please. No bones left? Tommy says hesitantly. He’s dangerously close to revealing too much about Human culture to the Elytrian before him.

“No bones left. We can do that. Is there anything you want? Just as Tommy?” It’s a question Tommy hadn’t considered before, but he knows the answer immediately. 

“Yes! I have a data chip here,” Tommy points to just behind the hinge of his jaw. “It has the coordinates for my mom’s place and my godfather’s shop. Take it out before you burn me and get it to one of them.”

“You have a data chip under your skin?” Philza asks, sounding a little sick.

“Yeah, it’s behind my jawbone here.” Tommy explains. “It doesn’t hurt or anything. It’s just so I can get home no matter what.”

“Alright. I’ll do that. Can I ask why bring them just the chip and not your body?” Philza asks. He turns away from his holo screen and locks eyes with Tommy.

Because my body doesn’t matter, but the information in the chip will help the war effort. Because the chip is tracking this ship’s every movement and knowing where Essempi ships are helps Humans know where not to be. Because I’m a spy.

Tommy doesn’t say any of that. He settles on: “So at least some part of me gets to go home, you know?”

“I know. Thank you for telling me, mate. I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t come to that.” Philza smiles sadly.

Tommy grins back. No bones on Mars. Not his.

***

The second time Phil calls for a Soft Night while Tommy’s around, Tommy settles beside his chair without a second thought and hums lowly to himself. He’s fiddling with something, a piece of paper folded into a pyramid that he pulls apart in rhythm with his song. Every so often he unfolds an inner flap of the pyramid, reads whatever is written within, then nods firmly and goes back to his little song.

This time its Niki that disturbs the silence with a trilling sneeze. Again, everyone begins to finish their tasks, wishing they had more time but too tired to continue. Again, Tommy sits forward with a smile on his lips.

“How about another story?” And they can’t say no.

***

“Ayo, TOMMY!” Jack shouts with a wave as he enters the mess hall.

“Ayup!” Tommy grins in return.

“Hey what the fuck is a cyborg?” Asks Jack as he slides into the seat beside Techno.

Tommy raises his eyebrows. “Cyborg’s a Human with metal bits in ‘em.” He shrugs.

“Some Humans are born with metal parts?” Wilbur asks excitedly, leaning in.

“Nah. Sometimes we lose parts of our bodies so we replace ‘em with metal bits. Plastic too. Anything that works, really.” Tommy says as if he hasn’t just exactly described the plot of an old Enderian horror film.

“What, uh…what parts of you can be replaced? I would think none of them.” Niki asks after a pause, neck fins fluttering in subtle distress.

“I dunno. Some folks got artificial organs cause their’s were sick or injured. Some people got whole limbs made of metal. One of my ribs is fake ‘cause I was a stupid kid, and my godfather has two prosthetic legs and one prosthetic arm.” Tommy says, looking horrifyingly nonchalant. 

“We can replace just about any part with enough time and tech. Doctors can use a big ol’ machine in place of a heart while the remove the real one and replace it with a silicone copy.”

Phil’s jaw has fallen open at some point, and his tongue feels five times too big. “That’s horrible.”

“What? No, what’s horrible would be dying. Least our fake bits keep us alive.” Tommy says, taking a big bite of his sandwich. “They can look pretty real to. You’d never know unless the Human wants you to.”

Like mold to bread, Phil thinks with a private shudder.

***

And then, of course, there is the usual strangeness of Humans that is known about. Of the very, very little that Phil can say for certain about them, he knows that they are a pack species, demonstrating extreme loyalty to those they pack-bond with.

(Its part of why Phil is so set against purchasing a ship rat. It would be an unimaginable cruelty to separate a person from their flock.)

Phil, like the rest of Essempi, assumed that these pack tendencies were not dissimilar to those of Piglins - applicable only to biological and, in rare cases, chosen family. 

But the longer Tommy’s aboard The Angel of Death, the more Phil begins to suspect that every Human is pack-bonded to every other Human to varying degrees.

***

Tommy gets a call from Dream. Unus Annus and her tiny crew of three have been confirmed to be off-line. They were blindsided by an asteroid and its going to take months to get them back on the playing field. The information they would have dealt in needs to be passed around the old fashioned way: data chips and whispers.

***

Tommy just about gives Phil a heart attack when he runs across a docking bay towards a group of what are clearly pirates, with an excited shout.

“Ludwig!” Tommy cries.

“Kid!” A tall Human responds with a grin. He catches Tommy in a hug, laughing.

The other Humans around the battered ship with Mogul Moves splashed in purple across the hull (the ship needs repairs only on the tail, the cowards) stand up with similar smiles, and another emerges from the ship. As they greet Tommy, Phil takes a moment to observe the pirates that were easily welcoming his Human.

The Human Tommy called Ludwig is tall and slender, with a scavenged Dreamon blade slung across his back. After a moment, Phil realizes that the blade has been modified. Changed from a weapon held in a single hand to a spear-like thing with the long blade at the top. Meaning the Human has been able to hack Dreamon tech, a feat which Essempi has not yet been able to accomplish.

One of the Human males, after greeting Tommy with a smile, turns towards Phil and the rest of his flock and waves them over. His face is open and kind, nothing like Phil would have expected from a pirate.

“Hey! I’m Aimen, who’re you?” He asks as they approach.

“Admiral Mi’Craft.” Phil shakes the offered hand.

The bald one is more like Phil expects. He hardly drops his scowl for Tommy, and it comes back full force when he looks at Phil. He stands beside the door into the ship with his arms crossed, showing off an amount of scars that should have cost him his arms and well-used brass knuckles.

Phil only lends half an ear to Aimen and keeps sharp eyes on Tommy, surrounded by pirates without a care in the world.

Tommy says something to a blond Human woman and she nods before yelling deeper into the ship in a Human language. She doesn’t look like a threat, but she has dozens of vials strapped around her belt and chest, some of which glow concerningly bright. Her smile is one Phil recognizes; a potioneer gone slightly mad after having spent years inhaling the fumes of her concoctions.

Another male Human emerges from the ship a moment later, looking very similar to Ludwig and Aimen (tall for a Human, pale skin, short brown hair, how do Humans tell each other apart?). This one has two guns strapped to his thighs, another two in shoulder holsters, and what looks to be a sniper rifle casually clasped in his off hand. 

He hands a small clay pot about the size of Phil’s palm to Tommy before pulling him into a one-armed hug. Then he slides a thin metal box into Tommy’s cloak pocket. Phil recognizes it as the kind that Tommy uses to store his brushes. A replacement set?

After a few tense seconds in which Phil can feel Techno nearly vibrating out of his skin to get their fledgling away from these dangerous Humans and Tommy chats obliviously with them, Tommy bids them goodbye and returns to the flock.

“Tommy, what the fuck?” Wilbur gasps, pulling the Human into a fierce hug.

“What?” Tommy looks genuinely perplexed. “I needed some more face paint, I figured it’d be easier to borrow from them then to look for a Human seller in the market.”

“And you just…asked some random pirates for a loan?” Phil asks, alarmed. He begins to steer them away from the group. Tommy calls something in a Human tongue behind them at the pirates and the pirates yell the same slurring of words back at him, waving.

“Yeah! I know them!” Tommy smiles.

“You know pirates?” Phil is, to put it mildly, alarmed.

“Well yeah, king. They’re Human.” And he offers no further explanation.

Phil tries very, very hard not to think about why Tommy feels safe approaching a random group of pirates. Tries not to think about the violence Tommy had to have been raised in to be accustomed to the weapons the pirates wore in open threat. He’s only mostly successful.

***

Tommy is very proud of how smoothly the hand-off went. He’d slipped the data chip he’d picked up from a drop box the previous week into QT’s belt when she hugged him, the motion hidden by their cloaks, and Nick had easily hidden their data transfer in a small plastic bag in the paint pot.

Phil had watched closely, but Aimen’s monologue about the local restaurants had been a sufficient distraction, and the flock seemed to accept his explanation of how he knew them. Tommy sent a grateful prayer to the ancestors for their secrecy allowing him to get away with all sorts of things.

Sapnap laughs so hard he falls out of his chair when Tommy recounts Phil’s face when he’d run to a group of pirates.

***

“Tell us a story, Toms,” Wilbur rasps. They’ve never asked Tommy for a story. His stories are always freely offered and gratefully received. Phil hopes Tommy can make an exception this time.

His primaries barely brush Wilbur where he lies on the floor near Techno, but none of them can get any closer to each other. The ship is steadily loosing oxygen, and the crew on the bridge has all collapsed, sliding out of their chairs, barely clinging to consciousness.

Jack has wrapped himself around Niki, Wilbur rests his head on Techno’s boot, the open comms play Tubbo and Ranboo’s last, heavy breaths. Tommy, somehow, is the only one left standing.

“Tell you a story? I’ll tell you a story alright.” Tommy pants, tearing around the bridge, frantically flicking switches and pushing buttons, not accepting the final demise of The Angel and her crew. He’s so terribly young for it, and so terribly Human, and Phil aches for the kid.

“Once upon a time,” Tommy starts, because nearly all Human stories start that way, “There was a little fuckin’ rat. He was the biggest rat of all the rats but he was still just a rat.”

Tommy nearly falls as he runs from Tubbo’s station to Wilbur’s to Techno’s, assessing oxygen levels, sending distress calls, diverting power to life support.

“And the little rat got super attached to a bunch of…I dunno, big ol’ cats. Stupid rat got attached to a bunch of cats and forgot that cats are bigger targets to the dogs.”

Tommy’s voice is choked up, and Phil can see tears shining on his cheeks in the failing lights of the control panels. 

“So this stupid rat’s awesome cats got attacked by a fucking evil dog one day and all the cats were really hurt and the little rat couldn’t fucking do anything to help!” Tommy ends in a strangled scream, collapsing beside Phil.

He shuffles so that Phil’s head is in Tommy’s lap. He combs his fingers through Phil’s hair in what Phil recognizes as an attempt to soothe him. It would be better in his wings, but he’s not complaining, taking what comfort he can in his dying moments.

The cabin of the bridge is quiet for a long moment. Except for Tommy’s soft gasps as he, too, begins to succumb to the lack of oxygen. Except for a crackling cough from Tubbo. Except for the gentle beeping of the ship’s systems going off-line one by one.

Except for the thud of another ship docking on the side of The Angel.

Phil is looking up at Tommy, so he sees when Tommy grins in savage victory, exposing sharp-looking teeth.

“So the stupid rat called back-up. Because one stupid rat can’t do anything against an evil dog, but a hundred rats can protect the cats. And a thousand rats can kill a dog.”

Humans pour onto the bridge and begin the long process of triaging Phil’s crew and patching the ship enough to limp onwards and towing them to the nearest port. Phil recognizes them as the pirate crew that Tommy had borrowed some paint from.

Now that Phil is looking more closely, he can see that they have poorly made Essempi Federation patches on the arms of their cloaks and he realizes they signed up to fight in the war. He supposes they can’t be so bad, even if he’s heard the Human fleet is somewhat (entirely) ineffective.

He thanks their captains, Ludwig and “QT”, profusely. He pretends not to notice how Tommy pulls the bald one, apparently named Slime, away with a hug. He decides to forget how they spoke in hushed tones, in a Human tongue, heads bent close and shoulders brushing.

Phil knows Tommy has brothers. If one of his brothers is a pirate, at least he’s a pirate who will come to his little brother’s aid when called. 

Phil deletes the distress call logs and wipes the frequency from the ship’s memory. Lets Tommy and his brother communicate in peace.

(Later, Tommy explains that Humans can survive on much less oxygen than any other species. That Earth’s atmosphere is so oxygen poor it barely scrapes the previously established minimum  threshold to sustain life. Phil’s hearts break when Tommy quietly and desperately promises that he’s not a monster because of it.)

***

Tommy tells Ludwig and QT to bring them to his godfather’s workshop because the nearest three Essempi shipyards are full. It’s clear that Sam doesn’t want to help, but Tommy speaks to him in a Human tongue and the man relents.

Tommy was right. Phil would never have known Sam was a cyborg had Tommy not told him. The fake flesh was too convincing, the movement of his legs and arm as smooth as muscle and bone.

Sam and his two kids, Hannah and Boomer, do in a week what would have taken two full Essempi engineering squadrons a month to do. They stubbornly turn away any compliments from the crew, and Sam threatens Phil with very blunt and brutal bodily harm when Phil suggests he could provide some commendation to the army on their behalf.

Phil suddenly remembers how, just before they departed, Ludwig and QT had gently and firmly requested that their names and the name of their ship be kept out of the incident report. And how Kristin had blushed and demurred when he’d complimented how well she handled being thrown into the deep end of ambassadorship. It seems that it’s a Human thing to turn away praise, and Phil can’t help but wonder why.

Of the few Humans he’s met, none of them were what he had come to expect from Humanity. 

Not cruel, Kristin was kind. Not stupid, Sam was sharp as a whip. Not lazy, Hannah and Boomer worked with a single-minded focus. Not selfish, the pirates of Mogul Moves gave Tommy their face paint no strings attached. Not isolated, every Human besides stolen ship rats seem to live in small flocks, and come when other flocks call for help.

An Elytrian had to wonder if the reason why there weren’t more exceptional Humans in the galaxy was more because they seemed to be deathly allergic to any hint of praise or recognition and not due to some fault in their genetics.

***

Tommy had been so fucking stupid. It had already been very risky to call Mogul Moves to The Angel of Death’s aid. He’d been able to explain away meeting with Ludwig’s crew and passing off some information by saying he’d known that Humans would have some spare face paint. 

Calling them for help? Another thing entirely. Taking the whole ship to Sam’s workshop? Tommy nearly thought Sam would shoot him on the spot.

He tried to deflect suspicion by slipping Phil some more coveted information about Humans, specifically their low minimum oxygen requirement, as a distraction. Aimen, having long since perfect his charming smile and apparently uncontrollable chatting, helped by marveling at how unlikely it was that they were in the area and caught the distress call.

And for their part, Sam, Hannah, and Boomer worked day and night to get The Angel of Death out of the workshop as fast as possible.

Tommy does, however, take the opportunity to pull Slime away to ask for his help. Tommy’s been trying to hack a secure back door into The Angel of Death’s systems for Human Command, but he’s been unsuccessful. Slime gives him some pointers, and he secures the back door within the month.

Tommy goes through the ship’s logs as soon as he does so to delete the call frequency he sent out the distress signal on. Its a Humans-only frequency, one of the few, and he needs to clear it before they can start using it again.

But its already gone. Not a trace remaining. He reviews the security footage and sees Phil surreptitiously deleting the logs only hours after the call was made. There’s no way Phil could know what he was doing, that he was helping Human Command. Right?

“Phil, can you pull up the frequency I sent out the distress call on that hit Mogul Moves?” Tommy asks a few days later.

“Why, did you forget it?” Phil replies, looking concerned.

“Well…not exactly. But I wanna make sure I remember it correctly.” Tommy tries.

“I deleted it from the ship’s logs.” Phil shakes his head apologetically. “And I doubt my brief memory is any better than yours if you memorized it enough to remember in a high stakes situation.”

Tommy breaths a sigh of relief. The frequency is safe. “Why?”

Phil is silent for a moment. He does that a lot. “That bald Human, Slime. I saw you talking.” Tommy’s heart stops in his chest mid-beat. Phil continues slowly, kindly. “He’s one of your brothers, isn’t he? And you called for help on your personal or family frequency? We don’t need to know that.”

“Thank you.” Tommy smiles gratefully. Phil can believe that Slime is his family, that the frequency is just for messages between brothers. 

Its a little true.

***

No bones on Mars. It’s become a kind of mantra for Humans in the centuries since the discovery of dessicated Human bones on the red desert planet. 

Tommy ends all his murmured prayers with it, shouts it before going into battle, whispered it to his mother when she sent him away, and later to Sam when he left the workshop. It’s important, it’s a promise, and it is never ever translated into the Essempi Common tongue. 

It’s a core Human ideal, buried so deep in what it means to be Human that no other species should ever know of its existence enough to question what it means. Tommy says it a lot, so it’s his fault when,

“Hey Toms? That thing you said to the pirates the other day? What does it mean?” Wilbur asks, and Tommy short circuits.

“Nothing, bitch! Fuck off!” Tommy fairly snarls, baring his teeth in what is most definitely not a smile.

“Uh…right, yeah. Human secrets.” Wilbur says, sounding crestfallen. “I’ll fuck off now.”

He does, but Tommy doesn’t feel better for it. He crawls into the vents and curls up in his favourite junction below the core engines. He loves it because it’s always warm, and the thrumming almost sounds like music if Tommy pretends.

He’s been getting too comfortable with The Angel of Death and her crew. He’ll need to be more careful, because if there’s one thing that every Human child knows — and there’s a lot — its that if you tell other races about The Story, you’ll be discredited and ostracized before you can blink.

Tommy remembers the night when Amy brought back the news that Minx had married an Aresi. There hadn’t been anger. There hadn’t been a horrible sense of betrayal. It was just…acceptance. Eret and his mother and everyone else all just knew that this meant Minx was no longer one of them.

Tommy can’t lose his family, his Humanity, not for the aliens he’s spying on.

He needs to talk to a Human. He doesn’t want to interrupt his mom’s work, and Sam’s workshop is always overflowing with repairs and commissions. He calls the brother who’s most likely to pick up.

“Hey, puppy. What’s your need?” Sapnap’s voice rolls out of the speaker implants in Tommy’s ears like a deep pool of gravel shifting. Tommy feels himself settle a little instantly. The crew of The Dream Team have always called him a puppy, and Tommy secretly quite likes it.

“Hi Sapnap,” Tommy whispers in English, the harsh consonants feeling like home on his tongue. “I almost fucked up.”

“What happened?” Sapnap asks without judgment. Tommy knows that his older brother is already mentally calculating the distance between The Dream Team and The Angel of Death’s last known position, how long it would take to pick him up.

“I’ve been saying the mantra a lot. I said it to Mogul Moves after I passed off the data chip from the Septic Eye four months ago. And again last week when they rescued us.” Tommy forces the last of his confession past the boulder in his throat. “The Comms Officer of The Angel asked me what it means.”

“Did you tell them?”

“No! I told him to fuck off and I ran here.”

“Where is here, by the way? You sound like you’re in an engine, pup.” Sapnap says with a chuckle. Tommy appreciates him trying to calm him down, distract him.

“Close, I’m in the vents below the engines. You’re not mad?” He appreciates the distraction, but he desperately needs reassurance right now.

“I’m not mad. You didn’t tell. There’s nothing wrong with being asked a question.” Sapnap assures, and Tommy breathes a sigh of relief.

“I wanted to tell him.” Tommy confesses after chewing on the words for a full minute.

“You like them.”

“I…”

“That’s okay, puppy. You’re allowed to like them.”

“Can you tell me a story, Sapnap?” Tommy’s voice, drowned by engine song even as it leaves his mouth, sounds very small.

He doesn’t want to think about this anymore, because if he does he’ll think about how Wilbur is another brother to him, about how Phil is like the father he never had, and how much fun he has with the flock. 

He knows, okay? He knows. Human families grow and expand with each new person you meet, but they hard-stop at the border of Humanity. Wilbur isn’t allowed to be his brother. Phil isn’t allowed to be his father.

“Always, Tommy. Let me tell you the story of the bones on Mars.” Sapnap says, pulling Tommy out of his spiral.

Tommy hears a creak, and can picture Sapnap leaning back in his chair on the bridge of The Dream Team, eyes fixed on the infinite horizon. 

“On the first ever manned mission to Mars, five Humans left Earth with bright eyes, eager to uncover the secrets of the universe, one planet at a time. All five astronauts came back, but they brought with them the bones of twelve ancient Humans.”

Tommy falls asleep in the warm exhale of an engine powering ship the size of a city, listening to the deep rolling voice of his brother tell him The Story.

***

Six months after the weird meeting with the Human pirates of Mogul Moves in an Essempi shipyard and two months after that same crew rescues Phil and his flock from suffocating on their own ship, they’re dead.

Phil finds out three days after. He finds Tommy huddled in a corner of his office, curled in a ball, wrapped in his rarely-seen cloak. Phil thinks he usually keeps his cloak wherever he sleeps, because the boy hardly wears it whilst slinging himself around the ship’s engines and wiggling through her vents.

Tommy’s crying.

“Tommy? Mate?” Phil crouches in front of Tommy, flaring his wings behind him to shield his so-the fledgling from…whatever he needs shielded from. Elytrian instincts don’t always make sense in the present day of space travel. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re dead!” Tommy sobs, throwing himself at Phil, who catches him and hugs him close.

“Oh my darling boy…who?” Phil wraps his wings firmly around his fledgling and cups the back of his head, bringing his forehead to Phil’s collar. 

“They…the crew of Mogul Moves,” Tommy answers after two heaving gasps.

Mogul Moves. The pirates who had come to their aid when they were dying. The criminals who had greeted Tommy a friend, who had given him one of their little pots of paint when he asked. Who had carried Tommy’s brother within their ranks.

Tommy’s brother who was now dead.

“I’m so sorry, mate.” Phil curls further around Tommy. “I’m so sorry.”

***

Hiding under Phil’s wings reminds him of hiding under the cloaks of adults as a kid. Of the safety and love the little warm spaces promises. It hurts, a little, but he finds he misses it, needs it. Stupid Human hind brain.

Tommy tells Phil the official story. Mogul Moves ran afoul of a black hole. He can’t tell Phil the truth. Even as the man comforts him, Tommy has to lie. Its easier to lie to his chest, safe in his wings.

Phil can’t know the truth. That they died heroes. That they died to take out a huge Dreamon ship factory, saving hundreds of thousands of lives, taking them one step closer to winning the war.

Because Humans don’t get the credit. They aren’t war heroes, they’re fuck-ups who kill themselves and their friends on joyrides. They kill themselves on joyrides and leave their little brothers with nothing to remember them by except for a few tiny brushes.

Tommy should be wailing, mourning his brother who he never said goodbye to. He thinks about Ludwig teaching him how to fight with a blade, thinks about Nick teaching him how to shoot from kilometers and millimeters, about Slime’s jokes and Aimen’s smiles and QT’s cakes.

Its not hard to pretend.

***

They’re on another long-haul flight. The Angel of Death is constantly being upgraded, outfitted with the newest tech, the hardest-hitting weapons, and so she’s in constant demand. Most battle-vessels are stationed on a stretch of the battlefront only a few hundred light-years wide, but The Angel is sent to wherever the fighting is the thickest.

Right now, that means Phil and his crew are traveling across empty Essempi space for three weeks with nothing much to do but prepare. So Phil calls a Soft Night.

The bridge is dim and quiet at this time of early evening, everyone plodding their way through the paperwork and emails they can no longer ignore with the excuse of fighting for their lives. 

Tommy, despite never having any paperwork or emails, has chosen to endure it with them. He’s strangely still on Soft Nights, nearly a different being from that boisterous, laughing boy that haunts Phil’s ship. He seems to have intrinsic knowledge of when to be loud and make them laugh and when to let them buckle down and get to work.

Phil sometimes thinks about how other commanders would call Tommy the perfect ship rat. He knows when to be quiet, does good work with no complaining. Then his stomach rolls and he thinks about the eyes of their ship rats.

“Hey Tommy,” Wilbur sings with no honey-sweet power in his voice, just his melodic accent.

“Wassup, big man?” Tommy says sleepily from his customary place on his soft mat beside Phil’s captain’s chair.

Tommy’s gotten in the habit of gently preening Phil’s wings on nights like these and Phil adores it. There’s not many who would get close enough to an Elytrian’s wings to do so. Then again, there’s not many who would laugh easily at a Siren’s jokes. Or hug a Piglin. And yet Tommy does all this, freely.

“Tell me a story,” Wilbur purrs, like a pleased cat in a sunbeam.

This is part of their routine. Alongside the long-haul flights and the endless paperwork and the gentleness of a bridge at rest is the moment when someone cracks and asks Tommy for a story. Tommy says it’s part of his job, as the resident Human, to tell stories.

Sometimes he talks in Galactic Common, sometimes in a Human tongue, but always with the skill and lilting tone of a child of a race of master storytellers. The only thing Humans truly excel at, shown only to a trusted few, and not useful in war.

Tommy hums, thinking. “Okay, what kind of story?” 

They’re both speaking softly in the stillness of the dim bridge, but loud enough for everyone to hear. This too, is part of the routine.

“Tell me an old Human bedtime story.” Wilbur says. Techno likes the myths of the old ‘Greek’ Human sub-species, Jack always requests tales of the few intra-Human battles, and Phil finds himself preferring when Tommy talks about his own ordinary Human life.

“An old Human bedtime story…” Tommy repeats, sitting up and leaning back on his hands, Phil’s wings momentarily forgotten. After a moment, he starts.

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

***

It was a war, so it wasn’t easy by any means. But it was easier than any inter-galactic war in memory, living or digital. The Dreamon’s opening attack of glassing a peaceful planet was their strongest one. 

Bealio tells Phil that initial reports of their strength were so wrong that the Council planned to launch an internal investigation to see how their analysts could have arrived at such an extreme conclusion. The Dreamon’s true strength was no more than a tenth of their projected power.

It didn’t stop the battles from being dangerous. It didn’t mean that no one died. It didn’t mean that Tommy wouldn’t whoop when they won, wouldn’t find Phil after a close call, drag him to the mess hall to celebrate and lead the crew in a rousing chorus of old Human victory hymns in a tongue only he understood.

***

“You know, you’re a real credit to your kind.” Philza tells Tommy in the mess hall one day after he fixed a malfunctioning light-speed engine with nothing more than a rusty multi-tool and a few stuttered instructions from Tubbo.

Tommy instantly stiffens, looking at Phil with a strange combination of fear and betrayal in his eyes. “W-what?”

“You’re a credit to your kind.” Phil repeats, having long grown used to Tommy’s near-inability to accept compliments.

“He’s right,” Wilbur chimes in, supported by an affirmative grunt from Techno.

“No, no, fuck you! You take that back!” Tommy yells. He looks, for some reason, genuinely afraid.

“Why? You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.” Phil says calmly. He’s confused, but he hopes that if he says it enough, Tommy will believe it. His self-esteem really needs some work. Phil is willing to pull out the elbow-grease if needed.

“You could do any of our jobs at the drop of a hat, big man.” Tubbo says through a mouthful of salad.

“Stop that, take it back now!” Tommy cries as he jumps to his feet. He looks like a cornered animal and Phil never wants to see any of his flock looking like that again.

“Okay, okay,” Phil says, raising his palms in a near-universal symbol of placation and surrender. “I take it back.”

“Good. Don’t…don’t fucking say shit like that.” Tommy snarls, still aggressive even in the face of his commander’s submission.

“Can I ask why?” Phil is very lost, but it’s not the first time he’s been blindsided by his son’s strange behaviour.

“No, its-“ Tommy runs a hand through his hair, backing away. “It’s not allowed. No Human’s a ‘credit to their kind, okay? It’s just…not allowed.”

The he turns and flees, trailing a hundred spiraling questions in his wake.

***

Tommy remembers how Amy spat out that Minx was a credit to her kind and how Eret nodded and declared that she was no longer one of them. No longer a Human.

Tommy remembers how his mother had to send him away when she became Ambassador because if she didn’t, the son of a ‘credit to her kind’ wouldn’t be Human anymore either.

If Tommy was a credit to his kind, he’d be able to see his mom again. But he’d loose Sam. And Dream, and Sapnap, and George and…he’s already lost Ludwig and QT and their crew. He can’t loose more.

Sometimes, he hates his mother for forcing him onto this ship. Because really, it’s not like he had much of a choice. Someone needed to spy, and Tommy was the best, maybe even only, option.

He hates being here, he hates being alone and isolated from other Humans, he hates Phil for being so stars-damned kind and accepting him into his flock.

***

Sometimes, Phil forgets why he had never considered a ship rat before. Sometimes, he looks at the purchased ship rats of the other crews and is thankful that Tommy chose him of his own free will.

***

Tommy has…a concerning amount of scars. More than just the little nicks and minor burns that Phil would expect of someone working among the twisted machinery of a battle vessel as big as The Angel.

Tommy covers a lot of his skin, like all Humans do, but Phil’s flock sees enough to be concerned.

Tommy takes off his gloves one day to help Tubbo in engineering and Tubbo tells Phil about the myriad of scars hacked into their Human’s arms.

Wilbur points out the scar on Tommy’s chin, always covered with one of the Human’s strange face markings. Tommy laughs and says he tripped and fell onto a low table when he was five.

Techno mentions Tommy’s subtle limp, favouring his right leg. Tommy doesn’t explain that one. Or the odd stiffness in his shoulders in the mornings. Or any of the other strange behaviours that seem to accommodate old injuries definitely not from being a ship rat.

What worries Phil the most is a long thick scar up the side of Tommy’s neck that disappears under his collar and clearly continues at the very least down his shoulder and quite probably his ribs. It’s the one Tommy rubs and pokes at the most when he has nothing else to occupy his hands.

It looks like the scarring left behind by a charged Dreamon blade.

But Tommy shouldn’t have been anywhere near Dreamons, if he’s telling the truth. Humans are known liars, but Tommy’s so sweet, and the exception to every other rule. Kind and friendly and easy to share Human myths and snippets of Human culture. 

Phil decides to let it be. So long as Tommy’s not hurting, Phil can let sleeping dogs lie.

***

But the questions about Tommy continue to pile up. Techno is the one that finally asks him why he thinks he’s not allowed to be a credit to his kind. Tommy is silent for a long time after Techno asks. So long that Phil thinks he may have just fallen asleep on his mat. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them has dozed off on a Soft Night.

“It’s not allowed because its bad.” Tommy finally settles on. “Nothing good ever happens to people who are credits to the Human race.”

“There are Human scientists out there, doing amazing things.” Niki says in her lilting-crooning accent.
 
Tommy spits something so violently it takes Phil half a minute to realize it was actually words and not just an angry sound.

“That doesn’t sound nice.” Phil comments calmly. “What does that mean?”

“It means-“ Tommy falters. “I, uh, suppose literally translated it means ‘a credit to their kind’, but that’s not what it means.”

Phil is silent, and the others follow his lead. After over five hundred years of life, Phil knows how to wait for the answer he wants. And he wants to know why this kid thinks he can’t amount to anything. He’s waited a while to ask, and it seems safe enough, even with how protective Humans are of their language and secrets.

“It more means blood traitor than anything else, I guess. Like what Techno was talking about, where some Piglins get exiled from their sounder and no other sounder will touch them? Its a similar concept to that.” Tommy says thoughtfully.

“Then its not a word to use lightly.” Techno all but growls. “Not something for scientists.”

“And its not a word for someone who’s a credit to their kind.” Phil says evenly, anger boiling in his stomach but cooling before it reaches his voice. It’s not Tommy’s fault he was raised like this, he reminds himself. He blames Tommy’s mother instead.

“It is though! For Humans at least.” Tommy insists. “If you’re a credit to your kind, then you draw attention to yourself and your kind. And nothing good comes from being noticed. So when someone comes along and declares a Human a credit to their kind, we all drop them. They’re not safe to be around.”

“But Humans are pack animals,” Niki frowns. “What happens to the Human who’s dropped?”

“Dunno. I guess they probably band together or something. All I know is that Humans aren’t supposed to be great at anything. Good? Sure. Mediocre? Even better. But great? No.” Tommy shakes his head.

He says it as though this is a universally known and accepted fact. And, Phil supposes, for Humans, it is.

“There’s this old Human saying.” Tommy continues, and Phil won’t stop him now to ask any of the million questions burning in his throat like stars, not when Tommy’s finally telling them anything about Human culture. “With great power comes great responsibility. Greatness is dangerous. Humans are safer in the shadows.”

And suddenly, like a filter clicking into place, sliding over his perception of the world to bring everything into sharper clarity, Phil understands. “Humans are on the defensive.” He muses out loud. “You guard your language and history because knowledge is power and you don’t want anyone to have power over you. You don’t want to draw enough attention to be a threat.”

Tommy sucks in a breath, looking for a moment very much like a scared little chick who accidentally tattled on his friend.

“You weren’t the only sapient species on your home planet, were you? There was someone else, someone who hunted you down. Someone who hurt you do deeply your entire race swore never to trust an outsider again.” Phil says it like a question, but its not.

Tommy nods slowly. Cautiously. He looks relieved, like he’s glad he doesn’t need to hide it anymore. “There were others. The Neanderthals. We had to kill them all or they would have killed us.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Wilbur asks. He sounds hurt, like Tommy chose not to tell him, not like his entire race chose to isolate themselves for centuries and he’s a product of that.

“We were afraid of what you would think of us.” The air on the bridge feels delicate. Cave spider lace, thinly woven and ready to break at the slightest breath. “We’re monsters.”

Tommy whispers it like a confession to the hollow cathedral of the bridge. Like he expects to be shot dead on the spot, like its the final horrible truth that will get him pushed out an airlock.

He says it like it’s true, and Phil’s hearts break for him. “Who told you this?”

***

“That’s what my mom told me. Rat, dog, raven. That’s what every Human parent tells their child. Rat, dog, raven. The only three things a Human can be.” Tommy explains casually over dinner one night.

“Tommy thats…what does that mean?” Wilbur asks hesitantly.

“Ship rat, attack dog or…raven doesn’t have an easy equivalent in Common. Raven kinda stands for all manner of smugglers and thieves and merchants. People who take or move or sell goods. And attack dog is like, what violence we’re allowed. Pirates ‘n shit. An’ you know what a ship rat is. That’s me!” Tommy finishes with a grin. 

“Your mother told you that you could only be a ship rat or a pirate or a…thief?” Wilbur sounds heartbroken. 

Phil can understand. The thought of this bright young child being told to hide himself, to be lesser…Phil is starting to harbour certain unprofessional and quite negative feelings about Tommy’s mother.

“That was wrong of her, Tommy.” Phil says seriously. “You can do whatever you want, you’re not limited to three choices, there’s a whole galaxy out there!”

“Multiple galaxies.” Techno adds with a chuff.

“Those are the only options for Humans. Except those-“ Tommy says something in his Human tongue with a disgusted curl to his lip that he doesn’t bother to translate for them and Phil won’t ask him to. He knows what Tommy means.

“Which was your mom?” Phil asks. He already doesn’t like the woman, but he’s trying to withhold ultimate judgment on her. “Rat, dog, or raven?”

Tommy thinks for a moment. “None of them. She’s a-“ That word again. Phil can’t tell if this Human tongue is a tonal language so the word has to be said with contempt or if Tommy just doesn’t like his mom. “I love her, but I had to cut ties. At least officially.”

***

Technically? No. Philza shouldn’t have called a Soft Night. But the Council of Ambassadors have been running his crew ragged, and it was the best he could do for them as they raced from war front to battlefield across the galaxies. The most peace he could offer them, and it wasn’t much. 

Very little work is getting done, and Phil can’t concentrate himself, so he turns to Tommy on the floor beside him.

“Tommy, what do Humans call their flocks?” He wouldn’t have dared ask a question like that when he first met Tommy, but he’s been a part of the flock for well over two years now, settled in.

“We say families, but our families don’t exactly have the same strict end points like Elytrian flocks do.” Tommy replies easily, quiet as he only is on a Soft Night.

“How do you mean?” Wilbur asks, always hungry for Human knowledge.

“You want me to use my family as an example?” Tommy’s smile is evident in his voice.

“Please.” Phil answers for his crew.

“Okay! So there’s me an’ my mom, right? And it’s just the two of us that are blood related. Never knew my dad, don’t have any blood siblings.” A shard of ice lodges itself between Phil’s hearts at the mention of Tommy’s mother like it always does. From what he’s heard, she doesn’t sound like a kind woman and Phil’s dislike of her is shared by the rest of the bridge crew. Tommy doesn’t know.

“But my family’s a lot bigger than just me n’ my mom. You remember my godfather and his kids? Sam and Hannah and Boomer? They’re family too. Sam’s like my uncle and Hannah and Boomer are my cousins. Then there’s my brothers. I met them wayyyy later than Sam’s family.”

“Wait, hold on.” Jack interrupts. “How can they be closer to you in the family hierarchy if you met them later?”

“No such thing as a family hierarchy, king.” Tommy replies. “It’s all about your relationship with each other and how you feel about them. I met my brothers after I met my cousins, but I’m closer than my brothers. Ergo, uh, brothers.”

“Weird.” Blazeborn culture operates on a strict hierarchy within and between families. Jack seems to struggle with the concept of being actually, truly equal with anyone.

“Sure, whatever you say.” Tommy shrugs.

“Soooo? Who are your brothers?” Wilbur singsongs, sitting backwards in his chair to face the center of the bridge. It’s no secret he thinks of Tommy as another little brother himself.

“I have three! Dream, Sapnap, and George.” Tommy starts again, sounding ready to monologue as he tells them the story of his family he clearly loves, but Jack interrupts again.

“The bridge crew of The Dream Team?!” He exclaims, turning fully to face Tommy. “That Dream, Sapnap, and George?” 

“Yeah-huh!” Tommy grins, finally sitting up to make eye contact with Jack.

“Heh? Of all the Humans in the universe you happen to know these three random Humans?” Techno interjects, stunned. He, too, turns to face the center of the bridge.

“Not super well, but we’ve worked together a few times in the past.” Jack says. “We’re…friendly.”

“They’re pirates and smugglers.” Niki elaborates. “Crew of less than a dozen Humans on a shipping vessel that should run on minimum thirty. They mostly move things that were, ah, acquired? Through less-than-legal means for other criminals. For a fee, of course.”

“That’s my family!” Tommy chirps happily.

“Pirates.” Phil says. He doesn’t quite know how to feel about that, having lived a life almost entirely on Essempi’s side of the law. “Smugglers.”

“We call them dogs, but yeah. Pirates.” Phil just nods.

“Anyway, my brothers taught me a lot about being part of a crew. George, he’s the oldest. He wears these big ol’ goggles all the time, so we call him Gogy. He’s a really got shot. Give him any weapon and two minutes and he’ll land a bullseye every time. He’s also the best pilot I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Jack.” Tommy continues.

Phil flicks his gaze to Jack, who nods. Huh. Phil almost wouldn’t think that possible.

“Then there’s Sapnap. He’s so cool. He really likes fire an explosions which is, eh, a bit of a red flag, but having a demolitions guy on hand is super useful. He has an amazing voice for storytelling. Like…like church bells. Big and melodic and deep.” Tommy takes a breath. “And my last brother, but certainly not least brother, is Dream. He’s the Captain of the ship and he kinda hates the name but we outvoted him. He’s a really good fighter and taught me how to fight too!”

Tommy is smiling from ear to ear, and Phil can’t find it in his hearts to hate Tommy’s criminal brothers like a good Admiral should. They must have done right by Tommy where his mother couldn’t or wouldn’t.

“So you probably know the rest of the crew too?” Niki says. Its a not-quite question that Sirens are partial to. Can’t compel someone to answer if it’s not technically a request.

“Yup! Family. Sapnap’s dad, Bad, is kind of an uncle like Sam.” Tommy nods.

“His name…is Bad?” Wilbur asks, frowning.

“Well, no not exactly. But his name in Human is pretty difficult for other species to pronounce, and a bit of a mouthful for Humans too, so we just use the Common translation. Which is Bad.”

“What’s his real name?” Wilbur pushes.

Tommy opens his mouth and says something grating that makes Phil’s throat hurt just thinking about trying to pronounce it. It sounds close to the Common words ‘bad boy halo’, but somehow both more airy and more guttural.

“Oh yeah. Best stick to Bad.” Wilbur says with a wince.

“What about Ant? He your family too?” Jack asks.

Tommy looks pained. “He was, yeah. But he died a few years ago now.”

“Dead?” Jack pales. “And we didn’t know?”

“Yeah, well. Shit happens in war.” Tommy says sadly.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Tommy. Niki, Jack.” He brushes his wing against Tommy’s back and the kid shoots him a weak, but grateful smile.

“Life’s life.” Tommy says, before barreling onwards. “Sapnap’s fiancés are also crew on Dream’s ship: Quackity and Karl. They’re also my friends, and family too.”

“That sounds a lot like a sounder.” Techno muses.

“Sure, but it doesn’t end there. My best guess is that Human families work similar to Elytrian friend networks. So Dream has a brother, yeah? A blood brother. His name is Foolish-“

Techno starts violently. “Foolish Gamers?” He asks incredulously.

“The very same. Hey, what’s going on? Is this a prank? Phil are you gonna tell me that you’re dating my mom next?” Tommy laughs.

“Don’t think so, chick.” Phil chuckles. He’s not really dating Kristin, their courtship is still on hold, and Tommy’s mother sounds nothing like her anyway.

“What? Wait! Techno, how do you know this random Human?” Jack yells triumphantly. He leaps to his feet and points at Techno with one foot on his seat, the other on the back of his chair and declares with finality and glee, “HYPOCRITE!”

“Shut!” Phil cuts in. “Jack, please, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Yeah, Jack. Give the old man some peace in his final days.” Wilbur teases as Jack drops back down to a more reasonable seated position.

“You too, shut.” Phil glares playfully. Wilbur mimes zipping his lips shut and placing a key on his desk, despite the fact that zippers don’t lock.

Techno surveys the room carefully. Then, slowly, after Phil nods in encouragement, “Foolish Gamers was a slave in the cell opposite me in the Pit. Before Phil broke me out.”

The bridge explodes with noise. The crew that was there when Techno was brought on board has been entirely swapped out now, all of them having been near the end of their time on the ship when he joined. Phil appreciates Techno leaving out the fact that he’d had to buy Techno according to local laws to get him off-world.

Techno just sits, arms crossed, and refuses to address the barrage of questions. After a few minutes of chaos, when it becomes clear that Techno will not be giving out any further information, attention returns, reluctantly, to Tommy.

“Yeah, Dream mentioned he had to break Foolish out of the Pit a few years back.” Tommy nods thoughtfully like this is totally normal and not involving slavery and traumatic fights to the death. “I’ve never met him in person, because he decided not to join Dream’s crew and go his own way after, so he’s out there. Somewhere. But he’s Dream’s family and Dream’s my family, so Foolish is my family too. And I’m his. The transitive property or whatever. Human families can get pretty big, pretty fast.”

“But you’ve never met him?” Niki asks, clearly turning this over in her mind. “Have you tried?”

“Nope. I’ll see him someday. We don’t have to have met to be family.” Tommy shrugs.

Phil doesn’t understand that, but he can try. “Where does it end? What if Foolish made friends with another person in the Pit and that person has a sister? Is she your family?”

“Eehh, no easy answer here. She’s less so, but kinda? If you wanna take a big view of the situation, all Humans are family. It’s a lot about connections and who you know, ya know? Like what happened here,” He gestures to Techno, Niki, and Jack, indicating their ties to mutual friends. “Except with more of a bond to help. I could probably go up to just about any criminal in the galaxy, any Human, and they’ll have either worked with my brothers or hired my godfather, or knows someone who has.”

“From there, I could get passage on just about any Human ship to anywhere. I go to this dude, say ‘hey, I’m Dream’s little brother and I need to go home,’ and the dude will contact Dream for me, or let me work on their ship until I make it closer to Dream, or point me in the direction of someone who can. And then go up to them and I say, ‘hey, I’m Dream’s little brother and I need to go home and Punz told me you could help’.” Tommy takes a deep breath, looking pleased with himself.

“And they’ll just help you?” Niki asks. “Just like that?”

“Pretty much. Because family doesn’t stop with me and my mom, or my godfather, or even Foolish. It goes to all their family I haven’t met, and their good friends, and people my family helped out in a pinch.” Tommy explains.

“So do Niki and Jack count?” Ranboo asks, speaking for the first time, brow furrowed. “’Cause they worked with your brothers?”

“Uh, no can do, king. Family hard-stops at Humans. We’re secretive an’ shit.” Tommy says guiltily.

“Oh.” Wilbur wilts. “So we can’t be your family?”

“Its not allowed-“ Tommy starts, sounding pained.

The ship’s proximity alarm blares and the Soft Night is over. Tubbo and Tommy rush down to engineering, Ranboo runs to prep medical, and Phil is left with an emotionally wrought bridge crew to fight a Dreamon battle cruiser.

***

“So Slime isn’t your brother?” Phil asks.

“Not…no. Yeah no, I’m not that close to him.” Tommy hedges.

“But he’s family?”

“Yes.” Please drop it, please, please, don’t let this fuck up unravel every lie I’ve ever told-

“Huh. Okay.” 

Thank you, ancestors.

***

Tommy had been weak, telling them about his family. It’s just…it had been so long since he saw them or talked about them, and he hadn’t been able to mourn Mogul Moves’ crew with them. Ancestors help him, Tommy is so lonely.

“I want to come home.” Tommy says tearfully in greeting.

“Oh puppy,” Dream sighs. “You can always come home. Always.”

“Can you come pick me up?” Tommy’s asks weakly. He’s been a spy for two and a half years, and he can’t do it any more.

“We’re real deep in Dreamon space at the moment, it’ll be a while before we can cross paths.” Dream starts, and Tommy feels a desperate sob tear itself out of his chest. “But Mark owes me a favour, I’ll see if Unus Annus can pick you up. You just hold on for me, pup. We’re coming to take you home.”

Humans rally to the cry of one of their own, and Tommy is begging.

“Thank you.” Tommy closes his eyes and allows the tears to run down his face. “Thank you.”

“Stay strong, Toms.” Dream says. “You’re coming home.”

There’s a low click and the line falls silent.

***

Tommy had been acting differently since he told them about his family. Nothing Phil can put his finger on - he still laughs and makes jokes - but Techno agrees that something is off with the kid. Together, they make a plan for a flock outing when they next hit port. Hopefully them all being together can be a balm to his fledgling’s apparent homesickness.

They go out on their day trip, but it doesn’t go as planned.

Tommy’s gone. Phil turns to share a joke with Wilbur, and when he turns back, Tommy is gone.

***

Tommy finds a small vent in a broom closet deep in the port and hides there for sixteen hours. Amy knocks on the closet door in the usual pattern - shave and a haircut, two bits -  and he painfully unfolds himself.

“Oh, Tommy.” She pulls him into a hug as soon as she sees him, enveloping him in the warmth of her gray cloak.

Tommy sobs into her vest. Her hug feels like home, like hiding behind his mother, like playing in Sam’s workshop and hiding from Boomer under Sam’s cloak, like a Human’s love. She lets him cry it out, rubbing circles on his back and crooning reassurances in his ear for what feels like hours.

Mark, in all white, and Ethan, in all black, fold in around them when they leave the tunnel. Amy’s arm is slung over his shoulder, keeping him under her cloak, Ethan leads them after giving Tommy a corner of his cloak to hold, and Mark takes up the rear. He can feel Mark’s hand on his back, warm and heavy even through the two layers of cloaks. 

Tommy feels safer than he’s felt in years, swathed in the middle of three adult Humans protecting him, hiding him from the view of strangers.

He travels on Unus Annus for four months. He helps them smuggle information past Essempi guards, sits at the gathering fires of dozens of Human quarters. After so long being the only Human within screaming distance, re-immersing himself in his culture is invigorating. Like bursting through the skin of the ocean and taking a deep breath you feel from the roots of your hair to the tips of your toes.

He learns about how the war effort has evolved since he left on his undercover mission. Humans that had previously been cast aside are now the core of their knowledge networks. Tommy had assumed his mom was only involved because she’s the ambassador, but then Amy takes him to a meeting with Minx on Manburg’s core planet.

“Amy!” Minx grins widely from the kitchen of the abandoned house where they’re meeting.

“Minx!” Amy surges forward and the two women crash together in a fierce hug. Once they untangle themselves, they turn towards Tommy. “This is Tommy. Remember Kristin from back home? He’s her son.”

“Tommy! Goodness, yes of course I remember. Have you been with Kristin all this time? I never heard of our Ambassador having a kid.” Minx chatters as she pulls him down to sit. 

Amy pours the coffee she brought into the mugs Minx provides and Tommy slides the sleeve of cookies he stole onto the table. Ethan is on a rooftop a block away, watching the front and back of the house through the scope of a sniper’s rifle, and Mark is across town having lunch with Sean from the Septic Eye, another Human who carries information around the war fronts.

“No, she sent me to live with my godfather soon as she got the job.” Tommy says cautiously. “And I’ve been undercover for the past few years. I didn’t know you were, uh…”

“Allowed Human contact again? Those of us ‘credits to our kinds’ are actually quite useful informants and spies and such. We’re desirable.” Her immaculately painted lips pull into a sour version of a smile.

“Oh.” Tommy thinks this over. If its possible that Minx is accepted back into the fold, maybe he could have his family and Phil’s flock…but he’d still need to lie to the flock. And there’s no guarantee the acceptance will continue past the end of the war.

Amy gives Minx a data chip containing a bug to insert into her husband’s government’s top secret servers, and Minx relays what gossip she’s been able to glean from Manburg high society.

They part as friends, and Minx slips Tommy her personal comm frequency with a wink and a whispered ‘just in case’.

Tommy feels himself settle back into his Humanity. As a person. Because as much as Phil insisted Tommy was flock, Humans are second-class citizens in Essempi, and he couldn’t stop how the others outside the flock treated him.

***

Philza is hyper aware of all the Humans he comes across, searching their faces for his wayward son. He notices so much more than he ever had about the species. They are…so much closer than he would have ever thought.

The children are always tucked deep under their parent’s long cloaks, held tightly around their shoulders or by their hands. It reminds Phil of Elytrian chicks hiding in their mother’s wings. Even adolescents closer to Tommy’s age slip easily into their elder’s cloaks and adult Humans hold pinches of each other’s clothes to stay close.

Their clothes are also much more variable than Phil had thought. Yes, they wear cloaks and cover most of their skin, but the style of cloak changes from person to person. And how they cover themselves changes too. Phil sees a woman in a long billowy skirt walking with another woman in tight pants and a man wearing a knee-length tunic.

He feels a little ashamed that he had not paid them any mind before, but it’s clear from the glares of the ones who catch him looking that the anonymity is what they prefer. 

Still, there’s no sign of Tommy.

***

On a small unknown Human outpost, used as a medical center for their soldiers too obviously injured in battles that Essempi doesn’t know about, Amy passes Tommy off to a bounty hunter she knows. Unus Annus is key to the free flow of information between Humans, and the bounty hunter is more mobile. Since they don’t know when or where Tommy will be able to meet up with his brothers, mobility is key.

Hasanabi is a wall of a man, tall and broad and thick. He hasn’t spent a lot of time with Hasan before, but the man takes every kid he sees under his wing, teaching them how to survive. He’s the one who taught Tommy how to hide and survive alone if necessary.

Tommy slips under his cloak and breathes in the metallic scent of the weapons and jewelery Hasan drapes himself in. He stays safe in Hasan’s cloak for another six months.

Hasan, unlike most Humans, continues to deal with other races. He introduces Tommy as his apprentice, and Tommy grins as their clients’ eyes slide over him like water and he pockets a few of their trinkets to sell. Tommy pretends to be Hasan’s little brother, and they pull on their target’s heartstrings and Hasan lets Tommy make the kill.

It’s fun, and Hasan teaches him loads, and Tommy feels safer under his cloak than he ever did under Phil’s wings. He very stubbornly does not think about why that feels like a betrayal.

***

Soft Nights aren’t the same without Tommy. Nothing is right without him. Phil and his flock are like asteroids suddenly adrift in space without their planet’s gravity to keep them steady. They revolve around Tommy’s spot on the floor beside Phil’s chair. Wilbur keeps turning to share a joke, laughter dying in his throat, Tubbo curses the engines for falling apart in a way they never used to, and Techno keeps reaching for a kid that’s not there.

Their grief is heavy in the air, and it hurts so much more because Phil can’t do anything to fix it. He doesn’t even know what happened to Tommy. The port he’d disappeared from had had a scheduled brown-out for the exact thirty seconds he’d turned away from his son, and none of the security cameras came back on until one minute and forty-five seconds later. When they did, Tommy was nowhere in the building.

That one minute and forty-five second gap haunts Phil.

Tonight, no work is getting done. Phil hadn’t planned for it to be. Tonight Phil and Techno are sitting the bridge crew down to pool their knowledge and look at the case that is Tommy objectively. It doesn’t look…great.

An unknown youth with no formal training and a background in piracy sneaks aboard a state-of-the-art military vessel, evades notice for an indeterminable amount of time, and charms the first people he meets. He takes any job asked of him, willingly becomes the equivalent of a slave, eventually working his way into the hearts of the bridge crew before disappearing just as fast as he arrived.

“He was covered in scars.” Techno offers first. “Fighting scars. He carried the signs of injuries that hadn’t healed right. Injuries that are…uncommon. In civilian life.”

Ranboo nods hesitantly. “He knew Foolish in the cell opposite Techno in the Pit. Niki and Jack know Tommy’s brothers. That’s a lot of coincidences.”

“I found something.” Tubbo says quietly, not looking up from his datapad. “I did a deep clean of The Angel’s systems, and I found a hole in our firewall. Someone coded a back door into our ship and made it look like it was always there. I’d never have found it. That kind of thing requires…being on the inside. For a long time.” He looks up at Phil, a mirror of his anguish.

“Do you think he was using us?” Niki asks, just as heartbroken. Betrayal licks up Phil’s spine like a flame.

“But why?” Wilbur insists, desperate to keep the idea of Tommy pure. “He never stole anything. He told us Human myths! He took us to his godfather’s workshop! Did the hole in our security take two and a half years to build?”

Phil turns to Tubbo. “Tubbo?”

“No, I don’t think so. But if Tommy wasn’t a very good hacker it could have taken him that long.” Tubbo sighs dejectedly.

“Another problem. We don’t know his skill set.” Techno says, then begins to count on his fingers. “He’s either an engineer or incredible handyman, he picked up any skill we needed to fix the ship, he has battle scars from somewhere, and he had a direct line to Human pirates who came to his aid without question or hesitation.”

“We should report this.” Phil says hollowly. He looks around the bridge, and sees his own sorrow in all their faces. They had been conned, and they didn’t even know why.

He doesn’t report Tommy. He tells himself that its because there’s nothing that could be done - Tommy’s nothing more than dust in the wind, a grain of sand on a desert planet. He tells himself it’s not because Tommy is his flock - his son - no matter what.

***

Hasan passes Tommy to Mr Beast, one of the greatest and richest Human con men there ever was. He needs an innocent-looking kid with skills and experience for his next con, and it’s one step closer to The Dream Team, so Tommy goes.

The con ends up going perfectly, and is so fun he forgets to miss his family or his flock. Four weeks after Tommy joins Mr Beast’s crew, Karl meets them in a small antiques shop on the edge of the Essempi core. He hugs Karl like he could eat him whole and keep him forever.

Karl and Mr Beast shake hands, and Tommy makes a joke about being stolen goods and Mr Beast tells him that the whole of the Human fleet has been talking about the “Tommy relay race” ever since he called for his extraction. 

Tommy and Karl leave on one of The Dream Team’s smaller ships for quick planet-side missions (groceries, mostly, though Tommy is sure Sapnap has used it to take Quackity and Karl for a hook-up away from where Bad might find them). Three days later, Tommy sees his family’s ship for the first time in years. One hour and fifteen minutes after that, he’s a sobbing mess in the arms of his brothers.

Its been three and a half years since he saw them, and they’re all boasting more scars and stories, but he’s home, just like Dream promised.

***

Tommy had kept an eye on the crew (his flock) through the back door Slime helped him code, and once it was discovered he’d been tracking them through the chip he had carved out from the soft skin behind his jawbone and left attached to a circuit board he knows is never checked.

He didn’t expect them to be so sad. He’d always thought they were lying about him actually being part of the flock because the felt bad for him. But when he watches Phil dissolve into tears in Techno’s arms, unable to say anything except ‘my boy, my son’ over and over again, he realizes just how wrong he was.

He’d been family, and he’d left them, and he couldn’t go back, even if he wanted to. Even if they wanted him to.

He looses himself in fighting the war again. In late-night planning sessions and days long stakeouts and the rush of the kill. Phil would disapprove, but as Tommy slides the Dreamon’s own blade out of it’s skull and hears the whooping cry of his brothers, he can’t bring himself to be sorry.

Then they receive a distress call from The Angel of Death.

***

Phil is going to die. He knows this, but it doesn’t help the clutching fear in his chest. The Angel of Death is under heavy fire from what was supposed to be a tiny Dreamon scouting pod but turned out to be a full brigade of battle cruisers. They’re too far from the nearest Essempi fleet to hope for a rescue.

Tubbo and Ranboo stand near him, having been called up to the bridge when Phil realized there was no getting out of this one.

“I wish Tommy was here.” Wilbur says quietly, guiltily. If Tommy was there with them, he’d die too. But if Tommy was there then they’d have the luck of the Human ancestors on their side, or a story to ease them gently into death.

“Me too.” Phil acknowledges. 

“Shields at sixty percent.” Jack announces. He flicks the shield display onto the window that makes up the front of the bridge so he doesn’t have to count down to their deaths out loud.

Behind it, a hundred Dreamon battle ships fight to be the first to kill them. The sizzle and pop of plasma bolts hitting their failing shields is swallowed by the unfeeling void.

Niki hums a warning tune in the back of her throat, turning to look at Wilbur. She’s followed the protocols, sent out all SOS and emergency signals she can. The tune falters and dies when she locks eyes with Wilbur and realizes he’s done all he can too.

It’s silent. Dead. The corpse of a Soft Night. Phil doesn’t know what to say, if there even is anything he can say. There’s nothing he can do for them anymore. Engines broken, shield’s falling, no ally within a hundred light years to help. All he can do is hold his flock together as they pass.

A video-feed appears on the window-screen, snapping open so abruptly Ranboo flinches into Phil’s wings. 

“Tommy?” Techno breathes.

For the briefest of seconds, the bridge chokes on hope, until they see the date in the corner of the feed. It’s a recording.

“Hey guys!” Tommy says on the video. “Uh, if you’re watching this then shit’s not looking so great for you.” 

Tommy is sitting in an open space between two decks, if the rows of pipes and wires behind him are anything to go by. He’s sitting cross-legged on his cloak, surrounded by a truly astonishing array of weapons Phil had no idea existed. He looks tired, like he had in the weeks before his disappearance, but he’s not pretending to be fine anymore. 

“This was recorded just before he disappeared.” Tubbo notes aloud.

There’s a fresh cut curling around the underside of his jaw where he’d told Phil there was a chip to take home all those years ago. The incision is still red, pulled together with new stitches dark against the pallor of his skin. When Tommy had left them, he’d had his hood up, shadowing his face in darkness. He must have been hiding it.

“Sorry about that.” Tommy continues, and Phil has the bizarre thought that Tommy is apologizing for disappearing, not that things aren’t ‘looking so great’ for them. “I’ve programmed this video to play if there’s really no hope of you getting out of whatever situation you’ve found yourselves in. I hope. That’s not an easy thing to code, you know? I could’ve asked Slime…”

His dead not-brother. 

“What the fuck is going on.” Techno snarls, directing his anger at the only face he can: their traitorous son.

Tommy, obviously, doesn’t respond. “Anyway. If you’re about to die, and I’m not there, then I want to tell you a story.”

It’s such a jarringly familiar phrase that Phil nearly sobs. Of course his son left them a story. Humans cling to life like mold clings to bread and they cling to their stories the same way. Of course this is how he chooses to comfort his flock and his crew, even if he’s not there and won’t tell them why.

Phil gestures for Wilbur to open up the ship’s internal comms, projecting Tommy’s tinny voice to everyone on board.

“I’m really, really not supposed to tell you this, but if you’re about to die then…then I think it’s okay. Dream can’t get too mad at me.” Tommy nods, assuring himself of his decision. Phil aches to take his fledgling’s fidgeting hands and still them with his own.

“There was this story,” Tommy’s voice breathes into the stillness of The Angel of Death. With the bridge illuminated only by red auxiliary lights it’s almost the perfect place for a story. “There used to be this story, on Earth. It started on Mars, actually. Or…I guess is started on another planet we’ve never known the name of.”

Tommy’s voice eases into the regular rhythm of storytelling, soothing the boy on the screen as much as it soothes his flock in the present. 

“It was a long time after we first landed on our moon that we first landed boots on Mars, another dead planet in our solar system. The first Humans ever to make it out that far. It was historic, and the whole world watched them come back.” Tommy licks his lips. He’s shaking, though from what, Phil can’t tell. The poor kid looks haunted.

“The whole world watched when the astronauts came home with Human bones. Five live Humans left Earth, and five live Humans came back, but they brought with them the bones of twelve dead Humans. People thought it was a joke, but it was real. Humans had been on Mars, thousands of years before the first Mars mission went up.” His voice has taken on a cadence that doesn’t belong to him, like he’s repeating something he’s heard a thousand times.

Plasma fire rains down on them. It sparks on the barrier and washes off like water under the force of the next attack. If there was air in space, the crash and hiss of the collision would be deafening. But in the vacuum, it’s unsettlingly quiet. Quiet as a grave.

Shields tick down to fifty percent.

“The next mission that went up came back with fragments of a cobbled-together spaceship and better pictures of runes carved deep into the red stone of the cave where the bones were found. Once our linguists translated the story, it was broadcast around the globe. It’s the story I want to tell you. It’s the story that every Human knows, that we’re not allowed to tell anyone else.” 

Tommy looks directly into the camera. “I don’t think that matters now.”

If wishes came true, if he’d only ever had one wish that could come true in his long life, Phil is glad it was his wish for Tommy to be there with them, telling them a story.

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there were Humans. And we were magnificent. We were part of a union of other space-faring species, with Humans at the helm. We were everywhere. We were great peace-keeping generals and scientists pushing the boundaries of what is known, and mothers who took in any child they saw no matter the species. We were diplomats and philosophers, doctors and farmers, engineers and mechanics and shippers.” Tommy says, voice and eyes full of longing.

“Everywhere you looked, you saw a Human doing the impossible. There, a Human looked inside a black hole and lived to tell the tale. There, a Human brokered peace between two races that had been trying to exterminate each other for longer than there was a language to record their battles. There, a Human pushed their ship to the limit so an outpost received the life-saving supplies they needed in time.”

It made sense, Phil thinks, that a race of criminals and nobodies made up a story where they were loved. It made sense that Tommy would tell his strange little flock the story about the biggest love he knows.

“And then war struck. We don’t know the name of the aggressor, if it was a single race or another coalition of races, but an enemy appeared out of nowhere. They attacked mercilessly, but we tried to make peace. We’d done it a hundred - a thousand times before, we were confident we could do it again. But then the enemy did something unforgivable.”

Phil’s eyes, like Techno’s eyes, like Wilbur’s eyes, like everyone’s eyes, are fixed on the shield display, watching their last protection slide ever downwards. Forty-five percent.

“The enemy attacked our homeworld. They bombed it from space, allowed no survivors. They killed every innocent, every civilian, every child because they thought it would give them an upper hand in the negotiations, but it did the opposite. Humans were outraged. We were…we were fucking incensed. The Human Ambassador stopped the peace talks by killing the enemy’s representative in the meeting chambers.”

“This is the legacy every Human Ambassador must life up to. A Human willing to kill with their bare hands for revenge. Like a mother. My mom…” Tommy trails off. He’s silent for a moment, before shaking his head and continuing. 

“All across the galaxy, Humans turned our brilliant, magnificent minds to one common goal: revenge. Engineers built war vessels the size of planets, mechanics made bigger and better weapons for them. Diplomats pushed everything they wanted through the union’s congress and generals used the most aggressive tacts they could. No one was a civilian, everyone was a soldier. Is a soldier.”

Phil notes the abrupt shift to present tense, but cannot explain it. Tommy takes a deep breath and The Angel of Death shudders with him. Thirty-five percent. 

“And we won. We slaughtered them all. No one was safe and no one was left to surrender. We did to their many populated planets what they did to our one, then we hunted down and killed every last one of them unlucky enough to be in the sky when their planets fell. And when they were all gone, and we were satisfied with our revenge, we turned back into peace-keepers. Like nothing had happened at all.”

“But the rest of our union was uneasy. They didn’t like how quickly we’d switched between extremes like that. They worried they’d be next. So they exiled us. They killed our Ambassador, our generals and diplomats and scientists, whittled us down from billions to a few hundred thousand. A few hundred thousand Humans left of a hundred billion and stranded us on a tiny planet in a distant solar system with nothing but memories of war and glory on an intergalactic scale.”

Twenty percent.

“We tried to escape, but the ship barely limped to Mars. The twelve crew members did what they could. They set up a signal. They broadcast a message for help, a plea for mercy, for leniency in our sentence that had been executed without trial. Then they carved this story on the cave wall of a dead planet in a dead solar system, scratched their names into the red rock, and lay down to die. They were cold and alone and they died below their names.”

Tommy’s crying now, because of the story he’s telling, Phil realizes. He’s angry that his race was trapped like that, and from the look in Wilbur’s eyes, he’s starting to believe Tommy too. On the screen Tommy wipes his nose on his glove and powers on.

“That was fucking scary. Humans, we…we didn’t know what to do. We were becoming a space-faring civilization, again, and we didn’t want a repeat of last time. Thank the ancestors they left us a warning, an instruction guide for how to survive if we ever got off the world that was meant to be our prison. We followed the guide and we’ve survived.”

The shield display is at fifteen percent.

“We call it The Purge. All digital records of past wars and bloodshed and violence destroyed. Any digital information about our newly discovered past scrubbed. We assimilated into one country under one government, and we worked to make ourselves unimportant. So when we joined the Essempi Federation, we were exactly what we needed to be: a pathetically peaceful race of nothing but common thieves and criminals. Nothing extraordinary.”

“We decided. We decided rat, dog, or raven. We wanted your eyes to glance over us, we wanted to not be a threat, we would do anything, be anything, to never go through that again. We chose this.” Tommy insists, and Phil believes him.

“But you don’t know what we do in secret, when you’re not looking. We choose to look weak and helpless but we aren’t. My mother taught me how to lead armies. She does it every day as the Human Ambassador.” And, Kristin? 

“My godfather showed me how to build weapons and ships and my cousins and I learned to fight together. A bounty hunter showed me how to do surveillance without ever been seen in the middle of a room. My brothers taught me how to hide in plain sight and mean it when I smile and be whatever I need to be. Pirates taught me how to hack Dreamon weapons and kill Dreamon soldiers and eat poisons for breakfast and never flinch. We never forgot who we are, and this war is proof.”

“This war? This war that is exactly like the war that got us locked up in the first place? Everyone turned out. Thieves and pirates and smugglers, we all looked at another war, another genocide, and said not again. We’ll do better this time. We can’t let his happen again but this time,” Tommy leans forward with a grin that stretches his stitches. “This time, they won’t know it was us.”

“Our Ambassador, my mom, she takes the information from Council meetings and sends it to our fleet. We go in before the Federation, take out as much power and ships as we can before you get there. Mogul Moves died to take out a factory churning out Dreamon ships faster than you could shoot them down.” Did they? They had seemed too competent to die in the way Tommy said they did, but…like that? Without anyone knowing?

“We take information from the prisoners we shuttle and act on it weeks or months before Essempi ever would or could.” Tommy’s teeth, still bared in feral pride, glint bloody in the red of the auxilary lights reflecting off the window-screen. “There’s a ship rat on every Essempi ship to warn the Human fleet of Essempi troop movements so they can stay undetected.”

Phil understands at the same moment the rest of his flock does. Tommy was sent to their ship because Phil was the only commander who’d refused to purchase a ship rat for himself. A beat later, he realizes something that finally breaks him. Tommy had never chosen them. He’d been as much a prisoner on the ship as any other ship rat, forced to pretend to love his captors.

Tommy continues, whooping and triumphant. “We remember who we are! We’re warriors and protectors and we’re fucking good at it!”

It takes Phil a beat too long to realize the recording on the screen is paused, and it’s not the recording that said that. He dismisses the video and gapes at the dozens of Human ships that surround them, more pouring in through hyperspace.

A new video call pulls up in the window, smaller so that they can still see out. It’s still Tommy, but he’s different. The fresh cut on his jaw has healed into a thin silvery line in the past year, and his hair is different, shorn short on the sides to accommodate for the stitches of an even newer injury. He’s standing on an unfamiliar bridge, hand resting on the chair of a Human man with blond hair and a scar across his jaw and neck wearing deep green clothes.

“Dream?” Jack murmurs.

The man glances up with a wild look in his eyes and nods, smiling. “Jack. Hope you don’t mind, we took that V5 engine you were hauling. Thought you were dead. Glad you’re not.”

The V5 engine Niki and Jack had stolen, the engine that had triggered Phil’s search for them, the engine that disappeared after they were caught. Wait. Dream. Tommy’s brother.

“Tommy?” Wilbur gasps, overjoyed.

“Hey, king.” Tommy grins. “I missed ya.”

The Angel’s shield monitor beeps. “Five percent.” Jack announces, and Tommy’s eyebrows pull together in concern.

“Too close.” He says, glancing down at Dream.

“Just in time.” Dream corrects. He hasn’t stopped smiling, but it doesn’t stop him from looking dangerous. “Hasan?”

Another voice cuts onto their comms. “No time, been good fighting with you.”

“Wait, Hasan-!” Tommy yells, panicked.

A smaller Human ship powers up its lightspeed engines and rams itself into and through a Dreamon ship, cutting it clean in half and destroying both the Dreamon and Human ships in the process.

Dream curses. “Beast, flank with me!”

“Copy!” An unfamiliar voice acknowledges.

Two huge hauling ships pull in alongside The Angel as her shields fail and power up their own, catching Phil and his crew in the overlap, protecting them.

“Tommy,” Phil breathes, stunned.

“I made the video of the story a distress beacon, pinging on all Human frequencies,” Tommy says proudly. “You’re my flock, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that if you wanna meet your ancestors before I meet mine.”