Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #03047-H124: Free Time

"Human, you don't need to sleep every night outside of my door. This station is quite safe."

The human, looking upon the galactic while they sat upright in a chair, their lifesuit programmed to hold them in that position even if they fell fast asleep. "Two weeks ago my mother and I were dying dereggers. You saved us, I will protect you." -- Anon Guest

Humans, among many other qualities, are illogical. Those rescued from Deregger space have the worst logic. It's not their fault, they were never taught logical thinking to begin with. What they're used to is an overwhelming conglomerate where profit is the only motive and the individual doesn't matter unless that individual also has billions of dollars.

Human Jef and hir mother had been trying to sneak out in the air vents of Transiteer Gorx's shipping vessel. When Gorx found them, they had been setting off the hold alerts because safety protocols insisted that there were air-breathing lifeforms of sufficient mass in the hold. They had been starving, sick, weak, and terrified of the Havenworlder who found them. Their livesuits barely living up to the name.

Gorx had done what any decent cogniscent would have done. Ze took them into the habitable zone, amped up the life support, sent out a low-urgency distress call, and done what ze could to help their general health until more supplies could arrive by special courier. Both Human Jef and Human Bea had been so astonished by simple things like essential nutrition and free medical care that they swore fealty to Gorx thereafter.

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Challenge #03046-H123: To Win at a Loss

They are a good lucker, but a scoundrel. True they could be quite kind, benevolent even, but they loved breaking the rules and getting into mischief. They'd been kicked out of more casinos than they cared to count, and had been escorted from stations more than a few times for bilking people for their time via gambling. After all, it's hard to catch a lucker at such antics if you don't know they're a lucker!

Then they met a bad lucker whose

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Challenge #03045-H122: Medicinal Purposes Only

Stranded Human: Does this look infected to you?

Stranded Alien: It looks...abnormal?

Stranded Human: Yeah...I don't think treating this can wait for rescue...

Stranded Alien: (starting to panic a little) How do we treat it????

Stranded Human: We start by collecting some of those plants that were too toxic for me to eat.... -- Anon Guest

"The ones we have to handle with gloves, or the ones that we need a livesuit to go near?"

"The ones we have to

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Challenge #03044-H121: Unclean! Unclean!

Militant vegans, for years after she managed to escape their world, attempt to kidnap Harro, and later their children, and their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to "pay for crimes against their world". Each time they try, they're stopped rather firmly and placed into prison. Good thing Harro, and their family, are quite fierce about self-defense and have a lot of defenders. The militant vegans, within their cells, and the ones from their homeworlds, both refuse to accept their "heros" have committed crimes and

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Challenge #03043-H120: It's Pronounced Ee-Mew

A tour group of several havenworlders, other galactics, and a few deathworlders were visiting an Emu farm and getting to pet the birds which were quite happily pecking pellets from open hands, visiting the young chicks, and seeing the hatchery. Then the humans grin, as a galactic mentions how gentle these birds are, and the humans tell of the Emu War, where these birds actually defeated the humans who want to war with them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War --

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Challenge #03042-H119: Galactics Bearing Gifts

To make it easier for dereggers to escape oppression, several galactic traders begin to offer to build trading ports on deregger places that "will guarantee a great profit for the leadership" because the leaders won't have to pay for building the facility, and part of the fees the trading groups agree to pay for maintaining the places as well. Odd, though, the "security", while seeming to do their job, sure love to slack off! -- Lessons

The CRC had a loophole that

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Challenge #03041-H118: Tactile Therapy

The ship's human is a former deregger still recovering from the horrors they endured. They often awakened in the middle of the night shaking and afraid. The companion liaison decided to do something about it and got the human a gift. A weighted blanket, and a soft, cuddly, comfort item that they, even though they were an adult, could cling to when they started to get lost in their own head. This fierce protector that helped the ship, and was an incredibly

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Challenge #03040-H117: Accepted Market Price

If you can't blow them away with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit. -- Anon Guest

"Two thousand gold per square quarter-inch of ear... five hundred per digit of phalanges... three hundred for the tarsals and metatarsals..." The person running the tally was not a necromancer. They were not a crime lord. They were an "acquisitions agent" for the Dark Market. Not the Black Market, the Dark Market. It's much, much worse.

"Oh don't worry about me," Wraithvine muttered to hirself,

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Challenge #03039-H116: There's Some in Every Trip

A group of former Degreggers, with their galactic friends, compiling their resources, purchased a trading ship, and outfitted the two largest holds with large, comfortable, reclining seats, blankets, and other creature comforts, each one being able to hold at least a hundred people, and the third largest hold with tons of nutrient packs that would last for long periods of time. The other holds aboard the ship were used for normal storage with many types of trade goods, the three turned into

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Challenge #03038-H115: We're Going to Need a Bigger Nametag

A: You know Jugemu I don't actually know your full name; what is it?

J: You sure? it's really long.

A: hit me

J: Jugemu Jugemu Go-Kō-no-Surikire Kaijari-suigyo no Suigyō-matsu Unrai-matsu Fūrai-matsu Kū-Neru Tokoro ni Sumu Tokoro Yaburakōji no Burakōji Paipo Paipo Paipo no Shūringan Shūringan no Gūrindai Gūrindai no Ponpokopii no Ponpokonaa no Chōkyūmei no Chōsuke -- Anon Guest

[AN: That's a meme I've managed to avoid for literal years. I knew it existed, but I've never seen it. Also some

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Challenge #03037-H114: The Learning Process

Ad astra per aspera -- Anon Guest

[AN: My old primary school motto was Per Ardua Ad Astra - by effort to the stars. If I read this correctly, this means "To the stars by breath" ::googles:: Almost. "Through the rough" not "by breath". Was I close?]

Groundbreaking travel, as the name suggests, is fraught with unforeseen perils. The first person to hang onto the back of a horse or an ox had no idea what they were in for. The first

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Challenge #03036-H113: Where and How to Cut

In a quiet meeting room several met. Each one of them carrying a blade. Each blade were of various conditions of care, or lack thereof. As had became tradition, these blades were exchanged amongst each other, no blood upon them, and then thrust into a soft wooden half-sphere that lay upon the table showing each hand was empty. They discussed why they came to the palace, why they had once wanted to kill the king. What they had learned from the King

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Challenge #03035-H112: Hostile Working Conditions

Call Centres, Don't you just love to hate them, the faceless voice on the other end of the line, that automaton of modern industry you can vent all your frustration at and abuse until your hearts content.

You're sure they don't mind, if they did they could just hang up! You would! They couldn't loose their job over it surely?!?

Besides, its not like they aren't paid well enough to take one frustrated customer, if there was more than one complaint, surely

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Challenge #03034-H111: Obscured by Alchemy

There’s two types of people:

1- those that can extrapolate information from incomplete data -- Anon Guest

[AN: I love this but have to resist the urge to fill in the missing information. Thankyou, Nonny, for messing with my brain]

There are times in alchemy that the four elements are insufficient to explain what just happened. For instance, the metal of potash. Purging wood with fire, then soaking the char in water for a week, straining out the charcoal, and then

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Challenge #03033-H110: A Different Solution

They saw Human Ji sit down for their tea after the brief fight with the braggart that had decided to be an idiot. As the crowd dispersed, people getting back to their normal routines, they first helped the owners put the tea gardens back together, mainly because they were nervous about approaching Ji, before plucking up their courage and approaching the table. Lightly clearing their throat, they asked, softly. "I'm having to deal with bullies in school that keep trying to beat

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