The Princess and the Human

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" Nadine kept repeating, her face now in the strongest tone of red it had taken on so far.

"It's not your fault" Silgvani tried to assure her. "You couldn't know this would happen!"

And neither had she. This whole situation was just too bizarre. Actually, no, was it even that bizarre?

"Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that it did happen" an irritated voice came from the bathroom. "Or that this is the only toilet on board."

The voice belonged to Ariyko, their engineer, who right now was kneeling over the toilet, shining a flashlight down its drain.

Said toilet was at the hind wall of the room. It was the most commonly used version, a funnel-shaped hole in the floor that gradually got thinner before leading into a thin pipe after around two lynes. Apparently, that was where... it... had gotten stuck. The news about this mishap had sparked a lot of tone-deaf questions from the doctor, who had apparently not realized how embarrassed Nadine was about this whole situation and had thus been sent away.

"This thing was made for liquids, not... whatever that is." Ariyko continued.

"Yes, we know that now," Silgvani quickly cut into his rambling, hoping she could make this at least a bit less embarrassing for her guest. "Any idea how we could solve the issue?"

"I guess we might get the pipe free if we reverse the suction drain, though we'd still need to get it out somehow. Alternatively, if we give it more power, it might get it through, but we'd need to re-route that power from somewhere else. And both ideas risk killing the pump, and then we'd have a REAL problem."

He stood up and turned to Nadine.

"What about you? You got any ideas?"

Nadine seemed surprised, likely because this was the first time one of the other crew members had talked to her directly, but quickly found her voice again.

"Um, do you not have a Pömpel?"

Ariyko just her a confused look in response.

"Err, Nadine?" Silgvani broke the silence. "I think that word didn't get translated, what is that?"

"Uh, well, it's a... thing... with a... like... rubber... bell... sort of... no forget it. If you don't have a word for it you probably don't have it."

"That doesn't have to be the case, the translator is not perfect. If you describe it..."

"No, it's a thing that was specifically made for clogged toilets. If you had it you would've already tried it, that was a stupid question from me. Umm... water and a long stick might do the trick?"

Silgvani looked at her engineer.

"That sounds like a fairly simple solution?"

He crossed his four arms.

"Well... as silly as that sounds, we're on a spaceship, so a long stick could actually be tricky to find... maybe the kitchen has something usable."

"I-if I can help with anything...," Nadine tried, but was immediately shot down.

"Don't bother, I'll figure something out."

"Oh. O-okay then," she quietly said in a dejected tone. It was clear that Nadine felt bad about the whole situation and wanted to make up for it.

Unfortunately, there wasn't really any work Silgvani could give her. They weren't exactly understaffed, quite the opposite, and for most of the important tasks, Nadine was either too short or not trained enough. And Silgvani would definitely not make their savior and guest perform some menial labor.

"That reminds me, I believe I haven't shown you where you can sleep yet?" She said, hoping some conversation would distract her.

"Thank you, but I'm not tired, your Highness."

"No? But still, you should know where. Space here is limited after all."

Silently, they made their way to the captain's chamber. During the trip, Silgvani tried to come up with a conversation starter to combat the heavy atmosphere, but with no luck. Unfortunately, the distance between her and Nadine seemed to have grown since they had left the Star Treader behind. Was it because of her status? Possible, though that hadn't been much of an issue before. Maybe now that everything had calmed down, it had become more apparent.

As Silgvani opened the door to the captain's chamber, Nadine's eyes became wide.

"Um, your Highness? Isn't this..."

"My room? Yes. As well as it is yours. You are free to use the bed whenever I am not."

"But... I'm just..."

"Nadine" Silgvani interrupted and turned towards her. "Please don't make yourself lower than you are. You are a hero! You defeated five Kiroscha all on your own, unarmed. Every single Vanaery on this ship is only here thanks to you! You saved all of them!"

The small alien sat down on the floor, her back leaning against the wall.

"You mean I saved half of them. After being the reason the other half died in the first place."

That certainly wasn't the type of response the princess had expected.

"What do you mean?" she asked after pausing for a moment.

"You mentioned "secure routes". So I'd guess if you hadn't picked me up, that attack couldn't have happened."

Oh, First Ones, did I say that?! That was certainly a mistake on my part. But it's still surprising that she caught that.

"Maybe. But that doesn't mean you are to blame," Silgvani quickly reassured her. "Blame the Kiroscha, they were the ones who attacked us after all. Or blame me, I decided to follow a dubious signal. But while I mourn the dead, you won't hear me say that I regret my decision."

Nadine tilted her head to the side.

"But... why? Just ignoring me would've saved-"

"Nooooo!"

The alien girl was startled and stared at the princess with her eyes wide open. Had she not been sitting at the wall, she might've even jumped back a little. Silgvani took deep breaths, trying to get her throat under control again.

"I apologize. Let me tell you why. It's because lives aren't numbers."

"But what about you? You are a princess, aren't you way more important than me?"

"If you measure importance by the number of people one's decisions impact, then you might call me "more important". But that is all the more reason. Power is a duty, not a privilege."

To that, the small alien slightly tilted her head.

"No offense, Your Highness, but... that sounds pretty idealistic."

"It is, I'm aware of that. But that's who I am. And you will find me dead before I turn my back to someone whom to help would've been in my power."

Nadine kept silent for a moment before speaking again.

"If I can help, then I must help," she said in a way that sounded like she was quoting someone. "Yeah, I guess I get it. Then... may I ask you something?"

"Of course, go ahead!"

"Had you not found me... had those Kivo... err... Ki... well, those insects gotten to me first... what would've happened to me?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. We know next to nothing about the Kiroscha. Their culture, their language, not even their numbers. They are completely deaf to diplomatic advances. Every encounter with them so far was an attack on sight. Sometimes, it comes to an open combat with them and we win. Even fewer times, they attack a vessel that manages to escape. Those lucky ones are the only reason we know anything at all about them. All the other times, ships simply go missing and we assume the Kiroscha behind it due to a lack of a better explanation. Until today - or yesterday, I guess - I didn't even know they take prisoners, no one could ever give us intel about them. So we do not know what losing to the Kiroscha means because no one ever came back from losing against them. But I don't like the implications of them having translators for our language or them having ships that are so similar to ours.

"So, regarding your question: I don't know. Maybe they would find you useful. Try to weaponize your strength or something like that. Or maybe they would deem you too dangerous and kill you. Or maybe they'd eat you, maybe that's why they take prisoners in the first place. I apologize, this likely isn't the answer you were looking for, but all I can do is speculate."

As she was done Silgvani noticed that Nadine had begun to blankly stare ahead at some point during her explanation. There also seemed to be some movement under the blanket that the princess couldn't identify.

"But...," she finally said, "if they are as dangerous to you as Doc told me, with all that "being unfazed by handguns" and stuff, what can you even do against them?"

"It's not like they are invincible. Blasting them with heavy stationary weapons or blowing up their ships kills them like anyone else. In space or on open battlefields, they are simply very formidable opponents. But in confined spaces, that is where they become terrifying. No one ever won against them in direct combat."

She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms.

"Well, until now, that is."