Little is more comforting to a captain, particularly a newer one, than to get back to one's bridge and see the bridge crew one has grown to know, trust, and love already either there or – because I tend to come early – coming in on time.
Commander Helmut Allemande, my first officer of those days, never let me beat him to the bridge. He might have been captain but for my emergency appointment to the post, but that did not stop him from intoning “Captain on the bridge!” for me with his huge basso profundo voice like it was his favorite thing to do to start the day.
However, on this particular day when we were just beginning to get the Amanirenas up and running in anticipation of the testing period that would determine whether my uncle's work to safeguard humanity's ability to explore space was valid – on this particular day when I looked at the crew roster, I noticed who had not returned from the long leave we had all had before this time period.
Cmdr. Allemande was that type of man who was keeping everyone on a need-to-know basis, and the bridge crew did not need to understand the intricacy of the science team's changes, but he handed me a news article featuring the beautiful creature above, a collection of witness reports and investigative findings, and the orders from no less than full fleet admirals Bodega and Siriani on the subject, backed up by the high command.
I reflected on the nature of the creature above, and in my mind the old phrase came to mind regarding my lieutenant: “He's not coming back, is he?” Even before sitting on the bridge calmly as a captain must and taking in the devastating details, I already knew he and to this little extent humanity's advance among the stars were gone.
It was inevitable that someone would think about it, given the human mind, and given that “Featherduster Buddha” and “Peacock Yoga” had both come to mind for a nickname for the being pictured above – that's a Korakriangyyabor, and I know how to spell it and say it because I asked her, the nest mother in the incident, how. They are among the most pleasing and deadly beings in the galaxy, and it is best and now ordered for fleet members, on duty and off, to maintain personal space and enjoy the sight and sound and smell only from an appropriate distance.
Someone had the thought of meditation centers to just watch and smell the Korakriangyyabor as they go about their business – enough of them massed in one place would qualify as a psychedelic experience as their high-quality fragrance varied with their show of color. They did not object to that; humanity built them bridges with viewing galleries and just watched them go to and fro without otherwise disturbing them. This is still done – humans of all professions are still doing Peacock Meditation in whatever form their belief system allows.
However, on the rare occasion that five or more mature Korakriangyyabor meet on a covered bridge and start communing with each other while standing still – basically, “Hey, loved ones, long time no see!” – they can kill everyone in the viewing area by sheer, blissful suffocation, so they built in retractable roofs on all those bridges. So far, so good – and still good, but this should have been the warning sufficient that a viewing gallery is about as close as humanity needs to be to masses of Korakriangyyabor.
However, someone had the idea of opening up a massage parlor featuring the Korakriangyyabor, and it wasn't humans that did it – the Orions are immune to Korakriangyyabor poison and it is good for their lovely green skin to have detailed dermatological work done by their friends. The Korakriangyyabor have many more tendrils as a bird has quills on a feather, and all those eyes help them focus in on areas that need particular care.
The Orions also know: don't make a disturbance at the parlor, because even without the poison element, any being that feels the need to restrain or put you down that can access ten million touch points at once on your body and over-stimulate them to do so is not to be toyed with. A Korakriangyyabor can literally massage any humanoid to death, just by overwhelming the central nervous system and shutting the brain down.
Enter my lost lieutenant, and his girlfriend – he was trying to show her a good time after showing her a bad time, and realizing his career was already in jeopardy. For the sake of his mother, heartbroken still, and the sake of his children, little then, grown now, and heartbroken still, I will add no details about the portion before coming to the massage parlor than his infuriated widow did at the inquest.
The Korakriangyyabor can see into humanoid skin, so, even if you have abrasions and bruises the human eye cannot see, and even with good 23rd century coverage in terms of cosmetics, they know. So they also knew what my lost lieutenant's character was like, things I could not have known as his captain, things even Cmdr. Allemande, also ship's science officer, could not have known working with him day by day … but that later careful medical imaging would confirm in his girlfriend's body.
The workers at the massage parlor were therefore already on their guard, and they showed the girlfriend to the “nest mother” for her massage and safety while showing the lieutenant to the periphery while contacting the appropriate fleet authorities. However, the appropriate authorities got there just in time to witness the Korakriangyyabor responding to said lieutenant blowing up because his girlfriend sounded like she was enjoying the massage more than being touched by him -- responding just as the nest mother had ordered them.
What had happened was that the nest mother, the most skilled of all practitioners, was taking pain off that woman's body and mind. There was nothing inappropriate about it. That woman would not even remember how it was that she came in with a challenge in her life she did not know how to get out of, or how she would leave free to return to her life without him and his foolishness. She did not find out he was married until the inquest, and she had just learned, the hard way, what he liked to do with his hands and his rage.
The lieutenant tried to rush the nest mother's position, but instead met six Korakriangyyabor defenders and their 60 million touch points with full venom. We shall say that his last moments more than accounted for the pain he had caused his girlfriend, his mother, his wife, and his children. On a proposed pain scale from one to ten, he probably found his personal limit at some multiples of ten, and was there for some seconds before at last passing over.
“Doubtless to an eternity for which that experience was just the warmup, given what we have learned,” my uncle Admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson intoned when he read the report. “I heard about this incident on the news, and I was hoping it was not one of ours … but, indeed, we had a lost lieutenant who just went out there and proved it.”
Since the incident happened nearest Admirals Bodega and Siriani's area of administration of fleet responsibility, they wrote the orders for all fleet personnel regarding our being banned from contact with the Korakriangyyabor at their request. The lieutenant had soured a whole race of beings on our military personnel.
I was able, as the lieutenant's captain, to undo some of the damage by seeking to understand the situation in a thoughtful way, but to this day: fleet ships are not allowed into Korakriangyyabor space without express permission, and no officer can come within five feet of one. The Orions likewise snatched permission for humans to enter their parlors except by appointment after vetting for mental stability.
“Life rolls on, with or without a fool,” my great-aunt Delia Banneker used to say, and it came to mind as I approved the crew substitutions necessary and handed that tablet back to Cmdr. Allemande, whose big blue eyes were deep pools in which lay much sadness. But the Amanirenas had her crew, and it was time for pre-flight routines and reports. Life rolled on.