Welcome to the Crew
"So, what do you say? A pair of willing hands can hardly be a bad thing to pick up."
The creature across the table breathed in deep, an ornate pipe clenched in his mouth, flaring brightly. An ancient piece of human culture, though this one wasn't made of wood or clay like those humanity had brought to the galaxy. No, it was carved from the bones of one of the galaxy's deadliest predators, found only on one continent on one planet, deep in the restricted Hylurian-Brava system. "On its face, no, probably not a bad thing." The being's voice was slick like oil, pooling around you and impossible to escape or ignore. Valuable traits in a Captain, particularly if they liked to flaunt Galactic law.
"So am I hired or not?"
The human was a determined cuss, to be sure, the Captain, named Thifoxip, thought to himself, his reptilian eyes gauging the boy cautiously. Sensitive businesses like his relied on a delicate mix of trust, fear, and utter discretion. And what he knew of humans suggested trust and discretion were in short supply among them. Fear, however, that they caused in egregious abundance. Comparatively short-lived and hard-to-kill, with unpredictable temperaments, humans could 'squee' in delight over the most minor occurrence or turn your innards into their personal playthings for breathing wrong. Uthas' head, they had to codify for themselves what NOT to do in a war, and most flagrantly ignored those rules. An idea slunk across his mind, one that would tell him something about the human and build some reputation for them both. "Do one thing for me first. The Hytherian. Get me his wallet."
The human grinned as he stood from the table, draining his drink before performatively stumbling off. As Captain Thifoxip watched him wander through the crowd, bumping into patrons like any drunk, he thought he saw the lad pocket something from another of the bar's patrons as he staggered to the Hytherian. A massive beast of a sentient, even by his species' standards, he was playing a game of Gambit against the bar's AI security—and winning, too.
As the lad drew close, the Captain saw him slide against another patron as the first found that something was missing from his pockets. 'What was this juvenile up to?' he thought as he chewed slightly on the stem of his pipe, pulling the sweet, woody smoke into his mouth, the heat pleasing his cold blood. It wasn't long before the first patron stalked up behind the lad as he 'drunkenly' asked to watch the Hytherian play. Just as the human sat down, his face was shoved into the table, and a blade was at the back of his neck, one of the few widely known lethal spots on humans. The Captain couldn't hear the words exchanged but saw the patron searching the human's pockets, finding nothing. As the patron threatened the lad again, pulling his head back with the blade at his throat, the distinct infrasonic rumble of an angered Hytherian rattled up Thifoxip's feet and spine, silencing the entire bar.
The words "He doesn't have your property. Now stop interrupting my game, crachik, or be buried in your boots." came clear to the Captain's ears through the ground and air as the world slowed almost to a halt. The patrons nearest the table retreated silently lest they be soaked in gore, and the lad, to his credit, stayed perfectly still. The patron shoved the lad's head into the game board as he let him go before trying to threaten the Hytherian. In a blink, the idiot went from standing in one spot to being a purple smear along 12 feet of floor. As the cleaning bot activated, the bar returned to life, and the lad hugged the Hytherian tight for saving him, his hands moving all over in his 'panic'. Thifoxip shook his head, quills shifting softly as the human accomplished his task with no possible blame to be put on himself. 'Clever juvenile,' he thought as the lad walked over to the bar, grabbing napkins, a drink, and the now paste's wallet he had dropped in another sentient's pocket. However, his shaking seemed genuine as he struggled to drink.
'Not so familiar with violence, it seems,' Thifoxip thought as he saw the Owner talking to the lad. Standing up, he swaggered over and claimed he'd see the lad off to a clinic, taking him out of the bar and into what seemed to be a bright future in 'special' acquisitions for the galactic market.