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Humans are one of the most feared species in the galaxy. Not due to superior strength,speed,skill or strategy. In fact, it’s because in comparison to the other species, humans are just batshit crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with.

Ejoc cracked her knuckles in nervousness. Ever since the human crew members had begun to integrate into the system, things had been… interesting to say the least.

The humans had begun integrating with her people first, because biologically they were the most similar. Similar vocal abilities, similar eating patterns, kind of similar coloration even. They needed slightly less oxygen than the Stam people, so could survive just fine on their ships. Perhaps the biggest difference was the human’s short stature and ability to eat meat. And, of course, what appeared to be a near suicidal “survival” instinct.

Her first mate stumbled into the control room, bleary eyed and almost spilling his coffee more than once. Ejoc rubbed the back of her right hand nervously.

“Um, hello Marcus.” She said

Marcus looked up, his green eyes slightly creeping her out. “Oh. G’mornin ma’m. Sorry I’m late. I just got up.”

She stiffened. “You JUST got up? That is incredibly reckless. You are not nearly awake enough to…”

“Captain. Please. I know what I’m doing. I got through military school on coffee and lost dreams.”

Ejoc didn’t know how to respond to that. She stared at him as he took his place behind her seat. Two weeks and she still wasn’t used to this. He constantly made decisions that were reckless at best. Even with simple things such as amount of sleep. Why, in the goddesses’ name did she have to be assigned a human?

A few hours later they were flying through the Buelfe system when came an uncharted asteroid belt.

“We cannot make it, captain!” Cried one of the interns running a control panel. “We need to go another way!”

Hesitantly, the captain turned as her first mate coughed, in an extremely unsanitary and human way to get attention.

“Yes, Marcus Jackson?”

“Well, captain, I’m not sure I’d classify this particular asteroid belt as an obstacle.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well captain, with all due respect, the asteroid belt in the Sol system is much denser than this. Cadets at the Mars academy fly through it as a training exercise.”

Every eye in the room was now on the small pudgy human. A couple of people even let their mouths hang open.

Ejoc looked at him with some fear. “A training exercise, Jackson?”

Marcus looked confused. “Well, yes. It’s really not that difficult. If we don’t reroute, we can still get to Arthenia within the scheduled time frame. However, if we don’t, we’ll be late. And you and I both know how much Arthenians love tardy ambassadors.”

A million thoughts flooded through Ejoc’s brain in a fraction of a second. Humans. Reckless. Horrifying. Yet, they had evolved and built civilization from scratch in the time it took most species to invent tools. Three million years. That’s all it had taken. Three million years. An infant species, already exploring the stars.

A million more thoughts buzzed in the next fraction of a second. She remembered the admiral that had given her the “honor” of being the first Stam captain to see a partially human crew. “Trust them.” He had said. “They look unsettling. They are more reckless than children. But trust them. They know very well what limitations are.”

Ejoc looked forward with determination and gripped her seat as tightly as she dared.

“Do as he says. Find a suitable path.”

Marcus calmly stood as the ship weaved in between asteroids. Most of the other people were either furiously working at their stations or visibly holding back a scream.

He shared a look with the one other human crew member in the control room. An electrical maintenance engineer named Keisha. They both seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“What is up with these aliens and being afraid of everything?”

They made it through the asteroid field “obviously” according to every human anyone asked about it later. Afterwards, the captain was slightly more open to human crew member’s suggestions. Although she drew the line at alcohol. Why humans voluntarily ingested something that made their brain less functional she would never know.