The human is albino, white hair, pale skin, pink eyes. Their much taller havenworlder friends that they are protecting have white fur and light colored eyes. The human wears the same colors as their crewmates for a uniform. The Pirates learn the lesson of the "hidden guard dog" the hard way. -- Anon Guest
The lighting on the ship was dim. They liked it that way. Their homeworld was, as some might say, slightly frosty. Thus, things like pale colouration and a coat of fur made sense. Their Ships' Human was the same colour as them for completely different reasons.
They called it Spacer's Albanism. In environments with artificial light and little in the way of natural radiation, those who spent generations on stations or in ships tended to lose all need for melanin. Those who had it ranged from blond and blue-eyed to white as the proverbial sheet with pink or even red irises. That was just one reason why Human Ness fit in with his crewmates so well.
Those familiar with Humans know many of the others. They may be self-sacrificing, terminally curious maniacs, but they're our self-sacrificing, terminally curious maniacs. It's that darn pack-bonding of theirs. It gets everywhere.
Naturally, when the space pirates caught the ship during its set night time[1], they made the mistake of confusing the Ship's Human with the rest of them. It probably helped that Ness liked to keep himself shaggy as a defence against the environment settings.
Most space pirates have learned from other survivors to separate the Ship's Human from the rest of the crew to create a hostage situation. What they had now was more like what the Humans call a "Die Hard" situation.
Ness took fifty seconds to get into the air ducts, and most of that was planning with his Companions about what he was allowed to ruin.
After the surviving pirates surrendered, the greatest effort was in getting Ness to disarm all his remaining traps.
"Dang it," he muttered, "now I'll never see what those fireworks do."
[1] Time is relative. Bedtime doubly so.
[Photo by Federica Giusti on Unsplash]
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