"So... Arthur. I have a couple of questions for you, mainly around the how and why you were walking around ass naked on government property."
"I didn't exactly have a choice, the transport cruiser I was on was struck by something just before it could wrap itself in space. I was shot out into space for God knows how long before I either directly hit this planet, or was pulled in by the gravity. Either way, my suit burned up in orbit, when I woke up I looked around and saw some moving lights around the stars and began walking this way. I don't know when that was as the sun never seems to fall here. Eventually though I found the fields of batteries and disassembled one in the hopes that whoever placed it here would come looking into it."
"Wait, so you fell into orbit and survived?"
"Yes sir."
Gary leaned back in the chair and let out a very loud puff of air.
"Y'know, if you didn't want to tell me why you were here you could've just said so, and lose the sir, I am no sir, I was once a slave."
Arthur felt a pang in his heart after hearing that, but kept a cool face.
"I'm sorry to hear that, but that was the honest truth, Gary."
"Even if that was true, how were you breathing without an Oxygenerator? We aren't on a planet, you were sitting on the sand dunes between a molten planet and a star, perpetually held in place by gravity."
"Can we just agree my circumstances are a bit strange, you could also ask how I didn't die of dehydration, heat-stroke, and starvation. Although this not being a planet does explain the severe lack of natural fauna, it was completely silent, constantly, I thought I was going insane."
"I'm sure you already are."
A smile appeared on Arthur's face.
"Fuck you, Gary."
Gary laughed for a moment before breaking out into a coughing fit. Upon closer inspection Gary was clearly up there in age, with visible wrinkles along his singular eye. His lips were dry and cracked and his hand were covered in burns and callouses. Something felt very strange about his appearance. Vaguely human, as the cogs began to turn in turn in Arthurs mind, Gary answered the question before he could even ask.
"I was once human too, Arthur. I could see that look of horror growing on your face."
Arthur felt a terrible pit well in his stomach, pushing against his heart, there was a look a sadness, on Gary's face that didn't deserve to be there.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, I've long since given up on being sad about it."
"Well... I'm going to be. I should've recognized your fate sooner."
Gary scratched his face then looked down at his hands.
"My parents were poor, and sold me off to the Valahi's when I was young, which I consider to be to my luck, if I were older or larger the genetic modifications would've hurt a lot more. My growth was forcibly halted to make it difficult to run away, they removed and centered an eye in my skull to cut my field of vision, making it more difficult to fight back, even if I did manage to run the metallic arm the grafted into my ribs would both strangle me and squish my lungs, killing me painfully. My life span is about fifty years if I am lucky due to the surgeries and genetic altering. They even branded the back of my head so even if I managed to get away I'd be recognized for the monster I am. Honestly I am just thankful the Valahi's fell to both time and the Front."
The Valahi's were an oversized species too dim to travel the universe themselves, so they trapped and warped anyone and anything they could get their hands on to suit their needs. They conquered, raped, and pillaged a dark path in history until the subjugated stood up and wiped them from time itself.
Gary gestured around the ship, his eye growing wide.
"This damned ship used to be theirs, but I bought it from the government that wiped that scum from the face of existence. I might not even be able to have kids but I won in the end, don't you think?"
Arthur took a moment and looked at his hands, he understood some of what he went though all too well. He stood up and asked.
"Would you like to travel with me Gary?"
"What?"
"This isn't victory, this is rotting underneath your captors corpse. I'm asking if you'd like to spend your days travelling with me. Please, you've lived long enough as a slave to those vile beings, and you are still a slave to their memory. I want you to die far away from them, please allow me to repay the kindness you have shown me."