Empires: Flight of the Mystere

[Coyote]

Intro to "Flight of the Mystere"

In 1977, I was a kid blown away by Star Wars and like many other kids, my imagination went into overdrive. I began to experiment with writing, first by writing my versions of Star Wars, Star Trek, BattleStar Galactica, whatever I could get my hands on. I'd read and extrapolate what I'd do in that situation, what a likely sequel would be, etc.

Gradually, my own creation was spawned. It was somewhat like Star Wars but a bit grimier, like Reagensque-era Cold War tensions between two mighty galactic powers that had their own succession of Vietnams between them. The universe is simply called "Empires", as it reflects not only the space-faring governments themselves but the little empires of a person's everyday lives and how they interact with others. I've frequently described the setting as "a cross between Star Wars and Full Metal Jacket".

This is the first of a series of "Versus" stories I'd planned. I wanted to show how my people would react in situations found in established science fiction. My creation. the "Empires" universe, exists at a tech level maybe a generation or so before the Old Republic we see in "Phantom Menace", except that large, organized and combat-experienced armies are common.

In this intro, "Flight of the Mystere", I am told by other readers that as a short story it has clunky moments and my (unfortunate and unintentional) overuse of adverbage makes it sound more like a screenplay, which I kinda agree with. Anyhow, if you have any comments, please feel free.

Thanks!

[Coyote]

Flight of the Mystere

The bridge was silent, dark, unlike any other time Navigator Kal Naran had seen before. He picked himself up off the floor where he had woken up, his vision dark, head spinning, and stomach churning. What the hell happened? He heard other sounds, people moaning and coming to. He had woken up a few hepts ago to silence and darkness, and lain in waiting, held captive by a headache of stunning proportions and the fear that something had gone horribly wrong. And I lay here like shit in a sack while Thyssa knows what is happening to the ship.
Next to him came a stirring, and a familiar-voiced cough. Something brushed against him and he turned to see Lieutenant Ji sit up and scan the room. He wondered if she could see any better with her infrared eyes. Apparently she could, because her head seemed to stop and look right at the sources of sounds that Kal could only guess the locations of. Then, she turned to see him and he smiled at her. His own vision was beginning to adjust, but not enough to know what her reaction was.
“Status report?” The voice of Captain Vanson filled the bridge, and the sounds of activity grew in intensity. A low electronic whine filled the bridge as systems began to come back on line. All around, people’s faces were lit up by the mulitcolored panel lights at the individual crew stations. Kal Naran hauled himself up from the floor and pulled himself up into his chair, managing to do so without ever fully coming to a standing position. Beside him, Lieutenant Ji did the same. Somewhere, a comm crackled with a hiss of static and what might have been a voice, setting everyone on edge.
“Comm systems coming back on-line, Captain,” the communications officer informed. Other voices reported in afterwards-- Lieutenant Ji’s helm board sputtered to life, Kal’s astrogation board did the same, as well as the areas for science, security, intelligence, flight control, engineering, and the weapons boards. The viewscreens surrounding the spacious bridge began to display stars, first a few, then more, as they aligned themselves with the ship’s new position-- wherever that was. Kal got to work, coordinating with the science officer and intelligence section to cross-reference everything they had and find where they were.
“Astrogation,” Captain Vanson ordered, “what do you have on our location?” Kal shook his head in frustration.
“Sir, the star charts here are at base zero,” he informed the bridge. “I have absolutely no correspondence between what we see around us and data we have available.” The captain was not perturbed; the nature of their mission carried them far beyond the reaches of any previously mapped area.
“To be expected,” Vanson affirmed, “but what we need to know is, are we in the uncharted area we are supposed to be in? Can you determine the likely vector home?” The mention of home-- the Iriesii Galaxy-- seemed to weigh on the minds of the bridge crew. How long will it be before we can expect to see home again? Kal wondered to himself. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden burst of comm static that filled the room. Everyone turned to look at Lieutenant Manak, the wanni comm officer, still new at his job.
“Sorry,” Manak muttered to everyone in general, and regained control of his station. The bridge was soon flooded with status reports.
“What are we looking at, Lieutenant?” Vanson asked. The wanni scanned the viewscreen.
“Close to one hundred and twenty six injuries of various types, sir,” Manak reported, “mostly sustained while collapsing. Another four hundred complaints of minor inflictions that do not preclude duty. Sickbays are full and roving medical teams are busy on each level,” he turned to face the captain before finishing, “Doctor Azzan asks if we need medical assistance on the bridge.” The captain scanned he room, and was met with clear, ready gazes from everyone.
“It seems we’re at one hundred percent here,” he assured Manak, who relayed the answer to the sickbay. Ship’s security checked in with no reports of intruders, and engineering reported no problems with hull integrity or power. Flight deck was operational and awaiting orders, so Vanson gave them some.
“I want patrols out, combat ready. Send them to the edges of sensor range and have them do some deep-scan sweeps to search for any signs of inhabitation. Astrogation,” Vanson again turned his attention to Kal. “Any clues as to location?”
“Still nothing, sir, although I have located galactic central point. Radiation patterns are similar to home. We appear to be close to the outer edge of a multi-armed spiral, with a large concentration of mature yellows and young reds, as well as a few rogue browns.”
“Mature spiral? Our target was an advanced dwarf cluster, Lieutenant Naran,” the captain said quietly. Kal nodded his understanding.
“Yes sir,” he confirmed, “we may not have left home at all. If what I think is true, we may be in the vicinity of Colonial Sector 172, but the star patterns are still not matching up.” Whatever the captain was going to say in reply was lost as Lieutenant-Commander Taras announced that flight operations was dispatching patrols as ordered. Screens displayed small flights of Avenger class torpedo bombers knifing out into space. Vanson sighed, and faced the science officer, a slightly overweight Q’aab who had been silent since returning to work.
“Lieutenant-Commander Jiad?” Vanson queried. The Q’aab straightened and replied to the unasked question.
“I do not know for sure, sir,” he replied, “our voyage was supposed to be about eight years, standard, and in theory we were to remain conscious the whole way. According to readings taken from the AI, as well as residue on the hull and shield units, I can determine that we have absorbed far more radiation and particles than there should be for our voyage.” The captain nodded.
“Theories?” he asked. Lieutenant-Commander Jiad frowned.
“If what Lieutenant Naran says turns out to be true, perhaps we catapulted out of the Iriesii Galaxy and got caught by some gravitic mass along the way, and slingshotted ourselves back towards our home galaxy,” he paused before adding cryptically, “or one just like it enough to fool ourselves with wishful thinking.” Captain Vanson pursed his lips and ran his fingers absently through his beard.
“If that is the case,” Vanson replied, “then we’d better start figuring out a way to get back. Jiad, you have a full-time job now.” The Q’aab looked less than pleased.


A Week Later: Avenger DSCV-A8905

“There it is again, sir,” the commtech said, subconsciously leaning forward as if that could help her hear. The bomber commander lazily turned her chair around to face the communications officer.
“Can you get a solid feed on it?” she asked. For two days they had been trying to track down a mystery signal that had so far eluded them. Now, the older thenn woman at the communications board gestured excitedly at her. OverLieutenant Ranya Savan had not seen her communications chief so worked up before. “What is it?” she asked.
“I’ve got a fix, sir,” she told her, “and it is definitely an artificial signal. I am having the computer work on it now.” As if to prove her point, she fed the noise through the intercom of the small starship so that all six crewmembers could hear it-- not that it made any difference. Some sort of mechanical chattering in a very alien language, that appeared to be repeated at a regular interval.
“Give me a feed,” the intelligence officer demanded, furiously looking for something to do after nearly a week in space aboard the cramped confines of the combat ship. The computer games, unofficially loaded into the bomber’s computer core, had long since ceased to be amusing. “I can run it through the crypto section,” he justified himself lamely. Ranya smiled her understanding at him. The weapons officer shrugged his indifference and went back to his game of janko with the computer, occassionally doing sweeps with the gun turret scanners. All the serious scanning had been done automatically from the intel officer’s board.
“Alright, Ja’la,” Ranya said to her comm officer, “record, triangulate, and send a package to the Mystere. We’ll see what they want us to do then.” The commtech nodded, her experienced hands flying across the board in response to Ranya’s orders. The commander looked back at the darkened corner of the engineering board, to see her chief engineer’s furry body slumped over a console, eyes glazed. “Somebody wake up Leeda?” she hinted as she spun her chair back towards the front of the ship. The pilot, a wiry young wanni that seemed to be more at one with his ship than with other people, looked across at her.
“So, development important, contact new, what think?” Ranya shrugged.
“Only contact we have so far and it sounds more like an automated beacon than a real contact,” she summed up. “But still, it is evidence that someone is out here. I am actually surprised that we found something after a week. I thought we would be out here longer.”
“Please. Jinx not,” he replied. Ranya raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him.
“Ensign Khalal, I had no idea you were superstitious.”
“Am not. Tempt fate not, though. Safe, hm?” Before Ranya could think of a sarcastic reply she was interrupted by her commtech, Lieutenant Ja’la.
“I have a triangulation,” she informed. “It’s a small rockball planet, maybe twenty lights away. It falls within our patrol area,” she continued, looking at her commander with some bit of interest in her large, black eyes. “We would have stumbled across it eventually.” Ranya nodded.
“I understand, but no scouting off without alerting our bosses first. Send a burst of everything we have so far to comscan on Mystere. Ensign Bansan, have you been able to unspool anything from that yet?”
“Nothing solid,” the intelligence officer replied, focused and calm now that he had something interesting to do. He stroked his light fuzz of a beard that was just at the stage that Ranya felt made men look mangy. If he kept it trimmed within regulation, she would not have to say anything, but an excuse for her would have been more than welcome. “It has a reciprocating pattern, not very long and with short intervals. A cross ref between crypto and lingo gives three possibilities.” Ranya looked at him as he leaned forward, reading intently at his screen.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, mister Bansan,” she said pointedly.
“Uhh, sir, according to the computer it could be either a distress signal, a navigation beacon, or. . . a warning.” He paused at his own drama, but Ranya was unimpressed.
“A border warning? Or an area quarantine?”
“No preference given by the computer,” the young man assured, “but that is the third most likely possibility.”
“A distress call,” Ranya considered aloud. “Ensign Khalal, plot a course towards the beacon, Lieutenant Ja’la, include Ensign Bansan’s expert opinion in your report to the Mystere,” she instructed, with a slight smile at the intelligence officer. “Mister Bansan, you may have earned a prize today. Perhaps a jar of beard cream, if you’ve run out?”
“Sir! I am within regulation length,” he protested.
“But with a lot of interpretation of regulation tidiness. The operative words are not just trimmed but neat appearance. Tomorrow there’ll be some improvement, how copy?”
“Good copy, sir,” Bansan replied, nervously smoothing his face as Ranya shared a smile with the pilot.
“Course plot, sir, complete,” he said, as the ship began its arc towards the planet of interest. Around them, the other Avengers had been alerted and were adjusting their flight patterns accordingly. Ranya Savan, being the flight leader of the complete raptor of four bombers covering their sector, reassigned everyone according to her needs, and coordinated directly with the Aurora-class BattleCruiser that was their home in this new, alien location. Replies were quick, and before an hour had passed, Lieutenant Ja’la’s comm board lit up with a holo of Lieutenent-Commander Jiad.
“Eagle Eight-Nine-Zero,” he said evenly, “we have examined your data and concur with the findings of your intel analyst--” in the corner of her eye, Ranya could see Ensign Bansan smile with vindication. “--with one correction. We do not see any evidence to back up the theory of a navigation beacon. Linguistics analysis support either a distress or warning beacon as the most likely possibilities.” Ranya nodded her understanding.
“Yes sir,” she acknowledged, “I have plotted a course to the planet. What are my instructions upon arrival?” The image of Jiad was pushed aside as Commander Mita Cairn, the second in command and intelligence chief, took over.
“Your instructions are to approach with utmost caution,” she instructed. Ranya bit her lip and kept her face impassive; Ranya did not care much for Mita Cairn. “We’re going to treat this primarily as a distress call but with a mind towards it being a warning. Land close to the source of the beacon and hold position, we are sending a cutter and medical shuttle along as backup,” she paused, adding, “you’ll be in charge of the landing party. Wait for them, then scout as the situation dictates. Mystere out,” the transmission abruptly ended. Ranya sat back and faced the crew.
“Okay, you heard the Commander. Prep for entry,” she instructed. Everyone began making preparations.
“Orders from the queen,” Bansan remarked, drawing a smile from Lattimer.
“At ease. Ensign Khalal, give us a hyperlight jump to the planet. Ensign Bansan: one active scan and then full passive ops, Masker engaged. Lieutenant Lattimer, battlecarry HEX, weapons at alert condition two, shields max density. Commo--” she looked at Lieutenant Ja’la, “--silent running, record and burst transmit status reports at regular intervals. Engineering, be ready for emergency proceedures. Any questions?” there were none. “Engage.”
The sleek, grey dagger-like ship shot forward, while inside there was no perception of movement except for the viewscreen. The stars shifted briefly to blue and almost immediately shifted out again as the torpedo bomber emerged from hyperlight velocity. The computer automatically scanned the are and the gun turrets remained locked in place, facing out over the stern of the ship. Apparantly, there was nothing in the immediate area that the ship’s AI could perceive as a danger to the vessel. That’s good, Ranya thought, considering that Avenger AI’s are supposed to be notoriously paranoid of the outside world.
“Anything out there?” she asked nonchalantly. Ensign Bansan shook his head.
“Nothing I can see, sir,” he said with a slight tone of uncertainty to his voice.
“Something you’d like to add, Ensign Bansan?” Ranya asked. The younger man furrowed his brow and locked his sensors onto something that looked to Ranya like empty space.
“I have what looks like a trail of ionized particles,” he said, “a bit thicker than background radiation. Some sort of a residue from an old power plant, maybe. A nuclear powered vessel of some sort came through here. . . “ he paused for a moment, “Thyssa, I can’t tell for sure.” He swept the area around the radiation patch. “I think they moved off in this direction,” he said, indicating an area on his viewscreen, “but I’m not sure. It’s very weak, and I’m still not sure it isn’t just background rads,” he looked at her, almost apologetic. Ranya nodded encouragement.
“No worries,” she said, “the ship doesn’t seem to think it’s a threat, and probably no one else would have caught it. Good job, you’re doing fine. See what you can dig up on that while we do a quick orbit. Lattimer, you handle groundscan, okay?” she directed, giving the bored weapons officer something to do. It was not long before they had a fix on the source of the beacon, a large metal object configured like no ship they had ever seen before.
“Looks like a wishbone,” Ranya muttered when she got a feed from Lattimer’s board. “What kind of damnfool silly aliens are we dealing with here, anyway?” she joked, “alright, let’s get our feet dirty. Lattimer, what kind of climate are we looking at?”
“According to the system model we’ve constructed, it should be a brilliant spring day down there. Full protective armor and oxygen tanks a must.” Even the weapons officer’s announcement did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the crew. After a week of being lost in god-knows-where deep space, they finally found evidence of another civilization.
“I’ll leave the tanning lotion aboard then,” Ranya quipped. “Alright, Khalal, bring us down. I want to be within walking distance of the galactic wishbone.” The Avenger plunged through the clouds, leaving a vapor trail and heat signature that effectively made their Masker pointless. Ranya turned off the stealth device and had the bomber land in plain sight. There was no reaction whatsoever from the alien ship, just the continous repeating of the beacon. The ship itself was quite large, and if it was a distress call, what sort of resources could a lost and alone BattleCruiser offer to a stranded crew of hundreds of aliens? Communications would be hard enough if they were in good shape, she thought, how do we communicate, ‘where does it hurt’?
With a slight vibration, the torpedo boat settled on its grav cushion, resting a meter above the planet’s soil. Outside, the wind howled, scattering dust and debris everywhere. It was bad enough that Ranya kept the navigational deflectors on after dropping the battle shielding. Inside, she picked who was going to suit up and join her on her “nature stroll”.
“I want Ja’la to stay here and be a commo relay, and Khalal always stays with the ship. I want Leeda along to get a look at their tech, Ensign Bansan will keep his eyes open for intelligence interests, and Lieutenant Lattimer will provide additional security. Suit up and check out your weapons,” she ordered, and went to retrieve her own gear. The crewers usually wore their thermal body gloves under their uniforms, and so it was only a matter of minutes to change into armor. They chose the extended-range backpacks supplied to the Central Star Navy for EVA operations, giving each of them twelve hours of oxygen apiece. With their helmets on, they looked like any of the Central Army’s standard armored combat soldiers, the exception being the Naval insignia on their breastplates.
“Commo check,” Ranya ordered. One by one, the crew checked their communications, then their oxygen flow and suit seals. Satisfied, they picked up their weapons-- three blaster carbines with replacement cells and a shotgun for Lieutenant Lattimer. From the bridge above, Lieutenant Ja’la called them.
“Our backup is here,” she informed them, “I have three ships pulling into orbit.” Ranya frowned.
“There’s only supposed to be two,” she reminded her, “a cutter and a medical shuttle.”
“I remember,” came the reply, “but the shuttle and cutter are parking in geosynch over the wishbone, and the third ship-- a Corsair class combat drop shuttle-- is coming to park next to us.” Ranya shrugged.
“Whatever. Extra support is fine with me.” The crew made their way to the airlock and cycled it, then lowered the ladder and climbed down, buffeted by the strong winds.
“What a shithole!” Bansan muttered. Ranya ignored him, watching as the Corsair class shuttle came to rest on its own antigravity field. The Corsair was basically just a modified Avenger, with the lower weapons bay hollowed out and fitted with a pair of large pods on either side to accommodate extra cargo. Ranya wondered what gifts they were supposed to receive. She soon had her answer: the rear ramps opened and out came a pair of VM-95 gravjeeps. A small group of armored crewers surrounded the vehicles, a couple of which had medical insignia on their armor. Ranya noticed that the others also had weapons. A Deck Officer separated himself from the group and approached her, saluting.
“Sir,” he said, “I’m Deck Chief 1st class Davidi.” Ranya returned his salute.
“Good to meet you, Davidi,” she replied, “what do we have here?” she motioned towards the jeeps, which she now noticed had extra boxes of equipment piled into them, most of which was marked with medical insignia.
“Two medics are with us and we got a TransMat to the medical shuttle,” he informed her. “I also got two jeep drivers from the Regiment and a couple of troops to act as security,” he added, motioning to the armor-clad figures standing near the vehicles. Ranya could see that these were regular Army troops, and carried not carbines but full AR-71 blaster rifles. The medics had pistols on their belts. Davidi carried a Navy carbine. No one else came down the ramp, the Corsair crew had no intention of joining them in the inhospitable climate. A voice in her ear turned her to see Lattimer, gesturing at a bare patch of land between the two Centrality ships.
“Check this out,” he announced, “blast patterns. The rock is scorched, like somebody landed here awhile ago.” Ranya thought about what Bansan had theorized-- that another ship, an older one, may have also stopped by here. Was it another potential rescuer? Did it happen before the alien ship crashed? Was it an enemy that had shot down the alien? She dismissed it as something that only investigation would reveal.
“Alright, let’s get the party going,” she insisted. The jeeps could easily hold up to eight people apiece, and it was a matter of moments before they were gliding towards the alien ship, its sillouhette eerie against the rocky landscape. It had the appearance of something that had been out in the weather for quite awhile, and Ranya had a sinking feeling that they were probably not going to find anyone helpful aboard. “I think we’re just going to end up marking a cemetery site, folks,” she announced. In the other jeep, she could see Davidi nod his helmeted head in agreement. The security troops relaxed their posture a bit, but not by much. It was plain to all that the derelict had been grounded for quite some time.
They pulled up to the side of the derelict, finding a hole torn in the side that would allow them entry if they dismounted the jeeps. Scans had shown nothing alive on the planet so far besides themselves, so Ranya had the drivers lock the controls on the jeeps and follow them inside. There, the mood shifted, and the Army troops became more defensive, leveling their rifles out in a standard field-of-cover pattern. They also found that the alien ship effectively cut off communications once they entered it, so they set a time limit with the ships of three hours.
“Look at this place,” Leeda murmured aloud, gazing around at the structure of the ship. “It all has an organic look to it.” The small wanni female instantly shouldered her carbine and started examining the consoles. Everything was blended together, and it was hard to tell where one type of machinery ended and another began-- or if it even was machinery of any sort.
“No hard corners at all,” Lattimer noted as well. He also lowered his carbine and joined the chief engineer in her examination of the ship. Ahead, the Army troops stopped and looked at them, then each other, before going back to their defensive posture. Ranya grimaced inside her helmet.
“Alright, kids,” she said, “we’ll have plenty of time to check this out later. Right now, let’s see if we can find the crew.” She moved her crewers forward, and looked over at Davidi, who had a powerful hand scanner out. “Anything?” she asked. The Deck Chief shook his head. She motioned ahead and strode past the Army troops, her carbine at the ready. “Keep an eye out,” she said unnecessarily. They stalked forward, alternately examining the fascinating organic design of the alien ship and watching for any signs of danger. It was beginning to get almost boring when one of the Army troops called out.
“Got one here! Check him out!” The others dashed forward, carefully, and Ranya rounded the corner to see what the excitement was. The troops stood, still in their defensive stances but looking up at a huge figure reclined on a. . . a what? Was it a chair? An instrument panel? A weapon? Whatever it was, the creature-- easily twice as tall as a human being-- had died long ago. Its skeletal remains were obvious underneath stretched, dried skin. Ranya’s eyes were drawn to the obvious cause of the creature’s death: a large hole, punched through the alien’s chest. The ribs-- she called them ribs only because that was what they resembled-- were forced outward. She wondered if there was a corresponding entry wound on the creature’s back as well, and if so, why would it be lying down on it?
“Looks like something exploded out of his chest,” one trooper remarked casually. “Fucked up way to go,” he added, before returning to watching down the corridor they had yet to go down. Ranya silently agreed.
“Well, if this guy is any indication,” she said, motioning towards the body, “there probably won’t be any work for you guys,” she said to the medics. The medics shrugged and picked out their scanners, asking permission to examine the alien carcass. Ranya nodded, looking around at the rest of the chamber. It was fairly barren, and she wondered how much of the alien technology was based on organic tech, and if so, how much of it had simply decayed before they arrived. No one around to water the hyperdrive, she decided, and look what happens. The medics pored over the creature while Lattimer and Leeda scrounged for technological clues. Davidi and Ensign Bansan had found their way over to a hatch that opened into a deck below. The black hatch yawned before them, and they shone their lights down to see only vague shapes in the darkness. Nothing moved.
“There’s something down there alright,” Davidi noted, “I got organic scans all over, very low level. It looks like there are a whole bunch of things alive down there,” he said, leveling his helmeted gaze at her. Ranya called everyone else over immediately.
“Theories?” she asked in general.
“Possible hibernation chambers,” Davidi replied, “rest of the crew went downstairs to sleep it off, wait for rescue. Ship is obviously not going anywhere.” A few heads nodded in agreement, the medics kept looking into the hole with interest. The Army troopers continued to watch the corridors and keep a wary eye on the hatch as well. No one else had any other ideas.
“Well, that just leaves the question, who wants to head down first,” she stated plainly. Bansan seemed about ready to step forward but suddenly thought better of it, he hesitated for a moment-- long enough for Lattimer to make the first move.
“Hell, I’ll check it out,” the older man said. “You’ll trip on yourself,” he chided Bansan as he pulled out a length of cable from his pack. Ranya motioned for the rest of her crew to cover him from the hatch as they attached the cable and lowered it down. Lattimer shouldered his shotgun and lowered himself into the inky darkness. “This is huge,” he said over the comm, “Probably a cargo hold or something. I hope nobody thinks I’m a pirate,” he added with some humor. Actually, if there is some crew alive, that may be problematic, Ranya decided. She switched her carbine’s sight to thermal and couldn’t see any better, so she kept it on standard and tried to follow Lattimer’s actions. Finally, the cable went slack.
“Okay, I’m on the deck,” he said, looking around. He unshouldered his shotgun and held it even at his hip, not really looking for trouble. “There’s a walkway here, with two large pits off to either side,” he described, looking back and forth. “There’s a bunch of shapes down here, round, but they are way too small to be related to our guy upstairs,” he said. Mentioning the creature made the Army troopers look down the corridor they had come from where the dead giant lay. For some reason, Ranya thought, they looked edgy.
“What are the shapes?” Davidi asked.
“I dunno,” Lattimer replied, “there’s a mist of some sort hovering above them. They look like. . .here, let me get a closer look,” he said, and Ranya heard him grunt as he lowered himself down into one of the pits.
“How deep are those pits?” she demanded.
“Not too deep, I can climb out easy,” Lattimer reassured her. “The round things look like big eggs of some sort, but without shells. Like they’re eggs with skins instead.” One of the medics shifted.
“There’s a mist? Are the eggs respirating?” he asked. Lattimer was silent for a moment.
“Like breathing? I dunno. Something is definitely alive inside them, a couple of them look like there is something kicking around in them.” On the upper deck, excitement and curiosity stirred. “One of them is opened over here,” he said. Ranya suddenly felt nervous.
“It’s hatching?” she asked.
“No,” the weapons officer replied, “It was already hatched. Some time ago, looks like,” he said, “it looks like it’s partially decayed. I wonder if these are their young? Egg-layers?” he was silent for a moment, then, “Maybe the hatched one is our dead guy up top?” A few of the others began to mutter among themselves, the medics debating whether or not to pull the eggs up from the hold. One of them was already moving to climb down and looked to Ranya for permission.
“Lieutenant Savan?” he asked, letting the question hang. Ranya motioned for him to stay. She was getting a bad feeling about the situation.
“Lieutenant Lattimer, I want you to return to us. We’ll get a more qualified team to take a look at all these.”
“Yes sir,” he replied, and then, “Hey! One of them is moving!”
“Moving? How?” she demanded, both fascinated and concerned. In the back of her mind a voice sternly warned her to get Lattimer out.
“Just quivering a bit,” he replied, “there’s an organism of some sort squirming around.” Ranya’s mind was made up.
“Get out of there, we don’t know what this is. We can see what happens from up here, just get your ass back up here.”
“Yes sir,” he acknowledged, “If I may sir, if something is being born it might need assistance,” he added. The medic nodded in agreement and motioned towards the cable again. Ranya pointed at him to stay put.
“Yeah,” Ensign Bansan pointed out, “but when it pops out, it may well also be hungry.”
“Alright, I’m on my way, but this thing is opening up,” he said. He turned to face the walkway to search for a handhold. From the corner of his eye, he could see the four corners of the egg’s leathery skin fold back. He looked back at the thing and was shocked to see something dart out. It looked like a huge, leathery spider. “What the fuck was that!?” he hollered, his heart racing. Ranya leaned forward, looking into the pit and scanning the area with her weapons sight. Everyone tensed and the troops dropped to kneeling firing positions and started scanning the corridors.
“Lattimer, talk to me!” she demanded. For a second, only his adrenaline enhanced breathing could be heard.
“Something popped out of the egg,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm, “it’s alive. It looked like a big spider, with a tail. It was bigger then my hands put together,” he said, more normally now. “I can’t see it now.”
“Fuck it, Lieutenant! Get your ass up here now!” She heard Lattimer grunt, lifting his way up onto the walkway.
“Huh?” she heard him say, then, “Thyssa! Get off me you fuck!” Ranya launched herself down the cable before anyone could react, the medic immediately followed, then Bansan.
“Rest of you, stay there and cover us!” she ordered. Ahead, Lattimer writhed on the ground. The medic rushed for him while Ranya and Bansan looked to either side at the vast warehouse full of leathery eggs. A sinking feeling overcame her as she looked down at the freshly opened shell, still venting steam into the cold atmosphere. Nearby, a few other eggs seemed to quiver.
“Goddamn!” the medic cursed. Ranya looked over at Lattimer, rolled over on his side as much as his pack would allow. A large, spiderlike creature had latched onto Lattimer’s faceplate. The edges of the helmet were bubbling and corroded, as if they had been hit with acid. The medic shook his head. “We have to get him out of here,” he said. Ranya motioned Bansan to help the medic carry Lattimer out, while she scooped up his dropped shotgun. Bansan grunted with one leg while struggling with his weapon. Ranya grabbed the other leg while the medic anchored his arms under Lattimer’s armpits. The other medic was lowering a stretcher that had been hastily inflated and filled with hardening gel. It came with a powered hoist. Lattimer’s limp body was put in it and he was winched up.
“Oh, Thyssa,” Bansan moaned, and Ranya could see a pair of eggs begin to open up. Ranya settled her sights on one of the creatures just beginning to crawl out the opening and fired a burst of energy into it. There was enough atmosphere to transmit sound, and Bansan jumped at the sudden noise so close to him. He brought his own weapon up and started firing into the eggs as well, and soon he and Ranya were working the rows up each side of the walkway, carving into the leathery skins with lances of energy. The medic reached for the shotgun and Ranya tossed it to him, and he added to the destruction.
The hoist was lowered again and Ranya had the medic get in, and told Bansan to take the cable up. From the hatchway, the others added their fire to cover the escape. Most of the eggs in their immediate sight had already been destroyed, but the cargo hold stretched off far beyond the light of the open hatch. Who knew what stirred beyond their sight? When the stretcher was lowered for the last time, Ranya was sure that she could see vague little shapes crawling along the walkway from the dark cavern, and she practically leaped from the stretcher into the light of the corridor.
Lattimer lay on the deck, both medics looking at him. The creature had completely fastened itself to his face and resisted any attempts to be pulled off. The troops were jumpy and kept glancing between the hatch, the halls, Lattimer and Ranya. Nearby, she saw Bansan, collapsed against a wall, his head in his hands, and she could hear him mumbling incoherently over the comm.
“Get your asses together,” she commanded to everyone, “Let’s head back to the jeeps-- you,” she motioned towards the soldiers, “you have grenades, right?”
“Yes sir,” their leader, a corporal, said. They moved to the edges of the hatch and combed the area with their rifle sights. Davidi used the scanner and pulled back, surprise evident in his body posture.
“The place is crawling with them,” he said. The soldiers fired a few bursts from their weapons at full power, then lobbed grenades down into the darkness. Muffled thumps rolled up through the open hole. Lattimer was secured back aboard the stretcher, which was now connected to a remote-controlled antigrav sled. Grenades expended, the troops took up guard positions at the front and led the way back out, followed by Ranya and Davidi, his eyes glued to the scanner. No other life forms appeared on his screen. The medics followed, guiding Lattimer’s body out, and Bansan and Leeda brought up the rear. They piled into the jeeps and raced back to the ships, transmitting distress calls the whole way.
They went to the Corsair first, Lattimer and the medics jogging right past them all and into the TransMat, which placed them immediately in the medical shuttle.
“They’ve got him,” Lieutenant Ja’la called out, “Heading back to the Mystere right now!”
“Let’s go,” she ordered to Davidi. His crew hastily re-stowed the jeeps and piled aboard as Ranya and her crew did the same. They did not bother to remove their armor, just cycled a quick decontamination through the airlock, secured their weapons and flew into the bridge. Khalal already had the engines idling.
“Commander Cairn wants you to report to her the instant we return,” Ja’la informed her. Ranya growled her reply.
“Imagine that. Let’s get off this goddamn rock!” she barked, noting Bansan in the corner of her eye. He seemed catatonic at his board, sweat plastering his dark hair to his head. The Avenger lifted from its grav field and shot into the atmosphere while Ranya slaved the weapons station to her board and shut it down. Within a few minutes, they were at hyperlight, and racing for the Mystere. The image of Lattimer’s body, his face covered with that alien thing haunted her. The stars shifted briefly to red as the bomber emerged from hyperlight just in time to see the cutter and medical shuttle enter the bay. Ranya’s Avenger followed and she was almost out the airlock before the vessel had settled in its berth.
Commander Cairn stood, waiting, at the end of the walkway. To either side, Ranya could imagine rows of leathery eggs, bursting, spewing forth face-hugging death spiders. Why not Commander Cairn? she wondered briefly, her teeth grinding. This is the last thing I need now. Mita Cairn shifted to attention and returned Ranya’s salute.
“Your crewman has already been sent to sickbay,” the ship’s second-in-command informed her. “He’s in the biohazard section, and stable. They are preparing surgery, and it will be awhile before there will be any progress.” She stopped and informed Ranya that, since that was the case, they had time for a briefing.
“You can get what you need from the helmet recorders,” Ranya insisted. Cairn shook her head.
“I can get the images, sequence. . . but I will also want to know why you did the things you did, and only you can answer that.” Ranya closed her eyes and sighed for a moment, forcing the tension out of her body. There was no way out of this, and she could nothing for her crewman now, and this would keep her focused until she could see him.
“Of course, sir,” Ranya replied finally. “let’s take care of this.”

Medical Bay: Biohazard Section

Doctor Azzan looked around the face of the unconscious man for a third time, as if the tall, thin Q’aab could hope that some new way of figuring the situation out would come to him. Nothing seemed to have changed, and no ideas materialized in his mind. When he tried to pry off the legs, the creature’s tail tightened around Lattimer’s neck. When he tried to pry off the tail, it tightened like ceramalloy cords and the man’s vitals plunged.
Once it had been determined that Lattimer’s condition would remain stable, and there was no way to give him any immediate help, Doctor Azzan had quarantined the patient and gone to the briefing with Commander Cairn and the rest of the crew that had been present at the derelict. The operations commander, OverLieutenant Savan, was sitting outside, trying to collect herself. She still wore her dusty armor.
“Anything?” she asked immediately, looking up at him and launching out of her chair. Doctor Azzan motioned for her to sit, and he did the same.
“Nothing yet,” he said, “We have no idea what we are up against. I know you already went through this with Commander Cairn, but perhaps you should tell me everything that happened, everything you saw, and what went wrong.” Ranya Savan sighed and sank back in her chair, seeming to notice for the first time that she was still in her armor. Her dark, brown eyes drifted away to a time that existed now only in memory-- and digital recording. She had recently seen that digital recording, and it had only reinforced the feeling of helplessness people face when remembering a bad situation that was since beyond repair. She told him what she knew in a dull voice, interrupted only by the arrival of first Ensign Bansan and the medic who had been with them in the cargo hold. Already interrogated, they were temporarily off duty pending an investigation. They felt too restless to wait in their quarters, and no one was feeling particularly social.
“So what are you going to do now, Doctor?” Ranya asked. Azzan grimaced.
“I have to try to do what I can,” he said, “even though I am not sure that there really is anything I can do. The only option I haven’t tried yet is surgery, and I was about to start that.” The medic and Bansan exchanged glances, the young intelligence Ensign looking particularly distraught. Ranya shifted in her chair.
“Well, if that is all that’s left, then that is all that’s left,” she said, picking herself up and motioning towards the end of the corridor. “I’d like to observe if I may, Doctor?”
“Of course,” he replied absently. All three of them moved together towards the operating suite observation room while the Doctor himself reentered the decontamination lock and donned fresh whites. Inside, he checked Lattimer’s condition. All was as he’d left it, he noticed with some disappointment. He looked at the small red light on his eyelens that informed him that the recorders were on.
“The creature continues to supply the patient with oxygen while maintaining its grip,” he said aloud to the recorders that followed his every move. “The creature’s grip, both legs and tail, is stunning. There is a tube of some sort extending deep into the patient’s chest cavity, the purpose of which I cannot figure out. It is neither taking nor-- as near as I can tell-- depositing anything.” He looked again at the scans, and internally, nothing had changed. He grimaced, motioning for his tray. Obediently, the medlab robot rolled its way towards him.
“Despite my misgivings, I have decided to attempt surgical removal of the creature. Whatever it is, it has staked its survival on this parasitic relationship with the patient.” He reached for a gleaming, black blade, a piece of finely cut obsidian that cut far sharper than any laser. With expert care he placed stainless steel drip deflectors around the creature’s bottomost left leg, the tail being too tight to reach under. He already had a good idea what would happen and was no happier about it than the man’s crewmates, watching from the observation gallery.
And now Doctor Azzan gave them the barest flicker of a glance as he looked over at the thick transparalloy window, the room sealed against contaminants, his own breathing the only sound in the protective suit he wore, as he steadied the black blade in his hands and moved towards his patient. With featherlike grace, he placed thumb and forefinger over the top of the area to be cut, and gently applied the scalpel.
Doctor Azzan, a skilled surgeon in the Central Navy with over thirty years of experience, was not prepared for what happened next. With a sputter, liquid poured from the creature’s wound and began eating at the blade. Momentarily stunned, he looked at the rapidly dissolving blade in his hands. He tossed it into a stainless steel pan as if it were about to bite him, and watched in shock as the liquid-- the thing’s blood?-- ran harmlessly down its own leg to drip onto the splash guards, and then into the collection pan where the remains of the scalpel sat. The obsidian blade was quickly ruined, and the pan itself began to discolor. A faint metallic odor filled the air around the table as Azzan began to realize that the steel pan was not going to last long. The bubbling acid showed no signs of stopping, it was going to drip through to whatever was below-- the medlab storage facility, he remembered somewhere.
Instantly, Azzan dove for the door, but not to leave-- rather, he opened one of the panels next to it. A row of controls was exposed, at the top of which there was a prominent round switch with a handle marked GRAVITIC CONTROL. He twisted it all the way to the left and instantly lost sensation of weight. He turned, his movements carefully coordinated through years of training to keep from spinning. Behind him, hovering in midair in small bubbles, the acid sat nearly motionless on its interrupted plunge to the floor. Almost motionless is not good enough, Azzan deduced, his mind projecting images of elusive flying acid balls floating into everything in the room. He turned off the air circulation as well.
“Go to engineering!” he barked towards the observation bay, “get an antigrav container!” The wide-eyed Ranya Savan sent Bansan running.
“Can we do anything?” she asked through the monitor. Azzan shook his head and looked around, checking for any more developing problems. A handful of small surgical instruments sat on the table, some of which were beginning to shift minutely. Mostly, however, things stayed where they were. The acid balls drifted, barely, but would not cause trouble provided the antigrav container got there in time. Azzan regretted not keeping one handy in the sickbay, but who would have guessed a need to capture floating balls of acid?
Bansan returned after what seemed an eternity. He handed the antigrav jar to Ranya, who stepped through the decontamination lock with it. Carefully, Azzan and Ranya captured the floating acid and held it in antigravity stasis within the container. Relieved, Azzan returned the cabin gravity to normal.
“So much for the surgical option,” he said regretfully. The creature on Lattimer’s face sat quietly. It had not even twitched.

Mess Hall 4D-- The Next Morning

Ranya smoothed back her short, red, still-wet hair and gazed at her reflection in her fourth cup of coffiene. She was glad that the image was a badly distorted one, she’d hate to think that she looked so bad. Still, after a night with almost no sleep, she could not see how she could justify looking any better. Tired and haggard, she had wakened and reported to duty, only to be told to return to standby. Pending an investigation, the section chief had said. It was becoming her mantra: Can you fly a mission, Ranya? Sorry, I am supposed to wait, pending an investigation. Ranya, I’m on fire, can you pour water on me? Sorry, but pending an investigation. . . She frowned and drank her coffiene, letting the bitterness and heat shock her into more wakefulness.
She blinked as her vision was suddenly filled with letters. The eyelens she wore on her left eye received a personal message for her from the ship’s AI. Report to Sickbay, it said simply. Any news, good or bad, would be welcome. She darted out the door and reached the medical section on the heels of the rest of her crew, alerted by the same message. Together, they piled in front of the observation bay to the biohazard suite. Sitting up on the table, pasty-faced and sweaty, was Lattimer-- with no trace of the alien face spider at all.
“Hey! About time you woke up!” Bansan whooped. Lattimer smiled weakly and waved at his friends.
“Good morning,” he croaked. “Sorry to keep you all waiting.”
“So how do you feel?” Ranya asked, trying to keep a professional detachment but failing. Her smile practically burst her face at the sight of Lattimer up and active again, without that nightmare affixed to him. Lattimer shook his head.
“I feel fine, except the doc here won’t let me have any food,” he said, indicating Doctor Azzan, who hovered nearby with a medical scanner. “I’m starving.”
“Understandable,” Azzan countered, “you’ve been without food for a couple of days. But the scans show that there is something lodged in your chest cavity and I don’t want you making a move out this door until we know for sure what it is.” Lattimer tried to wave him off, but made no move to get up.
“I heard there was some excitement,” he said, looking at them all.
“There’s an investigation going on,” Ranya informed him, “they’re looking into this whole cock-up. Who’s to blame and all,” she said, without adding that her ass was the one furthermost out on the branch.
“Well, I’m the prize son of a bitch,” Lattimer said, “I should have gotten out of there as soon as you said to and avoided the whole mess.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she insisted, “just get better. Then you can say your peace to the board of inquiry.” He nodded his head in understanding and turned to the doctor, asking for food to brought to him. Azzan sighed and repeated his insistence that Lattimer would just have to wait awhile. “Hey,” Ranya called, “as soon as this is over, I’ll treat you to all the top-quality steaks this tub has to offer,” she promised. The others chipped in with promises of beer, ice cream, or whatever else struck their imaginations. Lattimer held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Okay, okay,” he said, “I’ll take you all up on your promises. But for now, I need to know when I can get the hell out of here.” Azzan clasped his hands in front of him.
“Apparently, the residue is in your lungs. Have you had any trouble breathing?” he asked patiently. Lattimer inhaled and exhaled evenly.
“I feel okay,” he responded, “just hungry.” Azzan nodded.
“Well, I want to do some observation before opening you up. Putting you under right now might not be the best thing for you. So I’ll make you a deal,” he said, looking gravely at the weapons officer, “Order the meal of your choice for now and then you will have nothing else for at least eight hours. If you don’t show any symptoms, we’ll open you up and get that residue out of you.” Lattimer brightened.
“It’s a deal. Chops and eggs?”
“Anything you want,” Azzan insisted, smiling, “we’ll have it brought here. You’re not leaving the biofacility, though.”
“Breakfast in bed? When do I get the sponge bath from Nurse Adano?”
“First things first,” Azzan said, looking over at Ranya. “I’d like to show you something, if I could, Lieutenant,” he gestured for her to meet him inside the decon lock. After she had draped fresh whites over her uniform, Ranya followed the doctor through the service hatch to the biohazard storage lab. Two containers dominated the central table-- one, the grav container with the acid blood from earlier and the other--
“Ugh! That’s it?” she grunted, frowning in disgust. The face-hugger sat in a gravitic stasis of its own, unmoving, the legs and tail limp. “How did you get it off?” she asked, after examining it for a few seconds.
“I didn’t,” the doctor explained, “It just relaxed its grip and sloughed off on its own. Apparantly, it died when it felt its mission was complete.” Ranya looked up at him, thinking about his words.
“And that mission was. . ?”
“I’m not sure,” Azzan said quietly, “but if my guess is correct, then it has to do with whatever it implanted in Lieutenant Lattimer’s body.” Ranya looked at him, her eyes asking the question she didn’t voice.
“Look,” he explained, “this thing came from an egg patch. On the video, there were hundreds of eggs, possibly more we didn’t see. Mass egg-laying is the survival tactic of a simple creature that expects a high mortality rate among its young. But I cannot recall seeing egg-laying creatures of this size before,” he indicated the spider-like creature in the container. “I am not a xeno-zoology expert, but some things are basic. Its behavior is parasitic, and acts like a giant insect. It has that blood-- or a defense layer-- to ensure its survival while gripping its victim. Whatever it is, it comes from a damn hostile environment. It’s tough, but it expects its young to be killed in mass quantities. Thus the egg fields.” Ranya thought for a moment, looking back through her memory at everything she had seen, and what little she knew about biology from school.
“So what does all this mean for Lattimer?” she asked, her eyes contacting Azzan’s from the other side of the table.
“If the creature is following the parasitic, insect-like activity that I am familiar with, then its purpose may well have been to use Lattimer as a host creature for larva of its own.”
“So that residue in his lungs. . .”
“--may well be another developing phase of the creature,” Azzan said gravely. Ranya shook her head, trying to clear the confusion. She indicated the stasis container and its gruesome contents.
“But this is the creature,” she insisted, “and now it’s dead. Why would a creature of any sort hatch from an egg, immediatly grab another creature to act as a host, and then die as soon as it formed another egg? It would have to eat, uh, find a mate. . .” she trailed off, out of her element. She nervously slicked back her hair again. Azzan shrugged.
“The egg form is the first phase of the creature, the spider form probably some sort of transitional phase. It grabs a host, implants a more mature egg, and then dies. It appears to serve no other purpose. The implanted egg grows and forms a third phase, something we haven’t seen yet.” Ranya thought back to the events on the derelict alien ship. Suddenly, she inhaled sharply and could feel herself go pale.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered. Azzan nodded gravely.
“Indeed,” he said, “the alien in the chair.”
The image burned into Ranya’s mind-- the huge, hominid form alien, reclining-- now she knew why the giant was lying on its back, on what would have been an entry wound. There was no entry wound, she realized. The image in her memory blurred and easily became an image of Lattimer, his own ribs burst out as-- what? ate its way from within his chest.
“You haven’t told him?” she insisted.
“No. It is still only a theory, but I feel a very rational one. I have no idea how long gestation is, but in the natural world we know the average can be days or weeks,” he reminded her. She dismissed the thought.
“That’s the world as we know. This is something different, you said so yourself.”
“Yes. I haven’t seen any parallels on any of the worlds of the Central Alliance. We know of other creatures built tougher than this, but they do not rely on multi-egg phases, or mass breeding. So we’re dealing with something highly adapted to extremely hostile conditions. That is why I wanted to get the thing out now, but I don’t know what effect that would have on him, so soon after waking up from the creature itself,” he explained with a nod towards the stasis container. Ranya nodded understanding.
“So when does he go into surgery?” she asked.
“Like I said, I want eight hours of observation to see if he is stable enough to go under. There are still some unknown toxins left in is blood, I assume left over from the creature’s paralysis. Believe me, I want to get that damn thing out of him as much as you do,” he gazed at the alien spider, still threatening even in death, “I can’t imagine what the next form of the creature may be, but if the indications I’ve seen so far support my theory, it must be one viscious bastard.”

Medical Bay-- Biohazard Section

Lieutenant Lattimer’s last words before going under anesthesia were a demand for a big meal as soon as he awoke. Doctor Azzan promised him anything he wanted, hiding his real concern under his biohazard protective mask. From the window, Ranya watched alongside Bansan, Ja’la, Khalil and Leeda. Ranya was surprised by the arrival of Commander Cairn as well, silently acknowledging the muffled greetings of the bomber crew as she took her place next to Ranya, with something approaching concern laid over her usually coldly neutral expression. Ranya locked her eyes instead on the figures of Doctor Azzan, nurse-Ensign Sharra Adona and another assistant she did not recognize. Once it was established that Lattimer was asleep, Azzan began the procedure.
“Patient is asleep and respirating normally, blood pressure and brainwave activity all normal for a healthy young human male in his mid-twenties. We will be attempting,” he said, speaking for the recorders, “to remove an alien cyst of an unknown nature, implanted in the left lower lung. Reference medlog M-one-two-zero-nine-two-five dot zero-seven-hundred, Doctor Azzan, Baiid, practicing.” Formalities finished, he stepped towards Lattimer and began cutting with another obsidian blade. Soon, the lung itself was exposed, Ranya watching with a clinical detatchment.
“Doctor,” nurse Adona said, indicating the biomonitors. Lattimer’s heart rate had increased as the unnatural bulge in the lung was exposed, and he began to perspire. Azzan hesitated. A slight movement in the lung caught his eye. The ‘cyst’ was shifting. Azzan bent to make his final incision.
“My theory that we are dealing with another larval form of the creature is--” Doctor Azzan never got to finish his sentence. A stain of blood washed through the chest cavity as if a faucet had been turned on. Silvery, needle-like teeth appeared first as Adona swore and Azzan stumbled backwards. Erupting from Lattimer’s chest was the alien’s third form, complete with arms, legs, and elongated, eyeless head dripping with blood and mucus. The thing squirmed out of Lattimer’s body, the biomonitor now reading flatlines all across. The rest of Lattimer’s crew pressed against the observation window, yelling incomprehensibly. Ranya and Commander Cairn were cycling through the decontamination lock.
The creature hissed at Doctor Azzan, who held his scalpel in a defensive stance. Nurse Adona did the same while the assistant pulled the safety ring from a fire retardant canister and aimed the spray nozzle towards the alien. For a second, time froze, then the creature sprang into action, startled by the opening of the decontamination lock. Ranya and Commander Cairn charged in, Ranya with her Navy-issue energy bayonet crackling, Commander Cairn producing a palm blaster. They dove for the alien, missing it by centimeters as it charged for the air circulation vent, tearing the grill off with strength beyond what its small size indicated. Cairn fired as the bloody tail slipped into the darkness, the faint scratching of its claws disappearing into the duct.
“Where does this go!?” Cairn demanded, leveling a laser-beam glare at Doctor Azzan.
“Filters!” he replied, his voice uncharacteristically emotional, “it’s a closed circulation and purification system-- isolated from the rest of the ship’s atmosphere.”
“Small favors,” Cairn muttered, keying her personal comm. “Security level Red One, intruder alert, authorization meta-two-zero.” The corridors of the Mystere were bathed in reddish light as ship’s security personnel began positioning themselves at corridor intersections and other choke points. Rifles and armor were distributed, and fire teams began checking in as soon as they had their positions covered.
Ranya, meanwhile, watched silently while Doctor Azzan, shaken but still at his duty, pronounced Lieutenant Lattimer dead.

Deck 12, Aft Briefing Room-- One Hour Later

“The scanning team was unable to locate the alien in the biohazard filtration system. Another tear in the duct was detected just before the first filter junction,” Commander Cairn said, indicating the two-dimensional overlay projected on the bulkhead behind her. The areas where the alien had torn its way through the metal of the filter system were marked in red-- the medlab facility and the filter junction. There was no telling how long it had taken the alien to move that distance-- about ten meters-- and tear its way out, but from what Ranya had seen, it was probably already on its way to parts unknown before the first security team had reached its position.
“We have since maintained a Red-One alert, with security teams placed in all their normal positions, with instructions to monitor air ducts and other nonstandard passageways through the vessel,” the Commander added. Around the table, a few officers glanced at the air vent leading into the briefing room, embarrassing each other when they got caught doing it. A Commander that Ranya didn’t recognize, bearing the collar insignia of Engineering, looked curiously at Cairn’s display.
“How big is this thing?” he asked, “I know for a fact that the air ducts on Centrality ships are all designed to be too small for most people to crawl through,” he said, adding as if an afterthought, “it’s a security precaution.” Commander Cairn nodded.
“You are correct,” she confirmed, “this alien is about as big as a small dog. It is lizardlike in appearance and roughly hominid in shape. It is also very fast, and very strong, as evidenced by the damage done to the duct system in the biofacility,” she changed the image to a slow-motion recording of the medlab’s video monitors. From the moment the creature was confronted by the medical personnel, until its disappearance into the duct, the monitors displayed full well the creature and its capabilities.
“So. . . it’s an animal,” the Security section chief volunteered. Cairn looked at Doctor Azzan to supply the answer.
“As near as we can tell, it is of animal intelligence,” he said, commanding the attention of everyone in the room. “I could go into the biological or zoological theories I have developed. . .” The Intel chief raised his hand.
“That won’t be necessary,” he insisted, “But it does not know tactics, strategies, and there is no more reason to expect an attack on a missile bay than any random storage hold, correct?”
“Probably true,” Azzan agreed, with the confirming nod of Lieutenant-Commander Jiad to his left. OverLieutenant Ranya Savan, seated to Azzan’s right, fidgeted minutely and wondered why she had to be in the room with the ship’s section chiefs, all of which were Lieutenant-Commanders and higher. Across the table, the Intel section second in command and Security chief grimaced and shared a look of irritation. Any normal intruder would target sensitive areas and ignore storage holds, and security personnel could group themselves accordingly. The random nature of the alien made their job much harder.
“People, for all we know, the damn thing is already hiding in someone’ toilet. Doctors, could either of you shed some light on the possible habits of this thing?” the Security chief said with an exasperated tone. Azzan indicated Jiad to take the question.
“Well,” Jiad said, leaning forward, “it has just hatched. It is hungry and will want to find a secure place to nest and feed. After that, it will begin to stake out a hunting territory.”
“How will it do that?” Intelligence asked.
“It will find a prey track that is reliable, and then try to locate a nesting site close enough to be worth the trouble,” he explained, “a nest too close to a prey track scares away potential food. Too far and the creature will expend most of its energy just getting too and from the nest,” he sat back again, adding with a shrug, “this is a fairly simple way of putting it, and it is only conjecture. We do not know the nesting and hunting habits of the creature.”
“Or what its eating is,” added the Quartermaster Chief. “It may now as well be into the preserved food stores breaking,” he lamented, stroking his furry ears with worry. The Cybernetics Chief shot him a dirty look.
“Don’t be such a blunt instrument,” she growled, clicking her serrated teeth the way one would scold a child, “what do you think it eats with those teeth? Salads?” Azzan shut down the argument before it could go further.
“Lieutenant-Commander F’teen is partially correct. We don’t know what it eats, but Liutenant-Commander Th’khala is also right. It is clearly a carnivore. It eats meat, people, and most animals that eat meat prefer to capture live prey rather than pick at carrion.” Heads nodded around the table.
“And that is the problem,” Commander Cairn said, retaking the meeting’s momentum. “The alien most likely eats live meat. And the only live meat aboard this ship is the crew.”
“There’s the biosynth,” the Organics Chief protested. Jiad and Azzan both dismissed him.
“The biosynth is most likely not appetizing to a hunt-based organism,” Jiad insisted, “and it undoubtedly smells bad as well. I understand your affection for the organism that keeps us alive and you employed,” he said with some humor, which brought some smiles to the tense faces around the table, “but it would be akin to one of us looking for food in a new city by going directly to the sewers.” The Organics Chief sat back, clearly unrelieved. Attention returned to Commander Cairn.
“Still, the biosynth is being monitored,” she assured the Organics Chief, “and if it does go after the biosynth, then we can establish a feeding pattern and set up an ambush. So we are left with these questions-- where is its likely nesting point, and where is its likely food collection point?”
“Find the first one, and the second will be close by,” Science Officer Jiad pointed out, “more important, we need to narrow down its most likely nests. What kind of environment does it prefer? OverLieutenant Savan, you saw the creature’s first chosen nesting point.” All eyes turned to Ranya. She pursed her lips momentarily and leaned forward, trying to think about every minute detail of what she saw on the alien derelict. Her own helmet-recorded log was cued up on the monitor by Commander Cairn.
“Well, it was a large, dark hold,” she stated, “which we did not fully explore. There was a mist of some kind around the deck, and the whole area had a very organic appearance to it.” She watched, keeping her voice steady, as the logcorder replayed Lattimer’s entry into the open hatch, and his exploration of the hold. Just like she remembered, the image briefly switched to infrared, and back to normal. “The rest of the alien ship, while there was enough space, was also lighter, and we saw no sign of. . . nests, or eggs, anywhere else.”
“At no phase of the creature’s development have I noticed any organs that might be considered eyes in the optical sense of the term,” Azzan added. “It does not seem to rely on visual cues at all for navigation or hunting. It may be some sort of frequency-bas

[Coyote]

Flight of the Mystere, Part 2

Deck 12, Aft Briefing Room-- One Hour Later

“The scanning team was unable to locate the alien in the biohazard filtration system. Another tear in the duct was detected just before the first filter junction,” Commander Cairn said, indicating the two-dimensional overlay projected on the bulkhead behind her. The areas where the alien had torn its way through the metal of the filter system were marked in red-- the medlab facility and the filter junction. There was no telling how long it had taken the alien to move that distance-- about ten meters-- and tear its way out, but from what Ranya had seen, it was probably already on its way to parts unknown before the first security team had reached its position.
“We have since maintained a Red-One alert, with security teams placed in all their normal positions, with instructions to monitor air ducts and other nonstandard passageways through the vessel,” the Commander added. Around the table, a few officers glanced at the air vent leading into the briefing room, embarrassing each other when they got caught doing it. A Commander that Ranya didn’t recognize, bearing the collar insignia of Engineering, looked curiously at Cairn’s display.
“How big is this thing?” he asked, “I know for a fact that the air ducts on Centrality ships are all designed to be too small for most people to crawl through,” he said, adding as if an afterthought, “it’s a security precaution.” Commander Cairn nodded.
“You are correct,” she confirmed, “this alien is about as big as a small dog. It is lizardlike in appearance and roughly hominid in shape. It is also very fast, and very strong, as evidenced by the damage done to the duct system in the biofacility,” she changed the image to a slow-motion recording of the medlab’s video monitors. From the moment the creature was confronted by the medical personnel, until its disappearance into the duct, the monitors displayed full well the creature and its capabilities.
“So. . . it’s an animal,” the Security section chief volunteered. Cairn looked at Doctor Azzan to supply the answer.
“As near as we can tell, it is of animal intelligence,” he said, commanding the attention of everyone in the room. “I could go into the biological or zoological theories I have developed. . .” The Intel chief raised his hand.
“That won’t be necessary,” he insisted, “But it does not know tactics, strategies, and there is no more reason to expect an attack on a missile bay than any random storage hold, correct?”
“Probably true,” Azzan agreed, with the confirming nod of Lieutenant-Commander Jiad to his left. OverLieutenant Ranya Savan, seated to Azzan’s right, fidgeted minutely and wondered why she had to be in the room with the ship’s section chiefs, all of which were Lieutenant-Commanders and higher. Across the table, the Intel section second in command and Security chief grimaced and shared a look of irritation. Any normal intruder would target sensitive areas and ignore storage holds, and security personnel could group themselves accordingly. The random nature of the alien made their job much harder.
“People, for all we know, the damn thing is already hiding in someone’ toilet. Doctors, could either of you shed some light on the possible habits of this thing?” the Security chief said with an exasperated tone. Azzan indicated Jiad to take the question.
“Well,” Jiad said, leaning forward, “it has just hatched. It is hungry and will want to find a secure place to nest and feed. After that, it will begin to stake out a hunting territory.”
“How will it do that?” Intelligence asked.
“It will find a prey track that is reliable, and then try to locate a nesting site close enough to be worth the trouble,” he explained, “a nest too close to a prey track scares away potential food. Too far and the creature will expend most of its energy just getting too and from the nest,” he sat back again, adding with a shrug, “this is a fairly simple way of putting it, and it is only conjecture. We do not know the nesting and hunting habits of the creature.”
“Or what its eating is,” added the Quartermaster Chief. “It may now as well be into the preserved food stores breaking,” he lamented, stroking his furry ears with worry. The Cybernetics Chief shot him a dirty look.
“Don’t be such a blunt instrument,” she growled, clicking her serrated teeth the way one would scold a child, “what do you think it eats with those teeth? Salads?” Azzan shut down the argument before it could go further.
“Lieutenant-Commander F’teen is partially correct. We don’t know what it eats, but Liutenant-Commander Th’khala is also right. It is clearly a carnivore. It eats meat, people, and most animals that eat meat prefer to capture live prey rather than pick at carrion.” Heads nodded around the table.
“And that is the problem,” Commander Cairn said, retaking the meeting’s momentum. “The alien most likely eats live meat. And the only live meat aboard this ship is the crew.”
“There’s the biosynth,” the Organics Chief protested. Jiad and Azzan both dismissed him.
“The biosynth is most likely not appetizing to a hunt-based organism,” Jiad insisted, “and it undoubtedly smells bad as well. I understand your affection for the organism that keeps us alive and you employed,” he said with some humor, which brought some smiles to the tense faces around the table, “but it would be akin to one of us looking for food in a new city by going directly to the sewers.” The Organics Chief sat back, clearly unrelieved. Attention returned to Commander Cairn.
“Still, the biosynth is being monitored,” she assured the Organics Chief, “and if it does go after the biosynth, then we can establish a feeding pattern and set up an ambush. So we are left with these questions-- where is its likely nesting point, and where is its likely food collection point?”
“Find the first one, and the second will be close by,” Science Officer Jiad pointed out, “more important, we need to narrow down its most likely nests. What kind of environment does it prefer? OverLieutenant Savan, you saw the creature’s first chosen nesting point.” All eyes turned to Ranya. She pursed her lips momentarily and leaned forward, trying to think about every minute detail of what she saw on the alien derelict. Her own helmet-recorded log was cued up on the monitor by Commander Cairn.
“Well, it was a large, dark hold,” she stated, “which we did not fully explore. There was a mist of some kind around the deck, and the whole area had a very organic appearance to it.” She watched, keeping her voice steady, as the logcorder replayed Lattimer’s entry into the open hatch, and his exploration of the hold. Just like she remembered, the image briefly switched to infrared, and back to normal. “The rest of the alien ship, while there was enough space, was also lighter, and we saw no sign of. . . nests, or eggs, anywhere else.”
“At no phase of the creature’s development have I noticed any organs that might be considered eyes in the optical sense of the term,” Azzan added. “It does not seem to rely on visual cues at all for navigation or hunting. It may be some sort of frequency-based navigation, or smell,” he looked over at the Intelligence and Engineering Chiefs. “Perhaps we could stylize some way to defeat these senses, or decoy them.”
“Possibly,” Intelligence said, “but look at what we’re up against. It’s like a mean goddamn dog, for Thyssa’s sake. How dangerous is it going to be?” A comm interrupted before anyone could answer.
“Cairn here,” the Commander responded.
“Commander Cairn, is the Security Chief with you?” a young thenn’s voice answered.
“I’m here,” the Chief responded, “what is it?”
“This is Lieutenant V’khaji, covering section 10-deca,” she said, “I think we’ve found some evidence of the intruder.” The room tensed.
“Stay where you are, Lieutenant,” the Chief answered, looking at Commander Cairn, who nodded and motioned to the door. “We’re coming to meet you.” Cairn pointed towards Ranya.
“You too, Savan. Grab your weapon. The rest of you, return to your posts. Doctors Azzan, Jiad, go to the biolab and cut that spider open-- find us anything you can that can help us find its off switch.” The room boiled into action, and Savan slung her carbine, which she’d picked up from her Avenger on her way to the briefing, wishing she’d had the foresight to don her armor as well. Events had gone too fast since Lattimer’s death. Now, the corridors were clear of non-essential personnel. People with a need to move around went in teams, and everyone was armed. Security troops and hatch computers checked identification at every corner-- except for Commander Cairn, the Security Chief, and Ranya, who double-timed to the storage holds of section 10-dalet.
Approaching the lowermost sections, Ranya could see that whoever Lieutenant V’khaji was, she was thorough. Extra fire teams covered the area, cordoning off the entire level. Ranya could already hear what the rumor mill had begun circulating--
“--goddamn alien, three meters tall, tore people’s arms off up in medlab--”
“--moves like a snake, spits acid in your eyes and chokes you in its coils--”
“--parasites. Got in a crewman, controlling his brain. He’s stalkin’ around with a rifle--”
--and she found herself almost running into the back of the Security Chief, who had come to a halt by a small thenn girl with a rakishly spiked haircut, wearing the polished black armor of Ship’s Security.
“Found a blood drag on the deck here, sir,” she said, casually indicating a spot on the floor that had been discolored by a crimson smear. Another black-armored crewman with medics’ tabs was finishing a field analysis.
“Human, sir. I’ll need a few segs in the database to confirm DNA identity,” he said, looking at the Chief. The burly human nodded.
“Do it,” he instructed, “and lets us know the hept you have something.” They looked around. The storage hold was jammed full of supplies, far beyond a normal voyage requirement. Their original mission would have carried them beyond any supply route and they were well-stocked. But the cramped confines now gave an intruder many places to hide. The crates in the hold reached almost to the overhead, and light was reduced substantially because of it. Added to that, some of the lights further back were not working-- the lights where the blood drag pointed towards. The Chief frowned.
“Yeah, about what I’d do, I guess,” he mumbled, then looked at Commander Cairn. “How sure are we that this damn thing isn’t intelligent?”
“We’re not,” she stated. She gazed around the hold as much as her vision would allow. “All the hatches sealed?” Lieutenant Vi’khaji grimaced, irritated that her professionalism had been questioned.
“I used the decompression procedures,” she replied flatly, “hatches, air, water, anything with access to this room is isolated and sealed. Only the hatch behind us was overridden, sir.” Cairn nodded her approval, which Vi’khaji missed. All the security personnel were facing down the rows of crates and cargo pallets, each lashed to the deck. Commander Cairn called in to Captain Vanson with an update, while the Security Chief coordinated with other security troops on the next two decks above and below. Soon, all three levels were locked down under decompression protocol. Ranya wondered if it was already too late.
“Who would be here and why?” she asked quietly to Lieutenant Vi’khaji. The thenn girl shifted her weight from one foot to another before replying.
“Couldn’t tell you. Depends-- if it was someone before the alert was sounded, could be just a regular supply worker. If it was someone after the alert. . . “ she trailed off. After the alert was sounded, everyone should have been accounted for. The security team medic showed up, a frightened-looking DeckMaster at his side.
“Confirmed, sir,” he said to Vi’khaji, “between DNA and DeckMaster Fanlan here. He says that he hasn’t seen DeckHand Jen Connau since the alert sounded, and this blood sample matches her I.D.” Vi’khaji nodded acknowledgement.
“DeckMaster Fanlan, why would DeckHand Connau be here during an intruder alert?” she questioned without turning her eyes from the corridor she watched. Fanlan looked down the corridor as well, nervously chewing his lip and trying to ignore the blood smear.
“She was originally doing an inventory,” he replied, “the ‘bots came up with a discrepancy so she was supposed to do it manually, by serial-number check, and when the alert sounded, she said over the comm she was on her way out,” he looked at the blood smear, more visibly shaken now, “we didn’t hear from her again, about the time she should have arrived, the security troops showed up and had everyone stay in place.”
“Took her time getting out,” Vi’khaji observed drily.
“Like everyone else, she probably figured there was little danger with intruders coming to a hold,” Ranya reminded her. Ranya faced all the security troops clustered around the hatchway. “Listen up, people,” she demanded, “quit thinking of this thing as an enemy agent or spy. It is an animal of some sort-- pissed off, hungry, unpredictable, fast and strong. It is not thinking of tactics or boobytraps or covering fire. It’s more like wild game hunting. It won’t do anything reasonable or predictable,” she said, while some of the security personnel traded looks. The Security Chief re-entered the hatchway.
“Okay, teams on decks above and below have secured their areas. Everything is in decompression lockdown. Abovedecks teams found the entry hole-- it was using the air ducts again-- and as near as we can tell, it hasn’t left. It is somewhere in this hold,” he said, looking around. Other black-helmeted heads also gazed around, and Lieutenant Vi’khaji put her own helmet back on, leaving her visor open.
“Well, then” she said casually, “we better get busy.” She looked at Ranya, and her carbine. “You know what the damn thing looks like and acts like, right, sir?” Ranya felt nervous, looking down the corridor of crates.
“Yeah, well, it’s all on the video,” she said, pointing to the security girl’s visor, “didn’t you see it?”
“Yeah. Ugly mean dog,” she replied, “changes shape, too, doesn’t it? Look-- either you watch through my helmet cam or come along. Either way, anybody that can give me an extra bit of intel on this thing is welcome, okay, sir?” Before Ranya could answer, the thenn girl-- Ranya had not noticed before how small she was-- waved her team forward. Six troopers dislodged themselves from their firing positions behind crates and pallets, forming a line, their weapons alternating. Two other teams of troopers climbed onto the tops of the cases near the hatchway, setting up watch points overlooking the entire hold. Anything moving over the tops of the supplies would be seen immediately.
“Lieutenant Vi’khaji,” Ranya called over her commlink, “I’ll join you,” she said, checking the power cell on her weapon. Over two hundred rounds of energy waited in the magazine, and the security troopers had more. I sent Lattimer into the last cargo hold full of aliens, she reasoned, justifying her actions to herself. If she said such things aloud, it would be enough to pull her from the squad. She kept her face neutral and passed by the Security Chief and Commander Cairn, both of whom were watching her quietly as she went to stand just behind Vi’khaji. The thenn looked over her shoulder and nodded approval, then silently crept forward. The rest of the squad closed around them-- close enough to support one another, but spaced out enough not to be ambushed-- and again Ranya thought about reminding them that this was not an enemy thinking in terms of tactics. She dismissed it. Don’t try to untrain someone when their training is the most familiar territory they have, she reminded herself.
The corridors got progressively darker, and Ranya again wished she had armor, or at least a helmet. Too late now, she decided, stealing a glance behind her. The open part of the hold was already far behind them.
“Got some movement,” someone said over the squad frequency. Ranya gripped her weapon tighter, a heavy nervousness beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. Lieutenant Vi’khaji did not slow, but acknowledged the report silently and adjusted her own sensor to align on the movement.
“Stay sharp,” she reminded her squad, “there’s only one of them, right, sir?” Ranya nodded, then remembered that only a couple of the troops could see her gesture.
“Yeah,” she replied, looking around. Was that a noise?
“Sir!” someone called, and both Vi’khaji and Ranya turned to look at where one of the black-armored crewers pointed. A junction in the crates was all they saw. “Sorry-- it was movement. Visual, shadow of something,” the crewer said. Vi’khaji nodded and easily switched her route towards the direction indicated by the security trooper.
“How big is this damn thing supposed to be?” someone asked. Ranya thought back to what she saw in the medlab.
“About the size of a small dog,” she replied.
“So it can attack a person, kill her, and drag her off in, what, ten hepts?” another voice asked. Ranya looked at the deck as they reached the junction, where a small spot of gel-like substance sat.
“It’s a strong dog,” Ranya said absently, looking at Vi’khaji, who also saw the substance. She produced an evidence bag and put some of the substance in it. Their eyes met. “Marking territory?” Ranya asked innocently. Vi’khaji wrinkled her nose as she put the bag in the pocket of her armor.
“Don’t be disgusting,” she said, and waved the squad on. “It’s around here somewhere, so keep your eyes open.”
“Somebody got some biscuits?” another trooper joked. Vi’khaji looked back at her squad.
“We’ll have more fun after its head is stuffed and mounted on the wall in the lounge,” she said, reprimanding by hint.
“Big movement!” someone cut in, it sounded like the same voice from earlier. “Forward, starboard.” Everyone took up ready positions.
“How big?” Vi’khaji askd.
“Bigger n’ a dog,” the voice came back.
“What does that mean--”
“Fire team! Movement overhead, repeat--” Ranya didn’t hear the rest of the message. A sharp sound like a cracking whip went off right next to her. The trooper to her left looked stunned.
“What was--” she asked, then saw the rust-colored spike being withdrawn from the man’s chest. “--Holy shit!” she spun to level her weapon to the crates overhead, snapping off a burst from the weapon. Shadows moved.
“Fuck!” someone screamed, then, “Crannel! Behind you!” Armored bodies wheeled around and released a barrage of energy fire, which crackled past a trooper being dragged to the deck by something. It was big and ugly, about the size of a person and with a massively elongated head. The trooper-- Crannel-- was on his back, panic firing into the mass of the creature.
“Lookout! Acid!” Ranya yelled, suddenly remembering the effects of the creature’s blood. Energy bolts tore craters into the being’s flesh and acid was flash fried into a sickly-smelling vapor. Gobbets of acid spewed forth from the alien and coated the security trooper on the floor. The alien lost its grip on the man who crawled, screaming, away from it. Another trooper grabbed him and began peeling away at the armor, his own gloves beginning to dissolve as well. Ranya aimed burst after burst into the creature as it screamed a sound she would have nightmares of for the rest of her life. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, with a pool of acidic blood busily eating its way through the deck. Vi’khaji called for medical support for her crewers-- and for reinforcements. A hole was forming in the deck easily big enough for a person to fall through. “Engineering!” Ranya hollered into the comm, “massive deck breach in section 10-deca!”
Ranya and Vi’khaji held defensive positions with the remaining troopers while medics and more riflemen scurried to meet them. The wounded crewer was taken out, his body being doused with an industrial acid neutralizer. Eight more security crewers reported to Vi’khaji’s command, another twelve were approaching as well, escorting the patching team from Engineering. Two more crews were already mobilized for the decks below. The sizzling acid blood trail on the deck was easy for them to follow.
“Great,” Ranya said, “now it is a hungry, angry, wounded animal.” Vi’khaji grunted but said nothing, moving forward into the point position. Ranya watched, impassively, as the diminutive thenn girl loaded the grenade launcher slung under her rifle.
“Weapons to max intensity,” she ordered, and the squad moved out. They quickly closed the distance to what had to be the creature’s chosen nesting site. It was an isolated corner of the hold, wedged in behind two massive stacks of crates. The walls were partially covered with some sort of slimy paste, hardening to form an organic look to the area.
“We caught him trying to make the place more homey,” Vi’khaji muttered, staring at the odd lumps and forms, so unnatural in the cargo hold full of hard angles. One of the lumps was looking back at her. “What the--? Goddamnit!” she hissed, her voice sending chills down Ranya’s spine.
“What is. . ? Oh, shit. . .” the bomber commander suddenly locked her gaze in the same direction as the thenn’s impassionate visor. There, glued to the wall, was the form of DeckHand Jen Connau, her arms and legs and part of her lower torso moulded into a sort of cocoon. She was pale, and her eyes were open, her face staring in slack, disbelieving horror towards the opening the officers had emerged from. Ranya stepped forward, but stopped. Vi’khaji’s hand went up, motioning her to stay out of the clearing claimed by the creature. “She couldn’t still be. . ?” Ranya asked hesitantly. Vikhaji’s helmet nodded very slightly. Ranya looked again, to see a streak of lazy tears winding down the girl’s cheeks. Ranya felt herself go cold. “Medteam,” she rasped into the mike, “be ready but hold position. Area is not secure.”
“Where the fuck is it?” Vi’khaji breathed. Ranya scanned all around, above, and down the adjacent corridors. The other troops fanned out and did the same in small groups, keeping a watch in all directions.
“Wherever it is, it’s not making any moves,” someone answered her over the Security frequency. Vi’khaji acknowledged the reports from each team, as well as the patch team and their security escort. Nothing was moving.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Vi’khaji decided, calling in the medteam. She informed Doctor Azzan of an approaching casualty. He looked through the helmet video and consulted with Lieutenant-Commander Jiad.
“Lieutenant Savan,” he called over the Medical frequency, “in your direct experience with the creature’s habits, does this seem to be another larva situation?”
“I’d bet on it,” she replied. Azzan was silent for a moment.
“Don’t bring her here,” he said. “Medbay will send you all the equipment we can, but do not take her out of the area that has been isolated. We don’t want two of these things running around, okay?” Ranya acknowledged, frowning. Best to keep both creatures locked up in here with us, she said in her mind. But it’s the right call, and by Thyssa, I’d give the same damn order. She traded looks with the emotionless helmet mask of Vi’khaji as they moved forward. Connau’s eyes drifted in and out of focus and Ranya remembered something Azzan said about blood toxins.
“Relax,” Ranya said in a voice she hoped sounded soothing rather than shaky. Connau seemed only barely aware that anyone was nearby. From somewhere in her throat she made a weak croaking sound which Ranya couldn’t understand.
“Movement!” someone shouted over the Security freq. Ranya put her back to the wall and Vi’khaji did the same, the security team scanning the corridors and crate tops for any sign of the thing.
“Movement towards the nest,” another voice confirmed.
“Security team, target top,” the overwatch said on the comm. A few bolts of energy hissed by overhead, exploding uselessly against a far bulkhead.
“All teams, converge on my position,” Vi’khaji insisted. A curse crackled over the frequency but there was no firing. “Team leaders! Head count!” One by one, teams reported in that they were all accounted for. “Overwatch, target position?”
“Negative, sec,” came the reply, “It’s dropped out of sight.” Vi’khaji looked around, as most of the team leaders, now visible in the nearest junctions of the corridors, reoriented weapons down the corridors themselves. For a tense moment everyone waited. Ranya reached for her bayonet and ignited the thin, blue laser blade, adding a surreal glow to the dim light of the creature’s nest. She reached for the glue that stuck Connau’s arm to the bulkhead and began to cut the young woman away.
A shadow covered the nest and something landed with a heavy thud on the deck next to her. Screams and shouts coursed through Ranya’s earpiece as she turned, as if in slow motion, to see the hideous alien standing over her, dark and trerrifying. Frozen in fear, she watched in horrified fascination as the creature’s mouth opened and a smaller set of jaws began to come out, reaching for her. I wonder what Doctor Azzan would think of that, she wondered somewhere in the detached, disbelieving part of her mind.
A flash of light blinded her, and familiar sounds and smells intruded their way back into her reality. Next to her, Lieutenant Vi’khaji pumped blaster fire into the creature’s flank, which disintegrated before the energy weapon’s unleashed power. Shrieking, the creature turned towards Vi’khaji and the protruding set of jaws lashed towards her, almost piercing her armor. The creature, its jaws now stuck in the armor plate, began to pull the petite thenn towards itself. Ranya, bayonet in hand, lurched forward and with a quick slice severed the jaws from the alien. Vi’khaji fell back, the smoking stump still stuck to her armor, and narrowly missed being splashed with acid from the gaping wounds that had been torn in the being’s side and mouth.
The alien shrieked and tossed its head, acid spray coating the walls where Ranya and Vi’khaji had been standing, dousing the remains of Jen Connau. Ranya dove for cover in a nearby corridor, Vi’khaji did the same on the opposite side of the nest. Behind the creature, a crewman was stabbed through the gut with the thing’s spiked tail, and four other security crewers had tried to hold him down and release him. The alien’s tail sawed through the man and began lashing the room indiscriminantly. Crewers backed away, firing into the mass of the thing, which crumpled to the deck in a pool of acid.
“Grenade!” came a high-pitched order through the Security comm. An oddly muffled thump sounded from across the room, and a tell-tale curlicue of smoke arced the two meter distance from Vi’khaji’s weapon towards the still-struggling thing on the floor. Everyone was already scrambling behind cover when the detonation tore a head-sized gap in the alien’s body, and all was silent, except for the fizzing and popping of the blood as it ate its way through the deck. Ranya sat up and looked at the corpse as it slumped through to the floor below, where it lay, unmoving.
“Engineering team to section 10-deca,” she called dispassionately through the Maintenance frequency, “we need to patch some holes.”

Deck 12, Aft Briefing Room, that night.

“The embryo that was forming in the body of DeckHand Jen Connau was effectively destroyed when her body was corroded by the alien’s acidic blood,” Doctor Azzan stated with clinical detatchment. “Other crewmembers, living and dead, that had physical contact with the creature did not show any signs that they were in any way infected with similar embryos,” he added, finally closing the lid of relief on those present. “In all,” he continued gravely, “four crewmembers were lost to this being, and half a dozen more suffered various injuries, mostly from the acidic effects of its blood. The worst injuries were sustained by Security trooper Crannel, who is in serious yet stable condition, and we are awaiting cloned limb and organ replacements to be finished forming before we will be able to upgrade his status.” Around the table, most of the section chiefs present nodded with satisfaction, even those who had no idea who Crannel was. Azzan sat down, and the Engineering Chief gave his own briefing, summing up the status of the repairs on the affected decks, which would be completed within two days’ time. Again, satisfied nods bobbed around the table. Finally, Commander Cairn stood to face them all.
“Our board of inquiry will continue,” she stated plainly, which drew some stern looks, “but I must admit it is primarily a formality at this point. Since the arrival of the alien life form, I feel that the teams from Medical staff, Security, and Engineering performed their jobs with professionalism. Our mission was expected to carry us to a distant galaxy, with unknown alien dangers to be expected, and that is where I must question the judgment of personnel with Flight Group,” she said with a nod towards Lieutenant-Commander Jiad, who seemed on the verge of a protest. “OverLieutenant Ranya Savan and her crew were told to scout for alien signals, and alert us to the presence of any such signals found. She did her mission as prescribed, and it was under the orders of the bridge that she followed up on those signals, in accordance to our contact protocols. The fact that we seem to have ended up in a distant corner of a completely different galaxy in no way negates the validity of our mission or our protocols.” Jiad and Azzan exchanged glances, as did the Flight Chief and Ranya’s own Raptor Group Commander.
“Still,” Cairn insisted, “there remains the fact that she allowed for Lieutenant Lattimer to enter the alien cargo hold alone, endangering his life and in turn exposing the Mystere and its crew to danger,” she gazed evenly at the collected assembly, “which in turn resulted in the four deaths and multiple injuries mentioned. Comments?” Jiad practically leaped from his seat.
“I object,” he emphasized, “The officer volunteered to go down first, and assumed the risks of doing so. He was armed and prepared, and I feel that sending another crewer into that situation would only have resulted in two people infected with these alien. . . larvae.” Doctor Azzan raised a hand, which Cairn acknowledged without a word.
“I concur with the Science Chief Jiad’s assesment. The team on site, as we ourselves saw in the video monitors, barely had time to pull out the wounded man and the retrieval team. They would not have been able to recover two bodies, plus the team, before being overrun by the alien spiders,” he added, “Lieutenant Savan limited the risks as much as she could while carrying out her mission.” There were mutterings of agreement at this.
“That is the responsibility of any field leader,” the Security Chief added, “these aliens are unlike anything we’ve encountered before. With only our previous experience to go on, there was no reason to believe that extra precautions were necessary,” he looked around the table, meeting each set of eyes at a glance, and silently received affirmation. Cairn nodded.
“Most of this crew is made up of veterans, and other volunteers,” she stated, “People who know the risks and are willing to accept them. My job is to trust their judgment and back them up when necessary. So. I ask you now-- is there anyone here that feels a need to make a formal statement regarding the actions of OverLieutenant Ranya Savan and her actions and decisions in the last twenty-five hours?” Cairn met everyone’s look for a second, before straightening herself to attention. There was silence all around the table.
“Very well,” she said, “case closed and logged. If there is nothing else, I suggest we all return to our duties and seek out our next crisis.” The section chiefs stood and filed out of the room, muffled conversation breaking out and blooming as the various officers made their way out into the corridors, leaving only Commander Mita Cairn remaining in the room. She looked at the filename of the saved log for a second before brushing the situation from her mind and returning to the bridge.

[Eleas]

This was quite well written. I would submit that a sequel could become even more effective if it was wholly original (minus the Giger, in other words).

[Coyote]

For anyone who may be interested, I hope, in the next few weeks, to do some more crossovers with my "Empires" creation. I'll focus on larger challenges, such as Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and the big one, Star Wars. As I've mentioned, a lot of this is just to compare and contrast rather than to "better" one or the other, so that any future readers have an idea as to how my creation 'stacks up' against others.

Naturally, I hope to polish my style to the point where I can take something to a publisher (I've already gotten some very prestegious rejection slips from folks such as Del Rey and Baen, which is why my "Empires" novel is now in its umpteenth rewrite).

The "Mystere" stuff is just an excersize, but things like "Ethics of Retribution" is a look at the origins of a character who becomes a central figure in later stories. "Good Deed" is an introduction to a character of little real importance, it is just background, and "Justice" describes the Irrykanoi Empire about 200 years ago, when they were beginning to become the "Irrykanoi Republic", a regime where oppression is expressed through uber-political correctness.

More variety to come, and I hope people like this stuff... I know many of you are primarily interested in Star Wars material, so I hope my personal creations arean't seen as just 'noise'... but the comments I've gotten are encouraging. Thanks!

Later...