Chapter One
United Space Corps Vessel Demeter
30.8.2231 AD
0900 hours
Ensign Kris Cunningham blinks at the screen on the flight deck not once, but twice.
It's too ludicrous to be true. But there it is, a blip on the monitor as bright as a comet, and coming straight at them.
"Captain?” Kris forces her eyelids closed, then reopens them.
Still there.
Fuck.
The captain leans back in his command chair and stretches. Hishands graze the ceiling of the battered flight deck. Kris suppresses a sigh. He must have fallen asleep again. He does that. Especially when the botany team is on a planet's surface and they're left in orbit, waiting for hours.
“What?” the captain mumbles, smacking his lips.
"There's a foreign mass approaching, sir," Kris says.
"Hmm." He sits up in his chair and takes his feet off the dash. His boots hit the floor with a clunk. "What's the trajectory?"
Kris can hear the annoyance in his voice and hesitates. He's referring to the asteroids that circulate through this sector. He's probably just as sick of them as are the rest of the crew. Normally they'd power up the lasers and blast the asteroid out of existence before it even gets close, but this is something else.
Something worse.
Kris blinks at the monitor again and considers how best to correct him. She looks to the pilot, who sits on the captain's right, as if she can provide silent guidance.
She doesn't.
No surprise there.
Instead, the pilot readies the controls for the lasers with a flick of three overhead switches. They snap like bones and glow blood red. “Ready,” the pilot says, cracking her neck by contorting it to one side and rolling her shoulders.
Kris shifts at her console.
"What are the coordinates?" the pilot asks, and Kris's frown deepens.
Uncertainty silences her. The familiar buzz of the laser controls resonates in her ears, and for lack of anything better to do she checks the monitor again. Maybe
she read the alert incorrectly.
Nope. Still blipping.
The little fucker.
“Come on, Ensign, where is it?" the captain barks. “We're waiting!”
"The g-grille panel, sir." Kris's eyes dart over her shoulder, indicating the grilles that serve as ventilation between decks.
The captain turns toward her, disbelief on his face. His mustache twitches. "Come again?"
Kris clears her throat. She'd give anything not to be the one sitting at the navigations station. A kidney. A toe. Maybe even an eye. If she screws up again, she'll be on kitchen duty for the rest of the mission and that's not why she's here. She has big plans for her career in the United Space Corps and she doesn't want it to be over before it's even begun. “It's one hundred meters away and closing, sir,"
she finally says.
The pilot scoffs. “Are you serious?"
"Yes, ma'am. No joke."
"From inside the ship?" the captain clarifies.
Kris nods. "Yes, sir."
“What's the classification?” The captain turns to the monitor on his left so Kris can screen-share the data. He rubs his sleeve on the display to remove the dust.
“Do we have visual? Come on, Ensign, don't just sit there."
Kris fights her growing anxiety and sends the data to the captain's screen, and then to the pilot's, just to be on the safe side. She's got to be reading it wrong, surely. She's missing something. She's sure of it. Maybe they can make sense of what it is, because it certainly doesn't make sense to her.
“Goddamnit." The captain squints at his monitor. "What the hell is that?”
"Can't get a visual. There aren't any cameras in the shafts,” the pilot saysquickly.
"It's classified as a 'foreign biological”," Kris reads, her stomach rolling over. This is bad news, no matter what. Foreign biologicals carry toxins, viruses, and various dangers currently unknown and uncured by man. It's happened to other vessels in the Corps – wiped clean by some alien bug. And now, it's happening to them. Even if they catch whatever the biological is, the damage could already be done.
Kris envisions weeks of quarantine and medicated showers, correspondence home to worried loved ones and the embarrassment of the debriefing at headquarters, plus the impending headlines on Earth announcing their failure to
take the necessary precautions - this is, if they survive.
She shudders. A thin layer of sweat bleeds through her sun-deprived skin and she fights the rise of bile in the back of her throat.
They're so fucked.
"Could it be a glitch?" the pilot asks, pulling Kris back to reality. “Maybe the internal sensors are malfunctioning?"
There's an idea. “Should I call maintenance?" she offers, but the captain shakes his head.
"I doubt it's a glitch. How far away is it?"
She checks the monitor and blinks. Whatever it is, it's really booking. “Fifty meters, sir.” Kris sends an updated readout to both their screens.
"I don't get it." The pilot shakes her head at her monitor.
Kris's tongue thickens. “It appears there's something crawling up the ventilation shaft."
“No shit.” The pilot unlatches her restraints. “What I meant was, I don't get how it got on the ship to begin with. We're in orbit.”
“Right now I'm more concerned with what the hell it is,” the captain says.
Kris forces her eyes back to the nav monitor. “Unidentified, sir.” She wipesdroplets of sweat from her forehead. It leaves a greasy smudge on the sleeve of her uniform.
Great.
“It's not in any of the databases?" the captain challenges her.
Kris shakes her head, checking again for the third time. “No, sir. It just says‘unknown'."
The captain slams his fist against his console. “Then how the hell are we supposed to know what to do with it?"
Swinging her leg over the joystick, the pilot labors out of her chair. She steps into the small space behind her station and looms over the access shaft, tappingthe ladder with the tip of her boot. “I don't see anything."
"The grille, ma'am,” Kris corrects her. “On your left.”
The pilot gives her a glare that could skin a cat, then bends to her knees and wraps her fingers around the metal grate to the left of the shaft, giving it a tug.
"Screwed in," she grunts.
The captain fumbles around his console and hands the pilot a screwdriver. She places it directly over the first screw, flicks the switch and lets the magnets do their job.
“Hurry up," the captain grumbles at her. “And let's hope the damned thing is docile."
“That's more than likely,” the pilot sighs. “An aggressive species would have attacked by now or made itself known sooner. My guess is we picked it up on Gliese 163c."
"What makes you say that?"
The pilot shrugs at the captain. "Most advanced ecosystem we've encountered this whole trip. Wouldn't surprise me if we missed biologicals. It seemed odd to me we didn't see any to begin with.”
"That was two planets ago!" the captain says.
“Twenty-five meters, and closing," Kris says. She wipes more sweat onto her sleeve. “Should I alert the crew?"
"No." The captain unlatches his restraints and stands to assist the pilot. “Let's not cause a panic while the team is away. Not until we figure out what it is.”
The pilot places the first loose screw into the pocket of her flight suit. “I still don't see how it could have gotten aboard, though. We were so careful.”
The captain runs his hands through his hair. “Maybe while we loaded the specimens, it snuck on? Although, I'm not sure how that could've happened given that the airlock is so small. This is insane. Where's Sorrel when you need him?"
“Want me to call him up?" Kris suggests. It makes sense to ask the payload supervisor to come. Maybe he has an idea what to do with it. Besides, that will bring one more senior officer to the flight deck, and then Kris will get dismissed -
she hopes.
The captain nods. "Yeah. Call him."
With relief, Kris presses her finger to the ship's intercom control on the dash of the navigations console. The button jams. She wiggles it with her thumb and it finally catches. “Sorrel, report to the flight deck, please.” She adds that last word by accident and cringes when the captain raises an eyebrow at her. The pilot drops the second screw onto the floor and bends over to retrieve it.
"Son of a bitch."
"Would you quit clowning around and hurry up?" the captain barks at her.
"I'm trying!"
The captain turns his attention to Kris. “Did we miss any documented biologicals on Gliese 163c?"
She types on her monitor, pulling up the information. “No biologicals listed except for plant life, sir."
“You know, maybe it wasn't Gliese,” the pilot points out. “It could have been on any number of the planets, and just been lurking about the ship all this time.”
"There's a comforting thought," Kris says.
The intercom squeals to life. Sorrel's craggy voice sounds from the dented speakers above Kris's station. “I just started eating. What's up?"
The captain reaches over Kris's shoulder and presses the intercom button. “Just get your ass up here."
“Yes, sir," Sorrel responds, sounding dejected.
“If this is a previously undocumented species, Captain,” the pilot says, full of excitement, “we'll make the Universal News Feed.”
"Save your celebration for after we have it contained,” he grumbles.
Kris agrees. Another blip on the nav monitor catches her attention. “Ten meters."
The pilot has the last screw out and pockets it. She pulls the heavy iron grate up and quickly hands it to the captain. Getting on her hands and knees, she peers down into the shaft. “I need a torch," she says.
The captain hands her the flashlight from his utility belt. "See anything?"
"I think so. It looks...furry."
"Careful,” the captain says. "Could be aggressive."
"Oh man." Kris reaches across her console to raise the alert level to yellow. She does so without asking for the captain's approval, but he doesn't seem to notice.He's looking over the pilot's shoulder into the shaft. The vent grate rests on his hip
"What are we going to do with it once it gets here?” Kris hates the fear in her voice. She unlatches her restraints so she can move about the flight deck, hoping to find some sort of weapon, but damned if all the laser rifles aren't locked in the armory two decks down.
“Let's herd it to the airlock and release it out the bay doors,” the captain says.
“That's assuming it wants to be herded.” Kris wrenches the fire extinguisher off the wall.
“You're just going to release it into outer space?" The pilot peers down the shaft and then back up to the captain. "Better if we kill it. Then we can take fluids,
tissue samples, and a detailed scan afterwards."
“I say we use the bay doors,” the captain says. “Better it emits whatever toxins it's carrying out into space than in here. If it's not too late already.”
As if Kris hadn't just said it a moment ago, he asks, “What the hell are we going to do with it? Is there anything in here we could restrain it with?"
“We could push it back down the grate,” Kris suggests. “Force it onto the other floors. If it gets loose in here with the controls, the whole ship could be floating dead in space by the time we catch it."
The captain scans the flight deck for something useful. “Good point.”
Kris barely has time to register the compliment before the pilot shrieks, “There it is!"
“How big is it?” The others ignore Kris's question as they peer down into the shaft.
“What class is that?" the captain asks. He shifts the metal grate on his hip.
“Looks like a mammal,” the pilot says. “The fur is silver. Four legs, maybe six.
Two eyes. No, four. Two on each side of its head. It's about as big as a dog. Look at the size of that mouth! Hold on, it's stopped.”
“Good. It's probably scared.” The captain relaxes his posture. “Ensign, call Sorrel again and see if he can't bring some sort of container we can keep it in."
Kris nods and backs up toward her console, too petrified to speak.
The pilot leans away from the shaft. “Get ready. It's moving again." She holds the flashlight in her hands like a club.
In a flash of gray fur the creature erupts from the shaft and lands on the flight deck floor, on all six of its muscular, hairy legs.
Kris stifles a scream and backs up into the navigations console as far as she can, pressing her spine against the controls.
The creature's four unblinking eyes scan the flight deck and the officers, allowing them time to watch the animal. The pilot's description is accurate.
It has six padded paws and a large mouth. Its bulbous head and slender body sitmotionless atop the vent shaft as it watches them. It's not tall, and only comes up to just under the captain's knees.
There's a ripple across the beast's shaggy fur as if the animal has a chill, and the hair changes color to match the flight deck controls in one fluid motion. With the creature's coat matching the environment so closely, it becomes virtually invisible.
"Holy fuck,” Kris whispers.
“Don't move," the captain says softly, and his voice causes the beast's eyes to turn toward him. He labors to quietly lift the vent grate up off his hip. “Maybe we can knock it out?"
In an instant, the creature lowers itself close to the floor, and then windlessly lifts into the air. Before anyone can move, it launches at the captain's chest, legsextended.
“What the” he starts to say. Dropping the grate in his hands with a clatter, thecaptain yelps and attempts to step aside, but he's too slow.
Massive talons the size of scissor blades emerge from the creature's paws mid-flight and pierce straight into the captain's torso, cascading a mist of blood in all directions. Shock and pain cross the captain's face as his skin fades to ashen white. The beast opens its colossal mouth and clamps its jaws onto the captain's throat. With a sharp twist it rips the flesh wide open, splattering the pilot and
Kris with a wave of bloody meat.
The pilot screams.
Kris releases the safety on the fire extinguisher and fires once, but the foam doesn't slow the creature in the slightest.
The captain's eyes roll back into his head. His body collapses backward onto the main controls and he splays out, slapping numerous controls when he lands. The
dash blazes alive with warning lights.
With both arms at full swing, Kris heaves the extinguisher, thrashing the creature off the captain's limp body. Both it and the extinguisher crash into the pilot's chair.
In the meantime, the pilot makes a mad dash for the ladder.
Kris watches with mounting horror as the creature recovers from the extinguisher's blow. It twists around as if it had never been struck at all. Maneuvering without a whisper, it spins and leaps back into the air. Claws extended, it pounces on the pilot's back with a growl.
She's three rungs down when the beast plunges its talons into her back. Barbs as strong as vises shred her body to ribbons, pressing and slicing into her flesh like hot steel.
Kris shrieks.
The creature reaches through the pilot's spinal cord and pulls back her beating heart. Blood and tissue spew across the entire flight deck and controls, burning Kris's face like acid rain. With her back pressed firmly against the navigations console, and nowhere to run, Kris can do nothing but scream. “No! Oh god! No!"
The creature drops the pilot's shredded body, then turns to face her. For a brief moment, it considers her, turning its head from side to side as if waiting for something. It's all Kris can do not to die from fear.
Just as she feels the slightest hope that it will turn away, the animal bounds forward with a silent leap, separating her head from her sweat-covered body with one slice of its front razor-like hooks.
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