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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Ch 4: S [Day 1 | 1810 hrs] A Friend Indeed...
Last post by Dumedion -Sylvain's shriek of horror prompted Cora's; in that second, all the carefully controlled panic and fear she felt exploded free. She couldn’t take her eyes off the threat of death-by-cuteness as she backed away in a panic until her back slammed into something solid. Her hands felt behind her for a way out, blindly groping until she found something, anything, to get away. No, no no no, nooooo I don’t like it! Noooo I don’t like it!!! That was all Cora could think as she backed away, intent on survival, at the mercy of what her senses told her and what instinct demanded; she watched in horror as the Ensign fell, scrambled, crawled. The creature's stupidly adorable mouth yawned wide, full of impossibly long fangs. In the panicked ruckus, the analyst shouted to Sylvain over his own gasps of fear, telling him the obvious, but utterly unable to anything remotely helpful.
“Get up! Watch out, watch out! Shoot it – shoot it – bloody shoot it!”
Even as the words left her mouth in fear-induced mania, she was trying to pull her rear out of the ridiculously small service duct that her misfiring brain had judged to be a suitable hiding place. Somehow she’d wedged herself in nearly hip deep, leaving her bent over, arms and legs kicking and pinwheeling uselessly with a stream of hissed curses at her predicament. Too little, too late. Cold realization dawned: she was going to die thanks to her fat arse getting stuck in a tube, eaten alive by something that should not exist.
The white ball of fluff launched itself at Sylvain, and her jaw dropped in muted disbelief as he – against all reason – chose to throw a perfectly serviceable weapon at the predatory blur of muderous fuzz, which missed miserably. She’d never seen anything move so fast, certainly nothing built like a damned squishy ball of fur! It latched itself right onto his leg, and Cora covered her face with a scream of despair and terror. It was over, he was dead, and she'd soon be next, without ever taking the time to properly apologize for getting him into all of it.
In the silence that reigned, Cora could hear it; slurping, suckling, feeding.
When Sylvain called out, the analyst screamed again – that same start-stop squeak of alarm, not a shriek like the one he’d vocalized earlier – and promptly uncovered her face. She couldn’t understand how he was alive, nor why he sounded so…confused? Curious? Surely this was the time to get away from the thing, yes?! Cora scrambled to free herself with a series of muttered, incoherent grumbles; fear overridden with renewed hope that they might just live to find a way out of there. After another second or two, the analyst finally managed to free her rear and stumbled to her feet, only to freeze in hesitation, looking like she was caught in the middle of a minefield with no idea which way to go.
She couldn’t fathom why Sylvain wasn’t running and screaming, given the Ensign's jittery and easily spooked reactions thus far (the man practically jumped out of his skin at everything!) For a moment, her mind conjured the possibility that the creature had somehow entranced him or the poor bloke had simply frozen in fear response – but then she watched with even higher alarm as he actually picked the damn thing up!
“Are you mad?!” The intel analyst hissed under her breath. Didn’t he see the thing’s teeth? It called out again in that childish coo, sounding even more cute and loveable than before, even though all sense told her it was just a mechanism to lure its prey in for easy slaughter. Its mouth stretched wide again, and a sound escaped her throat before she could help it, another high pitched squeak of fear and panic, like the beginning of a scream that was abruptly silenced. “It’s gotten in your head! It’s…it’s…,” she rambled off a dozen possible explanations for his behavior, each one growing more absurd than the last, to include bio-formed nanites invading his neurological system, pheromone contagion, or visual hypnotic suggestion.
Then she saw the fangs, scattered on the deck, and fell silent, and realized that Sylvain wasn’t listening to a word she said. He was too enraptured with comforting the creature…the…Moopsy. Cora huffed, took several deep breaths, then gave them as wide a berth as she could to investigate the discarded…teeth. Her eyes stayed locked on the Moopsy as she moved, hands out, ready to bat the thing out of the air if it launched at her or die trying.
"Nice Moopsy...dont eat me...dont eat me..."
Her eyes widened as Sylvain actually stuffed the thing in his jacket, while she picked up one of the fangs. It was…sickly looking, rotten and discolored, coated in a thin film of what could only be saliva, or venom. Her tricorder beeped as she drew it out and scanned it. “Osseous potator, but…the DNA sequences are different. Altered. There’s a degenerative enzyme in here and…oh, no,” Cora cursed, dropped the fang, and fumbled for the Savi PDA. Holding both devices, her thumbs coded in commands rapidly as she stood and paced.“We uh…might have a problem here,” the analyst muttered to herself.
“Experiment 712-Omnicron; biological purgation initiative, designation Code-White, subject vector translation to host bioform highly adaptive, data indicative to self-replication after consumption of nearly limitless indigenous vertebrate species. Minor gene-conditioning successfully limits consumption parameters to acceptable gestational period to enable controlled population growth while achieving desirable extermination of host bioforms. Successful feeding/growth/breeding cycle experimental data archived. Proceeding to mass-genetic alteration phase,” Cora read. “This…is from his notes. The…Savi, I think,” her head tilted to the lumpy mass of de-boned flesh back down the tube. “Its…it sounds like they’re trying to…weaponize it,” she nodded to the white ball of fluff peaking out of the Ensign’s jacket.
“We…who are these people?! Why would we ever ally ourselves with them? We…we cant just let them do this, can we?” The analyst shook her head at Sylvain, then waved the Savi PDA at him. “This says the gene-therapy center is up one level, holding hundreds of vats – each one could already be active, turning that cute little bone sucker into a biological weapon of mass annihilation.” Cora flapped her arms, incredulously. “Well that’s just rich, isn’t it? The blazes do we do about it?”
Her face shifted to outraged concern into a grimace of worry as she watched the Moopsy snuggle up to Sylvain’s neck and chest, suckling away at the entire side of the Ensign’s neck. It’s drool had already discolored the man’s red undershirt.
“That’s going to leave a lovely hickey if you don’t stop it,” Cora pointed out cheekily.
