Four days later...
"Just keep the researcher safe. It's a pretty cushy job." Luan told him.
"But for a week? That's hella boring. Standing around like the royal guard. Why aren't we just going down to the planet already?" he was in the middle of lacing up his boots. While on the frigate they didn't need to wear enforcer armor at all times.
"Major Masuka wants to keep us off active duty for a bit. Can you blame her? The resistance just let us go. You know how that looks."
Brett sighed; "Still boring as hell."
Luan punched his chest lightly. "Just look after the researchers, take the easy work, and we'll be back to squashing Zykra in a week."
"What does Masuka got you doing?" he asked.
"I'll be at the helm just standing around, just like you. Difference is I have to hang around the captains guard detail."
Brett scoffed. Can't say that he envied her. Those guys took their jobs way too seriously. Why would the captain need guards around him? The ship had automated turrets all over the place, inside and out.
Luan got a distant look in her eyes during the quiet moment. She'd been getting that look ever since they were freed a few days ago.
Brett's tablet made a 'Hiyah!' sound from a fighting game he liked.
"Shifts starting. I better head out."
"Better be on your best behavior Brett. Just have to make it to the end of the week with none of your usual smart-assery."
He saluted her with two fingers, "Don't worry Sarge, have I ever let you down?"
Luan smirked as if it were a trick question.
Brett pushed off from the bench in the locker rooms before heading out the door.
The battle-frigate had black panel tiles covering the floor. And every so often there was a grate, revealing vents, pipes, wire, steam and softly flashing yellow hazard lights. Which would occasionally shine shadows onto the dimly lit walls of the frigate.
The halls were lit by caged white bulbs that were turn red in an emergency or battle.
The color scheme in general was dark and sleek. But industrial in places. In true IBT style.
Brett made his way into the room his tablet guided him to.
There was a trio of white coats inside a well lit room with light grey panels instead of black. And an observation window at one far end wall.
They were standing next to it with their tablets, giving curious looks into the window.
He stood next to the door without speaking.
There was no reason to introduce himself every time and besides the researchers hardly saw basic introductions as worth their time.
If they noticed him they didn't show it. Instead they continued to speak amongst themselves.
"Why do you think it's green?" one of them asked. She had brown hair with wide-rimmed glasses.
"Perhaps it signifies a specific role in the hive." a fat man with red shaggy hair and goatee said.
"The change in color could be a symptom of isolation from the hive at large, as isolation seems to be the only variable so far." the third and final researcher said. A fit asian man with a really square jaw and slicked back hair.
At least they were having a pretty interesting conversation. In any case—It'll be so boring to stand here for the next two hours before break.
"Let's try exposing it to one with the more typical color." red beard said.
"What if they fight like ants from different hives? We shouldn't risk the specimen before we run other tests first." the woman replied.
"Good point. Let's expose it to some biomass and see what happens." red beard went on to say. "Agreed?"
His colleagues nodded. He went to a console near the window and began to push a few buttons.
There was a hydraulic whirring sound as a goat emerged from a trap door in the floor.
It baah'd at them. Then it saw the scantid and fell over in shock.
"This ones reaction time seems to be slower than the rest." the asian man observed, making notes in his tablet.
"It seems... Curious?" the woman said.
'splat!'
Red painted the window then. Followed by munching sounds.
"Maybe the color will change back now that it's eaten." one researcher said.
They talked about it for the next hour as they waited for the scantid to process the biomass and begin constructing a hive.
But it never did. It just walked around the containment cell. Poking and prodding the walls.
The asian researcher checked his tablets time.
"It seems to not be as interested in constructing a hive as other scantids."
"Now I'm starting to think it's sick, or aberrant." the woman said.
"We have to analyze the genome for differences."
Which produced a groan from both of his colleagues.
"Goddamn busy work. Fine then. No use in procrastinating. Let's get it done." red beard said.
Then the asian man looked to Brett. For the first time since he's stood there.
"You there—keep watch of the specimen. If you see it produce biomass or there are any other developments, contact dispatch."
Brett screamed inwardly. That was hella frustrating to hear.
"But sir, my break was in a bit..."
They gave him a 'are you serious?' expression.
"You're getting paid to sit on your ass. Don't complain. You might be here for awhile so get comfortable. There's coffee over there."
They took a few final glances at the green Zykra before leaving.
As the door closed, Brett took a few steps closer to the observation window. It was staring at him. With it's weird yellow eyes.
He flipped it off.
Hours passed and the researchers didn't return. He called dispatch but they told him if there weren't any developments that he was to remain there. To pull a night shift if necessary.
So he plopped down at the table in the middle of the room and put a sports game on his tablet.
"Come on..." he muttered frustrated. This was the sixth season in a row that his team didn't even make it to the semi-finals. It was getting embarressing at this point.
"Pass the fucking! Ugh!" he plopped back in the tiny metal chair he sat in.
'bleh.'
"I swear to god. If you fucks don't learn a proper defense!"
About thirty minutes passed. And the match ended with a definitive loss. Brett felt a tear building at the corner of his eye. Not from sadness, but from fury.
He sighed and stood up, stretching. Then he went to the observation window.
"FUCK!" he paced around for a second.
Then broke a glass display case on a console nearby and pressed the flat red button beneath it.
He clutched the sides of his head in panic. "I am so fucking fucked!" he shouted, staring at the steaming hole in the containment cell. Surrounded by brown biomass.
Luan was at the helm standing next to captain Hyrax and the pilots when a red light started to flash on the consoles here and there.
It was massive compared to the Sequesters pilot cabin. Here was twenty meters around—lined with wide open windows that displayed the cosmos around them.
Alcoves of computer consoles and monitors had two dozen pilots at them for a variety of purposes. From defense to navigation and detection systems.
A robotic voice sounded loudly startling everyone;
"Security Breach — Security Breach — Security Breach"
Red lights flashed in places around the room.
Captain Hyrax looked to a IBT pilot clad in their standard grey uniform.
"What seems to be the problem?" Captain Hyrax asked calmly.
The pilot brought up the view of the containment cell onto a main monitor.
The scantid sized hole in the wall was smoking.
"Seems like a specimen broke free. This one is labeled as; 'Anomalous green variant'." the pilot said.
"Get me the researchers in charge of that specimen." he turned to Luan. "Sergeant Crowley. Locate and terminate that specimen."
"Yes sir." she said. She racked her pistol, checked the chamber, then left the helm.
Luan jogged towards the closest engineers shop.
Telling anyone she saw that wasn't armed to find a secure place and hunker down.
The red lights all around them should've told them that much—but these damned researchers were reluctant to take a break from their work.
Brett found her on the way.
"Luan! Fuck! It was my fault, I looked away for ONE second!"
Luan cringed inwardly. She would share in his mistakes as his superior and of course it had to happen this week of all weeks.
...But if they were the ones to eliminate the threat, they could potentially salvage the situation.
Maybe they could blame it on the stress of being in rebel capture.
"Damn..." Luan muttered. No matter how she tried to rationalize it this looked bad. "Fuck it. Follow me. I'm getting an engineer. Maybe they have some way to track this thing down."
"Isn't there some way to purge the vents?"
She shook her head.
"Don't think so... If we want to be the first to find it we better hurry."
They met with one of the ships many engineers in their workshop. It was a steampunk wonderland. Cramped full of different devices of all kinds.
"Here."
The engineer handed Luan a handheld device. It was pretty much a handle with a tiny monitor on top.
"What's this?"
The woman in brown overalls spun around in the wheeled chair she sat in, over to a large monitor. She turned it on and it showed a maze of lines with dots in them.
"These are the vents and each of these dots is a sensor." she picked up a ruler of the desk next to her and pointed to them.
"You can patrol around the halls with that handy-dandy sensor module, which will connect to nearby sensors and tell you which direction there is movement."
Luan looked at the tiny monitor. It was like a sonar, pulsing outwards from the center with a blue circle over and over.
"Why can't we just see the movement from here?" Brett asked, gesturing to the monitor.
"'The sensors are for detecting obstructions. Not giant bugs running around like hamsters on crack. But every so often we would get a pet or something in there. So we created this nifty lil' system where the nodes can work together to update the obstructions current location much faster. Using the modules tech and live location. Should I go into more detail?"
"Fuck me... This ship costs how much and we can't even catch ONE fucking scantid?" Luan said.
The engineer shrugged. "This sets a new precedent. We never had something dangerous crawl around in there before. Just walk around the halls, wait for a sensor to ping you, then get spelunking."
"You're awe fully glib considering there's a murderous alien loose..." Brett said.
The engineer leaned back in her chair; "Ships big. Odds the bug will pop up in a random vent is low. Goodluck though." she said before kicking off the desk and spinning towards her work table.
"Dumbass 'researchers' can't watch their own stupid fucking specimens. It's not my fault really if you think about it. How was I supposed to know they could melt walls?? Apparently this has never happened before."
Brett was venting the entire time they walked.
Meanwhile Luan carefully watched the motion detector. They turned another corner.
"Masuka knows there's nothing we could've done about the ambush. The resistance has the resources to pick up a random unit, it just made no sense for them to target the IBT. And once we find this scantid, we'll be back in her good graces. Relax."
"Well now it makes a little sense..."
Luan glared at him.
He raised his hands defensively.
Then they continued walking down the metal halls with black tiles. Red lights occasionally flaring.
She still couldn't believe it herself. About Selene. After everything. Barely surviving on Lamda. Why would she do it? Just as they were becoming closer. It felt so unfair.
Coming back from the dead. Saboteur. Working with the resistance. Choosing the weirdest time to talk about crushes. Then having them freed.
She didn't need to use telepathy to mess with your head.
'beep'
Luan stopped.
'beep'
'beep'
A little dot appeared on the screen in the far corner of the little monitor.
"Movement! This way!"
They ran down the hall and went around a corner. There was another team standing near an open vent.
Dressed in the same Protectorate uniforms, two of them were standing around it and another was kneeling. All guys.
They went up to them.
"Did you get it?" Brett asked.
The guy kneeling shook his head.
"You find it yet Mateo?" he said into a radio he held.
"Almost..."
A grunting voice called back.
"You sent him in alone?" Luan said annoyedly.
One of the guys standing answered her;
"What are we supposed to do sarge? Crawl single file, shoot between each others legs? It's just one scantid."
"Go in from another vent? Head it off? ..Don't talk smart to me corporal unless you want to be stationed in sewage maintanence."
She didn't really have that power right now but people with her rank usually did.
The corporal coughed; "'Ahem', sorry sarge." then went back to looking into the vent. The yellow lights within gradually fading in and out lighting his face.
She stared at him for a second longer. Then elbowed Brett. "Come on, we'll go around. Find another vent."
They walked around the hall and turned a couple corners before finding another vent entrance.
They quickly popped it off and crawled in.
"Fucking pest control. And you thought today would be boring." Luan said as she crawled ahead.
"Soooo fun."
The insides of the vents were plated with rough metal. Every so often a vent ended in a grated fan or some other kind of dead end. Valves or something.
A ton of intersections.
They tried to follow the motion detector as best they could.
Sometimes to get closer they'd have to double back and take another way.
Brett wiped his brow.
"Hot as shit in here..." he breathed.
"Quiet. We're getting close." Luan held her pistol up with one hand. It was stressful trying to fight Zykra in such confined spaces.
Luan rounded a corner and saw scratch marks all along the vents. Then she heard chewing sounds. She slowed down.
She slowly peaked around the next corner.
"CHEKCHEKCHEK!"
The scantids mandibles clicked inches from her face as it blurred past her.
It shot down one of the intersections vents.
Her heart jumped up into her chest as she crawled backwards into Brett. He steadied her shoulders.
"That was fucking close." he whispered.
It seemed more than close to her. She swallowed. Then peaked again. It was gone. But there was a pulpy red mess from the direction it came from.
"Damn it—those idiots." she muttered.
They followed the motion detector but the tiny dot disappeared up ahead.
There was a broken vent grate there. Cleaved in half.
They crawled out after it, entering a hall.
"Why is this thing so hard to catch? It's like it's always one step ahead." Brett took Luans hand as she helped him up from the vent.
The radio attached to Luans belt sounded; "Sergeant Crowley. Progress?"
It was captain Hyrax's voice.
"Shit..." Luan grumbled then grabbed the radio; "We're close. But it left the vents. It.. Got a private. In the vents."
The radio was silent for a moment before it came alive again.
"It's consumed more biomass. It likely plans to use it to burrow through something else."
"..Plans, sir?"
"Does this seem like the behavior of an unthinking creature sergeant? Keep tracking it. Where are you now?"
Luan looked to the labels listed at the top of the hall above them.
"G5E22."
Brett knelt down nearby. He looked back at her.
There were scratch marks next to him leading down the hall.
Captain Hyrax's voice came back on the radio; "You're near the airlocks at the far end of the frigate. Perhaps the creature is attempting to escape."
At this point Luan and Brett were following the scratch marks. And sure enough they led to a white and red checkered set of doors.
'Airlock' listed above it.
As they approached the doors they opened automatically. As they were supposed to in event of emergency.
Just to make sure people could reach the life shuttles.
The door led to a loooong hall of narrow doors. Each led to a tiny room that would pressurize before leading to either a life shuttle, or empty space.
There were many rows of plastic seats every so often too.
"CHEKCHEK!"
The scantid leapt up from some seats and snatched her pistol from her hands. Breaking her finger in the process.
"AAH!" she fell to the ground, clutching her hand.
The scantid snapped the pistol into shards in it's mandibles.
"LUAN!" Brett called, aiming his pistol. But the scantid was between his line of fire and Luan. He couldn't get a bead on it without potentially hitting her.
The green scantid stared at her. And glanced over it's shoulder at Brett with a predators intelligence. As if it was making a threat.
It took a small step towards Luan...
Then doubled back and jumped at brett.
He fired.
But it wasn't lethal.
The scantid managed to pry his weapon from his hands as well—knocking him into one of the plastic seats in the process. It went tumbling over the seats next to Brett.
Before limping back around the other side of the plastic seats it landed.
The bullet crazed one of it's legs.
Luan and Brett exchanged a confused glance. Why wasn't it killing them? Why did it go for their weapons? This scantid didn't behave like any scantid they've ever seen before.
It jumped and hit the switch next to an airlock. Which added to their confusion. It knew how to open doors.
The airlock began cycling as the exterior door opened. Something came in.
Then once the exterior door closed, white steam filled the small compartment and cleared after a few seconds. The scantid took a few steps back expectantly.
There was a hissing sound as the interior door opened.
The airlock room was empty.
The scantid jumped next to Luan and growled an insectile growl. With it's back to her- it was still facing the airlock.
Brett got up and knelt down besides Luan who laid on the ground still. Too shocked to do much else. He unclipped his radio from his side.
"Dispatch, we need—" his head snapped to the side and he fell over. Unconscious.
The scantid snapped at open air. Growling.
"Don't worry." a source-less mans voice said. "I'm not going to hurt your ol' puck buddies."
There was an soft electric noise as the air began to wave in front of Luan and the scantid.
Then splotches of color began to appear. Until a man in a white skin-tight suit appeared. A mask with green lights for eyes and no mouth. They carried a carbine in their arms.
"See?"
"W-who are you?" Luan asked.
They hit her across the face with the rifle and everything went black.
Luan groaned as she woke up. Blinking blearily. Her head was throbbing with pain.
The scantid was gone. And so was the man dressed in white.
Someone had nudged her foot. Captain Hyrax stood there.
"Explain what happened here Sergeant."
Luan looked over to see Brett sitting in one of the plastic chairs off to the side. He held a ice pack to his head with a remorseful look.
"The fucking major was taken Luan." he said.
The captain put up a finger towards him, silencing him.
"Tell me your side of the story Crowley. Start from this morning, that is—yesterday morning."
She nodded wordlessly. A look of consternation on her face.
"Fuck." she said after a moment. Since when was the major on the station? Why? Why her?
Then she thought back to the line in that interrogation room. Selene had said she worked with Zykra. Was this what she met? She had the ability to stop them, to make them hesitate. Could she control them as well?
Anger boiled up in Luan then.
"I think I know exactly what happened captain."