Rockhoppers Ch. 09

"Carry on, marine."

"Yes, sir."

-

Jones and Riggins look at one another, then position themselves to continue providing a feed to the bay, each careful never to allow their feed to show the back of the other's helmet.

The sergeant's voice crackles over the general com. "Captain, we've found the stasis berth. Looks like one possible survivor, although out rad counters say this room is as hot as the rest of this place."

"Understood, Sergeant. Can you get the possible back to the shuttle?"

"Negative, unless we leave four behind, the coffin is too large. One of the cargo shuttles could take it, no problem."

"Understood. Leave her there for now and finish sweeping the ship."

"Yes sir."

Jones and Riggins carefully look to either side of the cargo bay, willfully not noticing the stream of black spiders drifting past them towards the rest of their squad.

-

"Captain, we've gotten the same adrenal spike and lowered heartrate from every member of the away team now. Six of them within seconds of each other."

The captain frowns and thanks the medical tech. He calls up the document the young engineer of the Rockhopper appended to his video message, and begins to read.

A few minutes later, the general comm from the away team crackles.

"Sweep complete. Negative for any sort of life form. Orders, Captain?"

"Come home, Sergeant, but hold station outside the bay. We may be sending you back down as escort with one of the cargo shuttles and a team to retrieve the coffin."

"Yes, sir."

The captain keys the comm to the chief medical officer. "Bones, what can you tell me about the medical nanite capabilities of the marine's suits?"

"Full complement. Usually only used in cases of extreme trauma."

"Can we trigger them remotely?"

"Certainly. Why?"

"Something I just came across in some reading material. Can you be ready to flood the suits of the whole away team on my mark?"

"I can in five minutes."

"Let me know when you're ready."

"Yes, Captain."

Turning to the comms tech on duty, he continues, "Get me a one-way video feed inside that shuttle. I don't want anyone inside it to be aware."

A moment later, the main display lights up to show all eight marines already seated for the flight back. Their pilot flips the last few toggles preparing for takeoff, and the video vibrates slightly as the shuttle leaves the planetoid.

A couple of minutes later, medical checks in. "Ready, Captain."

"Do it."

On the screen, every marine jerks slightly, almost at the same time. A moment later, every one of them begins to vomit black tar inside their helmets. The bridge crew watches in horror. After half a minute, they watch the Sergeant struggle to work the shuttle's comm.

"Captain, it's with us, kill us before..." the man jerks twice, like a marionette, and then slumps to the console. None of the other soldiers are moving, and the shuttle continues on its preprogrammed course towards the Widdershins.

"Tactical."

"Yes, Captain."

"You heard the man."

-

The main mass of the alien observes the brief flare as the larger vessel obliterates the smaller shuttle. It is down to its last, most desperate plan, the mechanics of which have already been set in motion.

The alien reflects that whatever happens next, its time on the seed is done. If the humans survive, they will not suffer it to live, and if they do not, it will have done everything it could in service of its mission.

Chemical changes follow these thoughts through its enormous mass, as the giant alien forces the reactions that will shred its molecules into their component elements. The entire seed heats for a time, all the way to the surface, as the billion year old being renders itself into dust.

-

"Sir, we just got a huge temperature spike across the surface of the planetoid, but it's bleeding off now."

The Captain nods, thinking hard. "Tactical, how long would it take us to sterilize that rock?"

"Reads mostly iron, Captain. Probably take us a couple of days to dump enough energy into it to completely melt it, if we can slave the antimatter reactor to the beam weapons. We won't have engines till we're done, but I guarantee there won't be anything left."

"Coordinate with the Chief, let me know when you're ready."

"Yes sir."

The captain returns to his seat, and begins to compose a letter to the families of the marines who had just died at his command.

-

Around a hundred kilometers separate the Widdershins and the surface of the planetoid. In the twenty hours it's held station, none of the ship's sensors have picked up the energy-absorptive orbs of tarry black drifting between it and the rock below. They'd used the spin of the planetoid and their own inhuman strength to hurl themselves on a ballistic trajectory towards the human craft.

There are close to a thousand, each several meters in diameter, and carrying a dozen or so of the human-maker hybrids inside, which are slowly being roused from their decades long slumber.

The ship, though it had not actively moved from its original position, had reoriented to train its weapons on the planet after the nurseries had begun their flight. Even this small maneuvering had shifted both the profile and position of the ship. As a result, almost all of them drift past, missing their target, and suiciding as it becomes clear that they will never make contact. Their charges die with them.

In the end less than one percent make contact. A half dozen gently splat against the surface of the vessel, swiftly forming spider legs and gripping the hull of the ship at an almost atomic level. They swiftly scuttle towards one another, touching to join themselves and this increase their cognitive ability. The combined entity is smarter than any single human, in terms of computation, but lacks much in the way of strategy.

It's no surprise, then, that the consensus of the six results in a single directive: assault.

-

Ensign Amy Durant heads through the corridor upship to the secondary crew gym. She just got off watch, and she still feels logy from the hours in the acceleration couch during the trip to the distress signal. Entering, she sees a few other crew, but no one she knows intimately.

Some of them are making desultory efforts to exercise, but for the most part they're gossiping about what they've heard about the distress signal. Real information among the crew is fairly thin. Everyone knows they've found the ship, but the current status of the old ship is restricted to bridge crew and the marines at the moment.

Claiming a free locker, she changes quickly, and then heads for one of the full body resistance machines, one of her favorite exercises in low and zero gravity. It takes a few moments to convert the machine from full gravity configuration, exposing the straps and takeholds she'll need for the migrogravity workout, and she quickly launches into a set, her face oriented upwards as she exerts herself against the resistance of the machine, her legs and arms dragging their tethers inwards until she's in a sort of fetal crunch, then slowly relaxing until her limbs are splayed once more.

As a result of her position, she's the first one in the room to notice the ceiling bulkhead. At first, her mind can't really wrap itself around what her eyes are telling it. A large circle, maybe a meter across, is sort of... bubbling? And then it isn't, although it still looks... wrong. After a moment, a thick plug of the ships hull begins to slowly drift towards the floor of the gym, leaving a patch of shiny blackness behind. At first she thinks it's the black of space, and she can't understand why she isn't dead, but then it begins to... bulge. The others in the gym have noticed, now, and they've all stopped working out to look up at the ceiling, puzzled. If one of them had begin moving for a comm station immediately, they might have had a chance to get away.

As it is, they all stand, enraptured, as first one, then two, then three blue... children(?) emerge from the tar, all curled up, blinking large lids over enormous golden eyes, devoid of pupil. They're covered in some sort of clear viscous liquid, which slowly comes off of them in droplets as they begin to move with more rapidity, like they were asleep and suddenly startled awake. Amy finally overcomes the surreality of the scene and reaches to begin working at the straps on her wrists when the smell hits her.

One of the children, about halfway to the floor, notices her and stretches itself to its full height. It is perhaps as tall as a thirteen year old boy, though its cerulean genitals are certainly mansized. Its body is hairless, though its head has some sort of... rill, that shifts gently with its movements. The entire creature shimmers slightly as it shifts, and she realizes she's seeing the lights glint off of millions of tiny scales. A thin, almost transparent membrane, threaded with tiny veins, is attached at the elbow and knee, stretching under the arms. By extending its arms, the alien can tighten the skin, giving it a strange set of wings.

The one looking at Amy begins to shift its arms in a queer motion, causing the skin to catch the atmosphere inside the gym. It covers the distance to her in just a few seconds, quickly swimming through the air. She waits for it, almost giddy with anticipation. It lands next to her, and touches her legs. It plucks at her tights for a moment, then lowers its head to sniff at her crotch, which is already soaking. She just stares at it, mouth gaping slightly, breath coming in rapid pants. Her nipples are rigid and easily visible through the sports top she's wearing.

It looks back at her face for a moment, then extends a claw from one of its thumbs and places it against the exposed skin of her lower belly. She flexes involuntarily, muscles briefly gaining additional definition across her abdomen. The creature draws back at her movement, then extends its other hand and uses it to cover her mouth.

Forced to breathe through her nose, the scent of the blue alien overwhelms her. Eyelids fluttering, her hips begin to thrust of their own accord. Her arms and legs are slack, splayed wide and secured to the machine. The creature returns its other hand to her abdomen, and moves its clawed thumb across the waist of her workout tights and down the length of her clothed slit, in a motion faster than thought. The fabric parts like silk, exposing the lightly furred mound of her vagina.

Amy is largely senseless by this point, her limbic system thrown into blind overdrive by the pheromones rolling off of the child. She's not cognizant of the alien moving its slight body between her thighs, but when she feels the first tentative penetration of her sex, her legs jerk involuntarily, striving to curl around the invader and draw it deeper.

Soon enough, it sinks itself comfortably inside the human woman, enjoying the new sensation. One hand still covering her mouth, the other slides under her back, and the child lays against the length of her body. The top of its rill brushes softly against the bottom of her chin as it closes its eyes and allows instinct to take over, and soon her violation gains a steady rhythm. Amy groans into its hand, shuddering as her overloaded pleasure center triggers her first orgasm. Others follow, as does the creature itself, flooding her as she becomes the first mother of the second generation of its race.

Soon it pulls away and examines the area. There are other women in the gym, watching the rapes of their crewmates with slack jaws and glazed eyes. It approaches one, a tiny brunette with large eyes and pale skin, and touches her shoulder. Amy has regained enough of her senses to watch as the other woman simply turns and lowers her shipsuit, threading her hands and feet into takeholds as the slightly shorter alien mounts her from behind, resting its head against her back, again reaching with one hand to cover its new mate's mouth.

The men in the room watch passively, although one is helping brace a female, as she was mounted by her rapist near no takeholds. He's looped his feet under a couple, and is bracing her groaning, jerking form by the arms as the alien uses her. Another man passively watches as a blob of black tar, dripping from the same hole the children came from, suddenly sprouts spider legs and propels itself at him. He makes no move to protect himself as it slaps into his face, immediately englobing his head. His limbs twitch slightly as the globe begins to shrink. Soon the tar vanishes from the back of his skull, and more of his head is revealed as the alien climbs through his mouth, nose, and eyes.

He floats for several moments, motionless, staring at nothing. Suddenly he blinks and reorients himself, moving with more volition than any of his pheromone-addled crewmates. More blue children and more blobs of black tar are dripping through the patch as he examines each of the humans in the room. He points to a woman, currently being bred by one of the short aliens, and then a man across the gym, drifting passively. Two more spiders launch themselves at each of them, immediately infesting them. The woman ceases her panting, and simply waits while her new mate completes its task.

After it pulls out of her, moving on to another mother-to-be, the woman joins the other two possessed crew members at the lockers. All three change into their ship uniforms and then leave the gym, headed deeper into the depths of the ship, shadowed by several dozen spiderlings.

-

An alarm klaxon sounds throughout the corridors of the Widdershins, and bulkheads designed to segment the ship into airtight sections in the event of a hull breach slam down seconds later. One unlucky crewmember suffers a broken arm from a glancing impact as a bulkhead next to her seals. That is the worst injury, happily, and shipwide no one is crushed, always a risk with vacuum protocols.

The captain is frowning at a series of emergency messages flashing by on his console, when a senior crewmember in another part of the ship initiates an override and speaks.

"Captain, this is Lieutenant Yamanaga in environmental. I'm the one who initiated the breach protocol. We have a problem."