Exploring the Facility

Mission Time: 1853, March 10th, 2154

Location: Unidentified Alien Structure

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“Two hours is a long time.” Said Dr. Oliver. “ Henrietta, stay here with BOB and Julie. The rest of us are going to go look at the western sector.”

“Got it.” Said Henrietta.

They backed out of the room and left Julie in the very capable hands of Henrietta. Between the team engineer and BOB they would find something. Someone had suggested the possibility of running afoul of the thing responsible for killing the mummified aliens, but both Jennifer and Dr. Oliver were fast to shoot that notion down.

The western corridor lead into what appeared to be a weapons control center.

“This is where the Beacon is coming from.” Luther said as he waved his own ANT through the air. “Looks like it controls a lot of systems. ANT traces several of these panels to the exterior weapons. One’s even connected to the big cannon we saw.”

The room wasn’t as large as the first they had entered, where Julie was still working, and the structure of the panels was different, simplified. No bodies littered the floor as they had in the first room either. The center of the room was a series of six softly glowing orbs.

“There’s obviously still power.” Dr. Oliver said. He walked among the control panels and traced a glove hand about the controlling apparatus of each. “If we could figure out how to… turn it fully back on…”

Andy took that as his cue to play with things and reached to the nearest control center and twisted a dial. The whole of the building rumbled.

“Don’t touch anything else.” Dr. Oliver said. The rest of the team was froze as if awaiting something else to happen, and continued their examination when it didn’t.

Dr. Oliver examined the control closely. They were a mixture of what appeared to be touch screen, mechanical, and holographic systems in the room. Luther’s report told him that it was all most likely part of weapon controls.

“I think we better give Julie time to work.” Alicia recommended. “I don’t want to patch too many ANTs into the system and waste time duplicating effort.”

Dr. Oliver nodded.

“Well see what’s to the west before we start fiddling with anything. We can always patch in once she’s done.”

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Mission Time: 1948

The eastern corridor lead into what seemed to the team like a weird combination of a bomb bay and a warehouse and really showcased the immensity of the structure. It was cavernous, more so than the cave the entire thing seemed to be lodged in. The whole of it was filled with the mummified carcasses of strange, fungal like protrusions.

“These are definitely organic.” Said Dr. Oliver. There were thousands of them stretching as far back in the darkness as their lights could penetrate. “Fan out. See if there’s anything noteworthy. If not we may cut some of these for samples, take them and some of the bodies back for now. What we’ve found here… I can’t stress the importance.”

The recon team dispersed and walked into the midst of the strange growths.

“I really don’t fucking like this.” Andy said.

Dr. Oliver stayed back near the entrance and monitored the progress of his team.

“Hey… I’ve got something.” Jennifer said. “I think it’s alive.”

“Don’t touch it.” Said Dr. Oliver. He broke a chemlight and stuck it in a cracked by the door to give a beacon to the exit. “I’m coming.”

“I’ve got one too.” Luther said.

“Me too. “ Said Andy.

“Don’t touch them!” Dr. Oliver said, repeating his prior sentiments.

“Looks like a giant pussy!” Andy said.

“Uhm, yeah. It does.” Said Jennifer. She was leaned forward with her light on the thing. It was approximately three feet high with a slit straight down the middle. The top of the slit had a rounded protrusion that looked like a clit. “It really does.”

The slit opened about an inch as she leaned closer, showing her a moist pink interior populated with a few small tentacle like cilium.

“Mines definitely alive!” Jennifer shouted.

The thing sprung open at the sound, the entirety of it unfolding nearly four feet. Rolls of tentacles, from the tiny cilium-like appendages she had first seen to some as massive as her arms, fell free. It writhed rhythmically in her face. Then the whole thing came off the ground and grabbed her.

Jennifer screamed.

Dr. Oliver was running now. The sight if him sprinting prompted Luther, Andy, and Alicia to follow. Jennifer was in the ground struggling with her assailant when they got there. The tentacles were slowly wrapping around her legs and arms, while the main body of the thing, something shaped almost like a bat once unfurled, worked to wrap itself around her torso from her collar bone halfway down her thighs. She was still fighting, but the harder she fought the more it constricted her.

“Do something!” Luther shouted. He grabbed the smooth edge of the thing as it worked its way against Jennifer’s body and pulled, then recoiled holding his fingers. His gloves were torn open and his fingers were bleeding. He cursed and clamped his hand in his fist as tight as he could. Andy pulled a roll of rubbertape from his belt and started wrapping the punctured portion of Luther’s suit.

“Help me!” Jennifer pleaded. Then her mask slipped off and the things clit, which had unfolded to reveal something like an airmask itself, **** itself down over her face and secured four tentacles around her head.

The creatures body began writhing while Jennifer went limp.

“Jennifer!” Dr. Oliver shouted. No response. They stood back and watched the random movements of the creature, it’s body twitching and squirming in all directions as it worked against her.

“I don’t feel so hot all of a sudden.” Said Luther.

“We’ve got to medevac.” Alicia said to Dr. Oliver. Portions of Jennifer’s armpits were still exposed from under the thing. “Help me grab her.”

Dr. Oliver grabbed one side of Jennifer, and Alicia grabbed the other. They started dragging her backwards toward the exit. Luther and Andy followed. The corridor back to where they had entered may as well have been a thousand miles long. The two dragging Jennifer were sucking wind as hard as they could when they got there.

“Luther, get Julie. We have to go.” Said Dr. Oliver.

Luther was bent over with his hands on his knees.

“I’m telling you, doc. I don’t feel too good.”

Then he collapsed.

“Fuck!” Said Alicia.

“Andy, get Julie!” Dr. Oliver said. They were already working the repel lines, making sure they could were ready for load baring. “We’ll have to use BOB as a litter to get her back up. Alicia, I’m sending you up first. Hook up Luther’s motor.”

Alicia set about hooking the repel engine on the front of Luther’s suit to the line. Dr. Oliver turned his attention back to Jennifer and her assailant. She still wasn't moving, but the creature was. Two bulbous sacks had sprouted from the lower end of its body and protruded from its back. Both were florescent green in color and seemed to be filled with off white liquid. The writhing had ceased, and now the body of the thing undulated from back to front, like a caterpillar walking in reverse but going nowhere. He took the moment to scan Jennifer. Her vitals were similar to those reported in comatose subjects. Luther was a different story. He had begin to babble incoherently and seize.

Julie could only ask what the fuck was going in when she saw her friend and team mate wrapped by the vicious alien.

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Mission Time: 2205

Location: Lucy’s Lament Colonial Medical Center

Luther died en route from the extraterrestrial structure. There was nothing they could do to save him.

Jennifer, in the other hand, was stable. Her vitals remained the same, although the scanner was unable to scan through the organism that enshrouded her. Every time they messed with it, or her, her vitals spiked until the undesirable action ceased. Then they’d level out again, as though the creature was keeping them away.

The thing itself had began to pulsate, and the green sacks on the lower end began to contract rhythmically. Something wet formed on the gurney under her. No one touched it. The creature seemed to puff up around Jennifer’s midriff the longer it held on. The sounds of liquid moving, sloshing, filled their ears, as well as the sound of stretching. The recon team debated what was happening while the Catercrawler continued them on to their destination.

Dr. Phillips, Dr. Wyandotte, and the rest of the medical staff met them when they pulled in to the clear area in front of the medical center and opened the airlock in that side of the vehicle.

“What the fuck happened!?” Dr. Phillips said. Dr. Oliver tried to explain while Alicia, Andy, Julie, and Henrietta pulled Jennifer out of the Catercrawler and rushed inside with Dr. Wyandotte. Then they helped two nurses get Luther’s body.

The emergency center devolved into its typical controlled chaos as Dr. Wyandotte set about checking Jennifer’s vitals and getting her onto an OR table, but Dr. Oliver was fast to stop her from acting as he explained everything that had happened on the way over. She stopped working.

“So we wait.” She said.

“Wait on what?” Dr. Phillips said. “It may be killing her.”

“Unlikely.” Said Wyandotte. “I’m assuming that it’s a parasite. They rarely kill their host before they’ve completed whatever portion of their lifecycle they’re working on when they infect. Let’s wait and see what happens next. Then we can treat that. We may kill her if what you’re saying is accurate.”

Dr. Oliver couldn’t argue with that.

Nurse Joyce was already wheeling in IV bags and monitoring equipment, but stopped short of hooking any of it to Jennifer. Dr. Wyandotte’s partner, a lady named Dr. Fischer, as well as their assistant, Annalise Vincent, and four nurses, Joyce, Olivia, Isabel, and Gianna, joined her. Together they debated the best care options for Jennifer while also planning a post mortem on Luther.

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Time: 0351, March 11th, 2154

They remained in the medical center on shifts that night, making sure everyone was available and catching cat naps in the office while they monitored Jennifer. At around 4am the creature’s grip loosened and it went limp. Gianna, a full figured blonde with a bouncy set of DDs, was in the room when it happened and called for Dr. Fischer. The two women examined the creature and watched as it slid off the host. Tentacles fell the floor in fleshy coils while a phallus the size of a horse cock slid free of Jennifer. Her suit had been removed in the areas where it’s body was resting, parts of it still being stuck inside the cilia of the alien.

Their eyes settled over Jennifer’s distended belly, still glistening with the creatures mucus. She appeared at least 6 months pregnant, maybe a little more as life stirred inside her. A noticeable bulge rolled from one end of her belly to the other.

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