“Has it reacted to you or moved at all?” Stephanie hooked up her own harness while Renee rubbed Sparky’s neck before climbing into his saddle between the double set of wings.
As he dropped down the tunnel, body glowing brightly to push the dark away they heard Steven say “No, but it is sure ugly to look at. I think whatever it is is long dead. Or a cyst.”
“Then don’t touch it till I get down there.” Stephanie followed down last while Satellite remained above, keeping an eye on the storm further that is wider than his eyes can see across the horizon. The highly intelligent bird didn’t like time constraints, but did as he was told.
Sparky landed softly in an expertly done descent by flaring all four wings and using thick muscle and tendons made everything smooth. Renee dismounted and came only so far as the Hunters had and she now knew what was meant by eerie.
The object was veined with some kind of silvery, liquid-like substance while over it was a layer of yellowish orange skin containing some form of suspended fluid. Even with Sparky and the Hunters’ bright shoulder lights it could not fully penetrate the depth of whatever it is.
A zipping sound followed by a hiss of breaks told of Stephanie’s arrival. She unclipped the harness and walked over with her upraised hand brightly shining its own light. “Fascinating. Babe, you recording all this.”
“You bet your firm ass I am.” Jessica said with unmistakable awe over the Com.
“What is it?” Steven asked a few seconds later.
“I’m not entirely sure. The rock is several hundreds of millions of years old, but what I’m reading says this mass is more recent than a newborn baby… and something solid is being contained inside dozens of… what look like arteries.”
“Hold on. You saying this thing could be millions of years old or less than a week?”
“Precisely. Somehow its organic makeup is identical to the volcanic rock it’s sticking to like some kind of octopus, but has DNA. Rock with DNA.”
“You’re joking?”
“Put up your visor and see for yourself, Stone.” Stephanie flashed her results to the Hunters who shared similar confusion. “I’m neither a geneticist or a Splicer, but I’m telling you that material has been transformed rock into bioorganic material.” She went silent as she increased the power of her short range suit scanner to maximum output and stepped back with a gasp.
The Hunters reacted instantly by raising their weapons, forgetting their displays, thinking it moved. They held like rigid statues, barely breathing.
Renee harnessed her formidable mental prowess too, but held it in check to ask “What is it?”
“S…So…” Stephanie stuttered. “Someone is inside that thing. It’s feeding into some strange capsule and I’m reading a pulse inside the capsule. It’s faint, but I think this thing is some kind or bioengineered stasis chamber.”
“Stasis?” Renee asked as if she didn’t hear that correctly.
“I’m certain if I get a sample of that fluid it will in high probability be embryonic-like fluid.”
“You want me to gain a sample and analyze it right now? And do you know what is inside the capsule? Please tell me it’s not the Creelin or Keptil.”
“No, No.” Stephanie recovered some, placing a hand over her racing heart. “The Creelin can’t harness our carbon based biology and Keptil would not bother putting someone in stasis. They’d eat it. It definitely isn’t one of their eggs or hatcheries. I can’t penetrate the capsule, just finding a slow heartbeat was hard to measure. I’m not finding any neural activity in the growth. It’s more a living machine with a single purpose to keep whatever is in there… alive.”
“Alright. Sparky, Stone, stick close to me.”
Drake and Hunter guided Renee closer as she remover her gun injector and flipped the switch from ‘inject’ to ‘draw’. Before she could get near, Stone held a hatchet in front of her chest to stop her and took it upon himself to be the first to touch the pliable surface. It didn’t come away with slime, merely the texture of skin, which he said so. No response to touch allowed Renee to put the edge of her medic-gun up against the clear membrane and depressed the trigger. She let the vial fill and moved back rather quickly.
Nothing immediate happened so she thought This is one freaky situation. She then removed the vial and fed it into her field-box at her lower back and waited in silence for up to a minute till her internal brain-chip downloaded results without need of a visor or display. Only a select group could harness the chip without their brains being overloaded. She said “By the stars! Stephanie, you’re right. It is embryonic fluid… only more concentrated… and I’m finding traces of double helix DNA… human DNA.”
“Human? You’ve got to be shitting me!” Stated Deegen. “A human on the very fringe of this galaxy? Your instruments must be off.”
“Stephanie might not be a geneticist, but I am. All medics are required to be. Take my word for it. An animal of some kind with double helix DNA strands is inside that thing. I’m just guessing human because my analyzer can’t do a full spectrum comparison as fast as my other equipment.”
“Since we can’t wait around forever I say we return to the ship and…”
“Uh, guys!?” Stephanie sounded worried. “Is it me or is the silver webbing moving?”
No one bothered answering as it was indeed pumping the silver liquid much faster. Renee’s needle puncture started a reaction. By puncturing the sensitive membrane tricked the containment into thinking someone was trying to cut, what it held, out. As intended. At first its movement was slow, but sped up to begin squeezing like some great heart, but one that didn’t relax. Instead of flooding those standing outside, the fluid rapidly was squeezed out veins by hundreds of liters per second. It continued to contract, removing much of the gathered liquid, sending it outside the mountain.
Once most was released, gave those watching the image of a hideous creature laying an egg. It gave birth to a silvery box three meters long with a handle on one end and the other had what appeared umbilical cords attached to the flat end. The ends detached and it fell unceremoniously to the ground, splashing the peach colored fluid over the ground and their feet. The now empty sack shriveled to the point that since it no longer served a purpose, began to degrade before their very eyes until chunks of useless bio-mass remained.
“What now?” Questioned Steven with his spear trained on the capsule making a gulping sound as it emptied itself out through the holes in what is assumed the top.
Renee’s training kicked in. “Frozen stasis is dangerous enough. Liquid is worse if whoever inside has been in from a prolonged period. I don’t see any lights indicating it’s reviving whomever is inside. We need to hurry before stale fluid suffocates the occupant.” She ran the short distance. “Help me find how to open it. It must have a button.”
For several agonizing seconds she and the Hunters looked over each inch. All that was found was a round hatch none of their weapons could find purchase and forcibly pry it open. When Renee saw them shaking their heads she thought Last resort. Got to use my…
Just then she needn’t have considered as the lid seemed to suck air wetly as it opened. Then Renee gasped at what lay inside.
Her eyes roved the individual who was naked, but his appearance is what wasn’t sitting well with her. She started scanning with her built in medical palm scanner on the left hand. While she checked, her eyes took in a clearly male phallus. It was the only part of his anatomy that looked healthy and orgasm inducing. The rest of him was in severe and prolonged atrophy. Skin over bones. He was extremely tall, one of the tallest men she had ever laid eyes on. Nowhere near as tall as her father, but still tall. Easily two hundred twenty six centimeters tall to be precise and had not a scrap of body hair over his nakedness. Pale, moist skin seemed to be stretched over thick bones. Sunken ribs and skull were the most prominent features. Hipbones poked out like some grotesque butterfly trying to climb through skin. A sunken stomach was void of any visible abdominal musc
le.
Worse yet “He’s not breathing.” Renee stated. “Back away from me now.” None questioned her for they all knew what was coming.
Synapses inside her brain intensified on command and her psionic powers harnessed to the point her bright red hair began to rise in a windless environment. Sending the gathered mental energy, focused by her hand, she sent it into the frail man’s lungs and extracted the fluid from his lungs since he had yet to respond by coughing and taking air. Renee wasn’t going to take any chance. A lungful of fluid was pulled up his throat and out both mouth and nose. She extracted most of it and threw it away. Letting her power of the mind in conjunction flow into him with her chip in her brain, a scan only she could see for the moment began a thorough medical scan. Biting her bottom lip, she didn’t know what to do first.
Without further aid, the instinct to breathe kicked in and his chest rose to suddenly fall in a weak cough that had him jerk all over. Frozen joints loudly popped in the first movement to be done in eons.
The moment the coughing fit subsided Renee gasped as she watched the man’s eyes weakly flutter open.
And then immediately latched onto her in a way that never happened to her.
Those eyes were neither red or yellow nor even gold. They were an entrancing amber that reminded her of starlight. Her first thought in seeing those unique eyes was Gorgeous!
The intensity in them was really unnerving yet Renee was so caged by them she didn’t know she had sat there for over a minute and worried the others. Taking a risk, Stephanie brought her back to reality with a nudge. “Girl, we can’t stay much longer. Whaaa…” The woman suddenly backpedaled into Stone’s wide chest and he pulled her behind himself.
As if in slow motion, Renee’s eyes turned back to where the man had laid in a weak state, but had gotten to his feet so fast and silently that she didn’t sense anything. It momentarily frightened her that such happened. She looked up from his thin, straining calf muscles and up and up and up his very tall frame. To her, he seemed to never end get taller, but it was a trick played in her mind.
If seeing him lay like a skin covered skeleton was horrifying, seeing him stand was nightmare fuel for a long time coming.
Then the strangest thing occurred. He started falling back, losing all sense of balance. It was due to the sudden standing that sent all the blood down to his feet. It was all too clear to Renee. Reacting faster than anyone, Renee placed a near invisible energy field with the power of her mind which caught and gently lowered him back to the ground. He still kept a predatory, unblinking glare straight ahead.
“Something is strange about him.” Stone didn’t move as he made the comment. His massive hatchets unwavering.
“You’d be disorientated too if you suddenly stood in such a weak state.” Renee defended the man.
“He’s not disoriented. Look at his eyes. He has the look of a seasoned elder Hunter, a predator. And he didn’t move till Mrs. Merann forced you to break eye contact. He’s broken. I can tell a wild animal and he is a feral one. If not for physical weakness he would have done something dangerous to her. Look at how he looks at you.” Renee did and the man held an unwavering gaze upon her again. “You were the first thing he’s seen and went to defend you when she approached from behind. His movement was clear and wrong to my eyes, Ma’am. I cannot explain it better.”
Sparky came closer, head lowered and neck arched, a threatening position that would allow him to strike. His hiss broke the attention of the frail appearing man. Apparently seeing a glowing Drake more than three times his size didn’t send him cowering or backing down. Instead he took it as a challenge and made a noise in his throat and barred flat, shiny white teeth. Sparky though stopped and backed away and the man’s hostility lowered. “Stone’s idea was just proven correct. Check his mind. He is dangerous to himself mostly. He’s very weak. He’d not even make a morsel for me.”
With the care of a trained and compassionate medic, Renee moved and he looked at her and relaxed visibly. She didn’t know why, but she found his defense of her rather flattering, like a loyal canine. Making sure to not send any threatening messages, she said in her most calming feminine voice. “It’s alright. You are safe now. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to get a field brain scan of you. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.”
His head cocked slightly and she hid a giggle as she imagined him as a canine again, but it was more her soothing voice than the words that got through. He closed his eyes and hummed the moment her soft glove covered hand touched his bald head. Going slowly she began scanning his brain, rubbing all the way around and it made her brow wrinkle as her mental imaging display began reading disconcerting data. Using the same voice, but to the others said “This should be medically impossible, but all brain function except instinct to live and move parts of his brain are fully active… It seems somehow the rest of his brain is… well empty, dormant, but are firing naturally. I find no abnormalities, scarring or tumors and he is making new short-term memories… I think someone figured out how to artificially make him have total amnesia. Stripped whoever he was to the bare essentials. Even speech has been removed. His brain is the healthiest I’ve ever seen… for class one humans at the very least. His neural pathways are untouched. I need to get more data and… Oh no.”
“What?!” Deegen said too loud and the man’s eyes snapped open and he made the sound again used on Sparky, but this time he grabbed Renee’s arm and pulled her into the capsule with him with surprising strength, but hid her behind his bony back.
“He is trying to protect her. I guess his baser instinct to protect women is ingrained. He must be like our caveman ancestors. Too bad he doesn’t know our Renee would club him over the head before anyone got the chance.” Stephanie smirked, using the soothing voice too.
“Better all of you back away and let me handle Mr. Skinny.” They did as the medic requested, moving near to the opposite side since she was more than capable of handling him. Deegen said into her com to explain what she meant after the frail man settled down. “He likes my pheromones a little too much if you catch my drift.”
“So he wants to mate you? Poor bastard.” Steven said and hid a chuckle. Deegen smacked him upside his head for being dense. The man hummed like when she touched his head, they all assumed he found it humorous.
“Basically.” She confirmed. “He knows on some level I’m female and wants to copulate, but not with you three in his territory. Perhaps he will be less threatened of you holster your weapons and stop threatening him.”
The Hunters complied and the man instantly went limp, likely using all his energy to stay conscious, his head falling between Renee’s bountiful breasts to close his eyes. Before falling asleep in a matter of seconds he stole her right arm to hold it over his chest rather intimately. Then fell back asleep as quickly as awakening. She held her other free hand up in a halting gesture. She then grabbed her gun, mixed up a gentle sedative from her lower back’s kit, grabbed the clear vial that ejected from a slide chamber, fed it in the backend of the titanium medic pistol and shot him in the neck. The needle was so thin there was no pain, but he wouldn’t wake anytime soon.
She sighed, pulled herself out from behind and got out of the container. Everyone quickly crossed back over and knelt around the open case.
But before anyone said anything something inside moved. Deegen was closest. They watched out of curiosity as some creature-like, tar colored object moved similar to a black slug and wrapped itself around his right wrist to change shape into some form of vambrace that covered skin from wrist to the curve joint of the elbow. Then suddenly, before anyone could react, a leech-like sucker shot unerringly in the center of Deegen’s forehead, latched a sucker for just a single second, retracted then stuck to the naked man’s forehead just as fast.
Deegen began to fall forward, but recovered before smashing his nose into the edge of the box. His thick arms caught him. Long dreads fell like a curtain over his face. “Whoa… head rush.�
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“You alright? Let me see.” Renee grabbed both sides of the man’s large head to find a minor ring barely a centimeter wide, as if hit by an octopus’ sucker. “Tell me what you are feeling and don’t downplay anything.”
“Like I said, a little lightheaded, but…”
“But…?” she prompted him to spit it out. A forceful slap on the cheek was ideal motivation.
“Like I just saw my entire life flash before my eyes. It was so fast I can’t be sure. And I’m a little tired, but not too much. I’m already better.”
“By the Stars, it’s an original multi-tool!” Stephanie gushed and pointed to the covering on his forearm. “There are only four known to have ever been discovered! I bet it just downloaded all Deegen’s words and associations and gave it to him. You saw how it stuck to his head after Deegen’s. I’m positive that was an ancient ability of it called a brain-hacker… It’s bound to him. It is a once in a lifetime find to find this. Oh my…” Her blue eyes caught another flicker by his foot and gasped again as soon as she recognized what she looked at. “A Star-saber!” she grabbed the hilt of the object and it stopped glowing as soon as it stopped touching him. It turned completely black, as if poured entirely from a mold. “This shape is a cutlass! And it’s marked to him. Look.” She touched one part of the pommel to his naked thigh and it seemed stars winkled randomly over its polished surface. “It’s also an original.”
“You think he’s a…” Renee prompted and Stephanie shook her head. “Not a chance. They died twenty five thousand years ago. It is extremely difficult to bond an original creation of theirs to us and really expensive. It can be done though. He can’t be one, you said it yourself, he’s human with a double helix. Theirs had many…”
Cutlass Sharpened Page 3