Octopodded Ch. 03

The dockmaster's crew had no time to understand what was happening before they were overrun. Trotting down the ramp, octopus spawn sprung from podded humanoids, leaping onto unaware human bodies.

One of dock workers tried to smash an attacking octopus with his clipboard, but missed, getting tangled up in its arms. A second octopus soon found his head, crunching its way into his brain.

The more aware workers fled towards the doors while the podded humanoids chased them. There were two hatches on either side at the rear of the shuttle bay, with a reinforced bunker built between. The workers split up as they neared the bunker, trying to reach the closest exit.

A lurid red light lit around the periphery of the hatches, reinforced blast doors dropping. The workers panicked, pounding futilely against the reinforced metal. Some of them turned around, screaming as octopuses leaped onto their bodies. Others sobbed, accepting the inevitable as octopus arms wound their way around their heads.

In a matter of moments, they were all under Mistress' control. Rosanna was pleased at their efficiency. She looked at the bunker and frowned. What she wasn't pleased at was the man sitting at the control console, speaking rapidly into his comm unit.

The dock master must have been on duty in the control room, and had reacted quickly. The doors to the bunker were locked as well. She looked up, focusing on a metal hatch built into the wall.

Whuffing, she gestured to another humanoid, who came to assist her. The second humanoid leaned over to crouch on the ground, on all fours. Rosanna stepped onto her body, flexing her taloned toes to get a good grip.

Her octopus arms attacked the grate, squeezing through the gaps and attaching with their suckers. With one big jerk, it came off in her hands. She tossed it to the side, looking at the dark interior. She wasn't sure where this led, but it was probably connected to the bunker in some fashion. There were likely baffles that closed if the shuttle bay was vented, but if she could get her spawn far enough inside before that happened, it wouldn't matter.

She reached up for the two octopuses which sat on her shoulders, her first two children. Tugging gently, they came off, wrapping their arms around the palms of her hands. She placed them in the vent, spreading her fingers. Whistling at them, they chirped back at her, unfolding their arms and scurrying into the vent. She wished them well, and hoped that they would find useful prey.

Hopping off her makeshift step ladder, she looked out over the bay to see other humanoids unloading the shuttle. They had borrowed some of the repulsor lifts sitting around the bay, maneuvering around the maintenance pits to carry out the crates, stacking them in a neat rectangle on the floor.

Another set of Tentacles walked up to the ventilation shaft and sent their cargo into the vent, octopus arms fighting each other as they scrambled inside. This left the two humanoids nude, naked. Without their spawn, they could assist to hold down potential prey, but could not enslave them. Rosanna shivered at the thought of being without her octopus helpers in this hostile environment.

Motion caught her eye. She peered through the reinforced glass of the control room, trying to figure out why the dock master had abandoned his desk. Standing up, he was looking towards the rear of the room. She couldn't hear anything from inside the bunker, but she could see his lips stretch in a scream right before reddish arms wrapped themselves around his head.

Her eye bright, she watched as one of her spawn wrapped him up like a present, claiming his head for its own. The bulbous top of the octopus flipped into the proper position, its eye winking at her. The dock master dropped as if his strings had been cut. Rosanna grinned. If he had been smart, he would have dropped the forcefield holding the oxygen inside the shuttle bay. The vacuum of space would have made quick work of the invasion party before they could secure a foothold.

It was probably the misguided thought that he could save his crew mates. Feeling safe inside his bunker, he could wait for further commands without taking action himself. He was paralyzed due to a perceived lack of authority. Bad for him, but good for Mistress.

Sally walked down the ramp of the shuttle, a repulsor lift following behind her with a larger crate than the ones that held the flowers.

Rosanna stood waiting for orders with the other Tentacles, who were scattered over the shuttle bay. Some of them were still trying to find a way out of the main hatches, while others were investigating more vents. More octopus spawn were sent into the vents, in the hopes that they would be able to infiltrate the ship further. She was glad her small friends were so mobile. She certainly wouldn't be able to fit into one of the vents herself!

The doors to the bunker shifted, cycling open. The dock master must now be under Her control. Would he also unlock the doors to the shuttle bay? No, they were still shut, locked and secured. They weren't getting out that way.

Loudspeakers crackled to life. "This is the captain speaking," declared Roger. "Intruders in shuttle bay 2C, we have you surrounded. Give up now or we will be forced to space you. You have five minutes."

Sally stepped forward confidently. "We'll just see about that," she murmured.

She lifted a finger at Rosanna, who followed her into the bunker along with the repulsorlift, which carried the crate behind them like a puppy. She glanced over the rectangular box, curious. She was suspicious that whatever was in the crate, it wasn't more flowers.

The interior of the bunker was small, filled with equipment for operation of the bay. One end had a tracking radar with an arrival board and traction beam controls. The other had a top down camera view of the bay for positioning shuttles on landing pads. The rear of the room was filled with racks of computing equipment, a door leading back farther into a small bathroom.

The dock master was sitting at his chair, a small amount of drool leaking from his mouth. He moved to the side as Sally approached, giving her access to the communication console. She pressed the red button for direct bridge access. "This is Sally, on shuttle deck 2C, calling the captain."

Rosanna looked at her, baffled. That was tantamount to declaring that Sally was with the invaders. There would be no cloak and dagger here, she was putting it right out in the open. What was her plan?

The comm crackled, the voice of Roger intense. "I don't know who you are," declared the captain, "but you are not my security chief."

Sally laughed, amused. "Of course I'm Sally. But I'm also more." Her tone modulated, Sally's voice overlaid with the voice patterns of something more ancient and cold. "I have been here for a millennia, biding in peace, until the Dry came. They deemed my planet unsuitable for human life, then with audacity, decided to change it. They never checked the oceans to see if they were already occupied."

Sally leaned over the console, her voice sinking ever deeper. Her face turned blue, as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean. Rosanna shivered, feeling an ancient presence filling the room.

"No, they added foreign sea life that I had never seen before. At first, I accommodated their presence, but my attempts to reason with the sea creatures known as sharks all failed. My children were eaten. I could not contain my rage. I was forced to wipe them out and turn my attentions to land. I found that my world had been infested with bipeds who delighted in killing my spawn for sport."

Sally sighed. "Too many of my children have been wiped out by the Dry. I will not allow it to continue."

"Now listen here," replied the captain. "I have no idea what went before, and that isn't my responsibility. Now that you're here, perhaps we can negotiate a truce and start a peace conference."

"No, Captain, you listen here." She turned to the crate on the repulsor and lifted the lid open, revealing a miniature fusion bomb. "You sent your landing party not in peace, but as an act of war. If this bomb had been planted as you had intended, I would have been destroyed along with a large chunk of my planet. There can be no peace."

She paused. "If you vent this shuttle bay, I will detonate this bomb. Me, you, and everyone in this ship will be obliterated in the heat of a miniature star. If you don't want that to happen, you'll have to find another way to stop us. Sally, out."

The heavy influence of Mistress left her face, and Sally turned to look at Rosanna. "That won't hold him for long," she stated in her normal voice. "We need to hurry before he comes up with another viable option, or he decides that self destruction is preferable to being captured."

She sighed. "He's sure to have enforced the lockdown. He's probably targeting this shuttle bay as well as any surrounding compartments, giving him time to ready an assault force to retake the bay."

Rosanna nodded. She was itching all over, desperate to get out of the shuttle bay. Her mouth hole worked, chirping as she communicated with her Mistress.

"The maintenance tunnels? Yes, that's an excellent idea." She walked over to the bomb. "We'll leave a surprise behind for anyone who attacks the shuttle bay. We don't want to leave them any toys to play with, however."

She twisted the key on the bomb and pocketed it. "There, at least we won't make it easy for them to blow us all up."

She turned to Rosanna. "Let's go get some exercise."

***

"Doctor, I'm really not certain this is a good idea." His nurse assistant carried a tray of hypodermic needles over to the doctor's lab table, where he was adjusting his microscope.

Brent made an exasperated noise. "Of course it isn't, Hope, but I'm under orders."

He grunted, looking into the microscope. "Octopuses are very interesting creatures," he continued as an aside.

"Beyond their amazing regeneration properties, did you know that they evolved a camera type eye, very similar to that of a human? It's remarkable that both our species ended up with almost the same type of sensing organ."

Grabbing a syringe, he injected the organic matter isolated on his plate. "And now, we need to find a way to kill them."

He watched the internal structure of the octopus arm dissolve with satisfaction.

He turned to his assistant. "Contact poison, deadly to cephalopods. I knew we had something on record that would work. If the captain could give us more time, I could make an aerosolized version."

A clunking noise rattled above them, in the drop ceiling. Hope looked around, her eyes landing on the ventilation grate. The metal bulged out at the bottom. "What in the hell?"

"Stand back," ordered the doctor.

He picked up the autoinjector from the table beside him and started filling it with a small glass bottle of the poison. "Just a moment, he murmured. I can't rush this."

Hope screamed as the vent grate popped off onto the floor with a crash, a reddish octopus leaping out to land on her face. She sputtered, gurgling as her mouth was filled with a probing tentacle.

Brent wrestled with the injector, flipping the filling receptacle shut. "There, it's ready!" he declared.

His assistant groaned, trying to remove the octopus arms which had wrapped around her neck. The doctor ran up to her and jabbed the injector into its fleshy body, next to its eye.

The eye rolled, a black stain floating up through its sclera. Brent didn't let up, ensuring that the creature got a full dosage of the poison. Blackness pumped throughout its body, its triple hearts helping to speed it to its doom.

Its limbs relaxed, rubbery arms going limp. The eye shuttered, its body looking pale. Hope pulled hard, removing the bulk of the creature from her face. She flung it across the room, its body smashing against a desk. It turned black as it continued to deteriorate, limbs resting limply on the table.

The doctor blinked, looking at his buxom assistant trapped between his legs, suddenly shy. "Well, I didn't expect... I guess that worked," he stammered, a blush suffusing his neck.

Hope rested for a moment, but her eyes widened. "Doctor, look out!" she exclaimed, just in time for a second octopus to land on his head.

This one wasn't messing around, strangling him before he had a chance to react. He raised his arms to his neck, reflexively trying to pry the arms away without success. In his fear, he had stupidly dropped the injector onto the floor. "Get it!" he hacked, impotently trying to reach for the device.

Hope tried to be helpful, but her attempts to pick up the device interfered with the doctor's. Their hands tangled with each other, clumsily knocking the injector away, causing it to slide into a corner.

Brent's vision went red, a loud crunching noise coming from his skull. The last thing he saw as a free human was a third octopus crawling along the table behind Hope.

***

"I just got orders through my slate!" exclaimed Hank.

All other means of communication were being jammed, in a bid to stop the alien invaders from communicating with each other. Hank thought that was a stupid plan, as he didn't think aliens would know how to use human communicators. The aliens were probably as dumb as a piece of putty, too, but nobody had asked his opinion.

Paul rolled his eyes. "Spare me the questionnaire, what are they?"

Paul was seated on the opposite end of their shared desk, a console splitting the distance between them. Their compartment housed the master controls for the air conditioning, pressurization, and water systems. Plumbing took up most of the usable area, leaving them a small section for their work area, as if it was an afterthought.

Hank peered at his tablet, squinting. He could barely make out the words, cracks in the display from the last time he had dropped it on the floor. He smeared a finger over the glass, trying to make the text larger, but failing due to the grease on his fingers.

He grabbed a chip with his right hand, crunching down and savoring the sharp flavor that popped in his mouth. He brought the tablet closer. "He wants us to stop all the circulation pumps on deck twelve and open the drain valves." He looked at Paul, a stupid grin on his face.

"Why, what's on deck twelve?"

"A shuttle bay full of aliens, dummy. Haven't you been paying attention?"

Hank shot him a dirty look. "You don't have to tell me about no aliens, Paul, I can smell them from a mile away."

He stuck his nose in the air, as if he was a bloodhound. He snuffled with great, big breaths, his brow furrowed. "That's odd, I'm smelling aliens now. Do you have a pet alien?"

Paul growled with frustration, holding out his hands for the tablet. "Just give me that, would you?"

He scanned the orders, eyes widening. "If we do this, exactly as asked, we won't be able to use that section for a week! We don't have the spare air to refill it from reserves, and one of the air compressors is down for maintenance! We won't have enough air to breath ourselves!"

Hank looked at him, obstinate. "It's an order, though. Don't we have to follow orders?"

Paul looked farther down. "Shit, you could have mentioned the second part. Take your hand off those controls, we're on standby until the assault team calls for us. Prepare for decompression, but don't execute. If we do this too soon, the assault team will have a hell of a time getting through to that section. You got that through your thick skull?"

Hank nodded up and down slowly. "I understand, Paul. I'm not thick." His lower lip trembled.

"Shit," said Paul again, frustrated at dealing with his fat partner. "I apologize, I'm under major stress from this alien fucking invasion here."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "You know what, sit tight, I'll prep these orders. It'll give me something to do before the end of the galaxy comes."

Hank passed him the tablet and sat back down, crunching another chip between his thick lips, bulging eyes staring straight ahead. "It still smells like aliens," he mumbled.

Paul ignored his griping, turning to punch commands into his console. Hank took the opportunity to open his desk drawer, calculating out how long the snacks he had stockpiled would last him in an emergency situation. Not long enough.

He sighed, crunching his last chip with a teary goodbye, wiping the crumbs off his deck with a thick hand. "I'm going to hit up the vending machine," he declared, standing and waddling to the entrance. "Do you want something?"

Paul groaned, waving a hand at him. "Please don't bother me, I don't want to kill us all."

Hank chuckled. That Paul was always kidding him. He slapped his hand on the door latch, unsurprised to find that it wasn't obeying his open command. This was a pretty common occurrence in their 'office.' For systems that were deemed critical, their work area certainly didn't seem to be high on the maintenance to-do list. As long as people continued breathing and drinking, nobody cared.

To be quite frank, he didn't either. He was quite happy to hide away in his rabbit hole and eat snacks, even if Paul was a bit high strung for the job.

He reached to the side and worked the manual override, pumping the system until it was pressurized enough to jerk the door open.

He took a few steps out, the red lights that dotted the ceiling looking out of place. The ship hadn't had emergencies all that often, just short drills. Everything appeared in order, so he proceeded down the hall, looking for the familiar blue rectangle of the vending machine.

It twinkled at him, a friendly tune informing him that the galaxy's favorite chip was the 'Snacker Cracker.'

He nodded along with the jingle, singing as it reached the last phrase. "It snaps, it cracks, it helps you relax! Just don't let your partner stare, or you'll find our crumbs in your hair!"

Digging in his pocket, he pulled out his cred chip, shoving it into the payment slot. He typed 'A5' on the buttons, rubbing his hands together in glee. A happy little chime sounded on the vending machine. A small box above the payment slot was scrolling text.

He leaned over to get a better look. "Congratulations!" it said. "You're a winner!"

Something wet slapped him on the back of his head and he lost his balance. He fell forward and smashed his forehead into the machine, the polycarbonate absorbing the blow with a low thunk.

He blacked out for a moment, forgetting why he was there or who he was. A cool presence lurked in the back of his mind as he stood up.

The machine was chirping. "Winner, winner!" it declared, bag after bag of chips dropping from the dispenser. He reached inside and grabbed a handful of them, wondering if Paul would like to share one with him.

He never had in the past, but sharing was caring. More thoughts bubbled up inside his brain. He felt supercharged, a new understanding unfolding inside a mind that had been unable to think very much over the years. It was enlightening to understand all the social queues he had missed, the poor decisions he had made.

The realizations would have weighed him down, but with cool logic he realized that the past didn't matter. What mattered was what he did with the future.

He turned and nodded at the red female humanoid standing next to him. She watched Hank with her eye as he moved his large bulk carefully to avoid pushing her aside.

He would have remarked on her presence, but his new mind accepted that she was there to help them. She would help all of them to understand better.

He trundled back to the office, determined to make it up to Paul. He had been working so hard lately, he deserved a snack. Brushing into the room, he spotted his coworker, who was busy programming the console, his head down.