Organism Ch. 04

"You're a very beautiful woman, Samantha. I've always thought that," Rebecca finally admitted.

"Aww, you're sweet." Samantha spun around and sauntered up to her, backing Rebecca into a wall again. "You know...we never did get to finish our discussion earlier."

She swallowed back the lump in her throat. "Listen, I'm...incredibly flattered, Samantha. Really. I truly am. But I just don't think it's appropriate right now."

"Why not? It's not like we've got anything else going on. We're basically waiting until the Captain gets that door open, right?"

"Well, yes. But..." Rebecca shook her head, clearing the fog from her mind. "...Kevin is still missing. Doesn't that bother you?"

At that, Samantha frowned sourly and looked away, sighing in frustration. "Kevin...honestly, that asshole is the last person on my mind right now." Her expression became gloomy and downtrodden. "I don't know why I ever agreed to hook up with him. He was always so awful to me."

Rebecca gave her a worried look. "You didn't tell me that."

She shrugged woefully. "I've never been very good at opening up to people. Hell, half the time, I'm used to burying my feelings behind cheap, meaningless sex." Her eyes started to glass over. "The truth is I...I wanted to come talk to you about this sooner, but I was scared."

The communication officer placed a hand up to her chest. "You were?"

Samantha nodded, emotion welling up in her voice. "God, this is so embarrassing. I was trying to act all cool and confident, but I'm such a chickenshit about this sort of thing. I'm not used to actually having to open up to other people like this."

"But why now?" she gently asked, taking one of Samantha's hands in hers. "Why did you wait until now to do this, hun?"

Tears fell down her cheeks. "I don't know, okay? Kevin's gone. I thought it might be the perfect time, and..." Samantha wiped her eyes dry and gently pulled away from her. "...out of anyone on this ship, I thought I could trust you with this."

Rebecca's heart was hurting at that moment. She felt so guilty. All this time, she thought Samantha had lost her marbles. She had no idea she was harboring so much insecurity.

"I'm really sorry," she sniffled before turning away dejectedly. "I know I fucked this all up. I'll just leave you alone."

Samantha reached for the shower curtain when a hand suddenly grabbed her by the wrist.

"Wait..."

A devious little grin sprouted over her lips.

"Samantha, don't go," Rebecca insisted, now sounding incredibly guilty. "I'm sorry."

She immediately got back into character, turning around and sniffling. "You...you are?"

Rebecca wiped the tears from her eyes for her while pulling her back into the shower. "I had no idea you felt this way. God, I've never seen you like this before." She kissed her palm in an attempt to make it better. "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner, silly?"

Samantha laughed, sniffling again before rubbing her eyes while trying to smile. "Sorry, I just...it's been a really shitty couple of days, you know? I've been meaning to come to you with this for a while now, but...I just couldn't find the courage."

Rebecca smiled at her affectionately, cupping her cheek in her palm. "So, you're really sure you want this? Want me?"

Rather than respond, Samantha gripped her hand gently and intertwined their fingers together, staring into her eyes for a moment while she guided Rebecca's arms down to the swell of her ample backside.

"Can I show you something I'd never in a million years do with Kevin?" she requested, lust leaking back into her voice.

Rebecca nodded and shut her eyes as they leaned into one another and kissed. It was timid at first, little more than soft pecks at one another's lips. But before long, they were gripping each other tight, bodies pressed up against one another under the hot shower as they passionately made out. This went on for several minutes before Samantha finally pulled away.

"Wow..." Samantha spoke in quiet amazement, her cheeks flushed. "...I never realized how much softer a woman's lips could be."

She grinned at her impishly. "Pretty sweet, huh?"

They kissed again. Before long, Rebecca had her pressed up against the shower stall, kissing her beautiful lover playfully, rambunctiously, on her lips, face, neck, ears, and shoulders. Samantha laughed and threw her head back as she continued to ravage her, kissing along those amazing curves, sucking at her stiff brown nipples, feeling her belly and soft pubic hair against her face. The navigations officer's laughter soon turned to moans of arousal that were like honey to Rebecca's ears. She desperately needed to hear more of that sweet tone.

"Has Kevin ever gone down on you before?" she asked playfully.

Samantha bit her lower lip nervously and shook her head. It was hard to tell if she was flushed from the steam of the shower, embarrassment, or arousal, but Rebecca thought it was simply the most adorable thing.

"Alright, sit your sexy butt down on the floor over there," Rebecca insisted while pointing toward the wall of the shower. "I'm about to rock your world."

She eagerly slid down the wall of the shower, spreading her legs and smiling at her with lowered, lustful lids. Rebecca got down on her knees and kissed her lover again, leaving a trail down her neck, her breasts, and her belly before kissing along her inner thighs.

"Jesus, woman. You're killing me," Samantha insisted while shuddering in frustrated arousal.

Rebecca snickered up at her playfully. "Impatient, are we?" She gently spread Samantha's folds open with two fingers. "Fuck, you have such a gorgeous little pussy, hun."

Wasting no time, she started lapping at Samantha's clit, kissing her folds, making her moan and grunt and writhe for her all over again. She kissed both sides of her pussy, front to back, playfully nibbled at her gorgeous ass before parting her lips with her tongue, sliding it inside, and then back out, circling her pussy. She licked up to her clit, doing lovely circles there as well while sucking lightly. Her eyes shut, and her hands moved from her thighs to her ass. Meanwhile, Samantha's heels lifted up off the stone until she was on point as Rebecca sucked and licked her toward a screaming orgasm.

"Oh, God! Oh fuck, Rebecca! Oh shit, that feels so good! I...I..."

She opened her eyes just in time to see an evil grin and two glowing yellow reptilian orbs staring down at her.

"...I got you."

Samantha's vagina split open, and eight boney legs latched onto Rebecca's face. The communication officer's blood-curdling scream was muffled by the steelband-like thighs that wrapped around her head, holding her in place as she flailed in terror on the slippery wet shower floor. Her reptilian eyes closed as she tilted her head back and softly moaned in bliss, hands fondling her breasts as her belly muscles flexed, sending her baby down Rebecca's shrieking throat.

Slowly the host went limp in her vice, and the showers returned to silence, with not but the sound of running water swirling down the drain to be heard.

~~

Brooke was not in a good place mentally right now. That much she understood, at least. Chris wasn't handling the stress of Kevin's disappearance well, and she was moments away from betraying her lover's trust by snooping around on his PC. Try as she might to get these nagging doubts out of her mind, they'd dug in deep and begun to fester in her being.

Rather than let things go that far, however, she decided to take this festering feeling to her best friend instead.

"So, you think Chris might be cheating on you?" Jacob asked as if not quite believing it.

While they spoke, she paced back and forth anxiously. "No! Or...I mean... I don't know. Maybe?" Brooke growled in frustration, on the verge of pulling her own hair out. "God, I don't know!"

"Well, do you have any evidence?"

She shook her head. "No. It's more like a gut feeling I can't get to go away. He's shown both you and me he's capable of lying to our faces without flinching. What if...what if he's hiding something else?"

Jacob considered her words for a moment. "I mean, it seems to me like the only reason he's lied so far is to protect you. Sure, that's still not okay. But it doesn't equate to something as malicious as cheating, does it?"

Brooke turned away with a hand on her bicep and a worried frown on her face. He narrowed his gaze at her.

"Unless you have another example?"

After a moment to think, she sighed and turned back to him, taking a seat near the glass. "So...I never told you this story before..."

Jacob nodded in understanding, listening intently.

"About a year back, while we were drydocked, Chris and I were letting loose at the canteen after our last haul. Long story short, we got way too drunk and woke up with splitting hangovers the next day, completely missing our scheduled meeting with the fleet foreman."

"I take it he wasn't too happy with you?"

She shook her head. "Not even remotely. The foreman was going to write us both up when Chris looked this man dead in the eye and said..."

Brooke plastered on a set of sincere eyes and spoke in a soft, remorseful voice, imitating exactly how he did it.

"...I'm so sorry, Sir. But yesterday was the anniversary of my girlfriend's grandmother's death. She was a huge part of her life, and we always try to honor her memory as best we can. But we let it get a little too out of hand."

Jacob's mouth slowly fell open in disbelief. "And he said it exactly like that?"

She nodded. "I never really knew my grandmother. She died when I was a little girl. He pulled that story completely out of his ass and was so convincing the foreman let us both off the hook. I didn't think much of it at the time, but..." That look of concern returned to her eyes. "...knowing he's been hiding things from me, it's made me start to wonder."

After taking a moment to process this, he spoke again. "So what are you going to do?"

"What can I do? If I go snooping around in his messages without his knowledge, I'm basically saying I don't trust him. But...but..."

"But what if you find something?" Jacob finished for her.

There was a long moment where she didn't say anything. With a miserable groan, she buried her face in her hands, rubbing vigorously.

"I feel like I'm losing my damn mind, Jacob. I just...I need to get off this fucking ship."

He nodded in understanding. "I think we all feel that way right now."

She frowned up at him guiltily. "Christ, I can't imagine how this must be for you. It feels claustrophobic enough out here."

Jacob scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "It's been challenging. I won't lie." With a smile, he added. "But it's not all bad."

"It's not?"

He shook his head. "Sure, it's a little cramped, but the company more than makes up for it."

She smiled at him, her cheeks turning rosy. "That's way sweeter than I honestly deserve."

Tension built between them for a moment until Brooke decided to walk up to him and place her hand on the glass.

"Be honest with me...did I make the wrong choice?"

He seemed slightly surprised by her question. Brooke sighed in a melancholy tone before looking away from him.

"You and I have been friends for years. Any time I need your support, you've always given it without complaint or hesitation." She chuckled the more she thought about it. "For as long as I've been able to remember, you have always been there for me whenever I needed it. Sure, maybe you're a little quiet and reserved, but you're not afraid to call me out and be brutally honest with me for my own sake. You've...always been one hundred percent honest with me. Even if it was just because he was trying to protect me, Chris hasn't been."

He remained silent, allowing her to continue.

"Ever since I was forced to make that choice...between you or the crew...I've had this doubt in the back of my mind I just can't seem to let go of. When it was just us together taking on the galaxy, I was happy. But more than that, I felt safe, secure in the knowledge I was with someone I could trust." She frowned. "Then Chris blew into my life like a storm and swept me up off my feet. You claim he was the obvious choice between the two of you, and maybe at the time he was, but..."

Brooke gazed back at him sincerely.

"...but was he the right choice, Jacob?"

For the longest time, he said absolutely nothing. Finally, Jacob sighed and shook his head.

"I'm the wrong man to ask that, Brooke."

She looked away shamefully.

"You know how I feel about you. You've known for years. But the fact is, I was not your first choice. Chris was."

"But Jacob..."

"Just listen," he requested gently. "Do you remember what it was I told you? The day I first confessed I had these feelings for you?"

She nodded. "You told me that love was ultimately just a chemical, a biological compulsion we feel as mammals to mate and bond with other members of our species."

"I have regretted those words for the past three and a half years," he insisted. "Not because of what they meant, but because of what I ultimately failed to convey by saying them the way I did." He sighed at himself in frustration. "I made it sound like these feelings I have for you hold no meaning. Like they're just impulses brought about by physiological phenomena. But nothing could be further from the truth."

Her heart skipped, and her cheeks flared red. "Jacob..."

"What I failed to convey to you that day, Brooke, in my own awkwardness, my own lack of understanding regarding the way I felt, is that I believe that the emotion of love itself is ultimately meaningless. It truly is just a chemical and nothing more. One which is just as likely to be parasitic in nature as it can be symbiotic."

He took a deep breath and continued.

"However...I believe that what we do with the love we feel is what truly makes all the difference." He smiled at the ground, lost in thought. "Anyone could have come through my door that day bearing that charming smile of yours, and that in of itself would not have made the slightest bit of difference. Considering the man I was back then, I would have still felt that spark, I'm sure."

Slowly, he gazed back up at her.

"But only you were worth following this far. That was a choice I made long ago."

"Jacob..." She repeated his name, placing her hands over her quivering lip, her eyes glassing over.

"You think I'm still here because I secretly hope you'll one day leave him?" Emotion welled up in his voice as well. "That I still struggle with these feelings in my heart because I am bitter?" He shook his head vehemently. "I am still on this ship because the smile I see every time you look at him, every time he whispers something in your ear, means more to me than a chemical alone can possibly convey. Knowing that you have finally found the one man in your life who will make you happy...even if it isn't me."

Her voice hitched, and she shut her eyes tight.

"To me, Brooke Holloway, your happiness will always be the thing that matters most. Even as I am now."

What was there to say to this? How could she possibly hope to respond to something like that? After everything she had done, choosing Chris over him time and time again, nearly sacrificing him for the sake of the crew, in spite of it all, in spite of the countless times she placed him second in her life...

...in spite of this...he still loved her.

At that moment, the med bay intercom went off.

"Brooke...I need you back down on the mining deck right away."

Just by the tone of the Captain's voice, she could already tell something horrible had happened. A sinking feeling came over her as she looked up towards the ceiling and responded.

"Okay, but why?"

"We just found Kevin...he's dead."

~~

One thing the nurse could say for absolute certain, it was not a plasma torch, or a bolt thrower, or any of the other ideas Chris and Owen seemed to have regarding what killed their miner. Staring down at his bloodied body, inspecting the gaping wound in his chest, the answer here was plainly obvious, terrifying as it may have been.

"Something popped out of his body," Brooke finally declared in a harrowing voice; the other members of the crew huddled around her as she inspected the corpse.

Owen wiped the bead of sweat from his brow, a fearful look in his eyes. "Are you...are you sure about that?"

She nodded. "Positive. There's no indication this was done by a plasma tool, no disintegration injuries, no charing around the wound. And it wasn't from an ax or saw blade either." Brooke waved her hand around the gaping wound in his chest. "See the way the flesh is curved outward? This type of injury is consistent with a penetration exit wound. Only, there's no entry wound to go with it. The only logical explanation is that something forced its way out of his chest cavity."

"But what?" Chris insisted, a hint of anger welling up in his voice. He was not taking this news well at all.

She shrugged at him. "How should I know? I've never seen anything like this before, Chris."

"Yet you seem pretty certain with your diagnosis."

Brooke frowned at him angrily. "I'm just giving the explanation that makes the most sense. This wound..." She shook her head, horrified by the implications. "...it's not consistent with any kind of penetrating injury I've ever seen before."

Chris remained silent, still clearly in denial over what he was seeing.

"Occam's razor," she insisted. "When you eliminate all other variables, the simplest explanation becomes the correct one."

"Hey, Boss! Check this out!"

They turned to where Owen was standing. He was shining his flashlight on a long trail of blood that led to a ventilation duct near the ceiling. A hole roughly seven centimeters in diameter had been burrowed into the protective metal grate covering the vent.

"What do you think? I'd say that's a pretty consistent match for the hole in his chest," he observed nervously.

Chris swallowed the lump in his throat before gazing up at the ceiling. "Mira...how many lifeforms did you say were onboard this ship?"

"I can confirm eight lifeforms aboard the Cordoba, Captain."

"But how many living lifeforms?" he insisted.

"Eight."

He took a sharp breath. "Are you certain?"

"Confirmed."

"Mira, I asked for living lifeforms. What is..."

"Chris, stop!" Brooke cut him off, dread in her voice. "You can repeat yourself as many times as you want, her answer is not gonna change. There are currently eight living lifeforms on this ship."

"Tell me how that's possible when one of our crew is dead?" he growled at her severely.

She glared at him before looking up at the ceiling. "Mira, identify the morphology of the eight lifeforms aboard this vessel."

"Seven human. One unknown."

She nodded before looking at the Captain again. "Do you hear that? One unknown. Chris, just look around. The evidence is all over this room. You know exactly what happened here."

The Captain visibly blanched before muttering under his breath. "Fuck..." He paced back and forth for a second before knocking a tool rack on its side and shouting. "Fuck!"

Silence permeated the tool shed. None of them had a clue what to do about this. Finally, Chris spoke directly to Owen.

"I don't care what it takes or what you have to strip for parts. I want that camera footage," he commanded. "Go to the security room and get to work on it."

The engineer nodded in understanding. "I'll see what I can do."

Owen left, leaving Chris and Brooke by themselves to deal with the body.

"We have to tell the rest of the crew," she insisted.

The Captain didn't say a word.

"Chris, this is important. We need to..."

"Someone trapped him in here," he suddenly cut her off, severity in his voice. "And whoever they are, they're the ones responsible for this."