Rockhoppers Ch. 10

Abel Miller checks his console when the vacuum klaxon finally cuts off, but there's still no advisory that it's safe to leave his quarters. The scientist had immediately contacted his wife when the breach protocol activated. He knew she was safe only a few doors down in one of the emergency crash couches. Resisting the urge to contact her again in case she had been called to duty in medical, he checks the civilian scientist's informal bulletin system to see if anyone knew what was going on, but he just finds a mass of confusion and wild theories, each one more dire than the last.

"Dad, is it ok now?" His grown daughter, due to enter university a few weeks after the Widdershins is scheduled to return to port, pads in to the room in slippers and rumpled pajamas.

"Your Mom's fine, sweetie, but they haven't given the all-clear. The section's still under spin, so it can't be that bad. We have to stay here for now, why don't you try to go back to sleep?"

She nods and heads back to her bunk, yawning.

He watches the messages pile up on the bulletin board for a few more minutes, until he's interrupted by the door chime. The intercom comes on a moment later.

"It's me, Abe. You have to open the door from your side until they cancel the alert."

He jumps up and palms the release, and his wife steps inside. Wrapping her in a hug, he tells the top of her head, "I thought you might have been called up."

She squeezes him. "They can't. The breach isn't in our section, if there is one, and nothing gets past the bulkheads until engineering, environmental, and the bridge all key in the all-clear."

"I'm glad you made it home, but it wasn't safe leaving the couch."

She nods against his chest.. "I know. The couch could tell me there was atmosphere, though, and if... if something happened, I wanted us all together. A few other people were moving around, I saw Anna. I told her if there's no one in her quarters to let her in, she should come here."

Anna is one of the students doing a microgravity residency in medical. He doesn't remember who her assigned roommate is, but she won't be able to get in without someone inside authorizing it. The thinking is, that if there is a breach, it's better for someone to die in a corridor than to suffocate everyone in the quarters they enter.

"That's fine, why don't you check with her and make sure-"

He's interrupted by the entry chime.

"Nevermind. I guess she couldn't get in."

Palming the door again, he does find Anna just outside, although it takes him a moment to process it. She's lying on her back, the centrifugal force of the residential section's rotation providing the 'gravity' to keep her there. Her pants lie in a wadded clump against the far wall, and she's making little mewling noises as she masturbates.

Despite all of this, the bulk of Abel's attention is taken up by the short blue... thing, standing in front of her staring into his quarters with curiosity. It looks at his face briefly before proceeding to ignore him. Raising one hand, it places the tips of its fingers against his chest. It begins gently pushing until he steps back and to one side, allowing the alien to study the room it is entering. Intellectually, he knows he should be resisting, but that feels... wrongheaded.

He watches as it paces the few feet to where his wife is standing. Her attention is riveted on it, and when it reaches up and begins to pull steadily on a lock of her shoulder-length hair, she obligingly sinks to her knees. It touches the semi-hard length of its shaft, still wet with Anna and others before her.

It touches itself again, and touches his wife's lips. He watches, passively, as the woman who'd borne his child takes the alien in her mouth and begins to encourage it back to hardness with great enthusiasm. The only sounds in the room are the gentle beeps of his console as new messages appear on the bulletin board and the wet smacking of his wife's lips and tongue around the rapidly thickening penis of the intruder.

Once fully erect, the alien presses gently on her forehead, and she falls backwards easily, kicking off her pants and spreading her legs as it kneels between them. Abel listens to his wife moan as the blue creature sinks into her, and before long the rhythmic sounds of its hips slapping against her drown out his console.

Soon, it finishes, taking a moment to extract itself from the nearly insensate woman. She's reluctant to let her new lover go, but at its gentle urging she unwraps her legs and drops her clutching hands from its back. The alien stands up, ignoring her now that she's seeded, and glances around the room. It seems to sniff the air, and then looks at Abel and makes an interrogatory noise.

Abel walks across the room, the alien trailing him, and palms the door to his daughter's bunk. He can see her sleeping on her belly, covered by the the blanket her mother made for her when she was younger. The alien slips past him, and he watches as it pulls the blanket from her sleepy, confused form.

"D... dad?"

"Relax, sweetie."

Pressing one hand on her back for a moment, the alien helps convince her to remain lying down. She can't see it from her position, so she looks at her father instead. He watches as the intelligence in her eyes is dimmed by animal lust. The alien fumbles at her pajama bottoms for a moment, clothing being a concept it has only recently come to grips with. Finally it draws then down, exposing her smooth, firm buttocks, her hips already starting to make small pumping motions as the pheromone claims her.

It carefully crawls on top of her, its penis flopping to rest on the crack of her ass, leaving a moist trail of her mother's juices. Lying flat on top of her and slipping its arms around her chest in an intimate hug, it rests its cheek between her shoulder blades and begins to work its hips, rubbing against her as it brings itself to hardness once more. Finally, it draws back from her and lines its penis up with her inflamed vagina.

As it sinks its length into her, Abel idly notes how similar the noises of passion she makes are to those of her mother.

----

As the clangor of the breach alarms fades, Millie Carsens is already moving, leaving her quarters to try and get to engineering to help the Chief. Going over her mental map of the ship, she leaves the main corridor and pops a maintenance hatch, quickly descending two decks and popping out again near a bulkhead she knows will be monitored.

She stands in front of the massive door and waves at the camera mounted overhead.

"Hi, Millie."

"Oh, good, Jeff, it's you. I need to get to engineering, can you shepherd me through the locks?"

"I can't, Millie, you're in the hot zone."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't talk about it. Just... Millie, just find somewhere and hide. Don't open the door for anyone."

"You're scaring me, Jeff."

"You really, really should be. Now go and lock yourself in somewhere, and don't open the door for anyone until the Captain says something over the ship comm."

Millie looks over her shoulder nervously. She looks back up at the camera and considers arguing one more time, but she's known Jeff since basic, and that sounds like real fear in his voice. Fear for her.

Nodding at the lens, she turns and moves back up the corridor at a hurried walk. She's almost back to the maintenance access when she sees one of her neighbors trotting towards the bulkhead she'd just left.

"It won't let you through, Toshi. Jeff's on watch, and he wouldn't let me through."

He slows to a stop beside her, casting a worried look back in the direction he'd come from.

"What's going on back there?" she asks.

He turns back to her, his brow furrowed. With inhuman quickness, his hands shoot up to her face and begin squeezing the pressure points at the hinge of her jaw. Her lips pop open before she has a chance to register what's happening. By the time she starts to pull away from him, a torrent of black tar is leaping from his mouth into hers.

----

"How much of my ship is compromised?"

"The pheromone is present in three decks of the forward section. We believe the blue creatures are the source, Captain. We don't know if the black creatures have spread further. We do have footage of those taking control of several crewmembers, all of whom have attempted to subvert the breach protocol. The, um, infested seem to have all of their previous knowledge.

"As far as we've been able to determine, the aliens aren't trying to bore through the bulkheads l they did the hull. We don't know why, but we suspect the action is costly in some way. From what we've been able to determine, the hull was compromised by chemical attack."

"Do you have some means of tracking the spiders like you can the blue ones?"

"Negative. We know that medical nanites can clear an infested human, but we have no way to manufacture enough of them to flood that volume of atmosphere with the density we'd need."

"Keep working on ideas, Lieutenant. I cannot permit this ship to move inside of Neptune's orbit until I can be absolutely certain no trace of the aliens remain."

"Yes, Captain."

Toggling to a different channel, the captain says, "Chief, report."

"Not good, Captain. I've been watching the system attacks the converted crew have been trying, and most of it is laughable. But in the last ten minutes the sophistication has jumped a thousandfold. I think... they may have my number two."

"Carsens?"

"Yeah, Millie. That's a big problem, Captain. I can slow her down, but she's an order of magnitude better at software than anyone else on this ship. I came up through reactor engineering, but she's a transfer from AI architecture."

"What does this mean for us?"

"Well, it puts a clock on things. The nature of the breach protocol prevents her from disabling it all over the ship, as long as you, me and environmental have the keys. The bulkheads can be taken one at a time, though. Each one will take her a good long bit, but she can do it from anywhere in the ship. I can't even tell who she's logged in as, it's possible she's rotating. She'll know that, and she'll know we'll start looking for her. Engineering is the part of the ship furthest from the compromised area, so she'll get here last no matter what route she takes."

"Recommendations?"

The engineer is silent for a time.

"If they take environmental, I suggest we scuttle the ship. If they take the bridge, I'm going to scuttle the ship with your permission or without it."

It's the captain's turn to think before speaking.

"Can you still operate the bulkheads in the clean part of the ship?"

"Yeah."

"I'm going to send the Admiral to you. Get her to engineering, and keep her with you. Environmental is trying to come up with some sort of solution to the infested humans, and the remaining marines are suited up. Their filtration systems should make dealing with our blue visitors no issue. Still, if the time comes, do what you need to. And, Chief..."

"Yes, sir?"

"Be thorough."

"Understood."

The captain turns to face his superior. "I don't mean to be peremptory..."

She waves a hand dismissively. "I'm on my way."

The old woman moves with alacrity to exit the bridge. The Captain points at the two marines stationed by the exit, and they turn to follow her. He turns back to the updating status reports on his console and watches as the Widdershins is slowly consumed.

----

"Hey, Carl."

"Yeah, Chief?"

"You have any luck with the systems of that miner on the surface?"

"Nah. I mean,we got in, but nothing is functional down there any more. I could probably stop the reactor, but there's no real point."

"Hmm."

Carlos is quiet for a time as he uses his console to do a little math. He keys the bridge.

"Captain?"

The strain on the ship's commanding officer is in his voice, "What is it, Chief?"

"I may have a way to get word of what's happening back to the UNS. It won't be in time to help us, but at least they'll know what happened."

"Do you need anything from me but permission?"

"Yeah, I need the behemoths."

The Captain is quiet for a moment. "They couldn't help us in here anyway, they can't fit inside the ship. They're yours. Do what you can."

Carlos begins to answer, but the captain has already cut the channel.

"You know bots, right, Carl?"

"You bet, grew up on a miner. What's up?"

"Come on, we're gonna go turn on some friends."

----

- I am awake. -

"You know who I am?"

- Chief Engineer Carlos Zink, Widdershins. You have command authority. -

"Assimilate the information store waiting in your queue."

- Assimilated. -

"Can it be done?"

- Barring unforeseen events. -

"Fine. I'm going to upload you now. Once you have bodies, execute."

- Understood. -

"One last thing. When it fires, I want one of you inside it."

- Understood. -

----

Near the planetward tip of the Widdershins, just behind one of the main weapon clusters, four panels lie flush with the hull of the ship. At a command from engineering, explosive bolts fastening them to the vessel detonate. The panels hurtle into the void in clouds of shimmering ice vapor as the atmosphere they protected vents to vacuum. Tenths of a second later four projectiles launch out of formerly concealed tubes.

As they leave the immediate vicinity of the ship, they begin to generate puffs of corrective thrust, until all four are in near-miss vectors with the derelict mining vessel on the surface. A few tens of seconds after they launch, they slam into the surface of the planetoid, raising a drifting fog of gravel and dust that will float in microgravity for hours. Out of the hanging cloud advance four massive humanoid figures, the enormous gripping claws of their feet easily finding purchase on the surface of the planetoid.

Each UNS Behemoth-class assault drone tops eight meters in height, almost as wide as they are tall. They bristle with a dazzling array of weaponry, from dumb projectiles to multiphase lasers to quasi-Turing-compliant clustermissiles capable of transmitting insults before they detonate on target. Their feet are nightmarish tripedal claws, capable of piercing the armored hull of enemy ships for traction or providing enough thrust from inbuilt rockets to nudge small starships off course.

Complex, multi-jointed fingers tip the thicker columns of their arms. Each of the five digits is arranged in an even circle around a palm bulbous with concealed tools. Each finger opposes at least two others and can change surface texture to a limited degree, maximizing grip versatility. The headless torso is dotted with redundant sensors, providing a full sphere of visibility into spectra most humans have never heard of.

Deep inside each of the terrible hulks float the tiny crystal spheres that house the AI persona that Carlos has uploaded into the drones, suspended by thousands of nanofilaments and maintained at temperatures below thirty Kelvin. Though slightly dim by the standards of a modern station AI like Galileo, these four are clones of the same template, designed by AI assisted UNS programming experts to act as a tactical specialist. The goal the monsters have been assigned by the Widdershins' chief engineer is well below their capabilities, assuming certain factors, but it's not within their remit to grouse (out loud) about the lack of hostile action.

As they survey the area, conversation between them is kept secure by line of sight lasers. After the briefest pause for assessment, two of them head for the terminus of the abandoned mining rail, one of them for the fusion spigots surrounded by quiescent spider-drones, and one towards the nose of the derelict.

In comically short order, unlocked by the accesses Josh had provided the UNS in his message, spiderbots that have not shifted in decades are grinding into action. They swarm at the behest of the behemoth crouched in their midst. Some it retains for its own purposes, the others it directs to assist its brothers by the terminus. Once it has dispatched its tiny brethren, it rises. Moving underneath the derelict, it approaches what the spider-drones have indicated it would find: a pile of iron slugs, crafted before the Rockhopper had begun its final flight, but after the infested Captain had ordered the disconnection of the rail.

Each fifteen meter long slug is more massive by far than even the titanic assault drone, but in the microgravity it has no issue clamping on to one of them and slowly shifting it away from its comrades. Maneuvering the giant metal pill out from underneath the ship, it takes station next to one of the fusion spigots leading to the final functioning reactor of the Rockhopper. Setting the slug into an angled furrow on the surface created by a small squad of the newly reawakened spiderbots, it cocks one massive arm and begins extruding a cable from what might be called an elbow on a human.

Attaching the adaptive tip of the cable to the Rockhopper's fusion spigot, it holds up the hand of the same arm. The blister in the middle of its palm retracts, revealing a cluster of tools. From their midst a black bulb pushes itself up. Gripping it between two fingers of the opposing hand, the behemoth pulls, revealing a long, thin wire. Looping it with level precision around one end of the slug, it begins drawing on the full capacity of the ship's reactor. As the wire begins to emit a hellish glow, the assault drone begins to haul backwards.

The thread begins to sink through the iron, and the behemoth continues to tighten the infernal garrote until two meters of the slug is separated, and begins to drift to the surface of the planetoid. Several small spiderbots latch on to the severed end and pull it away from the bulk of the iron. Using much smaller torches and an array of burs and metal saws, they begin the fine work on the tailing. Meanwhile, their larger cousin shifts the rest of the slug to a new position.

Pausing to rewind the garrote, it extends its hands. Three adjacent fingers on each snug in closely to one another. Their tips shift and become smooth, terminating in a fairly blunt edge. The extra fingers fold backwards, out of the way, and the behemoth is left with a pair of scoops at the end of each arm. Drawing once more on the derelict's fusion plant, the hard edges of the spades begin to glow. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, the superheated and superhard alloy of the assault drone's claws begin to gouge out larger and larger chunks of the simple iron, soft by comparison.

This takes the better part of an hour, with frequent pauses to use a different tool to apply a mist of liquid nitrogen to the hollow it is carving, helping shed built up heat from the carving. Eventually the slug is almost entirely hollowed out, leaving a relatively thin wall of iron only quarter of a meter thick. The interior is rough with cooling claw marks.

The assault drone steps back as its assistant spiderbots swarm into the slug to take care of the fine work. In another thirty minutes, the interior is mirror smooth, except close to the lip, where the spiders have created threads to match the work they'd done on the cap. As they evacuate the slug, the behemoth grips the cap and guides it into place, screwing it down to verify the seal. In under two hours, it has turned the solid iron slug into a hollow, resealable capsule. It's also airtight, but that hardly matters, as it would be closed in vacuum, and none of the payload requires atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the drone approaching the front of the Rockhopper has reached the are of the hull just outside the mining ship's tiny bridge. Glancing through the viewport to verify the layout, it begins to shred its way through the hull. The miner was a sturdy craft, but the assault drone had been designed to chew through meters of hull on heavily armored warships, and in under a minute it has pried open the bridge like a tin can.