Alien Gynecology
24 Oct 2017Kyndi the Badass Space Chick
Blackmount Orbital. Fed mining outpost. A shit station that refines shit ore, crewed by people with shit luck. 
At least, until the Pleiades became the front lines of a war that no one quite believes we're fighting. Now, the only metals that it's moving are ammo reloads and hull patches. People move with purpose here, unsmiling men and woman going about their tasks. The Feds are a minority in their own station. Grubby freelancers mix with uniformed Aegis spooks, working around a never-ending line of combat ships and resupply vessels alike. Blackmount is a refuge, a place for pilots to rest between sorties. But there's no rest to be had. The comms are inundated with reports of... them.
Thargoids. Even saying it in my head, the word sounds ridiculous, like they're some rubber-suited menace from a low-budget holovid. But that's what the old-timers called them, and that's the name that stuck. Aliens that until recently were the stuff of whispers and rumors, until they weren't. For some, they're a threat. For others, an opportunity.
I like to think that I fall in with the latter, but now I'm not so sure. There's no joy here. No camaraderie. No one knows anyone, with impromptu wings forming up outside the station and often coming back with fewer ships than they'd started with. It's not a war. It's a barroom brawl.
My expertise is in the fields of o-head, dick, and smuggling- but even I know that something's wrong. The men and women fighting this war aren't professionals. They aren't soldiers, and they aren't mercs either. They're a collection of lone wolves, forced to run as a pack, because-
Why, exactly?
Both the Imps and the Feds have soiled their britches and called it a day. Rumors abound as to why- a girl can't have a drink without hearing whispers of hushed-up combat aftermaths, elegant Gutamaya and angular Core Dynamics vessels alike floating dead in space. Even the capital ships aren't spared, it's said.
But that's not my concern. My contacts dangled a real healthy amount of creds to get me to come out here. It was safe work, they said. Away from the fighting. Not even smuggling, they assured me. Just collect the sample and do some legit courier work back into the Bubble. Easy-peasy, right?
Well, not exactly. Turns out that by "away from the fighting", they meant that I'd be near the fight, but not a part of it. By "collect the sample", they meant installing some kind of special limpet and performing the 'verse's cruelest pap smear. And by "legit courier work", they meant that the cargo I'd be hauling was the single juiciest item a pirate could get their grubby hands on.
Bet your ass they didn't drop those little tidbits until I was already here, too.
Apparently, some eggheads back in civilized space want Thargoid tissue samples to study. What's more, they want 'em live. That means cutting out the middleman- or in my case, middlewoman- and bringing the goods straight from the source. Be thankful, I'm told. The early couriers had their ships halfway eaten by these things before someone figured out that Thargoid shit is bad for you. The station is fitting those special cargo racks made of meta alloys to the Cool Under Pressure, but it's not like they're moneymakers for me. I can only haul four units of whatever the hell this probe thing is going to scrape from their hulls, and then it's on me to make the run back into civilized space.
The only good news is that I don't have to fight the damn things. No, that's the job of some roughneck schmucks who got roped into being the muscle. And muscle they are. Two Fer-de-Lances, a Vulture, and an Anaconda are all standing by to fire volleys of those new bug rockets at whatever we encounter that ain't human. I don't know them, and they don't know me. There's an impromptu briefing by the contact who assembled the team, followed by weary nods as the men and their crews trudge to their ships.
There's not a joke or stolen glance at my tits among them. That's when I started to catch on that I'm in the shit. Like, deep into the shit. I may or may not have needed a few puffs of o-head to calm my nerves while I was waiting for clearance from the tower. Then it was go-time.
Look, I'm not here to tell the same war story as a hundred other Commanders. We did our job, alright? We found one of those giant green flower things, I scanned it and fired the probe, and then I flew for my life as all hell broke loose. My shields didn't do jack shit and I barely made the sample scoop, but-
Jesus, Kyndi. Get it together.
It wasn't that the Thargoid looked strange. We've all seen the holos by now. Flower-shaped, organic-looking ships that dwarf most of what we have. A bulbous center that looks like a warning for ladies who don't take care of themselves. That didn't concern me. What did concern me were the noises they made. When they scanned us, when we maneuvered into position around them, and when the probe started doing its work. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Whenever one of the boys shot off a pedal, the thing screamed. I don't mean that metal rubbed against metal as the ship broke up. I mean that it let out a wail of pain that somehow traveled through the vacuum of space and into our ears. Real, tortured pain. And when it finally broke up...
Look- I know that I'm starting to sound like every other half-crazed spacer who comes back from the Pleiades. I get it. But I heard what I heard, and I saw what I saw. Four competent pilots barely won against the thing. One of the Ferdies bought a farm, thanks to that swarm of things that tore through its hull. The Vulture pilot got cocky and decided to snag some Thargoid goodies that were left over when the flower finally broke up. That green mist touched his ship, and we all had to listen to him scream and scream as it ate right through first the hull and then himself.
But you want to know the real dick in the ass about all this?
I don't think that we're fighting the real enemy. These things are coming at us one or two at a time. They're peaceful, too- unless we've got something of theirs stashed in our ships. And the look of them...
These ships are old. I'm no scientist, and I'm no engineer- but they're old, like how a person is when they age. Old and hesitant to open fire. I've seen what they can do. If whatever critters are flying those ships wanted to, they could waltz right up to Blackmount and blow the thing to pieces. But they haven't. Instead, they just keep passing through the Pleiades, brushing aside whatever human ships are sent to stop them. I'm no soldier, either- but even I know that if you're intent on crushing someone else, moseying through their territory and leaving assets intact isn't how you do it.
Transporting the sample will be easy. Evading pirates and rival couriers will be easy. What won't be easy is living with what I know, and hoping that my suspicions aren't correct. Ain't good onionhead or good dick that'll let me move on from this one anytime soon. It was my first Thargoid encounter, and if I can help it, it'll be my last. I should've learned to stay away from transporting anything xeno the first time I nearly bought a farm over one. Imps, Feds, Alliance- even Pilot's Fed; I'd bet my last credit that they're not telling us everything, and I'm through with being their pawn.
I've got enough on my plate without wrapping the whole damn thing in tinfoil.
