Full Fathom Five

Posted on Thu May 23rd, 2019 @ 7:29pm by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci & Stephen Spires

Mission: S1E3: Moments Of Consolidation
Location: Gastarox's Ship, Docked At The Sleepers Bazaar
Timeline: MD9 12.015AM

The two Reka escorting Spires and Mara were not the gentlest of souls put forth by creation. They were lead up from the cargo deck in what surely had been the crew decks of The Wind Queen. There were berths for officers which had been taken over by the Reka, who appeared to enjoy hammocks or were just very adventurous with their sleeping arrangements. One door was sealed, and judging by the discoloured dampness of the keypad it was Gasatrox's quarters.

With a cluck of disapproval, the Reka guided them along until they reached a room had large as the bunk room. Its walls were white, with inset storage cabinets and lights on hanging armatures that just sang medical. One-third of the room was cut off from view by a curtain. The two guards snapped something, and shoved them inside, before closing the door and locking them inside.

Mara angrily drove one balled up fist into the door after the stupid bird things had slammed it shut. "Damnit!" she shouted. "This makes absolutely no sense!"

"Sure it does," Stephen said in his stoic vigil of the locked door. "In the Wild West of the old American Frontier, the first rule of rustling livestock was to separate the weak from the strong. Whether it was a wild herd or some land baron's branded heads, the trick was to break the will of the stubborn ones, and the rest would follow. We were the ones who protested the loudest, so we have to be broken." He looked at Mara. "I'd like to promise I won't let them hurt you, principessa, but I think we both know we're past that point."

"I don't need your protection!" snapped Mara in reply. "And stop calling me that! It was never cute."

From beyond the curtained off area, a wheezing sound of laboured breathing could be heard.

Suddenly on guard, Mara turned towards the curtain and eyed it suspiciously. "Hello?" she said, voice tense.

"Mara?"

The voice of Captain Varken came from beyond the curtained off area, easily recognizable from the conversations they had shared in the 48 hours of their confinement. Through the vent had sounded distant, echoey, but that had been put down to form of communication he was using. In person, within the same room, his voice still had an odd cadence to it. As though each syllable was rising and falling on a great set of billows.

"There...is another with you?" He asked, a burbling breath interspacing his words.

"Sure sounds like it," Stephen said, unwilling to take his eyes away from the door. "Pull back the curtain and see."

A sound like water trying to force its way up through a broken drain came from beyond the curtain, a laughter track from Davey Jones recording studio.

"Unfortunately my current...circumstance makes me a poor host," Varken said.

"Yeah, well, we're all rather fucked at the moment, so I wouldn't sweat it, pal." Stephen shot a quick glance at Mara to see if she'd pulled back the curtain yet.

"But..." said Mara, moving slowly towards the curtain. "Why did they bring us to you?" she asked as she began moving the curtain aside.

With the curtain removed a scent filled the room, hidden beneath the strong antiseptic odour of bleaching agents. Stagnant water, or the overly briny tinge of a tide pool at the ebb of low tide. The tang of it in the air covering up a rotting odor.

Above the bed beyond the curtain, resting like chrome and plastic clad spider in the ceiling, was presumably the Auto-Doc, its many arms and sensors curled close. Swan-necked life support monitors beeped and whirred a steady stream of nonsensical data. And then there was the bed.

And atop the bed, the mortal remains of Captain Vakren.

If you squinted, the figure lying on the fold away biobed looked human shaped. Arms and legs, torso, and a head were all there. But when you focused on the individual parts, when you looked at the rest, you could swear your eyes were still blurring. Where flesh met the padded foam of the bed, there were rips and tears in the fabric where coral like protrusions had torn both skin and padding. His feet had flattered, seeming to lose the ability to keep themselves upright, and had spilled over the edge and down in a curtain of glistening tendrils that lazily curled in the air.

His left arm had vanished within a chitinous crust of rust red growth, clamping it over his chest like a lobster in repose. But his right still hung free, with puckering barnacle-like sores covering it from wrist to elbow, leaving a very human looking hand at the tip. His head was similarly enshrouded in random growths of shell, with fluted coral like piping making sucking and bellowing noise in time with the rise and fall of his chest. But a single eye remained, bright green and white rimmed, staring at the two of them. No mouth or nose could be seen, but along the back wall of the curtained surgical bay an armoured tendril of biomass had grown from the back of the biobed, inching up and up until it had found an air vent.

"Forgive me if I...don't get up, or offer you...my hand," Varken's voice did not arise from the livid tiger patterned shell of his head, but instead sang an odd duet from the air vent and from the coral growths from his throat.

"What... what happened to you?" Spires kept his distance. He'd seen enough reports of wild retroviruses from untamed frontier worlds to recognize an example of one. There was no way all of that was natural or even synthetically grafted. "Stay back," he said to Mara.

He needn’t have said anything, though; Mara had already taken three steps back, placing her nearly on top of Spires. Though guarded, her expression held unmistakable pity and sadness, as though she were at the funeral of a friend's father. She said nothing, though, only waited for his response.

"I apologise for my...circumstance. Usually, I can keep myself...regulated. But it has been...a very long time...since I was home," rasped the watery voice. Bioluminescent fronds like the eyes of a prawn arose from the conical spiral stalks of his neck, weaving back and forth in the air. "As long...as you keep back, I am not a danger. I have been spreading, directing...convincing it to crawl through the vents. I had hoped I would find...a power conduit....or steam pipe. Something..."

The free hand balled slowly into a fist, the barnacle-like growth along still human skin bursting with anemone-like fronds.

"But I...am a prisoner here. Gastarox cannot fly the skip without me. DNA biometric...he knows enough to keep my Rider fed and happy, but not enough to let grow quiescent again."

Stephen leaned sideways to whisper directly into Mara's ear. "I've seen some fucked up shit, but this takes the cake. How do we get out of here?"

"I haven't figured that out yet, your majesty," she whispered back mockingly. To Vakren, she said, "rider? I'm afraid we're not from anywhere near here. We don't know what you mean."

"Of course....of course, you don't..." Vakren wheezed, something clacking like claw's snapping deep within his chest as he tried to catch his breath. "Carcosia...my home would-"

The door opened into the medical bay, and a Reka stepped in with Gastarox slipping in behind.

"Ahh good, good. I see you have been getting to know one another, splendid. Splendid indeed," Gastarox said, and pointed at Mara. The Reka chuffed something deep in its chest, and stepped forward to take Mara's wrist. Lightweight the avianoid might be, but it was strong enough. As this happened, Gastarox stepped closer to Spires. "Now let us speak on the terms we will agree to abide by. No more of this prattling nonsense with the loyal honour guard. Its a practise the Shishimi favour to an extreme, but I doubt yours is functionally indestructible. Or maybe she is?"

"Shishimi?" Stephen quipped, "sounds like a plate of raw fish I had once in Kyoto back on Earth."

"Does your Shishimi talk to you the entire time it's being eaten? Prattling on about the table linens, the decor, the wine pairing?" Gastarox bellowed, as he reached into a pocket of his shabby overalls and pulled out a long pair of tongs. With it, he carefully picked up Varken's still human wrist and began to pull Mara towards it.

Mara panicked.

She only knew one thing that tended to stop an attacker in his tracks and that was to let out a blood curdling scream made louder and longer than most people could do because of her history of playing the saxophone. The scream went on for a full 30 seconds at full volume before she ran out of air. As she took another deep breath, she began struggling, kicking out with her legs and thrashing her head around, trying to connect with anything she could. She felt on foot connect with something- she didn’t know what- and continued to kick both feet repeatedly in that direction as she screamed again, just as loudly as before.

Spindly the Reka might be, but it was strong. It squawked at her flailing, but for the most part, it kept her where Gastarox needed her. That wasn't to say the Reka was having fun, as it did seem to have good ears that were being deafened. All the while Gastarox used the tongs to move Varkens limp wrist up to meet Mara's hand which he still held onto.

"Carcosian Rider's have a tendency to want out of their hosts prior to death, and they do go to some extreme means to ensure their own survival," he said, pulling Mara closer before looking at Spires. The barnacles piercing Varkens arm were growing tendrils, each tipped with a bright blue phosphorous tip like an eager eye. "Tell me? Is this female young? I don't know what a good broodmare looks like to your species, but her heart shouldn't fail."

Varken's mortal remains were emitting a chorus of curses and groans, all watered down and hacked through lungs like bellows and coral-like vocal cords.

Mara's screams turned from defensive to truly panicked. "Stop!" she screamed. "Stop! I'm- I'm acidic!"

"Excellent! I've always wanted to see how a Rider might react to a more acidic based host. And observation is the cornerstone of the scientific process," Gastarox said. One of the barnacles detached, leaving behind a sour looking felt on Varken's arm as tiny cilia moved it along his arm, towards Mara's hand. It then leapt, smacking into the back of her palm with surprising force. It seemed to flatten out a little, the glowing tendrils receding back into the armoured shell...

Then the burning back to start as the cilia began to worm and force their way into the back of her hand.

"Haa-aaahhh!"

The raging war cry was the only warning given. Stephen had vaulted off the wall to grab hold of a hanging light fixture, which he then used the bulk of his height to dislodge from the ceiling. In a gravity-assisted swing, Stephen brought the heavy metal armature down against the Reka's arms with a satisfying, bone-crunching snap.

"Mara!" Stephen shouted as he tackled the "disarmed" Reka and began pounding its skull with his fist.

"Clear--"

Punch.

"--your--"

Punch, punch.

"--hand!"

He closed both hands together into a hammerfist that dislodged two of the Reka's four eyes. "Ring-a-ding, birdbrain."

Mara pulled against the burning tentacles as hard as she could, hoping that she burned it as much as it burned her. Her legs continued to kick at the Reka- maybe it would weaken with repeated blows- and vowed at the top of her lungs that she would relieve Gastorox of his bowels and most of his blood at the earliest opportunity.

The barnacle fully dislodged from Varken's body, and now had ghostly blue tendrils wrapped around Mara's forearm and hand, the skin dimpling as they dug in for grip. The burning was intensifying and moving under her skin. Gastarox let her go, bellowing something as he turned to swipe his arm at Spires. A sound of chittering distress arose from outside the medical bay, as the other Reka felt the psychic echo of their fellow gettings its beak rung.

With a cry of triumph, Mara swung her now free burning hand and wrist at the Reka’s exposed neck. She had no idea if this strange tentacle creature could harm it, but it was the best she had at the moment. She kept striking it with her injured arm and kicking it with her legs which were still free. And this thing was just kind of standing there and taking it. She didn’t know what to make of that.

Leaving Mara to settle the Reka, Stephen grabbed the curtain that divided the room and twisted its corner as tightly as possible. And then he wrung it around the fat toad Gastorox's neck, or as close to it as possible. "Call off your harpies or so help me I will end you here and now."

"I! AM! AMPHIBIAN!" Gasatrox bellowed, trying to shake Spires loose. "I breath through my skin, you sapient hat rack! Do you know how much you've cost me for the death ward I'll need to pay out to this Reka fools!"

"Call them off or I'll solve all your debt problems here and now," Stephen said, tugging harder on the curtain. "Permanently." Maybe it wouldn't strangle the creature, but few creatures could survive sufficient constriction to the head.

"And what then!" Gasped Gastarox, if not having to breath causing his shortness of breath, then getting the air into his lungs to croak out a word. "You're in the Sleepers Bazaar, in the heart of The Mire! The Harbour Master will gut you and use your entrails to make a dozen of its Proctors! And that's if the Myriad don't grab you, or the Concordance conscript you with one of their propaganda viruses! You are trapped here! And-AK! And it is only my good graces that will see and your concubine live longer than a minute past my death!"

“Concubine?” spat Mara angrily and her struggles renewed in energy. “Concubine? I did not spend four years at the academy and graduate as a highly trained engineer to be called concubine by some trumped up twit who thinks he’s better than everyone! Let me go! I need to disembowel this horrendous excuse for a creature!”

There was, for a single, beautiful moment of time, perfect silence. It was the sort of sound that you wanted to put into a jar and cell at the farmers market, with a suitable fat markup.

"You...You..." Gastarox's head swiveled around nearly 180 degree's to look at Spires with an affronted gleam in his beady eyes, "You lied to me! You're not the leader of your people! You cad! You bounder! You!...YOU! YOU SPAWN SWALLOWING FOOL!"

Stephen sighed. "And here I thought you saw through that line back in the jungle. Maybe you aren't as smart as you think."

Gastarox said something wet and probably profane. And then Mara's chest made a sound, a little chirp of tones, followed by the steady live mic buzz of an open com badge. Something was in range, and a comms channel had been opened.

The steady stream of cursing and the kicking and flailing stopped. Mara was still for a moment, and then she said, "this is chief Ricci. Who's out there?"

=/\=" "Chief Ricci, this is Commander Jiang. The Resolute is inbound to your location. Please advise."=/\=

Continued In 'Marching Resolutely Into Danager'