John's body ached, and he couldn't move. He also thought that he was hearing things as people were talking. More important, though, was that he felt heavy and was somewhere with gravity. John tried to open his eyes, but they didn't respond. He then tried to move his arms, fingers, and toes. He even tried to clench his bum, but that didn't work either.
"Can you hear me?" a female voice asked. John tried to talk, but his mouth wouldn't move. He heard a beeping sound near his right ear, "try talking now," the female voice suggested.
"Where am I?" he croaked. His mouth was dry.
"Drink this," said the female voice. John heard it to his left. What felt like a straw touched his mouth, and a cold liquid poured in. When he started to choke, the straw withdrew, and then he felt something cool and soft touching his lips. "Sorry," the unknown speaker apologised.
"Where am I?" he asked again.
"You are in Medical," the female voice replied. John was confused. The last thing he remembered was getting into his stasis pod.
"Why can't I open my eyes or move my body?" he inquired. His jaw ached each time he spoke.
"I have disabled your brain's ability to control your body, and you have been in stasis for a long time," as she finished, John felt his heart race. A hundred different thoughts raced through his mind.
"Try not to get scared and calm yourself," there was a hint of concern in her voice. "Once I am sure your body has recovered, I will give back control to your brain," as she finished, John could hear another series of beeps to his right. "There, try opening your eyes. My scans suggest that they should have recovered by now," as she finished, John tried to open them.
At first, even trying to open his eyelids seemed to take more effort than it should. "What? I can't see!" he cried. All John could see was darkness. He felt something cool touch his face.
"Try and calm down. The blindness is temporary." Shortly after the female voice stopped, John saw specks of light appear at the centre of his vision. Unable to move his head, all he could do was lay there and watch his vision return. When he could finally see again, John only saw white walls and a ceiling.
"Am I inside something?" John asked.
"Yes and no," came the reply, "you are laying on a specialised medical bed, normally used to treat crew members who have suffered critical injuries. However," John heard a different set of beeps as the female voice continued, "I can set up a quarantine shield around the bed," an opening appeared above John and from the darkness inside, a mechanical arm descended. He tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond. "Calm down, it is just going to project a hologram," the female voice said calmly. John watched the arm stop just above his head and then retract slightly. A green light appeared at the end of the arm, and then it began to hum.
Projected a foot above his face was an image of a large room with what John assumed were several large medical beds. Each appeared waist-high, laying horizontally and attached to the floor in the centre. They were all an off-white colour, perhaps made of metal. It looked like each bed had a black pillow at one end. In the centre of the room, as long and wide as the other medical beds, was a plastic-looking wall that curved at both ends.
"Am I inside the one in the middle?" John inquired.
"Yes," came the reply, "the wall you see keeps you safe from anything that might harm you," she finished and then the beeps from before appeared again, and then the hologram disappeared.
"Wait!" John called out, "Can you leave that on?" His request had too much desperation to it than he had wanted. Before the arm could disappear, there were a series of beeps, and it returned, powering up; it projected the image of Medical again.
"Is this better?" the voice asked.
"Yes, thank you," John replied.
"I think you have had enough stress for now. I am going to put you to sleep for a few hours," John felt something travel up his arm, "when you are awake again, we will see how your body has progressed," as she finished talking, his vision disappeared.
*****
Captain Ema, Matriarch Theka, Lieutenant Ena, and several bridge officers stood around the Tactical Display Table. Projected in front of them was a live feed from Medical. They could see the whole room with Doctor Mizta sitting at her desk, the empty medical beds around the room's edges, and the quarantined bed in the middle.
"Can we see inside?" the Lieutenant asked. Using a keypad projected in front of her, Ema opened a new window that displayed the Terran asleep on the medical bed.
"I had almost forgotten what they looked like," Theka said, "it's odd seeing someone with no scales, just...skin," she finished and examined the scales on her left hand.
"Lupine don't have scales," one of the bridge officers pointed out.
"Bah, Lupine are covered in fur. I've never seen a hairless Lupine," Theka replied with an odd hint of anger.
"What's that between his legs?" the Comms Officer asked, pointing at the image. Using the controls with her right hand, Ema adjusted the projection to focus on the bottom half of the male's body.
"External sexual organs?" Tactical Officer Suhli said as she leaned closer to the image. Ema looked up at her and saw how the yellow glow of her bioluminescence, from the softer inside of her hood, was reflected off her light grey scales. Unlike most officers around the TDT, her nose and mouth were longer, almost ending in a point. She had darker, random shapes of grey scales dotted about her face and hood. Her eyes, mouth and tongue glowed yellow as she spoke.
"If I recall correctly," Theka said as she pressed a button on the TDT. A new window opened up, displaying scrolling text, "Unlike the majority of male mammals on the Terran homeworld, their reproductive organs are external," as she finished, more of the crew present tried to get a closer look.
"It doesn't look that big," Comms Officer Akhi pointed out. The Captain looked in her direction and saw that the neon pink glow of her bioluminescence had started to dull. Her primary scale colour was a mixture of lilac and light grey, while her secondary colour was dark grey. It started from the top of her neck, just below her lower jaw, and travelled down and across her torso. She also had them around her eyes, on the top and back of her head.
"Akhi, how long has it been since you last basked?" Ema inquired.
The Comms Officer looked at the metal claws on her left hand, "damn, I thought I had several more hours," she looked disappointed and upset.
"You can use mine, Akhi," Theka offered, "just be mindful not to wake Uszu. I think he's sleeping off our earlier encounter," as she finished, she handed her keycard to the Comms Officer.
"Thank you, Matriarch," she said, bowing before Theka. Everyone watched as Akhi hurried towards the Matriarch's viewing room.
"That was nice of you, Theka," Ema said with a smile.
The Matriarch shrugged, "I'll let the good Doctor know. Perhaps she hasn't been basking for long enough in the morning," when she finished, Theka looked back at the TDT.
"To answer everyone's question," Ema said to the group, "it should get bigger when the Terran male becomes aroused," she finished and placed both hands onto the top of the TDT.
"So, just like one of our males, except it's bigger, and they only have one cock?" Suhli chimed in. Ema nodded and looked around the bridge, noticing several of her crew were watching.
*****
John yawned, stretched his arms above his head and then sat up. It took him a few moments to remember where he was. Looking around where he sat, John could see how big the medical bed was. He guessed that it was ten feet long and four feet wide. "Just how big are these aliens?" he said out loud.
"On average, we are eight feet tall," John jumped in surprise as the female voice from before came from behind him. He turned around and saw a blurred head looking down from above. "I have adjusted the opacity of the quarantine shield," she said.
"Why is it blurred?" John asked.
"I was not sure you were ready to see what I look like," she replied.
John turned himself fully and placed his knees onto the black pillow his head had rested on. "I'm ready now," he declared.
"So you are," the blurred image adjusted itself, and it looked like she had opened a window to John. Staring at him with red eyes was a snake.
"Hello," John said weakly, looking up, surprised at how unsure he sounded.
"Hello to you, I'm Doctor Mizta," she said with a smile. "In case you were wondering, we are called Vipers, or just Viper when you are alone with one of us," she winked at him.
"Viper?" John had a confused expression on his face.
"Well, no. Not really. You would not be able to pronounce the actual name of our race. However, when we studied your various languages, we decided Viper worked best," Mizta smiled at him again.
"Why do you keep smiling?" John asked.
"Before interacting with you, I read the data on Terrans, and it said that you responded to friendly facial expressions," she replied.
"Hmm, I guess that's true," he replied with a shrug. "Would it be possible for me to stand on my feet?" he asked.
Mizta looked further down, "I will extend the shield so you can walk around the medical bed," she walked away from the transparent section of the shield. John heard a series of beeps, and then the quarantine shield started to move. When it stopped, he had a comfortable four feet of space between the shield's edge and the bed. John sat back on the bed, swung his legs around, and hopped off. When his feet touched the floor, he expected it to be cold, but John was surprised by its warmth.
"You have heated flooring?" John asked, still surprised that it was warm instead of cold.
"Your bio reading told me you had cold feet, so I activated the heat panels below," Mizta replied.
