Mercia Outpost, Star System 11019 Epsilon
Rintner Station analysis mission
Sol year 2219
Duty Log entry #91
Mission Sol 44, 1315 local
Author, Dr. Amy Brinner
We have come into contact with a complex unknown alien organism. It is unknown currently if this organism is carnivorous, parasitic, or otherwise. We found it attached to the hind quarters of one of our dogs while investigating a satellite lab of Mercia Station, per our contract with Rintner. We have loaded the dog into an isolation chamber on the rover, and plan to run some tests. Dr. Lane wanted to attempt to remove the organism from the dog, but Dr. Cowl demanded that she leave it alone. We just found the dog about 4 minutes ago, and this is still happening. Logging as "Unforeseen Event #1" per contract. Descriptions and greater detail to follow after actions taken.
Duty Log entry #92
Mission Sol 44, 1348 local
Author, Dr. Amy Brinner
We've managed to run some basic scans with what systems we have available. We definitely were not expecting to run into unknown organics, so none of our scanners are exobiology grade, but we had a few options with the built-in med bay. It has no veterinary programming or design intent, so we couldn't get any analysis from it, but we were able to use the portable ultrasound to get a rough picture of what was happening. Maintaining isolation was an issue, and Dr. Cowl appears very concerned about contamination. After what we saw on the ultrasound, I can't say that I blame him very much. The organism couldn't have been attached to the dog for more than 90 minutes now, which is exactly how long it has been since we stopped at Kilo, the satellite lab in question. Yet, in that time it appears that it has fused itself to the circulatory system of the dog. It will be difficult to know for sure till Dr. Lane can get it into the Vet scanner back at Basecamp, but I can definitely attest that it appeared as if there was blood flow from the dog into the organism and back into the dog, with the point of access being the femoral artery. The dog is awake and aware, but docile and lethargic. It has what appears to be pollen over a portion of its fur, yellowish in color. It is whining and licking at the point where the organism touches its body. This particular dog, Madison, is a male Alsatian and described by Dr. Lane as "usually very active and alert" so it appears to be affected by the organism. No shock there.
The isolation chamber was meant to house known hazardous materials and enable their manipulation via the built in gloves, and not meant to make it easy to examine large unknown organic parasites on a 35 kilogram Alsatian which barely fits into the box itself. What I have been able to determine is the following. The organism itself is a dark matte tan color. It is difficult to tell from looking at it through the window of the isolation chamber, but it appears to have bilateral symmetry. Its body consists of four "petals", one of which is about triple the size of the other three. The petals radiate from a central body section which is square in shape, with each petal attached to a corner. The main body is directly over the rump/tail of the dog. The petals are each an irregular elongated diamond shape, with the shorter end being at the convergence point of its body. The long petal, which is about 18 inches in length, has conformed itself to the back of the dog along the spinal column and covers the tail in its entirety, with the wings of the diamond hugging the back and side of the dog. Directly opposite to the long petal is one short petal, about 9 inches in length, which has folded itself down between the hind legs of the dog, over its groin and onto its lower stomach. The other two petals appear identical to the shorter petal, but are lateral to the first irregular pair. Each of these are folded over an opposite side of the hip of the dog and over onto the interior of the upper portion of the dog's hind legs. It is these which appear to have merged with the dogs circulatory system. The dog is known to be approximately 35 kilos, and the isolation chamber another 55 kilos, so I can state that from weighing the chamber off the hoist of the rover that the organism is approximately 10 kilograms in weight. I will be able to make a better determination when we get back to Basecamp.
Dr. Cowl has called off all other activities for today, and we are going to head back immediately. We were unable to investigate Kilo farther or identify the source of the unknown organism. Dr. Cowl has stated that he is going to signal our contact at Rintner and see what they want us to do about this.
Duty Log entry #93
Mission Sol 44, 1946 local
Author, Dr. Amy Brinner
The drive back to Basecamp from Kilo is almost four hours, due to the degradation of infrastructure around and radiating from Mercia Station. We still have no idea exactly how long the station has been abandoned - at least three years - but more than long enough for all landing sites to be overgrown, and also now apparently plenty long enough for the composite roadways to begin to disintegrate. Granted, without any specific knowledge of the local environmental extremes, that could have been three years or fifty.
Dr. Lane had convinced Dr. Cowl to allow her to attach an atmospheric regulator to the chamber so that the dog and unknown organic wouldn't suffocate. I agreed with her simply on the basis that I didn't want to see what the organic might do if it suddenly thought it was going to die inside the box and tried to get out, while in the vehicle with us. Three hours into the drive, the box jerked violently and I could see through the window that the dog was trying to bite at the parasite. It started barking loudly and growling aggressively, and jerking back and forth inside the cramped chamber so violently that I started to fear it would break the latches. They're sturdy, but again, that thing is designed to hold inanimate hazardous objects, not frightened animals. Dr. Lane injected an aerosol tranquilizer into the chamber via the atmospheric regulator. It was part of the med kit, and meant to stabilize and subdue a human in the event of major trauma, and it should have worked wonders on the dog. Yet, less than ten minutes later, the same events repeated themselves, and continued on a 10-15 minute cycle. The latches on the box held, and Dr. Lane was able to get the thing loaded up on an automover once we got back to Basecamp. Updates to follow as events proceed.
Personal Log entry # 14
Mission Sol 45, 0146 local
Author, Dr. Amy Brinner
I've never really had any reason to make many of these before now, but given the events of today I think that I might just need an outlet for some unfiltered internal observation. Tess and I have never really been friends - she cares more about plants and animals than any living human, believe you me - and while David and I could always talk fairly openly, but he's clearly withholding information. I always told myself that there was no reason to ruin a perfectly good working relationship with something like friendship or familiarity, so I've got some pretty deep habits in place as well that just make me uncomfortable with sharing my thoughts about this with either of them. And, since I have to maintain professionalism and decorum on the duty logs since they'll become part of the total mission profile after its done and you can bet your ass that a whole army of Rintner lawyers will comb over it for any discrepancies to shave as many hundredths of a percent as possible off of our final contract payout, here I am, no one to talk to but my personal log. I mean, yeah, those laywers will go over this as well, but the worst they can do is delete shit they consider trade secrets before releasing the files to me. They cant actually use this against me unless I reveal breaches of contract or dereliction of duty, and cmon man, we're professionals. So yeah, you corporate shit, I know you're reading this. Fuck yourself. You make 10x my annual salary in a month sitting on your ass, so you can take some long distance text abuse.
I suddenly long for the mundanity of a normal planetside life.
So yeah, things are not going well. The drive back from Kilo was the stuff of nightmare. I kept going back and forth on whether I should call the alien a parasite or whatever. It could just as easily be eating the dog or trying to mate with it for all I know - I'm not that kind of doctor - but I think that I've definitely settled on parasite. Tess had to continuously heavily sedate the dog to get it into the vet bay. She wanted to run tests on the organic as well, but before he went away for his meeting David told her not to touch it since we didn't know how it would react. I agreed. The scans that she brought up clearly show that it has inserted itself into the circulatory system of the dog. It has ALSO attached itself to the nervous system. The tail appears to have disappeared entirely, suggesting that the parasite either digested it or otherwise disolved it. There are small tendrils attached to the base of the dogs spinal cord. Hard to tell what effect they are having on the dog, given everything else that is happening to it. Because that's not the end of it. The organism has inserted a tube into the anus of the dog, and over the course of a few hours of scanning it increased in length from about 14cm to closer to 60cm, well into the dogs intestine. Better yet, it also inserted a tube into the dog's urethra, though thankfully that one doesn't seem to be growing beyond the 4cm length it is already.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Tess DEMANDED that David let her attempt to remove it, concerned that it was killing the dog. I've long been convinced that she became a specialist in field effects analysis only because her parents had forced her towards STEM, and that she took this specific job purely to be able to have the secondary duty of being the animal handling veterinarian she must have wanted to be as a little girl. He didn't just refuse - he told her that she would be restrained if she touched the organism at all. He wouldn't even let her sedate the poor animal anymore, so we put it in a quarantine chamber. Not that I'd say it out loud where they could hear, but thank gods I don't have to breathe the same air as it.
But yeah, David. So he called the contract contact at Rintner and was in there for a long ass time, almost two hours. I have no idea what they talked about - David negotiated the contract in the first place, and the brief for me and Tess and the rest of the team up on Discovery was basically your cut and paste recovery salvage mission. Yet, when he came out from that call, he kept using the word "technology" in a way that didn't really make sense. He kept saying it as if he were mentally capitalizing it, the "Technology." That's what I mean when I say he's clearly hiding something from us. He's worse than shit at poker. The man only plays games he has already rigged. I know he won't tell me what is up, but he can't hide the fact that something is up indeed, and that is something up with which I will not put.
Duty Log entry #94
Mission Sol 45, 0815 local
