Space Relations

This story arc contains NO SEX.

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"Let's go." Braxton hopped out.

Thor followed closely. Once they'd set the service door flush, they both glanced about for something to hide behind. They darted behind empty boxes of freight, all waiting to be taken away and refilled. Braxton peeked out past the edge of the boxes, scanning the interior of the dock for surveillance monitors, before she scanned across the walls for access points.

"There." She motioned with her head. Like the starship, the satellite also had a main entryway and secondary service doors. "According to the schematic, we've got a side door that leads to a testing laboratory and another one for goods. A third door leads to a warehouse for probes and booster rockets. We'll be going into the warehouse, because in my opinion that's the least likely place where aliens might be holed up."

"Where would they be holed up?"

"I don't know for certain." Braxton admitted. "Wherever the food is kept, or the medicine, or maybe just a wide enough room where they're keeping the prisoners." She shivered. "If they even keep prisoners."

"They'd better not have done anything serious to them." Thor growled. "I swear, I will wipe those things out if they did anything serious to anybody in the crew."

"Don't get angry." Braxton cautioned him, although the combat tech was starting to remind her of a sort of guard dog. "If you get angry, you won't be able to make any rational decisions. That could cost us both our lives."

"You can make the rational decisions for me." Thor scowled. "I'm here to drop a hammer on something."

The two warriors scurried across the dock, taking a big chance on their well-being with a camera eye taking notice of their actions. They found nothing big enough to hide behind.

The door Braxton aimed for wasn't locked, since theft wasn't much of a concern that deep into space. They were soon shutting the door behind them and taking a quick stock of the warehouse inventory. Several probes, each round and about ten feet high, were lined up against one wall. They were equipped with an assortment of cameras mounted on flexible stems. The probes had instruments to facilitate the scraping and study of materials, all of which would be retracted into small compartments if the probe were to be floating through space. Past that, they counted spare probe motors, fuel cells, and tanks filled with various chemicals or gases, such as liquid helium and nitrogen. They found smaller and explosive rocket boosters that pushed the asteroids out of their comfortable orbits and moved them elsewhere. For a long, tense moment, they both scanned the large chamber, but nothing made an attempt to thwart them.

"Cover that door." Braxton pointed to one of several entries, as she hurried over to a corner of the warehouse where several workbenches and cabinets were located. Not two minutes later, she called Thor to her side. "Here, I want you to put this on."

It was a spot solder, used in the emergency welding of holes while a satellite or ship was traveling through space. Even though its effective end was only a bulb-shaped section about the size of a softball, whatever organic material it came in contact with would most likely melt.

Much better than a simple heat knife, Thor thought, as he discarded the knife and strapped the solder's dual fuel tanks onto his back. One tank was filled with tin, the other with lead. The materials were vacuumed out through a hose and ignited by a hand trigger, just like a flamethrower.

"Test it on something to make sure it works." Braxton said, already scanning the remainder of the equipment for something better to arm herself with.

The determined woman found a fragment of a probe's robotic arm. Attached to its end was a short-range laser. Both the laser and solder were checked on a testing block made of titanium.

"Okay, we need to even the odds a little." Braxton decided. "Because there are at least eight of those things and only two of us. That door I told you to cover, let's head over that way. It leads to the station's lobby. Past that, we'll come to a cafeteria and a briefing room."

While Braxton stood at a spot about ten feet in front of the door, Thor took up a position directly beside it.

"Open that door. As soon as one of those things comes through, try to shut the door back up." Braxton said. "Hopefully, we'll only have the one creature in here. If we get swarmed, we'll have to make our way back to the dock and try the same tactic there."

"I'm not aiming to take prisoners." Thor menaced. "Not after how I saw them beating on Mary and the others."

"Neither am I." Braxton nodded, as fierce an older woman as the combat tech had ever seen. She nodded. "I'm ready."

Keeping himself hidden behind the door, Thor opened it.

Braxton crouched, bracing herself for war, while her eyes scanned past the open doorway that Thor was out of position to see through.

"There's at least two. They both saw the door open." Braxton took a frightened step back. "They're coming."

Long, spindly legs thrust past the door, followed by the long blur of a torso. Thor made to slam the door shut. The second creature was right behind the first, slamming the door open with its momentum and smashing it against Thor. As the combat tech found his body crushed between the back of the door and the wall, a third monster made it through. This is when Thor's senses came back. He pummeled his sizable form into the breach and finally managed to shut the door. A slap on the control panel next to the door locked it. When a fourth creature barged into the barrier, its impact on the door was forceful enough to knock the big ensign down on his ass.

One of the creatures turned as it heard or sensed the noise behind it. Thor had just enough time to discern that Braxton was about to be attacked by two monsters, when the third scrambled back in his direction and raised four long and spider-like legs to begin a violent barrage on him.

Thor clicked his heat weapon on, from the floor thrusting it up and into what he assumed was the creature's belly. The thing screamed with no discernible mouth. Its long shriek was unnerving enough to pierce into Thor's brain like a hot poker. Since he couldn't stick his solder into the creature's mouth to silence it, because he didn't know where its mouth even was, he aimed the next thrust at its big and black compound eyes.

One eye exploded. The creature staggered back, giving Thor enough time to jump to his feet. He aimed a second strike at the creature's other eye. Thankfully, it only had two large eyes. The blinded monster was quickly drawing back from him in a panic, and knocking over tables and tools as it went.

Thor turned to see Braxton dancing and darting between her two adversaries. Her laser swung around like a large, unwieldy sword. The weapon extended a beam ten feet long of white, hot plasma. The beam cut through the creatures' support legs every time, maiming and panicking them into unfocused threats. Nevertheless, the aliens dragged themselves along in their pursuit of her. Once all of the legs were gone, Braxton neatly sliced both creatures in half.

Behind Thor, an unknown number of beasts crashed into the interior door. They were quickly bending it out of shape. Those things must have had some hard heads, the strong man thought, because their skinny legs didn't seem capable of delivering such force.

"Back to the dock!" Braxton ordered.

After rushing through the warehouse, they slipped out and secured the door behind them. Braxton led them past the main entrance and over to one of the other service doors.

"This should be the where the kitchens are." She said. "Open the door, the same way as the last one."

Thor did. When they saw nothing inside except steel tables, metal cooking pots and cutlery, they invaded.

"Secure this kitchen, Thor." Braxton commanded, the words rolling off her tongue as if she'd been born issuing orders.

The former commander locked the door leading to the dock, while Thor took care of the one leading into what he supposed was the cafeteria.

"Let me catch my breath." Braxton said, as she put her back against one of the few empty patches of wall in the cramped kitchen. "Observations?"

"Uh..." Thor thought back, but in truth, much of what had just happened had been a blur of motion. "Their bodies are about eight feet long, but they're not as wide as a person. Their legs are at least ten feet long, maybe twelve. They are roughly shaped like Daddy Long Legs spiders from Earth. Each leg is about the thickness of a human arm. Weight, I'm guessing at a hundred pounds or so, but I can't be sure. Big eyes, compound structure like a fly."

"That's a decent start." Braxton surmised. "Coloration is dark green, mottled with blue or black and suggesting a planet thick with vegetation. Shape is tapered, larger in front and tapering down towards the end, just like their ship. I saw a range of six to eight legs in the three specimens we encountered. Your estimate of weight feels more or less correct. Overall, our initial impression of grasshoppers with thin spider legs seems appropriate, but they move more like spiders. They can aim their legs and propel their bodies like octopi when trying to get through a tight spot. I don't know if you caught this, but two of their front legs looked hollow like straws. My theory is that they don't chew but suck up nutrients through those two legs. Oh, and they don't seem too adept at opening doors, either, because they have no fingers or opposable thumbs to work with."

"That's repulsive, about having legs for mouths." Thor said. "What if they have some kind of secretion that liquefies flesh? What if they're planning on eating the crew through those straw mouths?"

"Then we probably shouldn't wait until our back-up arrives." Braxton concluded. "Hopefully, the aliens will be stuck in that last lab for a while. If they manage to break through to the dock, they'll figure we went back inside the ship and lay siege to that. At any rate, that's less of them in the direction we're going. Are you ready for the next action?"

"I'm ready." Thor nodded.

Braxton came over to stand beside the kitchen door. She held her fist out, palm down. "Would you care to bump knuckles with me, Ensign Brukenfooken?"

"Lady, I'm ready to bump uglies with you." Thor replied, completing the gesture.

"We'll talk about that later. We don't have a lot of room to maneuver in this kitchen, so I'm afraid you'll have to be the bait this time. I want you to goad the creatures through this doorway. When they get far enough inside, I'll slice them with my laser."

"I'm a-firing my laser!" Thor called out, in what Braxton thought of as a pirate's voice.

"What does that mean? Is that one of your captain's battle cries?"

"Oh, that's an old meme from the twentieth century." Thor smiled. "Remind me to put it up on holo-view later, so I can show you."

"Okay." Braxton shrugged. She set her hand on the lever that opened the door. "Give me a heads-up."

The brave woman lowered the lever and swung the door open. She crouched down next to the doorframe a second later. Thor gazed through the open space.

"It's a cafeteria, as we thought it was. Tables have all been shoved aside, chairs knocked over," He shook his head grimly. "Some streaks of blood on the floor. No movement yet."

"Call them."

Thor filled his lungs, and shouted out, "Where you at, you alien freaks?"

Braxton waited. Thor waited.

"I said, where you at?" Thor tried again, louder.

A few seconds later, a scatter of chairs was heard.

Thor tensed up. "One just came into my line of sight. It just jumped clear across the room in one leap. It's seen me. It's moving forward, but it's watching me close. What are you waiting for, you hideous insect? It's stretching his front legs out, like spears, and doubling back on back legs, like he's getting ready to jump. Shit!"

Thor threw himself back into the space between two tables, just as the first of the creature's legs javelined through the door. Braxton almost didn't react in time. More than half of the beast was through the opening before her fingers activated the laser beam. Plasma tore into the back half of the creature, neatly separating a long sliver from the rest of the moving body. When the thing fell on top of Thor, it was screaming in pain.

The combat tech was nearly thrown into a panic as well. The alien's scream was a dual shriek and it was emanating not from a mouth, but from the ends of the legs that Braxton had theorized to be mouths. He thrust the hot tip of his solder up at the creature's exposed thorax. It recoiled its body into an ugly curve, as excruciating pain wracked it from two different regions.

Thor had half expected Braxton to laser-saw the creature into fragments, but she wasn't coming to his aid. The older woman had jumped in front of the open doorway just as another creature smashed its way through. Braxton was thrown to one side, slamming back first into a harsh metal table leg. The force shoved the entire table aside.

The creature that had pummeled into Braxton crashed into the one hovering on top of Thor. Suddenly the combat tech had not one, but two of them pressing their sickening, squirming bodies on top of his. The end of Thor's soldering weapon was up close to his shoulder. Since he was being crushed, he hand no choice but to power the device on in its awkward position. The flash of heat singed at the flesh of his face and through the fabric of his shirt, but at least the solder wasn't touching him directly. Thor gritted his teeth in both pain and anger, as he tried to push the monster back with a combination of brute strength and extreme heat.

The creature screamed, nearly driving him insane with the noise. The sound forced him to turn the weapon on its straw-legs in a desperate attempt to silence it. It tried to scramble away from him then, but the other creature on top of it hadn't yet gained solid footing. They both shoved and pushed at each other to get loose. One heavy leg slammed into Thor's stomach, nearly winding him. Luckily, it wasn't an attack but an attempt to find support for one of the creature's numerous legs.

As he watched, a beam of hot plasma sliced off the top attacker's head. The body went into spastic convulsions, and further terrified both the man and the second creature still trapped between them. Thor pressed his solder into the creature's body again. When it recoiled this time, Braxton finished it off.

The monster's head dropped like a bowling ball on Thor's shoulder, breaking his grip on the solder gun. He shoved away at the dead creature with his strong arm and managed to roll away, under a table and through its hard metal legs. Once he was past the table, he staggered to his feet. His shoulder screamed fire into the rest of his body.

"My shoulder's fucked!" He cried out, as Braxton again jumped before the doorway.

No further monstrosities came at them.

"My back's not doing all that great, either." Braxton said. "Stay close to me."

She leapt into the cafeteria, leaning to one side as if her back aggravated her from the sudden move. Behind her, Thor wondered if he could manage to still use the solder with one good arm. The weapon had dead man's switches wired into it, which meant it would turn off if his fingers weren't actively pressing the dual triggers, one for the tin and one for the lead. There was no way he could hold the stupid thing up to aim and activate it with only one good arm.

He grimaced. "Let me get some feeling back in my shoulder."

"There's no time." Braxton said, as she visually scanned the wide and distraught chamber. "This room's clear. The creatures must be able to open some doors, but not all of them, because they were able to get in here. The door to this room has a lever on it, and a spring that keeps it closed."

"So they can open levers, but not handles with latches. I guess that's good to know."

The cafeteria door opened, causing both Braxton and Thor to prepare for another attack. The door slid open, and a beaten and bloody Officer Cruz slipped through and landed on the floor.

"Drag him inside." Braxton took a spot before the door. "I'll cover you."

Knowing he had no choice but to drop his solder, Thor abandoned the weapon and used his good arm to drag in the now unconscious man. As if its function were done, the spring on the door politely shut the door closed right after.

"Cruz is out cold. His face looks like he tried to take on a heavyweight boxing champion." Thor said, checking the man's vitals. "But at least he's alive."

"Take him to that back corner." Braxton motioned. "Where he won't be in the way if we start fighting again."

Thor pulled him about twenty feet from the door. "What are we going to do, just leave him here?"

"Does Cruz look like he can give us a hand?"

"No. He's out of it, big time. He's all damp, too, like he just took a shower."

"We have to press on, for the sake of the others." Braxton resolved. "Does he look as if he got anything sucked out of him?"

Thor quickly examined the unconscious man, before he shook his head. "I don't think so."

"How's your arm?"

Thor made a couple of wide circles with his injured limb. "Good enough to hold the solder now, I think. I won't be doing any arm wrestling anytime soon." He retrieved and re-mounted his weapon.

"Would you be a dear and get the door for a lady?" Braxton asked.

The Viking took care of it, while Braxton held her laser weapon steady.

"I'm stepping out." She said.

Thor took one last look at the splayed out form of Cruz, and followed. "We got five of them already. There shouldn't be more than three left, right?"

"We don't know that for certain." Braxton said, as she scanned over a wide and long corridor. She pointed with her laser. "The warehouse is over in that direction. The assembly hall is in this other direction. We have to make sure we don't get caught in the middle."

"Right. I'll keep an eye behind us."

"Stay on my ass." Braxton started forward.

"I want to hear you saying that later, when we're back on the ship."

Braxton almost chuckled. Almost. The fierce woman set her back close to the wall, feeling it ache from where she'd struck the metal table earlier. After a few moments, she started a brisk walk down the corridor.

Braxton stopped when she heard a muffled scream. "Where did that come from?"

"That way." Thor pointed at a hallway that split off from the main one. "What's over there?"

"I don't remember." Braxton replied. "I only studied the front portion of this station's schematics. It could be anything; a communications center, a laboratory wing, maybe sleeping quarters. I assumed these aliens would need a wide room to hole up together, but that was only a calculated guess."

"There's only one way to find out." Thor let out a deep breath. "Too bad Cruz couldn't tell us what was happening."

"Well, let's get moving."

They took up a jog down the corridor, which was pockmarked with infrequent doors on both sides. At the end of this hall, they came to the sleeping quarters, which were set up in a row of small apartments. Past this was the communal bathroom and shower area. The doors to the showers had been ripped off. Steam was ebbing out from what looked like a giant, malignant maw at the end of the corridor.

"I guess they do live on a tropical planet." Braxton stated, as she motioned for Thor to move across from her and down the hall. "We're going in slow and easy."

They heard a shriek from the showers, high pitched and alarmed. An angry woman's cursing followed this. They also heard the slam of tinny metal against solid metal.

"That's Margo." Thor stated.

Several of the creatures were seen scurrying across the moistened and glistening floor of the showers.