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“I don’t even know what I'm looking at,” Grace finally blurted out after a long, stretched-out, silent minute.
“Rocky sees shape,” the Eridian unhelpfully supplied. “Small.”
Grace’s eyes roved around the room before finally taking in the size of the big glass enclosure that took up half the space of the lab. Then they landed once again on the… thing. Which was… inside the glass enclosure.
“A glass, rounded panel to prevent any attack,” Grace had said, once they (he) had heavily deposited it inside the lab, after Rocky had finished creating it.
“Aquarium,” Rocky had countered.
Grace had looked back at him. “Nope. We are not calling that an aquarium. That’s not a fish, or even an animal, not even a plant, ergo that’s not an aquarium. Is the translator broken?”
“Fish tank,” he seemed to insist.
How did a machine sound so deadpan and insistent? Had Rocky managed to tinker with it while Grace wasn't looking?
“Look, this isn’t an aquarium. Aquarium means…”
“Glass prison. Water. Fish. Aquarium,” Rocky said again, repeatedly thunking one of his limbs against the side of his xenonite barrier as emphasis.
Grace reluctantly looked again at the glass enclosure.
They hadn't been able to create any larger size, given how the Mary was already a bit claustrophobic on his best days. It was now put on the table, a rough sphere shape made of flat panels and a heavy, thick socle at the bottom to prevent it from moving. They had filled half of it with water and punched a few holes at the top for oxygen to filter inside. There was a mini hatch if Grace needed to shove his hand inside, but honestly, he didn't want to because of what was inside. Instead, he’d taped it three times for fear of it jumping high enough to force the hatch open.
Because yes. There was… something… Inside. Which floated, wobbled, and moved around like a… fish.
God, it truly looked like an aquarium, the more he thought about it.
But! An aquarium supposedly held fish inside! Or sea creatures! That wasn't anything Grace had ever seen.
It was the width of a hand but very long and slender, roughly thrice the length of his upper arm. It had eyes on its face. Two. One black, the other red. And a mouth. With lots of teeth. Sharpened fangs that stretched into an ominous smile, too big for the creature to fully close its maw and forcing the thing to keep it half-opened. The rest of its body was devoid of any scales except for a few patches. There were fins, and its whole body was made of… muscles. Not even fish flesh. No. He could see through the glass that there were white ligaments and red muscles that shifted with each undulation of its long body.
It looked like a monster.
Probably was, considering how they… acquired that thing.
Grace shuddered at the reminder.
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.
.
They had bumped against something.
Somehow, while they were busy bickering about something in the lab, squabbling and shouting (fondly) at each other, the Mary unknowingly crashed against something. It made a dull bonk! against the surface of the hull and immediately silencing their argument as they looked at each other in horror.
It had been a mess of madly rushing to the command room while Grace yelled and screamed at Mary "what is going on?!" but never got a precise answer until he hauled himself up the ladder and crashed into the commander's seat before pulling the radars out to see what happened. And indeed, right there on the screen panel, there was a dot that blinked erratically on the side of the Mary. The size of it was almost ridiculous. It was like he was in Rocky's ship, looking at the Hail Mary when they first met: their spaceship absolutely dwarfed the other. It was just the size of a fuel tank, perhaps two if he squinted hard enough. No wonder the Mary didn't sound the alarm, it was like screaming danger! danger! when it was just a small pebble on the side of the road while driving in your car.
Still, Grace had deemed it safer to stop the ship and verify if everything was operational, letting Rocky do his magic, being an engineer and the genius creator he was. Meanwhile, Grace ordered Mary to do extra scans all over the spaceship just in case, while Rocky had gone and scanned the whole interior as well.
Noting that everything was in order, safe and sound, had made Grace let out a small breath of relief.
Which was immediately coughed up in panic when the Mary's scanners told him that the "debris" they knocked against was not a rock, but a whole construction that looked human-made.
He had almost considered booting out of the area, seeing as the other spaceship hadn't tried to give pursuit or attempted to communicate with them like an angry driver after a skirmish on the road, slamming their door and banging rageously at the other's window, demanding reparations. He didn't want any issues, and seeing other aliens other than Rocky was not on his bucket list. He had had enough issues on his plate and considered himself retired from any more alien communication before he was on Erid and in friendly territory.
All of that was promptly thrown out of the window as soon as Mary's voice intoned that the spaceship was made of metal, a very human resource, and Rocky had exclaimed it was worth investigating, summoning his metaphorical hat. Grace clearly regretted introducing him to any of the Sherlock movies. The Eridian had even created a small magnifying glass and waved it around Grace for further emphasis.
And so, after a bit of arguing, Rocky, of course, won over Grace.
So they made the Mary backtrack a bit until the airlock was against the other spaceship. Rocky then made the same tunnel-like construction he had done back in Tau Ceti, making sure it was safely sealed, and then Grace had gone and literally knocked on the other's spaceship door. Well, there weren't any doors, but the sentiment had been the same.
When there was no answer, he had begun to explore and was surprised and confused to see no real opening or window on the other’s spaceship.
After one more attempt, he was about to leave when Rocky said there didn’t seem to be any lifeform inside. Curious and a bit reassured at the prospect of not being attacked by someone-something if he tried to enter uninvited, he went back and took a laser gun before beginning to cut an opening, Grace ordering Rocky to stay behind no matter what.
It was a good thing he did, because as soon as he finished drawing a misshapen circle and joined the two ends together with his laser gun, the metal was propelled against his body and a torrent of liquid violently flooded inside the xenonite corridor, knocking Grace to the ground, a bit winded under the thick hull of metal crushing his chest. Thank god he had thought of walking out with his spacesuit on despite Rocky's insistence that he had adjusted the corridor to human atmosphere. The suit absorbed most of the damage, cushioned by the thick layer of fabric, and his helmet protected him from inhaling or swallowing gallons of red liquid inside his mouth as the back of his head made contact with the flooded floor.
He flailed around and quickly got up to his feet, the metal heavily falling against the corridor while Rocky screamed thrills and hums inside the suit's intercom. He was quick to reassure his friend and looked back at the Mary's airlock, grimacing when he saw that some liquid had managed to get inside the SAS, though the majority of the liquid was still kept inside the corridor.
Grace tried to wipe most of the liquid out of his visor and shuddered when it still left a print, no matter how much he wiped, his whole suit covered in red goo.
"That... isn't a good thing," he'd murmured, trembling a bit when he looked at his hands and they came... bloody. The image was enough to almost make him run back inside the SAS and close the airlock shut, then order Mary to get away from all of that at full speed.
Yet, perhaps foolishly so, he made a few staggering steps towards the leaking opening, more liquid sipping out of the hole he'd created, dripping out and in the corridor, which sloshed with each of his step with a sickening suction sound.
He did not go inside, he wasn't that much of an idiot, but he did take out his flashlight and, after fumbling with the button for a few seconds, pointed it inside. The interior was horrible. There was liquid dripping everywhere, staining even the ceiling as if the whole interior had been full of it, ready to burst out like a balloon too full. And Grace had been the one to cut an opening like the fool he was.
Perhaps there had been a reason why there hadn't been any doors in the first place!
Heavy droplets splashed inside the flooded compartment, because that's what it was. There was barely enough space to stand upright and perhaps only two people, three at best, could stand side by side without feeling the walls against their shoulders. At the very far end, there was some sort of command panel, but he would not go inside, thank you very much. All he could see was that it was heavily coated in liquid as well, and made it impossible to read anything from this far.
Despite the obvious seat in front of the panel, there wasn't anyone inside the hull. He tried a weak 'hello?' but only silence answered him, mixed with the sickening sound of liquid moving around him like it was alive.
It freaked him out, and he quickly backtracked, repeating a series of muttered “nope, nope, nope” over and over again.
"Rocky, we're getting out of here, now," he said with a trembling, urgent voice, almost jumping with each step in order to reach his SAS faster.
The Eridian thankfully didn't say anything, but he knew as soon as he closed the SAS, he would press the series of buttons needed for Mary to take back control of the ship and fly back towards Erid.
He only let out one trembling breath, filled with relief, when his hand slapped against the SAS's walls as if to anchor himself, and he allowed one last glance backwards, towards the end of the corridor. It was already starting to disintegrate, now red liquid flooding and falling into space like a gruesome waterfall. The yawning darkness from the hole Grace had created almost laughed back at him, making goosebumps rise on his skin despite the comforting warmth and heaviness of the EVA suit on his shoulders.
He didn't wait another second and closed the hatch with as much force as he could, revelling in the comforting hiss it produced as the door locked into place.
Then, he looked down and let out a garbled sound of distress and disgust when he realised that the liquid had managed to flood inside the SAS as well. The quantity wasn't too large, just enough to wet the sole of his boots, but it was still way too much for his liking.
He was about to call out Rocky and tell him to start creating a bunch of xenonite panels to try and prevent liquid from flooding inside the Mary, when his voice died down in his throat as he spotted something on the floor.
Something that... moved... inside the red liquid.
Something looking like a... big worm, twitching periodically and creating ripples in the liquid...
Grace's eyes widened, and he screamed, banging his fists against the wall of the SAS and trying to climb up as high as he could with his EVA suit on.
He fell back on his back with a heavy oomf when his boot slipped, his leg almost knocking against the small worm.
The movement made the thing... wake up? And it thrashed around, sending more droplets everywhere.
Grace's screams could have shattered glass if there had been any inside the SAS.
.
Grace grimaced once again at the memory, unable to repress yet another shiver of disgust and the ghost of his terror running rampant under his skin. He shook himself a bit, patted invisible dust away and rearranged his glasses on his nose for the hundredth time, staring at the little creature now lying at the bottom of the... aquarium.
After his initial panic, it had been clear that the... worm-eel was not trying to attack him despite his apparence similar to those baby xenomorph from the Alien movies. Instead, he had seen little eyes blinking at him in terror as it retreated against its own corner of the SAS, snapping its teeth and clearly as afraid as Grace.
Then it flopped back in the liquid (which later was discovered to be human blood, what?!), seemingly lifeless.
Afterwards, it had been a chaos of getting Grace out, hugging Rocky's ball while snot ran down Rocky’s barrier and he sobbed his fears away. Then there was the issue of containing the blood inside the SAS and the corridor in between, and of course, the still living thing inside said SAS.
It was later discovered that the creature had been injured. Deep wounds which hadn't been visible amongst all that blood, but easily spotted by Rocky's x-ray vision. Grace had gone back with a broom and took the thing out as best as he could with a string of explosive ew, ew, ew, ew!. The shape of it had grossed him out, especially the liquid that covered it and dripped all across the floor, but while it was unconscious, he let Armando treat it as best as it could. It was even more frightening to hear the robot state it had some basic human anatomy (the only reason why Armando had been able to treat it in the first place) and Grace had almost puked at that.
After the thing (he refused to call it human) had been cleaned out and scanned, it turned out it was like an aquamarine monster, with fins and a fish tail. It didn't help that the thing's... skin...? Muscles...? had started to dry very quickly. In an attempt to both contain and help the new lifeform, they had quickly created and assembled the aquarium in which the worm-eel with small beady eyes and very sharp fangs now rested, lying prone at the bottom of the glass enclosure.
It hadn't moved since then.
It had been several days since they left the other spaceship, but there were no signs of waking up from the new 'resident' aboard the Mary.
The only thing that changed was...
"Did that grow bigger... I could swear it gained a centimetre there..." Grace nervously laughed, pointing at the way the creature rested, curled on itself much like a serpent.
When they had first dumped it inside the aquarium, it could only do two tight circles with its body.
Now there were almost three.
.
Grace's laugh petered out as soon as he noticed luminous eyes glare back at him.
.
.
.
“Oh my god, are those arms forming there?!” Grace shrieked a week later.
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