The Pod (Stickyfun x Buckley)

[Tentacle_Lover]

Mina sighed boredly as she looked at the sensor panel once again, then groaned and flung her head back. "No new readings...same as always....don't know why I thought it might be any different...." The woman sighed and ran a hand through her long blonde hair. How had her life come to this? One minute she was on track for a promising military career....top of her class in piloting, tactical and command skills....getting ready to graduate with honours and become an officer right out of the academy.....then it had all gone wrong. Circumstance had conspired against her....fellow students jealous of her success had planted evidence of illegal drugs in her things, even managed to get her fingerprints and DNA all over it. Overnight everything had just come crashing down. Mina had been disgraced, and despite her protests of innocence the decision had been made. The best she had been offered was to be graduated quietly and then put in command of a cargo vessel for a few years until everything had blown over. At the time she had been so desperate to get out into space that she had accepted....but now she was beginning to regret that decision.

"I'm so god damn bored!!" Mina cried out to nobody in particular...these cargo ships were almost fully automated, needing only a single crew member to 'pilot' it. Even then the ship flew on auto-pilot virtually the entire trip. In truth a person was only there incase something went wrong, which hadn't happened in nearly a hundred years of these cargo ships being in service. "Why me.....?" She sighed, slumping her head over one of the control panels and starting to play with her hair boredly. She had been about to doze off before a strange noise awoke her. "H-huh?!" The girl suddenly sat bolt upright, blinking and taking a moment to realise that the noise was the sensors, reporting an unknown object up ahead. "Huh....? What? A.....well....a thing? Something out here...?" She raised an eyebrow, tapping a few buttons to focus the sensors. Whatever the object was it was small...not much bigger than a person. It seemed to be emitting some kind of power signiature.... "An escape pod? I didn't hear of any missing ships out here...." Then again Mina didn't hear about much. Right now people in the military were still wary of telling her anything beyond where to take the next cargo run. "Hey....at least it's something to put in the log...." Mina chuckled, then tapped a few buttons, changing the ships course to go and intercept the pod, programming a course that would allow her to collect it.

Barely two hours later, the unknown escape pod was sitting in the hangar bay of the cargo vessel, which had resumed its previous course. "Well....time to check it out..." Mina shrugged, standing up and stretching, flexing her blue flight suit which hugged her like a second skin, before beginning to walk, not even bothering to pick up the pistol that was near the door. The pod was almost certainly empty after all. The sensors hadn't picked up any human life signs and they weren't calibrated to detect anything else, not that there was anything else to detect. In two hundred years of space travel humanity hadn't encountered any kind of alien besides wild animals, and even they were few and far between.
Mina entered the hangar bay with another yawn, rubbing her head as she approached the pod, only half awake, not knowing or particularly caring what was inside, after all she expected it to be empty, probably ejected by accident or in some kind of test.

 

[Buckley]

Mina sighed boredly as she looked at the sensor panel once again, then groaned and flung her head back. "No new readings...same as always....don't know why I thought it might be any different...." The woman sighed and ran a hand through her long blonde hair. How had her life come to this? One minute she was on track for a promising military career....top of her class in piloting, tactical and command skills....getting ready to graduate with honours and become an officer right out of the academy.....then it had all gone wrong. Circumstance had conspired against her....fellow students jealous of her success had planted evidence of illegal drugs in her things, even managed to get her fingerprints and DNA all over it. Overnight everything had just come crashing down. Mina had been disgraced, and despite her protests of innocence the decision had been made. The best she had been offered was to be graduated quietly and then put in command of a cargo vessel for a few years until everything had blown over. At the time she had been so desperate to get out into space that she had accepted....but now she was beginning to regret that decision.

"I'm so god damn bored!!" Mina cried out to nobody in particular...these cargo ships were almost fully automated, needing only a single crew member to 'pilot' it. Even then the ship flew on auto-pilot virtually the entire trip. In truth a person was only there incase something went wrong, which hadn't happened in nearly a hundred years of these cargo ships being in service. "Why me.....?" She sighed, slumping her head over one of the control panels and starting to play with her hair boredly. She had been about to doze off before a strange noise awoke her. "H-huh?!" The girl suddenly sat bolt upright, blinking and taking a moment to realise that the noise was the sensors, reporting an unknown object up ahead. "Huh....? What? A.....well....a thing? Something out here...?" She raised an eyebrow, tapping a few buttons to focus the sensors. Whatever the object was it was small...not much bigger than a person. It seemed to be emitting some kind of power signiature.... "An escape pod? I didn't hear of any missing ships out here...." Then again Mina didn't hear about much. Right now people in the military were still wary of telling her anything beyond where to take the next cargo run. "Hey....at least it's something to put in the log...." Mina chuckled, then tapped a few buttons, changing the ships course to go and intercept the pod, programming a course that would allow her to collect it.

Barely two hours later, the unknown escape pod was sitting in the hangar bay of the cargo vessel, which had resumed its previous course. "Well....time to check it out..." Mina shrugged, standing up and stretching, flexing her blue flight suit which hugged her like a second skin, before beginning to walk, not even bothering to pick up the pistol that was near the door. The pod was almost certainly empty after all. The sensors hadn't picked up any human life signs and they weren't calibrated to detect anything else, not that there was anything else to detect. In two hundred years of space travel humanity hadn't encountered any kind of alien besides wild animals, and even they were few and far between.
Mina entered the hangar bay with another yawn, rubbing her head as she approached the pod, only half awake, not knowing or particularly caring what was inside, after all she expected it to be empty, probably ejected by accident or in some kind of test.

The aliens, now long 'dead', formed this 'fly paper' to confuse, devastate and ultimately destroy their enemies. Really a brilliant chance of a miracle. A blob-like construct that attacked and ultimately took the genetic form of its enemy/prey. Drawing in the life forms, getting them enthralled with the 'soup' then attacking.

The coldness of space after so many centuries subdued the entente's weaponized aspects. Still, it sensed the heat and approach of this life form. Rousing, al be it slowly, the ooze moved like cold, thick molasses. Still confined in the pod, feeling the gravity of the inside of the space transport, life stirred.

 

[Tentacle_Lover]

Mina approached the pod and raised an eyebrow as she examined it. The design wasn't one she was familiar with, meaning it definately wasn't military at least. Still, there was every chance it was from a private or commercial ship, they were quite often designed by amateurs or made to completely custom specifications, it was impossible for someone to be familiar with them all. There were almost as many ship designs as there were people. "Let's see...." Mina began to run a small hand scanner over the pod, still not picking up any kind of life form inside, though there was some kind of heat signiature. "Hm...? Well that's strange....it isn't quite empty after all...definately something in there...."

The woman raised an eyebrow, then started to walk around the pod slowly, looking for something that she quickly found, a control panel. "Ok....let's crack this thing open and see what's in here. At the very least I might be able to get something by selling the pod for scrap if whatevers in there is worthless...." She tapped at a few buttons, until she hit upon the release sequence, a loud hissing noise filling the hangar as the pod equalised its internal pressure with the ship, before the top of the pod popped open slightly, then started to slowly rise up. Once it was open, Mina grabbed her scanner once again, walking back around to the front of the pod and leaning over to take a look at the contents.