“It looks like they found something on Cautlus, some kind of frozen fossil, or lifeform. They were researching some kind of raider civilization that had been wiping out entire civs a hundred thousand years ago and instead found this fossil.

Juno kept searching the terminal until she curiously searched: Research Logs

Research Logs

* Data and Analytics

* The Perfect Sample

* It’s Alive!

* #$%##

* Infected is Gone

* It’s locked up. Crew dead.

2. The Perfect Sample…

######### Head researcher L'du in charge of labs

The sample Litosa and the ground team found is remarkable. The ice preserved it perfectly. I’ll have the team start poking around in there immediately. I want to get a DNA sample quickly.

#########

The DNA sample… It was astounding. The cells are like nothing we’ve seen before, and what’s more, after the sample was restored to room temperature the cells seemingly woke up! They started moving on their own. Initially we thought it was some kind of coincidental movement of the sample, but further samples taken have all shown the same things. The cells have reactivated!

Unfortunately the first two samples have become inactive again, dying shortly after. A cell can’t live too far from the main body it seems, no matter how much of a miracle it is.

#########

Further studies show stunning resiliency within the cells themselves. We don’t see any foreign bacteria, no signs of aging, frost bite and the DNA strands seem perfectly unharmed. No cancers or strange mutations. The species is absolutely perfect.

#########

They eat foreign bacteria, almost absolutely across the board. It seems to sustain the cells for a longer amount of time. Its remarkable. My guess is the creature swallows something whole like a large scale amoeba, and then eats. And it seemingly can eat everything.

The cells don't seem to reproduce. I wonder how they propagate. Maybe they don’t. Being sterile I wonder what introducing a sample of outside DNA will do.

########

Everything is in the organisms original form. It is a complete unit. No mutations, no adaptations to an environment. It must have adapted a long time ago into the perfect form, accidentally and then never needed to adapt further. It could be that this species is hundreds of thousands, even millions of years old.

#########

An outside sample was introduced, a small sample of my blood. The alien cells once woken, attacked the cell, using its DNA and materials to reproduce! The organism is vampric in nature, but also parasitic! THough it died shortly after feeding the cells reproduced with an outcome of one and half! Its offspring didn’t stand a chance though. They’re all dead. Unfortunately, being the unable to adapt ahs its downsides.

I have to say with its cells waking, I wonder what the organism will do if we were to unfreeze it…

IT”S ALIVE!

#########

The organism is alive. After a long process of unfreezing the specimen is up and moving. Its a historical achievement. This a living fossil possibly millions of years old. The crew have been celebrating all day.

At first when we melted the ice I swear I thought the creature had melted with it. In the ice is looked like a tube worm, but when all the water was gone only a gelatinous mush was left over. I figured we’d killed it.

Fortunately, it started moving. I’ve been with it all night. I can’t take my eyes off of it. It is like some kind of blob, but in worm form able to transform its body into many different shapes. It seems to prefer a worm like appearance, probably for movement purposes. It’s been exploring the little glass cage I’ve been keeping it in. It seems t ollike it in there.

I think I’ll call it Ncia, after my daughter. In secret of course.

######## Gu has taken the position of head Researcher. Gu is now in charge of labs

Something is wrong with Ldua. I, Gu, am in charge of the research team now. I don’t know what happened, nobody does. After we woke that thing up, Ldua stayed with it all night. In the morning, we found the glass case broken through, and Ldua on the floor. We locked down the lab, donned our suits and entered, against the captain’s wishes.

Upon inspection of LDua, we found him still alive. Whatever that thing was it has apparently chewed throug the glass casing. I don’t know how. That glass was thick plated and hardened. Somehow it god a hold of Ldua. It’s in his skull right now. We can see it moving from the entry wound. There’s no blood anywhere which is odd becuase Ldua had a whole the size of a finger in hs head. His brain is exposed to the elements, yet he’s still breathing.

We tried extracting the thing with pinchers, but it was slippery and threatened to move deeper into the cranium. I have no idea what to do. The captain wants to send out a distress signal. I don’t think that’s a good idea, but we don’t have much else to do.

THe Infected is Gone

##########

Ldua is dead. He passed away sometime in the night. Surprised honestly. He was a touch bastard.

Now the body is quarentined in the science lab. He’s been stuck in a makeshift coffin. And wrapped up. I hope that’s the end of it. What a tragedy. Now that he’s dead, the mission is off. We stopped the distress signal. No rescue team, but we’re headed back to G’tiri station. What a terrible tragedy.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It’s locked up. The crew is Dead. Captain has taken control of research labs

I locked up the last of the crew in the cockpit. Two good pilots and an innocent researcher sitting alone waiting for death to take them. Mother take them peacefully.

The crew in the crew quarters are gone, sucked dry and turned into dust. I locked one of those things in the storage locker in the crew chambers. It had been feeding on their corpses.

As for the other one, It’s locked up in the research lab. I don’t know how many others there are so Im going to sit right here.

I had to Jetison the vehicle pod. We were exploring an escape when one of those things crawled out of a shipment container. I sent it planetside. Litosa was still inside…

Now, I’ve put the ship in lockdown. I’m just gonna sit here and hope for the best.

I told the onboard AI not to send out a mayday. It’s pointless. We’re dead. I’d rather not infect anyone else with whatever the science team brought aboard, Mother damn them. Let gravity take care of all of us. Or Maybe the infectants will die by the time someone finds us.

Captain Nita Signing off

“Hadden. Mackenzie. Get off the ship. Now.”

“Ma’am.”

“Return to the Voyager. The crew didn’t disappear. They were killed. There’s something here with us. Now, go! That’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“And for god’s sake, don’t open the storage closet.”

Juno’s heart popped in her chest. The crew was all dead. That’s why the AI refused her so many times. She’d just unlocked the doors for it.

Suddenly equipment in one of the labs fell over, disrupting the quiet. Juno’s heart popped. She had to get out of here now. She needed the core still. It had everything.

Stepping out, she left teh terminal behind a blinking red light warning her. She looked through the lab windows. Nothing. It was eerily quiet. Something was hunting her. A beaker squeaked as it broke across the floor int he lab to the left. She stepped through the door to the right into the right side lab. Suddenly the doors to the lab shut, both of them.

It was the AI. It was trying to seal it off. The other lab doors closed too. They weren’t locked. Just closed. The thing couldn’t open doors then.

What was it? The question gnawed at her. A tense monet passed as she waited, hoping the ship wold give some kind of sign. As she explored the lab she came upon a black thing on a desk. It was the wrapped corpse of the Lead researcher. A hole had been bored out of the coffin’s chest.

Suddenly… a metal tray fell over in her lab. Juno backed away from the noise. It came from the terminal side at the back of the room. She drew her side arm. How did it get in here?

Juno didnt know what to aim. It was like the thing was invisible. What was she going to do with it anyways? The door to the lab behind er opened up. Juno took the invitation to run.

The core. She still needed the core. It would have records of all of this.

She ran down the hall, tapping furiously on the Keypad on the door to the AI core. She punched in the code when the Ai gav it to her. She felt the thing right behind her, as if any second she’d feel something latch onto her helmet and start drilling into her suit. THe door hissed open.

Then it closed right behind her.

“We’re back in the ship, ma’am. What’s happening?” Juno didn’t reply. She kicked the empty space suit in font of the terminal over. It had been kneeling as if praying. WHite powder flung out onto the floor. She wiped away white power and debris from the terminal screen. It was these people. This white stuff was these dehydrated people.

Juno didn’t have time to scan the language.

“Come on, she said, “I;m trying to rescue you.” She pressed frantically through random things, beeps and honks responding when she touched something she wasnt’ supposed to. Suddenly something thumped on the glass of the door.

There it was, the thing. It was a colorless, translucent tube, half shape, half gelatinous gooey blow. Moisuter form its body slapped all over the plating. It was a two foot long and slapped over the glass like someone had thrown it.

What in gods name? The ceature stuck whatever was its head into the glass. It was trying to chew through. After a moment the glass held. It slid up the glass leaving a nasty trasil. Where was it going? As if to answer that Juno’s eyes wenet up to see a vent near the ceiling just above the door. OH god.

Juno turned back to the AI terminal. What could she do to show it? She looked around. There. EMpty AI cores under the terminal in a half open door. She grabbed one and stuck in the AI port. Suddenly the terminal lit up with options. She pressed the ones it showed her.

Symbols popped up and changed every half second. What’s happening. COme on. COme on. She almost abandoned it when the terminal shut off. She felt a lurch as gravity started to weaken. Her suit warned of gradual decompression. A warning siren went off one single time before going quiet. She must have done it. The AI was gone form teh ship. Everything was turning off. The ship was dying.

Unfortunately, all the doors of the ship opened at once, even the door to the cockpit and teh AI room. Everything was wide open.

“Leave that bay door open. You hear me? I’m coming in hot. I;m gonna have to jump.”

“Ma’am?”

“Just do it!” She yanked the AI core from the terminal and sprinted from the room.

Every step was a potential for a strike from that thing. It was shapeless, formless, and unkillable. Juno couldn’t shoot it or hide from it. ALl she could do was run.

Luckily, the station her squad had decompressed the airlock before her. SInce the ship was dying it had decompressed itself, and the airlock door was unlocked and open. As she drew nearer the gravity in the ship completely dissipated. Her steps launched her to the ceiling from which she kicked herself from wall to wall to reach the airlock. She wrenched the inside door open, the last bit of air and pressure escaping before the ship was completely at the mercy of the void.

Juno hopped from the derelict ship sliding through the airlock before hitting open space. Cautlus passed beheather. A hundred stars watched as she flew into the Voyager’s airlock.

“I’m in. I’m in. Get us the hell out of–” something clear and formless shot like an arrow from derelict air lock. In an instant it was locked around Juno’s throat. She heaved ans struggled, the AI core floating suelessly around her. Tugging at the creature was useless. It was so strong she felt the pressure crunching her suit. And it was trying to find a way in.

Get it off me. Get it off me.

Hadden and Mackenzie watched helplessly from the airlock view port window form inside the ship as she flailed in zero G.

“Something’s on her! Close the airlock.” The airlock door started to shut. When it was shut, Hadden screamed, “Let us in there.”

“We;re coming commander.” They were floating. The whole ship was in Zero G.

“Neagtive. Do not open that door.” Carter said, strolling up form nowhere.

“Sir, she’s choking. She’s gonna die.”

“Do not jeopardize this ship. Pressly. Reinitiate Gravity.”

“Screw that. I’m going it.”

“This is my ship! And I am its Captain. You will not open that door. Pressly decontaminate, now!” Suddenly mist sprayed into the airlock. It was a poisonous liquid that in zero G flung around the interior. Juno could feel the worm trying to chew through the soft parts under neath her helmet. She gripped its head and held it back. Its grip tightened around her neck.

Suddenly burning lasers created a two dimensional plane and started burning away the mist as it scanned the room. When the laser field went over Juno the creature stubbornly writhing in her hands started to twist in pain. Its flesh caught fire and it finally released Juno, floating and squirming in the air. It was dying.

Juno gasped desperately for air as the lasers passed over her again. The creature was completely vaporized without a trace. Then, gravity dumped her on her back with a thud. She stayed still, her breath loud in her ear. The AI core rolled around near her head.

“Juno! You alright?” Mackie asked.

“Answer us marine,” Carter demanded, peering fruitlessly through the bay window. Juno kicked away the encroaching feeling of conscienceless.

“I’m alright,” she huffed finally. “I just gonna lay here for a while.”