Nicole stomped her way down the hallway and into the mess hall where Gizzy was enjoying a snack. She didn’t dare ask what.
“Excuse me, why is Jack walling up my pool room door, and why is Vinn putting up curtains in our sex room?”
“Because Jack is prepping the pool as an incubation tank for a massive snail, and Vinn doesn’t wanna look at it in the sex room, which for your own weird reasons, has a port window into the pool.”
“I’m part aquatic, I live on a ship alone with my husband. Having a sex room with a pool view is normal. Underwater stripper poles are a thing on some worlds, don’t judge me, it makes perfect sense, the word that doesn’t would be SNAIL!?”
“Right, you weren’t around for that. That happened after you left. These snails are very valuable for numerous reasons. 1, their babies eat specebugs, and if we get spacebugs, we are absolutely releasing snails. Secondly, the snails and eggs are edible, so that’s a food supply potentially. They can eat shit we can’t, and are therefore valuable. The big hive queens need a tank and they produce a slime gel that has numerous medical uses including healing serums and hallucinogens, we’ll want both where we’re going, trust me. Plus, they just make cool pets. My daughter has one. His name is Scourge, the guardian of hell. Hell, you may become friends with it. They don’t get aggressive unless they are defending their babies and with no mate and the male sperm stored in the lab, no babies. So your pool is now a snail tank. Also, don’t drink any of your protein shakes if their not in your containers. That blended fish and egg crap looks disturbingly similar to snail semen, and we don’t even wanna go there.”
“It’s a 5 meter wide swimming pool. It wasn’t cheap. We can’t keep her in a bathtub? How big is this snail?”
“About the size of a normal earth snail at the moment, but given time it will reach a 300-400 pound mass and grow tentacles, so no…no bathtub. Sorry honey, you’re tubbin it, the queen gets the pool. They are a semi-intelligent species, just think of it as a pet…that we can eat if necessary, and that will prevent a spacebug problem if necessary.”
“Can I pet it?” Nicole smirked. Vicki stepped into the room eyed wide.
“There’s a 400 pound monster with tentacles on the ship?” She blurted looking horrified.
“Absolutely not” Gizzy said “…there will be when she’s grown up next month.”
“I hate squids. I fucking hate squids.” Vicki said looking horrified.
“Not a squid. Snail with tentacles. Huge difference, the body shape is longer, and it has an armored shell and antennae.”
“Nobody told me we were putting that on this ship. We’re about to go into cryo, and be asleep while that thing grows?” She almost hollered.
“Vicki, calm down, they’re friendly.” Nicole said, looking at Gizzy as if to confirm. She nodded.
“I’m not staying on a ship with that thing.” She said pacing the room.
“She’s terrified of tentacles.” Nicole whispered. Gizzy rolled her eyes.
“Vicki this isn’t Manga. We don’t even get sex scenes unless it’s a fanfic, and you’d never know it. You signed up to do a space mission out in the universe, and out here it’s all bugs and tentacles. This is a docile creature we need for multiple reasons, and it's that won’t hurt you, how are you gonna handle yourself if we have to land on a world made of writhing meat appendages? And the do exist. The snail is gonna be locked in a tank. Out of all the tentacles you should be terrified of in space, this is not one of them.”
“I need a minute.” She said, trudging off to think.
“So…” Nicole asked. “Can I pet it?”
“Sure, but after a certain size I would recommend stopping, because the slime levels in the water will get you high if you fall in, and even though you can’t accidentally drown like the rest of the crew, if you fell in and swallowed the pool water, you’re gonna be…real impaired for a while. For 12-15 hours, you’re just gonna stare and wave your arms. It’s actually pretty fun in a controlled manner. That slime, if concentrated goes on the black market for a good price, so that’s a cash cow. She’s a source of edible eggs, and free drugs. Trust me, you’ll thank me later, give her 2 weeks to grow.”
...
Nicole woke from her cryo-tube, rolling her eyes and opening the door. She checked the timer. “Of course... Even in cryo, I can’t stay asleep.” She muttered, noticing glowing text saying that it was day 8 of 15. This was the second, no, third time, she had woken up from a cryo sleep error. If her Menacodian DNA was any higher percent, she wouldn’t sleep at all in cryo. She wandered around in a room with the lights off, and almost pitch black, her eyes dilated fully black. They looked like polished, wet 8 balls resting in her eye sockets, rolling around to examine everything and everyone. The other crewmates were all slumped, frozen in their chambers, peacefully sleeping like babies.
This was true for all of them, except Gizzy. She had glowing blue eyes that were stretched wide open, and canines bared in a horrifying battle roar. None of that shocked Nicole in the least. She made her way to the cargo bay, carrying an empty jug and a hose. She opened the hatch leading down to the snail tank, and climbed down the ladder.
“Hello little one. You’re getting big.” She said as it slowly surfaced, its eyeless snail face leaned up to her, antennae moving around to sense her. She gave it a pet on the head, and retracted a hand covered in goop.
“You’re a messy girl, you know that?” She said, wiping her hand and siphoning some of the water from the tank as the pump motor hummed and circulated it through the cleaning filter. “But you’re not so bad.” She smirked, as a vivid red tentacle reached out slowly as of curiously trying to touch her face.
“Stop it.” she whispered, brushing it back. “We need to clean your tank, and if everyone is asleep, then it’s just us, and you need to learn to follow orders.” She scolded lightly. It retracted the tentacle and leaned in, bowing again.
“Okay fine.” She said giving it another pet on the head as the pump ran. She stayed for a few minutes, petting it and talking about nothing in particular, periodically wiping her hand off on the edge of a plastic bucket. She said goodbye, the snail making a strange almost whale noise as she did, but Nicole pointed sternly and closed the lid, leaving the hose in to circulate and tying the latch shut. She made her way to the kitchen with the bucket, pouring about a liter of snot into a jar and sitting down. She stared at it poked her finger in and retracted it.
“Valuable stuff hu?” she said to herself, hesitantly licking her finger and trying to decide of it was disgusting or not. Her tongue tingled a little bit.
“Interesting.” She said, scooping an espresso cup into it and watching it cling to the side and still connect to the bucketful like the most gelatinous cheese-pull you never wanted on your pizza. She ran her finger over the edge to cut off the stringy clinger, losing half the cupful.
“It’s just eggwhites, can’t be any more gross than protein shakes made of blended fish and whole eggs, can it?” She said, realizing her supply would be running low soon if she kept waking up and having these little side missions. She chugged the goop like a shot, and pondered whether the texture was pleasant or vomit inducing. It had both the thick velvety consistency of a gelato smoothie, and yet also the stringy slime aspect of just a bucket of pure phlegm. But the warmth that washed over her made her forget that quickly, and she was no longer upset.
She slumped in the chair, feeling the warmth of a cup of coffee and a shot of vodka hit her stomach like a bomb of electricity. The heat flowed and spread, radiating out several inches from the source, pulsing and releasing waves of tingles up her spine. It was like being drunk, high on some clean weed, and the satisfying post orgasm glow after sex, just surrounding her like a hot bath. She slipped into the bath, melting into it and just relaxing, like she was back home. The warm summer sun, the creek behind her house, the breeze, the mid-day sleepy feeling in a hammock. And then she woke up. Suddenly a little confused as she looked around and at the bucket of goop.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Six minutes?” She gasped, trying to kill some time while the filter ran.
She retrieved the pool pump, greeting her friend again and giving a few pets, she scraped into the bucket. Waste not, right?” and she made her way back to the kitchen, opening up the pump and carefully removing the filter, now full of a jiggly clear brick, like the largest Jello cup she ever saw. She bucketed the goop and capped it off, taking it with her and hiding it in her room before returning to her cryo tube.
...
Day 11 of 15. Nicole woke from her cryo chamber, checking the timer and rolling her eyes again. She did her routine cleaning, and after an hour and a brief slime fix, she got an idea. She took a dose of the slime, and diluted it in her protein shake, mostly masking the texture, and headed to the laundry room where Vinn’s solo pod was. She hit the defrost cycle and sat on the table waiting as he yawned and opened the chamber. He looked at Nicole with confused curiosity.
“Did I wake up late or something?”
“No you woke up early because I woke up VERY early and then I got bored and woke you up early."
“I’m not quite following, It may be the cryo groggies.”
“I think my Meance DNA is preventing me from staying in cryo. I wake every few days, and have to go fiddle around and go back to sleep.”
“Oh shit honey, shouldn’t we wake Gizzy and tell her something is broken?”
“I’m the broken thing, Vinn. She’s gonna be pissed to come out of cryo early, this should be the last round…hopefully. But I’ve been lonely and we have the ship to ourselves…kinda.”
“You woke me up out of cryo for sex?”
“Sex in a ship full of people suspended in cryo, on the way to a dangerous mission. We could get caught, we’re not supposed to be up, we could die on this mission.”
“Convinced, let’s go he said scooping her up like a toy.”
“Wait, grab my shake.”
“I can make you something when we’re done.”
“No I need it before…for energy. I put some coffee in there. I want energy.” She lied.
“Okay.” He said, before whisking her off for forbidden sex. He strolled into the bedroom, noticing the ominous glow of the Snail tank.
“One second, gotta close the blinds.” Vinn huffed,
“Who cares? It’s a snail. It can’t get in here.”
“I don’t even like goldfish watching me fuck. It’s weird. I’m closing the blinds.” He said, chucking them over the port window. “It was a lot sexier to have that tank when it was you in there.” He huffed.
“I’m in here now.” She smirked.
...
Day 15 of 15. The cryo pods activated and opened. Vicki and Jack did their morning greeting, and headed to the shower area, rinsing off and getting dressed. Vinn came strolling through the adjacent area looking for his shoes in his locker. Gizzy stepped out and lit a cigar before anything, she paused, smelling food cooking in the mess hall nearby. Nicole popped around the corner, looking perky and rested.
“Morning everyone. I made breakfast.” She grinned. Gizzy looked worried.
“You’re not a morning person. How long have you been up? I swear to god, if you pulled a fucking Fred Randal and we’re out of food, I’m gonna lose my shit, and start the Hutu uprising.” Gizzy barked.
“Mkay. Firstly, missed you too, ass. Secondly, I’ve been waking in every few days for an hour or so and going back, so no I’ve used up like 3 of my own protein shake rations, we’re fine. And can we put some clothes on?” She asked.
“Nicole.”
“Captain, Nicole, who made your breakfast.” Vinn reminded. Gizzy rolled her eyes and fumed a moment, as if enduring physical pain.
“Oh Captain, my Captain, this is a military crew and we’re all clones. I’ve seen all of you naked, you’ve seen everyone but Jack naked, maybe even Jack. Everyone has seen almost everyone naked before. That’s part of the job. Have you ever seen a space movie? Nobody comes out of cryo fully clothed. You’re two married couples, and I wasn’t printed with modesty. Deal with it…what did you cook?”
“Okay, I’m not much of a cook, I just wanted to be nice, so it’s food printer eggs and microwaved oatmeal. There’s also coffee. You can add what you want to whatever you want.” She shrugged.
“Well, we appreciate it.” Jack smiled.
“I’ll eat later. I need to check on the snail.” Gizzy said stretching her back.
“I just checked. Candice is doing fine.” Nicole informed.
“So you went from not wanting a snail on the ship to naming her?” Gizzy questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“Well I’ve had time to spare while I wasn’t frozen, so I used it to do laps and check the ship, she’s become a bit of a stopping point.”
“Please tell me you’re not getting in the tank.” Gizzy sighed.
“No…why would I get in the tank?”
“I don’t know…why would someone?” she asked suspiciously.
“Seems like you have theories I don’t. Or hobbies.” She said judgingly.
“Either way, I need to check her vitals and health in general. She should be laying eggs any time and that’s free food.” Gizzy grinned. Vicky cringed slightly.
“So do you…scramble them?” She said, almost wishing she hadn’t asked.
“Think large green caviar, anything you do with caviar, you do with these. If we can get a terrarium set up, we can grow some of the males for meat and shells. You grind up the shell powder, that’s premium carbs and calcium, you could damn near live off of these things.” She said as the lights flickered and went out.
“Did we just lose all power?” Asked Vinn.
“Backup systems are on.” Nicole said checking her scanner. “Main power is dead. Could be a computer failure or mechanical. Lotta things to check, here, everyone go to one of these locations.”
...
Vicki paced the cargo bay, flashlighting around, looking for the workshop breaker box in case there was a short in the cargo lift. She heard Vinn moving around, turning back to ask if he knew where to find it. “Vinn?” she hollered. There was no answer. She tried her coms “Vinn, You’re in the cargo bay, right, can you help me out?”
“I’m not in the cargo bay, I went all the way to weaponry and couldn’t fit through the stupid tiny hatch, and the elevator isn’t working. I’m on the way there.”
“Then who’s in the cargo bay?” she asked. “HEY!! WHO’S IN HERE WITH ME!?” she yelled. A crate fell over and she followed the sound and noticed it was one of the ammo crates, too heavy to move easily. She pulled herself up to see behind it and a tentacle draped over her hands. She let out a scream and let go, falling backwards and dodging the falling crate with a roll, as the 400 pound snail popped up and followed her. She ran through the center of the crates, looking back to the horror of the snail using its tentacles to walk, almost spiderlike, and nearly at her speed. She vaulted the dead end of stacked crates and miscalculated her direction, cutting towards the front of the ship. She slid past the broken elevator, knowing that was a dead end, and headed into the secondary bridge room, realizing the door was open and electrically closed. The mass of orange and red shimmered in the flashlight beam as she realized she had also walked into a dead end.
She drew her sidearm, shaking too badly to get the safety off and load it. She turned her light off and held her breath, hoping it couldn’t see in the dark. Her mind raced, realizing that if Nicole is part sea monster and can see in the dark, this may have been a mistake. What if turning the light on was the mistake? She could hear it moving but not what direction, away or towards her. She curled up into a ball in the corner, and covered her head, just praying it would leave, but it seemed to be looking for her. She thought she knew where the door was, so in a panic, she jumped and sprinted, sliding on the floor and hitting the wall harshly, her flashlight falling into the dark.
She stumbled over something on the floor and onto the elevator. She could hear the sound of arms reaching across the sheet metal, and realized it was over. She fiddled the safety off and the gun powered up, giving off just enough light to illuminate the wall of wormlike lines stretching across the doorway. She pointed the gun, not sure what was monster and what was shadow and she made a different decision, placing the gun to her head and letting out the loudest scream she could, yelling “HELP” several times in a row as it paused. The light dimmed and went out, the wet slippery feel of something slither over her ankle and a gentle touch of suction cups on her face, sent her crawling backwards, tumbling over into the other corner, balling up and placing her mouth over the barrel, sobbing in the dark, waiting for just one more second to be rescued before ending her nightmare.
“DON’T…MOVE.” Said Nicole. She lifted her teeth of the cold metal and looked up at the streaks of light where Nicole was standing behind the monster.
“Help me.” Vicki whimpered.
“It’s okay, nobody’s gonna hurt you.” She said as if to a child. Vicki went numb, realizing she was talking to the monster. It turned directions and moved towards Nicole. Vicki pointed the gun at it, the rattling of her finger on the trigger and her hand shaking in the silence.
“You’re both just scared. Come on Candice. You shouldn’t be out of your tank. It’s not safe.” She said softly, patting its head as it followed her.
“SHOOT IT!” Vicki yelled, spitting snot and saliva as her aim wobbled uselessly.
“Vicki, stop yelling. You’re scaring her. If she panics she could thrash around. She’s hurt. She got into the electrical panel. Burned yourself didn’t you? It’s okay, let's go back in the water. come on.” She said, leading it down the cargo bay. The lights came back on, Vicki watching the red arms whip around the corner and it was gone. She sat unable to move for a moment. It felt like days as she held the gun in front of her. Finally, human footsteps approached and Jack entered the doorway. She dropped the gun and slumped forward.
...
She sat in the meeting room as Jack held her.
“I want it off the ship.” She shakily muttered.
“Vicki,” Nicole said “She just got scared and couldn’t see, she probably thought you were me and was trying to get help. She burned herself. She wasn’t trying to hurt you. She was trying to get help.”
“How did IT get out of the tank?” She asked.
“Old rusty bolts.” Gizzy sighed. “These two pirates didn’t know to use stainless bolts on a hatch that would be touching saltwater for months. I already swapped them out. Vicki, nothing happened.”
“Well it almost did.” She said feeling cold.
“Everyone’s afraid of something, get over it.” Gizzy said.
“You’re not afraid of shit.” Vicki scoffed.
“Something on JD4 terrified me, enough that I wiped my own memory of it. You wanna talk about facing fear? Wait till we get to that on the list. Pull your shit together soldier, We got a mission in 20 hours, target located. It's a desert planet, and it’s gonna either be really easy, or really problematic. Be ready.” Gizzy barked before turning and leaving.