A Type of Acid Pt. 4: Thanks for the rescue. Again. & Back in th

A Type of Acid Pt. 4: "Thanks for
the rescue. Again." & Back in the Blue
 
<Snip>
                                                                                                                                                            "Don't
shoot in here. Essential piloting equipment!" Said Justin. "Besides,
don't you need her alive?"
Castillo thought about this. "You'll never take me alive." She said,
and pointed the gun to her own head and squeezed the trigger.
<End Snip>
            "Dammit!" Davie cursed as a splash
of warm, grey blood covered his helmet's faceplate. He dropped his rifle to the
ground and rushed to Castillo's side. "How the hell did she get out of the hand
cuffs?" asked one of his two remaining commandos quickly. "I have no idea," he
replied, "but the fact is she did it! Justin?"
            "Yeah?"
            "Crack into
the medical locker over there!"
            "She shot
herself in the smegging head!" replied Justin, "What do you think a few
plasters can do?!"
            "Look!"
shouted Davie,
looking up at Justin, "She shot herself in the head, not in the lungs or in the
heart! Her cells don't know she's dead, if we can keep her body supplied with
oxygen and her blood flowing we might be able to get her back to the Dwarf
quick enough read her genetic structure! Now get the smegging medikit!"
            Justin
turned and grabbed a kit from the locker. "You!" Davie said pointing to one of his commandos,
"Get over here and start CPR, keep her blood flowing! And you," he said,
indicating the other, "start wrapping up her head! She need's blood in her so
we can keep it circulating. Justin, you use this!"
            Davie lifted a light blue
colored, rubber intubator, and tossed it to Justin a few feet away. "What the
hell do I use this for?" asked Justin, catching the rubber, air filled bag in
his hands. "Look," Davie
said, coming to his feet, "this goes in her mouth," he said indicating a soft,
white, rubber mouth piece, "and you squeeze the bag! It's to keep her supplied
with oxygen!"
            "Oh,
right."
            Justin bent
down and awkwardly began to work the intubator into her mouth, squeezing it in
an off balance nature. "Keep it even! Like she were breathing on her own!"
            Justin's
compressions became slower, and more controlled. Davie turned to regard Alfredo Gomez at the
pilot's seat. "Get us the smeg outta here!" he shouted at him, and the engines
hummed to life. Davie
rushed towards the Blue Midget's air lock with his rifle, and began to close it.
Suddenly, the large barrel of a Scyther's rifle jammed in to the slivered crack
of the closing hydraulic door. The pressure of the closing door crushed the
barrel of the rifle, but the gun held it open enough for the Scyther squeeze
his massive hands in and literally muscle the door open.
            "Oh, give
us a break!" shouted Davie as he stepped back quickly, leveling his gun at the
Scyther, who rushed him with beyond human speed, the hydraulic air lock door
closing behind him. The Scyther pushed the rifle to the side and hit Davie hard in the face,
cracking the exoskeleton helmet's face plate, simultaneously causing him to
drop his rifle. Davie's
vision became distorted by the sparking and static of the broken helmet, but he
could still see enough for him to make out the hulk of the bio-mechanoid
soldier pull his fist back to deliver another blow. Davie grabbed his arm in mid air, and then
sent his free hand flying up to the Scyther's throat, squeezing, and slamming
the commando bodily into the wall.
            "Davie!" he heard a shout
from behind him. "Stay there! And keep her the smeg alive!!"
            A swift
knee from the Scyther collided with Davie's
midsection, making double over. He backed off, and delivered a devastating
punch to the temple in return. The Scyther was dazed heavily by the blow and
stumbled backwards long enough for Davie
to pull his shot gun from it's thigh holster and shove it up underneath the
Scyther's jaw. He pulled the trigger, sending dozens of tiny metal beads into
the flesh and machinery of the Scyther's head, resulting in a loud, gut
wrenching squelch as he fell limp to the floor. "Let's go!!" shouted Davie, pulling off the
broken helmet and dropping it on the ground.
            The Blue
Midget lifted off and peeled away from the JMC Frank Sidebottom. Davie dropped to his knees
and took the place of the Blue Dwarf commando keeping Castillo's heart pumping,
adding the extra strength of his exoskeleton to help keep her grey blood moving
through her veins. "Take the radio consol!" he ordered the commando. After a
moments flight, they heard a distress signal come over the radio. "Uhh…hello?
Help me!!" shouted Efof over the line, "I crashed into an asteroid, and I need
some help!!"
            Gomez
looked at Davie.
Davie looked
down at Castillo's body, then up at Gomez with an troubled look on his face.
"Swing by him! Grab him with a tow cable, we can't just leave him!" shouted
Davie, continuing to manually pump Castillo's heart, each motion bringing with
it a fresh and unmistakable sting of pain to the bullet wound in his shoulder.
            The Blue
Midget passed by Efof's wrecked Space Eagle, and latched onto it with a tow
cable. Davie
looked up out the view screen as they moved at top speed towards Blue Dwarf,
and he noticed something. Flying just ahead of them was Sgt Wilson's Star Bug.
"Open up a radio channel to that Star Bug." said Davie, not stopping the critical CPR
movements. "Alright, your on." said one of the commando by the radio consol.
"Checkmate King 2 to Checkmate King 3," began Davie, "Come in Checkmate King 3?"
            "Checkmate
King 3 here!" came Wilson's
voice in reply."
            "Wilson! Glad to hear your
voice! What attacked you back there?" Davie
managed to get out between compressions. "I-I don't know. Some kind of…freaky
creature. It killed my whole team and took off."
            "Freaky?
Could you be a bit more elaborate?"
            "Not
really, it's one big blur…"
            "Meet us in
the Flight Deck after we land. Checkmate King 2 out."
            "Over and
out."
            The group
of ships landed in the flight deck, greeted by a team of emergency response
crewmembers, including paramedics, fire teams, and a group of security
officers. Davie,
Justin, and the second commando lifted Castillo's body up off the floor and
took down the landing ramp, dropping her onto a gurney. "Keep her heart
pumping," ordered Davie,
"and get her straight to the medibay. You four!" he said, pointing to a few of
the security personnel standing nearby, "Go with them!"
            Davie took a deep breath
to calm himself. He turned to see Efof stumbling out of his wrecked Space
Eagle. "You alright?" he asked as he walked up to him. "Efof looked up, then
sprang to his feet and wrapped all four of his arms around Davie. "Thank you!" he said excitedly. "Ahh!"

            Davie pushed him off and
clutched his shoulder. "Sorry…" said Efof. "Don't worry about it."
            Davie headed towards the
descending Star Bug ramp to meet Sgt. Wilson. He peered up into the hull, and
he could see that the inside was a mess. The remains of the six man commando
team lay in pieces around the deck. "Wilson!
You in there?"
            Suddenly,
and large shape, almost twice the size of a man, leapt like lightning out of
the Star Bug, crashing into Davie, pinning him to the floor. He covered his
face with his left arm, the creature's massive maw latching onto it. The beast
was bipedal, with two arms, a large head, green, shinny skin, and it's jaws
dripped with saliva. Huge fangs and teeth protruded over it's teeth. It looked
like a mix between an arachnid, a snake, and a human.
            It shook
it's head wildly from side to side as Davie
worked his hand downwards toward the shotgun at his side. His fingers loosely
grasped the gun, and the mutant dug it's teeth in further. Davie managed to get his trigger finger in
place, and moved his knee upwards. He pulled the trigger with removing the gun
from it's holster, sending metal pellets flying out. They bounced off his
exoskeleton and into the creature's left leg. It yelped and released it's grip
on him. It leapt off across the Flight Deck, gun fire erupting in it's
direction. Davie
rolled over onto his stomach to see the monster tearing into a vent grate.
            He pulled
himself to his feet and ran into the Star Bug. "Wilson!?"
he shouted, "Wilson!?"

            He looked
over to a closet near the galley, half open, one bare, human foot sticking out
precariously. Davie
yanked the door open and saw Sgt. Wilson propped up against the inside of the
cupboard, half dead. His skin pale and clammy, his eyes blood shot, two large
bloody holes in his leg, his clothes missing. "Wilson! What happened!?" Davie said, pulling himself up and dragging
him out of the Star Bug. "That creature…" Wilson
struggled sluggishly to pronounce, "…tore apart my men, then bit me in the leg.
Last thing I remember it stated to look like me…"
            "Medic!"
shouted Davie,
"Medibay! Now!" he said.
 
                                                            *          *          *

 
            A few
moments later, the Medibay.
 
 
            Davie stumbled in with Wilson on his shoulder. He flopped him down
onto a bed. "Fix him up." he said to the doctors and nurses rushing up. "We'll
do our best." they said. Davie
looked across the room to see Rufus sitting on a bed with a doctor looking at
the scars around his neck. "Rufus!" he called out across the room, and Rufus
looked over at him. Davie
walked towards him. "Rufus, can you do something for me?"
            "W-w-w-what?"
            "Decipher
these and tell me what's on them." he said, reaching into one of the pouches on
his combat rigging, pulling out the data sticks he stole from the Castillo's
office onboard the JMC Frank Sidebottom. "N-n-no problem!" Rufus replied,
eagerly snatching them out of Davie's
hands. He pulled out a compact Data pad from a messenger bag at his side, and
immediately began. "Oh, and tell Amber that there is a rouge, mutant, man
eating creature loose in the ship."
            Rufus
gulped. "R-r-really?"
            "Yeah."
            Rufus
looked back at his screen nervously. 
            Davie looked around, and
saw Dr. Keto, nurse Wildflower, and several other medical technicians,
surgeons, and doctors hooking up Castillo's body to artificial life support.
Another doctor walked up to him and took a look at his shoulder. "Come over
here and take off your armor." said the doctor, leading him to a bed. Davie removed his
exoskeleton, and let it fall into a heap on the floor. The doctor gave him a
dose of morphine, and began to dig out the bullet. Davie grunted in pain. The doctor dropped the
bullet into a metal pan a few moments later, and reached for a bottle of one of
Keto's ointments. "Just do it the old fashioned way, please." Davie said. "Why? These ointments are a
medical miracle!"
            "Yeah, well
last time someone used one of these `miracles' on me this happened." replied Davie, indicating his
discolored eye. "Wow…can you see out of that?"
            "In a way.
It depends."
            "What do
you mean?"
            "Sometimes
I can see heat patterns, chemical trails, energy signatures, and sometimes I
can't even see out of it at all. I've noticed it depends on what kind of
condition I'm in, what I've eaten, and how much sleep I've gotten."
            "Hmm…interesting…"

            The doctor
looked closer at his eye. "Uh…doc?"
            "Yeah?"
            "My arm?"
            "Oh,
right."
            A few
minuets later the bullet wound was bandaged nicely. He hoped up off the bed and
pulled his combat fatigues and rigging back on, but left his exoskeleton in a
heap next to the bed. He walked over to Keto and the others. "Find anything?"
            "Please be
quiet you imbecile!" started Keto, "Can't see we're working here?!"
            After a
moment, Davie
sighed, then shifted his vision to nurse Wildflower. "Found anything?"
            "Yes
actually."
            "What?"
            "It seems
that her DNA contains a chemical from a very rare type of snake, found on only
one planet in our galaxy, that can morph itself into another form. Similar to
the way a Polymorph does. I think we should go and check it out."
            "Right…planet
of the snakes now, eh?"
            "More or
less."
            "Oh
please!" cut in Keto, "Get back to work Wildflower! And you leave us to work in
peace!"
            Davie and Wildflower
looked at each other. "Keep up the good work!" Davie shouted, just to annoy Dr. Keto, who
whispered something angrily under his breath.
            Davie walked over to check on Wilson. "How's he doing?"
            "He should
make it, but there's an unknown toxin circulating thorough his blood that might
be slowly killing him. We need to try to filter it out or create an antibody.
If we can do that, he should be fine."
            "Anything I
can do to help?"
            "If there
is we'll let you know."
            "D- Davie!"
            Came a
shout from behind him, and he turned to see Rufus beckoning him over. He walked
over to him. "Yeah?"
            "I-I-I
hacked into the f-f-first data stick."
            "That was
fast."
            Rufus
smiled. "What's on it?"
            "I-i-it's
about that creature l-l-lose on the ship. I-i-it seems that it is a g-g-genetic
experiment that is the p-p-product of a joint v-v-venture project between the
Space Corps and T-T-TransMed. It has Hymenoptera DNA, h-h-human DNA, and
rept-t-tile D-DNA. W-when it bites a h-human subject, it c-c-copies their
genetic structure, and c-c-can morph into the sh-shape of that person, while
i-i-injecting a mild n-neurotoxin that degrades a p-p-person's sanity, a-a-and
eventually kills them. It's highly i-inteligent and adaptive. B-b-be careful
w-w-with it."
            "Right,
thanks. What about the other data sticks? What do they have on them?"
            "M-maps.
The other one I've d-decoded has a lot of m-maps."
            "See if
these sticks have the location of the new JMC HQ on them. And see if you can
find any info on Castillo on them."
            "R-r-r-right!"

            "Thanks,
keep it up."
            Davie looked up at the
Medibay door as it slid open, to see Amber standing in it, her face carrying an
expression that was a mixture of shock and hurried panic. "What happened?" Davie asked quickly.
 
 
 
<Tag! This was a JP between me and Justin. So Amber? Do
you have Seymour
with you? Is he alive? Does Rufus find out where the JMC HQ is? And, if so, do
we go there, or to the `Planet of the Snakes'?>