Stranded

[The First One]

Captain Hayley Slater groaned with pain as she regained consciousness, brushing her long red hair out of her eyes.  The corridor between the bridge and crew quarters greeted her, and she rose to her feet, bracing herself against one of the large, ovoid bioluminescent spots on the fleshy walls that provided illumination. 

Gleenara?  The human captain called out mentally, hoping to connect to the telepathic “conference call” her Kleera subordinate allowed the ship and it’s occupants to use to communicate, You alright?  Or at least still alive?

Affirmative, Captain, the communication officer’s mind-voice replied, (to Hayley’s relief) Just some pain, I’ll live. 

Good.  In that case, headcount time.  Doctor Crimson?

Reporting, Captain, replied the ship’s Bisaari medical specialist.  I’ve sustained minor damage to my external shell.  Based on my assessment, it should heal on its’ own within a few days.

Slin?

Aye aye, Captain.  Got the worst headache I’ve ever had, but that’s to be expected.  I’ll have Crimson check it out, but I doubt it’s anything serious.

Tina?

Alive and kicking.

Tom?

No response

Tom?!  Hayley repeated, worriedly, Gleenara, he’s not-

Relax, Captain.  I can still sense him, he’s alive. 

Affirmative, Crimson said, I just found him.  He’s unconscious but apparently stable. 

Hayley breathed a sigh of relief she hadn’t been aware she was holding in.  In that case, get him into a medpod immediately.  Patchwork?

Affirmative.

Diagnostic.

Life support: Online
Database: Online
Medical: Online
Culinary: Online
Maintenance Drone: Online
Localized comms: Online
Conventional engines: Offline
Shadow Drive: Offline
Shadow Communications: Offline

So until we can get the ship fixed, we’re stranded here.

Affirmative

Where is ‘here,’ anyway?  Slin interjected.

[The First One]

Authors note: I plan to focus more on plot in this story, but there will be growth later.

There were six crew members on Composite Vessel 29, also known as Patchwork.  Of those six, three of them were human: Captain Hayley Slater, her boyfriend, Tom Grayson, a soldier, and his twin sister, Tina, also a soldier who had previously had a moderately successful career as a bodybuilder, and was still the most visibly muscular of the group, with 16-inch biceps and weighing 175 pounds.  The rest of the crew consisted of three aliens, one of which was Gleenara, a Kleera.  Female Kleera were roughly humanoid, but with insectlike wings, eyes, exoskeletons, and potent psionic abilities, while males were less humanoid, had no psionic ability at all and were nonsapient, traditionally kept in enclosed, high-security areas of the hives they lived in.  Slin was what humans called a Siren, an amphibious hermaphrodite resembling a human woman, but with gills and a  large set of male sex organs that she could push out of her vagina.  The least humanoid of the crew was Doctor Crimson, MD (whose real name was actually a series of flashes of red light of varying intensity and length, hence the nickname).  The Bisaari (as the verbal sapient species of the galaxy called it’s people) was a crystalline organism resembling a centipede, twelve feet long and three feet wide, with twenty legs.  The front end of its body bore a forward-facing socket containing a bioluminescent orb the size of a basketball that flashed in varying colors as a form of communication.  The socket was surrounded by twelve slender, multi-jointed arms, each ending in a sharp, crablike claw. 

   The ship itself, Patchwork, was so named due to being a hybrid of technologies contributed by various worlds in the Galactic Community, a combination of machinery and biotechnology.  Patchwork, Gleenara and Slin were currently combing the Galactic Fleet’s database for information about the planet they now found themselves on, the missile that trapped them there, and the disappearances they had been sent to the local quadrant to investigate.  Tom was in one of the medical bay’s medpods, a glass, fluid-filled pod containing a breathing mask, an IV drip, equipment to monitor the occupants vital signs, and various other things.  The remainder of the crew were gathered around it, the humans awaiting Crimson’s verdict.

    {Multiple broken bones, severe internal bruising and bleeding and a level nine concussion,} the doctor flashed, having turned it’s head to face the others, {We’ll need to keep him in the pod for a few days, but he should recover.  Just not soon enough to help us get off this planet.  All things considered, we’re lucky the medbay wasn’t seriously damaged}.  “Okay.  In that case, I’ll head up to the bridge to check on the others.  Tina-“ “Is it okay for me to stay here for a bit, Captain?” Hayley paused for a moment.  “Yes.”

“So,” Hayley said, as she opened the door leading into Patchwork’s “head,” “Found anything?”  More than we expected, but less than we hoped, Gleenara replied, And if any of it was accurate, leaving this planet will be even harder than we thought.

[The First One]

First of all,” Slin explained from her place in the pilots chair, “this planet has no name.  Nobody from the expedition that first discovered it seems to have lived long enough to give it one.” “Well what killed them?” As near as we can tell, Gleenara replied, the local flora and fauna.  The last transmission from them consisted of the captain rambling about his subordinates being eaten by horrific beasts that adapted to anything that hurt them.  And something about a giant woman, but he seemed to have been delirious.

The Galactic Congress decided the planet’s ecosystem was too dangerous to bother with and declared it off-limits.  As such, there should be a satellite in orbit transmitting a continuous warning on all channels to stay away, but obviously, by the time we got here, there wasn’t.  Based on the evidence I would say someone shot it down.  Probably whoever shot us down, who I suspect is also responsible for the disappearances we were sent to investigate.  “Any clues as to who that could be?”  “Well, the design of the missile itself didn’t match anything we could find in the database.  But as you know, the disappearances were mostly of explorers, archeologists, treasure hunters and whatnot chasing rumors of Elder tech in this quadrant.”

“But the Elders-“ Died out over half a billion years ago, we remember, Gleenara said, cutting Hayley off, But that doesn’t necessarily mean someone couldn’t have found a base of theirs here and somehow gained control over it, or that there aren’t automated defenses of some sort.  “And besides,” Slin continued, “most likely it’s just some looters law enforcement doesn’t know about.” “You’re probably right.  Anyway, we now have three objectives: Find whoever shot us down, stop them, and get out of here.”

[Lupus753]

I like where this is going.

[The First One]

No sooner did the captain say this than something bumped up against Patchwork, causing the ship to momentarily tilt to the right.  Then again.  And again.  Hayley walked over to a switch on a nearby wall and activated the ship’s intercom.  “Tina, report to the armory immediately.  We’ll meet you there.  We’re going outside.”

The outer door of the airlock opened and the girls (and Slin) disembarked into the planet’s ecosystem; a lush jungle, albeit one with a good-sized new clearing and multiple broken trees from the landing.  Hayley and Gleenara were both armed with standard-issue Galactic Fleet plasma pistols, Slin with a Pluto-model Tesla rifle, and Tina with a Heavy Ion Launcher.  The thing bumping into the ship was a massive wormlike beast, taller than the ship itself, its body ending (at least in the front, the back was underground) with a gigantic mouth, ringed with multiple rows of sharklike teeth.  Seven compound eyes were arranged in a ring around its body, and it was attacking Patchwork with a pair of mantis-like claws.  Until, that is, it spotted easier prey and turned toward the crew women (and Slin).  “Spread out!” Hayley barked.  They did, dashing to the creatures’ sides, and Gleenara taking to the air.  “Fire!” They did.  Hayley and Gleenara’s blazing orange plasma bolts, Slin’s stream of lightning and Tina’s rocket (not to mention the powerful electrical charge it generated) only singed the beast, failing to penetrate its hide.  “Gleenara?” The Kleera nodded and briefly closed her eyes in concentration.  The beast suddenly roared in pain, flailing around for a few seconds before it retreated back underground.

“What was that you did?” Slin asked as they reentered the ship.  It’s a psionic arts technique my people call Deceptive Agony.  It inflicts no actual physical harm, but generates a message of excruciating pain throughout the body in the brain.  But it’s very energy-intensive.  I’ve heard of others that are better at this kind of thing, but I can only use it every few hours at best.

“Okay,” Hayley said, “Now that that’s dealt with, was anyone able to deduce where the missile was fired from?”

Yes, Captain, Patchwork replied.  We have landed near the west coast of the largest landmass on this planet.  Slin and I were able to triangulate the missile’s point of origin to the center of the continent, roughly 830 miles to the southeast.  “In that case, fire up the engineering drone.  We’ll need at least the conventional engines working again to get there in any reasonable length of time.”

[The First One]

Caution:  Things get a bit more graphic starting in this chapter.

The crew slept in shifts that night, with one of them plus Patchwork on guard at all times.  Not much actually happened until dawn, when the beast Gleenara had driven off the previous day resurfaced.  Or at least it looked like the same one, in that it looked like the same species, and had scorch marks in the same places as the ones they had inflicted, but it was bigger.  A lot bigger.  It towered over the ship even more than before, and was at least half again as big around.  Gleenara, who was on watch at that point, hurriedly took to the air and used Deceptive Agony again, to no avail.  Unsure why her gifts had failed her, she frantically called out to the rest of the crew.  No sooner had she, Tina, Slin and Captain Slater all taken a defensive position between the creature and their ship than something else dashed out of the jungle, placing itself between the crew and the beast.  It moved too fast for any of them to get a good look at it, and leapt up towards the creature’s front end.  Then clear through it.  Gore and brain matter erupted from their attacker and splattered them as it fell, dead from a hole their savior had punched clear through its body.  It wasn’t until the mysterious figure landed in front of them in a crouching position that they were able to get a good look at it.  Or rather, at her.  It was a woman, but one unlike any that any of them had ever seen.  She looked human, but about ten feet tall and incredibly muscular.  She was Asian, her hair reached down to her knees, and her muscles bulged, bunching and rippling with the smallest moment.  She nodded at the group before dashing back into the jungle, leaving gigantic footprints in the soil exposed by the crash.

Nobody was sure what to make of what just happened.  After everyone showered, Doctor Crimson took blood, urine, skin, saliva and stool samples from everyone who had been splattered with worm blood, proclaiming they would take two days to scan.  A few hours later, the engineering drone got the conventional engines working again, and Patchwork took off for the center of the continent.

      Hayley was lying on her bunk in the captain’s quarters when the door slid open to admit the engineering drone.  That’s odd, she thought as it approached the bunk, Shouldn’t it- That was as far as her thought process got before the compartment comprising most of the drone’s spherical, floating body opened, and a spindly mechanical arm holding a laser cutter emerged from it.  Then the drone sliced off her left hand.  The captain screamed bloody murder.  Just before passing out from pain and shock, she saw Tina firing a Tesla rifle at her assailant from the doorway.

[The First One]

Hayley regained consciousness in a medpod.  The warmth of the fluid felt pleasant, and for a few minutes she just stayed there, eyes closed, enjoying the feeling.  Then she remembered why she was there.  She turned her head to see her left arm.  She did a double take when she had processed the fact that her hand was still there.  Or maybe it had regenerated.  Either way, what she was seeing shouldn’t be possible.  Had she just imagined or dreamed the whole thing?  Then why was she in a medpod, because of something to do with that worm?  In that case, why was Tom still the only she could see in any of the other pods?  Had she dreamed everything since the crash while unconscious and just woken up now?  Was she still-  She noticed a sudden ache throughout her body that cut her off.  For a few seconds it built, then it reached a crescendo.  And Hayley started to grow.  As the ache subsided she started getting taller.  Wider.  Thicker.  And her muscles started getting bigger and harder.  She’d always been moderately toned, but that was about it.  She was also only 5’5.  But within seconds she was six feet tall and about as muscular as Tina, and still growing.  She kept getting taller.  Her biceps were bigger around than her waist had been before she started growing, her calves and thighs were even bigger and her once flat stomach now bore a set of six abs.  The division between them deepened until a fourth row started to appear.  Her shoulders, lats and hips were widening.  Her stomach wasn’t as wide, but it was still wider than her hips had been originally.  Her shoulders looked like cannonballs.  Her hands and feet were also growing, and her neck had effectively disappeared and merged into her shoulders.  And still she grew.  Eventually her shoulders started pressing against the medpod walls.  She tried to curl up her body as much as possible, but she kept growing.  Her head touched the top of the pod.  Those things were eight feet tall and she was still bending over.  She was over eight feet tall and still growing!  Not long after that, the glass started cracking, until she burst clear through it, sending a wave of fluid spilling onto the floor and across the room.  By the time she finally stopped growing the ceiling was a short distance over her head and her entire body was bulging with rock-hard, hulking muscle.  She had taken a class on comic history in college, and was sure her muscles were larger than those of the Hulk.  “Crimson!” She shouted, noting how much louder and deeper her voice had become, “Get up here!

[The First One]

They had spent a day and a half in orbit by the time Hayley woke up and transformed.  Doctor Crimson had already analyzed the samples it had taken by that point, and found that they all contained nanomachines of unknown origin.  Nothing they had (although they were unwilling to try a laser cutter) was able to penetrate Hayley’s skin anymore, or even cause any pain.  They were able to cut her hair, but it would grow back within a matter of hours.  Crimson was able to measure her as 10’3, but she overloaded the scale, making her over five tons.   They didn’t have the tools to sew anything for her to wear at her new size, so Hayley decided to just go naked for the time being.  Honestly, she liked her new body too much to bother trying to hide it.  She’d often get distracted narcissistically admiring her new muscularity, and could actually hear sounds clear across the ship now.  Slin and Patchwork were still searching for additional information on the planet while the crew tried to decide their next move. 

Two days after her captain’s transformation, Slin called a meeting.  “It wasn’t easy, but we’ve found something.”  With all due respect, Gleenara interjected, what took you so long?  Slin glared at her.  “This stuff was extremely classified.  Real hush-hush, need-to-know basis, that kind of thing.  I had to do things that aren’t even legal to access it, but under the circumstances I didn’t have much choice.  As far as the first expedition could tell, all life on this planet contains the same nanomachines as the ones Crimson found in us.  My guess is we caught them from the worm’s blood.  They cause carbon-based life to regenerate and adapt to anything that hurts them but doesn’t kill them.  That’s probably why that worm was immune to Gleenara’s powers the second time.  When the captain’s message said the creatures down there adapted to anything that didn’t kill them, I assumed he meant developing tactics to counter the expedition’s weaponry.  I have no idea how this is even possible.”  {Nor I}.  “Anyway, they also found a massive building at the center of the continent we crashed on.  Recognizable as Elder construction.”  “So that’s where we’re going,” Tina concluded.  “Wait, we are still going there, right?”  “Right,” Hayley replied.  “This is gonna sound crazy,” Tina replied, “but Crimson, could you operate on each of us?”  Everyone stared at her for a good five seconds.  “I mean, think about it.  That planet’s a dangerous place, and if the Elders made it like that, then that building of theirs could be even worse.  We saw what that one woman did to the worm, and we’re gonna need serious power.  You could just open us up and close us right away.”  She didn’t mention that she was also incredibly jealous of her captain’s new muscles.  “And maybe we could get Tom out of his pod early, too!” {Perhaps, but getting him out of the pod to infect him could be risky.}  “Okay, then.  What about you?” {As a carbon-based life form, it is unlikely the nanites would affect me.}. “But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t trigger the ones we already have in us.  With the captain’s permission, of course,” Tina blushed. “Well I’ve been feeling better than ever since I changed, so you have my permission, but each individual will need to give consent for this.  After everyone who agrees has been transformed, we’re going down there to finish this.”

[Lupus753]

I hope the growth comes soon.