Chapter Text
“Board.”
Price's voice pushed them forward, the team stepping into the spaceship, pulse guns at the ready.
“Clear.”
There'd been no need to breach the already gaping airlock, which was never a good sign. Like the ship's occupants had fled in a hurry. Judging from the state of said ship, that was likely the case. They were entering in a full suit, just in case it decided to completely fall apart and spit them out into space. Soap's tail twitched inside the suit's material. Despite its stretchiness, he hated it. He knew Gaz felt the same.
Door after door was opened, revealing an empty ship.
“Scanners show a concentration of shifting heat in the cargo bay under you,” Laswell's voice transmitted from their own ship that Nik was letting idle at a safe distance.
“People ?” Price asked.
“Unknown. The radiation leaks from the engine are scrambling the scanner.”
Great. That meant one or two things, neither being a palatable option. Slavers, or poachers. Both were a mess to deal with, and it didn't explain the pitiful state of the ship.
They descended into the lower level in formation, alert. An ambush was unlikely, but not impossible. It wouldn't be the first time some unlucky pirates had feigned being helpless to steal their ship, and wouldn't be the last. Soap pushed down his amusement as he stacked on the large door labeled 'Cargo', Gaz on the other side. Price nodded, and Soap pressed on the lock pad. For the first time since they boarded, it flashed orange and the door didn't budge. Every single door so far had been unlocked.
As Soap took out his tools and popped open the pad, exposing its interior conduits, Gaz and Price changed the setting of their guns to a higher level. What were the odds of this single lock being functional while the rest of the ship was falling apart ? The entire situation reeked.
“Opening,” Soap warned before cutting off the conduit keeping the door closed.
He quickly followed after his teammates, but their guns were pointing down, standing in front of rows and rows of cages.
“Poachers.”
The noise of the animals, previously blocked by the soundproofing, rose between them. Soap sighed. At first glance, he could already see two deathworld species. Releasing them was going to be a cold swim.
“Chin up,” Gaz laughed as he slapped a clawed hand on his shoulder. “Most of these won't be hard.”
Soap was still grumbling when Price's voice cut them off.
“Laswell, do you have this in your database ?”
Curious, they both turned to the cage Price was standing in front of. Soap looked at Gaz, who waved his tail in the negative. What was this ?
Ghost prepared to kick at the translucent wall of his cell when the door to their hangar started to slide open. If the stupid bugs didn't want to feed them, he'd see how they liked being turned into kibble. The dispensers, in all the other cages as far as he could see, had run out for what he assumed was a few days now. And hadn't been refilled. And since the aliens clearly hadn't abandoned ship after all, Ghost was determined to scare them a bit. They'd gotten too complacent around him, and that just wouldn't do.
He stopped his bare foot from impacting uselessly against the bluish barrier when the door opened wide and two, shortly followed by a third, fully kitted out operatives rushed the room, rifles up and clearing the space.
Alien operatives, but you didn't get that kind of movement and precision without training, he'd know. He allowed himself a scoff, the screeching of all the other animals easily covering the sound. Those guys didn't look like his captors, and their appearance suggested multiple species and possibly societies of aliens out there. Ghost filled that information for later. If later there was.
Once again cursing the lack of space in this block of glass, he made an undignified walk forward, crouched into a ball. He'd have crawled, but he didn't want to risk repositioning and losing sight of his new visitors.
They scanned the cages for a bit, which allowed Ghost to regard them without their attention on him. Finer details were hard to make out, since the aliens were wearing some sort of space suit, but the rough shapes were there.
The one closest to him was weirdly hunched over, like he had a permanent hump, a fate Ghost might just share after not being able to stand fully upright in his cube. As a result, he looked shorter than the other two, curled over his rifle held in an upper set of hands and arms, because there was another set just lower of it. Both spare hands were resting on a belt holding a multitude of equipment Ghost couldn't begin to guess, but he was sure were a potential threat. One of these things did look suspiciously like a grenade, but you never knew with aliens. The collapsible pole they'd used to prod at him folded back into an hexagon, instead of something sensible like a cylinder. Go figure.
The being's head, in what reminded Ghost of a motorcycle helmet, looked like an armadillo. There was no other way to describe it. An armadillo with brown carapace interspersed with greenish sections, and brown fur neatly trimmed under its long snout. Then came the legs. Like the alien's back, they appeared constantly bent, and Ghost idly wondered how tall the thing would be if it would only straighten to its full height. But it didn't, and that left Ghost to stare at its feet. The shoes could have passed for human shoes, if they were thicker and with less of an arch at the sole. He wondered what exactly that creature's feet looked like in there, but not for long. Armadillo stepped forward.
Ghost tensed, eyeing the rifle. He had no chance of snatching it, whatever this cube was made out of stopping anything from getting out. He knew from experience it didn't necessarily stop things from getting in.
New noises flew between the three aliens and it took Ghost a second to understand it as speech. Not any speech he could understand, of course, but it was at the very least recognisable as a language, a far cry from the horrid chittering of his previous captors. He might be able to take advantage of that.
For now, all three aliens had gathered in front of his cell. The tallest was also the least disconcerting one, in Ghost's opinion. It simply looked like someone had smashed a cat and monkey together and got it upright on its hind legs. A long tail twitched behind him, encased in the material of the suit. The helmet was bigger to accommodate large cat ears with tufts on top. The head was similarly cat-like, but that was where the similarities ended. Large eyes, too large, were fixed on him with no pupil that he could see, and it unnerved him more than he'd like to admit. The body was more slender and refined looking, but the arms were thicker and longer than looked appropriate, and Ghost pinged both of these firmly in the 'monkey' category. The legs tapered back into feline, with backward knees and paw-looking feet. He'd call it Monkat for now.
The third alien didn't actually look all that odd, beyond the large tail that reminded Ghost of a lizard. Two arms, two normal looking legs, normal looking knees and torso. The face could have even been vaguely human if it wasn't fucking blue. He dubbed him Blue. It would do.
Suddenly, all three visitors erupted in a flurry of movement, until Armadillo, who Ghost surmised was their leader barked an order. The two shut up. If he had a shot at getting out of here, he'd need to target Armadillo. Their eyes met, and he held the thing's gaze.
“Say again, Laswell ?” Price didn't dare look away from the figure crouched beyond the protective barrier. He'd never been so glad these things were rated to withstand much more force than any living being could apply.
“It's the only match, John.” Her sigh could be heard through the transmission. “This is a human.”
Price cursed. He'd never in his life wished the Urna's database to be wrong as much as he did now. Unfortunately, it had never been wrong.
“That would explain the state of the ship,” Soap stated, glum.
“Did these idiots seriously expect the ship to be in one piece after warping there. Nevermind the impossible distance, what about the asteroid belt ?!” Gaz hissed, tail weaving back and forth behind him.
“They were surprisingly lucky,” Laswell interrupted. “The warp core seemed to have held for a while before they deemed it a lost cause and jumped ship. Aside from the core, the rest is shield and hull damage.”
“Wonderful,” Soap groaned.
“Good news, Sergeant, I estimate it will hold long enough for us to transfer the cargo to our ship,” she replied with forced humour.
“All the cargo ?” Gaz asked.
Price secretly agreed. Professionally however, they didn't really have a choice.
“All the cargo,” he confirmed.
This entire time, the human hadn't moved an inch, small eyes fixed on him. They were unnerving, black in the center and white outside, where the colour should have continued.
“We could just leave it here. Who'd know ?”
“Gaz. It's secure. We're taking it with us.”
“And keep it locked in a tiny cage the rest of its life ?”
Count on Soap to feel bad for the very dangerous, very deadly human.
“We will figure something out,” Price sighed. “Transfer it to something bigger.”
“Well, you should probably stop staring right at it, sir,” Gaz piped up. “Aggression and all.”
Price didn't answer. It didn't look aggressive, but the unnatural stillness and crouch looked more than the result of its cramped living space. It was calculated. Price's fingers twitched on the guard of his pulse gun and the human's eyes immediately tracked the movement. Did it know what it was ? The poachers had probably grabbed him with something similar. It'd stand to reason the animal would be wary. And attack on sight if it could have.
“I'm lined up, Captain.” Nik broke the moment.
“Alright,” Price tore his eyes away. “Soap, get the cargo bay open. Let's do this.”
Something was happening, and Ghost hated that he couldn't tell what. You'd think after months and months in an alien spaceship, he'd be used to the unusual. He wasn't. It grated on his nerves to not know, to not be able to assess potential threats. He wished for his mask. Hell, he wouldn't care about his clothes if only he had something to cover his face, make him feel less exposed. As it was, stripped of everything but his boxers, there was nothing he could do.
He watched as one by one, the animal's cages were loaded onto the cargo bay of another ship, row after row. It looked smooth, the cages sliding on some flat rails, but he still wondered if his neighbours on his right would survive the short trip. The little balls of rock, that weren't rock at all but grey fur so dense it looked like rock, were very, very weak to any kind of impact. And loud.
When Ghost had first arrived, there were six of the small balls. There were only four now. Their high pitched whine had grated on his nerves like nothing else and he'd ended up punching the translucent barrier between them, startling them. One of them launched itself away from him so fast it impacted the other side of its cage and exploded in a green sludge.
He didn't have time to feel bad for the thing, as the laser had come on and erased every trace of viscera from existence. That had gotten his attention. And even after all this time, Ghost hadn't figured out where it came from. Somewhere in the walls, probably, but he was mostly only glad at this point he didn't have to worry too much about where he relieved himself. Any kind of organic matter not attached to a living being was atomized at the first pass of the red laser.
The little furballs huddled in a big pile when their cage started to move, much more slowly than the rest. At least the new aliens seemed to know what they were dealing with. His captors had been a lot less careful and crushed one trying to get it out of the cube. For what, Ghost had never found out. He'd broken or parried everything they'd gotten in his cube to try and move him. They'd gotten him once, and it had landed him on a fucking spaceship. So much for two weeks of leave in a quiet cabin in the forest.
The thin rails were brought to his cage and put down by the blue alien, and then his cube moved forward. Ghost couldn't see anything propelling, pushing or pulling it. He ground his teeth, irritation mounting.
Bloody hell, he hated not knowing what was going on.
The new cargo bay of the new spaceship didn't look any different from the previous one, beyond a few closed boxes in a corner and a slightly lighter shade of grey. He was slotted back next to the bundle of rocks, who still hadn't come out of their protective bundle, and it wasn't long before his other next door neighbour came along, some odd deer, if a deer had its antlers on its shoulders, a third, shorter pair of legs it kept curled under its belly, and was fucking green. He'd have wondered if all the creatures in space bled green if he hadn't managed to kill at least one of the bug aliens when they'd captured him. These ones bled orange and it had looked damn good under his foot.
Once all the cages were transferred, the three aliens left the large room. Ghost sat down, back resting against the glass-like material of the cubes in a good position to watch the door and play spot the difference between this place and the other.
His eyes were drawn back to the small rocks. They'd finally decided to scatter again, and he figured out why when the food dispenser rose to life. Ghost's stomach grumbled, against his best effort. Grey pebbles were spat out into the container under it. The texture was absolutely disgusting, neither dry nor wet but a weird inbetween that just revolting. And it had no taste at all. He shoved as much as he could into his hand and swallowed it, chewing as little as possible. As usual, no water. He had no clue how, but these things also seemed to replace liquid intake enough that despite being parched, he wasn't fully dehydrated after a few days of no food. If it had been days. Ghost wasn't sure. It was hard to tell the days apart in here. Resigned, he went about finishing his portion. He'd never thought he'd miss field ration as much as he did now.
Soap walked back into the bridge where everyone else was gathered.
“Everything alright ?” Price asked.
“It's working.” He hated feeding the synthesized pellets to the animals, but they didn't have enough fresh stuff on board for that many animals at once. And they weren't sure what the human could eat beyond these. He'd have to figure it out. “So, what did that mysterious file on humans say, Laswell ?”
Now that they weren't on a damaged ship that could explode at any time, they could finally unpack this insanity.
“Not much,” she clacked her beak, irritated. “It's the report of the first landing on their planet. A Zilo ship. It's old. The team miscalculated a warp and were stranded in the space around the planet. They decided to land and make a discovery out of their mistake. It took a while to figure out atmosphere parameters, and by the time they stepped out of the ship, they were ambushed. A group of about five humans attacked, killing one Zilo instantly. The others tried to flee back inside. Only three out of eight made it. The pilot got them back in atmosphere, where they did a more thorough scan of the planet. It was classified as a level 13 deathworld.”
“Thirteen ?” Gaz hissed, end of his tail puffed up.
Soap's own tail fin stretched out in alarm. The relief at being out of the suit and able to do so barely registered.
“How much can we trust that report ?” Price questioned. “Even the worst planet in our system is only level 9.”
“It has just about every catastrophic weather event on record, high gravity and more. It fits.” Laswell said.
Silence fell. That was...
“But.” Everyone turned to Soap. “The human doesn't look that hardy.”
It didn't have scales, or fur beyond the tuft on its head. No claws he had seen or powerful tail.
“It probably makes up for it in aggression,” Gaz mumbled.
Soap couldn't help it. “Scared of the big, bad, trapped human, Garrick ?”
He didn't have time to gloat, and Gaz to retort. A hand fell on his shoulder.
“Well then Soap, since you're so eager, you're the official caretaker of the human until we figure out what to do with it,” Price said, nose furled in amusement.
Blast. Gaz carefully lowered his tail to not betray his own mirth, the bastard.
“What can we do with it ?” Soap asked. This looked like a long-term assignment.
They couldn't just drop the human at the embassy of the planet, or release it themselves on his planet. The human's planet was just impossible to get to if you didn't have a death wish. And who knew what releasing it on another planet would do.
The look Price gave him told him it was now his job to figure out. Light save him, this was a nightmare. Laswell gave an encouraging click. At least he could ask her later if she'd managed to scrounge up more intel. For now, he turned back to the door.
“Where are you going ?” Gaz tossed at his back, barely suppressing his laugh.
“Doing my job !” Soap flared his fin wide at him, not looking back.
The door slid closed behind him and he relaxed, sighing. He could at least start with the damned pellets. No one, not even the most aggressive animal in the known galaxy deserved to eat those long term, and it looked like the human was stuck with them for a long while. Soap hated poachers and animal abusers more than he feared humans. With this in mind, he turned in the right corridor towards the cargo bay.