Goop

Posted on 22 Jun 2018 @ 6:10am by Staff Warrant Officer William Griffin

1,187 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Search Begins
Location: Support Craft Maintenance Hangar
Timeline: MD2, 0935 Hrs

Griffin had just returned from sickbay where the injured crewman was now in recovery. He'd used the walk and the five minutes he spent in the head washing his hands and face to collect himself. He hadn't taken two steps into the hangar when his com badge chirped.
=/\= "Quinn to Griffin, fighters coming down damaged, bio hazard protocol. Some kinda space bat things."
Space bats? Space bats!? He hadn't wrapped his head around that statement enough to give a response when the channel cut abruptly, Griffin assumed by the tension in Winner's voice and the distinct sound of landing fighters above their heads that the flight deck was pretty busy.

"Okay people!" His voice boomed across the hangar, "update - Jackson is gonna be fine, the idiot won't loose an arm, until he gets outta sickbay an' I rip it off to beat him with it!" A smattering of quick conversation rolled across the hangar and Griffin was rewarded by a couple of chuckles. Just then, the fighter lift began descending, carrying with it a hot bird. He pushed his roar to maximum decibel output, "We've got hot fighters coming down. They're damaged. There's non-indigenous bio-matter. Bio-hazard protocol!"

Another, louder wave of conversation, comments, questions and barked orders from crew chiefs and a certain excitement crackled across the hangar. Bio-hazard was an unusual one, a protocol generally reserved for when fighters were operating in atmosphere. Space-borne bio-matter was just unusual enough to pique the interest of the maintenance crews, and his own, if he was honest.

As the fighters came down one-by-one and were assigned to bays, the crews went to work with sonic power-washers, low energy phaser sweeps and buckets of hot water mixed with detergent and solvent and scrubbing brushes. He heard more than one chief yelling about hot ports and safety protocols. His own charge, commander Walsh's Alpha One was sitting in the front bay waiting for him.

The fighter seemed to be intact, on a quick visible inspection. The primary problem was the bits of what could only be described as goop all over the thing. Some of it was identifiable, entrails and chunks of oddly gray flesh, some of it less so. It was emitting a smell something between rancid owon eggs and a Tellarite's ass-crack, but somehow worse than the sum of it's parts.

"Kheet'agh, Chief, what the hell is that smell?" Crewman Kell screwed up her face, scowling at the fighter. "Did you take your boots off or something?"

"Hah-hah, Laren," he deadpanned back at her, "get the sonic washer out an' lets get rid of it." He growled at her, from across the hangar he could hear similar expletives about the odor that was rapidly filling the whole vast space. Trying not to breathe through his nose, he moved around to the left side of Alpha One and leaned in to look at the cowl scoop that hid the bussard collector. There was something...

"WHAARGH WHATHEFUHOLYSHI!" Was all he managed as a black, roughly bat shaped thing shot past his head and flapped frantically out into the hangar. He ungracefully landed flat on his ass, hands reflectively up over his head as it whooshed past. From around the hangar yells and calls of alarm sounded as two-dozen pairs of eyes tracked the thing.

Griffin rolled to his knees and stood, trying to squeeze his hammering heart back into his chest and rescue some of his battered dignity. The bat thing was flapping around in the support beams high above, apparently panicked and probably looking for somewhere to hide. Thoughts of how to get the thing out of the hangar without hurting it flitted through his mind as he accessed the emergency equipment storage locker on the side of Alpha One and pulled out the type-III rifle that it contained.

Several of the crew chiefs, he noted, had done the same thing and now five phaser rifles were pointed up towards the creature. "Hold your fire!" Griffin roared across the room. He shifted his hand and tapped the comm badge on his chest.

=/\= "Griffin to operations, we've got a space bat thing flying around in the damn maintenance hangar. Can you get a lock on it and beam it out into space?" He asked gruffly and didn't have to wait long for a reply, "negative, chief. It's emitting some kind of interference, we can't get a lock on it. Be aware it's been reported they drain energy sources."

"Okay, shoot the damn thing!" He roared, raising his own rifle and taking aim. Several shots went wide of the mark, but one of the chiefs managed to tag the thing. It made an odd screeching sound and turned, diving for the chief, who ducked and rolled under the fighter he had been working on. Griffin took aim with his own rifle, pushed the setting up to eight and fired. The thing screeched again and turned his way.

"Son of a..." Level 11, and he dropped to one knee as the thing rapidly swooped towards him. He fired as it approached and the thing... popped. Griffin instinctively closed his eyes as the inertia of the bat-thing-now-flying-bits caused it to splatter all over the deck, the rifle and himself. There was an odd electrical tingle through his body as it made contact and the smell. Oh god, the smell.

He stood, rifle hanging by his side and tried hard not to breathe. For a long moment there was silence in the hangar, and then a cacophony of cheers, yells, whoops, curses and alarms filled the room. Griffin's eyes were still closed but to his left he heard Kell calling to him, "Chief! Are you all right?!"

Am I all right? A quick inventory of his body, tensing muscle by muscle, told him that he thought he was all right, but the odd tingling on his skin was gradually growing, developing into something that was becoming almost painful. He risked taking a breath and almost gagged on the smell of the stuff that was all over him, but was able to speak.

"Laren... don't touch me." He told her, oddly calm, "get the sonic washer and get this stuff off me, fast!"

"Kosst! All right hold on!" He heard her say, "Crewman Kell Laren to sickbay, medical emergency in the fighter maintenance hangar, get someone down here!" He heard her add and wondered if Lieutenant Road would be making another appearance. Then he was hit by a wave of vibration that nearly knocked him over as the industrial strength sonic power washer, probably at it's lowest setting, blasted away the goop, and, he was alarmed to note, at least some of his uniform.

Gradually, the tingling was dissipating, growing less and less as the goop was removed. Finally, he was able to open his eyes and found he could hardly see, his eyes were watering heavily, but he was surrounded by a whole lot of people, and in the distance, a blue-shouldered shape was running towards them.

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