#stomach ir bak rest

[birdiepaws]

why ar epeoole driving at 3:12 in the morning

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “From the Stars.”

Forgive me guys, I wrote this one while at work. I hope you like it anyway :)

It was cold, very cold. The insulated metal walls were doing poorly in protecting them from the frigid tundra outside, whose temperature could reach spikes troughs well below zero, and so she stood there in a long coat that almost brushed against the floor, listening to the howling of the wind outdoors which shook their metal walls.

The room was dim, and the overhead lights flickered and swayed with the rattling of the metal building.

She shivered again,clumsily adjusting the stage of her microscope with her gloved fingers.

Eventually, she sat back in frustration slamming the flat of her palm against the side of the desk causing a loud echo to clatter through the room.

“Don’t tell me-”

She didn’t even bother to look up as her coworker stepped into the room, “Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing.”

“I mean there is no change since the last time we checked, and nothing else seems to be working/”

He sighed and leaned against the wall.

She looked up at him, past his right blue eyes obscured behind safety goggles and a full face mask. He looked defeated, she could see it. 

Abandoning her microscope, she walked over and placed a hand on his arm. He slumped against he taking in what little comfort he could from her gloved touch.

“There’s still hope.” She said softly.

He sighed, “How, how is there still hope. What will it take for there to be no more hope, thousands of lives, millions?”

He was right, of course he was right, but acknowledging that would just be admitting to their continual failure.

And that was when the power shut off.

She sighed in frustration, seeing the breath come in billowing clouds before her face. 

“You turn.” He said from the darkness 

She huffed again, but grabbed a light and held it aloft as she felt her way down the hallway towards the door. She stepped up to the interior door and shouldered it open as the walls shook around her. Shutting it before opening the exterior door. She was almost blown backward as a gust of wind and snow blew into the room slamming her back against the wall.

She was forced to steady herself and drop her head against the blizzard as she walked out into the show. Why someone had thought to put the generator in a completely different building was beyond her. And it took her almost two full minutes to stagger the 20 feet to the generator building.

She went to open the keypad to give the code, but as she tried to open it, it suddenly stuck, probably blocked by all the ice.

She cursed and pulled again keeling over backward into the snow as the ice shattered and she was sent rolling over backwards.

She landed hard on her back in the snowhead oriented backwards and but towards the white mass of snow. What she saw didn’t make sense at first, a dark black silhouette partially obscured by blowing snow. Rolling onto her stomach, she glanced back squinting, her hood falling partially over her eyes.

Another gust of wind partially obscured her vision again

But when it cleared the dark silhouette was closer, and with a gasp she scrambled backwards towards the door Eyes fixed on the towering black silhouette, its legs impossibly long, its arms the same, and a small head perched atop it all as it trudged from the dark.

Gasping, she backed against the wall, watching as it raised a hand out towards here.

She clawed her way upwards and slammed the security code into the keypad wrenching open the door and throwing herself inside, wind blowing the door shut before she could do it herself.

She was left alone panting in the darkness body hot despite the cold outside. The sin of her face burned where the snow had touched it Hands shaking with both cold and fear, she raced over to the communications center trying to radio in to the main building, but got no signal. She cursed when she finally remembered why she was here and ran over to the generator

Even from here she could see the thing was shot.

She glanced over her shoulder towards the door, fearful of what she might see, but luckily, there was nothing

She tried to jog the generator back to life, but it was no use.

She cursed, and turned back to the door.

What a time for things to start going wrong, what a time. She would have to go back to the main building to emergency radio in for a new generator, assuming there was anyone still…. left .

She hadn’t heard back from their main lab in months.

And she was beginning to fear that they had been taken by the sickness as well.

She returned to the door with some apprehension imagining the towering… THING out there in the cold, standing and waiting for her

It would be fine though, she promised herself. It had just been a hallucination, and even if it was there, she would probably have enough time to shut the door… or have the wind shut for her.

With those thoughts held in mind to bolster her courage, she hurried forward and shoved the door open, sending in another gust of air and wall of snow. She prepared to let the door shut as she stared into the white, but saw nothing.

In relief, she walked out into the snow and headed back towards the main building constantly looking over her shoulder in fear, though she didn’t see anything.

With the wind blowing at her bak, she made it to the building much quicker and sighed in relief as she made her way into the antechamber and began stomping the snow from her feet. 

She hurried through the next door and began her way down the hall, turning on her flashlight to see into the darkness.

Her light glittered over something wet.

She froze and stared downwards.

At the huge footprints leading up the hall.

She stood there for a moment  trying to explain to herself how those could have gotten there. But there was no explanation, thy weren;t her footprints, far to large, and she ahd just come in from out of the snow.

No, there was only one explanation,

She longed to run, but running was hardly an option. The only emergency radio was in the main room of this building, and without it she had no way to contact outside help.

So, switching off her light, she quietly allowed her vision to adjust to the darkness listening intently for movement. In the distance, she thought she heard an echo, and swallowed hard as she began her way up the hall. Her ears twitched, following the sound before her as she moved through the dark, dropping down to crouch on with her hands resting against the cold metal as she peered around the side of the wall.

And saw her best friend lying on the floor before her his feet sticking out straight, his head back. Bottles and beakers were scattered around him and the table had been jostled back a ways, while dark black puddles of blood  lined the cold metal floor.

There was a shifting, and in the darkness, she watched as the tall creature shifted, being forward and placing its long thin fingers on her friend’s neck.It courched there for a long moment, head tilted to the side, before reaching down and picking up her friend’s lifeless body in its massive arms.

She backed away slowly, unsure of what to do. Perhaps if she had some sort of weapon, she could incapacitate it long enough to make it to the radio and call for help. 

Quietly, she slipped back into the darkness, her hands shaking as she baked away and up the hall turning down a dark corner and into her rooms. She filled around for a bit trying to find something, but the only thing she found was a discarded metal pipe that had been taken from one of the malfunctioning venting systems.

In relief , she reached out and grabbed for the pipe, but hre shaking hands missed, and with a horrible realization, and in slow motion, she watched as the pipe tipped to the side.

She lunged forit, but missed, and it went clattering to the ground with an ear splitting clang.

She would have froze, but that was hardly an option, so she leaped forward and swept it off the ground, pressing herself up against the side of the wall just next to the door her head cocked to the side. 

It was then that she heard it.

The approaching 

Thud

Thud 

Thud

Her breath was coming in sharp gasps.

IT was coming closer now, She could hear the movement of its joints.

The dark figure stepped into the room, and with all her might, she leaped forward and slammed the metal pipe against its head.

There was a loud clang, and the creature staggered forward. She prayed for it to fall, but it simply staggered and turned to face her its shiny black carapace glittering out from the darkness, covered from head to foot, accept for its face where a shining plate of black stared back at her, probably the creature’s eye.

It came at her again slowly, and she swung the pipe in desperation, screaming, but it caught her hand in it’s.

It was so strong, and she went to her knees.

It squeezed her wrist and she dropped the pipe.

With a hiss,, it pulled her to her feet, hand still around her wrist. She kicked at it’s armored chest, but the sharp clatter told her that her attacks were ineffectual. Ir reached out with it’s other great big hand and tightened around her other wrist, carrying her from the room and down the hall.

She screamed staring into its black glittering eye unhurt by her earlier attack. The creatures was so strong, so tall. She kicked at it with her back feet, but felt as if she hurt her feet more than she hurt the creature.

They came around the corner, her legs dangling and kicking, and then her eyes fell on her friend. He lay on one of the tables, a towel propped under his head, his body arranged into a position of moderate comfort, she stopped kicking in confusion, just long enough for the creature to, gently sit her down in a chair next to her friend. It held up a hand, pointing one of its long digits at her and them morning downward.

She couldn’t say she entirely understood what was going on, but it seemed intent that she stayed where she was.

Then it stepped back, and she watched in horror as the creature reached up, and began pulling off it’s carapace.

She flinched backward as its fleshy hairless face came into view, and it was only as it set the piece on the side table that she finally realized, that it wasn’t carapace at all, it was a suit.

Eyes wide she watched the thing turn towards her, its breath plumeing like smoke in the cold air. It had two eyes, though one of them seemed to be covered, a short nose, and a flat face/ It’s lips were thick, and it had strange contraptions on the side of its ears that must have been for hearing.

Its eye was a shocking green.

With her still sitting in hre seat, it walked over to her microscope and took a look, grunting as it withdrew something from a pocket in the side of its suit.

What was this creature doing?

It walked back over to her, and knelt down at her side, its face at her level. Se stared wide eyed.

It gently rested a hand on her arm.

She stared.

It tilted it’s head, looking over her body and stopping at the front of her jacket.

Her breathing sped up as it reached out and tugged at the front of her jacket, splitting it open, so that thick clumps of her white/grey fur poked through. It undid her jacket and slipped one of her arms from the sleeve.

After that was done, it reached into another one of its pockets and withdrew something.

It was a tube with a hole at one end and clear sides. Inside, she could see a clear liquid sloshing back and forth at its sides. It took her arm, and before she could do anything it pressed the tube up to her arm and rammed it’s finger into a button on the back. Sh jerked violently as a sharp sting of pain radiated up her arm, but by the time she lurched away it was already done.

Then when she thought it couldn’t get worse, the creature took another tube and jammed it against her arm again.

She hissed in pain, watching the yellow orange of her blood spill into the tube.

She watched in confusion as he walked back to her microscope and squirted some of her blood onto a slide, positioning it on the stage of the microscope before taking a look.

It grunted, and turned to look at her motioning her over.

Nervously, she stood, pulling her coat back over tail tucked nervously up against one of her legs.

It stepped aside and she glanced down through the microscope. At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing, and then suddenly it all seemed to click. She looked up wide eyed at the creature, who was turned away staring at her computer. As she watches, it slipped something into one of the exterior ports. The computer lit up with numbers and symbols for a few quick seconds before darkening again.

The creature pulled the device back and hooked it up to something else.

Across the room her friend groaned, and she turned to run over.

“Riven, Riven, are you alright?”

His eyes rolled in his head in confusion, but she propped him up as he looked at her brows knitted together over his snout.

There was a shuffling from behind her, and she turned to see the creature looking back at her.

It opened its mouth, and when it did, instead of hearing that strange guttural noise, she heard a voice. It was stilted and somewhat strange, but she understood it. “I am in here to help.”

She blinked at him, ears leaning back against her head.

“Can, cure bad air….”

She tilted her head, “bad air?”

“Small germs, in air, can cure air….”

“You mean you can cure it…. The plague, the sickness?”

He pointed at her, “Already fixed.”

She pointed at herself, “You cured me.”

“Yes.” “Why.” 

His voice was getting better all the time, “Because your people dying.”

She turned to look at her friend who was just beginning to sit up, “What is going on….”

She turned back to the figure, “Why did you hurt him!”

“Misunderstanding, he fell and hit head. startled .

She supposed she could believe that, “What are you, where are you from?” 

The creature leaned back against the table, “I am….. A being from the heavens.”

She blinked.

He tried again.

“I am a being from the stars.”

“Space! You’re an alien!”

White teeth flashed as it smiled at her, “I am.”

“Those aren't real!” She shot back 

“Than how do you explain me.”

“You still haven't answered my question. Why help us?”

“I am…. An ambassador of a…. Governmental body.”

“IN space!”

It nodded, “In space, that wishes to preserve all life. This sickness would have whipped you out in ten years according to our calculations.” he nodded to her, “What I have given you will be enough to synthesise a vaccine.”

She shook her head still confused, “How did…. How did you know>”

“We have been watching.”

“Watching, what do you mean?”

“We observe and listen to your planet. We were waiting for the day you would first venture into space. You were close when the sickness came, and it came to our attention that you would not survive without our itnervation. Had the sickness not occurred, we calculate you would have reached your planet’s moon in less than two months.”

Riven was sitting up now, his eyes wide in confusion looking between the two of them with an expression of complete shock.

“Why haven't you contacted us  before?”

“It is policy of the galactic assembly not to contact a race until they have achieved space travel, however your plight was one we could not ignore. I was sent down to deliver the antidote and a message.”

The two of them staired in awe as it reached out a hand, a small black device resting in it’’s palm, “When you are ready, this device will help you to contact us. The galactic assembly formally offers you the hand of peace.”

She shook her head ears flattened against her skull, “But I…. I’m not a politician. No one will believe me.”

He pointed at her hand, “That is what this is for. Do not worry, one way or another they will believe.”

The creature stood, and she looked on in curiosity at its face, which was taking on a slight purple tint about the ears and mouth, “Are you alright.”

It simply nodded and smiled at her, “Your planet is very cold. I cannot remain without my suit for long, though I am one of the only creatures that can survive for any amount of time at these temperatures.”

She stared at the creature still wide eyed.

“I must return to my ship, but It was a pleasure meeting you, and I hope to see you join the Galactic community soon.”

She stood and followed it as it walked towards the door, grabbing it’s helmet from the table beside it.

“Wait, wait. I still have so many questions, and what if we cannot synthesise a cure.”

“You will.”

‘But-”

He reached the door shoving it open with his massive bulk.

She followed after him as he reached for the door.

“Wait! At least….. At least tell me your name.”

The creature turned to look at her, holding it’s helmet in both hands in front of it’s chest. “If you must, Ask for Admiral Vir.” 

And then he pulled on his helmet and shoved the door open sending in a wave of ice and snow that knocked her backward before the door slammed shut and she was left alone.

*** The Tricar live on an icy planet prone to blizzards and storms. They live in elaborate ice caves and surface buildings made of insulated metal. The average temperature on their planet is around -20 degrees fahrenheit to -28 Celcius,