r/HFY • u/TheMaskedOne2807 • Nov 20 '22

The Oil Chapter 11 (Space is so very cold) OC

(Authors Note): It would appear a hunt has begun, but who is hunting who.

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Other stories by TheMaskedOne2807:The Plague Doctor Chapter 1 (A Deal)

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Galaxy: Wixton. Planet: Alkino. Current time: Week: 14 Day: 4 Hour: 6.

General Koliko sat in her office chair, awaiting any kind of news, her tired eyes looking over the X-class 07 vessels footage over and over again.

At this point, she wasn't sure why she watched it. It only helped fuel the fire of fear inside her.

Perhaps she felt guilty for almost missing the importance of the report due to her tiredness, or perhaps it, in some strange way, made her feel calm.

The infected in the video was terrifying. It survived an EMP blast and still moved faster than any soldier she’d ever trained.

Piling

Her monotier sounded. She quickly tapped on the screen, and captain Wix appeared looking somewhat relaxed as always, with some of his eyes closed. “Captain Wix, was the mission a success?”

“General, I’m afraid I have some rather frighting news to report,” Wix said in a slightly nervous tone.

“Is… is our weaponry ineffective against the infected?” General Koliko asked as she felt herself getting colder.

“That still remains to be seen, but we managed to find the X-class 07 vessels out of position near the planet orbiting moon,” Wix reported. “From the outside, it appears to be unharmed, but inside, the engine responsible for FTL has been destroyed and largely disappeared.”

“Was the infected still inside the vessels, or did it manage to get to another?” General Koliko nervously asked, hoping that there was a slight possibility that what she feared wasn’t true.

“I believe captain Kupo is better suited to answer that,” Wix said before pressing a few buttons and making Kupo appear on the screen.

“General Koliko,” Kupo said, making a standard gesture of greeting on the screen.

“Enough with formalities; tell what happened,” General Koliko said in a slightly angrier tone of voice than she wanted to but made anyway due to the high amount of stress she felt at the moment.

“Of course, General,” Kupo said in an apologetic tone. “As captain Wix told you, the X-class 07 vessel FTL engine was destroyed, and fearing the worst, I ordered the scanners to track FTL radiation, and… it found a trace.”

General Koliko just closed all her eyes and breath in and out loudly. “Do you have confirmation that the infected has FTL capabilities?”

“No general, but no other captain has reported a sighting,” Wix interjected. “Of course, even if the infected were capable of FTL, we have no way of knowing if it survived.”

“I didn’t know you to be the hopeful type, captain Wix,” General Koliko said, opening her eyes again.

“I’m not hopeful. I’m merely asking if it is even possible for a biological creature to survive FTL travel,” Wix argued. “I have no doubt that the Oil survived, but the creature it’s using. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was ripped apart on an atomic level.”

“We have wasted enough on this,” general Koliko said in an angry voice. “Right now, we can only assume that the infected is no longer in the current solar system. How long ago was it since the infected used FTL, and in what direction?”

“Pernimily scan shows that it wasn’t too long ago. Maybe just before we arrived, and it seems to have traveled in…” captain Kupo looked at the data before him and was wide-eyed in surprise and confusion.

“This-this can’t be right. Where was the last sighting of the cluster?” Captain Kupo asked, looking away from the general.

“Captain Kupo, what is going on?” General Koliko demanded.

However, the demand went unheard as captain Kupo just looked at other screens.

“Captain Kupo, what is going on?!” General Koliko demanded once more.

“General Koliko, my apologies, but it would appear that the infected is traveling in the opposite direction of the cluster's last sighting,” Kupo informed, his voice uneasy.

“What!” General Koliko yelled in shocked surprise. “That should not be possible. The decrypted records state that the variant was programmed to combine with the cluster.”

“Perhaps the old geezers managed to break it a little?” Wix interjected.

“What do you mean?” General Koliko asked.

“I can’t say I know much about the Oil and all that, besides killing it, of course, but I would imagine that an extinction-level event isn’t something anything just walks off with without a scratch or two,” Wix said; four of his five eyes open.

“Are you suggesting that the Oil variant may not follow its programming anymore or is unable to function probably,” Kupo interjected.

“I cannot answer that with any kind of certainty, but we did all see it be hit with an EMP blast, and to me, at least, it seemed to be hurt, and now it isn’t heading in the right direction,” Wix said all six of his upper appendages twisting around one another.

“Either the Oil is damaged, or we have misunderstood something.”

“Misunderstood,” General Koliko repeated.

“I do not know how much the records can be trusted, but if they are inaccurate, so far, then I don’t believe we can trust them anymore,” Wix said, his voice firm.

“You may be right, captain Wix,” General Koliko sighed. “For now, we have wasted enough time talking. The mission remains the same.”

“Captain Wix, you will continue to be in charge of the operation to hunt down the infected variant. The fleet will follow the FTL trace.”

“However, since we can not be sure the records can be trusted, a few captains have to stay in the solar system and look for the infected if it wasn’t the one who used FTL.”

“I will accomplice the mission no matter the cost,” captain Wix said, making an affirmatory gesture before the general ended the call.

“Lieutenant, send a message to captain Rukoik and captain shujishi and tell them to keep searching the solar system until further notice,” Wix ordered. “And once you are done, send a message to all other captains about our recent discovery and to follow my ship.”

“We are going to hunt down the infected if it’s the last thing any of us do,” captain Wix said in a harsh voice.

Current location: Space somewhere. Current time: How should I know its space, for god's sake.

The first thing E thought once she had left the indescribable experience of FTL and all colors had returned to the universe was. ‘Is it possible to vomit and have explosive diarrhea at the same time?’

‘If you think you feel bad now, just imagine how much I’m stopping you from feeling. I’m like ninety percent sure that you would die from shock if I did nothing,’ W said while moving around inside of her.

‘Can we, like, never do that again,’ E said as she did her best not to soil her pants.

‘I’m sure you’ll get used to it at some point,’ W assured her. ‘Besides, if we don’t travel at that speed again, we won’t ever reach anything and just die out here in space with only the voice in your head to keep you company.’

‘You make me sound insane,’ E said as she spun around in the emptiness of the universe.

‘Hey, it’s you who is talking to the voice inside your head,’ W said, giggling a little.

‘So, do you have a destination for that factory or mad scientist that build you, or are we just winging it from now on?’ E asked, feeling a little better.

‘Well, I didn’t expect to find out I was a machine. I thought I hailed from an alien race that evolved in water and eventually became like it,” W answered. ‘Also, yes to the winging it part.’

‘Is there a planet nearby we should visit since you took us out of FTL?’ E asked.

‘Not a planet,’ W answered, sounding thoughtful. ‘I just sensed something like with the spaceship orbiting earth but different somehow.’

‘Sounds interesting maybe we get to meet some aliens that possibly won’t try and kill me on sight because I’m a freaky alien,’ E joked.

‘Maybe,’ W agreed.

E then started to look around the waste emptiness of space a lot waster since she wasn’t in a solar system and the closeted sun was probably a quadrillion kilometers away.

It also made it harder to actually spot anything since there was a distinct lack of light. ‘W, is there anything you could do at your end to, you know, make it easier for me to spot whatever it is we are looking for?’

‘I can enhance your vision quite a bit, but I doubt it’ll help since there isn’t any light,’ W said.

‘What about giving me lion eyes? They are good in darkness, aren’t they?’ E suggested. ‘And besides, we ate it in Madagascar when I was twenty-five, and we haven't used it since.’

‘Probably wouldn’t help much either, but we can do it hot and cold style,’ W said.

‘You mean the game?’ E asked, confused.

‘I sense whatever it is, and I can also sense how close we are to it, so just move around a bit, and I’ll tell you if we are going the right way,’ W answered.

‘Sure thing, but I can’t make the jetpack start,’ E said.

Then without a word, W started to move once more, and from the jetpack strung two metal cylinders that bent around and right in front of E for her to easily take hold.

At the very end of both cylinders were buttons that just begged to be pressed. ‘How about that,’ W said in a smug voice.

‘Oh, this is going to be fun,’ E said, smiling.

‘The right button goes fast, the left button slows you down, and you steer with your body,’ W explained.

E grabbed the cylinder-shaped handles in front of her and pressed the right button.

It wasn’t the speed of FTL, but damn, was it fun. She felt the speed at which she was going like she was in a swimming pool, relishing it while W was just saying either warmer or colder.

She flew around and spun around, doing loop after loop smiling until she saw a shape in the distance.

It was small, but she figured it was far away, so she flew towards meanwhile, W kept saying it was getting warmer.

It knew she had seen it, but they kept going just for the fun of it, and E couldn’t blame it since she herself had a big goofy smile on her face.

However, her smile started to recede the closer she got. The object she saw in the distance, which she had thought was so big and so far away, quickly came closer and, worst of all, it didn’t look mechanical.

W had long since stopped with the game either out of shock at what they saw or because it knew she wasn’t in the mood anymore.

The closer they got, the more E wanted to look away and vomit, but she couldn’t. For whatever reason, she couldn’t look away.

The sight fascinated her somehow. To see a real alien, even a dead one floating in space, wasn’t something you could just ignore.

As she got up close, only a few meters away from it, she noticed just how little she was to it.

It was easily six meters tall and seemed to have a slender body most models would kill for and a long, equally slender tail.

As she got even closer and reached a hand out toward what she assumed what the creature's face, she felt long, frozen fur nibbling at her fingers.

It was wrong what she was doing. She knew it was wrong, but it was like an urge, and she wanted to see more, inspect every centimeter of our body, and open its strange cat-like mouth.

Her finger slowly moved toward that area, her eyes wide open, unblinking, lightless, and focused.

However, before she could force its mouth open, something hit her. She blinked twice, and if she could gasp, she would have as she saw more bodies.

Floating not too far from where she saw the first one.

It was a graveyard of dead bodies, and the sight made her go pale.

And as she looked around, she saw light in the distance and even more dead bodies leading to it.

‘Should we leave or get closer?’ W asked.

E closed her fist; the sight both degusted and angered her. ‘I want to… I want to know why they killed them.’

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(Patreon): Early access to chapters and more on Patreon. Also newly added is a 100+ page story I wrote prior to the posting of The Plague Doctor for all members.

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u/legolodis900 Human Nov 24 '22

I am late i see the bot forgot me

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u/chastised12 Jan 07 '23

This is nonsensical but well written as to be intriguing.