And to Dust We Shall Return.

toaster botherers

Curiosity was a strange thing. Thought Victor as he pushed passed a ragtag group of ensigns. On paper it didn’t sound like a very good survival strategy. To go deliberately poking about in the unknown.  It was a bit like jamming a fork inside a toaster- Nobody could say it was boring, but that was usually because anyone who tried it wound up too dead to offer an opinion.
And those who didn’t. Well, they were usually the ones who lent you the fork. 

He wove his way past the last of the spectators to find the squid lying gooily on the doctor’s examination table. It had stopped smoking now, but its skin had an odd, sticky yet sort of flaking texture to it. As though it was stuck somewhere between solid and liquid. Victor combed his brains for what little knowledge he had regarding earth animals, but he was first and foremost a pilot. Not a scientist. And so most of what he knew began with ‘A is for aardvark’ and ended quite soon afterwards. Despite this, he couldn't escape the feeling that, earth creature or not, nothing should look like that and still be living.

Commander Nim seemed to share his opinion. As somewhere to the left of him her voice huffed  'Uhgg it looks worse than your oatmeal.'

 'Hey! I make good oatmeal!' Victor protested, looking again at the rapidly deflating lump. 'Though none of mine ever came out that sticky. It must be dead by now?'

'Depends how you define death.' Said doctor Nautilus, picking up a syringe, and injecting it into the squid’s side. 'Prolonged exposure to vacuum of space would destroy most organic cells.'

Victor raised an eyebrow. 'What do you mean most?' It was then that he noticed that one of the squid's tentacles had begun to twitch. 'Doctor...what exactly is that thing?'

The doctor opened his mouth to speak, releasing a few silver bubbles. But before Victor could catch his reply, the squid exploded.

Terrified shouts rang through the air, as several dozen of the universe's finest toaster botherers all ducked in unison. For one terrible moment, Victor was certain he had met his maker, as when he opened his eyes, they saw only endless black.  It was only after he began coughing that he realized the darkness was in fact smoke. Thick and cloying, like pixie dust made from tar. 
All around him people were staggering about. Hunched and wheezing as they struggled to breathe in the haze. The only one seemingly unaffected was Dr. Nautilus.  Who, safely shrink wrapped in his fish bowl of a suit, was remaining remarkably calm about the whole thing. Even as the smoke wafted into the middle of the room. And, as if propelled by some invisible breeze, began to form itself into a shape.

It was vague at first. Like the contrary suggestions made by nebulae as they scudded past the viewports late at night. 
But as Victor watched the cloud seemed to gain confidence. Enough to decide what part of it should be a head and what part should be legs, and arms and hands.  Until it had compressed its particles into something tangible and solid and unsettlingly human. Save for the still flaking texture of its skin.
The almost human looked about the room with all the bewildered all-consuming terror of the hapless drama student on opening night. 
Then with a gasp its thin legs buckled underneath it and it fell. 

'Careful!' Said the doctor, catching it before it hit the ground. 'Extensive damage. Likely you are suffering from shock.'

Commander Nim burst from the crowd of onlookers.  She had a lazer pistol in her hand. And an expression which suggested that if she had her way, shock wouldn't be the only thing it was suffering from.

'State your business shifter' she growled. Pointing the business end of her pistol at it.

The not humans eyes flickered agitatedly between Nim’s face and the barrel of the gun. 

'Business!?' It squeaked, though at first its lips didn’t appear to be moving. 'I don’t have any business? I was running away.'

'I bet you were.' Said Nim. Her finger tightening around the trigger.

The doctor, who in general liked to save his patience for medical matters, not politics. Stepped gracefully between the not human and Nim. 
'Advise you to desist, commander. Would not be very good doctor, if allowed own patients to be shot before they are treated.'

'And I wouldn’t be a very good security officer, doctor. If I allowed such dangerous individuals on board my ship.' Said Nim darkly.

The rising tension in the room now crystalized, until it was balanced like a grain of rice along a knife edge. Several people in the crowd took out pistols of their own.

'Alright alright!' Barked the captain, as she barreled through the door.
Around her the sea of faces parted, like leaves scattering before a gale.
 'I’m not running a circus here. Anyone not on the Bridge crew or medical, back to your stations!'

 Muttering, and plenty of disappointed faces followed, as the rabble slowly shuffled out. Victor turned to go with them, but the part of his brain that was still capable of feeling curiosity. And all the ill-advised cutlery experiments that went with it. Caused him to stop. 
He was part of the bridge crew after all... technically speaking.

'Now then,' said the captain, turning to the not human. Her mask of cold authority dissolving quicker than ice cream in an acid bath.
 'Do you have a name?'

A flush of pink, slightly too bright to be natural, crept across the not-human's cheeks. 'Most people call me Clementine, ma’am.'

The captain looked Clementine up and down, with the perplexed but well intentioned gaze of someone trying to assess a piece of abstract art.
 'And you identify as err female? Correct?'

'Yes ma’am.' 

The captain nodded in acknowledgement. 'Well then Miss Clementine, perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining how you got here.'

It may have been a trick of the light, but clementine's approximation of a person appeared to flicker. 'I came from a colony, Keppler 4 it's called...or...it was...You see not long ago it was attacked. The settlement ransacked...buildings burned to the ground.  Some of us tried to escape, but our freighter was hit. I….' She wrung her hands awkwardly, fingers lacing together. 'I think I was the only survivor.'

'Keppler 4…?'  Victor piped up in surprise. He had seen that name before, written next to the appropriate dot on his navigation screen. 'But that's a human colony isn't it? 
What would a changeling be doing there?’ 
The captain shot him a look, and Victor got the sneaking suspicion that he may have said too much.

'My parents found me near there. Drifting in space.' Continued clementine. 'They raised like a daughter. I've...never known any other life.'

'So you don't have any association with the changeling fleet?' Asked the captain.

Clementine’s face darkened 'I know of them. But I don't like them.'

Nim, who until this point had been making a very good show of pretending she wasn't interested, harrumphed loudly. But the captain ignored her. 

'Right...and the thing that attacked your colony, do you think you can describe it?'

'All I can remember is a very big ship. And fire... and screaming...it’s aha’ clementine coughed uncomfortably '... hazy.'

'That's alright.' the captain gave her a sympathetic smile. 'You’ve been through a lot. Rest now. The good doctor will look after you.' She inclined her head in the direction of the others. You two, come with me. We’ve got some things to attend to. 

'But captain-!' Nim began

'That includes you commander.'

Nim muttered something under her breath, which Victor was sure didn’t translate into anything pleasant.