The Thing in the vents that eats people

2

"It's a miracle."
"He's moving—she? Kid, kid can you hear me? You're all right. You're safe now."
I swat away hands, rolling over, shaking. I'm covered in sweat, strapped down on a cold metal table, staring up at florescent lights. I hate lights. I blink, shading my eyes, and wincing. I'm still wrapped in my mama's leather flight jacket.  Above me float three humans, dressed in stiff white space suits with red and gold and blue stripes on the sleeves, along with other tags and pins denoting rank. Humans, what's more Americans. That's not ideal.
"I'm okay," I rasp, my hands shaking as I sit up, hugging myself. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, and my breath is coming in ragged gasps. I'm literally starving to death.  And I'm dangerously dehydrated. I check my hands. Good, pasty pale human skin, I'm shocked in this state my disguise did not slip.
"What's your name, kid?" A man, looks in charge, looks at me critically.
I point to the tape on my jacket.
"Scott? You a pilot? How old are you?"
"Just twenty," I lie. It's a close enough age to what I look and my mother thought it was something equivalent to my real age, developmentally anyway. I might as well keep the lies to the minimum, "It's my mother's jacket. We were a research ship. Something got it."
"Well, welcome to the Orpheus 7, Scott," the man in charge grins, "You pilot training?"
I shake my head no, reciting the carefully planned story, "I'm an intern, I was studying on the Eurydice with my mothers. I'm in school. Can I—can I get some water?"
"Yeah, I couldn't get a vein to get you an IV," a nurse looking man gives me a tiny packet of water.
"Understandable," I don't have veins. Not like that. I drink the water quickly, resisting licking my lips for the droplets left on them.
"What's your first name, Scott?" Another one looks like he's filling out a form.
"You gonna call me it?" I ask, flatly, spinning the paper cup in my fingers.
"No, but I do need to your gender so we can bunk you out."
"Male," when in doubt my mother told me it was usually better to identify as male as opposed to female. It's not technically a lie. I am androgynous, and my species reproduces parthenogenesis, meaning we all carry all the necessary material to reproduce without intercourse. Humans are very divided by their personal sex organs and they make an incredibly big deal out of it, I've found.
"Huh, okay guessed that wrong," he scoffs, filling out more paperwork on a slim tablet.
"Can get up?" I'm strapped to the table for anti-gravity reasons, another thing humans are very obsessed with. Well. When I experience gravity, I might have an opinion it but I never have.
"Yeah, right, sorry, you ready to float around?"
"Yes um—can I be of help? On your ship—until—," I have nowhere to go. Nothing to do. My own species will be unlikely to recognize me after all this time. And my mothers are dead. Tears spring afresh to my eyes. I hate them. Only humans cry and it immediately betrays how you feel.
"Of course! We could always use another pair of hands. I'm Admiral Stanton, we've got a few extra bunks in the engineering wing," he says, cheerfully.
"Here, let's get you changed," the nurse offers me a white space suit like theirs.
"No," I clutch my jacket. It's all I have left—, "I had a bag—,"
"It's being checked for radiation, same as your clothes will have to be. In a day or so you can come and pick them up, but you've been afloat for a couple of weeks," the nurse says, unapologetically.
I slowly shed the jacket, while the other two move to help me out of my jump suit, I wince, readying the rest of my body for display. It's not really an issue since what they see won't be my body, but dehydrated and food deprived as I am my body aches to shift.
One of the nurses moves to take off my necklace.
"No—that—that has to stay on—," I clutch the glass triangle, it's a shiny silver, with gold, red and blue wavy stripes through it, on a leather strap. My mama gave it to me whenever she went to go fly and wouldn't see me for a few days. I loved holding it and smelling her scent on the leather. It's my last remaining link to either of them and I'll be damned if it comes off. "That—it's my mothers I can't—," tears well in my eyes again.
"Scan it," Admiral Stranton looks more bored than anything.
They produce a gieger counter, of course it produces nothing. I slip into the jumpsuit, pressing the cool glass against my skin for a moment.
"First time in space?" The Admiral grunts.
"No, I was on a research ship," I frown.
"Was that the first time?" He asks, cocking a silver eyebrow.
"Yes," I lie. I was born in space.
"Huh, you're real comfortable in 0-G, takes some two tours," he grunts.
"Where are we headed? You said the ship was—," I forget the name. I'm not doing well now. My head is so light.
"Orpheus 7. We do supply and settler runs between Alpha Centari and Kepler 52b. We're halfway to Alpha Centari now," he says, "You can stay there, then apply if you want to join a crew."
I nod. I have no idea what to do. I either want to shoot myself in the head or eat something at this point I'm fine either way but I do need to do one of the two I'm very miserable right now.
"Changes of clothes, and your bunk key, and a key card for the rec rooms and male showers—" see what I mean about the gender thing? "—and there's a map of the Orpheus, and a loaner tablet."
"Thanks," I say, taking the sealed plastic bag from him, "Thank you, really."
"Don't worry about it, kid. Get yourself to the mess. I won't expect you to report till 2100, give you time to sleep, sound good?" Admiral Stanton ask, kind of nicely.
"Sir," I nod.
"Tell him about the—-," the nurse waves a hand as though to emphasize his point.
I frown.
"Oh, we had a bit of trouble a while back. Some of the space-bugs that got your ship. The passengers get all worked up , convinced one of them bugs is still on the ship or something. Just ignore them," he says.
"What?" I'm assuming he's referring to Kestryls? The creatures that attacked our ship? They feed on oxygen, love deep space, can compress to nearly any space, and think humans are the crunchiest snack on this side of the galaxy.   They ravage ships, sucking up all the oxygens and all the juicy little humans. That said, once they are on a ship they are nearly impossible to eradicate. As in, our research ship was manned with multiple military units and the things still got the best of us. I can't imagine a freighter like the Orpheus got rid of a Kestryl infestation as easily as the Admiral makes out.
"Relax, this is my seventh tour, we're fine," he slaps my shoulder,  "Now, feel free to go ahead and get yourself settled in."
"Maps on the tablet," the nurse says.
"Okay," I breath shakily. I really just want to find the mess hall.
As we float into the hall, a loudspeaker system crackles to life. Most ships of this size are equipped with a giant voice system for safety reasons, and the majority treat it like a radio station of sorts, playing music, and making helpful announcements. All that's to say, I'm not overly surprised by the first part of the message.
"Goooood Mooooorning Orpheus 7! It is a clear and dark day in the bowels of deep space, and after burning 1.32 liters of fuel we don't have to to scavenge through junk from the wreck of the Eurydice, we are firmly back on course to Alpha Centri. But first, a few important updates. My chain of command has asked me to inform you that there is no cause for alarm, and that we still have no additional, concrete evidence that would lead us to believe that there are any Kestryls on the ship.
"That said we are still searching for Petty Officer Biddle, who was last seen in the infirmary attempting to locate the unknown, non Kestryl entity we shall henceforth refer to as 'the thing in the vents that eats people'. The thing in the vents that eats people was last sighted just outside the infirmary carrying a white hat that had the Petty Office insignia as well as a partial name-tape starting with 'bi'. If you have any information on the thing in the vents that eats people, text our anonymous tip line '777-don't get eaten', please do not call I don't like talking to people and have very poor auditory learning skills so if you do have pertinent information or just last words: please text. And now. The WEATHER!!," music immediately starts playing and I'm sure the exact same person begins singing 'how far we've come', with much gusto.
Admiral Stanton, meanwhile, looks like he's having some sort of medical event.
"Somebody wanna do something about Weaver?" He growls, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, sir," the other two echo with little enthusiasm.
"Sir—what was he talking about?" I ask, frowning.
"Don't listen to Weaver, all right? It's his fifth tour, he cracked a couple of months ago when we ran into the Kestryls. Barricaded himself in the comms room, unfortunately, we are too short staffed to care but he does spread mass hysteria and panic and so we are trying to medicate him properly, before he's discharged," he says, proceeding on down the hallway.
"Right," I say, taking a deep breath. What kind of ship is this if a madman runs the comms?