Saturday Gazette - Octopus in Space

Episode 2 - Unidentified Organism on Board - Act II

'Are you sure you're a doctor?' one of the Ghutarn soldiers asks.

'Are you questioning me?' returns the probably-doctor, Kykok.

'No, Sir. I didn't mean any disrespect, Sir. He was walking just a few minutes ago.'

'How? This is a fatal wound.'

The suit of armour we're hiding in is rocked as someone strikes it.

'And his core temperature is too low.'

'But he was walking.'

'You said that already.'

'...I'd better tell the commander.'

The door hisses open and closed, and we can hear the doctor and the other soldier moving around nearby.

'This isn't right,' Kykok states. The exoskeletal suit rocks again, causing the body to roll against us, and we make sure none of our arms are near the entry wound in the plating. There comes a succession of cracking noises and more light spills in, and we realise the doctor is opening the carapace.

'Yes. Yes. See that? He died within minutes of receiving this wound.'

'But I saw him walk. He walked between us. We didn't drag him.'

'This is standard-issue armour?'

'Not quite. The boarding party had their suits reformatted to factory settings in case the Mixcycli ship was able to interrogated them.'

'Maybe that's what happened. Maybe the ship...'

'No doctor, this model only augments. It can't walk on its own.'

'Help me get him into the scanner. We need to run a full diagnostic on this body.'

Further cracking noises sound as they break open more sections of the armour, and we slide downwards, underneath the corpse, into the left leg of the suit just as they start tugging the body out.

We pull our trailing arms in after us, slipping below the knee joint as the doctor pulls the leg from it, and through the open thigh-section we can see it peering down at the body.

The doctor is a tall and long-limbed Ghutarn, with mottled blue skin exposed on its double-pincered hands and four-eyed face. The rest of it is covered in a matt black film, but the shape suggests that under the suit heavy chitin around the chest and lower halves of its forearms.

The other Ghutarn comes into view too. It's similarly clad, but is notably larger than the doctor. There are scars on its face, made with deliberation, ugly and raised and descending vertically down the flesh under its eyes.

Together they heft their dead companion onto a shelf jutting from the wall, and a transparent cover slides out over it. It lights up with diagrams and glyphs and the doctor starts manipulating them with the tips of its pincers. Meanwhile, the other one comes over to the disassembled suit and begins examining the plate-like pieces of armour.

We realise we're about to be caught – and sure enough, the next thing it reaches for is the leg section in which we hide.

The leg lurches as the soldier lifts it, and, sensing its unusual weight, peers right in at us. Its polished black eyes oscillate between round and oval in shape.

'Hey...' it begins, but then Pokey shoots out and jab its upper-right eye, hard. It tries to cry out, but there is only a muffled noise of pain because Sneaky has somehow found its way into its mouth. It tries to drop the leg, but Chokey lashes out and wraps itself around its neck, constricting violently.

There comes a couple of quick cracks, and we feel the vibrations of cartilage giving way and vertebrae breaking. It slumps downward and Chokey lets go before we get dragged to the floor with it. We pull ourselves fully out of the leg armour in time to see the doctor turn round.