Cutlass Sharpened (4 page)

“
You bet your firm ass I
am.” Jessica said with unmistakable awe over the Com.

“
What is it?” Steven asked a
few seconds later.

“
I’m not entirely sure. The
rock is several hundreds of millions of years old, but what I’m
reading says this mass is more recent than a newborn baby… and
something solid is being contained inside dozens of… what look like
arteries.”

“
Hold on. You saying this
thing could be millions of years old or less than a
week?”

“
Precisely. Somehow its
organic makeup is identical to the volcanic rock it’s sticking to
like some kind of octopus, but has DNA. Rock with DNA.”

“
You’re joking?”

“
Put up your visor and see
for yourself, Stone.” Stephanie flashed her results to the Hunters
who shared similar confusion. “I’m neither a geneticist or a
Splicer, but I’m
telling
you that material has been transformed rock into
bioorganic material.” She went silent as she increased the power of
her short range suit scanner to maximum output and stepped back
with a gasp.

The Hunters reacted instantly by raising
their weapons, forgetting their displays, thinking it moved. They
held like rigid statues, barely breathing.

Renee harnessed her formidable mental prowess
too, but held it in check to ask “What is it?”

“
S…So…” Stephanie stuttered.
“Someone is
inside
that thing. It’s feeding into some strange capsule and I’m
reading a pulse inside the capsule. It’s faint, but I think this
thing is some kind or bioengineered stasis chamber.”

“
Stasis?” Renee asked as if
she didn’t hear that correctly.

“
I’m certain if I get a
sample of that fluid it will in high probability be embryonic-like
fluid.”

“
You want me to gain a
sample and analyze it right now? And do you know what is inside the
capsule? Please tell me it’s not the Creelin or Keptil.”

“
No, No.” Stephanie
recovered some, placing a hand over her racing heart. “The Creelin
can’t harness our carbon based biology and Keptil would not bother
putting someone in stasis. They’d eat it. It definitely isn’t one
of their eggs or hatcheries. I can’t penetrate the capsule, just
finding a slow heartbeat was hard to measure. I’m not finding any
neural activity in the growth. It’s more a living machine with a
single purpose to keep
whatever
is in there… alive.”

“
Alright. Sparky, Stone,
stick close to me.”

Drake and Hunter guided Renee closer as she
remover her gun injector and flipped the switch from ‘inject’ to
‘draw’. Before she could get near, Stone held a hatchet in front of
her chest to stop her and took it upon himself to be the first to
touch the pliable surface. It didn’t come away with slime, merely
the texture of skin, which he said so. No response to touch allowed
Renee to put the edge of her medic-gun up against the clear
membrane and depressed the trigger. She let the vial fill and moved
back rather quickly.

Nothing immediate happened
so she thought
This is one freaky
situation.
She then removed the vial and
fed it into her field-box at her lower back and waited in silence
for up to a minute till her internal brain-chip downloaded results
without need of a visor or display. Only a select group could
harness the chip without their brains being overloaded. She said
“By the stars! Stephanie, you’re right. It is embryonic fluid… only
more concentrated… and I’m finding traces of double helix
DNA…
human
DNA.”

“
Human? You’ve got to be
shitting me!” Stated Deegen. “A human on the very fringe of this
galaxy? Your instruments must be off.”

“
Stephanie might not be a
geneticist, but
I
am. All medics are required to be. Take my word for it. An
animal of some kind with double helix DNA strands is inside that
thing. I’m just guessing human because my analyzer can’t do a full
spectrum comparison as fast as my other equipment.”

“
Since we can’t wait around
forever I say we return to the ship and…”

“
Uh, guys!?” Stephanie
sounded worried. “Is it me or is the silver webbing
moving?”

No one bothered answering as it was indeed
pumping the silver liquid much faster. Renee’s needle puncture
started a reaction. By puncturing the sensitive membrane tricked
the containment into thinking someone was trying to cut, what it
held, out. As intended. At first its movement was slow, but sped up
to begin squeezing like some great heart, but one that didn’t
relax. Instead of flooding those standing outside, the fluid
rapidly was squeezed out veins by hundreds of liters per second. It
continued to contract, removing much of the gathered liquid,
sending it outside the mountain.

Once most was released, gave those watching
the image of a hideous creature laying an egg. It gave birth to a
silvery box three meters long with a handle on one end and the
other had what appeared umbilical cords attached to the flat end.
The ends detached and it fell unceremoniously to the ground,
splashing the peach colored fluid over the ground and their feet.
The now empty sack shriveled to the point that since it no longer
served a purpose, began to degrade before their very eyes until
chunks of useless bio-mass remained.

“
What now?” Questioned
Steven with his spear trained on the capsule making a gulping sound
as it emptied itself out through the holes in what is assumed the
top.

Renee’s training kicked in. “Frozen stasis is
dangerous enough. Liquid is worse if whoever inside has been in
from a prolonged period. I don’t see any lights indicating it’s
reviving whomever is inside. We need to hurry before stale fluid
suffocates the occupant.” She ran the short distance. “Help me find
how to open it. It must have a button.”

For several agonizing
seconds she and the Hunters looked over each inch. All that was
found was a round hatch none of their weapons could find purchase
and forcibly pry it open. When Renee saw them shaking their heads
she thought
Last resort. Got to use
my…

Just then she needn’t have considered as the
lid seemed to suck air wetly as it opened. Then Renee gasped at
what lay inside.

Her eyes roved the
individual who was naked, but his appearance is what wasn’t sitting
well with her. She started scanning with her built in medical palm
scanner on the left hand. While she checked, her eyes took in
a
clearly
male
phallus. It was the only part of his anatomy that looked healthy
and orgasm inducing. The rest of him was in severe and prolonged
atrophy. Skin over bones. He was extremely tall, one of the tallest
men she had ever laid eyes on. Nowhere near as tall as her father,
but still tall. Easily two hundred twenty six centimeters tall to
be precise and had not a scrap of body hair over his nakedness.
Pale, moist skin seemed to be stretched over thick bones. Sunken
ribs and skull were the most prominent features. Hipbones poked out
like some grotesque butterfly trying to climb through skin. A
sunken stomach was void of any visible abdominal muscle.

Worse yet “He’s not breathing.” Renee stated.
“Back away from me now.” None questioned her for they all knew what
was coming.

Synapses inside her brain intensified on
command and her psionic powers harnessed to the point her bright
red hair began to rise in a windless environment. Sending the
gathered mental energy, focused by her hand, she sent it into the
frail man’s lungs and extracted the fluid from his lungs since he
had yet to respond by coughing and taking air. Renee wasn’t going
to take any chance. A lungful of fluid was pulled up his throat and
out both mouth and nose. She extracted most of it and threw it
away. Letting her power of the mind in conjunction flow into him
with her chip in her brain, a scan only she could see for the
moment began a thorough medical scan. Biting her bottom lip, she
didn’t know what to do first.

Without further aid, the instinct to breathe
kicked in and his chest rose to suddenly fall in a weak cough that
had him jerk all over. Frozen joints loudly popped in the first
movement to be done in eons.

The moment the coughing fit subsided Renee
gasped as she watched the man’s eyes weakly flutter open.

And then immediately latched onto her in a
way that never happened to her.

Those eyes were neither red
or yellow nor even gold. They were an entrancing amber that
reminded her of starlight. Her first thought in seeing those unique
eyes was
Gorgeous!

The intensity in them was really unnerving
yet Renee was so caged by them she didn’t know she had sat there
for over a minute and worried the others. Taking a risk, Stephanie
brought her back to reality with a nudge. “Girl, we can’t stay much
longer. Whaaa…” The woman suddenly backpedaled into Stone’s wide
chest and he pulled her behind himself.

As if in slow motion, Renee’s eyes turned
back to where the man had laid in a weak state, but had gotten to
his feet so fast and silently that she didn’t sense anything. It
momentarily frightened her that such happened. She looked up from
his thin, straining calf muscles and up and up and up his very tall
frame. To her, he seemed to never end get taller, but it was a
trick played in her mind.

If seeing him lay like a skin covered
skeleton was horrifying, seeing him stand was nightmare fuel for a
long time coming.

Then the strangest thing occurred. He started
falling back, losing all sense of balance. It was due to the sudden
standing that sent all the blood down to his feet. It was all too
clear to Renee. Reacting faster than anyone, Renee placed a near
invisible energy field with the power of her mind which caught and
gently lowered him back to the ground. He still kept a predatory,
unblinking glare straight ahead.

“
Something is strange about
him.” Stone didn’t move as he made the comment. His massive
hatchets unwavering.

“
You’d be disorientated too
if you suddenly stood in such a weak state.” Renee defended the
man.

“
He’s not disoriented. Look
at his eyes. He has the look of a seasoned elder Hunter, a
predator. And he didn’t move till Mrs. Merann forced you to break
eye contact. He’s broken. I can tell a wild animal and he
is
a feral one. If not for
physical weakness he would have done something dangerous to her.
Look at how he looks at you.” Renee did and the man held an
unwavering gaze upon her again. “You were the first thing he’s seen
and went to defend you when she approached from behind. His
movement was clear and wrong to my eyes, Ma’am. I cannot explain it
better.”

Sparky came closer, head
lowered and neck arched, a threatening position that would allow
him to strike. His hiss broke the attention of the frail appearing
man. Apparently seeing a glowing Drake more than three times his
size didn’t send him cowering or backing down. Instead he took it
as a challenge and made a noise in his throat and barred flat,
shiny white teeth. Sparky though stopped and backed away and the
man’s hostility lowered.
“Stone’s idea was
just proven correct. Check his mind. He is dangerous to himself
mostly. He’s very weak. He’d not even make a morsel for
me.”

With the care of a trained and compassionate
medic, Renee moved and he looked at her and relaxed visibly. She
didn’t know why, but she found his defense of her rather
flattering, like a loyal canine. Making sure to not send any
threatening messages, she said in her most calming feminine voice.
“It’s alright. You are safe now. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m
going to get a field brain scan of you. Don’t worry, you won’t feel
a thing.”

His head cocked slightly and she hid a giggle
as she imagined him as a canine again, but it was more her soothing
voice than the words that got through. He closed his eyes and
hummed the moment her soft glove covered hand touched his bald
head. Going slowly she began scanning his brain, rubbing all the
way around and it made her brow wrinkle as her mental imaging
display began reading disconcerting data. Using the same voice, but
to the others said “This should be medically impossible, but all
brain function except instinct to live and move parts of his brain
are fully active… It seems somehow the rest of his brain is… well
empty, dormant, but are firing naturally. I find no abnormalities,
scarring or tumors and he is making new short-term memories… I
think someone figured out how to artificially make him have total
amnesia. Stripped whoever he was to the bare essentials. Even
speech has been removed. His brain is the healthiest I’ve ever
seen… for class one humans at the very least. His neural pathways
are untouched. I need to get more data and… Oh no.”

“
What?!” Deegen said too
loud and the man’s eyes snapped open and he made the sound again
used on Sparky, but this time he grabbed Renee’s arm and pulled her
into the capsule with him with surprising strength, but hid her
behind his bony back.

“
He is trying to protect
her. I guess his baser instinct to protect women is ingrained. He
must be like our caveman ancestors. Too bad he doesn’t know our
Renee would club
him
over the head before anyone got the chance.” Stephanie
smirked, using the soothing voice too.

“
Better all of you back away
and let me handle Mr. Skinny.” They did as the medic requested,
moving near to the opposite side since she was more than capable of
handling him. Deegen said into her com to explain what she meant
after the frail man settled down. “He likes my pheromones a little
too much if you catch my drift.”