Alpha-Seven

There was no way he was ever going to get used to artificial sleep. He'd feel fine one minute, before blinking into a dreamless unconscious state– and then he'd open his eyes again, thinking something had gone wrong in the process, only to find himself miles from home, on a different planet. He heard it made some people nauseated– space sick– and though he understood why, he was lucky enough not to be one of those people. Nico had a stomach of steel. Literally, in some places.

He skimmed the geographical overview, half an hour later, after a hot shower and a minor pep-talk from his reflection. They were surrounded by plants, which had to be a good sign, surely. While he would have preferred an inhabited planet, personally, that was rather the point of him being here in the first place. Out of his comfort zone, into the fire. Or the woods, as this case would have it. Both the mountains and the green of Alpha-Seven were shrouded in mystery, or at least clouds and thick vegetation, which made it impossible to get an exact impression of what they were getting into.

Before leaving he had bought what the man in the shop referred to as a "Cook's Traveller's Pack". It was really just a fancy name for a leathery satchel, which he could use to carry with him various knives and rations. He retrieved this from the kitchen, pausing to run a gloved hand over the surface of his workbench and making a mental note to clean the whole place properly later. He couldn't tell if he was excited or nervous, but decided to go with the former. He would have time to be scared when there was something worth being scared of, and if his minimal knowledge of space missions was anything to go by, there was always something worth fearing on strange planets. Sooner or later.

Nico found his way outside just in time to see his captain climbing a large plant with upheaved roots. There was another good sign, at least. If Celcius could still be excited about this adventure after her years of experience, there had to be something in it. While she climbed, he took his time to fetch a scalpel-like knife from his traveller's pack, cutting loose a small sample from the tree. There was no way the crew could survive on a vegetarian diet without becoming protein deficient, but it wouldn't hurt to check if it was edible.

"Do you see this?"

He looked up to see the captain holding something in her hand, presumably found in the top of the tree. However, she was too far up for him to see– perhaps it was a fruit. That would certainly be a welcome change. Not optimal, but surely everyone liked fruit? He felt the mechanisms in his throat rush to bring an air-like substance into his lungs as he prepared to speak. His voice was mildly electronic in sound, as his larynx had long since been replaced by a mechanical one, but not unpleasant as he asked, "You're too far up, Captain. What have you found?"

Celcius smiled stupidly as she cried out, "I believe it's a scale!" Her eyes paced the two companions who dared venture out with her but found a tingle of disappointment twitch through her circuits. The hope she felt was pale in them - at least outwardly. But that was a thing about bio-organisms: their wonder was suppressed by survival. Still, she stuffed the silver disc into a pack she had tied around her hips and began to climb again. Her limbs almost hugging a small portion of the tree as she wiggled upward, one hand and then the other. It was after about three of these reaches that she heard it.

A great scraping sound echoed through the forest, thin yet loud. The android's head had twitched to see its source but failed. In the direction, all that was seen were the trees. Without thinking, Celcius dropped her hold and landed flatly on her feet. Quickly she straightened up. A wide smile breached her features as she looked back to the cook and doctor. "Well?" She hadn't dared see their reaction. Instead she ran - bounded really - off the tree and onto the green grass. She slipped slightly from the distance but quickly recovered to jog deeper north of the ship. Her crew could follow if they chose but it was time for adventure.

Most of the trees appeared uninteresting compared to the first. All had twisting roots and branches with scaled bark and green leaves. Very few also bore the same splitter markings on their trunk, Celcius noted as she skirted between them. It didn't take long for her to stop running however, when a spark of silver crossed her path. She stood motionless and watched with wide eyes as thick silver monstrosity swayed through the trees. All she could see was a torso - maybe thirty feet in height - pass between the trunks until a clear fin swished by, tapered to the bottom of the mass. "It couldn't be..." She mused quietly. Slow to start, the woman jogged closer to the creature, arriving past the trees to see the monster in all its glory.

It was a silver fish, floating in the air between the tree tops and the ground. It was slow but deliberate, weaving between the trunks. It had a pair of pectoral fins that hung five feet above the ground and swished in turn to propel it forward as large, black eyes stared mindlessly from its sides. A mouth, suffering from a massive underbite, opened and closed to pull in air and filter it through the large gills on its side. A pair of orange dots slipped into the gaping mouth, found not to return out again. She watched as its tail brushed against a tree, which scratched the bark and rattled the leaves, as the monster slightly altered its course. As such, the mystery was solved.

With a modest grin, Celcius mused, "So it is a scale after-all." She paused, thinking on her situation for a brief time. Turning to whatever company dared follower her - or none, possibly - Celcius placed her hands heavily on her hips and stated with determination, "I believe it's about time we went fishing. Any idea on how to go about it?" She smiled with a very silly idea in mind.

It didn't take a socially adept genius to understand that the doctor was getting off on the wrong foot with Brax, the newcomer. Which was quite lucky, because while Nico wasn't the absolute opposite of a social butterfly, he still had some kinks to work out.

“Better be a damned big harpoon”

"It's not the size that matters," Nico protested, "It's how you use it."

He looked out at the floating monstrosity before them, his frown invisible to the others but nonetheless present. He wasn't an expert hunter, but he was at the very least experienced– his father had made sure of that, as soon as he discovered his son's interest in the culinary. The idea had been to somehow awaken Nico's latent masculinity, if he remembered correctly. His father had never been clear on whether it had worked or not. The fish presented an obvious disadvantage against smaller foes in that its belly was hanging some feet above the ground and was open to attacks. With enough force, a well-aimed harpoon would certainly do the trick.

"I like the way you think, cook, for food and science. I bet I could get the mechanic to craft something up for us. I'm thinking rocket propelled? Perhaps that's too barbaric."

"Barbaric, perhaps, but not too far from what we need," Nico replied. He hoped that sounded smart– he was becoming less certain that he knew what was going on. Gosh, space adventures were hard.

"Cook, go search for your harpoon and bring it to the engineering bay. If you can't find it, let us know right away. I'll go to talk to Mal about the details of his fish-killing wonder ... I hope you've all kept your communicators on. We'll have to reconvene when we're ready. Good luck."

"Yes, Captain," Nico said, nodding to the remaining two as he trotted awkwardly behind the android. By the time he reached the ship he had managed to pack away his fillet knife in the pack, and subsequently broke into a run towards the kitchen, holding the pack behind him just in case he fell over. Having half a head of metal sometimes threw his balance off, strangely enough.

The kitchen was made up of three separate rooms. The biggest room was where all the action happened: it consisted of a large cooking area, with two worktops surrounding a gigantic cooker. In the back stood nine shelves for dry storage– which he was particularly hoping to use for unknown herbs over the course of the journey. By the dry storage was a small work area where he kept the scientific equipment, which he would later use to test the sample he had taken from the plant outside, as well as the fish if they ever got hold of it. Past the shelves stood a pair of double doors that led to the cooler room, which he hoped the fish would become intimately familiar with, albeit post mortem. Then, hidden to the side in the corner was a single door without a lock. A badly scribbled post-it note hung around eye-level saying, "storage: misc."

The communicator came alive as he put his hand on the handle.

"No contact, I repeat, no contact, fired a tracer round, over."

He's shooting at it! Nico would have pressed his lips together in fury if it wasn't for the fact that he physically couldn't. The door swung open and immediately crashed into a plastic crate on the other side. He winced, entering a small and overcrowded room. All his personal belongings were in here. Nico's entire personal life, as though he had taken with him every trace when he left home. What a thought.

His hunting equipment was in a large container sent from the club. "To Nicolai S. Armitage," as though they were sending a professional letter. The only thing that would have made it better is if they'd ended it with "kind regards" just to alienate him even further. There– his rifle, still in good condition. He unpacked the container carefully, not wanting to set anything off. Almost at the very bottom he found what he was looking for.

"Captain," Nico's electronic voice spoke uncertainly through the communicator. "I found it."

There was a moment of hope as the harpoon went off, quickly vaporised as the wounded giant fled, taking half the forest with it. Nico wasn't sure how to feel about it– on one hand his suggestion had worked, and clearly wounded it. On the other, he hadn't taken into account how most fish reacted if they weren't killed immediately on impact. They were slippery, for sure. With a screech Mal's efforts had disappeared, and with it, a memory of home.

"My harpoon," he said, weakly– not quite sure what else to say.

"Do you see that?" Nico first turned to the Captain, following her gaze towards the clearing created by the fish, but he wasn't quite sure what she was referring to. His gaze drifted to the last place where they had seen the fish, missing what the Captain was referring to.

"There's a cave," she said. Brow furrowed, he took another glance around them, before settling on the rocky surfaces further away. It was hard to see, but with some imagination employed he could understand which part she was referring to. His effort made him miss the next thing the Captain said, until a horrid sound brought him out of it–

"Wiiiiiiiiiek."

Nico almost jumped out of his skin, a hand on his bag fiddling for some kind of protection against whatever it was. For a moment he thought it could have been another fish, but as he followed the Captain's instructions and dived for safety behind a bush, he caught a glimpse of the blue, tentacled offender up ahead.

“Oh boy. The fun just doesn't end, huh?”

It was hard to tell what it was from his position. Giant floating octopus? An eldritch horror Man Was Not Meant To Know? He supposed the first one was more likely, particularly given that the planet seemed to have a way of sustaining sea life mid-air which they had not yet explained– nor were they ever likely to find a suitable explanation for it. So far he was happy to go with a quote from his teacher in Esoteric Cooking 1: Cooking the Cosmos;

"Space is weird, but mostly edible."

His eyes went wide as he saw the squid or octopus like appendages writhing in midair.

“Oh, what the hell?” Mal whispered.

He watched Brax step into position, assault rifle primed on the target. Mal was unsure how much damage one soldier could do against what seemed to be some gargantuan monstrosity. Mal pulled out a computer rod and slid open a transparent sheet screen from its side. The sheet screen was so thin that its height seemed indiscernible. Mal tried to raise the sheet so that it could capture the creature better than his eyes.

Nothing but tentacles. A better view could not be found. The captain and Brax had the best view so he watched and waited on them. What kind of world was Alpha-seven? He wondered if they would find swimming birds. It seemed anatomically impossible and contradictory to the laws of physics. Or rather, the laws of physics as he had known them. The floating fish could be explained, but swimming birds, now that was something to look forward to.

The captain’s voice came on the comms, “Everyone, get back to the ship. We'll reconvene in the dining room in an hour. Don't be late."

“Aye Captain,” Mal nodded as she glanced at him.

The group dispersed, Mal would have struck up some conversation with the cook or the doc, but he decided the dining hall would be a more appropriate locale. Down the brush and onto some steady ground filled with grass. A throb of pain jolted his cut finger, and he had to shake it until it was numb again. Mal left the rocket launcher with the soldier, he’ll probably return it to the armory, he thought.

He wandered down a different trail led by his panel’s navigator system. The little orange spots dispersed as he approached them. Mal spotted several glowing purple caps that could be this world’s equivalent of mushrooms. He had a brief thought about his days back in university, and he remembered why he would never do mushrooms again. The nav system’s blinking tone interrupted his thoughts and he continued on.

As he neared the ship, he watched as little orbs departed from the opening like metallic pollen from a steel flower. Their multicolored scanning beams washing over him as they whirred past him. They disappeared beyond the forest behind him.

Mal waved at them as he knew they were sort of like the ship’s eyes, “Vladimir,” he addressed the ship AI, “Can you get me a systems scan and a status report on the engine? I had to repair a damaged panel in there.”