Chapter 5: Rude Surprises

The top of the stasis pod slid to the side, rotating around so it could tuck underneath itself. It was an efficient design for packing half a million people into an arc ship. There was only the faintest of vibrations as it stopped and locked into place.

The entire process only took a second.

Dina’s chest rose and fell against her firm suit as she stared into the open air above her. The pod had been pulled out from its enclosure and carried down with a mechanical lift. She could see thousands of doors for the rest of the enclosures, most of them closed but all of them blinking with the same pulsating light that flashed on her faceplate.

The air didn’t look poisonous but the sensor still indicated that it was dangerous for her to breathe. Seeing the warning was just as surreal as knowing there was still a century left on her trip. Her eyes scanned from one sensor to the other and then up at the wall of pod enclosure doors that stretched a hundred meters above her head.

Fear hummed in her veins and only the sedation kept it from consuming her thoughts. She tried to sit herself up but her muscles were too weak against the heavy suit and the thick liquid inside. After straining for a few seconds, she gave up and slumped back.

There as nothing she could do but wait for someone to help her get out of the stasis. She felt a burn of humiliation on her cheeks.

An errant thought wafted across her mind. Was Melodi coming back to tease her?

The brief moment of hope was shredded by the pulsating red light. There was no reason Melodi would want to continue teasing her with poison in the air.

Before she could figure out a new hope, something dark reached over her. It was a thick, muscular arm tipped with four squarish fingers tipped with black claws. On the back of the arm, she could see short black quills about five to eight centimeters long. On the nearest side, the spikes smoothly became short, bristly hairs. The hairs and quills both quivered as it grabbed the far side of her pod.

If there wasn’t sedation surging through her veins, Dina would have screamed at the top of her lungs. Reflexively, she planted her feet and pushed herself up toward the top of the pod. Her body slid through the puddle of liquid underneath her. She flailed for the edge of the pod but her slick gloves couldn’t gain purchase.

The muscle above her flexed and then contracted, pulling the rest of its owner into view as it loomed over the pod. It was a broad-shouldered humanoid with thick cords of muscles crossing over its chests. The thick ridges weren’t quite the same pattern as a human, they were arranged differently without any pectoral muscles. Instead, it looked like the abdominal muscles continued further up stretched almost clear the collarbone.

Her body began to shake despite the sedation. She traced her gaze along the powerful arm up to the creature’s face. It looked almost human except that its eyes were too large, nose too wide, and ears too narrow. The pupils were crosses that stretched out of sight and gave an impression that the eyes were quartered into four pieces of the purest jade.

It smiled broadly, a large lower jaw pulling forward from its head to reveal dozens of sharp teeth behind thick lips. It started to talk, or at least appeared to speak, but instead of a guttural sound she expected, it came out as a breathy, complex humming.

The humming only went on for only a short time before ending with a low note. Then it looked at her. When she didn’t respond, it shrugged by rolling its shoulders back. It repeated itself, the same short hum ending in a low note. It sounded like a question.

Dina shook her head. She couldn’t speak with all the tubes gagging her. She also couldn’t stop trying to pull away. She kept grabbing on the edge but the firm suit slipped off the edge.

The creature asked another question.

She shook her head and kept pushing away.

It made a loud sigh and then reached into the pod. The squarish fingers spread out wide, two in each direction. The grip was wide enough to grab her entire face.

Dina tried to scream out but ended up choking on the tubes in her mouth. She shuddered and frantically pawed in all directions, her panic finally surging past the sedation flowing through her veins.

The pulse indicator flashed on her faceplate, immediately becoming red with her painfully rapid beat. The sedation indicator flashed up and there was a wash of warmth but nothing held back the terror.

The creature caught her throat. Claws scraped against the outer edge of the firm suit and the material flexed from its strength. The pressure increased around her throat and she was worried it would crush her. However, it stopped after only a heartbeat. A beat later, it started to lift her out of the pod.

Dina pawed at the hand around her throat. She could get her fingers wrapped around the thick claw but when she tried to pry them away, the smooth tips of the gloves slipped. She tried again, choking and thrashing as her fingers refused to get enough of a grip.

The creature lifted her easily. The tubes and devices in her orifices twisted painfully inside her body, swirling and stretching her organs. Her legs and arms shook violently as white-hot pain coursed through her senses. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, the creature was easily half again her height, maybe about three meters tall.

There was a flash of movement. She looked down to see a knife in the creature’s other hand. It was a serrated blade about a half meter in length with a sharp, needle-like tip.

Dina thrashed violently. She kicked against the side of the pod. One blow struck the creature’s chest. Even through the solid boot of her suit, it feel like hitting a wall. She tried to kick again but her foot got tangled up with the tubes and cords coming from her crotches; agony burst inside her as the devices were twisted deep inside her organs.

The creature jammed the knife between her legs. Powerful muscles flexed as it pulled up. The knife scraped along her inner thighs, the vibrations shaking through her firm suit. It thumped up against her crotch and scraped along the tubes.

Expecting an explosion of pain, she tensed up.

Twisting, the creature yanked the blade out. There was an intense tugging sensation, like he had pulled the devices out of her pussy, but it only lasted less than a second. The pressure faded as the pressure sank deeper into her body, settling into place without the familiar weight of the tubes pulling her down.

Coils of tubes and cords smacked loudly on the ground, followed by a loud splatter of fluids. A pressure gauge on her faceplate showed an immediate reduction in the stasis fluid pressure. The suit also showed a drop in integrity before automatic systems sealed her up.

She shuddered as she kicked out, no longer encumbered by the tubes that impaled her pussy and ass.

The creature pulled the knife back. A few coils of plastic and metal clung to the serrated edges to it as it brought the blade her chest and levered the blade underneath the mess of tubes that lead into her mouth. Twisting the knife slightly, it pulled it away from her and she saw the tubes being sliced apart, freeing her from the stasis pod.

More warning indicators flashed into view as automatic systems shut off the now severed tubes from pumping poisoned air directly into her lungs. There was a humming and then a clamping sensation as they finished sealing her up and the suit’s integrity remained firmly at 97%.

The creature dropped her on the ground.

Her feet struck the ground unexpectedly. She didn’t wasn’t ready for it and she collapsed to the ground. She tried to back away with her movement. In her panic, she stumbled forward toward the bare, dark gray legs of the creature. At the sight of seeing quills sticking out from the back of its legs, she panicked even more.

With a surge of strength that tore muscles, she threw herself to the side. She landed hard on the ground, the impact shaking her through the firm suit. Her palms slipped on a puddle of crimson liquid and her head crashed face-first into the ground.

Thankfully, the face plate held from the impact but her entire vision was washed in crimson. She pushed herself from the ground, shaking violently from the effort.

As she did, she stared at the red liquid. The stasis fluid that splashed out of her tubes would be clear after two hundred years. There was nothing to stain it. She could see some droplets of it rolling down the front of her faceplate but most of the color came from the crimson streaks that chased the clear liquids. She could see black flecks rolling around the droplets.

The faceplate continued to indicate that her heartbeat was going too fast despite the sedative surging through her veins.

Dina couldn’t pull her gaze away from the crimson droplets on her faceplate. She knew what it was, blood. Old blood kept liquid by stasis fluid. Someone had died.

A selfish part of her desperately hoped it wasn’t from her tubes. She sat up, hyperventilating. Her body shook with her pulses, it beat in her ears and slammed against her ribs. She used both hands to wipe her faceplate, looking around for both the creature and some place to escape.

Her gaze passed over the corpse twice before she realized it was a body. With a gasp, she stared at it with a sick burn boiling in her stomach. It was a man with long hair and a tattoo. His faceplate had been pulled off and his face had melted; long rivulets of blood glistened on his face from where his eyeballs had burst open and his tongue was black. The man had clawed at his own face, stripping off his skin. She could see strips of it clinging to the tips of his gloves.

Dina choked in terror. She shook her head and pulled her head back. Her lips worked around the tube as she tried to look away from the rotted corpse but failed. The skin was drawn and stretched tight over the man’s skeleton. It looked like the old corpses from the videos, maybe days or even weeks old.

She had no clue how long he had been there but it felt surreal. She had just gotten to sleep for their trip. The body was too old to be someone on the ship but the firm suit looked almost identical to her own.

Body shaking, she couldn’t stop staring.

The powerful claws of the creature grabbed her, yanking her back to her own plight. She turned to fight him off. When she saw an immense cock only centimeters from her head, she began to panic again. It was half a meter in length and just as thick as her wrist. Like the back of the creature’s legs and arms, it was covered in quills that stuck out toward the base. The end of the shaft, there was a sharp point that looked like a single quill that reached past its shins. The terrifying part was that the inhuman shaft was only half-hard.

Every part of her body tensed with terror and fear. Her imagination burned with the idea of it tearing into her body. Her vision blurred with tears floating in the stasis fluid. She screamed, or tried to, and kicked back.

The creature grabbed her by the tubes in her throat. Dina felt them tearing inside her esophagus and tugging at her lungs and stomach. She tried to pull back but the intense pain that ripped through her body left her choking in agony.

He pulled her forward.

Unable to handle the agony of her organs being torn out, she stumbled to her feet. She slipped with the effort to follow the naked creature as he backed away from her, pulling her up by the thick tubes with his powerful grip.

Sobbing and hyperventilating, she stared past the flashing indicators and sedatives that refused to relive her from the all-consuming terror that burned through her brain.

Dina managed to get to her feet. She was helpless to do anything but follow the creature as he lead her out of the hanger.