_ _Private Orion pov_ _
"This is bullshit."
"Come on Marcus, don't be like that." I gave my friend a weary smile, guard duty was annoying but we had to do it after all.
"Why the fuck do we have to guard that damn bug?!" He asked and I sighed.
His hatred for the damn things was completely understandable and I can't say I don't feel the same as him but that's just the job we signed up for. No matter how annoying or frustrating it is we have to do it, even if that means standing outside a xeno holding cell.
Marcus for his part was acting how he usually did in situations like this and no matter what he says it's not because he dislikes guard duty. Well, he does dislike it, who doesn't after all but that's not the main reason why he was currently acting like this.
Marcus is relatively tall all things considered, he stands at about seven foot and looks as if he eats bloody nails and shards of glass for breakfast. The guy is also fucking ripped, he is incredibly well built and is far more intimidating looking when compared to me, most of the other privates and even a lot of the higher ups. He looks like he could be a bouncer or professional wrestler, if he actually wanted to that is. Despite this however he was actually pretty sensitive when it came to certain things, even if he tried to hide it most of the time.
His dark brown eyes were almost always narrowed and hardened but his bald white head was filled with nightmares about those damn monstrosities. Of course such things could be said about most of the people here, we have all had at least one rather vivid nightmare about one of those things bursting out of us but he was plagued by them almost every night.
Rubbing the back of my head I decided to try and console him to the best of my ability. "The egg heads say it's different, and not just because of its color. They said the big ugly one tried to break free and kill it the moment she crapped it out."
"Ooooh, so we're guarding a mystery bug now are we? How fancy, truly we have been blessed by the heavens on this fine day." The blank look he gave me as these words left his mouth was enough to make me crack a smile and roll my eyes in response. "The damn thing is probably just diseased or something along those lines."
"You know how higher ups are." I muttered with a light shrug. "When all the xenos look and act the exact same as each other they get excited when they find something new. They probably think their new lab rat is some kind of gold mine of information that they can use to further their research."
"I'm just glad that they're using the convicts instead of some poor random smuck they found off the streets." That I couldn't help but strongly agree with, I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if they were using innocent people for this.
"What's the story with that anyway? The prison planet I mean." I asked with a curious expression.
Marcus took a minute to think about that before shrugging to himself. "I don't know its origin or official name but most people around here just call it The Farm, mostly because the people down there are basically nothing but livestock nowadays. The place has nothing of real value except for some rather common resources and from what I heard the original colonists were cursed or something."
"Cursed?" I couldn't help the skeptical look that appeared on my face.
"It was like they were destined to fail." He hummed as he lent back against the wall behind him and crossed his arms. "First, they were hit by a plague, it was so bad that it nearly wiped out about half of their numbers within a few months. With the plague and the rather dangerous wild life they were already in hot shit before but it got even worse for them." He sighed with a slow shake of his head.
"No one knows how it happened, maybe sabotage, maybe some kind of critical malfunction or maybe some idiot just made an incredibly stupid mistake but the massive planetary grade generators designed to power the ACC, Atmosphere Control Center, had a complete melt down. The thing was designed to not only create a more suitable environment for human habitation but also designed to alter the weather to some degree. Try and guess the amount of damage it caused when the whole thing exploded." He gave me a second to think on that before continuing to explain.
"The force of the explosion was great enough to shatter and sink the island it was built upon and in addition a large portion of the northern hemisphere was drenched in radiation. The poisoning of the environment also serve to increase the aggressiveness of local fauna causing a rather violent shifts in the wildlife as various species just straight up went extinct or fled the most irradiated areas causing a massive ecological chain reaction." He muttered and I couldn't help but picture the scene in my head. "That was the final straw however, what was left of the colonists fled the planet with whatever they could carry and store in the few space worthy ships they had access to."
"Shit..."
"Yeah."
We stayed silent for a long second before I abruptly asked. "So...what happened after that?"
"The government of the sector secretly began dumping their criminal offenders, all in an attempt to save resources and money. Rapists, murderers, cultists, basically anyone that was considered a fret to public well-being. They would just be dropped on to the planet and left there with nothing but the clothes they were wearing at the time, of course that was after any possible way of escape was removed from the planet completely." He yawned with a bored look on his face.
"About six months ago however things changed, the planet and the surrounding space was taken over by the higher ups and here we are, standing in this blank hallway guarding a parasitic alien organism, yippee." He definitely wasn't being sarcastic, yeah, definitely not.
"How many are down there?" I asked with a slight tilt of my head.
He took a moment to just think on that before responding to me. "A few tens of thousands maybe, probably more considering the men weren't castrated before they were thrown onto that hell hole of a world." He answered before continuing to explain a little further. "Of course those are just the numbers that were recorded to have been left there without considering how many have already died, so no one really knows how many are down there at this point."
That was far more than I was expecting if I'm being honest. "Well...damn."
_ _Carmen pov_ _
(Fucking hell.) I muttered and glared at the scientist who was currently placing a rat into my small enclosure.
I had been moved to a small metal and glass terrarium like enclosure that was the size of a somewhat large rectangular fish tank. There was no way out and the walls were resistant enough that nothing that I did even left a scratch on them.
[I believe that they are expecting you to eat that.] Goldy muttered with morbid fascination and I could only growl in disgust.
(I know that already!) First I had to murder a guy and now this, this new life of mine was not going to be a pleasant experience I could tell. (Well...I've already killed a man by rupturing out of his chest, eating a rodent seems almost trivial compared to that.) I tried to convince myself as the small creature with dark brown fur was placed inside the confined space with me.
(Sorry little guy, I can't turn back now...) I sighed before getting myself ready.
My instincts were telling me to grow, to feed, to survive and eventually to reproduce, that last part made me cringe inwardly but I pushed my displeasure aside for now. In the end I could only follow them for now, my instincts that is, while hoping that they will be enough to let me keep on living, at least until I was strong enough to defend myself anyway.
The moment it entered my containment it was disoriented and rather confused, it didn't even notice me sitting off to the side. Sadly however the poor thing didn't stand a chance from the start, in fact its back leg had been pre injured beforehand so that it would pose less of a fret to me.
And sure, I was still getting used to my body but it was relatively easy to just tackle it before biting into its head while wrapping my body around it. It got a few good scratches and bites in itself mind you but once my teeth pierced through it's rather weak skull things ended rather abruptly.
[Crude yet efficient.]
(Oh shut up you.) I grumbled before glaring up at the asshole who was currently observing me. (You're at the top of my shit list pal.)
"Fascinating..." I heard the asshole mutter causing me to hiss at him.
(Would you just piss off already!) Surprisingly he actually did just that, not because of what I had thought, mind you but because he seemed to realize that his presence was aggravating me.
(Finally...) I sighed before turning back to the poor little creature whose life I had just snuffed out. (This...this is so fucking disgusting.) I grumbled as I bit into the carcass. Did you know the part of a xenomorph that connects its mouth to its stomach is actually in its inner jaw? It made sense but I still found it interesting.
After puncturing the little thing full of beep bloody holes I finally felt somewhat full, and now I was left with one single question. (What now?)
[You wait.]
(Great...)