Chapter Text
The first time Tommy had ever seen a body was back home.
Not… home, home. But home in the sense of the planet. Earth. Y’know, where the grass is green and seventy-one percent of the planet is made up of water that nobody can even drink. That Earth.
It had been an open casket funeral for someone he only vaguely remembered. He remembered when it was his turn to walk up from the line of grieving family and friends to say his goodbyes. The body hadn’t looked like a body, they had just looked like they were asleep. Their eyes were closed and expression peaceful, and Tommy had half expected them to jump out of the casket with a laugh and a “gotcha!” and then everyone would’ve had a great laugh over it.
That… hadn’t happened.
Point was, the person hadn’t looked dead– just peaceful.
Not like this body.
“Warning: Containment Breach,” droned the automated voice as Tommy slowly unwound his hands from around the creature's neck. They trembled violently, and he wasn’t getting enough air. His hands were stained a deep indigo, and it smelled like the salt of the ocean back home.
Back home. Earth.
Sirens wailed throughout the inside of the ship, and lights that adorned the walls painted the cold, metal room in a deep red. It reminded Tommy of some of the action movies he used to watch back home.
“Warning: Containment Breach.”
He wasn’t getting enough air. Tommy gasped, and threw himself away from the body. He scrambled back on hands and knees until he hit the wall and stared.
“Warning: Containment Breach.”
The body lay in the middle of the lab, limbs splayed into unnatural angles from where Tommy had broken them and their neck...
Tommy wound his bloody fingers into his hair, and shuddered when his hands brushed against the small, metal plates that were situated behind his ears. He blinked his eyes hard, forcing himself to count to ten. His vision flickered, the blue hue temporarily disappearing before activating again.
“War–in– tainm– Breach.”
Tommy wanted to laugh, but he found it stuck inside his throat along with the thousand other emotions that found themselves clogged there at the moment. Of course the aliens not only had to abduct and experiment on him, but they had to give him a faulty translator as well.
The ship shuddered and Tommy flinched, throwing his arms over his head and curling himself into a ball. The body jolted, the syringe fell from the black and white alien’s limp hand and clattered to the metal ground. Tommy kicked himself away from it, the glowing green substance inside the syringe made his stomach flip and churn. They had almost put that in him.
Tommy wanted to scream, but it was stuck. Everything was stuck. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to go home.
“Warning: Containment Breach.”
There was a distant clanging, and something in his brain registered it as footsteps. Tommy froze. There were more of them, he’d forgotten. He pushed himself underneath a nearby desk, and he heard the door slide open from behind him.
Silence. The aliens were likely taking in the broken straps on the bed, the shattered glass tubes along the floor, the drip, drip, drip of some mysterious liquid the scientist had been messing with before Tommy had broken himself free. The body. Tommy heard one step forward, saw their black tail swing from side to side from his hiding place. Their legs were tall, at least twice the size of Tommy’s own, and their boots were tall as well, with small, sharp hooks made for gripping that tapped against the metal floor.
“Warning: Containment Breach.”
The alien turned slightly, facing the others that came with them.
“Tell the captain we’re going into emergency lockdown,” the voice translated into Tommy’s ear. “Subject nineteen has escaped. I want weapons ready to kill, this is a level twenty threat.”
The sirens and the mechanical voice stopped. Tommy held his breath as the ship fell into silence, and he heard the click of a weapon being activated. It thrummed against the silence, igniting the air with powerful electric bursts that even Tommy could feel from underneath the desk. The aliens moved further into the room, and Tommy counted three of them.
The other two aliens were far shorter than the black and white one, and they followed the tall one around like little henchmen. Not that they weren't tall either, all three easily stood a few good feet over Tommy. Long, sharp horns sprouted from their heads, and their rabbit-like ears stood straight, on alert. If Tommy’s sense of biology was accurate from having been around the tall fucks for forever, he would have to make an educated guess that the tallest one there was a female.
The alien on the far right, who was more grey than the others, thrashed his tail as he stepped over the body and muttered something that Tommy’s translator couldn’t pick up. He reached for his side, and produced what looked like a really long skip-rope. He swung the end, and the tip sparked angrily in the air.
Tommy grit his teeth and exhaled slowly. He hadn’t come this far just to be killed by some tall, rabbit looking fucks and their stupid taser skip-ropes. He wanted to go home. Determination sparked in his chest and his heart pounded in his ears. He pulled himself into a crouch.
The alien’s ears flicked in his direction, and Tommy froze. All three spun around, weapons pointed and activated, but they hadn’t spotted him under the desk. One of them, the grey one, trembled.
Tommy had taken on one by himself easily. Their arms had snapped under Tommy’s hands like sticks, and the sickening noise replayed in his ears like a broken record. Tommy pushed it to the back of his mind. It had taken some effort, weakened and malnourished as he was, but he had eventually overpowered the alien. If he played this right, he reckoned he could take on three more.
Six pairs of glowing eyes landed on Tommy when he shifted again. Their twin pupils constricted as Tommy made eye-contact, and their leader’s eyes sparked violet. She stepped forward, and Tommy flinched back. He bared his teeth in what he hoped was an intimidating gesture, and judging by the two smaller aliens' reaction, he was somewhat successful.
A soft tink broke the silence between them, and the tall alien looked down, her violet eyes landing on the syringe. She nudged it again with her boot, the green liquid sloshing around the sides of the syringe and making Tommy’s stomach roll once more.
The alien grinned, the expression was unsettling with her thin, razor sharp teeth and inhuman eyes. She picked it up and rolled it between her hands. Sharp claws clicked against the glass syringe as she examined it. She looked back at Tommy, then raised her arm to her mouth and spoke into the communicator.
“Threat has been reduced to a level ten. Tell the captain to forgo the emergency lockdown. We can handle it from here.”
The leader waved a hand, and the violent sparking that came from her henchmen’s weapons was lowered. They both stepped forward, Tommy scrambled back.
“Hey!” Tommy shouted, and they faltered in their steps, if only slightly. Their leader tilted her head, ears flicking. “Listen, you tall fucks better stay the hell away from me! Want me to kill you guys too? I’ll do it! Just watch!” He heaved out a breath, then sucked it back in, his chest shuddering nearly as bad as his hands as he pushed himself out from under the desk. Tommy lowered himself and sneered as the grey one stepped back.
The leader leaned her body forward so they were closer to Tommy’s eye-level. The condescending motion sparked a righteous anger in his chest and Tommy growled at them.
If they wanted him to act like a fucking animal, then he would act like a fucking animal.
“Human,” the leader began, raising a clawed hand towards him as though that would calm his fury. “We do not mean to cause you any harm.”
“You just came in here to kill me!” Tommy’s voice pitched high as he gestured wildly to the still activated jump ropes the other two fucks were holding. They stepped closer at his shouting, brandishing the weapons.
“We cannot afford to take risks,” the alien said. She side-eyed the henchmen, who were winding the weapons in the air. The lightning crackled with each swing, and Tommy couldn’t help but flinch. “You have a choice, human.”
Tommy’s eyes snapped back to the leader, who now towered over him as she stood to her full height. “Walk back to your chamber with dignity, or be carried with shame.”
Tommy glanced wildly between the three, taking an uneasy step backward as the two advanced. His hip glanced off the side of the desk and Tommy glanced down, spotting a rock looking thing that may have just been used as a paperweight. He glanced back up at the trio of aliens, meeting the leader's eyes.
They narrowed.
Tommy reached for the rock.
The alien shouted, and the ropes snapped forward, attaching themselves around Tommy’s neck and torso, pinning his arms to his sides.
He screamed as electricity raced up and down his body, and his muscles seized. He toppled over, hitting the floor with a heavy bang.
The ropes solidified as he struggled, turning into immovable rods that held him at length from the aliens. Shock after shock hit him relentlessly until he couldn’t catch his breath and he had nothing left to scream.
Eventually, the attack stopped, and Tommy was left gasping for breath as the edges of his vision spotted and began to black out.
“Like I said, human,” The leader spoke somewhere off to the side, but Tommy could no longer care. All he could feel was the fire racing through his body as the last of the shocks ran their course. The air around him shifted as the aliens used the rods to lift him up. “I cannot afford to take risks. A human alone is dangerous, but a human with a tool?” The tall alien leaned into his sight and grinned, a mimic that she had probably picked up from god knew how many other humans they had experimented with. “Now that, that is deadly.”
The electricity left Tommy jittery, his muscles still pulled painfully tight and he could already feel the burns on his skin from where the tasers had connected. The alien moved away, and Tommy’s vision doubled, then went out.
The red beacon blinked on the screen as it crossed a white-dotted border; a tiny blip against the vast expanse of space, at least, as much of it as the screen could capture. It flashed against the darkness, disturbing the sleepy peace that had fallen over the small communications room.
There was a grumble, and something shifted, green lights attached to a near translucent body pulsed dully in time to a steady heartbeat as he slept. The air crackled, then a voice sounded over a speaker.
“Is anyone watching that beacon?”
Another grumble, another shift.
“Hello? Is anyone awake here?”
“No,” grunted the phantlus, but he reached for his communicator anyway.
“Useless children, the lot of you. Wilbur, I know it’s your shift. I thought I told you to rest the last cycle–”
“I’m up, mom,” Wilbur spoke into the communicator, blinking heavily against the wet sleep that had gathered in the corners of his eyes and trilling deep in his throat as he stretched his fins.
“Sometimes I wonder what happened to the respect you two used to show me all that time ago.”
“I think we lost it sometime after the part where you picked us up and before we realized you were just an anxious ball of feathers disguised as a captain.” A new voice joined the call, Technoblade's monotonous tone causing Wilbur to close his eyes and tilt his head back dramatically.
There was an airy sigh over the speaker accompanied by a low whistle. “Oh, I mourn.”
The blinking red light forced Wilbur’s eyes open once more, and he studied the screen. His fins flared as he tilted his head curiously.
“Wilbur, the screen,” Philza's reminder came, just like Wilbur knew it would.
“Yeah, I’m looking at it.” He enlarged the screen, tapping a claw against the beacon and drawing up the ship’s information. Wilbur leaned back in his seat as he read the data. His tail swayed, the tip just brushing against the cool floor. “Looks like another enderian science vessel got too close to the border again,” he sighed, already drawing up the communications screen. “Man, these guys just can’t take a hint,” he grumbled.
“Jealous?” Technoblade poked at him from over the call, and Wilbur hissed.
“It’s restricted starspace. Shut up. I need to send a message.” Wilbur swiped the disconnect button on his comm before Technoblade could jab back at him, then turned back to the screen. He sighed again, and pressed the transmission recorder.
“SC.Starborne, this is the SC.SBI. You are entering restricted starspace. Please respond immediately or disengage your thrusters. This is a warning.”