Dragon_Scribbles
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A Submariner in Space
🕑 Added 2021-08-27 04:01:03 +0000 UTCA/N: Hey, guys! This is that side-project I told you about. Still working on RH, and I don't plan to make this a regular series, just something I poke at for fun now and then when I want to write but am hitting a roadblock with RH. Hope you enjoy!
A Submariner in Space
“Ah, this is what I’m talkin’ about!” Mark said, reaching over to turn the volume up as he flicked his high beams back on. He turned the already loud music up until he could feel the bass in his lungs. Settling back in his seat, he put his foot down and cruised.
It was late. He had left his best friend’s house later than he had planned. And he still had a long drive to go to reach his new home in Charleston, but he was okay with that. I like driving in the dark, anyway, he thought, tapping the wheel in time with the beat.
He downshifted and braked for a turn more than he really wanted to, but his brand-new Bronco just didn’t handle turns like his old car. Especially with half my life packed inside, he thought, downshifting again and punching the accelerator as he came out of the turn. At least, all the stuff I couldn’t or didn’t want to have packed up for the PCS move, anyway …
He eased off on the gas sooner than he would have liked. Half-passed midnight in middle-of-nowhere North Carolina isn’t likely to have cops out, but I don’t know these roads, and don’t want to hit a deer.
Glancing over his shoulder at the garment bag hanging from the hook over the right rear window, he smiled, wriggling in his seat as he turned back to the road. God, I’m such a fucking diggit, he thought, laughing to himself as he reached over to turn the music back down a bit. But fuck it. There was no way I wasn’t getting a picture with Sam in full dress, sword and everything.
He sighed, some small part of him still wondering if it was a good idea to trade in his chief’s cutlass for an officer’s saber. Not looking forward to Nuke school, but it’s the only way I can stay in subs and get a command, and you need a commission to be a captain.
Chuckling, he reached over to grab a fresh can of Monster. Twenty-Seven is a bit old for an ensign, but I’ve busted my ass for the last nine years for this. Only thing I want more than this is command of a starship.
The seal on the screw-on lid gave a satisfying popas he cracked open the can and took a swig. But for now, I can pretend!He saluted the open sky above him before screwing the top back on and stowing the can. Helm, all ahead fu-
All of the electronics in his Bronco died.
“What the fuck?!” he said, immediately slamming the clutch to the floor and popping the transmission out of gear. He reached for the ignition, but only managed to jangle his keys before the coasting SUV was engulfed in a bright, white light. He felt himself go weightless, then jolted as something pulsed through him, and all he knew was black.
***
Ow. The first thought to fill Mark’s head, and it stayed there for a long time.
Fuck … His skull pounded with pain. It’s like the world’s worst migraine … Or the day after Singapore … Oh, fuck, I’m not in Singapore again, am I?!
He slowly leveraged his eyes open, squinting against the bright light. This room is very bright. And very white, he thought with a soft groan.
Several chitters and warbles that sounded like half-understood words filled the room. Frowning in confusion as much as pain, he tried to turn his head, but found he couldn’t. The fuck …
The hazy fog started to flow away as awareness came rushing in to fill its place. Head strapped down. That’s definitely my right shoulder. My bare right shoulder. I’m naked. Lying on some kind of table.He tried to move anything. And everything is strapped down. Not good.
“… king up, he is awa …”
“… the dosage!”
“I’m … max dosage!”
“Dose … again!”
“I … you! … records warned … bad idea!”
“… not the time! Where is the …”
“I’m … it!”
“Is the translator …”
“… integrating … surgery is done.”
Nope, not good at all. He tested his restraints, and felt them flex a lot more than he was expecting. They just there to keep me still for surgery? God, I hope I still have both kidneys … And my liver …
“… that dosage!” he was starting to recognize the voices. This one seemed more authoritative, and urgent.
Well, I don’t like the sound of that. Let’s see if we can avoid it, shall we? He curled his right arm hard, and heard a satisfying plink-plink-plink as the three straps below his shoulder snapped free in rapid succession.
He heard something glass hit the ground and shatter. “…!”
“You … idiot!” That was Authoritative and Angry.
Mark reached up and ripped the strap off his head, freeing himself to finally look around. He turned his head, spotting five classic Gray aliens ranging between three and four feet tall, all staring at him in horror. One of them held something that looked like a pneumatic injector with an empty reservoir slot. Another was standing at a cabinet, a glass vial in hand.
“Well, fuck me,” he said.
They all screamed.
Authoritative and Angry slapped a touchscreen button on the wall, triggering an alarm.
The one with the injector turned and grabbed the vial from the one at the cabinet. They fumbled with it a moment, but managed to shove it home. Turning, they rushed towards him, injector raised.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Mark said, ripping his left arm free and batting the space syringe out of their hand, sending it flying across the room.
“Hold him down!” Authoritative and Angry shouted, scrambling after the space syringe.
The other four scrambled forward and leapt onto his arms, floating in the air longer than he expected. And weighed him down a lot less than he expected. What do these guys way, thirty pounds, soaking wet?!
He still had straps across his legs and chest, and with maybe sixty pounds of squirming alien trying to hold each arm, grabbing at his restraints wasn’t easy. Sit-ups it is, then, he thought, straining hard as he curled his abs and pulled his knees towards his chest.
Several rapid plinks signaled the failure of every strap except the one over his waist. He was still strapped to the table, but now he had leverage. “Fuck OFF!” he shouted, rolling to his left and swinging his right arm. Two aliens went flying across the room to crash into the far wall with a disturbing crunch. They flopped to the ground, unmoving.
Everyone in the room froze, staring at the bodies.
“Well, shit …” Death was totally on the table for getting out of here, but I didn’t expect to cross that line this soon …
The aliens clinging to his left arm looked at each other and screamed. They dropped off his arm and sprinted for the door. Authoritative and Angry tossed the space syringe at him and scrambled after them.
Mark sat up, ripping the last restraint away, and swung his feet off the table. It wasn’t very high off the ground, but he wasn’t exactly tall, either. These guys are even more submarine sized than I am …He looked at the ceiling, at least ten feet up. The overhead seems ridiculously high up now, in context …
“Escape now, architecture later,” he chided himself, and glanced about the room. It looks like an alien doctor’s office. Complete with completely normal things like cabinets, and alien things like superwhamodyne touchscreen computer … things.
He continued to scan the room, noting the counters and chairs and sink and equipment trays and … “Aha! Clothes!” He hopped off the operating table, and nearly stumbled as gravity did not behave like he expected. “Woah, shit!” he held his hands out, catching his balance. “The fuck is this place, Mars?”
Careful not to step with too much force, he skipped over to the table, grabbing his clothes, doing a quick inventory as he stepped into his boxer-briefs. “Phone, knives, keys, lighter, wallet, belt, diggit, flashlight, spare mags, and Glock, thank fuck!”
Any further efforts to dress himself were cut short when another door across the room opened up and several more aliens ran in. They looked much more serious, wearing armor and holding small space rifle-looking things. Especially when they started shooting at him.
“Fuck!” Mark ducked as bolts of energy zapped around him, striking the thin sheet metal walls of the cart with plinks and tacks. Wait, they’re not penetrating … Stun setting?
A little emboldened, he reached over his cover, trying to grab his handgun. He immediately caught one of the bolts straight to the palm.
“Ah, fuck!” he snatched his hand back below cover. “Sonofabitch, that stings!” Clenching his right his right fist, he forced his left hand opened and inspected the damage. That’ll be a good welt, for sure, ooo, that burns … He flexed his fingers. But workable despite the pain.
The volume of fire increased around him, and he risked a glance around the edge of the cart, barely exposing more than an eyeball. Fuck, there’s more of them. He ducked back under cover, causing the wheeled cart to shift as he leaned against it. He glanced around, spotting the door the unarmored aliens had fled through, still open.
“Yeah, fuck this shit,” he said, and grabbed the cart, pulling it towards the open door. He kept it between him and the aliens, stopping only when he took a shot to the knuckles that drew a little blood. “God. Fucking. FUCK!” he shouted, shaking the pain out of his hand, before grabbing the cart and continuing on.
“We hit it!”
“Shoot it more!”
“It’s getting away, get around that way!”
“I’m not getting close to it!”
Mark pulled the cart through the door, then mashed his fist repeatedly against the touchscreen panel next to it. The screen cracked, but the desired result was achieved and the door slid shut.
“Great, now maybe I can at least get my-“
“Down there! Don’t let it get away!”
“God damnit!” Mark threw all of his things onto his shirt and pants, bundled it all up, and took off running. He ducked around a corner as more particle beams zapped down the corridor, one of them clipping his shoulder. He growled, gritting his teeth against the pain, but kept running.
More armored aliens showed up at a crossways, and he dodged down a new corridor, taking a shot to the arm and upper back. They better not have fucked up any of my tattoos, he thought, sprinting down the hallway, looking for anything he could use for cover. The doors wouldn’t open when he touched any of the little panels next to them, and he doubted percussive maintenance would fix that problem. Just make it not the problem anymore.
Another alien reaction force team appeared down the hall, and Mark skidded to a halt, quickly doubling back to duck down a side corridor before they could start shooting at him again.
Yet another meeting at a crossway with just one path open, and he began to suspect they were herding him somewhere. Honestly, I don’t fucking care, if they only- “Ah, fuck!” He jumped as a particle beam struck his left ass cheek. “JUST LET ME PUT MY GODDAMN PANTS ON!!” he screamed, hobbling to keep up his pace until the pain faded.
Ducking down another side passage, he saw a wide-open set of heavy doors leading into a room with stacks of … random shit? Fuck it, that’s cover! He sprinted ahead, breathing hard, his bare feet skidding on the metal deck as he snagged the door frame and swung himself around to slam into the wall next to it.
He set his bundle down and hastily stepped into his jeans. Forgoing the belt, because he really didn’t need it with this pair, he stuffed his paddle holster onto his right hip. “Alright, you bastards, you’re in trouble now! I got my fucking pants on!”
Drawing his gun, he stepped around the corner at the same time an alien stepped into the hall wearing a heavy armor power suit of some kind, taller than him. This new suit of armor also came with a new, much larger version of the aliens’ space rifle. And it was pointed right at him.
“Shit!” Mark shouted, ducking back into cover just in time to avoid a much meaner-looking bolt of energy. The bolt cracked through the cargo hold he was in and slammed into the far wall with a ringing pack. The impact produced a flare of light and a large scorch mark that left a small circle of metal glowing hot for a brief moment.
“Oh, fuck, definitely don’t want to get hit by that!” Another bolt snapped by, slapping into the far wall, and he could hear the faint clunks of the armor suit moving closer. Glancing around the strapped-down piles of assorted human paraphernalia, Mark did a double-take. Holy shit, my Bronco! Thank fuck!
A third shot cracked by. Okay, need to buy time.Mark swung out and fired two shots from his Glock. In the enclosed, metal space, the snappy report of the .357 Sig rounds were deafening and left his ears ringing, but the result is what stunned him.
The bullets ripped right through the alien’s armor. One hit the right shoulder, mangling the joint and causing the arm to fail. The other hit center mass, spraying blue-black blood back out of the hole.
With an intelligible gurgle, the battle-suited alien fell over, bouncing against the deck with a dull clang.
Two more armored aliens stood at the far end of the corridor, staring at him in horror. “He’s armed!” he heard one of them shout. “Seal the pod doors! Seal the pod doors!”
Mark heard a click beside him, and had a split second to decide between shooting more or jumping back. Instinct told him to jump back, and his arm cleared the frame just in time to avoid being cut off as the door slammed shit.
A small window was set into the door, at about alien head height. Crouching, Mark peered through it, noticing that the door actually looked to be two doors in tandem. He locked eyes with one of the power armored aliens as the ship shuddered slightly and a background hum he hadn’t noticed faded to nothing.
Several clunks echoed around the room he was in, drawing his attention, but he couldn’t see anything in the room itself. He looked back through the window at the armored alien, who had lowered his heavy weapon. Another heavy clunk echoed through the room and the too doors separated.
Gravity cut out.
Clutching at the door frame, he watched the far door tumble away, only to realize that his door was the one that was tumbling away. A ship came into view, with a conspicuous hole the size and shape of a 2x2 stack of shipping containers, just like the room he was in. A door slid shut over the hole, then the ship stretched and vanished in a flash of light.
“Oh,” Mark said, floating by the door, staring at the stars visible through the window. “Oh, fuck.”
***
Mark floated against his bronco, struggling to remain conscious, despite the cold. It had been days since the aliens ejected his cargo pod. With rationing, he’d made the Gatorade and monsters he bought for his drive last well enough, though two bottles of Gatorade had been sacrificed to his failed attempt at making a DIY O2 generator. He sighed. “Technically, it worked, Batman,” he said in a fake Bane voice, the effect amplified by the dust mask he had kludged into a CO2 filter. “I just couldn’t solve the zero-g problem.”
He banged his head against the door of his Bronco. “Fuck! Need to stop talking to myself! Wasted too much air being angry yesterday. Goddamnit.” He yawned. “Fuck, I’m tired … Probably the O2. CO2 would have killed me already, if this wasn’t working.” He lightly tapped the bucket of quick lime connected to his mask by a length of garden hose.
“Does this count as commanding a spaceship?” he asked, before closing his eyes. “Fuck, I hope not …” This would be a terrible first command …
Consciousness left him. An hour later, he didn’t hear the clunks of something connecting with his cargo pod. Nor did slumping to the deck when gravity returned awake him.
Comments
Mango_bomb
Damn, let the man put pants on. Can't wait to see more from this.
