Page 10 of The First Omega Made
I perked up when Sarge led the group, something about the way his camera moved, focused intentionally, seemed purposeful, as if he knew where he was going. The way he studied the wall signs and maps suggested he could read it—yet another thing I’d ask about later.
As they traversed the catacombs of the immense structure, I held my breath at times, unable to imagine willingly going out in all of that. Then again, I’d yeeted myself into a nuclear reactor at one point—so such was my own cowardice.
Radiation?Yes.
Weird space alien ancient, haunted junk?Hell nah.
I listened for a while as Merriel threw up a scoreboard. “Does space suit count?”
“No, that’s literally the name of it.” I glared up at Merriel’s camera. It was subconsciously how I looked him in the eye. “Space mold?”
“I want to say it doesn’t count because it apparently has a name, but like, it’s so obscure I’d call it space mold if I didn’t know the footnote.” Merriel huffed and added another point to the score.
As we were arguing about the semantics ofspace stationin reference to the war base, Noel’s words piped in. Not aspaceanything.Alpha Naleucian.
My heart stopped, and we directed our attention to the screen. I did, at least. Merriel’s focus was everywhere all at once, so I didn’t question his attention.
“Prepare the med bay,” I said, which was mostly for my own benefit. Merriel could do minimal things like run the RPC and adjust the thermostat to be more acclimating—colder.
I jumped to my feet and kept an ear to the mic.
By some miracle, the chamber had remained frozen, and the male they found was still in a full sedation.
I’ve never seen an orange before.Noel’s voice whispered over the speakers as Vil swore and worked with the rest of the team and Sarge to disconnect it.
“Merriel, patch me through!” I shouted as I cleared the quarantine chamber. I wouldn’t make the same mistake with this alpha as I did Noel.
“Line’s open, Doc.”
“Guys! When you’re disconnecting the chamber, do not interrupt the vaso-pumps. I can desequence him here, no need to do that there.” I wouldn’t want some unknown progenitor running rampant with them out there…Sarge. The thought made my blood run cold, the chance that this new creature would be able to identify Sarge.
“Roger,” Vil said, and I knew he was listening, by the fact he didn’t add on some crude joke.
“I got it. It’s Naleucian tech.” I sighed in relief as Noel spoke up. For not having been with his own people since he was a hatchling, he was quite adept.
I sat in rapt attention, biting my nails—fruitlessly—as they worked. Seriously, whatever progenitor DNA that Noel had imparted onto me with his donations had done wonders for my nails. Filing and cutting them took a plasma laser. They were even getting a pearlescent hue to them.
It didn’t matter, though. They’d be a source of defense if this new progenitor was as spicy as Noel was upon waking.
“Doc, shouldn’t you prep the cocktail that Vil had you use on Noel?” Merriel’s voice echoed in my ear from two different places—having a totally different convo with the team.
“And who is going to give this angry berserker alien lizard the orgasm of his life to finish that off?” I marched my waytoward the storage cabinet to get fresh linens for the quarantine chamber. Besides, this creature hadn’t been half awake.
By the time I finished my preparations, the alarm for the bay doors went off, and the men dragging in the chamber took the warning for decontamination seriously. As my ears muffled and gained an odd sort of pressure, the ship shuddered, telling me the airlock had engaged.
I had limited time. “Merriel, what’s decontam looking like?”
“Twenty-five percent.”
“Good.” I opened the med bay doors and rushed through the ship, making sure all doors between there and my offices were wide open and ready to receive.
“Thirty-six,” Merriel said as I retreated and glanced around the room.
“Pull up progenitor files database.” I sat on my stool by the door, fidgeting as Merriel counted down and my ears settled, finally popping as things normalized. I scratched at my arm and fidgeted. The scales itched fiercely.
When the countdown ended, a boom and clatter heralded the bay doors opening. Unlike when they’d found Noel, they called the others in for this one, and the rest of the crew showed up.
“Doc, we clear to pull the lines?” Vil shouted down the hall.
