LF Friends, Will Travel

Collateral damage - Part 4

There were a very many things Baithe should have been worried about.

The fact that at all times she stood over enough nuclear and antimatter warheads to instantly obliterate herself, the research facility and the entire moon they were situated on.

The fact that in every single room, including her personal sleeping quarters, contained a high intensity cleansing device. A Terran made speciality which would instantly consume the area in super heated plasma, destroying everything down to a cellular level.

The fact that what she was working on was considered potentially dangerous enough for Terran paranoia to deem all these safety measures a minimum.

Or maybe it was the fact that she had gotten used to such things, had mentally placed them in a box labelled "Things that just were". Terran insanity was seemingly contagious.

No, the thing the Hatil was worried about was the new Terran boarding the facility. Unannounced, unverified, and even worse the ship's initial docking had triggered several alerts. The kind of alerts you got if a criminal or someone of interest to the government attempted to dock with your station.

Alerts that Spot had overridden, explaining that everything was fine and he'd explain later. Baithe trusted the doctor, but still... It was all highly worrying. The ship had docked, dropped off a Terran and Zorthian, then left just as quickly, leaving the research team of three confused.

So now she was standing in the lobby, waiting impatiently for the decontamination procedures to finish so they could meet whoever these mystery people were. Baithe stood at a full 4ft tall, covered from head to toe in cream coloured fur, face punctuated with two deep black eyes and a set of floppy ears; as if some crazed scientist had smushed together a baby seal and a teddy bear. The standard gold and blue uniform of the Terran Alliance Scientific Progress Initiative made her look unintentionally adorable.

"What do you think about this Steve? I trust Spot, but it's all a bit weird right?"

"Answering query: Placing two Terrans on any vessel is worrying regardless of reason, as they exponentially increase the insanity."

The second member of the research team was a Scythen: A ball of tentacles fluctuating in various colours, sat atop a small hovering disk to allow easy locomotion, speaking in a robotic voice: A necessity to allow communication with more standard species. They were well known for being one of the older and more technologically advanced species with a religious devotion to pacifism.

Technically their name wasn't Steve, but their actual name wasn't able to be understood by anyone who didn't have multiple tentacles and the ability to change colour, so Steve it was.

"Does that really apply here? Spot isn't exactly a normal Terran."

"Disagreeing statement: The children of Terrans are still Terrans, and share their chaos and insanity."

This discussion was cut short as the door finally opened, the lengthy decontamination process ending with a flurry of noise and the scent of disinfectant and burnt ozone. After over an hour the members of the research facility would get to see just who had caused all this trouble: Amander and Fluur.

Immediately the worry regarding the mystery Terran evaporated from the two researchers, replaced by a concern for the heavily injured Zorthian who was desperately gripping onto Amander's arm to keep himself upright.

It took a moment for what they saw to actually sink in, before Baithe rushed to provide the injured Fluur something to sit down on, the Zorthian gratefully sinking into the hastily grabbed chair.

"Howdy y'all, I don't do suppose any of ya have seen Spot?" The Terran gleefully called out.

"Amander. Blake!" A new voice shouted from across the room.