Highway to Krell - Bisexual Edition

It seemed as if everyone had slept with one or more Krell the night prior, the mating frenzy almost impossible to avoid, the team now preparing a legendary walk of shame back to their shuttle through the muddy forest. None had been selected as Sleethe had chosen Webber, the others humans denied the bonds of Krell matrimony, or whatever their marking ritual signified. They must not have thought that the humans were marriage material, they would not be calling them back so to speak, and somehow that made the whole situation even less flattering.

"Looks like the weather has cleared up," Dubois remarked, straightening the brim of his hat. He looked somewhat less confident now, and he was eager to leave the village, having had more than his fill of adventure and novelty. Sleethe carried Webber's pack, trivial on his broad shoulders, and the young woman practically hung on his scaly arm as she peered up at the alien with obvious adoration. The odd symbol was still prominent on her forehead, though the ochre was starting to fade a little now. Reid imaged that she might get it tattooed there, their relationship certainly seemed stronger than those that commonly resulted in trips to seedy tattoo parlors, and she wasn't military so she had no dress code to adhere to. An odd tattoo would draw little attention in comparison to the exotic aliens and cultural outliers that wandered her workplace.

The Krell inhabitants of the tiered village had not made too much of a fuss when they had arrived, and didn't make much of one now that they were leaving, most going about their business with only a handful leaning over the railings above to watch the humans as they made their way into the swamp.

At least they were loaded up with samples, Reid thought as she trudged through the ankle-deep mud, once they returned to the lab they could put this whole affair behind them once and for all. The going was slow, some still sore from the previous night's activities, and everyone was plagued by the difficult terrain and swarms of insects that harassed them in buzzing clouds.

When they finally arrived at the shuttle and emerged from the treeline, Reid was momentarily horrified to see that the vessel had sunk deeper into the mud, the landing gear almost invisible as the ship rested on its belly. After a brief inspection Dubois assured them that the shuttle would fly, the thrusters on the underside were not blocked with mud, and he lowered the ramp in order to make his way to cockpit and contact the March Hare for rendezvous. In all they had only spent about two days on the planet, but Reid was already sick of it, eager to see that sickly, green haze melt away into cold, clean space as their shuttle broke free of its gravity. The team piled into the troop bay, strapping in quickly without a word, Sleethe gripping the handholds in the roof as they prepared to launch. Reid buckled herself into her crash couch and took one last look at the planet down the landing ramp as it began to close, the pale trees in the distance almost invisible against the green-tinted mist that permeated the world.

There were sighs of appreciation and relief as the ramp sealed shut and the temperature normalized, blowing cool, fresh air onto their faces. Reid turned her face up towards the source of the breeze, closing her eyes and letting it blow her bedraggled mop of hair. It was like stepping out of a goddamned sauna, the ever-present rotting vegetation smell dispelled by the shuttle's air purifiers. She heard Sousa laugh, and turned her head to watch the swarthy biologist chuckle.

"I just realized how bad we smell," he said, "like we ran a marathon and used compost for deodorant."

There were a few sympathetic chuckles, but it was more of an observation than a joke, and then Dubois' voice rang out over the intercom with a hiss of static.

"Ok people, I think you're as ready to go home as I am, so please buckle your safety harnesses and try not to vomit all over the bay. Skies may be clear but I 'ave to fire the main boosters to achieve escape velocity and that can be a little...difficile. Please 'ang on to your seats."

The vessel rumbled, rocking slightly as it rose from the mud, the thrusters no doubt vaporizing the waterlogged earth beneath it as it struggled to free its landing gear. There was a conspicuous moment of resistance, and then they broke free, the gear clunking beneath their feet as it stowed in the craft's belly. Dubois climbed slowly, swinging in wide, lazy circles to get gain as much altitude as he could before enabling the boosters, the two powerful engines located in the craft's stubby tail. The team felt the center of gravity change as the shuttle angled itself towards the heavens, and then they were blasted by G-forces as Dubois gunned the engines. Reid felt herself drawn to the left of her seat, the harness holding her tightly as Sleethe braced himself, his scaly biceps straining to keep him upright as he held on.

The noise was deafening, and the shuttle was shaking as if it might break apart, but it wasn't long before they broke through the atmosphere and sailed into the calm waters of open space. There was a moment of weightlessness, but then the craft's AG field kicked in to suck them back to the deck with Earth-standard gravity. Reid breathed a sigh of relief and unfastened her harness, resting her head in her hands as Dubois' voice once again crackled over the speakers.

"We'll be docking with the March Hare shortly, cold showers and hot food soon, comrades."

If by 'hot food' he meant processed crap, but it was better than nothing. They had brought rations down to the planet with them as they had expected to have to camp out on the surface for at least a few days, but they hadn't had an opportunity to eat them, they had been far too eager to get their work over and done with as soon as possible.

The March Hare would be flying around the planet at orbital speeds, the freighter rolling over to expose its hangar so that their shuttle could dock. As long as Dubois didn't crater into the side of the damned thing's hull, they were home free. Now they just had to hope that they could decipher the properties of this tribal remedy and then find a way too apply what they learned to the Krell on the station. They had made very good time, but that clock was still ticking.

The March Hare took up a geostationary orbit around the Pinwheel's anchor planet, appearing to hang motionless near the slowly tumbling station as it waited for its turn to dock for refueling, alongside the swarm of UNN vessels and cargo ships that milled around nearby. There were bursts of color like fireworks as new ships arrived in the vicinity and others jumped out of the system, the hub a veritable hive of activity.

Moralez was eager to get the team back on the station as quickly as possible, they had no time to spare, and so he cleared their shuttle to dock with the Pinwheel's central hub. They were escorted in by a pursuit craft, a bulbous, streamlined space fighter colloquially known as a 'Penguin' due to its odd shape. It looked to Dubois more like an eggplant with stubby wings, its white hull decorated with blue UNN markings, the rounded nose of the ship dotted with weapon ports that housed its compliment of laser cannons and railguns.

While railgun weapons and the larger mass drivers mounted on capital ships were universally acclaimed for their sheer destructive potential, laser weapons were only used on spaceships. The beams of light would dissipate rapidly and refract in atmospheres, but a sufficiently powerful laser would decimate enemy vessels instantly at essentially any range that ships would be engaging at, barring the ultra long-range torpedo exchanges between battleships and missile destroyers. Even then, they made formidable point defense weapons. Many UNN vessels had a reflective or refractive armor coating to help protect against such attacks.

It flew by their side in formation as they neared the central hub, the great spokes linking it to the torus that encircled it. Was the Penguin there for their protection, for formality, or to vaporize them if it somehow turned out that they were enemies in a clever disguise? Dubois was relieved to see it break off as they neared the dock, peeling away to continue its patrol. He took more care than usual as he landed the shuttle in the somewhat less than spacious hangar bay, it was barely larger than the one on the March Hare, looking as if it would barely house three vessels. This was VIP parking after all, usually reserved for Admirals and other high ranking crew members.

They were met at the bottom of the shuttle's landing ramp by a contingent of marine guards, clad in black armor with their faces obscured behind opaque visors. They hesitated when they saw Sleethe, perhaps they hadn't been expecting a Krell onboard the shuttle, but after a brief radio call they waved him forward and he lumbered obediently down the ramp. They escorted them into the hub and towards Chief Moralez's office. The door slid open, and they stepped inside, Moralez rising from his seat at a bank of readouts to greet them.

"Doctor Reid, Mister Dubois, Doctors...I trust you've brought me back some good news?"

"Yes Sir," Reid replied, "I believe that we have found a solution to our problem. We have plant samples taken from the planet that are reported to have contraceptive properties for the Krell, we need a lab and a research team in order to synthesize something that we can widely distribute to the general population. We should have enough samples to treat the Krell who have transformed into females and who are currently fertile however, that should put an end to the reproduction in the short term."

"And these plants are safe to use? You know how to apply them?"

"Yes, the berries are ground into a paste and applied locally, but we believe that we can formulate a more effective solution given more time. We can stem the flow of new juveniles for the time being, and then we should be able to synthesize a drug that we can more widely distribute to prevent the problem from happening again."

"But they're still going to be turning into females?" Moralez asked. "You can't stop that?"

"It's a natural stage of their life cycle Sir, we can't stop it and nor should we seek to, we have to accept that some of our Krell will change into females. That may pose a logistical problem, but we can't very well ship every individual who makes the change back to the homeworld, if anything that will just exasperate the problem further and cause more males to undergo the transformation. Ideally we need a mixed population of males and females to ensure stability, the females are no less capable than the males, and shipping in new males who would have to undergo training as recruits would be time consuming. We're not sure why they only ever sent us male soldiers, but we see no reason to believe that there has been any psychological changes in those that became female, and they will remain capable soldiers. Whether they have male or female reproductive organs, they're still half-ton, bullet proof monsters by any human metric."

"You said that they undergo this heat cycle periodically? Do you have any idea when it will end? Can we expect a return to normality at any point?"

"I'm...not sure that it will, Sir. The Krell pair off and choose mates during the period of heightened sexual activity, it seems that they will continue to mate with that partner exclusively even after the period of heat has ended. It would be unethical to separate them. While the overall population will settle back down, our population on this station has now been 'primed' if you will, it is my opinion that a number of our Krell will continue to be sexually active and that we will need to treat them continually with whatever contraceptive we can produce from the samples."

"Were you able to rescue the juveniles from the air vents?" Clayton asked, changing the subject.

"We collected about three hundred of them, yes, we've returned them to the Krell for the time being with express instructions to keep them out of the ventilation system. They seemed oddly indifferent to the welfare of their young, perhaps they considered the entire station to be safe harbor, or maybe their reproductive strategy is to produce a large number of offsrping and have a significant percentage of them die to predation? The females that we could identify have been isolated from the rest of the population for now, but we can't just lock them up indefinitely."

"I hope they weren't reprimanded too severely," Sousa added, "I don't believe that any of this was avoidable. The heat gives them an overriding compulsion to mate, and once the female's eggs are fertilized she has no choice but to lay them somewhere. Even if they had understood the implications of what they were doing, they would not have been able to stop without this contraceptive."

"Noted, it would be hard to give them a dressing down without being able to communicate with them, in any case. We had enough trouble getting them to look after the baby Krell. They can't stay on the station, by the way, we'll have to ship them back to the homeworld once we've captured them all. If we can stop them breeding now, then we can take some more time to catch the rest of the little critters. We've been using refried beans to attract them to vent openings, for some reason they love it, and I'm pretty confident that we got most of them. You can relax, Doctor Clayton, as per your recommendations none have been harmed."

"I'm sure you'll agree that we're pressed for time, Chief," Reid said. "If you'll assign me a lab team to develop the contraceptive, I can get to work right away. I'll write you up a thorough report of what we encountered on the planet, and in the meantime I'll send Webber down to the barracks to distribute some of the berries to the Krell. If they don't know how to use them, Sleethe can show them how. You should be able to release the females back into the population shortly."

Moralez nodded, glancing at the towering Krell that was blocking the door of his office for a moment before sitting back down in his chair and beginning to type on a keyboard.

"You shall have all of the resources you require, Doctor, I'll reassign some of the chemists over at the hospital to work on your project. I have to say, I'm very impressed with the speed at which you managed to bring this whole affair to a close, we were right to put our trust in you and the team you assembled. Will there be anything else?"

Webber stepped forward and cleared her throat, Moralez turning his head to look at her.

"I would like to request that Sleethe be reassigned to be my assistant, his help in this case was invaluable, and I think he will provide me with further insights into Krell culture and language in the future."

"Is that so?" Moralez mused, hesitating for a moment as the small blonde waited expectantly. "And what do you think about this, Doctor Reid? I'm loathe to retire one of our linebreakers, but if you agree with Doctor Webber and you think he can be of more use to us in that capacity, then I can put a request through to have him reassigned to the xenolinguistics department."

Webber shot her a glance, almost pleading, and Reid straightened her spectacles as she pretended to consider.

"I can confirm that they...work well together, it is my recommendation that Sleethe be reassigned to work under Doctor Webber. I trust that she can see to his needs."

Webber tried to hide her elation without much luck, the tiny woman practically bouncing on the spot.

"Very well, I'll put the request through then. Doctors Reid and Clayton, you can start work on the contraceptive immediately, Doctor Webber please take your Krell friend down to the barracks and distribute some of those berries. As for you, Doctor Sousa, you are relieved and you may go back to your usual business. Mister Dubois, the Admiralty would like to thank you personally for your cooperation, and the UNN stands by to charter you a transport ship to anywhere you want to go."

Moralez rose to his feet, extending his polymer prosthetic to each of them in turn and shaking their hands, including Sleethe who grasped the robotic limb awkwardly without understanding the ritual.

"I don't exaggerate when I say that your actions have saved this station, the alternatives were either killing a great number of Krell or putting our personnel in danger, neither of which were acceptable choices. I want you to know that you've earned a lot of clout with the Admiralty for the services you've provided to the UNN. If you ever need anything, grant money, new lab equipment, just get in contact with us and we'll make sure you get it."

With that they thanked the Chief, and left the office to make their way down the nearest spoke to the torus. They stepped out into the artificial breeze, the painted sky above their heads, the illusion of coming home to a terrestrial planet entirely convincing after the bogs and swamps of Krell.

"I guess that's that," Sousa said, clapping his hands together. "Do you think 'anything you need' includes some good liqueur down at the recreational facility?"

"I think I'll join you," Dubois added, "now that I'm not being kept 'ere against my will I feel an odd desire to stay. Maybe I'll do some exploring before I ship out."

"Thanks Reid," Webber said, sheepishly.

"Don't mention it, Miss Webber. Seriously, don't mention it, I've worked hard to build up my no-nonsense image and I don't want my staff thinking I've gone soft and trying to weasel more vacation days out of me. Now I believe you still have work to do down at the barracks."

"Yes Ma'am," she replied, failing to suppress a grin. She took Sleethe by the arm and led him away, vanishing into the throngs of people that always crowded the walkways. Dubois and Sousa said their goodbyes and made their way downspin towards the recreational facility in the military quarter.

Reid stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, taking in the clean air, though she had showered thoroughly on the March Hare she would sit in the tub all night when she got back to her living quarters. Some scented candles, bubble bath, all the soap and shampoo she could find. Until then, there was more work to be done.

"Ready to get to work on this contraceptive, Doctor Clayton?"

"Ready as I'll ever be, never thought I'd be so glad to see this fake sky again." As they started to walk he craned his neck to examine the ceiling, Reid cocking her head at him curiously. "You know, something always bothered me about that mural. They spent so much money on this station, went to such great lengths to ensure that the illusion of standing on solid ground was complete, yet they just painted on the clouds. They don't even move."

"Is that going to be your request to the Admiralty," Reid laughed, "make the clouds move?"

"Hey, they said I could ask for anything."

THE END