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Back in the main engineering bay a holographic map was displayed predominantly in the room, all of those responsible for making sure that the Polaris remained in one piece standing there and looking at it. In attendance was also the Captain, his face furrowed in deep concentration as he looked over the briefing while Garthak talked. "As you can see we managed to keep the neutron radiation at bay for now," he said as he motioned to the areas of the ship that were highlighted in an angry red color. "Unfortunately due to several major complications in the failsafe systems we lost twelve sectors including a crucial engine one that will initiate the firing of the engines."

"Casualties?" another human asked after raising his hand.

"Initially we thought that it was zero," Garthak said with a small sigh. "We had caught the engine breach early enough that we could activate the dampening field and get everyone to safety, but so far it appears that six crew members have not checked-in after their call. Right now we're doing a ship-wide roll call to see if they didn't happen to be somewhere else but rwe have to presume that they were somehow killed when the neutron radiation spilled into the occupied compartments that were supposed to be evacuated."

"Anyway, until we can get the radiation leak under control we're not going to be able to fire up the engines again," Garthak continued explaining. "While they're in cooldown we're flushing the entire section of the ship to reduce the radiation, then once the readings are safe enough for us to go in with suits we will be sending a team that will include myself to try and install Falchorite patches onto the areas where the engines have been breached. Hopefully we can get them into place and cycle the engines long enough for us to get to the nearest colony with a spaceport so we can make repairs."

After a little more technical talk Garthak announced the meeting was adjured and everyone began to go to their assigned tasks, the captain standing up and motioning for the reptilian alien creature to follow him back to his office. The engineer did so and once they were inside Daniel closed the door and activated the sound dampeners. "I hope you don't mind me taking you away from your duties," the captain said as he went and grabbed them both drinks, setting one of the hot mugs down in front of the engineer. "But there's been a few things bothering me about all this and I thought I could pick your brain for a moment about the problem."

"Of course Captain," Garthak stated as he took the beverage. "Two heads are better than one I always say, what do you need? Is it about the engine leaks?"

"It's about a lot of strange things that have been happening as of late," Daniel replied as he sat down, sliding the report over towards the alien. "I took the opportunity to reread the case report submitted by Alpha team after their insertion into the mining facility and also the witness statements from the three survivors. These creatures that the miners turned into, their alien physiology was covered in shiny purple plates and were impervious not only to standard weapons fire but also energy ones as well."

"Tough buggers," Garthak stated as he flipped through the electronic pages.

"Very tough," Daniel replied. "Also interesting that they happened to be found in a Falchorite mine right as reports that were downloaded from the base said they had hit the main vein. It made me start to wonder, with the way that those aliens looked, their resistance to energy weapons, and now the problems happening with our engines..."

There was a moment of pause as the Captain watched the look of recognition on Garthak's face, his muzzle twisting from realization to sheer bewilderment as he considered the same possibility that he had come to earlier. "You think these creatures... consume Falchorite, and then somehow integrate it into their bodies?" the engineer asked, the captain merely shrugging. "But if that's true, then that means you also think that they are somehow the cause for our engine problems?"

Though the Captain didn't want to outright say it that was exactly what he was thinking. Ever since they had taken up orbit over this accursed planet things didn't feel right, especially when they had to go down and glass the entire facility. But the Triple Take was essentially a neutron bomb, and if these creatures were made of Falchorite that meant that they might still be down there on the surface somehow surviving. They had other means to destroy them, including a planet cracker he had wanted to use initially but was told not to because it would destroy the minerals, but it also meant that somehow it had gotten onto the ship as well.

After a few minutes of the two attempting to figure out how something from the planet managed to get up to the Polaris the intercom dinged and Daniel answered it. "Sir, you wanted us to give you the results of the roll call as soon as they were finished," the voice on the other end of the line answered. "We can confirm that the six missing maintenance personnel are indeed not able to be reached... but there's something else too. We're missing three others that aren't part of the engineering department at all."

"Let me guess..." Daniel said as he looked up into the shocked eyes of the alien. "It's Grayson, Lawrence, and Scathe. Am I right?"

"Um... yes, sir," the voice said. "How did you know that?"

"Get security personnel down to the medical bay," Daniel said immediately. "Get every physician that touched the debrief and health check of those three when they came back to the ship. I also want Alpha team to head down there as well for a full scan, as well as anyone that would have helped with the decontamination process. You have twenty minutes until I get there, so I suggest you hurry."

The other voice on the line clearly sounded nervous despite himself as he gave a yes sir before the line went dead, Daniel and Garthak standing up at the same time. "I'm going down to engineering," Garthak replied. "If there was some sort of alien contaminant the decon crew is going to need to know that, perhaps even need an armed escort."

The Captain told the head engineer to keep in contact with him if anything should change about the engine situation before the two of them left the office, Daniel heading down towards medical while Garthak went towards the back of the ship in engineering. This entire situation was making Daniel's head spin as he rode the lift down, still trying to figure out how this could have possibly happened. He hoped that medical would have some answers waiting for him when he arrived, the man stepping off as soon as the doors opened.

What Daniel found inside the wing however was chaos. Not only was the alpha team and the decontamination crew there but also what appeared to be at least two dozen other crew members. When he managed to flag down one of the doctors and asked what was going on he said that someone had stupidly mentioned that an alien virus had gotten on board the ship and was turning people into monsters, prompting anyone who had heard it to race down here to get checked. He gritted his teeth and went up to one of the nearby chairs, whistling to get everyone's attention. As soon as people noticed that it was the Captain of the Polaris they immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at him.

"Unless you a member of alpha team and the decontamination unit assigned to most recent mission I'm going to ask you to leave now!" Daniel shouted. "We have an urgent matter to take care of and overloading the medical team isn't going to help us at all. I can assure you that no one is in danger of turning into anything, so please go back to your assigned posts and help us with this problem by doing your jobs."

That seemed to speak to most people, those that weren't specifically called out by the captain muttering and whispering to one another as they filed out. With the bulk of the people gone they were left with the half a dozen alpha team members and the decon crew, the doctors immediately going to work examining them while Daniel got the attention of the lead physician. "No doubt you already heard about our missing person problem Dr. Zac," he said, the doctor, who was a mix of human, canine, and avian features, nodding. "I need every piece of data you scrapped together during their quarantine, if they so much as sneezed I want it compiled into a report immediately."

"Yes Captain," the doctor replied. "I am very interested to look as well. As the overseer of that project I can assure you that the testing we did on them was extensive to say the least, if any of these bugs or parasites was hiding in them they would have had to escape everything from a full electron scan to molecular screening."

The Captain just nodded and told him to bring the results to the doctor's office, setting up a work station so they could review all the results. Even though Daniel had faith in his team that they wouldn't have missed something like a parasite riding on the survivors or even a change in their body chemistry something had just eaten a hole in one of their engines. While it was possible that maybe using the ordinance on the planet possibly blew something back into space the thought that something could survive the blast, the vacuum of space, and then somehow manage to land on their engine was more farfetched then the medical staff missing something. Plus there was the fact that the three they had brought aboard couldn't be found anywhere, prompting a ship-wide sweep save for the areas that were effected by the neutron radiation.

After a few minutes Dr. Zac had come back and started typing things into the projection screen, which caused screen after screen of data piled up onto it. The doctor wasn't kidding when he said they were through, Daniel thought to himself as he saw stacks of reports come up on the screen. When he asked if this was everything for the week the alien creature chuckled and stated this was only the first day and that they could get started on this while the rest of it downloaded in the background. With nothing clear that they were looking for the thoroughness of the medical department turned from boon to bane as both had no idea where to begin to look for an anomaly that the computer and the testing physician would have missed.

**********************

Meanwhile a security guard opened the door and left one of the storage rooms, rolling his eyes as he checked off another section cleared on the list that he had gotten. He and his partner had been assigned secondary storage to try and find the three missing crew and despite the initial excitement to find them the tedium of going from room to room was starting to wear on him. Though they were supposed to be looking while in pairs they had decided to split up and cover more ground, checking through their list at twice the speed. It was working well for them so far, the two soon would be able to go on break after this while everyone else continued their checks, but as the minutes passed and his fellow security guard didn't come out of his room he began to get concerned.

"Security two-one to security four-six please respond," he called out on the radio, keeping up their callsigns even though the channel was a private one that only they were on. "Security two-one to security four-six, you are over time currently, please respond with your current situation." For another minute he waited, only hearing dead air on the line as he gritted his teeth. "Jax, pick up your damn radio and talk to me, you should have been down with that room ten minutes ago!"

Once more there was nothing but silence and the annoyance that he had to wait was soon replaced with the fear that something had happened to him. Though his first thought was to call it in then he would have to explain why he wasn't aware of what was happening with his partner and would probably get written up for it, plus it would take at least a few minutes for anyone else to get down there and whatever situation was happening might get worse. At the very least he could go in and check it out before he called for back-up, the security guard thought to himself as he flashed his keycard to open the door and looked inside. When he first looked inside he initially thought all the lights were off, but when he flicked them on and off he realized that only the ones directly above him seemed to be working.

Not a good start... the guard thought to himself as he raised his weapon and slowly walked inside. Even though the head of security had told them this was merely a search mission and that no harm was to come to the three missing crew they had still armed them with energy shotguns that had the potential to be fatal at close range. They were normally used in the case of a breach or invasion by another ship, which only fed into the rumors they had been hearing about alien creatures trying to eat their brains or lay eggs in them. As the security guard continued forward he remembered thinking how foolish that thought was back when he heard it, only to have the mere idea cause his heart to pound in his chest now as he ventured inside.

The darkness that had enveloped most of the room only grew more as he heard the door close behind him, leaving the security guard with only the few lights directly above it to light the area. The way the store room was set up however he was quickly going to get plunged into the shadows, taking out his flashlight and shining it down the rows of bulky supplies. He continued to shout the name of his friend, only to receive nothing but the echoes of his own voice coming back to him. When he still hadn't received any sort of confirmation from his partner he mustered up as much courage as he could and made his way down towards the back of the room.

About two-thirds of the way down he still hadn't seen his partner, but he also hadn't noticed anything that was amiss either. He had decided to hug the wall that was the same side as the door in case he had to make a hasty getaway but all he had seen so far were spare ship parts. When he moved in and went up a row however he heard something wet beneath his shoes and shined the beam of light down into the floor. It looked like some sort of purple liquid had been dumped all over the floor, the surface ripping as he took the boot he had accidently stepped into it and lifted it up. Nothing in this room was supposed to have any sort of fluid in it, the room mostly for dry storage of parts, and as he went to the next aisle over he found the mysterious substance there too.

About halfway down the aisles when he started to see something else besides the purple liquid, which had started to thicken into more of an ooze consistency, laying in the liquid. It was hard to see from the distance he was at but from the light of his flashlight he could see it was a similar purple color to the liquid on the ground. Even though the last thing he wanted to do was go and investigate what could have made such a thing he had to check it out, especially with his partner still missing and not a lot of space left. The sound of splashing was soon replaced with a stickier one as he trained his gun on the strange thing, which as he got closer was looking more and more like a tentacle.

When he got to the corner instead of just going around it the security guard peeked his head around to the other side, his eyes going wide at what he saw. It looked like a giant deflated purple balloon surrounded by thick vines, all of it having an unnaturally rubbery appearance as the purple goo oozed out of the front of it. "Fuck this," the security guard whispered to himself as he turned back around. "Jax is on his own."

Just as he turned to leave he saw something blocking his way, the creature lunging at him as soon as he made eye contact with it. There was a loud bang as the shotgun went off, but the insectile anthro had already grabbed the gun and aimed it away from him. Even if it had hit it probably wouldn't have done any damage to it, seeing the heavy purple plates that were on its chest and arms. As the panicking guard attempted to try and get away he suddenly found himself getting drenched in similarly-colored slime, smoke rising up from his clothing as it was quickly eaten away before being absorbed into his skin. The guard went from fearful to delirious as the virus soaked into him, quickly altering his genetic code as he began to feel his own flesh starting to harden.

The fight was quickly leeched out of the security guard as the one that was known as Jax before his mutation he felt himself fall down to his knees. As the goo that was around his legs began to get sucked up by his skin he saw that the transforming human looked incredibly... top heavy, like his chest and arms were that of a bodybuilder while his legs were the same humanoid shape that they were before with some of his security guard uniform still clinging on to it. As the alien DNA began to seep into his mind and corrupted his synapses he realized why, his gaze looking over to the completely deflated pod that was in the corner. With nothing powering it the pod had little life left, though it was enough to pull in Jax and transform him about halfway before finally losing its last semblance of life and shutting down completely.

This had left Jax incomplete, but thankfully for the changing creature there was another way that he could get the organic material that he needed to finish off his body. The pod had been programmed to merge the two original creatures that were intended for it to be a queen of the hive, and though this new insectoid anthro creature couldn't hope to reach such heights it still had the capability to merge. Already he had had found a suitable second, though in reality any organic tissue would have done, and since the security guard kneeling before him wasn't too bright it was easy enough to subdue. As the specialized fluid they excrete quickly ate away at the clothing and armor of the other male it had exposed the other human had already begun to change.

Jax wasted no time and pushed the head of the human forward, stretching open his maw and feeding his tool down into his throat. Already the arms of the other security guard had started to merge the second they touched the half-formed legs of the alien species, the purple skin melting and knitting together in order to make them more powerful. Like their queen they would be adopting a quadrupedal stance and Jax could feel the consciousness of the male that was quickly deepthroating his cock flowing into him just like his altered cells where. Soon the growing insects took their somewhat awkward legs, still misshapen slightly by their transformation, and began to move forward with his clawed, segmented hands still tight on the human's head. As the instincts of the male took over he thrusted his own cock deeper down into the throat squeezing against it, though that wouldn't last long as the face of the security guard was pushed into the groin to the point where it merged.

At the same time as that head was disappearing the shoulders of the alien creature were expanding, making room for the growing lump of shiny purple flesh that was growing out of them as the increasingly inhuman body between their legs began to fill with muscle. The lump continued to grow until a second head similar to the one that it had pushed to the side grew out, everything from the antennae to the mandibles and even the two sets of eyes grew from the copy. Though it would provide a home for the psyche of the other guard since his body had become the hindquarters of their shared form as more segmented plates grew out over their body Jax could continue to remain the dominant force. That didn't meant that they couldn't have their fun, the rapidly enlarging cock of the security guard throbbing between their legs as Jax gave his new head a kiss...

****************************

Dr. Zac and the captain continued to pour over the files in the medical bay as they continued to wait for the engineering team to get the engines back on-line. There was still nothing that had given them any clue on how this potential infection could have gotten on board, true to the researcher's word they had thrown everything at the three but an autopsy and they passed with flying colors. With nothing in their biology to indicate that there was something wrong Daniel began to think it was possible that something else might have happened. There SPIKE shuttles had been decontaminated, the suits that alpha team wore as well, so what could have possibly gotten on board the ship that might have caused this?

Daniel was just about to have a sip of his coffee when he got an epiphany, one that he couldn't believe that he hadn't realized before. He patted the doctor on the shoulder and continued to tell him to keep looking for anything unusual and to expand his search to their mental health records. When Dr. Zac asked where he was going the captain told him that there was specimen of alien material on board that they had walked right through the airlock, one that caused the other creature to pause on before his eyes widened. Though the doctor said something else Daniel didn't hear it as he was already out the door putting in a call to the bridge in order to have the science staff meet him in the research wing.

In only the matter of minutes everyone that had any involvement in the research wing of the ship were there at the door when the captain came in, the first question out of his lips was where the alien sample was. "Sir, you know we don't get to even look at it once it goes into the vault." A reptilian alien said as he blinked with his two sets of eyes. "Proper protocol dictates that-"

"These aliens don't exactly have our same adherence to the rules that we do," Daniel replied dryly as he went to the door and put in his master code to unlock it. "Go in there and tell me that the alien sample hasn't broken out of containment and has started eating the brains of my crew. And if it is out there eating the brains of my crew I want to know exactly what it's capable of."

As the scientists all rushed into the wing Daniel was still kicking himself that he didn't have a parapsychological panel done on the sample itself... though it is something that is only required if the aliens involved exhibit some sort of psychic phenomenon. After the reports that he had been given he thought that this alien virus had just mutated his crew and the miners on the planet into mindless monsters, an underestimation that may have cost them dearly. It didn't take long for his theory to be proven too as they brought up the inventory logs and saw that the sample in question had been taken out of its case. A missing alien sample, three crew members gone, and a bunch of holes in the Falchorite plating of his engines... the captain could feel himself start to sweat despite himself at how dire the situation was that unfolded in front of him.

Just when he thought that things couldn't get any worse the lights in the science wing flickered, the captain and the scientists looking up as the white lights that lined the metal walls suddenly turned to a deep crimson hue. "Bridge, report," Captain Daniel said as he activated the intercom. "Why have we gone to red alert?"

"Crew have reported multiple breaches coming from the storage section of the ship," the first mate replied. "Multiple injuries reported before security was able to beat them back."

"We've been infested," Daniel replied simply, hearing the sounds of gasps all around him. "Quarantine those that have been injured and seal off all affected decks; no one is to move in or out of that area unless I give the word. How many were reported that attacked the other crew members?"

"Just one sir," the first mate replied. "Security is currently taking the infected crew to the quarantine section of the ship but they're already reporting that the virus is starting to change them."

"Nothing we can do about that," Captain Daniel replied. "I'm going to be heading my way back up to the bridge now to take direct command, until I do make sure all affected decks are completely sealed and protect all vital areas of the ship." As he was about to leave he realized something else and reactivated the communication link. "I also need you to get in touch with engineering and pull out the team that's going in to try and fix the engines, with all this evidence it's clear these bugs mean to try and take over the entire ship and engineering would be a good start for them."

Daniel couldn't help but shake his head as his mind began to spin with the possible plans that he could enact in order to restore order on his ship. An alien infection that had brought down an entire mining facility on the planet was on the Polaris, and other then a few select weapons that they couldn't even risk firing on the ship itself they didn't know how to beat it. Not to mention the reports that the neutron radiation was still extremely high in the engine rooms so they couldn't even make a hyperjump to try and get help at some space station. As his thoughts turned to arriving at one of them his hurried steps towards the bridge suddenly stopped dead.

The captain had heard tales before of what they called plague ships, space freighters that harbored some sort of illness or other contagion on board that they knew nothing about. Most times the federation wouldn't even allow such ships to dock until they could get a grasp of what was going on, leaving the entire crew to slowly parish until it was nothing but a ghost ship. For cases like this they would probably just blow up their vessel instead of risking something as virulent and hard to eradicate as these alien creatures spreading any further. Though it sickened him to think of it he realized he had to start thinking of the possibility that none of them were getting off of this ship alive as he restarted his journey back towards the bridge.

When he got there he saw it busier then ever, the red hue of the lights continuing to flash as reports were coming in all over the ship of the statue of areas. He could see his second in command trying her best to keep tabs on what was happening until her eyes saw him walk through the door. "Captain on the bridge!" she announced, the others giving a quick salute before going back to their tasks as the first mate went up to him. "Thank the stars that you're here Daniel, things have gotten into an absolute frenzy ever since we initiated the code red."

"We may be in a little more trouble then just a few people getting scared," the captain replied with a small sigh as they went back over to their command stations. "Did you manage to get a hold of Garthak to call back the teams?"

"That's one of the biggest problems we have right now," the first mate replied. "When you told us to contact engineering we immediately did so and found out that Garthak had already taken a team in with the Falchorite patches to try and repair the engines. They're trying to get a hold of them now but with all the neutron radiation in the that area hailing them on comms is next to impossible."

"Well get them to redouble their efforts, " Captain Daniel said. "I think they might be walking right into an ambush..."