Hey peeps how's everyone's 2022 been going?
I want to say a big heartfelt thank you to all of you for continuing to stay with me all this time and I hope that you are still enjoying this tale of how Clan Mason became the force for galactic good that it becomes.
Since Hunter Hunted has finished its run on the podcast I've now moved on to The Enemy of my Enemy and I do hope you'll join me for the retelling of that tale.
So here's to a great 2022 and many more
This GhostNobody signing off and saying, let's get on with the show...
Chapter 52: Ghost Ship.
The outer airlock door hissed shut with a soft whoosh and thump as it seated itself forming an airtight seal so that when the inner one was opened the entire atmosphere of the ship beyond wouldn't get vented out into space along with the crew and everything else not bolted down.
The four Saviours were packed into the small space like tinned sardines inside a slightly larger tin, "Jay pop the inner door" Commander Proudheart said shifting his weight from foot to foot as he shouldered his weapon and instinctively checked that both his batteries were at full charge, his magazine was full and his gas canister was both secure and full.
"Roger that commander," Jay said stepping up to the electronic keypad and after quickly scanning it with his sensors he reached into the tool kit that was sat on his hip and attached a wireless bypass tool on top of the keypad if this didn't get it he had more manual methods to bypass the system.
Once the bypass tool was in place Jay activated his wrist comp and began running a series of algorithms designed to crack numerical code sequences, which thanks to the positively archaic nature of this human technology he was up against took less than twenty-second to break through, the little blue disc-shaped tool flashing its small series of LED lights from red to green when it got the sequence correct.
Jay lifted the tool from the panel and gave the commander the thumbs up, "Alright Saviours form up, time to go to work" Commander Proudheart said as the door hissed slowly open revealing a pitch-black interior beyond, "Nightvision" he said and each of his team pressed a button on their wrist comp also activating their motion trackers as they did which was standard protocol when entering unknown territory.
"Trigger discipline is in effect people this looks to be a civilian vessel, I do not want shots fired unless we are directly fired upon, is that clear?" Commander Proudheart said as he took the first step into the circular-shaped hallway beyond the airlock hatch.
"Roger that sir" every member of the team replied as they stacked up, the teamed was formed into a staggered four formation with the pointman which was the Commander out on the left side, next was Kess'all who was on the right, followed by Vessi who again was on the left but would move to centre should a firefight ensue while Jay was now in the rearguard position, his job was to ensure the team were not hit from the rear, so he would be spending an obscene amount of time walking backwards using the rear-facing cameras on his helmet to see what was going down if need be.
Jay nervously checked his ZRT-21 for what felt like the millionth time and just like the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times the weapon was in full working order and ready to kick ass if need be.
In the corner of his HUD Jay saw the motion tracker arc sending constant pings of hyper sound out like a mega powered bat scanning for any kind of movement around him, these things were calibrated so that they would ignore other armoured team members but were so sensitive they would pick a passing insect but while the old variety would just give you a ping and that was it, these new generation units would actually use that hypersound wave to scan the object like sonar and give you a rough image of what it was it caught, this lets you know if what you picked up was a threat or not, those Xeno's in the science hive were fucking geniuses.
As they moved into the silent corridor the only noises around them were the soft scuffling of their rubber-soled boots and the metallic groaning and creaking of the ship's hull and superstructure as it reacted to constant temperature changes.
"Jay pop a sweeper, let's get a look at what's ahead of us I don't want any nasty surprises in here," Commander Proudheart said and Jay nodded reaching around to pull the small disc-like drone from the butt pack that was hanging over his rear from his hips.
The small scanning drone looked like a little smart disc except without the sharp limb removing edge, instead, it was covered in a mass of high-frequency scanners that could broadcast both laser scanning and live video back to the operator in real-time.
As Jay powered up the little disc oped open like a clamshell with the top half lifting up from the bottom half, in the gap between the two were the sensor probes and cameras, there were also little clusters along the top and bottom of it and while it spans these sensors mapped everything around it, with a flick of the wrist Jay sent the little disc spinning away from him down the corridor between his colleagues, the disc hovered for a moment as it orientated itself then it shot off down the pitch-black corridor with a sparkle of green light from its laser scanners that briefly revealed every surface it touched in eerie green light.
"Sweeper away and its feed is patched into everyone's suits so the map will be updated to you in real-time" Jay reported.
"Roger that, alright Saviours let's move out," Commander Proudheart said and the team began to move deeper into the silent ship.
The sweeper was doing its job perfectly, it buzzed around the ship at high-speed mapping corridors and rooms it found on its travels, it marked doors it could open and ones it could not giving the team a heads up as to possible secure areas, normal movement-sensitive doors sensors would be fooled by the disc's signature causing them to open as it approached while sealed doors would remain closed it got about halfway into the ship when suddenly there was a flash and the feed dropped out.
"Hold up, I lost the feed from the sweeper," Jay said suddenly accessing the status controls.
"Out of range?" Kess'all asked and Jay shook his head.
"No those things have been tested mapping the Dreadnaughts so there's no way it should lose signal in a ship this size," Jay said looking at the readout on his HUD once he'd transferred it from his wrist comp.
No, the little disc hadn't lost comms, it was simply gone, it was programmed that if it began to lose connection with the host that it would turn around and head back into signal range until it was stable before proceeding again, but this one had just vanished, so Jay played back the last moments of feed from the cameras and at first he saw nothing, then out of nowhere there was a flash of red light and everything went dead.
"I-I think it's been shot down Commander" he reported and he saw the Commander's head snap towards him.
"Are you sure?" he asked and Jay shrugged.
"I can't be one hundred per cent commander, but the evidence says it's likely, the sweeper entered what appeared to be a cargo bay then there was a red flash out of no-where and the sweeper just stopped working, so it either hit some kind of anti-drone tech or it was shot down in my professional opinion," Jay said.
The group exchanged glances though they could not see each other through the darkened visors of their helmets the feeling of anxiety was obvious, "Ok roger that head's on the swivel people let's not get caught without tail's out into the open" the commander said.
"Umm commander I'm the only one with a tail," Vessi said with the anxiety obvious even through her voice modulator.
"Well then make sure it's tucked in doubt you're future human would be too happy if it gets shot off, let's move team," the commander said and Vessi hugged her tail protectively before falling into line and moving along with the team.
They had gone only about fifty feet when Kess'all stopped the team, "Hold up, boss check this out, those look like scratch marks to you?" she said pointing to the floor just ahead of her.
The commander moved over and dropped down to one knee running his gloved hand over the deck plates, "Looks like something pretty pauking heavy got dragged through here" he said.
"Yeah, but where are the other scratches? Why just here?" Kess'all asked looking around the rest of the floor for further scratches, as it happened there were a couple more a little way's up the corridor, so the team began following them right up until they reached a large sealed door.
"Hypersleep bay one," the commander said reading the sign written in English across the door then he turned to the team, "Looks like you were on the mark Jay, let's take a looks what's going on, pop it," he said indicating the door's keypad.
Jay moved forwards and once again pulled his breaching tools out and it cut right through the encryption like wet tissue paper, the large circular door split apart with a hiss and Jay picked up his tools and gave the commander the thumbs up.
Before the door was even fully open Commander Proudheart was through the gap followed by Kess'all and the rest of the team all panning their weapons around in firing arcs and the sight that presented itself to them caused them all to stop in shock and look around wide-eyed.
There were rows upon rows of what could only be cryo pods hanging from a series of rails stacked four high in double rows the pods hanging back to back, in six rows running off into the distance further than his Nightvision could detect, there had to be about ten thousand souls in here if there was a single one.
"Holy pauking shit, look at all these oomans, I feel like one of the cubs I saw in that sweet shop run by Lemi Smoothscale that little Raptorian lad who came to us a while back," Kess'all said walking up to one of the closest pods and looking in through the glass panel at the top of the eight-foot-tall metal tube which revealed the person inside.
Jay began running a scan of the pods using his sensor array and before the scan was even a quarter away complete his heart froze as he began to see the readings coming in, "Umm commander you're going to want to see this" he said and the commander wandered over to him as Jay brought up the readout on the holographic display from his wrist comp.
The commander studied the display and Jay could feel the sharp intake of breath not to mention feeling his mandibles fall open, "All of them!? They are all dead!?" he exclaimed loudly and Jay nodded turning a mournful eye to all the hanging pods which now seemed more like metal coffins than cryo pods.
Kess'all froze solid and turned her head slowly before raising her wrist to activate her wrist torch causing them all to all deactivate their night vision so they could see the face of the perfectly preserved lifeless human male, "I-I's there any chance that the pod's are simply blocking our scans?" she asked with a tinge of hope to her voice.
Jay shrugged, "These sensors are pretty damn sharp and designed for stuff like this but there is always a chance obviously, nothing is infallible" he said.
The commander nodded, "Spread out and check the pods manually, they look like they are still powered, do a dip check while Jay's scanners run their checks, I want to be absolutely sure and I also want to know just what the pauk happened here, was this an accident or something more sinister because if it's the second then we have a potential mass murder of innocent souls on our hands and allies or not I and I'm sure the Clan will not let this stand!" the commander snarled.
The three of them saluted and spread out and began to move through the rows checking the pods, the first pod that Jay moved to in his row appeared to have a middle-aged human male inside it and he did a quick visual check using his torch as the night vision had problems seeing through the glass and the sight of the silent man who could have been sound asleep filled Jay with a profound sense of sadness.
What was this man's story, had he come out here to find adventure or a new life in the endless sea of black?
To find a place for himself in this universe, maybe for himself and his family?
Was he running from something or towards something?
These were among the many floods of questions swimming through his mind, he pressed a panel on the side of the pod and it slide in and up to reveal a stats readout which lit up when he touched it, it displayed a heartbeat and brain activity readout as two lines both of which were flashing red and showed zero activity confirming what his sensors said, he was dead.
Jay placed one of the wireless circuit probes from his kit and he began running checks on the pod to see if it had malfunctioned, he also had the idea to download the pod's code to see if there was a fault there like possibly they had been in hypersleep so long that the computer didn't know what to do and just shut down but given for a device of this complexity there were millions of lines of code, so finding an error would take quite some time.
Time was something they had because it took them the better part of an hour to search the whole bay and to their dismay, they found only two pods that were still active and these two seemed to be a little different from the others.
The first odd thing was that the two pods were away from the others, they were not on the racks like the others but up against the back wall set into an alcove of some kind.
Inside one of the pod's was a young man about twenty years old who looked of Asian descent and in the second pod was a young woman who looked to be in her late teens possibly early twenties, to his relief Jay found that both pods were not only functioning but the life signs of the occupants were active, the pair were alive, out of ten thousand people, the only two alive were these two, but the bigger questions remained, how had all these people died and why were these two spared?
"Five pods are missing," Vessi said as she rejoined the team as they gathered at the two working pods.
Commander Proudheart turned to look at her, "Where from?" he asked and Vessi turned to point.
"That row there, there was a sizable gap which showed that there had been pods there once but they have been disconnected and removed," she said.
Commander Proudheart cocked his head curiously, "Why would someone remove just five pods? I mean if this was the work of slavers surely they'd have thought they'd hit the pauking jackpot here with all these people, why only take five?" he asked.
"Maybe they were all dead when they arrived?" Kess'all offered and Commander Proudheart folded his arms over his broad chest.
"Well if that's the case why leave these two what's so special about them?" he asked.
Jay was already hooked into the code of the pods and was trying to compare the two while his analysis software was going through the code looking for errors and trying to figure out if that was responsible for this tragedy, comparing the two was the right move because not only did it reveal the cause but it left them with a deeper mystery.
His HUD pinged to show that the analysis tools had found something and Jay opened up the window and began to read through what it had found, as he did his eyes grew wider and wider as he went through the lines, "Holy shit!" he exclaimed loud enough to draw the attention of his team and they all moved to gather around him.
"What have you got Jay?" the commander asked looking over his shoulder.
"It was fucking sabotage! These poor people were killed on purpose!" he exclaimed and the head of every member of the team snapped up and they were all staring at him hard through their visors.
"Are you sure?" the commander growled through his growing anger was not aimed at Jay though it did startle him somewhat.
"P-Positive sir, look here," Jay said pulling up a full holographic window for him to see and pointing to the code.
"The code on the left is what I've pulled from these two pods, the code on the right is every single sample I've pulled from the pods I've checked, they are near identical except for a couple of crucial lines, these lines control not only the life support but also the monitoring systems, look here these lines have been altered," Jay said pointing out the discrepancies between the two.
"Ok so to what purpose?" the commander asked.
"Well from what I can understand here it appears to have introduced an error into the monitoring system, this make's it look like the person in the pod is going into a cardiac event before going into an arrest, this means that the pod's safety systems kick in an attempt to resuscitate the person inside by triggering the inbuilt defibrillator system which delivers a high voltage shock to the person's heart, now where this would normally restart the heart of someone who has flatlined for someone whose heart is beating just fine this will stop it," Jay said.
The commander snarled, "So why didn't the pod just shock them again as soon as it detected the flat line?" he asked.
"Because of a single line of code, this one to be precise, it has been set so that the debfib system kicks in just once which would kill the person inside and from that point, it's done, the pod detects and logs the death of its occupant and simply goes into low power preservation mode so that there would be a body to recover at the other end once the journey is complete so the family have something to bury and mourn, it's fucking devastating and elegant all at the same time, one single line of code prevented the pod from correcting it's the error and possibly saving the life of the person it accidentally killed," Jay said with pure sadness in his voice.
"So this is murder then?" the commander said and Jay nodded his head.
"Without a doubt sir and what's more the error code is a recent edition, so in my professional opinion someone came aboard, removed some of the pods and killed the rest of the crew or colonists whatever these people were destined to be to cover their tracks and what's more this is more than simple murder, sir, this is genocide," Jay said and to his pure fright, the commander bellowed a roar that echoed into the chamber peeling away between the tubes/coffins.
"What are your orders, sir?" Kess'all asked.
"Simple we are going to find out who did this and then we are going to pauking end them in the name of the Clan, Clan Mason will not stand for this outrage against the innocent, these people were not soldiers, they were colonists, farmers, terraformers, simple people who wanted a new life for themselves, they did nothing to deserve this, there are males, females and cubs in there and even though they are not of our own Clan Mason will stand for them and avenge them, this is the oath we swore as Saviours and it's time to honour it!" the commander snarled and all three of his Saviours snapped to attention and saluted him.
"Yes sir!" they all yelled Jay feeling a wash of pride from his commander's speech, this was exactly why he'd joined the Saviours in the first place, the chance to put his talents to good use for the betterment of the Clan as a whole while also getting the chance to make a good name for Clan Mason in the Galaxy by standing up for what was right.
"Ok Vessi and Kess'all, pair off and search the other bays, we saw a couple of pods like this one on the outside of the ship and I want to know if everyone aboard is like this or if there are other survivors, Jay I want you working on reviving these to people here they most likely won't know what's happened here but I want to know what they know, but my first question is why they were not affected by this coding issue?" the commander said.
"Sir I think I already have the answer to that" Vessi said and the others turned to look at her.
"What have you got Vessi?" the commander asked looking at the young Xeno.
"Look there sir, do you see those cables?" she said pointing to the racks and indeed exactly where she pointed there was thick cabling running from pod to pod to pod all the way down the line.
"Yeah so?" he asked.
"They all lead right into a computer system right at the front of the bay where we entered, it's my belief that whoever did this injected the code into the master controller and this sent it to every single one of the pods once they'd removed the pods they wanted, but look there, these two are not connected to anything except the power, so when the code was injected these two were not infected so were untouched," Vessi said.
The commander followed her logic and nodded his agreement, "I believe you are correct Vessi, would you agree Jay?" he asked turning to face Jay who had been following the cables with his eyes and to his trained eyes he concurred that they were indeed high-speed data cables.
He nodded, "Yes sir I believe Vessi is correct, those cables look to me to be high-speed data cables of the fibre optic variety and given that these two appear to not be connected to that master controller computer then it only stands to reason that they would be unaffected by the infected code, plus if the bastards that did this did not notice that easy to miss fact then they would be unaware that they left survivors of their crimes," he said.
The commander nodded, "Alright then good, ok Jay get to work on reviving these two, Vessi and Kess'all you have your orders, I'm going to see if I can find the bridge maybe I can access the sensor logs maybe they got something that can tell us who did this, everyone keep your heads on the swivel, we don't know who or what did this and we also don't know if they left any surprises behind for us, so be on your guard and stay on comms I want constant reports, hell if you so much as fart in your suit I want to know what flavour it was understood?" he said making Jay suppress a snigger.
"Yes sir!" All three said with a salute before the group split up and headed out with Jay turning back to the pods so he could try and figure out how to trigger the wake-up protocols without injuring/killing the occupants.
As it turned out it wasn't actually all that hard, the code and controls were pretty simple, nothing like the stuff the science hive put out which was insane level complex and completely bulletproof, full of redundancies and backup safeties written in a whole host of languages to prevent hacking but this stuff was child-level code to him, with a few button presses and some checks he triggered both the reanimation processes on the pods.
Both of them lit up on both the control panels and inside the pods showing both occupants up easily, as he watched both heart rate and brain monitors began to speed up showing that the reanimation process was underway.
"Sierra four to Sierra one, come in Sierra one over," Jay said thumbing his comms PTT.
"Go ahead Sierra four over" Commander Proudheart's voice cut into the comms.
"I"ve got the reanimation process working, our two survivors should be awake soon, over," Jay said.
"Roger that, keep an eye on them once they are awake let me know, I'm nearly at the bridge I believe, if I have any issues I'll give you a shout to come up here, Sierra one over and out," the commander said.
Jay went back to work monitoring the process and he could see the pair of them were breathing regularly now, from what he understood of these pods they were not all too dissimilar to the Yautja ones they used for long-distance flights before the mass integration of long-range hyperspace engines like the which that Clan Mason ships themselves used, they were designed to effectively suspend the user's metabolic functions essentially locking them in a kind of metabolic stasis so their cells neither aged nor died, this essentially locked their body in time.
This meant that even though this girl looked between eighteen and twenty years old she could very well be in triple digits depending on how long it had taken this ship to get here, it was impossible to tell, as he watched she began to take steady deep breaths as the life support began to reanimate her body allowing it to take over its own biological processes again until only twenty minutes after the process began she opened her eyes and the pod began to open.
"Sierra four to Sierra one the process is complete, pods are opening and it looks like the survivors are awake, over," Jay said pressing his PTT.
"Roger that Sierra four, I've found the bridge finally, keep me in the loop over and out" the commander replied.
"This is Sierra three to Sierra one, we've found the other three pods and searched both of them, I can confirm that the other colonist are all dead sir, the count is up to thirty thousand sir, there are also more scratch marks at every pod, it appears more pods have been stolen from each pod, but these paukers killed thirty thousand innocent people! Over" Kess'all's voice said over the comms and Jay's heart sank, this was not murder, it was genocide pure and simple.
With a slow drawn out hiss, both pod lids began to lift and that's when Jay saw the gel inserts that kept the occupants in place without them getting things like sores, it looked like some kind of biogel, in perfect sync both of them sat up with a huge gasp of breath and both looking around wide-eyed.
Both the male and female both locked those wide eyes upon the armoured figure of Jay standing right before them with a shared look of confusion and fear.
"Take it, easy guys, you've just been woken from a long hypersleep you may feel both disorientated and a little weak, take a few deep breaths and get your senses back before you try and climb out of the pods," Jay said softly trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.
"W-W-Who the fuck are you? I can't remember Seegerson security ever wearing any armour that looks like that" the male said.
"My name is Jay Mather's I am a Saviour first class of Clan Mason, we are here to help," Jay said trying to keep his voice soft and level, he wasn't looking forwards to the news he was going to have to break to them very soon.
"Clan Mason? Savior first class? What the fuck are you talking about? Have we reached the colony site? Where is the flight controller?" the male asked in rapid succession.
Jay had an idea and he pressed the release catch for his helmet which retracted it and revealed his face to them, "Umm I don't quite know how to put this to you but there has been some kind of incident, we are not part of your colony team or even of your crew, I'm from Clan Mason which is a clan of multiple species banded together for the common good, we found your ship adrift in orbit of a planet that was along our patrol route and we boarded when no-one answered our hails because we wanted to check to see if there was anyone we could help because that's what we do but unfortunately and I don't quite know any other way to tell you this but you two are the only ones we found who we could help" Jay said his voice filled with genuine pain and sadness.
"What are you talking about? None of what you are saying makes sense! There are over thirty thousand people on this ship! Multiple species!? What the fuck have you been smoking?" the male exclaimed trying to struggle out of his gel insert before nearly falling on his face till Jay caught him and steadied him.
The man shrugged him off angrily so Jay stepped back and turned to help the female out of her pod instead, she gratefully took his offered hands and he held her up until she was steady on her feet.
"When you said that you were the only people you could find to help I hope you are not saying what I think you are saying?" the woman said in an incredibly soft but worried sounding voice, Jay refused to meet her wide worried eyes and instead looked at the floor as he nodded his head.
"You two are the only two survivors, my team have been searching the rest of the ship and they recently just confirmed it that you two are the only survivors," Jay said softly.
"No! No it can't be true! You're lying! You fucking have to be! There are thirty thousand people on this ship! They can't all be dead!" the male exclaimed and it seemed that the adrenaline that the fear of such an outlandish claim hit him was good enough to steady his balance and he rushed to the nearest pods and began checking them.
Both Jay and the woman both stood watching as the man ran from pod to pod at random and Jay didn't need the Saviours interspecies body language course that he'd had to take in order to become a Saviour to recognise a mixture of desperation and growing terror as the man ran from pod to pod before collapsing to his knees with a howl of exasperation.
"Xao!" the woman yelled and she ran to him with Jay following close behind her.
"H-H-He tells the truth! They're dead, they're all dead!" he wailed looking up at her with fear and tear-filled eyes.
"H-H-How? How could this have happened?" the woman exclaimed looking between the man called Xao and Jay.
"I've been running an analysis on the pods and so far from what I can deduce it looks like persons unknown have boarded your ship before us, they removed numerous pods from each of the bays and injected bad code or a virus of some kind into the master control units that injected it into each of the pods that are connected to it, the only reason that both of you survived the attack is that your pods are not connected to the master control unit" Jay explained.
The man looked at Jay with a truly shocked expression before turning to the woman, "Yu Lin y-y-you saved our lives if you had not insisted on double-checking that seeding unit we'd have been in the rows with the others...oh God...they're all dead, they are all really dead, b-b-but who would have done something so monstrous?" Xao exclaimed.
The woman called Yu-Lin knelt down and hugged the man, "I do not know brother but we are still here and we are still alive and we have to be thankful for that" Yu Lin said.
"We are trying to ascertain who committed this grievous atrocity against you, my commander is on the bridge of the ship trying to access the sensor logs or possible the flight recorder if you have one as it may shed some light on this whole monstrous situation," Jay said.
Suddenly the door opened and Jay heard two sets of footsteps approaching them, "Jay where are you?" he heard Kess'all's voice yelling from between the rows.
"We're over here Kess'all" he yelled and both Yu Lin and Xao looked at him curiously.
"It's ok they are members of my Saviour team, now I have to warn you I don't know if humanity has ever encountered alien life before but I am the only human on my team," Jay said and both of them looked truly shocked by this little revelation.
"A-A-Alien? As in not human? As in not from Earth?" Xao exclaimed and Jay nodded.
"Just for your information not all humans are from Earth, I have never even seen Earth, I was born on Clan Mason's homeworld and like I said we are an interspecies clan of which humanity is only a single part, we have zero affiliation with Earth or it's governments, infact other than a handful of humans including our Grand Patriarch himself have ever even seen Earth let alone hail from there, look I know this is probably very overwhelming information, probably a mind-blowing revelation if I'm interpreting your shock correctly but please do not worry, both Kess'all and Vessi are both incredibly nice people and they want nothing more than to help you and to find out exactly who committed this atrocity against your people because that's what the Saviours of Clan Mason do, we help people and protect the innocent regardless of who they are or where they come from," Jay said while at that moment both Vessi and Kess'all rounded the corner having heard every word he just said.
"Well said young Jay it makes me very happy to see how rigidly you uphold the values of the Saviours, Matriach Sela eleth Mason would be very proud to hear you say such things," Kess'all said her smile very evident in her voice despite not being able to see her face, but the shock was incredibly evident in both Xao and Yu Lin's faces as well a fact that was backed up a moment later as they both fainted.
"Guess these Earth oomans are not as hardy as Clan Mason oomans, they simply cannot handle all this Yautja beauty," Kess'all said and Jay groaned and sighed.
"To be fair it was probably me, you might be tall and built like a shuttle but in that armour, you could pass for a tall human with dreadlocks, what fucking chance do you think I can pass for other than a Xeno?" Vessi said.
"Hey! I do not look ooman! I may want an ooman but I do not want to BE an ooman! I am a proud Yautja huntress who happens to like oomans!" Kess'all growled.
"Guys, not the place or the time for arguing, help me get these two to the medical bay this is going to take some serious explaining, looks like Earth humans have no experience with alien races so this is going to be an interesting conversation," Jay said and the pair looked at him before turning to look at the two unconscious humans.
"Fine but this is not over, later on, you are going to tell us EXACTLY which one of us looks more appealing and feminine to you," Kess'all said hoisting up Xao before Vessi could grab him and leaving her to lift up his sister.
"What the fuck has that got to do with anything?" Vessi asked.
"Nothing but it's a good chance to get him to confess that he's been looking at my sculpted ass while I'm changing," Kess'all said and Vessi laughed.
"Yeah right we both know he's been staring at my tail," she said and Jay slapped his palm against his face.
"Commander's away mice will play," he said and both of them turned and looked at him.
"What was that Jay?" Kess'all asked.
"Think he called your arse fat, told you he likes a svelte long luscious tail, not a slab of concrete" Vessi said.
"Whose ass are you calling concrete!?" Kess'all yelled after the fleeing and giggling Xeno, Goddess he was going to need the Strength of the Great Tree or the Eternal Huntress to deal with these two for much longer but he just trailed after the pair as they headed out looking for the medical bay.