The Pilots and the Passengers
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You guessed it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU future, and see below.
Authors note: This is a sequel to The Pilot, and The Pilots.
Author's note: Some sci fi fans may note some things that I have borrowed from other fandoms.
They landed several miles from one very large building. Rick, Moecious and Skinny left the ship to scout the vicinity. This time they took the Quinncunx with them.
"Dirty felt is wrapped over sunlight." The Quinncunx said as they walked away from the ship.
They found a spot on a hill where they could see what was happening.
"Looks rather like an ant hill from on Earth." Moecious said. "Except these ants are red, have two legs and two arms, and…"
"And they're not ants." Skinny finished for him.
"Guys," Rick said, "doesn't it look like they're tearing down the big building and carrying the pieces underground?"
That, they decided, was exactly what was happening.
"We should go down and take a closer look." Skinny said, getting up and heading down hill.
"We're outnumbered about a thousand to one and…" As Rick spoke, Moecious got up to follow his friend. Having no choice, Rick followed. "I'm going to have a little discussion when we get back about who's the captain around here."
The Quinncunx followed Rick.
"Captain, Slapton along with the buttered elk."
They were stopped by a long line of insectoids marching nose to tail towards the now clearly half destroyed building. Across a well-worn path, another line carried small pieces of who knew what away from the building.
"What now?" Rick asked.
Skinny walked up and put out a large, furry paw and stopped the line. The insectoids crashed into each other, but made no move to go past the Kzin.
"Go on past me." He said and the other three did just that.
Once Skinny stepped out of the way, the line resumed marching as if nothing had happened.
As they headed towards the ruined building, a short, squat pink insectoid came up to them and began whistling. Rick looked at the Quinncunx to see if the little pink fellow would answer, but he didn't.
The pink insectoid stopped whistling and stomped off.
"Probably the foreman, or forebug, chewing us out for holding up things." Moecious said.
"He's probably going to dock our pay." Rick muttered.
"Dock bay, sun ray, slip on tents." That was the Quinncinx.
They wandered about the worksite for ten or fifteen minutes. They looked down into what must have been a very deep system of basements, now being demolished before their eyes.
"The Quinncunx isn't saying "Open sesame", or anything worth listening to. I think this is a dead end."
The other two agreed with Rick and they headed back to the ship.
"The next solar system is only a bit over three light years from here, according to the nav records. Assuming they're correct."
Rick didn't have to worry. They found the planet almost at once.
"It's covered in water." Simone said. "I don't see land anywhere."
"How deep is the water?" Skinny asked. "Over thousands and thousands of years, the building could have become submerged."
Rick did several quick orbits over the planet. "I make the water's depth as between five hundred meters and over four thousand. There could be a building down there someplace."
"Does this thing float?" Jane asked. "It had better if we're going to land."
"Actually, it doesn't. But don't worry. We have more than enough power to hold this ship right on the surface, and we can even go under water."
"I know we can go under water." Jane sniffed. "Can we get back above the water?"
"Yes, we can go under water if we don't go too far under."
"Under thunder, alas they connive." Said the Quinncunx with a laugh.
"Easy for you to say." Castle muttered.
"Are we going down?" Skinny asked.
"Here we go." Rick said resignedly.
He held them a meter or so above the water for a minute or so, then slowly went down about fifty meters, then quickly shot back to the surface.
"See? I told you we could make it back up."
"Can we look for a building?" Simone asked. "The sooner we get out of here, the happier I'll be."
They'd been underwater for an hour or so when the sensors found something.
"That's big.' Rick said. "It could be what we're looking for."
"Except it's headed this way." Moecious said.
"It could be that the tides are moving it. Go closer." Skinny said, excitedly.
"Hello! Who are you?" A voice boomed in their heads.
"A telepath?"
"Must be." Kate said. "We all heard it, right?"
"I'm EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap). Who are you?"
"I'm named Rick, with me are Kate, Simone, Jane, Moecious, Skinny, and the Quinncunx."
"You have different names for yourself?"
"No, we're people. We're inside the ship."
"No, I'm people. You're some kind of triangular thing. I've never met anyone like you before. Where are you from?"
"We're from another star."
"What's a star?"
"Like the one your planet orbits around. The big shiny light in the sky."
"The light is out of the water. That's why it doesn't go out. If it were in the water, it would go out.".
"It's actually very far away."
"What exactly are you?" Asked EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap).
"This is a spaceship. We live inside it."
"A spaceship?"
"Yes, a made thing."
"That's silly. You can't make things. They just are."
They got a good look at EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap) when he came close enough for a visual scan.
"He's huge. A good kilometer long with a body like a torpedo." Kate said.
"We're looking for a building. A great big made thing."
"How could you possibly make something?" EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap) said, clearly having trouble wrapping his head around the concept.
"Rick." Kate said. "He has no arms, or tentacles, or anything else he could make anything with. To him a made thing is an impossibility.
"And his eyesight has evolved for seeing under water. His peoples' vision through air is probably lousy." Jane added.
"I know." EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap) said. "I'll take you to Mommy and Daddy. They'll know what you are." With that, the gigantic sea creature inhaled a huge amount of water, which included the spaceship.
"We've been eaten by a child?" Castle yelled.
"Can we shoot our way out?" Skinny asked.
"I'd hate to shoot a child."
"I'll do it then." The Kzin said.
"I'm in command here. I say no shooting."
"What is a foot inside caramel." The Quinncinx said, sadly.
"We'll just wait until he opens his mouth and fly out."
They waited for twenty minutes, but EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap) kept his mouth closed.
"Okay, we'll go out the back way."
Castle turned the ship around and headed the other way, through the giant's mouth, his gullet and eventually to his stomach.
"Stomachs have acids in them that dissolves food. Like us." Kate said.
"Don't worry. I'm keeping an eye on things and the hull is one hundred percent intact. He isn't even scratching the paint."
The ship went through the stomach with no problems at all. Then came the intestines. They went on and on and on and on, doubling back in themselves endlessly.
"This thing is at least a kilometer long. Its intestines may go on for hundreds of kilometers." Kate reminded Rick.
Rick thought about that for a moment. Then he saw something ahead of them.
"I can see something ahead of us. There, I'm sure it's…"
"Brown!' Yelled Kate.
"Brown fish shit." Simone yelled.
"You're taking us into tons of brown fish shit!" Kate yelled.
"It seems to be rather loose." Rick said in his own defense.
"Great! Brown fish shit diarrhea!" That was Jane.
"I do hope the smell doesn't penetrate our hull." Moecious said. "I have a somewhat delicate stomach."
"There's the sphincter." Rick said with relief. "We can just wash the fish shit off and get the hell off this planet."
And once through the sphincter, they found they couldn't do that, either. Their way was blocked by hundreds of truly monstrous sea creatures.
"See, Daddy." Cried young EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap). "I told you I found a new kind of being. And they talk."
"Talk?" Said a voice in their heads. "Nonsense. Only us people talk. You're hearing things, Son."
"Let the boy speak." Said another voice. "He has his mother's brains, thank goodness. Why she ever took up with a lump like you when she could have had…"
"That's enough." Snapped another voice.
"So you say, Granny."
"Hi, my name is Rick."
That stopped all the conversations.
"It does talk. But it smells like shit."
"Do you suppose it'd be good to eat if its all cleaned up?" Someone asked.
"Only one way to find out, but it sure is tiny. Don't know that I'd even be able to taste it."
"IT'S MINE!" Screamed EEERR(click)(click)nodo(snap).
"Don't rightly know if it's all right to eat something that talks."
"So what if it talks? It's not people like us."
Rick noticed that the giant sea creatures had surrounded them on the sides and above them, but that he could dive deeper and hopefully outrun them and make it to the surface and escape. He slammed the throttles forward and pushed the ship's nose down. The beings were so busy arguing, it took a second or two for them to react.
"Hey, come back here!" Someone bellowed.
Rick checked his six and saw that the giants were actually gaining on him. He headed for the surface, just managing to scoot between two behemoths that collided a split second after he got past them. Then they were on the surface and headed for space.
"It doesn't matter how high you jump." A voice screamed after them. "We'll be here when you come down."
Once in orbit, Rick scanned the planet below for any signs of any kind of construction.
"And the next planets we checkout, we'll go in very slowly and carefully, right?"
Everyone agreed with him.
Skinny checked the directions. "The next one should be easy. We look for a black hole tearing apart a neutron star. The star we want is three light years beyond that."
It should have been easy, but it wasn't.
Moecious knew enough about the ship to pilot it on the long hauls in FTL between stars. After all, nothing ever happened while you were in FTL anyway.
Suddenly alarms rang and the ship dropped out of FTL in the middle of nowhere.
"What the hell happened?" Rick yelled, running out of the little cubicle he shared with Kate. In seconds everyone else was gathered around Moecious and the pilot's console. They all wanted to know what had happened.
"I don't know." Moecious cried. "It just stopped. Everything is green on the console. There's no sign of trouble."
The Quinncunx pushed his head between Jane and Simone and stared at the console.
"Trouble bubble and whitewashed rubble." He said portentously.
Rick and Moecious changed places. Rick scanned the console.
"There's a ship out here. The ship's sensors saw it and stopped us."
"What's a ship doing out here?" Skinny asked. "We're light years from anything."
"And that ship is stopped. I'm going to get closer for a better look."
Rick took their ship to within a thousand kilometers of the unknown ship and scanned her.
"Nothing matching her in the data base. There are some ships that are similar, but that's to be expected. There are only so many ways you can build a faster than light ship that makes sense. Can anyone make anything of the numbers or letters on her hull?"
No one recognized them at all.
"We should go aboard." Rick said.
"Wait." Kate said. "I think the letters say "Stay the hell off this ship."
TBC