trex841: Thank you!
rfollman: Haha, thanks! I hope I got the space scenario as accurately as possible.
Continuum Regained: I'm glad you like the descriptions!
Santana9: Thanks! I try my best!
DISCLAIMER
The Chipmunks rightfully belongs to Ross Bagdasarian Sr. and Ross Bagdasarian Jr. as well as Janice Karman.
The Chipettes rightfully belongs to Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman.
Lucas Sgro is an ambiguous name created and owned by Spring-Heel-Jacqueline.
Slinkman is a fictional character of Emmy-Award winning American animated television series Camp Lazlo created by Joe Murray that aired on Cartoon Network.
Rabbit is a fictional character in the Walt Disney Company franchise Winnie the Pooh based on the book by A. A. Milne.
Woody Woodpecker is the titular character of Woody Woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studios and distributed by Universal Pictures.
Rancid Rabbit is a fictional character in the American animated television series CatDog created for Nickelodeon by Peter Hannan.
Mr. Whiskers is one of the titular characters of an American animated television series originally aired from August 2004 to August 2005 called Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, televised in the United States by Toon Disney as well as Disney Channel in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
There's something hidden within the purple nebula. Whatever it is, it's big.
A planet? No, it's not spherical.
A planetoid? An asteroid? Simon speculates, trying to make out its shape, looking strangely familiar.
As the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle clears through the purple gases clouds, Simon can see it clearly, he gasps when he realizes it is an enormous starship.
Five kilometers long from bow tip to aft tip, and its superstructure from the keel to it's spire must be at least seven kilometers high. It's primarily designed like Earth's ancient oceanic cruise liners, a fat hull with thousands, maybe millions of viewports, a streamlined superstructure and communications tower and traditional designed bow and stern. It had another superstructure to it, a sort of engineering spire running down the keel, giving the vessel a look of a space station. Two massive Ion Drive engines were on each side with propulsive motors a hundred times bigger than the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle. The Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle approached the bow's starboard side bearing the unmistakable red circle along with the white and blue lettering of the Buy N' Large logo. It's a Buy N' Large star liner, but not just any, it must be a flagship, the largest of the fleet.
Simon notices the christened name above the logo and confirms its familiarity.
"Buy n' Large's AXIOM SL-AX-1001."
It's the very same ship seen from those holographic ads back on Earth. The largest moving object ever constructed by human hands. Simon never believed it actually existed or would ever see it to be real and here it proudly was.
The Axiom filled the view of the cockpit's window as the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle is about a kilometer away. Simon stares almost straight up at it.
The recon ship slows down as it lines up next to the Axiom.
"Whoa," Simon steps back believing they were going to hit, feeling a bit worried standing next to that goliath.
The side of the Axiom's fifty by a hundred meter doors that's big enough for the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle to fit, slides open.
Two, smaller unmanned tug ships emerge from the opened bay and pass around the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle.
The smaller ships made way for the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle as they each emitted blue tractor beams of light on the ship, guiding the autopilot craft in.
Simon stays frozen in place, floating in zero gravity, clasping the chair making sure not to do anything erroneous.
The doors closed with a hiss of air as the docking bay depressurizes.
The Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle encounters locking clamps, the ship braces into place with a satisfying clink. The tug rockets disengage the tractor beam, the recon ship slides down a tad, as its weight is supported.
Simon feels artificial gravity kick in as he falls to the cockpit deck floor, hard.
"Ow."
Simon tries to stand but keeps falling over, feeling no strength in him to support his own weight, it almost hurts to try.
How can I forget? Being in zero gravity for a prolonged time weakens the bones and muscles,Simon grunted.
If I keep moving around, my strength should return . . . eventually . . .
He clasps onto the side viewport, trying to pull himself up to relay his new surroundings. The inside of the docking bay was unlike anything Simon has ever seen. It was all clean, brightly lit, sterile, advanced, well maintained and robotics everywhere, an opposite environment from where he came from. He notices no crew present at all everything here was unmanned. The only thing not a robot he has seen yet was Jeanette and the other anthropomorphic beings. He wonders if this entire ship could be her home.
The deck suddenly bustles with mechanical activity. Robotic arms, robotic devices, robotic equipment, robotic everything tended to the recon ship in all directions like an automated facility show, refueling its engines, running diagnostics on its systems, unloading cargo, repairing its—
Wait! One of the things unloading was Jeanette's pod, along with the other frozen E.V.R.E. scouts.
"Netta!" Simon tries gathering his slowly returning strength to get to her. He crawls and clasps his way to the open hatch. Simon manages to get enough strength to stand.
A noise startles him. He notices sounds and movement coming from out of the deck next to Jeanette's pod, placed along with the other pods.
He hides behind one of the cryogenic pods, listening closely to the sounds and movement. An elevator emerges from the deck, and there stood anthropomorphic beings.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
A squad of four anthropomorphic post-recon cleaners dressed in white and blue uniforms and carried sterilizing equipment.
One of them, a short teenage silky gray squirrel with a bushy curled tail, wearing a newspaper carrier cap that had a red siren light on top and a darkened transparent Head's Up Display over his soft golden brown eyes stepped out. He wore a white jumpsuit with his name 'LUCIEN' imprinted on his nametag and equipped with high-tech microbe obliteration scrubber and a container with lots of sterilization fluid strapped to his back. He wore heavy duty cleaning gloves and boots much like Simon's but rubber and far cleaner. About a head or two shorter than the rest of the crew, not to mention younger, but judging from his serious pose, he must have been the head in charge of them. He tries to line up the other three behind him. They seem to be having a hard time trying to pay attention.
"Alright, follow me. Whoa, whoa! WHOA! Stop!" he steps off the elevator but tries to stay in sync with an awaiting lighted path at their feet.
"Lucien! Come on! It's just a stinkin' guide path. Let's just get the job done!" The aureolin yellow banana slug with a vacuuming device protests to Lucien's strict routine.
"Yeah, stop being such an O.C.!" The cream, white chest and tail furred, pink nose rabbit cleaner shouts.
"Shut up! We don't move unless our path is cleared to go!" Lucien shouts back to them.
Sure enough, the directed path to Jeanette's pod pinged on.
"Alright, let's go!" Lucien clears them to make their way over to Jeanette's lowered pod.
"Neat freak, ha ha ha HA ha!" the cardinal red woodpecker vacuum cleaner says under his breath, but that didn't go unheard by Lucien.
He hated being joked about his cleanliness and pathological fear of contamination and germs.
"I heard that! It's not funny!" Lucien says defensively as the other three laugh, hating being joked about his cleanliness and pathological fear of contamination and germs.
Lucien shouldn't let the fact of her subordinates and fellow crew ridiculing him from his age, to his height and most of all, his Obsessive Compulsive behavior bother him. She had to say focued and look professional, in order to compensate for the the name-calling.
Being the youngest certified crewmember on the Axiom, personally charged with the maintenance and sterilization of the Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle and all of its imports and exports. Pretty much the overseer of the docking operations, he took pride in his job well, maybe too well, always scrubbing and cleansing every microbe off all the cargo that went in and out of the ship as well as always following textbook procedures and protocol, even for the simplest of tasks.
In addition, that's exactly what Lucien intends to do, stick to the standard operating procedure and ensuring cleanliness of this ship! He congregates his thoughts standing prepared and ignoring the other crewmembers rolling their eyes.
Lucien activates his Heads-Up Display and begins scanning Jeanette's pod, looking for anything that changed on the pod and its occupants during their missions. He noticed the glowing pulse of Jeanette's beacon, something he never seen before. Nevertheless, it doesn't concern him, it'll be squawked by maintenance soon when they arrive.
He switches his vision over to electron micro-scan, Jeanette's pod lights up in some places as bacterial traces of soil particulates detected, dust a form of atmospheric/domestic aerosol that can become a deadly respiratory disease carrier onboard a sterilized spaceship. His vision evaluates and reads aloud:
"SIXTEEN PERCENT FOREIGN CONTAMINATION."
"Oh!" Taking out his scrubber, Lucien scrubs in professional strokes across the surface of Jeanette's pod in disgust.
The E.V.R.E. Scouts were among the messiest of shipments, returning from their top-secret destinations unwittingly bringing back god-knows-what from whatever world they explored.
He finishes his last minute scrub as the others get to work on sterilizing, buffering, polishing, finishing the pod and moving on to the next one.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
Simon watches from behind the cryogenic pods, still trying to figure out what to do. His strength returned quite a bit so he could move and sneak around. Save for the cryogenic pods, there isn't much to hide behind. He looks at the cryogenic pod, an empty one. Then he shifts his attention over to the cleaners, studying their routine.
"Hmm," An idea brews in his head.
He opens the vacant pod, lies down and closing it without making a sound. As the robotic arm retrieves his pod, Simon braces himself for whatever is to come.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
Lucien finishes off the second pod and turns his attention to the next lowered one as the others finish up.
Lucien activates his HUD.
"Huh? What's this?" This pod's registered empty but it's been opened and tampered with recently and there's something, or someone, inside it.
`He notices new handprints on the side and movement inside. Someone IS inside the pod.
Lucien opens the pod.
"What the?"
Simon freezes.
Lucien stares at Simon, never seeing this kind of person before.
"Who are-" Before Lucien asks who the stranger is, he finally notices Simon's weathered attire. Confused, he activates his micro-scan.
It almost blinds Lucien when all of Simon's registered dust, dirt, crud, grime, oil, grease, sand and bodily sweat altogether.
"OVER ONE HUNDRED PERCENT FOREIGN CONTAMINATION!" his scanner screamed off the charts but Lucien screamed even louder as he jumped up awestruck and horrified at the presence of such filth and uncleanness, his siren lighting up.
"Oh my god! What the hell is this? No, no, no, so wrong! So dirty! Very, very dirty!" Lucien goes haywire. Simon shrinks down in confusion and fear.
"Must clean immediately! Eradicate any and all foreign contamination!"
Lucien pulls out his scrubber, ready to furiously wash down Simon with all his skill and might.
"Ah! G-Get away from me!" Simon dodges, missing Lucien's scrubber.
"Agh! Get off of me!" Simon cries out.
"Huh? Stand still, I must clean!" Lucien reaches out to Simon, trying to scrub his face.
"Aaaagh! I said I have to CLEAN you!" Lucien groans in frustration, watching Simon fall out of the pod and pushing Lucien clear off him.
"AAAGH! STOP MAKING SUCH A MESS!" Lucien shrieks in anger as this horrifying filthiness worsens.
"Lucien? What is going on?" The other three cleaners stare at Simon and Lucien, amused by the sight of their neurotic colleague losing his mind.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
At the far end of the bay, a hatch opens and figures come marching into the docking bay.
Two of them were strong, identical looking guards, the SwatBots of the ship. They wore dark, neatly pressed servant uniforms and carried police officer equipment with energy binder handcuffs, tractor beam pens, electroshock batons, taser guns and siren equipped peaked caps.
The third is a short, sickly yellow-green furred rabbit with a bulbous light pink nose and, minus the lengthened ears, stood about Lucien's height. A distinguishable red bowtie on his shirt and shoulder sleeves on his Buy n' Large Navy uniform bore the enlisted stripes of Command Master Chief Petty Officer, the chief of the boat and head of security along with service nametag reading "MCPO WILLIAM RANCID."
They marched into the direction of the commotion at the cleaner station, the looks on their faces meant directive.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
The commotion is the heavy laughter of the cleaning crew watching Lucien having a hard time trying to keep up with cleaning Simon's every movement on the deck, tracking the hundred fold layers of germs on Simon's entire body, dust mites drifting in the air and falling to the ground.
Lucien finishes Simon's last footprint with great speed.
"Alright you! Time for me to-"
Simon takes another step back, out of fear and amusement at the neurotic little male squirrel.
"Oh COME ON!" Lucien scrubs with compulsive precession and speed. Simon is fascinated that he isn't the only quirk in the universe.
"Look! Everything needs to stay clean! UNDERSTAND?"
Lucien tries to leap for the chipmunk but Simon, having learned of Lucien's little weakness, slaps a handful into Lucien's face, trying to shoe him off.
"Hey-" When Lucien finally processes Simon just slapped dirt into his face, his mysophopia kicks in.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Losing it, Lucien scrubs his face with full force and speed in panic.
Simon chuckles in relief, then notices the rest of the crew are too distracted to notice him as they are laughing their rear ends off at Lucien. He notices a new group approaching, two slick robots and one rabbit looked serious.
With no one looking, Simon quickly and quietly jumps back into the empty cryonic pod, wanting to see where this goes.
"What the hell is going on here?"
The cleaning crew instantaneously sobered up, trembling when realization struck they were caught goofing by Chief Rancid.
"I said 'what in the hell is going on?' sailors!" the chief had a voice of a drill instructor, sending a spine straightening terror down their backs as they stood at attention, including Lucien, his face still dirty but had just a big fear of superiors.
"N-N-Nothing sir!" Lucien nervously stuttered.
"You know the rules! No insubordinate behavior on duty! Is that clear?"
"Yes sir!" they shouted in unison.
"A'ight, return to your standby stations immediately, we will be taking over these pods for post-mission evaluation, for these cryonic pods and occupants contain highly classified information, now leave!"
"Aye sir." Lucien and the other three began marching out of the bay.
Chief Rancid pulled out a security chip from his pocket and inserted it into the fifth pod's side.
It chirped, not recognizing any biological data collected.
"Negative," Rancid said empathetically as he moved to pod four, apparently been doing this same meaningless routine for a long time.
"Negative." Same result for pod four, he moves on to the next one.
"Negative," Rancid was about to move on to the next pod when he saw movement in pod three.
"What the?" he jerks his head back. The figure in the pod motionless through the fogged metallic casing, its occupant looked dirty.
"Eh, no surprise Whiskers got himself dirty . . . again," Rancid shrugs it off as he moves on to pod two.
"Whew," Simon sighs quietly in relief, risking a peek at the person inspecting his pod. He lies back as stiff and lifeless as he could and tried not to make a single sound.
This time he risked another look at the person still on pod two, approaching Jeanette's pod.
"Negative," Rancid pulls out the chip and plugs it in to Scout One's pod.
"Neg-" A confirmative chirping from Jeanette's pod cut Rancid off.
"Huh?" He is speechless. A positive, this has never happened, it shouldn't be possible.
"It's gotta be a malfunction."
He notices the pulsating green light.
" Is it . . ." One of the SwatBots whispers.
"Yes. It's reading positive." Rancid hastily taps his intercommunication earpiece.
"This is Master Chief Rancid in RECON DOCKING to COMMAND, Charlie Gulf, I repeat, Charlie Gulf. We have a vegetation scout who's recovered a live specimen! This is no bull, I repeat! We have a Code Green!" Rancid said with utmost alertness.
At that moment, the entire dock came to a halt as an alarm sounded, all the lights turned green.
Simon's heart raced as he tried to process all this new confusing commotion, hearing everything through the pod. Is something happening to Jeanette or was going to happen to her?
A few seconds later, Rancid's intercommunication device gets a response.
"This is COMMAND to DOCKING. We have confirmed your findings, now we need further authentication. Report the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconnaissance & Evaluation scout to the BRIDGE immediately." A monotone voice replies on the other end of the line.
"Aye Aye." Rancid switches off his earpiece, tapping a command onto a holographic computer pad and in just a moment, a maglev tram floats up to them.
Rancid turns to the SwatBots.
"Orders are to report to the BRIDGE, we are to bring Scout One to the captain and first officer, to see if this is legit, so let's get to it!"
"Sir, yes sir." One steward tap a command into Jeanette's pod.
Jeanette's pod suddenly levitates off the ground and lowers into the tram. Simon almost jumps out of his pod when he sees she is going to be taken away again.
Rancid and his guards board the tram and begin to hover off.
"Netta!" Simon runs out of the pod and quietly sprints after the tram to the elevator the foursome entered without hesitation.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
Lucien crouched down from his workstation on the second level of the dock, wondering about the one pod, unable to hear the chief's voice even without that damn loud alarm.
What is Code Green anyway and what's so secret about those pods?
What concerned Lucien even more was finding that unknown chipmunk unlike anything he's ever encountered before.
He IS a mess, Lucien thought to himself and his compulsion says clean him no matter what but duty has a strong hold as well.
He spots the messy chipmunk dash across the deck and disappearing behind the elevator doors with the chief, the SwatBots and the pod.
After Lucien watches him disappear-
Wait a sec, didn't he leave tracks? His neurosis nagged.
His electron micro-scan activated, he could see that unknown chipmunk's footprints from kilometers away in a spotless environment.
"Agh, Forthright!" he cursed, now he has to clean up his trail but…what about where he is going? His mind calculates some of his speculations.
What if he was after that pod? If I go after him, I could get in serious trouble for following a secretive device, and not to mention leaving this dock.
"FOREIGN CONTAMINATION!"his visor breaks him away from thought. Actually, it gave him a thought.
Well, he would be cleaning dirt as far as it goes if ever caught outside of here and it is his job to obliterate all unsterilized matter on this ship for health safety. In any sense, he's obeying protocol but then he would have to face the wrath of Chief Rancid in that light after told not to differ from duty. He weighed his options and made a decision.
He double-checks if the other three left to their stations. No one is paying attention all is safe.
Lucien jumps down to the deck and begins scrubbing away, from the tracks to wherever that man was following the chief's tram.
"I wonder what's in that pod is so important to him?" Lucien asks himself.