Empyrean Iris Story Collection

The Humanizing Phenomenon

Commander Vir woke groggy and disoriented unsure of where he was for a moment and of what had woken him.

"Commander." He rolled onto his side scrabbling for the com guided only by the dim luminescence of a single pinprick of glowing green light, "Yeah" Yawn, "I'm up, I'm up what is it."

"We have a slight problem, Sir."

***

He was out of the room in under five minutes having hurriedly strapped on his prosthetic before throwing on a shirt to then stumble down the hall in nothing but boxers, and the stained T.

He came into the cafeteria disheveled and sleep addled to match the rest of the crew who milled about in bleary confusion. Most of them were only half dressed, like himself, so he fit right in as he shuffled up to the first lieutenant yawning and scratching idly at his 5 o'clock shadow. "This better be good lieutenant."

She was rather out of place in the herd of milling crew-members fully dressed and put together as she was, "Sir, all the silverware has gone missing,"

Captain Vir raised an eyebrow before adjusting his shirt, "You woke me up.... For missing silverware?"

The lieutenant was cut off not a moment later as a group of engineers ran in skidding to a halt a few feet away, "No sir not just silverware.... I mean everything, certain kinds of food, weapons, all the way down to paperclips." A group of marines made their way over, "Razors, sir. Razors, loose change, F***ing reams of paper."

"The hell." He muttered, turning in a wide circle.

"Who the hell would want to take all that?" Someone wondered from the crowd.

"Better question is where the hell did they put it?" Another person hollered turning only to open another empty drawer behind the serving line.

Vir narrowed his eyes and scanned a wide circle at all the faces in the crowd. Sunny and the other Drev had arrived from their quarters within the very bowels of the ship managing to look more put together than their human counterparts. He doubted any of them had to do with this turning his eyes slowly over the ships interior. His sweep took him across one of the wide observation windows, and a chilling pale white face, and skeletal figure staring in from the darkness.

He pushed through the crowd and made his way up to the glass making heavy eye contact with the black soulless depths of Conn's whiteless eyes, "You see something, Convict." He said out loud.

The creature grinned at hi through the glass ribbons of blue white flaring out behind him against the inky blackness, "Perhaps I did, what's it to you."

"I swear Conn, I will turn on gravity to the outer hull if you don't give me a straight answer, see how you like it when your neck snaps in half."

The creature just grinned again voice ringing inside the Commander's head, "Two guesses who did it. He's short, he's stressed, and he's psychotic"

"Shit."

***

"MOVE BACK ALL OF YOU. Don't come any closer!"

Commander Vir held up his hands playacting as he slowly inched forward, "Krill, put down the silverware and let's talk."

The small surgeon snarled brandishing a butter knife at the man as he backed further into the hold, "No Commander, YOU need to STAY BACK." He spun in a wide circle jabbing the butter knife at all the watching humans, "Don't come any closer, I know how to use this."

One of the marines frowned, "I feel like that violates a do no harm policy there doc."

The butter-knife flashed as Krill turned to face him, "If it means keeping you all safe, I will carve you limb from limb."