Rukagru: The Prologue
Posted on September 29th, 2009 by Kuari

“She totally digs you.”

Finkin pulled a face. “Yeah, ’cause spilling coffee all over my lap is a sure way to turn me on.”

Stevens laughed in response, tugging his white lab coat uselessly around his generous belly. “Women are complicated. Especially Trill women. I’d give her another chance.”

Sighing, Finkin checked the readings on the FSR and popped open the lid. “You know, you can be a right ass sometimes. Hand me that dish.” He motioned with a finger. “The B-sucralose.”

“How am I an ass? What’s another drink gonna hurt?” Stevens picked up the proper sample and carefully passed it over.

“My ration account, that’s what. I’m not gonna waste my allotment on someone who thinks I crawled out from under a rock. You think it’s funny watching me suffer.”

A loud bang sounded from the ceiling, making Finkin jump and drop the dish. Stevens bounced, and both were staring at the spot from where the sound had come. After the initial shock wore off, Finkin cursed.

“Whoever the hell is screwing around up there just ruined my test!”

The bigger man grabbed the dish from him and dropped it into the sterilizer. “Whatever. It’s not like we’re gonna get off this rock as soon as you finish it. Just start it again.”

Temper still flared off an already bad mood, Finkin seethed and reset the numbers. “I’m telling you, they think we can work miracles off of nothing. You know full well how much I went through just to secure this much space for a lab.”

Another bang shattered the quiet of the room, rattling the plastiglass containers that littered the tables.

Finkin slapped his hand on the work surface, staring back up at nothing and yelled. “You guys aren’t supposed to start this shit until Thursday!”

There was no response. Both waited in silence, and suddenly another bang sounded, followed by another, then another.

“Who do they think they are? We’re trying to work in here!” Finkin complained. Stevens just shrugged at him, looking only mildly annoyed.

The thudding ceiling and clattering lab equipment continued, and movement suddenly caught his eye in the center of the ceiling. The vent cover was being pounded right out of the socket. Right above the Yosium experiment.

Stevens saw it, too, and lunged forward to catch it. He was too late and the grille crashed down over the storage tank, knocking it free from its drip feeder. Finkin closed his eyes. Oh, Lieutenant Commander Ferrell would hear about this all right.

It was then he heard a scream.

Finkin jerked his eyes open in time to see something green and huge and flapping fall from the ceiling and land right on Stevens. The large man cried out again, and somehow he didn’t crumple to the floor under the monstrous thing’s weight. It perched awkwardly on Stevens’ shoulders’, and Finkin then saw the red pooling across the top of his coat where the beast clutched at him with its claws.

Horrified, Finkin felt his back hit the wall. There was nowhere for him to go except towards Stevens and that thing between him and the door.

The creature flapped stretching wings and lashed its whip-like tail, sending experiments crashing against the far wall with terrifying violence. A deafening scream rang out, an eagle’s roar that pierced at Finkin’s eardrums, and it was all he could do but watch as the thing secured Stevens’ head in its great mouth and twisted. Finkin’s ringing ears barely registered the accompanying crack, and Stevens immediately fell limp.

Shocked into a stunned stupor, Finkin stared as the monster hopped lightly off before Stevens touched the floor and onto a cleared surface, its claws clacking. Two great glassy orbs, each divided vertically by a narrow black slit, caught on every one of Finkin’s trembling movements, its head cocking like a falcon homing in on its prey.

Its approach was confident and unhurried, as if Finkin was already dead and it simply had to enjoy the moment.

“Please!” Finkin pleaded hysterically in a voice he had never heard before. “What do you want? Don’t hurt me, please! Please!”

The lights disappeared behind its head and just before it pounced, he could have sworn he saw a grin stretch across its face.

There was only pain and confusion as Finkin was slammed across a work surface. He lashed out in terror as the blur of sharp teeth and claws wrenched at his body, and Finkin screamed in agony.

The creature’s red-smeared head pulled one last time with its great jaws, and as he watched a spurting fountain of blood pour out of the red pulp between its teeth, Finkin sank away into blackness.