X-97

Posted on Wed Jan 22nd, 2025 @ 8:11pm by Remal Kajun

Mission: Ramant
Location: Ramant Ship
Timeline: Current

His head was pounding as his eyes struggled to open. When they did, he was able to take in his surroundings. He was in a bed, familiar, a cabin. There was a soft light streaming in from outside and the sounds of birds chirping on the breeze. Moreover he could hear the distant sound of crashing waves upon the shoreline.

Groggy as he was, he attempted to sit up. The light blanket which covered him casually fell away leaving his top half exposed. His brain registered his home in the cabin by the sea, on Bajor. Had it all been a weird dream? There was a figure next to him, his own motion causing her to stir. But immediately something was 'off'. Her hair was brown, not blonde.

She shifted closer to him, her face now visible. This was Lieutenant Junior Grade Kay Harris. She had been in the holding area with him and the others. Quickly deducing this was another, albeit more elaborate, holding cell, He looked around for a sign this was built on a hologram matrix.

Kay, from her perspective, blinked herself awake and was suddenly alert to the fact she was in a strange bed, in a strange location with the back of a very large stranger in front of her. Not to mention she was acutely aware of her lack of clothing underneath the simple sheet covering her body. Still, she panicked, clutched the sheet and retracted from Remal.

He turned, grasping to make certain his own privacy was intact. "Easy, just try to relax. I think they've placed us in some sort of holo-suite." He said, in an effort to reassure her. "You're in a re-creation of my home on Bajor, from what I can tell."

She relaxed, though not completely. There was just something about him, his voice, his demeanor which spoke to her inner sensibilities. "So... what do they want from us?" She asked bashfully.

"I'm not yet certain. But, from the way we've been laid bare and from some of the words that scientist used, it feels like they are waiting to see us... perform." He hesitated to find the right wording that would not make her freak out further. Perform could have a multitude of meanings, though once naked in a bed together those options were considerably fewer.

---

"What is this? What am I watching here? All they are doing is talking. Make them do.. something." The lead scientist ranted at the monitor in front of her. She was growing impatient at the lack of action on the screen and in the room.

"But ma'am, you wanted to see the natural course of action, no outside influence." The technician responded. "Our records indicate they do this. I believe they call it 'flirting'. Although, records show the flirting stage often happens before the coitus begins. Sometimes by several hours." He added.

"Hours! We don't have hours. We'll be home by then and the Progenitor will want results, answers. We have to speed this along. Try mixture X-97, that should make things happen."

"Yes ma'am." The technician stood, crossed the room and took a vial from a collection of serums marked X-97, then returned to his station and placed the vial into the chamber with an audible hiss. "Injecting a 10% spread of experiment X-97 into the study chamber."

"No. 100%, full spread." She argued, fully committed to seeing the experiment take shape.

Reluctantly, "Ma'am, we have no idea what that may do to them. By artificially injecting this much we are altering their blood-chemistry. It will be the opposite of natural."

"Do it or I will have your operators license evocated and your family barred from the cloning lists. Your family name will have faded within a single lifetime. Is that something you want?"

He clenched his jaw, turned and dialed the injection up to 100%, providing his response. He then pressed the button. A subtle red mist was vaporized into the subject room where Remal and Kay sat upon the bed. It enveloped them, and saturated the air in which they breathed. And the effects took only seconds later.

TBC