They Answered The Call

RSS James Donovan

6,982 light years from Earth, 2175 A.D.

Fifty-one days after the destruction of the John Cabot

Captain Anthony Navarra rubbed his unkempt beard absentmindedly as Davis finished updating him on the daily reports from the crew department heads.

“So, we are good on water, but food is going to start being an issue within a week. Is that what you are telling me, Davis?” He asked after the XO had finished his report on the ration situation.

“Aye, captain. I recommend that we go on half rations until we figure out what to do. That’ll buy us an additional week, maybe a little longer.” Davis replied, trying to hide his concern about the current state they were in.

“What about the Insectoid food? I thought the aphids were still making that crap they poop out. Didn’t the medic say that we could eat it if needed?” He asked, tapping on the datapad and running some numbers on the rationing of the food supply.

Davis hesitated for a few moments before replying. “They were, sir. For some reason they stopped shitting a couple of days ago, and now there is only enough to feed Indigo for the next week or so."

Navarra shook his head at the mention of the drone and the name that was given to it by Simmons, still not believing what had been happening.

The drone had quickly become the unofficial mascot of the Insectoid cruiser they had rechristened the James Donovan in honor of the former XO and his heroic efforts to save the crew.

One of the crew had made unsanctioned ship patches featuring a stylized Indigo with oversized eyes firing particle beams and flying across the starfield with flames shooting out of the drone's ass.

Within two weeks, the entire crew had the new patches on their uniforms, and they had started taking pictures with an oblivious Indigo while pointing at the patch.

It became a tradition to post the photos on a wall of the large chamber they converted to crew quarters, and those who had not had a picture taken yet were teasingly hounded and ridiculed until they finally did.

Navarra had initially been furious when he saw the patches appearing on the uniforms, thinking it was disrespectful to the memory of Jim and the rest of the crew that had perished and he wanted to order them removed.

It was Davis who disabused him of that notion, pointing out that it was the crew’s way of maintaining morale despite their difficult circumstances.

Simmons was the primary caretaker of the drone and had become fiercely protective of it as she continued to bring it food and water daily ever since they had boarded the ship.

The drone had finally left the air vent after a week and was now basically her pet. It followed her everywhere and refused to leave her side, becoming her shadow and a crew favorite.

It was so attached to her that it even accompanied her to the makeshift lavatories and would stare at her with its large black eyes as she went to the bathroom, according to the rumors.

Pushing aside the image of the creepy drone perving on Simmons as she crapped, Navarra returned his thoughts to the current food situation and felt crushed by the weight of his responsibility.

For over fifty days, he had managed to keep the crew alive and evade the insectoids. The cruiser was still on its course, and they had air, water, and power. What they needed was food.

He had been relying on the crew to be able to eat the sweet aphid excrement that they seemed to make prodigiously when the rations finally ran out, and now they stopped producing for some reason.

“This is not good, Davis. Has there been any progress on the protein synthesizers? I thought the engineers were trying to hook those up to the cruiser’s energy systems.”

Davis replied with bitterness, still not over the loss of the chief engineer he had served with for many years.

“They will run out of power soon, Captain. The engineers have not been able to successfully integrate the life pod protein synthesizers to the power systems, something to do with an incompatible energy matrix or whatever technobabble they like to use instead of admitting they are incapable.

If the chief was here, I bet we would be eating steaks and sipping whiskey right now instead of bemoaning the fact that we are not going to be able to eat bug shit after all. He would have figured out a way to make it work.”

“I know what you mean, Davis.” He replied softly. “He was a genius and a credit to his trade. Respect for the fallen.”

“Respect for the Fallen.” Davis intoned, sadness passing over his grizzled features before he reverted to his neutral command face. Davis was the one who convinced the chief to go on the mission, and he felt responsible for his death.

“What are we going to do, Captain? Cutting rations is going to bottom out whatever morale the crew has managed to hold onto.”

Navarra looked at Davis’s face, his own internal worries becoming magnified as he saw the same concerns in the XO’s eyes.

“I really don’t know, XO. We are thousands of years away from the nearest planet, and I was relying on us being able to eat the aphid stuff.” He paused to tap on the beeping datapad before looking back at Davis.

“The medic said it has most of the amino acids and minerals we need and that we could eat it for months before any serious deficiencies manifested. I expected our rescue to arrive by now.”

“They are coming for us, Captain. We just need to hold on a little longer.” Davis said, his utter belief that the Republic was coming from them evident in his words and tone.

Navarra smiled slightly at Davis’s statement and the faith with which he said it before picking up the datapad he had silenced.

“Half rations will get us ten more days; thirds will get us almost twenty days. And none of the scientists can figure out why they stopped shitting?" He asked as he offered the datapad to Davis to see the calculations.

Davis took the pad and replied as he started to look down at the figures on the datapad screen.

“As of right now, captain, no. They have water and light, and they are still eating the algae, so they can’t figure out why they stopped. That reminds me, sir, Simmons wanted to talk to you.”

Navarra sighed wearily and leaned back against the wall, trying to smooth out his beard with both hands before nodding his head.

“Get her in here, and please stay. That drone creeps me out when it looks at me with those black eyes like it is staring into my soul.”

Davis smirked at the captain’s confession.

“Maybe it is wondering what you taste like, captain. I bet it’s thinking your meat will fall right off the bone after a low and slow cooking session.” Davis continued, smiling widely at his morbid joke as Navarra shuddered in disgust.

“Just get Simmons in here, Davis. I knew you would be the first to go cannibal on us; there is no way in hell you are going to end your twenty-two-year career starving to death when there are junior enlisted and ensigns around to eat.”

Davis barked a rare laugh, his eyes twinkling with glee as he reached down to grab the communicator off his belt.

He spoke into it, telling Simmons to come to the chamber they were in before toggling the hatch control to have the cruiser's version of doors slide into its recess within the organic wall.

Davis put on his command face again, and Navarra continued to go over the crew reports as they waited for Simmons to arrive.

A couple of minutes later, she rapped on the wall outside to announce her presence before stepping through the hexagonal opening, her pet drone in tow.

The drone peered into the room and looked at both Navarra and Davis before it scurried in and started clinging to Simmons's leg as she came to attention.

He could see the six delicate fingers of each claw clutching her trousers, and the drone stared at him with its large, unblinking black eyes as her face became red with embarrassment.

“Simmons, at ease. Do whatever you have to do to get it to stop looking at me, please.” Navarra said, trying not to avert his gaze as the drone continued to peer into his soul.

He half expected pinwheels to appear in the drone's black sorcerer eyes, like the villains in the old twentieth-century cartoons his grandparents would put on for him to watch when he visited them as a boy.

“Thank you, sir.” Simmons replied, softly patting the top of the drone’s head before using her hands to push it gently off her leg.

The drone looked up at her quickly before it went behind her legs and started grooming itself. It rubbed its two thorax legs over its back, head, and antennae before passing the legs through its mouthparts.

Navarra hid his revulsion of the drone, inwardly shuddering as he saw little cilia-like things inside of its mouth moving and cleaning off the leg hairs as it continued to groom itself.

He did not want to offend Simmons unnecessarily, nor did he want the crew to find out that he had a serious phobia of insects, especially one-meter-tall wasps that liked to kill mammals like him.

His fear started when he was around five, and his older sister Emily used to terrify him with bedtime stories of the Insectoids eating human children alive. She would tell him they lived under his bed and only came out at night when it was dark.

She would then deactivate the nightlight and leave. Left in a pitch black room, he would be too terrified to leave the bed to turn it back on, afraid an Insectoid would be waiting under his bed to grab him and eat him.

This went on for months before their mom found out that his sister’s stories were the reason why he was wetting his bed almost every night. She was grounded for months and had to do all his chores as punishment.

The stories ended, but the fear remained. Thanks, Emily; you really screwed me up, he thought sarcastically before realizing Simmons was looking at him with an expectant expression.

He focused and nodded for her to begin as he placed the datapad Davis had handed back to him on the desk and silenced it.

“Sir, I was thinking about the aphid issue. I am wondering if maybe they need the presence of a drone or some type of care from drones to maintain their production and symbiotic relationship.”

Navarra looked at her with surprise, not expecting her to say anything related to the aphids at all. “What are you thinking, lieutenant?” he asked, genuinely curious about where she was going with this.

“Um, so I used to date a guy who was a big terrarium freak,” she replied, her cheeks reddening slightly as she blushed at the mention of dating. Or maybe the terrarium freak; he couldn’t tell as she hastily continued speaking.

“He went away on a job for few weeks, and he made it very clear I was not to introduce any food to the terrarium. He had ants and other insects in there, and it was pretty cool to look at, to be honest with you.

After a few days, I couldn’t help myself anymore, and I dropped a tiny bit of honey inside of it just to see what would happen. The ants went apeshit for it, and then they started dying like two weeks later.”

The drone had started grabbing at her right leg again, and she paused to push its claws away, looking back at Navarra apologetically before continuing.

“Anyway, he came back, and all the ants were dead. I confessed to giving them honey, and he flipped out on me. Apparently, the ants had a symbiotic relationship with the aphids they farmed for food, and adding honey disrupted the entire delicate balance he had lovingly created in the ecology of the terrarium.

The aphids died from lack of care, and the ants died from starvation afterwards. I felt really bad about the whole situation, and I felt even worse when he broke up with me. The tool had the nerve to claim that this meant I was unfit to be a mother.”

Navarra wisely kept his mouth shut as Simmons huffed indignantly at the memory. Davis was behind her, and he looked at Navarra with a bewildered, What the hell? expression that almost made him crack up in laughter.

Rubbing his right hand over his mustache and beard to hide the smile that Davis’s look caused, Navarra tried to put on a thoughtful expression as he looked to the side towards a wall to give himself time to recover.

He clamped down on his mirth and looked back at Simmons, nodding for her to keep talking.

“Well, I am thinking maybe it is the same here. I want to bring Indigo to the aphid farm and see what she does. Maybe she can do something to get them working again.” She finished, a hopeful expression on her face.

Navarra gazed at her approvingly for her creative thinking regarding the food problem. He shared a questioning look with Davis, who shrugged in a what have we got to lose gesture before turning back to Simmons and addressing her.

“Simmons, I like where you are going with this. In fact, I am curious about this myself. I will go with you.” Simmons looked surprised, and then she smiled as her eyes flashed with relief. “Thank you for listening to me, sir. I thought you would dismiss my idea as nonsense.”

Navarra smiled at her in return before responding. “Perish the thought, Simmons. Your theory is the best idea that has been proposed so far. Let’s grab some of the biologists, and we’ll all head over to the farm.”

He stood up and moved out from behind the piece of debris that had been turned into a table by the engineers and turned towards Davis. “I’ll be back, XO. Keep an eye on the bridge for me.”

“Aye, captain.” Davis replied as they all shuffled out of the small room and entered back into the main command chamber that they called the bridge.

Davis immediately walked over to the strange bench on the raised platform and sat down while Navarra and Simmons walked towards one of the tunnel exits.

The drone placed itself directly behind Simmons, and Navarra was forced to watch his feet to avoid stepping on the drone as it rambled behind her, constantly searching the floor and the walls with its antennae.

They walked through a series of tunnels, collecting two biologists they could find along their way as they headed towards the aft section of the ship where the aphid farm was located.

He returned the salute from the guard posted outside the entry. He had a guard posted there since they took over the ship to prevent any unauthorized access, he did not want anything or anyone accidently screwing something up with their backup food supply if they needed it.

Navarra made a call over the comms for the other scientists to meet them there before they stepped through the six-sided opening and into the very humid and warm interior of the farm.

The large bay was covered in algae, and there were thousands of aphids swarming over the algal overgrowth and eating it with small mouth cilia that skeeved out Navarra. There were thousands of bulbs scattered all around, bathing the algae with the light they needed for photosynthesis.

They all lingered near the opening and waited for the other three scientists to arrive. Indigo went off on its own and into one of the stall-like structures that the aphids congregated in when not eating.

It came back out cradling an opaque, jellylike substance within its claws and walked back over to them on its other four legs. It presented the sweet aphid droppings to Simmons, and she took the blob of jelly from its claws.

Navarra watched in fascination as Simmons brought the substance to her face and pretended to eat it, moaning as she faked taking bites out of it. She then handed it back to the drone, thanking it for the delicious food in baby talk as it pointed its antennae at her before reaching up to take it.

The drone took it in its claws and inspected it closely with its eyes before rapidly consuming it. Navarra felt a queasiness in his stomach as he heard the drone slurping the substance through its mandibles, and he pointedly ignored the drone as it started cleaning the gelatinous mess off its claws.

The other scientist finally arrived, and they all started discussing what Simmons had mentioned to the captain. The conversation quickly became very heated as the biologists took sides and argued with each other.

Two of the biologists dismissed her idea out of hand, while the rest thought that it was possible and that her theory was as good as any they had.

Navarra zoned them out as they argued and watched as the drone went into a different stall and came out a few moments later with another mass of jelly within its claws.

It placed the jelly within a bin that contained the last of the harvest the crew had collected before the aphids stopped producing and went back into the same stall.

Navarra walked deeper into the bay and positioned himself behind a water tank to see what the drone was doing without it seeing him.

He peeked out and observed the drone as it went to the wall where an aphid was clinging to it and started stroking the bulbous bottom of the aphid. After a few moments of stroking, the aphid would suddenly deflate.

The bulbous bottom would disappear, and a mass of jelly would fall out of its ass and into the waiting claws of the drone. The drone turned the mass of jelly all around and inspected it closely.

The drone then took a tiny piece of the jelly and placed it in front of the aphid’s small head, dangling it in front of the feeding cilia.

The aphid’s mouth cilia grabbed the small piece, and it disappeared within the small opening. The drone then turned around and brought the jelly to the bin outside and dropped it in.

It is milking the aphids, Navarra realized as the drone did the same thing to another aphid, receiving more jelly after stroking the aphid with its claws and then feeding it a tiny piece.

He took off his wristcom and set it to record before quietly placing the wristcom on top of the tank to film the drone milking the aphids. He then slowly retreated, not wanting to disturb the drone.

Navarra returned to the others who were still arguing, seeing Simmons stare at them with a flustered expression as she leaned against a pillar off to the side of the biologists.

He waved at her to get her attention, and he put his finger to his lips before smiling and giving her a thumbs up. He gave her the stay signal and then pointed to the stall before walking to her.

He leaned in close and whispered to her. “You were right, the drone is milking the aphids and getting food from them; I have my wristcom recording it now to see how it is being done.”

She leaned her head back and smiled widely at him before silently mouthing, “I knew it!” She then turned around and made a rude gesture towards the biologists that disagreed with her.

They were still arguing with their colleagues and did not notice her two middle fingers, and he tilted his head towards the exit. They walked over together, and Navarra quietly told them to stop arguing and go outside with them.

As they were leaving, the drone came out of the stall and looked around for Simmons. It quickly dropped the mound of jelly into the bin and made a beeline for the group when it saw that they were leaving.

Figuring the drone was done, Navarra went back for his wristcom and then joined the rest outside the bay. He quickly activated the playback from the recording he took of the drone and played it.

Smiles broke out all around, and the biologists who vehemently disagreed with Simmons and the other two quickly apologized for being jerks.

They now had a food source again, and Navarra felt his own tension melting away as the others started discussing the stroking Indigo was doing and theorizing on why it was feeding the jelly to the aphids.

Davis’s voice came over the comms, practically screaming. “Captain!” A Hive ship just flashed out of null space alongside us! They are matching our course and speed!”

Navarra shared a horrified look with Simmons before they both bolted towards the bridge, the drone scrambling to keep up with them as they left the stunned scientists behind.

Panic engulfed Navarra as he ran after Simmons. Why can’t you give us a freaking break!? He screamed in his mind, the question directed at the universe and every known deity worshipped by humanity.

Thoughts filled with anger and resentment followed, this one directed to the Republic he so loyally served and lost his family for.

Where are you? Why haven’t you come for us yet?