Part 2 of 2 =/\= USS Gott, Science Lab =/\= The moments that passed after Rangi had ordered Jacobs to unleash his weapon over the operations officer and the X'Chi passed somewhat surreally for the hapless Andersen Foster. At first, Andy, still dazed and fighting for his life against this giant monster, didn't even process what she'd said. Then, with horror, he realized she'd ordered Jacobs to fire on both of them. Why? A few reasons passed through Andy's head in the time between desperately trying to keep the insect's sharp claws and mandibles from hitting him in the head, to suddenly being bathed in flame -- did she assume he was lost, and wanted to save Jacobs and herself by killing the bug while it was on top of him? Or perhaps killing him quickly with a flamethrower was an easier way to go than undergoing the horror of vivisection by insect? As the X'Chi's scream echoed through the lab, a strange tingling sensation came over Andy. Before he knew it, the insect, by then on fire, had discarded him as prey, and had undoubtedly moved toward the marine and physician. As Andy curled into a fetal position, still hearing the furious mortal screams of the creature, he saw flames continue to lick over him, and continued to feel the strangely familiar tingling sensation ... Eventually both and fire screams faded, and Andy lay still on the floor, realizing in happy astonishment that he was unscathed. Rangi had remembered what he, in the heat of protecting himself from the blows of the X'Chi, didn't -- his unexpected "gift" of having been cloned with the DNA of an alien organism that fed on energy. He had absorbed the flames, and was little worse for the wear. Coughing from the thick black smoke, Andy tried to bring himself to his feet, but couldn't. He realized, with amusement that the flamethrower had partially melted the hard plassteel of the EVA suit, and there were pieces of him that were stuck to the ground. Moreover, an unusual side effect to the energy absorption was to make his bones and tissues unusually pliable. He still seemed to be holding his shape pretty well -- in tests, Andy had absorbed far greater amounts of energy than this, but his bones didn't quite have the rigidity to anchor his muscles and perform much of any feat of strength. From the other side of the room, Jacobs heard the coughing and struggling of the fallen Andy. He threw the weapon to the ground, and ran around the insect. "Commander," he exclaimed, "he's still alive!" He rushed over to the prone form of Andy, and seeing him more or less unharmed, regarded him with incredulity. "But?" he stammered. Andy raised an arm, asking for a hand up. "No!" cried Rangi, but it was too late. Jacobs, who had already grabbed hold of Andy's arm and shoulder, dropped him unceremoniously, and cried out in pain, holding his hands, which were now seared from the superheated plastics of Andy's erstwhile EVA suit. "Don't touch him." She hurried to their side. Jacobs' face was a picture of pain and amazement as he cradled his burnt hands against his body. "He should be dead!" he said to Rangi, looking at the prone form of Andy, still partially stuck to the floor. "I mean ... I saw him cooked ... crisped ... fried ... and he's okay!" "Yes," Rangi replied, leading him back a few steps. "He's alive and will be fine. Just don't go near him for a minute." Jacobs gave her a look which said he wouldn't need telling twice, and leaned back against a bench eyeing the fallen ops officer with a certain amount of respect. She took a hypospray from her medcase and administered a painkiller, glancing back at Andy now and then as she worked on easing Jacobs' discomfort. "Sorry about that, Private," said Andy, slowly pulling the melted suit off the ground, and eventually working his way into a sitting position. "I didn't really think that the suit would still be hot ..." Andy concentrated on the sensations across his body, noting that there were places on his skin that had that "tingly" sensation to a greater and lesser extent, and felt the sensation particularly intensely across his left shoulder and upper back. "Yeah ... yeah," said Jacobs distractedly, still kind of stunned, despite himself, as Rangi ministered to his burned hands. In the meantime, Andy found his right arm to be a little sturdier than his left, and eventually leveraged himself upright and onto his feet. He felt wobbly, to be sure, but hardly like the puddle of goop that he had become when Amily Ashlexa had exposed him to nearly a quarter terrajoule of electricity before Dr. Triss put an end to the threshold experiment. He looked around the lab, and shortly found a fire suppressant canister, and examined it. Good, he though, it was liquid CO2 -- he wanted to make sure there was a cooling component to it, and not just oxygen removal. He broke through the glass with his right arm, and carefully withdrew the canister. After disengaging the safety, he began spraying himself down. Rangis attention was split between the two as she applied balm to Jacobs burns whilst at the same time, trying to keep track of what Andy was doing. "There." she said with a satisfied tone. "That should last until we can get to sickbay." Jacobs thanked her, turning his hands over to examine the condition. Rangi turning at the sound of a spray, couldn't help but smile when she saw the method of Andy's self-treatment. "Need any help?" she asked, stepping towards him but glancing at the charred corpse of the X'Chi as she did so. "Thanks," said Andy, setting the canister down, and turning his back to the doctor. "The left shoulder area is in pretty bad shape, I think," he said. Rangi kept her comments to herself as she sprayed down the area, but privately exhaled slowly in amazement when she took a look at the back of the suit. The suit's shoulder and back areas apparently took the brunt of Jacobs' flamethrower, and in places had completely melted away, charred and bubbled. The insulating cloth beneath was completely incinerated. She shook her head, seeing Andy's flesh underneath a healthy human pink, if just a little shiny. Rangi frowned as she finished cooling off the suit, noting that several parts of Andy's flesh was being compressed sharply by the areas of the plassteel that had melted and then re-hardened in an irregular shape. "We should get you out of this suit before your body regains its regular shape, or you're going to be pretty uncomfortable," she said, noting that his left scapula seemed positioned a good four centimeters lower than his right. Placing a hand gently on Andy's shoulder, she studied his face. "How are fixed for trying a short walk?" she asked him. "You said the turbolift was just across there...can you manage it?" Andy nodded, still shaken from experience, and holding onto the table for balance. He mumbled that he should be alright, but frankly was a little embarrassed that his first thoughts, when he heard Rangi order Jacobs to open fire on him. At best, he thought she was trying to euthanize him. At worst, merely trying to save herself. "Thanks for thinking of the flamethrower, Doctor," he said lamely, "With that bug on me, it never really occurred to me that --" The conversation between the two officers was interrupted by a low chuckle, which slowly built up to a hearty laugh. Andy and Rangi turned to see Jacobs bending over the hulking corpse of the X'Chi, examining one of its legs, and laughing. "What is it?" asked Rangi. "I'll be damned," said Jacobs, still chuckling. He'd broken off a segment of one of the creature's hind legs, which had been well-singed by the flamethrower, and snapped it in half. He was wafting the broken end under his nose, and offered the other half to Rangi. "Y'know, if this was a bivouac or survival scenario, I'd run a few tests on this thing," he said, delicately poking at the flaked, moist flesh on the inside of the charred exoskeleton. "It smells just like blue crab." "Like what?" said Andy, confused. Rangi hesitated to accept the leg segment Jacobs offered her, cautious about the viral implications. Then again, this was a leg segment, she thought, not a claw. And then remembered in the initial innoculation tests, that the virus didn't stand up well to heat. She delicately sniffed the end of the snapped leg, and slowly broke into a wry smile herself. "Crabs," said Rangi, offering the end of the limb for him to examine. "A terran crustacean -- a shelled fish." "Oh," said Andy, nonplussed. There were no great saltwater bodies on Alpha Centauri, where he grew up, but he'd read about the great oceans of Earth. "Well, if nothing else, it can be checked out in sick bay," he said to Jacobs, and added with a snort, "If it turns out to be edible, I'll add the bodies of the X'Chi as a food source to my inventory." With that, they made their way to the turbolift, and down to deck three. -------------- End Part 2 Lt Andersen Foster Operations Officer LtCdr Rangi Summers CMO/2XO