The light cruiser bearing the name and transponder code Mercy I wasn't so much flying through space as it was listing in a consistent direction. The hull was scoured and riddled it deep rents. At least one section was completely exposed to the vacum. The glow of its sub-light engines came and went, used more that course corrections than actual propulsion.

In other words, it was in sorry state.

The inside wasn't much better. The four-person flight deck of the cruiser held only a single occupant. Most of the terminals and systems therein were blackened and broken. It was also ridiculously hot in the flight deck, the single occupant had long since abandoned the pretense of wearing any clothes there.

Eve2.0, ADD medical expert, sat hunched over in the pilot's chair, dripping wet with sweat born from heat and stress. Her hands were fastened on the yoke with a death grip. Her aqua colored hair was plastered to the sides of her face and down her chest and back. Her eyes were wide, looking ahead, to the instruments that still functioned, and then back again. They were also heavy and burning with exhaustion.

All around her, and uncountable number of purple-pink tentacles had emerged from her body, and were quite busy. Some were still effecting what repairs she could, though she cluster working in the environmental controls had long since given up. The set working on subspace communications was fast reaching a dead end. Her only success came from the set working on short-range comms.

She hesitated before tuning this set on. Sending out a distress signal this far from ADD controlled space had as good a chance of attracting enemies as allies. But she anything was better than flailing about space in this mobile coffin. She flipped it one and spoke.

"This is ADD Medical Cruiser Mercy I. We have sustained heavy damage and casualties while on a rescue and aid mission. We require immediate assistance. Message Repeats."

She set the message on a loop, even as she felt her head droop, exhaustion catching up with her. She jerked herself awake, then slapped her own face sharply with a thin, whip-like tentacle. It left a welt on her cheek, which stung like hell. She hopped the pain would keep her up. At least until some one answered her distress call.

Hopefully someone friendly.

Karivnie perched comfortably on the cushioned captain's stool, her wings folded behind her and feet kicking idly a few inches above the floor- she was rather small for her species- as she perused the newest data cube she had acquired. Manually extracting the code containing a 3-D map of the nearby system and transporting it to a new, shipboard file was dull work for a sharp mind, but it whiled away the hours more effectively than staring at the star-punctuated abyss outside, so she persevered. She needed navigational data, and her blistered fingers really didn't need any more playing time on her kishir , so on the bridge she stayed.

Which, in the end, was rather fortunate; it meant she was available to receive the distress call that suddenly broke the silence of her cabin, which had previously only been punctuated by the clatter of her own nimble fingers across the console and the brush of downy feathers against cushioned seat.

Large, violet eyes narrowed as Karivnie listened to the cry for help, her slender, softly feathered form shading towards pink as her initial merciful impulse was tempered by the suspicion that was second nature to her. It would be only too easy to draw in bleeding hearts with such a call, and it was a favorite tactic of many a marauder in her family lore. She would never live down the disgrace of being taken by such an elementary ploy. The rosy color deepened as she thought it over, an effect very much like a blush tracing down the gentle curves of her delicate body that greatly belied the scowl of indecision furrowing the skin between her eyes.

After a moment of staring ferociously at the speakers as if demanding they reveal to her the truth behind the looped message they blandly broadcast, Karivnie sighed, the pink in her feathers fading to a pastel undertone as she stood, rising to her tiptoes and raising her arms above her head as she stretched, her body straining into a delicate arabesque, wings stretching to their utmost expanse as she worked out the knots from long hours of sitting. Remaining standing, Karivnie set her computers to tracing the origin of the call and followed the trail of cyber bread crumbs, her wings unconsciously hooded behind her.

She would hail the craft once she had gotten within range to scan it more closely, but until then, she would approach with her ship's cloak enabled and the weapons ready to fire. She would still be perfectly visible, but Karivnie was confident in her ability to lose any ambushers who were only able to obtain a visual lock on her location.

Yes, she should be safe. As the stars sped by, her eyes picked out the slowly rotating hulk of a ship's wreckage, dim, fitful bursts of luminescence from its engines better revealing the damage it had taken. Karivnie let out a low whistle as she keyed in the order to perform a highly detailed scan of her surroundings, her wings opening and blue bleeding into her hollow feathers as the scan reported utterly innocent results. One living being on board the ship, and absolutely no others nearby.

"Very well, then," she said to herself under her breath. Keying in a sequence, Karivnie hailed the ship in the language of the broadcast, one of the major languages of trade. "Mercy I, this is the KMS Lirinyaar, requesting permission to dock. What is your current status? End transmission."
As she sent the message, a stray thought crossed Karivnie's mind. What kind of alien was she trying to rescue? Would she have to wear clothes? Her crest wilted slightly at the thought, the long, silky feathers hugging closer to her head as she decided to err on the side of safety and went to collect an informal wrap.

In retrospect, Eve2.0 was proud of the way she had manged to keep her voice even and matter of fact during her distress call. There had been no hint of the panic she had felt then, which had only grown in the few hours since. Nor was there any hint of the sobs she was no sure would burst free at any moment.

The temperature on the flight deck was grwoing steadily, her skin was already turning a fetching-but painful-shake of pink. She could heal the damage easily, if she could just get away from the the heat itself. Get some palce cool, prefeably with water. Water she could wash in, dive, in, spread her tentacles...

Eve2.0 jerked suddenly awake. She didn't even remember falling asleep. What if she had missed a reply to her distress call? Stupid, stupid!

But her fears were dispelled when her ships speakers crackled to life. "Mercy I, this is the KMS Lirinyaar, requesting permission to dock. What is your current status? End transmission."

A second wind filled Eve as her hands fumbled to the controls of her own coms. "KMS Lirinyaar, Mercy I," she said, her voice dry from the heat, and weak from exhaustion. "Current condition... critical. "We've... lost all other hands... engine running at... less than 2%. Life support and...environmental controls... failing. In urgent need of rescue.

"Permission to dock granted. Utilize starboard... airlock. Port side...exposed to vacum. Emergency bulk heads are holding." And here, Eve2.0's nerve finally broke, and a grateful sob broke free. "Thank you."

Karivnie's brow furrowed with concern as she listened to the ragged voice at the other end of the conversation, absently noting that the sounds were consistent with a severely dessicated throat. The engine must be overheating as the power was drained, which meant she needed to extract this person as quickly as possible. Even before the transmission was ended, she was following the unknown voice's directions to the starboard airlock, guiding her ship in with the smoothness of long experience.

Clad in a brilliantly vermilion wrap, a gold bangle encircling each ankle, and oblivious to the incongruity of the firearm held with comfortable familiarity in her left hand, Karivnie exited her ship and quickly crossed the airlock. As she moved within the sweltering halls, she mentally traced the path from her port to the cockpit of the beleaguered ship that she had noted before docking. The journey was surprisingly straightforward; the damage had left a clearly marked path of where not to go, and Karivnie was soon at the door to the cockpit.

Hoping that the room's occupant could still open it, and hoping that she was not walking into a trap after all, she rapped the barrel of her gun against the uncomfortably warm metal. A brief moment passed, enough time to set the K'mari girl's every sense on edge, and the door opened.

Violet eyes sweeping the room, it took a moment for her to sort out the confusion of the body before her. Flushed, sweating, and utterly naked, a K'mari-like upper body fused to a weakly stirring nest of fleshy tentacles lay before her. Blue eyes blinked at her hopefully, her mouth opening as if to speak before hesitating, confusion crossing her features.

Karivnie had fallen into a shooting stance immediately, feathers changing to make her as rosy as the room's other occupant, the hue clashing spectacularly with her clothes. She could feel her crest half-raise, but forced herself to lower the weapon, noting the fearful pink of the alien's own skin. She's as afraid of me as I am of her.

Feathers still a wary rose, Karivnie sighed inwardly, deciding she looked too weak to withstand a single good whack with one of her wings, and put the rest of her questions on hold until they were safe. "Can you... move?" she asked, stumbling momentarily over her choice of words.

Eve only realized she had passed out again when the sound of the metal rapping on metals filled the cockpit. Startled awake, she spun around in the pilots chair to face the sound, one of her tentacles already pulling on the manual opening lever next to the door itself.

The door protested, but rumbled open, rising upwards to reveal two things Eve2.0 was not excepting. The first was a the fetching unison between an avian and a humanoid. The second was a pistol her face. The mass of tentacles around her twitched in sudden fear, but she was too weary for the action her instincts demanded, namely the swatting of the weapon from the hands of the would-be attacker, followed by the immobilizing of their limbs. It was all she could to to raiser her hand in a hopeless gesture, as if that alone could ward of the blast from the weapon.

But the barrel was lowered, and Eve lowered her hands with it. At the questions, she nodded. "We think so.... Just give us one moment." She closed her teal eyes, and grimaced slightly.

The mass of innumerable tentacles stirred again, then they seemed to withdraw toward Eve's body. It wasn't until more and more seemed to vanish at some unseen point below where her hips should be, that it became clear just how many she had out to begin with. Much more of the flight deck could be seen now, including three other chairs and stations, several of the burned out and broken light fixtures and terminal on the wall. Finally, only four tentacles remained visible, and Eve slid of the chair to rest on them. Opening her eyes, she regarded her rescuer and she glided towward her on her main tentacles, each as big around as her thigh would had been had she been human, before tapering off into a tip. There was a small metal befire case enar the door, she paused just long enough to pick it up in one hand.

""Lets hurry, the sooner we can get of this ship..." Eve2.0 shuddered. "The better. We'll explain everything once its safe and we blow it kingdom come."

Puasing at the Door, Eve2.0 looked back at the flight deck. "Computer?" she called. A weak chime replied to her. "Self-destructs sequence, Thirty Minute timer. ADD Cheif Medical Officer Eve2.0 authorization, 012483 Theta Alpha One."

"Compliance," came the distant, static-y reply. Knowing he way to the airlock, Eve led the way. It was all she could do to keep from crying the trip there.

Curious at the being's plural reference to itself, Karivnie watched with slightly queasy fascination as tentacles retracted, somehow consolidating their mass into what resolved into four main tentacles. As she slid gingerly from the chair that Karivnie had missed beneath the previous tangle of her lower limbs and stood, the K'mari girl found herself holding her breath. She doubted that she could support the female whatever-she-was if she fell, and the temperature was still rising- she could feel sweat trickling beneath the soft down covering her.

Relieved as the alien moved towards her, only pausing to collect a small box and give her ship's AI one last command, Karivnie stepped out of the way, allowing her to slither past. Determinedly not looking at the tentacles passing her, she fixed her gaze instead on the alien's face, startled to note the familiar almost-crying expression etched into it.

Falling into step behind her, Karivnie asked quietly, "Eve? Is that your name?" Taking another look at her distressed face, and skin a rose that signified sheer terror in K'mari, Karivnie felt a pang of guilt for frightening her so. "You're safe with me. Unless you try to harm me, I won't harm you. You don't need to be so afraid." That said, she fixed her large violet eyes hopefully on the alien's skin, waiting for the frightened pigment to fade as they left the sweltering, too-narrow hallways behind for the airlock in which the Lirinyaar was docked.

Eve turned to face Karivnie as she spoke, the airlock cycling and opening before them as she did so, and offered a wan smile "We cant relax," she said, "can't stop being on our guard and afraid. Not until we get off this ship. It's been..." Eve struggled for a word as the airlock opened and she glided her way inside with Karivnie. "...traumatizing here."

When the airlock opened on the other side, a wave of comparatively cold air blasted Eve full on in the face the chest. Covered in sweat as she was, she shivered, her nipples hardening almost at once. She stepped aside, allowing Karivnie to precede her, as it was her ship after all, and fell in behind her.

Once they were clear of the airlock and it cycled closed behind them. Eve let go of a shuddering breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She rested on hand on the cool hull of Karivnie's ship and closed her eyes. Her brow knitted on concentration, and the pink hue of her skin began to fade to its normal, more cream colored shade. That done, she seemed to sink where she stood, her tentacles coiling around her into a kind of hill that her torso could rest on. "You need to move your ship to a minimum of distance of 2000 kilometers..." realizing that kilometers might not be a unit she was familiar with, Eve did some quick calculations in her already foggy mind. "Approximately 0.0001112 light-minute. It'll be safe from the explosion of our ship there. We just need a moment to rest... we haven't slept in weeks..."

Eve didn't so much fall asleep as she passed out after giving those instructions, her eyes rolling back in her head before she collapsed on her own coiled tentacles. Almost the moment she lost consciousness, more tentacles began to merge from her body as well, careful exploring the unfamiliar halls and walls, ignoring Karivnie entirely, and stopping only when they reached first corner leading to the rest of the ship.

Relieved to be clear of the fevered wreck of Eve's ship, Karivnie's feathers returned to their colorless state, her skin's ebony hue showing through enough to make her a soft, cloud-colored sprite perched in the pilot's seat. She relayed the alien's instructions to the Lirinyaar, grimacing as her sweaty feathers were rubbed backwards by the cloth she was wearing while her fingers clattered across the ship's command console.

Distracted from her passenger by getting them out of the blast-radius-to-be, the wing-like feathers hiding the K'mari girl's ears twitched in surprise as she registered a heavy thump behind her. Turning, she saw Eve lying in a heap on the floor of her bridge, eyes rolled back into her head.

Then the numberless tentacles that had previously been stored- she didn't want to think about how- within Eve's body emerged once more from her prone form, questing curiously about the bridge while her eyes remained white, sightless orbs.

Karivinie shrieked, her feet finding the seat of her chair and her wings half-spread before the sound even finished leaving her mouth. Standing on tiptoe on her chair, which brought the diminutive being to nearly Eve's standing height, she watched with saucer-sized violet eyes as the tentacles groped around the cockpit, ignoring her to explore their surroundings. Oddly, they stopped at the corner marking the end of the bridge, hesitating in place, squirming slightly as if with impatience or... Karivnie couldn't tell what.

Still perched atop her chair, the calculating merchant emerged in her. She surveyed the area between herself and the tentacles' current reach, thoughts racing through her mind. How far could the tentacles extend? Unknown, but possibly a lot longer. She couldn't risk trying to outrun them and get cornered, since they were ignoring her now. What was animating them, since Eve was unconscious? Was this a portion of her pluralized references to herself?

Suddenly her mother's businesslike tones rang through her mind, the voice everyone referred to- out of her earshot, of course- as her "captain voice". "And what are you doing dithering like a hatchling in my seat while some alien crawls all over the Lirinyaar? I taught you better than that, girl!"

Smiling sheepishly at her conjured memory- her mother would say something just like that if she were here- Karivnie gingerly put one toe on the floor, as if testing unknown waters. When the tentacles continued to ignore her, she went over to Eve's prone form, realizing she didn't have to bend over at all to shake her shoulder gently in an attempt to wake her. "Eve? Wake up." She bit her lip, and added, "Your tentacles are trying to take over my ship... please wake up."

As soon as Karivnie's hand touched Eve's bare skin, the mass of tentacles leaped into sudden action. Powerful, thick lengths of purple-pink lashed at the avian merchant, seizing first the arm that was touching Eve and pulling it away sharply. The other arm and both of her feet also found themselves warped up and immobilized almost a heart beat later.

The tentacles, seeming to act on their own accord, carried Karivnie though the air before roughly slamming her back to her chair before releasing her. They hovered close while a fifth tentacle slithered out from the mass and approached her. Rather than the usually tapered tip, this tentacles seemed to open at the end, forming a minuscule mouth, complete with thin, forked tongue. It coiled itself around Karivnie's perch, the tongue flicking in and out rapidly as if sampling the air. It raised itself higher still, even with Karivnie's face. It regarded her with a tiny, sightless face, the tongue flashing in and out, mere centimeters from the merchants face. It suddenly bobbed up and down, ans if nodding it's head, and retracted. back into the mass.

As soon as it had, Eve woke with a jerk. Her eyes widens as she looked around, at her clearly terrified rescuer, and the four tentacles still hovering near, her posed to strike at a moments notice.

"No!" she commanded. "Leave her be! She isn't one of them. She isn't infected. We are safe now!"

That seemed to be all the tentacles were looking for. They retracted from Karivnie and the bridge entirely, condensing and vanishing in Eve once more.

"We are terribly sorry for our actions!" Eve pleaded, bowing low as she did so. "Our lack of consciousness is no excuse, we should have made it clear to ourselves that this was a safe place and such hyper-vigilance was no longer needed. We hope we didn't hurt you! Please, allow us to explain!"

Too startled to even cry out, Karivnie flashed from brilliant pink to a steely gray, the blend of pigments beneath her skin flooding her feathers as adrenaline flooded her veins, transforming her in an instant to a pair of large, frightened violet eyes in a body that would be barely visible were it not for the tentacles encircling it.

Her fear reached panic stages as she felt the strength in the limbs holding her as she was slung roughly back to her chair. With the sinuous appendages hovering threateningly around her, he impulse to try beating the tentacles away with her wings and flee warred with her species' instinctive response to serpentine threats: hold very still and hope it goes away.

Heart racing, she shrank back as much as she could without getting nearer to any of the other tentacles as an oddly-tipped tentacle emerged from the mass and approached her, its strange end opening to reveal a slender tongue. Surrounded, the small K'mari simply froze as it rapidly closed the distance, tasting the air as if it truly were a featureless serpent. There was a moment of utter stillness as she crouched, mesmerized by the tongue nearly tickling her face, her heart threatening to leap straight through her ribs as she waited for this sensory tentacle's verdict.

Seemingly satisfied, it bobbed and retreated, leaving her wide-eyed and frozen with shock as Eve stirred and finally woke. Confusion crossed Karivnie's panic-dulled mind as the alien ordered her own limbs away from the terrified avian girl, clarity returning as she once more had the space to spread her wings, which she did, huddling them in a defensive posture around herself. Her feathers remained a metallic gray, but she listened to Eve's pleading, hearing a note of fear in her own voice.

Her body is dangerous, despite her intentions. I need to know what makes it act without her. A shudder rolled through her from the unused energy of her fear, and she added to herself, And whether or not there are more like her.

Determined alone kept her voice from quaking as Karivnie replied in her most businesslike voice, "I can excuse survival instincts, but this can't happen again if you are staying on my ship. And I need information, or you will not stay regardless. In that case, I will let you off on the nearest inhabited planet and you can find your way from there. These are more generous terms than you would get from any other K'mari trader, so I hope you realize that they are non-negotiable, and how much rides upon this explanation." Ignoring the shudders still wracking her petite, steel-hued frame, she regarded Eve with a level stare. "So. Explain."

Eve stood up to her full 'normal ' height, as she came out of the bow, then seemed to think better of it and her her main tentacles spread out under her so her torso could sink to a height more even with Karivnie's. Or better yet, slightly lower.

"Our name is Eve2.0," she began. She was shivering slightly, a combination of cooler air and nudity finally catching up with her. "We're a senior medical officer of the Alien Defense Directorate, or ADD. Perhaps you've heard of us?" she asked hopefully.

She pressed on after a few moments. "The ADD received word of a break out of an unknown viral plague on early-wrap civilization on the world we designated a B6423. It was mutagenic in nature, and early reports indicated the possibility of it being a biological weapon with a 90% communicably rating, as high indicators of cross-sepices infection. We were was sent to as part of a relief mission, but our real purpose was to identify this virus and find a away to treat or cure it."

Eve waved an arm over her body. "We were was selected because the process that made us what we are today, a fusion of two beings, flesh and machine, also renders us totally immune to viruses. A small contingent of ADD armed personnel was sent to maintain the quarantines and protect us."

Eve wasn't looking at Karivnie anymore. Her eyes seemed focused on some point just over the K'mari's head, but all she was really seeing were her memories. "Everything was going well at first," she said slowly. "We had the clean potion population segregated away from the infected. It could only spread by direct sexual contact, you see, so it was easy... We're still still not sure what happened. We were already exhausted, working night and day on the cure... we only slept for four hours... just four short hours to regain our wits... that was all it took."

By now Eve was shivering more violently, and it had nothing to do with the cold. "The quarantine was breached. Our men were infected. It moves so fast, re-writing their genetic code, joining their minds with some sort of limited hive mind shared by all the infected. They infected the rest of the population.. then came for us."

Arm-sized tentacles had emerged from below her waist and were wrapping themselves around her shoulders and chest in a kind of self-hug. "We look strong don't we? If there had just been twenty of them, or fifty, or even a hundred, we might have been able to fight them off. But there were thousands upon thousands, each mutated by the virus into things we couldn't even recognize anymore. They tried to infect us." Now her voice stated to break. "Over and over and over and over... Thousands of them... passing us around, putting themselves inside any orifice they could find, trying to break us and infect... and when that wasn't working... they tried to kill us."

Eve went quite still rather suddenly, eyes staring into empty space, nearly cationic at the memory of it.

Noting the shudders running through Eve's form, Karivnie tensed before realizing that she was probably cold, and felt a stab of pity for the frightened, featherless alien. Then again, she was still shaking from being so neatly caught, so perhaps her pity was a bit condescending.

"Alien Defense Directorate? I have not heard of this organization. What aliens do you defend against? Who are your allies?" she asked, her ever-present desire for knowledge sharpened by her edginess.

As Eve continued with her story, a thousand more questions budded behind Karivnie's lips, but the faraway look in her eyes made it clear that to interrupt her now would be like waking a sleepwalker. Biting her questions back, she listened, horror growing in her as the woman related her tale. As she listened, her active imagination accompanied the telling, her feathers ruffling as Eve's shivers grew worse, neither reaction having the slightest thing to do with temperature. Just thinking of the attack Eve had survived made claustrophobia wash over the petite avian girl, but she was still more alarmed as she saw her shuddering stop, her body going utterly still as she fell silent.

Hesitant to approach her, after what had happened the last time she had taken Eve by surprise, Karivnie remained perched on her chair, calling cautiously, "Eve? The disease is no longer a threat to you. You're on the KMS Lirinyaar. You're safe." Unsure if Eve had heard her but unwilling to just wait for the nearly catatonic girl to respond, she shifted in her chair, wings still hooded protectively around her and added, "We can talk about something else; I don't need to know anymore about your mission."

With a final violent shudder that was a cross between a seizure and a orgasm, Eve2.0 seeemd to come back to herself, her eyes focused on Karivnie once more. "Thank you... but our mission isn't over yet." She indicated the metal case she had taken from her ship that now rested beside her. "All the data I managed to gather on the virus is in my computer there," she explained. "We must get it back to Antares Base. We didn't dare take live samples, it far to virulent to hope to control. But the data, if there is to be cure, the data must make it to better minds than ours.

"You saw the state of my ship. That was all done just by the armed troops that I had brought with me after they were infected. Imagine what would happen if that virus were to affect a really dangers race, with better weapons... or space-flight."

One of her tentacles picked up the metal briefcase and brought it to Eve's chest, where she held onto it firmly with both arms. "Please," she pleaded. "You must take us to our base. So much depends on it. Of course, you will be paid for your trouble."

The steel of her feathers gained a blue cast as she stared at Eve, her plumage reflecting her surprise at her proclamation. She couldn't argue with the necessity of finding a cure; in fact, she was rather impressed that Eve was still driven to find one, after what she had endured. A lesser creature would likely be happy to just hand off the data and go into retreat, but she had a feeling that this particular alien would be right alongside these "better minds", incorporating her own knowledge and expertise to their efforts.

"I won't argue that the virus isn't dangerous, and I respect your desire to continue working on a cure," Karivnie said slowly, the pigment camouflaging her draining back beneath her skin and her posture relaxing as she spoke.

Her heart fluttered with excitement as she realized the opportunity offered her- she truly didn't know where this base of hers was, and she could in effect get paid twice without these agents being any the wiser if she were careful."But I'm afraid that I haven't the faintest idea where this Antares Base is. If you have any files that I could enter into my database so I can find it, then I would allow you to hire me for the ride."

She smiled gently at the woman, a surprising portion of the expression due to actual warmth for her rather than the friendly-merchant facade as she added, "I don't mean to overtax your resources in a time of emergency, but I must also require that the costs of food and fuel be included in my payment. This is a traveling merchant ship, after all, and I must consider this as a business expense." Her feathers continued to lighten cheerfully as the green-blooded merchant and the kindly heart lurking beneath her enterprising impulses held a mutual celebration at this new prospect.
"Do we have a bargain?" she asked, every trace of the cowering avian gone as she regarded Eve, once more a cloud-white and self-possessed K'mari merchant.