Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

I'm killing them

Dear Journal,

I'm killing them.

I don't know what to do.

I'm . . . scared.

Shit.

The experiments weren't going well, at least that was what I assumed. After all, I'd been lying on this freakishly uncomfortable bed almost non-stop for what seemed like weeks now, and the scientists that were studying me didn't seem to be doing anything different from what they had done the first day they started studying me. I think the grey Yoda was the lead researcher, and I think he was mad at me. Any injections I needed to be given were administered by him, and for a lead medical researcher he either didn't know how to use a needle to save his life or he made it as painful as possible on purpose. My arm hated him. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a grunt.

And despite all of their tireless work, little progress was being made. I'd fall asleep to their working in the lab and would awake to them doing the same thing. I don't know much about research, but I think finding a cure requires more than just enjoying the show as the disease in question kills all the cells on your test slide. I guess we had more time than most situations like this one, but the researchers could have at least tried to look as though they were in a time crunch.

The reason we had more time had come as something of a shock to me. I had been in my special little room for so long I hadn't really seen how the rest of the crew had been faring. I was finally allowed to stretch my legs, which was an arduous process as it required everyone to put on hazmat suits before I left my room, and I saw that nearly every single member of the crew were sealed in little pods along the wall. I didn't need to be told what the pods where. I could see from the condensation on the lids that it was cold inside, and yet I couldn't see any of my crew members breath. They'd been put in cryo to keep them alive while the cure was found. The only crew member not in cryo was Mama. Coincidence, that.

It was the sight of the condition the rest of the crew was in that gave me the will to lie still for hours on end as the mechanism in my bed beeped and whirred, gathering information on me of a nature that I couldn't even begin to fathom. It also helped me scarf down the nutrient supplements they'd been giving me. I felt better, and I assumed that meant they'd figured out what my body needed, but they could have at least made them taste better, right? After the second week of virtually nothing happening, my worst fears were confirmed when Mama had a heated conversation with the grey Yoda. The tones suggested that Mama was angry at the lack of progress, or perhaps was accusing the Yoda of intentionally slowing down the process. I wasn't as used to the Yoda's tones as I was to Mama's but I could tell he was denying it.

The research assistant to the Yoda, a white-alpha-giraffe (that's what I called the not blue-giraffes that almost looked like blue-giraffes) seemed to stay out of the argument, but if I were a betting man - I actually am but that's none of your business - I would have put everything on him being guilty. Then there was the other lab assistant. He was an oddly shaped fellow, with green scales for skin and six limbs: three legs and three arms. He looked like a lopsided lizard-ant crossover, hence the name I gave his species: lizard-ant. He was the only one of my researchers I didn't trust. He had a shifty look about him if I'd ever seen one, and I whenever he was in my room alone he would work with machines I'd never seen the other researchers touch, but only when they weren't in the room.

I know it's odd to say that I actually trusted a Yoda over the lizard-ant, named Shifty, but it was true. Sure, Good-Yoda was a jerk, but he was an honest jerk as far as I could tell. He hated me because I had nearly bashed his skull apart. I could understand and respect that. After all, I couldn't talk to him and apologize. Shifty, on the other hand, legitimately seemed to hate me, but he only expressed it in looks. I assumed they were threatening looks, as they made my skin crawl when he gave them to me and I was the only one I'd seen him use them on. I couldn't really find a solid reason for why I disliked him, it's just a vibe I got, but hey, I'd gotten a similar if more honest vibe from Severus and I'd been pretty spot on as far as I could tell, so I decided to go with my instincts. If they weren't able to detect danger, then what were they good for anyway?

After what happened at that station I decided I should listen to my instincts more often.

"You aren't even trying! You've done nothing but stare at your damn test slides since we've been here while my family is dying! You're telling me you haven't discovered anything of use? You have the most sophisticated equipment the galaxy can offer you and yet you can't figure out how one little being's immune system works despite having a machine that can literally give you live video of it doing it's job??!!" Xkkrk knew she was shouting, but she didn't care. She had discovered the true nature of these "researchers" work several days ago, although she hadn't let on that she knew. In essence, the plight of her crew had been put on the back burner, if not completely discarded as insignificant, as the "security risk that this species represents to the rest of the sapient life in the galaxy is investigated". Essentially, nothing had been done for her crew. The science crew of the "hospital" only seemed to want to understand how to make Cqcq'trtr bleed.

She could foresee the use of such research in a coldly logical way, but it was wrong to do it without Cqcq'trtr's permission and especially immoral when her crew was frozen in cryo so they wouldn't die while these scientists attempted to find a vulnerability in Cqcq'trtr's physical and immunological physiology. She could say without a trace of guilt that she was glad they were as frustrated on that front as she was with them. From what she could tell, they hadn't managed to inflict anything but a mild response from Cqcq'trtr's immune system, and physical scans had revealed that he probably could survive several shots from an anti-tank gun.

The memories of those discoveries brought a cold smile to Xkkrk's face as the Corti explained to her why they really did have her crew's well-being in mind, and how their work was essential to saving their lives. It had been near the end of the first ricta (1.5 weeks) when the entire research station had been shocked to find that Cqcq'trtr had bones composed of a mix of what the scientists told her was hydroxyapatite, calcium phosphate, and a protein they'd never seen before, but Cqcq'trtr seemed to have in abundance. The apparently a similar mix, except a different protein, had recently been proposed for use in the exoskeleton structure of a new generation of combat harnesses for use in the ongoing war with the Celzi alliance, but the idea had ultimately been rejected when it was discovered that the costs to actually find and mine that much calcium would have put the Dominion in debt. This creature seemed to have one of the proposed exosuits built into him, rather than the galactically standard skeletal system composed of silica based composite.

Not even mentioning his bone structure, his muscles were a study in compacted death hardened in high-gravity and then with a little chaos thrown in. Xkkrk hadn't understand most of the things the researchers had been saying as they enumerated the destructive and defensive capabilities Cqcq'trtr's muscles afforded him, but from what she understood they were laughably simple in their composition, except that this simplicity allowed them to be stronger than any living organism in the known galaxy.

From what she understood the only way his skeletal muscles could move was by contracting. Since this afforded an extremely limited range of motion, he required an astounding 650 of them just to give his body the range of motion of a normal organism, as opposed to the average number of about 150. Because they were so simple, however, and their movement so restricted, they were able to be composed of extremely rigid materials which aligned themselves into an interlocking polymer mesh that was nearly impossible to break, explaining Cqcq'trtr unfathomable durability. The potential energy able to be contained within them was astounding, and made Xkkrk wonder if he'd even been trying when he'd protected them from Ztrkx.