Cuddlefish

A Parallel Story in the Kidnpping is Always an Option Universe (wow, what a mouthful)

A summary is in the description box below.

Written by: RamblingRobin and MichiTheThird

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The petite Sepida bolted down the hall, dragging his slightly larger and definitely slower Nubra friend behind him. They ducked behind a corner and froze. Their lungs heaved, causing their secondary gills to flare, searching for more oxygen.

"Pip, I..." the inky-skinned Nubra whispered.

"Tilly, shh!" the Sepida gasped, peering around the corner. His wide eyes flashed an alarmed black as their pursuers spotted him. "Oh damn, run!" Pip yelped.

They scurried off again, dodging down tunnels and access hatches that left them utterly lost in the aging spaceport.

And the Hunnars were gaining on them.

"We should split up," Pip panted as they raced down an empty hall. "They aren't after you. They're chasing me."

"No way are we splitting up!" Tilbei countered, feeling his heart drop at the very idea. "How could you ask that of me? I'm your best friend!"

"That's why I'm suggesting it, knucklehead!" Pip shot back as they hauled ass around a corner. "You are my best friend. I don't want you to get hurt because of me...Ugh, this is all my fault!"

"It's not your fault that those damn Hunnars are looking to make quick cash with your pee!" Til huffed, all of the orange areas on his body glowing.

"It's not pee!" Pip stated with great affront. "It's a complex organic base with a wide range of neurological effects... that happens to be secreted from a gland that coincidentally empties into my urethra during pre-ejaculation, ejaculation, and urination!"

"Fine! Your special pee, then!" Tilly insisted, his orange parts glowing brighter in embarrassment.

"Argh!" Pip was distracted from any further arguments by the sight of a door next to a mountainous pile of scrap junk. The Sepida thought fast. "Quick, Tilly! In there! I'm right behind you!"

"Are you kidding me?" The Nubra questioned indignantly. "The scrap heap?"

"The door, dammit!"

Pip didn't waste more time explaining, flinging the door wide and shoving his black and orange friend inside. He was about to join Tilbei when he heard something behind him. His skin flashed a terrified black as he saw three Hunnars barreling toward him. He took a moment to look at his friend.

"I'll get away and come back!" Pip whispered desperately. "I promise!"

"Pip! SHIT!" Tilly hissed as his best friend slammed the door closed, sealed him in from the outside, and ran off without him. He slammed his hands balled into fists against it and whimpered. "Shit!"

There was no time to hide, to camouflage himself. The Hunnars were right behind him, their grunts and shouts spurring the Sepida to sprint until his legs burned with the effort. As he slid widely around yet another corner he recognized where he was, not far from the docking bays.

He raced forward, ignoring the growing number of people in his way as he dodged and spun around them, startling more than a few. Those same people were then bowled over by the pursuing Hunnars. It slowed them down, but not by much. When Pip reached the dock for his ship he slammed his palm against the registration pad, his head swiveling to peer behind him.

They were close! So close! Too damn close!

He felt a prickling tingle against his palm before the big hatch slowly slid open. He squeezed through before it finished its sluggish movement, banging desperately on the button just inside as soon as he could reach it.

The heavy metal door ground to a halt and began its lumbering slide back to its starting position. Pip's pale skin and wide eyes flickered black and gray as he watched in horror as the Hunnars barreled toward him. They were reaching for the hatch, arms outstretched. As a safety measure against people losing fingers, toes, or limbs; the door would automatically reopen if anything obstructed it.

It thudded closed just as his pursuers were a hair from touching it.

Pip huddled for a moment, gasping in the docking tube, but he didn't have time to melt down. The Hunnars would find a way through that hatch. Pip had to get out of there. He could lose the Hunnars and circle back to pick up Tilbei, who would no doubt be cursing a blue streak when he saw him.

The Sepida straightened and hurried down the tube. He quickly boarded his ship and rushed to the little two-man bridge. His fingers flew over the controls. In minutes that felt like hours, his small ship was pushing off into space.

He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a blip popped up on his sensors. He tapped it, letting out a terrified squeak as an image of a Hunnar ship popped up in front of him.

They were still chasing him.

"Stubborn bastards," Pip hissed as he tapped the controls.

"Good day, Pipolphi," a smooth computerized voice greeted him. "How can I help you?"

"Get me out of here," Pip begged. "As fast as you can!"

"The nearest planet is 20,000 miles away." The computer pointed out.

"Dammit," Pip hissed, his eyes on the image of the approaching Hunnar ship. They'd be close enough to grab him with their claspers in no time. "How long til we can jump?"

"A jump requires ten minutes to activate." The computer responded. "My protocol urges me to warn of the dangers of space jumps. Being charged by Lorthian Crystals, space jumps are incalculable and dangerous."

"I don't have ten minutes!" Pip shouted. "I need to jump in..." He quickly calculated in his head his speed and trajectory compared to that of the Hunnar ship using the numbers flashing on his display. "Two and a half minutes!"

"The fastest activation time is five minutes if shields are sacrificed for power." The computer replied.

"Is there any way to activate faster?" Pip asked desperately.

"Five minutes is the fastest time for a ship of this caliber." The computer insisted.

"I need a way to keep away from the Hunnar ship chasing us long enough for a jump."

"If thrusters are reversed promptly, this ship will slip beneath the Hunnar ship...confuses Hunnar radar briefly." The computer suggested.

"Sacrifice shields for power, initiate jump activation protocols, and do the reverse thruster thingy!" Pip yelled, leaning back in his seat as though that would somehow keep him away from the quickly approaching Hunnars.

The computer did as instructed, hovering the ship just beneath the Hunnar's mammoth of a ship for the remaining three minutes. "Please prepare for space jump, Captain Pipolphi. In 9, 8, 7..." The computer instructed.

However, the Hunnars finally began to realize that the Sepida's ship did not go into a space jump and was hiding underneath. They maneuvered their tummy ache ship to the side and shot several rounds towards the smaller ship just as it finally made the jump.

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As Zane was all but slammed down off his hammock, he let out a curse and nearly peed himself a bit. What had felt like an earthquake but a moment before had come to an abrupt stop. "What the hell?" He hissed as he clambered to his feet and dusted himself off. He took a few steps outside hesitantly and let out a sigh of relief when he realized that, at least, it hadn't been a hurricane.

The human hopped onto the beach sand and looked out into the water. Not a storm in sight, and most definitely not a volcano. When his gaze fell onto his shed, however, he let out another curse. "Holy shit!" The broken pieces of wood were strewn along the sand in a long line as if a giant's hand had smashed his shed and then smeared the pieces forward.

A calm disembodied voice announced something in a language he couldn't make heads or tails of. The former Olympic gymnast had heard dozens of languages over the years from Russian to Rotokas. It was nothing he'd ever heard before. He had a fleeting thought that the strange words were kind of pretty, smooth and musical with soft clicks on some words that reminded Zane of a language he'd heard in Africa once.

The big man staggered backward as a loud hiss was followed by a metallic clunk. Where there had been empty air a moment before, what looked like a large doorway stood a few feet above the wreckage that had been his shed. The air seemed to flicker. Something matte black and about the size of a bus appeared, the strange doorway slotted into its side. It disappeared and reappeared a few times before flitting out of existence again, leaving the disembodied door hanging in the air. A red light flashed from inside, and he heard the grating buzz of an alarm. The voice came again, fainter and apparently coming from inside the doorway.

As Zane walked inside, his slate gray eyes widened at the sight of the inside of a spaceship. The scenery kept flickering from visible to invisible on the inside, and he felt his stomach plummet with every flicker, as it somehow caused him to feel a sense of vertigo. From the brief glimpses of it, he could tell that it was at least the size of a bus. "Is anyone in here?" He asked cautiously.

He heard a soft moan, followed by that strange, indecipherable voice again. It sounded like someone was hurt. Zane put aside his inner turmoil at a goddamn whatever it was, crashing on top of his shed and followed his ears.

He was grateful when the interior stopped disappearing before his eyes if only to save himself from running into walls. He had to hunch slightly as well. The ceilings were low. Honestly, the inside kind of reminded him of an upscale tour bus. It wasn't very wide, but there was room for what looked like it might be three bunk areas with privacy curtains. A table with benches, couches, and chairs and lots of flashing video screens filled most of the space. He didn't see anyone around.

There was another door ahead of him that seemed to be the origin of the flashing red light. That was his destination.

His eyes widened when he ducked through the short doorway. Where the rest of the ship had looked oddly normal, the room he stepped into looked straight out of a sci-fi movie. Weird floating displays flashed everywhere. Banks of indecipherable controls displayed unfamiliar strings of shapes that might have been words in a language he didn't know. Everywhere, things were flashing and beeping.

In the middle of the small room, there was a chair facing away from him. A pale-skinned arm hung limply over one armrest. Something dark and wet dripped from the tips of the fingers. It looked like blood.

As the human approached, he realized it was green-blue blood. The alien, and it was most definitely an alien, was hauntingly beautiful. But, Zane couldn't waste any time staring at it. Instead, he carefully lifted the petite body into his arms and rushed out of the ship before the invisibility began to flash again. He heard something slide closed behind him and when he peered over his head, he noted that the entire ship could no longer be seen from the outside.

"Shit!" He hissed as he carefully laid the creature onto a cot. On the weekends he usually gave surfing lessons to local kids, so he always had to have first aid on-hand.

Zane quickly thudded the toolbox he used for his kit next to the cot before rushing to the sink. He washed his hands and wetted a clean cloth. The dark-haired man knelt next to the cot and looked the creature over to figure out where the bleeding was worst. A gash on the alien's temple looked worst, so he started there.

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(a/n: I recently figured out how to insert images within novel chapters...below is how RamblingRobin envisioned Pipolphi. She designed and drew it; and I colored it how I imagined his color shifting to look like.)