Work Text:
Well.
The employee placed their hands square on their hips, staring out into the darkness. Their flashlight was good, sure, but not good enough to cut more than a few yards into the pitch black. They hit their shins into a steam pipe jutting out of the ground and hissed in pain.
They were lost, and all they had to show for it was a bit of sheet metal. They swept their light around them. “Hello?” they called out. No response. Just as they’d feared—they were too far away from their co-workers to be heard.
They figured they were already in so deep their best bet was to find a fire escape. For all the OSHA violations the facilities held, at least they had more than one exit.
So they squared their shoulders and marched into the unknown. They flicked their light off for a bit, saving the battery—the way ahead was just the same stale concrete, anyways. An exit would present itself eventually. They just had to be smart about it, wary of any distant sounds, aware of their surroundings—
Something in the distance thudded rapidly. They froze in place, not even having the sense to turn their light on to look around. Their heart leapt into their throat. What was that? Not a person running, it was too big.
Again, that thumping. Oh, no. Slowly, they reached out to either side of them and felt along the walls. The sound wasn’t too far away, but it was getting closer. They could not handle a thumper right now. They weren’t good at hitting things. They took a turn at random, walking blind.
Its distant, thundering steps drew closer, zig-zagging at random. Their breathing went shaky with fear, and they fumbled for the light. As long as they were careful. Just quick enough to turn it on and not run into a wall.
They turned their flashlight on, pointed low to the ground. It cast its sickly glow across pipes and concrete. They raised it, slowly, to catch the edges of turns.
A second light source prickled at their peripherals, and they turned quickly. Twin pinpricks of light vanished behind a corner, accompanied by swift, soft steps. “Oh,” they whispered. A bracken. Fantastic.
They crept backwards. They’d be fine! They vividly imagined the shipmaster yelling at the screen, watching them bumble through the dark, cursing their soul from afar for not taking a walkie. Maybe the shipmaster would shut any doors between them and the thumper! Yeah, maybe. And then they could just worry about the bracken, which was scary, but could at least be spooked off for a little while. A thumper, though…
Something behind them, far away, roared, followed by a deafening, louder and louder thud-thud-THUD.
They jumped and whipped around, holding the light high. It washed over that bracken, standing stock in the middle of the hall far back. It turned around, too. The leaves sprouting from its back rustled and twitched.
The thumper charging down the hall flattened that poor bracken like nothing.
They dropped their light, screamed, turned, and ran.
The thumper yowled when the light burned its keen eyes and it stumbled, slowed but not completely deterred. They didn’t look back, running forward. They had to get out. There had to be an escape somewhere—
A dead end. They cowered against the pipes, looking back at the thumper as it neared. It picked up some of its earlier speed, drooling. Its many jaws opened and shut with each heavy breath. It slowed near them.
They were so, so fucked. Sorry, shipmaster. Sorry, others, they thought. Their fault for straying from the group, some miserable lamb wandering doe-eyed to the wolves. They held their single sheet of metal in front of them like a shield. Their oxygen tanks clinked against the pipes. Cornered.
A thin, pathetic noise escaped them, muffled and tinny from their helmet. The glass fogged up with their breathing. The thumper crept closer, snuffling loudly at them. They shuddered when its snout bumped up against the warped sheet.
Their legs were shaking so badly they had to sit down. Besides, if it was going to kill them, getting disemboweled would probably take a lot longer to kill them than just biting their head off their shoulders. The thumper grumbled, pushing against the sheet. They whimpered.
Nothing terrible happened.
The thumper just snuffled at the sheet, nudging past it to bonk their leg. It didn’t even try biting their foot off! The jaws around the sides of its face fluttered open and closed over its face, narrowing its field of view like horse blinders. It yawned, baring all its teeth.
They slowly set the sheet down. It thunked against the concrete, where the thumper sniffed at it. “Hey…?” they began. Then, they remembered thumpers were deaf. It continued bonking into them.
It bumped into their helm a little roughly, knocking their head back against a copper pipe. Their oxygen gear clinked against itself. On reflex, they raised a hand and sent it square on the thumper’s stout. Its huge, black eyes stared at them, eye-level with them sitting cross-legged on the floor.
They rubbed its snout and gently pushed it back, discouraging its headbutting. This close, they saw each terse muscle under rubbery flesh. Each fine movement of readjusting for its own balance, shifting its weight from arm to arm, rocking ever so slightly. It tilted its head at them.
Even with their work gloves on, they felt the rough texture of its skin, like a hundred tiny teeth. Scales? They couldn’t remember what these things evolved from. They stroked the top of its head. It chittered and pushed up against their hand.
A high, nervous, titter escaped them. “Good doggy,” they mumbled, half-delirious with trying to wrap their head around the situation. They lowered their hand to its chin and scratched it there, earning a low rumble. Purring? They felt every breath move through its throat, warming their palm. Its eyes drew in all light, pitch black like the darkness of the halls.
They lifted their other hand to rub its pointed cheek. They felt along the edges of its jaws. What were they, again? Not real jaws, though they were reddish on the inside and had sharp pointed edges. They were sort of hinged at the base, not unlike some skeletons they’d seen in old earth books. Specialized gills? Their ancestors had been aquatic, hadn’t they?
The thumper lowered itself to the ground and rolled over onto its back, exposing its barrel chest and belly. They reached out but then hesitated, pulling their hands back. Maybe it was like a cat, and it’d bite their hand off if they touched its stomach?
It chirped at them and wriggled in place, thick claws pawing at the air. They reached out, slowly. It batted at their hand with no force behind it, and kept making that chirruping sound. Their wise restraint evaporated.
They planted a single gloved hand square on its middle. The thumper wiggled some more. They rubbed its belly. Very awkwardly, because the thing was as big as they were, and did not like to sit still. But they did rub its belly. It was thin below the chest. Was it hungry?
It thumped them in the face with one paw, claws scraping over their helm material. They flinched back and it, thankfully, withdrew. They scratched under its jaw some more. “You’re just a big dog,” they told it. It blinked its huge eyes at them. “You’re not gonna hurt me, right?”
They laughed a little. Big dog! Not even the scary eyeless kind! They shifted onto their knees, leaning over it.
An alert popped up on the inside of their visor, warning that it was getting late. They looked down at the sheet of scrap, dented from the thumper having one powerful forelimb pressed onto it, and half-stuck under its wiggling body. “I’m coming,” they mumbled to nobody.
“Okay, um. I have to go,” they told it. Not that it knew. But it did twist its head and right itself when they stood up. They stepped back. “My crew’s probably worried.” Or they thought they were already dead, seeing them so close to a big red dot on the terminal for so long.
It craned its head up to follow them. They rubbed behind its head, just around its muscular neck and the base of its many jaws. It was sort of cute when it wasn’t trying to stop them to death with its hooves. And it made really cute noises. Though, it did look uncanny when it moved, muscles straining and vacuum-sealed skin stretching in ways its ancestors could never have dreamed of. It made a quiet skff-skff-skff sound when it moved, as its tiny flesh-colored scales scraped over each other.
When they shuffled past the thumper, it followed. They quietly picked up their scrap metal, even when it bit lightly at the corner. They tugged a little, and it tugged back. With a sigh, they gave it up. It wasn’t worth much, for all the trouble they’d gone through.
The thumper chewed on it with its many teeth. They patted it one last time. Sad to leave it behind, yes, but they really had to find a way out before their crew was forced to leave at midnight. So they found where they’d dropped their light—it’d still been on the entire time, damn it! They turned it off to save some battery. They picked a direction and took a step into the dark. They’d get out just fine! They had a couple hours.
Thump-thump-thump.
They looked back at the thumper trotting after them. “No, no, you can’t come with me.” They tried to shoo it off with their hand. The sound of it following them set off fight or flight urges in their head. They backed up and stepped on what was left of that bracken. “Fuck!”
Based on the sounds it was making, clicking and twitching, it was alive, and still just laying there, rather dusty. Its leaves crunched underfoot. “Sorry.” They stepped over it.
The thumper was not as kind, crunching right over its back to happily follow them.
“You can’t come. Go on,” they said even as they let it follow them through a doorway. They could’ve shut the door on it, and maybe that would’ve deterred it, and maybe it would’ve broken it off its hinges like they’d seen countless other thumpers do. But that was just rude! This thumper had been nothing but sweet.
They absentmindedly patted it when it came up to their side. It was really cute. And it looked at them with such big, dark eyes, its tongue poking out of its mouth…
They squinted at the dull light ahead of them, and they turned their light on. Cautiously, they stepped over grated catwalks, their thumper close behind. It snuffled at everything they passed, looking this way and that with its large, keen eyes.
“Yippee,” they whispered to themself when they came across a fire escape, promising safety with a comforting red glow. They reached out to the push bar.
Behind them, the thumper just looked at them, waiting for them to continue on. “Go home?” their voice tipped up at the end, inquiring. It was pretty clear it wasn’t going to leave them alone. They’d feel bad just… slamming the fire escape door in its face.
Well. They weren’t the first person on the ship to ask for a pet.
So, slowly, they pushed the door open.
It was nighttime, pitch black. They really had to get a move on. The thumper wriggled past them to step outside, and immediately started nosing around in the grass, warbling. Had it ever been outside before? It looked up at the stars and skittered forward, then back, zig-zagging around them excitedly. It barked.
“Shh!” they heard a distant howl.
When the thumper tried to dart past them again, they knelt and quickly took its big face in their hand. They clamped its maw shut. “Shhhh,” they repeated, though it couldn’t hear them. Dogs. They held up their finger to their helmet, signaling to be quiet, for good measure.
The thumper opened its mouth. They reached down and pushed its lower jaw back up. Click, shut. They nodded and scratched its chin in approval.
March was a nightmare at night. Slowly, they tip-toed through the grass. It took them a moment to orient themself, before picking a direction that looked promising. The thumper stayed close. It kept looking around, though, whipping around this way and that. They leaned down to press their free hand to its head, stroking down its back in soothing, even strokes. The thumper stayed quiet. Maybe it felt the vibrations of distant dogs, or giants, or a leviathan.
They pointed their light up, catching the silhouette of their ship. They perked up and picked up the pace. The stars glittered, and the dim ship’s light lit the surrounding space.
They came up to the ship’s back and hauled themself up the ladder with a huff. The thumper scrambled up against it, creaking muscle against metal. They tucked the metal sheet under their arm and reached down, letting it wriggle and clutch to their arms. The fabric of their suit held strong against it, as the thumper pulled itself onto the balcony. It seemed twitchy, maybe nervous? There were a lot of new sights for it to see. They rubbed its head.
Something moved between the trees far away, large and hulking. They scurried to the front of the ship, thumper loudly thumping behind.
The front of the ship was open, stale white lights washing over them to much relief. But just as they took a step in, another of their own crew leapt out from behind a cabinet, wielding a shovel.
They froze, uttered, “Oh, you’re not a mimic,” relaxed for a fraction of a second, and then they saw the thumper behind them and screamed.
“Don’t—!” They lunged and slammed a hand over their companion’s whole visor, doing nothing to muffle the shriek of terror. The thumper wandered in, deaf to the screaming, and sniffed at their companion. “If you hit the thumper I’m going to hit you.”
“I’m not moving,” they whimpered, stiff as a coil-head.
Behind them, they saw their two other friends, huddled against the terminal. One held, of all things, a stun grenade. Wow, they really thought they’d gone and gotten their face melted off, huh? “Hi.”
“I’m about to be the next one to scream,” one of them squeaked. Not that far away, they heard heavy steps. A giant? Dogs? It sounded like more than one thing. They lurched forward, past the thumper shockingly fearlessly, to slam their fist against the door button. It hissed shut.
The thumper arched its back against them as it passed by. It greeted them each, sniffling and nipping harmlessly. It nipped at an engine someone had hauled in and shoved against the wall. It tried to wiggle under the control desk, then turned around, bumped into the terminal, and meandered back to the door.
“I got some sheet metal.” They held up their find and then dropped it, letting it clatter loudly to the floor. The thumper’s head nosed past their legs to nibble at the metal’s edge.
“Just that?” their shipmaster asked mildly, as if they weren’t clutching a stun grenade. Frankly, they sounded half-dead.
The thumper shuffled circles around them, and then rolled over for more belly rubs. They got down on one knee to pet it. “Yeah.”
“And you’re just going to keep that?”
“Uh-huh.” They rubbed its chin. “You try kicking it out of the ship.” Especially since they heard eyeless dogs nearby. They wouldn’t risk opening the doors again.
They threw their arms into the air. “Your fault if we die.”
“Uh-huh.”
Oblivious to the staredown, the thumper just panted happily, wiggling across the floor, pawing at the cabinet doors and miscellaneous objects gathered. The shipmaster pressed the lever to get the ship off the ground. The whole structure hummed. The thumper paused at the feeling, and looked around, surveying all the crew. They kept one hand on it, petting soothing lines down its neck, until it settled back down. Nothing to worry about.
“So,” one began, idly messing with their oxygen tubing to keep their hands busy. “Can we pet it?”