Chapter 9 Xalkak

"The specimen seems to have the nanos contained within its body. It is unknown if destroying them will have negative effects on its body."

Dustin opened his eyes, and saw that there was a human man standing in front of him. His black skin contrasted sharply against the white of his uniform. The man's eyes seemed strange though, as Dustin studied him. They were a pearly white. He had never seen human eyes that looked like that.

"The specimen is waking up. Prepare to transfer it to the holding tank until final destination is reached," came a woman's voice.

Dustin saw a woman, wearing the same white uniform, approach the tank he was in. Her skin was more of a pale color, maybe Asian? He wasn't sure if that was even a viable option anymore, but noticed her eyes were the same pearly white as the man's had been.

Both of them had strange silver implants on their foreheads, above their eyebrows. Dustin wondered if they were some kind of implants.

"Transfer will commence in five, four, three," the man's voice droned.

Dustin felt a tug near the bottom of his tank, and looked down to see an opening form. The strange fluid he had been floating in, rushed through it, and he was pulled through. The panic he expected never came as he flowed through a series of short tubes into another clear glass cylinder.

"The transfer is complete. Prepare for lockdown for warp sequence."

The woman moved to type something into the console by his holding tank, and Dustin finally started to think. The panic was still missing, but he was no longer just observing. Where was he? Hadn't he been captured by the Uvojic? Who were these humans, or human lookalikes? Where were they taking him?

'PED, initiate evolution to anything that can get me out of this tube!'

(NEGATIVE, ALL EVOLUTION CAPABILITIES ARE BEING SUPPRESSED BY AN OUTSIDE SOURCE. ALL ATTEMPTS TO NEGATE THE SUPPRESSION HAVE MET WITH FAILURE.)

'Time to go into overdrive!'

(OVERDRIVE WILL ONLY ALLOW ONE EVOLUTION BEFORE SHUTDOWN AND REBOOT IS COMPLETED.)

Dustin floated in the tank as the two humans moved away, towards the door thinking hard about what he wanted to change into. They were moments away from leaving when he made up his mind.

(EVOLUTION OVERDRIVE INITIATED.)

If he could have screamed, he would have as pain coursed through Dustin's entire body. The overdrive feature he had programed into the PED was to be used only in the most dire circumstances.

Lights began to flash on the console outside his tank, and the two humans turned to see what was going on. As soon as his crystal fist had formed, he punched the glass as hard as he could, forming cracks. The second punch broke through, and he washed out onto the floor in a rush of warm liquid and glass shards. There was a brief cry from both of the people before they fell to the floor dead.

(EVOLUTION COMPLETE. SHUTDOWN AND REBOOT WILL NOW COMMENCE.)

Silence filled his had as Dustin stood up. He had his crystal lizardman form. He could survive in space for a short time, if he had to, but he hoped he could find an escape pod. Moving over to a console against the wall, he tried to see if he could pull up anything, but the liquid from his tank had fried it.

A quick trip down the hall and he found another room, that was empty, with a console that worked. The ship had jumped into warp, but he couldn't see where they were heading. If he wanted to get the ship out of warp, without going to the bridge, he needed to cause enough damage to it, that it came out of warp with emergency protocols. There were escape pods by the engine room, so that became his destination.

Thankfully the ship was understaffed and not very big, because he made it to the engine room without encountering anyone. The single man who was in the engine room, looked very surprised to see him, but Dustin picked him up and threw him at the fancy engines. The resulting spark storm and alarms were more than sufficient to make the ship drop out of warp.

Feeling accomplished, Dustin stepped into one of the escape pods. As it sealed, he pulled up a schematic of the nearest habitable planets. Choosing the closest, which was covered heavily in forest and jungle, he hit the button that evacuated him from the ship.

"Unknown occupant, you do not have the authority to steal this vessel. All attempts will be made to recover it and prosecute you for theft, per the Xalkak code."

He ignored the automatic message, and whoever the Xalkak were, and focused on the approaching planet. It was green from all of the plant life, and for a moment he was hit with déjà vu from the death world he had been dumped on. The flames that licked along the outside of the pod didn't warm up the interior, which was a huge upgrade from the pod he had been shot at the death planet in.

'PED?'

There was no answer, which meant it wasn't done rebooting. This was going to be annoying.

As it flew over a lake, he saw that it was going to crash into a group of trees. It was time to jump ship. Slamming his hand down on the emergency hatch release, the door opened and he found himself racing towards the water. He sincerely hoped there weren't any killer squids or razer toothed monstrosities in the water.

Pain coursed through him as he bounced along the water once, then sunk like a rock. Hitting bottom, he immediately tried to swim to the top, but the gravity of this world made that very difficult. Getting to the surface just long enough to grab a gulp of air, he sunk again and began to struggle towards shore.

Three more gulps and he was in water shallow enough to walk along. The trees in front of him, where the escape pod had crashed, were on fire, giving off enough heat to make it too warm for him to get fully on shore. This was going to be very annoying.