Saturday, October 20, 2007

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 6)

A few developments have made our escape much, much more of a pressing imperative than ever before. First I will tell you of something that is beginning to happen to us, physiologically, and then, more importantly, an event that occurred which will most likely benefit us more than anything has yet.

The vast majority of us are experiencing a slight shift in the coloring of our vision. We're all noticing it. Our peripheral views are becoming tinted with blackish purple - the same color as the urine we've been providing for our captors these past months. L2 Ensign Oiden was the first to report it and after actually paying attention to the outskirts of my field of view, I notice it too. It's very subtle yet certainly present. This fluffy, sand like crap their feeding us...appears to be changing the way that our eyes are taking in light. There is no other explanation except perhaps that the new additions to our cell (the femaliens) have something to do with it. We doubt that, however, as they are in no contact with us and pretty much keep to themselves.

I did uncover the satchel I've been hiding for presentment to our cell-mate femaliens. The leader - as I guess you could caller her that, judging from the size and hue of her blue skin markings - looked at it quizzically at first but then, after taking it from me, opened it with the most peculiar means I've ever seen. She placed the satchel on one of the beds we use and laid both her wrists on it, forming an 'x'. A 'click' was heard and the satchel was opened. I have never seen anything like this in my life. It's as if the key to the 'lock' on the satchel were not a key at all. Rather, these femaliens have a way of modifying energy fields at will, and as this container was secured by such an energy field, it was an easy task for them to complete. After 'she' had opened the satchel for me, she turned around and went back to being with those of her race. Apparently she had no interest in what was in the satchel. We however, certainly did.

I lifted the triangular, metal-like flap from over the energy lock and as I did so, could hear a certain whirring noise grow markedly louder. From inside the container I pulled a fist-sized piece of exactly what it was we needed. That goddamned crystal. Sure enough, a piece of 'fluff crystal' was inside that satchel. It makes a machine-ish sort of sound all on it's own and since we've been studying it, we still cannot determine just where this noise is coming from. Frankly, I don't care what it looks, sounds, or smells like.

This crystal is going to be our ticket out of here.

Our next step is to set a date and time to attempt to get the hell out of here. We now have the means.

A few of us are wondering if the femaliens will join us. Personally I don't give a shit. They can stick around if they like or they can join us. It matters not. Me and my men will be gone in less than a week and I am 100% committed to this.

Once I firm up our plans I'll write again. After that, my next entry will be, hopefully, written from our bunker back at training quarter.

Astron Czissin, out.

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 5)

Just when I think things couldn't get any more bizarre around here, another incident happens that totally shifts my thoughts about this alien race keeping us hostage.

It's not enough that we're being trapped here on this dry, cracked planet for the purposes of urine collection. Now we have found ourselves in the company of an entirely other slew of humanoid creatures, all of them being female. Earlier today, just after our 5th serving of 'fluff', our cell doors slid open to reveal a group of decidedly human-like female beings. They all seemed just as shocked and dismayed as we were the day of our processing, and they were quite orderly and contained as they were led into their new home: here, next to us, in this goddamned prison on Ibitus 412N. They're quite tall for 'women' (I can't really consider them 100% human because their legs have 4 pivoted joint locations unlike our 3 and their skin is pockmarked with large, bluish brandings) but they certainly resemble us far more than our captors do.

Of course we all tried making conversation but as could be expected, they don't speak English. They do speak, but it's a kind of tinny, high pitched oscillation of tones more so than any language we would recognize. One of them looks a lot like a woman I knew back at training quarter. Her name was Clista Fawe and I remember receiving news of her death not long ago.

This development has somewhat moralized my men. A few of them have already tried to physically touch our new cell mates and their come-ons have been met with sharp rejection. L2 Ensign Listah received a kick-like attack to his side after trying to grab the rear end of one of them. I guess I can't blame them for trying...they haven't been in the company of women for over a year. Alas, since we're not able to communicate with these creatures and since they don't really show any kind of value to us or our cause of leaving this place, it's safe to say their arrival is more of marginal benefit than anything else.

I have been growing increasingly curious as to the contents of the satchel that was left behind by the guards the other day, when Klausen was removed. By the way, he still hasn't returned and just yesterday we held a brief memorial for him, complete with eulogy given by his Denstrolle co-pilot, L2 Ensign Oiden. Speaking of our Denstrolle fighters...we know they're near us and in good working order. The status tokens we all keep with us provide us with constant diagnostic updates as to their conditioning systems and functionality. As of recent, this sign of hope is really what's been keeping us faithful in our eventual escape. According to our tokens, our ships are less than 3 kilometers away and are all in fantastic shape.

Unfortunately I don't have much else to report. These 'femaliens' (as they're now affectionately termed by us) are keeping to themselves and their cryptic chatter can be heard even now.

I think tomorrow I'm going to present the satchel to our new company, in hopes that they might instinctively know what to do with it. I know it's a long shot but I exhausting all possibilities of advancing toward a break out of here.

Astron Czissin, out.

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 4)

Well, another one of us has made his way out of our cell. It looks like a few more might do the same, but not for good reason.

Before I finished writing last, L1 Ensign Klausen started complaining of feeling ill. At first he was coughing up thick wads of blood, phlegm and fluff mixture but soon it became tinged with bile, something I immediately identified - having had a bout with my gall bladder myself a long time ago. He was complaining of cramps and weakness while growing increasingly pale. Before too long he was passing in and out of consciousness and this is when I decided to flag down the guards.

It's interesting how this all happened when it did. When the guards came in to take Klausen away, the rest of us had a long, hard look at what they were carrying. This time there was no gurney sort of contraption used to take away the afflicted, no. It was a bag...a transparent one, with a kind of magnetic closure on it and a vent at the top to allow for breathing. We were motioned to stand clear of his body which was, at this point, lying lifeless on the metal floor of our room. We watched diligently as the ET's carefully placed Klausen into the bag, closed it, and together hoisted him up and out of sight.

It's been about 2 days since we last saw him and we're pretty sure he's not coming back. We can't think of a good reason why they'd keep a living one of us anywhere else but here, unless Klausen provided some sort of utility to them that the rest of us did not. Were they going to kill him? Is he already dead? Don't we fucking deserve to know what's happening to us? What if his sickness is a result of this substance we're being fed? I guess it doesn't make much sense to ask questions as we're not understood here anyway.

The count now is 47, excluding me. A few of the men are complaining of symptoms similar to what Klausen experienced but so far they haven't become a real threat. I'm quickly losing patience and am starting to wonder if we're going to ever get out of here.

On a positive note, one of the guards left a small satchel behind it after coming to take Klausen away. Since the guard hasn't returned to reclaim it, we're going to hide it from sight for now, until we can figure out how to get it open. It's sealed tightly by a kind of powered lock - there is a slight humming that can be heard inside it. We must find a way to break it open.

I'm going to get some sleep. Once things change, I'll write more.

Astron Czissin, out

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 3)

It's been a few days since I've written anything down. Today marks day number 89 since our capture. Because the cycle of 'daylight' on this planet is so screwy (they see about 3 days of light for every one of dark) we're using one of the L1 Ensign's timepieces to keep tabs. Since we were taken captive during a recon patrol on Colandron (part of the Saiin Cluster), we've been locked in this containment cell for the purpose of piss harvesting.

But, as I've written before, it's not really even piss that comes out anymore. It's like a mix cough syrup and cake batter and it's color and smell are both stomach-turning. Everything else about our bodies seems to be functioning perfectly. One on my team here even remarked that he feels better physically than he has in all his days growing up back on Earth.

Anyway. We're stuck here now and after a few discussions with some of the L3's I believe we have a sort of plan of exit. I don't want to get into too much detail because we still have yet to decide how we're going to get a few of the things we need to get out of here. The general idea is this: because of what Gladlock saw in his trip outside of our cell, we can safely assume that the vapor released by the combination of our piss and that strange crystal totally incapacitates these aliens, putting them in some state of seizure-like revelry. They lose cognizant control of their motor functions and just start flailing around, groping and spitting.

The thought is, if we can get a piece of that crystal somehow, and then lure a team of guards or two into our cell, drop some piss on the rock...booyah! Instant win over the enemy. Assuming this works, how we'll make our way out of this complex and back to our fighters is another concern altogether. A few of my men seem to think they have a general idea as to where our vessels are docked.

The other thing we haven't considered is what that vapor might do to us. Will it cause a similar reaction? Gladlock didn't report any sort of change in his equilibrium or senses and the vaporizing he saw was going on just a few yards away. Still, there are just too many variables to act on anything just yet. Another concern I have is procurement of some sort of weapon - all ours were confiscated upon processing. We do know every guard carries a baton-looking thing with barbs on the end.

Shit. One of my men is throwing up all over the place. This isn't pretty. I have to go.

Astron Czissin, out.

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 2)

It seems that boredom has gotten the best of us. Or at least, one of us.

L2 Group Ensign Gladlock decided he wanted to know just what this alien race wanted with our fluid waste (they've been harvesting our piss for weeks now, and all the while we've been kept quite healthy). He talked one of his buddies from training quarter into breaking one of his fingers, so that he might be transported to another part of the containment complex for medical assistance.

This of course, was assuming that our captors knew anything of human anatomy or for that matter true medical care.

Apparently it worked. After Gladlock convinced his one of his subordinates to snap his pinky finger 'like a graphite stick', the ensuing cry of pain (yes, it was quite authentic, I'd say) brought one of the guards straight to our holding cell. Gladlock was given the once over by the ET guard and was set on a long-ish gurney sort of mechanism on which he was rolled out of our view.

About 20 minutes went by before we saw him again. Amazingly, he had returned to us with his finger in perfect shape, bone healed and everything. There weren't even any calcium deposits that we could feel through his skin, indicating some sort of synthetic healing of his human bone.

After he was returned to us, we sat him down to hear his story about what the other annexes of this prison were like.

"I can't believe what I just saw," were his first words to us.

"First I was brought to a sort of elevator that was shaped like a Tarlan fighter but ultra-thin. It was like, powered by light or something. Very strange. Anyway, after a trip on that thing I was rolled through a a few partitions where I saw exactly what these things...these...creatures...are doing with our shit."

Of course, by shit he meant the purplish, sludgy, stinky piss our captors have been clamoring for during our stay here.

"At one point I was able to see through a glass-net sort of wall into a chamber where there must have been at least 50 of these ET's all huddled around a huge kind of crystal. It must have been at least 8 feet tall with rounded edges jutting out in all directions. Very bizarre, man."

Gladlock was flexing his hand while he spoke, still in amazement of how quickly they had repaired his finger.

"Anyway - one of them approached the crystal with a container of our shit and started pouring it on top. Then they all just stood there, completely still just like statues. Like they were waiting for something."

I knew everything he was saying was genuine. The size of his eyes as he talked was testament to this.

"As our piss came down on the crystal it started melting it. The fumes coming from it began to fill that room and it was then that the ET's just started going fucking BONKERS! I mean, they were shaking, flailing, smacking each other, I think I even saw a few fucking each other."

We were all transfixed on his story at this point.

"I didn't get to see anything else. The put my hand under this sort of lamp device which instantly reset and healed everything. I swear guys, the technology in this place is un-fucking-real."

Someone in the back announced, "Fuck man, I'm breaking my wrist. I wanna see that shit."

I told him he wasn't breaking anything and that we're going to find a way out of here. Exactly how that's to be done is my job to come up with but something has to give. I'll not have 48 of my best soldiers kept here just to piss in cups for some fucked up alien race.

Until my next entry.

Astron, out.

Here on Ibitus 412N (Part 1)

The urine comes out of us now like a thick, syrupy concoction one might find at the PX for the purpose of alleviating a bad cough or something.

When we piss it's not even like it used to be. It's more forced and it actually takes a lot of stomach muscle to get our fluid waste to leave our bodies. But that's how they want it. Evidently, and for reasons beyond us, this...solution...coming out of our dicks is like gold to them. Interestingly, it doesn't even resemble gold or even yellow as it once did. It's a purplish, tarry kind of color and my god does it smell. I'd liken the smell to a cross between rubber cement and menthol cigarettes. It's very strange.

They feed us 'the powder' every hour on the hour. The stuff actually tastes kind of good, like the meal substitute pastes you can get on Zalhfar (though not exactly). Perhaps they engineered it so it would be easy for us to like? Who knows. What's most interesting about what they're feeding us is that it doubles as hydration. The moment the powder (also called 'fluff' by some of the others) hits the tongue, it kind of multiplies itself into about four times its volume in fluid. For instance, it only takes about a teaspoon of fluff to get a whole mouthful of watery sustenance. And it goes down easy.

We don't feel hungry. It's the most bizarre situation I could have ever expected to find myself and my men in. Here we are, isolated and contained on Ibitus 412N and we're basically being used as catalysts for some kind of chemical conversion of fluff to, what we would call, piss.
And boy, do they cherish every drop. They monitor us so closely that if even a drop of our urine gets on our hands or on a wall of this cell, it's instantly contained and somehow added to the accumulated stash. We imagine they've got hundreds of gallons of it by now, the bastards. I mean, what kind of alien race kidnaps humans and contains them for the sole purpose of collecting their pee?

It's a good thing we were able to keep our personal effects during our processing. Though we're undoubtedly prisoners, we're at least being granted some of the comforts of home like this tablet I'm writing on and the keepsakes my team likes to have around. One of them even managed to smuggle in a few vials of High Serum. We've been having a good time with that, but only occasionally. We don't know how long we're going to be here and my distress beacons aren't being returned.
I'm feeling the urge to pass some of this shit through again so I'm going to have to wrap this up.

I'll write more when I can.

Astron, out.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Ode to Loki

As I type this, I am crying uncontrollably.

I have just given my dog away to a good friend of mine. Her name, my dog that is, is Loki. She is now owned by a good friend of mine, Catie.

Every day for the past 3 years I have come home to the most beautiful and eager face I've ever known. I have had many dogs in my life but Loki will go down in the record books as the kindest and most loving. That says a lot.

She is a black lab mix, afraid of thunder and lightening and always ready to bolt after a stray cat. I found her in the middle of a rainstorm while I was living in Brookhaven and since taking her in so long ago, I fell in love with her and am now dealing with the pain of having to let go.

I make no bones about not having many friends. I'm just kind of a loner I suppose. But I did let myself get attached to that dog and now my heart is aching like it never has in my life. The tears are falling and moistening my shirt's neckline. I am a hopeless case and it's all because of a 50 pound dog who, I know, is missing me right now just as much as I am missing her.

I know this is for the best. It has to happen if I am to make my move out west. I am giving up everything, AGAIN, to finally move to and make a life in Denver, Colorado.

The clock is ticking now. I have roughly three months to save up as much money as I can, load my car with clothes and head out with the wind in my hair and hope for a better life in my heart.

Goodbye, Loki. I love you and will cherish you always. Be a good dog.