Through Dangerous Times

Break Through Or Break Out?

The pair woke up in strange synchronised form, both coming to their senses at the same time, turning over and looking each other in the eyes. They were wrapped in the sheets of the bed, Cait's hand placed on Barry's bare chest, his arm wrapped around, Caitlin's face buried in Barry's shoulder. She looked up at his face, with an incredibly cute expression, small smile on her face and her cheeks glowing a soft crimson, causing Barry to similarly blush. 

"Morning," Barry said, followed by a deep breath, making his grip around Caitlin slightly stronger, causing her to smile back.

"Morning," she moaned, both of them sliding out of bed and slipping into some clothes before the pair released each other from the other's grip and went their separate ways to get changed and up and ready for the day.

After around fifteen minutes, they met again in the corridor, linking hands as they headed over to the labs, having just received a message from Cisco telling them to head up there, as soon as possible. They proceeded to head towards the elevator and take it up to the command ring.

The report of extra-terrestrial life had recently become very widespread news back on Earth, it was featured in every news report, every article, every writer including it in their pieces. It was news that simply wouldn't die down, as expected, as it is quite obviously a huge piece of news. Over the past few days, rapid messages were constantly coming back from NASA, telling them on how and what to do with the organism, how to handle it, etcetera. In this time, the being had now grown to have a 'limb-span' of roughly the size of a fairly large softball, having grown significantly over time. The rate of growth was still astonishingly high, the 70/30 cell division of muscle and brain keeping consistent. The three had also done further research into it, noticing that the brain cells were much more advanced that those held by humans. They predicted that the current intellectual capacity of the being at this size was almost equivalent to that of a human, which was astounding considering the size it currently held.

The pair reached the labs, throwing on a coat and some goggles before reaching the tank, which had had to be increased in size due to the rapid growth of the organism. However, the two were fairly surprised when they approached to see the organism now around the size of a football, moving about fairly frantically in the container, it's many limbs now strongly resembling very thick strands of string, however according to their research, this had a higher density than steel, so given the correct circumstances it could really prove as quite a danger.

"Wow, what happened to it?" Barry asked, seeing the size of the creature.

"Well, I decided to test it's reactions to certain chemicals, and well, a mix with a high level of nitrogen causes mass growth. The problem with that is that if it ever got into the Earth's atmosphere, the growth would be undeniably huge, and well, it is safe to say we have enough problems threatening the planet as it is. In short, this organism cannot get onto Earth. It must either stay on this station or be released back into the cosmos," he said, sounding much more serious than usual, which really said something about the situation.

"Okay then, that is obviously no good thing," Caitlin replied, looking at the creature, which was now brutally attacking the glass which made up the majority of the container.

"What's it doing?" Barry asked, sounding panicked.

"Oh no... it is trying to escape, and if it does, let's just say..." Cisco paused for a moment, before continuing.

"This ship's air consists of nitrogen."

They all fell silent briefly, looking at the creature continue to attack the glass.

"It should be fine, however, the glass is designed to prevent..."

The organism continued to attack, all of a sudden causing many cracks to appear on the surface, one final hit finishing the job, shattering the glass and it rapidly moving along the table, then making a massive leap from the table directly into one of the air ducts.

"A rocket launcher..." Cisco trailed off, causing the other two to look at him in clear panic.

"Well?" Barry said, the fear present in his tone of voice.

"We need to find it. Now," Cisco said, causing the three to frantically run out of the room, aiming for the control centre in an attempt to use the trackers to locate it.

This didn't take particularly long, the three reaching the main computer and turning on all of the motion sensors. 

"It's... It's in the living quarter's vents, and... well, it is around the size of a small mammal, a puppy perhaps," Caitlin said, looking back and Barry and Cisco.

"And... it appears to be heading towards the escape pods."

"What? How would it know to do that?"

"Like we predicted, it is much more intelligent than expected. We need to stop it. Does anyone here have any ideas? If this thing gets onto Earth, destruction like never seen before would occur and that is not good, especially considering that this ship is on a crash course with the same planet."

"Well, didn't you say that nitrogen makes it bigger, well, in your experiments was there anything it didn't like?"

"Well, no, however I think I have something. We could make a virus, and contaminate this station. It wouldn't be hard to eradicate either, just a simple virus from Earth that is easily curable to us, however lethal to something which has never come into contact with it before."

"Okay, Cisco you work on that, we will secure the parts that don't need to be contaminated.

---------------------------------------------------

It was now a few hours later, the two being sat in the living quarters, together, having recently, yet unknowingly saved the Earth, at least for now. The organism had been dealt with, with a virus that Cisco had whipped up being used to knock it unconscious, and the trio had encased it in a box which was designed to protect from nuclear strikes, and with the data they had previously collected this should be enough to hold it, and this box had been sent into an orbit around the planet.

Cisco had already gone to bed, tired from the work he had thrown out today, leaving just Barry and Caitlin to their own devices.

"What a day, huh?" Caitlin said, resting her head on Barry's shoulder.

"Yeah, it was," he replied as Caitlin lifted her head off from him, looking each other in the eyes. It wasn't long after this that the pair embraced in a passionate kiss, arms wrapping themselves around each other's backs, a strong blush appearing on one another's cheeks, the smile being able to be physically felt as the pair kissed, sharing yet another great moment together on the ship.