After the fourth zoom, they saw it: a tiny green dot in the starfield. 
The pilot centered the view on the dot and zoomed in again, giving 
the crew their first good look at the object. It looked like a green 
ship, but much smaller than even the escape pods on the ship. It 
also appeared to be pointed toward the ship, and the crew could see 
a large jet of green vapor apparently coming from the rear of the 
object. 


“It looks to be fifteen to twenty feet long, all told, and maybe five feet 
tall,” reported the doctor. “And it appears to be headed for us on an 
intercept course.” 


“Our cloak is still up, correct?” responded the captain, receiving 
affirmation from the pilot. “Then how can it pierce our cloak? None of 
the native sapients in this system should be able to do that! 
Unless....” 


The captain pulled up a file on the third planet and jumped to the 
section on native lifeforms. A moment later, the captain said, “The 
sapients from the third planet are generally five-and-a-half to six feet 
tall. Even with just one crewmember, that’s awfully cramped in there, 
and there would be very little room left over for support systems....” 


“Captain!” the pilot called out. “Come look at this!” 


On the viewscreen, the green object had extended a tubular 
structure from its back right, pointing several degrees to the right of 
straight back. A second later, a second green jet emanated from the 
end of the tube, causing the object to start turning slightly to its left. 


“Captain, if | didn’t know better, | would swear there were claws at 
the end of that exhaust tube,” said the doctor. 


“Doctor, | think you may be right,” responded the captain. “I don’t 
think that’s a ship. | think it’s a beast of some kind.” 


“How can that be possible?” asked the doctor. “There is nothing in 
the records for this system about any type of native space beasts.” 


“If | had to wager, | would guess it has something to do with what 
happened to the blue rock. In any case, we’re not prepared to deal 
with a space beast, and I'd rather not bring it on board and 
endangering our guests if we can help it. Send a message back 
home and see how quickly they can get out here with a xenobiology 
detail. I'd recommend a well-armed one.” 


The ship reached the ringed giant on schedule; by that time, the 
green beast had cleared the ring of pebbles on its way to the sixth 
planet. Since its discovery by the crew, the beast had gotten 
progressively faster, as its green jet appeared to have been 
functioning continuously, causing speculation as to how the beast 
was generating so much power. The doctor also noted that the 
beast gave off very little heat, though this was not unusual among 
known space beasts. 


The itinerary had allotted ten dozen hours for guests to explore the 
ringed giant and its satellites, before heading to the inner planets, 
including the still highly-exothermic third planet. At its projected 
acceleration, the beast would have crossed the orbit of the great 
giant by then (though the fifth planet itself was on the other side of 
its star). If an encounter were imminent, the captain would prefer 
that it happen in a planetary system rather than in interplanetary 
space. Plus, reinforcements were on the way. 


Before long, three ships blinked in from hyperspace just beyond a 
landmark beacon. Once they got their bearings and cloaked, one 
light warship headed for the sixth planet, while the other escorted 
the research ship on its way to the third planet. From the ringed 
giant, it appeared the beast did notice the newly-arrived ships, but 
did not otherwise immediately react. A few hours later, the beast cut 
off its green vapor jet, though it would still reach the sixth planet well 
before the warship. 


containment alarms. 
Addendum 768-2: Incident Report 768-05 


During experimentation on ~. @OG 's heart monitor was 
set to an alarm state by SCP-768, causing his pacemaker to 
increase his pulse rate to nearly three times his normal rate. Dr. 

was hospitalized but fully recovered after the incident. Future 
experimentation must be performed by research staff without 
pacemakers or personal medical alert systems. 


« SCP-767 | SCP-768 | SCP-769 » 


After another dozen hours, three additional ships blinked in, two 
more light warships and a creature-capture vessel, all of which 
cloaked and started heading toward the ringed giant. The beast 
continued to hurtle toward the sixth planet, occasionally adjusting 
course with its rear legs. 


It was several hours before the beast was expected to arrive at the 
ringed giant. Though many guests were out on the last scheduled 
excursions before the beast’s arrival, many more were watching the 
live feed of the beast at several locations around the touring ship, 
particularly its massive observation deck. This video feed also went 
to the other six ships in the system, where it received similar interest 
from their respective crews, and was already on its way back home. 


The beast extended its rear legs, and from its right leg came a thin 
jet of green vapor. The jet lasted only a few seconds, but was 
enough to start the beast slowly rotating. When the beast had 
rotated nearly ninety degrees, for the first time since it was 
discovered, it moved its head, curling it under its belly to be able to 
see where it was going. As it neared a half-rotation, a green jet 
appeared from its left rear leg, lasting a couple seconds. Several 
more pulses of jet intermittently came from each leg, till the beast’s 
rear was pointing toward the ringed giant. 


Suddenly, a massive green cloud of vapor erupted out of the rear of 
the beast, enveloping it as it continued to hurtle through space. 
Though somewhat indistinct through the vapor, the viewers of the 
video feed could still see the beast extend its rear legs straight 
ahead, adding two smaller vapor jets to the larger one. Two more 
vapor jets appeared a moment later. 


By then, the observation deck was a din of cheers and applause, 
which increased sharply when the beast extended its front legs and 
opened its mouth, adding three more vapor jets. 


The beast could now be seen unaided from the observation deck, 
and though its nine vapor jets had been counterthrusting almost 
continuously, it was still going too quickly to stop by the time it 
reached the planet. The touring ship itself had established orbit 


around the ringed giant, near the giant’s largest white satellite. The 
leading warship was still many hours away, having yet to cross the 
toppled giant's orbit; the slower capture vessel’s group trailed by at 
least two dozen hours. 


As the guests and crews watched intently, the beast, still at full 
counterthrust, shot past the gas giant. The beast attempted to rotate 
as it passed the planet, but only succeeded in punching a hole in the 
planet’s rings. The beast reoriented itself toward the sixth planet and 
opened all its vapor jets. 


“It appears that the beast is intelligent,” said the doctor. “It looks like 
it tried to use the gravity well of the planet to slow itself.” 


On the ship-to-ship comm, the biologist from the capture vessel 
said, “Yes, but | doubt that the beast is native to space. A native 
space beast should have more control over its soeed and know 
when to start slowing down. Our beast overshot its apparent target, 
but it tried to compensate and it certainly appears to be trying to 
return.” 


“It has managed to slow down quite a bit,” said the pilot, “and based 
on how much counterthrust it generated earlier, it should start 
coming back here in... about four hours.” 


Four and a half hours later, the beast cut all its vapor jets except its 
main rear jet, though it was noticeably smaller than before. The 
beast uncurled and folded its limbs into itself, taking the form in 
which it was discovered, and slowly started heading back to the 
ringed planet. 


The beast took its time returning to the ringed planet, leaving its jet 
on for only a few minutes. Thus, when it drifted back into visual 
range of the touring ship, the lead warship was itself only a few 
hours away from the ringed giant. 


The sense of anticipation was building on the observation deck as 
the beast crossed the orbit of the great hazy satellite. The beast 
extended its front legs forward and turned on their jets to slow down 
further, drifting very slowly towards the touring ship. The crew of the 


ship was anxious but alert, ready to defend or flee the moment the 
word came down. 


Moments before it reached the ship, the beast unfolded its legs and 
relaxed its body, finally looking more like a beast than a ship to its 
attentive audience. The crowd could see the beast had six legs, a 
neck at least a foot long, and a thin tail, and the “hull” of the ship 
turned out to be a series of articulated chitinous shells. The beast 
appeared to stretch its legs as it drifted toward the touring ship. 


The beast drifted over the window of the observation deck, grabbed 
onto a support arch outside the window, and positioned itself to look 
inside the window. For several minutes, the beast watched the 
crowd through the observation window, moving to different support 
arches to see the entire deck, while the guests and crew watched 
the beast in fascination. The beast then stopped and sat still for 
several more minutes before gliding off the observation window. 


External sensors followed the beast as it skittered over the surface 
of the ship, tapping, sniffing, grasping outcroppings with its feet and 
its prehensile tail, even tasting the ship in a few places. Every so 
often the beast would stop and sit still as before, twice lying 
completely prostrate on the ship’s hull. After a couple hours of 
exploring a small fraction of the ship’s surface, the beast returned to 
the observation window to look in on the assembled crowd. 


The beast had remained on the support arch watching the lead 
warship as it arrived at the sixth planet and took position alongside 
the touring ship. Once the warship was positioned, the beast glided 
over to it and began to explore its surface like it examined the 
touring ship before. As it did so, the warship launched a tiny probe to 
examine the beast itself. The beast watched the probe warily as it 
approached, but did not stop it. When satisfied with its exploration, 
the beast returned to its perch on the observation window of the 
touring ship, where it remained until the three other ships arrived. 


Once the ships arrived and took up their positions, the beast glided 
over to examine the creature-capture vessel. As it did so, a cargo 
bay door opened on the capture vessel, exposing a large air lock. 
The beast came back round to the open air lock, waited several 


minutes eyeing the air lock, and slowly entered the air lock. A 
moment later, the cargo bay door closed with the beast still inside 
and examining its spacious confines. 


After the unexpectedly smooth capture, the vessel and its escorts 
headed out to the nearest landmark beacon, while the touring ship 
started toward the inner planets. The research vessel was still many 
hours out from the third planet, but it had declared the hazardous 
region to be really tiny, extending out only twice the distance of its 
former satellite’s orbit. The vessel also determined that nearly all of 
the mass of the satellite had fallen into the planet, and that most of 
the energy coming from the third planet appeared to have come 
from a very large number of fission reactions. 


On the capture vessel, the biologist had discovered that the beast 
carried, though it seemed unaffected by, some type of primitive 
necrotizing contagion, one that most sophonts were already immune 
to. The beast had already shown signs of intelligence, so the 
biologist had started attempting to communicate with it, though the 
beast seemed uncomfortable around certain crewmembers. 
Otherwise, the beast appeared very powerful and highly adaptable, 
and smelled faintly, but distinctly, of mint. 


Out past the landmark beacon, as the capture vessel prepared to 
blink into hyperspace, a small but unmistakable grin broke across 
the beast’s face. 


A Circus for MC&D Ltd 


The dinner show provided by Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. had 
been surprisingly pedestrian that evening. The magician, although 
skilled and pretty, hadn't performed anything other than the usual 
misdirection which could be seen anywhere. The hoop aerialist, who 
was also very pretty and wearing a costume that left very little to the 
imagination, did little more than spin in her ring in various positions 
and look seductive. There was very little of what many considered 
the MC&D flavor. 


The curtain closed around the stage as she finished her act and 
bowed. Polite applause sounded from the audience, along with a 
few barely audible disappointed sighs. When the curtain reopened, 
the hoop had been replaced with a pair of white ribbon-like straps. A 
man built like a ballet dancer with bare arms and feet stood next to 
the straps, ready to perform. 


Music started playing. It was a peaceful melody, light and uplifting. 
The acrobat lifted himself onto the straps and started his act. At first 
the act looked as though it was going to be as ordinary as the other 
performances. He wrapped straps around himself like the stripes on 
a candy cane. He hung himself upside down, spun himself in circles, 
and held himself parallel to the ground while holding onto the straps 
solely with his hands. He contorted his body into grotesque shapes 
which could only be achieved with the help of the straps. He 
somersaulted upwards, spiraling the ribbons around his arms. The 
audience sat in silence through all these moves. 


The aerialist wrapped himself up asymmetrically. One strap spiraled 
down his leg, while the other wrapped tightly around his left bicep. 
There was a twist, a sudden drop, and a note of discord in the 
music. He now was hanging upside down from the one wrapped leg 
while the other strap hung down, not wrapped around anything. His 
left hand was still gripping it, but his arm had been severed where 
the strap had been wrapped. 


There was no blood, and the aerialist continued to climb and twist 
himself on the straps unfazed. The arm climbed too, wrapping the 
strap around itself and alternating between gripping with the hand 
and the elbow. No wound on either end of the arm, only an expanse 
of white where bone, sinew, and other tissues should have been 
visible. 


The act now seemed to be a strange kind of partner acrobatics; a 
one-armed man and a single arm both performing tricks. Sometimes 
the tricks were separate, and sometimes they were in tandem, 
resulting in holds and balances that should have been impossible. 
The arm helped him into another wrap, this one around both legs. 
The aerialist balanced himself like a board for a few seconds while 
the severed arm held itself straight out above him. 


There was another twist, a discordant note in the music, drop, and 
he again hung by one leg. His right leg had been severed this time 
and joined the performance as a separate entity. Less than a minute 
later, his right arm joined the act. 


The music began to swell as the severed limbs, all moving of their 
own accord, helped the aerialist into position for what could be one 
final trick. His one remaining leg wrapped in a candy cane swirl, as 
his severed arms wrapped the other strap around his neck, bringing 
him into a horizontal balance. One hand then brought the strap 
down and over his throat quickly, enclosing his neck.