Squirrels in the Basement

Posted on Mon Jan 10th, 2022 @ 6:42pm by Ensign Nuna Lepine

Mission: Mission 5 - Babel
Location: Planet side, at the entrance of the cavern
669 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

A 'níon mhín ó, sin anall na fir shúirí
A mháithairin mhín ó, cuir na roithléan go dtí mé

Nuna found herself softly singing a lively little Irish song as she prepared herself and her gear for the spelunking trip down the large cavern opening nearby. Nuna wasn't quite sure why she had been chosen as a member of the team exploring the cavern beneath their feet. True, the Jewel Cave, Earth's third longest cave, had been in Nuna's proverbial backyard growing up. Nuna had certainly enjoyed taking trips to Jewel Cave growing up. But Jewel Cave had been thoroughly mapped over the last five hundred years. Choosing her to help explore caverns on a newly discovered planet based on her cave vacation experience as a kid was the equivalent of picking someone to be an experimental spacecraft pilot because they had ridden Space Mountain more than twenty times growing up.

Dúlamán na binne buí, dúlamán Gaelach
Dúlamán na farraige, be'fhearr a bhí in Éirinn

Nuna may have felt a low level amount of anxiety about the upcoming spelunking expedition, but she didn't show it. Nor did she exhibit the contentment she felt about being out of the Atlantis' recycled atmosphere.

Well, Nuna mostly didn't show her contentment. She was quietly singing, but was far enough away from the rest of the individuals in the away team that none of them saw or heard her singing.

Though it didn't mean that Nuna wasn't being observed or listened to.

Tá ceann buí óir are an dúlamán gaelach
Tá dhá chluais mhaol are an dúlamán maorach

At the rim of the hole the spelunking party of the Atlantis was about to venture down into, a pair of dark eyes was watching Nuna as a pair of ears listened attentively to her soft singing.

The eyes and ears belonged to a creature that looked amazingly like Sciurus carolinensis, the grey squirrel from Earth. If a grey squirrel was a hundred and ten centimeters long (not including its tail), weighed thirty-five kilograms, had six legs and had a tail that was more foxlike than squirrel-like.

The giant six-legged squirrel was definitely sentient, though whether it was sapient was another question entirely.

The giant squirrels had been aware of the arrival of these new bipeds almost from the moment they stepped onto their world. Like the rest of the fauna on the planet, the giant squirrels were watching these bipeds from the background, and seemed to be content to continuing do so. Individually, the giant squirrels might not be the toughest critters on the planet. But the giant squirrels bonded together in large colonies, and only a desperate or demented predator would attack a giant squirrel colony.

As with most living beings, it would be foolish to treat the giant squirrels monolithically. Their personalities and drives were just as varied as the bipeds who had arrived on their world. For example, the giant squirrel who was watching and listening to Nuna was driven by curiosity that was strong, even for one of his species.

Bróga breaca dubha are an dúlamán gaelach
Tá bearéad agus triús are an dúlamán maorach

Even if the giant squirrel could talk, he wouldn't be able to tell you why he was fascinated by this particular biped. The noises she was making were interesting, even enticing. But that wasn't what was drawing him to the biped. There was something...something else. Something the giant squirrel had never experienced before.

Góide a thug na tíre thú? arsa an dúlamán gaelach
Ag súirí le do níon, arsa an dúlamán maorach

The giant squirrel felt a rumbling of hunger in its stomach. It stared at the biped for a few more seconds, before descending back down the hole to rejoin his colony.