Chapter 28 #2
"Well, honestly, I was expecting to find you in engineering,” I answered.
“So, do I have a minute to get dressed?" he asked.
"Yes, please, Brick," Melgara said, "while I am a medical professional, I do not particularly enjoy nudity." Her eyes shifted to me in my boxers and pants.
"Right," he said, flushing and jumping out of the bed, taking most of the sheets with him, only to elicit a sharp rebuke from his bedmate.
“Stop!” Tiri growled, grabbing onto the sheets and nearly being dragged off the bed by Brick's weight.
He paused, holding the sheet, torn between listening to Tiri and revealing his nudity to everyone else in the room. However, he relented, dropping the sheet and scooping up his clothes, deciding momentary nudity was safer than upsetting Tiri, who then glowered at me.
"Turn around, please. If there's something running amok in the ship, perhaps you should keep your eyes on the doorway." Tiri huffed.
It was a reasonable request. I turned back to the doorway. "Yeah, just let me know when we can talk."
"Why are you here? Shouldn't Lily be dealing with something like this?" Tiri asked.
"Lily's MIA," I answered quickly and heard something hitting the floor.
"Wait, what? It got Lily?" Brick's voice boomed in his surprise.
"We don't know that. She just wasn't with me, and whatever's on the ship appears to be eating her sensory organs, so we're having trouble finding her," I answered.
"Hold on, hold on." Brick moved with increased urgency. "Are the divines coming for us?" he asked.
"We're starting to think it's not the divines. Instead, it's something else," I told him. We had no clue, but the divines would have likely killed me while dealing with the sensory organ. Or at the very least woken me up.
"I don't know if that's better or worse," Tiri said.
"Me neither, but get dressed, and maybe then we can worry about what we do next." I coughed into my hand. "By the way... congratulations, you two."
"Thank you," Tiri said, and I could practically feel Brick's embarrassment, even though I couldn't see him.
"Okay. Yes, it's very healthy for both of you," Melgara said. "Given everything we've been through, I'm sure it's very positive for your stress relief."
"Yeah, that," Brick said. “We’re dressed.”
"See? Even the doctor approves." Tiri chuckled. "Do me a favor and help his confidence a little, would you? He didn't get the hint the first three times. I had to literally take my clothes off to get through to this lug."
I chuckled as I turned around and earned myself a glare from Brick, one that was quickly dismissed as he found himself looking at his feet. "Sorry, Captain," he said quickly.
"You're fine." I waved a hand. "I think we have other problems to worry about." I glanced at everyone present.
"Oh, yes," Tiri said. "Agreed. So, something's on the ship. We don't know what it is. What are the chances it's here to eat us? As you said, it ate part of Lily."
"Yeah, that part's concerning," I admitted. "But it only took a small bite out of her sensory organs and left sleeping me alone.”
"The sensory organs are usually on the ceiling," Tiri said, glancing up. I waved my pen light across the ceiling, only to find several other chunks missing. Tiri squeaked, jumping into Brick's arms, all four of them wrapping firmly around her.
"Everything will be okay," Brick said quickly. I was tempted to remind him that he couldn't actually guarantee that, but that wouldn't be helpful at all.
"You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that we're missing something." I frowned.
"Something?" Melgara pushed.
"Well, if whatever this is was trying to eat parts of Lily, it would have eaten more than just the single bite. I blame me waking up from the dead of sleep, missing that the first time."
"Perhaps it just intended to disable them," Melgara suggested, but I shook my head.
"I find that to be an unlikely situation, because that would indicate more intelligence than we'd otherwise seen.
And if it ate something in my room, not to mention Tiri's, with the intention of harming one of us, I would expect there to be more damage than what we see here.
I mean, if it could take a bite out of the ship's sheet metal, I'm fairly certain it could have done substantial damage to all of us.
" I illuminated one of said metal plates with a circle missing from it.
Melgara considered that, staring up at the damage to the ceiling, and suddenly let out a gasp of understanding.
"You see it." I grinned. "It's taking a single bite out of different things," I said. "It's searching for something that it can eat."
Melgara was now on the same page as me, but she frowned, and I waited a second for her to catch up to where I already was. "That would indicate it is young?"
"Why don't we go to the med bay," I said, having a good idea of what we were going to find.
Melgara's eyes opened wide. "Do you think—"
"There's one way to find out." I grinned back.
Melgara nodded in understanding. "Oh, yes." She nodded in understanding. "Yes, let's."
"For those of us who aren't so inclined," Tiri asked, pulling up the hem of her dress to hurry and keep up with us.
"The captain believes that the egg has hatched," Melgara said, a wide grin on her face.
"Which, if you ask me, is an exciting prospect.
And if we can confirm that's what this is, I think our level of concern can drop considerably.
At least, I'm far less concerned if we just have a ravenous young hatchling scrambling about the ship, taking bites of anything it can find. "
"Will it take a bite out of us?" Tiri asked, pausing mid-hallway.
"I won't let it." Brick made the floor rumble when he stomped around Tiri. His protectiveness was cute, but we still had other things to worry about. "So then, what might it be?"
"That's the exciting part! We don't know." I grinned.