Chapter 29
Iwas excited to check on the egg, but first, we needed to finish waking everyone, and by that, I mean collect Violet.
Brick frowned. "I think it's rather dangerous. What if it's venomous?" he asked.
"While I'm sure there are plenty of oddities in the universe, venom is usually associated with a lack of maceration, and whatever this is has razor-sharp teeth.
It's chewing through metal," I pointed out.
"Venom's usually used to kill or paralyze something that they are going to digest slowly, or those that prefer to save their food for later.
" There were a few examples of using poison to hunt in lizards, but I decided to ignore those in favor of reassuring Brick. Besides, venom was costly for a body to produce; there needed to be an evolutionary reason for it, and I didn’t see a reason if it could simply take a bite out of metal, meaning it could take a bite out of any prey it wanted.
Brick squinted his eyes and continued to hover over Tiri, who glanced at him as he said, "Better safe than sorry, right?"
Tiri shrugged. "I guess you're right. No sense not to be safe." She stayed safely behind Brick, with a small smile on her face.
We walked down to the next room and slid it open, only to find Violet sprawled out in the bed atop the covers, still wearing her uniform with drool at the edge of her lips.
"You know, I wouldn't expect her to be a sound sleeper," Tiri said, only for Violet to flip out of bed and throw a blast of force that lifted Tiri and threw her against the back wall, driving the air from her lungs and causing Brick to throw himself at the divine who had just been startled awake.
She flipped over in bed amid Brick's charge, grabbing him by the shoulders and rolling, with her foot stuck in his gut, to throw him against the back wall, landing herself in a crouch, a bleary-eyed expression on her face as she rubbed them and stared at everyone present.
"What?" she asked, seeming to relax as she took in the situation.
Brick groaned in the corner while Melgara stepped over to check on him.
"Getting everyone up. We're heading to the med bay, come on." I waved over my shoulder and turned around, more eager to figure out if this was what hatched from the egg or if there was something else at play. But if it was from the egg, it would be, in its own way, a relief.
"All right," Violet said and jogged to catch up with me.
"Why does everyone have to be awake?" she asked.
"Because it keeps taking a bite out of, well... everything," I said.
Over my shoulder, I could hear Brick stomping after us. Violet hadn’t been too rough on the grogax, and he probably needed a moment in the med bay anyway.
"And where's Lily?" she asked, her tail strangely swishing excitedly behind her.
"No clue. I haven't seen her since I woke up."
"Really?" Violet asked, genuine surprise in her tone. "I thought she practically guarded your bedroom door."
I frowned at her description, and Violet waved a hand. "I may have made a joke about sneaking in at night, and she told me if I tried, I'd find her blocking my way."
"Oh," I said with a frown, unsure what exactly to make of that statement. "Well, I am flattered she'd defend me so, but I don't think I need any defense from you."
"Of course you don't," Violet said, perking up. "In fact, you don't need her defense at all. You're an incredibly intelligent man. Even if you're not as physically powerful as some of your crew, you aren't defenseless."
I found myself nodding at her words and oddly feeling like I needed to hear that. There hadn't been much use for my mind lately.
"Well then, what next?" Violet said as we stepped into the med bay, and I swept my pen light over the table that had previously had the egg incubator. Instead, I found it on the floor, broken, with bits of egg around it.
I stepped up, opening one of the drawers I had seen Melgara use before and pulling out a set of gloves to save the leftover shell. I had to be careful around the broken glass, but I picked out the biggest pieces of shell and tried to keep any liquid that was inside it.
"What's that for?" Violet asked, peering over my shoulder.
"Oh, I'm sure whatever this is has a few interesting aspects to it, especially if it can eat through metal.
" I pointed at the tubing that whatever had been inside had once lain in.
It had eaten around the metal rim, holding everything together.
"Not to mention, it has taken several bites out of the ship itself. "
"Okay. Lily doesn't need sharp teeth." Violet frowned, as if she'd been slightly put out at the idea of me using this to help Lily.
"Now we just have to find it," I said, standing up and tying the rubber glove in a knot. I hoped that Lily would appreciate that I saved this for her—wherever she was. I still found myself quite curious as to where exactly she had disappeared to. I had gotten used to her always being nearby.
Before I could think or do anything else, Tiri squealed. "Get it off!"
She began struggling in the hallway, and Brick jumped to help her. I ran out with my pen light, hoping to see whatever new creature we were fostering.
My light attracted it, and it darted towards me.
It was a curious little guy as it ran straight to the tip of the light, looking at it with big, wide eyes, giving me my first look.
The creature was shaped like a cute little whale, though a skirt that ran along its side glowed faintly in ever-shifting colors from its fins to the tail.
Its underside was a light gray until the glowing skirt, at which point it transitioned to a dark blue on top.
Melgara gasped at the sight of it, but I was far more interested in what happened next.
Its little mouth opened up at the tip of the pen light, and the light itself began to warp, stretch, and swirl at a point just inside the thing's mouth.
Only a second later, the pen light itself flickered as the entire structure of it began to stretch and twist.
Now, only the lights from the one active medical bed illuminated the scene. Because while the light from my pen light was still on, it wasn’t shining outside of where it was swirling inside the little floating whale’s mouth.
Only one word made sense for what I was seeing. However, even the thought brought levels of implication that I wasn't entirely ready to consider, especially in a small biological creature.
The thing flickered away, and we were plunged back into dim light, my pen light cut cleanly in half. Eaten? I don’t know what I’d call that action.
"It just spaghettified your light," Melgara said.
"Uh, yeah, but spaghettification only happens with black holes. It would require something of enormous gravity. I mean, with how little that guy is, there's no way he could create spaghettification," I said incredulously. "I mean, that was simply impossible."
"Wait," Tiri said. "Localized black hole in its mouth?"
"I mean, that's what it looked like," I said, "but it's quite frankly impossible."
"No," Tiri said, looking at me as if I were an idiot. "Everyone knows that's how a leviton eats. Wait, levitons hatch from eggs?" she said, more incredulously, and turned to Melgara.
"The exact gestation process for levitons is actually entirely unknown. As a species, they rarely interact with others. Some say they respect the dragons, but I would have to ask a friend if there's any truth in that."
The fact that she had a dragon friend went completely unreacted to as we were all struggling to come to terms with the little black-hole-eating whale.
Brick held up his tablet with a white screen to use as a light, shining it around. Whatever the creature was, it was gone.
"What exactly is a leviton?" I asked.
Brick looked to Melgara to explain it better.
"I believe it's shaped like a whale," Melgara said. "From the human homeworld. Though when fully grown they can be as large as a capital-class ship."
My mouth fell open. "What?" I stammered. "That's massive. How can any biological creature be that large? I mean, the square-cube law would go absolutely nuts, not to mention the gravity it's going to cause…"
Melgara shook her head as I was rambling. "They primarily live in space."
"Oh," I said, before looking at her with wild eyes.
"That makes it even worse." I held my hands to my head.
The structure of their body to survive the void of space was a wild thought.
It also seemed capable of being on planets, as this one seemed just fine.
"Alright, we have a baby space whale on the ship. "
"Crude, but not inaccurate," Melgara said. "Not entirely sure they would love to be called space whales."
That made me perk up. "Sentient space whales?"
"Yes, they are sentient. They are able to shift into a smaller humanoid form. However, the last time anyone saw one was very long ago. They're reclusive enough that much about them is not known or documented, including how they have offspring."
"So, a secretive sentient space whale that has a black hole in its mouth," I said, still having my mind catch up with the current reality.
Melgara waffled her head and looked around the room to see if anyone else was going to add anything.
"Well, they might be the size of a capital-class ship, full-grown.
They absolutely can destroy a capital-class ship.
Their exterior is covered in a rare alloy not found in nature, in fact.
One of the reasons they're so averse to other races is that they've been hunted too often, and they are fairly distrustful, if I understand things correctly.
" Brick glanced at Melgara for confirmation.
"That's what I understand as well, though I am certainly no expert. In fact, I would say there are very few people in the universe who would dare call themselves a leviton expert."
"Because they don't let anyone get close to them," I said for clarification.
"Correct," Melgara said, with a nod towards me.
I was still struggling, reeling with the idea that one of these small, rare creatures was now on the ship.
"Does anyone know what they eat?" I asked.
"There is a moderately diverse ecology in deep space," Melgara said, "but as I understand it, they have a very flexible diet.
" She glanced at the ceiling, where there were more holes chewed into the metal.
"Though I suspect it's still looking for something in particular, if our ship isn't satisfying enough. "
I glanced at the ceiling. "Well, while that may have minerals, I doubt there are many calories in it." My mind began worrying. "We need to find something for it to eat, though, before it bites into something on the ship that's going to cause some real problems."
"Oh no." Brick blanched.
I shifted to look at him, wondering what was wrong now.
"I mean, they say that they sometimes take a bite out of neutron stars," he said.
I didn't make the connection until I realized what we might have that would be similar. “It could take a bite of our neutron core?"
"Ordinarily, I would say there's no way that it would even sense it," he said. "However…" His voice trailed off for a moment. "With it being under repair right now, it has some temporary shielding that might not be nearly as effective at keeping it from its senses."
"Brick." I grabbed him by the head. "Tell me it's not going to eat our neutron core."
"I don't know," he answered as his eyes darted around looking for help.
I would have thought the idea of eating something so dense was implausible, but apparently, giant space whales with black holes in their mouths were a thing, and I didn't think that would be real until now.
"Okay, well, it's clearly hungry," I said, trying not to sound panicked. "Let's just grab whatever we think we can and start hanging it from the ceiling, and, you know, just make it a quick smorgasbord. Just in case we can lure it in with something else.”
“If it's interested in the neutron core, we do have the cracked shielding in the parts room. I was figuring that we could use the metal for something later, but I mean, it's got to be soaked in the neutron core, if that's really of interest. We might be able to draw it in," Brick offered.
"Yes, that shielding that's already cracked. We don't care about it. Bring it. I refuse to let something eat the damn power core. I mean, how much would it be for a new one?" I asked Brick, a small nervous chuckle slipping out of me.
"Uh…" He hesitated. "It might honestly be better to buy a new ship."
I blanched. "No, no. No new ship. We are going to find this thing, and we are going to make sure it does not eat my neutron core." I looked at everyone, my eyes most likely looking wild, bouncing between everyone in such rapid succession.
"We should set up a camera. This is the kind of finding that scientists the universe over would love to see," Melgara said.
“There are other priorities here,” Violet said. “Like keeping the ship operational.”
"I'm certain we can solve this without losing anything too important." I nodded along with her, my eyes still wide as I processed this new information.
“We could lure it out of the ship and let it go do whatever levitons do,” Tiri offered.
Melgara gasped. “And lose out on the opportunity to study it?”
“I don’t know how I feel just tossing a baby anything out into the world. We did hatch it… so there’s some responsibility.” I struggled with my own feelings. On one hand, we had an unpredictable new creature, but on the other, it was pretty cute, and some part of me was already attached.
"Well, one piece of good news, Captain," Melgara said.
"Oh, please, I love good news." I banished the thought of getting it off the ship.
"They're intelligent, so if we feed it, it's likely to calm down. We just need to figure out what it eats and how to feed it long-term. On that… I was already interested in inviting a friend of mine, given the level of threats we might be up against after this," Melgara said.
I nodded slowly. "And this friend knows what they eat?"
"She's a dragon, and an old one. If anyone might know something, it would be people like her." Melgara sweetened the pot.
I smiled. The idea that there were solutions made this much more tolerable.
Still, I couldn’t believe we were fostering a fucking space whale.
How cool was that? If I was going to see if it wouldn't be my pet, and it was too intelligent to call it a pet, then maybe a friend.
The universe was incredible. Fucking sentient space whale with a black hole in its mouth.