Page 52 of Stripped By the Alien

My eyes search automatically for screens, consoles, holographic displays, keyboards, or anything remotely familiar that I’d expect in a control room. I don't find any of them. Instead the entire room appears grown rather than constructed. The walls curve upward into a high dome filled with translucent lenses of different sizes. Some are no bigger than dinner plates. Others are larger than vehicles.

Stars drift across one. Darkness fills another. Strange distortions ripple through several more. Together they provide views from every direction around the Beast's body.

"They aren't displays," I murmur.

Lucius immediately rises higher into the air. "They're connected directly to external sensory organs. Multiple spectrums. Multiple viewing angles. Organic sensor arrays. Or ‘eyes’, as they’re usually called. Captain, this is extraordinary."

I continue staring upward. It makes my skin prickle. Somewhere outside the Beast, enormous eyes are looking into space. What I'm seeing here are the results.

The center of the chamber is even stranger.

A massive chair rises from the floor like the trunk of a tree. Around it hangs a web of cords, tendons, pulleys, and living control lines. Some disappear into the walls. Others vanish into the ceiling. The whole arrangement vaguely resembles the control harness for an enormous animal. Every line appears alive. Several pulse with glowing fluids moving beneath translucent surfaces.

Crew members occupy smaller stations arranged around the central position. They manipulate lesser bundles of living cords while monitoring clusters of lenses. The entire chamber feels less like a bridge and more like the nervous system of some gigantic organism.

The moment Krix'vorr enters, the atmosphere changes.

Conversations stop. Crewers turn toward him. Antennae lower. Every motion in the room suddenly revolves around his presence.

I've seen admirals command respect. I've seen politicians command attention. I've watched famous people enter a room and immediately become the center of it. This feels different. This is more electric.

The crew are orienting themselves around him. Every reaction suggests the same thing: if Krix'vorr gives an order, reality rearranges itself accordingly.

For the first time I understand why he's survived long enough to become whatever a Chief Harrower is. His authority feels built into him. It's not just something he wears like a title.

He releases my hand only when he reaches the central station. The crew parts before him without being asked. Nobody questions him. Nobody offers advice. Nobody looks uncertain about who belongs in command.

Krix'vorr settles into the living chair and places both hands on the thick control tendons extending from it. The response is immediate. Several lenses brighten. Deep vibrations move through the floor beneath my feet. The cords surrounding the chair tense like muscles awakening under a handler's touch.

For a moment I forget to breathe. This is more than a captain taking his seat on a bridge. It's a rider climbing onto a living predator.

Krix'vorr looks completely at ease. The Beast seems to know him as well as he knows her. Watching the two of them connect through those living controls makes it easy to understand why he speaks about the ship as though she's another person.

A moment later he glances toward me. "Stay close and don’t get in the way. There will be some movement. Hang on to that." He nods above me, where a tendon-like rope hangs down.

I do as he says and grab it.

By now I've learned that when Krix'vorr tells someone to stay close, he means they'll be safer if they do. The truth is that I also really want to.

The deep vibration beneath my feet changes. Every lens in the chamber flickers at once. The strange distortions of the Soft Dark vanish and stars appear in their place. My stomach lurches as reality seems to snap back into its proper shape.

Several crew members brace themselves against nearby structures while the Beast releases a long, resonant sound that I feel through the floor and the walls.

"We've arrived," Lucius says, rising higher into the air. "And I strongly recommend looking at the primary sensor."

I don't need the suggestion. The largest lens dominates an entire section of the chamber wall. The image inside steals my attention so completely that I forget everything else for a moment.

Two colossal creatures are fighting in space. My mind refuses to accept it at first. Every instinct insists they should be starships. They're larger than anything alive has any right to be, immense enough that entire Earth vessels could probably disappear into their shadows.

Yet they're moving.

One resembles the Beast enough that I immediately recognize it as another member of her species. The second is completely different. Its body is broad and armored, covered in overlapping plates and huge spikes. It reminds me of a turtle, if someone had scaled a turtle up until it became a floating mountain and then crossed it with an immense porcupine.

The two monsters collide. The impact appears almost slow from this distance, yet the force behind it is obvious. The image trembles. Massive limbs and armored plates scrape against one another while glowing fluids spray into space.

"Oh my God." The words escape before I can stop them.

The Beast surges forward and the image change. Stars stretch briefly across the lens before snapping back into focus. Every crew member in the chamber becomes intensely focused on their tasks.