Page 85 of Stripped By the Alien

“I was not designed for this environment,” he complains.

“You think I was?” I ask.

“You have joints and feet and hands. Your knees appear highly useful in this context.”

“And you have rotors that you can fly with. Seems a fair trade.” I’m starting to sweat. This may be the Beast’s real body temperature, and it’s getting hot.

Krix’vorr manages to be both majestic and confident as he crawls ahead of me. It’s quite a feat, but nothing about him surprises me anymore. Except maybe how he always manages to make me come harder and harder.

The tunnel bends downward. The living surface beneath my hands becomes slick, forcing me to move more carefully. Somewhere deeper in the Beast, a series of hollow thumps echoes through the organic structure. Krix’vorr stops abruptly and I nearly crawl into his feet.

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

The passage becomes still. For several heartbeats I hear nothing except the movement of blood and fluids through the ship. Then something moves ahead of us.

A membrane snaps across the tunnel.

I barely register what I'm seeing before Krix’vorr throws an arm backward and catches me against his side. The membrane slams shut where my face would've been a moment earlier. Long needle-like structures punch through it from both sides.

I stare. “Those are teeth!”

“So it would appear.”

“Your ship has fangs on the inside,” I marvel.

“Surely disliking intruders this close to her brain is only healthy,” Krix’vorr points out.

“I’m beginning to understand that.”

The membrane retracts after several seconds and the teeth withdraw with it. Krix’vorr studies the opening before continuing forward.

I follow more carefully than before. “You knew that was there?”

Krix’vorr crawls on. “Of course not. I’ve never been anywhere close to here. Nor has anyone else, to my knowledge.”

“Wonderful,” I comment as drily as I can.

“Yes, isn’t it?”

The tunnels continue for what feels like forever. Eventually we reach a vertical shaft. Krix’vorr climbs it easily. I follow behind him until the living surface beneath my hands suddenly gives way.

The wall opens. I drop.

For a terrifying instant there's nothing beneath me except darkness. Then Krix’vorr catches my wrist. Pain shoots through my shoulder as I swing against the side of the shaft.

Below me, a pit yawns open. The cavity is lined with pale tendrils that twist and curl as though tasting the air. Some of them snap as if trying to grab my feet.

“Oh, that's just mean!” I exclaim as my heartbeat pounds in my ears and I curl my legs up under me as I dangle.

“We’re seeing the Beast’s realest nature,” Krix’vorr says as he hauls me upward with one arm and deposits me back onto solid tissue. The pit seals immediately behind me. Within moments there is no sign it ever existed. “And we already knew she has a mean streak.”

I lie there, breathing hard. “There is…,” I pant, “such a thing… as being too mean.”

“I think meanness is appropriate in a warship,” Krix’vorr quips.

“To its enemies, sure,” I seethe. “Not to its freaking crew or its guests or whatever the heck I am.”