Meanwhile:
Bridge of the Shadow Spider, a large salvage ship.
Avra, the ship’s primary artificial intelligence assistant, assessed the crew’s situation. It had been 2 days since the incident at the salvage site they were working on, where the crew encountered a normally benign form of space scavenger that was typically harmless outside of rare cases of a large population bloom combined with lack of food. In the few documented cases, the swarm would usually attack itself and anything that stumbled into it before the diminished survivors would go dormant.
This time, however, the crew was caught off guard as the creatures proved rather aggressive, killing several crew before they were spotted, which prompted the Spider to move clear of the salvage site in an attempt to prevent infestation. Several had eluded searches and made it into the ship before lockdown protocols were initiated, proving rather difficult to kill with firearms and blasters and very dangerous in close quarters.
The captain and security staff, as well as few of the more bellicose crew, had split into small groups to escort crew to safer, more defensible positions in the ship, gather supplies, and harry the ravenous scavengers, corralling them into sturdy containers or killing them when able. Nathan, the ship’s pilot, kicked back with his feet up at his station while two Marines flanked the main door to the bridge.
Two floors down, an explosion in the hold reverberated through the ship.
A hexagon video communication panel appeared on the viewscreen at the front of the room, revealing the distinctly canine (Siberian Husky to be precise) head and humanoid shoulders of Lieutenant Commander Arvak, the ship’s head of security. Nathan sat up abruptly and the two Marines snapped to attention.
“Report”, the Canid barked without preamble.
Unfazed by his brusqueness, Avra was already pulling up security footage from various angles.
“The explosion appears to have occurred near the aft cargo bay doors in the hold. Damage appears to be superficial,” she hastily continued, anticipating his next question as screens with various sensor data popped up as well. “Thermal readings indicate a rapid drop in temperature, then a sudden, focused spike of heat; possibly from a plasma weapon, and originating from that large crystal the captain hauled in from the asteroid field.”
Hexagon panels lined up in a semi-circle around the Lieutenant Commander's image on the viewscreen, showing several shipping crates side by side as lights in the cargo hold turned on and the warning lights for the lock down were shut off. Shown from various angles, several shipping containers sat beside the oblong crystal object; now missing a significant piece from one end. Chunks of crystal were scattered about, and a noticeable dent and numerous pock marks dotted the wall closest to them.
The veritable dog soldier’s expression dropped a notch at “plasma weapon”, and one eye twitched when the captain’s infamous “pet rock” was brought up.
“You knooowww,” the holographic assistant drawled out slowly at his reaction, dramatically placing a finger on her light-constructed chin and turning her head upwards in exaggerated thought, “I remember you fussing at Gray a lot over that … what was it you called it; a ‘useless lump of crystal’?”
The Lieutenant Commander’s Husky face scrunched up in annoyance, his eyes closing through barely restrained patience as he responded in what was clearly a conversation they’ve had several times already. “Captain Gray and I disagreed on the value of that lump of crystal he found. I reminded him that we were here to salvage a ship, not collect shiny rocks.”
Avra hummed as if in thought, “Yes, yes.” she waved dismissively. “He mentioned he was drawn to the clarity of the crystals, and those vibrant colors that could be seen within. ‘Like a reverse geode’, I believe he called it.”
Arvak pinched his nose, the plucky AI’s personality had always rubbed him the wrong way. He never understood the captain’s reason to give her this kind of personality. “It seems I was right about it being more trouble than it’s worth.and to leave that to the miner’s guild. He claimed that it was a rare find, ‘too good to pass up’, and insisted on bringing it in himself.” Realizing she’d distracted him, his eyes snapped open and he glared at the screen. “Enough of this. Where is Captain Gray?”
Avra rolled her eyes and pretended to examine her doubly fake nails. “Oh, he said he wanted to ‘try something out’ on those crab turtles, and needed radio silence while he worked.” She chimed offhandedly as a holographic nail file materialized and she pretended to ignore him in favor of a holomani.
If Arvak’s face could turn red with anger it surely would have at this point. Snarling, he snapped abruptly. “Send some of the cleaner bots to check on that rock. Maybe clean up the mess. Alert me immediately when you find out what it was. Arvak, out.” The comm link screen vanished with his clipped orders.
Avra pondered in amusement before noticing movement on the security camera panels. Oh my, she thought to herself. Arvak’s impatience certainly had a knack for making him miss the most interesting things. She watched in genuine awe as a creature emerged from the ruined crystal. Thirty feet long and scaled in a near-bronze color that appeared tarnished at the edges before giving way to vibrant feathers that went gradient from green to dark blue with the faintest hint of purple at the tips. It was almost reminiscent of a peacock, though the magnificent wings it stretched didn’t have the eye patterns. A single, thick horn pointed forward from the top of it's head; as if someone got a unicorn horn wrong and then tried to make it closer to a rhinoceros. It's snout was mostly draconic, but the tip had slightly more beak curve at the tip than was typical of known dragons. It's long, lizard tail swayed slightly, capped in a plume of feathers at the tip and tail feathers that flared out like tail fins. She had no information on the mysterious dragon- bird thing, and despite the somewhat disheveled appearance it bore, she thought it looked beautiful. Avra set her attention on monitoring the strange beast, certain that Arvak needed to know about this, but also knowing that he would overreact, demand gather more information, and then cut the call abruptly again. She'd give him a few minutes, she decided, as she watched the dragon begin to explore the hold.
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When he awoke, the dragon-bird thought he must have been unconscious through the rest of the night and well past morning. Light filled the now debris coated “room” (if it could be called that) as well as himself. Struggling to get back up, he shook off shards of crystal and dust and surveyed the damage. Muscles were sore and bruised where he took the brunt of the blast and larger chunks had pelted him. A few lacerations streaked across his hide, some sizable, but most of them were less serious than he thought they’d be. None of them seemed to be currently bleeding. Wincing in pain, he noticed that a few sharper shards had made it through his tough hide, and grimaced as he used his maw to clamp down on them and carefully pluck them out like oversized splinters.
Noticing the large chunk of wall now missing from his crystalline “egg”, he cautiously peaked out and around its edges, listening for movement before limping over the broken shards of his confines into more spacious settings. What he saw confused and surprised him though. He was certain that he had never seen anything like what was before him. A wall of metal filled his view, taller than he was from tip to tail and nearly twice and wide. He shook his wings out gingerly and stretched them, idly assessing how badly they were hurt as a few broken feathers tumbled out, and still fresh wounds cried out pain.
Looking left and right, metal balconies stretched just out of reach down along the walls that made this location a rather large dead end. The whole place smelled of metal and some sort of grit he wasn’t used to. Turning to follow along one wall, he marveled at the sight, perplexed that such a massive cavern would be made out of so much flat metal. Claws clicking on the metal floor as he passed his crystalline “egg”, he encountered two large metal boxes of similar size side by side. His memories were hazy as he contemplated what they were, that familiar oily feeling rippling like a pond in a gentle rain. Though he tended to avoid the smaller, humanoid races, he was aware that many of them built various types of shelters, usually of wood or stone. Dwarves especially were known to make cavernous homes in mountain interiors, though he could think of none who wrought metal to such a scale.
Up ahead, sounds drew him out of his thoughts. A clatter of metal, a soft whir, then several quick thumps before quieting back down amongst the soft hum and distant noises that seemed to be this place’s natural ambiance. Passing the second metal box, his wings fluttered experimentally as he entered a part of the metal cavern that wasn’t as cramped with metal boxes. Another metal wall barred his way, save for a perfectly vertical gap at its center with a small pile of crushed metal presumably wedging it open. It would be a tight fit, but he could probably squeeze through it with some effort. His eyes flicked back and forth trying to discern what the sounds had been as he moved as quietly as he could (a difficulty with the clack of his claws), stepping around yellow and black stripes painted into the floor as he moved cautiously towards the gap.
Tension built as he slowly approached the opening, no longer limping as he prowled towards potential danger, his wings opening like a bird of prey, ready to strike. Each step brought him further into the unknown as he grappled with what he would do when he found whomever or whatever’s lair this was, and if he could survive whatever denizens that could create massive lairs of metal. Would they be able to tell him why he was here, and where ‘here’ was? Would he even be able to understand them, or they him?
His thoughts raced as he finally reached the opening. Then a loud, fierce growl caused his body and thoughts both to freeze - and then flush hot with embarrassment as his stomach once again let out a plaintive cry in protest at being denied food for such a long time. He didn’t know when he last ate, but he might have to prioritize finding something edible over finding out where he was.
Another quick, almost frantic burst of metal noises, then a sound like something different landing hard from up high through the part in the wall broke him away from his thoughts. Once again cautiously craning his head through a strange opening, his gaze roamed across an even larger, but similar blocky room. More large metal boxes sat near walls with piles and stacks of various shaped metals at various points along the edge of the room, but mostly leaving open space with more of the red and black lines framing some of the open space for some reason.
Seeing no movement beyond the opening, nor being able to discern what made the noises from the strange piles of metal, he stepped up onto the wreckage that plugged the base of it and began to cautiously try to squeeze through. Bracing talons on either side of the door, he moved his head and neck through with no troubles until he reached his foreshoulders. Hunching his wings in close, he angled his upper body sideways as he changed his grip so that both gripped the same side of the opening and he started wiggling his shoulders through with effort. His wings were the most difficult part due to their more delicate nature (compared to the rest of his body), but he managed to wiggle them through by pressing them down as close to his body as he could, then stretching one vertically through the gap as he wedged that shoulder through while wiggle-turning his torso back and forth.
Once he got both wings and forelimbs through the opening he rolled onto his back, wings spread, and panted from exertion while he tried to catch his breath. The fit was tight, but most of the difficulty came from protecting his wings. He didn’t want to get them caught and break or dislocate them while trying to wiggle through tight spaces. As he fluffed his feathers in the open space behind the metal wall, he noticed that they didn’t hurt as much as they had after getting pelted with shards of crystals. Even most of the cuts that made it through his hide didn’t hurt anymore, though several of the ones he’d had to pluck out still stung a little.
Turning his thoughts back to his current predicament, he glanced upside down at the new, somewhat more open space he had squirmed his way into and felt just as lost and confused as ever. Another discomforting growl proved that food would have to take precedence over deep thoughts as he braced an arm against either side of of the opening and pushed hard, squirming all the while before unceremoniously tumbling head over heels off of the debris pile and into an open spot of metal floor, the dragon bird exhaled at the indignity.
A nip at one of his toes drew his attention as he craned his neck to see what mostly resembled a large crab, especially by its legs and pincers, but also somehow had a shell more akin to and the size of a sea turtle that had adapted its shell to blend in with rocks. Distinctly UNcrablike, however, was the little retractable maw that kept snapping at his foot, trying to bite through his scales. It didn’t end in the beak and head of a turtle though, and seemed like a cross between a crab’s mouth and something unfamiliarly disturbing.
Growling a soft, non-stomach based warning, he lightly nudged the eager not-quite-little critter back in annoyance, resulting in it rushing right back at him like a one crab tide and latching on with its pincers before making renewed efforts at snacking on him. Finally scoring a solid hit, the crab-turtle thing made an admirable bite that pinched hard, and managed to -if only barely- break the skin. With a pained cry, the dragon bird swatted the voracious creature with his talon, sending it flying into the metal wall to bounce off and land on the floor upside down and spinning on its shell. Intriguingly he noted that the crab-turtle retracted into its shell just like a turtle would, in a familiar but still strange configuration.
As the spinning stopped, its legs and pincers came back out to flail in distress at its current state, pincers clacking impotently his way. It was then that his stomach reminded him rather eagerly that crab or turtle, he enjoyed the taste of both back in the islands and archipelago he vaguely recalled calling home before his current predicament. That mind-oil sensation and his stomach both bubbled together in eagerness as he realized that at least one of his problems had a solution, and opened his snout wide to chomp down on the strange, wriggling hybrid.
Eating the thing proved its own challenge though as it was fairly large in size, though not too much for him, but the frantically kicking legs and flailing pincers proved to be a nuisance. The legs would either try to clutch around his jaw to gain purchase, or kick and scrape the inside of his mouth as he tried to encompass the whole morsel. The pinchers were more worrisome as the pinchers kept reaching for his eyes and clacking at them; too short to be a true danger, but the attempts would make him flinch instinctively and would occasionally pinch a cheek or nostril.
One such pinch proved highly effective, pinching a nerve or hitting a sensitive spot. Eyes wide and nostrils flaring, he bit down hard. This time the very slight beak at the tip of his snout found a vulnerable spot as it slipped into the edge of the shell, severing crab legs as it slipped into the vulnerable body of the crab turtle, before leveraging against the plastron and prying it off. With gusto, the dragon bird dived into the crab-turtle meat and started scooping out and slurping down delicious morsels like a draconic melon baller. So delicious, he thought, as he settled down to snack.
Please hit me with corrections you find. I'm sure those reading can tell I'm no English major