Page 42 of Stripped By the Alien

"Oh yes. Power generation. Environmental control. Something important. We want important things, Captain. Space Force likes important things."

That checks out with my experience. I crawl onward.

The walls gradually become translucent. Dim orange light moves beneath them in slow streams. At first I think they're veins carrying blood, but the glow is wrong. They’re too bright and too fluid.

I stop and press my hand against the membrane. Something warm moves on the other side. Not something. Thousands of things that feel like streams and currents. The entire ship seems alive with motion.

"Lucius."

"Captain?"

"This feels like we're crawling through somebody's insides."

There is a brief pause. "I can’t confidently rule that out."

"See, neither can I. This ship is alive, isn’t it?”

“Possibly this is a life form,” Lucius says in the reluctant way of an AI asked to give a true answer. “It would seem to fit with the locusts using organic organisms for many things. For instance, the star map is plainly a creature. The translation flower is… well, a flower. The torturer is an alien crab of sorts.”

I crawl on. “Yeah. Have we actually seen real technology since the minefield?”

“Not as such, Captain. Everything since then has been organic. Grown, as it were. Not designed. Unless the locusts have access to some kind of genetic design process.”

“Thought so.” The passage widens enough that I can sit back on my heels for a moment. Nearby, a round opening reveals a chamber beyond. I lean closer and peer through.

A vast sac hangs there, slowly expanding and contracting. Thick tubes feed into it from every direction. Glowing liquid pulses through them in steady waves.

I stare. "That's not ventilation."

Lucius hovers right up to the living tissue. "I believe we've identified part of the Beast's internal infrastructure. Either this ship was somehow grown, like a Frankenstein object, or it evolved like this. It is plainly a living organism."

I back away from the opening. The realization should probably repulse me. Instead I'm fascinated, because everything aboard this ship is alive. The walls, the passages, the doors. Maybe even the lights, which emanate from the walls and not from any fixed point, like a light bulb.

It seems that Krix'vorr doesn't command a vessel. He commands a creature, the way people would ride horses for millennia before someone invented the car. Except this is a very, very large creature and he’s traveling inside it.

A distant vibration rolls through the tunnel beneath my hands. This time it's stronger. The walls contract around me for a second before relaxing again.

I freeze. "Lucius…"

"I felt it."

"What was that?"

“A tremor like that would not be unexpected inside a living creature. But it’s the first we’ve noticed.” The drone is silent for several seconds. "Captain, I think we should keep moving."

For the first time since entering the passage, he sounds uncertain. I don't like that at all.

The tunnel keeps sloping downward. At some point it stops feeling like a crawl through a ventilation system and starts feeling like a descent into something I was never meant to see. The air grows hotter with every yard. Sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down my neck. The rough banner sticks to my skin, and even the walls feel warmer whenever my shoulder brushes against them.

“Lucius,” I say as I pause to wipe my face. “I think we’re close to turning around.”

The drone hovers behind me, his rotors working harder than before. “I recommend a few more minutes. We appear to be approaching something important.”

“Something really hot, anyway.” Another deep vibration rolls through the passage beneath my hands. This time the walls visibly contract around us before relaxing again. I stop crawling and stare at the living membrane. “Is it sensing us? Can it feel us in here?”

“Not impossible,” the drone ponders. “We may act as some kind of irritant.”

“That’s how it seems,” I reply tightly.