It was an convocation of pirates. Only the hardest and the most violent were there. I count myself and my crew amongst the hard ones, not so much violent. But what I saw that day…
It started off like any other convocation before it, discussions of starship convoy routes, profitable plunder, newly liberated treasure, and even interesting alien creatures we killed. “Admiral” Roark Winterheart, a giant of a man, with a cruel face was loudly boasting that his most recent discovery was the most incredible thing. Nothing new. It was the same way 6 standard years ago, at the last convocation. I was having a quiet discussion with my first mate, when a select phrase found its way into my ear.
“-no need for weapons anymore. This creature is far more dangerous and more effective than any mechanical weapon system-”
Even when you discount most of that as Roark’s usual posturing, a new weapon system seemed worth looking into, and if it was organic in nature, that’d actually mean Roark found something interesting for once. I could see low buzzing amongst the other pirates in the convocation chambers. Of course, anything related with weapons systems would catch our interest, especially after the Thanopolis Imperium came out with their new warlock-class freighters in the last year, with the graviometric bonded hull armor, that has been proven to be nearly indestructible to most of what the pirate captains were carrying in terms of weaponry. To make it worse, most of the highly profitable convoys always had one or two warlock escorts lately. Paralleling my thoughts, like a good first mate should, Jan called out,
“Roark, you braggart, does this new organic weapon system do anything to these new warlocks the Thannies has been building?”
Roark looked at him with a feral grin, then invited us to see for ourselves what this weapon was. We walked to the landing pads. The pad assigned to the ship Roark usually captained was empty. Roark’s ship, the Winter, was a classical small dreadnaught painted in stark white and bristling with guns. But, well, apparently not. Roark spoke in his communicator, and then a massive cow of a ship descended. It was a Rhinoe Cargo Carrier, famous for its heavy armor, ability to take massive damage and still not be breached, and the utter lack of weapons, due to an engineering quirk- the power plant that was integral to every RCC was designed by a Ghandian man, whose religion, as you know, forbade any violence in any action, or potential action. The power plants would detect any kind of power spike commonly associated with the firing of weapons, and go up in a spectacular radioactive conflagration, that was specifically calibrated to leave the RCC in a empty shell and not damage anything outside of it. How a pacifist could come up with a system as diabolically engineered like that was absolutely beyond me. It left the RCC in the position of being basically useless for anything other than freight hauling in heavily armed escort groups.
Now, this RCC was a typical example of the usual RCC, with two exceptions- it was painted in aggressive colors, suggestive of iron, rust, and bone, and it had a gaping hole where the cargo deck’s hatch usually was. Roark had us gather around this missing hatch, affording us a glimpse inside the deck. We could see deep scratches and dark discolorations throughout the cargo compartment. He called out his alien crew of Xiauplians, lobotomized and reduced to bare slaves, being able to understand and carry out orders, but nothing more. Xiauplians was notable for not needing an atmosphere to breathe, which made sense given the missing cargo hatch. One was carrying a steel vat wider than his entire body. At Roark’s command, that slave upended the vat at the center of the cargo compartment, unleashing a wave of putrid smelling meat and blood. His task done, he retreated. With another motion from Roark, who was grinning broadly, two other aliens stepped forward and went to the back where there seemed to be a cage of sorts. They unlocked the door, and opened it. It was dark within, the pirates jostling for a better view of this mysterious weapon system. In a short moment, we could hear a ominous sort of click-scrape-click-scrape. Then a pale flash exited the hatch, moving with unearthly speed, straight to the pile of meat and offal. There it stopped, almost gingerly reaching forward to grasp a cow’s head. As the thing busied itself with crunching straight through bone, we observed. It was a hairless thing, with long limbs, a especially toothy mouth, sunken eyesockets that was colored deeply black. Its hands glittered oddly, almost metallic, and ending in claws that looked sharp, even from where I was standing, a good hundred feet away. It had an almost jerky quality of movement, at times smooth, and at times blurring to snatch at a new morsel.
Ebi DoDeonl stepped forward, and laughed his harsh laugh. He pointed at Roark,
“While this… creature looks scary, we were promised a glimpse at an organic ship weapons system, not this… zoo exhibit.”
To this, Roark replied simply,
“This is the weapons system. I found it a few years ago, perched on an comet that we were hiding behind. I do not have the Winter anymore, because of that thing which can tear apart hulls like paper. Fortunately, we were able to come to a understanding- I find it food, it kills for me.”
During this exchange, my eyes was on the pale goblin-looking thing. It looked up at Ebi, a malign intelligence lurking behind its eyes somehow. Almost as if it was offended in some way by Ebi, it hissed, and then… Disappeared, I guess is the best way to describe it. One moment it was perched on top of the pile of carcasses and offal, and the next moment it was not there. Where it is, was where Ebi was standing a short moment earlier. Ebi’s corpse was lying beside the thing, and it was holding something in its claws. I looked closer, before my heart stopped and I stumbled away from the thing, along with the rest of the convocation. In its claws was clutched a bloody skull. It looked directly at me, like it could sense my fear, and… hissed.