The sound had been loud and startling; like a thunderclap that caused him to flinch and turn away. Something small, but powerful impacted against the base of his horn and made his head jerk to the side slightly. His sudden movement caused his forelimbs to slip on the crab turtle gore that now coated the stairs and floor around it and he wasn’t sure if the headache he was developing came from bonking his head on the wall on the way down, or whatever hit him beforehand. Everything went dark for a second, but this time he didn’t black out completely. Groaning as he carefully got back up, bloody and covered in gore, the beast dragon noticed the metal spider from earlier approaching from above before the woman made of light popped into his view, appearing to float on air as she hovered at his eye level.
“Easy there, Chomper,” she said, making soothing gestures with her hands. “I need to make sure that Arvak’s ‘hello’ didn’t do any lasting damage.This little guy here’s going to be my eyes and ears.” Avra thumbed in the direction of the spider bot and then waved it forward.
The feathered dragon recoiled slightly as the metal spider neared its face, but otherwise remained still and complied. “Chahhm-purr?” He enunciated carefully, testing the word with inquisitive inflection, as he could tell that it was directed at him personally.
“You know, like… ‘nom nom’,” she said, placing her light-constructed hands palm-to-palm with her fingers interlocked, then hinging at the base of her wrists, imitating a fanged maw opening and closing. When he stared at her blankly, either not comprehending or simply being unimpressed about the name (or possibly both), she turned her fanged beast pantomime towards one of the discarded shells and made biting motions towards it before giving up.
Changing the subject, she turned her attention back to the metal spider suspended from two silvery threads, whose movements and scrutiny kept the beast dragon glancing its way.
“Anyways,” she said, cheerfully changing the subject, “ I am Avra, the ship's artificial virtual assistant, and this is Spider Drone designation SPD-3, affectionately known as ‘Speedy’.” The little robot gave two clicks of its mandibles in what appeared to be a greeting. “They’re very versatile and typically do small or delicate repairs like wires, fastening bolts, and other work around the ship. Right now, though, I’m using him to be my eyes to give you a quick exam to make sure you’re okay,” she said in a friendly, chipper tone.
Though he was aware that he somehow innately understood what the humanoids he encountered were saying (while also understanding that they weren’t speaking Draconic), he had no context for some of the words the illusion woman used. Rather than focus on them, he chose two things she said that stood out the most for him.
“Ship?” He said inquisitively before narrowing his eyes and looking at her more closely. “How can this be your eyes? Do your own not see?” He glanced back and forth from the metal spider to her, only for her to giggle at his questions after a noticeable pause.
“Why yes, we are currently aboard the Shadow Spider, a large salvage vessel that is currently operating near the Caprician asteroid belt. And my eyes,” she said, gesturing to herself and then to what she had called a drone, “are only projections of light. This body is a holographic projection; light particles arranged to create an image. It cannot see or feel, and exists merely to represent me when interacting with others.”
As she spoke, her body flickered in place, disappeared and appeared in a different location, and even demonstrated that her hand could pass through the walls, the stairs, and even the beast dragon’s leg (after which she appeared to notice the blood and gore, made a grossed out expression, and pantomimed wiping her hand on her avatar’s dark cargo pants).
“Although I can see into rooms from various angles with cameras located throughout the ship, to get a closer look at you, I can also look through Speedy’s eyes- through the cameras within to examine things up close or from a different perspective.” Noticing his expression change when she said “cameras”, she motioned towards the drone’s eyes and even made a slightly larger holographic projection of it to show the dragon better detail.
“This is all very strange”, the dragon murmured, glancing back at the metal spider - a drone, the self proclaimed light projection had called it. Silence filled the hall for a tense moment before the hologram hummed a note to herself and smiled.
“I imagine it would be. You’ve had quite the adventure since you arrived. Thanks to you though, most of the crab turtles have been eliminated.”
“Hmm,” the AI continued after finishing the quick exam. “No serious injuries that I can see. Your horn took the blunt of the strike, but it seems to have only chipped it.” A holographic replica of the dragon’s own head appeared before him to his astonishment and then rotated slightly to focus in on the missing chip. Small striations spread out from the area like thin spider webs. “We can probably glue that right back in…” the holographic woman sheepishly and hurriedly said, glancing at the spider bot out of the corner of her eye as if to signal it for something.
While she worked to mollify the dragon, the spider bot reached a forelimb back to its abdomen, attached a thin wire spooling from within to a component, then pointed it down the short hallway and fired a tiny grappling hook with a small grabber on the end. Reeling the limb back in, the spider bot proudly held up the piece of bone that was a near perfect match for the piece missing from his horn (minus some small fragments).
Shaking his head and ruffling his feathers slightly, the dragon bird declined. “I’ll be alright. It should heal with time.”
After another pause, Avra opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, holographic eyes wide, but she was interrupted by a high-pitched screech from down the hall. The sound of something hard hitting metal and then another high-pitched animal-like screech drew everyone’s attention to the source on the opposite end of the hall.
“Annnnd, that brings us to the ‘mostly’ part…” the plucky hologram intoned. “Aside from the 8 the bots managed to trap in a shipping crate, that’s the last of the crab turtles, and it’s a doozy.” Looking grimly towards the source of the sound, she continued. “From what we can discern, this was the first of them. It led more than a dozen others here in the chaos of the initial attack. The captain’s quick thinking minimized casualties, but they spread out in the ship, looking for anything edible. This one settled down in the cafeteria and ate to its heart’s content, spawning that smaller swarm you ate in less than 2 days.” The artificial construct managed to say all this with a mix of scientific admiration, grim worry, and mild horror at its potential.
“If you are able, can you kill this one without eating it? I need to examine it. Something’s not right about this situation, and it could be the key.”
The beast dragon nodded and headed towards the cafeteria. “I will do what I can,” he rumbled in reply. As he approached, he could see a large crab claw protruding from the door, flailing impotently at the air, claws clacking repeatedly. Seeing the narrow doorway that barred its way, he sighed to himself wearily. “This… will be tricky.”
Sizing the bloated crab turtle up as best as he could as it flailed a large claw arm through the doorway, the dragon readied himself for the fight to come. The creature screeched defiance and rage at the beast dragon as it flailed impotently. Much larger than the previous crab turtles he had encountered, this one was around eight feet wide and bulkier than the others, even proportional to its size. Its shell was a mottled mix of gray and pale brown that likely let it blend in with the rocks from the asteroid field, with the legs, arms, and underside of the shell blending into a pale tan.
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The dragon bird moved slowly and warily at the start of his approach, wings fluffing in anticipation, and then darted in to quickly close the distance to try and catch it off guard. It swiftly scuttled back out of reach of the claws that swiped at it, before lunging back in to painfully nip the attacking arm.
Hissing in pain, the bird dragon withdrew his arm and tried a quick bite, only to be thwarted by the crab turtle bracing with both claw arms, catching him on either side of his snout and beak, and using the momentum of the bite attempt to push itself back, retracting its legs to slide across the smooth floor. Coming to a spinning stop, it stood back up and promptly returned to the fight, scuttling back and forth like some sort of pugilist.
Unamused, the beast dragon deliberately overextended a claw swipe, drawing the crab turtle into once again attacking the limb. The moment the crab latched on, the beast dragon jerked his arm back sharply, slamming it into the door frame. Struggling with the angle and narrow opening (and narrower view of the room beyond), he fumbled to grab the crab, trying the trick he saw the humanoids do of flipping it on its back to limit its mobility long enough to land a significant blow, but its size made it difficult and the determined monster latched on to his arm firmly, drawing more blood from his already wounded limbs as its claws managed to break through his scales.
Growling in pain, he flailed his arm around, slamming the determined crustacean into floor, ceiling, and wall in rapid succession, managing to stun it enough to loosen its grip and retreat back through the doorway. Shaking out his injured limb, he glared through the doorway at the monstrous crab turtle. Settling on a strategy, he repeated his earlier bait strike to similar results, only to have the crab turtle rake him with its pincers, but immediately let go when he would have pulled it in to slam it into everything he could reach. Pausing to give another rumble of displeasure, he tried again with renewed determination. This time, as the crab turtle moved to strike, he contorted his arm and grabbed on tight to the nearest claw near its shoulder. “Got you this time!” he hissed, as he roughly pulled his attacker into the doorframe once more. It screeched and struggled, pulling back against him and nipping him hard repeatedly. The crab turtle’s arms were deceptively strong for their size, but the dragon bird refused to let go.
Bracing himself against the other side of the door frame with his free limbs, he kept up the pressure, pulling as hard as he could. Even his wings unfurled slightly in the confined hall, as if they could lend aid. No match against the dragon’s strength, the crab’s shoulder gave out and tore free of its socket, eliciting a blood curdling scream from it.
Muttering draconic curses under his breath, the dragon bird pried the large claw that was still latched onto him loose and tossed it aside. Looking back at the humanoids who were watching him with a mix of worry, anticipation, and hope, his gaze fell to the shock stick they had used and how effective it had been. Remembering his own breath attack back in the crystalline egg and its semblance to what the rod emitted - in appearance if not scope-, he wondered if he could control its intensity to minimize damage to the humanoids’ abode and the humanoids themselves, but still impact the monstrous crab turtle.
Closing his eyes, he focused on that feeling right before the violent flash of light and the resulting explosion. Concentrating on his breathing, he could feel it rising; the chill and the electric prickling the corners of his mouth. Gently, he coaxed the feeling along, trying to temper it into a slightly less destructive version that would still have enough of a punch to be effective against the now berserk crab turtle. Easing off of the sensation that brought forth the ice, he opened his eyes with a look of determination and exhaled, bits of frost escaping as he held on to the tempered lightning like a delicate balancing act. He once again approached the doorway, ready to end this quickly.
Rearing back slightly on his haunches, he craned his long neck to strike. Lunging forward, he moved as if to bite the wounded crab turtle through the doorway. Once again, it darted back to avoid the attack despite its frenzy, then reached its remaining claw forward to claw at the dragon bird’s eye. The bite was a feint though, and as the crab turtle moved to eagerly go for a vulnerable spot, the beast dragon snapped his neck back to keep the distance as his jaws parted to reveal his real attack.
Arcing bolts of lightning flickering within intensified and coalesced, forming a lightning bolt that shot directly into the charging crab turtle as the floor between the two iced over in a cone. The crab turtle convulsed, but was unable to arrest its momentum as it curled in on itself, becoming a sliding missile on the now slick floor. Eyes going wide, the beast dragon quickly pulled his head and neck back through the doorway, but not quick enough to avoid taking a glancing blow to the jaw for his trouble. The projectile crab turtle slid past, a victim of its own speed as it disappeared from view. The sound of crashing pots, pans, and cutlery came a moment later.
Panting, the beast dragon waited, listening for any movement as he caught his breath. A blip of light in the corner of his vision heralded the holographic woman’s return. “Did that kill it?” he asked in a low voice, his throat feeling raw. There was another long pause before she replied.
“Let’s find out.” She said, somehow sounding as weary as he felt. One of the spiderbots crawled upside down along the ceiling and entered the cafeteria through the top of the doorway. The beast dragon cautiously craned his neck in to watch as it cautiously descended towards the unmoving crab turtle. Meanwhile, Avra’s hologram leaned out from behind him, acting as if to peer out as well, despite her earlier explanation that her light particle avatar could not, itself, see.
After a tense few minutes of the spider bot repelling down its mechanical thread, poking the corpse, retreating up its line, observing a moment, then repelling back down to probe in an even bolder fashion, it waved an ‘okay’ to the pair. “No signs of life; it appears to be dead,” Avra said as the beast dragon breathed a sign of relief.
Disconnecting itself from its line, the spider bot attached a pair of metal cables to the shell and began trying to tug the massive shell across the smooth floor. It struggled a bit, stronger than it looked but its sinewy form not designed for hauling heavy loads. Once it had pulled it close enough, the beast dragon reached in and pulled it closer to the door.
With the fight over, the three humanoids in the hall breathed a sigh of relief. Behind them, the sounds of orderly commotion picked up as several of the wheeled cleaning bots began the arduous task of pressure washing and vacuuming the gore covered hall. Several spider bots seemed to be collecting shell fragments and taking bundles of them away.
The beast dragon grimaced as he stepped back, fresh wounds still bleeding. Plopping down to rest in the hall, he too, let out a deep exhale; not merely out of relief. In more open terrain that fight with the bloated crab would have been much more one sided. The holographic woman, Avra, popped up in front of him, suddenly cheerful and waving a pair of light sticks as she cheered him on. “Way to go, big guy! That sure looked tough, but you did it!”
A few feet away, he noticed another Avra talking to the trio in the hall he had first seen. This Avra had her hair pulled back in a single tail and was dressed in coveralls similar to the person holding the strange flat-ended polearm with a crossbar attached that the trio of humanoids used to flip one of the crab turtles onto its back. He could hear them discussing repairs.
The Avra in front of him drew his attention back to her, light sticks dissolving in a spectacle of light. “We need to get you cleaned up and get those wounds treated before they get infected. Our medbay is nowhere near large enough to treat or examine you, so we’ll have to do it in the cargo hold. Right this way!” The projection disappeared and reappeared at the top of the stairs, motioning for him to head down.
As he got up and headed to the stairs, eager to get back to some place less confined, the human who appeared to be in charge broke off from the group and approached him. “I don’t think we were properly introduced with all the chaos happening earlier. I’m Jonathan Gray, the captain of this ship. Thank you for saving my crew.” He grinned merrily and extended his hand.
The dragon bird stared at the extended hand and made a confused noise before raising his own and imitating the gesture with his much larger paw. Gray side-eyed the menacing, gore stained talons and gave a chuckle as he noticed Avra flagging him down from behind the creature and making shooing motions. “I’ll let you get back to it. Thank you again,” the captain said, before turning back and rejoining the crew to discuss their next steps.
Exhausted, the beast dragon eagerly headed down the steps into the hold below.
