Children Of The Devourer

Hello! Children of the Devourer was written as my attempt at a challenge to write an entire novella in one weekend. I vlogged my experience writing it on my YouTube channel (Patrick Procrastinates Writing). My channel is linked in my profile if you want to learn more about how this novella came to be! Thank you for all your support :)

The view out of the starport was pitch black, as it always was. Aaron didn't know why he opened the port to look out at the night sky. Maybe he was hoping one day somewhere out there a new star would be born and he'd be the first to look upon it. He'd never seen a star, no one in the remaining universe had. The last red dwarf flickered out over a billion years ago. Still, the legends of how they once filled the night sky were passed from generation to generation.

Aaron's father was the one who told him about the stars when he was a little boy, the same way his grandfather had once told his father. He didn't know how the rest of the crew aboard the Devourer learned of the stars, or if they knew of it at all, but it was tradition for the Pirate King to teach his children the history of the universe. Now that he was Pirate King it was his turn to find a bride and continue the tradition. It was one of the few traditions that remained alive and well on the Devourer.

Being the King of the Devourer is not what it used to be, at least if the old legends are to be believed. Back when the stars still shined, during the Great Galactic War, the recyclers were built to feast upon the debris left scattered across the galaxy, growing in mass and power as they consumed more rubble. Eventually, there was no more debris to sustain them and the recyclers began to feast upon each other. To survive the Devourer was constantly in battle, taking on stations of equal or greater size and ingesting them to heal itself and expand.

Those days were over. As far as Arron was aware the Devourer and its fleet of support recyclers were the last remnants of that ancient time. The ship was nothing more than a relic, maintaining itself off asteroid belts and ingesting civilian cargo ships to keep its population up.

The floor panel beneath Aaron's bed shook and the Devourer let out a great roar. Aaron assumed the metal of the great station was settling into a new form. The Devourer to survive as many years as it had, constantly evolved. In recent years that evolution had taken the form of downsizing to sustain itself in a system that was becoming more and more resource-depleted as it inched closer and closer towards completion.

The floor shook again and Aaron sat up. The floor of the Devourer shaking was not too uncommon, but as the king of the vessel, it would be immature not to investigate further. His communicator suddenly beeped. "You are getting a call sir," the Devourer's AI system informed him. "It's Admiral Han. It's from the command deck."

The command deck? This must be serious. Aaron stood tall. "Put the Admiral through."

A hologram of the admiral is displayed in the center of Aaron's cabin. "My majesty, we are approaching prey."

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Ingesting a cargo fleet in the asteroid belt is no reason to alert me in my quarters," Aaron said, standing tall with his hands behind his back. "What is the meaning of this."

"This is no cargo ship," the Admiral corrected. "We believe it to be the remnants of the deserters. Their capital ship is over 250 kilometers."

Aaron's eyes widened. "The deserters. Are you sure?"

"It's been ten years, the fleet has likely gone through substantial modification in that time. The only way to be sure is to ingest them."

Aaron's face became stern and he nodded. "I will be on the command bridge shortly," he exclaimed.

The hologram shut off. Once he was left alone in his room the Devourer spoke to Aaron. "I have a hunger for revenge," the ship roared in its monstrous voice.