Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

A huge, oddly shaped swirl of glowing gas orbiting a featureless black center dominated the view on the port side of the ship. Lester tried not to think about the violence that was inches outside of the ship’s protective bubble, without which the ship would become part of that swirl of hot gas in a microsecond.

Then there was an oddly accented voice in his headset. “How far along are you?”

Lester jabbed his press-to-talk. “I’m at Spot 87.” He saw the number painted on the panel. “Hey, isn’t this the same item that busted on the Antares run?”

It was, but the gravity there hadn’t been powerful enough. “It’s just a coincidence. Turn the handles but do not remove the cover.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lester muttered. He turned the handles. “Okay, now what?”

Inside the ship, the Averhim technician-caste crew member sat at the bottom of her tank. She could taste the black hole’s event horizon, so close, and her eggs were hungry. She caused a tube to form under the panel. “Open the panel and extend the tube to its full length.”

“Opening panel,” Lester said. He opened the panel to find the end of the tube pointing towards him. “Just pull it out?”

“That’s correct,” The Averhim said.

“Pulling tube.” Lester extended the tube to its full length—about four feet—and the Averhim felt the waves of gravity reassuringly enter the tube and start collecting in the ship’s crystals. Given the intensity of the gravity at this distance, it only took a few seconds for the crystals to fill, and when they did, the Averhim collapsed the ship’s bubble.

Lester and the ship atomized and swirled into the black hole.

The Averhim, her tank, the crystals, and her eggs that would feed on them, unaffected, floated on.