"Why are we here again?" Mark asked as he sank into his chair next to Sarah, who was currently in the main seat of the starship, driving it. She gave him a side-glance, her expression showcasing just how thoroughly unimpressed she was with his current attitude.

"Oh, I don't know." She mocked. "Maybe because one of the drones suddenly went offline for no reason? Or maybe because we were ordered to?"

He rolled his eyes at her bitchy tone. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. The dumb thing probably broke down again. I honestly don't know why the director hasn't decided to bring them up to date." He groused in annoyance even as he started to type away at the holographic keyboard that popped up in front of him.

Sarah kept silent, inwardly fuming at the fact that she'd been saddled with this idiot. When the director had called for her and given her the assignment to go check on a random probe in the middle of nowhere, she hadn't been very happy. She'd been even less happy when it had turned out to be a two-person assignment, because apparently their group had 'lacked cohesion' or some nonsense.

As a graduate of the Imperial Academy, Sarah could professionally say that it was a load of bullshit, and that her boss was just being pissy because she had refused to offer him 'favors'. The fact that her family was powerful stopped him from being overt about it, but it was clear this was a punishment.

As for Mark... Well, Sarah had no idea what his deal was, but she would bet her socks on the fact that he'd offended some higher-up as well. Working for the Science&Exploration Department tended to be like that, unfortunately. Politics, politics, and more politics, with little actual science being done.

Not that Sarah minded all that much, since the only reason she'd gotten in was due to her mother's status, and it practically guaranteed her a position in the government once she got through her apprentice years, but she still felt obliged to at least pretend to be against its corrupt nature.

The rest of the two-hour-long journey was spent in relative silence, with Sarah ensuring the ship's AI didn't fuck anything up, and Mark doing his own thing. They didn't really chat any further, both content with ignoring the other.

Finally, they arrived. As the ship left hyperspace, Sarah nudged her unwilling companion with her elbow. He jerked up in surprise, giving her an annoyed glare, one which she returned in force. "We're here, dumbass. Go activate the scanners while I bring us... closer..." She trailed off, causing Mark to raise an eyebrow. In lieu of responding, she pointed a trembling finger at the system's star.

Mark stared, his jaw falling as well. "What... What in the Emperor's name is that?" He whispered.

The entire star had been covered by a massive sheet of writhing flesh, tentacles and eyes dotting its outer shell. Giant gaping maws formed great canyons through the monstrosity, opening and closing a few times before melting away.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sarah swallowed, feeling her throat suddenly tighten. "We need to get out of here." She said. Mark nodded frantically even as his eyes refused to leave the impossibly large monster.

"Y-yeah. We should do that." He spoke, his voice quivering. Sarah hurriedly punched in the necessary codes for an emergency escape, inwardly sending a prayer to the Emperor for them to live through this.

She wasn't sure what that thing was, mostly because she'd never really paid attention to her space creatures class. However, even she knew that Leviathans were bad news, and that thing looked mighty big.

She waited anxiously for their vessel to enter hyperspace, but as the seconds trickled by and it failed to happen, she got progressively more and more nervous. "Why the fuck aren't we moving!?" Mark hissed out.

"I don't know!" Sarah hissed right back, worriedly typing away at the console in front of her. Warning signs had started flashing, and as she read through them, she couldn't help but despair. "Fuck! It's using some sort of space manipulations to block us." She exclaimed, her hands suddenly feeling horribly sweaty.

"Shit! I'm not going to die like this!" Mark cursed even as he threw himself away from his seat and ran towards the interior of the ship, ignoring Sarah's shouts.

"Hey! Come back here, asshole!" Sarah shouted, but it was no use. She could feel the tell-tale effects of space twisting as her ship was unwillingly dragged towards the writhing monstrosity.

She could see tentacles the size of mountains reaching out across space towards her, coming closer and closer by the second.

Even as she heard the escape pod being activated, she desperately tried to salvage the desperate situation. Feeling a flash of fury, she punched the 'deny' button. "If I'm dying here, so are you..." She whispered angrily, feeling tears coming to her eyes as tentacles began to wrap around the ship.

She was only 20 years old, barely an adult, and she was going to die because she'd refused to let her boss have sex with her.

Gritting her teeth, she tried one last gamble. Tearing herself out of the driver's seat, she ran across the main room towards a specific corner, even as the ship groaned and began to give under the strain the star-eating abomination was putting it through.

She desperately punched in the secret code, waiting anxiously as each moment passed by as though it was an eternity until finally, the emergency teleporter activated. Sarah felt a rush of relief run though her, only for it to be quickly replaced by anxiety.

She was probably going to die if she went in, but it was better than being eaten alive. She took a deep breath, reminded herself that she was going to die anyway if she didn't, and punched the 'activate' button... Or at least, she tried.

"Fuck you! You don't get to escape!" Mark screamed as he suddenly shoulder-checked her out of nowhere. His eyes were bloodshot, and as Sarah let out a piercing 'No!', he activated the teleporter for himself, vanishing in burst of light. Sarah had only a moment to regret everything before the ship's walls finally gave.

A literal wall of flesh surged downwards around her, filling every inch of space available and smothering her in an instant. She screamed and thrashed as she was locked in place, only for something to pierce her skin, and her futile and desperate struggles tripled as darkness began to close in around her.

Unfortunately, it was all for naught, as consciousness quickly began to leave her. Her last wakeful thoughts were a mixture of hatred for her boss, Mark, and a desperate plea for her mommy to save her.

And as all of these thoughts ran through the space-faring woman... Hannah watched, mildly miffed, as chunks of the man's body appeared several light-years away, the teleportation beacon having drastically failed due to her own spatial interference.

Then, her many, many eyes focused back on the woman in her grasp, and she pondered.