Helavas

The Helavas are vast, ponderous creatures that swim through space like whales, typically found along the edge of the Rift at the centre of the Second Galaxy. Lone Helavas have been found in the Primary Galaxy, but are not common there.Legend has it that they were bred to serve as living star-stations, bio-engineered from rare creatures which had evolved to survive in interstellar space. They look vaguely like manta rays, albeit ones big enough to swallow entire cities. Their wide and undulating ‘wings’ hold vast cells that act as oxygen factories, powered by sun and starlight. They are siliconites, feeding on rock dust from asteroids and other stellar debris and are often found grazing in systems where planets have rings, or asteroid belts. They drift around the Rim, moving sub-light in systems, but seemingly able to generate their own Nuan notes (apparently independent from the network) that allow them to move from system to system.
  They sing to each other at both low and high radio frequencies, creating epic songs that, with the right equipment, can be detected light years away from where they were first sung.
  When a Helavas reaches maturity (anything from one hundred to one thousand years adrift, no one knows for sure), they slowly gravitate to a particular trinary system at the edge of the Rift, where they continue to graze, waiting for others to join them. At some undetermined point, when they sense that sufficient of them have gathered, they begin to swim together, moving closer to the main star, where the gravity fields assist in their dissolution into a cloud of particulate organic matter. The cloud streams between the three suns - mixing and mingling - until it begins slowly clumping back into ‘gatherings.’ When there is enough matter present in a gathering, a new, smaller Helavas will unfold and emerge. Spreading it’s ‘wings’ to catch the solar winds, the new creature then ‘sails’ to the system edge, sings a new Nuan note, and escapes to drift among the stars.
  Rumors whisper of Helavas Hunters that had once captured and ‘tamed’ them, as well as the finding of abandoned cityships that might once have worn a Helavas ‘coat’. Scientists seek to study them, but still know very little about them. Tourists come to stare at their drifting, sweeping dances, and to listen to the songs they share. Various military interests come to capture their Notes, trying to follow them to unknown systems and worlds. And artists simply come to capture their images, painting, sculpting, and recreating their slow cosmic dances.