“Areana! I know you’re upset about what happened, but I’d like it if we could be friends.”

Silence.

This had gone on for some time since our departure. I had given her time to grieve in private. Condolences didn’t arouse her, nor did a sense of duty or self-preservation. “I know this is a big change for you, but you might find we’re not so bad if you gave us a chance… that is, if we make it out of here…”

Silence.

We were going to need her, the Watcher had said, but she was clearly not interested. I clamped down on my impatience. “Archon-Ood only wanted what was best for you…”

“Do NOT speak her name!” she erupted without warning. “You know nothing! You are nothing! I protected her for millennia!” As she said this, her face took on a look of such rage that I felt physically assaulted.

Then she fell into silence once more. Despite my best efforts and that of Cuenyne’s, she refused to respond again after that.

We finally arrived back in the vicinity of the graveyard, grateful to be close to getting out of this mad dimension and back home.

That was when they arrived!

It had begun as a mere spot in the grey canopy of space just south of our position. Then it started to grow, to spiral and fall inwards, turning inky as it spun in sulfurous swirls. Surely I was having another poorly-timed waking vision. Therewith, from out of the fuliginous vortex, the ruinous avatars of my darkest dreams stormed into view.

The first were three floating, cyclopean cubes of grasping, tentacled arms that stretched out from beneath their iridescent, gilded shields. I shuddered to think they matched the description of the parasitic anomaly encountered on Crseih Station years ago—an entity known as Waru! Could one of these approaching horrors be that very being?

They were followed by an array of tremendous, revolting annelids wearing absurd faces like the ceremonial death masques of the Hendanyn. The scientific part of my mind rebelled, insisting they were merely kin or predecessors to the giant exogorths that had been enhanced by the Adasca Corporation; but another voice said they were the rogue brood of the draconic Malmourral, demon-god of the Frangawl Cult of Bardotta sent in forgotten times to destabilize the Tapani and the Cularin systems, and now soaring the frozen black of space, sating their endless hunger.

Impossibly, they were each ridden by a humanoid shape, but against that grey and crimson sky they appeared as opaque adumbrations, living shadows with red eyes.From behind them emerged a swarm of Colossus Wasps, those inconceivable and unknown Hymenoptera that were said to have carried the Onderon system from the Stenness Node to the Japr?l Sector during the War of Temporal Planes.

But they were merely the advanced guard. From our starboard side burst a torrent of fantastical, evil-looking ships straight out of Londahl’s perverse paintings. Some seemed alive and monstrous in size, with vertiginous, lancinating appendages and gaping maws!

Out of another vortex that opened to the north, something else emerged… It was indistinct, at first, a lacteal stain in space that expanded outward like veins to form a face. The “face” was like a twitching, pale-colored insectoid with deeply malevolent eyes that stared out at us. Spewing venomous, fibrous strands of stardust-taloned appendages, it seemed to reach forward with ever-extending legs…

“Cuenyne, fly as fast as this ship will allow and faster!”

“Aye aye, captain!”

“Areana, we’re under attack and need your help now!” She refused to respond. “This is why you were sent here! Do your job, please!” No orders, pleas, or threats could make her as much as blink. She sat stock-still as a mannequin, head straight, gazing, I surmised, at some far-away memory.

That was why when her mouth started moving, I assumed she was finally coming around, only no words came out. Eventually, we could hear her whispering a phrase in some unknown tongue over and over again. The litany continued in a string of different phrases that she repeated in a loop.

“I don’t suppose you want a translation,” Cuenyne asked.

“It d?sn’t sound like anything good.”

“It isn’t!” Cuenyne wrenched the Explorer out of several thick strands of viscous webbing that was shooting from somewhere above!

The Watcher said the Enemy had been alerted to our arrival by spies, but what if it had been Areana? I suddenly felt the urge to toss this dangerously unstable android out the airlock. “What is she saying?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s something about lesser beings and their unworthiness. Seems to be a paraphrase from the Sorcerers of Rhand: ‘Their existence is fleeting. Our destruction is eternal… Only power is real, and the only real power is the power to destroy.’ The next one sounds like Old Sith… Something or somebody waits dreaming…’”

“I change my mind. I don’t want to know.” Frantically I began to search for some kind of off switch before realizing that so advanced a design would never have an apparent shutoff. I tried several vocal commands to no avail. I considered the airlock again when, just as suddenly as it had started, she turned once more silent. “You’re the one who summoned them, aren’t you?” I asked. “I will toss you out the airlock if you don’t stop.”

She didn’t respond, of course, but she did stop, and I thought I detected the hint of a smile. Or had that expression always been there? A darker thought occurred to me then: What if the Watcher had sent her to kill us? What if her advanced matrix had?broken down over the millennia or I failed some enigmatic test she’d conjured up in her mad supercomputer mind. If so, what was Areana waiting for?

Cuenyne was equipped with several grasping arms and appendages, all of which were out as he flew faster than a ship of this model would normally allow, away from the nightmares spattering out unto space like blood from the stump of an exploding limb. That’s when I heard the voices.

Whether I’d known their names from my research or whether they sprang from my unconscious thoughts, I couldn’t say. Images came to me of those who’d traversed the gulfs in ages past, gliding above the lands of blind and wretched hordes that served as flesh orts for the incommensurable, feculent gods of dark Illathurion: Pnygatheem of the ossuary-world of dim Yumar; Mhu’anThul in his black house on Mezzallmech; the pestilential Lotek’k of the Charred Heath; Hērsum the Devout, known to the Mizx as Hershoon the Destroyer, that enormous mollusk who gorged his Ibliton offspring with blood from his teats in the carnal Citadel of Cykranosh.

But even they were lesser beings compared to these.

“Come to us,” the first of the floating cubes sang buoyantly. “Hear the ancient tales of great Uthoqquan; here are fortuities none have ever tasted or seen, endless knowledge beyond the enterprise of Man for you alone to enjoy. Shed your fears and fictitious dreams of light and float with us in the endless oceans of Oozultharoum.”

“Come to us,” the second inveigled seductively. “You know me. We belong together. I will bestow unto you those deepest and most hidden desires which you have long sought. This and more, for all the riddles of the flesh are open before us and are yours for the taking. Come now, become as one with the wondrous Waru.”

“Come to me,” the third laughed liltingly, “for I am the incomparable Ooradryl, older than time and the jeweled stars of your fallen worlds. Free your mind from the false notion of morality… reach beyond such primitive concerns, and I will bequeath to you a thousand uncharted worlds to rule and lifetimes to explore. Am I not your destiny, he who has guided you these long years, the very reason for your being?”

These are the voices I heard and the visions I saw. It would have been a gift for my head to have exploded right then and there. When the perdurable philters of their tenebrific minds poking, tasting, longing, proved too much, and before nausea overtook me, I managed to choke out a half-groan: “We need to do something fast. Do you have any ideas?”

“I do,” said Cuenyne, “but it won’t be pretty—although I see that we’re well past that.”

“I trust your judgement,” I grimaced. “Just get us as far away from here as possible!”

Had Cuenyne and I not modified the XS-Explorer to boost the maximum atmospheric speed to 1,100 km/h, we’d have been immediately overtaken. As it was, it felt like we were only prolonging the inevitable.

Just as we seemed to have outdistanced them, other things came into view: vicious, bat-winged blasphemies with enormous sharp-toothed mouths that roared in retribution for their lost queen. These and other nameless, shapeless horrors appeared as if at every turn.

The Council would want me to describe such things dispassionately, mechanically, so that they could more easily be dismissed as heretofore undiscovered races, exotic, to be sure, but nothing unnatural or—heavens forbid!—supernatural. But that would be a lie, for such things as these were no mere zoological anomalies or “unclassified alien lifeforms to be observed in their natural habitats.” These were monsters, monsters with a will so malignant that had the Council encountered them directly, as surely as I had, they would know that I have not been hyperbolic. If anything, I’ve held back.

The epiphytic armies suddenly ceased their pursuit… it took a moment before we understood why. Something else dwelt within this sphere beneath the m?lstrom of orbiting wrecks. I could hear the ghastly altercation of alien minds claiming me for their own. I could feel their hunger, for they knew well the taste of Man.

Meanwhile, Areana resumed chanting her horrible chant, and the entities kept entreating in dolorous rhythm:

There is no escape from the galaxy of fear. Join our voices in eternal song to the Mighty Mother. Swim with us in the Oceans of Egestus. Feast on the sanguine juices of death and despair, and immortal you will be.

I knew then that I would never flee the susurrations of the grisly diablerie. None ever did, and with a sickening, sinking feeling, I realized that my prior dolorous visions had all been true. This was the dominion from which nightmares arose.

“Hex,” my alloy companion stated, taking me for a moment out of the pummeling trance, “she’s standing!”

“Good. We have to get the coordinates from her,” I said.

She stood before me, headless, wielding a long light-whip, which she now swung full-force at my neck. Though shocked by the sight, I managed to jump out of its path, but only barely, and received a painful red gash on my arm for my sluggish response. I spotted her head now sitting at the station behind her, starry eyes alit, directing her limbs, which now raised the tongue-whip to strike again.

“Hex… the head,” Cuenyne sputtered, fiercely piloting. “It houses the intelligence matrix that remotely controls the body.”

It was sound advice. Unfortunately, a formidable figure stood between me and my target, leaving me scant room to turn. I lethargically jumped out of the whip’s trajectory and this time received a deep, painful cut to my right leg, my clothes not at all hindering the energy beam.

After that, things only got worse!

An enormous, prehensile organ rose from below us. Cuenyne deftly steered around it, but a dozen more shot up, hurling decaying ships out of the way to grab at any fast-moving target that veered too close. One of them latched onto the Explorer, causing it to heave with a disconcerting lurch. The astromech fired the Taim & Bak H9 single turbolaser at the organ, which caused it to lose its grip for a moment, and in that precious second Cuenyne corkscrewed around and away from it.

Areana’s body swayed out of balance, and I launched, throwing all of my weight at her. But the thing had surprising strength and recovered quickly, elbowing me in the sacral plexus and punching the side of my head before hurling me back upon the?spherical astrolabe. I just missed impaling myself on it, but a piece broke off, and I found myself stupidly concerned that the arch?ological treasure would be irrevocably harmed. While I was doubled over she rose up to her full height, lifting the accursed light-whip above me.

But I was now in proximity of the android’s commanding head.

“Don’t destroy it,” shouted Cuenyne. “She’s got information we need stored in her memory banks.”

That won’t be a problem, I thought, cursing as she kicked my blaster away from me. Left with no choice, I grabbed the broken astrolabe’s pointer rod and poked it into the head’s left lucent eye. It shrieked, causing the body to drop the light-whip, which I promptly kicked out of the way.

The android was not long in recuperating, however, and inexplicably began to corkscrew its left wrist. “It’s gone mad,” I shouted before realizing what it was doing. The android used its right hand to fling its dismembered left hand away, revealing a spinning, metallic cylinder ending at a sharp point.

As it leaped forward, I instinctually lifted up my arms to protect myself, and it thrust the whirling blade into my bicep. I turned in pain, but it stabbed again, piercing into my oblique. I struggled to flee, but I felt it cut again, puncturing deeply into my abdomen. I nearly blacked out.

Cuenyne kept calling, but I had no strength with which to answer. Lethargic and disoriented, I made a feeble attempt to move. The hideous head with its empty eye socket actually smiled. She swung down to pierce my head with the killing blow.

It never came.

A young man stood behind her; his two hands lit in flames, his eyes blazing—one of which winked! I resigned it to yet another hallucination even as it turned to the enraged Areana and set her on fire! Her disembodied screams would not easily be forgotten, but her body went to ash mercifully quickly.

I blacked out.

When I awoke, feeling cold at first, then warming and oddly pleasant in a drowsy way, I smelt the pure air and saw orange suns emerge behind lazy clouds drifting over a fertile valley, bestowing the blissful warmth of aureate eternality.

“Appears you were in a bit of trouble,” a voice said. I awoke again, this time to the present, with the suns clarifying into flaming eyes. Once they dimmed to something approaching normal orbs, I could see my hallucinatory savior was a man in his late twenties with thick red hair and a trimmed red beard. As if summoned from some empyreal world where the gods were all beautiful and strong, he said, “We came to thank you for leading us here. We might never have found our aunt otherwise.”

“Your aunt… I don’t understand…” I mumbled, nearly passing out as he knelt beside me. He placed his hands—now doused but still lit with a fiery glow—on my forehead and wounds.

“You will need medical assistance and rest,” he said after a few moments when he finished, “but your internal injuries are healed.”

“Who are you?” was all I could think to utter.

“I am called Vuren. I was at one time known as ‘Fire.’ I think you can see why,” he added with a rogueish smile. “I must now depart to aid my brother and sisters. We will do what we can, but they are many, and we are only four.”

“What’s going on?” asked Cuenyne, sounding alarmed. “Who’s back there? I detect fire.”

But the contained fires from Areana’s smoldering body had been doused as if by magic, and there was nothing of her left, save the terrifying-looking head. Before I could properly offer thanks or ask further questions, he had vanished. “As usual,” I muttered, gingerly testing whether or not I could stand. Still tender, I cautiously returned to the cockpit.

“You’re a bloody mess,” he said. “Where’s your friend?”

“I have no idea,” I replied, feeling disoriented. I dropped down into the gunner’s seat. “What’s happening out there?”

“It’s gone quiet,” the pointy-headed droid replied. “Too quiet.”

“There’s a band of stormclouds above and below us,” I surmised. “It must be preventing them from seeing us.”

“Clouds?” Cuenyne retorted. “In space? I suppose they do look like that. A nebula maybe.”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”

“Well, this is. Your clouds seem to be forming a tunnel around us.”

“So, I’m not crazy.” The clouds created a snaking tube, the exterior of which reddened with an intense blaze of heat. At that same time, the interior appeared to solidify into a dimly-lit channel.

“Not yet, but there’s still time.” Cuenyne sailed deeper into into the tunnel. “No one’s going to penetrate whatever that is,” he stated. “And it’s heading us back to the wormhole.”

As protective coverings went, it was an odd but welcome one. As if launched from a sling-shot, we sped through. It was bright enough to navigate but not enough to see the other side. Given the state I was in, I don’t know if what came next was real or imagined, but what appeared to be faces made of earth, liquid, winds, and flames burst upon the interior walls, the latter of which seemed to wink!

The things that flew outside the tunnel were furiously trying to tear it apart, apparent by the gashes that kept opening. We must’ve been surrounded on all sides, but the tears re-solidified themselves before anything could get through.

By the time we reached the end of the channel, whatever was protecting us couldn’t hold out any longer. Our pursuers began penetrating the shaft. Finally, the interior was eaten away entirely, the mist dispersed, and the exterior fire—having nothing with which to adhere—dissolved. We were left unprotected once more.

Beneath the jumble of destroyed ships moved a massive bulk. Most of it was concealed, but what could be seen would rend the sanity of lesser minds, for it can only be described as gargantuan. The monstrosity had no name that I knew of, but the term that came to mind was the Void-Horror, an ancient cancer that waited at the other side of the wormhole, tearing apart the vessels of hapless voyagers, peeling back?crippled hulls to pluck out the terrified occupants within… but it was not flesh and bone that such diablerie fed upon.

The mere seconds upon which I gazed were enough to burn an impression of that chimerical madness forever into my brain, for upon the nauseating mass of quivering, pallid flesh, a hundred malevolent eyes puckered open and shut.

We flew at risibly ferocious speeds, nearly splattering unto a dozen broken ships as we dove, spun, and whirled to get away, knowing that if we blew ourselves up in the process, it would be the far lesser of several evils.

“We’re too late!” I think I screamed as dozens of grasping tentacles burst up from the Void-Horror. “They’re everywhere!”