In which a rough spacefarer encounters a being of pure existential dread. Cw - Planet destruction and related deaths, cosmic horror.
RED ALERT. RED ALERT. ALL CREW MEMBERS TO THE BRIDGE.
She was a seasoned veteran of danger by this point. Her body was littered with scars from laser fire and ship debris. She'd survived alone on a deserted planet for three months eating nothing but mudgrubs, she'd survived a ruptured hull by wrapping herself in sparking cables, she'd survived the belly of a horned dustbug with naught but a shard of glass and her own determination.
But she wasn't too sure she'd survive this.
The cargo starship keened to the left violently as the captain jerked the wheel away from the apocalyptic movement of the creature outside. Steeling herself, she set the auto aim on the dashboard, knowing the missiles wouldn't put a dent in whatever the thing was. As they lit up the blackness of space, they hit with a plume of purple, and the creature turned gigantic, apocryphal eyes upon the annoyance. Were the captain less in control of the cargoship, the thing's hand would have swiped it into oblivion as if it were a gnat. Hardly surprising, as the planet around which they were fighting the creature was half devoured already, chunks of mantle and dust beginning to orbit the great monster.
"We can't win this, captain!" She screamed down the comms, unleashing the rest of the ballistic payload, her body quivering at how the creature didn't even flinch. "Please, we need to jump! The colony is lost!"
The growl back was one she would remember for the rest of her presumably short life. "This ain't over 'til one of us is dead!" As the monster swung another hand, he undocked the empty hold with a juddering hiss, giving it a false target. She watched with horror as it swiped at it, the million credit module instantly absorbed into its endlessly unfathomable void. "Look for weak spots!"
She grit her teeth. Never had she had reason to go against any of her commanding officers. But given a choice between following an idiot into certain doom and drifting for as long as her oxygen would hold her, she'd take the latter.
"Fuck this."
Setting the computer to autofire, she unbuckled her belt, easily combating the tilt of erratic movements like an experienced surfer as she grabbed her spacesuit. Her abandoned comms screamed and yelled faintly, but she paid it no mind as she jammed on her helmet and snatched up the photo of her wife, tucking it into her sample pocket.
After punching in the code for the pod, the ship's red alert beacon began to flash purple, signalling her departure, and she immediately heard the muffled voice of the captain on the loudspeaker, cursing about mutiny and cowardice. She didn't care. She was a survivor, and she wouldn't follow anyone into a revenge fuelled suicide mission.
The pod felt amniotic after the chaos of the ship proper, quiet and still as she buckled up and grabbed the lever, tugging it down sharply.
Three. Two. One. Ka-CHUNK.
The window in front of her turned from flashing panic to dark and calm space, her ship leaving her behind, sailing off to continue spraying the creature with useless firepower. Out of her cramped little operations room, finally given a proper window, she could see the creature in all its terrible glory. Almost humanoid, so dark and black that it hurt to look at, endless hues beyond imagination teasing its edges. And it was big. Oh, great beast above, it was big.
The cargo ship turned toward it to fire another missile. Too late. The space where the creature's mouth may have been thundered open into a visceral maw of incomparable horror, creating a gravitational pull so large and precise that the ship couldn't escape, the whole thing gone within a blink of an eye. Her crew. Devoured. Stardust.
She expected the thing to turn on her escape pod, to crush it between fingers like the surfaces of moons. But after the annoyance was gone, it suddenly stopped the wild movements and turned back to the rock before it, and she watched as it ate undisturbed. At least that's what she assumed it was doing. Plumes of dust and molten rock and chunks of the planet drifted in vast columns to what seemed to be its mouth, disappearing forever.
If it weren't so horrific, that would be sorta beautiful, she thought.
Then stillness. A beat. And those gigantic swirling eyes drifted to rest directly upon her pod. It knew she was there. It could see her. Hear her, somehow. She yelped and scrambled for the computer as the creature reached out, frantically punching in coordinates, desperate for the thrusters to take her anywhere but there.
"Warming up." Came the infuriatingly calm voice from the computer. "Thank you for your patience."
And then blackness. She winced and waited for a death that didn't come. Had it been looking elsewhere? Was she safe? Cautiously cracking open one eye, she realised that the darkness around her consisted of fingers miles wide, curled around her speck of a pod, nearly close enough to touch.
"Oh, fuck… Fuckety fuck." She exhaled shakily, wondering what the thing wanted with her. Why her? She was barely a dust mote, let alone a snack.
Then her brain shattered with noise, with information. Every known language speaking to her at once, like a chorus of a billion inside her head, one over the other, and she screamed in a way she had never screamed before, writhing in her seat in agony. Then the sound waned like the lead up to the tip of a needle, voices whittling away until the voice was one she could understand.
Why were your people attacking me?
"Wh… You… You just destroyed our colony planet! What else did you expect us to do?!" She yelled out, eyes stinging with tears as she bit back her anger. Hopefully this thing could actually hear her, because she had a lot to say.
I did not realise this fact. You have my sympathies.
It took her a moment to get her head around what was being said to her, but when she did, she almost exploded. "Sympathies?! Fucking hell, you can't just go around eating any planet you feel like! Who the fuck even does that?! There were a thousand people on that planet, you bastard!"
It could have been worse. A thousand is not at all many.
God, she wished she had a gun. "You're just lucky my wife wasn't down there, or I'd leap out of this escape pod and ram my fist down your shitty little rainbow throat!"
This sector is meant to be devoid of sentient life. That is why I chose it. It is your own fault for settling where you ought not to be.
"What kind of monster are you that goes around eating planets anyway?!" She yelled back, spittle coating the inside of her visor.
I am entropy. I am the void. I am the singularity that has the gift of will. I am that which may impose the event horizon upon any given body. I am stardust.
She was silent for just a moment. "...So you're a black hole who's a guy."
Succinct. But technically correct.
That gave her pause. She supposed a regular roaming black hole just did this anyway. The fact that this one was rational and was picking and choosing what matter to devour with the view of not harming sentient life, it did lift it in her estimation. Plus, it took the time to talk to her, which was considerate to say the least.
"Okay, look. I'm still pissed the fuck off, but I guess you're alright, for a mind-melting space monster that killed my friends." She sighed heavily. "Just let me go. I'll drift until I die or some passing vessel picks me up."
This may not be of comfort, but all matter remains the same. They are still extant, even if their spark of life is not present.
"You're right, that's not a comfort."
Then I shall apologise. Goodbye, lifeform. May your bright ember burn as long as your fragile body lasts.
She didn't remember how she came to be in orbit around her home planet. It surely wasn't luck. But she was detected and brought planetside in less than an hour, her limbs still shaking. It took her a long time to even attempt to regale her brush with death, which she did without her usual bravado. It was with a solemn whisper of gut-wrenching awe, tears streaming down her face, those endlessly glowing eyes boring a hole of cosmic terror into her very soul.
(and here's the silly doodle of the big guy that makes him seem goofier than I intended)
Actor Ken Utsui always refused to discuss his time as the Japanese movie hero, Space Giant, primarily because he was humiliated by having to wear a hugely stuffed crotchpiece in his costume, as the producers felt that would have a “hypnotic effect” on viewers.
