Falling Star (intro)

[psCargile]

Dammit the hatch was just too far away! Jarron sprinted down the hexagonal corridor as fast as he could, thudding combat boots ringing the grated deck plates. His legs ached, his side was beginning to cramp, each hot breath scratched at his throat. The walls around him were a blurring darkness. Lockers, junction boxes, valves, pipes, conduits, and protruding equipment and components cast inky shadows. Some of their faces and edges remained high-lighted by the cherry glow spread outward from sconces.

Red for danger.

And for retaining night vision.

The dim, red light from an overhead spot flooded the face of the hatch so far from him like a wash of blood.

Christ! Walsh was dead! Completely consumed by—

Another impact against the ship threw the floor grating out from under him. He fell hard, bruising his left elbow, stinging his right palm. The submachine gun had lurched from his grip, skidding a few feet ahead of him. His dazed mind focused on the sleeve of the once black fabric of his uniform now laundered to a rich charcoal gray. How bad would it be to just lay here and accept what was coming? He wanted to rest so badly.

Margretta.

He scrambled back to his feet, grabbing the gun by the strap, full steam to the hatch.
A reverberation across the deck grates and a moan of metal! Then the gravity field collapsed.

Jarron pedaled air. He realized he could relax in the absence of gravity, his running having given him forward momentum, but he would have to push off the walls to retain it.

Behind him came that loose sucking sound.

Walsh.

It took Walsh.

His eyes darted in panic, looking for solutions he'd been trained to find. There were none.

The sucking, scraping sounds continued, across the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Jarron tucked into a ball and spun around as best he could. He put the stock of his gun at his belly, as close to his center of gravity as possible.

Red high-lights glistened off intertwining, wriggling ropey tendrils slick with some unimaginable ichor, pulling what he knew to be a larger mass of nothing but slippery tentacles. It reached out for him. The smell was worse than septic.

The rapid report of his submachine gun, slammed into his ears, echoing off the walls. The blinding, strobing muzzle flash gave it an appearance of a nest of snakes, each glint revealing a new pose of the horror overtaking him.

The gunfire propelled him backwards towards the hatch. He knew the bullets, designed to penetrate soft materials and fragment against hard, had done no damage to the thing. He had watched Walsh unload into it. Seen under the bright lights of the shuttle bay, it's flesh allowed the passage of the bullets with no harm. It wasn't as if the creature had an incredibly fast healing ability, there were just no damn wounds. Jarron imagined that if he could cut a chunk out of the thing, the walls of the cavity and the chunk itself would be the same as the skin.

He dared a glance backward. The hatch was a mere few meters away. A tendril suddenly coiled around his right leg and jerked him forward. Jarron coughed out a yelp and fired into the tentacle. If he could just cut it loose—

He almost managed it, but more tendrils thrust towards him, bifurcating madly as they did, wrapping around him, holding him. He struggled and tried to thrash free, his heartbeat hammering in his ears. His screams were hoarse yells.

Needles pricked his neck. There was a burning sting, then a coldness. His muscles relaxed, his bladder vented. He couldn't move. Breathing was difficult. Uneven. Sporadic.

Sorry Margretta.

In front of his sweat sheenful face a thick trunk split in two. Tendrils wavered as if sniffing and searching. The ends begin to stretch, thinning into surgical needle diameter. Jarron realized where they were going. He couldn't move. He couldn't scream. Phosphenes began to sparkle across his gray bordered vision.

The needles slowly penetrated his corneas, pushed through the pupils, and through the jellies of his eyes, bifurcating into smaller and smaller tendrils as they did so. At microscopic sizes, they found the retinas, then they proliferated and wove their way along his optic nerves.

[psCargile]

cont.

"Hopper do you read me goddamn you!" She said into the pick-up jutting out from her ear-set. Margretta jittered with adrenaline and fear. She wanted to punch dents into the walls as they raced along the corridors.

She was sinewy, toned muscles tight on her otherwise thin frame. Radiator damage had caused heat to build up, forcing her to strip off her command jacket, leaving her in a navy-blue sleeveless undergarment that clung to her skin. A stain of sweat spread between her small breasts. Sweat glistened on her bare arms and face. She had pulled her dusky, shoulder-length hair out of her face and off her neck into a high ponytail. The shape of her legs were hidden inside loose fitting, black combat trousers. She wore standard issue service boots. Her side arm was out, clutched in a nervous hand.

"He and Walsh were in Alpha bay," the dark medic jogging behind her said between breaths, just to say something. He was a good foot taller than her, and dressed in the same manner.
No response from Jarron Hopper. They were nearing the shuttle bay's main connecting corridor.

Speculation was that the thing that infiltrated the ship came aboard clutching the outside of a shuttle. Shortly thereafter, unknown things of tremendous mass pelted the hull, causing damage that was more annoying than catastrophic. Repairs were underway.

She wanted to get out of this nebula. To hell with the mysterious microstar that drew them here.

They came to the main hatch, Marsh pulling the medical kit from his back. Margretta immediately peered through the small round window. Jarron was sprawled across the deck. She holstered her weapon. Her hands were frantic at the hatch controls. Locking pins unseated and she pulled the heavy pressure door open, dashing to the fallen man.

She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him over, quickly placing two fingers on his neck. Thank God he had a pulse! His breathing was shallow, but consistent. She noticed a thin mucus-like film on his clothes and face. It was on her hand as well.

Marsh was there, nearly pushing her out of the way and slamming open his medical kit. He pulled out scanning instruments and begun inspecting his patient.

"I got that crap on my hands," she groused looking for a hand towel in the kit.

"We need to get him to the infirmary," Marsh interjected. "He's got damage to his eyes. If he wants to see again, we'll need to grow him some new ones.

"Eyes," Margretta said surprised, wiping her hands on a towel she found.

"They were punctured." He glanced at her. "Put that in a biohazard bag, if you will."

As she did so, she noticed the slick substance coating the floor, walls, and ceiling back towards the shuttle bay. "We'll need to sanitize this hall."

Marsh spoke on his ear-set, commanding another response team to their position. He then unfolded a de-con blanket and wrapped it around Hopper, more for their protection than his.

Margretta stood, visibly shaken. She wanted to hold Jarron, make him well; take his place and have his pain and experiences of the ordeal. He was in Medical's care. That was the best she could do for him now.

What the hell happened? What was that thing?

Would it be back? With others? If so, when?

Too many questions. Some of the answers she didn't want. They obviously had encountered a superior life form, if not in mind, then in biology. You respected such a life form by leaving it alone.

They had to leave this nebula, or at least this part of it.

The damn microstar. There was no doubt in her mind that it and the life form were connected somehow.

The med evac team arrived. Upon seeing her, one of them complained, "When are they gonna get the damn sliders working?" Both were exhausted from running and pushing the wheeled gurney. Not waiting for her answer, they both began to help Marsh attend to Jarron.

Marsh had placed a micro-machine device around the wounded man's upper arm. A silvery spike shaped much like a claw had penetrated Hopper's lower arm, finding a vein. Tiny machines were being pumped into his blood on search and destroy missions.

The medics deferred to her because she was the Sec-Com, the security commander overseeing strategy, tactics, and internal security when the need arose. They had certainly experienced a tactical situation in the last few hours. That caused the crew to look to her leadership over the Science Administrator's.

And yet, her and Thailsen's authority could be overridden by the crew's vote, and the veto of the Ship's Master.

Lousy way to run a ship.

She answered his question, failing to recall his name, "Spark Chasers are on it, like every damn thing else." Margretta eyed the slider resting against the wall.

They used the magnetic driven tray with folding side rails for rapid passage down the long corridors. Had the rails not lost power, Jarron could have escaped the creature.

Maybe.

Despite the working white lights, the corridor back to the shuttle bay looked like a forbidden burrow to a dangerous animal's lair.

Jarron was being lifted onto the gurney. "His vital signs are good. Stable," Marsh said more to Margretta than to his aids. Jarron's square, chiseled face appeared unnaturally frail, as if something essential had been taken from him.

As they were moving the gurney over the sill of the hatch, Marsh said to the other medics, "We're in no rush, let's not wear ourselves out." He pointed with his head down the long corridor towards the central habitat.

"They need to make shorter ships," one of them remarked.

They understood why the ship was long; the principles of the exotic non-reaction drive demanded it.

She wiped sweat out of her eyes with the back of her hand, and followed.

[psCargile]

Anyone care for Act 2?

[Sanderlee]

I would be if you'd break up the paragraphs with spacing lines ... or re-submit as a .pdf file. Right now it's awful hard to read the Big Block O' Text.

What of it I did read seemed interesting, tho.

[psCargile]

Act 2

Orkus Thailsen rocked slowly in his leather chair behind his sweeping console, overlarge to remind everyone of his authority and status aboard ship. Margretta stood in front of it, not having been asked to sit. She shot glances at his thin, scarecrow face, wispy gray hair, and bushy gray brows tangled low over cold gray eyes. Everything about the science administrator was gray. He was a dreary winter day absent a warm spark.

He relished it, drawing his power from some cold metal core.

"Well, yes," he continued their conversation with a slight hint of a slur. "The damage, you'd have to agree, was minor. Captain Lockerty—"

"Minor!" She interrupted. She had made a motion to leave the place. He of course wanted to stay. He had her temper flaring like a fusion bottle. He was speaking of the ship. She was thinking of the crew. "Did you see Walsh! He was eviscerated! Arms and legs filleted, organs pulled out and arranged as if on display! Puncture holes on every part of him!"

He looked at her as if curious why she would be so emotional over the trivial facts of the man's death. "Captain Lockerty," he asserted, "reports the ship fully mission capable, and I have advised him that the dangers this newly encountered life form poses is well worth the risks of further investigation into the microstar. And, I might add, these life forms merit study as well.

"So, your job is to—"

"Don't tell me my job. I know what my job is," she chided over him.

"—is to insure that we can continue our exploration safely."

She wanted to pull her hair out. "Who are you to advise him of the dangers to this ship and crew? Considering the circumstances, I believe that falls within my responsibilities."

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands across his lap. "If this were a warcraft, I'd agree. As it is an exploration vessel, I can't. You’d have to agree to that, wouldn’t you say?"

Margretta glowered at him, the urge to throttle him overpowering. This battle was lost. Thailsen remained an immovable mountain of will. "Fine," she rejoined hotly. "But remember this: you can't do science on a dead ship." Margretta performed a smart about face and stormed out his office.

Jarron peered out the view port, a pane of plasma shielded glass no larger than his broad face. His breath fogged its surface as his eyes—his new eyes—searched the inky darkness beyond. Glows of distance stars were smudges of light in the murky cloud spanning light-years across in every direction. Above the ship loomed the mysterious microstar, a thing that shouldn't exist naturally. Below them an accretion disc gyrated much to slow to notice around a growing seed of dust and gas.

And somewhere out there, a leviathan. He couldn't help but to recall the old nautical tales. The Krakens. The giant squids. The sea monsters that rose from the depths and drug hapless ships and crews down to the bottom into a watery grave.

Was this the beginning of a space monster myth? Perhaps. But it was no myth that tore Parker Walsh apart, or ruined his own eyes. What had that been about? Why was he spared?
It should have killed him too.

Survivor's guilt. That what the Psych called his condition.

Jarron didn't feel guilty about surviving. Sometimes he just didn’t want to be alive with the memories of that thing touching him, holding him. Paralyzing him.

Rape.

He felt it somehow raped him in a manner he couldn't quite identify.

It was out there somewhere, impervious to vacuum, drawing energy from some bizarre metabolism, or from some other unknown means. Out there invisible in the dust.

The door chime sing-songed. "It's open," he called out, turning away from the tiny view port and its vista of fragile uncertainty.

Margretta Danetti stepped in, her body tense from anger and frustration. Major Danetti. His commanding officer. He knew why she was here. To vent. To love.

He said nothing as she paced the floor in the dim light of his quarters. He allowed her this time. "These idiots will get us all killed, " she growled. "And they expect me to just solve their problem." She looked at him expecting concurrence. He stared back waiting. "I don't even know what we are up against, " she added. "How do they expect us to fight the unknown?" Exasperation.

"They don't," he said softly. She turned away, ran a hand threw her hair. Jarron shrugged. "We provoked it somehow."

"Oh really." Hotly.

He picked up a web-belt out of chair and began adjusting the clips to a small pouch. "It only attacked Walsh and me. Didn’t touch the shuttle crew or the deck chiefs. Walsh lost it. He fired at it." Jarron sank into ominous memory.

Her eyes darted across his face, seeing the subtle pain just below the surface, never daring to really break free.

Hopper threw the web-belt back into the chair. "Lousy way to initiate a first contact."
Quietly she responded, "He didn't deserve to die."

"I'm not saying he did. But we shot first." He turned away from her, staring out the dark eye of the view port. What could they have expected in return? He shrugged. "I don't want to go up against that thing again."

It felt so close to him. Like it left some residue behind. Residue that wouldn't wash away.

"So we should stay out here? But keep our distance?" Probing.

He looked at her. "The crew have voted." Surrender carried his tone.

Defeated, Margretta plopped down on the edge of his clothes cluttered bed. "Well damn us for trying then."

Silence between them. He found his fingernails an interesting study while she picked at a fold in his bed cover.

Jarron strode over, looking down at her. She returned the stare and he traced a finger tip along the curve of her jaw and pointed chin, cupped it, stroking her face with his thumb.

She seemed to have noticed his eyes for the first time that day. "Oh God, I'm so thoughtless. How're the eyes? Better?"

"Still a little sore, but they see quite well." Jarron grinned at her, a grin he knew she liked. Each drank the vision of the other.

Major Danetti reached up and pulled his head closer. Their mouths fell into a hot kiss, searching and anticipatory. Languid with patience. Tentative.

She undid the fasteners on her command jacket and shrugged out of it, his mouth on the side of her neck, just under her ear, melting her with pleasure.

It was utterly wrong for her to allow this.

It was so right to indulge.

He gently pushed against her and she permitted herself to fall back onto the bed. His hands roamed her, delighting in the shapes of her, and in both the softness and firmness beneath them. He pulled her tank top up, over her head. She assisted, wanting him. Wet mouths met eager flesh.

"Jarron . . ." she sighed. I am so glad you are still alive.

She would have hot-quarked the entire nebula to avenge him.


The urgent call came as she was brushing her teeth with his toothbrush. She spit out the foam and rinsed her mouth as Jarron proffered her ear-set. They felt the ship moving as reaction drives pulsed, nudging the craft laterally.

Margretta took the communication device and inserted it into her ear. "Sec Com."

Jarron frowned at her, alert and attentive.

Her brown eyes widened at unexpected news. "Affirm'. I'm on my way. Sec Com out."

"What's going on," Hopper asked.

The Major dashed out of the small bathroom into his room, reaching for her jacket. "The microstar. It's moving."

"What," he asked following her. "Where's it going?" And how could it do that?

"It's falling toward the accretion disc!" She fastened her jacket, smoothed it out. "I'm needed at Command Core." She leaned in and pecked a kiss on his cheek.

"Wait. I'll get my gear." He hurried off to collect his equipment.

She was at the open hatch, "You're still on convalescent leave Master Sergeant Hopper."

Aboard a slider, Thailsen raced up the Alpha Concourse on his way from the shuttle bay to the command center. For a month his teams had been scouring the shuttle and every place the mysterious life form reportedly had been for clues to what it may be.

Thailsen was convinced that the microstar and the alien life form were connected. How, he yearned to determine.

Halfway to the junction hatch something fell upon him from the ceiling. Startled, he let out a sharp cry. He was too old to suffer this calamity, down on one knee, holding the side rail for support, body trembling, chest aching, nearly out of breath.

He realized that a person had fallen upon him. It was lifting him to his feet, pressing him against the aft railing. The man was not quite a man.

He looked familiar, except for the corpse gray complexion and herpetological veneer. "Sergeant Hopper?" he questioned the naked man. Thailsen noticed that the man's skin wasn't entirely smooth. In just the right light, it seemed to be made up minute, tightly bundled cords. Repulsed, Thailsen pushed back against the rail as if to pass through it to freedom.

The man reached out to the small control box, thumbing the red stop button. The slider decelerated quickly.

"What are you," the scientist managed to ask behind swelling fear.

"Jarron Hopper," the man answered dead pan. "And something more." The Hopper thing frowned as it took in the Administrator's reactions. "This form is not pleasing to you. Perhaps you will find this one more interesting?" The features of it's face and body began to soften and blur. The comprising cords, thickened and bulged, writhed and convoluted until new forms smoothed into higher definition.

Shapeshifter!

Thailsen's eyes widened in denial.

The entity began fluctuating on the female theme, watching Thailsen's reactions. Mesmerized, he began discerning attractive features: a full face, pouty lips, large breasts, wide hips. She was soft, voluptuous.

"I'm certainly interested in you," the woman-like entity said.

"Why?" was the best his confused mind could ask.

Color began to flush the entity's skin, as if saturation were being added to a monochromatic image. It's attractiveness and faint musky scent allayed his fears. If it were possible to facsimile humans—

It drew close to him, like a lover, smoothing the breast of his rumpled command jacket, speaking softly. "We've learned much from the Jarron Hopper, and the Parker Walsh. We offer you a gift."

Was this a woman before him? Something worked on his subconscious. He wanted to embrace her.

"What kind of gift," he asked above a whisper.

Alluring, gently touching the edge of his jaw, "Knowledge. All that we know. It can be yours." Her breasts pressed against him maddeningly.

"What knowledge," he breathed. What could he learn from these beings?

"Secret workings of the universe, like your kind has never imagined," she said, her mouth close enough to kiss him.

"Yes," he sighed, lost in rapture. Was it possible for him to suddenly learn about the, "Microstar?"

"The microstar. And much more," she cooed, pulling him low, reaching her mouth to his ear.
"Yes," Thailsen moaned closing his eyes.

He didn't see the color wash out of her face. Spike tipped tendrils shot out of her mouth, plunging into his left ear. He let free a startled, dreadful wail that no one heard. Pain stabbed through his head.

Mercifully, he lost consciousness.

A spike burst free from the back of his skull, above the spine, in a shower of bright blood. As it retreated, the female mimic brought a hand up to the wound. The hand blossomed into an array of fine cilia and thin tendrils. It pulled its mouth away from the bloody ear. The coils inside the man's head began to push the brain out of the fresh wound into the ropey hand. The hand fed it into a growing passage through the core of the arm.

Once the brain was removed, the entity inside Thailsen's head began to knit up the wound, and repair the ear.

The entity that was the woman, and before, Jarron, forgo it's humanoid shape and pulsed into a vertical stack of quivering thick tendrils, like an uprooted, diseased tree. Tentacles began to lap up the spilled blood, removing evidence of its violence.

Orkus Thailsen, Science Administrator, looked at the creature standing before him, his mind virtually exploding with knowledge, his face blank with surprised understanding and revelation. "My God!" he exclaimed. "It's really so simple, isn't it?"

The advanced life form said nothing, but then again it didn’t need to. Thailsen understood what their kind was doing. "Well, I must be on my way, wouldn’t you agree," he said to the creature.

It elongated and slurped itself through a ruptured ceiling panel and was gone.
Thailsen pressed the start button, the slider sped toward the hatch.

[psCargile]

Act 3

Sergeant Hopper followed the Major anyway, arming himself only with his D387 handgun. As he entered the Command Core, two alert guards in combat gear stopped him. Recognized, he was allowed to pass.

A railed footway lead to a buttressed command post in the center of a spacious globular room whose surface existed as a multipurpose display. Upon it he saw the microstar above them at a declination of about sixty degrees. Stereoscopic effects gave it an three dimensional illusion. Information about the microstar hung beside it. If he peered over the catwalk, he would see the accretion disc.

The walkway merged into an observation platform circling the control pit where the crew worked. Three command chairs arced along the rear of a dais abaft the pit. Captain Lockerty sat in the center seat. The gruff man turned his head at Jarron's footsteps.

"Major Danetti," the Captain called.

Jarron stopped to the left of the dais, looked down into the pit. Margretta stood near the central helm control studying tactical information on a cluster of unseen displays against the wall. The pit was busier than usual with people crowded around the consoles hidden under the upper deck. She looked up and acknowledged him, then issued orders to her lieutenant before coming up the stairs.

"Couldn't stay away, huh?"

"Not really," he answered. "What's going on?"

"Not much now. We are about one light-min' away and receding. Gluonics are ready, but no sign of our friends.

He nodded, taking in the vista that gave the uncanny appearance of sitting exposed in space.

Margretta leaned in, spoke in hushed tones, "Something interesting has come to my attention. For some reason, Thailsen paused his slider in the middle of Alpha Concourse for a few minutes."

The sergeant frowned. "Any trouble?"

"No," she said, opening her mouth to continue. The hatch opened. "There he is," she stated looking over Hopper's shoulder.

Jarron craned his neck around.

There was something odd about the Sci-Admin.

Something oddly familiar.

Memories, or memories of dreams, but not dreams, something dreamlike, yet real. An imprint. A residue. Or a lingering pattern. A ghost of some presence. A faint personae, yet not of him. The damage to his eyes. The medics explained there were symptoms of swelling of the brain, yet there had not been any neurological damage.

Yes. It all made sense now. The Kraken had been there, mapping his brain, sharing his head space. It had left, physically, but his mind had captured some part of it like a hologram.

That part of him recognized the Kraken must be in Thailsen.

"Is there something wrong," Margretta asked concerned about the deep worrisome frown he wore.

"I don't know," he said calmly, as Thailsen stepped by nodding. His eyes met the Administrator's. The dark, knowing look the older man gave him was enough for Jarron to realize the real man was dead.

Upon noticing the Sci-Admin, Captain Lockerty drawled out a report, "The microstar is accelerating. It'll reach point four cee in a few days. We don't want to be anywhere near it when it hits the accretion disc."

"Quite the contrary," Thailsen declared good naturedly. "There's still time yet. If we act fast, no harm will come to us." He turned and looked down into the control pit. "Set a course for the microstar."

This surprised everyone. Lockerty sat up in his chair wary of the order. Major Danetti shouted, "What?"

"We'll be perfectly safe," Thailsen assured, turning to face her.

The helm turned and looked up to the Captain, who shook his head. Belay the order.

Responding to Thailsen, Danetti asked, "What the hell do you mean we'll be safe? We've already crossed one threshold and got attacked!"

Thailsen paused, then smiled graciously. "This is a scientific mission, I intend to do science. A low gradient contortion field should dissuade our neighbors from approach." He stared hard at her, then stared back into the control pit. "Proceed to the microstar. Ramp the fields to five DLCs."

"Our instrument reading will be distorted," a senior science technician objected.

"We don't even know what the hell that thing really is," Margretta shouted, pointing up at its image.

"What better time to find out," Thailsen rejoined, moving to take his seat, and ignoring the complaint from the pit.

Jarron unholstered his sidearm, leveling it at the man. "No it's not."

All eyes were on the sergeant now.

"Are you going to kill me?" Thailsen asked with surprised amusement.

Hopper hesitated. What if he was wrong? "I don't think so." He exhaled a shallow breath, and pulled the trigger.

The unexpected deafening report startled everyone. The bullet torn through Thailsen's forehead, exited messily, and struck the far curving wall. Immediately a red circle enclosed the impact. Alongside it a statement and time counter informed when the self repairs would be complete. The circle shrunk rapidly to compliment the racing clock.

"I'd rather you not have done that," Thailsen remarked, after catching his balance. He watched the Captain stand and move toward Danetti and Hopper.

The Major cupped her ear-set microphone, gave commands to a squad leader, then demanded of the thing controlling Thailsen's body, "What are you?"

"Jarron here, thinks of me as the Kraken. That's a fitting visual description, but it not close to what we are. Titans. A little closer, but the concept of God, now that it interesting. We have never considered the possibility of a species with higher intelligence than our own. But God is an appropriate term to apply." The Thailsen-Kraken had begun to repair the damage done to it's surrogate body, tiny limbs working like sewing needles.

Margretta asked, pulling her own sidearm out, "Why is that?"

"We are artists," the Thailsen-thing said, spreading its arms out as if in benediction. "We create, and you lesser sapients are meddling in our work."

"The accretion disc," Lockerty muttered, "You're going to ignite a star."

"Ah! Correct, my good Captain!" Thailsen said. "And as a bonus to us, yourselves. We want to learn more about you, incorporate your quiddity into ourselves."

"In the same way you learned about Walsh and me," Jarron shouted, gun hand trembling
.
Lockerty shivered at the thought.

Reports were coming in to the Major. She stepped aside to listen and issue orders.

Thailsen seemed uncertain who merited more attention, Hopper or Danetti? He took a step forward, "What are you doing Margretta?"

Before she could respond, Jarron barked, "Halt! Don't move!"

Thailsen paused long enough to dismiss the command.

Jarron punished him by firing into the body's heart, then into the legs. It crashed to the deck.

The Captain grumbled into the control pit, "Cycle up the fields, get us out of this nebula as fast as you can!" The deck boss shot back an affirmative and the crew hurried to their tasks.

The Thailsen-Kraken flailed in anger, croaking and gasping, "Knowledge. We offer you knowledge, and union of intelligence."

Jarron and Margretta crept up on it, guns at the ready. "They have the other one trapped in Alpha Concourse," she informed.

Jarron nodded. They understood the thing should die there. The contortion fields converged at the center of the ship and placed severe stress on matter. A body could survive the onslaught with immediate medical attention, but the mind—it was theorized that the mind was disjoined from the body. No one understood it, but the result was death.

A trooper carrying a flash pulse laser gun entered the Command Core and rushed to the fallen body. They all jumped back as bloody spikes erupted from the body's head in an attempt to escape.

The gun trooper waved them back. A red targeting laser flittered and danced across the old man's face. Soon an invisible picosecond burst shot out of the five inch emission lens and most of the face and the tissue beneath vaporized. Exposed, the gray, slimy, convoluted brain-like thing wriggled, then began to unfold and assume its bundled tendril form. Another flash pulse and it jerked wildly, its tips bifurcating madly.

Margretta wondered how much heat the thing could take. She wouldn’t find out.

Of Thailsen's head, there was nothing left. The deckplates beneath it were white hot, vaporous, expelling a pungent odor. Warning signs raised from the surface: letters embossed on the floor. The tiny Kraken bolted away, falling into the control pit, soliciting shouts and screams of both surprise and terror from the crew.

Jarron and Margretta raced down the stairs in pursuit. The Kraken eluded them, hiding in confined spaces. The hectic crew were caught between wanting to flee and wanting to carry out their duties. The hatch to a corridor under the above walkway opened. A surprised junior officer stepped into the foray, dancing away from the slick, gray scuttling thing that shot between his feet and down the hall.

"Out of the way!" Hopper shouted to the man, nearly shouldering him clear. He and Margretta dashed into the corridor. Where was the little bastard!
Margretta spied a thin tendril reaching up for the hatch control pad. As the hatch opened, the Kraken shot through the narrow space between the door and the jamb. The two security officers met the open hatch and lunged into the empty lateral corridor beyond. Wall sconces pulsed cherry red.

In both directions, nothing. Several meters both ways the corridor terminated at hatches intersecting longitudinal hallways.

Margretta sighed. "If this thing can split in two, we're ****ed."

Jarron shrugged, looking along the hall for any obvious damage. "At least it's small."

Danetti huffed. "For now." A glint caught her eye. She looked at the hatch on her side, noticed the lock illumination light shining. "This way!" she shouted falling into a full sprint. "It locked the hatch."

Her command overrides unlocked it. If the sapient monster had Thailsen's knowledge, it must know that it could only impede them. Across the T-junction the other hatch was locked.

"It's heading for the airlock," Jarron commented as the Major began tapping codes on the control pad. Two troopers came running towards them from up the hall.

Margretta noticed one cradling a charged net gun used in crowd control for entangling opponents. "Good thinking soldier," she said before the four of them darted down the hall to the next locked hatch.

They went through another two before arriving at the airlock. Both pressure doors were shut, the inner one they faced locked as expected. Margretta peered through the small round window catching sight of the little monster springing into the similar window of the outer hatch with great force. Fine cracks webbed the strengthened glass. The creature sprang back to the inner door, then leapt forward at its target with incredible speed.

The glass shattered, but the safety plasma field extenuated the outgasing. The Kraken rebounded, then crawled through the opening, unharmed by the plasma. It escaped into space.

Margretta turned around with a shrug. "It's gone. It left the ship."

"What if it intends sabotage?" one the troopers asked.

"Doubt it," Jarron answered. "It wanted our minds."


Days later and a few light-years away from the nebula, a search team found the remains of the larger creature that copied Jarron Hopper's mind and form. Orkus Thailsen's successor delighted at the task of dissecting the specimen.

The artificial falling star succeeded in reaching its target. Though they thought the birth of the new star within the nebula wondrous, they had no desire to investigate.

[psCargile]

This story needs a complete restructuring. The ending is weak, and the conflict is never really addressed. The alien uses seduction and I think that is too human a method even though it has knowledge of human behavior. It would be better if the shuttle crew get attacked and invaded, return to the ship as if nothing happened to them, met Thailsen and convert him. Alien/Thailsen then directs the ship with crew unawares to the microstar, whereupon the ship is attacked.
Thailsen is discovered to have been replaced and the crew fight to escape the microstar and its horrors.