Cosmic Horror

[Jump Commencing In 5.. 4..]

Despite how soothing the computer's voice is, I feel the normal sense of dread just before a slip. If I believed in any sort of God I'd for sure be praying to them now. Cross galaxy travel might be perfectly safe through the Gate network and it's stable wormholes, but slip travel always comes with a chance I don't arrive.

No other way to get those gates out in the black though and somebody has to do it.

[3.. 2.. 1. Jump Commencing]

The familiar stars of home are replaced with pure darkness for a few moments before a wholly unfamiliar set replace them.

[Slip Time Twenty Six Minutes, Thirty Seven Seconds. Reporting Arrival To Luna Authority]

One oddity of slip travel is that the trip never feels as long as the system says. Pilots always ask in training why that is only to be told we were not meant to understand the jump, only to do it.

The computer sends off the confirmation that we made it through safely and are ready to drop the gate. A quick check of the surrounding star data with the expected destination point shows we are only a couple million kilometres out from where we need to be.

I enter the commands needed and the ship starts it journey to the nearby earth-like destined to be a new colony. Maybe this will be the one I retire to after my mandated fifteen gate drops and move on to something less dangerous. Three more to go after this.

Within a few hours, we enter orbit of the earth-like and deploy the gate. Nobody ever really explained why we even need to be on these trips because most of it is automated. The powers that be must just not like the idea of a fully independent AI. Can't say I blame them after the issues we had on Europa.

[Gate Installed. Wormhole Creation Started]

Green lights come on around the ring in sequence and once they are all lit the wormhole begins to form.

Suddenly, one light goes yellow. A second does the same and rapidly they all follow suit before the wormhole collapses, taking the ring out in the process.

I grab for the controls and manage to swing the ship around, avoiding most of the debris. I hear some scrapes and bangs as smaller pieces bounce off the hull but with the ring no longer attached to the underbelly I have the manoeuvrability to escape any serious damage.

[Gate Inoperable. Return Via Jump Required]

Thank you computer. Much appreciated. Really quite helpful.

A systems check confirms nothing was damaged by the debris impacts and the jump drive was spooling up already. This isn't the first time I've had to slip back after a gate failure but the less time spent travelling by slip, the better I sleep at night.

[Jump Commencing in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..]

The stars disappear as they always do but this time it's not darkness that replaces them but light.

[Slip Shield Failure. Pilot Ordered To Shut Eyes]

But I can't.

Outside my ship streams of colour and light move about and travel around each other like ribbons.

In between the ribbons something moves. I try to focus on it but any thought of what it is feels greasy in my mind. I reach out to form an idea of it but it's out of reach.

The creature slithers around the ribbons in a way that violated the order of nature. It was at once a coherent mass and many individual components, all heading my way.

[Reaching Emergency Detransition Time Point in 5.. 4..]

Parts of the unknowable beast reached for the ship. It was only now I understood the true scale of it and how miniscule an intruder I was upon this landscape.

[3.. 2.. 1 Emergency Detransition Commencing]

Outside the ship returns to the normal star-studded black of our universe. The image of the creature is still slightly burned into my retina, like a ghostly after image.

Is that truly what lies in between?

[Pilot Has Seen Forbidden Information. Informing Luna Authority]

[It Is With Regret That Luna Gate Authority Must Terminate Your Contract Immediately]

The console lights up in ways I have not seen before. On the main screen a message appears.

SHIP SCUTTLE PROCEDURE COMMENCED