Chapter Thirty-Four

Realspace trembled with the sound. Sound could not exist in space, yet space hummed with it.

doot dee doot dee doo

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The Jotun was transversing from the Great Manufacturing Systems to the front, carrying news of the status of the Great Awakening, moving through Hellspace at an unholy clip. It computed its arrival within the next week and coudn't wait to report to...

It literally bumped into something in Hellspace. Something soft, something spongy, something that when he hit it forced him out of Hellspace and dropped him into realspace.

doot dee... huh?

The Jotun scanned. There was nothing out here. It was between two star systems, in the black gulf where there was hardly any light, any mass, any gravity. It scanned and detecting nothing but a large area of dark matter, spread out from where two currents of dark matter ran together, twisted, and flowed apart.

Aw man, I dropped it.

The Jotun rotated slowly, scanning. There was nothing. Wait, there was a curl of bosonic superstring curling up and slipping back into M-space. It was strange that one was in realspace, perhaps a side effect of the Jotun's crash drop from Hellspace?

It collated the data.

Where did it go?

The Jotun heard words again, trembling space, audible to every receptor. Something was out here, something that the Jotun couldn't detect. It fired up its engines and jumped to Hellspace.

Great, now I have to start over.

And promptly slammed into something, dropping it back into realspace.

All right, who did that?

The sound was a voice. Slightly annoyed.

Who threw that at me?

The Jotun scanned, slowly rotating to bring all its sensors to bear.

Nothing but dark matter and a few long chain wisps of gas.

Joh, you better not be screwing with me again.

The Jotun scanned again, then, when nothing came up, tried another Hellspace jump.

It dropped back into realspace as if there was a massive gravity source.

OK, this isn't funny.

It scanned again. Graviton scan was returning an odd shadow. Dark matter was peaked but that was to be expected when there was the twisted joining of two long rivers of it, wider than even red giant systems. Energy scans showed nothing more than the dark matter reactions reading as static. No drive signatures, no...

Who keeps throwing this thing at me?

The Jotun bleated in electronic surprise as a massive tentacle suddenly rose up out of the dark matter and grabbed it. A squid head, the size of a planetoid, slowly rose up out of the dark matter, completely black, completely non-reflective, only visible by the stars it blotted out.

The tentacle, the far end of it, was wrapped around the Jotun, lifting it toward the black squid head. The Jotun saw two massive eyes, the size of a Balor, open and blink, then orient on the Jotun.

What the hell is this?

The Jotun felt itself get scanned, the signal turned up so high parts of its hull vibrated.

Did someone drop this? No, it was definitely moving.

The Jotun got slowly turned over and looked at from the back.

Who's throwing this at me?

The Jotun reacted the only way it could.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The thing lifted it and looked closely at it, holding it only a few hundred miles from its eye.

Huh, it squeaks. Someone's squeaky-toy?

The thing squeezed the Jotun a few times rapidly, compressing it, crushing internal spaces, buckling bulkheads. One of the engines fired for a split second then went silent.

Did I break it?

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The thing turned the Jotun over several times, lifting another tentacle and tapping the Jotun hard enough that some of the forward struts just collapsed.

OK, what is this thing someone keeps throwing at me.

The Jotun could still get no mass readings from it, just a tangle of dark matter that had bulged off of the twisted area of space where the two dark matter rivers crossed, spiraled around one another, and separated.

Is it a cookie? It looks like a cookie.

It tried a Hellspace jump.

Noooo, you don't...

The Jotun's rear scanners reported that several of those massive tentacles were writhing through Hellspace after it, gaining on it, following it. It detected signals of other Jotuns and dropped from Hellspace just as the tips of those tentacles started brushing it.

The other Jotuns, repairing a Goliath to get it combat ready, or reactivating ones that had gone into slumber, or guiding their servitors in the repair and activation of factories, turned their scanners toward the Jotun as it forced its way out of Hellspace and into realspace.

THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE!

The realspace 'bulge' left by the Jotun didn't ripple and vanish, instead the tips of huge black tentacles, the very tips thicker than the Jotuns watching, pushed out of Hellspace, holding the portal open. A larger one shot out, the tip wrapping around the screaming Jotun.

ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES... HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEE.

The Jotun was pulled back into Hellspace despite its engines roaring and thundering. The tentacle tips slipped away from bulge and it closed with a ripple like gelatin.

mmmm, crunchy potato chips...

The signal, somehow sound carrying in space, faded as the ripple slowly came to a stop.

The other Jotuns all looked at one another, held a quick conference with the three awake Goliaths, and all deleted it from their memory banks.

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TO: TERRAN COMBINE

FROM: ThE gReAt OlD oNe Cool'thul'lu

Hey, someone's out here throwing potato chips at me. That shit's not funny. Tell Joh to cut it out and mind his own dark matter sea. This is important research I'm doing and I don't need one of my colleagues thinking its funny to throw stuff at me.

Attached is some cool scans I've got of some stuff down here in the dark matter. I mean, real deep. Don't mind the selfies by the black dwarf.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------------

CONFED INTERNAL MEMO

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