“We are twenty-five light-years from the Sol System. The nearest star is the G-type Main Sequence Star Virginis, but we are not particularly near to it. We are essentially in void, Captain. I do not have any explanation for why the Hev ship is disabled.” Cenz closed his hands to signal that his report was complete – an odd gesture his people had learned to help communicate with humans.
After a tense time of information gathering, Brooks had called a meeting of the senior officers. He’d allowed Kell to be present.
“There is another possibility,” Urle said. “It was internal.”
“The Hev do have a lot of internal conflict,” Jaya Yaepanaya noted carefully. “This could be a case of some attempted coup within the ship.”
“Or simply a mechanical issue,” Urle said. “Hev ship-builders tend to prefer scale of production over quality. I think I see signs that this hulk is built on some other ship’s frame – a cheap way to make a ship, but not very safe.”
Cutter, the Beetle-Slug head engineer clacked his mandibles. “Unlikely. Hev ships are poor – but not that poor. I cannot prove, but suspect zerospace anomaly. Must be unknown quantity – all known scenarios too implausible.”
“This could also be a trap,” Yaepanaya said, scowling.
An unsavory view, Brooks thought. But her job was to think that way. “There’s very little chance they’d get a bite out here,” he said. “Have our probes uncovered anything?”
“Nothing more than we already knew,” Cenz replied.
“Recommended course of action?” Brooks asked the assembled officers.
“Such a ship will have air for years and food for months,” Yaepanaya noted. “I suggest we contact the Relief Corp of the home system to come help them.”
Brooks considered the idea. But if he was stranded in a ship, he wouldn’t want to have to wait any longer than necessary.
“We’ll contact the Relief Corps later,” he said. “We will move closer and see if we can help them ourselves, first.”
For the first time, Kell spoke. “Do not do that.”
Brooks turned in his seat to stare at the being. “Do you have something relevant to add, Ambassador?”
“Only that you should not move closer to that ship.”
“Why?” Brooks demanded.
“There is something wrong,” Kell said.
“We can see that, Ambassador,” Urle commented dryly. “You need to be more specific.”
“Very well. If you move closer, we too shall be disabled, I feel.”
“You ‘feel’?” Urle scoffed. “Ambassador, if you are feeling unnerved, it is understandable, but not-“
“I am not unnerved,” Kell said, cutting Urle off. “But I know what I saw in zerospace, and it is still present. It is not fully in that place, but also not fully here. Yet its reach extends into both.”
All eyes were set upon it.
“Kell, I think you need to explain that a little more,” Brooks said. “You saw something in zerospace?”
“For lack of a sufficient word in your language – yes. There was something there. Something vast, and I have never seen anything like it. I do not know what it is-“
“You can sense things in zerospace?” Urle asked.
“Evidently,” Kell replied. His tone was as dry as the Executive Commander’s had been moments before.
“Something vast . . . like a Leviathan?” Yaepanaya asked.
Kell was silent for a long moment. “I have not encountered the things you call by that moniker,” he said, his words chosen with care. “But from what I have learned of them – yes. It may be a Leviathan.”
A pall fell over the room.
“There are no Leviathans this close to Earth,” Urle insisted. “We would know if there were.”
“I doubt that,” Kell said.
Brooks fixed the Shoggoth with a heavy stare. When he spoke, though, it was not to the ambassador. “Cenz, run a Krahteon scan out to one parsec.”
“Do not make yourself too noticeable,” Kell insisted.
Brooks hesitated, then nodded to Cenz. “Keep it a low-powered scan.”
“Krahteon scans have not been known to cause any change in the behaviour of Leviathans-” Cenz began.
“If you do not know what is nearby but feel it might be a threat,” Kell said. “Do you yell?”
Cenz began the scan. Krahteon scans could penetrate through the veil between realities and show even some objects – or pseudo-objects – that existed in zerospace. But they required the use of the zerodrive, and were a substantial drain in power. They wouldn’t be able to make another jump for at least half an hour, even doing a minimal scan such as this.
“Sir,” Cenz said. “I’m picking up something. Something big.”
“Show it,” Brooks ordered.
An image appeared on the viewer. For a moment it was too faint to even register, disappearing in the dark between the stars. But then, faint lines emerged, highlighted in realspace by the stream of Krahteons. At first it seemed an arch, then a ring. Several other rings appeared, still so faintly that when it crossed in front of the galactic disk it became invisible.
“Rings? But there’s no planet. Are we looking at a structure? Or some kind of dish?” Urle asked.
“It could be an enemy spying device, hidden in zerospace,” Yaepanaya suggested.
A thick silence filled the bridge, and just as Brooks was about to inquire to him again, Cenz turned.
“Sir, it’s not a construct. It’s an eye.”
It clicked in Brooks’s mind.
“Battle stations!” he commanded. “We have a Leviathan-class entity – how big is it?”
“Information is still being processed . . . sensors can’t find an edge, but it can’t be less than 1100 kilometers across.” Cenz’s electronic voice managed to convey the strain, if not terror, that they were all feeling.
“1100 kilometers? That’s on the scale of a planet,” Urle hissed under his breath.
Brooks felt his insides twist at that. He had to alert the crew.
“Attention all crew. We have encountered a Leviathan 5-class entity. I repeat; a Leviathan 5.”
“What does the number mean?” Kell asked.
“We grade Leviathans by scale. Fifth-class is the largest category of them, in the scale of mundane objects that form a geoid under their own mass,” Cenz explained.
“It’s as big as a scramming planet,” Urle said shortly.
“We have to alert Sol,” Brooks said. “As soon as we have a good fix on its size, we will withdraw at sublight to begin sending a signal to command.”
Other Terrestrial 