Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

contaminated abomination it was hoped would poison even the Terror.
    The herald ignored the process, and dived into the sun, to begin its slow incubation. Either it hadn’t noticed what was happening to its target world, or it didn’t care. The Heritage observed from a safe distance, forbidden to interfere any further. Finn wanted someone coming back alive and sane, to tell what had happened. Only the Hook was to remain behind, in harm’s way, because that was what they had volunteered for.
    Captain Randolph watched the transmutation engine complete its deadly work, and then let it drift away. It had done all it could. Usher II was now so thoroughly contaminated on every level it was probably even dangerous to everyone on board the Hook , but that made no difference. He sat quietly, watching the one remaining sun, waiting for it to give birth to its awful children. The wait seemed to go on forever. He kept his comm systems open, just in case some of the civilian ships had survived, but there was only silence. Randolph prayed silently for the lost, and called down damnations on the Terror, for all the evil and sorrow it brought.
    Finally, the herald’s deadly spawn erupted from the sun, an endless swarm of night-black shapes that might or might not have been alive. Millions of the terrible things shot out of the sun, all of them dark and razor-edged and individual as snowflakes. Maybe it was a cold day in Hell, after all. They assumed an orbit around the dead planet, forming dark rings, howling an endless scream that would have driven everyone insane, if there’d been anyone left on Usher II to hear it. The scream rang out on the bridge of the Hook , even with all sensor and comm systems shut down, as though the scream was more than just a sound, and existed to torment the soul as well as the mind.
    And then, there was the Terror.
    Space tore apart under the urging of an inhuman will, and from a place that was not a place came something that was bigger than a planet, and more ancient. The sensor drones began changing and mutating, struggling to become something that could cope with the data they were receiving. The Terror existed in far more than three dimensions, disturbing and overpowering the usual restrictions of reality. On the Hook ’s main viewscreen it appeared as a monstrous face, with eyes greater than oceans and far darker. A mouth slowly opened, a tremendous hungry opening that could have swallowed a moon. It fed on what remained of Usher II, while its dark spawn fell dying to the cracked and broken surface.
    Captain Randolph looked at last upon the ancient enemy, and knew that faith wasn’t going to be enough. He wasn’t prepared, could never have been prepared, to face such a thing as this. He’d seen recordings of its previous appearances, including a few he wasn’t even supposed to know about, but the Terror was just . . . too big, too complex, and too awful for the human mind to cope with. Madness swept his reason aside in a moment, along with the rest of his crew. No one can stare into the eyes of the Medusa and hope to remain sane.
    Randolph arched in his command chair as though he’d been electrocuted. His eyes bulged, and his hands crushed the armrests. Habib was laughing, painfully and without humor, shaking uncontrollably. The crew on the bridge were screaming and crying and attacking their consoles. Rioting broke out in the Hook ’s corridors, as the crew turned upon each other, and themselves, and blood splashed across the shining steel walls.
    “It isn’t the Devil,” Randolph whispered. “It’s God. God gone crazy, and devouring His own creation.”
    “It didn’t come here after lives,” cried Habib. “It eats souls! We didn’t save anyone. They’re all lost. We’re all lost.”
    “Attack! Attack!” Randolph pounded his fists on the arms of his command chair. “Make it pay!”
    Enough of the crew still heard their Captain to get the ship moving. The Hook surged forward, firing all its weapons at once. On the Heritage , Captain Vardalos called on the Hook to turn back, but no one was listening now. The Hook hit the Terror with everything it had, and the Terror didn’t even notice. Space tore apart again, and the force of that opening sent out ripples that destroyed the Hook in a moment. The Terror disappeared, space returned to normal, and all that remained was the dead husk of Usher II, and one heavily shielded starcruiser. And the herald, already setting out on