Hearts of Darkness - Plague of the Void Seeds / 5

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Post 5

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Present

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Joshua entered his favourite place on the Daxiste-arorian navigator, the Deepsee. It was like a pod at the end of a stalk, protruding out from the upper deck of the Navigator. Upon entry, the walls would turn gradually transparent, the floor translucent and the rest of the alien vessel would completely disappear. The result was astounding to say the least. It felt very much like you were floating upon a translucent platform in space and the first time, he experience the most horrendous vertigo. He was so glad he was able to overcome it, because the real magic began when you used gestures to activate and control a viewing.

It seemed as though a viewing could be almost anything, as in, he was yet to find a limit to the technology. Click had attempted to explain how it worked….something about miniature worm-holes, entanglement and a colossal, self-replicating sensor array. To Joshua, it didn’t matter how it worked, only that it did. He’d witnessed, utterly transfixed, the birth of a star in the heart of a vast nebula, gazed upon the event horizon of a massive black hole, observed the home-worlds of several alien races and looked into the abyss at the edge of space. The memory of that experience made him shudder. Click had warned him not seek out too many of the universes mysteries or there was a danger his brain might explode. Despite the genetic enhancements that had vastly improved his intellect and enabled him to survive on the navigator…among other things, he remained emotionally and mentally ill equipped to fully process certain profound realities. It was advice that he took seriously. Besides, his favourite viewing was of a binary system he’d found. The two stars, one white, one blue swept around and around each other, locked in mesmeric orbit, pulling giant swirls of plasma from each other in a stunning, swirling array of colour. It was breath-taking and extremely hypnotic.

Click had also warned him not to attempt to view the enemy position, to stay away from the unnatural darkness that was growing deep within the known universe. But that’s why he had come to the Deepsee early. Click would be arriving a while later to continue his telepathic instruction….apparently it was far more efficient that way. Unfortunately, Joshua could not help himself. He desperately wanted to understand more about what they were facing. Everyone was kind of vague about what the Void Seeds were and where they had come from. With a gesture of his hand, space began to flow by until he was standing in space at the edge of Void Seed space. With another gesture he moved forwards, into the dark and just like that, there was nothing. It was extremely disorientating. He had to hold firmly to the knowledge that he was actually still on the Daxiste-agorian navigator, light years from this nether region. With a flash of inspiration, he recalled that the viewing had a vast number of configurations that catered for the variety of sensory capabilities of the alien races and would also enable the viewer to see a representation in different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. He was about to cycle through them when he noticed a tiny pin-prick of light. He directed the viewing towards the light……and wished he hadn’t.

The light was coming from what looked like a massive wound in the very fabric of space. Around the wound, a huge number of gigantic, spherical Void Seeds were arranged in vast, slowly rotating concentric rings. Periodically, monstrous cords of energy would lash out from the wound and connect with the concentric rings of Void Seeds. Just outside the largest of the rings, appeared to be a barren planet. The edge closest to the space wound appeared to be disintegrating and flowing into it. At the same time, something was flowing out of it and into the space around the Void Seeds. Despite everything he had seen recently, he couldn’t imagine seeing anything more terrifyingly wrong and alien than what he was currently witnessing. Titanic forces were in evidence. The universe had been rent asunder and these powerful beings were relentlessly consuming everything in their path, including whatever force was leaking from in-between, whatever that was.

He’d seen too much. With tears in his eyes, he ends the viewing.....