Back to the Bubble - Chapter 3 - Gaze Not Long Into the Abyss...
18 Nov 2019Smertkopf
The hundred jumps went by in a blur of scanning. I moved inexorably, thirty-eight light years at a jump, until at around fifty jumps I breached the Galactic Centre region and the Voice from Sagittarius A, which had been silent since its last assault upon my body and mind, began again to whisper darkly into my thoughts. As its heavy and leaden intonations entered me, my already compromised will to resist disintegrated entirely, and I began to examine my coming destruction with the cold detachment of a scientist as the number of jumps counted down towards zero."...Come...to...me..."
And so it was not with joy or exuberance that I independently discovered my first biological signals on the moon of a gas giant in orbit around a blue star a mere ten jumps from Sag A. I couldn't even tell you why I flew out to investigate and document my findings, except to say that the Voice did not prevent me. Perhaps it was satisfied that it now had me completely under its power, and did not begrudge me a few extra hours of wan existence before it devoured me, so long as in the end I would come and be consumed.
I suppose this view would have been inspiring under other circumstances...
But wonder and delight at a strange Galaxy were no longer my lot; all that matters is that which resides at the center of it all, some ancient and incomprehensible intelligence whose essence is crushing darkness and maximum entropy. It both hates the light of the stars and craves it, raging in its slow and alien way within the confines of its own insane gravitation against all matter that goes unconsumed. Why, I wonder, out of all the possible victims, out of all the thousands who have come before me, have I been chosen for annihilation? You might believe that these brooding thoughts of mine were accompanied by a feeling of despair and unfairness, but you would be mistaken...
It was exultation that I experienced as these musings took me. I now understood how the prophets of old must have felt when the finger of their deity had been laid upon their hearts and their purpose had been made clear. My only regret was that Midnight was not here to share in this revealed truth with me. I wanted to be angry with the old man for abandoning me on the brink of revelation, but I was beyond anger by then, hollowed out of all emotion aside from expectant awe.
I don't remember the last ten jumps. It was as if I blinked my eyes and then all of a sudden I was looking at my navigation panel to see this:
I don't remember how I got here...
I wish that I could tell you that at the last moment I pulled forth a final effort of will and resisted the urge to continue. I wish I could say that I heeded the frantic insistence of my few remaining scraps of self-preservation and spun the ship around to get my ass back to the Bubble with all haste. Unfortunately, I cannot say these things, for they would be damned lies:
No turning back...
In the rumble of the phase shift I can hear the greedy hunger of the Voice. It has tired of waiting, and it now it will feed.
Midnight, I forgive you for leaving me. I forgive all of you who do not follow me into this ultimate darkness...farewell, my friends.
o7
CMDR Smertkopf