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Chapter One
Galactic Council space, planet Jedver
Dramok Mereta, secretary-general of the Galactic Council of Planets, caught a glimmer of light and welcomed it. As it grew larger and brighter, he sent waves of calming bliss to the mind that had invaded his.
The alien presence was heavy, suffocating as Mereta’s Kalquorian consciousness emerged. He felt his opponent stir, reacting to the soft blurring of focus he fed it. It knew something was wrong, but it had no idea what.
Mereta found its ache, its loneliness, its separation. He fed it warmth and a sense of belonging. It submerged into the sensation, hungry to be one with the alien All again, from which it had sprung.
Having successfully distracted it for a few precious moments, Mereta looked out onto the world he knew only in bits and snatches nowadays.
He was in his office, seated at his desk. His computer was on, a holographic screen hovering over it. He read it over quickly, knowing control of his body was brief, counted in minutes. Perhaps seconds.
It was a disturbing message to the heads of member planets, not only from himself but from many members on the council, urging them to relax sanctions against the planet Trag. The Tragooms were a troublesome species, mere children in a spiritual sense but destructive. Experience had taught most sentients the Tragooms were best kept to their own area of space.
There was little Mereta could do to keep such nonsense from being sent. Doing so would awaken the creature riding him to the fact he was overcoming it on occasion. He marveled for an instant at how the tone and speech of the message it had composed sounded just as he would…if he’d indeed supported such nonsense. How could anyone believe he’d want to ease the boundaries keeping the Tragooms a part of the rest of the galaxy’s society without allowing them to do too much damage?
He had no time to ruminate on the matter. He opened a new document and typed a hurried message, the latest in several. He noted the date as he did so. Had he really been locked away in his own mind for so long? Apparently none of his earlier attempts to communicate had been discovered by the recipients.
Then again, his activities had yet to be discovered by the creature running his body, so there was still hope. More hope since Kalquor had yet to be overcome.
“Send via com route labeledMereta Home Path,” he told the device when he was done. “Recipient, Nobek Emperor Bevau.”
The com beeped its compliance in the nick of time. The room was fading from Mereta’s vision, his dark passenger waking from the mists that turned their attention to Mereta’s consciousness.
He returned to the quiet deep, where the true All awaited him instead of the territorial other-dimensional being his rider had emerged from. Mereta drifted in peace, waiting for the light to beckon him to his next chance to warn the galaxy it had come under attack.
* * * *
Captain Kila’s spyship
Ilid opened his eyes, grateful to escape sleep and its horrors. He discovered greater terror awaiting him in the waking world.
The Darks were everywhere, surrounding the sleeping mat in his quarters aboard Captain Kila’s spyship. Their shadow tentacles slithered across the sheets covering him, reaching for him.
How do you see us? We will open your skull. We will cut your brain to pieces to find out, slice it and dice it until we know the secret.
Ilid screamed, pushing at tentacles his hands passed through, kicking at and through them as well. He screamed as they crawled onto the mat, as they scuttled toward his head where they’d claim control and hurt him…
He screamed and woke up for real, flailing violently to escape the tangle of sweat-drenched sheets. He fell off the bed, landing on his ass on the narrow strip of floor between sleeping mat and wall.
His gaze flew over the room, which he kept fully illuminated as he slept, so when he woke there wouldn’t be shadows to frighten him. Unfortunately, his nightmares provided plenty of darkness.
The instant Ilid recognized there were no Darks in his stark, undecorated room, it was safe to let tears blur his vision. It was safe to cry the tears he should have been ashamed of, he, an adult Dramok.
He consoled himself no one was there to witness his shame, Darks or Kalquorians. He hadn’t admitted to the nightly bouts of childish weeping to the psychologist on board the spyship. Only the nightmares, which refused to grant him peace.
He was beginning to believe the hell in his mind would never be over. He hadn’t escaped the Darks. Not truly.
Once the storm of sobbing ended, Ilid dragged himself to his feet and dressed in his black fleet uniform. He had given the time a cursory glance and knew it was early yet, but he’d never get back to sleep. He didn’t want to, though he’d been forbidden stim tabs to combat the two or three hours he was unable to avoid succumbing to each night…more when his exhaustion caught up to him after a week of sleep denial.
Being fully dressed helped his mindset. It meant facing his nightmares was over for a little while. Coffee, the weak but still lovely Earther drink he used in place of stim tabs, would complete the transition. Until his daily therapy session, he’d be able to pretend he was recovering from his ill-fated trip to the planet Bi’is.
Glancing outside the ship, viewing the vast panorama of constellations on an endless field of black space, also helped. Ilid found comfort in no sign of Bi’is, a world now as dead as those on the ship he’d served aboard. He hadn’t yet really thought about an entire society being erased in a matter of days. His mind was already buckling under the strain of nearly being eradicated too. Adding the deaths of billions of others was more than he could cope with, so his brain, in a supreme act of self-preservation, refused to truly note the event.
The psychologist on board the ship that had rescued him, the sole survivor of its twin vessel, told him it was perfectly normal to do so. “They’re beyond saving, Ilid. You aren’t. You have to concentrate on yourself and not feel guilty for doing so.”
He looked at the metal frame on the wall. He could have left it on to spot space at a glance, but its comfort often turned to another source of terror. Yes, it was wonderful to no longer see he was in orbit around Bi’is, but it was awful when he thought of what lurked among the stars. Out there existed an unbelievable entity. It had sent its emissaries to torture him, take over his shipmates, and kill the residents of an entire planet.
