Chapter Thirty-Four (2/2)
Who's throwing this at me?
The Jotun reacted the only way it could.
THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!
The thing lifted it and looked closely at it, holding it only a few hundred miles from its eye.
Huh, it squeaks. Someone's squeaky-toy?
The thing squeezed the Jotun a few times rapidly, compressing it, crushing internal spaces, buckling bulkheads. One of the engines fired for a split second then went silent.
Did I break it?
THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
The thing turned the Jotun over several times, lifting another tentacle and tapping the Jotun hard enough that some of the forward struts just collapsed.
OK, what is this thing someone keeps throwing at me.
The Jotun could still get no mass readings from it, just a tangle of dark matter that had bulged off of the twisted area of space where the two dark matter rivers crossed, spiraled around one another, and separated.
Is it a cookie? It looks like a cookie.
It tried a Hellspace jump.
Noooo, you don't...
The Jotun's rear scanners reported that several of those massive tentacles were writhing through Hellspace after it, gaining on it, following it. It detected signals of other Jotuns and dropped from Hellspace just as the tips of those tentacles started brushing it.
The other Jotuns, repairing a Goliath to get it combat ready, or reactivating ones that had gone into slumber, or guiding their servitors in the repair and activation of factories, turned their scanners toward the Jotun as it forced its way out of Hellspace and into realspace.
THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE!
The realspace 'bulge' left by the Jotun didn't ripple and vanish, instead the tips of huge black tentacles, the very tips thicker than the Jotuns watching, pushed out of Hellspace, holding the portal open. A larger one shot out, the tip wrapping around the screaming Jotun.
ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES... HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEE.
The Jotun was pulled back into Hellspace despite its engines roaring and thundering. The tentacle tips slipped away from bulge and it closed with a ripple like gelatin.
mmmm, crunchy potato chips...
The signal, somehow sound carrying in space, faded as the ripple slowly came to a stop.
The other Jotuns all looked at one another, held a quick conference with the three awake Goliaths, and all deleted it from their memory banks.
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TO: TERRAN COMBINE
FROM: ThE gReAt OlD oNe Cool'thul'lu
Hey, someone's out here throwing potato chips at me. That shit's not funny. Tell Joh to cut it out and mind his own dark matter sea. This is important research I'm doing and I don't need one of my colleagues thinking its funny to throw stuff at me.
Attached is some cool scans I've got of some stuff down here in the dark matter. I mean, real deep. Don't mind the selfies by the black dwarf.
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------------
CONFED INTERNAL MEMO
???????