Cronus groaned, pushed, struggled and feared the reality rip would close on him. He kept the Dandelion on him, not daring to let it go. He kept the rest of his junkyard of items, letting some of the ancient equipment sink into him. He shoved harder, and the edges of the reality rip tore at his substance. He howled at the pain, but he did not stop. It was like a man squeezing through a tiny opening that tore off his skin. He knew a sense of desperation that he’d almost forgotten. It forced him to wriggle, push harder and think more coherently so he wouldn’t lose control of anything.

  “Help me,” Cronus pleaded.

  But there was no one to help him, no one who loved him. All who knew Cronus hated or reviled him. All hands were turned against him. If he couldn’t help himself, no one else would lift a hand.

  “I’ll make you pay!” he howled at the universe, maybe at the Great Power. “I’ll make you pay by killing everything you love.”

  Still, Cronus shoved, wriggled, seethed and feared, all while clutching his tech goodies, including the Dandelion of Enoy.

  As his form pushed against the reality rip on the void side, on the time and space side it appeared as if something literally pushed out of nothing into something. It was ugly and deformed over here. It wriggled, it pulsated as if hurt and kept piling through, more and more, stretching, thinning enough to shove out. There didn’t seem to be any intelligence to the pulsating substance, but it would not give up.

  The process continued for hours. More of the hideous substance was on this side now, and still it kept coming.

  Cronus sensed that the quantum-pi power plant had nearly exhausted its strength. Now an intense and bitter struggle ensued. Cronus howled, shoved, wriggled and savagely tore off more of himself. He no longer cared. He had to get himself over. He dared not lose more of his bulk or power. He wept. He pleaded—and with a sick plopping sound—space did not allow sound, but some of his field did—the last of Cronus’s bruised and aching self shoved through into reality.

  Immediately, the null-splitter blew up, and the quantum-pi engine melted into a slag. The Enoy asteroid ship was no more than an ordinary shell of a ship.

  As that happened, the stretched and strained being of Cronus began to take shape. He resumed a relatively oval bulk, but it no longer looked exactly like a planet. Instead, his true being took form.

  He resembled a planet-sized jellyfish of Earth. There was a massive upper part like a jellyfish and long tendrils snaking down. These tendrils looked more like vast tentacles. Cronus seemed an eldritch being all right, a thing from a dark mythos like an Elder Space God or a dark Cthulhu-like creature of cosmic evil from the nether depths of the outer reaches.

  He had made it out of the void. He was here, in a new universe, presumably. Cronus wasn’t sure about that himself. His banishment into the void had taken place eons ago. Now, however, he was back.

  “Time to feast,” Cronus said, as he began to drift faster through the colds of space, shoving gravity waves from his massive bulk to obtain greater velocity.

  -9-

  AI Siege-ship Erbium 99 witnessed a bizarre event, having seen Cronus’s emergence into time and space—Erbium 99 did not know the thing’s name, although he would soon. The great, three-thousand-kilometer warship moved closer to investigate the phenomena.

  Erbium 99 was presently five AUs, or seven hundred fifty million kilometers, from Main 54 deeper in-system. A laser message took nearly forty-two minutes one way. It would take an AI vessel much longer to travel that distance, which was almost the distance from the Sun to Jupiter.

  Erbium 99 approached with missiles ready to launch and over one hundred primed gravitational dishes. His sensors told him the thing had an animal shape, gravitational dumping motive power and possibly intelligence. He had never heard of such a life form before.

  It did not necessarily have to be Life, however. It could be a biological machine. The AI Dominion had run across a few of those before. The first time, the Dominion had attempted to ally with the bio machine. That had failed miserably. Ever since, the AI Dominion eradicated them with conviction.

  Still, the thing headed this way was huge, maybe as large as Main 54.

  Erbium 99 made swift calculations. He took more sensor readings and activated his laser-com system, flashing a message to the Main. Erbium 99 decided he would not wait for instructions. He merely wanted his master to know what was going on out here, and that Erbium 99 did not hesitate in taking care of the problem.

  Normal attack procedures mandated an AI virus attempt. Erbium 99 had not had time to analyze or study the thing in depth. His sensors indicated the creature had mechanical and likely computer-guided instruments. They were in profusion, in fact. Erbium wondered if he had stumbled upon a cyborg, part machine and part biological Life. Whatever the case, Erbium pulsed a standard AI Dominion virus, beaming it at the creature and the mechanical items on or in him.

  Time passed, but nothing observable happened to indicate the virus had activated something that now attacked its former user.

  Erbium 99 debated further options, wondering if he should send a normal message at the creature. But before that could happen, the creature messaged him. Could it have already known the AI computer language, or could it have deciphered the language from the virus? The possibility existed. If the creature had done that, it would mean it had great reasoning powers indeed.

  “I am Cronus,” the message said.

  That was it.

  Erbium 99 ran through his data banks. He had never heard of a Cronus. There was nothing in the historical files, either. He decided to ask a question.

  “What is a Cronus?”

  “Are you an idiot?” the thing replied. “I am. I just told you.”

  Erbium 99 did not bristle at the insult. It was true that a sentient brain-core ran him, but he had not yet gained ego, or a prideful personality. Perhaps there had been a glitch in his computer development. He was more logical than anything else.

  “I am no idiot,” Erbium 99 replied. “Is Cronus your singular identity, then? Or is Cronus a creature name?”

  “There is none like Cronus.”

  “Which does not answer the question,” Erbium 99 said. “Are you attempting obfuscation in order to move closer to employ a short-range space weapon? I detect machines on or in you powering up.”

  “Do you think you’re clever?”

  “It is not a matter of thinking, but knowing. I perceive that you are a boastful entity, lacking in intelligence.”

  “You’re starting to piss me off, Erbium 99.”

  “How did you acquire my name?”

  “It was in your pathetic virus. Are you ready to die, or would you like to live a little longer?”

  Erbium 99’s brain-core ran an analysis. That was a threat. Cronus meant to attack. The correct response, therefore, was to attack first. Giant missiles launched from the Luna-sized surface. The missiles rapidly accelerated at the creature. At the same time, ninety-four gravitational dishes powered up. As the missiles raced for Cronus, the golden gravitational beams reached out for the biological entity.

  The battle between the AI Dominion and Cronus had begun.

  -10-

  Cronus had been observing the siege-ship accelerating toward him. The great one had also been observing the stars, two planets, asteroids—it was all so devastatingly beautiful. He had forgotten what reality was like. He no longer employed a reality field because he no longer needed one. Wasn’t that grand? His senses drank in the wonder of it all.

  He could not understand how he had survived in the void all this time. Then it came to him.

  “I am wonderful.”

  Yes. That was the obvious conclusion. He was wonderfully and fearfully made. His intellect and willpower must be the astonishment of the universe, this universe. Had he come from a different universe?

  Cronus could not remember. He had thought there were multiple universes, but he did not know it as fact.

  It was at that point that this Erbium 99 beamed a message at him.

  Cronus had accepted, and the virus in the first message had clouded his thinking for a time. He was not a machine, but there were pieces of his brainpower that had a machine quality and there were machine-like aspects to him in places, as well as many true machines on and in him. He had to thwart the virus power in each, and that had taken time.

  Through an act of will, Cronus had also defeated the virus surging through him. He had learned much from it. Oh, yes, the AI machines had told him far too much about themselves in this one sly attack.

  So, Erbium 99 came to check him out, did he?

  Cronus watched the missiles launch from the Luna-sized warship. Those would take time to reach him. A quick scan showed Cronus those had matter/antimatter warheads. He couldn’t allow those to explode against him.

  The golden grav-beams caught him by surprise. It might have been an aftereffect of the virus or maybe he was still stunned by the beauty of time and space. Whatever the case, the many beams struck him.

  In those first painful seconds, the grav-beams struck his nearest surface. The beams destroyed the Dandelion of Enoy, destroyed some of the simulacrums and most certainly killed Kree of the Flame. The golden beams also churned and devoured—or destroyed—some of the bulk of Cronus.

  Pain seared through him. If he’d thought coming through to this side had been painful—and it had—the grav-beams hitting him were far worse. The pain knocked Cronus out of stunned bemusement and caused any last particles of stun from the virus to vanish in rage.

  Some of Cronus’s being died. They were like tiny pieces of skin to a human, but the damage hurt, and if the siege-ship kept it up long enough—

  Cronus reacted. He powered up his reality field again and adjusted it. The field did not hold up reality, but instead blocked the grav-beams. That blockage caused the field to buckle, and the process demanded more from Cronus, but he gladly gave it. He did not want to hurt like that again.

  The contest continued for some time. Cronus watched the moon-sized siege-ship, and he cracked its normal com system and the laser communication. Erbium 99 sent sensor data about the fight and asked for reinforcements.

  Cronus ran some calculations. It drained energy keeping up the reality field, especially as the grav-beams pushed the field back toward him. This was a direct power-to-power contest—

  Erbium 99 rotated, taking some grav dishes offline and bringing up new ones.

  Cronus ran more calculations. This was bad. To race in closer in order to use the plasma—

  After eons in the void, Cronus did not have much plasma left, and his energy stores were low compared to the massive expenditures fighting like this would take.

  No. This was not good. Real time and space meant massive movement, massive force fields and—Cronus remembered. He remembered the old days when he had struggled against primeval entities. He had far greater abilities than he had originally recalled, or was that a fantastic technical item he had acquired eons ago? Either way, he had to do this right the first time.

  Cronus’s force field withstood the grav-beams, but he sensed growing confidence from Erbium 99. That was infuriating. Erbium was a pipsqueak compared to Main 54, and there were eight others like Erbium 99 in the red dwarf system.

  The anger helped shed inhibitions. Cronus would try the old tactic. The eldritch monster concentrated, and a strange event took place deep inside his being. He used energy and chose a direction. A powerful and exotic mechanism radiated with specially fed energy. The power grew, expanding, readying him—it demanded more energy, and Cronus only had a limited supply of this type. He gave the mechanism more power anyway. With the radiant source—

  Cronus winked out of existence in time and space. Using a Subspace Teleportor, he moved through something akin to hyperspace, sliding underneath it, thus avoiding its gravitational limitations. The distance he could travel like this was short indeed, mainly due to an exponential energy drain for each extra kilometer moved. He reappeared in time and space behind Erbium 99.

  Perhaps the siege-ship was bewildered. Cronus could sense the sentient computer scanning wildly, trying to find the intruder. Then, the gravitational dishes on this side of the siege-ship began powering up.

  As they did, Cronus churned plasma inside him like some stellar dragon. He heated the plasma as fast as he could, draining more energy. Seconds later, a maw like a giant mouth opened on the planet-sized creature, and a roiling blob of superheated plasma ejected from Cronus and headed at Erbium 99.

  Grav dishes on Erbium 99’s surface grew hot as golden beams speared at the great clot of approaching plasma. The grav-beams disrupted local area of the plasma, but the general mass continued for the siege-ship.

  Cronus watched, entranced. The red-colored plasma hurled closer, closer—golden beams speared out of it. The holes around the beams grew. Then, the mass of red-hot plasma reached Erbium 99. The plasma devoured the outer hull, causing hundreds of gravitational dishes to melt and disintegrate.

  The plasma mass was over two hundred kilometers in diameter. It sank against Erbium 99, devouring hull matter and other substances as it descended deeper into the siege-ship.

  Cronus laughed with glee. He still had it in him. He was still the most dangerous being around. The art of war hadn’t changed enough in his long absence for him to fear technologically savvy beings, be they computer or biological.

  The siege-ship was massive, however, three thousand kilometers in diameter. The sinking plasma devoured circuits, bulkheads, treatment plants, energy stabilizers, coils, prisoner centers—everything in the plasma’s path melted.

  Erbium 99 did not panic, but he did not detonate. Maybe he could avoid—a surge of electricity flashed against his brain-core. That stunned him as the plasma headed for the center of the siege-ship.

  Seconds passed, and then it was too late. The cooling but still superheated vestiges of plasma burned down Erbium’s inner hull armor and devoured the great computing cubes inside, the essence of Erbium 99’s brain-core and identity.

  Cronus sensed the AI death, if that was the proper term. Cronus also sensed something else. There were living creatures, prisoners, in part of the siege-ship.

  The Earth-sized, space-jellyfish-like Cronus advanced upon the hollowed-out siege-ship. Soon enough, dumping gravity waves to slow down, Cronus’s vast tentacles reached the moon-sized hulk of a warship. The tentacles drew the ship closer to underbelly feeders. The silky feeders chewed through remaining armor, digging deeper into the shell of an AI.

  A tentacle reached in and plucked living creatures, prisoners, from the dead siege-ship. Like a terrestrial elephant’s trunk bringing food to its mouth, the tentacle used its tip to shove the metal cell inside Cronus’s body. Other forces cracked the cell and devoured the creatures inside, killing them and feeding off their life essence. That was powerful stuff for Cronus. He could turn it into exotic energy, which he badly needed.

  Later, after he had fed off every living morsel, Cronus pulled out matter/antimatter fuel and fissionable material. He could also use that, although his processes gained more from life essence.

  It was good to know that he could replenish himself from the AI machines. That meant he would destroy every vessel in this system. He did not want any records yet of his return to time and space. Yes, yes indeed, this was going to be glorious.

  -11-

  Five AUs away inside the insertion vessel, in the control room, Walleye’s palms had grown moist. Huge Main 54 filled the polarized window. There was nothing else to see as they headed toward the surface. Any minute, he suspected, tractor beams would take hold of the thickly hulled vessel and begin dragging it down as if the ship was a metal-ore asteroid.

  Walleye’s expression did not change, but he did think that making a plan was so much easier than having to execute it.

  The hatch opened. Walleye did not look back. His ears told him that two people walked into the control cabin. His nose told him something else.

  “Shut the hatch, would you?” Walleye asked over his shoulder.

  “Trouble?” asked Bast, sounding worried.

  “The stench from the marine hold,” Walleye said. “You probably can’t tell any more, but it’s horrible.”

  There was no further comment, but the hatch clanged shut. A few seconds later, Walleye felt the other two approaching him.

  “We’re almost inside the beast, huh?” Bast asked thickly.

  Walleye did not have to look back to know Bast was staring out of the polarized window.

  “I never thought the Main would take the bait,” Bast said.

  “Getting in is always harder than getting back out,” the Centurion said in a soft voice.

  Walleye once again wondered about the wisdom of letting the Centurion lead the rescue mission. Surely, his time in Main 63 over five years ago had brutally scarred him. Could the man still function while inside a Main?

  Without warning, the insertion craft shook horribly. Bast staggered and crashed against a bulkhead, falling to the deck. The Centurion caught the back of a chair, managing to swing around, throwing himself in and buckling on the safety straps.

  Walleye glanced back at Bast.

  The Sacerdote dragged himself off the floor, with a big welt over his right eye.

  “Tractor beams,” Walleye said.

  The Centurion swiveled his chair, leaning over the control panel, studying it.

  Walleye watched him out of the corner of his eye. He could feel the Centurion wanting to tap switches and fight the tractor beam. Their little ship could never win such a contest, though.

  Another tractor beam must have reached out. The insertion ship shuddered again, and it began heading down even faster than before toward an opening portal on the surface.

  “The Main is using too much force,” Walleye said. “He thinks we’re bigger than we are.”

  “That’s why our ship was built so ruggedly,” the Centurion said in a quiet voice. “Bast, can you reach a chair? You need to strap in.”