[MISC] The Stars Are Just

[Andrew Perron]

I float in silence.

My ship keeps me alive, though it's almost as close to death as I.  I lie
here, dreaming.  If this recording has reached you, it is a miracle, but
nonetheless I record it, dreaming.  In my dreams I remember...

I chase my enemies through the stars.  It's a long, frustrating chase, but
I refuse to back down.  They've been invading and enslaving, rampaging from
system to system, from galaxy to galaxy.  My duty, my pride, is to keep
them from ever touching their next target: a rocky planet, covered in water
and orbiting a yellow star with a few billion rotations left in it.  The
native intelligent species has just begun self-organizing; a perfect prey
for the likes of them.

I finally catch up to them just inside the planet's gravity well.  I have a
moment to speak the prayer, an incantation against death and a promise that
one day we will all be immortal.  Then the fight begins.

I fire.  They're clever.  They don't bother to dodge as energy slides
around and past their ship.  I'm cleverer.  They can't move in the first
three dimensions while their shield's up, which leaves them in the perfect
position for me to slide vibrations through the sixth and seventh
dimensions, triggering electromagnetic disruption in their ship's
collapsed-metal skin.

I rip the baryonic matter of their ship to shreds, but that won't stop
them; the mental plane is more their home than the physical plane ever was.
Already I can't trust my senses.  But they've always underestimated my
will, and with the knowledge of what will happen to the planet below if I
fail, it's stronger than ever.

Two of them attack my rightness, the why of my actions, but this lets me
use it to unscrew their own justifications, showing them as the weak,
self-serving explanations they are.  They scream and flee into the deep
field; I hope they find some repentance there.

The rest abandon subtlety and broadcast pain, fear, and despair.  I freeze
for a half-moment, and they press their advantage, but I push past the fire
and darkness and scatter them.  They fall back, and I attack.

Victory comes quickly.  Two get tricked into the ship's psychetraps while
the others stagger away, weakened.  They'll probably run off to hide in
some black hole, but for now, my job is--

Wait.

I return to my body to find events at a crisis point.  Looks like they were
the cleverest.  A bomb that didn't even exist until after their ship was
destroyed, parts released by the explosion sliding together out of the
subtle dimensions, set off as they fled my mental assault.

My ship is pulled down towards the planet.  Engines are entirely offline,
main and backup.  Even navigational thrusters are disabled.  No way to
prevent the disaster; better start dealing with it.

First, I must minimize the impact on the planet and its inhabitants.  I
order the ship to reconfigure itself to a three-dimensional form.  Some of
the angles will be wrong, but it's better than having an eleven-dimensional
object around if a micro-singularity passes through.

Now to save myself.  I maximize impact buffering and tell the ship to go to
full regeneration mode.  I activate the stasis pod, but before I enter, I
look to the psychetraps.  What if they escape?  Even in mental form, they
could wreak havoc.

Nothing to do about it now.  I enter the pod.  I die.  I sleep.  I dream..




Time passes.

My dreams are interrupted by knowing.  The species of the planet organizes
itself.  It builds cities.  It tells stories.  It dreams.  I have succeeded
in my mission... almost.

The nameless beings in the psychetraps are not alive, but not dead.  They
dream, too, and their dreams reach out.  Their fear reaches out - their
fear of me - and influences the dreams of the people.  The people tell
stories.  I am a threat, a shadow, a demon, a monster.

Becoming a monster is a small enough price to pay, to keep this world safe
from the true monsters.  Nevertheless, I record this.  Perhaps it is
pointless self-love, but my dreams would be that much calmer if the truth
were known.

I will wait.  I know that the stars are spinning, the awesome grandeur of
the cosmic cycle.  One day, the stars will be just right.  I will rise from
my sunken grave, and in the starship R'lyeh, Cthulhu will return, great
with joy.

In the meantime, I will wait, and remember:

        They are not dead, for a moment they lie
        And on the last day, even death will die
 
<---------------------->

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, just got inspired.