The Core: The Dark Enemy

33. It wasn't meant to be this way

Magus's plight

Magus winced as the hostile tube warships strafed the Solar Citadel, tearing another gash through its already battered hull. The once-glorious fortress now bore scars from endless assaults, each battle forcing hasty repairs. Fixing the damage had become a constant, draining task, ever since something had gone wrong with his AI. He suspected the problem stemmed from one of the earliest skirmishes with these bizarre tube-shaped ships, back when he'd thought them an easily vanquished foe.

The hacked and broken AI, however, was far from the worst of his troubles.

No.

Everything had spiraled into chaos after he'd pushed the button to annihilate the U'lennea fleet.

The weapon created by the General had worked flawlessly, launching projectiles that locked onto their targets, latching securely onto the massive armored hulls. For a tense, breathless moment, it seemed as if each projectile had malfunctioned, doing nothing but sitting dormant. Then, in a sudden reversal, the payloads split open, releasing a flood of raw, golden cr energy directly into the zombified alien organics hidden inside. As the energy made contact, a violent, rapid swelling of alien cells erupted, engulfing each ship. In seconds, the vessels appeared to be encased in grotesque, semi-translucent, bulbous sacs of living tissue—pulsing and growing as if the ships themselves had been consumed by living, writhing bags.

Magus vividly recalled the surge of triumph as over half the enemy fleet was ensnared in a single, devastating salvo. For a fleeting moment, it seemed his victory was a given, with the captured ships encased in an ever-thickening manifesting layer of pulsating, fleshy tissue.

But then, something went terribly wrong.

Small, crater-like pockmarks began to form around the side of each ship where the initial payload shell had attached. It looked as if something unseen—perhaps many somethings—were tunneling towards the source of the released golden cr energy, creating a network of tiny wounds that spread and deepened with alarming speed.

Magus hesitated for too long before punching the button to deactivate the release of gold cr energy from each of the weapons. All it took was one of the burrowing creatures latching itself to the active process, locking it in the "on" state, and the damage had been done. What Magus had intended to create was a prison of flesh impossible to escape from, instead, he had inadvertently turned each ship into a beacon of raw power, an active cr propulsion engine feeding energy to whatever living denizens from the next dimension had been waiting in space ever since the sun exploded. He had created an endless loop of growth and consumption as each feasting creature was soon torn apart and absorbed by others of its kind. The constant, infinite flow of golden cr energy continued unchecked, pulsing and alive, an endless invitation for chaos that would remain until the release could be stopped.

It was like watching Mentos dropped into soda, only the eruption was incredibly more violent and fleshy. The formerly invisible creatures absorbed enough energy to become visible, their vitality reaching dangerous new heights.

Never before had Magus experienced such an emotional high leading to an impossible low. Sure, he had been on the bottom of the totem pole before, but with each low, he always seemed to have some edge that he could use to rise again. This time, however, with each attack and taking more damage, he found that even the General's weapons were ineffective against these new enemies.

He couldn't do anything against them. The new cr wasn't capable of doing more than making holes, holes that quickly got patched.

Then there was the other enemy.