Event Horizon

NGC 205 Phone home

She understood the cold darkness of space. In fact, while it unnerved those fool humans and the others of her species took it for granted, she reveled in it.

To her, it was ingenious. Seemingly empty holes held anything but a void. Space was filled to the bursting with dark matter, light photons from stars, and microscopic pieces of nebulae dust. And all of it, just waiting for her.

She would be cold and dark, with hidden depths and thoughts that were her's only. Her legion of minions and mercenaries for hire had proven that she could be nearly anywhere at once, while others believed that saw an empty, unclaimed part of her space. But her fingers reached into every corner of space.

And outer space was her space. She had claimed it long ago; all that was left was the conquest.

Andromeda monitored her mouth from a desolate planet, watching the slow approach to her massive mouth. The pull of gravity was becoming stronger, the planet groaning beneath her feet. She mulled over her strategy to claim the entire universe as her own, to eat until she could eat no more. To achieve her plan and appease her gluttonous appetite, she would have to first take Earth from the old fool, Sagittarius A*.

When she thought of the nonentity Triangulum's goal to protect Earth until he could wrap his greedy hands around it, she brushed him quickly to the side. NGC-205 had surely taken care of him. That's what her dogs were for.

"Andromeda...."

Slowly, Andromeda lifted her head and tilted it slightly toward the direction of the sound. She felt the pull of Earth in the noise.

"Mistress Andromeda..." NGC-205's voice rang out through space, a message from Earth, 2,538,000 light years away. Sound cannot travel through interstellar space due to the utter lack of matter for a medium. But the black holes had long ago perfected the art of sending electromagnetic waves through dark matter and energy instead.

"I hear you, NGC-205. I expect to hear a successful report. Tell me, did Triangulum scream when you evicted him from Earth? Or were you able to cut him off at his mouth?" Andromeda's mouth almost salivated as she waited for NGC-205 to tell her the details of the utter extirpation of another of her foes.

"Um..."

Andromeda's head snapped toward Earth. "Um? NGC-2-5? How does the monosyllable um have any relevance in this report?"

"Mistress, we have miscalculated..."

Andromeda listened to NGC-205's recount of his skirmish with Triangulum with a cold fury burning in her chest. Her disappointment was palpable. In response to her anger, her mouth began to absorb the planet faster, the speed of the orb picking up as it spiraled down into the compacting gravity of her core.

"You're right, NGC-205. I have miscalculated." She paused, sharpening her ire into a controlled focus. "I have miscalculated in that I believed your pathetic, overestimated powers would be enough to take down one of your extremely weakened peers."

"But Mistress, he knows Earth better than I, he knows the laws and the area better..."

"There are no excuses!" She lashed out, voice resounding through space. "You have more power. You are the superior opponent. Or am I wrong in that as well?"

NGC-205 quickly agreed that he surpassed Triangulum.

"Good," Andromeda sneered maliciously, "I would hate to term you as no longer useful. You do remember what I do with useless things, yes?"

Silence came back to her. Right now, NGC-205 was remembering the many times he'd stood next to her and watched as she devoured those black holes she decreed counterproductive and fruitless.

"I will give you one more chance. One more chance to prove yourself to me. You will find Triangulum and you will defeat him. Sunder him from his mouth, expel him from Earth, beat him senseless, do what you must to remind him that he is nothing and will never claim that planet. Do not fail me."

"Yes mistress. I will not fail." And NGC-205's voice dissipated from space.

Andromeda stood still for sometime after her conversation with NGC-205. Many emotions roiled in her, just like her flesh as she drank in the matter around her. Triangulum would pay for his arrogance.

Suddenly, a realization pierced her thoughts. Was she so angry because he had beaten her minion, or because she was beginning to think of him as a threat?

The implications of that shook through her violently, her rage becoming uncontrollable. Beneath her feet, the planet she stood on broke in two.