One entire side of my was taken up by the thing, as far as I could see it was just a massive wall, I could see what looked like suckers the size of continents in one spot, scales covered the flesh in between, and the whole thing moved, undulating like a tadpole in the water, but on a massive scale.

  I immediately began shutting down systems.

  “Captain, what is wrong?”

  “It's right next to us Hook... No emissions.”

  “What's right next to us.”

  “It's been following us through each jump, it's been closer almost every time, and it's so big I can't see the end of it in any direction. It stretches from horizon to horizon, both up and down.”

  “Horizon? You are not making any sense Captain.”

  “Just... no emissions Hook.”

  “Understood captain... Will we be moving into one of those streams you talked about?”

  “No, I don't want to risk it... if that thing decides we need to end there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

  “Understood captain.”

  I tried to steady my nerves.

  “This sounds like a good time to go through the media catalog.”

  Strangely enough, even when I wasn't focusing on the sensors, I was getting flashes of what was outside. It had little context seeing as I couldn't place 'myself' in the kaleidoscope around me without viewing from the ships sensors, but it was still interesting, like I could keep tabs on things even while not focusing.

  Of course it made watching movies nearly impossible, with a flash of a god tentacle overlaying my vision every eight seconds.

  Shooter games were right out as well, I would be focusing in on someone and then my view would be hijacked to watching a swarm of Lindworms descend on a hapless.... something.

  “My god I think that's another ship...”

  I had paused the game I was in, some VR military shooter that looked like COD 127, but with what I assumed were more modern firearms, like railguns attached to backpack power units.

  Surprisingly there were weapons that seemed to resemble, at least in function, the rifles back in my time, though they were all caseless and had much larger magazine sizes.

  “What do you mean Captain Cofey?”

  “The Lindworm things from last time, the one that chased us into the stream, they're attacking something... I think it's a ship.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “The ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Long and thin, the rear bulges out a bit... I think there was something on the prow but... yep, yep the front is gone, ripped right off. My god I think that's a person.”

  The visions I received were weird. It was almost like they were the most clear images I could ever see, they faded quickly, but while they were in my minds eye it was like I had perfect resolution on any one thing if I focused on it quick enough, and focusing on the ship, I could see...

  “Yeah, that's definitely people spilling out...”

  “Does it have a gold paintjob?”

  “Gold and black, yeah.”

  “Imperial Vessel, possibly from the patrol that destroyed the pirate base last jump.”

  “I thought you said it was rare for a ship to be lost in transit.”

  “It is.”

  I paused.

  “I wonder if I riled everything up with my last transit and lighting the drives.”

  “I do not know captain.”

  I watched silently as the vessel was torn apart by the lindworms, and with something to compare them to, I finally was able to place their size, or sizes.

  They came in a variety, the smallest was about the length of a human being, and I watched many of those swarm the bodies that spilled out from the broken hull of the ship.

  The largest was half the length of the imperial ship itself, winding its way around the spindly hull and tearing at it with it's claws and maw.

  I also noted another thing, the lindworm's didn't just keep savaging the vessel. They would consume things, either hullmetal, or electronics, or people, and then drift towards the stream leading to the transit point.

  A stream that was both further away than normal and in the direction of the giant tentacle...

  that's when I noticed something.

  The streams all seemed to parallel the tentacle, no matter what transit we were in, almost as if we were riding alongside it...

  “I wonder if that thing is the reason for the transit points, or is just using them similar to us...”

  “What was that Captain Cofey?”

  “Just an observation... it feels like everything here is sortof flowing between the transit points. If this place had gravity, it would be flowing down towards said transit point.”

  “Do you think these creatures are using them as well? There have been no reports of any beings like you have described appearing in space at the transit points, or anywhere at all Captain.”

  “Just because the transit points lead to real space for us, does not mean it leads there for them.”

  That quieted Hook down.

  I settled in to wait. I didn't want to risk using the thrusters for any appreciable length of time, and the distance to the nearest stream was about the same distance to the distant transit point.

  But we were drifting closer to the wreck... I silently fired the maneuvering thrusters to send us headed in that direction.

  “I thought you wanted to stay unobtrusive Captain Cofey.”

  “I do, but they didn't react to the maneuvering thrusters before... and I want to check out that wreck.”

  “While mid-transit salvage has been done before, I cannot recommend it.”

  “It has?”

  “Yes. Ships can see other ships in transit, sometimes.”

  I realized that the destroyed ship was actually visible inbetween the flashes, in my passive sensors, slowly bleeding heat.

  “I'm surprised no one has ever tried to take a shot at other ships in transit.”

  “There is no data of anyone attempting such a thing... however...”

  “Lack of data does not mean that no one has ever tried it, just that no one made it out to report it.” I said as I eyed the titan tentacle. I needed to come up with a name for it.

  Minutes passed, thankfully the imperial ship was quite close to us in the grand scheme of things, and we rapidly approached. I braked us with maneuvering thrusters till we were right next to it.

  “Do you think it's airlock still works?”

  “No Captain Cofey, however our's should still be able to latch on if you want to explore it.”

  “No drones, nothing with a fusion drive. That will piss anything and everything off here. Check with me before activating any systems.”

  “Understood Captain Cofey.”

  I maneuvered us over to the other ships airlock and desynchronized, letting myself just sit in the seat for a good 10 minutes. Even after desychonizing I was getting flashes of what was outside, but it was all muddled, again with no context. Thankfully in the time it took to reach the ship most of the Lindworm's I had seen had detached, including the big one. By the time I reached it I saw no movement on the ship.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “This could drive a person insane if they did not understand what was happening to them...”

  “Transit madness is a known medical condition Captain Cofey.” Replied Hook.

  I thought about that as I got up and moved down to the airlock, equipping the space suit once I got there.

  “Are there any rescue supplies I should take for exploring an abandoned ship? Cutters? Deployable airlock?”

  “There is a pack with emergency rescue supplies in the hallway outside of the airlock captain, with all you have suggested and more, including several one time use space suits. But, considering the condition of the ship...”

  “I know, not very likely, but I think I should try. Do you think they'd attack me since I am from a COG vessel.”

  “Unlikely, while the factions do go to war regularly it is... civil? Both sides regularly rescue crew from destroyed ships and either trade or ransom them back to their factions.”

  “Even clones from the empire.”

  “Even clones from the empire, it takes time and resources to grow, decant, and train a new clone afterall.”

  “Good to know.”

  I climbed my way into the imperial ship. Suprisingly, the airlock was relatively untouched, other than the outer door having been completely shorn off, and the inner door being bend inwards. Hook's clamps managed to lock on just fine however.

  I paused once I got past the inner airlock, my suit sending out short mapping pulses around me and giving me a grid overlay of everything in places that were not especially well lit, giving my my first look at the inside of the imperial ship.

  The first thing I noticed was that the corridors were uniform, set up in a hexagonal way, with the ceiling being being parallel to the floor but the walls extending out in a diamond like shape to the side, a side that was filled with panels top and bottom. Everything was highlighted gold on black, with little orange emergency lights illuminating much of it. I took a poke at a panel off-handedly and it popped open, revealing circuitry and electronics that would not look wrong in a computer from my time.

  I looked down the two corridors extending out from me.

  “Any idea where the bridge on this ship is?”

  “Imperials are known to customize their vessels extensively, but they do all stem from a baseline class, and the changes are nowhere near as radical as a C.O.G. Members... The bridge should be in this direction, at the back of the ship near the drives.” My suit chimed as it received some data, and I brought it up on my hud. A little green arrow appeared.

  “Not the front?”

  “The front of imperial vessels is taken up almost entirely by their main gun, a massive particle cannon or laser emitter.”

  “Big belief in superior firepower then.”

  “Not superior,but there is a quality to quantity, and those weapons pump a lot of particles and/or photons at a target.” Hook replied, sounding defensive.

  “So guessing at close range they are devastating.”

  “Excessively so, thankfully they require the entire vessel to turn themselves to orient said main gun.”

  “I see. Let's see if we can find the bridge and captain's quarters. I'm going to take a recording of everything I see, go over it when I get back to see if anything has changed on the way back, if the ship is going to break apart beneath me I want to know.”

  “Understood captain.”

  I stomped my way to the bridge, making sure I was always in contact with the favaged ship. Here and there I would see rent and torn compartments, blood sprayed on the walls and flash frozen y exposure to the void, but no bodies.

  I finally came to a room that must have been the bridge at some point, but the entire top and front bulkheads were ripped out, exposing the otherwise circuluar room to the void.

  “Huh... aside from all the gold and ornamentation, this could be something out of star trek.”

  I muttered

  and I was not lying, everything was smooth and circular, gold colored, with jewels and gems either taking the place of buttons or being actually worked into the interfaces.

  “Now, if I remember my star trek, THAT should be the captain's ready room.”

  I thump thumped my way over to the room that adjoined the bridge, away from the main hallway I had entered from, and peered in.

  The door had been forced open, one part bend inside the ready room, the other rent in half and pulled into the bridge. Inside there was gore everywhere, and while there were no bodies, I saw a piece of intestine and a hand floating inside.

  “Gruesome... either there were a lot of people in here, or the Captain was and they pissed the Lindwurms off.”

  I scanned my view across the room.

  “From the recording you are sending, I am betting she pissed them off. Those black marks on the walls are from a particle weapon. The captain went down swinging.” Hook replied, showing... emotion? Interest? For the first time in a while.

  I focused my gaze on the black carbon scoring, and moved over to the hand.

  It was petite, effeminate, either a very small man's hand or a woman's hand, and each finger had a set of rings on them, some covering multiple knuckles, and each ring had a line of... conduits? They looked like chains at first, but the closer I looked the more substantial I realized they were.

  “Do Imperial Captain's often disguise weapons as jewellery.”

  “Constantly. It's considered gauche to carry a weapon that looks like a weapon. Assume every piece of jewelery on an imperial captain is a weapon or device of some kind.”

  “Good to know...” I said, pocketing the whole hand and its various garnishments, they could be interesting to study later. It hung in a pouch off the side of my suit.

  I gave the study a once over, looking for anything that could catch my eye. The one main thing that grabbed my attention was an honest to goodness paper book, bound in leather, that I found floating up in a corner.

  “What are you...”

  I cracked open the book.

  “This looks like the captain's personal log.” I said to myself as I idly flipped through it before pocketing it.

  The rest of my investigations of the captain's quarters revealed little of value, a few ornaments that had been warped and broken by the thrashing of the lindwurms.

  “I'm heading back... I gathered a few things from the captain's chambers.”

  “Understood Captain.”

  I began to make my way back towards the airlock where Hook was docked. However, I noticed something strange on the way.

  “Hey Hook? I'm sending you a recording of the last few moments... can you hear a thumping? I want to make sure it's not another factor of... whatever it is I am sensing from the void.”

  “Processing audio... there is an anomalous sound that I cannot discern the source of.”

  That perked me up. I looked down at my feet, the only contact points I had with the ship that would allow such sound to be audible, and ran my fingers over the deck. The thumping continued for a few moments, but stopped soon after.

  I stood up and stomped twice in response.

  The thumping began, rhythmic and steady.

  “Thump, one two three, thump.” I said to myself as I spread my hands across on the deck, trying to locate where the sound was coming from.

  I finally found a small storage compartment, built into the side of the hallway. It appeared to still be sealed.

  I thumped on the panel twice. Two thumps replied back.

  “Hook I think I found a survivor. “