Deep Memories

Author : Jason Spicer

“Can you perceive it now?” Mrllg moved the viewing orb over to Grlg’fst for viewing. “There, in the third quadrant, slightly below the ecliptic.”

“Yes, I perceive. Interesting.” His chords trailed, dissonant and primal, as if facing a challenger in the Great Hall. “We must reach out to it. Whatever it is creating that hole in Nonspace must be perceived before the Council rests.” Grlg’fst clicked a nervous bone on the glistening floor as he continued to emanate a guttural rumbling. He was clearly disturbed.

Mrllg was impatient. He had been viewing the orbs for many cycles, always just noticing the perturbations in Nonspace, but not able to catch them long enough to reach out to them. Finally, he had found a large enough disturbance that Grlg’fst had perceived it, and Grlg’fst was moving too slow. Did he not see this was the Deep Memories returning? Mrllg paced, clicking bones and wringing paw-claws, “Well, can we reach out now? No sense waiting. Particularly if my sensories are accurate.”

“I already have. I need both of your brains to resonate with me.” Grlg’fst closed both lids over his socket and focused. Mrllg joined his brains to him and together, they reached out over the vast distance of inky night to the object that tore such a large hole in Nonspace.

The hole in Nonspace was not standard Morlarian protocol, nor was it something any species in the Great Domain would have used. Nonspace travel was banned several millennia ago for being inherently too expensive and a drain on the resources of the mineral planets. Together, the young Morlarian Viewers bent their four brains toward the tear. Something was not right. A large object breached the tear and began materializing in the shimmer between Nonspace and reality.

Grlg’fst broke the connection and shivered. “I need the cubes of Deep Memories.” He leapt to the other side of the room. “This cannot be correct.”

“So you felt it as well? I told you I did not perceive incorrectly. I am not that young.” Mrllg was somewhat arrogant about it, even though he knew that if he were correct, it would not matter in a few days anymore. Not much would.

Grlg’fst was scanning the Deep Memories. Entranced, he raced through the history of the Comings, when the Morlarian Prophets gave permission for their ancestors to set afire every planet that resisted their ways, their Great Redemption that had brought peace to the Galaxy at long last. It had been millennia since those days. Could the final Prophecies really be true?

A warning pulse ebbed near the viewing orbs of distance. Mrllg checked quickly, and his heart began to palpitate, saliva dripping incessantly from his mandibles. “Grlg’fst… look”

On the viewing screens, the orbs began projecting the scenes. In nearly every corner of the stellar system, holes in Nonspace were appearing, and the objects began to materialize. Vessels as large as small moons streamed into the space where the holes were. Swarms of smaller ships, too numerous to count followed close behind the behemoths.

“Get the Council on channel. It is time.” But there was no time for them. Their research and patrol station winked out of reality as a TimeSpace warhead detonated on their perimeter.

Man had returned to the Galaxy,