"We are twenty-five light-years from the Sol System. The nearest star is the G-type Main Sequence Star Virginis, but we are not particularly near to it. We are essentially in void, Captain. I do not have any explanation for why the Hev ship is disabled." Cenz closed his hands to signal that his report was complete - an odd gesture his people had learned to help communicate with humans.

After a tense time of information gathering, Brooks had called a meeting of the senior officers. He'd allowed Kell to be present.

"There is another possibility," Urle said. "It was internal."

"The Hev do have a lot of internal conflict," Jaya Yaepanaya noted carefully. "This could be a case of some attempted coup within the ship."

"Or simply a mechanical issue," Urle said. "Hev ship-builders tend to prefer scale of production over quality. I think I see signs that this hulk is built on some other ship's frame - a cheap way to make a ship, but not very safe."

Cutter, the Beetle-Slug head engineer clacked his mandibles. "Unlikely. Hev ships are poor - but not that poor. I cannot prove, but suspect zerospace anomaly. Must be unknown quantity - all known scenarios too implausible."

"This could also be a trap," Yaepanaya said, scowling.

An unsavory view, Brooks thought. But her job was to think that way. "There's very little chance they'd get a bite out here," he said. "Have our probes uncovered anything?"

"Nothing more than we already knew," Cenz replied.

"Recommended course of action?" Brooks asked the assembled officers.

"Such a ship will have air for years and food for months," Yaepanaya noted. "I suggest we contact the Relief Corp of the home system to come help them."

Brooks considered the idea. But if he was stranded in a ship, he wouldn't want to have to wait any longer than necessary.

"We'll contact the Relief Corps later," he said. "We will move closer and see if we can help them ourselves, first."

For the first time, Kell spoke. "Do not do that."

Brooks turned in his seat to stare at the being. "Do you have something relevant to add, Ambassador?"

"Only that you should not move closer to that ship."

"Why?" Brooks demanded.

"There is something wrong," Kell said.

"We can see that, Ambassador," Urle commented dryly. "You need to be more specific."

"Very well. If you move closer, we too shall be disabled, I feel."

"You 'feel'?" Urle scoffed. "Ambassador, if you are feeling unnerved, it is understandable, but not-"

"I am not unnerved," Kell said, cutting Urle off. "But I know what I saw in zerospace, and it is still present. It is not fully in that place, but also not fully here. Yet its reach extends into both."

All eyes were set upon it.

"Kell, I think you need to explain that a little more," Brooks said. "You saw something in zerospace?"

"For lack of a sufficient word in your language - yes. There was something there. Something vast, and I have never seen anything like it. I do not know what it is-"

"You can sense things in zerospace?" Urle asked.

"Evidently," Kell replied. His tone was as dry as the Executive Commander's had been moments before.

"Something vast . . . like a Leviathan?" Yaepanaya asked.

Kell was silent for a long moment. "I have not encountered the things you call by that moniker," he said, his words chosen with care. "But from what I have learned of them - yes. It may be a Leviathan."

A pall fell over the room.

"There are no Leviathans this close to Earth," Urle insisted. "We would know if there were."

"I doubt that," Kell said.

Brooks fixed the Shoggoth with a heavy stare. When he spoke, though, it was not to the ambassador. "Cenz, run a Krahteon scan out to one parsec."

"Do not make yourself too noticeable," Kell insisted.

Brooks hesitated, then nodded to Cenz. "Keep it a low-powered scan."

"Krahteon scans have not been known to cause any change in the behaviour of Leviathans-" Cenz began.

"If you do not know what is nearby but feel it might be a threat," Kell said. "Do you yell?"

Cenz began the scan. Krahteon scans could penetrate through the veil between realities and show even some objects - or pseudo-objects - that existed in zerospace. But they required the use of the zerodrive, and were a substantial drain in power. They wouldn't be able to make another jump for at least half an hour, even doing a minimal scan such as this.

"Sir," Cenz said. "I'm picking up something. Something big."

"Show it," Brooks ordered.

An image appeared on the viewer. For a moment it was too faint to even register, disappearing in the dark between the stars. But then, faint lines emerged, highlighted in realspace by the stream of Krahteons. At first it seemed an arch, then a ring. Several other rings appeared, still so faintly that when it crossed in front of the galactic disk it became invisible.

"Rings? But there's no planet. Are we looking at a structure? Or some kind of dish?" Urle asked.

"It could be an enemy spying device, hidden in zerospace," Yaepanaya suggested.

A thick silence filled the bridge, and just as Brooks was about to inquire to him again, Cenz turned.

"Sir, it's not a construct. It's an eye."

It clicked in Brooks's mind.

"Battle stations!" he commanded. "We have a Leviathan-class entity - Scram it, how big is it?"

"Information is still being processed . . . sensors can't find an edge, but it can't be less than 1100 kilometers across." Cenz's electronic voice managed to convey the strain, if not terror, that they were all feeling.

"1100 kilometers? That's on the scale of a planet," Urle hissed under his breath.

Brooks felt his insides twist at that. He had to alert the crew.

"Attention all crew. We have encountered a Leviathan 5-class entity. I repeat; a Leviathan 5."

"What does the number mean?" Kell asked.

"We grade Leviathans by scale. Fifth-class is the largest category of them, in the scale of mundane objects that form a geoid under their own mass," Cenz explained.

"It's as big as a scramming planet," Urle said shortly.

"We have to alert Sol," Brooks said. "As soon as we have a good fix on its size, we will withdraw at sublight to begin sending a signal to command."

Cenz spoke in a tremulous voice. "Sir . . . I'm getting signals from within the Leviathan. It's subtle, but there's a growing heat signature."

Before the Captain could react to that, Yaepanaya turned in her seat. "It's moving, Captain. And not just drifting, it has altered course. It's moving towards us."

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

Brooks could practically feel the fear, the panic, that swept through the bridge.

He felt it, too. The reports of madness, death, mutations, from every other Leviathan encounter ran through his mind. And he knew all too well from personal experience.

"Reverse engines. Can we outpace this thing?"

"Yes sir, but it is starting to pick up speed," Ji-min Bin said. Her eyes were fixed on Kell. "It's like it's waking up."

Everyone seemed frozen for a moment. Kell had warned them. They had shouted into the darkness, and something had heard.

Brooks knew that he had to fight that instinctive terror, though. Too many lives - those on both his ship and on the Hev - depended on him.

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Kell's.

It was cold in a way that was deeply troubling. But somehow it helped.

"If it awakens it will go for our home," the Shoggoth said.

'Our' home, Brooks thought.

"I don't suppose you know any lullabies?" the first officer asked him.

Kell did not answer, but the pall of fear had been broken, at least for now.

"Everyone, mind your posts. We're not helpless," Brooks said. The confidence in his voice helped break the fear over the others. Or at least helped them to master it.

Training seemed to take over for many. Despite the fear, they returned to their duties.

"Lower the Krahteon scan to the bare minimum we need to keep track of its relative position. Begin charging the long-range communicator, we have to warn the Sol System."

"Will there be time?" Urle asked. "How fast is it waking?"

"Impossible to tell, sir," Cenz replied, frustration in his voice. "These things don't behave predictably."

Kell spoke again. "It felt the path the ships have left, they disturb its sleep. It's been waking slowly, but now it's accelerated. It will not be long - hours, before it is fully awakened. Then it will come."

Brooks felt a shiver go down his spine.

"So if it was no longer bothered by the tracks in zero space, it wouldn't wake up?" he asked.

Kell slowly nodded. "I believe so. It does not wish to awaken; I do not think it is innately hostile. But I suspect that the Hev ship strayed too close."

Urle spoke. "There's no way to scrub our tracks out of zerospace. We've been trying to figure out how for twenty years with no luck."

Brooks felt his mind race. "Alter our course out of the space lanes. Let's see if we can't lead this away."

There was a hint of motion as the ship turned; unrestrained by the ship's grav-systems, the g-forces would have pulped a human. But the system nullified it completely; the hint of motion only added back to give some tactile feel to maneuvers.

Tense moments passed. "Has there been any change in its velocity?"

A bead of sweat went down Urle's forehead. "It altered slightly, but then resumed its original course. Sir, it's in the space lanes. It is heading in the direction of the Sol System."

Brooks sat forward. "We've got to make ourselves more interesting. It has to dislike us more than the space lanes for us to lead it away from them."

"That's your plan? To antagonize it further?" Kell asked.

"Just enough to lead it away. Drawing attention, like you said before."

"And if you awaken it - do you know what kind of power that being possesses?" Kell demanded.

"Sadly," Brooks replied. "We do know. But if we're careful, we won't wake it, just get it to follow in this . . . sleep-walking state it's in."

"What then?" Kell asked.

"Once we've led it far enough away, we turn off the Krahteon stream. If it's not close enough to the space lanes to be bothered by the zerodrive tracks, then it should just go back to sleep."

Kell stared at him for several moments. He did not blink; no muscle in his face moved, as if he had been carved from granite. "I see," he finally said.

Brooks had hoped for more feedback than that, but it seemed all that the being was willing to give.

Cutter scuttled over. "Sir," the Beetle-Slug clicked, "Krahteon scanners not equipped for long-term usage. But we can create Krahteon field around us by venting engine plasma."

"That's an extremely dangerous plan," Urle noted.

"Not safe. But safer than any alternative I can plan out so far. Minimal risk to others - zerospace will absorb the majority of harmful radiation. Only way I can think of to generate signature for period longer than five minutes."

"As long as we can control it enough to keep from waking the thing too much, do it," Brooks said.

"I shall not fail, Captain."

The Engineer stepped back to his console, and in a moment a soft shudder went through the ship.

"That got his attention, sir! It's altering course, this time towards us!"

Brooks looked to Kell. "Can we tell if it's waking him faster?"

"Minimally so. We have not yet crossed the threshold where it could not go back to sleep."

"Sensors seem to confirm that, sir," Cenz noted. "It's still warming, and might be doing so faster, but it's still so slight it's within margins of error."

"How long can we maintain this?" Brooks asked.

The Beetle-Slug's mandibles twisted together in a way that Brooks knew meant concern. "Can't vent for more than six hours. Venting from our engines weakens them. They are keeping us ahead of Leviathan. If they go offline . . ."

"Then it will catch us," Kell supplied.

None of them knew a worse fate.

"Gather all information you can. In thirty minutes, we will have a meeting in the Citadel."

Brooks looked to Kai Fan, director of Response. "I have a special direction for you, Commander."

"Sir? I have taken the initiative of putting all Response personnel on alert."

"Good. I want you to get a technical support team to go with a Response Unit to the disabled Hev ship. We can't leave them."

"You want them to be able to get away if the Leviathan should head back towards the space lane?"

"Yes," Brooks answered.

To go into a ship that didn't know them, without even being able to inform them of their purpose, where the crew were likely in terror. Possibly even a trap to lure in a helpful soul.

But the alternative was worse.

"I have a good team, sir. They'll be in hard vac in ten minutes."