The subject had been screaming for 8 hours straight. Kruger was especially unhappy with its performance and had instructed Dr. Nolan to run a special dream program on it while it was being delivered a new round of torture. The routine would switch nerve centers every 20 seconds to make sure the body of the subject never got used to any specific group. The dream program was recorded from a man starving to death during the food riots.

  After the project’s failure in space, the body had been examined. The arms of the subject had been amputated at the shoulder during the incursion. The bio-mass below that point was dead. There was no chance of re-attachment, so the arms were discarded.

  When the torture session ended they allowed the subject a brief period of normal sleep, just to make sure its mind would remain intact enough for it to remain a viable combat asset. Then back to training, and the hunt.

  …

  Gondo had enjoyed a nice nights rest and the crew was back at the meeting table the next day after the battle. They had a lot to go over.

  Lowell was calmly pacing in front of the main monitor screen, directing the meeting.

  “Obviously the formula for the Moonshield escaped. This means we’ll be able to come in from the cold a bit, no more hiding in the shadows. We need to take this threat head on,” they said.

  “Agreed,” Igansius chimed in. His frame was floating above the ground in front of the table, counter-clockwise from Lowell. “I’d like to go ahead and send the information we have on the formula to Ourobouros. They aren’t our allies, but they definitely aren’t our enemies. I think the more bodies we get practicing with the formula in astral space will help our odds against the A.E.C. The process of biodynamic farming started when a mystic Nazi buried a manure filled cow horn in his wine orchard.”

  Gondo chuckled to himself. He hadn’t heard Igansius drop any weird trivia facts in a while.

  Lowell let that one go and continued on. “I’ll allow it,” they said. “In exchange for their assistance in ending whatever is going on under that shield at A.E.C. headquarters.”

  Gondo recalled the dread image of the calculated murder phantom that the Astral Engineering Core had sent to destroy him.

  “That thing I fought,” he said. “It used to be a human being. I hope I killed it, put it out of it’s misery. I can’t stomach the idea that there are more of them being housed in their compound. We need to infiltrate, and shut it down.”

  Everyone agreed on this fact. The A.E.C. was too powerful with the Moonshield in their possession.

  “It was so strong, stronger than me for sure,” Gondo said. “I imagine they’ve removed every safety constraint and they’re experimenting on it day and night. Still, the original Caster must have been incredibly powerful, though I didn’t recognize them.”

  “The attacker had a remarkable ability at altering their astral mass,” Igansius said. “I counted 14 different weapon types utilized.”

  “When I cut off it’s arm, I noticed the astral mass disappearing. There’s really no better way to describe it, it was being consumed,” Gondo said. “I think Calcio’s last Cast wasn’t just some manic dying hallucination. I think there’s an astral predator out there. Something bigger and more terrifying than we’ve ever discovered.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The crew became as silent as Rockman for a spell.

  Gondo reached up and touched the wound on his cheek. There was no sensation in that part of his face. The Sunsword was equipped with a state of the art medical bay, one that should be able to fully heal the cut and replace it with new skin. When they had tried, the system read the wound as dead flesh. The applied skin had sloughed off, it had nothing to join with. Gondo had decided to embrace the scar as a war wound.

  The conclusion was made that any damage dealt in the astral plane while under the effects of the Moonshield would immediately be delivered to the Caster. This upped the stakes drastically.

  “We’ll need to keep investigating,” Lowell said. “I think it would serve us well to try and seek out other intelligent life forms in space. Maybe there’s someone or something out there that has more knowledge of what we are trying to do, and what’s lurking out there.” Heads nodded in somber agreement.

  “Speaking of which,” Igansius piped up animatedly. “Excellent performance out there my friend!” He tilted his frame to the side to bump Rockman’s arm. “You were the MVP of that battle. You took out a fleet of top of the line spacecraft in a matter of minutes!”

  Rockman took the praise in his usual stoic manner. Gondo was convinced there was something in there besides stone. A beating heart somewhere in that crystal solar system.

  “That’ll hurt the A.E.C.’s wallet for sure,” Gondo said. “And it was really bad ass.”

  He glanced around at his weary, loyal companions. They deserved a break.

  “Let’s head for the nearest port,” he said. “I propose a feast to celebrate our new friend, and our victory. Also, I’m tired of eating reheated spacer gruel.”

  …

  Krustallos’ monitor was sitting at a table in far galaxy. The space beings around it were consuming heated flesh and fermented liquids. They made loud noises and contorted the top parts of their bodies, while jostling around their appendages. They periodically stood and then went to a private area to squirt processed liquids from their bodies. The more liquids they consumed the stranger they grew. It was all so fascinating.

  Krustallos itself was far away. It was an old intelligence, vast but slow. It experienced the galaxy by bonding to visiting life forms, replicating them in stone, and then researching them. It found by adapting its monitors to their forms and remaining neutral, it could hasten the bonding process. Once the lifeforms were comfortable with the monitor they would act naturally.

  It had thousand monitors, stretching out across the universe. It had encountered millions of different life forms over eons. For some reason, these particular creatures were special. It couldn’t yet discern why, but its astronomical intellect hinted that these specific life forms would eventually be useful against the Hunger. That soul eating parasite was the only being Krustallos knew that was older than itself.

  Krustallos’ bond waved its appendages in the air and another lifeform hurried over to deliver more containers of liquid. This prompted more contortions from the life forms.

  Though Krustallos monitored beings from many worlds, it liked these ones the best. Perhaps it would try some of this liquid one day. It looked fun.