I awoke, pulled from the dream of being with my family again. I had the same dream every night. In the dream, I had just gotten home from work to find my wife cooking dinner. My two boys ran up to me, each one grabbing a different leg of mine and yelling “daddy” with a big smile. My boys were five and seven years old. I would rough up the curly, brown hair on each of their heads that they got from their mother. My wife would then walk up, staring at me with big blue eyes and give me a kiss. I always wake up right before I sat down for dinner.
I sat up in my bunk. The only noise I could here was the low hums and whirring of computers and flight instruments. I stood up from the bunk and walked to the seat in the front of the ship. I checked the different gauges and readings to see where I was. Ten billion miles from home, and a few hours from my destination. There was no point in opening the window shutters, I was meant to slow down 40 minutes before arrival. I would not be able to see anything until then.
I had been flying for sixteen years. Our planet was in danger and I was the man who volunteered to save it. It was not to save mankind, though, not completely anyways. I wanted the human race to live on, but more importantly I wanted to make sure my family was safe. I did not want to leave that responsibility up to anyone else. So I took the duty of making sure I saved my family.
At first I was able to chat with a small five to ten minute delay between messages. Quickly that changed to daily, then weekly, followed by monthly, and finally I had only been able to receive three messages over the past fifteen years. Each message however was merely days or weeks for my wife and kids. They were years apart and lost to the past by the time I finally got them. I have not gotten a new message from my family in five years.
I received a message from a handful of world leaders and scientists earlier this year. The message contained a sort of Thank you-Apology. They thanked me for what I was doing, and apologized because they knew by the time I got to where I was going, and word got back to them, I would already be dead. It was nothing I wanted to hear, but I understand why they made it. I sent back a thank you message, and told them not to apologize, because this had to be done.
When this potential crisis was realized, all conflict stopped, all wars ended, and man was finally at peace with itself. Every nation gathered together to help one another think of the possible ways to prevent our annihilation. It was determined that one man was to be sent with all the necessary resources to stop the possibility of this threat. A man had to be sent and he had to be sent quickly. We were not going to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of a computer. I became the pilot of the Icarus
  We were going to be wiped out by the largest object we have ever seen. The astronomers theorized that the thing was roughly four times the size of our own sun. From what we were able to observe it had destroyed entire solar systems in its path. They were not sure how its movement worked, it did not seem to go in a straight line but, it was heading our direction though and we knew we had to destroy it. We spent the next few years preparing to crack this rock like an egg.
We gathered and built any and every explosive we could with the resources on our planet. We then scoured our neighboring planets for any material they had. We discovered a new element in the process. On Jupiter and Saturn there were materials capable of creating 100 megaton bombs with only a gram of the elements. They had specific names, but the nicknames given were simply Saturnium, and Jupiterite. These materials were more than abundant. After 6 years we had enough explosive material to create a one trillion trillion megaton bomb. A bomb large enough to crack our sun in half.
The ship required to carry all this material was the size of a Canadian territory and had to be made in space itself because the power needed to take off would destroy the planet. We built an orbital elevator to transport materials for a fraction of the energy needed. The engines for the ship were highly advanced ION engines, capable of speeds reaching two hundred thousand miles per hour. The speed for the entirety of the trip was roughly seventy thousand miles per hour.
These speeds were able to be achieved safely with the artificial gravity that had been installed on the ship. I could not even begin to explain how the gravity all worked. I did know that taking it above one hundred thousand for too long would eventually destroy the artificial gravity, resulting in my death from horizontal g-force and the destruction of the ship
I had trained as an astronaut for years and was not only the most qualified, but the most willing for this mission. I was now forty minutes from my supposed destination. I began the applying the “breaks” to put it simply. I slowly began dropping speed. The slow down cycle would take roughly twenty minutes, once the twenty minutes were up, I could open the shutters and clearly be able to see what I was flying up against. At that point it would be no different than looking at a full moon.
With all this being said, my relationship to other galaxies would put me in absolute darkness. It was theorized though, that this object being as massive as it was, could possibly give off its own faint glow due to the energy created by its own gravity. That is just a theory however, the object itself should not exist according to every physicist and astronomer that studied it. Its size should cause it to collapse in on itself. Especially with how it has torn though galaxies with no slowing and no fail.
I sat staring at the monitors and gauges and meters for the next 20 minutes. The slowing cycle had finished. I completely soaked in the soon to be reality. I stood up and got ready to face my goliath. I pressed a button and watched as the shutters opened. At first I noticed nothing, but then I saw it. In the distance was a faint glow, I could not make out the size though. The glow grew brighter though as time progressed. I eventually could make out the size of the object.
It was definitely large, larger than anything. I could not fathom or describe its size. Something about it was wrong though, it was moving. I could not tell how, but it was. After ten minutes had passed, I could make out an outline. It was as if space itself was bending around this thing. The outline was not shaped like a giant rock, it was more jagged and deformed. It had a large center but almost half its shape was in these strange wing-like protrusion from the sides of it. Five more minutes passed and I became filled with disbelief.
The glow had increased and the shape was completely visible. The entire thing had a dull orange glow with an occasional spot of bright yellow, as if there was as sun inside it. It was no rock though.
The wing-like protrusions I had mentioned were what was moving. These protrusions connected to a body of unbelievable size. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. It had a head which resembled a cross between a bat and a lizard. The body seemed humanoid, but it obviously was the farthest thing from it. I could make out its full image now. It was as if I was laying eyes upon a god.
I was no more than one minute away from impact when the being pulled back and began to slow down, pushing its wings away. A solid five minutes passed before it completed one flap of its wings and came to a full stop. It now stood, motionless in front of me.
I sat, still in shock. I was unable to process any of what was going on. In that very moment I went from being the largest man in the universe, to the tiniest being in existence. As I stared in awe I felt something. My head became light and I lost focus. This being was in my head. He was exploring my thoughts.
As he looked into my head I could look into his. No conversation took place. Just an exchange of information. Then he stopped at one thing, one small piece of information. The bomb. I could see what he was thinking at that point. He was scared. He took all of this as a threat. I could see exactly what he thought at that moment before I regained control of my mind.
I collapsed on the ground and coughed as I tried to regain control of my body. As I was getting up I could see the creature move around me, I struggled to get up, I could not let him go. He was heading toward earth and I knew that for a fact now. He had fully passed me and I began to turn the ship around. I checked the radar and he had already reached over ten thousand miles distance away from me and that distance was increasing quickly.
He was going faster than before. He was pushing nearly one hundred and fifty thousand miles per hour. I lined myself up with his back and pressed the accelerator to the max. He was roughly seventy thousand miles away now. I accelerated to a tremendously high speed. I hit the governor at two hundred and ten thousand miles per hour. The computer said I was make contact in just over sixty seconds. I engaged the auto piloting system and activated the communications system and began yelling a message back to earth. It would be years before they got it but I had to warn them.
“This is Captain Clint Thomas Peterson of the Icarus! I am in pursuit of the object. It is alive, I repeat, it is alive. It was in my head and it learned about the bomb and took it as a threat. It thought we were out to kill it. It’s scared of me, that’s how I know I can kill it. While it was in my head though I could see its thoughts as well. I saw more of them, more than you could possibly imagine. They’ve been here forever, since before the beginning of time itself, since before the universe was made. They crawl on the walls of the universe. We don’t see darkness in the sky because of infinite space, we see darkness because they cover the end of everything.”
“This one has been traveling for billions of years, they are all connected somehow. If I kill this one, the rest will come. This is a warning. They are scared because this bomb can kill them. He’s trying to get to Earth to prevent the possible killing of their kind. Take the next billion year to prepare in any way possible. This is Clint Thomas Padgett. Signing off. Tell my wife and kids this is for them, and that I love them.”
I ended the recording and hit send. They would not receive that message for years, and it will come as a shock. I attached all camera files to the message as well and hit send for them to see what we were up against. Twenty seconds to impact. The computer was beeping as the artificial gravity started to fail. Come on, hang in there I thought to myself. Ten seconds. Sparks were flying and things lit on fire. The last seconds ticked by and on contact a bright light erupted.