Meanwhile in Fluidic Space

There are no sounds in space... but there was in the organic substance that composed the universe called Fluidic Space. This strange universe was more akin to a sea than to the star-filled void of the universe Humans are familiar with. Where dark matter made up the large part of our universe's mass to account for the gravitational constant, here it was a fluid, transluscent, barely material and yet full of eddies and currents, ebbs and flows, that surrounded and permeated everything.

In our universe full of billions of stars and billion times more of planets, comets, asteroids, dust  clouds and particle clusters, life was deemed a rare and wondrous miracle. In Fluidic Space, the universe itself WAS life.

And just as energy brought matter which in turn brought life, so did the living universe here bring about intelligence and then conscience.

And now, this living universe and all the sentience it gave birth to were being shaken to the core.

The Thing looked like a massive cloud of energetic particles, yellow-green and lluminescent, pulsing even, like some huge living swarm. It moved with supraluminic speed through the liquid-like void. A low throbbing sound came out of it, like the lowest discordant note of a thick piano chord being rasped over and over with sandpaper. If filled Fluidic Space and resonated to it's far corners like the grave toll of an ominious bell.

Towards this huge cosmic cloud flew three dagger-like shapes, green and grey, with two pointed prongs forward and short stubby wings behind. They had come from three different directions and were now converging on the mysterious cloud. if Human eyes would have been there to see them, they would have called them Nicor-class cruisers. Each one was a starship several hundred meters long entirely made out of biomatter from Fluidic Space itself; a lifeform born out of the very universe itself, living in it like a fish in the sea. Each one had aboard a single sentient being, three legged, with leathery grey skin and an elongated face were sentience flashed in a par of dark eyes with cross-shaped pupils.

Sound could travel through Fluidic Space... yet, none came to respond to the sinister call of the strange cloud. Between the three intelligences that converged towards it, no word was exchanged; yet, their minds spoke. They did not communicate deliberately; they were each wrapped in one's own thoughts and feelings. Close as they were, it was however as if they spoke to one another.

" It looks like... a probe"

"It comes from Outside... from the Other Side."

"It feels... wrong. It sounds... alien... it smells like... death."

" It is from... Here... but also from... out There."

" It is... silent... like a dead thing... No! There is... there is... something... "

"A... a presence..."

"It... it is... from... Outside... It is..."

"An invader!"

The three Undines did not discuss or agree on anything; yet, they all became of one mind. And at the same time, all three bioships opened an aperture between their elongated pointed prows, like a mouth glowing with greenish dragon fire.

"KILL!"

Three thoughts shouted as one in the silence between two tolls of the mysterious cloud. From the front of each living vessel shot a brilliant beam of glaring green light, destructive rays of energies that could gouge a Borg Cube like a slab of butter. The three beams struck the cloud with a blinding impact all at the same point.

And then, the cloud suddenly swelled and bursted in all directions like a cloud of dust suddenly blown by a fierce wind.

" Evasive!"

This was the last thought perceived in this part of Fluidic Space.

In seconds, the strange cloud engulfed all three bioships as they tried desperately to bank away from it's brutal expansion. In an instant, they disappeared like dead branches caught in a sandstorm.

Then, the luminescent cloud resorbed itself. It's swelling dissipated rapidly, leaving again but the huge pulsing presence that had attracted those three vessels.

And of them, nothing was left but a field of burning debris and glowing particles.

The cloud emitted again it's long, sinister, low, discordant note. It echoed ominiously as it continued unabated it's seemingly majestic and yet incredibly fast course into the living universe.

Right towards the very heart of Fluidic Space.

*     *     *

It might have looked like a mere asteroid, some lump of brown-green rock floating in the aqeus realm that was Fluidic space. Yet, it was much more than that.

It was alive.

Essentially, it was a monocellular lifeform that had been born from and within the very fabric of this universe. Although it was of the most rudimentary structure of life, it was of gargantuan size, several kilometers accross and massing millions of tons. It was not totally unlike the immense amoeba-like space roaming lifeform that the Constitution class USS Enterprise had encountered and killed a few centuries ago; indeed, that earlier entity might have also  been produced from this very living realm and somehow had escaped to the Milky Way galaxy by some freak accident of colliding universes. nevertheless, this one was smaller, more compact and much simpler even in structure.

And it was occupied.

Within the titanic cell-like living structure, dozens of Undines roamed. They had been born there, and despite their numbers, they rarely if ever came accross one another physically, each engrossed in his own peculiar self-contained life in symbiosis with the giant lifeform around them. Telepathically however, they were asclosely interlinked as they were genetically. Here, contrary to the rest of Fluidic Space at large, absolute individuality was not the only truth and law; here, the Undines had developped a group consciousness, born out of closeness and ready to expand even beyond. It was a new step in the evolution of life and intelligence in this universe that was waiting for the right spark to ignite.

The spark came to them in the form of a strange, luminous space cloud.

" Reading; energy output of excessive magnitude "

" Reading; object at the heart of the particle cloud."

" Reading; consciousness within the object... sentience... "

" Negative... reading; as the object... "

" Negative... too faint to be consciousness "

" Object trajectory altered... homing on our thoughts."

" Proof of sentience..."

" Inconclusive; only proof of conscience..."

" Inconclusive; only proof of perceptivity."

" Toughts from here perceived... but not understood? "

" No answer to call... Except trajectory change."

" Reading interception course. "

In the vastness of Fluidic Space, the strange, ominious luminescent cloud had slowly but definitely angled it's seemingly aimeless course towards the massive inhabited living structure. As it came closer, the particles at the outer edge of it touched the monstrous cell and it began to shake and tremble, then it's outer layer started to shrivel like a leaf burning in a bonfire.

Within the bio-structure, surprise, confusion, pain and fear started to burn in all the minds as their body started to react the same way to the transmitted contact with the yellowish particles. Voiceless, they could not cry out; but their minds shouted with terrible intensity accross the vastness of Fluidic Space their last thoughts.

" Cloud is energy field of some kind! "

" There is an object within the cloud! "

" Warning! Our thoughts are possibly being perceived as an attack!"

" Heading; the Heart of Life!"

These were the last coherent thoughts that came out of the colossal living structure, before it was engulfed within the vast cloud of energy. Then, there was a last, powerful telepathic shout before everything became silent again.

When the cloud moved past  the gargantuan bio-station, all that was left was a lifeless lump of matter, darkened and shriveled, pockmarked by burns already getting cold in the fuidic void of space. From the mysterious mass of yellowish radiation and energy came a deep, low, discordant sound that reverberated like a funeral bell accross the expanse of Fluidic Space as it resumed it's course deeper into the organic universe.

Behind it, it left but the last remnants of the final thoughts of the now dead Undines; thoughts of anger, of pain, of fear... and of a feeling never experienced before in this universe.

Astonishment.

*     *     *

There were fifty-four of them, all Nicor warships able to combine in groups of  nine to form five groups able to unleash the terrible mega-beam that could annihilate in one strike an entire Borg cube. They were all coming from a different direction of Fluidic Space, drawn towards a single point  by one single thought.

Repel the invader!

At the center of their convergent trajectories, the thing flew uneeringly towards the very heart of their universe.

The greenish  dagger-like vessels converged at high warp towards the immense luminescent cloud of yellowish particles, their pointed prows knifing through the strange, liquid-like substance of their universe like the snouts of hungry sharks. They slowed to sublight speed only when they came in range of their target, maneuvering so that they could assume a star-shaped formation with eight of them surrounding a ninth one barely a few thousand kilometers apart. Each of the five formations took a different angle around the vast moving object; but all were guided by a single feeling.

The weak shall perish!

The strange luminescent form plowing through Fluidic Space went on with no thought, no feeling, no emotion... but with a single, unflinching purpose... right to the heart of this universe.

All around the thing, an ominous greenish glow lighted the sides of the grouped cruisers. The eight suronding ones sent the ouput of energy pulsing from their flanks right down to the ninth one between them all. The green lightning bolts converged on it and it,s own pulsing power swelled to a blinding halo that suddenly exploded forward in a colossal beam of destructive energy. From five different directions, the massive deflagration of greenish fire tore the very fabric of space to strike with titanic power the monstrous cloud of energy and particles. For a moment, the entirety of Fluidic Space seemed to ignite in a colossal blaze of tellow and green, like an explosion powerful enough to create a universe... or destroy it. The deflagration flashed from one end of space to the other with the brightness of a supernova. In the dense fluidic substance taht made up Fluidic Space, it reverberated like the low thrumming of a subterranean explosion.

Then, everything went dark... and silent.

There was fifty-four of them, all Nicor warships... all coming from a different direction of Fluidic Space, drawn to a single point by a single thought... all guided by a single feeling...

There was, of the fifty-four ships, only burning lifeless debris left... and one single emotion floating in the strange organic ether like a last howling of dying souls.

Fear.

In the silence, only a long, low, discordant note tore space as the yellowish cloud, smaller, thinner and dimmer, nevertheless continued on beyond the vast field of debris and cadavers. It went on with the same cold indifference as, once in another universe,  a Borg Cube had gone through a sector of space called Wolf 359, leaving a destroyed fleet of starships in it's wake to move on towards it's chosen destination.

*     *     *