The Pioneer Fleet's mission was to investigate an anomalous target ten light-years beyond the Stellar System, where something existed that the Empire Astronomical Bureau could not scan.
The anomalous electromagnetic waves came from that unobservable presence.
The instant they returned to the conventional universe after months of faster-than-light travel, the battleship intelligence system automatically activated a suite of detection technologies. Streams of data began feeding into the system from its sensors.
[Scan complete] [Preliminary scan identifies the substance as a life-form] [Observable diameter of life-form: 1 light-year] [Scan of life-form's subordinate forces complete] [Uploading scan data to homeworld]
The young captain of the Pioneer Fleet, Ayesha, synchronized her consciousness entity with the Battleship Data Auxiliary Brain the instant they returned to the conventional universe. She "saw" the target they had come to investigate.
"Impossible!!!" One glance was all it took. In the cockpit back in the physical world, Ayesha's body trembled, while her consciousness entity within the data network felt its understanding of reality collapse!
Aboard the warships encased in force-field shields, every pilot in the Pioneer Fleet who observed that terrifying presence felt their sanity plummet. It lay beyond anything they could comprehend!
It resembled an enormous star, radiating an endless rainbow of multicolored electromagnetic signals.
But in the visible-light spectrum, it was an immense red ball of flesh covered in long tentacles. Countless tentacled planets resembling cuttlefish circled those terrifying, gigantic tendrils like schools of fish in the sea.
"...How could a living creature be this enormous!!?" Ayesha thought the detection system might be suffering interference, but the battleship's auxiliary brain told her unequivocally that it was indeed a life-form.
But what kind of life-form could grow to a diameter of one light-year? Why had it not collapsed under its own mass? And what about those