Cthulhu had become almost formless, a writhing mass of green, gelatinous matter and living Octorg cybernetics.  His misshapen eyes darted about, staring at nothing, but he could feel the past and the future coming his way like someone placing their ear to a train track and hearing an oncoming locomotive.  The Time was drawing near.  All he needed was that final link which Radagast’s spell had hidden from him.  

On the Lost World, also known as Z’ha’dum, Radagast's spells were forcing Cthulhu back into his tomb.  The wizard, wearing the guise of Gandalf, turned to Kirk.

  “Kirk!  This may seem like a dream but there are different states of being, dreaming and waking, real and unreal…complete your mission…and Fly!  The enemy is upon us!”

  Kirk was overcome…what was happening?  Hadn’t he been here before, in a dream?  Looking down into the valley, he saw his crewmates leaping and screaming along with a horde of Sleestack / Deep Ones, and he saw himself crawling in the dirt along with them!

  Radagast turned back to Cthulhu and screamed “Paga Nastrinomas Vas Por Flam!” slamming his glowing staff into the Old One’s putrid hide.  Great Cthulhu screamed and forced his bulk back into the crypt, but on the way his writhing feelers grabbed Radagast, hauling him inside the cave entrance.

  Kirk heard the old man’s voice one last time: “Fly you fools!”  Somehow in his near-madness, this phrase brought Kirk back to his senses.  In fact, it widened his senses.  He had been here before, and he would be here again.

  “I remember now.  I am unstuck in time…free to move as I see fit.  It’s time I made use of this power instead of trembling before it like a raw cadet.”  He spread his arms out, palms up, and raised his face to the sky.  Closing his eyes, he began to fully visualize what was possible once the narrow boundaries of human perception are destroyed.  Then, with the speed of thought, James T. Kirk left the Lost World and entered the Ultimate Void.

  As Radagast continued his attack on Cthulhu, blazing light and energy spewed from the mouth of the cave.  Fire, wind, and lighting arced in all directions, razing forests and blasting craters into mountains.  Inside, Cthulhu was weakening, overwhelmed by the unexpected power of Radagast’s spellweaving.  But Cthulhu would not be defeated so easily.  His consciousness reached out of the tomb, towards Kirk and his crew as they reeled mindlessly alongside the hybrid Deep Ones (see message 213).  Wrapping itself around Kirk’s mind, Cthulhu’s thought-tendril probed quickly and deeply, searching for a way out, an escape.  Out from the depths of Kirk’s puny mind came the answers:  Kirk’s greatest fears…the Borg…a race of cyborgs linked by thought…one giant mind that existed not inside a biological brain, but across the boundaries of space and subspace.  He also saw the Octom, a race possessing nearly limitless warships and destructive capacity.  These would make excellent new hosts, and an excellent new race of slaves to usher in his reign.  Once combined under his power, Cthulhu knew that he would be invincible.

  So in one final burst of energy, Great Cthulhu launched his essence across space and time, into the Borg hivemind of the gibbering Kirk’s memories.  Overtaking the uni-mind almost instantly, Cthulhu immediately began preparations to assimilate the Octom.  Thus the Octorg would be born.  (See message 281)

  But of even greater significance was the impact this transfer had on the pulsing form of Cthulhu in the current time, leading the Octorg to a crushing defeat over the SDF-3…a defeat which only the GMU had narrowly escaped.  He felt himself transferring his essence across time into the Borg Collective, could almost see his energy shooting by him into the past, and honed in back to the source…Z’ha’dum…the Lost World.  Radagast’s spells had caused Cthulhu to forget that world’s place in the infinity of universes and space/time continua, but now its location glowed like a beacon before Cthulhu’s mind.  He began to gather the Octorg and prepare for the journey.  Z’ha’dum was the key, the gateway, and once it was his, nothing would stop him.  He would leap from world to world, universe to universe, using the Lost World as his pivot point.  Not only were the stars right again, but from now on, they would always be right.  The hell of his deathless slumber would never come again.

  Meanwhile, Kirk floated aimlessly in the Ultimate Void, his mind reeling at the prospect of pure nothingness.  Suddenly, out of the nothingness, came an avalanche of minds, flooding over his own and nearly drowning it in an ocean of chaos.  He slowly realized that this swarm of minds was actually his own self, projecting inward and criss-crossing like billions of lasers blazing and careening through the heart of a diamond.  Something Professor Jones had told him once came welling back to him; something Jones himself had learned from the renowned scholar H.P. Lovecraft:  

“Every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension – as a square is cut from a cube, or a circle from a sphere.  The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are cut from corresponding forms in four dimensions, which men only know through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on, up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity.  The world of men and the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing.  Though men hail it as reality, and band thoughts of its many-dimensional original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite.  That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.

Time is motionless and without beginning or end.  That it has motion and is the cause of change is an illusion.  Indeed, it is itself really an illusion, for except to the narrow sight of beings in limited dimensions there are no such things as past, present, and future.  Men think of time only because of what they call change, yet that too is an illusion.  All that was, and is, and is to be, exists simultaneously.

As the shapes produced by the cutting of a cone seem to vary with the angles of cutting – being circle, ellipse, parabola or hyberbola according to that angle, yet without any changes in the cone itself – so do the local aspects of an unchanged and endless reality seem to change with the cosmic angle of rendering.  To this variety of angles of consciousness the feeble beings of the inner worlds are slaves, since with rare exceptions they can not learn to control them.”

  Kirk pondered these words.  Now that he had recognized his new power and opened his mind to the true nature of reality, he had to decide what to do next.  By altering the angle of his consciousness plane as it cut through all dimensions, he could move freely between them.  But where to go?  Where to start?

  NORAD, Colorado

  THE BISHOP cast aside his robes, revealing a bearded and aged Luke Skywalker, clad in black Jedi garments.  Gripping his glowing green lightsaber with both hands, he launched himself toward the mass of tentacles, feelers, and claws that were groping their way through the Stargate.

  “Shut the gate!” he called to the technicians.

  Without pausing, the lightsaber arced across the alien appendages, severing them and cauterizing the stumps that remained.  Using the force, Luke deflected more of the flailing limbs.  As the horrid creatures themselves began to emerge from the Stargate, they were shoved back through by an invisible fist as the Jedi fought the monsters back.

  Suddenly the shimmering surface of the gate flashed brightly, then disappeared.  The closure of the gate caused several alien limbs to drop to the floor, flopping aimlessly now that they had been severed from their owners.

  Luke deactivated his lightsaber and turned back to the group.  “We’ve stopped them for now, but I doubt it will take them long to find another way here, even if it means burrowing through the earth.”

  Old Indy looked at Luke and Young Indy and smiled.  “I knew that all this was going to happen.  I remembered it from when I was you,” Indy gestured at Young Indy.  “Still, seeing it all again is quite an experience.”  He looked at Luke.

  “Thanks for all your warnings and communications.  I would not have been able to orchestrate all this without your help.”

  Luke smiled back wanly.  “The Force makes its presence known on its own terms, Dr. Jones.  I can only hope it will see us through the dark times ahead.”  Looking towards the Stargate technicians, he said, “I’m going to give you some coordinates to program into this gateway.  We must move quickly, for the fate of all things hangs in the balance.  We must go to Z’ha’dum.”

  Z’ha’dum

  SULU was as pleased as could be expected, given his situation.  The Excelsior had handled the crash landing admirably, and was still in very good condition.  Scouting parties had spread out from the ship, using the hull as their new base of operations.  Their reports didn’t cheer up Sulu, for the world they had landed on was infested with all manner of creatures, most hostile to human life.  Already 8 security guards had met grisly ends, and the corpses only seemed to spur more attacks as the smell of death began to spread.  Landing on a Lost World of dinosaurs was not the escape that Sulu had wanted.

  “Tuvok, what kind of sensor readings are we getting regarding the planet?”

  “Captain, sensors are behaving sporadically, both because of the crash and because of the unusual energies of the planet.  The crew has set up sensor posts around the ship, to warn us of any impeding attack, by the dinosaurs or anyone else.  However, on a more fundamental level, there is something very, very…wrong…with this planet.  It exists in more than one timestream.”

  “Hmmm…seems like I’ve heard that before,” mumbled Sulu, thinking about his trials on Earth/Middle Earth when he served under Kirk during the Grey War.

  “Be that as it may,” Tuvok continued, “this planet has overlapping space/time fields.  It appears to be a nexus point.  In fact, according to the sensors, this planet could very well be the Earth of the distant past.  That may explain the presence of the dinosaurs.”

  “The Earth?” Sulu pondered this.  Maybe there was more than mere coincidence relating the Lost World to Earth/Middle Earth.  Hadn’t Middle Earth been a nexus of sorts as well?  Was this another extension of that?  Sulu nearly reeled…how much more of this could he be expected to take?  Would it ever end?  He’d thought the Grey War was long behind him, but somehow fate had drawn those horrible times back into reality…whatever “reality” meant any more.  He shook off his momentary panic.

  “Well Tuvok, keep digging.  Maybe you can come up with something to help explain all this.  In the meantime, have the crew remain on alert.  If history is any sort of teacher, we can probably expect something bad to happen any time now.”

  As if on cue, the proximity alarms began going off.

  A security officer came on over the speaker.  “Captain Sulu!  We’re facing a coordinated attack by at least 50…make that 60 dinosaurs in sector 4.”  The sounds of phasers, photon cannons, and screaming carried through in the background.

  “Roger that security.  Reinforcements are on the way.  Keep me posted.  Sulu out.”

  Tuvok turned to Sulu.  “Captain, we have similar reports from the whole perimeter.”

  “Wonderful.  Get the crew outside and have them prepare for battle.”  Sulu drew his phaser and headed for the turbolift.  “Stay here and continue your research.  I’m going to have a look outside.  Notify me if you discover anything useful.”

  In a few minutes, Sulu was standing outside the Excelsior, and the picture was terrible.  From all directions, he could hear pitched battles raging.  So much for establishing a safe perimeter.  “Bridge, this is Sulu.  Order the crew to fall back to the ship.  We’ll make our stand here.”

  Sulu watched as a squad of security personnel came bursting through the foliage, running for the ship.  They were shooting blindly behind them.  Then the captain saw what their targets were.  A horde of man-sized reptiles that he recognized as Velociraptors came streaking after his men.

  Charging forward, Sulu fired repeatedly at the Raptors, disintegrating 4 of the beasts.  Other crewmates joined in the effort, blasting the reptiles, trying to hold them off.  They were fast and intelligent, Sulu noted, employing tactics to a disturbing extent.  Some circled around to both sides of the security force, while others drew their fire directly ahead of them.  The pincer maneuver came swiftly, and even firing as fast as they could, the guards couldn’t stop them.  The Raptors were upon them from both sides, and the resulting carnage made Sulu avert his eyes.  More good men, gone.

  Almost as if the taste of blood had roused Death herself, a slaughter erupted in the shadow of the starship Excelsior.  Stumbling, frantic crewmen appeared out of the brush, almost climbing over each other in an attempt to evade whatever was after them.  The tall grass made only the tops of their heads visible to Sulu, but that was enough to see that the men were in the grip of pure panic.  One security guard was suddenly lifted into the air, then jerked sideways below the grass, into a thrashing vortex of foliage and screaming.  Streams of blood shot in every direction, and the screaming abruptly ceased.

  Only to be replaced by more.  In fact, the noises weren’t as much screams as they were the shrieks of animals that had forgotten their humanity in the face of such awesome and primal savagery.  Man thinks that he is the master of the land and of his destiny, but such illusions are shattered when the grinning spectre of death looms near.  Such was the case today in the steaming jungles of Z’ha’dum.

  Leaping raptors arced through the air, to come down, claws ripping flesh and fabric and faces, bringing howls of agony and choked-off screeches for mercy or god.  The predatory reptiles didn’t care.  God to them was the nourishing blood and meat that clung to the bones of these soft pink mammals.  Yet another example of how, when all the lies are stripped away, no one is right or wrong…there is only life and unlife, and any creature’s status, either alive or dead, is of no significance to the blind cosmos that grinds on endlessly around them.

  Phaser fire and hand-held photon launchers blasted the trees and grass, causing fires to erupt.  In one case, a fear-wracked ensign blasted into a moving area of grass with a photon cannon, only to annihilate a group of fleeing technicians, sending charred hunks of men tumbling above the grass tips.  Some of these pieces were bitten out of the air by leaping raptors…there must have been hundreds of them.

  To avenge the death of his crewmen, Sulu fired into the whirlwind of Raptors and mangled men, destroying most of the creatures.  Suddenly there was a huge crash from behind him.  He turned to see several Tyrannosaurus Rex’s smashing through the trees and bearing down on his ship.  The surviving crew tried to repulse the attack, disintegrating the things, or blowing off their limbs, but they still kept coming.  One thing was clear to Sulu…the dinosaurs were being coordinated or controlled somehow…there was no way two different species would be working together like this. 

  The T-Rex’s were almost on top of the ship now, and the crew dove into various defense cubbyholes in an attempt to avoid the charging monsters.  The group of T-Rex’s smashed down onto the hull of the Excelsior, but the reinforced hull held, for now.  Still, his crew was frightened, and those who hadn’t made it inside the hull were torn apart in the jaws of the Jurassic beasts. 

  Phasers lanced out from the ship and pierced the T-Rex’s, but the horrible pounding and smashing on the hull continued.  Deafening roars filled the air as the things flew into a frenzy.  One bent swiftly and came up with a medic in its jaws, thrashing its head wildly and then swallowing the still-screaming man whole.

  The relentless pounding on the ship continued, and Sulu knew the hull would not hold forever.  It was strong, but not meant to withstand the repeated impact of a swarm of 50-ton monsters.  Finally, one section of the ship caved in, and the massive jaws engulfed dozens of men.  To make matters worse, the raptors leapt in through the opening and began to tear the remaining crew to pieces.

  “Sulu to bridge!  Seal off the ruptured section of the ship!  We can’t let those things into the core of the vessel, or they’ll kill everyone!”

  “Roger, Captain…force fields activated on decks 8 through 10.  We’ve got the breach secured.”

  “That doesn’t help us get them out,” Sulu thought.  “We’ve got to counterattack…and drive those things back!”

  A shadow fell over Sulu’s weary face, and the captain was almost afraid to look up and see what was coming now.  Then, a voice crackled over his communicator.

  “Captain Sulu, this is Wallart, aboard the Ground Mobile Unit.  We’re coming in to assist.”

  Sulu watched the GMU swoop overhead and land near the Excelsior, which was still crawling with dinosaurs.  The main hanger opened, and the BattleMech’s appeared.  Following the mechs came Destroids and Veritech fighters.

  Afraid to risk further damage to the Excelsior with missle or autocannon fire, the mechs lumbered in for close combat, while the agile Veritechs transformed to Battleoid mode and engaged the attacking beasts.  Sulu marveled at the difference in equipment, for as the BattleMechs seemed awkward at hand to hand combat, the Veritechs looked like giant martial arts experts, leaping, kicking and punching the dinosaurs.  Still, the creatures did not flee, further solidifying Sulu’s hunch that the monsters were being controlled somehow.

  The battle raged, but as fierce as the T-Rex’s, raptors, and other breeds were, they were no match for ultra-hard steel fists and laser cannons.  The things did their best, 8 of them piling onto a Mech, trying to take it down.  It was almost comical, a Warhammer smashing its cannon-like arms down upon the skull of a T-Rex, while 5 Raptors clung like ticks to its armored skin.

  And once the Mech’s had driven or goaded the dinosaurs away from the hull of the Excelsior, the battle was all but over.  With free reign to use missiles, flamers, and autocannons, the Mechs decimated the remaining attackers.

  Later, after profuse thanks to the Mech and Veritech pilots, a more stable perimeter had been secured.  Max Sterling, Captain Sulu, and Tuvok sat in the briefing room aboard the Excelsior.  Max was concluding his story on the fate of the SDF-3.

  “No one else made it,” Max stated flatly.  “We got away just before those monsters assimilated the ship...the sounds I heard on the comm channel before we space folded...” he closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the images in his mind.  “In any event,” he continued shakily, “those things, the Octorg, will be after us.  That much I know.”  Silence fell upon the room, lit dimly since the ship was operating on battery power.  The atmosphere this created didn’t help at all.

  “Well then,” Sulu tried to seem positive, but only came across as resigned.  “All we can do is prepare, and hope some more help arrives.”

  A chirp from the COM panel interrupted them.  “Captain Sulu, status report from the perimeter, sir.”

  “Put it through.”

  “Captain, this is Ensign Kenan at checkpoint 8.  One of our scouting parties encountered something.  Looks like there are other intelligent life forms on the planet.  Activating a video feed of their report.”

  The screen lit up, and Sulu watched as the scout party recorded the actions of a group of alien creatures.  They were surrounding a strange looking, circular structure that was covered with symbols or runes.  He recognized the beings immediately.  Sleestack.

  Well this might explain who was controlling those dinosaurs, Sulu thought.  But what are they doing here?

  “Good work, Ensign.  Try to keep your distance and let me know if they take any action against us.”

  “Yes sir.”  The comm clicked off.

  “Captain,” Tuvok began, “I’m sure you are aware that those lifeforms are Sleestack.  However, I believe we should be more interested in the structure they were grouped around.  I recognize it from historical texts, both from Earth and from other worlds.  It is called a Stargate.”

  Area 42

  Mulder and Scully sat with the remnants of the Delta Green team in a sub-basement beneath Area 42.  The major wasn’t following them down, and this became apparent when the explosion above them shook the walls, causing bits of plaster to sprinkle down on their heads.

  “Well,” thought Mulder, “at least they can’t get to us now.  The whole level above us is now caved in.”

  But as the din of the explosion and resulting structural collapse faded, Mulder began listening to an incessant, dull pounding far above them.  The things were persistent, Mulder granted them that.  They came on with a single-mindedness that defied logic or reason.  Rather than move on to find more vulnerable prey, they kept at the rubble and the steel doors, smashing and burrowing their way towards the humans.  They must be so sadistic as to be unable to accept the existence of any sane beings at all, and once any humans were found, they were hunted until destroyed.  Only then would the things move on.

  The Delta Green members were chatting quietly on their radio headsets, getting status reports.  The expressions on their faces weren’t encouraging.

  “So what’s the story?  Is there any other way out of here?” asked Mulder.

  The next officer in the chain of command, Sergeant Hockney, turned a weary face to him.  “The other Delta Green units aren’t doing much better than we are.  Over half of the building has been compromised.  Some of the groups are holding out, but the ones that can will be pulling out soon and making a run for NORAD…and the one’s that can’t make it out…are lost.  As far as a way out from here, I don’t know of one.  This complex is…was…one of the most secure places on earth.  It’s very unlikely there is any way in or out.”

  “Well we’d better try to think of something, Sergeant.  If those things keep at it, I’d say we’ve got about thirty minutes before they get to us.”

  “I’m on it,” one of the Delta Green techs stated, flipping open a laptop and booting it up.  “Let's see if the network here was really as redundant as the contractors claimed it was.  If it is, maybe I can try to pull up some schematics.”

  “Whatever you do, do it fast!” replied Mulder, visibly cringing as a particularly loud crashing sound came from above, followed by more pounding.  He really couldn’t believe this was happening.  Even after all his run-ins with the supernatural and the unexplainable, this was too much.  He looked over at Scully.  She was sitting against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking softly back and forth, whispering to herself.

  The scratching and pounding grew louder, and bits of debris began to fall from the caved-in surface of the elevator shaft. 

  One of the Delta Green radio operators tore his headset off and clenched his fists, hissing in fury and terror.

  “What is it?” asked Sergeant Hockney.

  The soldier bitterly flicked the switch on the radio from headset to speaker.  Sounds erupted from the tiny device: screaming, gunfire, then static.

  “They’re fucking gone.  Mother fucking bastard, they’re all gone…” the radioman spat through clenched teeth.  He was losing it.

  The scraping and smashing from the elevator shaft grew louder, and faint screeching and howling began to filter through the rubble.

  “Then this is it,” Hockney grunted.  “How perfectly damn delightful it is to be sure…”

  The rubble trembled, shaking back and forth, then tumbling forward as if something unnaturally massive were shoving its bulk down the shaft of the elevator.  Mulder looked over at Scully, staring.  She opened her eyes and stared back up at him.  Their eyes locked, and she simply nodded.

  Neither one blinked or looked away as Mulder drew his pistol and raised it toward Scully’s head.  And all he could think of was the irony that his quest for the truth had brought him here.  The truth was out there, all right.  But maybe it was better left alone.

  He dimly heard an explosion of rubble and debris behind him, the inhuman shrieks, the war cries of the Delta Green men as they opened fire, then the screams of agony and lunacy.  In a smooth motion, Mulder fired twice into the head of his partner Dana Scully.  He then placed the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. 

  Vindicator

  The husk that had once been Emperor Palpatine sat calmly in his command chair, gazing out at nothing.  The remnants of the rebel and Imperial fleets had just jumped into hyperspace, and the bridge crew of the Vindicator were braced for his wrath.  The seconds ticked by, dead silence hanging in the recycled air.  Presently, Palpatine seemed to refocus on the men that surrounded him.  He looked them over and smiled.

  “Follow them.”

  The navigation office made a squeaking noise, then cleared his throat.

  “My Lord, we…uh…we couldn’t track them.  They made a series of…microjumps into hyperspace on, uh…on multiple vectors.  It’s im-im-impossible to…determine their – GAH!” 

  His body seemed to wither, skin curling up and dropping off, warping itself around the muscles as if some unseen hands were twisting and pulling on his flesh.  His body convulsed in rapid succession as the skin tore even as it was burning and shriveling away.  The muscle and bone came next, being crushed in 10 directions at once, the body bending back on itself in places, forming grotesque angles in others, or simply dissolving.  What was left, a hardly recognizable tangle of fabric, blood, and meat, landed on the floor with a dull, wet thud.

  “I did not ask for a reply.  I have entered coordinates for their destination in the computer.  It is called Z’ha’dum.”

  The bridge crew leapt to carry out the order.

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