"The gas giant will probably be consumed by the sun in the next few days. I think that we should send Snoopy close enough to get some good video," Ted said excitedly. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime- event. In fact, this might be our only chance ever."

"Okay Baxter. I get it," Slivinski sighed heavily. The geologist had been hounding him about this since they first discovered the close orbit gas giant, and it was getting on his nerves. "You understand that we might not be able to recover the probe once it gets that close to the star."

"I get it. But it's well worth the cost. Hell, I'll pay to replace it out of my own pocket."

"And where would we purchase another one?"

"You know what I mean. Don't be impertinent."

"Okay fine. Send it in closer."

"Yes sir!"

It would take days to get close enough to the gas giant for visual contact, even with the telephoto lenses that Snoopy carried, But on it's way it was passing pleasantly near an asteroid belt with a few particularly large rocks that could possibly qualify as dwarf planets. The footage would be spectacular, and Ted wasn't going to miss a single second of it.

"Uh Greg," Ted said after several hours of recording readings from the asteroids, "come take a look at this. I think I might be hallucinating."

"What is it? Naked sirens on the asteroids singing to lure you to your death?"

"I wish. This is about as strange as that though."

"Oh I have to see this then,"

"Look. Right there," the geologist pointed to a vary large asteroid.

"Holy crap! Is that even possible?"

The surface of the floating rock was swarming with what looked to be giant cockroaches, though they were gray instead of brown. They slipped into and out of cracks and pockmarks on the surface of the asteroid. Some even spread their wings and flew away to other nearby socks where they began breaking then down with their mandibles and eating them.

"Are you recording this?"

"Of course. And taking readings in other spectra."

"Maybe we're both hallucinating. What did you have for lunch? Was it the sauerkraut? I thought it tasted a bit off," Slivinski said, holding a hand to his stomach.

"No, I had the chef salad. And I don't think we're both imagining this, unless the computer is too."

"How are they flying in space?"

"It looks like they expel gasses from their bodies like an EVA suit."

"And they're eating the other asteroids? This is amazing! And disgusting. Space roaches? Ew."

"What if they eat metal too?"

"Uh, you've got a point. Change Snoopy's course to give the roaches a wide berth. And jack up it's speed. We know it's a one way trip, so don't scrimp on the fuel."

"On it, sir. Rock on!"

"Really?" Slivinski sighed. "You're fired. Go home."

Baxter laughed because he knew that his boss wasn't serious. About the firing anyway.

"Space bugs? Are you guys on drugs down in the science lab?"

"No sir. We checked."

"Really? You checked to see if you were on drugs?"

"After seeing this? Yes sir."

"Those are Skik," Breeken said. "Keep the ship well away from them. If they catch our scent, they will swarm and attempt to eat the ship."

"They eat metal too?" Slivinski asked, amazed and repulsed at the same time.

"Yes. Whatever they come across within their range. Rock, metal, plastic, even organic matter."

"Organic like us?"

"Yes."

"Yuck."

"Okay Hermann, what's so important that you had to get me out of bed?"

"I believe that we have found a way to interface with the Kree data core," he was as excited as Jacks had ever seen him, like a schoolboy about to show  off his paper mache volcano at the school science fair.

"It turns out," Megan said, "that they use electricity very similar to the way we do. So first we had to separate power lines from data lines." She was even more excited than the chief engineer.

"Yes," Schmitt agreed, "and then determine the voltage and amperage."

"And we think we've got it."

"Well don't keep me waiting," Jacks said, "Let's se what's on this thing."

"Okay, here we go," Megan moved a small black box over in front of her, wires leading in from the core and out to the ship's computer.

Hermann raised his arm, then dropped it saying, "Hit it!"

Sparks showered from the black box accompanied by crackling and popping noises. Megan jumped backwards with an exclamation of surprise. The lights dimmed to almost nothing, making the explosion of the small box that much more poignant. 

The lights came back up after only a few seconds, highlighting Captain Jacks standing solemnly over the table, staring at the Kree data core with a look of stern disappointment. Then he sighed and his shoulders dropped.

"So much for that idea," he said with resignation.

"I do not understand," Groon said, back in his three-legged form, "that should have worked."

"Well obviously it didn't. I'm going back to bed."

"Is our probe in position yet?" Jacks asked as he walked into the science lab.

"Yes sir," Ted said, "and it is an amazing view."

"Put it up on the big screen."

The 'big screen' was a series of modular screens that turned the entire wall of the lab into one giant monitor. The image that appeared took everyone's breath away.

The captain stood in front of the view screen, his attention held firmly by the unbelievable scene unfolding before his. Everything around them dissolved from his consciousness as he watched with rapt fascination as the massive gas giant planet slowly shed layers of its cloudy skin, the ephemeral atmosphere swirled in towards the sun's corona as it expanded outward, sluggish yet hungry as it expanded to devour everything around it.

A slight gasp escaped his lips as one of the giant's larger moons, barely visible at this distance, was pulled from its orbit and disintegrated into flaming shards, adding flickering sparkles to the stream of gasses, making it appear as a magical enchantment. Another moon, fleeing the ravenous pull of the sun, hid desperately behind its gaseous mother in a vain attempt to escape the angry sun's influence.

This is what it's all about, he thought to himself, deep wonderment making his chest tight. Scientific discovery and documenting things that have never been seen before.

"Captain!" the urgency in the call pulled his attention reluctantly from the hypnotic stellar tableau. "They've found us, Captain," there was a note of panic in the navigator's voice.

A tremor ran through the ship as something impacted it from the outside, which brought the captain completely back from his wandering thoughts. Warning claxons began their lamenting wail in accompaniment to the frightened voices proclaiming damaged areas of the ship.

"Time to go," Captain Jacks muttered to nobody in particular. His own anxiousness was rising. Not the sharp stabbing fear for survival, but the unequivocally weighty fear of failing the people that were depending on him to know what to do; of failing those that he was responsible for.

With a renewed clarity of purpose he ordered, "Beth, get us out of here. Maximum speed."