The Beam

Kiela had no words to express the nightmare beyond.
Kethel breathed, swearing, the grip on his hot pistol loosened by shock. But even his reaction fell short of understanding.
They stood in the doorway of Dorn's chamber aboard the dreadnought Saber. There was a sucking vacuum, something orbital, that maintained a fractured perimeter of air and light. At the center of the room, floating and twisting in thin blackness, was Dorn: a mutated infant, the size of a grown man but soft and frail, crowned with a pulsating skull both grotesque and enormous.
His giggles echoed everywhere.
But before Kiela could scream, the shrieking emptiness converged on Dorn. And in that sudden silence, the levitating thing she once called friend dove into her mind and started speaking.
Welcome, welcome! Welcome, old flame! Don't be alarmed. This is just a change. I'm changing, you see, thanks to our red friends below! So much planned...we must be alone to speak. No more of your new friend, just you and me!
She turned in time to see Kethel raise his weapon. Dorn wasn't even in his sights when the General paused, gulping and belching. What could have been a cry of pain or surprise became gelatinous and buttery, like the bones in his face that Dorn was liquefying. General Rae collapsed, hands clawing to maintain the structure of his own head. His hands cupped and cradled and accidentally clawed into his brains, and when he hit the floor the entire mass popped and spread like a balloon full of soft pink cream.
Dorn laughed in Kiela's mind.
She turned back to him, willing herself away from Kethel's twitching stump of a body, mouth agape with sorrow and fear and confusion. She started running toward Dorn.
Stop, dear. Stop this. I've so much planned for us! You've no idea the things I've planned for us! Stop and let me tell you.
Kiela kept running.
Let me show you what I've built here, dear. I know the secrets of the star above! Use these secrets with me...we can remake so many worlds together!
She was close now, fists clenched in full sprint. The tears in her eyes did not keep her from reading his dark patterns. She knew where he was and what he was. Kiela knew what the freak wanted, and she would kill him.
Stop! Ha-ha! Stop now!
And as she leaped, the beam crushed and folded the outer hull of the ship. When she set her curled fingers for Dorn's eyes it pierced the chamber. And before she could dig into his weak, horrible flesh, it struck them both. Dorn was vaporized, every particle of his newly omniscient self razed and sliced by the mental laser. Kiela, however, was enveloped. The warm blue light showered upon her. Memory flooded every sense, every strand of hair, and swallowed her into sweet, immortal comfort. Then the beam plowed onward. On and on, so close to its unintended target. For years of flight, it had traversed the empty space with one unknown goal. Yet when it entered the heart of that local star, Finnis...when it stalled the sun's hot and mysterious clockwork...when the solar gears shifted and reversed, the beam simply faded. It felt peace, for the first time since it illumined the stratosphere of a world left to waste.
Finnis folded. It fell and bled into the surrounding space. When it had leaked most of its strength, there was a flush of crimson light in which the Nim'roh basked and prayed.
From the inner-galaxies, had they dark skies, there was a faint glow.
The news came quickly via Earth Forces Wire that a certain fringe system was lost.
Although being little danger to altering navigation, the various merchant guilds saw no gain in pillaging the exploded area.
And somewhere on Earth, the warm bones of a man and his friend were slowly turning to ash.