Host

Seemingly untroubled by its recent, bloody encounter with the Dwarfers, the huge, twenty kilometre mass of the Reality Resort continued its stately procession in orbit around the red giant.

Aboard the resort, the holographic palms swayed gently in the breeze wafting in from the artificial sea, their leaves whispering in soft susurrations that mingled soporifically with the gentle murmur of the waves lapping against the beach.

Grovely’s feet crunched through the broken glass, littering the foyer as he surveyed the damage wrought by the previous guests. Their brief but violent visit had apparently ended a couple of days ago; although Grovely had only recently found out about this, having just woken in the mechanoid service bay in a new body, following the unfortunate encounter his old one had made with a shuttle craft.

Tugging his tuxedo straight, he turned to regard the clean-bot loitering behind him.

“Sort this mess out” Grovely gestured vaguely towards the damage. As the clean-bot got to work, he shook his head “Such a pity” he sighed.

It had been far too long since the resort had had any guests, he reflected, so it would have been nice if that ragtag little group hadn’t murderously imploded and had stayed for longer.

As it was, they had apparently left in a hurry, following some strange temporal anomaly that had occurred inside the resort; which was a shame, in Grovely’s opinion, since he had been quietly hoping that one or two of the group might have liked to stay on and live out their lives in luxury, being waited on like kings.

Shaking his head again, he turned to begin making his way down towards the cargo bays to inspect the damage down there. The repairs were apparently coming on well, but the maintenance-bots were prone to slacking off, unless you kept an eye on them, and Grovely wanted to make sure that the resort was back in pristine condition as quickly as possible – As unlikely as it might be, there was always the chance that new guests could turn up any time, and it would be unseemly for them to find the resort in its current state.

As he walked briskly across the foyer towards one of the service elevators, an alert came in from the resort AI. Coming to a halt, Grovely gazed up, through the diamond glass dome, arcing high overhead and frowned at the sight that greeted him.

Silhouetted against the swollen mass of the red giant, a whirling vortex was visible, from which was emerging a featureless black sphere, perhaps some three hundred metres or so wide.

Grovely just had time to wonder what the thing was before the dome exploded above him and he was blown out into space, amid shards of glass and steel, by the force of the decompressive blast.

Panic rising as he flailed around to looked back at the resort, spinning dizzyingly away from him, Grovely was shocked at the scene of utter destruction below him – It was as if an invisible something had smashed into the resort and was tearing it apart, excavating kilometre deep gouges in the superstructure and throwing out a hail of twisted shrapnel and detritus.

Dully realising that the shreds of the resort spiralling around him were being ripped apart around him as well, Grovely was afforded just a few seconds of horrified terror before he was completely annihilated.

The resort lasted another ten minutes before it too was reduced to fragments.