Linkara wraps up a conversation with an unseen Lt. Munroe, thanking him for some unseen help. Linksano confirms that he’s expanded Comicron One’s transporter buffer to be able to hold a hundred separate objects, intended for an expanded arsenal for Linkara, in case he meets the Entity while he’s trying to hijack Comicron Two.

The satellites in Earth’s orbit spark to life and fire beams of green energy into a single point in space, creating the pocket dimension trap for the Entity. Linkara beams onto Comicron Two’s bridge and quietly moves to the command console, where he lays in coordinates for the trap. Comicron Two moves away from Comicron One and onto its new course.

Linkara starts to signal his crew to beam him away, but the Entity appears behind him. Linkara takes this opportunity to ask the Entity why it’s come back from its apparent death–but the being reveals it is a fragment of the Entity that it left behind in this world, as a means to potentially return.

With that, the fragment halts Comicron Two in its path and turns it to face the other ship. Linksano detects that Comicron Two is charging weapons, and Vyce orders him to fire at the opposing ship’s weapons systems and engines. The ships trade volleys of fire, but even with Vyce’s impressive new weapons, the Entity is able to use its unearthly reality-warping powers to instantly repair damage to Comicron Two, and even bypass Comicron One’s temporal shields to seriously damage the vessel.

Back on Comicron Two, the Entity invites Linkara to make his next “move”, and Linkara attacks, but none of his weapons have an effect. The battle continues outside, and Vyce opens the security channels on Comicron Two so he can see how Linkara’s fight is going.

The fragment taunts Linkara and boasts of its domination of him; even when it had full control of him, it says, Linkara “could do nothing but sleepwalk”.

Linkara remembers. Dozens of different conversations from the past two years come back to him, both with the hidden Entity and with others, and one idea keeps plucking at his consciousness: “playing a game”.

Linkara slowly lowers his gun, and surrenders, conceding their “game”. The fragment is first baffled, then outraged as it demands that Linkara continue to play. It threatens to absorb Linkara and his world, but he calls its bluff; it hasn’t absorbed the Earth yet, not because it can’t, but because it doesn’t want to. Linkara made it aware of the futility of its existence, and now it exists for this game, putting off the day when it will have to confront its true nature for good.

The Entity’s eerie composure breaks. It becomes more and more frantic, saying that the rest of it has not returned from the journey into death. It still has no answer to the question Linkara posed to it six years ago. If its existence is futile, and the world after death is truly unknown, then it has nothing… and it is terrified.

The fragment cannot comprehend the fear and feelings of insignificance that assail it so. It demands purpose from Linkara, a way to matter. Linkara suggests that the Entity become human, but it angrily refuses; it has possessed all forms of mortal life, it says, and they are nothing compared to it. It will not abandon its desires for superiority and dominance over the living. But it’s still at the same place; terrified of irrelevance, of the reality of its lessened being.

The fragment’s static-snowed eyes start to darken. It wonders if the rest of it has found the answers it sought. Despite everything, Linkara offers it comfort in its final moments, saying that he believes that there is something beyond this life.

The fragment’s form begins to break up. “Is this–” it says, and then it fades into static, and then nothing.

Vyce watches from his seat on Comicron-One’s bridge… then declares that this must be another trick from the Entity. He increases power to the singularity generator, locks Nimue out from control of the ship, and strikes 90s Kid to the ground when he tries to intervene.

The portal to the pocket dimension swells into a full-on singularity–one that will soon engulf the Earth.