Sunset: Then, Now, Tomorrow (Maintenance & Role-Play)

[Sunset]

Inside the Ruins of Listening Post 717-A-8, GEC-10489417, Near the Old Kion Empire, Delta Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... A Moment of Realization Later...

"...just a few more," Magnus grinned, hefting the block of ice to stack it next to another before turning to trudge back to the reflecting pool; "And we'll be done with our igloo!" Kedo declared, stepping back to cast a critical eye over their 'masterpiece'.

'An igloo?' one might ask. When we last left our adventurers they were about to dive into the chilly waters of a mysterious reflecting pool, hoping to find both treasure and story on the other side of an impenetrable door. Why are they now building an igloo?

Simple - just because one melts water does not guarantee it remains so. It had only taken a few moments of observation as the water both drained away from the heat of Magnus' beam sword and quickly refroze around his feet for the idea of simply melting their way through the tunnel to be abandoned. Instead it was Kedo - long accustomed to the frozen dangers of his icy homeworld - that had come up with the idea of cutting out individual blocks and stacking them to the side.

The igloo? That was just for fun.

"I've got more lights," Alwyra announced, dropping a bag next to the pool with a clattering 'thud'. "All of them, actually. Scrounged up every portable light we had aboard."

Which had conveniently given her an excuse to not labor at the ice face with her husband and newfound-friend. Not that it wasn't appreciated and as she set about melting a small patch of the tunnel wall only to push a light into it and then let it freeze again the two continued their back-and-forth pace. While one cut the other hauled, returning to the tunnel under the door to take up the sword long enough to free a block of ice appropriate to their strength - or perhaps a bit more. It had only taken one mischievous grin for the hunter to note that Magnus' block seemed just a bit larger than his own and respond in kind.

"Perhaps five, ten more to go," Kedo declared as he passed her, a block of ice as large as a stove behind him. "I think I saw a bit of a lip..."

It should be remembered that the seemingly-abandoned station was built into a particular large but still not particularly large asteroid; Gravity was minimal and it was more the question of shifting the ice around rather than carrying it.

"Seven, I'd guess," Magnus added as he in turn passed a minute later. "We're more than twice as far past the door as the entrance to the tunnel..."

"So if it is laid out like the tomb on the Dragon's Eye, we're looking at a pretty big chamber," Alwyra mused, clicking on another light before moving up the tunnel. "But where's this lip? I don't see it..."

Kneeling at the ice face, Magnus drew her attention to the 'floor', "Don't look up - look down. Another bit of Kion trickery. We've passed the gravitational center - 'down' is now 'up'. We would expect meltwater to flow down into this hole but instead..." he passed the sword lightly across the 'floor' and stepped back...

"Weird," and the two watched the water flow back towards them, if only slowly.

"They really planned this out carefully," Kedo added, the Neko coming up from behind to join them. "They would have had to have some way to keep the water liquid and flowing until they were done sealing up the chamber. Something to keep it moving towards the center."

"An insulated hose, I suspect - thread it through the tunnel, turn it on, then slowly pull it back through the tunnel as the water freezes behind it. Very careful, very deliberate. The Kion were more cunning than we give them credit for," he added as he began to melt away a smaller block, freeing it up and then passing it back. "I was talking to one of the researchers looking into the Kion - there might be any number of other tombs out there. The Kion were raiders and conquerors who still placed a high value on material wealth. Ironically, this led them to bury as much of it as they could. At least, that's the theory. By burying it, they took it out of circulation which in turn made whatever they had left more valuable."

"Kinda like how we only sell a limited amount of stones every year despite having a whole space-kraken's worth..."

"Kinda exactly!" Magnus grinned. "Supply and demand - old-school luxury capitalism. Smart thing too - I gave one of those stones to my daughter. Pretty little ring - and let me tell you, it was still a nice hole in my budget... Even on my salary! Now be careful," he said, taking a step back.

With the beam sword he'd been slowly carving a wide circle in the 'floor', giving the melted ice time enough to run out before making another pass with the glowing blade. Now he seemed to be satisfied as to his progress and he too stepped back, pressing the other two away as well as he extinguished the sword. Slowly the plug dropped from what was now the 'ceiling', drifting both towards the floor and towards them. Grabbing an edge, the two men maneuvered it between them before sending it down the tunnel with a shared mighty shove.

"Let's see what we've got..;" the three stepped forward...

[Sunset]

Maxwell Maximillian's Marginally Annotated Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries... Maxim 43...

"...'If It's Stupid And It Works, It's Still Stupid and You're Lucky.' To me, Maxim 43 feels like a direct commentary on the preceding Maxim rather than a Maxim in and of itself. There is wisdom there, yes - but in the abstract rather than the directly instructional. Dumb luck is just that; not something to rely on time and time again. Admittedly there are circumstances where that is all one can hope for but it should never be planned for. As someone else once said - and I might have quoted them earlier - 'If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail'..."

[Sunset]

Elsewhere Aboard RDF-White Nile, Returning from the m.42nd Universe, Back Through the Looking Glass... Republic Date 177.637.944...

"...I didn't steal them," Janice objected, running a hand over the battlesuit's armored thigh and looking up to where the thing's egg-shaped 'head' sat in an armored alcove. "It was more like... Piracy. Not Spanish doubloon-piracy but good old 'Arr, we're here to copy your zeros and ones!' piracy. S'fine."

'White Nile's quartermaster let out an exasperated sigh. It wasn't really a question of methodology but a question of product placement - these were his cargo bays, damnit! - and to find one suddenly occupied by a dozen pieces of obviously foreign military hardware had almost raised literal alarm bells. It didn't help that the... owners? His eye twitched as he considered the ramifications of that particular conundrum... Were still aboard!

...and would be until either the infatuation ended or someone in the diplomatic corps had a quick outbreak of common sense.

That at least was likely enough that he didn't think he'd have to drop a dime on the anonymous diplomacy tip line. 'Nile was heading towards Mars at a reasonably fast clip - her sister-ships in tow - and someone there was bound to take notice. They were all a little banged-up from their brawl and Mars was conveniently close to Looking Glass, as Republic drive specs reckoned.

"Okay. Next question - 'how?!'"

It was also a good question. The rescued T'au had been received in another one of his cargo bays - suitably prepared - and this had at least provided him with notification that there were visitors coming and that they would need the usual arrangements. Somehow she'd managed to slip a dozen war machines past both groups - some of which were too big to walk around in the corridors even if they could stoop! It was ballsy, he had to give her that.

"Copy'n'paste."

"Copy'n'paste. I think I would have noticed a bunch of assembler activity. Perhaps a bit more of a less flippant explanation?"

"I mean, if you're asking..." and now she seemed eager to explain, bracing an arm against the robot and moving her other hand in somewhat-accompanying gestures. "So basically the abduct-o-rays are an FTL 'gun', right? Shoot it at that, it moves it back here. And just like your standard FTL drive, it does your standard pre-check wibbly-wobbly so you're not abducting someone who wants to be abducted. Well, if you know the magic of the custom settings panel, you can make that pre-check do a lot of neat things. Especially with a few dozen carrots of spare energy at your fingertips."

"Like, say, the spare energy you'd have if someone sweet set up a PlexGate to feed a near-endless supply of slobbering monsters into the matter catalyst reactors. Under slow-time you've got a lot of free time and I took a look around and..." Janice patted the standing battlesuit, "Thought I'd do a little battlefield salvage. Active materials intelligence. Scrounging? If it isn't nailed down, it isn't stealing!"

"And the Admiral?"

"Eh, fuck'em. Probably literally. Last one was... What? Couple years ago? That's a pretty long dry spell, even for an old guy. Buuuuut," she drew out the word, "He'll probably have fun. Might not say he does, but take this one," she slapped the mecha's thigh again. "Big - but they have a pretty decent active stealth suite, modular hardware, full drone integration... Really, these things are better than most of the gutter-trash the rest of our galaxy puts out. Cept for those ankles. They'd make a super-model jealous but that's about it."

"Now this one," she walked down the line to the next, "Eh. It's okay. It's like the SE model. Good, but you gotta wonder..."

"Wonder what?"

"Well, that's the thing - it doesn't make any sense. This thing is 'okay' but it looks like this," she walked to the next, "is a 'command unit'. Better comms but also better everything else. But here's the dingle-dongle - they're manufactured. There ain't no-way-nobody is putting one of these things together by hand. Now comms I can understand. Your C&C needs to C&C. But if you've set up a manufacturing line to build these," she pointed to the second, "and all of the good fight'y stuff that you need to win is better, why are you making a few of these and however many more of those? You've now got an assembly line sitting idle most of the time so a good number of your fighters can have worse equipment than the guy who doesn't reasonably need it!"

"I..." he considered what he'd seen of the T'au. "I guess. There's plenty of places back home that do put things together by hand, but they're kinda dumb."

"Yeah, exactly! Now this one," she moved down to the next suit, a man-sized example that sported what was clearly a flight pack of some kind, two additional arms sprouting from its shoulders and each mounting an enormous blocked-off cannon to the forearm. "This one I like. I'm gonna keep it for me. But again - if you're going to take the time to set up a line to make this piece of hot sex, why are you going to make just one? And if you've got some kind of matter-assembler technology that lets you make just one - again, why make just one?"

She moved down to another, an enormous double-barrel blaster hung under one arm while an actual-factual shield was mounted to the other, "...it's almost like they're paying points or some shit."

[Sunset]

Erika & Demi's House, On the Shores of Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu, Ares System... Republic Date 177.640.866...

"...of course he brought home another bunch of strays. But they're interesting strays so I'm debating whether you should handle the introductions - official capacity - or if we should bring them straight here," Erika answered, settling back down on the couch with a cup of coffee in each hand. Ambassador Love - Demi, her wife and mother to three of her children - sat opposite with the third suckling at her breast. That was why she'd gone with the coffee and before she continued she leaned across to pass one off.

"...and of course he's sleeping with one of them too. Or at least I'm going to make that assumption. They're from the 'T'au Empire' - primary species, blue, red eyes, hooves - and apparently they're from another fractal-universe-timeline-whatever. Right now he's got them parked at Ateyf's place on Mars."

"Which means she's probably sleeping with all of them."

"Mhm," Erika replied with her eyebrows over the rim of the mug. "Suppose that's one way to establish positive diplomatic relations. Can't let them revel in debauchery forever though. Either they come here tomorrow or you get them ensconced in their own embassy - if you want to, that is. Kinda up to Brynn, really."

Demi smiled and looked down at the baby nuzzling against her chest. Whether she recognized her name or by some chance, she chose that moment to end her feasting and to look up at her mother before letting out an unholy 'braaaap'; "I'd say she likes it," Erika laughed, gesturing with her cup. For the first - Nathyn - the first few months had been sappy and sweet and full of baby talk and 'goochie-goochie-goos' but now they were on their third and the whole family was much more practical about things.

"What comes in comes out," and she took a precautionary sniff. "Not yet though."

"You sure you want to stick with cloth? I'm pretty sure I've got the kinks worked out on the auto-diaper. Never have to change her again," her wife promised.

"Are you wearing one?" It was an easy challenge. The last time she'd let her roboticist-partner try out her new project it had resulted in a nasty rash and more time treating that than they'd saved by not having to change Brynn's diapers. "Whoops? You want round two?"

Erika watched her while she fussed with her shirt, swapping the baby from one side to another and getting her in position to nurse and waiting until the infant was happily sucking away to continue their earlier line of conversation, "I think you might really enjoy it. According to Fidelo's report - which he did not write himself - the T'au have something sorta-but-not-really like a 'caste' system. More like... sub-species with specific biological adaptations that make one better at something than another. Sorta."

"Sorta?"

"Sorta. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Which sounds more like someone was watching too much fantasy anime. There's an Ethereal caste too. That's their coordinators, keeps them from butting heads. Earth are the technical caste, Air are the communications caste, Fire is the warrior caste, and Water is their merchant and diplomatic caste. This all used to make sense back when they were throwing spears at each other but now they're a competitive, high-tech civilization. But they're still trying to shoehorn these 'castes' into modern life. It mostly works."

"Mostly. Yeah - there's no way Fidelo wrote that. But an entire caste devoted to diplomacy?"

"Or at least trying to sell you things..."

"...that does sound interesting. But I'm taking Brynn with me - I don't trust you..."

[Sunset]

OSA Proving Ground Delta-Foxtrot, Somewhere on the Southern Continent of the planet Juniper, Pinales System... Same Date, Different Place...

"...we're looking at lessons learned, General. The brain-boys over at the Heptadecagon have been doing some analysis of the performance of our various platforms. They've been looking at the data from M33, current deployments - everything. Big Data, they call it. This is just one of the results," Colonel GraHam answered, standing to the side to offer General PowEll an unobstructed view of the proving grounds. Together - along with their respective adjutants and subordinates - the two were standing at the edge of that most perilous of places; the rear boarding ramp of a 'Chrysaor Super-Heavy Transport as it hovered a good half-kilometer above the mock battlefield.

Down below two sides were duking it out, both employing a mixture of infantry, armor, and aircraft with one side operating what had to be military surplus while the other were OSA regulars. Tanks burned - smoke pots - and soldiers sprawled - with flags marking them as wounded or killed - and from where the observers stood it looked like jolly good fun.

"What we're looking at today is a field trial of the new 'Titan II' concept..."

"Titan II? I thought the Titan had a pretty solid performance," PowEll said, sparing GraHam a quick glance before turning back to search out one of the tanks in question. They really weren't hard to find though from this high up he wasn't really seeing any particular difference. The Titan Super-Heavy Hovertank had been introduced a couple years back - before Triangulum, just at the start of that whole fiasco on Mars - though M33 had been its first real conflict.

"It did. Solidly solid, General. But when they looked at the numbers, looked at the after-action reports - it didn't end up doing what it was designed to do. The 'Titan was designed to engage other super-heavies - just like the RDF's 'Typhoon. But when they looked at the data, most enemy armor kills are directly attributable to aircraft. Actually, the same is mostly true of our armor kills too, Sir. The 'Titans mostly being recast into a breakthrough and disruption role - overrunning infantry and light armor units and giving our gunships time to put ordinance on target while they were dispersed."

"So they've redesigned the 'Titan to focus on that?"

"Essentially, yes. They've also done some work on its survivability profile." The Colonel turned to his adjutant, "If we could get a little closer?"

The bunny hurried off and GraHam turned back to the General, who was standing perilously close to the edge and even leaning over the edge as he watched a particular skirmish unfold.

"They cut the main gun from a double to a single and increased the bore - same effective range as before but it can fire a wider variety of projectiles. Submunition rounds - they can kill multiple small vehicles with a single shot. They've also added a close-range anti-infantry system..."

"Lot of squishy soldiers out there still..."

"Yessir - exactly. The Krȃng shied away from actual infantry but where we're supporting Republic expansion in the south? We're even seeing division-strength units of basic infantry with no air or armor support. Trench warfare, even!"

"You'd think they'd learn. Things are changing too fast - it's like half the galaxy is going up and half going down and in a hurry."

One could even see that in the few instances of actual-factual infantry on the ground below them. The fast-paced fighting in Triangulum - some units dropping three, four, five, six times a day - had mostly pushed infantry aside but they'd seen enough action to learn some lessons of their own. Body armor was heavier and riflemen scarcer. Instead most of the fire-teams had an even mix of anti-infantry, anti-armor, and riflemen with the squad officers mostly filling out these last, making their effective numbers even fewer.

"The hull shape has been refined as well. Modified, really. Now it's basically flat on the bottom. This keeps the whole thing lower to the ground - again, most tank kills are from aircraft - and lower means less visible. They've also moved the medium-range missile pods into independent turrets so they can more reliably engage those aircraft. We were having problems with Krȃng gunships surrounding the 'Titans - forcing the crew to choose one to engage while the others attacked from behind."

"And how are they performing?" PowEll asked, stepping back to where the Colonel stood with a hand on a lift piston that very clearly said 'Caution - Pinch Point' on the side.

"That's why we're here, General. They've done really well in the simulators but... My wife thinks I'm about as useful as the simulators, Sir. Not at all!"

"Marital problems?"

"No Sir. Getting along better than ever. We figured out we have a common enemy, Sir," GraHam replied with a buck-toothed grin.

"Is she OSA? What contract is she on?"

"No Sir - our kids..!"

[Sunset]

A Fog-Shrouded Classroom, Defense Force Academy Seventy Three, Chuh-Yu, Ares System... Republic Date 177.667.147...

...technically the fog was outside the classroom. The entire campus had been covered in a heavy layer of the stuff for the last three days - so thick one could slice it with the proverbial knife. This made the various classrooms and corridors a well-lit retreat from the gloom though not everyone wanted to stay inside. For the tactical instructors, this was an opportunity to introduce the cadets in fine example to the concept of the 'fog of war'. But not inside - not this classroom...

"...everyone take your jackets and coats off, settle in - because today we're going to talk about taxes!"

While in other places and at other times this might have caused a consternated groan, here it provoked a large number of curious looks and then the appropriate question, "Taxes? We don't pay taxes..."

"Ah! Quite right, quite right," their instructor answered, steepling his long fingers at his waist. "Though some of you are perhaps old enough to remember when you or your parents did! And that something of the point of today's lecture. Tell me," he turned the arrangement of his fingers into a point, indicating the cadet who had replied. "Why did they pay taxes?"

The student - a young Pagani that looked neither male nor female and not particularly something in between either - took a moment to consider then answer, "To pay for schools, government services - the Defense Force?" they asked, looking around the classroom to various nods of support.

"Yes! Good - to pay for those things that we all use or benefit from. But let me ask the question again and see if we can get a different answer... Why did they pay taxes?"

Various guesses and answers - most correct but essentially a permutation of the first - followed but it was only after a few minutes that he supplied the answer he had been looking for, "...because the government makes them. And this is true of every government - or else it isn't a government. Theirs is the power to compel service. Now in a Republic such as ours, there is an explicit agreement that citizenship brings both rights and responsibilities - that while the government can compel certain things of its citizens, those things have been agreed to and in fact formulated by those same citizens through the mechanisms of representative government."

"Which takes us back to taxes - and then, of course, 'Why?'"

"During the course of your service, some of you will have the opportunity to interact with cultures and civilizations and governments far different than our own. But it has been said that the only two things that are inevitable are death and taxes - and so it is that by asking questions about the 'why's and 'why's of taxation may serve you as a bell weather as to their nature. Let's do a little role-playing," he stepped back and chose a cadet at random.

"You. You and I will have a short conversation about taxes - ugh, taxes - and then we as a class will ask ourselves what we can divine of the civilization I shall create based purely on that conversation. Ready?" he nodded to himself, "Then ask away!"

The cadet - a thick-looking man with exaggerated elven ears and a shock of neon-blue hair - looked around at his fellow classmates and then replied with a shrug, "So... Uh... How about those taxes?"

"Taxes?" the instructor slouched forward into a decidedly Cro-Magnon posture. "What are dem?"

There was a bit of a laugh from the audience; "Uh... Money? That you pay to the government? That then provides essential services?"

"Money? Whut dat?"

"Ho boiy..."

[Sunset]

High-Energy Physics & Engineering Labs, Special Projects Wing, CORE XIII Deep Space Station, Wandering Somewhere in the Ol' Ares Cluster... Republic Date 177.719.607...

...it took several minutes for the researcher to finish laughing before he finally pulled himself together and straightened - though again with a laugh, "Heh, okay. Strangelet bombs, eh? So there's a few problems with that idea... Let's start there, shall we?"

In one corner of his workspace was a hanging holo-whiteboard with curved corners and a tray of holo-markers below. Taking one of these - red, given the letters that followed - he began to write, "So, first off - strangelets are naturally found in the heart of neutron stars. Usefully, there are a lot of these in the Milky Way so your chances of finding some are good. But here's the catch - the first catch, that is. Neutron stars are basically black holes that dropped out in their sophomore year. As far as gravity wells go, they're just a couple credits shy of being completely unapproachable. And you want to somehow dive all the way into the very core of one and harvest some strangelets. Guess how much power you're going to need to do that?"

He scribbled out a number that would water the eyes of most galactic economists on the board, "That much power. You're not just going to sweep by the surface and pull some up with a butterfly net. And in an amazing coincidence... That's just about how much gravitational force is in the heart of a neutron star! There ain't no free lunches anymore," and he shook his head in mock sadness.

"'But can't I just grab some random strangelets that I found wandering the streets of Old Detroit?' you ask? Well, no. In theory the collision of two neutron stars..." Again, he tapped on the big number meaningfully, "...might throw off some strangelets that will wander the... Oh wait, they won't. Do you know how many strange-matter stars we've found? How many strange-matter planets? Moons?" He held up a thumb and forefinger.

"Because..." he jotted down another string of numbers and signs, "You can only find strangelets in the heart of a neutron star. And that's because they require a very specific physics environment to exist. 'But couldn't we replicate that environment in the warhead?' you ask? Yes, sure - absolutely! You can one-hundred percent replicate the environment required for a strangelet to exist... In a warhead that has the same volume and mass of a neutron star. Because for those strangelets to continue to exist - again, we're not living in a galaxy full of strange-stars - you need to constantly put this much gravitational force into the equation."

"'But wait!' you ask, 'Neutron stars come from somewhere, right? Couldn't we...' Again, yes, yes you could. We could make a neutron star where we want to deploy our strangelet bomb by moving a hyper-mass star to that location and inducing it to nova," he wrote out an even larger number above the first and underlined it twice in gold, "in order to create a neutron star that then has a chance to create some strangelets. That would work just fine. Dandy, really!"

"Now, we could always just move a neutron star around. That works, right? They're only the size of... Say... Mount Everest and," once again he tapped the first number meaningfully, "Guess what? That's the amount of energy you'll need to get one moving. Funny how all this works. It's like some smart-ass came up with some straightforward laws of motion to keep you from playing your stupid games or something. But once again you ask, 'Couldn't we create a small neutron star and then move that around?' Yep! By," and again he tapped that number, "Putting that much energy into the system constantly. Constantly. Or else there's not enough gravity in the system and the whole thing evaporates."

"So now you're cruising around in a ship built around a hyper-mass star in order to have the energy you need to move around a neutron star to... Accomplish all of nothing. Because we're not living in a universe full of strange-matter stars and strange-matter planets. Thus it can be reasonably inferred that if one were to somehow extract a strangelet from the heart of a natural neutron star - even if one were to then implant it in the core of a main-sequence star..."

"...it probably would then do all of nothing. Wrong environment. And a stunning lack of consideration for secondary consequences..."

[Sunset]

Erika & Demi's House, Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu, Ares System... Republic Date 177.719.908...

"...wait a second," Demi paused to read over the name on the bottom of the letter again before dropping it into her lap to stare at her wife in shock, "Angelica Silaco?! You have a... sister?!"

"More like a mother," Erika answered, leaning over to snatch the folded piece of paper out of her partner's hand. Even for the Secretary-General mail - real, physical, paper mail was unusual and an actual handwritten letter even more-so. "Hmm. Interesting - she'll be coming to visit. Nice of her to invite herself but I guess she is my 'mom'."

"You guess? How wouldn't you know whether she was your mom?!" Demi looked aghast. "She wasn't at our wedding - you've never even mentioned her!"

"As I said - 'more like a mother' but not quite. Doctor Angelica Silaco was the roboticist who headed the design team that built and designed my original chassis. She was also the first person I met when I became 'me' - she suggested the name Erika too, so I suppose that makes her as close as one could get to being my 'mother'. Not sure why she's coming to visit," she skimmed the letter again but it was surprisingly brief for a bolt from the blue. "I'm surprised she's still alive."

"We're going to have to clean the house from top to bottom," Demi declared. "And clean out the guest bedroom. You'll have to put all of that... whatever that is... in your workshop." She'd taken a brief step inside the guest room just a few days ago - looking for something or other - and it had been crammed floor-to-ceiling with apparatus of some kind and there was a weird churning and bubbling coming from one particular device that had caused her to abandon the area shortly afterward.

"You never checked up on her? Your own mother?"

"We never had that kind of relationship," Erika mused, folding the letter and returning it to the envelope. "She was a workaholic, I'm a workaholic. And this was in the early days of self-organizing polymorphic instinctive intelligence cores - we hadn't even been fully recognized as sentient yet. We settled on Erika because 'Industrial Assembler Core 557-dash-Alpha-dash-99' would have been a mouthful. Interesting," her eyes flickered as she glanced over nothing in particular.

"What?"

The Secretary-General stooped to pick up a small pile of toys and clothes; in a household with three kids under the age of eight the battle against clutter never ended, "She dropped out of sight a few years after I was 'born'. Resigned her position and then just disappeared. No news articles - no social media. Nothing in the intelligence files either, so nothing she did seems to have drawn any attention. She is in the Eien though."

"So she isn't coming over to tell us she's dying. That's a good thing at least."

"I suppose? She hasn't utilized the UBI either - though the director's job paid pretty well so she could still be living off whatever she'd saved up. Handwriting matches... Fingerprints too. I suppose I could run a genetic reconstruction on those skin cells to make sure it really is her... It's only paranoia if there isn't really someone out to get you!" she smiled brightly. "And it just says she's dropping by for a quick visit. Still, I can move Unit Two down into the basement. It won't be finished fermenting for a few more days..."

[Sunset]

Blessing of Hope, Deep Space, Somewhere in the Beta Quadrant... Republic Date 177.751.600...

"...it worked! By the Gods, it worked!" Xex screamed, joy in every word as he looked first at the monitor and then around him to the various Kayajoren families huddled together in prayer. "The jump worked! We are now..," his long, agile fingers worked at the console both pressing keys and twisting and turning knobs and switches with rapid ease, "...thirty-point-four-four light-years away from Ekkuiks..."

He let out a long, satisfied sigh of relief; and thirty-point-four-four light-years away from the Jwayaa Regime. It had been many long years fraught with danger both for himself and for those few he'd managed to bring with him - and all because of a happenstance accident.

"Checking the drive," he declared aloud. "Fuel levels, core depredation..."

While he waited for the meager self-tests he'd managed to build into the system to come back, he reflected on the events that had led up to this point. Just a random happenstance; he'd been on his way to work - late - and had hopped into an auto-cab. The Regime were sticklers for punctuality and there were no excuses. If he was late his boss would reprimand him and a mark would be made against his person. Late too many times to work? He would be terminated from all employment. If he could then not find suitable craft to keep himself a home? That was another mark - a big one.

No one survived the Sweep.

Not for more than a few nights.

Instead of an unemployable notice, his hand had landed on a folder. Someone had been in the auto-cab before him and had apparently left it behind. It was thick - two sheets of sturdy card with a ream of papers nestled in the accordion-style pocket - and there were official Regime markings on the cover. He shifted his weight and slid on top of it. Even *turning in* such a thing might well result in immediate termination - both for himself and whoever had left it behind. Glancing around the interior of the 'cab he checked for the location of the camera.

No - it was sitting on the dash, at a level where it would be able to clearly see the faces of the passengers. That was the important part, not a random folder or bag of groceries that the previous passenger might have left behind. That would accuse the Regime of being useful. With great effort, he forced himself to sit out the rest of the ride in silence and even when he arrived at the work site... On time! ...he was tempted to simply abandon the folder.

Then it would be someone else's problem.

He remembered the sigh well. He should have taken it as an omen - a sign from the Gods. Instead he opened the door, stepped out, and carefully shuffled the folder behind him where the camera couldn't possibly catch it as the 'cab rolled away. His first intention had been to burn it. The job site was filled with many dangerous things and there were many opportunities to dispose of a few scraps of paper. First he'd checked in, of course. Then he'd checked in, of course. But instead of doing the sound thing and simply tossing it into the first waste barrel...

He'd kept it!

He'd kept it. He'd put it in his locker under a pair of boots and an oil-stained coverall and then during the precisely calculated thirty-three minute nutrition and coaching period he'd read it! What had he been thinking?! In fact he'd poured over the contents - hidden inside a maintenance manual - nearly missing the whistle that signalled the end of the period.

The plans and details for an extraordinary thing - a drive mechanism where by one could potentially travel faster than the speed of light! According to the folder, the Regime had found some bits and pieces of a device capable of just that on one of the outermost-moons. Even that had fantastic implications but there was no way the Regime would reveal such a thing to their well-ordered masterpiece. Then...

...then he'd kept it. Oh Gods, he'd kept it!. For nearly a month he'd been expecting a Terror Squad to come bursting through his door, executing him on the spot and then tossing his apartment for the folder. But that dreaded moment had never come. Whoever had lost it in the first place had likely realized they too would be executed and had somehow managed to make excuse for its absence. His safety somewhat assured, he'd started to read it in depth - making notes, jotting down ideas. Once one knew that such a thing was possible it was then simply a question of building it and the Kayajoren were natural builders.

Then he'd started stealing things.

An unused basement room had become a workshop and there he'd managed to first stash away all the various components he'd need and then begin assembly. It was a ramshackle thing; the folder provided precise technical specifications for the experimental drive the Regime was building but he didn't have access to their tooling. Instead one component might be swapped for another, functionality removed or rerouted so as to work the way it was required rather than the way it was intended. This now crossed his mind as he stood at the control console waiting for the tests to come back - a self-test on a home microwave was a daft thing.

The next question had been how to make his escape - and then who to make it with? That had been answered as the first question had. His friend had access to a large equipment transport boat that had the fusion power-plant that would be needed to power the drive. This then could be sealed - but it would be a Slight against the Gods to not include him and his family in any escape attempt. He'd started with small inquires, casual questions. Everyone hated the Regime; even those on the inside hated its strictures and abuses. But there was always the threat of the Terror Squads or the Sweep.

The next family had come courtesy of the life support equipment required. Each in turn had their story, had their contributions, had their close-calls. The Kracceids... They were not there though they were supposed to have been. It had been their sudden arrest and termination that had pushed up the launch date to just that same night. One by one they'd slipped through the streets despite the curfew, taking paths and shortcuts they'd worked out well in advance to arrive down at the docks and make their way aboard. He'd waited nearly an hour hoping that even one member of the family had escaped the Purge but it was not to be; he'd dogged the hatch and with a final Prayer flipped the switch to begin charging the core.

A light turned red.

A light turned red.

He turned to stare at it, his enormous eyes focused on the illuminated switch. In the dim interior of the ship it was an ominous portent and he racked his brain to remember just what that would mean. Fuel? No. Conductivity? No. Capacitors? No... It was the core. There was a soft laugh, something like a hiss; a home microwave. Many, actually. Their emitters had modified by hand to provide just the right input. He'd been surprised it had worked even once - now it had failed.

Had.

"There's been a failure in one of the primary drive core components. It might be possible to repair it," he said aloud, looking between the families and nodding as if to reassure them. He'd built the thing after all - all the tools, all the spares. They were right here. Another check of the console and he breathed a sigh of relief - relief! Bless the Gods, everything else had come back as functional.

The console was out here in the crew compartment, connected back to the drive core and the reactor by a mass of wiring and he followed this back to the hatch, pulling himself along the cable. Working in zero-g would be tricky but it had been something he'd considered and there were handles and foot-holds everywhere. Sliding over to the tool cabinets, he opened a door and pulled out a kit. Then it was back to the core and he began to look it over, his large eyes tracing over the surface for any obvious sign of malfunction.

"Unplug it first;" the words came from the doorway and he looked up to see Rihu floating there, an anxious but supportive look on his face.

"Thank you, yes!"

That deed done, he set to work with his new apprentice handing him tools or simply watching out for his safety. Along the back of the space was a massive array of capacitors and with only limited time and resources to provide for proper coverings...

Xex grinned. Ironic that now the Regime's oppressive insistence on precision and caution was coming in handy. A foot wrong, a push wrong, and he might find himself an unfortunate short-circuit. A short-circuit... Yes! Could it be as simple as that? One by one, he checked the microwave emitters until one in particular failed the test. A screwdriver, a socket wrench, and there it was! A tiny bit of something had drifted into the workings and shorted across! He brushed it out and then blew it out with a basting wand and then remounted it.

"...red, again?"

He almost cursed until the Oath interceded and Rihu reminded him to 'plug it back in!' Another test and this time everything was again green! Thank the Gods, A Hundred-Fold Blessings be Upon Them!

"Core is charging!" he announced to a silent chorus of gracious mutterings. "Time to charge, forty-seven minutes."

Yes! He could even hear it charging, the huge bank of capacitors humming loudly as the current from the generator was packed away within. Every tick passed as it should as he stood watch at the console, waiting for the count-down to end. At one minute his finger started to inch towards the switch that would fire the drive again and send them hurtling once more away from the Regime! Somewhere out there a new hope awaited!

"...done! The core is charged! Jumping again in five, four, three, two..." he glanced around to make sure every hand was on a handle and every eye shut in prayer. Then he closed his own, muttered a blessing, and flipped the switch, "One!"

Again there was a pulse, though this time it did not leave a somewhat boat-shaped hole in the bay. Instead there was a shift and then a pop and then more worrying a bang, accompanied quickly by the distinct smell of blue smoke from the reactor room and he turned. Yes, those were definitely flames but as he pushed himself away from the console and grabbed for the extinguisher his heart sang! Certainly something had broke again but he could fix it, again!

Then there was another bang - not from the reactor but from the boat around him - and he began to move in the opposite direction! Now his heart sank, though he supposed this had always been a possibility. They had clearly hit something, though 'what' and whether it was related to the drive malfunction was a different set of questions and potential problems to solve.

"What? What is it?" Rihu asked, looking up from where he was sheltering his family in his arms.

"I don't..." There was another bang, though this time smaller and even gentle-sounding. "I'm not..."

There was a shimmer in the air and something appeared in front of him and for a second he tried vainly to stop himself only to plow straight through it, entering one side as harmlessly as one might enter the fog and emerging just as unscathed. "What..."

The shape looked like a mockery of a person or perhaps an animal as it turned to follow his passage. It seemed to be standing on its tail with two paddle-like arms tucked carefully behind it. Fur covered its body and it had a narrow, pointed face on the end of a neck that curved rather than bent. It was also wearing a uniform - something like his coverall but more... purposeful?

It waited until he had come to a stop against the forward wall before speaking - it spoke! By the Gods, it spoke!

"Admiral Dren'Eth Kennet, RDF-High Bluff, Republic Defense Force Beta Command... You appear to have experienced a primary drive failure. Do you request assistance..?"

[Sunset]

Crux 44 Station, Southwestern Alpha Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.751.600...

"...Jesus, what the fuck happened here?"

"Civil war - that's our best guess," Lieutenant Palena answered, pulling herself and the medic that followed her to the side as another pair passed; two ARC4's with a stretcher between them and an unfamiliar alien form stretched out across it. What was most probably blood was a sticky orange; one arm was a pulpy mass of flesh and bones while another sickly clot was visible on the matching leg. Just in passing they looked like uplifted hairless rats, though the tail had a cluster of tendrils on the end that suggested some manner of prehensile ability.

"They pulled in a half-hour ago. Said they were refugees," she continued, pausing here and there and then surging forward before stopping again. "They're Edolites - or at least that's what they call themselves."

The rest of the corridor was similarly crowded with a long row of scared-looking people alternately standing and sitting along one side while the other was kept mostly clear for those who needed to skip the line. Some were wearing uniforms of some kind - bits and pieces of battered armor here and there suggested they'd seen action. Telling too was that a fair number of those who were not wearing uniforms were similarly armored and there were even a few in web gear with magazines tucked into pouches. Nearly all of them were wounded though these were the ambulatory, slowly shifting themselves down the corridor towards the airlock and the impromptu security station.

"First team to go aboard... One of the medics called back that they'd found a bomb inside someone. Second later..."

"...Jesus."

"...yeah. Guess we're lucky it wasn't a nuke. Blew out a good quarter of the ship though - no idea how many they lost. Our team's back inside," she gestured to the side where an ARC4 with now-human facial features was kneeling over a wounded Edolite, running a spread hand slowly down their body while a refugee helper carefully stripped them of armor and clothing. "But it's slow going. That's why we called in more bodies."

The medic nodded, "Right. So we're doing triage - and watching for more bombs."

"And pulling together as much data as we can about them. We just picked up another pair of ships coming in, so we need to work fast and make sure we're not going to end up with a bunch of people who don't like each other in close quarters. So keep your ears open," Palena warned. "And..."

They both came to a stop. Sprawled across the corridor was a body, obviously dead. Much of the head was a ruined mass and half of the rest was badly burned. Despite the horror the line of refugees continued to move past while the synthetic stretcher-bearers just stepped over it.

"...as you said, we're in triage mode. The dead are going to stay that way. You're in pediatrics, right?"

"Normally, yeah."

"This way then," the Lieutenant stepped over the body and into a side corridor where a mother huddled with two children in her arms while another lay far too still at their feet. "Sorry - it isn't going to get better..."

[Sunset]

OSA Headquarters, the Old Duma Building, Herpes MFAZ, Mars, Sol System... Republic Date 177.752.993...

"...it seems like one of those 'cut off your nose to spite your face' things but that's not our problem," General Cus'Ter commented, braced at the edge of the briefing table and looking from face to face. "Our problem - if you want to call it that - is that the 'Bongos seem to think we need to tell them when we're about to do anything. I'm honestly not sure we should. We have a contract to secure the MFAZs, not explain exactly how and when we're going to do that."

"We're contractors, not employees," one of the others put in.

"Uh, yeah. Whatever that means. Now here," she pointed to the Terra Sabaea territory, "We kinda-sorta don't really have that problem if we want to call it a problem in the first place. Ya know... I kinda wonder about that. They're supposed to be an interstellar empire... You'd almost think they were worried that the little ol' OSA could kick their butts," she grinned, adding her expression to a ring of similar. "Apparently there was some kind of blow-up cause they wrote off one of the big players as 'irrelevant'... But yet they're worried about us bringing in a few thousand troopers? Anyway, not here to shit on the 'Bongos."

"So, the nice thing about the TS is that the Domain didn't really do a whole lot with it. Nearly nothing, really. It's also way-the-fuck away from the HC, which means if they're going to try and play grabby-hands, it would be over a bunch of people who really don't like them. Still, orbital insertion is a thing. What I'm thinking we'll do is pull most of the anti-space assets out of the Herpes and transfer them to the TS. It's a smaller territory so we'll end up with a higher orbital defense density that we have in the Herpes. That will also pull the units assigned to those platforms into the TS which we can then replace with admin units that will start prepping the Herpes for a hand-over."

"You think that's gonna happen?"

"Sure as a bear shits on the Pope in the woods. I mean, maybe the GRA looks at the TS and figures since they had a relationship with the Domain they'd rather move in there and leave Herpes as the scratchy-spot. As I was saying - we move those troops, we don't need to increase the total numbers in the Herpes, and that gives us a bare-bones force in the TS. Since we'll want more than a bare-bones force, I'm thinking that since it is well away from any likely potential action, I'd like to rotate in some training units. All the border territories are more-or-less friendly, so what I'd really like to do is set up some exercises between those training units and their regulars."

"So we're not going to be doing any rebuilding?"

"I'm not sure there's any need," she declared. "Looking back, that territory has always been kinda empty. Most of the places that claimed it just kinda sat on it - they didn't really build it up, didn't really do anything. That kinda makes it perfect if we want to run a bunch of training operations. We can live-fire to our heart's content..."

[Sunset]

TRIPWIRE Monitoring Facility Three-A, CORE IV Deep Space Station, Somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant... Republic Date 177.757.412...

"...what a bunch of yo-yos..."

"What's that, Commander?"

"I said, 'what a bunch of yo-yos.' The whatever-they're-calling-themselves-today's. You're still watching that transmission to their super-secret-deep-space-site, right?" Commander MDCL asked, looking over the Lieutenant's shoulder itself to verify; "Yessir. Wonder what they're up to..."

The android shrugged. MDCL was another one of those one-off species that called the Republic 'home'; they'd originally been flesh-and-blood people but a cataclysmic ecosystem collapse had forced them down the path of 'What If?' By the time an exploring starship had stumbled across them fifty-odd years ago, they'd been reduced to less than ten thousand individuals (thus 'M' in Roman numerals). Eaking out a marginal existence scavenging spare parts from the ruins of their own civilization, most had pulled up stakes then and there.

"Whatever it is, it isn't studying up on their own history. They forgot all about Hawking."

"The physicist?"

"Nah - their other super-secret deep space ultra-cool facility. Happened back when I was in that chair," it indicated the Lieutenant's seat with a nod; so the fact that the young Telari didn't know what the heck his superior was talking about could be forgiven. It seemed like... Well, not really all that long ago, was it? "...which is why they're yo-yos. They keep coming and going, running up and down the same string but not really going anywhere. Anyway..."

"They'd stumbled across this ancient pseudo-Penrose Generator. At least that's what they thought it was. From what I've heard, it's more like a Hawking Battery. Neat, but juuuuust way this side of what they thought it was. Anyway, they'd found this thing and instead of calling in the experts or even asking some really obvious questions, they just... Well, sounds like they were keeping it like a vacation souvenir. Anyway - they thought it was secret up until Katryna Silaco and the 'Nocturnal showed up. Then they flipped their shit."

"...like a complete table flip?"

"Just like that, Lieutenant," MDCL nodded. "They went full 'two seconds to midnight' - ran their super-weapons network up to full power, pointed it all at 'Nocturnal, then called her a whore and nearly got themselves annihilated. Rumor has it her mother was watching and talked her daughter out of inverting all of them on the spot. That was the end of Hawking but it was also why we put up a TRIPWIRE array dedicated to just watching the 'Congos," it tapped the console meaningfully.

"What they seem to have forgotten is that we didn't just stumble across Hawking. Or - my guess? - they didn't ask themselves how we found it. It wasn't magic. Just basic gum-shoe level detective work. Ship leaves, doesn't come back. Bunch of ships leave, don't come back. Hmm. Math time. They had a whole fleet there, of course. A bunch of their 'next-gen' ships too," it outlined this in air quotes. "Same problem here, of course. Cept now we can watch their FTL comms."

"Problem is that they think they're clever setting up a secret facility in the middle of an open field. You might be able to keep what happens there a secret but anyone who can look out into that field is going to know it is there. Maybe it looks like an abandoned shack? Maybe it looks like a rusty old car? Doesn't matter - 'abandoned' shacks don't have freshly-beaten paths through the grass leading right up to their door."

"...yessir. Makes sense. They should have hidden it in a shopping mall," the Lieutenant suggested.

"Exactly! Someplace the traffic would blend in with the rest of it. A few people use the bathroom at the end of the hall, don't come out for a few hours. No one will notice. Hell, put it in a dom store, or a furniture shop."

"...a doggie day-care? Doggos on-site would definitely improve morale!"

"Yeah! We should get a dog..."

"...so what's the plan, Commander? Pass this over to 'Nocturnal again and get out the popcorn?" Anders suggested; pawing through image repositories full of cute doggo pics was strictly forbidden when on duty. He knew it, the Commander knew it - that would have to wait for later.

"I don't know, of course. But I would suspect not. Last time they flipped their shit. Way I hear it, they've already been talking up a big talk about 'no more secrets'. We'll just let this one blow up in their face..."

[Sunset]

Whack-a-Doodle Science Lab, Special Projects Wing, CORE XIII Deep Space Station, Somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.757.412...

"...alright, so - what's with the beach balls?"

"Well, they're a massive over-extension of that Rubik's Cube idea someone had... Get it?" Arnor paused for a second before hitting their late-night visitor with the finger guns, "Get it?! Over-expansion? Cause it's a..;" his reward was a blank stare that somehow still seemed to condemn. "You know what, forget it. Anyway, so the beach balls are..."

The janitor held up a hand to stop him, "Actually, let's go back to the Rubik's Cube. What idea?"

"You know, that's kind of a 'you'd be better off asking them' question but," Arnor scratched one shoulder with the opposite hand, curling his elbow up over his head, "I'll do my best? Actually, maybe I should go all the way back to the 'Starlight..."

The cleaner leaned on their mop, a short bob of black hair visible just under the edge of the worker's cap that always seemed to cast their face in shadow, "Which is?"

"Umm, okay. Yeah - let's start there then." Wheeling around, he cleared some space between them and then concentrated for a second to summon an apparition. Setting the holographic ship to slowly spin, he went back to where he was - verbally, not physically. "So the Starlight-Class Battleship is our latest and greatest 'kill people and blow things up real good.' Its new trick is a spinal-grade holo-eraser. Something we've been fielding for a while but this is the biggest and the baddest. What's interesting about it is that because of the 'Starlight's mission profile - hunting various 'Vores - the weapon builds itself and then takes itself apart before and after every 'shot'."

A little bit of manipulation and the image went transparent, zooming in on one section in particular until a ghostly outline of the inner workings could be seen.

"There's actually four parts - each in the tip of one of these spines. Then each of these parts moves and slides and comes apart into smaller sections that are sometimes integrated back into other things, sometimes combined together into something else, but generally rendered unrecognizable for what they are. It's actually a trick we picked up from the Krȃng - some of their nastier traps work in the same way."

"Presumably this is all to keep someone who might capture or observe the ship from figuring out how this thing works, right?" the janitor waved her spare hand in a complex pattern.

"Exactly! So, someone over in Covert Ops wanted a way to be able to smuggle a 'device'," Arnor surrounded this last in an ominous tone, "into places where we might need such a thing but we wouldn't then want whoever it was to be able to reverse engineer it if it were captured."

"...they're such children," she shook her head in mock disapproval; "Right?"

"What they came up with is a Rubik's Cube, which is a..." Again, he summoned a floating version of the classic desk toy. "...this! You twist the sides, that moves the colored blocks around, and the point is to re-align all the colors. Really good players know the trick to aligning the colors in a few seconds - some robotics classes have an exercise where the students design a robot to solve the cube as fast as possible. There are more complex versions as well."

"So the cube is kind of like that gun. When the colors are out of alignment..."

"It isn't the device, right. Now, there's a bit of a trick to it. Since we don't want our enemies taking the device apart..." He plucked the holographic cube out of the air, gave it a few twists, then handed it over to her, "Try it."

With only a couple twists it was easy enough to re-align the colors and she turned the cube back to its starting state, her mop tucked into the cradle of her arm as she did. Then the cube vanished.

"...because that's the first thing anyone is going to try. The nice version vanishes - poof! - while the naughty version is a single-twist holo-eraser or some other piece of nastiness. That was kind of the original version as well, since a lot of those kind of covert operations tend to involve blowing something up or killing someone. The new version..."

Special Projects was a place where ideas moved quickly; that morning's neat idea was often that afternoon's iteration and the evening's finished product.

"...has several devices available depending on just how you align the colors. Weapons, sensors, equipment..." He stuck an open hand out and adopted a heroic pose, "Fly around with a Rubik's Cube in your hand like some kind of super-hero. And when the colors aren't in the proper alignment? It's just a toy. Some kid riding the maglev into the city with a cube in their backpack? Or playing with it on the bus? No one is going to stop them. And if they do? First thing they're going to do is try to align all the colors and..."

"Poof. Okay," she asked, plopping her mob into the bucket and swirling it around the floor in order to at least appear to be doing something useful, "What about the beach balls? I'm already guessing you inflate them and they become..?"

"Yep!" Arnor replied proudly, drifting back over to his desk where a sample collection lay deflated across the closer edge. They were just what one might expect; multi-colored panels that came together to a round patch on one end that was marked with a logo and a valve on the other end that hung off the side of the desk like some weird animal teat.

"My idea," he reiterated, holding one up. "They're just prototypes, but the idea is that each of these will 'contain' an ONeMag stellar enclosure. We can play some fun tricks with volume and mass around here! Fully inflate the ball," he held the example up to his lips and gave it a few puffs, "And the exterior will align so as to activate the device. This creates a boundary junction where the panels act as a pass-through to receiving stations inside the enclosure. Six gates."

"The idea is to have something like a 'life raft' except it can contain a whole civilization. The ONeMag star gives the enclosure a stand-off lifespan of billions of years so yeah," he continued. "They'll be fine until a solution is found to whatever predicament unfolded."

"Or someone happens across one and realizes they've got enough potential resources on hand to topple an Ephemeral galaxy," the janitor suggested ominously.

"Or that. And you don't want to destroy them either," he warned. "The ball is just a shell. If you cut it open, you'll rationalize the enclosure back into the prime and bad things could happen. Presumably the enclosure's location would correspond to somewhere off out of the way, just in case, but yeah. That could be bad..."

[Sunset]

Erika & Demi's House, Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu, Ares System... Republic Date 177.720.630...

"...nothing glamorous, my dear," Angelica Silaco answered with a small, charming laugh. "Emergent intelligence in evolving polymorphic substrate was cutting edge back then with a matching payscale and I'd thrown myself completely into the project. I lived in a tiny apartment near work, walked the two blocks every morning, brown-bag lunch - if I even ate lunch..."

Demi could believe that. Sitting across the coffee table from her, a plate of cookies and scones laid out between them and with cups of hot tea and coffee placed all around, Angelica looked the very part of Erika's mother. A few lines and wrinkles - perhaps a few tasteful gray hairs - and one would easily assume they were talking to the Secretary-General's biological mother.

"...and once the project was over I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had enough to retire on. Oh, I still dabble here and there, but Moore's Law had passed us by as soon as we'd finished. So I found a nice place on the edge of a small town and settled down. A pair of cats - a couple dogs have come and gone over the years," she smiled again, "and of course I kept track of your brothers and sisters where I could."

"Brothers and sisters?" By now Erika didn't seem at all surprised by the specter of new random relatives rising from the depths of the past. Instead she picked up her tea, stirred in a single cube of sugar, and waited for her mother's answer with a quick glance over to her wife.

"You could call them that. The same generation of emergent substrate. Not all of them went on to such important careers - most stayed in the industry. A couple are, as far as I know, still the communications front-end for the same assembler-fabricators you were trained on. A few others left the program, moved around internally. One is general counsel now. He was always stiff-necked..." she added with a bit of a grin.

As per the clock, it was mid-day now and the sun was streaming in through the big bay windows to splash across the living room. While the three women talked inside, Alex was shepherding the kids around the lawn though her attention was focused on the youngest. For a few minutes they sat in silence and watched them play, Demi with her head laying up against her partner's shoulder. Light sparkled off the water of the bay and sailboats bobbed slowly in the gentle waves.

Finally Erika broke the silence, "So - Mom - what brings you to Chuh-Yu?"

Which was short for 'why are you here, now, when you've been out of my life for nearly forty years' but the older woman had a reasoned and ready answer, "Actually, I was just passing through. And I couldn't resist stopping in and seeing what you might call my 'family'. Grandkids..," she laughed softly - charmingly. "Not really, of course. I'm sure the cyber-sociologists would love to write up an exhausting research paper about one of the first generation of self-evolved intelligences entering politics, marrying a biological female, and having three lovely children, but I'm just passing through."

"Where are you headed? I saw your shuttle - she's beautiful."

"Oh, yes. Thank you. One of my projects. I found her in a barn on Anuke when I was... Well, you couldn't properly call it a 'vacation'. I'd let the dog out for a run and he dashed inside before I could stop him. Had to knock on the door and explain myself to the owners and when we went in there, we found that old NG-500 EXL under a tarp and an inch of dust and cobwebs. She's as old as I am," and Angelica drew herself up into a proper posture, "and looks just as good!" she finished proudly.

"So what's your next stop?"

"Parts and supplies. There's a few favorite electronics dealers here on Chuh-Yu that specialize in vintage and second-hand gear." A small, careful bite of a cookie and she went on, "A consulting job came up out of the blue. Big money but not a lot of people still work with equipment that old and I keep my hands in here and there," she noted with a touch of pride. "The money..."

"...I don't need it," she declared. "I've got a nice retirement portfolio. Diversified index funds. FHG, a few dozen others. No Silaco Electronics though."

"Nope," Erika shook her head. "We've never gone public. It isn't about the money - it's about doing the right thing for my employees and our work."

"It's so interesting how every one of you kids turned out different, even though you were grown from the same material batch. Nature versus nurture... So, when I'm done shopping;" Erika took a sip of her tea; "I'm off to the Falltier system!"

...and spit it out all over the coffee system before coughing and pounding on her chest, "Sorry, excuse me! That was... too hot?"

The excuse was obvious but her mother just smiled benignly as her daughter began to clean up the mess with a napkin, "Too hot? That's an interesting sub-routine. Something to make you appear more human?" Erika nodded distracted and Angelica turned to Demi, "...and if you don't mind me asking, my dear, how's your sex life? A human and a robot..."

If Erika had had another mouthful of tea she would have painted the entire couch, "...Mother..!"

[Sunset]

Somewhere Under the PAQS MFAZ, Mars, Sol System... Republic Date... Can't Tell, It's Dark Down Here...

"...of all the shitty jobs in all the shitty neighborhoods - this one has to be the shittiest job in the shittiest neighborhood," Corporal Qa'al declared, swinging his light from side-to-side as the little reptilian trudged along the rest of his squad. Perhaps for the rest it wasn't so shitty nor in such a bad neighborhood but at just a nose over a meter tall, Qa'al often found himself up to his snout in something that should not be described in polite company.

The beam of his light flickered over one pipe and then another, the shadows cast only partially obliterated by those of the others. It was pipes inside pipes inside another much larger pipe; according to the Lieutenant, these had been laid back during the early days of Martian terraforming. The Eniqcir - whoever those were - had installed them to move water from the former polar caps to the warmer middle regions. Later they had become steam pipes to thaw the southern permafrost. Now...

"You haven't been deployed to Sah," Sergeant P'jpo answered, the Qi noncom stepping over a fallen pipe that had dragged a run of cable down with it. His light drifted over the path ahead of them and then to one side where a tangle of something sure looked like a skeleton. This far south they were solidly in Old VL territory and the last of the League had been hasty in their departure.

"...did I tell you guys how the previous occupants pulled out?"

"Something, something, 'your mom'?" a random trooper answered but the Sergeant shook his head - no laugh, it wasn't that funny - stopping in his tracks to sweep his beam back over the squad. There were eight of them aside from the Qi, a random mix of yahoos that the charitable might describe as the 'Down & Outs'; Command felt they were just the kind of misfits perfect for this shitty, shitty assignment.

Something squished under his boot.

Possibly literally, he thought before answering, "Nah. According to the rumors I heard, they evacuated using a giant fleet of transport helicopters. Now, I'm no astrologist, but I'm pretty sure helicopters don't work in space. Or even to get to space. But according to everything I've heard, they were just the type of idiots to think that was possible."

"Sounds like they spent a lot of time huffing gas fumes if you ask me!"

"I didn't but check your rad meters," the noncom instructed, Qa'al turning his lamp towards his own chest to where a multi-function meter was affixed to the front of his armored cuirass, the read-out just visible if he tilted his head to the side. They'd covered this in training but it took him a moment to find the right button with his claw. Sure enough there was a faint trace of radiation - not enough to set off the chirper though.

"Way I hear it, they liked to use radioactive power sources for common objects. Instead of, you know, electricity. Not sure what that shit will do to you long-term but maybe it made them stupid?" he swung his light from the squad and back to the suspicious pile of debris to reveal a grinning human skull, bone and hair partially wasted away. "Stupid enough to stay down here and die instead of taking the 'chopper."

True or not - he couldn't say, he hadn't been there - it was time to get back on task, "How's that recording looking, Yohan?"

Their 'assignment' was to survey this particular section of the old tunnel network and make an assessment as to whether it could be brought back into service. Since no one with a proper head on their shoulders trusted them to make an accurate or even adequate reporting, Corporal Yohan had been issued a portable recording unit that she was wearing like a pack. A mast poking up over her shoulder housed a bunch of different sensors while a unit latched to her lorica musculata indicated the device's status.

"Still good, Sarge. Battery's at... Ninety-three and storage is at fifty-seven!" she called forward, hopping over the same obstacle and prompting a beeping warning from the unit, "...oh, shut up."

"Alright." Checking his own gear, he perked up, "Looks like the next access hatch is two klicks out;" a GravRotor would be waiting for them there, ready to transport the smelly, dirty squad back to base in something like comfort. Everyone but everyone knew that the PAQS was cursed and so even the small survey teams 'assigned' to the territory were based out of an OSA carrier group anchored off the Malea Coast across the Hellas Sea.

"Pick up your feet - we might be able to make it back by dinner mess if we hurry..!"

[Sunset]

Practical Theory Lab, Special Projects Wing, CORE CCI Deep Space Station, Way, Way, Way Outside the Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.795.333...

"...so we've got something of a two-for-one - two concepts, same basic idea," Doctor Lousewort began. To clarify, he was Doctor (of Physics) Swamp Lousewort. His mother was not, in fact, a marsh - as had often been suggested during his early years - but was in fact a botanist. On the occasion of his birth she had remarked that while flowers were a common name for girls they were not particularly common for boys and that further some flowers were all-too-often overlooked.

Thus Swamp Lousewort.

He did not look the part.

In fact, he was neatly the opposite; a thick, ruggedly handsome man in what was now his late-immortal thirties with an attractive day's worth of stubble on his firm chin and a pair of blue eyes that were responsible for multiple attempts at pollination. Instead of a lab coat he wore a pair of designer jeans, a (white) sport jacket, and a silk button-down with the top three buttons undone. With an easy smile he looked more like a clothing model than a math nerd as he stood leaning against a workbench, hands gripping the edge.

"First, it is important to note that there's two 'kinds' of holographic matter - though that's an oversimplification for the purposes of this example. The first kind is stable matter. That is, matter that has been created via boundary manipulation but is otherwise identical to that of the Prime universe. While holographic manipulation is involved, this matter broadly conforms to the rule of 'e' equals 'em-cee' squared," he explained, finishing with a gesture towards one of two statuettes on the bench beside him. "This one is made of stable matter."

"This one," he touched a finger to the one next to it, identical in every way except one, "is not. Unstable matter? Manipulated matter? Everyone seems to have their own word for it. Basically, the instructions that created this statue are just slightly different than those of the Prime. This 'holo-matter' is useful in any number of ways because it is different but importantly it requires some investment of power to continue to exist in the Prime. Pull the plug and it rationalizes back to the Prime and, depending on how different the holo-matter is, it can either disappear in a puff of Saryan Radiation or turn to ash or..," he shrugged meaningfully.

"The amount of power that has to be put into maintaining that integrity is again roughly equal to 'e' equals 'em-cee' squared. Or at least the difference between the amount of energy one would have needed to create the same amount of stable matter and the amount in either direction that one needed to create that amount of unstable matter. There's no such thing as a free holographic lunch - the amount of energy required to do what we do is mindbogglingly vast and if you don't have an appropriately-sized carot ranch... Well, you're not going to be able to do this stuff in the first place, let alone maintain it."

"Now, that second-to-last word is important and the point of all this. The two points of all this," he corrected with a grin. "So, the first idea is that we might be able to use this difference as a way to hide things - even from the rare few who actually know how all this works." Another grin; apparently someone had been running their mouth off about boundary manipulation except they were dead wrong on certain key facts - though that was beside the point of the presentation. "Sorta - and not completely. Let's use an example..."

He picked up the first statue and held it out to the gathered few, "Say you wanted to lock this valuable statue away in a vault. Well, the weakness of most any vault is the door. Now, here's where things get a little complicated but hear me out. What we can do is, using catacryptomechanography, 'build' that door out of unstable matter. The door is there, it can be opened and closed, but as soon as it no longer has power... It disappears, rationalized back into the Prime. Want that door back? Put power back into the system and there's the door again. Now, because that door is created using catacryptomechanography, one would have to know exactly where and how to put that energy into the system. No guessing - either it just doesn't work or, if there's some safeguards in place, the manipulation itself is destroyed."

"...which takes us to the second idea. The first is neat, but there are some drawbacks. That the door is created can be observed - and this observation can be enough to work out how to reactivate the door. One could build the door inside an FTLi 'shell', but now a potential observer will know that something you don't want people to know about happened inside that shell. You could put up a lot of shells - play the old shell game," he said, moving his hands around in front of him as though they were shuffling cups or cards around. "Which, in the case of the limited number of parties who can observe these kinds of things might well draw more interest than is strictly reasonable."

"But the second; as I said, when unstable matter no longer has the energy input needed to sustain itself, it rationalizes back into the Prime. Just what it rationalizes into is the important point. If that unstable matter is different enough, it completely sublimates as Saryan Radiation. There's nothing left. This could then be useful not as concealment but containment. Got something dangerous that needs doing but can't be done in a simulation? Conduct your experiment in an environment constructed purely of unstable matter. If the power fails - or is cut off - then 'poof'. All gone. Something gets loose or suborns the testing environment? Doesn't matter - it is trapped there. If it tries to leave the environment, it rationalizes. If it destroys the environment..."

[Sunset]

Y'yksenelez Starport, R'ymydolov Orbit, The Spinward Expanse, Beta Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.799.834...

"...I looked it up," the customs agent whispered out of the side of her mouth as she fished around behind the counter. "They're doing it. Like, all the time," she finished, her hand finding the box of luggage labels and plucking one from the roll. Handing it across the counter to the waiting traveler, she closed the transaction with a perky 'You're welcome!' before turning to her co-worker who asked the obvious; "'It'? Wha'cha mean?"

"I mean they're having sex," Roxanne answered. At the very end of an extensively automated system, she had a lot of spare time to be looking things up - even with a shift that was only four hours, five days out of ten. Mostly her and her co-worker - a laconic Dwarf named Phyllis - were there to help people ask the questions they couldn't quite figure out themselves how to ask. Often that came down to knowing which questions the odd traveler should be asking but didn't know that they were supposed to be - such as properly labeling their luggage for the next leg of their journey.

The Dwarf craned her neck and looked around, searching the slow-moving crowd for signs of earnest copulation, "Really? Where? Who?"

"The Pezengle'Glemtlo'Psonose'Tloplihupe'Qhokhagle'Tseoklekha'Qapleplekha'Dlipaa'Pleom'Dumabethi'Dzonoama'Mzekha'Thikiqhople'Blekisee'Blenuphi..." she paused to take a breath, "...Pegapli'Qhodlikle'Qlomapledli'Phimkitlo'Mahumatse'Pliphinu'Dlikhaze'Psepple'Qaibekse'Kigzitseble'Monenu'Iaptlo'Klenotoqa'Inemnu..." and another, "...Thiqhonutse'Pazepatse'Qlodzoqsi'Tlodzoqsi'Mksephi'Makhaqsi'Glekidzo'Topebzega'Betsekse'Kseplipa'Qloedli."

Phyllis rolled her eyes, "Oh, those guys," as though she somehow knew exactly who Roxanne meant. "Ah'm impressed you got all tha' out. Now, who are ya talkin' about? Point 'em out."

"They're not here now," Roxanne objected, putting a palm and her hip against the counter. "They came through yesterday. Really early. Remember? They kinda looked like meat-flowers?"

"Oh. Yeah. I was comin' back from break. Jus' saw the backside of them..." Her head turned - a cluster of travelers was approaching the counter with tragedy written bare on their faces and for the next few minutes the pair were busy sorting things out. When they had finished the Dwarf picked up the conversation again, "...havin' sex all the time, you say? Sounds like a good way to get banned on tha' forums."

"Well, sorta. So the... Them. They. They are all hermaphrodites. Each of those 'petals'..."

"Meat-petals?"

"Yeah. Each meat-petal is an individual but they live in a multi-symbiotic relationship with between five and nine others so you get a meat-flower. During their evolution, they needed a way to communicate but they don't have, like, a mouth or anything. So instead of talking with their mouths they talk with their 'bits'. Or 'communicate complex ideas by means of their reproductive organs.'"

"That why their name is so long?"

"I think so?" Roxanne scratched her head. "I'll send you the video. The researchers who figured out just how they were talking explained it a lot better than I can..."

[Sunset]

A Dark Home, Somewhere in the Vruundroits Ghetto, Part of the Thoqraen Sprawl...

"...we have to leave - and we must be very careful," Shalkis decided, looking from face to face as the five crowded in close around the table. A small electric lamp sat in the middle, casting a dim glow over their saurian features while leaving the rest of the room in shadow. It was late at night - too late, past both the start of the Sweep and the first of the newly-declared Quiet Hours. According to the Ministry for Health & Wellness they were all supposed to be in their beds, sleeping soundly in thoughtless preparation for the next day's labor.

For the Oscun family, the mandate had resulted in much the opposite.

Something had happened - something to trigger this latest exercise in enforced order by the Regime - and all were certain it had something to do with the disappearance of several other families. For the first few days Regime Custodians had been everywhere, searching this place and that, and there had been many terminations. A family pulled from their house and butchered in the street, a lone worker arrested and executed on the spot. In the times before the Regime would have carefully detailed their Crimes so that all might understand how they had abandoned their proper place - not here. No reasons were given and after several who asked were beaten to death, questions were no longer asked.

At least not in public - not where others might hear; "But where?" Nedhan asked. As the youngest, he was entitled to ask difficult questions; they were certain to result in important answers. "The Regime touches everything."

Shalkis shook his head, "I do not know. I have considered many ideas - somewhere in the wilderness between the Sprawls. A boat, so that we might take our living from the water. But these stand in opposition to Order. Perhaps the Regime would leave us alone, thinking us fools, or perhaps they would bring us back..."

He paused. Just at the edge of his hearing there had been a scratching sound. A clawed hand went out and he twisted the lamp off despite the heavy curtain that covered the window. No one had moved and for the next few seconds none even breathed. Another scratch and he swiveled his head to try and locate the source. Something lurked at the window and he waited another few moments before leaning over and very carefully pulling back just the barest corner of the curtain until the lights of the Ghetto outside just barely crept in. This time there was a tap, just where his hand pulled back the cloth, and he curled over to look out through the glass.

A dark claw was set against the pane and beyond he could see the dark silhouette of a figure crouched on the landing, another obscured behind them. The first leaned close and with a sigh of relief Shalkis recognized Ilails' familiar features - there was even a bit of a smile on his lips. Another inquiring tap and he slid his fingers along the bottom of the sash to unlatch the window. As slowly and carefully as he could, he began to ease it up until there was just enough room for the other to slip inside.

"Ilails," he greeted the other with a nod, the newcomer's slender form just barely visible in the dwindling light. The other followed him through, moving off to one side to disappear completely as the first turned to lower the sash and move the curtain back into place. "And who is this?"

"Greetings, Oscun family," the second spoke up for themselves, a familiar note in their voice drawing an immediate response from several, "Xex?" "Xex?! Is that you?"

"It is," and in a moment this was revealed as true as a hand-held lamp lit up the Kayajoren. First Nedhan rushed forward to wrap himself around his waist and then the rest of the family followed, hugging him briefly before retreating to allow another the opportunity.

"Xex... We thought you were dead," Shalkis accused, happy to be wrong. "You disappeared and there were soldiers at your work - at your apartment! What happened?"

"It is a long story," but with a careful check at the window he began to tell it, every eye fixed on him and every hand still. When he had finished they all began to look one at the other, each deciding for themselves whether they believed it; "Other worlds," "Other peoples," "A life, free of the Regime..?"

"...but why would you come back?" Nedhan asked. The youngling was still wrapped around his cousin's waist and Xex looked down at him to scratch him behind the ear, "For you!" he looked up. "For Ilails, for all of you."

"How then do you intend to do this thing?" Shalkis asked, looking back from where he was checking the window. "You say you escaped on a ship. This I can believe - you are a clever engineer. Are we then to build another? Things have changed. New rules, new restrictions. Order must be maintained," the father noted sourly.

"Nedhan - in the pocket you are so completely blocking," Xex answered, trying gently to dislodge the youngling from his position of comfort. Instead his cousin dove a clawed hand into the pouch, extracting a small roll of tape and holding it up; "This? With tape?"

"Yes, with tape," the other smiled. "If you will not detach yourself, I will instead ask Ilails. May we borrow your closet?"

"The closet?" Shalkis was skeptical but nodded his agreement, "Of course."

In one corner of the small room there was an even smaller closet - a half-height door that ducked into a space just large enough for an old washer & drier. Following Xex' instructions, his friend plucked the roll from the youngster's hand to only mild objection and began to unroll it around the perimeter while the other explained; "They are clever engineers, just as one might expect from those who can travel between the stars. When the two ends of the tape are connected one to another..."

There was no flash. Instead what had been a square hole of dark shadow was now another place - a room of strange appearance that seemed to be just where the closet had been but not. Far larger than the previous space, it appeared to be a receiving area of some sort with a low platform that stepped down from the doorway and then a wide open space where strange figures stood silent. Behind them were neatly arranged rows of containers while another figure stood behind a counter, packs of familiar shape but alien manufacture laid out as though waiting to be claimed. A pair of doors flanked a great sunburst-seal that sat in the middle of the opposite wall and another figure stood there. They were again different from the others but another far more familiar stood beside them.

"Is that Rihu?"

"Incredible," Shalkis breathed but the youngling was faster still, uncoiling from his cousin's waist to dart through, his passage as seamless as one room to the next; "No! Nedham..."

It was too late, of course. His son was already through, running across the room to stand in front of the lone figure while his mother followed behind, now more concerned with her child than that she had crossed from one world to another. Moving to stand next to the closet door, Xex smiled and gestured, "Go ahead. Everyone. They will treat you as family. Though again I will ask you a favor, Shalkis sire of the Oscun..."

At the edge of the doorway the father turned to look back at his nephew, "What is it? What other strangeness will you inflict on me today?"

"Ilails and I are going to stay here and bring as many others as we can. Do I have your permission to bring them into your house?"

"...spawn of my sister, I think that a little dirt on the floor is a far annoyance than all the rest you have brought here today. Yes - of course. As many as you can," the Kayajoren agreed. "Now I must go - before my son decides for them that they do not like us..."

[Sunset]

OSA Training & Recruitment Centre Juno, Anchorage, Southern Juniper, The Pinales System... Republic Date 177.903.772...

"...the Yx3 Field & Flight Pack is designed to allow the individual operator advanced mobility and field endurance without requiring a specific physiology," the instructor continued, holding up an example of the unit in question. To the outside observer, it might look like any number of other military field packs in common use across the galaxy. A form-fitting plate covered on the backside with poly-foam supported a cloth-walled case that was roughly trapezoidal - just slightly wider at the top than the bottom. Something that might-maybe was a bedroll was clipped to the bottom and there were the required selection of external pouches and walls of straps that would allow the wearer to customize it as per their needs.

"First up - yes, it does let you fly," he went on, interrupting his own briefing before the question could be asked. It was clear from the open-mouthed expressions and outright grins on the faces of the recruits that it would have been asked anyway. "...with some very important caveats! Do you know what we call flying infantry around here? Anyone? Anyone?" He pointed to a Kayajoren who looked fresh off the boat and didn't have her hand raised.

It was one of the oldest teacher's tricks; if you wanted to keep your students engaged, don't pick one that already is.

"Cadet... Mondre," he read the woman's name off the list in his head. He wasn't familiar with the species but someone had at least done the paperwork. "Do you have an answer?"

"...no. Sir," she added after a moment. "I don't."

"We call them 'skeet'. Which, for those of you who don't know, is an Earth-origin sport that involves shooting low-flying clay discs or 'skeet' with a shotgun. So 'skeet-shooting'. To avoid this, the Yx3 has a maximum flight ceiling of two - and only two - meters. This is just about as tall as the tallest..."

A Maiorca in the back of the room started to get out of her chair and the instructor hastily corrected himself, "...as the average trooper. You," he shot a look towards the feathered saurian, "will be issued a size five-x-l... Cadet Mondre, front and center," he snapped, holding up the example pack while he waited. As soon as she'd turned around to face the class, he began to help her put it on as he continued, "Now, since I have your attention, I'll cover the boring details first."

"The Yx3 has four modules. The first is the low-altitude flight pack. The second is the rest and relaxation unit," he pointed to the 'bedroll' hanging off the bottom of the pack, "the third is the care and comfort module, and the fourth is the ammunition and power pack. As you can see, the Yx3 also has a number of pouches and straps that will allow you to move things around and add some personal touches to your heart's content. The rest and relaxation unit..."

A quartet of buckles held this last snug against the underside of the pack and he unlatched it before holding it up for everyone to see.

"This is not just a sleeping bag. And it is also just a sleeping bag. It is an important point that while every module has some automation that will make your lives easier and hopefully longer, they can all be operated manually. We'll be covering that in detail later but..."

Placing the unit on the floor at the front of the class, he knelt and manipulated a control. Stepping back, he stood next to Mondre as the pack unrolled itself into a stretched-out hexagon and then began to inflate. When it was done, the resulting tent was just big enough for someone to crawl into without being cramped. The floor of the tent had thickened into a reasonably-comfortable looking mattress and silvery material lined the walls.

"...zipped up, the unit is fully sealed and provides solid NBC protection. Thermal controls will keep it comfortable from negative twenty to forty degrees. The battery only lasts a day, but the exterior is solar fabric so it can charge itself if there's enough sunlight. It can also be plugged into the Yx3 and either take a charge from it or provide a charge to the pack, conditions dependent. As I said - it can also be partially manually operated. There's a tube here," he noted, kneeling and pulling up a short, flexible tube that seemed to be connected to one of the interior corners.

"And yes, before you ask, it will sleep two," that at least got a few laughs and he moved on.

"Now, the care and comfort module," he spun the saurian around to open a flap on one side. Inside there was another tube and he pulled this one out and handed the end to the Cadet. "Food and water, all in one nutritious and delicious slurry. And it is actually delicious," he declared pointedly. "You can set it to a variety of flavors and the right nutrient balance for your species and calorie needs. Plenty of fiber too. Open this flap to replace the nutritional module. There's a water filter in there - put the tube in a water source and push the button. Lasts from a day to a week, depending on the settings and your intake rate."

"You said it could be operated manually?" Mondre asked, holding up the tube's fitted mouthpiece.

"Yes - there's a little handle in there that you can operate the filter pump with. Water is more important than food - most species can last a week without food but only two days without water."

"...my species only needs to drink every four days, though we will become more lethargic. But yes, useful," she decided.

"Now, the pump normally gets its power from here," he indicated the base of the pack. "There's a high-density electric storage medium inside here. It is in an armored sleeve because it is volatile. That means if you puncture or pierce it, it can ignite. Catch fire. Burn you really badly. Primarily it is meant as a recharge point for your rifle magazines..."

The OSA's standard infantry rifle was a linear accelerator; a series of magnetic fields accelerated a projectile up to exceptionally high velocities. This meant that it required both ammunition in the form of a ferrous projectile and electrical power in the form of a battery. The rifle's magazine contained both.

"...which there is a port here," he opened a flap, "That will recharge the battery in a single magazine and reload it with projectiles at the same time. Takes about a minute. Ideally, you will plug your discharged magazine in while you use another, keeping your ready magazines for when you don't have a minute and change to be swapping them around. As I mentioned earlier, the battery here is connected to everything else. It is also the primary power supply for..?"

Hands shot up; "Yes, the flight package. Now, as I mentioned, the flight pack here specifically utilizes a method that only allows for a flight ceiling of a couple meters. There is no place you can put the screw driver, no software hack - it just can't," he emphasized. "It can save you from a nasty fall, it can get you over a river - but you're not going to be dogfighting..."

Cadet Peanut put a paw up; "...except for you. Which means that Cadet Mondre here can give us a demonstration," he went on, turning to the woman. "The flight pack can be activated in a number of ways. There's a toggle on the nutrient tube - two, one that you can switch with your tongue and one that you can switch with your fingers;" she touched a bulge about half-way along the tube's length. "And there's a backup on your pack next to the magazine charging port. Go ahead and click it on," he suggested, mimicking a strong pinch with his fingers. She followed his example with her taloned fingered and there was a slight hum.

"The pack responds to the movement of your back and shoulders and it is pretty intuitive - just try," he suggested.

She nodded and gave a little hop and... There she was, hovering just a half-meter off the ground. Putting her hand out, she began to move forward slowly and then she swung it to turn around until she was facing him.

"So yes - if you want to go really fast," he held out both arms, fists balled, "You go full super-hero..."

[Sunset]

Storage Wars: Secret Storage

Storage Unit 23, Long-Term Cold Storage Facility 17, Storage & Supply Wing 4, Refuge, Somewhere Outside the Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.803.845...

"...alright, open it up - let's see just how long it's been since anyone's been in this one," Lieutenant Armeniacus ordered, taking a step back to give his team plenty of room and putting his back incidentally up against another of the rolling-panel doors that lined the hallway. The two Ensigns - Rubus and Rosaceae - nodded and moved into place on either side while he fixed his lamp right in the center of the door; right on the '23' over '17' over '4'. They'd been at it all day and that's right - the Lieutenant was carrying an actual flashlight.

That was because Refuge was old. Old enough that even the LED lighting had started to fail. Old enough that it hadn't been designed around robotic maintenance systems. Old enough that the contents of the storage units weren't in any databases - but clean!

As the original 'Last Refuge of the Republic' the moon-sized habitat had never been fully inhabited. Without people (at least here) there weren't any dust or cobwebs either. Certainly some sections of the station were inhabited now but then-as-now these were still exclusively black sites and thus the domain of projects and personnel that would likely never see the light of day. Only a very, very few knew that this was where the current Secretary-General had had her first laboratory back when she was the Director of Special Projects - and fewer still knew that that same lab was where her daughter Katryna had been born. Storage & Supply Wing 4 was attached to that space and it had sat idle for...

Well.

Long enough for someone to finally get around to having someone take a look through the place. Armeniacus and his team had been cleared and then assigned the preliminary task of just plain opening doors and seeing what was behind them. After them would come the pencil-necks and paper-pushers who would make sure everything was properly cataloged and sorted. Unless, of course, the three of them came across something that demanded attention right then and right now.

"...alright;" and on that the two junior officers each put a hand on the panel located far enough to each side of the door that one person wouldn't be able to unlock it alone. The easy assumption was that each panel was a hand-print or bio-metric scanner of some kind but while there was a flash of blue light and the brief impression of something scanning their hand, they had already been lied to.

That was one of the many secrets still hidden there - the secret of just how some of the locks dating from the early days of the Republic were particularly hard to defeat. While their use had mostly faded away in favor of holo-locks and others, there were still samples of the old technology to be found here and there and 'here' was one of them. Still, the identification plates at least seemed to work and after a moment the door began to roll up until it was flush with the header. Light from the Lieutenant's torch illuminated a long, narrow space piled with boxes and crates as well as a selection of loose items leaning up in one corner.

"Alright," the three moved in, the Lieutenant swinging his light from side to side while Rosaceae and Rubus leaned around the jams to peer inside, "Opening bid... One hundred 'coins. Do I hear one-fifty?" Rubus raised a hand...

They'd already made something of a game of it. Just by itself the process would have been dreadfully boring but what they were doing was bidding on the contents of the unit. The winner would get first-poke; the right to look through the contents first. Most of the storage units had been just like this one - their contents essentially unknown until someone looked inside the boxes.

"...anyone else for two-twenty? Two-ten going once... Twice... Sold!" Armeniacus pointed the flashlight at Rubus and then tossed it end-over-end, passing it butt-first to the Ensign. No money would change hands - the point of the game was presumably some manner of bragging rights and the exact details were less important than the objective. "Have at it."

"Thanks, light-man," and the junior officer stepped inside, sweeping the beam up and down the aisle before settling on the box that had driven his bidding. "Let's see..."

It was cardboard - actual cardboard! - and he pulled the cross-folded flaps open to reveal...

"...well, I think we're all glad these were never issued," he declared, holding up a tunic that looked like it was ready to take first prize in an ugly sweater contest. Decked out in this season's favorite shade of 'safety orange' illuminating strips and with a profusion of thick canvas pouches across the chest and arms, it was definitely still a 'uniform' of some sort with 'SDF' written in huge letters down one side of the chest and across the opposite sleeve. Rank insignia that now hadn't been issued in years were on the cuffs and collar and the whole thing looked like a bedazzled jean-jacket from the 'Ye' era.

"Hideous. What else?"

"Just a whole box of those," and then another and another - and another - as he checked the rest, pushing them aside as he verified their contents. Satisfied that concealed there-in was the ugly truth as to why the Defense Force outsourced their uniform design to the private sector, he moved on to the stack in the corner. He was expecting mops and brooms but as he began to sort through the poles, pulling them out one-by-one...

"These look like weapons. Or gardening tools?" He held up one that looked like it had a small chainsaw at the end. Another was decked out with a sickle and hook while another had a long blade that was nearly as long as the two-meter pole.

"Okay, what else?"

"Hmm..." At Rosaceae's urging, he left the tools aside and turned around to where there was a row of containers across the other side of the aisle, this time much more neatly arranged than the first. There were in fact several shelves with each having a half-dozen wide, flat containers that latched on the near end and flipped up to reveal...

"Jackpot! Money!" he held up a movie-quality stack of bills, their edges square and in a paper wrapper. "Huh, wow. Wonder if these are fake..." he asked himself as he tucked the flashlight under one arm to flip through the stack. "Five Kingdoms, ten million... Either I'm fantastically wealthy or the exchange rate was terrible! Whole series," he went down the line, counting them off until he got to the end. "Tray lifts up," he demonstrated, removing the tray with its row of paper currency to set it on the top and reveal a line of sparkling coinage. "Yeah - gotta be fake."

"Here," Armeniacus put out a hand and the Ensign tossed him the stack of 'millions, followed by another to Rosaceae. "Who else we got?"

"All the old baddies," Rubus answered, moving down the row and flipping open the lids to identify the contents and quickly move on. "Lord Sauron Reborn... That rolls off the tongue. Kajal... Times have changed there. Lesse..." he knelt and began to open the next series, "...what's a 'Steel Butterfly'..?"

[Sunset]

A Spartan Regime Office Complex, In the Heart of the Phomut Upvote, Part of the Thoqraen Sprawl...

"...'pursuant to Decree Five-Eight-Zero-Zero-Eight, all Authority for the Safety and Security of the Regime shall be Invested..,'" Inons got just that far before his careful reading of the departmental message he'd just recieved was interrupted by a knock at the office door. With a sharp look up at the frosted glass, he knew immediately who it was and called out to his visitor, "Kavo, enter!"

There was a click and the door opened, Kavo entering carefully before turning around to first twist and then slowly push the door closed so as to make as little noise as possible. It wasn't a requirement but Inons appreciated it none-the-less; loud noises offended his ears. With a nod from his superior, the underling pulled out the lone chair and took a seat before leaning forward, his angular chin nearly crossing the monitor.

Inons shut it off with a soft 'click', "What is it?"

"Sweep unit five-one-three did not report in this morning. They were assigned to sector six - the Vruundroits ghetto," Kavo answered, adding the area's unofficial name though Inons knew it just as well. On one wall of the office was an enormous map of the Thoqraen Sprawl and its immediate vicinity. The entire zone was Inons' responsibility and thus he knew every sector by number and by name. "They checked out their vehicle, they drew weapons from the armory, and they filled their fuel tank. After that... They did not file any reports or log any contacts," the saurian added.

"Nothing at all?" Something was already itching in the back of his skull and Inons raised a taloned hand to scratch at the feathers there.

From what Kavo had supplied, the Sweep Team had followed protocol. Only if they were to actually encounter someone out on the streets were they to log the contact and then apprehend and terminate the individual. Sometimes a team would go an entire month without a contact... His eyes went to the map and Kavo followed them. At least that would be true in the rest of the zone. But sector six was always a problem. It was home to those of both low income and low birth, those the Gods had not favored with any blessings other than that they had been born Kayajoren.

"And you have verified that they did not return and somehow forget to file their paperwork?"

Such a thing was not unheard of but for an entire team? They knew the consequences more than most, having enacted them upon the Disrespectful many times.

"Yes. I checked the vehicle bay myself, verified they had not returned their weapons with the armory, and ran a vehicle identification audit just in case they were parked in the wrong bay. I believe sweep unit five-one-three is missing, Sir."

Again there was that itch and Inons turned on the monitor, "Perhaps not. Listen to this - it arrived just a few minutes ago while you would have been conducting the audit..." Adjusting his seating, he began to read;

'To all departments, source the select supreme executive committee, message title directive five-eight-zero-zero-eight... In closed session of the select supreme executive committee for safety and security, decree five-eight-zero-zero-eight has been enacted. Pursuant to decree five-eight-zero-zero-eight, all authority for the safety and security of the Regime shall be invested in an agency to be organized as laid out in this decree. Henceforth, all safety and security departments and divisions shall derive their authority and their directives from this agency. Due to the need to maintain the utmost levels of secrecy in order to ensure the precision functioning of this agency, all details of decree five-eight-zero-zero-eight are considered compartmentalized and can only be discussed by the select supreme executive committee. Further, to ensure the security of those discussions and of this agency, the members of the select committee shall not be divulged or discussed."

Kavo tilted his head, considering this for a moment and then answered only with, "Oh."

"Now here," he swung the monitor around so his deputy could see the next message, "is a message I received just before you knocked. I did not open it, but notice the source?"

"Decree Five-Eight-Zero-Zero-Eight. That must then be the agency established in the decree..."

"Yes."

"...'may requisition without warning or reporting assets belonging to the following departments...' '...may not be returned and their requisition may not be discussed so as to ensure the operational efficiency of this agency....' So it may be that..." Well, what to call them? Kavo pondered for a moment and shrugged, "Decree Five-Eight-Zero-Zero-Eight has requisitioned sweep team five-one-three?"

"If so, we are not allowed to discuss it," Inons noted carefully. Still, something seemed odd about the whole thing. It fit but it didn't. After the incident in sector three - the harbor - the Quiet Times had been established as an additional measure. This had been done by the Safety & Security Department but the job of enforcing them had fallen to the Sweep Department. His department. This had created a certain amount of friction between the two as there was not an equitable re-allocation of resources. In Inons' opinion, Safety & Security should have either forwarded additional officers to enforce the Quiet Times or shifted some of their budget to the Sweep Department.

Decree Five-Eight-Zero-Zero-Eight would solve the problem nicely by investing these responsibilities with itself - except that there appeared to be no way of coordinating directly with...

The phone on his desk run and Inons put out a talon to take the call on speaker before noticing the caller identification; 58008. Taking the handset instead, he held up a finger to Kavo and put it to his ear, "Director Inons here... Yes. Of course. Immediately."

He returned the handset to its cradle and looked over at Kavo, "Call in all of the Sweep Teams;" active at night, they would all be at home and asleep now. "A directive from five-eight-zero-zero-eight has been issued. All Sweep Teams are to hereby detain all individuals apprehended during the Sweep and turn them over to Safety & Security for interrogation. Effective immediately."

Kavos looked stunned but he still pushed himself to his feet, "Yes, Sir. I will call them all in."

Turning to the door, he shook his head. So many questions - questions he apparently couldn't even ask..!

[Sunset]

RDF-Dnieper, On the Outskirts of GEC-98,989,866, The Southern Gamma-Delta Border Region, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.807.774...

"...I mean, for a one-off it's pretty interesting, Captain." Lieutenant Commander Adams continued her explanation, putting up disparate images across the outside edges main screen as well as orbiting around the central holo-sphere as she did. "GEC... Well, this system is relatively young as things go. It was part of a star-forming nebula a few million years ago until just that - a star formed. Or at least was about to."

This put the focus of the main screen on the thing in the center of the system. The sensor & science station operator had already begun to think of it as Terok Nor and the resemblance to that fictional location was easy to see. A set of massive concentric rings were connected to a central pylon that stretched both up and down the central axis while four rather than three pylons curved up and down giving the object an ultimately spherical enclosed volume.

"It looks like whoever built this thing latched onto the idea of using the process of star formation as a way to gather resources on a similarly massive scale. That central column," she highlighted it and zoomed in until it more-or-less filled the screen, numbers floating alongside showing its impressive size for those who understood such things. "That appears to be a series or stack of fusion reactors in the tokomak style. They would have been fed from the incoming gases that would originally have resulted in the formation of a star - at least before they were interrupted, Ma'am."

A simulated technical image of the station appeared in the holo-sphere, slowly rotating as lines of force drew nebulous streams in towards the center.

"Presumably those then provided power to some kind of funneling or induction system mounted on those outer pylons. The process of star formation isn't at all fast, so they would want something to keep the matter they were interested in coming their way for as long as possible..."

"How long?" Captain D'nut interrupted, his tail slowly lashing from side to side as every inch the Nekojin stereotype as he studied the images.

"Long enough to be a problem, I'd guess. Even if you're really patient and effectively immortal, a million years is a long-ass time. Sir. Since everything is still here, I'd say that whoever built the thing ran out of patience and fucked off for something faster. Take a look," and she pushed an image of one section of the station's outer rings to the main display.

At this scale her point was barely visible but still there they were; long cage-like structures with what were clearly massive ingots of pure elements inside. Some were quite short - though according to the numbers running down the side the ingots inside were still the size of 'That's no moon!' - while others were massively long and stretched off the screen.

"So the station would have taken in the matter streaming in from the nebula... Interesting note here; that nebula was itself the remnants of a multi-nova event a few million years before that. According to the time-slicing database, this area had a nice cluster of hyper-giants that decided to blow themselves up all about the same time. A paranoid might assume that something stuck its fingers in to make this happen but nope - it looks to be plain old statistical clustering."

"But you're looking into it?" he cast her a slit-eyed glance.

"Background processes only, Captain. Anyway, so the incoming matter would have been funneled into streams by those pylons with the helium-3 and other fusion-ables going into the reactors. The useful elements were then sorted out in those rings, and laid out for future use as you can see. Except no one ever stopped by to use them. Again, this would have taken a good chunk of that million years. They probably figured out they had better things to do. Now here's something interesting;"

Once again the image on the main screen shifted, following one of the longer storage frames all the way down to the end. Here it began to branch and wiggle, eventually settling out into a mass of confused spars and joinery.

"Looks like here's where things petered out. Analysis of the elemental content of those cages shows they are uniform, made of the most common metallic elements. Probably some kind of self-assembling system. Von Neuman'esq. But here it ran out of one of those elements, then another, then another, but it kept trying with the results being more and more chaotic until it just ran out of material altogether."

D'nut purred appreciatively, "Yes - which suggests that no one was around to correct the process or stop it. Are there any clues as to where whoever it was went, Adams? Any hints?"

"Not yet, Sir. This thing is huge and 'Dnieper is still working on building up a full technical layout. Once I have that, I'll feed it into the databases to see if there's any similar technology floating around. Though really - you'd think we'd see more of these if whoever built this one was still around..."

[Sunset]

Inside the Ruins of Listening Post 717-A-8, GEC-10489417, Near the Old Kion Empire, Delta Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Another Moment of Realization Later...

"...and we got skunked," Alwyra declared, standing fists-on-hips to glare around the room. It wasn't that the chamber was empty - there was just what she'd been expecting minus what she'd been hoping for!

The crypt itself - and it was clearly a crypt - was much smaller than the grand dome under the Dragon's Eye but still impressive. From where she stood at one end, the light from Magnus' raised lamp providing a dull illumination of the space, it had to be twenty meters wide and three times as long. A grand statue of a Kion in heroic pose stood in the middle, their back curled as they supported the ceiling. In one hand they held an enormous faceted crystal, the body entombed within seemingly as pristine now as it had been in life.

"Everything's gone!"

"Looted," Magnus shrugged, his broad shoulders swiveling as he surveyed the room. "I had a guess this would be the case. Just like the ancient Pharaohs. Probably the same thing too - almost as soon as the doors were shut whoever succeeded that guy was paying someone to break in here and steal their afterlife. Someone's gotta pay for those wars," he grinned, "Might as well be the dead guy."

"Well... Poo. Crap. Shit," Alwyra worked her way through the scatological references until she landed on one that would make her mother blush. "This sucks!"

Arranged around the central statue were a number of what she thought of as altars - or maybe they were fancy displays? - carved from stone and formerly decorated with what were likely precious stones and metals. All of these had been pried away with carvings and inlays rigorously damaged in the process. She ran a hand across the top of one - no dust and the surface was glass-smooth except where it had been chipped away.

Magnus gave her an odd look, "Does it?"

"What do you mean?"

"He means that if the guy after this guy - girl? Didn't someone say that the Kion warlords were mostly female? I forget," but Kedo pressed on to his original point as he wandered the room, looking here and there like he was checking under the tables for a missing wallet. "Whoever came after this guy looted their crypt. Probably this guy looted the crypt before them. The one under the Dragon's Eye was the last warlord. Well, not the last. The last before a bunch of people showed up and made their successor real dead before they got a chance to loot the Eye. But still they kept burying them - they had to believe there was a reason to do it, right?"

Magnus considered this for a moment, "Yeah - more or less. So, they knew their tomb would be looted but they still went to the trouble of being hidden away with all their trinkets. But if it was part of their religion that their burial wealth determined their position in the afterlife, you'd figure they'd..."

"...they'd want to make sure they at least kept some of it?" Alwyra began to follow her husband around the room, looking in every nook and cranny. "You think they hid it? Here?!"

His grin was as wide as a lantern, "Maybe. Actually, I'm pretty sure I know exactly where. I should have thought of it before - it's right in front of our eyes!"

She swiveled a full three-sixty before catching his gaze and following it to the statue in the center, "That?"

"Nope - stone. Got another guess?"

"...the crystal?" She bounded over but immediately she stopped. She was in the freakin' gemstone business, for crying out loud - and she knew plain ol' cut glass the moment she saw it. As big as it was, that's all the crystal was.

"Close! Riddle me this... We're in the tomb of a Kion warlord. What do warlords do?"

"They... make war?"

"That's right! And how do you think most of those warlords end up dying?"

"Uh... Violently?"

"...looks pretty good for someone who died violently, don't you think?" Magnus gave her a wink.

[Sunset]

RDF-Dnieper, On the Outskirts of GEC-98,989,866, The Southern Gamma-Delta Border Region, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.808.004...

"...well, I was kinda wonderin' when y'all would decide to give us a call," the woman on the screen answered, her face split in a snaggle-toothed grin. "Almos' got to worrin' you all was fixen' to attack or somethin'. So, Captain oh' Cap'n - what can I do for you?"

It has often been commented that Mankind seems fit to spread throughout the galaxy like cockroaches - a harsh truth counter to those who preach that Man (or at least their favored variety of it) is pressed upon on all sides by the alien, the xeno. Turn over a random rock - or take another look at an ancient technological artifact larger than Jupiter - and one is likely to find a few. Here, Adams had discovered a nest of them burrowed into the outer ring of 'Tarok Ore at the base of one of the more valuable element storage assemblies.

Gold, of course.

"Then I am calling to set your mind at ease... Miss..?"

"Perkins, Alsabeth Perkins - but most round here jus' call me Mayor," she answered. "So, you don' mean to attack us. Not that there looks like much of 'nothin we could do if'n you did. Mighty purty warship you got there, Captain. Not the mos' sturdy lookin' thing, but we heard of y'all - we know what you can get yourselves up to, if'n you have a mind to."

Captain D'nut smiled, which for some people might be terrifying given he was a two-meter sherbert felinoid with a mouth full of fangs but the Mayor didn't seem bothered by the gesture, "Thank you, Madam Mayor. As you say - we're not interested in conquest. We simply happened across your rather unique home and then, of course - you."

"Yeah. 'Bout that. I've got a whole bunch of nervous types here who want me to ask you a few questions since I've got you on the line," she replied, looking to one side to where perhaps someone lingered just out of view of the camera. "We're pretty much a bunch of live-and-let-live types and those who come snooping around who aren't don't tend to live long, if you get my meanin'. But we ain't in exactly the place to run off a warship and you probably already radio'd back about this place anywho."

"So mah' question is whether we should be gettin' ready to up and leave or whether you're gonna keep your trap shut. We know what we're sittin' on, Captain - and we know that plenty of others wouldn't mind takin' it from us," she added with a frown.

"I don't see why we would," he replied, though again it was hard to assume anything from the posture of a cat. "Your secret is safe with us, though I would suggest that as we have found it, it is likely others will as well."

"Yeah, well. Again, unfriendly types don't tend to last long..."

"As we do our best, would you be amiable to visitors? Perhaps a tour? I'm sure my technical staff would love to get a closer look - though of course, your secrets are yours," he smiled again.

"As Ah said, Captain - Sunshine Station..;" but she was interrupted by his laugh, "Excuse me, did you say 'Sunshine Station'?"

"Ah did! Someone figured out what this thing was almos' as soon as they found it. Ol' time prospector named 'Moonshine Jack'. Given' what it was, he thought it was cute and name caught on. Died a few years back. No guesses as to why. But if you wanna come take a look around, go ahead."

"Thank you, Madam Mayor," and with a mutual nod the connection ended.

"...Captain," and it was Lieutenant Commander Adams who caught his attention immediately after. Half-swiveling around to face her, he looked back over the railing at the sensor officer; "What is it?"

"I'd suggest that if you do send a team over there, you send a shuttle rather than docking 'Dnieper. The way she said 'don't tend to live long' got me double-checking. That and the fact that she indicated they'd seen us;" while it was exceptionally difficult to truly 'hide' in space, the cruiser was also still at the system's outermost edge.

Or a least something approximating the system's edge if it would have had a star at the center.

Still, close enough; "which suggests they've got better sensors than what I'd assign to a collection of rockjacks and wildcat miners. So I took a second look on both counts - that thing might not be fully operational, but there's enough there that they could have brought parts of it up. Sensors is a good bet - we haven't picked up anything active coming off it, but passives? That thing should have a mighty-big array!"

"Why send a shuttle though?" he asked, drawing her back to her original point; "Because if they can power that thing up - well, it prevented a star from forming. It should have more than enough juice to destroy a ship, even this one..."

[Sunset]

RDF-Pivdennyi Buh, On the Outskirts of GEC-103.807.886, The Far Northwestern Corner of the Gamma Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 177.824.126...

"...this means, I suppose, that we shouldn't be looking forward to a warm welcome," Captain Silverado said dryly as they sat gazing at at the forward screen and thus the contents of the system laid out before them.

'Pivdennyi Buh had arrived at the top of the system mere moments before and it was already looking like the sickle-shaped frigate would be the only thing leaving it; at least any time soon. Thirteen planets of various composition and four times as many moons - again, of various composition - were highlighted across the screen. Most were too small to make out at this distance but a set of pertinent numbers floated next to each. Silverado had once sat at the sensor and science station just over their right shoulder and the asexual android liked to keep their manipulators in the game. With these and some other bits and pieces of information that were starting to round themselves up in the holo-sphere, they were ready to make a few educated guesses...

"...looks to me like they had a three body problem and no one was willing to share."

It was just that; three nicely-sized rocky bodies sat just inside the star's Goldilocks Zone with one at the front, one at the back, and the other just right. Judging by the atmospheric indicators, all three had been both inhabited and industrialized though another suggested they were no longer the first. That might as well have been the 'nuclear war' number and...

"Let's see the three habitable planets, right across here," they suggested, gesturing to the space in front of them. A moment or two later and the three appeared just so, slowly spinning but still at a speed that would have sent their inhabitants spinning off into space were they real.

No, there would be no warm welcome. All three were pock-marked with air-burst circles and these in turn were clustered around what had likely been the large population centers.

At least until everyone had decided they couldn't possibly share.

"Got something interesting here too, Captain," Commander du Boisselier called forward from the sensor console, her voice carrying just a touch of the French accent that marked a Sanglanti heritage. "Big ship graveyard orbiting the inner planet's moon."

"Let's see it," they offered, shoeing the three planets off to one side while she populated the 'sphere with the requested orb. It was much like many other such bodies - a faint luminous gray marked with the impact craters of its primordial past but also here and there with the faint circles of nuclear strikes. Just as before, these had likely been habitat domes or industrial sites until it had been decided that they also looked like the enemy.

More notable was the thin ring system around the planetoid's middle, dense enough to be visible even at this scale.

"Hundreds of thousands, Captain. There are others around nearly every other body but this one is the biggest. Millions across the system, easily."

"And a close-up?"

This one went to the main screen with dozens of ships visible at a great distance from the one the Commander had chosen at random. It was a spindly thing organized around a set of central modules with long triangle-frame trusses shooting off here and there with what were clearly weapon platforms mounted at the end or along the length. The whole thing was colored a metallic brown and speckled with insulation, vents, cabling, and other less-defined structures. It was also perfectly intact; the missile tubes were empty and the main rocket comes black with carbon but the whole was undamaged.

"The early days of space combat," Silverado missed aloud. "They did not succumb to the enemy but instead to their own waste heat."

"Yessir - cooked alive. The numbers are piling up but so far? It looks like most were so eager to fight that they were willing to broil themselves..."