First Contact

"Cryopods and red lights with sodium-chloride suspended in H2O mist in the hallways and rooms during transit, secure DS and VI shielded cores, shielded mainframes the size of a grav-lifter, that's how we do it.

"Lots of people need lots of things. It's up to the junker and trader's guilds to handle it.

"Sure, there aren't any more liners, no more ships with tens of thousands of people awake during transit, but at least we still somewhat have trade and migration. Cryopods can be difficult, Digital Omnimessian and Kalki's goat Dancer know that my tail aches for like four days after I get out of the freezer pop.

"But we've got it again.

"We move mail. We move data. We move people. We move goods.

"The Great Reboot as the Lankies call it? It messed things up here and there, but you know what? I don't have to worry about landing on some planet and getting swarmed by shades.

"I just have to watch for them in jumpspace and hyperspace.

"Now, says on my manifest that you bought twenty-five tonnes of Goody Yum Yum Cookie Dough Snacks. I can have those unloaded by nightfall. Sign here." - Pextent, Telkan Trader, member of the Traders Union in Good Standing.

The door shut behind him as Daxin sat back down, leaning over to punch Mattie in the shoulder. Mattie tensed up, took it on the muscle, then laughed when Daxin shook his cybernetic hand out in mock pain, his youthful face losing its worries and cares for a moment.

Pete turned and glanced at the two, then went back to staring at the screen in front of him, his hands moving through the holographic keyboard/pointer-clicker thingy system. He looked up several times, opening different screens and checking the data.

Mattie reached over with one foot and hit the lever on the column of the chair Daxin sat in. The chair went down with a hiss, folding Daxin's legs up and almost dumping the big man on the floor.

"Stop," Menhit said, her voice full of amusement. "Before this escalates into you two wrestling around. This room is full of important equipment."

"Aw, but Mom..." Mattie gave a fake whine.

Daxin snorted.

"What did I say?" Menhit asked, raising one eyebrow as she drew her buba tighter around her and straightened up, giving both men a stern look.

"Fine," Daxin grumbled.

"Better," Menhit said, turning back to Peter. "What is the progress?"

Daxin reached over and slammed his fist into Mattie's leg.

Menhit looked over suspiciously but both men gave her innocent smiles, which made Menhit give them both a sideways look.

"Well, Operational Director Menhit the Singer," Peter said.

Menhit smiled.

"Every stellar mass in the entire region, we're talking millions of stellar masses through the galactic arm spur, were seeded during the war against the Atrekna via some type of Confederate military project and then by our project," Peter said. "The mat-trans proved invaluable for that, although it looks like its back to hating us again and ignoring everything we request outside of the automated systems."

"I'm telling you, she's alive," Mattie said.

"We don't care," Daxin said.

"But... she could be so much help," Mattie protested.

"She's evil," one of the workers said. "A primitive barbaric woman who did nothing but spread pain and misery from what we saw."

Daxin turned around and pointed at the speaker. "You don't get to say anything. None of you saw her in person, she was dead before you got reskinned, and you're sitting in the middle of something she helped create," Daxin growled. "Name one scientific advancement you've made. Just one. You do that, and I'll let you criticize her."

"I devised the code for a more efficient table weighting system," she said.

"Did you invent the new code or just figure out how to arrange the commands better for more streamlined and accurate sorting of data other people put a bias weight on?" Daxin asked.

The worker looked surprised that Daxin knew what it meant. "I used existing commands to create the sorting system."

"Then shut the fuck up. You're sitting inside of something she helped developed when science was done on blackboards by hand by people who still rode horses, fought vampires, and fought wars with steam powered mechs," Daxin snarled.

Peter didn't look over. "Anyway!" he snapped. "With the stellar mass regulators and stabilizers in place, it was just a matter of programming the system for chronotron and phasic energy bursts. The phason -basically the phasic energy equivalent of a photon- emitters had to be reprogrammed, but the time dilation in here was a big help," Peter said. "The files that SAM-UL left behind on the phasic gaussing system as well as the data from its use gave us the right wavelengths to hammer."

"And?" Daxin asked.

"Well, it looks like all of the stellar mass stabilizers did their uploaded commands in the correct order," Peter said. He cracked open a beer and took a swig off of it, ignoring the disapproving sigh of a few of the other staff.

Someone had blocked over the "PLEASE NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THIS AREA" with stickers with various sayings on them.

Daxin leaned back. "Where's Dhruv? We can get him to take a look at the outside world, tell us if it worked."

Peter shrugged. "Don't know. He said he had something important to do."

"I'm right here," Legion said, raising a hand from where he was at the back of the workers. He was in his slim and bald persona, wearing a jumpsuit with "SCRUFFY" embroidered on the left breast, a toolbelt with a hardhat hanging from it, a backwards cap on his bald head, and leaning on a broom.

"What are you doing?" Daxin asked.

Dhruv smiled. "Seeing if this and a maintenance fob is more effective at getting into high security places than a high security ID badge Pete ran off for me."

"And?" Daxin asked. "You look like a fool."

Dhruv's smile got wider. "I've been able to get into some amazing places. Doors just open, I don't even have to put in any codes or anything," he gave a chuckle. "Right now, I've got two of those massive killbots trying to help me move boxes while I sit on a box drinking fizzybrew and give them orders. It's kind of amazing."

"Sometimes I hate you," Daxin said, turning and looking at Peter. "Do you think it worked?"

Peter nodded. "It should have. Some of the phasic particles have excellent penetration, so they'll be able to reach shades even if their inside of underground facilities wrapped in warsteel."

"OK, now what did it do to everyone else?" Dhruv asked.

"Well, according to the data, nothing. They shouldn't have even noticed. We did a couple of tests on the Gamma Layer using the fusion reactor stellar mass emulators," Peter said. "Well, there was a small effect. Degredation of molycircs in a few spots."

Peter suddenly turned, his face going slightly fearful. "Few spots? Some of those molycircs melted down when the chronotrons hit the electron wiring."

Peter shook his head, going back to looking tired .He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry."

"The Darsh Chasu Igwe overlay?" Menhit asked, reaching out and rubbing Pete's shoulder.

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I'm stressed and there's still bits and pieces of that overlay in my brain."

Menhit just smiled softly and rubbed Pete's shoulder.

"Feel Marco surging up more and more too," Peter said.

"It's who you were before you were named Peter," Menhit soothed her brother.

"Centuries gone by," Peter said. He sat down and Menhit moved around behind him, shifting to squeezing the muscles of his shoulders and rubbing her thumbs up and down the muscles on the back of his neck.

"So, degradation of molycircs?" Menhit asked, shooting Daxin and Mattie a 'keep quiet you two clowns' look.

Peter nodded. "Nothing major. The standard nanite repair systems should work to repair it."

"Anything else?" Menhit asked.

Peter shuddered and his voice was quieter. "I still believe that testing them in a fusion reactor instead of a stellar mass did not give accurate data," he shuddered again and his voice was stronger, even if it sounded more tired. "The fusion reactors shut off, but a star is different."

"Tell me we didn't just novabomb the entire galactic arm spur," Daxin groaned.

"No, no, should be fine. That was the molycirc damage," Peter said. He sighed and leaned his head back, resting the back of his head against Menhit's stomach. Menhit reached down and put her interlaced fingers on Peter's forehead. Peter closed his eyes and sighted again. "There's no damage to living beings or Digital Sentiences, that's the big thing."

Menhit shifted her hands to rub Pete's temples with her strong fingers.

"I want you to go to bed. You've been up over a hundred hours and even with cyberwear and bioware you've reached the point where the fatigue toxin buildups will effect your intellectual performance," Menhit said. She looked down. "Leave the observation crew here, put everyone off for a few days."

"But we have so much to do," Peter sighed, his eyes closed.

"The time dilation means that only a couple of minutes, hours at the most, will pass while you get some sleep," Dhruv said.

"Come on, brother, let's get you in bed," Menhit said. She reached down and took Pete's hands, pulling him gently up. "Come on, sleepy head."

Dhruv looked at the gathered scientists, more than a few of whom looked on with disapproval. "You heard. Log out and go do something other than pass judgement on your betters."

One drew up. "Excuse me, all people are equal."

Legion stepped from the shadows, dressed in Confederate standard issue softplate. "Can you do what I just did?"

The scientists shook his head.

"Then I'm better than you. Shut up and log out. Go do relaxation activities or whatever," Dhruv said as Menhit chivvied Pete out the door.

There was grumbling as the scientists and workers left, Matthias getting up to join Dhruv for a rematch at a video game.

Only Daxin was left in the command center, the computers quietly whirring and beeping to themselves.

Daxin sighed, looking around. "Great. Where's my dog?"

-----

Buried deep within the stellar masses of every stellar system that was mathematically possible for shades to have invested, vast mechanisms moved into position. Many of them had been places during the Big-C3, the more heavy-duty models having been placed into position during the Atrekna-Conflict, specifically, Operation Iron Piglet. Millions of the systems had been placed in systems that had not even been examined or surveyed, just sent on a one-way system to drop the system into the stellar mass.

Emitters were adjusted, wavelength stabilizers were set, particle smoothers were prepared.

As one, the devices went off, buried deep within the stars.

Phasic energy ignored the light speed barrier in the same way that a high speed mag-lev train ignored a pedestrian.

The pattern, set off in a carefully planned sequence, caused the effect to be the same across the galactic arm spur. Roughly at the same time, with stellar distances making it so that some effects happened before the stellar stabilization equipment activated under the uncaring directions of the pre-programming.

Most of it was invisible. A phasic resonance cascade that went on for almost a full three seconds. The charge flipping back and forth slowly, nearly a hundredth of a second, then faster and faster, until it was pulsing out opposing polarities hundreds of thousands of times a second.

That was only visible as a bright white light.

The entire affected area shivered, dark matter and superstrings vibrating in time with the pulsings.

That was felt as an enormously loud sound.

What wasn't felt was the effect that started before the stabilizers went off.

Negatively charged positive polarity phasic particles slammed into molecular circuitry AKA electronics that were built smaller than a molecule, solid state electronics the size of atoms, built using subatomic particles.

Where literal cubic miles of wire and ceramic and glass 'circuitry' was reduced to small enough to be held by drunken angels dancing on the head of a pin.

It wasn't much. Just a few spots here and there the minute subatomic phasic particles hit the molycircs.

The other effect was bigger.

Peter and the others had seen it happen but had not thought through the ramifications.

The fusion generators that emulated suns in the great layered onion of the SUDS had shut off.

Peter had been right. The fusion didn't stop in the stars. Stars were too massive.

He had been wrong about why fusion stopped in those generators.

Fusion didn't stop.

The molecular circuitry proved more vulnerable as it was at ground center zero for the tsunami of particles.

Fusion generators across the galactic arm spur pulsed in sympathy with millions of stars.

Pulsing out the particles.

Which shredded their molycircs.

Even ships in hyperspace or jumpspace felt it. Were affected by it.

Everyone felt it.

THWUMM-BWOOOIIING!

-----

On the beach seagulls fought and swirled over a pack of greasy french fries from a vending machine.

A black warsteel head, blocky and fierce, peeked over a piece of driftwood.

With a barking roar the black warsteel body of a Goodboi combat chassis leaped over the driftwood log, sprinting toward the gulls, barking madly.

The gulls all scattered squawking indignately.

FIDO sat next to the fries, tongue out, huffing laughter.

After a minute he trotted over and crouched down behind the driftwood log.

The seagulls circles for a few minutes, consulted each other, and came to a conclusion.

Sure this time, the great black metal canine would not be hiding behind the driftwood log.

They settled down, pecking at the fries.

FIDO peeked over the top of the driftwood log.

And life went on.