First Contact

The day was warm, with white puffy clouds scattered across the sky. The ocean moved with a steady, calming rhythm, the dark indigo of the water washing up on the vibrant purple of the beach sand. Birds cried out in the jungle off the beach, crustaceans moved around at the border of water and land, and the wind fluttered the leaves here and there.

A massive cargo transport was sitting just over the berm that separated the beach from the jungle, in a spot that had been cleared recently enough that the smell of cut jungle vegetation was thick in the air. The cleared area was not just dirt, interlocked stones made up pads and walkways through the clearing.

There were multiple building, all looking slightly wet, as if they were coated with a thin layer of oil. As the breeze played around them glass formed in the windowframes, lifting up from the bottom, the lead edge sparkling, until the frame was full.

A huge red Mantid was staring, rubbing his bladearms together in excitement as the houses were built within minutes. First, a wireframe would appear, then options would be gone through for architecture and coloration, then it would revert back to the wireframe before rising up from the ground. The wireframe would be filled within minutes, leaving behind a solid house.

"This example of nano-forge construction is, indeed, amazing to watch with my own compound eyes, just as you had promised, Francine Frensky," the massive Red Mantid, one of the much feared Speakers, said. He hopped from foot to foot as another path rose out of the sand. "This is very much exciting and thank you for allowing me to witness it and through my eyes, the Queen."

The only non-Mantid nodded slowly, a headband on her head and her hands inside the virtual controls. Controlling construction nanites on the fly wasn't easy, but she wasn't going to plug in all the old hardware.

Francine "Call me Fran or Fanny or Franny" Frensky, twitched her wrist to move to the next wireframe and quickly went through the options. Wide doors, spaced beams within easy reach of one another, everything a chimper or Grodd would need to feel comfortable.

She peeled off the headset and relaxed, shoving it into one of her cargo pockets. She turned to look at the massive Mantid, who went by the short name "Red" instead of a name without about twenty words attached.

There was a trio of small green mantid standing in front of Red, one holding up a pebble that Franny could see was streaked with gold colored flakes. All three mantid had the blur of phasic holograms appearing between their antenna.

"It is exciting. Naturally formed, you say? How exquisite!" the Mantid was saying. "If our host says you can keep it, then the three of you can have it."

Red looked up. "They found a basalt pebble with a pleasing array of iron pyrite in it. It is pleasing to view and to their telemechanic senses," the big Mantid said. "They want to know if they may keep it."

Franny pretended to think about it, then nodded. "Of course." The Overqueen had lent her a few dozen green mantids to help her and her dumbots work. She had needed Red to translate, as the language of the greenies was new and rapidly evolving, most of it being pure mathematics.

The three green mantid rushed off.

"They are quite young by any standard, hatched less than a handful of years prior to this moment here on this beach, during the Great Escape when we fled the tyranny of the Omniqueen and her terrible Overmind, and thus easily excitable as they have never known anything but the Great Ship and this planet, that we now call home that has such a wealth of experiences and comforts," Red commented.

Franny nodded, used to Red's verbosity.

Those who spend most of their lives screaming in their own mind or only permitted to speak what someone else allows them to speak, scream the loudest and the longest when they find their voice, Franny thought, remembering a tidbit from the writings of the Mantid Biological Apostle, Gravity.

The robots had finished offloading the precious cargo.

Racks of cryopods.

"I appreciate the generosity of your Queen, Red," Franny said. "I had long planned on bringing some of my people here," she sighed. "It's just... I had it planned for better circumstances."

Red was silent for a second. "The loss of those who... umm... I do not know a polite way to say it."

"Who uplifted us," Franny said. She cracked her toe knuckles. "No, it isn't insulting. We were a primitive species, with a nebulous concept of religion. They used their technology to open our minds, then they taught us to use that intellect. Taught us speech, taught us customs, taught us society. We were only slightly better than animals, with no true sapience, and they made us more."

She sighed again.

"For over nine thousand years they were our parents. Strange, unknowable, often horribly violent toward one another, but we knew they loved us," Franny said. She wiped an eye. "Then, in an eyeblink, they were gone."

Red reached out and clumsily patted Franny with one hand.

"Your Queen's willingness to let my people settle here, with so much of the Galactic Arm Spur gone, out of reach of my people, was a generosity I did not expect in this malevolent universe," Franny said.

One of the robots moved up, its tracks clattering when it crossed cobblestone. It handed Franny a datapad. Monochrome, red on black, full of data and charts. She checked it over.

All sixteen thousand of her people were stable.

"I will thaw them out one group at a time," Franny said. "Families, clans, that way I'm not dealing with sixteen thousand shocked and terrified people."

"They do not know?" Red asked.

Franny shook her head. "They are all colonists, who had signed up for a colony mission centuries ago," she sighed. "Before that shitshow of Clownface."

"What happened during this 'Clownface Nebula Conflict', Friend Francine?" Red asked.

Francine thought for a moment. She didn't want to be rude, but...

"While I have known you for some time, Red," she said. She turned away slightly and hugged herself. "I do not know you that well."

Red nodded. "We too have things we prefer not to speak about, document, or even think about, Friend Francine. Terrible things that we were forced to do or did willingly, that are a humiliation and speak ill of us and who we now wish to be."

Franny nodded.

She went to say more when the world filled with white fire.

She was falling, flying upward through the air, pulled in a hundred directions at once.

Memories that weren't her own pummeled her. A Grodd standing on a battlefield, leaning against a broken rifle, panting as he realized he had survived the battle. A Chimper swinging through the jungle, dimly aware of the world around it, suddenly grabbed in a net that pulled tight even as the Chimper fought, snarled, spit, and bit. A Minipuchin struggling as it was held down, a needle forced into its spinal column, a cold feeling, and then sudden awareness.

Mantids firing rifles at unending Lanaktallan troops that steadily marched forward, heedless of their own casualties, their plasma rifles firing. Mantid troops shooting at Dwellerspawn as they were steadily forced back.

no

Franny felt herself tumble through another set of memories. Of being human, so terribly human, and watching atomic hellfire storm through a megaolopis.

No

Franny saw it all again, the Mar-gite, the Dark Elves, the Silencers. Saw herself in armor swinging around to slam an armored fist against the back of the human with a loud crack, seeing the human stumble forward and start to turn around, the armor just marred, raising his rifle.

He shot her in the face point blank.

NO

She could feel another presence, a huge presence, rousing from lethargic drowsiness, reaching out to touch her, to cradle her, to subsume her will and thoughts beneath its own.

Safe you are safe I will protect you you are safe I will not allow harm to come to you

Thousands of greenies staring at the sky in fear and awe. Speakers convulsing as the white fire washed over them, their power backlashing. Warriors falling to the ground and spasming as the phasic energy slammed into them.

Franny threw back her head and screamed.

NO! IT IS MY MIND! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!

The huge presence withdrew, gently, without tearing at Franny's thoughts.

Franny found herself on all fours, her toes and fingers clenched, staring at the violet sound of the beach.

Red was slowly standing up, his antenna whipping around.

Franny slowly stood up, wiping her face. She realized from the burning in her mouth that she must have vomited but saw no trace of it.

"The Queen... The Queen wishes to know if you are intact," Red said slowly, his voice a pale shadow of the normal richness.

"I'm fine. Phasic shockwave. Are your people OK?" Franny asked. She blinked. "It was like some old Mantid War weapon," she looked around. "Did someone try to use a phasic planet-cracker on you?"

Red shook his head slowly.

Dozens of little green and gold mantids were running over to hide underneath Red's massive form.

"No. It emanated from the stellar mass. We are unsure how and why," Red said. He shuddered, opening the armored shell and fanning his wings.

Franny knew he was breathing heavily.

"The war," Franny said, hugging herself.

"Your people can do such things?" Red asked, his voice still faint.

Franny nodded. "My people, well, my parents, they always had one more bigger gun, one more bigger sword, one last piece of armor," she sighed. "Hopefully it wasn't something mad."

"Mad? Angry? Enraged?" Red asked.

Franny shook her head. "No. Mutually Assured Destruction. A belief that it is possible to kill your enemies even as they kill you or from beyond the grave."

Red staggered slightly. He leaned forward. "For a split second I was a hairless primate, screaming out my rage, beating an Atrekna to death with an empty weapon while I laughed even as the Atrekna begged me to stop."

Franny nodded. "Yeah. That's my parents."

Red shivered again.

One of the robots came up and Franny checked the dataslate.

The power output for the two civilian grade fusion generators was kicking and unstable. A quick check showed that the two generators she'd pulled from the wreckage of a Corvega class cruiser were fine. She doublechecked the stats and manufacturing specs.

The Corvega plants had military grade shielding, including phasic surge systems to ensure a phasic detonation didn't disable the power plants.

"Tell your queen to have a full diagnostic run on your fusion plants," Franny said, shutting down the civilian power plants and upping the output of the two military scrap engines. "Looks like that surge damaged the molycircs."

Red nodded, waving his antenna in an approximation of eyebrows.

Franny checked the data and cursed. Alpha and Beta waves were up in the cryopod suspended people. Their brains had been kicked pretty hard.

She'd wanted to wait. Do it by thawing out clan and community leaders first.

But the brain activity had them closer to being awake than cryodreams.

"Red," she said.

The huge Mantid Speaker looked at her.

"I have to wake them all up. Right now. The phasic surge has their brains showing more activity and active brains in cryosleep is a recipe for madness and death," Franny said.

Red closed the armored covers over his eyes for a moment, then opened them.

"The Queen encourages you to do what is best for your people. She also extends her apologies for including you in her efforts to restabilize the communal mind. She hopes you were not injured during her efforts. You rejected her quite violently," Red said.

Franny nodded. "Yeah, us Terrans, we're like that," she said. "I did not injure her, did I?"

Red fluttered his wings. "A mere pinch in a tidal wave of pummeling and rage, Friend Francine."

One of the green ones, holding a sparkling pebble, put one foot outside of Red's shadow and quickly pulled it back. When nothing happened, he did it again, then stepped out of Red's shadow.

The other greenies rushed out.

Francine looked at the little green mantids. "I'm going to need their help. Luckily, those are old industrial grade cryopods, so the molycircs aren't too bad," she said.

Red gave an order and they all ran over to stop in front of Franny in a group.

She put in the instructions on the datapad, leaned down, and set it on the ground. One green mantid ran forward, touched it, then ran back to the group.

Equations flickered between the green mantid antenna.

They all rushed off.

"Please, Friend Francine, inform me if there is anything I or my fellow Mantids can do during this difficult time," Red said. "I must withdraw, the Queen needs me. Some of the fellow traveling species that came with us are in need of comfort."

Francine just nodded.

Red withdrew.

-----

Francine sat on the roof of the porch of her slightly larger than the others house, staring at the indigo sea that reflected the light of the two moons.

The medical bots had put everyone to bed, to recover from cryosickness.

They'd been asleep for a long time. The ship damaged, a Dandelion Fleet ship fleeing the Mar-gite attacks.

She knew, that tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe the day after that, they would have to come to grips that it was now a universe without their parents.

She didn't want to be a leader. She had planned on turning over governorship or leadership to the clan leaders and elders.

But a part of her knew that the laughing malevolent universe would take her plans and throw them away.

She didn't want to be a leader.

But the bright white light had reminded her.

There were greater things than her out there.

And sometimes, what you wanted didn't matter.

So she sipped her tea and watched the endless, unceasing, unchanging dance of shore and sea.