The Captain waited as the curious hat seemed to run his hands across the new map. Finally, he spoke, "As I said, time plays many tricks. We pulled you out because you have spent a thousand years bouncing around in the Between. Welcome back."
The Chancellor found himself lost in the expanse. So many, so much. He couldn't stop his hands from tracing all the new knowledge, all these new people…In a whisper, he spoke, primarily to himself, "But this is wonderful! I always knew the galaxy was bigger than I would ever see but this…" His head raised in defiance of circumstance, "I see your people have spent your time well." Then his eyes narrowed, "Or do you just expand at any cost?"
All the HDF tech in the world didn't make him feel any better. He was too old to feel this young, he reasoned. Now he held back a smile as the Chancellor glared at him like an errant pupil. He shook his head slowly, “We are not everybody's friend but we are no one’s enemy. We hold no ground by force and any are welcome to come and go as they wish.”
His smile was genuine this time, “The Library Ships taught us well in our early days. I meant every word about our respect for your calling, indeed most of your kindred have a human with them these days. Someone has to know how to fix, for instance, a broken field generator and temporal-guidance-fixed points.”
The tinsel seemed to nod, then sagged a little. “I confess I know little of such things. This ship has been in space since before it found my people! It is inconceivable that it could fail…” he looked at the map, “...yet I am a Scholar. That it was inconceivable is a fault in me, not in a vessel that has served us so loyally. Very well.” He pushed his sagging hat back into place, “Captain, I am in your hands.”
The Captain wiped the map for a moment and approached the Chancellor, opening his briefcase to reveal a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, “We are going to need this as I tell you a story. If it helps it has a sort of happy ending, sort of. The best bit is you get to be the hero and this little lost ship of yours is going to be encased in diamond and sent to orbit the worlds for eternity as an example of why your mission is important to us all.” He began pouring, “Forgive me for checking but my AI tells me that your people can drink us under the table. I’ll be going easy because this is one hundred and eleventy-one years old and I want to enjoy it.”
He finally sorted out the seating by stacking a couple of the hobbit chairs together and raising his glass, “To you Chancellor, may you find the future everything you hoped for.”
The Chancellor took the glass carefully and let the scent teach him. Smoke, ethanol…age. No not just age. Care, love. Respect. It smelled of passion, it spoke to him of humans far more than a translator could. It held stories. “Tell me. How bad was it? This thing you are dancing around?”
The Captain sank his whiskey in one and refilled it. “Bad.”
He brought up the chancellor's map. “We had never gone to war in space. We had squashed a few pirates and smacked down a few smugglers but this was something else. We lost an entire world.” A quick smile crossed his face, “It’s a world that seems to attract the unlikely.” Then his face grew still.
“Then we lost more. The Swarm worlds had declared war on us without warning, our type, any single-minded species. At first, no one believed us but we armed up and we went to war.” He pulled out the sword and laid it across the map. “There is a reason we carry these. We began defending ourselves and anyone that was willing to take our help. Too many dead to count. One of their kind had been betrayed and helped us change their nature. It took a miracle but we won after a couple of hundred years. The swarm worlds were altered to think for themselves, no more slave fleets and fanatics.”
He looked at the tiny dark eyes hiding behind the whiskey glass, “This is not just a story. Many swarm planets died. Entire species and spacefaring civilisations died at our hands. We don’t answer for what they did, we saved what we could. But it was a sin, an affront to our soul, an evil we endured so that we could live in peace. And you have nine of them on your ship, Chancellor. And I have orders that go back that far.”
This time he just sipped at his glass, “Chancellor, people are coming. Only a trickle, for now, those few that are allowed to penetrate human Intel and my Fleet but soon everyone will know of your ship and its crew. I guess you have questions.”
He waved his hand at the map again and it played out the war, years turning into seconds, the flickering and dimming a terror to all involved, now all forgotten and forgiven but still a horror.
The Chancellor watched as the future played out on the map, all his worlds expanding and thriving and then…hell. Suddenly an entire arm turned red, then another... The centre collapsed and everything held until it began to fail. Slowly, then all at once. Years passed quickly as he watched everything he believed in fall apart. Then it pushed back, reclaiming space for whatever remained of his people. Then victory of a sort. He saw the community regrow but familiar names, entire worlds that he had known and taught disappeared forever.
He carefully took off his welcome hat and summoned his porter “I will be wearing something else. Please put this somewhere safe.” He then shuffled over to a cupboard and began hurling the contents on the floor until he found a box. It was unmarked, save for a ribbon holding it closed. The porter moved to help but a stern hand was raised, “No. This is for me alone.”
The porter leaned in, “Sir you can’t put on a hat to save your life and this one is heavy. I’ve served you through this incarnation and I’m damned if you’re going into the next one looking like a fool. I’ve got my own eternity to worry about.” He tore away the box and broke the ribbon, revealing an impressive black cap. He lifted it carefully and placed it with precision, adjusting the bells to ‘formal mourning’ and then with a slight nod stepped back. He looked briefly at the alien. Honestly, it needed a tailor. Maybe two. With scaffolding.
Captain Gaynor watched as his new Xeno contact watched his future burn and then heal. He could have gone a lot slower but he was going to run out of time. Exactly like that stupid war, slowly and then all at once. He needed this nailed down and the ‘good guys win again’ out of the way. He was slightly surprised when it became an issue about hats. Then again, the HDF had rewritten his base code to fit a fucking uniform. A different hat would have been a lot simpler.
He sensed that the black hat was formal, so he stood up and waited. If it meant what he thought it did… then he would have to explain why he killed one of Santa's elves. He carefully picked up the sword that he had laid on the table and replaced it in its sheath. He bowed again. It never hurts.
“Chancellor, this is your ship and we are currently trying to establish it as a Library Ship, under human protection. They are all under our protection, it shouldn’t single us out that much. The galaxy is filled with lost ships and paperwork. But this is your ship and I will treat it as such.”
He watched the Chancellor that now appeared to be wearing a Halloween decoration shake his head solemnly. The bells made a nice tune, sort of don’t-go-in-the-cellar vibes and then he spoke in that dark voice that any headmaster could raise at will, “You will not hunt my people for the sins of their descendants. I will not part with any crew member for your revenge on history. Not to you, not to anyone that seeks it. I will return the ship to infinity rather than lose my crew to such injustice. I have Spoken.” His voice stayed solid even as everything else seemed to shrink.
The Captain seemed to think about that for a while and then nodded slowly, "Good. That puts us in agreement."
He waved at the display again and it focused on a section of space, "This is what used to be called 'Dark Space'. It was planned to be used for human colonies before the war happened—lots of clever techs to terraform them into something nice, ready for when we had the numbers. We then repurposed some of it as a refuge for the rescued, the rest as a bastion just in case we lost the war. Anyone we could save we gave them one of those worlds as soon as we could terraform them into suitable habitats." He shrugged, “Most of our Terraforming ships were trapped there anyway, it gave them something useful to do.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes lost in the swathe of worlds that had hidden so many secrets. "Then we won. The planets were turned over to allies and former enemies." Some ancient distaste ghosted his voice.
The Chancellor heard the bitter ring of victory in the human's voice and bowed, "That all sounds suspiciously like a happy ending." He waited for the bells to stop ringing and added, "I am a Scholar of history… even though I suppose ancient history might be more accurate now. The Victors don't generally admit to the horrors they inflicted along the way. I will not part with my crew because you wish to rewrite history." He looked up at this apparently reluctant warrior as his hat gave a frustrated ring, "So what are your plans for us?"
Captain Gaynor poured himself another finger. Or two. His glass frosted automatically as he poured and the AI would probably have something to say about his drinking. He was well aware that she checked. Then he sat back in his uncomfortable seat and said, “Well, Captain, it's up to you, really. We can let you go your own way or we can upgrade your ship so that it doesn’t fall through the cracks in space again and let you do your own thing. The problem you have is that some species have very long memories…the sort of memories that means they will burn your ship out of space the moment they see some of your crew. We will recover what we can afterwards and probably avenge any such an attack on a library ship, but I’m not sure how that would help you in the short term.”
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He took a deep drink and savoured the taste. Time, smoke and alcohol trying their best to create a moment. The Chancellor looked on, his curiosity peaked regardless of the circumstances, “Why would you choose to drink something so valuable on such a difficult day?”
The Captain raised his glass and his eyebrows and replied, “Memories in humans are best reinforced by scent and taste. It's what we do when we want to ensure that any memory moves from short-term to long-term. Strangely, we also use it to move long-term memory into temporary oblivion but that won’t apply unless this goes terribly wrong.”
He put the glass down and looked down at the small and worried creature, “Or there is our way.” He centred the map onto a variety of systems.
It had footnotes: Swarm Bastion 3 (Archaic) Swarm Destroyed. (Extinct)
Swarm Bastion ‘Plentiul’ (Archaic) Swarm Suicide (Extinct)
Swarm Memorial World, ‘The Withering’ (Multiple Extinction Event)
The screen hesitated for a moment and then…
….Temporal Anomaly Declared. Mapping is currently unavailable…
The Captain grinned as Earth took off the gloves and showed an ancient iron fist. Information is power. So is blowing shit up, but he preferred confused friends rather than well-informed enemies.
“We will take those that are again under threat and then we will bring them to the old hive-worlds and let them become something new in the universe. The Queens can engender a female clone, a new beginning for them and then we will give them a world, supervised by their own kind.
Their memory is mostly genetic, so at least they can build a future even if they have lost some of their past. It’s the best we can do for now, but bringing nine species back to life under a new sun will help heal my people and add to the universe. That is what I meant when I said that you will be a Saint to our people and a miracle and triumph for the Library Ships. You are about to save worlds so buckle up” He poured the sad dwarf another drink. It looked like he needed one so he filled the glass.
The two of them fell into silence. Then the planning began.
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“The humans are up to something. Their maps have just wiped eighty systems from my system. “
“Are you sure it wasn’t the intern? He lost the sun on Tuesday.”
“If he could do this shit I’d pay him. I want us full speed in the other direction right now. I still haven’t finished repairing the ship after they got pissed at smuggling. Nav, get us the fuck out of their way.”
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“Sire, I’m afraid they have used their accursed spell. They have declared that all their actions are within the ‘Terms and conditions of using their beacons. You will have to find a higher-level Sorcerer to dispel that magic. I cannot even read the runes. I believe we need at least ninety-five windows and an upgrade to service pack two? Perhaps a bag of holding?”
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Rocky sat at the foot of a rather grand table and listened. He had already picked out the ones that were in for a serious change of career and gender but he relished the conversation of those from his childhood. The galaxy had become so big, he had almost forgotten when a handful of worlds had been his everything. If it was one lesson that the humans had taught him it was that it was huge. He still wore his ‘Don’t Panic’ T-shirt on poker nights. Even the disrespect felt strangely comforting, as he sat knowing that his people now owned the stars alongside the finest allies they could ask for. Human AI changed the game when immortality had become commonplace. The organics were fine if they would stick around long enough for a proper conversation. They never did, but still.
His Captain quietly sent him a message and he looked at the Engineer. Their eyes met and a slight nod passed between them.
Rocky started, “So, my new friends, your Chancellor told us you had many questions. Perhaps you would like to ask them?”
One of the Scholars raised a hesitant hand, “Forgive me, I know only a little of your people and nothing of the humans you travel with. Are you a symbiotic species? I have no record of any stone…any silicate species travelling as a crewmember. Perhaps you shared a planet?”
The Engineer piped up at that one and seemed to take a good look at Rocky, “You're made of what?” Then he grinned and looked at the Scholar, “Just kidding. We were delighted to meet a Silicon species, even one as stubborn as Rocky's people are. It proved all our science was wrong, it was awesome.” He looked around the table with his now familiar grin, “Bet it came as a shock to you lot too. My people threw parties for a week.” He grinned again as he attempted to pick up some of his food that seemed to be crawling away.
The Scholar had come from the deeps of Central space, surrounded by a million inhabited worlds. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he came from the depths of nowhere, only vacuum and spinning rocks for company. It still made little sense. “So...you had a party because everything you thought you knew was wrong? Did I understand that correctly?”
The Engineer had cornered his escaping food under some salad but he looked up, “Hmm? Oh yeah. Best day ever. Well, that and the Library Ship. But it was cool.” He laid his fork over the leaf, hoping to hold his prey in place as he spoke. “That's what you guys do right? New knowledge means new options, new science and new friends. Bigger worlds, bigger ideas. Science is always going to be wrong until the heat-death of the universe is complete. We are all just trying to keep up…” He stabbed the fork into the salad leaf with satisfaction until he raised it and discovered that his salad had moved and was now trying to pick up his knife in self-defence. He looked around at the table, “Uhh…your food is trying to use tools. I think it's sapient. Can I have it to go?”
Rocky had to say that his Engineer was one of the finest examples of humanity that he knew. If you boiled the whole species down you would be left with … very angry soup probably, but metaphorically you would be left with several billion people agreeing with each other violently. His people had lived on the edges of the ‘civilised’ worlds for millennia until the humans had arrived and opened every door, sometimes even using the key. Humankind remained happily oblivious to their actual power until someone pushed them too far. Then you had days like today as they bent the entire galaxy around them to repair some perceived ancient evil and heal some dark wounds in their history.
He remembered the Swarm wars. He was just slightly surprised that the humans did.
No one else would care that any species from hundreds of years ago had failed in their attempted genocide but…humans. Do no harm. Leave only footprints. Radically change the political and military balance of the entire galaxy, crush all the enemies before you and then just shrug apologetically like you had just farted at the dinner table. Humans. His dark eyes held a certain gleam when he turned to the company.
He smiled at the Scholar, knowing that the whole crew was listening, “We are not symbiotic. My people are old and we tend to stay that way. What you have yet to discover is that there is more than one kind of human. You need to throw a party because everything you thought was true…isn’t. We were the first to meet their immortals but now…” He looked at the ceiling, “Untested Ideas, could you make an appearance?”
A voice echoed across the room. “Fine, but I’m taking my shuttle. And you can tell the Captain.”
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Sir, a human Fleet is assembling! They claim they are dealing with a ‘Temporal Incursion’ and are wiping maps and Intel. I count over seven thousand human trading vessels now marked as late/unavailable/cancelled.” He looked at his boss, “It's what they did when the smugglers pissed them off. Shit is going down.”
The Xeno sat back into its bath, “Well they don’t tend to lie on such an industrial scale. What the hell is a ‘temporal incursion’?
The crewman hummed to himself for a moment… “Something from the past is biting us in the ass or they have another dragon poking its nose in.”
The Matriarch absorbed this and raised a hand, “Withdraw all our ships from human space and send them…how much have we got in the Emergency fund?”
The crewman spent another moment going through the numbers, “Enough for about three fleets without crew.”
The Matriarch nodded, “Present it to the human ambassador as a gift. They will build six with the money and crew them for us. If it gets through the humans then we move into the Dark. We better start planning. After my bath.”
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The XCC offices were never silent as the quickly-ageing silent heroes of humanity juggled a million conflicts, emergencies and morons every minute of every day. If one of the thousands of AIs sent it to your desk, well the shit had already hit the fan. To get to this particular desk the fan needed to have exploded and then turned into a sentient fan-monster and then be running for office in a politically sensitive region while wearing the corpses of a human ally. Godzilla would have needed to take a ticket.
“Why?” He asked, “Why am I suddenly being sent money from” the Director looked down at the list, “everyone?”
The AI tried to be sympathetic, “Sir, You called a Temporal Incursion and they have absolutely no idea what that is. They see a human fleet assembling and they want us to fight whatever war is on the way while they dig deep and stay out of the way.”
The Director frowned. “I haven’t even called the Fleet. These are just some tourists. It's good for everyone that we recover those swarm species but that's not a war… it's social engineering with some heavy lifting.”
The AI smiled at him, “Sir, most species have never seen us assemble more than thirty ships at a time. This one was redlined and we have slightly more than that moving right now. Six-thousand, nine-hundred and one more to be exact. All moving to HDF beacons and built to HDF standards. Right now it looks like we are invading the seven hells.”
He didn’t get his position by remaining oblivious. “Fine. Recover the Swarm and when we are done announce that the Incursion is resolved and thank them kindly for their support. It's now classified as the I-Will-Kill-You-Myself level of security. No one stands down until the mission is complete. We will run this as if it was a real threat and our skittish friends are going to fund the entire exercise.” He looked inwards for a moment and then announced, “I want a new Dark Space. We needed it before and the Galaxy is as bloody stupid as always. Take whatever budget you need and find us another eighty worlds. Bury the numbers in this stupidity. Thank you.”
The AI silenced the Comms and took a moment for herself. She was a human and proud to be one but the organics…they saw patterns where there were none. Until suddenly it was obvious. Eighty worlds? Level Nine… ‘The Director will turn up in your office with a knife’ level…Cool.
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