Just because you think you're top the heap, the best of the best, the most badass predator in the galaxy, doesn't mean there isn't someone tougher out there.
We Lanaktallan learned that the hard way.
But because we were willing to accept reality, we learned from it and grew stronger. - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
"It's a weird war," CPL Ralvex, 4th Telkan Marine Division
The mess hall was a busy place, even at 0200 hours. Individuals, small groups, teams, even whole platoons came in to eat, shoot the shit, and leave again.
A being simply waited in line, if there was one, to get to the single troop sitting behind a podium, printed their name, their service number, their unit, then signed their name. Once inside, there were three places to get food. The automatic kiosks, which had stuff already prepared, just grab something, wrapped neatly, and usually to go, and head out. A being could even scan a chit from other service members to grab stuff. Usually those beings grabbed drinks on the way out.
I buy, you fly agreement.
The second one was the traditional line of cooks. You simply asked what was on the menu, grab a tray and cutlery, and went down the line selecting just how you wanted your food. In a mess hall like this one, that served multiple species, there were four lines. Once you had your food, you went and sat down, ate, took your dishes to the washing area, then left.
Easy peasy.
The last one was new to Captain Thriktree. Nutriforges. A being went up, used the context menus, selected a meal, personalized it, and the nutriforge tossed out a meal on a tray, cutlery, bowls, whatever. The menu was wide and varied, a lot of it was stuff that most troops would never be able to afford or even knew about.
Which was why Captain Thriktree sat eating a salad of nuptree leaves and remtolla meat slices.
He'd never had it, but seen it on plenty of media, usually eaten by the cool, the hip, the rich.
Which is why he shouldn't have been surprised it tasted like farm fresh ass.
He lifted up a leaf he had dabbed sauce on, with the remtolla meat slice on it, and put it in his mouth, trying not to wrinkle his nose in disgust.
He failed.
After a little while he just got up, went over the disposal, and tossed the whole thing in.
He tried his luck at the nutriforge again. Trying a meal he had seen in several movies and had always wanted to try.
It has all the taste of tepid water and was about as enjoyable to eat as chewing rubber.
He sighed and tossed it back, then said hell with it and ordered up a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Whatever a 'pear' was, it sounded inoffensive. It was a golden fruit, speckled, heavy and juicy.
It also tasted really good.
Which surprised Thriktree, since it was a fruit native to a planet that wanted the inhabitants to die. As in, hated them.
He was halfway through his meal, which was pretty damn good once he figured out he was supposed to dip the sandwich in the broth instead of drinking the broth, when he saw something strange.
A white and black spotted Terran dogboi, in adaptive camouflage, walking next to someone that Thriktree's implant ID'd almost instantly.
Major Wooleeloo, the battalion executive officer.
Who had gotten his head blown off two days ago.
Thriktree watched as the Major went over to the nutriforge and started playing with it. The dogboi, who had a medic armband on, watched as the Major quickly moved through the menus.
Thriktree frowned. The major had three sandwiches, a salad, some roasted meat, and four desserts. Then two glasses of drink and two cans.
The Major saw Thriktree and made a direct line for him.
Thriktree watched as the Major sat down and nodded.
"Captain," the Major said.
"Major," Thriktree answered.
The Major leaned down and started sniffing at everything. About halfway through his sniff-testing Wooleeloo turned to the dogboi.
"This all smells amazing!" the Major blurted out.
"Everything will," the dogboi said. "It will last a few days but fade into pleasant familiarity," the dogboi tapped the table. "It will taste amazing too."
"I gotta try this," the Major said. He stabbed a piece of roasted meat. "I hated this," he said, then shoved the whole cut into his mouth, chewing rapidly. His eyes opened wide. "THIS IS AWESOME!" he blurted out around his mouthful of food.
Several times the dogboi had to stop the Major from jamming the whole sandwich into his mouth, and three times the dogboi had to stop the Major from drinking the entire drink in one long gulp.
"You'll be sorry!" the can squeaked when the Major opened it.
He sipped it. His eyes got wide. He upended the can and began drinking it as fast as he could.
"Stop," the dogboi said, a voice full of infinite patience. "Your heart is going to explode," the last was said with what Thriktree's implant told him was a gentle smile, but seemed to be just lifting the upper lip to expose a LOT of teeth.
Finally, the Major finished shoving everything into his mouth, tried tasting the tray, then was escorted away.
Thriktree shook his head, smiling, and finished up the last few bites of his food, disposed of the tray, then grabbed another pear from the kiosk on the way out.
It's kind of getting a little weird, he thought to himself.
0-0-0-0-0
Admiral Sharnat stared at her staff. Four of the members had been killed during the combat in the system and were now sitting at the table in immaculate uniforms like nothing had ever happened. They didn't look different, they didn't act different (once the euphoria wore off), they didn't seem different at all.
But Admiral Sharnat remembered that they'd been killed due to enemy action.
She took a deep breath, then started the meeting.
This is weird.
0-0-0-0-0
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
Is TerraSol or Dominion in here?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
I'm here.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
Can I ask something?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
That doesn't mean I'll answer, but knock yourself out.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
You stated you would not turn over the people in Afterlife to us.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
No, we will not.
You are welcome to come and try to take them.
There is room in this grave for you.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
Then why are you returning the recently killed in action to us?
We just got a message torpedo stating you've returned tens of thousands to life and sent them right back into their lives.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
Killed in action? That's military. They go through military priority processing and are returned as soon as possible.
They aren't in the Afterlife. They don't enter the Afterlife. They reach the Rainbow Bridge and are determined if they are still capable of fighting and existing in a normal existence. If they are, they are returned by the Valkyries. If not? Well, they are welcomed to the Afterlife.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
Wait, they don't use the normal system?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
They have often either suffered massive trauma due to their deaths or it was so quick that they honestly are surprised they are dead.
Literally did not have time to scream.
They go through priority processing, a completely different system than civilians.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
And you just return them?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
Their soldiers. It's what they do.
Death is part of the job.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL
I don't understand.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
Let me get this straight. You can return military members, but not civilians?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
Correct.
You act as if we have control of the system.
We do not.
It was built prior to the Glassing. It has existed since the Glassing. It has collected souls for nearly fifty thousand years.
We do not control it, nor do we know who does.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
We have some idea.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Don't hog that ice cream cone to yourself. Share!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
It's... it's a marvel. Nakteti the Traveler returned.
She described part of it.
What she can remember.
She claims that her memories are scattered, disjointed, and full of contradictions.
She says that it is almost fully on automatic. A vast mechanism, beyond understanding. A mechanism that does not even fully understand itself.
Crewed by those born and raised to care for it.
To care for the souls within it.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
That's poetic, but not very helpful.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
She was changed by her travels.
It is hard to explain.
She explained very little before she left again.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
LANAKATALLAN GALLOPING FIELDS OF INTROSPECTIVE
That is widely... oh come on, leave my header alone... unhelpful.
Surely we know more about it that 'it is some great and dark machine' after all this time.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
We know it's started working again.
Beyond that, no, we don't know anything.
Humans built it. It brings the dead back to life. It stores the dead for eternity.
That's what we know.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
Right.
That's what she said.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
What?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGEL
Nothing.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
So you'll return the military casualties back, but not the civilians?
Why?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DOMINION
Because that is the way it chooses to do it.
Feel free to go find it and argue with it.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
it is that way because that is its function and form
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
OK, who is that?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
that is not your concern
i am here
that is all you need to know
i am always here
watching
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Yup. The Terrans are back.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL
How can you tell?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Because now shit's all weird.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
The 'sun' was nice and warm, shining down on the Glass Beaches of Iota Layer. Children ran and screeched in joy, adults lounged around, and the waves constantly moved back and forth beneath the controlled fusion reaction masquerading as a 'sun'.
Angela Angus Kusumoto heard her datalink ping and slowly rolled over, smiling as she rested her head on her arms.
The sun was warm on her skin, she wasn't hung over, and the day was nice.
Her datalink pinged and she cursed herself for jinking her day.
"Kusumoto here," she said, answering the call.
"Recall. Alpha Supervisors. Mandatory Atlantis recall," the mechanized voice said.
Angela groaned, getting up. She grabbed the disc that made up her bathing suit, put it over her bellybutton and tapped it. The bathing suit nanites crawled across her body as she returned her lounger and blankets to little disks. She put them between her breasts and headed out.
Figures, my first day off in a month and someone's panties are all in a twist, she grumbled.
She took the skytram, getting a good night's sleep as it moved between the massive Dyson shells. She road the 'split rail' between the shells, slowly moving up to Alpha Layer.
Which meant it only took her two weeks to get back.
The whole time she slept, studied, and went to the party car to relax and enjoy herself.
After all, the party car was right there, why shouldn't she enjoy herself during the endless travel on a hyperspeed transport that moved at tens of thousands of miles an hour but had millions of miles to travel.
She took the elevator up to the top of Atlantis, dressed in her work uniform.
She had no idea who the genius was that decided that the uniform should look like a leotard and a body suit had drunken sex and then a malformed baby, but the system wouldn't recognize anything else as official uniforms and nobody had figured out how to change it.
The fact the system called it a 'speed suit' didn't make things any better.
She'd worked with the SUDS for nearly sixty years. She knew that it was some joke that nobody got any more.
When she walked into the master control room, the first thing she noticed was the consoles for the Military Recovery and Rebirth stations were fully operational and the seats were fully manned.
Senior Supervisor Janelle Brethrite walked up and shook her head.
"The system's processing non-humans now," Brethrite said.
Angela gave out a long suffering combination groan and sigh. "Of course it is."
"And once again, despite the fact we're supposed to be Atlantis Control, apparently all we get to do is watch the system work," Brethrite said.
Angela moved over to a supervisor's desk, her nameplate still feeling like it squeaked it you looked at it too quickly, it was so new. She sat down and tabbed up her console, looking quickly at the feeds.
"We trained all our lives, and all we all are glorified log books," Brethrite said.
"Uh-huh," Angela looked over the telemetry and logs.
The SUDS codes were all from the same galactic x, y, z, q coordinates. Mostly Hamaroosan, some Telkan, a few Tnvaru, even a few Lanky in the system.
All moving to the Rainbow Bridge and then being returned to life.
She checked the destination codes against the hand written notes she'd made.
It had been a hard lesson that if you input the coordinates, destination codes, or the SUDS file codes into a computer document, once the user saved the system locked the file, encrypted it, changed the file name, and put it in secure information storage.
Whoever designed this place was a combination of genius and paranoid lunatic, Angela thought, not for the first time.
It took a little while, but she found the destination code in her notes.
"It's a Solarion Iron Dominion medical ship," Angela said. "Based on the destination codes, it's out in what was considered the Long Dark back before The Bagging."
"Great. Well, at least that part of the system is working," Brethrite said. "Just add it to the big list of shit we can witness but can't effect."
Angela just shrugged.
"Things have gotten weird since we started synch-up."
0-0-0-0-0
The swing creaked slowly as the man sitting on it rocked it back and forth. He had a mug of hot chocolate (of course with mini-marshmallows, he wasn't a barbarian) in one hand as he stared at the fat snowflakes slowly drifting downward.
The door to the comfortable house opened and the lady of the house stepped out onto the covered porch. She moved up and sat down, lifting her own cup and blowing on the froth to cool it.
They sat in silence for a long while.
"How are you feeling?" the woman asked.
"Better than before. Same as yesterday," the man said.
"That's a good thing. You were touch and go at first," the woman said. She stared at the snow. "I love the snow. It makes the world quiet."
The man just nodded.
"The high-security lockout is still in place," the woman said.
"As long as that pulse keeps going through the system, it's going to run in high security mode," the man said. "It was hardened against outside attacks and is able to compensate and learn how to defend itself."
The woman nodded.
"The thing is, the SUDS is resistant to single point of failure faults. It took about four different failure states back when Sam-UL crashed the system, and that was at the hands of a top tier hacker," the man said.
"We need more information on that pulse," the woman said.
The man nodded.
The woman sipped at her cocoa.
"Do you want me to go out?" the man asked, almost hiding the trepidation in his voice.
The woman shook her head. "No. The person I have trying to find out about the pulse is the perfect man for the job."
"I hope you know what you're doing," the man said.
The woman laughed. "I think I do, but who knows, maybe I don't."
"Don't say that," the man said.
"Whatever it is, it's going to be fun," the woman smiled, insanity glimmering in her eyes.
"Except you have a weird idea of fun," the man said. "And it's usually painful for other people."
The woman began to laugh. A wild thing, full of malice, dark humor, and brittle edged insanity.
Her laughter echoed off the snowy trees and through the night.
0-0-0-0-0
The single ship came out of hyperspace silently, slowly staging down until it entered realspace without even a ripple.
It sat in the long dark between the galactic arms, the lights off, no emissions.
The massive ship just floated.
In one lab a powerfully built man with dark brown skin, a bald head, and a bushy beard leaned back in the chair, staring at the computer screen in front of him.
"This should work," he said.
One of the many slender, bald men at the workstations in the lab/fab station looked up. "If the enemy cooperates."
The sole bearded man smiled.
"Of course they won't. That's what I'm counting on. They won't cooperate," he said.
"Because they're the enemy," several of the slender identical men said.
"And the enemy only exists to be destroyed," the busy bearded one smiled.