"They thought the Lemur With a Rock was a myth, a scary story for children, exaggerated in the retelling. They soon learned that the stories had been watered down." Os'hitt'amoo, Lanktallan Great Historian.
"STOP DOING THAT, LEMURS!" - Battlecry of the Atrekna, Second Precursor War
"She exhaled smoke with a smile. She said: 'come and see' and I saw. I saw a pale horse and his name that sat upon him was Trucker, and Hell followed with him." - Jawne'e Crash, Lanaktallan Bard and Prophet, Second Inter-Arm War
Angela Angus Kusumoto sat in the comfortable chair, leaned back and reading a novel on her datapad. It was standard stuff, lots of older cliches and tropes, but the author wove them together in a murder-heist mystery that was comfortable and relaxing to read.
Around her were work stations and consoles, all of them on standby, their monitors in power-saver mode, the computers in sleep mode. The windows were tinted slightly to keep the brightness from The Object from overwhelming one's eyes.
Or causing them to sprout legs and crawl off one's face.
She sat, feet up, drinking a Liquid Hate old french fries from under the car seat and pickled axle grease, feeling boredom but at least having a comfortable book.
A beeping noise caught her attention.
She looked over and saw one of the monitors was still coming to life.
Sighing, she got up. She recognized the beep. Somewhere outside a node had managed to synch up.
It happened at least once a shift.
It never lasted.
She still had another eighteen days on her shift. Then she'd drop down to Iota Layer and spend time with her family for five years before coming up to spend a month on duty while her family moved to Gamma Layer so that the time distortion was such that she was only gone three months.
This was her tenth shift.
Not that she was worried. She was still young, not even into her second century. She could expect to live another four to six hundred years unless she got caught by good ol' Mr. Misadventure.
She sighed as she bent down and looked at the screen, fully expecting it to be a rogue node out in Mantid, Treana'ad, or Rigellian space.
Last shift she'd had a Rigellian node pop up, synch up, and stay synched for almost three hours before contact was lost.
She frowned.
NODE SYNCH: OK
NODE CHECKSUM: OK
It was the next few lines that would matter. Angela had never seen any pass the next set of checksums.
NODE EXCHANGE TEST: OK
NODE DATA LOCK: 100%
She blinked, staring at it.
She tapped her datalink and put in a call to a supervisor as she sat in the chair and watched.
It took nearly two hours for her supervisor to answer and she didn't sound happy about it.
"What's wrong?" her supervisor sounded like she expected Angela to complain about how bored she was.
"You out of recovery?" Angela asked.
There was another beep.
NODE ACQUIRED
NODE SYNCH: IN PROGRESS
"Not yet," her supervisor said.
"You might want to hurry," Angela said.
NODE ACQUIRED
NODE SYNCH: IN PROGRESS
"Why?" her supervisor asked, then coughed, a wet sounding hacking. "Stupid cryo-slime."
"I've got node synchs," Angela said.
"Just run a clear and reboot, that'll clear it up. They can't hear us and won't talk to us," her supervisor said. "Seriously, Angela? You've dealt with it before."
There was another beep.
MASTER NODE ACQUIRED
NODE SYNCH: IN PROGRESS (PRIORITY)
"I've got two locked, three in progress, and a master node synch in progress," Angela said.
There was dead silence.
"Give me the code for the master node," her supervisor's voice was suddenly tight and intense.
She looked it up.
"A00001A0A1," Angela relayed.
"Angela, listen to me very carefully," her supervisor said. She sounded odd.
"OK," Angela set her data pad down.
"Go over to the Shift Senior Supervisor station," her supervisor said.
Angela moved to the center of the back wall, where there were a half dozen smart-consoles all in a semi-circle around a chair.
"All right," she said.
"Flip up the cover on the left hand forward panel on the arm-rest," her supervisor said. There was a grunting noise. "How is it my butt gets bigger in cryo."
"Cryo-fluid pooling," Angela answered out of habit. She tapped the cover and it flipped open. There was a fingerprint scanner and a keypad. "All right, now what."
"Put in this number," her supervisor said. "Dammit, my underwear rolled up. Ow ow ow. Stupid freezer burnt pubic hair."
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She was partway through the number when a dozen of the workstation consoles came on and she could hear the quantum computers kick in. She glanced at them.
They all read NODE SYNCH IN PROGRESS in red letters.
"I've got workstations coming online," Angela said.
"I'll bet. Finish punching in the number, you only have sixty seconds," her supervisor said.
She dutifully punched it in. The consoles all went live.
"It wants your fingerprint and biometric scan," Angela said.
More terminals came online. The smart windows around the control room dimmed to a dark smokey black. Node ID numbers started moving down the windows with SYNCHING or PACKET SWAP TEST appearing next to the ID numbers. There were two master nodes that had LOCKED next to their ID numbers as well as a half-dozen standard nodes.
There were even "sub-node" labels popping up.
"I've got nodes everywhere. The windows just went to interactive smartglass mode," Angela said. She looked down. "Still wants your biometrics."
"Do the following keypresses. I'll give them to you twice, then have you punch them in. Once you start you have fifteen seconds," her supervisor said. "Aw, dammit, my bra strap is twisted. Why can't I do anything?" there was more wet coughing. "Stupid cryo-snot."
Once she had heard it twice, she then followed along with her supervisor.
All the panels went live. The covers slid back from the arm-rest controls.
"OK, done," Angela said. She glanced at the windows. There were four master nodes saying they were locked and six others undergoing packet swap check. "Uh, you need to hurry."
"I'm two thousand miles away, hopping on one foot for the star-tram," her supervisor said. "OK, look around you, do you see the keypad with the red letters set in brushed steel?"
Angela sat down and the view of the keys in the armrest changed. "OK, I see it."
"Type in this number," her supervisor said. "It's 'Charlie-Papa-Echo-One-Seven-Zero-Four-Tango-Kilo-Sierra', don't screw it up."
"Got it," she said. "What did that do?"
"That'll wake up every shift member and do a blanket recall for everyone," her supervisor said. There was a background noise. "I know my picture doesn't match, I just came out of cryo," more background. "Just do a DNA scan."
Angela looked around.
A Master Node, labeled N6MAA108816, had just synched up. Lines were being drawn from it to other nodes that were synching up. The first Master Node that had come online was now showing its ID number -86475346- and it was locked into dozens of secondary nodes.
"Miss Bisa?" Angela said, watching the smartglass windows.
"I'm getting on the startram now," her supervisor said. "Wish the mat-trans wasn't still locked out."
"Miss Bisa..." Angela said.
"Yes?" her supervisor sounded calmer and Angela heard the distinctive three tones of a startram about to get underway.
Master Node 85376887 had come online.
"It's going crazy up here. What's happening?" Angela asked.
There was silence for a moment.
"Atlantis is synching up with Sol."
-----
Unverak stared at the holotank, sighing with frustration.
Following the Path of the Traveler had led him right here. The Strevik'al were right on his heels the whole time and now they were on the other side of the destination.
Which had turned out to be nothing more than a singularity and buoy that had welcomed him to the site of where TerraSol had been.
Sure, there had been a data download with a wealth of technology. Sure, the limited VI was willing to converse, but, frustratingly enough, it refused to part with more technological information.
That, and it turned out the facility with the VI was beyond the event horizon of the massive gravity source.
Despite demands from the government and military agents aboard the vessel, Unverak had been more than willing to do data exchanges with his Strevik'al counterparts.
After all, hadn't they survived the madness of the Clownface Nebula together?
Now he just stared at the holotank.
"Why did you want us here? At this particular time? In this particular location?" he asked nobody in particular, still staring at the graphical representation of the singularity.
"Sir?" one of the ratings, a Technical Specialist-Grade Six, asked, turning slightly.
"Talking to myself," Unverak admitted. He sighed. "Put the singularity on the main viewscreen."
It took a second for the data to be rendered in a visible method.
The singularity just hung there.
Just as it had for almost forty-thousand years.
He opened his mouth to say something, he never could remember what.
Everything went white.
LET THE UNIVERSE SHAKE IN THE WRATH OF TERRASOL
The world heaved.
He felt like he was being stretched. Like he was being crushed. Like each cell of his body was being pulled in a million different directions all at once from everywhere.
He tasted bitter copper and hot iron.
LET THIS UNIVERSE SHAKE IN THE WRATH OF TERRASOL roared in his ears.
He found himself laying on the carpet. Computers were wailing, he could hear runaway cracking of computers slowly self-destructing.
One of the naval personnel at least was still up and working.
"Grav surge! We've moved approximate one point six two light years!" they called out. "Readings coming back. They're scrambled. Attempting to compensate."
Unverak looked at the screen.
It looked like a yellow stellar mass surrounded by ten rings made up of overlapping planetary bodies. All but the inner two planets had rings made up by overlapping orbital bodies. The overlaps cleared.
Two ice class gas giants. Two supermassive gas giants. Six planetary bodies, including two dwarf planets, with one deep in the Oort Cloud. Plenty of orbital bodies around every planet and gas giant.
Each of the gas giants were surrounded by massive lattices.
He just stared.
Now he knew what had driven him to be in this spot. Why he had come here at this time, in this place.
I have witnessed your return.
-----
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
OW! OW OW OW!
MY BIG GIANT HEAD!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
DID ANYONE ELSE JUST HEAR THAT?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
PUBVIAN DOMINION
WHat? I Can'T HEar you! I'm DEAF!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGEL
fdasl;igiuy9xz0c8vyuaosidghxk l7a9sd8f7askjgfhna
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL
THAT WAS COOL! DO IT AGAIN!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
-----
TerraSol had always kept secrets.
It wasn't personal.
It was just her nature.
She loved her little creatures, just as they loved her. Sure, there had been arguments, there had been the equivalent of 'I hate you, Mom', and there had been the occasional "I didn't mean to!" from her little creatures as the Law of Unintended Consequences came back around to bite them in their little butts.
But she still loved them.
Held them close to her bosom.
And kept their secrets.
Which was why nobody aside from those who were carefully read in for the secret knew what it meant when power plants began coming online. Computers started spinning up. Lights started coming on.
Her favorite little creatures had once had to deal with billions of 'useless' members of their species.
So they had buried them.
But, being the clever little creatures they were...
...that which was buried was not dead.
Merely dreaming.
And not even The Glassing had disturbed the Dreamers.
But now it was time for that secret to be let loose.
She was loathe to.
But she knew her Mother, the Malevolent Universe, said it was time.
So she smiled.
And watched the Dreamers awake.
-----
"What do we have?" Grand Admiral Rajiv “Warhammer” Rosaline Manstud Beefchester said, staring at the holotank.
"We've successfully exited The Bag. No damage reported. No debris fields," a technician behind him stated.
He didn't turn around, staring at the screen.
"Deep space superluminal scanner arrays are providing data. Analysis... now," another tech said.
"We have five bogies. Small ships, destroy hull class," someone else said. "Light armament."
"Elapsed time estimation based on radioactive decay and star position is," there was a pause. "Thirty-eight thousand six hundred ninety one, with a two point two percent margin for error."
"That's too large of a margin with that much time. Refine it down," Grand Admiral Beefchester ordered.
"Superluminal arrays down. Hypercom wave is inoperative. Needlecast is down. Ansibles are down. No response across standard superluminal communication arrays," someone else said.
"Sir, Atlantis and Ghenna nodes are synching up. We have SUDS lock," another voice said.
Grand Admiral turned and looked at the Confederate Armed Service Five Star General standing next to him. The general had a weak chin and a slight pot belly, watery brown eyes, and muddy brown hair.
"What do you think?" General Beefchester asked.
"Either they're so far beyond us that they are basically doing magic," the General said. "Or they had the 'eternal empire' tech development collapse we've seen with everyone else."
Beefchester nodded. "We'll find out soon," he said. He jabbed his cigar at the icons of the ships that had been shoved back by Sol's re-emergence. "Those are probably 'modern' ships. We'll get scans soon enough."
The other General nodded. "I'd say the Lanky War is over."
"Or everyone deserves what we'll do," Beefchester said. He puffed on his cigar. "You know as well as I do that if we got let loose after only fifty-four years local, something went terribly wrong out here."
The General grunted.
"Don't worry, General. I'm sure you'll have plenty to do soon," Beefchester said.
General Imak Takilikakik just nodded, staring at the screen.