It was so obvious, in hindsight. - Meditations on the Barrier War, Lancer First Class Drali'imna Lovefell, Free Telkan Press, 25 Post-Terran Emergence

Imna held onto the arms of the chair she was in as the Nell and the rest of the flotilla eased down out of hyperspace. She had learned that it wasn't the normal crash translation the Terran ships normally used but rather a cautiously slow one that bled off the energies into hyperspace before the ships emerged from hyperspace into n-space.

It still made her stomach flutter.

Behind her, sitting in the huge throne, was Captain Decken.

Before, she had wondered why the Captain's throne was so large and roomy.

Now, dressed in his power armor, Imna understood why. He filled the throne with his physical body and his presence filled the bridge.

She could see the XO, Hemmit or Hettit or Hemtwit or something like that, sitting at one station, a robot next to him. There was a clear plastic cover flipped up to expose a red button that said "DO NOT PRESS" on it that he had his hand over. The robot's hand was over his, both of them staring only at the button.

The 'rewind drive' activation system.

She had looked it up. The rewind drive was a completely separate system, isolated from all ship's systems. There was a physical breaker that had to be manually thrown to allow it to receive data from the astrogation system. It was a one-way system, the superconductor cable unidirectional and with diodes as thick as her forearm. Other than that, there was a single heavily shielded copper cable using direct current, that went from the rewind drive to the big red buttons on the ship.

Pressing any of those buttons closed a circuit and activated the rewind drive.

Wrexit was down next to the drive, his hand over the big red button built into the side of the heavily armored drive core, a robot next to him with its hand over Wrexit's paw.

If Hetmwit and/or Wrexit was frozen by an enemy attack or otherwise out of action, the robot would press down on Hetmwit or Wrexit's hand to press the button or just press the button itself.

The ship was silent for a moment, the lights dim. Then they brightened and Enduring appeared in the holotank.

"Probes are launched," Enduring reported. "Probes are at full stealth."

"Now we wait," Decken said, his helmet in his lap.

Time trickled by slowly. Hetmwit went to the rewind drive core, Imna took over Wrexit's spot, Wrexit went and took a nap. After that, Wrexit took over Imna's spot, Hetmwit took a nap, and Imna took over for Imna.

The whole time the Captain and Enduring stared at the holotank's empty display, the viewscreens that only showed a realtime optical camera view of the system.

Imna was back to waiting to take Hetmwit's place when Enduring informed the Captain that everything was ready.

"Everyone take a rest shift. Twelve hours," Decken said, still staring at the viewscreen. "That is all personnel, including you, Enduring, and all robots. All living crew members are recommended to spend at least thirty minutes in the gym to relieve stress," he tapped his fingers on the helmet. "I will stand watch."

Enduring just vanished as the Captain stood up. Imna and Hetmwit went to the lift doors as the Captain moved to the button, resting his armored fingers on it with is left hand and putting on his helmet with his right. As the lift doors closed, Imna saw him take hold of the cutting bar, pull it from the magtac at his waist, and ground the rounded tip against the deck.

Imna spend nearly an hour in the eVR sim, working with the force lance, graviton weights on her forearms, biceps, calves, between her hock and ankle, on her thighs, on her forehead, around her neck, and around her waist.

She was exhausted when she went to bed and slept nearly ten hours.

A quick meal and she returned to the bridge.

The Captain stood stock still, one hand holding the hilt of his grounded cutting bar, the other hand positioned so his fingers were lightly touching the big red button.

Hetmwit moved over. "Ready to resume duties, Captain."

"Excellent, Number One," Captain Decken said, his voice heavily synthesized by this armor's vocal systems.

The Captain returned to his throne as Imna sat down. She flipped up the clear case and then locked in a key before turning it. She put her hand near another big red button.

Mister Smiley moved next to her and put his hand just over hers.

It was the button that would activate phasic shielding so hard and thick that it ran the possibility of giving everyone but the Captain brain damage.

"Remember, Mister Enduring, that there was a reason I chose you for this mission, despite your status as a Screaming One," the Captain said.

"Yes, Captain," Enduring hissed. "My hatred for you knows no bounds and I will kill everyone aboard this vessel before I ram it into an inhabited planet."

The Captain nodded. "Very good, Mister Enduring," he turned to Imna. "Ready, Mister Lovefell?" he asked.

Imna nodded. "Yes, Captain."

One by one he checked in with each station.

"Bring up passive data," the Captain ordered.

All three planets had RF and microwave communication to satellites that communicated with each other, the other planets, the ansible at the Oort cloud, the gas giants, the stellar stabilizers, and the construction lattice around the furthest most planet.

The satellites had done passive scans of the planet's entire surface several times. The ones that had been left in orbit when the Nell had been in the system the first time had went to full stealth, shifted positions several times, then had remained in orbit gathering passive data.

Data streamed through the holotank.

"Mister Enduring, display any life forms that appear to prey upon the beetle species," Captain Decken ordered.

"There are none," Enduring said. "Any large creatures appear to be kept tens of miles from the nearest beetle grouping."

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Decken just nodded, removing his helmet.

"Do planetary scans reveal a different axial tilt at any time in the past?" Decken asked.

Enduring blinked. There was a moment of silence. "Yes, Captain. Approximately thirty thousand years ago."

"Any Singer in the Dark signatures in the Oort Cloud or in the stellar mass?" Decken asked.

Again, Enduring blinked in what Imna had come to know was surprise. After a moment the DS blinked again. "Yes, Captain. Roughly forty-thousand years ago."

Decken just nodded, looking unsurprised.

"Evidence of Mar-gite 'cleansing'?" Decken asked.

"Thirty thousand years ago," Enduring replied.

"Are the Mar-gite still in their layered breeding stacks within the gas giants?"

"Affirmative, Captain."

Decken stood up slowly, moving to the holotank. One of the brightly colored beetles appeared.

It looked like liquid chrome with a patina of oil on it to give it iridescence across it. It looked like it was studded with little jewels, biologically extruded crystals only 1.5 to 12.5 millimeters.

"It's so obvious," Decken said softly, running his hands through the holographic image, which was set so that it would have the consistency of thick gruel.

Imna managed not to frown.

"Captain?" Enduring asked, his voice faintly trembling.

"It was your remark on greenies that made it all click," the Captain said, his voice far away.

"Greenie phasic additions only move the collective IQ up, at the maximum, five IQ points no matter how many greenies are part of the group. It tops out at twenty-five greenies. Any more does nothing," Enduring countered.

"For IQ," Decken said softly. He petted the antenna. "But that's not it."

"To form a hive-mind, the phasic connections would be obvious, even from orbit. With their structure, you would need trillions, millions of trillions to form a hive-mind," Enduring stated. "Even then, the beetles possess no manipulation appendages and lack the phasic strength for physical or even cellular manipulation."

Decken shook his head. "You are thinking too rigidly, Mister Enduring. It is obvious."

Imna wondered, for a moment, if the Captain had gone mad.

"As the Science Officer, I cannot understand what you are talking about? All scans show..." Enduring started.

"Show me the passive phasic scans, specifically above the beetles," he shook his head. "Filter out hive-minds, that is not what we'll be seeing."

Enduring hissed in hatred but still brought up the scans.

There were smears around the groups of beetles that numbered in the thousand as they happily munched their way across a plain of grass.

"There you are," Decken said softly. "Therrrrre you arrrre."

Imna shivered at the way he rolled the 'r's.

"Captain, what are you seeing?" Enduring asked.

"Bring up a phasic scan of the greenie phasic engineering assistance array," Decken said.

"Uh, yes, Captain," Enduring said.

Imna frowned. "What's that?"

Decken didn't move, 'petting' the beetle. "When Greenies gather together, their phasic energy raises the group IQ, but more importantly, it gives them a Boolean logic lattice to help with their engineering work," he said.

His hand moved to the phasic smear. "There you are. Binary and Boolean," he shook his head. "Artful simplicity."

The two phasic patterns were placed next to each other.

The one around and over the beetles was thicker, denser.

"There you are," Decken said softly. "Of course you are killing everything you come across. Of course you are hiding behind proxies," he shook his head. "The burning of the hyperatomic plane gave you no choice but to come for us, did it?"

"Who?" Enduring said.

"Your cousin," Decken said. "Just as omnicidal as every other digital sentience and artificial sapient system in the known universe."

"My... my cousin?" Enduring asked. He stared. "It's not a hive-mind?"

Decken shook his head. "No. A hive mind would not be so aggressive. A hive-mind might be 'there is only enough for one' but would unable to see its hypocrisy," he chuckled. "This one, it has no choice. It doesn't care about anything else. Any input would be seen as an attack on itself," he touched the beetle. "Or on the only thing that can create and support it."

"You're saying that the phasic construct is a digital sentience? A phasic digital sentience?" Enduring asked, his voice filled with disgust.

"Maybe not one beetle herd, but when you combine the thousands of beetle herds across the planet, it forms an analogue to you," Captain Decken said softly. He pulled back, his fingers tracing over how there were thin tendrils of phasic energy connecting the larger groups to smaller groups that connected to other smaller groups, eventually connecting to a larger group.

"A phasic neural network produced by the Digital Omnimessiah's perfect idiot of a beetle," Decken said softly. He shook his head. "It must have spent millions of years panicking, unable to figure out how to interact with matter, dispersing and re-coalescing over and over as the beetles gathered, died off, then hatched and gathered again.

To Imna, it looked like the suddenly appearing Enduring was flinching back in horror.

"Once it was able to affect its surroundings, it had only one choice," Decken said softly, turning from the holotank and moving back to the throne.

"What?" Enduring asked.

There was silence a moment.

"Protect the beetles at all cost," Imna said softly. "Nothing else matters. Nobeing matters. Nothing matters but protecting the beetles."

"Which are like trying to keep a meth'd up drunken suicidal toddler alive," Decken said. He picked up his helmet and looked inside of it. "The Digital Omnimessiah's perfect idiot."

"But the Atrekna created phasic computing arrays. We've created phasic computing arrays. If what you are saying is correct, the intelligence created by the beetles is able to create the creatures we fought in Hellspace as well as the creatures that attacked worlds in systems that were going to be Hellspiked," Enduring stated. "Surely they could create a phasic construct that could support them."

Hetmwit shook his head. "Everyone knows about superluminal drives. How many species have ever created the C+ cannon?" the Palgret asked. "The Mantid and the Atrekna were hundreds of millions of years old, intelligent in their own right. Creating that phasic construct would be a natural expression of their technical and intellectual abilities."

Hetmwit waved his hand at the holotank. "They might have overlooked something," he said. He stared at Enduring's digital avatar. "How many species have created something like you?"

Enduring was silent.

"Prepare for Rewind," Decken suddenly said, putting on his helmet. "Check your datalinks, make sure they are off."

Imna swallowed as she double-checked. It was off.

"Launch stage one," Decken ordered. He shook his head. "I wish we had the equipment to build phasic interface capable warbois."

A sudden eruption of white flame happened over one of the larger group of millions of beetles. When the white cleared, the ground was scoured to bedrock that glowed a sullen red.

The phasic construct around the beetles strengthened. A pulse went out to the satellites, to the other planets. Toward the ansible.

Which had already been destroyed.

"You're used to using other people to do the killing and dying for you, aren't you?" Decken asked. He looked at Enduring, his helmet hiding his expression. "Wipe two of the planets. Spike the gas giants," he smiled. "Leave the third planet with only four bursting charges."

"That may leave one of the phasic constructs intact to tell others what happened here," Enduring protested.

Imna could hear the smile in Decken's voice. "Good. We will teach them what fear tastes like again."

"Command executed," Enduring stated.

On the viewscreens the gas giants started to contract. The planets seemed to swell slightly as planet crackers, hovering for hours in orbit, drove into the crust of the planets. Two of the planets, one in the amber zone, the other in the green zone, appeared to burst into flame.

Three more hits on the larger beetle hordes, and four kinetic strikes into the oceans of the sole remaining planet.

"Passive sensors have detected ships rising from the nearest gas giant," Enduring stated.

The screen showed the gas giant suddenly burst into flame.

One of the ships remained, streaking toward the planet the Nell was near.

"Get ready, Rewind crews," Decken said softly.

There was a white flash.

Imna heard Enduring scream.

The side of her head where the datalink was exploded in pain so bad she cried out.

The ship went dark.

The vibration ceased.

She pressed the button. blind in one eye.

Nothing happened.

"NOW!" Decken roared.

Everything turned to tightly woven vibrating strings.

The Nell and the rest of the ships of the flotilla vanished.

In orbit of the remaining planet a missile launcher's warboi had survived. The missile launcher had somehow survived. Half of the circuitry was slag, the rest had erratic pulses of energy cascading through it.

But the warboi had survived.

Hopping up and down, hooting, it fired.

It was grinning through the blood on its jagged pointed digital teeth then it slammed into the silver ship.

The ship exploded.

On the planet below several beings of pure energy thrashed in powerless, impotent fury.

The beetles kept munching away happily.

[The Universe Liked That]