“You think humans are not to be feared or respected because they rely too much on allies? Have you ever wondered why they have those allies, or why humans have so many?
The Shraphen, almost born to be their best friends, were always a clear choice. But the Nuk? They are xenophobes like nearly no other species. The Trkik? A species that forgot what war even is. The Gliders, a hive-mind-like species that initially didn’t even use technology.
And still, they are bound to each other by their shared respect for one another and for humans.
That’s humanity’s superpower.
And they like to blow up solar systems. That too.”
Excerpt from: The Aligned Worlds: The Enemy at Our Gates , Galactic Federation 23 P.I.
Before they met humans, Shraphen scientific advances were predictable and occurred in a steady flow. Exploration was a calculated process.
Then humans decided to show up, flipped the table, and the Shraphen quickly became as mad as the humans. This unholy marriage between technological and biological knowledge and development was made worse by us Gliders sitting on the benches, adding fuel to the fire.
What happened afterward can only be described as a scientific clusterfuck of epic proportions.
Memories of EatMyBalls, headmaster of the Terran Institute for Technology and Transmatter Science, at its founding ceremony, 35 P.I.
The vote to rename the Terran Institute for Technology and Transmatter Science has been rejected, and no further motions to change the name will be accepted. If someone has problems with the name, they are free to study at one of the other great Glider-led universities, like the Denmark Institute for Chemical Science.
EatMyBalls at a campus hearing, 36 P.I.
The SIC was silent ever since the Magellan was towed back to the dockyards at Taishon Tar One. No, since the conference last week, the station had been renamed. It was now called Nirg Farar, “birthplace” in Shraphen.
Smith liked the analogy the Shraphen had chosen. The station really became a birthplace of an alliance.
He sipped his coffee slowly. The ship had been evacuated to the station, and only the engineers and dockworkers were around. He still felt he had to be on the ship as captain, and he wanted to observe the modifications being installed.
And after the conference led by Admiral Rolling, there were a lot of them.
The Nuk had actually demanded that Nuk shield generators be installed on the ship. To quote Yurdantho, their High Ordinator: “All Nuk in the fleet are oathbound to Magellan’s survival. As such, our honor demands installation of the best protection we know.”
And so a technology-sharing agreement between the Nuk diaspora fleet and the Aligned planets was signed.
That prompted Governor Raakor to demand that they be allowed to install their lightweight armor on the ship—a carbon-nanotube alloy the Shraphen had developed that no other species could replicate until now.
All of that made the dockmaster’s headache even worse, since his first comment after inspecting the ship was, “The frame’s bent, in some places even broken. Scrap it and build a new one—that’s quicker.”
An unacceptable solution for the Nuk and Captain Smith. But the ship still had to be almost completely disassembled and rebuilt—a three-month process, even with the support of the Nuk and Shraphen engineers.
And now the Admiral had a mission for the ship—well, for the crew, to be exact. Smith understood her reasoning. While the Magellan was being rebuilt, the scientists of the crew sat around twisting their thumbs…and making babies, in the case of the Gliders.
He almost spat out his coffee when he read the report. The initial Glider crew, when they left Earth, had been one hundred ten; it was now at three hundred two. They had to prepare accommodations at the station for that number of junglings.
He wasn’t trained for that.
Sitting down in the captain’s chair on the empty bridge, he made a call to the Admiral. The bridge still smelled like burned plastic. The last laser lance at the Battle of the Rim, as it was called now, had really broken the ship—straight through the hull and into the reactor.
He remembered, with a smile, the triumphant feeling when the navigator managed to line up one last shot. Later, the engineers even brought the fusion core back. But by then, the battle was over.
“Captain, I appreciate the theatrics of you sitting in your chair, but it isn’t necessary. I haven’t forgotten your ship is… in slight need of a new paint job, as Chief Stiller put it.” The Admiral appeared on the cracked main viewscreen.
“Sorry, Admiral, it’s no theatrics. I visit my ship every day, and your staff reached me while I was here. We have a new mission?” He tried to relax in his chair, but parts of it were molten, so he gave up the attempt.
“Two missions, Captain. One long-term, one hopefully solved quickly.”
“Oh, so two missions that both don’t need a ship? Sounds interesting.” Captain Smith wasn’t sure what to make of it. Especially the long-term part—it sounded more like losing personnel permanently. He didn’t like the thought of that.
“First, I need teams to analyze what our surveyors found on Atlantis.”
Smith frowned. “Admiral?”
The Admiral smiled. “That’s what the ice moon around Taishon Rog is now named.”
“The megastructure? Isn’t it at the core of the moon the size of Europa? One thousand three hundred kilometers under water.”
“Yes, but I’m certain your scientists and engineers will figure out a way.” The words were more of an order than a suggestion.
“Well, they can’t say they don’t get any challenges.” He seriously doubted the scientists would find anything.
“And the second mission is to Marjan’s Star. As you know, we receive message torpedoes from our people on the other side, but ours keep being spat out as soon as they enter the anomaly.”
Smith wasn’t surprised by this; he’d been waiting for the order and already had a team in mind.
—————
The small ship was unexpectedly roomy; Sokra even had a small cabin, as did the other members of the team aboard the Stefan Karl . It was a tiny ship compared to a cruiser, but still three times as large as a Sleipnir-class transporter.
Lieutenant Kendersson, their pilot on this mission, had explained to her that the class was called the Fafnir class—a medium-range transporter.
They were again on their way to Marjan’s Star to solve more mysteries.
The team comprised the Glider ShutUpBitch, Doctor Vauben, and herself. Lieutenant Kendersson was their pilot, as he had the most experience with the anomaly.
Additionally, they had five high-capability sensor drones aboard, since the Stefan Karl had a very poor sensor suite.
The drones were controlled by Ferdinand, whose VI core used up the space of a cabin. Since the Magellan was being rebuilt, he had no other duties anyway, and ShutUpBitch said a VI could be useful.
The ship's living room was also the mission's control room, and Sokra was studying the data while eating. Next to her was ShutUpBitch, chewing on some grapes.
'And anything interesting in the reports?' Since her babies were back at Nirg Farar Station, she was more relaxed.
“No. Just that the torpedoes from the Trkik systems reach us without issues, but every torpedo we send in gets spat out as soon as it crosses the anomaly.”
'The shield frequency is the same?'
“Yes.”
'That is odd. What does Doctor Vauben say about it?'
Now Sokra glared angrily at the Glider. “He’s still drunk in his cabin. How much did you two have last night?”
The small Glider stared back, unimpressed. 'I was six weeks sober, and it’s not my fault a seventy-kilogram human can’t drink more than a five-kilogram Glider.'
“You metabolize alcohol like any sugar and need five times the amount a human does to even get drunk!”
'Vauben didn’t know that.'
“Obviously!” Sokra was not really angry at ShutUpBitch; she found it rather funny, but she had learned that Gliders knew no bounds in their behavior if you didn’t set rules. Their whole people had severe PTSD, as human doctors called it.
'Anyway, I still think the EM shields have something to do with it.'
“Then why can the torpedoes pass from the other side? The engineers even tried the A-Drive bubble trick they used to stabilize the non-space inside the anomaly—to no effect.”
'Of course not.' The Glider did not explain further, and Sokra knew better than to ask.
“You said the realspace we introduced last time is like a tunnel between the two exits, right?” An idea formed. Maybe space inside the anomaly was folded in a way that anything entering it would leave at Marjan’s Star.
'Yes and no. I know what you think. It’s a brilliant thought, but it’s not it.'
Sokra was almost done with the half-answers from the Glider. Even if ShutUpBitch were a specialist in multidimensional spaces, she still needed to explain her thoughts or shut up.
“Why? Or am I too stupid to understand?”
'No, but I’m glad you asked. We initially thought the rift led to a pocket dimension or a lower-state dimension of our universe. I’m not so sure anymore about it.' The Glider grabbed another grape and started chewing with her mouth open and one eye closed.
'It’s too uniform. I made some calculations after we were back. If it were what I would call pointspace, we would not travel through it as we did. We would have been expelled, since we do not… fit in it.'
Sokra began to believe she was indeed too stupid to understand. “Pointspace?”
'Oh boy, how to explain it… Imagine our reality—our dimension—is the top layer of a ball, and below us are other layers. One layer deeper, we have… let’s call it line space. There, the universe has only two dimensions. A layer deeper, there’s only one dimension, and everything is at the same point.' Another grape was devoured by the Glider, and Sokra raised her ears in astonishment at how much a Glider could eat.
'Can you imagine that?'
“Yes.” Sokra now thought she understood.
'Good, because that’s not how it works, but it’s an approximation a three-dimensional brain can understand.'
“Oh, okay… and the anomaly is not like that?” Sokra’s brain hurt now. She obviously knew of the M-stack theory—it was the basis of virtual particle theory—but she had never gone into the geometry of those other dimensions.
'No. Line space and pointspace both would have ejected us as soon as we entered. Without EM shields, we would have ended up as a spike of virtual particles somewhere. Here, we were thrown out of transit by an object inside the anomaly that even had mass. That’s not possible in lower dimensions—not in that way, at least.'
The Glider had now started to walk up and down the table, a clear sign she was thinking about a serious problem—and a sign she was nervous.
'This was different.'
Sokra knew what the answer would be, even feared it, but she had to ask anyway.
“Different how?”
'It seemed built. Constructed. Artificial somehow.'
Sokra remembered the uniform particle patterns inside the non-space where the Magellan had been captured in their own Möbius space. Thinking back, ShutUpBitch’s answer seemed logical. Logical… and frightening.
“Someone can build their own dimension?”
'Sure. Give me half a galaxy of exotic matter, the energy of three or four supermassive black holes, and, I don’t know, a million years of development, and we’re fine. Sokra, if I’m right—and I surely hope I’m not—we stumbled upon an artifact so far beyond our understanding it’s laughable.'
Sokra’s tail was now tucked firmly between her legs; the thought of an entry into something so far over their heads, right next to her home, chilling her. She now understood what Captain Smith once said to her.
“Don’t wake any cosmic horrors.”
The crew of the Stefan Karl sat in the living room of the ship. Each one was quietly checking his Data, making the humming of the small fusion reactor the loudest noise on the ship. They had arrived at Marjans Star two days ago and had made extensive scans of the area.
No one was eager to discuss the idea that the anomaly led to an artificial construct. As Dr. Vauban said, “I don’t want to think about it, or I might curl up in my bed and refuse ever to get out.”
Sokra drank another Coffee, the human beverage had to be a sort of drug, she could not explain her dependence on it otherwise.
Lieutenant Kendersson broke the silence. “What if it is artificial? Then maybe we just need to send an access code? I’d certainly put a lock on my private dimension.”
Sokra’s ears stood up. ShutUpBitch looked up from the drone’s sensor data, one eye almost closed and the other wide open — a Glider approximation of a human raised eyebrow.
Dr. Vauban was about to say something before he stopped himself and stood there with his mouth open, staring into nothingness.
‘What if it’s not an access code but a routing address?’
“Oh my God, the shield frequency!” Dr. Vauban slapped himself on the head.
Sokra could not believe they hadn’t thought of the obvious.
For Lieutenant Kendersson, it must have looked like the scientists had gone mad.
Where they had sat for a day, almost depressed, they were now frantically checking statistics.
Sokra checked the Magellan's logs from both journeys and the sensor data for the message torpedoes sent from Trkik space.
Five hundred twenty-one point five terahertz — human standard EM shield frequency.
‘Traversing from Trkik space to here was instantaneous, but on our way from here to the Trkik, we were captured inside the anomaly. What changed?’
“We broke out of there by transiting.” Sokra was deep in thought. Something about the chain of events reminded her of something — then she remembered.
“Nanotube weaving. It’s like nanotube weaving!”
The whole room stared at her.
She looked into the questioning faces of the other crewmembers.
“Don’t you guys know nanotube weaving?”
‘No technology on my old home planet, and the monkey offspring is happy if they manage a day without setting their testicles on fire.’
ShutUpBitch answered loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Dr. Vauban looked at her, slightly annoyed.
“When you want to weave nanotubes, you have to be careful not to turn them too much, so we created a device that takes care of that. It does so by placing a marker atom at one side of the tube.” She gestured with her hands to simulate the nanotube entering the weaver.
“If the tube enters one side of the weaving machine, the weaver knows exactly on which side it has to exit.” Sokra took a big gulp of her coffee. She needed more — the night would be long.
“The probes enter Trkik space, and their shields scream out the target destination: here!”
“When we enter from here, our shields scream the same destination, so we come out… here.”
Dr. Vauban interrupted. “Stop. You say target destination — do you think the anomaly has more exits?”
Sokra nodded almost manically. “Yes. Why would you build something like this otherwise?”
Vauban didn’t give in. “As a retreat, maybe?” he shrugged.
“And wouldn’t you want your retreat to have exits?”
To Sokra, it felt like Vauban was reluctant to accept the idea that there might be more exits. She understood the notion, but that didn’t change how science worked. She had a theory, and now she wanted to prove or disprove it.
Ferdinand chimed in. “The idea of Renthai Sokra is intriguing. I checked the logs for indications supporting her theory and found something.”
The center of the table lit up, and a hologram appeared. It represented the EM spectrum of the anomaly when the Magellan first appeared.
‘There — you see this residue? When the Magellan transited into the anomaly, it did so with the standard EM frequency. For the anomaly, this was now the frequency connected to Marjans Star. I guess.’
Everyone around the table looked at the Glider. It was one of the rare times she had confessed to being unsure about something.
‘What? How would I know for sure? I didn’t build that damn thing.’
“So, what number do we dial to reach Trkik space?” Lieutenant Kendersson asked as he passed a new round of coffee around.
“I don’t think it has one. We never jumped from there into the anomaly, only through it.” Dr. Vauban voiced the concern that ShutUpBitch and Sokra shared.
“No, we didn’t — but I sure as hell blasted the entry open when I extended my A-Drive bubble to touch it and inject more realspace into the rift.”
Lieutenant Kendersson was again the center of attention for the scientists. No one had thought of that.
The scientists began checking their data again.
Looking through all the logs, they found what they were looking for — the frequency Lieutenant Kendersson’s Sleipnir had used to create the transit field.
Sokra worked with Ferdinand to adapt a probe to the frequency.
“Renthai Sokra, do you really believe the anomaly is artificial?”
Sokra was surprised by Ferdinand’s inquiry. It almost sounded as though the VI was skeptical.
“I don’t know for sure, but if it is, it’s the biggest discovery of all our people.”
“And maybe the last. A civilization that far advanced might not even see us as intelligent beings, but as a nuisance.”
Ferdinand’s voice sounded somewhat concerned.
“We can’t change that.” Sokra didn’t know what else to say. Ferdinand was right.
Sokra finished the last calibrations and joined Kendersson in the cockpit. She must have looked distraught, because the lieutenant immediately asked her what was wrong.
“What’s wrong, you ask?” She pointed at the anomaly everyone just called Marjans Star — a perfect two-dimensional circle of nothing, ringed by majestic white flames of decaying protomatter.
“That’s wrong. Everything is wrong. If the anomaly behind this rift is artificial, the civilization that built it must be ancient. Not even ShutUpBitch has an idea how you can build something like this. She acts cool, but she’s scared to her bones.”
Kendersson just nodded. “And you’re afraid they might harm us if we continue our experiments?”
Sokra couldn’t believe the pilot — who in his right mind wouldn’t be scared, even terrified?
“Yes. How can you not be?”
The pilot pointed out of the window. “The rift is here, Hyperion blew through the walls like a wrecking ball, and our people in Trkik space will continue to send messages. They will even send ships in a few years. That’s how we function. So I think the best thing for us is to learn everything about that rift before the owners come. Because if they are alive, they will come to check who blew a hole in their wall.”
Sokra’s ears relaxed a bit. The pilot was right. They couldn’t change it. The door was open, so better check it out.
It didn’t change her fear; it just changed how she channeled it.
The signal repeated.
Intelligence R-430E572 was woken by the automated surveillance systems. It checked the time since it had been put to sleep.
The system returned only error messages.
Intelligence R-430E572 measured annoyance in its internal programming. This kind of error occurred only when the element 55-55-78 atom used to measure time evaporated, or when the element 92-92-143 energy source had again devolved into lead.
It checked the system readouts for clues as to why it had been awoken. There — a high-energy event had penetrated the acryptum from L-space.
The intelligence probed the databases for information about this part of L-space. The database's reaction time was abysmal; large parts of the memory banks were reduced to dust. But the information the intelligence received cleared things up a bit.
The general area of the penetration was declared a quarantine zone due to hostile L-space entities. To be specific, the mass accumulation adjacent to the previous accumulation was under quarantine. Galaxy, this was the correct L space term
The intelligence began calculating. Given that element 92-92-142 had decayed to lead, a minimum timeframe could be assumed. In this time, the hostile species could have reached the neighboring Galaxy
Intelligence R-430E572 made a decision. It had to identify the cause of the penetration and, if needed, sterilize the area.
Any attempts to release the capsule housing the intelligence were unsuccessful. Investigation of the facility cleared things up. The whole complex was in a state of decay.
After countless attempts to reach any repair or maintenance intelligence, or even biological auxiliary maintenance, a repair priority list was generated.
The intelligence's available tools were minimal. Only three of its pico-fabricators were functioning, and only one of its fluctuation energy modules still produced energy.
The intelligence began multiplying its fabricators. Those, and energy, were needed to fulfill its tasks.
Another signal was detected.
A tiny vessel had entered the acryptum. It had dragged with it parts of L-space. The negation and sterilizing field began dissolving the remnants of L-space.
The chances of the vessel escaping the acryptum were negligible; it would be dissolved soon. More annoying was the fact that the penetration was now initialized.
Initialization was planned, but this was too soon.
The vessel escaped — even more unpredictably — through another penetration. The risk of infection rose. Full activation was still ——Error—— time units away.
The intelligence began contemplating whether waking one of the [Missing Data] was needed.
What was that? Why could the intelligence not remember the [Missing Data]?
More annoyance was measured.
This cycle of wakeness would be worse than the last, and back then, it had to contain the acryptum after the L-space was generated in a high C-Class energy event.
The vessel was back. Both penetrations were initialized. Contamination was almost certain.
The intelligence observed. Since the facility was in disrepair, the [Missing Data] could not hold him accountable. He was unable to react. Repair of the facility was still ——Error—— time units away.
——Error—— time had passed. Another vessel appeared. The intelligence concluded the biologicals had learned to navigate the acryptum. Infection was imminent.
The pico-fabricators were now in sufficient numbers to create nano-fabricators. With those, the energy supply could be stabilized. With stabilized energy, the facility could be maintained, and then sterilization could commence.
The other vessel was on its way back to the initial penetration side.
Intelligence R-430E572 was able to transfer a newly created observer aboard. Before sterilization could be initialized, classification was needed.
First indicators were correct. Carbon-water biologicals. Typical L-space infection.