First Contact

Chapter 839: Book of the Dead

MANTID

This feels weird.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD

No emotional overlays, no video, no rapid polling.

It feels slow. Somehow I feel slow.

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TELKAN

Oh, wow, this is weird.

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PUBVIA

What is this?

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RIGEL

It's the original Gestalt linkage.

At least, I think so.

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CYB

These are the original channels.

IIRC they were changed to the emergency backbone before the Glassing.

Toward the end of the Resource Wars Era.

My memories that far back are pretty hazy.

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MANTID

Wow, I kind of remember this channel.

Oof. I remember how thrilled the Speakers and the Queens were that we had a direct line into Terran psyche and public opinion.

That led to a fatal mistake.

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LANK

Which mistake?

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MANTID

The Queens believed that the fact that humans suffered war fatigue would mean that a "Kill the Queen" strike would completely demoralize them and force them to surrender.

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RIGEL

A bad case of "reading what you want" since it ignores how humans go all "ants in a stirred hive" when outsiders hit them directly.

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KOBOLD

It really ended badly. Wow. I don't like being separated from Rigel.

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TREA

Oof.

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AKLTAK

EEK! GET YOUR FINGER OUT OF THAT!

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TELKAN

I beg your pardon. I hardly know you.

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PUBVIA

The least you could do is buy me dinner.

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RIGEL

Not even a reach around.

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NOT FOUND>

-HAVE A NICE DAY-

PUBVIA

Wow, I've never seen "have a nice day" look like a threat before.

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TREA

You can tell a human wrote that text.

It's almost a threat.

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TELKAN

Hey, um, guys.

The phasic shades are everywhere, right?

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RIGEL

Well, that's part of the problem.

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TELKAN

There was an... incident... while you were gone. We had some technical data passed to us.

But when the shades attacked, our phasic defense system kicked on.

Ours is a little different than yours.

Instead of driving the phasic shades crazy it appears to make them, well... they stop.

We might be able to help.

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LANK

Right now, I'll take any help I can get.

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TELKAN

I'll try to get it.

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Brentili'ik looked at the agent in front of her.

What had been classified as phasic shades had swarmed out of the ansible, the needlecast, and the hypercom. They had swept across the countryside, infested the GalNet and SolNet nodes, and swarmed through the streets.

It was quickly determined that the phasic shades, as deadly as they were pale and cold, were gaining access to the physical world through video and still images.

Everyone had gone on a smashing spree.

But the shades had managed to reach the first metropolitan area.

And then they had stopped.

"You're sure?" Brentili'ik asked.

The non-descript Telkan nodded. "Yes, Madame Director. They cluster around daycares and the like. It was tested with speakers and they all mob the speaker, going torpid. A lot of them curl into the fetal position in midair and appear to go dormant."

"Whose idea was it?" Brentili'ik asked.

"The phasic protection system, based on the system used to protect from Mantid Queen and Speaker attacks, has always had a slight malfunction in it due to broodcarrier psychic emanations," another Telkan said. This one had the badge of a master engineer on his cufflinks.

"Right. Something about compatible phasic frequencies," Brentili'ik said, nodding. "I remember the briefing. We decided to install the system anyway."

The master engineer smiled. "Yes. It appears that when the phasic shades attacked and you ordered the system activated, the broodcarrier signal went out across the phasic bands."

The non-descript one shifted slightly. "Approximately two hours ago an auto-destruct signal, aimed at the superluminal communications systems, hypercom wave receiver excluded, were received. As you know, the Telkan system repeaters service this whole quadrant of the former neo-sapient systems."

Brentili'ik felt her nose wrinkle slightly in disgust at the word neo-sapient, but nodded anyway.

"We blocked the signal, keeping out system online," the intelligence agent said.

"That puts the entire sector in danger," Brentili'ik said.

"Noooot exactly," the engineer said.

Brentili'ik looked at him.

"The phasic shades exit the GalNet, SolNet, and other systems, hit our ansible and needlecaster, and instead of propagating or moving to the next point, they swarm out to surround the phasic defense systems. Once there... well... they go torpid."

"Are they moving through to other systems still?" Brentili'ik asked.

The intelligence agent shook his head. "No. We're not sure, but it looks like approximately ten to twenty percent of the phasic shades that propagated and moved on returned once the system was activated. We're boosting the gain on our signal to try to push it through the..."

Brentili'ik frowned as the intelligence officer frowned, his hand going to his ear piece. He listened for moment.

"I'll inform that Director," he said. He looked up. "Someone's trying to download a secure file through the gestalt channels again. They keep trying."

Brentili'ik cocked her head slightly, twitching one of her ears. "Which file?"

"We received it a year or two back. It's the engineering and construction specifications for a phasic defense system. The Gestalts received it back when the SUDS went out," the intelligence agent said.

Brentili'ik thought for a moment, then reached forward, bringing up her keyboard. She typed for a minute and leaned back.

"The gestalt system is online, it's just updating," she said. She looked at the agent. "Let whoever it is download it."

"Are you sure?" the intelligence agent asked.

"Is it classified?" Brentili'ik asked.

The intelligence agent nodded. "It's Terran make, Pre-Glassing, and we aren't sure about a lot of it, so we put a security classification on it."

Brentili'ik thought for a moment, idly reaching out and shutting off the holoscreen.

"Declassify it. Propagate it through the network. Maybe someone can figure out how to use it against the shades."

The intelligence agent nodded, his hand going to his datalink.

-----

TELKAN

OK. I've got it.

It's a big file.

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PUBVIA

Let's have it.

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>TELKAN is requesting permissions to transfer WhatsThis.DAT

>RIGEL has granted permission

...

...

PUBVIA

Let's have a look at it.

Hmm...

It's a big file.

Wow.

Trea, Mantid, take a look at this.

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LEEBAW

What is it?

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TELKAN

Some kind of phasic system. It's the size of a Bolo tank.

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AKLTAK

That's big.

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RIGEL

Using the nanoforges and creation engines you can get this thing up and running in about two hours.

It should work.

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TREA

OK, send it as a priority to everyone who still has an ansible link.

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PUBVIA

You know, some worlds are probably either so swept up in trying to survive, are chaos worlds, or are tomb worlds, we might want to put some kind of timer on it and order it to auto-build.

I know, I know, autobuild is risky, it might cover the planet with them, but we're going to have to take the chance.

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RIGEL

And we're still going to have to address the Atrekna problem.

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MANTID

We don't know how long this chat-room is going to last.

We're already getting reports of shades in hyperspace and jumpspace.

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TREA

Great. So everything is haunted now.

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LANK

If the Atrekna rely heavily on phasic energy as we believe they do what are the chances that they survive the phasic shade attack since it appears that the phasic shades attack the strongest sources of phasic energy and normal phasic protections have no effect other than to enrage and agitate the phasic shades?

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PUBVIA

Was that all one sentence?

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MANTID

Be nice.

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TREA

More than likely they've been knocked on their ass. It looks like the shades can move through their psionic network and psychic superluminal communications.

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KOBOLD

OK, so, we have, in no particular order:

The Unified Council.

LANK

Defeated

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I know. Hang on. Aside from the shades, we have, in no particular order:

The Unified Council.

The Precursor Autonomous War Machines Type I through V

The Dwellerspawn

The Atrekna and their servitors

Am I missing anyone?

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TREA

The Council is out. Unconditional surrender. As long as they aren't directly attacked by the Shades, they probably won't even notice.

They were culture cracked really badly.

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MANTID

The PAWM are in upheaval. We've got reports of the PAWM fighting each other.

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DASS

Not to mention we had about fifteen hundred of them show up and ask to join us.

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TELKAN

You didn't allow that, did you?

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DASS

Would you rather we said no and they went back to killing everything in sight.

By accepting their surrender and allowing them to join us, they work with us instead of being everyone's favorite murderous AI starships.

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TNVARU

But they destroyed our homeworld!

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LEEBAW

And the Mantid Glassed Terra.

Your point?

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TNVARU

All right, but I don't have to like it.

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DASS

Feel free to make that scrunchy face you do when you're irritated.

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RIGEL

The Dwellerspawn are going to be a continual problem.

Those hatching worlds, the Niven Rings, and the Doom Tubes are all out there.

But, Kobold, you forgot something.

Something big.

Or maybe I just remember it because I'm pretty much the oldest one in here.

Although, I'm surprised that DASS, BASS, and CYB didn't remember it.

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CYB

What?

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RIGEL

The MAD programs.

Does ANYONE have the keys to stop them?

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...

...

...

RIGEL

That's what I thought.

The TerraSol MAD systems are out there.

Right now, they're taking the fight to the Atrekna.

BUT, we have no idea what else they're programmed to do.

For all we know, these are "denude the Galaxy of life" MAD programs.

And we have no idea how to turn them off.

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TREA

Whew.

So everything but text is haunted.

Jumpspace, hyperspace is haunted.

Hellspace is Hellspace.

As far as we know, those shades are energized enough to last ten thousand years, at least, and they're in everything.

Wow.

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TNVARU

How is this the worst case for the Atrekna?

It seems like we're all being punished for their meddling with time.

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MANTID

Sometimes, that's just the way it is.

I'm sorry.

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TNVARU

But we just met all of you.

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LEEBAW

This is bullshit.

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TREA

We'll figure something out.

We've got Hellspace shielding. We can still move that way.

Well, some of us, anyway.

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DASS

You asked why we accepted the surrender and the rehabilitation of the PAWM?

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TNVARU

Yes.

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DASS

The PAWM use octogonal signals, not binary, but most of all, their holographic memory system is different than what we all use.

They can move through Hellspace.

Their inner spaces, as far as we can tell, don't get infested by phasic shades. Even if they do, well, it doesn't matter.

I'm in discussions with some of the PAWM.

They're willing to play courier for messages till we can rebuild the ansible systems. Even the needlecast system can be rebuilt.

The hypercom wave, well... we can't shut that down without getting access to TerraSol.

It might take a little while, but we'll be able to talk to each other.

We'll even be able to visit each other.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREA

Don't worry, kid.

We'll come out of this just fine.

You'll see.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

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