Battle is the great redeemer, the fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged, the one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what they were going in. - Master Armor Sergeant "Feral", First Terran Temporal War, Age of Paranoia, Terra-Sol.

Mukstet watched as each of the officers introduced themselves, feeling sweat wick up on his spinal fur. The lowest ranking was a Major General of the Copper, in charge of Sector D4, who had taken over when his superior officers were killed during the initial beachhead assaults.

He noticed that the Terran seemed perfectly calm. Back straight, legs straight, knees at a 90 degree angle, hand on his knees, chest out, shoulders squared, chin up.

"Lord Knight Casey," one of the Generals said.

"Lance Corporal Casey is fine, it's my actual rank," the Terran said.

The General frowned.

"I threatened to kill General Trucker. I was transferred to the Telkan Marine Corps and busted to Lance Corporal," the Terran shrugged. "There were reasons, but none of them good."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"You stated you can explain what happened to Terran Descent Humanity, Lance Corporal?" another General asked.

Casey nodded. "I can, but it's a long story that I have to start from the beginning to explain," he sighed. "You better start recording and I hope you have CONFED MILINT and MILINT and NAVINT on the line hiding behind everyone's avatars."

There was a chuckle from an unseen viewer.

"Well, go ahead, Lance Corporal," Admiral (Upper Decks) of the Iron Hawthorn Rwarktwark said.

"During the Age of Paranoia, following the Third Temporal War and the Fifth Dimensional War and the Second Precursor Autonomous War Machine Incursion," he started.

All of them frowned and Mukstet expected an interruption, but none came.

"Scientific advancements on Terra figured out three things," Casey said. "Number one: How to make exact holographic data copies of neural systems of virtually all living things. You're familiar with that nowadays. It's come a long ways from those early brute force systems."

"The second, and arguably one of the most important, was the interaction of spooky and strange particles, including spontaneous generation of paired particles with the creation of a singular particle. I don't understand it fully, even though it was explained to me repeatedly, but apparently they developed methods of not only creating up to twenty linked particles at once, but also where those spontaneously generated linked particles would manifest," Casey said. He shrugged. "We use that, to some extent, in our communications and molecular circuitry."

Mukstet noticed that all the Generals and Admirals were paying close attention.

"But the big one, which is where this story leads, is the discovery and mathematical exploration of what Chromium Saint Peter and those who work with him call "The Stack", which is something called a dimensional tesseract architecture. Believe me, they lose me hard here," Casey said. He turned his palm up and the holoemitter glimmered. A six pointed star made up of blocks appeared. "Each block is a dimension. Inside each dimension is a set of interlocked temporally split 'multiverse' that expands and contracts according to temporal weight. If they expand far enough, the outer edges of that 'timeline' (Pete hates that word) migrate to one of the nearby blocks or create a new one, pushing the other blocks outward."

Mukstet stared at it, nodding. He kind of understood it.

"At the top are the hypermassive particles that make up the 'spark' of the Big Bang events that create these universes. At the bottom are the expended universes. Once a universe is fully expended it slides 'up' to the sparks, which then fire, creating a new universe," Casey sighed. "I've seen it shown mathematically," he winced slightly. "For a brief moment I saw it. All of it. I almost stroked out, but for a brief second I saw it all."

He shook his head and Mukstet reached over and patted his leg. Casey looked over and smiled, his rough hewn face lighting up. "Thanks."

Mukstet just nodded.

Mukstet could tell that a lot of the officers wanted to ask what this had to do with anything.

There was a loud rumbling noise and Casey looked down at his stomach. "Could I get something to eat that isn't nutripaste? And no Turkey Surprise, I've already figured out that the surprise is that it's made of turkey buttholes."

That got chuckles.

General Donuthum Shaklatar leaned forward and pressed the button his desk, asking for light snacks from the mess.

"Thank you. Been about, oof, five years since I've eaten anything that wasn't recycled nutripaste," Casey said.

"You're been gone four months," one of the Admirals said.

Casey nodded. "Galactic, yes," he rubbed the side of his face with the eye patch carefully. "A lot longer in my relative. Close to sixty years across twelve different assaults on deep depth Atrekna fortress systems, with only a month or two out of armor before redeploying."

"Who did you deploy with?" General Andrill asked.

"The Biological Apostles, but I'll get to that," Casey said. "All right, where was I?"

"Multidimensional stack," General Shaklatar said.

Casey nodded. "Now, ancient Terran scientists, working with Treana'ad, Rigellian, Kobold, Pubvian, and a few other scientists, developed the SUDS. The problem was, at the time, superluminal communication required arrays with antenna measured in the kilometers and power plants with steady standby output measured in gigawatts with peak output in the low terrawatts," he took a drink from the glass. "Some genius Terran figured something out."

"What's that?" Another General asked when Casey paused to take another drink.

"All right, in the stack, which Peter calls "The 9D Stack", there are universes, realities, dimensions that failed for one reason or another," he said. "Deadspace is one. Darkspace is another. Redspace is a third. He told me about five that they knew of back when he was working on the SUDS program."

Mukstet frowned. He'd learned about the hyperatomic planes, but that was it.

"In one of these 'failed' universes, they found what they needed," Casey said. He held up a hand. "I can't explain the mathematics, but... it's a repeatedly failing Big Bang Event that the Earthlings managed to take control of, managed to make it when the Big Bang Event goes off somehow, controlling the matter blast wave, the resulting matter is aligned into new shell layers," he suddenly laughed. "Each new shell layer is outside the previous shell layers yet is actually smaller than the interior shells, if you can wrap your head around that."

The Generals and Admirals were frowning and Mukstet saw a dozen new windows open up, all showing the wallpaper of the various intelligence agencies, including the Confederate Office of Scientific Intelligence.

An aide brought in the snacks and Casey picked up a sandwich, eating quickly while the Generals all whispered to each other. Mukstet noticed he pulled a piece of meat out of the sandwich and almost burst out laughing when he realized it was smoke roasted turkey.

"Oof, that hit the spot," Casey said. He looked around. "Ready to continue or do we need a few minutes while the Intel Dwonks rush to grab data to prove me wrong?"

"By all means, Lance Corporal, continue," General Shaklatar said calmly.

"The Big Bang Onion was chosen as the perfect site of the SUDS architecture. Apparently, due to where it sits on the 9D Stack, every single point in our universe, across the various timelines, touches the BBO at certain pre-determined points," Casey rubbed his face again. "Again, Pete lost me, but basically, there's locations in the BBO that, if you stood there, you'd be able to see what looks like a window into our reality, but here's where it gets weird. Each reality, like ours, is layered somehow, the closer it is to the BBO, the thicker the 'band' is, with what looks like a thin piece of glass between each reality, as they stretch on to infinity, each band becoming thinner and thinner," Casey took a sip of water. "That means that any SUDS transmission/reception relay only has to broadcast the data in a range of nanometers to reach the transmission/reciever in the BBO."

Mukstet could see that some of the Admirals and Generals wanted to ask questions or argue as Casey kept talking.

"This made it the perfect place to build the SUDS facility itself. Now, this is where it gets into complete insanity," Casey said.

"Now?" Admiral Dawnhill asked, reaching up and smoothing down the spines on the back of his head.

Casey nodded. "Now it gets crazy."

"Somehow, Peter can explain it, I get lost with subparticle gathering and distribution gravitational/temporal construction array and stuff like that, the entire basic system was built using a Big Bang detonation. Crude nanoforges from the Age of Paranoia provided the rest. Once it was set, it was tested on humans and proved to work," Casey took another sip of water. "They were in the middle of integrating the other races, and installing something called the phasic processing primary processor array when everything came apart on everyone."

"A Big Bang," the voice from the wallpaper of COSI was heavily masked.

Casey shook his head. "The Mantid attack on Earth. Suffice to say, the massive phasic assault blew the system out, shut down whole sections. The literal millions of people working in the SUDS facility, most of which had been born there, went crazy, died, or were murdered."

"But the SUDS worked until a few years ago," someone else, Mukstet wasn't sure who, said, their voice full of disbelief.

"The military emergency SUDS system worked, and only barely," Casey said, shaking his head. He wolfed down a cracker. "So, we fast forward almost nine thousand years, and we have what went down."

Casey sighed and looked up. "Right now, the prevalent theory is that the Atrekna did it. Well, that's true."

He looked at the cameras and the two officers.

"To an extant."

He rubbed his hands on his pants.

"All right, here's how Pete explained it to me," he said. "The temporal manipulations of the Atrekna caused a cyclic and recursive data error in the constant SUDS stream. That made those with SUDS go on local and master copy only, with data from local copies being put in a different storage and processing, which, by the way, was completely blown out except the storage section," Casey said. "Second, the biological reversion attack. The SUDS views modern humans as mutations or bio-engineered, not actually humanity.

"Third, the collapse of the Atrekna's home dimension and the strange/spooky/temporal particle cascade it caused, which affected nearly two million SUDS connected human ship crew members of her armada," Casey stated. "That blew out more of the SUDS system, forcing it to go to the last emergency standby protocols."

Casey shook his head. "It also activated the mad systems."

"Mad?" A general asked.

"Mutually Assured Destruction," a Pubvian admiral stated. "Dead Hand systems. Final Solution pogroms. Nasty stuff, total Age of Paranoia stuff. Stuff like the Sailor Moon Sisterhood."

Casey nodded. "That, combined with the Case Omaha on TerraSol, kicked the system again," he looked around. Now, that's only a single point of failure out of three.

He gave a grin. "The Gods seem to like threes."

"Do you need a break?" an admiral asked.

Casey shook his head. "No, lets keep going," he sighed. "All right, unknown to everyone else, there were two black box projects going on. One by Confederate Intelligence, one by a stellar omni-corp. Both trying to figure out what was wrong with the SUDS.

Casey glanced at the two Gray Girls against the wall. "I was told by Chromium Saint Peter and Enraged Phillip and the Digital Omnimessiah himself to relay this information."

The two Gray Girls nodded.

"Wait, you met the Digital Omnimessiah?" someone asked.

Casey nodded. "We'll get to that part later," he said. He sighed again. "The stellar corp black box was attempting to get the SUDS restarted somehow. Their team found a reset function in the code."

The big Terran paused a second.

"They clicked the OK box and the system did a hard reset on humanity," Casey said. "That caused another die-off, which made another system kick in. The Extinction Life Event Catastrophic Recall and Recovery Architecture," he gave a short laugh. "Everyone calls her Ellie."

"Her?"

"She's an actual AI. Not a virtual intelligence, not a digital sentience, a hard coded firmware backed AI. She's smart, she's mean, and she has total cosmic power. Her systems are heavily guarded, heavily fortified, and completely separate from the rest of the SUDS, the least of which is an airgap of literal razor thin dimensions to create a dimensional air-gap between her and the rest of the SUDS," Casey said. "That's where the kids went. Ellie grabbed them."

"But..." someone started.

Admiral Ordnuk held up his hand. "Save your questions."

Casey nodded. "Then, there was the other black box," he glanced at the Gray Girls. "They recruited the best of the best in various engineering fields, gave them a pocket dimension black box, and put Legion in charge of it," he said.

There was some talk, all over each other, and General Shaklatar muted them.

"Yeah, that Legion, also known as Vat Grown Luke," Casey gave a big grin. "Although I mostly heard him called Dhruv."

Casey took another drink and ate another tiny sandwich in two bites.

"Legion hired a hacker. Now, this part is important, this hacker was name Sam-UL. He came at it sideways and somehow got into the system," Casey said. "Using a hacked mat-trans, he literally got into the system with another digital sentience, both of them in disaster frames."

Casey looked around. "For the first time in thousands of years, Dhruv estimates nearly fifty thousand years BBO local, a repair crew had arrived."

Casey frowned and suddenly looked at the General. "You need to tell your mechanics to get their grubby hands off of Lozen before she gets sick of them touching her and takes steps."

General Shaklatar tilted his head and frowned. "Lozen?"

"My armor. Your armorer keeps touching on her, trying to open her access ports like she's a common trollop. Tell them to get their hands off of her. Right. Now," Casey's eye patch had a faint amber glow leaking through it. "Stop touching her. Now."

The General touched a control, contacting his aid and ordering the mechanics to leave the armor alone.

Casey sat silent for long minutes then nodded. "Good. They don't touch her. Not now, not ever."

The General just nodded.

"Anyway," Casey looked at his hands. "Meanwhile, we were going toe to toe with the Lanaktallan and Atrekna," he looked up. "We're not sure what was activated, but they reset part of the system, causing another cyclic recovery array to go off, killing everyone remaining and putting the SUDS templates in cold storage."

Casey looked around. "Three hits, one right after another," he said. "Now, Ellie went on another gathering spree. Somehow she got shut down, well, her gathering programming, anyway, but by that time there was less than five thousand humans left in the galaxy."

Mukstet refilled Casey's glass with water and dropped a lime slice in it.

"That last gather though, that's jumping ahead," he sighed. "Here's where it gets unbelievable."

"Now?" the General gave a slight chuckle. "Now it gets unbelievable."

Casey nodded. "Well, now is when we have the Digital Omnimessiah visiting Telkan-2 and recruiting the first Telkan Marine, a green mantid, a LARP queen, a military intelligence analyst that had been raised from the dead by a necromancer after suffering the Black Cauldron Protocol along with a full conversion cyborg member of 75th Rangers (Old Blood) that the necromancer revived, and the last Ringbreaker," Casey said. "Additionally, General Trucker was recruited, a teenage Hesstlan girl, and the Dying Joan of the Neko-Marines."

He rubbed his hands on his pants. "Along with a digital sentience who had managed to escape Sam-UL, who had gone completely insane, a rescued corporate researcher that turned out to be Chromium Saint Peter, and the remaining Biological Apostles."

Casey looked up at the ceiling. "The Digital Omnimessiah gathered us up to assault the SUDS, to, in his words, assault Heaven and save, save not kill, Sam-UL."

Casey took another sip of water. "During the assault on Heaven, we encountered a group that had been deliberately messing things up, destroyed them, but that got us invading Hell to save the Detainee and approximately fifteen trillion souls. During all of this, Sam-UL got killed," Casey shook his head. "He was a complete crazy person. Gods above, I feel sorry for him. I wish he didn't have to die, but I hope he's in a better place and no longer in pain."

"At one point Sam-UL threatened to kill everyone in real space, take their SUDS files and the SUDS files on record, and delete them. Peter knew he'd try it, and had managed to ensure all deletions would go into cold storage and the traumatic event recovery and psychiatric therapy system," Casey said. "Sam-UL threatened the Detainee but the Detainee just reached forward and pressed the button, staring at him the whole time.

"He killed her for it," Casey said. He shook his head again and Mukstet patted his leg. "It was crazy. I was going all out, first time since the last Ringwar. The Council of Eternity cloned me, ran off Novastar armors, older versions of me and the armor both, and sent them to stop me."

"That sounds like a nasty fight," Admiral Ordnuk said. "Four against one in Novastar suits in Ringbreaker configuration."

Casey shook his head. "No, sir. We didn't fight. I showed them that they were homunculi, false life, that their armors were not even awake. I offered them the chance to join me, their father, and Lozen, their... hell... their mother-sister, my wife-confidant-secret lover, you know? And if they joined me, they could earn redemption and earn their souls in battle before our Gods fighting in the Digital Omnimessiah and humanity's name," Casey shrugged. "Of course they joined me," he looked up with a grin. "The so-called Council of Eternity didn't seem to understand real people very well."

"We managed to stop the phasic shades, tens of thousands of them, we managed to put down the Screaming Ones, millions of them, that Sam-UL had recreated and released, and took the system," Casey said.

He looked at the screens, at the cameras.

"Then, about a year ago my time, from inside the BBO, Ellie did her final mass gathering event. Peter and the Digital Omnimessiah sent me out to tell everyone what happened," Casey said. He gave a sighing chuckle. "Now, you're all caught up on the War in Heaven and the Assault on Hell and what happened to everyone."

There was silence for a moment before General Shaklatar broke it.

"I think... we should have everyone review these recordings. You can all make a list of questions and have them put through my office," the General said. He looked at Casey. "You look like you could get a good night's sleep."

Casey shrugged. "I've been sleeping in chairs in the rec room of Atlantis Main Control or inside of Lozen for more than a few decades. I'll be all right with a ditch and some soft dirt."

The General gave a laugh. "We can do better than that," he looked at Mukstet. "Chief, since this man is a Telkan Marine, can you put him in the Bachelor Officer Quarters?"

Mukstet nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent, Chief," the General turned to Casey. "Get some rest. We'll have, undoubtably, a lot of questions for you later."

"I don't understand the technical stuff too well. I couldn't bring out a data-cube. It's hard to explain but somehow the system keeps what it classifies as secure data from leaving the BBO facility," Casey said. "Pete tried to override it, but it's firmware encoded and he's not sure where. He thinks maybe Epsilon Sector in Alpha Layer, but that's a couple hundred million square miles of machinery, computer equipment, cities, farms, orchards, livestock, animals, insects, fish, rivers, mountains, glaciers, and stuff like that. You know, lots of stuff."

The General shook his head. "I can see where it would be hard to find."

Casey stood up. "At your disposal, sir," he said, and saluted.

The General and the Admiral saluted back.

Mukstet walked with Casey, politely ignoring the two Gray Girls that followed them out of the headquarters building.

"I'd like to stop by the chow hall, then wherever they've got Lozen," Casey said. He sighed, and to Mukstet, he seemed exhausted. "She doesn't like being separated from me."

"I get it, Marine," Mukstet said. "You're going to have a busy couple of weeks answering their questions once they start making lists," he told the Terran.

Casey shrugged. "They have until Peter yanks me back," he sighed. "Life's gotten really complicated lately."

Mukstet nodded, holding open the door to the chowhall for the big human.

"It's been a weird war," Mukstet said.

"Yeah, it has."