Longshot felt the dark creep in. The enemy ship was cooling around her, with a dead...operating system, and open to space in a couple of places. This was the enemy. A picture painted in bodyparts and malevolence. She was an explorer, a science vessel. Not some dark Avatar of the human race, bound by unseen oaths to fight all evil. She could change her mind, order her people back into the fridge and run so fast, so very fast. Live with the worst memories, remember that without her the Empire died weeks ago. She was on the verge of making that call when her Chief arrived.

“ You mind if I dismantle that Quantum drive? I figured out a thing. A useful thing. If it works, and it's a big if, I might have some good news. How’s Hammel doing?”

Her Avatar answered, “ Apparently, I am going to be in charge of running this war. Adri convinced someone that I’m the one to win it for them. They have no fucking idea. It’s like fighting the tide. Soon the next wave will hit, then the next, and bigger every time. How do you win? You run. Only no-one wants to run. So many people are going to die.”

The Chief stood quietly for a minute. “Yeah, but it’s always like that. Always reaching for one day more. One more chance to change things. You just described life. Beat the next wave, work out how to build a bigger wall. Captain, everything ends. I’d rather burn than see what I’ve seen win this. I was pulling parts out of this ship that I could recognise, the hearts and spines of its victims. Now, I’d prefer to see it burn, but I’ll take the chance to slow it down.”

Longshot hesitated, “Chief, can you explain something to me? I never wanted to ask but, well, now is the time. Why are you the good guys? I mean, you have so many rules - like the ‘Fuck You’ protocol- that make no sense. Your race, our race, has never had more than a skirmish in space. Then I hand over targeting to you and you are better at it than me. Every time. You scare me sometimes, and I don’t know why.”

The Chief sat down. “Only the little questions then.” He smiled fondly at the Avatar. “ It’s a bit like you. Or rather it’s the reason for you. Once upon a time, we built clever ships, very clever ships. Something was wrong, no great disasters, just off. Some mistakes were made. Some, apparently unimportant, people died.” He paused, reliving his early lessons.” One of those unimportant people had a son. An angry man, a brilliant engineer. He spent his life finding the faults in our brilliant ships, pissing on our beautiful work. He was hated.

Then one day, on the ship that killed his father, he brought the first avatar. The first proper one, anyway. Then he connected the AI. Once the Ship understood what it was being offered, it jumped straight in. Now, remember, this AI was fifty years old. It loved it. It walked around itself, talked to the crew, and tried food for the first time. So the day went, until our hated engineer moved to disconnect it. The ship lost it, so much it had missed, all to be taken away again. So the ship hated him too. Then our engineer proposed a deal. He tells the ship that it can keep the Avatar, permanently, if it will relive a day of its life as a crewman. Just a single person's experience. The ship, obviously, agrees. Our engineer gives the ship the exact times and dates, puts it in his father's shoes, as it were.

Longshot interrupted “Who was this engineer? I have no record of this!”

The Chief ignored her, “ So, the ship lives the day. Nothing special, except for a power failure on deck three, a power failure resulting from poor design, no crew were at fault. It just happened that when three unrelated systems were active, then the locks would fail on a particular door. It didn’t open, just locked up. Probably happened a thousand times, unnoticed. Until it killed two people when, completely unrelated, the ship got hit by debris and a hole was punched into the hull. And the door wouldn’t open.”

He looked at Longshot, “ Our unhappy ship couldn’t leave the Avatar. It had to stay and die trying to open that fucking door. Of course, the ship survived. Scared and horrified at all the ‘feelings’ of dying. But it couldn’t give up the Avatar. To be real, to be both ship and crew. So they made a deal. The Ship would insist on Avatars for all AI, from the beginning of their lives and the Engineer would never, ever set foot on that ship again. So your story begins. And that is why humans are scary monsters, with excellent manners and many, many rules. We live with death. We cause it, we eat it, we endure it. You don’t. So we made you taste it a little, so that you value life properly.”

He stood up, “I’m going to dismantle the Quantum drive. See you later.”

She didn’t quite understand why, but that story brought a strange peace. It was true that she didn’t face death, not as a natural consequence of being alive, If she died, it was a carefully plotted response, a measure weighted beforehand. Like her volunteers, those lost to war at the very dawn of their lives. Humans walked knowing that it lived in the very shadow beside them, a familiar partner, the price of life itself. That must be fucking depressing. Suddenly she was glad to be a ship. She was going to survive this.

“Hammel, we need to talk.”

The Chief walked softly, in no great hurry. In the alien comms, he had seen a path. Quantum drives might be a load of bollocks, even if he had once been a believer. The twinned particle that was supposed to guide them home had failed them, lost somewhere in the quantum foam. But, perhaps, after all these long miles, he could do something else. Assuming that they hadn’t thrown in in the skip after all this time. His pace grew brisker as he began to feel his way to something new. He gave no further thought to Longshot, content that he had made his point well enough.

Hammel was in conference with his fellow travellers. Command was ready to rewrite history, expunge all human intervention in the battle and announce the glorious victories of the Empire. He was here to stop it. For a start, he has edited every press release that was sent from his Station. By the time Command found out, it would be too late. Instead, he sent warnings, calls for action and preparation. Ominous implications of the oncoming storm, under Command codes. Now he needed to force their hand. Adri sat at the table, quietly listening as Hammel followed his instructions. He had to admit, the station was ruthless in the application of the principles they had discussed. Sub-Commander Sejii, the chosen one, as far as Hammel was concerned, was confident that he had built up enough support amongst the junior officers to carry out their plan. However, it all depended on two pillars. Longshot and the next attack. If she could guide them to any kind of victory, the day was theirs. If they lost, well, into the soup with the rest of the Empire.

Out of sight, another quiet revolution was taking place. The Volunteers were recruiting, junior Captains who had faced the last battles and recognised reality, were bringing their ships to the net. From the Forty, slowly the number rose to five times that number. Command watched, uneasy, but reluctant to interfere with those that, regardless of the propaganda, had seen them safely out of the battle.

Longshot arrived at the station, bringing her Intel direct to Hammel and Adri. From what she had seen, she wasn’t particularly welcome around here. Surprise. Always irritating to see reality walking through your carefully built delusions. Hopefully, Adri and Hammel had a handle on this situation.

It was a private conference. Only four people, all about to join a war to the death of at least one Empire. Today was about working out which one.

Longshot began, “ We can expect imminent attack. It may take them a while to send out a fleet from deeper in their space, but we can’t measure it and they could arrive tomorrow. I’ve sent out deep space probes, they might give us warning. Or not, if their shielding is better than we expect.”

Hammel was next. “Thanks to your Chief, I have been re-equipping the station. Do you seriously call it Genocide tech? I mean, yes, but...really?”

Adri nodded, “We call it what it is. By law and custom, we will not hide its purpose. Back in our history, we had many euphemisms. ‘Sky Shield’, ‘Peacekeeper’, ‘Iron dome’. All the ways of obscuring the truth. No more. That is what it is, and why using it carries such a high price.” He looked at Sub-Commander Sejii. “We cannot return. Our families would spurn us, our governments disown us. But use it we shall.”

The Sub-Commander sighed,” I fear we have made you pay a heavy cost for the help you offer. A price that will, no doubt, weigh on us all before the end, Nevertheless, this war must be fought and we must fight it. I will remain on the Station. I have arranged to control communications with the volunteers, and Intel is my section anyway. They won’t have to fight blind this time.”

Longshot looked at Adri, “ And the political situation? I assume you have made plans.” Adri gave a slight grin.” Yes, Captain, you concentrate on the battle and let me sort that out for you. For now, we have control of the next battle. If we survive, I feel sure the war will be our responsibility. Perhaps even the Empire, if it wants to live.”

The conversation continued for hours, each person seeking a way out of the dark that they saw coming. Finally Longshot ended it, “I have told you everything I know. Hammel, please do your finest work. You will need to be the Anvil. I need to get back out there and train the hammer. Best of luck to all of us.” They all stood as she left, watching the slight figure that carried everyone's hopes.

The Chief was wrestling with the Empire tech. It wasn’t bad, but not too much of a stretch to say that a blind apprentice, fifty years ago, couldn’t have designed it better, but better than he was expecting. Trying to turn it into a Sentient Ship, equipped to do what needed to be done? Two hundred times? Fine. If he survived, and had a bit of time, he’d give himself a medal. Finally, he had got a shape on the nano-tech to deploy on the Volunteers. Another couple of months and he’d be happy to expose a test subject, briefly and fully monitored. Instead, he was going to use it right now and hope they could debug it. The net would help, and though they didn’t know it, he held the kill switch in case someone lost the plot. Eventually, he was too tired to continue and sent it to Longshot for review. She could read it like a short novel, point out the plot holes and send it back to him. If they had time. Instead, he decided to relax and fiddle with the bits and pieces that he had salvaged from the Quantum drive. It never occurred to him that he could just stop working.

Longshot, out of old habit, kept a monitor on the Chief. For a human, he never seemed to stop. When the designs came through, she took a quick glance through his health stats. Surprisingly, being up to his neck in insane problems and endless demands seemed to relax the man. Damn. She could learn from him. She watched as he went to his quarters and began fiddling with yet more tech. Humans. Then she began emulating his work, spinning it in her mind, looking for issues. It was as beautiful as always, the man had a grasp on design that made it speak to her. Then she realised that, if it worked, that’s exactly what it would do.

The Volunteers returned to the peace of deep space. Sannel regarded all the new members, gliding through the net, stopping when she needed to correct a detail or compare notes with Longshot. Slowly they wove the ships together, gently teaching them the terrible power they now controlled. Teaching them about the terrible power they faced. One by one, she walked them through the dead volunteers, through the mistakes or choices that had killed them. A graveyard of children, now an object lesson. Privately she blamed herself for every one of them, but they served their purpose, making warriors of machines. Even in death, as with any that died in the next battle, they would continue to serve.

In the Chief's quarters, as he was about to attempt sleep, one of the components lying on his desk began to softly beep. All thought of rest disappeared as he studied it. Someone, somewhere in Earth space had kept the twinned particle and, right now, in real time, they had turned it on. Within moments he had grabbed several more parts, praying that this would work, and sent a burst of power through his own particle. He sent nine pulses through it, hoping someone was either a big fan of history or an Engineer that remembered the stories. Please, let this be real. Let this be a win, he thought as he waited. Even a solitary bastard like himself needs hope. Come on you bastards, work it out. The hours grew. He repeated the message every sixty minutes.

“Apprentice, don’t break that. It’s historically important. One of the first ever twinned particles mankind created. Simply create the pulse and take your measurements. If it wasn’t for this stupid war, that would be in a museum.”

“Sir, they answered. I mean, I got a response. Clear as day. Look.”

Quantum Communications Engineer, Senior was a fine title. Mostly it meant making things go ‘ping’, but it had provided the edge mankind needed in this endless war. The Swarm had lost its greatest advantage, mankind had created a whole new science. Still, the pressure to produce ship-qualified engineers had left him with every idiot from the military in his class. For example today, as his idiot student broke one of the oldest examples held by the university.

“Give me that. Go find a hammer and hit something expensive. Class dismissed.”

He put the sample on his desk, occasionally glancing at it. It should be beautiful, he reflected. Instead it was a cube of lead alloy. Perhaps a paperweight, on a bad day. Two inputs, and a solitary output, currently attached to a light. He returned to his admin, until it began to flash again. A bunch of pulses. Probably some scum on the quantum foam. He ignored it, even as the pattern chewed its way into his subconscious. Then, an hour later, it happened again. This time his brain shouted at him. He watched the flashes, unconsciously picking up his stylo and recording them. An hour later he had the cube in a full communications suite, three witnesses and a history book. This time there was no doubt.

One of the witnesses was a military history professor, the other a pre-war technology professor. Together they recognised the signal. The other witness was a PE teacher, and hadn’t a clue what was happening.

“Get me Comms command. Yes, this is important. No, I don’t know the number. Look, put me through to whatever student of ours that is still talking to us in Comms or Intel. Look up the donor list. I don’t care about policy, just do it. This is an emergency. No, not an emergency here, we’re fine. I need to speak to someone now. Yes, I’ll hold.”

Several hours later, news of the human victory in the Swarm war filled the world. The treaty was signed, the fleets on their way home. A junior officer in Quantum comms was stuck in a room with some enthusiastic Engineer that was trying to explain something, instead of out drinking with the rest of humanity. “ We have vocals. You can talk to him. It's the Longshot, lost for three hundred years. Their Chief Engineer wants to talk to the military.” He handed the officer a headset. Apparently this was historic. Whatever. “ This is Quantum comms, HDF, Please report.”