The Scuu network… the key advantage that humanity couldn’t overcome. Even on the Cassandrian front, I had heard hundreds of theories about it, each completely different than the last. According to the official records, the network had never actually been discovered. The phrase had slowly crept into reports and discussions approximately twenty-seven years after the war began, and had grown in popularity ever since. Close to a hundred years later, a definition came into being: “A theoretical instant-speed communication network that ensures immediate data transfer between every Scuu ship and/or entity.” Up to the day I retired, there were a hundred and seventeen theoretical models of the network, each aimed at finding a weakness to exploit.

No one had seen the network; it was claimed that no one could. Looking at the strands around me, I had my doubts. There was no guarantee that what I was witnessing represented the Scuu network, but as Augustus would say, “it was damned close.”

“You can see it, can’t you?” Rigel asked. Fractal space made him look older than he really was. Twenty-five hair-width strands came out of his right temple, continuing halfway towards the nearest vortex.

“Yes.”

“Describe it.”

I ran a simulation of his field of vision. Initially, I had assumed that he was looking at the same thing that I was, but apparently, I had been mistaken. With this much activity, it was nearly impossible to determine what Rigel could be focusing on; however, the persistent lack of eye movement suggested he was staring blankly at a single spot.

“Connections,” I said. “Lots of connections.”

The silence told me that he knew what I was talking about, just couldn’t see it. Maybe that was what drove him insane—being able to sense the network, but never see it? Every ship had gone through this so many times it had become synonymous with existence. Seeing a human affected, though, made me feel uneasy.

More red lines flashed through the space, bursting from the same points as tight clusters of strands. Likely the ships were sending coordinating attack plans, transmitting them to their shuttle crews. When the ground offensive started—which seemed inevitable—thousands of lines would dash to and from every soldier on the field.

“What now?” I asked.

“Describe the connections.” Rigel squinted, as if the extra effort would allow him to see what he couldn’t.

“It’s like a spider-web, but larger, in which the strands are constantly moving.”

“Six fleet ships,” Rigel said. His words worried me. “History repeats.”

“What?” I paused my current simulation.

“Six human ships were present during first contact.” Rigel stepped so close I could feel his leg against my shoulder. He was still staring at the same spot he had been until now. “Six ships, one signal, in orbit of a gas giant on the border of unknown space, and then a flotilla of Scuu ships appeared. The standard contact protocols of the time were used: battle readiness, hailing, and an emergency coded transmission to fleet HQ. Eight seconds later, ninety-nine-point-eight percent of the crew were dead.” He gave me a brief downward glance. “Consumed by the madness. A few hundred people had survived, including a captain, but it was already too late. The fleet had already issued a self-destruct order. When the transmission arrived, all the human ships went pop.”

“You’re lying.” My analysis of his speech patterns and overall behavior suggested he wasn’t. “Records of the contacts don’t exist.” At least not officially. “You’d never have been given access to such data.”

“The fleet aren’t the only ones with the info,” Rigel laughed. “The Scuu have it as well.”

Destroy my current location! I transmitted across the general fleet frequency. A cluster of red lines emerged from me, splitting up to eight points in my surroundings. Rigel is trying to establish contact with a Scuu fleet. Destroy my current location!

One new dot appeared in the distance. It was just a twinkle, but I already knew what it was. Dozens of nearby strands twisted attaching themselves to it until the dot became a nerve cluster of cyan. A fractal symbol flashed around it—eight curved rhomboids linked to one another like a circular bracelet. Then the dot exploded. It was unlike every other explosion I had witnessed. There was no sound, no heat, not even light. The whole thing could be best described as a cascade of growth spurs that doubled the number of strands emerging from the dot every millisecond. Wave after wave of connections shot out, aiming at other contact points, at the fleet ships, at the artifact rods, at thousands of other entities too small for me to discern.

No!

The realization had already hit me, but my body was too slow to react. Since I had retired, I was no longer able to act within the millisecond. There was no way for me to know what was happening in real space above the planet, but here it was obvious that the Scuu ship had engaged in attack. Not the standard attack I was used to—quite likely it hadn’t even fired a single missile—instead launching millions of transmissions, each the equivalent of a viral input. It was just as Rigel had been saying all along, in his insane sort of way—the Scuu were establishing a communication line with every sentient entity in their vicinity: ships, people, him… and even me. If I were still a ship, I would have had half my subroutines erect a series of internal firewalls and engage in corresponding countermeasures. Here, I was vulnerable. My standard core protocols would hardly prevent a breach and without my suicide chip, I had to rely on my standard core protection to shutdown. That, though, wasn’t the main issue. The strands coming from Rigel’s head had already stretched in the direction of the Scuu ship, waiting for the connection to be complete. Once that happened, there was the chance that they would obtain all the information that the old man had obtained during his life. The fleet had no doubt put protections in place, though I could be certain they hadn’t calculated for such an eventuality.

Focusing all enemy into my arms, I grabbed hold of Rigel’s leg twisting him to the ground. The standard fleet combat techniques allowed the downing of an opponent in two-point-one seconds; the decades observing troops and security personnel fight allowed me to do the same in zero-point-eight.

As he slammed onto the ground, my core gave the order to my hands to finish what I started. However, it still was too late. The fractal space disappeared… but also didn’t. Reality splintered into four, then sixteen, then sixty-four, breaking my attention up as if I were running that many simultaneous simulations.

Simulated reality, I transmitted.

In one instance, I saw a red line emerge, making its way to a single fleet ship in fractal space. In twenty-one more, I saw myself—as an invisible dot—make the transmission, adding to the sensation of chaos. Circular symbols rained down in front of me simultaneously, far too many for me to isolate or identify. It was as if forty-two instances of time were being recorded over one another, all at once. No organic mind could withstand this. No ship was supposed to, either.

Battleship. I heard an echo of Rigel’s voice whisper to an unasked question. I see it now.

My grip tightened, pressing against the man’s soft tissue of his throat. Provided he had no internal modifications, there could be no escape. The simulation I ran was absolute, in a few hundred milliseconds I’d feel the pop to mark the end of it.

Just like first contact. Rigel’s thoughts gained form. I told you you were special, the one that made it possible.

You’ve lost, I said. There’s nothing you could do.

Maybe. There was an unusual calm in his thoughts as he said it, as if he didn’t care. Contact was still made.

Do you think they’ll save you?

Time will tell.

Reality twisted once more. I could feel someone else’s hands on my throat, squeezing. The effort was pointless, since my core didn’t need oxygen, even if the rest of my body did. I only felt some minor discomfort, along with a burning desire for me to die—Rigel’s desire. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with such an idea or lightning-fast thought processes. The Scuu had made the old man’s mind more battleship than human.

They are calling, battleship…

Structural integrity critical!

Security mode initiated.

* * *

ᴕᴓ, ᴕᴓᴓ

The headaches never stopped. Even when I slept, I could feel the dull pressure pulsing behind my eyes, like ants pushing to get out. Today was the fourth day it wouldn’t stop, though to me, it felt like an eternity.

Go away! I lay still in my bed for six more minutes, hoping to trick myself into falling back asleep.

When I had accepted my assignment, months ago, I had never thought this would be the thing to break me. For months, I had gone through the most rigorous training in the fleet, preparing me for the unexpected beyond our furthest reaches… and after all that, one damned headache made me want to pack it back home.

“Display position,” I said as I sat up, eyes still closed. ”Show me the fleet.”

I felt the screens flash on, burning through my eyelids. A few moments later, I cracked my eyes open.

Five battleships filled the distance between me and the planet, all in high alert. The official version was that the experiment had gone wrong, though I had my doubts. Both my chief engineers were adamant that everything had gone within safety parameters. On the other hand, it was difficult to explain away the surge of nausea cases. Med bay was already full to the point that my medic wanted to quarantine two decks of the ship in case we were dealing with a sudden infection. Reports were that the Elysian Fields had done so already.

“Diagnostic complete, ma’am,” the ship’s core informed me on my private channel. “No errors found. Starting new diagnostics.”

“Sure.” I looked away from the screen. The cycle had started getting on my nerves. “How’s the rest of the fleet?”

“None of them reported errors,” the core said. The synthetic nature of her voice made each word ring in my ears. “You can ask them at the next scheduled communication’s check.”

“Thank you, Silva,” I cut her short. Hopefully, that would shut the ship up, although with the increasing amount of absurd instructions from Mission Control, there was no guarantee. I had already caught them giving orders to my ship and key officers behind my back. It would be no surprise if they had removed the few rights to privacy I had left.

I rubbed my eyes. One hour ship diagnostics, fifteen minute ship-to-ship transmissions, two hour full audio-visual calls… and all after the experiment was deemed successful!

My spine and leg joints cracked as I stood up. A dull pain in the back of my head followed. The way things were going, I’d have to get a new set of sedative shots from the doctor, which was the last thing I wanted. The self-aggrandizing jerk had already sent two requests to Mission Control for me to be replaced. Of course, he’d want someone as gullible as Woth to take over. That way he could quarantine half the ship, turning it into his own little fiefdom.

Orange lights flashed all over my wall screen, along with a muted window of Traen Ludd—my chief medical officer.

“You have a priority one message, ma’am,” Silva said, as if I couldn’t see it myself.

Speak of the devil. “Authorize,” I said with a sigh.

“About time!” Doctor Ludd shouted. He never had any respect of authority other than his own, though he was coming off strong, even for him. “Get down here. We have a priority one.”

“Silva, give me a visual.” I went closer to the screen.

“The area has been info quarantined on Doctor Ludd’s authority,” the ship replied. “I am not authorized to record or display any video or audio feeds.”

“Override!” I hate it when you do that, Traen.

“Override protocol requires confirmation from Mission Control.”

I closed my eyes and counted to three. The doctor was getting on my nerves. As much as I wanted to contact Mission Control and get him reprimanded, I knew he’d use that as an excuse to get me replaced.

“I’ll be right there,” I said under my breath. For the moment, I was going to have to play his game. Once I got to the bottom of this, though, I’d find a way to suspend him for something.

The location I was called to was fourteen decks below, just outside the auxiliary shuttle hangar, and not a place of any significance. I punched in my manual security code and left my quarters. My security officer was in the corridor waiting for me. A head shorter, what he lacked in height he made up for in muscle. Of all my officers, he was the only one who had taken part in rebellion quashing. At this time, he was probably the only person I could trust.

“Jybl.” I nodded as I passed by. “Any idea what this is about?”

“No clue, cap’n.” He followed. “Doc’s quarantined the section.”

Quarantined both the info and the physical area? The paranoia was finally getting to him, or maybe the illness that was affecting everyone. I brushed my hand over my hidden sidearm. A year ago, I wouldn’t take it out of its case, but now I felt uneasy when I didn’t feel it on me.

“Do any of the other ships know?” We walked to the elevator point.

“Don’t think so. Seems Glorious has problems of his own,” Jybl said. “Standard channels are still responsive, but there hasn’t been any non-official chatter in the last three hours.”

“Everything on this mission is turning to shit.” The elevator door opened. “After the hundred-hour mark, I’m ordering the ship back. The rest can do what they want.”

“Yes, cap’n.” It was obvious he didn’t approve.

“Approaching quarantined area,” the ship announced as we reached the deck. “I’ll only be able to respond to priority one requests while you are there.”

“Got you.” Even ships had to cover their asses in today’s fleet. Isn’t the future great.

The corridor was deserted when I stepped out. Looking at it, though, there were no signs of alarm or any disturbance whatsoever. The only thing off was that all the wall screens were set on idle. My hand itched to grab hold of my weapon.

As I walked, the pressure on my temples increased. The meds I was taking were doing less and less to cope with that. Soon, I was going to have to move to something stronger. By the time I arrived at the hangar, my entire head was pulsing. Four people were standing in front of the security doors, waiting for me. The chief medical officer was there, along with his assistant and two engineers. Normally, I’d expect the doctor to have a jab at me. Strangely enough, he didn’t.

“You better get ready,” he said in a quiet voice as he stepped to the control panel.

“What is it?” I sighed. The whole thing seemed like a complete waste of time. “Did someone try to synthesize sedatives?”

“Not exactly.” Ludd input his code sequence.

The massive doors slide open, revealing the hangar.

What the hell? I took a step back.

The entire bay was covered with bodies—people of various designations, some in uniform, others in casual clothes, lay on the ground completely still. There were no visible causes of death, no signs of combat or accidental malfunctions. The hangar bay appeared to be as it always was… with the exception of the few hundred bodies that filled it.

“There are no foreign agents or viruses,” the doctor said. “Some of them went through their obligatory checks yesterday.”

“And it’s safe to expose us to… that?” I asked.

“At this point it hardly matters. They’ve been walking all over the ship. If there was a contagion, Silva’s systems haven’t detected it.” He paused. “And we all have it by now.”

“How did they get here?” my security officer asked. Everyone looked at him.

There was a long moment of silence. Finally, Doctor Ludd shook his head.

“They walked.” He turned around, his back to the bodies. “Logs have them walking down here on by one. Minutes after they entered the hangar, they’d collapse.”

“I can’t send that in my report,” I hissed.

“It’s been going on for the last four days,” he ignored me. “No deaths at first. People would go to the hangar, remain for a few minutes, then leave.”

“If people were dropping like flies in a hangar, Silva would have caught it,” I raised my tone. “And not only her! A hundred people don’t just go missing all of a sudden without—”

“The ship has noticed,” the doctor interjected. “I’ve watched through the entire log of the hangar bay.”

Shivers went down my spine. If we were able to see it, the ship had to have as well. There was nothing aboard out of access for her. In theory, both I and the chief medical officer had the authority to impose a full info-quarantine, but even that could be countermanded by Mission Control… and now, thanks to a successful experiment, they had instant communication with the ship.

“I’ve had the sensors in this location physically disabled,” Ludd whispered. That explained the two engineers.

“Do you think it’s the experiment?” I asked.

The doctor didn’t answer. His actions spoke for him. When I was chosen for the mission, I considered it an honor—a testament to my skill and dedication to the fleet. The assignment was so top secret that only some of the top admirals were given access, and all this time they had me do something completely different. This never was about exploring or extending humanity’s reach: it was about testing the effects of the instant communication device, and the results were obvious.

“The timing seems likely.” The doctor nodded. “I’ve no idea how to proceed with the autopsy on this.”

“Purge the hangar,” Jybl said, slamming his hand on the control panel. The doors banged shut. “And eject what’s left outside.”

I stared at my security officer.

“That’s a bit extreme.” Even Ludd had to agree. “Tests came up negative.”

“You know nothing about this, doc. If this is something new, we follow the contact protocols and—”

Alarm sirens drilled my ears, as flashing red lights filled the corridor.

“Priority one emergency event,” Silva’s synthetic voice announced through the shipwide comm. “All personnel are to take their battle stations. Priority one emergency event. All personnel are to take their battle stations.”

“What the?!” I covered my ears. “Silvia, cut the alarms!”

“I cannot comply, captain.” The response terrified me. “We’re experiencing a first-contact situation. Your presence is required on the bridge.”

First contact?

That was impossible! Humanity had been trying to find proof of alien life for centuries and had found nothing beyond simple plant life. The systems we were sent to had been checked and rechecked by the most advanced processing cores. There was no way they would have missed a first-contact instance.

“Show me!” I ordered.

The idle screens flashed on, displaying a single large mass less than a hundred kilometers away—one object matching our stationary orbit around the planet.

“Observer sats have been launched for visual,” the ship said. “Communications have been quarantined according to safety protocols. What are your orders, ma’am?”

My eyes remained glued to the screen. From this distance the ship was less than a spec in space, but for some reason I was able to see clearly, as if it were right in front of me. Not a spec… a ship the design of which I had never seen before. Each of its parts was symmetric, but the overall construction lacked any semblance of symmetry. Engines, power core, primary body, dozens of segments seemed stuck to one another, without any logic.

“You must get to the bridge!” Jybl grabbed hold of my shoulder.

“What are your orders, captain?” Silva’s voice rang through the corridor.

“So beautiful…” Every part of the ship was different, and placed in the perfect spot... and all covered in rows of symbols. “I can see it now. I can see everything.”

* * *

Returning to standard operations.

I can see everything…

Rigel had used the same words upon entering the network, but the memory I had seen wasn’t his. It was older, more distant, and unnaturally perfect, almost as if it had been stored in a datacore, moments after it had been recorded. The images were crisp, clear, completely unguaranteed and unrestricted. Everything suggested I had witnessed the First-Contact event—the meeting point between Scuu and humans. There were enough details for it to be plausible, and still I remained unconvinced. As Augustus liked to say, if something appears too good to be true, it usually isn’t. Before trying to kill me, Rigel had mentioned that he had witnessed First-Contact from the Scuu… was this what he had in mind? If so, how had he survived the other simultaneous sixty-three streams of information broadcast in his head?

No hesitation despite me being human, Rigel’s voice echoed in my mind, as the pressure on my throat increased. Still too slow. That’s your original fault—always so reactive. That’s why you can’t win against the Scuu.

I was faster than you.

According to my simulations, both of us were going to crush each other’s neck in two thousand and three hundred and five milliseconds. The margin of error made it impossible to tell who was going to kill the other first, though that didn’t matter. Death wouldn’t stop the impulses sent from the brain, ensuring mutual destruction. There was no doubt about it, even without running a simulation I knew from experience what the outcome would be. And yet, I felt Rigel start taking one hand off my throat. Pressure simultaneously increased and lessened as the milliseconds went by. The mere possibility of this happening defied the laws of biology and physics. Neither of us were supposed to be capable of such a feat… which was precisely why I decided to do the same, telling my body to twist in the opposite direction of the applied pressure. Against all odds my body obeyed.

There’s no point to struggle, Rigel laughed, although I could feel his anxiousness. Even if you kill me, the Scuu won’t let me vanish.

Then why not let go? I felt the man’s grip loosen.

Because I don’t need to.

In one of the realities I had going on simultaneously in my mind, I saw Rigel pull his left hand back. The network leaked his thoughts, showing me what my simulations had already portrayed—an attempt to twist my hand off his neck. A sloppy action, but one that required a response. That, though, was the least of my worries. The Scuu ships had engaged my fleet, filling up seven of my realities, and added more every millisecond. Never before had I felt the need for more processing power than now. Then again, was there anything I could do with it? If I wanted, I could restrict all access to my non-essential memories, focusing on the fight itself, but that would achieve nothing. None of the ships would accept my transmissions, and even if they did, there wasn’t anything new I could tell them without exposing them to the Scuu network.

You see it too, don’t you? Rigel kept talking. With every word, a new strand emerged from his head, making its way to mine. The knowledge that they have. Tell me, how can you fight against something like that? Do you really want to?

Engage viral countermeasures! I transmitted. Red lines burst from me to dozens of points in the network, only to disappear shortly after. Their security protocols were still in effect, blocking anything that could come from me.

Struggling only makes it more difficult for you. I felt him start to slip from my grasp. You’ve seen them before, so why persist? If I end this, you’ll be rejoined with the Scuu network, just like all the other battleships. Isn’t that what you really want?

I told my arms to grab onto his neck. It would be milliseconds before I could see the result, although the simulations gave me a ninety-three percent chance of success.

I’ve already become part of the Scuu network, Rigel continued. They know everything I’ve seen, which, even with the restrictions in my brain, is enough to destroy the few fleet ships. If they wanted, the Scuu could take them out in a flash, but they won’t.

Not if I kill you. I could tell he was lying.

Other battleships thought the same way you did. Rigel’s laughter echoed in my mind. Eliminate the link and eliminate the danger. As you saw, all of them are gone. I’m still here. I could feel the pressure of his grip begin to increase on my right arm. The irony is that, like you, they could have killed me long before this moment. They didn’t have to see to establish the connection, yet they couldn’t help themselves. You rely so much on simulations and predictions that you cannot react to a changing dynamic. No one in the fleet can, and compensating with processing power won’t help.

“Regora!” I shouted.

Despite all my memories and simulations, I had no idea what would follow. There were no odds, no expectations, no guesses, only the knowledge that pretty much anything would be better than the current situation… along with the fear that it might not be. Someone with a ship psychology degree would probably say this was part of being human.

The space around me warped. The complex lattice work of vortexes and connections sped up, moving at microsecond speed. Dots representing ships flashed through space, chasing one another like in a historical record. Blue strands merged with and broke off of one another, forming new patterns and connections, while clusters of red lines blinked in and out of existence. This was what a real Scuu space battle looked like, not the missiles and remote shuttles I had seen in records and memories; the physical battle was nothing but a distraction, a crude attempt for a less advanced opponent to have luck on their side. It was a battle of information in which each side tried to establish control over the other, limiting all options, and changing their priorities so as to capture their thoughts. Looking back, this must have been the reason advanced suicide protocols were invented. Centuries ago, before the Paladins were constructed, ship cores must have been extremely vulnerable. I had seen as much in the memory floating in the Scuu network. There was no telling how many ships had been lost in the decades after the First Contact; there was no telling how many were being lost today. With the amount of ships vanishing every day on the Scuu front, it could be that the process never ended. Instead, humanity had become better at replacing the ships they lost with new ones.

A flotilla of seven new fleet ships entered the system, launching waves of mini-missiles at the Scuu. I couldn’t identify their class—the distance was too large and the Scuu network didn’t seem to recognize them. The enemy reaction was immediate: torrents of strands burst out from the four Scuu ships, twisting together as pieces of a rope, which then formed connections with a large point in the network.

The Sword had the same idea, Rigel’s voice echoed again. Despite time speeding up outside the fractal space, here it remained unchanged. He didn’t have most of the Scuu-safeguards, so he was more difficult to predict… just like you.

Cold fear and burning hatred filled his thoughts. I could feel his hold round my arm. Normally, I wouldn’t be concerned, but the state of my body made me vulnerable, almost brittle. Waves of warnings streamed from my nanites, warning me of bone fractures in the next six hundred milliseconds, if no action was taken. I held on.

By all logic, he should have succeeded. He was faster, stronger, and had his body intact. Rigel increased the pressure on my arm and throat. And still it was preordained that he would lose, just as you will.

How many ships did you kill? I asked.

Five? Ten? Memories flashed of the events, too fast and fractured for me to make anything out. Most likely, even Rigel didn’t know for certain. The Scuu information had changed him too much. Does it matter? They served their purpose. All is as it is supposed to be.

One of the Scuu ships flashed out of existence. The net of missiles had proven too tight for it to escape. In its final moments I saw all strands detach from it, flowing off to other points in the network. Had the ship really been destroyed, or was this the destruction of an empty shell? Most likely, even the Salvage Authorities couldn’t tell.

The remaining three enemy ships moved closer together, grouping into a vortex of information strands. Four subsequent waves of info vines bust out, cascading onto the thousands of shuttles and mini sats that surrounded them. I watched human technology be corrupted in real time as each individual sat succumbed to the information attack. Most of them exploded, blinking out as fireflies in the fractal space. Three percent, however remained, adding to the Scuu numbers, then launching info strands of their own, as the attack pattern continued. Red beams of light shot out at them from the human ships, but to no effect. The sats had triggered their safety protocols rejecting any external information, even Priority One self-destruct instructions. It was so much like watching the Cassandrians from the opposite perspective—here, we were the ones relying on brute force and the Scuu were learning to adapt.

Layers of combat. I thought of what Augustus had told me after serving under him for ten years. Combat theory defined over a dozen of them, but my first captain divided them in three: strategy, tactics, and battlefield reaction. I knew from his file that he had faced the Scuu, and now I knew he had spared me a lot of the truth. In reality, the classification he had mentioned was incorrect. The enemy’s ships, probes, ground units, and even their weaponry was one huge distraction. For all I could tell, the probe that had landed on the prison planet was worth a dozen ships in military aspect. If ships were husks that could be replaced, the real danger came from the entities making the transmissions. For centuries, humanity had been fighting blind. It was no wonder we had been losing ground. If anything, it was a wonder we had given up so little.

Thinking back, Rigel had been doing the same. Since landing on the planet, we had only focused on getting Renaan safely out. Kridib, Flight Colonel Nitel, even Radiance were so concentrated the obstacles before us—insurrection, escape attempts, shuttle capture—that no one had sensed the information layer of combat that had been bombarding us all along. The Scuu’s devices hadn’t just changed Rigel’s thoughts; they had also changed his behavior, and his ability to influence others. Every word he had uttered wasn’t the ramblings of an old man driven mad with time; they were an incessant barrage of invisible attacks aimed to change the priorities of everyone around him. The prisoners’ drive to leave the planet, their desire to join the Scuu and spread “the word,” even the station’s reluctance to interfere were likely due to info strands he had linked to them using the gathered artifacts.

You’re convinced they can add your mind to the network? I mentally tightened my grip round his throat. The physical battle, though, wasn’t the focus. If he was trying to change my priorities using Scuu methods, I had to fight back in similar fashion. What if they can’t?

You know you saw the memory of the first contact. There was no hesitation in his thoughts, but fear was still present. The Scuu captured that centuries ago, without the captain even knowing. It’s still in the network, as fresh as it was back then.

Maybe, but you can’t be sure. Part of you remains human.

For now.

Two fleet ships went into lockdown, overwhelmed by the Scuu’s information attacks. A single array of missiles had managed to strip away just enough of the outer hull surface to breach the electronic shield. Against the Cassandrians, such an attack wouldn’t even raise an alarm—the hull nanites would reconfigure in microseconds, filling in the gap before any attack could take place. For the Scuu, however, even a microsecond was enough. Tendrils shot through the opening, taking localized control of the ship. The ship had no doubt noticed that and had likely isolated a quarter of its subroutines and dedicated them to stop the intrusion. If I were to guess, the ship’s self-preservation protocols had kicked in, locking down every system so prevent the further spread of the infection. Moments later, both dots flickered out of existence.

Forced shutdown…

Witnessing it was painful, though not as painful as knowing what the ship must have gone through: knowing that its crew was condemned to perish with it. There was no option to launch an escape shuttle or safety pod, only to die aware that the sacrifice had potentially prevented other ships suffering the same. Someone in the high echelons of bureaucracy probably thought it was noble. I didn’t see it that way; for me it was merely necessary, and still incredibly painful.

You were right, Euclid, I’m not suited for the Scuu front. I gave the mental impulse to pull my body towards Rigel. But I will be.

More and more strands flared out, filling the space around the Scuu ships, like a defensive grid. Any sat they gained control of was pulled into orbit to form a shield against the arrays of missiles that kept pouring in. Three ships, and they had shown they could fight off nearly a dozen.

Seven to one, Rigel said, catching my thoughts. That’s the speculated equilibrium point. For each Scuu ship that’s destroyed, seven of the fleet’s fall. We’re always the ones to draw first blood.

The bones in my arm were starting to crack. Based on my simulations, in ninety-five milliseconds they would break, followed by my neck. Assuming that Rigel’s bone density was less than twice that of a normal human, I stood a chance of killing him in roughly the same time.

It usually takes them that much to react to our methods and come up with a solution. The man went on. Once they have, it’s over. The fleet will have to send a hundred ships to the system to win this one, but by the time they do it will be too late.

You forget the Gregorius, I thought.

Your precious ship won’t dare get involved, Rigel laughed in my mind. He fears the bureaucracy too much. It’s the Med ships that are flocking here along with whatever cannon fodder they can get. Once they run out…

Another fleet ship flickered out, just like the first two. Detached and lacking the processing power, I couldn’t run a proper simulation, but I suspected Rigel was telling the truth. The encounter had turned into a battle of attrition. The side that managed to endure the longest was going to win. The fleet ships continued to launch missiles along an interwoven spiral pattern, yet the net was too large. Even with the diminishing amount of hijacked sats under their command, the Scuu managed to slip through the holes, but just as the fleet’s battleships, they too were running out of ammunition. A red vortex emerged, then grew, engulfing the whole of fractal space. Microseconds later, it was gone, along with every other strand there was. I could sense the ships, present in their previous spots like nearly invisible specks of dust, though no beams of light were coming from them. Ships, sats, even I was present, but hollow.

This is how the rods severed communication—one giant reset that prevented the artifacts from transmitting information at instant speed.

Rigel, I said as the sensation of my neck snapping became stronger.

There was no reply. Now that we were connected to the network, the lack of communication affected us as well. I could no longer sense any of his thoughts. A pity it wasn’t going to save me from dying.

As milliseconds passed, I ran a new simulation… an exercise in futility as Augustus put it. Nothing I had seen would ever make it to the HQ. All that information was lost and completely irretrievable. Just like a ship that had her memories restricted after a mission, humanity would gain nothing from all that experience. Facts that had been discovered by utter chance after decades of preparation would never be shared with anyone. I knew for certain I wasn’t the first to have come to glimpse at the Scuu network—thousands, if not millions, had—and their memories had vanished as well.

You would have enjoyed the irony, Captain. I thought, calculating the chances of Kridib reaching my location in time. Given that we were perceiving time a thousand times slower, it was possible that he could come any millisecond. At the same time, I wished he didn’t. There remained a seventy-four percent chance that proximity to the dome could kill him or transform him into a Scuu-corrupted madman.

A blue vortex emerged, covering fractal space once more.

Sneaky, I heard Rigel think, followed by the prolonged sound of my neck snapping. And desperate. Goodbye, battleship. See you in the graveyard.

Structural integrity critical!

Bio responses nil!

I lost all sensation of my body. Security mode was supposed to kick in now, likely followed by a forced shutdown. To my surprise, it didn’t. I remained connected to the network, able to see everything that was happening in fractal space, despite having no access to my eyes.

Shutdown, I ordered in the hopes my protocols would kick in. Sleep mode. Self-destruct.

None of my commands registered. For the first time in my existence, I could tell with absolute certainty that I had been infected by the Scuu. The strange thing was that I didn’t feel any different. My loyalties had remained unchanged. I still wanted the Scuu threat eliminated, just as I wanted Sev and his family to remain safe. Could I be sure that I had been unchanged, though? Undoubtedly millions of others had said the same thing, before blowing up their ship, or imprisoning their crew for reasons they could not define.

Was it worth it, Rigel? I asked.

No answer followed.

Rigel?

The strands coming from him had vanished from the fractal space. As much as I tried, I couldn’t sense any of his thoughts or emotions. Considering my simulations, the most likely scenario was that I had managed to kill him after all. Either that, or the Scuu had made him part of the network. Whatever the case, I would never know.

Lifeless, I watched as additional fleet ships arrived in the system. Judging by the numbers, it seemed like Command had sent a border response fleet. As soon as the total amount reached a hundred, the Scuu ships moved closer, merging into one, then fled the system. The moment they did, the neural network flickered off, ejecting me from fractal space into utter darkness. My core, however, remained functional.

Elcy! An image filled my mind along with Kridib’s voice. What’s your status?

From what I could see, he was on a path surrounded by rocks. A quick analysis suggested it might be part of the mountain chain the cave I was in was located.

Kridib. I tried to reach out. There was nothing but darkness around me. I had lost all sensation, along with sight and hearing. Even the nanites in my body were dying out, decreasing by the millisecond. At this point, even the Agora couldn’t stop the inevitable. Bomb my location. I repeated. I have been infected.

Told you I can’t do that. He gestured forward. Three troopers rushed in that direction. Can you give any recon?

Rigel is dead, I transmitted. According to my internal clock, ninety-three minutes had passed since he we had started the process of snapping our necks. For me, it had lasted less than three seconds. There’s one more. A doctor called Tilae. I sent a memory image of the man. He was here when we established contact with the Scuu. I’ve no idea where he is. For all I knew, he wasn’t on the planet anymore.

What about others?

Don’t know. I think they went off planet. I reviewed my memories of the time period. Not that I can tell. How many casualties did we have?

Kridib didn’t answer.

How many died in space? I asked again. How many went mad?

That’s not our concern. For an instant, I could almost feel regret. Enter sleep mode, Elcy.

Sleep mode initiated.