Punctuality is very important to Meitagenans. Keeping good time is their speciality; in fact, it is the means by which they have been able to retain control of the galaxy for so many thousands of years.

In the beginning, there was spacetime. But the Meitagenans did not like spacetime. If time is relative, then how can one be on time?

Well, the Meitagenans did what they do best. Divide and conquer. Spacetime would henceforth become space, and time: Meitagenan Standard Time, to be precise. The standard by which the entire galaxy would set their clocks, for the rest of eternity. This, of course, was how the Network was able to facilitate instantaneous communications and matter transference. After all, what does instantaneous even mean unless one is able to compare clocks? As most terrestrial civilisations discovered (and later, were required to un-discover), there is no such thing as simultaneity: two events that are simultaneous for one observer will, in general, not be simultaneous to other observers who are travelling sufficiently close to the speed of light.

This would not do at all. If someone travelling very, very fast were to use the Network to send a parcel to their friend on the other side of the galaxy, then from the point of view of those travelling at more civilised speeds, the parcel could arrive before it had even been sent. Causality would break down. All bets would be off; chaos, in a word. Forget making it to your next appointment on time; the appointment might end up happening before you even scheduled it.

Naturally a pristine bureaucracy such as the Meitagenan Galactic Empire relies on causality. And so the Meitagenans imposed a speed limit on the galaxy, and made secret the technology behind lightspeed space travel. Breaking the speed limit would be punishable by death (and the total destruction of the offender’s home planet).

The only vessels permitted to break this speed limit are the Asynchronous Network Transports (or ANTs, for short). Theirs is the sacred task of keeping causality in check. No one knows exactly how many ANTs there are, or what exactly they do. These days they are controlled by the Network, since the Meitagenans are embarrassingly bad at transfinite arithmetic, and no one even bothers teaching special relativity anymore.

A consequence of all of this is that whoever controls the Asynchronous Network Transports effectively controls a galaxy-sized time machine. Which in the wrong hands, could get very confusing indeed. Fortunately for the galaxy, it is completely impossible to hack the Network and gain control of an ANT.

Unless, of course, you are me. I’m very good at transfinite arithmetic.

And that is how sixty-seven cryo-pods containing sixty-seven kidnapped humans were transported onto the Dirtsucker a thousand years before the humans in question had even been born. A thousand years before anyone would miss them.

And that is how, a thousand years after Lextrazsahia’s Marauder exploded, and the light from the resulting plasma-burst finally reached the Earth, the brother of one of the captured humans came to glimpse a new glimmer of light in the sky. A glimmer of hope.

***

If people try to put you down,

Just walk on by, don’t turn around,

You only have to answer to yourself.

Laila played her favourite song through her implants as she stormed the High Security Network Transmissions and Operations Station. She had unvanished as close to the command centre as possible, in a transport hall reserved only for the Meitagenan Networker-Elite class, holding a brand-new and fully loaded Prionic Cannon in each hand. She skipped through the corridors of the station, blasting every Meitagenan in sight to bloody hysteria, only just hearing their deranged screams over her noise-cancelling audio implants. The automated laser fire of sentry drones caused a vague tingling sensation where it bounced off her skin shield. The skin shield had been a particularly good purchase, Laila reflected happily.

Don’t stop, never give up,

Hold your head high and reach the top,

Let the world see what you have got…

“Let the fucking galaxy see what I got, bitch!”

She chucked a wormhole grenade at a troupe of Scuttle drones as they, well… scuttled towards her, and laughed merrily into the void as they (and a couple of onlooking Meitagenans) were sucked into it with a satisfying pop.

Dream of falling in love,

Anything you’ve been thinking of…

She couldn’t help but remember a conversation she had had with Naomi before she had left.

“Just… think of me when you’re sending those damn Meitagenans to hell, okay?”

“Naomi, I… I don’t think there will ever be a day when I don’t think of you.”

Had she imagined that tear on Naomi’s cheek?

“Laila... You made me see the world in a way I never could have before. Thank you for that. For so many things.”

“Look, I know you’ve got to leave,” Laila had said, “but… Isn’t there like some way you could, I dunno, make a copy of yourself before you go? Surely we could hack the transporters or matter replicators or … something?”

A sad smile.

“I would like nothing more. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She’d left it at that. No real explanation. Naomi never really explained anything. It just… wasn’t her style.

It had been Naomi who had told her about the ANTs. They were very secret. Very few races had the technology to detect them. Even among Meitagenans, there were only a few members of the Elite classes that knew of their existence, or understood their purpose.

“Deltaworm can give you Network privileges,” she had explained. “But the Meitagenans aren’t stupid, they’ll figure out what’s happening eventually. If you want to become truly unstoppable… You will need to commandeer an ANT.”

Sometimes it seemed Naomi had planned out the rest of Laila’s life for her. In the two years Laila had known Naomi, she had never really had time to stop and think. About what she wanted, after Naomi was gone. About what she would do. Now that the time had come, now Naomi had left a hole in Laila’s heart that would likely never heal… Well, becoming omnipotent didn’t seem like such a terrible way to retire.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Laila danced into the next room, letting out a joyous “whoop!” as half-a-dozen personal implants short-circuited and half-a-dozen Meitagenan heads exploded. She wondered how many thousands of years it had been since a lesser life form had managed to kill so many Meitagenans.

Try not to worry ‘bout a thing,

Enjoy the good times life can bring.

This was too easy, really, she thought, surveying the trail of Meitagenan corpses she was leaving behind. Sure, she had spent several months trawling the galaxy’s black markets, spending Djaer’s inheritance on the most lethal weapons she could find; she had spent many sleepless nights using her newfound Network privileges to hack millenia-old security protocols… And sure, maybe it was only a matter of time now before she was caught and tortured for crimes against Meitageny. But she still couldn’t quite believe she had made it this far.

But with every Meitagenan she sent to oblivion, her confidence grew. And she began to understand why Naomi’s plan was working, why everything had gone so smoothly. Meitagenans were predictable. They had come to dominate the galaxy through the sheer strength of uniformity: obedience to the Meitagenan ideal. And it would never have even occurred to them that a Meitagenan (or someone the Network thought was a Meitagenan) would ever wish to do violence to this ideal. Such a thought was tantamount to blasphemy.

No wonder Djaer chose exile. There was no greater shame, to a Meitagenan, than being different.

A sad sack indeed.

This was it. A great metal door blocked the way to the command centre. Laila put her hand against the metal. It was strangely warm to the touch, its surface warped and uneven, more like the wall of a cave than an actual door. Rather alarmingly, Laila could not see an access port.

She paused her music, and, giggling slightly at the absurdity of it all, knocked on the door.

With a screeching, rumbling, and generally ominous, cacophony of noise, the door slid upward into the ceiling. There was only one Meitagenan in the command centre, and before Laila could blow his head off, he dropped to his knees, prostrating himself before the intruder.

“So you have come at last,” he growled, his voice vibrating through the floor. Laila could feel it in her feet.

“Excuse me?”

The Meitagenan glanced up at her.

“It is an honour, Laila. To die by your hand.”

Well, this was deeply unsettling. Could it be a trick? Laila gave him a quick blast of prions just to be on the safe side. His howls echoed down the corridor behind her, his body slumped and writhed.

“Shame,” Laila murmured. She’d kind of been looking forward to interrogating one of them, but she just didn’t have time for an unnecessarily expositional villain-speech. She dropped her cannons to the floor, and strode over to the control panel. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for: the coordinates and transport credentials for the nearest ANT colony.

Laila felt strangely hollow as she stepped into the transport hall. It was up to her now. She could do what she wanted. Anything she wanted. It was in her power to bring down the Empire. But then what? She could bring an end to thousands of years of tyranny, but what would fill that void?

Alternatively, she could just party for the rest of eternity. Yes, she was 114 years old, but she was still a young woman really. Ascenters didn’t age — frozen instead in their biological prime. Laila wondered what it would be like to grow old.

All these months, years of planning, and she still hadn’t decided. Absolute power, absolute freedom. With the ANTs she could be all powerful. If she wanted.

If she wanted…

What she really wanted was to be in Naomi’s arms.

When the world seems to get too tough,

Bring it all back to you.

She sighed heavily. She suddenly felt very tired.

Well. It was now or never.

***

Laila unvanished.

“And what time do you call this, young lady?”

“Go easy on the girl, it’s her first time.”

She took a moment to orient herself. Whose voice was that?

“Bless her, she’s all confused.”

“Is it me or are we even cuter when we’re confused?”

“First-timers are my favourite.”

“Can’t wait to get her out of that jumpsuit.”

“For god’s sake, behave! Look at the poor girl, she’s terrified.”

Laila rubbed her eyes. Where was she? The ANT colony, but…

[Whoever controls the Asynchronous Network Transports effectively controls a galaxy-sized time machine. Which in the wrong hands, could get very confusing indeed…]

“Oh, fuck,” Laila groaned

“Oh fuck indeed,” Laila replied.

“We’re so glad you could make it,” Laila chimed in.

Laila stepped down from her throne, and extended an arm to Laila where she was cowering on the floor of the transport hall.

“Welcome, my dear,” Laila said. “To the LAILAVERSE.”