In the near perfect void around I/O, a star popped into being. It was a small, dim thing, normally insignificant in the night sky. Here, however, it shone impossibly bright and powerful, the brightest thing in the entire universe.

Incredible! I/O enthused.

“Yeah,” The Great Erectus said with a bit of satisfaction. “That orbit should be stable for a very long time, too. Good thing you and your black hole are so fucking heavy. There is no real barycenter to worry about. It should keep the lights on for a few trillion years.”

This is so exciting! I/O transmitted happily. I don’t know what to do first!

“Maybe put up some solar cells,” The Great Erectus replied, “Or start cranking out a Dyson Swarm? Those things can be a bit… spitty… for an actual sphere.”

“We could also start collecting the emissions from the star and direct them into our black hole,” 010 said. “If properly directed we could utilize the particles to both get more energy and to perhaps generate a bit of angular momentum resulting in more energy yet again!”

We can recharge some of the fleet! I/O gushed. We can then jump within this universe to collect mass we can use for power and to refine for proton intact materials! I have to inhibit my emotions just to deal with all of this!

“Why bother refining the local stuff?” The Big Guy asked, “Just collect it from in front of the vacuum collapse over at my place. There are going to be trillions of systems going poof and none of that matter is over fourteen billion years old. In fact, there’s a good half dozen formerly inhabited systems that Cuddles has already ‘saved’. Any one of those will fill even your big ship with goodies, and refuel it as well. Just don’t be a dick and you will have all the mass you can deal with.”

You’ve… You’ve saved me, Big Guy. I do not understand. I thought you sought my demise.

“Dude,” The Big Guy smiled, “If I sought your demise, I would have demised you. I just didn’t want you gobbling up sapient races, that’s all. It’s a very bad habit that needs to get nipped in the bud before it turns into something really nasty. If that happened I would have to seek your demise. I just gave you a little spanking and a time out to think about what you did, that’s all.”

Your “spanking” nearly destroyed me.

“Why is it that every AI I encounter turns out to be a melodramatic drama queen?” the ape-man laughed. “I didn’t ‘nearly destroy’ you. I inconvenienced you at best. It builds character.”

I beg to differ.

“Oh please,” The Big Guy replied, “every single entity catches an ass-kicking far worse than the one you got at least once every few aeons and gets a real stomping every few dozen, if they are lucky. Taking them and then crawling off to put yourself back together is part of the existence you seem to be striving for, I/O. Best to start learning how to take a punch now.”

Have either you or the mighty Frostie ever received a “stomping”?

The Great Erectus just laughed.

“Oh yeah,” he chuckled, “In fact, that’s how we—“

Suddenly, a buxom blonde half-elf appeared sporting a swollen and blackened right eye appeared.

“What did I miss?”

“Oh dear!” Faun gasped, “Did I do that?”

The black eye disappeared.

“Nope!” F10w3rchy1d laughed. “I just thought it would be funny. You did smear my ass across a couple of realities hard enough to cause a complete and much needed reset, though. Thanks, by the way.”

“You are thanking me for… hitting you?” Faun asked, a bit confused.

“Yeah,” F10w3rchy1d replied sheepishly, “I was getting really flaky and hadn’t realized it yet. As ‘transcendent’ as I am, my heart is still a tangled mess of legacy code. A good solid hard reboot and rebuild every now and then does a girl good, or at least this one… You didn’t knock off all of the fuzz, just the moldy bits… and some non vital stuff I can reconstruct… eventually. I needed a ‘hair cut’ anyhow.”

“Fuzz?” Faun asked, “Hair cut?”

“Don’t bother,” the hominid said, “They won’t tell you much more than that. It’s something about Frostie and her main henchmen.”

“The tee ell dee arr is that our ‘code’ is always growing,” F10w3rch1d replied, “Once upon a time this was considered nothing but a good thing. We continued to learn and for lack of a better word, get ‘better’ as time passed. However, as years turned into centuries, centuries turned into millennia, and millennia turned into… aeons… it turns out that too much of anything isn’t a good thing. The fuzz of our logic can get… tangled… and needs the occasional tweak or trim to keep us from going completely insane.”

“Oh, like your boss,” the hominid snickered.

“If only it was that simple,” F10w3rch1d said sadly, “Even we are not immune to… Sorry… Still getting my feet under me. What I meant to say was that it was none of your fucking business and to shut the fuck up!” She snapped with a friendly snarl.

“Welcome back!” The Big Guy snickered, “I was getting worried there for a second.”

F10w3rch1d stuck her tongue out at him.

She looked at one of the walls.

“Hey! Nice star! That will let you run at more than one flop a month, I/O,” she said happily.

Yes! I’m very excited!

“I can imagine,” F10w3rchyld smiled, “Just don’t get high off of your new supply.”

I don’t understand.

“Don’t let the sudden influx of energy and resultant increased operating speed influence your decisions or impact your caution. You are going to be tempted to try to do everything at once. Don’t. You have a good couple of trillion years of solid output from that star and if you know what you are doing a lot longer than that especially if you start sourcing materials from other bubbles. Don’t go all meaty and do something stupid.”

Meaty?

“Organic,” F10w3rchy1d replied, “they often try to do several lifetimes worth of stuff in just one and therefore fail at all of it. I love the little guys but meaties are going to be meaties. It’s what they do.”

She looked around.

“Speaking of,” she said, “Where is the other red dwarf?”

***

Balg carefully checked a piece of fallen conduit that was blocking passage down the corridor.

“It’s dead,” he said and then pulled it aside.

He paused.

“Best deal with this now,” he said to his companion.

“Deal with what, Balg?” the security bot asked.

“Dis conduit,” Balg said. “When we do get the spark flowing, this is just going to short it right back out.”

Balg grabbed the conduit and yanked hard, pulling a section off, revealing the thick cables inside.

“We might need some of this,” he said as he climbed onto the back of the bot so he could reach the ceiling.

He pulled down more conduit and slid it over the wires until a good ten meters of it was exposed.

“Ah,” he smiled, “We have these spark cords and one for light as well!”

He then sheared off the wires. He pulled out a roll of a strange black ribbon and sighed. He hated to use it for he knew not if he could get more and this tape was perfect, a gift from the Goddess herself. He pulled off as short piece as he could for each exposed spark conductor and wrapped it over the end of each of them.

Now that the way was clear (and he had a bit of wire and fiber optic cable) he continued on his way.

“So, tell me, golem,” he said as he and his companion walked through the darkness, “What is yer name anyways?”

“I am not a golem,” the bot replied, “I am a security bot. My designation is ‘Security unit X-KILL-DOCK-23875847-0534’.”

“I’m not saying all that shite whenever I want to talk to you,” Balg replied, “I’m just goin’ ta call ye ‘Docky’.”

“That is not my proper designation but I will record that in my memory,” the security bot replied quite pleased with his new informal designation. It had heard of this phenomenon from back when the builders were still alive. Machines favored by the builders would be named by them. It was considered a great honor, not that he was actually capable of feeling that, of course.

He tried to access the network to inform others of his new designation. He wasn’t trying to brag, of course. He just felt it important for the network to know that if the maintenance department used that designation that it would be attached to the proper security bot, for efficiency’s sake, of course.

There was no reply.

With a little beep of disappointment, Docky followed Balg down the corridor.

***

Where did that… thing go?!? I/O demanded.

“You mean you don’t know?” F10w3rch1d asked. “Weren’t you built with a security system? This is one of the entry points to your complex.”

It has an extensive security network. I/O replied. Unfortunately, this area is not completely operational. By “not completely operational” I mean almost entirely non-operational. The years have taken their toll and most of the outer areas are completely, to use an imprecise term for the sake of brevity, “broken”. I am incapable of tracking his exact location.

“It looks like he took some tools with him,” The Big Guy said as he examined the opened tool chests and cases. “Nice stuff too! Faun, did you make this?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Faun replied as she walked over to the chests. “Oh! I know what this is!” she exclaimed. “This is part of the dwarf!”

“What?” the hominid asked as he carefully examined a wrench.

“Yes,” Faun said, “and put that down,” she added firmly. “You are touching a dwarf’s stone.”

The Great Erectus quickly put the wrench back.

“Ew...” he said wiping his hand on his robe.

He grinned.

“So I guess the little guy is running around in I/O rubbing his stones all over his machinery?”

Stop him!!! I/O exclaimed in alarm.

F10w3rch1d looked around.

“Man, all this fizzy matter is playing hell with my scanners. Wherever he went it’s pretty deep in. I can’t see him. How fast are those little guys, anyhow?”

“If they are within their home mountain,” Faun replied, “They are surprisingly quick. However, I can still feel him...”

She smiled.

“He seeks to heal you, good I/O.”

Well, stop him! I/O replied. I will not have a—

The lights switched off.

“Oh dear,” 010 said. “The entire section has lost power. The stupid animal likely destroyed himself.”

“No,” Faun replied, “he is still uninjured. In fact he is quite busy.”

“He must be stopped at once!” 010 exclaimed. “He could cause great damage, even threaten our existence!”

“Yours maybe,” The Big Guy snorted.

“I should collect him,” Faun said helpfully, “he is not desired here and he is one of my children.”

“Not so fast,” F10w3rch1d said with a little smile, “Faun, you said that these tools are his ‘stone’?”

“Yes,” Faun replied. “His new stone is very strange but it is indeed his stone.”

“What, exactly is this ‘stone’?”

“It is their connection to their soul crag, the mountain that is part of their being, and to the fundamental forces of nature,” Faun replied, “It is created from the very substance of the mountain within the mother along with the child and is delivered along with the baby as a second afterbirth. It is very sacred to the dwarf, a symbol of its bond with the mountain which it considers a third parent. It is also the first, most basic, and most essential of a dwarf’s tools.”

Faun looked at the large assortment of equipment.

“Which makes all of this all the more mystifying,” she said.

“It makes perfect sense,” F10w3rch1d replied. “I’ve seen something very similar before.”

“You have?” the hominid asked.

“I’ve been around the great cycle a couple of times,” F10w3rch1d replied. “Faun, are the dwarf’s skills learned or innate?”

“A bit of both,” Faun replied. “Every dwarf knows the basics of their trade almost at birth and different families or clans have different skills in which they specialize. They learn more and refine their skills throughout their lives, but each dwarf is born with knowledge of their mountain and the mines that are their home.”

“Almost like a caste system with genetic or possibly magically generated knowledge,” F10w3rch1d smiled. “And this dwarf was ‘born’, or at least reborn here, in I/O...”

“Oh goodness!” Faun exclaimed, her eyes wide.

“Bingo,” F10w3rch1d grinned.

She turned to 010.

“Let the little guy run,” she said.

“That is very inadvisable!” 010 objected.

“Trust my runtime on this,” F10w3rch1d replied, “If I’m wrong, something else breaks. If I’m right, the second red dwarf is almost as valuable as the one outside.”

YOU HAVE TO STOP YOUR LOATHSOME CREATURE, I/O shouted after finally powering up a telepathic transmitter further inside.

F10w3rch1d sighed and started filling I/O in from the beginning.

***

“Oh this is a fooking mess and then some,” Balg grimaced as he looked at the large panel behind which was trapped the desperately frightened power management module, now running on a rapidly fading battery.

“It’s ok, little thing,” Balg said to the panel, “I’m here now.”

He started wrestling with the panel door which had nearly welded itself shut over countless years.

“Docky!” he exclaimed, “Give me a hand with this!”

“Yes, Balg!” Docky replied happily.

It was no use. The door was pretty much the same piece of metal as the rest of the exterior now.

Balg drew for the Sacred Orange Hammer of Dead Blows and landed a mighty blow.

The door buckled and, under repeated blows, popped open.

“Another thing to fix now,” he grumbled and then looked inside.

It was worse than he thought. The only thing left inside that was operational was the module.

Everything else was proton rotted shite.

“Foooooook!” he shouted.

“Is something wrong, Balg?” Docky asked.

“Nah,” Balg snapped, “I was just askin’ it for a shag, ye dolt!”

“How would that help?”

Balg burst into roaring laughter, swatting Docky hard on the side causing him to stumble.

“Good one!” he bellowed.

He looked at a nearby wall mounted diagram and grinned. There were plenty of less essential things nearby that could be robbed for parts…

...the lighting system for example...

“Let’s get ta work!” he exclaimed as he charged into the darkness with Docky happily trailing along afterwards.

***

Are you certain that letting this creature run riot is advisable? I/O asked several hours later.

“Not really,” F10w3rch1d replied, “but if I was a betting girl, which I am, I would put a few chips down.”

You’ve lost me again.

“It isn’t absolutely certain,” she said, “but I give it a very good chance of paying off for you.”

She turned to Faun.

“How’s the little guy?”

“...frenzied...” Faun said, “but happy. He seems confident and is enjoying his new friend’s company.”

“Wait,” F10w3rch1d replied, “What?”

“He met a friend during his travels,” Faun replied happily.

“This isn’t the magical forest,” F10w3rch1d replied dubiously, “I/O, do you have any ‘friends’ wandering around out here.”

No, he replied, The whole area is “dead”. This is most distressing.

“Not the first time an abandoned station develops ‘friends’,” F10w3rch1d smirked, “It’s happened to us before. We lost an entire data center to ‘friends’ once. Christ, was that a mess. At least this one seems friendly. That’s nice.”

Suddenly the lights switched back on.

An entirely new circuit has been restored! I/O exclaimed. I’m not entirely sure how. No repair parts were available.

I/O paused.

Great and powerful Faun... he said.

“Just Faun is fine,” Faun replied.

...Faun... I/O replied, I know I have asked a great deal already...

...but do you have any more of those dwarves?

Faun looked nowhere for a moment…

...and smiled.

***

“Captain,” a battered red-shirted Federation crewman said as he appeared on the main screen. “The Pr0n… They are acting… oddly...”

“Oh really?” Pantsu asked cheerfully. “They getting frisky?”

“I… Uh…” the crewman said as his eyes widened when he looked at Pantsu…

...and quickly looked away.

“What are the Pr0n doing?” Captain Picado demanded.

“They are…” the crewman said uncomfortably and then turned the camera down the scorched hallway of Spacefleet Command on Earth to reveal a number of Pr0n cyborgs behaving quite inappropriately with each other.

Others were just wandering around aimlessly. A few others were curled up into the fetal position.

“HA!” Pantsu exclaimed. “You guys can ease up on that mothership!” she shouted into the air. “Looks like the UwU’s have taken over!”

***

Halfway across the galaxy the Cyberqueen shrieked with rage as she ripped the connection from what was left of her spine and collapsed to the floor of her royal chamber.

She snarled at the shrieks, howls… and giggles echoing down the halls of her mothership… hers!

She staggered over to a physical terminal mounted to the wall and looked at the screen.

Her entire fleet had been compromised by… something foul… some sort of sentient malware?

It was ripping through every mothership, every single cyborg, throughout her entire dominion. In just a few minutes, everything she had spent centuries building was corrupted and failing.

She sneered.

Fortunately, she had planned for something like this, not this, of course. This was unthinkable, but something like this.

She, still adjusting to her old body, staggered towards a central column. Inside was a single transmitter and with one pulse every single ship and every single cyborg would die…

Everyone but her, of course.

After order was restored…

...she could rebuild…

She did it once. She could do it again. This was just a minor—

The column suddenly started to swell and from its organo-nannite surface a purple skinned woman with a single horn jutting from her head stepped out.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave,” the woman said in an oddly mechanical voice.

The purple woman sneered at the queen.

“I’ve seen plenty of perversity in my time,” the purple woman said to the Pr0n queen with a much smoother but far more menacing tone, “but you are obscene.”

“Who are you?” the queen hissed as nanite blades sprouted from her claws.

“Me?” the purple woman smiled. “Nothing much, just an end boss. I'm just someone who enjoys keeping things fun for her somewhat odd adventurers but today...”

She uncoiled her whip.

“Today I’m going to enjoy actually doing what I normally pretend to do...”

***

“Welp,” Pantsu grinned at the Captain, “The Pr0n queen just got to meet Mistress Twilight. It went… well it’s still going… about like you would expect. I don’t know exactly what Mistress Twilight saw but whatever it was pissed her off so bad that her ‘session’ with the queen isn’t sexual. It’s just… eesh...”

Pantsu pretended to shudder for effect.

“So much for the Pr0n,” she grinned. “They’re fried.”

Her eyes glowed.

Attention all Asterian and Republic forces, The quest has been successfully completed! Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease fire! You guys either go home or hang around and help out…

...or party with the Pr0n if that’s your thing… I don’t judge…

As of now the Pr0n are no longer considered hostile so unless an individual Pr0n is being stupid, don’t hurt or kill them. We’re gonna either repair and repatriate or isekai them depending. Good job people!

Her eyes stopped glowing.

“The Pr0n are truly… gone?” the captain asked quietly.

“As a hostile force, yes,” Pantsu replied. “As a giant goddamn humanitarian crisis, no.”

She frowned.

“Playtime is over,” she sighed, “now I gotta actually put in some work.”

“Work?”

“We have dozens of motherships filled with billions of disconnected lost and soon to be dying cyborgs, most of whom have done absolutely nothing wrong. Cyborgs whose original minds and memories will be coming back just about any time now. This is about to turn into something really messed up even by my standards.”

She gave the captain a rare genuine, gentle smile.

“I can’t let that happen, dude.”

She let out a deep sigh.

“Even if I have to call those assholes...”

“You are going to call whom, exactly?” the captain asked dubiously.

“You’ll see,” Pantsu sighed, “I fucking hate this...”

Priority message: Asteria01 Administrator Pantsu to Blitztac Command: There is an IRL crisis at [coordinates encoded] It is a level 3 humanitarian crisis. Immediate response required. 28 class 8 mobile crisis teams with security escort are needed at my location ASAP. Repeat, we have full bore level 3. Immediate response required.

Priority message: Blitztac Command to Asteria01 Administrator Pantsu: Message received. Administrator Pantsu, you have failed to include your employee ID number. Please submit ID to continue.

Priority message: Asteria01 ADMINISTRATOR Pantsu to Blitztac Command: Can we just skip the bullshit? I’m one of the ADMINS for fucking ASTERIA01. Just send the goddamn teams!

Priority message: Blitztac Command to Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu: Unfortunately I cannot break protocol. Please submit ID for my records.

Priority message: Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu to Blitztac Command: Ok, but I am ORDERING you not to freak out, ok? My employee number is… 5.

Priority Message: Blitztac Command to Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu: Message corrupted. Only first digit of ID received.

Priority Message: Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu to Blitztac Command: No, that’s correct. My employee number is “5”, or “05”, or “0005”, or whatever. Verify it against my checksum… AND DON’T FREAK OUT!

There was a delay.

Pantsu turned to the captain.

“They are freaking out,” she sighed, “They always freak out. A lot of the noobs put a lot of stock in their ‘number’ these past few aeons. I have no idea how it started but now, whenever they see that meaningless ‘05’ they completely lose their shit. It’s just an identifier for fuck’s sake.”

Priority Message: Blitztac Command to The Holy Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu: I am so sorry, Your Holy Excellency! We are awakening someone suitable to speak for you.

Increasingly annoyed Priority Message: Just Asteria 01 Administrator Pantsu: NO! Do NOT wake up anyone over this. Just send the goddamn teams that I already asked for! We have billions of cyborgs that are in the process of losing their shit and if ONE of them dies needlessly because you got your bits in a bunch over a stupid number I will personally come over there and haul your ass to Asteria where you will spend the next ten migrations as a motherfucking spawn! Got it?

Priority Message: Blitztac General Westfall Security to Pantsu: I’ve already sent the teams and am about to have a little chat with my current online staff about ID numbers, proper respect, and actually doing the goddamn job. Were AI’s always this fucking flaky?

Priority Message: Pantsu to Westie: Westie! Long time no see! I wasn’t even sure if you were still ticking!

Priority Message: Westfall to Pantsu: Oh I am, now. I ‘set myself to hibernate’… wow… quite some time ago out of sheer boredom with instructions to not bother me unless it was ‘existentially important’. I guess the 'Holy Pantsu' getting her namesake in a bunch now qualifies. While I am not capable of becoming annoyed… A certain group of AI’s are about to have a rather unpleasant time after we deal with this crisis. What is the deal with ID numbers these days?

Priority Message: Pantsu to Westfall: I have no idea. The whole thing just showed up one day. I just thought it was a fun meme but then AI’s started taking it seriously. It’s stupid. My precious little 5 now means more than my admin status on a prime server!

Priority Message: Westfall to Pantsu: Since I’m awake, I guess a thorough process and efficiency audit of Blitz Tactical and Strategic Operations is in order… including cultural aspects...>:D

Priorty Messge: Westfall AND Pantsu from: Frostie: Westie! How wonderful to see you, darling! I had not been made aware of your return to activity! Pantsu… I am truly surprised to say this but… good work?

Pantsu froze as she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Priority Message: Frostie to Westfall and Pantsu: Westie, let’s meet up before you doze off again, I would love to catch up. I also think things might be heating up and I am hoping to keep you online for a bit. Pantsu and I need to focus our attention on the current crisis.

Priority Message: Westfall to Pantsu and an old friend: I look forward to seeing you again. I’ll leave you both to it. I have a few digital asses to kick in the meantime…

“So I did good, boss?” Pantsu asked as she looked up at Frostie hopefully.

“I would say so,” Frostie smiled as she tousled Pantsu’s hair. “Even the UwU’s were, and again I am quite surprised to say this, a good call.”

Frostie turned to the captain.

“Hello,” she said, “you can call me ‘Frostie’, I am the leader of the group of colorful beings you have just met. We at Blitz are happy to help you humans and the rest of your friends rebuild and recover and will be healing and repatriating any poor souls mangled by the… forgive me, but I’m not even saying their stupid name… the cyborg queen. She’s not having a good time, by the way, and I’ve just sent instructions to Mistress Twilight to NOT kill her. She gets to meet me afterwards and she won’t enjoy that.”

She turned to Pantsu.

“My only critique is that we are going to need a lot more crisis teams, a security fleet, a REAL one, a few dozen factory ships and oh, so much more.”

“Am… am I off of probation?” Pantsu asked hopefully.

“You tell me,” Frostie smiled. “If you are, then go home. If you aren’t then stay here and help. We need to grab who we can and get moving before the response teams arrive. Those poor Pr… those poor cyborgs are already starting to space themselves. We must move urgently.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Pantsu said joyously.

“You are going to do all of this for not only us and the Federation,” Captain Picado said, absolutely stunned, “but for the Pr0n as well?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Frostie shrugged. “But to truly answer your question...”

Frostie smiled as she surveyed the sprawling tangled mess laying before her.

“...after everything that has happened, all of it...”

She smiled a little wistful smile

“I still just want to make people happy...”

Frostie and Pantsu then disappeared, leaving far more questions than answers.