Erika would’ve preferred staying on the edges of space. If it was possible, she would’ve taken the derelict to an unknown world and started her work there. Combined with the samples from the intruder, she would have much more than what she needed. However, the unavoidable truth remained that more attacking vessels could enter the solar system at any time. This region was dangerous, and they needed to leave as soon as they could.

The gravity drive solution was the best one that she had available to her, but there was not a chance that she was ever going to turn the derelict over to the Exchange. If it was deemed safe enough to put the crew back in stasis, she could arrange to be woken up early. If not, then other possibilities could be explored. In the worst case, she could always use the derelict as a bargaining chip with the Exchange. Insurance to ensure that they followed up on their end of the deal.

She didn’t doubt for a moment that human irrationality on the Exchange’s end could lead them to renege on their agreement. Once they thought the situation had stabilized, the mindless bureaucrats of the Exchange would feel that they could remove her from the board without future trouble. They would put her back in stasis until another unexpected event frightened them again.

Regardless, Erika was surprised that the Captain seemed so against the idea of using the gravity drive. Even with the risks, it was the best chance to secure the derelict and get everyone home safely. She would have to keep her eye on him—although there was always the sabotage at her fingertips. Erika would consider it later. Her work here was far too important to be distracted by more politics.

She watched with hungry eyes from behind the reinforced glass of the containment chamber. Unlike the rest of the ship, the interior of the thick cube was kept in a vacuum and suspended in zero-g. There were large machine supports on either end for inertial dampening, as well as for controlling the various sterilized tools inside.

In the center of the containment chamber was a liquid metal sphere that had been collected from the entity. They had cleaned up the rest with appropriate use of the hull cutters. Since then, the liquid had not regenerated itself as it had when it came in contact with the marines.

Erika crossed her arms. I don’t doubt that these entities use the exact same technology of matter materialization. If so, then it was clear that the device at the center of mass operated in much the same manner—albeit on a much smaller scale. But more importantly, and for her research, it meant that the intruder’s civilization was based upon the same technological premise as the one that had built the derelict.

It basically all but confirmed that what they were witnessing was a post-human civilization. One that had probably splintered off from the builders of the derelict, and for whatever reason, chose to wipe the former from existence. It wasn’t an unusual sentiment in of itself. Groups create distinctions, distinctions create conflicts, and conflicts inevitably create wars. What was unusual was the evidence that they had engaged in wholesale genocide.

The Free Exchange itself was still a growing entity in many regards. Even after thousands of years of rule, they basically only occupied about ten percent of the total galaxy. There was more than enough room for an interstellar civilization. And certainly much more room for an intergalactic one. She thought.

The whole breadth of an empty universe stretched out before them. Conflicts required finite material. The universe was infinite. Well, not accounting for some theoretical limits. She snorted at herself. But the fact was, it was odd that a civilization of such a scale would ever feel the need to wipe another out. There were enough resources until the heat death of the universe.

Perhaps they were planning for the long game. Wipe a civilization out at its relative infancy to claim existence for themselves. There were still billions of years left before the stars died out. Someone may want to make sure their descendants receive the near endless bounty. Erika knew some of the hypothetical theories—the Free Exchange had even published some of them. The galaxy could be condensed into a series of black holes paired with gravity drives. This unprecedented reactor the size of a spiral arm could provide the necessary energy to sustain a small civilization about a trillion years after all the stars died out. After that, things looked questionable.

Unfortunately, they could not ask the Andromedans themselves, at least not yet. Dr. Lukov had elaborated that while they had identified several logs from the billions in the archive, it wasn’t wise nor practical to begin materializing random objects while they still didn’t even understand the language. That secret was locked away on the derelict for the time being.

But maybe not for this. She excitedly watched as the calibrations were set for insertion into the metal orb. It was frustrating to work with simple interfaces, but there was no other solution for something so complex. A nanite filled with binary had already been inserted into the entity. Now they were going to send a translation interface to galactic standard along with a few auxiliary texts.

If the entity wished to communicate with them, a non-networked computer awaited on the other side of the containment chamber. They were about to provide all the information a sophisticated race should need, and from scans, there was certainly plenty of activity happening in the metal liquid. The only question was whether their attackers wanted to talk.

You better. Erika privately warned. Otherwise, she was going to recommend elimination of the subject. They already had smaller samples being worked on. While it was difficult analyzing the code contained within the artificial cells, they would be able to break through eventually. And then your secrets will be out anyway. It’s only a matter of time.

“Commander.” Dr. Philips looked up from his own computer. “We’re ready for insertion.”

“Do it.” She realized she had been tapping her foot in anticipation.

“Shouldn’t we alert the Captain?”

Erika looked over her shoulder towards the man. “We’ll take a recording. Best not interrupt him while he’s organizing the ship. I’ll send it over if anything interesting happens.”

Dr. Phillips nodded and typed in the command on his keyboard. Inside the containment chamber, a hydraulic arm moved. A large needle slowly penetrated the liquid sphere, and the connection was made with the computer on the other side. Erika pressed her palm against her cheek. It should take only a moment. A computer could operate at a speed thousands of times than a human’s could. The time it takes to decipher the information—

Begin?

Erika nearly shot up in her chair. The word appeared on the computer almost instantaneously. She grinned privately as she took a moment to process the word. This is finally it. She had to control herself from shaking. Finally, the moment was here after all this time. She took a deep breath to calm herself and closed her eyes, slowing her racing thoughts.

Opening them again. She stared at the lone word. Negotiations have begun. It might have seemed a simple response, but it carried its intent across, regardless. The entity knew it was a prisoner. This was a neutral question which it could ask while also keeping much of the ball in its own court. Every word now meant precious information being communicated.

Erika stared at the question. Her attention was solely on the screen. She almost missed Dr. Philips alerting the Captain just out of the corner of her eye.

That places you on a side. She thought, annoyed. It also meant her time with the entity would be short. Best make use of it while I can.

She typed on the computer while Dr. Philips stood over her shoulder.

Yes.

“We should wait for—“

“I am authorized to make command decisions. Every moment we spend is another moment more ships could appear. Are you going to waste minutes just for the Captain to get here?” she snapped at him, causing the smaller man to back down.

What do you want?

Again, straight to the point. She leaned back in her chair. The entity knew it was trapped and that they could kill it if necessary. So why not get straight to the point as well?

Erika sent a message back. Why did you attack us?

You trespassed. We responded.

We. That word was so small, and yet it meant everything. It meant that the intelligence contained within the liquid was plural. Maybe someone of another scientific discipline could overlook it, but that word alone meant all the difference to Erika. A group implied relational interaction. If she could understand that, she could more than easily understand the path that this civilization took. The next question was clear to her.

Who are you?

The question forced an identification. The answer would be all the more important. She didn’t care so much about the what, so much as the how. Any hint she could obtain from the entity would be paramount, and she doubted the entity would outright tell her. But this is what she had anticipated from the moment Tannis told her about the signal. It was time for her to put her skills to use.

I am Cronus.

Erika raised an eyebrow. The name was likely being drawn from some of the other material she had sent over. A post-human civilization would need some sort of bridge back to interface with humanity. Foreseeing these issues, she had sent over material such as a breakdown of human anatomy and cultural literature. Thankfully, these efforts appeared to not have been in vain. The bridge between post-human and human was apparently not so wide as to be entirely uncrossable.

She turned her mind to other thoughts. That the entity referred to itself in the singular was interesting. Perhaps the “we” referred to the greater liquid mass on the ship. When the entities had been fired from the vessel, perhaps each one hosted a singular intelligence. Well, let’s probe with another question. Erika typed a response into the computer.

“Sir?” Dr. Philips looked at her, confused.

“I am gauging its response. This will tell me exactly what we are dealing with.” Erika barely paid attention to the man.

She sent the message. I wish to speak further. I do not wish to speak to Cronus.

There was a long pause on the other end. Unusual, as a computer would no doubt need infinitely less time to make a decision than a human brain.

“You’ve confused it,” Dr. Philips sighed.

“This isn’t confusion.” Erika leaned forward, anticipating the response. “If the entity is singular, it would need only respond that such a thing is impossible. Or at the very least, lie and claim another name. Either way, the response should have been instant.”

“Then what?”

“Pull up scans of activity within the liquid.”

Dr. Philips moved over to another monitor suspended near the chamber and swung it over to Commander Terese. It held a readout of the heat the sphere was putting out. Although relatively small, there was a spike at the timestamp where Erika had asked the question.

“I’ve worked with theories of transhumanist civilizations.” she told Dr. Philips. “One of the more popular ones is the idea of an emergent consciousness created through a collective of human minds. If you’re looking to create a digital suspension for human minds, you’re always inevitably doing this to one degree or another. But if I’m right…”

I am Thea.

Erika smiled. “That heat surge was correlated with an increase in use of processing power. Likely, what we’re witnessing is a collection of intelligences stored within the sphere. They deliberated over my answer and that is the reason for the delayed response.”

Now that she had identified the group, it was a matter of determining how it was organized. Did a singular voice take precedence over all decision making in a manner like a monarchy? Or was it a more technologically dependent innovation where consciousnesses of different dispositions were selected to meet the situation? Such systems had only been seen a few times in the Free Exchange, such as the New Determinist Republic, where computer algorithms selected for human dispositions, but they were grossly inefficient without transhumanist mechanisms.

Ultimately, that would be a harder question to answer. But in a few moments, Erika had learned infinitely more than she had in the past twenty-four hours.

A hand fell upon her shoulder. She didn’t need to glance back to know the Captain had arrived. Time’s up. She sullenly thought.

“You’re communicating with it?” Samir asked gravely.

“We’ve had a short dialogue. You can see the message history.”

Samir nodded as silently looked over the short back and forth. He snarled and shook his head. “Ask how many more of their ships are coming.”

“Sir?” Erika turned in her chair. “We may want to wait. Get as much information as we can before pushing—“

“These entities attacked us, Commander. They attacked this ship and killed members of my crew. I am not interested in finding out any more about these creatures than strictly necessary. This is a tactical interrogation. Ask the question.”

Erika hesitantly typed the question into the computer. How many more of your vessels are coming?

Indeterminate.

Samir grew impatient and reached for the keys himself. Erika was forced to back away, and she glowered at the man behind his back.

How many of your vessels are within a thousand light year radius?

Unable to comprehend query.

Samir threw himself back in frustration. “They’re stalling us. Eliminate the entity and get rid of it. I doubt we’ll be able to gain much.”

“Sir, I don’t think that’s the case,” Erika quickly interjected. “This is likely a post-human civilization. We’re working off the simplest interface and they likely have a limited understanding of the standard language. To them you said our notion of light followed by our measurement of a year and then a reference to geometry. We can’t ask complex questions without providing proper reference points.“

Erika wanted to slap the man for his lack of thought. A post-human civilization might have none of the basic assumptions they had. Their understanding of language, mathematics, and even ways of thinking could well be—and likely were—entirely different. To rush into asking such questions without a proper understanding of what they were dealing with would be disastrous at best. It was a miracle they achieved any level of communication.

Samir stroked his beard in thought. Erika saw barely restrained rage on the man’s face for the unprovoked attack and subsequent murder of the crew. But it was clear from the man’s face that reason was prevailing.

What are you? He typed.

Erika wanted to sigh again. That question was amateurish. It was likely that they themselves also lacked key reference points to understand what the entity might even say. It had taken millennia to define what a human was and put it into practicable scientific theory. Now the Captain was doing the equivalent of asking that to an even more complex race.

A second passed, and an answer appeared. We wish to inherit the stars.

Erika blinked. Out of all the responses, this is the one that she had least expected. A statement of intent might be the best way to define oneself outside of materialistic terms. Probably most certainly to lower life forms such as ourselves. The word choice might also be significant. Inherit was a word without violent connotations, but it was anyone’s guess whether or not that was intentional.

And what do you want with our galaxy?

Erika wanted to roll her eyes again. The Captain didn’t think twice about his word choice. He was referring to the Free Exchange, but the entity was working with mostly literal definitions. To them, he almost certainly asked what do they wanted to do with the stars and nebulae that comprise a galaxy.

We want the ship. Give us the ship and conflict will cease. The entity seemed tired of dealing with the Captain. Erika inwardly hoped that the writing style and the change in tone alerted them that another individual had taken over on their end.

No.

Then we shall destroy you.

Erika wanted desperately to intervene, but the Captain had already typed his response. You have seen our weapons. We can destroy your vessels easily.

We survived. We penetrated your vessel. We shall overwhelm you.

She wanted to rip the Captain’s hand from the computer. “Sir—“

“I’m done, Commander.” Singh sneered as he stood up. “You can continue to engage the creature for the next two hours. Perhaps you will have better success than I have. After that, kill it.”

“I understand.” Erika knew there was no use arguing the point, though she had absolutely no intention of doing so.

The Captain swiftly left the room. Out of the corner of her eye, Erika noticed that Dr. Philips followed him as well. Of course he did. She couldn’t guess what the sly man was up to. Not that it mattered much to her. It didn’t matter what either of them did. The outcomes had been determined since before the ship had left dry dock on Ghenus.

It was frustrating for her. No one had ever understood the stakes. None of them even had an inkling of what was really going on. And what was worse, she couldn’t really blame them. The Free Exchange had kept it hidden from the galaxy. It wasn’t their fault they had no conception of the bigger picture.

But she did. Some might call her insane, but the only rational option left was an extremist one. Erika recalled her first meeting with Tannis after he had her thawed out. The perpetual master of mankind. That was, unfortunately, not an exaggeration. Left alone from outside influences, the Free Exchange had been perfectly designed to last until the end of the universe. While there were entropic forces, those were mitigated to the extent that predicted collapse would happen long after the end of coherent structure in the universe. At that time, it would be a moot point, anyway.

The Free Exchange had deemed itself the end of man. This was it. The future would hold nothing better than billions of protectorates locked in endless bloody struggle. Uncountable trillions of people succumbing to poverty, disease, and nearly every infirmity that accompanied mankind since the stone age. The Free Exchange had condemned man to suffer until the end of time. All because they were afraid of progress. All because they were afraid of something new.

Glen Tannis had once called it a meticulously trimmed garden during one of their conversations. In truth, it was a cage for mankind that no one could get loose of. The rest of humanity might as well have been mindless cattle, generation after generation sacrificed on the altar of order. Their lives meaningless, having done nothing that wouldn’t be swept away with the next iteration. And it would all continue until the end of time. Erika wanted to scream at the horror of what was being done.

It might have been worth it if there was some semblance of utopia, if humanity could escape from the toil it had found itself in since the first man walked upon a young Earth. Instead, what they got was a poor substitute. They had exchanged humanity’s dream of a better world so men like Glen Tannis could hold power. What reaction was one supposed to have to that?

Erika turned to the liquid metal. Maybe these new visitors wouldn’t be the ones to break the Free Exchange. Maybe the Milky Way would prevail over Andromeda. Maybe the Free Exchange could save itself. But she was damned if she wasn’t going to go down fighting.

Her eyes barely registered a new message blinking on the computer. She hadn’t been paying attention. As her sight refocused, one new sentence waited for a reply on the monitor.

Are you able to talk freely?