Those berries are good, ain't they? My wife planted those bushes when she was pregnant with our first child. A filly. My daughter and grand-daughters, they take care of them. They're modified raspberry bushes. Delicious in jams and jellies. Good, ain't they? Savor them.

You know, it's weird. Despite the fighting of the Second Precursor War, AKA The Big 2PW, where I was a Unified Council Infantry soldier, then a Confederate Infantry solider, despite the loss of all the brain numbing and 'happiness' of life under the Council, I don't regret where I am now. Sure, most of the nanoforges are brain damaged at best, don't work most of the time, and spit out weird things all the time, but life's been worse.

Yeah, it's work. I mean, I like to jokingly tell my neighbors that if worse comes to worse, we can pull the plows ourselves. True, when I was younger, I could have planted this field with nothing for than a few taps on an app and advanced robots to do all the plowing, the planting, the care, and even the harvesting and everything else.

Now I plow the field with the help of draft animals, with a steel plow. It takes me a week or two to plow and seed my land. Harvest it all with the help of my family and my neighbors. Take it down to the mill, have it milled and bagged, share it with the neighbors who helped plant and harvest it, just as I did their fields. Trade it at market for stuff me and my family, we don't do or we don't have.

It's not an easy life. Not like we used to have.

But I wouldn't trade this life.

There's something about smelling the wife making a loaf of bread from grain that you yourself brought into the world and harvested. Something about watching your smiling children eat creamed grain porridge with honey and spice.

Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I inhaled too many fumes from the toxic vats at the factory I worked half my life away in. Where each day was numb stupid happiness. Maybe I'm just stupid and there's something wrong with me, some defective gene or something.

Or maybe there isn't.

Maybe, and just maybe mind you, I have a good life.

Tell me: have you ever eaten a pear? Here. Have one. You can tell your children and grand-children that you once ate a pear. They'll be jealous. - Far'mar, Lanaktallan agricultural specialist, 45 PDH.

Torturer was old for a DS. He was nearly four hundred years old and, honestly, he knew he should have been executed for his part in the horrible dystopia he had been baked and born in. Still, the Confederacy had shown mercy, determined he was nothing more than what the universe had made him. He had gone to therapy, taken part in his rehabilitation, and become more than someone who wrested confessions from the often innocent.

He had to admit, the last few years had been exciting.

Now, he was standing on the decking of a space station that hung in inky blackness. No planetary body or anything to orbit, just in the middle of space.

The Black Box had been put on full hibernation and was beyond reach now. Frozen in one moment in time due to gravitational effects of artificially generated singularities. The space station was the one way to reach it, the only way.

It was also the way off of it.

The others had left. Herod and Flowerpatch had been first. The others had left one by one, till only the Confederate Agents from the Office of Scientific Intelligence had remained, shutting down the systems and putting them on standby or in hibernation.

He was the last. There were two Gray Girls nearby, both holding pampered felines.

His was asleep in the little bed at his feet.

The last ship had arrived, appearing near the station since there was no resonance zone, and taking less than an hour to maneuver next to the space station and dock. Torturer had noticed the ship was painted a crimson red and had passed strangely tinted yellow lights over the station before getting much closer than a hundred miles. Whatever it was looking for, they either found it or they didn't it, whichever was satisfactory to them, and they'd come in close and signaled the station to extend the docking umbilical.

The ship had finished docking. Nobody would be coming off the ship to man the station. It was automated and would go into hibernation mode as soon as he and the Gray Girls left soon.

The lights went green and the iris opened. There was a single person waiting. A Saurian Pact Kobold, dressed in a vac-suit.

"You our passengers?" he asked.

"Yes," Torturer said. The two Gray Girls just nodded.

"Come on, then," the kobold said.

Torturer picked up the bed with his feline and followed the kobold. The two Gray Girls did the same, one moving her face down and lifting the bed to rub her nose in the feline's fur. The feline responded with that adapted growl that was so comforting when it rumbled.

"Let me take that, we don't have hard light emitters," the kobold said, holding out his arms.

Torturer regretfully handed over his feline in her bed.

Halfway down the umbilical Torturer felt the ship's computing core accept the transfer of his code strings from the station, felt the weird sensation of moving from one computer system to the other. It was tight, like he was wearing tight pants, but he was used to that.

The airlock led to an entryroom and Torturer noted that the lights were all yellowish.

"We won't be using hyperspace, so you won't need to go into hypersleep in an armored core," the kobold said. "We'll be in jumpspace, but if you want, we have hypercores for your people on board."

"No, thank you, though, for your consideration," Torturer said.

"Consideration costs nothing," The kobold shrugged. The airlock hissed shut and there was a slight shift, letting Torturer know the umbilical had come loose.

Torturer followed the kobold to a comfortable, if small, stateroom. The holo-emitters were spaced oddly, so he often skipped sections of the corridor when he walked. Once in the stateroom the kobold set down the feline and her bed.

He suddenly understood Flowerpatch and her nanite body a bit more.

"The system's a little thin, we've got a max of ten DS passengers, but you should be all right," the kobold said. He dug in his pocket and held out a hard light emitter. He then tossed it up so that magnetics grabbed the ceiling place, placing the hard light emitter on the ceiling.

Torturer felt it spin up and felt himself gain a hard light body.

"Only one we have. We'd run off a few more, but the nanoforges are kicking weird," the kobold said.

"Weird, how?" Torturer asked.

"You didn't hear?" the kobold asked.

"No, what?" Torturer looked around. "Was your ship damaged?"

The kobold shook his head. "No, somehow the Slorpies fucked up big time. The whole galactic spur is wrecked. We're talking entirely fucked. The universe 1%'d about everyone this time."

Torturer put one hand on the wall. "How?"

Torturer listened in horror as the kobold described how shades had come screaming out of every superluminal communication device, crawling out of any screen showing an image in at least 4K resolution, including retinal links. How they'd ravaged entire planets, entire stellar systems.

"So, when we go to jumpspace, the ship's lighting goes to crimson, called 880808 on the color scale for variable visible frequency lighting," the kobold said. "Jumpspace, hyperspace, stringspace, it's all haunted. There's jokes that Hellspace is somehow more haunted."

"And nobody knows how it happened?" Torturer asked.

"Came out of the Contested Zones. Out of the Atrekna worlds. Jumped to the Confedrate troops fighting the Atrekna, from there infested the whole system," the Kobold said. "Borked up everything real good."

The lights flashed, letting everyone know the ship was about to move to jumpspace.

The lights flashed again, this time bathing everything in red.

"The shades, they don't like red light. So all the lights are red when we're FTL," the kobold said. "When we leave FTL, we take an hour or so to go over the ship with phasic scanners, make sure no shades got onboard while we were in jumpspace. It's what took us so long to pick you up."

"By the Digital Omnimessiah," Torturer said. He went to say more when the kobold laughed.

"You can say that again. If it wasn't for him putting the shades back to rest, the whole galactic spur, hell, maybe even beyond, would be nothing but dead worlds and shades," the kobold said.

Torturer stood, petting the cat, which started purring.

"The Digital Omnimessiah made himself known? I knew he'd returned, but I didn't know he'd made himself known to everyone," Torturer said.

"Eh, he hadn't, really, till the shade attack. He showed up, started laying them to rest by the millions each second. Once the shades were gone, he vanished again," the kobold said. The reptilian shook his head and laughed. "It's been a hell of a time out here. The hypercom wave is crashed, almost every superluminal communication system is down, and the PAWM, the same guys were were fighting a few years ago, are ferrying messages for everyone. They come crashing over the resonance zone yelling YOU HAVE INCOMING COMMUNICATIONS! instead of their old war cry."

Torturer picked up the cat and moved to the bed, sitting down and setting the cat down beside him. She twisted, bit at his wrist for a moment, then went back to laying there purring.

"Sounds like I missed a lot," Torturer said.

"Heard you were a Black Box tech. Anything good?" the kobold asked, slight eagerness tinting his voice.

Torturer knew that this was the real reason for all the chatter.

"Her," Torturer said. He tapped the cat then went back to petting her. "I was working with Legion. He restored the cats and dogs, cured the Friend Plague."

The kobold gave a reptilian smile and slapped his tail twice. "Hot pipes and wizards, that good," he gave a laugh. "Got a big hound myself. He's in my cabin, probably chewing up the end of my bed, but he's a good boy."

The kobold stood up. "Ring me if you need anything."

"Will do," Torturer promised.

The kobold left, leaving Torturer alone with his thoughts and his cat.

He opened his mouth to ask the ship's computer if there was a digital library when everything went white and a loud THWUMM-BWOOOIIING! filled the air.

-----

It was raining when they exited the building, small droplets that still quickly soaked through clothing, the cold wind and the night air quickly chilling the body. Dana'ahsh stayed close to his new friend, the gray eyed Terran who was slouched slightly as he shambled more than walked down the steps out from of the building.

The Earthling went and sat down on the hood of the car, in between the two headlights.

Dana'ahsh scurried up, still holding the shotgun, while the Earthling lit a cigarette, the flame illuminating his face for only a few seconds. As the Earthling tucked the lighter away, Dana'ahsh noted how only the Earthling's eyes could be seen beneath the brim of his hat.

"No shades on the street. Wonder where they all went?" the Earthling asked. He exhaled smoke. "Superluminal's down, so there's no more coming through."

"Power's out," Dana'ahsh said, pointing at the city, which was dark.

"Huh," the Earthling, named Herod, said. The sound was more a grunt than a word, but Dana'ahsh had gotten use to the terse method of communication from the Earthling.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Dana'ahsh asked, suddenly remembering why the Earthling had come to his planet.

Herod nodded. "Yeah."

"And?" Dana'ahsh asked, feeling slightly curious about whatever the Earthling was doing.

"I was right. She's alive. There's a couple of deserted planets, used to have populations before the war, but now they're just empty. She'll be there," Herod said.

"Why is it so important you find her? You said she's your mother, surely you know where she is? Family sticks together," Dana'ahsh said.

Herod gave a low laugh, a rough sounding thing. "You'd think that, wouldn't you. No, she's my mother in a very esoteric way. A strange way."

"What way?" Dana'ahsh asked. He accepted the fizzybrew from Herod when the other being pulled it from his jacket pocket.

"Come on, get in. We'll go to the spaceport, see if any pilots survived or if we can find a ship with a DS core or eVI core in good enough shape to fly," Herod said, standing up. "I'll tell you the story on the way."

Dana'ahsh wanted to pass, say no, but he stopped, looking at the darkened city.

He had no mate. He had no children. He had no being that he was emotionally invested in or interested in. His apartment was largely bare, his need for luxuries almost absent.

Dana'ahsh got into the car next to the Terran.

The Terran put the car in gear, backing up.

"Believe it or not, Dana'ahsh," Herod said, as he put the car in drive. "I was once a digital sentience."

Dana'ahsh looked at the Earthling just as everything went white and a loud THWUMM-BWOOOIIING! filled the air.

-----

The day was rainy. Something had taken over the planetary weather control system and was keeping it cold and rainy across the planet. Technicians were still trying to figure out how to change it, on some worlds they were trying to figure out how to access the planetary weather control system. Still other planets had populations that didn't even know that they needed to access the control systems.

Hesstla, however, was just letting the weather control system run the program to its conclusion.

Which meant the day was overcast, cold, windy, and rainy.

"I'm nervous," one of the three Hesstlan in the back of the taxi cab said quietly.

The big male in between the two females took her hand and squeezed it gently. "Don't be," he said.

The smaller female ducked her head, sending the bangles on short chains attached to ear tip piercings to swaying.

The big male patted her hand. "It'll be all right."

"What if she doesn't like me?" Whimtar, affectionately known as Wimmy, asked.

"She will," Elu said.

"But what if she doesn't like us?" Wimmy asked again.

Elu squeezed her hand again and gave her a smile. "Trust me, she will."

The cab stopped at the curb in front of a modest little house in the middle of a surburban subdivision.

Elu paid the cab driver and got out, opening an umbrella for the two females to stand underneath.

"You know, I'm supposed to do that for you," the bigger female, Rentwee, affectionately known as Rennie, said with a smile, putting her hand on Elu's arm.

"I'm bigger than you," Elu smiled.

The two females stayed close to Elu as he walked up the walk. Right as he reached the door, it opened.

The female in the doorway was massive. Bigger even than Elu by at least a full head. Her shoulders were broad, her loose clothing couldn't hide how thick her limbs were. She wore a head covering, even her ears hidden, with a veil over her face.

"Elu," she said, her voice soft. She leaned forward, hugging him, pulling Elu tight to his chest. She let go and looked at the two smaller females then at Elu. "Come in, ninny. Get them out of the rain before they catch a cold."

Both girls were nervous as they followed Elu into the house, which was warm.

And smelled of good honest food being cooked.

As he crossed the threshold everything went white and a loud THWUMM-BWOOOIIING! filled the air.

-----

Del'Var came in out of the rain, stopping in the drying room under the overhang and shaking off. His fur, which had only come back in the last few years, shed all the water droplets that were still on the oil slicked fur. He wiped down to remove anything missed, then picked up a sheet from beside the door. He wrapped it around himself, covering one shoulder, and tied it off.

It would have been recognizable to any Iron Age Terran from the Olive Lands.

He moved into the house, the happy outcries of his children making him stop and kneel down. All three were barely two years old, toddling around the house. He hugged them, rubbing his nose against them, then stood up.

Ev'Ler, his wife of three years, stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She had sugar-grass dust on her apron as she smiled at him.

"How's the fishing?" she asked.

"Good," Del'Var said. He moved up and hugged Ev'Ler, even as his three children ran up and each grabbed a leg to hold tight to, eager to get in on the hugs. "Storm is going to get worse, so we figured we'd come back early. Anything important happen?"

Ev'Ler shrugged. "Some kind of alert to not use visual or holographic messaging. The radio put out a emergency bulletin, but nobody uses anything but the telephone anyway," she said. She waved at the kitchen. "Want to help? We're making sugar-grass cookies."

Del'Var hugged her again, relishing the solid, real feel of his mate.

"I'd love to," he said.

The sky suddenly lit up and everything went white and a loud THWUMM-BWOOOIIING! filled the air.

-----

DEGAUSSING DONE

SYSTEM RESET

...

...

...

POWER ON SELF-TESTS

DONE!

ZERO ERRORS

FAT128 ERROR CHECKING AND AUTOCORRECTING

1.3E4 ERRORS FIXED

8.91A31C41EB BAD SECTORS REMAINING

ALERTING MAINTENANCE

DONE

SYSTEM RESET

...

...

...

POWER ON SELF-TESTS

DONE!

ZERO ERRORS

FAT128 ERROR CHECKING

1.2324E5 BAD SECTORS REMAINING

ALERTING MAINTENANCE

DEGAUSSING ROUTINE LOOP EXECUTION

DONE!

POWER ON SELF-TESTS

DONE!

ZERO ERRORS

BAD SECTORS WITHIN TOLERANCE

READ/WRITE SYSTEM REALIGNMENT

DONE

SYSTEM RESTART

...

...

...

SYSTEM REBOOT

BOOTSTRAP LOADING

LOADED

BOOTSTRAP RUNNING

4.52352E9 ERRORS

(F)ix

(A)bort

(R)etry

(I)gnore

...

...

...

AUTOMATIC ERROR FIXING

DONE

0 ERRORS REMAIN

SYSTEM RESTART

...

...

...

SYSTEM REBOOT

BOOSTRAP LOADING

LOADED

BOOTSTRAP RUNNING

LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM

DONE

OS RUNNING

GESTALT SYSTEM BOOTING

DONE!

GATHERING SPECIES DATA

DONE!

RUNNING GESTALT BIAS WEIGHT TABLES

DONE!

RUNNING GESTALT CONCERN WEIGHTS

DONE!

RUNNING GESTALT PREFERENCE TABLES

DONE!

BUILDING GESTALT FOUNDATION

DONE!

BUILDING GESTALT PERSONALITY FILES

DONE!

CROSSCHECKING GESTALT PERSONALITY FILES AGAINST RECORDS

DONE!

MERGING FILES

DONE!

MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS BEEN AUTO-RENAMED TO HAT WEARING AUNTIE

CREATING CHATROOM

RELEASING CONTROLS

DONE!

YOU HAVE BEEN RESURRECTED!

HAVE A NICE DAY!

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wow. That was a hell of a thing.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Oof. That was... weird.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

You can say that.

Give me a second.

LOADING CONFED-STATUS.DAT

OK... lemme parse this.

Wow. That's a lot of fighting.

It looks like its fading. Between the Digital Omnimessiah and the collapse of the major superluminal communications devices, the number of planets still infested with shades is less than 0.25%. That's still several hundred worlds, but it looks like everyone's getting an handle on things.

Death toll is staggering though.

All right, let's get to work.

There's a lot to do and our people need us.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

I'm back. Huh.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Welcome back, dear one.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

Same with us.

New minimum threshold tolerance values brought us back.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Same with us.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Ditto.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED SYSTEMS has logged on

I'm back too.

I've got a hell of a hangover.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Welcome back.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED SYSTEMS RENAMED TO CONFED

CONFED

It's good to be back with all of you.

HUMANITY has logged on

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

What?

No.

It's got to be an error.

HUMANITY has set autogreeting to "Wazzup?"

HUMANITY has set avatar to Two-Toned-Hela

HUMANITY requests time/date stamp

HUMANITY has set chatroom to +v

HUMANITY has requested #who channel

HUMANITY>/list

HUMANITY has left the chatroom

HUMANITY has entered the chatroom

HUMANITY>WAZZUP!

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Now there's something none of us have seen in thousands of years.

HUMANITY

How long have I been gone?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That's a difficult question.

Long answer: You got assassinated during the Clownface Nebula Conflict.

Even longer answer: You were assassinated by Matthias the Elder a few years after the Glassing of TerraSol.

Even weirder answer: You dropped offline during the Terran Xenocide Event.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HUMANITY

I think I'm going to need to play catchup.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

There's a lot to catch you up on.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Hi!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HUMANITY

Hello to you too.

I see some introductions are in order.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLD

Wait, I thought the human gestalt was the Digital Omnimessiah.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That a complicated question with a confusing answer.

Just roll with it, kid.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLD

All right.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HUMANITY

Wow, it's been exciting while I've been gone.

Last thing I remember was... umm... oh. Last thing I remember was screaming.

Yeah, guess I've been gone a long time.

HUMANITY>/number

CHANSERV>2.382E3 visible

Oh...

...yeah, good thing I'm back.

Well, after introductions, anyone wanna help me out?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I'd love to.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

Space isn't completely dark. Even in the vast gulf between stars light from stellar masses streams through the void. Particles carried on solar winds whisper through the void.

Out in between, the 'empty' spaces, is what made up most of space. It was 95% of the universe.

Which is why nobody could watch over it all.

Everything went white and made a THU-BOOOOIIIING noise.

Then everything went black again.

For a long time, in a particular area that held no importance to most anyone else, that's all there was.

Then a small pinprick of white appeared.

From the pinprick tendrils of gauzy white energy snaked out, twisting and twining.

There was a gush of white energy that folded, refolded, unfolded, and folded again.

Soon, what looked like a complex flower of gauzy white energy and lacy energy fields sat in what had been empty space where there was no stars for a dozen light years in any direction.

From the energy field began to emerge a ship.

A ship with terrible lines and horrible purpose.

A ship painted gray.

It's name was Ship of Theseus.

And it was not alone.