You just had to ask how things can worse. Well, the gods just showed us.

Humans just came across the resonance zone with their guns cleared for action. - Unknown - Trelvarian War, 5th Terran Republic Era

Dreams of Something More watched as each diplomat came forward to "prove" that their systems had surrendered to the Confederacy and were either probationary members or occupied protectorates.

The artificial Lanaktallan just watched silently.

Even the holdouts had ran to her office and signed the treaties they had been hesitant to make official.

A meme popped up in her peripheral vision.

A Lanaktallan standing up and saying "I believe that Cherry-Pop-Chan is best waifu!" and a keyboard flying from out of frame and knocking him down, the keys shattering off of the keyboard to spell "Your waifu is shit."

Dreams shook her head and ducked slightly so it wouldn't be obvious she was snickering.

Those who have been silenced all their lives scream the loudest when their voices are finally heard, she thought.

Several messages pinged up for her attention and she went through them quickly. Most were either rescheduling appointments or verifying appointment times. One was confirmation that the aquarium had delivered cloned Pacific Northwest Wooly Snails to her quarters. Another was without headers or addressing, a text message dropped directly into her inbox.

"Indexing appears finished. Data coallation and examination appears to be beginning" the message read.

She wasn't sure who it was that was watching the Lanaktallan archives, but it had the flavor of a Terran system.

One of the most vehement holdouts stood up, showing the documentation that his office had signed all the relevant surrender documents and was currently being occupied by the Terran Confederacy, reiterating that it had given up all war material and demobilized its forces.

The artificial Lanaktallan just watched silently.

"Do you think the operator is paying attention or do you think he went for a bathroom or snack break?" Speaks leaned over and asked quietly.

"I think there's entire teams of analysts watching every single bit of what's happening," Dreams said softly. "The Lanaktallan seem to forget that what they are talking to is just a robot."

"Huh, weird," Speaks said. "Sometimes they seem to devious and clever, then they seem naive and gullible."

Dreams nodded. "Just like every other politicians," she said. She shook her head. "Remember, every war there is some General or think tank that convinced a gullible and naive politician that the war would be over by the end of summer and the enemy will be easily overtaken."

Speaks nodded. "The ineffective and easily routed enemy continues their cowardly advance upon the capital."

Dreams snickered.

"Who was it that their population was completely startled that it was Terran tanks rolling down the streets and not their own tanks, because their information services replaced Terran insignia with their own and claimed the Terran forces were theirs?" Speaks asked.

"The Wemterran," Dreams said. "There was a few others, but the Wemterran were the big ones."

Speaks just shook his head. He looked at the artificial Lanaktallan and its escorts and shivered. "That thing is just so creepy."

Dreams nodded. "It's supposed to be."

Speaks took a drink off of a water globe and sighed. "This whole thing just feels weird," he said. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Gray Earthlings never talk, they never communicate, that's why this feels off," he shook his head and took a moment to clean his antenna. "It just feels weird. Like we're part of the distraction, but I can't think of what we're being distracted from."

"The database archive raid?" Dreams suggested.

Speaks shook his head, then cleaned his other antennae. "No. Something we've missed. Something so right out in the open that we've completely missed it."

Dreams thought for a long moment. "Our Diplomatic Services databases? They might have gotten into those."

Speaks shook his head again. "No."

Dreams concentrated.

Earthling ships had come in from the resonance zone with over two-thirds of their identified ships.

One ship made reference to being willing to communicate.

Had transmitted their ID's, headers, and transponder codes.

They'd followed astro-control's instructions.

They'd put into high orbit a small task force, no capital ships.

They'd landed a single set of three dropships.

They put out the diplomatic team.

They demanded to know the disposition of the surrendered Unified Council.

They'd indexed and collated the Lanaktallan data archives and began to search them.

They had requested the data on the huge precursor manufacturing systems.

Dreams tried to consider what she had missed.

If they were there to planet crack the system or prosecute a war against the surrendered systems, they had all the data they needed. If they were there to gain information on the Atrekna, they would only find ancient data, if any existed, and would be better off joining the survey of worlds known to have Atrekna activity before the shade attack.

The more Dreams thought about it, the less she could see what they would want that would be so far out in the open that it would need an elaborate distraction.

We know their original mandate, or at least what an anomaly remembers as their original mandate, but do we really know what their current mandate is. They claim to still be hunting Precursor Autonomous War Machines, but where were they at the beginning of all of this? We spent over a year fighting those machines even before problems with the Lanaktallan and the Unified Council came to a head. Then more time fighting them when it became a four-way fight. Where were they? Dreams wondered to herself, staring at the artificial Lanaktallan.

And what are they hiding? We know what a Terran looks like. Why the elaborate deception? she wondered.

"Psst, pay attention," Speaks said, nudging Dreams.

She looked up just in time to see the robot start to fizzle and pop. In less than three seconds all of the artificial Lanaktallan and their weapons had fizzled away, little sparks jumping off of them.

The Chamber erupted in confusion.

Speaks put his hand on his implant.

"They just headed out. The dropships had gotten clearance for takeoff and are heading out of atmosphere on a least time course. The ships in high orbit are all requesting clearance to head to the outer system where the deathblossom is," he said.

"What? How did we not get warning?" Dreams asked.

"The automated systems took care of it," Speaks swore for a moment. "Yeah, they're heading out."

Dreams shifted, settling down as the Council chamber slowly began to calm down.

"Then they got what they came for," she said.

"What was it?"

-----

"They're gone," Speaks said. "The deathblossom closed. No clue as to where they were going."

"Any idea what they wanted?" Dreams asked.

Speaks shook his head. "Just theories. None of them good, all of them with very little supporting evidence."

"You're my intelligence analyst. Tell me what you think," Dreams said. She set down another wooly snail in a hollow spot on the branch of the ceramic tree. Mister Rings popped out, stared at it, then hid again.

Hide and seek was his favorite game.

Speaks sat still for a long moment.

"They were in the deep archives heavily. They accessed a bunch of databases, did direct downloads of the raw data, imaging the databases without really accessing the files inside. Everything from Civilian Citizen Identification Number databases from eighteen million years ago to combat ship designs that were rejected almost ninety million years ago to racial profiling statistics fifty million years ago," he said. He made a grinding noise, rubbing his chewing plates together. "The majority of this is probably just chaff to hide the grain."

Dreams shook her head. "No. It's all relevant. I don't know how I know, I just know, it all matters," she said.

"I'll get 117 with me and we'll start going over it all, then," Speaks said. He stood up. "I better get on it," he said.

Dreams just nodded. "I wish you luck. You're going against Age of Paranoia protocols."

"I'll try to avoid the mistakes our ancestors made and not try to fit any data into my own theories," Speaks promised.

Dreams hid another wooly snail behind a spray of feathery leaves. "Good luck."

Speaks nodded and left the chamber.

"What are you looking for?" Dreams wondered aloud as she hid another wooly snail.

----

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

So, no clue on what they wanted?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No. Which bothers us.

Hey, how long are you going to keep that header?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I don't know. I kind of like it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

It makes me smile every time I see it.

It's just so... so... you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I'm kind of used to it too.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Why change it?

It looks good on you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

>preens

Do you really think so?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TUKNA'RN PEOPLE AGGREGATE OPINIONS

Yes.

It suits you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

GREAT LANAKTALLAN GALLOPING FIELD OF THOUGHT AND OPINION

Your people like it.

Keep it if you like.

I support you in your efforts.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Thank you.

>preens

I think I'll keep it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

The knowledge of what the Earthling fleet is for is someone chilling to my people.

We don't exactly have the best relations with all of humanity.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

If they wanted you, they'd have already come for you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

I hate to break this up, but there's some bad news.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Of course there is.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

Those warmek chassis that exited the dropship? That we saw outside the Council Chambers?

We've seen them before.

It took me a while. It rang a bell, but it took me a bit to find the chapel the bells were ringing in.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

I'll bite.

What's in the chapel?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

We're not going to like this, are we?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

A few thousand years ago, before the Confederacy was founded in the aftermath of those wars, those chassis were sighted. They were fighting with the PAWM out at the edge of the Long Dark. They didn't want to talk, the PAWM were just interested in killing everything, so we backed out.

Out of curiosity, we came back a few decades later and examined the wreckage. Not much, to be honest, mostly PAWM pieces and some pieces of armor and equipment. No biologicals.

We tagged them as some kind of artificial sentience and moved on.

We didn't see them for a long time.

We misidentified them back then.

We thought they were an alien race at the least. At the most, they were some kind of synthetic race.

But those chassis? Upgraded versions of what we saw.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We've seen them before. Usually loaded with missile pods and the like.

We saw some of them at the edges of the Mar-gite War. We managed to ID them based on the fact one of their ships was lurking in the Oort Cloud.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

Right, but the old files were largely forgotten and never indexed with the Mar-gite War data or any of the newer data since we started exploring the Long Dark.

If it wasn't for the appearance of some of the identified ships and the fact that those armors have deployed with Terran power armor, we'd have continued to think that they were a different race.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

OK, so why is this bad news?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

We went over those armor shards again. We put them back together and examined them closely, trying to match them to the ones we saw with the Council Incident as well as what we've seen during the Mar-gite War and during the war against the Atrekna.

Which, I might remind you, are the only two foes aside from the PAWM that they've concentrated on.

After reconstruction, we were faced with the same thing that we were faced with prior.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

OK?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

There is no trace of DNA or XNA in the chassis recovered.

Security charges obliterate it back to carbon ash.

When the armor is reconstructed, one glaring thing pops up.

Either the pilots are a brain in a jaw with a few supporting organs...

...

or...

...

They aren't human.

There's literally no room for a human inside those warmek chassis based on recovered wreckage.

They're not drones. They have too much phasic power to be drones. Phasic power is also used extensively in their systems to the point they can manifest phasic shielding and weaponry even though they are a full conversion cyborg.

I don't know if any of you know just how impossible that is.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Could a Clinical Immortal wield phasic ability?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Not beyond the psychic scream and brain shielding, no.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CLONE WORLDS COLLECTIVE

This doesn't bode well.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

BAH!

How long have you been there?

Don't sneak up on me.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CLONE WORLDS COLLECTIVE

Not long.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

They might be human.

They might be Earthlings.

But they've gone a completely different direction.

While, right now, they aren't a problem, we need to be wary and make sure that if they become a problem, we're facing it straight on instead of facing what they want us to see.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I wish things would calm down for a little while.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Me too, sis, me too.