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I had no way of knowing how big the next fleet would be, which left a gnawing sensation
of worry in my gut. I knew the battle station could hold against the invasion fleets
I’d seen in the past, but maybe they’d been scouting missions on the fringe of a vast
amorphous blob of star systems.

“I’m flying out tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll hit the inner planets, and see how our exploration
teams are doing. Will you be coming with me?”

Finally, she gave me a full-fledged smile. “Just try to stop me. I’m sick of this
ghost-filled station. The air still smells canned no matter how many algae tanks you
run it through.”

 We left, and headed back to our quarters. Sandra hadn’t been too happy about my recent
associations with Captain Sarin, but she’d gotten over it once Jasmine had left the
system. This was a positive for me, as I had my girlfriend back and she was sharing
my bed again.

As our simulated, preprogrammed nighttime fell over the station, the hull creaked
and rattled in odd ways. The inner layers of the station were thick, layered metal,
but the outer armor was a blanket of raw bedrock. The combination never stopped shifting,
as the various metal sectors expanded and contracted in reaction to sources of radiation.
To make things worse the station rotated slowly, exposing new portions of the exterior
to the star’s radiation then to the cold of deep space in turn.

Sandra and I had become used to the noises and weren’t deterred in making some unusual
sounds of our own. I think knowing we were getting off the station in the morning
energized us both.

As a newly rebuilt man, I was able to keep up with Sandra in bed now. I thought to
myself when we’d finished how pleasant it would be not to wake up bruised and chafed
the next morning.

But our happy farewell party to the battle station didn’t last all the way to morning.
Long before the night shift was over, the klaxons wailed and yellow flashers went
off in our bedroom. The lights bathed our sweaty bodies in a rhythmic amber glow.

-2-

The klaxons forced all thoughts of sleep from my mind. Still naked and slick with
sweat, I slapped a wall with four fingers and a thumb. A channel-bump welled up in
response, pressing against my forefinger as the wall’s smart metal interface identified
me and brought up valid options. I applied pressure to the bump, and a voice began
speaking from the dim walls of my chambers.

“Sir? Colonel Riggs?”

“Go ahead, Welter,” I said.

Commander Welter was my exec on the station and led the bridge team when I was off-duty.
I wasn’t surprised to hear his voice, but I was a little irritated. I’d just fallen
asleep. I thought to myself hazily that this had better not be a minor malfunction.
Welter was an excitable officer who tended to sweat the details. This trait made him
an attentive exec, but he was also something of a pain.

“Scout one has returned to base, sir. They’ve made a sighting.”

“How many ships? What type?” I asked, sitting up in bed and shoving my feet in the
general direction of my boots. The boots sensed my feet, recognized their beloved
owner and immediately wrapped themselves around my flesh in a perfect fit.

“I’m going over the report now,” Welter said. “Give me ten seconds.”

“What’s going on, Kyle?” Sandra whispered behind me.

I shrugged, struggling to get my pants to activate next. My chest piece was getting
frisky, and tried to grab me, but I dodged. Smart clothes were great, but a little
tricky at times. I still wasn’t sure the design was the best. They didn’t always understand
when I wanted to stay nude, such as when I crossed the cabin to take a shower. They
occasionally sprung traps on me, reaching out from closets or from where I’d dropped
them on the floor.

“Dammit,” I muttered, shaking off my jacket. I had to have my pants on first to ensure
a good seal. If we were going into battle soon, I wanted the suit to work in the case
of a sudden loss of pressure. My jacket didn’t give up. It clung to my elbow, pulling
out a few dozen arm hairs. When smart clothing went into target-acquired mode, it
was like being wrapped up in packing tape.

“Colonel?” Welter asked, coming back on the channel. “We’ve got one ship incoming.
An unknown class from the Crustacean water-moons.”

“Just one ship?” I demanded. “Why the klaxons for one ship? Is it really big or something?”

“No sir, not according to the report. It’s about the size of one of our cruisers.”

I nodded. “That
is
big, but not panic-worthy. Are they transmitting?”

“Yes sir, they claim they’re on a mission to provide ‘understanding and clarity’.”

I frowned. “Is this a diplomatic mission?”

“I don’t know, sir. I asked for them to provide some immediate understanding and clarity
before they arrived. The scouts relayed the message, and they simply repeated they’re
coming to ‘personally enlighten’ us.”

“That’s just great,” I said, “What’s this ship’s ETA?”

“Six hours or so.”

I grunted in disgust, finally getting my jacket under control enough to allow my pants
to wrap me up first. “Six hours? You set off the all-hands alarm for a single diplomatic
ship that’s six hours out?”

“Just following orders sir—your orders.”

I broke the connection and muttered something unpleasant about Welter’s heritage.

Sandra stood beside me, naked and gorgeous. “Aren’t you going to take a shower? Sounds
like you have the time—and you could seriously use a shower, Kyle.”

I sighed heavily. She was right. I slapped the disrobe points on my clothing, which
fell back onto the floor in a trembling heap. I hopped away gingerly before the jacket
could get any ideas and headed for the shower stalls.

Freshly washed but slightly sleepy, I marched through a series of nanite doors. The
doors dissolved as I came near, and some of the thicker, automated bulkheads hissed
open then slammed down behind me with a clang. When I reached the bridge my staff
had already assembled there.

The alarm had been triggered by one of my scout ships. I’d posted two of them on the
far side of the ring, in the Thor system owned by our sneering neighbors, the Crustaceans.
The scouts had strict orders: upon noting any kind of anomaly, one ship was to return
to our side of the ring and report it. The other was to stay on alert, observing,
until such a time as they were directly threatened. Only then were they to retreat
and make a follow-up report.

I’d set up this engagement policy to prevent us from being easily surprised by an
ambush from the far side of the ring. If anything was starting up out there, I wanted
to know about it. I’d soon figured out that one scout couldn’t do the job properly.
If the scout returned immediately, we’d get an early warning, but while he was making
his report he’d be missing out on details. Valuable information could be potentially
lost. Therefore, I’d taken to posting two watchful sets of eyes.

The Crustaceans themselves were a strange folk. As their name implied, they looked
more or less like lobsters. These, however, were
intelligent
, gigantic, eight-legged lobsters. Their shells were bluish and thick, and they were
definitely an aquatic species. We knew they could survive in an atmosphere like ours,
or completely submerged, but preferred to be under water.

Their system consisted of three gas giants and a load of other rocky worlds circling
a binary star. The stars consisted of an F class bright white star and a tiny red
dwarf. For some reason, I’d named the big one Thor and the smaller sun Loki. The three
gas giants themselves weren’t inhabited as far as I could tell, but one of them was
in the zone that supported liquid water. Circling that world were several water-moons
that were the homeworlds of the Crustaceans. Being within the band of space that supported
liquid water, the moons were covered in oceans.

Although their worlds seemed pleasant enough, the Crustaceans themselves were not
overly friendly. They’d been suspicious and competitive with us from the start. They
searched every comment we made to them for insults, and frequently found them. In
turn, they liked to brag, bluster and behave in a generally snobbish fashion toward
us. I found them tiresome to talk to, but I tried to maintain an open mind. After
all, in this war it was the biotics against the machines, and all living things needed
to stay on the same side—even if some of us were obnoxious.

I got some coffee and stirred it, looking at everyone with bleary eyes. I wasn’t overly
tired—marines full of nanites and Microbial edits rarely got a full night’s sleep,
and I was edgy. Even after all our modifications, our brains still needed to sleep
and dream.

“Have we attempted further contact with the incoming ship? What exactly do they want?”

“The incoming ship still won’t answer any detailed queries,” Welter said. “They just
say they’re coming to provide us with “enlightenment”, whatever that meant under these
circumstances.”

The Crustaceans were a snooty race that fancied themselves to be the best thinkers
in the universe. They were highly competitive in this regard, and delighted in pointing
out the foolishness of anyone else’s statement. In this case it seemed they were being
cryptic as well.

I felt confident in the military capacity of my battle station, of course. Any single
ship the Crustaceans were sending would be no match for our weaponry, should they
be foolish enough to attack. The Crustaceans had built themselves an impressive-looking
ship and probably just wanted to brag about how much more advanced their design was
when compared to ours.

So, we waited. There were only fourteen humans aboard the battle station. Most of
my people were out flying a ship around somewhere or serving in a marine assault squad.
Fourteen was more than enough to operate the station due to the centralized control
setup I’d built. I’d purposefully designed the station to be manned by over a thousand
if necessary, taking a cue from the Macros in layered control systems. But the guns
could operate without gunners. They could all be targeted from the bridge. If I’d
had the crew, and the bridge had been knocked out, individual batteries could also
be manned at the turrets themselves.

“We’re just going to let them fly in here and dock?” Commander Welter asked for the
tenth time some hours later. As the alien ship kept creeping quietly closer, he seemed
to be unnerved by it.

“Yeah,” I said. “What else are we going to do? We’ve scanned the ship, and I see one
lonely Lobster aboard. I’m not going to fry a diplomat for just flying here to talk.”

“What if he causes trouble?”

“Then you can load a pellet in the primary railgun batteries and personally blow him
to atoms, Commander.”

Welter smiled at that idea. Several more staffers joined him in his amusement. No
one was terribly fond of the snotty Crustaceans.

We watched and waited. Just after the six hour mark, our second scout ship flew back
to our side of the ring and the pilot made his report.

“The ship is about to come through, Colonel.”

I nodded at the viewscreen. “Good. Now, get back out there and watch them do it.”

“Colonel,” Commander Welter said, “I recommend we contact Earth and make an official
report.”

I thought about it. Earth hadn’t bothered to even acknowledge my reports lately, but
it was supposedly our job to report things like this. “We will—after we figure out
what the Crustaceans want.”

Commander Welter looked unhappy with this decision, but he didn’t say anything further.
While we waited, the fifteenth member of the battle station’s crew made his appearance.
Marvin snaked into the room dragging his bloated metallic body with a dozen whipping
steel tentacles.

“Is the messenger here yet?” he asked.

“Any time,” I said.

“Very good. Everything should be clear to us soon. I’m going below decks if you don’t
mind, Colonel.”

I frowned at him for a moment. I noticed he had a large number of cameras on me, meaning
that he was intent upon my response. Today, he’d configured himself with seven hardened
military cameras. This was an unusual arrangement of eyes for him, as he preferred
more sensitive scientific units. I thought about asking him why he was set up for
a fight, but didn’t bother. There were only a few minutes left, and I figured it could
wait.

“All right,” I said. “We don’t need you right here. Choose your own ground, Marvin.”

He reshaped himself into a cylindrical formation and snaked away into a circular conduit
in the floor. Everyone glanced at him as he left. The crew was used to him, but he
still elicited headshakes and rolled eyes wherever he went. Most of us in Star Force
knew Marvin by now. He was bizarre, but in a familiar way, like the crazy uncle who
lived the family attic.

“There it is,” Welter said.

My eyes flew to the holographic tank in the middle of the room. The Crustacean ship
appeared at the ring without fanfare. There was no explosion of radiation upon its
arrival on our side of the ring. It simply slipped from another part of the galaxy
into the Eden system without so much as a whisper.