First Contact

Chapter 828: Book of the Dead

There are things in Hellspace and Realspace, Ho'ratio'd, that you are ill equipped to deal with.

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Bo'okdu'ust leaned against the firm ergonomic back of the relaxation chair, watching the holotanks run smoothly.

It had taken a lot of work, but he felt he had managed to accomplish the goal he had set out for himself when he had been a young colt.

He had managed to develop a mathematical model to be able to understand and predict society. Not just Lanaktallan society, but any society, even a society made up of radically different species. His models would show the most likely problems that might affect a society from within or even without.

He had even managed to predict the chaotic and exasperating Terran Descent Humanity.

The key, Bo'okdu'ust reminded himself, was to avoid changing the bias tables or data selection to fit his own preconceived notions of how the data should be presented, analyzed, or even gathered. Making the program more likely to choose one dataset over another to produce desired results always ended up with poor results.

One of his hardest struggles was not with the mathematics of his profession, was not with deducing and developing the need for the formula, much less the actual formula.

No, the hardest struggle had been to tame his own ego.

There had been temptation, once he had broken through the mathematical wall into new formula and theories, to adjust things, just nudge them slightly, to get the predictions he wanted. After all, who would know if he tapped the variables for intraclan warfare just a nudge under certain circumstances?

Well, for one, he would have.

He would have known that by adjusting that bias weighting, he had invalidated his entire life's work.

So, he had to conquer his own ego in some ways.

But, he had done it.

He watched the holotanks chuckle and burble their way through the computations.

Sitting in chairs, watching the holotanks, were General Mwrakawk, a Rigellian female Confederate Army officer with multiple PhD's; Technical Officer Fifth Grade Dancing Flame 8675309 "Call me 'Day'", a highly intelligent Digital Sentience that had been working with Bo'okdu'ust since he had initially arrived in Confederate space; green mantid Professor 7.4.A, professor of advanced mathematical theory as well as a cutting edge software designer; the russet mantid Doctor Path to Understanding; Treana'ad professor Yert'Lurk; Professor Selmina'ak, a Telkan who was working on her second doctorate degree under Bo'okdu'ust; and finally Professor Stalverk, a Kobold researcher.

The entire research group was gathered together, watching the holotanks.

Bo'okdu'ust dozed off for a little bit, watching the holotanks, getting up out of the comfortable, self-adjusting chair and taking a short stroll. He ate a quick snack, then went back.

The holotanks had finished.

Well, not quite. They were still going forward.

The data had not been tweaked. There was no user input data adjustments.

Just the sociomathematics data.

Bo'okdu'ust trotted up to the first tank and looked in.

There were less than score stellar systems still running numbers.

Smokey Cone. Mantid Prime. Rigel.

All of those were marked with blue pulsing rings.

Bagged.

Telkan. New Tnvaru. New Great Herdhome.

Amber ringed.

Bo'okdu'ust looked at his fellow researchers.

They all looked as grim as he felt.

A stellar system pinged yellow.

An industrial species had popped up. Two more pinged.

One went violet then dark.

An extinction event.

"How far in the future are we looking?" Day asked.

"Eight thousand years," Bo'okdu'ust said.

Another stellar system pinged yellow.

"Ten thousand," Bo'okdu'ust said.

Two of the other yellows went violet then dark.

One of the yellows went blue. The two nearest stellar systems suddenly went blue, then another. The the lines touched a red system.

All four of the blue circled systems went flashing amber, then purple.

Then dark.

"Twelve thousand," Bo'okdu'ust said.

"What happened?" Yert'Lurk asked.

"Still no data," Bo'okdu'ust admitted.

He turned to another holotank, which was showing the most difficult of all to predict, which was near future or near-past events.

Entire swaths were vanishing. Stellar systems going dark.

It seemed to have no rhyme or reason. It was happening in Confederate Space as well as Council Space. It was spreading quickly until the holotank flashed twice and showed almost everything dark. Just a few hundred worlds that quickly went dark one after another.

"Whatever it is, it's going to tear through everything like wildfire," Mwrakawk said. She shook her head. "I've informed Confederate Intelligence."

"How did they react?" Bo'okdu'ust asked, firmly expecting the intelligence agency to ignore his results.

Governmental agencies didn't like hearing anything that went against their preconceived notions of power.

"They requested samples of our datasets," Mwrakawk said. She gave a sigh. "This morning, they shared the data that confirms our own."

"Whatever it is, it's coming," Day said. "We can't even identify what it is or where it's coming out of."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded. "Whatever it is," he leaned forward, looking closely at the holotank. "It appears the first thing it does is decimate, no, devastate the civilian and military population. Once that happens, it's a downward spiral."

Bo'okdu'ust trotted around to look at another tank. "I wish I could claim my data is in error. After all, the Atrekna data is merely observational data, largely incomplete. I would prefer to believe that the Atrekna data has errors within it that cause this collapse."

"Except you ran it without the Atrekna data and the same thing happened, with evidence of the Atrekna appearing in the system," Dr. Path stated.

"Whatever it is, it is something that should be blindingly obvious to us, but we just aren't understanding it," Bo'okdu'ust said. He turned and looked at the rest of the gathered scientists. "We need to prepare everyone."

"For what?" Professor Selmina'ak asked.

There was quiet for a moment.

"For Armageddon," Professor Stalverk said softly.

-----

N'Thrap blew on his whistle even as he leveled his rifle at the line-art Terran, tapping the butterfly trigger with his thumb.

The rounds whipped through the female Terran as if she wasn't there even as she kept screaming, her face raised to the sky.

"FALL BACK! RETREAT!" was being yelled, flagged, whistled, and heard over the radios.

The Terran's scream caused feedback across the radio system, cause N'Thrap's speakers to howl in sympathetic rage.

N'Thrap let off the trigger as servitors came scrambling out of the trenches again, throwing aside their weapons, scrambling toward the Confederate lines.

The top blew out of the bunker that N'Thrap had been getting ready to target for missiles and a globe of scintillating purple and gold energy rose out of the dust. N'Thrap could see a half dozen Atrekna leadership caste inside.

The female Terran went from crouching down and screaming to suddenly flickering and rushing the globe as if she was suddenly poorly animated line-art with a low frame rate.

A half dozen of the white figures came running out of the dust, all of them sprinting toward the globe, which was trying to get some height. They flickered and jerked, looking like a poorly rendered white pencil animation.

The speakers on N'Thrap's torso howled with savage rage.

A priority package update came across what little battlefield network there was and N'Thrap glanced at it even as he kept blowing the whistle code for withdrawal.

Battlescreen frequency update. Heavy multi-frequency phasic battlescreen. It would be useless against almost every weapon out there.

N'Thrap fired off a high-energy commo-flare, pushing the frequency update hard.

Four of the white figures jumped at the globe, two of them getting a handhold somehow on the pure phasic and chronotron energy that N'Thrap knew made up the protective globe.

The two that got a handhold seemed to gain shading, be less pure line art and now more... solid.

The others turned and rushed back the way that they had come.

His commo system beeped and another package was pushed forward.

To be honest, N'Thrap half expected it to be phasic munitions.

Instead, it was solid iron slugs, with instructions to disable the hypervelocity system and mag-rails.

Propellant and brass casing only.

N'Thrap pushed another high-energy commo-flare.

"Pass it on," N'Thrap said, turning to the cybernetic Lanaktallan next to him, even as he began to backpedal.

"What are they?" the Lanaktallan asked.

N'Thrap fired off a drone, noting that the Atrekna defenses seemed to be rapidly failing. The drone got some altitude and deployed the sensors.

N'Thrap could see nothing but fleeing servitors, many of whom just suddenly fell down dead. The bank ranks of the fleeing servitors just kept dropping, but he could see nothing on the drone sensors.

Squinting, N'Thrap activated his telescopic vision in his armor's helmet. He looked carefully across the battlefield.

In the distance he could see white flickers chasing the servitors that were all rapidly heading in his direction. Even mechs and vehicles were sweeping toward them.

Behind the servitors was oncoming white flickers. More of them were swarming forward, rushing forward. Their legs were diffuse clouds of tendrils of white energy, their arms were outstretched, their mouths were dark pits ringed with jagged teeth.

Their eyes glowed red.

"Don't know," N'Thrap said slowly.

The ones rushing forward swept into the servitor lines, into their trenchworks, into the bunkers.

Others swarmed the Atrekna globes that seemed to lose altitude when the white figures got close.

"Brigade's away, sir," came the voice of N'Thrap's second in command. "Get out of there, sir."

"My men are out," the Lanaktallan said. The dinged and decorated cybernetic Lanaktallan backed up slightly. "I dislike this."

"Go," N'Thrap said. He squinted as he stared at the figures. His onboard targeting systems told him that it appeared that the maximum speed of the white figures was roughly fifty kilometers an hour.

He was faster.

"Not without you, brother," the Lanaktallan said. He lifted his M318 autocannon. "I am ready."

N'Thrap nodded.

"Why have you not retreated," a harsh voice came over the comlink, pushing through the thick static.

"I am acting as a forward observer," N'Thrap said. "I am not afraid."

"Retreat now," the order was crisp, harsh. "Get out of there, you fool."

N'Thap took one more look at where the servitor lines were collapsing. He saw a large warmek suddenly get swarmed by the white figures. It staggered forward, then collapsed.

The white figures covered it like ants.

Turning around, N'Thrap jogged back, keeping an eye behind him.

"Form up at the nearest base," came over the radio, which was becoming more and more jammed by static and squealing.

When N'Thrap and the Lanaktallan reached the nearest Forward Operations Base, N'Thrap saw his men helping set up battlescreen projectors, running heavier than normal cables. N'Thap followed the hand signals of the men on the walls to the 'gate' that was a permeable forcefield.

"What do you think this is about?" the Lanaktallan asked.

"Something went wrong," N'Thrap said. He turned and looked behind him. Servitors were still fleeing their lines, running right past the Confederate lines.

N'Thrap noted that the Confederate lines weren't firing on the servitors, instead seemed to be encouraging the servitors to run into the operating bases.

N'Thrap looked around at where everyone was running all different directions. He climbed up on a gunnery tower, squeezing in between two Rigellian females, one of whom was adjusting the twin nanoforges feeding the quad-fifty tower gun.

"What is going on, Corporal?" he asked, grabbing the arm of a Rigellian female that had just climbed up.

"We're pulling out," the muscular saurian said. "Full planetary pull out."

"Why?" he asked.

The Rigellian female turned and pointed out toward the Atrekna lines.

N'Thrap looked at where the Corporal was pointing and stared.

The servitors were being overwhelmed by the white figures, which were sweeping into them, tearing something from inside of the servitors, stopping just long enough to devour it, to fight over it, before lunging forward to attack the next one.

"Terrans."