Nova Wars

To Angela Angus Kusumoto it was funny. Less than a year ago, her time, her job had just been to sit around in case any of the systems had problems.

Then they'd started synching with Terra, the Afterlife went live, even Hell (Traumatic Incident Recovery) went live. Artificial Intelligences had woken up, complex systems had come online and integrated.

Now she spent her time watching outgoing network traffic. Largely, the outgoing network traffic could only be tracked via upload/download bandwidth usage, since nobody was sure how to oversee the system itself.

It didn't matter that Angela and her coworkers had spent decades working on the system, just like generations had before her for nearly 200 years.

The very system they sat inside was still largely incomprehensible.

However, she noticed that something was going on outside in the 'normal' universe, since the uploads to the system had radically increased and the file transfers straight to the Traumatic Life Cessation System had become the majority of the file transfers.

Hell was so busy that the wait time to reach a VI was measured in weeks.

She had a new system coming online. She looked up the buss numbers, then the file allocation numbers, then the core call ID's.

She shook her head.

The only hint she had was it had something to do with the priority library patch from TerraSol back when the system had come back online.

Another mystery process.

The 158th of the day.

She sighed and logged it.

Whatever it was, it was a fairly new process.

She just hoped it wasn't anything too major.

Another process popped up, then three more.

She sighed, and kept logging it all.

The SUDS kept its secrets.

0-0-0-0-0

"INCOMING SOURCES! MANY MANY SOURCES!"

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

Captain Devlintee wished she could reach over and punch her right hand aunt in the back of the head, but instead she squeezed her hands on her command stick.

Heavy metal was arriving, but she knew it was too late for her beautiful ship or her crew.

"They're coming back in!" her left hand second cousin called out from tactical.

"Roll ship!" Devlintee ordered.

"Helm is still unresponsive!" her right hand uncle said, coughing, from where the navigational control board had exploded. There was no smoke in the vacuum, but molycircs still crackled and sparked.

Captain Devlintee raised her chin, activating the ship-wide communications system.

"Prepare yourself. We will be with our ancestors soon," she stated.

She could see the enemy ships start firing. She felt the deck tremble beneath her feet.

"We do not yield," she said softly. "For the glory of..."

The Right Hand Punch exploded with all hands as the charred looking ships came in firing.

0-0-0-0-0

Admiral (Upper Decks) of the Warsteel Sharnat stared at what was left of the Hamaroosan Third Expeditionary Fleet.

Less than a hundred ships. All but four of the big hulls were either expanding clouds of debris or beaten into useless junk. Of the four left, her flagship included, all four were battered. Most of her midline were gone. Sixty of her vessels were light cruiser or lighter vessels and all of those were beat up.

She had to admit, the sheer weight of ships and tonnage commanded by Fleet Admiral Angus Amanda Squarejaw Gutshredder, commander of "Task Force" Reaper, made her somewhat envious. His flagship weighed almost as much as all four of her super-heavies combined.

They had also pounded the black ships into expanding debris in less than an hour and taken, as far as she could tell, no casualties from any of it.

The big male Terran admiral was in her holotank, staring at her with those amber glowing eyes.

"I'll be leaving behind an element before moving out. Task Force Reaper will be dividing up into detachments. 19th Fleet has given me permission to stage a detachment here, at the request of the Olipnat Concordiant Grand High Admiral Sherkus," the Terran said.

His formality, his stiff manner of speaking, somewhat threw Admiral Sharnat, who had to resist punching her right hand second cousin in the back, a good kidney shot, while speaking to the Terran.

"Understood," she said.

"We will also be leaving behind a single medical frigate and a pair of repair ships, with their attendant defenses and support ships," the Terran admiral said.

"We appreciate that. My ships are badly damaged," Sharnat said.

"Nothing the Black Sea Rabbit can't handle," Admiral Gutshredder said. "It has the latest Naval Class XLV creation engines and the new templates and scanners," He made a slight motion with his hand. "She can deal with your issues. Same with the Merciless Plague Doctor, she has the medical facilities you might need, including that capability of handling Hellspace exposure and masscal wounded influx."

"Another thing I am thankful for," Sharnat said.

"It can handle up to two and a half million patients," Admiral Gutshredder said.

Sharnat kept from raising her eyebrows.

"I hope that it is sufficent, but I need the heavier medical frigates to come with us," Gutshredder said.

Sharnat wanted to tell him that the frigate class was smaller than a destroyer and what he was describing sounded like it belonged on one of the old Colossus hulls.

"If there is anything I can assist you with, let me know, Admiral," Gutshredder said. "Dominion, out."

The holotank call ended.

Sharnat shivered slightly inside her vac-suit.

0-0-0-0-0

She was a tiny Hamaroosan, holding tight to warm smelling fur, the smell of warm milk in her nostrils. She couldn't see yet, her big glossy black eyes still closed as she nuzzled around. She could faintly hear a sound she identified with comfort and coziness and made little noises of her own.

Everything suddenly broke into pixels that slid down her vision with a screeching atonal noise.

She was reaching up to pull herself up, her knees and hocks shaking.

"That's a good girl. That's mommy's good girl," she heard the Voice say. It reminded her of softness and milk and she pushed harder, the encouragement in the voice making her want to please it.

She managed to stand, two hands on the gently rounded table, and gave a toothless grin.

Everything smeared downward, like a chalk painting in the rain, accompanied by that same atonal sound.

She ran hard, across the yard, and threw herself into the arms of her wight-hund-uncahl. The other Hamaroosan lifted her up, laughing, spinning with her, while she squealed in pleasure.

Everything smeared again.

She stared at her test, wracking her brain for the answers. Her anxiety was peaked and she wanted to reach forward and punch the student in front of her in the back of the head, but the desks were placed just far enough to keep the students from punching, kicking, or pinching.

The test was an important one, a mid-year standing test. Doing bad on it would mean she would drop back a half year, doing well meant staying where she was, and doing too well meant she would be sent a half-year ahead.

As it stood, she was in 8th year mathematics despite only being a third year.

She knew the answers to the questions in the test, but she was afraid if she answered as well as she could, they'd push her ahead still futher.

It made her feel like a freak.

She closed her eyes, sighed, then started putting in the answers. The school supposedly had a way to tell if a student underperformed on purpose.

Everything streaked away in a swirl of numbers, letters, and mathematical concepts.

She was arguing with her mothers on both hands. They wanted her to go into starship piloting on the civilian side, to increase the family and clan's fortunes. She wanted to join the military, and that meant transferring to a military clan. Her accomplishments would be attributed to that clan, not her birth clan, which would become back-hand clan members.

She tried to hold back tears, trying to explain that since the Mar-gite had done so much damage, shouldn't she do her part to protect what was left?

It all streaked away with the atonal buzz.

She stepped onto the bridge of her first command, pride filling her. She turned and looked at her new command officers, smiling despite her promise to herself she would keep professional and aloof.

More streaks.

Then blackness.

No heartbeat, no breathing, just steady darkness.

PLEASE BE PATIENT appeared in block letters in her vision.

Words appeared in her vision.

DEVLINTEE CLAN STARGLIDER

she wasn't sure who that was.

SPECIES: HAMAROOSAN TYPE 7

EYES: BLACK

AGE: 34Y 9M 23D

CAUSE OF DEATH: EXPLOSIVE DISMEMBERMENT - INSTANT - NO TRAUMA

PROCESSING PRIORITY: LOW MODERATE - MILITARY OVERRIDE - IMMEDIATE

She frowned. The words were one she knew, but they made no sense.

EMOTIONAL INTERLOCKS ENGAGED

INTELLECTUAL INTERLOCKS RELEASED

PAGING SUPERUSER

She just hung in blackness, no body, no breath, no heartbeat.

Nothing.

She felt a sudden yank under her breastbone and got the sensation of being pulled forward and downward and upward at the same time.

The blackness shattered into fine glassy powder with the tinkling sound of a glass window exploding.

She was held in the claws of a massive creature. Brown skin, red fiery eyes, horns, chains, and black leather. She could see screaming stars falling from the sky, pillars of flame rising up from chasms in the blasted and scorched landscape.

"You'll do," the massive creature rumbled.

She found she couldn't speak.

The creature lifted her up by the back of her neck, turning her and examining her.

"No significant damage to the record, core strings are holding, core personality and memories are largely intact. Didn't really have time to go trauma locked," the creature gave a low rumbling chuckle. "Guess when your combat control bridge takes a hellspace infused nCv round, you don't get much time to pontificate about the nature of death."

She wanted to struggle, but her body was limp, unresponsive.

The demon held her up, her muzzle in front of the creatures brutish face. The creatures breath reeked of brimstone and old scorched blood.

"You're about to cause a lot of excitement, little one," it chuckled.

The humor sounded malevolent to her.

"Normally, you'd go through trauma processing and everything else to make sure you don't have any scars," the demon chuckled. "However, this will make my point just fine."

The demon reached out with one claw and ripped a hole in midair, reality tearing with a snarl.

"Have fun," the demon growled. "Try not to choke on any dicks."

It shoved her through the hole.

The world exploded in pain.

0-0-0-0-0

Admiral Sharnat had to admit, despite the fact that calling it a frigate was fundamentally dishonest, she was impressed by the medical 'frigate'. It was a Colossus hull, painted white with red stripes, loaded up with everything she had ever heard of and things she had not.

She was staring at it in the holotank when her left hand nephew suddenly sat up. "Admiral," he said.

"Go ahead," Sharnat said, staring at the 'frigate'.

"Solarian Iron Dominion Chief Medical Officer of the Merciless Plague Doctor is requesting your presence aboard the medical frigate," he said. He shook his head. "He states it is vitally important and has repercussions for your people that you should witness."

Sharnat frowned. "Really?"

He nodded.

Sharnat thought for a moment. The Captain of the vessel would probably be glad to get her out from underfoot for a while.

"Alert my staff, prepare my shuttle," she said. "Let's go see what the Iron Dominion thinks is so important."

0-0-0-0-0

She took a huge gasping breath, trying to sit up, trying to reach out, trying to jump away. Her heart triphammered for a moment then settled.

"Easy, easy," the voice was calm and gentle. A paw settled on her head. She could feel it.

"Your motor control cortexes are offline," the voice said. "Same with your voice control and speech center. Don't want you screaming and flailing around. Your autonomic systems are still good and are responding without external stimulus."

She caught her breath, realizing she could feel her body.

She realized that for the first time in a long time, her right hock didn't ache from where she'd broken it grav-skiing and the pins never quite sat right.

"I'm going to release some of your gross motor control," the voice said. "Mainly, blinking. You won't be able to move."

She was able to open her eyes and tried to wince at how bright the lights were.

"It's OK. Give your eyes a moment," there was a growling chuckle that reminded her of... something. "New eyes, who dis?"

Her vision slowly unblurred, then flipped over. She was staring at glow strips on the ceiling. She looked side to side and saw only curtains.

There was shuffling and someone moved into view.

It was a canine on two legs wearing old style Confederate adaptive camouflage like she'd seen in the historical books from the Second Precursor War.

"Welcome back," the canine said.

She just blinked.

"All right. Blink once for yes, twice for no," the canine said. "We'll ask a few question, then I'll release your speech cortex."

She blinked once.

"The big one is: are you done screaming?"

She blinked once.

The canine gave a smile by lifting her upper lip for a moment.

The questions were variants of: "Are you going to get violent or act like a fool?"

Finally, her motor cortexes and speech centers were released. She was still held to the bed by the pressor beams, but now it was gentle instead of an absence of feedback.

More questions, including a series where a machine was staring into her pupil.

Finally, the canine sat down.

"Any questions?" the canine asked.

She blinked several times. "How?"

The canine shrugged. "You came through as a priority rebirth. We didn't have any killed in action, so the cloning banks and the stack were idle."

"No, I mean, I was dead," she said.

The canine gave a chuckle. "Yeah. Hell of a thing, isn't it?" she frowned. "First time?"

"What do you mean, first time? This is the really real world. People don't come back!" she said.

The canine twiddled her fingers. "Your SUDS was up to date. The Merciless had a hot-copy of your SUDS record less than a half-second before you were killed. Your standard SUDS copy was updated less than an hour before that, during the battle."

"Wait, my SUDS? What's a SUDS?" she asked.

The canine smiled. "Oh, just a miracle."

0-0-0-0-0

Admiral Sharnat stared at the Hamaroosan on the other side of the glass. She was laying in a bed, talking to a Terran Descent Feline. She couldn't hear the female's words or voice, but she knew one of her divisional commanders.

Sharnat also knew that the Hamaroosan laying on the bed had died when her ship had exploded with all hands.

Sharnat turned to the Terran, who was in a fearsome looking mask with a long beak.

"How?" she asked.

The Terran gave a bobbing nod. "The SUDS. Of course. Hamaroosan templates are standard and have been for thirty years Terran Standard Timekeeping. It's just a standard rebirth. Easy one. No core threading unravelling or deep consciousness strand straining. It's simple, and as she is military, she's priority, of course."

Sharnat turned and stared at the Hamaroosan, the impossibility of it robbing her of thought.

"Of course," she said automatically.