Song of the Void

”The Shinzen are a very odd case even when compared to all the other oddities of our galaxy. Everyone that has had any contact with them knows they do not engage in diplomacy. They are in a constant state of war with their neighbors, and any attempts to contact them will end in failure. There have been no successful cases of capturing a member of their race alive either. In cases where such capture has been close, it is as if something inside them snaps and they fall down dead.

And yet, despite their almost animalistic nature, they do not attack everyone blindly and with equal ferocity. Their attacks are beyond dangerous and their general strategies sound, but it seems that their attacks happen almost on a whim. It is as if one portion of their race simply one day decides to dedicate themselves to the eradication of a certain race or the capture of a certain system. The attack either succeeds or fails, but the rest of their race doesn’t seem to care either way. There are no reinforcements pulled from other fronts, no cessation of hostilities on one front to deal with a growing problem elsewhere. Not unless a certain invisible threshold no one can see is crossed. If that threshold is crossed, then you will be facing the wrath of their entire race and that is not a pretty sight for anyone involved.”

-High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

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“What’s the situation?” Moonshadow asked as soon as she entered into the control center of Haven. Or at least the control station they had set up. Early on the Mrrroww had realized the station was not going to allow them entry to the real heart of the station, so they had created their own place to control things from.

The Admiral used a paw to rub his tired eyes and his fur had lost most of its shine. He had clearly stayed up for the entire night, which was not a surprise considering the situation. “Good and bad news. Two of the three battles with the Shinzen ended in a clear victory. It was not as clear-cut as we would have preferred considering our advantage in technology, but it was a comfortable victory nonetheless. The third battle didn’t quite go according to our wishes though.”

Moonshadow stared at the admiral with a slight challenge. "We didn't lose, did we? Even with the numbers the Shinzen have, we should have an almost overwhelming technological advantage." Her confidence was well founded. The Mrrroww were perhaps the most advanced race in the center of the galaxy, and by a comfortable margin at that. The other races didn’t dare to pick a fight with them, which was part of the reason the Shinzen attack had been such a shock.

“You’re correct. However, the third enemy fleet was caught at the very edge of our phase jump inhibitors. We didn’t have three fleets stationed at the border, we had two. One of the inhibitors caught two fleets and the fleet was already engaged with the first enemy before the second enemy arrived. They defeated the first fleet rather handily, but the second fleet managed to cross the inhibition zone by the time our fleet managed to defeat their first enemy and wheel around to face the second enemy. Some of them managed to make another jump towards inhabited space. They will be facing planetary defenses, but they will likely manage to make a landing, and we all know how hard it is to dig them out once they start creating nests. The fleet commander estimates that about 17% of the enemy fleet managed to jump away.” The admiral explained.

That was one of the worst things about fighting Shinzen. They were formidable in space, managing to cross rather sizeable gaps in technology with their unique fighting methods and sheer numbers, but their real forte was ground battle. Once a Shinzen force managed to dig in and create something the other races had dubbed a ‘nest’ they were extremely difficult to eradicate, except with heavy orbital bombardment. Even then you had to be damn sure to get the enemy completely. Such bombardments were of course rather bad for the ecosystem of a planet, so they were avoided whenever possible.

Moonshadow frowned. Even with some of the stragglers making it through their defenses, this seemed like a very poorly thought out attack. Shinzen attacks seemed impulsive and perhaps even erratic, but their strategies were usually sound. This seemed odd. “Can I see a report on the composition of their fleets?” Even if the information that other races had gathered on the Shinzen was limited, observations about their fleets had been made and many ship types had been classified and assessed tactically.

The admiral made a swiping motion with his paw and a holographic screen floated in front of Moonshadow. “I think I know what you’re thinking. The Shinzen do unexpected things but they’re not stupid. The High Command agrees. They did an analysis on their fleet composition as well. Their fleets were all high quality but lacked the real heavy-hitters. They think the whole thing was a probe to see if they could sneak forces through. They are already sending more ships and reinforcing the border.”

“Glad to see the High Command is earning its keep.” Moonshadow muttered.

Her own glance through the list agreed with the assessment. These were all respectable ships that could do well in almost any battle that wasn’t against the Mrrroww, but they were also ship types that could be created en masse. This was especially true the way the Shinzen did things, where most of the ships were at least partially living organisms without crews on board. The ships could be grown much of the way and new crew didn’t need to be trained. The weapons, drives and much of the armor was mechanical, but it was surprising how cheap such ships could become when the superstructure could be grown instead of being built.

The most powerful parts of the Shinzen fleet seemed different somehow. The other races were not entirely sure why, but they were never seen in large numbers. Like most other races, the Shinzen had adopted the tactics that came with the invention of void shields, thus their most important vessels were either very large vessels of extreme durability or mech-sized beings that could strike with the ferocity of a high-class psion and bypassed the shields entirely. If any race was able to mass-produce these two extremes, it should be the Shinzen, but for some reason they didn’t. And none of them had shown up in these battles either.

“Do we have any news from the border between the Shinzen and the Dawn Collective?” The war between these two races had been drawing away most of their attention and strength, so the question was quite relevant.

“In a way. It seems all our scouts in the area were destroyed, except for one. That one survivor reported that it was as if suddenly the Shinzen were able to see through his stealth and attacked him and the others. The only reason he got away was because he was the scout closest to our territory. That means he was also the one that saw the least. Apparently, everything seemed normal on that front until suddenly they were attacked." The admiral read straight off a report.

“That seems awfully convenient. Please tell me we didn’t pull those reinforcements from anywhere the Dawn Collective might attack.” Moonshadow asked a little horrified. The Mrrroww didn’t actually share any border with the Dawn Collective, but the distance was not too far either. That’s what allowed them to draw the two hostile races into war.

“The High Command shares your concern.” The admiral gave a small smile. “We military folk aren’t all idiots. The reinforcements were drawn all over our territories. A ship or two from every fleet, or whatever they had to spare. The ‘Whiskers’ doctrine is now paying dividends.”

Despite their technological superiority, the Mrrroww had not made a mad grab for more planets and resources, even though they clearly had the ability to do so. Instead, they went with a plan devised by one of the best military commanders they had Whiskers McBalloffur III, who devised the so-called ‘Whiskers' doctrine. The doctrine had their race focused on a slow and steady expansion with an emphasis on logistics and high technology, where they made sure that anything they took they could keep. As a result, the phase lanes of their territory were extremely developed, safe, and fast, and they had plenty of ships to spare. Every world had extensive defenses and their race focused on developing its colonies to high standards of industrialization instead of making several more rural colonies purely for resources.

Moonshadow was still frowning. She smelled something fishy but couldn't figure out what it could be. There was a plan at work here, but without further clues, it was too difficult to predict. Suddenly the admiral changed the subject. "So I never got the chance to ask; how was your meeting with the Solarian?"

“Difficult to say. I managed to lay some groundwork for future negotiations, but nothing really productive came of it. The Dashane were right about one thing though, she is dangerous. Not in the ‘I’m going to kill all of you!’-way, but because she could if she wanted to.” Moonshadow replied thoughtfully.

“Should we try to deal with her?” The admiral asked rather bluntly.

“I would not advise acting against her. She didn’t really seem hostile, though she did give me the impression of looking down on us. I hasten to note that this seemed born more out of confidence than arrogance. I think acting against her would be a really bad idea. I forwarded a report to the government, but I don’t think we’ll get much out of her unless we have something to offer in exchange.” She made a shrugging motion. The Solarian had also given her a weird feeling she had only felt a few times in her life. It was as if there was something about her that made her seem somehow close, either emotionally or mentally. She couldn't quite put a claw on the exact reason. She had felt the same when dealing with the so-called Empress of the Illum and a few others.

“Seems rather reasonable then. The only real problem is her control over the station.” The admiral nodded. They had been searching for ways around that but had found nothing so far. It seemed that without the cooperation of the station, nothing could be done about it.

“I don’t think we should do anything just yet. Then again, I’m not sure if we need to do anything at all. She doesn’t seem intent on doing harm to us or the station, and we might even be able to accomplish some new things with the access she has. Assuming of course that we have something to offer in trade.” Her pride as a negotiator didn’t really like the current stalemate, but she could swallow that pride.

She started moving towards the door to leave before being interrupted. “By the way, this may seem inappropriate considering the circumstances, but I’m still going to ask. Would you like to go on a date? I don’t know about you, but such matters remind me that life can be short and fun should be had when possible.” The admiral suddenly made his move. His timing truly was atrocious, but he was tired and feeling unexpectedly bold.

Moonshadow was, of course, aware of the admiral's interest and gave a mental grimace. She had tried to avoid encouraging his pursuits, as this kind of thing might complicate their working relationship. "I'm afraid I’ll have to decline. Panthers generally don’t find other Mrrroww clans interesting in that way, and I’m no exception to that.” She decided to make her refusal polite and general due to the situation. It wasn’t really a matter of Panthers disliking other Mrrroww, but she herself had no interest in the other clans. A tiger might be able to rouse her interest, but even that was unlikely.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask. If you change your mind…” The admiral took the refusal fairly well considering how long he had been interested in the High Ambassador, again his tiredness dulling the blow a bit.

‘Doesn’t it? I could see a hundred ways this could backfire?’ Moonshadow thought to herself but kept her mouth shut. It just wasn’t worth it, and at least the admiral had been fairly polite and direct.

-----

"Ah, I thought the name sounded familiar," Selendil said while going through some of the information in the memories of the minds she had stored. "The name Shinzen belongs to one of the races we fought back in the day. Well, I say fought, but they didn’t actually put up much of a fight. They simply attacked us out of nowhere and we retaliated. I thought we had eradicated them though.”

“Maybe some of them were left behind. According to my own records, the beings were rather tenacious. Maybe some of them dug deep underground and hid for a long time? According to the records, they were not big enough as a problem to really warrant a thorough cleansing. Still, I would imagine they were pretty thoroughly wiped out. If they laid dormant for a really long time and have built up strength since waking up, I wonder what state they are in? We’ve been gone for a long time.” Lux commented. The AI had access to different kinds of records

“The first reports of Shinzen surface around six hundred years ago. Likely they started making moves sometime before that but only ran into others six hundred years ago” Haven provided a bit of additional information.

“I doubt they actually stayed hidden that long. Even with our stasis technology, the sleep I went through is pretty much the limit. I feel there’s another likely explanation though. Our fight might have left them with no Queens alive. They stayed hidden as long as they did, and all that time after was spent waiting for a Queen to be born, or a new Queen to evolve. The information our race had on them wasn’t exactly complete, but it is my understanding that their existence revolves around the Queens. If they didn’t have one, then that might explain their inactivity.” Selendil dredged through some of the old memories.

“Still, for a race that old, I wonder how far their technology has come. Would their development really have stood still all this time?” Lux posited another question.

“That’s an interesting question, though in their case their development might have been much lesser than one would imagine. They are an odd race, to say the least. Back then at least they had the ability to rapidly absorb and assimilate the technology of other races, but they didn't really have the ability to innovate themselves. That's somewhat understandable considering their structure as most of them are almost feral drones. Only their Queens and some extremely high-level individuals have the ability to truly think for themselves. A single Shinzen might be brilliant at the one thing they were born to do, but completely incapable in other ways. If the Queens are the only ones with any ability for cross-discipline thought, then no wonder they have difficulties with the more complex theories that are required for true innovation. Combine that with the possibility of not having a Queen until about a thousand years back and you have a very stagnant race for a very long time.” Selendil reiterated some of the thoughts of the minds she had stored. She wasn’t personally an expert on the subject.

“So basically they can be only as advanced as the enemies they make? That…seems like an odd way to develop.” Lux replied.

“Well, not entirely. The Queens are still capable of innovation and some of them can be quite brilliant, but they are busy managing their entire race instead of sitting around in a lab and tinkering with inventions. Still, they have their own methods as well, and they excel at adapting the technology of others. I wonder if they still remember what our ships looked like. Would they run away or try to take revenge if they saw one?” She felt genuinely curious about that.

“Something worth testing once the ship is actually operational?” Lux gave out a playful suggestion.

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t want to walk into a trap just due to sheer curiosity over such a small matter. It would be quite bad if they have made preparations for just such a possibility. They might not have been a threat back then, but we can’t truly say what technology they may have assimilated in the years since, and I doubt they don’t carry a grudge.” Even though she felt the danger was miniscule at best, she didn’t have blind faith in her own superiority. Their race had walked into enough traps to know that even lesser races can have a bite if pushed far enough. “Which reminds me, Haven, does the station have any support beacons in storage that could be activated? I feel it’s odd that the only beacon is in the nearby nebula, and none of those inside the station have survived.”

“That’s debatable. I moved the beacons into safe areas once the station’s maintenance could be handled by other means. I didn’t want the other races stealing the beacons for their own study. The one in the nebula was simply too far for me to recover without attracting notice as the corrosive substances would’ve necessitated some extreme measures. They might need a bit of work though as they are really old and have been inactive for such a long time. I’ve been using them periodically to do maintenance within the sealed off areas so I don’t have to allow outside maintenance crews access, but it’s been a while since I used one. I think you could get one or two working.” Haven replied.

“Good. We’ll get at least one active. That way I can warp between my ship and the station once we get the beacons on my ship in a working condition. I feel like keeping tabs on the things that happen here might prove useful in the long run. I still don’t know what I should do once I get the ship repaired, but this seems like a good place to start figuring that out.” Selendil explained her thoughts.

“…I feel honored.” Haven stated with an emotional voice.

Selendil though it better not to mention that her words had mostly been because the station was a gathering place for the younger races, and thus her choice had very little to do with the station itself. “Did the ambassador earlier make an impression?” Lux asked, feeling less delicate about Haven’s sensibilities. The two seemed to be developing a slight rivalry.

“She did have potential. She seemed a bit too wrapped up in frivolous things like mind games and little power plays, but at least she might be worth helping if things develop in that direction. It felt like she wasn’t too far from being able to touch the shared consciousness of the universe, even though she might be able to only scratch the surface. At least she wasn’t stupid enough to walk around with her achievement rings visible. She might actually be able to match a normal Dhar warrior in battle, barring difference in weaponry of course. She wouldn’t win, but she could hold her own for a while.” Selendil stated quite impressed. The feline had been the first being worthy of respect she had met so far. In Dhar society respect was something earned.

“The required amount of Gravinium is almost finished refining. It should only be less than five hours until we’re done.” The Haven announced after a moment of silence.

“I think it’s time to see if I can find some materials for our hydroponics," Selendil stated, rising from her meditative position, her feet now almost touching the ground. She had been forced into walking around when inside the station, but she preferred to just use her powers to float around.

"You're going to need a gardener," Lux stated firmly.

“You’re suggesting I take someone to the ship? That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.” Selendil said in a tone filled with much more suppressed annoyance than one might assume from the topic. This was clearly something the two had discussed before.

“If you warp them to the ship they might not even realize anything and they won’t see the ship from the outside. Regardless, even if they figure things out, that’s not nearly as dangerous as allowing you anywhere near the hydroponics. We’ve been through this. It doesn’t matter how many gardeners or botanists you absorb, you’re shit at dealing with plants. I have no idea why, considering you take on all those other new skills and abilities without any effort, but the fact remains. The only way we’ll have a working hydroponics system is if someone else does most of the work. And frankly, I’m not going to allow you anywhere near the place anyway.” Lux put its metaphorical foot down.

“I might have improved?” Selendil suggested rather lamely.

“You didn’t. I’m quite certain of that. The last time you tried, I had some weird glowing fungus growing all over the ship, and I’m quite sure the damn thing would’ve caused hallucinations before a rather quick death if someone besides a Dhar tried breathing in the spores. We’re getting a gardener, end of discussion.” Lux wasn’t about to give up on this point. “Also, if we are allowing someone to the ship, we might as well get some help with getting the thing livable as well. You can manage that, but I wonder if you really want to go through the trouble. It’s a big ship, and I don’t need you cleaning up only a handful of rooms because those are all you need.”

“Ok, I was with you on the gardener, as we might find someone with enough discretion or at least I could wipe their memories, but now you’re talking about a whole handful of people. What happened to keeping our existence a secret for now?” Selendil asked a rather prudent question.

“I’m not advocating getting just anyone. We can take some time to find people that can keep quiet. Or are stupid enough to not realize, though I would prefer we didn’t go that route as they might mess up something inside the ship. I’m just saying that we should keep our eyes open. Eventually, we'll need some people after all. Look, back then you could remain isolated for long stretches of time, but that was because you had the support of our race at every harbor and the unified minds of our race for company. That's no longer the case. At some point, we'll need some help and you’ll need some company that isn’t from an AI.” Lux pointed out.

"I may have some ideas," Haven interjected. It had been observing everyone aboard for a long time after all. “I know some beings that could be discreet and useful.”