“Okay, how about now?”, Jesri yelled, her voice barely audible. A hiss and click issued from the front of the cargo container as its door sealed shut.

Xim Len fluttered side to side, checking the screen of her handheld scanner as she made a slow circuit of the container.

“Nothing!”, she yelled back, her shrill cry echoing in the hold. No response came from inside the crate. She stalked around to the front in a huff of frustration, grabbing the door and straining with her slender arms to cast it wide open. “There’s noooOOEEEEEE!”, she screamed, dropping the scanner in her hand as it emitted a deafening shriek and lit up brightly.

Jesri hastily stabbed a finger at the transmitter in her hand and the scanner fell silent. She looked at Xim Len’s wide eyes and heaving shoulders in concerned silence for a moment before a grin snuck its way onto her face.

Xim Len’s elfin features contorted into a pout. “Fine,” she muttered, picking up the dropped scanner. “Next time you get the screaming handset.”

“Actually,” Jesri said, scrolling down her list of notes, “I think that was all of the tests. We’ve checked the entire electromagnetic spectrum with good granularity, gravimetric distortion waves, hyperwave, subwave, various low-intensity sound pulses and a few other exotic ideas that David and Rhuar cooked up.” She peered up at the ceiling of the container, scratching her neck idly. “All that’s left is to arm the explosive charges and we’re good to go.”

Thin rows of featureless rectangular packets lined the top of the container - Xim Len found it stressful to look at them for long. “Is it really necessary to use that much?”, she said with a shudder. “If you detonate those it’ll take out the whole cargo hold, container or no container.”

“That’s the idea,” Jesri replied grimly. “That’s why we’re in a remote hold in a disused section of the station, right up against the outer hull.” She fixed Xim Len with those unnerving eyes of hers, sending a shiver up her wings.

“You have to understand the stakes here”, she explained. “If we start poking around and turn something on without proper measures in place the entire station could be a loss. As important as this research could be, I won’t conduct it recklessly with so many lives in the balance.”

“I already got the talk from Helene,” Xim Len retorted crossly. “I know what’s at stake. Remember, I actually live here, unlike some certain immortal space vagrants and irritating warlords-in-exile I could name.” Jesri held her hands up in surrender to acknowledge the point, but Xim Len pressed on. “And since we’re talking about our friends in the walls,” she said irritatedly, “when were you planning on telling the guilds we had artificial intelligences living in our station network? It seems like a relevant point of disclosure if you’re going for mutual trust and all that. I find it very frustrating to be looped in only when you need my help.”

“Wasn’t my secret to tell,” Jesri shrugged. “You’re right in saying the only reason they broke silence in your case is because we needed help with the container and the research. This is a big deal for them as well, remember. You’re the first station resident they’ve ever revealed themselves to, and based on your reaction I can’t really blame them. If this is how you feel, what do you think Manifold would say? Belshi?” She shook her head. “I won’t even mention Ix.”

“Ix would just start punching screens,” Xim Len giggled. “I can see the hazard, you have a point. And it would make sense to keep the idea of such beings a secret, especially if we’re not the only station playing host to them.” She peered at Jesri intently, but the humanform’s face was absolutely unreadable as she broke into a sly grin.

“Nice try,” she chuckled, “but I’ve been keeping secrets for a long time. If you want confirmation on your theory you’re going to have to talk to David or Helene.”

“Worth asking,” Xim Len grumbled. “So now what, we let the station ghosts fly sideways?”

“We - what?”, Jesri said, confused. “I don’t think that translated well, avian languages always have such strange metaphors. If you’re asking about who performs the research, it has to be us. The scientists are restricted to the station network, and there is absolutely no safe way to expose the station network to that.” She pointed inside the crate, where a sealed metal box sat ominously on a table in the center of the workspace.

The petite Tlixl’s wings fluttered uncertainly as she eyed the crate. “They’re the experts, they’re the only reason we’ve got this on Elpis in the first place,” she protested. “How are we supposed to do their analysis for them?”

“We follow their instructions and act as their eyes,” Jesri explained, “and we observe security protocols. When the door is closed, it will lock and require a code to open from either side. Three incorrect attempts detonate the failsafe. Anytime the crate door is open, the sample and everything that has touched it are in sealed containers. Nothing that interfaces with its internal network is trustworthy anymore. If we need to take notes out, we use a tablet with the network link physically removed.” Her eyes narrowed and her face darkened once more. “And most importantly, you are always to carry your detonation remote. You use it if you think the crate will be breached. Doesn’t matter who’s inside - you, me, Anja, we’re all expendable if it means preserving containment.”

Xim Len edged away from the crate door. “That seems a bit paranoid,” she muttered.

“Absolutely it is,” Jesri agreed. “Paranoid and overcautious, which is better than complacent and dead - and let me reiterate, death is most definitely happening if that little fucker wakes up and gets a message off. Maybe not your death or mine, but someone will die if the Gestalt attacks Elpis. Most likely lots of people.”

“Paranoid and alive sounds fine,” Xim Len agreed shakily. “I’ve worked with dangerous chemicals and the like before, but nothing that required this degree of care. It’s a bit unnerving.”

Jesri shrugged. “I have. You get used to it,” she chuckled. “Thinking of it like a poison or a disease is a good analogy, actually, since you have to take a lot of the same decontamination steps. Just pretend it’s infected with a disease that’s invariably fatal, spreads via contact with electronics and can’t be detected by conventional means.” She paused, considering. “Also, the disease is intelligent. And it hates you.”

“Fantastic,” Xim Len said flatly. “Why are we doing this again? You know, before you all came along the most hazardous things anyone asked me to work with were nice, safe, predictable explosives.”

“You’re welcome,” Jesri snarked. “Speaking of, let’s finish up with the failsafes so we can get started. The sooner we find our key against the Gestalt, the sooner we can get that creepy skeleton off the station.”

Xim Len nodded and shivered, looking past Jesri at the sealed box containing Trelir’s body. It would require perfection to conduct this research without dooming the station. They could do it, undoubtedly, but the absence of a margin for error made her nervous. Whatever lay within that coffin waiting to be discovered, she hoped it was worth it.

Anja collapsed into her seat and let her head loll sideways. It had been three weeks since they had returned from Ysl, and each day had been a mad scurry to balance their furtive research on Trelir’s corpse with the demands of ship refits, training with her squads and Tarl’s increasingly large convoys of supplies and equipment back to the refugees.

The warfather was off-station to do an inspection of a field hydroponics setup that Manifold’s crews had delivered a week prior, which at least freed Anja from having to deal with his manic energy and the perpetual crowd of Elpis residents he managed to insult, intimidate or otherwise rub the wrong way.

The tradeoff, since there was always a tradeoff, was that every Ysleli soldier on the station looked to her in his absence. Word of the gate’s capture and the mission on Ysl had spread through the ranks and suddenly she was deluged with eager applications for reservists and petty commanders pitching ideas for additional elite squads. She had politely declined all of them thus far, although she could feel herself fast reaching the point where she would simply decline them instead.

The door hissed open, jolting her out of her funk as Jesri walked in and threw herself into another chair. If anything, her sister looked more exhausted than she felt. Jesri had been pulling double research duty with Xim Len, spending nearly all of her time in the sealed crate or in endless discussions with the science team. Any time not eaten by the primary research project was spent scouring the station database with Rhuar for portable generators, air filters and other items of necessity for the fabrication workshops to churn out, pivoting to support the refugee convoys as they put the finishing touches on the last Ysleli refits.

“Sister,” Anja said wearily. “You look like shit.”

Jesri snorted. “That’s my line,” she shot back. “You look like you haven’t slept since the last time we talked.”

“Was that yesterday?”, Anja asked. Jesri nodded in return. “Ah,” she said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “Good eye.” The two women sat in silence for several minutes, tacitly agreeing to share the brief respite in peace.

A bright light shone against Anja’s closed eyelids and forced them reluctantly open to reveal all five scientists displayed onscreen. “Wakey wakey,” David said with a smirk. “Although if we all want to agree that this meeting is naptime I won’t fight you too much.”

“Nah,” Jesri said, stretching her arms languidly and swiping a hand across her face. “We’re good. Let’s get to it.”

Helene nodded and gestured to Yetide, who cleared her throat and began to speak. “The results so far have been promising,” she said, her voice low and melodious. Unlike the others, she didn’t seem fatigued in the least. “We’ve managed to make a full map of the Emissary’s administrative functions, including the communication protocols back to the Gestalt proper. Crucially, with this last round of data we’ve discovered several emergency routing protocols that may be of critical use.”

Anja raised an eyebrow. “You think it will be useful as a distraction, or as a weapon?”

“Potentially both,” David replied. “Our eventual goal has always been to remove the administrative functions of the Gestalt while keeping the universe simulations intact, effectively lobotomizing it. Theoretically this is possible, since the structure of the Dyson shell is differentiated into higher-order and lower-order processing areas. The former contains most of the Gestalt as we think of it, the latter holds simulations, networking, basic maintenance routines, etcetera. There are millions of higher-order nodes, of course, but you only need to destroy a fraction of them to seriously disrupt the Gestalt entity’s ability to function.”

“Seems straightforward enough,” Jesri said with a frown. “What’s the catch?”

David nodded. “We could do it, given time, but obviously the Gestalt has countermeasures. Aside from the obvious defensive weaponry you’ll have to contend with its fleet of repair and maintenance drones. If they’re not dealt with somehow then you’ll be unable to destroy the nodes fast enough to outpace their repair and rerouting.”

“I’m assuming that destroying them is off the table,” Jesri sighed. “That seems like it would be too easy.”

“There are billions of them,” Yetide confirmed. “Attacking them directly is inefficient, but the emergency communications protocols may be our answer. They seem to be tagged for high-priority evaluation, a sort of Emissary panic button that automatically gets routed ahead of other traffic. We believe the process of coordinating so many drones is very resource-intensive, so if we can rapidly escalate a large number of incoming packets via emergency protocols we may be able to degrade their function long enough to make an impact. The Gestalt will of course adapt to shut out the compromised protocols,” she said with a grimace, “but if we can strike quickly enough it should be possible to create an exploitable deficit in its function.”

“You want to conduct a denial-of-service attack against a matrioshka brain?”, Anja asked incredulously. “From what you know this thing is concurrently simulating multiple universes. How could you create enough traffic to even make it blink?”

“We here can’t,” Helene acknowledged. “But we’re not just here. We’ve been communicating with our counterparts on other stations and believe that we can generate enough traffic with a coordinated effort. We typically use low-power communication in the name of secrecy but the transit stations are capable of much greater output. If we’re no longer concerned about concealing ourselves we can generate hundreds, potentially thousands of high-compression signals. It would be as if a million Emissaries sent up a flare for urgent attention every nanosecond, each using their priority override to occupy crucial administrative functions.”

Jesri bit her lip, thinking. “I like the idea,” she conceded. “I still worry about getting enough volume to make a difference, though.”

“It’ll be tough,” David said. “At most we’re looking at twenty, thirty minutes to destroy as many of the administrative nodes as we can.”

Anja made a face. “Not much time considering the size of it,” she said. “Plus we have to contend with the actual defenses.”

“There’s good and bad news on that front, actually,” David said, calling up a diagram of the Gestalt’s shell on the screen. “We have an old network map from our original exfiltration that shows the locations of the higher-order nodes.” As he spoke, a lattice of blue light overlaid itself on the image and began to slowly rotate. Jesri watched it spin for a few seconds before David’s intent became clear.

“They’re all on the inside?”, she groaned. “Ah, shit, of course they are. Nothing’s ever simple.”

“The highest-energy matrioshka shells are closest to the star,” David confirmed. “They’re the ones that have all of the most resource-heavy systems in them. The advantage this gives us is that our targets are concentrated in the shell with the least surface area and, crucially, are in a space where the Gestalt has no reason to predeploy defenses.”

“Right, because breaking through is impossible!”, Anja said in exasperation. “The shell is relatively thin for its size, but judging from the diagram it still has to be several kilometers thick. Short of a relativistic kinetic projectile…” She frowned. “Have we considered a relativistic kinetic projectile?”, she asked hopefully.

Deepti shook her head. “Chris and I wargamed that one early on,” she said. “Aside from the logistics of setting it up and the damage it could cause to the universe simulations, we concluded that the Gestalt sentry network would detect any approaching projectile far enough out to redirect it no matter how fast it was moving.”

Anja frowned, then brightened and opened her mouth only to be forestalled by a raised hand from Deepti. “We also considered sneaking it in through hyperspace,” she said, anticipating her question. “The math doesn’t work for an object that big moving that fast, you end up bleeding off your excess kinetic energy into boundary turbulence. For any single-shot projectile with enough of a punch to make a difference on its own you end up with uncontrollable fluctuations that tear it to shreds as soon as you enter hyperspace.”

“Damn,” Anja groused.

“However,” David said, raising a finger, “we don’t need a single shot. They call it a matrioshka brain for a reason, remember. It’s not one huge cohesive shell, it’s a bunch of thin, nested layers with a surprising amount of empty space between them. I believe that the Grand Design already has precisely the tool we need to create a small entrance through each layer: the Wa-”

“The Whack-a-Mole!”, Anja cried excitedly, her eyes wide and sparkling. There was a second of quiet broken by Jesri laughing quietly into her hand. The rest of the scientists were mostly successful in keeping a straight face.

David froze with his mouth open, then shot an annoyed look at Anja. “Major Tam,” he sighed, “if we’re successful and we defeat the Gestalt the events of that day will be the subject of history texts for centuries to come. I would be so, so happy if none of those texts credited our victory to the ‘Whack-a-Mole.’”

“Nobody uses the real name,” Anja retorted, still looking giddy at the prospect. “The real name is terrible. But yes, wonderful idea.”

“So glad you approve,” Helene said dryly. “Nomenclature aside, I think we have enough here to begin sketching out a plan of attack. There’s some refinement to be done on the emergency protocols, so we’ll need some more data from Trelir. We’ll also need to have Xim Len do some additional refits on the Ysleli ships to deal with the heat within the innermost shell.”

Anja nodded, exchanging a glance with Jesri. Her sister smiled back, eyes vivid with excitement. This was it, at last. Fatigue was the farthest thing from her mind.

The souk on Elpis had a variety of lovely hidden corners and quiet branching hallways, and in the end of one such Rhuar sat under a lurid orange canopy tentatively nibbling on a meat skewer. What sort of meat, he couldn’t say - it was merely advertised as “meat”, and long experience had taught him that any further knowledge would be poor seasoning. This one seemed unlikely to be anything unsavory, however, as the shop was well-regarded and the proprietor friendly.

It was a sharp turn from his fortunes several years prior, he considered. Oh, he had done well enough for himself as an artificer and a pilot, but never well enough that he could afford luxuries like real meat on a daily basis. He hadn’t eaten extruded protein paste since arriving at Elpis, and if his stomach suffered occasionally for his gastronomic extravagance he considered it a more than even trade.

A familiar clicking noise made him look up just in time to see Qktk scuttle around an overgrown and twisted stand of potted plants to enter the roped-off seating area. “Captain!”, he shouted, waving him over. The tiny Htt wove his way through the sparse tables and hanging drapes that gently blew in the draft from the station’s vents, picking his way to the empty chair next to Rhuar.

One could tell the classy establishments by the way the staff came directly to you rather than needing to be summoned with a shout and/or a bribe. The little eatery preserved its reputation well when a light-shelled young Arrigh scuttled up to them mere seconds after Qktk took his seat. He mulled over the menu before selecting a fish and vegetable assortment of which the waitress promised great and extravagant things.

After she had gone Rhuar leaned in to flash Qktk a lurid grin. “I think she likes you, Captain,” he whispered.

“Don’t be silly,” Qktk demurred, his eyes twitching pointedly away from the departing waitress. “She was much too young for me, and she’s not a Htt.”

Rhuar shrugged and leaned back, returning his attention to his meat skewer. “So you don’t think she’s attractive?”, he asked innocently.

“I didn’t-”, Qktk spluttered, waving his arms in exasperation before fixing Rhuar with a glare. “You’re doing this on purpose,” he accused.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rhuar laughed apologetically. “I’ve missed seeing you all wound up, it feels like we’ve barely talked since we got back from Ysl.”

Qktk nodded. “I think this is the longest we’ve gone without talking in years, actually. I’ve just been so busy working with Manifold on the refugee shipments, and you’ve been stuck with Xim Len most days…” He trailed off, shrugging with his major arms. “It’s been a busy month.”

“Tell me about it,” Rhuar griped. “I haven’t actually been working with Xim Len so much as filling in for her, she’s spending all her time working with Jesri on the, ah, thing.” He looked around furtively to ensure no other patrons were in earshot, then spoke more quietly. “They’re making good progress,” he murmured. “I haven’t talked to Jesri or Anja much, but I bumped into them a few days ago and they gave me a whole bunch of work orders for ablative paneling, heat sinks, stuff like that. They’re refitting the Ysleli ships to work up close to a star.”

“Jim’s teeth,” Qktk swore loudly. “The only way they’d be up that close to Apollyon’s star…”

“Shh,” Rhuar hissed, looking around again. “Can’t be too careful.”

Qktk looked at him askance. “Come on, you really think there’s an Emissary hiding in the kitchen?”, he asked sardonically.

“No,” Rhuar said flatly, “but I still wouldn’t want to explain this conversation to Anja if rumors started circulating.” The dog shivered, his fur standing partially on end. “I’m pretty sure she’s grown to like me as much as she likes anyone who isn’t also an immortal killing machine, but sometimes she does that thing where she stares at you…”

“Like she’s pinpointing your vital organs, yes,” Qktk agreed. “Probably for the best that we talk about other things.” The waitress came back with Qktk’s food, letting one of her legs lightly brush against Qktk’s carapace as she departed.

Rhuar leaned across the table again and grinned at Qktk. “I’m not up to speed on what the shells-and-mandibles dating scene looks like, Captain, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mind that you’re an old Htt,” he said slyly.

“Shut up, Mr. Rhuar,” Qktk said crossly, shoving a bite of fish in his mouth. “Oh, this is good.”

“I bet that’s what she-”

An unidentifiable bit of green vegetable splatted against Rhuar’s nose before he could complete his single entendre. He wiped his face, laughing, and the two resumed eating in silence for a few minutes. After clearing most of the way through his plate, Qktk leaned back in his chair with a satisfied chitter.

“I needed that,” he sighed. “Between the supply transports to Ysl and my extra work with Manifold I’ve been neglecting my leisure time.”

“How’s the refugee stuff going?”, Rhuar asked curiously. “We pump out equipment for the transports every now and again, but I haven’t had a fresh order in a while.”

“They’ve got their hands full with the current equipment,” Qktk said, wiping his mandibles. “The hydroponics alone are a bit of a handful to set up. We’ve just been coordinating food and other consumables lately, I actually haven’t heard much either since Tarl has been off-station.”

“Yeah,” Rhuar agreed. “I’ve been surprised at how much time he’s spending there. I didn’t think he would go in for that.”

“I don’t think it’s that strange,” Qktk mused. “His people nearly died. It’s natural he’d want to focus less on war and more on rebuilding, even if he is Tarl. There’s a certain peace that comes with knowing you’re helping, and it’s directly opposite to the thing you feel when you kill in battle. He may find it more novel than most.”

Rhuar regarded Qktk silently for a moment, then shook his head. “Well, I hope he gets his peace while he can,” he said vaguely. “I get the impression that any downtime we can grab will vanish in an instant once all of the pieces are in place.”

“Mr. Rhuar, I believe you’re right,” Qktk proclaimed. “And in that spirit, I’m curious to see if this place has any apertifs.”

“Captain,” Rhuar said reproachfully, “After all these years, you still doubt me? This is the best restaurant in this segment, it has everything.”

“Excellent,” Qktk rattled. “Let’s see if we can’t get that waitress back here.” He paused as Rhuar began to grin widely, then gave a rattling sigh. “If you can restrain yourself long enough for us to order, that is.”

Dim red light contrasted dully with the bright colors emanating from the screens stacked haphazardly within the cargo container. Xim Len was on her fourth hour inside and the recirculated air was beginning to get that distinct tang of offgassing plastic that occurred when you piled too much new equipment in a closed system. The sore throat and headache from the fumes barely registered, though, as her attention was fully focused on her readouts.

They had isolated almost everything they needed to know about the emergency protocols in the past few weeks, and although that was undoubtedly the most strategically important thing they had learned thus far Xim Len was discovering untold wonders within Trelir’s scorched torso. The Emissary had been programmed with a slew of protocols for efficient communications, data transfer formats and other advanced technical gibberish that she could only guess at the significance of.

She felt like an archeologist out of the old stories, discovering caches of ancestral treasures left on the highest cliffs for brave explorers to find eons later. It had never been a particular dream of hers as a fledgeling, but she couldn’t deny the appeal now that she was elbows-deep in a treasure chest beyond any she could have previously imagined.

It was difficult work, though, and her vision spun as she attempted to piece together the fragments of data left over after Trelir’s violent shutdown. Even though his hardware was relatively undamaged within the shattered casing a small subset of the files seemed incomplete or prematurely truncated. It was as if they had been split in half, the other pieces stored elsewhere and lost to her.

It was incredibly frustrating to have such treasures lost to her, with bare fragments tantalizingly just out of her reach. She slumped back onto a crate that she had taken to using as a makeshift chair, staring sullenly at the empty sockets of Trelir’s skull.

...the skull.

Xim Len sat bolt upright, nearly smacking her head on a wall mount. Of course files were showing as incomplete, the body was incomplete. Trelir’s architecture was distributed and heavily redundant, but missing such a large portion of his body would inevitably lead to gaps in the available information. They had disregarded the skull as relatively unimportant given that the bulk of the circuitry was in the torso and abdomen, but he had died when he removed his head - there had to be something important in there.

Her giddy excitement swirled in place as she contemplated the best way to handle the problem. Obviously it would be a Bad Idea to stick the head back on the body, she thought, mentally congratulating herself for not being a cloud-addled idiot despite her excitement. She eventually decided on a separate power feed, routed to the head without any connection to the body whatsoever. Several tense minutes were spent nudging delicate wires into the correct configuration, measuring voltages and running the data cabling to a spare tablet.

At last, after making doubly sure that none of the cables were cross-connected, she flipped the master switch and watched power thrum into the severed head. Her tablet took several seconds to make sense of the incoming feed. Once it had loaded up, however, she struggled to keep her wings from quivering uncontrollably. It was all here, all of the missing pieces she had been searching for previously - and several new items besides, each promising their own trove of secrets.

She spent the first several minutes painstakingly cross-referencing the split files with their counterparts on the torso’s network, passing over duplicate entries and logging the new files on her non-networked tablet with shaky fingers. It was slow, agonizingly slow, but there was no helping it.

She paused on one particularly interesting entry, something about command packet protocols, opening it and parsing the complex Gestalt coding into something she could read with a few swipes of her fingers. Minutes later, she dropped her tablet with trembling hands.

This was it. Even more than the emergency protocols, this could let them compromise the Gestalt’s network easily and without undue risk. She began to hastily pack all of the analysis equipment back in one of the shielded boxes, sequestering all tainted electronics before she opened the crate to tell Jesri about her discovery.

She finished with the last of her tablets, wires dangling from their ports like the tentacles of some bizarre sea creature, then sealed the box before turning to place the head back in its container.

Or would have, had it been there. Shivers erupted through her back and wings, her muscles clamping painfully tight. With a dawning horror creeping through her belly she slowly turned back towards where the body had lain. It was sitting upright, snatching excess wires from their invasive mounts as it repositioned its head on top of its spinal column with a click.

Satisfied at last with his head, Trelir turned and regarded her with an empty stare. His skinless jaw clacked open and shut tentatively. Xim Len stared in mute horror, unable to move for the fear gripping her limbs. Her heart beat fast, hard, seeming to vibrate audibly in the stale air.

“Thank you, my dear,” he buzzed, his artificially harsh voice reverberating through the tight confines. She managed to control her limbs enough to take a halting step backward but quickly found herself up against a wall. Trelir looked her in the eyes for a moment before standing upright, his shining skull nearly scraping the top of the crate. “I had prepared a few witty comments about losing one’s head,” he said sadly, “but now that the moment has come I can see you’re not really in the mood.”