Quite some distance away a researcher was reporting something along the lines of “Josh forgot that while silver 107 and 109 are stable, silver 108 isn’t. For completely unrelated reasons we are now working on a spell for blocking radiation. Progress has been made on neutron radiation, less so for the others."

But Thomas Ruhl wasn’t aware of that; rather he was strolling through a garden on the space station Fiswert. He was wearing no armor besides a t-shirt and sweatpants largely composed of nanotube-wrapped carbyne in a much looser weave than that of a ship hull. He carried no weapon besides his body. There wasn’t anyone else in the immediate area, something he certainly didn’t mind. He had gotten a bit tired of everyone gawking at him, something which he attributed to humans still being rather rare that far into Union space. Of course, him having pointed ears, a short snout, four arms, both scales and feathers, and a thick tail, factoring into things didn’t occur to him. After all, only about half of humans had a completely baseline outer appearance.

His cybernetics would have pinged a possible ambush, if not for him and most everyone else turning that off whilst in Union space after the octillionth false positive. It was on this station in the middle of nowhere that some people made a mistake.

Squad 1 started the attack, trying to shock Thomas into submission. The taser prongs just barely stuck into the human's skin, but it was enough. The amount of electricity in question, however, was woefully less so, especially considering that he was grounded and had graphene networks running throughout his skin acting as a faraday cage of sorts.

The darts full of chemicals in an attempt to render him unconscious would have caused his medical systems to scoff if they were self-aware.

By this point, he was shifting into combat mode. Plates started extruding from his skin, his nose and mouth were covered. His respiratory system switched to a closed system, using bioluminescence to stimulate the cyanobacteria inside it. His empathy for the enemy was temporarily reduced. His perceived seconds per second went way up. Such a state wasn’t sustainable in the long term, but it didn’t need to be.

Of course, that wasn’t all. Pockets opened in his flesh, and compressed smoke and chafe were launched. The station’s cameras were seized and used to identify possible attackers. And of course, he was running for cover.

When they realized that capture was going to be nigh-impossible they swapped to lethal weaponry. Better a corpse to study than nothing. Projectiles ripped towards, and through, him. That’s not to say, of course, that the projectiles had an easy time getting through the nanotube-wrapped carbyne reinforcing every part of his body.

>Weaponry likely of Quasar Technologies Nightfall series.

So said his cybernetics.

>Very high armor penetration, very low projectile size. Minimal threat unless brain hit.

His ship, tiny though it was, wasn’t idle either. Variable yield antimatter containment shells were swapped out for simple chunks of unrefined iron. The single internal omnidirectional skipgate cannon swiveled to face the attackers and the head of one ceased to be, with the station between the cannon and the target untouched. The cannon swiveled just a bit, fired again, and another head stopped existing in any form resembling a head.

>>Warp missile pulled into warp 1 and destroyed at 1.2km.

>>Launch warp-net at direction missile came from?

>>>Yes. Maintain skipgate fire at infantry, launch net sublight rather than use skipgate. Enact evasive maneuvers as necessary.

They weren’t just going to sit there and take it, however.

>>22 warp missiles destroyed at .8km.

>>Net yanked 377 assorted projectiles from warp, all dodged.

It was a coordinated attack, it’s not like they assumed the ship to be harmless. Far from it, they didn’t try sabotaging it on the basis that it would only alert the human before everything was ready since there wasn’t really a stealthy way of doing it.

>>Net yanked 25 warships, each considerably larger than this one.

>>Variable-frequency laser weaponry being deployed against ship. Reflective coating ~99.7% effective.

>>Launching warp missiles.

>>Comm systems of enemy ships entirely closed off or using only entanglement comms and point-to-point laser comms. Attempting light-sensor-based exploits.

It was about this time the infantry swapped to high-explosive weaponry, sick of being picked off one by one, never mind trying to take the body mostly intact. Bear in mind here, only a few seconds had passed since the start of the battle.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .7km.

>>Sublight missiles destroyed at .6km.

>>Exploits appear to have been patched.

>>11 ships destroyed by warp missiles.

Thomas was at this point hit directly with very high-yield armor-piercing missiles. He was still running, of course, but the tracking on the missiles was too good.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .5km.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .4km.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .3km.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .2km.

>>4 enemy ships remaining.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at .1km.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at 50m.

>>Sublight projectiles deflected at 25m.

>>Hull taking damage.

>>Antimatter containment soon to be breached.

Coincidentally, the ship being destroyed lined up pretty well with Thomas finally going down, several missiles later.

>>Goodbye Thomas.

With relief, those on the ground and those in the ships sighed, or their species’ equivalent. Shortly thereafter the general-purpose nanobots and microbots in the smoke finally reached the infantry and lay dormant, coating the inside of the previously environmentally sealed armor suits. Thomas was loaded onto one of the four remaining ships by the infantry, as were the dead. Squad leader Okn`kas somewhat sorrowfully confirmed that everyone was aboard, knowing what would happen next.

The primary reactor of the station had an unfortunate malfunction, one in a trillion chance, that led to a chain reaction throughout the entire place. No survivors. Tragic. Convenient, since that was all the witnesses taken care of.

When Thomas woke he was still missing a third of his head. Medical nanites only worked so fast after all. There had been no point in his waking up before then since he was in a cell inside a faraday cage surrounded by shaped charges linked to motion sensors. He could have burrowed out via nanites, but that’d be slow. Why do that when, assuming predicted timing held, they were about to be let out?

Okn’kas opened the Faraday cage and then unlocked the interior cell. His face was inexpressive and his motions were a bit jerky. Not so much as to arouse suspicion, but certainly unpracticed. The explosives were disconnected. He stood at attention before Thomas and his vocal cords and facial muscles were unlocked, but his lungs were still carefully controlled to limit the volume of speech.

“W-what are you doing to me?”

“Well,” Thomas said, “I’m interrogating you, or at least getting there. As for what’s happening to you? Some of that smoke washed over you and we’re pretty good at nanobots. You can figure it out.”

“Oh no. No nonono.”

“Yes. Now, first question. These ships have comms shut off, how are they communicating?”

“What are you going to do to me?” Okn’kas’s face was showing the terror they felt.

“That depends on how cooperative you are. I could be merciful, or I could make your body digest itself. Or worse; I’m sure I could come up with something. Now answer the question.”

“Courier shuttles. P-please don’t hurt me.”

“Who do you work for? Why did you attack me?”

“We’re a mercenary company. I don’t know who the client is. We were just supposed to capture a human, a live one preferably. Why am I not panicking more?”

“Synthesis of calming and obedience-inducing pheromones. Your species is the reason you were selected out of your squad. What’s the name of this company? What’s the name of the captain of this ship?”

“T-the name translates to Solar Eclipse I think. Their name is Haamal.”

“Hm. Any more information you can give me?”

“I-I don’t know anything. I’m just a squad leader.”

“Oh well.” And with that Okn’kas died. The body kept standing though, no reason not to keep it around. Following such, a practically invisible mist started flowing from Thomas’s pores. A large portion of the crew was quickly infected, but a sturdier than usual bulkhead did appear, and when it was opened finally did the automated systems of the ship detect something was off. The mercenaries had no idea that their ship had been rigged with nukes, just in case, and as such Thomas was reduced to smithereens, alongside the entirety of the ship. And though Thomas was irrecoverable, some of the tiny agents of vengeance had already been drifting to the other ships, the area between them kept at the same warp level by the ships’ synchronized warp cores.

>Central computation connection lost, switching to distributed swarm intelligence.

>User killed, enacting vengeance, three targets available.

And when they landed on the three remaining ships, it boded nothing positive for the inhabitants. People and unnecessary ship sections alike were disassembled for raw materials, and more nanites and microbots were made. The nukes were disarmed and shortly thereafter only the bridge crew of each ship was still alive. On each ship a scene was enacted, the vocal cords or species analog of a bridge crew member taken control of, and passwords demanded from the rest. Those who refused were not killed but rather forced to watch as their flesh sloughed off, starting from the extremities. Those who gave the requested information were killed painlessly. The microbots had a mission and they had no use for the attackers’ pleas.

When as much information was extracted as feasible everyone was killed and the ships set off for human space. The information would be of interest to the remaining 34,651,754,873 humans.

It was, after all, the first time in over a decade that a human had died.