First Contact

Chapter 864: Those Left Behind

"The Living are not done with you yet." - Ebony Jungle Feline Warrior Man, The War of Superpowered Blood Brothers, Mouse House Age of Paranoia megamedia.

The Telkan system had been fortunate during what had come to be known as Shade Night. The shades had swarmed out of the GalNet and SolNet links, out of the hypercom wave system, out of the needlecast and hypercom, slaughtering at will.

But only for a little over an hour.

They they had begun to swarm around repeaters, slowing down, and eventually curling into the fetal position. Many faded away to nothingness.

Telkan had only taken 2.1 million casualties.

They considered themselves lucky when they heard the news of what had happened to other industrialized and Gal/SolNet connected inhabited worlds.

The High Lady Brentili'ik, Planetary Director for a third time, had guided her people during the three months that followed as Telkan mourned its dead and picked up the pieces.

When the Precursor Autonomous War Machine had come across the resonance zone everyone had tensed until it had released a new and different roar.

YOU HAVE MAIL!

News from the other worlds. News from the war. News from the front.

Some of it was a somber letter. A vellum envelope with a black border and a gold seal that held the death notice and a terse recounting of the events for those whose family members had fallen in uniform. A creamy hardstock envelope, bordered with black with a silver seal for those whose family members on other planets had been killed by the shades when the shades attacked civilian populations.

Some of it was news that the Atrekna had been virtually wiped out, not one seen since Shade Night. The fighting against the Dwellerspawn and rogue Precursor Autonomous War Machines still went on. Hundreds of PAWM had refused the offer of peace, rejecting both the cease fire and the offer of membership to the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems, and still fought against the Confederacy's naval forces.

Casualty reports and damage estimates from Shade Night. Many were terrified by the scope of the casualties. Tens of billions, with some experts saying the casualties might reach into the hundreds of billions once each stellar system had been contacted and a census was taken. Some cried in relief that they had been moved from a stellar system to Telkan before the war. Others cried in sorrow that a home they had left behind or had never known was now a world of the dead.

News that a being known only as Crashrider had saved the majority of the Galactic Arm Spur when they had somehow managed to crash the hypercom wave generator, shutting down the realtime communications network of the Confederacy.

News that the peace process between the Confederacy and the Unified Council was moving at a brisk pace. Many who had been moved to Telkan to work for the various Omnicorps and Stellarcorps were either reimbursed for the travel and moving expenses or offered the ability to return home.

Many who had been taken from their homeworld and moved to Telkan had either already left in the time after the First Battle for Telkan. The majority, however, had fought and bled to keep Telkan free during those first two invasions and would have to be dragged off kicking and screaming from the planet they felt so possessive over.

The news of the massive lawsuits and class action suits brought forth by the Terran lawfare agents against the massive, seemingly omnipotent Omnicorps. More than a few beings opened their bank accounts to discover massive amounts of deposits to cover a wide array of damages.

News of the trials and investigation of 'war crimes' perpetrated by the Lanaktallan government, Omnicorps, government officials, and even the wealthy and powerful, in what was being called the "Harmony Trials" by the press. The opening of investigations or the results of trials for crimes that had occurred even before the lemurs of Terra had arrived, as the Confederacy had no statute of limitations on murder, depraved indifference, or rape.

A few beings wept, kneeling down, holding the letter tightly, when they found that murdered relatives had received justice through the often-times harsh Confederate Legal System. The symbol of the robed Terran female, her eyes blindfolded, a sword in one hand and scales in the other, adorned all of those letters. Some of the crinkled, tear stained letters were framed by the recipient and put in places where they could be easily seen.

Then came The Flashbang, when the sun emitted a massive white light as the stellar stabilizer systems were overriden by a mysterious origin. The white light spread across the system faster than light should have been, blinding everyone for a split second.

When it cleared, the shades were gone and the people of the Telkan system, like everywhere else, rejoiced.

The fusion plants, the large industrial sized ones, began to fail afterwards. The massive broadcast power stations failed. Many satellites failed. Their molycircs damaged by The Flashbang. They were quickly replaced, but many cities and homes had to rely on the smaller ones or military fusion reactors. It was not uncommon to see a mech or an armored vehicle parked in a neighborhood with cables leading off of it.

Non-military grav vehicles had failed during The Flashbang, the molycircs degrading inside the space of a few hours. Luckily, there was no loss of life, but ground vehicles and military vehicles were soon the only thing seen on the road.

The mysterious graffiti pleading "For Our Sake, Pete, Stop Helping!" appeared here and there, although no culprit was ever found and no explanation of the cryptic graffiti ever surfaced.

The Telkan, as always, put on their work boots and began fixing everything they could, just like everyone else. Broadcast power was abandoned, after all, the shades had been able to ride the energy waves back during Shade Night.

The nanoforges and creation engines, which had been 'kicking' oddly for a few weeks prior to the Flashbang were used sparingly. The military grade ones still worked, and the Telkan began replacing community, industrial, and private nanoforges as fast as possible. BobCo sent out new nanoforges to all of their loyal customers free of charge.

Life began to move on.

Tri-Vees were nervously turned on once a maintenance worker had replaced chipsets. Many didn't bother with the Tri-Vees and instead purchased or used the nanoforge to run off a visual media player that used a cathode ray tube and excited photons.

More than a few 'commercials' for shops showed a comely Telkan female standing next to a huge heavy wooden cabinet, carved and inlaid for decoration, praising the Vid's analogue sound system, the crispness of the cathode ray system, and speaking about the obvious beauty of the solid wood cabinet that had been hand carved.

GalNet and SolNet fiber optic or superconductor cables were dug up and thrown into the reclaimer landfills, which emptied as fast as they were filled. More than a handful of enterprising Telkan made money going out and 'prospecting' for old war wreckage or, even better, an old Unified Council landfill, to sell it to the reclamation companies.

Copper cable was laid by massive crews.

Five months after Shade Night went down in history. Photographed and recorded.

An assistant to the planetary director picked up a handset, tapped some buttons, and waited. The screen split to show the same type of handset on a cradle being ringing in the Planetary Director's office. Madame Director Brentili'ik picked up the handset.

"Ah-hoy-hoy," she stated.

"Can you hear me now?" her assistant added.

"Loud and clear. Goodbye," Brentili'ik said before hanging up the receiver.

The analogue communication system, the telephone, was reinvented and embraced.

The airwaves went live as analogue systems across the UHF and VHF bands began transmitting safe video images. The FM and AM bands lit up with music, talk radio, and news channels.

All of it safe from shade infestation.

Shades hid in the spaces between the 1's and 0's of the digital, lurking and waiting. Analogue was a living thing that was always in motion and safe from the shades.

Everyone had heard about the world that had thought the shades had been cleared out but a single image had released a flood of shades that had killed the remaining survivors of the first attack.

Software from Magician Hat Games was suddenly available. It would scan files and look for shades, then remove them. While it worked on visual media and files, the Telkan government still outlawed video and audio files in any resolution greater than 480p. Any public computer files were data only. Arguments were made that video and audio were still data, no different than a spreadsheet file when compressed then broken down for transmission over the information network.

The arguments sometimes got violent.

Leading experts were offered the chance to prove their theories. They could enter a room with a computer that had received through traffic from another stellar system while it was powered up. After all, the through traffic, relayed by the computer, was only data.

The experts refused.

The argument ended.

A text only information network was established, with roving VI that watched for any type of video or audio being transferred, even in email attachments.

Six months after Shade Night the first trader arrived. There had been little immigration or emigration, little stellar trade.

After all, jumpspace and hyperspace was now known as Ghostspace or Shadespace.

The blame wasn't laid on the Terrans, after all, they had been dead. It wasn't laid on the Lanaktallans (who were grateful for that small mercy) who had created Hellspace. It was laid on the Atrekna.

But life kept on going.

On the site of one of the famous battles of First Telkan, a massive stadium had been built. It featured athletic events and spectacles of carnage to those willing to buy a ticket. The Grand Stadium was the site of popular events. It was a grand superstadium, with seating for nearly two hundred and fifty thousand spectators.

It had become a graveyard when the shades had attacked, flooding out of the big screens and the screens on the back of the seats that allowed spectators to select the view they wished to watch.

Many were surprised that it was bulldozed and reclaimed a week after Shade Night, the day after the remains of the dead were recovered.

A smaller one was built within a month.

It was christened the Ullmo'ok Memorial Coliseum. It only had seating for a few thousand people, made entirely of stone and carved with scenes of carnage and sports events. There were great pillars leading up the main entrywalk, a cobblestone road leading to the entrance. There were damaged warmeks posed as if they were flexing muscles between the pillars.

The advertisements ran on television and radio, the stentorian voice of the announcer simmering with excitement. The text only InfoPage appeared proclaiming a grand event was going to take place in a month's time.

The Grand Opening of the Ullmo'ok Memorial Coliseum, a limited seating and Pay Per View cable television event. Tickets were expensive, but were sold out within minutes. Some tickets appeared on the gray market resale sites, costing as much as a year's pay for a low level management worker.

Poldings, squirmlings, tadpoles, hatchlings, all got in free when accompanied by an adult!

They were sold out within seconds.

Word went out that the Planetary Director herself would be present in one of the VIP boxes.

Two hundred tickets went up on a lottery for those who earned a menial salary.

Rumor said that the pre-game, mid-game, and end-game shows were going to be amazing.

People talked about the fact that warmeks were in the work yard.

Thirty second commercials featuring the contestants began to appear on television. The advertisements where a narrator extolled the combat virtue of the contestants in a voice-over laid atop the sounds of mek combat played on the radio.

T-shirts, jackets, sweaters, flank-coverings, abdominal wraps, sashes, and torso vests appeared at the malls and on the nanoforges.

Some said that it was obscene to have such a celebration so soon after Shade Night and The Flashbang, but they were shouted down by those that pointed out that there was always a galactic war, a planetary slaughter, a world ending threat.

The day of the event, great sodium spotlights came on with a clack that could be heard for nearly a mile. The beams were bright enough to be seen in the daylight, moving back and forth. Music, hard, driving music, poured from the speakers in the parking lot, from the posing mechs, and from the massive speakers around the stone coliseum.

Being lined up eagerly. Some were nervous by the security guards, dressed in the old CorpSec uniforms of the Kismet Industrial and Mining Consortium, but the security beings had their face shields up and were smiling. Many posed for pictures with the sec guards, film cameras snapping pictures with a sodium light flash.

The line waited eagerly, until the huge black wrought iron gates crashed open with a triumphant fanfare from the music.

Inside were souvenir shops, food and drink stalls, and bathrooms inside the massive stone structure. Posters lined the walls, good old ink on paper, showing the various competitors and their mechs, with "SLAMSMASH I!" at the bottom with the date.

There were VIP areas, sports betting sections, where huge cathode ray tube screens would show the action. There was alcohol, stims, narcobrew and narcostims. In the sportsbar sections, which looked older, danker, dingier than the rest of the coliseum, weathly or influential Lanaktallan, Telkan, and all manner of beings gathered to bet, cheer, and get drunk and high while they watched the spectacle.

The seats were filled and the excitement palpable when the floor of the coliseum rolled back and a stage lifted up. A popular teknopunch band of Telkan teenage girls rose up and began to play their recent hit single. After that song, a new song was played and the crowd roared in appreciation.

The songs ended, the seats were filled, and the lights went out as the stage sunk back into the ground.

Everyone held their breath.

Up high, across from the ornate and decorated VIP box that seated the Planetary Director, lights came on to reveal a box surrounded by a metal cage.

A Lanaktallan clopped out and the crowd gasped and/or cheered.

The Lanaktallan wore a denim vest covered with small mirrors. Four sparkling mirrored globes hovered over his head, the globes slowly spinning. He had blinking lights draped over his torso and his arms, which were covered in glitter. He wore no sash, but he needed none to be recognized.

Lo'omo'nan the MC.

The Lanaktallan grabbed the microphone, pulling it up to his mouth.

"WELCOME TO SLAMSMASH ONE!" he yelled.

The crowd roared their approval back.

"As always, let's have a minute of silence for the fallen, including my great-nephew, Ullmo'ok," he said solemnly.

There was silence.

It was suddenly broken by "look, mommy, a mirror man! He's so sparkly! I wish I was sparkly." in a wistful little girl's voice.

It started with titters. Then laughter. Then the crowd and even the MC roared with laughter. Those who could see the Planetary Director could see her holding the hands of her broodcarriers and laughing. Even in living rooms and dens and relaxation rooms laughter rang out across the planet.

"OUR HONORED DEAD PREFER LAUGHTER TO SILENCE! FROM HERE ON OUT, IT WILL BE A MOMENT OF LAUGHTER IN THEIR HONOR HERE!" Lo'omo'nan the MC yelled.

The crowd's roar of approval was a physical thing.

"WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!" Lo'omo'nan called out, whirling in place and pointing at one of the massive iron doors. "LET'S START THE MIDDLEWEIGHT EVENT!"

There was a crashing thud against them. Once. Twice. A third time.

The doors creaked open.

A massive Davion Class warmek strode out, painted in garish colors with skulls painted on each fist.

"YOU KNOW HIM! YOU LOVE HIM! PILOTING SKULLBREAKER - MU'RDRMO'O!"

The massive mek stomped out, its fists raised the sky as the coliseum roared their approval. The mek moved to the center of the coliseum, lights on it. It stopped and fireworks went off, fountaining sparks on either side of the mek.

Lo'omo'nan the MC whirled in place, throwing off a shower of rainbows, and pointed at another door.

"THE TELKAN YOU LOVE TO HATE! RED CRUSHER PILOTING WARSTEEL BETTY!"

The doors crashed open on the first thudding impact and a massive Davion class mek stomped out, pointing at the crowd with one hand and making throat cutting gestures with the other. It stopped only twenty feet from the other mek, stomping through a shower of sparks.

The crowd roared out their booing and jeering.

"COMPETING FOR THEIR PLACE OF THE FLASHBANG LADDER, THESE MEDIUM GRADE COMBATANTS ARE HERE TO PUT THEIR LIVES, THEIR BLOOD, THEIR METAL ON THE LINE FOR YOU!"

The crowd roared as the two meks went to opposite sides of the field.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?"

The crowd roared as the meks flexed and posed.

"ARE YOU ALL READY TO RUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE?" he shouted out.

The meks crouched slightly, their weapons going live.

The crowd went wild.