Leviathan Falls, the scene we missed

"Without the gates and the enemy, our empire would still be a moral imperative. With them, it becomes an imperative of survival."

Freshly minted lieutenant, Junior Grade, Jean Perez sat a little straighter in the stiff uncomfortable auditorium chair, and leaned in to listen to the words of High Admiral Trejo. He stood on a raised dais in the midst of the grand neoclassical chamber, voice conveying effortless authority. Every graduating class in Laconia's many academies earned a speech from someone senior. Still, Jean couldn't help but feel she'd lucked out. Trejo continued,

"Even before the gates opened, the High Consul believed that humanity was stagnating, and with good cause. In fact, in a previous life, I can recall the two of us discussing this problem over Ganymede whiskey, late one night. You all know he was a logistics officer in his previous life, and that training grants one a certain perspective."

Trejo flicked his hand, and a graph materialized in the air behind him, a simple line that looked like a distended S-curve, climbing slowly, then rising quickly, then flattening out into a wobbly line.

"Does anyone recognise this chart?" the admiral asked. The auditorium was stunned for a moment, before Jean hesitantly put her hand up.

"Economic growth, sir. It's a graph of the total economic output of humanity on a logscale, over the last five hundred years."

Trejo nodded, and Jean felt the knot in her stomach release. Imagine if she'd gotten it wrong!

"Indeed. The sign of a truly educated person is to be deeply moved by statistics - a favourite aphorism of the High Consul's, and a moral precept you've no doubt all been taught to recite since grade school.

When the high consul looked at this graph, he saw one thing - a missed opportunity. Waste, stagnation, humanity failing to meet its potential, an invisible graveyard. Even with all the resources of a solar system, even with the resources of thirteen hundred worlds, our technology advanced less in the last century than it used to in mere years. If humanity wants to survive, it must change."

"This hand terminal," he waved the device in the air, "It's smarter than the one our predecessor Solomon Epstein used, it's cheaper, but those are incremental steps in progress, not revolutionary ones. Of course, I'm not telling you anything new, and if you were to ask some hidebound academic on Earth or Mars, they'd give you a laundry list of reasons. The years lost to climate shocks and bureaucratic stagnation on Earth, cheap Belter labour disincentivising automation outside the Inner Planets, Mars' single-minded focus on its terraforming project at the expense of other research goals, the failed promises of transformative artificial intelligence... But the fact remains that we, here, are in a position to do something about it.

We as Laconians have the responsibility to take humanity out of its rut, we have a jump-start in the form of the Ring Builder's technology, we have a government unencumbered by bureaucratic inefficiency, we have all the resources we could ever need. We'll make something of humanity, something better, and then, one day, we'll be in a position to gracefully step back and let the future unfold."

It was a scary thought, and thrilling at the same time, Perez thought. She was personally a part of the grand sweep of history, responsible for steering it. Trejo must feel like that all the time.

"Why am I telling you this story?" said Trejo, and he gave a slightly weary smile.

"Because I want you to remember what we're fighting for. Because, sad to say, your lives won't be defined by this vision, but by a rather more immediate goal: our storming of heaven, our uniting of humanity in defence against a force we don't understand. It will be hard, and sometimes you'll be tempted to wonder if this,” he gave a sweep of his arm,

“-was all worth it, if the vast mass of humanity might just be better off uncoordinated. If you ever begin to wonder that, remember my words, remember the potential that we’re fighting fore. This, our shared task, is the hardest thing that anyone has ever attempted, and it's still only the beginning. So do your duty, and show the universe what you’re capable of."

Jean joined in the thunderous applause as Trejo walked out of the auditorium.

She'd known his last words were coming, but they were still a crushing weight. An elbow brought her out of her reverie.

"C'mon," said Botton. "First in line at the bar, remember? We'll be late if we don't hurry."

Jean hadn't even noticed the rest of her class rise, but she did so now, and walked out of the auditorium and into the beautiful, monumental avenues of Laconia City. Tonight would be a good night.

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Years later, Captain Jean Perez of the Storm-Class destroyer Vortex sat in her ready room, staring in disbelief at the clouds of spinning debris that had once been humanity's best hope at defeating the true Enemy, the ruins of the ancient construction stations over Laconia itself. Her eyes screwed up, and she got her breathing under control. She would not cry, not now. The Underground had lashed out, ignorant and ungrateful, and someday they would pay the price.

To do this now of all times, when humanity itself seemed to be on the line, when only the ancient power of the Builders offered any hope of victory, seemed so cartoonishly evil that she almost couldn't believe it was real. Would Nagata and her anarchist allies be content to tear down all thirteen hundred systems with them, if it meant breaking Laconia?

"I should have been here," she said, quietly, to herself, as she brought the message from the High Admiral up on her volumetric display. They were still lagged by ten minutes, preventing real time discussion.

"Captain Perez," Trejo nodded briefly. He looked tired, almost haggard, and Perez felt a burst of empathy for the man. As much as he pretended otherwise, Trejo was still human. "In light of recent events, the High Consul has found it necessary to consolidate a larger fraction of our forces around Laconia. I'm assigning you to escort Admiral Gujrat and the Whirlwind on in-system duties.

Perez nodded.

"I understand," she said to the recording, and switched off the display. She stretched in her chair. She probably didn't have time to sleep before addressing her crew. Morale would be low after the defeat they'd suffered - because that's what it was - a resounding defeat. And one her crew hadn't been present for.

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It was only a year later, and Perez already had the sinking feeling that she was living at the end of history. When it came to catastrophes, she hardly knew where to start. Everyone in San Esteban was dead, switched off like a light. Her old friend, Botton had told her in confidence that he’d been ordered to bombard the surface of Freehold, to threaten the Underground leaders. It hadn’t worked. The High Consul, she and many others suspected, was missing, presumed… vanished.

Perez stalked through the corridors of the Vortex to the bridge. It wasn’t just the immediate dread of her situation that bothered her, it was the unspoken thought that if everything she’d been taught was true, this should not be allowed to happen.

Oh, she’d always known that they might lose against the greater enemy - there was a difference between bravery and delusional optimism. But this wasn’t the desperate, brave defeat she’d sometimes imagined.

Now they were massacring civilians, like the criminal Santiago Singh, on the orders of high command itself? The high consul had disappeared with no official word? These things simply should not happen.

There was still work to do. There was always work to do.

The Vortex followed a long, slow loop that kept it permanently within an AU of the Laconia gate - along with her sister ships, the Storm class would ward away any Underground activity and guard the ring gate. It was a thankless task.

Jean forced her face into a neutral expression as she strode into the CIC of the Vortex - her two other on-duty colleagues were both wearing new-generation optic implants, waving their hands to interact with invisible screens.

“Captain on the bridge,” announced her XO, Anderson. Phillips, her weapons officer, stood briefly as she entered.

Jean nodded and took a seat in her crash couch, pulling the bank of touchscreen controls over, bringing up a tactical map of the system. They’d all been put on high alert by Gujrat - something threatening that Jean wasn’t officially cleared to know about was happening in the ringspace. Those words together in that sentence were more than a little ominous, but she did her best to put it out of her mind.

She spared a sideways glance at her two junior officers.

*Are you afraid as well?*

Perhaps they were, but she would never be certain. That was the Laconian way.

Something like a piercing white light struck Jean, an invasive presence that worked its way into her pores, her nervous system, her mind. It was indescribable, carrying a cacophony of sensations. Then, just as she was beginning to wonder if this was how death had arrived in San Esteban, the nightmare snapped off.

*I’m still alive.*

That meant it hadn’t worked - whatever attack they had tried had failed. He would live to fight another day.

*He?*

Something was still boiling at the back of her mind, a dimmer cacophony of thoughts and sensations. Something was still wrong.

“Sir,” said the weak voice of Anderson. “Did you experience..?”

“Yes, I did,” snapped Jean. “It was another attack by the ring-gate entities. We follow standard procedure and continue with our mission. Note it in the logs.”

*She’s wrong, this is dangerous*.

That hadn’t been her thought, had it?

They waited for word from Laconia. If it was like the previous attacks, then the effect wasn’t a localized event in the conventional sense. As far as Jean understood the physics, the incursions acted as if they had originated from every point in space simultaneously, with light-lag only serving as a delay to confirm the simultaneous occurrence of the miracle in other parts of the system. The *Vortex* continued its long, slow loop at the edge of the Ring Gate, and Jean wondered whether it had been fatal to anyone.

*Why are you afraid? This is all part of the plan.*

The intrusive thoughts had returned again. It must be some lasting effect of the attack, neurological damage of some kind. Perez made a decision.

“Hard burn for the ring gate,” she announced. “We’re the closest ship in range, let's poke our heads through and see what’s going on.”

*She’s going to get us killed.*

“Who said that?” she almost said it out loud.

The first signs that something was awry came minutes later. The Storm-class destroyer in her patrol group, the *Katabatic Wind*, abruptly cut its main drive.

“The exact moment the effect hit,” remarked Anderson. “From our reference frame, at least.”

“They must be damaged,” said Perez. “Perhaps the effect struck them more strongly-”

Something on the display below her shifted. The *Katabatic Wind* was under thrust.

“No,” said Perez, checking the telemetry. “That cannot be right. Fifteen gees… hold on.”

She brought the ship specs up, paging through the specs.

“They don’t have breathable-fluid couches. They must be near death, even with the juice.”

“They’re hard burning for the ringspace with transponders off,” said Phillips.

*Of course they are. They’re defending us.*

Perez ignored the voice in her head, making a mental note to schedule a psych evaluation.

“Can we intercept?”

“I think so, sir. It’ll be a hard burn, but we can make it.”

The burn over the following hours was punishing, intense, and made all the worse by the growing worry that this wasn’t merely a drive malfunction. The *Katabatic Wind* refused all hails, still rushing headlong towards the ringspace and the *Vortex*.

The effect spread. All across the system, lagged by minutes, then hours as light delay passed by, ships cut thrust and went silent for a few moments, then changed vectors, burning hard toward the ring. Perez and her crew grew increasingly frantic, hailing the *Katabatic Wind* as the ship rushed towards them at that insane rate of acceleration. Nothing came back.

From where she sat, buried in her crash-couch, Perez caught a sudden change in her display.

It was the Whirlwind, last of the Magnetar-class battleships. It had broken orbit around Laconia, in defiance of the system defence protocol she’d helped draw up, and was burning hard for the ring. Then she saw just how hard - the drive plume was spitting out more energy than a planetary civilisation, accelerating the enormous vessel at more than twenty gees.

This was wrong.

A priority message popped up - the first her crew had received since the whatever-it-was.

*Open it.*

She felt something move her hand against the thrust gravity, almost without her volition. The figure in her broadcast window was - no, appeared to be, Admiral Trejo. He started speaking, and, somehow, Perez couldn’t pay conscious attention to what he was saying. She screwed her eyes shut, tried to concentrate, and caught a few sentences.

*She really was losing it. Perhaps she should relieve herself of duty, hand the ship over to Anderson.*

“A threat has arisen within the ringspace, and I’m diverting all available assets to address it. I’m ordering you to stand down until further notice.”

But it was as if his words were interrogating their way past her conscious mind, landing somewhere else.

*Cut the drive, go back to your quarters, rest*.

“No,” she said, through gritted teeth, then realized she’d spoken out loud.

She didn’t share the message with the crew, but Perez was now certain that something was terribly awry - a neural attack had struck the system, or something rather like it.

Two minutes later, another comm signal arrived from Laconia.

That was wrong, she realized instantly. It wasn’t possible for any signals to make their way back to Laconia in that time. Somehow, Trejo knew she’d disobeyed orders. It seemed the usual rules no longer applied.

His next message was longer, and Perez was now certain that whoever was speaking, it wasn’t Admiral Trejo.

“Captain Perez, do you remember what Anton told your graduating class, so many years ago? If humanity wants to survive, it must change - that’s what he told you. You believed him, did you not? That change has come, at long last,” he smiled, and it seemed somehow wrong, hollow. “We’ve built something better, something hard and coherent as a laser, something we can wield against the true Enemy. Welcome it. This is the culmination of everything you’ve worked for.”

*No, this is wrong. Is this what Laconia means?*

“Who are you?” asked Perez. But she thought she knew - somehow, though it made no sense. Only one person she knew had ever called the High Admiral ‘Anton’.

*This is what I fought for?*

And then, as if on cue, their drive cut off. The suddenness of it sent blood rushing to her head, and Perez blacked out for a moment. When she came to, Anderson was rising from his comm station, and she saw his eyes and face were, while not materially different in any way, somehow blank, somehow hard  to look at.

Anderson calmly drew his sidearm and shot Phillips, once in the chest and then in the head. Still embedded in his crash couch, the man barely recoiled as he was struck, globules of red blood emerging almost black in the tactical lighting. He - no, it - turned toward Perez, gun held ready, and hesitated. The moment stretched.

*Why would he hesitate?* She thought. And then, somehow, the answer came.

*Every unnecessary death is a terrible waste. And we don’t need to kill you*.

And then a chorus rose up in her, a million voices, a million bodies on a thousand worlds. She saw through the eyes of Martians in their skydomes and Belters in their void cities, colonists doing their best to scratch a meagre living on a hundred barely civilised worlds, and it all drove its way into her skull like a chisel.

*When they take you, there won’t be anything left. No adding your distinctiveness to their own, just the abolition of your self.*

The Anderson-thing pushed itself over to her, still holding the gun, waiting for her to give up the ghost. She had to think of something.

*He, they, need to get to the ringspace.*

*That must mean there’s something threatening them there.*

*We’re the closest ship.*

And then, suddenly, there was a shout of alarm from the chorus in her head. It knew what she was planning.

The Anderson-thing’s eyes widened in alarm, and Perez pressed her thumb to the couch’s control panel and shouted over the chorus,

“Emergency destruct, authorisation Perez oh two five oh one five, enable zero sec.”

Anderson never had time to fire the gun.