Site Alpha, Kislev
Oleg's house had been a hovel before, a place that barely kept the rain out and some of the warmth of a hearth in. It had been dark, drafty and dirty. And despite the many hours of work his Kislevites had put into that ice ship, and the many checks to ensure that neither ironmongery nor power tools leave the yard, the hovel had improved.
It actually improved to the point where it was a new house and nice at that. Perspex made for decent windows, leftover sheet metal had been welded into an oven, and foam was packed under the felts and sheets that made up beds. Silicone made sure that the windows were tight, and leftover packaging foils made the roof watertight.
Food containers meant for one-time use found a dozen-and-one uses in the house, and a small solar-powered battery lamp brought light to dark winter evenings. The table was set with delicacies from tin cans, with vegetables which tasted nearly fresh, meat that was not salted into oblivion and the marvelous potatoes.
Best of all, Oleg did not owe any Boyar a single kopeck. This house and 30 hectares of good land were his to do as he pleased. The barn held enough seed for two seasons, and there was enough money to buy animals in spring. Oleg had it made and felt better than he could remember in a long time.
He was lifting his plastic drinking vessel to savor a well-deserved ale when the door shook as someone pounded on it. Nobody should be out in this weather and on this holy day of no work, what in the Tzarina's name?
The door shook again, this was not the sort of problem that would go away. His wife was already shooing the younger kids into the second room while young Ivan reached for a club. Opening the door he found a middle-sized man covered with snow.
"Good evening Oleg. May I come in for a moment, it is a bit nippy outside."
"Err, certainly Boyar. Please come in, take a seat. May I ask what brings you out here at this hour?" Oleg steps aside as he shook off his surprise at seeing Jacob General.
"Oleg, would you like to have a tractor for each family in your settlement? Maybe a power station or a small harbor?"
"WHAT!?" Oleg exclaimed in shock.
Chancellery, Berlin
The Security Cabinet were all looking at the slides projected on the wall. They depicted off-white and silver fragments of what might be weapons and other gear. The Secretary of Defense blinked several times as if trying to see better.
"What do you mean professor by 'no ordinary matter'?"
"Herr Minister, are you aware that anything solid around you in actuality contains a great lot of empty space?" the scientist asked.
"No, what do you mean by that?"
The professor stepped on his feeling of exasperation. Don't they teach basic science anymore in colleges?
"The table surface your hand rests on is an assembly of atoms. There is something solid in there, the atoms' cores, but they occupy the smallest amount of space. The rest is empty space in which the electrons move according to their energy states and chance. The electron shells in your hand and the ones in the table repel each other, and they break the light in ways that make them appear solid," he explained.
"Fine. So?"
"In these artifacts, something provides similar functions but electrons, neutrons, and protons they are not. Our two AIs never encountered such a material, but they offered theories based on Old One research. The most likely seems to be that this material is formed of standing waves of warp energy."
Uwe Junge blinked a couple of times.
"So you do not know, it is just a theory?"
"Herr Junge, to scientists 'theory' has a different meaning from what you are used to. It is currently the best explanation of a known phenomenon," the professor said with a hint of pique.
"Aha."
Both men looked at each in incomprehension.
"Professor Pforr, do you have any ideas where this might be from?" the minister asked, trying to steer the explanation towards the more practical matter at hand.
"There is only one explanation that fits the data we so far have, but the data is from a semi-reliable source. The Games Workshop stories about the Warhammer 40K Universe indicate that the Eldar uses a material called 'Wraithbone', that is said to be crystallized psychic energy. Given the two corpses we have in our possession, this seems to fit."
Junge blanched at the professor's words. He glanced around saw that he was not the only person who looked as if the swallowed something bitter.
"So you are saying that we have been visited by somebody from another universe, a fictional one to boot?"
This was when the Chancellor, Markus Söder, managed to get a word in. "Professor Pforr, could you leave us for a moment? Please remain on call if you would be so kind."
"Certainly."
A few moments later the German chancellor looked his defense minister in the eye.
"Uwe, we had encounters with what you call a fictional universe not once but twice already. The last encounter cost me the position you now have, and I know you were briefed about the first one."
Junge looked away from the chancellor after a moment.
"Yes, yes, I have been, but that does not make this situation better. It grates on me that we could not do much. So, if these were Eldar or even little green men from Mars, what do we do about that incident?"
Christian Lindner, by now the old hand in this cabinet, raised his voice.
"It seems to be over without too much damage, and we can certainly not sue this particular set of pointy ears. I would bury this one under the carpet."
"Are you always as callous when Germans have been killed?" Junge said bitingly.
"No, I grieve as well. But let us be realistic about this, most of the attackers are quite simply dead, and there is no way we can ask for restitution with the responsible party.
"They are in another universe, remember? And even if they were not, if these were really the Eldar, they would swallow us whole. We should be talking about what we can do if there is a repeat, and I think a lot of that will fall into your department," Lindner calmly said.
Taking a moment to compose himself, Junge spelled out the measures taken following the incident.
"I have put my staff on it. As an interim measure, the Luftwaffe will put some Typhoon fighter-bombers with air-to-ground ordnance on ready-five alert at several bases. They will be more survivable than helicopters and can carry heavier weapons. We are also looking into faster drones so that the first eyes on the ground are not human. Last, but not least, we are looking at smaller KEWs."
"Uwe, you want to use Rods from God on German soil?" Söder interrupted. "Why not nuke it altogether while you are about it?"
"Because KEWs have no fallout and are very hard to stop. We are currently looking at a dial-a-yield variant that can use aerobraking to adjust force as required. Something that gives us something between 0.1 and one kiloton. One of these would have wiped out the Eldar. And if you are right that the next ones might be their perverted cousins, then I want a bigger hammer, and anybody who is in their vicinity will be happy we have it." Junge carefully explained.
"For now, get the eggheads on it, and you can ask the Allstreitkräfte to make some if this works out. But their release is Cabinet-level only, get me Uwe?" the chancellor ordered.
"Yes, Markus."
"Good. I have been in far too many meetings where dire threats to Germany were mentioned. This is the first one where we have two at the same time, and this is the last time I want to have one of these. I could have asked the Allstreitkräfte to brief us, but the most knowledgeable being about these things seems to be one of our AI. We will establish a line to the AI Hypatia."
The screen before the cabinet filled with the cartoon of a middle-aged woman clad in a white robe.
"Greetings Chancellor Markus Söder. I take it this is this briefing you asked me to prepare?"
"Yes, Hypatia."
"Very well then."
The picture changed, showing a field of stars before the Stargate. The stars passing behind the gate seemed to move out of the camera's focus for a moment, became blurry strips before reforming when the point of view changed again.
"On Bäckertag 1, Nachhexen 23.45 Standard Time, the Stargate was used by an unidentified intruder. We cannot ascertain its place of origin with the primitive sensors available on the satellites that monitor the gate. We can only state that it was about 20 meters in length. It used a type of ion thrusters to accelerate from the gate."
The picture was blanked out by a flash, and when it reappeared a blurry shape could be seen accelerating away from the gate. Nothing seemed to happen for a second, then the picture was gone again to be replaced by one with a wider angle of view but certainly taken from farther away.
"Ten seconds after its emergence, the unidentified object destroyed the satellite Wächter 2 with an energy weapon. Wächter 3 filmed what happened next."
The object seemed to thrust in one direction, but something moved it from side to side, like a rat in the mouth of a terrier. It became longer briefly before disintegrating into many smaller parts.
"Immediately after the shooting, the object crossed a grav shear. It was obviously unable to withstand the stress and was destroyed."
"Why did that happen Hypatia?"
"Foreign Secretary Christian Lindner, the immediate space around the Gate undergoes something your scientists call "Frame Dragging" by the quickly rotating mass. Only specially constructed vehicles approaching carefully calculated courses can successfully approach the gate and transit. Whatever came from the gate was obviously neither sturdy enough nor communicated with the Gate's AI on both sides."
"Can you identify the intruder? Tell us something about them?" asked the foreign secretary.
"My database is 22,500 years out of date, and nothing in there matches the data we received. Unfortunately, the sensors on your satellites are woefully primitive. So even if the intruder might match something in the databases, I might not be able to make a match."
"Is this the normal modus operandi of interstellar civilizations? Shoot first?" Junge asked with some concern.
"Secretary of Defense Uwe Junge, the AI you know as Nathan gave your predecessor a valid estimation. It is easily possible that an interested party sends probes through the gate every so often and looks for signs of industrial civilizations. The probe will only contact its builders only when such signs are detected.
"You provide a lot of such signals by now. In a good scenario, this will lead to a peaceful contact. In a neutral scenario, such a civilization will avoid contact. In a negative scenario, a hostile civilization will commit genocide before you can become a competitor. In the experience of the Old Ones, the likelihood of each scenario is roughly 18%, 43%, and 39%, respectively.
"Given that the intruder did not announce its intention and destroyed a satellite without attempting communications or any provocation from us, we have to assume the worse case is most likely. Given that you are a member of a barely space-faring civilization, this does not bode well for you."
Junge was not sure how he felt with Hypatia's answer. It is bad enough in the Warhammer world that the standard response to many situations involved the use of force. Now the AI is saying that so-called advanced civilizations have a tendency to shoot first because they don't like competition. So much for Star Trek and the 'we come in peace' school of science fiction.
"So what should we do?"
"This should be obvious to you, Secretary of Defense Uwe Junge. Shut the gate down," the AI said dispassionately.
The Security Cabinet was silent, stunned by the AI's suggestion.
"How is that possible? I have been told that the gate works by its great mass and rotational speed. How do we shut something like this down?" the chancellor asked, breaking the silence.
"Now, that is a very good question Chancellor Markus Söder. As you have just seen, passage through this gate requires taking the right vector at the right time. Destruction is the most likely to occur in the case of an error, but not the least desirable. The universe seems to detest time travel, and we have no idea where those who use vectors which would result in what you call time travel will end up. No AI that pondered this question ever came up with an answer.
"To achieve a vector, the computers attached to each gate must exchange data on the local spatial topography which is subject to change. This communication can indicate that a safe passage is impossible or changed to vectors which leads to destruction. It is up to the user whether he communicates this. The gate as such is still usable, but the likelihood of a successful transit is very small."
"Can you communicate with this computer and apply these changes for now."
"Of course, Chancellor Markus Söder. The computer in the gate is a very simple one, without a persona of its own. I do believe the Old Ones who made it did not trust AIs completely and wanted to be able to control their supply route themselves."
Junge frowned as he digested Hypatia's answer, why wasn't this informed by the AI earlier?
"Do we know this already? That we could shut this thing down?"
"Secretary of Defense Uwe Junge, this information has been presented to the Security Cabinet for nine years and 345 days."
"How could they be so careless then? Why did they not do so then when so much is at stake. Were they all fell-gooders..." Junge growled.
"Uwe, shut up, there is no TV-camera present. The situation was a bit more complicated than that," Söder cut the defense minister's rising tirade off.
Junge glared at the chancellor but composed himself before continuing. "What could be more complicated than shutting down the worst threat to Germany right then and right there, pray tell?"
"Secretary of Defense Uwe Junge, the gate can only be shut down by a high-level AI in close proximity to the computer in question. The AI you know as Nathan might or might not be able to do so. He might succeed, but he might also send the computer in an anti-tampering mode which will make future attempts nearly impossible. This is why the expedition to Verda was undertaken to salvage me.
"Even when that was finished, the spaceships in your possession had a 41% chance of failure. This would have meant the loss of an AI irreplaceable to you as well as the loss of a crew. Given that there had been no recorded use of the gate for the last 22,500 years, the risks were seen as low. A logical decision based on the information available at the time."
"So what do you suggest we do in light of the changed circumstances, Hypatia?"
"Equip your most reliable spaceship, and fly me to the Star Gate. I will then shut it down for the time being. You may then reopen it when you feel your development warrants such a change."
All the heads around the table nodded, it was Markus Söder who spoke up.
"If you think you can do this then this is what we shall do."
