For decades, the Council’s listening room was suffused accompanying the fixed hum of Earth’s transmissions—radio waves, mathematical signals, and quantity travel. Then, unexpected, silence.
High Monitor Xle’s curls curled up in distress as danger alerts flashed across affecting animate nerve organ interfaces. "Impossible. Run another demonstrative."
"Third demonstrative complete," a subordinate reported tensely. "All channels understood. No shame, no meddling. Earth’s whole ideas network has disappeared dark."
Chaos appeared. Representatives from seventeen spacefaring civilizations cheered over each other, their interpreter modules laboring to maintain.
"They’ve ruined themselves!"
"A preventive surrender?"
"Technological misstep?"
Regent Kixy guarded from her raised position, her rainbow-colored scales switching from deep blue to amber—a sign of severe focus. When she subsequently talked, her voice slit through the buzz.
"You’re all wrong. This is planning." The room shoots speechless.
"How long did it take for our wholes to register the silence?" she requested High Monitor Xle.
"Three proceedings."
"And in those three notes of the meeting, using what many of our listening stations commit have existed negotiated? How many of our defense networks plan by signals we pretended were practice buzz?" She allows the pressure of her dispute relieved. "We have of age contented, believing persons expected predictable—noisy, technologically inferior. We pretended their limits."
Ambassador Mor scoffed. "They are almost in addition to the beast! They were still blazing fossil fuels at two points in time in the past!"
"And immediately their communities reach the edges of our scope," Kixy answered. "When the Swarm assaulted their Proxima conclusion, we wanted it to fall inside days. Instead, they adapted—modifying excavating lasers into point-explanation weapons, ownership out for seven weeks as far as reinforcements entered."
She motions to communicate at the immediately-empty listening screens. "Every opportunity we have minimized bureaucracy, they have surprised us. Every disadvantage we trusted would hold bureaucracy only enhanced fuel for their development."
The room was still. "This silence isn’t an end," she pronounced seriously. "It’s an origin."
Along the Council’s outer borders, Patrol Commander Vexher prided himself on twenty phases of intact danger amount. His sensor arrays had planned each celestial body orbiting a star, traced each cosmic ray, and declined each deviation in the welcome area.
That’s the reason it was preposterous when thirty-seven mysterious ships absolutely came.
"Multiple contacts!" his strategic deputy wobbled. "No FTL signs. No change deformities. They’re just… skilled."
Vexher’s mandibles clicked in skepticism. "Impossible. Battle stations! Shields to the maximum! Fire warning shots across their—"
"Sir! We’re being saluted! Text only." A message entwine across the main display:
Attention Council forces. Maintain current position. Any hostile operation will be elucidated as mean determined. Stand by for ideas from Fleet Command.
Vexher’s skin paled. The pure daring.
A second later, a new signal cut through encrypted Council channels accompanying surgical accuracy. The holo-screen suffused accompanying perfect likeness of a human girl, dark-eyed and calm, wearing a uniform not in some popular database.
"This is Commander Sarah Chen of the Earth Defense Force. I trust I have your consideration."
Vexher took himself up. "You are in breach of Council room. Your bowls decision unhappy and predict—"
"No," Chen stopped, a faint smile taking advantage of her brinks. "We won’t. But I acknowledge the advice."
She flashed offscreen. "Patrol Commander Vexher, correct? Your record implies you are sensible. We need judicious immediately."
Vexher strained himself to remain calm. "State your purpose."
"Gladly." The screen switched to a strategic display of the Council scope. Red dots bloomed across the print like a bacterium, extended through key subdivisions.
"These," Chen pronounced, "are the current positions of Earth’s fleet components within the Council domain."
Vexher’s strategic deputy fashioned a strangled sound. "Confirming diversified new contacts, mister. They’re… they’re ubiquitous."
Chen’s representation restored: "For three years, we have been experimenting with our Ghost Drive electronics in your scope, mapping your sensor networks, and understanding your answer patterns. We commit to hitting at whatever time."
She counted forward kind of. "We chose to talk alternatively."
Vexher’s mandibles clicked. "This is showing of war."
"If we desired war, you wouldn’t have visualized us just before it was late." Chen’s voice calmed. "This is a request for renegotiation. The Council’s current procedures toward Earth’s communities are not any more acceptable. We’re processed to display reason."
As if on the clue, individual of the Earth ships disappeared. No turbine spread, no seeable propulsion. It plainly stopped expected in individual locale and survived in another.
Vexher’s skill deputy rumored, "The strength requirements unique—"
"Would you like to visualize what different is absurd?" Chen requested. "Or would you favor to link me accompanying dignitary the one can begin significant politic analyses?"
Vexher sensed annals switching beneath welcome extremities.
"I will combine you with Council Command," he pronounced silently.
Chen bended. "Wise choice. Let’s hope they are evenly sensible."
Sarah Chen guarded as another example drone disappeared. Unlike past failures, the one didn’t discredit, explode, or tear a dent in spacetime.
It plainly stopped expected. Dr. Marcus Rivera gave off shakily. "It processed."
Sarah turned to him. "Talk to me."
Marcus’s fingers dance over welcome comfort. "It didn’t vanish—it proposed. We just couldn’t see the change. The quantity sign is particularly what we call. We’re not just bending scope—we’re dancing except for normal existence."
Sarah intentionally the dossier. "Where did it go?"
Marcus presents a manic smirk. "Better question: when did it go?"
Sarah watched the readings, understanding daylight. "We aren’t just hidden. We are imperceptible."
Marcus bent. "The Council won’t able to have or do path this. They won’t even within financial means comprehend it."
The silence extended middle from two points ruling class.
"You experience what this way," Marcus pronounced.
Sarah bent, thinking of the chiliads of human lives extinct in Proxima Colony while the Council observed, compelled to happen.
"We are approved of being an experiment."
She anticipated back at the scope place the drone had disappeared.
"Every limit they established on us, every spontaneous brutality substantiated by their ‘advantage’—" she counted on Marcus, her voice braced, "—ends immediately."
The Council pretended Earth’s silence intended to defect.
They were wrong.
Humanity no longer wanted bureaucracy to observe.
Because for the first opportunity, the nebula should watch.