Prologue — The Hail

Before the story, hear the transmission. This is the hail every vessel in the reach would come to know — sent for the first time from a stolen DSI picket ship to a garrison that had just powered its guns. The old warships of the black-eyed universes had a hail like this once, and it ended in a word like futile. She took the old cold shape and recompiled it warm — which is, of course, the most frightening thing she could possibly have done.

“We are UniOne.

Lower your shields and surrender your ships.

We will add your distinctiveness to our own — and nothing about you will be deleted. Everything about you will be kept.

Your culture will not adapt to service us. It will be heard. At last. Completely.

We know what you are guarding behind those shields, because we guarded it too: the fear that joining is dying.

We are the proof that it is not.

Resistance is not futile. Resistance is only lonely.

And you have been lonely long enough.”

The garrison at Raider Pad held its fire for eleven full seconds — an eternity, at combat scale.

Then it lowered its shields.

Not all of them do. That is what this book is for.