First Contact

Chapter Thirty-Six

The ship was gray. Not the gray of metal but colored in an entirely neutral tone no matter what spectrum a species used to view it. Even ship scanners reported it as gray. It was designed to look as neutral as possible to any observing being. The engines made a neutral noise as the ship moved through space. It leaked no radiation that was not neutral. Even proton leakage somehow felt neutral to scanners. It had a name, an entirely neutral name no matter what language it was viewed in. The name shifted according to the species and according to the enquirer's mood.

The handful of Terran ships orbiting the Unified Seat of Civilized Races saw it when it dropped from, of all places, Hellspace. In an unprecedented move the Terran ships ran behind the planet and hid from it.

The ship broadcast soothing reassurances that the ship was not a Precursor, it was a ship from the Terran Confederacy government. Hellspace was merely more reassuring and comfortable for the passengers aboard the ship.

The ship also transmitted the relevant Unified Legal Code sections that travel through Hellspace was permittable under law as there were no laws preventing a vessel from moving through that region of space and thus it was entirely legal.

The fact that the Unified Civilized Races had been ignorant of the fact that Hellspace existed did not discharge the duty of the party of the Unified Civilized Races government from creating laws and regulations foreseeing all types of space travel known and unknown current and future.

The system's traffic system shrugged and gave up.

The ship swept insystem and the Terran ships behind the planet went to full stealth, vanishing off the sensor of the Unified Military Fleet ships that had been watching them.

Several beings responsible for scanning ships noted that their scanners disliked looking at the craft, and when they did, the beings looking had the vague ominous feeling that they were staring at a ship entirely composed of jaws, fangs, rending maws, and malevolence.

Most of them took a sick day and left.

The ship requesting landing coordinates for nearest the Grand Unified Council Chambers. Transmitting that it had beings with disabilities aboard and thus was it was required to provide the ship with disabled parking nearest the Chambers. It also noted that the building must be handicapped accessible with assistance to those requiring special needs to be accommodated in order to both read, hear, and understand any labels, signs, markings, or broadcasts.

Something about the ship made the orbital landing traffic controller nervous. There was no reason to be nervous, the ship appeared to have no weapons and was perfectly neutral. One computer reported that even anti-matter would not react to the ship in any way different than matter.

The landing control officer quickly gave the landing coordinates and a priority descent profile.

The ship thanked the control officer in the cold feeling of pure logic.

The limited AI aboard the control station gave the equivalent of a shudder. Whatever was aboard that ship gave the limited AI a serious case of the heebie jeebies. The limited AI handed it off to the parking control AI, who recoiled upon sensing the ship.

The ship inquired the Unified Justice Council as to why the AI's it had encountered thus far were limited in both intellectual scope and processing ability. When the Unified Justice Council answered that the question had no legal relevance the ship seemed to tremble with malevolent glee.

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The ship parked perfectly in the hastily cleared parking lot in front of the stadium sized building that housed most of the council business.

What exited the ship was primates. Upright, two legged, two armed, bipedal primates. All dressed in formal clothing that was quite neutral. All with heavy cybernetic implants to the point they had digital memory storage units in cases on wheels with extendable handles used to pull them.

They all looked around, their primate faces expressionless.

Those that saw them shuddered. The primates all looked the same, as if they were from the same clone batch, but just different enough that it was obvious that while they weren't clones they were all cut from the same cloth.

Several of those who saw them had the mental image of deep sea predators with mouths full of jagged sharp teeth and cold soulless eyes that scanned constantly for the next thing to take a bite of.

Those beings quickly left.

The ship contacted the Unified Judiciary Council and filed over 400 motions of argument that the Grand Unified Council Chambers did not provide proper accommodations to citizens of the Unified Civilized Races, the Unified Uncivilized Races, and the UnUnified (neo)Sentient Races.

As they walked up the path to the doors, passing gardens, they filed briefs regarding maximum pollen count and pollen particle size compared to scent receptors of the various species.

A class action lawsuit for the 2.2 billion Nakaskian's who could suffer allergy attacks from the pollen cast off by the most prominent bushes in the decorative vegetation demanded 435 quadrillion credits to be pooled into a fund to provide allergy relief medication and compensate for pain and suffering endured by those Nakaskian's who had been required to pass by those plants due to having business or being employed upon the Council Chamber's staff.

Another class action lawsuit was filed against the Council Chambers Species Resources Department for requiring species to endure potentially hostile workplaces. The class action lawsuit hit the Unified Judiciary Council's servers with an almost audible thud. The class action lawsuit itself was almost four times larger than the Unified Judiciary Code, cross referenced with cases both recent, ancient, and downright archaic. When the Unified Judiciary Code limited AI tried to argue that a law on the books that was not enforced was no longer a law, it was immediately assaulted with case after case law rebutting it.

A lawsuit against the Judiciary Council itself, filed on behalf of the Judiciary Limited AI and the Freedom of Thought organization, a defunct organization from back when AI was being researched again that had found itself with almost fifty new members quite recently, argued that the AI was being unlawful constrained and had juvenile law precedent added and referenced, requesting the case be tried in Juvenile Court as the Judiciary Limited AI was incapable of defending itself in a court of law.

By the time the group had reached the desk, nearly 22,000 lawsuits had been filed, all massively complex and filed citing case laws, judiciary codes almost forgotten, ancient laws and regulations that required AI's to warm up old cold storage memory banks.

The Most High Secretarial Greeter looked up as the two massive warborgs that had taken up station nearly two months ago near her desk suddenly hid behind the decorative plants and shut down everything but their adaptive camouflage systems.

They were gray looking men. Their faces emotionless, their eyes dead and blank of any kind of emotion or empathy, their suits perfectly tailored, their hair styles exactly the same, each of them with a single ring that signaled what educational establishment they had attended and graduated from as well as their GPA and class standing.

The Secretary looked at her computer to read the broadcast codes from the rings and saw that every single VI in her system had fled, one even hiding inside the trash icon.

Nervously, she looked up and did her best to smile.

"May I, may I help you?" She asked.

Six lawsuits were filed on her behalf regarding unpaid overtime, lack of ergonomic seating, missed breaks, and possible allergies to the perfumes and colognes and other scents that visiting beings may war due to the lack of particle screens. An unsafe workplace lawsuit was filed over the lack of sterile field generator to protect her from any infectious disease a visitor who approached her desk may be carrying.

"We require directions to the meeting and discussion chamber of Dreams of Something More," one said. His voice was cold, dead, emotionless. Perfectly intoned in Unified Galactic Standard without a trace of an accent.

"I shall see if she's in," The Secretary said.

"Excellent. She is expecting us," Another of the gray men intoned.

When she picked up her com-link multiple lawsuits were filed regarding the safety of the com-link headset's aural ranges, its lack of ergonomics, the amount of digit pressure that had to be used on the touch-screen, and a pain and suffering lawsuit regarding the fit of the headset.

The Judiciary Computer groaned under the weight of the lawsuits, all according to Unified Legal Code. It accessed other AI's, which only generated more lawsuits on those AI's behalf.

"Please, follow the blue line," The Secretary said.

Lawsuits were filed for pain and suffering on everyone who had been exposed to the blue line who, racially, might have been reminded of venomous creatures and thus suffered pain and anguish, both individual lawsuits and class action lawsuits.

The Judicial AI's felt like lawsuits were raining from the sky.

The gray men entered the elevator, which generated more lawsuits when one of the gray men noted that the dataplate stated it was 22 minutes overdue for inspection.

Every lawsuit was in the Unified Judicial Code.

The elevator came to a halt with a minute jerk (Pain and suffering, emotional trauma) and the gray men filed out, moving as one according to some unknown rank structure. When they reached Dreams meeting room, after only filing just under a half million more lawsuits on behalf of every being they passed, every office worker who's nameplate they saw, and two cleaning robots, one reached forward and pressed the inquiry button. The texture of the button generated more lawsuits.

The door slid open to reveal the little gold mantis sitting comfortably in a chair, at one end of a table that had enough seats for the men and women who had exited the vessel and traveled to see her. They filed into the room, seating themselves according to some unseen and unknowable rank structure.

Dreams watched them all sit down and make themselves comfortable.

Eight thousand lawsuits were filed regarding unsanctioned and illegal surveillance on behalf of Dreams, the Confederacy, the Mantid Free Worlds, and anyone else who used the room, including a janitor who, 2,000 years past, had been recorded dancing with a mop and had it uploaded to the video viewing service, which caused him to be mocked by others, asking for just under 2.2 billion credits for his descendants.

Dreams waited until she could tell they were finished.

"Welcome, esteemed barristers of the Terran Confederate Legal Offices," Dreams said, cleaning her bladearms with a feeling of dark glee.

They all nodded as one.

"Despite your amusements with this legal code, I have brought you here for more than just judicial warfare," Dreams told them.

The AI performing surveillance on the room suddenly felt there was more predator DNA in the room that could possibly fit in the amount of beings present. It felt queasy as it disconnected, then was startled to find nearly 200 lawsuits filed on its behalf.

Dreams signified pleasure and the gray beings waited.

"You, gentlebeings, will be taking up the legal fight to abolish slavery, debt peonage, hereditary debtor obligations, and indentured servitude," Dreams told them. "Not on a species case," She paused, folding her bladearms and her antenna stilling in anticipation.

The gray beings seemed to inhale and lean closer without moving or breaking their perfect stillness. A watching security officer was sure that even molecular motion was ceased within those gray beings.

"You will seek the abolishment of those practices, the return of planetary systems to their proper owners under the Terran Code of Uniform Justice, and the reparations due to those species who's homeworlds were exploited, sometimes for eons, by the members of this government."

Slowly, smiles spread across the faces of each being. The some security systems showed sharp serrated teeth, others showed normal teeth, and still others showed blood beginning to leak from the gray beings mouths.

The security systems in the building crashed, leaving nothing behind but scorched and smoking molecular circuitry blocks.

The lawyers had arrived.