"As much as I may lack the context to fully understand the events as they unfolded, I believe it would be fair to characterize that battle as an unmitigated failure," said Rommel.

He and the rest of the Exigency brain trust were sat around a long conference table, reports, simulations and dozens of other insistent holograms buzzing and blinking all around them. They filled the air with lights, data and a sense of looming dread.

"That's only true if we fail to learn and adapt from the setback," said Hanuman.

"3 trillion mind-states lost. An entire ringworld torn to pieces. Some setback," said Jabotacaba, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. His non-standard body made him more closely resemble a hairless gorilla than a human.

"Wallowing in guilt is an indulgence we no longer have the luxury of," said Hannibal "Proxima is lost, but the UFO has already changed course towards Wolf. It must be destroyed before it reaches it's destination."

"We can't be rash. For all it's power it moves slowly," said Badema-Ivy-Smaragdine-Chrysanthemum-AmusingBubbles-Rokeach "That gives us time to marshal our forces. Another loss like the one we suffered on Proxima could utterly end us."

"We were sloppy before. We need to get better. Our people are no warriors but we can't use that as an excuse to become extinct," said Delphinus.

"So we need allies and training," said Napoleon "This is something I can understand."

"I know where we can get both," said Hanuman "It's hard to get probes anywhere near Proxima, but our long range scans indicate that the computronium core was shattered but some of the pieces were not individually destroyed. It's possible that some of it could be retrieved. I've run simulations where as much as 10% of the stored mind-states were be restorable."

"Back-ups," sneered Jabotacaba.

"It's better than what we have now," Hanuman pointed out "And fighting the drones left behind would give us the opportunity to engage with the enemy in a lower-stakes setting."

Exigencia had come to this conclusion before the conversation had begun, being composed as she was of the combined thoughts of the group, but she allowed this exchange to go on in lieu of explaining herself.

"We'll give the new teams another week in the sims to make sure they're comfortable with each-other," said Exigencia "Then we'll form up and head for the ruins of Proxima. Even if we can only retrieve a percent of a percent of a percent of the mind-states stored in the Proxima Computronium core we have to try."

"Those sims are anemic moonshine," muttered Xiaolongnu "How are you supposed to get crack playing it snug in imagination ring? If the difficulty leaves any room for error your team is just going to learn to make errors."

"She's right," said Exigencia "From this point forward we'll use worst-case-scenario settings in all the simulations. I'll inform the AIs playing your enemies. If we don't push ourselves to our limits in the safety of our own simulations we can hardly expect to perform to our utmost in the heat of battle."

"Wonderful," grumbled Jabotacaba.

"The starship modifications should be tested in realspace as well. As promising as the sims are this is largely unexplored territory," said the long-named Gestalt.

"That could reveal too much," said Hannibal "An increase in strength would be most effective if you could keep it secret from the enemy."

"Scavenging the ruins can be our test," said Exigencia "Until then simulations will have to suffice."

"There's nothing you can do in realspace you can't do better in a sim," agreed Xiaolongnu.