The time had come. The enemy was signaling weakness. The war fleet was mobilized. There would never be a better opportunity. Exigencia reached out with a single thought and commanded the fleet to make the jump through hyperspace. The battle was about to begin.

* * *

<Things are about to get interesting,> signaled Xiaolongnu.

<They're plenty interesting at the moment,> signaled Sparkle.

<Once we enter battle I won't be able to spoof our minds anymore. I'll need all my processing power to keep us alive. Which means we'll probably be dodging friendly fire as soon as Exigencia realizes she's been had,> explained Xiaolongnu <It'll be us vs. everyone. Just like we practiced.>

There was a definite hint of pleasure in her tone.

<I don't think Exigencia would do that,> signaled Sparkle.

<She'd be stupid to ignore the threat we pose,> replied Xiaolongnu <And no Consensus that includes me is stupid.>

<I don't believe that,> signaled Sparkle.

<It's a good thing I'm the pilot then,> signaled Xiaolongnu <I'm making the leap to hyperspace now. Stay frosty.>

<What?> asked Sparkle.

The pitch-black neutronium ship was already tracing the fastest path to the UFO through the crumbled folds of hyperspace. Xiaolongnu ceased her simulacra of their mind-states so she could dedicate her complete focus to the higher dimensions.

* * *

There was a sudden change in two of her component mind-states. Exigencia didn't so much become aware of it as it became a part of her. Treason. She immediately cut the traitors off from her Concensus and altered their flag in the friend/foe CID.

* * *

Sparkle gasped out loud as she was disconnected. She forced down the memory of when the same thing happened to her at the Battle of Proxima. She couldn't afford to think about that now.

<I'd tell you I hate to say I told you so,> signaled Xiaolongnu <But I love it. I told you so. I'm virtually always right. The times I'm wrong are so much statistical noise.>

Their sleek new battleship had just arrived in a starscape of pure chaos. The UFO had detected the incoming fleet and already manifested the full might of it's drone fleet. Exigencia's fleet had only just begun to appear in realspace but already the battle thundered on in every direction. It was like two swarms of insects at war.

The first shot at their ship came not from the UFO's drones, but from one of their own. A Blackfin Corvette, the militarized variant of the Silverfin, shot a cone of weaponized EMFM havoc straight in their path. Only picosecond reaction time and an ungraceful slide sideways into the 6th dimension kept the attack from ripping away their defence field.

<Don't shoot back!> Sparkle mentally yelled.

<Who do you take me for?> signaled Xiaolongnu <Give me a little credit.>

* * *

Inside a tiny speck housed within the virtual universe of the UFO virtually the entire Precursor race was watching the battle that would in all likelihood decide the war in their mind's eyes. Assimilating Min-ji mind in addition to that of HandsomeNose had given them the perspective to realize the humans would never be able to put together another fleet like this, not before they were wiped out.

Under the shade of a massive, twisting, many-pronged maker Min-ji pleaded with what she believed to be the Precursor leadership. She wore the luminescent light-point body of the locals. HandsomeNose, as ever, still looked like himself.

<These events bring us sadness and shame,> signaled Pleasant-Wind, the most talkative of the Precursor leaders <Under alternate conditions our two species could have been allies. There is unexploited similarity between us.>

The battle screamed and raged in the corner of everyone's minds as they spoke, the two swarms tearing each-other to bits in a carnival of electromagnetic fireworks.

<Events have progressed to a terminal point,> continued Pleasant-Wind <Our peoples are now enemies. There is no alternative but to fight and decide a victor.>

<I don't accept that,>

<We know your mind, Min-ji. We are aware of all of your potential objections. The survival of our species must supersede that of your own. Our continuation is of paramount import.>

<Please,> Min-ji begged <Just let me send one more signal. There's still hope to end this war right now.>

<We know your position as you know it,> signaled Nostalgia-For-A-Dream, another Precursor leader <Our division is whether you shall be permitted to make this attempt.>

<You should make up your minds fast,> signaled Min-ji <Because your indecision is costing sapient lives!>

* * *

Xialongnu timed her hyperdodge perfectly. From the perspective of the drone her ship simply winked out of existence just in time to avoid the energy beam, only to reappear the moment the attack had passed.

<Stop showing off!> signaled Sparkle.

<No,> replied Xiaolongnu <What's the point of doing any of this if we're not going to do it with style?>

Sparkle didn't dare reply and use up even a fraction of Xiaolongnu's precious attention. An identical ship to their own fired it's EMFM up into the 5th dimension at them and Xiaolongnu was forced to come crashing back down into the real to avoid it, where she was immediately targeted by three more enemies.

<How sure are you that this friend of yours is going to send a new signal?> asked Xiaolongnu <Best in the galaxy or not eventually someone's going to get a luck shot in.>

<100%!> insisted Sparkle <I believe in her!>

<Fantastic,> replied Xiaolongnu, straining the capacity of her signaler for sarcasm.

Xiaolongnu skipped over the 5th to jump straight to the 6th dimension just long enough to get spotted before easing back down into the 5th, hoping to fool her pursuers. The drones were catching on to her tricks, however, and fired at where they predicted she would be rather than where she was. A red beam seared off a long strip of the ship straight through their defence field.

<That one would have killed us in a civilian ship,> Xiaolongnu signaled, as she blasted the drone apart with a quick EMFM burst.

This distracted her long enough for an EMFM ray to come too close for comfort. It clipped Xiaolongu's field just as she climbed away to the 5th dimension.

Whatever. It wasn't like the field was doing her much good against the UFO weapons. She was beginning to regret her decision not to fight Exigencia's fleet. At least if she could thin their numbers a bit she could give herself some breathing space.

More and more Consensus ships had joined her pursuers, and they began to move hyperspatially.

<They're trying to enhypersphere us!> Sparkle announced.

<You think?> snapped a frustrated Xiaolongnu.

Xiaolongnu tried to shake them off, but most of the ships managed to hold formation. They were almost finished surrounding her in a glome of starships.

There was no direction she could dodge. Her only option was to blast her way out, and that was off the table.

<100% you said?> asked Xiaolongu.

<100%!> confirmed Sparkle.

Xiaolongnu set her transmitters to rebroadcast anything it could find the moment it could find it just as the final ship slotted into place, firmly trapping the duo. Xiaolongnu figured that might be able to buy Sparkle's friend one whole additional second of time.

She took a great deal of comfort from the fact that it had taken two entire armies and the most crucial battle in the history of humanity to kill her.

Xiaolongnu didn't have enough time to process the signal as it bounced off her transmitter and into the battlescape. An EMFM assault from every direction reduced her ship and everyone in it to nothing but atomic dust and radiation.

* * *

Too much of Exigencia was composed of ancient generals at this point for her to be willing to jam communications to the extent that would have been necessary to block to the signal. She needed to coordinate her fleet.

* * *

The signal reached every Concensus ship in an instant.

<Stop! Please, everyone, just stop. We cannot allow this conflict to drag us back into the darkest shadows of our ancestral past. I was a citizen of Proxima. No one grieves for her loss more than I. No one's illusions were more shattered by the sudden recognition of our fragility than mine. But there will always be a new outrage, a new justification for righteous retribution. It is a cliche we have all now experienced first hand: violence is cyclical. It is the ultimate vicious circle. If all you need is a reason to commit war then we will be in a perpetual state of war because there is always a reason. There is always an excuse. The only way to stop it is to stop. That's all. Just stop.

That's what we have now. A chance to stop, to end all of this. A chance to throw down our swords and hammer them into plowshares. I have spoken to the aliens of the UFO. They are as afraid of us as we are of them but they are ready to make peace. If we don't stop this now we may never get another chance.

What would 'winning' even mean for us? The destruction of our enemy? The genocide of a people we don't even know the name of? What will become of us then. What, with all our power and technology, will we unleash unto the galaxy if we reignite the fire that nearly consumed us in the infancy of our metaspecies? That only luck and gifts we were unworthy to receive saved us from? Would we truly be saving our civilization, or would we be ending it as surely as if we destroyed the ringworlds ourselves?

If we kill them, we are killing ourselves. Even if we win, we lose worse than we could possibly imagine. But we have one, perhaps final, impossibly delicate opportunity to avoid this fate. Right here, right now. So please, I beg you, with everything I have. In the name of our civilization, of everything we stand for. Just. Stop.>

* * *

Exigencia experienced the speech from hundreds of thousands of simultaneous perspectives. As the soldiers reconsidered what they believed, so did she. A new concensus was arrived at.

<Stop,> she signaled <Everyone withdraw.>

They already were. One-by-one the warships began to disappear back into hyperspace and the crowded sky emptied. The UFO's drones neither pressed their attack nor pursued. Without further conflict the two sides disengaged.