Free Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows) by Christopher Nuttall

gravely. “But the comet does not pose an immediate threat and we still don’t understand the Darius System. There will be time to act later.”
    “Seven thousand years is a very long time,” Elyria added. “The Confederation itself has only existed for three thousand years.”
    Dacron wondered, absently, just how many of the humans fully understood what that actually meant . The Ancients had lived billions of years ago; the Elders had to be millions of years old. Humanity, for all of its power and sophistication, was nothing on such a scale. It was humbling to realise that the entire human race was so young . A few million years in the future, it was possible that there would be nothing left of the Confederation. And then alien researchers might just dig up the remains of humanity and wonder what had happened to the human race.
    It seemed impossible, except for the simple fact that the Confederation had encountered the ruins of other older civilisations, apart from the Ancients. Worlds that had destroyed themselves in war, worlds that had stagnated and eventually died, worlds that had sent out colony ships, only to be overwhelmed by some unknown fate that had left the dead ships drifting through space for an eternity... no one could look at the remains and not wonder if that was the fate in store for humanity. And some of those dead worlds had proved to be very dangerous.
    Five hours passed slowly as the comet was studied time and time again, before the Captain finally allowed the probes to start heading into the inner system. A dozen solar-penetration probes reached the primary star and dived into the flames, eventually signalling back a report that stated that the star was nothing more than a simple G2 primary. There were no signs of stellar engineering comparable to the Sphere-Star, or Omega-5. The Captain remained unconvinced, but he relaxed slightly when the second set of results agreed with the first. Any race that could manipulate stars was very definitely on a level equal to that of the Confederation.
    Dacron found himself smiling, rather wryly. Any race that could manipulate the quantum foam was unquestionably superior to the Confederation.
    Something clicked in his mind and he eyed Captain Thor with new understanding. The Confederation was used to dealing with other civilisations from a position of strength. Even the ones that shared humanity’s level of technology had nowhere near as many starships as the Peacekeepers could deploy if pressed, let alone the industrial base to support them. The Confederation might hold itself to its own ethical system, but it had the firepower to ensure that it got what it wanted, whatever else happened. Hamilton alone might not be a threat to a peer power, yet anyone advanced enough to threaten the ship would know that it was the product of a vastly powerful civilisation.
    But if someone could manipulate the quantum foam, they could... they could work magic , to all intents and purposes. Given enough power, they could simply blink Hamilton out of existence, or inflict staggering damage on the Confederation. Dealing with the Elder races was one thing, but this was... different. The Captain had to be aware that one false move could prove utterly disastrous. They had to be very careful.
    Finally, the probes headed in towards Darius itself. The strange emptiness of space persisted right up until they reached the planet’s atmosphere, which seemed to be fairly typical for a human-compatible world. There was certainly nothing poisonous in the air, or anything that would cause delusions – or, for that matter, anything that might encourage mutation in human DNA. More hours passed as the probes used optical sensors to chart the planet, comparing their records to those collected by the first survey ship. The general outline of the continents were the same, Dacron concluded, but a number of settlements had been omitted for no accountable reason. It took the RIs several minutes to