You Have the Right to Choose

The stars glittered. Amid the vast sea of stars, the Amoeba organized the largest Leap Organism swarm in history for an interstellar voyage. The combined volume of this traveling swarm reached planetary scale. Eight million deceleration pulses released simultaneously abruptly added more than eight million stars to the deep void, enough to make any astronomer observing this phenomenon question their entire life.

The leader of this Leap Organism swarm was Beginning. Only an ancient individual like it possessed the ability to command a biological swarm of such immense scale.

As the Leap Organism swarm neared the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, radio signals from the direction of the star spread at light speed and made contact with the uniformly decelerating swarm.

"Welcome to this stellar system. All fellow kin, please follow the planned route into port and anchor."

It was a familiar welcome signal. Beginning, having undertaken many lengthy interstellar voyages, responded with practiced ease.

"We brought eight hundred million tons of antimatter. Arrange for us to dock directly with the antimatter megastructures and transfer these antimatter resources over for processing."

Beginning's message traveled back toward the star at light speed and soon received a response from its kin within the stellar system.

"Understood. We're replanning the routes now. Please wait a moment."

As they passed through the Kuiper Belt, gamma rays erupted frequently from within it. Because there were so many Leap Organisms, the likelihood of meteoroids encountering decelerating Leap Organisms increased. When those meteoroids struck the antimatter shields ahead of the organisms, they shattered amid enormous gamma-ray bursts.

The Leap Organism swarm passed through the Kuiper Belt and skimmed close to a gas giant. The mass effects caused by the high-speed movement of millions of individuals lifted the gaseous matter on the planet's surface like sand and