The machine was old, older than she was. Her assistant looked hesitantly from the airlock as she walked ahead after telling him to wait. "You were not by my side when it began, you do not need to be there as it ends," she told him. The ride down was long, but she had everything she needed. An air mattress, some food, and an interface to the device to make anything she didn't think of.

Most of the time she meditated. Most of the rest of the time she had the device play old Alderranean operas.

On the fourth day, she got out and walked back to the control center of the device. The crew was already preparing to shut it down, its purpose (well, it's converted purpose) fulfilled.

She opened a channel to the Watcher on station with them. "DiAmdiNorElbram, have you come back to watch the end of it all?"

"I thought it might form a pleasing symmetry. But the same must apply to you as well. The crew here can perform its function satisfactorily and the Combined Fleet is ready."

"You know I am the last of them left, at least out among the active players."

"Only if you do not count myself."

"You are... different. Of the old group, yet not. Will you be moving back into the void after this?" She leaned on the window, looking out to where DiAmdiNorElbram held station with the rest of the Combined Fleet about the device. He responded only with silence to that. "Don't think that does not mean I don't appreciate your help or your time. You have been instrumental in keeping the Shellmakers involved these last few centuries. Without you, this job may never have been finished."

"We are...distraught by your ceaseless bickering and maneuvering. It is amazing that open war has not started. Even with the machinations of the Network."

"We are a difficult people in a difficult time, Elbram. You, of all your people, should know this."

"I know this, but how can I convey the same self-destructive tribalism to all the rest of my people? We are already concerned at the Monks of the Void, building human colonies in the Deep Black. Their numbers are small, but they have gotten nearly as good as us at hiding and likely retain your capacity for multiplying."

"Tzin was trying to keep them out of this, you know that. It was the rest of the Jedi that didn't let them stay that way."

"They should have focused more on the hiding in the early years."

A tech came over to her. "Ma'am, five minutes until they Storm in. The Prophets put the point at mark Aleph there, while the Council suggests Bravo."

"Why the deviation?" she asked. "They usually do not disagree this much."

The tech shrugged.

"I have an idea," said DiAmdiNorElbram. "One or both of them are positioning to place their own ships farthest away, and therefore least likely to be damaged by the response. It's starting."

"Not yet. This is just preamble. They wouldn't do that here. Not with the press watching."

"Are you certain?"

"This is supposed to be the culmination of five hundred years of cooperation to eliminate the Swarm. They would not go straight to war yet."

"Humans are difficult to read, even for their own species."

The minutes ticked down. Four. Two. One. A revised Council prediction allowed the targets to match and the fleet positioned itself. The battle was brief, far briefer than the time it took the light to reach her at the core of the device.

Centuries of practice and development had outstripped the capacity of the Swarms to cope, and surveillence began to be kept on remaining copies. By the time the last century rolled around, all the swarms were accounted for and their interactions followed. The lowest-technological solution necessary was deployed from an increasingly bewildering array of options. It had been decades since the Combined Fleet of the Allied Powers had lost a vessel entirely incombat and it had been decades since damage was routine.

So even before the Swarm had finished using its Force Storm to transport itself to orbit of the device, a dozen technologies had begun ripping it apart on a dozen different levels. "Constant Multipliers" and "Tensor Shredders" worked on a level the physicists could understand, though not necessarily believe should work. "Null Sphere" devices did...something... to anything in their area of affect. The rest got stranger from there.

The last Swarm was eliminated. Five centuries of gravity wave generators being constructed across the galaxy, drawing swarms back to them. Five centuries of cooperation between Jedi, Sith, Republic, and Shellmakers. Five centuries of perhaps the fastest technological progress galactic civilization has ever seen.

The flash reached her eye and was over almost before it registered. The technicians were confirming the destruction of the Swarm, celebrations beginning. An end to an era. An end to a mission.

"Aenea," DiAmdiNorElbram prodded, "What are you going to do now? Join one of the factions?"

"I couldn't do that. But I can see that the end of the Alliance is here. There is no point in trying to hold it together. That is for a new generation."

"Then what? Do you care to join us in the Void?"

"Elbram, there are many friends who I have not communicated with in a long time. I think I know where to find them. I think she went there too."

"I will not be and am not anything like she remembers. Though old, I am not useless to my Clade."

"But you do feel the call, don't you. All of us are called by the Ocean if it wants us there."

"Perhaps I will see you there sometime."

"We will all be waiting for you, Elbram." She cut off the link and took the elevator up with the techs. The shutdown command was entered into the computer as they exited, and the first reports of conflict were arriving as her ship departed the system, all the human factions calling to gain an element of support or make threats if she did not join them.

But her friends were calling, beckoning from a green sea where she had swam lifetimes ago.

Where she may finally know what fates had awaited them after they parted.

Where she finally could find an End without Finish.