The Net (another collaboration between myself and Justclickindiva!)
"The Net," fractal art by 
I was a base commander for my fleet for 10 years before becoming a starship captain, and one thing as I learned as Cmdr. Khadijah Biles is that local peoples in the galaxy are not waiting around for humanity to get it together.
As Capt. Khadijah Biles-Dixon of the starship Amanirenas, I encountered that truth again with the above cleaning net nearly sweeping my starship into oblivion.
The above net had come into play because of old hatred … I still do not fully understand what it was about my darling uncle, Admiral Benjamin Banneker, that made people so jealous – not fully. There was nothing about him that should have inspired anyone to accidentally create an anti-matter bomb that destroyed all the planets in a star system to prove him wrong.
The fleet had taken Uncle Benjamin and I back owing to the magnitude of the crisis – me as captain, him first as commodore. For a little while, Commodore Benjamin Banneker had been the de-facto commander of the entire professional fleet, the commercial fleet, and the salvage fleet – admirals and businessmen carried out his orders to the letter, and nine star systems were spared. After that, the professional fleet finally made him an admiral, and commissioned him to study all of it!
“I hate the mess, but I love the work!” Uncle Benjamin said cheerfully.
There was plenty to do while waiting to get back to the scene of the “crime” – even with full starship shielding, a few million degrees in temperature was a bit much to study closely. Full fleet admiral Vlarian Triefield, a protege of my uncle's, was officially in command, and she had a temperature mark before any fleet ship was going to get close... until...
“Captain Biles-Dixon, turn on your long-range sensors … what in the world is going on in there?”
Limited human thinking – we imagine that if it takes millennia for radioactive decay to make the scene of a nuclear disaster safe, at least a few years might be needed before cleaning up the site of a dozen or so planets having been turned into the kinds of relativistic jets that normally shoot out of big black holes.
Nope. The locals in this region of space were out in four months, working with their “nets” – those things had the ability to do alchemy, turning anything and everything into its nearest magnetic elemental compound so it could be swept away.
Which is where I and my whole crew and the ten ships nearly got into big trouble, because we went in for a closer look while trying to figure out how these nets were effortlessly catching all the planetary debris when the magnetic material in those planet fragments was clearly so low ... flying around in starships that were made of a combination of titanium and austenite steel, and so, non-ferromagnetic.
However, my grandfather had helped to build the starships of the late 22nd century, and I remembered something that he had said about steel: you had to be careful in manufacturing steel, because magnetic compounds could be formed in the steel that would counteract the nickel in austenite steel. In the case of a starship, exposed to all the energies of space, the parameters had to be kept very tight.
What that means is, a starship is only a half-molecular step from being a toy model made of magnetic material – any technology that could convert carbon-based planets to magnetic material would have no trouble converting a starship, snatching it up, and throwing it to burn up in the great red hypergiant that had survived the accident.
(It is sad to think of a star as a garbage disposal, but, it is what it is, sometimes.)
I had my first officer, Cmdr. Allemande, re-tune our shields to my specs while I contacted the other ten ships and had my communications officer Lt. Biko attempt to open communications on all frequencies to those doing the clean up.
Cmdr. Allemande did good work and got our shields re-tuned in the nick of time so the specs could go out to the other ten ships, because our hail was not answered kindly at first.
“Why would we want you here, more of the kind that made this mess?”
And then, their nets were over our ten ships – red alert on, because – .
“That was too close,” Cmdr. Allemande said. “Two more passes, Captain – that's all we've got.”
We had avoided getting tossed into the system's sun by just that much.
“We apologize for the mess, and have come to learn from you how you clean up, and how to make fewer messes,” I said.
“Oh. That's different. Well, come and see.”
In the end, it all goes back to matter and energy being different forms of the same thing … even the plasma of a relativistic jet is just some form of gas, and gas is some combination of elements, and if you can manipulate those elements so they can be magnetic, you don't have to touch them … the “nets” were fields by which the locals drew the mess toward their planet's sun where it would be incinerated.
We had wanted to study the wreck of the system itself, but, sometimes you have to take the wonders you can get, in a galaxy in which humanity's concerns are not the first priority.
“I love getting up every day,” my uncle said, “and learning things that we as humans will not be able to use right away, but just to see what other beings are doing that we can learn from is exciting! We tried alchemy for centuries – and here it is, the real magic!”
“Oh, I just love starting the day's briefings, and watching everyone on our side looking like we even understand what we are hearing – but I'm glad you and Admiral Triefield do,” I said.
“I hope you are being modest,” my uncle said, “because Admiral Triefield will be 75 this year and I am now 81, while you are 35 – we and the 24th century need you to get it!”
I smiled.
“I got it,” I said, “but just the same I'm glad I'm not the one charged to explain it to the rest of the fleet and humanity.”
Uncle Benjamin smiled.
“I have that for now,” he said, “but someday, Khadijah, you will do it and do it well. Your quick thinking and thoughtful communication saved all our lives – so, you've got the knack as well, Captain!”