This post is the 7th of the ten chapters of the speculative fiction scifi story Orussian Quarantine. If you havn't read the first 6 chapters yet, the first is available here.
Omega & Alpha
Gabriëlla had arrived on Mara four days ago, welcomed by Aldrich and his crew. For the first few days until Uriëlla and Raphaël joined them, Aldrich had been expressing his discontent with the fact that she, a child in his eyes and a member of an inferior guild, was appointed as a member of the Archan Council by Anaiis, while he with all his knowledge about Mara was not. Yesterday Uriëlla and Raphaël had arrived, and now all were watching in anticipation the vessel of the military attaché docking in the surface docking station.
It would be one more standard hour before Michael’s pod would reach the underwater science station dome. Michael’s reputation preceded him. Michael was to be the fourth and final member of the Archan Council appointed directly by Anaiis herself. The Archan Council was appointed for one reason: dealing with the ant-monkey infestation on Orus-3.
As Gabriëlla had predicted, Anaiis had dealt decisively with the ant-monkey crisis on Orus-2. More decisively, though, than even she could have ever imagined. The Interstellar Senate had decreed that all ant-monkeys be disposed of. Ant-monkeys had first brought down a breeding colony, and next had brought a large metropolis to its knees. And last, but for some senate members who still owned one of the condos on the Ga Moor shoreline probably not least, ant-monkeys had massively destroyed property values in Ga.
Anaiis had responded to this decree as only a Cherubian could: She had ordered Lot evacuated, and while the evacuation was still far from complete, and while in South Uhm City there were still tens of thousands registered citizens who remained unevacuated and many times that number of Dammons, Anaiis had ordered an all-out military strike against South Uhm and Ga Moor. South Uhm and Ga Moor were hit with such an excess of thermonuclear power that it was clear that nothing was left to chance. Nothing could have survived the blast.
Next she ordered the total obliteration of Scayune. Her military attaché, Michael, carried out both attacks. Uhm was now a dead planet, after the nuclear fallout it became even more of an inferno than it had been before. And with the remnant carbon deposits in Ga Moor having been completely oxidized by the thermonuclear attack, Raphaël had explained to her, the greenhouse effect would soon kick in. The poles won't ever again support colonization, Michael had made sure of that. And Scayune? Scayune was gone, obliterated. All that remained of Scayune was an outstretched belt of debris between Orus-4 and Orus-6 where Scayune's orbit used to be. And to add insult to injury, the military attaché who carried out these brutal attacks was the very same Michael on his way to the dome, the Michael who was to chair the newly-formed council. Sure this was still Raphaël’s mission, but sending in Michael as chair did make one thing very clear to all the Council: this was now also very much a military mission.
As climate engineer, Raphaël was put in charge of sustainably saving as many of the species of Woldera, Mara and Maarsoli as possible. But only within the confines of the military mission’s goals.
Four trade ships had been stolen and steered to Woldera by Dammons during the South Uhm City crisis.
As it turned out, one of the departing ships had been infested by ant-monkeys, so while Anaiis could care less about a Dammon colony on Woldera, an ant-monkey infestation in the forest world fell under her direct mandate. These ant-monkeys had to be annihilated, end of discussion. And judging from what she had heard about Michael, even if she could convince him that ant-monkeys may not be as dangerous as the Senate has been made to believe, there was little chance that such knowledge would influence his determination to carry out the mission’s military component to the exact letter.
Maybe if she got Uriëlla on her side. Uriëlla seemed to have a great interest in what she had worked out about the ant-monkeys’ dual puberty phase, and seemed to possess interesting theories regarding the ant-monkey potential if their RELI-gene were disabled. If she didn't know how devoted bios were about their ideas of bioengineering security and their four laws of equilibrium, she would almost have believed that these were more than just theories. Even though their RELI-gene has proved to be defective, the idea of a Bio creating a geno-virus to disable it was just too far-fetched. The ideas Uriëlla was entertaining were intriguing though. Would it be possible for Orussians to peacefully work with 'free' ant-monkeys ? If so, releasing such a virus on the Wolderian ant-monkey population may be a good alternative to Raphaël's idea of a great flood.
Continue to Chapter 8