She has spent most part of the day looking at 2 small platinum boxes. Silent and alone.
Alone. Sensation she is all to familiar with. Too many winters have passed, and she still hasn't managed to pick up the pieces. She cried, she meditated, she screamed but nothing changed.
It is getting dark. A normal Texian would now go to sleep, but not Hera, not her. Nightime awakens a vengeful spirit in her. Spirit determined on fighting back. She will not sit idly while those killers are roaming free through the entire Dust quadrant. They spread their lies about freedoms and exchange of ideas. They propagade peace and inter- species collaboration from their battleships and heavy cruisers.
DECIEVERS. Everyone should call them by their true name - MURDERS.
They came with their superior technology and colonized our old mining planets. Texian Senat remained silent. They took control of our wormholes, and our senators said nothing, afraid of their big ships and superior technology. Spineless cowards acted when it was already too late.
They remembered their proud Texian roots when we lost all our allies and trading partners, they showed their teeth when Terrans occupied a dozen worlds in, what was formerly, our quadrant, they took arms when it was already too late.
Dust War started. Hera and her family were just another Texian family like million others when the war started. Of course they were patriots and supporters of a Texian Federation, but they were no soldiers. They just wanted the war to end, so they could return to their normal routine.
Seven battles and some hundred skirmishes after, war ended with a piece of paper known as a Bright Future Treaty. Senat presented it as a good thing and most people rejoiced.
Hera could not celebrate, she had no one to celebrate the peace with. Terrans caused the death of her family in a final battle of a war. Battle was fought in a stratosphere of her planet. Three of them rushed to shelter, like they did numerous times during the war, but this time only Hera left the shelter. Her son Takpor, and husband Sarptak were pinned down under a collapsed ceiling. They died slowly and painfully, and Hera witnessed it all.
Who could remain the same after that?
The reason for a collapsed ceiling was a number of debriefs from a Texian ship "Paela" - the Hunter.
Terrans are to blame that today she is looking at two platinum ash-holders, instead of two strong, proud Texians that were center of her world.
She drifted the oceans of despair, until vengeance kindled the fire in her heart. She was given purpose again. Peace treaty was signed, but Terrans remained here, infesting and spreading like a disease. This time, Texians will not wait until it is too late. This time there will be no treaties, there will only be victory.
Their ships and weapons of war will mean nothing this time. After all they are just animals, smart animals, but animals nonetheles. And like all animals they can get sick and die.
Hera is a bio-engineer. Before the Dust war her skills were used to facilitate colonization processes, they were used for life. But that was before. Now her skills will be in service of death.
Since the battle she hasn't been able to sleep. No, it is not a curse. It is a gift given to her to fulfill her task - to become the bringer of death, the savior of quadrant, exterminator of disease.
It took her several years of hard night work, but she finally did it. It was easy to conceal her real project from her colleagues at the lab, they didn't ask too many question about her night shifts - they thought she was trying to fight sadness with hard work. Fools.
She had acess to Terran DNA database so finding the right strain and modifying it enough was easy enough. As a base she used the "crying virus" from the Altari moon.
Tough part was to make the infected Terran live long enugh to spread the disease. But the beauty lies in 3 ways of manifestation of disease. Some infected will experience rapid decrease in IQ, some will go crazy and some will plainly die. Due to this peculiar way of manifestation it will be impossible for the Terrans to know exactly the number of inected, and the damage to their society in this way is multiplied.
During the process of strain manipulation she purposely left hints of origins to Terran scientist.
It will take some time but Terrans will surely figure out that Texians are behind it. They will have no choice but to go to war again, but this time Texians will be fighting dimwits and crazy people and not a organized army with superior technology.
Everything is ready. All that is left is to deploy it.
She is staring at platinum boxes. She is doing this for them, for her people, for the might of the Texian Federation. She is doing this to end the slow invading plague of murderous Terrans.
Takpor and Sarptak died under the weight of the "Hunter", the Terrans will also die under the Paela - the Hunter.
If you liked this post you can also check out another story from the Dust quadrant:
-Journey
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