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Ch. 18
Colonel Fei has spent twenty solar passes learning to do his job. He started by selling his freedom to the Grotto Space Corp. Then he was trained. He trained every day in every endeavor of effort that it took to achieve the rank of Section Leader. Section Leader was important to The Universe because he could control munition drops. He has his finger on the very munitions that ended the Naht-do race on their own planet.
Liquid bone.
He approaches the location where they are stored because he is allowed to be here. He is even allowed to open the door, smile at the guard on duty and close it again after himself.
Inside, the missile is bathed in red light from lights above. He steps closer and runs a hand along its side. He was just entering into service when the first and only one of its kind was deployed. He pauses as if taking in the gravity of the situation before him. He doesn’t ask the normal barrage of questions a Upu would ask either, like why, or is something wrong with me, he simply loads one of the missiles up onto a munitions cart and pushes it through the door. Smiles at the guard again, who smiles back and wishes, “Have a good night, Colonel.”
He replies, “thanks soldier,” and continues on his way.
Maybe the guard has been having his own dreams. Maybe it was something else, but to Colonel Fei it doesn’t matter as he pushes the gurney toward an awaiting ship.
The ship is prepped and ready to go. It is maxed out on supplies. Just about two years' worth of food and spare parts. He’ll recycle air and water and when he gets to where he is going he will do his job and either die right there or wait till nature takes its course.
All normal, for this mission anyway.
He works on securing the missile inside the launcher and still not a single person finds it odd or even approaches to wish bon voyage or even have a good day. Odd, being he is working to arm the single most deadly weapon in the Grotto arsenal?
No one cares, the world seems to be ending anyway. Soya worshippers are forming mountains out of their own dead bodies. The Elders are dead, some even were allowed to watch a few get hanged from the same type of gallows that took Shuhp Yee. Those putting up a resistance were fading.
Under other circumstances, loading this type of munition would require a two-person team. But he manages because Upu life was mostly filled with redundancies and most tasks could be easily done with less. In fact, in his job as commander, a task would be to make sure no one twists the key without permission or a second hand. There would be another Upu, in another location, who would prevent his key from being twisted without permission also, he and his partner. They would need to twist their keys together to prevent allowing the missile to do what it was intended to do, destroy life, after getting permission of course. Redundancies upon redundancies prevent either one of them or anyone else on the chancellery of Elders, or any political opposition, or a hidden terrorist group- from twisting the key either.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Yet Colonel Fei is not worried about any of the keys that would prevent this little missile from doing the job destined for it. He did the part he dreamt he would do. And now he climbs on board his shuttle and with no fanfare launches through the poisonous haze the Upu call an atmosphere. Before he punches through the thick puffy pink clouds, he sees black smoke billowing where many occupied fingers once were. And it's the same all over the planet. From Majt to South City things were apocalyptic and a part of him was happy to be free from seeing the details of it when Grotto becomes a soft pink light. Especially when those details included how any attempt to put down the rebellion seemed to backfire. Losses were stunning. He doesn’t know how taking a liquid-bone missile into space helps, but that’s not his job. Never was. He is just a doer. Plus the dreams, in them he is a hero. Always.
Glorious banquets in his honor, stories told about even his minor deeds. Ones, in which any female he wanted would come to him with a glance.
So he doesn’t really do a lot of debate over the next couple glimpses as he makes his way toward the white dot that is the Grotto star. He is a tiny wisp of skeleton when he arrives two years later at the point to which he can launch this missile. And without hesitation or even an extra scant inch of travel, with shaking fingers, he twists his key and hits his little red button.
Back home, the other key remains untwisted until it's not.
If a recorder were suddenly switched on in that remote location, centered on that key of much import, a red-furried hand could be seen reaching over to twist and activate the missile. That is his only deed. The only thing he will do and he gets to be a hero in his dreams too for it. Nice trade-off, honestly.
Close to the sun, with no fanfare, no orders, no doubt, it gets done, and the missile comes free. The Missile launches and for a moment is a hard orange flare against brilliant white then is lost.
His body clenches as if the hand keeping him propped up, battle-ready, was removed. He feels like an empty puppet, a stringless marionette that doomed his entire species. Then as if the launch brings him back to reality he imagines things based on the imagery he saw from Nahtdo happening on Grotto. Horrific. Those creatures did not deserve to die that way.
Then a violent disagreement inside his own head, profoundly it says, Yes, you fool, they do, but they won’t, they’ll die another way. Your support of Reduce and protect will be fondly remembered. Enjoy your reward, sweet soldier.
The logic of the argument is there but it is faint as Grotto is far from the colonel.
He frantically searches for a way to turn the missile off. Make it stop flying. Turn around even. Maybe he is too far away for the dreams to work in the face of so much guilt and doubt and that’s all that remains now. Yet, still, he knows he did this thing because this end was an oil coating every action until just after he did it. Now he has no directive.
You are done.
And he nods in agreement and does the only thing really available to him, he watches the thing flying through space. It, a thing noted as the most powerful weapon ever made. Used once it did unspeakable damage. The Upu had five, now only three will remain. One killed the Naht-do and the other? Aimed at the very star that gave both planets life in the first place.
“Oh god why?” and he is really asking his god for an answer.
And from somewhere deep within his soon-to-be-dead brain an answer materializes:
Because I love you enough to make us perfect.