“Launch the weapon, erase it all,” Soya says, and points an affirmatizer at the tech who is meant to do so. The affirmatizer crackles and it is obvious the sly old abacist set her device to kill, meaning nothing was going to get in her way of achieving the planet of Nahtdo’s destruction. With the order firmly issued, the tech unleashes the weapon. It is only a simple press of a red button, after all. As is always the case with horrible things, the implementation over far too quickly. The deaths, yet to come. But theoretically, it’s when the button is hit, the entire freedom-loving Naht-do race will cease to exist.

Yay, Mister Tech.

Once the missile leaves the ship, it takes an agonizingly long time for it to land, and those on board the barge that launched it are forced to wait for the results.

It happens as if in slow motion, and it doesn’t take long for the ship to overtake the missile as it falls.

“Will it be long till it drops through the atmosphere?” The creature is nervous and looks uncomfortable in the cook’s tunic, like maybe the soft flesh beneath, covered in a furry white down, would probably prefer to be nude. Like the rest of the populous of this world on the brink of annihilation.

“What do you think it’ll do?” a question from the mouth of a member of royalty, and now the chief-mathstech has an excuse, owned by the premiere-abacist herself, he was ordered to offer answers as needed.

He helps himself to one of the treats Rantira offers, bloodfly cake on a plate of polished brass and states, “I don’t have to think. I know. It’ll turn all moisture into a thick calcium sludge. Suffocate everything living on the surface.”

The Naht-do slave looks horrified as the answer continues to come from the old Upu’s thick white-whiskered chiropteraesque mouth. Nose leaf-crinkling as if holding back laughter.

“Yes, used to heal and now to wipe out your race. Here, one solar-glimpse, virtually gone the next. But don’t worry, Rantira. The Upu will take care of all future matters concerning the solar system,” he says, then tosses away the cake remembering very quickly he doesn’t tolerate bloodfly anymore. A Naht-do tasked with cleaning quickly dispenses with the resulting mess. The chief-mathstech finds himself doing that more and more nowadays, like eating things he didn’t mean to. He also avoids saying things he knows need saying. When he and Soya would discuss options, he kept silent about wiping out the Naht-do, because he felt winning a war against them, no matter the cost to both sides, was better than wiping them out. A resource, he had claimed. Just as valuable as any rock.

He looks at Rantira and wonders what the poor creatures would do if he just told him, but it’s likely the cook already knows that today he becomes a member of an endangered species, on the brink of annihilation. In fact, with all the genetic manipulation already being done to those of the race that remain, likely in a few more generations they will be called something else. Uh’ can’t imagine being privy to that kind of information, it must be torture. He wants to pry, but doesn’t, the Naht-do are servants and it’s best not to inquire too deeply into the thoughts of those that do such work, or they may wake up and realize death is potentially better. It makes Soya happy to keep her slaves in the dark, they need to know nothing but where the sodium is. Sometimes he thinks he should just tell the truth. Not just because he was involved in the design either, but because he can do the math and knows this will not help Rantira at all, a slave is a slave. It is not enough. This something, a moment of cataclysmic disaster, was needed. It was war after all, regardless which side knew they were fighting it.

Then a commotion. Almost comical, watching a round black ball, with long limbs and wing bone flailing, fight Soya’s elite guard screaming, “With this, no one wins in the end. No one. The Naht-do just get removed from the equation but fixing the end result, it will not. Avoiding death, impossible.”

A voice near-by whispers, “The old man has imbued too much.”

“His words slur,” and then a titter.

The spectacle continues to distract as the fat Upu fights against the security that has come to wrestle him out. Soft and stout the struggle is immense until exertion wins out and he falters like a water balloon. What’s to come of him now? Who knows, besides maybe history where within those hallowed pages political dissidents are always disappearing.

“We are murderers, each and everyone of us,” he mutters as he is dragged, with tremendous effort, from the battle-yacht’s control room.

“Yes, yes,” Soya mutters after being asked if she is sure before turning her attention to the math in front of her, the equation of eliminating the Naht-do from their resource rich world without destroying the reason for their deaths.

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Called liquid bone, it revolutionized the medical industry on Grotto. Even the Naht-do got to take advantage of the substance on their homeworld for a few decades before it became their undoing. “It’s meant to kill everything then revert the moisture back. The Naht-do are sitting on mutual destruction, but not allowing mining of their planet… we can’t have contradictions, so the Naht-do must die so we all can live.”

It was an interview with the same stout Upu who now floats past the bridge view-port frozen dead.

“He looks surprised,” then more immature laughter.

Uh’ finds himself happy to see the journalist go, “He’s been nothing but trouble.” then shares Soya’s opinion on dissidents with Rantira, that an opposing view deserves an open wound. “Personally, I am happy to see them all gone. Maybe better to suffer death then be used as grease on the wheel of progress.

“Grease?” the cook acts shocked, his snout snarling over his sharp bicuspids as if he’d never heard of the concept of erasing the Naht-do before.

“No, not you, Rantira. I think Soya will find a mate for you soon. She has much hope for your children. Maybe your pups will help work their native world some day. Be heroes and honor Soya Yee perhaps be given permission to propagate your species.” Uh flutters his wings, hoping to appear earnest but sees the cook tense anyway. “Don’t worry,” Uh’ promises. “We will curate your best qualities and put them back to work for the solar system.”

The old Upu looks at the slave, he has been with Soya a very long time. He might have been bought to attend her as an apprentice. She only buys slaves who can math. But this lave was special, within the last ten solar-passes, as house help, corrected numerous issues and pushed equations to their completion. Liquid bone wouldn’t have been possible without his help. Sadly he also had a talent with cooking. Being picked to go with the premiere-abicist on her voyage as Upu savior was an extreme privilege. Soya’s first-cook. Uh’ was a mathstech, also a slave, but far from Rantira’s equal. Uh’s name is the old echolocation for the word, one, and that’s what he is to Soya, her number one. He still tries to get along with the poor creature, any creature really. Life was short, why waste time hating the natural inclinations of life. The poor cook’s homeworld was being wiped clean after all. So Uh’ finds himself trying hard to get along with him during the actual genocide. And smiles and even flutters his old useless wings.

The cook looks at him with big black eyes like mirrors, wet with sorrow and uncertainty, “thank you for the information.” And he turns to offer his tray to the others gathered on the bridge. Mainly Grotto royalty. Those with a vested interest, mining concerns, other money people. Without the cook, Uh’ finds himself standing alone.

But not for long, siding up to Uh’ and fitting her small form into the natural curve of his arm comes Soya. He embraces her and plants a kiss in the center of the gray fur on her scalp.

“But we will still exist as slaves?”

“Forever, my love.”

Uh’ could say he is more than a slave. Certainly different than the family cook, who was brought on this little war because space food doesn’t sit well with their boss, Primer-Scientist Soya Yee.

He watches the cook serve and intermittently rub his obedience-band. Uh’ remembers they constantly itch with the crackle of electricity and echo of potential pain. The punishment for servants can be severe. Uh’ has felt it before himself. If somehow the tech had managed to refuse to launch the missile, the pain would have increased until he blacked out or someone did it for him. Amazing what watching someone in agony can do to motivate.

Soya was skilled at applying pain. And pleasure. Subtle and incremental.

“Can you imagine disobeying,” the old Upu slave whispers to his owner and she giggles like a school-pup. The tech hadn’t refused, but it was obvious he thought about it. Like it would have made a difference. Soya would have just forced another sailor to take the tech’s spot. Thankfully he hadn’t prolonged it, Soya rarely failed to get what she wanted. Life is too short to spend the last moments disobeying an order meant to make things better.

The cook had no official title, just a job and he was there only to keep the owner of the barge and her guests refreshed.

“The missile is beginning to dip into the atmosphere!” The excited voice belongs to a princess, or a consort, someone who knows less than a family pet. Uh’ noticed her with a group smoking a little red fungus before the launch. It was normal and tolerated behavior now. Once it could earn a user death. Amazing how acceptable behavior changes. Nowadays such was to be expected from the youth, unable to enjoy even being in the room with living history without altering their consciousness first. Unaware of the kind of suffering they were about to witness either.

As the projectile takes its nineteen moments to complete its trajectory the mood in the control room turns joyous. Soon they can go home victors. They did what they promised they would do, end the violence, preserve the young Upu, make life possible for a little while longer.

“It needed to be done,” Soya says as her bomb hits. She fought her entire life to unclog the system and make this possible. Streamline things. The celebrated inventor of liquid bone and beloved sponsor of many mathmeartists. Her passion was working to solve spatial folding, spatial folding required resources. To do that she would do what needed to be done, including eat the sun if needs be.

But that hasn’t happened. Uh’ doubts it ever will. He finds himself thinking about the fantasy of eating a sun when the calcium converting explosion occurs destroying the atmosphere and every single droplet of moisture beneath it to calcium sludge.

It takes but a breath and all die.

He finds himself deciding he’d do whatever it takes to solve Spatial Folding for Soya, and now he has an idea, and the best part is it will enable her to see the planet of her birth named from Grotto to Yee.