After my unexpected scientific success on First Moon of Pi 3, the gnome council grudgingly gave me an opportunity to work on a planetary reclamation project. Working on a destroyed world can be very difficult, but I happily said yes.

Destroyed worlds come about for many reasons. It might be because the inhabitants ruined their world through accidents in energy-producing inventions; or because of nuclear war; or perhaps the planet was destroyed by hostile beings from another world. It can even be due to natural forces, like a meteor strike or a solar flare. Typically, the inhabitants will have fled or been killed. The natural resources will have been destroyed or stolen. Word about the catastrophe makes it way around the galaxy quickly, and bands of looting outlaws start terrorizing all the planets in the area.

Reclaiming a planet is an expensive project coordinated across a galaxy’s worlds, with many types of beings taking part in the hard work. Since gnomes specialize in caring for planets, we are always involved in the effort.

I was excited to get involved in my first planetary renovation project. I was assigned to an Earth-like planet that was simply called RW12. This formerly green and charming world had been attacked by invaders from another dimension. Unfortunately for little RW12, it had a molten core that was high in the metal bismuth. The invaders destroyed the planet solely to collect this metal that was rare in their own dimension.

The invaders had developed a smash and grab technique to quickly destroy an entire planet. First, they attacked and overwhelmed a population. Then they detonated nuclear bombs to vaporize the surface. Next the invaders drilled deep to get to the bismuth. They extracted the mineral and simply tossed waste tailings and broken machinery across the planet.

On RW12, the formerly beautiful countryside was now blasted into upheavals of charred rocks. Radioactive fragments had been left scattered across its surface. Mixed in with the deliberate destruction were huge runs of lava caused by earthquakes and volcanic action. As the volcanoes calmed, the climate morphed into ice and snow. Most species of life had been destroyed. Prospects for a natural recovery on the planet were nonexistent.

This is the bleak scenario that I and other workers found when we arrived. It was distressing for everyone who saw it, but for gnomes who are accustomed to making an already-thriving planet better, it was especially painful. However, we were determined to succeed at the reclamation.

I was assigned a sector of RW12 and given a spaceship with an advanced scanning system to help me conduct an intensive survey of the area. I found the expected high radiation levels and planetary chaos. What I found that was unexpected was that some radiation beings, or radbees, had already found RW12 and moved in.

Radbees are instantly recognizable because they are so unique-looking. They bring an immediate reaction of revulsion to all humanoid beings.

Radbees have black, hairless, charred-looking bodies that resemble lumps of carbon. They even smell like burnt chemicals. They shuffle on two legs, but their society is reminiscent of an ant colony. They work together and burrow deep into the earth. They do have enough intelligence to use technology, and can be seen buzzing around a planet’s atmosphere in their distinctive cobbled-together air cruisers.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A colony of radbees is a big problem because they will never allow a planet to recover while they are living there. Radbees need radiation to survive, so they will constantly bombard a planetary atmosphere using any type of radioactive element they can obtain.

I sighed. I didn’t want to get involved with looters or squatters or radbees. I just wanted to make the planet whole and green again. I reported the radbees to the interplanetary defense council for them to address the matter.

Gnomes are environmental designers and horticulturists, not warriors, so I didn’t get involved in the battles to drive off the radbee intruders. I temporarily transitioned to another planet until RW12 was secured. I spent that time planning and researching how to manage the reclamation.

Once back on-planet, I was ready to go.

My group of renewal gnomes called ourselves 12ers. The RW12 project was so extensive and lasted for so long that when one of us said “I’m a 12er,” our occupation was instantly recognizable across gnome societies.

The process to bring the planet back to a living entity took thousands of years, but it started with our first and most important action: determining the microbes necessary to renew the soil. Our laboratories created mixes of radiation-eating and earth-enriching microbes. These microorganisms cut many years off the time it would have taken for us to re-establish RW12.

We planted the most radiation tolerant plants available and even created new varieties. You can’t imagine our joy at the first tiny shoots that emerged from the replenished earth. Algae and water plants grew at the edges of newly created ponds and lakes. Mosses and tiny plants filled in across the planet’s surface.

Gradually we were able to add plants and finally trees. RW12 started to resemble a healthy planet instead of a planet recovering from devastation.

Some plants started to grow that we hadn’t planted, which is always startling. Greenery could develop from seeds that are still viable even after a nuclear blast. Or spores might have come to the planet inside a meteor. Our policy is to allow these random interlopers to sprout if they are compatible with the existing biome. We don’t encourage or discourage them, they have to survive on their own. Our gnome reclamation group always gets excited if these random plants manage to endure on the planet we are reclaiming.

After plant life became successful on RW12, we reintroduced insects, birds and animals. This is a very exciting time since it means reclamation is ending and the beginning of a self-sustaining planet is finally happening.

RW12 followed our reclamation plan nicely. Workers were able to progress from spacesuits and special breathing gear to wearing normal clothes and breathing in clean, oxygenated atmosphere.

At this point our group of 12ers paused. We had reached every goal set before us. Most team members moved on to their next planetary assignments. A small maintenance staff was set into place on RW12, responsible for upkeep instead of transformation.

For a while, it seemed like the various councils could not agree on who got to live on the now beautiful little planet. Happily, someone had the brilliant idea to set up RW12 as a vacation planet during its transition time. The management team was phenomenally successful in offering safaris, bird watching, environmental tours and yoga retreats.

I had moved on to another project, but eventually found out RW12 had become a permanent vacation planet. Its name was appropriately changed to Bellita, which means beautiful in several major intergalactic languages.

Bellita’s happy outcome was a relief to me. I always hesitate to check up on completed reclamation work because seeing how a planet is being treated by its new residents is often disappointing and too painful to bear. Instead, the assignment ended with excellent news for Bellita.

I had my own excellent news, too. Since that project had gone so well, I was able to work my way into less distressing and more prestigious work groups. As I gained experience, I eventually managed to make my way into some fascinating terraforming assignments.