6 Billion A.D./Messenger of Destruction

Tentative Synopsis: In his despair Rigel becomes the tool of the enemy, as the Order pushes the League to the brink.

Rigel Later

After having lived for thousands of years, Rigel had become quite powerful. Still, he did have some weaknesses.

Rigel now thought of himself as part of a higher class. No longer was he timid about his immortality.

-

Vespa sighed a breath of relief.

-

Rigel steeled himself for what he was to do next.

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As enemy ships cruised by -- the enemy now being the League, his former allies -- Rigel deftly maneuvered through their ranks. Nine thousand years of experience, plus an insider's knowledge of the driving forces behind the enemy -- these enabled Rigel to push through fast.

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The enemy fired, in seemingly every direction, yet without landing a hit. Instead, Rigel managed to avoid even a scratch in his ship's paint.

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Vespa had, despite the frustrations, hacked together a functional rig. Her Splunks now reproduced -- in silico and in vitro and now in vivo -- within animal cells. The tissues showed clearly the signs and symptoms of the pandemic. Now all she had to do was convince her allies. In short, her work had only just begun.

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"The response has caused more harm than the virus!"

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Vespa worked away on her Splunks.

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"Just think of all the hours lost, the shuttered businesses. More people have probably died from starvation and other indirect effects of the quarantine, than from the illness itself. What are the symptoms? It makes you feel somewhat sick. So what? That won't kill you. The quarantine may."

-

Out of luck, thought Rigel. Again.

Not seeing any way out -- out of his infection, out of his loss, his solitude -- Rigel committed himself to a different approach. Instead of fighting against it, he would embrace it -- defeat. Total defeat. Rigel would carry out the Order's orders. To destroy the universe.

-

Changing course, Rigel veered right into the heart of enemy territory. Towards the secret League base, whose location he only knew from the Order. For back in the League, Rigel admitted to himself now, he was nothing. He had no position there, he was only a pawn in their game. He would have given his life for the League then, but not now. Now he would end the League.

-

Vespa sat nervously at her station. The sirens were ringing. Alarm level five. An incoming attack. This could be it. The end of her ship, the end of her mission, the end of her. And if she had known who was leading the attack, it would only have made matters worse.

-

Vespa, in her ignorance, wished Rigel were with her here, now. She wished she could see him one last time. To tell him again how she felt about him. To hold his uniformed hand.

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Vespa glanced at her visor. Here it was. The attack.

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Rigel tugged on his emergency shock cord. Yup, all set. Grimacing, he yanked back the throttle to full, felt the G's accelerate, and shot his ship into the perimeter of the secret League base.

-

"So," said Morp. "You've finally come around. That makes me feel--" he paused, searching for words. This was unfamiliar emotional territory for him. "Happy?" Something like that."

"I'm doing this for the good of the universe," said Rigel seriously.

"No matter. You're doing the right thing."

-

"Rigel! What are you doing?!"

"I have to!"

-

Within the League area, personnel remained calm.

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The people here had become accustomed to quiet. To being left alone. For tens of thousands of years, this base had remained untouched.

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In a region of space that even most League members ignored, the League had erected a veil.

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Practically no light could enter or exit this region of space. Devices ringing the region intercepted incoming or outgoing radiation. By applying an inverse wave, it was possible to block out this zone. An invisibility cloak for an entire region of space.

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Now, however, Rigel had pierced the veil.

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Piloting his ship through the region, he was not met by any League ships. Not even intercepted by the usual escorts, which he had expected. Only Rigel against the stars.

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In the secret base, the doddering old leaders of the League seemed unaware of how dire their situation had become. Though their bodies had not aged at all for thousands of years, their minds had decayed from use, or disuse, as the case may be.

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"We'll have to return the universe to better condition again over the upcoming centuries, said one immortal, for all here were immortals. Unbeknownst to him, the Order was just then readying the final destruction of the universe. And their trigger man was rapidly approaching the doddering old fool.

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Rigel looked sternly into his visor. In addition to the navigation view, showing his approaching ship near to the secret League base, Rigel had summoned up a view of the critical infrastructure of the base.

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Rigel traced out the diagrams of the base in his mind, readying his penetration.

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"No," said one of the lead epidemiologists. "We can't approve this."

"Why not?!" asked Vespa's lawyer. He had offered to represent her case to the board.

"Because we can't endanger the quarantine region. Also, we don't have conclusive evidence that your pathogen model is accurate."

"The quarantine zone is already in danger!" Vespa blurted out. Her lawyer quieted her, and addressed the board. "What my client wants to say is that the expected return of releasing this, uh, possible remedy, exceeds that of delaying any further. Furthermore, my client wishes to say that this model has already been demonstrated in organic tissue, and as such should be considered workable."

The epidemiology board members whispered among themselves. After a while, one of them addressed the audience again. "No, we can't approve this." The board got up and left the room.

-

In the quarantine zone, desperation rose.

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Many civilians had taken to wearing extra protective equipment, even though it had not been shown to reduce the effects of the illness. Further, even the cautious epidemiological board had recommended again the suits for civilians.

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Populations paid attention to the newscasts. The media made out like bandits, even as entire industries fell apart.

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"Epidemiology chic," one headline called it. People going about their planets in their large protective suits. The cartoonists had a heydey with it.

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On some of the smaller asteroids, detached as they were from the main planets, life went on more or less normally. Many of the asteroid-dwellers here had no use for the news, the heavy suits, or any of the other pandemic paraphernalia.

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The League had been torn apart. It was effectively over. Only a few holdouts remained, and they too were near destruction. The only question that remained, thought Rigel, was whether he would destroy the universe -- now or later.

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Morp had a change of heart. After his fascination with Rigel, Morp was becoming frustrated. Both were immortals. Morp had held the upper hand. But now he became concerned that he had given Rigel too much room.

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The Order had become far more efficient, far faster. Over the last few thousand years, in particular -- ever since Vespa had arrived -- every part of the Order from its chemists to its custodians had become at least five times faster.

The Vermitrius had spread. From the ship where Vespa had landed, small clumps of the stuff had snuck over to other ships. Then, the species had made its way back into Order bases. Soon, much of the Order had been contaminated, for their own benefit.

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Order ships buzzed with activity. Neat rows of chemistry benches worked actively. The military operated with precision. They had cleaned out most League sectors. Indeed, they had cleaned out most of the reachable universe.

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There still remained traces of the spontaneity that had led to earlier Order advances. Not that the Order had ever had that much looseness, but where there had been some before, now it was gone.

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The Order had taken its mature form. From its early start out of the last collapse, through its vying against the then-dominant League, the Order now exercised near total control over a large region of space. Its military had become the organizational method for all species encompassed within the region.

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"Is there any way out?" whispered one resident in the quarantine zone to another.

"There must be," responded another resident, unconvincingly.

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Vespa was arrested.

-

8.2

My ship was captured by an Order [drifter]. It pulled me into its bay...

...

... The robed man said... “Why?” I asked. Why does the Order do it? It’s hard to understand. We’re not monsters. “But you wreak such destruction.” The universe is such a fragile thing. It’s alive. I looked up, what do you mean?. This is not the first time, there’s been countless cycles. And each time it must be protected. Protected from what? Sentient life, of course, desperately wanting to live at all cost, to change everything only to eventually disappear. Should we really compare the selfish needs of one race to Infinity. “But to destroy, throw the galaxy into a dark age.” We do what must be done. What if you did stop it, stop the collapse. You know you would kill the universe. I replied, but it’s inevitable right? Nothing is inevitable. It can be stopped. It’s always within reach, one galaxy can poison everything. “So you’re saviors” I said mockingly. No we do what must be done.

...

I don’t care about you’re miserable manifesto. I just want to destroy something, I said. Then we will let you.

Molecular Solutions

Rigel steered directly towards the station. - On a small backwaters asteroid, Rast sat around his shack. His employer, a factory that processed sewage from the local pond into lubricants, had shut down during the pandemic. At this rate, it didn't look like it would reopen any time soon.

With no job, Rast set about his own activities. Often, he went down to the pond, scooped up some water in a jar, and brought it back to his house. There, he conducted various tests. While he wasn't a professional researcher -- at the factory his lowly job had only been to clean out the equipment -- science was a hobby of his.

Rast browsed around the data links, which were still active. Without those, the smaller asteroids would have been totally disconnected, probably reverting back to primitive conditions.

On the data links, Rast searched our various chemical formulae. The data links contained apps that showed different molecules, including how they could connect with other molecules. Rast searched through the molecules that he knew were in the pond liquid, as well as molecules that he found in his tests.

-

Many molecules came up empty. None of the configurations that Rast tested produced any effects. He had tried to produce a beverage that would get him happy. The layoffs had brought about significant depression.

After failing to find any inebriants among his mix, Rast switched to testing for other useful compounds. At first, he still found nothing. Then, a few results started popping up. One molecule, which was not directly in the mix but could easily be produced by adding a common chemical, produced a detergent. Another indirectly producible molecule added a pleasant aroma.

Rast kept at it. Even as his finances ran dry, as the plant remained shuttered, Rast kept experimenting on his solutions.

-

Rast's wife became concerned. Not only were they running out of food, now her husband had taken to his tests. Instead of pursuing some other productive activity, a side business like some of his colleagues and neighbors had pursued, he seemed to be going crazy. She often complained to her friends.

-

After numerous failures, and the occasional partial success, Rast stumbled upon something unusual. This differed not only from his previous results, but even from what he thought was possible. All of the reading that he had done on the data links showed that this was impossible, yet it had happened anyways.

In his test tube, an dirty old one that he had scavenged from the factory before it had closed down, Rast had found a rare molecule. The molecule, which he had tested against the libraries, showed an interaction with an organism that Rast hadn't even known about. The data links called this organism a "Splunk". Funny name, Rast thought.

The details showed that Splunks were considered a probable causative agent in the ongoing pandemic. And now, right in his very test tube, which despite his lengthy efforts Rast had started to give up on, a molecule seemed to deactivate the Splunks. Jackpot!

-

Rast's asteroid had become a media sensation. Every night, huge numbers of people around the galaxy tuned in to watch the latest newscasts. MIRACLE CURE.

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Some of Rast's neighbors visited him. They showed up on their rockriders, rolling rocks that they kicked along only somewhat faster than walking. Until now, Rast's neighbors had regarded him as unfortunate. They thought he had lost his mind. Now that the media had descended, Rast had become the most popular resident of the asteroid.

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Rast had made so many friends, he didn't know what to do. Soon his visor was so full of messages, announcements, gifts, and other notifications, that he could only see a small patch of the space in front of him.

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A few weeks after he had made headlines, Rast had taken to being a celebrity. He had started wearing more decorative clothing, unlike the rags that he used to wear (his wife wondered where he had got the money, since they still hadn't received much for their efforts).

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The asteroid itself became noteworthy. While its official name was only A150874854, and its residents had colloquially known it as "the 'Roid", after hitting it big the asteroid was officially renamed to Asteroidae Curis. Also, the media started referring to it as "the Rastroid."

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There was chaos. As reporters and locals jostled in the hallways of Rast's house, a fight broke out. Even the reporters there didn't realize that the Order had an agent present.

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Even thousands of years after the pandemic had broken out, it remained a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps more so, as some argued, as a media force rather than a medical force.

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At 9,873 years old, Rigel thought that one hadn't really lived until one had reached at least nine thousand.

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8.4

As one world after another fell, my face was the last thing they saw. To go from a hero, someone that was celebrated, to a monster made the affair exceptionally terrible. It felt good at first, but now it was becoming unbearable. Could I just leave and wander the ashes? Haven't I done enough (damage) for one lifetime. Would the Order even let me leave. They would probably kill me. But I guess that is what I deserve anyway...

...

...

Surprisingly they let me leave, even providing a small ship. I guess there was nothing left for me to do; my tenure had expired. The remaining free worlds were largely insignificant. All the great alliances were broken. All the great races were planet bound, only a small fraction of the population remained. It would be centuries before the galaxy would start to recover. The Order had done its job...

...

8.5

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