Last Chance - Pacem
#2 of Last Chance
Pacem - 1 month after the events on Dorsica.
The agricultural colony of Pacem bordered the edge of the 'Life zone', or the gap between the area too hot to sustain life, and the area that was too cold. It was a lush, mountainous planet, that had no need to be terraformed, and was especially kind to the crops that were grown there.
Daniel, a 35-year old immigrant was tending to a particularly abundant crop of Soy, when he saw the plume falling from the sky, blocking out the sun. He tapped his farmhand on the shoulder and pointed out the plume of smoke.
"You got any idea what that is?" the farmhand shrugged and walked twenty feet in front of Daniel, when a piece seemed to break off of the plume, and come towards them.
"Josh, time to go." he said to the farmhand, but they were entranced with the phenomenon.
"JOSH!" Daniel yelled, and the farmhand turned around, opening his mouth to say something, when the six foot by six foot Ceramic tile, usually part of the Lebchenko's heat shield, passed through him. The speed of the tile liquefied the former farmhand's body, and and the resulting pressure wave took care of everything else. The bloodied tile hit the ground, the impact turning it to dust, and creating a shockwave equivalent to a 5.0 earthquake on the Richter scale. Daniel was thrown into the air, saved only by the soft soil beneath him. He scrambled to his feet, and stumbled towards shelter the rapidly dissapating shockwaves not helping.
Daniel reached out to the concrete Pylon, when he felt numb in his chest. He looked down at the spike protruding a foot and a half from his sternum, a lake of bright red blossoming from it. He still felt no pain as he was lifted into the air by what was once a CCp Marine's repurposed filange. He quickly, and mercifully, blacked out from blood loss before the Thing began to rid his body appart, setting loose a red tide upon the ground.
The Lebchenko impacted Pacem at Mach 7, and exploded into a nuclear fireball that consumed the Ukrael mountain range, reducing any organic matter to ash, and turning rock and fertile soil to glass. A cloud of dust three miles thick, similar to what caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs was jetted out as the Carrier collapsed in on itself. Within seconds, the mighty carrier was no more than a pile of rubble, shrouded in a cloud of it's own making. As people ventured inward, there was no signs of life, any infectee's had perished. The infection itself, however, survived the crash. As it had on Dorsica, the infection began to spread, scything through the first waves of would-be rescuers, too late for them to realize what was happening.
Donovan entered the cloud of dust and debris, his rebreather fastened tightly over his Feline face. He held a shovel in one hand, and an emergency kit in the other, and looked around. His freind, Samuel, was on his left, and Donovan reached out to grab the flashlight from him, but caught nothing but air, falling. He quickly felt around for the shovel, and grabbed it, standing up in the near lightless shroud of dust, that blocked out almost all of the light from the dual suns that Pacem orbited in a figure eight pattern. He heard his freind scream, and then silence once again. Donovan slowly backed up, and turned toward the source of some skittering and it walked out of the dust. It was Samuel, his body horribly disfigured, and repurposed. His left arm was now semi-amorphous, the bones able to shift to meet with the situation at hand. At the moment, Sam's fingers formed two killing spears, his pinky, and index finger comprising one of the three foot long digits of death, his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger comprising the other. Donovan immeditely started to attempt to reason with a being he somehow knew wasn't Sam snymore.
"Sam, It's me, Donny. C'mon Sam, you wouldn't do this Sam." No, Sam wouldn't do this, but this wasn't Sam. Donovan started hyperventilating and tore his rebreather off, and immediately went into colvulsions as the infection invaded his body. His muscles tensed, and his bones were dissolved and reformed within seconds underneath, his body's Osteoblast's, and Osteoplast's working in overdrive. finally, the convulsions stopped, and Donovan lay still, his eye's finally glazing over. His body lay still, no heartbeat, and no pulse, dead. Donovans body convulsed yet again, the infection producing the necessary spark of life to restart Donovan's heart, and restore his oxygen deprived brain. Donovan, or rather the former shell of himself, eased it's way to it's feet, and began to walk with what was once sam, as they grouped with other infected, military, civilians, even Fauna.
CCp Cruiser Valley Forge, Pacem Orbit.
Dr. Hollard watched as the plume of dust and smoke rose from the wreckage of the Carrier.
"FUCK!" The fox yelled in anger. How in the hell had the dumb motherfuckers managed to breach the security protocols on that goddamned Carrier? He looked at the Vice Admiral, who was awestruck at the normally peaceful scientists rage. Hollard sat down crossing his arms on the table, and hid his face for a quick moment.
"Admiral, pull your men out. Now. Give the men at the biohazard suits, and tell them to kill anyone who might be carrying a sleeper strain, and airlock the bodies." As the Vice Admiral left, Hollard moved his arms to reveal a research dossier beneath. He held up the dossier, and leafed through it's pages.
The virus was native to Dorsica, and thrived in low-oxygen environments wher it was beneficial to Dorsica's wildlife to aid in the absorbtion of Oxygen. However, when the planet was Terraformed, it set in action a chain of events that culminated in what was happening now. The virus started mutating slowly with the addition of abundant supply's of oxygen, and went airborne, infecting the first generation of sleeper strains. After nearly seventy years, the virus went pathogenic, and that was six months ago.
As Dr. Hollard watched the last retreival ship come up from the surface, he turned on his computer console.
"Welcome James, What might I do for you today?" the AI's femenine voice said, soothing his stress a little.
"Aela, I need you to commence the nuclear launch sequence, and burn Pacem free of the virus."
"But, Jam..."
"No Aela, do it now, the more ships lift off, the more infection vectors we have to deal with. Set the Lebchenko as the center of bombardment."
The AI understood the gravity of the situation. "Yes, Dr. Hollard. Bombardment sequence initiated. Anything else James?"
"That's all Aela." and Hollard switched the terminal off.
The Lancet warheads struck Pacem's surface five hundred at a time, over a space of 1000 square miles at a time. Eventually, Pacem's atmosphere was boiled away by the nuclear firestorm on it's surface, and, out of Hollard's line of sight, a single tiny freighter activated it's FTL drive, it's destination, Earth.