The Planetsider

by G J Ogden

  “Everything depended on orrum,” Maria continued, trying to not let the strain show in her voice, “and the mining, refining, transportation and use of orrum to generate power for the cities and its inhabitants was the cornerstone of civilisation on this world.”

  As Maria spoke, the holo-emitter showed images of the moon and of the substance – orrum – which, to Ethan’s eyes, looked much like any other large lump of rock. Maria continued to present a potted history of the planet, the holo-emitter following her words, showing images pertinent to the content, as if it were listening to her voice and reacting independently to help tell the story.

  “To ensure that the supply and use of orrum was secure, the controlling alliances agreed that an independent body should act as protector, ensuring non-interference. This organisation was GPS, or Global Power Security, and it was resourced with people from all allied continents, with the sole mission to police and protect orrum production.” The emitter now displayed the emblem of GPS, which was a circle, representing the planet, with a clenched fist in the centre, palm facing out towards the viewer. As Maria continued, the images switched again, following her words automatically.

  “GPS protected the UEC from criminal elements, rogue factions and states, and from itself,” continued Maria, “and they provided oversight for the UEC's own internal security service. Collectively, GPS enforcers numbered more than any civilian police force, and also any army,” Maria paused, letting what she had said sink in, and then added, “and it was here that things began to fall apart.” Maria took a sip of water. She noticed that Summer was staring down into the folds of her arms, and rapidly bobbing her leg up and down, like it was attached to an electric current and unable to remain steady. Ethan was looking directly at Maria, hanging off her every word, but his expression had become noticeably more solemn as the briefing had progressed.

  “I take it that relations with GPS took a turn for the worse?” asked Talia, to Maria's surprise. This was perhaps an obvious assumption, but her composed delivery and evident lack of surprise made Maria wonder if she was actually telling the older woman something she didn’t already know.

  “Yes,” Maria said, trying to emulate Talia’s composure. “GPS made a play to control orrum completely; to own the Global supply and distribution of energy and to control energy security for the entire population. It would have made them the unchallenged Global superpower. They would have had command over every continent, every government, every individual. But they failed.”

  “War,” Ethan said quietly.

  Maria, half-hearing him, looked over and was surprised to see that Ethan was head down, staring at the table, his earlier brightness and enthusiasm diminished. “I’m sorry?” she said, awkwardly.

  Ethan raised his head and met Maria's eyes. “You're saying all of this was the result of a war.”

  Maria could now see a sadness in the young Ranger’s eyes that she had not seen before. In others, perhaps, but not in Ethan. “Yes,” she replied, sombrely, “the last war. At least, the last to take place on the planet.” The holo-emitter switched to a new view, and began to re-enact key moments from the conflict, in time with Maria's narration. “The UEC had a comparatively small, but well-trained security force,” said Maria. “They were a last line of defence, in the unlikely event that GPS was overpowered. We had trained for small-scale terror attacks, we had trained for counter-insurgency, and for counter-espionage. But we never expected to be defending ourselves against our own protectors.”

  Retelling the history, Maria also felt a sense of sadness wash over her, but she pushed it down, determined not to lose focus. She had yet to explain why they were here and, in retrospect, wished she hadn’t begun the briefing by discussing the conflict at all. When planning the mission it was thought that recounting the history of the conflict would provide necessary context, and also help to engender trust through openness and honesty. But it was now clear that this was a mistake. Instead of building trust she was stoking their fears and creating a rift between them, but there was no going back now. She continued, quickening the pace of her speech. The holo-emitter responded in kind, speeding up to stay synchronised.

  “The attack was unexpected, co-ordinated, and on a massive scale,” said Maria, watching the emitter display the events as she told them. “UEC installations all over the planet, such as the space port where...” Maria paused briefly, remembering Summer's earlier reaction, and adjusted her words, “...where your Rangers discovered us,” she said carefully, “were all overrun. Orrum shipments were seized. GPS had succeeded in all but one area; if they were to achieve their goal they had to take the primary UEC mining control base on the moon. They assaulted, but the UEC forces pushed them back. The moon base was a veritable fortress and well protected, but had one major weakness. In order to transport the vast quantities of orrum around the planet, the UEC, over a period of decades, had built an orbital refinery and distribution network. It was an incredible feat of engineering, encasing the entire planet, like a net.”

  The holo-emitter switched to a display of the planet, rotating slowly, and everyone watched as a monumental web of metal and machinery gradually built up around the sphere. Underneath was a number, steadily increasing as the contraption evolved and expanded. Ethan considered that this might be time, perhaps years. If so, the refinery was a long time in the making. Maria indicated to sections of the display, and the emitter obliged by zooming in.

  “The Refinery had distribution nodes located above every major capital and city on the surface,” she said, highlighting some of the megacities, “but, ultimately, it was linked to the moon base at one key location, like an artery leading to the heart. This artery was the most sophisticated element of the refinery, as it had to detach and re-attach to the refinery in perfect synchronisation with the relative motion of the moon and planet. When connected, it opened a conduit that led directly into the moon base, allowing for vast quantities of orrum to be fed into the refinery from the mines on the moon. But it was also an unrestricted path into the base, and a passage GPS needed to control. Unfortunately, the attack went catastrophically wrong.”

  The holo-emitter zoomed in to the moon base to show a number of objects, similar to the shuttle they had found crashed near the city, swarming around the refinery’s metal skeleton, plus a single and much larger vessel, waiting further away. Maria reached into the display and seemed to physically manipulate it. “GPS calculated that they could attack the primary valve and detonate a small amount of orrum,” said Maria, pointing to where the refinery’s vast umbilical conduit adjoined to the moon base. “Orrum is highly explosive and unstable in raw form, so in order to breach the primary valve and create an opening directly in to the moon base, GPS intended to detonate the orrum travelling in that section of the conduit. But they miscalculated.” Maria gestured to the emitter and it showed the vessels firing weapons of some kind at the base of the conduit, followed by a flash as the conduit exploded. The light from the emitter shone so brightly that the observers had to squint and shield their eyes.

  Maria continued, even more urgently. “Instead of breaking a hole in the valve, they caused a chain reaction in the conduit,” she said. “The initial blast destroyed the attacking ships, and the shock wave pushed this larger support vessel into a higher orbit, taking some damage, but nothing critical.” Maria highlighted and zoomed in to the larger vessel they had seen on the display earlier. Ethan, Summer and the Administrators watched the holo display showing the vessel spiralling away into space, partially on fire, the flames dancing around it like ethereal, glowing liquid. “The explosions cascaded along the conduit,” Maria continued, and the emitter switched back to the base and the metal umbilical stretching from it, with explosions rippling along it. “The cascade eventually hit the first refining node, which contained refined orrum in additiona to the raw orrum flowing through the conduits. Together the explosive force was amplified more than a thousand times.”

  The holo display showed the
explosion. Even this small recreation lit up the room, causing everyone to again squint against the brightness. In the glow, Maria saw Ethan's face. Gone was his eager excitement of earlier, replaced now by shock, but still in his eyes she could see the wonder. Maria supposed that he was getting what he desired, though perhaps they were not the answers he’d hoped for. The light diminished and the holo paused, waiting for her next words. Her throat was dry. She moistened her lips and continued; conscious that the room had been silent, save her own voice, for several minutes.

  “The explosion caused a cascade reaction,” Maria went on. “It ignited the orrum in the conduits, which in turn led to other nodes, like touch paper. As each node exploded it spread the fire to an ever-widening web of conduits. It quickly grew out of control.” The holo zoomed out, and showed the progression of the cascade. As each node detonated, it lit the 'touchpaper' trail to other nodes, expanding exponentially around the planet with each explosion. A chain reaction like that could have only one end. Everyone watching could see it, and even though Maria and Kurren had witnessed this re-creation a hundred times, its impact on them had never diminished.

  “There were disaster plans for isolated events, of course,” Maria continued, “but these assume the UEC and GPS would collaborate to have an emergency response to combat any fire spread. But no contingency plan had accounted for the UEC and GPS being at war with one another.” The emitter pulled back to show the cascade of explosions rippling around the planet. “In only a few hours the fire had spread through the entire refinery. Every node, above every population centre on the planet, detonated with a force beyond imagination. The refinery was completely destroyed, with terrible consequences...” she faltered as the holo display switched again, zooming in to an individual node as it exploded. The viewers looked on as fiery debris erupted in all directions, spreading and overlapping the expulsions from adjacent nodes and eventually shrouding the atmosphere in a tormented blanket of burning metal and rock.

  Maria forced a dry, painful, swallow and continued. “The fragments of the refinery fell into the atmosphere,” she said, watching the emitter replay the events as she told them. “The larger pieces penetrated the atmosphere and bombarded the surface, destroying every major population centre.” The holo emitter moved on to display images of burning hulks of metal and rock slamming into cities and towns on the surface, and exploding with a ferocity that made the Planetsiders in the room gasp, even Talia. Summer clasped a hand over her mouth, while Ethan nervously clenched his hands. Neither could tear their eyes away from the images. “The smaller fragments burned up in the atmosphere, polluting it and causing toxic rains that fell for years afterwards,” Maria finished, solemnly. “The effect was a near-total annihilation of the planet’s population.”

  There was a moment’s pause, as the holo display reached the end of its depiction, and gently turned off, with a soothing hum and slow dimming of its light. The grace with which the emitter ended its story was so at odds with the violence of the images it had displayed that it only added to the intensity of the event.

  Eventually, Talia spoke, her eyes burning with intensity. “But we survived,” she said, looking at Maria. “We are here!”

  “Yes,” Maria said, her voice trembling slightly. “Some of the suburban areas escaped the heaviest bombardments, and more remote areas and populations were less severely hit,” she hesitated, “but there is more...”

  “Killing everyone on the surface not enough for you, was it?” The interjection was from Summer. She had been silent for long enough.

  Maria looked over the table and saw the flame-haired warrior staring at her with dagger-like eyes. Maria chose not to respond directly, and instead continued to direct herself to Talia, albeit a little more hesitantly than before. “A side effect of the detonations on the surface was a spread of toxic dust. The chemical composition of this contaminant had disastrous effects on our biology, mutating genes and causing irrecoverable neurological damage. It would begin relatively benignly, but as the damage progressed over time, the affected would begin to lose all sense of self and all emotional empathy, turning into a base, almost primal being, yet one that still possesses the knowledge and core abilities they had prior to being affected.”

  Ethan had no idea what the words, 'biology', 'genes', and 'neurological' meant, but he knew precisely what Maria was referring to. “The Maddening,” he said, sombrely. Ethan had come into this room expecting knowledge to set his mind free and help him put his life into perspective, but nothing he had learned had made him feel any easier, and more in control. If anything, he felt foolish for being so naive.

  Maria looked at Ethan. He had the look of a man who had been told an awful secret and instantly regretted knowing it. Maria could tell that Ethan was in turmoil. “The Maddening, as you call it, is not really a disease,” said Maria, “it is worse. Those who survive long enough eventually change. They become something else; something… inhuman.”

  “So why are we not affected?” asked Talia. It sounded like a challenge.

  Maria shifted in her seat. She was not used to the bare wooden furniture and was starting to feel numb. “You are second-generation descendants of people who survived,” she said. “Your grandparents and great grandparent were not affected because of a very rare natural immunity, which you have inherited.”

  “Oh, aren't we so special and lucky?” It was Summer again, the bitterness clear in her voice.

  Talia looked over at Summer and held a hand up. Summer bit her tongue, but her eyes remained fierce and locked onto Maria. “So that explains us, Maria,” said Talia, a little frostily, “but, forgive me, we did not ask for or desire a history lesson, and you have still not explained why you are here.”

  Maria nodded. “No, I understand, but the background is important as to why we’re here, and we also wanted to show that we’re not your enemy.”

  “That remains to be seen,” snapped Summer. “Just get to the point.” This time Talia failed to reprimand her. Clearly, she mirrored her feelings, and was also beginning to become frustrated. The girl was starting to grate on Maria now, but she pushed her anger aside. Now was not the time.

  “We’re here because of your immunity to the toxic effects of orrum radiation poisoning,” said Maria, unable to fully mask her own irritation. “We do not possess the same resistance.”

  “Why do you need to?” said Talia, confused. “You don’t live here.”

  “No, I appreciate that, but it wasn’t only the planet that was affected by the collapse of the refinery.” Maria replied, feeling now that the meeting was a mistake. Perhaps Plan B should have been their first choice, after all. “The moon was also bombarded with debris, albeit to a far lesser degree,” she continued. “Many died, but the structure of the base, and the lack of atmosphere, meant that contamination was largely averted. But not prevented entirely. We had to fight to survive, just like you.”

  Summer spat out a laugh. “You're nothing like us!” she cried, enraged. “You're the cause of all this. Whether directly or indirectly, it doesn’t matter. You’re the reason why there are so few of us, fighting to survive, living in fear every day from Roamers and The Maddened. It's all because of you!”

  Maria tried to reason. “We didn't cause this; we were victims, like you. We were attacked!”

  Summer stood up angrily, throwing the chair out from behind her. It crashed against the wall and broke. “Victims!?” Summer yelled. She hammered her fists on the table and leaned in, glaring at Maria. “Dorman was a victim,” she added, coldly. “Go and tell his family how we should feel sorry for you. Go on, they’re just outside.”

  “Please, this isn’t helping,” said Maria.

  “Go outside and tell them!” Summer screamed.

  Since Maria’s presentation had ended, Ethan had been quiet, lost in his own thoughts. Much of the last few minutes had washed over him, registering more on a subconscious level. War had always been a theory, of course, amongst the few who ever talked ab
out The Fall, but to Ethan it seemed impossible. What war could possibly have led to such destruction, and for what purpose? Surely, one side would want something to ‘win’, so there would have been no reason to lay waste to everything. And since all that remained after The Fall was a desperate few survivors, Ethan never believed in the war hypothesis. To him, the only logical explanation was some sort of natural disaster – on a catastrophic scale, to be sure – but not engineered or contrived by human minds. And, as one of the few who had seen the great machines in the cities, he had always held out a faint hope that some had escaped the devastation, and fled to faraway, safe lands, or even to the stars, and would one day return and help rebuild their world.

  Maria had shattered these fantasies in less time than it took Ethan to cook a meal. War had been the cause; their ancestors had been at fault. And though some did survive, out in the darkness above them, they were not saviours. They had come here looking for their help. Boiled down to the basic facts, it was almost an insult, and Ethan could see why Summer was angered.

  Ethan simply felt like a naive fool. He had encouraged the search for these people, and persuaded the administrators to hear them out, confident in his own mind that they were on the verge of some universal truth, something that would give them hope for a better future, maybe give them direction. But, here they sat, the cold truth laid bare. And the truth was that two strangers had come, asking for help, and the administrators wanted no part of it. The story of The Fall was like a cautionary tale – a fairy story – taught to children to make them fear the past, so they would look to the future, free from its corrupt influence. These two strangers were a living reminder of that time, an embodiment of everything the settlers were taught to fear. But Ethan was not afraid, and he would not abandon the visitors. Perhaps it was guilt over Dorman’s death in pursuit of his own, selfish obsessions, or stubborn pride, or just a need for something good to come from this, but Ethan would not let them be pushed away.