CHAPTER 12.2

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Approx. 1500 words

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015   SJ

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The Chaos Continues:

Chaos Calm

written by  SJ

 

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    Once Yarrick’s captured spaceship had left the Tolstoy solar system, it was like an eerie calm fell over the Galaxy. The only thing the inhabitants of the Sol Frontier could do now was wait.
    Times had changed since the days of Old Earth, where the people were treated like mushrooms, left in the dark and fed bull shit. Eventually, through the news and other agencies, they were made aware of the current Chaos situation. And since the people were treated like active members of a Galactic community, they acted like it (they didn’t panic). Getting together on community online forums, they talked, learned, and prepared, and in this case, they helped to pass budgets that would finance new planetary guns on many planets.
    In Proxima Altair, a task force was set up on the space station at Cornucopia; there, any new information could be received and analyzed. Scientists from the Emperor Corporation, Federal Government, and other agencies could meet there either personally or virtually in one centralized part of the space station. A laboratory was set up, and numerous other areas were turned into barracks for military troops (primarily Federal Marines), plus a space dock for larger spaceships such as cruisers and destroyers. The hotel never had so much business, just not in the way they had expected.
    Once a comprehensive conference room had been built and arranged, it was time for a meeting of the top representatives of the entire Sol Frontier:
    There was Melvin Cooper, elected President of the Sol Frontier Cartels; it was his job to manage the affairs of all the Cartels so that corporation money would benefit both the corporations and planetary communities.
    And then there was Leona Lebesque, elected Prime Minister of the Federal Government. It was her job to be a voice for the people. In many ways, she was similar to a president or prime minister on Old Earth, only she had no direct control over any military forces.
    Next was Tel’ba Mal. She was the Tau Representative to the Sol Frontier. There were many Tau living in the Sol Frontier. She was their representative, a link to the Tau Sept Worlds located on another spiral arm of the Galaxy.
    The first topic of the meeting were casualties.
    On Old Earth, casualties in the hundreds of thousands, and even in the millions, were inconceivable to the people of today’s Sol Frontier; many of them, after reading the old history books, had trouble even believing it. How could the people under such governments allow it to happen? The control Chaos had over some of the people of Cornucopia was beginning to lead them to believe that something similar had happened on Old Earth, only on a much larger scale. But, even that theory was hard to believe. The only thing they knew was that they were NOT the same as the humans of Old Earth; they were Terrans. And they hoped they’d left those violent ways behind them on a planet that was now as unlivable as they tried to be peaceful.
    However, as far as Chaos was concerned, that was a different story all together: they were from the WARP, a place of incomprehensible darkness, where, according to Librarian Marcellus, they had been imprisoned by the Universe, and somehow managed to escape. In this case, it wasn’t as if they were fighting another life form, but mindless automatons controlled by a force they scarcely could comprehend.
    However, the question of casualties had to be brought up:
    On Cornucopia, the Federal Marines had lost two killed. On Beta Aquilae, they had lost two Security Guards. And on Tolstoy, two more Marines were killed.
    General Parker had to be almost as good of a politician as a general. In a conference room where most of the representatives were present virtually, he carefully explained, in each case, why the Marines were killed. Afterwards, Librarian Marcellus backed him up, explaining, that in his opinion--things were only going to get worse until they were able to answer the question of what Chaos wants, and, more importantly, how they were so easily going back and forth from the WARP; until then, they were going to continue taking casualties, either that, or lose life on a planetary scale.
    As for the success the military had already had, according to High Commissar Yarrick, it would appear they had already wiped out one part of Chaos, the Khorne faction; but, to assume they were gone permanently would be way too premature at this point.
    The representatives of the Sol Frontier decided to cooperate: They allocated a budget so that a couple more Federal Marine squads could be raised, plus adding in some armored vehicles. They would also authorize the building of a heavy cruiser, and a couple more destroyers. As far as activating the full force of Warhammer 40K, they wanted to wait on that. They had no idea where or when Chaos would strike, next. It would appear that the fate of the Sol Frontier would be in the hands of scientists and researchers, whereas, it would be the military that would buy them the time they needed.
    The remainder of the meeting concerned the details of what the scientists had learned so far: They had obtained information about where WARP openings could appear, and information about WARP gates. The medical researchers were already in the process of supplying other planets with equipment to find WARP Worms in people’s brain, and the technology of how to treat someone infected.
    As the meeting dragged on, Marcellus tried to explain what Melinda had found on Alshain, giving them the names of the missing scientists, asking if they could find out more about them. They had mentioned something about an Orb, but, so far, they didn’t know if it was something they had brought with them, or something they had found, or if the Orb had been taken by Chaos, or destroyed.
    All in all, the meeting was considered a success. The allocation of more resources would be appreciated, and, in the long run, hopefully lead to a quick solution to the Chaos problem. But, Marcellus remained skeptical. For now, all the Sol Frontier could do was wait.
    ******
    Melinda Dion had stayed at the Alshain Research Outpost no longer than three days before returning. Unfortunately, she had found nothing more. She was happy to receive the information gathered by Yarrick at Zeta Reticuli, and some information gathered about the scientists while they were on New Terra and while on Tolstoy. However, the information was nominal at best:
    New Terra was where the six scientists seemed to have all met and got to know each other before going to Alshain, each of them running experiments that nobody else knew or cared about. From there, they went to Zeta Reticuli, visiting Jade, where raw power crystals were mined, then to Terra Zeta1, where the raw crystals were manufactured into different types of power crystals.
    Basically, a device called a AMCD (Anti-Matter Creation Device) would create and shoot very small amounts of anti-matter into a power crystal once it had been manufactured with the proper micro circuitry. This safely created an immense amount of power, the primary power source for many things used by the Terrans, from power plants, to spaceship engines, and weapons. It was, and always has been a foolproof system for over two hundred years. And it didn’t use the WARP.
    At first, Melinda thought she was on to something when she learned the scientist had gone to Terra Zeta1. But, when she found out that the scientists didn’t take any of the crystals or AMCDs with them when they went to Tolstoy, her power crystal theory went cold, but was not ruled out completely. On Tolstoy, the scientists mostly remained isolated; nobody knew what they were studying, and like New Terra, nobody bothered to find out.
    After the incident on the Alshain Research Outpost, Melinda knew she had a good team. Each of them had performed admirably. She knew that Lana Lyu LaFong was on Cheyenne studying to be a Level 3 Special Ops Marine, and in the future she would need a team of her own. That’s when she obtained authorization from the General to send herself and her team to Cheyenne so the two teams could get to know each other better. Plus, it would be an excellent opportunity for Melinda and Lana to meet and spend some time together again.

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