Ivan Kal - Out of the Ashes

“Of course Tomas.” Nadia said.

“The next thing I wanted to talk about is concerning the exploration fleet, and their discoveries. We need to start expanding our territory outside of Sanctuary, at the very least place some outposts.” Tomas said. They had retrofitted the 8 old ships that they brought with them from Earth into trans-capable explorer ships, and they have been exploring Sanctuary’s neighborhood and mapping out the trans-lanes for suitable systems.

“Well the most important piece of news is that we have found another trans-station in this system, close to the nebula’s boundary.” Laura said, referring to the inner boundary of the Sanctuary system. The nebula that surrounds them was around three light years at its longest and about two light years at its thinnest, in a cloud like shape. Sanctuary system was completely engulfed by it, existing inside a bubble that was around a light year in diameter. “And it is an outgoing one. But the most interesting thing is the system it leads to. The system is located some seven light years from here, on the other side from Nel and Sowir space, which is great. Also the system is filled with trans-stations, both outgoing and incoming. We have detected eleven outgoing and seven incoming, and have named the system Waypoint. It has six planets orbiting a yellow sun. A gas giant and five planets, sadly none of the planets are habitable, but one of the gas giant’s moons has air, the atmosphere has a bit higher oxygen percent, but it is habitable.” Laura added.

“Have we started exploring the lanes?” Seo-yun asked.

“Yes, two of them. One leads to a virtually empty system, just one tidally locked barren planet orbiting a red dwarf star. And the other one leads to a very interesting system. Almost the entire system is one big asteroid field orbiting a class M supergiant. We don’t know how it was formed, but the most probable theory is that the system once had more than three planets, and that following some kind of catastrophe the planets either crashed into one another or something else caused them to explode. The asteroid field is most likely the remnant of the planets. The asteroid field itself has quite a few planetoids and preliminary scans indicate that it is ore rich. We have also detected two outgoing lanes. One of which the explorer ship took out of the system, and it is currently traveling through it, so we will know the destination once it exits the trans-space. The other exploration ships are set to go through the other lanes in the Waypoint system over the next few days.” Laura responded.

“Good.” Tomas said. “Is there anything else?”

Elias coughed, “Yes. There is a thing that I think needs to be brought up. It concerns the policing of Sanctuary, and any other colonies we might have in the future.”

“What is the problem?” Tomas asked.

“Well, up until now the job of policing was left to my people, soldiers. And that was fine, there was little crime here, our population is small and everyone understood the need for unity. But now as time passes crime is steadily growing. Nothing serious for now, but it is only a matter of time until something drastic happens. And while I have people that are trained in doing police work, back from Earth, they are still a part of my army corps.” Elias said.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Nadia asked.

“This needs to change, we need a separate department that would deal only with police work.” Elias said.

“I agree.” Tomas said nodding. “I have been toying with an idea for something like this. Let me think about it for a bit, there is no rush I assume?”

“Not really, my people can handle the little things for now.” Elias said.

Tomas nodded again, “Alright then, if that is all let’s review the reports for last week.”

Sometime later Seo-yun walked through the gardens at the palace. It helped her relax after a hard day’s work. The sun was yet to drop below the horizon, so there was enough light that she could enjoy the sight. After a few steps she noticed a person sitting on a bench. She debated whether to leave or to approach. In the end she decided to approach. She walked to the bench and sat down. The person already sitting glanced at her, “Greetings Minister.” She said.

“Lanai.” Seo-yun responded.

They remained silent for a while, both looking at the flowers. Eventually Lanai Sumia broke the silence, “These are beautiful. I have never seen anything like them. Sadly, my people put little stock in things that have no purpose, we have nothing like this ‘garden’ of yours.”

“It does have a purpose, it soothes the mind. For some at least.” Seo-yun said, “And it looks nice.” She added.

“That it does.” Sumia agreed.

“They are from Earth, our home world.” Seo-yun said.

“Really? Your world must be a beautiful place.” Sumia said.

“It is, it can be. Sadly, my people have abused it much. We don’t value it as much as we should.” Seo-yun said.

“How so?”

“We’ve given little regard to what our actions were doing to our world. We’ve polluted our atmosphere, poisoned our ground. It took a war to make us see what we almost did to our world, and to ourselves.” Seo-yun shook her head.

“War… I still struggle to understand that. How someone can kill so many of their own kind. It is hard to understand.” Sumia said.

“It’s not so hard to understand. It is in our nature. We fought over small differences, and we fought for resources, we fought because of greed and power, and we fought because we simply could. And we fought for freedom, we fought to change things for the better.” Seo-yun said.

“I have read some of your history. You have always been divided into… Countries, I believe you call them, it is a hard concept to grasp, my people have always been one.” Sumia said.

“How did you settle your differences? You must have had them.”

“We did, but one wasn’t supposed to harm another of their own. It did happen from time to time, and it was harshly punished. But never on a scale of your wars. Disputes would be settled with Lus – a game, or talking to one another.” Sumia said.

“But what about other kind of differences, of belief. There must have been some who opposed the way things were in your society?” Seo-yun asked.

“It was understood that the way things were was unchangeable, no one would dare try and use force to change anything, not since the …” Sumia started, and then paused.

“Since what?” Seo-yun asked,

Sumia turned to look at Seo-yun for a moment, and then back at the flowers.

“Since the Order of Truth.” Sumia said slowly.

“What was that?”

“The darkest point in our history.” Sumia answered, “It might not seem like that to you, with your history, but to us it was something to never be spoken about out loud, but also never forgotten. It is the reason why no one tried to change anything with force. The Order of Truth was a religious movement in our past. It preached about a God that created Nel, and how our true home wasn’t on Nelus but in the heavens. They tried to force their belief of equality on others. They started a war, that ultimately led to a genocide, people of those times were forced to kill them all. That is how fanatical the Order was in their beliefs. That event made my people into what we are now. It united us, and also made us complacent with the way things were. Over time as we learned and grew things changed slowly, but still some had more power than others, and no one dared change anything. Then when we formed the Consortium equality became a reality. But only out in the colonies, Nelus stayed the same. Soon all those who believed in the old ways were on Nelus while the rest left for the colonies. Then at the end of the Consortium, all those people died, and Nelus remained.” Sumia said.