Type 88

Part 6 - Crunch Crunch, Chapter 12

12

Five Days until the Deadline

Lars waited in a lobby, two million light-years from Earth. The lobby was positioned in the depths of a ship roughly the size of the sun.

A sliding door opened in front of him.

He entered a cavernous room coated with flawless black steel. The steel reflected light beams across the room, exposing pathways, seating arrangements, and a council of elders positioned in the far side of the area. The light cast enormous distorted shadows of the twenty-two leaders of the most advanced galaxies in the universe.

The council was engaged in conversation. The sound echoed through the room, moving like traffic on a freeway. Each piece of dialogue seemed to reverberate infinitely, diminishing into nothingness, rendering it indistinguishable from its source.

A mist rose from steam vents under the floor and filled the air between Lars and the council.

Lars walked through the fog and addressed the council from a steel podium. He was close enough to discern the characteristics of each being's race but not enough to recognize any individual at the table.

The council's conversation subsided.

"Hello," Lars started. "I'm member 74, responsible for overseeing the repurposing of the planets in the Milky Way galaxy, in coordinate 48 of the Ricochet program. We've repopulated the inhabitants of sixty-eight planets into the Ricochet One airship. The airship is large enough to comfortably house three times that number if necessary. The inhabitants will move back to their planets once repurposing is complete."

Some of the council members discussed something out of Lars's earshot. Muffled sounds passed him. When the sound faded, the members in the middle of the table nodded, signaling for him to continue.

"We have also identified more than four hundred infested planets," he said.

Lars described common forms of infestation that his team had encountered: miscreant outcasts from a neighboring intelligent planet, rudimentary beings incapable of critical thought, and so forth.

"We have identified another infested planet in coordinate 48. We've classified this as a type 88 planet. This categorization indicates that the creatures on this planet have enough catastrophic weaponry to pose a significant threat to our contractors who are surveying the system."

A few council members stirred. Lars continued.

"A type 88 planet is not a cause for alarm to the council. These creatures are not advanced enough to act against anything outside their own nests. The best course of action for a type 88 planet, unfortunately, is to completely rid it of its infestation. These creatures are resilient, so the process for doing so will render the planet useless for future intelligent inhabitants in the immediate future. After the process is complete, the surface will be functional enough for storage purposes in that time frame.

"Of course, we do not own the equipment required for a sterilization procedure this deep. Type 88 protocol is as follows. The first step is to determine the planet's primary method of communication. This exercise proved trivial, as the creatures had not yet breached their neural networks. They were using sound waves to communicate.

"Next, we leveraged their instrumentation to communicate to the creatures that they had ninety rotations left to live before we destroyed and repurposed their planet. This stimulated them, as expected. Ninety rotations was enough time for the creatures to eradicate themselves with their own weaponry. This also destroyed their stockpile of weapons before our contractors carried out the expensive and risky procedure of disassembling it."

    A council member interrupted Lars. "How, at this distance from the event horizon, are sterilization techniques for violent, archaic creatures still necessary? How the fuck have they not reached singularity?"

    Lars waited for the shadowed council member to continue, unsure if the question was rhetorical.

    Another council member chimed in. "Have they followed procedure?"

    "They've started the last step. Once complete, we'll deploy our contractors for cleanup," Lars said.