BLOGS

The battle flag ship Righteous Staff moved into the planet’s higher orbit to join the five hundred Varient Class assault cruisers present.
Cleric Ovisl of the Order of the Cleansed stepped onto the bridge’s visual interface plate, activating a holographic image that pieced together like a photonic jigsaw puzzle.
A face and a background formed before the cleric. A scene of fire, smoke and red-tinged devastation framed the visage.
“Cleric Ovisl,” the image uttered with a justified mix of fear and reverence.
Ovisl was one of those rare clerics who enjoyed venturing beyond the cloistered confines of the Yarilian Temple.
“Your presence is a most unexpected pleasure.” The image’s features broadened to a welcoming smile.
“I congratulate you on your victory over the heretics, General Pirqai,” Ovisl offered graciously.
The flag ship’s captain, Uriss, and Ovisl’s prime aid, Ipsol, flanked the cleric.
“Your praise is worth more than a mountain of treasure,” General Pirqai gushed. “Over thirty million heretics we have erased from this existence. Millions more await punishment for their crimes against the Bringers and those who uphold the Precepts.”
“I am pleased with the vigor of your efforts to crush dissenters and preserve the Precepts.”
Pirqai’s preening blinded him to the creeping coldness encrusting the cleric’s expression.
“Of course,” Ovisl continued. “Putting down uprisings have been something of a regularity for you from the day you assumed power. It is an endeavor that you have been exceptionally good at. Unfortunately, you govern a population that chooses willful disobedience over the wisdom of the Bringers. And your population has made that atrocious choice repeatedly enough as to have exhausted the patience the Bringers have for so long harbored toward the wayward.”
“I need more mediators,” Pirqai eagerly requested. “So that the wisdom of the Bringers can be reinforced. Plus, I need additional funding to construct new temples. I have had to raze thousands of temples that were used as bases for heretic activity. These measures in addition to my purges will decrease the likelihood of future revolts.”
“We have sent you enough mediators to fill all the temples in a dozen star systems,” Ovisl emphasized, glancing at his prime aid, who lifted a hand in agreement. “You have been provided with enough funding to purchase the Compact five times over. All to little avail. General, your world has become a hotbed of heresy and while you have managed to stamp out its activity in one area, in another it arises anew like a regenerating head on a multiheaded headed serpent.”
The gloss of accomplishment on the general’s face paled to a look of dire concern. “Blessed Cleric…I can assure you that after this day, there will be no more trouble from heretics…”
“I do not doubt that you sincerely believe that.” Ovisl turned away from the general’s image. “I do not doubt your loyalty or your faith. You are a true Child of the Bringers. What I do doubt is your ability to eliminate heresy permanently. Your world has become hopelessly contaminated. There is only one cure for what ails your population. Because your world is not essential to the existence of the Compact, this is a cure I can well afford to implement.”
Ovisl stepped off the plate and the general’s image disassembled amid a flurry of desperate pleas.
“You may begin decontamination, Captain.” Almost as an after thought, Ovisl added: “I am not nearly as patient as the Bringers.”
Captain Uriss briskly acknowledged the cleric’s command and snapped orders to Weapons Control, orders that reached the orbiting assault cruisers.”
A single object, shaped like an octagon and approaching the size of a large satellite, launched from each cruiser and the flag ship.
The objects burned through the planet’s atmosphere on guided trajectories. Most soared toward the planet’s five continental land masses. The remainder zeroed in on the planet’s largest oceans and seas.
The objects shattered in synchronized detonations less than a fourth of a mile above the surface. Purple clouds were released by the airbursts. The artificial cumulus billowed across the surface with a ravenous swiftness no natural storm system could hope to match. Chemical agents suffused the rapidly coalescing clouds; agents that paralyzed, asphyxiated, then burned its victims, not with fire but with acid.
Ovisl observed monitor footage from a hundred different angles of mass death below. The millions General Pirqai proudly proclaimed to have slaughtered became a pitifully faint tally in comparison to the five and a half billion claimed by expanding chemical clouds.
A sickly purplish shroud coated the atmosphere, displacing ecosystems, choking the planet in a worldwide grip of death.
Bridge monitors flashed grim images of charred corpses layering city streets, and rural lands. The chemical clouds even penetrated the waters, summoning sea creatures from murky depths where they floated lifeless atop acid-churned waves. Vegetation wilted and died. Mountains and buildings and other features constructed by sentient hands or molded by nature appeared unscathed by the chemical catastrophe. They were not. The chemical was persistent and in time, its lingering, corrosive effect would grind the staunchest structures to powder. Who knew when this planet would be livable again? A decade? Centuries? The creators of the chemical did not concern themselves with such a matter. Their only focus was the level of its lethality.
Ovisl lowered his head, muttering a solemn prayer, not for those among the deceased who had denied the truth of the Precepts, but for the many more billions of innocents who suffered the lamentable fate of being collateral damage.
“The Bringers will know their own and reward them for their faith and devotion.” Buoyant with the fervor of the righteous, Ovisl exited the bridge, followed by his prime aid.