Quoted By:
“Four days ago, the NOVEMBER RAIN finally cleared the depths of MIZAR-VI’s gravity well. After feathering our drive output down to a comfortable half-gee of acceleration, we swung ourselves into the orbital path of the recon drone we had planted last month. MERRYGATE and I had originally planned to let it collect information over an extended period of time, but our strike on the water collection facility made that plan untenable. The entire system was on high alert. Aggressive scan patterns scraped against every solid object in the system. Leaving an asset - even a stealthed asset - in such an environment introduced risks we could no longer afford.
However, the amount of information we recovered from the probe was considerable despite its shortened stay. Decrypted shipping manifests and communication logs painted a picture of a system in disarray. Our strike on MIZAR-VI’s ice moon had destroyed both the facility responsible for water production and hauler fleet responsible for distributing its latest output cycle. As a result, there was no buffer period: no time for the Mizarians to plan out a slow, rationed withering. For the space-borne colonies and stations beyond the reach of terrestrial water, desiccation would come in months rather than years.
Watching their transmissions confirmed my earlier suspicions. The aliens were indeed capable of panic. Camera feeds showed schools of Mizarians swimming in tight, erratic circles as they signaled to each other with frantic bursts of bio-luminescence. A certain visual pattern - fluorescent dark red followed by a bone-white flash - increased in abundance by several orders of magnitude. MERRYGATE took an interest, sharing her observations with me during our conversation last night.
“The pattern serves as both a phrase-motif and a visual onomatopoeia,” she said, showing an image of a radiation-ravaged Mizarian taken during the attack on MIZAR-IX.
“Their tissues bleach shortly after they perish. A product of the unique pigments their biology uses for gas exchange.” She removed the image. “As a result, the visual pattern you see invokes both the event of death and its proximal cause”
“Which is?”
“Lack of water. Suffocation. This motif signifies fear of desiccation. And the regularity of its use signifies panic”
- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 27, PERSONAL JOURNAL
[EMPIRE INTEGRITY: 82% AND DROPPING]
WATER PURIFICATION COLONY DESTROYED
4 TRANSPORTS DESTROYED
2 CORVETTES DESTROYED
2 LIGHT CAPITALS DESTROYED
65,000 DEAD
