Quoted By:
“The dead moon showed signs of activity. Near the apex of its polar island chain, hibernating storm cells traced widening circles, drawing energy from a fresh thermal source shrouded beneath layers of radioactive ash. Infrared emission left a blue-black scar on the RAIN’s thermal readout. Exotic radiation flooded outwards, drowning out the monotonous clicking of isotopic cobalt decay.
It took two days for this process to become visible. The tiny, shrinking crescent that marked MIZAR-V-A recovered its vibrancy, shining abrupt turquoise whenever its northern hemisphere rotated into our visual field. By then, the thermal source had grown to encompass over a quarter of the moon’s surface area. Thinning high-altitude clouds dissipated to reveal a surface teeming with lattice-bound lights: the cold-blue heat of nanoscale chemistry implemented on a planetary level.
MERRYGATE maintains that this process is non-destructive. There is no purpose in disassembling a planet already rendered uninhabitable. This morning, she pointed to the patterns of estimated matter flow, focusing on the strange, towering structures budding upwards near the original island chain.
“Orbital transfer apparatus. For processing and ejection of refined matter.”
Moments later, I remember seeing the moon spin on our display, the solar terminator crossing the point where radioactive rock and dead water met a boiling tide of deconstructive machinery. There was something uniquely unpleasant about it. The distinction, perhaps, between murder and mutilation.
I thought back to the pact we had made with the out-system probe and its willingness to co-opt our goal of extermination. This was the outcome. Perhaps the probe had fired a portion of itself at the moon as soon as the radioactive fires had faded. Or perhaps it had happened even earlier: an inoculate of inert machinery covertly implanted into our armaments during the installation of our hypometric weapon.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
“Remember, companion,” MERRYGATE had whispered. “That the mass scaling problem remains. Any attempt at manipulating the activity of the system primary will likely demand most of its planetary system as…recompense.”
- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 16th, PERSONAL JOURNAL
