Chapter 6. The Oreanians Confront Reality as Others See It
Chapter 6. The Oreanians Confront Reality as Others See It
If you had attended Lt. Neiswender’s third seminar, you would better understand the degree to which the Parsygians envied and hated the Oreanians. Their own planet was practically devoid of natural resources, as it was composed mostly of hematite, a red iron ore, and they very much wanted access to Oreana’s vouronium. At this time, based on their perception of the Oreanians’ weakness, they planned on taking it.
The lightweight ISEA scout patrol vessels in orbit around Oreana—the most the Oreanian Council would allow under its new leadership—would be no match for the Parsygians’s advanced aircraft, weaponry, and rockets. This flimsy protection was easily stripped away by the invaders, and they were able to land and secure vital ground stations and population centers, utilizing the element of surprise and the lack of any Oreanian civil defense. The council members were slaughtered—their beloved birds screaming and screeching in the sky above them. Some of the younger women were kept for entertaining the Parsygian troops. The Orean men were mostly put to work digging vouronium and hauling it to the transport carriers; in some ways, you could say they exchanged one master for another.
They also launched rockets at Oreana that drove deep down below the planet’s surface, then exploded, breaking up the hard vouronium deposits and easing extraction; but some of these missiles were too powerful and buried themselves too deeply before detonation, which eventually began to upset the equilibrium of the planet. Fearing a major implosion and then explosion, and fearing even more the consequences of a solid orb of vouronium igniting, the Parsygians decided to take their booty and leave.
This was the situation Captain Chipman was about to discover and have to disclose to Joanni. Just as he had “destroyed” the mesmerizing, undulating ring of birds protecting Parsygian, the Parsygians, in turn, had now destroyed her special purple world—as she was about to fine out.
Image: It’s the end of the world as we know it. Source: “And He Discerns an Arid, Knoll-Covered Plain,” Odilon Redon, France, 1896. The Art Institute of Chicago. CC0 Public domain. Edited by J. Weigley