Microstory 699: The Light Wars Destroy a World

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With the stars slowly learning how to shine upon us once more, vibrant lifestyles are returning to the galaxy. New plants are growing, and genetically engineered animals are returning to their habitats. We are not yet at 100% realization of our potential, but we are getting there. Unfortunately, our war with the Thuriamen is still going strong. And while our resources are bouncing back quickly, we are still struggling to maintain a significant military force. For the most part, battles have been fought in our enemy’s territory, and we’ve even been able to secure some regions of one dimension that once belonged to them. They have managed to cross the dimensional brink several times, however, and threatened the lives of our citizens. Thankfully, they’ve abandoned Earth, so we’ve not again had to protect the veiled Earthans from learning the secret to our presence. Our enemies have instead chosen to focus on destroying everything they can find in Fostea. In one such instance, they managed to enter our borders completely undetected, using a tactic in a complex dimension that we could not have predicted. This technique is generally impractical, because it takes so long to accomplish, but we should not have underestimated their capacity for patience. When Sotiren predicted in the taikon passages that a world would be destroyed by light, we naturally believed this would happen to one of the less important ones. Our hubris prevented us from seeing that our faith is in the middle of being tested, and we will not get off that easy. While many stars in the galaxy remain shrouded—for the solution is a long process—many still have already been fixed. Of course we began to rebuild with the central worlds, never dreaming that this would later be used against us. When the small infiltration fleet fell into our dimension, they immediately headed for Eksterodos, the star at the center of the system that holds Merek, Poreia, and Mortire. Using technology we’ve never seen before, the Thuriamen concentrated and focused the sun’s powerful rays in one direction, which destroyed the central world of Poreia in a matter of minutes. A contingency in training on a moon of Mortire sprang into action, returning the favor to the Thuriamen, obliterating their ships before they could repeat the process for the other two planets. Fostea was placed on high alert, which allowed contingencies to annihilate enemy ships before they could do the same to other planets, but the damage to the first could not be changed. Nevertheless, our enemies will not win, for though everyone living on the planet is dead, the orbital itself remains, and Poreia will live again.