Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 47 - No Evacuation
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- Mar 24
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Potential weapon of mass destruction, said the report.
“The High Inspector thought someone from the Intelligence Committee should be here,” said the spaceport guard, leading the way.
Recommendations for evacuation—ranging from the spaceport freight terminal to half of Omech Krreng.
Rige Khuksos struggled to keep pace with the uniformed man, about to run out of breath. The Assembly robes were custom fit, but still pinched under her rib cage, the result of getting dressed in a mad rush.
No one got evacuated. Threat assessment first, measured reaction later. No panic was allowed at the seat of the galactic government.
“Well, I am here,” she said. “Is it far?”
The guard, joined by three spooked-looking colleagues, pointed toward the end of the corridor.
“Around the corner, across containment, Assembly Member.”
Rige adjusted her robe, loosening its grip on her upper body, and pulled on the insignia until she could take a deep breath. A strand of hair touched her cheek. She hated being rushed.
The corridor dragged on. Wasn’t this a freight processing facility? Every bit of merchandise entering Omech Chaa got cleared here, processed, and transported. The people working here, however, seemed to content themselves with walking.
“Is there a transport loop?” asked Rige.
“We’re almost there, Assembly Member. The containment facilities are rarely used. The max security one hasn’t been used while I’ve worked here. Sorry… I apologize for the long walk.”
When the joint Isonomih-Traaz fleets were in orbit during the Battle of Omech Chaa, people on the Assembly moon panicked at the sight of warships in orbit and large aliens landing, but what shocked them for a generation was the eternal institution of the Assembly losing its cool, triggering never-before heard alarms, never-before seen shield domes. The notion of the Assembly fearing an enemy weighed heavier than that enemy themselves.
The small guard procession led her through thick blast doors into a square room with matte black walls, featureless and empty, except for a single cargo container, and two women eying her with the mixture of reverence and dread Rige had gotten to appreciate.
“Chairwoman Khuksos,” said the older, “I’m High Inspector Byiv.”
Rige cut off further formalities: “What is in the box?”
“I don’t know,” said Byiv.
Rige inhaled.
“… but it emits signature 10-X3.”
Rige swallowed the tirade she was about to unleash. “Guards, wait outside.”
The men and women shuffled through the blast doors like children sent to bed just before an interesting live stream happened. Rige pointed at the younger woman, kneeling next to the container.
“You, too. Out!”
“This is Cargo Specialist Riktezh,” said the inspector, “she discovered the anomaly. And found a way to provide a visual scan of the container’s inside. She has already seen what there is to see, sufficient clearance or not.”
Rige made a mental note of the name and stepped over to the display attached to sensor lines clinging to the container.
“Very well, Cargo Specialist. Show me what you found.”
The projection flickered slightly, but then rendered an image of a tube, or cylindrical pod.
“Judging by us standing in some sort of blast chamber, I assume this is a bomb.”
“As I said, Assembly Member, we don’t know yet. A bomb is one possibility. My orders after detection of a 10-X3 were clear. Will you take control of the facility?”
Signature 10-X3 was a scanning profile added to the standard set of routine scans performed by Levy fleet vessels, orbital facilities, and outposts. It was designed to find the sphere drive array Linuka Omga stole. Was this a part of it?
“No. You keep everything running here as normal. Except for posting guards on the blast door. No one not designated by me enters this room. I am glad you did, but why did you scan for that particular signature, Inspector?”
“We copy the scanning protocols of the fleet, Assembly Member.”
“I see. Why does the image keep flickering?”
“Phase jitters,” said the cargo specialist. “The scanner needs to adjust whenever they happen. They are part of the signature.”
Rige’s committee had signed off on 10-X3 being added to standard procedures, but she had little hope of ever receiving a positive ID. Linuka Omga would not make such a mistake, let her precious alien tech be re-discovered. Unless she wanted to.
“How did this get here? Who sent this, and to whom?”
“An unscheduled drop-off after an illegal landing. A freighter, running fake transponders, had touched down briefly and left this container behind. We ran the security feed, and the vessel could be visually identified.”
“Someone can just land near the center of the galactic government, and drop off a suspicious package, and leave?”
“The transponder cleared them as a fleet vessel. We assumed quantum-sealed transponders to be unfalsifiable. But that is clearly no longer the case. We could, however, match the ship to a freighter on the watch list. It was involved in a break-in at the districting office.”
Rige tiredness was gone. This was the ship Linuka Omga used to flee Omech Krreng, after collecting a group of prisoners to join her cause. Linuka Omga had dropped this piece of Võmémééř tech off the Assembly’s doorstep, not even trying to hide her involvement. Rige touched her temple implant. The Ṭawːtfé̃ incident debriefing. Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa’s statements. Me-Ruu’s mission log. Data collections saturated her consciousness.
“Cargo Specialist, is there a wire coiled around the cylinder?”
“From certain angles it appears that way.” Riktezh’s hand turned the projection. “Here.”
With each flicker, the cylinder switched between looking solid and transparent in a ghostly manner. What looked like a thin stripe of fabric spooled around the object, waving in a non-existing breeze.
Most front line reports from the Reality War read like mythological ramblings: colossal aliens rising into the sky, unbeatable hordes committing unspeakable cruelty, weapons so advanced they shifted in and out of reality. Images of Võmémééř warlords dwarfing mountains near Ngeem gba Shaaj, lost planetary populations, death-counts so high the numbers became meaningless, and dry Isonomih analysis of fantastical devices.
The war had happened. Elsewhere. She had better insight into detailed events than most, but it was never immediate; concerning. It had been distant, folkloric, historical at best. This container had reached the Assembly moon—and the war had reached her. At arm’s length was a device of unlimited complexity, designed for the most elemental task.
No evacuation. Rige was glad she had made that call. There was no point, unless someone wanted to evacuate the entire star system. She chuckled at the futility of the blast doors, the room’s containment lining. Linuka Omga did not send a piece of the sphere drive array. She did not send a message.
She sent a causality bomb.
Like her mother, Linuka Omga had seen only one way to settle her affairs with the Assembly: by destroying it.
Copyright © 2026 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.
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