Chapter 21: Inferno

'I, a representative of the New Rocky government, would like to extend out an open hand towards the people of the Olympus system, as I have not only garnered all of the resources that the Rocky military can offer, but also the support of all of the Rocky based businesses. The New Rocky government would be happy to assist and supervise in a mass evacuation of the Olympus system towards the Geb system, which is a binary system with a handful of scarcely terraformed planets that are able to handle a large percentage of Olympus's population.' Brakagi said in an address which is broadcasted to the entire galaxy before continuing onward.

'For days, I have waited for the galactic government to act, and yet the slow response from the official branch and the horrific attempt to silent scientific researchers only showed me the corrupt and failure of a system that towers over the citizens of Olympus. I do not ask for anything in return for our assistance, for the fact that there are also Rocky brothers and sisters that are living in the Olympus Prime system.'

'I only ask for your consideration when it comes time to put down the one that you wish to lead the galaxy.' Brakagi finished, and behind him, the armada of Rocky ships that are stripped clean of everything except barebone living quarters lifted off from the edge of the Geb system. He and his entire inner circle has taken the time to set up a headquarters on Geb 4, a Rocky planet. The Rocky Laborer's Alliance has been working on the altering of the planet's environments and atmosphere for the past little while under his instructions, so it would at least be borderline suitable for humans when the time comes. According to the scheduled travelling time, with all of the ships accelerating towards the Olympus system, they should be able to get there in only a few days.

'The galactic government appreciate the helping hands extending from the New Rocky government, however, I can assure all of you that the situation is under control.' Dr Dorry May said in a recent address directly responding to Brakagi, 'please follow the evacuation instructions according to officials of Olympus 1 and 2 and do not make any rash decisions based on fear and panic.

Then, with the slamming of the current galactic government officials and the praising of the New Rocky governments, Dr Dorry May went into hiding once again. This time, she is absolutely slandering the Big Ten whose empty promises has not yet be fulfilled. Part of herself already expected this to happen when the support was provided all the way back, however, this is the time that she needed their support and funding the most!

Without the support of the Big Ten, all of their millions and millions of ships and vessels will not be mobilized in the evacuation effort. In fact, most of them are still conducting normal business without a single consideration for the planets that may cease to exist.

'So this is what you want?' Dr Dorry May slammed her fist down onto the table, possibly bruising a few of the ligaments in her hand, 'you want to get shown up by the Rockies and their tenth placed company?'

'Mobilizing and moving resources isn't as easy as you make it sound.' The representatives of the banks and investment firms said defiantly, as their stance on the conspiracy has completely withered away following the evidence. However, obviously no one in the galaxy will know about their prior stance regardless of how stupid and unethical they might have seemed.

'Then how the hell did they get it all sorted?' Dr Dorry May pointed at the official figures as provided kindly by Brakagi, 'don't give me this bullshit. You are delaying the evacuation efforts because you don't want to miss out on fractions on profit, which is also coincidentally linked to the amount of bonus you are receiving!'

'That's some serious accusation.' The representatives all felt personally attacked Dr Dorry May's words, 'keep walking down this line, and you will regret it.'

'Cut your bullshit.' The young boss of Infinity has finally had enough, 'The funding and support from us will be yours by tomorrow. Use it to mobilize all civilian fleets, commercial ships and space force ships to get as many out from Olympus 1 as possible.'

'Understood.' Dr Dorry May said, looking over to the rest of the room, 'this will only be a fraction of what we need. Get on it. Don't do it for the people, do it for your PR.'

As a further announcement is made the next day, with the support of Infinity, all civilian fleets and ships are able to now claim for a certain amount of credits for the number of people that they have rescued from Olympus 1. The company Star Gate Alliance and Aquarian Angels also pledged to evacuate as many people as they can, however, it is only expected that chaos will ensue with little planning.

The biggest issue is that of the destination of those relocated people. The actual influence of the resettling orbit of Olympus B is unknown at this point thanks to the updated Falling Star model which threw a wrench into the findings of the initial model as proposed by Caliditas, the now revolutionary Rocky scientist. Building off the previous version of the models, a variety of predictions have been claimed and a variety of model created, ranging from some 'academics' claiming the destruction of the entire Olympus system and the others saying it will mean nothing more than a hotter summer.

The official model is still following the similar predictions of the previous model, which showed Olympus 1 being tossed into Olympus B, and Olympus 2 ejected from the system. This is still looking to be the case, but it is now uncertain what kind of things will happen to Olympus Prime.

There are people that are taking the stance of being the remainers, as they claim it is all a haux and refused to leave Olympus 1, while some paranoid people that lives around the outer asteroid belt of the Olympus system hastily made arrangements to head to the nearest systems.

Primarily, the guidance from the Olympus 1 and 2 governors is that most of the people should be moved from Olympus 1 to Olympus 2, as the effects of ejection from a system, albeit horrible, is much more of a slower and manageable fate than being thrown into the literal inferno of the suns.

And with that, those that can afford to get onto the first waves of ships and those that bribed their way for the last remaining space hopped onto the poorly put together civilian ships and left their doomed planet, as they looked on at the sea of people waiting for their turn.

The global temperature of Olympus 1 is also greatly increased as the sudden explosion of ships entering and exiting the atmosphere left behind nothing but trillions of tons of waste gas, as the space elevators are already overwhelmed to the point of being borderline useless.

Like in any crisis, there are always those that take advantage of such situations, and some ships began selectively taking clients based on the amount of bonus credits that they offer, as the initial pledges from the Galactic government is only able to cover the basic fuel costs and nothing much further. This isn't only occurring in the civilian ships, however, as news also reported those that are working for the Big Ten is also acting as such, which sparked further public outrage and riots all across the planet.

That's when some realized most of the law reinforcement forces have also moved off planet, alongside most of the government body of Olympus 1. Of course those idiots in the office will seek to get themselves the hell out of the situation before everybody else.

With the lacking of law reinforcement forces apart from some mere droids that were left behind, those few anarchists in the remainers were able to enjoy their days of freedom, looting and doing whatever they please to the ghost towns of Olympus 1.

The forces of the New Rocky Governments soon arrived, and their armada loaded up thousands and thousands of people at a time like cargo before turning around and heading towards the Geb system. The people hailed when the thousands of ships clouded the sky, but realized the cold hard truth when only those with a certain economic and political status are allowed on. Obviously, those that are on the highest echelon's of Olympic 1 has already left the planet, but those that are right beneath are still mostly stuck behind. Knowing that, the New Rocky ships opened up their doors, promising endless land, freedom and resources on Geb 4.

There is further public outcry, but it only took a single sentence from the Rocky generals leading the ships to divert the crowd's attention.

'Now that the rich and the powerful are with us, they will no longer be taking your life lines.'

With the ships loaded up with influential people, the Rocky fleet began to turn around and head back towards Geb 4, as new basic colonies are being set up all the time. With those bribers and cheaters finally off the planets, the everyday people is finally able to get on the ships, though the loss of extra income also swayed away a portion of civilian ships.

Around fifty per cent of the planet's population is evacuated in a few days, but with every passing day, there is less and less ships coming back to pick up the remainder.

For those that are lucky to get onto the ships, what awaited them on Olympus 2 isn't anything to be happy about, as large storage compartment and underground factories and mines were turned into temporary shelters, as food and other essential resources are hard to come by. Thankfully, the built in life support system ensured that at least diseases won't spread throughout the refugee communities. Though, those systems have been working overtime due to the major overloading of people coming into the planet.

As expected, clashes between the refugees of Olympus 1 and the residents of Olympus 2 occurred on frequent basis as more and more people began to arrive from the neighboring planet. Initially when the resources were less scarce and space less packed, the planet's residences welcomed the refugee with open arms. However, as the more and more and more shipments of people arrives, the local infrastructures began to slowly deteriorate and breakdown. Though, those from the Big Ten were able to muster up enough donation and inflow of resources into Olympus 2 to at least handle a few waves of hungry humans.

Good progress were made, and pro-evacuation media focused on the good and selfless deeds of the people while anti-evacuation media slammed the government showing images of the unrest, empty shelves and fighting people with squadrons of riot droids being deployed. The media feasted off the publicity and the public panic, as the galaxy became one that's gradually dividing over time. However, if there is anything in common, it's the distrust towards the government, as the pro-evacuating beings complained about the delay of full evacuation and withholding of information while the anti-evacuating beings slammed the responses.

Dr Dorry May has now taken steps to ensure the operation of a daily address to the Olympus system, which is also broadcasted to the wider galaxy for all to see. As she reported yet another day of successful evacuation of one billion people by the end of the day, the entire galaxy came to a collective horror as they began to realize something.

Olympus 1 is getting too close to the sun, and those that remained on the planet are now feeling the full brunt of the impact.

Being the closest planet towards the smaller of the Olympus system's binary suns, the majority of the planet's infrastructure is built in underground cities before the major orbital infrastructure were put in place to shelter the majority of the planet's surface from the deadly radiation and solar winds. That is where the majority of the planet's population is. The intense heat of the surface is also a side bonus when it comes to thousands and thousands of ships landing and taking off as it won't really affect the non-existent ecology on the planet.

One of the many horrendous things that will happen as a result of perturbation of stable orbits is the storms of asteroids that will be slung around by the shifting gravitational fields, like the weapons of a magician. Thanks to the vastness of space, most planets and habitats are able to flat out evade and avoid the majority of asteroids, though at times, they will need to utilize the point defense systems and move out of harms way.

This is especially troubling for the evacuating ships, as they are already struggling with safe gaps between space ships when approaching the entrances of the underground cities. There have been stories of ships being severely damaged by the occasional high flying rock that managed to evade the detection and point defense systems, though there have been no news about whether any has been completely destroyed.

This is no time to relax, however, as the later models predicted that the asteroid belts will be further mobilized as Olympus B went further in its exodus. Then, the asteroid belt formed around the center point of the binary suns will likely rain down hell on the remaining planets, orbital rings and spinning habitats.

'Where...where are the ships today.....' The families that arrived at the underground city's barren exit looked around in horror at the empty airfield up over their head, as the limited space above had been filling up with evacuating ships just days prior, and yet today there is none.

'No...Aquarian Angles promised they will dispatch ship today! They promised!' Another in the crowd hailed out, as a few others dropped onto their knee upon realizing that they have been abandoned on the doomed planet.

'Mama? What's going on?' A child who's playing a mini-game on her personal interface looked away from the hologram for the first time in a while and looked to her mother who's motionless as she looked up. She was murmuring something, but the child couldn't make out what she is saying.

'The sun is shining extra bright today.' Far our in the edge of the underground cities, a group of anti-evacuating teenagers sat around in a circle as drinks were passed around between them, 'I thought the passive light filters are still going to keep working regardless of whether there is someone at the post?'

'You right, Jimmy.' The girl wearing nothing but a white t-shirt and her underwear lied down and looked overhead at the windows specifically designed to let in a suitable amount of visible light while reflecting away harmful radiation, 'sure is nice to be quiet though. All of the idiots are gone.'

'Look what I have found!' Walking towards the circle, a young white teenager with black hair approached holding a big bag of drinks and foot he 'salvaged' from the empty stores, 'it's going to be a feast today!'

The teenagers rolled up and gathered around him as their eager hands ripped into the bags and split up the assortment of snacks, drinks and fruits. As they eat away at the foods, Olympus B is also starting to eat away at the planet. The density of the radiation is now far above the normal deadly levels as the energy unleashed from the fusion reactions rained down on Olympus 1's surface and torching everything into oblivion.

The underground cities were consumed in an instant, dissolving into the planet's surface like a chip in the teenager's mouth.

In an instant, the remaining billions of people on Olympus 1 are gone...in fact, Olympus 1 is no more, so perhaps the previously known Olympus 2 should be renamed? Seeing how now a third of the population are refugees from Olympus 1.

It is at this time that all of the anti-evacuating beings in the galaxy were slapped in the face, as the rest of the galaxy watches on. Cellica dropped onto her knees, stunned as she watches every second of the planet's destruction. The bearers, who's now just entered the system couldn't see anything with their eyes, but the ship's confused scanners let them know that they are too late. Everything happened way too quickly, and the galactic government has wasted precious days doing nothing to help those people.

All of the survivors are angry, and so is the rest of the rest of the galaxy.

Dr Dorry May has now instead opted for performing her daily briefing in her office, as angry people flooded the streets. Those that had connections and families on Olympus 1 were the ones that were hurt the most, and a large number of them also served in the police and security forces on Olympus prime. After this day, they are no more than a group of angry people demanding change.

Riots and conflicts busted out all around the galaxy against the current galactic government and their inaction, and the fire rages on for days.

However, there is no time to waste, let alone a time to mourn. Olympus 1 is gone, and Olympus 2 is next.

The bearers sat around the empty ship, as all of them are dead quiet. The galaxy has never experienced a loss to this proportion, and nobody knows how to react.

However, they do know how to act.

They need to do whatever they can and save Olympus 2!

'Let's get the fuck going.' Cellica said as she entered into the ship and reunited with the bearers, her jaded colored eyes red.