[PINKY]

It was a late autumn and the winter chill was blowing in fast. I settled down in the comfort of my apartment to watch a JamHot Tv Earth Channel Broadcast about colonist family’s being recruited for one of the new “Sol 3” planets. Cal arrived home from college and settled down with me. He watched the program intensely; I knew the question was coming before he asked it.
“What happened to my parents Grandma?” his asked, his eyes looked at me imploringly. I knew the time had come; he was old enough to be told the truth of that eventful day. The day now referred to as the Calypsian Apocalypse.

Some 25 years ago is where it began, when the combined governments of Earth reached out into space and found the first Earth-like planet – Calypso and recruited colonists to inhabit the new world. We should have known after the first robot war. We should have known it was an omen from Lootius; the planet was destined for despair from the start. During the first war, thousands of humans were mutated, some beyond recognition. Many developed into new species, off-shoots of the human race, but they lacked our understanding of science and the universe. They learned to adapt, using rudimentary weapons such as knives and clubs. Still we kept sending more colonists and the robots eventually withdrew after the second great war. To this day no one knows the real reason for their withdrawal, they were never truly defeated. Some insist even now that they knew what was to come and evacuated to avoid destruction themselves.

The beginning of the end occurred shortly before the second robot war, when the famous entrepreneur NeverDie built a space station on the asteroid orbiting Calypso. It was a technical wonder, still unsurpassed even by today’s standards. These days his name is taboo, people still blame him for what came to be, but those of us that were there, those of us that were in the control room that day, and just two from the planets surface know the full truth. He could never have foreseen the day his dream, his technological marvel fell out of the sky and destroyed the planet we knew as home. Those of us that were there know what he sacrificed to save tens of thousands of lives on the planet, but most that survived from the asteroid, many running like cowards to their ships at the first sign of things to come, leaving without full passenger loads, they are the ones who blamed him, and there was simply not enough of us left to argue his defence.

The asteroid complex NeverDie christened “CND” thrived for many years, it was in the fifth year that the first signs of trouble presented themselves. Dub, a famous character of the era, who made his name with his historic Rugaritz find 3 years earlier, developed a new ore finder along with his long time friend McCormick and a master crafter named Auktuma. The finder they developed was so powerful it could scan the entirety of one vast dome on CND at a time, in just one sweep. With it Dub identified the largest Valurite deposit of all time, over a million metric tonnes of one of the most valuable commodities discovered by the colonials. No records exist to establish just how the details of the claim coordinates came to light, but when the news was leaked, it was too much for people to resist – hundreds of miners arrived at CND to extract a share. Riots occurred when colonial forces were called in to protect the claim that officially belonged to Dub, but seeing the numbers of casualties rising he relinquished the claim and CND saw its most prosperous time with trade increased a thousand fold due to the increased wealth of the population of the asteroid.

It was two months of solid mining later when the accident occurred. Like all minerals both on the planets surface and the asteroid, Valurite over time was self-replenished. It was one of the biggest attractions of the new colony for earth-bound residents looking for new opportunities. This was a world where unlike Earth, the natural resources were limitless. However, the Valurite was being extracted at such a rate it could not be replenished by the asteroid natural cycle fast enough, resulting in the creation of a massive cavern under Dome Two. There were 57 miners in the dome when it collapsed in on itself. The explosion caused by the reactor powering the dome was so powerful it took half of dome 3 with it, along with the East tower residential block, together killing a further 543 souls. The revival Terminals simply couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of simultaneous deaths and overloaded.
It’s been a long time since anyone had to mourn for a loved one. No one had experienced an actual “death” for over 500 years, not since the advent of the DNA re-sequencing programs of the repair terminals. That day was recorded in history as the Valurite Slaughter. Little did anyone realise how the eventual death toll that led from that horrific day would spiral beyond measure in the weeks to come. The domes never re-opened, the ruins being left as a permanent memorial to those who lost their lives.

The only positive that came from the Valurite Slaughter was the research programme on Revival Terminal Capacities that was founded. An entrepreneur by the name of Deathifer, eager to ensure the same thing would never occur on his own land area, invested hundreds of thousands of PED and much of his time researching the expansion of the capabilities of the Revival Terminal system. By recording only partially sequenced DNA as the time of death, Deathifier discovered he could program the system to rebuild the remainder of the sequence completing the strand. In doing so, he increased the capabilities of the Terminals ten fold. It would have been enough to save everyone lost in the Valurite Slaughter, but was too late coming. There was however one life that could be saved. Prior to the second Robot war, a Professor by the name of Barton was taken by the Robots. Only a finger was the ever found of his body. What eventually came about during the process of trying to re-sequence him resulted in the infamous Globster mutant of Deathifier’s Treasure Island. However, with the newly increased capabilities of the Revival Terminals, Deathifier realised he could extract Professor Barton’s partial DNA from a Globster and use the new DNA strand sequencer in the revival terminal to recreate the original. Professor Barton was returned to fully human form.

Several weeks passed, the pain of our losses not lessening with the passage of time. Many of us spent more time at CND than ever, somehow feeling we were closer to our lost loved ones. It was during one of the regular Sunday night memorial gatherings in the Control room of CND hosted by Lykke and Viargra Falls, the leaders of the Church, that the first reports of trouble came in from Crystal Palace Space Station. They had reported a near miss with CND. A ripple of laughter quickly died out when people remembered the reason for our gathering, a near miss between CND and Crystal Palace was an impossibility, for a start, their respective orbit heights above the planet were several hundred miles apart, and the nearest their paths came to crossing was when both in alignment to the planet, an event occurring only once every two years. However, NeverDie looked concerned and in turn the faces in the Control room slowly turned from smirks to pale grimaces.

The near miss, between the only two orbiting bodies of the Planet, according to the readout in NeverDie’s hands was a mere 23 miles distance apart. If the readout was correct, CND’s orbital height had decreased by at least 530 miles. The height of the Crystal palace orbit was only 150 miles from the planet surface. The realisation of what was just explained to us hit home. Panic struck, at this rate of descent, according to the readout, within three days the Asteroid would hit Calypso. In later years, the investigation showed the orbit started to decay the day of the Valurite Slaughter, the explosion knocking the Asteroid from its stable orbit and sending it ever decreasing towards the planet at a rate of over 63 miles a day.

We sat stunned, even the Nun and Priest present couldn’t find the words. Suddenly gunfire ripped through the control room, tearing at flesh, the stink of burning propellant stinging the inside of my nose. None of them stood a chance. The last thing I remember feeling was the sharp bite of a bullet entering my chest. Just moments before everything became dark, I saw the lone standing figure of a man with a smoking carbine. It was NeverDie.

Back on the planet, the laboratory computer deep in the heart of Treasure Island Castle burst into life, the audible noise of the hard drive whirling was the first thing that alerted the Professor. Logging in to establish what was causing this flurry of activity Barton quickly established an external link had been forged outside the laboratory network. Barton called his new friend to help him diagnose the problem. Deathifier recognised the digital signature instantly and shut down the computer as quickly as his fingers could manage. This signature was that of his old business rival NeverDie, an obvious attempt to steal the new Revival Terminal technology for himself was the conclusion. The radio burst into life, “Scan the Skies!” the voice boomed. Of course Deathifier recognised who it was, the radio was tuned into the memorial service on CND Radio, but how could he scan the skies without the computers on? It took 30 minutes to separate a computer from the network and hook it up to the external sensors, but both men realised what they were seeing seconds after boot up was compete. There were just 23 minutes until CND would hit the planet. “Get them back on!” screamed Deathifier, frantically powering the network back up. The data stream burst back into life, terabytes of information cascading every second, the data poured into the systems hard drives.

What happened while I was dead was only explained to me four months later by Professor Barton himself. The data pouring in from the CND computer, was the black box recordings of CND on top of that, revival terminal data was being streamed to Treasure Island Mansion system the data was incomplete – dozens of individual strands, mixed up and some even incomplete. Revival terminal data was never designed to be streamed over such long distances, only ever being broadcast as far as the nearest outpost, or risk the signal decaying and an incomplete DNA code being received by a Terminal. However the data of those so harshly executed by NeverDie was currently being broadcast to the computer core of the single Revival Terminal on the planet capable of retrieving partial DNA information and reconstructing the full version. This was the only place on Calypso capable to receiving such a transmission.

Along with the Revival and black box data, was a running commentary from NeverDie about what he was doing. That readout he was holding, reporting the near miss only moments before he opened fire in the control room, held a great more information than was passed on to us. It told him there was less than two days before impact, but it also told him that the current trajectory would cause the impact to hit in the centre of the Chimera Canyon. A hit by an object the size of CND in that location would literally shatter the planet, killing everyone instantly. It would of course be impossible to evacuate an entire planet within 2 days, so NeverDie had taken the only action available to him. There was no way the orbital correction boosters could be used against the planets pull now, it was too late for that; however they could be used to increase the rate of descent, speeding up the process. By doing this, NeverDie could aim the impact to take place in the centre of the vast ocean separating Eudoria and Amethera. Taking this action meant certain death for anyone on the station without access to a ship, but brought valuable time for the planetary evacuation below, maybe as much as two extra days as the impact would be partially cushioned by the deep ocean. Whether the planet could survive the hit was still unknown, but the computer figures clearly should the chance of the planet shattering was reduced to virtually nil, there would certainly be Tsunami’s and coastal cities were sure to be wiped out in minutes, but the majority of the planet wouldn’t feel the life threatening consequences for anything up to 4 days.

The rate of descent needed to be increased so sharply that a little under an hour was all it would take to impact. The change also needed to be made within the next 5 minutes or the re-entry window would be lost forever. NeverDie realised he couldn’t afford for anyone to try stopping him to save their own necks. Had anyone in the control room tried, it would have resulted in the narrow insertion window being missed, and the planets complete destruction. By opening fire, he assured not only the patrons of the control room’s survival by means of the Treasure Island Revival Terminal, but also assured two extra days for planetary evacuation.

The data stream stopped, a minute passed and another burst lasting only 2 seconds hit the Treasure Island system. There were only 4 minutes left until impact. The external cameras were picking up the now visible asteroid entering the planet atmosphere, the oxygen, still plentiful at high altitudes on Calypso unlike Earth, ignited, lighting up almost a third of the visible sky. There was no need to inform the central government now thought Deathifier, they already new. Treasure Island, based in the centre of Amethera would initially be safe from the initial impact, but the costal cities like Omegatron West, Port Atlantis and Ithica would be lost in the next few moments. Deathifier put out a planetary wide call. Treasure Island would be the rallying point. All citizens of Calypso should evacuate to the space base at the northern tip of Treasure Island to be ready for evacuation. He knew they couldn’t all be saved, but it was within his power to call in all ships currently Calypso based to be ready for the evacuation.

The response was amazing, wormhole after wormhole opened on the island, bringing not evacuees, but the amour clad killing machines of the Warrants, the CoatKillers, Art of War and many others. Their plan was simple – eradicate all animal life on the Island to make it a safe haven for the evacuees. Never in history had so many of the elite societies gathered to help each other, never before had they fought as one. And then, the ground shook violently.

When the residents of Omegaton West saw the sky ignite, they knew there was trouble. Seconds later they heard Deathifier’s call, they knew they has to get out of there, but it was plainly obvious most of them wouldn’t make it. Entire City blocks of people were trying to escape their buildings at the same time. The televators couldn’t cope with demand and their evacuations were slow, too slow. The people in the auction house hadn’t seen the sky ignite, but they certainly felt the impact. They ran outside, and could already see the huge pillar of steam rising from when CND had hit the ocean. Millions of gallons of water vaporising instantly. They could also see the vast wall of water approaching them at over 150 miles per hour. They ran to the Teleport to get to Treasure Island, many made it, more did not. The same infliction that had hit the Televators hit the Teleport, it simply wasn’t designed to cope with mass transportation and operated at a painfully slow speed. Only 87 made it through before the wave hit, completely engulfing the city.

In Ithica more people made it through, it was down to two men that fate had dictated would be visiting Ithica that day, Mac Red Longhair and Freyr both saw the approaching wave, and rather than making a dash for the teleporter to save themselves, they opened wormholes direct to Treasure Island. There efforts in keeping the wormholes open as long as possible resulted in their own deaths, but not before saving dozens of lives, their wormholes taking the excess people the Teleport couldn’t keep up with. Almost everyone made it through.

Port Atlantis was the worst hit, it had always been a busy town, full of fresh colonists, no one there was skilled enough in the ways of mind force to follow Freyr and Red’s example. Only a fraction made it through the Teleport to Treasure Island.

Within an hour, virtually every single non-human creature, including the robots abandoned on the planet after the last war were eradicated by the powerful societies, making it safe for the thousands of people now gathering on the island. In addition to the evacuees, over a hundred ships had arrived, ferrying people between the surface and Crystal Palace, now being referred to as “The Crystal Life Boat” by the homeless colonists.

Three days passed, and a little under a third of the inhabitants had now made it to the orbiting space station. It was crowded up there, but they would survive. Many more were killed in order to have their revival data stored on the Treasure Island hard drives, effectively storing them until the Earth Force Rescue Ships arrived.

It was amongst the refugees that NeverDie’s name became mud, from their point of view he had simply turned CND towards the planet and the pilots that had escaped CND added fuel to the fire. They didn’t understand why he would do such a thing. Barton and Deathifier didn’t have time to explain, they had spent the last three days transferring the computer network to one of the escape ships, ensuring the safely of those stored on the hard drives, myself included, by evacuating the entire unit to the space station above.

On the forth day, the cloud of steam and dust caused by the impact had completely encompassed the planet. The temperatures had dropped to minus 15 degrees and many were now dying from the cold before their turn to board the ships. The vast NBK society had been handing out blankets and food since day one and saved many, but there were not enough for everyone. It was the end of day four the planets core cracked, splitting the planet in two, both portions hurtling off into space. The atmosphere gone, everyone that remained died.

Deathifier and the Professor took their ship in as close as they dared as the split took place, their powerful revival terminal gathering as many of the DNA fragments as possible from the dying planet. It took four months to reassemble the partial DNA records from those of us in the CND Control room. The data from when the planet split was irretrievable.

5 years passed, both Deathifer and The Professor never stopped trying to retrieve the data from when the planet split, finally accepting it could never be done. One curiosity had occurred, Deathifier has always assumed that final two second burst of data from CND was the Data for NeverDie, but when re-sequenced, it was the famous Atrox Egg and not NeverDie himself that appeared. I don’t think we will never know why he chose not to save himself, instead choosing his most prized possession.
Deathifier could never bring himself to delete the remaining unsalvageable DNA data, instead, he re-programmed the system to combine all the DNA to create just one viable complete strand. The DNA re-sequenced to that of a child, a new born. That child was given to me raise. That child was Cal.

Cal was visibly shaken by the story, he finally understood why he had never met his parents. I took him to see Deathifier and the Professor who greeted him like a long lost son. Deathifier took him to one side, explaining that he was a true child of all Calypso and handed over NeverDie’s Atrox egg, telling him the egg belonged to the whole of Calypso and Cal was the result of the merged DNA sequence of two thirds of the planet. He should be its new carer. The egg that had been quietly vibrating for over twenty years was handed to him. The second his fingers touched it, the vibrations stopped.