Raylay tucked some of his long, jet black locks behind his ear. A neon blue disk illuminated his temple. He jerked his body toward the viewing screen he'd left on the floor.
"Can you get that?" He asked in a grunty tone.
She gripped it and stared deeply into the expanding picture. Creatures of all kinds stared into monitors.
"The number of cases of the Moon Flu have risen to a staggering 900,000 on Okel. Chief Health Minister Jeb Elund is asking that everyone stay home for two weeks to flatten the curve. If you must go out, stay six measures from other beings when at all possible and avoid gathering. We're shutting all commerce towers and domes down to stop the spread."
The on-screen image switched, and next the creatures of all kinds walked the city streets wearing facial contraptions. There were gaps between each when they stood in line. A scarlet-skinned female offered another female--one of Scy's kind--an embrace, but her friend turned away. The following scene showed the scarlet-skinned woman leaping from a tower.
Meanwhile, a team stared out of a dome. A window revealed the white, cratered surface outside.
"Case count on Okel--they're saying--is one million," a female told her teammates. "When we engineered this, no one told me what could go wrong."
"Nothing went wrong, Rhys," one of the males reassured her. "It's what the plan was."
"But why?" Rhys questioned.
"Don't be like the conspiracy theorists down there," the male said.
He gazed across the moon's surface and at the distant globe beyond.
"The first phase of establishing the Dialorian Order is detachment," he explained. "They can't be close to one another. They each believe the others are a danger. They'll submit if they think they can go back to normal."
Rhys wrapped her arms around herself. She shuddered.
"You mean they'll be our slaves?" She dared to go there.
Another male in the station--one of Scy's burly species-- lowered a blaster at Rhys' chest.
"After we take loot em of all their treasures," he slurred.
"You can't steal from them!" Rhys shouted over the cracking of a blaster.
She lay on the floor. The burly male sneered down at her.
"And why not?"
She grasped her thigh and groaned.
"Theft," she said between gasps. "It's illegal. All four quadrants. Plus...Triune's Code Book says so."
"Hah!" Burly Male mocked. "What do I care for - that Code Book?"
Raylay touched his temple, and the screen faded to an icon-littered home screen.
"That's what happened on Jucardi," Relda reflected. "Much smaller than a whole quadrant, but it was engineered too."