Page 1 of Ragoru

CHAPTER1

Planet Solum, Northern Continent, Outpost 57

“Week three hundred and twenty-five. No sign of significant influx of predators or new mutations apparent. Everything is quiet… as usual,” Evelyn Willocks reported into the recording device on the comm in front of her.

“Noted, Evie,” Dr. Helen Ross replied. A pause. “One moment. Dr. Farris wants a word.”

“Go ahead.” Evie leaned forward, curious. The elderly Dr. Jason Farris hadn’t been involved directly in their department for several years since retiring from the field.

“Evelyn,” Dr. Farris rasped warmly.

“Doctor, this is unexpected,” she greeted him in return.

“An unprecedented situation has come up regarding some strange activity, and the council has asked me to personally oversee the matter. We’ve received your reports, and I see that you are stationed at Outpost 57 at our northernmost border. That is a long-term assignment, correct?”

“Yes, doctor. I am assigned here for another two years,” she replied as she picked up her rucksack to dig out a ration bar.

She was starving. It had been a long morning already, and she still had hours yet until noon.

“Excellent. I would like you to venture farther north of the outpost. I am relaying the coordinates now. We have reports from our resource industry leads stationed out there of something odd going on near some of the old settlements up there, along with reports of peculiar wildlife mutations appearing. I would like you to check it out.”

Evie frowned and brushed back a stray lock of red hair from her eyes. Everyone assumed that the far northern settlements had been abandoned after increasing issues with predation. Although they’d brought samples of nearly every species of wildlife from Old Earth with the idea of preserving species that were dying out on their home planet, including predators, it was the native predators that had been the biggest problem. That said, Evie hadn’t even heard of any activity coming from that region at all in well over a hundred years. She was personally willing to dismiss reports of strange sightings as simply the overactive imagination of men stationed far from civilization, but it seemed that her superiors thought otherwise. Perhaps it was best to err on the side of caution in this matter. A new crisis level resurgence among the more dangerous predators—or even a hereto unknown one—could be detrimental.

“Yes, doctor, but who will oversee my work here?”

“We are sending a replacement, Evie,” Dr. Ross interrupted. “There will be a two-week lag in the data before they get to the outpost, but we have decided that it is a reasonable loss so that you can leave immediately.”

“Okay,” Evie agreed slowly, her brow knitting.

That was unexpected. Usually, they were anal about having correct transfers.The council must be very concerned.

An amber light flashed, signifying a message retrieval, and she bit back a sigh. Moving her thumb over the icon, she opened it up, her eyes skimming over the contents of the missive.

“Received, doctor. I will look into it,” she murmured.

“Excellent. I look forward to your reports.”

Evie sighed as the comm went silent. She hoped that it was nothing more than yet another rumor. They didn’t need any more problems.

Her fingers splayed against her temple, she cupped the side of her head with one hand and frowned down at her comm. She had asked to be assigned there because she had wanted to study the wildlife and to get far away from the ridiculous politics that were rampant at the Citadel since communication with Earth failed seven years ago. Evie didn’t know what Solum would do without support from Earth. All their technology was dependent on replacement parts and updates from their homeworld. Without it… She didn’t want to think about it. They were already facing massive unrest as panic set in when some personal systems had begun to shut down.

The reaction of public was not expected, nor was the fact that there were many who used that opportunity to place a stranglehold on the populace. There had already been shifts in power over the last two generations in response to Earth’s increasing complacency toward their needs and the decline of birthrates among males that their best scientists could not explain, so she wasn’t entirely surprised. It was in these turbulent conditions that The Order of the Holy Mother had become renowned planet-wide with declarations that its founder, “Lady” Felicity Anwar, daughter of one of the prominent founding families, was divinely visited to rise as the first oracle.

Evie mentally rolled her eyes. Her grandmother had laughed herself sick, her withered voice cackling, when she heard rumors of Felicity Anwar’s special powers. Grandma Anna and Felicity had been childhood friends, and they were close until their lives ended up moving in different directions. The woman who had been lauded as one, who by the grace of the goddess, brought a “revival of the heart of their society with the establishment of the Holy Mother Goddess,” was in truth just a studious woman with a passion for the gods of Old Earth. True, she had spoken of the Great Mother so passionately and with such warmth that people flocked to the goddess in droves. And she had used her influence to protect the populace by founding the Order of the Huntsmen to keep the dangers of their world in check following the loss of contact with Earth.

It was merely convenient that twenty years after her death, when she could no longer object, that such rumors were spread like wildfire by the Order of the Huntsmen, who had grown corrupt and power hungry in her absence. Nor the establishment of the Mothers who ran the Citadel High Councils to honor Felicity Anwar, all of whom were representatives to the High Mother who now ruled Solum.

That too, unsurprisingly, had been established by the Order. The First Elite, the head of the Order, proclaimed that the “prophetess” had come to him in a dream, revealing to him the next voice of the Great Mother and the establishment of the High Councils. The people, in their desperation, and in part due to supporters of the Order among the populace who disseminated misinformation, had been too eager to believe that the guidance of Lady Felicity was still with them. It was that wide support that spearheaded their takeover and the dissolution of the government established by Earth. Superstitious nonsense—all of which they declared was divinely delivered from the Great Mother—had taken hold of Solum ever since. In Evie’s opinion, the Order was a huge part of the mechanism bringing about the rapid decline of civilization on their world.

Evie’s lips thinned as she collected her supplies and began to neatly repack her rucksack. She tried to avoid the Order as much as possible, but it wasn’t going to be possible soon. She would have to pass through their northern checkpoint to continue along the northern route before she would be forced to leave the road to make her way to the coordinates. The checkpoints hadn’t been something she’d been forced to deal with when she’d initially traveled to her post. Apparently, it was among the more recent innovations of the Order to “safeguard the people.”

What a fucking joke.

Evie sighed as she set the final items in her rucksack and sealed its all-weather endura-lock shut. Unfortunately, sticking to the northern route was the wisest course of action considering how much of the northern region had likely been reclaimed by dangerous wildlife. The problem was that, although the access roads had been carved out in the initial settlement program to connect the four outer regions with the capital, there was no way to know how much of the northern route beyond the checkpoint was still accessible. While the satellite still relayed information across Solum, its imaging system went dark nearly a decade ago. There was an unspoken understanding and fear that it was only a matter of time before the satellite became entirely inoperative. It was spoken in hushed voices across the fields, worrying what would be lost, the collapse of everything that they knew and an increasing reliance on the huntsmen.

“That’s why I’m doing this,” she muttered aloud as she tidied her post for her replacement. “Why we’re all doing this.”

It was an attempt to combat overreliance on the huntsmen that they were studiously trying to learn more about their world’s natural ecosystems and how to productively manage it. Also to increase awareness of dangers and how to identify and manage them. All so that civilization could survive what was to come.

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