The remaining few, decided to hold-off on their reports until Carl wasn't trying to get food on the table, but it was only a short while later Carl called through for extra hands to help serve plates.
Kitsunoko and Tiamutael were the first volunteers, but Alisha wasn't far behind. "Carl, if you tell me to sit down and relax, I'll break your legs so I can make my duty nursing you back to health. Klaire, find a job for me immediately, if he starts sulking, shoot him in the knee."
"What the hell, Mum? I get it, you've had long enough to get settled in."
"No. I've had enough of being babied…" Carl, knew his mum Alisha wasn't going to take resting while everyone else was working well, but he wanted to start paying her back for raising him and that was all he could think of.
"Mum, sorry, why don't you help with surveying with Blaine and Kon starting tomorrow?"
"Actually Alisha, if you think you would enjoy it, we have a lot of children between the Kilili and Bashe clans, I was thinking we need to get a day-care and educational premise sorted sooner rather than later."
Alisha looked at Carl with narrowed eyes, then slapped him on the arm several times. "You were just going to let those kids go without education!?"
"Ow! Damn it Mum, stop!"
"No, he just wanted to run the idea past Leanna first, eventually we want our own facility like the SAT-Station, but that is a long way off since we have every super-power's eyes on us. It will be based on Haven for the foreseeable future."
"How man kids?"
"So far fifty-six, but he has another plan which he wants to employ starting tomorrow. That could see numbers rise quite a bit."
"Plan?" The one-word question from Lillim was saturated with vexation.
"I want to go and meet Gaia, I technically own the land I grew up on and the now abandoned Bashe clan homeland. I don't want to see that land become abandoned or ill-maintained, I think it would be better to see it placed under her stewardship."
"A thoughtful gesture, one thought-up with the heart and not the brain, but thoughtful nonetheless." Lillim summarised.
"Why? I can renegotiate for the land later, but keeping our people fed is more important and I want Gaia to help with that."
"Oh, that's what you meant, if you are using it as collateral, then I have no arguments. I thought you just wanted the grass to stay green." Lillim shrugged.
"Please have a little more faith in us Grandma." Carl pleaded as he finally sat down and they all started eating.
The mounting tension from everyone was almost unbearable, but it kept increasing until Klaire finally spoke up. "Thanks for the food Carl, it's great as always, but the atmosphere on the side is a bit sour for my liking." She chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.
"Okay, fine... Leanna, I didn't want to say anything without confirming with you..." He withdrew his slate and passed it over to her. "I didn't even think of it myself until, you messaged me, that made me think of when we found those hive remains we found on Bastion."
"What world is this!?"
"Lunelia unfortunately."
"Carl, Evacuate Lunelia right now! It has to be marked as off-limits."
[ FACTION MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM CARL : LUNELIA IS OFF-LIMITS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ANYONE PRESENT SHOULD EVACUATE BACK TO HQ QUARANTINE IMMEDIATELY. ANYONE WHO WAS WITH BLAINE AND KON SHOULD REPORT THERE AS WELL. ]
[ GROUP MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM CARL : I WANT THE WHOLE STORY BY THE TIME EVERYONE ARRIVES. EXPLAIN IN MESSAGE AND EAT UP, WE DON'T HAVE FOOD TO WASTE. ]
The story he was given was one he could have done without. The creatures they had discovered on Lunelia were known as The Carrion, they once plagued almost every world in committee territory,
They are vicious, highly adaptable and now they have met a threat, they would inevitably start preparing for a territorial conflict.
Leanna hypothesised that with a lack of anything that could threaten them in earnest, they had become a solely harvesting and expansionist colony.
"Why don't we know anything about them though, shouldn't they have taught us about them in school?" Klaire asked the question aloud as she finished her dinner first.
"Simply put, the committee had already cleaned their worlds of them, I always wondered how it was done so thoroughly, but after seeing those leaders, I think I understand." Leanna said as she wiped her mouth.
"Well, I want survey efforts focused on Mirage then. Lillim, can you keep an eye on Lunelia, I think we should use that as a testing ground." Everyone stopped and looked at Carl as he placed his knife and fork down and stood ready to leave.
"What do you mean by a testing ground?" Lillim asked with almost prideful curiosity.
"I want to let them grow and expand, when they are at full strength, we go in and clean them out. We need an actual threat to test ourselves against and I don't want to waste the opportunity." Everyone but the children had finished by the time he was done and began standing to head to the quarantine.
Kon looked a little distressed however, as did Blaine, but he couldn't stay quiet. "Do you really intend to let Lunelia die just to get that?"
"What? No, of course not, we're going to get the quarantine sorted then head right there. I mean I want Lillim to go and keep an eye on them, that way she can contact us if they start emerging... Was that not clear?"
Everyone sighed as his vagueness continued to leave everything open to interpretation, but after his dealings on a political scale seemed to be mostly positive as a result. "Are you sure that's what you meant? That hardly qualifies as a testing ground." Lillim spoke as she realised there was more to it.
"Well no, but we have a dead system, I'm gonna go there and give the worlds an atmosphere. After that we can transplant the hive there and put them to use, the committee may have wiped them out, but I want to see if we can reach a point where we live side by side with them."
Everyone looked at him with doubt. "Carl, I'm happy you don't want to hurt anything, but these creatures aren't senti-"
"Oh, no, I get that. I'm just looking at the report Kon and Blaine wrote. They act with purpose though, they recognise the danger of the local fauna for their workers so they either found the area with the toxic soil, or poisoned it themselves to have a border free of those threats."
"Maybe, but there is a big step between that and domest-"
"No, damn, I need to work on that... I mean I want us to be acknowledge by the species as a threat so insurmountable they become hard wired to avoid impeding us in anyway."
"Now that is a test!" Lillim shouted excitedly. "Leanna have I told you how much I love my grandson?"
"You haven't even told me you love me Mother." Leanna's words somehow made Lillim the biggest issue, not that they stopped walking.
"Okay, no, not okay... Grandma, you two go and check on the situation together, I don't even know how to respond to that..." Carl was unusually adamant in his demeanour. "Mum, can you send Kon, Blaine and Noah all your intel on these things and Lydia a list of checks to run."
"Carl, please don't try to force th-"
"Mum. Grandma has never been anything but polite, even when I was still scared of her and used to hide, she would still ask how I was doing and tell me to keep going. Since things changed, she trained us all and started opening up, you two have a lot you need to say to each other and your healthy relationship is as important as mine and Klaire's to the operation of the faction now."
"He does have a point dear, he is an emotional creature and if he is distracted by concerns regarding us, they could be used against him. I also owe you several apologies I have been too ashamed to give thus far."
Lillim didn't give her the opportunity as she opened a portal and walked through it, dragging Leanna along.
What followed was a barrage of furious messages, employing language that was usually outside of Leanna's vocabulary. It was a miracle that they still managed to include all the information that Carl had asked for.
When they arrived at the quarantine area, they briefed everyone on the situation, luckily everyone was working on the belief it was a drill so there was no initial panic to quell.
"Thank you for remaining so calm everybody, this is exactly how you should act in this situation, but we won't lie to you. The creatures you encountered release pheromones upon death and they eventually have several severe side effects." Carl started.
"We need everyone to step into the privacy booths, each one has a screen with step by step instructions, please follow them." Lydia explained, she then walked around to one side where each booth joined onto an analysis machine where contaminents could be recorded before sanitisation.
"Carl, this isn't the pheromone Leanna mentioned. It seems to be an adaptive toxin, specifically designed to target plant cells, they must have grown complacent and focused on their priority."
"On the brightside, no one needs to be treated."
"Wait! Did you say it attacks plant matter!?" Kon's question was stunningly urgent and escaped.
Whilst Blaine filled everyone in on Sitter being targeted, Kon was already telling him to shift into something inorganic and come to the infirmary, via telepathy. In the end he had been contaminated quite severely, but it seemed to be slowed by the non plant matter presence.
"Got to admit, Sitter getting hurt, kinda makes me want to rethink letting them live... Is that because I made him? Just who I am as a person? Kinda scared that I don't know the answer to that..." Carl's tone was cold, seemingly completely detached from his usual, overly-emotional, way of speaking.
"It doesn't matter Carl, just tell us what you want." Klaire's offering of support helped him not make the cold decision he was leaning towards, but for some reason the words he spoke were not those intended.
"I want to do what I said in the beginning, ingrain fear into their DNA, 'til they won't do anything but keep the weeds at bay." The moment he finished talking, realisation fell upon him and when everyone else saw his expression, they recognised his alarm.
"What? Carl are you okay?" Carl was about to answer Klaire when he thought he might not say what he wanted to say, resorting instead to shaking his head.