XII

"There has been a few unpleasant developments while you were in a dive." Erot begun easing her into to the news.

"First of all, Kronos made an appeal to the council requesting one of the planets in your sol for expansion. Reasons being are mostly small planet, large people, lack of resources."

That made sense, small gravity allowed Kronos population evolve to enormous sizes. She could probably barely reach a knee-cap of their average citizen, and then there were outliers to whom she was no more than a pebble on a road.

"So? Council has no authority over Orion. The wealth and resources generated by Orion are to be governed by Orion only, small children know that. Gramps will shoot them down, at most I am willing to grant them access to the first planet's resources, that should do it for now. They created such a disaster colonizing their moon that we had provide a satellite replacement and clean up the huge mess to save their habitat from the falling debris. Now they want a pristine planet? How presumptuous!" Gaiya was a bit irked.

Erot gave out a quiet sigh, while Taras was fixated on a point in a ground intent on staying out of this conversation.

"Brah Anunnaki is missing..."

"What?" She almost fell out of the chair, such a ridiculous statement. "Impossible, Orion would never lose sight of gramps..."

"Location of Brah Anunnaki, along with other 312 core dive members is currently unknown." Confirmed Orion.

"No..."

"After Brah want missing Orion increased security on the dive community, however people kept on going missing. We realized that the breach was happening, somehow someone was able to dull Orion senses, creating blind spots. So for the safety of the community everyone agreed to dive until the issue was resolved. This also reinforced Orion's connection to the nether and there were no more confused moments in the operations, however, this left us without Orion representatives." Erot kept on explaining things to glazed-eye Gaiya, wondering how much was registering behind the dull look in her eyes.

"Until I woke up..." She mumbled.

"Yes, we didn't know if Orion will decide whether or not it was safe for you. But now that there is an awake representative the council will want a word..."

"Orion will prioritize life expansion and evolution over relative risks, so I was always going to wake up to check in on things. But, still, this is hard to believe..."

They sat there for a while, Gaiya was staring into the distance mulling over things. She saw a flock of birds fly by, life continued even under pressure. She felt as any moment the invisible support will cave in and the top of the pyramid will come crushing down on her, nothing was certain at this moment.

"I can't do this, you know how I get when there is a confrontation, I'll freezer up, or get a panic attack..." despair was tightening it's hold on her.

"You must deal with the council, left alone they might cook up a decision and pressure you into agreeing, and I know you'll be upset even more if that happens." Erot was firm.

"Just wake some one else, I'll trade places..." she pleaded.

"You have one of the highest Dive time totals, second only to Brah, which means you now have top authority over Orion, they'll use that as an excuse not to want someone else. Besides, it's your Sol, do you think there is someone else who is as emotionally invested in it as you? There are only team members who were newbies to dive, which means they don't even have enough authority. The senior team members are all unaccounted for..." he tried to reason with the desperate woman.

A hard look came on Gaiya's face.

"Does that mean my Sol project was targeted? All this because of the sin of greed?" The desperate woman was nowhere to be found, a quiet fury was radiating from her tone.

"That is what Orion concluded as well, the green planets are very rare, and we have two in the same Sol system. However, there is no concrete evidence we can act upon. It was deemed necessary to request Olympus support, and Lord Erot kindly gathered allies and managed to secure a sentient foothold on one of the green planets." Taras confirmed, he was awfully quiet until now.

"The audacity!" Fear has been firmly replaced with fury in Gaiya's heart.