Uncertainty has never sat well with me.

Years of sacrifice and study led me to free this Council, yet they did nothing to prepare me for the suffocating dread of not knowing what comes next. The chamber feels stifling. I pace from one end of the room to the other, as though movement alone could shake off the anxiety clawing at my thoughts.

Why now?

More importantly, why here?

Of all places, it seems strange that the Federation's Chief would demand an urgent meeting at this facility. The implications weigh heavily on my mind. Maybe Kamaris discovered our little deception and came here to revel in it before deciding how best to punish us.

That would be a catastrophe.

Centuries of treaties and maneuvering between our species, undone in a single moment by the gamble my ancestors took. As if the Federation needed another fault line threatening to split it apart.

The sound of approaching footsteps cuts through my thoughts.

Two guards are heading straight for me. Kamaris must have arrived.

"The Kolshians have landed, sir," one of them reports with a respectful dip of his head.

"Then let's not keep the Chief waiting."

I head for the door.

The anxiety doesn't fade. If anything, it grows stronger with every step.

By the time I reach the docking bay, the Kolshian is impossible to miss.

His massive, misshapen frame sits at the center of an escort of elite guards. He looks worse than the last time I saw him. Age and illness have drained the deep red hue from his skin, leaving behind a pale, unhealthy complexion. Hunched over in his medical chair, he turns his gaze toward me.

A glint of malice flashes in his eyes that makes the fur along my neck rise.

My hesitation must have shown, because Kamaris lets out a low, cruel laugh.

"Catarq, my boy. It's been far too long."

His tentacles twitch with amusement.

"But introductions can wait. Let's get inside. The air out here is murder on a frail old man like me."

The walk to the archive complex proves nearly as uncomfortable as waiting for Kamaris's arrival. We exchange the usual pleasantries along the way. Questions about his health, brief mentions of recent meetings with the other Federation leaders, and other meaningless formalities designed to fill the silence. 

Despite it all, the Kolshian refuses to reveal why he came. Every answer he gives feels rehearsed, every friendly gesture forced. The uncertainty gnaws at me with each passing step.

When we finally reach the upper archive chamber, Kamaris flicks a tentacle toward his escort. Both his guards and mine stop immediately. The Federation Chief shifts in his medical chair before fixing me with an unreadable stare.

"That's far enough. Let's get to the point, Catarq."

"I'm listening, Chief. I assume a meeting this urgent wasn't called over some trivial matter."

I do my best to sound composed. The hesitation at the docking bay was embarrassing enough. I refuse to give him another glimpse of weakness.

"Of course not." A dry chuckle escapes him. "What I have to discuss concerns the future of our beloved Federation. Keeping its many parts working together is my responsibility, after all."

His eyes narrow.

"And that brings me to an old debt. A mistake your people made."

My stomach drops. Damn it. *I knew it*.

The vile amphibian had found out.

Before I can formulate a response, something slams into my leg. A crack echoes through the chamber.

Pain detonates behind my eyes.

I don't even realize I've fallen until my remaining good knee strikes the floor.

For a brief, horrifying moment, I can't breathe.

The world dissolves into white-hot agony radiating from my shattered joint. My heart pounds wildly against my ribs as nausea churns in my stomach. Every instinct screams at me to howl, to clutch at the ruined limb, to do anything that might make the pain stop.

I force my jaw shut.

**No.**

I won't give him that satisfaction.

Through blurred vision and tears I refuse to acknowledge, I manage to lift my head. One of Kamaris's guards stands nearby, a heavy baton still gripped in one tentacle. The message could not be clearer.

Kamaris watches me struggle with open amusement.

"You think I'm a fool, Catarq?" he snarls. "Does your entire species take us for idiots? Did you really believe *we'd never verify if the humans actually killed each other*?"

Each word drips with venom. The hatred in his stare is startling. For a dying old man, he has enough malice left to poison an ocean.

"Give this damned hypocrite a painkiller," he snaps, without taking his eyes off me. "Now."

A guard approaches and presses an injector against my arm. Relief does not come immediately. The pain remains, throbbing through my body in savage pulses that leave my thoughts sluggish and unfocused. By the time the medication begins to dull the edges, sweat has soaked through my fur.

Yet even that agony pales beside the terror settling into my chest.

Kamaris is furious.

Our alliance, maintained for millennia, now hangs by a thread because of a lie told by ancestors long dead. Some cosmic joke. The Elders who chose to conceal the predators' survival are long gone, beyond the reach of consequences. Yet it’s me who has to suffer the fallout.

My guards do nothing.

Not one of them protests. Not one steps forward. They simply stand aside and allow the Federation Chief to break me as he pleases. Whether they are afraid, loyal, or merely pragmatic no longer matters.

A grimace spreads across Kamaris's face as he studies my kneeling form.

"That's better, Catarq."

He lets the words linger.

"On your knees. Where you belong."

"Now tell me why."

His voice drops, becoming almost conversational.

"Why did you hide this from us?"

So that was why he had come.

The answer should have relieved me. Instead, it only deepened the dread coiling in my stomach. There was no explanation I could offer that would satisfy someone like Kamaris. Whatever reasoning the Elders had possessed when they concealed humanity's survival had died with them a while ago.

 Even now, I wasn't entirely certain what had motivated the decision. Scientific curiosity? Fear of the Kolshians' reaction? A desire to preserve something unique? It hardly mattered. To someone like Kamaris, those distinctions were meaningless.

"Our duty has always been to observe and preserve knowledge," I said carefully. Speaking through the lingering pain in my shattered knee required more effort than I cared to admit. "I imagine the Elders believed they were fulfilling that duty. Humanity proved more complicated than anyone expected. If we had revealed everything we knew, you likely would have sent an Extermination Fleet to their world long ago."

For a moment, the old Kolshian simply regarded me. His expression remained unreadable, though there was a strange glimmer in his eyes that I couldn't place. Eventually he exhaled through his mouth and tilted his head slightly.

"And then you would have lost your experiment."  
His voice carried no accusation. If anything, he sounded amused.

"Funny, isn't it? For all these centuries, the Farsul have insisted that we're the impulsive ones. The species that rushes to violence whenever confronted with a problem."

His gaze drifted toward the observation window overlooking the archives.  
"But you've misunderstood me, Catarq. I have no interest in extermination. *I'm an opportunist*."

A chill crawled down my spine.  
The statement should have reassured me. Instead, it frightened me more than any threat he had made since arriving. There was something deeply unsettling about the certainty with which he spoke, as though he had already reached a conclusion years ago and was only now allowing the rest of us to catch up. 

The worst part was that he genuinely seemed pleased with himself.  
"What does that even mean?" I asked.

I attempted to stand as I spoke, only for a lance of pain to shoot through my ruined knee. The joint immediately gave out beneath me. A strangled gasp escaped before I could stop it, and I was forced to lower myself back onto the floor. Humiliation burned hotter than the pain. Once, leaders had crossed entire sectors to seek my counsel. Now I sat helplessly on the ground while Kamaris watched me struggle like an injured animal.

The old Kolshian offered no sympathy. He merely turned toward one of the nearby control consoles and activated the observation window. Massive armored shutters retracted with a mechanical groan, revealing the preservation vault beyond.  
Rows of capsules stretched across the chamber.  
Human specimens stood frozen within them.

Kamaris stared at the beasts with an expression I had never seen before. It wasn't hatred. It wasn't disgust. It wasn't even fear. It was *admiration*.

"The solution to every major problem facing the Federation is right in front of us, old friend."  
The enthusiasm in his voice was impossible to miss now.

"What you're looking at isn't merely another predator species. It isn't just a flesh eater with unusually developed intelligence. These creatures are *persistence incarnate*. I've spent years studying them. Their cultures, their conflicts, their technological development. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became."

He slowly approached the glass, his medical chair humming quietly beneath him.  
"They survive everything."  
One tentacle rose toward the capsules. "Resource shortages. Ecological disasters. Wars. Plagues. Economic collapse. Internal division. Again and again, they drive themselves to the brink of destruction."

His reflection stared back at him from the observation glass.

"And yet they never seem to stay there."

There was something unnerving in the way he spoke. The reverence reminded me less of a politician discussing strategy and more of a scientist marveling at a newly discovered phenomenon. Every instinct told me that whatever conclusion he had reached, I was not going to like it.

"Kamaris," I began cautiously, "if you're suggesting that humanity could somehow be integrated into the Federation, then you've misunderstood what they are. Humans cannot abandon their nature. They require meat to survive. Predation isn't simply a cultural flaw for them. It's biological reality. You know that as well as I do."

The old Kolshian laughed.

The sound echoed throughout the chamber before dissolving into a fit of violent coughing. His frail body shook with the effort, and for a moment I was reminded that age and illness were slowly killing him. Yet when the coughing finally subsided, the amusement remained in his eyes.

"Catarq, that's exactly why they're valuable."  
My blood ran cold.  
"I don't want to cure them, I want to *use* them."

The casual way he said it made the words feel even more monstrous.

"You've noticed the Federation's condition yourself, haven't you? Every few rotations another member species starts questioning our authority. Another government begins entertaining fantasies of independence. Another political movement starts demanding reforms that would weaken central control."

Disdain crept into his voice.

"The Arxur are useful, but only to a point. Giznel's *‘people’* are crude. Mostly effective, certainly, but crude. They terrify populations, yet they lack discipline, vision, and long-term planning."  
His eyes drifted back to the human capsules.

"Humans possess all three."

I felt a knot forming in my stomach.

"They never stop. They never accept limitations. They never settle. Give them a challenge and they'll spend generations trying to overcome it. Give them an obstacle and they'll dismantle it piece by piece."

His voice grew quieter."Imagine what a species like that could accomplish if properly directed." Only then did the realization sowly begin to form.

"You want to use them as a second deterrent."

The words felt absurd even as I spoke them.  
Kamaris's eyes gleamed. "Correct."

The knot in my stomach became something colder.  
"Imagine it, Catarq. Two great predator civilizations occupying the ends of known space. The Arxur embody brutality. Humanity embodies persistence. Different methods. Different strengths. Different forms of fear."

He spread his tentacles toward the observation window.

"Every species in the Federation would understand exactly what awaits them beyond our protection."

The full scope of the plan struck me all at once. He wanted the Federation's member worlds to remain obedient because the alternative would seem unfathomable.

"That's insane," I said. "Even if you succeeded, empowering a species like humanity would be catastrophically dangerous. You're talking about elevating one of the most resilient predators ever discovered. Sooner or later they would become impossible to control."  
To my horror, Kamaris didn't hesitate. He had an answer ready, of course he did.

"I've considered that."

The certainty in his voice was absolute.

"I've observed something interesting about humans. Despite their predatory nature, they're extraordinarily social creatures. In some respects they even resemble prey species. They form attachments. They seek approval. They build identities around communities and shared causes."

A terrible feeling settled over me as he continued.

"They can’t be controlled the same way as the Arxur. They need to be guided." He said.

"We don't exterminate them entirely. We simply shape the circumstances of their development. A partial extermination campaign, a wound they’ll never forget. Enough suffering to give them motivation."

The old Kolshian looked back at the frozen humans.

"Then, we allow the Arxur to introduce them to reality. They'll adapt. They always do. Eventually they'll emerge hungrier, harsher, and infinitely more useful. Once the Federation witnesses two united predator powers operating together, every secessionist fantasy will disappear overnight."

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. This wasn't the rambling of a senile old politician. No, Kamaris had spent years thinking about this. Years refining it. Years convincing himself that he alone understood what the Federation needed.  
The realization terrified me more than the plan itself.

"You're insane," I whispered.

The amusement vanished from his expression. Then the temperature in the room seemed to drop.  
"Be careful, Catarq. I've already broken one of your knees today."  
Every muscle in my body locked in place.  
The threat wasn't shouted, but it didn't need to be. His guards stood behind him. My own guards stood silently against the walls. The outcome of any resistance had already been decided.

"You seem to be under the impression that your opinion matters."  
There was no anger in his eyes. Only certainty.  
"Your people betrayed mine. Whatever happens next, you will help me correct that mistake."

His gaze returned to the human capsules.

"As for these creatures, stop worrying so much. They're animals. All I require is that they behave according to their nature."  
I stared at the ancient Kolshian and felt despair settle over me like a lead blanket.

Kamaris wasn't dying and lashing out at the galaxy in one final fit of arrogance.  
That would have been comforting. But no, the truth was far worse. He genuinely believed he was saving the Federation.  
And if the most powerful individual in known space truly believed that, then we were already doomed.

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;)

Story and art by me! There might be more chapters like this, maybe!

Thank you to all the fellas on the server for your support!

  
  
  


Annihilation Order