The Virus - a SciFi Short

The returning explorer grimly submitted his report.

"I regret to inform the Alliance the virus has been located in another star system."

"How can this be?" the director asked. "I thought we had finally contained it in the Pollux Sector?"

"Our specialists think its DNA was disbursed when the Medusa Sector was destroyed, before we changed our policy from solar system destruction to containment, sir."

But that was eons ago." his superior protested.

"True, Sir. But this particular virus has proved to be endlessly adaptable to new worlds and stubbornly persistent to the evolutionary cycle."

"Continue," the director sighed.

"It is currently destroying the third planet in a nine planet system. It has already turned one planet into a greenhouse poisonscape and another into a red furnace. Our best estimates conclude it will finish off this "blue planet" in less than a millennium, although that may be optimistic."

"How far advanced is it in projecting itself out of this solar system?"

"It already has the capability. So far none of its projectiles appear to contain the virus itself."

"Implement quarantine procedure," the director ordered. "Will this struggle never end?"

"What is the current manifestation of the abomination?" he asked.

"Its most dangerous variation," the explorer responded. "Humanoid."