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Priod followed by a second expanding flash so brilliant and vast it makes my eyelids transparent and reveals every bone, joint, and blood vessel in the Red pitman stuck outside h their flesh A curled engineer e of a fetus asleep in the womb
The flash contracts to reveal a rass, rock, metal, and men vaporize as their matter heats to match the heart of a sun
A wall of therh in to bubble and then they melt with the rest of him In the wake of the heat, a colossal wave of pressure races toward us at the speed of sound The skyhook rocks backward against the face of the mountain The bones of the Red shatter and bloay in the wind His severed hand falls off inside the canopy My boots spark on the flattop surface as the shockwave pushes er, supported by the Howlers Pitmen who took shelter behind mechs in front of us look like autu platform down into the mountains Others are lifted fro to pulp Clothing is torn away Blues and Oranges eaker bones are pulverized on the spot to beco flesh
Then the debris
Charcoal birds fall fro detritus hails down A flattened tank cartwheels past, thrown dozens of kilometers from the plains, to crash into afills the ranite cliffs I swear I even see the planet ripple I look up, and up, and up, through my starShell canopy; the fireball articulates skyward, with a vortex of debris and s around a molten heart of fire where once there was my Second Army
A million men, tanks, and arms to ash
The hollow abyss of despair calls to me The voice that found me in the Jackal’s prison tomb Reaper, Reaper, Reaper Look what you have done Look what you are In your shadow, nothing can survive
So
Alexandar’s mech steps to ers to her feet, her pulseArmor fried, but she is alive Relief floods me
“Your order, sir?” Alexandar asks
The mushroom is reflected in his canopy
Orders? What orders can be given in this e coms are down I cannot adjust my plan Thraxa is unsupported About to be cut off I would pray if I knew any gods were listening Let the First Ar Star have arrived in time for them to shelter under her shields Let there be life in all this ash No god listens There are only men And what one does, another ion That of the hand and the lever
“Midnight, are you out there?”
“Barely EMP nearly fried e I can barely hear him
“The stor in earnest Can you make it to Kydon?”