Five Years Later Towering flames engulfed nearly a quarter of the city. Its once-beautiful skyline had become jagged and uneven and blackened with soot. Many of its tallest buildings had been turned into its largest piles of rubble instead. More critically, many of the city’s blocks had been utter
“Wait!” said a panicked civilian. “If you dig too fast, you’re gonna make it all fall down on top of us! Think about what you’re doing!” “Yeah? Well all the more reason to dig faster!” screamed one of the others. “Are you insane? Are you all gonna kill yourselves just for one or two people?” Ange
They too wore the same uniform, and had the same tools. They worked together and quickly dug out anyone else who had been trapped under tons of debris. And they did so with absolute ease. As they cut apart the rubble with highly precise plasma cutters, antigrav drones would immediately lift out and
Gaea, Sol System, Core Sector, Sol Federation It was the same in almost every city across Gaea, whether it was Tokyo or Shanghai or Istanbul or Paris or New York. Billions of people all over the planet took to the streets and skyways of their home cities, and angrily protested at the galaxy at larg
Most of them coughed and gagged as whatever chemicals in the smoke were sucked down into their lungs. Their minds blurred as their breaths shrank. They literally took heaving gasps for air, but all they got was more and more smoke. The last thing most of them remembered was when the LDCF charged in
“Sounds like he lost control ages ago,” she retorted. “And it’s time he actually gave up trying.” Just as the man was about to argue, the sounds of shouting could be heard from the background. They caused him to take pause as he listened to it. Then when it was done, he turned back to her. “I’ve g
Taloren Prime, Throne System, Imperial Domain of the Boundless Drogar Felothi, the long-reformed Sanguine Fundamentalist, sat on a long, comfortable couch in the middle of his family’s small but cozy hab. He was joined by his wife and two children, happily. They had spent many years in the same ha
Though the audio was crude and scratchy, it was clear enough to be heard. The voices of a half dozen or so drogar could be heard. Their dialects and inflections seemed foreign to Felothi and his family. They seemed so far beyond common Drogarii, yet they could still understand them to some degree.