Quoted By:
[DC: 5, 10, 15]
>Roll: 17
“At trans-orbital speeds, the physics of collision become simple. Hardness is irrelevant. Explosive payloads are negligible. Only two things matter: mass and relative velocity.
Three hours of sustained, engine-destroying fusion burn propelled our fleet of commandeered ice haulers to an impact velocity exceeding eighty kilometers per second. A modest clip by interplanetary standards, but inconceivably fast for human perception.
Twenty minutes before impact, I ordered MERRYGATE to add angular acceleration to the haulers before disengaging cargo locks. Each hauler carried several hundred containers filled with purified water-ice. As my companion rotated the central hull, these containers spun out from the shipping compartments like seeds from a pod, surrounding each individual hauler with an cloud of frozen submunitions.
The aliens panicked. I couldn’t peer into their bridge or comprehend their comms, but I have survived too many close calls to be unfamiliar with its signs. Through RAIN’s optics , I saw the grumble of uncalibrated hydrogen burn as two of the capitals attempted to leave their docking berths. MERRYGATE preened as the command staff – or whatever passed for it – sent strings of frantic chatter in an attempt to coordinate maneuvers. Long-range missiles and kinetic point defense fire raced on intercept trajectories, scattered and uncertain.
Why the capitals waited so long to engage remains unclear to me. Perhaps they clung onto hopes of recovering their compatriots. Perhaps their ships were slower on the uptake than our own. Or maybe the malice of the collision wasn’t obvious before MERRYGATE scattered her deadly cargo.
In the end, the difference was irrevalent. In the same way that the distinction between ice and metal becomes academic at multi-kilometer closing velocities.
I watched the capitals fly apart under dozens of tiny impacts, each one flaring bright against the display. Antennas shattered. Chunks of superstructure and armor cladding flew into space. Pressurized water sprayed from hull breaches before flash-freezing into bright clouds. I was about to turn back to the navigation console when MERRYGATE pushed my attention to the viewing screen, brushing my shoulder with the light touch of an acoustic hologram.
The capitals were crippled. But one of the haulers was not. As it cleared the debris field, it initiated a final, violent burn towards the moon's southern hemisphere, cutting through the orbital belt and the low-density atmosphere with a touch of frictional heating.
It struck the planet. I saw one brief, fleeting image of the hauler driving into the frozen crust – like a heated lancet – before everything within a sixty-kilometer radius vanished in white. For the first time since our ship arrived, I heard MERRYGATE laugh: clear and bright under the light of a burning moon.”
- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 14, PERSONAL JOURNAL
