“Evacuate all reactor crews to the blast chambers.”

“You heard the Admiral! Now move it or burn!”
"Gogogo!"

“Repeat – Evacuate all reactor crews to the blast chambers.”

Even from deep within an isolator chamber, you can feel it when the ventral furnaces blast. First the rumble, then the quake. The moan of steel as every weld, every bolt, tries to break loose from the pressure. Temperature alarms scream past redline. For the crew, there is nothing to do but wait and pray. We all know the possibilities. We know that if a blast tank ruptures, our ship will become our coffin.

“Coordinate full ventral immolation on my mark...”

I once had the opportunity to witness a burn at ground level. The battlefield was a small world at the edge of known space. My world. And on the jagged teeth of it's terrain, a Skyfurnace composed a symphony of catastrophic devastation.

“1.”

A wave of heat and smoke came with the initial vent. As if I was standing on the brink of Hell itself. The power of the coordinated furnace blast was stronger than anything I could have imagined. The heat became so great that mile after mile of desert sand was fused into thick white glass. And then came the stench. The smell of ashes and accelerant is not something one easily forgets.

“2.”

In the smoke, amid the screams, I could not help but to realize my planet's path had been changed forever. I swear to you I could feel the future of my people locking into place. A future of chaos and uncertainty. A future none of us could have imagined.

“3.”

It is a terrible thing to witness the end of a planet. To see everything you believed in devoured by flames.

“MARK. Open all fuel vents and saturate the target zone.”

What a fool I was to have ever believed we would never do the same.



Art by  Brindle.
Admiral Reign was designed by  keedot.