WPCA - Erumid

"Captain on the bridge!"

"At ease. Status report, Commander."

"Everything is clear and in the green, Captain. A number of new ships have exited slipspace and are making for the planet. They've already signed in with Erumid Planetary Control and transponders all flagged green."

"Excellent."

The captain took his chair for the last time.

---

The blinking, black eye of near darkness of slipspace opened and snapped shut, and from it, an object emerged shaped like a small-scale spire. Having exited slipspace nearly on top of the the planetary gravity well, the resulting gravitonic shockwave rippled outward playing havoc with sensors all about the system.

The Erumid Defense frigate Natalissi crumpled inward, folding in on itself from the force of the impact as the object ripped through the unshielded mass. At the point of impact, matter became ions, and supersonic droplets of molten hull metal sleeted through from the top down, arriving before the vibrations of the impact could, and shredding all persons within before their nervous systems had time to register anything amiss. Behind came the shockwave of superheated air expanding with such fury that blast shields bent and warped, searing everything in its path.

The resulting fireball erupted into space like, moments before a secondary explosion caused by a magazine misfire as the ordinance detonated. Bodies and metal flaked off into space as the object continued on unabated, the Natalissi folding in on itself in silence like a toy before the two ends wrung itself apart as the engines continued to fire, sheering off the fore in an almost comic fashion.

---

Warning icons flashed amber in the holo-displays of his HUD. Giant, glaring red exclamation points punctuated by information. It could be summarized by a single phrase: shit hit the fan - hard.

He looked down and nearly threw up, forgetting how the inside of a Needler was an all-encasing holographic nexus of information, turning the inside of the deployment vehicle into a vertigo enticing entourage. It was like he was falling feet first toward a planet and the burning, ionized atmosphere was slashing super-heated claws lunging up the sides of his legs as the dark of space turned to the blue of sky.

He did puke, the regurgitated mass escaping from his mouth and floating there, nauseating him further. Gravity was a swell thing when traveling to at a T-norm speed of 9.8 meters per second squared. Although in this case, Erumid was something a little higher with a rate of 9.913 meters a second, and even with that information supplied by the TACNAV telling him terminal velocity had come and gone like a gentleman caller in the night left his stomach falling while his bile rose.

The capital of Erudimaz crawled into tangible existence, the circular city with wide-ranging wall to fend off the tropical forest that beset it on all sides and tall towers that spun like lazy minarets into the skyline. Plazas and parks were plentiful, and Paradise Canyon, a winding river, slashed through the whitewashed center of the ovoid mass.

---

It streaks down on a coil of flame and fury, sonic booms reverberating in the sky. People point, awestruck. People die...