The dust settles several minutes later. There was complete destruction everywhere. The central tower, once a monument to Arthur Kaine's absolute authority, was gone, replaced by a massive, smoking caldera of pulverized stone and twisted, fused iron. A heavy, grey silence pressed down on the scene, heavier than the gravity of the red planet itself. The storm above had momentarily spent its initial fury, the clouds churning in bruised silence, though blue forks still flickered near the horizon, waiting.
In the center of the ruin, a hand, clad in blue-plated armor, punched through the surface of a fractured marble slab.
