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“All officers…is Fury Command. Have…situation developing. Stand…for update.”
“THIS…ARCHIMMUNES UMBERTO’S FANT…FIVE HYPERCANES…FORMED OVER…SYCORAX….ANOMALOUS PRESSURE CENTERS…EIGHTY KILO…PASCALS. THE LARGEST…WINDSPEEDS OF EIGHT HUNDRED KILOMETERS PER…MOVING SOUTH” The signal cuts out and reestablishes. “WILL MAKE LANDFALL ON…HELION COAST IN TWENTY…EXPECT CLOUD COVER TO THIRTY KILOMETERS. HEAVY…FALL, TURBULENCE, ELECTRICAL…INTERFERENCE AND STORM SURGES…SECONDARY STORM FORMING OVER…WASTE OF LADON…”
Confused glances are exchanged. “Hypercane?” Seneca frowns through his open cockpit.
“Those aren’t possible except in the Rim,” Seraphina says, coming up from behind with Kalindora.
But I alone know that they very much are. Grandmother, you left landmines everywhere.
“Perhaps we should delay landing,” I offer neutrally. The officers glare as if I’ve spit in their eyes.
“Delay landing?” Ajax asks, incredulous. “And let a bit of weather steal our glory? I think your time amongst Moonies has made you superstitious, goodman.”
“If there are five hypercanes over the Sycorax…”
“That’s a thousand kilometers from here.”
“A storm with eighty kilopascals has the capacity to cover all of Helios—much less five of them.” I do the math. “Eight-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds will pull down a ripWing. Electrical will slag any orbital relay. The Immunes mentioned a secondary storm. If there are pressure anomalies in the desert, we should suspend the land—”
“Lysander, enough,” Ajax says.
It’s the first time he’s used my name in front of them, though they all know who I am by now. I pull it back. There’s no way out of this. No way to avoid alienating him except by playing dumb, but then men die.
Ajax continues. “Thank you. Seneca, I told you to take your men—”
“Ajax,” Seneca interrupts, “the northern drones have gone down.”
Ajax bares his teeth. “What do you mean, gone down? Did they report enemy contact?”
“They’re not responding to commands and their feeds are static. They were picking up some sort of pressure anomaly.”
“A pressure anomaly?” Ajax glances at me as if I did this. “Hail the scouts.”
“They’re not responding either. Something is interfering with their coms.”
“Quiet,” Seraphina says. She lifts her hand to touch the wind. “Don’t you feel it?”
“What?” Kalindora says.
“The storm.”
A stone clatters against Ajax’s starShell. He looks down with a frown. Rocks bounce against my boots. Then all along the landfall, men shout and point at something to the northwest. Ajax’s eyes click upward to look past our semicircle of officers and then widen. “By Jove…”
Out there, amongst the chalk, coming down the desert flats between the mountain ranges, is a storm like those I’ve seen only in terraforming holos. A wall of sand rages across the desert. My feet root me to the ground as a great convulsive sigh of horror goes through the vanguard and the first wave.
Seraphina turns on Ajax. “Take cover.”
“Helmets up! Prepare for elements!” Ajax shouts. “Land those ships! I want those tanks on the ground!”
The army breaks into frantic contortions.
I see the missing scouts as I shout to the Praetorians to take shelter. The scouts race ahead of the storm, burning their boots for all they’re worth. Little dots chased by a great brown tide. One disappears into the darkness. Ajax shouts commands to the transport pilots, but they’re caught in landing protocol. Some try to land ahead of the storm, only to make a logjam. Others peel off, but the winds knock them off course and they clash together in the sky as the roaring of the sand wall encroaches.
It is the end of the world.
The sand hits us like a sweeping broom. I watch as three engineers setting up a communications array sprint back to their ship. The sand, traveling at hundreds of kilometers an hour, shreds their uniforms and bodies down to the bone with the thoroughness of a decay time-lapse. Kalindora is with me. We brace ourselves and the wall hits us. I’m kicked sideways, spinning on the ground end over end, unable to stand or orient myself. Finally, after colliding with its door hatch, I manage to crawl behind a heavy tank. Hidden from the wind, I watch as the wall hits the stream of transports.
Decimation.
