The sky does not just fall. It screams.
The sound of the Architect dreadnought breaking apart in the upper atmosphere is a continuous, deafening roar that vibrates in the marrow of my bones. It is the sound of a mountain tearing itself apart, the sound of physics violently correcting a cosmic mistake.
I am on my knees in the cratered dirt of the central courtyard, my hands still pressed against the scorched blackthorn wood of the surface tether. The golden light of the EMP has faded, leaving the massive crystal monolith dark and humming with a faint, residual warmth.
Above us, the sky is a canvas of fire.
Massive chunks of the dreadnought’s geometric hull, some the size of city blocks, are burning up in the stratosphere. They streak across the dark heavens like a thousand angry comets,
