# Cometh The Eagle [Short]



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

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The earth tore like flesh, weeping blood and crumbling beneath the bombardment. Buildings, cities, all the edifices of man sloughed away and were washed from its surface like layers of dead skin. Fire rained. Destruction reigned.

Crying out in terror, the inhabitants of the world died: All of the prostitutes, junkies and scum; all of the devoted parents and the lonely people just trying to make their way in the insanity of the uncaring galaxy; all of the nobles, priests and politicians. All of them gone, and a mere uncountable fraction of the whole. 

Aggravations, annoying little things that people did out of sheer spite. Vigils whose purpose were long forgotten by the vigilants. Endless interactions, schemes and collaborations between millions of citizens—wiped away and gone. Systems of society, empty and worthless to all but those who enacted them. All of these forever obliterated. Dead.

Some fled far and fast enough, but they were few. They sheltered in underground bunkers and sewers, cowering, with rebreathers pressed to their faces. These were the frightened ones, to whom all promises of safety and shelter were forever lost and broken.

The clear blue sky was gone. It was swallowed by red-tinged darkness; replaced with roiling clouds of smog. The sun was a faint, guttering ball, lost to the few survivors.

Vast tracts of land, hundreds of miles square, had been lain to waste by the orbital bombardments, and still smoldered. Above these built massive heat-cyclones of overwhelming heat and ash. Black clouds spilled outward from the epicenters of destruction, accompanied on the ground by a wave of heat hundreds of degrees strong. Vegetation withered and died. Bracken and loam spontaneously combusted, causing raging, unchecked wildfires across the planet.

The world’s ecosystems sputtered, gasped, and died. Forests became bare, blackened, twisted trunks, and mammals of all sizes burnt and died by the million. Gulfs, rivers and ocean boiled, or became so polluted by ash and ruin that they ran black. Vast schools of fish floated belly-up in the effluence that caked the waters.

And the world was ruined; and the world was empty; and the world was dead. Millions of unique life-forms were rendered extinct. Billions of humans had been scoured from its surface.

On the lips of the victorious Imperium, whose ships had crushed this insurrection, whose might had quashed this pathetic display of revolt, there was but one cry: “Cometh the Eagle!”

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Inspired by this:


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

very interesting take, very sombre indeed. and it makes a lot of sense. the story fits perfectly. absolutely perfectly. another great work mate.

CP


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