Grif   So did I DC or wut
   Grif   PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS VAGINA
   Grif   I've gone on a hunger strike without a cause
   Grif   I'm a rebel without cause
   Grif   Suddenly, out of left field
   Grif   The Hammer of Thor was operational, and about to recieve its first practical test.
   Grif   The analysts say that this weapon, this blasphemy, would strike down enemies with the power of a nucleic, without any explosive yield
   Aegicide   you shouldn't say 'out of left field'
   Grif   I consider this impossible, but I will endure their trial in order to shame them
   Aegicide   it's outside the genre
   Grif   Lol
   Grif   I'm not writing anything serious
   Grif   I'm babbling into irc
   Aegicide   just sayin'!
   Grif   
   Grif   "Captain, the weapons are ready."
   Grif   "Alright. Ask the scientists whether they are ready to begin"
   Grif   Ah, Novgorod. He is a good first mate, and will do well once he must take my place.
   Grif   He is universally more adept at keeping his head low and his voice even in front of blasphemers than I am, but, then,
      <- Aegicide has disconnected (Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.79 [Firefox 2.0.0.11/2007112718])
   Grif   I was raised a religious man; his theology stems from military training.
   Grif   Here he is again.
   Grif   "The scientists are ready. They say to do the first test without any initial acceleration"
   Grif   "Do they? Then so be it. If they want to shoot themselves in the foot even further, and not launch the weapons with an initial boost, then we will cooperate."
   Grif   "Tell fire control to let the first, ah, weapon, release."
   Grif   "Of course, sir"
   Grif   He said, saluting and turning on his heels.
   Grif   Within five minutes, the test began.
   Grif   The scientists sat, waiting for what the thought would happen.
   Grif   I am no true man of high education, but I know impossibilities when I see them.
   Grif   This test would fail. Even when they asked us to retest it with acceleration, the principle would be flawed.
   Grif   There is no logical way for a nonexplosive weapon to have explosive results.
   Nfsjunkie91   I love stories
   Grif   I might as well ask this ship to go prancing down a highway.
   Grif   Fire Control is paging me.
   Grif   I accept the call.
   Grif   "Yes?" I say, no irritation in my voice. A good captain is never angry with officers for bearing bad news.
   Grif   "The weapon is away. The scientists want us to raise our altitude."
   Grif   "Do they. So be it. Thank you for the report, officer."
   Grif   Now feeling rather annoyed that the scientists thought they could control me like this, I decided to page Engineering anyways.
   Grif   The call went through instantly. Being a captain does rather require open lines of communication.
   Grif   "The scientists," I say, drawling out the word, "have said that they wish us to pull our orbit up."
   Grif   "Simply being perfectly geostationary is not enough? By the Father, they are demanding."
   Grif   "Indeed, my brother, but, we must obey, lest High Command see fit to remove from power the last true believe in the Force."
   Grif   My brother laughs.
   Grif   And then closes the connection.
   Grif   I hear the rumble deep in my chest, signalling that he was compliant.
   Grif   Frederick is a good man, but too comfortable around my authority.
   Grif   I realize he is my brother, but he should not be so loose around me. It lessens my authority with the officers.
   Grif   Ah well. The weapon appears to be nearly into the atmosphere now.
   Nfsjunkie91      Grif, you are the best damned writer I know

   Grif   Frederick is a brilliant engineer, and loves to prove it. He has stationed us exactly over the destination of the missile without even being prompted.
   Nfsjunkie91   Keep in mind, that I know
   Grif   (( Thanks. ))
   Grif   "By the Father!" I hear from the officers around me, as the missile streaks through the atmosphere, leaving a brilliant trail of plasma.
   Grif   I decide to excuse the blasphemy, for now.
   Grif   The scientists broadcast the information that the missile is now moving at nearly six kilometers per second.
   Grif   As if anyone cares, or believes that this will work.
   Grif   Ponderous, impossible calculations of energy brought back from ancient records of Earth have as much relevance as the original Qur'An on which all religion is now based.
   Grif   (( ♥♥♥♥ you bible xD ))
   Grif   The scientists begin to count down, as one.
   Grif   "Ten"
   Grif   "Nine"
   Grif   "Eight"
   Grif   And so on, until, on the breath following one,
   Grif   a bright flash is seen on the planet.
   Grif   Immediately, they celebrate, heralding exultations, and congratulating each other, rather than the true benefactor, the Father.
   Grif   I hold my tongue, however, for I know that their test did little damage.
   Grif   A bright flash means nothing.
   Grif   A child's toy can make a bright flash, and be as harmless as a dead worm.
   Grif   The scientists are already using the ship's geoviewing stations to inspect the damage.
   Grif   "Impossible," I utter, nearly silent. The weapon has not only worked, it exceeded expectations, and even without the acceleration.
   Grif   Accepting this, I drop to my knees, and thank the Father for the gift he has given us in our fight against the Buggies.
   Grif   Nfsjunkie91: Done
   Nfsjunkie91   Buggies?
   Grif   Random alien name
   Grif   no 2456
   Nfsjunkie91   Nice story anyway
   Grif   Thank ye
   Grif   I can do some third person about the missile itself
   Grif   hitting the planet.
   Nfsjunkie91   That'd be cool
   Grif   Off I go.
   Grif   The missile, technically known as a KP-01, shorthand for Kinetic Penetrator, fell loose from the cradle.
   Nfsjunkie91   aka "duh girfbamb"
   Grif   (( quiet you ))
   Grif   (( just got writer's block, gimme a minute ))
   Grif   The projectile, for that is all it can really be called, was not elegant in design or shape.
   Grif   Effectively, it was a single piece of molded tungsten that was designed to do two things: Not melt in re-entry, and weigh a lot.
   Grif   Tungsten had the natural advantage of fulfilling both requirements.
   Grif   With twice the density of steel, and a significantly higher temperature tolerance, it was a natural choice.
   Grif   Roughly ten meters long, and a third of one in diameter, it was not tremendously bulky.
   Grif   Certainly more size-efficient than any previous attempts to duplicate the projected yield.
   Grif   It boggled the mind, but, supposedly, this simple lump of metal would have, upon striking the ground, approximately the energy of a small nuclear device.
   Grif   Admittedly, the physics involved were based upon Old Earth calculations, and might not apply on this foreign planet, but, the possession of another weapon, especially one so easy to construct, and foolproof to deliver, appealed to the scientists.
   Grif   Therefore, they pursued funding from the Empire, and were granted time to both build prototypes, and test them, with the help of Captain Luther.
   Grif   The weapon began to drift toward the surface of the planet.
   Grif   Every aspect of its flight had been precalculated, predetermined, and the scientists knew exactly where it would land.
   Grif   The only mystery was whether it would actually work.
   Grif   The Captain had already expressed his disdain for the concept, the scientists, and indeed most of the civilized world, despite the hypocrisy, seeing as the words came from the captain of the greatest starship the Empire ever created.
   Grif   Caught in the atmosphere, the KP rapidly oriented itself along the correct path.
   Grif   Thanks to Engineer Frederick's competent engineering, the perfect geostationary orbit held the KP in a directly vertical path.
   Grif   The white hot flame of plasma suddenly shot from the tail of the tungsten pole, firing hundreds of feet back into the atmosphere.
   Grif   The scientists confirmed their own ideas, and shouted out the speed of the projectile, an incredibly five kilometers per second.
   Grif   As it ripped a hole through the atmosphere, the rod of God accelerated even further, to an unimaginable speed of nine kilometers per second.
   Grif   (( don't snicker at rod of god okay ))
   Nfsjunkie91   hehe
   Nfsjunkie91   I didn't get it until you said it
   Grif   While the speed was ordinary, indeed, even slow for a starship, but, this was a projectile, a simple weapon, and it was bound by gravity, not the odd clauses of hyperspace.
   Grif   (( damn didn't need that ,but, ))
   Grif   Slamming through the atmosphere of this foreign world, the projectile attained its maximum speed, and began to undergo chemical changes. The heat of the friction was causing bits of the nose to fly off, shooting far into the space behind.
   Grif   These pieces, the size of mere paint chips, flecked off and launched their own bright tails.
   Grif   From the starship, it looked as those the fire trail had just blossomed to incredible degrees.
   Grif   And then, less than three minutes after entering the atmosphere, the projectile hit the ground.
   Grif   The first thing to leave the rapidly forming crater was the shockwave.
   Grif   A wave of air, hard as steel, leapt out of the blast, rapidly crushing everything nearby, purely with pneumatic pressure.
   Grif   The second event in the timeline was the formation of the crater. The projectile liquified with the energy of suddenly stopping, and blasted itself into a radial platform, actually coating the walls of the crater with a layer of molten tungsten.
   Grif   The third, and actually least devestating, was the energy of all the paint chips, which hit the ground, causing extremely minor versions of the previous events to happen.
   Grif   Once the cycle complete, a nearly mile wide crater had been formed, coated by a millimeter thick layer of still red-hot tungsten, a shockwave had killed any soft tissue bodies within around two miles, and a series of miniscule craters had pocked the landscape, changing it from empty desert to crater-marred moonscape.
   Grif   On the ship, the scientists celebrated, unaware that they had just brought to age the technology that would result in the destruction of more worlds than anyone could imagine.
   Grif   And done.
   Nfsjunkie91   cool
   Grif   Now which did you prefer?
   Nfsjunkie91   I think if you ran both stories in parallel
   Nfsjunkie91   that would be kickass²
   Grif   Yeah
   Grif   Lol
   Grif   I had meant to do that
   Grif   But I got ahead of myself
   Grif   and was suddenly talking about the missile in atmo in the first one
   Grif   and then all of a sudden it's down
   Nfsjunkie91   You typed it into IRC anyway
   Grif   Indeed
   Nfsjunkie91   not to worry too much about it
   Grif   So any other thoughts
   Nfsjunkie91   Not really, you've done a damn good job
   Grif   Whee.
   Grif   No but really I'm bored as hell gimme a topic or something for the love of god
   Nfsjunkie91   Um
   Nfsjunkie91   story about a soldier being shot and his thoughts as he dies?
   Grif   Oooh, like that
   Grif   Hmm...
   Grif   Not sure how to approach this, lemme start an intro and see how it feels.
   Grif   The shot entered my chest.
   Grif   A pulse laser, probably an XM-12. At least, that's what we call it.
   Control   you could just take the short route
   Grif   The buggies probably use some other weird klicky tongue ♥♥♥♥
   Control   "i felt a searing pain in my chest"
   Control   "and then i saw the boot"
   Control   "right. above. my head."
   Control   *stomp*
   Grif   (( Control: Way ahead of your lol I'm already going ))
   Grif   (( you ))
   Nfsjunkie91   Control
   Nfsjunkie91   let Grif finish
   Grif   I knew it was fatal.
   Grif   A hit from a buggie pulse laser, if you have the misfortune to not get killed instantly, is a death sentence.
   Grif   Somehow they coat a projectile that isn't even solid with biological contaminents.
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥, my legs are already paralyzed.
   Grif   Then again, that could just be the pulse severing my spine
   Grif   I fall facedown on the dirt, unable to lift myself up.
   Grif   As my face digs into my chin, I have time to slowly examine my paralysis.
      <- Control has disconnected (Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.79 [Firefox 2.0.0.11/2007112718])
   Grif   It's already creeping up my body.
   Grif   I wonder how strongly it affects automatic nerve responses.
   Grif   I know it kills voluntary signals, but, will my heart stay beating?
   Grif   Or will my lungs kill me first?
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥.
   Grif   I'm gonna die of asphyxiation in the middle of an oxygen rich environment
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥ buggies.
   Grif   We never even did anything to them, not really.
   Grif   Humanity can't be held responsible for one ♥♥♥♥ of an emperor
   Grif   And yet, they decided to make a strong first strike by annihalating one of our own planets.
   Grif   Shock and awe, or some crap like that.
   Grif   And then I get drafted for the Force.
   Grif   Total time spent in training: about six minutes
   Grif   They're pressing everyone available into service
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥ morons.
   Grif   It's not like we can really keep producing cannon fodder if you draft everyone capable of childbirth.
   Grif   Ah ♥♥♥♥, my arms are dead now too.
   Grif   What's that expression?
   Grif   Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food?
   Grif   I figure it's past my lungs now.
   Grif   If I'm gonna die, I've got three minutes to do it.
   Grif   Luckily for the Empire, I am a perfect soldier.
   Grif   I'm not stupid, but not too smart, I know how to shoot, and all my family is dead.
   Grif   Charming thought, but, hey, it's added motivation, seeing as the buggies are the ones who killed them.
   Grif   Or at least that's what the government thinks.
   Grif   About the motivation, not the buggies murdering them.
   Grif   That's confirmed.
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥, in the space of six thousand Galatica Turns, we went from allies to outright war with each other.
   Grif   The buggies have the worst capacity for grudges I've ever seen
   Grif   or even read about, ♥♥♥♥.
   Grif   I know some of my history
   Grif   more than the rest of my...
   Grif   probably dead by now squad.
   Grif   Can't lift my head up to look.
   Grif   Ooh, now my mouth is sore.
   Grif   And stiff.
   Grif   Maybe this thing'll kill me even faster.
   Grif   Shut off brain function.
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥, how did they even manage to make a bacteria to attack us this efficiently?
   Grif   I mean, this thing is tailer ♥♥♥♥ made to kill humans.
   Grif   (( tailor ))
   Nfsjunkie91   *
   Grif   Oh, ♥♥♥♥, this is weird
   Grif   The ground just turned green
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥, it IS in my brain
   Grif   goddemn
   Grif   cint evun think
   Grif   ♥♥♥♥
   Grif   bye wurld
   Nfsjunkie91   bye
   Grif   And with that, Private Leeroy Jenkins died, a seventeen year old boy, drafted into service four days after the death of his parents and family at the hands of the buggers.
   Grif   He was away on a school trip.
   Nfsjunkie91   LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOY JENKIIIIIIINS
   Grif   Earth was utterly destroyed in the initial attack by the Buggies.
   Grif   A Bussard Ramjet propelled mass charge slammed through the planet. Launched from the other half of the galaxy, the mass charge contained ten kilograms of carbon and anticarbon.
   Grif   Once it hit the center of the Earth, the same gravity that drew it the weapon to the target brought the two chunks of carbon together.
   Grif   In a flash, a perfectly tuned explosion wiped out the Earth.
   Grif   From the center of the earth to the end of the atmosphere, that was the exact diameter of the explosion.
   Grif   How they ever managed to measure it that accurately is still beyond what our scientists can imagine.
      Nfsjunkie91 changes nick to Nfsleep
   Grif   The nature of antimatter explosions is odd.
   Nfsleep   Sorry if I'm bailing midstory
   Grif   Hah, I'm almost done
   Nfsleep   But I gotta get to sleep
   Grif   two more lines?
   Nfsleep   I'll stay for the end
   Grif   Kay.
   Grif   Once matter and antimatter combine, they form a perfectly spherical void in the universe. It is utter nothingness. The only variable is the quantity of both materials involved.
   Grif   The ten kilograms the Buggies included in their customized bomb made the radius equal to that of the earth, and all its kilometers of atmosphere. Our scientists were unable to find a single pocket of gas that leaked from Earth. It was utterly, instantly destroyed.
   Grif   And done.
   Grif   Night.
   Nfsleep   Impressive
   Nfsleep   and seeya

The Hammer of Thor was operational, and about to recieve its first practical test.
The analysts say that this weapon, this blasphemy, would strike down enemies with the power of a nucleic, without any explosive yield
I consider this impossible, but I will endure their trial in order to shame them
"Captain, the weapons are ready."
"Alright. Ask the scientists whether they are ready to begin"
Ah, Novgorod. He is a good first mate, and will do well once he must take my place.
He is universally more adept at keeping his head low and his voice even in front of blasphemers than I am, but, then,
I was raised a religious man; his theology stems from military training.
Here he is again.
"The scientists are ready. They say to do the first test without any initial acceleration"
"Do they? Then so be it. If they want to shoot themselves in the foot even further, and not launch the weapons with an initial boost, then we will
cooperate."
"Tell fire control to let the first, ah, weapon, release."
"Of course, sir"
He said, saluting and turning on his heels.
Within five minutes, the test began.
The scientists sat, waiting for what the thought would happen.
I am no true man of high education, but I know impossibilities when I see them.
This test would fail. Even when they asked us to retest it with acceleration, the principle would be flawed.
There is no logical way for a nonexplosive weapon to have explosive results.
I might as well ask this ship to go prancing down a highway.
Fire Control is paging me.
I accept the call.
"Yes?" I say, no irritation in my voice. A good captain is never angry with officers for bearing bad news.
"The weapon is away. The scientists want us to raise our altitude."
"Do they. So be it. Thank you for the report, officer."
Now feeling rather annoyed that the scientists thought they could control me like this, I decided to page Engineering anyways.
The call went through instantly. Being a captain does rather require open lines of communication.
"The scientists," I say, drawling out the word, "have said that they wish us to pull our orbit up."
"Simply being perfectly geostationary is not enough? By the Father, they are demanding."
"Indeed, my brother, but, we must obey, lest High Command see fit to remove from power the last true believe in the Force."
My brother laughs.
And then closes the connection.
I hear the rumble deep in my chest, signalling that he was compliant.
Frederick is a good man, but too comfortable around my authority.
I realize he is my brother, but he should not be so loose around me. It lessens my authority with the officers.
Ah well. The weapon appears to be nearly into the atmosphere now.
Frederick is a brilliant engineer, and loves to prove it. He has stationed us exactly over the destination of the missile without even being prompted.
"By the Father!" I hear from the officers around me, as the missile streaks through the atmosphere, leaving a brilliant trail of plasma.
I decide to excuse the blasphemy, for now.
The scientists broadcast the information that the missile is now moving at nearly six kilometers per second.
As if anyone cares, or believes that this will work.
Ponderous, impossible calculations of energy brought back from ancient records of Earth have as much relevance as the original Qur'An on which all religion
 is now based.
The scientists begin to count down, as one.
"Ten"
"Nine"
"Eight"
And so on, until, on the breath following one,
a bright flash is seen on the planet.
Immediately, they celebrate, heralding exultations, and congratulating each other, rather than the true benefactor, the Father.
I hold my tongue, however, for I know that their test did little damage.
A bright flash means nothing.
A child's toy can make a bright flash, and be as harmless as a dead worm.
The scientists are already using the ship's geoviewing stations to inspect the damage.
"Impossible," I utter, nearly silent. The weapon has not only worked, it exceeded expectations, and even without the acceleration.
Accepting this, I drop to my knees, and thank the Father for the gift he has given us in our fight against the Buggies.

////////////////////////////interlude//////////////////////////

The missile, technically known as a KP-01, shorthand for Kinetic Penetrator, fell loose from the cradle.
The projectile, for that is all it can really be called, was not elegant in design or shape.
Effectively, it was a single piece of molded tungsten that was designed to do two things: Not melt in re-entry, and weigh a lot.
Tungsten had the natural advantage of fulfilling both requirements.
With twice the density of steel, and a significantly higher temperature tolerance, it was a natural choice.
Roughly ten meters long, and a third of one in diameter, it was not tremendously bulky.
Certainly more size-efficient than any previous attempts to duplicate the projected yield.
It boggled the mind, but, supposedly, this simple lump of metal would have, upon striking the ground, approximately the energy of a small nuclear device.
Admittedly, the physics involved were based upon Old Earth calculations, and might not apply on this foreign planet, but, the possession of another weapon,
especially one so easy to construct, and foolproof to deliver, appealed to the scientists.
Therefore, they pursued funding from the Empire, and were granted time to both build prototypes, and test them, with the help of Captain Luther.
The weapon began to drift toward the surface of the planet.
Every aspect of its flight had been precalculated, predetermined, and the scientists knew exactly where it would land.
The only mystery was whether it would actually work.
The Captain had already expressed his disdain for the concept, the scientists, and indeed most of the civilized world, despite the hypocrisy, seeing as
the words came from the captain of the greatest starship the Empire ever created.
Caught in the atmosphere, the KP rapidly oriented itself along the correct path.
Thanks to Engineer Frederick's competent engineering, the perfect geostationary orbit held the KP in a directly vertical path.
The white hot flame of plasma suddenly shot from the tail of the tungsten pole, firing hundreds of feet back into the atmosphere.
The scientists confirmed their own ideas, and shouted out the speed of the projectile, an incredibly five kilometers per second.
As it ripped a hole through the atmosphere, the rod of God accelerated even further, to an unimaginable speed of nine kilometers per second.
While the speed was ordinary, indeed, even slow for a starship, this was a projectile, a simple weapon, and it was bound by gravity, not the odd clauses
of hyperspace.
Slamming through the atmosphere of this foreign world, the projectile attained its maximum speed, and began to undergo chemical changes. The heat of the
friction was causing bits of the nose to fly off, shooting far into the space behind.
These pieces, the size of mere paint chips, flecked off and launched their own bright tails.
From the starship, it looked as those the fire trail had just blossomed to incredible degrees.
And then, less than three minutes after entering the atmosphere, the projectile hit the ground.
The first thing to leave the rapidly forming crater was the shockwave.
A wave of air, hard as steel, leapt out of the blast, rapidly crushing everything nearby, purely with pneumatic pressure.
The second event in the timeline was the formation of the crater. The projectile liquified with the energy of suddenly stopping, and blasted itself into
a radial platform, actually coating the walls of the crater with a layer of molten tungsten.
The third, and actually least devestating, was the energy of all the paint chips, which hit the ground, causing extremely minor versions of the previous
events to happen.
Once the cycle complete, a nearly mile wide crater had been formed, coated by a millimeter thick layer of still red-hot tungsten, a shockwave had killed
any soft tissue bodies within around two miles, and a series of miniscule craters had pocked the landscape, changing it from empty desert to crater-marred
moonscape.
On the ship, the scientists celebrated, unaware that they had just brought to age the technology that would result in the destruction of more worlds than
anyone could imagine.

///////////////////////////////////interlude/////////////////////////////

The shot entered my chest.
A pulse laser, probably an XM-12. At least, that's what we call it.
The buggies probably use some other weird klicky tongue ♥♥♥♥
I knew it was fatal.
A hit from a buggie pulse laser, if you have the misfortune to not get killed instantly, is a death sentence.
Somehow they coat a projectile that isn't even solid with biological contaminents.
♥♥♥♥, my legs are already paralyzed.
Then again, that could just be the pulse severing my spine
I fall facedown on the dirt, unable to lift myself up.
As my face digs into my chin, I have time to slowly examine my paralysis.
It's already creeping up my body.
I wonder how strongly it affects automatic nerve responses.
I know it kills voluntary signals, but, will my heart stay beating?
Or will my lungs kill me first?
♥♥♥♥.
I'm gonna die of asphyxiation in the middle of an oxygen rich environment
♥♥♥♥ buggies.
We never even did anything to them, not really.
Humanity can't be held responsible for one ♥♥♥♥ of an emperor
And yet, they decided to make a strong first strike by annihalating one of our own planets.
Shock and awe, or some crap like that.
And then I get drafted for the Force.
Total time spent in training: about six minutes
They're pressing everyone available into service
♥♥♥♥ morons.
It's not like we can really keep producing cannon fodder if you draft everyone capable of childbirth.
Ah ♥♥♥♥, my arms are dead now too.
What's that expression?
Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food?
I figure it's past my lungs now.
If I'm gonna die, I've got three minutes to do it.
Luckily for the Empire, I am a perfect soldier.
I'm not stupid, but not too smart, I know how to shoot, and all my family is dead.
Charming thought, but, hey, it's added motivation, seeing as the buggies are the ones who killed them.
Or at least that's what the government thinks.
About the motivation, not the buggies murdering them.
That's confirmed.
♥♥♥♥, in the space of six thousand Galatica Turns, we went from allies to outright war with each other.
The buggies have the worst capacity for grudges I've ever seen
or even read about, ♥♥♥♥.
I know some of my history
more than the rest of my...
probably dead by now squad.
Can't lift my head up to look.
Ooh, now my mouth is sore.
And stiff.
Maybe this thing'll kill me even faster.
Shut off brain function.
♥♥♥♥, how did they even manage to make a bacteria to attack us this efficiently?
I mean, this thing is tailor ♥♥♥♥ made to kill humans.
Oh, ♥♥♥♥, this is weird
The ground just turned green
♥♥♥♥, it IS in my brain
goddemn
cint evun think
♥♥♥♥
bye wurld
And with that, Private Leeroy Jenkins died, a seventeen year old boy, drafted into service four days after the death of his parents and family at the hands
of the buggies.
He was away on a school trip.
Earth was utterly destroyed in the initial attack by the Buggies.
A Bussard Ramjet propelled mass charge slammed through the planet. Launched from the other half of the galaxy, the mass charge contained ten kilograms of
carbon and anticarbon.
Once it hit the center of the Earth, the same gravity that drew it the weapon to the target brought the two chunks of carbon together.
In a flash, a perfectly tuned explosion wiped out the Earth.
From the center of the earth to the end of the atmosphere, that was the exact diameter of the explosion.
How they ever managed to measure it that accurately is still beyond what our scientists can imagine.
The nature of antimatter explosions is odd.
Once matter and antimatter combine, they form a perfectly spherical void in the universe. It is utter nothingness. The only variable is the quantity of
both materials involved.
The ten kilograms the Buggies included in their customized bomb made the radius equal to that of the earth, and all its kilometers of atmosphere. Our
scientists were unable to find a single pocket of gas that leaked from Earth. It was utterly, instantly destroyed.