“Outrider, the situation is planetwide. Take cover. The All Father is inbound.”
My ears started to ring, and I felt a heavy dread sink into my chest, “Repeat the last communication,” I said, hoping I’d heard wrong.
“Outrider, The All Father is coming to Halvodon. You have less than a minute to take cover.”
I dropped my rifle, the weapon clanging to the carrier's deck as I ran out the rear doors. My squad was reloading and tending to the wounded while they waited for the oncoming Halvodis horde. I ran past, grabbing at their uniforms and pulling hard.
“We gotta move! Get to cover, now!”
“The carrier is our best shot to funnel them in until we get back up!” One of them shouted back.
I turned backward while still sprinting, “The All Father is coming! Run!”
The last thing I saw of them was their shocked looks before I turned and ran. I’d only heard legends about the power of The All Father. He created planets, created life, and was the reason we existed. If he had the power to make things on such a massive scale, who knew what he could do if he had a mind to destroy?
I ran as fast as I could away from the Halvodis mob. There was no way to know how far away I’d have to be, but I was looking at this like a bombardment. Move far away, get low, and hope that your luck holds out.
I looked skyward and saw a pinpoint of painfully bright blue light. At first, I thought it was a sun from a distant planet. Then, I noticed it was getting closer.
I pumped my legs faster, pulling off my helmet and tossing it to the side so my aching lungs could pull air better.
There was a sound like leather tearing on a cosmic scale, and a boom erupted behind me as a shockwave ripped through the air. Rather than letting it hit me running, I leaped into the air. The wave hit me in the back and sent me sailing, carrying me further than I could have ever hoped to make running.
The ground came up fast and I rolled with the momentum, tumbling along the ground wildly before coming to a skidding stop near a shallow outcropping of rock. I heard a whistling warble from behind me and crawled into the shallow indentation in the ground before turning to see what was happening.
To this day, I still have nightmares about what I saw.
Most of my squad hadn’t listened to the warning, continuing to fire into the approaching Halvodis from the rear of the carrier. In the sky above them, I saw a brilliant ball of blue light resembling a falling star. It was brighter than Davos 1, which still hung distantly on the horizon, and it hurt my eyes to look at it. In the ball of blue fire, I could see a darker shape engulfed in the Spear Energy and holding the Spear of Space.
The All Father had arrived.
He turned in the air and went horizontal to the surface. He extended the Spear at the Halvodis horde, a wide screen of energy shot forth from the tip of the Spear and blasted into the wave of people below.
The blue light hit the backs of the Halvodis militia like a crashing wave. I expected them to be washed away in blue light like dirt from a stone. Instead, when the light hit them, it tore them to pieces on a cellular level. Bits of flesh and bone peeled away from their backs and filled with air with flecks of it in a growing crowd. Even from where I was I could hear the agonized screams ululating in the air. The All Father’s flight had slowed as he poured his fire and wrath into the Halvoldis below, cooking them in the light of his power. They fell to the ground in heaps, screaming as their flesh was peeled off them in layers before cooking their internal organs. As he passed over them the energy hit my squad, and the carrier they were sheltering at, subjecting them to the same fate. The carrier erupted, a bright explosion ending the suffering of the soldiers. A mercy compared to what the Halvodis had suffered.
In seconds The All Father had wiped out all of the Halvodis forces. Charred skeletons littered the plains before me like a field of driftwood. The air was filled with charred bits of remains and the smell of cooked meat. My gut lurched and I vomited, splattering the ground and adding to the stink. I crawled from under the outcropping dry heaving and gasping for a breath of something other than death.
The hairs on my arm stood on end and I looked up into the stark white eyes of The All Father. He hovered a few feet above the ground, but even if he hadn’t he would have towered over me. I could feel the barely restrained power of the Spear of Space crackling in his hand as he regarded me, and I finally knew my place in the universe. I was nothing more than an insect to him, something that could be squashed or spared with the same amount of thought and concern. His eyes bore into me and I felt warmth trickle down my leg as I pissed myself. But I never looked away. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to.
Then, in less time than it took to blink, he was gone. The sonic boom of his takeoff blasted me back to the ground and deafened me for several minutes. I just lay there on the ground, my mind reeling from my encounter with my creator.
It was several hours before anyone came looking for me. I found out The All Father had flown around the planet in less than a minute, blasting almost two billion Halvodis to ash. I had witnessed the death of a planet in an instant, and I had participated in its destruction.
Forgive me.
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