A silk dress, once sewn by a mother or a grandmother, was torn to shreds and scattered among the rubble. She laid naked with torn silk and embers around her. She felt pain. Not the pain when she tripped on her way to the arcade down the street. Not the pain when her cat scratched her. She felt real pain. Real continuous pain. She crawled, but everywhere she placed her hand an ember seared her. The embers fell like rain from the dark looming cloud that rose from the scorched and flattened city. No building stood. No houses. No hospitals. No stores. No Arcades. Long mounds of blazing rubble and the girl with the torn silk dress remained.

It was an easy job. We didn't man the cannons. We didn't load them. We didn't maintenance them. We would hear them. Waited for them to destroy everything below. We were the cleanup crew. There were always survivors. We never knew how they survived. A miracle each time, but short lived.

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Once the cannons stopped, that was our que. The hatch opened and dark red-orange light poured in from the scorched planet. I never got used to the feeling in my stomach from the drop. Our ship rattled and shook both of our seats. The heat cooked us but never enough to kill us.

When we pierced through the dark clouds, the blue glow of the instrumentation lit up, searching. It was the first time I saw a survivor before the instrumentation. I remember seeing the glittering pieces of silk from the window. The pieces stood out like stars, shimmering against the dark rubble. The instrumentation buzzed. My partner turned the ship towards her.

It was quick. He shot her twice. Once in the face and once in the chest.

On the next planet, I shot him.