People boarded the MACC in a giant line. I suddenly recalled the story of Noah my mother had read to me when I was a child from one of old Earth’s religions. There were still followers of that religion even if the Empire restricted them. Noah had brought in two of every animal onto a boat to save them from the judgement of God. I looked at the coming storm and wondered if we were facing the same thing.

It wasn’t just soldiers, there were also Luminari civilians who had heard us over the open coms. Amara had assured them it was safe, and a steady stream of people were running towards us. Hades could hold three hundred men comfortably; I only had a crew of around fifty to operate the MACC, but we had already let over two-hundred people on board.

Kyshen, Luminari, soldier or civilian it didn’t matter we let them all on. The air was already getting colder and the distant rumbling of thunder could be heard replacing the sounds of bombardments. I stood on the bridge of Hades with Amara and the rest of my officers as we sent out our coordinates and did our best to warn those within range of our receivers of the coming destruction. Time and time again we heard the last messages of those in the path of the storm. Some were brave in the face of death others wept and begged for salvation.

“Turn it off,” I said as a man begged for us to come and rescue him.

Karsen ended the transmission, his face pale from hearing so many messages just like it. “All those people,” he said.

“Theres nothing, we can do for them,” I said. “Keep sending out that signal, they need to get to whatever shelter they can find even if its underground.”

“But the beasts down there…” Karsen said shakily, his hands fumbling with his controls.

“Aren’t as certain death as that storm,” I said. “We do what we can even if just a warning. Pull yourself together Karnen, I need you focused.”

I pulled down the scopes putting my eyes to them. The scopes were used to target the rail guns on Hades, but they also let us scout for distant threats or see the coming storm. I looked into the jaws of the storm catching sight of a light vehicle, it was racing in front of the storm jumping over trenches as it sped from the looming death. It dipped down into a ditch slowing for only a moment, but it was too much. The storm wall closed on it and it was sucked into the wall of wind and sand. I watched as a bolt of lighting struck it lighting it up and letting me see as its paint and ceramic armor disintegrated as if they’d fallen into a giant’s mill and been ground to dust.

“I want satellite feed on how close that storm is to us,” I said.

“That’ll be a court martial for us all they catch me hacking that,” Karsen warned me.

“They’ve already sentenced us all to death,” I said flatly.

He nodded and he and several other technician pulled up a holographic display of the terrain around us as seen from the satellites orbiting us. The storm was a wall of static approaching us.

“Why does it look like that?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Karsen said his voice losing its fear as he stared in fascination at the display. “I can only guess but…if the lighting is interacting with all the solarite it could be creating an electromagnetic effect that’s interfering with the satellites scans.”

“Your saying that storm is a giant EMP?” I asked.

“There’s no way to be sure, not until it hits us,” Karsen said with a shrug.

“I want all nonessential devices shut off,” I said.

“Don’t you have a faraday cage around us?” Amara asked me.

“We have them around the Balor Reactors and around the bridge,” I said. “But not over the entire MACC it would prevent communications otherwise.”

Melor was speaking into the comms giving my orders ship wide. I turned back to the hologram as the wall of static drew closer and closer.

“How much time do we have?” I asked.

“Ten minutes,” Karsen said.

“Tell anyone who isn’t within line of sight of us to get to whatever shelter they can,” I said.

The message went out and we watched the storm come closer and closer. The only light illuminating the storm was that of the constant light illuminating patches of the stormwall with azure light illuminating the blood red sand creating an ever-shifting marbled pattern across the horizon. It drew closer and closer, a group of men and women, some civilians other Kyshen centurions crested a hill running towards us halfway between us and the storm.

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“Will they make it to us?” Melor asked.

I analyzed the speed they were running, the speed of the storm and the distance they still had to travel. They were going fast but they would still fall short by three dozen meters.

“No,” I said my spirit falling. “Shut the doors.”

“We could send out speeders to collect…” Amara said.

“No,” I said again this time more forcefully. “I won’t risk the people we’ve already saved to attempt to save a few more. If we don’t close those doors now everyone in the cargo bay will die.”

“Those are my people,” Amara said looking at the women and men, their silver hair whipping around their faces, some of them carrying children in their arms.”

“And those are my brothers in arms,” I said. “Close the doors Melor.”

He tapped the button and the doors to the back of Hades began to close. The people began screaming and shouting, waving their arms to get us to stop. Several collapsed to the ground weeping or looking back towards the onrushing storm. Their screams and pleading for mercy were picked up on the audio sensors and cut me like a knife to the heart. Melor reached up to cut the feed.

“No,” I said. “I sentenced them to certain death, the least I can do is witness their final moments.”

The storm swallowed them, their screams rising with agony for a few moments before cutting off lost to the howling wind and blasts of thunder. Amara trembled, we all did as the fear of the storm gripped us a frigid blast of air washing over us like the touch of death. I grabbed her hand needing to feel the touch of another person, her hand tightened like a vice around mine. My hand reached up resting on the lever to shut the viewports, but I froze, unable to look away from that abyss.

“Shut the windows,” Melor said.

I just stared into the maelstrom.

“Shut the windows!” he shouted as the howl of the wind and roaring thunder nearly drowning him out. A slash cut across my cheek as the winds whipped towards us. I pulled down dropping the shutters plunging us into darkness.

Amara’s hand tightened even further as she stepped closer to me our bodies pressed together as we listened to the howl of the wind and the scraping against the hull like rasp filing against it. Impacts of heavy objects sounded off the window shutters and the crack of lightning striking the hull sounded like a gong again and again, but Hade’s armor was made to withstand the guns of a starship.

I wrapped my arms around Amara our bodies trembling with the storm as we hid inside a giant metal can. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes passed by ticking slowly by. The wind howled outside until finally the banging on the shutters stopped. We didn’t move, my arms locked around her, her arms around me as we embraced just to know that the other was real and we were both still here.

“Should…should I turn it back on capt’n?” Karsen asked me his voice shaky.

I cleared my throat. “Check the manual scopes first.”

He brought the periscope down and looked through. “It’s gone,” he said relieved then his voice faded. “Everything is…gone.”

I reached up and pulled the manual lever hauling down on it pulling the shutters back up. We all blinked, shutting our eyes as the light blinded us. We blinked and looked out over a sea of barren red earth. Not a blade of grass, flower or bush could be seen now. I had thought I had seen devastation before but this…

I let go of Amara and pushed past the people in the bridge. I climbed up the spiral staircase pushing open the hatch to the landing pad on top of Hades. I looked over the desolation caused by the storm; no sign of our war could be seen. No battle lines, trenches, were left, the wreckages of old tanks, the lines of wire were all gone. Hades had been stripped of its black paint revealing the red corium armor scoured to a shine by the storm. Far to the north the black wall of the storm retreated continuing its destruction over others obliterating all in its path.

I had never seen the trees of Lumara, but I had still seen the beauty of the planet, but any traces of that beauty had been scraped away leaving an ugly blood soaked corpse.

“Captain Enil, do you copy,” the voice of command came over on my transponder. “Captain Enil you are needed on the Wester Front. Captain Enil, do you copy?”

I picked up the transponder, my thumb hovering over the transmission button. The com piece dropped from my hand; a blast rang out in the silence. My boot crushed the smoking remains of the transponder under it. I heard the clink of boots on metal behind me turning to see Amara looking at me and the transponder on the ground, she had a hand on the hilt of her pistol but hadn’t drawn it, the gesture more of one of familiarity than a threat.

“What will you do now?” Amara asked looking at the smoking com piece on the ground. “Do we go back to fighting?”

“Over what?” I asked, my voice tired and defeated. “Look around, there’s nothing left to fight over; just rock and this cursed metal. This war is over whether people want to admit it or not.”

“Then what will you do?” Amara asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m never getting off this rock, never going home, never going to the outer colonies. They just used us up until we’re as lifeless as this battlefield and then send down others to take our place. What will you do?”

“I need to find my sister,” Amara said. “She took refuge with her children at Fortress Andromeda to hide from the war. I need to make sure they’re all right.”

“Do you think they survived the…” I didn’t finish not yet having a name for the storm and not wanting to think about what it must have done to so many people.

“Andromeda’s built into the eastern mountains,” Amara said. “Its energy shields would have kept out the winds.”

“I hope your sister’s alright,” I said.

“Come with us,” Amara said.

“I’m a Kyshen centurion,” I said. “Your people will kill me if I go with you.”

Amara shook her head stepping closer to me. “Its like you said the war is over.” She took my right hand in both of hers. “You’re a good man Enil. You saved these people from the storm even though most of them were your enemies.”

“Anyone would have done that,” I said shrugging.

“No,” Amara said. “Most wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have. I’ve been hurt to much by your people; had too many of the people I’ve grown to love killed by them, I’m sure you have to; but when the time came you didn’t turn them away. We need people like you.”

I sighed. “Fine, its not like I have anywhere else to go.”