Volume 2 - Chapter 31 - Social Expert
| "Have you ever heard a supermassive structure die, Major? It's not silent, like space should be. The Ravenhearst was so massive, the sheer amount of atmospheres inside rivaled that of entire planets. When it burst open… In that moment—just that brief, terrible moment—it wasn't silent at all. I felt it first; my ship was rattled and tossed about as if gripped by the Emperor’s own hands. And then it hit… The screams. Two hundred million voices merging into one wave of desperation and unadulterated terror, tearing through the vacuum of space itself as the air rushed out to fill the void when it was split open. It wasn't the explosion. It wasn't the metal twisting or fuel igniting that terrified me. Not even what losing the Ravenhearst meant to the UHF; our very future. No… It was those screams, Major. The way they tore through my ship’s hull, reverberated from every surface like the metal itself was possessed with the two hundred million souls I was watching die right in front of me… They only lasted for an instant, but each one of them felt like they lasted an eternity. Screams in the very vacuum of space. Sound where no sound should be possible... They still echo in my head. I haven’t slept in weeks. They echo even now, Major. In any silence, I still hear the Ravenhearst dying…" — Scout Pilot Elara Torwin, sole survivor of Scout Unit Echo-119, Ravenhearst Incident Log, 941 PFC
|