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Atmospheric Burst

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"Target locked and confirmed. Awaiting authorization, sir."
"General order to all vessels, raise burst shields. Helmsman, orient vessel length-to-center focus planetary body." "Yes, sir."

Admiral Clayre looked over at the trainee next to him. Finished courses in the fleet academy, now obtaining experience in the field. Leftenant Lorez."I assume you're familiar with atmospheric burst, son?" "I've heard of it, briefly mentioned, but not in detail. What exactly is it?" "Karma." the admiral answered. "Instant Karma."

"The effect was first witnessed in the first Pandric-Tiln war. the Tils were pursuing total war in every sense of the word. They went from system to system, bombing stations, scorching worlds. They were ruthless, merciless. They realized, however, that this method was very inefficient. Once they had finished their work in a system, there was nothing left to scavenge off of to keep the fleet running. Operating costs were just too high with them having to constantly ship food, munitions, and fuel, across the galaxy. They knew they had to change. so, true to Tillian style, they found a way to burn more efficiently. End the war sooner, each planet scorched faster. Technically it would bring down costs, even if it wasn't ethical. They kept things simple. No big research program to produce a super weapon. They just started building gigaton yield nukes and shipping them to the front."

"The first one was supposed to send a message, so they waited for just the right moment to deploy it. Big space battle, all the ships sitting about, enemy crippled, watching. they fired the bomb at the planet they were orbiting. Tils don't think things through. Now we can learn from their mistake, in a way. The blast exerted such a force it blew the planets atmosphere off. The combination of the shock wave and the huge amounts of heat gave the gas particles enough kinetic energy to escape the planet's gravitational pull. Hot plasma put an end in five minutes what war machines couldn't do in decades. Both fleets were nearly entirely vaporized. Terracide. The crime of crimes. But now, we have learned. We will not make that mistake, commit that crime, until we're sure we can escape justice first."

"Issue to fleet: fire mission confirmed, release salvo. All ships prepare for atmospheric burst."
They shall call me, Draglide! The thread killer!

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