3 Light of Punishment

The engine hummed, the hull trembled, and the thrusters burned red hot.

A cylindrical bot rippled through the vast emptiness of space. A leading bot drifted ahead, propelled by its triple rear thrusters, accompanied by another fourteen bots under Jack Squire's command.

"Hehe!" Jack blurted, his hands still trembling from the last-minute snatch of the treasure trove. A metal box was now secured tightly in the mechanical arms.

His last mission in the low orbital ring would soon be over.

"Hahahaha! That's what I'm talking about!" David cheered through the speakers. "A wonderful mission as always, Jackie! You almost gave me a heart attack there, my good man!"

David smiled from ear to ear.

"Let's have one last drink before you leave, alright? It's on me!" David suggested, lifting his fist in celebration.

"Of course, of course…" Jack answered before disconnecting the comms and switching to autopilot.

His hands were now free from the mechanical glove controllers he used to manually pilot the puny bots.

Jack glanced down at Earth one last time, mesmerised by her beauty.

The morning news had reported that the friction between the Osten and Dunkelheit Empires had erupted into an all-out war. From his vantage point, their selfish game of greed and power seemed insignificant and unreal.

No matter. Soon, he would reunite with his lovely wife and son.

As his vessels flew automatically back to Luna Base, he got a bit of quiet time. Jack shifted in his cushioned seat to find a comfortable spot.

One thing he loved about space was the absence of gravity; his middle-aged back no longer ached. He would miss that very much, undoubtedly.

Under no acceleration and at a constant velocity, his craft floated through space with little vibration. His eyes traced the shorelines of the continent, seeking out the country he had left behind two long years ago.

Germund, a land of magical wonders under the Osten Empire's reign, was where his family resided.

He couldn't help but think to himself that we were so tiny compared to the colossal body before him; he could barely discern a human city, let alone a single house, from here.

"Well… I'm going to miss the magic and machine debate with David when I'm gone," he lamented with a hint of regret, chuckling at their silly arguments.

He remembered he had set aside one night out with David before he descended to Earth forever. Then, he would retire and live modestly with his family.

Bzzzzzt!

Suddenly, an enormous ripple tore through space. Defying the laws of physics, the vibration was visceral, reverberating through his body as if the void itself had found a way to scream.

Jack's eyes widened. An inexplicable tightness gripped his chest, sweat beaded on his wrinkled forehead, and he swallowed hard to calm his nerves.

"Huh!? Something isn't right," he murmured.

A golden sigil of ancient runes slowly materialised in the sky above his home country, its size enormous enough to be visible from space.

Another glowing sigil appeared, and slowly, it began to form into a colossal arcane circle. They pulsed violently in an erratic rhythm, rippling the nearby clouds outward and illuminating the firmament as though a local star was present.

With his rudimentary knowledge of the arcane, Jack's instincts screamed that this was no ordinary power. This was something far beyond the natural order, a force so immense it eclipsed the boundaries of his wildest imagination.

He could feel it in his guts as they churned.

Once the celestial circle completed its rotation, something terrifying and menacing would occur, like an impending doom bestowed upon humankind.

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The sight was nauseating.

His finger reflexively pressed the comms button, calling to warn David.

Once the green light beeped, "David! Did you see the glowing ring of the spell over Germund?!" Jack roared, his voice trembling.

"What?! Ye~yeah, I see it now. What do you think? Another magic trick—" David started, but Jack snapped frantically.

"Listen! This is not a trick. Initiate the evac protocol right now!"

"Evac?! Are you mad?" David exclaimed incredulously, but the pure terror in Jack's eyes was enough.

"Listen, you fat prick! Now is not the time! Get your fat arse out..." The comms dissolved into static.

"Damn it!" Jack boomed, sucking his cheeks in exasperation. He hoped his friend had listened.

Jack tested all types of communication: radio, laser, microwave, satellite relay, and quantum entanglement.

Nothing worked.

All human-invented communication systems had gone completely haywire.

"ARGH?!" Jack yelped in full panic as the gargantuan spell completed its circle. Space and time ripped apart. The deafening pulse vibrated his entire world, shoving him into his pilot seat as if a force field were buckling him down.

The electrical devices went completely dark. The engine stalled, the thrusters went cold, and the puny bots veered erratically off course with their remaining kinetic energy.

***

Stumbling to his only viewport on his craft, Jack watched the colossal beam of pure, condensed energy tear through space, annihilating everything in its path. Distant micro-explosions sparked along its trajectory like perverse fireworks, and he knew exactly what they were: the detonation of arcanite engines.

Countless Armatus knights and drones, obliterated by the light of punishment.

He was witnessing an all-out war between two empires, orchestrated on a scale he could never have imagined.

He watched from a safe distance, dumbfounded by the overwhelming display of power. It was a celestial force, reminiscent of the gods from the ancient myths of his childhood. His mind reeled, struggling to piece together the chaotic whirlwind of the past fifteen minutes.

As backup power hummed to life, his remaining puny bots flickered back to operational status. The sight rekindled his resolve. He had no time to waste.

"Set a shortcut to DebrisX headquarters on Luna Base! Send a distress comm on loop until it reaches them!" he barked, his fingers snapping and motioning inside the glove controllers. The bots resumed their flight pattern, heading straight for the heart of the moon.

"...David?!... David?!" Nothing. The dead silence allowed a cold dread to nest in his heart. His vision swam with sheer terror, but he kept his eyes fixed on the light of punishment. It didn't stop. It swirled, and shifted its aim toward the moon.

How long does light take to travel from Earth to the moon? 1.3 seconds?!

Before the thought could even fully form, the divine light pierced the moon like an arrow through an apple.

The grey rock shook violently and crumbled, its infrastructure and cities wiped from existence a fraction of a second later.

Suddenly, a sliver of the primary beam fractured, slithering through the void like a serpent of death. It twisted with malicious precision, zeroing in on his fragile bots. In mere seconds, three were annihilated — cleaved in two and fried to a crisp, their metallic shells glowing red-hot before collapsing.

"Activate shields!" he roared. The engine whirred, overloading like thunder as translucent blue layers engulfed his craft. Another stray beam chased down five more of his drones. He activated evasive manoeuvres, but it was too late. They were blasted through, detonating in a chain of micro-explosions.

Three to five seconds, Jack observed with grim clarity. That's how long the shields hold. I have to use that.

The wrath of the light seemed to possess a consciousness of its own. Another serpent broke free and targeted his primary vessel.

Jack wrenched the craft aside, evading the killing beam, a hiss of thrilled relief escaping his nose. But it circled back, chasing him like a hungry hound, its speed ever-increasing.

"Layer manoeuvre!" Jack roared. The remaining puny bots piled up, forming a multi-layered wall of mechanical bodies. The light of death clawed its way through them, one by one, before biting into his primary bot. The impact rocked his hull as though two asteroids had collided, jerking him so violently his helmet rammed into the dashboard.

Blinding light.

The throb of his own heartbeat.

The sound of his own ragged panting.

He was alive, breathing heavily, head bleeding.

The layered shields had absorbed most of the damage, shredding away until only a fraction of the beam's power struck his hull. His engine was crippled, but he was alive. As his eyesight returned, stars burned in his retinas and the acrid smell of burning composites pierced his nostrils.

Before him, the city of a new civilisation, the culmination of three hundred years of sweat and tears, Luna Base crumbled.

His wide eyes were fixated on the moon as it split into two massive halves, debris scattering outward in a cosmic storm. Micro-explosions erupted in rapid succession, followed by colossal shockwaves, each blast a final death knell. His arms dropped limply to his sides, the weight of the loss pressing down on him, an unbearable, crushing force.

No one on Luna could have survived that… Millions of people… gone…

Before he could process the dark thought, a large chunk of debris crashed into his vessel. The kinetic force threw him from his seat, slamming his body into a solid console with a loud, meaty thud.

Then, darkness.

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