41. Coping Mechanisms

So it was helpful, then? Chief Librarian Yuuno Scrya asked.

Oh yes, very, Lindy Harlaown's voice replied cheerfully from the other end of the telepathic link. My word, but you should have seen his face... I'm not quite sure I got the definition right on that reclining multiplex stuff, though – mind clearing it up for me sometime?

Within the blessed invisibility of his taxi seat, Yuuno pressed a palm to his forehead. Certainly, ma'am. Will you be wanting 'Sociological Phenomena for Dummies', or the complete 'Ghost in the Shell' DVD collection?

Ghost in the...? Will that play on a holographic projector?

Much to the series creators' everlasting regret, I suspect not.

Oh, well, I suppose I'll just go for... umm... that other one you mentioned. Thanks for the help, Yuuno, dear – I appreciate it. Show Hayate a good time, won't you?

Yuuno sputtered incoherently for a moment, before giving up. I... ah... of course, ma'am. Anything else you want assistance with, just give the word.

He cut the link, and leaned back in the seat, exhaling through his nose. After the news from the front lines, everyone in the new Fleet Admiral Harlaown's social network was only too happy to lend her a hand, even if that meant having the already-overworked senior archivist of a multidimensional civilisation supply her with crib notes so that she could show off to her former teacher. Despite the fact that he'd volunteered to help, though, the wanton misuse of meme theory always made him a little... twitchy.

The rain hammered down against the windows, turning the view outside into the kind of pointillist nightmare that Vincent van Gogh might have created if he had stolen a time-machine, gone on a drunken bender with H. R. Giger and Salvador Dali in Las Vegas, and managed to rattle off a few paintings before the inevitable blood-soaked ritual to conjure the forces of darkness/skip paying the bar tab. The massive skyscrapers of Clanagan's city centre curled overhead, bizarrely distorted by the curve of the glass and the pebbled, ephemeral mass of water droplets upon its surface. The street-lights blinked on and off along with the neon threads and holographic billboards that lined the taller buildings, their arrhythmic flickering almost matching the flashes of lightning overhead.

The metropolis's power-grid had not been in a good way ever since the invasion, and getting hit by one of Mid-Childa's infamous summer storms had not helped one bit. Neither, for that matter, had the string of catastrophic reactor breaches that had struck the district's power-plants, triggered by a sentient sleeper virus seeded weeks ago by an especially inventive Hellhound team. Casualties had been minimal, thankfully, but the incident had only served to heighten the city's paranoia... and Yuuno knew where that led.

He gazed into the night for a few moments more, trying to see if he could spot any remotely recognisable landmarks through the deluge, but found nothing. Judging by the length of the journey so far, though, they still had a little way to go, so he settled into the most comfortable meditation position his seatbelt would allow, closed his eyes, and accessed the net.

Global communication/information networks were extremely common on planets where one or more civilisations had developed beyond a certain point – in fact, some scholars (Yuuno included) were still debating whether or not they should be seen as developmental milestones in and of themselves. The regular electronic ones had a remarkable enough impact on society as was, but it was when magic was brought into the equation that things got really interesting.

The Mid-Childan network was not just mechanical, but telepathic, permitting the free, rapid dissemination of information at a rate and level never before seen. Yuuno rather doubted the transhumanists' claims that the entire population would be swept up in some kind of gigantic, hiveminded singularity – as Ancient Belka's fate had amply demonstrated, humans just didn't get along with each other that well – but he certainly looked forward to the time when every citizen on the planet, not just unique individuals like himself and Device-users with the appropriate add-ons, would be able to access encyclopaedic levels of information with a thought.

Of course, judging by the current state of the net, that information would probably consist primarily of malicious advertisements, derivative, poorly-written crossover fanfiction, and eye-wateringly bizarre pornography, but Yuuno preferred to ignore that little detail. Besides, there was some good, useful stuff lying around if one knew where to look... some of it even unrelated to those three categories.

A planet's worth of data poured into his mind, enough to snap an untrained psyche like a twig. To him, though, it was little more than a refreshing change of pace from interfacing with the Infinite Library. There was a vibrancy and vitality to a planet's collective consciousness that could not be found in the steady, ancient majesty of the vast pocket dimension that was his charge. The porn quota, though, was still about the same. Collections of everything ever written had their disadvantages, too, as the Library's nineteen sub-departments of obscene bathroom graffiti amply demonstrated.

Patterns began to slowly appear, drifting into view like the image of an old woman in an optical-illusion painting. Everywhere was a serious, dark-haired face, wearing the dignified, slightly constipated expression that he always adopted during an official photo-op. Yuuno flicked through the pictures, wondering which one of those identical, impassive expressions had been containing quiet amusement as a veritable tidal wave of little Harlaowns swamped their godfather off-camera and their mother laughed fit to burst. To this day, he had no idea where they'd hidden his old pair of glasses.

Chrono had been more than simply a highly capable ship commander – he had been a symbol, a living manifestation of the Bureau's values, its dynamism, and the opportunities it presented for its citizens. You too could become an admiral in your twenties, with an entire civilisation's worth of exotic toys at your fingertips as you explored the boundless reaches of the multiverse. You too could go toe-to-toe with mages whose power was akin to gods, defeating them with nothing more than wits and determination. You too could have a glamorous job, a wonderful family, everything anyone could ever want.

You too could stay behind amongst the drifting corpses of the people entrusted to you, desperately attempting to buy time for the scattered, fleeing survivors. You too could die alone in the emptiness of space, forced to choose between suicide and capture by insane, extradimensional monstrosities. You too could have your coffin lowered into the ground, empty because there wasn't anything left short of subatomic particles when an Arc-en-ciel detonated under you.

Though he tried to keep a reasonably optimistic attitude towards human nature, the librarian had to admit that when faced with the death of someone you'd never met, the standard reaction for most people was to feel a tad melancholic, perhaps contemplate one's own mortality, and then get on with the rest of your life. It was when you took away their symbols, their aspirations, that they really started to sit up, take notice, and break out the magically-enhanced coilguns.

A cluster of other familiar names flitted past his vision and he zoomed in on the pertinent story, cross-referencing it from over twenty different sources at once in order to make sure he had the facts completely straight. As he processed it, he couldn't help but let out a delighted chuckle. So that's what she was talking about...

For the past day or so, Chrono and Amy's homestead had been under siege as a small horde of reporters camped outside, demanding the grieving widow's take on the situation. Yuuno couldn't help but wonder what they expected to get beyond 'my husband's dead and I'm not happy about it', but then again, he wasn't a journalist.

Things had changed abruptly, though, when the three front-line captains of the First Expeditionary Force had teleported in, formed a cordon around the house, and politely waited for the swarm to go away. The reporters had resisted at first, but after Signum had become bored and started working through her weapons' practice drills – all of them – they had cleared out with commendable speed. Even if one discounted the whirling cuisinart of death that was her sword/whip/bow Device, Laevantien, there was something profoundly disconcerting about the graceful, scooping stab of a Kantian battlespoon expert.

For all of the Wolkenritter's theatrics, though (and yes, putting 'Signum' and 'theatrics' in the same sentence was something he had never expected to end up doing), it was quite obvious from the video-feeds who was in charge of the impromptu intervention. Even if it hadn't been, though, and even if he had not received the invite several hours before it happened, he would still have known.

Once, he had wondered on occasion why it was that he had ended up falling in love with that cheerful, enthusiastic girl with the auburn hair, who had taken him in when he was injured and nursed him back to health simply because he was there and needed help. As the years went by, though, the question became more whether there was any way in which he couldn't have.

That was a familiar road, though, and one which he had no intention of walking today – or at any other time, for that matter. With an effort of will, he dragged himself away, immersing himself in the sea of information once more.

There was a certain timbre to the data, not just in the Harlaown reports, but permeating the network on every level. Anger, certainly, outrage at the injury dealt and a desire for retribution – who do they think they are, monsters, murderers, wait until the fleet get their hands on them – but that was almost superficial, a manifestation of the group-mind's immune system as it reacted to the infection spreading through its veins. Fear.

The Bureau's image of its own invincibility was not a new thing, caused by a mere few decades of peace. Its ancestor-organisations had effectively left any meaningful opposition behind when they went interdimensional – even the fall of the Belkan Empire had been the result of internal strife rather than some terrible, encroaching Other. It had changed them, that long reign at the summit of the food-chain, secure in their untouchable arrogance. Warfare had become a child's game, laser-tag with siege weaponry... and why not? It wasn't as if magic inflicted lasting damage on anything but the scenery. No harm done, dust yourself off, come back and have another go, and if you're still feeling homicidal, I'm sure that a good long chat with our doctors will leave you right as rain. All very nice, all very civilised, and if the odd maniac didn't want to play by the rules... well, if they wanted to pick a fight with a planet-or-so's worth of walking artillery, that was their lookout. Jail Scaglietti got lonely sometimes, and would probably appreciate the neighbours in his orbital prison.

Unfortunately, Chaos hadn't received the memo.

After a scavenger-civilisation operating from a couple of star systems (at best) had wiped out a half-dozen colonies, partially demolished their capital, and caused billions of deaths in a single preliminary raid, it was safe to say that the myth of invincibility was in serious jeopardy. Even so, it could have been dismissed as a freak occurrence, hidden behind walls of denial with a few token scapegoats to take the fall, if it had not been for what followed.

The gods, as soon became apparent, understood fear. Most importantly, they understood that it would spread and take root best if nourished with regular reminders of what their victims had to fear, and so it was that almost two months after the invasion, on the eve of the Bloodhaven offensive itself, nobody felt truly safe.

Clanagan had not fared as badly as some other places – it was not even the worst hit site on Mid-Childa, compared to the infested mines of Bel Toth or the glass-lined crater that had once been Keilenheim City. Nevertheless, it was a metropolis of twenty million souls and a billion hiding places, and Hellhound, assassin, and daemon alike had gleefully exploited this. Not a day had gone past without another souvenir, another silent message of 'CHAOS WAS HERE' written in blood across the city's streets.

The variety in method was extraordinary – everything from crude booby-traps and rogue cyborgs to killer meme-viruses, Manchurian agents reprogrammed through daemon-torture, and even stranger things. The recent power plant attack had been positively pedestrian, in fact, not even unique in its scale after that Keilenheim rescue team had stumbled across the antimatter bomb hidden in the evacuation shelters.

The invasion – if it could even be called that – had lasted two days. Conservative estimates were already measuring the cleanup and recovery time in decades, and as for the psychological scars... well, it certainly looked like therapists would be exempt from the glumly projected economic depression.

Perhaps the most disturbing stories were of the cultists, ordinary citizens who had seen things beyond their comprehension and reacted in the oldest, most instinctual way known to humanity. Though Yuuno preferred to leave the theological implications to his friends in the Belkan Saint Church, he was pretty sure that messy, ostentatious ritual sacrifices, whether fabricated by the rumour-mill or not, were not exactly the best way to foster community spirit in a nation on a war footing.

"Mr. Scrya, sir?" The taxi driver's soft Ruwellan burr cut through his thoughts. "We're almost here."

He pulled himself out of the network, feeling the sort of nauseating unease that he imagined a parent would feel when their child was crying out in pain and they had no idea why... as well as a tendency to wax poetic at inappropriate moments, which he chose to chalk up to the lit-crit site he'd discovered the triple axe-murder report on. For all his fondness for gigantic magical information repositories, the feedback effects could get... irritating.

Even so, that was far from the primary reason for his relief at returning to reality. The panic coursing through the network was cloying, overwhelming. Soon, people would be turning on each other over nothing more than the weight of a rumour, if they hadn't already. A decisive victory at Bloodhaven would no doubt help restore the Bureau's self-confidence, but if it went as badly as so many of their other engagements so far... Except that that's not going to happen. Because of me. Because of what I've helped unleash on the multiverse. Yay, me.

Yuuno was good at not thinking about things. Harbouring a spectacularly hopeless crush for nearly fourteen years gave you plenty of practice in shunting unwelcome thoughts to the back of your mind. Even so, the things he'd seen in the Laveran system would likely require extra effort.

The taxi drew up to the kerb, splashing a small wave of rainwater across the pavement. Yuuno thanked the driver politely, making sure to tip him for the speedy journey, and then stepped out of the vehicle. The shield he'd summoned to keep the rain off wasn't in the way of the door, much to his relief – it had taken him quite a while to get that trick right without slicing off something expensive.

Unfortunately, he forgot to take the next logical step and levitate over the puddles – which was why, a minute later, he was crouched in the lobby of one of Clanagan's three most exclusive restaurants, discreetly attempting to wring what felt like an ocean's worth of moisture from the trouser-leg of his best (and only) formal suit. Needless to say, the receptionist's futile attempts to keep a straight face were not helping.

The sad thing was that there had actually been a fairly logical series of decisions leading up to this point. It was always nice to get in touch with an old friend, especially if she and you had not had much time to chat lately. Likewise, if you had a great deal of disposable income due to a profitable job and frugal living habits, grabbing a ridiculously expensive bite to eat before being consigned to several days of shipboard rations (or worse, Shamal's cooking) was a reasonable measure to take in order to have some happy memories with which to preserve one's sanity. Finally, the White Dragon's dress-code meant that some measure of presentability on his part was pretty much mandatory.

It was around about when the Lieze twins had cornered him with a comb, military-grade cologne, three automated tailor-mechs, and twenty-one volumes on dating tips that he had first realised that he was no longer in control of the situation. To be more accurate, he had realised it shortly afterwards, when he had stopped being relieved that they hadn't presented him with the ritual knife, hotline to Naval Command, and copy of 'Hijacking Ancient Belkan Superweapons for Fun and Profit' that they usually tried to get him to lug around when Hayate was in town. Nanoha would have been proud.

As the eternally-smiling staff led him into the main dining area, he resolved to make the best of his predicament. After all, the Dragon had been specialising in Earthborn cuisine lately, and he'd always wanted to try the fabled Mongolian delicacy known as 'soss, egg, and chips'.

The White Dragon had once been one of Clanagan's oldest pubs, a rambling, smoky affair from before Belka's fall. Untouched by war, political strife, or health-and-safety regulations, it had gamely weathered the centuries until one day an especially brave entrepreneur from the Vaizen technocracy had noted its unrivalled city-centre location and decided to convert it into a flagship hypertech restaurant for the uber-snobbish, instantly halving its customers and doubling its profits. As for the persistent food poisoning cases... well, they didn't go away, exactly, but they certainly got a lot more interesting, as all three time-displaced versions of the food critic who'd first tried the blowfish could attest.

The dining area was just as artfully multidimensional as the rest of the new building, and thus difficult to describe without diagrams, advanced physics textbooks, and mild schizophrenia. It didn't bother Yuuno very much, compared to some of the Infinite Library's less stable departments, but he could still see why neatly folded brown paper bags had been discreetly placed next to most of the tables designed for human usage. The elaborate, abstract light-sculpture of the white dragon in the centre of the room was a nice touch, even if he couldn't tell whether it was placed above, below, beside, or around him. Possibly all four at once.

Colonel Hayate Yagami, commander of the First Expeditionary Force, decorated military heroine, and walking WMD alert, was already at the table they'd booked, wearing a little black dress that forced him to stare at absolutely anything else until his jaw no longer threatened to detach itself from the rest of his head. Ludicrously purple imagery involving creamy skin, delicate lace, and firm- oh Kaiser's blood I will not allow myself to finish that thought flooded his abused synapses once more, and he blinked his eyes, solemnly vowing to go after that thrice-accursed literature site with a red pen and flamethrower as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

He attempted a casual, friendly smile, hoping that it ended up as less of a horrible rictus than it felt like. "Evening, Hayate. Looks like your prep-crew got just as carried away as mine."

The combat mage started at his voice, her cheeks pinkening. "Oh. Um. Yuuno. Hi. Yes. Very carried away. Shamal always gets so enthusiastic about these things, I can't bear to say no. Heh. Heh heh."

She seemed to be expecting something. With a horrible sinking feeling, Yuuno realised exactly how rusty he was where this sort of thing was concerned... whatever 'this sort of thing' was.

"The dress looks... nice," he ventured as he sat down, the seat obligingly moulding itself to his hindquarters. "Very nice. It's your design, isn't it? I thought I recognised the shape of the hemline and the... erm... the other stuff." Ooh, a conversation topic. Nicely manoeuvred, Scrya. "So you're back to trying your hand at fashion, then? How's that working out?"

Hayate perked up. "Oh, you remembered! Gosh, I didn't think anyone was paying attention when I was going on about that – not that I'd blame them. Detailed discussions on fabric aren't up everyone's street. Still a hobby, I'm afraid – I try to aim for practical, not catwalk, and that's always more time-consuming. What with the war effort and everything... well, you see. Besides, I'm down one practice model ever since Signum started refusing to help after the... corsetry event. Matter of fact, this is one of the old ones I made for her – I shortened it a little, got rid of some of the decoratives, reduced the bust... a lot..."

She trailed off, the blush rising like a crimson dawn as she realised once more where she was and who she was talking to. Yuuno, for his part, kept a smile on his face and a tight lid on his imagination, whilst fervently resisting the urge to say anything. Particularly innocently-meant but easily-misconstrued comments about how one of his oldest friends might be underselling herself a little in the measurements department. Because he was not thinking about that. Not in the slightest.

"What about you then, Yuuno? What have you been up to?"

The change in subject only threw him a little, but it was still enough for some unwelcome memories to slip past his carefully-prepared mental barriers. He was back on the research station's observation deck, pleading into the comms for them to stop the experiment as the sickly purple glow began to creep over the Astelan's hull. He was watching the logs from the doomed research ship, as the walls and instrument panels began to distort with the deceptive slowness of a lucid nightmare. He was... sitting in a rather nice (if flashy) restaurant, and Hayate was staring at him with her typically gentle concern.

"Oh... this and that. The Spiral Driver program at Laveran VI, mostly. To be honest, I'm almost looking forward to Bloodhaven – at least it'll be a change of scene." Please don't ask me any more, please don't ask me any more, please don't ask me any more...

The colonel, regrettably, did not get the message. "That bad, eh? You know, I heard some rumblings about that through the grapevine. Something about 'Code Indigo'. You know what that is?"

Yuuno sighed. Keeping unpleasant secrets from his friends was one thing, but keeping life-threatening ones from them was quite another.

"It's a new warning code pertaining to Spiral Drivers," he explained. "It describes a catastrophic emotional feedback surge caused by the psychological imbalances that are a known side-effect of overuse of the devices, resulting in the transformation of the Driver, its operator, and whatever vehicle is being used to transport it into what can only be described as an extremely powerful, mindlessly aggressive abomination. In layman's terms, Spiral Drivers drive their operators mad, and a Code Indigo is the physical manifestation of that madness. It's a phenomenon that's been appearing a lot in the Republic's universe, due to influence from this overarching, possibly-sentient psychic phenomenon they've got over there called the 'Force'. Casualties have been... significant." He studied her expression. "Yes, we're talking about the machines I helped create. No, I'm not happy about it. Next question?"

Hayate was wearing the Investigative Face, the very particular look that all Bureau officers developed eventually. He'd seen it before, during one of the interrogations in the aftermath of the Varduk Prime Massacre, and had prayed that it would never be directed at him. Not my lucky day, is it?

"Why Code Indigo?" she asked, her voice neutral.

"Because of the colour a Driver's aura turns when it starts going Anti-Spiral. Technically, it's more of a shade of lilac, but the research team wanted something that sounded more intimidating than Code Lilac, and Code Violet was already in use for exotic bio-weapon outbreaks. There was a lot of grumbling in the station over the fact that, and I quote, 'all the cool ones were taken'. They were especially miffed at you for the Book of Darkness Incident stealing Code Black."

The corners of his mouth curled up. It could technically have been classified as a smile.

"In retrospect, that probably should have been a warning sign."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint them. You said it was mostly happening on the Republic front, but the rumours I've heard suggest it isn't limited to there. Is that true?"

"I'm afraid so. At first, we thought it was just the Force screwing with an otherwise-valid system – whilst there was plenty of evidence of pilot instability from both Mithril's and the Spiral Nation's files, most of that could be chalked up to the operators in question being crazy to begin with. The sanest Lambda Driver jockey we could find blew up his own school on a regular basis, for the Kaiser's sake, and let's not even try going into the nutjobs the Spirals decided to stick in their mechs."

"But you decided to make sure."

"Better safe than sorry, right? Our test-ship was the Astelan, this junky old destroyer on loan from the local naval base. We loaded it up with about a dozen Drivers, half the capacity for a ship that size, and started putting it through its paces in both realspace and the War- sorry, I mean dimensional space. It was in the latter where things started getting weird first. The crew started reporting hallucinations, and their biometrics readings were jumping around all over the place. After a few tries, it began to happen in realspace as well. I wanted to stop there, but I was overruled. Then the first symptoms of a Code Indigo started showing. I panicked. I threatened the supervisor, tried to pull the plug, to get the crew out of there... they were too far gone. The station batteries pounded the thing that came out of D-space until there was nothing left of it but memories. There were thirty-eight people on that ship. I heard every last one of them die."

Any change in Hayate's demeanour was masked by the constantly-changing lights and sounds of the dining area. "And then what happened?"

"They continued the tests. More, they expanded them. Ships and crew started getting brought in from all over, mostly from the sorts of places that I doubt would stand up well to proper inspection. Some of the vessels were barely holding together, others still had pirate insignia and marks from small-arms fire. As for the living test-subjects... about half of them were wearing restraint-collars, and the other half didn't look like they had much choice in the matter either. The researchers, on the other hand – hah, sorry, I suppose I mean the other researchers – they loved every minute of it. They kept poking and prodding, testing the Drivers to breaking point and beyond... and when a Driver breaks, it takes a whole lot of stuff with it. You want to know why I'm not there at the moment? Why I signed up for this mess of an invasion effort? Because I quit. I bailed. I'm a librarian, damn it, not Scaglietti's old lab-buddy."

"Did you report what was going on?"

"Of course I bloody well did! I kept going up the chain of command, and every single time it was the same. 'Thank you for informing us of this, we appreciate your concern, now would you please be so good as to fuck off and die'. I would have taken it further, but... they started making threats. The sort of threats I couldn't exactly ignore." The sort that wasn't just aimed at me. "Hayate, I'm not so sure the Bureau managed to get everyone when we cleaned house three years ago. They're back, the body-count's rising, and I have no idea what to do about it."

There was no mistaking it now – Hayate's face was definitely starting to shade towards the greyish side. Yuuno winced, and put his head in his hands.

"... And there I go again, ruining a perfectly good evening by dumping my baggage all over it," he growled. "Seriously, that was... what? Thirty seconds until whingeing? A minute? That has to be a new record. Look, maybe this wasn't such a-"

The librarian was cut off abruptly by a small hand pressing on his shoulder and a pair of blue eyes boring into his skull.

"The First Expeditionary Force wishes to reiterate its continued support for the Infinite Library and its staff – in particular, regarding any internal matters that have come to their attention such as corruption, treason, and state-sponsored homicide. Furthermore, since there's not much we can do about it until the whole kerfuffle with Bloodhaven is sorted out, the commanding officer of the expeditionary force would like to forget about it for the moment and enjoy an all-too-infrequent meeting with an old and extremely valued friend." Hayate smiled. "Is that acceptable, Chief Librarian Scrya?"

Yuuno gave in, letting an answering smile slowly spread across his own face. It wasn't as if he had much motive to defend his position, anyway.

"I believe so, colonel, though we will have to scrutinise the relevant documentation first. So, anything on the menu that particularly grabs you?"

"Apart from the live Vaizenian centopus in the 'To Share' section, you mean? Well, there's the 'traditional Norwegian pizza', which is causing five years of geography lessons to cry out in protest, but does look rather delicious..."

The librarian, meanwhile, was half-listening, and half noticing the particular way that her face lit up when discussing the topic of food. It was always nice to see people talking about the interests that were truly dear to them.

Have a fun evening? Might not be so difficult after all.


Author's Notes: No, Lindy didn't get the definition exactly right. I'll let you figure out how for yourselves.

One thing I noticed was a certain amount of controversy regarding my assertion during Rong-Arya's flashbacks that an unshielded 40k-tech frigate might receive slightly more than a messed-up paintjob from a point-blank nuclear detonation. The thing is, a particular kind of nuclear weapon – or, more accurately, directed fusion weapon – is both common and scarily effective in the 41st millennium. You may know it better as the meltagun.

A close-range melta-blast can easily cook through adamantium plating, the armour used on the Imperium's starships and heavy war machines... and by nuclear standards, it's not very powerful. To put things into perspective, a concentrated beam from a blast equivalent to twenty thousand tonnes of TNT (the yield of the Hiroshima nuke) would have a lethal range of several kilometres, something that only the building-sized melta-cannons wielded by Imperial Titans could accomplish... which clearly isn't due to heat-dispersal, because melta-weapons have very narrow beams. Not that that stops a melta-cannon from being able to punch through a forty-metre-tall, adamantium-armoured land-battleship in a single shot, mind you. They just have to be quite close to accomplish it.

Now compare a Cylon planet-buster. Judging by how the blasts those puppies left looked from orbit, I'd peg them as somewhere around the hundred-megatonne range. In the interests of fairness, though, we'll round them down to fifty megatonnes, the yield of the USSR's notorious Tsar Bomba. That, though, is still two thousand, five hundred times the energy released by something capable of one-shotting a Titan, and the undirected nature of the blast is mitigated by the fact that it occurred directly against the hull of the Stiletto. Put simply, I don't think that the Chaos ship would be likely to shrug off even one planet-buster impact with merely cosmetic damage, let alone a dozen or so. And the Cylons like their planet-busters.

As for the review mentioning the piece of fluff in which a 680-meg warhead was retired for being ineffective against warships, it's an uncomfortable fact for us 40K fans who try to figure out how the setting works that certain background writers sometimes let their enthusiasm overcome their grasp of accepted science, without even bothering to provide handwaves like the Warp screwing with physics again. As such, it falls to us to cherrypick our information according to what is most plausible and most consistent with all other aspects of the setting... and a blast equivalent to three-and-a-half Krakatoa eruptions being unable to scratch anything bigger than attack craft such as the Thunderhawk gunship (which is vulnerable to handheld melta weaponry) throws a lot of things way out of whack.

… Whew, that must be my longest set of Author's Notes yet. Back to dinner-related awkwardness!