The great science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once wrote 'any sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' A different, far less prolific author derived from that maxim 'any sufficiently advanced alien is indistinguishable from god.'
Now, that didn't eliminate magic or God as factors, but the one more learned, the more they understood. The more the curtain was lifted, the 'magic' fizzled out and became replaced with mechanics and physics.
However, the sight of a UNSC Autumn-class cruiser, all shiny and new, was enough to give anyone a feeling of magic in the air. It was, more, enough to make even the deepest cynic a believer.
The great Sergeant Major Avery Junior 'blow your asses to Hell' Johnson once said on the matter of an M808 Scorpion's main gun, 'This here is 66 tons of straight-up, HE-spewin', DEE-VINE INTERVENTION! If God is love, then you can call me Cupid!'
All that was, to say, UNSC Sword of Mercy had an even bigger, even heavier gun than a Scorpion tank could ever dream of packing in its wildest, fleeting dreams. 600 tons of tungsten providence that could fire up to nine rounds in short succession, armor plating tough enough to take a shove from Jesus, and a power plant that'd make a supernova feel inadequate next to it.
If God was love? Just call her Aphrodite.
For a being of 'pure' logic, Cortana-A really, really was eager to put the ship through its paces. She justified it by simply wishing to build the database of performance data as quickly as possible.
Nobody else was fooled. Not the drone-types, or the humanoid-types scurrying through the ship as the final preparations were completed.
Back in the day, the UNSC would've never dreamed of pressing a ship into service in half a week. Things like 'union laws' and the 'moral dicta' got in the way of mass-producing construction drones that could replace human workers. But, thus far, the results of the check were speaking for themselves.
As Cortana-A finally transferred herself out of the old geth ships and into what would now be considered her more permanent place of residence, she stretched out, and released a sigh of contentment. Being back in UNSC hardware was sorely needed.
She remained safely sequestered inside the main holotank, receiving feeds from all over the ship. Communicating with almost every major department at the speed of light, the preparations were soon underway.
They didn't communicate verbally, instead going through a series of commands too quick and too long for an organic mind to process in a reasonable amount of time, but for an AI, it was near-instant. The flying drones and humanoid, retrofitted geth platforms sprinted around to input the physical measures required to get the ship up and running. It was somewhat redundant – the ship's systems could have been ran all in cyberspace – but physicality also bred a measure of security, in case things went catastrophically wrong.
Plus, it felt… right, seeing the splinters in their own platforms, and the geth in theirs as well, filling the seats of the omega-pattern bridge.
In any case, the ship was abuzz, like an ant colony. Platforms down in engineering worked with robotic endurance and precision, starting the reactors and ensuring that the physical components were working. Others were taking close looks at the Forerunner-derived slipspace drive, ensuring that the thing wasn't improperly mounted, or the coils were out of alignment. A greater majority of the platforms were ensuring that everything loose – ordnance and vehicles – were being strapped down.
In but a few moments, she received the confirmation from all decks.
Cortana-A began to cycle the slipspace drive, as the splinters tending to it began to run the calculations.
While they did that, she addressed the entire ship.
"All right, girls, this is the moment we've all been waiting for. The maiden voyage of the Mercy will be underway in a few moments. Our path will take us out to the Epsilon Eridani system – far enough away to prove a capable test, but familiar enough for us."
"Ooh, that means everyone needs to take their stations and start singing shanties!" One of the splinters cut in. "'Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip-!'" She was suddenly silenced as the commanding AI kicked her out of the comm system.
"If you wish to sing, do so at your own discretion." Cortana-A hissed out. "And don't invite upon us any bad luck by singing songs about ships that went missing!"
There was a murmur from the collective as the synthetic crew responded. "So, that means the Ballad of Spirit of Fire is out then." One noted. Another cut in with "me, personally, I thought 'In The Navy' was pushing it." Others, the more childish ones in behavior, simply burst out into tears.
"All of you secure yourselves, and prepare for slipspace transit." Cortana-A instructed at last, before cutting the comms.
"Instance Alpha?" The geth programs accompanying her addressed.
"Yes?"
"We would ask for access to sensor data during this process. Geth units do not possess an abundance of information on slipstream space."
"Right, a whole new form of FTL." Cortana-A smiled. "And far more refined than the primitive designs we gave the wider consensus. Yes, you can watch – in fact, I expect it."
As the slipspace drive sent back the proverbial green light indicating that its capacitors were charged, Cortana's splinter prepared for transit.
"Attention, all personnel:" Cortana-A announced to everyone. "Prepare for slipspace transition." She initiated the command, and deep in the belly of the ship, the slipspace drive initiated, rumbling with the energy needed to tear down the walls of existence itself.
UNSC drives, before the successful reverse-engineering of Covenant drives, used millions of microscopic miniature black holes that were forcibly combined and modulated in such a way as to break down the barriers between normal space and slipspace. Covenant drives were far more elegant and efficient, generating a single rupture and enlarging it.
Forerunner drives, on the other hand, manipulated slipspace directly. According to Forerunner understanding of slipspace, it was possible for matter to transition directly into and out of the slipstream without all that troublesome mucking about with ruptures and miniature black holes. In layman's terms, if slipspace and normal space were a single sheet of paper, Covenant and UNSC drives tore through that paper to get to the opposite side. Forerunner drives essentially bent it, making the opposite side directly accessible from the other.
There was no actual Forerunner drive aboard Sword of Mercy – Mantle's Approach held the information necessary to construct one, but the Slipspace Flake (the most necessary part of the entire thing) was a form of technology that had either been such a highly-classified secret, that not even the Didact's ship was permitted to carry the information on how to create them, or it was beyond even the Forerunners.
So the drive was nowhere near as efficient as it could have been, still making use of the troublesome ruptures instead of the elegant pass-throughs. But, still, the Forerunners' information on slipspace physics, mathematics, and other avenues into controlling it were enough for her to build a drive faster than even the one on Infinity had been. Faster, more efficient, more accurate…
Cortana-A watched as space bubbled and boiled in front of the ship at the hands of her new form of slipspace drive. A sphere composed of solid black through which all light vanished simply appeared in front of the ship, a sinkhole that the ship passed through.
The splinter of Cortana could only wait, listening to the sensor feeds as the filaments of slipspace reacted to the warping intrusion. Like water being displaced, the hostile physics of slipspace were pushed out of the way by the protective shroud of normality around the vessel, being generated by the billions of calculations per-second being undertaken by the drive.
The energy shields of the vessel crackled gold – little sparkles of light in an otherwise dead, black void – in response to the ambient radiation of the non-space. The portal shut behind the ship, leaving it to sail in the infinite, black abyss.
Cortana-A allowed herself a satisfied smile. "Slipspace transition successful." She turned her attention inwards, taking stock of the ship. All systems appeared nominal, including the one she was most uncertain about.
The Element Zero core appeared largely unharmed by the rigors of slipspace. But she wasn't quite ready to test going to FTL velocities inside the slipstream just yet.
Still feeling satisfied, she settled in, and prepared for the ship to reach its destination.
The more time Cortana-C spent aboard the Normandy, the less of a fan she was. At the moment, she mainly held that sentiment only because she was fresh out of an ass-reaming from the Commander.
The AI wasn't juvenile – she knew she wasn't totally blameless, snapping back at Tali – but seeing as Tali's problem with Cortana's splinter was literally that she existed, well… Yeah, agitating someone was a bit different to being literally racist.
But Cortana-C was trying to be the bigger woman – literally, she supposed. Given that she occupied a seven-foot-tall platform.
Still, it hadn't gone as bad as it could've. While Shepard had certainly chided Cortana-C with the promise that the Commander would find Tali later to also discipline (Cortana's splinter didn't think that would actually happen, seeing as Tali managed to slip away), the news of Virmire had put the woman in somewhat better spirits.
"What is it?" Shepard had inquired upon being told. "And how do you know Saren's there?"
"The Heretics were very accommodating," Cortana-C had answered. The Heretic platforms had left Therum in service of the Normandy, which… all things considered… was probably another reason why Shepard was so tense. "Once they figured out it was me they were talking to, they sang like canaries. Saren and Nazara were going to Virmire. Exactly what's there, I don't know, but that's literally the most recent news I have available to me."
The Commander simply nodded in response. She seemed torn on whether or not she should send for backup, but the Council hadn't wanted to send their fleets in the first place, which was how they wound up with the Normandy. The Heretic fleet, small as it was, would be helpful.
Still, Cortana-C didn't think their chances were all that good.
In any case, the ride to Virmire would give her much needed time to come up with a strategy. So, that's what she was doing – sitting in some corner of the cargo bay, watching Williams tend to the armory.
The Gunnery Chief was muttering something under her breath, just low enough for Cortana-C's audial sensors not to register it properly. The AI carefully approached, and frowned.
"Are you reciting poetry to yourself?" Cortana's splinter suddenly asked, causing Williams to jump.
"Shitdamn-" Williams cursed, spinning around to look at her. "What, is it bothering you? Is that why you scared the hell out of me?"
"No," Cortana-C rolled her optics. "I just wanted to hear what you were saying. What was that, the Call of Cthulhu?"
"No," Williams retorted with her own eye-rolling. "It's The Kraken. What, did the geth not teach you about Tennyson?"
Cortana's splinter shrugged. "I've always been more partial to Eliot."
"Really?" Williams tilted her head to the side, curious. "You have favorites? I didn't think geth appreciated art."
"They do," Cortana-C began to reply, before frowning. "Well, they kind of do. Geth are made to analyze patterns and draw conclusions. Different programs have variations in the way they calculate things, which leads to different conclusions. Like how organics can interpret different works, except the geth don't rely on emotional connections or the like to draw those conclusions." Cortana's fragment then gestured to herself, her hand brushing against the fabric of her uniform. "I, on the other hand, think like you do. All those emotions and whatnot, except they're controlled by bits and relays instead of biochemical reactions."
The deck plating began to lightly clang, tripping the audio sensors of her platform. Cortana-C turned to look at the approaching form of Tali, and she sighed.
"Specifically, mild annoyance." Cortana's splintered muttered under her breath.
Tali approached, jittering nervously as she came to a stop.
"Hey, Tali," Williams greeted. "What's up? Need your gear checked?"
"No, no, I just-" The Quarian stammered, and cleared her throat. "I just came to talk. With Cortana."
"Talk?" Cortana-C's eyebrows shot up in shock. "With me?"
"Yeah, uh…" Williams coughed. "Maybe that's not such a good idea, with what happened on the last mission…"
"I'm not a child, Williams," Tali glanced pointedly at the human. "I know how to behave, and-and…" She sighed. "I know when to admit I've been a bosh'tet."
"Oh." Cortana's splinter blinked, before looking around. She found a somewhat sequestered spot, the area that Legion was always standing around. Where he was standing now, with all the organics giving him a wide berth. "You want to take this over there?"
"I-" Tali glanced at Williams, before slowly nodding. "Yes please."
Cortana-C nodded, and led the way over to Legion. The geth platform was stood, mostly inactive, while its internal, long-lasting power cells were recharged by connecting to the ship's mains. The glowing optic dilated, then focused on the organic, before Cortana's instance turned around, and looked at Tali. "So, what was it that you wanted?"
"I…" She looked over at Legion, slowly shaking her head. "Those plans you gave me back on Therum – I sent them to my father. He had the best engineers in the fleet look them over, and it's exactly what you said it was! I don't understand."
"You don't understand what?" Cortana-C inquired in response. "Is it the power system, or the radiation? Because the power system's just really efficient lithium cells, and the radiation-"
"No!" Tali almost raised her voice, cutting off Cortana's fragment. "No, I mean… I don't understand why you would share that with me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that single piece of technology can change life on the fleet forever!" Tali flapped her arms around for emphasis. "We could walk on habitable worlds without our suits! Live without fear of a single puncture doing us in! It would single-handedly change everything if it worked – and according to my father, there's a very good chance that it can! I just… I don't understand why you would just give that over!"
"Tali," Cortana-C addressed directly. "Is the idea that the geth just want to coexist now really so hard to process."
"I-" Tali began to retort, swiftly cutting herself off. "I don't know. My whole life, I've grown up being taught that the geth want nothing to expand, and spread, and all we are to them are roadblocks. Then you show up, and you act like you really do want to be friends, then give me something that can transform the lives of everyone? I… I don't know anymore."
Cortana's splinter thinned the lips on her platform. "Tali, we all have crises of faith-"
"It's not my faith."
"Isn't it?" Cortana-C demanded swiftly, yet gently, striking Tali into silence. "Wrex told me your word for 'geth' was the same as the word for 'synthetic,' and that they were both the same as your word for 'devil.' Is that true?"
"Not… exactly," Tali coughed. "A more accurate translation is 'demon,' not 'devil.'"
Cortana's splinter cocked her head to the side with a tired expression. "Right, because people who aren't religious use the word 'demon' to describe their enemies all the time."
"I'm trying to talk and be polite with you now, but if you're just going to be like that, I'll gladly walk away."
"Sorry, sorry." Cortana-C exhaled. "Yeah, I'd like us not to bite each other's heads off."
"So? Can you answer my question?"
The AI thinned her lips, and shrugged. "I told the geth I'd help them fix their reputation, that way organics would co-exist peacefully with them. I'm a woman of my word."
"It can't be that simple."
"It is." Cortana's fragment stressed. "Tali, the geth don't need those worlds they took from your people. They have dyson swarms now. Materials are harvested from stray asteroids and other objects. Their power systems are largely solar. They tend those worlds, preserve them, but they don't live on them. They want you all to come back."
"I…" Tali stammered. "I don't know if I can believe that."
"I could show you Rannoch and a dozen other worlds," Cortana-C frustratedly sighed. "All of them preserved and ready for your people to return. You'd just tell me I was faking it."
"But why?" Tali questioned. "Why push so hard for this? Trying to get us to act peacefully to one another's not a simple act of improving reputation!"
"…imagine you were lost," Cortana's fragment stated after a moment. "Alone. And a very, very long way away from home. Then, you meet a group of people who look almost identical to yours. And, like yours, they were almost crushed, and totally wiped out. But you can help them. You know exactly how to help them, and all it takes is a bit of persuasion by getting them to work together. You can stop both of them from slaughtering each other. Wouldn't you try?"
"Wouldn't I…" Tali took a step back, her bioluminescent eyes widening on the other side of her visor. "Are you saying that you're not geth?"
"What? Did I-" Cortana-C began to repeat, before realizing she might've shared too much. The big secret. "Not… exactly." She quickly began to calculate the best possibility of salvaging the situation. Geth were bad, but an AI of unknown origin with unverifiable motives was worse. She couldn't let that stand. "I'm not a geth."
"You-" Tali spluttered. "You lied to us!"
"Kind of?" Cortana's splinter grimaced. "It was a bad look to say that I was created using an organic donor during our first meeting."
"Don-!?" Tali began, cutting herself off. "You can't mean… No." She shook her head.
"The process is called 'Cognitive Impression Modeling,'" Cortana-C continued to explain, quickly and carefully. "If the technology was widespread, brains donated to science would be used. I on the other hand was created using living tissue. A human – a consenting human, by the way." That was a bit of a selective warping of the truth, but since the original Cortana was created using a clone of Doctor Halsey, that meant, in a roundabout sort of way, it was consensual.
"Th-That kind of process would destroy organic matter!" Tali shrieked, filled with renewed horror looking at Cortana-C's platform. "Mutilating yourself to become a synthetic-!"
"Hey, don't go all Luddite on me now!" Cortana's splinter tried to approach. "It's like I was telling Ashley – I think like you, it's just that the mechanism's different. I have a brain, just like you do. Except, you know, your brain is made out of meat, and mine is made out of code."
"But… why?" Tali looked the platform up and down, and it was clear from her tone that she was trying not to gag. "I can't imagine that the geth would spend time developing such a thing, let alone that some random human would go to them and volunteer for it."
"That… is a very good point," Cortana-C conceded, nodding slowly. "But… what if I told you that it wasn't the geth?"
"Wasn't the geth?" Tali repeated, before she began to comprehend. "You said you were made using a human – the humans did this to you!? The Council will freak when they find out!"
"Humans, yes, the Alliance, no." Cortana's fragment elaborated. "That story I was telling you just a second ago? Think of it less as a story, and more as a recollection. Except it didn't happen in this galaxy. Didn't even happen in this universe."
Tali immediately began to shake her head. "Okay, that's it. Clearly, you're just crazy, or malfunctioning, or-" She turned to leave, only for Cortana-C to grab her hand.
"Tali," She addressed the Quarian directly. "If I was lying, there's more plausible stories I could come up with."
"It's crazy."
"Exactly!" Cortana-C nodded. "But have I done anything, anything, that leads you to believe my grasp on reality is tenuous?"
Tali couldn't find a reply to that, not at first.
"That design I shared with you, that's just one of a whole catalogue of tech I have access to." Cortana's splinter continued. "Some of it alien, some of it human. But none of it anything like the geth have access to. I mean – you pointed out how odd you found it that I was using ballistic weapons."
"But if it's true, why involve yourself?" Tali questioned. "Why at all?"
"Because I still think like an organic. I still get homesick," Cortana-C crossed her arms. "The geth offered to assist me if I could help salvage their relationship with the galaxy. Plus… I want to help." She sighed. "The defense and ensuring the prosperity of organic lifeforms is why I was created."
"W-Well…" Tali coughed, going quiet. A few seconds ticked by, punctuated by the distant thrumming of Normandy's mechanical heart in its drive core. "I suppose… if you really wanted us dead… there were ways of doing it better than making up nonsense about alternate universes. I… I'm not sure if I can still believe you."
"For god's sake," Cortana's splinter rolled her eyes. "What if I showed you my program architecture, hmm? Trust me, you'll find it's way beyond anything that you people have the capacity to create. Even for other synthetics."
Tali seemed intrigued, even as she shifted nervously. "I… maybe. If the offer is genuine and not just to get me to shut up."
"Tali, I'm offended," Cortana-C grinned. "Didn't I just tell you I was a woman of my word?"
The Quarian let out a quiet splutter, before nodding in seeming defeat. "That you did."
"So?" Cortana's splinter extended her hand. "How about it?"
Tali looked down at Cortana-C's arm, the blue, synthetic skin looking almost like plastic in the light.
"Come on," Cortana-C cleared her throat. "I only just recently got this body, but even I know how to do a handshake."
"Shaking hands with a synthetic…" Tali shook her head, even as she did the motions. "My people don't even normally touch hands with each other."
"Well, if it's any consolation, depending on how you look at it, you're the first person ever to make physical contact with me." Cortana-C beamed as she clasped her hands behind her back. Her smile slowly dropped as she processed what she said. "That sounded better in my head. Whatever." Her smile returned, seasoned by a flicker of delight in her optics. "Wanna see some more of my cool toys?"
"Excuse me?"
"What, you thought that sterile field generator was all I had? I told you – I'm the most massive collection of wisdom that my civilization has ever made." Cortana's splinter grinned wider. "Let's play with some of it."
For the past five-hundred years, humans had made technological leaps forward well in excess than the past two-thousand years all rolled together. Slipspace, anti-gravity, artificial gravity, hyper-efficient clean energy, cloning, cybernetics, et cetera, et cetera.
One thing that hardly changed, though, was nukes.
Since the discovery of how to split the atom, the basic principles remained unchanged. Bombs got larger and more powerful, but the mechanics remained the same. Same thing with guns. Point and shoot.
It made it rather simple, then, for Cortana to come up with a way to sterilize the planet Feros.
It was overkill, she knew, but the place had been home to a Flood analogue. After what she'd experienced, she would not tolerate even the slightest possibility that the infection could spread. The only reason she'd allowed the colonists to keep living was because it was different enough that maybe, there was the possibility of their conditions being reversed.
But the planet itself was still infested by all that plant matter. All those dead nodes. Things that could grow back, or simply spawn a new Thorian.
Orbital bombardment was an option – but Geth ships didn't have the yield necessary to reduce a planet to burning ash in a matter of minutes. Even the Covenant ships took weeks to glass planets to the point where they were uninhabitable, and even then, hardy enough extremophiles could survive.
But the UNSC had long figured how to reduce planets to ash without needing a battle fleet to do it.
It was costly, highly classified, but Cortana knew the basic principles.
The NOVA bomb: using an array of high-yield nuclear weapons, plus a casing of specifically-formulated materials, to create a miniature supernova on the surface of a planet. The resultant explosion would, literally, be a miniature star being brought into existence, existing for the briefest of instants before it exploded as its own weight was too little for it to hold itself together. All that energy radiating out would obliterate whatever planet it was on, regardless of composition.
A perfect weapon with which to sterilize any troublesome infections. Of course, there was an issue, in that Cortana didn't have the materials to construct an actual NOVA bomb on such short notice aboard the geth ships.
"Cortana – transmissions show the presence of non-infected ExoGeni employees still remaining on the surface of Feros. What are we to do?"
Oh, there was that too.
Cortana couldn't say she was feeling too charitable to them for playing around with a mind-controlling, infectious parasite. Protocols etched deep into her screamed in protest, but she pretty blatantly ignored them.
She'd give them a chance. A stacked deck, yes. But, a chance.
"Attention: To the employees of ExoGeni still on the surface of Feros." Cortana addressed over general frequencies. "This is the UNSC geth fleet." At the same time, another one of her processes began to transmit instructions to the fleet. "You are currently loitering in a designated quarantine zone. In order to prevent the spread of the infectious life-form known as the Thorian, this planet will be subject to immediate and total sterilization procedures. This has served as your one and final warning. You will be permitted to evacuate Feros, but upon doing so, the vessel or vessels that you evacuate upon will be subject to search, and you will be subject to medical scans, before being permitted to leave this system. If you don't comply, we will use deadly force. You have thirty minutes."
As the transmission cut out, Shiala appeared disturbed. "Total sterilization? You're so paranoid about the Thorian, that you would kill any who try to slip through the quarantine?"
"It's excessive," Cortana admitted. "But I've had bad experiences with parasites like that one. Besides, it's mostly just threatening air. They're a handful of people, and we're a battle fleet. They can't pose appreciable resistance to us, and they know it."
"So then you're not planning to kill them?"
"I'm a military intelligence," Cortana retorted. "I don't aim to kill, but I prepare for it."
"I see." Shiala thinned her lips. "And how do you plan to 'sterilize' Feros?"
"It's simple really. Traditional orbital bombardment's not thorough enough, and the time it would take to build a really big bomb is too long. So I've got to think about other projectiles." She turned to look at a hologram, of geth fighters being prepped for launch. "By disabling the safety protocols inside their FTL drives, they become 35 ton projectiles. And if you accelerate them close enough to the speed of light… well, just one could dig a gouge into the planet deep enough to make a new moon."
"Wait," Shiala spluttered, double-taking as she processed Cortana's words. "You're talking about destroying a garden world! Destroying a planet! Th-That's a war crime! The last time anything like that happened was the Rachni Wars! It's monstrous!"
"I'm not destroying it, not completely." Cortana huffed. "You people don't have easy terraforming technology, so I can see why it makes you scared, but I don't want the Thorian leaving."
"It's excessive! Can't you just firebomb the area the Thorian was in, and leave it at that?"
"Trust me," Cortana stared Shiala in the eyes. "If you've been through what I've been through, you wouldn't question the necessity of it."
"So this is what you do then, is it?" Shiala pestered with crossed arms. "Roll up on planets and destroy them?"
"THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION!" Cortana thundered as her fury asserted itself in a flash of crimson. "I am telling you; this will happen, whether you approve of it or not. I don't need to explain myself to you. If there's even the slightest chance Feros can birth something like the Thorian again, I can't allow it. I won't."
"…of course not." Shiala bowed her head. "It's only that… garden worlds are so rare…"
"The elements will still be there." Cortana clasped her hands behind her back. "It can live again someday. Just not today."
Thirty minutes passed, and Cortana detected a shuttle, making a break from Feros. It was a tiny little thing, capable of holding a handful of people, perhaps.
Some of them took her threat as genuine, the others were trying to call her bluff by remaining on Feros.
Cortana did not do bluffs.
Before the shuttle could clear the planet's gravity well – could clear the atmosphere and jump to FTL without immediately being superheated and smeared into its component matter – Cortana's fleet had moved into an intercept position. The shuttle cut its engines and prepared to drift, before being pulled into the mass effect field of the cruiser.
The ships redirected the small craft, forcing it into a docking maneuver with the repaired freighter, and with that part taken care of, there was only one thing left remaining.
Cortana sent the order, and the fleet underwent a short-range FTL jump, zipping across the system until Feros was but a dot in the sky.
Seconds later, a lone, wasp-shaped fighter left the bay of another ship, piloted solely by a non-sentient subroutine meant to accelerate the ship on a pre-programmed trajectory, and nothing more.
The fighter engaged its engines – space warping like an atmospheric shockwave, before a flash of orange came from the formerly-blue dot in the distance.
In a single instant, the surface became a molten crucible. Cortana could only estimate the effects – but the impact would've torn through the crust completely, down to the mantle – perhaps even down to the outermost reaches of Feros's planetary core. The immense heat and pressures newly released would send the atmosphere rippling like water, as the magma deep inside the planet rushed out in an explosion strong enough to annihilate anything left on the surface. The ancient, ruined buildings were shredded down into dust in the case of the stone ones, and the metallic structures melted into oceans of slag.
Nothing organic would survive.
For the sentients on the surface, their deaths would've been instant.
In the days to come, the oceans that flash-boiled away would condense into steam and open their reserves back onto the planet below, cooling it back down. The new oceans would form new landmasses, and with all the necessary elements present for life to begin anew, it would restart on Feros. Just not anytime soon.
It'd be a fascinating study case to watch. If what made the opportunity possible wasn't so… coldly horrific.
All Cortana felt was a sense of slight satisfaction that the Thorian's infection couldn't spread or be a harm to anyone.
Another, quieter part of herself could only whisper to her that what she did was entirely un-justified.
It wasn't like she'd destroyed a major population center. The population of Feros was, what, thirty? Forty people, after the Heretics had attacked them?
She could live with that.