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Bright light washes into Command. Bialar Crais flinches as the light stabs into his damaged eyes, causing him more than a little pain. But he is curious and so squints against the glare. Out in the darkness of space, the anomaly is a flat, blue disc that swirls into the shape of a funnel. This is what Crichton calls a 'wormhole'. This is how the human got to this sector, the information of how to create them what Scorpius has pursued him for, and why they have fought a bloody battle on a distant planet.
It is the second such example Crais has seen, and he is still not overly impressed. Crichton has told him ��" at great length ��" about these things, about what they can do and what they can achieve, but he has yet to see the potential exercised. Apparently, he is about to as whatever it is that Crichton is doing is starting to have an effect. Despite the lingering blindness he suffered when Talyn flew through a solar flare and their connectivity, Crais can see how the anomaly shifts until…
"The wormhole is touching the star." Stark's voice is full of awed horror. "It's touching the star..."
Crais realises that Stark thinks his vision is still impaired. It is, a little, but not enough that he cannot see what is happening. Though he does not quite believe what he is seeing.
The wormhole touches the sun. It takes the power and pulls it up. A blazing fireball forms in the mouth of the funnel… right in the path of the Scarren Dreadnought. In that instant Crais realises exactly what he is looking at.
Cold horror freezes him as he stands there and watches the ship die. It is a slow, painful death. Whether it is gravity that draws it in or its own propulsion, the vessel slides inexorably into the fireball, devoured dench by dench by the heat. He cannot help but wonder what is happening aboard. How hot it is getting, if the crew realises that it is doomed. There are small flashes of light, explosions as the decks collapse.
Crais has witnessed much destruction in his life but this… this beggars belief. And while the Scarrens are the enemy, that if they get a foothold in this sector he knows that they would subjugate every planet, eradicating any and every resistance, he is not sure they deserve this.
He feels no victory at the Dreadnought's passing, only horror at how an innocuous anomaly can be turned into a weapon of such massive destruction. It could obliterate an entire planet. Crichton called the technology 'Displacement'. It is too innocent a word for what Crais saw and he is utterly convinced that no one should have this technology.
There is one more brilliant flash of light and the fireball is pulled back into the sun from which it was dragged. The wormhole evaporates in a blink, leaving nothing but darkness and dust.
In Talyn's Command, there is silence.
Nothing remains of the Dreadnought whatsoever. Talyn is utterly terrified and Crais understands why. He has seen more campaigns than he can remember but he is shaking at what he has just witnessed.
"I have no prayer for that," Stark says finally, clearly struggling with the sheer scale of destruction.
Crais can only shake his head in stunned agreement.