4vA]^#PG#IN-7#ST-7#SP-7#DR-7#EP-7#FS-1
Post by Uatu the Watcher on Jun 10, 2008 19:56:07 GMT -5
[Giffen, Keith (w), Scott Kolins with Ariel Olivetti (a), and June Chung (c)] “Annihilation Day.” Annihilation Prologue., #1, (May. 2006), Marvel Entertainment: [2-8]
Adapted By: The Punisher
THE CRUNCH ENERGY CASCADE.
KYLN MOONS: ACTIVE
PRIMARY FUNCTION: POWER GENERATION UNITS.
POWERED BY CRUNCH ENERGY CASCADE.
SECONDARY FUNCTION: MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILTY.
DEATH PENALTY EXCLUSIVE.
VERGE SYSTEM 026
Out in the farthest reach of known space, at the expanding edge of known existence, the Kyln moons resided peacefully just on the surface of the universal crunch. In the most dark and deserted limits of cosmos, the artificial moons provided power and energy to thousands of star systems spanning across the universe—it’s origin surpassing the longevity of it’s own existence. The Kyln has been, and would always continue to be. Yet where the Kyln gave life, it would also take it as well. Within their confines were the final residences of the most deadly, treacherous, and insane minds to traverse the stars. An impenetrable fortress, where the guilty would spend the rest of their natural lives locked away at edge of all existence. The Kyln had seen its fair share of ruthless genocidal barbarians and unstable yet ingenious sociopaths. It existed long before their presence, and it would stay long after they had perished. But for some, a cycle on the Kyln was just another day on the job.
Inside, prisoners freely traversed its massive cityscape structures with nothing but time and mortality to keep them company. Escape was fool’s pursuit—leading only to anything but a swift and painless end. The condemned are constantly kept inside by microscopic machines that flood the atmosphere. Existing everywhere at once, they flow harmlessly inside and outside the convicts systems; no more noticeable than a breath of air. Should a prisoner act unpleasantly, the subatomic guards take the convicted down from the inside out. Yet lacking understanding and common sense that comes with organic life, the Kyln still keep on staff actual guardsmen to remind the prisoners exactly their purpose for staying on the Kyln—to die without incident.
Cole was one such a guard of the intergalactic prison. To his knowledge he was the only Terran enlisted in his law enforcement detachment, Omega Core. Then again, Cole might have been the only human from Earth residing on the Kyln at all. Yet he was unusually comfortable of his predicament, despite the awkward circumstances that brought him to where his life has lead him at the very moment—and was always grateful he kept an eye on the prisoners rather than joining them. Some on Earth would call him a pretty boy. Short blonde hair. Muscular physique. It was even more difficult deal with when being a member of a species that had yet to achieve a place in galactic commerce. It made him hard. Tough. Strong willed. Prime material for Omega Core. In his uniform, he walked through the pathways of the Kyln knowing that no inmate could lay a finger on him simply for the fact that the job he had earned entitled him as hardened enough to deserve it. Some prisoners actually believed it, while others feared it due to the ten foot tall extraterrestrial coworker, Swad, who accompanied Cole at most times. Bound by the same uniform as Cole, Swad was a tall, highly muscular, pale skinned security guard that had toured with Cole since his enlistment. He retained most of the human features of his friend Cole, save for the fact he lacked any bodily hair, ears, or a nose. His physique caused him to slightly slouch forward, nearly dragging his fists against the floor. Yet behind his barbaric appearance, Swad remained deeply religious at heart—at least enough to accept the unique diversity of his Terran friend.
“… Things seeming a mite… tense around here lately?” Cole chatted in small talk while Swad followed at his side; walking past strange and indiscernible prisoners who stepped aside with stress in their eyes at the sight of the two.
“It’s a prison, Cole. We bring them here to die. ‘Tense’ defines Kyln culture.” Swad’s deep voice conversed back as the two talked amongst themselves. They escorted four of the Kyln’s newest inmates to the cleric for registry and introduction. Short in stature, they shuffled side by side with fear in the small black eyes as they the finality of their predicament began to settle in. Even shorter than the Terran that escorted them, they would be lucky enough to last a week.
“Culture? This lot got culture?”
“Such as it is, yes.” Swad nodded his head before him as the cleric on shift greeted the two.
“Cole. Swad. Omega Core’s ‘finest.’ This batch been read their rights?” The cleric asked with distain towards the convicted before him.
One of the prisoners acted out of line; impulsive enough to retort. “We don’t need no beat cops reading us our--”
“Shut it, jailbird. You got the right to die here.” Cole brashly interrupted with a sly and suave presentation.
“Cole!” Swad modestly objected.
“Tell them I’m wrong!” Cole could sense the on edge nervous nature in the convicts attitude at the harsh comments he made—and loved every second of it.
“Inmates, act up and the Nano Warders take you down from within your own body.” The cleric’s words were short and brisk. “It’s all downhill from here. Enjoy the life left you. Now kite off!”
“Nice. Sure you’re a cleric?” Cole’s natural Terran attitude continued to shine.
“I’m not here for ‘nice.’” The cleric responded. “I’m here for false hope and inadequate comfort.”
“You are a cleric.” Despite Cole’s cynical nature, the prisoners were dismissed—yet were quickly interrupted by the uneasy premonitions of officer Swad.
“The air stirs here. It’s a sensation unlike…” Swad chimed in with a hint of his cryptic attitude.
The cleric responded to Swad’s sensations. “You feel it too, Officer Swad?”
Swad turned his gaze from the halls of the Kyln to the cleric before him. “Pressure.”
“Anticipation. Not the good kind.” The cleric seemed have more in common with Swad than Cole gave credit to.
“I don’t feel nothing.” Cole found it easy to discredit and dismiss the claims—walking away from the two as they began to follow close behind.
“That’s because you’re a coarse buffoon…” Swad trailed off he was taken by surprise as the rustic and metallic walls, pillars, and floor around them seemed to move. To shift. They were alive. The Kyln had come alive and breathed about them—but not just live, but crawl. Hundreds of thousands of miniature mechanized insects scurried out of the cracks of the Kyln around them, crawling and climbing upwards as their metal legs ticked and scrapped against the surface walls.
“Okay… This is new.” Cole couldn’t help but comment. “Where are these mech-critters off to?”
“They are A.I. interior monitors. Not mech-critters.” The Cleric bitterly retorted. “But… They never surface! Their functions are internal!”
Swad’s eyes filled with discomfort and distress. “Their A.I. has been overridden?”
“That’s, ah… That’s not good. Right?” The interior monitors continue to climb and scale the surroundings while Cole suddenly froze still in his stance—stricken with absolute fear.
The cleric was too concerned with the sudden advancement of the metallic caretakers to notice Cole’s reaction. “Overridden!? But to what end!?”
“I think it wants to bear witness.” Swad, replied; still not quite noticing just what had captured Cole with such immediate terror.
“Bear witness? To what!?” The Cleric bumped into Cole, noticing then the sudden pale features and cold sweat that enhanced the Terran’s facial expressions.
“My God…” Cole finally manage to muster the words that had caught in his throat—choked by what he gazed up as he stared into the stars of the Kyln above him. “… Something just punched through the Crunch!”
The universe was on fire. Thousands upon thousands of lights and beams flashing all at once. Streams of illuminating death pierced through the blackness of space and tore the surroundings apart in screaming frenzy. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Millions. They streamed out straight from the Crunch. They came forth like a swarm. A plague. Like death itself. Consuming. Devouring. Annihilating. It appeared to span on forever in the space above them. It seemed to wash over the Kyln’s response and assault ships without even the smallest hindrance. Enemy ships. Arial fighters. Sinister frigates. They flowed out from the Crunch with weapons firing. Incinerating. Burning. Already, the massive force had easily overwhelmed the six moons of the prison—and there were more on the way. Their design organic yet technological; insect-like in appearance. And like insects they were. Their devastation came in numbers. To Cole, it was like the gates of Hell had been blown open and the wrath of the underworld itself had come forth to claim its own. In the distance, one of the moons had already erupted in a ball of fire. An entire segment of the prison; gone, instantly. All the while he could see the flames of war on the surface of what remained—their tethered cords to the crunch were severed as they seemed to crack and explode like an eggshell. The ground around the officers rumbled and violently trembled as they could hear the bombs of the assault wrack the surface of their moon.
“Everyone to emergency stations!” Swad cried out before sprinting down the pathway. Their only hope was to make it to the defense turrets to repel the invaders; if there was anything left. Cole followed behind, grabbing the cleric by his robe as one of the towers came crashing down behind them—nearly flatting them both.
The atmosphere was filled with explosion after explosion; one after the other until there remained nothing but an orange light in the sky of the Kyln moons on fire. Entire planets ablaze with destruction. Alien fighters streamed by overhead, strafing the ground as their turrets sliced through the landscape. Cole and Swad dodged and hopped over fallen prisoners as their recently deceased corpses lay smoldering on the ground. “They’re swarming everywhere...” They could hear the bombs detonate off the surface alongside the sounds of their own air force crashing down out of the sky. Prisoners wailed and fled for cover only to have their lives cut short by the oncoming attacks. Strange, winged, insect-like creatures seemed to swarm down in groves of thousands, scooping up inmates off the ground. Their bloodcurdling screams were quickly silenced by the fidgeting and flexing of the monster’s exoskeletons. Torn limb from limb. Officer Cole could no longer eve hear the repelling force of their own enforcers. Just the sound of imminent annihilation all around them.
“Run for cover!” The cleric cried out as the entire Kyln moon seemed to tremble around them. Buildings exploding. Complexes toppling over. Thick clouds of billowing black smoke were wafted aside as the warships slowly emerged through the smoke—their exterior so durable that they simply flew through the complexes on the moons surface; crashing through them without nearly a scratch on their hull. The fighters took care of the rest.
“Where did they--” Cole yelled out in confusion, following Swad’s lead. The road before them erupted in a pillar of fire as one of the enemy ships drove effortlessly up through the surface.
“… Burrowing…” Cole could barely hear Swad reply as his ears rang out from the constant detonations. “… Slicing through the Kyln--” He could see what exactly Swad meant as not only were the invaders assaulting the surface; they penetrated it as well.
“… What could--ARRGH!” Swad’s words were cut short when the surface beside them erupted in a fury of debris and fire; another warship came streaming up through the Kyln. There were flames everywhere. All Cole could feel as he was knocked to the floor was the scorching heat against his back before hearing the lumbering motors of the ship stream by them. Getting himself up without even minding his own injuries, he kept the pace before noting he was all alone. Swad was missing; yet it didn’t take long to spy his friend laying on the ground behind with his right ribcage torn open wide from shrapnel.
“SWAD!” Cole screamed as he ran back and dropped to his knees beside his companion. “Swad! Oh, no…” He cupped his arms underneath the alien’s head as blood trickled out from his mouth. For the first time, in a long time, he had seen fear in his friend’s eyes. His vastly muscular form seemed frail and withering. Swad was dying. The cleric, on the other head, had not been so lucky. What was left of him laid on its back, eyes rolled back into its head with its jaw open wide.
“C-Cole… Do not let me die with… without absolution…” Swad reached up to Cole as his speech was hindered by the hemorrhaging inside his lungs. His eyes watered with tears up while his facial features seemed to slowly slip away into a numb and lifeless gaze—yet Swad continued to hold on.
“Huh? Sw-Swad?” Cole didn’t know what to say. His friend lay dying in his arms but he himself was no man of religion.
“Cole... Please…” Swad begged his friend with his final wish—the pain in his side beginning to fade away. In fact, he almost couldn’t feel anything at all.
“I don’t… I don’t know… I can’t…”
“I can guide you… Please…”
“Swad, I…”
“Repeat.” Swad’s body jolted with a rattle before he began to recite his prayer for forgiveness—knowing his friend Cole would do him this one favor. One last time. “‘Receive this penitent…”
“‘Receive this penitent…” Cole repeated all that Swad spoke word for word. Behind them, in the distance. The neighboring Kyln moon drifted closer and closer to their own moon. An entire forth of its planetary structure was missing and filled with nothing but fire. Yet still, it continued to speed their way.
“‘ Whose sins shall be forgiven, they are forgiven…”
“‘Whose sins shall be forgiven…” The moon drifted closer and closer, illuminating their surroundings in a burning orange light and eclipsing the sky above them.
“‘… And whose sins shall be retained, they are retai--’” Swad’s head drifted back into Cole’s arms and breathed no more. Yet Cole continued on with the absolution.
“‘And whose sins shall be retained.’”
The Kyln moons collided into each other, and officers Swad and Cole were no more. The Kyln. The prisoners. Gone. An entire series of planets wiped out of existence in less than a few minutes. The Kyln stations lay ravaged and adrift in open space as the wave of invaders kept streaming through the crunch energy cascade and out through the rest of the universe. Millions of lives annihilated without a single hint of remorse. The strange alien ships did not bother to stop and capture any prisoners. Their conquest for universal genocide had only begun...
Adapted By: The Punisher
THE CRUNCH ENERGY CASCADE.
KYLN MOONS: ACTIVE
PRIMARY FUNCTION: POWER GENERATION UNITS.
POWERED BY CRUNCH ENERGY CASCADE.
SECONDARY FUNCTION: MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILTY.
DEATH PENALTY EXCLUSIVE.
VERGE SYSTEM 026
Out in the farthest reach of known space, at the expanding edge of known existence, the Kyln moons resided peacefully just on the surface of the universal crunch. In the most dark and deserted limits of cosmos, the artificial moons provided power and energy to thousands of star systems spanning across the universe—it’s origin surpassing the longevity of it’s own existence. The Kyln has been, and would always continue to be. Yet where the Kyln gave life, it would also take it as well. Within their confines were the final residences of the most deadly, treacherous, and insane minds to traverse the stars. An impenetrable fortress, where the guilty would spend the rest of their natural lives locked away at edge of all existence. The Kyln had seen its fair share of ruthless genocidal barbarians and unstable yet ingenious sociopaths. It existed long before their presence, and it would stay long after they had perished. But for some, a cycle on the Kyln was just another day on the job.
Inside, prisoners freely traversed its massive cityscape structures with nothing but time and mortality to keep them company. Escape was fool’s pursuit—leading only to anything but a swift and painless end. The condemned are constantly kept inside by microscopic machines that flood the atmosphere. Existing everywhere at once, they flow harmlessly inside and outside the convicts systems; no more noticeable than a breath of air. Should a prisoner act unpleasantly, the subatomic guards take the convicted down from the inside out. Yet lacking understanding and common sense that comes with organic life, the Kyln still keep on staff actual guardsmen to remind the prisoners exactly their purpose for staying on the Kyln—to die without incident.
Cole was one such a guard of the intergalactic prison. To his knowledge he was the only Terran enlisted in his law enforcement detachment, Omega Core. Then again, Cole might have been the only human from Earth residing on the Kyln at all. Yet he was unusually comfortable of his predicament, despite the awkward circumstances that brought him to where his life has lead him at the very moment—and was always grateful he kept an eye on the prisoners rather than joining them. Some on Earth would call him a pretty boy. Short blonde hair. Muscular physique. It was even more difficult deal with when being a member of a species that had yet to achieve a place in galactic commerce. It made him hard. Tough. Strong willed. Prime material for Omega Core. In his uniform, he walked through the pathways of the Kyln knowing that no inmate could lay a finger on him simply for the fact that the job he had earned entitled him as hardened enough to deserve it. Some prisoners actually believed it, while others feared it due to the ten foot tall extraterrestrial coworker, Swad, who accompanied Cole at most times. Bound by the same uniform as Cole, Swad was a tall, highly muscular, pale skinned security guard that had toured with Cole since his enlistment. He retained most of the human features of his friend Cole, save for the fact he lacked any bodily hair, ears, or a nose. His physique caused him to slightly slouch forward, nearly dragging his fists against the floor. Yet behind his barbaric appearance, Swad remained deeply religious at heart—at least enough to accept the unique diversity of his Terran friend.
“… Things seeming a mite… tense around here lately?” Cole chatted in small talk while Swad followed at his side; walking past strange and indiscernible prisoners who stepped aside with stress in their eyes at the sight of the two.
“It’s a prison, Cole. We bring them here to die. ‘Tense’ defines Kyln culture.” Swad’s deep voice conversed back as the two talked amongst themselves. They escorted four of the Kyln’s newest inmates to the cleric for registry and introduction. Short in stature, they shuffled side by side with fear in the small black eyes as they the finality of their predicament began to settle in. Even shorter than the Terran that escorted them, they would be lucky enough to last a week.
“Culture? This lot got culture?”
“Such as it is, yes.” Swad nodded his head before him as the cleric on shift greeted the two.
“Cole. Swad. Omega Core’s ‘finest.’ This batch been read their rights?” The cleric asked with distain towards the convicted before him.
One of the prisoners acted out of line; impulsive enough to retort. “We don’t need no beat cops reading us our--”
“Shut it, jailbird. You got the right to die here.” Cole brashly interrupted with a sly and suave presentation.
“Cole!” Swad modestly objected.
“Tell them I’m wrong!” Cole could sense the on edge nervous nature in the convicts attitude at the harsh comments he made—and loved every second of it.
“Inmates, act up and the Nano Warders take you down from within your own body.” The cleric’s words were short and brisk. “It’s all downhill from here. Enjoy the life left you. Now kite off!”
“Nice. Sure you’re a cleric?” Cole’s natural Terran attitude continued to shine.
“I’m not here for ‘nice.’” The cleric responded. “I’m here for false hope and inadequate comfort.”
“You are a cleric.” Despite Cole’s cynical nature, the prisoners were dismissed—yet were quickly interrupted by the uneasy premonitions of officer Swad.
“The air stirs here. It’s a sensation unlike…” Swad chimed in with a hint of his cryptic attitude.
The cleric responded to Swad’s sensations. “You feel it too, Officer Swad?”
Swad turned his gaze from the halls of the Kyln to the cleric before him. “Pressure.”
“Anticipation. Not the good kind.” The cleric seemed have more in common with Swad than Cole gave credit to.
“I don’t feel nothing.” Cole found it easy to discredit and dismiss the claims—walking away from the two as they began to follow close behind.
“That’s because you’re a coarse buffoon…” Swad trailed off he was taken by surprise as the rustic and metallic walls, pillars, and floor around them seemed to move. To shift. They were alive. The Kyln had come alive and breathed about them—but not just live, but crawl. Hundreds of thousands of miniature mechanized insects scurried out of the cracks of the Kyln around them, crawling and climbing upwards as their metal legs ticked and scrapped against the surface walls.
“Okay… This is new.” Cole couldn’t help but comment. “Where are these mech-critters off to?”
“They are A.I. interior monitors. Not mech-critters.” The Cleric bitterly retorted. “But… They never surface! Their functions are internal!”
Swad’s eyes filled with discomfort and distress. “Their A.I. has been overridden?”
“That’s, ah… That’s not good. Right?” The interior monitors continue to climb and scale the surroundings while Cole suddenly froze still in his stance—stricken with absolute fear.
The cleric was too concerned with the sudden advancement of the metallic caretakers to notice Cole’s reaction. “Overridden!? But to what end!?”
“I think it wants to bear witness.” Swad, replied; still not quite noticing just what had captured Cole with such immediate terror.
“Bear witness? To what!?” The Cleric bumped into Cole, noticing then the sudden pale features and cold sweat that enhanced the Terran’s facial expressions.
“My God…” Cole finally manage to muster the words that had caught in his throat—choked by what he gazed up as he stared into the stars of the Kyln above him. “… Something just punched through the Crunch!”
The universe was on fire. Thousands upon thousands of lights and beams flashing all at once. Streams of illuminating death pierced through the blackness of space and tore the surroundings apart in screaming frenzy. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Millions. They streamed out straight from the Crunch. They came forth like a swarm. A plague. Like death itself. Consuming. Devouring. Annihilating. It appeared to span on forever in the space above them. It seemed to wash over the Kyln’s response and assault ships without even the smallest hindrance. Enemy ships. Arial fighters. Sinister frigates. They flowed out from the Crunch with weapons firing. Incinerating. Burning. Already, the massive force had easily overwhelmed the six moons of the prison—and there were more on the way. Their design organic yet technological; insect-like in appearance. And like insects they were. Their devastation came in numbers. To Cole, it was like the gates of Hell had been blown open and the wrath of the underworld itself had come forth to claim its own. In the distance, one of the moons had already erupted in a ball of fire. An entire segment of the prison; gone, instantly. All the while he could see the flames of war on the surface of what remained—their tethered cords to the crunch were severed as they seemed to crack and explode like an eggshell. The ground around the officers rumbled and violently trembled as they could hear the bombs of the assault wrack the surface of their moon.
“Everyone to emergency stations!” Swad cried out before sprinting down the pathway. Their only hope was to make it to the defense turrets to repel the invaders; if there was anything left. Cole followed behind, grabbing the cleric by his robe as one of the towers came crashing down behind them—nearly flatting them both.
The atmosphere was filled with explosion after explosion; one after the other until there remained nothing but an orange light in the sky of the Kyln moons on fire. Entire planets ablaze with destruction. Alien fighters streamed by overhead, strafing the ground as their turrets sliced through the landscape. Cole and Swad dodged and hopped over fallen prisoners as their recently deceased corpses lay smoldering on the ground. “They’re swarming everywhere...” They could hear the bombs detonate off the surface alongside the sounds of their own air force crashing down out of the sky. Prisoners wailed and fled for cover only to have their lives cut short by the oncoming attacks. Strange, winged, insect-like creatures seemed to swarm down in groves of thousands, scooping up inmates off the ground. Their bloodcurdling screams were quickly silenced by the fidgeting and flexing of the monster’s exoskeletons. Torn limb from limb. Officer Cole could no longer eve hear the repelling force of their own enforcers. Just the sound of imminent annihilation all around them.
“Run for cover!” The cleric cried out as the entire Kyln moon seemed to tremble around them. Buildings exploding. Complexes toppling over. Thick clouds of billowing black smoke were wafted aside as the warships slowly emerged through the smoke—their exterior so durable that they simply flew through the complexes on the moons surface; crashing through them without nearly a scratch on their hull. The fighters took care of the rest.
“Where did they--” Cole yelled out in confusion, following Swad’s lead. The road before them erupted in a pillar of fire as one of the enemy ships drove effortlessly up through the surface.
“… Burrowing…” Cole could barely hear Swad reply as his ears rang out from the constant detonations. “… Slicing through the Kyln--” He could see what exactly Swad meant as not only were the invaders assaulting the surface; they penetrated it as well.
“… What could--ARRGH!” Swad’s words were cut short when the surface beside them erupted in a fury of debris and fire; another warship came streaming up through the Kyln. There were flames everywhere. All Cole could feel as he was knocked to the floor was the scorching heat against his back before hearing the lumbering motors of the ship stream by them. Getting himself up without even minding his own injuries, he kept the pace before noting he was all alone. Swad was missing; yet it didn’t take long to spy his friend laying on the ground behind with his right ribcage torn open wide from shrapnel.
“SWAD!” Cole screamed as he ran back and dropped to his knees beside his companion. “Swad! Oh, no…” He cupped his arms underneath the alien’s head as blood trickled out from his mouth. For the first time, in a long time, he had seen fear in his friend’s eyes. His vastly muscular form seemed frail and withering. Swad was dying. The cleric, on the other head, had not been so lucky. What was left of him laid on its back, eyes rolled back into its head with its jaw open wide.
“C-Cole… Do not let me die with… without absolution…” Swad reached up to Cole as his speech was hindered by the hemorrhaging inside his lungs. His eyes watered with tears up while his facial features seemed to slowly slip away into a numb and lifeless gaze—yet Swad continued to hold on.
“Huh? Sw-Swad?” Cole didn’t know what to say. His friend lay dying in his arms but he himself was no man of religion.
“Cole... Please…” Swad begged his friend with his final wish—the pain in his side beginning to fade away. In fact, he almost couldn’t feel anything at all.
“I don’t… I don’t know… I can’t…”
“I can guide you… Please…”
“Swad, I…”
“Repeat.” Swad’s body jolted with a rattle before he began to recite his prayer for forgiveness—knowing his friend Cole would do him this one favor. One last time. “‘Receive this penitent…”
“‘Receive this penitent…” Cole repeated all that Swad spoke word for word. Behind them, in the distance. The neighboring Kyln moon drifted closer and closer to their own moon. An entire forth of its planetary structure was missing and filled with nothing but fire. Yet still, it continued to speed their way.
“‘ Whose sins shall be forgiven, they are forgiven…”
“‘Whose sins shall be forgiven…” The moon drifted closer and closer, illuminating their surroundings in a burning orange light and eclipsing the sky above them.
“‘… And whose sins shall be retained, they are retai--’” Swad’s head drifted back into Cole’s arms and breathed no more. Yet Cole continued on with the absolution.
“‘And whose sins shall be retained.’”
The Kyln moons collided into each other, and officers Swad and Cole were no more. The Kyln. The prisoners. Gone. An entire series of planets wiped out of existence in less than a few minutes. The Kyln stations lay ravaged and adrift in open space as the wave of invaders kept streaming through the crunch energy cascade and out through the rest of the universe. Millions of lives annihilated without a single hint of remorse. The strange alien ships did not bother to stop and capture any prisoners. Their conquest for universal genocide had only begun...