Collingdale was drinking black coffee, trying to clear his head, when a couple of the technicians created a commotion. “Look,” one of them said, pointing at a screen.

At a city. Intact.

Untouched.

Its towers still stood tall. Its hanging walkways still connected rooftops. A monument was down, and, on its southern flank, a minaret had collapsed. Otherwise, it had escaped.

It was halfway around the globe from where the intersection with the cloud had happened. The safest possible place. But that alone wouldn’t have been enough. Other cities, equally distant, had been leveled.

They went back and looked at the record.

Collingdale saw it right away: snow. The surviving city had been experiencing a blizzard when the cloud hit.

“It never saw this place,” said Ava.

FIELD REPORT: Moonlight

The only aspects of this civilization that survive are the city that suffered a timely blizzard, and the bases the inhabitants had established on the moon and on the third planet. And in the artifacts that we’ve managed to haul away.

The loss is incalculable. And I hope that someone, somewhere, will realize that it is time to devise a defense against the omegas. Not to wait until our turn comes, when it might be too late. But to do it now, before the next Moonlight happens.

— David Collingdale

Preliminary Post-omega Report

December 11, 2230


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