Su Qing floated down the dark vertical shaft. Her flashlight beam cut through the floating dust. The engine room was miles below the bridge. She used her hands to pull herself down the cold metal ladder. Her broken ribs ached with every movement. She ignored the pain. The survival of her people depended on her hands. ... The Empty Core. She reached the bottom. Her heavy boots touched the black floor. The engine room was massive. It looked like the inside of a dead iron volcano. Giant black pipes lined the walls. They all connected to a massive central core. The core was completely dark. It was a dead heart waiting for blood. "I am here" Su Qing said into her radio. Her voice echoed in the giant room. "Physics Lesson 643" Zero replied over the radio. "Fluid Dynamics and Pressure." "The acid outside is under massive pressure. You must open the manual intake valve first. Then Elena will open the outer hull doors. If you do it out of order the pipes will explode." Su Qing walke

Thorne pushed his hands flat against the stone table. He pictured the dark sky above. He wanted to break the roof of the world. He wanted to kill the shadows. The giant black dreadnought roared. It did not fly like a normal ship. It ignored gravity completely. It shot straight up. The nose of the iron whale hit the cavern ceiling. Solid rock shattered like thin glass. The ship pushed millions of tons of dirt upward. It carved a massive vertical tunnel through the crust of the Earth. ... The Boiling Core. Down in the engine room Su Qing held onto a metal railing. The artificial gravity pushed her down. The green acid pumped furiously through the central core. The heat was unbearable. The massive black pipes screamed under the pressure. "The core is overheating" Su Qing yelled into her radio. "We are pulling too much fuel from the stomach." "Hold it together Su Qing" Thorne replied over the static. "We are almost at the surface." Su Qing grabbed a heavy wrench. She hit a jamme

The green monsters flew up. They left trails of toxic green fire behind them. The sky turned a sickly bright green. Millions of mutated bone-spiders shot out of the deep cracks in the Earth. They were angry. They wanted the iron mountain. General Thorne stood at the black stone table. His hands pressed hard on the silver runes. "Fire the main batteries." Thorne ordered. Thousands of silver turrets opened on the dreadnought hull. They fired beams of hard light down at the planet. It looked like silver rain falling upward. The pure light hit the green spiders. The monsters exploded in massive bursts of acid. Black ash rained back down on the ruined city below. But there were too many. The bleeding god spawned an endless swarm. The silver light could not catch them all. Thud. The first green spider hit the bottom of the dreadnought. Its thick armor cracked. Acid spilled over the cosmic iron. The ancient metal hissed loudly. "They are attaching to the hull." Zero warned from the

Thorne pressed his hands flat against the burning stone table. The silver and orange runes scorched his palms. He ignored the pain. He looked at the endless black wall of ships in the sky. He thought of his dead soldiers on the ground. "Fire." Thorne roared. The dreadnought shuddered violently. The nose cannon released the energy. It was not a simple laser. It was a physical beam of cosmic anger. It was pure white. It blinded everyone on the bridge. The sound did not exist in the air. The sound vibrated directly inside their bones. The white beam struck the center of the Architect fleet. ... The Shattered Glass. Space folded backward. The dark matter ships did not explode with fire. They shattered like frozen glass. The white beam erased them completely. It carved a massive glowing hole straight through the enemy blockade. Thousands of silent black ships ceased to exist. The real stars shined through the hole. Sunlight hit the ruined Earth again. The World-Breaker weapon wo

The hangar doors groaned. They did not open all the way. The crash warped the cosmic iron. The doors stuck halfway. A thick wall of absolute darkness waited outside. Thorne turned on his shoulder lamp. The white beam cut through the dark. "We need a spark." Su Qing said. She held her heavy plasma cutter. "The dreadnought core is completely cold. If we find an old power relay we can jump-start the ship." Thorne looked at his surviving soldiers. He had eight men. They were battered and bruised from the blind warp. But they held their heavy rifles steady. They were the Great Zhou. They did not quit. "Zero." Thorne spoke into his radio. "Keep the blast doors sealed behind us. Do not open them until you hear my voice." "Understood General." Zero replied from the dark bridge. Her voice was small but calm. "Tracking your life signs now. Be careful. The ambient temperature is dropping fast." Thorne stepped through the broken hangar doors. His heavy boots hit the metal ground of the ali