To stand at the open bow hatch of The Ascendant was to gaze down into the throat of an entropic furnace. Three hundred miles below the Ironwood keel, the upper terminus of the hexagonal crystalline monolith rose out of the dying blue supergiant like a jagged spearhead. Dead gray ash and sub-zero violet vapor poured continuously from its exhaust vents, carrying the stolen lifespan of a sun out into the silent vacuum.
Orion stood at the threshold of the ramp with the Solar Anvil unclasped and gripped tightly in his right hand. Beside him, Elara's pale fingers were spread wide, her dark cloak fluttering against the artificial atmospheric barrier of the bay as she measured the mathematical distance to the star's photosphere.
