The Vanguard Scalpel sliced into the outer fringes of the lunar debris tail with a nonstop, whispering hiss that sounded like fine sand thrown against a metal sheet.
Twenty-eight thousand miles ahead, the Shattered Moon cast a long, cone-shaped shadow across the cis-lunar space lanes. Within that shadow, the pulverization of billions of tons of lunar crust during the Cataclysm had created a permanent ring of floating dark rock dust, gravel, and jagged boulder-sized fragments that orbited the satellite like a rainbow-bright collar.
“Debris sensors are screaming,” Toby shouted from the flight console, strapping himself back into his seat with wild haste. “Particle thickness is four hundred and twenty grains per cubic meter! The forward deflector shields are holding, but our heat radiators are taking micro-pitting!”
“Keep the shields angled sixty degrees to port,” Arthur ordered, striding into the cockpit, his helmet already sealed and locked. “Toby, look at the radar return. Those aren’t just rocks.”
Through the stone-glass viewing port, the dust cloud was glowing with faint, eerie-glowing violet pinpricks.
They drifted in coordinated, sharp-angled formations, their movements defying Keplerian sky-high mechanics. As the Vanguard Scalpel entered their detection radius, eighty-four distinct radar contacts blossomed across Toby’s tactical screen.
