The descent of the Divine Nine-Sun Golden Crow upon the Continental Eclipse Sun-Eater was a spectacle of world-ending beauty.
Pip didn’t merely dive. He fell through the lower solar corona like an angry star hurled from the heavens. His five-hundred-meter wings of crystal-hardened sun-hot light were folded tight against his wind-cutting golden body, cutting through the solar wind at over ten thousand miles per second. Trailing behind him were nine tiny suns, weaving ribbons of white-hot star-fire that braided into a swirling vortex of stellar fire.
On the Aethelgard’s command bridge, Arthur stood perfectly still, his mind linked directly to Pip’s hungry senses. Through the zero-latency soul channel, Arthur’s careful eye guided the dive. It locked onto the three land-wide eye hubs sprawling across the parasite’s eastern mantle.
“Hubs One, Two, and Three are drawing forty million tons of star-fire per second,” Arthur sent across the link. His thoughts were sharp and lethal. “Look at the base of the crystal lenses, Pip. The hardened anchor struts are bearing the full suction pressure. Strike the struts at the forty-five-degree spirit vein. Let the sun’s internal pressure blow the lenses out.”
Pip answered with a sharp, ringing trill that shook with total understanding: trrrr-peeeep!
