The Moscow night was only just beginning, and already the nightlife was crowding the streets. People bustled everywhere, drinks and phones in hand, alternating between talking and flirting or minding their own business and trying to get home for the evening. Cars still crowded the streets as late shifters shuttled into work and evening shifters shuttled out. Many people were finishing up walks around the center of the city, with no shortage strolling along the Moskva river to drink in the lights and clouds reflecting off of the river's surface. The Kremlin was an imposing yet gorgeous sight framed against the night, its own twinkling lights reflecting off the water and dancing over the riverfront.
The weather was quite balmy for the time of year; Russia had heated more than other areas of the world the past few decades, but that wasn’t to say that the Muscovites minded. Tens of thousands were out enjoying the weather, although most that didn’t want to spend the night out drinking and partying had already turned in. There wasn’t any reason for any of them to imagine anything was out of the ordinary. Not even when, far, far above, a new star began to glitter in the sky.
It was too distant to tell the difference on the ground. Mere lumens, maybe, but nothing that anyone would notice. That didn’t last long. At just shy of a hundred thousand kilometers per hour, even the immense vastness of the atmosphere quickly becomes nothing. Within seconds, the night began to get brighter.
Confused pedestrians began to gaze skyward, curious, not yet realizing that they had moments to live. After all, it wasn’t every day that the night brightened. Confusion gave way to fear in only a few more seconds as the {(Seed)} superheated to such a degree that its brilliance began to eclipse that of the sun.
Another second, and tens of thousands instantly went blind as the intense energy of atmospheric entry seared off of it and onto the onlookers as light. Another second, and the heat grew so intense that people began to burn. Buildings instantly went alight, tires started to smelt, and foliage crackled and creaked under the intense heat. The agony was too quick for most to process; thousands simply dropped dead as the heat cooked their brains before they could even react. Those that survived longer didn’t need to worry for long.
Another second, and then the concussion wave hit. Not of the object breaking up in the atmosphere, though. It was built much too sturdy for that. Instead, air had compressed to such a degree in its path, and with so much stored energy, that a sonic boom had echoed. One built upon an object with the kinetic force of hundreds of nuclear warheads.
Thousands of buildings crumpled under the force, snapping like kindling under the pressure wave. Apartments, hospitals, schools, even the mighty Kremlin, flattened as if some Great God had seen fit to crush the Russians flat. Tens of thousands more died in an instant, while shattered windows and partially collapsed structures away from the epicenter scored hundreds of thousands more injuries.
Another second, and finally the {(Seed)} impacted. Apocalyptic didn’t begin to define it. The minute fraction of time that passed just as it touched the ground sparked a flash of light as an unholy amount of energy was unleashed. That was the only warning anyone could possibly have noticed before the destructive potential of the {(Seed)} was truly unleashed. A second, much more powerful concussion wave echoed outward, racing just behind a heat wall significantly more violent than the first.
That was to say nothing of the intense vibrations rattling the Earth in the barest fractions of a second after the monolith impacted. Moscow rattled in its death throes, and then the moment was over and the heat and concussion waves swept through the city. Hundreds of thousands were instantly immolated, scarred into a shadow on the pavement by the immense heat of the impact. Those distant enough to survive immolation were burned beyond recognition, their skin set to sloughing from their flesh immediately. They didn’t suffer, though; parts of them and millions of others were scattered as the concussion wave echoed through the dying city. That was to say nothing of the tens of thousands of buildings that’d collapsed, trapping hundreds of thousands under tons of rubble and steel.
As if that wasn’t enough, the rumble of the earth reached those panicked survivors next. The shifting earth rattled the rubble, crushing many of the survivors as the collapsed and melting buildings shifted, and they didn’t. Aftershocks rattled the bedrock, but for the most part the destruction was complete. And absolute. Tens of thousands were left in a city of nearly fifteen million, a mere thirty seconds after the {(Seed)} had entered the atmosphere. Many with broken bones, or burns, or trapped beneath hundreds of tons of rubble. There weren't even enough of them left to hear the {(Seed)} as it began to scream.
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Aleksandr frowned, looking at the clock on his wall intently. It was showing 8:03, and still his brother hadn’t responded to his calls. To most, that wouldn’t be a worry. After all, it was only three minutes past when he usually called Aleksei. He and his brother weren’t most people, however. Their father had been the Chief of General Staff of the Russian military, and while Aleksandr had followed in his footsteps and his brother hadn’t, their fathers martial military spirit had been instilled in the both of them. Aleksandr could count on one hand the times in the last year that his brother had been late on their nightly calls, and each time had been due to an emergency in the family. The last, months ago, had been when his niece had suddenly fallen gravely ill and Aleksei had forgotten his phone while taking her to the hospital. Even then Aleksei had managed to contact him using a nurses phone, unsecured though it may have been.
As the minutes ticked away, Aleksandr grew more restless. Finally, once it hit 8:10, he’d had enough. He knew plenty of people in the Ministry of Defence he could call to check on his family. He started by calling a few officers and secretaries he’d worked with prior- it was a point of pride for Aleks that everyone left his service having enjoyed working for him, and as such he had many friends back at the bureaucratic headquarters of the Russian military. The half-dozen he rang first didn’t answer, though. Aleks frowned at that. What were the odds that none of them would be able to pick up, especially this late in the evening? He’d worked in the Ministry building for a short stint near the start of his career, and it wasn’t exactly a bustling establishment.
Aleks put aside his concerns for the moment, and attempted to contact a few more people, going higher up the ladder as he went. He tried to reach out to his allies in the air force first, then the missile division, the Spetsnaz, and so on. The problem? None of them were picking up. The more he called, the more his concern turned to curiosity. And that gnawed at him. Maybe some moron company had managed to terminate cellular connection in the city for the night? Corruption wasn’t remotely unheard of in Moscow, so that wouldn’t exactly be a tall feat to pull off by mistake.
Aleksandr decided to switch to his satellite phone instead, and pulled it out of his desk. Was it overkill? His first thought was probably, since a simple radio would suffice. His second, was that his brother had one too. And still, he hadn’t gotten a call from him. Or from anyone else he’d tried to contact tonight. So instead of trying to call his brother again, he directly called the current Chief of General Staff. It may not have been the wisest choice, but it was the correct one- just like every other phone he’d tried to ring, the line was dead.
That meant something was wrong. And not just that some impudent oligarch might have disabled all of Moscow's cell towers, either. The Chief of General Staff had satellite connections and landlines in case of an emergency. Even if the bumbling oaf was sleeping through it, his phone still would have rang.
Aleksandr turned to his own landline, and pressed a button to call his assistant. “Get me a secure connection to Kubinka, please. Quickly.”
“Of course, comrade General.” The young man answered, before Aleksandr terminated the line. Only a few moments later, his assistant came in with a big, bulky radio case. It had the rough width of a laptop, but it was thicker than some of the biggest books he’d ever laid eyes on. Secure radio equipment wasn’t exactly made for light work, though. His assistant propped open the radio, and Aleksandr expertly got to work.
He’d been working with such devices since before the young man had been alive, and within moments he was connecting to Kubinka air base, only a few dozen kilometers outside of Moscow. Vladimir Lukashenko was commander of the base, and he’d served under Aleksandr in Ukraine. He only trusted one man alive more than him, and that man wasn’t currently answering his calls.
Unlike Aleksei, Vladimir did. “Vladimir! How are…” He trailed off, as Vlad started to speak. Aleksandr listened intently, mentally noting everything his right-hand man rattled off. He didn’t often take things at face value, but Vlad wasn’t one to exaggerate- and the more the Commander talked, the more stone-faced he became. Vladimir was meticulous in his report, and once he was finished Aleks took a moment to process everything he’d said.
“Thank you, Vlad. I’ll be on my way shortly, and I’ll keep in touch. Get the airbase ready, I don’t want any more surprises.” Aleks finished, before hanging up the line.
He stared down at the radio box for a moment longer, prompting his assistant to speak up. “Comrade General… is there a problem?”
Aleks sighed wearily. “It would seem, perhaps, that we are at war. And that we’ve just lost. Prep a chopper crew for me, and get some Spetsnaz at the ready to escort. I’m flying to Kubinka myself.”
