((It leaves poor Jason in quite a haze of action.. but oh well, explosions are my specialty
))
Jason began to morph... Kelran was, in truth, more than a little put off by the process. But he had seen some nasty things once or twice, and the change from a humanoid to an avian was not the worst.
If Jason's 'morph' was any indication this planet certainly had bird life....
The two took flight, straight out the hole in the side of the bridge.
Kelran's wingspan was absolutely immense and awesome to behold when he finally took full flight.
"Quickly quickly QUICKLY!" he shouted down to Jason who as about 4 feet below him....
Back on the Legacy the computer continued to silently wind down...
==7==6==5==4==3==2==COMMIT==1==..........
Inside the reactor core matter and anti-matter in the form of Cirillium slush mixtures had been colliding and anniahlating ever since the reactor was brought online, now the reaction controls and the thermionic conductor field that mediated the reaction had reached their peak, well beyond the redline. An explosion was inevitable, but still controllable providing ships systems ensured that the antimatter exploded properly rather than totally.
In the milliseond after '==1==' The computer shifted the focus vertex of the field to just the right vector.
The reaction tipped just slightly, even as the computer opened the fuel pods all the way and deactivated the backflow failsafes. Then the Computer ceased to exist.
Matter and Antimatter collided and anniahlated, transcending into pure energy, as light and force.
If one could have gotten a time lapse view of the engine room the core would have appeard to brighten then dissolve into pure light.
Jason and Kelran turned to watch from far above....
The ship seemed to brighten and glow with a piercing force.... visible at this hour of the evening from miles and miles away no doubt as a glow in the sky.
then for a split second there was nothing but a tiny point of swirling crackling blue sparks... the ship was gone, leaving only the marks of its passing.
All of this lasted approximately 0.68 seconds.
Then the explosion came.
All the matter of the ship, its fuel, and everything in it and a bit of the surrounding landscape were suddenly reorganized into energy and released.
If the light had been blinding before, it was solar-like now. And deafening, later news reports claimed the sound was heard as much as 18 miles from the site.
The entire Lake-bed area simply blew apart. Atoms collided, transcended into energy, regressed into basic elements, altered charge wildly.....
The shockwaves actually produced a small earthquake tremor, and for a short while Kelran and Jason couldnt even fly straight through the turbulence.
When the effect dissipated there was nothing left. The Lakebed for a full square mile was nothing but a perfectly round, perfectly smooth perfectly scoured carbonized crater.
"Thank heavens it worked properly..." Kelran said in a subdued voice.
<What would have happened if it hadnt worked properly?> Jason asked.
Kelran turned to look at him, fixing him with a dead serious gaze, his wingbeats didnt falter, he didnt miss a beat,
"The same thing, only it would have wiped this entire continental formation away, and split the planet halfway to its core, instead of wiping out a mere square klik or so. We wouldnt have had time to realize what was happening before our atoms ceased to be atoms and became anti-protons."
