In a way, what follows shocks Ilapara more than witnessing the destruction of Apos, where millions of people died. Here she saw children fleeing into the houses, some young enough that they needed to be carried inside, and now she has a clear view of those same houses crumbling beneath a fusillade of sunfire shot from the freely rotating artillery weapons mounted onto the vessel’s keel. Some of the villagers are fast enough to escape the rain of destruction, but a redhawk swoops down from out of nowhere, cutting off their escape. Ilapara doesn’t look away when it pins a man to the ground and
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