The water was calm, the sea a near-perfect mirror stretching across the beach. The sand smoothly transitioned to pebbles, then rocks and boulders in shadow where the bay’s smooth crescent ended and the cliffs began.

Clouds had splashed themselves across the sky tonight, rendering the heavens mere patches of clear sky upon a background of darkness. The moon shone brightly through those windows, dimly illuminating the scene in a deep blue.

A deep colour that extended as far as visual range extended, though it was broken here and there by the stationary forms of the Fifth Heavy Armor Battalion; they sat idle, waiting for supplies and intelligence that would likely never arrive. The barrels of their magnetoaccelerator cannons lay elevated in the direction of the front lines, as if in salute at the slaughter that continued there.

And all around, the Age of Western Dominance drew to a close.