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was entirely concentrated into one relatively compact object, that must have hit with one hell of a bang.

    She winced as she climbed down into the crater, forced to sling her rifle in order to make her way down the debris strewn hole. It had struck like a bomb, was her first observation, and ironically it was the first bit of destruction she’d seen that made sense and followed a pattern she knew. It was textbook, actually. The impact had shattered the prefab finish of the dwelling, sending fiber-board and glass shards flying out in all directions. At the center lay the car, its structure mostly intact, long snaking coils of the tether curled all around.

    The car had been quite high up when the tether was cut, she decided. Its fall had turned the vehicle into a low yield kinetic weapon. Low yield, but more than enough to destroy this home, and probably scare the bejesus out of anyone within three klicks.

    It would have been, as she surmised, one hell of a bang.

    “Tether... tether... where is the end of the tether?” She frowned, picking through the mess.

    Orbital tethers were among the strongest constructions ever devised by men. They could not only haul materials the hundred and sixty thousand kilometer trip from surface to orbit, but also hung on to the weight and inertia of the transfer station at their far end as it swung around the world like a lead sinker on a string. Anything that could break one, would have left a mark, and she dearly wanted some evidence of what she was dealing with.

    Locating the end of the carbon ribbon among the coils and coils of it that lay strewn around it’s fallen car was easier than one might have presumed. She started at the car, and found that the tether had been cut above the car’s position, so she just tracked along that length, which was, thanks to the laws of physics, on top of the pile.

    What she found when she picked up the length of ribbon cable, however, was less easy. No burn marks of a laser or energy weapon, nothing that indicated the use of explosives, and no sign of any physical cutting tools. It looked like it had simply snapped like a strand of taffy. Sorilla hadn’t even known carbon could pull like that; in fact she was reasonably sure it couldn’t

    Sorilla slumped down, sitting on the coiled cable as she held the torn end in her hands, and just stared at it.

    What in the name of all that’s holy happened here?

    No answer came on the whispering wind, but she hadn’t hoped to be so lucky. Sorilla shook herself slightly, laying the end of the tether down as she pulled her knife from its sheath. She twisted the pommel, causing the edge of the blade to glow for a brief moment as the power core imbedded in the weapon caused the molecules along the edge to align, then she drove the blade into the tether.

    When she had hacked off a foot of the tether from the end, she stuffed it in her pack and started to climb out of the pit. She was half way up when a low rumble vibrated through the ground, too low for her own ears to hear, but enough for her fingers to feel and her computer aided senses to easily pick up.

    Sorilla paused, the ridge of the crater just a few meters away, and looked around slowly as she pressed herself into the crevices of the debris and waited. She had to control her breathing, keeping it slow even as her body demanded that she openly pant for oxygen. The sensation of the rumble passed, but now she felt like someone was sitting on her chest, squeezing the breath of life from her lungs, and her heart was beating faster as something caused it to strain for each pump.

    Aida’s eyes flickered quickly as she looked around, the soft green glow of her implants looking out eerily from the dark paint that covered her face.

    They were out there, somewhere, they had to be. Whatever this feeling was, it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t panic, someone was doing something nearby. Something to her, that had the back of her mind gibbering wildly, screaming