The vast void of the space battlefield had become a celestial maw—a black hole that refused to be filled. No matter how many millions of tons of steel and flesh were thrown into it, the darkness merely swallowed them whole and demanded more.
Neither Tom nor the Mechanical Disaster had a choice. Retreat was death.
The war had devolved into a grim calculus: production speed versus destruction rate. Whoever faltered first would be erased from the cosmos.
On the Third Planet and the dozen satellite worlds under Tom's control, the surface teemed with activity. Billions of clones moved like a tide of industrious ants, their lives reduced to a binary cycle of work and brief rest.
To squeeze out every ounce of industrial capacity, Tom issued a ruthless decree: seal the agricultural domes and livestock pens.
