#677
Just Imagine?
They entered the InnerSphere from along the upper edge of the Outworld's Alliance.
To see worlds bereft of population, light, fine, ash in the upper atmospheres. Worlds pot marked with large craters where spaceport and any industrial site that could build aerospace craft and components, as if to stop any escape from the population. Cities blackened by fire, every city and town burnt. No artificial emissions except the craters.
Some population found on the windward/ocean sides of mountain ranges, in the temperate weather growing zones. Small towns surrounded by small fields, tended by animal-drawn equipment. Larger fields that appeared to be tended by the few powered farm equipment. Fields of grain and hay most likely for stock feed.
Very few powered equipments, those seen belching clouds of dark smoke, signs that are not usually coming from petrol dowered or electric equipment.
Coasting over the Darkside of the world, a few pinpricks of tight, located on the coast of the continents, your guess, Lighthouses.
Where the Capital was, dark, no lights at all. The nearest light a thousand kilometers away. The next orbit will bring daybreak over the capital.
Where The Capital City Beullar once stood were several adjacent and overlapping craters, The largest crater located where the garrison and refit yards once stood was almost one kilometer wide. Radiation levels from the craters and surrounding area were elevated above the background, but not enough to indicate the use of Nuclear weapons. Levels were on par for an asteroid strike.
Overlay of the city and surroundings over the view of the strike showed the strike to be very precise in where they hit.
This was not a natural disaster, the strike was directed by intelligence.
Visual recon of the planet showed that approximately one to 10 million people survived on the planet, out of over three billion people.
Beullar, the Capital city of the Draconis March was razed by the hand of an intelligent being.
The Recon team was ready to go but was interrupted by the recall signal of the fleet. It was time to move on. To another system and another nightmare unfolding before their own eyes.
This was not what they expected on their trip back to the Home Worlds.