I have only one nice thing to say about the Pathfinders, though everything I have to say about them they’d take as a compliment.

Holy shit they know how to build!

If you’ve ever walked across a really long suspension bridge you know what I’m talking about: that sheer awe pried from the human psyche by epically massive engineering.

I don’t exactly know or care why, but they built a skyhook on the fourth moon of Iria-Z’s only planet, and I was assigned to destroy it.

For the megastructure-illiterate, I’ll explain:

A skyhook is a giant ultra-strong tether running from the ground to a geosynchronous satellite. Theoretically you can use them to cheaply get things into orbit.

But there are so many better ways of doing it that don’t involve hundred-kilometer lengths of woven diamond nanorods waiting to fall on hapless bystanders if something goes wrong.

Thing was, the place was uninhabited, undeveloped, and uninteresting.

Just this damn giant string, my demolitions team, and half a ton of explosives.