A halo of light emerges from the ship, it briefly wreaths the craft in an aura of pure white as if it was being highlighted by a celestial force. As quickly as it happened, the light is retracted back into the ship’s drives and, for a second, it seems as if all has been restored. The mistake has been reversed and the continuity allowed to progress.

But then the actual explosion happens.

A ball of light grows steadily from where the ship once stood. It grows at such a speed that it overwhelms two other ships who were too close. Their own smaller explosions add to the maths of the Webber’s destruction until the growing shape resembles a complex model of an atom, three disjointed spheres growing together until eventually the larger explosion subsumes the smaller and we see the light growing to planet size, then to star size.

As the witnesses blink, their eyes refuse to let the image go and they see the explosion still written as an artefact on their retinas. There will be no noise from the death of the Webber, but somehow the human brain has to supply a simulation of what such a scene of destruction might sound like. The witnesses imagine a tearing noise that goes beyond sound and becomes a physical sense and an emotional feeling all in one. The sort of noise that leaves your ribs and heart shaking.

Then, just as it seems as if the expanding sphere will go on expanding forever and wash all before it in that excoriating light, it reaches some threshold. Then the sphere simultaneously starts to diminish in both diameter and brightness. In a second, the stars on the other side are visible through the explosion. Then the nearby planets are revealed, albeit they are now burning and will soon emit their own explosion as the heat causes the planet’s core to superheat and explode.

Then there is just space. No remnant or wreckage to indicate that the Webber ever even stood at all.

A halo of light emerges from the ship, it briefly wreaths the craft in an aura of pure white as if it was being highlighted by a celestial force. As quickly as it happened, the light is retracted back into the ship’s drives and, for a second, it seems as if all has been restored. The mistake has been reversed and the continuity allowed to progress.

But then the actual explosion happens.

A ball of light grows steadily from where the ship once stood. It grows at such a speed that it overwhelms two other ships who were too close. Their own smaller explosions add to the maths of the Webber’s destruction until the growing shape resembles a complex model of an atom, three disjointed spheres growing together until eventually the larger explosion subsumes the smaller and we see the light growing to planet size, then to star size.

As the witnesses blink, their eyes refuse to let the image go and they see the explosion still written as an artefact on their retinas. There will be no noise from the death of the Webber, but somehow the human brain has to supply a simulation of what such a scene of destruction might sound like. The witnesses imagine a tearing noise that goes beyond sound and becomes a physical sense and an emotional feeling all in one. The sort of noise that leaves your ribs and heart shaking.

Then, just as it seems as if the expanding sphere will go on expanding forever and wash all before it in that excoriating light, it reaches some threshold. Then the sphere simultaneously starts to diminish in both diameter and brightness. In a second, the stars on the other side are visible through the explosion. Then the nearby planets are revealed, albeit they are now burning and will soon emit their own explosion as the heat causes the planet’s core to superheat and explode.

Then there is just space. No remnant or wreckage to indicate that the Webber ever even stood at all.