Sky Warrior

The slanting sun dipped toward the west as a cold wind rose, sweeping debris into the air and sending it whirling in wild eddies. The sky, shrouded in gray, bore thick, ragged clouds amassed like clumps of rotten cotton, oppressive and decayed—just like the desolate wasteland of this junkyard.

Ever since that man-made catastrophe decades ago, this planet had withered away in the hands of its former masters, or perhaps it was merely eking out its last breaths. Once-prosperous streets and cities had been destroyed by the very weapons humanity once boasted of, while the national pride so fervently touted by politicians was trampled and violated by outsiders, leaving behind nothing but a rotting shell.

It was only in the aftermath of disaster that survivors seemed to truly grasp the value of life. Survival became paramount, above all else. They forgot their race, their faith, relinquished dignity and freedom, and moved under the “Dome”—becoming reserve slaves to the mighty Empire. From that moment onward, the free planet knew freedom no more, everything sealed beneath the towering, impenetrable ceiling.

Within and without the Dome, two worlds existed. Outside, radiation was ever-present, dust never ceased its storm, and the temperature difference between day and night reached nearly thirty degrees. Yet inside, it was tranquil as a painted dream, resplendent with blossoms and overflowing with advanced technology of a kind never seen before, the development of society outstripping even the world before the disaster by a hundredfold. For this was the domain bu