NOVA bombs were illegal.
Now, anyway.
They hadn't been illegal prior to or during the war, but had only ever been used. They'd been one of the first things banned under the armistice.
Only a limited amount had been built after Daniel had come up with the design. The test cases had all been a fraction of the size of the actual bombs meant for use in war, but even those miniatures had caused an unprecedented level of destruction.
Daniel's design forwent the typical explosive compounds and instead used a series of contained gases and intense heat to mimic the birth of a star. The timed release of the gases caused a series of explosions that built on one another until they ended in a volatile explosion so powerful it could destroy a planet.
Because it mimic'd a star, once the initial destruction was over a radiation spot remained, filled with debris and deadly gases that took years to dissipate in space.
If they ever did.
Only one had been used in the war, and Finley had been the one who'd done it.
The Battle of the Coal Sacks had been a vicious one, with the small Federation squadron ripped to pieces by the much larger Republican Fifth Fleet.
Finley's Firefly had been the only warship still above fifty-percent operational capability by the end of it, and when the Federation had finally called retreat, she'd stayed behind to buy time for the rest of the ships to flee. The Republican Fifth Fleet had given chase, and with a hundred ships left to Finley's one, she'd known there was no hope.
She'd warned the Republicans she'd use the NOVA bomb if they didn't back off, but the Admiral of the Fifth Fleet hadn't believed her and ordered his forces to run down what was left of the Federation.
Finley had put the NOVA bomb right into the center of the Republican Fleet.
A hundred ships and their crews turned to stardust in two minutes and fifteen seconds.
It had won Finley the battle and turned the tide of the war in the Federation's favor for a few years, but it had been, and still was, a horrific moment.
Neither side had outright banned the bombs after that, but Finley didn't know any Captain on either side, herself included, who would ever willingly use one again. It was one thing to fight ship on ship, or even ground unit on ground unit, like the old wars on Earth, and face the violence and brutality of battle.
A hundred ships, each with crews ranging from three hundred to a thousand personnel, meant Finley had eradicated the equivalent of an entire satellite's population.
Such a tremendous loss of life in such a short time, from a single weapon, had terrorized both sides and left Finley with a complicated, crushing guilt over the event.
Daniel, who'd created the bomb to prove a theory about the control of contained gases in certain balances, had refused to continue working on the project. He'd even called Finley, enraged she'd actually used it in battle.
Finley's remark, "You made it, Daniel. Did you honestly think no one would ever use it for its purpose?" had sent him into an emotional tailspin, and they hadn't spoken to one another for years afterward.
They hadn't spoken directly until now, though Finley had sent him a letter apologizing.
Daniel had never apologized, but he had been far more careful with the projects he took on after that. It was unfortunate in its own way. Who knows what else he could have created by now if he weren't so worried that someone would twist it into something terrible, but he wasn't a soldier. He'd never been taught how to compartmentalize your actions and your orders from the decisions of others. How to understand what was required in war but would never be required outside of it.
Finley had killed almost a hundred thousand soldiers, but she'd protected the thirty thousand left on the Federation side.
Her side.
Her people.
Militaries throughout history knew that allowing the enemy to become humanized in the eyes of their own soldiers was the best way to ruin their own forces. Telling a bunch of kids still figuring out what it meant to be human to kill the enemy was significantly easier, and did less damage to them, than telling them they needed to kill their neighbors because of a difference of opinion. Or because some powerful leader at the time wanted something someone else had.
The years of enlightened armies had been devastating to forces on all sides, leaving generations of humans with scars that would never be fully healed.
The wars against the Parasites and even the Alari had been simple in comparison to the Civil War. With minimal mental health and adjustment issues after, because they were so clearly not human.
It wasn't the best thing. It wasn't even acceptable according to Finley's own morality, and she knew it wasn't for most other people, but it was the way of the universe at those times.
Maybe it would be different if they went to war against the Alari again, after they had been friends for so long, but in the battle for survival, things tended to be stripped down to the bare necessities.
Who's on my side and who isn't?
Who's trying to hurt my friends and who's trying to protect them.
Who's in the way of me ever getting to go home again?
Finley had a medal she never wore from the Battle of the Coal Sacks and a handful of the people most precious to her still alive and breathing, and she's come to the conclusion that guilt was a terrible, complicated thing that never really figured itself out or went away completely.
It sat under her ribcage, a small knot of pressure that she sometimes felt if she moved the wrong way or didn't get enough sleep, that grew or shrank according to its own whims. Sometimes she didn't think about it for months, sometimes she couldn't go two days.
Guilt and grief, she'd come to realize, never really left you once they'd touched you.
~ tbc