"It was composed of twenty blue stars wrapped together with pearly white metal and flesh, the constructs coming to a sharp point that drilled through the paradoxical universe-mesh between it and the Green Sun."

"The Combine’s CX-07, a ‘Costra’ class ship, was a sight to behold. In realspace, it took the form of a translucent blue sphere with two white compass-needle-like prongs extending from the ‘front’ and the ‘back’. Within the sphere were several dozen stars, all of them blue hypergiants, brimming with unstable internal power. In other words, ready to blow at any moment – but kept in check by a truly tremendous organic construct in the center of the CX-07 that resembled a beating heart with several glowing tubes strapped to it.

One of the blue stars smashed into the edge of the CX-07’s sphere, pushing all of its mass into the globe. The globe proceeded to release controlled bursts of supernova-level energy into the darkness of Paradox Space."

"Meenah herself crashed through CX-07’s external sphere and latched onto the life of the central, beating heart with her powers. The CX-07, not designed to resist assault from the inside like that, was completely surprised that she could breach the outer parts of the sphere at all. The heart shriveled up and died as Meenah absorbed every last bit of it for herself.



The lack of a central heart sent the blue stars flying. Without a stabilizing presence they all exploded in supernovae"