At the moment of impact, a blue-white energy ring over a hundred meters in diameter exploded from the point of collision, instantly tearing through the air and setting off a sonic boom before crashing savagely into the water below.
The first vessel swept by it was a small oil tanker.
Its steel hull was not blasted apart. Instead, as though swept by a massively enlarged laser cutter, a three-meter-wide strip of its midsection simply vanished smoothly.
With the front and rear sections of the hull left unsupported, water immediately flooded the compartments. Amid the crew's desperate cries, it sank into the canal in less than a minute.
Then came the Scorpio.
Captain Amir saw only a blinding blue light rushing toward him and filling the sky. Then the front half of the cockpit glass, the radar, the cup of tea he had just filled, and his own left forearm all vanished at once.
He did not even feel pain. He merely stared blankly at the stump severed at his wrist, spraying blood.
Next came more ships, the facilities along both banks of the canal, the unlucky Egyptian naval patrol boat stranded near the shore, and the Suez Canal Authority's dispatch building.
When rescue helicopters were finally authorized to take off from Cairo three hours later due to the communications blackout, what they found upon arriving was a scene of devastation unprecedented in the history of human shipping:
Forty-seven cargo ships, oil tankers, and fishing vessels of various tonnages had sunk or suffered severe damage. More than six hundred crew members were dead or missing. The Suez Canal channel was completely blocked by wreckage and leaking oil, while facilities along both banks had been damaged for over a kilometer.
More importantly, after the five Frenzied Angels collided, four turned into motes