Above the cracked yellow earth, the three-dimensional holographic blueprint still hung over everyone's heads.
Sunlight fell across the model of intersecting underground tracks, illuminating T'Chaka's ashen face. Near the wreckage of a collapsed mound, T'Challa's right arm hung limp and twisted at his side. The shock waves from the savage blast had injured his internal organs, and blood still clung wetly to the corner of his mouth as he panted and groaned among the rubble and muddy water. Several border guards concealed in the shadows exchanged terrified looks, their hands shaking uncontrollably around their short blades.
Okoye pressed her lips into a thin white line. The muscles in her right arm tightened, and her spearhead pointed straight at the Iron Man Armor in midair. The border warriors pinned facedown in the mud struggled desperately, but it felt as though a mountain weighed on their bones. They could not even turn their heads.
T'Chaka closed his eyes briefly. The palm resting on his wooden staff was slick with cold sweat.
Was he really going to fight to mutual destruction?
Of the two men before him, one was a professional industrial oligarch. The other was a monster who had summoned a towering thunderstorm over New York City and reduced aliens to ash.
Wakanda's reserves were indeed formidable, but they existed to preserve its people and their future, not to gamble their lives against an unbeatable enemy.
"Okoye, lower your spear."
T'Chaka's voice was dry and rasping, as though a handful of coarse sand had lodged in his throat.
"Your Majesty!" Okoye growled, veins bulging on the back of her hand.
"I said, lower your spear."
T'Chaka struck his wooden staff hard against the ground, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes as deep as knife cuts.
"And the rest of you,