The four days Jason spent learning the proper feminine mannerisms and ways under Mistress Melinda was mentally taxing. She was one of the harshest women he had ever met in his life. Any time he in the slightest displeased her, he received a harsh beating. He learned to sit and straighten his skirts properly, he must have repeated that one thousand times till he got the technique right to suit her. Then he had to learn to walk in heels and she forced him to walk back and fourth across the room till he got that right. He walked for hours in them and by three hours, his feet hurt badly. By the end of the day, his mind and body were exhausted.

To top it all off, he had to also learn the umpteenth thousand languages on Solarus as well as the cultural taboos and ways so he wouldn’t get killed, or look like an idiot. Given Mistress Melinda’s lessons on being a female, he didn’t have the time to learn about Solarus. So, he just took the data tapes intelligence gave him to learn.

He went in the massive docking bay and got in his small craft. He waited for permission and then he lit it up and flew it out. He flew it out of the frigates docking bay and looked back. It hit him then how serious the Empress was about this invasion. Frigates are small but there must have been thousands of them. There were massive battleships behind the frigates and they contain enormous firepower. He saw the colossal command ship in the center of the fleet and the empire rarely used those on all except the most serious missions. There were not many of them around because they're so huge. It took a long time and alot of resources to build the command ships. they were thirty Km across and there main weapon can vaporize entire continents down to the bedrock. As if that wasn’t enough firepower, he saw the enormous spiracle station sitting silently aside the fleet. That one had enough firepower to blast a planet apart and it was one thousand kilometers across at the equator. The fleet must have contained billions of troops for the invasion. Solarus didn’t stand a chance.

He had almost made it to Solarus and was passing a gigantic giant planet on his way there. He looked out of his window at a utterly massive planet with swirling deep clouds and a massive red giant storm below the equator. He passed it quickly enough and turned passing a red desert planet on his way to Solarus.

It had came up quickly. Solarus, a bright blue planet with white vapor clouds and vast seas of oceans and dark brown landmasses with green all over. It looked beautiful. He activated his cloaking shield to shield his craft from any Doppler radars or sensors. He didn’t want to run into a missile. Even though his deflector shield as well as his point defense guns could defeat anything the Solarians could fire, that would ruin his recon mission quickly for when he landed, they might have a 1000 military troops waiting for him to exit. Then the empress would be quite displeased.

He selected a good place to land his craft. The intelligence files said the nation called itself the United States and the state itself was called California. He had to put the craft at the bottom of the ocean and take one of his pods up. He didn’t want to risk anyone running into the cloaked craft and the ocean would assure it world not be mistakenly ran into.

The craft shuttered as it splashed into the ocean and went deep. Around one km down and it settled at the bottom of the ocean. He went back and loaded his weapon a single hand pistol and all the energy packets to fire. Some clothing to wear. His video recorder and picture camera.

Nothing to do but go to the surface now so he took a single pod with enough room for one person and it shot him up to the surface. It guided itself up to the continental shelf till it was about 12 feet deep in water. Since he didn’t want anyone to see the craft, it went back down and left him swimming to the surface of the water. He was wearing a pink bikini and carrying the rest of his gear in a compartment inside a surfboard.

He made it to a dressing room and took off her bikini. He was wet and didn’t want to get her other clothes wet. He put on some panties and a bra. He still felt weird putting on a bra. His chest needed it though. He planned on asking the Empress why she gave him such huge breasts. He put on what he though was the style people here wore and left. It was a light pink dress that draped over her body and went down to her thighs.

He walked out fully dressed, he noticed a some guys yelling about the trial ending. He saw them running off the beach and into town. He followed them, curious about what was going on.
A horrifying display greeting him when he arrived: five primitive wooden platforms with dried grass under them. Thick wooden poles jutted out from the back of each platform. He saw men with elaborately decorated cloaks wearing large hats. One of the men was holding up a large gold pole with an elaborately decorated cross. They were surrounding five women, each of them having heavy chains on their wrists and ankles. It appeared to him as if they were prisoners. One of men stepped forward and shouted for all to hear, “These women have been tried and convicted of heresy by the Federal Ecclesiastical Court of the United Papal States. The Holiness of our Mother Church can do nothing for Salvation of these women’s souls for they refused to Repent. They are to be handed to civil authority and delivered to the executioner. May God have mercy them. “

Jason watched horror, as large, mean looking men grabbed each woman and lead them to the platforms. They were shackled to pole on each platform. Each woman was attended to by a decorated man and touched with the cross. It looked to him as some religious ritual. To Jason’s total horror, a man holding a flaming torch walked to each platform one by one, and set the grass on fire under the women.

He watched with horror as the flames caught the platform on fire and it rose though the platform. The women let out horrifying shrieks of pain as the fire started to burn them. The shrieks of the women would haunt him forever and it looked like this bloodthirsty crowd reveled in it shouting, “Burn the witches.”

It only took 10 minutes for the entire horrifying spectacle to be over. When it was, he watched in horror as the burnt out platforms spew their smoke and ash skyward in massive plums.

A bystander noticed him, he didn’t recognize this person and that worried him greatly. The police tend to take outsiders and they are not heard from again. The person looked like a very attractive woman but that wouldn’t save her. They tend to be more serious about women than men. They were targeted with far greater frequency than men were. That worried him and he said toward her, “I don’t remember seeing you anywhere, lady. Can I get your name?”

Jason blushed. He would have to identify himself as a woman to a stranger. “I…My name is Jennifer and I am not from around here.” He was blushing bright red.

The other didn’t let up either. “Hello Jennifer my name is Morgan. May I ask where you are from?”

What was he going to say to that? He thought quickly and said, “I am lost. I was on ship that had an accident. I swam to shore and now I’m lost. “

Morgan laughed. It sounded fishy but he knew he had to get her out of here before she was taken. Especially how she was dressed. He told her, “Well ok. But you better come with me Ma’am. It isn’t safe for outsiders. Please come with me.”

She followed him as he walked down the street and then inside the guys house. he shut the door and latched it. he shut all of the blinds and then turned, “Ma’am I need the real story about you. There hasn’t been any ships lost at sea in a long time. I need the truth.”

She took a deep breath, “Ok. I am a spy. I was sent here to observe and report back to my leaders.”

His expression turned serious, “A spy, from where. Observe, you need to explain further. Before I decide to report you myself to the authorities. “

“I am from the Empire. You might never have heard of it. They call themselves the Empire for the People of the Galaxy. They have a force headed toward this planet and I was assigned to observe and report back about the strengths of the forces to oppose the landings. “

He started laughing, “Ok, I think I need to call the doctors.”

“That’s ok, from what I seen there isn’t any forces here strong enough to oppose the landings. I will be rescued but, I can prove what I’m saying is true. Is there anyplace with a strong concrete walls?”

“Yes, in my basement, but why?”

Jason took out what looked like a pistol but it wasn’t like any Morgan had seen before. It looked like a light up toy. Jason said, “Because this is powerful. I don’t want to blast a hole though your house. lets go to the basement.”

They went down the steps and he turned on a light for Jason. He took aim at the wall and squeezed the trigger. The entire room flashed and he felt the heat blast from the thing. He saw a bright bolt shoot out of the muzzle with blinding speed and gouge a foot wide hole in the solid concrete. He stumbled back and looked at Jason, “Oh my, what in Hashems name was -that-?”

Jason shrugged as if it was nothing, “Oh that, its nothing. It’s a small thermal nuclear reaction. We call it a blaster. I had it set on its lowest setting."

Morgan said carefully, “A….small…..thermal…nuclear…reaction?”

“Yes, a bigger one can vaporize a town. I’ve seen bigger ones that can vaporize a world. But those use a different matter from another dimension. You get the idea now.”

“Yes, I believe that I do, Jennifer. What are we going to do now? When do they show up, why did they pick here?”

“The Empress just discovered this place and decided they needed to absorb the people here into the Empire. There is nothing we can do. There is no way to stop it. we must accept that this place will be absorbed into a greater empire. There is nothing that can stop it. If you resist, you will just loose and entire nations will be burnt down to the bedrock. It will cost billions of lives. “

Morgan shook his head sadly, “How does people like that get so much power. Who is this Empress?”

“The Empress is a great leader. I remember her when she was simply a general leading her troops to conquer the entire rim. Her victories there were brilliant. The citizens were very happy. They loved her. Then the Senate appointed her as the Consul. Back then, the Senate led. We were a republic, the Senate and People of the Galaxy we were called back then. But the Empress got more and more popular and more power. Her legions were unstoppable. The Senate tried to take her army away, they sent her a order to disarm her army. Her response was to lead her army past the boundary of the home system. There was a rule no armies were allowed within the home system. There was a long civil war but the end was never in doubt. The Senate's armies were crushed, the Empress marched into the capital and proclaimed herself, Dictator for Life. After that, she proclaimed us an empire. Then she started horrible repressions and exterminations, labor camps, basically a galactic holocaust. And it is coming here and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it. “