Ohmygod, it…it..the moon is totally gone. They shattered it apart. “ Alfred said slumping helplessly into his chair. His arms were draped hung over the armrests. The others looked disturbed. They had never seen him looking this way.

He asked, “Reichs minister Heydrich, tell me what is up there. What kind of forces do you see there? “

Heydrich looked at his monitor. “Mein fuehrer, the computer counts close to four hundred thousand objects that just showed up. Over seventy percent of them are tiny objects that are barely enough to hold a person. My guess would be one man fighters. There are thousands of small ships. They are around five hundred meters long.”

Jennifer spoke up, “All ships are equipped with fighters designed for defending the capital ships against fighter attack. They screen the fleets. The next ones you see are frigates. They aren’t too powerful but there good for screening the fleet and acting as picket lines. “

He nodded and continues his report, “There are also these large dagger shaped ships, their around twelve hundred meters long and seem to have a lot of mass.”

Jennifer said, “Those are the cruisers.”

“There are around fifty five hundred of them. The computer counts two thousand huge dagger shaped ships. Those are twenty give hundred meters long. They have a huge mass. “ He held out a picture of them taken from a satellite. There was a giant dagger shaped ship that looked very imposing, heavily armed. It looked like it was designed to inspire dread and fear.

“Those are the mainstay imperial battleships. They hold a ungodly amount of power. They have over two hundred heavy guns for ship to ship combat. “

Alfred said, “Two hundred. Where are they located?”

“Along the top sides in large banks of turrets.”

“OH, “ he scoffed. “We once designed ships like that hundreds of years ago till we realized they are better in front. “

“Idiot, in open space, it doesn’t matter where their placed. They can rotate and fire anywhere. Especially when their hundreds of kilometers away. Just wait till they start bombarding your cities. Then you will find how helpless you are.”

Heydrich said, “Okay okay, mein fuehrer, these aren’t wooden ships of the line. In addition to those, there are many thousands of small oval shaped ships. Their quite big though, bigger than the heavy cruisers. “

Jennifer said, “Those are the troop transports.” She walked up, “DO you see that big one in the middle of the fleet?”

“Yes the computer says that one is thirty give kilometers long. Thirty five thousand meters long? That cant be right.”

“Oh yes it is,” Jennifer said. “It’s the command ship and that is the ship that fired the beam that shattered apart the moon. It contains a special type of laser they call a superlaser. “

He wasn’t listening, instead he was looking at the monitor funny as if trying to figure out a problem. “What the, “ he said. “Mars looks like it has a moon now. What is that thing? “

Jennifer looked over his shoulder, “Oh that is the doomgiver. What’s it doing there?”

He was reading another reading on the monitor. “We got a message by the Empire. It says we are to assemble in the courtyard to await transport. All high level members of the government. I think we should go, Mein fuehrer.“

“I agree. Jennifer you wait here since you are now a fugitive,” Alfred said.

A cold voice suddenly said, “No she doesn’t.” all eyes were on her now. They saw Janas behind Jennifer, holding a gun pressed tightly against Jennifer’s back.

“She will go with us to the courtyard, where she will be taken by imperial officials, arrested. She is indeed a fugitive, and a traitor. She will be tried for treason. “

Jennifer cried out, “You are supposed to be my friend. I took you along to help me. “

“I am first, a servant of our empress. You are a traitor and my duty is clear. You come with us now, Jenny.” She laughed.

There was no choice and she walked along with them to the courtyard awaiting transport.

They walked out of the world capital building and stood in front looking out at the large street and open space. It was mainly for large parades and assemblies, public addresses by the fuehrer. It was now a staging area for the heads of the Reich to await transport to their conqueror. Jennifer stood there as a hostage awaiting arrest on charges of treason.
It wasn’t long before a massive steel overcast clouded the sky. They looked up as a massive roar shook the ground under them. There it was, a enormous dagger shaped ship hovered overhead with flames slowly fading out from the friction of entering the atmosphere. A large maw opened out the front and smaller shipped flew out toward them.

Jennifer sensed the people around her bracing themselves for this meeting. Over a dozen ships slowly descended toward them. They slowly settled down, landing braces appeared out of the ships as they settled to the ground. The front opened and lowered into a ramp.

Endless streams of black armored troops exited out of the larger ships in the back. There must have been thousands of troops streaming out of the ships. There were smaller ships in the front that landed and their ramps lowered. Dozens of troops and officers wearing gray tunics came out in front of them. Janas nudged her gun in Jennifer’s back, making her walk forward. She said to the highest ranking officer, “This is a prisoner guilty of treason against the Empire. I think she is wanted. “

The officer, a woman as all officers are in the Empire, looked at Jennifer. “Indeed she is, “The officer said. She looked at the troops, “Commander, take her into custody. “ Then she walked to the assembled people there as three troops took Jennifer in hand and led her into the shuttle. The officer said, “In the name of the Empire, I claim this area, you are to let yourself be taken in by the troops here. You will be taken to the doomgiver for the Empresses demonstration and then you will meet an ambassador to sign your formal surrender to the empire. “

Dozens of troops surrounded the group pointing mean looking rifles at them and they walked up the tramp into the ship. The ramp closed and it gently lifted off into the sky. It picked up speed rapidly as it ascended into the clouds. The clouds dimmed and faded away into the blackness of the airless atmosphere of space.

They exited Earths gravitational field and drifted away from the planet all together. Alfred was surprised as the earth got smaller and smaller until it was no larger than the point of a pin. Then, they saw the red plant grow in size as they got closer to it. as it grew larger, the shiny smaller object beside it grew but the planet was still immense beside the station. It was clear that they were headed toward the station.

“My god, that thing is huge, and you guys built the damn thing?”

“Yes,” there was no mistaking the pride in the officer’s voice. “Imperial construction built it. “

The station just kept growing in size, as they got closer to it. IT soon blotted out everything else in front of them and they weren’t closer than one hundred kilometers from it. They saw a tiny docking bay they were headed for. They got close enough to see the surface cities on the station, massive laser turrets and some focal lenses above what looked like the equator. They saw lights on the thing as they headed toward the equator. They saw docking bays of all sizes inside the trench of the equator, from their distance, they looked tiny. No way they could enter them but as they got closer and finely inside the equator, they realized the bays were huge, there was more than enough space in them to accommodate 20 of their ships and even the larger frigates. The shuttle lowered the then the ramp lowered too. The empress was there with several of her bright red suited guards. There were also many officials from all over the planet. Alfred noticed the general secretary of Chinas communist party. There was Stalin who was still the leader of the USSR, or what was left of it. There was the Pope and his representatives that lead the United Papal states. The Empress spoke to the group, “Greetings While you are all here, I will extend to you the protection of the empire. I trust after this demonstration is finished that you will see the futility of any resistance. “

They all were frightened of her. Her voice carried a weight to it, and a sadistic cruelty. Alfred wanted to leave but he knew there was no way. He wanted to say something to her but he couldn’t find his voice.

“There is a special frigate you can all go to for a better view of the demonstration or my guards will take you up to the observation deck, and for those that are curious, you can go down into the gunneries station but that wont offer a very good view. I will leave you to make your choice. Its now 15:45 and the demonstration is set for 1600 hours. “

Jennifer was taken down to the gunneries station and Alfred wanted to join the empress on her personal observation deck. The rest wanted to view the demonstration from the frigate.

Jennifer and her fiancé were lead to the gunneries station.

“It is sixteen hundred hours, The Empress has ordered us to Commence primary ignition. “

“Understood, tributaries one though twelve are green for feed. “

“Hypermatter reaction is at one hundred percent.”

“Capacitors at one hundred percent charged.”

“Tributaries one though twelve are aligned”

“All tributaries are clear for feed. The laser is primed. “

The officer behind them said, “Fire at will.”

They watched the monitor, Alfred watched from the polar tower where kept her personal accommodations, that had a clear view of everything. The rest watched from a frigate.

It was an impressive and horrifying display. They all watched as the tributaries fired around the focal lenses and coalesced and just built up power until it was seething. Then a huge beam lanced out and struck mares with colossal force. The beam drilled into the core of the planet, pumping an ungodly amount of power into mars. Jennifer knew at the beams total destructive power exceeded matter-energy limits of real space. At its full charge,the beam provided a subliminal boost that caused a large part of Mars’s mass suddenly shifted into hyperspace and mars exploded in a ball of eye smiting light. A ring spread rapidly from the explosion.

The message was clear, Earth would suffer the same fate if they resisted too hard. They signed the surrender and were allowed to return to earth. Jennifer was locked into detainment preparing for execution.

Ankhesenamun had a surprise up her sleeve. A few hours after earths surrender to imperial forces, over half of the fleets crew and troops mutinied upon their officers and fired on Imperial forces around the planet. That started a battle around earth, which quickly ended when imperial forces fled. The empress had left already. Jennifer was rescued and they fled to the rim.

A few months later, Jennifer and her wife returned to earth with Abu only to see a expanding field of asteroids.

“From the looks of it, it looks like the doom giver destroyed the planet. “ Jennifer said sadly.

Abu said, “That happened a week ago, but not before our forces saved a billion of them. They are now in the newly reconstituted rebellion. “

“Yeah,” Jennifer said sourly, “That only leaves around nine billion that died in the holocaust. “

“Nothing we could do, Jennifer. “
The end