The technician sent the distress call, without further argument. “Like a message in a damned bottle,” he grumbled. The transmission went out in all directions, hoping to find someone who could hear.

The other team members used the resources aboard the observation station to record and study the moon-crushing blasts, to image the complete destruction of the rocky satellites. “They could have become lovely terraformed worlds,” Serizawa said.

Aboard the station, they had no way to defend themselves, could only gather information, collect data… and hope the destructive spheres did not notice them.

After the silent and ominous alien warglobes had obliterated the moon George, they moved on to Christopher.

And finally Jack. All four moons vaporized.

Serizawa was weeping now. He stood in front of the observation window, staring at the perfect spheres, and the destruction of everything he had created at Oncier. “Why are you doing this? What have we done to you?”

The aliens had transmitted no messages, no ultimatums, no warnings or explanations. Hovering in their parking orbit far from blazing Oncier, Serizawa and his team could not move or flee. Worst of all, they could not understand.

The fourteen monstrous ships left the destroyed satellites and paused above the funeral pyre of what had been the gas giant Oncier. Then like a swarm of angry wasps the globes moved to surround the observation platform.

The technicians scrambled backward, away from the windows, as if they would be safer within the fragile platform. Serizawa did not even bother to move. In the last moment, he closed his eyes.

The awesome blue lightning crackled again.

While it had taken the crystal globes some time to obliterate the four rocky moons, the total annihilation of the space platform required only seconds.

43: KING FREDERICK

43KING FREDERICK

Behind closed doors, the mood around the Whisper Palace was shocked and genuinely frightened. King Frederick didn’t know what to do.

The planetary engineers and terraformers had returned to Earth at the stardrive’s maximum speed—wasting huge amounts of ekti to deliver the terrible news. The crew had arrived on schedule at Oncier, only to find the moons blasted into rubble, the observation platform completely vaporized. There were no survivors of Dr. Serizawa’s research and observation team. Someone, some force, had destroyed everything.

All citizens looked to their brave and powerful King for answers, for consolation … and the old man could do nothing.

When the panicked Oncier terraformers had returned, they broadcast their news over a thousand bands, squawking like startled chickens rushing back to their coop. The Hansa could never control or spin the news now.