Excerpt: The Zilennian Throne

The expeditionary force emerged from lightdrive close to the planet. Only three days had passed since the signal's transmission; the planet was that close to the Alliance heartworlds, ideally situated along the major trading lanes. Established so long ago that it was more of an independent world than a colony: its own government and elected Rasit at Vael, and a people who were no longer the distinct races who had first settled there, but a mingling – an entirely new people.

Except they weren't any more. As the Alliance ships approached the planet, the fleet commander – an aging but still strong Kyomazi named Seset – turned to her scanner operator.
“What have we got?”

“Not much, by the looks of this. Visual scanners don't show any of the usual vegetation or even the local crystal outgrowths. Normally we can see those from high orbit but – nothing.”

“What about the life scanners? Are we picking up anything living?”

The scanner operator – Tahirep – a Kor'Tarai so young he looked too young to even be on a starcruiser – ran a practiced hand over the controls.

When he looked up again, his face was so pale it looked almost grey.
“Nothing. Nothing of higher order than bacteria.”

Seset rose from her seat, approached the front screen where the image of the planet – blue and grey, not blue-green and white as it should have been – appeared before them.
“That's – impossible. No, I won't believe that. That is simply not possible. Even with Zilennian weaponry. It would take months – years! - of bombardment to destroy a world that completely.”

“It's just what the scanners say, Commander. Maybe they have a new weapon? Or maybe it wasn't the Zilennians?”

“Oh, it was them. The signal included the image. It was them all right. But how...?”

“I don't know. We can collect samples of the air and the soil, and try to find out?”

“Do it. I need to know what happened here, because if the Zilennians have a new weapon that can do this... we are one step away from more bloodshed than any of us have ever seen.”