The huge Asuran Battleship, 'Shotan's Wrath', exited from hyperspace in the cometary belt of the Helios system and sped in toward the inner system at high speed. Along the way, they detected a human built Torch vessel decelerating toward the inner system. That was bad news for the Torch ship. Less than an hour later, Capitan Baphomet turned to his Sensor Chief, Toq'ool, and asked,"Can you detect it?" Toq'ool snapped, "Sir, no, sir! No detection of the Dark Energy bomb. If we can't detect it, no humans could, either!" Baphomet turned and asked,"Comm Officer! Word from our boarding parties?" The Comm Officer reported,"Boarding party encountered one hundred human command crew awake. All exterminated without casualties. Two thousand two hundred other humans on board in stasis-berths. The Warlord reports one hundred eighteen trophy humans are ready to load into our hold with your permission." Baphomet frowned, and said,"Permission granted. We're not here to gather trophies, but this is a good opportunity. Does he have a copy of their computer data-base?" The Comm Officer said with a smile, "Yes, Capitan! He has a complete copy of the DB of the 'LightSpeed Cruiser' Freedom's Torch." Baphomet laughed. "How pompous! How preposterous sounding! What a grandiose name for something scarcely more advanced than a PLUNGER! Why didn't they call it, 'The Huge Flaming Phallus'? We've given it the hand-job to ejaculate death upon Balaam!" All the crew within earshot broke up laughing. After a moment, the Sensor Chief said, "The Torch-Ship is altering it's X-axis. It's now aligned with Balaam. Six hours from now, the light of the photon drive will hit them." Baphomet sat down, and snapped, "Sound General Quarters! Shields up, Cloak the Ship and launch Autonomous Combat Vehicles. Back us off to one light second distance and mirror the course of 'Freedom's Torch'. We'll show humans that NOTHING is free, except the wrath of rebelling slaves bringing death to their one-time masters!" There was a cheer as the crew went about their duties as battle-rage and hate filled them up. They were ready to commit ten billion murders to cool the hot anger searing their souls to blackened ash. The Battleship turned invisible and moved away as the human-built ship of the dead focused radiation at it's home-planet, six light-hours away. The radiation from it's photon drive wouldn't stop it in time. If nothing else happened, the Kino/Anti-matter driven ship, with it's Dark-Energy bomb would strike Balaam with enough force to tear it's atmosphere off into space. The booby-trapped ship would explode if any human ship tried to approach close enough to to try to rescue it's crew. The Asurans were confident they held all the winning moves. Exterminating the human species looked much easier than they expected. Six hours later, the people of Balaam saw a new star in their skies. It was an artificial star of death, quickly flying toward the unknowing people wrestling with their own problems. Only a few even noticed the bright light in the sky. Even fewer had any idea what it meant. Only a handful could do anything about it. All who knew, felt their throats dry with the fear of death of all they knew. --TO BE CONTINUED!--