Marianna's capital dreadnaught coasted in orbit, and the ship kept a head-on bearing with the surface of the planet. Its blue glow bathed the bridge with its light, and the technicians worked diligently at their consoles.

The command center was a hyper-advanced technological marvel. The entire brain of this city-sized structure boiled down to a single room. Electronic lights blinked on the various machine panels, the gunmetal gray surfaces of them shining brilliantly from the glow of the planet.

Here, Marianna sat on her throne, a thick slab of metal and cloth on a raised platform, and she overlooked her technicians as they analyzed the planet's surface below.

A screen appeared over the windows showing an aerial view of the planet. It zoomed in like a camera lens, the continents and oceans growing beyond the frame, the clouds coming into focus, then forests and archipelagos, then roads and cities and trees and homes.

"People," said the handsome lieutenant. "We have evidence of intelligent life in this world. Quickly, zoom in."

"Z-Zooming in," said a bashful girl beside him. He stood alarmingly close beside her, close enough that she could feel his body heat, and even as she blushed furiously at her crush being so close, he didn't seem to care. His eyes were fixated with madness at the screen ahead.

The view on the screen settled on a simple farmhouse in the countryside. It was, in essence, a collection of different colored squares and rectangles with little blurs moving around through them.

Another attractive technician said, "Swapping to remote viewing engine. High mana, high quality, onscreen."

The aerial shot of the farm blinked, and now the screen created a view as if the camera were set there on the surface. An eye-level view of the world around. And when the magic of the spell resolved and showed them the scene of a simple, innocent family on a lazy Sunday, the crew gasped and grinned and cheered and pat each other on the back.

The bashful girl opened her mouth to say something to the lieutenant, but he turned away just as the first syllable escaped her lips. He didn't hear. She winced, and her mind raced to come up with another contextually-relevant thing to say for the next opportunity.

He glanced back at her with his painfully cute smile. She tried to speak again--he stared patiently at her this time!--and the heat rushed to her face, and her cheeks flared pink, and just as she spoke--

One of the other, prettier technicians pulled his attention away.

"Lieutenant, look," said the petty-officer. "Those children. They have animal ears and tails."

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On the screen, two children with cat ears and cat tails rushed through the tall grass, and the image panned over to see a mother on the porch calling for them. The mother was agreeably human, attractively so, except for her own set of cat ears and a tail that wagged playfully at the sight of her kids.

"By the gods," said the lieutenant in awe. "This must be a world where people are hybridized with animals. A sort of animal-human-hybrid world." He whispered to himself, "Incredible."

The lieutenant looked back to Marianna, who lounged on her throne in the darkness. "My Queen, with the gate under our control, we may now link entire dimensions together." He gestured at the family on the screen. "Soon, we will be able to trade and talk and share ideas with one another."

Marianna rested her head on her hand. "Prepare the cannon."

"W-what?"

Marianna furrowed her brow. "Prepare the Delta-S Cannon."

The technicians shook back in shock. The lieutenant's face turned a shade pale. "M-my queen. What... shall our target be?"

"The planet."

On the screen, the children ran to embrace their mother's arms, and she swung them around in a typical fantasy countryside scene. It was as cute as it was cliche.

"My queen," said the lieutenant, "firing the Delta-S Cannon on the planet would--the people would--"

"That's the point," she said with an extra cut to her voice.

The bashful girl twisted away in her seat. The tone in Marianna's voice terrified her. She noticed the lieutenant who stood beside her, fists clenching, passionate eyes now fixated on the queen.

"I refuse to give the order," said the lieutenant. "This is genocide."

The bashful girl's eyes widened at him, and her heart dropped in her chest.

"It is," said Marianna.

"Then--then why? Why murder an entire planet of people? What have they done?"

"It's not what they have done; it's what they will eventually do. They will eventually rise against us, succumb to their own desperate greed and hatred, and they will seek us out to destroy us. And, invariably, we would in turn destroy them. We are in essence putting down the beast before it hurts itself or others."

The lieutenant looked back at the screen. The cat mother brushed a child's hair while the other ran laps around her. "But they've done nothing..." he said.

"It is no different than what we've done before," said Marianna. "The firebombings of Lihra city, the Castling prison camps, the indoctrination programs. Everything we do is for the sake of peace. The sake of our own peace."

The lieutenant slowly turned his head back at her. His eyes were glazed over. His hand trembled. "It's not too late," he said. "We can talk it through with them. There's always diplomacy--"

An invisible line sliced his neck open, and his head toppled onto the floor. Blood sprayed. His body thumped to the ground after. The bashful girl screamed in horror.

Marianna stood, her cloak fluttered behind her, and she issued the command. "Power the Delta-S cannon. Now!"

The technicians hurried to begin the process. The bashful girl froze as if something gripped her. Magic! It was a spell! She snapped over to see Marianna staring back, to see her eyes dig into her own, to dive deep into her soul and her identity and her consciousness, and with a blink, she couldn't remember why she was so upset.

Maybe it had something to do with this corpse beside her. Strange, she thought. She didn't remember this being here before. It was unsettling, sure, but this was war. Always had been. So she shrugged and returned to her monitor.

"Delta-S Cannon powered," said a tech.

"Charging," said another.

"Firing solution obtained, ready to fire."

Marianna thrust her hand at the planet. "Fire!"