A binary planet system was an exceedingly rare configuration: two planets formed a stable pair, revolving around each other along the same orbit. Rather than the conventional relationship between a planet and its moon, they existed as equals.
Of course, this unusual configuration would soon be overshadowed by an even stranger sight.
Two colossi belonging to the Chauvinist Revanchists and the Benevolent Interventionists had been stationed in orbit for days, their gun barrels extended straight out and pointed down at the planets.
Immense energy poured from the barrels, striking the planets' north poles.
Calculations showed that directing a colossus strike down a planet's axis from its pole was more efficient than striking elsewhere, probably because of magnetism and gravity. The teams operating the colossi did not understand the science behind it. All they knew was that the tens of billions of people on these two planets were about to be utterly finished.
After reaching planetary orbit, the colossi had spent some time completing their final charge, then projected immense energy beams onto the poles. This process lasted a month.
The desperate Starfish fleets swarmed out of the Hyperlanes, only to be surrounded by the fleets of the two Awakened Empires. The Starfish fleets, looking especially tiny by comparison, were immediately swallowed by a sea of arcs and missiles.
They had failed. The destruction of the two colony worlds was now inevitable.
With an energy shock wave capable of penetrating subspace, the Phethisia Arbitrator Empire's colossus finished firing first. The torrent of blinding energy ceased, and an enormous energy field began forming at the pole, spreading across the planet's entire surface in just a few hours.
Light and energy of every wavelength were blocked. The energy field, glowing pale blue, had merged with the planet's magnetic field and continually absorbed stellar