Tyranny of Steel

Ghazi led Isabella through the palace in Granada, which he would one day reside in when he had become an adult. It was not nearly as large as his father's home, but the previous sultan had spared no expense during his reign to outfit it with the most luxurious trappings he could afford.

While the Palace in Granada was impressive to the young princess of Nevarre, it was in fact a complete disappointment to the Sultan. Even still, he walked around the building, and showed off its many modern features, which were not found anywhere else within the Iberian Empire.

After his first visit to Granada, Ghazi had contracted a German construction company to rennovate his palace with the most modern luxuries Germany had to offer. From its own generator, which was powered by German bio-diesel, to the building's light fixtures, internal heating, and even air conditioner for those hot summer nights. What were normal appliances in your average German household was a form of supreme luxury here in Iberia that only the Sultan had access to.

During Ghazi's tour of the palace, his little sister Zara was in the gardens while tinkering with a very peculiar device. Like her elder half-brother Hans, Zara had inherited a form of superior intelligence when compared to the rest of the children her age. As a result, she spent her free time studying various topics, which intrigued her while also engaging in scientific pursuits.

If there were two fields of study, which Zara found the most interesting, they would be astronautical engineering and astrophysics. The field of rocketry was a relatively recent advancement in German history, and at the moment it had a use limited solely to the battlefields.

However, Zara saw the potential in rockets for uses outside the military, especially after the recent vertical launch test of a V-2 which passed the Karman line, thus becoming the first man-made object to enter space. It was Zara's dream that one day, a man would be able to walk on the moon, and she desired to be a critical part of that mission.

Thus, over the past few months, Zara had begged her father to allow her access to the Royal Kufstein University, where all the documents pertaining to the study of rocketry were widely available for the Reich's academic community.

Zara had spent nearly every moment of her free time in the Royal Kufstein University, studying the written material, as well as listening to lectures by some of Germany's leading rocket scientists and astrophysicists. All of which praised the girl for her exceptional intelligence and innovative ideas.

Thus, while Ghazi was leading his new fiancee on a tour, Zara was playing around with a rocket of her own design within the Granadan Palace's gardens. This was a small scale rocket that was more designed as a proof of concept than anything else. She knew with this project that she would not be able to reach space, but as a ten-year-old girl, the fact that she could even build this was proof of her ability.

In order to get the components to build this thing, Zara had wandered onto the nearest German air base which existed just outside the city of Granada, and politely asked for scrap materials from the machinists who worked on the planes.

The only reason she was able to even achieve such a thing was because Zara was the Kaiser's daughter, and was thus granted access to restricted zones that normal civilians would not be able to enter.

The rocket she had essentially built in the backyard was entirely her own design. Until now, all rockets used either solid or liquid propellants. However, both had their drawbacks, and Zara was determined to blend the best of both worlds.

Thus, what Zara had come up with after extensive research and experimentation was a hybrid rocket propellent which utilized a solid fuel, and a liquid oxidizer. Such as polyethylene as the fuel, and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.

The rocket she designed was roughly the height of one and a half full grown german men, but was more narrow. It had been moved into a large clearing within the Granadan palace's gardens, by a few of her bodyguards, who recorded the young girl and her experiment as she began the countdown.

"Ten!

Nine!

Eight!

Seven!

Six!

Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

One!

Blast off!"

After saying this, Zara punched the button which would ignite the rocket, immediately sending the thing flying through the air. In preparation for this event, the palace gardens had been cleared of all personnel.

Zara watched as the rocket climbed higher into the air than she ever thought possible. Upon seeing that her relatively small rocket had been an enormous success, Zara let out a scream of joy before whispering to herself.

"Daddy, are you proud of Zara? Your daughter finally succeeded!"

Upon realizing that her father was not around for her significant advancement in rocket technology, the girl began to pout as the rocket flew to even further heights, before the parachute deployed and it began to slowly fall towards the earth below.

While Ghazi was taking his young fiancee around the palace, and Zara was experimenting with her rocket design, Yasmin was entertaining the former King of Navarre and his wife. Yasmin had a warm smile on her face as she served her guests a batch of tea and a warm meal while speaking of the newly formed relationship between their two children.

"I think Ghazi and Isabella have hit things off relatively well. I was a bit worried there when I dropped this news on my son so suddenly. However, I believe he will enjoy spending time with your daughter."

The former king of Nevarre was a man named Alfonso, and he was significantly older than his wife. As a middle-aged man, with a head of hair and a full beard that was beginning to gray, he was still quite attractive for his age. His wife, however, was quite obviously younger than even Yasmin and was quite beautiful in her own right. Alfonso began to speak about his first perception of the young Sultan.

"I must admit, I was a bit concerned when I first received a request from your house to ask for an arranged marriage between my daughter and your son. After all, the history between the Iberian Christians and Muslims is a long and bloody one.

However, I do believe after all the death and suffering that we have both endured these past few years, it would be a good sign to the people that we can move forward, even after everything that has happened between us. I must say, your boy appears to be quite the gentleman and I would be glad to-

Dear God in Heaven, what is that!?!"

During mid sentence, Alfonso and his wife had widened their eyes in disbelief as they heard a loud explosion occur. They quickly looked out the window to see that a relatively large projectile was flying straight into the sky. Yasmin turned around to find the source of all the commotion and simply facepalmed before expressing her thoughts aloud.

"God dammit Zara..."

The last thing Yasmin needed was to startle her soon to be in-laws. Yet Zara had chosen today of all days to test another one of her rocket launches. All the previous prototypes that the girl had tested had been quite disastrous. It was a miracle that nobody had been hurt thus far. The fact that the Zara had chosen to use the Palace's gardens as her launch point, despite knowing how dangerous her little projects were, meant that she would be receiving a massive scolding in the near future.

Just as Yasmin was thinking about this, Zara came rushing through the door with an excited smile on her face while screaming with joy.

"Mommy! Look! I did it! I finally did it! My rocket works! Daddy should give me an Imperial Medal of Art and Science after I tell him about this! Look at it go! Do you think it will be able to make it into space!?!"

It was only after Zara had expressed her complete joy with her successful launch test did she realize the terrified expressions on the face of the former King and Queen of Nevarre, as well as the stern and disapproving look on her mother's face. As a result, she immediately pulled out the cute card and knocked her knuckles to her forehead while sticking out her tongue.

"Teehee!"

In the past, this was all that Zara needed to convince her father to let her off the hook for her shenanigans, but Yasmin was far less forgiving than her husband. She quickly pointed in the direction of the girl's room and yelled a command at her.

"Go to your room! I will speak with you when I have finished calming our guests!"

Zara simply responded by pouting, and deliberately stomping her feet in a fit, as she begrudgingly obeyed her mother's commands. Once the girl was out of sight. Yasmin sighed heavily before apologizing to her guests for the sudden disturbance.

"I'm sorry about that. My daughter is... Extremely gifted, and likes to experiment with things that are quite dangerous. I assure you, the worst has passed. Please, sit down, and drink some tea. It will help calm your nerves..."

Alfonso and his wife continued to stare in disbelief out the window even as they did what Yasmin had suggested. It was only after absent-mindedly sipping on their tea for several moments did they finally come back to reality.