Author's Note:  For this challenge, I used images 5, 6, 7,and 8.

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Nazis. After World War II, the residents of planet Earth thought they were done with them. Splinter groups had popped up here and there, waving flags, shouting hate-filled obscenities, and trying to step on anyone who got in their way, but the coordinated military power threatening to overtake the world by force was gone, or at least everyone thought it was gone.

In the first months of the year 2178, the Nazis returned again, and they were more dangerous than ever. As I walked down the corridor to the conference room of the star battlecruiser Relentless, I held in my hand a datachip with the horrifying information our covert operative had discovered.

The doors parted with a hiss of hydraulics, and I was greeted by an assembly of my highest ranked officers. Like me, they wore royal blue uniforms with sparkling gold epaulets on their shoulders to designate their positions in the chain of command.

The conference room was wide with a rectangular table centered in the space. Every chair but one was occupied as my officers waited for me. They all knew the basic orders we'd received, but they didn't know the particulars or the reasons behind them. The unknown possibilities were clearly making them uncomfortable as some of them shifted in their seats or fidgeted with the fit of their uniforms, but they maintained their military discipline and waited for me to inform them of what I knew.

"Officers of the Relentless," I began, trying to maintain an even tone. The crew looked to me for direction, so I had to be in control, or at least appear to be. "As you know, per our orders, we're on course to the fourth planet of the Baruke system. It's on the outer edge of the galactic arm and until now believed to be uninhabited."

I slotted the datachip into the reader mounted near the edge of the table's top. The holoprojector in the center of the conference room ceiling activated, creating a transparent image of colored light, hovering in the space above the table.

"This image was transmitted by an agent working undercover," I explained with a gesture to the hologram floating an inch above the table's polished surface.

The hologram showed a research laboratory none of my officers had ever seen before. Technological equipment had been built up around four curving ribs of metal. The ribs, two on one side of the room and two on the other, arched over of the heads of the lab coat wearing scientists working in the room and almost touched at their ends. Standing in the center of the room, looking down through the length of the pathway made by the arches, a figure faced away from the camera with hands on hips.

"Is that what I think it is?" my second officer, Commander Erika Addison, asked. She stabbed a finger into the hologram and disrupted it for a second until the image realigned. Hanging on the wall shown in the image was a red flag with a swastika prominently positioned in the center.

"I'm afraid so," I confirmed. "The facility is under the command of the Nazis. They've apparently been working on this project secretly for years and are nearing completion."

"What is it?" science officer Donald Portman asked. His brown eyes were currently covered by the reflective green of his optical lenses. Although vision correction was currently done with retinal synthesis. Portman preferred to wear the lenses for any enhancement needed and keep his eyes natural. "I recognize the power transfer conduits, energy matrix stabilizers, and the distortion field compensators, but I've never seen them in this setup before."

"It's a time portal," I explained. "The Nazis are planning to go back in time, taking all their modern technological equipment with them for the purpose of re-fighting World War II."

"The governments of that era would have no defense!" Erika exclaimed.

"Right," I said in agreement with my first officer. "The Nazis would win the war and every moment of history from then until now would be changed. The Alliance of Galactic Civilizations wouldn't even exist, and probably we wouldn't either."

"Worse yet," science officer Portman theorized. "We might end up as one of them, serving in their fleet instead of this one."

A heavy silence descended upon the room, similar to the moment after the fall of an executioner's axe. Everything we had fought for and worked so hard to build was in danger of being swept away.

"How close are they to completion?" Erika questioned softly.

"The agent didn't say," I answered, hesitating before telling them the rest. "The transmission was interrupted, and Command believes the agent was caught."

"If they caught the undercover agent, they'll know we're coming," tactical officer Drake Iverson reasoned. The muscles in his neck, under the hard line of his jaw, tightened noticeably.

"You can bet on it," I confirmed. "Our entire fleet is being mobilized, but we can't wait for everyone to be in position. Our squadron will be the first in, and it will be our responsibility for breaking through the orbital defenses and establishing a foothold on the planet. We'll do more if we can, but we must accomplish this."

"Callie, what's our ETA?" Erika asked the navigator.

Soft green light flickered momentarily inside the depths of the android's eyes as she wirelessly interfaced with the ship's computer. With her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing the same royal blue uniform as the rest of us, there were only certain times when Callie's artificial nature were evident.

"ETA twenty-two minutes," Callie answered when her calculations were complete.

"Alright people," I said to get their attention. "This is our chance to defend the past, protect the present, and ensure the future. Battle stations."

The meeting ended with the officers scattering to their assigned positions. Callie stepped backwards into a specially designed alcove; as the doors slid shut, the android body deactivated as her artificial intelligence program was transferred to another synthetic form in an alcove on the bridge.

Erika waited behind to speak with me privately. She absently brushed a lock of her red hair away from her face while waiting for the doors to close and soundproof the room.

"If they've been planning this for goodness knows how long, can our squadron break through whatever defenses they've probably got waiting for us?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I admitted. "As long as the Nazis don't succeed, that's a victory to me, no matter the cost required to attain it."

  ***  

A bubble in space appeared over the fourth planet of the Baruke system. One end of the bubble dissolved, causing the entire construct to disintegrate from one end to the other. As the fabric of reality was pulled back in the wake of the collapsing bubble, the Relentless and the accompanying ships of the squadron were deposited in orbit.

Tremors shook the Relentless and alarms began sounding as the squadron came under enemy fire.

"My sensors are detecting at least twelve heavy cruisers as well as a number of smaller support craft and fighters," Callie reported from where she stood beside my centrally located Captain's chair.

"Send the squadron to engage the enemy fleet, but set our course for the planet," I instructed. "Fire on any targets en route, but get us on the ground."

"Aye sir," Callie accepted, her eyes flickering green in their depths as the orders were transmitted into the computer controlled flight systems.

Scores of missiles, guided rockets, and lasers were exchanged between the two fleets of ships. The Nazi armada was more heavily armed, but because their ships had to have been built in secret, they lacked the resilience and high quality design of my squadron. Explosions caused flares of brilliant light to blossom across the hulls of the battlecruisers, and smaller support ships vanished in fiery detonations when hit. Lasers crisscrossed space in a web of deadly energy.

The Relentless dived toward the planet, but a high yield warhead struck the wedge shaped prow, compromising the hull and leaving a significant hole behind. Everyone on the bridge was thrown against their seat restraints, and I could only assume the same was true on every deck. Callie was unaffected as her internal mechanics allowed her to compensate for the sudden shifting of the deck and remain standing and unmoved.

The fighting in orbit continued unabated as the two fleets hammered each other with punishing blows of their formidable arsenals. One of my destroyers took a hit to the engines and started drifting uncontrollably away from the battle, firing whenever its guns happened to swing into alignment with an enemy vessel. As if in retaliation, two wings of fighters performed a strafing run down the length of an enemy carrier, lasers ripping through armor plate and causing internal detonations before the entire ship exploded. When the Nazi carrier vaporized, two more enemy ships were nearby and were caught in the blast radius. One was destroyed, and the other had a portion of its hull peeled away, exposing the interior decks and crew to the vacuum of space.

As the Relentless cleared the cloud layer occupying the upper atmosphere, the world below became visible. A cluster of islands sat surrounded by the crystal clear waters of a gigantic ocean. Even from near orbital height, I couldn't see any other land in range, and I half considered the possibility the planet didn't have any other land masses besides the islands.

Attacks from ground based defenses reached up to strike the Relentless in an attempt to blast it from the sky. The heavily reinforced hull plating blocked most of the incoming fire, but it was only a matter of time before the armor became too damaged by cumulative hits to continue protecting the ship.

"Do you have a location on the enemy base?" I asked Callie.

"Sensors have pinpointed its location, and our course has already been adjusted," the ship's android reported.

"Very well," I acknowledged.

The Relentless swooped down low over one of the islands, missile and gun batteries firing in rapid succession to clear the island defenders and automated weapons.

"Erika, you have the bridge," I told my second in command. "I'll be leading the main assault force."

"Understood," Erika replied, moving from her sensor station to my chair the moment I'd vacated the seat.

I ran down a corridor and dropped through a chute to one of the walker bays. Walkers were incredible machines of war. Standing eight feet in height, the walker carried a quad rocket launcher on one arm and a high speed minigun on the other. Backward canted legs provided fast movement speed and maneuverability. A rounded cylinder was mounted in the top middle of the walker, looking similar to a domed helmet of an ancient warrior. On earlier models, a pilot would've controlled the machine from a cramped cockpit inside, but recent advances had let us make the walkers remote controlled.

Moving past the walker to one of the many pilot stations, I climbed in and powered up the systems. Pilot stations were shaped like giant beans, open at one end for entry and exit. A single seat resided inside. Around the seat were straps and restraints. I quickly buckled myself into the straps until only my right arm remained unsecured. Sliding my arm into a sleeve, I pressed the only button available to me.

A pair of needles extended from opposing side of the pilot station and inserted into my neck. The combination of chemicals and electrical signals delivered by the needles instantly put my body to sleep and transferred my conscious mind into the computer.  The restraining straps were required because any movements might disrupt the positions of the needles and cause severe brain damage. It was a danger pilots had been facing for years, but with the future of civilization hanging in the balance, it seemed even more worth the risk.

I found myself in an endless void, standing on nothingness. As the computer in my designated walker turned on, the sensors translated visual information back to my piloting station and into my brain, creating the appearance of the bay all around me. Because my brain signals were being transferred, when I thought about moving my arm, the walker did it instead. I felt like a giant as every step shook the decking. Moving faster, I ran from the bay in my robotic form.

Once outside in the clear daylight, I saw what the Nazis had waiting. Protected from the bombardment the Relentless had unleashed upon its arrival, concealed doors opened across the island to allow the Nazis to deploy their own force of walkers. Unlike the two-legged variety piloted by my forces, the Nazis made use of spider shaped machines. A rotational weapon turret on its back carried a pair of large caliber guns mounted to both sides of a six-pack missile launcher.

Fortunately, I wasn't alone and my assault troops got into formation behind me. Powering up my weapons, I directed my left arm gun toward the nearest enemy spider and fired. The multiple barrels spun in a circle before a stream of metal death was released a second later. High velocity bullets stitched their way across the beach in geysers of sand before they tore through armor plate and internal mechanics.

Another spider skittered out of an underground tunnel and launched itself into the air with a tremendous jump. As the spider descended, it folded its legs in and fired an orange laser from each leg, hitting a single walker with every beam. When the spider came down on the walker, the impact finished what the lasers had started. While the central core of the robot collapsed, both arms of the walker sheared off in bursts of sparks and splatters of black lubricant. The walker collapsed to the beach in a pile of ruined and smoking metal.

When I saw a different spider jump toward me, I raised the rocket pod mounted to my robot's right arm and fired all four shots simultaneously. Flaming debris rained down over my walker, but none of it was large enough to damage my machine. Using energy matter conversion, the tech inside my mechanical arm created new rockets inside the launcher, and I only had to wait a moment before they were ready for firing. I knew the design well, and as long as I had power, I had unlimited ammunition. For this fight, it would be needed.

Rocket exchanges between the two armies frequently hit their targets, destroying walkers and spiders on contact, but they occasionally missed, creating huge craters across the beach war zone instead.

As I approached one of the tunnels the spiders had emerged from, intent on getting into the base and stopping their time travel efforts, I ran straight into a spider crouched immediately behind the main doors. The six missiles it fired were too close to dodge, and my world was ripped away, leaving me back in the void again as my walker took multiple direct hits and was turned into scrap.

After a moment, the appearance of the bay returned around me as the next walker in line powered up and was transferred to my control. I ran outside with my new machine, rejoining the battle.

Glancing up when I detected movement in the sky, I saw three streaks of white as ships entered the atmosphere. The sensors of my walker identified them as the troop transports of my squadron. Reinforcements were coming; this battle was just getting started.