Chapter 1: Strom

Strom was woken by the tolling of bells, sitting upright in an instance. He remembered what his Raiser had told him: tolling bells meant danger; rhythmical bells meant joy. Even if he did not know the difference, the fact that the bells sounded at night should tell him that all was not right. Rubbing his eyes, he groaned deeply, before staggering out of bed and, ignoring the pile of clothes next to his bed, went to the window. The window was made of tinted glass, and the hue was alterable, meaning the window could be blacked out, or made completely transparent. In the darkness he fumbled around for a dial, only succeeding after slapping the wall a few times. He turned the dial, noting once again how stiff it was; he’d have to get someone to look at that eventually but he could scarcely afford food on top of his rent, thanks to the government’s 40% income tax. Granted, this was to pay for children’s individual Raisers; a one-to-one teacher to act as a parent to the child as its real parents were forced to work for 9 of the 16 hours in a day, but Strom, at the age of 19, had no children and had no intention of acquiring any.

The dial clicked into place and the window turned transparent.

The planet Raan’s capital city, Tapal, was not a good place to live if you lived in the North. The northern parts of the city were reserved for the lower classes, living in run-down skyscraper flats, with the outermost circle on the edge of the city being the poorest. These areas were riddled by crime, whether it be petty crimes, or serious organised crime, you would find it in the north. Very few of the city’s Enforcers patrolled the northernmost extremities, hence the crime remained. Traders also refused to work in the northernmost areas due to the level of crime; no one wants to risk their life while trying to fix an elevator. Strom lived in the Lower-North. This area was the tamest area of the north, mainly due to the newly-emerging middle-class populating it as well as its proximity to the Hub; the city’s retail, social centre, yet also the military and political centre of Raan. On the other side of the Hub was the South, which was where the upper-classes lived. There was very few skyscrapers in this area, but they were a home for one family or owner, rather than hundreds or in some cases, thousands. Enforcers patrolled the streets in droves, despite there being little-to-no crime in these areas. The south was a nice place to live, and from Strom’s window, he could usually see through the streets in front of him, straight into the hub, and the edge of the South.

 But the sight that greeted him was far from the norm.

It was dark but there were no stars in sky. In fact, light came from two sources: the military base in the centre of the Hub, a completely separate island with sheer drops around it into a ravine, accessible only by a single bridge over the ravine; and the things that descended from the sky. Strom recognised them quickly to be of Xaosian origin. Giant Titan-class troop transporters descended to the ground, while hundreds of small Reaper-Class fighter ships darted through the sky, laser bursts tearing through the Hub’s retail areas; obviously a scare tactic. The shop windows shattered, glass shards flying everywhere, the small pieces shattering again as they crashed to the ground. Some buildings caught fire and some simply exploded, the flames dancing in the breeze of the night. Strom’s attention was brought back to the Titan’s as one flew over his skyscraper, dropping clear spherical objects: Combat-Pods; these held troops and were used to quickly dispatch them. Pods smashed into the skyscrapers, destroying homes and dropping the troop off inside. Strom watched one of the pods as it was launched in his building’s direction. His heart clenched as it came closer and closer, beating faster and faster. A bead of sweat dripped down his neck in horrific anticipation.

As he realised exactly where it was to hit, Strom leapt to the side as the pod smashed through his bedroom wall. Fragments of plaster and brick flew into his room, and he threw up his arm to protect his face. His clothes were thrown across the room, and his bed was crushed beneath the pod.

The trooper emerged from within.

Clad head-to-toe in black armour, the Xaosian trooper held a threatening X-46 Devastator; a powerful weapon with three ammo settings: projectile-stun, acid, projectile-kill. Judging from the red light on the barrel, Strom concluded that it was the projectile-kill. He quickly sized up the trooper: medium height, but muscular build, hands uncovered due to the Xaosians’ long and deadly claws, helmet to protect face, with glass to cover the eyes. The Xaosian started towards him, and gestured with the gun.

“You will surrender, and you will live.” The Xaosian hissed; they had almost serpentine features to their faces. “Resist and you will die.”

Strom circled the trooper, working his way over to where the remains of his bed were. “Jus’ le’ me ge’ my clothes.” He muttered. The Xaosian watched closely, following him.

Strom fumbled round in the wreckage of his room and watched the Xaosian out of the corner of his eye. It was looking around Strom’s room, probably taking in the pod’s handiwork. Its back was to Strom...

Strom smashed half a bedpost onto the Xaosian’s head and, as it turned on him, knocked the X-46 out its hands with a strong uppercut. The Xaosian grunted in annoyance, before kicking Strom’s legs out from underneath him. Strom landed in the wreckage, a screw in the bed’s framework slicing his arm open. Thick red blood poured out, but Strom ignored it as the trooper started towards its weapon. Strom got up, ignoring his arm’s pain, and sprinted at the trooper, who brought the gun up to face him and pulled the trigger. Strom threw himself to the floor, avoiding the deadly projectile, sliding along the ground towards his foe. He stood as the Xaosian pointed the gun downwards, but Strom knocked the gun aside again, but the Xaosian kept hold of it and slammed the gun’s butt into Strom’s face. Strom’s world erupted into a red-tinted blur, but was still able to deliver a right hook into the Xaosian’s throat, knocking the trooper down. As Strom’s vision cleared, he kicked the gun out of the hole the Combat-Pod left behind. The Xaosian got to its feet again and deliver a blow to Strom’s ribs. He heard a crunch and tasted blood briefly, before it hurt to breathe. He began to pant as the fight’s toll took its impact. The Xaosian tried to deliver another punch, but Strom moved out of the way and into the kitchen, a small room with a small food-store and oven. He reached into a cupboard and brought out a knife and, as the Xaosian entered the kitchen, plunged it between the plates of its armour. Blood filled the helmet as its inhabitant shook, and then lay still. Dead.

Strom doubled over and spat blood onto the tiled floor; no reason to worry about ruining the place now. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and slowly until his heart stopped racing. He went over to the Xaosian and unclipped its helmet. Its eyes were open, so Strom placed a finger on each eyelid and closed them, whispering “Res’ in honour.”

He snatched the knife out of the Xaosian's armour, before dashing into his apartment's hallway, grabbing trousers and a shirt from the drier on the way by and quickly putting them on. As he reached the end of the hallway, he looked back at the Xaosian; the first intelligent being he'd ever killed. The full sight of it after the initial adrenaline rush made him retch, not in disgust at the scene, but at the realisation that he killed him, brutally and efficiently. He tried to justify it in his head: He tried to kill me; it was self-defence. But then a sub-conscious part of his mind would intervene and say there were other ways to stop him. Strom shook his head, as if trying to shake off these plaguing thoughts like dogs with raindrops.

But screams from below echoed through the building, of men, women and children. Names were called endlessly, aimlessly. Even as Strom looked out of the hole that the Pod had made, he saw buildings crumble, Raanian pilots shot out of the sky and the all-consuming flames destroying the retail district, ruining families' livelihoods. The Xaosians will not hesitate to kill Strom realised, and they won't stop until Raan is gone. My family, friends, neighbours, everyone. Strom took a deep breath, clutched the knife tighter and swung the door open.

The halls between apartments were small and run down, usually devoid of light. Tonight was no exception, but as Strom passed the apartments, he could hear sobbing, or parents reassuring children, or cries of despair. Strom was sure that no other Combat-Pods had penetrated the building, but from inside, it was impossible to be certain. He looked around for the elevator amidst the crumbling brown paint on the walls. Stairs were deemed impractical for the skyscrapers, as they would take up room which could be used to house more people. The elevator doors opened with a whimsical “ping!” and Strom got inside and pressed the GROUND button. The elevator shot downwards and although Strom had lived in this building for most of his life, he had never been certain that it was supposed to be so fast.

The elevator creaked as it reached the bottom and with inappropriately jovial “ping!”, the doors slid open once more. On the ground floor, families poked their head's round doors to see through the glass doors to the outside. “Get inside.” Strom told a woman, who was carrying a newborn babe in her arms, wrapped in a white cloth as it bawled at the noises outside. The woman looked up at him and glared, before turning back to look at the destruction outside. Swearing under his breath, he shook his head: no-one would listen to him while captivated by the violence, even though they were vulnerable in the ground floor's hallway. Strom looked outside and saw the weapon he'd kicked out of the hole in his apartment. Sprinting, Strom headed towards it, the automatic doors sliding open for him just in time to stop him running straight into them. He grabbed the weapon and found it to be heavier than he expected. He felt a surge of relief; no-one got to it before him, but also felt a state of disbelief; he'd never pictured this. Although Strom was doing three years of military service, as was compulsory for 18-21 year old men, the simple fact that there had been no wars or major conflict on Raan for over two centuries made the service feel redundant and was mainly reduced to weapons and flight training, as well as patrolling around the Northernmost sectors of Tapal. No-one had ever pictured a war in this day and age, and now it was here. Clutching the weapon, he went back into the building and looked around at the people still in the hallway. He shook his head and adjusted the dial on the X-46 to Projectile-Stun ammunition. “Everyone inside now!” he roared, holding the gun so it was pointing upwards. People looked at him and flinched backwards. Strom pulled the trigger, and the sound of shot echoed through the hall. Someone screamed and retreated inside. “In! Now! Lock your doors, and don't come out!” he roared again. They retreated inside and Strom walked away, feeling satisfied, but feared that they could exit their apartments as soon as he left. Not my problem; I tried to help them, if they put themselves in danger, so be it.

Strom knew that, as a member of the military, he would need to get to the military-base in the centre of the Hub; half a mile away. Streets were ruined and wrecked, distorted from the flat and straight structures they were, into twisters and spirals of rubble. Some had craters that reached the plumbing and electrical networks below. Sparks shot from them irregularly, so Strom endeavoured to avoid them. There was no other living Raanian outside, only corpses and remains; a severed hand still gripped a case's handle tightly, but the rest of the body was nowhere to be seen. Tired from the sprinting and his fight, Strom tried to run but found he could not, having to double over, hands on his knees, and gasp for breath from the poison air; Raan's industrial district cast pollutants over the North. His side hurt as he breathed, as if a knife was twisted into his lung. He rubbed his side, realising that the pain must be from where the Xaosian hit him. He walked towards his goal as he tried to catch his breath and, when he did so, he broke into a jog before running again, not as fast as before. Few Xaosian troopers were around, but broken and felled buildings were in no short supply and neither was the amount of Reapers he saw overhead.

Strom ducked behind a ten-foot high remnant of a skyscraper as he arrived at the Hub. Xaosian troopers were everywhere, shooting civilians as they fled, killing them instantly. Some tried to fight back, and they were dispatched with cruelty: the acid ammunition melted through their chests in under a minute, but that's a long time for someone to feel their bones melt away. Others tried to flee in their Autos, but they were destroyed by the Xaosian Crushers; tanks the size of houses and moved, instead of on caterpillar treads, on massive steamroller-esque barrels, allowing the vehicle to crush everything the huge tank cannon, nor the ones on the barrels' axles, could not destroy.

Strom knew he had two choices; sprint through and hope for the best, or take it slowly and sneak past troops. He contemplated it for a moment before deciding.

With a deep breath, he set the X-46 to Projectile-kill.

Leaning around his shelter, he saw two Xaosians; one held a woman by her blonde hair as she knelt in front of him, while the other brandished a long serrated combat-knife. Strom took aim and shot the one holding the knife, who fell flat, the knife clattering on the concrete road. The other one, alerted by the gunshot, took aim at where Strom was standing and opened fire. This was no X-46, this was the U-7 Machine Weapon. Four ammo settings; three similar to the X-46, but with an extra setting for explosive shells. The U-7 held huge amounts of ammunition, and the Xaosian had four extra belts crossed over its back; one for each ammunition type. Strom recognised the ammo currently sending shards of shrapnel at him as Projectile-kill. The shooting stopped for a moment and Strom took advantage of this reprieve, leant out from his cover and shot the Xaosian three times; leg, chest, head. The Xaosian staggered back, before dropping to the floor, armour pierced by the high-intensity bullets.

Strom ran over and, after glancing at the sobbing woman to make sure she was okay, grabbed the U-7 and, noting the small amount of Projectile-kill ammo left, switched to Explosives. He could not see any Xaosians around but the Crusher loomed ahead, facing the other way, the shots gone unheard. He looked towards the military-base. To his horror, the one bridge into the base had multiple Crushers and possibly hundreds of troopers on it, all striving to break the base.

“No...” he muttered to himself; he had no way in.

And if he stayed outside, he would almost definitely die.

Chapter 2: Trexor

Trexor clenched his fists, staring at the horror outside via the huge array of screens. He watched hundreds – if not thousands – of Xaosian troops make barricades on the Military-Bridge from the debris that their Crushers, which remained to the sides of the barricade, had created. All around, buildings crumbled, their grey bricks falling from sky; this was a hard rain. Another screen showed him a view from Raan's orbit, where the Oribtial Defence System (ODS) was in tatters, open circuitry and explosive pods suspended in the desolate vacuum. The Raanian Stinger-Class Aerospace-Fighters darted back and forth in a dreadful, almost ominous, silence. When the larger Xaosian ships fired upon them, they exploded in equal silence and when the ship was destroyed, the pilot's suit was ruptured and he asphyxiated in a deathly silence. In the midst of the clash between Reapers and Stingers was a much larger ship.

The Dominion was a behemoth; a monstrous feat in Aerospace engineering, this ships fired upon what remained of Raan's ODS with the power of the Solus* itself; inspired by the Adjeti World-Burner absorbed through enhanced solar-panels, The Dominion was able to convert light and heat into a laser-like weapon of mass destruction. Trexor watched the laser obliterate an Orbital Cannon, shattering it into jagged, blackened shards that joined their brothers in a floating grave.

As Trexor turned away from the screens, his eyes fell on a man on a stretcher, injured on the Bridge as the Xaosians first moved in. His right leg was stripped of skin, to the bone in some cases. Trexor could make out the pulsing arteries that spewed out spurts of blood like a half-empty bottle. In the few areas where dark pink muscle was still attached to bone, it was lacerated and burnt. But it wasn't just the man's leg that was injured; a chunk of his left cheek was missing, sheared off by flying shrapnel. In his younger years, Trexor may have retched at the very sight, but instead his nose wrinkled in disgust; he had seen worse injuries whilst patrolling the Northernmost parts of Tapal.

“Trexor!”

Trexor turned to see Admiral Fairns walking towards him. “Admiral.” Trexor responded, bowing his head briefly.

“We need you ext there.” The Admiral said. “Ext on the front lines.”

“And you would send us all to our deaths, sir.” Trexor replied, as bluntly as the Admiral had spoken.

The Admiral grimaced. “Then what would you suggest?”

“Teams of snipers from the windows on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors,” Trexor said quickly; he had already thought this through, “Get the Stingers to distract and take down the Crushers. My team will move in, with the snipers covering us.”

The Admiral mulled this over. “This seems viable. Get your team ready, I'll sort the rest.”

Trexor bowed his head again as the Admiral turned and walked away, speaking into his Communicator. “Idiot...” Trexor muttered.

No-one turned from the screens as Trexor walked by, the horrific images displayed both captivating and terrifying them. United in their silence, they gazed with wide eyes, most of them barely older than boys. Trexor shook his head; this was not right. He scanned the computer bays until he found what he was looking for.

“You!” Trexor said as he reached his destination. “Name?”

The girl at the computer pushed his outstretched finger away from her face. “I'm Tya, General. Wha' do you wan'?”

Trexor noted the Northern accent.“You're in charge of the ODS?”

“At the momen' sir; Officer Amei is injured, sir.” said the flustered girl.

Trexor leaned in. “Just because your from the North, doesn't mean you have to call us Southern twats “sir” all the time.”

“Yes General.” Tya said.

“Now, you answer to me from now on.” Trexor said.

“Bu', Admiral Fairns-”

Trexor leant in towards her and hissed, “Fairns is an idiot; he can't make the decisions best for this planet. Best for us. His plan would've got me and all of my team slaughtered. I am in charge now.”

Tya moved away, sliding her chair along the computer bay's railing. “...Wha' do you wan'?”

“Your loyalty. And with that comes the control of the ODS. Full control. How much of it do we have left?”

Tya turned to her computer. “Abou' Seventeen percen', but only four of the Orbital Cannons remain.”

“Turn two cannons off, and keep them like that until I say otherwise. Don't ask questions!” Trexor's tone softened. “Just do as I tell you. And don't tell Fairns.”

Trexor turned to walk away, but quickly turned back. “I will be in contact. Watch the coms.”

There was a group of men near the the weapons bay, who turned to Trexor as he arrived. Trexor surveyed them; there was probably over fifty of them, but no more than seventy. All of their armours had pockmarks, dents and holes in, and Trexor could see wounds ranging from cuts and bruises, to a full bloody gash lining one man's face. “General Trexor, sir.” said one of the men nearest to him; Reinf. The others soon followed suit, their voices wavering. Trexor sensed the fear emanating from them.

“Men. You have been chosen for this task because you are all we've got. I'm not going to sugar-coat this and say that you're the best, because you're probably not.” Trexor noticed that some of the men exchanged looks at this, but he continued anyway. “That aside, you are the last line of defence for this city. We are the last line. You may be scared right now, and you should be. The Xaosians ext there want you dead. Their machines want you dead. Their entire planet wants you to die. Hell, even Admiral Fairns was prepared to send us on a suicide mission. But I said no! Our planet needs more men, men like you. You may not be the best, but you are determined. You are still here, unlike the ones who fled earlier. Today, you fight for your planet, your family, your friends. But ignore them; fight for yourselves. Fight until you are kicking and screaming. If you flee, we will recondition or kill you. If you stay and fight with me, and we win, your rewards will be unparalleled.” The men were looking more hopeful now, Trexor decided. It was time. “Let's kill them before they can kill us!” The men raised their weapons and cheered.

Trexor grabbed the General's Sword of Rank and a standard issue assault rifle, before signalling one of the men to open the doors. “Let's do this.” he muttered whilst putting a helmet on, more to himself than to the others.

The doors opened.

Fire flew from the sky as Stingers targeted and fired upon the Crushers and Xaosians. Reapers were closing in on the Stingers. One of the Crushers exploded. The other Crusher turned its turret and fired upon the Stingers. Most of the shots missed, but a lucky few hit, sending the Stinger spiralling down before gouging a gash in the planet itself, or simply shattering it into an airborne oblivion. One exploded above the Bridge, sending shrapnel flying around Trexor and his men. Xaosian troops began to drop dead suddenly, not because of the Stingers, but the snipers in the base. But still one Crusher remained.

More Stingers fired upon the Crusher, drowning it in flames and smoke yet causing no damage to the behemoth itself. Titan Troop Carriers joined the battle now, the larger Xaosian ships opening fire on the Stingers. Stingers fell, before some veered off and returned fire on the Titan's. Another barrage of missiles fell upon the Crusher. It moved to the side, towards the edge of the bridge, firing still on the Stingers. But the pilot's now targeted the barrels that the Crusher moved on, taking out the secondary turrets around them. The rocket fire and explosions deafened Trexor, but it pushed the Crusher back slowly.

Until it fell.

The Crusher was defeated by it's own back-heavy design, the weight of which dragged it down into the abyss below. It fell for what seemed like hours, before finally the crunch as it hit the solid rock at the bottom of the ravine sounded.

“Go!” Trexor roared, pointing his sword forward.

With the Xaosian's barricades left in tatters, they had no defence from Trexor's charge and the snipers still taking them down. Trexor took quickly aim and fired at the Xaosians. The head-shots dropped them quickly, but the body-shots only forced them back, denting their armour. Trexor felt something hit him in the shoulder; a Projectile-Stun bullet from some idiot who doesn't know how to use his weapon.

Trexor broke into the Xaosian ranks, wielding his sword. He slashed blindly at the Xaosians, whilst taking aiming carefully with the gun in his other hand. The sword carved through the armour; it's impact-resistant material was almost useless when at close-range. Bullets pierced the armour when they hit. Trexor felt another bullet hit his thigh, penetrating the armour; Projectile-Kill. He grunted as it hit, the armour only slowing it slightly. This was pain beyond agony and he nearly fell, but he steeled himself, grit his teeth and continued; he'd suffered worse: the scar on his back was testament to that.

The others had joined him now, using their standard-issue knives to carve their way through. But the element of surprise had worn off by now, and the Xaosians were drawing their own blades. Out of the corner of his eye, Trexor saw Reinf take a knife to the stomach, before being carved open, blood and gore spilling out. Trexor shot the Xaosian in the foot, before cleaving his head clean off. A bullet smashed against Trexor's helmet, cracking the reinforced glass. But it was only a glancing shot, and another man returned the shot, catching the Xaosian in the throat. The Xaosian clutched at its throat, dropping its weapons, before collapsing to its knees, either dead or unconscious.

“Retreat!” Trexor heard someone yell; a Xaosian. They began to back away from Trexor's group, still firing as they did so. Trexor's men still fired upon them until the Xaosians were off the bridge. Trexor smirked, before speaking into his com. “Target the Xaosians at the end of bridge.”

Fire rained down from the sky as Tya activated the Orbital Cannons.

Chapter 3: Strom

Strom watched as the Xaosians fled from the Bridge. They seemed to stop at the edge of it; presumably to regroup, before trying to take it again. The Crusher near him began to move over there and had just reached the other when the sky glowed orange.

An orange beam, wider than even the Military-base struck the ground where the Xaosian's rested. It took Strom a moment to figure out what it was; an Orbital Cannon strike. Strom had never seen one before, but he had read about the test firing of the long-destroyed Adjeti World-Burner, weapon that did exactly what it said; it destroyed worlds. Harnessing the power of a star, it could focus that power until it scorched away everything on the surface of the targeted world, leaving nothing but a husk behind. The test firings did nothing like that, merely checking it's functionality. The beam decimated the Xaosians and Strom could hear brief screams, before a static crackle signalling the end of the cannon's fire. Only blackened charcoal statues remained.

The Bridge was clear now.

Strom seized his chance, edging carefully around his cover, and sprinted towards the nearest building, hugging the wall when he reached it. He checked around the corner and saw no Xaosians. He did, however, hear a banging and clattering from inside the building. He looked up at a sign above him; Hub Electricals. Cocking the U-7, Strom ventured into the store.

“You wan' a new Screen? Fifty-Six inches?” came one voice.

“How are we gonna get that back home without anyone seeing?” said another, this one female and familiar.

There were only two of them that Strom could see in this small store. Screens had been toppled over, some were cracked and broken; whether this was caused by the two looters or the Xaosians, Strom knew not. “Oi!” Strom called.

The male turned to face Strom, dropping a box to the floor. Something broke inside the box, judging the sound it made. “Wha'?” he asked with misplaced bravado.

Strom nodded towards the female. “You're looting. If I hand you in, you will be reconditioned. Both of you.”

The female stood up and walked towards him. Strom recognised her now; she was the woman he had told to stay inside, the one with the newborn babe, the one who ignored him. “You again.” she said.

“The feeling's mutual.” Strom said, as monotonously as she had. “You should've listened to me.”

The man chuckled. “Wha', and miss ou' on all this?” he gestured around the store. “Who are you, anyway, to tell us wha' to do?” He spat at Strom's feet.

Strom sighed. “You can ex' now and miss ou' on reconditioning. Or you can stay, be stunned and dragged to a reconditioning chamber. Your choice.”

The female pulled on the man's arm. “Come on, let's get ex' of here.”

“No.” He shook her off. “We need these things for our son. We can no' afford these things. It's the government’s fault!”

“I'm sorry,” Strom said, silently agreeing; the government’s harsh taxes sent many a family into a life of crime. “But I'm tasked with upholding the law.” After a pause of silence, he said, “I guess I can let you take the broken ones; you can sell them for parts, I'm sure.”

The man looked at Strom in the eyes. “Thank you.” He sounded sincere; it was better than nothing, perhaps even better in the long term than just one working screen.

“Don' mention i'.” Strom smiled. “Seriously, though, don', cause I'm no' sure if this'll hold up in a trial.”

Strom looked outside and saw Titans moving in the sky, possibly towards the bridge. The fighting was still happening in the air, but it was quiet on the ground for the moment. Taking advantage of this Strom headed over to the bridge.

The roads were unrecognisable. Half of a Stinger had uprooted Hub Path, and parts of both road and fighter were strewn around the area. As Strom jogged past it, he could see the pilot's corpse impaled upon the flight-control joystick. Buildings had toppled either side of the road and the destruction seemed to be akin to that of a natural disaster, rather than a warzone. Crying children and shrieking adults grieved over the loss of family, friends or home. But there was no-one n the streets; people camped in the stores, or in the back alleys, and they stared at Strom as he passed.

Strom soon reached the remains of the Xaosians that tried to take the Bridge. Some stood still, mummified by the heat and ashes. Most were none existent, their remains covering the floor. There was no blood, no gore, just a clean death. Strom touched one of the mummified soldiers and where he touched, the soldier began to crumble until there was nothing left but dust.

The edge of the Bridge was also blackened from the OC blast. Strom began to run across the bridge, but slowed to a walk as he came closer to the base. Corpses littered the Bridge, both Xaosian and Raanian. Some had bullet wounds, some were split open or decapitated. The remains of a Crusher stood at one side of the bridge, its top turret obliterated and the rest of it buckled. Something splashed beneath his boots and droplets of blood leapt at his leg. He looked; he was wading through puddles of thick red blood.

Behind the corpses were a group of Raanian soldiers, all in grey armour; before the battle, Strom was sure they were white. One soldier had a blue stripe on their arm; a General. The General turned as he heard footsteps and, upon seeing Strom, reached forwards and grabbed Strom by the throat, lifting him up. “State your business.” The General hissed.

“I'm Strom,” Strom said, struggling for breath, “I'm a pilo' here.”

The General released Strom and said, “General Trexor, Strom. Now get inside and find Admiral Fairns. We'll be right behind, were just getting the wounded inside.”

“Was i' you?” Strom asked. “Was i' you who fired the OC?”

“I did, yes.” Trexor said bluntly.

“It was a good call...” Strom said.

“What's wrong?” Trexor asked.

“Before today, I never even though' abou' death, no' on this scale. I never though' I'd kill someone, bu' I did. For the good of Raan. Bu' this is huge. You killed so many people with tha' thing and...I don' think I could've done i'.” Strom's hands shook as he spoke.

Trexor put a hand on Strom's shoulder. “Strom...killing is never something you should enjoy, or aspire to do. You must never want to kill. You killed for Raan. I killed for Raan. I decimated the Xaosian forces today, and I'm proud. Not because I like killing, nor because I don't have a conscience, but because I helped protect our world.”

Strom and Trexor walked inside the base together. Trexor bent down so he was eye-level with Strom and said, “Now go to Fairns; he'll tell you what to do. Trust him; I've got him doing what I want for now.”

“Bu' isn' he your boss?”

“Run along now,” Trexor said, a nasty grin on his face.

Strom walked away, turning back to see Trexor heading over to the ODS computer bay.

“Strom!” came a voice from nearby.

He turned to see a lanky young man waving to him. “Olaf!” Strom said, a grin splitting his face.

Olaf got down from a Stinger's wing and walked towards Strom, holding out his hand. Strom shook it; a gesture Strom was unfamiliar with, being from the North; handshakes were a Southern custom. “I'm glad you're OK, bro.” Olaf said, “I was really worried when you hadn't turned up; I thought you were dead ext there.”

Strom chuckled. “You don'' have to call me bro, bro. Your accen' doesn'' sui' i'.”

Olaf acknowledge this with a slight nod of the head. “Noted.” He lowered his voice, “Ilisa's around here somewhere; she wouldn't go into the air without making sure you were OK.”

Strom felt his cheeks redden. “Ah. Righ'. Should probably do something abou' tha'.”

“You bastard!”

Olaf chuckled under his breath, while Strom's smile slipped away. “Ilisa, calm down!” he called.

Something struck the back of his head and he turned to see an attractive, dark-haired woman; Ilisa. “Ow!” he said mockingly.

“I thought you were dead, why didn't you call?” Ilisa asked, her finger pointing at Strom. “And you,” she yelled as Olaf opened his mouth, “keep your mouth shut!”

Olaf put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry sister.” he said, winking. She gave him a reproachful look.

“I'm sorry, but calling wasn' my firs' though'; trying to stay alive was.” Strom said in a soothing voice, trying to keep Ilisa calm.

“Well...” she struggled for words. “You had me worried, Strom. I was keeping a lookout and, well the North's been devastated. I thought you'd...” She trailed off.

“Well, I'm mostly fine.” Strom said. This was mostly true; the pain in his ribs was wearing off now, so obviously they weren't broken, just bruised. “Now, come here.” She walked over to him, and he held her close to him. Ilisa rested her head on Strom's should, and he kissed her on the top of her head. “I love you, y'know?”

“I know.” Her voice was strained as she cried into Strom's shoulder.

“You three!” Yelled an unfamiliar voice. “Ge' to your Stingers, we're moving ex'!”

Strom let Ilisa go. “See you on the other side.” he said with a smile.

“You better.” she said back.

“And I'll hope to see you both.” Olaf said. “Or have you forgotten me?” He chuckled after saying this, before clambering up a ladder to get into the Stinger's cockpit.

Strom left Ilisa at her's, while he looked up at his Stinger. A thrill stirred up inside of him; it was time to fly.

Chapter 4: Cinradahs

Cinradahs's office had three screens, linked up to one computer, to make for easier multitasking. Cinradahs himself sat in a Hauti-Skin chair which was on a rail that ran along the edge of the desk that filled half of his office. Unlike usual rail-desks, this one was motorised, requiring less effort on Cinradahs's part. There was a cuboid structure next to the desk, with various holo-cards and memory-chambers stored in it; a filing cabinet.

One of the screens flickered into life. “New Orbus, come in New Orbus.” The image was of static, but Cinradahs could see a vaguely human shape behind it. He adjusted a setting on the computer, and Admiral Fairns came into view.

“New Orbus here. Minister Cinradahs, of Defence, here. State your business,” Cinradahs noticed the star on Fairns's armour, “Admiral.”

“We are under attack sir,” Fairns said hurriedly. “We have beaten them off for now, but we fear they'll be back.”

“Who?” Cinradahs asked, “Who is attacking you? Is it another Northern riot?”

“No,” Fairns shook his head, as if it was obvious, “It's the Xaosians, sir. We're at war!”

“The Xaosians?” asked Cinradahs, “Are you certain? Not just a terrorist group?”

“No!” Fairns yelled. “The Dominion is in orbit!”

Cinradahs touched the screen and slid his finger along it, transferring Fairns to the one on the left. On the central screen, he opened the ship-log; a software tool for tracking ship serial codes. He typed in The Dominion, before selecting the correct code; the top one. The results came up on screen. “The Dominion is indeed above Raan.” Cinradahs observed. “I need to speak to Xaos.” The ruler of the planet Xaos was always named after the planet during their reign.

“Why?” Fairns asked. “I've told you what's happening here! He's destroying my city!”

“Where is Yuki?” Cinradahs asked about Raan's ruler.

“She's on New Orbus at the moment; she has a meeting with Lord Tahkshi later.”

“Good, she's safe here.” Cinradahs said, nodding. “And I need to speak with Xaos now.”

Cutting off Admiral Fairns, Cinradahs sent a broadcast signal out to The Dominion. A silver face came up on the screen: Xaos.

“Minister Cinradahs, of Defence.” Cinradahs announced himself. “I am talking to Xaos, ruler of Xaos?”

“Yes,” Xaos hissed as the camera pulled back, revealing his surrounding. The room was a dull grey, but what Xaos sat upon was a throne carved in gold, with the twin parabola )( engraved into it. “But not just ruler of Xaos. Soon, Raan too will be mine.”

“So you are at war Raan?” Cinradahs asked.

“No.” Xaos replied, another Xaosian taking his place beside his throne. Behind both of them was a white figure that Cinradahs couldn't quite place the species of. “Not Raan. The rest of The Twelve will be ours.”

“Why?” Cinradahs asked.

“Because we can!” roared Xaos. “We have the greatest military might of the Empire. We have Raan in our hands. We could take their military-base easily now that we know their tactics. Or, we could use the Earth-Scorcher on the Sea of Oil, shattering at least a quarter of the planet.” Raan had only one continent which separated two masses of liquid; one of water and one of oil. The Sea of Oil was a huge danger for the planet itself, especially if bombarded with a laser from orbit.

“You wouldn't dare. The interplanetary backlash would destroy you like it did the Adjeti.” Cinradahs threatened.

“I don't know,” Xaos said, “Fear can be one hell of a weapon. They may surrender when they see me decimate Raan.”

“You won't decimate Raan.” growled Cinradahs.

Xaos laughed. “You threaten me.” He grinned. “But I won't decimate Raan if they surrender. You tell Yuki that.” Xaos cut the connection and a black screen stared back at Cinradahs.

“Admiral!” Cinradahs yelled, turning the Admiral's screen back on.

“What?” asked Fairns quickly.

“You need to surrender. Stop your attack now!” Cinradahs said, the tendons on his neck standing out.

“Why?” Fairns asked desperately.

“He will use The Dominion's laser to ignite the Sea of Oil.”

“But...that would shatter Raan,” Fairns exclaimed, “at least a quarter of it would be annihilated, and the rest of Raan may follow.”

“I'm sorry then,” Cinradahs spoke mournfully, “but you must surrender.”

“Not my decision.” Fairns said. “Yuki's the only one who can call the order.”

“I override her. Do it now.” Cinradahs growled, before turning the screen off.

After Cinradahs pushed a button on his desk, a drawer in the front of the desk slid open. Inside was a black cuboid, with a dozen bright red buttons. He pressed two of the buttons and said, “Saiun, find Yuki for me. Now!” before putting the com on the desk and closing the drawer.

He sat still for a moment, before looking down at his hand; it was shaking. He wasn't used to this and he didn't want this; the closest things he'd ever got to this were riots. No interplanetary conflict; the idea that there could be was an alien idea to him.

A voice came back from the com: Saiun. “She's in Presidential Suite 8, sir. Shall I send for her?”

“Yes.” Cinradahs said, as if it was obvious.

Saiun was Cinradahs's deputy-in-training; in case anything happened to Cinradahs, he would be able to take over. Cinradahs saw him as a bright lad, but he was too nervous or shy to make his own decisions. Cinradahs would have to sort that out, especially with war on the way, and the possibility of New Orbus getting attacked.

New Orbus itself was the political centre of the Empire of Twelve, and the capital planet. The Empire, founded by the now-dead Adjeti race hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago, it reverted to human control after the Adjeti's war crimes. Using the World-Burner, the Adjeti destroyed everything on the surface of Orbus, including the entire Orban race. A war against the Adjeti followed, ending with the human Ardican using the World-Burner to destroy the Adjeti homeworld of Oblivion. The floating continent that was New Orbus was established on Orbus, now a barren rock, as a constant memorial to the lost Orban race.

And now Xaos wanted to rule it, using similar tactics to the Adjeti. Except the Adjeti established the Empire, giving all eleven planets the technology of space travel, while ruling from Oblivion. It seemed bliss, until the Orbans questioned their authority and suffered for it.

A knock on the door interrupted Cinradahs's thoughts. “Enter.” he called.

The door opened and a woman, dressed in a red and gold robe, entered: Yuki, the Raanian President. “What do you want to see me about? Your servant said it was urgent.”

Cinradahs felt a pang of annoyance at the description of Saiun a a `servant`. But he put that aside and spoke softly, “You are at war.”

The look of fear and shock on her face expressed his emotions exactly.

Chapter 5: Devilclash

The Hive was unsettled, Devilclash noted. As a Pyrkagias, she was essentially just a Hive-Stone; an insect that controls a hive mind. The Hive made up the rest of her body, controlled by the Hive-Stone. But today, the Hive seemed restless, and the individual bugs would not stay in one place.”Stop it!” she broadcast telepathically from the Hive-Stone; the bugs that formed her mouth were down by her left hand. She had not lost her eyes, though; she could look through any of the bugs that made up her body, or even all at once. But even without them, the Hive-Stone had a sonar-like detection sense. “Stop!” she broadcast again. This time, the bugs actually listened and formed a humanoid shape again. “Thank you.” she said to herself, testing her mouth again. Her voice was more hoarse than usual, but she felt satisfied that all was working as it should.

But the sudden restlessness worried her; the Hive only felt like that in dire times. She remembered the last time she felt like this; on the onset of the Adjeti War. She was young then, centuries ago and, by Pyrkagias standards, still young now. She barely remembered the war itself, but the feeling of your body tearing itself apart and the confusion as you saw out of a hundred pairs of eyes, all moving in the opposite direction, was something she'd never forget.

She closed her eyes and opened the Hive-Stone to the Swarm.

The Swarm was the hive-mind of the entire Pyrkagia race, and all the emotions, knowledge and memories of every Pyrkagias that ever lived resided in it. She searched through it until she found a blazing surge of fear and anger. She honed in it and delved into it.

Fires, flames, fear gripped the building before it toppled. Things flew overhead, spewing fire down upon the land. Raan was doomed.

She closed her mind and was filled with dread: there was a Pyrkagias on Raan, and it was at war. It took all of her resilience to hold her body together as the bugs' instinct was to flee from the danger perceived by the Hive-Stone.

She turned and walked out of her room.

The walls of the corridor she stepped into were pure white, with windows traversing one side of it. Out of the window, Devilclash could see the New Orbus skyline below. Pillars of steel tried to touch the sky, but ultimately failed, while further away from the building she was in, Devilclash could see small dark-red squares, obviously roofs of houses. These had a road cutting through the centre, but the houses had a lot of green area surrounding them.

The building she was in was the Spire, or, as some called it, The Empire Building. This was where the Twelve rulers of the Empire met. As ruler on New Orbus, Lord Tahkshi was the leader of the Twelve, and the other eleven were due to arrive for the monthly conference soon. Yuki of Raan was already here, Devilclash had noticed; her perfume carried a distinctive scent that the bugs choked on.

There were signs on the wall, with signalling the directions for various areas of the building: the Presidential Suite, where the rulers of the Empire stayed, the Senate Room, where Tahkshi met with his ministers, such as Cinradahs, and the Empire Room, where the rulers met with Tahkshi. But Devilclash didn't need those signs; she had been around this building long enough. And even if she hadn't, she wasn't heading to either of the areas listed.

She heard footsteps approaching and she turned to see who it was. Although she need not have bothered, as she started to feel choked up: Yuki. “You.” Yuki said, indicating Devilclash by jutting her chin upwards, “Where is Cinradahs?”

“Up the corridor and round the corner.” Devilclash said, in pain from the scent.

Yuki strutted down the corridor and Devilclash returned to normal, the Hive trying to breath easily again. She shook her head: Yuki didn't even thank her. Although, Devilclash remembered, her planet is at war.

Using the Hive, Devilclash hovered above the ground now, careful not to make a sound as she went to Cinradahs's office; she wasn't sure if she was supposed to be there, but curiosity was in her nature.

Yuki knocked at the door. A voice answered, but Devilclash didn't hear what it said; it was too muffled. She figured it must have been “come in”, because Yuki entered, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Devilclash moved closer and heard Cinradahs say: “You are at war.”

There was silence for a moment, but then Devilclash heard a choked cry of “Impossible.”

“I am afraid it is not.” Cinradahs said calmly. “I have advised Admiral Fairns to surrender to the Xaosian forces.”

“The Xaosians? Why am I not surprised...” Yuki swore. “And why surrender?” she spat at Cinradahs.

“On the Xaosians ship, they have a weapon akin to the World-Burner; they threatened to use it on the Sea of Oil.” Cinradahs said, slowly and carefully, as if talking to a child. “That will destroy Raan. They won't use it if you surrender.”

The World-Burner: the Hive hissed at the very mention of the machine. Adjeti and Pyrkagia were locked in a devastating war decades before the World-Burner was created. In fact, the Adjeti were the only beings to ever discover how to kill Pyrkagia.

Yuki seemed in distress. “We-well, what about the Orbital Defence System?”

“Admiral Fairns,” Cinradahs called. There was a tapping sounds, like someone typing on a V-Board before Cinradahs continued. “Admiral. What is the state of the Orbital Defence System?”

Devilclash sent one of the Hive bugs to the doors and looked through its eyes. Everything was suddenly huge, but she could see the screens now. A middle-aged human dressed in a sleek silver armour, different to the white and grey of the others behind him. “Minister. My lady.” The Admiral nodded to each of them respectively.

“Have you surrendered yet?” Yuki asked.

“No, but we will when we get your confirmation.” Fairns looked at Cinradahs, “I'm sorry Minister, but I can't act without Yuki's approval.”

Cinradahs slammed his fist down on the desk, scaring the Hive. Bugs scattered briefly, before rejoining again. “I try and help your world.” Cinradahs growled, “And you throw it away because of your refusal to help yourself.”

Yuki jolted, but then regained her posture, looking more haughty than ever; she obviously liked annoying Cinradahs, even in this time. “Admiral Fairns, what is the state of the ODS?” she shot a smug smile at Cinradahs.

“Almost non-existent.” Fairns said sorrowfully. “I'm sorry, but there are very few cannons left. Two at my last count.”

The smug smile melted from Yuki's face. “What?”

“The Dominion's weapon destroyed them all.” Fairns said, shaking his head.

“Well...then...” Yuki seemed to be lost for words, before she yelled, “Use the remaining cannons and destroy The Dominion! Target the weapons and bring it down! We will not surrender!”

Devilclash reeled the Hive bug back into her body; it made up part of her left hand. She had heard enough: with that unrelenting woman in charge, Raan was going to die. She passed a framed picture of Orbus before it was scorched. Luscious, green plantlife filled the picture, with only a few small buildings scattered among it; it reminded her of her home on Buun. She wondered how the Orbans would view this massive, floating city as a memorial in contrast to their nature-embracing world. She had once delved into Swarm memories to get a glimpse of Orbus, but she could not find much, and what she could find was either after it's scorching, or locked away; some Pyrkagia didn't want to share their memories, and thus put inhibitors on their Hive-Stone. Usually these were for military or governmental reasons, but sometimes there were others, usually intimate, that were locked away. She felt a pang of sadness that she had never been in her childhood, but the Adjeti had imposed strict travel sanctions on the Pyrkagia after the Adjeti/Pyrkagia war; they were confined to Buun.

She continued down the corridor and into the Planetarium.

In the centre of the dark room was a huge ball of light; Solus, the star that eleven of the Twelve orbited. Around Solus were smaller spheres; not to full scale, or else they would have been dwarfed by Solus. There was the brown Rat'hak, the orange K'hrak, the blue Quarus, the silver Irin, the light grey Raan, the black Xaos, the red Prauw, the white Narcsia, the green Buun, the yellow Tras and the dull grey of New Orbus. Around another smaller star was another black planet: Oblivion. Devilclash reached up and grabbed the Virtual-Model of Oblivion and pulled it down to her. The artist who had made had even put tiny ruins on it; it truly looked dead, unlike Orbus, which seemed as though it had never been lived on.

She left the Planetarium through its other door and walked along a busier corridor. People barged past her, knowing the Hive out of place; she was no good in crowded places. Most of them were human but there was other species marching through the corridors: the reptilian Scalimen of Narcsia, here to escape their dying world; the strange Trasmen, whose hair had a literal mind of its own, and Quarens who wore a tank-like device around the neck to provide oxygen to their gills; their world was largely underwater. There was even a Hak'i, with its tusks trimmed to stop any accidental impaling. Devilclash looked around, but could see no other Pyrkagia; not unusual for a public place outside of Buun.

Devilclash put her discomfort aside and pressed on, pushing through the crowd. It took all of her resolve to keep her self together, despite the temptation to do otherwise. Out of all of her eyes, there were people standing, moving, walking. Out of all of her ears there were people talking into phones or to each other; it was deafening. From any of her angles, it was difficult to see the walls of the corridor. But she persevered.

After what felt like an eternity, she emerged from the corridor. There was still a lot of people here, but this hall was huge and could easily accommodate thousands. She headed to the left side of the room and walked along until she found the door she was looking for, before knocking.

“Come in.” came a voice from within.

Devilclash did so. “Ah, Devilclash!” the Irinian sitting in the chair exclaimed. “How are you?”

Irinians were nicknamed Cyborgs for a simple reason; their electronic implants and augmentations. The augmentations allowed them to store knowledge, become faster and stronger, whilst being able to directly control their bodily processes by repression. Also, to protect against the vicious storms that frequented Irin, they had metal fibres woven into their skin.

“I'm good thanks, Seir,” Devilclash said, “but not for long, I think.”

“Why?” Seir asked.

Devilclash left an hour later with a heavy feeling in her heart; she started the walk happily, just wanting to see her friend, but instead she had told him about the onset of war.

Chapter 6: Tors

The windows were shook and rattled by the wind, while a substance from the sky hit and burned the windows: acid rain. Trees were uprooted, flying past Tors's pockmarked window. He looked at the devastation outside. The statue of Ardican in the town square was half melted, the stone face sliding down its leg. There was nothing outside; nothing living anyway. Dead birds lined the streets, the feathers burnt by the rain. Some had their necks snapped from where the wind had dashed them against buildings. Everyone remained inside, only a few with the window hue set to transparent.

The planet Narcsia was tearing itself apart.

“At least the earthquakes have stopped.” Tors muttered to himself, trembling. He noticed that his scales had turned a dull red with worry, rather than the bright red they once were.

“What?” came a voice from upstairs.

The house Tors lived in was very traditional. There were three floors, with an escalator to each. Each person living in the house had their own floor, Tors with the middle. His house-mates had the others: Pandora downstairs, Emola upstairs.

“I said “at least the earthquakes have stopped!”” Tors called, coiling up his tail as he sat down.

“I know.” Emola called. “That was pretty bleedin' obvious, if you ask me!”

Tors's scale briefly shifted darker, before returning to their usual state. “It was just an observation!” Tors said, annoyed.

“Well it was a stupid one.” Emola said as he glided off the escalator. He nodded to the other escalator, “Pandora up yet?”

Tors chuckled, his reptilian lips curling up into a smile. “Her, up before dawn?”

His companion expressed a small smile at that. “Yeah true, should've thought about that.”

The rain battering the window seemed to pick up in pace and it seemed like the window might buckle. Luckily, the acid rain appeared to be mixed in with normal water rain, judging by the lack of new burns on the window. But the rain came harder and harder and Tors was sure that the window would have shattered if it was made of glass like usual windows, rather than a reinforced plastic.

“Tors!” Emola called, looking out of the other window.

“What?” Tors said, mesmerised by the pounding rain; the winds were so powerful, it was almost raining sideways.

“Naarl's house is... destroyed.” Emola said, his deep-blue scales growing darker. “I think he's dead.”

“No.” Tors whispered and hurried over to the window. Emola was right; the house was split down the middle by a tree, the trunk almost as thick as the house. There was no way Naarl, especially at his age, could have survived. “Poor guy.”

“Yeah...”

They fell into a respectful silence.

Tors went over to the table and turned on the Screen. Static greeted him. He grimaced and turned the screen off; the weather was even messing with the video signals. They had no way of communicating with the outside world now.

“Signal out?” Emola asked, glancing over at Tors.

“Yeah.” Tors said, before punching the cushioned chair. “Damn it!”

Emola gave Tors a strange look. “There's nothing you can do about it, and blaming the chair isn't going to help anyone, especially not the chair.”

“That's the thing,” Tors clenched his fists, “We have no control. No say if we live or die. We could all die like Naarl,” he gestured in the direction of his house, “without meaning or warning.”

“I'd rather not have a warning,” Emola said, “that way it doesn't haunt you.”

“I'd like a warning.” Tors said, more to himself than to Emola. “Have time to prepare.”

“Nah.” Emola shook his head. “Enjoy life until the end, I say.”

Tors pointed to the window. “Enjoying life right now?”

“You know what I mean. Oh, morning Pandora!”

Pandora emerged from up the escalator and stepped off less than gracefully as she tripped on the edge. As she fell, her hair reached out, grabbed a door handle, and pulled Pandora back up before it wrapped itself around her. She looked nervously up at the others and gave a shaky grin. “Is it morning? I cen't tell, it's so dark.”

Emola nodded at the escalator. “Nearly slipping there?”

“Nearly, yes. Thet's the best bit about being a Trasman; the hair looks out for you.” She spoke to her now, like a mother to a child, “Don't you? You look out for me, don't you?”

“That always creeps me out.” Emola said to Tors, gesturing to Pandora.

Pandora laughed. “Well, what do you Scalimen have? Big tails that are in your way? Oh dear...” She put on a mock frown before investigating, then sitting down on the cushioned chair. “I wish you wouldn't abuse the furniture Tors, this thing was frayed enough.”

“Does it really matter?” Tors said, his scales burning dark red.

“Calm down.” Pandora gestured at his scales. “Just a joke. You can wreck whatever you went in here, we cen't take it with us tomorrow.”

“If Evacuation-Day is still tomorrow and not delayed again.” Tors said dismally, “If it hadn't been, Naarl – across the road – would still be alive.”

Pandora's smile fell. “Yeah, I heard you say. He wes like a mentor to me, learning me the ways of Narcsia.”

“He will be missed,” Emola said, suddenly serious.

“He will.” Pandora said.

The storm raged outside.

There was a creak from upstairs.

“What was that?” Emola asked.

A deafening crack echoed as the winds tore the house's roof from its foundations. Tors watched it fly into the air, before being devoured by the storm, reduced to rubble in seconds.

“Close the door!” Tors yelled. Emola obeyed as water rushed down the escalator as the top floor flooded. The door click shut, then hissed as it sealed to be waterproof.

Tors let a breath out; that could have been bad. He looked back outside and he could see the winds ripping the upper walls to shreds. Soon, the ceiling above him would go, and those walls would be torn away. Down would be the only way to go, with a frantic dash as a torrent of water and acid storming behind them. Wind would take hold of their possessions and use them in combat, whilst grabbing Tors in its claws. Tors would prevail, but Pandora falls. Emola picks her up and drags her down the escalator, calling for Tors, who does not hear over the roaring winds. But he eventually finds the strength to pull himself up, muscles straining and, against Narcsia's apparent wishes, he throws himself down the escalator, closing the door to be watertight. Looking outside, Pandora makes a half-hearted quip about the cushioned chair flying past but then fell back into silence.

And all Tors could do was watch the chair spin, hoping that it wouldn't get revenge and puncture a window.

They were down to one last ceiling.

One last hope.

Chapter 7: Foton

With the cold metal railing in his hands, Foton leaned over the balcony; a large semi-circle that jutted out of the Spire not far from its pointed peak. From here, Foton could see to the edge of New Orbus and to the dusty stone ruins of Orbus beyond. He looked down to the streets surrounding the Spire. There were landmobiles on the grey roads, their anti-gravity generators negating the need for wheels. Foton disliked landmobiles; they didn't have the sense of freedom that aeros had. The aeros had full 3-Dimensional movement, within certain bounds; they were to go no higher than 1500 Standards due to aerospace regulations. Sometimes, Foton wished he could forget his responsibilities and just fly, free of society's restraints and the bounds of gravity.

Foton moved along the balcony, his arms gliding along the smooth metal railing. From this position, he could see more of the parks that been specially grown for this metal hulk of a landmass. While he could not see the people in them, he knew that there would be children there, playing together under the watchful eyes of their parents; this wasn't like Raan, where children were brought up by Raisers. Further away, Foton could see the ten biodomes, each mimicking the average climate of one of the other planets in the Twelve, aside from Oblivion. This allowed New Orbus to grow food and host animals from all of the planets, not having to rely on trade in case of emergency. These were huge, each the size of small towns or large villages; the populace were not running out of food any-time soon. These were guarded by a collection of orbital systems, which Foton could just about make out from his viewpoint as a group of silver dots in the sky. But these were no-where near as well protected as the Anti-Gravity generator that suspended New Orbus above the surface of Orbus. Not only were they monitored by a stealth-orbital system, but their locations were kept a secret, with several decoys. Each had a mag-pulse generator, to repel high-speeding metal projectiles, and the thick, dense casing should be enough to repel orbital cannons. From his viewpoint, Foton could see one of the decoys; he knew where the real one was. These were giant cuboid buildings, stretching almost 1000 Standards into the sky; unmissable, but necessary to house the hulking machinery within.

He started as a sound disturbed him. Turning, he saw an Irinian woman walking towards him. She was tall, but not as tall as Foton, and very slender. At certain angles, her skin had a faint silver shimmer; metal fibres were inserted into Irinians' skin at birth to protect against the planet's weather. Running along the left side of her face, stretching from eye to her ear, before travelling down to the side of her mouth was an Irinian Augmentation, or Aug for short. “Foton,” she said, bowing her head.

“No need to bow to me, Teriva.” Foton said, smiling. “What brings you here?”

“I came to see Tahkshi,”Teriva said. “You're his bodyguard, where is he?”

“He's gone to talk to someone.” Foton answered solemnly. “Have you heard about Raan?”

Teriva sighed. “Yeah. And still my sister refuses to come to the capital.”

“Maybe Arias doesn't want to pledge her armies in a war that may only last a few days,” Foton suggested, “although the Xaosians are pretty serious; they're not gonna give up.”

“Exactly.” Teriva agreed. She ran a hand through her black hair. “I only came here to Tahkshi, and now I'm a political mediator.”

“Tell me about it.” Foton said light-heartedly, “I'm practically an ambassador for Prauw.”

Teriva chuckled, twisting her mouth as if trying to hide her smile. “I never knew you were from Prauw.” she said, folding her arms. “I always assumed Raan.”

“Wha', and talk like this, ma'e?” Foton said in a Raanian accent.

“Wow...” Teriva said, “You should be an enemy of Raan for that accent! And I meant the wealthier parts.”

“Nah, Prauw. It's not the best place, but it's simple.” Foton stated.

Teriva nodded, “Simple's good.”

They fell into silence for a moment, before Foton's pocket emitted a high-pitched squeal. He pulled a com out of it and pressed the button in the centre. “Foton here.”

“I know,” came the voice of Lord Tahkshi, president of the Empire of Twelve, “otherwise your com wouldn't be ringing. Can you pick up Devilclash and meet me at Buun's com-room?”

“Why?” asked Foton, annoyed at Tahkshi's sarcastic comment.

“Because Buun would be a good ally in our war with the Xaosians.” Tahkshi said.

“Alright then.” Foton said, before glancing over at Teriva. “By the way, Teriva's here.”

“Is she?” Tahkshi's voice sounded more enthused now. “Pass me over please.”

Foton mentally grinned as he passed the com over; one mention of Teriva would suddenly make Tahkshi polite. Teriva began talking into the com, but Foton ignored her; it didn't matter to him what they were saying. There was a sudden giggling and Foton saw Teriva's cheeks redden. She waked over to Foton, still talking into the com. “Love you too!” she called into the com, before passing it back to Foton, who raised an eyebrow; she was acting like the child she would've been thirty years ago.

“So, the Buun com-room with Devilclash?” Foton affirmed.

“Yeah, see you soon.” Tahkshi finished, before the com began to buzz; the call was over. Foton pushed the com's button and the buzzing stopped, before replacing it in his pocket.

“What are you doing now?” Foton asked Teriva.

“I'm going to wait for him here.” she said, leaning on the balcony's railing. “You should probably be going.”

“See you later.” Foton said, turning away.

He walked into the Spire, before entering an elevator, which took him down to the penultimate floor. From there, he went into the Tracking room, where he went over to the central computer and placed his thumb on the pad in front of it. This checked his thumbprint against the one on the database, whilst monitoring his pulse to make sure that there was one, or that he was not panicked or coerced into opening the system. A red light turned green and the screen turned on, displaying a map of each of the Spire's floors, all of them covered with blue shapes. Each blue shape was a bodyguard, all of whom had chips implanted in them; in Devilclash's case, it was attached to the Hive-Stone rather than in the neck. The Tracking room's purpose was to allow Foton, as the chief bodyguard, to find and track the other guards. He brought up a search box and typed in “DEVILCLASH-pyr”. She was on the seventh floor, standing in the main hall. Foton sighed; the Buun room was on the floor below the one he was on, nowhere near the seventh. For a moment, he wondered why Tahkshi hadn't just commed her as well, but then he remembered that Devilclash couldn't carry a com with her all the time. On the way out of the room, he spied the old building-com; this allowed him to communicate with everyone in the building, or on one floor, at once. He dusted it off and plugged it in, before selecting Floor 7 from the menu. He cleared his throat, before saying, “Devilclash, please meet Foton outside the Buun com-room. Repeat, Devilclash to the Buun com-room.” He watched Devilclash's dot move towards the nearest elevator. Foton smiled and nodded, before walking out of the Tracking Room and moving towards the stairs to the floor beneath.

Twelve doors set in a circle greeted him as he arrived on the com-floor. The door he had came through and another door led to stairs, spiralling in opposing directions; one up, one down. The other ten doors led to separate com rooms; one for each of the Twelve, aside from New Orbus and Oblivion. One to Foton's left had “BUUN” engraved on a plaque attached to it. Pressing his ear to the door, Foton could hear Tahkshi's soft and soothing “political voice”.

“Should you really be listening?” came a rasping voice.

“Devilclash,” Foton said, turning to see the Pyrkagias. “You got here quickly.”

She began to walk over to him, but her feet didn't touch the floor; they never did. “D.” Foton asked, “Why do you bother to do the actions? Or even look human?”

“The Primary recommends it, so that we can fit in.” Devilclash said, “It doesn't work though, people still tend keep away from us. Also, I think it's a nice form.”

“It is.” Foton admired the Pyrkagia; powerful, immortal and somewhat graceful. For a swarm of bugs, anyway.

The door to the Buun com-room opened and Lord Tahkshi emerged, his red and gold lord's robe billowing behind him. “Foton. Devilclash.” Tahkshi acknowledged them both with a brief nod.

“Why did you want us, sir?” Foton asked.

“Well, Foton, I'm pretty sure you know your job description; you're my bodyguard, and you will guard my body.” Tahkshi said. Foton bit back a retort. “And you, Devilclash; partially for the same reason, but also because of your species. The Pykagian Primary refuses to talk over coms; we have to go to Buun to ask for his help.” Tahkshi turned to Foton. “I'm assuming you've never been to Buun before?”

“You assume wrong.” said Foton.

“Really?” Tahkshi said, his voice going higher-pitched in his surprise. “Good. Nixiin has the ship ready for us, so can you two go there now? I'm going to see Teriva quickly.”

“You had better be quick.” Foton said, his deep voice becoming more of a growl.

Tahkshi ignored him and walked away at a brisk pace.

Devilclash turned to Foton. “Have you really been to Buun?”

“Yes.” Foton said. “I wouldn't lie to my client.”

“But you hate him.” Devilclash stated; not a question, but an utterance of fact.

“Not hate.” Foton said. “Distaste, but not hate. And it's a matter of honour; I am bound to protect him.”

“So, why'd you go to Buun?” Devilclash asked.

Foton paused for a moment, before looking at Devilclash and saying, “Fancied a change of scenery.”

She gave Foton a strange look and said “Okay then.”

He nodded, before turning and walking to the stairs heading downwards, knowing that she didn't believe him.

Chapter 8: Strom

Strom was forced back in his seat as the Stinger gave a throaty roar and did away with the bonds of gravity. The titanic Crushers, more of them still moving towards the bridge, seemed like ants; albeit ants that could fight back. Even the skyscrapers did not look so imposing as Strom grew level with their highest floors. Curtains were drawn in many that he could see, but some buildings had had their entire top floor obliterated, yet few were too much worse. One, Strom could see, was leaning to the left, bricks and glass running down its underside as though it was crying.

To his side, Strom could see Olaf and Ilisa, each piloting their own Stingers. Olaf caught Strom looking and saluted mockingly. Strom chuckled; Olaf could never take anything seriously, unlike his sister, who simply gave him a brief nod and a reassuring smile.

And then they met the Reapers.

Larger than the Stingers, the black Reapers were just as fast and twice as dangerous; even the black colouring helped them disappear into the night. Thermo-locking missiles were mounted on the wings of both craft, but the Reapers also had a chain-gun under the nose-cone; these deadly weapon fired large, nail-like bullets, which detonate their deadly interiors seconds after impact; ideal for destroying aircraft. Reapers were not tools of defence, only indiscriminate killing machines.

Strom swerved, two thermo-missiles narrowly missing their target. Strom looked at the screen to his right; it showed a view from the rear camera. The missiles stopped in mid-air, before turning and darting back at Strom. As they drew closer, Strom veered to the left. The missiles shot past, but Strom was on them now, and fired his own. The four missiles collided and detonated together, flames billowing backwards in the air. A Reaper darted past Strom, its tail-fin scraping the Stinger's wing. Inside, Strom caught a glimpse of the Xaosian inside, who glared back with black eyes.

A crackle of static came over the radio, before Admiral Fairns's voice said, “All pilots, come in. We have orders from President Yuki to engage The Dominion. This attack is of paramount importance; the Xaosians have threatened to ignite the Sea of Oil. Our ODS is near enough depleted and destroyed. Forget Tapal, forget your families, forget your friends. Here, we fight for our planet. Up there, I want you to fight for yourselves; I want you to win, and if – I say if – we lose, we lose kicking and screaming all the way. Forget honour now; we fight for our lives. I will be taking to the air myself soon, leaving the ground forces in the command of General Trexor. Begin your assault.”

In the Stinger's cockpit, Strom pulled a lever, and the cockpit was airlocked; nothing got out, and nothing got in. Instead, plant-based filters changed the carbon dioxide he exhaled back into oxygen to be inhaled again; perfect for space flight. Following Ilisa, Strom shot upwards. As he got higher, the cockpit turned cold, so he flicked the switch which activated the solar-powered heaters. The heat coming off of the small pads on his seat relaxed his body, as if he was in a warm bath. But his mind stayed resolute as the Stinger was slung into a higher form of darkness.

For a moment, Strom felt weightless before the gravity compensators adjusted themselves. There were few Reapers up at this height; most were in Raan's skies. Instead, twisted and burnt spirals of metal floated in front of him, slowly turning like gears in a broken clock. Strom weaved in and out of the ruins of the ODS until finally he saw it.

The Dominion.

Only visible by the Solus's reflection in its solar panels, The Dominion was a sight to behold. A wedge-shaped slice of pure darkness and, judging by the number of gun emplacements, a machine of destruction. As the Stingers converged on the Flagship, its hull was lit up with the smallest of flashes; merely the impact of the missiles on the behemoth's force field, which acted as an invisible, thicker hull; it could be breached, eventually. Flashes illuminated the gun emplacements as they fired; hulking, cylindrical constructions, there were four smaller cylinders on both its left and right, with a command centre at the top. Strom briefly saw three Xaosians in one such command centre, as the smaller cylinders fired their deadly cargo, recoil only affecting them slightly. The cannon-fire did not cause the Stingers that were in its path to explode, or at least, not in the conventional way; normally, explosions are associated with flames and crashes, but in space, neither of those things can happen. Instead, the Stingers are simply forced apart by the impact of the explosive shell, before the explosion scatters them in every direction. No sound, no flames, no collateral.

As the cannons fired again, a Stinger near to him was caught in the missile's path. The nosecone was forced back into the cockpit, before it shattered and the remains of the pilot were ejected forcefully. The nosecone, still being forced backwards, crushed into the back of the craft, which began to disintegrate. The wings came apart, as did the tail fin. The ammunition and cannons came loose from their riggings and floated away from the ship, where the nosecone had finally emerged from the rear of the Stinger. Then, the missile exploded, and the pieces were scattered like shrapnel, which cut into the nearby Stingers. Strom shoved the joystick to the left, and the Stinger rolled like a ball to the left, narrowly avoiding a large chunk of what appeared to be part of a the Stinger's wing.

Strom fired on The Dominion, missiles storming towards it. But none hit the flagship, detonating just meters from the hull; the forcefield still wasn't down. Strom flew along the length of the flagship, peppering it with the thermo-locking missiles. Small explosions flashed briefly as they hit the forcefield, blending in with hundreds of others. Stingers were forced apart all around him and he would see the pilots float out, clutching their throats as their breath was stolen away. Some, Strom recognised; most, he did not. Just nameless faces that he may never forget, eyes begging for help and mercy from anyone who could. But no-one could deliver.

Strom came across one of the functioning cannons of the Orbital Defence System. The tubular object had two solar panels jutting out of it, with an antenna-like dish on the end of it. Poking out of the centre of the dish was a long, slim cone with a rounded top; this was where the ammunition was fired from. Hundreds of small explosives dwelled inside the satellite, all on a chain-fire belt. Thanks to the belt, they were shot at extremely high velocities and, due to their small size, were excellent armour-penetrators. What struck Strom, however, was that it wasn't firing. He stopped his Stinger next to it, engaging the craft's gravity-locks. Pressing a button under his seat, a small compartment behind the seat opened. Inside was a standard-issue spacesuit, designed for short excursions into space. As it was standard issue, it shrank or grew to fit any shape, size or species. Strom wriggled into it and put the helmet on; it was too big for him and his head seemed lost inside it, but the airlocks closed around the suit's collar as he plugged the helmet into the Stinger's oxygen supply.

He opened the cockpit.

Even through the spacesuit, Strom felt a breeze as air was sucked from the craft. He drifted off of the seat, and quickly grabbed the side of the cockpit to steady himself. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm his breathing. This won't be like before. The memory of before only made him think of falling, drifting, dying. Olaf can't save me this time. He remembered his friend's hand, grasping his own. At that point, Strom could barely see, but he took the hand which flailed in front of him before being crammed into a Stinger and passing out. Strom's heart raced as he thought about it, but then he remembered Fairns's words: “we fight for our planet”. Gulping, Strom rose from his seat, going into a crouching position. His hand shook as it gripped the edge of the seat. He noticed that, unconsciously, both hands were gripping tight, and that the rubber supports on the seat had split slightly. Breathing in, he pushed away from the seat. Drifting forwards, Strom flailed to try and grab the satellite. His fingers touched the side of it.

And slipped away.

Panicking, Strom flailed once more, heart speeding up. This was just like before, just as he feared. But with no-one to save him, he was as good as dead, lost in space, just one of the corpses that he'd seen floating in the endless void.

The oxygen cord snapped taut and Strom stopped with an abrupt halt. He let out a deep breath, which he didn't realise he had been holding in. He swam through space, as if doing the breast-crawl. Drifting slowly back towards the satellite, Strom realised that he had worried for nothing. Last time, before, he remembered that the cord had snapped; he relied solely on the backup oxygen supply in the small cannisters embedded in the suit.

Approaching the satellite once more, he put his hand out, slowly and carefully this time. He felt the touch of cold metal through the spacesuit's gloves as his hand clasped a ridge on the side of the Orbital Cannon. He dragged himself closer, painfully slamming his body into the metal surface, making him wince as his ribs erupted with pain again.

The satellite was larger than he had expected when he had first seen it; it was close to the size of a small house, obviously to house all of the ammunition as they did not get serviced often. Clambering along it, Strom searched for an access panel. The panel would not be large, only big enough for an arm to fit in and fix any software faults; the satellites were controlled completely by a special AI, which would sort and fix any mechanical failures. With the solar panels powering it, the AI would never go offline. Hence, the only reason for the cannon not firing would be a failure within the AI, which should be fixed by rebooting the system.

Strom barely felt the groove of the access panel through his gloves, but he knew it was there; perhaps the absence of sound heightened his sense of touch. He considered this as he thought never would've been able to feel that normally.... He wrapped his fingers around the edges and slid the panel open. Inside was a small screen with a touchscreen keypad. Strom entered the numbers 7719: the reboot code. The screen went black, before some white text came up saying “REBOOTING”. Beneath was a bar which was slowly lengthening. Strom nodded, satisfied with the job he'd done. He pushed himself off of the satellite, towards his Stinger. Pulling himself into the seat once more, he closed the cockpit and sealed the airlocks again before quickly stripping off the spacesuit. Disengaging the gravity-locks, the craft began to move again and Strom steered it away from the Orbital Cannon while he slowly counted down, nodding to each number.

Just before he reached “one”, the cannon fired.

A barrage of missiles tore into The Dominion's forcefield, flashes exploding like miniature stars in the space around it. Strom veered towards the flagship, as did many of the other Stingers, and they rained fire down upon it. They flew the length of the ship again, and still more and more Stingers were destroyed, but The Dominion was untouched. Strom pulled up, ready for another swoop when he saw part of The Dominion's hull splinter.

“The forcefield is down!” yelled Admiral Fairns over the speaker. “Concentrate all fire on The Dominion!”

A surge of adrenaline rushed through Strom as he turned the Stinger around, ready for another bombardment. A missile narrowly missed his ship and destroyed the orbital cannon he had just fixed. Strom felt a pang of annoyance at the fact that all of the effort he had gone to repair it was now for naught; it had helped bring the forcefield down, but now it was useless. He looked back at The Dominion just in time to see two huge panels at the bottom of the ship slowly slide away from each other. Out of the ravine that was left behind emerged a semi-spherical device, with a cylindrical object in the centre. The device was covered in solar panels, which slowly lit up one by one as it absorbed the Solus's light. With a sudden panic, Strom knew what was about to happen.

A deep growl came over the speakers; a Xaosian voice. “You ignored my warning.”

The Dominion's Earth-Scorcher fired on the Sea of Oil.

Chapter 9: Trexor

Trexor watched the screens as snipers surrounded the Xaosian camp at the base of the bridge; they had regrouped there in the last hour. The snipers moved under cover of darkness, scaling the buildings around the camp, sights trained on the invaders. Trexor's team of soldiers may not even be needed; the Xaosians had very few ground troops left as most stayed in the skies above Tapal. “You ready?” Trexor asked his team; better to be safe than sorry. He waited for them all to nod to him, before he spoke into his com.

“Go.”

The snipers fired, but the Xaosians were ready, their own snipers following back the bullet trails to the Raanians in the skyscrapers. The Raanians, however, were not in the open and were barely visible in the dark buildings and more of their bullets hit their targets than the Xaosians'. Trexor turned to his men. “The Xaosians aren't as submissive to our snipers as we hoped; they have their own. So we're gonna go out there, and we're gonna end this battle on land, and hope the others can end it in the air!” The doors of the base opened, and the soldiers rushed out, taking cover behind makeshift barriers; the ruins of the earlier battle. Gun fire cracked through the air as they took the Xaosians unaware. The gun felt light in Trexor's hand and he noted how guns used to have a recoil before the R-Suppressors were installed in the gun's chambers.

The Xaosians began to fire back, bullets at first. Some tore into Trexor's comrades, piercing the armour and drawing blood. Some died instantly, but Trexor would worry about those later. He fired on one particular Xaosian three times before seeing it go down, weapon still clutched in its hand. At the edge of his vision, he saw something dart past, before the Xaosian camp was engulfed in smoke. Trexor looked up and saw a Stinger fly into the hangar bay. He noticed the white stripe which ran the length of it and knew that it was Admiral Fairns.

“Everyone, back inside!” Trexor yelled over the sound of gunshots. “Now!” He laid down covering fire as the others ran inside; he didn't hit many Xaosians, but enough to let his soldiers escape. He moved backwards, still firing, until he reached the base, whereupon the thick doors slid shut once again. Trexor left his soldiers and ran up a flight of stairs to the hangar bay, where Admiral Fairns was climbing out of his Stinger. “Sir?” Trexor said, with an upwards inflection.

“The forcefield of The Dominion is down; it's only a matter of time before Xaos will need to bargain with us.” Fairns said, smiling. “We have won!”

They went back down the stairs and Trexor headed over to the array of computers and found Tya. He spoke to her, making her jump. She placed a hand on her chest and “Bloody hell, you scare' the life ex' of me!”

“Sorry.” Trexor said with a smile. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did today. You helped me save Tapal today, and the state will reward you well for this.”

Tya smiled, but tried to hide it, twisting her face into a faux-neutral expression. “No need at all, just doing my duty.”

“And you are proud of it. And so you should be.” Trexor said with a smile, not bothering to hide his mild amusement with her shyness. “You shouldn't hide your smile, y'know; it's beautiful.”

This time she did smile, but she didn't bother to hide it this time. Her cheeks turned slightly pink as she blushed. “Thank you.” Tya said quietly; Trexor barely heard her. She wriggled in her seat, before saying, slightly louder, “After this is over, do you wan'...do you wan' to go ex' sometime?”

Trexor smiled slightly; there may be nearly ten years age difference between the two, but he couldn't help but feel attracted to her. “Sure.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Love to.”

She jumped and threw her arms around his chest; she couldn't reach his neck. Her head was buried in his chest as she said, “Thank you.”

There was a sudden muttering behind him, and Tya let go as she saw the monitors behind him. Trexor turned and saw The Dominion on the screens. Part of it was sliding open. A growl echoed from all of the monitors.

“You ignored my warning.”

“How'd they jack the monitors?” yelled one technician.

But no-one listened as a red beam shot from the bottom of the monolithic flagship.

The room froze in shock, before Fairns yelled “Get me a visual on the Impact Zone, now! Trexor, get hold of one of the Space Team!”

Trexor turned to Tya's console and brought up the Com-Screen. Keying in a 7-digit number on the touchpad, he spoke to the screen. “Space Team, come in.” There was no answer. “Space Team, this is General Trexor. Someone please answer.” Trexor was greeted only by static. “Admiral, they've knocked out our communication!”

“Try it again!” Fairns roared; Trexor could tell that he was petrified; it was the madness in his eyes.

“Sir, we have visual on the Earth-Scorcher!” called a young man, his voice wavering. He didn't look a week older than Eighteen; for all Trexor knew, it could very well be his first week here.

“Put it on the big screens.” Fairns said, deceptively clam; like the calm before the storm.

The image was put on the big screen and Trexor flinched.

Chapter 10: Strom

The sky was ablaze.

Strom could see it from orbit, the once-black oil sea now engulfed by orange-red flames. He imagined the flames licking at the land and spreading, destroying everything in their way. People burning, animals burning, buildings crumbling, and atop it all standing the Xaosian army, claiming the resulting wasteland as their own.

He shook his head and dispelled the image. A voice came over his com. “Strom?” The voice was female and the voice shook; Ilisa's usually strong voice was barely recognisable.

“Ilisa, it'll be okay.” Strom said, his voice cracking. He noticed a sensation is his eyes and at the back of his throat. He fought it back, swallowing hard.

“No Strom,” Ilisa said. This time, when she spoke, she breathed in short, sharp bursts; she was crying. “It's not going to be okay. You know it's not, I know it's not; don't treat me like a kid.”

Strom let out a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, trying to calm down but with no avail. Family, friends, children, all potentially doomed on Raan. Tapal was far away from the Sea of Oil, but there were many cities and towns lining the route. A rescue mission should be taking place, but there would be no point; people near the coast could see the flames, looming over them, breaking the barricades that kept the oil out, and tearing into the landscape. He would help, but he had his orders.

Xaos can not be allowed to escape.

“Ilisa, cover me!” Strom yelled into the com, as he veered towards The Dominion.

“Will do.” Ilisa said. “Olaf, do the same.”

“G-gotcha.” Olaf's usual jovial voice was cracked and unrecognisable.

As he neared The Dominion, Ilisa and Olaf laid down fire upon the Reapers surrounding it, staying just behind Strom in a triangular formation. Strom fired on The Dominion, punching small holes in the ship's hull. Concentrating his fire on one area, he felt a warm satisfaction when a few Xaosians were sucked out into the vacuum of space, but it was only a shallow distraction. His chest felt constricted and his forehead slick with sweat, and neither had anything to do with his strike on The Dominion.

The flagship's engines glowed orange, before it started to move. “Xaos is fleeing!” yelled one of the other pilots over the ship's com. As The Dominion sped up, Strom tried to follow, the Stinger's engines being pushed to the limit as he did so, before The Dominion activated it L-Drive and disappeared into the depths of space, leaving only Reapers behind.

“Let's ge' back to the ground.” Strom said to Ilisa and Olaf. “I imagine they could use all the help they can ge'.”

Strom turned the Stinger around and shot back down towards Tapal. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the flames from the Sea of Oil engulf the coast, presumably destroying coastal towns such as Grist and Jheak. He forced himself to look away. “Strom!” Olaf yelled, “We got Reapers on our tail!”

Something hit Strom's ship, and he knew Olaf was right. Going in to a barrel roll, he avoided more of the Reapers' attacks. As he rolled to the left, he cast his gaze back and saw the two Reapers, each firing from the chain-gun on their nosecone. The nail-like bullet in Strom's Stinger exploded, taking out one of his thrusters;only four left now. The screen blinked a brief warning before Strom slapped it, swiftly dismissing it. “Olaf, Ilisa, how are you faring?”

“One wing's been taken out!” Ilisa shouted quickly; panicked. “I've got it under control for now though.”

“They've split up now,” Olaf said, the slight waver in his voice suggested to Strom that he was trying to keep a level tone. “One's following Strom, and the other...I think we've lost it!” Strom could imagine Olaf's smile at that point.

“That's great, just one to worry about.”

“Olaf, the other Reaper's behind you!” Strom heard Ilisa yell, a sense of desperation pouring off of her voice.

“Damn!” came Olaf's reply. Strom veered the Stinger around as Olaf continued, “They taken out a thruster...two thrusters, they're right on me, I can't get around them!” Strom saw the Reaper carefully storming after Olaf; it was a good pilot. Strom locked the Reaper in his sights and fired on it, but the pilot did a barrel roll as they it on Olaf. One bullet took out another thruster, another the right wing.

The final pierced the cockpit, draining the air out of it, before it exploded, launching Olaf into space. Strom pushed the Stinger's four remaining thrusters to the maximum for what seemed like an age, his heart beating against his chest as if it, too, wanted to save Olaf faster than he could. His fists were clenched, but he didn't notice as his nails bit into his skin. It was mere seconds before he got to Olaf, but Strom knew that it had taken a lifetime as soon as he saw Olaf's body; the bullet had punched a hole through his chest. Throwing on his spacesuit, he got out of the cockpit and, with tears in his eyes, cradled his best friend. “Olaf!” he called, but no-one could hear.

Olaf smiled at Strom briefly, before his eyes closed forever.

Chapter 11: Tors

The bottom-most floor of the house was rather bland, Tors thought. There was nothing on the whitewashed walls that could be seen as decoration, only a sheet of mould above Pandora's screen; obviously caused by the damp in the air. Winds continued to buffet outside, illustrated by the few remaining signs and trees pointing the wind forward. The rain had subsided slightly, or at least, Tors thought it had; the pounding on the windows was not as loud as it was before.

“Rain's easing a bit now.” Tors turned to the others and gave them a half-hearted smile; their house was almost levelled now and they all knew that if the winds got any worse, the house would cease to exist. Acknowledging his smile, Pandora raised her eyebrows and gave a brief nod whilst comforting her hair; it felt her fear. Emola stood at the screen, trying to turn it on but to no avail. “It's not turning on, Emola.”

“God dammit all!” Emola's scales flashed briefly to a darker blue and he kicked the base of the screen. Tors heard his one of his toes crack as it met the base and Emola winced and grimaced. “Power's out still.”

“Course it is,” Pandora muttered. The power had been out for about an hour now, shortly after the two higher levels were destroyed. “No-one to fix it.”

Emola looked round at her and fixed her with a scathing look. “Don't be sarcastic with me.”

“Why? It was obvious it wasn't going to work.” Pandora rose from her chair, hair bristling as if it was challenging Emola.

Emola sighed. “Yeah...”

Pandora sat back down, and her hair wrapped itself around her chest. “Why did I come here?”

“I don't know,” Tors said non-committally, “Something history based?”

“I could have gone anywhere else,” Tors did not know if she had heard him, or if she was even listened him. “But instead I find myself on a dying world, just to see a glimpse of Adjeti technology. And all it was was the wrecked engine of the world-burner! Nothing interesting! I expected satellites, weapons...”

She continued for a while more, but Tors had stopped listening by that point and he wondered over to the window. He watched the winds whip up everything on the ground and throw it into a whirlwind which powered through the streets, growing larger and larger as it went. Tors watched it in silence as took down a street-light and picked that up too, swinging it like a club at any victims it could find. But there was no-one outside. There never was anymore. People would rather starve than risk the wind and rain.

The twister of debris stopped abruptly and dropped to the ground with a clatter. The street-light landed on its base, before it teetered briefly and fell with a clang. The few remaining trees fell back to a resting position and the windows stopped rattling. Silence.

“The wind's stopped.” Tors observed. “Odd.”

Emola and Pandora approached the window and checked that Tors was right. “Huh.” Emola said, “All it needed was your moaning!”

Pandora reluctantly smiled at the jibe. “Shut up, you.”

Emola smiled back, and Tors could see a sparkle in his eyes and a brief paling in his scales as he looked at her. Emola dragged his eyes away and looked out of the window again, craning his neck so as to look at everything. Naarl's house was still ruined, but most of it was scattered through the street. Tors was not upset with the old man's demise; he had already gone through that anguish a thousand times as everyone he knew was slowly killed by the storms.

“Tors!”

Tors turned to Emola, who was tugging on his shirt and looked terrified. Pandora also looked over abruptly. “Over there,” Emola pointed over to where another house stood, mostly intact. Tors could see the outlines of the inhabitants moving inside. “What is that?”

Next to the house was swirling green whirlwind, similar to the one which had been carrying the debris. It moved closer until it reached the middle of the street. It was then when they realised that this was not a natural phenomenon; as they watched, the winds unfurled into a serpentine form comprised entirely of the green, always moving gas. Tors stepped away from the window, and so did the others. “The hell is that?” Emola seemed breathless; presumably out of fear, Tors dared not look away from the creature just to check Emola's scales. He knew that his own would be the darkest they had ever been.

The gas at one end of the entity shifted itself into an ovoid shape and Tors saw something bright red within it; an eye perhaps? The ovoid opened into four pieces and let out a scream that echoed around the street, bounding off of the walls. It was impossible to aptly describe what it sounded like, but Tors knew what it felt like; pure fear injected into his ears, complete with the pain.

“We're going to die, aren't we?” Emola's question remained unanswered as the creature's head closed up again.

The red light from inside the creature's head seemed to scan everything around it, before it faded again and the creature disappeared. Tors let out a sigh of relief and the tension in the room was shattered.

In their rush to comfort each other, neither Emola nor Pandora noticed that the winds began to pummel the street as soon as the creature disappeared.

Chapter 12: Strom

“Olaf?” Strom slapped his face but Olaf could not respond. Ilisa floated next to Strom now and was cradling her brother's head in her hands, stroking his hair with shaking hands. “No.” Strom breathed the word as he ran his scanner over Olaf's body once more; still no pulse.

“Help me get him to my ship,” Ilisa's voice seemed thicker than normal, all vitality drained from it. “I have a reviver pack there.”

In the anti-gravity of space, Olaf weighed nothing, but the logistics of moving a limp object in three dimensions was never simple. Eventually, they carefully placed Olaf in Ilisa's cockpit; for a moment he looked peaceful, like he was sleeping. Ilisa sealed the cockpit and removed her helmet, before heading to the back of the small craft, taking care not to lean on Olaf; difficult in the small space of the Stinger. Strom took his helmet off too, and looked upon Olaf properly. His face was deathly pale and, as Strom put his ungloved hand to his cheek, cold as ice. Moving to Olaf's stomach, he slowly and carefully eased Olaf's shirt off. The shirt itself was stained with blood, but as Strom removed it, he saw that only traces of blood had made it on to the stomach. And as he moved the shirt up past the chest, he retched; even though the hole seemed clinically placed (a small cylinder carved into the chest), it was coated in dry blood; not much of it was liquid now.

“Found it.” Ilisa sounded desperate and breathless as she interrupted Strom's trance, before she let out an involuntary wail when she saw Olaf's wound; almost as if subconsciously accepting his fate. But her conscious was not going to give up yet. She attached nodes to Olaf's chest, just over where his heart would be. These nodes were connected to the box that she held in her hand, and were designed to administer an electrical pulse each to get the heart started again. Strom looked at the wound; even if the bullet had missed his heart, he knew Olaf wouldn't live. He knew it. But even if there was a slim chance, even if it was just time to say goodbye...

The machine beeped and Olaf's body jerked a little, but Strom's scanner showed no pulse. Ilisa looked at him expectantly, but Strom's eyes must have told her all she needed to know. She tried again and again, the body just jerking up each time, with the finger slamming the reviver harder and harder before she dropped the box and fell to her knees beside her fallen brother.

The ship jolted suddenly and a Reaper flew past. Strom looked out of the cockpit and saw burn marks across the side of the ship; bullets had grazed Ilisa's Stinger. Strom clipped his helmet back on. “The Reapers are back!” he called to Ilisa, who was clipping her helmet on too. Strom's breathing became irregular and rapid as something welled up inside him, replacing his grief. “I'm gonna make them pay.”

“Strom, no!” Ilisa made to grab him, but he had already opened the cockpit and pushed away from her ship.

As he floated through space towards his Stinger, he forgot his previous fears and latched onto the right wing before dragging himself into the cockpit, closing the canopy and starting the ship up abruptly, not even bothering to strap in as he followed the trail of the Reaper. “Strom. Strom, come back!” Ilisa yelled over the com, but he ignored her, turning the com off completely; no need for distractions: he was a thruster down and chasing after a skilled pilot.

The pilot must have known Strom was after him now, because the Reaper suddenly went into a nosedive straight down to the planet. Strom followed, trying to get lock a missile onto the bastard, but failing every time. The Reaper was easily outpacing him as it entered the atmosphere; Strom's ship hissed as he too entered the atmosphere: the airlock unlocked to save on the Stinger's oxygen supply. The Reaper straightened out once more, flying at a standard level above a small town. Strom struggled to follow and found himself flying through the town. This town seemed relatively unscathed by the conflict; only a few buildings seemed to have scored hits and the residents were outside trying to help those who had been hurt. That behaviour would never be seen in Tapal, but Raanian life was very different if you lived in a town. Now, all these people stared up at the out of control Stinger as it stormed between the buildings. Some people ducked as it went past, the slipstream ruffling their hair. The left wing caught on a building, tearing a chunk out of both wing and window, and sent the Stinger spiralling further, Strom slamming the Stinger into the opposite direction while focusing intently on the escaping Reaper. The Stinger gradually came back to his control as he barely managed to avoid hitting the buildings on the main street, but a violent swerve sent him heading down a tight side road. Knowing he couldn't make it, he angled the ship by ninety degrees, so that the wings were aligned vertically. The cockpit scraped along one of the buildings, throwing brick dust in small splatters across the canopy, obscuring Strom's vision. He emerged from the side road and into another main street, before pulling up and rising higher and higher until he found the Reaper again.

The pilot had got pretty far, and it hadn't become complacent in Strom's absence, putting a lot of distance between the two. Strom looked on the radar and followed the rough trajectory of the Reaper: it was heading to Tapal. Even after Xaos had doomed the coastal towns to burn, he still wanted to smash Raan's capital. Strom fired at the Reaper; he was sure to hit it eventually. He had to: life for a life.

And they would have hit, if the pilot hadn't retracted the wings; they appeared to fold up into the body of the Reaper, causing the missiles, not being locked on to anything, to fly past. Strom cursed; he'd never seen that before. Perhaps this wasn't a standard Reaper after all. The Reaper, without its wings, seemed to be going faster and faster, gaining speed as it went. The engines whined as Strom pushed them to their limits and still barely keeping up. He couldn't believe the speed on this Reaper, it was faster than any small vessel he had seen before. He turned the com on again. “Ilisa, are you seeing this?”. He sounded more curious than angered now.

She sounded flustered when she spoke again. “Is that the bastard who killed Olaf?”

“Yes.” Strom's voice was level and resolute.

“Then it doesn't matter what sort of ship it is, we'll take it down!” Ilisa's Stinger drew up level with Strom's now, he could see Olaf's head behind Ilisa's; obviously the body was behind the pilot's seat now.

“And then we can bury Olaf.”

Ilisa's voice faltered. “No, Strom. Cremate; that's how my parents went.”

Strom bowed his head; Ilisa's parents had been killed years ago in one of the first Northern riots in Tapal. Hundreds were killed, both Northerners and Southerners, in the riot, one of the bloodiest that the city had ever seen. Since then, the riots seemed only like aftershocks after a quake.

Strom engaged thrusters again, and tore after the modified Reaper, Ilisa at his side. The Reaper was moving left and right in a lazy attempt to avoid Strom's target lock. Strom concentrated, tweaking the Stinger's path until finally the target screen beeped, and Strom launched two missiles.

But no missiles launched.

He pushed the button again, in case it was stuck. Nothing. A wave came over him, and he roared in a mixture of fury and anguish, before he punched the target screen, cracking the glass. He buried his head in his hands and muttered to himself. As his hands grew slick with tears, he mumbled “Failed you...” quietly, before he heard Ilisa.

“Strom!” She sounded urgent. “The Reaper's turned back around!”

Strom looked up and saw the streamlined Reaper, wings still folded in, coming straight at him. Frantically manoeuvring, his Stinger barrel-rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding the kamikaze assault. “Take it down, Ilisa!”

“I can't get a lock! And if I miss, I'll hit you; it's too close!”

Strom saw the Reaper open fire on his craft, but the Stinger couldn't move out of the way quick enough and an explosion threw Strom to the side, out of his seat. Checking another screen, he realised that the Reaper had just destroyed his other thrusters. With a sudden dullness in his heart, he came to the conclusion that he could go nowhere but down. He watched as Ilisa fired upon the Reaper and felt satisfied as it exploded, further and further away.

In a plume of smoke and fire, the Stinger screamed its way through a skyscraper, before burying itself in the atrium of another. The wreckage opened and Strom fell out, barely alive. Just in sight, rimmed with red, he could see Ilisa's Stinger land, and she leapt out of it and ran over to him.

“Strom!”

She was safe. Strom relaxed.

As his eyes closed, Strom looked past her and saw Olaf, standing straight with an open hand; beckoning.

Darkness.

Chapter 13: Trexor

“Space team, disengage and evacuate as many people as you can from the north coast!” The base was frantic, with Trexor, Fairns and the other generals yelling commands to other military units across Raan; many were beginning some sort of evacuation, but where was safe? “Send them to Ketin.” Ketin was a smaller city than Tapal, but it had not been targeted by the Xaosians yet. Trexor put the com-unit down, before turning to Fairns. “How bad are the fires?”

Fairns shook his head. “The worst glimpse of hell that a man should ever see.”

“What about Raan? Could it...” Trexor's words caught in his throat. “Could what Xaos said be right?” Looking around, he lowered his voice and said, “Could Raan be destroyed?”

Fairns flexed his fingers nervously, and they cracked like mini explosions. “Come with me.”

Trexor followed him through the base. All around were injured personnel, unable to go anywhere else. Doctors were with them, but they could not keep up with the demand. The able personnel were rushing around, gathering supplies, before booting up ancient Dropships. The Dropships were deemed unnecessary in Tapal, due to both the peacetime and the apparent deterrent of the military-base. But now, they would aid in the evacuation effort. Trexor watched as they rose into the air, whining as they did so.

Eventually, Fairns led Trexor into a small room, where three men sat at a screen; Irinian, judging by their shimmering skin. Upon hearing the door open, one man stood up clumsily and saluted. “Admiral Fairns, sir!”

“Stand down.” Fairns seemed annoyed at the young man's sign of respect. “What's the situation?”

“Worse than we thought, Admiral.” The man who spoke pointed at the screen. On the screen was a geological cross-section of Raan, showing the Sea of Oil at the very top. “As you can see in this simulation,” he pressed a button on the screen's console and the oil lit up in flames, “as this part the Sea of Oil ignites, it soon spreads and the entire sea is aflame.” He looked at Fairns and Trexor, who nodded slowly. He pointed at a small black crack which ran from the Sea of Oil to deep in the planet's core. “It's this fissure which is the problem; yes, it stops seismic activity across the planet, and I thank the Adjeti for thinking of that idea, but if the flames spread into there, it could, and I stress, could, cause a chain reaction and ignite the inner layers of the planet.”

“And how would that affect us?” Fairns was flexing his fingers again.

The man faltered, so the silent one answered, “We don't know.”

“You don't know?” Trexor's growl put a spark of fear in the Irinians' eyes. “I want an idea, something! What. Could. Happen?”

“Worst case scenario? The planet ignites and everything on it dies.” Trexor felt his face fall as a sudden cold rushed through him.

“And the best-case?” Fairns asked, voice wavering.

“A few minor earthquakes.” The Irinian smiled as he said so, as if he had delivered good news.

Trexor grabbed the Irinian by the throat and raised him off the ground. The other two retreated to the side. “Wipe that smile off your face, you little shit. Even one quake could level this city; those skyscrapers were built for convenience, not to withstand disaster.” The Irinian fell to the ground, clutching his throat as Trexor released him. “Fairns, what do we do?” Trexor's face fell, eyes and mouth drooping as he realised the hopelessness of the situation.

“More evacuations seems like the only cause of action.” Fairns cracked his knuckles again, wincing this time. “But we don't have the resources.”

“Then the people will have to make do with an old method.” Trexor marched out of the small room and into the bustling command hub. Clapping his hands to get attention, he roared to the crowd, “You lot! Get your arses in gear! Sound the alarms, we need everyone evacuated and onto the farms outside the city! We have reports that the buildings could collapse at any point; we need to save as many people as possible. Now, go!”

*

The alarms rang and rang and rang through the day. Soldiers ran, kicking doors down and dragging families from their homes, seeming to the unwitting eye like the invaders that had doomed their planet. Trexor jogged towards a skyscraper unscathed by the Xaosian attack; it was at the furthest northern edge of the city. All around, curses and slurs were written boldly in once-bright paint; a stain on even this part of the city. As his eyes darted subconsciously around, he remembered the last time he had been this far north. He rubbed a hand over his back and winced; the pain had never went away and never will: part of the knife's blade was jammed into his right lung; removing it could kill him. Instead, Trexor adopted to have an artificial expansion to his lung, effectively replacing the damaged section. He hated this place. Glass cracked underfoot, bricks clattered away from his footfalls and the needles and knives strewn around would have pierced his foot, had it not been for the steel-soled boots.

One of those boots sent the atrium door of its hinges, and it clattered to the floor. Inside, there was no light; the power for this district was probably knocked out, or rerouted to the military-base. “Torches on.” he said to the five other soldiers with him. “Spread out; I'll take this floor, you can take the others.” The ground floor was always the heaviest populated; to give the skyscrapers some sort of stability, the ground floor acted as a large base for the spire to sit atop. Once the others had gone into the elevator shaft, Trexor heard them activate their climbing gear; elevator shaft was the only way up.

Knocking on the first door, Trexor heard no reply. “Anyone home?” No reply still, but a scratching sound instead. Frowning, Trexor went to knock on the door again, and it fell backwards and onto the ground with a dull thud, throwing up a small dust cloud. The torchlight helped to illuminate a path ahead of him, and he saw a pile of boxes stacked in a corner. Making sure no-one was looking, he inched ever-closer to them; something about them felt wrong to him. After clipping his torch onto his shoulder, he pulled the top one off of the pile and opened it. Dozens of bags of white powder were inside, each marked with a red feather. “Bloodhawks...” Trexor muttered to himself; whoever lived there was evidently a high-ranking member of the Bloodhawks, one of the three major gangs that operated in the North.

Thud.

Trexor turned abruptly, drawing his pistol from its holster, setting it to stun; no need for more killing today. “I know you're there, now come on out.” He saw something shine in the kitchen-doorway and lurched back just in time for a knife to slam into one of the boxes, spilling the powder over the floor. Trexor backed behind a chair and kept his gun pointed at the doorway.

“My quarrel is not with you.” His attacker spoke in a soft voice. “In fact, all I have done is get rid of a criminal; you should be thanking me.”

Trexor turned his light onto the speaker; tall, slim, bald, but there was a faint scar which arced from his left ear to his nose. He stood, and looked at the man. “Remember me?”

The man cocked his head and smiled. “Ah, General. I never forget a face, and you put up...” he paused and stroked his scar, “more of a fight than others.”

“And you failed your mission.” Trexor said bluntly; this man, Trexor found out months after his attack, was a member of the Assassins: a group of mercenaries for silent murders. This man was Trem Naylar, one of the lower echelon members. “I still have part of your knife in my shoulder, you know?”

Trem smirked and exhaled as if amused. “I don't like an unfinished job.” He drew a small pistol from a holster on his thigh and fired at Trexor.

The bullet barely missed Trexor's head as he jerked to the side. Growling, Trexor drew his own sidearm and took a shot at where Trem was, but he had vanished. Trexor cursed; letting an assassin out of your sight was tantamount to suicide. Deciding it was useless, Trexor put his gun away and drew his sword instead; a better defence against a close-range attack, as there would be no point trying to defend against a gunshot he can't hear. “What now?” Trexor called, walking over to the door. “I could just walk away right now.”

No answer.

Trexor pushed the door closed. “But now we can't.”

“It's like you want me to finish the job.” Trem's voice echoed round the room. “But I would like my blade back.”

A shadow leapt at Trexor, but he put his sword up in the way, and forced Trem back, before kicking his feet out from beneath him. Trem slashed with the knife, but it caught on Trexor's armour. Trexor stamped on Trem's wrist, and the knife dropped to the ground. Pinning him to the cold floor, Trexor hissed in his ear, “You want your damn blade back?” Trem struggled, but Trexor twisted his arm around until he gasped in pain. Sheathing his sword, Trexor used his now-free hand to pick up the dropped knife. “A fine blade.” The handle was golden – too heavy for real gold – and had indents in for each of Trem's fingers. The silver spike emerging from the handle was long and thin like a needle, and almost identical to the one still inside Trexor.

Trem twisted his head around and saw Trexor examining the blade. “What are you doing? If you're going to kill me, get on with it!”

Trexor poked Trem's shoulder with the tip of the blade, nicking the skin slightly. A circle of red slowly formed where the skin was cracked. “I won't kill you, you're defenceless.”

Trem smiled. “Even after I try and kill you twice, your honour stops you? That is why we win, General; no regrets.”

“I said I wouldn't kill you.” Trexor slowly eased the blade into Trem's shoulder. Blood began to build up, and Trem's eyes widened.

“General, no. Please.”

Trem screamed in pain as the blade stopped, hitting bone. Trexor hit the blade with the side of his hand, snapping it in two. “Now you can live as I have.” Discarding the knife, Trexor left the room and felt nothing but a dullness within; none of the satisfaction he thought that he would have after dealing with his demon.

A grating sound came from beneath him, and Trexor was thrown to the floor. “Damn...” he muttered. A shelf dropped off of the wall behind him, its contents clattering to the ground. Glass shattered a photoframe fell from its hook. Trexor got up and ran outside, calling for backup.

As he got outside, the grating sound echoed through the area once again, and he flailed his arms to stay upright, but to no avail. When he stood, he looked up to the sky and saw windows shattering, falling glass shards. He dove out of the way, flinging his arms over his head. Moving further away from the skyscraper, he saw that the very top was rocking from side to side. “Get out of the building!” he yelled into his com.

Bricks tumbled down from the building, shattering into dust and clay as they met the floor. Smoke poured out of the ground floor as damaged electric cables met burst gas pipes.

And amidst the smoke and debris, a dust cloud arose as the skyscraper came rushing down to earth.

The quakes had begun.

Chapter 14: Ash

Streaks of light dart across his vision, before a bang sounds and he is thrown backwards. Darkness. Specks of light in the distance. So cold. So far away. Darkness. Blurred vision in a busy street, faceless men and women watch him.

He jolted upright as he woke. It was warm here, and the dreams were the only reminder of what cold was to him. His head felt strange, as if he'd been drugged again. Shaking his head, his vision cleared a little and his head felt a bit better. Groaning, he put his head in his hands, before running them through his long blonde mane; it was short before, but his Masters preferred the feral look.

“You okay?”

He looked over to see a slim red-skinned humanoid in the corner of the room, leaning on the sand-brown wall, right next to the iron bars that kept them in their cell.

He sighed, before answering, “Yeah, I'm alright Carnat. Just the dreams again.”

He had never seen another like Carnat or at least, he didn't remember them; all of those in his dreams were white or black skinned humans. But Carnat was no human.

“You should ignore the dreams, Ash.” Carnat stood and walked over to the food tray and ate a pinkish protein square. “Your memory ain't coming back without a good trigger, the last guy said. And that trigger ain't on Rat'hak.”

“I don't want to ignore the dreams; they're my memories.” Ash said, his face falling as he did so. “My memories from before. Otherwise my first memory would be watching the last guy – what was his name again? – fight.”

“Diin. Curious guy. Got a portion of his memory back; we called him Diin anyways, apparently it weren't his real name. Confronted the guards, demanded to speak to the Masters. So they made him fight that...thing. And...well, you saw what happened to him.” Carnat looked haunted at the memory.

“Did you ever have the dreams?”

“No.” Carnat answered firmly. “I've always known my past, and I know how to survive in this place. You do what I say, and you end up living.”

Ash had to agree with him; so far, he had managed to avoid fighting in the pits by sticking exactly to Carnat's orders. And they were orders, not requests; Carnat would fight with him, but he had no intention of doing so. “You'll get us killed,” he'd said, “I'll teach you how to fight.” And he did; Ash was now trained with two types of blade and a crossbow; the short blade was his favourite, but Carnat said that Ash was better off using the crossbow for now.

“Do you know when we fight?” Ash snatched a protein square and shoved it into his mouth, before holding his nose as he chewed; it got rid of the taste.

“We should have had our first about a month ago; they're gonna start demanding soon.” Carnat looked him in the eyes and asked, “Do you think you're ready?”

Ash nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

“Good.” Carnat turned away and banged on the bars. “Oi! Guard!”

A humanoid face, albeit with a crushed nose and giant tusks emerging from its lower jaw, answered him with a snort. The Hak'i were not the most articulate of races, but they were one of the strongest and visually imposing. Standing at about 8 foot high, and about the same width, the tusks and eyes were the only parts of their bodies not covered in matted hair; this one's was brown, but most of it was hidden under armour fashioned from the skin and bones of various desert creatures.

“Tell the masters that we will fight now.” Carnat spoke condescendingly, before waving the beast away. The beast glared and grunted something at Carnat, but Ash only heard Carnat's sarcastic response.

“Now?” Ash's heart was suddenly beating faster.

“While you're ready, yeah.” Carnat smiled and winked. “Don't want them demanding a fight when you're asleep, do you? Now, eat more of that crap before they come.”

“Why?” Ash asked, looking at the pile of protein squares.

“May as well be full stomached if we die.”

Ash smiled in spite of himself. “I really hope that was a joke.”

“Of course it was; you don't want to eat that shit before you die.” Carnat walked over to the table and ate another square. “Unfortunately, we ain't got a choice.”

The room fell silent for a while and Ash sat on the sandy floor, picking up bunches of sand and let the grains run between his fingers. “You say you know your past. Where you from?”

Carnat opened his mouth to answer, but faltered slightly before hesitantly uttering, “Far away from this place.”

“I'm sure I am too. What place in particular?” Carnat's question-dodging had only piqued Ash's interest.

“You ever heard of the Oblivion Gateway?”

“You never told me about that, only the eleven planets in the Empire.”

“There are twelve planets in the Empire, and the twelfth is beyond the Oblivion Gateway, in another solar system.” Carnat gave a short laugh, as if remembering a good time. “That's where I was born. But I wanted out of that planet, so I came here,” he shook his head, “Here! In search of a better life, a more fulfilling one. I helped the Hak'i for decades in the ancient wars; humans, Corlens, Pyrkagia, they all attacked Rat'hak at some point. And look at me now; thrown in a fighting pit for all of Rat'hak to see; entertainment, a slave.”

There was silence for a beat, before Ash said, “That's a bit shit.”

Carnat sighed. “Yeah, it really is.”

“So,” Ash asked, curious, “What are you? Species-wise?”

“It really doesn't matter anymore; I'm the last of my kind. Nothing else quite like me.” Carnat paused and smiled a sad smile. “When I die, so will my entire species. That's why I never bothered to tell you about my kind, only the others. But, if you really want to know, you can call me an –“

Footsteps approached from outside, distracting Carnat for a moment.

“Call you what?” Ash could see the silhouettes of Hak'i approaching their cell.

Carnat moved away from the door as the Hak'i opened it and whispered to Ash:

“Adjeti.”

Chapter 15: Trexor

“T-1, come in!” Nothing.

“T-2, come in!” Static.

“T-3, come in!” A brief hiss.

Trexor strode across the wreckage of the skyscraper, not knowing where to start digging. At the ruins' high point, it would still be about half the size of the monolithic structure it once was; Trexor could not search through the entire mountain, and his infrared readers detected no life, or they could not penetrate through the thick rubble. He continued walking, sensor pointed at the ground. Bricks shifted and clattered beneath his feet as if he was walking on snow, and, more than once, he nearly lost his footing. The screams of those elsewhere in the city were alien to him; his first priority was to those in this building, that was his job. All around, other skyscrapers were still falling. Looking up, he saw one building shaking, before breaking in half, the top half carving a deep gash through the adjacent building as it fell. He saw people fall to their deaths, flailing like ragdolls as they fell. But he felt nothing for them. He felt nothing for anyone right now, just the emptiness of failure.

To his right, bricks moved and he heard a muffled cry. Throwing himself down, he tore bricks and wreckage away from the source of the sound, jagged edges reaping blood from his palms. Bricks, plaster, metal, wood, before finally skin. A hand. It clasped around his own, and he pulled up hard. He clenched his teeth and grimaced; he was using his left hand to steady himself and his right to pull, but this twisted his right side and made the blade inside him pain him again. With a roar of pain, he pulled a black-haired woman out of the ruins. In her other arm was what Trexor thought was a bundle of blankets, before realising that it was a small child. The woman looked at him, blood pouring down her face from a gash across her forehead. At least one leg was broken; she couldn't stand. The shirt she wore was torn across the back; obviously she had bent over the child to shield it from the debris.

Trexor bent over to catch his breath again and rubbed his side; he'd have to get that checked out. “Do you know if any others survived?” Trexor panted, barely able to get the words out.

“None on my floor, no.” she said softly, unable to pry her eyes away from her son's scared face. “I was in the hallway with one of your troops and a few other families. Then the ceiling came down and...and...they're gone!” She looked at Trexor now, before she said, “And I would be too, if it wasn'' for you. Thank you.”

While the words sounded sincere, Trexor knew that the woman did not want to praise him, but wanted time to grieve. “Can you stand?” he asked.

She nodded. “Jus' abou', I think.” She tried to stand, using one hand to steady herself, but her legs faltered as she cried out in pain. Trexor caught her before she fell and put her arm around his shoulders.

“Hold onto me and use this,” he passed her his sword, “As a crutch for the other side.”

Holding the child with one hand and supporting the mother with the other, Trexor walked slowly and carefully back down the mountain. The son watched him with wide blue pools of curiosity, but gave away no other emotion. “What's his name?” Trexor asked; it's a long walk, he thought he may as well try to interact normally with someone.

“Cane,” she said, “After his daddy. And I'm Disa.”

“General Trexor,” Trexor said, acknowledging the hidden question in her upwards intonation. “Shame we couldn't meet in better circumstances.” He dreaded to ask the next question. “And where is the father?”

“He went to Narcsia to get some real money for li'l Cane. Got caught up in the storms, and can't leave the planet yet.” Disa forced a weak smile. “Probably for the best.” She coughed; the dust must be getting to her.

“General!”

Trexor recognised that voice, but he knew that it shouldn't be there. He turned to see a slender man dusting himself off. “How are you still alive, Trem?”

The hatred was obviously clear in his voice, because the assassin put his hands up when he walked over, before he pointed at a vial of green liquid on his belt. “This is some good shit from Prauw; heals you right up.” He took a blade out of his pocket. “This is what you left in me earlier and this,” he turned and showed them a faint scar on his shoulder, “is what's left.” He nodded to Disa and proffered the vial. “Here, take it; two drops is all you need.”

Disa dropped Trexor's sword and took the vial, before unscrewing the cap. Under the cap was a dropped-like opening, and she squeezed two drops of fizzing green liquid onto her tongue. Trexor faced Trem. “Why are you helping? Doesn't seem like you.”

Trem took the vial back and smiled encouragingly at Disa, who thanked him. “I'm helping because I don't want to see these people die. Despite what you may think, I have morals. I just put them aside for the money that keeps me alive. I'd like to think that we could work well together, you and I, Trexor.”

Trexor thought about for a bit, until Disa supported herself and moved away, taking Cane back. “Thank you, Trexor. For everything.”

Trexor nodded to her in recognition of her thanks. “I guess we are kind of even, even if you could just heal yourself up. But we could use all the help we can get, by the looks of it.” He turned to Disa. “Get somewhere safe. I don't know where, probably the fields on the Tapal border. Now go.”

Disa looked at both Trem and Trexor. Her face was covered in dust and scrapes. Her clothes looked as if they had been mauled and blood covered most of her skin. And yet she smiled thankfully; not a happy smile, but one of relief; she and Cane had both survived. “Thank you.” She spoke softly, almost a whisper, before turning and walking away.

“Do you think she'll be ok?” Trexor asked.

“I do hope so.” Trem replied solemnly.

Silently, they ran towards the next building. On the ground, there was silence aside from the moving debris. In the sky, buildings scraped against one another and fell, but not near Trexor; those had already fallen. He looked up and saw none of the skyline that he had once despised, only a gaping void where nothing would live.

When they reached the next building, they began to dig.

Chapter 16: Ilisa

The city of Sutib was very similar to Tapal in its north/south divide, as well its skyline and structure. However, it was a much smaller city and many Raanians probably wondered why Raan needed such a city so close to Tapal, as if it was acting like a little brother. Right now, no-one cared about that.

Ilisa watched Strom's eyes close as she cradled his head. She felt her face fall and her shoulders droop backwards as she collapsed to her knees. Her red eyes tingled, but she could not cry; her tears had all been spent on her brother. Instead, she buried her head in Strom's chest with her eyes closed, desperate to be close to him for the last time.

A crowd was forming a circle around them now, keeping back at a respectful distance. Ilisa paid them no mind; she couldn't care less whether they were Raanian or Xaosian. Her hand found his and she held it tight. She opened her eyes suddenly.

There was a pulse.

Disengaging herself from him, she tore his shirt off and placed her hand on his heart; a slow, but definite beat. “Please, I need a doctor!” She called to the crowd, relieved to see that they were Raanians rather than the enemy.

One man came running forward and took Strom's pulse. “He's alive, but only just; he's gone into a comatose state; his body is near enough dead, but his mind is very much alive.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Ilisa feared the worst.

The doctor took a deep breath, before hesitantly saying, “I'm sorry my dear, but the hospital is full to bursting point; we literally cannot help him.”

Ilisa stood, slowly and deliberately until she looked into the doctor's eyes. “You cannot help him?” The doctor shook his head, brow furrowing in confusion. “He helped you! All of you!” She gestured to the crowd with one hand as her voice grew louder and more shrill. “My brother died for you! I fought for you! And now Strom here has to die too?” Many members of the crowd began to look uncomfortable. “I didn't have to fight today! They did, but I didn't; I, as a woman, fought in the air and in space, alongside my male comrades to try and save you all! And now you damn him?”

The doctor backed away from Ilisa slowly. “We're not damning him, but we're not damning anyone else either. Especially with the quakes.”

“Quakes?”

The doctor briefly looked down, before looking back up at Ilisa. “Yes, the quakes. There have been a bout twenty earthquakes across the continent in random areas; we could be next. Tapal has been hit pretty badly; the North at least has been levelled.”

The doctor continued talking, but Ilisa heard none of it. The North was where Strom had lived; his family and friends were likely dead. Ilisa's friends, mainly in the South, may be okay, but she wasn't going to head back to Tapal just to see them. She looked down at Strom at her feet and, with a tugging feeling in her chest, realised that he was all she truly had anymore.

She turned to the doctor. “Are there any interplanetary ships I can use here?”

The doctor shook his head. “I'm sorry, but we're using all that we've got to evacuate the coasts.”

Ilisa had almost forgotten about the burning Sea of Oil. “Damn it...” She clenched and unclenched her fists in frustration; she had never felt so helpless.

There was a bustle in the crowd. “Excuse me”, “hey”, “watch it, you”. One man stepped to the front of the crowd and approached Ilisa. “You looking for an interplanetary craft?” He asked Ilisa.

Her heart began to beat faster again. “Yes, I am.”

“They got some ancient ones up on Viran. We don't use them because apparently they're structurally unsafe,” Ilisa heard the implied quotation marks around the words, “but they still fly. I reckon you could get as far as New Orbus if you're a good pilot.”

The Viran; Raan's moon. The Stinger could take her that far, or she hoped so anyway. “Are you sure about these ships?” Her heart was still racing.

“Certain, yeah.” The man nodded.

Ilisa picked up Strom and carried him to her Stinger, where Olaf's corpse was waiting. She placed her hand to her mouth at the sight; she had forgotten how disfigured it was. Setting Strom down, she opened the cockpit and pulled Olaf out, placing him gently next to Strom. She turned to the doctor. “Do you have a morgue nearby?”

The doctor nodded. “Is that your brother?”

Ilisa looked down at Olaf's thin and once-tan features. Now they were gaunt and pale, a ghastly incarnation of her brother. “He was my brother. Olaf Cahdun.” She looked up again. “Please keep him in the morgue until I return.” Her voice took a more pleading tone, and it wavered as if she was going to break down. But she had to be strong; for Strom's sake.

The doctor nodded. “We will, don't worry.”

“Thank you.”

Without looking at the crowd, who were slowly backing away, she carefully placed Strom's body into the back of the Stinger, bending him into a slouched seating position. She climbed into the pilot's seat and closed the cockpit, signalling to the crowd to back away.

And with a throaty roar, the Stinger lifted off and shot into the night sky. Her heart raced; there was still a chance of saving her lover.

Chapter 17: Foton

Hangar bays in any building are usually rather drab and dreary; they don't need to be fancy and the only thing that cleans up the dust and dirt from the floor are the boots of the pilots walking that short distance from the door to their ship. The Lord's Hangar, however, was rather extravagant. To match the Lord's robe, the walls had spiralling patterns set in red and gold plating atop polished walls. The lightbox-ceiling replaced the strip lights in the standard hangars, and the light reflected off of the polished walls and the heated floor tiles.

In the centre of the hangar bay was the Lord's ship; Watchman. Unlike the jagged angles and straight edges of the Xaosian Dominion, the Watchman was sleek and curved, shaped more like a flattened sphere than anything else. This disc-like ship could hold over one-hundred crew members, and it usually did so; most were guards trained in ship-to-ship combat made possible by the complex arrays of hidden weaponry hidden under panels in the ship. In combat, the panels would slide away after the weapon-bays became airlocked.

A Scaliman, yellow in colour, stood by the ship, waiting for Foton and Devilclash. Foton greeted him with a salute. “Nixiin, good to see you again.” Foton extended a hand, which Nixiin took and shook.

“And you too, Foton.” Nixiin smiled politely. “Ah, the Pyrkagias approaches! I've heard a fair bit about you, Devilclash.”

It took Foton a moment to remember that Devilclash had not actually left the Capital with Tahkshi before, so had not had the chance to meet Nixiin, who was in charge of this hangar.

“Only good things, I hope.” Foton liked Devilclash, but her flat and humourless drone of a voice irritated him whenever he heard it.

“Mostly.” Nixiin smiled and showed Devilclash her chambers on the ship's map. “You still waiting for Tahkshi?”

“Yeah, twit likes to keep me waiting.” It was no secret among Tahkshi's personal staff that he was, despite his media persona, a bit of a pompous arsehole.

Nixiin chuckled. “You realise he could've been right around the corner when you said that.”

Foton suppressed a natural smile at that. “I would have heard him.”

Nixiin considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you would've.”

Foton cocked his head. “Here he comes.”

Fast footsteps echoed down the hallway outside the hangar. “That's a damn good ear you got there, Foton.” Nixiin observed.

“Foton, Nixiin, get a move on!” Tahkshi strode into the hangar, escorted by two large Hak'i. He turned to them. “Go back to your posts now.” He continued walking, unbuckling his Lord's robe as he did so, revealing red and gold shirt and trousers underneath. “I'm going to my chambers, call if you need me.”

“We won't need you.” Foton said under his breath. “Nixiin, I'll see you in a day or so.” Foton walked briskly to the ship and up the ramp, which clanged beneath his steel soles; before coming to the hangar, he had changed into his light-combat armour. This armour consisted of the steel boots as well as a steel chestplate. However, his gloves and trousers were made from a metal fibre, creating a thick mesh which should stop oncoming blows and low-calibre bullets. At his waist, a holster held a small pistol with both a stun and kill setting. A knife was placed on the inside of each shin. Unlike the other guards, Foton also attached a retractable blade onto his wrist; these were technically illegal, but Foton chose to wear them to give him an edge in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't think anyone else knew about them, which suited him just fine.

When he got inside, he headed up to the ship's command hub. There he stood on a bridge overlooking banks of computers and their operators, both human and Irinian. “Everyone on board?”

A human near to him by the name of Jeok replied. “Life sign readings show that, yes everybody is on board.”

Foton nodded. “Excellent. Set course for Buun.”

Foton stood and waited for an Irinian – Foton thought he was called Wrotha – to respond. “Ready sir.”

“Call me Foton.” Foton abhorred being referred to as higher than the others, when they are doing more work than he. “Prepare for take off.”

He heard the hiss of the landing gear folding up and the airtight locks sealing. Then the engines thrummed louder and louder as they built up energy, before the hangar bay doors opened and the ship slowly manoeuvred out of them. As soon as it was out, the engines went silent; they were only loud when warming up. The ship angled itself towards the sky, and lumbered slowly upwards until it reached the upper atmosphere. The wall in front of Foton turned transparent and he could see the darkness of space outside. “Engage the L-Drive.”

Stars and space zoomed past the ship as it became faster than light itself.

Foton sat down in his chair on the bridge and logged on to his computer. While he was tempted to check for news on Raan, he knew he shouldn't; he was meant to be in charge. He checked the Watchman's structural integrity and found it at one-hundred percent, just as he expected. Surprisingly, he found himself bored; he was never usually bored. There was always something to do, something to check. But now, he had a team doing those jobs for him and his principle wanted to be alone. He knew why he felt uneasy though; Devilclash's disbelief about his time on Buun. He knew he should never have mentioned it; his past always led to trouble. The minutes passed in silence.

“Foton!”

He turned to see Tahkshi walking towards him. “What do you want?”

Tahkshi looked irritable at Foton's tone, although Foton thought that he should be used to it by now. “How long is it to Buun?”

Foton shrugged. “I don't know.” He turned to the crew beneath the bridge. “How long is it to Buun?”

Wrotha turned around and said, “About 10 minutes; it takes about 25 to get there from New Orbus.”

Foton was always amazed by how fast L-Drive travel was; a matter of minutes, or hours, from New Orbus to anywhere else in the Twelve, aside from Oblivion. Light from the Sol took only eight minutes to get to Rat'hak, and about three hours from Rat'hak to Buun. New Orbus was rather close to Buun, and it led Foton to think about how Orbus's climate may have been like before it was wiped out. He presumed that it was a tropical landscape like Buun's, complete with that sticky, uncomfortable heat.

“Good.” Tahkshi answered. “I may just stay here for a bit; I do like to watch the stars.”

Foton nodded; the one thing that they shared. “They are beautiful.”

“They are.”

Silence as they looked at the streaks of white and silver across the screen; the stars became distorted due to the speed.

Something hit the ship.

Foton tumbled out of the chair, which then fell on him. He threw it off of himself and located Tahkshi; he was still on the floor. “What the hell's going on?”

“Something's knocked us out of L-Speed!” One of the crew members had got back up into their chair.

Foton yelled into his com, “Everyone to battle stations!” Along the exterior of the Watchman, panels slid open, revealing an array of cannons around the entire rim of the ship. Foton looked out of the screen and saw a white ship dart by. He didn't recognise the design; it must be new. Without warning, the ship rocked again. This time, Foton grabbed a railing to support himself. Proffering his hand, he pulled Tahkshi to his feet. “What was that?”

Another crash, another hiss of the air-seal; a quickly forming gel which solidifies into an airtight solid is secreted from the walls when they are breached. A voice came over the com. “The white ships are crashing into the sides of the ship, take them out!”

“Boarding parties or kamikaze?” Foton called back over the com.

“Boarding-” The com was cut off: dead. Foton had no time to mourn.

“We need to get to the escape pods!” Foton yelled. “Everyone go!”

A door hissed open and two armoured Xaosians were revealed. They were flanking a white being, the species of which Foton couldn't place; it was humanoid, but with an ivory exoskeleton covering its body and distorting some features. Foton couldn't care less. He drew his pistol, set it to kill and shot at the alien.

The bullet stopped in mid-air between its fingers. The alien examined it briefly, before discarding it. It drew its own weapon from a holster on its side and shot back. The bullet narrowly missed Foton as he threw himself to the ground. Screams shattered Foton's wish for silence, but the Xaosians soon granted that wish, each bullet silencing one of the crew members. Foton dragged Tahkshi along the bridge to the other door. Tahkshi tried to keep up, but Foton easily outpaced him. There was a sound behind them. Foton twisted round. The alien was there, just a couple of standards away. Foton put his pistol up and shot the alien three times in the head. The alien slid to the left; the bullets missed. Nothing should be that fast Foton thought, before realising that his gun was useless. He ran to the alien, hidden blade primed.

The alien grabbed his arm and threw him off the bridge and onto the computers below. Foton recovered just in time to see the alien shoot Tahkshi three times in the head.

Dead.

He had failed.

Chapter 18: Devilclash

The ship rocked and Devilclash was thrown from the thin-mattressed standard-issue bed onto the cold hard floor. Most of the bugs righted themselves and stayed in mid-air, but the Hive-Stone clattered to the ground. Righting themselves, the bugs swarmed around the Hive-Stone once more, picking it up and placing it in back in to its original position.

She heard shrieks coming from outisde her chambers. Her door slid open with a quiet hiss and she stepped through as a man ran by, straight into her arm. Panicking, the man flailed his own arms, trying to swat the bugs out of his way, before Devilclash was able to reform her arm. “Look where you're going.” Her voice did not lack reproach. The man looked back, but continued running away.

Gunfire, and the man was torn apart in front of her, bullets thudded into the walls.

Xaosians. Silver-skinned, scaled monstrosities. At first, they seemed similar to the Scalimen, but the Xaosians had no tail, no emotional tells, and their gargantuan hands were designed by evolution for violence only. In fact, the hands of the Xaosian were the only areas not covered by their black combat armour. When they saw Devilclash. They briefly aimed, and fired.

Attaching the Hive-Stone to two bugs, she decomposed herself, allowing the hive to become the swarm that it should be. Some bullets took out some bugs, and Devilclash felt not a pain, but as if part of herself was lost; she reeled with the feeling. Reaching the Xaosians, she had the bugs swarm onto them. They tried to swat the bugs away, but hundreds of tiny mouths ate through the Xaosian's armour, aided by a natural acid, before climbing inside and devouring the Xaosian. One was targeted in the helmet, his eye being a passage for the bugs to destroy his brain; the other had his chest targeted, heart devoured.

Taking on human form once more, she looked down at the two Xaosians. Obviously here to kill Lord Tahkshi.

She opened herself to the Swarm and relayed these memories to the rest of the Pyrkagia. As she did so, she felt the shock and horror of the others who could see it. A visualisation of the Swarm, which she held in her mind, flashed a dark red as the shock turned to anger; how could the Xaosians do this? Curious, she tried to find the Pyrkagias she had detected on Raan before, but she found no sign of life. She delved deeper, swimming through the memories and eventually found the one she was looking for; while the body was gone, the memories remain forever.

Buildings fall as the ground shakes; an aftershock of the Xaosians mega-weapon. Crevasses open and swallow a building. My building. We fall for an eternity, but some of us live when the building stops. Then come these...things. Silver skin, always shifting. They're on us now. Fighting is useless.

Devilclash detached herself from the Swarm, breathing quickly as she did so. Creatures in the core of Raan? Silver shifting skin? She thought she knew what they were, but they were all dead, surely. She put it to the back of her mind for now; I'll discuss it with the Primary when I get to Buun.

She dissipated herself once more and made her way to Tahkshi's chambers; protecting him was her first priority. When she reached the chambers, alarms around the ship were ringing and red lights were flashing in the corridors. Luckily, she didn't bump into any more Xaosians. She gently pushed the door to his chambers open. It was very similar to Devilclash's, just slightly larger and with a rail-desk in the corner; the Lords were supposed to have plain, nondescript rooms so as not to make it obvious where their chamber was. “Tahkshi?” She called; it looked empty, but he could have been hiding. When she received no response, she realised that the only logical place that he would have gone to would be the bridge.

So she reformed her human self and ran to the bridge to the sound of squealing alarms and gunfire.

Chapter 19: Foton

Groggy from his fall, Foton shook his head to clear the mist. Gunshots sounded around him, instantly killing their victims thanks to the unwavering aim of the Xaosians. Foton grudgingly admired their skills. He looked around at the corpses around him; he was lucky, the Xaosians obviously thought that the alien had killed him.

Wrotha stared up at him. Dead.

He felt a pang of guilt; he might have been able to save some of them if he hadn't been so preoccupied with getting Tahkshi out of there. And now he was dead anyway. He had failed to protect the principle.

But he could try and avenge him.

The alien was still on the bridge, surveying the Xaosians' work with a look of what appeared to be disgust in its barely-visible eyes. As a Xaosian passed Foton, he leapt up and jammed his hidden blade through its helmet; the diamond blade easily plunged through the Xaosian's head. Aware that the other Xaosian would probably be bringing his gun up to fire, Foton pulled a knife from his right shin and threw it in its direction. He heard a thud as the Xaosian went down. Seeing a Xaosian X-46 gun on the floor, Foton picked it up and swung it in the alien's direction. He set it to projectile-stun and swung it round to aim at the alien; even if it could evade bullets, it shouldn't be able to dodge the static-charges.

He became aware of a soft clapping from the bridge. “Well fought.” Part of the alien's exoskeleton shifted and pulled itself back, revealing red skin around its mouth.

Foton fired at the alien.

One shot. The alien jerked to the right, and the static-charge crackled as it hit the wall behind.

Second shot. After sliding to the right, the alien brought its pistol around and shot it down, before briefly aiming at Foton's weapon and firing.

Foton dropped the gun as it sparked and emitted smoke. The alien holstered its own weapon and leapt from the bridge to the control room below. Foton sized it up; it was about half a standard taller than him, and a little bit broader too. He knew that it was much faster than him, so he assumed that it would be stronger.

It lashed out, fist connected with Foton's shoulder. Foton stumbled back a few paces. His shoulder felt cold and numb: dislocated. As the alien swung another fist, Foton jerked out of the way, grabbing his dislocated arm and shoving it forcefully back into its socket, biting back the pain.

Foton fought back now. He swung his fist at the alien, drawing his hidden blade as he did so. But the alien saw the blade's reflection, even in this dull lighting. It grabbed Foton's wrist and squeezed. “A diamond blade...” The alien smiled. “Unbreakable, diamond, isn't it?” Its exoskeleton seemed to shift slightly, before taking on a shinier tone. Without warning, it brought its free hand down on the blade, cleaving it in two. “Only diamond breaks diamond.” Foton looked at the blade, stunned at what the alien had done. “And we can be anything.” It looked into Foton's eyes. “Remember that, Assassin.”

It released Foton, who stumbled away from it. “What are you?”

“The name is Otor,” Foton listened to the voice; masculine surely, “and my kind built this Empire-”

“-And destroyed it.”

Foton looked around to locate the voice; Devilclash was by the door, walking in slowly. “I thought your kind was dead. Adjeti.”

Foton's eyes widened at this; of course this alien was an Adjeti; he'd read about them before, studied them even. How could he be so blind? He finished his brief berating, remembering that the reason he didn't recognise it straight away was the fact that the entire race was wiped out. Or so the history books said. Obviously a few survived.

“Pyrkagias.” Otor spat the words out. “We both know that the Adjeti didn't destroy Orbus.”

Devilclash's bugs arranged themselves in an obscure way, as if they were confused. “The Swarm says you did. History books say you did. Are we to trust the word of a murderous outsider?”

“Murderous?” Otor gestured to the corpses around him. “You think I would do this if I had a choice about it? No. Your kind has driven me to desperation; I work for the Xaosians for one reason only: to restore my race.”

“They're all dead. Oblivion was burnt to a crisp.” Foton interjected forcefully; everyone knew the story of Ardican, the human who sacrificed himself to use the World-Burner to destroy Oblivion, the Adjeti homeworld, after their attack on Orbus.

“Are they?” Otor smiled, as if humouring them. He turned back to Devilclash. “When my kind return, you will pay for what you've done. Show the Swarm what I'm saying, and let them fear the days to come.”

“I could kill you right now.” Devilclash hissed, anger breaking her usual monotone. Foton knew this was bad; the two species were always enemies, but Otor's accusations only forced the tension higher.

“What's stopping you?” When he stopped speaking, Otor's exoskeleton snapped back around his mouth; a defence mechanism.

Devilclash leapt at him, the bugs squealing. Foton felt a primal fear rise up inside him, but he ignored it. Otor darted to the side and raised his hand. The exoskeleton covering his wrist twisted around and extended, forming a cone around his hand, with a thin cylinder sticking out the end of it. Like a barrel of a gun.

The bullet of the organic was a pellet of compressed blood, forced into a rock-hard state. It smashed into Devilclash's Hive-stone, knocking it out of formation with the rest of the bugs. Foton grabbed Otor's organic-gun-arm and wrenched it forward. Otor stumbled slightly, losing his balance. Foton drew his other knife and stabbed it into his eye. With no exoskeleton other his eyes, the blade went in deep, spewing thick red blood over the ivory around it. As Foton pulled the blade out, Otor fell to his knees, before falling face-first onto the metal ground.

Devilclash reformed herself, but Foton could tell hat she was in pain; he didn't know how he knew, but he did. Maybe it was some sort of instinct. “Nice one.” Her voice was distorted from the norm.

Foton ran over to one of the still-functioning computers and ran a check on the personnel aboard the ship; everyone was registered just like the bodyguards were in the Spire. Running a ship-wide search, he found only two; his and Devilclash's. He felt no grief at this, just a pang of annoyance; evidently the guards weren't trained well enough. He quickly checked the engines and found that they had been severely damaged by the Xaosians' attack; the Watchman wasn't going anywhere. Next, Foton ran a life-form scan on the ship. Twenty-seven recognised life-forms were aboard the ship; twenty-five Xaosians. From the image on-screen, he could see that they were retreating back to their ships.

“We've gotta get to the escape pods.” Foton announced. Devilclash agreed, following his long, fast paces through the corridors. “So, what do you tell the Primary when you get to Buun?”

“The Xaosians have waged war on the Empire, and an Adjeti was helping them in return for their help in somehow restoring the Adjeti.” Devilclash paused. “You said “you”. Don't you mean “we”?”

“No.” Foton shook his head. “There is nothing I can do on Buun that will help in the war. I'm going home, to Prauw. I'm not a bodyguard, really. I'm an assassin, and I'm almost certain you suspected that. I can rally the other assassins to fight, take down Xaosian leaders. You can do the same for the Pyrkagia.”

Devilclash was silent for a few seconds, until they reached the escape pods. Only two had been ejected, which made Foton feel a little better; at least two people had escaped. “So, your journey to Buun was for an assassination?” Devilclash asked warily.

Foton gave an affirmative; he remembered Buun. Smuggler. Fifty-thousand Credits. “Had you figured it out?”

“I had suspicions. Your hidden blade gave it away.”

“And yet no-one else paid attention.” Foton gave a small smile in spite of himself. He moved over to the first escape pod and opened the hatch. “I guess this is goodbye then.” He extended his hand to her. She looked confused at first, before she took the hand and tried to shake it. “Nice try.” Foton commended her on her effort.

She gave a small smile. “Thanks.” Her voice took on a solemn tone. “Goodbye, Foton. I hope we meet again.”

“So do I.” He climbed into the pod, and reached for the door.

Something smacked into his hand and he was immediately in pain. He looked around to see Otor, running along the corridor. Foton's heart stopped; how is he still alive? Then he saw Otor's wounded eye; it was growing back even as he watched. Devilclash looked at the Adjeti, before slamming the hatch down on Foton's escape pod.

Otor ducked under Devilclash's wild attack, and grabbed the Hive-stone. With his free hand, he ejected Foton's escape pod and threw the Hive-stone out after it, casting Devilclash into the unknown void. Foton could only watch; there was nothing he could do for her now. He had read somewhere that the Pyrkagia could survive in space by turning the bugs to stone. He hoped that was true.

Out of the small window, he saw the disc-like structure of Watchman being pummelled by missiles, before it fell apart in space. No sound, no flames.

He punched in co-ordinates for Prauw and the pod changed course. Looking at his hand; he found that, while it felt fractured, it seemed to be fine. The only strange thing he noted was that it was shaking violently.

Locked in an airtight box, drifting in an airless vacuum, after being attacked by a long-dead member of a genocidal race and having his principle killed, Foton felt more scared than he had his whole life.

But under that fear, he felt a rush; the thrill of the fight, of the chase, still made his blood rush with excitement: this was something new!

Chapter 20: Tors

The clock struck past midnight and Tors cheered, waking Pandora from her shallow slumber. It was Evacuation Day at last. Tors walked over to the window, before he sat in front of it. At this time of night, he couldn't see anything, but he figured that any ships would have landing lights on.

“You're not seriously going to sit there for the rest of the night, are you?” Pandora's voice contained more than a hint of ridicule.

“Yes. Maybe. I dunno.” Tors shrugged. “All I know is, I wanna be ready when they come. Where's Emola?”

Pandora looked over at Emola. “Sleeping like a baby.”

“Surprised either of you could sleep after seeing that...thing.” Tors shuddered at the thought of it. He remembered its shriek, and remembered the grating sensation that passed through his body as it did so.

Pandora knelt down next to Tors. “Look. Maybe there was something. Maybe it was just our imaginations, or a natural phenomenon-”

“-there was nothing natural about that thing.”

“Well, even if it's alive, its natural.” Pandora rolled her eyes. “But maybe it wasn't real.”

“It really was, though.” Tors hissed. “You know it. Deny it all you like, you know it.”

There was a flash from outside, followed by sudden silence. The winds dropped again. Tors's scales shifted darker. “It's back.”

“What?” Pandora seemed irritated.

“The winds died before, and it came for us.” Tors was genuinely afraid, his scales shifting between various shades of dark red.

Pandora put a hand on his back. “Tors, calm down.” Her voice seemed both soothing and irritable. A green flash from outside took them both by surprise. Tors moved closer to Pandora and she reluctantly put her arms around him, like a mother with a child. “Maybe they were real...” Pandora whispered, more to herself than to Tors.

Outside, green wisps of wind formed together in the serpentine shape Tors knew the creatures to be. He leant towards the window, both afraid and fascinated by this being. Its...head?...opened up, as it did before, but this time it didn't screech. This time was more of a whisper, as if it was talking to something else. This was when Tors noticed other wisps in the air.

More serpentine figures formed around the original and converged upon it. The whispering grew louder, mixed voices overlapping. Tors thought he could hear words in the winds, but he knew that it was just his imagination.

“The hell are they?” Pandora asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything else.

“What's going on?” Emola sounded sleepy and was rubbing his eyes as he came to the window; obviously the sounds outside had woken him. Then he saw the beings. “There's more of those things? Damn.”

Tors realised that Emola must be too half-asleep to care about these thing, especially as they did no harm before. Maybe, Tors thought, they come with all storms, but we can't see them. He noticed the creatures moving over to the decaying statue of Ardican in the town square. Craning his neck, he could just about see them as they separated and formed a circle around the statue. “There's eight of them now.”

“Yup.” Emola was still non-committal and vaguely dismissive.

Seven moved back, widening the circle, but one stayed in place. As Tors watched, it leaned steadily backwards, before lurching forward. As it did so, there was a flash of blue, like lightning, from its head. Tors looked away as it flashed, and when he looked again, the Ardican statue was cinders. Even in his shock, he felt Pandora's recoil. Her arms moved off of him and she stood up and stared outside. Even Emola was shaken out of his stupor. “My god...”

The offending creature shrieked, before decomposing into the wind. One other creature seemed to look at the cinders, before it lifted them into its own body. The others did the same, gathering the ashes into themselves. The ashes disappeared, but the winds grew darker, larger and somehow stronger. “Is this some sort of...feeding?” Tors asked, as if anyone else would know the answer.

“Looks like it.” Pandora was squinting, to try and see them more clearly. Her hair was wild, but mostly still.

As quickly as they came, the creatures disappeared, one by one.

The wind and rain returned, but not as strong as before. They sat for hours, barely speaking to one another, but just sharing a silent hope. Their hopes were answered hours later. Lights burned through the dark-grey sky, illuminating the battered house. In unison, they ran to the window and watched the giant cuboid-like evacuation ships land. Battling the winds, agents barged into houses and gently pulled people from their homes. Some people grabbed small items, mementos of a time gone. Neither Tors, Pandora nor Emola bothered to grab anything. As Tors ran up the metal ramp into the evacuation ship, he looked back out at Narcsia and his destroyed town. A pang of sorrow tugged at his chest; he remembered when it was beautiful, just months ago.

Putting that past behind him, he dragged himself aboard the ship, ready for a new and better life.

Chapter 21: Ilisa

The Stinger's three feet descended as it touched down, locking onto grey rock. Slipping into her spacesuit, and clamping one over the prone Strom, she opened the cockpit. Even through the heated spacesuit, she could feel the chill, which set her shivering. Dust on the ground rose up as her feet connected with it, and floated in the air like a small cloud, obscuring her vision. She hated the helmet she had to wear; it restricted vision from her peripherals. To Ilisa, this was blinding and, even though she was almost certain that there would be no-one else on Viran, it set her on high alert.

The station on Viran was simple in terms of design; a cube, with four spiralling towers surrounding it. The spiralling towers actually fed solar energy into the power station below the surface; Ilisa wondered if it still functioned fully. A circular hatch was in place of a door, and Ilisa climbed through as the hatch screeched closed. In front of her, another hatch awaited, but this one was translucent; presumably it was once transparent, but the dust got in and marred it permanently.

The other hatch opened and Ilisa climbed through. It closed with a hiss; airtight. While this should have meant that the station had an artificial atmosphere, Ilisa didn't trust it; it had been abandoned for far too long. And yet, it didn't look abandoned at all. Bright strip-lights illuminated the corridors, and Ilisa could see her reflection in the polished metal counters.

The only two sounds in the station were Ilisa's boots and the whirring of various machines. Endless corridors led to an almost-infinite amount of small side-rooms, containing either computers or weapons of a lost era. She stumbled around the station for what seemed like an age, never really knowing what was around the corner. Her heart was pounding, but her mind was surprisingly clear; she was focused on only one goal.

The corridor opened into a vast chamber; the shipyard. The walls were bland, but covered in burns thanks to the old fusion engines. Over time, an alcove in the wall had fallen in, throwing shards of metal over the concrete floor. She assumed that the wires had once sparked, but they just hung limp. She slowly entered the chamber, noting how differently her footfalls sounded in this chamber.

The ships were, as the man had said, ancient. Ilisa could see that as soon as they were in sight. The ancient vessels were covered in pock-marks and scratches from old battles, and many were actually broken; just heaps of metal arranged in a cuboid, compared to modern vessels. Despite that, she couldn't help but admire them, like one admires an antique. These were obviously from around the dawn of the Adjeti Empire, hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago; the first vehicles used for interplanetary travel.

The way the ship's hatch opened felt exactly the same as the larger modern ships, and the layout inside was near enough the same, if not more cramped. This was a four-man vessel, she saw, but three would have been a squeeze. The controls felt familiar, somehow, despite them being in an entirely different layout. She gripped the lever, pressing the “signal” button, which sent a signal to open the shipyard roof. It slid open, revealing the star-filled void above her. The fusion engine roared, and the ship yearned for the sky.

Ilisa exited the ship, allowing the engines to boot up. Working her way back through the station, she knew her path now; get Strom, put him in the ship, and fly to New Orbus as fast as possible.

She couldn't afford any delays, and she broke into a desperate run.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.02.2014

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