The doors to their tram opened into the central hub on the station. It was flurry of activity as Guard officers rounded up their troops and deployed to various parts of the station. Some were relaxing and joking around as if they hadn’t been party to the genocide that was in the process of taking place. Kronos grit his teeth as he shouldered past a couple Guards and Astra sent him a warning look.

Right, need to blend in. He reminded himself. He couldn’t go pushing through the Guard. He wasn’t wearing his Frumentarii Armor and the Guard didn’t realize they should fear him. Instead, he probably looked like a mechanic or one of the hundreds of administration personnel that crewed this part of the station.

The two made it to the central lifts without being stopped by the Guard. Kronos wanted to ask what kind of identity she crafted for the Imperial friend-or-foe systems, but wisely decided to keep his question to himself. It would be unfortunate if he blurted his query and then all hell descended upon them. All they needed to do was make it to the lift and the structure of the station itself would work against their enemies.

Like all of the structure on the Zodiac Wheel it consisted of a number of floors connected to the other nodes via hallways and trams. Where the central hub differed was in the number of floors. While the nodes each had eleven decks that could sustain themselves in the event of a catastrophic detachment, the center held no such resiliency.

Since it served as the brain of the station, it had oversized floors for the major factions within. Not counting the various maintenance corridors that rings the station, the top level held penthouse suites for the wealthy and powerful. The second floor held intel headquarters. The middle held the Guard headquarters which controlled most of the security features throughout the stations, had it’s own central armory with the majority of their combat droids, and berthings for the senior officers. Below that, there were administration offices and spaces where the majority of the stations business with the rest of the Empire was conducted. At the very bottom was an engineering deck that controlled the majority of the functions on the station.

When they stepped onto the lift heading down, it was the engineering deck they were aiming for. In only a handful of seconds it opened and they carefully made their way forward. There were two Guards at the door and they stiffened when the duo approached.

“Stop,” one of them ordered. “What are you doing down here?”

Kronos was surprised that they bothered. He hadn’t seen any security on the engineering deck before the string of sabotage caused by the ravens. He had assumed that they would be indisposed during the purge of the civilians. He glanced over at Astra and she smoothly replied.

“We’re part of the engineering team. HQ ordered us to check the station clamps. There’s been a malfunction on node five.”

The Guard nodded. “Yeah, we heard there was an explosion on the TACNET.” He went to wave them through, but his partner stopped him.

“Wait, where are your tools?” He asked.

Astra just shrugged. “Should just be an omni-tool job. If it requires something mechanical then we’re well and truly screwed. We’re not trained for that sort of thing in the first place. We’d have to call back to HQ to get some senior engineers.”

Both Guards nodded, satisfied with the answer. “Well, good luck.” The first guard said. It said something about the condition of the station that they didn’t think to ask about the pistols Kronos carried or the rifle that Astra had on on a sling.

“Thanks,” Astra said as the duo passed them.

The bottom floor of the central hub looked like an old fashioned library. Two stories of sealed rooms looped around the lifts on all sides. A small catwalk bisected the first floor from the second and it was accessed at various points by small metal staircases.

Astra led Kronos up the stairs and their boots began clicking against the metal catwalk. They reached a room with “00F213” stenciled above it and Astra waived her PCD against the access panel next to the door. It lit green and Kronos heard the click as the maglock on the door disengaged.

The doors slid open and Astra ushered them both inside before the door closed behind them. The majority of the small room was taken up by eight floor to ceiling servers in two rows of four at the back of the room. Kronos assumed that each servers was assigned to each of the eight nodes on the station. The only other equipment was a central terminal in the center of the room.

“Keep watch,” Astra instructed as she made her way to the terminal.

Kronos wasn’t sure what he was supposed to keep watch for. There were no windows in the entire room and the door was closed. Either way, he drew a pistol and head it ready while facing the door. It was a little late in the game for them to be expecting trouble, but he didn’t rule anything out.

Everyone back at home knew that the most dangerous part of a raid was when everyone assumed that it was over. When people were packing up the cargo and getting it back to ship was when rookie raiders tended to let their guards down. Inevitably, it was in these moments that a horde of daimi would attack and those foolish enough to become complacent wouldn’t survive to raid again.

In a shorter amount of time than Kronos expected, Astra was done with her task and coming back to the door.

“Alright, let’s go.” She said.

Kronos went to exit, but she stopped him. “I wasn’t expecting the guards at the lift. We still have another team that’s coming after us. It’s going to be suspicious if another maintenance member shows up after we leave.”

Kronos hadn’t considered that.

“Okay, so we get rid of the guards,” he said firmly.

“My thoughts exactly,” she said.

They exited the room and circled around until they came to a staircase opposite of where the guards were. They cam down as quietly as they could, but in the titan’s case, he couldn’t fully conceal the heavy thuds his bulk made on the metal deck.

Astra made a hand gesture and they split around the cylindrical lifts. They already had their weapons out and ready. When they descended on the Guards, they weren’t even paying attention and held their rifles loosely as they chatted with one another. They tried to raise their guns as soon as they saw the duo with pointed weapons, but they were far too slow. They went down in a flurry of blaster fire.

When they fell, Astra and Kronos rush over to their bodies. Kronos’ target was still twitching, so he put another few rounds through the vulnerable part at the man’s throat. While he did that, Astra was already leaning over her victim and used her omni-tool to wipe all traces of their interaction from the Guard’s systems. She also linked the Guards bio diagnostics to her own. With any luck, the observer at the Guard HQ would consider his flatline anomaly. Once she was finished with hers, she quickly performed the same actions on Kronos’ own.

Technological spoofing out of the way, they needed to dispose of the bodies. Astra had to check her HUD before finding a room that was unlikely for someone to check. While she was doing that, Kronos secured his pistols and then leaned down to hoist the two bodies one over each shoulder. Astra guided him to the room they needed to go to, and when it opened Kronos noted that it was a custodian closet. Diminutive custodian droids lined shelves on either side. Most were in their charging racks, but a few were missing, likely cleaning up around their assigned section of the station.

After the titan unceremoniously dumped the bodies, they both received a ping over their HUDs.

“Captain, the Kytarrus is ready to fly,” Sean reported.

“Roger. Be there in ten.” Astra reported back. When she got she looked up and Kronos had raised an eyebrow.

“What?” She asked.

“Captain, huh? When did you get promoted?” He teased.

Astra rolled her eyes. “I’ve always been a captain. The Kytarrus is my ship.”

“Well, I hope you treat her better than you did my ship. Blowing up the Observer was just rude.”

Instead of replying, she just punched the titan in the arm. He rubbed in mock pain. “I get it, I get it. You can’t take criticism for your bad decisions.”

“Shut up.” She replied before laughing. “Let’s get out of here. We have a ride to catch.”

Kronos agreed. He was just cracking jokes because he was nervous. Up until now, he had been forced into every decision by the Empire. This was the first time that he got to make a decision on his own. Before, he could just trust in the system. Now, he was truly venturing into the unknown.

They exited the room and then went back to the lift. Kronos noted the bloodstains on the deck when they passed the scene of their impromptu ambush.

“Think someone’ll notice?” He asked.

“Nah,” she said. “They’ll have much bigger problems to worry about in five minutes.” Kronos just shrugged as the two got on the nearest lift. Kronos’ hands drifted back to the handles of his pistols, but this time Astra didn’t say anything. In a few moments they were deposited back on Guard HQ and the titan removed his hands begrudgingly.

They started to walk in the direction of the tram to node eight. There were guards and droids all around them, and Kronos felt like a pebble in a stream. It was strange to be in a room fool of people and still feel so isolated. He focused on breathing normally and easily. They just had to make it to the tram and they would be home free.

When they reached the entrance to the tram, Kronos noted a couple nearby Guards stiffen. It was difficult to tell why because of their fully enclosed helmets. Astra ignored them and raised her PCD to signal the doors but they remained closed. A nearby Guard approached, and Kronos felt alarmed.

“Sir,” the Guard said addressing the titan. “Orders have come from above. You’re to remain here until Operative Zhang comes to retrieve you. Please don’t re—“

Kronos didn’t even hesitate, he drew his pistol and shot the guard in the throat. Astra didn’t wait on any orders and killed the second guard waiting by the door. After that, the entire floor looked like an overturned anthill. Guards were screaming at the pair to stop but they were already running for a collection of fortaplast crates in the corner.

When it became clear the the duo had no intentions of giving up, the Guard started firing at them. Bolts of superheated plasma stated impacting all around them and Kronos activated the more militaristic aspects of his biosuit. If it truly operated similar to his armor, then it would provide him a measure of protection, even if it wouldn’t be perfect.

He dove behind the crates and Astra followed after him. They began firing back over the collection of crates, but they knew they couldn’t hold out forever.

“Any ideas?” He shouted over the impact of blaster fire.

“Kill them?” Astra yelled back.

Kronos shrugged and then looked over the crates to get an idea of what he was facing. There were about two dozen Guards and twice that number of light combat droids. Anyway, he sliced it, they were far outnumbered. He didn’t see a way of taking them out without dying a horrible death but he felt an idea begin to formulate.

“How far behind are the others?” He wondered.

Astra frowned as she pulled up the information on her HUD. “Looks like another thirty seconds until they lose comms and then another minute for power.”

Kronos fired a couple shots back at the Guard before replying. “That’s good, what will happen when the power goes out?”

“The life support will switch over to batteries, all doors and hatches will become open, and all transportation will be suspended.”

Kronos noted that the woman sounded a bit breathless. He checked her over and noticed that blood was seeping from a cauterized wound in her size.

“Fuck, you got hit.” He exclaimed.

“Yeah, nothing to work about. The suit has some basic medical tech. It’ll keep me in fighting shape until we get to the ship.”

Kronos nodded. “Alright, we need to strip off our clothing and adjust our bio suits until they cover everything.” He stopped to think.

“They can cover our entire faces, right? And we’ll still be able to breath and see?”

Astra grimaced as she had to stretch to fire over their containers. “Yeah, she assured him. The air tastes like a medbay smells, but it’s rated for space.”

“Good,” Kronos noted before tearing off his own shirt and then doing the same to his trousers. He kept his boots on. He figured he might need their magnetic functions if things went sideways. Astra provided covering fire as he repeated the action on her clothes. It was far less erotic than he had imagined.

Once they were stripped, he activated his PCD and had the biosuit cover his entire body until he looked like a black silhouette. Another change and his body turned a dark gray instead. That was something he learned on the hunt. In nature, there were rarely shapes that were entirely black. He wanted to create as much confusion as possible. A black silhouette in the darkness would stand out more than a gray. Especially once the Guard turned on their personal lights.

Once he was ready, he took over firing back at their opposition while Astra made the same changes. He noticed that the Guard were trying to separate and come at their position from the sides. He sent a few shots their way to disabuse them of the notion. He noticed that comms on the station must’ve gone dead, because the droids immediately became unresponsive. They didn’t stop moving, their simple onboard AIs were more advanced than that, but all they did was execute their last orders. That meant firing blindly at a stack of crates. Kronos didn’t realize the droids would be affected by the comm outage but he was thankful. That cut his enemies by two thirds and gave him a real chance of escaping.

He didn’t have to wait long before shadow blanketed the floor. He could barely see at first, but then his enhanced vision began to manifest until he could make out the shapes of his enemies. Once he was confident he could get around the level without crashing into something, he sprung from his hiding place and went into a controlled run.

Astra stay behind the crates and began firing blindly over them. Her distraction was necessary more a variety of reasons. First, she didn’t have his enhanced vision, so she couldn’t move around the level without painting herself as a target. Second, she was injured and staying behind the crates kept her from aggravating that injury. Finally, if she kept firing, then the Guard would assume they were both still behind the crates. That left two dozen Guard for Kronos to mop up. He realized that he was excited at the prospect.

The titan wanted to avoid using his pistols for as long as he can. He didn’t have his armor to help him adjust the visibility of his shots, and he didn’t want to expose himself to return fire. That didn’t mean he wasn’t just as deadly. He hit his first victim in a full body tackle. The man went down with a clang of armor. The man screamed out before the air in his lungs was forcefully expelled.

Kronos didn’t waste any time and pressed the barrel flat against the man’s throat. He pulled the trigger and the projectile turned his neck into a shredded mess. Even better, the victims only flesh shielded the illumination of the blaster from view. Kronos rolled off the body and leapt to his feet.

His next target was less than a meter away. The titan sprinted toward it and used a pistol to bludgeon its throat. He hear a the victim start wheezing as their windpipe completely collapsed. Kronos knew that it wouldn’t be a quick death, and he didn’t have time to waste. He picked up the dead guards rifle and use it to kill three others before discarding it. It clattered half a meter away from him and soon it was lit up by blaster fire.

He was already moving to his next pair guards. They were facing away from him in complete disarray. He repeated his last maneuver on the new pair, except he aimed for their spines. On each swing, he put some extra force behind them and he felt more than saw their spines turn to dust. They slumped to the ground, all control of their body removed. When they fell to the ground, their weapons slipped from their useless fingers, and more blaster fire lit up his location.

He felt one of the shot strike him in the chest. He felt a sharp stabbing pain and could smell his own burning flesh until a cool sensation like running water spread over the wound. He couldn’t stop to check out how serious the wound was. As long as he was still moving, he was still breathing. If he stopped, then the Guard could quickly pinpoint his location and end his escape attempt.

He stepped out of the flurry of blaster fire and slunk around the room until he was coming from alongside them. Most of them had their backs to the lifts and were still firing at the containers. Their shots were less than accurate since they couldn’t see nearly as well in the dark as the titan. Some were milling about trying to figure out where he was. However, the sounds of their own movement and the racket caused by the blasters masked his own sneaking.

As he was figuring out what to do, a lucky shot from Astra took down another of the Guard.

This is too slow, I’m going to have to take a risk, he decided.

He observed the positions of the remaining guards. He still counted close to twenty of the guards still alive. He figured he’d only be able to get off three shots before they could turn and target him. That meant he could take six lives if he were careful with his aim. He had to adjust his position so that all six potential victims weren’t covering each other.

He raised both of his pistols and started blasting.

Two, four, six, move!

Six bodies dropped to the deck and he was already running around the room to put the central lifts between himself and the other guards. The rest of the guards turned to fire at his previous location and Astra was able to hit a couple more in the confusion. He couldn’t tell if they had been kill shots because he was already moving around the lifts.

Once he was on the other side, he counted just twelve more guards. He had successfully defeated half of his foes. Now, they weren’t nearly so concentrated. They had spread out and were facing various directions. They were still running blind, but they’d be able to react more quickly. Only three were facing his current position. He knew that he could get two of them, but there would still be a chance the third would hit him before he had time to make a second volley.

He decided it would be worth the risk. The more time they were pinned here, the more time they could send reinforcements. Zhang was probably on the way already and if he arrived, it would be all over. The Frumentarii suit could easily penetrate the darkness of the station and put an end to their token resistance.

He lined up his shots and immediately took out two of the guards. Like he had expected, the last one had the time to ping Kronos in the shoulder before the titan put him down for good. Kronos hissed at the pain but was already moving once again. He ran to his original position and shouted “don’t shoot,” before he slid behind the crates.

“You’re luck you said something,” Astra growled.

“Yeah, well I like my skin without holes in it,” he replied. “There are nine humans left.” He ducked his head over the crates and noticed that Astra had significantly thinned out the number of combat droids.

“All right, last push.” He laid set down one of his pistols and then laid a hand on Astra’s shoulder, and created a live feed of what he was sending. With the comms down, they couldn’t transmit over the air, but a direct connection was still possible.

“Mark your targets and try and get at least three of them. I’ll take the rest,” he ordered.

Astra nodded and he took pot shots at the remaining enemies to keep them from drawing closer. When she signaled that she was ready to begin, he rose from his crouch and shot at every target from right to left while Astra shot from left to right. Evidently, the Guard hadn’t been expecting organized resistance, because their first few shots were spectacular misses. Astra had been able to take down two, and he had bagged four before they had to retreat back behind the crates.

“Fuck,” he hissed. The titan had wanted to finish them off, but he wasn’t stupid enough to stay exposed while they had a bead on him.

“Okay, this is the last, last push.”

He saw Astra grin in the darkness at his joke. He repeated the same process as earlier and then they were up and fighting again. The remaining guard were finally killed. After that, it only took about half a minute to finish off the unresponsive combat droids. When the floor blessedly fell silent, Kronos gave a small prayer to the gods for their success.

“Alright, let’s get the fuck out of here.” He said tiredly.

“Hold on, I think we need more fire power.” Astra stopped him as she leaned down and started collecting rifles from the guards.

“What are you doing? Help me.”

Still confused, Kronos did as he was told and helped her collect a dozen of the Decanus rifles. Once they were gathered up, Astra started stripping their battery packs and disassembling them. She pulled out a small silver silver card from each chassis and separated them into a pile. When they were together, she scanned each one with her PCD and then gave half to Kronos and kept the other half to herself.

Kronos looked at them blankly and then at the pilot. “What do I do with these?

“Consider them hand grenades,” she said as she started pulling a c couple utility belts off of nearby bodies. She strapped one around her waist and dropped the grenades into a pouch. She handed the other to Kronos.

“Just signal them with your PCD before you throw. You’ll have a few seconds before they go off.”

Kronos strapped on his own belt and stashed his grenades. “Do you think we’ll need them?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “No clue, but they would’ve been useful in that last firefight.”

“Point taken,” the titan responded.

Fully equipped, they made their way toward the large corridor leading to node eight. On their way, Astra dropped her rifle and snagged a pistol from one of the dead guards. The switch allowed her to put less stress on the wound in her side.

The reached the corridor and started rushing down it. Without the benefit of the tram, a fast-paced walk would still take them ten minutes to reach the other node.

When they had gotten about halfway, Kronos stopped. His sensitive nose had smelled a familiar scent that filled him with dread.

“Zhang,” he whispered.

The space in front of the shimmered as the titan’s partner disengaged his active camouflage.

“Hello, friend.” Zhang coldly greeted.