Xaleyp felt as if time had slowed down as Rach let out a yelp of surprise. The Prime Minister lay on the ground, his eyes barely open and a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. Xaleyp’s breathing quickened as he looked between the dead man and Castellian, unsure of where to look.

The Arcadian soldiers, frozen in place for a moment, recovered from their shock to bring their assault rifles up and point them at Castellian, each shouting overlapping commands. Grimaldus aimed Beta’s pistol directly at the man’s forehead from the corner he stood in.

“Put the gun down,” he said above the others, his teeth kept tight together. The Imperator made no sign of resignation, instead slowly moving his arm to point it towards the Secretary of War. “Do not make me pull this trigger.”

“These people will be the downfall of your way of life,” Castellian said, his voice steady. “If we allow them to run rampant, there is no telling what death and destruction they will cause next. We must make an example of them and show why the Praes Dominion is not to be underestimated.”

Castellian kept the gun pointed at the Secretary, no one daring to breathe in the silent room. He took deep, ragged breaths in and out, the creepy smile on his face remaining plastered across his lips.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Xaaaleyyyyp?” asked Castellian, his head turning as if on a swivel to look at the younger man even as the gun remained aimed at the Secretary of War. An unnerving calm mixed with madness was present in his gaze. “The chance to take out Arcadia’s leadership in one fell swoop? Wouldn’t it be something if I just did it for you?”

Castellian took a measured step back towards the window, neither his gaze nor his aim changing. Grimaldus, along with the rest of the Arcadians, kept their own weapons trained on the man.

“Or maybe I can just take care of this one for you.” Castellian risked a glance at the window, satisfied at seeing it just a meter away. “After all, your entire plan has already gone to shit, so what would making it a little worse do?”

A gunshot rang out in the small room, and Castellian shouted in pain as he toppled sideways, the pistol falling from his hand. The Arcadian soldiers surged forward, quickly kicking the gun away from the Imperator and wrapping similar cuffs to his wrists and ankles. Two of the guards remained near the Siatians, one near the center and one just behind Xaleyp. Grimaldus was quickly overtop the man, stepping on his knee where a bullet hole tore through the joint.

“Castellian Nevermoor, you are under arrest for the assassination of Ewin Croyle, Prime Minster of Arcadia. You have the right—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know all about my rights,” Castellian said, cutting off Grimaldus.

The Arcadian soldiers hauled Castellian to his feet, making to move him towards the door to their left, when Beta looked directly at Xaleyp.

“Now!” she shouted.

Xaleyp hesitated for a fraction of a second before following her lead. As if they had rehearsed it, the pair grabbed the Arcadian soldiers’ rifles by the barrels, pulling and twisting them up. The soldiers’ arms bent to odd and painful angles, forcing them to release their grip on their weapons with yelps of pain. They staggered and collapsed to their knees with the attack, neither able to remain standing.

Both Xaleyp and Beta brought the butts of the rifles into the faces of the soldiers, knocking them unconscious and sending them backwards. The other Arcadians, focused on Castellian, hesitated to take their eyes off the man in case it was a ploy to escape, though two turned and brought up their rifles.

With hands still bound, Xaleyp was barely able to hold onto the rifle but somehow managed to aim it at one of the two. He pulled the trigger three times in succession and felt the recoil through his entire body. The gun jumped wildly with each shot in Xaleyp’s loose grip. One bullet lodged itself in the Arcadian’s shoulder, causing him to jerk to one side and drop his gun while the other two sailed through the broken glass.

Meanwhile, Beta already seemed to master firing with her hands together. She quickly took out three different soldiers before they were even able to react to the assault, sending them sprawling on the ground. Rach took the opportunity to dive to the ground, hiding under the table, and the Siatian soldiers followed her lead with a couple of them attempting to reach any weapon they could find. The Secretaries, not accustomed to battles, did the same, trying their best to avoid the hail of bullets.

Xaleyp turned his aim to another Arcadian, pulling the trigger in a second burst of fire. Prepared for the recoil, he was able to keep the weapon under much better control, though one of the shots still ended up off target. One of the Arcadians returned fire, and the bullet stung as it slammed into the metal exosuit but went no further.

One by one, they took out the Arcadian soldiers, but, as they worked their way to where Castellian was bound near the window, Grimaldus took off towards the left door. He jumped over a fallen body, landing somewhat awkwardly as he almost rolled his ankle. The misstep didn’t slow him as he continued across the room.

“Stop him!” Xaleyp yelled out, quickly trying to fire off shots to disable the man. There was no way he was going to let Lina’s killer escape, not when he was so close to getting his revenge. But each of the shots missed, and Grimaldus disappeared through the doorway which slammed shut behind him. “Damn it, we have to go after him.”

“Xaleyp, now is not the time.” Beta took a metal cylinder off one of the Arcadian bodies and held it to her cuffs, causing them to fall away. She grabbed him by the shoulder just before he reached the door and pulled him back over to the table, releasing his cuffs as they went. He struggled under her grip, trying his best to break free and go after Grimaldus. “Remember what we came here for, damn it! We have Castellian, and now we need to get out of here before they can stop us.”

Rach walked over to get her cuffs undone and looked Xaleyp in the eye. He stared back for a moment before he dropped his gaze to the ground, though the fury still surged through his veins.

“I may not know who Lina was, but obviously she was important to you. We can’t just rush in without a plan. We need to regroup and get Castellian out of here before it’s too late, then we can come up with a plan to capture him.”

“You don’t understand, none of you.” Xaleyp’s breathing increased as he forcibly moved Rach out of the way and continued trying to push past Beta to get to the door. “That son of a bitch killed Lina. I’m not going to let him get away that easily, whether you want me to or not.”

“You will stand down and resume your mission.” Beta stepped in front of him again and pushed both his shoulders, the enhanced strength of her exosuit sending him sprawling to his back on the ground. He continued to breathe heavily in and out, propping himself on his elbows and staring at her with bloodlust in his eyes. “You need to get your head out of your ass and realize what’s most important right now. There will always be another chance to get Grimaldus, but this is the only one to get Castellian out of here.”

“What if it was someone that you cared about that he killed?” The words sounded harsher than he intended, but he didn’t care. “Would it matter then, or would you still be wanting to let him go?”

“There’s no one I care about in the galaxy left, and I can honestly say it would make no difference who it was.” She glared at him for a few seconds after she finished talking before she looked around the room. “Now, let’s get on with this so we can get everyone left home in hopefully one piece.”

Xaleyp hesitated for a moment, continuing to stare at the door and breathing heavily. Beta was in between him and it, and there was no way he was going to be able to get past her. Finally, he nodded, slowly moving his gaze from the door to Beta as Rach stepped forward to help him up. The three of them, as well as the other Siatians, looked to the Imperator on the ground and saw the smile had vanished from his face. In its place was one of grim smugness as he looked over the assortment of bodies in the room.

“Well, it appears I’ve been lied to, but what else is new?” Castellian asked, pushing his feet against the floor and scurrying across the ground until his back was to the wall. He looked up to Xaleyp, his eyes devoid of any sense of guilt. “You’re a fool for following Ardus Kaine, Xaleyp Vah’Aris, and you would do well to abandon him as soon as you can.”

“Stop talking,” Xaleyp said, hitting him with the assault rifle hard enough to make his point without rendering him unconscious. Part of him felt good at being able to release some of his pent up anger, even if it wasn’t directed at who really deserved it. “You know your rights, and you’ve seen what we’ve done to people in your position. Be grateful that you’re still breathing and not plummeting to the ground.”

Castellian opened his mouth to speak, and Xaleyp hit him again, immediately prompting him to close it. Confident he would have a free moment, he opened a CAM channel to the Siatian carrier in orbit.

The transmission closed without a further word, and a timer appeared in the corner of his vision slowly ticking down the seconds.

“Right, we have five minutes until our extraction is here.” He looked over the assembled Siatians with an air of excitement mixed with nervousness. “Let’s take up some defensive positions and make sure we don’t have any surprises.”

The other soldiers, Thalen included, nodded and spread out around the room, two watching the windows and the other two watching the doors. Rach picked up one of the rifles a killed Arcadian soldier dropped and checked the ammo before kneeling behind the table and pointing the gun at the door herself.

Xaleyp and Beta both knelt next to Castellian, staying close to keep an eye on him.

“Ardus is not what you want to believe him to be, Xaleyp,” Castellian said, turning himself as best he could to look the younger man dead on. His voice was gentle and quiet enough that only he and Beta could hear him.“He’s doing the work of a higher power, one he may not fully understand just as I and Tober did. We all mindlessly follow whatever orders we’re given, unquestioning and unwavering, until it is too late.

“I know who Beta is, who she represents, and trust me when I tell you this will only end badly if you go to Stariek with her. She and her people are not to be trusted.”

“And you are?” Xaleyp scoffed and looked away from Castellian, his eyes scanning over the room for a moment. “You attacked civilians in cold blood and broke a treaty that would have brought peace to the galaxy for the first time in centuries. No matter what you say, you are going back to Siatia to stand trial for your actions.”

“You talk of cold blood and peace as if you know what those things mean, you petulant child.” Castellian’s face contorted into a scowl and he spat on the ground, sending a tooth scattering across the metal. “You have killed so many magnitudes more people than you claim I have, yet you act as if you are some righteous crusader.

“Look out over the city.” His voice was loud, almost shouting in the relatively quiet air of the conference room. “Look at the destruction you brought to this place and tell me again how you are so much better than me, how I am the bad guy of this story. Look at it, and tell me what you will tell your little sister when she discovers what you caused.”

He gestured with his still bound hands to the window, waiting for Xaleyp to look. The smoke continued to rise in both thick plumes and thin strips across the city. The sirens unceasingly blared, and the red and blue of emergency lights dotted the air in the darkening light of dusk. Skyscrapers lay in ruin, some crumbled to their bases and others leaning against their neighbors, tearing large gashes through the metal. No matter what Xaleyp tried to think to say to refute the accusation, Castellian was right.

“I did what I had to.”

Even as he said the words, Xaleyp’s eyes darted back and forth across the landscape, every time picking out a new detail of the devastation that he missed before. More than once, he saw fires raging in the skyscrapers around the city and picked out the almost imperceptible though distinct image of a body falling from the upper floors in an attempt at escape.

A tear began to form in the corner of his eye when he considered how many people were killed, and he quickly looked away, unwilling to let Castellian see any sign of weakness. Millions of people dead in the blink of an eye, all because of him. He breathed deeply as the one tear turned into more, and he was soon unable to stop the flow. Would Ely even understand what he did and why he did it? What would she think of her big brother, who turned himself into a monster for no reason other than to try to avenge their parents?

“Fuck me, what did I do?”

“What you had to, apparently,” Castellian snarled, glaring at Xaleyp. “But you have a chance to make things right. If you just let me go and break away from Ardus, you can atone for your actions, even if it won’t bring them back.”

“No.” Xaleyp shook his head with the single word, looking directly at Castellian even as several tears made their way down his cheeks. He struggled to keep his voice even and prevent it from cracking with the sobs that assaulted his throat. “Even if I am a murderer, so are you, and you are going to stand trial for what you did to that transport, for what you did to my parents.”

With the final word, the whine of the dropship engine came from over the city, and he looked up to see it streaking towards the building unharried.

“Alright, everyone, our ride is just about here. Form up and get ready to board.”

As he said the words, an explosion came from the door Grimaldus had disappeared through. It ripped through the wall, leaving a gaping hole in the wall to the outside and floor to the meeting room below. The shockwave tossed them aside like rag dolls, throwing them to the ground. Shrapnel dug into the exosuit, tearing through the metal and narrowly missing his body. Those closest to the door crumbled to the ground, unmoving, as the fire ate away at them. His stolen assault rifle flew from his hands, landing on the opposite side of the room with a clatter. Dust and smoke filled the air, obscuring and distorting their vision. Flames licked at the walls and ceilings as it tried to spread throughout the room.

Castellian struggled in his bonds, trying to crawl away and push himself up before toppling forward onto his face. He was nearly to Xaleyp’s assault rifle when a boot slammed onto his fingers, drawing a cry of pain from him.

“Give me a reason,” Rach said, her voice strained from keeping from coughing. She held one of the Arcadian’s assault rifles to his temple, both of her hands shaking. “Just one is all I need.”

“Rach, put the gun down,” Xaleyp said. He coughed when a gust of smoke flew past his face as he pushed himself up, almost dragging his body across the floor towards her.

“This bastard killed your parents,” she said, refusing to take her eyes or gun off him. “Even if he didn’t pull the trigger, he’s responsible for the attack. He deserves this, and you know it.”

“They’re my parents.” Xaleyp’s voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it before it betrayed how he really felt. She was right, Castellian did deserve this, but something inside him told him this was the wrong way to go about it. “If there’s anyone who wants him dead, it should be me, and I do. I’ve considered shooting him myself, but that is not going to bring justice to all the other families that were destroyed by his attack.”

Xaleyp looked away from Rach and locked eyes with Beta. She had asked him what felt like an eternity ago if this is what his parents would have wanted, and only now did he realize that it was not, even if it did take him this long to realize it. Almost as if reading his mind, she nodded to him, and he looked back at Rach, whose hands were shaking even more violently.

He took a couple probing steps towards her and, when she did not react, walked to her side. Cautiously, he put his hands on hers and gently took the gun away from her, and she did not resist. Instead, she simply looked at him with fury emblazoned in her eyes.

“I promise, he will be held accountable for his actions.”

“He fucking better.”

Rach walked away, going to the window and turning her back on both of them.