After taking a moment to regain his strength and refuel with some snacks, Dax headed to the conference room where King Strithano was in the middle of a tirade.

"-exactly why I didn't want you wandering past the village! The ruins! You never listen!"

Ren was sitting silently in one of the conference chairs as his father paced at the head of the table. The king was a big man, both in height and girth. He wore a simple tunic, rolled at the sleeves, and black pants. He preferred not to be overstated, and he didn't need to be. King Strithano's voice was naturally strong and assured, although now it was rushed with anxiety. He paused as Dax entered the room.

"Dax!" The king turned and walked towards him with steely eyes. "You should have known better than to take Ren to the ruins!"

Dax lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry your majesty."

"Father, stop," Ren protested. "You know it wasn't his idea."

The king looked back at Ren, then sighed and paused to regain his composure. He placed a hand on Dax's shoulder.

"I am sorry Dax, I should be thanking you of course. You saved my son's life. Again."

He looked between Dax and Ren. "I am glad you are both safe. Now sit."

He gestured to an open chair, and Dax took it. "Tell me, what do you know of our enemy?"

Dax shook his head. "Only that their leader is the most powerful Vismutor I've ever seen. What she did just now shouldn't even be possible."

"I did not believe it myself when the guards told me what they saw. Did that woman really melt a field of grass?"

"Yes your majesty, and worse than that, she saw Ren's face and appeared to know he is a Key."

The king turned sharply at his words.

"That is impossible! No one outside of this planet should know a Key even exists!"

"I have no idea how she found this planet, but I believe she may have confirmed Ren to be a Key when he... he had some sort of reaction to her sorcery."

Ren's eyes widened at this information. "Is that what happened? All I remember is feeling strange. Like my blood was on fire and my head felt fuzzy, and then... I'm not sure. Like I was being pulled towards something." He held his arms across his chest. "It wasn't pleasant."

The conference doors burst open and a guard scrambled to address the King.

"Your majesty, the Vismutor is at the main entrance! She's taken several of the villagers hostage!"

The king left with the guard without a moment's hesitation. Ren and Dax shared an anxious look before following after.

When they made their way out the front door and onto the shielded lawn Dax realized how dire the situation really was. The lead Vismutor was just outside the shield, standing proud and tall, and holding a young woman by the throat. The villager was on her knees, grasping at the robed woman's vice-like grip. Dax recognized her as the village tailor, a kind and ambitious girl he'd only met a few times.

That wasn't even the worst of it. Behind her, the woman's servants stood guard around several more villagers who were manacled together with a strange silver rope.

As the King and his entourage appeared on the lawn, a triumphant smile spread across the Vismutor's face.

"HOW DARE YOU!" The King roared. Even Dax shuddered at the force of his voice. "You have made yourselves enemies to all the Navinian people! Leave now or there WILL be consequences!"

The woman's smile only grew.

"Here's what's going to happen, King of the Navinians." She spoke in Estoric, the most commonly known language of the galaxy, but with an accent Dax didn't recognize. Her voice projected through the shield, her words sharp and viper-like.

"Give me the Key, or every three hours I'll drain the life out of one of your little subjects. Starting with this one."

She tightened her grip and the tailor gasped, looking towards them with pleading eyes.

"NO!" Ren cried, and moved towards her, but Dax stopped him. There was nothing they could do. Nothing could pass through the shield except sound and light.

The sorcerer raised her free hand palm up. The tailor screamed as a fire burst to life in the woman's upturned hand. Dax knew what was happening. She was pulling the living energy out of the girl and using it to combust the oxygen in the air. The fire burned, and the tailor turned gray and withered until the screaming stopped and she lay in a heap in the grass.

It was all too fast.

"No..." Ren shook, staring in shock at the body on the ground. "No."

He turned and ran back into the palace.

The King stood strong, although Dax knew he must be shaken as well.

"I will never hand my son over to you."

"Your son, hm? Well, it's either your son, or your entire race."

Dax had seen enough. He turned to chase after Ren.

"You, Empire scrap." Dax paused on the steps as the woman addressed him.

"I could use a tool like you. Help me, and I can fix your defect."

Dax stood very still. It wasn't possible, was it? No, she was trying to confuse him. Trick him into switching sides. As if that would ever happen.

Dax ignored her and continued into the palace.

........................

Dax found Ren in his room on the second floor. He was sitting on the window seat looking out at the dark forest beyond and biting his nails, a habit he'd given up years ago. He didn't look back when Dax entered, but spoke to him with a wavering voice.

"What am I supposed to do? I have to go with them."

Dax huffed and sat in Ren's desk chair by the door. "Moron. That would only make it worse."

"How could it be worse?!" Ren looked at Dax with red eyes. "If I go at least they'll leave everyone else alone."

Dax should his head. "I doubt it. Anyways, if that woman gets a hold of your power this planet won't be the only one in danger. She could wipe out armies. A second intergalactic tragedy."

Ren lowered his head. "Then you're asking me to choose between my own people and the rest of the world."

"No, there might be a way out of this."

Ren looked up with a mix of anger, confusion, and a bit of hope.

"How? There's nowhere to go even if we drop the shield. We're completely trapped!"

Dax laced his fingers together awkwardly. "You know how I've always said my old ship was no better than scrap metal?"

Ren nodded with knitted eyebrows.

"Well, that's not exactly the truth. In fact, I finished repairing it about a month ago."

"You... lied to me? When you knew how much I wanted to-"

"That's why I lied. I didn't want to give you hope." He spoke quickly so Ren wouldn't have a chance to complain.

"But now I think it might be our escape route. As dangerous as it is out there, right now it's better than here."

Dax could tell Ren wanted to say more about his lie, but for now he put the topic aside.

"So we run away in your spaceship and just hope they don't follow us? What about everyone we would be leaving behind?"

"Oh, they will follow us. We have to hope I'm still a good enough pilot to lose them." Dax flexed his fingers, trying to remember the feel of the control wheel in his hands.

"And as long as they're following us they won't be hurting any of your people. Although I'm sure once you're gone they won't have any more interest in this planet anyways."

Dax knew this wasn't the truth. As long as the Navinians existed, there was a chance another Key would be born. They would always be hunted.

Ren looked out his window, considering

"One problem, how are we going to get past the shield? Your ship is somewhere in the forest isn't it?"

Dax shifted in his seat. "We'll have to turn it off."

"What!? But that will leave the whole palace defenseless!"

Dax tapped his foot on the ground. "Let the guards do their job."

Ren shot him a sour look.

"Besides, it's like I said before, these people don't care about anyone here but you."

Ren shook his head. "No. I can't put my family in danger like that. You saw what she did to that poor tailor!"

He shook his head again, more definitively. "We can't bring the shield down unless I know they're safe."

Dax's foot tapped harder.

"Ren-" He reigned in his tone of voice. "You're being unreasonable. This is the real world, you can't protect everyone."

"But I can't just run away!"

Dax stood up and began to pace.

Ren continued, "I'm their prince for Ovim's sake! There must be something else I can do." His eyes searched the middle distance.

Dax racked his brain for an argument to convince him. He wished he had the King's way with words.

"I'm going to the library," Ren said while already heading to the door, his eyes trained on the ground in the way Dax knew to mean he was deep in thought.

"Maybe there's a defense system built into the shield we don't know about..."

Ren had a gift when it came to sifting through endless texts to find a golden nugget of knowledge, but Dax was sure this particular search would prove fruitless.

Dax resolved to speak to the king. If Dax could convince him, the king would be much more effective at speaking to Ren.

..................

The King was meeting with a few advisers in the conference room when Dax knocked. He welcomed Dax inside.

"Dax, good. We have just finished taking inventory of the energy rifles and other useful supplies from storage. I need your expertise on how to plan our attack."

Dax held his hands behind his back and struggled to look the king in the face.

"...We can't attack, your majesty."

The king looked up with anger written on his face, but Dax could tell in his eyes that part of him had expected this.

Dax continued. "Any weapons they have will be centuries ahead of ours, but even without those the lead Vismutor is too powerful. I have no doubt she could bring the whole palace down on top of us, perhaps even with the shield. Ren's safety is the only thing that's stopping her."

The atmosphere in the room turned grave.

"Then all is lost," the king muttered.

"Actually, I have an idea, your majesty."

Dax proceeded to tell the king what he had told Ren.

"So, you have been sneaking out without my permission to fix that ship."

"I'm sorry, your majesty."

The King sighed. "Regardless, this plan will not work."

Dax faltered. He had not expected to be shut down so quickly. "What? Why?"

"You should know as well as the rest of us that the worst case scenario is to let my son fall into their-or any other organization's-hands."

"Yes of course, which is exactly why-"

"I trust you Dax, but you can't protect Vindaren from everything in the outside world by yourself. This is our last safe haven, and we will not leave it."

Dax felt his frustration rising again, as it did with Ren.

"So then you'll just sit here until you starve to death?"

The silence in the room was deafening. Finally, the king spoke.

"Our people have always known this day would come eventually, and we long since decided that the end of our line is preferable to the enslavement our ancestors experienced."

It took a moment for what the king was saying to sink in. Dax whitened, his confident posture dematerialized.

"You-you can't be serious!" He looked around the room pleadingly but no one would meet his eye.

"You're just going to let them all die!?" Rage tinged Dax's voice, and he stormed up and smacked his hands on the conference table, leaning in towards the king.

"Even Ren!? He's your son!"

The King kept his posture but would not meet Dax's eye. He seemed very old in that moment, as if he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes.

"I'm sorry you were dragged into our matters, Dax."

When the king said nothing else, Dax turned and strode from the conference room.

...................

Dax stalked to the main stairwell and rushed all the way up, startling a maid as he went and not bothering to apologize. He burst out of a trapdoor onto the roof, heaving in the fresh air. He came up here often, and had even set up a target for practice with his knives, which he kept not for protection-they would do little against an energy gun-but simply as a skill to hone to occupy his time. Although they had turned out to be much handier than he expected today.

Dax walked toward the front of the palace and looked out over the parapet. Five sleek ships -four-seaters by Dax's estimated- were parked in a semicircle a little way outside the shield. Within the circle were the townspeople, although certainly not all of them, Dax noted with relief. He counted five Vismutors standing guard near the ships. That meant there were likely another fifteen or so positioned around the castle or in the village. Their leader was nowhere to be seen. Dax cursed and left the edge.

He pulled a few daggers from his makeshift target, moved a few steps back, and took aim. Giving his body a task helped focus his mind. He had to come up with a plan, one that didn't rely on anyone else.

He threw the first knife and it sank into the wood with a satisfying sound.

Thunk

Maybe Dax could pick off the solitary Vismutors if he was quiet enough. But he would have to lower the shield, which would put everyone inside the castle in danger. He couldn't protect Ren and fight at the same time. No matter how he looked at it, fighting was no good. Once again, the only possible way he saw out of this was to sneak Ren out of the castle, but Ren had refused.

Thunk

Dax was sure Ren wouldn't agree with his father, but Ren would surely be even more adverse to leaving when he learned of his people's death wish. He would think he could convince them otherwise. His optimism never ran dry.

Thunk

Maybe if he waited long enough, and let the situation become more dire, Ren could be convinced. But that meant letting the Vismutors kill more of the townspeople, and he didn't want to see what that would do to Ren.

Thunk

He couldn't let Ren be taken or killed. He couldn't.

"AAaargh!"

Thunk

As the last dagger hit a bullseye, and a plan started to form in Dax's mind. With new resolve, he pulled three of the daggers back from the target, tucking them in his boot. He walked back down the stairwell to his room. He packed a duffle bag full of clothes, dehydrated foods, and other necessities, but only the bare minimum. Then he dropped the bag out the window so it lay by the wall of the palace, out of sight.

Next, he descended more stairs to the basement storage. Ancient boxes lay open, from when the guards had recently taken stock of the meager weapons left by their ancestors. Dax quickly found an energy rifle and belt holster. It was practically a toy, but better than nothing. Then he searched through the boxes for something a bit more unlikely to exist. Luckily he found it after only minutes of searching. A remote detonated circular EMP bomb. He thanked the long-dead person who was paranoid enough to take it along with them in their escape.

The shield activation console was in a small room off to the side of the main hallway in the back of the palace. There was a single guard posted in front of the room, ready to change the status of the shield should the king call for it. Dax made sure he was the only one besides the guard in the hallway, then walked casually until he was nearby. Then he pointed down the hallway in mock surprise and shouted "Trespasser!"

The guard immediately turned where Dax was pointing, pulling an energy gun from her hip. Moving quickly, Dax threw the EMP so that it rolled behind the guard's feet and into the room. When the guard turned back Dax smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry, it was just a shadow. Must be nerves."

The guard nodded annoyed but understanding, and Dax continued on to his last errand.

The medical center was thankfully empty, so Dax easily swiped the vial he was looking for, then made his way down to the kitchens. He prepared a cup of Ren's favorite tea, made from an herb on the planet called "Nevora." It had a naturally sweet taste. Keeping an eye out for the cook, Dax pulled the small vial out of his pocket. He hesitated, suddenly unsure. This felt wrong. The cold vial felt dangerous, the tool of a villain. It's for Ren's own good, he reminded himself, and hastily sprinkled a few drops into the tea.

The Library was a room with large windows on the ground floor of the palace. It wasn't a normal library with a collection of books, but rather a collection of small black boxes called Docks that were once used to store holographic text. The text displayed on a screen from a projector at the top. They were personal items of the Navinian's ancestors, and so the library contained hundreds of them, each with their own collection of books and other texts. They had to be charged via power blocks, which had at one point contained enormous amounts of power but had by now been nearly depleted, making access to the library extremely restricted. To everyone but Ren, who had begged for unrestricted access from his father. Ren was the only one who knew how the disjointed collection was sorted, and usually the only one who was interested in their contents in the first place.

Ren sat at a table surrounded by hovering text. He furiously scrolled through one, then the next, completely consumed by his work. He didn't notice as Dax walked up.

Dax cleared his throat and Ren jumped.

"Oh. Dax. I haven't found anything concrete yet, but I did find a few Docks with the manuals of similar weaponry made by Juisseppe Technologies, which is-"

"I brought you tea." Dax interrupted awkwardly.

"Oh." Ren's eyebrows went up. "That's... surprising. But nice, thank you." He smiled through his clear exhaustion and Dax felt his gut twist in guilt. He gripped the cup more tightly.

"Ren, is there any way I can convince you to leave with me right now?"

Ren frowned. "No Dax, I'm staying until I can find a way to protect my people. I have to do it before someone else is killed."

Dax nodded, mostly to himself, and handed him the cup of tea. "I'll help," Dax said, sitting across from Ren and pulling over a Dock he had left on the side. Ren had already gone back to his search.

Dax scrolled pointlessly while carefully watching Ren sip his tea. After ten minutes, Ren's eyelids started to droop. He shook his head vigorously, struggling to keep his eyes open, but this was a fight he couldn't win. Eventually, Ren slumped onto the table, his breathing even. Dax got up and patted his cheek, just to be sure. Then he opened the library window before carefully hoisting Ren onto his back and stepping out onto the lawn.

Except for the glow of the shield, the night on this side of the palace was pitch black and completely silent. The edge of the shield was a good distance away, but Dax carefully watched the dark anyway for a sign of the Vismutors. He crept along the side of the palace to recover his duffle bag then continued towards the forest opposite of the one they had emerged from earlier. Here came the most dangerous part. The closer they got to the shield, the more visible they would become. If they were spotted before the shield came down, it was over. Dax walked as close as the shield as he dared, then pulled the EMP remote out of his pocket. He took a deep breath, held it in, then out, focusing himself.

He took one look back at the palace, his home for the past seven years. Seven years of peace; no fighting, no fear, and plenty of good people. It was nice while it lasted.

He pressed the button. The effect was immediate. The shield crackled, then fizzed out. The darkness was suddenly impenetrable. Dax took off in a run. Behind him he heard shouting and screams. He didn't look back. He just had to hope he was fast enough.