There was a thud, and the metal door turned into a thousand pieces that flew through the air; like diamond splinters, wrapped in a cloud of icy gas that escaped from the lock’s broken compressors. A face with a single huge red eye appeared through the steam curtains, glowing in the dark.

Broga went through the silvery combustion; and before the last shrapnel of the door touched the floor, leaving a ghastly metallic echo as a trace, he took his first step into a new hall.

The place was almost immersed in the shadows; only a dim blue light, that seemed to radiate out from nowhere, gave some clue as to what was in front. Nothing. Except for the remains of the entrance door vomited in front of the threshold and a bit of mist, the place was empty.

It was a circular area the size of a small stadium, all covered by a geodesic dome; a lattice shell structure formed by hexagons that gleamed as if they were made of black glass. Crossing the hall, it was the exit: a hexagonal-shaped door that was barely visible among so many hexagons. Level 5 was on the other side.

The intruder walked toward there, and his footsteps caused another type of echo that would have freaked out anyone.

The floor was as shiny as the dome itself; the image of Broga mirrored beneath his feet, creating the illusion there was another android in a wrecked trench coat under him, copying his footsteps.

But the room actually worked as an anteroom to level 5, and its broad architecture, like its nudity, had a specific purpose. The dome was a trap to contain the enemy, and Broga had fallen for it big-time.

Officer Liza Grant’s voice was heard omnipresent: “Grenadiers, proceed to execute the intruder!”

The android stopped in the middle of the hall.

“Stand back and no one else shall die,” he warned; his synthetic voice filled the dome with more echoes.

One of the dome’s hexagons became light, and that light was revealed to be a gate. An electric humming sound came from everywhere, and soon, even the same floor started to quiver. The pieces of the entrance door trembled.

Showing incredible military coordination, a squad of ten Grenadiers emerged from the hatch, each flying with thrusters on their backs.

They wore armor with black and white pieces, light as nylon and as strong as steel. Their heads were covered with a cone-shaped helmet, and their eyes were behind dark visors. A black breastplate that simulated a large pectoral; and on the side of the heart, the coat of arms of the Empire set like a medal. The captain led the squad and stood out for having crimson-colored pieces of armor that the rest had white. Watching them was like being before a strange mixture of times; they wore the arrogance worthy of a medieval knight, and at the same time, the terrifying aura of a futuristic machine, a killing machine.

One after the other, they skirted the walls of the dome, initiating a circuit around Broga. They were like cunning wolves studying their prey before jumping on it. The hum of the thrusters scraped the air until it became a roar.

The intruder stood still.

The ringleader in crimson armor fulfilled his role as executioner, and raising an arm, delivered the sentence. Cannons appeared from the top of the thrusters, and a bubble of light from their barrels heralded the attack. The commander lowered his arm, and the cannons hurled laser rings at the intruder. Shots hit their target, and the dome rocked with an explosion that lifted metallic debris and stained the glossy dark walls with the glow of the fire.

Suddenly, everything had lit up red.

The Grenadiers continued in formation. They knew that their first attack was only a warning and that it would not be enough.

They were right. Broga emerged from the column of flames and smoke with an incredible leap, cupping his arms like an eagle taking flight. He reached a hand out to the soldiers, and one of the thrusters exploded on the back of its occupant, wrapping him up with arms of fire and silver lights. The first casualty of the squad.

A second attack was immediate.

The speed of the thrusters increased; the roar of their antigravity wings grew so high that it became an unbearable hiss. Being in the geodesic dome at the time felt like being stuck in the turbine of an airplane about to take off.

The silhouette of the nine grenadiers circling the dome became a cyclone of blurred lines, and laser shots rained down on Broga.

He dissolved each slice of light with electric shocks. Wherever he aimed, a laser ring disintegrated; and the rings that mocked his aim, he evaded with coordination of turns as masterful as the one he had carried out several floors above, in the courtyard of the barracks.

The soldiers broke their formation for the first time and zigzagged around the dome. A new round of shooting began, and Broga took the life of another soldier.

Machines crossing; thrusters sounding. Bold moves. Curved walls with glowing hexagons moving in and out. Looming center. Feeling of emptiness, of vertigo. Reaching fire. Smoke clouding. Attack positions. Cannon fire. Lasers that cut through the air, exploding. Cyclops’ response: the annihilation of two more Grenadiers; one covered by the explosion of his propellants, the other stamped against the glass walls. The geodesic dome watched its best men fall.

The remaining soldiers changed strategy, and gliding through the air, repositioned themselves on the same imaginary horizon, with the captain in black and crimson armor in front, all facing Broga. A kind of court-martial ready to condemn the android.

Arms raised, the Grenadiers contracted their fingers, activating the ‘trigger’ command, releasing the energy that boiled in them and channeling it through their gauntlets. Threads of blue electricity appeared in their hands, although this time they did not weave spheres of light, but rose to form a single gigantic sphere of power above their heads; an immense ball of lightning that sizzled with a spirit of destruction; a blue sun within a circular room that moved to position itself just above Broga.

Six soldiers. One giant Fotia. A target.

The expressionless intruder saw that crushing force descend upon him.

The Grenadiers pinned their hopes on that great mace made of electromagnetic vibrations.

Broga attempted defense by putting his arms out to his sides, spreading his fingers like antennae, and generating an electric field that was barely reflected on the ground.

Both forces collided.

There was a muffled sound, and a second later a translucent blast of fire spread, causing a shock wave so violent that it flayed the hexagonal coverings of the walls, shook the fallen men and the remains of destroyed thrusters that were on the ground, and shook the foundations of the hall and the complex itself.

The cataclysm caused a blackout, and Bellatrix was left in total darkness for an instant until the auxiliary lighting system was put into operation.

Running in Bellatrix’s hallways, sidestepping the remains of androids, wounded soldiers, and corpses, Juzo and Malin felt the entire facility shaking. And suddenly, the darkness devoured them.

“That was…!” She staggered. The red emergency lights were activated. “That must have been a Great Fotia!”

Juzo squeezed his backpack straps and kept moving. Recalling the path Rigel Beta had recommended him to take, to reach his destination without setbacks, he made a detour to the left in the next corridor; while the trail Broga had left on his journey, covered with destruction and death, stretched to the right.

A gust of wind eddied the clouds of dust raised after the explosion, and the dome’s air ducts—slits hidden between the hexagons—digested them along with the gas escaping from the damaged pipes from the basement. Only tiny particles of metal remained in the air, like diamond particles, swimming among the devastation.

The dome’s floor now had scars left by the collision of forces, a series of cracks that drew circles around a smoky figure: Broga.

The six Grenadiers, hovering around him, stunned. Behind the helmet visors, the eyes of those men were wide open; and behind the white bevors, their mouths trembled without knowing what to say. The multiple-technique had never failed. The Great Fotia had always wiped the target off the face of the planet; at least during workouts. And yet, there he was.

Broga perhaps no longer had such an arrogant attitude as the one he’d held until a moment ago, but he was standing. The burst gnawed his outfit a little more, taking some buttons off the trench coat, and tearing off part of his trousers. Still, he didn’t fall. His empty face had not lost an ounce of coldness.

The Grenadiers should have attacked him right there, taking advantage of the fact he wasn’t ready yet, but they were so stunned they had even forgotten how to move. When they tried, it was too late.

The captain moaned. His helmet broke like an eggshell, exposing his face scarred by pain; a thread of blood crossed his forehead. The man in the crimson armor babbled a curse; and from above, he fell to the ground, dead.

Broga aimed at the remaining five Grenadiers with his hands and tried to reveal cannons from his palms; the one on the right got stuck before its barrel could come out, and the one on the left sparked and retracted again, shrouded in smoke. As if it were blood, a dark oil began to sprout from his wrists and the union of his forearm with his elbow. The Great Fotia had affected him after all. Looked down; there was one of the metallic wings of a propeller that the explosion had dragged to his feet. With impressive speed, he lifted it off the ground with one hand and held it up, laced his fingers through the wires protruding from the metal cover, brought out the thruster cannon, pointed it at the imperialists, and opened fire.

Laser rings spread all over the dome. Clouds of splinters and fire rose from the ground following the course of the shots.

The five Grenadiers fled from their own weapons: a complete humiliation.

A ring reached a soldier, and with a screech of death, he fell.

Then another.

The last three Grenadiers threw themselves against their enemy.

Broga launched the thruster wing like a frisbee, propelling it with an electrical impulse. The device went off, knocking one of the soldiers down on the way.

The last two soldiers formed Fotias in their hands. Not only was it their final attack, but it was also a suicide attack.

Broga held them back with a wall of energy; his antenna-fingers had not been damaged and could still generate electric shocks. The Grenadiers increased the force of their blows, starting a fight between power grenades and an electromagnetic field.

Both sides; face to face. A face of metal, lifeless; a huge red eye. Two angry, sweat-soaked faces, covered with helmets that seemed to come from the future; hurt and angry eyes behind the visors.

The soldiers’ armor cracked. The energetic push was tremendous. Their helmets cracked. The communicators that were pinned to their ears shorted out, and the static deafened them. But none of them stopped. Both Grenadiers kept their swarm of thunderbolts pulsing in their hands, trying to counter Broga’s strength. They were the only ones in the squad who had managed to get so close to the intruder; they were less than ten feet from him and yet, judging by his coldness, all bets were off.

Broga increased the mass of his shield. Oil gushing from his arms splashed everywhere.

The energy boiled over, and there was a Crack! Crack! The sound of the break, of the coming death.

Finally, the force abandoned the soldiers. Broga won the power bid, and with his lightning clashes, drove the grenadiers away from him, dragging them across the ground, destroying their armor, and killing them in the process.

The silence returned to the geodesic dome. The hall went from being an impeccable and brilliant place, worthy of admiration for its architecture, to a scenario of death, destruction, and defeat.

Broga turned to the entrance of level 5.

Now, nothing stood between him and what was hidden in there. Staggering a little, he walked to the door; and pulling its panels aside, he opened it.

A hand appeared a few inches away from his face and BOOM! A burst of blue lightning exploded in his face, throwing him back.

Silence for a second.

Broga stood up again; his knees squeaked and spurred sparks. His huge glass eye wept dark oil; and from his crown to the chin, a long black drop slid down his chrome skin. Even in that state, he focused on the person who had thrown such a bomb.

“I’m sorry,” Malin said on the doorstep. “No androids allowed in here.”