Aiden stumbled to the ground as he, Davos, Nadim and Jovani pushed through the crowd, reaching the bottom of the dais. His mind absently noticed the reflective glossy shine of the guard’s boots, mere inches from where he lay, the results of hours spent detailing their uniforms. He glanced around and saw Davos, his father helping him to his feet, both men staring, their focus intense, towards the dais. The Royal Crest, standing shoulder to shoulder in a human barrier above Aiden, blocked his view.

  His brain still trying to catch up with the last few moments, the young man looked behind him at the milling crowd, their growing agitation palpable. The faces of the people at the front of the crowd, on the other side of the empty, narrow space created by the soldiers, were a uniform rictus of fear and horror.

  What the hell?

  Aiden was climbing to his knees when he registered the unearthly scream that filled the terrace. Its piercing crescendo overpowering all other noise on the terrace as it called out to Death. He stood, glancing past the uniformed guards, and through their transparent energy shields, saw the scene which captured every other eye in the room. A young guardsman lay at the empress’s feet, writhing in agony, his back arching higher and higher, lifting his body off the dais, as blood streamed from his body.

  __________

  The empress crouched on the dais, the two boys kneeling close to her, an island surrounded by a pool of blood.

  She stared at Jovani, not moving.

  Not. Moving. At. All.

  Then, startling her captain, she did the oddest thing. She winked. The twitch of her eyelid was as incongruous with her stillness.

  Captain Jovani stared back intently at his empress; his mind slowly catching on. A feral smile crept across his features. Her signal received. He had his orders and now it was time to fight; his primary charge was no longer a concern, he was free to focus elsewhere.

  Nadim’s piercing screams, becoming an agonized gurgle as his lungs filled with blood, demanded his attention before anything else. He took a quick step towards the edge of the dais, lined with men, grabbing a blaster from a thigh holster. Captain Jovani turned, his ponderous steps taking him to stand close to his friend as his body attempted to tear itself apart. Jovani raised the blaster, his honor quieting the horror that filled his heart with what he was about to do. He stared into his friend’s and mentor’s eyes. Through the thoughtless pain, he saw a flicker of recognition and understanding. Jovani pulled the trigger, watching with relief as his friends found peace beyond the veil.

  May Adeera greet you with open arms, my friend.

  Jovani gave a small smile, his sadness mixed with hope for his friend, Lord Nadim Hakana. May his beloved wife usher him into the afterlife.

  Jovani turned from his friend and the motionless empress, still huddled over the two young men, glancing over the guard’s shoulders, assess the incoming threat. He started, realizing it had all happened with the space of a few breaths. He knew that happened in battle sometimes, the flow of time slowing, but it was always surprised him when it did.

  The incoming threat, dressed as wait staff, was still making their way through the rapidly retreating mob, who left the detritus of a celebration in their wake. Jovani’s trained eyes picked out a few bodies strewn about the terrace, his mind noting the oddity. The captain reviewed his men and woman standing guard at the bottom of the terrace, noting they had double stacked, the rear line of guardsmen now on the lower step of the dais, provided overlapping fields of defense.

  His primary duties taken care of, the captain turned his attention to the approaching threat. He took his first good look at them, his years of experience giving him a flood of information in just a glance. The threat was obvious, their objective clear. He didn’t need his years as a soldier to tell him these things. What they told him, however, was who they were.

  Their weapons

  His mind screamed at him, and he focused on them. He knew these weapons. Some of them, at least. His position as captain of the Royal Crest gave him access to the highest of clearances. Part of his mind was aghast with the knowledge of who stood before them, of who was attempting to assassinate the empress, but the professional in him tucked those thoughts away, to be examined later.

  For now, the captain knew his enemy, and his duty.

  “Interlopers!” he shouted, identifying his people’s worst fears.

  He saw his people stiffen at this; their training overridden by the deep ingrained fear they all learned as children.

  “I want them alive. Formation Delta Bravo.” Jovani said, his voice hard, breaking the spell of children’s tales, forcing his people into action.

  The order given, his men and women fell back on their training. They moved as one, weapons up, and approached the cluster of people stalking toward them from across the wide terrace. The soldiers spread out, working to flank the small group, hoping to overwhelm them with their numbers.

  The two groups slowly closed the area between them, sizing each up. The Interlopers were smart, staying stacked up on each other, using the tables and other decoration for tonight’s celebration between them and his people. Neither group had opened fire, yet, but Jovani knew that would know last. However, the Interlopers had the advantage. Jovani’s orders to capture them alive would hinder his men, whereas the attackers were under no such limitations. The discipline of the small group, faced with an overwhelming force, impressed the captain.

  A woman in the approaching force, her body mostly obscured by a hulking figure in front of her, turned, yelling in their own language to another woman, behind them, on the upper perimeter of the terrace. Jovani saw the lone woman shake her head emphatically, but the first woman yelled again. The captain didn’t need to know their language to know the message. The woman on the upper perimeter glanced at her companions one last time, before giving a curt nod and turned, running for the closest service entrance.

  Jovani was about to give orders from some of his flanking soldiers to follow the fleeing woman when the terrace erupted into the threatened firefight. The captain crouched behind his men, trusting in their energy shields, the fleeing woman dropping on his priority list. He watched between the gaps in his guardsmen at the approaching Interlopers, their bravery, or stupidity, on full display, as they rushed his men behind an overwhelming wave of blaster fire.

  Someone pulled him off the dais, throwing him off his feet and down, hard, behind an overturned table. His back bristled with the heat of an explosion behind him, the sound of the blast lost among the sounds of the firefight and yells around him. Looking backwards as he came to his knees behind the table, he saw a crater where the dais used to stand.

  Risking a quick glance around the edge of the table, he saw the Interlopers slowly backing away, their target taken care of, while keeping a heavy wall of blaster fire trained on his soldiers. Movement to the side of the terrace caught his eye, and he saw a guardsman who had used the debris strewn about the terrace to flank the enemy force. Jovani watched as the man stood from behind a large planter and took aim at the retreating group. Alerted by the guardsman’s motion, one of the group, the same woman who had forced the other to flee moments earlier, turned towards the new threat, her arm flinging out as she pointed a finger at him. The adrenaline pumping through Jovani’s blood gave him preternatural vision, a by-product of evolving as the apex predator on his home-world, and he saw the tiny flick of her wrist as it flexed. With his enhanced vision, Jovani tracked the fast traveling dart as it made its way across the room.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  The woman turned away from the guardsman; the threat taken care of, even though he still stood, bringing his weapon to bear. A heartbeat later, a third primal scream, one Jovani desperately hoped to never hear again, reverberated across the terrace, the blowing wind picking it up and adding it to its own tormented howling.

  The captain raised his own blaster, pointing it at the guardsman, already on his knees, pain etched across his features. Jovani pulled the trigger, giving the man a far better death than the one the Interloper had intended for him.

  The bastards will pay for this, I swear.

  He turned back to the small group of assassins in front of him, slowly retreating. They were at the foot of the steps leading up to the perimeter now. In his peripheral vision, he saw his people rising from behind tables, planters and other protective barriers, their training working to have them act as one with minimal orders. They were mounting an offensive, the Interlopers could NOT escape. Jovani stood in a crouch, his weapon coming back on target just as a second blast threw him backwards, where he landed hard on the edge of the crater. His air rushed out of his burning lungs, his mind fighting the darkness rushing in from the edge of his vision.

  His ears ringing, his breath returning in short labored gasps, he tried to sit up and bring his weapon to bear on the enemy again, his training allowing him, somehow, to keep a grip on the blaster. A guttural cry escaped his lips as his body protested the movement. Clearly, he had a few broken ribs and who knew what else? His breathing ragged told him his lungs took damage in the blast, but he didn’t have time to catalogue all of his injuries. He tried to see what was happening from where he lay. Men and woman, all dressed in the garrison’s blue and gold, lay thrown haphazardly across the terrace before him. He saw a smoking crater in the spot he last saw the Interlopers.

  What the hell?

  He tried again to sit up. He needed more information.

  Was his team still under attack? Where were the Interlopers?

  The ringing in his ears lessened, replaced by a familiar roar, and Captain Jovani raised his head skyward at the troop carrier hovering above the edge of the terrace. The same one that abandoned them only a short time ago. As his mind spun, trying to fit the pieces together, he saw the carrier open fire with its launch tubes, explosions ringing about the terrace as it emptied its complement of missiles. The carrier turned, the cockpit rotating until Jovani could see the pilot, his features obscured by the opaque tactile mask affixed to the front of his helmet.

  A familiar whine pierced the howling wind, and Jovani knew he would join his men in death. The carrier’s blaster cannons opened fire, peppering the already cratered terrace with pockmarks as it worked its way ponderously towards the captain. Jovani, knowing his time was near, stared unflinchingly at the torrent of fire as it crawled its way towards him, his only thought of the betrayal among his own men and woman, handpicked by him.

  The Interlopers have inside help.

  Captain Jovani closed his eyes, the sounds of the blaster cannons and wind fading as he prepared his soul to journey to the beyond. His only regret was that no one would know of the treason.

  A loud crack filled the room, the sound inhuman. It reverberated across the terrace, freezing the crowd for long seconds. Aiden turned at the sudden silence, staring into the sea of people, every eye wide. As he watched, he saw one person, then another, break, turning to flee the horror before them, pushing with rough hands at the others in their way. In between heart beats, screams erupted, and as one the bulk of the crowd turned rushing, pushing, scrambling to escape the terrace.

  He stared, astonished, at the crushing mob fighting to get away from the dais, the narrow clearing at the bottom rapidly expanding. Aiden looked around him, his head swiveling as he watched the elites of Solvonus break, their decorum shattered. He saw people fall, their companions trampling them as abject terror consumed them.

  Aiden could hear Captain Jovani yelling orders, trying to be heard over the cacophony that threatened to deafen him, the distraction briefly pulling the Royal Crest’s attention away from the crowd. That distraction meant that Aiden was the first to see the threat as it emerged from the milling populace.

  A small group of people, waiting staff by their uniforms, pushed their way through the panicked mob towards the dais. Their faces, set with determination, contrasted starkly with the looks of terror around them. As Aiden watched, they began pulling weapons out from under their uniforms. Davos and Aiden had trained extensively with Lord Hakana’s personal guard and he was familiar with countless weapons, but these were unlike anything he knew.

  Aiden turned, trying to get the captain’s attention, but Jovani’s focus was on his men and his job, Aiden’s calls a distraction to be ignored for the moment.

  He turned to Davos next, but caught the high marshal’s eyes instead, even as he pushed Davos past the honor guard, trying to provide a semblance of protection for his son. Aiden pointed into the roiling mass and Lord Hakana looked in that direction, seeing the danger approaching. Nadim yelled something at Aiden, his voice lost amongst the screams, before gesturing, urging Aiden to him, where he pushed the young man between the human barrier surrounding the dais, the soldiers there creating a small gap in their overlapping energy shields.

  Aiden slammed into Davos’ back as his father propelled them both through the soldiers onto the bottom steps of the dais. As the two young men fell in a heap, a sudden wind pummeled them. The temperature on the terrace, a comfortable balm only seconds before, dropped precipitously, instantly drawing icy puffs of breath from them both.

  The terraces’ force fields were down.

  Nadim took the young men by their arms, hauling them onto their feet, his strength surprising the two friends. He pushed them to the top of the terrace, towards the empress, who was kneeling over the broken body of the guardsman. Davos and Aiden fell, landing hard beside the empress, the guardsman’s pooling blood soaking into their clothing.

  A roar broke through the wind and the screams, a blast of hot air a sudden relief to the plunging temperatures at the top of the Cultivation Palace. Aiden tore his gaze from the deformed body before him, glancing up. A troop carrier, bristling with armament, hovered a dozen meters above the dais. He looked from the carrier to Lord Hakana, who had a hand pressed hard against his ears, yelling. Aiden realized he was trying to use his embedded comm unit, but the deafening din on the open terrace made it all but impossible.

  Jovani, his orders given, reached his commander’s side, even as the Crest reformed ranks. Nadim was yelling at Jovani as he gestured at the crowd towards the same group Aiden had pointed out. Their progress, hampered by the stampeding crowd, became unencumbered as the terrace emptied. Their weapons clearly announcing their intent.

  Jovani shouted new orders to the guard, but their attention had already turned on the emerging threat, as they no longer had the mass of people to hide them. Lord Hakana waved to the carrier’s pilot, pointing to a mostly empty expanse a few dozen feet from the dais. There were tables strewn about, even a body or two, but it was the clearest section of the terrace for the carrier to land on, and it was opposite of the small group of assassins.

  Nadim’s gestures became increasingly animated as the carrier maintained its hover. With a roar, it lifted further into the sky, turning, its engines blasting the terrace as it went to full power, propelling the craft into the sky and quickly out of sight.

  Aiden saw Lord Hakana and the captain share startled glances.

  What the hell?

  A flash caught Aiden’s attention, pulling his gaze across the terrace to the upper perimeter. Time slowed for Aiden as he saw a woman dressed in a waiting staff uniform stand and dramatically point her finger right at him. Her calm face struck Aiden as ludicrous in the teeming turmoil that engulfed the terrace. His instincts roaring at him, Aiden turned back to the empress, just as Lord Hakana pushed the empress down the far side of the dais. The high marshal stumbled and fell to his knees as he looked towards his son. Davos and Aiden were still kneeling beside the deceased guardsman, and both men froze in horror as they saw Davos’ father’s face twist in agony.

  Aiden knew with unflinching certainty what was coming. He grabbed his friend by the shoulders, to force him to look away, but Davos was as immoveable as a statue, his muscle hardened metal under Aiden’s grip.

  May the gods preserve us.

  Echoes of the guardsman’s death reverberated around them as Nadim, Lord Hakana, High Marshal of the Imperial Navy, began to writhe and scream in pain. It was happening too quickly, in the space of a few heartbeats. His mind overcome by the scene before him, Aiden stilled. He and Davos stared unblinking, their breath held, as they watch Nadim flip onto his back which was arcing higher and higher with each discordant scream.

  A second scream built, mirroring the High Marshals. Davos, the young heir to the Hakana seat, at last finding his voice in the mounting horror.

  As Nadim, Lord of the Hakana, began to writhe and scream in pain, Astra sprung into action, shaking her own momentary horror off, years as a soldier on the front lines, aiding her. She tore her gaze away from her closest friend and confidant, grabbing the two young men kneeling beside her by the shoulders.

  A moment of darkness, filled with deafening silence, the agonizing screams, suddenly cutoff. In the silence, a deep, raw cry of anguish built. Its primal roar threatening to rip the very fabric of the universe apart.