Captain Veres stood at rigid attention before the tall chair turned halfway toward the massive wall of screens. Seated within it was General Broda—the governor's personal appointee and commander of law enforcement in Amarant City.
Veres trembled slightly, but unmistakably—from crown to heel. Sweat lined his forehead, soaked his collar, and no effort could shake the fear that had sunk its claws deep into his spine. Broda was watching the screens, studying reports and drone footage.
"General," Veres finally managed. "A third attack has been confirmed. Not far from Union Square."
Broda didn't respond immediately. His gaze was fixed on a live drone feed: a burning vehicle, scattered bodies, figures flitting in disarray.
"That the place with the hostages? The restaurant?" he asked at last, with almost lazy detachment.
"Yes, sir."
"What orders have been issued?" He didn't even ask what had become of the hostages. Veres swallowed.
"Rapid response teams have secured the perimeter. But the crowd... too many civilians. Panic. The terrorists are using them as human shields. Our units can't fire—there are just too many bystanders."
"Pathetic," Broda sneered, reclining in his chair and interlacing his fingers across his belly. "Imperial Guard, is that what you call yourselves?"
A flush of heat surged across Veres' face. He dabbed sweat from his temple with a handkerchief.
"We'll do everything possible to contain the threat, identify—"
"Identify?" Broda interrupted, swiveling his chair toward Veres. "It's too late for that."
He gestured toward the screen.
"Look. If they haven't been neutralized yet, that means they have accomplices."
Veres froze.
"General... I don't quite follow."
"You do follow, Captain," Broda said dryly. "Those people in the crowd... they're sheltering terrorists. You understand what I'm getting at?"
The Captain said nothing. His throat had gone dry. On the screen, the so-called civilians still ran—families clutching children, people fleeing in panic. Which of them had 'helped'? Which were simply in the wrong place? He understood perfectly. It wasn't an order—it was a suggestion.
"For terrorism," Broda continued, "the penalty is clear. Death. No exceptions. Kill them all—and let the All-Fathers sort them out."
Veres looked away.
"General..." The words caught in his throat. "And the report for the Governor?"
Broda scoffed.
"You'll say there was a riot. The crowd attacked the police. We acted by the book. Necessary measures. Unfortunate losses. National mourning. The wording can be arranged."
He turned back to the monitors, and Veres understood—this was already decided. His voice had no weight here. He was just the messenger. A conduit of someone else's will.
"Understood, General," he said quietly.
The words echoed in his skull. It will be done. It will. He would say what was needed. Sign what was handed to him. He'd done it before. He would do it again.
"One more thing," Broda added. "Get a news bulletin ready. Let them see the consequences."
"Should we call in the full Guard?"
Broda didn't even glance over his shoulder.
"What for? Unleash the rest of the dogs." He chuckled. "What do you call them—Bloodsucker Squadron?"
The street instantly plunged into chaos.
Someone screamed—not in fear, but in pain. A sharp, real scream. The street came alive, not with life, but with spasm: everything flailed, collapsed, ran, howled. Cain took a step to the side, instinctively trying to exit the torrent of bodies—and nearly tripped over a woman carrying a wounded child, her shoulder slick with blood. He stumbled back, hit a concrete barricade, and felt his balance go—his legs slid, the world tilted. But he didn't fall. Someone grabbed his arm and held him upright.
"Careful!" barked a voice, steadying him by the shoulder. Cain exhaled sharply. Before him stood a policeman in black armor with matte plating. The emblem of the Krosa Empire glinted on his shoulder. The lenses of his helmet reflected the glare of streetlamps—empty, seared eyes.
"ID!" the officer demanded. Cain instinctively stepped back, but the officer was faster—grabbing him by the collar with one hand and leveling the rifle's muzzle at his face with the other. The strap of the weapon pulled taut, and Cain, without meaning to, calculated whether he could knock it aside in time if he struck now—then instantly suppressed the alien thought. But it didn't look like the patrolman intended to shoot. His helmet swiveled from side to side—now that the stampeding crowd had receded.
"I... Yes, just a moment." Cain's hand twitched toward his pocket—but judging by how quickly his face met concrete, he'd moved too fast. The officer rifled through his pockets, pulled out an ID card, then another unfamiliar one... and paused. A second passed. Then another. Then a full minute. Cain shifted awkwardly, trying to see what was happening. In the distance, a transport growled, its brakes hissing as it turned toward them.
"Hey, what's going—" he began, but stopped short. The patrolman took a step back, lowered his rifle, and let it drop to the ground. After a moment's hesitation, he undid the seals on his helmet, bent slightly, and removed it.
"What are you doing?"
"Hao, come on. Don't recognize me?"
"What?" Cain stammered, peering at the man's face but finding no trace of familiarity. "We... I..."
"It's not safe here, I get it," the soldier said suddenly, his tone shifting. "How can I contact you?"
"Why did you call me Hao?" Cain asked. "Who are you talking abo—?"
And then, all at once, Cain understood. Hao Fernamy had been the first—and last—leader of the Resistance during the last war. Archives were sparse; history is written by victors, and officially, Hao Fernamy had died. But among the rebels, the myth endured—that he had simply stepped away, and would return one day. Why this patrolman had called Cain by that name was a mystery. A mistake? A slip? He didn't look like the man from the rebel murals.
"What..." the patrolman began, but he never finished. With a deafening screech, a truck braked nearby. The tarp shifted, and soldiers spilled from the back, rapidly taking positions. The door slammed, and an officer from the Krosa Empire emerged, flanked by troops disembarking from the vehicle.
"Excellent work, Private," the officer said, approaching the patrolman. "You've captured a terrorist. You'll be rewarded—maybe even promoted."
"Captain Lance, sir! I believe there's been a mistake—this man's a civilian!"
"What?" The captain's voice cracked like a whip. He stepped in and punched the soldier hard in the gut. The patrolman doubled over, gasping.
"Apologies, Captain..." he choked out, straightening with difficulty.
"You get one chance. Kill the terrorist, and we'll forget your insubordination."
"Captain..."
"That's an order!" Lance drew his sidearm and held it out, grip first. "Or have you forgotten your oath to the Krosa Empire?" he growled.
"Yes, but... I can't." The patrolman glanced at Cain.
"What?!" Lance roared. "Forgot the punishment for defying an order?"
"I refuse to carry out your command, sir!" He stood upright and saluted. "This man is a civilian, not—"
"Earthborn scum," Lance snarled. A shot rang out. The patrolman flinched, then crumpled backwards. Cain, who had begun to reach for his fallen defender, froze—staring into the barrel of Lance's pistol, a faint wisp of smoke rising from its muzzle into the chill autumn air.
"The first axiom of freedom: Justice without strength is impotence. Strength without justice is tyranny."
The thought seemed planted in Cain's mind. Time slowed again. A sick sense of déjà vu flooded him—as if, for the second time that day, he was staring down the barrel of a gun. But Lance didn't fire. Perhaps he didn't even get the chance. From beside the truck, unnoticed until now, a tattered man emerged. Through the holes in his clothes, one could see blocks of plastic explosive strapped to his chest.
"Rebel Postal Service! No one stops the mail!" the madman screamed—just before the truck vanished in a blinding flash. Shrapnel tore through Lance's helmet, hurling his body into Cain and shielding him from the full force of the blast. Another concussion—Cain's third of the day—sent him reeling. For a second, he felt suspended in space, hovering above a blue, cloud-wrapped Earth, hearing only his own breath. The illusion passed quickly. Reality returned with a jolt as someone shone a flashlight into his face.
"He's alive. Alive," a voice confirmed.
Cain lifted his head. Through his blurred vision, he made out a police walker in gray and black, warning lights still spinning on its shoulders.
"I... yes..." he rasped, as the stranger helped him up from beneath Lance's corpse.
"What happened here?"
"I don't know..." Cain muttered, scanning the wreckage. And it was true—summarizing the last few minutes would've required a pen, paper, and days of analysis. Bodies lay everywhere, and now even the pilot of the walker before him no longer inspired trust. Sensing Cain's unease, the officer took a step back toward the machine, hand hovering over his holster. Like Lance before him, he hadn't yet decided whether Cain posed a threat—when a rocket burst through the smoke and slammed into the building overhead, sending down a cascade of glass and debris. The pilot fled in an instant—just before a heavy slab of concrete smashed into the ground, one chunk striking the back of his helmet squarely.
The pilot went down.
Cain froze. Instinct said move—logic said wait. And logic was right, as more rockets hit the upper stories. Glass and stone rained down.
Without thinking, Cain lunged for the walker, pressing the pedals and shoving the controls forward just as another wave of wreckage fell.
To Cain's relief, the walker responded without hesitation—its systems engaging smoothly. A soft chime acknowledged the activation, HUD symbols flickered to life across the inner canopy—damage indicators, ammo reserves, external pressure seals. It leapt forward in a jerky, lopsided arc, landing hard on the asphalt just before a rain of glass and office furniture crashed behind it. Cain wiped sweat from his brow with a sleeve. Inside the toppled machine, all was still. The original pilot, ignoring every safety regulation, had exited the vehicle during an active combat zone—and, mercifully, had left the ignition on.
Only the static of Krosa radio chatter disturbed the silence now. Cain cautiously manipulated the control yokes, urging the walker upright. Servos groaned, a warning beep flared in red—hydraulics strained, but held. Stabilization icons flashed amber, then green. As its sensors locked onto the glass-and-steel shape of the monorail station ahead, targeting reticle traced the structure, then vanished.
Route markers plotted a glowing path on the HUD, nudging him eastward. Cain made his decision and steered the walker toward it. If he reached the monorail, he might still escape this slaughter.
But the longer he listened to the Krosa communications—scattered, tense, cracking through the channels—the colder his blood ran. Static buzzed softly from the comm pane. On the edge of his vision, snippets of encrypted feed scrolled past in green glyphs—fragmented orders, emergency codes, casualty updates.
As the walker navigated the shattered plaza, its cameras swept across the carnage. The HUD stuttered—red motion boxes bloomed around unmoving bodies. A soft ping confirmed: no hostile activity. Then silence.
At first, Cain assumed the terrorists had taken to killing indiscriminately in the chaos. Then the walker froze. It stood before a low wall. Bodies lay in a row at its base. Their hands were tied behind their backs. The wall behind them was stained with blood.
Not random. Not frantic. A firing line.
An execution.
He stared at the bodies, their arms bound, backs propped against the wall like discarded tools.
One had tried to save him. One soldier—one out of dozens—had refused. Had chosen decency over obedience. And he'd died for it.
Cain clenched his jaw.
"This could've been me." he thought.
He could still feel the soldier's hand, the way it had steadied him after the crowd trampled past.
"A name. He deserved a name. And I never asked."
"I'll give you one chance. Kill the terrorist, and we'll forget your insubordination."
Cain shook his head, trying to dispel the memory. But certainty grew within him, layer by layer: when Lance ordered his execution—without even asking his name—it wasn't a rogue act of cruelty. It wasn't a slip.
It was policy. The penalty had already been made clear.
La Fère's theatrical bluff, he realized, hadn't been a lie—it had been an unwitting prophecy. The Krosa Empire had orchestrated this massacre from the start. They had created the chaos. They had provoked the panic. And when the dust settled, they would release the emergency broadcast—one that framed the rebels as bloodthirsty fanatics, indiscriminately slaughtering civilians.
Their infiltrators within the Resistance had done their work well. They had forced the movement into action prematurely, without strategy or support. They had reshaped them—not into fighters, not into dissidents or freedom-seekers—but into terrorists.
The transformation was complete. The rebels hadn't become monsters. They'd been painted as such—and the frame had set.
On one of the external cameras, Cain spotted a body half-buried beneath a mound of rubble. A hand still clutched a weapon. He lowered the walker into a crouch and opened the cockpit. The hatch hissed, and locking bolts retracted with a mechanical thunk.
If he was going to understand this war, he needed to see it with his own eyes.
Cold air slapped his face as he dropped into the snow. The ache in his ribs flared again—no longer dulled by adrenaline. Wincing, he knelt beside the corpse and searched it with practiced efficiency. He avoided the face—half of it was gone.
Beneath the civilian coat, he found a tactical harness. Military issue. Whoever this had been, they hadn't been just a bystander.
A faint crackle startled him. The man's radio was still active—damaged, cracked, but functional.
He could turn it off. Walk away.
But the voice on the other end was calling to someone—and right now, he was the only one left to answer. Cain lifted it carefully, making sure it wouldn't fall apart in his hands, then climbed back into the walker's belly.
There was no time to hesitate. No time to doubt. He'd take a Krosa machine over a Krosa bullet.
A rare opportunity had opened before him—one that might let him help those still fighting for Earth's freedom.
And nothing changes the course of a battle like the timely appearance of the carnivore.