It looked like a golden statue of antiquity, awakened and full of hateful purpose. Each impact of its heel shook the dunes of ash covering the floor, forming small eddies in the air and stirring its black stage curtain of a cape. Its figure was roughly man-like but large enough that its head almost peaked above the railing of the first gallery. Its armor was inscribed with glyphs from head to heel, each one an ashen gray. The light from the windows shined onto its breastplate, just below its head, which remained shrouded in shadow.

As it slowly paced across the hall, it sang in a low, resonant voice, repeating that same word again and again: Ershumni. It came to a halt, facing the hallway opposite where Thomas and Edd hid. The being continued its chant, speaking over a long staff-like weapon in some kind of blessing. One end of the staff curved into a blade of surgical sharpness, a cross between axe and spear. The other opened into a barrel, still steaming from recent use.

The cold weight of futility settled over Thomas as he lay on his belly behind the railing. Its armor could have any number of hidden functions designed to detect threats. Perhaps it could pick up low sounds or even detect the carbon dioxide in their exhalations. There was no way to know. A single breath could mean death.

If that thing even looks near our direction…

But it didn’t. Its gaze was transfixed into the blackness of the hall before it. With a final verse in its sharp tongue, it hefted its weapon and planted it into the stone with a thunderous crack. And there it stood, watching.

As the minutes ticked by, his skin tickled, and the ash from the air began to settle on him. He clenched his mouth shut and clutched the bricks to either side of him to fight the urge to brush it off. All he could do was just stare ahead at the golden, god-like being before him. Its opulent shoulder plates looked several inches of some gold-like alloy. The armor almost certainly had to be built around some type of powered exoskeleton just to move, let alone fight.

What the hell kind of enemy would make them need that? And why even bother with getting up close and personal anyway?

The Idex had the technology to just burn them away from space, like an ant under a microscope. Earth had proven that well enough, so why even bother landing troops, especially ones so obviously expensive as this one? He studied the ornate glyphs; their meaning was beyond him, but they were so intricate and fine. Perhaps they wanted to make a show of it so that future victims would know exactly who was coming for them and damage their morale in the wars to come. Or maybe it was for their own morale. Thomas doubted striding around in ornate regalia like that exactly bred humility.

A series of clangs rattled from the empty hallway, growing closer every second. The golden warrior lifted its weapon and formed a defensive posture for whatever was coming. Flashes of sapphire pulsed from the end of the hallway, illuminating two figures sprinting on their double-jointed legs right toward the main hall. From the brief preview of their armor, they appeared to be miniature versions of the golden warrior.

So, the golden one is a higher rank.

As the two bronze armored Idex reached the hall, another bright, azure flash filled the hallway, accompanied by the crackle of electric energy. The Idex on the left was flung forward, globules of molten metal splattered from its armor and onto the stone floor. It fell limp to the ground, steaming from the crater in its back.

The other turned and raised its own staff to prepare to fire, but before it could, a third figure burst forth from the darkness and entangled itself with the alien. This new, silver figure latched onto its arm and wrenched it sideways with a squelching crack. From beneath its helmet, Thomas heard the Idex scream in agony. The silver figure held the Idex up by its ruin of an arm and leveled its other arm directly at its victim’s face, and fired what Thomas now realized was the cannon in its arm.

It was so bright that he had to look away. White spots filled Thomas’s vision like he’d been looking into the sun. When he turned back, the second Idex was sprawled in a steaming heap, and the silver figure was finally standing still and facing the golden giant.

Ithlin?!

No longer was she the hunchbacked, venerable caretaker. She stood upright, a full head and a half taller than she had been the other night. Her delicate, hand-like manipulators were gone; one arm was replaced with a cannon that looked like an elongated tuning fork, still crackling with arcs of energy, and the other in a mitt-like gauntlet draped in a diamond-shaped shield. The shield was stained in some kind of yellow ichor.

The Idex bleed.

The realization washed over him like a wave, cleansing him of his fear. Or at least a bit of it. He hadn’t seen any Idex during the Exodus, only a distant sliver of a ship and a flash of light. A ship that had burnt away a city like a surgeon removing a growth. To him, it had as might as well have been an act of God. But gods don’t bleed. Gods don’t die.

The golden warrior inclined its head and studied Ithlin, unmoved by the deaths of its compatriots. “So here, at long last, is the Interloper.”

It speaks English?

Ithlin took a step back, and Edd gasped. The golden warrior lazily turned his head toward the noise, bringing it into the light. It was almost more of a mask than a helmet, dancing between functionality and style. It was comprised of curved layers of gold, elongated to form a screaming face. The gaping mouth housed the ventilator, and its visor was split into two long and mournful eyes. Delicately drawn in ash across the brow of the helm were two concentric semicircles.

War paint.

Ithlin lunged at him, but in a blur, the golden warrior leveled his staff directly at Thomas and Edd. He could see a white speck deep within the barrel, but a speck it remained. The weapon did not fire. In the same instant, Ithlin came to a halt, her eyes following the staff and meeting Thomas’s. His stomach felt like an ice pack.

Nothing that big should move that fast.

“Hear me, automaton, and heed me. I speak in this tongue so that I know you will understand. Because of the marks you bear, I will give you but one chance to explain your intent with these primitives and submit without-”

“I need not explain myself to you, perverter," Ithlin hissed.

He tilted his head to the side. “Oh, but you do. You interfere in the Ashen Sacrament. You prolong the suffering of these creatures. And most curious of all, you sit upon a promised world and bear the markings of those who came before. I grant you the honor of speaking to me for that fact alone.” He pointed the bladed end back at Ithlin. “A great many queries await you, automaton, and the only choice you have in the matter is to what state of dismemberment you shall be in when I pry the answers from you.”

Ithlin’s eyes narrowed into two sharp dots of blue. “Look at the fate of your followers.” She gestured to the dead aliens. “If you continue down this path, then you shall meet worse.”

The golden warrior snorted. “I envy them. Their souls now strengthen the Fallen and are spared from corruption.”

“Corruption?”

The golden warrior ignored her question. “You possess quite the personality for a machine. Blasphemous as you are, it will be a pity to send you and your kind into the void that awaits you. Spare me from that duty and yield yourself to me.”

Ithlin was silent for a heartbeat. “Will you leave the humans and korokti in peace if I do?”

The golden warrior recoiled. “Are you truly so ignorant of what awaits them that you would deny them the mercy of death? No. The Ashen Sacrament must be-”

The blast to his face kicked up a blizzard of dust, illuminated only by the glow of Ithlin’s cannon as it began to recharge for another shot.

“Run! Now!” Ithlin commanded through the haze.

Thomas rose and stumbled until he found the door back to the kitchen, with the sound of Edd coughing close behind. The thunderous clang of metal on metal roared behind them. The time for talk had ended. They groped their way back to the cafeteria, now silent and empty.

Edd doubled over in a fit of coughs. “Give…me a moment.”

“Are you good?”

“Yeah, I just made the mistake of leavin’ my mouth open before she blasted him.”

Thomas’s skin tingled at that thought. “We have no choice but to go back to the loading dock.”

“We’ve been over this. That’s suicide.”

“Well, unless you think we can sneak through that,” Thomas gestured towards the sounds of combat, “I’d say it’s our only option.”

Edd took a seat at the table and buried his face in his hands. “You know what we’re going to find there,” he said.

Thomas sat next to him and looked towards the window. The smoke from the opening bombings still filled the skyline.

Is anyone even left out there?

Point Nemo had two tiny militias, made up of humans and Korokti, and they were equipped more for peacekeeping duties rather than defending against invaders. The secrecy of Akkaven’s location was the primary defense against that. And it had failed.

What if attacks like this were being carried out all across Akkaven? What if humanity’s fate had been finally sealed? Would it even matter if they did escape? Had he been scraping by all this just to be a final witness to humanity’s extinction? If the planet had fallen, there would be nowhere to escape to. Each question wrapped around him like a straight jacket, pressing the air out of him. He tried to look at the sky, to anchor himself again, but all he saw was smoke. All he saw was his world burning away once again.

Look at the fate of your followers. If you continue down this path, then you shall meet worse.

He recalled Ithlin’s words and held them like a lifeline, and began to pull himself back. She had killed two of them. He had seen it. And if they could die, they could be defeated. For all of their splendor and power, they were mortal. Humanity’s extinction might be the will of these aliens, but it was not the will of fate. Not yet, at least. Not so long as those who were left willed it to be so.

Thomas closed his eyes and breathed. It wasn’t much of a counterargument to his doubts, but it was enough for him right now.

But will it be enough for Edd?

Thomas looked to his friend, his face still pressed into his palms, and remembered the young man who had waved to him when they had first passed by here.

No. I refuse for that to be me, and I’m not going to leave Edd like that, either.

“I don’t think the Idex are invading the entire planet.," Thomas blurted. It was the only thing he could think of, but it was at least enough to get Edd to look up at him.

Edd’s eyes were red. “What? What makes you say that?”.

“Because…why would they land here and not at the Atrium? Why waste someone as important as that golden asshole in some backwater refugee center like this?”

Edd frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know. For Ithlin, maybe? She seems important.”

Okay, I can work with this.

“Exactly. You heard it yourself: they want to capture her. I have no idea why, but if just one of the Penitent is giving them this much trouble, then I doubt they’re gonna be willing to march right into the Atrium.”

Edd shook his head. “They probably just want to nab her before they glass the damn rock, and it’s easier to do it here. Lord knows they have the firepower to do it.”

Thomas squeezed the table as he tried to think. “Then why jam communications, like the walkie-talkie? Why try to cut us off from each other?”

“To sow confusion. They did that on Earth, too, remember?”

Damn it, he’s got a point.

“What if the rest of the planet doesn’t know, then? What if that’s why the radios are jammed? Maybe it’s because they don’t want us calling for help.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t need to. It’s the one scenario that doesn’t mean the end of everything!” He needed to think of something—a course of action, something for them to do, or somewhere for them to go. “If we can’t call anybody, the only way is to tell them in person.”

“The nearest settlement is leagues away. We’d never make it.”

“No, unless we don’t go on foot.” Thomas flicked his eyes to the hallway leading to the loading bay.

“The train? If they took out the comms, what makes ya think they left that?”

“We were near it when the blasts went off. There wasn’t any kind of explosion from it. I don’t know why, but they left it intact. Probably for their own reasons, but it’s the only shot we have at warning the rest of the planet.”

Edd sighed, which only made him cough up more ash. “I don’t know, Tom. You have a point, but…what makes you think we stand any kind of chance of not only getting to the train but operating it and repairing it if need be?”

He wasn’t going to convince him through logic alone. But then he remembered who he was talking to. This was the man who had gotten his teeth knocked out because he wouldn’t stop calling his boss “Dick.” He didn’t need logic.

He clapped Edd on the shoulder. “Because that golden piece of shit called us primitive.”

Edd chuckled and shook his head. “Well, I can’t take that lyin’ down, now can I?”