We enter in from the roof. We’re all equipped with cloakers. Every now and again I see faint flickers as my troops move around the room. Silent as death’s own spectre. Octavian throws up a jammer. There’s a low beep as it comes in, creating a small ten-meter bubble that stops all noise from getting out.

Downstairs, Cassandra has the exits surrounded. I command a squad of twenty-five, Brandon controls another twenty-five, and Cassandra has command of the rest. Brandon will be entering from the ground floor, breaching silently as we are.

I move towards the door and motion for a drone to be sent out. A tiny object, barely the size of a thumbnail, darts past me, a soldier watches the screen intently. Behind me, another man sets down a small block, and checked light spreads across the floor and up the walls. It would be spreading out across the building, taking note of all lifeforms. It would help us pinpoint the location of our enemies and soldiers to one another.

The man with the drone looks up at me. He raises his hand, four fingers raised, then points to the room over from us. I nod. Faint flickers dart forwards. Three lifeforms fade, and like separate strands of smoke, my flickering soldiers return.

Four less lifeforms in the building

I look down at the cube, a detailed map of the building and all life within now stares back at me, updated every three seconds. The hostages are one floor down from me, and three up from Brandon and his squad. I send a coded order for him to clear out the lower level and prepare our escape.

There are seven more on this floor, but then there are twenty-one hostiles on the next floor down with the hostages.

I have Octavian divert with a few Deathtroopers and order him to clear this floor. I then make my way down the steps to the third floor. I see one of the Executors. The Executor wears grey armour, unembellished. No sigil, no markings, no unit sign. A completely blank canvas. The man laughs with someone to his left, their voices distorted by their helmets, their laughter amplified.

It fills me with a certain kind of cold anger that these men would just sit and laugh while others lives hang in their balance. I walk down until I am right by the first man. Close enough that if he threw his arms out wide, he’d hit me in the chest. I grip my pulseblade in my hand, fully aware that if I start this prematurely, there was a good chance that Vespallian would die. My optics in my eyes shows me my unit fanning out. There wasn’t enough of us to kill them all in a single shot, now that Octavian was clearing upstairs. We had to prioritise. The hostage room was to be cleared first.

When I receive confirmation that everyone is in position, I give the order. I leap forward, pulseblade swinging out. I cut the first man in half and stab the second through the throat before the first man’s body hits the floor. All around me I hear the piercing whines of boltors and pulserifles.

Death screams in my ears.

I hear a smash as one of the hostiles moves just as a Deathtrooper fire. The wall smoulders and crackles where the blast tore a hole through it. The Executor rolls, bringing his rifle up. He pulls the trigger. Bolts screech out, like paper tearing.

My Deathtrooper stumbles backwards, his armour taking the first blow. His aegis glows iridescent blue, and then red, as it overloads. I hear a crackling sound as my soldier is torn apart by the bolts. Shredded. His blood boils on the ground as his mangled torso falls.

Hostages wail.

Crack. The sound echoes through the room as a rifle bucks and the man’s head jerks forward, a splash of red coating the wall and floor beside him.

All hostiles dead.

I deactivate the cloaker, as do the rest of my soldiers.

I look towards the corpse of one my fallen soldier. Where his body isn’t torn apart, there are places where the metal fused with the flesh due to the heat. His body boiled from the inside.

I drag my eyes away and head straight for the hostages. Desperately I search for Vespallian. Please don’t be harmed. Please. Please. Please.

“Kaldratos!” The young boy leaps to his feet and runs for me. Men and women turn at my name, their eyes alight with hope. Even so, many crie as the stench of death and blood settles on the area. In my ear, I hear Octavian requesting leave to begin releasing the hostages.

I couldn’t give that order,

One of the Imperial Family had been captured. After the show of affection and the call of my name, the people here would pieced it together. They’d know, and Vespallian would be a laughing stock. I knew this, and Catherina knew this. You don’t come back from that, once men snigger about you behind your back, once you become a joke to the people, your rule is a fragile one. Short.

Some of them realise this too, one woman cries, they can feel it in my own tension and self-loathing. The fact that I know what I will be ordered to do. The woman begs no one in particular. Another kneels before my soldiers, head bent forward, silently weeping as he realises that he will never see his children again.

“Kaldratos,” Cassandra’s voice is soft. Her eyes are wide, her hands are shaking as she grabs my arm. I look down on her, and yet she looks to me with such hope.

“A Black Order. No survivors. I received it just now.” She whispers, afraid that we’ll be overheard. Oblivious to the panic that already sweeps like a wave across the room.

“Kaldratos!” Vespallian interrupts, grabbing at me. I give him my warmest smile and pick him up. I kiss his forehead, and dispatch a message to Genna, stating that her son is safe and will be with her shortly. I pass him to Cassandra.

“Take him outside, and don’t let him back in.” She nods, but her arm lingers. She squeezes my arm, knowing I hate what I’m about to do. Her eyes say a thousand things.

“There’s no way to cleanly kill a hundred people, Kaldratos.” Octavian reads my thoughts. I sigh and nod. His orders go out to my Deathtroopers. Almost immediately the hostages catch on. The mood changes abruptly. Panicked chattering turns to wails and begging. A few, select few, remain silent and unblemished by tears. Even faced with their deaths, they hold themselves strongly, comfortable that they are the epitome of society, and that the best do not weep, nor beg. Nobles to the end.

I activate my pulseblade, the crimson point centimetres from touching the ground. Men and women scurry away from me. All around me, my retainers activate their weapons, my soldiers prime their rifles, preparing to kill innocents who do not deserve to die.

“Black Order received,” I speak into my comm, the link goes back directly to Imperial High Command. “Black Order operation beginning.” I swing almost lazily, my blade carving through the closest hostage, My troops open fire, and Octavian lunges forward, stabbing a women through the chest, and then slicing off a child’s head as she cries into her mother’s arms. Her mother takes several pulsebolts to the spine a second later, ripping her body apart.

Men and women and children cry out, begging changes to hysterical screaming as death approaches. There is no clean way to kill. There is no honourable way to kill. It is a bloody business.

It is over quickly. Most aren’t even recognizable. The weapons used are meant to face soldiers and enemies in heavy armour, equipped to the teeth. It rips through civilians wearing silks.

Octavian spits, Brandon looks horrified. None of us have ever had to do this before.

None of us speak.

“Black Order…. Completed.”

I walk out, and Cassandra holds Vespallian by the hand. Behind her, a shuttle waits, nobody but a few Royal Guardsmen disguised as my House Guard. Catherina wants this quiet and locked down.

Cassandra gives me a sorrowful look. I cannot fathom any sort of reply, so I just get on the shuttle. Octavian dismisses my Deathtroopers. Only one allied casualty. Statistically, this operation was almost a perfect success.

Statistically.

I am barely aware as the shuttle lifts off and makes its way towards the Summer Palace. Twice Octavian has to tap me so that I notice Vespallian trying to speak to me. He looks at me with concern written all over his face. He is kind. Far too kind.

Everyone but Vespallian seeks solitude at this moment. Brandon and Cassandra sit on opposite ends of the ship, both wishing to be alone in their contemplation.

Darkness swallows us from the viewports, and I know we’ve landed in one of the secret hangars that leads straight to the Summer Palace. The ramp lowers, and it reveals the entire Royal Family waiting there. Genna rushes forward, elated that her son has been returned safe and unharmed.

“Thank you, Kaldratos.” It is the only balm to soothe the burn of anger I feel. I round on Catherina, and she gives me a look that stops me in my tracks. Not here.

“You are dismissed,” Catherina talks to my Knights. They kneel, and then stride straight back to the shuttle. Her eyes meet mine, and there I realise there is a distance there. Not between us, but between her and her conscience.

Everyone leaves, taking the cue that Catherina wishes to speak alone. She sighs, resting her hand against her pulseblade. Unlike her sister, Catherina wears full military uniform. She’s never been to war, but she knows the value of playing her part.

“I’m sorry for that,” She shakes her head.

“They were our own people, Catherina.” She looks up at my tone, an edge setting on her face.

“No. I’m not sorry it was done. I’m sorry that you had to do it.” She releases, and starts walking away.

“What? There were children in there, Catherina. They –“

“You think I don’t know?” She lashes backwards, her anger a swift and deadly thing. “You don’t think I don’t know every single one of their names? It was necessary. I rule the Imperium. Weakness gets you killed.” Her anger slacks, and for a moment there is nothing but sorrow.

“He never said it was like this,” She clutches at herself. “Father always said that it was a blessing.” She shakes her head and laughs to herself. “I live the most luxurious of lives. I am surrounded by people who would die for me, people who adore me and admire me for my family name. But never, in all my life, have I ever felt this alone.” I do not console her, she is not one who needs the assurances of others.

In a single moment the self-doubt disappears and her façade returns. She gives me a tight smile, and turns away. “People die, I can’t save them all. I can’t even save most of them. It is my duty to see that the Imperium lives on. Whether a billion lives are lost, or even a trillion. If I stop to count all the corpses I’ve created, I wouldn’t be half done by the time I was dead.”

She waits by the Elevator that will take us straight to the centre of her Palace estate. “I will do what must be done. Whatever is best for my nation. Personal feelings must be put aside.” When I reach her, I can see she is shaking. I don’t mention it.

“You know, we’re going to have to kill a lot of people.” She nods at my words, “We don’t know who attacked Vespallian. But the Executors didn’t seem to know who he was, which would hint that whoever did this didn’t want him dead, they just wanted a message sent.” She clicks her jaw, working it as she thinks through it all.

“Cersey knew, didn’t he? There isn’t a reason for us to trust him when he states that he isn’t our enemy.” She laughs to herself, “No. He’s far too intelligent to reveal that to you if that was going to get him killed. He’ll be clean. Or at least it’ll appear that way.” She leans against the wall as the doors close and the ascent begins. “Maybe he’ll have to die anyway. He’s dangerous, whether he is our enemy or our ally.”

She shakes her head, leaving that problem for another time. “There will be a Council of Lords because of this. The news will spread. Those people will have died for nothing. The Resistance will be blamed as a front, and millions will die.” There is a tremor of anger in her voice. She is Empress, she has the power to annihilate planets, but she cannot stop this political manoeuvring.

The doors open and the beauty of the Rosal Gardens looks on us. Two lines of gold stand to attention on either side of us, the Royal Guardsmen saluting their Empress. Behind them spread a flurry of cherry blossoms and waterfalls, manipulated so that they create different shapes and intertwine before the water falls to the surface. Obsidian and golden pillars weave around the gardens. Upon the edges of the path, weird and wonderful creatures sit and stand. A mermaid with a tail made completely of silver, destined to forever sit upon the edge of her pool, never being able to swim. Behind her, others swim, tails woven of the thinnest of gold. Grotesque amongst beauty. Opposite her sits a lion with ambers for eyes. Its body is shaped like a large eagle, with the feathers different shades of purple and blue.

At the end of the pathway, half a dozen of my brothers-and -isters-in-arms stand. Six of the First Knights Royal, waiting to escort Her Majesty.

Catherina does not turn back to look at me as she strides forward, but I see the anger in her step. The anger that stems from having so much power, but being unable to wield it in ways which she wants.

I trail after her, stepping beside her as is my place. I do not know what will come, but I know that death will follow in its wake.