The General’s office was classically austere, much like the rest of the Empire’s structures: high walls, vaulted ceilings, and antique furniture with elegant yet uncomfortable-looking chairs. Today, it was shrouded in shadows, lit only by the glow of two holographic screens floating above the desk.

  General Benetnasch didn’t greet him with the customary salute. Instead, he remained seated, hands clasped under his square, imposing chin. He wasn’t wearing his cap, leaving his bald, angular head exposed.

  Benetnasch was a man with six decades of life on his shoulders, and he’d achieved more in his military career than Rigel could have hoped to accomplish in a century. Nature had gifted him with a body built for close combat, and over the years, he had honed it into a weapon—one that commanded both fear and respect in equal measure.

  His actions in the wars the Empire had waged against neighboring continents had turned him into a living legend, revered and hated in equal measure—two things he seemed to collect wherever he set foot. Among many, he was seen as a living Markabian symbol, carrying as much weight and meaning as the crimson shields bearing the winged white horse.

  No one had ever seen the General flinch at anything, further cementing his aura of unshakable toughness. His expression revealed nothing—a challenge Rigel faced now.

  During the few seconds of silence between them, the colonel detective put his knowledge of body language to use, trying to figure out what the General had in store for him—but the strongman’s expression gave nothing away.

  Benetnasch’s features seemed carved from stone. His mouth formed a wide, downward-turned line, with dimples on either side that only deepened his habitual scowl—nothing unusual there. What was unsettling were his eyes: two piercing blue shards, gleaming coldly in the light of the screens. They were crystalline voids, fertile ground for a torrent of suspicions.

  Benetnasch stood up and smoothed out his immaculate crimson uniform—a dress outfit adorned with ornate silver details on the collar, shoulders, cuffs, and belt, a double row of buttons, and a pair of stylized metal wings that spread across the upper chest, with the Army’s crest at the center. A long, slender saber rested in its scabbard on his belt. Though the blade held a symbolic role in his attire—no one used them anymore, as a laser pistol was far more effective—Rigel had heard that Benetnasch was fond of his saber, often unsheathing it to polish and sharpen the blade.

  Maybe he plans to use it today, Rigel thought.

  The hulking General approached, his hand resting on the saber’s hilt.

  “You and I both know what happened at Bellatrix, Colonel Detective,” he said.

  Rigel stayed silent, staring straight ahead, his mind racing with possible escape routes if the worst came to pass.

  “And you and I both know it’s going to happen again,” Benetnasch added.

  Rigel cleared his throat.

  “What are you referring to, General?”

  Benetnasch’s eyes bored into him.

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” he said. He pressed a holographic button on his desk, and a video began to play.

  Rigel went so pale it was as if every last drop of blood had drained from his body, leaving his olive-toned skin tinged with ash. His chiseled frame, his towering height, the hardness of his features—everything seemed to shrink in the face of what he was seeing.

  It was the missing footage Stanton, the operator, had mentioned. Stanton had shown him the security feed from Camera Three, which had captured the A60 moving toward Level Five. This had to be the footage from Camera Five.

  Despite the poor quality, the video clearly showed a young woman with dark hair standing in the doorway of the depot, facing the Cyclops, and behind her, a young man in an imperial soldier’s uniform.

  Rigel stepped back, his eyes fixed on the image of the girl. Vicky.

  At least that cleared up one doubt: Vicky had accompanied Juzo.

  “You still love her, don’t you?”

  The General’s statement caught Rigel off guard.

  In the few seconds since Benetnasch had started the video, Rigel’s mind had raced through a thousand thoughts—his career and life ending alongside Stanton’s and countless others accused of betraying the Empire, Juzo and Vicky infiltrating Fort Bellatrix, and whether they’d escaped to the other continent or died at the hands of that rogue android. But never, not once, had he imagined hearing what he just heard—much less from the General himself.

  “It’s the way you look at her,” Benetnasch said. He watched the video for a few more seconds before pausing it. The blurry image of Vicky confronting the android froze in mid-air. “Victoria Marie Viveka,” he said, his voice tinged with pride and longing. “My only daughter. The Troublemaker.”

  For the briefest moment, the imposing man’s military rank and the title that came with it crumbled, revealing the person underneath. In the blink of an eye, General Benetnasch had become Ulf Viveka, Vicky Marie’s father. But just as quickly, another blink restored him to his usual stern demeanor.

  Benetnasch turned to Rigel, his hand resting on the hilt of his saber.

  “I should condemn you for what you’ve done,” he said, “or perhaps I should kill you right here.”

  Rigel didn’t move, though his pulse quickened as if he’d taken off running. One wrong move and the general might take it as a sign of hostility—and if the bear pounced, he’d be in trouble, even if he was twenty years younger. Benetnasch was an incredible fighter and strategist. What’s more, any commotion would draw the attention of the soldiers waiting outside the door. If a fight broke out, two Grenadiers clad in their Nemean armors would bring his chances of getting out alive down to zero.

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  “When you were engaged to my little Marie, I came to think of you as a son,” Benetnasch confessed.

  The surprises kept coming at Rigel like shards of ice. The General felt emotions, after all.

  What would Marie have said if he told her?

  First, she would’ve told him to stop calling her Marie because that’s what her father used to call her. She would’ve insisted he stick to the shortened version of her first name, Vicky, and then she’d have claimed he was imagining things or must’ve misheard. After all, ‘the General,’ as she used to call him, only cared about the military, not his daughter.

  “I’m going to put an end to this,” Benetnasch said.

  The desk phone rang. Beep, beep, beeeep.

  The General shot the device an annoyed glare, hoping it wouldn’t ring again.

  Rigel held his breath.

  Beep, beep, beeeep.

  Benetnasch strode to the phone, visibly irritated, and snatched up the small communicator, pressing it to his ear.

  “What?” he barked, more growl than question. “I gave orders not to be disturbed.”

  “Apologies, sir,” came a timid officer’s voice from the other end, “but I have an urgent message from General Alcor. He insisted I deliver it to you.”

  Benetnasch let out another low growl. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Sir, we’ve reestablished communication with Bellatrix,” the officer announced. “The Imperial Council is summoning you to the command balcony in the Auditorium. General Alcor has requested you handle a special task.”

  “What’s the report from Bellatrix?” the General asked.

  “The attack was resolved with the use of the Mother Auriga, sir,” the officer replied. “The fortress’s security cameras were compromised, and we’ve yet to identify those who accessed the Kappa Point.”

  “It doesn’t take cameras to figure out who did it, officer. It’s obvious the one who activated the Auriga was also responsible for killing our soldiers.”

  Rigel swallowed hard. Though he didn’t fully understand what was happening, that last sentence made it clear the General was lying. Was he protecting him? No. Benetnasch was protecting his daughter, his little Vicky Marie.

  “No, sir,” the officer continued. “The Mother Auriga registered two crossings—one at 0235 hours and another at 0238.”

  Benetnasch’s eyes dropped to the holographic video projected above his desk. Vicky Marie was confronting the A60-R8, tearing through some kind of energy barrier with her bare hands. The timestamp read 0233. He fast-forwarded the footage, watching as that scruffy Troublemaker shoved her out of the android’s path, saving her life, and the two of them dove into the Auriga portal. The video read 0235 hours.

  “After the first crossing, sir, a virus caused the Mother Auriga’s central system to crash, rendering the quantum prism inoperable. However, the virus was deleted almost immediately, and the prism reactivated.”

  As the officer spoke, Benetnasch watched the video. There, from the A60’s fingers emerged a series of wires, snaking their way into the ports of the Auriga’s terminal. The computer lights, which had gone dark after Vicky Marie and the Troublemaker crossed, flickered back to life.

  “I assume you already have the coordinates for those who crossed. Why does Alcor need me?”

  The officer hesitated for a moment, as if reluctant to deliver the report himself. “Sir, my orders were—”

  “Speak, soldier!”

  “Sir, General Alcor is concerned because the spectrometer detected multiple quantum radiation flares at Bellatrix tonight. A brief Kappa flux, different from the one emitted by the Kappa Point within the fortress, and several Tau-type emissions.”

  Benetnasch’s heart sank. That single Kappa radiation flash was strange, possibly a spectrometer error, but the numerous Tau emissions couldn’t be a coincidence. Where there was Tau radiation, there was a powerful Eddanian—and that always meant trouble.

  Benetnasch’s concern was so evident that Rigel could read it on his face. What the hell had they just told the General? What was going on? The Detective tried to piece together the conversation from the bits he heard, but it only made him more anxious.

  “It’s believed the source of these Tau emissions is an unidentified woman, sir,” the officer continued. “She was captured on video with two escaped prisoners, entering the dome at 0237 hours and meeting with the unidentified A60-R8 on Level Five. The second crossing at Kappa Point occurred the following minute.”

  Benetnasch tried to confirm what the officer had reported, but the sequence on his screen cut off just as the A60 turned toward the entrance to Level Five, probably looking to see who was arriving.

  “How was that woman caught on video if the cameras were interfered with?” he asked.

  “The helmet camera of a fallen Grenadier, sir. The visual testimony of Bellatrix personnel is… difficult to rely on at the moment. Forty percent of the officers are exhibiting symptoms of epistaxis. Apologies, sir, but I must insist—the general Alcor—”

  Benetnasch cleared his throat sharply, cutting the officer off.

  “Yes, yes. Tell the Imperial Council I will meet with them shortly,” he said, and ended the call. Turning to Rigel, he fixed him with a piercing gaze. “You know something about what’s going on, don’t you?”

  Rigel nodded.

  Without breaking eye contact, the General opened the drawer of his desk and retrieved something. For a moment, Rigel thought it might be the weapon he would use to kill him.

  “Your sentencing will have to wait,” Benetnasch said, tossing the object toward him.

  Rigel caught it. It was a tiny crystalline phone. “This…?” he asked, puzzled.

  “It’s a phone, Colonel Detective,” Benetnasch replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Rigel’s dark eyes widened with astonishment. Was the General really suggesting what he thought he was?

  “My daughter Marie and that Troublemaker she’s with,” Benetnasch began, and in the two icebergs he had for eyes, there was a crack of emotion. “If they’ve crossed a Kappa Point, they must have a high-durability phone, modified to operate on Seven-Frequency, haven’t they?”

  Rigel nodded again—there was no point in lying.

  “If they’re outside our territory,” the General continued, “our information barrier will disrupt their signal. This device will resolve that issue. Warn her that the android is after her, accompanied by two escaped prisoners and possibly guided by a Tau-class Eddanian.”

  Rigel felt the breath leave his lungs entirely. The A60, alongside others, was hunting Vicky and Juzo, with a highly dangerous Eddanian in the mix. He couldn’t imagine a worse scenario.

  “What are you waiting for, dammit?!” barked the General.

  In all his thirty-seven years, Pablo Rigel had never been so stunned, so utterly at a loss for words and action—until now. He stared at the crystalline phone in disbelief, then looked at the man standing before him.

  “Let me make myself clear, Colonel,” Benetnasch said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Only members of the Imperial Council have access to these phones. If you’re caught with it, I’ll deny giving it to you. I’ll claim you stole it—and I’ll personally execute you. Understood?”

  Rigel gave a sharp salute. “Understood, sir!”

  “And tell Marie to destroy her phone so she can’t be tracked,” the General added before dismissing him with an irritable wave. “Now, go!”

  Rigel left the office with his heart racing and his hands trembling. As he walked through the corridors, he felt like a fool—a fool who’d been caught, who was lucky to be alive, though he had no idea what would happen next.

  Activating the crystalline phone, he considered calling Juzo but instead dialed Vicky’s number.

  He heard his former fiancée answer. He told her that the Cyclops had crossed to the other side of the world with two fugitives and a possible Tau-class Eddanian. He ignored her questions about how he’d managed to contact them on Seven-Frequency from so far away, refusing to reveal his source—Vicky Marie would never have believed him anyway.

  Pleading with her to be careful, he asked her to relay his best wishes for success to Juzo and reminded them both to destroy their phones once the call ended.

  Finally, with his voice on the verge of breaking, Pablo Rigel told her he loved her, that he always had and always would, and then ended the call.