The Followers, one hour earlier…

Oryl raised his arm up in the air. Once it came down, the gun would fire, pulverizing the hostage into fragments that would be swept off the floor before the next hostage met his fate.

The Vulcan stared at him, calmly waiting. The arm came down. The rocket propeller fired.

A horrendous explosion shook the building and the shooting range erupted in great columns of white flame.

Rel picked himself up from where the shockwave had thrown him, shaking his head against the dizziness that was scrambling his brains, gingerly checking that his antennae were intact. What in the deities name had happened? He turned back towards where he came from, but there was nothing there, just a cloud of smoke and dust from which Followers emerged, bent in half over coughing fits.

Rel started walking towards the shooting range. He had left Oryl in charge. Did Oryl give the wrong order? Did the rocket propeller explode? Perhaps the rocket got stuck on the launcher? As he approached he could see the shooting range was no more. The frame of the door was still there, standing incongruously without any wall left around it to frame. Behind it was a burned out crater that covered most of the room. The bodies of Followers were strewn near the door, seeming to sleep in relaxed poses, as if they were going to wake up at any time and tell Rel about the wondrous dreams they just had.

Rel stepped in through the doorframe. He ran to Oryl when he recognized his friend, flipped him over so he could check him for wounds. Half of Oryl's face was gone, his mouth distorted into a toothy half-grin, blue blood all over his remaining eye and antenna. Rel recoiled in horror, dropping the body in the dust. He looked around in shock, still unable to grasp what had happened. More Followers were running into the room, shouting for help, trying to revive their fallen comrades. Rel knew there was nothing to be done. It was all hopeless. A series of distant bangs sounded through the building, as if a plane had gone by too fast. The terrorists tensed in fear, waiting for the next explosion. But none came.

Rel looked around "Who died?" Riviass stepped up, silently supportive as always and quickly went through the list. Rel winced. His friends, his comrades, all carefully selected. Eight of them dead. The ones he could trust with the executions. It seemed so unfair.

"Leader, Leader, we're being attacked!" Kalias rushed in, shouting to be heard. "They're coming from the skies!"

"Leader, it must have been the Vulcans! That's the only answer. We need to get rid of the hostages now!" Riviass was jockeying for his attention

Rel just stood staring silently at them. It didn't matter anymore. He was covered in dust and blue blood. His antennae were rigid, his eyes wide. Things were going so well, and then, and then. He could not reconcile the before and the after. It was like a cruel joke of the universe.

But he wouldn't give up so easily. "The armory! We need the weapons!"

Riviass understood right away. "I'll take care of the armory. Zemi, you're with me!" Riviass was already at the tunnel entrance, he would pick his team along the way. He ran across the tunnel as fast as he could, Zemi behind him. The hated pieces of azhoor had done it. They should just have killed them all right away. They were trying to start a revolution. Not to play politics. That's where they went wrong. Now Oryl was dead, and so were Byhk and Ibiriar, and Thette and Vythi. All gone, destroyed in the explosion, and if Rel had not been on his way to talk to the Empress, he would have been killed as well. And then, where would they be?

His grip tightened on his rifle in rage, he was going to show them, he was going to shoot every last one of those bastards laying in the storage rooms. And then they would deal with the attackers from the skies.

But first, revenge. He reached the end of the tunnel, and waited for Zemi, the loud echo of her approaching footsteps resounding through the empty corridor. The glory would be hers as well.

Together, they ran up the stairs, barged into the armory.

They never knew that the tal'shaya was what hit them. The V'Shar agents grabbed their guns and started shooting down the stairs, hitting three terrorists before the others safely retreated back to the operations complex.

"Leader, we don't need to go through the tunnel! We can go across the ground. There's an exit at the back" Shror was anxiously reporting how the hostages had attacked them. "Once we have heavy weapons, they won't stand a chance."

Rel watched him silently, understanding what the youth was saying but unable to act. He was scared. He had never been on the losing side before. And now Riviass and Zemi were dead. Two more of his selected companions. Only Kalias and Pashat were left, and that was because they were in charge of operations.

Now that the Vulcan hostages were gone, would the Empress still sit him at the governing council? He could only hope she wouldn't change her mind if he had nothing to negotiate with. "Yes, yes, we need to find another way." He heard himself say to the youth. They left.

It seemed like only a few moments had passed before Shror was running back "Leader, we have more dead! They're coming from the sky!" Rel shook his head. Riviass and Kalias had helped but now was time to focus. There was a war to wage. A battle to be fought. Thankfully, they had arms. He started running towards the back exit, calling to Shror as he did. "How many dead?"

"Fifteen" Shror quickly answered.

Rel nodded to himself. Thoor-Ukh was so small to start with. They had lost of lot of Followers and the ones that were wounded would not make it. He only had so many left, they had to be careful not to lose many more.

He quickly gave orders, waiting carefully away from danger inside the operations complex, then smiling benevolently at his cheering Followers as they celebrated having secured the way to the armory. Once they had the right weapons in hand the Vulcans guarding the tunnel would be easy to deal with, as would be those who came from the skies.

Those ones were already landing on the other side of the operations complex. Rel quickly positioned the Followers for maximum coverage, giving them orders to fire on anything that moved. All they had was their energy weapons but that would change fast.

"Kalias, Pashat, come with me!" Rel commanded. Kalias and Pashat were the ones best able to figure the technical aspects of the equipment they didn't know how to use, especially the photonic bombs. With those in hand, the attackers wouldn't stand a chance. Nor would the hostages. The three of them went back to the arsenal with a couple more Followers.

It was not an armory, it was a trove of deadly treasures. Kalias laughed as there were too many killing machines to count. The few Vulcans guarding the tunnel had been dispatched with, and now the entire armory was theirs. It was only a matter of time before they would get rid of the attackers as well.

Rel smiled as the small subgroup fired the first photonic bomb at the attackers, hitting wide and high, but this was the first shell, they would keep getting better. As they refined their aim and their technique, and the outcome of the battle slowly turned in their favor, he was able to divert another small group of Followers, to focus on where they could see the hostages running across the barren ground. It was impossible to hit them close to the armory or at least too risky. And the shuttles were too fast as moving targets for them to try and hit. But he would prevent them from leaving, given enough bombs.

"Let me go, Leader" Kalias implored. "I can find out how they escaped and kill them from behind."

"No"

"Why"

Rel looked at her "Because we don't know who will blow up."

Silence fell as she considered what he had said, nodding reluctantly. The next explosion could take the entire armory down, and then they would be defenseless. She gave Rel the salute of old "Then I will bring them back, Leader, for you to use as you see fit. This, I swear" and she took off, calling to her team. She would sacrifice as many of them as she needed, but she would get the hostages back.

Kalias smiled. It had been a fast and furious fight but they had finally taken care of the Vulcans guarding the conduit, and nothing had blown up. Still, her Leader had said not to kill the hostages and she would not disobey him. She looked down at the hostages from the edge of the hole on the second floor. They could no longer escape, the flat ground had become an impassable field of torn earth and deep troughs. She wiggled her antennae teasingly at them while her people held them in the sights of their long rifles. Nothing else needed to be said.

The sounds of battle died down, as if the Vulcans realized there was nothing left to fight for. They could leave, there were not enough Followers to go chase after them and in any case the Followers had the hostages. The ones standing by the wall and the couple more she could see making their way back, probably stopped in their flight by the well aimed photonic bombs. There were enough to give Rel something to negotiate with. She wasn't sure what he was going to negotiate for, things had changed so much. But Rel always found a way. That was why he was their Leader. And that was why she would always be his most devoted Follower.