Kronos had been in his armor for the last eighty hours and he was starting to grow sick of it. It wasn’t the physical exertion that bothered him. After the first standard day he felt tired from the exertion, but by the second day he had caught his second wind. While the Guard unit he was embedded in were popping combat stims to stay awake, he felt refreshed.

The tiredness he felt could be measured in the tears and the wails of the Zodiac’s residents. He imagined that there had been enough tears shed to fill a small sea. Mothers cried for their lost sons and daughters. Father’s crumbled in on themselves like dying stars when their teenage sons were identified as likely ravens. Bar owners and vendors with water dripping down their faces watched as their stalls were demolished and their businesses overturned in search of contraband. It was madness.

Kronos tried to intervene where he could. With each violation met with a swift and brutal death, he felt a responsibility to the station. If a Guard made a claim on scant evidence, he put a stop to the violence. No matter what he did, he realized that he was just one man within one unit. There were hundreds more patrolling the station without the benefit of someone like him to supervise.

He pulled himself to present and tried not to snap at the owner of a nightclub addressing him. For the life of him, Kronos couldn’t remember the man’s name. At a certain point, they all seemed to muddle together. They all had the same sad story.

“Sir, I promise you my establishment has never supported the ravens or trafficked in any contraband.”

He jerked as he heard the crashing of furniture behind him. Already used to the sounds of breaking property, Kronos didn’t flinch. He just gazed behind the proprietor as one of the Guard was sweeping his arm across the shelves behind the bar and causing plastic battles of alcohol clatter to the floor. Another one was pulling out boxes from the bar and going through them with little care for their contents. Kronos merely observed with a hand resting on the grip of one of his pistols.

The gesture was a necessary one. More than one resident had tried to resist. Despite the way it made his stomach curdle, a shot from Kronos at least spelled a quick end. The Guard weren’t nearly as merciful. Some had taken to bringing in the frightened citizens for “questioning.” There wasn’t a trained psionic on the station, so the questioning usually just devolved into torture. As if there was any information to be gained from desperate and scared people.

The Guard looking through the boxes sent a private message to Kronos.

“Sir, you’re going to want to see this.”

“Wait here,” Kronos ordered the nightclub owner. He sent another order on a private channel to the Guard by the entrance. The Guard pulled his rifle into the crook of his shoulder, not quite pointing it at the civilian, but close enough.

Kronos walked around the edge of the bar and looked at the box, the Guard had opened on the floor. Inside he could see a pile of data cards. He squatted and aimed a tight beam from his PCD at the top of the pile. His Omni-tool accessed the data on a partition and he looked over the contents.

Shit. He thought.

The first card held shuttle schematics. He scanned another one and it was schematics related to industrial mining equipment. Kronos sighed behind his helmet as he rose from his crouch. The proprietor’s face had grown pale, confirming the operative’s suspicion.

With a smooth movement, Kronos drew his pistol and shot the man between the eyes. A smoking hole and the familiar smell of charred flesh were the only signs of injury. The wound had already been cauterized before the man fell to the ground.

“Pack it up, and get it sent to intel HQ.” Kronos ordered the Guard.

“Yes, Sir.” The man responded as he clumsily closed the box.

“Did we find anything else?” Kronos asked his team over the TACNET.

He received ten negatives, so the operative knew it was time to move on. “Let’s go.”

His team shuffled out of the nightclub and they looked around the commercial hub. Vendors were awkwardly waiting by their stalls for their turn for inspection. Ironically, the station had called the complete inspection of the station and all its property as a “health and comfort” inspection. Kronos had found little heath and provided even less comfort. The vendors had all heard his pistol, and they were staring into the darkness of the nightclub he just exited.

He didn’t bother explaining himself. They all knew what had happened. He glanced at his group of Guards.

“Spread out. One man per stall. I’ll wait in the center. Call me if you find something.” The Guard hurried to obey while he waited for them to discover something that needed his attention. His summary executions combined with his foul mood had gained him quite the reputation with the Guard. The first day they had treated him as a nuisance. By the second, they were obeying with alacrity and calling him “Sir.”

They probably think I’m a cold bastard, Kronos mused.

In reality, it was the opposite. He’d rather give his victims a quick death than a trip to Guard HQ. The stories trickling out of that place were enough to give any decent man the shudders. A shot to the brain was the only mercy he could give these people.

The sound of a woman’s mured screaming caught his enhanced hearing. It was another change that had manifested itself during the inspections. He assumed that his Imperial cybernetics were finally integrating with his body. During the exhaustion of his second day, he had been straining to pick up every sight, scent, and sound. They were all the warning he got before a civilian tried something stupid. When he had passed that ephemeral point where his body felt refreshed, he noticed that all of his senses had become exaggerated as well. Kronos didn’t know what had sparked the change, but he was thankful for his new sensitivity. It had saved a Guard’s life more than once.

He walked toward the far corner of the large hub to pinpoint the source of the disturbance. He noticed a small stall along the bulkhead made from cheap plastic and tattered cloth. In his experience, the occupant was likely one of the many fortune tellers that worked on the station. It seemed that out in space, everyone was a little superstitious.

Kronos used a hand to move aside the tattered curtain that covered the entrance and stopped in muted shock. One of his Guards had his trousers around his ankles and he had a woman bent over in front of him. She was trying to scream, but a wad of cloth muted the sound. The man was so engrossed into his ministrations that he didn’t even notice when Kronos entered.

The sight enraged him. Instead of drawing his pistol, he pulled out his monoblade knife. A shot from his pistol would likely be redirected by the Guard’s armor and he didn’t have time to play games. He walked behind the man and plunged his knife between his helmet and torso. The Guard screamed, but Kronos didn’t relent. He used his prodigious strength to pull the man off the woman with his knife. The blade sliced through flesh and bone like it was butter, but caught against the back of the man’s armor.

Kronos pulled the knife out as the man fell on his ass and gurgled his last breaths. The woman tried to cover herself while he cleaned his blade on one of the tattered walls. He resheathed the knife and looked the woman over. She was middle-aged and he noted the abuse that had been done to her. She had a growing bruise on her face, and her cheap dress had been ripped in all the places that mattered to her rapist.

She stared at him with a mixture of fear and awe.

“Thank you,” she choked out.

“What did he find?” Kronos ignored her thanks.

The only reason the Guard would try to rape the woman was if he had found something to guarantee her silence. Tears fell down her face as she realized he might not be the savior she hoped for.

Kronos didn’t bother to wait for her reply. She looked incapable of giving one. Instead, he observed the interior of the tent. There was a table where the woman likely did her readings, and a durasteel box had been pulled from underneath the tablecloth where it had been hidden. The lid was tossed haphazardly in a corner the room.

He strode up to the box and peered inside. He sighed at its contents. There were four rifles and a couple of pistols. They were older models and didn’t look like Guard issue.

“Please, Sir.” The woman whimpered. “They aren’t mine. I was holding them for a friend.”

Kronos stood up from the crate and gave her a long look. He had heard a variation of the same statement more than once. He glanced between the dead Guard and the woman before drawing his pistol and ending her pleading. He felt disgusted the Guard, disgusted with the woman, and disgusted with himself.

He returned his pistol to its maglock and picked up the crate. As he walked out of the tent, he sent an update over the TACNET.

“One Guard down. Cache of weapons discovered.”

Two Guards rushed toward him and one reached for the crate. Kronos handed it to him and then pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

“He’s in there.” Kronos flatly stated. His tone was frosty like the surface of the planet they orbited.

The other Guard rushed past him without saying anything. He was there for another four hours and finally this level had been cleared.

Twelve hours later and three floors down, he received an alert on his HUD ordering him to report to HQ. It was the end of the day, and the last thing Kronos wanted to do was report to Pictor. The chief was trying at the best of times. It was even worse when he felt as rundown as he did.

He trudged his way toward HQ with the air of a man going to his own execution. On his way, he witnessed the rest of the pacification taking place. He had been right, many of them were employing methods far more brutal than his own. It was a small comfort, but he needed to feel like he was doing something, anything to make the situation better.

The civilians themselves scurried to and fro with a hunted look. No one spoke to each other in the lifts or the trams. The main hubs were largely devoid of people. The little life that the station seemed to have was fading fast. It was a stark counterpoint to how the place felt a week ago.

He arrived at HQ and walked through until he reached the chief’s office. The door opened, and he spotted Zhang already inside. Pictor was tapping at something on his personal vidscreen but he looked up when Kronos arrived.

“Ah, good you’re here.” The chief greeted him. Kronos noted the nervousness in the man’s tone. It was unusual. Pictor was bombastic, aggressive, and self-serving, but he was rarely nervous.

Zhang echoed his thoughts over a private connection. “He sound off to you?”

“Yeah,” Kronos replied. “You good? You sound tired.”

“Living the dream.”

Kronos chuckled behind his helmet as the chief got to his point. “Now that you’ve both arrived, I wanted to brief you on the ongoing crisis.”

“Crisis?” Kronos asked sarcastically. “I’ve been putting down civilians like they rabid dogs. It isn’t a crisis, it’s a purge.”

The chief glared at him. “That’s more true than you know. I’ve seen your brand of justice all over the PUBNET.”

Kronos felt confused. “What’s the PUBNET?”

The chief gave him a strange look and even Zhang looked at him sideways.

“What?”Kronos exploded. “I’ve got access to the INET, the TACNET, the OPNET, and the STRATNET. There’s no such thing as PUBNET on my hud.”

Zhang seemed to realize the issue right away because he saved Kronos. “Chief, Kronos isn’t exactly from—“ he trailed off as if thinking about the best way to put it. “—around here. His origin is considered Onyx-level information.”

“Okay,” Pictor said slowly. “The PUBNET is the civilian version of our MILNET. It has various levels of access just like our networks.”

Kronos thought about that for a second. He understood why the Empire hadn’t given him access. He was sure they meant to control all the information that he received, but now he wondered just how much he was missing. Could he talk to his wife on the PUBNET?

Time will tell, he thought, resigned.

“Alright, I get the concept,” he said out loud. “Hasn’t the Empire dealt with this sort of thing before?”

“Usually, you would be correct.” The chief affirmed. “I gave the order to shut down the stations PUBNET feed, myself when pacification orders came down.”

“I’m sensing a huge “but,” chief.”

The chief grit his teeth. “But, it seems the malware from the ravens disabled that function and we aren’t sure how. The analysts outside are guessing it came through the PUBNET itself. It was likely the first casualty of the battle. The ravens wanted to broadcast their rebellion to the whole system.”

Kronos just shrugged. “Sounds like someone else’s problem, chief.”

“The leak, maybe.” He said darkly. “But the results are all on us.”

Zhang had been quiet for the majority of the exchange but he perked up at the chief’s last statement.

“Did we get new orders?”

Pictor nodded weakly. “Yeah, you two will take the Observer out and destroy the PUBNET satellite in orbit around the planet. That’ll knock out the net for all the other stations in addition to our own, but if we don’t, then civilians on the station will be live-streaming everything we do.”

“That’s not all, is it?” Zhang said quietly.

Pictor gave the trainee a hard look. “No, unfortunately not. We’ve been ordered to purge the station. Every man, woman, and child will be going out of the airlock.”

Kronos was about to protest, but the chief cut him off. “This has come all the way from the top and I can’t do anything about it. I’m likely going to be demoted myself and then shipped off to Pluto or some other hell hole.”

Kronos had to restrain himself from throttling a man who cared more about his career prospects than he did for the people on the station. Everyone was going to die but the face that stood out to him the most was Maia. He hadn’t seen her since the pacification began, but he thought of her often. He dreaded the moment when he would be assigned to search her berthing or interrogate him in a corridor. Now he didn’t have to worry about any of that, because she was going to die. It was an unfair ending to her tragedy of a life. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. The Empire's incompetence led to this outcome and the most important administrator on the station was sitting across from Kronos and complaining about his career.

“What’s going to happen to the rest of us,” he said behind gritted teeth.

“Well, new people will have to be found to replace the workforce. I’m sure the admin department on Terra is already drafting up those plans. The Guard will remain on station.” He paused as he considered the two men in front of him.

“As for you two, I’m going to give you a positive evaluation for your actions on the station. You’ve done the lion share of the investigation and have helped the Guard go about their business on the station.” He smiled like he was sharing good news with them.

Kronos’ desire to beat the man to death with his fists was growing by the second. “Great, just great,” he said spitefully as he turned and stormed from the office. He heard Zhang following him, but he didn’t care anymore.

He stalked toward the nearest lift in furious silence. When he entered, Zhang joined him and signaled the floor where the Observer was docked.

“Hey, partner, what’s wrong?” He gently asked.

The question was all the excuse that Kronos needed. “What do you mean what’s wrong Zhang? Can’t you see that everything about this is wrong? I mean, fuck! You were a rebel! you’ve gotta see how fucked this situation is.”

Kronos clamped his jaw shut as he realized he was yelling at his friend. It wasn’t Zhang’s fault that the Empire had decided that the civilians on the Zodiac weren’t worth its trouble. To his credit, Zhang just nodded along as Kronos shouted. When Kronos finished, he tried to console him.

“You’ve seen the evil going on in the station. Killings, sabotage, theft, and worse.”

Kronos was about to argue, but his partner cut him off.

“I know this sounds extreme, but at the end of the day, if we finished the pacification, there wouldn’t be many civilians on the station left. We’ve been executing people for the last four days. When does it stop?”

“We’re talking about thousands of people, Zhang. It’s not the same.”

“No, not quite. At least not yet. If we let this batch of terrorists go, they’ll just keep doing it again and again and again. It’s probably best that the station has a fresh start. It needs to be the version of itself that the Empire always meant for it to be.”

The lift opened on their floor and the two men trudged out. Kronos didn’t bother replying to Zhang’s last comment. Objectively, he understood the argument but a part of him thought that it was better for a guilty person to go free than for an innocent to be killed.

His twisted thoughts clouded his mind until he was on the Observer and making a silent path to the cockpit. Even Astra seemed to sense his dark mood, so she left him alone as he pulled the ship from its dock. He wanted to talk to her, but was afraid he would hear the same sentiments from her that he had received from Zhang.