Once we were through the satellite defense network and were streaking down through the atmosphere, we started to get clear scans of the compound where the scaly alien was located on the planet below. It was not like a typical compound at all and more like one of the training camps.

“Son of a goddamned...” I started to curse.

“Hunter.” Hailey interrupted me as we easily caught and blew past the assault shuttles.

“I'm sorry.” I said. “We probably just found one of the places where they are initially making all of those assassins, or where they are making the people who are going out there and making all of those assassins.”

Hailey had to think about that one as she turned us on a steep bank and allowed Kara's assault shuttles to catch up to us. “If they have an average population for a normal world of about five billion...”

“Hela says according to the galactic net it is twenty five billion right now.” Monna said and then she whined a little. “Why aren't we going directly to the planet's surface?”

“Cannon fodder.” I said and neither Hailey nor Monna said anything for a moment, then they both laughed when they understood.

“Works for me.” Monna said. “Ooo, Hailey! Do a corkscrew manoeuvre!”

“Why not?” Hailey said and pulled back a little, positioned us just behind the assault shuttle formation, then poured power into Monna's engines and whipped us into a spinning corkscrew and shot right through the gap between them.

“Bwahahaha!” Monna laughed as the three shuttles moved out of formation slightly because the pilots had been scared. “We had lots of room!”

“They're a little skittish, apparently.” I said as Hailey flew us in another wide banking turn and the assault shuttles caught up to us again. “We're coming up on the estimated weapons ranges.”

“Got it.” Hailey said and reduced power to let the assault shuttles take the brunt of the incoming attack.

“Deflector screens powered up.” I said.

“Ugh.” Monna said as our speed dropped with the assault shuttles, who also brought their deflector screens online. “Damn slowpokes.”

“Easy, girl.” I said. “Hailey, get ready for evasive manoeuvres. We can't fire back until we're at half of their long range. You'll see the assault shuttles scatter in a minute, too.”

Hailey nodded and a minute later, the assault shuttles started to bob and weave through the air and so did she. Monna was a lot more responsive than the assault shuttles, so we were well away from any large laser cannon shots that came our way. The assault shuttles weren't so lucky as they took a pounding.

They lost deflector screens, hull plating, and one even took a heavy shot on one of its engines. It spit and sputtered and blew out lots of black smoke, then it was covered in foam and the fire went out. It had to slow down and became an easier target, so I nodded to Hailey.

“You're crazy.” Hailey said and we jumped forward and took position in front of the damaged shuttle and drew fire away from it. We shook from multiple grazing hits and our deflector screens held.

“Getting ready to fire.” I said and Monna had no trouble tracing the laser fire back to the points of origin. “Five... four... three... two... one... firing.”

It was long range for our laser cannons; but, we were firing at stationary targets. It was flipping easy compared to shooting at the defensive satellites and weapons platforms as we approached the planet. The assault shuttles started to add their firepower to our own, not realizing that our weapons were of a higher quality and had more power.

The defensive laser fire died as I destroyed each weapon emplacement that we had tracked. The assault shuttle formation changed to allow a quick deployment upon landing and Hailey pulled us back to behind the new formation. The compound still had troops and anti-personnel weapons, so I provided covering fire as the assault shuttles landed outside of the compound at a safe distance.

“Do we blast in and take our licks as we land inside the compound, or do we help the idiots?” Hailey asked.

“Well, we could try and put everyone to sleep.” I said with a smile.

Hailey chuckled. “How angry would The Order be if we did that and stole their target?”

“We'd share a bounty, I'd say.” I said.

“Okay, we'll hang back and see what they can do.” Hailey said.

I strafed laser shots all along the wall of the compound and she landed behind the assault shuttles and then I couldn't fire anymore. “Let's go.” I said and put on my blast shield and put on my hooded cloak. Hailey did the same so that we looked nearly identical and we left Monna in active mode.

“Good luck!” Monna said as the side hatch and rear cargo hatch opened.

I stepped out the side hatch and saw the three guard squads were in formation and Kara was there with two other Order members. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“I'm under orders to take him alive.” Kara said. “I can't let you kill him for...” She stopped talking when she felt an oppressive Presence appear behind me. She drew her light sword just in time as Hailey blew past me with Presence Run and swung at her with her own Light sword. Kara blocked the strike, then dodged the follow-up kick to her gut. She had no time to figure out who it was that was dressed just like me and was attacking her, because it wasn't over.

The other two Order members drew their Light swords, so I pulled them out of their hands and turned them off. One of them started to reach out with Presence, so I absorbed it and put him to sleep. When the guards started to raise their weapons, I stopped them with Presence.

“Don't.” I said, then watched as Hailey punched, kicked, swung her light sword, dodged, countered, then attacked again. “You're wasting time.”

Hailey hopped back out of Kara's range and turned off her light sword. “I was just testing her.”

Kara kept her defenses up and her Light sword at the ready, as if she knew it wasn't over, then suddenly a gloved hand was over her face and she was slammed into the side of an assault shuttle thirty feet away in an instant. The impact cratered the armored metal and Kara lost all of her breath. Her Light sword fell to the ground and the gloved hand over her face was moved out of her sight.

“She failed.” Hailey said and stepped back.

Kara dropped to the ground in a heap and used Presence to bring air back into her collapsed lungs.

“I can't kill you for what you did to Hunter, because he forgave you for that.” Hailey said. “I'm not him, though. I won't forgive you for even the slightest insult you've given him, let alone killing him.”

“Hailey...” I started to say.

“No.” Hailey said and picked Kara up by the neck and gave her a shake. “He is NOT your prince! You are NOT his princess! Get that stupid and childish thought out of your silly little head!”

Kara stared at her with wide eyes. How does she know...

“I can read your crystal clear thoughts, that's how.” Hailey said. “You are waiting for him to change and come around to your way of thinking, then you can mould him into the man you imagined he would be.” She gave Kara another shake. “That's not who he is or who he would ever become! Your subtle attempts all those years that he was your apprentice just goes to show how wrong your way of thinking is!”

Kara couldn't deny that she had tried to get Aaron to let her in and accept her.

“He is MY husband! MINE!” Hailey said and all of the color drained out of Kara's face, because the Presence didn't waver. “I am his wife and I won't accept your unwarranted and unsolicited attempts to subvert him.”

Kara didn't respond and no one tried to intervene on her behalf.

“This latest insult to him was the last time you will ever do that to my husband.” Hailey said in a deadly voice. “You asked him to join the assault and then tried to leave him behind.” She said. “If we hadn't been there with you on the way down, how many of you would be dead right now?”

No one answered and Hailey let Kara go, who dropped six inches to the ground and caught her footing instantly.

“Hunter was right, you know. The Order is too arrogant to exist.” Hailey said. “So, we are taking it down.”

“Hailey...” I started to say.

“I have become everything you need, Beloved.” Hailey said. “You've never hidden your plans to get rid of them all.”

“We are about to assault a compound with their help.” I said and woke up The Order member I put to sleep and handed them their Light swords back.

“No. We are humoring them to see how many of them will potentially die before we save them.” Hailey corrected.

“It's the same thing.” I said with a smile as I saw Kara pick up her Light sword and she didn't attack Hailey with it.

“Shall we show them how it should be assaulted properly?” Hailey asked as she walked over to me.

“Monna already opened the cargo hatch, so it would be a shame to waste the opportunity.”

“Then kiss me and I'll let you use the weapons.” Hailey said and puckered her lips.

I chuckled and puckered my lips, so that our blast shields wouldn't hit each other, and gave her a quick kiss. We used Presence Run and disappeared from their sight, then Hailey drove the hovering Armored Personnel Carrier out of Monna's cargo area and we felt all of their shock, even Kara's.

I popped the side hatch open and looked out. “Well, come on. They aren't going to wait all day for us.”

The guards didn't hesitate and immediately climbed aboard. They knew the value of an APC in combat. It was standing room only with thirty of them aboard, though.

“You three can go to the cockpit.” I said to Kara and the two men from The Order, then I climbed up into the weapons cockpit. “Let's go, Beloved.”

The APC powered up completely, then we swung out and around the shuttles and drove towards the compound at full speed. The defending guards opened fire, because what else would they do, and their shots bounced harmlessly off the hull. I walked laser cannon fire across their positions on the wall and killed a lot of them.

“Wall coming up.” Hailey said. “Heavy reinforcement.”

I had enough time to shoot two breaching shells from the main gun. When they impacted on the surface of the wall, they exploded. They didn't destroy the wall, though. All it did was weaken the plating and Hailey drove the APC right through it.

“YEAH!” One of the guards yelled happily.

Hailey swung us around and I used the laser cannons and the machine guns to sweep over all of the troop positions that had been surprised by our easy breach of their walls, then she killed our momentum and stopped us beside the control building.

I opened the side hatch with Presence. “GO! GO! GO!” I yelled and the guards piled out of the APC and stormed into the building. Hailey, any luck finding him? I thought to her as I maintained covering fire through the windows of the building to distract the defenders.

No. Either he's blocking us somehow or he's behind a dispersion field like the satellite defense network. Hailey thought back to me as the two Order members jumped out and entered the building, too.

That would suck. I thought and felt something big enter my detection range. “Dammit, a fast attack craft is coming at us.” I said and closed the side hatch to let us manoeuvre.

“It must have been a patrol or something.” Hailey said and poured power into the APC's engine and swung us around to face the threat. “Can you get the elevation on the main gun?”

“Can I?” I chuckled and used Presence to tilt us up at a thirty degree angle. “To the left a bit.”

Hailey pushed us to the side and stopped when she felt it was the right spot.

“Perfect.” I said and fired the main gun.

The breaching round hit the wing and exploded, which shredded the wing and part of the fuselage, and the pilot was good enough to kill his speed and bring the practically dead craft down into the compound right in front of us.

“Sorry about this.” I said and lowered us back to the ground and shot another breach round through the cockpit windshield and hit the crew compartment. The ship exploded and the troops on board died with the pilot. “That was a great landing.”

“The idiot would have lived longer if he landed outside the wall.” Hailey said and swung us around. “Troops incoming.”

“Got them.” I said and strafed the machine gun across the squad trying to attack us from behind. “Hailey, if we can't track where he is, can we track where he's not?”

Hailey took in a sharp breath. “Like that guy at one of the training camps who felt your Stealth technique because of your absence!” She said and changed the search parameters in the computer link with Monna, Hela and the satellite we had in the system. “You keep watch and I'll concentrate on this.”

“No problem.” I said and generated Presence Hands to assume her controls of the APC.

There was a large explosion in the control building and a series of smaller ones, then power to the compound cut off.

“I might have been a bit more selective in cutting power.” I said to myself and moved the APC back over to the building to give the troops some cover as they came out and went to assault the next building. “Losing it all in the middle of the day isn't as devastating as losing it at night.”

Some laser shots hit the APC and bounced off, so I turned the APC to confront the perpetrators, then a thick steady beam hit the weapon cockpit I was in. I had to duck as the canopy was burned off and my personal shield kicked in to stop the debris and deflected the laser only slightly.

“Hot hot hot.” I said and slipped back into the APC and watched the weapons console melt away. “Dammit.” I said and turned the APC back to the real threat and then realized I didn't have any controls to fire the remaining weapons. “The hard way, then.”

I popped open the side hatch and tossed out my Light sword, then used a Presence Hand to catch it, turned it on, then moved it through the air and around the building where the unmanned heavy laser cannon was. The Light sword easily smashed through a window and I jammed it right into the housing on the back of the weapon with the power converter. It took a moment to ease all the way in and then I tilted it to sever the wires and cut off power to the weapon.

I took a few seconds to follow the wires and they led to an innocuous building that had a secondary reactor. I sent my Light sword in there and swirled it around the reactor's casing and cut all of the external power wires. It took me another minute to find the control console for it and initiated the emergency shutdown protocols.

I did it just in time, because another heavy laser cannon had tried to fire. It only had a small part of the APC in its sights and hadn't fired before. Thankfully, it only grazed the back edge of the APC and didn't do any damage. After it discharged its onboard capacity, it tried to draw more and then shut down when it couldn't. I brought back my Light sword and closed the side hatch and waited while the two Order members and the three guard squads kept assaulting the buildings and wiping out any resistance.

“When did you get married?” Kara asked as she unstrapped and stood up.

“A month ago. I sent you an invitation, too.” I said. “You never answer any of my messages.”

Kara opened her mouth to explain, then she sighed. “I thought you were calling me from prison.”

“I commuted my sentence over seven months ago... which you would know if you spent any time thinking about anyone but yourself.” I said.

“That's not fair.” Kara said.

“No?” I turned to her. “You weren't comfortable taking a call from a prisoner, even though you knew... for a fact... that I was sent there on false pretenses.”

Kara frowned at me. “You killed The Order council.”

“I said I would kill them and the Presence didn't waver. It's not my fault they didn't believe me.”

“You should have been sent to prison for that.” Kara said.

“No one was left to sentence me.” I said with a crooked smile.

Kara sighed. “You also said you were going to take down The Order.” She said. “You do realize that also means The Wise One, Lashina, and myself.”

I leaned in close and looked into her eyes. “Kara. I've shown you years, no, I've shown you decades of the abuses The Order has heaped upon the people they are supposedly taking care of and guiding into enlightenment.” I said. “Stealing children. Murdering people for no reason. Ruling planets under their own self appointed government and not one chosen by the people. Using entire planetary incomes to create fleets of ships to take over even more planets.”

Kara didn't say anything and just stared back at me.

“I'm tempted to mention how easily corrupted members of the council were, and then used The Order for their own means. No one questioned it. At all. Even when I came along and told them what was going on, no one said anything.” I said. “Look at this scaly alien bastard and the hundreds of millions of people he's killed using Order sanctioned assassins.”

“He sanctioned them.” Kara said in The Order's defense.

“We're not fighting rogues here, Kara.” I said and caught her thoughts. “The Order hasn't declared Kralish a rogue, have they?”

Kara didn't respond because she knew I knew the answer.

“He's too influential to do that, because he has a lot of people that he's groomed and brought up through The Order and put into positions of power all over the goddamned universe. If he is considered a rogue, then all of his disciples become rogues until proven innocent, right?” I asked. “Oh wait! No, you don't do that, do you? They are just brought in, tried and sentenced, and then shuffled off without solving the problem of their creation in the first place.”

“I found him.” Hailey said and came out of the cockpit.

“Thank god.” I said and felt a tingle. “And Black Laura.”

Hailey chuckled. “I asked for her help, so thanking her is appropriate.” She said and handed me a datapad. “About a thousand feet below us there's a huge dead spot. No communications, no Presence, and no power, even though there's power leading to it.”

“I don't suppose the frequency we have will work on it?” I asked.

“We won't know until we get there to test it.” Hailey said.

“Then we better get to work.” I said and she followed me out of the APC.

“Where are you going?” Kara asked. “The datapad said the entrance is a mile outside of the compound. Shouldn't we take the troops in the APC?”

“Help yourself.” I said and waved at the half-gutted APC. “Hailey and I will meet you there when we're done.”

Kara gave us both searching glances, then left to get the other two Order members and to gather the troops for the upcoming assault.