The streets were a storm.

  Civilians poured past us in waves, their screams and footsteps tangling with the crack of rifles in the distance. Mothers clutched children, men dragged wounded friends, carts overturned and scattered across the cobblestones. The air reeked of gunpowder and rain.

  “Keep moving!” I barked at the five men with me.

  We pushed through, boots splashing in the muck. Then the way ahead clogged - a bottleneck of panicked bodies pressed tight across the avenue, blind to anything but escape.

  Fuck sakes, I don't have the time for this-!

  I raised my pistol and fired into the sky. The crack split the rain, sharp and final. The crowd shrieked, scattering in every direction, clearing the path just enough for us to force through.

  “Move!” I growled, sprinting past as smoke bled from the barrel.

  The docks rose into view. Great cranes loomed like skeletons against the gray sky, chains rattling as the tide swelled beneath them. But it wasn’t the cranes that held my eye - it was the gunfire.

  A warehouse. Long, brick-faced, yawning doors big enough to swallow ships whole to its side - connecting itself to the ocean. Its windows flashed with muzzle fire, cutting down at the street below. A cluster of Imperial soldiers huddled behind overturned carts, sandbags, and crates dragged into a makeshift barricade. They were returning fire, but poorly. The crack of rifles from the warehouse was steady, measured. Pinning them down.

  I counted fast. Around twenty men alive. A couple lay dead, cut down on the way to the warehouse.

  “Join the line!” I snapped to my squad, pointing at the barricade. They sprinted ahead, rifles barking as they added their weight to the defense.

  I vaulted a crate, landing beside the noble in charge. His coat was soaked, medals smeared with rain and sweat, his face pale under the brim of his officer’s cap. He looked like he hadn’t blinked in an hour.

  “What the hell happened here?” I demanded, chest heaving.

  He turned, jaw tight. “Unmarked vessel drifted in at exactly midday. No flag. No registry. I sent five to board.” His eyes flicked toward the warehouse, then back to me. “None came out. The ships inside.”

  My throat tightened.

  He went on, voice harder now. “Three more dead to snipers. Leaves me with twenty-two. And I’ve sent a runner to Arthur for some sort of fire support.” He grimaced. “But I’m guessing it won’t come.”

  I let out a humorless laugh, breathless. “Doubt it. It seems I'm all the fire support he could muster for now.”

  His eyes narrowed on me, almost pleading. “Then tell me the Almighty has blessed you something useful. Anything.”

  “It is useful,” I said flatly, sliding a fresh round into the chamber of my pistol. “But the only person it’ll help is me.”

  The noble’s jaw worked, but he gave a curt nod. “Then I suppose five more rifles will have to do.”

  “How many inside?”

  He shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. Surely more than five, since my men died so quickly.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  The answer didn’t ease the knot in my stomach.

  A scream split the barricade. I turned just in time to see one of ours collapse, a bullet tearing through his shoulder. His comrades dragged him back as another volley hissed from the warehouse windows.

  My teeth clenched. Every second we waited, we bled.

  I scanned the field. Mud. Crates. Shattered glass. Twenty men, now twenty five pressed tight to cover, barely daring to raise their rifles before fire chewed them back down.

  We were pinned. Outgunned. And unless I made a move, we’d be dead before sundown.

  My shadows stirred faintly at my boots. Hungry. Restless.

  I inhaled, sharp and cold.

  I need to act. Now.

  Plans spun through my head, one after another, only to collapse the second they formed.

  Kick the door down? Dead before I got within five steps.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Smoke cover? Wasn’t common enough for anyone here to have some.

  Swim into the dry dock? Might as well paint a bullseye on my head.

  Each one ended the same way - failure.

  I needed a way to either distract them long enough for the Noble to rush them. Or somehow kill them all in one fell swoop.

  Then it clicked.

  “Bingo.”

  The noble’s eyes cut toward me, brow furrowed. “What?”

  “Grenades,” I said flatly. “Do your men have them?”

  His lips pressed thin. “Some of my personal guard, yes.”

  “Good. I’ll need as much as possible.”

  He barked a sharp order. Within seconds, a handful of soldiers rolled the metal orbs across the dock toward me. I crouched, scooping them up one by one, lining them against my thigh.

  Six. Perfect.

  I yanked my shoelaces free and knotted them tight around the pins, bunching them into a single tether.

  The noble’s eyes widened. “There’s no way you can throw them that far. You won’t even get up without being shot.”

  I smirked faintly, sliding the bundle into my coat. “I don’t intend to get shot. I intend to get wet. Albeit, I hate it.”

  His confusion deepened, but I didn’t wait for him to argue. I pointed once, sharp. “When you hear the blasts, rush the gates. Until then, increase fire. Keep them distracted, but don’t make it obvious. Understood?”

  The noble’s jaw worked, still baffled, but he gave a curt nod.

  “May the Almighty watch over you, young man.”

  “Something tells me, I doubt he’s watching.”

  I dropped flat and crawled, sliding between carts and shattered crates until I reached the edge of the docks. A ladder clung to the stone wall, slick with rain. I slipped down it, boots clanging once before the ocean swallowed me whole.

  The water was freezing. Salt stung my eyes, my coat dragged heavy, the grenades tugging me down like lead weights.

  Thank God these things don’t use powder, otherwise I’d just be swimming with paperweights.

  Each stroke carried me deeper along the dock, bubbles trailing from my nose. My lungs burned, but I pushed on, hugging the stone wall until I reached the warehouse’s opposite side.

  I surfaced slow, eyes scanning. Nothing. No sentries.

  Perfect.

  I climbed the ladder inch by inch, boots slipping on the slick rungs, until I crested the top. I bolted the second my feet touched wood, sprinting low until my back pressed against the warehouse wall.

  Slow breath. Slow heartbeat.

  I peeked through a cracked window.

  Inside - chaos.

  Men unloaded crates from the shadow of the metallic ship’s hull, stacking them high across the floor. Wooden lids had split open, revealing glints of steel - rifles, ammunition belts, magazines. A war chest smuggled in plain sight.

  At their center, a rough-faced man barked orders, his voice carrying even over the gunfire. “Burn it all! Nothing leaves this building! We’ll die before we let them tie this to Halrigg!”

  The name hit like a punch.

  Halrigg... shit.

  The air went thin. My mind reeled back to the North - whispers of another rebellion, a city put to the flame, men and women alike burned out of history as a warning.

  If the capital caught wind of this… Morren would be ash before the week’s end.

  In an Empire that counted population in billions - a couple hundred thousand was nothing but a statistic.

  I winced, hand tightening on the grenades.

  Through the windows, ten men held their posts, rifles spitting fire into the barricades outside. Others argued, panic rising. “We’re fucked! They’ll storm us! How’d they even find us?!”

  The leader snarled them down. “It doesn’t matter. Our brothers ambush was successful. They'll die before being captured, and so will we. We die with honor! For Halrigg! For freedom!”

  My throat tightened.

  For a moment, I saw myself on their side. Saw the Empire’s banners torn down, saw chains broken, saw… something worth fighting for. Something not too dissimilar to Earth.

  But the thought died just as quickly.

  I didn’t have the liberty to choose. Not anymore.

  I couldn't allow Morren to be put to the torch - all it would do is hurt the Empire in the end.

  Any threat to the Empire was a threat to humanity.

  Or maybe at this point, it was just an excuse I didn't want to acknowledge.

  The same eight words slowly whispered in my ears, as though the man from my dreams stood right next to me.

  The Empire must survive, or everyone will die.

  I bit my tongue as hard as I could.

  Shut up.

  I slid the shoelace bundle from my coat, pins rattling faintly. My eyes traced the crates stacked with ammunition, the fuel barrels piled against the wall.

  Sorry, I thought, silently, sincerely. I wish it could be different.

  I pushed the door open. Just enough to slip a hand through.

  The men inside froze, eyes snapping to me in shock.

  I tossed the grenades.

  The bundle clattered across the floor, skidding between crates. A heartbeat of silence. Then panic.

  “No-!”

  I slammed the door shut and bolted. My legs carried me faster than thought, down the dock, across slick planks, until I dove headfirst into the ocean.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck-!”

  The world erupted.

  The shockwave slammed into me, a wall of heat and force that threw me deeper into the tide. The water roared, bubbles tearing past my ears as my body spun weightless.

  When I broke the surface, gasping, half the warehouse was gone. Flames chewed through its roof, smoke pouring skyward as splinters of timber rained into the waves. The ship groaned, scorch marks already marking its hull.

  Soldiers on the barricades roared forward, surging for the gates.

  I clung to the dock’s ladder, coughing water from my lungs, staring at the ruin I’d left behind.

  My chest ached. My head spun.

  I’d better get a medal for this.