Jason and Tahuuk split ways—one to continue the plan, the other to confront Veyrn one last time.

  He walked the familiar corridors and stairwells leading to the director’s office. Everything looked ordinary. None of the officers seemed aware of what was coming. That calm told him Veyrn didn’t know, and for a moment the ignorance felt like relief—until he stood before the office door.

  If all went right, this would be his last chance to set things straight. Escape mattered more, but he would still take it.

  The guard opened the door. Veyrn stood behind his desk, gazing through the wide window where the sun slid past a planet, painting the room in an amber glow. The pane shimmered with faint rainbow hues—energy shielding. Max had once said the gravity generators and the window shield drew from the same grid. The thought of Max stirred a dull weight in Jason’s chest.

  He stepped forward. Even with Veyrn’s back turned he felt the tension in the man’s shoulders, confirmed by the pistol lying beside the radio.

  “You don’t need to get too close,” Veyrn said without turning. He sighed, sat, and reached toward the weapon—then chose a tablet instead.

  “You’ve been a good source of income these past years.” His voice was flat. “The numbers prove it. But as you can see, profits have started to drop.”

  Jason barely looked at the screen. His eyes moved across the room, mapping cover: the guard behind him, glass cases, stone pillars.

  “The people want something new,” Veyrn went on. “You were good at surprises, but you’ve become too good. They want to see you bleed, maybe die. You stopped giving them that.”

  “I barely survived that knight earlier,” Jason said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Looking at you now, it doesn’t look like you ‘barely’ survived.” Veyrn slammed his palms on the desk. “Well… that leaves two options. One, I strip you of every privilege. That won’t work. Or two—” his hand closed on the pistol “—I end you here and let that blue friend of yours give the audience their tragedy.”

  Jason’s pulse quickened. He eased back a step toward the guard. “Why kill me now? I still work for this station outside the arena.”

  Veyrn’s laugh was brittle. “Work? This place exists for spectacle. The rest is fa?ade. The truth is simpler: that look. I saw it the first day—the look that said you were better. I wanted you dead then. But you wouldn’t die. You stole their cheers, my arena, my relevance!”

  He raised the gun, trembling with rage.

  The world slowed again. Sound thinned, replaced by the thrum in Jason’s chest. Hyperfocus. He saw Veyrn’s finger tighten. Jason lunged backward into the guard, dragging the man in front of him.

  BANG.

  The guard convulsed as the bullet hit his chest. Jason yanked him toward a pillar. Another shot tore through the body; a third shattered glass behind them. Blood sprayed warm across Jason’s face.

  “What now?” Veyrn shouted. “You know you’re dead anyway!”

  The radio crackled. “My lord, the prisoners—they’re escaping! They took down the guards near the cells and are heading for the kitchens!”

  Veyrn’s aim faltered toward the sound. Jason held still, waiting. The floor shuddered. Lights flickered. Objects slid from shelves as gravity stuttered.

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  The receiver hissed again, louder, layered with shouting and clanging metal.

  “My lord! They joined with the fighters—We can’t contain them, they’re—”

  The line dissolved in gunfire and screams.

  Jason’s throat tightened. They’re doing it. It’s working.

  The radio spat static once more. “My lord, the mechanic—he blew himself up! He took the gravity generators with him!”

  Veyrn froze, eyes wide. In that heartbeat, Jason closed the distance and struck. The punch snapped Veyrn’s head sideways; he crashed to the floor.

  When he looked up again, Jason’s face was clouded with grief. Max. He’d done it, but blew himself apart with it. That wasn’t necessary, Jason made sure.

  The gun came up again—but before the shot, both men lifted from the ground. Gravity was gone. Papers, trinkets, and the guard’s corpse drifted with them.

  Jason caught the edge of the desk, hauling himself toward an old shield etched with runes. The first bullet pinged off it, ricocheting—one round struck the window.

  The shimmer vanished. A crack spidered across the glass.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Veyrn screamed. “This station will fall! Thousands will die!”

  Jason stared back. “Fall? The generators held it in orbit…” He understood then—the explosion doomed them all. “Why go so far? You used us like toys! You stripped us of who we were!”

  Veyrn’s fury twisted to something rawer.

  “When I refused an order, I was court-martialed—a disgrace to the Empire. They sent me here, to rot among slaves. And then you arrived—a nobody from that dump you called home—and the crowds hailed you as a warrior! A slave who gained the favor of the people. Every time you fought, you reminded me of who i’ve become!”

  Jason was taken aback for a moment. Veyrn finally showed who he was underneath. The duality of his greed clashing, the greed for the money now overtaken by the greed for his own significance.

  The radio flared again—panic, gunfire, silence. Jason exhaled. At least the others were still fighting.

  He pushed off in the direction of Veyrn. A wild shot grazed Veyrn’s arm. The gun spun free. He hurled the shield, slamming Veyrn against the window, then caught the weapon.

  Veyrn grabbed the oxygen gear, holding it like a hostage. “If you shoot, you’ll hit the tank. We’ll both explode—you’ll never escape!”

  Another message sputtered through the receiver: “They’ve taken the emergency bay, sir—no ships left—fighters and prisoners escaped together, we—” Static swallowed the rest.

  Jason’s voice was steady now, letting out a sad sigh of relief. “Escape was my second goal. You were my first. And I’m not strong enough to spare you.”

  Veyrn hurled the oxygen gear with a panicked breath; it snagged on the desk. Jason leveled the pistol. “This is for the family you took from me.”

  A sharp crack split the air. The window webbed with fractures. He grabbed the desk just as the glass gave way. Air roared outward. Everything ripped toward the void. Veyrn clung to the opposite side, eyes wide with terror.

  The oxygen tank tore loose, dangling by its strap. Jason, first aiming the pistol at Veyrn, stared at it—it felt like a sign. He let go, seized it, and wrestled the suit on while his lungs burned. A button on the chest triggered the leather cocoon and glass helm to seal around him. Breath returned in harsh bursts.

  When the noise faded, silence filled the vacuum.

  The room was a frozen grave. The guard’s body drifted near the pillar, limbs locked in a slow turn. Shards of glass spun like tiny comets around Veyrn’s corpse, his face pale and rigid, eyes still open in disbelief. Papers fluttered lazily, glowing with the orange light of the distant sun.

  Jason floated among them, the only living thing left. His thoughts circled one truth: he’d chosen to live instead of kill. That was supposed to be redemption. The arena had changed him after all.

  Silence pressed closer. His breathing echoed in his helmet. In the stillness, memories surfaced—Friederick’s voice teaching him patience, the smell of the scrap town dust, Ashar’s last cry, Tahuuk’s laughter, Max’s quiet explanations about gravity and faith. Max… how he couldn’t see the signs of Max’s depressing grief. Every lesson, every death, every mercy refused or granted—they drifted around him like the debris.

  His focus changed to something passing by, a floating tablet, which flickered with its last bit of energy and eventually went dark.

  Beyond the shattered window, the spaceport hung silent, lights flickering but still intact, its shape turning slowly against the sun.

  He didn’t panic. He only wondered how long the air would last, and whether dying in silence was any different from living in it.