Werrn.

The alarm blared across Tartarus as Commander Milton looked down at the soldier before him. His carefully planned chess board was falling to pieces in front of him. Grim Aegis had fallen. Ortega had done something horrible in his base, and Captain Grayson had failed to stop him without causing alarm. Now, he would have to reveal the problem to his superiors and make a report.

And he still had no idea where Secretary Eaton was.

"Come with me," Commander Milton snapped, exiting his office and marching for the hallway.

He didn't bother looking back, but his senses didn't pick up on Secretary Eaton at her desk. However, at the edge of his perception, something incredibly large plummeted toward the docks.

"What is that?" he whispered, rushing down the hall toward the light at the end leading to the docks.

Boom. Splash.

"Scions protect us!" the soldier behind him gasped.

Water crashed against the end of the hall in front of him, washing down the hall and over his boots up to his ankles. The soldier behind him fell to his knees, but Milton didn't stop. He charged forward, pushing past the coming water as it petered out, and stepped out onto the platform outside.

A scene forged from wars he only knew of from old reports opened up before him.

There was a reason the Empyrean suppressed records of the rebellions and wars that had been fought centuries before. As a ship crashed near the island that housed WPN One and smoke rose from the crash, Milton understood. He sensed the men beneath the decks as they began to drown.

"Save us!" one of them screamed as the water rose above his head.

"Step!"

Milton disappeared from the docks, reappearing by the water on the ship. It was a distance that no one could imagine moving using the Path of Step, but it was simple for a commander. He focused his aether at his feet, standing on the water as he reached down and grabbed hold of the ship. He took a deep breath, his fingers digging into the steel as he struggled against the weight of the overturned cruiser.

"Might!"

Crack. Errn.

Metal cracked under his fingers as he pulled the ship and walked toward the island. He dragged it onto the shore like a small escape boat, pulling it out of the water without hesitation.

Slosh. Water rushed out of the ship as escaped soldiers swam for the shore. Some men stumbled out from the overturned ship, crawling on the sand toward Milton before standing up in a weary salute. All in all, it was about ten men on the ship.

"Commander Milton, sir!"

"Report Private Thompson," Milton said out of habit as his senses took in more of the fight around him.

Crack. Boom.

"An unknown foe appeared inside the base, and we responded to it," Thompson said. "We lost our ship to the enemy, sir."

Milton didn't need to know who it was. He had already picked out the figure above the docks. Surrounded in a semi-transparent blue orb was the man he had been trying to find.

"After all this." Milton shook his head.

Splash.

In the distance, one of the dock's towers crashed into the lake as Ortega pushed it down with a long line of lightning. Commander Milton stepped away from his men, assessing the situation. He needed to know the lay of the base.

One of Tartarus's doors was torn off its hinges. There were two slipships up in the air, but they weren't responding to Ortega. They floated close to the water where two other ships were underwater. Milton shook his head. He had a mess on his hands.

However, he noticed that Ortega was avoiding the dock towers that held the shuttles. That was an opportunity. There were roughly one hundred and fifty personnel in Tartarus for the night shift. With the shuttles, he could affect an evacuation.

"The higher-ups will tear me to shreds," he whispered, closing his eyes. "But if I get the men started, I can go after Ortega after."

He decided, taking a deep breath and expanding his awareness across the base. His voice rumbled from him and across every person in the base, echoing through every corridor and room.

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No one could mistake the order, so commanders had to be masters of the Path of Will.

"Soldiers of Tartarus, we are under attack by an outlaw." Milton's voice shook through his bones, and the men behind him grabbed at their ears to try to muffle the sound. "You have one job. Make it to the shuttles and the island at the lake's center. Do not fight the outlaw. I will handle him."

With that said, he turned to his men, nodding to the nearest two.

"Thompson, Grimes, you're both qualified on shuttles, correct?"

"Yes sir!" they saluted in unison.

"I'm taking you both over. It won't be pleasant. Once we're there, you'll start the shuttles ferrying people back and forth. If you see more qualified people, they'll start more shuttles."

They came forward without questioning, grabbing his shoulders as he focused on the top of the docks where the shuttles were. It was far from the lake, and the upward angle would make the jump difficult. It was possible, but he needed to step twice to make it. He took in a deep breath as he focused on the destination.

"Step."

He crossed half the distance between himself and the docks in a blur. Fingers clasped hard into his shoulders, the nails digging into his uniform as the men momentarily floated with him in the air. Milton's feet touched down in the air, and his focus on aether allowed him to stand on a platform in the sky momentarily, the same way he had stood on water mere minutes before.

"Step."

Clunk.

He crossed the second half of the distance, both he and his soldiers touching down on the metal docks. Both men released him as he turned toward Ortega, who was dismantling his base. Ortega was moving away from the docks, his hands outstretched as he ripped metal walls from the rocks and sent debris crashing to the ground below.

Luckily, there were no soldiers in the areas he focused on. That was odd to Milton. Aside from the ships that attacked Ortega, he was explicitly avoiding direct confrontation with soldiers rushing for the shuttles. He hadn't even torn down the towers that held the shuttle docks aloft, though he had broken down the rest of the air docks.

That didn't change the soldiers that Milton was sure he would lose before the end of the day, though. Whatever Ortega was thinking, there was no way that he could destroy the base without inflicting severe casualties in some way.

That was the problem with outlaws. They were selfish to the core. He didn't know why Ortega had decided to come down on Tartarus, but he was there to put it at an end. He leaned forward as he drew in a breath.

Now, it was time for the outlaw to answer to him.

"Step."

Splash. Hmm.

The little tugboat spat smoke as Erick leaned forward on the wheel. Klaus held onto his free hand as the other struggled to keep the boat on track for the docks. Blood ran down his ears from Milton's order, but he couldn't focus on that. He needed to get to a slipship, whether a shuttle or one of the larger ships in the yard. He needed to get Klaus out of Tartarus and Aherlow before it was too late.

"I'm so sorry, Klaus," he whispered. "I thought this would be a new start for both of us, but it was all just a mess."

He shook his head as the ship bobbed beneath him on the waves. Above him and through the droplets on the window, he saw Alex throwing around more ships into the docks as he brought down another tower. How could such a short man make Erick feel so small?

But he was trapped. He had already helped Alex infiltrate the base. He had taken him right into that room to the woman. He had killed her, and now he was wreaking havoc on the base. While Erick agreed that it was deserved for Milton and the officers, the soldiers who came after Ortega weren't as responsible. Their sunken ships across the lake were collateral damage in the Scionic retribution that Alex was visiting upon the base.

He didn't know all of them beyond the dockmaster and the people on his shift, but they didn't deserve to die. However, there was nothing he could do to stop it. He could only focus on getting Klaus out of danger. That was his job as Klaus's father.

Boom. Splash.

"Keep Erick safe," Klaus mumbled as a wave hit the boat, releasing Erick's hand and grabbing hold of his leg. "She told me that I had to keep you safe."

Erick looked down at Klaus for a moment. He hadn't heard the boy speak in months. It was hoarse and cracked every few words, but Klaus had just spoken.

"Who Klaus?" Erick asked, holding the wheel steady with one hand while putting his palm on Klaus's head. "Who told you that."

"The woman," he said. "She told me how."

A weight dropped inside his gut as he thought back to the woman on the wall—the one Alex had killed. Erick clenched his teeth as he focused on the shore. When they survived it all, he would have words with Alex. He may not know the right decision, but something about all this was wrong.

Someone needed to speak up for justice.

Pulling into the docks, he saw two people running down the stairs and across the wet docks. He immediately recognized them as Wen and Erin, the two people Alex had brought along during the infiltration. They glanced back every few moments, and as he followed their gaze, he saw why.

A man with a skewed hat and a torn black jacket chased after him, bearing the mark of a captain. His body was covered with ripped vines, and ice flaked off his shoulders and legs. His face burned red hot, though, and Erick could tell that neither of the two outlaws could stop him.

He remembered the fear inside him as Secretary Eaton came down the steps and into the room. He had stood up to her then and nearly died. Now, he stared into danger once again, with a captain instead.

He looked down at Klaus.

"I'm a fool," he said. "I know I should be worried about you, but I can't just leave them behind either. If I survive all of this, I'm going to yell at a man who's currently tearing the base apart. I have no sense of when to run away."

Klaus looked up to him, his blue eyes brimming with tears.

"You saved me back there, didn't you, Klaus?" Erick asked. "I don't know how you did it, but you made Eaton's kick go right through me."

Klaus nodded against his leg but didn't say anything. Honestly, he was surprised that he had gotten as many words as he had from the boy. Erick smiled.

"I know it's hard to be brave, Klaus," he said. "And I know you've had a very scary morning. But can you be brave for me?"

Sniff.

Klaus nodded into his leg, burying his head into Erick's pants leg to hide his tears. Erick looked out onto the docks as he slowed the engine to a stop.

Clunk.

The ship slapped against the docks, but he didn't rush to moor it. Already, he was estimating how quickly he could reach Erin and Wen. Already, he was figuring out if he could make it in time.

"Then, can you do it again, just one more time?" he asked. "We've got to go help our friends."

"Yes."

"Alright," Erick said, picking him up and running out of the cabin. "Let's go show them what soldiers are supposed to do!"

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