The analyst’s words were barely a whisper when she spoke, her little droid sliding closer to her side. “I thought so, too, but the fail-safe’s reach stretches across all of Mirabel, Majesty. I’m so sorry. We didn’t know... We didn’t anticipate...”

Ice had encased Nor’s body. She had killed all the leaders, killed them with one swift slice of her blade so that they would not stand in her way. And now, a month after taking over, it was as if their ghosts had suddenly come back to haunt her.

Or perhaps they’d been lurking on the fringes this entire time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

“There is a ceremony of sorts,” the woman said tentatively. “When a leader passes on, a new heir is chosen. Not just by words or oath, but by the system, as well.” She looked down at the screen in her hands again, its dim light reflecting in her orange eyes. “But in the event that the other leaders fall without an heir, and only one remains, that single remaining leader gains total control of the weapons network across the entire Unified Systems.”

“Then we must do that now,” Darai said, nodding his head as he came around to the front of the desk. “We will enter Nor into the system here as the sole leader of Mirabel, so that she can access the arsenals.”

The analyst’s knees began to shake. “That’s simply not possible, sir.” She looked to Nor. “Unfortunately, according to the system and the fail-safe... Another leader has already been chosen.”

All eyes fell upon her as Nor gripped the desk for support. It couldn’t be true.

She’d made sure everyone was dead.

Nor’s body felt strangely light, while her head felt too heavy on her shoulders. “Who?” she asked softly, menacingly. “Who is it? We will find them and kill them.”

“That’s the other problem,” the analyst said with a grimace. “The system’s firewalls, its back-door fail-safes...they’re all heavily protecting the identity of this chosen leader. And merely killing this person won’t give you access to the weapons. It would be too easy for leadership to fall into enemy hands if that was the case. The new leader has to pass on the power, to freely hand it over and enter their chosen heir into the system.”

“THEN BREAK THROUGH THE SYSTEM!” Nor screamed as fury roared within her blood. She hadn’t come all this way just to be stopped by some technological glitch.

She picked up a glass bauble from the desk and launched it across the room, where it exploded against the wall in a shower of gleaming shards that looked like falling stars.