At the far end of the break room, the door clicked open. A many-colored glow spilled through the opened door, preceding the people who bore the lights like the dawn breaking on the pitch-black starship.

I hadn’t been fast enough. The Ministers had arrived.

CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE:

The Ministers

“MINISTERS!” someone shouted, Republican accent thick with loathing and fear. I dropped to crouch behind the nearby table as the ancient break room shattered into prismatic light.

The Ministers entered like fragments of stars, gleaming eerie, inhuman and terrifying. I couldn’t track them individually as they flickered into the room, unnatural-fast and certain. One unlucky Republican soldier was felled almost immediately by a shadow who glowed magma-crack red, blood gleaming redder in that light.

A beat later, the Republican started firing. I crouched low to the ground, hopefully beneath the line of fire, and thought about how pissed One must be about these people firing guns on a spaceship.

Through the deafening percussion of gunfire, I heard someone scream. Clamping my hands over my ears, I peered around my scant cover to see a chaos of light and shadow. The Ministers had turned their collar-lights up high, not as bright as they could go, but still blazing. Instead of the increased light making them easier to see, the strobing brightness as they moved disoriented the eye and concealed their motions. Lights of many colors flickered wildly, and combined with the pounding rhythm of gunfire, began slowly to separate my mind from my senses.

The Republicans had hunkered down behind the scant cover of the tables, some of them retreating back to the previous room. And they were retreating—the Ministers were advancing, flashing and slicing, moving so fast I wasn’t sure that any of the Republic’s bullets were hitting home. There were already bodies on the floor, all in the dark crimson uniforms of the Republic, visible only in glimpses during the flashing light. The dust, disturbed by the quick motion through it, was rising into the air like a mist, diffusing the light and shadow still further.

I hadn’t wanted this. I hadn’t been quick enough to prevent it. The Republic and the Ministers, slaughtering each other, this was exactly what I was trying to prevent—

Tamara was still alive. I spotted her in the back of the room, near enough to the far door to allow a retreat, hunkered grimly down. Not firing wildly, not like the rest of the soldiers, who were giving away their position.

A deep blue underwater-light, familiar to me now as a friend’s face, gleamed in from the far door. I looked in time to see the Indigo Minister enter the room. He’d gotten a new sword, presumably from the other Ministers. It wasn’t quite the same shape and size as his first one, but he held it with the same certitude.

Indigo and Tamara were both in the battle, and on opposite sides. Blood was already running over the floor. I had to stop this now.