Page 89 of New World

Ramos shifted uneasily. “Sir?”

Andri blinked, realizing his words had not been entirely internal. He turned slowly, his gaze sweeping over Ramos like a blade. The Captain’s brow furrowed, his gaze flicking to the viewport, as if expecting to see the shadow Andronikos had been speaking to.

A flicker of amusement coiled in Andri’s chest. Ramos feared him.

Good.

Straightening, Andri strode past him without another word. The man scrambled to follow.

A short time later, the troop transport shuddered as it cut through the planet’s upper atmosphere, turbulence rattling against the reinforced hull.

Andri barely noticed. He stood near the front, gripping the railing, watching as the surface of Aetherial came into sharper focus. The settlement—a cluster of simple dwellings and landing bays—was an insult to his grandeur. Soon, it would be reduced to ashes and whispers.

Ramos’s voice crackled through the internal comm. “Sir, we have confirmation that General Roan Landais’s starfighter and the ship belonging to the Turbinta assassin Kella Ta’Qui are in the docking bays. Kryla’s arrival records also show a freighter belonging to La’Rue Gant, but visuals from our troops report the landing pads are empty.”

“What of Zoak? Have your men found him yet?”

“No, sir, but the area has been secured. Not even that Turbinta could get through,” Ramos replied.

Andri’s eyes narrowed. He wouldn’t take any chances. He looked at the five men he had brought with him.

“You two will find and eliminate the Turbinta assassin named Zoak once we land. Don’t return until you have proof he is dead,” he instructed.

“Yes, sir,” the two men replied.

He returned his focus to the ground. He expected resistance, expected Roan and his ilk to make a stand. He had Roan and the Turbinta’s ships. They could not escape. He doubted that they had abandoned the ships to travel in the old freighter.

Where are they? Hiding? Running? No. They wouldn’t run. Not yet.

His hand brushed over his pistol, itching for the moment when he would face them—when he would take Roan’s life with his own hands, erase the last of Coleridge’s failures.

He exhaled slowly. “They are here,” he murmured. “They think they can outmaneuver me.”

His reflection flickered again in the glass of the troop bay’s viewport—Coleridge’s face, smirking, condescending.

No.

After today, Coleridge would be gone forever.

“Did you request something, sir?” the soldier standing next to him asked.

Andri snapped his head around, his expression darkening. “Deploy all ground troops. Secure the settlement. Round up the civilians. I want them all in the main square.”

The soldier hesitated, looking at his commanding officer who was sitting behind him.

Andri’s lips curled into a slow, deadly smile. “Do not make me repeat myself, Captain.”

The soldier swallowed and nodded sharply. “I-I’m a private, sir. Yes, sir.”

Andri swayed, tightening his grip on the handrail as the troop transport lurched. The pilot set down the transport in a wide section of the main street, its landing struts kicking up a storm of dust. Andri waited impatiently next to the hatch as it hissed open, tugging on his sleeves and the hem of his uniform to make sure they were perfect before he strode down the platform. The heat immediately pressed against his uniform, twin suns baking the world in merciless light. Sweat rolled down his spine and dampened the area under his armpits, but he ignored it.

A dozen of his finest guards followed him down the ramp. Another transport had arrived earlier. The soldiers had already swept the settlement, herding the settlers toward the square.

The streets were lined with scorched structures, their stone walls worn by time and sand. Tiny dust devils swirled across the compacted dirt roads. The air carried the acrid scent of fear—of sweat, of dust, of inevitability.

As Andri walked forward, the crowd parted before him like a wave splitting around an unmovable force. One side—his men, standing rigid, at attention. The other—the weak, the doomed, eyes filled with unspoken terror.

Andri smiled.

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