For the rest of the morning, I wandered Lithtin helping the House of None security forces as they attempted to mop up the cultist attacks. News affiliates from all over the multiverse had come swarming, and I wanted to be sure to get as much positive press as I could. The standing bounty Justin Lee had placed on all of the cultists didn’t hurt either. I needed the morties, and kept a running tally for him to honor later.

My armor prevented most press from recognizing me at first, but the suit beneath it was shredded. Rather than go nude, I kept my armor in place. Most of the outlets got wind of who the mysterious flying armored figure was by watching the others report. For-profit news was like that, always watching each other and looking for details to pounce on and repost for additional clicks, hits, and eyeballs.

My action in the air of Lithtin’s cavern on the morning of long knives was candy for the press. They swarmed in numbers rivaling that of House of None security while the cleanup was going on. I helped fan the media flames by searching for any cultists still active and bringing them down.

The majority of cultists involved in the attack died. Security forces killed them at range rather than face the possibility of their knives, and plenty took their suicide pills after getting out their rage and realizing there was no way back from the pre-dawn assault. Even still, a few dozen were taken alive, mostly by me personally. I did it for the press's sake as much as for our investigation’s.

Only once I returned to the mine was I free of cameras following me. There, a security web consisting of tiny, weaponized drones was in place, and prevented any access via ground or air.

Most of my victims in the mine were taken into custody before I returned to find Justin, but I passed a squad of security forces cleaning up my lowest encounter. Two dead and four alive with various injuries to their midsections were in the process of being collected when I flew in.

Each of the living cultists were wearing the anti-suicide pill bits, but glared daggers at me over them. I landed and dropped my armor, letting pieces of my new suit fall away as I walked down the last tunnel to Justin’s radiation bed.

With my enhanced vision I could see a small collection of corpses piled in the center of the room. I slowed, but as soon as my steps changed cadence, the hobb leapt out from the side of the tunnel wall with his mining laser. It roared as he swept it across my chest.

I nodded, brushed the singed silk off my chest and waved at him. “It’s me, your employer. Can’t hurt me with a simple laser, don’t worry. Seems like you earned your pay though,” I told him.

The vagabond narrowed his eyes and kept himself between me and Justin’s bed. “You don’t look like my hire,” he grunted in hobb. His Storage accent was noticeable, which made me think about the evolution of hobbs since my death.

With a short sigh, I raised my arms and redeployed my armor momentarily. “Satisfied?” I asked.

He scowled and took a step back, but nodded and lowered his mining laser. ”Sorry boss.”

“No, you did good. Killed a full squad of 'em, looks like,” I complimented him, walking around the corpse pile on my way to Justin. The pile was actually a collection of cauterized limbs and body parts, as opposed to complete corpses. “Must have been quite a fight.”

“No fight. They never knew I was there,” the hobb replied flatly.

I looked over my shoulder at him and dropped the armor again, with an impressed nod. “Even better.”

The radiation bed was holding Justin unconscious as his therapy continued, to avoid the worst of the symptoms. There were only a couple of hours left in the cycle, so I took a deep breath and sat down, leaning against the bed’s surgical suite.

The hobb approached, still holding his mining laser. The rig took both hands to lift and hold, but he carried it with ease. “Boss?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Just stay here. And don’t kill any more delves, your mission is complete. House of None Security forces will be down here soon, they’re on our side.”

He nodded and turned away, walking a short distance before setting down his mining laser. I took the opportunity to call Shoshanna. The service was expensive, running across two universes and accruing multiple upcharges from BuyMort for the use of its gates. I called her on Justin’s comm unit, which allowed me to pass the charges onto the House of None.

It also pinged his location to their security forces, already sweeping the mine.

“Tyson?!” she answered. “Are you okay, you’re all over the news!”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I lied. “Just felt like taking the two minutes of quiet time I’m going to get today and spend it talking to you.” I smiled as I spoke, hoping she could hear it across the connection.

“Well,” she spluttered. “What happened?”

I moved the comm unit away from my mouth and sighed. “I provoked a response. It occurred and I’m in the process of dealing with it, that’s all. Pretty normal stuff, actually.”

The other end of the line was silent for a long moment before she whispered, “Are you really okay?”

“As okay as I get, Shanna,” I replied. “Really, this is all . . . according to plan. Going well, even.”

“This is according to plan?” she gasped. “The news is calling it a terror attack. There are so many dead.”

“Yeah all of that is true. It was also inevitable. Coming here was always going to cause this kind of reaction,” I explained. “But that’s it. That’s all the cult had, and they spent it in anger like I knew they would. Now all that’s left is cleaning them up.” I tried not to think of their fleet, or the plant in the board of the House of None’s leadership.

“Cleaning them up? My God, Tyson. Those are people,” Shoshanna whispered.

“They’re cultists. People yes, but a threat and a danger first and foremost. I can’t allow them to continue their attacks, Shanna. This is how we have to deal with them,” I told her. “We have to project strength, people need to believe I can protect them from things like this.”

“Oh Tyson,” Shoshanna said, before lapsing into silence again.

While I waited for her to say something more, Captain Sessara approached from the darkened tunnel. Her security forces had gotten some emergency generators set up, but there wasn‘t enough power to reach our levels, so she didn’t see me right away.

“I have to go, Shanna. I’ll be home soon, love you,” I said.

She silently hung up the phone on her end.

“Well, shit,” I muttered, standing up and facing Captain Sessara. “Hi. How’s the security force faring?”

“Heavy casualties,” the delf woman snapped back. “Where is my CEO?”

I stood aside and gestured at the bed, where Justin Lee slept peacefully.

“What happened to him?” she exclaimed. Sessara stepped up to the bed and immediately began swiping at its screen, seeking information and starting the process of waking Justin Lee up early.

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“Radiation treatment and a liver replacement. Your fake security officer had heavily irradiated rounds in his railgun sidearm,” I said.

“How long was he exposed?” she asked, still staring at the screen.

“A few seconds. Long enough for me to grab him and get out of there. I brought him here right away and got this treatment bed up and running before I went to secure the mine. Still let a pack get past me, but I hired a guard for him before I left,” I explained.

She glanced at the pile of body parts in the middle of the dim room and nodded. “Seems you hired well.”

I looked at my hobb vagabond and nodded. “Yeah, he proved his worth alright. By the way, I made promises to this hobb. In Justin’s absence, I expect you to make good on them.”

Captain Sessara blinked, exhaled a short laugh, and then turned to look me in the eyes. “What promises, exactly?”

“A life. A job, here on Midnight, or on any other world he chooses. The House of None has connections in every world in BuyMort. They all need your ore,” I told her.

The delf raised her hands and shook her head. “Whatever you say, Warlord.”

I didn’t bother correcting her. Captain Sessara finished her inspection of the machine and turned to face me fully. “I’m sure my CEO will honor your promises, and it seems the hobb was instrumental in securing his safety,” she said, still glaring into my eyes.

“Spit it out captain. You’ll feel better,” I sighed.

“You could have told me my own delves were cultists,” she hissed. “All damn day I’ve been looking over my shoulder trying to clean this thing up.”

I nodded and frowned exaggeratedly at her. “I would have, if I’d have been able to be sure you weren’t cult yourself.”

“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Sessara shouted. The troops at her back flinched, and my newest hobb hire casually picked his mining laser up. The hobb man turned away from the others and calmly ensured his weapon was ready to fire then sniffed as he took in the room. I caught his eyes and firmly shook my head.

“Something like it, yes,” I told her. “Why did you think we were rounding up cultists all night? Your teams were as prepared as they could be, the obvious infiltration potential meant we could only tell you so much at any given point. Now that this has happened, I can tell you more about what we’re doing. Sorry about the rough morning though.”

“Asshole!” she hissed. “Do you know how many officers I lost? How many civilians we lost?!”

I floated up to her and hovered just over her head, forcing her to look up at me. “Too many, on both counts. But those deaths are not on me. I’m not the core cause of this problem in your system. I’m just not allowing it to continue. The process of stopping that problem is painful.”

Captain Sessara’s glowing eyes widened and she gaped at me in open shock.

From behind me, Justin’s chamber hissed as it cycled open.

“Stop!” he croaked at us. “He’s right, this isn’t his fault.”

I was ignored as Captain Sessara rushed past me to Justin’s bedside. “CEO!” she said.

“Oh, easy captain. Easy,” Justin sighed. He peered around himself before looking at me and saying “In the mine?”

“Yeah. I knew it was under attack, but time was of the essence. Plus, I left security,” I said, gesturing to the hobb.

Justin stared at him, squinting as his eyes dimmed and brightened. “What is your name, sir?” he said, looking past the hobb at the corpse pile.

“Hord,” he said, gesturing to himself.

Something in my chest clenched and I looked at the hobb again, closer. I immediately decided it wasn’t him. A common enough name, in my experience with BlueCleave, but the memory of my time with a hobb named Hord was not gentle.

“Thank you Hord,” Justin said. “You seem to have saved my life.”

The hobb shrugged. “Hired to guard” he grunted in broken English. “Guarded.”

Captain Sessara shot me an angry glance. “Sir, I must inform you that the Warlord has endangered your life in his pursuit of the cult and its members.”

“Oh, it's worse than that, Captain. I also failed to save your CFO,” I calmly replied.

“Do not repeat that, Captain Sessara,” Justin said, suddenly stern. “That is a direct order. Never breathe word of such accusations again.” He groaned in pain as he pushed himself into a leaning position in the bed. “That goes for all of you. Tyson Dawes has been nothing but helpful. He has contained a catastrophe that has been building on this planet for over a century. Any personal feelings you may or may not have are not to be discussed, in public or private.”

“Yes, CEO,” said Captain Sessara, back straight and eyes forward. A few of the other House of None security guards muttered the same.

Hord scowled at us all. Justin Lee laid back down and gestured to the hobb. “You there, Hord. You’re with me. Personal guard. I’ll fill you in on the threat as we go, and provide an expense account for your immediate use. I want you equipped for the job.”

“Can I bathe?” Hord grunted back.

Justin laughed and grimaced, hands going to his midsection. “Of course. This mine has showers and I’ll be safe while you use them. I need to be moved, but not immediately. Go ahead now. I need to speak to my partner.”

I stepped forward and stared at Captain Sessara until she glowered and stepped away. Then I leaned in over the bed so Justin could speak easier. He was exhausted, and breathing heavily between words. “Thank you, Tyson, my friend,” he started. “Tell me all that I missed.”

“Whew,” I started, blowing my lips. “Where to start. We got a good solid majority of their fighters. Plenty of em alive, shouldn’t be a huge task to get em talking. Just assign a handful of specialists.”

Justin raised a hand to stop me, then pawed through what was left of his jacket before frowning and scowling down at the bedding around himself. I produced his comm unit and handed it back to him.

“Borrowed it. Very helpful, by the way, thank you.” I said.

Justin smiled as he took the device from me, but quickly returned to frowning at his laser-cut clothing. As if prompted, BuyMort dinged cheerfully within my mind, and an ad popped up.

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Justin smirked. "Ad got ya?" he asked. His hands moved across his comm units screen and he recited what I told him into the device. When he was finished, he looked up at me for more.

“Interrogation should be prioritized, but we need to rehabilitate as well. It can be quiet right now, but it has to get started. Don’t torture these delves. We need to wave this around in the public’s face as soon as we can. Let them know things are under control and being handled in a humane and ethical manner,” I told him. He held his device up to me while I spoke, and it took notes for him.

“With the information they provide us, we can easily track down the rest of the Cult, and one or more of ‘em should give us what we need for your board member,” I finished. “That is, in summation, the plan.”

“How extensive was the attack? You mentioned my CFO? I hope you are wrong about him; I’ve known the delf for years. He’s a friend,” Justin said.

I shook my head and sighed. “Too much was happening, and I prioritized the mine. This attack was obviously something they’d had planned and disseminated to their various cells. Our actions last night forced their hand, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have an effective plan of attack. I did what I could, but I had to prioritize your safety. Clearing the mine simply took too long, and he was gone by the time I got there.”

Justin sighed and nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“I’ll be here for the next steps. If your board member isn’t the top of this thing, he’s still a great scapegoat for the press,” I said. “That story will sell, and help quell public unrest from the assassination of your CFO.”

I watched as Justin silently wrestled with something. “Sad though this day is, I am grateful for your intervention. We would have lost much more without it. I must receive medical aid and then get in front of a camera. The public will have a great deal of anxiety and pain over this attack.”

Hord returned then, hair still wet from the shower. He wore a fresh House of None security forces uniform, with obvious added plating. The hobb was also carrying a linear cannon. He moved to stand directly beside my friend, monitoring each of the other delves in the room for threatening activity.

Most of the assembled security force seemed to understand the scrutiny they were under and quietly talked together in a small huddle. Only Captain Sessara stood apart, close to their CEO’s bedside.

Justin Lee looked up at me from his bed and frowned. “What happens next?” he asked.

“Next,” I said with a sigh. “Next they use their ships. For us, it’s a race to see if we can find their leadership before they can find a suitable target to annihilate from orbit.”