Author's Note: I feel like this chapter is a bit wordy, without much action but I also feel it's needed to lay some groundwork for what is to come.

I hope you're enjoying the story, it won't be much longer now until it is complete!



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"No it won't work." Rahn shook her head.

"Do you have a better idea?" Brocht responded as he shoved a chunk of bread into his mouth.

The two were sitting across from each other within Rahn's new dwelling, a small apartment within a compound where the remaining members of the group had found refuge. They were discussing ways to dismantle what remained of the rebel group or at least figure out their plans.

"Yeah, I didn't think so." Butok said as Rahn remained quiet. "You're probably right though." He chuckled. "You tend to be right about most things."

"I haven't made it as far as I have in life by being wrong often. You best not forget that."

"Speaking of which, how is it you aren't a higher ranking guard at this point? You've been with them a long time and you've had some big achievements as of late. I'm surprised they wouldn't have promoted you after that whole poisoning ordeal. As far as I've found, they didn't even offer you any real recognition."

Rahn shrugged. "I was needed for this mission. Hard to blend in with a false identity if everyone recognizes you."

"Yes but I imagine that it will be different after this is all over."

"How so?"

Butok shrugged, not willing to share his reasoning. After a long moment of silence, he asked. "Is it hard for you?"

"What?"

"Assuming a false identity, making acquaintances and friends, lying to them the entire time. Then all of a sudden, you just walk away and resume your old life like nothing happened."

"I don't only do undercover work, you know."

"Yes, but it's a specialty of yours."

"You really have looked into my background." Rahn chuckled a bit.

"Of course." Butok shrugged and looked down at his almost empty mug.

After a moment, she spoke again. "Some parts are more difficult than others."

"After you gain more personal insight into the lives of the Qarthans you target, do you ever see them differently than you did going in?"

"It depends on the Qarthan. And it depends on what they're doing. Some things are cut and dry, and there are no excuses to condone certain actions. Some things aren't as much, and it can be easy to see why people make certain decisions. But at the end of the day, I will still do my job. Understanding why an individual makes the choices they do, and condoning those choices are two different things."

Butok nodded. "When it's all over, do you make the arrests yourself, or do you give the information to others and they take care of it?"

"Again, it all depends on the situation. But most of the time I hand over the information, then simply walk away like I was never there. Or give some kind of excuse, such as I'm moving away to the northern quadrant to live with family or something."

Butok nodded and Rahn watched him for a moment.

"When this is all over, you know I can make no promises as to the outcome for you and Plar and the others."

"I know." Butok said as he looked at her. "You will do your duty, Rahn, I would expect nothing less. As I know you understand that I also will do mine."

Rahn nodded in understanding. "You and I are similar in that way." She agreed. "You mentioned before that you've given up much in your devotion to your beliefs in this group. I imagine, with the way things are being handled now, that causes you much frustration."

Butok scoffed and let out a long breath. "Yes, much frustration. Devoting your entire life to something, only to see it dismantled from within by foolish pride is not something I wish to live through."

Rahn nodded, expecting the conversation to be over after a long silence, but then was surprised when he continued.

"I had a Life Partner." He said quietly and Rahn looked up to watch him speak. "Sial, was her name. We had known each other our entire lives, and as soon as we were of age we completed the partnering ceremony. We were happy for many years, and we shared two beautiful children." Butok chuckled and shook his head. "Can you imagine? Me in a household with three females?"

Rahn offered him a slight smile but waited for him to continue.

"Their heads were barely to my waist when I lost them." Butok said sadly and took a gulp of his water before continuing. "Sial was my partner in every way. Not just in life, but also in our assignments. We were working together on gathering intel into a particularly nasty individual. The guards in the grand hall knew of his crimes but didn't know who had been committing them. He had never allowed any evidence to point in his direction. But there are certain Qarthans who don't want to risk conversing with the guards, I'm sure you can understand why." He glanced up at her and she nodded. Individuals who had their own illegal doings they didn't want found out. "But some of those individuals are our own informants. They know we don't care about petty crimes, only anything large enough to affect the homeland as a whole, or at least the majority of it. One of those knew this particular male was bad news, for Qarthans on either side of the law. So he sent us a tip and we pursued it."

Butok stood and began to pace slowly throughout the room, stopping to fidget with little nick-nacks throughout the space. "We found the informant's body one evening, dropped right at the doorstep of one of our secret entrances to the underground. Somehow this male knew he had been snitched on, knew who had done it, to who, and he even knew where to drop him. Suddenly this particular case became a lot more serious and we knew that male was a lot more dangerous than we previously thought."

"With all of this, Sial and I knew we weren't safe. She went home to gather the girls and some essentials while I went to the underground to report all we'd found so far, which wasn't much, and to inform leadership we would be laying low for a while. They reassigned the case to a team with no family, one who specialized in the more serious, dangerous missions."

Rahn leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, trying to keep herself still and let him speak. She suspected she knew where this was headed.

"I was only gone for about half an hour." Butok let in a deep breath. "When I got home, my little ones were covered in blood and not moving, they were dead. Sial was lying across them as if she'd been trying to protect them, covered in all kinds of wounds. I nearly jumped out of my skin when she drew in a deep breath. I thought she was dead but she was alive. Just barely."

"'Butok, my love. It was him.' She said weakly. Before I could respond, glass shattered all throughout the house as fire bombs were thrown in. The entire house erupted in flames in mere seconds. I moved to pull them out of the house but Sial grabbed my arm. 'You have to go after them, catch one of them and make them talk. Hurry, before it's too late.' She had said. I refused to leave her and our beautiful young ones there but she insisted. 'Avenge our children.' were the last words she uttered before she drew a deep breath and then I watched helplessly as her life left her eyes."

Butok sat back down at the table and cupped his glass with both hands, staring at it.

"Yamat." Rahn said softly and Butok simply nodded without looking at her. "I had only been with the guard a year when they'd found his body, along with piles of evidence against him." Rahn paused. "Or what was left of his body. You were smart to leave the face and hands alone, for identification."

Butok simply nodded.

"I thought your group only made peaceful moves." Rahn smirked.

Butok scoffed out a laugh before responding. "Usually. I wasn't exactly acting on orders. But they weren't going to hinder me."

"The guard still doesn't have a clue who left him there like that, you know."

"I know." Butok smirked.



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Three hours later, Rahn was walking down the hallway of the rebel organization's new compound. Apparently it was one they had already acquired, but just before the raid and no paperwork had been brought to the underground facility yet. So there was no trace of its existence for the guards to find.

Still, Rahn had to marvel at how quickly the group had it somewhat organized and new systems up and running to work on a much smaller scale. Practically overnight they had gone from a group of almost two hundred to less than fifty. While Butok and the others hadn't told her how many were on their side of things, she was suspecting it wasn't many. She had pegged six other Qarthans she suspected were in their group, in addition to the two she had met with, so she guessed their total number were less than a dozen or so at the most. They likely had supporters that were arrested during the raid as well.

Which was why they needed her. The more extreme side was more suspicious of their counterparts than ever and they knew who each of those people were. They didn't trust them. Whereas she was a newer recruit. While the higher members of the rebel group were watching the movements of the guard and the traditionalists, she had more freedom to go under the radar. But that's why she had to be extremely careful to not raise suspicion against herself. Which was why she insisted Butok be Kahal's contact person. Despite how she knew Butok and Kahal would feel about it, she knew it was the right move.

The room she entered was huge, capable of holding more than three hundred Qarthans, she suspected. Likely because they'd planned the space for that many at some point. The location was good too, Rahn noticed. It was an old factory attached to a mine that had been dried up and forgotten about decades ago. There was a cliff directly between the facility and the main city, so despite how close it actually was no one would simply stumble upon it unless they took a very long trek around. Meanwhile those who knew the secret path through the rock cliffs could be in and out of town rather quickly.

As Rahn entered the meeting space, she glanced around to find only a handful of people talking amongst themselves. The majority of the group hadn't arrived yet. With the large amount of arrests and loss of resources, the smart thing for the rest of this group to do would be to separate and lie low while they recuperate, let the dust settle and start regaining their resources and their numbers. But she knew whoever was running this operation wouldn't do that. They would retaliate. They were following a pattern of alarming escalation. She just wished she knew what the plan was.

A side door towards the front opened up and Netaq, a male who Rahn was guessing was barely into his adult years, Immediately looked at her and began walking toward her. "Lana." He said quickly as he approached her but not meeting her eyes. The few times she's seen him, she had noticed his timidness. "You are wanted in Daielle's office." The male pushed the words out, as if speaking to others was truly painful to him, then rushed off in the opposite direction. She watched him hurry off for a short moment before turning and heading to where she was summoned.