The Massacre at Velmoria
General Threx Soluun stood rigid at the edge of the dusty village square on Velmoria, watching as his Zarketh Dominion soldiers corralled the last of the Velmorian villagers into place. The late-afternoon sun hung low and red in the smoke-hazed sky, casting long shadows across the frightened crowd. Threx's polished obsidian armor bore the proud crimson insignia of the Dominion, and he had always worn it with honor. Yet now his heart clenched at the sight before him – dozens of unarmed Velmorian innocents, mothers clutching children, elders holding the hands of the young, all surrounded by armed troops. He told himself this gathering was necessary to restore order after the recent unrest. He repeated the familiar doctrine in his mind: Unity through dominion, peace through strength. But as he met the wide, terrified eyes of a Velmorian child peering from behind her father's legs, Threx felt the first crack of doubt.
The villagers had offered no resistance when Threx's unit swept through their province. Many of them had even helped his troops root out the last rebels hiding in the hills. Threx had assured the Velmorians they would be treated fairly under Dominion law – that no harm would come to the innocent. In return, the villagers had surrendered their makeshift weapons and opened the gates to their homes. Now, huddled in the square beneath the towering statue of Emperor Zarketh, they awaited the promised address from Dominion leadership. Threx himself had ordered this assembly at the behest of his superiors, believing it was to be a census and a forum to hear the people's grievances after the tumult. He expected perhaps a stern speech or a show of force – nothing more.
A tense hush fell. Dominion banners crackled in a hot wind. Threx forced a confident mask onto his scarred face and stepped forward to address the crowd, as he had done dozens of times on conquered worlds. "People of Velmoria," he began, voice carrying, "by decree of the Zarketh Dominion, your world is now under our protection and guidance. Surrender your fear. The unrest is over, and order is restored."
His words echoed emptily off charred stone walls. He tried to ignore the quiver in his own voice. A few of the villagers gazed at him not with anger but with a fragile, desperate hope – they wanted to believe him. Threx swallowed hard, clinging to the script. "Those who fought against us have laid down their arms. You will not be punished for their actions. The Dominion seeks only stability and prosperity for its citizens."
Even as he spoke, Threx noticed Commander Daruun – his second-in-command – exchanging a furtive nod with a black-armored Legionnaire at the square's perimeter. The Legionnaire hefted his heavy plasma rifle in response. A prickle of unease crawled down Threx's spine. That wasn't part of the plan… was it? Before he could react, a sharp whine cut the air.
Without warning, a hail of plasma fire rained down from the surrounding rooftops and armored carriers. It was sudden and deafening. In a heartbeat, the hopeful silence turned into screams. Villagers began to crumple to the ground as bolts of energy tore through flesh and stone alike. Mothers threw themselves over children; elders raised their arms as if their hands could ward off destruction. The little girl behind her father was yanked into his arms as he collapsed to his knees, a crimson bloom spreading across his tunic.
"No!" Threx shouted, horror and fury bursting from his chest. "Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!" He wheeled around to face his troops, shock freezing the breath in his lungs. This was not an attack by rebels – it was his own men unleashing hell. The Dominion soldiers, following some secret directive, had opened fire on the defenseless crowd. For an instant, Threx locked eyes with Commander Daruun, who stood with his jaw clenched and weapon raised. Daruun's eyes were cold, resolved – the look of a man carrying out distasteful orders to the letter.
Threx's mind rebelled against what he was seeing. This had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding! He lunged forward, grabbing the nearest soldier's rifle and physically pushing the barrel toward the sky. "Stand down!" he bellowed, voice raw. A few soldiers faltered at their general's unexpected defiance, their training warring with confusion.
But the slaughter had already begun. The plan was in motion, unstoppable. One by one, the screams of the Velmorians tore through Threx's soul. He saw an old woman fall wordlessly to the blood-soaked dust. A teenage boy crawled toward his dead brother, sobbing, before a final shot silenced them both. The coppery scent of blood and ozone filled the air.
Within moments – though to Threx each second stretched in horrific clarity – the firing ceased. The villagers lay strewn across the square like broken dolls, lifeless under the gaze of the golden statue of Emperor Zarketh. A thick silence fell, broken only by the crackle of burning thatch from a nearby hut and Threx's own ragged breathing. General Threx Soluun stood in the midst of the carnage, his arms trembling and still raised from his futile attempt to halt the massacre. His pristine armor was flecked with dark blood. Something warm trickled down his cheek; he realized dimly that it was a tear.
He had never cried on a battlefield, not in thirty years of campaigns. But this… this was no battle. This was murder. And he – the Dominion's proud general – had been made an unwitting instrument of slaughter.
Shattered Faith
Threx knelt amid the bodies, the weight of his grief driving him down as surely as any gravitic force. His gauntleted hand hovered, hesitating, then gently closed the eyes of a Velmorian boy no older than fifteen who lay at his feet. The boy's slender body was draped protectively over his younger sister's. Miraculously, the little girl was still alive, trembling in shock beneath her brother's lifeless form.
Her eyes, enormous and glassy with tears, stared straight at Threx – not with hatred, but with a depth of pain and lost innocence that shattered his heart. He felt his throat burn and tighten. How many promises had he made to keep children like her safe under Dominion rule? How many lies had he told without knowing they were lies?
A gentle moan escaped the girl's lips as Threx carefully lifted her brother's limp body off her. "It's alright," he whispered, voice shaking. A false reassurance – nothing was alright. The girl's small hands clutched at her brother's blood-stained shirt, unwilling to let go.
Threx felt hot tears well in his eyes as he pried her fingers gently free and gathered her into his arms. She weighed almost nothing. For an instant, the world around him blurred: the plaza, the dead, the looming statue of the Emperor – all swirled into unreality. He could only feel the child's silent sobs against his chest and his own heart pounding with grief and rage.
Commander Daruun's voice cut through the haze. "General, step away. We have orders to eliminate any survivors." His tone was flat, formal – as if reporting on the weather, not the butchery of innocents. Around the square, a few soldiers moved with grim purpose, checking for any signs of life among the fallen. Finishing the job.
Threx's arms tightened protectively around the girl before he even realized what he was doing. A survivor? Yes – he would not let them touch her. He rose slowly to his feet, the child still in his embrace, and turned to face Daruun.
Daruun's rifle was raised not at the girl, but at Threx himself. Other Legionnaires followed suit, forming a hesitant ring of drawn weapons around their general. Threx's blood ran cold at the sight – his own men, threatening him?
"What is the meaning of this?" he growled, fury and disbelief warring in his chest.
Daruun's jaw twitched. "Sir… the directive came from High Command. All Velmorian subjects in this province are to be terminated. High Treason has taken root here – families hiding rebels, entire communities sympathetic to the resistance. The Dominion cannot abide it. We're ordered to cleanse Velmoria as an example." He swallowed, as if steeling himself. "That includes the children. No exceptions. High Command feared you might… be too merciful to carry out such an order, so… they gave us instructions directly."
Each word was a dagger in Threx's gut. They had gone behind his back. They had foreseen his weakness – his humanity – and circumvented it. The Zarketh Dominion he had served all his life did not trust him to be enough of a monster, so they turned his own soldiers into butchers. Threx's vision blurred red. He saw Daruun's finger tense on the trigger. In that moment, an old instinct – honed over decades on the battlefield – took over.
With a snarl of anger and anguish, Threx twisted his body to shield the girl and drew his sidearm in one fluid motion. A single plasma bolt cracked the air. Daruun staggered back, a smoking hole in his chestplate where Threx's shot found its mark. The commander's eyes went wide in shock – he hadn't believed his general would actually fire. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious or dead, Threx didn't know which and in that second did not care.
The other soldiers froze, stunned by the sudden violence against their commanding officer. "Anyone else want to murder children today?" Threx roared, his voice echoing across the plaza with an authority that made even the statue of the Emperor seem to cower. The Legionnaires glanced at one another uncertainly. Many had removed their helmets, revealing faces spattered with blood and etched with unease. These were Threx's men – soldiers who had followed him through countless legitimate battles, who had admired him. Now they looked at him with a mix of fear, confusion, and in a few, the same dawning horror that consumed him.
For a long, taut moment, no one moved. The only sound was the crackle of flames and the distant whimper of the child in Threx's arms. At last, one young sergeant lowered his rifle, eyes downcast. Others followed suit, the circle of guns slowly falling away. Threx let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
He knew this was only a temporary reprieve – soon the Dominion's chain of command would demand answers for this hesitation, for Daruun's fate. But a line had been crossed that could never be uncrossed.
He gently handed the Velmorian girl to the sergeant beside him – a man he trusted. "Take her. Get her somewhere safe, as far from here as you can," Threx ordered quietly. The sergeant, eyes filled with regret, nodded and hurried off cradling the child, disappearing down an alley. In Threx's chest, an overwhelming ache swelled – a mix of relief that at least one life was spared, and raw sorrow for all he could not save.
Threx turned and gazed up at the statue of Emperor Zarketh presiding over this massacre. Once, that figure had embodied everything he revered: strength, order, destiny. Threx had spent a lifetime upholding the Dominion's ideals. He had worn its creed like armor around his heart. But now that armor lay in pieces.
An ancient lesson echoed in his soul – the ancient lesson that even the mightiest empire can rot from within. Here was the proof, draped across the blood-soaked stones. The Zarketh Dominion, for all its grand words and glittering banners, was decaying inside – its promises to uplift its subjects revealed as rot, corruption, and cruelty. And he, Threx Soluun, had been its loyal servant, blind to the festering truth.
A wave of nausea and guilt hit him. He doubled over, pressing a fist to his mouth to hold back a cry of anguish.
Images flashed through his mind in dizzying succession: the countless worlds he had conquered in the Dominion's name, the propaganda speeches he had given about unity and prosperity, the proud day he'd been awarded the Imperial Star of Valor by the Emperor himself. All of it built on lies and the blood of innocents. He saw now the faces of those he'd called collateral damage and pacification targets – faces that looked so much like the Velmorians at his feet.
Threx ripped off his crimson command cape – once a symbol of honor – and let it fall into the dirt, where it draped over the body of a dead Velmorian woman. "No more," he whispered hoarsely, to himself, to the dead, to whatever gods might be listening.
He knelt and pressed his forehead to the ground, an unthinkable gesture for a Dominion general. Hot tears spilled freely. Threx's faith in the Dominion was broken, its shards cutting into his very soul. All that remained was the unbearable truth and the question of what to do with it.
Into Exile
Night fell over Velmoria like a shroud, the darkness punctuated by the distant glow of fires still smoldering in the ravaged village. Threx Soluun stood alone at the edge of the spaceport outside the Dominion garrison, a solitary figure silhouetted against the pale light of the planet's twin moons.
In the hours since the massacre, he had moved like a ghost through the motions of duty – issuing curt orders to secure the area, refusing all communication from High Command. He knew it was only a matter of time before word of his disobedience reached the Dominion's upper echelons. When Commander Daruun's absence was discovered and reports of the "incident" arrived, Threx would be branded traitor. Perhaps that decree had already been sent.
He had donned a hooded travel cloak over his armor, concealing the telltale insignia on his breastplate. In one hand he clutched a small satchel containing nothing but a flask of water, a medkit, and his grandfather's old combat knife – keepsakes and tools for survival in the wild. He had left behind his ceremonial sword and commendation medals, abandoning them on the floor of his quarters alongside a handwritten resignation letter addressed to the Dominion High Command. In truth, no apology or explanation he could give would ever wash the blood from his hands, but he wrote it anyway, if only to formalize the death of the man he had been that morning.
As Threx approached the docking bay, a pair of sentries snapped to attention. They were young Dominion troopers who looked at their esteemed general with dutiful respect, utterly unaware of the storm within him. Threx forced a calm nod, his face shadowed by the hood. "At ease. I'll be taking shuttle A-19 for an urgent reconnaissance mission," he lied quietly, producing the clearance code cylinder that still bore his general's authorization. The troopers exchanged a quick glance but did not question him – he was still General Soluun, hero of the Dominion, after all. At least for a few minutes more. They stepped aside and allowed him to pass into the bay.
The shuttle hummed softly in the darkness. It was a small craft, built for stealth insertions – fast, quiet, and lightly armed. Threx ran a hand along its hull, steel cold as the night air. He felt a pang in his chest; this shuttle would carry him away from everything he had known.
A part of him still expected to feel fear at the prospect – the fear of betraying his oath, of becoming what he'd hunted for years. But all he felt was a grim resolve and an odd, hollow calm. His conscience, tormented as it was, had made its choice. Duty be damned. He could not remain a cog in this monstrous machine.
With a final glance over his shoulder at the silent base, Threx climbed into the pilot's seat and initiated the launch sequence. The shuttle's engines glowed faint blue as they lifted the craft skyward. Through the viewport, the village lay in darkness beyond the hills, the site of the massacre hidden from view. But Threx's memory painted it clearly in his mind: the blood, the faces, the dying sun over Velmoria. He whispered a ragged prayer under his breath – not to the Emperor or the Dominion, but to the spirits of those slain, asking their forgiveness and vowing he would not forget them.
High above the atmosphere, as stars flooded the velvet black of space, Threx set the shuttle on a course for the uncharted fringes of the sector. Alarms began to blink on his console – queries from the garrison control tower, urgent hails from Dominion command seeking explanation. He reached over and switched off the communications array. The silence that followed was immense and liberating.
General Threx Soluun was gone. In his place was a man without a title, without a country – a man burdened with guilt and guided by a newfound moral fire. He felt a hot sting in his eyes and realized he was crying once more, silently, as the stars stretched into bright lines around his vessel entering hyperspace. It was not only grief, but also a profound sense of loss for his former self, and a fearful wonder at what lay ahead.
Threx did not know where he would go or what he would become. He only knew that he could never return. The Zarketh Dominion would hunt him to the ends of the galaxy for his betrayal – the price of his conscience was to be a marked man. He thought of the Velmorian girl he saved, of others like her still suffering under Dominion tyranny. The memory of their pain burned in him, transforming his shame into a righteous anger that would fuel him in the lonely days to come.
As the shuttle pierced the cosmic void, Threx swore one final oath – a quiet vow uttered to the infinite night. He vowed that the Dominion's cruelty would not be the final story told on Velmoria or any other world under its shadow. Someday, somehow, he would make amends. He would raise his voice, and perhaps his sword, on behalf of those he once helped oppress. The empire that had poisoned his soul would itself crumble and fall, and he would help carve the path for liberation, even if as a nameless exile in the dark.
And so, Threx Soluun vanished into exile, a former general now just a lone figure hurtling between stars. In the silence of that journey, through grief and resolve, a new man was being forged. Someday, he would become a beacon of the Velmorian resistance, a living testament that even the greatest empires are no match for a soldier's awakening conscience