And now there were three. Only three out of the twenty conquering rulers from ancient times… the magnificent Titans.

On the Synchronized World of Ularda, Agamemnon strode in his walker form through the flaming ruins of a slave encampment. The humans here had demonstrated no real threat of a long-standing uprising such as the cancer that had brought down Ix.

Still, the Titan general took no chances. Any evidence of unrest was dealt with severely. He blasted a globule of concentrated flame gel, igniting a fleeing woman into a candle of human flesh. She took two staggering steps before collapsing into a pile of stripped bones on the ground. Agamemnon strode over her, smashing remnants of her body between his mechanical toes as he searched for additional victims.

On either side of him the towering machine bodies of Juno and Dante marched across a precise grid, leveling the settlement. Tactically, it was dangerous to have all three Titans together in the same place where they were vulnerable— but the Ularda settlers had been broken long ago, and very little Jihad support had slipped through. After living for nearly eleven centuries, he knew how to recognize trouble.

Unlike certain other Titans.

“How could Xerxes have exposed himself to such danger?” he grumbled, his words discernible over the din of crackling fires, screaming victims, and crumbling structures. He amplified his speakerpatch, swiveled his head turret toward Juno’s powerful form. “He attacked a Sorceress of Rossak, the daughter of Zufa Cenva? What response did he expect?” With a swipe of his reinforced metal forearms, the angry general leveled a reservoir tower that the slaves had constructed, splashing water through the smoking streets. “The preeminent idiot of all time.”

Dante strolled along, wreaking significant damage in his own right, but almost as an afterthought. “The toll was higher than just Xerxes, though he was arguably the greatest loss. The victims included dozens of neocymeks, who were potential recruits for our own rebellion. Especially now, we cannot afford such an immense loss.”

Juno sounded conciliatory, “We can do without them. Our plans will proceed, just as before.”

“Of course we can do without Xerxes!” Agamemnon responded sharply. “At least it wasn’t Beowulf, who has proven himself so useful. We only kept Xerxes around out of loyalty to our own kind, a sense of honor.” The great Titan general sighed. “If only Xerxes had found a way to self-destruct earlier.”

Three young humans ducked into a low, half-collapsed structure. Noticing the movement, Agamemnon lurched toward them and blasted the building, but his intended victims escaped deeper inside the questionable shelter.

Angrily, the Titan general loomed over the building and used his armored limbs to rip off the roof and knock down walls, until he grabbed all three of the troublesome slaves and yanked them into the sunlight, squirming like exposed beetle grubs. He crushed them between his flowmetal fingers, watched their bodily fluids ooze out, and thought about how much more he would have enjoyed it, if Xerxes had not been on his mind.

Long ago, the cowardly Titan had been a wealthy, pampered prince who Understood little about genuine leadership. He had pledged vast, much-needed wealth to Tlaloc’s secret, growing rebellion. His resource-rich homeworld, Rodale IX, had later been renamed “Ix.”

Xerxes, overly eager to join the group, had agreed to install Barbarossa’s corrupted programming into the numerous servant robots on Rodale IX. The new routines and commands needed to be tested, so Xerxes had allowed his planet to be used as a testing ground. When the time came for the huge coordinated revolt to begin across the Old Empire, Xerxes had killed his obese father, the nominal ruler of the planet, and turned over the full resources of Rodale IX to the Twenty Titans.

From the beginning, Agamemnon had not been convinced of Xerxes’ reliability. He had no true political convictions, no consuming passion for the goal. It was just a game to Xerxes, a diversion.

At the time, Agamemnon had traveled to the Thalim system, where he expressed his concerns to the visionary leader Tlaloc himself. On Tlulax, Tlaloc had worked hard to achieve personal greatness, but found himself disappointed in the Tlulaxa people, who had no important aspirations. They were already cutting themselves off, spurning the hedonism of the Old Empire while refusing to make their own situation better. Disillusioned with his own people, Tlaloc nonetheless believed the best about mankind, insisting that the human race could achieve great things, if only they could be “encouraged” to do so.

And for that, the Twenty Titans had needed Xerxes’ bankroll.

For the centuries since then, Agamemnon hadn’t needed Xerxes anymore, but there had been the matter of Titan honor. No small issue. At least Xerxes was finally out of the way.

By now, the cymeks had succeeded in destroying the slave encampment on Ularda. No one survived, no structure remained intact. Greasy smoke rose into the sky like filthy, diaphanous pillars.

Dante and Juno drew close to the general, and he said to them, “Enough planning and complaining. We will wait no longer.” He swiveled his head turret, noted agreement from his long-time companions. “I will find the next opportunity to breakfree of Omnius— and take it.”