Deep beneath the building, Taina Moen was just as stunned. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched the terrible scene unfold on the screen.
Lady Ameta Parotin, the inexperienced yet renowned legislator, the leader of the civil rights faction in Congress and the opposition alliance, the woman the public regarded as their savior and every class in the Alliance saw as the clear choice for its next president, clutched her chest and collapsed.
Miss Moen had imagined many possible outcomes for this operation: good endings, bad endings, a bloody struggle, and even the possibility that they would sacrifice everything only to end up with a disgraceful resolution. In the end, she and her comrades might be recorded in Alliance history as nothing more than failed terrorists.
But she had never once imagined that, just as she saw the hope of success, a politician on the verge of taking up residence in the Azure Palace would fall before everyone's eyes in Republic Square, on the Alliance's Gem Coast Avenue, watched by hundreds of thousands of people and tens of thousands of soldiers and police.
At that moment, the commotion and chaos at the scene grew indistinct. She could no longer see clearly or hear clearly. Even her thoughts had ground to a halt. She didn't know what would become of her and her fellow rebel members of the Burning Legion, or what the future held for the Alliance. She no longer dared to think about it.
Then a rumble like thunder came from the passage outside, as if a massive explosion had gone off.
Taina instinctively turned toward the doorway and saw Thor Lanna. The young jaeger had passed through the wall like a ghost and reentered the room, then solidified again.
"The Internal Guard troops outside have pulled back,