Project Boussh: End Game
by Majick

Alison and Face appeared at the end of the corridor, and signalled to Mike.
He grinned, wearily, and beckoned them towards the group. With the five of
them reunited, he felt a lot better about breaking into the cloning chamber.
"Emily!" Alison hissed as she saw her friend. "What happened?"
"I took a blaster bolt in the leg. No biggy..." Emily winced as she shifted
her weight onto the leg.
"No, honestly," she continued. "I'm fine. My leg hurts, but the bleeding
has stopped. Quit with the fussing, ok?"
Alison didn't look happy, but allowed Emily the benefit of the doubt.
"What kept you two anyway?" Mike asked.
"We ran into some complications along the way," Face commented,
ambiguously.
"That's all we're getting, I suppose?" Sharon asked.
"Tell ya later," Alison answered, her hand resting on the hilt of her
sword. "You'll be pleased to know me and Face are friends again, though,"
she added, her eyes sparkling.
"That's good. So, now we're all happy campers, can we get on?" Mike asked
"Yes Four, we can," Emily replied, with a mock salute. Mike glowered at
her, then shrugged helplessly.
"Can you two just hack us into the door locks? We can't get past the
electronic locks at the moment."
"On it!" Alison exclaimed, and the two young women sprinted over to the
door, activating their modified datapads.
"Where'd they get those?" Face asked.
"Same place they got a cluster of cloning chambers, and similar to where
they found a supply of New Republic DNA-" Face looked at Mike guiltily "-In
short. I don't want to know, just so long as it all works, and no-one gets
hurt."
"Except the Qwi Xux clones," Sharon murmured.

Alison and Emily worked quickly, slicing through the different layers of
security that protected this most secret of all the castle's rooms.
Inevitably, a mistake was made.

Atner was in his ready room, receiving the updates on the various conflicts
his soldiers were fighting.
In the air, his recently acquired TIEs were being mauled by a numerically
inferior force.
On the ground, at least two groups of commandos had infiltrated his
castle, his personal sanctum.
In the caverns, his men had walked into a string of booby traps.
In short, he really, really wanted to take out his anger on someone.
"Sir," an orderly reported. "Someone is attempting to gain entry to the
cloning chamber."
"Well, of course. I mean, where else?" Atner replied. "Tell me, how close
are the clones to completion?"
"Ah... The closest to completion is now at... ninety-four percent
completion, sir."
"No, no, no, that won't do at all... Well, my supermen will have to wait
for another day. Activate the holocams, and prepare the transmission unit."

The door to the cloning chamber slid open, and Alison looked back at the
others with a grin on her face. Emily bowed low, sweeping her arms in the
doors direction.
"Please," she began. "After you."
She winked at Alison.
Mike followed them into the clearing chamber, his movements slow, his face
pale. Sharon noticed, and walked over to him.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"No," he replied shortly. "Let's get this over with," he added.
Emily pressed another button, and the door slid back, opening into the
cloning chamber.

They gasped as they walked in, their collective experiences leaving them
completely unprepared for what they were seeing.
The floor of the chamber was polished steel, a single silk rug in the
middle of the vast space. That was far from the room's most impressive
feature, however.
Rising five storeys high, the cloning chamber's walls were lined with
gantries holding hundreds upon hundreds of Spaarti cylinders, each one
containing a clone in the process of growing to adulthood.
Mike looked around him pensively, and tried to speak.
"..." he managed. He swallowed, a thick ball suddenly blocking his throat.
He tried again.
"One..." he managed. Face looked around, and instantly noticed Mike's ashen
countenance.
"What is it, Four?" he asked.
"Take over. That was the agreement. What do we do now?"
Face looked at him with a concerned expression evident.
"This is what Corran told me about, isn't it?"
"I think so..." was all Mike could say. He fixed Face with an unblinking
stare. "Now, what do we blow up first?"
Face looked at him again, then nodded.

Atner watched the team move about on the holocam displays. Something about
the tall one...
"You," he pointed. "Re-play data tape 'T'cab Omega-Z'"
Atner watched dry mouthed as the death of his lover was played out again.
This time, however, he didn't watch Rawa. He watched her killer.
"Sometimes, just sometimes, life is so very, very, sweet," he murmured.

Face and Mike stood on the rug in the centre of the chamber, checking the
configuration of the explosives that the team had planted.
"The support pillars..."
"The main transformers..."
"The mysterious, but useful, stash of filled oil cans in the broom
cupboard..."
"We're set?"
"I think so. You feeling okay now?"
"I guess so. Never trust a vision where Vickie doesn't say anything..."
"Let's go then."
The team regrouped, and Face activated the countdown on the explosive's
timers. They walked back to the door, and Sharon hit the button.
Nothing happened.

Atner stood on a circular platform, facing the display screen.
"Activate," he said, enthusiastically.

Alison had her datapad plugged into the control panel for the door. The
rest of the team watched her frantically, each knowing that the timers on
the explosives had less than five minutes to run before they detonated.
"May I be of assistance at all?"
They spun round to find Atner standing behind them, leaning over Alison's
shoulder. Emily snatched her pistol from its holster and fired at point
blank range, hitting him in the chest.
Atner shivered, and static crackled across his chest. He never stopped
smiling.
"Please. As though I would put myself at risk by visiting you in person. I
am here in holographic form only. Honestly," he continued, looking from
Emily to Mike, "you young people are so trigger happy."
"What do you want?" Sharon asked.
"Your deaths, of course. I mean, what else? However, I'm prepared to
compromise. Deactivate the bombs, I'll let you walk away from here. Let them
detonate, and you'll discover that I have hidden a power generator in the
room. It is activated when the cloning cylinders are tampered with. For
example, if they're blown up.
"Now, this generator will trigger a massive cascade effect throughout the
castle, incinerating every single person not in my ready room. Prisoners,
guards, servants, even the man delivering bread for tonight's dinner with
the American Ambassador...  They all will die, and their deaths will be
blamed on you.
"The best part of it is that it will actually be your fault."
Atner smiled at them, then looked Mike directly in the face.
"You, however, will not leave this castle, whatever decision you make. You
I shall have flayed to death, your screams recorded, your blood siphoned off
for display in a fish tank in my bedroom. I shall hang your skin in the
trophy room, and take every single one of your bones, and convert them into
a piano on which I shall play mine and Rawa's favourite song every day. You
will suffer greatly, and it shall still only be a fraction of the suffering
I have endured since you took my love away from me."
Atner's image walked over to where a bomb was placed, and peered at the
timer counting down to detonation.
"You would appear to have a little under two minutes in which to make your
decision.
"Choose well."
With that, his image faded, and then vanished.

"Shit," Mike whispered.
"I guess walking out of here isn't an option?" Sharon asked. The looks on
everyone's faces told her the answer.
"Considering how much damage those clones can do... We can't take the
chance." Face said. He pulled out his comlink, but from the staticky hiss
emerging from it, he could tell transmissions from the chamber were being
jammed.
"Alison, how much longer till you open the door?"
"More than two minutes, Face. I'm sorry."
"Keep trying."
Mike pulled his lightsabre out, and activated one of the blades. He scored
a line in the floor, marking out a rectangle around the Boussh team.
"One minute thirty," came Atner's disembodied voice.
"Help me with this, will you?" Mike yelled, as he hauled on the steel
flooring.
"What are you trying to do?" Emily asked, as they grabbed the edges of the
flooring.
"We're going to fold this up and over. It's not very thick, but it might
give you some protection."
"'Us' some protection? What about you?"
"I'm hoping I'll be protected some other way."
"What exactly do you mean?" Sharon asked.
"Remember Shala the Hutt?"
"One minute twenty," Atner told them.
"You're not going to..."
"It's the only thing I can think of," Mike replied, as they folded the
sheeting into a shelter. To anyone's eyes it looked feeble. Considering what
it was expected to withstand, it looked pathetic.
"Shortly after I developed my powers, I had a vision. At this time, now, I
was to... do something..."
"Do something?" Sharon repeated, incredulously.
"One minute ten," Atner sang out.
"My best guess is that I absorb the stray power from the explosion, then
use it to create a massive telekinetic burst."
"How will that stop the cascade?" Emily asked.
"I'm hoping I can take out the big generator he mentioned. From what Atner
said, it must be impervious to explosives, or well shielded. I doubt either
form of defence will be much use against the Force."
"You're putting all this faith in a vision?" Sharon asked.
"That and something else," Mike added.
"What else?"
"One minute!"
"Corran tested me for Force ability, and we came to the conclusion that I'm
not a true Force user."
"Hang on, what?"
"When I went through the operation to remove the bug, Corran was in my
mind. The effects of the ysalimiri kinda slammed the door shut, trapping
fragments of his personality in me.
"And fragments of his powers."
"Fifty seconds!"
"And the effects have been ebbing and flowing since then. But the effects
won't last. In fact, they won't last much beyond today. So, this is the
only chance we have. Just hope it's enough."
They looked at him. Alison had given up on the door, and the five stood in
a circle, uncomfortably.
"Forty seconds, still time to change your minds!" Atner cried.
"Just get in the shelter. If I can, I'll try and use some TK to protect
it."
"Do you know where the generator is?" Emily asked.
"I'll be able to feel it, I think, when my access to the Force is boosted."
"Only, if this were a film, it would be under the rug," Emily added.
"Thirty seconds," Atner called. Mike grinned.
"You're a genius, and so, you get take care of these." He stripped off his
coat, and unclipped his lightsabre from his belt. He handed them to Emily,
who nodded.
"Get under the shelter. Sharon, you know what to do with the lightsabre."
She nodded, solemnly.
"Twenty seconds."
"No time for big goodbyes, then. I want you to know I'm proud to have
served with all of you, even the Aussies. Sci has the info on what I wanted
done, and who I wanted contacted, in case of... Well, you know."
He looked around at them.
"'Bye."

"Ten seconds..."
Mike walked over to the rug, and kicked it away.
"...nine..."
As Emily had suggested, there was indeed a seam in the floor there.
"...eight..."
Mike laid his head against the floor, and heard a distinctive whining, of a
different pitch to that of the cloning machinery.
"...seven..."
"I hope this works..."
"...six..."
"I hope my clothes survive if I do."
"...five..."
"I will do this."
"...four..."
"I will DO this!"
"...three..."
"I WILL DO this!!"
"...two..."
"I WILL DO THIS!!!"
"...one... you lose..."
"No we don't."
"Zero."

For the rest of the team, the noise was deafening. The concussive force of
the sequenced explosions rocked the entire castle, but miraculously, the
shelter held.

The first of the explosions happened to Mike's left, and he felt the energy
blister outwards. He sucked it to him, feeling the warmth as the second
explosion occurred. As each bomb went off, Mike sucked as much of the energy
to him as possible.
He felt the power coursing through him.
He felt the power beneath his feet.
He felt the scared minds behind him, and took a split second to comfort
them.
A flick of his hand sent the trapdoor at his feet sailing across the
chamber, trashing the monitoring machinery.
The explosions continued.
The power flowed into him, and he felt the heat burning him.
He felt the minds of everyone in the castle.
He felt the minds of everyone on the island.
Shining bright, he found the minds of his friends and family, half a world
away. He whispered his goodbyes as they slept.
Shining more brightly than anything, he felt Vickie's mind, his fellow Force
user. For an instant, he was able to touch her mind, finding the weak spot
in the ysalamiri defences her captors had established.
Then she was gone, and his mind returned to the task at hand.
He felt the generator beneath him. He felt the power growing inside it. he
smothered the machinery in Force tendrils, and lifted it.
The last of the explosions went off, high to Mike's right, and he snatched
the last of the power from it.
Holding the generator steady, he took aim, and prepared to shove every last
shred of the Force into one blow, obliterating he generator.
He felt the power inside it building to its peak.
He felt the power inside him at its peak, his body screaming at him as the
heat seared his skin.
He shut his eyes.
He released the power in one go, direct at the generator, and felt it
connect.

He opened his eyes.
The generator sat twenty feet away, wires trailing from it into the pit
he'd pulled it from.
"Oh, sorry, didn't I say?" Atner's voice was tinny, distant. At least the
loudspeakers had been damaged.
"The Empire provided me with a certain amount of special protection against
your Force majicks. Dear me, how did I let that slip my mind... Anyway,
there's, oh, sixty seconds before this entire castle becomes a live
electrical socket. Millions upon millions of watts pumping through the
place.
"Thank heavens I have a good interior decorator."

Mike willed his body to move, but every last drop of energy had gone. He
screamed at it to move, his voice echoing through the chamber.
Face appeared at his side.
"We have to get out of here, the doors are open again."
"no... get me cl'se to it..."
"Mike, come on."
"no m're death... no more... c'n take it..." He looked Face square in the
eye.
"Get me up to it."
"Forty seconds."
Face relented, and carried Mike over to where the generator lay.
Mike looked at the machine, and noticed a dislodged panel, He had Face lean
him up against it, and then he looked inside.
"g't out o' here, Face."
"Not without you."
"t'k' the team, 'nd leave. 's *order*"
"Mike..."
"Go!" he bellowed.
"Twenty seconds."
Mike felt Face leave him, and looked around to see him heading back to the
others. He looked back inside the generator,  and shoved the panel aside.
Inside was a mess of wires, of varying thickness and colours.
"sh't..."
He remembered Vickie, and her constant adherence to the Jedi code.
"There is no luck, only the Force," she'd told him, so many times.

The Force is present in all living things.
Mike reached down inside him, and tapped into the Force he himself was
generating, just by being alive.
"Ten seconds!"
He took a deep breath, and reached into the mess of wires, grasping one and
digging his fingers through the insulation, into the metal beneath it.
"Five seconds!"
He grasped the wire tight, squeezing it, and then...
"No seconds!"
The power hit him, and he felt his body collapse under him. He couldn't
divert the Force this time. There was so little of it present. He was nearly
burnt out.
He felt the power flowing through him, felt it burning him again.
He dreamed of bacta.
He directed the power into the cable he was holding, desperately trying to
burn through it.
He felt the power flowing along the cable, escaping him, completing the
circuit.
Killing.
Killing him.
Killing innocent people.
The wire under his hands continued to burn.
With it gone, the circuit would break.
The electricity began again to recharge his Force abilities.
He began to saw at the wire with the Force.
He screamed continually, until his throat was too raw to make noise.
The wire gave way under his hands.
The only thing completing the circuit was him.
He forced the fingers of his right hand open.
The circuit broke.
The power flowed into him.

In orbit, Vickie clutched at her head, and screamed

He burned.
He lashed out.
The generator began to shake.
Everything he took, he gave right back.
The power flowed back along the severed wire, against the flow of the new
charge.
Mike's telekinesis lashed out, battering the generator inside and out.
Cracks began to appear in the shell of the generator.
The feedback continued.
The internal assault continued.
The external assault continued.
The generator exploded.

In orbit, Vickie sank to the ground, and wept.

When the smoke cleared, the door reopened, and the Boussh team ran in. They
found Mike lying against the wall, his body covered in searing burns, and
hundreds of little cuts, where shrapnel from the generator had hit him.
Emily knelt beside him, and checked for a pulse.
"Is he..." Alison began, her voice trailing off.
Emily said nothing.
"Emily, is he... did he make it?" Face asked.

In Atner's ready room, he stared moodily at the feed from the single
remaining holocam in the cloning chamber.
Everything was gone.
Every cylinder was dead.
The power generator was destroyed.
He ordered a team of stormtroopers to bring him the bodies of the team
responsible.