Project Boussh: What Will Follow?
by Majick

Mike finally fully awoke from his coma, and the blurred images that had
been taunting him for the last several hours coalesced into. slightly less
blurred images, but ones that he felt he recognised, nonetheless.
There was no mistaking the Ewoks as they yubbed their way around the bacta
tank, and he recognised his confines well enough. This was the, what, third?
fourth? time he'd been in bacta. He couldn't remember anymore.
Detecting the wakefulness of it's patient, the bacta tank lid swung open,
and Mike kicked upwards, scooting the couple of metres to the outside world.
As he broke the surface, he heard a tumult of noise, and grinned behind his
breath mask. He pulled it off his face, and grabbed the rim of the tank,
hauling himself upwards.
Perched on top of the tank, he raised his arms over his head, and spat a
mist of bacta upwards. That done, he somersaulted forwards, landing in a
crouch on the cold stone of the med bay floor.
"I truly am that damn good." he murmured.
One of the women turned upon hearing the impact, but to Mike's slightly
blurred vision, it was impossible to tell which one. He stood up straight,
and raised an eyebrow as she came forward.
"Of all the stupid, half witted, idiotic, suicidal, ridiculous, foolish
stunts you could have pulled. What in the name of God were you thinking?"
He looked down at her coldly, his vision gradually clearing, and recognised
her as Terra One, Prophet Kristy.
'I'm supposed to respect you,' he thought. 'You're one of the bosses of
this outfit. I'm supposed to follow your orders, take your talkings to. Oh,
hell.'
"Look, I'm not going to apologise for what I did, and that's the bottom
line. It was the right thing to do at the time, and stand by it. I may have
been the most electrified man in the New Republic today, but I got the job
done. Now, either get out of the way, or I'll teach you a lesson that you'll
never, e-e-e-ver forget."
Mike stalked past the dumbstruck Kristy, and over to Emily, who held his
trenchcoat. She handed it to him, wordlessly, and he then walked over to one
of the medical technicians. Swiftly, Mike punched one of the technicians
hard in the head.
The technician slumped bonelessly to the floor, and Mike quickly stripped
the man of his trousers, shirt and boots.
"Mike," Sci began, a shocked not evident in his tone.
"Don't even, OK?" Mike replied. "This piece of shit tried to have me pulled
from the treatment list when I was bought in. Seems he doesn't think anyone
but pure blood Mendellians should get treatment in this fight.
"I wonder if he knows about the aliens who helped put me in his tender
care."
Then, he stalked over to a curtained shower cubicle, and washed and dressed
in privacy.

Emerging from the cubicle, he dug his hands into his jacket pockets, and
pulled out his sunglasses. Putting them on, and pushing them into his hair,
he withdrew his right hand from his pocket, and held up a small cylinder. It
was the message container Nick had given him days before in New Hampshire.
He held it up, and pointed it at Sci.
"Want some?" he asked the leader of Terra Group. Sci nodded curtly, his
eyes staring uncertainly at the black clad man in front of him. Mike walked
over to a holo projector, and kicked it.
"Is this thing on?" He plugged the cylinder into the projector, and hit the
play button. An eighteen inch high image of Retsim appeared in the centre of
the projector. The image drummed its fingers together, then clasped its
hands behind its back.
"Good day to you, General Antilles. My name is Retsim, and I am the man who
made you kill your Captain Loran. Oh, yes, he was your 'Face'. I just
thought you'd like to know for sure."
The figure burst out in a high pitched snigger, until Mike pulled a blaster
from Becki's holster and shot the projector, making it explode and spray the
ceiling with transparisteel shards.
"Dead man walking," Mike commented, tucking the blaster into his pocket.
"Mike," Kristy objected. "What in the Sith do you think you're doing? What
if we've lost."
Mike walked over to the remains of the projector, and pulled the canister
free. It remained intact, shielded from the small explosion by its position
inside the machine. He handed it over to Kristy, glaring at her, daring her
to say anything else.
He stalked back towards the bacta tanks, where he found Sharon monitoring
the newer occupants.
"Do you have it?" he said, eagerly.
She looked at him, and nodded, before bending down in front of him.
"Certainly looks like he's going to get it," Face said.
Emily slapped him around the head.
She rolled up her trouser leg, and pulled the slim length of piping holding
Mike's lightsabre from her boot. Standing, she held it out to him, and he
took it with a nod.
"Thank you," he said, and turned to face the other members of Terra Group.
As he did so, he activated one of the blades, and stared over it at the
other members of the team.
"What now?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Sci asked.
"Aren't we supposed to be finding Quiara, helping take down Atner, stuff
like that?"
"We go when everyone is healed," Sci said firmly. "As for Quiara."
"She's no longer here," Morwen said, stepping forward from her console.
"She got moved up to the Admonitor some days ago."
Kristy glared at Morwen.
"You're supposed to tell us this sort of thing, you know," she remonstrated
with her friend.
"I only just found out!" Morwen replied.
"Oh, really? Sorry."
"To think we actually fought to keep you Yanks under our control," Mike
said from where he was standing. He ducked as Alison reached around to slap
him, and winced as her wayward swing caught Sci instead.
Sci looked skywards for a second, before moving out of Alison's reach.
"So Quiara is out of our reach for the time being," he said. "Question,
then. What do we do about Atner? I think we're all agreed that Thayer is the
rightful ruler of Mendellia." In the background, Josh shook his head, and
muttered something inaudible. Becki glared at him. Sci continued. "Do we
have the right to interfere in an internal affair?"
"Lead, we are involved," Becki pointed out.
"Agreed. Laying personal issues aside," Mike said with a grimace. "He is
evil, and what type of people would we be if we didn't try and fight evil."
"And allowing for personal issues?"
"The bugger besmirched me. I'm going to give him what for."
"So, that's one vote for sticking with the revolution. Anyone else?" Sci
asked.