Brimstone: Detonation
 by Nick Coghlan, Sylvana Lorrdain, and Josh Nolan
===================================================

"It's time, isn't it."

"Yup.  Two minutes, I make it."

"No turning back now, right?"

"That time's long gone."

"And no-one gets hurt?"

"That's the plan."

"... Let's do this, then."

******

"Two minutes to reversion."

"Are we all set?"

"Me and my droids are.  Can't speak for the Jawas.  And if that Maestro 
doesn't blow the relay on schedule, I'll vape him myself."

"Just as long as we don't leave witnesses."

"It's a psych ward.  Who's going to believe a bunch of nuts?"

"NRI.  No survivors."

"Then glass the site from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."

"Noted.  One minute."

******

Leaning back in her chair, Alana tossed the datapad onto the desk. "So, we 
could escalate things, but I really don't think there is anything else they 
can tell us."

The figure in black fatigues leaning against the wall of her office 
grinned. "We could escalate things anyway. Call it practice, or something."

Alana frowned at him, not entirely convinced he was joking. "You know we 
can't do that, Nick. Those techniques are only employed when the need is 
great, and there is a chance they will yield new information. This," she 
gestured at the discarded datapad, "doesn't even come close to qualifying."

Her companion sighed exaggeratedly. "Yeah, I know. Doping them up and 
talking to them just seems too easy, though."

"You'd prefer we used the primitive ways on all our subjects?" Alana's 
arched eyebrow spoke volumes.

"OK, OK, point taken. We stick with the civilised approach. That isn't

going to stop me from _wanting_ to hurt them, though."

"You're not the only one. We get some nasty characters through here, but 
that Star is one of the slimiest excuses for a human being I've ever 
encountered."

"You're sure we can't hurt him even a little bit?"

This time it was Alana's turn to grin. "Not even a little bit. Now we're 
done here, a quick appearance in front of a tribunal, then he's off to a 
dark hole for the rest of his life. I'd rather not have to let him go on a 
technicality."

Nick snorted. "If we did let him go, his former clients might deal with him 
for us. I get the feeling they don't take kindly to people that fail to 
follow through on a deal."

"Yes, well, you'd know about that, wouldn't you? At least we're satisifed 
he and his thugs didn't pass the information about Mucs and the route to 
Terra on to anyone else."

"True. It bothers me that the people who hired Star knew enough to put him 
in touch with Mucs, though. Not to mention the fact that Mucs was bought so 
easily."

"You do realise that our beloved former NRI courier might have sold the 
Terran route to other parties once Star's slicer opened up the sealed 
section of the courier ship's navicomp, don't you?"

"That's not particularly likely. From what Kaerb told me, it sounds like 
Cracken had Mucs picked up almost immediately after his last run, the one 
where he snuck Star through the Terran sensor net. And Star's story 
suggests there wasn't time between the initial contact and the trip to 
Terra for Mucs to sell the info at that point."

Alana sat forward and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, we can hope I 
guess. The pessimist in me says that information got out somehow, though." 
She touched a switch on her desk, activating the builtin data terminal. 
"Anyway, once we put together the report for this last interrogation -" 
Alana broke off suddenly as a thunderous boom rolled through the room, 
shaking the walls. "What the Sith was that?"

"Good question." As more detonations rattled the building, Nick left his 
position against the wall, coming around the desk to peer over Alana's 
shoulder. "Let's see what we can find out from here." He touched a few keys 
on the data terminal. "Huh. Looks like the uplink's been taken out. If it's 
some sort of attack though, why aren't the alarms sounding?" As he spoke, 
the alert sirens started up with a belated wail. He looked down at Alana's 
face, inches away from his. "I believe we may have a problem."

******

The HoloNet relay floated on its lazy orbit.  The system's primary, Srylix, 
was so far away it was a blazing pinprick on the blackness of space.  
Information flitted through it, like oxygen might through a living 
creature.

Reversion.

With a sudden Cerenkhov flash, a starship screeched out of hyperspace and 
fired a single ruby shot from a turbolaser.

For a moment, the relay blazed brighter than Srylix, then went out.

******

Srylix's second planet bathed in the radiance of its primary.  Almost in 
the centre of the sun-bathed face was a small blotch, a settlement its 
inhabitants referred to as Perdition.

Reversion.

Three ships dropped out of hyperspace just outside the atmospheric limit of 
the planet, and sent tiny slivers of light darting towards the blotch of 
Perdition.  The ion engines of the ships flared, and they sent themselves 
hurtling after their own fire.

******

Herthrir stepped down the corridor, his motion jerky, almost appearing to 
be absent-mindedly controlled from elsewhere.  His striped hair stood out 
slightly from his head, as if he carried a static charge with him, and his 
eyes stared fixedly at a point somewhere far front of him.  He walked, 
stark naked, down the corridor, his feet padding gently on the metal 
beneath him.

The soldiers lounging on duty outside the armoury saw him coming, and 
watched his stilted approach with a mixture of amusement and irritation.  
They looked at each other as the Firrereo walked closer, and one produced a 
credit-coin from a pocket.  The other one nodded resignedly, and the owner 
of the coin flipped it, caught it and slapped it to the back of his hand.  
He revealed the face to his colleague, who sighed.  "Yeah, okay, you win," 
he muttered.

He walked slowly towards Herthrir, his hands out placatingly.  "Now, 
Herth," he said, his voice low but far from soothing.  "You know you 
shouldn't be walking around without your clothes.  What have they told 
you?"

Herthrir stopped, his gaze sliding back from wherever it had been, and he 
regarded the guard in front of him intensely, but oddly, as if everything 
was at right angles to how it appeared.  "They have told me that peace is a 
lie.  That passion puts me on the path to victory, and through victory, my 
chains are broken."

The guard threw a nervous look at his companion, who nodded and began to 
ready his stunner.  "That's good, right?" asked the guard, turning back to 
Herthrir.  "It's good to break your chains, right?"  He nodded 
encouragingly.

"Yes," agreed Herthrir distantly.  He glanced back and forth at the guards.  
"You."  The word hung in the air.

"Me?"  asked the guard.

"Both of you," replied Herthrir.

"What about us?" asked the guard.

"You are my chains," Herthrir said softly.

"Now, now," said the guard, taking a step back and trying to unobtrusively 
draw his stunner.  "There's no need for that sort of talk."

"It is the truth," said Herthrir, his eyes losing their distant fog and 
beginning to blaze, his voice gaining in volume as he spoke.  "Just as it 
is true that  passion gives me strength.  So I do not view you as mere 
obstacles.  Know that I hate you.  I despise you, and all you stand for."

At that, the guard stepped aside, allowing his colleague a clean shot at 
the Firrereo.  A moment passed, and then another, and still the shot failed 
to materialise.  The guard glanced around at his colleague - and saw his 
colleague kneeling, clutching at his throat, not breathing, unable to make 
even a sound.  The guard stared, frozen in horrible fascination, his mind 
howling to help but unable to overcome the sheer incomprehension of the 
sight.

The guard's colleague threw a last, pleading look at the guard, then 
collapsed onto the ground.  He looked back at Herthrir, who stood watching 
the display with a faint smile.  "How -" the guard asked, not able to 
manage any more words.

"You will grant me access to the armoury, now," said Herthrir, his eyes 
ablaze with dark flames .  The guard's mind, sorely tested by what he had 
just witnessed, cracked under the sudden pressure.

"I will grant you access to the armoury, now," the guard replied, and, in a 
fog, walked to the armoury, pressed his hand on the panel.  The door hissed 
open, and Herthrir stepped inside.  The guard watched Herthrir walk, and 
some part of his mind not screaming in terror noted that the Firrereo had 
lost his earlier stiltedness and walked with purpose.  Herthrir stalked 
through the armoury, not hesitating even once before he reached his 
destination.  A drawer slid open in front of him, and he reached into it, 
withdrawing a silver cylinder.

The guard could only watch as Herthrir walked back towards him, finally 
coming to a stop barely a foot away from him, close enough that the guard 
could smell Herthrir's breath.  It smelt like rot and decay.

Finally, the Firerreo spoke.  "I hate you," he whispered, and thumbed the 
lightsabre to life.

The armoury door closed behind Herthrir as he walked away, leaving the two 
corpses outside.  As he walked, the first explosion sounded.

******

"Dis?  You around?"  I glanced around the room, trying to find the grumpy 
droid, but the space by the dataport he'd made his own was empty.  However, 
on the end of the bed was a datapad.  A quick scout of the facilities 
showed Dis wasn't lurking in the 'fresher to get some compromising photos 
of me, or in the wardrobe setting fire to what passed for my apparel these 
days.  Not that I could think of a reason for him to be burning them, you 
understand, but he'd been oddly polite for quite a while and that made me 
nervous.

Once I was satisfied that my quarters was lemony-fresh and droid-free, I 
sat down next to the datapad and checked it.

On it was flashing a message in big, red (and thankfully) Roman letters: 
VOICE-LOCKED.  WHAT'S MY NAME?

"Datty?" I tried, resorting to no imagination whatsoever in trying to name 
the datapad.

VOICEPRINT MATCH.  PASSPHRASE INCORRECT.

"What the.." I whispered.  I would have said more, but the screen flashed 
up UNABLE TO CONFIRM VOICEPRINT. CONTENTS WILL BE DELETED ON FURTHER 
UNAUTHORISED ATTEMPTS.  I shut up.

"Thin, dark and handsome?"  VOICEPRINT MATCH.  PASSPHRASE INCORRECT.

"Bob?"  VOICEPRINT MATCH.  PASSPHRASE INCORRECT.  COME ON, YOU KNOW THIS.  
WHAT'S MY NAME?

"Dis?"  VOICEPRINT MATCH.  PASSPHRASE INCORRECT.  LIKE I KEEP TELLING YOU.

"R2-D15?"  VOICEPRINT MATCH.  PASSPHRASE CONFIRMED.

The datapad opened up.  There were a number of files, some labelled 
"Nightcrawler".  I went into one, and tried to figure out where it was 
from.  I couldn't, but kept reading anyway.  I got a bit about her conduct, 
and some psych profiling where I didn't understand the jargon. I began 
scanning through the files, jumping from one another, until I caught a name 
I recognised.

Soontir Fel.

I backtracked a bit, tried to find out what he'd had to do with this 
Nightcrawler.  Had she been a former operative?  Was she still working for 
him?  Was she... his daughter.  Holy crap.  What was Soontir Fel's daughter 
doing in an NRI nutfarm?  She wasn't being debriefed, wasn't she?

I decided to drop that thread, and out of morbid curiosity went to check on 
her medical profile, mainly to check how she lost that arm.  If I'd been a 
cybertechnician, no doubt I might have been interested to know that the 
Systech-19 neural interface had been used, but it was so much gobbledigook 
to me.  It took a bit of digging to dig up an incident report, but I found 
one.  And one word on it knocked me flat.

Admonitor.

I'd nearly died on that ship.  If Brad's droids hadn't dragged me off, I 
would have.  And now it turns out this woman who beat the crud out of Mike 
in Paris... had been there.  Why hadn't anyone from the Group seen her?  
Was she a stormie like me?Was she one of those commandos that went on with 
us?

Wait.  I am *not* a stormie.  I'm not.  Wasn't then, either.  Never will 
be.  Shit.

I tried to see if I could track down her callsign in that battle to see if 
that rang any bells.

I found it.  I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of the world, that the 
walls were ringing, like something had just blown up, a long way away.

It wasn't until the second explosion struck that I realised it wasn't just 
my consciousness reeling.  Something was going on.  Something bad.

I took one more look at the datapad, then tried to shove it in a pocket and 
get moving.  I had no weapons and no plans, but if I got moving I had 
options.  I took one more look at the face before I pocketed it, though, 
just to make sure I wasn't making this up.

It still read Terra Eleven.  Bugger *me*.

******

Sylvana gasped in surprise as she heard an explosion, loudly carried over 
the air around her, toward the Garden.  "It's begun," she muttered to 
herself, grabbing up the pole she was using to help her walk, knowing it 
would make at least an okay weapon, as she started trying to get back to 
the compound.

She had to find Josh, and Alison... they had to make it out okay.  Nick was 
around somewhere - but he wasn't weaponless... he should be alright.

The air rumbled, and a ruby light speared from the sky into the barracks.  
The building exploded, the shockwave ruffling her hair by whipping her 
fringe about her face and setting her braid to swinging, the wind carrying 
the smell of burning duracrete.  Another lanced down, and another, the 
ground shaking with their arrival, until the air was filled with dust.

She threw up one arm to protect her gaze from the burning light, deciding 
speed was far better than comfort.  She took up the bar and held it from 
the ground, limping in her run to the dorms.  Pain lanced through her right 
leg, bringing tears to her eyes, but she pushed through - fear for her 
friends driving her on.

She was metres from the door when the first ship flew by.  A triangular 
ship, barely visible through the haze of dust, shot over her head, firing 
more shots into the already much-abused barracks building.  Then another 
came through at right angles to the first's course, a cylindrical ship that 
let off a single blast into the building that was Syl's destination.

This only caused her to push back the pain further, her leg screaming at 
her for some sort of pain kill as she ran into the building, trying to push 
past the other patients toward where she knew Josh's room to be.

A different rumbling filled the air and a saucer-shaped ship emerged from 
the dust cloud, slowing to a hover at the far edge of the garden. It 
maneuvered gracefully into position, its landing gear gracefully extruding 
from its undercarriage.  Once in place, it began to descend - then fell the 
last three metres with a shriek of tortured metal as its repulsors gave 
out.

Sylvana glanced over her shoulder, then looked about to see if anyone with 
any authority was in the area.

She found the door to the complex open, and emerging from it was an 
orderly, sheltering his face from the dust.  "Dr. Lorrdain!" the orderly 
yelled, barely audible over the ship's engines and the ongoing destruction.  
"Dr. Lorddain, please come inside, it's not safe out here!"

"No shit sherlock," she grumbled, her leg half giving out as she moved to 
use the pole as a crutch again, making her way back, but keeping half an 
eye on the ship.

As soon as she stumbled, the orderly dashed forward.  "I'll help you in, 
Dr. Lorrdain, it really isn't safe out here."  As he spoke, another whine 
added itself to the noise - the landed ship's loading ramp was opening.

As he came closer, she recognised  him as the Duros that had helped her so 
often since her stay... and the one who'd lost  his life in her dream.  
"No!" she yelled at him, waving him away.  "Go back, You can't come out 
here!!"

Fegrin moved closer, arms outstretched in offering.  "I'm already out here, 
Doctor, and you can get inside a lot faster with my help.  Please, hurry.  
There are landsharks out here!"

"I AM hurrying!  but if you don't get inside, you WILL get eaten!  GO 
PLEASE!!!" she almost cried, a tear falling down her cheek.  Her fault... 
her fault...  She limped quickly as she could toward him and the relative 
safety of the compound.

Maddeningly, he stayed, shepherding her from behind.  A quick glance over 
her shoulder showed several small robed forms emerging from the ship's 
landing ramp - and a strange lump in the earth, headed straight for them.

"Lasto, Fegrin!  MOVE YOUR ASS!!!" She told him, trying to reach behind her 
and push hiim forward.

Obligingly, he rushed forward, inserting himself under her shoulder and 
moving her forward.  "If you insist, Doctor," he said, with a slight grunt 
as he took her weight.  Just then, there was a hideous growl from behind 
them, followed by high-pitched gibbering and weapons fire.

She pushed him away from her and toward the building, "Just go!  I'm not 
the one in danger here!"

"We're both in danger, Doctor!  I'm not going inside until you do, so you 
can either accept my help or endanger me further!"  He threw a furtive 
glance over at the ship, then looked back to meet her gaze defiantly.

"Damn Duros," she muttered, moving as swiftly as she could.

Fegrin took her weight again, running her into the complex.  He released 
her as soon as they were past the threshold, turned and shut the door. "We 
made it," he said, smiling at her.  "See?  Nothing to worry about."

She hugged him, "Thank God dreams can change," she muttered, before pulling 
away.  "Let's get further in, I have to find Josh!"

She had barely taken a step from the door when something large smashed into 
it.  The metal screamed and deformed, puckering inward.  Fegrin stopped for 
a moment, then told Syl, "Run.  Run now."  He backed away from the door, 
unholstering his stunner, and looked back at her again. "I'll hold it as 
long as I can - get out of here!"

He had barely finished the words when the metal screamed again - and this 
time, something got through.  It was difficult to make out, with claws and 
teeth and fangs shredding the metal of the doors and blasting through 
Fegrin, tearing him limb from limb in a scene horribly familiar.

"NO!!!" she screamed, her eyes flashing.  Blood called to her like a siren 
as she stepped forward, limping through the pain, gouging the metal bar 
through the creature's eyeball and into it's brain with all the might she 
could muster.  "DAMNIT!"

The creature howled and convulsed, gouging chunks out of the metal walls 
and floor.  Dark purple blood splashed from around the bar, and Syl drove 
it in further with a yell.  The creature twitched one last time,  then fell 
still.

She growled, her teeth bared as she pulled the bar back and stumbled away 
fromm the creature, blocking the doorway.  Warm earthen colour returned to 
her eyes, and with a soft sob, she turned and limped further into the 
compound.  She had to find Josh and Alison.

******

The ground shook again.  This couldn't be good.  I shut the datapad off and 
tossed it on my bed, and went to the door.  The ground shook again on my 
way, but I kept my balance and palmed the door open.

Well, I palmed it, anyway.  It didn't open.

I tried pressing some of the buttons on the console at random, but that 
didn't do anything.  Then I tried palming it again, just in case that made 
it work again, but no joy.  So I kicked the door, and not surprisingly, 
hurt my foot.  Finally, I decided to kick the panel, which smashed most 
gratifyingly.

And *then* the door opened.

I left the room, limping slightly, and went to see what I can do.

*Evaluate the threats,* muttered the stormie helpfully.  *Then evaluate 
your assets.  Then destroy the threats.*

Thanks.  Just what I need.  Threats are big explosions coming out of 
everywhere, assets are my sunny nature and rapier wit, which, last I 
checked, did jack all against explosions.

I felt a sudden flash of annoyance that I had actually had a chance to 
check.

****