Project Arrakis:
Watching The Watchers
by Brad Corletti
 
The air was filled with the screeching howls of blaster fire, and the 
thunderous impacts of superheated rock and metal. Deadly splinters of 
rubble and steel, shrapnel from the impacts, scoured exposed surfaces.

It was nearly impossible to see in what had once been an expansive cavern 
of piping and power conduits; the lair of an enormous techno-industrial 
spider, its webbing coating the bare stone surfaces. The smoke was thick in 
the air.

Corletti blazed away at what he believed to be a Jedi about to kill him. 
The Watcher, for his part, was not returning fire, but merely ducking and 
weaving, evading the incoming fire with all the casual skill of one adept 
in precognitive talents.

The Watcher took cover behind an expanse of Imperial shielding conduit. The 
blaster bolts that tracked his course entered the energy stream and were 
absorbed without noticeable effect, as if they were a trickle poured into a 
river.

"What are you doing?" were his only words.

Brad cursed, and ceased firing. He slowly began walking around to his 
right, making his way across the cluttered footing offered by the spider's 
nest, trying to bring Fes into his line of fire.

"I don't have time to explain! This is bigger than you can imagine."

"You are willing to kill over it. You'd better explain."

Brad laughed then, cold and bitter. "I've been killing since we opened 
Pandora's Box. What are we fighting for? To protect people like *these*?"

He gestured towards Hussein's corpse, forgetting that the Watcher wouldn't 
be able to see it.

Then again...

He continued to speak as he circled around. "We're here to keep GFFA 
technology out of the hands of us poor, primitive Earthlings. No cures for 
cancer for us. No bacta treatments. No cybernetic limbs. No cheap, clean 
fusion power. Definately no hypermatter. We can't be trusted, we're not 
advanced enough. Goddamnit, it's elitist and it's racist. Pure and simple."

"So your answer is to kill me?"

"Fes, if I had to kill you to save just two people, I would. It's nothing 
personal. The shield is a *defensive* technology. We give this to a country 
that needs and deserves protecting, and we've saved a lot of people."

He threw himself into a barrel roll, and came up in an instant, a flash of 
green lightning marking the path he had taken across the room. He sighted 
down his blaster, but the Watcher was not behind the shielding conduit.

He rolled again, forwards, and then leapt into the air, twisting around to 
bring his weapon to bear behind, sweeping the area he had just come from, 
looking for an ambush.

Nothing.

In a panic, he pushed off the ground in front of him, flinging himself 
backwards through the air in a smooth arc. He wanted wall behind him. Now.

His arc was too long, and too smooth. He saw a glint of light and then half 
his blaster fell off, a smooth cut the only remnant of the foregrip and 
barrel.

Brad landed, with his back to a wall, and released his hold on his now-
useless weapon. Across the room, the barrel hit the ground, its momentum 
having been arrested by whatever had cut it.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

Brad grabbed another flashbang from his combat webbing and flung it low. He 
held his arm across his face, shielding his eyes, and waited for the burn.

The pain was his sign. He heard Fes' groan and launched himself towards it. 
He impacted Fes and they both ended up crashing into a wall. Brad punched 
Fes quickly and grappled his arms behind his back.

"Do it quickly, killer. You're so proud to be the one to kill the monsters 
of your past." Fes spat. Corletti raised his fist to deliver the finishing 
blow.

For a brief moment, Corletti was not standing in the bunker. He was taller, 
burdened down by metal armour and wielding an enormous dark axe, and the 
enemy King lay before him, his torso rent asunder by the axe, the warmth of 
the King's innards steaming in the arctic air - blood was seeping from 
gashes in his wrists as he did battle with his truest friend - a woman was 
sprawled unconcious on a hotel floor - a New Republic agent was about to 
frag an ally.

His fist paused in midair, about to crunch down into Fes' skull.

"I have a plan," Brad said, and lowered his fist. "And I need your help."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now get off me."

Fes offered a quick prayer of thanks to his ancestors as the bloody-handed 
Terran got to his feet. His entire body, having been exposed to the 
flashbang twice now, was burned, but the burns should not be very deep, 
only painful.

Corletti walked over to the shield, but instead of planting a charge on it, 
he began reprogramming it. The power conduits shifted almost unnoticeably, 
but the air pressure definately changed in the chamber.

"I suspect my part in this plan would go better if I had any idea what it 
was."

Brad spared him a glance as he kept tapping away at the shield's control 
panel. "I'm dropping the shield radius down to just this chamber. When this 
place goes up, this chamber will remain as it is. This shield can stop 
orbital bombardment; a few hundred tonnes of rock shouldn't faze it in the 
slightest."

"You've already done this? It would be nice to get out before the air 
burns."

"Not yet, I'm not crazy. I'm setting it up to slowly shrink. That should 
give us the time we need to get out before the concentration starts to 
excite the air. We'll regroup with Terra Group, and I'll pretend to set off 
charges. In actuality, this demolition pad is a homing device. I'll sell it 
to the Yanks when the dust settles - a Black Ops team is waiting to 
retrieve the shield."

"You've got it all covered. What's your endgame?"

"Don't worry, Fes." Brad appraised him coldly. "If all the players play it 
straight, we all come out ahead. If not... well, I have that covered too."

"Nobody ever plays it straight."

"That's why Terra Group has me."