A Moment's Courage

Posted on Aug 08, 2016 @ 1:07am by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Fortress: Earth

"A MOMENT'S COURAGE"

(Continued from "The Unimaginable")

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Location: Jessie Street, South of Market, San Francisco
Stardate: [2.16]0807.2105
Scene: Outside the nightclub


Before they knew what was happening, Leonard and Stephen were holding each other tightly, standing side by side, watching the lights of the skycab disappear into the black. Several clubgoers were watching them intently, having witnessed Aella Navarron - or whoever she really was - fainting and then being hauled away by both Chuck and the mysterious man-mountain who was piloting the skycab.

There was general confusion on the street. Several other people - Betazoids, Leonard thought, although he couldn't be sure - were also recovering from what looked like some sort of psychic shock. They were bleeding from their noses and ears, being comforted by their friends, and generally acting confused.

Something enormous had happened, that much was certain. An awful pit of worry opened in Leonard's stomach, compounded when Aella's words came back to him again. Somehow, she had manipulated him into this position - meeting Stephen here, meeting Chuck, being questioned as to his relationship with Admiral Edgerton. Aella Navarron and Chuck - they were both Starfleet, had to be. That ox that piloted the skycab too. It all added up.

Leonard's mind whirled. Had they managed to penetrate the Aegis shield, or were they already working on the surface against the Neo-Essentialists? How far did it spread?

Stephen was saying something to him. It sounded like a distant buzzing that was slowly coming closer, slowly taking a more recognisable tone. Leonard focused, and saw that Stephen was anxiously trying to calibrate his personal communicator while speaking to him worriedly. "Leonard, the communicator isn't working. I can't call a cab. Is the network down?"

Leonard looked up and down the street. Everyone was realising this too, but it wasn't just about calling cabs. Nearby people were frantically trying to call their homes and not getting through - only the buzz of static answered their attempts to hail their loved ones. No ambulances were responding on the emergency channels. There were tears and frustrations, and rising tempers.

Leonard turned to one side and took his personal communicator from his pocket. The device was hotlinked into the Neo-Essentialist subspace frequency, and when Leonard activated it, the signal strength was strong and clear.

Oh God, Admiral, thought Leonard in fear, what have you done?

"The civilian network's not down," he said, seizing Stephen's arm with such force that the younger man gasped. "It's being jammed. Stephen, you've got to go home right now. Go home and don't go out again unless I call you directly."

"Go home to Richmond?" echoed Stephen incredulously. "From here? That's over an hour's walk through the city!" He seemed to sense the sudden change in his partner's thinking, caught his mood of fear. "Leonard, what's wrong?"

Leonard flashed Stephen a look at his own communicator, showing him the working signal. "I'm going to be getting a call from work any second now," he said. "I'll have to go, probably by transport. I'm sorry."

Stephen's eyes were full of concern now. "What's going on, Leonard? For goodness' sake, you have to tell me!"

"I don't know!" Leonard snapped, speaking more harshly than he meant to. "Despite what that Aella woman was saying, I'm not that important in the grand scheme of things!" Overhead, a police cruiser zoomed down the street, its siren blaring. Leonard followed it with his eyes, wondering where it was headed, what it was responding to.

"Not that important?" Stephen put his communicator away and took Leonard's shoulders. "What are you talking about? Leonard, is this something to do with Admiral Edgerton? With the orbiting Starfleet?"

Leonard pulled away. "Look, I have to go - "

"Go where?" exclaimed Stephen incredulously. "Back to the Admiral? Leonard, I love you, and this scares the shit out of me! Tell me something!"

Leonard's communicator chirped. It was an incoming call on the command bunker frequency. Edgerton wanted him back, right now, because whatever had happened tonight - the thing that had laid low all these people on the street, the thing that caused Aella Navarron to reveal herself to Leonard, the thing that was important enough for Starfleet agents to come to him directly by manipulating the man he loved - it was obviously world-shattering enough for the Admiral to call all his pawns back home.

But as he stood there on that confused street, looking into Stephen's eyes while police cruisers zoomed overhead and a cacophony of wailing from frightened people began to rise into the San Franciscan sky, Leonard knew that he could not resist Edgerton's call. They had come too far together to just turn back now. If the end was at hand, he knew he needed to be by Edgerton's side, even if it meant causing Stephen temporary pain - ah, but there was the stumbling block. Stephen didn't deserve to feel bad for what Leonard had chosen to do with his life, and Stephen had never asked for any details before. It was an unwritten rule of their relationship - ask no questions and hear no lies -but Leonard could not bring himself to lie here and now to the man who had shared his life with such trust for the past decade.

"There's a bunker under the Point Bonita lighthouse," said Leonard, knowing every word was a betrayal of everything he had worked toward for the past eight years. "It's where Admiral Edgerton's command bunker is located. It's where I've been for the past couple of weeks." He stopped as the communicator chirped insistently again. "Aella and Chuck were probably Starfleet agents, Stephen. She wanted me to help her get to the Admiral."

Stephen's eyes were dark with confusion. "I don't know what's going on, but I want to help - "

Leonard shook his head frantically. "You can't, Stephen. You can't help me. It's too big. The whole thing is too big. Federations, empires across the stars, the fate of Humanity - my God, I just wanted to be happy with you, you know?" As Stephen looked on in confusion, Leonard finally activated the communicator and spoke into it. "Go ahead."

[[Standby for transport.]] The voice was unfamiliar, but it was probably one of Truman's dozen control room operatives.

There were tears in Stephen's eyes. "I love you, Leonard. Come home soon."

But the transporter beam had engaged, and a pillar of white light parted Leonard Cagney and Stephen Flass before any more could be said.

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Location: Winfield Street, San Francisco
Scene: Outside a little Chinese restaurant


The tall black man who was whistling a merry little tune to himself stopped outside the restaurant. The sign outside had Chinese writing on it - an anachronistic touch in the modern era of ubiquitous Standard - but the paper lanterns hanging from the window and the curtain of beads in the doorway gave it a mysterious air. The smell of the food wasn't strong, but that was to be expected - it was very late, and the restaurant was probably winding down for the night.

The man parted the bead curtain like a biblical prophet parting the sea, and stepped inside. It was a small, plain affair, with less than a dozen tables and space for maybe twenty diners. The kitchen was separated from the dining area by a long cloth hanging in the doorway - the cloth showed a black-and-white silhouette of a benighted medieval Chinese city under a red moon. The city's pagodas and stupas, connected by bridges and flanked by towers, stood up strong and straight under the bloody red moon. The place was empty.

The cloth door to the kitchen parted, rending the city in two like the prophet's ocean, and a middle-aged Asian man stepped through with a smile on his face. He was wearing a fashionable yellow one-piece suit, over which was tied his grimy chef's apron. He jumped, startled, at the sight of the intruder, but quickly regained his composure. "Sorry, but we're closing soon," he smiled. "Make the food to order too, so unless it's something I can whip up in less than five minutes - "

"My name is Mister Johnson," said the black man. He idly picked up a knife that was lying beside a fork on the table beside him. "And you are Mister James Huang, proprietor of this eatery. I'm here to ask you some questions about a pair of diners that ate here recently."

"What are you, Starfleet Security?" asked Huang with a look of puzzlement.

Mr. Johnson held the knife in his right hand, and with his left he reached into his pocket, producing a small holo-emitter. "Come and see." He put the holo-emitter on a table and activated the device.

Huang came and stood beside him as a holographic picture flickered into life. It showed a woman in a red-collared grey Starfleet uniform with four gold rank pips on the right side of her neck. Her hair was tied into a bun away from her face, clearly showing her pointed ears and her Asiatic features.

Huang's eyes flickered. "I've never seen her before."

Mr. Johnson smiled a smile of blades in an alley. "The likeness is over a decade old. This is then-Captain Selyara. She is a Vulcan-Betazoid hybrid who was raised in this area by a Human family named Chen. I have intelligence indicating that she and a companion ate here. Is that correct?"

"I told you, I haven't - "

Lightning-fast, Mr. Johnson darted behind Huang and pulled him into a painful armlock. As Huang gasped in sudden pain, Mr. Johnson put the dining knife to his throat, and spoke softly into his captive's ear. "Don't lie to me. It makes me very angry."

"Don't hurt me!"

Mr. Johnson let go of the armlock, but now pulled Huang's right hand down flat on the table. He held the knife against the base of the man's little finger. "Who was the other man she ate here with?"

"I don't know!" wailed Huang. "I hadn't seen Selyara in years - she came in completely out of the blue, I swear!"

Mr. Johnson pressed down with the knife, drawing a little well of blood. "Describe the other man to me. Be specific."

Huang was quaking. "He was Human! Uh, he was around six feet tall. Graying, dark hair. I didn't get close look at his face, but he was dirty-looking - like, he hadn't brushed his hair and he had stubble."

"What was he wearing?" Mr. Johnson put a little more pressure with his knife.

"Just clothes, you know! He wasn't especially well-dressed or anything - he looked like he'd just stepped off a freighter!"

"Did he speak with an accent?"

"No, sir! He ordered some food and ate it with her! I didn't have a conversation with either of them beyond a simple hello! Please don't hurt me!"

"Did he have any distinguishing marks? Did she address him by name at any point?"

"I don't think so - "

Mr. Johnson drew the knife sharply across the finger. Blood spurted. "Think harder," he said calmly.

Huang's eyes were wild with fear. "Yes! Yes! They were talking about his mother!"

"Her companion's mother?"

"Yes! The waitress overheard them! We weren't busy at the time, and she asked me about them later! I used to be friends with Selyara when we were kids, see?"

"Your life means nothing to me. I'm only interested in her companion's name," said Mr. Johnson. "If you don't tell me in your next breath, I'll cut into your forearm, sever your radial artery and make you watch while you bleed to death. It will take a minute or two, but you'll be aware and conscious through the whole experience."

"The name was - it was something like - something like Dray-ton!" Huang risked a glance down at his finger. A little pool of blood was between the blade and his skin. "Please - that's all I know! I was in the kitchen, cooking! I only know because the waitress asked me about how I knew Selyara, and I told her! That's all! Please!"

"Hmm." Mr. Johnson thought for a moment, then shrugged and sliced off James Huang's little finger with one quick movement. The thunk of the knife on the table as it severed the digit was punctuated by a howl of shock and pain from the victim's throat. Mr. Johnson released his grip and waved the knife dangerously close to Huang's face. "If I find out that anything you have told me is incorrect, I'll come back for the rest of your fingers."

James Huang fainted, collapsing into an oblivious heap on the floor.

Mr. Johnson sighed to himself and wiped the blood off the knife with a napkin. Then he stepped back through the bead curtain onto the street, taking note of distant sirens. He withdrew his personal PADD and checked the next location on his list. It was not especially far, and he set off down the street, whistling a merry little tune to himself.

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Location: Point Bonita command bunker, San Francisco
Scene: Leonard's office


A transparent wall meant that Leonard could clearly see the monster in the next room.

He had spent the last hour poring over the reports, and each one had caused his dread to rise. Paris was gone. Twenty-eight million people were gone with it. It was the worst single-incident loss of life in history, and Richard Edgerton had perpetrated it.

When Leonard had been beamed back to the Point Bonita base, Edgerton had welcomed him in a clipped, businesslike fashion, directing him to go to work screening intelligence reports from Neo-Essentialists agents around the globe. He had said nothing about what had happened, but he must have known that it was all Leonard would be reading about. From the mass of reports coming in around Europe, word was spreading quickly, but thanks to the jamming of civilian subspace bands, it would still take many hours for it to spread around the globe.

Leonard couldn't get it out of his head. Why had the Admiral done this thing? It served no purpose that he could see. Leonard had understood that the strategy was now one of containment - with the fleet lost, the Aegis shield was supposed to provide enough leverage for the Admiral to come to a negotiated endgame with Starfleet, an endgame that left him and the Neo-Essentialists in control of Earth. But obliterating the capital of the Federation was unlikely to bring Starfleet to the table - unless the Admiral was hoping that a show of strength would be enough to cause Starfleet to surrender.

No, that was wrong. Richard Edgerton didn't hope for anything. He planned and executed. He laid pieces in their place and waited for the right time to move them. At no point in these past two years did he ever give any indication that he might do something like this.

Leonard wondered if he knew anyone who died. The odds were small in the grand scheme of things, but he did happen to know one or two Assembly staff who used to work in Paris. One thing was for certain - he had no time to look through the lists of the dead to see if there were any names he recognised.

He looked through the transparent partition, watching the Admiral. Edgerton was reading something on his desktop monitor, his portable Aegis shield within easy reach. Leonard leaned back a little in his seat to see if he could make out what Edgerton was reading, but to no avail. Beyond his office, Jim Truman and the control centre operatives kept up their work, monitoring the Aegis network, ready to carry out whatever Edgerton commanded them to do.

Maybe it will be San Francisco next, thought Leonard. Or maybe he'll invert one of the satellites just as Luna comes into orbit, and wipe out New Berlin and take a pot-shot at Starfleet. Maybe he'll wipe out a megaplex like Shanghai, Delhi, Mexico City, or Sao Paolo. His heart sank - there was no place on Earth that Edgerton could not touch, no place he could not visit his power of life and death.

The face of Aella Navarron came again into Leonard's mind, and he heard her words - insane, she had said. It's insane that Edgerton thinks that this situation can go on indefinitely. It's insane that one man has the power to destroy the surface of the Earth. Twenty-eight million ghosts whispered their agreement.

My God, thought Leonard as he watched Richard Edgerton calmly reading whatever was on his screen, is he insane? This older man, whip-thin with spindle fingers and gray hair - calm on the outside, a psychopath on the inside. Leonard's universe shrank down, down from federations and planets and dead cities, until all he saw was Richard Edgerton.

What am I to you? he thought. Would you kill me without a second thought if you felt it would advance your cause?

Stephen's voice. The last words he had said to Leonard on the street. I love you. Come home soon.

Leonard slowly reached down and opened one of the drawers in his desk. Atop a pile of neatly-stacked PADDs lay a small hand phaser - a palm-sized unit that used to be popular in Starfleet a few decades ago. Leonard had packed it there when the base was built, thinking to use it to defend the Admiral in the event of a Starfleet raid, but now it seemed like providence might have guided his hand for a different purpose.

He looked up at Edgerton, then down again at the phaser. It was a small, metallic-coloured device. Two setting buttons lay below the power readout line to give the beam more or less power. That was all - it was a simple weapon. At close range, it would disintegrate organic tissue to ash. At close range, it would kill.

Leonard remembered growing up in Manchester in the late nineties. The Federation had been at its zenith at the turn of the twenty-fifth century, so large and powerful that it was the dominant power in the quadrant. He remembered going to school and meeting so many off-worlders for the first time, feeling amazed at the normalcy of Humanity's place among the stars. Later, the Seventh War of Retribution had engulfed the stars, and the teenage Leonard had quakes at home with his parents as the newscasts struggled to make sense of an enemy that didn't want to conquer, just kill. But it had ended, and peace had returned, and Leonard had graduated from college and got a job as a civilian contractor with Starfleet.

Eight years ago, he had been assigned as an aide to a newly-promoted Starfleet Admiral named Richard Edgerton, who had explained to him that truth of the Federation - how Humans bore the weight, carried the load, and made it all work. No Humans, no Federation. We can survive without them, the Admiral had said, but do you think they could survive without us? Humanity First. Since then, Leonard had had a new master.

It was hard to throw that all away. If Leonard picked up the phaser, if he walked into Richard Edgerton's office, if he pointed it at the Admiral and fired it and incinerated him into a little mound of atomic ash, he would be admitting that his life, his whole life, had been a complete mistake.

Small comfort to the dead of Paris, Leonard, you arrogant fool. Wanting the Federation to acknowledge its debt to Humanity is one thing, the mass murder of millions of innocents is something else. Look at him, sitting there at his monitor like - like a spider at the centre of a web. You're a string he plucks to attract flies. Can you really, in all good conscience, let him kill again? Can you let him kill Stephen?

That thought did it. Leonard Cagney reached down into the drawer and picked up the phaser. He was shocked by how light it was, lighter than a man's final breath. He gingerly set it to kill, and stood up from his seat. Edgerton took no notice, and neither did Jim Truman.

Leonard calmly walked out of his office, the phaser gripped in his right palm, and walked into the office of Admiral Richard Edgerton.

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Location: San Francisco, 6th Street
Scene: Outside the Sovereign Nightclub


It had taken Mr. Johnson several irritating minutes to get someone in authority to speak to him. Given what had happened on the street, the nightclub's staff were flooded with people looking for help. Even when he was a couple of blocks away he could tell that something was going on - several ambulances were hovering in the area, coming and going as their crews alternately treated or bore away people who had been affected by - well, by whatever had happened.

The general hubbub of the street was refusing to die down, despite the lateness of the hour. Several crowds had gathered around to talk about it, and their collective mood was apprehensive. The civilian subspace bands were all non-functional, which added to the general air of fear, but people were quickly beginning to figure out that something enormous had happened somewhere on the planet. The people affected by this 'psionic backlash' were all off-worlders with powers of the mind - from what they had described, it sounded like a lot of people had died somewhere.

Not that it mattered to Mr. Johnson. He slowly walked around the chattering groups, whistling to himself, observing how some people were taken away by ambulances, while others were simply given the once-over by the medics and left alone. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Selyara, with her formidable powers of the mind, must also have been affected.

The general manager of the Sovereign nightclub - a nervous, sweating Human woman named Lydia Stipe - finally gave him a couple of minutes to answer some questions. She swore up and down the street that she had no idea what had happened, and that yes, it seemed to be mostly Betazoid or Vulcan clientele who had suddenly collapsed in pain. No, she had no idea what had happened, but it was possibly connected to the sudden collapse of the civilian subspace radio network.

Mr. Johnson gritted his teeth and smiled through her rant. When it was finished, he took out his holo-emitter and showed her the holograph of Selyara. "This woman and a companion were here earlier tonight. She would have been affected by the psionic phenomenon as well. It's important that I trace their movements."

"I don't have time to check the - "

"Make the time, won't you please? Sooner it's done, soon I'll be on my way without giving you any trouble. I could give you a lot of trouble."

Lydia took Mr. Johnson to her office and showed him several security feeds before he finally pin-pointed the one he wanted. "There they are. Freeze frame."

The picture clearly showed Selyara and her companion sitting at a nightclub table with two other men. The faces of both of the other men were hidden - their backs were to the security feed - but the group were clearly talking about something. Mr. Johnson noted that the description that James Huang had given him of Selyara's companion matched the visual feed, and he made a somewhat disappointed mental note not to return for any more of Huang's fingers.

He watched with interest as Selyara's companion and one of the men got up and walked away from the table, off-screen. Suddenly, Selyara convulsed and collapsed out of the chair, her face twisted up into a rictus of pain. The other man jumped up to help her, and Mr. Johnson froze the image as the man turned towards the camera in order to beckon their companions.

Mr. Johnson looked once, and looked twice, to be sure. That man - short, chubby, sad eyes - he looked familiar. He looked at Lydia. "Can your system enhance these images or zoom in so I can see more clearly?"

She rolled her eyes. "This isn't Starfleet Security. Make do with what you have."

He thought about blinding her for her insolence. He could do it with his thumbs, quickly so that nobody could help her, drive them into her eyeballs until they split open like overripe fruits, but that would be more trouble than it was worth. She'd scream, people would investigate, and he'd have to kill his way out.

"This will be fine, then," he said smoothly, getting up and leaving without thanking her.

Back out on the street, Mr. Johnson paused to consider his options. Selyara and this Dray-ton fellow were here earlier, meeting with two other, as yet unidentified men. One of those unidentified men seemed familiar, but Mr.Johnson couldn't remember where or where he'd seen him before. There was also the wild card - the big psionic event that had temporarily knocked out all the psionics in the city.

Stepping into an alley, Mr. Johnson took out his PADD and activated the communicator feature, tuned to the Admiral's personal frequency. "This is Mr. Johnson, calling home. Request identification on two Human males last seen with the target no more than a couple of hours ago. Standby for incoming biometric data."

There was no immediate answer. That was odd. Mr.Johnson frowned and tried again.

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Location: Point Bonita underwater command bunker
Scene: Edgerton's office


Leonard's heart was in his mouth as he stood before the Admiral, his little phaser cupped in his right palm. A moment's courage and it was done. Richard Edgerton would be dead, and this whole situation would be done for. No more Parises. All the Stephens of this world would go on living, free from the shadow of the gun.

A moment's courage.

Suddenly, Edgerton looked up from his monitor. "Hello again, Leonard." The man was actually smiling. As Leonard watched, Edgerton pushed back his chair and stood up, all six feet plus of him, and slowly came around the side of his table, away from the Aegis control panel. "All is well? I feel the need to stretch my legs. We've been working a long time without a break - "

Leonard pointed the phaser at Edgerton.

Edgerton stopped dead in his tracks.

Leonard's heart was thumping so loudly that he could barely hear himself think. He felt like his whole life had come down to this one moment - in a flash, he felt like he could remember a time before now, before here and now, before right here and right now, when all those who-he-could-have-beens forked out like trails in his mind's eye, branching off and branching off into other cities and faraway planets and distant stars until there were so many other Leonard Cagneys that he had to let them fade away or feel like he'd go mad knowing at what might have been. None of it ultimately mattered. He was right here, right now, pointing a hand phaser at Admiral Richard Edgerton, leader of the Neo-Essentialists.

Edgerton stood deathly still, looking at the barrel of Leonard's little phaser. For a moment, his features flickered, like he could not believe what he was seeing. Then, his eyes moved slowly upward, travelling over Leonard's thumb on the trigger, over his hand, crawling up his arm, across his throat, and finally into his eyes.

When Edgerton locked eyes with him, Leonard felt like a sinning child standing before Almighty God.

"You have to shoot," said Edgerton slowly, calmly. "There's no way back from this, Leonard. You have to shoot."

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Scene: Leonard's office, scant feet away


There was nobody there to answer the voice that came over the comm channel.

[[This is Mr. Johnson calling home. Answer, please.]]

The voice continued to transmit, but there was nobody in the room to answer.

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Scene: Edgerton's office


Leonard felt the phaser in his hand. It seemed heavier now, like it weighed the same a rock. His forearm muscle ached. His thumb felt the edges of the trigger button - they were razor-sharp, they cut into his skin like the blades of knives. He felt a flush of heat from somewhere inside his chest, and he started to sweat, feeling the prickling of his skin.

Edgerton stepped forward. Leonard saw himself push the trigger, saw the orange lance leap from the phaser in a fizzing, whining noise, saw it strike Edgerton in the chest, saw it incinerate the old man in a flash of smoking energy, saw him vapourised and vanish in a cloud of heat leaving behind only a small mound of atomic ash. He felt the elation of victory, the feeling of such relief that it was all over.

"No more Parises," whispered Leonard. "No more."

Richard Edgerton heard the words, stepped forward once more, and took Leonard's quaking hand. He looked into his assistant's eyes, seeing the turmoil there, and gently prised Leonard's fingers off the phaser he had not been able to fire. Leonard didn't resist. He stood there like he was paralysed.

"No more Parises," Leonard whispered. "No more."

Edgerton stepped away from Leonard and leaned against the edge of his desk, casting a quick glance outside where Truman and his staff worked on, oblivious to what had almost happened scant feet away from them. He checked the power level of the phaser - it had been set to kill.

Edgerton sadly looked up at his assistant and spoke so softly. "I never thought it would be you, my oldest, dearest friend."

At the sound of his voice, sanity returned to Leonard's eyes, and they became wet. Leonard looked like he had so much to say, so many thoughts to give voice to, a man full up of emotion to the point of overflowing. His chest heaved and fell like the tidal swell that rolled overhead against Point Bonita. As the first tears fell, Leonard opened his hands like he was on a cross. "Admiral," he said, "I'm so - "

Richard Edgerton pushed the trigger and shot Leonard Cagney in the chest. The orange lance leaped from the phaser with a fizzing, whining noise, striking him dead centre, incinerating him in a flash of smoking energy. Leonard Cagney was vapourised and vanished in a cloud of heat, leaving behind only a small mound of atomic ash. His last words were choked to death, his last feelings were stillborn, fading away into the ether, dead thoughts, dead emotions.

As Jim Truman and the control room staff leaped up in alarm at the sound of the phaser shot, Edgereton waved them back, signalling that he was fine. He stepped over the smoking mound of ash, and crossed the threshold into Leonard's office, immediately hearing a chirping from Leonard's computer and a familiar voice speaking in a quizzical tone.

Edgerton sat down at Leonard's workstation and got to work.

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Location: Alley outside the Sovereign nightclub
Scene: A shadowy figure speaking into his communicator


Mr. Johnson was on the point of giving up, wondering why nobody was answering him. Then a voice crackled on his PADD's communicator.

[[Mr. Johnson, it is good to hear your voice. Standby.]]

The voice was familiar. Mr. Johnson realised who was speaking to him and was suddenly very focused. It wasn't often that the leader himself gave him direct orders. "I am ready."

[[Biometric data confirms identity of target's companion - one Raxl Drayton, a bounty hunter. Details incoming.]]

Mr. Johnson watched the data stream appear on his PADD. Everything that was known about Raxl Drayton was being uploaded to his device. The voice continued.

[[Be advised that the enemy has successfully turned one of our closest operatives here. You now have a new target.]]

Mr. Johnson watched as a new biographic data stream appeared on his screen. It showed a young, dark-haired caucasian Human male who was smiling broadly for some identification picture.

[[This is Stephen Flass of 12, Palatial Terrace, Richmond.]]

Mr. Johnson recognised the young man as one of the two men that Selyara and Raxl Drayton were talking to in the nightclub. In a flash of horror, he realised where and when he had seen the short, chubby man who had tried to help Selyara following her seizure.

[[Believe that the location of this facility may have been compromised.]]

Mr. Johnson didn't need to hear any more. He knew what his orders would be.

[[Stephen Flass must be neutralised to prevent the location of this facility from falling into enemy hands. This is your newest, highest priority.]]

Mr. Johnson was already calling up a street map of San Francisco to plot the fastest way there. "Understood," he said.

The connection was cut, and Mr. Johnson turned on his heel, breaking into a jog as he set his own course for Stephen's apartment.

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NRPG: Leonard is dead. Mr. Johnson is on a collision course with Stephen. Following Leonard's attempt to kill him, Edgerton is moving to eliminate Stephen. Who will reach him first?



Jerome McKee
the Soul of Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

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