Blow Us All Away

Posted on Aug 26, 2016 @ 11:36pm by Lieutenant James Barton & Raxl Dreyton
Edited on on Aug 26, 2016 @ 11:37pm

Mission: Fortress: Earth

= Blow Us All Away =

(cont’d from “Waiting”)

LOCATION: San Francisco, Earth

SCENE: Hotel Suite -> Skycab Interior

STARDATE: [2.16] 0826.1730



(TIME INDEX: This post takes place after the opening scene of "Communication Is Key")



Most of the public network was locked down, which meant that they had no way to look up the address of Stephen Flass, but Rax didn’t think it mattered. Leonard Cagney didn’t strike Rax as the sort of man who would leave his lover unprotected, especially not after the Neo-Essentialists had overthrown Starfleet. Leonard sat at the right hand of a tyrant, and that meant he was a target, as was anyone who was close to him. It was why Selyara had targeted Stephen in the first place.

Fortunately, Selyara had planned ahead. She’d produced Stephen’s address even before Rax was finished asking for it, and a moment later was gesturing out the window at the skycab that had just landed outside.

“You got a problem with grass growing under your feet?” Rax asked, looking back at Selyara with one eyebrow raised.

“There’s no time,” Selyara said. Her eyes flicked momentarily to Barton, who stood sullenly near the door, his arms across his barrel chest, his eyes on Selyara. Rax didn’t think he was admiring her looks; Barton looked like he was waiting for Selyara to pull a knife or something.

Selyara’s eyes flicked back to Rax. “Things have changed. Stephen is in danger, and more to the point, I think he’s the one who can tell us where to find Edgerton.”

“You think your Mr. Johnson will come for him?” Barton asked.

“That depends on whether or not Edgerton thinks Stephen is now a bigger threat to him than I am,” Selyara shrugged.

"And if he doesn't, then you'll lead Johnson right to him," Barton rumbled.

Selyara considered the notion for the barest instant. "No. He'll move to defend himself," she concluded with an intentionally dismissive shrug. “You two need to get moving. So do I, for that matter.”

Barton was out the door like he'd been shot out of a cannon, clearly relieved to be away from Selyara. Rax was moving to follow him, but Selyara caught his arm. Rax turned back to her.

“Don’t tell him,” Selyara said quietly. “About what Edgerton did.”

“He’s got to suspect something,” Rax said, matching Selyara’s low tone.

“Of *course* he suspects something,” Selyara said, her voice coming out now in a harsh whisper. “Everyone out there suspects something. The reason there isn’t panic in the streets is because they don’t *know*. Barton doesn’t know, Raxl, and he can’t know. Not yet, not until this is over.”

“He’s going to hate you for keeping it from him.”

“He already hates me,” Selyara said. “But we need him, and that means we need him *functional*.”

Rax sighed. “Okay. I won’t tell him.”

And that was how Raxl Dreyton had found himself stuffed into a skycab with James Barton and not a thing in the world to talk about. It was funny; usually Rax was a pretty outgoing guy, the sort of guy who could walk into a strange bar on some backwater moon and walk out a few hours later with three new girlfriends and a Wookie life debt. He could shoot the shit with the best of them… but now, with only one topic of conversation explicitly off-limits, Rax found he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Rax hadn’t fully processed the destruction of Paris himself. He didn’t know any details other than what Selyara had told him, but he knew it was bad. The city was probably a total loss, along with every living thing within the range of Edgerton’s weapon. Death on such a scale was something almost too big to comprehend. Rax had visited Paris a few times, before he’d been drummed out of Starfleet and left Earth for good, but he didn’t think he still knew anyone who lived there. Still, with some 28 million people dead, he couldn’t be sure. The destruction of Paris wasn’t over, Rax thought. Not for those people who carried pieces of that city around inside their hearts, people who’d laid down connections there they’d always meant to come back to, people with loved ones and treasured memories and hopes and dreams and futures that now would never come to pass. For them, Paris would be lost, again and again, as they learned what had happened to the City of Lights. That shockwave of pain and loss would radiate out across the planet, the system, the quadrant, as millions of people across the galaxy learned they no longer had a home to come back to.

It was a depressing line of thought, and one that Rax wasn’t used to. His life was a hard one, and he was no stranger to pain and death. The galaxy was a cold place, and it didn’t care one whit for the pain of the fleas on its back. The powerful murdered the weak, brutally and often en masse; hadn’t his flight from LIMBO, when he’d first gotten involved with Selyara and by extension this whole Neo-Essentialist mess, been prompted by Tella Yavin commanding her private army to massacre civilians? That had been a nightmare, but once he was free and clear, Rax hadn’t exactly lost sleep over it.

But this business with Paris was different. Maybe it was because this was Earth, not Raxl’s birthworld but his homeworld nonetheless. Maybe it was because he’d known Paris, if only briefly. Maybe it was because he was involved now, however indirectly, and so the destruction of Paris felt like a failure as well as an atrocity. Whatever it was, it was getting in the way of Raxl’s normally loquacious nature. Barton didn’t strike Rax as much of a talker himself, and so it seemed like the two men would pass the skycab ride in silence.

Which was why Rax almost jumped out of his seat when Barton finally spoke.

“You two doing it?”

Rax look at Barton, who was himself staring out the window at the cityscape below them. His chin rested in his hand, and if he hadn’t just spoken, Rax would have guessed the big man was lost in his own thoughts, a million miles away.

Rax blinked. “What?”

“You and Chen,” Barton said, still looking out the window. “Are you sleeping together?”

That thought wasn’t as unpleasant as it might have been a few months ago, back when Rax still thought of Selyara as a mind-frying sociopath. But it still represented such an enormous misreading of Raxl’s relationship with Selyara Chen that Rax couldn’t help but laugh.

“No. God no.”

Now Barton turned, and his eyes searched Rax’s face. After a moment, the big man gave a single nod. “I believe you.”

Barton turned his head again, to look back at the window. “So if it’s not that, what are you two hiding from me?”

This caught Rax off guard. Suddenly, the air inside the skycab felt very cold, in spite of the cramped conditions.

“Don’t know what you mean, fella,” Rax said, doing his best not to drop his eyes even though Barton wasn’t even looking at him.

“Yeah you do,” Barton said. “You feel bad about it, even, but I guess you’re still not going to tell me. Selyara’s got you too under her thumb for that, I think.”

“I’m not under her thumb. She hired me to do a job, and I’m doing it.”

“You say so.”

“She’s not that bad, you know,” Rax said. He wasn’t sure where this impulse to defend Selyara’s honor was coming from, other than that Rax had a feeling she hadn’t been as open with anyone lately as she had allowed herself to be with him. It was the kind of bond that could develop after a spending a lot of time together under fire, and that was pretty close to what he and Selyara had been doing ever since she’d tracked him down on the Bazaar several months ago. He knew how Barton probably felt about her - it was close enough to how Rax had felt about her, before all of this - but Rax knew that deep down, Selyara Chen wasn’t the cold hearted monster everyone made her out to be,

“She is,” Barton said, not arguing, but stating a fact.

“I’ve gotten to know her,” Rax said. “If there’s something she’s keeping from you - and I ain’t saying there is, I’m saying *if* there is - she’s got her reasons.”

“People always have their reasons,” Barton said. “It doesn’t change what they are. At her lowest point on the mindfuck spectrum, she lies, plays games, and orchestrates situations to manipulate people into doing what she wants, when she wants.”

“That’s what everyone tries to do,” Rax said. “She’s just better at it.”

Now Barton laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Maybe, but that's not all she does. You’ve been spending too much time with her, I think.”

“All of this,” Rax said, gesturing vaguely around. “Your mission, and the mission of your fleet up there. You’d never have made it this far without her.”

Barton looked from the window to Rax. “I get it. She uses people to make the galaxy a better place. Forgive me if I don’t find that heartwarming.”

“You’re from Starfleet,” Rax said. “What is it you think they do?”

Barton waved this off. “She finds people’s weaknesses and she exploits them. That makes her a predator. The fact that Edgerton and his bunch are worse doesn’t make Selyara any better. She’s a tiger that eats hyenas.”

“So what are you?” Rax asked. “I think the guy they sent down here to singlehandedly protect her, a guy who looks like a damn battleship while we’re on the subject, knows a thing or two about hurting people.”

Barton nodded. “Yeah. But I put on a uniform that... Either way, you see me coming. And when I punch someone out, it doesn’t ruin somebody else’s life five steps down the line.”

For a split second, Rax thought of the woman he’d woken up in bed with, Riss’s wife, the one who Rax had gotten killed because he thought thumbing his nose at a Ferengi crime lord would make for a night of good fun. Rax couldn’t even remember the night, or the woman’s name, but he could remember what Riss had done to her.

“Maybe it does, and you just don’t know it,” Rax said.

Now Barton fixed Raxl with a cold stare. “I have no illusions about what I am or what I do. What I don’t do is treat people like tools, to be cast aside when they’re no longer useful.”

“You don’t know her,” Rax said, acutely aware he was saying exactly the phrase everyone always used when they were trying to excuse someone else’s conduct. There was nothing for it, so Rax decided to double-down: “She isn’t like that.”

“I’ve been inside her head, ‘fella’,” Barton said, echoing the term Rax had used earlier. “When she forced herself into mine. Believe me. She’s *exactly* like that. There’s just enough decent person left in her to be horrified by that, but even she doesn’t deny it.”

Rax couldn’t think of anything else to say, so instead he turned to look out the window. San Francisco seemed peaceful beneath them, unaware it was a powder keg waiting for someone to light the fuse. Barton, apparently satisfied he’d made his point and resigned to not getting a straight answer, also looked back down at the city below. When the skycab finally began its descent, the sun had just started to creep beneath the horizon.

=[/\]=

SCENE: Street, outside Stephen Flass’ apartment

The cab landed more roughly than usual, likely due to the weight. Rax got out, followed by Barton, and the two men each began to survey the streets and rooftops around them, picking out possible areas of ambush, bottlenecks, and lines of escape. Neither of them saw anything suspicious, and so they started towards Stephen’s building. Stephen lived on the sixth floor, so the two men made for the stairs. A moment later, they were standing outside Stephen’s door, with Rax’s thumb pressed against the apartment’s door chime.

They heard the muffled chirrup of the doorbell inside Stephen’s quarters, but nobody came to the door. Barton and Rax exchanged an uneasy glance, then Rax reached out and pressed the chime again. No answer, and no sounds from inside.

“Maybe he isn’t home,” said Barton.

Rax shook his head. “With everything that’s going on, Leonard would have wanted him to stay inside. Besides, it’s too late for him to be at work.”

“So he’s taking a walk,” Barton said. “People take walks.”

“I don’t like it.” Raxl looked up and down the hallway, making sure he and Barton were alone, then he produced a small knife from his pocket. Rax stepped forward, worked the tip off the knife underneath the faceplate of Stephen’s door controls, and pulled. The plate bent forward, until the gap was wide enough for Rax to fit his fingers in. With a combination of leverage from the knife and main force, Rax was finally able to pry the faceplate off; it dropped to the floor with a metallic *thunk*. Rax reached in, and started hot-wiring the door, while Barton moved to stand between him and any neighbors who might choose this moment to inconveniently poke their heads out.

The security on Stephen’s door was surprisingly complex. Rax decided this wasn’t all that surprising, given what he knew about Leonard Cagney, but it meant that getting inside Stephen’s apartment was going to be trickier than expected. Rax twisted a cable free of its socket, trying to run a bypass on the door’s lock, when a shower of sparks suddenly sprayed out from inside the mechanism. Rax cursed, pulling his hand quickly back as the sparks burned his skin.

“Son of a bi-” Rax started.

He was cut off when Barton suddenly tackled him roughly to the floor. The big man had moved faster than Rax could have followed; one moment, Rax was cursing his smarting hand, and the next, all the air had been driven from his lungs as a wall of muscle slammed into him, carrying him several feet up the hallway before momentum gave way to gravity and the two men crashed hard to the hallway floor.

A moment later, heat and pressure paired with a tremendous boom, as the door of Stephen’s apartment exploded outward, disintegrating into dozens of tiny, metallic splinters. Rax felt a few of them cutting through the fabric of his pants and digging into his leg. It hurt, but it was a lot better than what he would have gotten if he’d been standing in front of the door when it happened.

The weight on top of him eased, and Rax had to shake his head to clear away the fog created by the impact and the explosion. His ears were ringing, but he could hear Barton shouting at someone to get back inside - probably one of Stephen’s neighbors, Rax guessed. The pain in Rax’s legs helped to focus his attention, and Rax pulled himself up into a sitting position, leaning against the wall of the hallway for support. The hallway was filling rapidly with smoke, and he could see a few small fires burning around the ruined mess of Stephen Flass’ door, and he saw James Barton’s broad back as the big man angrily waved a flock of looky-loos back to the relative safety of their apartments.

Surveying the scene, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. Someone had rigged an explosive charge to Stephen’s door, set to detonate as soon as someone unlocked it. Rax hadn’t seen anything out of place when he’d been digging around the locking mechanism, and he had no idea how Barton had gotten wise to the trick in time to push Rax out of the way, but it was a damn good thing the big man had been there or Rax would now be so much ground hamburger. Rax had a pretty good idea of who it was who’d left that little present for Stephen, and he had an idea that he and Barton weren’t out of danger yet.

Barton was standing just past the smoking ruin of Stephen’s door, with his back to it and to Raxl. Smoke swirled around the door, so thick that it was hard to see the hideously bent remains of the doorframe. Then, Rax saw something moving behind the smoke. As he watched, a face swam out from the roiling dark, a face with a cold expression, its eyes fixed not on Rax but on Barton. Rax recognized the face in an instant.

Mr. Johnson had found them.

An arm swept up out of the smoke now, and Rax could see the flickering reflections of flames dancing along the blade of the knife that was clutched in its hand. Johnson made to throw the knife, meaning to bury it in Barton’s back before the big man could turn around. Rax leapt forward, pushing off the wall to give himself some extra momentum, but it was still more of a stumble than a charge. It was enough to propel him across the distance between him and Johnson, and he tackled the assassin by the waist just as Johnson let go of the knife. The unexpected impact wasn’t enough to take Johnson down, but it was enough to offset his throw. Rax heard Barton curse as the knife that was meant for the center of his back instead whizzed past his head, parting his long hair as it went.

Johnson wasted no time. Rax felt iron-hard hands seize his ears, yanking up so hard that Rax had no choice but to follow or risk having his ears torn off the sides of his head. Then, Johnson released one of his ears and drove his fist solidly into Rax’s solar-plexus, doubling him over. Rax hard no time to appreciate the pain; even as he doubled over, Johnson was bring his knee up to slam hard into the bridge of Rax’s nose The impact whipped Rax’s head back, and his feet went out from under him as he fell to the floor inside Stephen Flass’ apartment. His vision was blurry, but he could make out the form of Mr. Johnson, towering over him and closing in for the kill.

Another shape suddenly loomed behind Johnson. An arm dropped around Johnson’s throat, pulling him roughly back. Barton was there, locking Johnson in a headlock, trying to cut off the assassin’s air.

"Slow up, so-"

Johnson was stronger than he looked, though; he hip-checked Barton and then twisted forward, hard enough that Barton was vaulted up and over one of Johnson’s shoulders. Rax had to roll to the left to avoid being flattened underneath Barton, who hit the ground beside him with a grunt of pain.

Rax rose on unsteady legs, his hand already fumbling inside his jacket for the grip of his disruptor pistol. Johnson was already turning to him. Rax pulled his pistol and drew a bead on Johnson, but the assassin was on him before he could fire, unleashing a deft roundhouse kick that struck Raxl’s wrist, sending the gun sailing off into Stephen’s apartment. Now disarmed, Rax brought up his fists, ready to lob a haymaker at the assassin’s chin. Johnson surprised him with an efficient snap kick, which struck Rax’s chin with a *crack*, knocking Rax once more off his feet. Before Johnson could move in and finish the job, Barton was rising. Johnson whipped around, throwing a heavy punch towards the big man’s head, meaning to put him down again before he'd fully regained his feet, but Barton caught the blow as he rose and tried to bury his forehead into Johnson's mouth. He wanted to believe it was the force of the blow that drove Johnson back a half-step, but in his guts he suspected the agent had outmaneuvered him. Whatever the reason, that half-step kept him out of Barton's grasp. Now the security chief was charging, forcing Johnson backwards.

The small of Johnson’s back connected with Stephen’s couch, and the momentum carried him backwards over it. He executed a nimble backward somersault, landing on his feet in time to see Barton, looking to press the advantage, vaulting over the couch, meaning to tackle him. Johnson weaved nimbly to one side, bringing his elbow down hard on Barton’s back as the big man sailed past, cutting off Barton’s trajectory and instead slamming him through the glass coffee table set in front of the plush purple couch. The table gave way underneath Barton’s weight immediately, sending shards of glass flying off in all directions as the table’s thin metal frame shrieked and twisted from the impact.

Rax had risen to a seated position, rubbing his jaw, when he saw Johnson stepping around the couch to advance on him. Johnson’s leg came up, then slammed down towards Rax with all the force of a falling star. Rax’s eyes widened as he rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow, but no sooner as Johnson’s foot connected with the floor than it was going up again. Johnson slammed down again, and again, and each time Rax rolled away from the blow by a narrower and narrower margin, forcing Rax back towards Stephen’s kitchen. Rax timed his next dodge, waiting until Johnson’s foot slammed down to the tiled floor, hitting with enough force to crack it. Then Rax lunged, wrapping his arms around Johnson’s leg and heaving backward with all his might in a desperate attempt to pull Johnson off his feet.

Johnson hit the floor and tried to roll away, but Rax was on him in an instant, raining down hammerfists onto Johnson’s head. The assassin was ready for this, though, and had brought his arms up in a guard, deflecting the worst of Rax’s assault. Then one of Johnson’s hands snaked out, latching roughly onto the hair on the back of Rax’s head, and pulled forward just as Johnson snapped his own head forward. The assassin’s forehead connected solidly with Rax’s nose, and fresh blood burst from Raxl’s nostrils. Rax fell senselessly to the side, and Johnson rolled back to his feet, following up the headbutt with a palm-strike to Rax’s temple, knocking the bounty hunter back to the tiled floor.

But Barton had regained his footing with a roar, and so once more Johnson had to divert his attention to this new attacker. He whirled, ready to intercept whatever attack Barton might throw at him. Barton’s arm was cocked back, but he did not throw a punch; instead, and much to Johnson’s surprise, Barton threw his arm forward, letting go with a handful of shattered glass from the destroyed coffee table, aimed directly at Johnson’s eyes. Johnson hadn’t been expecting this, and the handful of powdered glass impacted his face. Johnson reflexively turned away, his fingers coming up to claw away the bits of glass, and then Barton was on him. The oversized officer threw a haymaker with his right hand, which Johnson managed to sidestep, then a left hook that Johnson barely danced away from. With a bellow of frustration, Barton grabbed Johnson's jacket with his left hand and pulled the smaller man face first into his right elbow, shredding his lips against his own teeth. He grabbed Edgerton's agent about the waist and lifted. He hoisted Johnson up, then brought him down in a rough body slam to the tiled floor of Stephen’s kitchen, twisting as he fell to drive his shoulder into the smaller man on impact. The air went out of Johnson’s lungs, and Barton pressed his advantage. He seized Johnson again, once more lifting him up. But Johnson wriggled, managed to get free of one of Barton’s hands, and slid down Barton’s back to land nimbly on his feet. Before Barton could turn, Johnson was pushing him forward, so that Barton’s stomach was driven hard into the marble countertop of the kitchen island.

Johnson’s hand snatched a handful of Barton’s hair, and then he was yanking up and slamming down, pounding Barton’s face again and again into the countertop. Blood was flying from Barton’s face and lips, pooling on the counter in a rapidly growing smear, and then Johnson was throwing him backward, so that Barton landed on his back, his face a ruined mess of blood and sweat.

Both Rax and Barton were down now, and, as he panted for oxygen through his mangled lips, it seemed like Mr. Johnson had finally gained the upper hand. He opened one of the drawers on Stephen’s kitchen island, withdrawing a butcher knife, and turned to advance on Barton. But then, Johnson sensed movement from the front doorway, so he whirled around, the knife raised in a defensive posture. He saw Stephen Flass, standing in the wreckage of his entryway, his eyes so wide with shock they were practically bulging. Stephen was clutching a cloth sack full of groceries: real, fresh grown produce he’d picked up at a nearby market. As Johnson advanced, bringing up the knife, Stephen raised the sack up, hoping to use it as as shield even though he knew it would never protect him.

The knife flashed down, catching the cloth material of the shopping bag. Johnson yanked it back savagely, pulling the bag out of Stephen’s hands, but the blade had bit too deep, and Johnson had to waste precious seconds pulling the mass of cloth from off the end of his knife. Stephen had used this time to turn, already making his way back out the door towards the hallway. Johnson lunged, his hand clamping onto Stephen’s shoulder to pull him back into the apartment, as his other hand swept his knife up and around, towards Stephen’s chest. But perhaps the fight had taken more out of Johnson than he’d expected; the blade did not slice through Stephen’s heart, but instead bit deep into the meat of his shoulder. Stephen shrieked in pain as he writhed in Johnson’s grip, while Johnson worked to pull the knife free and slam it down once again.

Meanwhile, Raxl Dreyton had pulled himself back into a sitting position in time to see Johnson advancing on Stephen. Rax’s head throbbed as he forced himself up, his vision doubled, his ears ringing so loudly it was making him sick to his stomach. He closed an eye, trying to determine which of the two Stephen-Mr. Johnson tableaus was the real one, and moved forward. As he stumbled forward, he snatched an apple from the sack and whipped it sidearm into Johnson's groin. Johnson took the hit with a grunt, but did not release his grip on Stephen. Rax lunged at them. His hands locked tightly around the arm that held Mr. Johnson’s knife, even as Johnson and Stephen still struggled. Rax managed to thread his fingers around Johnson’s pinky, and then Rax yanked, hard, bending Johnson’s digit back so far that it broke with an audible crack.

Johnson made no sound, but he released the knife and Stephen, and then like smoke he whirled around so he was facing Rax. Rax somehow managed to duck under the first blow, and brought his fist up in an uppercut that slammed into Johnson’s chin. The assassin’s head snapped back, and for a moment Rax thought he'd finally scored a significant hit. But Johnson turned his stumble into a twist, and suddenly his leg was sweeping around, connecting sharply with Rax’s thigh. Johnson’s next blow also found it’s mark, as did the one after that, and a moment later Rax was tumbled back to the floor.

Behind him, Barton was up again, and thudding forward like a wounded glacier.

"How long do you two plan to keep going like this," Johnson spat.

Barton replied with something that could have been, "You could give up," but through the ruins of his face, it was impossible to tell for sure.

Johnson's response to the suggestion was to lunge forward. Barton saw an opening, and moved to grab him again, but too late, he realized the feint. Johnson ducked, slipped under his right arm, and planted two fists in his ribs that each felt like blows from an axe. Suddenly sucking wind, Jim shoved Edgerton's trained killer away, but only far enough to put himself at the perfect range for a brutal kick to his freshly wounded ribs. In desperation, he managed to catch Johnson's foot, and without time to form a better plan, he pulled backwards, pivoting at the waist. Johnson was pulled off balance, then swung across Barton and into the near wall like a sack of potatoes.

Johnson slid down the wall and crashed onto the floor. There was no jaunty roll as he landed, but before Barton could loose a kick to separate his jaw from his skull, he'd managed to push himself away. Barton thundered towards him as he scrambled away, cornering him against the wall, but as the larger man moved to squash him, Johnson sprung again. Parroting Barton's own move from moments earlier, Johnson rose and grabbed hold of his jacket, then fell backwards. Barton surged face first into the wall and crumpled, leaving behind a bloody stain not unlike a Rorschach slide.

Now it was Barton who was on the floor, flailing to get away as Johnson rained down punches and kicks from above. His eyes were swelling shut and he could barely breathe; it was only a wounded animal's instinct that kept him moving now. Nearby, he saw the discarded butcher's knife and lunged for it, but even as his fingers touched the handle, Johnson punted it across the room.

"Stop," Johnson demanded. "Stop this!"

In response to his suggestion, a bloody Jim Barton panted up at him from the ground, held his shaky hands, palms up and waved his fingers in a timeless invitation: bring it on.

Johnson rolled his eyes in naked contempt. "Really? I don't even know..." He held his own hands up in an exaggerated mimic of Jim Barton, lolling his head from side to side. "This is what you look like, you stup-"

Johnson's chest exploded in an orange blossom of energy and viscera. Still holding up his hands, the look on his face morphed from mockery to stunned confusion. He looked into Barton's eyes and seemed like he was about to speak, but his words were cut off by a stream of blood that erupted from his mouth. Barton glanced past him, and Johnson followed his gaze.

Stephen Flass was standing in the corner, holding Dreyton's disruptor in a very awkward and unfamiliar, though remarkably steady, grip.

“Ha!” Stephen shouted, senselessly but with undeniable fervor. “Ha!”

Mr. Johnson crumpled in on himself, his legs giving way beneath him until he dropped to the floor. What was left of the oxygen in what was left of his lungs squeezed out with a sibilant *hissss*. On the floor, Johnson’s eyes blinked once, twice, and then his gaze went distant, and the slow rise and fall of what remained of his chest came to a gradual, but final, halt.

“Haaaa!” Stephen Flass repeated, the tears already pouring down his cheeks, much like the blood spilling down his arm, as the disruptor tumbled uselessly from his grasp. “Haaaaaa!”

Now that the fight was over, Barton felt the strength go out of his legs. He managed to turn his fall into more of a controlled sit, coming down hard. He wiped blood and sweat off his face with his forearm. Behind him, Raxl Dreyton sat slowly up, groaning as he did. Stephen, his hand now coming up to clutch at his wound, also felt his knees going watery, and he sat slowly down. The three men sat their, all their eyes fixed on the motionless form of Mr. Johnson, all of them expecting the assassin to somehow push his way up, resume his feet, and come at them again.

Eventually, Rax found the strength the move, though he didn’t quite make it all the way to his feet. He crawled towards Stephen, reaching out to gently pluck Stephen’s hand away from the ragged wound in his shoulder. The cut was jagged and deep, and blood had soaked into Stephen’s shirt all the down to the elbow. Stephen was crying softly.

“You need a doctor,” Rax said.

Stephen did not look at him. “He was trying to kill me.”

“That’s what he was here to do,” Rax nodded.

“Why?”

“Because of Leonard,” Rax said.

“Leonard? What’s he-”

“Edgerton sent that man to murder you,” Barton said, wiping another smear of blood away from underneath his nose. “That means he either wants to hurt Leonard, or because he’s afraid of what you know.”

“I don’t know anything!” Stephen insisted. “I don’t, I swear, Leonard never tells me-”

“You don’t need to convince us,” Rax said, trying to sound soothing and doing a bad job of it. “Edgerton’s the one gunning for you.”



Finally, Stephen pulled his eyes away from the man he’d just killed, and look at Rax.

“Who *are* you? What is this about?”

“That isn’t important,” Rax said. “Think, Steve. What did Leonard say to you before he went back to Edgerton? Anything.”

Stephen’s eyes went distant as he tried to order his mind, tried to remember the last conversation he’d had with Leonard. Meanwhile, Barton had managed to get back to his feet. He shuffled painfully over to Johnson’s body and started patting down the man’s pockets, looking for weapons, communicators, or anything else that might come in handy. He found a small communicator, and flipped it open. It was encrypted, of course, but Barton had a feeling it wouldn’t keep Selyara out for long.

“Anything,” Rax repeated. “Edgerton must think you know something, otherwise he’d never have sent that asshole after you.”

“Point Bonita,” Stephen said, his lip quivering. “Leonard said that’s where he was going. To Point Bonita.”

Rax looked at Barton, who shrugged. Rax looked back to Stephen.

“Anything else?”

“Please, I-”

“Come *on*, Steve,” Rax said. “Think!”

“It’s a lighthouse,” Stephen stammered. “Leonard said it was a lighthouse. There’s a… bunker, I think he said. Underneath it.”

“Under the water?”

“I don’t know! He didn’t tell me anything else, I swear!”

Rax looked back to Barton.

“Underwater bunker,” Barton said. “Very supervillain. Sounds like Edgerton’s style.”

“Okay,” Rax nodded. He stood on shaky legs, and helped Stephen get to his feet. “We need to get a skycab and get you out of here, Steve.”

With Barton’s help, Rax took one of Stephen’s shoulders. The three men, each of them bloodied, bruised, and looking half dead, shuffled slowly out of Stephen Flass’ apartment, leaving the cooling body of Mr. Johnson behind them.

=[/\]=

SCENE: Hotel Suite

Stephen Flass, his shoulder wound freshly bandaged, had taken a big knock of whiskey and passed out on Selyara’s bed. Barton and Rax were now tending to their own wounds while Selyara considered the information they had retrieved from Stephen.

“Point Bonita,” Selyara mused. “We need to tell Michael. He may be able to send us some more help.”

“An underwater base isn’t going to be easy to get inside of,” Barton observed. “They probably only use transporters to get in and out of there.”

“How you figure that?” Rax asked, wincing as he dabbed some peroxide on a long cut that the late Mr. Johnson had opened above his eyebrow.

“Submersible ships coming in and out of there would give the game away,” Barton said. “They may have some for emergencies, but I doubt we’re going to sneak in with a sub.”

“So we’re screwed?” Rax asked. “Edgerton’s gone to ground and there’s no way to get to him?”

Selyara’s eyes drifted to the communicator that Barton had plucked from Mr. Johnson’s corpse.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

=[/\]=

NRPG: Sorry for the wait, but! A big ol’ knock-down, drag-out, slobberknocker or a brawl! Johnson’s dead, and we’ve discovered Edgerton’s location. Now it’s just a matter of getting to him! More posts!

A Joint Post by

Dale I. Rasmussen

~writing for~

Lt. James Prophecy Barton

Sec/Tac USS PHOENIX

And

Shawn Putnam

A.k.a.

Raxl Dreyton

Bounty Hunter