The Uli Rouge

[Craines]

Sylvia looked at Reggie with a look of mild confusion. "Why would you want to go back up to the Rouge? You didn't want to see Mom anymore, and took off. I mean, if you want, I can go ahead and make an elevator shaft to lead to the main Atrium... but I'd really rather not. Rich might not like me doing that. Or deSicev, now that I think about it. Also, lovely to meet you all. Let's stay a while and chat! I do love this place!"

===

Meanwhile, in Dublin, the captain of the HMS Royale paced back and forth. The search for the Fantasia was going slower than he had hoped, and it was causing him no small amount of grief. Suddenly, the communications officer reported that the Fantasia had been found. The captain set a course for the ship, only to be interrupted.

"You will die now, Captain, for the Ska Feshir requires you no longer. Thank you for leading us to the Outcasts; but I'm afraid you cannot be telling anyone about the area. Oh dear! What's this? Your engines, shields, weapons, communications and life support are being shut down? Oh, the shame! Here, let me send some friends to aid you in your repairs."

Ten missiles appeared out of nowhere, speeding towards the Royale. The captain tried to order evasive maneuvers, but the voice was correct; the Royale was without power. The missiles sped in, until they finally made impact. Burrowing through the thick armor, they exploded in a mass of chemicals, dissolving human tissue wherever it landed. The chemicals had a half-life of ten minutes upon being exposed to oxygen, and began immediately decaying. Most of the crew was dead, but the bridge was still active. The Captain gave the order to evacuate the area. Power had been restored. The Royale began to activate cruise engines.

"Goodbye, Captain," the voice said again. "I am General Artifice, and you, my good fellow, are dead." The chemicals exploded in a tremendous burst of energy. Each bomb held four megatons of explosive force, and the ship's hull expanded but did not break open. Everything within was gone; the hollow husk floated in space. No energy signal was produced, and so, the Fantasia had no way of knowing that the Royale had been utterly destroyed.

===

Doctor Hiia looked once more at the document he held in his hands, and upon finishing it for what had to have been the third time, crumpled it up and incinerated it. He set his ship off to a distant jumphole; it would lead him to the greatest discovery of his life, if the now-ash primary documents from Old Earth were to be trusted. The Deius Prime experiment could wait; this was far more important.

===

Beneath the Uli Rouge, beneath where Sylvia, Reggie, Alan, Spike, Kate and XM sat talking, the shadowy form of Richard Walters stalked the halls. These were his halls, his territory, protected by the most advanced system of defenses conceived by man. He walked to a special security room, and began to look at the monitors. Walters was a man of many talents, one of which was serving Madam deLuna's whims. The other was system-class assassination. He was quite a capable assassin, never failing a mission or being caught, and he had no criminal record to speak of. His mind was specially shielded from Fnordie and the Doctor thanks to years of conditioning.

The monitors showed a small, nigh-insignificant blur on the plains near the Rouge. Any other human would have decidedly waved it off as a camera malfunction, the product of a smear on the glass of the lenses. Walters knew differently. It was something moving, and he had no intentions of letting it near the Rouge. The basement couldn't be accessed successfully from outside of the mountain, as the air shafts moved constantly. No, only by getting into the actual elevator from the guest bedroom, going down, getting the proper security codes, only by beating the system Walters had made could anyone enter the basement.

And that, Walters knew, was something no one would ever do. His partner had made sure of it.

Tracking the blur, Walters began to activate the defenses. A single locust flew out of the roof of the Uli Rouge. It would remain above the blur, see if there was anything, and if there was, blow it up.

Smiling, Walters leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. It was good to be secure. It was better to be invincible.

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