The Uli Rouge

[Craines]

Fiona closed the transmitter that had sent her resignation to the Kusari High Command. She looked around the Uli Rouge, and sighed. The guests had all left. The defenses were down. High above her, the battleship Ska Feshir was readying the Gravitational Impactor to flatten the mountain. A tear fell across her cheek, and she wiped it away. To her surprise, a hand fell across her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Mom. Niece. Whatever. Don't worry about it. You've done the right thing, I think. I understand, and I'm sorry that this is the way it has to be. But it is the right thing. Sylvia will live on, so Artificer won't be angry. He only wishes that he had seen you with his own eyes."

"Jessica... I wish you weren't here. It would make life so much easier. Really, it would. But you're right. Sylvia will live on. And that, honey, is all that really matters. Care to take a final tour of the house with me?"

The two women walked, hand in hand, with deSicev not to far behind them. The transmission had been sent to the Feshir, and the power of a star was charging up, ready to produce a selective gravitational field around the Uli Rouge. The result would be the unbridled power of a supernova within a confined space.

At the Veranda, Sylvia had sensed something was wrong. While Reggie and Mr. Simon were talking, she slipped out of the house and began to run to the gate around the Rouge. She found it, surprisingly, no longer locked. She opened a hole in the mountain and began to run up to the Atrium, to get into the manor without having to run up the mountain proper. The shaft closed only inches behind her, and so no one noticed it. She looked into a viewer at the house, and stopped moving. She had a view from the gatehouse camera, and it was pointed upwards. A great green cube had enveloped the mountain, and a red light was swirling high above it. She knew what was happening, and ran even faster.

Fiona and Jessica were at the guest room when Sylvia burst out of the secret panel, crashing into her sister/aunt. "Mom!" she screamed, tears running down her face. "Mommy! We're going to die, Mommy! We're going to die!"

"Sylvia!" Fiona yelled, "why did you come back! No! Get away from here!"

"It is too late," an ancient voice said. They three girls looked around to see the embodiment of the Doctor. He was appearing to them each in their minds, but still, it seemed real. "The Impactor will demolish the mountain. The containment field has been set up. There is but a single thing to do, and that is to die. A pity. You all were such interesting people... a wonderful family. Adieu, friends. I'll be seeing you all again shortly."

Fiona walked forwards, embraced her daughter, and kissed Sylvia on the head. Jessica wrapped her arms around both of them, and the three cried.

There was a monumental sound, and the green cube filled up with red light. Clouds swirled around the dark night sky, circling the cube. It was a thousand times worse than the Planet Scar, and a million times as bright. As suddenly as it began, the light ended. The cube withdrew. And the Uli Rouge mountain, basement, and villa had been destroyed.

The twelve legged figure was picked up by a shuttle from the Feshir, and the battleship engaged in 299,700,000 meters per second, only 92,458 meters per second slower than light. Nothing could catch it. The Ska Feshir and the Ska Jaktar were no longer in the Sirius system - they had withdrawn, for there was no point in their being there any longer. The deLuna family was dead.

Richard Walters looked at the remains of his old charge, and peered at it in the same apathetic way as usual. He was sad to know that the woman he had served for so long had died, but he knew that it was by her own devising. He boarded the Hakobune with three very strange, very smart, and very different people, and the ship began off to a place called Foundation.

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