Power Rangers: The Clone Quartet

Chapter 35: Instrument of Creation Turns to an Instrument of Destruction

I contacted base over the comlink as we finished leaving the area. "You were right, Mikael. It WAS Torbjörn."

His reply came a second later. "Do you think he saw you or that he really means to destroy those whom he loves most: his family of Overwatch?"

"I'm sure he did see me, but don't worry. He's KO'd and ready to be taken to a care treatment center." Raven was back to meditating, still trying to connect to the computer. "I think we got to him before he got in contact with Symmetra."

"Why Symmetra?"

"I believe she's working for the Tech Empire, too. Both of them must've left Overwatch in search for order and peace. In Torbjörn's case, he wants to create omnics to destroy the very ones who broke Overwatch apart. But the situation is contained for the time being." Raven muttered something to herself, but we ignored her. She was probably getting louder for a little while in meditation, as if she was trying to confront her father Trigon inside her head. "We've also reached the cannon. We just have to deal with a little bit of security."

"Alright."

Raven then opened her eyes, full of intelligence and a serious look in her eyes. "I've gotten through the construction plans," she said. "Once we get past the Imperials, we shouldn't have any trouble configuring the cannon to fire at the shipyard."

"That's good, Raven. I'd hate to aim this thing with my bare hands." The rest of us agreed.

"Good luck guys," said Mikael. "May the Force be with you."

"Thank you, Mikael. Till all are one. And may the Force be with you, too."

"Till all are one." All further chatter between us was cut from then on.

We stood at the top of a mound of foul-smelling organic rubbish and surveyed the cannon's superstructure. The shipyard over Raxus Prime was building arguably one of the Tech Empire's greatest assets: ships of mass destruction in space, the Star Destroyers that coalesced the space lanes and put down innumerable rebellions. And it was guarded accordingly. I took a long moment to consider our best route through the cannon's superstructure. A closely monitored perimeter kept stray droids from wandering too near. Automatic cannon emplacements fired at semi-regular intervals, as though to remind the locals that they were being watched. Imperial ground forces obviously had no fear of heavy assault, as the roots in and out of the superstructure weren't even fenced off.

"Get rid of the cannon," Kim said to me, "and we can practically walk right in."

"A number of walkers clicking the round inside the perimeter might make things difficult," Starkiller reminded us.

"Then we use a sneak attack," suggested Beast Boy. "I'll turn into a snake of some sort and..."

"We'll need to find a way into the cannon's control room, though," I interrupted, "before someone guesses what we have in mind. And we don't want to have it shut down. Sorry, Beast Boy, but it's not that easy."

"Dude," he muttered to himself, "you can be so uncool."

"Besides," said Cyborg, "it'll probably take days for the enormous linear accelerator to charge up again. If the production supplying the giant metal cannonballs should happen to be put into reverse, then things could go wrong."

"I suggest we will have to be the quick," Starfire said. "That is our only solution."

Raven agreed, saying, "Don't think too much about anything. Let your instincts guide you."

'Easy for you to say, Raven,' I thought. But with lightsaber raised with my master's, and Robin calling out, "Titans, go!" we charged from the summit of the rubbish pile and into the nest of Imperials below.

Desolation. Destruction. Death. That's not what we were supposed to bring, wherever we went. Ten stormtroopers, a hundred, a thousand. The numbers didn't matter to us. Faceless. Future-less. Disposable. They were all the same to us, and we didn't do the major killing part. And that, I believed, was justice and power.

I glanced behind me at the swath we had cut through the Imperial forces. Wrecked walkers lay in smoking ruin, red glowing gashes still visible in their armored exteriors. Stormtroopers lay in piles, ready to be brought to justice by the local authorities, fatally regrouping to turn back our advance. Choked, blasted with lightning, fire, or special plasma beams, misaligned in certain joints, they had at least met quick justice. I, for one, had lost the stomach for prolonged engagement. We just needed to get in and out and back home, where a host of other difficult problems remained for certain. But at least we weren't treading the same old territory that Starkiller had had in his first incarnation.

From one of the cannon engineers, we were able to extract the location of the targeting control systems. We hurried there through thickening layers of defenses. The workings of the cannon were almost deafening now as it charged up its mighty capacitors and electrified its linear induction rails. The booming of each metallic missile, which accelerated to supersonic speeds in less than a second was almost physically painful.

When we reached the controls, it was a relatively simple matter to program the cannon to shift targets just slightly. From one of the magnetic scoops that gathered up each projectile and brought it safely to dock to the disc-like superstructure itself, Kim was able to estimate that two shots would probably do the job. But three would make certain of it. Beyond that, the shipyard's orbit would start shifting, so the cannon might hit nothing at all. We planned to be well on our way by that point, with our mission to hurt and embarrass the Tech Empire complete.

Cyborg finished programming the cannon and we waited patiently for confirmation from Kim. As soon as we had it, I stabbed my lightsaber deep down into control panel's guts, thereby insuring that no surviving controller could reset the cannon's aim. Confident that the machine could follow its programming to the letter, we made our way through the superstructure to the outside world, where the air may not have been any fresher, but at least it was a little less thick with blood and filth. The first of the three cannonballs was in place. An ear splitting whine indicated that the linear accelerator was fully charged.

"Care to do the honors, KP?" I asked Kim Possible as we moved from the control room.

"With pleasure."

And she moved back in quickly, still having some absorbent power of neon in her, like Fetch from Kurden Kay. Then she ran back out as quickly as possible. With a surge of acceleration that made the ground literally move beneath our feet, the ball of metal was suddenly airborne, glowing red with friction as it arced up into the sky. Its course seemed true. All of us watched, hypnotized a little bit, as it shrank to a dot, and then disappeared completely from sight. Even then, we followed its progress with Cyborg's tracing sensors and Galen's mind, knowing the course it was expected to follow.

The bright circle of the shipyard was easily visible in the sky. We stared at it until it was burned into our retinas. When the first of the explosions came, as expected, we were surprised at its brightness and cheered as soon as it hit. The weapon already had a second metal cannonball in place. As it seared up into the atmosphere, we let our gaze fall and continued on our way. The explosions were spreading across the shipyard's superstructure. That process would only increase when the second missile arrived. We didn't need to watch the progress of our plan anymore to know that it would succeed. Our time would be better spent finding a way for our ground bridge to open rather than on indulging humors.

When the third missile wason its way, we had reached the crater below, where Torbjörn's former hideouthad rested. Scavenger droids swarmed over the sight and like insects on acarcass. The dwarf was long gone, probably in a runaway ship in case his plansfailed. Only when that was done did we glance up into the sky. What I saw frozethe marrow in my bones.