"They built this thing around a what?" I asked with all the articulation of an educated man. Which is to say that I made a noise more resembling the call of an animal in heat rather than speaking.

"I do not understand what you mean," Cai said as the others all looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"Sorry," I coughed and cleared my throat. "What I meant to say is 'They built this planet around a star?'"

"What?" Carrie yelped as Cai began to answer.

"Indeed, I found the blueprints whilst I was preventing the safety progams from attempting to eject us from the database," he said. "I have discussed this with the others and they all agree that if you can destroy the safety shielding that prevents the star's radiation, heat, and gravity from interfering with the constructed portion of the planet, you will cause the planet to be pulled into the star and thus destroy it. In short, if you use the explosives that you are carrying, you will cause this false planet to implode."

"Okay," I said, turning to look at all of my squad. "New plan. We find this safety shielding, blow a hole in it, and meet back on the Phoenix for lunch."

"I don't like this idea," Carrie said immediately. "There's no guarentee that we can make it to safety before everything goes to shit, how do we make sure that we're out of the firing zone?"

"We set a timer," I said. "Plus, with the blueprints, Cai can lead us to the fastest route to the surface, or to some sort of escape pods that we can use to leave this all behind."

"Is there any way to know if we'll be far enough away to not be pulled in ourselves?" Sarah asked.

"A forty minute timer will give plenty of time," Cai assured me.

"Great, let's go then," I said. "Faster we're done with this, the faster we can get back to what we're supposed to do."

"Protect the peace of the greater universe?" Micheal asked.

"Meet pretty women and invite them for drinks?" Benjamin suggested.

"Kill Scourge," I told them. "The other stuff is just a bonus."

I looked back at the room full of Rif'nay'fex technicians and engineers and sighed. We didn't have enough room in our group for them to come with us.

"Something wrong?" Carrie asked as she noticed me looking back at them.

"A lot," I told her. "Not much I can change with the way things are though."

"You don't get used to that," she told me. "You just learn to accept what you can't change."

I shook my head at her words as I followed after my squad and closed the door behind us, using my laser torch to weld it shut.

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"Let's go," I told the others. "Time waits for no man."

I took the lead, waving to Micheal to carry the prisoner that we'd been carrying with us, and following Cai's lead as we moved deeper into the planet the Rif'nay'fex had constructed around a dwarf star. I couldn't even understand the logistics of how to accomplish that.

"We're here," I declared as I lead the way into the room filled with pods. "This is where we split up."

As I said that, I turned and lunged for Carrie, grabbing her throat and activating the pulse function of my armor, rendering her unconcious.

While she fell to the ground I looked at my squad and gave them orders.

"Load up and get back to the Phoenix," I told them. "That's an order."

"Maybe explain what's going on before you go psycho on us," Sarah yelled, her shield at the ready, spear pointed at me.

"Your Cybers will explain," I told her, grabbing Carrie and carrying her to the nearest escape pods. "Otherwise, all you need to know is that you have orders. Now get in the pods."

"I'm not going anywhere without an explanation," she shouted at me as the others wavered between backing her up or following my orders.

"Look at the timer!" I yelled at her. "There's no time! Not to get to the shielding and get back here!"

"No," she whispered as she finally understood what I was saying. "You can't, send me."

"Not happening," I told her. Unseen, Bunny reached out and placed her hand on Sarah's armor, pulsing her into unconciousness.

"Good luck sir," she said to me as she grabbed Sarah and began to pull her to the pods. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too, Bunny," I told her.

"What about you two?" I asked Micheal and Benjamin. "Any arguing from you?"

"You'll just knock us out and put us in a pod if we tried, right?" Benjamin asked. He sounded angry.

"If I have to," I nodded.

"I hate this," Benjamin said. "There has to be another way."

"There's not," I told him. "It's going to take me nearly all the time left to get from here to the shielding and that's while I move at my fastest speed. The only other one that could make it is Carrie and I'm not letting her go. She still tries to save people. I stopped that a long time ago. It's better if she's in charge now, while I can still be remembered as someone that tried to help others."

"Ben, let's go," Micheal said to him quietly. "He's right, the Cybers did the math. It's better this way. More of us will live."

"Don't you give up," Benjamin told me, a finger wagging in my face. "You do everything you can to get back to us and face her."

"I will," I told him, making a promise that I couldn't keep.

"Micheal," I called out as he passed. "Give me your helmet."

"Why?" he asked.

"She's going to want this one for target practice," I told him as I disconnected my helmet and traded it for his white one.

"Take care of them," I told him. "There's going to be some hard decisions that you'll all have to make and you'll need one another. I can make this one for us all because I have all of you. I can't make the ones that are coming, even if I was there a little longer."

"I'll do my best," he swore.

"Serve your new Demigod with pride and honor," I told him. "She's more than ready."

With a final nod to me, Micheal moved to the pod that held the prisoner and Benjamin and entered it. Without looking at any of them, I moved to the console that would send their pods hurtling into space and pressed the big red button. As I watched the pods they were in fly into the sky and out to the stars, I tried to keep my tears from falling. If I started now, then I'd never stop and I wouldn't finish what I was supposed to do now.

"Which way, Cai?" I asked the only one that would be with me for these last few steps as I pulled Micheal's helmet on.

"I can overlay a route onto the helmet's display," he said.

"Thanks," I said. "Just like Rallypoint, you telling me where to go, me carrying explosives, enemies everywhere and no way home but forward."

"I preferred Rallypoint actually," he told me as the route appeared on the helmet's display.