Roz set down her pen and reached for her coffee while she pondered the problem that Marc Rogatien had become now that he was allied with Stephen. To discover that she couldn’t, as she’d thought, control him, had been bad enough. But now, with new powers and deeply in the coils of that red headed bitch it was worse.

She stopped herself from retracing ground she’d been over a dozen times since yesterday. The reality wouldn’t change. She’d have preferred to have Marc as an ally, or failing that as a tool. But she now knew that wasn’t possible. Plus, there was the news she’d received last night…the news that Doni was pregnant. The flow of events was accelerating, obviously. She had to act, and act now, to secure control of Doni’s children, if she wanted to continue to control the board. But first she needed Marc permanently out of the way.

She was still turning over options in her mind when the alarms in the sub-basements started shrieking. She started scanning the banks of monitors lining the walls as so as she reached the most secret part of her house. The monitors were blank, all of them, telling her that either they’d malfunctioned or what they’d been monitoring had. So she pulled up the emergency systems and ran the diagnostics. Then she started cursing.

In an underground cavern on a planet she’d never named she’d hidden two babies, along with a number of other things she considered to valuable too risk, including a cache of gene patterns of various Awakened…reasoning that she’d rather be safe than sorry and had no moral objection to cloning.

The diagnostics told her the monitors weren’t malfunctioning. The back up systems showed her that the cryogenic tanks that she’d used to place the babies in stasis were gone, the leads that connected them to the equipment that maintained them shredded and laying on the floor.

There was only one person who could have done it, could have found them and then simply taken them out of the room they’d been in. As she realized the truth of that gathered force in her mind, a rage more powerful than anything she’d ever felt before became to consume her, rage at the man who was daring to interfere in her plans.

Roz strode into an adjoining room and powered up a control panel, while she began to gather power to herself. She pulled it from the core of Home and as she did tremors began to ripple through the tectonic plates that formed the planet’s mantle. The more power she drew the faster the ripples flowed. She knew it and ignored it.

Instead she began feeding massive amounts of power into the weaponry located in a bunker she’d built atop the mountain behind her house while she punched in a set of strike coordinates she knew by heart. Then she launched. Out of the mountain came three missiles, powered by Roz’s mind, with warheads filled with the power of the stars.

Roz watched them fly, a maniacal laugh shattering the silence in the basement. Twenty minutes later they breached Earth’s atmosphere and streaked towards the Refuge. They hit simultaneously, missing the House and hitting the compound. Roz, watching swore again and began arming another round.

The impact of the strike rocked both House and monastery, the shock wave knocking out windows sending shards of glass flying everywhere.

Cal Cahill, as soon as he’d realized the points lighting up his screen really had emerged from Home and really were missiles headed sounded the battle stations alarm Trevor had demanded after the last attack on the House. It went off in the House, the Infirmary, at the Compound and the monastery. They also ripped through the peaceful stillness at Marc’s aerie and at Stephen’s house. Up until that point it had been a peaceful morning in the Blue Ridge, the sun just beginning to appear in the east, sending flame colored light through the clouds, a harbinger of rain later, for which they would have cause to be grateful.

Stephen, went from asleep to dressed and at the Ops Center in less than a minute. Cassidy and Trevor beat him there by a matter of seconds. They were standing next to Cal when the first strike hit less than a minute later, rocking the foundations of the House. The impact also knocked out Cal's feed momentarily.  He slapped the side of the monitor hard with his hand and it flickered back on.  "Damn thing better not crap out on me now" he muttered abstractly, his fingers rapidly punching keys and sending data to the wall monitors and activated the feeds to the back up systems in Ocala

Trevor, and Cassidy of one mind, hit the button that would activate the evacuation plan. Stephen, watching, shot off to help at the Infirmary.

The plan, as set up, required all personnel to report to specific locations. There, someone who knew of the Ocala complex and could transport people there, would be waiting to send them through.

Already those at Ocala would be firing up the backup command centre and bringing it out of standby mode. Cal zapped off there immediately so there'd be someone to watch the readouts.

Stephen arrived to find organized chaos in the infirmary, with Tabitha directing the healers in the evacuation of the worst cases first.  She got a strange look on her face when Stephen told her to send them all to Ocala and not to Home, but said nothing and began broadcasting the translation data the healers would need to find it.  As soon as he was sure she had it under control and had seen Doni zap out with the babies, he left for Ocala.

Cal looked up as he appeared.  "Another launch, just a minute ago.  We got maybe ten minutes to stop it or in about eighteen minutes it'll hit the House."

Stephen felt Marc come back on line about then. His mental signature still weak from the rigours of finding the babies but getting stronger by the second as he concentrated his considerable mental powers on dealing with the emergency. Stephen fed him the data.

There was a pop as Marc arrived, Dinah, Kalket and Morrigan with him. Dragons were popping into the air above Ocala now too. The floor of the main Ocala complex began to vibrate. Marc, after a quick look at Cal's controls, said, "Keep feeding them to me mentally. I'm going to launch a counter strike to see if we can't stop them before they get here.  He raced off.

Cassidy took over the job of counting noses, making sure everyone got evacuated here while Jordon keep the roster. Trevor and Laz raced off to the weapons locker to break out what they hoped they'd not need, in the event of a follow up personnel strike.  Effie and Chee Chee were already organizing the influx of personnel, moving them into the hardened buildings and away from the command center.  They left the dragons to fend for themselves.

Cassidy, scanned the list Jordon handed him, looking first for one name.  He didn't find it, but he found the name of her minion.  "Find Daisy." he told Jordon flatly.  Now!"

Stephen, working with Cal, was feeding Marc data as he fired up the weapons systems.

Marc reached for power but found himself far from 100 percent. Stephen hooked in and pumped power to him. One area of the compound, that seemed to be a tennis court, began to change, the court itself opening up to reveal missiles that looked not much like what was currently available. Marc fed them power and launched.  They tore off into the sky in search of those launched from Home.

Cal, tracking them side by side with the incoming round, knew not long after they left the atmosphere they were going to miss.  Helpless to do anything about it he  watched the inexorable progress of the missiles towards the Refuge.  Stephen, pale, flinched and seemed to stop breathing as they hit.

Cal lost all the data feeds from the Refuge ops center and  began punching keys furiously, patching in systems, revising data and spitting it out to Marc.  "Looking for the launch site on Home," was all he said.

As he said it Daisy told Cassidy that Irisa was on Home, at an early press broadcast.

Reno, who'd been tasked with moving the coffin of death to Ocala finally raced into the ops center saying. "Melly!  Melly's on Home!"

Marc and Stephen were intent on the problem. Trying to hit missiles inbound from another planet was hard physics.  They conferred and decided to pinpoint the launch point and aim at it. They'd probably take another hit before the missiles could reach it, but then, maybe, they could end the thing.

Marc calibrated, and Stephen fed him power.

Reno was screaming mentally for Melly.

Irisa was in a press briefing when word came that missiles had struck the Refuge, just as she heard, mentally, Cassidy's distress call. She took long enough to wonder if she just ought to stay, to feed data back to the Refuge, but finally gave in to Cassidy's pleadings. She could always return.  She zapped off the moment she could to the coordinates Cassidy had sent her.

Melly, intent on a puzzle she thought maybe she had the answer to first ignored him and then it took few minutes to understand what Reno was trying to tell her, given her abstraction.  She cast a last glance at her puzzle and headed for Ocala, just as a series of earthquakes began to tear along the edges of the tectonic plates, in response to a new series of ripples.

Roz, realizing that they'd evacuated given the missile launches, was also calculating launch locations.  Then she began ripping power from the magma core of the planet, further disrupting the balance that held the planet intact and not caring.  She started feeding it into her missiles, blind with rage, three missiles, then three more and then three more after that.  Above her the mountain range began to shake as the planet fought for stability.

Marc saw the incoming missiles and cursed the fact he was too weak to try the CE rig again. He could hit them with that, for sure. He fired missiles aimed at the launch site on Home and then sent interceptors targeted at the missiles already launched. This time he connected to them mentally, trying to alter their course to give them a better chance at detonating the enemy missiles harmlessly in space.  His mind, fully engaged, was drawing power from Stephen and feeding it to the interceptors.

Cal's monitors, showing the new launch from Home, also began to respond to the violent upheaval occurring on Home, causing him to start typing faster, translating the data to understandable facts.  Then he saw the planet wobble slightly on it's axis and yelled to Marc and Stephen to stop the launch.  Stephen deeply joined to Marc and pouring out power was, at first, oblivious.

Marc too, was intent on what he could do something about. He registered Cal's warning but set it aside, worrying too much about the attack to spend any brain power on it, worrying that the incoming missiles might miss their targets and hit some other community.

Cal saw the planet shiver in its orbit and pounded on Stephen's awareness.  Stephen, taking in the force fed information, realized almost immediately it was too late and refocused on Marc's effort to destroy the incoming missiles before they hit.

Marc's missile's swung, ever so minutely in their trajectory and there was a blinding mental snap as they hit. One, two, three, first volley handled. Two more to go. Marc was pushing himself to his limits and he knew it, still he focused. But as he retrained his mind on the second volley he processed the information Cal was feeding them about Home. He closed his eyes and prayed, then returned to the only thing he could really do, intercept the second, then the third volley.

Irisa popped in just as the first volley was destroyed and the Ops Centre cheered.  Melly a bit later, just as the second volley was destroyed. Three more missiles to go.

As Melly arrived Cal's monitor showed the missile hit Home, the explosion just a speck of white.  The missile dove deep exploding on impact and and sent shock waves outward that crossed and magnified those already tearing apart the planet at its core.  Roz, not knowing or not caring added the final insult, as she grabbed for all the power she could find.  As it came to her hand the planet began to shudder, deeply, groaning all through its center as it began to shake apart.

Cal stared at it on his monitor, the others watching over his shoulder in stunned silence, as the planet broke into pieces, hurling off into space.

Marc and Stephen were still focused on the last incoming volley. Three missiles, nearing impact. Marc's last shot at taking them out, his last energy, and even Stephen was wavering. Then they hit. One, two, the last one, streaking on through untouched.

"Incoming," Cal announced. "One missile. Impact!"  The silence in the room deepened as they stared at the monitors that showed the Refuge and Cal counted out the next two hits almost on top of the first.  House, Infirmary, Compound...all gone.

Clem, a silent auditor to all of it and shaken to his core suddenly felt guilty when he realized the only structures left were those of the monastery proper.  They were back where they'd been when he and Stephen had first arrived in the Blue Ridge.  Then he began murmuring the prayers for the the dead...eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, may perpetual light shine upon them...while tears streamed unnoticed down his cheeks and the silence around him, broken only by the soft flow of his words, grew to a weight beyond bearing.

Reno found Melly and held her tight, both with silent tears. Irisa stood frozen near Cassidy.

Outside the dragons began a keening song of farewell while Stephen just stared, horrified, at the screen as the wayward, unwilled thought came to him that this was what it felt like to destroy a people.

Marc fully disengaged from Stephen and then from the targeting array. The tennis court transformed itself back into a tennis court. Marc came back to himself and then sent his mind racing toward Home. What he found was... rubble. No life. Nothing. No one left. He'd done it again....

Marc felt nothing as he sat at the now dead missile array. He was just as dead inside as it was sitting there. He zapped out and straight to what was left of the Refuge. He touched down not far from where the House had stood.

The area now consisted of several deep impact craters and rubble. The House, the Infirmary, gone. Tommy and Jordon's house, gone. How odd. The sky looked peaceful and the mountains around the valley untouched and unaffected.  As if nothing had changed. As if a world hadn't died. Even the birds were singing as the breeze touched his cheek.

He sank down to his knees and tried hard to feel. It wasn't working. It was numbness and loss and the destruction of something he'd been working toward for longer than man had existed. He himself had just destroyed the last hope he'd had to avoid a repeat of his own wretched rebellion and consequent loss of life.

He sat there in the gloaming reliving a life misspent.  Not merely misspent, he corrected himself, closer to evil. The Reverend should kill him, not attempt to undemon him. He was a demon. Abbadon. The Angel of the Abyss. No matter what he tried it always seemed to end up in the destruction of his hopes and dreams, humanity's hopes and dreams.  And innocent lives screaming as they winked out after horrible deaths.

He sensed Dinah, trying to monitor him. And Cola was already considering zapping back to the Refuge. He shuttered his mind. He didn't want to hear anything. No one telling him it would be all right. It wouldn't be all right. Ever. All those deaths and no way left to atone. None. All his hopes to avoid what he'd do, his tentative hope that the Awakened would be his salvation, that by helping them he'd changed the world enough that his reality would never happen, that he'd never be born, never grow up, never think of mental man, never fight across the stars against his brother the Saint and Diamond Mask. Never escape through a timegate only to end up drowning yet thousands more sentient peoples, assisting a mad woman who wished only destruction, never yet go to the stars and set up the events that would lead to a better intervention where all humanity was equal, not a galactic milieu where only those talented could stride across the stars while the normals hid and prayed they be left alone, never understanding even their own children whose abilities were so far beyond their own, whose lives were based on mentalities they couldn't even imagine.

No, he'd never have a chance to try to discover the secret, try to raise up and make operant others, the latents, so that they, too, could benefit and evolve and meet the rest of the universe on an equal footing. All gone. All the Awakened dead. Only a tiny portion of them left, only those they'd been able to evacuate.  And the world would never even know what it missed.  Without the necessarily number of operant humans to manage a metaconcert across the planet, the overlords would contain Earth and keep it as it was. Visited but not allowed to know, or grow or change. And he, no doubt he'd be born, and lead just another rebellion, operant, defiant, mad. He was, he decided, quite mad. It was the only explanation. A God complex, complete ego-maniacal intent. Change the world. Change the universe. Who did he think he was? God Himself?

He sensed someone else then coming to the Refuge.  Perhaps looking for him, perhaps only to see the destruction, to try to make it real. He wanted nothing to do with anyone so he zapped himself off to the only place no one would look for him.

Dinah felt him shut her out, felt his mind slam shut against her.  Then she heard Cola howl and knew that the dragon had lost contact with him too.  She told herself not to panic.  She told Quinn to tell Cola not to panic.  Then she told herself again not to panic.  He had every reason to be upset, to want to be alone.  He was blaming himself for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.  It wasn't his fault but he was still blaming himself.

Dinah considered that thought and decided while panic might not be the best plan, serious concern wasn't overreacting.

Quinn interrupted to tell her Cola had gone back to Refuge since that's where Marc was or rather had last been known to Cola to be.

Dinah thanked him and considered her choices.  She didn't want to crowd him, or push him into anything he didn't want, particularly allowing her closer to him.  On the other hand at the moment he was demonstrating he had a way of viewing his problems that left him feeling both isolated and hopeless.

She lifted her hand and called up his DNA while reaching for that screen in her mind that she didn't understand.  She fed it the data from the helix and it pinpointed Marc, at the Refuge.  So the question was, she thought, absently watching the helix spin slowly in the air, to go to him or not.  He was making it plain he didn't want company, didn't want her caring or trying to talk to him at the moment.  But was letting him alone the best thing for him, at this moment, regardless of what he wanted?  She thought it probably wasn't, but then was her presence any better?  She concluded it didn't matter.

He shouldn't be left to his own devices at the moment.  So maybe if she just went and stayed near by, giving him space but keeping an eye on him?   That was a plan she could live with, so she tucked his helix away and zapped herself to the Refuge only to discover he'd sensed her coming and was gone again.

Damn the man!  She checked the radar screen in her head and got a fix on him while Cola thundered her distress in the background.  Dinah sent her a thought and a promise to soothe her through Quinn and headed off to where her mind told her he was.  Loving the man clearly obviated the need for a travel agent.

It was turning to fall in New Hampshire. The hills smelled of it, the air had a touch of crisp nights to come. It was a college town, so late in the afternoon there were quite a few pedestrians on the streets. He'd materialized in a side alleyway and made his way to the main street of town. He looked up the street toward the house where he'd be born in some 30 years, and down the street toward the town center, sporting a small pond on the green in front of the tiny town hall. He walked toward it and saw the cafe where the students gathered to chat and flirt, and the drug store owned by a local family, not a chain. And there, just up the street was the book store. Pots of fall flowers sat near the main doorway. It was a mess. A jumble of books and magazines piled on comfortable old style wooden shelving. He could see the area over by the fireplace where the seats invited kids and adults alike to settle in comfortably, to read, to chat.  And then,  there he was. Looking out the doorway as if he sensed...

Marc stepped back, so the man couldn't see him. He might remember that he'd seen his nephew, the troubled one, the one that tried to destroy the world, before he was even born.

Dinah emerged in the same side alley, following his trail, stay well back behind him and shielding herself tightly.  Give him room, she told herself, don't crowd him.  As an after thought she dropped the facade over herself, becoming just another ordinary soul on the street.

He turned then and walked away from the bookstore toward the University. He eventually stopped by bench near the pond and sat down, staring at the ducks, although he didn't really see them. As afternoon turned into evening, the people on the streets lessened, people hurrying home for dinner, or off to lectures or movies or other things in their lives. Eventually, he sat there in the near silence, even the traffic, such as it was, dying away.

Dinah watched as the twilight faded and the moon rose.  Finally, as the moon reached it's apex she walked over and sat beside him.  Just sat and stayed still, offering only, if he wanted it, wordlessly, the comfort of her presence.

After some time he said, quietly, emotionlessly, "My family lives here, just down the street. My uncle owns the bookstore. I've no idea what I thought coming here would do."

She wanted to say a million things.  She thought about offering him a cup of coffee, a drink, a pill...something, anything to chip the detachment in him away, to ground him.  She looked around in the darkness trying to understand him.  Finally she asked gently, "What do you wish it would do?"

He finally turned to look at her.  His eyes were empty.  "I've just destroyed all the things I've worked for, all that Stephen has worked for. God knows what Tabitha is thinking. I don't have any wishes left."

"I know what Stephen wanted, was working for, but you...I don't know what that was.  Or how Tabitha is involved."  She kept her voice low and soft, the fear in her she shut away into a a locked box in her head.

He laughed bitterly. "Tabitha has visions. Somehow I doubt she saw this one."

"Visions?"

"I feature prominently apparently. Only I think she misread them.  Could you cold bloodedly kill a child?"

It rocked her.  "I don't know." she said.  "It would be difficult..."

"Come on. Let's go home. Oh, wait. Do we have one?"

'Yes, the house is still there." she told him carefully, grateful for the we.

"How  fortunate for us."  He took her hand and they zapped home.

She was still shut out of his mind. Cola had at least stopped keening, knowing he was here, near her, even if he wouldn't let her in. He left Dinah standing in the living room and walked out onto the balcony.  He leaned on the railing looking out to where the Refuge buildings once stood.

She watched him for a while, and then followed him out, taking in the scene below, the cratered earth barely visible in the moonlight and the rubble.  She thought about what he'd said and tried to see beneath those things to the dreams he'd lost today.  She gripped her elbows hard with her hands and tried to think of a way to get him to let her in, even the tiniest amount.  She'd have tried to make him angry but he was past that, too detached, too numb.  "What was it you were working for?" she asked him.

He looked over at her and finally said, "I was... I tried to fix my mistakes. I should know better."  He looked away and was silent for a time before he added, "You think it wouldn't hurt any more. What's one more world destroyed. The first time, I just... ran. There's no where to run left."

"You didn't destroy that planet today." she said.

He looked at her and opened his mind. She saw a battle she didn't understand and Marc leading it. He launched missiles and yet another planet was destroyed - she heard the screams of anguish that came from their deaths - millions of souls gone in a blink, in agony. Then he and what was left of his allies were running. She felt the horror aimed at him, the horror he aimed at himself. Then he... a time machine?  Backwards in time, the only place no one would follow. Then Marc, linked mentally with a woman who wanted to destroy another world.  Mountains ripped apart with Marc's direction, mountains crumbled, and the ocean washing in, flooding a white silver plain full of people like Kalket running for their lives, drowning, others drowning, the mental screams of anguish again hitting him - yet he stood and watched the deaths.  "Abaddon," he said. "Angel of the Abyss. All I do is bring death and sorrow."

Dinah, grief for him flooding her, and sorrow for the pain he carried...carried alone and would never share, never allow another to touch, because he believed...he believed..."So you think that's what you did today?" she asked him mentally.  "This is what I think you did today," she said and showed him, showed him her understanding of the choice he'd made, showed him that the planet was already breaking apart, showed it all to him with the acceptance and the regret and the total absence of blame.

He sank onto the flooring of the deck and huddled up, sobbing.

She felt then the despair in him, bottomless as the abyss he thought he belonged to.  She knelt beside him, afraid to touch him.  And then she did, feather light and swift, a brush along his shoulder, while she sent her mind searching for Tabitha, finding her and calling her.

He pulled himself together then and asked, "Please.  Go to bed. I'll be fine. Just... I need to be alone."

She shook her head. "No yet." she told him.

He was too spent to argue, but he did draw away from her.

She let him go, backing off herself, willing Tabitha to hurry, praying for help.

Tabitha found her just inside the door to the deck and saw Marc, his head leaning against the railing, looking out at the night, looking like a prisoner who knew there was no escape.  She queried Dinah mentally and then stepped out onto the balcony, her steps soft, her heart pounding.

He looked up at Tabitha and gave her a feral smile. "Did your visions show you this?  Nice if you'd have warned me."

"You wanted to save the universe from yourself.  You have, you will never be born now."  she told him, reaching for his mind with hers, sliding in just enough that he would see what she wanted him to see and no further.

He slammed shut his shields throwing her out of his mind. "Go away," he said, using his coercion although it was only half-hearted. He was too numb for anger.

She sighed, ignoring the coercion.  Then she dropped all the illusions she wrapped herself in, bringing all her power into the open, and reached for his mind in a totally different way, becoming something he'd never seen before, sliding through his shields like they weren't there and waited, ready for whatever came next.

He did the only thing he could to get her out of his mind, he zapped away.

She followed him.

He was in a hidden room at Ocala, already firing up the CE rig, intent on ending it all in the stars. Alone, dead, unable to hurt, or be hurt.  The sarcophagus opened. It had almost killed him twice already, so he had no fear it wouldn't if he let it.

She stood in the shadows, watching him, waiting.

He undressed and pulled on the pressure suit, climbed into the CE rig and connected the leads. He pushed the auto button that dropped the helmet onto his head, and felt the needles pierce his skin and the fluid begin to flood the chamber. He hit the button to close the lid.

Tabitha linked lightly, unobtrusively, with the man in the coffin, knowing it was going to be a tricky matter of timing, letting him go just so far down this road and no further.  She waited until she felt him begin to send his mind out to the stars and stopped him, containing his mind with hers. She spoke in his mind, saying, "You didn't fail.  You succeeded."  Then she forced him to watch, to understand what she was showing him, to know the truth of it, as she opened to him the future he'd won for humanity.

First, she showed him too that the future he feared would never be, that the crimes he couldn't bear the burden of had never happened, those lives had never been lost.  Then she opened up the storehouse of her mind to him and showed him the new House that he and Dinah could build if he choose to, that the very fact of it would demand both the integration Stephen sought and the emergence of humanity into the larger universal community as full citizens, talented or not, free of its protected status as a nursery world.  Lastly she showed him the rebirth of the Awakened from the remnant still left at Ocala and all over earth, thousands of them, and the future they would, could help create.

"And those I killed today?" he asked bitterly.

"You didn't kill them.  The fact that your action and Stephen's was the proximate cause of the destruction doesn't make you either guilty or responsible.  The fact that you did everything right and it still happened should tell you something about who's God and who isn't.  Blame him, blame the person who launched the missiles.  If you must blame, then blame them first, not yourself."

He sighed, too tired, too depressed to argue. "Let me go.  Find someone else for your visions."