Chapter 20: Collision, emotions, shutdown, and a bang.

The laser shots pinged off the bulkhead behind him. Entering the lead vessel had been easy, but making any progress was iffy. Black Ghost had even been so nice as to meet him at the launch bay when he had entered. But he had nine cyborgs with him also. This was the hardest fight Jedi had ever had to do.

The original nine cyborgs had been given BETH units, and somehow they had taken over them. He wasn't fighting the people, he was fighting the programming that was built into them. As if that wasn't enough, Black Ghost had given them all accelerators that raised them to his level of speed. All were now equipped with the laser firing hand. How he was supposed to defeat them it was beyond him. All of this was told to him after he pried out of them that the destruction of the transport had been a diversion, and they had been transported up to the lead vessel.

"Surrender yourself to Black Ghost now, and we will show mercy." The nine cyborgs said together in monotone. That was another thing, the whole speaking in unison was freaky. Well, better give them an answer.

"Hell no! BETH, switch the polymorphic weaponry to the positron collider." This was one of his special items that he had been working on. Thank God that he hadn't had this when he had been in Vegas. Peaking his head around the corner, he could only see eight of them. 007 was missing. He must be thinking that he can sneak up on me, Jedi thought. Better raise what I have of those shields now. "BETH, shields up."

"I wouldn't do that, because I am right in front of you." GB appeared out of the wall. He was holding out his left hand. It was fully ready to fire. Something that got to Jedi was that he was inside of the radius of his shielding. Turning around Jedi did the only thing he could think of.

"BETH, accelerate!" Raising his speed rapidly, he gained precious time to charge the collider. It was nearly ready. Jedi ran off down the launch bay. He had been about 50 meters into the ship. Now he was a mere ten. The collider was ready. Jumping around from his corner and increasing his speed to overload, he fired.

The other eight cyborgs had just appeared around the corner when the blast took them. The particles from the beam tore at their bodies, giving each severe burns. Collectively they sighed and passed out. That left only GB. Looking around, Jedi couldn't see anything. There was the little space fighters to the right, some kind of containers on the left, a puddle over by the pile of cyborgs, a couple of Dortde on the catwalk above. Wait a minute, a puddle? As far as Jedi knew puddles just didn't happen on their own, that must be him! He shot his glance back to the group, but now the puddle was under them. Can't get a clear shot, I want to try to save them if I can. Jedi thought. But all he could do is look on as GB forced him to wait.

"What are you waiting for 001? You could be rid of the entire problem at once. No, but you want to try to save them all. So you are holding back." Jedi grimaced. Black Ghost was hitting it right on the nose. He didn't want to destroy them, but something was telling him that he couldn't save them either. "Let me be the first to inform you of this. If you continue to hold back, then you will be destroyed. Show them what I mean, 007!"

"Yes, sir." GB's voice was recognizable, but it was monotone. But after Jedi's shudder from hearing his voice, he was utterly scared at what he saw. Before him, the puddle was forming around the other cyborgs. Each cyborg's face began to fade into the now puddle of mass. Out came an arm, a leg. GB's head stuck out the top. He had absorbed the other cyborgs!! That put him equal to Jedi, if not even more powerful. Each cyborg's abilities were now at the disposal of a single mind. As if that hadn't been bad enough, each cyborg had a BETH. Jedi wasn't just fighting one person, he was fighting nine people, nine lifetimes, and nine supercomputer-like tactical programs. How was he supposed to get past that? He was one person, with only eighteen years of life, and only one of the miracle workers. On top of all that, his defenses were all but gone, the shields would only be able to take a few more hits before they were gone. Despite everything those years of life had taught him, he began to lose hope.

"Jedi," It was BETH, as she spoke, time slowed even more then usual. The 00 conglomeration tried to keep up, but it was unable to, and were soon slowed down to a stop. "Jedi. I know that you think things are helpless, but think why you are here. People are down there depending on you to save them. Even though you may be outgunned, that doesn't mean that you will be at a disadvantage. I have seen your life, and I know that you have had it hard. Your parents divorcing in the fourth grade. Your mom sliding down into a mental abyss. The day that you fought those terrorists, and were supposed to have died. But you know what, you didn't. You didn't give up hope. Blindly you continued to go forward in life. You excelled at whatever you put yourself into. What you should do now is ask yourself, is one person going to stand between you and your goal?"

"You can look into my life? You didn't tell me?"

"Yes, Jedi. We share the same artificial brain after all. There is going to me some sharing. But that isn't important, you need to think about this. You have all of the abilities to take him down. You have all the knowledge to take him and Black Ghost down. But do you have the courage to take him down, defeat Black Ghost, and save the human race? It is times like these that test your character, seeing whether you are a man, or a child."

"BETH, shutdown. I'll take over." Jedi felt nervous. He was going to step out on a limb. Whether the limb would hold him, he would soon find out.

"Okay, Jedi. I put everything into your hands, remember what I have taught you in our short training session on Earth, and you should be fine. Shutting down."

Jedi was now alone in his mind. He had been getting used to her calming presence. His vision began filling with prompts and charts as he took manual control of everything. Taking a deep breath out of habit, he brought the speed back down to where the 00's were.

Dodging over a blaster shot that it was putting out, Jedi took aim and fired on a hatch that was near the hand that had fired. The shot found its mark and blew the hatch wide open. Diffusion is a consequence of there being an unbalance in nature. Everything seeks to be balanced. The same was true with air. As the air tried to rush out into space to even the pressure, GB's laser firing hand was sucked out with it. Like a bathtub plug, it now kept the air stable in the bay. That at least even the odds, in a sense. With BETH offline, Jedi didn't have to announce every weapon change. He just thought of the weapon that he wanted, and it became his right arm. Choosing the Photon cannon, he charged forth.

As he approached, the mega-007 began throwing punches with its one arm. Each one hit. The damage from each was extraordinary. Jedi's vision exploded with prompts of system failures and severe malfunctions. Shields were gone, main weapons were down, sensors down to basic sight, accelerators were stuck. The left arm was dangling at his side, the connections to it severed. The force from each blow had flowed through Jedi, did its damage to him, and dented the floor beneath him. The blows had to have had the force of several thousand tons of mass behind them, but Jedi knew that the fist couldn't have weighed that much. Another prompt caught Jedi's attention. The antimatter containment was on the verge of failing. He had to retreat, had to keep that from happening. Or should he?

An idea began rattling in his head. Maybe he could improvise a weapon, it would be dangerous, but it might just work. He didn't have much to lose, so this was it. This was the way that he was going to die. So be it, he would give Areana the signal and accomplish all of his goals at the same time. The 00 cyborgs would have to be casualties. Julie wouldn't have him there to wake her up. But just because he was about to die, wouldn't mean that he would be with them. He will have given them the ultimate gift.

His life.

Calmly, he directed the containment field to shut down, sent Areana the signal, and ejected the antimatter pod.