Chap. 2
Accidents
"Fire in the Hole!" Brett cried out as he ducked behind a table. Turning to look at Beast Boy, who had found shelter behind on of the consoles, he yelled "You IDOIT! When in the history of the world has pushing the big red button been a good idea?" "Hey how was I supposed to know?" the green one shot back. Still, he knew he had messed up pretty bad. The red button had actually been the 'search and destroy' button, which caused the ray to fire on every object within a five foot radius. The ray was spinning on it's base, zapping everything in sight. "Why did you guys even put that in there anyway?" he yelled back. Brett opened his mouth to reply, but then stopped, and a curious look came into his face. "Martin why did we put that in there?" he yelled back. "I don't know; you built the thing." "Ah guys?" asked Raven, hiding behind a black-energy shield. "Can we fix this, then start to place blame?" "How do we shut it down?!" Robin yelled. "You don't. Once it has hit everything, it'll assume the job was done and shut down. The ray has to hit two objects for any sort of transfer, so we're safe as long as we don't get hit. Still, there is a manual release if anyone wants to try."
"Allow me." Starfire said almost instantly. Rising into the air, the alien twisted and turned with an unbelievable grace. Speeding across the room, she avoided the rays until she finally reached the console. Safely under the cannon's fire, she called out, "What now?" "Enter in the shut-down code." Brett yelled. "It's 1-2-3-4..." "That's it?" cried Beast Boy. "You couldn't have thought up a better code?" "Please Beast Boy, not now!" said Star firmly, turning to face him.
But Star's movement cost her dearly. The cannon found her and struck her hard. Writhing in pain, she stood, stuck in the beam. "Starfire!" Robin yelled. "What's happening?" asked Bart, noticing the ray was beginning to sputter. "I don't know. I never intended to use the ray on anything that was alive. Her bio-chemistry must be overloading the circuitry; I don't know what could happen." said Brett. But the bat's words were lost on Robin. The young hero leapt across the table and ran towards his alien friend, even as Martin cried, "No Robin, don't touch her!" Robin grabbed her arm, attempting to drag her out. But then, he felt the energy flow into him. He stiffened as it seemed to drain his body of some sort of force. He heard Starfire scream in pain. Suddenly, there was a burst of sparks as the machine blew. The ray stopped and both of them fell to the ground. Robin tried to look at Star, but he could feel himself losing consciousness. The last thing he heard was Nelson's voice saying, "Holy crap, look at her!"