Tassiter sat back and silently observed the surface of Pandora through the cracked glass of John's office window. Satisfied, he took another sip from the crystal glass of wine in his hand. Around him, the cacophony of sound continued as workers tore down the last vestiges of John's regime. The garish floor-to-ceiling posters of his disfigured face were ripped down and thrown into the airlock along with the man's other tasteless decorations. John really hadn't had much of a sense of style – although Tassiter had to admit he was partial to the new color scheme. He'd be keeping that, at least.

All in all, this was the easiest time he'd ever had removing a rival within the company. It was almost disappointing: John would have done better. Though it was rather amusing that the one person he had been most worried about disposing of had been removed by his own creation. Ultimately, John's arrogance had been his undoing. Unsurprising, really.

Though even in death, it seemed that John was loathe to give up his secrets. The terminal in his office had been completely empty of anything of value. Tassiter had immediately ordered for John's personal quarters to be thoroughly searched, but nothing of consequence had been found. Curiously, it seemed that John hadn't been the only one occupying his rooms. Clothes and other necessities of a distinctly female variety littered one of the bedrooms. Far be it for Tassiter to care who John slept with, but the fact that a mysterious woman had been living with him was interesting. Though it was possible that Lawrence would have had to dispose of her as well.

Still, the greatest secret the room held was proving the most difficult to discern. The door behind John's bedroom remained obstinately closed despite multiple attempts to open it. Even cutting the power had proven ineffective as some sort of secondary power source had kept the door sealed shut. One short conversation with the door's overly smug AI had been enough to convince Tassiter to rip the damn thing open. Even now, crews were preparing to cut it out of the wall. Soon enough, he'd have his hands on any secrets John withheld.

He had to wonder if John's killer had fared any better at getting into the room. Clearly the man hadn't been entirely stupid as he managed to convince everyone in the station of his identity for nearly a month. Either that, or everyone on the station was more incompetent than Tassiter expected. No matter, the man's intelligence was no longer of any consequence.

After hours of searching, Lawrence still hadn't turned up on the station and Tassiter had finally rescinded the lockdown as it seemed rather a moot point. If Lawrence had somehow managed to escape the station alive, than he was no longer a concern. In fact, he was almost grateful to the man for removing John so easily – not that he was about to shake his hand for it.

Tassiter's pleasant mood was brought to an abrupt halt when the sound of an angry voice traveled up the hallway. He had been expecting this eventual interruption, just not quite so soon. Tassiter was feeling more exposed than he would have liked around such unpredictable people since Nigel was currently in the middle of getting patched up after his encounter with Lawrence. He wondered if Nigel would take it as a personal slight that Lawrence had gotten the better of him, but doubted he'd really care. Still, this moment was unavoidable and Tassiter turned to face the room's new occupants.

Nisha pushed aside a passing worker as she stomped up the stairs and planted her hands on Tassiter's desk. "What the fuck is this?"

"I thought it was obvious," Tassiter rolled back toward his desk nonchalantly. "I'm remodeling my new office."

"Then where's Jack?" Wilhelm swung a leg up over the edge of his desk.

"You know, that's exactly the question I feel I should be asking the two of you." As he rearranged himself at his desk, his foot bumped against something. Momentarily ignoring the lackeys in front of his desk, he reached underneath to pick up the object. A slightly dented golden statue of John – with a baby – stared back at him and Tassiter curled his lip. "God, the man had no class." With a flick of a wrist, he tossed it at the general direction of one of the workers. "Take care of this."

"Out with it!" Nisha had begun impatiently pacing back and forth. "Where's Jack?"

Tassiter took a deliberately long sip of his wine. "I'm afraid there's been a change of management while you've been away. In fact, there were two. Not that any of you seemed to have noticed the first. So tell me… how much did you two know of John's body double?" Tassiter inwardly smirked as he watched a silent look pass between the lakeys. You're not the only ones that know secrets.

"He looked like Jack; sounded like Jack; acted like Jack," Wilhelm shrugged after a moment's pause. "What more do you need to know?"

"When was the last time either of you saw him?"

"'Bout a month ago."

Tassiter held back the smug grin that was threatening to overtake him. "Haven't seen him since?"

"Is there a point to this shit?" Nisha impatiently interrupted Wilhelm counting off on his fingers.

"My point, is that sometime in the last month this impersonator killed the original, took his place, and that you two were apparently none the wiser." Tassiter took another sip of his wine to allow this to sink in.

"Bullshit," came Nisha's oh-so eloquent response. "Jack killed that guy. He beat his head in with the statue you just threw away."

Tassiter outright laughed at this. "It's so poetically ironic, I might just have to keep that after all." He took a moment to compose himself before continuing, "And you… believed him?"

"Well, yeah."

"And afterward, you didn't notice any discrepancies? Maybe… sending off the two people closest to him that could have easily figured out if it wasn't him?"

Nisha had gone completely still as Wilhelm merely scratched the dead animal he called a beard. "Well, there was that one thing he wanted us to do. Guess he could've sent anyone else to check on the supply lines..."

"No way," Nisha bit out. "There's no way in hell he's dead."

"I wouldn't be here if he wasn't."

"Damn right, he woulda killed your ass," she spat back.

Tassiter gestured his wine glass to the room at large. "And yet, here I am."

There was a lull in the construction around them as Wilhelm finally said, "So do we work for you now?"

That was enough to redirect Nisha's anger. "What the fuck, Wilhelm?"

"Hey, I still wanna get paid."

"So you're gonna work for this prick?"

Wilhelm looked directly at Tassitor. "If he pays."

"But of course," Tassiter agreed. Any response he would have made to Nisha was cut short by his ECHO device. "One moment." Patching though the call, he answered, "Tassiter speaking."

"Sir, we've had an issue come up."

Growing faintly annoyed, Tassiter turned away from his 'guests,' "What kind of an issue?"

"One of our transport ships crashed. We received a distress signal almost eleven hours ago," came the blunt response.

Tassiter internally bemoaned the fact he was surrounded by incompetents. Personal memo: station staffing is in need of a serious performance review. "And why wasn't I informed of this earlier?"

"Given the situation, we didn't want to trouble you with something so minor."

"Then why are you troubling me with it now?"

"Because we noticed an anomaly in the system logs. The shuttle departed eight hours earlier than it should have-" the voice hesitated briefly before it added, "...During the lock-down."

"I see. Well thank you for informing me, you may well get to keep your job after today." Tassiter ended the call and swiveled back to find Nisha still pacing a hole in the floor with Wilhelm looking bored at her side. "Ms. Cadam, perhaps I can offer you something."

"Not interested," Nisha snorted. "And it's Nisha."

"Something tells me you will be." Tassiter wondered if John had surrounded himself with incompetents in order to feel better about himself. "See, I have reason to believe that the impostor made his escape to Pandora's surface in one our transport ships. I had thought that you might be interested in finding the man responsible for John's death given your loyalty."

Nisha smirked. "Couldn't kill him on your own?"

"Think of this as a parting gift. I'm giving you the opportunity to do it yourself." Tassiter had no use for someone with no loyalty and giving her Lawrence costs him nothing. Besides, it would only help him if the man was dead. Assuming he had even lived through the crash.

"Send the coordinates to my ECHO." With that, Nisha turned on her heel and stalked out past the broken doorway of his office. From the glint in her eye, Tassiter hoped that Lawrence had died in that crash – for his own sake.

Wilhelm eased himself away from Tassiter's desk with the intention to follow, before Tassiter gestured for him to stay. "No, no. Leave her to the petty vengeance. I have a different job for you."

"You're the boss," Wilhelm shrugged.

"I'm sending a company representative to take care of some business shortly, and I'm going to need someone with your persuasive skills to accompany him."

Wilhelm grinned wolfishly back at him. "Sounds fun."

Timothy could feel the cold press of the sand into his shirt as he lay on top of a dune overlooking the Dahl Oasis. The place didn't live up to its name. There was no water in sight, and most of the buildings were halfway covered in sand. However, it was just as occupied as he expected, although the natives weren't of the animal variety. Small fires dotted the encampment where metal barrels burned with random garbage were tended by a number of shifting silhouettes. Even from this distance he could make out the metallic gleam of the weapons they carried.

Timothy probably should have been scheming up a plan to deal with the bandits below, but instead, his mind was too occupied by other things. Hunger, thirst, sleep – not to mention the girl sitting three feet away from him. And that three feet away was definitely a plus compared to earlier. Although the cooling temperature wasn't as frigid as the looks she still sent his way, Timothy was glad that Angel had finally seen a bit of sense and decided to follow his lead. After all, she was kind of overreacting a little bit. If she had known half of the things Timothy knew about her dear old dad, she may have wanted to kill him herself.

In the grand scheme of things, Timothy probably did Pandora a favor. Killing a terrible person wasn't necessarily a bad thing… right? Oh, who was he kidding. He didn't kill Jack for being a dick, and he sure as hell didn't kill him for what he had planned to do. He killed Jack in a panic over his own self preservation. Nothing more, nothing less. That didn't make him a hero and he certainly wasn't some thoughtful samaritan doing a good deed. It just made him some nobody that killed a total tool.

It was this exact thought that kept Timothy from throwing Jack's sins in Angel's face. Nothing Jack had done mattered now, and anything he said would be a poor excuse for justification on his part. It was the same reason Timothy hadn't been able to hide the truth of Jack's death from Angel. He could hardly be called a boy scout, but he had never been much good at lying. Funny thing, given his career choice… not that it mattered now.

Ignoring his ongoing existential crisis in favor of the more imminent one, Timothy restrained himself from scratching at the sand creeping into his pants and turned his attention back to scouting the camp.

"It's getting cold out," Angel shifted against the sand at his side.

No shit. "Yeah, that's a good thing. If they're busy cuddling up around their fires, they can't see us creeping up on them."

Angel squinted at him. "'Us'?"

"Yeah, us. Two people, two guns. More dead bad guys. I know you can do the math here."

"I can do the math, but I can't do guns," Angel hissed.

Of-fucking-course. Of course she didn't know how to use a gun. Timothy almost wanted to punch himself for forgetting that this wasn't 'Jack's Merry Band of Misfits;' this was a goddamned escort mission. Timothy all but buried his head into the sand. "Fuuuck."

"Maybe we can find somewhere else…"

"There is nowhere else. We're in the middle of a desert." Timothy seethed for a moment in an effort to keep himself from shouting. "Okay, Plan B: I'm going to sneak up and kill all of them; you're gonna spot for me over the ECHO."

"I don't have an ECHO device," she said somewhat slowly, as if he should know this by now.

Timothy had to drag away his hand from his scalp before he pulled out his hair in frustration. "Fiiine, plan B modified: I go in and kill everyone; you sit here." With some reluctance, Timothy stripped off the gantlet for his wrist laser and tossed it in Angel's direction. "Take this, if you hear me screaming, you better come in and rescue me."

"Don't count on it," Angel snorted as she adjusted the straps on her arm. "How do I work this?"

Timothy chose to ignore her previous comment. "Just point and press this button to fire it."

Angel looked skeptical, "That's it?"

"That's everything you need to know. Remember, the shooty stuff comes out this end."

Not waiting to hear her retort, Timothy began to slowly slide down the dune towards the camp. As he inched forward, his hand passed over his digistruct module and the rust colored SMG Jack had given him formed in his hand. This thing better live up to the hype. This was his first time going into a fight alone and he wasn't exactly thrilled with his chances. Still, it's wasn't like they had any choice in the matter.

This time, Timothy was actually glad for his state of dehydration because he was sure he'd be sweating bullets otherwise. As he finally neared the base of the hill, he silently made his way over to the side of the nearest building. With his back pressed against the wall, he slowly shuffled around outside of the building until he could see the gathering of people around the fire. The low murmur of voices carried on the wind, punctuated regularly by a woman's laugh.

So far, so good. The group sat around the fire conversing, their guns forgotten on the ground for the moment. Five, maybe six of them. If this is supposed to be the night guard, they're not doing a very good job. Of course, he had no way of knowing how many more would be camping out in the surrounding buildings. Once he opened up on this group they were bound to come running out with guns blazing. He didn't really like his odds against the possibility of dozens of bandits with guns. On the other hand, a quick death by bullet beats a slow death by dessert anyday. And at least the bandits are far less likely to eat my corpse… hopefully.

With that happy thought, Timothy released the breath he'd been holding, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The initial spray took them by surprise, and four of them went down before they even knew what hit them. The other two attempted to take cover behind the barrel and Timothy heard the woman's voice call out something indistinguishable before a bullet through the throat silenced her. The last one had managed to scramble for a weapon and Timothy pulled back as a spray of return fire wildly arched into the wall. Waiting a moment for the fire to stop, he pushed around the corner again as the fire lulled and shot a burst of fire into the barrel the bandit had taken cover behind. A scream of pain rewarded him as the last of the guards collapsed to the ground.

The incoming shout of voices echoed into the night as more of the bandits poured out of the nearest buildings – and these were definitely carrying guns. It was hard to judge their number and Timothy began to feel very exposed. Swiping his hand past his digistruct module, a sphere phased into his hand. Tossing it over towards the shredded barrel, Timothy ignored it for the moment and circled around the darkened structure to the other side. As he peeked around the corner, he got a good view of this new opposition. Over a dozen bandits were now fanning out into the street to investigate. Dropping another sphere, he retreated back into the shadows. Slinking around another building, he came out on the far side of the cul-de-sac. Now or never.

Pressing a button on his ECHO device, the copies came alive with their usual jeering and fake gunfire. The bandits responded in kind as they huddled behind whatever cover they could find. With their attention focused on his copies, Timothy took advantage of their exposed backs and another three dropped to his gunfire before they figured out where it was coming from.

"HEY THERE'S NO MEAT IN THESE MEAT PUPPETS!" One of the bandits shouted out indignantly.

Well shit. It looked like his little plan wasn't going to work anymore. A soft thump in the sand brought all of his thoughts to a halt as he looked down at a grenade stuck into the sand at his feet. Cursing colorfully, Timothy kicked his foot out and the grenade went flying behind another fiery barrel. The resulting explosion brilliantly lit up the street, nearly blinding him. The shrapnel and overpressure wave shattered his shield and bent him over double as it knocked the wind out of him.

"Wait! WAIT! I won't eat you! REALLY!" Crackling laughter followed him as Timothy crawled for cover. He attempted to get a look at his attackers only to immediately pull his head back as gunfire stitched the metal barricade.

The clacking of gears drew his attention, and Timothy risked a glance past the barricade to find what appeared to be a garage door opening across the street. Sand trickled down from the yawning opening, revealing a glint of steel. Out stepped the largest motherfucker Timothy had seen since those damned mutated Lost Legion guys on Elpis. Ducking under the door, the man carried a giant metal shield - in one hand. He was also armed with a machine gun in the other hand, which was definitely just as attention grabbing. Well, I'm fucked.

"Keep 'em pinned down, boys!" The Tank shouted at the others as he was met with a chorus of cheers. The Tank raised his gun in Timothy's direction and a storm of fire filled the air. With unhurried steps, the giant advanced on his position and Timothy scrambled back around the building under a hail of gunfire. Shit Shit Shit SHIT.

Breathing heavily against the wall, Timothy tried and failed to come up yet again another Plan B. At any moment, the Tank was going to circle around the building and fill him full of holes. The street was filled with assholes, and all he had was one gun. They wised up to the copies, and Angel certainly wasn't coming to his rescue. Think think think. Circling around the house, he managed to glance out into the street and weighed his options. Going back out there didn't hold any appeal, up until the moment he spotted salvation.

Parked in the garage across the street sat a bandit truck. The truck itself was unremarkable enough, the giant minigun mounted on the back was another story entirely. Of course, sixty feet of bandit-filled street lay between Timothy and that truck, and they didn't seem like the type that would allow for a time-out. If only he hadn't wasted his trick with the copies earlier he might have been able to fool them now. On the other hand… it didn't matter if they knew they were fake. All that mattered was that they didn't know which one was real.

Putting away his gun, Timothy phased about a dozen of the little spheres on into his hands. After making sure that his shield was fully charged, he braced himself against the wall. Do or die, I guess. With that, he chucked them all out into the street. Pushing himself off the wall, he began his mad dash across the street as Jack copies popped up around him like daisies. Gunfire and Jack taunts immediately filled the air around him as his shield flared blue as stray shots clipped into him. He slammed into the far wall of the garage as his trip came to a sudden end.

Timothy pulled himself up into the truck and frantically searched the glove box and random trash in the next seat over. Keys keys keys… where are the – oh. The keys dangled obviously from the ignition, lucky rabbit's foot and all. Of course they're in the fucking ignition. With a twist, the truck rumbled to life.

"He's taking the truck! Get 'em!" The Tank guy called out.

Of course, Timothy wasn't going anywhere. Crawling up into the turret he swore he could see the bandits hesitation as they suddenly realized the predicament they found themselves in. His fingers tightened on the triggers and an ungodly roar filled the garage as the mini-gun unleashed all hell. He could barely make out the chaos outside the garage as the sand kicked up from the bullets obscured all vision and the flash of the muzzle nearly blinded him. Sweeping the gun repeatedly into the street, he finally let go when his hands had become too numb from the vibrations to feel anything.

Waving the numbness away, Timothy tried to shake off the loud ringing in his ears as he sat back against the turret. Clamping his hands gingerly around his ears, Timothy let out a groan he couldn't even hear. No wonder bandits shout all the time, they can't hear for shit. Dazed, he stumbled out of the turret and landed ungracefully into the front seat, thankfully missing the stick shift. With a shaky hand, he pressed a button on his ECHO device and the Jack copies instantly disappeared as their spheres zoomed back towards him. Forgetting how many there were, Timothy tried to catch the first few only to be bombarded by their sheer numbers bumping ridiculously against him. Note to self: don't throw out more Jack copies than you can catch.

Slouching back the seat for a moment, Timothy let out a tired sigh. It had been a helluva day. His moment of rest passed and he put the truck into gear before slowly pulling out of the garage. Bouncing slightly as the truck ran over the still bleeding corpses left over from his massacre, Timothy flicked on the headlights and drove towards the dunes overlooking the Oasis. Hopefully, the brat had managed to keep herself out of trouble.

As Angel watched Timothy slide down the dune towards the bandit encampment, she struggled with herself over what to feel. Watching the image of her father walk into danger left a hollow feeling in the bottom of her stomach. On the other hand, she knew this wasn't her father. This was the man that killed her father, and a small part of her hoped he wouldn't come back alive. Still, the more logical part of her mind was very aware of the fact that if he died, so did she. Timothy was the only help she had in this world, and until that changed, she needed him if she was going to survive.

She watched his progress as he slunk down into the shadows and ruthlessly gunned down the bandits circled around the fire. Angel had watched people die before, but without the barrier of a screen, it made everything feel more real. The last bandit's return gunfire seemed a hopeless cause as Timothy fired through the barrel and hit him anyway. With his screams filling the night air, Angel couldn't suppress the morbid curiosity of whether her father had died the same way. Had it been quick, or had he died screaming as well?

Disgust rolled in her stomach and Angel shook the thought away. She tried to focus on the sound of gunfire, the brief explosions lighting up the night. Dark shapes stood out against the lights and more bandits poured out of the surrounding buildings. Trying to make sense of the mayhem, she couldn't make out Timothy anywhere below. Had he been killed already? She surprised herself with how okay she felt with that possibility. The group continued to fan out for cover when she suddenly spotted him below… no, she saw three of him?! What the heck was going on?

The fighting below descended into chaos after that until she had no idea where Timothy was. Eventually, the sound of an engine brought hope for her as escape suddenly seemed a possibility. However, this hope rapidly began to dim as she saw the bandits begin to close in on the building. In that instant, a roar of sound erupted from below as all hell broke loose in the street. Angel flinched and pushed herself lower to the ground as the hail of gunfire tore through everything below. She fought back a dry heave and turned away as the bandits were cut to pieces in showers of blood from the gunfire. Soon it was impossible to see anything as a dust cloud began to cover the area from all the sand being kicked up. The night finally lapsed back into silence as the weapons fire died down – or near silence.

A pained, gasping breath carried on the wind and Angel stiffened at the new sound. Her eyes quickly scanned the surrounding dunes until she spotted a limping figure heading her direction. That's not good. Trying to make herself as small as possible, she flattened herself against the sands and hoped the man would shuffle by unnoticed. Holding her breath, Angel waited until the ungainly steps came to a sudden halt.

The man's gas mask sucked in a deep breath of air as his head turned to her direction. "YOU SMELL LIKE MY MOMMY'S SWEATBOX!"

Angel screamed and scrambled up to her knees as the psycho began slowly stumbling her way, one hand stanching the flow of blood at his side, the other lightly trailing an axe in the sand. Her hand skimmed the side of the wrist-laser, fumbling for the button to fire, but her aim was was off and her first shot went wild. Her hand was shaking so badly, the second shot was off as well and the psycho didn't even flinch as she missed him by a foot.

"I JUST WANT… A LITTLE SKIN…" he insisted as the distance closed between them. Suddenly, the psycho turned as a pair of headlights crested over the dune and illuminated his form. With a sickening thud, his body hurled past Angel as the truck drove straight into him. Sliding to a stop, two quick honks of the horn were punctuated by Timothy's voice.

"C'mon, I got us a ride."

Angel didn't need to be told twice. Shaking off her adrenaline, she flung herself to the passenger side door. Searching for a seat belt and finding none, she instead wrapped her arms around her body.

Timothy paused to looked over at her. "Hey, you alright?"

Angel nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.

A/N: Yes, bandit technicals have a passenger seat now because why the hell don't they? Anyway, thanks for the support so far.