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"Oh jeez... How did I end up with this guy stuck on me?" Jayce mumbled, jinking and rolling through the asteroids of Omega 5. The asteroids were not his only issue, however...

"Time flies, doesn't it, Jayce?" Ben Warner said through his wide-band comms. "And I guess your time is up."

25 minutes before...

Ben Warner was one of the best Insurgent pilots in the Coalition, and was feared and respected throughout the Fighter Corps. Jayce was able to hold his own as well, and has been picking off his pursuers one by one. The ex-Lieutenant Colonel was one of the few people to ever make it this far after ditching the Coalition and survive, but he was not out of the woods yet. He had been plotting this for a long time. The debris field around the Kurt Eisner contained many destroyed vessels, as did the Hammen Hole in Omega 5. Jayce had utilized these plentiful resources in his plotting, and had constructed rather shaky-looking Switchblade Heavy Fighter. In his cargo hold, he had two pairs of Kalashnikov Energy Weapons, stripped off of his Insurgent. He had crashed it into one of the yards at Mykolaiv using remote piloting, in the vain hope that it would gain him a few seconds to escape. He had lifted off from the docking bay in his Switchblade, and it was not 2 minuted later when he was intercepted by a patrol of Partisan fighters. These were no real issue, the Fury 5 and Debilitator Pulse weapons he had salvaged were more than enough to deal with a few overgrown light fighters. However, Ben Warner and his wing of crack fighter aces were a wholly different story. He had dispatched the first Insurgent with some difficulty, and there were still 3 Insurgents left, not counting Warner. Sadly for the Coalition pilots, however, Jayce had planned for this eventuality. He had contacted a few of his old friends in the Outcast ranks, who had set a trap just in case of this sort of situation. What they had done was rigged some of the smaller asteroids with a dozen or so Nuclear Mines, and a small thruster, turning a pocket of asteroids into a deadly minefield. The mines sensors were rigged to ignore Border Worlds vessels, and homed in on the Insurgent's power signatures, destroying them in a maelstrom of fire. That left Warner, who was able to outrun the slower mines, since they no longer had the element of surprise.

Present...

"Time only flies when you're on the ground, you bastard!" Jayce yelled over his comm system to Warner, unnleashing a flurry of pulse blasts, stripping the larger craft of its shielding. "And I'm about to send you 6 feet under!"

"You wish..." Warner growled, firing a missile from the integrated tubes on his modified Insurgent. The missile screamed through the asteroids, and impacted the smaller Border Worlds craft, singeing its engine sponson. Jayce's countermeasure dropper fell loose, pinging off of the Coalition fighters cockpit, disrupting it for a few moments.

"Sorry mate..." Jayce's face contorted into a frown. His Fury photon cannons hissed, tearing a wing off of Warner's fighter. "...but this just isn't for me. The only person I really cared for in this damned hellhole was Alvin. Alvin and Angie Broch. Speaking of, tell them I'm sorry." Jayce fired another salvo of Photon blasts, stripping the Insurgent of its port engine mount. With Warner out of commission, Jayce jammed the stick back, setting a course for Omicron Alpha. He never once turned to look at the smoldering fighter than contained Ben Warner. He was sure that Warner would survive: all Coalition fighters had reinforced escape pods, and "crybaby" SOS systems. There was that nagging doubt, though. He knew in the back of his mind that sometimes he would miss these days, but that this was the best choice.

His only choice.

His Watchful Eye stood in the center of the information chamber, watching the repeater displays detailed reports from Warner's fighter, and from Brooks' own. Everything was proceeding exactly to the mind numbingly complicated plan that had been wrought.

The best kind of spies were the ones that had no idea they were being used as such.

"Good work Colonel Warner," His Watchful Eye said aloud. As Brooks slipped out of scanner range. The Insurgent that housed Warner going active again and slipping back towards the ghostly shape of the CPW Lithuania that decloaked above it.

The game pieces were arrayed upon the board, and the question now became, how long would Brooks remain a useful asset, and naturally, what would happen to him once his usefulness ceased?

There was only one answer to that...

His Watchful Eye Never Blinked

Jayce gingerly replaced the slide and hammer assembly back on the handle of his Coalition-issue 10mm pistol. With a small rag, he wiped away a bead of grease from the mechanism.

"Just like the way they taught us..." the ex-Coalition soldier said, his voice shaky. "...back home." He sighed. Then, in one fluid motion, he slid a single round into the magazine, then the magazine into the pistol. He made a motion for the weapon, when a sound from a corner of the small hotel room startled him. Jayce sat the weapon down and turned to face the noise.

"Is someone there?" Jayce stuttered out. When no response came after a minute or two, Jayce began to turn back to his weapon, when another noise interrupted him. This time, it was the sound of the door closing quickly, with the sound of someone sprinting lightly down the hall. Jayce let out a muffled whimper, and he quickly turned back to the table. He scooped up the small pistol, held it to his head, and whispered:

"You can't torture me if I'm dead..."

He pulled the trigger, and he was met with a dull *click*. He quickly pulled the weapon from his temple, and began to examine it. He slid the magazine out of the weapon, only to find the round he had loaded in it was no longer there. He looked down at the table, to find the round sitting on a small slip of paper, emblazoned with the symbol of His Watchful Eye. He crumpled the paper in his hand, and stared into the small camera on his personal computer console. He cupped his face with his hands, and began to cry.

His Watchful Eye never blinks.