Doombringer IV - this time it's personal

As it turned out, Cassandra was just as fragile inside as everyone else
Maybe more so

Katrina shifted and looked away - Watching Cass crying her eyes out in Jays arms wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but did feel kinda weird
She had never really liked the woman, but if she were honest with herself, she would probably admit that it was Jay's obvious attraction to her and all his visits to that sleazy club where she used to work, that had got her back up rather than anything Cass had personally done... and yes, alright, there had been that incident where the bloody woman had fired a grappling hook into her arse, which hadn't done much to curry any favour with her; but then, she supposed, that's what you got for letting someone who, at the time was little better than a prostitute, fly on a critical mission

Regardless, Katrina shrugged, there was nothing (that she was aware of) that Cass had done to deserve the sort of treatment she had just received; Phil was going to have to do some very fast talking indeed, to explain away his involvement in the Doombringer project once Cass found out that he was responsible for it
Cass... or Narcissa as the thing had called her - Kat wondered what that had been all about, and who the man who had meted so much punishment out to her was meant to have been
If she had to make and educated guess, she'd say that there had been something of a familial resemblance there, which hinted at a god-awful childhood for the woman - something Max, her own son, had at least been spared, even though she herself had suffered so much without him; she was just glad that Ishani had been there for her, although she had been worrying about how her lover was doing after she had muttered so darkly about paradox mitigation, before the Cathedral ship had been destroyed and she had disappeared
Kat fervently hoped Ishani hadn't become involved as part of the paradox itself, and that she would join her again soon; there was almost always a way, even if you had to mangle reality a little to achieve your ends, and besides: As a temporal agent, she was used to spending time apart from her lovers; the reunion sex was always great, even though it could get a bit strange when for one half of the partnership, only hours might have passed while it could have easily been weeks or even months for the other - She had just been lucky that Ishani had been with her in her squad these last few years, and so, as a result, was missing her all the more

Having finally having escaped the clutches of the STCP evoked an array of mixed emotions in Katrina; she was of course glad to be free, but her liberty came at the price of leaving Max to an uncertain fate at the hands of Brittany (or whoever the hell it was that was running things there); and while she was confident Jay and the others would find a way to rescue him, she had no idea what was going to happen after that - The prospect of a future as a mother again after all these years was daunting; she just hoped that Ishani would be able to adapt to not quite being the centre of her universe once she was reunited with Max
And then there was Jay...
She still wasn't entirely sure about her ex(?)-husband, old habits dying hard, after having spent just over seventy years hating him for what she thought he had done to Max, but she was relieved to find the man she had loved so much wasn't the monster she had been led to believe, and ...damn it, it was good to see him again!
Would he want contact or involvement, she wondered, with her... their son?
If she were certain he hadn't changed too much in his intervening six hundred years and might still make a decent parent, then there couldn't be too much harm in it; although she was unsure about whether or not the 'Dwarf was a good enough place to raise a child, on account of it being packed with dangerous creatures and at the centre of far too much action; so Jay might not get to see as much of Max as he might like if she decided to leave
Perhaps she and Ishani would buy that farm they had always laughingly joked about and he could visit them there - Jay could even bring his new girlfriend along too, Kay smirked
What the hell was he doing with her?
Sure, she looked good, if skinny was your kinda thing, but Kay had yet to see any redeeming features in the woman; although she must have some somewhere if Jay had wanted to hop into bed with her - Maybe it was just the sex?
Looking at Cassandra still sobbing pitifully, Kay felt guilty for having thought that; perhaps, she reflected, they were like chalk and cheese - sometimes relationships like that just work...

"Bing Bong" Holly chimed, interrupting her train of thought "There's another one of those quantum thingy disturbances going on at the accommodation decks"
Jay glanced up, catching Katrina's eye and hastily looking away, obviously torn between doing what was right and what needed to be done
"Yeah, yeah" Kat smiled, shouldering her pulse rifle and nodding in acknowledgement to a look from Hoshi, her squad lead "We're on it - Drop her off down the medi-bay and meet us there Jay"

- - - - - - - -

It didn't take long for Jay to join her and the other Enforcers on the accommodation decks, or for the two of them to locate the Doombringer once the squad had split to perform a two-by-two sweep of the area; although Kay had to admit that Cassandra's concept of a humiliating death seemed almost pedestrian in comparison with the bondage and dog milk affair they had succeeded in preventing

After a brief struggle, Jay succeeded in severing the extension cable linking the Doombringer with the dimensional portal, the cable whipping back into the inky darkness of the gateway, which disappeared as the creature collapsed to the floor

<snip>
Jay turned around.
The doombringer was getting to it's feet.
“Backup power online” it said “Weapons at 100%. Activating beserk mode...”
“That...doesn't sound good...” Jay muttered.
“What now?” Katrina asked
“Erm...run?”
</snip>

Yep - The old Chrysler magic was still there!
Kay calmly unshouldered her pulse rifle, and pinged her location to the other members of her squad, before opening up with a burst of neutron destruction, staggering the Doombringer and knocking it back a pace or two before it dropped to all fours, an array of weaponry suddenly erupting from it's back
"Kat" Jay yelled as Jelena shot out of the room "We need to get out of here!"
Kay rattled off another burst and dived out of the way of a riposte from one of the Doombringer's cannons - a beam of some blue / white energy that she didn't recognise; probably part of the maser family or some other similarly lower tech weaponry
Rolling to her feet she fired another burst
"Are you going to smegging well help or not?" she snapped at Jay who quickly fumbled for his rifle as Kay, constantly moving, dodged another bast and fired a return salvo, two more bursts simultaneously hitting the Doombringer and disabling one of it's cannons as Hoshi and his partner arrived

With the concentrated firepower of four veteran Enforcers, the Doombringer soon succumbed to their marksmanship and tactical prowess, leaving it's wreckage, laid twisted and smoking on the floor
Hoshi frowned
"Too easy" he grunted "Everyone out!"
Wordlessly, the Enforcers turned and filed out, Jay hurriedly following in their wake, his old STCP training kicking in without him even really being aware of it
They had barely made it through the door and into cover before the remains of the Doombringer exploded, the detonation momentarily lighting the corridor up in stark relief before the shockwave hit, near deafening everyone
"Shit" Jay coughed, waving smoke away and shaking his head to try and clear his ringing ears "Good call Hoshi!"
His old friends face softened into a smile
"Standard procedure now" he nodded "Almost everyone who builds one of those class three droids incorporates a booby trap"
"Huh" Jay grunted "That's a new one on me"
"Came in about twenty years back" Kay interjected "Don't know why management didn't come up with it before"
Jay wrinkled his nose
"From what I hear, Brittany will have had a reason"
Hoshi grunted "After all that we were told about her and the paradoxes, I still can't believe she's pulling the strings"
Jay's communicator chimed
"Yep?" said breezily
"Jay? Phil. Listen: Did you find the Doombringer?"
"Yeah" Jay smiled "All dealt with"
"You destroyed the construct then?"
Jay peered around the door into the devastated room beyond
"I'm looking at it's wreckage now"
There was a pause
"Shit" Phil hissed
"That's not a good thing is it?" Jay asked guardedly
"No, it's not; I've been talking to Bill about the Doombringer - Best I can gather is that the constructs are merely the front end; they're probes, weapons, it's tools if you like... The real business end of the Doombringer is beyond the singularity gateway"
"And...?"
"What you destroyed was just the first probe - It'll have learned your tactical style and established the technological level of your weaponry; the next construct it fields will have evolved... it'll have adapted to meet the level of resistance it's going to face from you!"
"Smeg's sake" Jay swore softly "How do we stop it?"
"Smegged if I know" Phil replied "I haven't even invented the damn thing yet! - Pretty nifty piece of kit though, huh?"

<tag/>
Anyone got any ideas about how to deal with this?