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Tristan had been feeling better, not that he'd admit that to Alex. He'd fought the sedative as hard as he could, but he'd fallen asleep. He'd been locked in nightmares for an interminable time. Him pleading with Alex to take him back, to protect him from the universe.

Like he needed anyone's protection. He'd demonstrated that by killing the guards that got in their way, but had Alex even noticed? Of course not. He'd looked at him and the dead bodies impassively. Not even a smile.

And then it had been clear neither of the humans had bothered reading the details of the plan he'd left for them. The column, why were they bothering putting the explosives on the columns when there was something already next to it that would generate even more destructive force.

The first one had been an earth hauler. Big machine, powerful, capable of digging deep holes with ease. He'd read up on them while they were busy they weren't something he'd ever researched, but now he thought he should add them to his list. Once they were back home, once this forsaken job was finally done he'd start researching construction vehicles.

He'd considered explaining how using the explosive to detonate the vehicles' power core would be more effective, but Alex had given him this look. Oh he'd tried to make it all neutral and impassive, but Tristan had seen the disappointment in his eyes. The 'why can't you do anything right.' Look.

He was still angry about the stims. Like he knew what the nightmares were like, how helpless he felt. He worked much better by not sleeping.

He'd almost commented on the types of explosives they were using. He'd left them a list for that too, hadn't they bothered reading anything? Or did they just look at the pictures? If Alex hadn't tricked him with the sedative he would have explained everything.

He almost complained, but on this one he gave Alex some leeway. He didn't like depending on finding what he'd need on site. He liked to prepare ahead of time, and on this planet there was no telling what had been available.

He eyed the explosive the human was attaching to the column. He could tell exactly what kind, actually.

How Alex could have been unsure he'd find everything he needed where construction equipment was beyond Tristan. Sure he'd have to assemble the ingredients, but he could easily fabricate explosives far more powerful than what they were using.

He'd killed more guard after that, and pointed out more equipment they could use to cause the destruction and gotten that same look. After the third time he'd had enough. He'd killed the guard and then went off on his own. Let them play with their toys, he was going to show them how it was done.

The first thing he grabbed was a portable toolkit, which he clipped to his belt next to the holster for his Azeru. Then a bag of calibrators, sensors, a bunch of wires and he started working as he headed for the opposite end of the building. He didn't want either of them showing up and complaining he wasn't following them.

He wasn't a follower, he was a leader.

"Really?"

Tristan sighed. "Go away." Why did he have to show up now of all times.

"I've got to say you do have the 'follower' look down. Head bowed, eyes downcast, waiting to be told what to do. Did I really raise you like that?"

He ignored him, tried to block his voice.

"You do know that isn't going to work, right? That human is going to find you next to one of those things crying because it didn't explode like you wanted to."

Tristan snapped the neck of the guard who rounded the corner on them. He looked at his father over his shoulder, the man was staying well out of reach, and lobbed the body at his feet.

"If you don't shut up, that's going to be you."

"Right," his father said with derision, "Because you haven't tried that what, a few hundred times already? And I'm still here."

"Those were the drugs. This is real. I kill you now you're going to stay dead."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that."

Tristan stopped and turned. "Come closer. If you're so confident I can't kill you."

His father sighed, a sound Tristan remembered well. His father had never been happy with anything he did. "Boy, don't you have a job to do?"

"I'd rather deal with this now, instead of having you comment on everything I do. You can't appreciate anything I do, can you." He raised the partly assembled. "You don't care how complex one of these are, do you? The years of reading I had to do to teach myself how any of this worked. No, you just want me to hide from the universe under a tree. How is a tree going to protect you from the universe father?"

He turned and started walking. His father was impossible. He'd spent years trying to learn everything the old man had to teach. Survival, not depending on anyone, and the day he'd learned everything, he'd wanted to change the rules.

"You couldn't leave me, Tristan."

Now it was Tristan who sighed. "We went over that then. You had nothing left to teach me."

"I didn't train you so you'd abandon me, boy."

"Then maybe you should have taken your own lessons to heart, Father. Never depend on anyone."

"Like you don't depend on that human?"

Tristan had rounded on his father, gun in hand, pointed at his face. "Do not ever say something like that about Alex."

His father smiled. "Aren't you a little touchy about him? For someone who isn't supposed to depend on him? What did I teach you, boy?"

Tristan looked at the gun, at what he was about to do.

"Well?"

"Attachments only tie you down so the universe can find you more easily."

"So what are you doing with him?"

Tristan put the Azeru back in its holster. "It isn't like that. We're not--I'm not--We're complicated." He turned and continued walking and focused on what he was making.

His father kept talking, running down the list of how Tristan had disappointed him. He almost turned around, went back looking for Alex. He wanted to feel his arms around him.

His vision blurred and he cursed himself. The human meant nothing to him, he reminded himself as he dried his eyes. He was just a tool.

His father snickered.

The device was finished before, and he was halfway through the second component of it when he reached the vehicle. This was a crane. It was compacted, every extension retracted so it could be parked here, but when in use it could reach thousands of feet in the air, and was powerful enough to lift this building if needed. To do that, it needed a powerful power core, and if one of those overloaded, the resulting explosion could take out half this side of the building.

The trick was to make sure he wouldn't be close by when it happened. That was where what he'd made came into play.

"Explain this to me."

Tristan sighed, again, as he removed the plating next to the power core.

"Boy, you were complaining that I didn't get what you were doing. Well, this is me trying. So explain it to me, impress me."

He put the plating down. "Power cores like this one have to be regulated. If they release all the power they contain, they're going to fry every component. But the reverse is also true, when it's being recharged, like it is here, the sensor needs to cut the power when it's full, otherwise it will just keep taking in power and eventually go critical." He located the regulator and placed the one he'd made next to it, connecting it before disconnecting the other one. "What I made will let more power go in, and keep it just at the point it would go critical until it receives the signal to let it overload."

He took out the partially completed device. "This is going to send the signal. They're all going to be on the same frequency, so that when I give the signal, they'll all explode and there's not going to be anything left of this building other than a hole deep enough to bury the station in it."

He put it away and closed the cover. "That's going to show Alex I know what I'm doing. Those drugs are out of my system, we can go home and put all of this behind us. Go back to the way things were."

He looked at his father who, of course, didn't look impressed at all. "You didn't even understand anything I said."

"Oh, I understood perfectly well, this isn't about the job, it's about that human, and how you care what he thinks of you."

"I don't," Tristan growled.

"Whatever you say, boy."

He finished the trigger as well as two regulators by the time he reached the next piece of equipment. This was was a permacrete fabricator. Basically just an overpowered fabricator with only one recipe in it and an output that could cover this entire city in the stuff under a day. Its power core wasn't anywhere near as powerful as the crane, but it was still more than the explosives Alex and Jacoby were using.

His father cleared his throat and Tristan had the Azeru out and had fired at the approaching guard before the human had registered Tristan shouldn't be here. Humans were so predictable. Tell them, 'no one is allowed in,' and they still need to come and ask if you should be here, instead of just removing you.

The new regulator was in. He replaced the plating and moved on to the next one.

Two dead guards, still an unimpressed father, later and the equipment carrier was modified. Another guard after that and he was working on another permacrete fabricator.

"You know," he said to his father. "You could at least show approval at how easily I killed them."

"Why? That's exactly how I taught you to do things. There's nothing to approve of, impress me and then I'll reward you."

There was no pleasing him, why did he even try?

The next piece of equipment to modify gave him pause. It was a high power cutter. It had been described as being able to cut through ten feet of permacrete without a problem, so he'd expected something of significant size, not something portable. Could something this size use a power core large enough to cause the explosion he needed? He thought the file on it had said so, but now he wasn't sure what it had said.

He was here, so he might as well modify it. The new regulator didn't fit inside so he had to leave it hanging out. Hopefully no one would notice it.

"Right, because a half-assed job never gets found out," his father offered. His version of an encouragement.

Tristan had gone halfway around the perimeter of the building, exchanging the regulators for his version on each of the vehicle or equipment that was next to a column, even if they weren't part of his initial plan. After all, overkill was never a bad thing. He'd lost track of how many guards he'd killed, each time he'd ben surprised there had been any still alive. Was there a fabricator somewhere in here that just spit out another guard when he killed them?

He was putting the plating back on another crane when there was the muffled sound of a distant explosion. Tristan raised his head. For it to be muffled like that it was on the other side of the building. Not one of Alex's explosives. At that distance he wouldn't have heard it. Nor would it have created the shock wave he could hear approaching through the corridors.

He closed his eyes and looked away as the wave of dust passed him. One of his? Had someone tampered with his work? He growled. If he found out who it was, he was going to rip them to pieces. It had been careful work, precise work, not something--

"Keep telling yourself that, boy."

He wanted to tell his father what he thought of his constant belittling, but the dust was still flying. When it settled enough for him to open his eyes he turned to where his father had been standing before and there was someone there, walking toward him, but he wasn't his father. He also wasn't a guard. Even as a silhouette, Tristan recognized him. He was intimately familiar with his body.

"What are you doing?" The anger in Alex's voice wasn't what made Tristan's hand tremble. Made his body react to seeing him as if they had been apart for ages. The tightness in his heart echoed the one in his groin.

"I--I. I'm getting the job done." Why did he sound like he had to explain himself?

"Really? By setting off the explosion while we're still in here?"

"Alex, that wasn't me." He took out the detonator, which was still off. "I didn't send the signal." There was a second muffled explosion. Not as powerful this time. A weaker core. From a smaller piece of equipment.

Tristan swallowed.

"You screwed up," his father said, "just like I said you would."

"Why couldn't you just follow me like I told you?"

"I don't have to do anything you tell me." Tristan's anger build. He had enough of being told what to do, that he was always wrong. "You're the instrument, not me. You do what I tell you. I am fed up with you thinking I'm incapable of doing anything. I made you what you are, remember that!"

"What are you talking about I don't--"

"Alex!" a voice came from behind where he stood. "We need to get out of here!" Jacoby appeared from a corridor. "Now! Those two explosions sent a signal wave out, our explosives are about to blow!"

"That can't be right," Tristan said. "They're power cores."

Jacoby stopped in shock. "You blew up power cores?"

"Of course, they're here, might as well use them."

"A core explosion sends an energy wave out! Haven't you ever studied anything about core power storage and why you never detonate one of them near any kind of electronic equipment?"

Tristan started to protest, but it came back to him now. "Oh." How had he not remembered that?

"Run! Before this whole place comes down on our heads."

Jacoby didn't wait. As the dust came from the corridor he was running again. Tristan saw the look Alex gave him and that, more than the fear of being buried sent him running. He outpaced Jacoby, and was the first out of the building, putting his shoulder to the door and not caring about the pain. Alex wouldn't have to worry about the exit being blocked.

He could hear the other explosions and the building coming down. It wouldn't just be his makeshift explosive that would go now. Every power core regulator would be affected by the first two explosions and now any of them might explode. He turned when he was on the other side and saw the dust blow out the door.

Where was Alex? Was he trapped--

He took a step to go back inside when Alex became visible through the dust, with someone else behind him. He was safe. Tristan's heart slowed slightly, but then they came close enough he could make out their expression.

Jacoby's face was a mask of anger, but he only noticed it in the periphery of his awareness. It was Alex's expression that almost sent him running again.

"I'm sorry," Tristan pleaded. "I was trying to help. I wanted to show you I knew what I was doing. I'm better, I swear. Please, Let's just go home."

Even with the sound of a building coming down, Tristan heard Alex's word clearly, heard the disappointment in them.

"Why couldn't you just do what I told you to?"