Metafire

These were bombs. Using them as a power supply was one thing. But these were the terrorists, and they were the ones that killed all those people. They had to be stopped. Even this close to them, Randy couldn't tell what they were doing. He resolved to continue to act peaceable. He knew that winding up in the condition of that FBI agent would leave him in no position to take action. But what action would he take? How would he stop this? Should he just destroy everybody, himself included, and, in that way, put an end to this?

Then Randy realized his power. The same way these guys were threatening by killing and destroying, he could do the same. He could hold the hostage-takers hostage. It would take great resolve. He would have to be willing to die. He would have to actually be willing to die. But Randy had done this before. To hell with it, he was willing to die.

The problem, then, was to find something he could do that could destroy the entire colony. He could get a knife or any number of knife-like objects. But he had no idea whether these could pierce to space. He knew just holding one person hostage would probably have no affect. He had to find a way to threaten everybody. He thought about the bombs, but he realized he had no idea about how to set them off. He thought about the steering rockets, but even steering the colony into something was too uncertain and time consuming for him. He would have to wait, and watch, to see what he could use to destroy the entire colony in a single swift action. Without that, he couldn't cause these people to do anything. He might as well remain a piece of baggage: the guy, Jack, travelling along.