"A Blast From the Past"
                                  Part Six

                    AD 1989, that is 2364 Galactic Year

[Captain R/C]

    "We have time?" asked Cappy.  "To prepare??  How can we possibly prepare
when a force dome disruptor is disrupting our force dome!"
    "We can pack and head for the hills," remarked Flip brightly, only to
recieve a nice ripe tomato squished all over his face.  Cappy laughed, and
wiped the tomato guts off of his hand.
    "Perhaps there is a way,"said Nomad.  "Joshua, see if you can get a fix
on that frequency.  We could disrupt the sine-wave so that the beam, instead
of penetrating, will drill through the dome AND bounce off at the same time.
They'd be crazy if they didn't shut down the machine with all those beams
bouncing in every direction.  Even if they left it on, it would have a chance
of destroying the cannon itself and hopefully their ship with it!"
   "Got it," reported Joshua.  "Try 406.325 Gigahertz."
   "Ok," said Nomad, "jam the gun with as much power as you can spare using
that frequency."
   "What if it doesn't work?" asked Larsbaan.
   "Do you have a better idea?"
   "Not at the moment, but I'm working on it."

[Nomad of Norad]

    "Jamming," said Joshua.
    "We had better get out of here anyway," said Nomad. "But we had best take
with us anything that might be useful to Caldon."
    "They've changed the frequency," said Joshua.
    "So they thought of that one, eh?" said The Flip.
    "Changing to new frequency," said Joshua.
    "Keep at it," said Nomad. "Come on guys!" He quickly left the room. They
followed him down the corridor, saw him duck through a door. They caught up
with him as he came rushing back out pushing an empty cart in front of him,
the kind that consists of stacked bins that you put papers and books into.
They followed him to his personal library.
    The room was huge, and the selection of books would make any sage drool.
Nomad scooped a microscroll reader and several microscrolls, books, and sets
of notes off a table in the middle of the room and dumped them into the cart.
    "Joshua," Nomad said, "list all the books on the Ancients and anything
else related. Split the list three ways according to... uh... that is, group
them according to where they are in the room. Print that."
    Thin pages came up out of a slot in the table. Nomad yanked them up and
handed one to each of the his guests. Then he ran out of the room like a
dieter having a Big Mac attack.

    Nomad erupted out of the back of his house and ran to the skycar parked
there. He opened it and jumped inside. He brought up the autopilot and preset
a course on it. When it was signalled, the car would take off straight up for
ten kilometers and then head off as far and as fast as it was able.
    He jumped back out, closed up the car again, and ran like a wildman back
into his house.

    "It's taking too long to find the books!" said Cappy.
    "Yeah," said The Flip. "There are no little number stickers on the spines
like they have at public libraries.... How does he expect us to find the books
quickly?"
    "I'll tell you approximately where each is on the shelves," said Joshua,
"just make sure you check off each one as you get it."

    Nomad ran into the room where the transmutor was. He had been studying it,
deap-scanning it, and running every test he could on it.
    He gathered up all the notes on it and piled them on top of the large cart
it had been layed onto. Then he ran over to a wooden wardrobe cabinet, threw
the doors open, and then ran back to the transmutor and pushed it into the
cabinet. Amazingly, the huge device fit inside the cabinet, even though the
cabinet was only as large as a soft-drink machine.
    He emerged back out of the cabinet and ran back out of the room.

    Nomad suddenly ran back into the library and joined the other three.
    "Ah, there you are," said Cappy.
    "How goes it?" asked Nomad.
    "We've got most of them now," said The Flip.
    "Good," said Nomad, taking a moment to catch his breath. "Joshua, is there
anything else we've forgotten?"
    "There's Larsbaan's microscrolls, in his room," said Joshua.
    "I'll go get them," said Larsbaan. He quickly left.
    "Joshua, how much longer do we have before the force dome fails?" asked
Nomad.
    "I estimate just over nine minutes," said Joshua.
    "I have preset my skycar to launch on your signal," said Nomad. "Send it
off as soon as the force dome collapses. Also, I want you to teleport
some things in three different directions, in rapid succession, as soon as the
dome goes. Pull something that is most expendable out of storage for this,
anything, as long as it has enough mass that they will think it was us."
    "Understood," said Joshua.
    "I think we've got everything," said Cappy, piling one last book into the
cart.
    "Double check the lists," said Nomad. "Joshua, are you sure there isn't
something we missed?"
    "Checking," said Joshua. A few seconds later he said, "You got
everything."
    "Good," said Nomad. He went to the cart and quickly rolled it out of the
room. "Tell Larsbaan to meet us in the lab."
    "He has anticipated that," said Joshua, "he's already there."

    The three emerged into the lab.
    "Where's the transmutor?" asked Cappy.
    "And where's Larsbaan?" asked The Flip.
    "In here," said Nomad, pushing the cart into the cabinet. They followed
him, emerging into a room that was clearly larger than the lab. The walls were
full of large sunk-in backlit circles that were positioned geometrically. Some
of them were grouped in hexegonal patterns, others in rows. In the center of
the room there was a six-sided control console with a transparent cylinder in
the center. This cylinder had something like a plastic sculpture in it.
    "A TARDIS!" exclaimed The Flip. "I thought they were fictional!"
    "They are," said Nomad, "this is a TARDIS replica. I made it as an
amusement for myself, building this interior in a large pocket dimension. Then
I figured out how to make the thing take off and fly, like the one on TV. It
works, just not using the same... uh... technology as the fictional one."
    "Oh," said The Flip.
    Nomad stepped back out of the pseudo-TARDIS. "Joshua, time-check: How much
longer till the force dome collapses?"
    "Just under five minutes," said Joshua.
    "Good," said Nomad. "Opaque the force dome now. Alert us at each minute,
at thirty seconds, and then give a countdown starting at the ten-second mark."
    "Understood," said Joshua.
    Nomad turned and re-entered the pseudo-TARDIS.
    "Ok guys, let's go secure the transmutor, I don't want it rolling around
in here and doing damage." Nomad lead them out of the console room and into
the room the transmutor was now stored in.
    "Nomad," said Cappy, "we are going to run off and leave Joshua at the
mercy of a bunch of Caldon's people? Remember what happened to him LAST time
they got in!"
    "Oh, but I have added alot of surprises since then!" said Nomad. "They
won't get anywhere NEAR him without a fight!"
    "I hope so!" said Cappy.
    "Attention," came Joshua's voice from outside the TARDIS, "a second ship
has just decloaked outside the force dome."
    "We have less time than we thought!" said Nomad. The four quickly began to
lash the cart down.
    "They are setting up another force-dome disruptor gun," said Joshua a
moment later.
    The four men finished securing the cart and its cargo, and ran back to the
console room.
    "They have activated the second disruptor gun," said Joshua. "Revising
countdown. We now have about seventeen seconds left."
    Nomad and Cappy exchanged glances.
    "Fifteen seconds," said Joshua.
    Nomad reached for a red lever on the console and threw it, closing the
pseudo-TARDIS outer doors. Then he threw a black lever and the big transparent
cylinder in the center of the console began to bob up and down. A sound almost
like huffing and weasing -- or more like the sounds made if someone ran a nail
back and forth down a length of piano wire, recorded it, and played it back at
various speeds at the same time -- could be heard. Over this, Joshua was
counting down from ten seconds. He reached about five seconds when the lab,
visable on the screen in the console room, suddenly dropped away. The second
floor of Nomad's home flashed past, a nice little indoor park, then the
barrelled glass roof flashed by. In the dim light, the rectangular house could
still be seen below them when the TARDIS suddenly shook violently. There was
a sensation like that when an upward bound elevator reaches it's next stop.
    Suddenly the dimness outside vanished, and the TARDIS shot upward again,
almost as violently. Everyone picked themselves up off the floor.
    "What happened?" asked The Flip.
    "We got hung up on the inside of the force-dome," said Nomad, "then it
collapsed and let us free."
    "Oh," said The Flip.
    Cappy got up, rubbing his head where he'd hit it. "We have to do this
again some time."

         *         *         *         *         *         *         *

    The group from the first ship rushed towards Nomad's house as the second
ship took off to chase the skycar. As the men got close to the house, panels
along the top section dropped back and slid aside. Suddenly the sky was full
of translucent spheres, darting about and firing on the invaders. Several
kilozap blasts immediately obliterated the two force-dome disruptor canons.
    Within moments, even before most of the aliens had reached the entrance,
their personal force fields collapsed from the repeated hits. As soon as each
failed, its wearer was teleported five or more kilometers away.
    Three invaders made it to the entrance, which was firmly closed. They
tried blowing it open with blasters, but the door was magnetically sealed.
One of them was wearing powered armor, he tried forcing the doors open. It was
a moment before the locking mechanism broke, then the man slid the doors open
and the three entered. Some of the spheres joined them inside before they
could get the door closed. The man shot the door machinery with his blaster so
the doors couldn't be opened again to let more spheres in.
    They tried to shoot the spheres, but the spheres moved too fast to be hit,
and continued to fire at them. The men managed to destroy two of the spheres,
but gave up and decided to make a run for the computer room. If they could
destroy or disable the computer, maybe the spheres would quit.
    One of the men's force field failed as they turned to enter another
corridor and he was instantly teleported out. The two remaining men ran to the
door to the computer room. Then another force field failed and suddenly there
was only one man left. He got to the door, forced it open, and suddenly was
staring at a force curtain in the doorway! He fired at the force curtain
several times without result.
    "Nice try," said Joshua over the sound of kilozap blasts. Suddenly the
lone invader's force field cut out and he was teleported away. Then the main
force dome went back up.




    Up in orbit in the pseudo-TARDIS, Nomad and friends stood around the
console room, bored.
    "Wouldn't they have come at us by now if they had detected us leaving?"
asked The Flip.
    "I would assume so," said Nomad, "though they could just be sitting out
there, cloaked, waiting for us to do something..."
    "Such as?" asked Cappy.
    "I dunno," said Nomad, "what SHOULD we do next? We can't start the attack
on Caldon without K-Bear. His must be the first ship to attack."
    "And why is that?" asked The Flip.
    "Well," explained Nomad, "his ship was hit by Caldon's secret weapon, the
Past Blaster. We have a device tied into his ship's shields that will reverse
its effect next time it is used on him. Right after that, we plan to destroy
the device so he can't use it on the other ships."
    "Ah," said The Flip.
    "Wasn't Pla'anook and friends looking for him?" asked Cappy. "Shouldn't
they have found him by now?"
    "Yeah," said The Flip, "we haven't heard from them in a couple or days."
    "Yeah," said Nomad. "Its been giving me sleepless nights."
    "Well, we may be able to find K-Bear rather easily," said Larsbaan. All
eyes suddenly were on him.
    "How?" said Nomad.
    "From what I've heard, it sounds like he was shot down with a device I
helped develop... and that I designed some sabotage into." Larsbaan smiled
craftily.
    "Sabotage?" asked The Flip.
    "I designed it so I could throw a hidden switch on it, and it the remote
control transeiver on it would self destruct next time they tried to fire it."
Larsbaan looked glum a moment. "But it was supposed to abort firing when that
happened, and apparently it didn't." He was noticably not looking directly at
anyone as he said this. After a moment longer, he said, "but at least they
can't use it again. Not controlled from orbit, anyway."
    "So, where is this device," said Nomad. "And what is it?"
    Larsbaan started looking around him, at the trunks and the storage cases
around the room. "Would you have any maps aboard?"
    "Right over here," said Nomad, going to and opening a trunk next to the
scanner screen. He stood aside and Larsbaan started pulling maps out one at a
time and taking quick glances over them, then putting each back. Finally he
took one and rolled it out on the floor. Nomad placed books and other small
objects at the corners.
    "There." Larsbaan pointed to a small box canyon at the edge of a dense
forrest. "It is hidden behind one wall of this box canyon. We should be able
to determine where Koala's shuttle went down. That will be recorded within the
device."
    "But won't they have gone there to check the machine?" The Flip looked
from the map to Larsbaan.
    "Not likely," said the defector. "I designed it so when it blew out it
would look at their end as if the entire machine was destroyed."
    "Well," said Nomad, stepping from the map to the console, "I have the
coordinates." He punched buttons for a moment, than went to another panel on
the console and threw the black lever. The column in the center of the console
bagan to move again.

         *         *         *         *         *         *         *

    K-Bear finished taking stock of what repairs were still to be made. It was
still going to be awhile. He stood a moment, leaning on one retractable wing,
wondering why no-one had found him yet. Then he heard a sound like the huffing
and wheasing of some mechanical dragon. Then a wardrobe cabinet appeared in
the canyon, next to him. He turned, amazed, and stared at the wonderous box.
It was Nomad's TARDIS replica! With glee he took quick steps towards it, ready
to pull the doors open and step inside when the doors were pushed open from
inside.
    Out stepped a Kryptonusian! He turned and ran in fright. "Well," the alien
was saying, "the device should... be..." he stopped as he saw the blur of tan,
and saw the shuttlecraft beside him. Nomad came out and saw the shuttle too,
and then saw K-Bear rush out of it with a blaster!
    "No!" said Nomad. "He's on our side! He's a defector!"
    K-Bear stood frozen a moment, then lowered the gun to his side.
    "Thank you," said Larsbaan to Koala.
    "This is nuts!" said Nomad. "We show up here to because some device here
is supposed to tell us where K-Bear is, and he's right here in the bloomin'
canyon!"
    "Wild!" said Cappy, emerging from the TARDIS, followed by The Flip.
    "Yes," said Larsbaan, he then turned back where he'd been heading before.
"Now, as I was saying, the device is over here." He arrived at the conyon wall
and looked for the opening stud.
    "But we've found K-Bear," said Cappy. "Why consult the machine now?"
    "Oh there are other interesting things in here," said Larsbaan. "A nice
big mural on one wall, and a number of small items hidden away in the walls."
He found and punched the indentation, and the opening... uh... opened. "This
chamber has been here for centuries. We ripped out the machinery that had been
here before, but it was just... well... it was something put there to be
taken, so we'd think we had taken what was there while something else went
unnoticed."
    "I've got the items" said Koala. All eyes were on him.
    "Oh?" said Larsbaan. "Well, we'd better get them all into the TARDIS then.
After that, we can look around. I'm sure you'll find the mural interesting, in
a historical sort of way."

    Soon they had all the items moved into the TARDIS. Meanwhile Larsbaan
checked the hidden chamber to make sure Koala hadn't missed anything, there
was nothing. Before long, the others joined him in the chamber.
    "Ah," Larsbaan said, "there you are."
    "Now, what was this you wanted to show us?" Nomad cast his gaze around the
chamber.
    "This," said Larsbaan, indicating with his arms the mural. "It represents
how all this Voontokki hardware came to be on this planet. The ones on this
ship were the last of Ancients after the race was wiped out almost literally
overnight... 100,000 years ago."
    "So," said Cappy, "this one ship... came here?"
    "At relativistic speads," explained Larsbaan, "their warp drive having
been disabled. They came from somewhere at or near the edge of the Galaxy,
arriving here just about fifteen centuries ago."
    "And they set up all this stuff here?" Nomad swept his gaze over the
emptied chamber. "Why?"
    "Near as we could tell," said Larsbaan, "it was so we could fight or
defend ourselves against... something... apperently, whatever it was that
massacred the other Voontokki."
    "But... does this... whatever-it-is that killed them... effect our mission
to defeat Caldon?" asked The Flip.
    "No, not particularly." Larsbaan stood silent a second, looked back at the
mural, and then again at the group. "This was written in so we would have
material to base later stories on."
    "Ah," said Nomad.
    "Oh," said Cappy.
    -- POOF!! -- Suddenly he Insomniak appeared in the chamber.
    "Sleep!" said The Flip.
    "Flip!" said Sleep. He looked around. "Nomad! Cappy! K-Bear! Boy am I glad
to see you guys!" He noticed Larsbaan. "Uh... th-th-then again..."
    "He's a defector," said Nomad, "he's on our side."
    -- POOF! -- Suddenly another man materialized.
    "Hello," said Nomad to the new man, "who are you?"
    "I'm Terzlux. I'm the one who has been---"
    "Been flinging me way the heck all over the map!" exclaimed Sleep.
    "Sorry," said Terzlux, "but Caldon's cronies were after him."
    "For what?" asked Cappy.
    "He knows something Caldon wants to know." Terzlux pulled out a small flat
box from his tunic and glanced at its screen. "I don't have time to explain
any more than that, their coming near!"
    "Into the TARDIS, quickly!" Nomad ran for the exit, the others rushed
after him. Running like frightened sheep.

    "What about my shuttlecraft?" asked Koala as the group reached the TARDIS
and the rest entered.
    "You can fetch it later!" said Nomad, motioning quickly for him to come.
They dashed in, and the TARDIS vanished as Caldon's men clambored over the top
of the little box canyon and down inside.
    "Blast it! We lost him again!" said the leader of the group.
    "Caldon's not going to like this..." said an underling.

[Koala Bear]        [Title: large sigh ]

    As the pseudo-tardis accelerated upwards, koala looked at the main screen,
now showing the aft view.
    As Koala was looking, he noticed a large group of small shuttles that he
remembered originated from Caldon's ship.  All of a sudden, they all
opened fire at the small canyon.  Just before the canyon was out of sight, he
heard a loud explosion.  All eyes turned toward the screen just in time to see
a large fireball engulf the area where the box canyon was.  It was completely
wiped off the map, save for the tremendous forrest fires that it started.
    "Boy, they really meant business," Sleep [The Insomniac] said, after a
long moment of silence.
    "Boy, K-Bear," said Nomad.  "I'm glad we got to you first."
    Koala just stood there, bleary eyed, halfway in shock at the scan he had
just witnessed.