"Disappearances Can Be Decieving." Part Four Mid 1989 AD, that is, Early 2364 Galactic Year [Nomad of Norad (continued)] The craft was about twenty meters long, a big white hull with red trim. It was an elongated oblate spheroid with two warp engines above it on curved- back white pylons. Pock marks dotted the surface and the hull was ripped open. "Well," said Captain R/C, "let's see what's inside." "Yeah," said Nomad. He glanced back at the rest of the members of the group. "It'd better be just me and R/C. You guys'll stay outside, could be hazardous in there." -< Inside the ship... >- "Well," said Nomad, "this was a fine ship. Pity." Indeed, it looked like a cross between Star Trek the Next Generation and Tron. There were no physical buttons or knobs, just panels with patterns appearing on them. Little power was left, so the patterns were barely coherant. They were barely there at all, blinking in and out. "Well, the flight deck is probably this way." R/C walked down the corridor and Nomad followed. Actually, it wasn't. It took them awhile, but they found the flight deck. "Hmmm," said Nomad as they entered the flight deck. There was a single, large seat in the middle of the room, and a control panel beyond that. Two smaller seats were behind it, but their panels weren't large. The panel in front of the big seat was wide. "Looks like this ship could be flown by one person." Captain R/C walked toward the main seat. "I just hope the pilot survived the..." he passed the seat and stopped. "OH MY GOD!" Nomad came quickly to R/C's side. He gasped, his eyes went wide, then clenched closed in anquish. The pilot was sprawled across the flight panel, dead as a dino. Beside him lay a staff that looked much like the one Pladgah had been described as having. But Nomad didn't notice that, all he noticed was that the dead pilot was young, very young. He couldn't have been more than eight years old! Nomad and R/C stepped out of the wrecked ship. R/C looked very sullen. Nomad was crying quietly. "Nomad? R/C?" asked Daggoth. "What's wrong? What did you find in there?" Nomad shot him a glance that told that they weren't going to talk about it. At least, not then. Maybe later, much later, once he got over the shock. "Let's get the hell out of here!" said Nomad, his voice overcome by anguish. They quickly left the scene. The three guys arrived at the dome. "Where are they?" said Pladgah. "This looks serious!" said Verilox, he walked over to the abandoned sensor-probe device and the other assorted equipment. "It looks like we may be too late." "Are you sure?" asked Pladgah. "Maybe they are all inside." He looked towards the dome. "No, if they were, why would they have left this scanning equipment unmanned? It is still on... hmmmm." He moved a control on the scanner console, widening the scanning radius to a few kilometers. He saw what appeared to be a wrecked spacecraft about five kilometers off. Walking away from it were several figures, going in the wrong direction if they were heading for the dome. "On the other hand, I think I may have just found them!" The group walked through the desert, walking in the direction the ship had been flying when it crashed. They had no other guide to finding the dome again, since Nomad had lost his hand-scanner during the teleport. "Hello!" said a voice from above, the group members all turned around and looked upwards. "Verilox!" said Nomad, as the three men landed. "Hello Nomad," said Verilox, "long time no see." "Are you involved in this thing?" asked Nomad "I am now," said Verilox. "Look, you guys are headed the wrong way if you are heading for the dome. I'll take you to it, real quick." The others stepped forward, eager for the help, but Nomad remained where he was. "I hope this doesn't turn out like with Dave of Dave TV." "Hey, don't hold that against me," said Verilox. "You should have been HELPing him, not interfering!" snapped Nomad. "I was misled, drastically." "That's no answer!" "It was a conspiracy! I didn't find out until too late...!" "I.... I...." Falling silent, Nomad just stood there. "Look! By the time I found out the truth, I had my hands full trying to stop that invasion! Someone was moving Russian helecopter gunships into our universe, I had to find the source and stop them!" "And you let that man be killed?!" "I told you, I had my hands full!" "Nomad!" interrupted Thx. "Drop it!" Nomad glanced at Thx and then back at Verilox. "I... I'm sorry." He joined the group. "Let's... let's go back to the dome now." Thx wondered about Nomad's behavior, this was not like him. He normally did not snap at people the way he had since he had come out of the ship. And now the way he was talking to this wizard. As far as Thx knew, Nomad had never met Dave, so why was he reacting like this? Verilox created another energy globule around all of them and they floated into the sky. [Dr. Depraved] Dr. Depraved whispered aside to THX-1138. "I know I'm just a paranoid shizophrenic and all, but do you think that POSSIBLY during the matter transfer when we teleported here, that somehow Nomad of Norad's mind went one way, and his body went the other?" "What exactly are you saying?" asked THX quizzically. "I mean, its entirely possible that Nomad teleported down, and his thought pattern became intermixed in the universal interconnectedness of hyperspace, and someone elses mind was switched into his brain! That might account for his behavior right now," the Doctor explained. "I think you're right," said Thx, "you ARE a paranoid schizophrenic." "Are you saying my conclusions are incorrect?" "No, I just think that you have been in the sun a bit to long. I think Nomad is just overworked from all the strain he's been under... and I think you DEFINITELY have been overworked... TOO overworked," THX finished. So, the energy globule zoomed through the sky, and alighted on the pad near the dome. The globule quickly disapated, and Verilox motioned toward the dome. Here you go, " he said. "This should do, I'll be around and about if you need me..." Nomad perked up. "So, where to now? Any suggestions?" [Nomad of Norad] "Well," said Pladgah, "I can get us inside the dome easily, past the defenses. I can project a force-dome around myself and others, shield us." "Yes," said Nomad, "but the tubes with the people in them vanished just before we did. Where do you supposed they went?" "Not far," said a voice, everyone whirled around to face an evil looking man with a Staff of the Ancients in hand. "But you won't find them!" He raised his Staff menacingly towards the group... "Oh?" said Verilox, re-appearing suddenly. "We'll just see about that!" He thrust forth his own Staff, and lashed out at the bad guy with a great fireball. "Hurry!" he yelled to the group. "Get inside and free those people!" He threw the man twelve meters with one fireblast and then pounced on him. "Hurry!" he yelled again. All save Nomad and R/C got under Pladgah's force-dome and rushed into the dome. Nomad and Cappy manned the sensor-probe and the R/C weapons. Meanwhile, the Mongra flew like a bat out of you-know-where over the Great Mountains and entered the Relihot Desert. (No, I am definately me, just effected by the shock of finding that dead youngster back there in the ship.) [Dr. Depraved] "...no no no! You're doing it wrong! You use the button on the left to fire, the handle on the right to rotate!" yelled Nomad at R/C, who was still trying to get the weapon controls down pat. Suddenly, a group of evil looking dudes burst in on the scene. They headed toward the group, but Captain R/C immediately reverted to his alter- personality of Rambo, and promptly blew them all away. "YYYAAAAHHHH!!!" he screamed and started auto firing at everything, shredding alot of the interior of the dome into liverwurst. Bodies went flying everywhere, and the bad guys started firing lightning bolts at the throng of Hexians. "Aim for their staves!" yelled the Doctor, "See if you can knock them out!" The weapon cannons turned and began to fire at them... [Captain R/C] (Nomad: Sheesh... wanna give up?!) [Nomad of Norad] [Title: (Rambo?!?!?! Oh puh-lease!) ] (What? Me give up? When I'm so close to finishing the story?) "Hurry, guys!" said Nomad into his communicator. "There's a stairway to the lower section, back to your left." He watched the blips that were the members of the group as they moved through the floor-plan representation of the top floor of the dome. They disappeared down the rectangle that represented the stairway and Nomad switched the sensor-probe to display the floor below. "There! Up ahead! It's the tubes! I count 15 units. The controls to revive them are to the back of the room." Nomad glanced at the small video display beside him, where Cappy was controlling a camera-drone to follow the group. Suddenly a repeating tone came from the sensor-probe. Nomad, surprised, glanced back at it. A small indicator at the corner of the screen told him something was detected on one of the scanner's other systems. He switched to short-range scan. "Yyyyipes! Looks like the Mongra is approaching at mach one!" He did a double take. "Yyyipes again! There's also a great big... flying saucer coming!" "Yeesh!" said R/C. "Talk about cliche's!" "Cliche' or not, it is definately coming this way! Guys," Nomad spoke at the communicator, "most likely they are coming to take the people in the tubes!" "Hey Nomad," said Cappy, having turned the camera-drone on one of the tubes, "look at this!" It was a boy of about eight, dressed in some kind of jumpsuit. "It looks like.... It is! It's the kid from the wreck!" For a moment, Nomad simply stared at the screen, his mouth dropped open. Finally, he closed his mouth. A look as of great relief flooding his face. "Yes! Of course!" said Nomad. "Just like Jocko and the Zygnic Mystic! Why didn't I realise!" A great SKWAAAAAK came from above. "Well!" said the evil mage. "My Mongra has arrived!" "YOUR Mongra!?" said Verilox. "You mean YOU sent the Mongra after Pladgah?" "Yes!" The bad mage threw two fireballs at Verilox, who paried them and threw one of his own. "Why? Why did you set it to follow Pladgah at the exclusion of all else?" Verilox threw a ball of lightning at the mage. "Well," began the mage, as he deflected the lightning ball skyward, "if I had gotten Pladgah before he became strong with the Staff, I'd have concidered myself lucky. Otherwise, I could see what Pladgah was up to through it. Keep tabs on it." "So, you control it?" "Yes." "With your Staff?" "Yes." The evil mage threw a small fireball at Verilox. "But you are weakening!" Verilox easily paried the fireball. "Oh?" The mage threw a stood back and threw a great fireball at Verilox, who ducked and then leaped at the mage and knocked the Staff from his hand. He then caused it to fly out of the mage's reach, towards Nomad. "Nomad! Quickly! Smash the Staff!" Verilox pummeled the mage. As the Staff landed near him, Nomad glanced about frantically for something to smash it with. The great flying saucer settled in above the dome. Nomad glanced at the scanner, switched it to sensor-probe the saucer. "They've dropped their shields!" Nomad yelled into the communicator. "They're gonna beam up the prisoners!" He glanced back down at the Staff, picked it up, and with all his might wacked it against the outside of the scanner. Once. Twice. Three times. The Staff broke into pieces, its nano-circuits ruined. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" screamed the mage. Suddenly the Mongra seemed to hesitate. It was no longer under anyone's guidance. It looked at the saucer, the nearest object to it, and blew several force-ten fireballs at it. "They've raised their shields again!" Nomad was elated. "The people are reviving." R/C looked up from the tiny video screen. Inside the dome, the tubes slid open. The fifteen people opened their eyes, looked around, sat up, stretched, and did the other sorts of things that persons awakening from stasis do. Dr D got a look at the Zygnic Mystic, who was a truly ravenously beautiful lady. "WOW!! What a truly ravenously beautiful LADY! WOW! HAAAA-CHA-CHA- CHA!" "Dr D, get a grip on yourself!" said Nomad over the commlink. The camera-drone turned from viewing Dr D and the Mystic and back to viewing the kid. The life monitor on his suspension module displayed two heart readings. He seamed to still be asleep. "He doesn't seem to be coming out of it," said Nomad. "Dr D, check on the kid here." "Kid?" asked Dr D. "There's a kid in one of the tubes?" "Yes, he's an extraterrestrial. He was the pilot of that wrecked ship." Dr D came to the tube containing the alien boy. "It could be that the suspension process effected him more strongly than the others. I am unfamiliar with the workings of this equipment. If it uses drugs in part of the hibernation process, then it could be because a child's body concentrates substances like drugs more than an adult's body would. It could also be that his alien physiology reacts differently to the hibernation process." The question became moot then, the lad moved his head, and then opened his eyes. The eyes had no whites, they were entirely redish-brown. They had golden colored lines radiating from the pupils like spokes on a wheel. "Now that everyone is awake," said Cappy, "it is best for them to all leave the dome. The guys in the saucer may figure a way to deal with the Mongra and be able to beam them up." "Yes," said Nomad. He looked up into the sky at the saucer, it had moved off a ways and the Mongra was still shooting fireballs at it. The saucer fired at it but that didn't faze the Mongra at all. "We had best get away from here completely." Verilox dragged the evil mage over in chains and sat him down near Nomad. "I suppose we will want to question him," said Verilox. "Yes," said Nomad. "Why did you capture these people?" "They were a threat to me. Had they worked together, they would have defeated me, so I got them one at a time." "And Jocko?" asked Cappy. "What about Jocko? Most of the others seam to be mystical types like Verilox here. Jocko isn't." "He knew something I wanted to know." "So, you made him appear to die, then... uh... 'collected' him?" asked Nomad. "How did you intend to learn this bit of knowledge from him? Interrogation? Chinese water torture? Mind probe device?" The mage remained quiet. "And what is your name?" asked Nomad. "Is it true you worked for The Villain?" Again the mage remained quiet. "His name is Lykrual," said Verilox. "We've fought before." At that point the people emerged from the dome. Verilox glanced over at them and then up at the saucer. "Well, we'd better get out of here," Verilox suggested. "With the combined power of the various mages here, we can teleport directly to the Hex." "Let's NOT leave my hardware here!" said Nomad. "Oh, no problem with that." Verilox motioned the others to hurry over. Suddenly the saucer shot up into the sky, having decided to give this up as a lost cause. The three-headed Mongra immediately followed it up. "Is the Mongra going to follow them all the way to space?" asked Pladgah. "Through space, Pladgah, that Mongra can go into space and even enter hyperspace!" stated Verilox. Nomad looked surprised. "A dragon with warp drive? Is the Mongra a cyborg or something?" "No, it is a creature that was altered with the Staff. I don't know how it was done, but that thing can do it without hardware. One of the lost skills of the Ancients." Verilox then adressed all the other people. "We are now going to teleport to CommHex. It will be a combined effort and we will bring this hardware along too." -< Back at the Hex, a few moments later: >- POOOOFF!!!! A group of about twenty-five people and alot of assorted equipment appeared in the middle of the main courtyard of the Castle. "Look! It's Jocko!" yelled a villager. Cries of "Jocko! Jocko has arrived!" were heard all around. Soon the various people in the group split up and walked away. Jocko was surrounded by the joyous crowd and taken off to an impromptu party. Nomad contacted Joshua and asked him to link teleports with the Hex and beam him and his hardware back to his house, but then he decided to invite Verilox and friends over. So, Verilox, Pladgah, and the alien lad came with him, but Dornji decided to return to his land. The evil mage Lykrual was taken by the Master of Puppets down to the dungeons, where he was chained up next to Mr Happy. And he was not... uh... happy about that. TTTTTTT H H EEEEEEE EEEEEEE N N DDDDDD T H H E E NN N D D T HHHHHHH EEEEEE EEEEEE N NN N D D T H H E E N N N D D T H H E E N NN D D T H H EEEEEEE EEEEEEE N N DDDDDD