"Time and Time Again" Part III Late 1990 AD, Mid 2365 Galactic [Nomad Of Norad] Back at Nomad's house, Nomad paced, waiting for the remaining members of the Intrepid Group to show up. Most of them had already arrived, but a few were still out there. The flying saucer was not nearby, at least. He quit pacing and headed for his personal library, thinking he should compare his memory of the disappearances of the two kingdoms those four years ago with the current records. Had something changed about them when Gary Wolfe and he unknowingly altered history? On the way there, he bumped into the little kid. "Ah, hello there," said Nomad, smiling. He just adored kids. "Hi," said the kid. "What's you're name?" "Nathan." "And how old are you, Nathan?" Nomad would have guess he was between five and seven. He wished he was better at judging a kid's age by his appearance, but he was improving. "Six." "Ah." Nomad playfully tussled the boy's hair. Nathan giggled, Nomad grinned. "Would you like to play a game?" asked Nomad. "Oh, yes!" said the kid. "Actually," said Joshua, "the line should be 'Shall we play a game?' followed by 'Let's play Global Thermonuclear War!'" Nomad laughed outright. Nathan just stood there looking at Nomad, he didn't get the joke. Noticing this, Nomad explained. "It's a line from a movie. I named Joshua after a computer in it." "Oh," said Nathan. Nomad led him to a hologram table. "Joshua, put up a menu of kids games." While Nathan looked at the list appearing in air, Nomad continued on to his library. He pulled out several sets of data-cubes and spent long moments skimming the files, then rereading certain parts more closely. There didn't seem to be much, if any, change. He checked other records about other matters of that year. There didn't seem to be anything odd. Nevertheless, he couldn't shake this fear that something would come back to haunt him. His worst fear was that it would come from completely out of left field. [The Flip] (Okay...time to add my touch of reality...buahaha!) Cappy and the rest of the tepid Intrepid Group looked at the scene of Nomad and Nathan on the theater screen, bewildered. "Whar's the action?" yelled Cappy at the on-screen Nomad, looking at drab books. "Yeah, what a bore of a flick this is," heckled Flip, putting his feet up on top of a theater chair so his new Nike Air's wouldn't have sticky gook on the soles. "Hey, at least Nomad said my name in the movie!" grinned The Fourth Doctor, a.k.a. Gary Wolfe. Sigmund threw his tub of popcorn at Gary. "Yeah, that was the worst part!" Mike McNeese, sitting in the back of the theater all by himself, yelled out, "Where are they showing `The Rookie'? I wanna see that Hispanic lady raping Dirty Harry!" "So do I!" piped Isaac from another side of the back of the theater. Flip got up and turned around. "Isaac," Flip said, "F*** off!" [Redstar] geez...this story is dying... I want to post, but I have absolutely NO IDEA where this story is heading! What happened to Cappy's new-fangled engine and the Hotel California? [Captain R/C] Now we're into space battles with a guy named Ed, so I quit... [Gabrielle A-Leen] [Title: AND, just to liven the story.... ] From the mists stepped a former frequent bit character actress, Gabrielle A-leen. "Yep, just when you thought I was dead, here I am back. Now what's going on here?" She then realized with a sinking feeling that no one here knew who she was or had any idea what she was talking about. She wanted tea. [Nomad Of Norad] Don't worry, I intend to explain everything in an in-story summary. Just hold in there. Actually, the way I look at it, the story is straight-forward. We have someone that want's Cappy's invention, or rather doesn't want US to have it. They are going to elaborate lengths to rid the world of this engine. As for all the stuff about time travel: ignore it, it's just something thrown in for assonance. It has no immediate bearing on the current goings on. All that is REALLY important, plotwise, at this point is that we have aliens that are ready to beam-up whole kingdoms if need be, but probably won't because it would draw unwanted attention to themselves. The trick is to find out WHY! What is so special about this engine? And what happened four years ago that caused the other kingdoms to get beamed up? It probably isn't important just now to know why those things happened, but merely to build up to a confrontation with the aliens... or something. Actually, all we probably need to do is build up to a confrontation with the aliens... everything else should begin flowing once that has gotten going... and maybe we'll be able to end the story soon afterwards. Heh. Knock on wood! [The Flip] Hey! A-Leen is here! What's up? Alright, a female user is here! (besides Shammy, who's busy with Josh) Let the party begin! [Redstar] Hey, Gabby..nice to see you here! What's wrong? The Park too boring for 'ya? [Cody Lockett] Well golly aren't we being nice today Redstar. Whats wrong with out of space stories Dude. Come now anything is possible in a story so lets have a little fun. [Redstar] >[Quoting of Cody Lockett's message deleted] Nice today? For whatever do you mean?????? [Gabrielle A-Leen] [Title: But, but.... ] REDSTAR is ALWAYS nice....even when he's RHPS-ing... Oh, but on with the story. Just dropped in. ciao [Nomad Of Norad] Before long, other users began to show up. People like The Flip, Vitali Kasmov, Kaos Kamikaze,and The Black Night came from all around. They had heard an adventure was in the works and decided to join in the fun. Then Devastator and Captain Isti showed up, with a large recording of some sort. Next, everyone grouped together in one of the larger rooms of Nomad's pseudo-TARDIS, again. They had a long meeting in which they tried to fathom what had happened before. "So," said Nomad holding up a sheet of paper, "to summarize...." "One: Some space-aliens want Cappy's new space engine. Question: Why? They probably don't NEED it... after all, they're as advanced, or more advanced, than we are. It seems more likely they want to get it from US so WE won't have it. So, what is so special about this engine that they don't want us to have it? "Two: The missing houses, and the missing kingdoms. Obviously both The Land of Oz and Cappy's missing house were taken by the same device, or at least something very similar. So, how is this engine of Cappy's tied in with the missing kingdoms of four years ago? Or is it simply that the same parties took both, but for different reasons? "Third: Cappy's alien, the one that took the time trip with him. What did it do?" He looked up. "Now, for THIS one we have a partial answer and I will get to it in a moment." He returned to his list. "Fourth: We have some crazy assassin after us. Is this even related to the alien threat, or did he just choose to go after us at the same as these confounded aliens? For that matter, why DID he go after us?" He paused to reflect. "Come to think of it, he's only gone after ME so far." His expression suddenly showed a look of a wild idea having formed. "Hey, what if I'M his target... not the Intrepid Group! This business about wanting to take us out one bye one might be a smoke screen, a red herring!" Another pause. "Nah...!" "You neeEEEver know," said Devastator. "Stranger things have happened," offered Captain R/C. "Nevermind," said Nomad. "Anyway... Fifth: Devy's space battle. Why go to all the trouble of catching the ARKENSTONE just so they can remote-control attack the SHADOW SPEAR?" "Well," said Devvy, "our fighters captured the alien that was remote- controlling her. We interrogated the little worm... before he died we managed to get out of him the fact that his superiors wanted the Voontokki hardware I have all about my ship." "Oh?" said The Flip. "And what kind of hardware is it?" "Well," said Devvy, "I have a super-spacedrive... it can take me to twelfth-level hyperspace while most vessels can only reach seventh, and it also has a few, interesting space-distorting effects. "Then there's the pocket-dimension machines. I have several planets and a number of artificial suns stuffed away in them." "What?" said Gary Wolfe, the Fourth Doctor. "You mean it's multidimensional? Like my pseudo-TARDIS?" "And mine," added Nomad. "Well..." said Devvy, "yes." [Redstar] [Title: Re: But, but.... ] >REDSTAR is ALWAYS nice....even when he's RHPS-ing... > > >ciao Just my nature, you know.... I just CAN'T help it! Yes, now, are we going to have the story going so that I can write an entry? This story is becomming SO complex...what happened to the secret-agent-like story about Cappy and his amazing engine??? [Nomad of Norad] "Well," said Nomad, "nevermind about that, did you find out *why* they wanted that hardware?" "He wouldn't say," said Devvy. "If he knew," he added. Nomad took a big breath, as if stealing himself up for what was to come. "Does anyone have any idea what they might have wanted it for?" "Maybe just to get it away from us?" suggested Cody Lockett. "Any other ideas come to mind?" said Nomad. After a moment, Keith aka Kang aka Mother_Box said "Maybe to move some planets around?" "I mean more specific than that..." said Nomad. After another moment of no more comments made, he said "Oh forget it, we'll probably find out later anyway. "Now," said Nomad, pulling a data-cube out of his pocket. He plugged it into a displayer. "Here is a bit of something I found in a book about unsolved mysteries." Up came a picture of a cave crammed full of jerry-rigged hardware that looked like it had been used for demolition practice. "This was found about three years ago by some mountain climbers right here at our favorite little mountain range." He looked towards Cappy, "...and it looks like Cappy's alien was behind whatever this was. Now, things had been disappearing for years around these parts, all sorts of hardware. Most of the missing equipment seems to have been incorporated into... that. Looks like the alien was stealing it to make some big superscience device or whatever, unfortunately -- or rather, fortunately, for us -- it all apparently blew up in his face. I guess that about wraps it up for Cappy's alien." "Are you SURE it was... my alien?" said Cappy, apprehensively. "Quite sure," said Nomad, "the equipment started disappearing soon after you arrived in the 2330's. Also, the remains of the dead alien look alot like the descriptions you gave me." "What happened to this hardware?" asked THX 1138. "Oh, it's still there," said Nomad, "though no one has been able to discover anything about it." "How does all of this tie in with our present crisis?" asked Black Knight. "I don't know that it does," said Nomad, "it might just be a red herring. In fact, it probably is." He switched to a picture of the alien's remains. Several people reacted with revulsion at the grisliness of them. Several people quickly looked away. "Sorry about that, should have warned you. Devvy, is this the same kind of alien you guys captured?" "Uh...." he gazed at the picture intently. "No, not even similar." "Hmmm," said Nomad, looking again at it, "I guess we can forget about it then." "Now," said Cappy to Devvy and Captain Isti, "what is this recording you have brought?" "We retrieved it from a wrecked spacehab out in Alpha Centauri's Oort cloud," explained Captain Isti. "What's an 'oart cloud'?" asked Nathan, the six-year-old. "It's sort of a big shell of proto-comets around a solar system. It is way, way out from it, and refuels the system's supply of comets every few eons or so. Something comes along, like a large moving space body, and pulls some of them out of orbit and into newer orbits through the star system." Captain Isti positioned the playback equipment and prepared to play the recording. He brought out several helmet-like devices and plugged what looked like fiber-optic cables from them into the player. "This recording is a full-senses type." "Hmph," said THX, "suddenly we're going cyberpunk with this story!" "Well, sorta," said Captain Isti. "Who's spacehab was this?" asked Keith. "It belonged to some fellow named Sen Taru," said Devvy. Koala Bear flinched at the mention of that name, but nobody noticed. "Who was he?" asked Nathan. "Near as we can tell," said Captain Isti, "he was some kind of time traveller." "What?!?" said Redstar. "Not MORE time travel in this story!" "He was recruited by parties in the 27th Century Galactic, from this century, trained there, and then assigned back to our century again," explained Captain Isti. "You know," said Nomad, "I once met the guy... briefly." "What's in the recording?" asked T4D. "You'll soon see," said Captain Isti. "It deals directly with the disappearances of the two kingdoms. Well, sorta directly." He looked around the group. "Who want to be the first five to experience it?" "I will," said Nomad. "I will," said Sigmund. "I will," said Redstar, and Captain R/C... and then Nathan. "Come on kid," said Sigmund, "let the older folks experience it first." "Count me in," said Gary Wolfe. "Ok, first off will be Nomad, Sigmund, Redstar, Cappy, and T4D." Captain Isti motioned them towards the five chairs set up for the occasion, and the five put on the five helmets. "Oh, and Redstar..." said Nomad. "Speaking of time travel, Wizard Pendleton himself was time warped!" "What?" said Redstar. "He told me this himself one day. He might have been more than 700 years old, but he came from the present century just like Sen Taru did. He was in a starliner that went into warp mis-phase." "I give up," said Redstar. "I'm beginning to think EVERYONE's been through timewarps." "Comfy?" quipped Devastator as he stood waiting to start the playback. Redstar and Sigmund nodded. Nomad simply gestured for him to start it. "Ok," said Devvy, "here goes!" He stabbed the starter stud, and the story started. The room seemed to grow dim, sensation ebbed, and the five saw... (Oh, one quick question: Who in the current Group knows Spanish? It's important.) * * * * * * * Late Summer in 1986 AD, 2361 Galactic [Consists of material originally written on Land of Oz BBS] [Plus some material, at the end, written on TLVX] [Original author's-names lost] [(Unknown writer)] Once upon a time there were four giants that where purple and pink. They had brains the size of New York. [(Unknown writer)] Well, they weren't REALLY pink and purple. At least, they weren't JUST pink and purple. Each of them had a smear of another color on their faces, just for identification purposes. "Lightbulb" had an orange nose to go with his purple cheeks and pink ears. "Aranchy" had blue lips. "Bullbreath" had crimson ears, and "Feenix" had huge, bristly, bright sunshiny yellow eyebrows. Their brains were the size of New York, but unfortunately, those brains just weren't very efficient. And a lot of the connections had never been made. So they appeared to be large, shambling, normally stupid giants. One fine day in August, they were walking around in the woods outside the Wizard's castle, doing normal stupid giant things like hitting rocks with their clubs, when they were suddenly surrounded by a large number of very small creatures. These creatures were pitiful. They were dressed in rags and tatters, and looked like they hadn't eaten in a goodly while. His blue lips fluttering, Aranchy said, "Duhuhuh....who are you, and what do you want?" A high shrill voice, emanating from the least shabby of the creatures, piped, "We're lost! We don't know what happened, but all of a sudden, the Emerald City just disappeared, and we found ourselves lost in this forest, and our lovely Munchkin city had vanished as well! Please, large and stupid giant, do you know how we can get back to the Land of Oz from where-ever this place is"? [Nomad Lurang (i.e. Nomad of Norad)] Aranchy leaned on one of the half-ruined towers of Wizards Castle. The place had been abandoned when Wizard had built his Haunted House, then demolished it and built Oz. Aranchy's dull brain couldn't think of what to make of the munchkins' problem. "How long has the place been gone?" Aranchy heard one of the other giants ask. It sounded like Bullbreath. "A month or two... maybe three..." said the munchkin. "Where was it when it disappeared?" asked Aranchy, somehow the question didn't sound quite right. "We'll take you there..." * * * The land was perfectly flat, and the flatness went on for miles. It was as if someone had cut around the missing area and lifted it into the sky. "This is beyond me," stated Aranchy, it wasn't because he wasn't very bright, even Albert Einstein would have been stumped. "Perhaps we should forget about finding Oz or the munchkin city.... It might be better for you to settle elsewhere!" "Perhaps we can find someone else that can help us solve this mystery," suggested one of the munchkins. The giants exchanged glances. Why not? They all decided to go looking for someone to help solve the mystery of the disappearing domain. But where would they start looking? "I wonder if we could get help from The Outcaste," suggested Lightbulb. "Who is he and where is he?" asked one of the munchkins at the back of the group. Lightbulb couldn't tell which one. "Uh..." began Lightbulb. "He was one of Commhex's greatest heroes," stated Bullbreath, "he dealt with trouble makers and kept users in line." "Yeah," said Lightbulb, "as for where he IS..." he trailed off... "I was hoping one of YOU would know." They all decided to set off looking for the guy anyway, maybe they'd get lucky and blunder across him, or get directions from someone. After many long hours of fruitlessly searching for the great hero, they stopped to think. "Look guys," stated the head munchkin, whose name was Chairman Mayonayse, "we aren't having any progress here. My feet are killing me and I assume it is the same for everyone else." A chorus of munchkins said "HYEAH!" "We should try a different tack," continued the lead munchkin, "let's head for a different domain such as Province of the Silver Dragon. We might get some help there." So, hours later, they walked up one last hill beyond which the Province was known to be. "I am glad this trip is almost over," stated one of the munchkins, the one named Wild Bill Hickup, looked up at the giants towering above them. The giants suddenly stopped and stared. They could now see over the top of the hill. The munchkins, wondering what was wrong, exchanged worried glances. They quickened their paces and got to the top of the hill. PROVINCE OF THE SILVER DRAGON WAS GONE! All there was a flatness going off for miles. It was as if someone had cut around the place and lifted it into the sky. The munchkins just stood and stared. [Anonymous] [(Contains minor modifications for clarity)] The munchkins frowned, and were about to trudge back the way they came when they noticed down the hill a little ways, and to the left, under a small tree sat a small man who was watching them intently but trying not to show it. He was very old, and dressed in a dark green kimono like the ones worn by the guards of the old Province. "Should we ask him what happened to the Province?" asked the munchkin Hellenah Hattboks. "Might as well," replied the Chairman. So they all walked down to the old man, and he asked, "Excuse me, but do you know what happened to the Province of the Silver Dragon?" The old man raised his head and stared at them for several moments as if unable to speak, and then slowly, in a low voice, he gave them their answer. "Once the land was very rich, for the regent ruled well. But she sought to improve the land further, and took on more than she could handle. The Province fell into a state of confusion, which many greedy residents tried to take to their advantage, and the land fell into decay. The regent learned her lesson, but it was too late. "Then there arrived the legendary Silver Dragon, the great beast for which this land was named so long ago. He had heard how his land of old had fallen, and had come to help. "So the Silver Dragon led Kikko and her loyal servants in search of a legendary lost and magical land. They have gone to the east, for the passage to the land is fabled to be through the caves of Arfargulus. "The caves of Arfargulus are ruled over by the evil blue dragon, Mascara. Mascara is considered to be one of the meanest and nastiest of all the dragons. She used to be the lover of the Silver Dragon, many eons ago. How the Silver Dragon planned to get past her to go through the caves could only be speculated upon by the subjects, but they loyally followed him anyway. "Me-- I was too old and feeble to go. I want so very much to go, and join in this new and fabled magical land. I am a man of great wisdom, I was a Daimyo in the old Province, but that does not help my old legs to move. If you wish to go to the new Province, you must also pass the evil Mascara. Good luck." The munchkins thought this over, and without saying a word to each other all decided independently that it would be difficult. They sadly turned to go back the way they had come, and go try somewhere else. But the Chairman had other ideas. "We would also very much like to go to the new Province," he said. "We would?" said Barbara, turning back around, surprised. The others stopped, too, and stood perplexed. "...and we would like you to see it," continued the lead munchkin. "Your' knowledge would be helpful in reaching it. If we can carry you, will you guide us? There are plenty of us and we can all take turns." The old man got a gleam... and a tear in his eye, and for the first time since they had seen him, a smile broke across his face. "Yes, I would be pleased to guide you!" he said. "By the way, my name is..." [Nomad Lurang] ...Shikia." They all walked along a few steps then one of the munchkins towards the back, the one named Murk of Zero, said "You know, it just occurred to me. The fact that they left doesn't explain the... uh... absence of the Province." "'Absence of the Province...'?" asked Shikia. "What do you mean by that?" They all stopped. "Have a look," stated Murk, pointing back up at the hill. Shikia went back up the hill and looked, and took a double take. "It wasn't like that 15 minutes ago!" said Shikia. The munchkin Noah Zark piped up, "Look, if this domain only just now disappeared, and it is empty like you said, shouldn't we ought to get the blazes out of here? As soon as whoever it is is responsible for this finds the place empty, he may just come here to investigate! I don't think it would be in our best interests if he found us!" Attilla the Bum added, "We came here to get their help, we can still possibly get their help wherever they've gone." They all quickly went away from the former location of the Province. The leader Munchkin wondered why both domains had vanished. Where there any more missing domains? In what way were the missing domains connected? It would be a while till they found their answers, but they would find them, even if it took years. Some time later, after they had hightailed it from the former location of the Province, they went into Wizards old castle to bed down for the night. The next morning they would get up bright and early and head on after Kikko's expedition. "Tell me something," the Munchkin leader said to Shikia, "do you know what might have happened to Oz and the Province?" "I dunno... tell me, when did Oz disappear?" "Let's see.... It was about April I think..." "What part of April?" "Late April." "Nearly four months ago..." he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I wonder why it took so long for it to happen to the Province, logically the two disappearances would be related so why such a long period of time between disappearances?" "Who knows? Hmmmm... late April you say?" "Yes." "That was about when Wizard brought some kind of printouts down here. Huge printouts! He left them and some mag tapes with Kikko saying to guard them carefully." "Hmmmm. Well, I didn't know about that, but rumor had it that Wizard had... uh... borrowed a mainframe from someone and was running some big simulation on it to test some course of action." "Oh? What sort of course of action?" "I don't know..." [(Unknown writer or writers)] Shikia decided to rest on this thought for the night. He slowly fell asleep while pondering his questions. The next thing he knew, he was wide awake, in a cold sweat. His eyes had trouble focusing. The sky was ablaze in colors he had never witnessed before. He tried to speak but every thought seemed to swirl in his head before reaching his mouth; the more he concentrated, the more his mind went blank. Suddenly writing appeared in the swirling colors. "Seek no more answers, yet ye be imprisoned here for eternity!" Shikia reached out to touch the magical writing, trembling in fear... when he suddenly awoke. "Strange dream," he muttered. He glanced around in sudden confusion. He was not in the same spot he had fallen asleep in! As a matter of fact, he was in another place entirely. Searching around, looking for some clue, he heard a distant sound coming closer at every second. Soon he saw a vicious HellHound was racing towards him, and there was no escape! His mind raced. "The Tree! I can reach that tree!" He ran! He jumped into the tree just as the HellHound's razor-sharp teeth tore the heel from his shoe. "Safe for now," thought Shikia, until his eyes met those of a BABY DUCK FROM HELL, sitting on the limb with him. Shikia could not react fast enough to keep the crazed animal from tearing his flesh from his bones. "Aaarrgghh!" cried Shikia as he awoke. What was happening? He looked around excitedly. He was back where he belonged, lying beneath the apple tree in the cool meadow. "A dream within a dream," he thought, "I've never had one of those before." Shikia got up, shaken by the nightmares but otherwise refreshed from his nap. "This is gonna be quite a day," he thought. It was then that Shikia awoke... [Nomad of Norad] * * * The night was cool, the Munchkin named Singbad the Whaler walked out of the old castle to get some air. He found Shikia sitting in the moonlight. "You're awake?" asked Singbad. "Can't sleep..." said the old Japanese man. "I keep having this crazy dream." "What sort of dream?" Shikia told him. "Disturbing," said Singbad, "most disturbing." "Yes," said Shikia. "'Seek no more answers, yet ye be imprisoned here for eternity'?" Shikia lay staring at the sky, he said nothing. "And the tree..." said Singbad, thinking. "Has your family ever had... second sight?" "Huh?" said Shikia. "Second sight?" "That tree you described sounds alot like the old Conference Tree, have you ever been to CommHex?" "No, not really. What does CommHex have to do with a giant tree?" "Before there was a Kingdom of CommHex there was a Conference Tree. King Powell lived in the tree before he had the Castle built. You sure you've never been there?" "Positive." "I'd say we should go there, then." "If it WAS second sight," said Shikia, "it was probably a warning to stay away." "Come on," said Singbad, "where's your sense of adventure!" * * * Morning came and the three giants got up and streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetched. The munchkins all came out of the old castle and grouped under them with Shikia. "Well," said Shikia, "let's get on towards Kikko's trail." They all went to the great dirt road. Some hours later hey came to a fork in that road. "Well?" said Chairman Mayonayse, the leader of the munchkins. "Which way?" They all stood there a moment, staring at the fork in the road. Which way indeed. There was no way to determine which road the Province people had taken. "I TOLD you we should have gotten a map at that last Chevron station!" said Barbara Sevil. "Shevronsstashun?!" asked Hellenah Hattboks. "What's a shevronsstashun?" "I dunno," said Barbara, "just sounded like the appropriate line to say at this point." "Hey," said Shikia, "maybe we can ask that guy over there!" "Who, me?" said the man. He turned and came towards them. "Who are you?" asked Chairman Mayonayse. "I'm The Mad Hermit, how can I help you?" "Did a large group of people come this way dressed in Oriental garb?" asked the Chairman. "Yes," said the Hermit, "they camped over there." He pointed into the woods. "Good," said the Chairman, "which road did they take?" "Uh..." said the Hermit. "They didn't." "Didn't?" said the Chairman. "You mean they're still here?" "No," said the Hermit. "You mean they turned back?" said Hellenah Hattboks. "No," said the Hermit. "Then what?" asked the Chairman. "Which way did they go?" "They didn't," said the Hermit. "They came here," thought the Chairman out loud, "but they didn't go on and they... didn't... turn...." Suddenly the color drained from the Chairman's face. "Oh no!" He ran towards where the Hermit had pointed. Trees and bushes whizzed by him as he ran through the woods, then suddenly he came to a large clearing, a big perfectly flat clearing with no vegetation at all. It was as if someone had cut away the camping place and lifted it into the sky. * * * * * * * ...the lights seemed to resume their... uh... light-giving, and sensation returned to the five. "That was it?!?!?" said Sigmund. "Hardly worth the trouble," said Gary. "Well," said Nomad, "it gives us some leads I suppose. We could go to Wizard's Castle -- it's still standing, you know -- and then Conference Tree. Oh, and we can get in touch with The Mad Hermit." "Uh..." said Gabrielle A-leen. "He's off on a long vacation on Tartar's Pleasure Planet." "Tartar's Pleasure Planet?!?!" said T4D. "That's on the other side of the Galaxy!" "Forget about him, then," said Nomad. "So, we're all going to go to these two places?" said Gabrielle, indicating the massed group in the pseudoTARDIS. "No," said Sigmund, "it would just be wise for a small group to go... say, us five." "And me!" piped in Nathan. "Kid," said Nomad, "you gotta be kidding!" said Nomad. "Uh... if you'll pardon the unintentional pun." Everyone giggled. "Ok," said Nomad, "I'll go get my powered-armor and meet you four upstairs in the skycar garage." "We're not going to teleport in?" asked Redstar. "We didn't teleport to the other places, did we?" said Nomad. "Well, that was because we were a big group, coming in from several places all over." "Well," said Nomad, "I rather want to approach cautiously, see the places from the air before we venture inside." "Ah," said Redstar. [Redstar] > > >(Oh, one quick question: Who in the current Group knows Spanish? It's >important.) "I do," said Redstar, "And some Russian, too." (Hey, it's a story board...) [Nomad of Norad] "Wait a minute," said Siggy, "it's a bit late. Let's do that in the morning instead." "Yeah," said Redstar, "and now let's get back to Cappy's super-engine. I want to mount it on the Redmobile." "But how are we going to avoid melting the drive section of the Redmobile in the first seconds of flight?" asked Cappy. "Well," said Nomad, "let's at least take the engine to my lab. We can study the thing there." [Captain R/C] "Study it? Why in the world do we want to study it! I invented the darn thing! I know every nook and cranny of the thing," whined Cappy. [Gabrielle A-Leen] [Title: Study? ] "You'd want to study it because you've forgotten it," said Redstar, ever helpful. [Sigmund Fraud] "And stop that whining," said Siggy. "And as for the meltdown problem, why can't we just build a heat shield? It can't get THAT hot....can it?" [Captain R/C] "As a matter of fact, yes, it does. I'm not sure of the exact temperature, but I melted some stainless steel bolts during one of the tests," said Cappy. "I had to constantly cool it with liquid nitrogen." [Nomad Of Norad] "Well then we'll use a great big heat-sink!" joked Nomad. "Actually," said Cappy, "I tried that. Didn't work." "Anyway," said Nomad, "what I meant by studying it was we could figure out what the aliens find so worrisome about the engine. And maybe find a way around this maddening heat problem." Devastator walked up. "And while you are at it, I can study the bits and pieces of wreckage I collected from the space battle." "You mean you got some of the alien's hardware?" said Nomad. "Yes," said Devvy, "parts of the aliens' fighters. I even have one complete engine of theirs!" "Well!" said Cappy, elated. "Let's go then!" "Wait a minute," said T4D, "weren't you running the cyberpunkish playback machine?" "Aw, Captain Isti is the only one who knows how to run it," said Devvy. "That's HIS job." "Alright then," said Nomad, "so let's get going." He headed out the pseudoTARDIS doors. [Sigmund Fraud] "Well," Said Siggy "How much power does this engine produce? Can it give us enough power to say, run the red mobile, provide a heat dissipating system for itself, AND power the nifty new Blast-O-Matic that Nomad's going to invent in chapter seven?" [Captain R/C] (I already invented the blast-o-matic in chapter 13 of the last story. It's called a Past Blaster and it is(was) mounted on my old ship, but it blew up, so now I got to get a new one) [Actually, he's thinking of the Photon Overcharged Phaser Gun (that is, the P.O.P. gun). The Past Blaster, instead, belonged to one of the villains. --NoN ] [Redstar] "Well, I think that during space travel a heat dissipating device would be good enough, but for terrestrial travel... how about a cryogenic system, adding a thermoelectric generator - we could remove that bulky power generator and use much of the produced heat. Why don't I get Jenn working on the problem right now..." Redstar continued to inspect the rear of the Redmobile. (I was thinking about it, and I think that these spacefaring vehicles would have to run on matter-antimatter conversion - any other method seems to not produce enough power to do those real fast accelerations. Not that the Redmobile can do warp drive - but it IS meant to commute from the Earth to Mars and the Jovian system. Hmmm...gotta think more on that topic...) [Nomad Of Norad] (Well, some SF universes even allow car-sized craft to go FTL. In the novel BERSERKER MAN, by Fred Saberhagen, there was a lifepod, probably about the size of a car, that travelled in hyperspace. The protagonist of the story was a young boy who had been fitted with a sort of force-field shell. This child travelled at warp speed WITHOUT USING A SPACECRAFT! It was established that in this universe the ships got their motive power from hyperspace itself.) (Now, we could assume that some kind of energy is spread thinly in hyperspace, and that a warp-driven craft would gather up this energy as it ran through it. It could be sort of a like a scramjet in that a scramjet will only function at mach speeds, and needs the airspeed to force the air through it. They use simpler jets to bring the aircraft up to mach speed, and the scramjets take over.) (However, it has already been established that the Redmobile can go FTL because in the previous story, the chessmen story, we travelled with it to the planet where everything came to a close.) "Weren't we going to go look at Devastator's salvaged wreckage?" said Cappy. "Yeah," said Redstar, who stood up again. "Let's go look at it." They got to the lab and found Jenn was already studying the alien engine. "I have programmed a simulation of Cappy's engine and the alien engine," said Jenn. She pointed to a graphic of their warp-profiles on the screen. "They both look the same!" said Redstar. "Not quite," said Jenn. "There are some minor differences." She brought up another warp profile. It looked quite different. The first two were highly pointed, like a bullet. The third was oblate-spheroid shaped. "This is a standard warp-field." She brought up a fourth, it was shallower and narrower. "This is a warp field from a Voontokki-built warp drive, such as the one on Devastator's ship." "Interesting," said Nomad, "the others are all vaguely saucer-shaped." "So," said Cappy, "their engine functions similar to mine. I wonder how they dealt with the heat problem." "It appears they did not have a heat problem," said Jenn. "The engine was mounted in place with ordinary bolts." "What is on the alien engine that is not on mine?" asked Cappy. "Nothing," said Jenn. "Some of the components are moved around, but otherwise the engine is the same." "You know," said Redstar, "it occurs to me would could mount the alien engine on the Redmobile instead. It is undamaged, isn't it?" "Yes," said Jenn. Cappy stared at the alien engine for a moment. "All the same components as mine?" "Yes," said Jenn. "Just moved around some..." Cappy thought out loud. "Yes." After a moment of silent contemplation, Cappy said, "Can you display the energy fields as they move around inside the two engines?" "Yes." She punched up a graphic of the two engines, and the energy in each flowed around inside the images like water through glass pipes. Cappy looked at them, and his jaw dropped open. He slapped his palm to the side of his head and cried out, "Of course! It's so SIMPLE!" He pointed to the graphic of his engine. "Look! I've been channeling the energy down into the heart of the engine, and they've got it coming OUT from INSIDE! I've been concentrating it like in a pressure cooker! No WONDER the thing gets so hot!" "So," said Redstar, "should we mount their engine on my car?" "Sure, go ahead," said Devastator. "Hmmmm," said Nomad. "In effect, the aliens' engine is simply your engine turned inside out." Redstar and Jenn went over to the alien engine and carted it out of the lab. Everyone else followed. Soon they had the Redmobile opened up and were trying to figure out which wires went where. "Hey!" said Cappy. "There are two extra wires here!" "I wonder what they're for," said Redstar. Nomad whipped out his scanner and brought it up close to the engine. "Hmmm, looks like... uh.... Cappy, what do you make of this?" Cappy stared at the little electronic mechanism that was laid out on the scanner screen. "Looks like it simply reverses the polarity of this part of the engine." "'Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow,' eh, Doctor?" quipped Nomad. Gary Wolfe smiled. "What would that do?" asked Sigmund. "Well," said Cappy, "let me think." He stood there deep in thought for a moment. "Yes, it probably would put the ship into negative hyperspace." "Negative hyperspace?" said Sigmund. "Yes," said Devastator, "that's where pocket dimensions like the ones I have on my ship reside." "Or like the pseudoTARDISes," said Gary Wolfe. "What's the difference between normal hyperspace and this negative hyperspace?" asked Sigmund. "Why doesn't anyone make use of it for spacecraft?" "Well," said Cappy. "Normal hyperspace has many levels. The higher up your ship can be moved in these levels, the faster it can go and the more hyperspace flux power you can utilize. In each level you can move ten times faster than in the previous level, but the higher up you go, the more power to takes from the previous level to initiate transition up to the next level. "But negative hyperspace has only one level," he added, "and NO hyperflux energy!" "What use would that be then?" said Redstar. "We'd be crashing into other people's pocket-dimensions." "Or maybe getting to them easily and entering them," said Nomad. "Of course!" said Cappy. "THAT must be what they were so worked up about!" "Eh?" said Sigmund. "That must be why they wanted Devvy's space-hardware!" continued Cappy. "They must live in pocket dimensions! It'd be a perfect base of operations." "How is that?" asked Sigmund. "Well," said Nomad, "these pocket dimensions are hard to detect except to have your detector pushed out into negative hyperspace. Most people don't bother with it because the pocket dimensions can be detected by way of their links to normal space. After all, each one has to be set up with a way to get into and out of them. You can also scan through that interspacial opening to determine how large the pocket-dimension is." "Ah, I see," said Sigmund. "Hmmmm..." said Redstar. "But if you eliminate the normal link to normal space... it can't possibly be detected the normal way!" "Yes!" said Nomad. "They'd have the perfect hiding place!" [Redstar] "Well, why don't we just patch those wires into an I/O port of Einny's and just see what it does in a patch of open space? I'm up for trying it out... who is with me? I am taking Jenn to iron out some of the possible problems that could arise. I could fit in one more, but tightly. Who wants to go?" Redstar leaned against a beam on the side of the open driver's door. Jenn was looking over the engine. "The extraneous heat could just be channeled into the superconducting retractable radiators in the back - though the radiators can only be used in space... they are very efficient, you know." Redstar looked at all the parts of the old engine sitting on the floor of the vehicle hangar/workroom/garage. "Better not forget that we need room for the antimatter containment system and storage for the matter fuel. Uh, Cappy, how much energy are we talking about here? This vehicle has only a small fuel capacity, and it is not built for extreme acceleration. It is only meant for an interplanetary commuter, and not for interstellar travel; the airframe couldn't take it. You want quick travel, you'd need a better frame, like on the RED 417 or something." (The Redmobile did not travel that far in the previous story; to keep up with the distances I though of the last story travelling within the solar system or something. If you want to be really technical, we could just say that the Redmobile parked inside a hangar in the RED 417 during the hyperspace travel. If you don't care, then the Redmobile doesn't travel long distances, and so there. There couldn't possibly be enough energy stored for such travel on such a small vehicle. It is a superadvanced car; planet to planet no problem, but star to star requires something with more get up and go.) [Nomad Of Norad] [Title: Aliens may attack Mars any second now. ] (HEHE! Appropriate RT!) "Well," said Nomad, "at least let's be cautious about this. We don't want another ambush like what happened to Cappy." (Hmmmm, actually... wasn't there something said about a quick trip to the garage to mount some kind of framework on the Redmobile? Actually, I'd imagined a sort of big framework that wrapped around the car, and had warp engines on the outside. A kind of gantry they "parked" the car inside. But nevermind.) (Remember what Orson Scott Card, the SF writer, once said when someone commented about the impossibleness of some of his machines: "It works! Leave me alone!" Do we really NEED to make any such distinctions?) [Nomad Of Norad] So they worked the rest of the day, and on into the night, adding what was needed to the Redmobile. The next morning they got up, groggy after such a short sleep, and prepared to take off. Joshua drew the top of the garage open, barrelled-glass ceiling sliding aside, and the Redmobile took to the sky. "How's the stress on the structure of the car, Einny?" asked Redstar. The problem with skycars, and other aircraft, when retrofit for space travel was that the airframes were not as sturdy as a spaceframe would be. "There is none," said Einstein. "Hmmmm..." said Nomad. He looked at the airspeed gauge. "We're going mach five and there's no stress at all?" "Correct," said Einny. Soon they were out of the atmosphere. "Take us to just under lightspeed, Einny," said Redstar. The skycar accelerated greatly. "Point nine-nine lightspeed," reported Einny. "Still no stress?" asked Cappy. "No structural stress," said Einny. "Go to ten times lightspeed," said Redstar. "Entering first-level hyperspace," said Einny. "Five times lightspeed... seven.... Ten! Still no stress." "Hmmmm..." said Redstar. "Take us to maximum speed for first-level hyperspace." "Accelerating to twenty times lightspeed," said Einny. A moment later he said "We are at twenty times lightspeed. Still no stress." "Take us to second-level hyperspace," said Redstar. So, they went to second, third, and all the way to eighth-level hyperspace. Nearly 200,000,000 times lightspeed! Only then was there any stress. "Eighth-level hyperspace!" exclaimed Nomad. "Here we are, in a tiny craft, making speeds only Class D Bulkers can do!" "Well, MY ship can do TWELFTH-level hyperspace!" needled Devastator, jokingly. "Shall we try negative hyperspace now?" asked Cappy. "Why not," said Redstar. "We'll need to make the transition from normal space," said Cappy. "Roger," said Redstar. "Einny, return to normal space." Quickly they descended through levels of hyperspace and came back into realspace. They were well outside the system. In fact, they were quite a ways off into the Galaxy. Then, when they entered negative hyperspace, they saw... nothing at all. "Well," said Nomad, "there isn't anything TO see. There wouldn't be any pocket dimensions set up out in this area of space." "Well," said Cappy, "it obviously works gloriously." "Let's get back to Earth, then," said Sigmund. "Maybe then we can look for our enemies' home base there." "And what are we gonna do when we FIND the place?" asked Sigmund. "Well," said Nomad, "I suppose we can sneak in and take a look around. We might even find out what they're UP to!" So, they headed back to Earth. [Sigmund Fraud] "Well, good," said Sigmund. "I need a good commando raid to calm my nerves, anyway." "Don't you think that's a bit childish?" asked Cappy. "Going around spoiling for a fight is a bit much." "No, I am tired of all this jerking around, it seems like every time I turn around I get hit in the face with another Red herring." Siggy ducked quickly, and a large fish whoooshed over his head and slapped Red on the shoulder. "Hey!" said Redstar, "What did I do?" "Nothing" said Siggy. "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all." "Oh, it's ok then...." [Redstar] (Geez, that must be SOME engine! Where did all the energy for such acceleration come from? Maybe the craft needs to just put in a specific burst of energy to throw it into hyperspace, huh? Sounds logical. That must be SOME engine, as my craft never attained light spped on its own before. Yeah, I forgot about the extra engines; maybe it was just a bunch of fuel tanks (antimatter, of course).) (BTW, how many people are in the Redmobile? It is a two-seater car (with possible cramped room for a third), and at least Red and Jenn are aboard (or did Jenn stay home to do the dishes?).) "Dag nabbit, this is a good engine," Redstar exclaimed. "The Redmobile was never designed to do such velocities. This engine is not only putting out an impressive amount of energy, but it is altering, or seeming to, the laws of physics around the craft! No stress at the attainment of hyperspace? For decades the strongest of airframes were crushed by such a speed! And this Redmobile doesn't even have the frame for anything over one quarter light speed!" He looked over from the passengers. "Einny, tell us our status." "All systems nominal, remaining energy at seventy percent of full. Illogical, sir, the amount of power output well exceeds the stored energy by at least tenfold, and the speed attained was well beyond my sensors." This news further added to Redstar's amazement. "Are systems, in your opinion, fit to do complex maneuvers?" "The only anomaly is that I have lost contact with all navigation beacons and the link with the mainframe at home. Therefore I cannot comply to complex inquiries. Don't worry about navigation home, all that needs to be done is to simply go back the way we came. All vectors are stored." "Open a new star chart folder, and begin charting, minimal resolution." "Total mapping impossible. Only can log basic star positions and Doppler waves. Link needed for large-resolution storage." "Do what you can. Bring up the manual flight controls - oh, but first plot us back home, only as far as the nearest asteroid belt... I want to try this new mo-fo engine out." "Compliance. Plenty of energy aboard for one hour of maneuvers... but this is in accordance to old data on fuel consumption." The manual controls come up, and the Redmobile again flew into hyperspace speed, slowing quickly after reaching a large field of space debris. "I hope that this is satisfactory, sir." "Just fine, Einny, just keep that navigation going!" Redstar grabbed the controls, and began to fly between the asteroids. A look of elation is on his face, while the craft did numerous twists and turns between the immense rocks. "Speed is at seventy-two kilometers per second, and energy usage is still illogical." [Nomad Of Norad] Nomad watched the asteroids pass by, wondering why Redstar didn't simply fly them above the asteroid belt... but then, he seemed to be having a grand ol' time going around the asteroids, so he said nothing. Then he remembered a recent Star Trek TNG episode where the Enterprise crew didn't think of going over the asteroid belt either. Nomad shrugged. After awhile, they got back to Earth and landed at Nomad's house again. "Aren't we gonna look for the alien's pocket-dimensional base?" asked Sigmund. "Well," said Redstar, "it occurs to me that there are going to be a great many other pocket dimensions, and it could be set up at any interspacial distance from realspace for that matter. We'd be looking for a needle in a haystack." "I see," said Sigmund. "So we're gonna go back to the debris from the fighters and try to find some way to narrow things down." Redstar led the way out of the garage. [Nomad Of Norad] At that point, they bumped into Jenn1 coming up to meet them. "Funny you should mention that," she said, "I have already taken care of it for you." She held up two components. "This," she indicated a slider control and keypad, "allows you to adjust the exact distance from normal space into negative hyperspace. And this," she indicated the little black box with two wires coming out, "is a device to home in on the alien's pocket-dimension's navigational beacon." "Ah," said Redstar. "Thank you! Let's go install them!"