Thankies, all, well, Here 'tis:





Chapter Fiveteen: The Planet of Fire and Glass



"Working under cover, I don't believe a word of it!" Seraph shouted, aiming her gun at the one named 'Kovu's' head.

"Really! It's the truth!" The other one, Louie, protested. Seraph waved her gun in his direction.

"I don't think so, you're traitors, and you'r going to di--"

"Incorret, Captian, I have searched through there pocket computer files and find no ill intent in them. In addition, there heartbeat and brain function remained normal, which would indicate." Kaz droned on.

"Alright, alright! Okay...metalhead here says you're telling the truth, but I don't know if I believe him, prove it, somehow."

"Uh, how?" Kovu asked, both there arms in the air.

"I know, give me all the mission and tactical information, all the military secrets, this fighter contains."

"We'd really rather have more time to gather--" Louie began, until Serap's shotblaster hummed to life.

"Okay, okay, we'll do it." He swivled around and pulled the data-core out of the terminal and cautiously laid it at Seraph's feet.

"Excellent." Seraph picked it up, smiling ear to ear, fingering the cylindricl device. Suddenly the ship bucked, the hull moaning.

"What the yotz was that?" Tymen asked, the hull continuing to moan.

"Myrandnites. They live in HyperSpace, feeding on ships that pass through." Louie stated

"How...fast will they eat the ship?" Seraph asked.

"Fast, we have to go, now." The three backed out the door, and the other two donned Knn EVAs.

Once they were all suited up, they moved into the second room, and then out ontop at the boarding plank.

"There everywhere!" Seraph shouted. Little horshoe crab like beings(except being composed of energy) populated the hull of the Knn fighter. Tymen unholstered his vulcan guns, and started firing at them, the shockwaves from the bullets being only minimal, and damaging only the fighter. Under Tymen's cover, they all crossed the boarding plank.

"BlackSheep, open the second air-lock door, now!" Seraph snapped.



"Righto." With Kazooie looking over her shoulder, BlackSheep flipped a switch with a mechanical finger, and the coresponding door opened just as Juiso, who had taken up the lead, arrived to it. They hustled in as quickly as they could, but Tymen was finding himself being overwhelmed by the numbers of Myrandites, and his ammo was running short. Just as Louie strode into the air-lock, the consisten KAKAKACHAKA of the vulcan guns turned to a empty whirring of ammo cartridge.

"Blast, out of ammo." Tymen hurled the empty guns behind them, and the increasing horde of Myrandites consumed them in a instant.

"BlackSheep, de-extend the boarding plank!" Tymen shouted into his mask comm.

"But you're not in the air-lock Tymen." BlackSheep checked various gauges.

"Just do it!" Tymen snapped, deactivating this magnatismal boots. BlackSheep considered what insane plan Tymen might have, but finding none, just followed his command and deactivated the boarding plank.



Just as the Myrandites consumed the whole of the Knn fighter, Tymen snatched the retreating boarding plank, shooting him torward the air-lock. But just before it slammed him into the under-bowls of the Penultimate, he somersaulted off and into the air-lock.

"Nice escape, Tymen." Seraph patted him on the back, as the second-air lock closed behind Tymen.



The rest of the day proceded uneventfully. Seraph interrogated Kovu and Louie, discovering that they too were looking for Symballen's Archon, but were willing to merely help them find it. Tymen and Tyio (the latter rather begrudgingly so) tried to figure out the object Tyio found in Daroth in the recreational sub-deck.

BlackSheep's reGrow deactivated, and she reveled in a completely healed new body. Juiso slunk around, watching the activity from afar, and Kazooie watched him, for he didn't trust Juiso any farther than he could spit(and he couldn't spit.) Everyone was quietly asleep in there quarters(after much debate as to who went where) when Kazooie barreled through the hall, shrieking,

"Wake up! Wake up! Were leaving HyperSpace! Wake up! Wake up! Were leaving HyperSpace. As they all emerged, Seraph attempted to shoot Kazooie, but he sucked himself back up into the Penultimate's technological intestines.

"Tymen, you take the controls." Seraph ordered, as they all crowded into the cockpit area.

"Okay, the preparing apeture." Tymen slowly gave power back to the HyperSpace core. He checked a series of graphs on the screens beneath him,

"We will arrive at 5:00 pm, Tubelectric time, I'm taking us down into the second largest city cluster, Ranhaften." Tymen updated, as the world of HyperSpace twisted and mutated, creating a small portal into normal space.

"I'm taking us through." As the triangular Penultimate flew through the hole in both time space continumms, something gave. A explosion echoed through the halls of the ship, scorching most of it, but missing, thankfully, the medical bay and the cockpit.

"Holy crap! Our second HyperSpace drive just blew up!" The cone of the portal began to become erratic and insane.

"Normal space cores #3, 4, 7 and 8 were severely damaged!" Tymen desperatly tried to control the ship, moving it as quickly as he could, before the portal into normal space collapsed(them not having any HyperSpace engine) and being trapped in HyperSpace forever. Tymen forced the controls to there maximum abilities, all power was to the remaining cores.



Miraculously, just as they left the apeture, it closed in a violent fury, exploding outward, sending the ship carrening torward the planet.

"Activating reentry shield. The view of the yellow planet was lost, as giant plates of ceramic covered the tip of the Penultimate.

"This is the Penultimate, requesting docking procedure." Tymen activated a comm. channel and spoke into it.

"Hello, and welcome to Tubelectric, planet of fire and glass," a tractor beam took hold of the ship, easing it down to a docking area. "At our welcome centers you can sample our tridenten fruit juice. If you need assistance, call for a droid, we'll hear you. Again, welcome to Tubelectric, and have a nice day." Once there ship was clamped by the large robotic arms, the stairs descended, and the whole crew of them (minus Ducky, who had moved into a reGrow suit to keep watch over the ship until they returned.) exited the ship.

"Okay, guys, what's the plan, now that were here?" Seraph genuinley asked her subordinates. Tyio, with his good arm, pulled out and showed Seraph the strange object he found wedged between the buildings in Daroth.

"We think this might help us find where Symballen's Archon is hidden. Me and Tymen only figured out it was a map, but there must be someone here who can read it for us." Tyio proposed.

"Okay, that's a start," She turned around to face a passing by droid."

"Hey, you! Find someone to fix this ship, everything that's wrong with it, got it? Money is no object!" She yelled to the droid, which quietly dropped what it was doing and moved to fetch a repair the ship. They passed through the docking area, quickly finding a hoverpad that they could use to find someone to read the map. As the hoverpad disembarked and moved into the streets of the city. They flew through it, marveling that the entire planet was choked by technology, and the 24 hour a day 7 day a week constant party that raged through the streets. Tubelectric was a product of technology. They needed lights and technology to guide them through the perpetual dusk and night, but could not feed off the energy of there dying sun. So, they had to have energy constantly carried to them in massive cargo ships.

"Computer." Seraph said in a commanding voice, and rather loud, over the roar of the party below.

"Where would you like to go today?" The computer intoned.

"Where can I find someone to read maps?" Seraph asked the device.

"Why, that's easy..."



"I can tell you, right off the bat," A old Baarshardian( a weasel-like race) examined what Tyio and Tymen believed was a map, "that this crystal is Gentanium, found only in this paticular star cluster, so it must have been produced here. The Gerenpfpssh on it,"

"Wait, I AM Gerenpfpssh, and I don't see any Gerenpfpssh text on that thing." Tyio hissed, feeling as though the Baarshardian had insulted his heritage.

"Right here." He shoved the object into his face, pointing to a thin line, that Tyio assumed was just a line.

"Oh..." Tyio blushed and moved back.

"It tells me each square represents 20 lightyears, and I'm assuming that this circle at the tip is Carrotous, since this was found there. I'm also assuming that this other sphere is a planet so many lightyears away.

Lesse, that would mean tubelectric is here," He painted a dot in one of the squares.

"So you need to go 120 lightyears west of here, and you'll find the planet that this map leads you to." He handed the object back to Tyio.

"Thanks!" Seraph tossed him a carrot(the coin, not the foodstuff) and the reconvened outside.

"I think this is our best chance at finding Symballen's archon. According to the note Tyio found, I"m thinking this other planet will have another shard of the map on it, and that'll lead us to the next, until we find the last one that has Symballen's Archon on it. Who's up for this plan?"

They all cautiously thought, then gave there awnser...



Up Next: Escape from The Esx