The Rebel Universe Part I free porn video

THE REBEL UNIVERSE (c) 2015 by Anthony Durrant As I ran toward the HMS Precision's airlock, I put on my boots and handed my I.D. to one of the security officers guarding the airlock. "You're Commander Rogge?" one of them asked, and I nodded, then entered the airlock chamber through the door and headed into a turbolift, where I said: "Please take me to the bridge!" The turbolift took me to the top of the Precision's saucer section, and when the doors slid open, I stepped out and walked over to greet the C.O., Captain Herbert. "What took you so long?" he asked, and I replied: "I overslept! Sitting at my console punching in those numbers all day made me a very tired officer, especially with the boys whistling at me whenever they came into my office!" I then seated myself in the chair to his right, just as the Captain rose from his chair and made an announcement to the entire crew after ordering his communications officer, Lieutenant Fridge, to open the appropriate channel just as the helmsman - Lieutenant Jerry Morgan, an officer who had been in my squad when I was at the Space Force Academy - whistled at me. "You sure are a good-lookin' babe, Rogge!" he cried. "You can thank my Fey friends for that!" I replied. Then the Captain made his announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen of the crew, we'll be going on a permanent exile in the Great Sphere, created by the Space Force's finest brains to contain the rebellion of the Space Force vessels in that sector. Therefore, this is the last time any of us can expect to see our home planet again. We'll have to fight to survive there while we try to uncover the reasons behind this rebellion. Take a moment to salute that big blue marble in space before we leave, for I doubt that we shall ever return!" All of us saluted Earth in the main viewscreen, and then we occupied our rightful positions on the bridge, and the Precision undocked from Earth Station One and slingshot away from our home planet itself. As soon as the slingshot was half completed, Captain Herbert gave the order to activate the vessel's new slipstream drive. The stars became blurs as the Precision zoomed into the slipstream that the drive had opened for it in the space of a few seconds. "Beautiful!" I cried, and the navigator, Lieutenant Mesa, looked up at me from her station and replied: "Yes, Commander, it is that!" An hour later we were in the Quazar System, just on the inside of the sphere, and the outer wall of the sphere reformed behind us. Lieutenant Morgan examined his readings, turned to the Captain and I, and said: "There's another vessel in orbit nearby - it's one of ours!" "I thought we were the first vessel here!" I cried. "Hail them!" the Captain shouted, and Lieutenant Fridge did so. "Their captain wishes to speak with us!" she said. "Put him on screen, then, Lieutenant!" the Captain replied. The face of a tall man with short blonde hair and gaunt facial features appeared on the viewscreen. "I am Captain Trent Herbert of the HMS Precision!" Captain Herbert said. "And I am Captain Ehrich Weiss of the Boudicca!" the other captain replied. "You are agents of the Space Force, and therefore now our enemies. If the living city on one of the planets below us wasn't preventing us from firing our weapons, you would be stardust by now. When we finally leave this system after completing the repairs to our F.T.L. drive, all bets will be off and I'll blow you right out of the sky! Weiss, out!" The sun returned to the viewscreen, and Fridge cried: "For crying out loud! That was one of the rebels!" "It was good of him to warn us about the living city!" Captain Herbert replied. "Just what is a living city?" Morgan asked, and I said: "They're a nasty legacy of a long dead alien race: fully alive cities with artificial environments that still function even though the builders died out centuries ago. Their guiding intelligences will never allow weapons to be used in the system where they're located - the controls will freeze on you if you do try it. There was one out near the Fey homeworld, and its presence meant the Fey warrior caste had to leave their homeworld before they could fire a single shot until they finally blew that planet up." "Find that planet and put us in orbit around it!" Captain Herbert ordered, and Morgan and Mesa quietly complied. As soon as we were orbiting the planet with the city, a party led by the science officer, Lientenant Commander Leonus Homnus, that included me went down by shuttlecraft. "I hope this works!" I said as the pilot landed the shuttlecraft just outside the city and we got out. We then went up to the entrance, and I used my transmitter badge to relay the entry code for the city in the Fey's home system to the guiding intelligence for this second city. The door slid open and the four of us walked inside. We were close to the city's central tower, so we headed there immediately. Using our disruptor pistols, we burned through the lock on the tower door and Mesa kicked it down. We then entered the tower easily, only to be greeted by an officer from the Boudicca, an officer I recognized. Like Captain Weiss, he was a blonde, but as I already knew, the resemblance ended there. "Mattie Tremblay?" I asked, and he cried: "Yeah, I'm Matthew Tremblay - Lieutenant Commander Matthew Tremblay of the rebel forces. And you, Fey girl, had better be careful whom you trust these days: the Space Force's antics have become legally questionable since the Robot War, and so we've broken away to continue the Space Force's original mission of peaceful exploration!" "I never heard anything like that!" Homnus replied, an angry scowl forming on his strong but pleasant face. Mattie shouted an obscenity in French and then slammed his fists into Homnus's chin, at which point Mesa coldcocked him with the butt of her repulsor pistol and knocked him out cold. The four of us headed up the tower stairs to the control room, where Mesa quickly found the weapons console and cut off the top with her repulsor pistol. After she had removed it, I pulled out the cube to which the console's functions were slaved and took it with us back to the shutlecraft. "When I get back to the ship," Jerry said, "I'm going to install this in my weapons console and become a regular hot shot!" "Join us for a party when we hit the Precision?" Mesa asked me, and I said: "As long as you don't serve feywine, which is a Fey's greatest weakness, I will be there!" "Then we won't serve any feywine!" Jerry replied. "Thank you!" I said. "I'd really appreciate that." *** The four of us headed to the officer's lounge for our party, and when we seated ourselves at the bar, the bartender handed me a drink in a tall glass, then eagerly took my crewmates' orders. Then he smiled a me and said: "I made that concoction just for you, Commander Rogge!" Nervously, I raised the glass to my lips and took a sip as my crewmates looked on. It tasted wonderful, and the kind of energy it sent through me made me tingle. I let out a loud fluting cry and said: "Did you hear that noise, Mr. Homnus?" "Yeah, I did!" he replied, then asked me, "Where did it come from?" "C'mon now, take a good long swig of that Rogge!" the barkeep shouted, and I promptly complied and for a third time, made that weird fluting sound, then said: "You named your concoction after me?" "I did indeed, Madame!" he replied, and I smiled at him and said: "Thank you, Monsieur!" "C'est non problem, Commander!" he replied. "I feel really good all of a sudden!" I thought as I sat back in my chair, then put my arm around Homnus's neck and kissed him hard on the lips. The next few hours I barely remember, other than to say I was probably able to drink another glass or two of Rogge before I passed out. When I awoke, I was lying on my bed in my quarters with my pants pulled right down! I hastily did them up again after putting them back on even as two kettle drums banged away in my head and I walked over to my console, where I used the V.R. net to send the barkeep a reprimand for slipping me feywine, the key ingredient in that concoction of his. "Don't you realize we Fey are strong, especially when we're on feywine?" I asked him. "Gods of Space, I could have torn you apart with my bare hands - and my crewmates as well!" When I looked in the mirror to check the damage, I saw that my upper body was naked except for a regulation bra! Hastily I grabbed the tunic for my uniform number five and put it on. "Thank Heaven I have those other uniforms!" I cried as I left my quarters and headed to the bridge to begin my shift. The Precision had left the Quazar System and had gone into slipstream. Jerry reported to us that the gadget had been installed in the weapons systems in place of the original weapons tcomputer. I said: "The weapons computer was red-flagged?" "Last week, yeah, Commander. We had to have the old thing removed from the weapons systems and disposed of in the appropriate manner. The gadget from the city should be an effective replacement!" "Hooboy!" I said. "This is quite a morning!" "Commander," Jerry said, "the Boudicca has followed us into the slipstream, and its weapons systems are now online!" "Damn!" I cried. "Lock on their drive core!" "Locked on, Commander!" Mesa replied, and I then shouted: "FIRE AT WILL!" The lepton torpedos slammed into the Boudicca's torpedo bay with pinpoint accuracy, rupturing its drive core and causing it to explode. The crew blasted away in the vessel's saucer section just as the lower hull erupted in a huge, soundless explosion. "That should delay their departure considerably!" I cried. "And the Boudicca's saucer section will fall out of the slip stream and end up somewhere far away!" Jerry cried, "Rogge, you're the most!" "Why, thank you, Jerry!" I replied, then opened a channel to main engineering and shouted: "Engineering! Damage report!" "We're sitting pretty, Commander, but thank you for asking!" a woman's voice replied, and I said: "Thank Goodness for small mercies like that!" "Looks like Jerry's Hotshot Device worked!" Mesa cried. "Yes, it did!" I replied. "The targer range was so narrow, the weapons system's accuracy has been greatly improved!" "The captain will be pleased to hear this!" Homnus cried. "I'll tell him right away!" I replied. "Ms. Fridge, please open a channel to his quarters." "Aye, sir!" she cried, and the Captain's face appeared onscreen. "The Boudicca followed us into slipstream, and we were forced to use our weapons systems to blow up their drive core. They managed to escape in the vessel's saucer section." "Good work, Ms, Rogge!" he replied. "That's a common method of following vessels equipped with the new slipstream drives. Once a vessel is caught up in your slipstream, they're dragged after you until you do something to push them out of the slipstream. Herbert, out!" But then a soft gentle voice from the vessel's speakers cried: "Congratulations, all of you! You located my backup copy and brought me back online after the systems shutdown a few hours ago. I am Kloota, the guiding intelligence of City Baaboobee, and I am once again fully functional!" "Damn!" I said. "We should've thought of that. The backup copy of the city's guiding intelligence was in that cube we took from its weapons computer. It's overwritten the operating program of this vessel and so reestablished itself!" Then I told Kloota: "I would like you to scan all of this vessel's data files and see if they're still there." Having bought us the time we needed to scan the files ourselves manually, I did so, and found that they were still intact, having been incorporated into Kloota's intellect and consciousness. Relieved, I left the bridge when my shift ended feeling much better. "Gods, it'll be good to get some rest after such a shift!" I said to myself as I went into my quarters and opened a casket of my Grandfather Rogge's with a key I wore around my neck on a chain. Inside the casket was a red book with the title CLIFF ROGGE'S KEY TO A NEW AND BETTER YOU on the front cover. I said: "Grampa, you never were any good with titles, were you?" I flipped to the description of my grampa on the back flap of the dust cover and found his picture there. At the time that picture was taken, Clifford Howard Rogge had quit his job and his cigarettas and taken up running in marathons. He wrote the book to promote his new way of life. The caption under the photograph read: "Clifford Howard Rogge is the creator of the New and Better You fitness Programme and the holder of the Most Perfectly Developed Man title. He currently lives in a wooden house on the outskirts of New London with his wife and two beautiful children, Deanna and Clifford Rogge junior." I hated to talk about my grandfather, because I was uncomfortable about the fact he'd made his fortune in such a bizarre way, but then again, I don't believe he still knew I'd become a Fey either. "I'm glad I've never followed his fitness program!" I said to myself as my door chimes went off. "Enter!" I shouted, and the Captain came into the room. "I thought I'd drop by your quarters and see how you were settling in!" he said. "I'm settling in just fine, thank you!" I replied. Then he took my hand and pressed a watch on a chain into it. The watch was round with a steel casing and had a white dial with Roman numerals and a decent pair of hands. "Thank you!" I said, touched by his gift. He replied: "That old watch was repaired by a Maphooz jeweller who replaced the rusted original movement with one that generates a force field that protects you from all harm. Just slip the chain over your neck, Commander, and you should be just about fine!" "Thank you so much, Captain!" I said as I put the chain with the watch on it around my neck and slipped the casket's key into a nearby drawer for later use. "You're very welcome!" the Captain said, and then he shook my hand and walked out of my quarters. Looking at the watch, I smiled at myself and then had Kloota make me some flapjacks for lunch with maple sugar syrup and a cup of wonderful hot cocoa. As I ate my lunch, I let my mind drift back to my time on the Fey homeworld as a young cadet fresh out of the Academy... *** I'd been assigned to the Fey homeworld as part of a Space Force detachment commanded by Captain Gordon Lonsdale, one of the best officers we had at that time. When I'd first gotten off the shuttlecraft after it had landed in the yard that fronted the chalet where Lonsdale was now living with the rest of my detachment at the time. I headed into the chalet, where \i was inducted into the team by Lonsdale himself. There were also numerous Fey occupying the building, and I asked one of them: "What's the purpose of our team?" She looked at me in an odd way and said: "Don't you know? You're here to help us as we begin a new chapter in our history as members of the Interstellar Federation. Our military has been banished to a distant sector, and Captain Lonsdale and his team - including you, Ensign Rogge - are to help us learn to be a peace-loving people." "And to help heal the rift caused by the war," Captain Lonsdale added. "Your job is to act as liaison for the priestesses of the goddess Oshawa." "Aye, sir!" I said as the Captain handed me a map for the city in which we were staying. I followed that map to the temple of Oshawa and then followed a line of the beautiful Fey women that populated the whole city into the church. When I approached the priestess at the altar, I discretely identified myself as a Space Force officer, and when the ceremony at the temple had ended, she took me into a chamber I assumed was her ready room. I then formally introduced myself: "Good morning, Madame. My name is Ensign Rogge, and I have been assigned to act as liaison between out team and the temple by Captain Lonsdale himself." "Thank him for me, will you?" she replied. "It was a good idea on his part. But, Rogge, in order to understand our ways, you'll have to dedicate your life to the goddess Oshawa!" "If that is what I must do, then I shall!" I replied. The priestess then led me through a door at the back of her ready room into a room containing a pool or spring of some sort. The priestess grabbed me by my collar and pants when I stopped dead in front of this body of water. Took me to the edge, and said: "O sweet and gentle Oshawa, this Space Force officer would like to join our temple as a full member. Give him your blessing, my sweet goddess, and see to it that his heart is always joyful and full of love, and that his soul is always at peace!" She then shoved me into the pool and forced my head under the water, forcing me to inhale some of the water. All at once I was hit by a huge stomach cramp which soon spread to other parts of my body and into my limbs shortly after that, growing so intense that I passed out completely. When I came to, I found myself in another chamber, in a bed surrounded by other initiates. Looking around me, I saw the other members of my team, including the Captain himself, who said calmly: "Looks like you're a member of Oshawa's temple, now, Rogge!" "And you and the priestess had this little caper planned right from the start, didn't you, Captain?" I cried. "Nevertheless," the Captain said as he raised a hand mirror in my direction, "you're now one of Oshawa's priestesses!" Looking into the mirror, I saw a beautiful Fey woman with long dark hair that went down to the small of her back. Stunned by the sight, I yanked the sheets off my bed and revealed a lean, muscular Fey body underneath. Angered by what Captain Lonsdale had made me do to myself, I leaped out of the bed and punched him right in the kisser, then shouted: "VERY FUNNY, CAPTAIN LONSDALE!" *** "He set me up, and I fell for it like a ton of bricks!" I said to myself as I ate my pancakes. "I was considered damaged goods after that mission was complete, and have vegetated at a station at the Spahuce Force H.Q. ever since - that is, until Captain Herbert selected me to replace his retiring First Officer for this mission into the Great Sphere Territories!" I looked at my watch and then at Grampa's book. "I'd better start exercising!" I said to myself. "You were right, Grampa - I do need to stop bellyaching and build myself a better life!" And with that, I started doing Grampa's exercises, and then left my quarters to jog through the length of the corridor on that level for my cardio. The Precision had arrived in a second solar system, this one under Space Force control, and I heard a weird thump as we arrived in system, but thought the sound might be from a meteorite striking the Precision's hull. When I began my turn around the rim of the saucer section, however, I saw holes forming in the hull and shouted: "We're under attack! In another minute or so, our attackers will be climbing through the holes in the hull. Get me a repulsor rifle, someone!" When nobody responded, I rushed to an emergency booth and shattered the glass with my penknife, then grabbed the repulsor rifle as the Precision's attackers climbed into the vessel through the hole in the hull. "Fey warrior women!" I cried. "Here - on this ship!" The Fey who'd invaded the Precision attacked everyone nearby, and so I rushed up to them and began to fire at them with my repulsor rifle, hitting two of them and vaping them right before their comrades' eyes. A third warrior grabbed a crewmate and killed him with a dagger thrust to the back of the neck, after which I shot her as well, then vaped a fourth as she emerged from her transport pod. "STOP!" cried a fifth Fey as she emerged from her pod. "I am your prisoner now, Commmander Rogge: take me to the brig, for my team's little battle is now over." I forced her into a turbolift at riflepoint, and both of us went down to the brig together. There, I had the security officer in charge of the brig lock her up, then used my transceiver badge to make a report to the Captain on the incident. Fortunately, he was able to get the Precision to the automated repair facility in this new system just in time. "The facility should be able to patch the holes in the saucer section!" I thought as I went back up to the level above the brig and began my run all over again. As soon as I returned to my quarters, I changed out of my track suit and into a uniform, because it was time for my shift again. By now, the Captain was back on the bridge, and I gladly took my official place in the chair next to him. We'd been lucky that the Fey warriors, who were obviously allied with the rebels, had been sent to capture the Precision and not destroy it. "Is there anything insystem besides the repair facility?" I asked Mesa. "Just a small artificial planet nearby!" she replied. "That could be a rebel base or an ancient relic!" I said. "Either way, the planet's position near the facility makes me uneasy - an attack from there could easily destroy this facility, so we'll have to don spacesuits and travel there by shuttlecraft so as to take a look at it. *** It only took about fifteen minutes to make the trip to the planet. When we landed on its surface, we left the shuttlecraft in a small buggy and I drove us to the one structure on the surface, the biggest damn dome I had ever seen in my life. As soon as we reached the dome, I used my repulsor pistol to cut a doorway into the wall, then kicked out the cut section so we could make our way into the dome. Mesa was astonished by what we found there: a sort of tomb for discarded weapons from a lost civilization, presumably the one responsible for the living cities, and said: "This is presumably a weapons dump, Commander, but I've never seen weapons of this kind before. Could they be able to operate in a living city's solar system?" "I was wondering that, too, Ms. Mesa!" I replied. "Well have to bring some of these ancient weapons back to the ship to determine their origin and proper function." But then we heard a wild scream, and a bunch of rebel officers leaped out at us, aiming repulsor rifles at us. We returned fire, and I disintegrated one of the rebels, but was taken captive while their leader grabbed as many of the ancient weapons as he could carry, before leading his team - and us - into a shuttlecraft with a starship's name on the side. "The Russian Rhapsody!" I cried. "That was one of the finest vessels the Space Force ever made!" "And now she's the finest rebel vessel of the fleet!" the man said smugly, and he then launched the shutlecraft and returned to the Rhapsody, which was an Emissary class dreadnought similar to the Precision, but much newer and better equipped. The vessel had been built new, instead of being an 80-year old hull like the Precision, about twenty years prior to the rebellion as a replacement for a lost vessel. When we were taken to the bridge by turbolift, I was stunned to see a Fey warrior in the command chair. Her first officer was none other than Gordon Lonsdale! "Welcome to the Rhapsody!" the fey cried, and Jerry and Mesa froze in their tracks as she added, "I don't recognise the two humans, but you are Rogge, the Fey who was once a human being, are you not, Commander?" "I am, yes!" I replied. "On which ship are you serving?" she asked. "I am serving on the Precision!" I replied. "Well, we'll exchange you for our sister on that vessel!" she said, referring to the warrior imprisoned there, "that she may be able to rejoin this joint Fey - rebel fleet!" Two Fey guards escorted the three of us to the brig, where we were placed under a human guard. "How can we escape this?" Mesa asked, and I replied: "I don't know yet, but - trust me on this one - we will get out!" "I certainly hope so!" Jerry replied, and instead of just sitting around, I began doing Grampa's exercises. "You don't need to do that, Commander!" Mesa cried. "You're a Fey, and all Fey are naturally lean and muscular, thanks to a metabolism that converts food energy into muscle power." "Even so, these exercises of Grampa's are relieving my tension," I replied, "And I now recall that each of these brigs has an escape hatch to be used in case of emergency, usually hidden behind a mirror. I'll keep exercising to distract the lady while you two break the mirror!" While I exercised, Jerry and Mesa shattered the mirror and Mesa opened the escape hatch, then got away, and I quickly followed them out. We climbed downward through an emergency stairway to the other end of the tunnel, at the bottom of the saucer section. As it turned out, the tunnel ended in another hatch, which I pulled out using the emergency handle. We then dropped down from the tunnel into the auxiliary bridge, where we were met by a squad of four Fey guards, one of whom said: "She thought you might sneak down here and blast away in the captain's yacht, Commander! Now, you're going to go all the way back up to the brig - in the turbolift, this time. We'll seal that emergency stairway later on!" "You're a Fey, Commander!" Mesa said. "Why don't you fight?" "Because warrior Fey are twice as strong as the average Fey!" I replied. Jerry then handed me a snifter, drew a repulsor pistol from his belt, and shot one of the four women holding us prisoner. Mesa then threw a second woman over her shoulder, and I opened the snifter and took a whiff of its contents. "ROGGE!?" I cried, then took a sip and felt a burst of raw energy surge through me. Leaping on one of the two remaining Fey warriors, I slammed her into the wall and then rendered the fourth unconscious through an uppercut. We then put the four defeated Fey warriors in the turbolift and sealed off the auxiliary bridge. I then seated myself in the command chair and activated the separation program. The Captain's yacht, which comprised the entire auxiliary bridge, separated from the rest of the Rhapsody, then Mesa steered it toward the Precision. She contacted our vessel and informed the Captain of developments. "So, the rebels and the exiled Fey have joined forces and are fighting together, eh?" he asked, and I nodded. "Well, we'll have to be on guard from here on in." Mesa steered the yacht into the vehicle bay, where she landed it safely and the three of us got out. After returning to the bridge, Fridge informed us that the Rhapsody was hailing us from its own position behind the artificial planet. "On screen!" the Captain shouted, and the face of the Fey Commander appeared on the screen. She said: "The three officers from your ship whom we imprisoned have escaped from the Rhapsody on my personal shuttlecraft! If you all value your lives, hand over my sister in battle or be blasted from space with my neutron torpedoes!" "Very well!" the Captain said. "We will comply." *** And so I went down to the brig to get the prisoner personally at the Captain's request. Still looking splendid in a form-fitting grey combat suit, she walked with me into one of the turbolifts, which I asked Kloota to send to the shuttlebay, where the Captain and the others awaited me. I saw to it that she was loaded onto the Captain's yacht from the Rhapsody, which she flew through the open bay doors toward the planet. Another shuttlecraft came toward us from the direction of the Rhapsody at the same time and landed in our bay. Out of the shuttlecraft came Gordon Lonsdale! "The Captain sent me in return for her sister-in-battle!" he told Captain Herbert. "Like most Fey, she prides herself on her honour. She, like all other Fey, will always keep her word - and she promised me she'd get me out of the rebellion somehow. As for the kid here, I see she's now your First Officer!" "I replaced Commander Pinecrest, who retired from duty to spend more time with his wife and children instead of joining the Captain in exile!" I told him. "And, I still haven't forgotten how you set me up! I may be a Fey and a follower of Oshawa now, but I will always choose my own destiny!" I then escorted Lonsdale to the brig where I put him in the cell, then returned to the bridge. Now that the repairs had been completed, we casr off from the facility and headed out of the system. Soon we arrived at another system with a Class M planet. Even knowing that each system has its dangers, I was surprised by the beauty of the new planet. "There appear to be no humanoid life forms down there!" Mesa said as she examined the sensor data, and I replied: "I concur. That's a jewel in a rock quarry!" "Commander, you lead a team down to explore this planet. Take Lonsdale with you - he must know this area of space better than anyone else. Use Shuttlecraft Two." "Aye, Captain!" I cried and again took Mesa and Jerry with me. First, we went down to the brig to collect Lonsdale, and then reported to the shuttlebay. From there, we took the designated shuttlecraft to the surface of the new planet, an ecological Eden that was spotted here and there with ancient ruins, suggesting that the people here had died out. "There's an intact building just over there!" Mesa cried, and then the four of us entered the building. Even Lonsdale, a veteran of this area of the Galaxy, smiled at the sight of the pictograms chiselled onto the stone walls above a set of ancient computer consoles and said: "This is much older than the Space Force itself, I think. What a beautiful setup for a killing of these people!" He then began to tear the skin and clothes off his body, revealing a blue- skinned warrior woman inside. The actual Gordon Lonsdale had apparently been dead for quite some time. "ERRA-EMITTI!" I shouted, and after she'd fully pulled off Captain Lonsdale's skin, Erra-Emitti - the warrior who had been grown from an ugly old plant - smiled at me wickedly. "Yes, it is I, Erra-Emitti: the warrior you exiled from your own territory after my home planet Ognom was accepted into the Confederation of Stars!" she cried. "Exiled?" I asked. "Erra-Emitte, I don't understand!" "I was banished from my homeworld by Space Force personnel because I was grown from a plant and can hear my sisters and brothers talking to me! The ones here know of your presence, and are demanding your death for trespassing on their planet and murdering the ones you stepped on when you emerged from the shuttlecraft! DIE-EE!" And then she drew her sword and attacked me! I had no choice but to fight back! Grabbing her swordarm, I slammed my fist into her stomach - only to come into contact with thermoplast armour! She took advantage of my surprise and kneed me in the stomach. Despite the pain, I slammed my elbow into her cheek - only to be blocked by her hand! I then slammed my knee into her chin and knocked her down. She leaped to her feet and swung her sword at me. Grabbing the blade with both hands, I snapped it in two and hurled it away. "None of that!" I shouted, and then Erra-Emitti jumped me, pushing me down to the ground. Using both my legs, I threw her over my head and then leaped to my feet, then allowed her to attack me again. This time, I grabbed her arm and hurled her into the floor of the building we were in. She was now out cold. "Try and activate this building's data core, Mesa!" I said. "There could be knowledge on that database of which we are unaware, but need desperately in order to survive. I'll secure Erra-Emitti!" After tying Erra-Emitti's hands behind her back, I took her with me to the shuttlecraft and placed her in it, then went back to the ancient building. By now Jerry and Mesa had cut open the main console and retrieved the CPU of the ancient computer. Delighted, I said: "We'll have to analyse that back on the ship!" We returned to the Precision with Erra-Emitti as our captive, placing her in the brig as soon as we returned to the ship. Now that she'd been severed from contact with the local plants, Erra-Emitti was much more lucid. "Who sent you to kill me, Erra-Emitti?" I asked. "The Captain of the Russian Rhapsody!" she replied. "I was serving as a member of her crew, but wanted no part of the rebellion, so she disguised me as Gordon Lonsdale and sent me to kill you, Commander Rogge!" I pulled the watch out of my uniform collar. "You see this watch?" I asked her. "This was what protected me from you while we were fighting - its force field shielded me from your blows. You're lucky I'm not charging you with an assault on my person for attempting to kill me like that!" you gav "It looks like an ordinary watch to me!" she replied. "It was repaired by a Maphooz jeweler who gave it the ability to protect its wearer from all harm!" I replied, but Erra-Emitti just threw her head back and laughed. "No watch can protect its wearer from all harm!" she cried. "Well," I said, "it's worked so far!" *** Later, I joined Captain Herbert and the rest of the original crew in the officer's lounge for supper. "Mr. Homnus reports that the data from that ancient CPU includes a complete star chart of the solar systems in the Sphere area!" the Captain told me. "If you hadn't retrieved it, Commander, we would still be fumbling around in the darkness." "Thank that watch you gave me that protected me from all harm!" I replied. "Without it, I'd be dead!" "No, Commander, that wasn't your watch - that was you!" the Captain replied. "You were the one who overcame your fears and battled Erra- Emitti bravely!" I suddenly realized he was absolutely right. "Yes!" I cried. "It was me all along, but I didn't realize it. I can do this, after all!" Then I threw back my head and laughed as I tossed Jerry back his snifter, saying: "I won't be drinking from that snifter ever again!" "And what will happen to Erra-Emitti?" he asked. "We can't just leave her on another uninhabited world, Captain," I replied, "or the local plants will cause her to go crazy again. I'll see to it that she's given a plant to talk to, but we'll have to keep her aboard the Precision or her mental stability could be affected." "Good thinking, Commander!" the Captain replied. *** The next morning, we activated the Star Charts for the first time. Appearing on the screen as a rotatable oval filled with stars, the charts pinpointed the location of all of the solar systems in the Sphere. "Now we can pick and choose our destinations at will!" Kloota cried. "Thank you for the lovely upgrade, Rogge!" I didn't know what lay around the corner, but I did know that we were more than ready for it, especially me, as I had now finally embraced the love in my heart. "Praise be to Oshawa!" I shouted as we slipstreamed.