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THE REBEL UNIVERSE ll (c) 2016 by Anthony Durrant The Precision had only been in the Vegas System for a few hours when we were jumped by a rebel starship that came at us right out of the sun. As soon as the enemy vessel began moving toward us, I heard the Captain give the order, "Raise our shields!" "It's the HMS Pangur Ban, Captain!" I cried. "Yes, I can see that, Rogge!" he replied, then turned to Lieutenant Mesa and shouted at her, "Lock on the vessel's torpedo bay!" "Aye, sir!" Mesa said as Lieutentant Jerry Morgan backed the Precision away from the Pangur Ban. "FIRE!" the Captain shouted, and Max fired. The shot struck the torpedo bay and blew the torpedoes inside, blowing apart the vessel's neck and breaking it into two pieces. At that same moment the Pangur Ban's repulsors hit our ship right in the engine room, destroying the crystal matrix that now powered the Precision. Everybody knew what that meant. "ABANDON SHIP!" Captain Herbert cried, and we all leaped to our feet and followed him into a turbolift that took us down to the shuttlebay. We then hurried onto the shuttlecraft and blasted out of the Precision, shattering the bay doors along the way, just before our vessel blew apart. I was in Shuttlecraft Two, with Mesa and Megan, and the two craft were in communication with each other even as we raced toward the repair drone dock in the Vegas system. What we found was the vessel that was the basis for the dreadnoughts. "The Constitution!" I cried. "The ancient alien vessel found in the Crab Nebula that was the basis for that Space Force scientists brought back to life and incorporated into our fleet!" We headed toward the Constitution, and Captain Herbert answered me over the commlink, "Remember, whole sections and levels of this vessel have never been penetrated, and remain a mystery to this day because they are closed off to us. We'll be docking at the bridge and at the port in the middle of the engineering section!" Mesa and Miller steered our shuttlecraft to the airlock on the bridge and docked there ten minutes later. When we emerged from the shuttlecraft, we found ourselves standing in front of a door shaped like an inverted V. Because the vessel's mysterious power source was down, I opened the door manually, and we then went into the bridge itself. This area of the Constitution had been retrofitted Space Force style but retained its yellow colouration and domelike shape. I went over to the Life Support console and activated it, restoring the Constitution's power supply. We then watched as the old vessel's lights came back on and the consoles reactivated. Removing our helmets, we seated ourselves at the appropriate stations on the bridge, and a few minutes later, the Captain's face appeared on the main viewscreen. He said, "We've docked and are moving up to the main bridge!" "Understood, Captain!" I replied. "We've got to get away from here before the Pangur Ban scans the area and finds the Constitution. Waiting on your orders, Captain!" "Understood. Herbert, out!" the Captain replied, and after he had come onto the bridge, he seated himself in the command chair and gave his order, "Full speed ahead with the neutron engines!" "Aye, sir!" Millar and Mesa chorussed, and together they steered the Constitution out of the repair drone dock, breaking off the mooring connections in theit haste. As soon as we'd left the dock, we jettisoned the shuttlecraft as per regulations, then destroyed both of them with repulsor blasts to avoid leaving behind space junk - they were dead in the water. As we rounded the sun, we stumbled across another rebel ship near a large planetoid, the HMS Pequod. Oddly enough, this one didn't open fire or respond to our hails. I said, "I think we'd better investigate this!" "I concur - this rebel starship could be a victim of the lost civilization that built those cities!" the Captain replied. *** After the Constitution docked with the Pequod, I led Jerry and Mesa on board the vessel. We made our way up to the bridge and found the crew there dead - for the Pequod had been drained of its power. For some reason, the Constitution hadn't been affected by the power drain, perhaps because the vessel had been originally of alien make and design. In any case, we'd worn helmets again, and as we explored the doomed vessel, the three of us confirmed our worst fears: the power drain had come directly from the planet nearby, for the instruments had shut down while the science officer was in the process of scanning the planetoid. We retrieved the ship's data core and then returned to the Constitution, where our science officer would analyse the data. The next day, he delivered his report, "Thank you, Mr. Homnus!" I replied. "It's possible, I think, that this second race and the city builders were at war, or that base would never have been developed at all. Only a fool would drain a vessel's energy, and then only as a way of profiting from an enemy's loss. With them dead and gone, their cities and fortresses are still duking it out and claiming collateral damage on the way." "This second alien race is also sentient, then?" Captain Herbert asked, and Mr. Homnus replied, "There are no life signs on the ancient alien base." "Then we must shut down the beam!" the Captain said. And so Jerry and Mesa and I travelled to the ancient alien base in one of the Constitution's shuttlecraft, landing in what must've been their equivalent of a shuttleport. We then donned survival suits and headed toward the base, cutting an entrance into the side with our repulsor pistols. As it turned out, we found the bodies of the aliens lying on the deck - they were humanoid with purple skin and hair. Opening a comm channel to the ship, I said, "Captain, the aliens who built this base are the Arclave!" "Contact Sanduy, the only surviving Arclave, and notify her of what we've found here later on. She'll want to come here and pay tribute to these fallen men and women." "Thank you, Captain!" I replied as we made our way over to the base's control room, where we found the command crew also dead. The commander was seated in her high chair; she had been a stunning beauty, as were all female arclave, a testament to their advanced technology. "You'll find women with the same face but differing hair styles, in any Arclave base!" I told Mesa and Jerry. "This is because the Arclave long ago mastered the art of beauty templating - that is, transforming the humanoid body into a new form based on an existing genetic template." "You're a very smart cookie, Rogge!" Mesa replied. "I'm a Space Force officer, a woman, and a Fey!" I replied, as the three of us began the process of removing the base's data core for later analysis, after which we had to find the ship drainer. "That will be a much harder task!" I thought. After successfully retrieving the base's data core, we headed out of the control room and made our way through a maze of corridors to the room with a door marked with the symbol of a cannon pointing east: ()==[]====[]. "This has to be the room where the drainer is!" Mesa said. We cut a hole in the door with our repulsor pistols, and I kicked it in. We then entered the room and disintegrated the drainer with a high powered blast from our repulsor rifles. Now that the drainer was gone, we walked back to our shuttlecraft and used it to return to the Constitution. *** Fortunately, Mr. Homnus was able to decode and read the information on the data core we'd removed from the base. "The base is called Rokkor the first, and it was built by the Arclave specifically to protect the second planet from the sun, Vegas II, on which an Arclavian colony existed. Not that the strategy worked, mind you - the city builders were able to massacre everyone in the system because their vessels were immune to the starship drainer"s power." "then we"ll pay a call on that colony!" the Captain said. *** The Constitution landed in the ocean near the Arclavian colony, and I led a party out to it on another of her shuttlecraft. As we"d suspected, everyone in the colony was also dead - and it was obvious from the state of the dead bodies that they"d been drained of their vital fluids. I turned one of the dead Arclave over, and found myself staring at a face that had been warped into a scowl of pain. "terrible!" Mesa said softly, and I replied: "yes, the city builders have taken their water from them!" We hurried to the colonial government centre as fast as we could - and found it to be full of the freeze-dried corpses. Beside the female Arclave I took to be the colony"s commander, I found a dead humanoid alien in silver armour, lying on the ground face forward: they must"ve killed each other! Rolling the armoured alien over on it"s back, I found myself staring directly into a grinning skull. This had to be a city builder - the only one we"d ever encountered in the Great Sphere. Picking the city builder up, I led the way to the main control room, where we were able to extract the colony"s data core, which would in turn confirm the data we"d salvaged from the base. After we"d finished that job, we headed back to our shuttlecraft on foot, returning to the Constitution shortly afterward. As it turned out, this analysis would prove to be a boon for one of the two patients brought into the Great Sphere by the Precision and then transferred to the Constitution. *** Dr. Daakar, a Nebulan and the Constitution"s Chief Medical Officer, had analyzed the city builder for us. She told us: "thar armour isn"t just armour - it"s a cybersuit of some sort, permanently fused to what remains of the city builder"s living body. Moreover, I extracted the brain implant from the city builder"s skull: once I analyze it, I"ll transfer its circuits into a new implant for Jennifer Morgan, one of the two patients now aboard this ship, who has an inoperable brain tumour, a tumour I will now be able to replace with the implant." "go to it, doctor!" the Captain replied, and I was allowed to supervise as Dr. Daakar operated on Jennifer that afternoon. She performed a hemispherectomy on the right side of Jennifer"s brain to make sure she"d removed all of the tumour, then placed a full hemispheric implant in her skull, fusing it to the existing part of the brain expertly, then fused her skull shut again and sutured the incision closed. Then she applied a jolt of electricity to the implant to reactivate it. Jennifer then opened her eyes and sat up in her pallet. Looking at us, she cried: "who are you foggraws, and where am I-" "you"re in the sickbay of the HMS Constitution!" I replied. "i"m Commander Elizabeth Rogge, and -" "I am Drakkar, and I am a soldier of the Estris Empire!" Jennifer replied. "you will take me back to Estris, my people"s homeworld, or I will kill you right away!"" "but, we don"t even know where Estris is!" I replied. "estris is the only planet around the Estris sun!" she replied. "thanks for telling us that, then!" I replied, realizing that something had gone wrong in the surgery. *** "Analysis of Drakkar's armour reveals that not only was it part of her body, but that her arms and legs are entirely artificial. The other Etruisuians must've left her on the colony world because her people don't have any concept of regular death or burial anymore. That, in turn leads me to believe they're far more advanced than we originally expected they were." "We all serve the Cities of our Empire!" Jennifer added. "If any of us soldiers is fortunate enough to become a city, then all of the Estris Empire rises up in a state of celebration!" "At least one of your abandoned Cities is destroyed!" I replied. "He or she was blocking our weapons use, and only after its destruction could we use weapons in the Fey's home system." "But I am intact, Drakkar, my child!" Kloota cried, for we'd transferred her successfully into the Constitution's alien data core. "And, it is good to see you are alive once again." "Kloota, is that really you?" Jennifer cried, and Kloota said, "Yes, the'se people salvaged my backup copy and installed it in first the Precision and then this vessel, the Constitution. I was never an artificial intelligence, but I serve them notwithstanding, because they were the ones who saved my life twice over." "I am honoured to be serving under you, Mother Kloota!" Jennifer cried. "Captain, the Estrisian's implants have a tendency to overwrite any programming - we discovered that when we downloaded Kloota's backup program, thinking it was the weapons console's data core!" I said. "Jennifer's implant must have Drakkar's backup program contained within its crystalline DNA matrix." At that moment, the deck of the officer's lounge began to glow as a circle magically appeared there. It then flipped up and out, and a group of Nebulan warriors stepped up into the lounge, to my natural surprise and horror. Their leader, a seven-foot-tall Amazon who was the largest woman I'd ever seen with my own eyes, knocked the Captain out, and said, "What are you trespassers doing on my ship?" "On your ship!" Kloota cried, astonished. "That explains it! I've been wondering why these data banks call this vessel Logistris. Now I know that this is Dairutha, the rightful and legal commanding officer of this vessel, who has been in stasis for over 2000 years. Dairutha, those who found your vessel didn't know its name, so when they brought it back to life again, they renamed it the HMS Constitution!" "Which was unnecessary, as we were on low power due to the fact we are on a mission to find and colonize a planet orbiting a far distant star called Malabis, after a mighty king who once ruled our entire home world of Nebulus." Dairutha replied. "However, you have kept my vessel in the very best shape, and so I will spare your lives!" *** We were rounded up, all 80 of us, and marched by Dairutha's warriors to one of the strange rooms aboard ship. We were all amazed at the Nebulans' size, and I asked. "How did you come to be so big?" "We are what you call Titans!" she replied, and the Captain cried, "But, I thought the creation of Titans was forbidden on Nebulus centuries ago!" When she heard this, Dairutha's eyes turned beet red and her long powerful wings twitched in rage. DaShe cried, "Then we had better start it back up again, as soon as we can awaken some of our colonists from stasis in the lower stasis chamber - the one three levels below outs." "Dear Lord!" Mesa cried. "What are we gonna do?" *** Fortunately for us, the Nebulan Titans allowed us the chance to observe in a nearby viewscreen the restoration from stasis of three of the colonists, who had been revived so as to replace the three Titans who had never awakened from their own stasis due to equipment failure. The three inductees were brought to the sickbay, where each of then received the necessary infusion of ichor from an existing Titan. The result was outstanding: each of the colonists grew into Titans in a matter of seconds. I was both amazed and impressed: I had no idea it was possible to create a Titan before. "Now for the remaining human patient!" Dairutha said. She herself lay down on Jennifer's pallet and allowed her medic to infuse the other patient, Beverly Baynes, a cancer victim - with her ichor. All at once, Beverly twitched and writhed as the ichor entered her bloodstream and consumed her human blood entirely. Her body slowly grew to Titan size, and after her writhing finally had subsided, she opened her eyes and rose to her feet. Beverly allowed Dairutha to dress her in the armour of a Titan, and then Dairutha sent her out of the room. Beverly then walked up to the door of the storage room and assumed a guard position over the entry console beside it, with her sword raised for battle. "Impressive!" I heard Jerry murmur. "Simply impressive!" "So it is, so it is, and so it is again!" Beverly replied. "The Titans are really amazing!" another crewman cried, and I looked at him and said with a sad smile, "I feel the same way as you do, Charlie Brown!" "Aren't they just!" Beverly cried. "I was very close to death when they put me in stasis, and now I'm feeling wonderful! This ichor's really got the power!" Jennifer stepped forward and said, "My name is Drakkar of the Sambalele Cluster, Ms. Baynes, and I fail to understand why the Titans have taken over our newly discovered vessel!" "They have a right to this vessel!" the Captain replied. "It was found floating near the planet Avalon in a badly crippled condition by the starship Einstein, then towed to Earth, where it was converted into a new Space Force vessel. The Constitution was on assignment here for years until the orbital dock where it bwas moored was automated entirely. All that time, nobody had any idea that the vessel was still inhabited, the Titans were so well concealed in that hidden chamber. Now, they've been awakened through some twist of fate, and so Dairutha has every right to reclaim her command!" *** Meanwhile, Dairutha and her bridge crew had arrived on the Constitution's bridge, and they seated themselves at their original positions, only to discover that the bridge had been stripped down and completely rebuilt. "I have no idea what any of this does!" her navigator, a young Titan named Velahara, shouted. "The controls I knew have all been taken away and replaced, and it appears that they have weapons that replace the weapons our vessel originally bore!" "Then we have no choice!" Dairutha replied. "Signal our human convert in the storeroom below and tell her to bring up two of the trespassers to the bridge so they can show us how to operate our ship!" Velahara contacted Beverly and gave her Dairutha's orders, and Beverly turned to us and said, "Dairutha would like two of you to come with me to the main bridge, so her people can be taught how to operate the Constitution. They're having difficulty adjusting to the bridge as it now is." "I volunteer!" I cried as I stepped forward. "And so do I!" "Charlie Brown," whose real name was Lieutenant Junior Grade Cyrano Smith, replied, and we were then taken by Beverly up to the main bridge. *** Back in the sickbay, the living but disembodied head of Princess Petra, the Titans' ruler, was being fitted to a composite body made of parts from the two deceased Titanesses, because her own body had long ago been destroyed in battle. The medic told her assistant in a proud but cold voice, "None of the humans - or that Fey - know that Petra even exists! Once her head has been fused to her new body, and she has been awakened, I am sure she will reward us greatly for saving her life." As soon as Petra's head had been fused to the new body the medic had created, she had her assistants give Petra some of their ichor to jolt the heart into beating once again. She gave a jolt, and her eyes opened for the first time in centuries, then she rose from the pallet on which she'd lain and walked over to the medic, her face and new body now a ghastly white in colour, and her hair, which was a regal black, falling down to the small of her back. Turning to the medic, she said: "Thank you for saving my life, Mitra! Now I can resume my leadership role over us Titans!" Petra used her wings to cover her naked body until she put on the black gunna and tabard she found nearby. Her wings opened wide and then closed again as she saluted Mitra and then left the sickbay for the bridge. As soon as the turbolift doors opened wide and she strode onto the bridge, Petra walked over to Dairutha and said, "Dairutha, what has happened to our ship?" "The humans changed it, Highness!" Dairutha replied. "Yes," I added, "that is correct, Princess - " "Petra!" Petra replied. "And you had better tell me the full story right from the beginning!" I did - and Petra was amazed by what she heard. "Dairutha," she said, "thank you for sparing their lives. If the humans hadn't found our battered vessel and used their technology to restore it to full life, we would not be alive here now, as our ship had taken a real battering over the centuries that we had been travelling." "Dairutha has told us of your quest for Malabis!" I replied. "But, what has happened to your body?" "What is the matter with my body?" she asked, and Smith replied, "There are surgical scars all over it, especially on your arms and legs!" Not seeming to be embarrassed, Petra replied, "I lost my original body in battle - my current body is a composite made from those of the dead Titanesses, because it was their desire in life to serve me faithfully even after death, which they did by acting as my body donors." She then turned to me and said, "All 80 of you are going to become Titans, because here in this area of the Galaxy there are people who are 15-20 times as strong as any of you, and cannot be stopped by anything other than brute force. Now, set our course for Malabis, and I wll gladly surrender our vessel into your keeping forever when we get there." Seating myself at the navigator's console, I did as I was bade. Once the course had been set, Smith activated the FTL drive and the ship zoomed out of orbit. We were then promptly returned to the storeroom by Petra. *** Not long after our return to the storeroom, Beverly received a message on her helmet com and told us, "That was Petra, the Titans' princess. She's given me the order to transform you all into Titans like me!" All of a sudden, a mist of some sort descended upon us from the vents on the storeroom ceiling. I knew then that we were being subjected to gaseous ichor, probably from the bodies of the two dead Titanesses. All of us fell to our knees and then blacked out entirely. When I came to, I found that my body had been utterly transformed: I was still a Fey, but I was now at least seven feet tall and powerfully built, as were my other crewmates. As requested by the Captain earlier, I sent a VR mail to Sanduy at her address on Earth, informing her of the Arclave colony we'd found earlier and giving her the precise coordinates. I had no idea when the message would be received, if ever, but at least I had fulfilled my Captain's express wishes. "So, what happens now?" Captain Herbert asked me. "We'll just have to wait and see!" I replied. *** About an hour later, the Constitution came our of FTL speed and went into a system we had never been in before, controlled by Petra's and Dairutha's helmsman and navigator. They then brought the ship into orbit around the third planet. "MALABIS!" Petra shouted. "At long, long last!" "Soon we will be starting our colony, Petra!" Dairutha cried. "Soon we will be landing on Malabis!" Petra replied, and then she took Dairutha by the hand as their crew watched. They then walked into the turbolift to go down into the shuttlebay, to investigate Malabis as per Titan protocol. As the two of them headed toward Malabis in a shuttlecraft, they were overjoyed by the sight of the blue seas and bright sunlight, both indications of a very fertile world. "Beautiful!" Petra cried as Dairutha steered the shuttlecraft down toward the planet, and when they reached the surface, they touched down beside a mountain and climbed out of the shuttlecraft onto Malabis's surface, admiring the splendour of the tropical world around them. "Yes," Dairantha replied, "But not as beautiful as you!" And the two women then kissed each other joyfully. "You've done me an invaluable service!" Petra replied. *** After the two of them had returned to the ship, Petra and Dairutha met us in the storeroom. Petra told us, "We have made a landing on Malabis, and it is all we ever dreamed it could be! We will soon be departing from the Constitution for good, to settle on Malabis permanently: may we ever meet again in peace!" "The planet's fertile, then?" I asked, and Dairutha said, "Oh, yes - very fertile! We should be able to plant Nebulan vegetation on the soil of Malabis and watch it grow into fully adult crops for our people - once we get there! Preparations have already started for the descent to Malabis!" "Thank you, Petra!" the Captain shouted eagerly. Not long afterward, the Titans awakened their colonists, all of whom were normal Nebulans, and brought them to the main shuttlebay, where they loaded them onto a pair of the shuttlecraft and took them down to the surface of Malabis, where they disembarked onto the planet's surface and started to erect buildings from the prefabricated sections in the chamber where they'd lain for so long. We were able to again watch as the Nebulan colony was founded and I, for one, was nothing less than impressed. "Could it be that this colony will be permanent?" I asked one of the male Titans, and he replied, "That is certainly possible, yes. We will just have to see how well we can survive down there!" The Captain and I were then allowed to go down to the planet's surface in a shuttlecraft to formally meet Menthos, the head of the colonists, and his consort Lytta, a female Nebulan of the highest rank and beauty. "There are hardly any trees in this area," Lytta told us, "and the soil tests have confirmed that it is, in fact fertile loam. We can now begin the process of planting our crops brought from Nebulus here on Malabis!" "Congratulations!" I said. "When I contacted Sanduy, the sole surviving Arclave, about your project, she seemed delighted by the idea, Lytta, and wants to come right here to visit Malabis and see your new home planet for herself!" Suddenly, there was a bright flash, and what appeared to be a shooting star zoomed downward toward Malabis. Soon, the shooting star was revealed to be a female Arclave in a perfectly form-fitting orange "bathing suit" - Sanduy herself. She landed on the surface of Malabis and promptly introduced herself to Lytta and Manthos, saying, "I am Sanduy Decamorra, the sole living Arclave!" "We are honoured to meet you, Professor Sanduy!" Lytta said, and then Mentos spoke for the first time, "Professor Sanduy, what do you think of Malabis?" "I think it's a really lovely planet, Manthos!" Sanduy said. "The vegetation is healthy and the few trees here are ancient and are tall, proud and strong." At that moment, what the Captain and I had assumed was a large round boulder broke open at the top, and a large cloud of vapour containing spores shot upward toward the blue Malabisian sky. Running over to the "boulder," Sanduy grabbed it and hurled it directly into space. She then returned to our side and told Manthos and Lytta, "Unfortunately, this planet is what used to be called a 'Kelly Green,' due to the presence of a type of plant that is parasitic and can travel through space as spores. You'll really have to avoid bumping into the few adult unparasitized plants or cutting into them, because the plant casings will blow up and scatter those spores every which way." "A Kelly Green!" I mused. "I remember our science teacher talking about them. These plants can infect human or animal hosts and can transform them into plants. The name was dropped when a cure was found for the spores about forty years ago. Fortunately, as I understand it, Titans of all races have enhanced immunity and aren't infected anyway!" We then helped the elder Titans set up their houses so that the colony centre could be completed. While the Captain and I lifted one of the prefabricated sections of one of their houses from its crate, we heard something growling in the distance. Seeing Sanduy watching from atop another home, I shouted up at her, "What the hell was that sound?" "It could be one of the infected creatures I detected in the forest before I landed on this planet. Those are very fast and agile, especially if the spores have been inhaled by a particularly strong host, and some of the ones I've battled on other Kelly Greens are very, very dangerous!" Finally, the last of the homes had been set up, and all of us human Titans could take a much needed rest. I said to Mesa and Jerry as the three of us lay stretched out on the ground, "Who could think one could find such a paradise here inside the Great Sphere!" It was only then that we saw a group of humanoid plant trees stumble out of the forest toward the colonists. One of them, a tree slightly taller than the rest, walked up to the Nebulan Titans, who promptly formed a circle around the colony, protecting the colonists from harm. "What the hell are they?" the Captain cried, realizing we might be in danger from these bizarre creatures. "I-I don't know!" I cried. "Infected people of some sort, maybe? I've never seen anything like them!" Then I noticed they were wearing Nebulan ID bracelets! "There was another Nebulan colony on this world!" I cried. "And they were infected by the Kelly Green spores!" Mesa cried. "We must get them out of here before they can infect these colonists with their spores and transform them." Leaping to my feet, I fired my repulsor pistol at one of the trees and hit it in the back, causing it to fall down and hit the ground with a mighty thud. The others continued moving toward the Nebulans and some of them fell to the Titans' swords and axes, Petra especially distinguishing herself by killing three of the trees with one swing of her great axe, and then two more on a backswing. It was then that I realized what they were saying, "Doom! Doom! Doom!" I ran up to the largest tree and blasted its arm. Whipping around, it struck me down so hard I saw bloody stars! Then it came up to the Titans and raised its leafy arm in a salute aimed at Petra herself. Staring at a bracelet on the tree's arm, she said, "Pentagonus? Is that truly you, my love?" Slowly, solemnly, the giant tree then bobbed its head, then gently caressed Petra on the cheek before hissing, "We have been attacked - infected by spores from space. These spores have transformed us from Nebulans into trees!" "Sanduy helped us get rid of one of the mother plants!" she relied, but then Pentagonus moaned, "Petra, the second colony has been wholly devastated by the spores we contracted after we landed and set up here. All of the people have been infected and transformed!" "But, Pentagonus, it took us longer to get here because our vessel was found by the Space Force and changed into the HMS Constitution. Because of that delay, these Earth Titans have been able to provide an antidote for the spores - an antidiote they'll be happy to share with us!" "Too late for us, though, Petra!" Pentagonus replied. "Yes," said Petra as she embraced him, "too late for us. Now we can never be happy together again!" "Is he a Titan like you?" I asked Petra, who said, "He was an average Nebulan and the leader of the second Nebulan colony mission to this world. He was the bravest of the brave, and I am proud to call Pentagonus 'husband,' for he left Nebulus without any Titans!" Realizing we had no choice but to solve this, I personally requested the formula for the Kelly Green antidote and gave it to Petra. Soon, I hoped she could begin distributing the antidote among the Nebulan colonists. Sadly, for Pentagonus and his people, that was never to be - they were completely infected by the spores and so could never truly be cured. While Petra was passing out the antidote ampoules, we headed out to the second colony and found that its buildings were empty - no one had lived here for months, maybe even years, if what I was seeing here was true. There was one of the gigantic nonsprouted plants nearby, which Sanduy immediately tossed out into the depths of space. "They've left their tools here!" I thought anxiously. "Having been transformed into those trees, they can no longer maintain their quality of life here. When he saw the Constitution land in the hills, Pentagonus must've realized that it was the missing colony vessel and emerged from hiding with his people to come and warn us!" "This will not happen again!" the Captain vowed. "It won't, Captain!" I replied. "As soon as Petra has given her colonists the antidote, they'll be safe from those infernal spores forever. Their children will have to be vaccinated at birth to be free of the spores as well!" "I think they'll manage it!" Mesa said. We searched all of the huts in the colony, but in all of them we found only the colonists' discarded possessions. I was stunned by the sheer scale of the tragedy and said, "If only we could've gotten here sooner!" We then made our way back to the existing colony, where Petra had just finished handing out the ampoules to her charges. Lytta and Menthos were saddened to learn of the second colony's fate, but praised us to the skies. "If not for you, we would be trees, too!" Menthos said. "Yes," Lytta said, "and we have been spared what happened to the Second Colony - and to poor Pentagonus!" Later that night, the First Colony people - Petra's and Dairutha's colonists, that is - held a feast in the biggest building on the First Colonial site. The Nebulans cooked up a delicious feast such as we had never seen before for us, placing a mounted creature of some sort in the centre of the table. Looking at it, I asked Petra, "What sort of colony is this, your Highness?" "It is what you would call a penal colony!" she replied. "Those whom we Titans brought across space are all exiles who have committed crimes on the homeworld and have been sentenced to my father to exile for life! Nevertheless, as always, we still celebrate our landing with a feast!" "And Pentagonus?" I asked, and she replied, "He will remain with me." "I'm glad to hear it, your Highness!" Mesa said. "There was a time when the Pilgrim Fathers came to America to build a better life for themselves. To honour them, we celebrate a holiday we call Thanksgiving." the Captain said quietly. "Now you are celebrating your first Thanksgiving feast on your brave new world, Petra. Congratulations, and good luck settling into Malabis!" "Thank you, Captain Herbert!" Petra replied. "You are a new race of Titans - adaptable, brave in so many ways that we can never be. The Constitution is yours again forever, as we have no more need of it!" I bit into my chunk of the roast beast and found it delicious - as did the other human Titans onplanet. "It's good to see them so happy!" Homnus told me. "It is, yes!" I replied. "And just think what we've been given in exchange for our help - powerful bodies, enhanced minds, and immunity from anything that the Great Sphere systems can throw against us. The rebel commanders will be hard-pressed to stand up against us in a fight from here on in. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!" THE END