

The Final Battle

A novel by

Anna Wu

Published September 2013

San Francisco, CA

Published via Smashwords

Copyright 2013

All Rights Reserved

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Suicide Mission

The peaceful silence of the Earth's moon had been disturbed hours ago. Sounds of explosions and gunfire ripped through the air. Dust was kicked in the air as a small boy dove across the ground.

James Neutron landed hard on his elbow, but he shook off the pain. Dodging the constant firing of his enemy's machine gun, he ran and dove behind a large boulder.

"Jimmy! Are you ok?" a panicking Carl shouted above the noise of explosions.

Ignoring the cries of his best friend, Jimmy rushed over to Cindy whispered into his headset. "Give me the pulse rifle!"

Cindy slung it off of her shoulder and held it out to him. "Why? I'll do whatever it is you're thinking of doing!"

Jimmy stared at her for a moment, the small wisp of blonde hair covering her left eye. He knew that she was completely capable of what he was about to do, maybe even more so, but he didn't like the idea of sending a woman out to do this dangerous job. He was old fashioned like that. "No, I'll do it," he whispered while grabbing the gun.

He pulled the clip of ammunition off of his belt. It was his let one. Ninety-five rounds of armor-piercing ammo. He loaded three white phosphorous incendiary grenades into the grenade launcher under the barrel of the gun. "Cindy, spot for me. Sheen, man this," he said while taking out his emergency flare gun from his box of supplies. He tossed it to Sheen, who handled it gingerly. "It's not a real gun, but it's better than nothing. Libs," he looked at the wounded girl sitting next to him, "just sit tight. Carl, keep applying pressure to the wound."

He was about to run out from behind the protection of his boulder when he felt someone grab his shoulder. "Spot for me! Let me handle the gun!" Cindy shouted.

Jimmy shrugged her hand off of his shoulder and glared at her. "Not now, Cindy!"

"Gosh darn it, Neutron, you spot me! Give me the gun!"

"God damn it, Vortex, don't second guess me right now! Spot me and we'll settle this later!" he shouted angrily.

Cindy frowned and spun away, speaking into the headset. "Whatever. Just do your macho thing."

Not having the time to fight about this right now, he ran out from behind his boulder. Immediately dozens of bullets flew past him. He jumped as far as he could and rolled behind the safety of a nearby boulder. "Droids ten o'clock, two o'clock, and midnight. All around two hundred meters away," he heard Cindy's voice say. He glanced to his right and could see her looking through a pair of powerful binoculars.

Jimmy popped his head up and turned about thirty degrees to his right. He saw the first of the enemy robots coming at him. "Die you sick son of a biscuit!" he shouted while unleashing a torrent of bullets. The steady clanging of ejected shells hitting the ground near him went unheard. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he ran out from behind his shelter as he heard a faint whizzing sound.

Running as fast as he could, the shock wave of the grenade sent him flying across the ground. He hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him. "Droid down, next one is now two hundred meters at four o'clock," Cindy's comforting voice said.

Jimmy rolled out of the way as the stream of bullets poured onto the ground he had just been lying on. Taking the only second he had available, he took aim, pumped the grenade barrel, and fired a grenade. He then kept his finger pressed down on the trigger.

The grenade slammed several feet from the droid, fairly good aim considering that Jimmy was six hundred feet away. The explosion burnt the robot and knocked it over, and the bullets easily passed through the robot's broken shell. It fell to the ground, a smoking piece of metal.

Jimmy's body ached, but he didn't care. His blood was icy cold, time slowing down around him. Things seemed to go by in slow motion. Every detail was enhanced. His adrenaline reserves were emptied.

He jumped up and spun around. He pumped the grenade launcher once again and fired it at the robot he saw out of the corner of his eye. He pumped it again and launched another grenade. Pressing the trigger down so hard it cut into his finger, the last few bullets in his rifle were emptied.

Cindy smiled and let out a primal shout of celebration as she saw the last robot go up in flames. She turned the binoculars towards Jimmy and saw him slowly stand up.

Jimmy got to his feet and slowly cracked his neck. Limping, he began the long walk toward the small metal shed a quarter of a mile away. He pointed the gun ahead of him and kicked open the door. "Game over, Strych," he mumbled with hatred.

The shed was empty. The whirring of computers was the only sound that could be heard. Smiling, Eustace ran out from behind the shed and appeared in the doorway, pulling a gun out of his pocket.

"I'm afraid that it is, Neutron at least for..." he was stopped in mid-sentence by an angry Jimmy whirling around and slamming his rifle into Eustace's stomach. He bent over his shocked enemy and pointed the rifle in his face.

Jimmy wouldn't have pressed the trigger, except that he saw Eustace make a move for his gun. With much resentment, he pulled the trigger. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the blood.

There was none. No loud smack of a bullet, no scream. Just a tiny click of the trigger going back into place. Jimmy became scared as Eustace smiled and got back up to his feet. He pulled the trigger several more times, but to no avail. In a last resort, he swung the gun at him once again.

Eustace jumped backwards and aimed the antique revolver at Jimmy's chest. "As I was saying," he angrily mumbled while stepping out of the doorframe (and Jimmy's range), "the game is over for you. Any last words?" he asked while steadying the gun with his other hand.

Jimmy dropped the gun and put his hands up. He frowned glared at Eustace. "Yeah. You'll never get away with this."

Eustace smiled wider. "How clichéd," he mumbled while tightening his grip on the trigger.

Suddenly a whizzing sound reached both their ears. Jimmy ducked as a bright fireball erupted near Eustace. When he heard Eustace shout out in pain, he ran outside.

Cindy lowered the flare gun and ran the several meters towards him. "Spotting my ass," she angrily whispered while shoving the empty gun into his hands. She bent down and picked up Eustace's dropped revolver.

Jimmy snatched it out of her hands, much to Cindy's chagrin. He cocked the gun and pointed it down at Eustace, who was rolling around on the ground to extinguish the few remaining flames still burning on him. When he stopped rolling around, Cindy walked over and slammed her foot into him. Carl now walked over, and Sheen helped Libby hobble over to stand around Eustace.

Eustace stared up at the five angry kids looking down at him. "What are you going to do now, Neutron?" he spat. He groaned as Cindy slammed her foot deeper into his gut.

Jimmy took a deep breath and let the anger flow out of him. "You know, Eustace, each time you do this you pull me one step closer to actually killing you. So stop it," he shouted into Eustace's face.

"What now?" Carl asked.

Jimmy tossed the gun to Cindy. "Empty it." Cindy glared at him, and he sighed. "Please empty it."

Cindy took the six rounds out of the barrel and put them in her pocket. She tossed the gun back to Jimmy, who handed it to Eustace. He growled while snatching it out of his hands.

Jimmy knelt down as he took the gun from his hands. He drew his fist back, rage etching across his face once again. "This is so you won't attack us on the way home," he said while hitting him hard enough in the forehead to knock him out.

Jimmy stood up and stared at the unconscious kid on the ground. "Go to the rocket. I've got to check something in that shed. Cindy, start her up," he told everyone. They nodded and began the trek back to the Strato XL. Once they were out of sight, he stared down at Eustace. He drew his right foot back and kicked him hard in the ribs. "And that's for nearly killing my girlfriend."

Disclaimer: The pulse rifle and its grenades are actually from the movie Aliens. I don't own that.

Chapter 2: The Ride Home

Cindy scooched over to the passenger seat when Jimmy walked over and hopped into the rocket. "Find what you needed in the shed?" she asked while putting her feet up on the dashboard.

Jimmy frowned and began lifting the rocket into the sky. "Yeah, I guess." As he began to pilot the rocket like a robot, he let his mind wander.

The day had started out innocently enough. One last adventure before school started again tomorrow. Pack a picnic for lunch and head to the moon. Play a little low-gravity golf. Yeah. Great idea, he muttered inside his head.

As soon as they set down Jimmy could tell that something was wrong. That instinctual gnawing you get when some miniscule detail you can't really describe doesn't seem right. He tried to ignore it, convince himself it was just his anxiety over going back to school tomorrow, but he couldn't suppress it.

It was a good thing that he didn't. While everyone else was laughing and talking, he had his eyes peeled on the horizon. He saw something moving. He had squinted to see it but couldn't make it out.

He ran back to his rocket and grabbed his emergency supplies. He opened the metallic box and rummaged inside. He threw aside his first aid kit, flare gun, headsets, and pulse rifle. He finally grabbed his binoculars and stared straight ahead.

Over a dozen robotic droids were coming at them. He warned everyone. They had spent hours taking them out one by one, slowly advancing towards the horizon. They soon saw the shed, and realized who must have been inside it.

With their ammo dwindling down to only one extra magazine, Jimmy had sent Libby out to distract the droids so that he could make a run for the shed, which was where he assumed they were being controlled from. She had gotten shot in the leg. He'd immediately turned back and pulled her to the relative safety that lay behind the large boulder. The bullet had passed right through, not cutting any major arteries. And that was when he had made his macho run.

"Jimmy!" Cindy's voice finally interrupted his thoughts. "Big Brain! You there?"

Jimmy angrily switched the rocket over to auto-pilot and spun around to stare at her. "There is no need to shout," he murmured while rubbing his aching head.

"Well, I've been trying to get your attention for three minutes, but you were off in la-la land."

Jimmy sighed. "What is it, Cind?"

Cindy's angry demeanor faded slightly. She pointed at Libby, who was lying down while Sheen continued applying pressure to her leg. "Is she going to be alright?" she whispered.

"You don't have to whisper, she knows she's hurt!" Jimmy said in a normal tone. He turned back to the control panel and monitored the rocket's status. "You're going to be fine, Libby. Barely more than a scratch. When we get back home we'll take you to a hospital. You'll get a bandage and maybe crutches for a few days."

"Speaking of heading home," Sheen said while standing up and handing the blood soaked rag to Carl, who promptly dropped it in disgust, "should we have rushed out of there like that? Shouldn't we have brought Eustace back to the cops or something?"

Jimmy spun around in his chair once more. "We don't have time. We're already two hours past curfew, and I don't need some satanic kid hijacking my rocket while I'm trying to make sure he's tied up nice and tight."

Cindy looked over at him, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Why didn't you let me do that little suicide run back there? You know I'm better with guns than you. You're better with medicine; you should have stayed with Libby."

"Not now," he seethed.

"Yes, I will talk about this right now!" she whispered into his ear. "If you died, who would have brought us back home? Heaven knows you don't want me to fly your rocket!"

Jimmy dug his fingernails into the rocket's steering wheel and turned his head to stare at her. "You want to know why I didn't let you do that back there?"

"Yeah, I kind of do!" she spat at him.

Jimmy stared her in the eyes and gently grabbed the strand of hair that was still hanging in her eyes. "Because I didn't want you to die. Happy?" he angrily said while tucking the hair behind her ear and looking at the heavens in front of them.

Cindy fingered the strand gently for a moment before frowning and hitting him hard in the arm. "Ow!" he shouted while grabbing his bruised limb. "What the heck was that for? I said I didn't want you to die!"

Cindy crossed her arms and glared at him. "Well, I don't want you to die either!"

Jimmy continued staring at her before finally smiling, and then chuckling. "Fair enough," he said.

Cindy smiled as well and looked ahead at the Earth that was becoming larger and larger. "Glad you agree. So next time I get to do the suicide mission," she said while playfully shoving him.

Jimmy laid back and yawned. The rocket could handle itself while reentering the Earth's atmosphere. He would just have to land it himself. "Or we could just send Sheen."

"Hey!" Sheen shouted while popping his head between the two. "Let's just send Carl! He's the fifth wheel!"

"Ha ha, good one," Carl said while looking away and wiping his eye. Libby weakly put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Alright, enough fooling around. Let's land this son of a biscuit and go get some sleep. We'll decide who we sacrifice on our next mission during lunch tomorrow."

"And we'll talk about your use of euphemisms as well," Cindy groaned.

"Oh go fudge yourself," Jimmy playfully muttered.

Chapter 3: All Is Not As It Should Be

The moon was the only light that shone as the five kids finally touched down onto the Earth. The swerving and bumping as Jimmy struggled to remain control of the rocket awoke the sleeping Libby and Sheen. Carl was still staring out over the edge of the rocket, worrying about school starting tomorrow.

"We home?" an exhausted Cindy asked while yawning and stretching her arms wide.

Jimmy's lips curled up as he heard the sound of her voice. He turned around and stared into the emerald pools that were her eyes. "Home again, safe and sound as always," he cheerily said while hopping out of the rocket and running over to open Cindy's door.

Libby struggled to get to her feet and leaned on Carl as Sheen opened the door for her. "Yeah, we're all super swell," she angrily told Jimmy and Cindy.

Jimmy instantly turned around and allowed Libby to put an arm over his shoulder. He and Carl helped her hop out of the rocket. As soon as she set foot on the cement beneath her, she collapsed onto the ground. Jimmy and Carl bent down to help her, but she waved them off.

"I'm fine," she angrily told them between labored breaths. She collected herself and moved so that she could sit on the curb. "Just get your damn parents to bring me to the stupid hospital."

Jimmy looked towards Cindy. "You heard her, go get your mom," Jimmy nervously said.

Cindy jumped backwards in shock. "Are you crazy? I'm lucky my mom bought your stupid hologram thingy and hasn't grounded me for a year! I'm not telling her that I went off to the moon and got my friend shot! Your mission, your fault, your responsibility!"

Jimmy glared at her for a moment before throwing his hands up in the air and kicking a pebble down the street. "Damn it! Fine, I'll go wake up my parents."

"Language," Sheen muttered while shaking his index finger.

"Oh shut up," Jimmy shouted while walking towards his front door.

"Let's get Jimmy in trouble," he sarcastically muttered in a girly tone while taking out his house key. "Your mission, your fault, your responsibility!"

Jimmy turned the small key in the door handle's lock and opened the door. "Ah, screw them. We're all getting grounded anyway. Our parents will obviously find out that we all went to the moon without their permission."

Jimmy tossed his key on the kitchen table while walking inside. He paused in front of the fridge and took a purple flurp out. He frowned while opening it and taking several sips. He suddenly paused and frowned. "Alright, stop being such a jackass. Libby's hurt, and you're worrying about getting grounded and drinking a soda. Some friend you are," he whispered to himself while setting his drink down on the counter and walking out into the parlor.

He stared at the stairs for a moment before lumbering up them. "Goodbye, sweet freedom. See you in six months," he muttered while knocking on his parents' door.

"Mom! Dad! Libby's hurt!" He paused a moment before hitting the door louder. "Mom! Dad! Seriously, get out of bed!" He slowly turned the doorknob and peeked his head inside. He flipped on the light switch and went inside. Much to his chagrin, they weren't in the room.

Cindy stropped stroking Libby's hair and jumped up from the curb. "Where the hell are your parents? Don't they care that Libby's hurt?"

Jimmy angrily kicked another small rock down the street. "They're not in the house. They must have realized that it was my hologram in there and not me, and then decided to go out to find me."

Cindy held up a finger and quickly rushed into her house. After several moments she ran back outside. "Same for me. Stupid parents, never there when you want them to be."

Jimmy paced around for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck and clenching his other hand into a fist. Finally he stopped and let out a deep sigh. "Fine. Screw them. It's too dark for me to fly the rocket to the hospital. We're lucky I was able to land safely."

He paused for another second to collect his thoughts. His leader instinct then kicked in. "Sheen, take Libby inside my house. I want you to keep her leg elevated. Put her on the couch and rest her leg on some pillows. Get some towels in the bathroom upstairs and keep applying pressure. If she gets worse, call me on my cell. Make sure she gets plenty of water."

"Carl, go with Sheen and Libby. I want you to call 9-1-1 and tell them the situation. Cindy, come with me to Nick's house. He's right down the street. We'll try to see if we can find out where the hell our idiot parents went."

Sheen watched as Cindy and Jimmy ran down the street. He then quickly helped Libby up and draped one of her arms over his shoulder. "Carl! A little help!" Carl ran over and he helped bring Libby into Jimmy's house.

Jimmy amazingly outran Cindy to Nick's house and tried the door. It was locked, as could be expected. He rang the doorbell, but it was broken. "Goddamn it!" he said while kicking the door.

Cindy shoved him aside and closed her eyes. Concentrating, she lashed out with her right foot, swinging the delicate door open. "Allow me," she said while taking a deep breath and running inside. Jimmy stared after her for a moment before following her.

"Nick!" Jimmy shouted.

"Mrs. Dean! Mr. Dean!" Cindy yelled at the top of her lungs.

Jimmy swore under his breath and grabbed Cindy's hand. "What the heck do you think is going on?" he asked her.

Cindy didn't need to answer as she opened Nick's bedroom door. Nick lay half on and half off of the bed, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. His chest was steadily rising and falling, but he definitely wasn't sleeping.

"Nick!" Cindy and Jimmy both shouted while running towards him. Jimmy stared as Cindy bent down and began slapping his face, gently at first, and then gradually harder. Soon she was nearly punching him. "Wake up!" she screamed.

Jimmy wanted to know what the heck was going on here. He gently pulled Cindy aside and stared down at Nick. Drawing back his fist, he hit his unconscious friend in the gut.

Nick instantly sprang up, gasping for breath. He pulled his hands to his stomach and began coughing after a moment. "Nick! Are you alright?" Jimmy asked.

Nick stared at him for a moment and slowly took his hands off of his stomach. And then, so fast that Cindy missed it by blinking, he rammed Jimmy into the nearby wall and began to strangle him.

Return to Top

Chapter 4: A Beautiful Night

Jimmy's head hit the wall with a sickening crack! He couldn't focus on his aching throat and dwindling supply of air, his head hurt too much. Purple spots danced before his closing eyes.

"Jimmy!" Cindy crazily shouted while charging Nick. She tried to shove him to the floor, but she was surprised by his strength. She bounced right off of him and landed on the ground. She looked up to see Jimmy on the verge of blacking out and Nick sneering wildly.

She immediately jumped back up to her feet and kicked Nick hard in the crotch. "Ahhhh!" he shouted, the first time he had spoken since waking up. He stumbled backwards and tripped over his bed.

Cindy ran over to Jimmy, who was sliding down the wall to the floor. "Come on, wake up, wake up," she pleaded, on the verge of tears. She smacked him hard across the face.

Jimmy suddenly opened his eyes and coughed sporadically. "What?" was all he managed to say before being wrapped in a tight embrace by Cindy.

"Cindy!" he shouted, trying to break free of her. "Cindy!" he screamed.

She finally released him and took a few steps back and began to blush. "Um, you're alive. Good," she said in the meanest voice she could muster, trying to act like her usual self.

Jimmy slowly got up and smiled at her, and she just looked away, still blushing. He rubbed the back of his head and slowly walked towards Nick, who was grabbing his hurt area and lying on the bed. "Nick," he whispered, "are you ok?"

Nick tried to lunge at him once more, but his pain slowed him down. Cindy easily caught him, and he didn't resist when she set him back down on the bed.

Nick wrapped an arm around his headboard and took a deep breath to rid the pain. "What," he began, trying to control his anger, "the hell did you do to me?"

Jimmy stared at him with a puzzled expression for a moment before answering. "What are you talking about?"

Nick slowly got up and walked towards Jimmy, but Cindy blocked his way. Nick raised his hands up in a sign of defeat and sat back down on his bed.

"What am I talking about? Well, let's see. I'm sitting in my room reading a magazine, I get a horrible headache, I vaguely remember swirling darkness, and then I wake up with a pain in my gut and you standing over me with your hand curled in a fist! So stop playing dumb and tell me what sick experiment you've done on me!"

Jimmy and Cindy stared at each other, silently asking the other to come up with an explanation.

"Nick, calm down. We've been on the moon all day. We have no idea what is going," Jimmy tried to explain further, but the ringing of his cell phone interrupted him. "Damn it," he muttered while walking away and flipping his phone open.

"Neutron here. Go," he said while turning his head back around and staring at Cindy, who was whispering to Nick.

"Jimmy," a scared Carl shouted, "something's wrong."

Jimmy clenched his empty hand into a fist. "Of course it is. Is Libby ok? Do you need me back there?"

Carl shook his head back at Jimmy's house, although he knew that Jimmy couldn't see him do it. "I tried with your phone, Cindy's house's phone, my house's phone, and then my cell phone. I can't get anything through to 9-1-1. All I keep hearing is static. I can't believe I got through to you," he muttered in belief.

Jimmy rubbed his temple and clenched his teeth. Libby was far from being fatally wounded, but he didn't like the idea of her bleeding on his couch with only Carl and Sheen taking care of her. She needed a doctor's care, or at the very least, his own. "The 9-1-1 calls go to a dispatch center in Houston," he muttered, not sure if Carl could hear him.

"So?" Carl asked, not sure what he was getting at.

Jimmy took a moment to think. "Call some other numbers out of town. See if they get through. Then try some other numbers in Retroville. Call me back when you're done," he instructed his friend.

"Alright, if you say so," Carl nervously said while hanging up the phone.

Jimmy turned back around to face Nick and shoved his cell phone back into his jeans' pocket. "Cindy explain everything to you?"

Nick looked perplexed. "What the hell is going on?" he asked again.

Jimmy smiled for the first time since he got back from the moon. "We were hoping you could tell us. As I'm sure Cindy told you, it looks like our parents are missing. So are yours. We thought our parents were out searching for us, but I don't know your mom and dad would leave you here alone."

"That means they were kidnapped, and I bet the same goes for every other kid's parents in Retroville," Cindy finished. "The fact that you were knocked out isn't exactly disproving our beliefs. I figure you can put the pieces together."

"Yolkians?" Nick offered.

Jimmy and Cindy nodded. "Exactly," they both said.

"Anything you can tell us will help," Jimmy told him. Nick opened his mouth, but Jimmy held up his hand. "Not right now. Not here. Libby's hurt and I need to get back to her. It's better we debrief you at my lab. You ok to walk there?"

Nick weighed his strength for a moment before nodding. Cindy grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He slowly walked down the stairs and out the front door.

"Hell of a night," he told Cindy. They both looked up at the dozens of shining stars and the glowing full moon.

"Looks even better from the moon," Cindy said while smiling and leading Nick by the hand to Jimmy's house.

Jimmy groaned as his cell phone rang again. He motioned for Cindy and Nick to stop while flipping the phone open. "Carl?"

"Yeah, it's me," the wheezing voice of his friend answered. "I did like you said."

"Well?" Jimmy asked, hoping that his hypothesis had been wrong.

Carl shook his head once again on the other end of the phone, but this time in confusion. "None of the calls to anywhere outside of Retroville are going through. The calls are going through to the numbers in Retroville, but nobody's answering."

"Damn it," Jimmy muttered while covering the phone with his hand. He took a deep breath and resumed speaking to Carl. "Me and Cindy picked up Nick. The three of us will be back at my place within ten minutes."

"Alright," Carl said, about to hang up the phone.

Jimmy slammed his phone shut once again, albeit this time a bit more forcefully. He thrust it back into his pocket before spinning around to face Cindy and Nick. "Come on, let's move. We've got a lot of work to do."

Chapter 5: A Long Night

A few minutes later the three kids reached Jimmy's house. Nick was now walking on his own. He said that he felt better, but still had a splitting headache.

"Cindy," Jimmy began, "go get the others inside the house and bring them inside the lab. I'll leave the door unlocked." She nodded and ran inside his house. "Nick, come on."

Nick followed James as he plucked a hair from his head and held it up to the DNA scanner. The door opened slightly, and Jimmy pulled it open the rest of the way. He led Nick inside and closed the entrance behind him, but making sure to leave it unlocked.

Jimmy ran ahead of Nick, who stayed behind to admire the wonder that was Jimmy's lab. The whirring of machines, the sound of paper being printed, the resonance of computer keys clacking, it was astounding. It had changed a lot since he had last come in, when Jimmy had dumbed-down his intelligence and a comet was about to destroy Retroville. It was the most amazing thing Nick had ever seen. "Whoa," was the only sound that he could manage to get out of his mouth.

"Make yourself at home," Jimmy shouted while anxiously running around his lab. He held a jumble of pillows, cloth rags, and medical supplies in his arms. He tossed them on the sofa in the lounge and began arranging things.

"You've upgraded a few things since the last time I was here," Nick shouted back while walking through the lab, slowly touching his hands to all of the gleaming metal.

Jimmy smiled as he moved all of the medical supplies to a tray set up nearby. It was good to have someone besides the ignorant Carl and Sheen complement his lab. "I've got a lot of free time."

Nick stopped admiring Jimmy's pride and joy when the rest of the children came in. Jimmy also stopped what he was doing and turned around to look at them. Libby was lying down on a bed's sheet, being carried by Carl, Sheen, and Cindy.

"Over here!" Jimmy yelled as they came into the center of his lab. He waved his arms and they brought her over to him. "Set her down nice and easy," he instructed as they slowly placed her down on the couch.

The three of them stepped back to let Jimmy examine her. "Anything I should know about?" Jimmy asked while grabbing Libby's hand while looking her over. He carefully unwrapped the makeshift bandage Sheen had applied to get his first real look at the wound.

"The bleeding stopped," Cindy told Jimmy while he eyed the wound.

"You feeling ok?" Jimmy asked Libby.

She smiled slightly and nodded her head. "Fine. It's just my leg, Jimmy, not my brain."

Jimmy smiled as he saw that she was doing well. He pattered her hand, and she squeezed it. She looked up at him and smiled as well.

Sheen frowned and began to growl as he saw this. He went to move forward and stop Jimmy, but Cindy blocked his way and shook her head.

Jimmy finally let go of her hand and spun around to the rest of the group. "Alright, here's what we are going to do. Cindy, I want you to bring Nick into another room and talk to him. Nick, we need to know everything that happened today. No detail is too small. You got it?" Nick and Cindy nodded.

"Sheen and Carl," he continued, "I'm almost positive the other kids were knocked out like Nick. I haven't had a chance to examine him, but it seems like he was hit by some sort of knockout gas. You two go around town and get all the kids. There aren't going to be any adults," he angrily instructed.

Carl nodded his head, but Sheen frowned and immediately fought this idea. "No way! Libby's hurt, so I'm staying right here with here!"

Jimmy shook his head. "Sheen, I need you to help Carl. I'm going to be working on her for the next couple of hours anyway. I'm turning the lounge into a makeshift operating room. You can't be in here."

Sheen met Jimmy's gaze. "Well then I'll set up snacks for all the kids coming. Heck, I'll clean your lab. But I am staying right here," he said in a forceful tone he had never used before while pointing down at the floor.

Jimmy finally broke the stare and rubbed his temple. "Alright, fine. Nick's got a bad headache, so the other kids probably will too. Go to all the nearby houses and get all the aspirin you can. Move some of my inventions around and put a cup of water and two aspirin for each kid on the table in the center of the room," he instructed, desperately thinking for some task to keep Sheen occupied.

"Yes sir!" Sheen shouted while hurriedly running out of the lab to get the aspirin. He wanted to get back to Libby as soon as possible.

Jimmy watched as Carl also left the lab and Cindy and Nick went into a separate room. He stared up at the clock on the wall. It's only 10:30. This is going to be a long night.

Chapter 6: Fixing the Damage

 Jimmy put on a pair of rubber gloves as he stared down at Libby. "You feeling ok?" he asked while bending down and staring at her leg.

"I was, until Sheen made it his personal duty to take care of me. It took me and Carl five minutes to convince him that no, I do not in fact need my leg amputated."

Jimmy smiled as he gingerly lifted her leg up and looked underneath it. "Yeah, sorry I had to leave you with him. He sure does care about you, though."

Libby smiled as well, but cringed as Jimmy placed her leg back down. "Cindy seems to care about you too."

Jimmy's smile faded as he stared at her. "Nice segue."

Libby looked down at her leg. "Are you two ever going to get back together?"

Jimmy stared at her with a puzzled expression. "We were together?"

Libby shrugged as best as she could while lying down. "Well, you went to that dance one time."

Jimmy's mind replayed that night nearly two years ago. "She went with me and Timmy. That hardly constitutes a date, let alone a relationship."

Libby sighed. "Yeah, whatever. I just still find it strange that me and Sheen got together before you and Cindy. You two seemed, you know, star-crossed lovers."

Jimmy chuckled. "You've been reading too much Shakespeare. We've been Katherina and Petruchio at best."

Libby just sighed and shook her head. She finally looked back down at her leg, which Jimmy set back down on the couch. "How is it?" she nervously asked.

Jimmy ran a hand through his hair and ruffled through his supplies. "Better than I had hoped," he said, much to her relief. "You've got an exit wound, so the bullet isn't still in there. That's good for both of us. I just have to sanitize it and sew 'er up." He picked up a spool of black thread and a needle.

"You know how to sew?" Libby asked him.

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. "Um, yeah." He cringed as Libby's face brightened as she remembered something.

"You were the guy who took home ec earlier this year!" she shouted while pointing at him.

Jimmy finally got the thread through the needle. "Woodshop was full, alright?" he angrily told her.

Libby stopped smiling and twitched as the needle went through her skin. "Take this," Jimmy instructed her while handing over a cup of water and some pills. "They'll kill the pain and make you go to sleep."

Libby stared at the pills for a moment before swallowing them with a swig of water. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. It was nearly eleven, which was over an hour later than she usually went to bed. She had been fighting an intense battle all day and had been shot in the leg. Add to that the pills, and she was infinitely more tired that she had ever been.

Jimmy couldn't help but continue smiling as he stared down at her peaceful face, eyes twitching in slumber. Every once in a while she would moan a little from the pain, but she was mostly quiet. He blinked and remembered the needle still in his hands. He continued sewing up the holes in her flesh.

An hour later, he finally wiped the collecting beads of sweat from his forehead. He looked up at the clock and realized that it was midnight. Guess it's not the first day of school after all, he thought while putting away his sewing kit.

"She alright?" The sudden voice made Jimmy jump a little. He turned around to see Nick and Cindy standing behind him. "Is she?" Nick reiterated.

Jimmy sighed and nodded. "She'll be fine. I gave her some pills to kill the pain and put her to sleep."

Cindy walked over to her best friend and pushes some strands of hair off of her forehead. Nick and Jimmy stared on curiously. "When did you two finish up?" Jimmy asked Nick.

Nick continued staring at the two girls. "Ten minutes ago. So, what do we do now?"

His answer came through a loud buzzing sound. Jimmy looked over to the computer mainframe and saw Carl and Sheen's face on the screen. He jumped into his chair and rolled across the floor. "Sheen, where the hell have you been? I give you one job to do and..."

Sheen blinked into the camera, his eyes red and wide. They twitched a little with fatigue. "Chill, dude," he interrupted Jimmy, "Carl said he needed help. Is Libby ok?"

"Come in and see for yourself," Jimmy said while pressing the green button to his left. The lab's main entrance unlocked. Sheen ran inside. "Where is everyone?" Jimmy asked Carl.

Carl stepped out of the camera's path to reveal dozens, if not hundreds, of children. Most were clutching their heads in pain and confusion. Staring at the scores of children, a small smile crept up his strained face.

"Bring them in," Jimmy instructed Carl. Jimmy looked away from the monitor to abruptly face Sheen. "Ah!" he shouted while spinning around to stand inches from his face.

"Stop doing that!" Jimmy shouted while clutching his heart and walking over to Cindy, Libby, and Nick.

"Sorry!" Sheen defensively said. "I'll go lay out that aspirin and water. Libby seems good," he said with a tint of hope in his voice. His eyes pleaded with Jimmy to confirm his beliefs.

Jimmy put a hand on Sheen's shoulder. "Sheen, listen to me. She is going to be fine," he said comfortingly. Sheen finally nodded and ran off to get to work.

Jimmy finished strolling over to his three other friends. "Cindy, Nick, would you two mind telling the other kids what is going on? I have to check some stuff out."

Cindy stared at him for and saw the deep bags under his eyes. "Nick can handle it. You look like you could use some help," she said while following him to another room.

Nick stared after them for a moment. "That's fine; I have a complete grasp of what's going on. I only woke up two hours ago," he angrily mumbled while trying to think of what to tell the other kids.

Return to Top

Chapter 7: The Control Room

Jimmy slid to a stop next to a thick steel door and grabbed the handle with his left palm. He placed his other hand on a green electronic box next to the wall. It hummed for a moment before shutting off. The door unlocked and Jimmy quickly pulled it open. As he walked inside, Jimmy noticed that Cindy was staring at the green box with curiosity gleaming in her eyes.

"It scans your fingerprints," Jimmy quickly explained while jumping into a chair. He stared at the dozens of computer monitors, all spewing out infinite streams of numbers.

Cindy nodded her head in comprehension as she took a seat next to Jimmy. "How come I haven't seen one for the other rooms in your lab?"

Jimmy's lips curled up as another chance to explain the wonders of his lab came by. "This room is much more important than the others. This is the control center of the lab. It contains every bit of information on every experiment. Every visitor that comes in, every keystroke on my computers, every opening of the refrigerator is recorded and kept in these computers. It also records videos that I receive from the several cameras that I have placed around the city."

Jimmy noticed that Cindy was giving him a dirty look. "I talked to the mayor and got permission for it. It's only on street corners and stuff, not in anyone's houses. At first I only had one on Baltic Street, but I added more after the first Yolkian abduction. I thought they might come in handy if they ever came back."

Cindy peered over his shoulder to see him typing in seemingly random series of numbers. "Accessing your security videos for the period while we were gone?" she asked. Jimmy nodded. "Try searching at three o'clock. That's around the time Nick says that he was hit by that knockout gas," she explained.

Jimmy nodded and hit several more keys. "This will take around five minutes. I've instructed the computer to look for severe anomalies compared to the other recordings."

Cindy got up and started walking around the room. "How the hell do you afford all this stuff, anyway?"

Jimmy shrugged, still staring at the computer screens. "I make a lot of it myself."

"Well, I kind of figured that," Cindy went on, "but how do you buy all the scrap metal, tool, you know, that stuff?"

Jimmy spun his chair around to face her. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "I sell a few of my inventions on the side. I'm surprised you didn't know that. I'm pretty much set for the next few years, cash-wise. Why, does my money make even more, irresistible?" he asked while smiling and raising his eyebrows.

Cindy chuckled and spun his chair around. "Stick to your computers, Big Brain."

"If that's what turns you on," Jimmy said in the most debonair voice he could muster. His smile quickly faded as he saw what was on the screen. "Cindy, here's our feature presentation."

She knelt down beside him, her arm touching his on the armrest. "What have we got?"

Jimmy's eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the screen. "Strange," he muttered.

Cindy groaned. "Of course it is," she angrily muttered. "What is it?"

Jimmy continued staring at the screen before typing in several commands. He finally laid his head back and sighed. "Well, I should have half a dozen viewpoints from my different cameras. The videos are categorized in fifteen minute intervals. For instance, a video from Main Street from 6 to 6:15 p.m. would be separate from the 6:15 to 6:30 recording. So I should have dozens, if not hundreds, of separate videos of today's events."

"Ok, so what's the problem?" Cindy asked again.

Jimmy pointed to the monitor. "I have exactly one fifteen minute video."

Cindy stared at the monitor. The link for a single recording was flashing on the screen. "That's weird. Even if the other five cameras were destroyed or deactivated during the raid, why was this one operational for only fifteen minutes?"

Jimmy nodded while rubbing his chin. "Exactly. Maybe it has something to do with the knocked out communications?"

Cindy shrugged. "At any rate, we'll have to check out the cameras later."

Jimmy groaned. His workload was quickly piling up. Saving our parents I can handle. But now I have to examine knocked out communications and video feeds. School's looking better all the time. "Well, shall we see what happened?"

Cindy nodded. "Push the button, Nerdtron." Jimmy clicked his mouse, and both he and Cindy stared intently at the monitor.

The video was in black and white, and the quality wasn't too great. It had come from the camera on Baltic Street, the first camera Jimmy had installed. Therefore this camera was older and less advanced than his others. On the screen, nothing happened for the first few minutes.

"You sure this is the right tape?" Cindy asked.

Her question was answered by a loud whirring sound coming from the computer. Several massive ships flew overhead. One of the ships hovered above a house for a moment before launching a large beam into the house. Several adults flew up the beam into the ship. The ship then sped away past the small sliver of moon and stars in the sky. The video then abruptly ended.

Jimmy looked at his computer. "That was only seven minutes. Also, the time says eight p.m. Didn't Nick say that it happened around four?"

Cindy nodded. "Well, he was pretty out of it after he woke up. He nearly killed you, after all. I think we need to take what he says with a grain of salt."

Jimmy rubbed his temple and nodded his head. "Guess you're right." He looked up at his clock once again. It was quarter of one. He was ridiculously tired. "Let's talk to the kids and figure out what to do in the morning. Well, later in the morning." He put a blank DVD into a disc drive and tapped a few more buttons on his keyboard. "I'll burn the video onto this so the other kids can see it."

"Sounds good," Cindy muttered while yawning. She grabbed Jimmy's hand and pulled him out of the chair once he took the DVD out of the disc drive. "Well, let's go tell everyone what's going on," she said while leading him out of the room.

Jimmy slowly nodded as he closed the door behind him. "And then it's off to bed."

Chapter 8: I'm Going Home!

Cindy and Jimmy slowly entered the main room of his lab. Nick was standing on top of a table and talking to all of the kids. Carl was listening intently, and Sheen was sitting beside an unconscious Libby. "So, um, yeah. The Yolkians took our parents. That about sums it up," he finished.

"Oh my god, they kidnapped our parents!" one kid yelled.

"You bastards!" another shouted while staring up at the sky and shaking his fist.

Jimmy and Cindy stared quizzically at each other for a moment before walking up to Nick. "May we?" Cindy asked.

"Please," Nick said with a sigh of relief. Cindy stepped onto the table as Nick stepped off. Jimmy was about to follow her, but Nick grabbed his arm. "Um, dude, sorry I nearly killed you before. I was, you know, kind of out of it."

Jimmy patted his shoulder and delivered a strange smile. "Forget about it. Something tells me that we'll be even by the end of this little adventure." Nick stared at him strangely before quickly walking away.

"Alright, I'm sure that Nick has given you the basic story. You were all hit by knockout gas and our parents were abducted by the Yolkians," Cindy explained.

Jimmy nodded his head as he stepped onto the table. "That's right. But we think that this can explain today's events a lot better than we can," he told the kids while putting the disc into a nearby computer. He uploaded the image to the large central monitor at the end of the room. "This was taken around eight o'clock tonight. Enjoy."

Jimmy grabbed Cindy's hand and helped her jump off the table. They stood aside so the other kids could see. The two of them stared at the video, enthralled by it just as much as the first time they had seen it. When it was done, the crowd erupted into chaos.

Cindy promptly stuck two fingers into her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. "Cool it!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Now, it is one o'clock in the morning. We are in the midst of a crisis, but it's nothing that we can't handle. We've beaten the Yolkians before, and we can do it again. We will get to work in the morning. For now, let's just all go to bed."

"Um, wait!" Sheen shouted while standing up from his seat next to Libby. He looked at the one of the last frames of the video that Jimmy had frozen on the screen and then at another monitor that showed the outside of the lab. "I have a question!"

Several people laughed at the thought of Sheen asking a serious question. Even Jimmy chuckled a little. "Alright, Sheen, what is your question? Did you not get the plot of the movie? I know how tough it was for you to understand The Matrix," Jimmy stated. Several more people began laughing.

"First off, that movie made no sense! If they had a training program that could give them guns to bring into the Matrix, then why didn't they arm themselves every time before they jacked in? I mean, I know the agents are tough, but if you had a ton of guns and a rocket launcher..." He immediately shook his head. "That's not the point!"

"Fine, what's your question?" an exasperated Cindy asked.

"You know what, forget it," Sheen angrily said while sitting back down.

"Sheen, we're sorry," Jimmy earnestly apologized.

"Screw you guys, I'm going home!" he shouted while walking towards the lab's exit.

"Sheen," Cindy began.

"Screw you guys, I'm going home!" he screamed louder while exiting the lab. The door audibly slammed shut behind him.

The crowd stared at him for a moment. "Alright, let's just go to sleep," Jimmy offered. The crowd unanimously yawned in agreement. Several trudged towards the lab's exit, but the vast majority simply fell onto the floor and closed their eyes. Several made their way to the few couches and chairs strewn about the lab. "Um, I didn't mean sleep right here," Jimmy nervously started to explain.

Cindy led Jimmy away from the crowd. "It's hours past their normal bedtimes, their parents were abducted by aliens, again, and they've been knocked out for hours. You're really going to wake them up to kick them out of your house so that they can sleep alone in their houses?"

Jimmy stared at the silent pack of children before groaning. "Alright, fine. But you just said all that because it's not your lab," he angrily muttered.

"You're probably right," she said while smiling at him. "Night," she said while turning around.

"You're not staying here?" Jimmy asked, not ready to say goodnight to her. He immediately cursed his faux pas.

Cindy turned around once again and stared at him. "Why, you want me to?"

Jimmy laughed nervously. "No, no, nothing like that. I just thought that since Sheen left, you would be the obvious choice to watch after Libby. You are her best friend, after all."

"Oh," Cindy said, thinking that over.

"But actually, maybe there is something more important that we should be doing. There are plenty of kids here to watch over her. We're going to have a huge workload in the morning. Maybe we should check out those cameras now, and whatever is blocking those communications?"

Cindy though about it for a moment. "Well, I guess it would be nice to have some more answers for all the kids by the time they wake up. But that will leave us no time to sleep. I'm pretty wiped."

"Cindy, the importance sleep is paled by the severity of our situation!" Jimmy nearly shouted. Good one, he happily thought. "Every second counts here!"

Cindy yawned once again before answering. "Alright, fine. Can we at least have some hot chocolate to wake us up first?"

"Now that," Jimmy said while putting an arm around her shoulder and leading her to the lab's tiny kitchen, "seems like a fair compromise."

Chapter 9: The Force Field

Twenty minutes later Cindy was standing outside Jimmy's lab, swirling the last remnants of her hot chocolate around her mug. Jimmy had guzzled his down and was preparing his hover car. "I thought you said that it was too dark for you to be flying around," she told him.

Jimmy threw a few more inventions into the back of the car. "Well, we're going to be heading all around town. It might take a full day to do that without this. Besides, it's a cloudless night with a full moon. If I find a way to put some headlights onto this thing and drive fairly slow, we should be alright."

"Can I help?" Cindy asked while setting her now empty mug down on the ground.

Jimmy nodded his head. "I didn't design this hover car with headlights, but I've gathered a bunch of flashlights. Could you tape them onto the front of the car?" Cindy nodded and got to work. "Thanks. I've got to go take care of a few final things in the lab," Jimmy said while running back inside. He quickly popped back outside to grab the empty mug on the ground.

Jimmy quickly ran into the lab's kitchen, re-energized by the hot chocolate. He tossed the mug into the sink and then dashed out. He then ran up to Libby and smiled. He had known that no matter how angry Sheen was, he wouldn't leave Libby alone. He was sleeping on the floor next to her couch, his hand clutching hers. He must have snuck back in when me and Cindy were working on the hover car. "Sheen!" he whispered while gently shaking him. "Dude, wake up!"

Sheen moaned before finally opening his eyes. He jumped up and looked around. "Who is it? What?" he mumbled, still mostly asleep.

"Come on, wake up!" Jimmy whispered, a little louder, while gently smacking him on the face.

"Alright, alright, I'm awake!" Sheen muttered while shoving Jimmy off of him. "What is it?"

"Cindy and I are leaving to find out what jammed our communications. While we're gone and Libby's asleep, you and Carl are in charge. Got it?" Jimmy asked.

Sheen nodded. "Yeah, got it. Whatever."

Jimmy's face became serious. "But when Libby wakes up, she's in charge, ok?"

Sheen shook his head in disdain. "Wait, you'd rather have a crippled kid who's hopped up on painkillers in charge than me and Carl?"

"Yes, I knew you'd understand," Jimmy happily said while nodding his head and energetically patting Sheen's shoulder. "Gotta go, see you later!" he said while running back out of the lab. Sheen angrily stared after him for a moment before closing his eyes again and going back to sleep.

"Ready?" Jimmy asked while gripping the side of his hover car and jumping in.

"Ready," Cindy said while doing the same. Jimmy turned the hover car's key and began flying down the street.

"How far to the first camera?" Cindy asked as she lay back in her seat.

Jimmy performed some quick calculations in his head. "We should reach the first one in about ten minutes." They rode in silence until they came up to Baltic Avenue. Jimmy came to a stop as they came to the street sign. "We'll go on foot from here," he said.

"Where's the camera?" Cindy asked while taking out two flashlights from a supply box in the hover car.

Jimmy thanked her for the flashlight and flicked it on. "I don't remember exactly. I know that it's somewhere around the street sign. Just look around this area."

"Alright," Cindy said while staring at the various signs, sure that the camera was attached to one of them. After several moments of searching, she came up empty-handed. Frustrated, she sat down on a bench. "Jimmy, I think I found it," she shouted.

Jimmy came running up to her. "Where is it?" Cindy pointed to a lens on the ground. "Damn it, it was destroyed."

They both knelt down to examine the lens. "Looks charred," Cindy said while shining the flashlight on it. "Can you figure out what time it was disabled?"

Jimmy thought for a moment. "Yeah, I guess I could look at the control room's records back at the lab. Although I don't see the point; it was obviously hit around 8:15 tonight ... I mean last night."

"Shouldn't we check to be sure?"

"Ordinarily, I would say yes. We should be investigating every lead," Jimmy sadly explained. "But if the Yolkians took our parents, we may not have a lot of time before they kill them. I can't waste time checking things that we already know."

He pocketed the lens and closed his eyes for a moment to think. "Let's check out one more camera. If that one's destroyed, which I'm sure it is, then that's certainly what happened to the others. We'll visit the one on East Twelfth Street. That's at the edge of town. Maybe we'll also find what's blocking the communications there as well."

"Sounds like a plan," Cindy said while climbing into the passenger seat of the hover car. She rested her eyes for a moment as Jimmy revved the engine. After another moment of silence, she tried to recap what they found out.

"So, you think the Yolkians disabled all your cameras before the attack so that you wouldn't know what happened?"

Jimmy nodded his head. "It sure seems that way. Since the camera on Baltic was older, maybe that's why they didn't spot it at first. They probably were scanning for the best equipment. That is all that I use, after all."

Cindy nodded as well. "Now, how did they disable those cameras? Unless they disabled them with an electromagnetic pulse from a great distance, we should be able to see what destroyed them on the earlier footage."

"Right," Jimmy agreed. "But an EMP would have disabled a lot of other electronics in the city. I don't think that's what happened."

"You should check the earlier recordings from before eight o'clock after we get back," Cindy offered.

"If I have time," Jimmy said while groaning. He pulled the hover car to a stop and jumped out. "Well, that was easier than I thought," he said when he saw the camera attached to a street sign.

Cindy ran up beside him. They stared at it for a moment. The lens was cracked, and the circuitry had been torn out. "Seems more systematically destroyed than the first one," Jimmy noted.

"The one on Baltic must have been destroyed in a rush, after they realized what it had captured," Cindy told him.

Jimmy began pacing. "True. Now, let's see if we can find what the hell is blocking our communications with the rest of the world. I'm very curious as to what we'll..." he said before falling down onto the ground. "Ow! Son of a," he muttered while clutching his hand. He felt like he had just been mildly electrocuted.

"What happened?" Cindy asked while running up to him, but she also fell down. "Motherfu... ahem. What was that?" she asked while looking around and seeing nothing that could have hurt them.

Jimmy got up and grabbed a stick. He stared straight ahead. "I don't see anything," he muttered. Slowly and carefully, he pushed the stick in front of him. He watched in amazement as it sparked and began smoking. "What the hell?" he asked, amazed.

Cindy stepped back and grabbed a pebble. Jimmy also moved aside. Cindy tossed it as hard as she could. She saw a flash of light, and the pebble fell straight down onto the ground. "It's like an electric fence."

Jimmy shined his flashlight around. "Yeah, an invisible electric fence." He ran back to his hover car and grabbed a handful of inventions. He pushed a button on a blue square with a screen and two antennae on it. "I'm getting electrical readouts that are higher than anything I've ever seen, almost as high as my lab."

"Can you disable the...force field?" Cindy asked while tilting her head and staring at the invisible obstacle.

Jimmy put on a pair of goggles and flipped a switch. "These read electronic forces as yellow and render everything else blue." He paused a moment to wait for the device to work. "Holy cow," he muttered, amazed.

"What?" Cindy asked. Jimmy merely slipped the goggles off of his head and handed them to her. She slipped them on and stared in front of her. "Whoa."

The field in front of them was enormous. It was as thick as a house. Cindy turned around and realized that the vast force field was encompassing the entire city. She looked up and saw that it extended at least a mile into the sky. "It's ...amazing," she said.

Jimmy immediately threw the majority of his inventions back into his hover car. "None of these are going to do any good. It would be like tearing down a brick wall with a screwdriver." He picked up the largest invention. "I don't even think this is going to work."

"What is it?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy began turning the dials on the device fully to their right and shoved the cumbersome box as close to the field as he dared. "It's a small EMP," he said with a hint of pride. "It's not extremely powerful, because if it was it could become a devastating weapon if it fell into the wrong hands. Even at full power, it could only knock out the electricity and circuitry on one block."

Jimmy flicked a few more switches and grabbed a small detonation device. "This is going to fry my hover car's circuitry as well. Get into the hover car and hit the red, blue, and green buttons in that order after I've activated the pulse. That will initiate the recharging sequence."

Cindy remembered the sequence and jumped into the hover car. "Close your eyes," Jimmy instructed while doing so himself. He ducked and pressed the button.

A wave of brilliant purple and blue light encompassed the two children. Even through the cover of their eyelids, the light made their eyes water. After a moment, Jimmy opened his eyes, only to see swirling purple dots.

"Activate the sequence," he instructed Cindy. Cindy pushed the buttons in his hover car, and a low humming sound could be heard. She hopped out of the car and struggled to walk over to Jimmy, her eyes also hurt.

Jimmy picked up another stick and held his breath for a moment. He then thrust it forward, only to see it spark once again. Cindy, angry, tossed another rock. It sparked just as the first one did, and then fell onto the ground.

Jimmy cursed under his breath and jammed his hands into his pockets. "Well, there's nothing more to do now."

Cindy seemed confused. "Shouldn't we use those goggles to see if we at least weakened it?"

Jimmy shook his head. "All the circuitry's now fried. The hover car will take a half hour to recharge. Everything else has to be fixed at my lab."

"So we have to wait half an hour before we get to go home?" Cindy sadly asked. Jimmy just nodded.

Jimmy looked down at his digital watch, but of course the screen was blank, having been hit by the EMP. "Cindy, you have the time?"

Cindy struggled to see her watch, having only the moonlight to aid her. The flashlights had all been disabled as well. "The batteries just died, but it looks like it's a little past two."

The fatigue that the hot chocolate had washed away suddenly came pouring over him, only twice as worse as before. It had been a hectic day, and he hadn't slept in nearly twenty hours. "Great," he sadly muttered.

They both slowly entered the hover car and lay down, yawning. "If we have to wait an hour," Jimmy said while stretching.

"Then we might as well rest our eyes," Cindy finished while resting her head in her arms.

"Just for a few minutes," Jimmy whispered. Cindy, already asleep, silently agreed.

Chapter 10: Black Cow or Boiled Leaves?

The bright rays of sunlight penetrated Cindy's thin eyelids first. Grudgingly, she opened her eyes. She noticed that someone's hand was slung over her waist. She rolled around to see that it was Jimmy's.

"Ew!" she whispered while backing away from him. She quickly scolded herself for the harsh reaction. She stared at his closed eyes and noticed how peaceful he seemed. It appeared that all of his problems disappeared whenever he slipped into unconsciousness.

As soon as she took her eyes off of Jimmy, she looked up at the sun. It took her a moment to realize exactly why it was bothering her so much. She immediately began to shake Jimmy. "Jimmy! Wake up, Neutron!" she shouted into his ear.

"The covenant!" he screamed while jumping up. He glanced around quickly before remembering where he was. "Cindy, what the hell is the matter?"

Cindy pointed straight up at the sun. Jimmy immediately realized her point. He looked at the clock in the hover car. "It's ten o'clock in the morning! We've been asleep for eight hours!" he shouted as loud as he could.

"Buckle up," he instructed Cindy.

"Good morning to you too," she mumbled while clicking in her seatbelt. "This is just great, Neutron. We left Libby alone with Sheen and Carl. Those two idiots tried to amputate her leg the other day!"

"Hey!" Jimmy shouted, immediately coming to the defense of his best friend. "It was Sheen's idea, and Carl was trying to talk him out of it!" He nervously tapped his fingers against the steering wheel while navigating through the twisting streets. "I left Sheen and Carl in charge of my lab! Dear god, who knows what they could have done."

"Libby's probably crawling around trying to get some help while everyone else is partying!" Cindy shouted.

"LET'S NOT PANIC!" Jimmy shouted while kicking his hover car into turbo drive. "We'll be home in just a few minutes," Jimmy explained as calmly as he could.

Cindy calmed herself down as she lay back in her seat. Sheen and Carl were stupid, but they weren't dangerous. They're not dangerous. I'm almost sure of that. For the next several moments she tried to clear her mind, and was finally serene when Jimmy's shocked voice brought her back.

"God damn she's good," he muttered while shaking his head in amazement. When Cindy opened her eyes she reiterated his point.

"Well, alright then," Cindy said while shaking her head in amazement. She and Jimmy jumped out of the hover car, leaving it in the middle of the street. It wasn't as if any cars were being used in the city. They walked onto Jimmy's front lawn.

Libby was hobbling along the grass with a walking stick in both hands. In front of the entrance to Jimmy's lab were several grills. Sheen was busy flipping bacon, eggs, pancakes, and basically every breakfast food imaginable. Everyone was sitting down on the grass, eating their breakfast.

Cindy and Jimmy walked up to Libby. "Hey guys," she said cheerfully while struggling to hobble over to them. "You two were out late last night. What were you doing?"

Jimmy and Cindy stared at each other, silently discussing whether or not they should tell the others what they had found. Not yet, Jimmy thought while giving a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. Cindy took the hint.

"Oh, we just went around the town to check the security cameras and find out what damaged them."

Libby stared at her. "What?"

"She was out of it before we started that stuff," Jimmy explained to Cindy. "Maybe you should catch her up. On the cameras," Jimmy instructed.

"Sure, Jimmy," Cindy said while leading Libby away from him. "You've missed a lot, Libs," Cindy began to explain while taking her best friend for a walk through the yard.

Jimmy strolled over to Sheen, who cracked four more eggs onto a grill. He flipped two pancakes onto a plate and filled a cup of orange juice. He then hit a bell on top of the grill in front of him, completely unaware of Jimmy's presence. "Two blowout patches and a hug one!" he shouted.

"What the heck are you..." Jimmy tried to ask, but Carl came running by.

"Sheen, Ike wants a biddy board with a hen nut, a mystery in the alley, and an Atlanta special," Carl quickly told Sheen.

Sheen shook his head while immediately getting to work. "An Atlanta special at ten in the morning? You sure he didn't want an Adam's Ale?"

Carl smiled. "How could I mix those two up?" he asked while grabbing the orange juice and flapjacks and running off.

Jimmy took a moment to absorb all of this before shaking his head. "What the hell are you two doing?"

Sheen flipped another flapjack into the air and caught it on another plate. He hit the bell and shouted, "Another blowout patch!" to Carl. He then bent back down and continued staring at the grill. "I'm making breakfast, James. What have you been doing all night, gallivanting around with your girlfriend?"

Jimmy scowled while grabbing a piece of toast off of a plate. "When," he asked while taking a bite, "did you learn how to cook?"

Sheen smiled a little. "Not all of us took sewing, ok? The manly choice was to take cooking if woodshop was full."

Jimmy swallowed his dry bread and glared at Sheen. "Alright, whatever. Did Libby organize all of this?"

Sheen nodded. He rang the bell once again. "Burn the British with skid grease for the PITA!" Carl came running up and grabbed the food. "Libby got up early and told me, Carl, and Nick to get some food. She sent a few girls out to get grills, plates, and all that stuff. With my cooking expertise and Carl's excellent obedience, things have been going quite well," he explained to Jimmy.

"Nick, take over!" he shouted. Nick came running up and continued Sheen's work. Sheen grabbed a chocolate doughnut out of a box on the ground and grabbed Jimmy's shoulder. "Let's go for a walk," he said while leading him to the backyard.

"Alright," Jimmy said as Sheen led him through the grass. He noticed how long it was. His dad had been planning to cut the lawn today. "What's up?"

Sheen took another bite of his doughnut and swallowed. "Libby's a really good leader. Everyone assumes she's third in charge around here, after you and Cindy. But she doesn't know what's going on. The kids aren't feeling too great. You notice that?"

Jimmy nodded. He had felt a certain despair in his yard's atmosphere when he and Cindy had pulled up. "Yeah, people did seem kind of bummed."

"You and Cindy are going to have to talk to them later." He paused for a moment. "And, well, I need to ask a favor."

Jimmy finished his toast and threw the crust on the ground. "Shoot."

Sheen cleared his throat. "Well, I, uh, looked around your house and a few others, but I couldn't find any crutches or wheelchairs for Libby. Could I borrow your hover car and drive to the hospital to grab some?"

Jimmy didn't even think about it. He took the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Sheen. "How is Libby feeling, by the way?"

Sheen and Jimmy both stared at her as they rounded the house. She was sitting next to Cindy on the lawn with her leg stretched out in front of her. She coughed for a moment before nodding in response to Cindy's explanation of last night's events.

"Pretty good, I guess," Sheen told Jimmy.

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck before heading to the entrance of the lab. "I've got to work some stuff out. I'll talk to the kids around noon," he said while entering the clubhouse and closing the door shut behind him.

Chapter 11: Goodbye and Good Night

Jimmy was sipping one of Sheen's Atlanta specials in the control room of his lab. It had been nearly two hours since he and Cindy had returned from his adventure, and he had just finished everything that he needed to do before he could address all the kids. He let his mind wander for a moment to what his first day of school today would have been like.

"Jimmy!" Cindy's voice shouted from outside the door, awakening Jimmy from his trance. "Can I come in?"

"Hang on," Jimmy shouted back while getting up and walking towards the door. He unlocked it and let her in. "What's up?" he asked while sitting back down in his chair.

Cindy took a seat beside him. "Everyone's doing the dishes and stuff. Kind of a pointless activity if you ask me, but it keeps their minds off of the abduction," she said with a shrug.

Jimmy nodded while tossing a ball up in the air. "I'm going to talk to them in a few minutes, lay out our basic strategy." He tossed the red ball to Cindy absent-mindedly. She caught it and threw it back.

"And what exactly would that basic strategy be?" she inquired while releasing her grip on the ball.

Jimmy exhaled deeply while shaking his head. "You'll find out in about five minutes. Could you bring everyone inside my lab?" he asked while tossing the ball back at her.

Cindy nodded and set the ball down on the floor. "I'll bring everyone in." She got up and was at the door before she turned around and snapped her fingers. "Oh, Sheen and Carl are back from the hospital. They got some crutches, a wheelchair, and a few other things for Libby. They wanted me to give you these," she said while tossing him the hover car's keys.

Jimmy smiled as he slipped the keys back in his pocket. "Thanks. See you in a few," he told her as she closed the door behind her. He then turned his attention to his computers. He pressed a button on one of them and a silver CD was spit out. He grabbed it and walked towards the control room's exit. "Showtime," he muttered while turning the lights off and closing the door.

Several minutes later Jimmy was standing in front of all the children in the main room of his lab. He had inserted the disc into the large monitor's hard drive. Brittany turned off the lights as Jimmy had requested when the last kid entered.

"Ah-hem," Jimmy muttered while clearing his throat. "I'm not going to waste everyone's time reiterating what I told you last night. This little presentation is a preliminary sketch my plan for getting our parents back. But first, I need to address some rumors that have been going around."

Jimmy pressed a button on the remote that he was holding in his hand. A sketch of the city instantly appeared on the main monitor. Six circles marked the areas where Jimmy's cameras were located. "Many of you have been wondering about what Cindy and I were doing last night. The two of us left to check out the condition of the six security cameras I had placed around the city. I wanted to see why I only had one recording of our parents' abduction."

"What did you find out?" Betty's voice shouted from the back of the crowd.

"The cameras were destroyed by the Yolkians so that we would not have any useful information about our parents' kidnapping. Unfortunately for them, they somehow missed one of the cameras. This was the camera that recorded the video I showed you around twelve hours ago. This camera was then also destroyed, presumably in a rush after they realized their mistake."

"But we also found something else," Cindy told the crowd. "Jimmy?"

Jimmy had been debating whether or not to tell the kids about the force field, and had decided that it would be best to tell them a few minutes ago. It never ceased to amaze him how alike his and Cindy's minds were.

"Yes, we found out what was blocking communications to the outside world." Jimmy pressed another button on his remote, and a three-dimensional model of the force field surrounding the city appeared on the computer. "An electrified force field is surrounding the city along its border. The shield mildly electrocutes anyone who comes into contact with it. It is invisible, so you should all stay away from the city's border. I tried to disarm it, but nothing I had could work."

He paused for a moment, waiting for someone to ask the inevitable question. Finally, Nick's hand shot up. "Yes, Nick?"

"Well, if you can't disarm it, how are we going to get out of the city to rescue our parents?" he asked. A bout of murmuring enveloped the crowd.

"Quiet!" Jimmy shouted after a moment. The compilation of voices steadily weakened and died. "The force field is not our primary concern. I will be able to disarm it, but it will take some time. Do not worry about that. I'm the scientist; I'll take care of it. For now, we have to worry about how we are going to proceed after the field is torn down."

"And how are we going to proceed?" a male voice that Jimmy didn't recognize shouted.

Jimmy pressed another button on his remote. A picture of all of the kids assembling rockets came on screen. It was taken two years ago, when they were preparing to rescue their parents for the first time. "The battle strategy is going to be worked out as we go on. What we all need to do right now is begin construction of our rockets. Tomorrow we are all going to go to Retroland and get to work on building these vehicles again."

Jimmy cleared his throat as he put the remote down. "Today, rest. Cry, comfort your friends. Get your emotions out of the way. Our parents have been kidnapped and we're alone. It's scary and we all know it. Get rid of your anger and fear, because tomorrow we have to begin working."

Jimmy noticed the kids fidgeting and whispering to one another. "What we all have to remember is this. We can do this," Jimmy told them, his voice cracking a little. "We've done it before, and we can do it again. We have experience in building rockets. We're older, stronger, and smarter. How can we fail if we're playing a game that we've won before, and now we're better at it?" he asked them.

"How long until we get our parents back?" another kid shouted.

Jimmy ran a few simulations through his head. "If we get to work tomorrow, we can leave in less than two weeks. Then maybe two weeks to get to the Yolkian planet."

Jimmy stared at the crowd for a moment, expecting more questions. When none came, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them. This was the opportunity he had waited for to get all of the children away from his precious lab. "Well, that's about all I have to say. We'll leave for Retroland tomorrow morning. Bye, and please feel free to not stay another night on my lawn!" Jimmy said with a smile.

The kids reluctantly got up and slowly walked towards the door. Jimmy opened it for them and ushered them out. "That's right, go back home and rest...at your homes. Not mine, yours. Bye!" Jimmy shouted.

Nick, Carl, and Sheen dejectedly walked out the door after the rest of the kids. "Not you!" Jimmy shouted while pulling them back inside.

Chapter 12: Engineering 101

Around eight the next morning, Cindy got up out of Jimmy's parents' bed. Sheen, Libby, Carl, Nick, and herself had spent the night in Jimmy's house instead of the lab. She rubbed her eyes and looked over at the sleeping Libby, who had shared the twin-size bed with her. "Get some rest, Libby," she said while fixing the covers around her shoulders.

Cindy walked downstairs and past Nick, Carl, and Sheen, who were sound asleep in the living room. She walked out the front door, careful not to close it too loudly. She stepped foot out onto the lawn, relishing the sensation of the morning dew tickling her toes. She closed her eyes for a moment and smelled the delicious scent that comes after a brief rain shower.

"Morning," Jimmy shouted while exiting his lab, his hands full of various inventions. "Sleep well?" he asked her while walking up to the parked hover car in the middle of the street...

Cindy nodded as she walked across the street. "Give me a minute!" she shouted back to him. She opened her unlocked front door and walked into her house. She changed out of her nightgown into her regular clothes. She then ran into the kitchen and grabbed an apple. She was about to go back outside, but decided to run into the bathroom and fix her hair up a bit first.

Cindy nonchalantly strolled out of her house and walked up to Jimmy, who was sorting the various machines he had put in the hover car. "What time did you get up?" she asked while taking a bite out of her apple.

"An hour ago or so. Could you help me with something?" he asked while walking back into his lab. Cindy nodded and followed him inside. "Would you mind carrying these out to the hover car?" he asked her.

Cindy nodded once again and put the apple in her mouth. She grabbed the array of machinery and blueprint schematics, struggling to keep them all in her hands. Jimmy grabbed an equally large pile and led her out the door. "Thanks, I really needed the help," Jimmy told her while smiling.

"Irft's ner twablem," she struggled to say through the apple clenched in her jaws. "Rut's all of tis whore?" she asked.

Jimmy dumped his stuff in the hover car. "Well, we'll obviously be assembling our rockets at Retroland, which is where all our raw material will be. I'll need to set up a command center there."

Cindy placed the jumble of supplies in the hover car and angrily spit the apple on the ground. "Sounds like a plan," she said while leaning against the hover car and wiping her mouth. Jimmy nodded and stared at her for a moment. "What?" she angrily asked.

Jimmy continued staring at her. "Did you fix up your hair?" he asked. "It looks nicer."

Cindy blushed. "Well, I may have combed..."

"Hey guys!" Sheen shouted while leading Carl and Nick to Jimmy and Cindy. Nick was holding his skateboard under his right arm. "Just about time to get going, right?"

Jimmy and Cindy groaned as their friends approached. "Um, yeah," Jimmy told Sheen, "the kids will probably start coming in just a minute. Nick, could you go try to wake them up?"

Nick nodded. "No problem," he said while setting his skateboard down on the ground and rolling down the street.

Jimmy clapped his hands together and smiled. "Well, I have a few last minute details..." he began before being interrupted by the loud crash! of Nick colliding with a neighbor's trash cans.

"I'm alright!" the four kids distantly heard him shout from down the street.

"That need to be done in my lab," Jimmy immediately continued. "Cindy, could you maybe organize that heap of machinery you tossed into the hover car? Ok, bye!" he shouted while running off.

Carl and Sheen looked to Cindy. "I hate that guy sometimes," she muttered while organizing the heavy machinery that she had so thoughtfully helped him carry.

Around fifteen minutes later Jimmy finished his work and ejected a floppy disk out of the main computer's disc drive in the lab's main room. He blew the few bits of dust off of it slipped it in his pocket before running outside.

"Alright, here's what we're going to do!" Jimmy shouted to the crowd of kids that was once again gathered on his lawn. "We're going to walk to Retroland and then we'll begin construction. I'll explain how that will work when we get there. I'll pilot my hover car and get there before you guys and set up my control center there. See you in fifteen minutes!" he shouted while hopping into his hover car and barreling down the street.

Everyone stared after him for a moment. "Well, you heard the man!" Sheen shouted while stepping in front of the group and starting to walk down the street.

Cindy quickly fell into stride beside him. "Sheen, where's Libby?"

Sheen froze and looked behind him. "Oh damn it!" he shouted while running back to Jimmy's house.

"Guess that's your cue for you to take over," Nick laughed while rolling next to Cindy on his skateboard.

Jimmy landed his hover car in the middle of Retroland and set up his easel. He placed his blueprints on it and sorted through a few inventions. He laid out his tool boxes and various other supplies. By the time he was done, the crowd was entering the gates to the amusement park.

Jimmy smiled as everyone stood before him. He was quickly adjusting to public speaking. "Well, here we go then," he whispered to himself. "Ok, everyone. I rummaged through my hard drives and I was able to find the blueprints for the rockets we built two years ago. Let me refresh your memories," he told everyone while pointing to the blueprints on the easel.

"We start by adding the state of the art propulsion drives to the key points of the rocket. I'll start with the Ferris wheel design. , We attach a propulsion drives to the back of each cart in the Ferris wheel at a forty-five degree angle." He motioned to Goddard. "Goddard, please show rocket demo 3A."

Goddard's back peeled away so that a hologram could be shot into the air. A Ferris Wheel appeared with a rocket behind each cart. "Now, each cart will give a short burst from its rocket. The cart behind it will then give a short burst, then the cart behind that, etc. This will push the rocket forward and each separate cart downwards, which will create a spinning motion. The pilot will have to control the two stronger propulsion drives located on the bottom of the Ferris wheel. These will prevent the angular propulsion drives from forcing the Ferris wheel into a descent. After every few rotations of the wheel, the pilot will activate these thrusters to give the wheel a boost. There will also be several thrusters mounted on the sides for navigational purposes."

The hologram did the actions that Jimmy was speaking of. Soon the Ferris wheel was spinning faster and faster while moving forward. The thrusters on the bottom gave the Ferris wheel a boost in altitude whenever it dropped downwards. Thrusters on the side allowed it to steer past the incoming asteroids. "By increasing the thrust of the rockets and decreasing the lengths of the bursts in a related exponential manner, you can safely propel the wheel forward to incredible speeds," he proudly explained.

The hologram disappeared back inside Goddard. Jimmy smiled for the crowd of confused faces in front of him. "Now, that is how it works, but it's not how it's built. Firstly, we attach the propulsion drivers onto the back of each cart at a forty-five degree angle, as I've said. Then we go over the metal with an impervious alloy for protection. After that we'll seal the carts with an obdurate glass-like substance to shield the pilot, passengers, and supplies from the radioactivity and debris of space. Then we attach the fuel tanks. The rest is just simple maintenance and minor touch-up applications. Any questions?"

Everyone in front of him looked at him as if he were insane with their jaws dropped, even Cindy. "Well then, on to the bumper car design," he said while switching blueprints.

Chapter 13: The Armory

By four o'clock, everyone was busy assembling the propulsion drives that would be needed for all of the rockets. Most people were working in groups of ten or so. Jimmy had handed out copies of the propulsion drives' blueprints to each group. Cindy, Goddard, and himself were making the rounds, helping people when needed.

After walking by the last group for the second time, he looked down at the broken watch on his wrist to see the time. "Stupid EMP," he muttered while angrily ripping the watch off and shoving it in his pocket. "Ike," he asked while grabbing Ike's shoulder as he strolled by, "you have the time?"

Ike glanced down at his watch. "Five twenty," he said before walking back to his team.

Jimmy took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. The sun was only a few hours away from setting. He knew that he should better get going now, before he lost his courage.

Jimmy walked up to Cindy and pulled her aside. "Cindy, I need another favor," he sadly told her.

Cindy frowned a little. "Another one?"

Jimmy nodded. "I don't have time to go into it right now, but Nick and I have to go do something."

"So?" Cindy asked.

"I just need you to help the kids build the rockets, like you've been doing. Just, you know, do it alone."

Cindy thought for a moment. "Why don't I go with you, and Nick can help the kids. He's pretty good with machines."

Jimmy shook his head. "No, Nick has to be the one to help me with this. Anyway, here," he said while taking the floppy disk out from his pocket.

"And this is?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. "To be honest, I'm not really going to be able to help with the construction of the rockets. I need to chart a path to our parents, figure out a battle plan, gather supplies, and figure out how to tear down the force field. I need you to man everything here."

Cindy smiled a little. "You're trusting me with overseeing the construction of all the rockets?"

Jimmy nodded. "You've been in my rocket dozens of times, you've even piloted it a couple of times. And you're obviously smart enough to do it. Goddard's here if you need some help."

Cindy laughed a little while blushing. "Um, so what exactly is the floppy disk for?" she asked again.

Jimmy handed it to her. "This is basically everything you need to run my lab. It's got a tutorial program to help you understand how it works. It gives you the passwords and access codes for everything in there."

Cindy turned it over in her hands. "Jimmy, you're giving me full access to your lab? You never even let me in until a couple of years ago."

Jimmy nodded. "If you're going to be in charge of the rockets' construction, you're going to need access to everything I've got. But, there is a catch." Cindy motioned for him to continue. "As you know, the lab is my sanctuary. Sheen and Carl are my best friends, and even they aren't allowed access to it when I'm not there. When this whole ordeal is done, I need to get that disk back."

Cindy stared at the disk for another moment before smiling. "Understood. It's just a loan. Now go do what you have to do with Nick, and I'll take care of things here."

Jimmy nodded and ran off to find Nick. He soon discovered him lying down on his skateboard underneath the frame of a propulsion drive. Jimmy rapped his knuckles on the top of the framework.

"Oh, stop it!" Nick shouted while rolling out from underneath the shell. "That echoes you know," he angrily muttered while standing up. He dropped his wrench onto the ground and stared at Jimmy. "Well, what do you want?"

"Come on, we have to go," Jimmy said while walking towards the exit of the amusement park.

Nick stared after him for a moment before catching up with him. "Go where? What are you talking about?"

Jimmy continued staring straight ahead as he pushed the park's gates open and walked outside. "We need to gather some supplies for this trip."

Nick grabbed Jimmy's shoulder, and Jimmy stopped and turned around. "Dude, I'm a little busy working on your rockets. Go get your buddies Carl and Sheen to help," he told Jimmy while walking back towards the park.

"They can't help," Jimmy shouted. Nick stopped and turned back around. "I need your help with this."

Nick shook his head. "Next to you and Cindy... and, well, Goddard... I know the most about machinery and stuff. If you're going out to gather supplies, I should stay here to help Cindy."

Jimmy shook his head and resumed walking down the street. "You'll see why I need you when we get there. For now, just trust me. You owe me, remember?" Jimmy reminded him.

Nick just sighed and followed Jimmy. "Whatever. Where are we going?"

"Wal-Mart," Jimmy answered.

"We taking the hover car?" Nick asked him.

"It's only a twenty minute walk," Jimmy told him. "Cindy might need the hover car to get to the lab and back quickly."

They walked in silence for several minutes. Nick struggled to keep up with Jimmy's fast pace. Finally, he thought he realized why Jimmy had asked him to come along with him. "Oh, I get it," he said with a smile. "Look, if you're worried about me spending time with your girl while you're gone, there's no problem there."

Jimmy laughed while struggling to climb up a hill. "She's not my girl," he explained to Nick.

Now it was Nick's turn to laugh. "All right, whatever you say, Casanova."

"No, I need you here because I've asked around. You're the only one who knows anything about the thing we're getting. Even I don't know enough about it," Jimmy explained to Nick.

Nick tried to understand what Jimmy was saying. "Dude, you're acting really weird. What are we picking up?"

"In about five minutes you'll find out," Jimmy told him.

Nick just frowned and continued following Jimmy. True to his word, they came up to Wal-Mart's parking lot five minutes later. Jimmy opened the door and stepped inside. "Now, I believe they were near the toy aisle," he mumbled to himself while staring at the dozens of aisles that lay before him. He walked ahead a few feet and then turned right.

Nick followed Jimmy as they walked past the dozens of ridiculously low-priced bargains. "Hey," he finally asked, "how are we going to bring whatever it is we're getting back to your lab? Do you have anything to carry this stuff in?"

"Right here," Jimmy said while tossing Nick his hypercube.

Nick turned it over while continuing to follow Jimmy through the labyrinth of aisles. "A Rubik's cube?" he asked, puzzled.

Jimmy smiled. "Hypercube," he corrected. "It can store an incredibly large amount of stuff in it."

Nick continued to turn it over in his hands and examine it. "How does it work?"

"It's too complicated to explain," Jimmy told him while pausing. "God, this is harder than finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," he told Nick while rubbing his chin and turning in a circle.

"Oh, ha, ha," Nick sarcastically muttered while following Jimmy as he set off again. "Bush humor, that's so fresh."

Jimmy peeked around a corner and smiled. He stopped walking and turned around to face Nick. "Alright, it's in the next aisle. You want to know what we're getting?"

Nick nodded. "Well," Jimmy explained, "do you remember how in May you told us all about that camping trip you had with your dad during spring break?"

Nick nodded once more. "Sure, good times, good times," he said while thinking about the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

"Well, you said you went hunting on that trip. I asked pretty much all of the kids that Carl and Sheen assembled, and none of them have ever been hunting. See where I'm going with this?"

Nick looked at Jimmy like he was crazy. "What, we're going to go hunting for food? There's a bunch of food in aisle three," Nick said while pointing over his shoulder.

Jimmy angrily shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "No, you idiot. I need you here to help me with these," he told Nick while rounding the corner.

Nick came to a halt as he rounded the corner. "Holy crap," he muttered while staring at the vast array of firearms that lay in front of him.

Jimmy stared sadly as well at the hunting firearms aisle. He walked up to the glass display case in the center of the room. Pistols of varying sizes lay beneath the glass, their polished silver gleaming in the light.

Nick walked up to Jimmy. Behind the counter lay shotguns and hunting rifles on racks. Boxes of ammo lined the shelves. Jimmy could only wonder what lay in the back room and supply areas, but there was enough guns and ammo here to outfit a small army.

"This is what I need help with," Jimmy explained. "It's basically two hundred kids against an advanced alien civilization. They know that we'll be coming to rescue our parents. Plus, we'll be on their home world. We need some sort of advantage. I believe that this is it."

Nick walked ahead of Jimmy and fingered the shotguns. "Um, I have a confession to make. You know how I bragged about shooting that deer?" Jimmy nodded. "Well, it's not true. I only shot a squirrel, and that was in self-defense. I was terrified of guns; I barely knew how to hold them. I don't think I can help you with this."

Jimmy continued staring at Nick, his face unwavering. "But you did shoot something? And you held them?"

"Well, yeah," Nick struggled to say.

"Then that's good enough. I'm going to need your help picking these out," Jimmy explained to him while kneeling down and gently touching a rifle.

Nick knelt down beside Jimmy. "What do you mean, pick them out? Just take them all. You don't need me."

Nick tried to get up, but Jimmy pulled him back down. "It's more than that. I need you to help me figure out who gets a gun. You need to teach those who do get one how to fire them. You're this army's general," Jimmy proudly said while slapping him on the back.

Nick grabbed a rifle off of the racks, turned away from Jimmy, and aimed it. "I'm not very good," he said again.

"You're better than nothing," Jimmy told him. He picked up a shotgun, turned around, and aimed it where Nick was pointing his gun.

Nick shook his head. "You're crazy. We beat them before without guns, and we can do it again without guns."

Now it was Jimmy's turn to shake his head. "No. We were lucky last time. Incredibly lucky. A few kids against an entire alien race that's millions of years ahead of us? It was a one in a million shot that we saved our parents last time." Jimmy paused for a moment while dropping the shotgun into his hypercube. "And even if we could beat them without guns, this time we're not just going back to save our parents. This time it's different."

"How?" Nick asked.

Jimmy closed his eyes and gripped another gun. "Because when we fight them this time," he whispered, "it's the last time." He looked up at Nick, his gaze strong and unwavering. "We're going to finish this."

Chapter 14: Male Bonding

After Jimmy and Nick raided Wal-Mart for every gun they had, Jimmy led the two of them to the police station, where they picked up several more pistols and rifles. Nick suggested that they head to his house to find his dad's guns. Jimmy agreed, and they were inside by the time the sun began to set.

"Nice place," Jimmy told Nick while climbing the stairs into the drafty loft.

"Thanks," Nick replied while flipping on the lights. "I think he keeps them in a gun case somewhere," he continued while poking around the room.

Jimmy sat down on a stack of boxes and took out his hypercube. He tossed it in the air for a moment before shoving some of Nick's old clothes and a box of baby toys out of his way. He dumped the contents of the cube onto the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?" Nick shouted while spinning around and staring at the mountain of guns and ammunition on his floor.

Jimmy pickup up a pistol and set it aside from the rest of the guns. "You look for your dad's guns. I'm going to figure out how many of each type of firearm we have."

"Fine," Nick muttered while picking up an old third-grade yearbook that was in his way and gently placing it on the floor behind him. "Just don't make a mess. My mom's going to kill me for raiding my dad's guns anyway," he muttered while rummaging through the boxes.

Jimmy smiled at Nick's pointless worrying. "Yeah, I'm sure that will be one of the first things she says to you." Jimmy cleared his throat. "Oh, thank you son!" he said in his feminine voice. "You risked your life to save me and all the other parents, and we thought we would never see you again! But you're grounded for using your father's guns!" Jimmy chuckled as he counted the boxes of ammo in front of him.

"You know," Nick said while struggling to pull what looked like a large suitcase out from under a pile of cardboard boxes, "you're really not as funny as you think." He paused for a moment to let go of the case and wipe his forehead. "Mind giving me a hand?"

Jimmy got up and helped Nick pull the case out. After a few moments of struggling, if finally flew out from under the boxes. "These the guns?" Jimmy asked him.

Nick nodded while struggled to open it. "Damn it, it's locked," he angrily told Jimmy while kicking the case.

Jimmy looked around the attic. "Do you have an axe to break it open with?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, right next to the pile of firewood and the little blind girl from Little House on the Prairie. No, I don't have an axe!" he shouted.

"Fine, just asking!" Jimmy defensively shouted back while digging through his pocket. "We'll just use my pen laser," he told Nick while bending down and burning through the lock.

Jimmy stepped out of the way so that Nick could open the case. "Well, there you go," he told Jimmy while staring at the guns.

Jimmy looked down into the case. Two expensive shotguns lay there, gleaming underneath the attic's one light bulb. They were on the left side of the case, aligned vertically. Four boxes of ammo lay in the small column of space between them. Two rifles were laid down horizontally next to the shotguns, every bit as expensive and beautiful as the shotguns. Five boxes of ammo lay in between those. Beneath the rifles were two pistols, with two boxes of ammo beneath each one of them.

Jimmy slowly and carefully went to pick one of the rifles up. "It's ok, dad doesn't keep them loaded," Nick told him. Jimmy nodded and picked up the gun.

"They're semi-automatic," Nick explained to him, unaware that these were one of the few words that Jimmy couldn't define. Jimmy leveled the gun in his hands and closed his right eye while looking over the barrel.

"I feel so rugged," Jimmy said with a smile while setting the rifle down.

Nick dragged the case across the floor to Jimmy's pile of weaponry. "Hey, I've wanted to ask you something," Nick told him while taking the guns out and placing them down on the floor.

"Shoot," Jimmy said, smiling at his pun.

Nick wasn't amused. "You said that I'm the only one who knows how to fire a gun and stuff. But Cindy said that when you were on the moon a couple of days ago, you shot some robots or something crazy like that?"

Jimmy nodded while separating the pistols in his mound of firearms from the rifles and shotguns. "Yeah, I started keeping a specially designed pulse rifle on my rocket after I fought that Twonkie a couple of years back. I never used it until a couple of days ago, though."

Nick started placing the shotguns in a different pile as well. "So you know how to fire a gun? Cindy said you had some pretty good aim."

Jimmy shrugged. "It was mostly the adrenaline. But even if I knew as much about guns as you, which is highly unlikely," he began to explain.

"Those aren't the same," Nick interrupted while pointing to the rifle in Jimmy's hands.

"What?" Jimmy asked.

"You're putting that rifle in the pile with the others," Nick explained. "The one in your hands is fully automatic. The others are semi-automatic."

"What?" Jimmy asked again, clearly confused.

"Never mind," Nick said while shaking his head. "You were saying?"

Jimmy tried to remember what he was talking about. "Oh yeah. Look, I used a gun once. I was pretty good, I'll admit, maybe I have a natural inclination for this. But you've been raised with them and used them more than me. Besides, I only used a gun that I designed. You know all about, well, normal guns. And even if I was as good as you, which I doubt, I have too much stuff to do to train the other kids."

"Fair enough," Nick told Jimmy while organizing the boxes of ammo. "Ok, let's tally these up," he told Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded and counted the various pistols lying around him. "Ninety-two pistols," Jimmy told Nick. "Guess there were a lot at the police station."

Nick nodded while moving his index finger over each shotgun. "Forty-five shotguns," he noted. "And," he continued while quickly counting the rifles, "twelve semi-automatic rifles. Two automatic rifles. That's it."

Jimmy quickly multiplied the boxes of ammo by the rounds inside them. "Around four thousand pistol rounds, nine hundred and sixty shotgun rounds, and six hundred ninety rounds for the rifles," Jimmy said while closing his eyes. He suddenly opened them and stared at the huge amount of firearms in front of him. "That seems pretty damned good," he said with a smile. Nick agreed.

Chapter 15: The Boiling Point

By the time the two boys left Nick's house, it was dark outside. "I wish we had taken the hover car," Nick complained while trudging along beside Jimmy. "We must have walked five miles today."

Jimmy silently nodded as they rounded a corner and came upon Jimmy's street. He stared down it fondly, glad that he could sit down and rest in a minute. "Well, we're almost home now."

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as the Neutron home came into view. Within five minutes they were sitting Jimmy's lab, sipping hot chocolate with Libby, Sheen, Carl, and Cindy.

"So, what exactly did you and Nick do today?" Libby asked Jimmy while adjusting her injured leg on the couch.

"We gathered some supplies," Nick quickly answered. He glanced nervously at Jimmy, who seemed to be debating whether or not to mention the specifics.

"Yeah, just food and tools and stuff," Jimmy said with a slight twitch of his left eye. "Hey Sheen," he said while clearing his throat, "could you and Carl go bring my, uh, cat, um, Chowder in here? I think he's sleeping in my parents' room. I need to check him for fleas," Jimmy said while tugging on his shirt's collar.

"No problem!" Sheen shouted while jumping off of the couch and dragging Carl with him.

"But I'm allergic to cats!" Carl complained.

"Don't be such a baby!" Sheen angrily spat at Carl while pulling him out the door.

Cindy stared at the two of them for a moment before finally asking the question that was on everyone's minds. "You have a cat?"

Jimmy set his mug of cocoa down on the coffee table and pulled his hypercube out of his pocket. "No. That should keep them busy for ten minutes," he monotonously explained. "Nick and I were really out gathering firearms," he quickly told Libby and Cindy.

"What?" Cindy asked while setting her cocoa down as well. Libby and Nick followed suit.

Jimmy nodded while pulling a pistol out of the hypercube. "We need to keep this between the four of us for now," Jimmy instructed the girls.

"Why?" Libby asked, shuddering at the sight of the gun.

Jimmy noticed her apprehension and glanced at the bandaged wound on her leg. "Sorry," he sincerely apologized while putting the gun back in the hypercube.

"And to answer your question," Nick began, "Jimmy feels that we need an advantage over the Yolkians, and that guns are it." He looked over at Jimmy. "That's the reason, right?"

"Yes, that's the reason," Jimmy agreed while nodding his head. "Basically, the odds of us rescuing our parents while unarmed are minimal. Nick has experience with guns, yada, yada, yada, so we're going to use these to help get our parents back. We've got around a hundred fifty guns and plenty of ammo," he quickly explained while nervously glancing over his shoulder at the lab's door, expecting Sheen and Carl to burst through it any moment.

Jimmy noticed that Cindy was unusually quiet. "Hey, Vortex... I mean Cindy," he said a little more harshly than he had intended. The day's stress was catching up with him and unleashing itself on its usual target. "Sorry. Something the matter?"

Cindy shook her head. "No, no problem. Just trying to understand why you're going to place deadly weapons in untrained hands."

Jimmy frowned as he realized that he was going to have to relive his argument with Nick. "We need weapons, Cindy."

Cindy scoffed at his remark. "Yeah, sure. Because we were armed like commandos the last time we fought the Yolkians. Sheen used a grenade... no, sorry, it was a tomato, wasn't it?" she told Jimmy while reminiscing about her last encounter with the aliens. "We beat them before without guns, and we can do it again."

Nick snapped his fingers and pointed at Cindy. "That's what I said!" he excitedly shouted.

Jimmy shot Nick a fierce look before meeting Cindy's stare. "It was a million to one shot that we beat them. We are not going to battle an advanced alien civilization unarmed!" he shouted. Libby and Nick slid back in their seats, afraid of the battle which they knew was coming.

"Giving an untrained kid a gun is giving another kid a bullet in the head!" Cindy shouted back.

"They're not going to be untrained," Jimmy strained to say, his eyes squinted in anger, "Nick is going to teach them!"

"About that," Nick began, still uneasy about that responsibility.

"Shut up!" Cindy and Jimmy both shouted at him.

Libby tapped on Nick's shoulder. "You don't want to interrupt them when they're like this," she advised him.

"You're being ridiculous!" Jimmy shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You're being ridiculous!" Cindy repeated.

"Well, you're stupid!" Jimmy shouted back.

"Oh, I can see how you're a genius with great insults like those!" Cindy shouted while bringing her face closer to Jimmy's.

"Now this," Libby whispered to Nick, "is the part where you always think they're going to passionately kiss in the heat of an argument, like in the movies. But that has yet to happen." Nick nodded in understanding.

"You know what, Vortex," Jimmy said while backing away from Cindy, "I gave you unrestricted access to my lab. You think you could at least trust me on this."

Cindy's anger reached the boiling point. "Is that why you gave me this stupid floppy disk?" she asked while pulling it out of her pocket. "So you could hold it over my head and get me to go along with whatever you say?" she shouted while hurling it at him.

Jimmy caught it; nearly breaking it in half while angrily gripping it. "I was stupid to ever think that we could ever work together on this. Even when everything we love is in danger, you'll still look for any excuse to belittle or second-guess me. You're amazing," he said while shaking his head in amusement.

Cindy stood up, as did Jimmy. Their noses were nearly touching. Cindy brought back her wrist as if to slap him, held it for a moment, and then finally let it drop to her side. "You are so stupid it's unbelievable. You are so obsessed with logic and cold reasoning. You can't realize that your smarts are more powerful than any gun, and that your brain wouldn't get us killed," she angrily told him before storming out of his lab.

Jimmy stared after her for a moment, his face scrunched in anger, trying to figure out if she had just insulted or complimented him. Finally, he let out a deep breath and stormed out as well.

"Where are you going?" Libby asked.

"For a walk," Jimmy told her while slamming the door shut behind him.

Another few seconds went by before Sheen and Carl breathlessly ran back inside the lab. "Jimmy's cat ran away!" Carl hysterically screamed.

"Don't panic!" Sheen shouted while slapping Carl across the face. "Nick, set up a search party. Wake the kids. Jimmy can't find out about this!"

"There is no cat!" Nick shouted at them before walking towards the door. "You two are idiots!" he shouted in Sheen's face.

Sheen and Carl followed him as he left the lab. "Why don't you say that to my face, you coward?" Sheen shouted after Nick before slamming the door shut behind him.

"I just did!" Libby distantly heard Nick's final remark through the thick door to Jimmy's lab. She looked around and realized that she was all alone.

"That's fine! It's not like I'm crippled or anything!" she screamed after everyone.

Chapter 16: The Asteroid

Jimmy woke up early the next morning. His sleep had been plagued with nightmares of last night's argument. We have got to stop the fighting, he told himself while rolling out of his bed. For the sake of saving our parents, if nothing else, he scolded himself while slipping out of his pajamas and into his normal clothes.

He looked at the clock on his nightstand. "Five thirty in the morning," he told himself while walking over to his mirror and adjusting his hair. "She should still be asleep." He paused for a moment to look around his room. "And I'm talking to myself. Peachy."

Jimmy took a deep breath before leaving his room. It was a beautiful morning, the house bathed in orange as the sun slowly rose up past the horizon. "I'm sorry, I should have listened to your opinion," Jimmy rehearsed as he went across the hall to his parents' room, where Libby and Cindy had slept since the adults were abducted.

He was about to knock when he saw a note taped to the door. He pulled it off and stared at it. Dear Jimmy. I went to Retroland to set up the supplies and go over our progress with the rockets. Be back around eight. Bye.

Jimmy took the note downstairs and poured himself a cup of orange juice. He sat down at the kitchen table and took a sip while pondering the note. Is she mad at me? She seems...he thought before spitting out the orange juice. "God, that's gross!" he shouted as quietly as he could before looking at the mess on the table. He checked the expiration date on the carton and saw that the juice had gone bad three days ago. "Yeah, mom and dad usually do the grocery shopping," he reminiscently whispered to himself. He tossed the carton into the overflowing garbage can.

Jimmy grabbed a paper towel and wiped up the orange juice on the table. "She doesn't seem mad," he whispered to himself. He tossed the paper towel into the trash and shook his head. "What do I care anyway? There are more important things to worry about," he tried to convince himself, although he could hear the doubt in his voice.

At any rate, Jimmy knew that he still had a job to do. He walked into the living room and gently shook Nick awake. "Nick, we have to get to work," he whispered.

Nick moaned for a moment before opening his eyes to see Jimmy standing over him. "Oh, every guy's dream come true," he muttered while rubbing his eyes and standing up. "What is it?"

Jimmy pulled Nick off of the couch and led him out of the house. Nick slowly followed him. "We've got the guns, now we've got to figure out how to use them."

Nick moved the few strands of hair covering his face behind his ear. "Can we stop at Dunkin Donuts?" he sarcastically pleaded.

Jimmy ignored him as he came up to his lab. He plucked a hair from his head and held it in front of the DNA scanner. "Welcome, Mr. Neutron," Vox's seductive voice welcomed Jimmy as he and Nick stepped into the lab.

"Why do you always have to start so early in the morning?" Nick complained while sitting on a couch in the lab. He allowed his eyes to close and his head to fall.

"Heads up!" Jimmy shouted while tossing an apple at Nick. Nick woke up just in time to reach out with his right hand and catch it.

"Yeah, this is as good as a donut," Nick grumbled while taking a bite out of it. Jimmy pulled a pear out of his lab's small fridge and took a seat beside Nick.

"What's on schedule for today?" Nick asked, finally waking up.

Jimmy took a bite out of his pear and thought for a moment. "We are going to go over a battle strategy for taking out those alien bastards," Jimmy explained with a smile. "And while you are going to figure out who should get a gun, I'm going to work on disabling that force field."

"All right," Nick said while finishing off his modest breakfast.

"I'll get to work on the force field," Jimmy told him while walking off to another room. "We'll meet around twelve to discuss a battle strategy."

And so that's what happened for the next several hours. Nick went over the guns and recounted all of the ammo. He went over a list of the kids and tried to figure out who should get a gun. Once that was done around noon, Jimmy caught up with Nick.

"Alright, it's time we plan a battle strategy," Jimmy told him while leading Goddard into the lab's main room.

Nick sat down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. "Alright, enlighten me."

Jimmy nodded as he turned to Goddard. "Goddard, please tap into the main system computer and display chart 4A." Goddard ran up to the lab's giant computer monitor and stuck a small device into its hard drive. Within a few seconds the image Jimmy had asked for came on screen. It listed the number of guns, kids, and supplies that they had.

"Alright, as you can see, we have 151 guns for three hundred and fifty-two kids," Jimmy began while pointing at the screen with his metal pointer. "That means that less than half of the kids will have a gun. Those kids will be involved in major combat operations. The others will be piloting the ships, keeping up with repairs and communication details, and some will stay on Earth to monitor our ships' positions and act as a control center."

Nick nodded while taking a sip from his purple flurp. "Sounds good. But what exactly is the battle plan?"

Jimmy cleared his throat while tugging on his collar. "Goddard, show slide 5Q." A moment later a picture of a large asteroid came on the screen. Jimmy turned back to Nick.

"This is an unnamed asteroid I discovered several days before the abduction took place. This asteroid is on the border of our solar system," he began to explain, but a loud buzzing sound cut him off.

"Gosh darn it," he sputtered while walking over to his surveillance cameras. Cindy stood outside. "What is it, Cindy?"

Cindy looked into the camera outside the lab. "I need to get some blueprints for the kids at Retroland."

Jimmy buzzed her in and waited for her to enter the lab. She eventually walked in and stared at Nick and Jimmy. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Actually, Jimmy was just about to explain his battle plan," Nick told her.

Cindy smiled while leaning against the wall. "Oh, good. I've been wanting to hear this."

Jimmy stared curiously at her for a moment, trying to judge the tone of her voice before turning back to the monitor. "Um, anyway, the asteroid is on the border of our solar system. We will ride our rockets normally until we reach this asteroid. We will then set up camp on this asteroid and ride it. The asteroid is heading towards the Yolkian planet. While we are camping on this giant rock, Nick will train the kids in the art of guns," he said while staring at Cindy.

"While Nick does this, Cindy, myself, and the other pilots will use our rockets' thrusters to slightly alter the course of the asteroid. This will allow it to be overtaken by the Yolkians' planet's gravitational field."

Cindy shook her head in amazement. "You're going to crash the asteroid into the Yolkian's planet?"

Jimmy nodded excitedly. "Let me explain further. After we alter the asteroid's path enough, we will abandon the rock on our rockets. The asteroid will be pulled into the planet."

"Won't that kill our parents?" Nick asked.

Jimmy shook his head. "I've done some simulations. The Yolkian planet is huge. Part of the asteroid should disintegrate in the Yolkian's atmosphere. The remainder of the asteroid will be large enough to cause major damage and chaos, but not enough to destroy the planet or anything. As soon as we get on the asteroid, the team on Earth will be close enough to the Yolkian planet to get a signal on our parent's DNA. We'll maneuver the asteroid so that it won't hit anywhere near our parents."

Nick nodded his head in partial understanding. "Ok, so the asteroid does some damage to the planet. How does that help us?"

"May I?" Cindy asked. Jimmy nodded. "I believe that Jimmy is hoping that the asteroid will cause a pandemic throughout the Yolkian's world. This will hopefully allow us to sneak in and get our parents back."

"Well said," Jimmy agreed while putting his pointer down and turning off the monitor. "And even if it doesn't successfully distract the Yolkians, the damage the asteroid will produce will be a nice reminder of why they shouldn't mess with carbon-based life forms," he said with an evil grin. "Our team will then sneak onto the planet. The Yolkians will be too busy examining the asteroid to keep up good defenses. We'll send a small fleet of ships in, and then infiltrate the base that holds parents. We'll rescue them, hijack a Yolkian ship or something, and fly back home."

Cindy and Nick thought over Jimmy's plan for a moment. "That seems pretty good," Cindy excitedly told him. "Damn good."

Nick shook his head. "Hold on. The way I see it, the Yolkians took our parents for one of two reasons. Either they plan on sacrificing our parents to Poultra or they want to use them as bait to lure Jimmy so that they can get revenge on him. Right?"

Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, I've thought of that. Personally, I think it's the second one, considering their only motive was revenge last time we encountered them."

"Ok. But in both of those cases, they'll know that we're coming to save our parents," Nick explained. "If they know that we're coming, doesn't a sneak attack seem kind of foolish?"

"What do you suggest?" Jimmy asked.

"A full on assault," Nick offered. We smash that asteroid as close as we can to our parents' location without killing them. We perform an aerial assault with our ships while deploying ground troops. We burst in, shoot anyone in our way, and get our parents out."

"No, that wouldn't work," Jimmy immediately rebutted. "We've got three hundred kids and a hundred fifty guns. That's not enough to go up against an advanced alien race."

Nick laughed. "I'm getting pretty sick of you calling them advanced. They worship a chicken!"

Cindy held up her hands and the boys instantly stopped fighting. "Nick, I see your point. But Jimmy's right. It makes no sense to do a full on assault against a force that is literally millions of times larger than our own."

Nick stood up and took a breath. "Alright, whatever. Jimmy, I made the list. Can I go to Retroland and get back to work on the rockets?"

"Sure, go ahead," Jimmy told him while bending down to pet Goddard.

"I'll give you a lift in the hover car," Cindy said while walking over to Jimmy. "I'll meet you out there in a minute."

Nick nodded and left the lab. Cindy walked over to Jimmy and knelt down beside him. She gave Goddard a pat on the head, who gave a small bark in appreciation. "About those blueprints?" she sweetly asked.

Jimmy pulled the floppy disk back out of his pocket and handed it to her. "No hidden motives, I promise. Here you go."

Cindy smiled and took it out of his hand. "Thanks." She twisted her hair and mumbled, "I'm sorry."

Jimmy patted Goddard on the rump, and the mechanical canine left the room. "What was that?" he asked while standing up.

Jimmy let out a deep sigh. "I overreacted yesterday. It's just that seeing Libby shot out there, you know?"

Jimmy grabbed her shoulder and gave her a look of understanding. "I know. But we can't go and rescue our parents unarmed. It's suicide."

Cindy nodded. "I just don't want to be giving guns out all willy-nilly. Not everyone's as responsible as us. Can you imagine Butch walking around town with a gun?"

They both shuddered at the thought. Jimmy gave her a comforting smile. "You don't have to worry. Nick is carefully evaluating each kid's skill and deciding who gets a gun. And we're going to train them with paintball guns before we give them real ones. Everything's covered."

Cindy nodded and gripped her fist. "Well then, um, I better get going. Are you going to get back to work on the force field?" Jimmy nodded. "Good. We'll all be back around seven or eight. Good luck."

"You too," Jimmy told her as she walked out of the lab.

Chapter 17: The Risky Detail

A week later, Jimmy was sitting in his lab, smiling enthusiastically. A screwdriver in one hand and his pen laser in the other, he was working on an invention that could disarm the force field. "Just have to connect these two wires," he muttered to himself while setting the screwdriver and laser down while grabbing a pair of tweezers.

"Nice and steady," he whispered while slowly gripping a blue wire with the tweezers. If he missed, he would get another mild electric shock. "Bingo." He wedged the blue wire into a red one and set his tools down on the table.

Jimmy took a deep breath and wiped the gathering beads of sweat off of his forehead. It was the hottest day since the abduction, with the thermometers reading nearly a hundred degrees. He looked at the table in front of him. The cylindrical device that he had just finished working on was only one of forty.

A buzzing sound woke him up from his quick rest. He looked at the monitor and saw Cindy waiting outside. She waved, and he let her in.

"Alright, we finished the rockets about an hour ago," she quickly told him while rushing in, clearly excited. "Everyone is double-checking them and doing some touch-ups." She saw that he was smiling widely as well. "You're done too, aren't you?"

"You can read me like a book," he playfully told her. He motioned at the array of cylinders in front of him. "These are our best shot of destroying the force field."

Cindy picked one up and stared into it. She was surprised at how little it weighed. "What are they?"

Jimmy tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and a three-dimensional model of Retroville came onscreen. The force field covered it like a giant bubble, extending over a mile high into the sky. "I've had Goddard get as close to the field as he could to examine the nature of the field. The weakest point is directly in the center, approximately a mile above town hall," he explained while pointing to that part of the field on the monitor.

"That's nice, but what are these?" Cindy asked again while pointing to the metallic cylinder in her hand.

"These cylindrical devices," he continued, "are a condensed version of the EMP we used before. The cylindrical design will allow the EMP to have a much more narrow range than the other EMP."

Cindy stared at the top of the force field on the monitor. "So we fire these at the center of the force field, which will disable it?"

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. "Sort of. It will most likely tear a small hole in it instead of dissipating the entire force field. But there are two problems."

Cindy sighed. "Of course there are."

"First, we need to get within range of the center of the force field. That means we're going to have to attach these to the front of the rockets, fly up to the force field, and disable it. And second," he said while looking away from her, "I've run some simulations. This has got a seventy-five percent shot of working. If this fails, I don't know what else I can do. And," he trailed on.

As he paused, Cindy figured out what he was getting at. "If we are flying towards the force field and we can't disable it, we'll crash."

Jimmy nodded. "It's an unfortunate risk, but it is the only way to disarm this force field. There's no time to think of another way. Our parents could already be dead."

Cindy and Jimmy stood in silence for a moment, thinking about all the risks their plan held. At last, Jimmy spoke. "Go back to Retroland and bring all the kids back here."

Cindy nodded. "One last pep talk?" she said with a slight smile, although her sorrowful eyes betrayed this gesture.

Jimmy nodded. "Yeah."

As soon as she left, Jimmy set up his monitor like before. Several slides were ready to be displayed. Around twenty minutes after Cindy had left, she returned with all of the kids. Jimmy noticed Libby walking in. She had given up the wheelchair a week ago, and had almost completely abandoned her crutches. She usually preferred to walk without any aide, although she had a noticeable limp.

"Hello everyone," Jimmy shouted from the front of the room. "Great job with the rockets, first of all. Cindy tells me they're completed, and from what I saw yesterday, they look great. We will be shipping out for space in an hour or so, so there are a few last things we need to go over," he told everyone.

"First, I want to say that this isn't some corny pep talk," he told everyone while casting a smile at Cindy, "or depressing speech about how the odds are against us. You've heard both of those things already. All I'm doing is giving you some necessary intel."

He pressed a button on the remote in his hand. The first slide showed itself on the monitor. It was of a box with a question mark on it. "Over the last couple of days when I've come to monitor your progress at Retroland, I've heard some rumors. I don't know how you guys found out, but they're true. I've been keeping it a secret because I, well, didn't want you to know until after we lifted off," he said with a shrug.

He pressed the button again, and a familiar slide popped up. It was the one that he had showed Nick a week earlier. It showed the number of guns, kids, and ammunition. "Many of you heard that we will be using guns on this mission. You're right. We are bringing one hundred and fifty-one guns onboard with us. It's an array of pistols, shotguns, and rifles. That is all we could find in the city. We have plenty of ammo for everyone who gets a gun."

Jimmy cleared his throat. "The fact of the matter is, and I hate to sound like a broken record, we are outmatched. I'm hoping that guns will even things out. Now I know that some people are scared of them and worried about friendly fire, but we're taking precautions. Nick will teach all of those who are getting guns how to safely and effectively use firearms. He will do this on the asteroid."

The crowd fell even more silent, the usual whisperings and murmurs between friends dissipated. Jimmy waited, and eventually Carl raised his hand. "The what?" he asked.

Jimmy smiled and pressed his thumb down on the remote. A distant picture of the asteroid appeared onscreen. "For all intents and purposes, this will be called Little Boy," he explained to everyone. "It is located on the border of our solar system. Luckily for us, it will travel along our course to the Yolkian planet. It will come very close to the planet, but it's not on a collision course. We'll fix that by altering its path slightly by using our rocket's thrusters to push it towards the Yolkian planet. We will make camp on Little Boy, which is where Nick will train everyone in the art of firearms."

Jimmy rubbed his hands together in excitement. "And this is my favorite part of the plan. The control team here on Earth will be able to zero in on our parents' locations once we leave our solar system. We will abandon the asteroid near the Yolkian home world and slam it into the planet far enough away so that it doesn't affect our parents' location. But the impact will be devastating for the Yolkians."

"To put it in perspective," he continued, "an asteroid that is ten kilometers in diameter would be enough to destroy nearly all of humanity. The Yolkian planet is roughly two and a half times as big as ours. The asteroid we are using is twenty kilometers across. We will be able to destroy a good two-thirds of the Yolkian planet."

The kids in front of him seemed amazed, including Cindy. She had not known how colossal the damage from the asteroid would be.

Jimmy looked to his right at the clock on his wall. The afternoon was quickly slipping away, and he wanted to leave before nightfall. "Ok, on to the battle plan. I will need a team of, oh, around twenty of you to stay here on Earth. These people will act as a control center and monitor our locations, status, etc. The rest will fly into space. After crashing the asteroid, which will serve as an effective diversion, we will quickly fly to the other end of the planet where are parents will be. We will split up into different teams and quietly infiltrate the base where they are. We will release our parents, hijack a Yolkian ship, and get the heck out of there. Not a new plan, but it should get the job done."

Jimmy then pointed to the array of EMPs on the table. "These are what we're going to use to disable the force field. I need thirty-nine other pilots to attach these to your rockets. Activate them when I give the word, and they will disarm the field. Then the rockets on the ground will lift off."

Jimmy paused a moment and sighed. "But there's a problem, of course. These EMPs have a seventy-five percent chance of working. If they don't, we will most likely crash into the force field. We will then, most likely...die." A murmur of discontentment erupted through the crowd. "But seventy-five is still a C!" he told them.

"And a C's passing!" Nick helped by shouting to the kids from the middle of the crowd.

"Yeah, that's right!" Jimmy told them. "That is actually the least dangerous part of the mission. So, think about it. Let's head over to Retroland and get ready. Decide if you want to risk your life now or later. Or stay behind to man the controls," Jimmy added after a moment. As he followed the kids out of his lab, he suddenly wished that he had the option of staying behind to man the controls.

Chapter 18: Goodbyes

It took twenty minutes for all of the kids to walk back to Retroland. Jimmy naturally led the crowd, and he couldn't help but notice that many different emotions were present among the crowd. Butch and some of his tough friends were excitedly discussing the use of guns. Brittany, Betty, and several of the more traditionally feminine girls were sharing their fears of the upcoming journey. Cindy seemed deeply thoughtful, her eyes glazed over, vacantly staring at the road in front of her. Carl seemed the most terrified, continuously biting his nails, and then the skin underneath them. Libby seemed ready for battle, unaware of Jimmy's plans for her. Sheen was the person Jimmy found the most fascinating at the moment. As he held Libby's hand and helped her walk beside him, Jimmy noticed no fear in his friend's eyes. He only saw pure love. He wished that he could summon the courage to look at Cindy like that. The kid's an idiot, but you have to respect him.

Jimmy's train of thought derailed when Cindy came up beside him. "I'm going with you," she whispered to him. "I'll help disable the force field."

Jimmy smiled. He knew she would do this, and he was smart enough to know that he couldn't talk her out of it. Besides, the odds were in their favor for once. And his inventions almost never failed. "I sort of figured you would."

Cindy smiled as Jimmy pulled one of the EMPs out of his hypercube and handed it to her. "Just follow my commands on how to turn it on when we're in the air." Cindy nodded as she stared at her reflection in the chrome.

"Jimmy, should we both be going? I mean, if we both die, who will lead everyone?" she asked.

"Nick could," Jimmy quickly offered.

"Afraid not," Nick said while joining the two. "I'm going up there with you." He grabbed the cylinder that Jimmy immediately handed to him.

"This is idiotic," Cindy groaned. "If the three of us die, there is no way the other kids can get our parents back."

Jimmy shook his head. "You're missing the big picture. If this doesn't work, nobody can leave. It doesn't matter who dies. If this can't tear down the force field, nothing will. It doesn't matter if the leaders are dead, because we couldn't lead them anywhere."

Cindy and Nick shared a glance, a little put off by Jimmy's constant morbidity. "But, this will work, right?" Nick asked, his voice a little squeaky. He cleared his throat. "I mean, the odds are in our favor?" he asked in his normal tone.

Jimmy nodded. "Most likely, we will survive this. It's just important to note what will happen if we don't.

They all stopped at the gates to Retroland. Jimmy smiled; he had yet to see the finished fleet of ships. Everyone watched as Jimmy pulled ahead of the group to give one last inspection. "Flawless," he said while shaking his head, amazed by everyone's ability. He ran his left hand along the propulsion thruster on a bumper car. "Amazing," he muttered to himself.

Cindy walked up beside him and started to trace her foot along the ground. "Did I do a good job?"

"You did...there are no words. Just, wow," Jimmy told her. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, before settling on hugging one another.

"Thanks. For the compliment...and for trusting me," she said while blushing and backing away from him. "And as promised, here you go," she said while handing him the floppy disk.

Jimmy took it and turned it in his fingers. "Can you help the kids attach the EMPs and put the supplies on different ships? I have a few last things to attend to," he said while gently handing her his hypercube.

"Sure," she told him while staring at the device. As Jimmy turned to walk away, she shouted, "Wait!"

"What?" Jimmy asked while spinning around.

Cindy looked down at the hypercube, confused. "Why do you want me to divvy up the supplies? Why not just keep them all in the hypercube?"

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck while trying to explain his reasoning. "If something happens to me up there, and I hope it doesn't, then my rocket would be lost. If I left everything in the hypercube, all your supplies would be lost. We'll put supplies on all the ships. That way losing one ship doesn't lose all our supplies."

"Oh," Cindy responded. "Better get to work then," she said while slowly walking towards the rockets.

Jimmy walked in the other direction as the kids followed Cindy. "Hold up," Jimmy said as he passed Libby and Sheen. "Sheen, could we have a moment?" he asked.

Sheen looked to Libby for an answer. She patted his hand. "It's ok. I'll see you in a minute," she said while giving him a kiss on the cheek. His eyes instantly brightened, and he practically skipped towards Cindy.

"I think the shooting affected him more than me," Libby told Jimmy, only half-joking. "He refuses to leave me."

Jimmy suddenly realized that this would be harder than he thought. "Um, well, it's interesting you should bring that up," he told her while leading her away from the other kids. "You can't come."

Libby frowned, but didn't react as strongly as Jimmy had expected. Next to Cindy, she was the best at arguing with him. "I kind of thought so," she sighed while looking down at her injured leg.

"I can't send an injured girl," he began to say, but Libby shot him a fierce look. "I mean, an injured kid onto a battlefield. It doesn't make sense. Besides, someone needs to be the head of the control team on Earth. And you've definitely proved to me that you're smart enough to handle that."

Jimmy's words inflated her ego. "I'm the head of the control team?" she asked, her voice giving away her excitement.

Jimmy nodded while handing her the floppy disk Cindy had just returned to him. "Yep. You're the best there is, Libby. You're smart, decisive, and calculating. I would have asked you to stay behind even if you weren't hurt. You're better at this then fighting. Besides," he added, "someone needs to watch over Carl."

"Carl's staying behind?" Libby asked.

They both stared at their llama-obsessed friend, who shuddered with fright as Cindy handed him a pistol to place on a rocket. He tossed it in the back and took a few puffs from his inhaler. "Yeeeaaahhh, I think that might be best," Jimmy told her.

Libby nodded. "I may be smart, but I have no idea how to work anything in your lab," she told him.

Jimmy pointed to the disk in her hand. "That disk has a complete tutorial on it. Goddard will be able to help, and we'll be in communication via radio headsets. There are a few in the storage closet in the lab for the control team to use." Jimmy paused for a moment and saw the uncertainty etched across her face. "You can do this."

Libby nodded slightly, staring behind Jimmy at the rockets. It was then that she truly realized that everyone was about to take off, and that they might not be coming back. "Oh my god, you're leaving."

Jimmy looked behind him and noticed that Cindy and the kids were nearly done packing up. Jimmy turned back to Libby and smiled. "Yeah, guess so."

They both realized that this could be their last moment together. "Give 'em hell, Neutron. Don't forget who you are and the things you've done."

Jimmy nodded and wiped a tear from his stinging eye. He put a hand on Libby's shoulder. He realized that he was finally taller than her, by a good inch. "I know we never were best friends like me and Carl or you and Cindy," he struggled to say, "but I've always valued what we shared." He paused for a moment to stare at her. He chuckled sadly. "I never even knew you liked Shakespeare until a week ago," he told her as a tear ran down his cheek. "I don't know your parents' names. I don't even know your favorite band."

Libby smiled sadly back at him. "I don't know your favorite food, your favorite color, even what you want to be when you grow up," she choked out, struggling not to cry. "We barely know each other."

They both looked away as the tears began to flow down their cheeks. "I know that you were a good friend," Libby whispered.

Jimmy smiled through his tears. "And I know that I love you," he told her while giving her a hug. "Take care, Libby."

"I love you too, Jimmy. Be careful up there," told him. They held each other for a moment before pulling away. "And when, not if, you get back, we'll have a shake or something and talk. Get to know each other."

Jimmy laughed a little as he nodded and walked towards the rockets. He could see that the kids were done packing, and that Cindy was coming over to say goodbye to her best friend. "Talk to you soon," he shouted over his shoulder.

He took a deep breath and pulled a tissue out of his pocket. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He threw the tissue onto the ground and walked up to Carl, who looked fearfully at his rocket. "You don't have to come. Libby needs help here."

Carl stared at him for a moment before enveloping his friend in a bear hug. "Oh thank you," he said while pulling away and clutching his chest. "Those guns nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm allergic to lead bullets, you know."

Jimmy stared at him for a moment before realizing that he was making a joke. They both laughed. "See you soon, man," Jimmy said while clasping Carl's hand and giving him a pat on the back.

"Good luck," Carl wished him while heading to the circle where the other kids who had elected to stay behind stood.

Jimmy hopped into his Strato XL, which Cindy had driven to the amusement park the other day. He straddled the wheel for a moment, thinking of the dozens of adventures he and his friends had experienced in the vehicle.

Cindy hopped into the rocket near him. It was a pink bumper car with two thrusters attached to the back. "Libby is taking everyone back to the lab in the hover car so they can monitor our liftoff. She said that she and Goddard should be ready to monitor us in around ten minutes."

"Good," Jimmy said while nodding. He closed his eyes in an attempt to rid himself of his growing nausea. He looked behind him and tried to see who would be helping him tear down the force field. Nick was a few rockets behind him, nervously tapping his fingers against his dashboard. Betty and Cindy's friend Brittany were in one of the roller coaster's carts. Ike, Butch, and several other guys from his class were also there. He then turned to his left and saw Sheen hop into a rocket.

"You say good-bye to Libby?" he asked.

Sheen nodded as he pulled his Ultralord mask down over his face. "There wasn't much to say that we haven't already told each other a million times," he told Jimmy.

Jimmy couldn't look Sheen in the eye. He hated splitting the two of them up, especially since they might never see each other again after this. "I thought you would be mad at me," he told Sheen, barely speaking above a whisper.

Sheen stared at Jimmy. "I'm not an idiot, Jimmy. I knew from day one that she wouldn't be able to come. I wouldn't have wanted her to. With her injury, it would be suicide."

Jimmy nodded, although he found it hard to take his friend seriously with that mask on his face. "Do you really need the headgear?"

Sheen glared at him. "It's my good luck charm."

Jimmy was about to argue, but he realized that he needed all the luck he could get. He looked into the back of his rocket and saw several guns as well as a bag of food, clothes, and other supplies. He picked up his hypercube, which was sitting on top of everything else. He began to pull all forty-five radio headsets out of it. Cindy must have left them in here for me to distribute. He had been able to make only enough for the team that would be taking down the force field and a few for the other pilots. He passed them around to everyone before putting his on.

It had been fifteen minutes since Libby had left. Taking a deep breath, he turned his headset on and moved the microphone closer to his mouth. "Control Team, do you read me? This is Neutron, Jimmy Neutron, asking for assurance that you are monitoring us."

Jimmy listened to the static coming from the other end before Libby's voice rang loud and clear. "This is Libby Folfax, answering your request for assurance with a yes. I repeat, we are monitoring you."

"Did Goddard give you the basics?" Jimmy asked, abandoning the technical talk.

Back in the lab, Libby nodded. "He's taught me some basic stuff and is walking me through everything. I plugged him into the computer so he could run some stuff directly. I'll take a look at that floppy tonight," she told him.

"Floppy?" Cindy asked. All the headsets were on the same frequency, anyone wearing one could hear the conversation. She looked at Jimmy, who seemed to be afraid of her at the moment. "Hope it serves you as well as it did me," she said with a smile.

Jimmy let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't upset about him 'regifting'. He covered the microphone with his hand. "Starting the countdown, everyone!" he shouted. "When I say liftoff, those with the EMPs will follow. Listen to my commands, and adjust your EMP as I say so. Understand?" he asked at the top of his voice. Everyone nodded. "And the rest of you, do not lift off until I give you the word!" Once again, everyone nodded and told him that they understood.

"Then here we go," he told everyone. "FIVE!" he shouted.

"Four," Nick whispered to himself, relishing what could be his last moment on Earth.

"Three," Cindy mumbled, focusing her mind and releasing all her fears with one heavy sigh.

"Two," Sheen said under his breath; squinting his eyes and gripping the steering wheel.

"One," Libby flatly whispered into her headset.

Here we go. "LIFTOFF!" Jimmy shouted as his rocket zoomed into the sky at an impossible speed.

Chapter 19: A Malfunction and A Miracle

Jimmy realized that he was traveling too fast; he would approach the force field in seconds at this speed. "Slowing speed!" he shouted into the microphone near his mouth. The usual euphoria that accompanied him when he flew returned. He shook the wonderful feeling away and reached over his dashboard to the EMP. He had about twenty seconds until he reached the field.

"Press red button!" he shouted over the rush of wind flying past his face, forcing his eyes to nearly close. Each pilot leaned over and pushed the red button. The nearly silent humming quickly grew to a roar.

Jimmy's EMPs were charging fast. It took ten seconds to charge to firing capacity. If they didn't fire the EMPs within five seconds after the charging was complete, the energy would harmlessly dissipate and the EMP would have to charge again.

Jimmy watched as the bar on the device quickly rose to its maximum level. "Eight seconds away from force field!" Libby's voice rang out, barely audible among the roaring EMPs.

Jimmy poised his finger over the device. "Flick blue switch to fire! NOW!" he shouted as loud he could. As one collective body, everyone immediately reacted and flipped their switches. Then everything went to Hell.

Jimmy knew something was wrong the second after he flipped the switch. A blinding flash of light that accompanied the powerful magnetic fields should have flown from the cylinders towards the heart of the force field. Instead, only a few sparks sputtered from his mechanism. He didn't see anyone else's fire either.

"ABORT!" Jimmy screamed. "ABORT! ABORT!" he shouted over and over again. Jimmy desperately swerved his rocket ninety degrees to the right, but he knew that it wouldn't turn quick enough. He would live an extra second or two before crashing into the field a few hundred yards over.

"What's wrong?" Libby desperately shouted, but nobody was listening. The sky was enveloped with screams as everyone desperately turned their rockets in every direction.

Jimmy's pupils dilated as he stared straight ahead. He finally caught a glimpse of the field. The last time he had run into it was at night; he hadn't been able to see it. Now he saw sparks of electricity appearing out of nowhere. The sparks grew closer as his last seconds quickly ran out.

"Ah!" Jimmy screamed as his rocket closed in. He closed his eyes and covered his head with his hands. He counted down what he knew would be the last few seconds of his life. Three...two...one...goodbye world.

Yet there was no collision. Jimmy waited several more seconds before tentatively opening his eyes to see that he was quickly rising above the clouds, still heading upwards. He looked in every direction and saw that everyone else was looking around as well, confusion etched on their faces.

Jimmy pushed his amazement aside and his leader instinct kicked in. "Slow speed to minimum!" he shouted into his headset. There was a slight pause before all of the other rockets slowed down.

Jimmy and the others drifted as slowly as they could without falling from the sky. "Libby, what the hell just happened?" he shouted.

There was a long pause on the other end as Libby tried to understand why the pilots were all acting so chaotic. "What are you talking about? You took out the force field with your EMPs." She stared at the monitors again. "Didn't you?"

Jimmy leaned over his dashboard and looked at his smoking cylindrical invention. "Playback the video on one monitor and check the force field's energy readings on another."

Libby listened to his request and stared at the dozens of monitors around the control room and the hundreds of buttons. "Um," she muttered while running her hand over the keyboard, "What?"

Jimmy scowled. "Put Goddard on the headset!" he shouted. Goddard's familiar barking was heard in Jimmy's ears, and he repeated his request.

Goddard closed his eyes as he sent a command to the computer's CPU. Libby watched as the thirty-second long video of the pilots taking off began to repeat itself. She noticed that nothing seemed to happen when the kids activated their EMPs.

"Huh, looks like you didn't activate the EMPs," she told Jimmy. "Give me a minute for Goddard to teach me about all of this stuff," she said before flicking her headset off.

"Libby, don't you hang up on me!" Jimmy shouted before letting out a shout of frustration. Ok, calm down, she's never done this before. "Just fly around in circles until I give you further orders," Jimmy instructed the other thirty-nine rockets.

Jimmy absent-mindedly flew his rocket in circles for several minutes until Libby returned. "Ok, I've got some interesting data," she told him.

"Shoot," Jimmy told her, his temper momentarily weakened.

"I'm looking at the energy readings of the force field from when you first started monitoring it, when you 'activated' the EMPs," she said the word activated suspiciously, "and now. This thing is pretty messed up."

"How?" he asked, although he had a pretty good idea.

Libby cleared her throat and stared at the various monitors in the control room. "Alright, basically, this is how it played out. For all intents and purposes," she began before pausing. Whoa, I'm sounding way too much like Jimmy. "Um, let's say that the power of the force field when you first discovered it was 100, ok?"

"Understood, keep going," Jimmy said while inattentively moving his steering wheel left and right.

"Alright. About a second after you activated your EMPs, the power level dropped to zero. The force field completely dissipated. But as soon, and I mean at exactly the same time, as the last rocket completely passed through where the force field had been, it went back up. The force field reactivated itself."

Jimmy rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration and closed his eyes. "And our EMPs, they didn't work, did they?"

Libby shook her head. "Not a bit. I've replayed the video several times and Goddard checked for readings of any extreme magnetic fields present in your area when you activated the device. Nothing. You did absolutely nothing to dissipate the force field. It went away and came back on its own."

Everyone with a headset listened intently at Libby's explanation. While most of them didn't understand the technical terms, they got the message. Jimmy's invention had failed, and yet they had gotten through the force field.

"I'm going to set down on the field and check it out," Nick said into his headset before turning around to land on the force field.

Jimmy was too busy trying to figure out what had happened to listen to Nick. It took him a moment to realize his friend's idiocy. "No!" he shouted, but it was too late. Nick was already setting down.

"He'll be electrocuted, his rocket will be destroyed!" he shouted at Libby. He anxiously spun his rocket around to rescue Nick, but he saw that he was in no danger. Nick's rocket rested on a seemingly invisible floor, and Nick was standing up in the middle of the sky.

"Dude, this is the coolest thing ever," he told everyone while jumping up and landing back down on the force field.

Jimmy began to get a splitting headache as he tried to understand the chaos that surrounded him. "Libby? Explanation please?"

"I was about to explain before Nick interrupted us," she told him. "The power levels of the force field are down to fifty percent of what they originally were. There's no electrical current. Right now, it's simply an invisible wall, albeit a thick and impenetrable one."

Jimmy closed his eyes and thought for a moment. If the force field is weakened, then I can tear it down easily if my EMP will work. He charged up his EMP once again, but all he heard was sputtering. Sparks flew out of it once more. He had to face it, his invention was a dud.

"Land on the force field," he instructed everyone. "I need to think." He spun around and began his descent onto the invisible wall. Slowly and carefully, he landed beside Nick. "Nick, get back into your rocket. I don't know where the edge of this thing is, and I don't want you stepping over it," he told him.

Nick grumbled his disappointment as he left his new toy. "Aye, aye, captain," he angrily muttered.

Jimmy leaned back in his seat and grabbed his headset's microphone. "Libby, tell me if I've got this right. We flew at the force field and activated our EMPs. My invention completely failed and did nothing. Yet the force field disappeared just as we went through, and then reclosed itself."

"Pretty much," Libby said with a shrug.

Cindy pulled up beside Jimmy with an equally puzzled look on her face. "That doesn't make any sense. It just opened up for us for no reason?"

Jimmy scratched his chin. "It's a one in a quadrillion shot. The force field stays continuously on for nearly two weeks, then vanishes for just long enough for our rockets to get through, and then closes itself once again. Plus, its energy is weakened."

As Jimmy muttered this to himself, Cindy realized something. "Hey, does anyone else realize that we're getting communications through the force field down to Earth?"

Jimmy immediately faced her, surprised. He realized that she was right. "Libby, can you still hear me?"

"Roger that, Jimmy. This is all pretty strange, huh?" she replied.

Jimmy shook his head. This was too much. "Does anyone below at Retroland read me?"

A quick silence, and then a boy named Mike answered. "Loud and clear, Jimmy. Been monitoring your conversation. I agree, pretty strange. What do you want?"

"Send a rocket up here. Ride slowly. Get as close to this force field as you can. If it disappears, come through. If it doesn't, head back to Earth. I want to see if this thing is letting ships through, or if we experienced a freak accident."

Jimmy turned to the dozens of rockets beside him. "Get ready to fly those things. If the force field disappears again, we're going to fall to Earth." Everyone nodded.

Jimmy took a pair of binoculars Cindy handed him and stared down below. He could see a bumper car rocket flying towards him. It was going as slowly as it could. It eventually came up to Jimmy. The pilot saw that the kids above him weren't falling back to Earth. The force field was still intact. "Aborting," he calmly told Jimmy while swerving to the left and heading back to the ground.

"No change in the force field," Libby told everyone.

"We must have gotten lucky," Jimmy said in disbelief. "Unbelievably and impossibly lucky."

"You're welcome," Sheen huffed while pointing at his mask.

Cindy promptly ignored him and began thinking. "That or the Yolkians wanted you to get through. You and Nick said that they probably want revenge. They can't get revenge if you don't come to them. And now that you're outside of Retroville, there's no sense in letting anyone else out. A smaller army is easier to kill."

Jimmy took in what she had just said and slowly nodded. "They must be able to monitor our ships' positions to know that we were coming up to the force field. That means that they can track our positions at all times."

"Most likely," Libby told him after she saw Goddard nod. "What are you going to do?"

Jimmy gripped his steering wheel hard enough to drain the blood from his knuckles. Bastards. They think a little radar can help them? Takes a lot more than that to beat me. "Screw it. A smaller army makes a sneak attack easier. They'll see the asteroid coming, but they won't be able to do anything about it. That will hopefully destroy their radar bases or whatever they're using to track us. We'll still circle around the planet and sneak in."

"What about the kids still at Retroland?" Nick asked. "That's half our team, not to mention half the supplies! And guns!" he shouted.

"Doesn't matter," Jimmy told him. "Half the kids only need half the supplies. There's nothing we can do." He grabbed his microphone and held it closer to his mouth. "Mike, you read me?"

"Loud and clear," he replied. "What're your orders?"

"Go back to my lab. Libby could probably use the extra help to man all of that technology."

Cindy pulled her microphone closer to her mouth as well. "Mike, Vortex here. Use the guns you have with you down there to build a fortress of sorts around Jimmy's lab and house. Go to the stores tonight and grab all the food you can. Bring it back to the lab and house. You and everyone else will stay there until we return. Use anything you've got to build that fortress. Tear down houses for wood, break down buildings for cement, I don't care. The Yolkians are smarter and sneakier than we thought. I wouldn't put it past them to have hidden out somewhere in that city so that they could take out the control team."

There was a silence on the other end. "Jimmy, permission to follow Ms. Vortex's orders?" Mike asked.

Jimmy gunned his rocket and took off, continuing his course to space. "Of course. She's right. My house and lab is now your base. If it's too small, extend to Carl's and Cindy. But keep it small enough so that you can build a fortress around it. Keep guards alert and have sniper positions. Got all that?" Jimmy smiled, rather enjoying this army talk. "Soldier?"

"Yes sir," Mike quickly answered. "I will send twenty of my men to your lab to assist Miss Folfax in her efforts. I will send thirty to gather supplies tonight and tomorrow. The rest of my squad and myself will begin setting up a protective barrier around our new base. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," Cindy and Jimmy said at the same time. They looked at each other for a moment.

"Yes," Jimmy continued. "Get to work at once. Neutron out," he said while leaning back and sighing.

Chapter 20: Status Report

Libby sighed as she stared at the monitor in front of her. She rubbed her eyes and strained to finish reading the last page of Jimmy's tutorial program. After what seemed like an eternity, she finished and took the floppy disk out of its disk drive. "Well, that was an exciting way to spend five hours," she muttered while standing up and stretching.

"Damn," she groaned as her leg suddenly burned when she bent down to touch her toes. She hobbled back to her seat. She looked to her left and saw that Goddard was doing the robotic equivalent of sleeping. His eyes were closed and his body still as his batteries recharged themselves.

Libby was quickly growing anxious. It had been five hours since she had seen anyone. She had left Carl and some kid named Mike in charge, a decision that she immediately began to regret. She had been sitting in Jimmy's control room since then, trying to read the lab's tutorial and get a feel on how to run the place.

Libby let out a deep breath and stood up once again. To her relief, the fiery pain in her leg didn't return. She walked as best she could out of the control room and into a hallway. She was anxious to talk to anyone. The small room had made her claustrophobic after several hours, and the solitude was slowly eating away at her sanity. She would never understand how Jimmy could spend hours, even days on end down here alone.

Libby pushed these thoughts aside and walked into the lab's main room. She saw that all the kids left behind by Jimmy were there. Some were sitting on the few pieces of furniture Jimmy had in his lab, talking, eating, and drinking. Most, however, were sprawled out across the floor, already asleep. Libby looked up at a clock on the wall and saw that it was already midnight.

Surprisingly, Carl was one of the few awake. Libby strolled over as she saw that he was setting up his sleeping bag. "Just like the first couple of nights after our parents were abducted, huh?" Carl asked while laying down and putting his glasses in his pocket.

"Yeah, just like it," Libby agreed. She was tired and her body pleaded with her to go to sleep, but she felt the urge to check in with her friends in space. She went back into the control room and put on her headset. She set the frequency to Jimmy's private channel and grabbed the microphone.

Jimmy looked down at his watch and saw that it was nearly midnight. He leaned back in his seat, his hands off of the steering wheel and behind his head. He had finished programming his autopilot and distributing it to every rocket an hour ago. It wasn't perfect, but it would keep them close enough to his path while they slept that they could easily correct it in the morning.

Man, I haven't been out this far in ages, he thought with a smile while looking at the infinite space surrounding him. Hundreds of stars twinkled and glimmered in the distance. He peered over his shoulder and saw Neptune fade into the distance.

He was about to drift off to sleep when Libby's voice swam into his ears. "Neutron, this is Folfax here. Folfax attempting to contact Neutron. Do you copy?"

He should have been upset at being awakened, but he found that he had already begun to miss the sound of her voice. "Neutron here. What's up?"

"Well, I finished reading your tutorial. I think that I've got everything managed over here. How's your end? Everything looking good out there?" she asked.

Jimmy glimpsed at the rocket gently gliding by his left. Cindy had her head on the dashboard, her hair curled over her eyes as she slept. "Beautiful," Jimmy told Libby.

"Well, I think that I'll really be able to help you guys from now on," she proudly told him.

Jimmy smiled, sensing a challenge in her voice. "Alright, let's see how much you've learned. I need to know our current position and how long it will take to reach the asteroid."

Libby nodded and cracked her knuckles. "Alright, let's do this," she told him before taking a deep breath, holding it in a beat, and then exhaling it. "Inputting command to trace location of the tracking devices installed on all the rockets," she told him while furiously typing on the keyboard. Looks like that typing course will come in handy after all.

"You should be around thirty thousand kilometers past Neptune," she told him. "Hang on," she interrupted him as he opened his mouth. "Pulling up your preset equation on how to calculate time needed to travel to a certain object."

Libby tapped a few more keys and selected a command with her mouse. "Replacing x variable with current speed," she told Jimmy while typing in the number. She kicked her rolling chair across the floor and began working on a new monitor. "Tracking asteroid and getting its location on separate monitor," she explained while pulling up surveillance photos of Little Boy. "Inputting distance away into y variable. Executing," she said while wiping the sweat off of her brow and pressing enter. The computer instantly performed the calculation.

"You should reach the asteroid in nine hours and seventeen minutes," Libby said while leaning back in her chair. "Anything else?"

Jimmy smiled. Even with the guns, he had doubted their ability to defeat the Yolkians. Strength and cunning only got you so far. He needed a constant feed of new information and a helpful hand on Earth, and Libby was quickly proving that she could provide those things for him. "No, not now. I'm going to need you a lot when we land on the asteroid, though." He paused, trying to remember what he had wanted to ask her. "Oh yeah, how's the fortress going?"

"We haven't really started. That Mike kid took a most of the kids and the hover car to gather supplies. He said that if they all went out together, they probably wouldn't have to go out again in the morning."

Jimmy nodded. "Does anyone there know how to properly fire the guns you've got?" Jimmy asked.

"A couple of kids have played some shooting games, and we've about half of them have used super soakers. That's it." She paused, starting to get a little nervous. "Are they really here in town? You said they probably aren't, didn't you?"

Jimmy sensed the anxiety in her voice. "You, I did. It's pretty unlikely they're there. I have a few samples of the Yolkian's green goo in the lab. I've uploaded their equivalent of DNA into my database. Run a search in the morning to see if you can find them in town. Even if you don't build that fortress anyway. Better safe than sorry."

"Alright, I'll run a search in the morning," Libby said while yawning. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. Oh, is Sheen there?"

Jimmy frowned. "Well, he's here, but he's asleep. Want me to wake him up? I'm sure he'd rather talk to you than sleep."

"No, no, he needs his rest. Is..." she began to ask, but Jimmy interrupted her.

"Cindy's asleep too," he told her.

Libby smiled sadly. "Alright, guess I'll talk to you tomorrow. Folfax out."

Jimmy listened as he heard her headset click off. He took his off and put it in the back with the rest of his supplies. He pulled out a blanket and wrapped himself in it while putting his feet up on his steering wheel. He yawned, and was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

Chapter 21: Setting up Camp

Jimmy's eyes shot open as his rocket began to shake and jump forward. He immediately put his headset back on and grabbed his rocket's steering wheel. He glanced in every direction while shutting his autopilot off. He was about to contact Libby for help when he realized that it was just some minor turbulence. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that he was too nervous.

Once Jimmy had calmed down, he let out a deep yawn. Time? He wondered while staring down at his watch. He realized that it was around quarter past nine, not that the time meant anything out here. He turned his gaze forward and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. When he finally got a decent look at what lay in front of him, he flipped on his headset. "Wake up!" he shouted as loud as he could. Around him, everyone was startled awake as Jimmy's loud voice penetrated their deep slumber.

"What's wrong?" Cindy immediately asked while flipping off her auto pilot. She noticed Jimmy staring straight ahead and followed his gaze. "Oh," was all she could muster.

One by one, everyone stared straight ahead at the giant rock that lay several hundred kilometers in front of them. It was huge, almost as big as Retroville. Jimmy's lips curled into a smile as he realized that his plan was coming together. "Kids, meet Little Boy."

"Butch, help Betty and Brittany set up that tent over there!" Jimmy shouted while covering the microphone on his headset. Libby was on the other end, and she wouldn't appreciate the shouting. Now that they had all landed on Little Boy, there wasn't any need to use headsets with each other. They were all within shouting distance.

"As I was saying," Libby continued while taking a bite out of her bagel, "I've run a thorough search of the town. Three times. I'm not detecting any Yolkian life forms here on Earth. But I've got over a hundred kids here, and I only need a fifth of them to help with all of this control room stuff. The rest are still working on that fortress. Better safe than sorry, and it gives them something to do," she explained to Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded. "Libby, we should be in range for you to do a scan for our parents' DNA. Nick and Cindy are setting up the satellites that will carry the tracing signal from the lab. Do you understand how it works?"

Libby nodded on her end. "Control team instructs the computer to run a scan for our parents' DNA. We send the signal out into space, which is then amplified by your satellites. That should strengthen the signal enough so that I can get a rough reading on our parents. As you get closer, I can pinpoint the single to a more exact location. My end's ready to go, just give the word to send the signal," she told him.

Libby turned to her left and right. A kid sat on each side of her inside the control room. In the main part of the lab a dozen other kids were doing dozens of different tasks. They were studying Jimmy's tutorial program, checking the status of all the rockets, and plotting courses for Jimmy and his fleet. Libby was proud of the team she had assembled.

"Goddamn it, Butch, you have to hammer the pegs into the rock first or the tent will fall over!" Jimmy shouted while covering the microphone. He groaned as Butch continued doing it wrong. "Steve, go help him!"

"It's Bill," the kid said while walking past Jimmy.

"Sorry," Jimmy apologized while turning his attention back to Libby. "Libby, I'm going to have to get back to you. I have to take care of some stuff here. Neutron out." he told her while going over to the tent.

Cindy stopped working as she saw Jimmy help Betty set up her and Brittany's temporary shelter. Nick finished attaching one of the satellites onto the asteroid and noticed Cindy staring over at Neutron. "Jealous?" he asked with a smile.

Cindy stared over at Nick and chuckled. "Hardly," she told him while finishing screwing the satellite into the rock. "Hardly," she repeated.

"Whatever." He paused to wipe his hands on a rag and then tie it around his head like a bandanna. "Help me set up the firing range," he instructed her while unpacking the guns from all of the rockets.

Once the camp was complete, Jimmy sat down on a boulder and took a quick swig from his water bottle. He took a look everyone's new base. Forty tents for sleeping and shelter were strewn across a square kilometer. In the middle of the camp there were seven more tents. Three were filled to the brim with food. Two contained clothes, medicine, and other supplies. The last two supply tents contained all of their guns and ammunition. At the other end of the asteroid, barely visible from their camp, were everyone's rockets. They were securely fastened to the ground. Suddenly, their thrusters fired.

"Get that automated system working?" Jimmy asked into his headset.

"Thrusters are set to alter your course for collision with Yolkian planet. Once the exact location of our parents' DNA is found, the thrusters will rapidly alter your course so the collision will not harm them," Mike explained.

"Good job. Sounds like Control Team's got everything handled back home," Jimmy said while setting his water bottle back down on the ground. "Neutron out."

Jimmy flicked his headset off and walked towards Nick, who was tallying the supplies along with Brittany and Butch. Cindy and Betty were awkwardly arranging the medical supplies. Ashe strolled to the middle of their camp; he noticed that everyone else was sitting in their tents, playing board games, and otherwise just relaxing. That was fine with Jimmy; they had done more than enough work for today.

"Those two are working together?" Jimmy whispered while pointing his thumb over his shoulder to Betty and Cindy as he approached Nick. "How did that happen?"

Nick frowned as he set down several boxes of ammo. "I was hoping to see a catfight, but it's the one time that they are controlling their tempers. Looks like you were right. The odds are against us, huh?" he asked while elbowing Jimmy.

Jimmy wasn't amused. He'd be more than happy to watch Cindy and Betty go at it back on Earth, but there were more serious issues to deal with right now. "I need supply info. Everything. Now," he instructed Nick while taking out a notebook and clicking his pen.

"Perfect timing, good buddy. We all just finished tallying everything up." Nick motioned towards the tents. "We did pretty good considering we took off with less than half of the rockets." Nick led Jimmy to the three tents that held all of the food. He opened one of them and allowed Jimmy to look inside. Boxes of all different kinds of food were stacked to the tent's triangular ceiling. "Enough food for six weeks. Plenty for a trip to the Yolkian home world and back, and then some."

Jimmy nodded as he wrote this down. "People? Medicine? Guns?"

"We've got fifty bottles of aspirin and plenty of water to wash it down with. I got three dozen boxes of band aids and two hundred yards of that band aid that comes in a roll. You know, the stuff for serious injuries?" he tried to explain while struggling to recall the name.

"Good, what else?" Jimmy asked while scribbling some more notes down.

"Sheen and Carl had brought back some surgical tools when they got Libby her wheelchair and crutches. I'm hoping that you're not delusional enough to try to operate on anyone, but they're there if we need them," he said with a shrug. "We've got antibiotics, morphine, alcohol for sterilization, five bags of cotton balls, the stuff they use for stitches, and four dozen needles."

Jimmy looked up from his notebook. "Sewing or hypodermic?"

"What's hypodermic?" Nick asked.

"The kind they use for shots," Jimmy explained.

"Yeah, those. The, uh, hypodermic needles," he told Jimmy. "Oh, and about ten thousand of those disposable gloves."

Jimmy nodded his head. He would set up a medical tent later on so he could have a sterile environment if anyone got hurt. "Guns?"

Nick led Jimmy into the gun tent. "Lady Luck appears to have been on our side with this area," he told Jimmy with a smile. "Out of the original one hundred and fifty-one guns, we've got ninety-two."

Jimmy looked up from his pad and pen to stare at Nick. "You sure?" He hadn't dare hope that they had salvaged that many.

Nick smiled at Jimmy's shocked face. "Double-checked. Sixty pistols, twenty-six shotguns, and six rifles. Unfortunately, none of the rifles are automatic," he told Jimmy. "Not that you even know what that means," he added under his breath.

Jimmy looked at the guns strewn across the tent. They were separated into the three different types and then laid out on the ground. Jimmy suddenly realized that something was missing. "Where's all of the ammo?"

"Next tent over," Nick explained while leading Jimmy to the ammunition tent. Butch was inside, more than happy to arrange the boxes of ammunition. "Once again, we did pretty well. We've got seventy-four boxes of 9mm pistol ammo. Each box contains twenty-five rounds, and a magazine can hold fifteen. I've got fourteen boxes of shotgun shells. Three boxes of BB shot, seven boxes of three buck, two boxes of one buck, and two boxes of triple-ought buck. The triple-ought buck is totally badass," Nick said with a smile. "As for rifles, there are eleven boxes of thirty rounds. I also had grabbed plenty of empty magazines from that Wal-Mart. I'll explain about those later. That's all we packed."

Jimmy stared at him for a moment before slowly nodding and returning to his notepad. Lots of ammo, was all that he wrote. He had barely understood a word of what Nick had just said.

Nick smiled at Jimmy's confusion. "You barely understood a word that I just said, didn't you?"

A shocked look appeared on Jimmy's face. "Of course I...well, no," he said with a frown.

Nick laughed. "That's okay; I'm going to teach everyone everything they need to know. Have everyone who's getting a gun assembled about, oh," he muttered while taking a compass out of his pocket and examining it, "three kilometers west."

Jimmy looked at his watch and set the alarm to go off in two hours. An hour should be enough to assemble everyone and walk them three kilometers out. "Three hours, got it."

Nick rubbed his hands and stared at the dozens of boxes of ammo behind him. "Good. The metaphorical school is in session."

Chapter 22: Firearms 101

Jimmy's alarm went off as soon as he finished attaching a metal beam into the asteroid's ground. It shot fifteen feet into the sky, and there were several red lights and speakers on top of it. There was only one wire coming from it, and it led to a large, pulsing red button that he had put in his tent.

Jimmy looked down at his watch and saw that he now had fifty-nine minutes until he had to meet Nick. He dusted his hands off and left his tools near the metal pole. Setting of at a crisp jog, he went around the camp and gathered the fifty-eight other kids he needed.

Forty-five minutes later, a large crowd was following Jimmy as he led them to Nick's makeshift firing range. "Where are we going?" Sheen asked. All that Jimmy had told them was that he needed all of them to follow him for special training.

Jimmy saw Nick near the horizon, who gave an almost imperceptive wave. Jimmy nodded back at him, although he knew that Nick couldn't see the gesture from that distance. Jimmy stayed quiet and ignored Sheen's question until they approached Nick several moments later.

Jimmy pulled ahead of the rest of the kids and motioned for them to remain where they were. He then ran up to Nick. "Is everything ready?" he asked Nick.

Nick nodded. "What were you doing before you came over here? Hangin' with Cindy?" he slyly inquired

Jimmy smiled and shook his head no. "I was setting up an alarm system in the middle of camp in case there's an emergency. I'll talk more later. I believe you have a class to teach. See ya," Jimmy said while turning around and preparing to head back to camp.

"Whoa, slow your roll there, cowboy," Nick said while spinning him back around. "Neutron is skipping class?" he asked with a smirk.

Jimmy didn't understand what Nick was getting at. "What are you talking about?"

Nick chuckled as he looked down at Jimmy's confused face, an expression that he was getting used to seeing on his new friend. "Did you even look at the list I gave you of who's getting a firearm?"

Jimmy nodded. "Of course. How do you think I knew who to bring here?"

"Well, was your name on it?" Nick questioned.

Jimmy began to say yes, but he realized what Nick was getting at. "I'm way too busy to let you teach me, Nick. Especially today. I have to refill all of the rockets' fuel, monitor the rocket's thrust pattern, check with Libby on control team's status, gather," he was about to continue when Nick shook his head.

"You going on this mission?" he asked.

"Duh," Jimmy told him, somewhat forcefully.

"Well then you're learning how to man one of these bad boys," he said while pulling a pistol out of his back waistband. "Anyone misses one of these classes, they don't come. Goes double for you, chief. I don't need any friendly fire coming from our captain. Sets a bad example," Nick playfully explained while handing Jimmy the gun. "Now gather the grunts and line 'em up," he instructed while walking back to his firing range.

Jimmy stared after Nick for a moment before realizing that he was right. If he was going on this mission, which he definitely was, he would need to know how to use a gun.

"Hold up," Jimmy said while running after Nick.

"What?" he asked while turning around.

"I need to talk to everyone about our battle strategy. You want to talk first, or should I?"

Nick thought for a moment. "I'll go and you can be a sort of half-time show. I'm not the best at public speaking. I'll need a break."

Jimmy nodded and ran back to the crowd of kids far behind him. "Alright," he began to explain as he slid to a stop in front of them, "we're here. Nick is the only one of us with training in firearms. He is going to teach us how to use them. All of you have been hand-selected by Nick and myself to carry a gun. We feel that you are the best candidates."

Everyone seemed to smile at this flattering comment, especially Sheen. "You're trusting me to carry a gun?" Sheen asked.

Cindy looked at Sheen in disbelief. "You're trusting him to carry a gun?" she shouted.

Jimmy stared at the two of them. "Sheen, you've proven yourself brave on many occasions, especially when you jumped on the League of Villain's rocket to rescue me. It was incredibly stupid, but it was brave. And don't all of those Ultralord games involve shooting?"

"Only everyone one of them!" Sheen screeched as he realized that playing video games had finally paid off.

"Alrighty then," Nick interrupted as he strolled up to them. "Everyone follow me to our highly advanced training facility. And Jimmy, please explain to everyone my authority."

As Nick led everyone to his firing range, Jimmy told everyone the extent of Nick's power over everyone. "As you all know, I'm in charge of this mission," he said as he humbly as he could manage, which wasn't much. "But in any aspect with guns, you go to him. If you need a gun, need ammo, have a question, anything, you ask him. He's the only one of us to have any knowledge of firearms, so we're going to listen to what he says with respect. This isn't a game, guys. It's life or death. For all intents and purposes, you are soldiers, and he's your general."

Nick nodded, satisfied with Jimmy's explanation. "That's right. I'm in charge of combat operations at this point. You have all been hand-selected to serve in this army. Are you going to let me down?" he shouted. There was silence in the crowd. "I said, ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME DOWN?"

"Sir no sir!" Jimmy shouted while giving a crisp salute, setting an example for everyone.

"And the rest of you?" Nick asked.

"Sir no sir!" they all shouted while saluting. Cindy seemed the most hesitant to acknowledge Nick's power over all of them.

"That's right, I'm right," Nick growled as he inspected the disheveled crowd. "What the hell is this? Do you think you're going to fight the Yolkians in a pathetic heap? I want ten rows of five kids. Move!" he shouted.

Everyone looked to Jimmy, who simply nodded and moved aside to lead the first row. Cindy started a row to the left of him, and Sheen did the same to his right. Quickly, everyone else filed in.

"Alright, today we will learn the basics of guns and, if we're lucky, get in some target practice."

"Now this," he said while pulling out a pistol, "is a 9mm Glock 22 pistol. It is a standard pistol used by police forces in many countries. It carries fifteen bullets. Everyone got that so far?" he asked. Everyone nodded.

"Now, here's how this works. This is a magazine," he said while holding up a black, metal, rectangular box up. "Fifteen bullets fit in this. You put them in yourself. But we'll have them all already filled up for everyone by the time we get to the Yolkian planet. But, that's beside the point," Nick told everyone.

"You put the magazine into its slot here," he instructed while pushing it into the gun's magazine shaft. "Then pull back the magazine slide like this." Nick, holding the gun with his left hand, pulled back the magazine slide with his right and let it spring back into place.

"At this point, a round, or bullet, is now inside the chamber. It is ready to fire. Hold the gun in both hands for the best accuracy. Put it straight in front of you, look over the barrel, aim, and pull the trigger." Nick did all of these things except pull the trigger.

"Now, this is how you take the magazine out. Simply pull the magazine catch with your thumb. The magazine will eject. Then pull the slide back, and that will get rid of the bullet in the chamber. Everyone got it?"

There were nods, murmurs of confusion, and just plain blank faces in the audience. "Alright, try it yourselves. Jimmy, hand out the guns," Nick instructed.

Jimmy walked up to a box of fifty guns and began passing them out. Nick pulled empty magazines from another box and passed those out as well. Once everyone had a magazine and gun, Nick went over the instructions again, and everyone performed the actions he described.

"Good, that's very nice," he told everyone. "Now, these pistols are semi-automatic. That means," he paused to smile at Jimmy, "that you have to pull the trigger to fire a bullet. If you hold the trigger down, only one bullet will fire. If you hold the trigger down on an automatic weapon, like an assault rifle, bullets will continue to shoot out until the magazine is empty. All the guns that we have are semi-automatic. Does everyone get that?" Everyone nodded.

"Yeah, we get it," Jimmy told him while repeating the definition in his mind.

"Alright, before we go over the shotguns and rifles, Jimmy needs to go over something with you," he said while walking up to Jimmy.

"Go get 'em, James," Nick laughed while patting him on the back. Jimmy returned the friendly gesture with a nod before pulling an easel and a large picture of a Yolkian out of his hypercube. After he placed the picture on the easel, he performed his usual nervous tic of clearing his throat before addressing the crowd.

"Alright, this will only take a moment. After Nick and I gathered the guns back on Earth, I realized the obvious. Yolkians are not humans. While that may appear to be both a completely stupid and completely useless observation, it will have a huge impact on how we will attack our enemies. To sum it up in laymen's terms, bullets won't kill them. They're made up of green goo, not flesh and muscle. Shooting them would be like shooting a heap of pudding. It simply will not harm them."

Nick's eyes glazed with anger. "So why the hell did you make me give that gay little speech?"

Jimmy held his hands up in a defensive manner. "But just because the guns won't kill them doesn't mean they won't be an invaluable asset. Look at this blueprint," he instructed everyone. As everyone turned to the easel on his left, Jimmy took out his metal pointer out of his pocket and extended it.

"Once a Yolkian is removed from his portable shell, it is an immobile heap of, well, goo. It can barely move, can't carry any weapons, and provides no threat other than being sticky. So this is how we will attack them."

Jimmy held his pointer in his hands and cleared his throat once more. "The Yolkian shell has two basic components. The bottom of the shell contains all of its circuitry and mechanics. The top is merely a glass visor to see through."

Jimmy pointed at the Yolkian's glass screen. "If you shoot this screen, you will most likely frighten the Yolkian, destroy its sense of balance and hopefully make it fall over, and, if you're lucky, shoot one of its eyes. This is not your main target, however."

He pointed towards the bottom of the Yolkian's shell. "This is your main target. A single bullet should do enough damage to destroy the shell's circuitry. This will render the shell immobile, and therefore the Yolkian no threat."

Jimmy retracted his pointer and put it back in his pocket. "Now, if you are in close quarters, smashing the shell to pieces will also do the job. But remember, our main target is their leader, Goobot. Once you immobilize a Yolkian, it is no longer a threat. If you have the opportunity, you can kill it by stomping on it or ripping the goo out between its eyes. That appears to be where it's 'brain' is. But if you're in a dangerous situation, don't pause to kill an immobilized enemy. It is just a waste of time. That's all I have to say," he finished up. Jimmy began to put his easel and picture of the Yolkian back into his hypercube.

Nick stood back up and faced the crowd again. He gave a quick salute to Jimmy, who returned the gesture while straightening himself up. "Alright, we still have a lot of work to do before target practice. Onto the shotguns."

Chapter 23: The Idiot Savant

Once Nick had finished explaining the necessary details of the shotguns and rifles, he strolled over to another box he and Butch had been forced to drag the three kilometers out. "Alright, we're almost done for today," he told everyone. "You've learned a lot of the basic information about each gun and their reloading actions. Now it's time to see how good of a shot you are."

Everyone watched as Nick pulled a paintball gun out from the box. "This is a paintball gun. For today, we're going to practice aiming with these. I don't know a damn thing about these toys, but I'm guessing that they're a lot different from normal guns. Even if they are, it should give me an idea of how good a shot you are. Once we get some basic training in aiming, we'll practice with real guns and bullets."

Nick began passing out paintball rifles, pistols, even a couple of shotguns. "As I'm sure you've noticed, I have some targets set up around here. If you look to your left, you'll see them about twenty meters out. There are squares on the ground drawn in chalk where you're supposed to stand. We're going to practice shooting straight ahead. I've got around twenty of these paintball guns, but I only want ten shooting at a time. Now grab a gun and line up."

Just as Nick had said, there were ten targets twenty meters to their left. The targets were boxes, boulders, and other junk that the kids had packed. Nick had painted rings with a bull's-eye in the center on them earlier that afternoon. There were ten in a row, with around ten meters between them.

Jimmy, Cindy, Butch, Betty, Sheen, Brittany, and five other kids walked up to the box of guns. Jimmy pulled out a pistol and a handful of paintballs. He shoved the paintballs in his pocket and then grabbed Nick's arm and pulled him aside. "What do you mean; we'll practice with real bullets?"

"I meant that once we practice aiming, reloading, and all of that stuff, we'll use real guns and real bullets. Everyone needs to get used to using them," Nick explained.

Jimmy shook his head. "We don't have unlimited ammo, Nick. A single bullet could make or break this battle. We don't have any to waste."

Now it was Nick's turn to shake his head. "Jimmy, I agree with you one hundred percent. We don't have unlimited ammo, and we can't stand to waste any. But target practice is not wasting ammo. None of these people have ever fired a real gun. Hell, even I've only fired a gun once. For all I know, I can't hit the broad side of a barn. You want me to send them into a battle having never once fired a gun?"

Jimmy stood still, his teeth clenched. His mind pondered Nick's words. Jimmy realized that he was right. He's right; they have to have at least some experience with real guns. Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand and gripped the pistol with the other. "You're right. Just ration the ammo carefully, alright?"

Nick smiled and nodded. "You got it, chief. Now get over there before the spot next to Cindy is taken."

Jimmy was about to continue his ongoing argument with Nick about his feelings for Cindy, but he saw that Butch was indeed preparing to take the spot next to Cindy. Jimmy ran over as fast as he could and slid to a stop beside her. Butch shrugged and took the spot two squares over.

"Hey Cind," Jimmy said while smiling over at her.

"James," she playfully flirted while flipping the few loose strands of hair out of her eyes. "Ready to see who's the better shot?" she asked while loading her gun.

"Absolutely," he quickly responded, accepting the challenge. He watched her load the gun and imitated her actions.

Jimmy watched as Cindy took a deep breath and put her arms straight out in front of her. The sound of paintballs being fired surrounded them, but Jimmy and Cindy blocked it out. Cindy to concentrate on her gun, Jimmy to concentrate on her. She looked incredibly natural and at home holding a gun and in a dangerous environment. Her skin glistened with sweat, and her eyes were dangerous, yet inviting, pools of green.

Cindy flexed her fingers and drummed them on the pistol. Her legs were straight, her right about a foot in front of her left. She squinted her eyes and looked over the barrel of the gun. Suddenly, she fired off four crisp shots. Jimmy's eyes darted over to the rock she was shooting at. Four splotches of paint appeared on the target. Two landed dead in the center, the other two were on the border of the center's ring.

Cindy's serious expression faded and a small smile spread its way through her lips. "Not too shabby," she muttered.

Nick began to walk past the two of them, but paused when he got a look at Cindy's target. "Cindy, how many shots did you fire?"

"Four," she told him while putting a few more paintballs in her gun.

"Four shots and four hits. Two a direct hit. Astounding. Keep it up, Cindy," he said while continuing past them.

Jimmy continued staring at Cindy as she twirled the gun in her hand. "How did you do that?" he finally asked.

Cindy smiled, happy to see that Jimmy was impressed. "Five years of karate, James."

"They teach you how to fire a gun in karate?" Sheen asked. He was on the other side of Cindy, still aiming his gun.

"No, but they teach you balance, concentration, all of that stuff. Plus, I'm so good that they actually let me use a throwing star once, so I got to practice aiming projectiles," she proudly explained.

Jimmy nodded, impressed in spite of himself. "Well, that was pretty good, but prepare to see the master," Jimmy said with a sly grin. He gripped his gun, imitated Cindy's firing stance, and let loose four rounds. One flew past the box that was his target. One hit the box, but not the circles that represented the actual target. The other two hit the inside of the circle, but not in the dead center.

Nick strolled by them once again and stopped to inspect Jimmy's aim. "Not too bad for your first try, Jimmy. You need some practice, but you're definitely an asset to this team."

Cindy patted a consoling hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "Yeah, you just need some practice, Big Brain. You're not as good as me, but you're still an asset to this team," she said in a mocking tone.

Jimmy turned to face her and gave her a challenging smile. "Give it time, Vortex. In a week I'll be shooting circles around you."

"Well, we'll just have to see about that," she flirtatiously told him while reloading her gun.

"Chill with the flirting, guys," Nick sternly instructed them. "Five more minutes and then the next group of ten comes up. Try to get in a few more..." he was abruptly cut off by the sound of six shots being fired right next to them. The three of them spun around to see Sheen spinning his paintball pistol around his index finger. They looked down the firing range to see that all six of his shots had hit the center of his bull's-eye. They turned once more to see Sheen flawlessly stop spinning his pistol, catch it, and shove it in his waistband in one fluid motion.

Sheen noticed that Cindy, Nick, and Jimmy were staring at him, their faces holding expressions of amazement and disbelief. "What?"

Three kids looked to each other, and Nick stepped forward. "How did you, when did you, what did you..." he struggled to say. Jimmy slapped him in the back of the head. "How the hell did you do that?"

Sheen looked at his gun and then at the paint-stained rock. "What? You just look down the barrel and pull the trigger."

Nick was amazed by Sheen's apathetic attitude towards his own talent. He plucked the paintball gun from Sheen's hands and placed it on the ground. Nick then took his own Glock .22 pistol out and turned the safety off. He handed it to Sheen. A terrified Jimmy and Cindy immediately took a few steps back as Sheen held the weapon. God, he'll kill us all, Jimmy thought as he cowered behind Cindy.

"Do you see that rock that's jutting out of the ground fifty meters out?" Nick asked while pointing ahead of him.

"Sure," Sheen replied.

"Shoot in the middle," he instructed while taking a step back.

Sheen shrugged and gripped the weapon in his hands. It weighed a little more than the paintball gun and was a lot more threatening. He shook off his fear and took aim. He pulled the trigger, and a bang resonated throughout the firing range, ten times louder than the sound that the paintball guns had been emitting. Everyone turned towards the source of the noise. "There," Sheen said while handing the gun back to Nick.

Nick took the gun and put the safety back on. He slipped it back inside his waistband before taking a deep breath and running as fast as he could towards the target. He paused when he reached the rock, studied it for a moment, and then ran back. "Almost exactly in the center," he breathlessly told the kids that had gathered around Sheen. "Not two centimeters off."

"Sheen, where did you learn to shoot like that?" Jimmy asked.

"I think I know," Cindy said with disgust. "Sheen, what's your favorite video game?"

"You know that! Ultralord the Video Game!" he enthusiastically shouted, glad to be reminded of his favorite TV show.

Jimmy and Nick got the hint. "That's a first-person shooter, isn't it?" Jimmy asked. Sheen eagerly nodded his head.

"He must have spent a thousand hours playing that game," Cindy angrily told Nick.

Jimmy took notice of Cindy's hostility. "What's your problem?"

Cindy shot him a glare. "Nothing. I spend five long, hard years practicing karate, he spends ten hours a day playing video games, and he's better than me?" she shouted.

Nick was far too amazed to give a damn about Cindy's anger. He had long gotten used to her temper. "At any rate, you've got a new rival for valedictorian for this class, Cindy. Alright, you ten can head back home. Who wants to shoot next?" he asked.

Jimmy, Cindy, Sheen, and the seven others began the long trek back to their camp. Cindy was lagging behind, and Jimmy slowed his pace so that he could walk beside her. "He beat me. Ultrafreak beat me," she muttered in disbelief.

Jimmy shrugged. "You're cuter than him, if that counts for anything," he whispered to her while kissing her cheek. Nice segue, a voice whispered inside his mind. Cindy froze as his lips met her skin.

"Jimmy, come one!" Sheen shouted from the front of the group.

"Coming!" Jimmy shouted back while running up to his friend.

Cindy remained frozen for another moment, and then she slowly reached her right hand up to touch her cheek. Another moment passed, and she continued walking. "I can't believe he beat me," she angrily muttered once more.

Chapter 24: The Brief Adventure

By the time Cindy caught up to the rest of the kids, they were back at camp. She looked around their base before spotting Jimmy kneeling next to a tall metal pole sticking up out of the ground.

"Jimmy!" she shouted while running up to him. He looked up and waved as she came to a stop beside him. "Um, well," she began; trying to figure out how to talk about the moment they had shared on their walk back. She eventually shook her head and smiled, realizing that they shouldn't talk about that right now. "What are you working on?"

Jimmy smiled too; glad to not have to bring up that awkward kiss. Yet at the same time, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. This always happens, he thought. We take a step forward in our relationship, and then we pretend it never happened. How are we ever going to get anywhere this way?

"Jimmy?" Cindy asked after a moment.

At the sound of his name Jimmy snapped out of his little trance. "What?" he asked, a little confused. "I mean, I'm finishing up on this alarm system," he explained to her.

"Can I help?"

"Sure," he quickly answered, a small smile creeping up his lips. He handed her a screwdriver and pointed to the eight screws at the square base of the pole. "You're stronger than me. Could you tighten those?"

She nodded and bent over, immediately getting to work. Jimmy stared at her ponytail while absent-mindedly fiddling with some wires. She eventually noticed this and looked up. Jimmy quickly looked away and focused on the wires in his hands.

They sat and worked together in near silence for around an hour. When Cindy was done with the screws, Jimmy handed her a soda. She thanked him and they leaned against the pole, staring out across the asteroid. As they slowly sipped their drinks, the four other groups of kids began to return from the firing range one by one.

"What's the alarm system for?" Cindy finally asked.

Jimmy took another sip from his nearly empty drink and closed his eyes for a second. "It's in case there's some sort of an emergency. I don't really know what I would need it for, but better safe than sorry, right?"

Cindy nodded. "Speaking of better safe than sorry, when was the last time we checked on Libby and that fortress back home?"

Jimmy realized that she was right and immediately looked around for his headset. "Darn, I left my headset back in my tent."

Cindy shrugged; she had left hers at her tent as well when Jimmy had gathered everyone for firing practice. "We'll check in with her tonight."

They sat in silence for several more minutes, watching the stars twinkle in the sky. "Hey," she finally asked, "you really think I'm cuter than Sheen?"

Jimmy choked a little on the last sip of his drink. "You alright?" Cindy shouted, concerned. She scrambled over to him and put a hand on his knee, and he swallowed his soda.

"Yeah," he gasped as he dropped his soda can. He coughed violently for a moment before giving her a thumbs up sign to show that he was ok. They both looked down to see that her hand was still on his knee. She immediately retracted it and blushed.  
"Um, what did you say?" he asked her.

Cindy subconsciously debated whether or not to drop the subject. What's wrong? a familiar voice inside her head asked. Is the fact that you're all alone not doing it for you? Does the constant flirting not set the mood? Is the gorgeous night sky not a good environment for romance? You have to decide, right now. Because if you don't do anything now, all the baby steps that you took today will be swept under the carpet. So, ask yourself, do you want him?

Cindy thought about what the voice inside her head was saying. She looked at the scared boy in front of her, with his ice cream cone hairdo and sparkling blue eyes. In that one moment, everything clicked. She felt an inner peace, a serene calm and intense courage. It was now or never.

"I said," she began pausing for a second. Suddenly, she realized why the voice had sounded so familiar. It was Libby's. Her best friend wasn't here to give Cindy her advice, so her mind had imagined what Libby might say. And her mind had guessed well. Cindy could picture Libby having that exact same conversation with her.

"I said, do you really think I'm cuter than Sheen?"

Jimmy was a little nervous, but the inclusion of Sheen's name made the question seem more flirtatious than serious. That helped him relax. "Well, he's got a nice smile, but you're eyes are much deeper," he said while inching towards her.

"Oh?" she asked as loud as she could, which was a whisper.

Jimmy gulped and swallowed his fear. "Yeah," he told her while grabbing her hand. She squeezed it, and that act seemed to transfer some of her courage to Jimmy.

They scooted closer together, their fingers shaking nervously. Their foreheads touched, and Jimmy became entranced in her eyes. He hadn't been kidding when he compared them to Sheen's smile. He felt like he was drowning in an emerald ocean, yet he wanted to dive in further.

They both closed their eyes and let their lips connect.

"James," Betty asked as she strolled up to them. "Oh my," she shouted while seeing that he was kissing Cindy.

Jimmy and Cindy immediately pulled away from each other, their lips tingling from their brief adventure. Cindy shot Betty a glare that would have made a weaker person run away in fear, but Betty didn't flinch.

"I'm, uh, sorry to interrupt," she sincerely apologized, "but I'm worried about Nick.

Cindy's gaze softened slightly, just slightly, as she realized that Betty wasn't here to interrupt her moment with Jimmy.

"Why?" Jimmy asked while drumming his fingers on the ground like a speed addict.

"The last group soldiers came back nearly an hour ago, but Nick's still out there," she explained to him, surprised that Jimmy hadn't noticed. "When I left with you guys, he said that he'd be a few minutes behind the last group."

Jimmy looked down at his watch and saw that it was nearing six o'clock. Nick should have been back by now. "You're right," he said while getting up and looking towards the horizon, expecting to see Nick come walking towards camp. He didn't.

Cindy got up as well, and she and Betty joined Jimmy's gaze towards the firing range. Nick still didn't appear.

"You think something happened to him?" Cindy asked Betty.

Betty shrugged but didn't take her gaze off of the horizon. "He said he'd be back a few minutes after the last group came home, and they've been here for nearly an hour. That's all I'm saying."

"Come on," Jimmy told them while leading the two girls back to his tent. It was a short walk, less than ten minutes. He brushed the entrance flap aside and grabbed his headset. He flipped it to Nick's headset's private frequency. "Nick? You wearing a headset? Can you answer me?" he asked. There was no response.

Jimmy growled in frustration and walked over to the supply tents. Betty followed him, but Cindy trailed off and ran to her own tent. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Getting a headset!" she shouted as she entered her tent. She reemerged with the headset on and dashed back to Jimmy and Betty.

"Libby? Can you read me?" she asked.

"Folfax here, I'm reading you loud and clear," Libby responded.

"Run a search for Nick's DNA," she quickly instructed.

Libby nodded and furiously typed in several commands into her computer. "He's on the asteroid, around three kilometers west of your position. Bio-signs look normal. Why?"

Cindy hung up on Libby and turned to Jimmy. He had switched the frequency to Libby's channel and had heard her too. "Thanks, Libby. Gotta go," he told her before hanging up on her as well.

"I'm going to go check it out, make sure he's ok. Maybe he fell or got trapped in a hole or something," he told the girls while reemerging from the tent that held the guns. He held a pistol in his hand and loaded it the way Nick had taught him.

"And you need a gun because...?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy shrugged and made sure the safety was on. "Just in case. Don't worry, the safety's on. I'm not going trigger-happy or anything. I don't plan on using it. But better safe than sorry, right?" he asked.

"That's quickly becoming you catchphrase," Cindy told him. She paused and seemed to be thinking about something. "I'll go too," she finally told Jimmy.

Jimmy shook his head. "I want either you, me, or Nick present at the base at all times. One of us needs to be in charge here to keep order." He turned to a disgruntled Betty. "No offense," he told her.

"None taken," she said with a huff. "I'll just go back to camp and do some not-in-charge stuff," she told him while walking away

Jimmy was too preoccupied to care about Betty's feelings at the moment. He'd apologize later. "Cindy, don't worry. Stay here, watch over everyone. We'll keep in contact with the headset."

She nodded as Jimmy put a bottle of water, a compass, and some rope into his hypercube. "Just be careful with that," she said while pointing to the gun. "You're not as good a shot as me," she reminded him.

Jimmy smiled as he went over his supplies and realized that he was good to go. "See you in a bit," he told her while staring at her. They awkwardly moved towards each other, not sure how to say goodbye. Finally, Jimmy gave her a friendly hug.

"Bye," Cindy told him as he set off running towards the firing range. She waved a good-bye which he didn't see. "I hate it when he does his macho thing," she muttered while walking back to her tent.

Chapter 25: Nick

Nick stood in the middle of the firing range as the last group of kids left him and began their trek back to the base. He looked at the dozens of splotches of paint on each target. He sighed and stared at the ground. It was littered with paintball guns. Slowly, he walked around his training facility and picked them up. He tossed them inside the box and sealed it shut.

He was about to walk back to camp when he remembered the pistol tucked in the back of his waistband. He pulled it out and was about to put it in the box of actual guns he had lugged out here to show everyone. As he walked up to the box, he paused a moment and stared at the gun. He fingered it for a moment while letting his mind wander to the past.

"Dad, can I pleeeaaassseee go hunting with you and your friends?" eight year-old Nick Dean pleaded while getting down on his knees.

Nick's dad laughed as he bent down and rubbed his son's hair. "Now, you know you're too young to go hunting. These things are dangerous, you know," he told his son while pointing to the canvas bag full of his hunting equipment.

"But I'm turning nine tomorrow!" Nick pleaded. "All the other kids in my class have fired a gun!" Mr. Dean gave his son a knowing look. "Well, alright, maybe not all of them," Nick sheepishly continued. Mr. Dean continued glancing at his son. "Alright, nobody did. But I could be the first!"

His father's expression remained unwavering. "I'm sorry, Nicholas, but you're not coming. Not this time. When you're older, maybe."

"How old?" Nick immediately asked.

His father thought for a moment. "Well, I was twelve when my dad first took me hunting. How about on your twelfth birthday?"

"Ugh, that long?" Nick groaned.

A car's horn blared outside. Nick's and his father both frowned as Mr. Dean's coworkers pulled up in front of the house. "Chuck, you gonna be all day?" his boss shouted from outside.

"In a second!" Mr. Dean shouted.

"I'll miss you," Nick sadly told his father while giving him a hug. His father's face saddened as he hugged his son back.

"Now, you know I'm sorry I have to leave when it's your birthday," his dad explained again. "But when a boss asks you to do something, you really can't refuse," Chuck sadly explained. Nick sadly nodded.

Chuck lifted his son's chin with his finger and made his son look him in the eye. "Now, I know you're birthday isn't until tomorrow, but I think you deserve this today. Just don't tell your mother that I got you an extra present, alright?"

Nick's frown disappeared as his father walked over to the hallway closet and pulled out a wrapped present. "Happy birthday, kiddo," he said while giving his son a kiss on the cheek and one last hug. "See you in three days," he said while walking out the door.

Nick nodded as his father left the house. He hid the package under his shirt so his mom wouldn't see as he went up the stairs to his room. When he had closed and locked his door, he tore the wrapping paper open. "Whoa," he said in delight. "I knew he'd get me it!" he shouted as he clutched his first skateboard.

Nick shook these thoughts out of his mind as he backed away from the box of guns. He ejected the magazine from the gun, and then quickly popped it back in. He continued doing this as he began to stroll across the firing range. It soon became a rhythmic motion, and he couldn't take his eyes off of it. As he watched the magazine continually eject itself and be pushed back in, his mind raced to yet another point in the past.

"Wake up, Kiddo," Chuck Dean eagerly said while opening his son's door and shaking his son awake.

"Dad, so not cool," Nick angrily muttered as he turned over and put his pillow over his head.

"Nick, wake up. Nicholas! Wake up!" he nearly shouted. Yet his voice was racked with excitement, not anger.

Nick realized that his father was serious at the mention of his full first name. He slowly took the pillow off of his head and sat up. He realized that it was still dark. He looked over at his clock. "Dad, the house better be on fire. It's four in the morning. On the first day of spring vacation," Nick angrily told his father while rolling out of bed.

"Get dressed and put this on," his dad instructed Nick while tossing him a flannel jacket. "I'll meet you in the car. You can sleep on the way there."

Nick took a moment to understand what his dad was saying, he was so tired. "Wait, on the way where?" he asked, but his dad had already left his room and closed the door.

Ten minutes later, Nick sluggishly moved his feet and finally walked out into his house's driveway. His father was listening to the radio, beating his hands against the steering wheel in tune to the music.

"Dad, you know it's my birthday, right?" Nick mumbled while climbing into the front seat and resting his head against the seat belt.

"Of course. The big one-two," his father anxiously explained while putting his foot on the gas pedal and backing out of the driveway onto the street. "You're twelve today."

Nick gave a slight nod as he fought the urge to fall back asleep. "We better be going to Six Flags or something, because if we're not this present sucks," he told his dad while yawning.

"Trust me, you'll like where we're going," his dad told him while turning the radio off. "Now get some sleep, Tiger. It's a long drive."

"This so sucks," Nick muttered as his eyes instantly closed and he fell asleep.

The hours quickly flew by, and Nick was still sound asleep as they reached their destination. He was finally forced awake by a loud gunshot.

"Terrorists!" Nick shouted as his eyes shot open and he tried to jump up, but was yanked back into place by his seat belt.

"Just checking the equipment, Nick," his dad said from outside the car. "Now get up, I've got a lot to teach you before we can get started."

Nick was still confused as he unbuckled his seatbelt. It suddenly became clear when he saw the familiar canvas bag lying on the ground next to his father. He looked to his dad, who was polishing a shotgun. "He remembered," he whispered while jumping out of the car and running up to his father.

The only thing that snapped Nick back into the present was the sound of his magazine hitting the ground. He had failed to catch it as it was ejected from the magazine shaft in the gun. As he bent down and picked it up, he realized that he was several hundred yards past the firing range.

He looked around and wondered how long he had been reminiscing. He jogged back to the row of ten chalk squares and stopped by the last one. He stared at the pistol in his hand and stroked the barrel. He looked back down at the white square in front of him and stepped into it. He pulled his gun's slide back and nodded in satisfaction as he knew that there was now a round in the chamber.

"Now, the first rule of firearms is safety. These things aren't toys, Nick. Paintball guns are toys. These things kill. So there are a few rules that you need to follow," his father sternly told him.

"Yeah, rules," Nick muttered while happily holding the .22 pistol in his hands. His father had removed the magazine and the round in the chamber. He had triple-checked to make sure that it was empty and that the safety was on.

"Rule one," his dad said while tearing the gun from his son's hands. "Pay attention to the rules."

"Yeah, fine," Nick grumbled while jamming his hands in his pockets.

"Rule two," his dad continued, "never fire or touch a gun unless I am present. Rule three, keep your gun unloaded and have the safety on when you're not using it. Rule four; never aim a gun at another person, even if you are absolutely certain that it isn't loaded. And lastly, rule five." Nick's father bent down and stared his son in the eye. "Don't tell your mother about this," he said while laughing and rubbing his son's hair.

"Dad," Nick muttered while shoving his father's hand away. "I'm not eight anymore," he told him, but he couldn't help but laugh a little. "Alright, alright, seriously. Watch the hair," he said after a moment. He quickly pulled out his comb and straightened his locks out.

"Now, let me show you how to aim," Chuck said while handing his son his gun back.

Nick gave a sad smile as he remembered that day. His father was still the only person he would allow to touch his hair. As Nick gripped his pistol in his hands, his father's voice talked to him from the past.

Now, put your right foot about a foot in front of your left, his dad's voice instructed him. Nick did as it said. Now is the only time you can flick the safety off. Nick turned the safety off with his thumb. Now look down the barrel of the gun at your target. Realize that the gun isn't an instrument; it's an extension of your hand. Adjust for the wind, level it out, and pull the trigger. Nick did all of these things and let loose three rounds.

He sighed and let the gun drop back to his side. He looked out at the target and saw three bullet holes in the rock's bull's-eye. He smiled and whispered, "Thanks, dad."

But before Nick could leave, he still had one last memory to relive. "It's a shame we didn't see any deer or anything. Sorry, son. Guess this isn't the big hunting trip you've been expecting for years," his dad apologized.

"Hey, that's fine," Nick told his father. "Look, why don't you keep heading back to camp. I've got to take a whiz. Meet you there in a minute."

Mr. Dean looked at his son. "You know the way?"

Nick laughed. "Straight ahead for fifty meters, take a left at the oak tree, down the hill, and past the big rock. And we've got walky-talkies in case I do get lost. I'm a big boy, dad. I can manage."

Chuck laughed. "Of course you can. See you in a few, son."

Nick nodded and waited for his dad to begin walking away. Once he was out of his sight, Nick turned back around, put his shotgun on the ground, and unzipped his pants.

As he began to relieve himself, he noticed that a squirrel was coming out of the bushes. "Oh, hey little dude," Nick muttered while finishing up. As he zipped up his pants, the squirrel suddenly ran towards Nick.

"What the hell?" he shouted as he backed away. "Dude, get off!" he yelled as the squirrel tried and failed to clamp onto his shoe. "You're seriously pissing me off!" he warned the rodent while grabbing his shotgun.

The squirrel sensed Nick's anger and calmed down for a moment. "Alright, that's better," Nick told it while lowering his shotgun. Suddenly, the squirrel jumped at Nick's face.

"AH!" Nick screamed while falling to the ground and rolling out of its way. He spun around, leveled the shotgun at the squirrel, and pulled the trigger.

Nick was amazed at how loud the sound was. It was even louder than the shot that had woken him up that morning. Dozens of birds suddenly flew from their nest into the air, scared by the noise.

Nick took a deep breath and looked at his first kill. "Jesus," he groaned while instantly spinning around and throwing up. He couldn't believe that the pile of blood, guts, and flesh in front of him had once been a squirrel. He closed his eyes and wiped the vomit that was hanging from his lips.

"Took you long enough," his dad told Nick when he finally strolled into camp a half hour later. He was dragging the shotgun along the ground, his eyes blank and uncaring. "Have a drink," Chuck said while tossing his son a soda.

Nick didn't notice the can flying at him. It simply bounced off of his chest. His dad finally got a good luck at his son. He seemed dazed, and had blobs of blood and puke on his shirt. "What happened?" he asked while running over and putting his hands on his son's shoulders and getting down on his knees. "Are you alright?"

Nick slowly nodded. "I, uh," he croaked out. He swallowed and blinked. "I shot a squirrel."

Nick's dad was confused. "Um, that's good."

Nick shook his head. "There's a lot of blood in them, dad. A lot." He handed his dad his shotgun. "I don't think I can do this. This was a mistake."

Nick's father took his shotgun back and led his son to their tent. He brought him inside, wet a facecloth, and wiped his son's lips and shirt. "I'm sorry; dad, but I can't do this. I know all I ever did when I was little was to beg you to go hunting, but I...I can't," Nick struggled to say, finally coming out of his daze. "I can't do that. I, I guess I'm not as much of a man as you thought."

Nick's father was shocked. "Nicholas," he began, "you should know better than that. Firing a gun doesn't make you a man," he told his son. "Telling me how you felt, having the courage to talk to me about your feelings, that's what makes you a man," he said while looking Nick in the eye.

"If you want to go hunting, fine. If you don't, I don't care. If you want to put on a tutu and dance ballet, I'll still be there for you. Nick, I would never make you do something that you don't want to do."

Nick straightened up and stared at his dad. "Really?"

"Of course," his dad desperately explained. "I took you out here because I thought that's what you wanted. So hunting isn't your thing. So what? Let's leave then."

Mr. Dean stood up and began packing everything up. Nick stood up as well and watched his father put his guns back in the canvas bag. "Are you sure?"

Chuck nodded. "Absolutely. Now there's still half of your birthday left. Isn't there a huge skate park about two hundred miles east of here? You want to go there?"

Nick slowly nodded, a smile spreading across his face. "Yeah, that would be great," he said while beginning to pack his stuff up.

"Are you almost there?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy nodded. "I'm nearing the firing range. Nothing strange so far. I should get to Nick in about three minutes," he spoke into his headset.

He stopped to take a sip from his water bottle, but three loud gunshots permeated the silence surrounding him. "What was that?" Cindy's voice screamed into his ears.

Jimmy ducked behind a boulder and dropped the water bottle, allowing its contents to spill onto the solid rock beneath him. "Gunshots. I heard three," he told her while pulling his pistol out of his waistband and flipping the safety off. He pulled the magazine slide, and a round slid into the gun's chamber.

"Cindy, I'm going to check it out. Turn off your headset. I need to sneak up and see what's going on. I don't whatever Nick's shooting at to hear our chatter or pick up the radio waves we're sending."

"Understood," Cindy whispered. "Be careful," she told him while flicking her headset off. She lay down on her tent and closed her eyes. Please be careful. I'll never forgive you if you die now.

Jimmy took a deep breath and held it, trying to be as silent as possible. He listened, but there were no more gunshots. Either Nick had killed whatever had been attacking him, or it had killed or injured Nick. Whatever the outcome, there was no more time to lose. He grabbed his pistol, jumped up, and ran as quietly as he could towards the firing range.

"Freeze!" Jimmy shouted in as manly and fearsome a voice as he could muster when he approached the firing range. His gun was aimed straight ahead of him, his finger on the trigger. He felt the familiar icy-cold feeling of adrenaline rushing through his veins, enhancing all of his senses.

Nick instantly froze, snapped out of his reminiscing. He put his hands up in the air and dropped his gun, too surprised to think of any defensive measures. His back was turned to Jimmy; he didn't see who was threatening him. He slowly turned around and his expression saddened as he saw that Jimmy was holding a gun on him. "I thought we were friends," he nervously joked.

"Who were you shooting at?" Jimmy asked, taking his gun off of Nick and aiming it around him.

"No one!" Nick shouted. "I was getting in some target practice!"

Jimmy looked around to make sure that nobody was making Nick say this. He then put the gun's safety back on and dropped it to his side. "Oh. My bad," he said with a sheepish grin.

Nick contained his anger. "We are so even for me choking you."

Jimmy nodded as he walked up to Nick. "No argument. Now it's my turn to be mad. What the hell are you doing out here? You had us all worried sick!"

Nick sighed and smacked his forehead. "God, did Betty forget to tell you that I'd be ten minutes late? I'm sorry. I just wanted to get in a little target practice. But you're way too trigger-happy. I was only a few minutes late."

Jimmy was dumbstruck. "Nick, the last group of your 'students' came back two hours ago!"

Nick's jaw dropped. He grabbed Jimmy's wrist and stared at his watch. God, have I been thinking about the past for that long? "Jimmy, I'm sorry. I just lost track of time. I was, uh, thinking about stuff."

Jimmy stared at Nick for a moment before nodding. "It's fine. It's just, we're in danger out here, you know? We have to stick together. You had us pretty freaked out."

Nick nodded. "I know, I'm sorry." He sat down on a nearby rock and sighed. "I was just, thinking about stuff. This whole being a general thing, it's getting to me. I've never had that much responsibility. You know?"

Jimmy nodded as he took a seat beside Nick. He had felt the same pressure and fear the first time that he had led the kids against the Yolkians. "Yeah, I understand. Sorry I held a gun on you. We thought you were injured or trapped out here, I heard gunshots, I thought you were defending yourself against someone..."

"I understand, it's cool," Nick assured him.

They sat in silence for another moment. "What were you thinking about?" Jimmy asked.

Nick shrugged. "It's a long story," he told Jimmy.

"I've got time," Jimmy replied.

Nick thought for a moment. If he told this to his other friends, they'd laugh at his sensitive side, missing his father and puking at the sight of blood. But there was something different about Jimmy.

"Well, I was thinking about how I missed my dad. He's the one who taught me about guns. See, it started when I was eight." For the next twenty minutes, Nick recounted all that he had been thinking about for the past couple of hours to Jimmy. He listened intently, only interrupting with the occasional nod or words of agreement.

"I just, you know, miss him," Nick summed up.

"I know how you feel," Jimmy told him. "I miss my dad too. We all miss our parents. That's why we're doing this, remember? To get them back."

"Do you think we'll win? Do you think we'll get them back and not die?" Nick asked him.

Jimmy was silent. "Yeah. I think we will." He sat for another moment, staring out at the empty firing range. "We better get back. Betty's worried about you, and Cindy's probably worried about me."

Nick smiled a little at the mention of Betty. "Yeah, she's a hell of a gal."

"Hmm, I guess," Jimmy told him while leading him back to camp.

As they passed the spot where Jimmy had dropped his water bottle, Nick realized something. "Why would Cindy be worried about you?"

Jimmy paused for a moment, long enough for Nick to see that he had hit upon something. He told me about his dad, maybe I should reciprocate. "Um, it's king of a long story."

Nick smiled. "I've got time."

Chapter 26: Phoning Home

It took nearly an hour for Nick and Jimmy to find their way back to the base. Cindy sat on the border of the campsite, twiddling her headset in her hands. "Jimmy, Nick, are you alright?" she asked while running up to them. "What were those gunshots?"

"I'll leave you two alone," Nick whispered to Jimmy while walking back to camp.

Cindy watched as he walked away. "Where's he going? Too busy to answer my questions?"

Jimmy shook his head. "He needs to let Betty know that he's ok. I think they, have a thing."

"Oh," Cindy said while picturing the two of them together. "Well, that's nice, but what the heck happened out there?"

Jimmy grabbed her hand and led her back to camp. "It was just a big misunderstanding. Nick simply lost track of time, and the gunshots were him taking his own private target practice. No Yolkians, no boy trapped in a well, nothing,"

Cindy breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. You really had me worried, Jimmy." Jimmy smiled at her. "I mean, you and Nick. Both of you had me worried."

Jimmy squeezed her hand a little as they walked past the alarm system in the middle of the camp. "Do you realize," he began while shaking his head in disbelief, "that we have only been on this asteroid twelve hours?"

Cindy stopped walking and looked at her watch. Jimmy was right, it wasn't even nine thirty. "Man, what a chaotic day," she said, summing up all that had occurred over the past twelve hours. She continued leading Jimmy around the camp.

"We set up camp, organized the guns and other supplies, got in some target practice, had our first real scare with Nick missing," he listed the events to her.

"You know what the weirdest thing is?" she asked him. He shook his head. "I'm not the least bit tired."

Jimmy realized that he was wide awake as well. "Me neither. Weird. Remember that first night, how exhausted we all were? Now I don't think that I could fall asleep if I tried."

As Jimmy and Cindy passed by Nick's tent, he emerged. "Sorry, I couldn't help but overhearing," he told them. He stepped in stride with them and continued walking. "If you're not tired, I have a job that really needs to get done before we fight the Yolkians. It's dull, but someone's gotta do it," he said with a shrug.

Jimmy looked to Cindy, who nodded. "Yeah, why not? What is it?" he asked Nick.

"We need to fill all of the empty magazines with bullets. The magazines are for the rifles and pistols. We should also load up the shotguns," he explained.

"Let me get Sheen. I haven't seen him much today," Jimmy told Cindy and Nick. "Besides, he seems to have a knack for guns."

"Fine, meet you there," Nick told him. Jimmy nodded and ran off towards Sheen's tent. Nick stared after him for a moment before walking with Cindy towards the supply tents. "I'm really sorry that I worried you guys. I didn't mean to. I just, like Jimmy said, lost track of time."

"It's alright," told him while entering the tent. "So, how does this work?"

Nick pulled an empty magazine out of a case in the corner. "Simple. Take a magazine and a box of bullets. Then grab a bullet and push it into the magazine from the front," he explained while demonstrating. "Make sure that the bottom of the bullet is being forced down onto the magazine spring. Then do it again until the magazine is full of fifteen bullets."

Cindy nodded and grabbed a magazine and a box of ammo. "How did you do with your target practice? How good of a shot are you?"

Nick waited a moment before answering. He quickly finished putting his fifteenth bullet into the magazine. He then cleared some space and put the magazine on the ground, starting a loaded pile. "Better than you and Jimmy, but worse than Sheen." He grabbed another magazine and chuckled. "That kid sure is something, ain't he? Definitely the weirdest and dumbest kid I've ever met, but he's our best shot. What do you call that? Someone who sucks at everything except for one thing that they're really good at?"

"Idiot savant," Cindy told him while frowning.

"That's it," he said while snapping his fingers and getting started on loading his new magazine.

"Although I only think he's the first part," she mumbled.

Jimmy slowly walked towards Sheen's tent, taking time to admire the twinkling stars in the sky. After a few moments he came up to his friend's shelter and pulled back the flap. "Knock, knock," he said while peeking his head inside.

"Hang on," Sheen whispered to Jimmy while covering his headset's microphone. Jimmy nodded and stood by the door.

"Yeah, Jimmy's here. I'll talk to you soon. And stay off of that leg, I saw you limping yesterday!" Sheen shouted into the headset. "Bye. Night," he said with a dreamy smile while taking his headset off.

"Libby?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah," Sheen said while laying down on his sleeping bag and putting his arms behind his head. "I miss her already, man. It's been what, a week since I've last seen her?"

"Try a day and a half," Jimmy told him with a smile. "Nick, Cindy, and I are loading all of the guns. Want to join us?"

Sheen jumped up, nodding vigorously. "Let's go!" he shouted while grabbing his headset.

"We better stop by Nick's tent and mine. I should get our headsets too," he said while he and Sheen walked out of the tent.

"Catch," Jimmy said as he walked into the ammunition. He tossed Nick's headset, and Nick caught it and quickly placed it on.

"Phoning home?" he asked Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded as he took a seat beside Cindy. She handed him a magazine and a box of ammo. "We'll check in with Control Team in a minute. What are we doing here, Nick?"

Nick repeated the loading instructions for Sheen and Nick. "Think you can handle that, Jimmy? I know you can, Sheen."

Sheen smiled, happy that someone finally trusted him. "Definitely," he agreed while starting to load his first magazine.

Jimmy turned on his headset before starting to load his magazine. "Neutron calling Folfax, Neutron calling Folfax. Do you read me, Libby?" he asked.

A slight pause, and then, "Loud and clear, Neutron. Good to hear from you. Am I talking to anyone else?"

"Best friend here," Cindy spoke into the microphone. "Great to hear from you, Libs. Been way too long."

"General Dean here. Hey Libby."

"Sheen again. Glad to hear from you. Are you feeling alright?"

"Feeling fine, Sheen," Libby sweetly told her boyfriend. "Not much has changed in the last fifteen minutes."

Jimmy was about to start a conversation, but there was one more voice coming through their headsets. "This is Carl. Carl Wheezer. Can you guys hear me?"

Jimmy gave a wide smile at the sound of his best friend. "Carl! Glad to hear from you. Where have you been all day?"

"Yeah, did you sneak into that petting zoo again?" Sheen asked, also smiling at his friend's voice.

"No, Libby had me making meals for everyone. We miss your Black Cows, Sheen," he explained. "I never know how much syrup to put in."

Sheen laughed. "Well, I'll make a fresh batch when I get back home."

Jimmy looked to see Cindy smiling as well. "It's glad to have the old gang back together," she told everyone.

"Hear, hear," Jimmy agreed. "What's Control Team's status, Libby?"

"Very good, Jimmy. We've been pretty busy today," she answered. "I've been teaching everyone how to work all of the stuff in your lab. We've got around a dozen of our best computer geeks adjusting your rocket's automated thrust patterns, zeroing in on our parents' location, and about a dozen more odd jobs. That fortress is coming along, although I think everyone here realizes that it's just something to kill time, not really a necessity. I've run four more searches, and there is no sign of alien life in Retroville or anywhere else in Texas."

Cindy nodded. "That's good to hear. For once, I'm glad that I was wrong."

Jimmy smiled at Cindy, and she smiled back. Nick glanced over at Jimmy and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

"Libby, can you do me a favor?" he asked while taking his gaze off of the lovebirds and back onto his half-loaded magazine.

"Hold on, Nick. Jimmy, Cindy, I just want to let you know that Sheen filled me in on the details of Nick's little disappearance today. He didn't hang up on me."

"We were in the middle of..." Cindy began to explain, but Libby cut her off.

"Don't worry about it. I know that you guys have a lot going on there, and that you don't have time to explain every detail to me. It's alright."

"Thanks for understanding," Jimmy told her. He finished loading his first magazine and tossed it aside.

Jimmy went to grab another empty magazine, but he slapped his forehead and shook his head. "Nick, your favor reminds me of something as well. Remember how earlier today I asked for a status report on all of our guns and supplies?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, you never told me how many people we have. Did you count them?"

Nick nodded. "Counting us four in the tent, we have one hundred and thirty-seven."

Jimmy stared at him in disbelief. "That's impossible. We only took forty rockets up here. There was no reason for there to be more than one person in a rocket. We could have died trying to disable that force field, and we almost did."

"I was surprised too. I asked around, and apparently," Nick explained while opening a new box of ammo, "when some kids saw their friends going up there, they decided that they'd go as well. Some people were such good friends that they would rather die with their buddies then live without them. Looks like we've got some brave souls fighting on our side."

Jimmy slowly nodded. "Yeah, guess so."

There was a moment of silence as they thought that over. Finally, Nick repeated his question. "Libby, could you do me a favor?"

Another beat of silence. "Oh, sorry. Of course. What is it?"

"Could you tell me how long until we reach the Yolkian planet? I want to see how many more days I have to train everyone."

"Hang on a second," she said while cracking her knuckles before furiously typing on her keyboard. "Well, this is interesting," she said while studying the data. "Jimmy, were you giving a rough estimate when you told everyone that it would take two weeks to get to the Yolkian planet?"

Jimmy laughed. "That's putting it lightly. I forgot all about that. I had been pretty tired and had a huge workload. I wasn't thinking too clearly, I just sort of guessed. I was way off, wasn't I?"

Libby chuckled on her end. "Only slightly. At your speed, you should arrive at your parents' location in only three days."

Nick frowned. "I only have three days to train everyone?"

Cindy shrugged. "From what I saw, we were doing pretty well. And since our camp is fully set up, we can focus on training from now on. You'll do fine, Nick."

Cindy quickly turned her attention from Nick to Jimmy. "Jimmy, I think you're slipping. You were off by quite a lot on that ETA," she teased curling her ponytail around in her fingers.

"Well, I have been a little distracted lately," he flirtatiously told her.

Libby and Carl stared at each other back in the lab's control room. "Did we miss something?" she asked.

"You missed a lot," Nick whispered.

"Jimmy, there's something else. It's a little odd," she told him while going over the data on her monitor.

"How odd?" Jimmy asked, feeling the first pangs of the familiar headache that always accompanied his confusion.

"Not as odd as the whole disappearing force field thing," Libby explained. "Hang on. Carl, take a look at this," she said while pulling up a huge map of the universe that Jimmy had sketched. She zoomed in on the area near the Yolkian planet. "These coordinates are different, right?" she asked him while pointing to two sets of numbers on the screen.

"Looks like it," he agreed.

"Jimmy, talking to you again," Libby told him.

"Go ahead," Jimmy answered.

"Alright, here we go. I'm looking at the map of the universe that you have sketched based upon your adventures and studies. Now, our parents are being held on the Yolkian planet, right?"

"Almost certainly," Jimmy told her. Cindy, Sheen, and Nick pushed their headset's receivers further into their ears, listening intently.

"Well, the rough location of your parents is a little off from the location of the Yolkian's planet. At your speed, it's two hours closer."

"That is strange," he told Libby while closing his eyes and thinking.

"So, they're not on the Yolkian planet?" Nick asked.

"Is there another planet or moon where the parents are?" Cindy asked.

"Not according to Jimmy's map," Libby explained to them. She frowned as she continued zooming in on the coordinates that represented everyone's parents. "Nothing. Man, this adventure just keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?"

Suddenly Jimmy opened his eyes. He laughed a little while shaking his head and smiling. "It's not weird at all. The Yolkians live on a planet," he explained.

"Wow, great epiphany," Cindy interrupted. Jimmy shot her a glare, and she smiled. "Kidding, I'm kidding. Sorry. Old habit. Go ahead."

"As I was saying," Jimmy grumbled, "they live on a planet. Planets have orbits. I never bothered to study the Yolkian's planet's orbit. That's why the planet is at a different location than the one I have on my map. It's simply at another point in the orbit."

Libby listened to what he was saying and nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense." Libby turned off her computer and leaned back in her seat. "Well, that's about all I have to report. I'll check in again tomorrow. Night, everyone."

"Goodnight," Carl said while following Libby out of the control room and into the lab's lobby.

Everyone inside the tent said their goodbyes before turning their headsets off. Nick glanced at the growing pile of loaded magazines beside him. "Once we're done with the pistols we still have to fill the rifle's magazines and load the shotguns. We've still got a lot of work to do."

Jimmy yawned for the first time that night. That action proved infectious, as everyone else in the tent quickly yawned. A wave of fatigue seemed to wash over the room. "It's..." he began while looking down at his wrist, "ten o'clock. And I'm tired all of a sudden. Let's finish this tomorrow night. We'll head to the firing range first thing in the morning. We'll work on our marksmanship all morning and afternoon, and then head back here. Does that sound good to everyone?" Jimmy asked.

Sheen let out another huge yawn, ready to go to sleep now that he had wished his girlfriend a good night. "Fine by me. I'm beat," he answered while standing up and stretching.

"Me too," Nick agreed while putting his bullets and magazine aside. "See you guys bright and early. I'm heading back to the tent."

He and Sheen walked out of the tent and split up, heading to their own tents. Cindy and Jimmy smiled at each other while still inside. "Well, um, goodnight, Cindy."

"Goodnight Jimmy," she said while batting her lashes.

"Can I walk you to your tent?" he asked while invitingly letting his hand hang loosely by his side.

"Well, it is pretty dark. Buddy system, right?" she joked while grabbing his hand and leading him towards her new home.

Chapter 27: Capture the Flag

"Line 'em up!" Nick shouted as he looked at the pathetic heap of forty-eight children in front of him. Cindy stood quietly by his side. At the sound of his voice, they immediately arranged themselves into four rows of ten and one row of eight.

"Listen up, marines!" Nick shouted. "Yesterday's training was good, but it wasn't good enough. Do you think that the Yolkians are going to sit still while we shoot at them?" The crowd was silent. "I said, do you think that the Yolkians are going to sit still while we shoot at them?"

"Sir no sir!" forty-eight stout voices rang out.

"That's right, they're not!" he shouted back approvingly. "So today we are going to practice three things. ONE!" he shouted. "We are going to practice shooting at a moving enemy. Meet Over-easy, the Yolkian target," he said while struggling to not laugh. He looked to his right, where a small tent was set up. Everyone followed his gaze. "I said, meet Over-easy, the Yolkian target!" he shouted again.

Very slowly, the flap drew back to reveal a boy named Jacob. He was one of the kids who hadn't been given the opportunity to train with guns. Nick had seen that he was upset about this, and had coerced Jacob into helping him with his training. Jacob was wearing a large cardboard box with a picture of the Yolkian's egg-like shell drawn on it. He reluctantly walked up to Nick.

"Over-easy here..." he looked away and laughed a little. "Over-easy here is a Yolkian. He will be running around in area one," he explained while pointing towards the horizon behind him. A huge white square a hundred meters across was drawn into the ground with chalk. There were holes, boulders, and other hiding places within the square. "He will run around, hide, and shoot back at you. Try to take him out," he said while grabbing a fully loaded paintball rifle from the box of supplies that sat beside him.

"He has armor...well, a cardboard box," Nick said with a shrug, "and you don't. His paintballs will hurt you. So get used to dodging attacks and striking a moving target." He looked at Jacob, still struggling not too laugh. "Go get ready, Jake."

"I fucking hate you so much," he angrily told Nick while snatching the gun from his hands and dejectedly walking off towards the large chalk square.

"Where's Oink-Oink the slice of bacon?" Sheen shouted while chuckling. He continued laughing for a moment as everyone stared silently at him. "What? That was funny!" The crowd remained silent. "You know what? Screw you guys, I'm going..."

"Moving on," Nick interrupted. "There are two more areas that you will be training in. While we do have guns and ammo, we don't have an unlimited amount. It is important that you know how to fight without guns. That is why you are going to be trained by our best fighter, Cindy," he told them.

Cindy gave an evil smile as she cracked her knuckles. "I can't wait to see you take down Butch," Nick whispered to her.

"The final area that you are going to be trained in is, as Jimmy called it, tactical combat. We're not just going to run and gun our way to our parents. We need to learn stealth, how to think on our feet, and come up with strategies. We'll be doing this with the age-old game of capture the flag."

Nick paused a moment to let the crowd absorb all of this information. "Here's how all of this is going to work out. There are three training areas. It is now ten o'clock in the morning. We're going to be training for nine hours today. We head back to camp at seven. You will spend three hours at each training facility. You'll be split up into groups of sixteen. Once your three hours are up at a certain training area, you'll move to the next one. I'll be monitoring the capture the flag game to make sure that you guys play fair."

"And speaking of capture the flag, I'm sure you know the point of the game. But here are the specifics and rules. There will be two teams of eight. You'll be playing on that chalk square," he instructed while pointing to his left. A huge white box encompassed nearly three hundred square meters. There were holes, giant boulders, rock outcroppings, and two flags on top of two hastily constructed bases made out of boxes and any other scrap material Nick could find.

"If you step out of the white square, your team loses a point. You get a point each time you bring your opponent's flag back to your base. Whichever team has the most points after the three hours wins. You will be using paintball guns and anything else except actual guns."

Nick cleared his throat and continued with his manly voice. "We have three days for me to teach you how to become an army. In an actual war, anything goes. This game is a recreation of actual war. You can throw rocks, use fists, anything you want. Just no point-blank shots to the head or stomach. And I don't want any serious injuries or casualties. If you're too injured to fight, your training is useless."

"At the end of our nine hours, every one of us is going to run ten laps around the capture the flag field. The losers of each game will run an additional twenty laps. No exceptions!" he shouted. "I am going to stay behind to make sure that you complete your punishment. If you pass out, I will slap you awake and drag you around the field by your balls. Do I make myself clear?" he screamed.

"Sir yes sir!" was the unanimous response from the crowd.

"This is the real deal, people. No more games. This is training for the toughest fight of your lives. I spent four hours setting up these training areas this morning, so you better prove to me that you're worth the effort. So form three groups of sixteen and move out!" he shouted.

The crowd immediately dispersed, and then quickly rearranged themselves into three groups of sixteen people. They paused a moment, and then each group headed to one of the three training areas.

"Private Vortex, move out," Nick instructed while facing Cindy.

"Thank you, sir!" she shouted back while giving a crisp salute. Yesterday she had been hesitant to realize Nick's authority, but she was beginning to respect his leadership. And the fact that he had chosen her to instruct everyone on martial arts was rather flattering. At any rate, she knew that this was war, and she had better act the part of being a soldier. She spun around and marched towards her training area, thoroughly looking forward to fighting Betty.

Jimmy, Sheen, and the rest of his platoon left Cindy's training area and quickly walked towards the third and final portion of their training, Capture the Flag.

"Jimmy, can I please be on your team? I don't want to run thirty laps!" he pleaded. "I could barely stand Cindy's workout!"

Jimmy was silent as they came up to the third training area. Sheen was his buddy, and if this was a friendly game he would without a doubt pick him. But he didn't want to run an extra twenty laps either. While Sheen was no doubt an excellent shot, he didn't know how well he would perform in a real combat situation.

"I, uh," Jimmy struggled to explain, but he stopped talking and stared at the two teams that left the playing field. All of them were bloody, and some were limping pretty badly. "Wow."

"Attention!" Nick shouted while strolling up to his new batch of troops. Everyone quickly fell into a line, stood up straight, and saluted their superior officer. "The game is capture the flag. You all know the goal and you all know the rules. I need two captains, front and center!"

Betty and Jimmy walked towards Nick, saluted him, and spun around to face the other fourteen kids. "Fine. Now let's pick teams. Call it in the air," he instructed while taking out a quarter. He balanced it on his thumb and then flipped it.

"Heads," Jimmy called out.

"Tails," Betty said at the same time.

Nick caught the quarter and slammed it onto the top of his right hand. "It's tails. Betty, you pick first."

"Butch," she forcefully called out. Damn, Jimmy thought. I needed the muscle. Well, I guess he wouldn't really have listened to me anyway. "Sheen!" Jimmy barked. If I can't have Butch's muscle, I'm going to need Sheen's marksmanship. Sheen ran over to Jimmy and stood beside him.

"Brittany!" Betty picked as her second choice.

"Ike!" Jimmy shouted.

"Samantha!"

"Sarah!"

This continued for another few seconds until everyone stood next to either Betty or Jimmy. Nick nodded at the two teams. "You have," he paused to look at the watch that he had ordered Jeff to lend him, "two hours and fifty-three minutes. We start fighting in twenty-three minutes. Take this time to discuss your strategies and get in position. Here are your weapons. Remember, these are just the weapons that I'm handing to you. On the battlefield, anything is a weapon."

Nick passed out three paintball pistols, two paintball rifles, and a paintball shotgun to each team. He also gave two magnification scopes to each team to attach to the rifles. He gave Jimmy a small bucket full of paintballs to pass out to his team. Finally, he gave Betty and Jimmy eight paintball masks each to pass out to their teammates. The masks had protective goggles over the eye holes. "If you don't wear your masks, you will suffer a penalty. Like I said, I don't want any serious or permanent injuries." Both teams immediately put their masks on.

"Alright," Jimmy said while ushering his team away from Betty's and huddling them up. "We all know that this isn't a game, right? We're going to get hurt, and I sure as hell don't want to run an extra twenty laps around this field. It's huge. So everyone's taking this seriously, right?"

"All too seriously," Ike agreed while taking out a cigarette and lighting it. Everyone backed him up.

"Good. I'm in charge here, got it? It's nothing personal or egotistical, but every platoon needs a leader, and that's me. You'll do as I say without hesitation. Got it?" Jimmy asked. Ironically, there was a slight hesitation before everyone agreed to respect his authority.

"Now, here's how it's going to work. Sheen, you're our best shot, so you are going to be our sniper. You're going to sit on top of the base and hide yourself as best as possible. Now, from what I know about war and from what Nick's told me, sniping is much different and harder than target practice. You need to adjust your shot to the target's movement, altitude, and the wind. Have you played any video games involving those variables?"

Sheen grinned. "I own an Xbox 360, Jimmy. The wind in that system is as real as the wind here."

Jimmy nodded, satisfied. "Excellent. You'll be our sniper, then. Aim for the head."

Jimmy was about to continue his instructions, but Sheen interrupted. "Won't that kill them?" he nervously asked.

Jimmy shook his head. "They're only paintballs. Besides, we're wearing these protective we're lucky, it will knock them out. That's about the most damage they can do." Sheen listened and then reluctantly nodded.

"Shotguns are for close quarter's combat, so whoever stays behind at our base will use it. I also want a person manning a pistol to stay at our base. Who wants to do that?" Jimmy continued. Sarah and a girl named Anna raised their hands.

"The other four will follow my lead out into enemy territory. Does everyone have their headsets?" Jimmy asked. He and the seven others took them off of the loop in their jeans and fitted them onto their heads over their masks. "Now, switch to frequency 972 kHz. That will serve as our private channel. Everyone got that?"

"Got it," Sheen answered while adjusting his headset's frequency. Everyone else did the same. "I don't want us to use the headsets unless absolutely necessary, however. It's possible that Betty's team could intercept our signals, or even hear us talking. So we'll rely mostly on hand signals. Here are a couple key signs."

"This means fan out," he told them while pointing his index finger down and spinning it around.

"This means that I want number three to head to the right," he explained while holding up three fingers and pointing to the right. "Ike is number one, Jacob is number two, I'm number three, Emma is number four, and John is number five. Got it?" Everyone nodded. "Alright, let's get in positions."

The kids nodded and went to their corresponding positions. Jimmy gave Sheen the rifle, a magnification scope, and a handful of paintballs. He then helped Sheen climb to the top of their base and then passed him small rocks to pile up so that he could hide behind them. Sarah and Anna grabbed the shotgun and pistol, respectively. Jimmy gave them each fifteen paintballs. Ike and Jacob grabbed the last two pistols. Jimmy snatched and loaded the rifle and attached the scope. Emma and John grabbed some rocks.

By the time all of their preparing was done, it was time to start the game. As Jimmy and his offensive squad stood in front of the base, Nick blew his whistle. "Go!" he shouted.

"You heard him!" Jimmy barked into his headset. He held up two fingers and pointed to his right. He then held his hand out horizontally and moved it down. Jacob immediately ran to his right and ducked behind a series of boulders.

Jimmy then quickly flashed four fingers, five fingers, and one finger. He pointed straight ahead and then motioned towards the ground. They all crouched and quickly moved across the playing field, hiding behind rocks whenever available.

"Two, move ahead with us. Stay down," Jimmy whispered into his headset.

"Command received. Affirmative," Jacob immediately answered.

They cautiously moved forward. They all swiveled their heads around, looking for any sign of Betty's group. After a few seconds of unimpeded progress, Jimmy abruptly stopped and looked through the scope on his rifle. "Sheen, target in outcroppings approximately forty feet to the right of Betty's base. Neutralize." Jimmy's offensive squad paused and stared at the location Jimmy had described. They squinted, and could barely make out what looked like a human figure. They waited, and a second later a whizzing sound was heard. Jimmy smiled as he stared through his scope. One of Betty's teammates had just been struck in the middle of his forehead with a paintball. He fell off of the outcropping, dropping his gun and falling ten feet onto the ground. He was out cold. And we're off to a good start.

Chapter 28: A Minor Inconvenience

"Cindy!" Jimmy whispered while tip-toeing into her tent. "Cindy, wake up!" he whispered a little louder while gently shaking her. He watched as her eyelids slowly parted to reveal the beautiful emerald gems that lay beneath.

"Jimmy?" she muttered while grabbing his outstretched hand. He helped her stand up. "Is something wrong?" she whispered, trying to not disturb her roommate, Brittany.

Jimmy shook his head and led her out of the tent. "Far from it. You've got to come see this," he quietly told her while squeezing her hand and jogging away from the camp.

Cindy yawned as she struggled to keep her feet moving at the same pace as Jimmy's. "Jimmy, what's going on?" she tiredly asked. She knew that it was early in the morning, far too early to wake up. Yet Jimmy was wide awake and already dressed. Something was up.

"Just wait and see," he anxiously told her while continuing to jog away from the camp. He continued leading her for several moments before finally sliding to a stop.

"Neutron, I'm trying to stay calm, but it's," she paused to look at the watch around her right wrist, "three o'clock in the morning!" she nearly shouted. She swiveled around and glared at Jimmy. "This better be good!" she snarled.

Jimmy just smiled as he stared straight above him. "I'm talking to you!" Cindy shouted at him. Jimmy just grinned wider and pointed above their heads. Cindy followed his gaze, and her jaw dropped slightly as they both stared at what lay above them.

It was the most beautiful celestial object that she had ever seen. The sky was swirling crimson red only a few million kilometers above them. Yellow stars shone brilliantly amidst the red canvas. In the center of this swirling beauty was a circle of blue, green, and yellow gases. It was the most amazing, and most intimidating, thing that she had ever seen.

"It's an emission nebula," Jimmy explained as they sat down on the ground and lay back, not caring about the pebbles pressing against their heads. The sky was far too beautiful to worry for them to worry about pain. "Swirling clouds of ionized gases. Amazing, isn't it?" he asked while looking over at Cindy. She was still staring wide-eyed at the sky, shaking her head a little in disbelief.

"It's so...big," she answered, taking a while to figure out that last word. "I mean, wow."

Jimmy nodded in agreement. "It's really amazing, isn't it? This is just one of literally billions upon billions of nebulas. I can't even begin to imagine how much bigger this object is than our planet. The universe is riddled with planets, stars, galaxies, life," he explained. "It just makes you so feel so completely and utterly small, yet implausibly brilliant and beautiful for just being a microscopic part of this vast landscape."

Cindy used all of her willpower to draw her gaze away from the swirling sky to look over at Jimmy. He was also looking back at her. They grabbed each other's hands again, this time intertwining their fingers. They stared into each other's eyes, smiled, and let their lips connect once more.

Jimmy let his eyes narrowly open for a moment to stare at the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He took in her hair; she hadn't had time to put it back in her usual ponytail. Her eyes were also slightly open, and he stared into the mysterious green pools that he had waited so long to dive into. He put his hand on her waist and opened his lips wider. Just then he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

"What's wrong?" Cindy sadly asked as Jimmy quickly pulled out of the kiss and stared past her. His eyes held a look of horror.

"Get down!" he shouted while tackling her to the ground.

"What are you?" was all she had time to ask before he slammed into her, smashing her head against the rocky ground beneath them. She was about to kick him off of her before she saw a rock the size of her head slam into the ground, barreling past where her back had been a moment a few seconds ago.

Jimmy rolled off of her and they both jumped up. "I owe you one," Cindy casually told him. Saving each other's lives had become both common and meaningless over the years.

"What was that?" Jimmy thought out loud while walking over to the jagged rock that had smashed several feet deep into the ground. He and Cindy both stared down the barely lit hole. Jimmy pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and shone it on the object beneath them.

"That's an asteroid, isn't it?" Cindy asked, quite perplexed.

"Yeah," Jimmy agreed. "That was weird."

They looked toward each other, and then back up at the sky. "Jimmy, look over there," she told him while pointing away from the nebula.

The part of the sky that Cindy was pointing at was dark, illuminated by only a few twinkling stars. But he could faintly make out silhouettes flying past them. They turned back to look at the emission nebula, and several large rocks flew past them, and then several more.

"Duck!" Cindy shouted. They both immediately hit the ground, and several small rocks crashed several yards away from them. "Should we get out of here?" she nervously asked while stepping closer to Jimmy.

Two smaller asteroids slammed into the ground near them. "Yeah!" Jimmy shouted while running back towards camp. The sky seemed to be falling as rocks the size of baseballs bombarded the area around them, leaving large craters and plumes of dust in their wake.

Jimmy quickly took his headset out of his jeans' loop and put it on. He set the frequency to the common channel that everyone used. "Libby, mind telling me what's going on here?"

Jimmy was surprised to hear Libby's voice immediately answer him. He hadn't expected her to be up this early. "Jimmy, you've got a problem over there," she nervously explained, a hint of static permeating her voice.

"We noticed!" Cindy shouted into Jimmy's microphone while covering her head as another three rocks whizzed past them.

"Details!" Jimmy pleaded as the edge of the camp appeared on the horizon.

The entire Control Team was awake in Jimmy's lab, all furiously typing on their keyboards and staring at their monitors. "Jimmy, Little Boy is about to fly straight through an asteroid belt!" she shouted.

Jimmy and Cindy looked to each other as they continued running as fast as they could towards their camp. "How big?" Jimmy shouted above the roaring of rocks flying by them and slamming into the ground.

"You know the one between Mars and Jupiter? About ten times bigger than that!" she exclaimed.

Jimmy finally reached camp and ran into his tent. Cindy was right behind him. "Why didn't you give us a heads up?" he angrily shouted while throwing some clothes on the ground out of his way.

"This wasn't on your map!" she defensively answered.

Jimmy threw some more junk out of his way and saw a large red button attached to the ground. He slammed his fist into it, and bright flashes of red light emanated from the center of camp. "Emergency! Emergency!" a recording of his voice shouted from the alarm system he had set up two days ago.

"Weren't you guys using radar to check for any obstacles on our course?" Jimmy shouted as he ran out of his tent. Everyone was slowly coming emerging from theirs as well, staring at the fifteen foot high pole atop which sat the alarm lights and speakers. "Emergency! Emergency!" the recording continuously shouted.

"We've got a lot to do down here!" Libby screamed over the alarm system, the roaring of asteroids, and the growing static. "Stupid me, I trusted your map!"

Jimmy swore under his breath, but shoved his anger and fear out of the way. "We'll abandon the asteroid and fly our rockets the rest of the way," he told Libby and Cindy. "Unlike in the movies, asteroid belts are very spread out in reality. The asteroids are far away from each other, and slamming into one is extremely unlikely."

"Jimmy, that's the other bad news. See, your asteroid is a lot bigger than the majority of the ones in this belt. Apparently, all of the smaller asteroids are being pulled towards your asteroid by its gravity. You've got a pretty dense ring of small and medium-sized asteroids surrounding yours."

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Jimmy shouted, amazed at how unlucky he was. "How long do we have?"

Libby put a foot on the wall beside her, and kicked off of it. She rolled across the room and stopped near another computer. She quickly tapped in a few keys. "My most optimistic estimates put you at thirteen minutes away from fatal collision," she told Jimmy. "Get off of that rock, Jimmy," she nervously instructed him.

Jimmy sighed and shut his headset off. He had gotten all the Intel he needed from Libby, her voice was just distracting him now. "Cindy!" he shouted while grabbing her shoulders. She looked away from the chaos that was enveloping the camp and looked into Jimmy's eyes. "Load all of the people and as many guns and supplies as you can onto three rockets!" he shouted. He was about to run off, but Cindy grabbed his wrist.

"Why three?" she shouted. "We've got forty rockets! We'll never fit everyone on three!"

Jimmy looked down at his watch. Time was quickly running out. "Cindy, god damn it, you're going to have to trust me. Get the three biggest rockets and get everyone inside. Now!" he shouted. She stared at him another moment. "GO!" he pleaded. She took a few steps back, started to run towards the rockets, looked back at him, and then set off at full speed.

"FOLLOW CINDY!" Jimmy shouted while running around the camp, instructing everyone he could find. Asteroids were hitting the ground every few seconds, and people were beginning to panic. "Grab any supplies you can and follow Cindy!" he shouted while running by everyone's tent.

"Jimmy!" Nick shouted, his voice barely audible over the camp's chaotic shouting and the asteroid's roaring. "What the hell is going on?" he vociferously asked.

Jimmy looked at him and grabbed Nick's shoulders. "Get everyone to follow Cindy. Load them onto three rockets. Leave now!" Jimmy instructed him. Nick was about to question Jimmy's strange choice of only using three rockets, but he only saluted his friend and ran off.

"Jimmy!" Sheen shouted while running up to his friend. He was thrown onto the ground by the shockwave of a twenty foot asteroid slamming into the ground ten meters behind him. Jimmy grabbed his hand and hoisted him up. "Why are we only using three rockets?" he asked.

"Not now!" Jimmy shouted as he saw that Nick was leading everyone towards Cindy and the rockets. He turned his headset back on and motioned for Sheen to follow Nick, but he just stood there. "Libby! You there?" There was no response, only static. "Folfax, answer me!"

Jimmy listened intently, but there was still only heavy static. "Libby, if you can hear me, I need you to give us info as we fly the rockets. Warn us of the asteroids' paths and help us navigate through the field. Do you understand?" he shouted even loader, his voice cracking at the end. His throat was strained and burning with pain.

Jimmy waited a few seconds, and Libby's soft voice interrupted the static. "Jimmy...communications blocked...asteroids blocking...waves...can't...you." Jimmy clenched his hand into a fist and punched a boulder beside him in anger. She couldn't help them any further.

"...Luck," she continued, the static interrupting most of her words. "Talk...later...make it....shake...you Sheen...out." The line suddenly became enveloped with static. Jimmy turned his headset off and turned to Sheen.

"Why are you only taking three rockets?" he asked.

"Because only Nick, Cindy, and I are good enough to pilot them through this!" he shouted while motioning to the swirling mass of tiny rocks circling above them and crashing. "Anyone else trying to fly one is suicide!"

"You'll never fit the guns and all of the kids into three rockets!" Sheen shouted while following Jimmy as he ran towards Cindy and the rockets.

"We'll put the guns in the hypercube!" Jimmy shouted as he and Sheen came up to Cindy.

"The kids are in, but we don't know where the hypercube is!" she shouted, overhearing Jimmy's conversation.

Jimmy looked at the three rockets loaded with kids in front of him. They were crammed into every cart in the Ferris wheel, and packed to the brim in all of the other rockets. It looked hideously uncomfortable, but it was better than being bombarded with rocks. "Screw it! Forget the guns! We're leaving!" Jimmy shouted. Cindy and Nick nodded and jumped into their pilot seats.

Jimmy was about to follow suit, but Sheen grabbed his arm. "The asteroid and the guns were our main weapons against the Yolkians!" Sheen told him. "We're losing the asteroid, so we need the guns!"

"What are you suggesting?" Jimmy asked while jumping into the rocket Cindy had prepared for him and flipping several switches.

"I'll load a rocket with supplies and fly it!" Sheen offered.

Jimmy looked at his watch. Seven minutes. "You're not skilled enough to fly a rocket through this. I'm not even sure I can!" he shouted back, talking twice as fast as normal.

Sheen's face became red with anger. "God damn it Jimmy, I can do this!" he screamed. "I've flown with you more than Cindy and Nick combined. I've spent five hundred hours piloting a rocket in my video game. And without the guns you've already lost the fight! There's no time to argue, let me do this!" he quickly shouted.

Jimmy's mind raced as his precious last minutes began to run out. He's right. We need the guns. Jimmy looked Sheen in the eye. "Are you sure you can do this?"

"Yes!" Sheen shouted.

"Then go! Hurry!" Jimmy told him, but communications weren't possible at this point. The only sound that anyone could hear was the constant whizzing as asteroids flew by them and the loud roaring they made when they hit the ground. Jimmy nodded to get his point across, and Sheen ran off.

Jimmy turned on his headset. "Cindy, Nick, if you can hear me, we're going to wait until Sheen gets back to leave. I need to disengage another rocket from the asteroid!" he shouted while jumping out of his rocket. He ran towards the dozens of rockets tied down to the asteroid, their thrusters still firing every few seconds to alter Little Boy's course. He briefly glimpsed the Strato XL, sorry to have to leave it behind.

Sheen ran faster than he ever had in his life. He ran into his tent and grabbed his backpack and the canvas bag that was filled with all of his clothes. He dumped the clothes out onto the floor. He then grabbed his headset, put it on his head, and turned it on. "Sheen, if you can hear this, we're leaving in four minutes!" Jimmy shouted. "Move!"

Sheen ran towards the two tents filled with guns and ammunition. It was one of the rare times when luck was on their side. Nick had apparently brought all of the actual guns back from the firing range. The paintball guns were still there, but Sheen didn't give a rat's ass about those right now.

"Leaving in two minutes!" Jimmy warned Sheen. Sheen immediately threw as many pistols as he could into his backpack. "One hundred ten seconds!" Jimmy shouted.

"Shut up!" Sheen shouted back. Jimmy's voice was distracting him. He grabbed a few shotguns and rifles and ran into the next tent. He knelt down on the ground and threw the shotguns and rifles into the canvas bag. He then grabbed as many of the boxes of ammo and magazines that he could. He threw those into the canvas bag as well and zipped it closed.

"One minute!" Jimmy's terrified voice shouted. "Grab what you have and leave now!" Sheen grabbed two more boxes of shotgun ammunition and put them in his pockets. He put a box of pistol ammunition in between his teeth. He slung the backpack over one shoulder and the canvas bag over another. "Screw the guns, Sheen. You're more important! Get over here!" Jimmy shouted as loud and forcefully as he could. "That's an order!"

Sheen ran out of the tent as fast as he could. Dozens of asteroids touched down all around him. He tripped and fell onto the ground, and the box of ammo in his teeth fell out. He felt warn blood flow from his nose and down his shirt. He jumped back up, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulders from carrying his heavy load. He bent back his foot and kicked the box of ammunition of the ground as hard as he could. "Twelve seconds!" Jimmy shouted.

Sheen finally reached the rockets and threw the two bags into the back of the rocket Jimmy had prepared for him. Cindy, Nick, and Jimmy had their rockets fired up and ready to go. Sheen ran back a few feet and grabbed the box of 9mm bullets. "Get in the freaking rocket, Sheen!" Jimmy pleaded.

He tossed the box of ammo in the back and jumped into the pilot's seat. Larger asteroids were now slamming into the ground around them, causing Little Boy to shake and start to crack into pieces. Sheen feverishly flipped switches and pushed buttons. "I do so relish these times of peril," he whispered, getting a heavy sense of déjà vu.

"Liftoff!" Jimmy shouted, not waiting any longer. He, Cindy, Nick, and Sheen barreled off into the sky, and straight towards a seemingly impenetrable wall of asteroids.

Chapter 29: Man Down

Everyone in Jimmy's rocket was violently flung to the right, and slammed against the wall. Jimmy was piloting the roller coaster. Kids were crammed into every car, including his. There was a sickening smack as several asteroids the size of basketballs slammed into the tail end of the coaster.

"Stick together!" he shouted into his headset to Sheen, Cindy, and Nick. "If we stray too far apart the asteroids will block our communications."

"Roger!" Cindy shouted while pulling up beside him. They flew straight ahead to one of the 'medium' asteroids that Libby had described. It was two kilometers long and flying right at them. With perfect precision, Cindy banked left and Jimmy pitched right as the rock flew past them.

Sheen struggled to keep up with Cindy, Jimmy, and Nick, who were flying at incredible speeds and still managing to dodge the majority of asteroids. He pushed a red button, and the reinforced windshield that Jimmy had designed finally sealed his cockpit closed. He breathed a sigh of relief, but dove sharply as a pack of rocks flew straight at him. He cringed as he heard the bottom of his rocket scrape against another asteroid.

"Damage received!" Sheen shouted into his headset.

Jimmy pulled his ship's joystick up and rose above several more asteroids the size of his house before swerving the narrow snake-like rocket through several asteroids in front of him and to his right. "That goes without saying!" Jimmy shouted as several more rocks pounded. He hoped that the reinforced hulls would hold together until they got out of the belt and he could try to repair them.

Nick gritted his teeth and rolled his Enterprise ride to the left. A small rock slammed into his windshield, cracking the glass and sending sharp shards into the cockpit. He shouted in pain as they flew over his face.

"Nick!" Jimmy screamed while pulling the roller coaster up and doing a vertical 360 degree turn. "You alright?" he nervously asked.

"That's a damn stupid question!" Nick screamed back while a dozen more asteroids cracked the hull of his ship. "I'm taking heavy damage here!"

"Me too!" Sheen cried out while an asteroid bumped the tail end his rocket and sent him spinning into another jumble of rocks. An alarm blared in his cockpit. The words critical hull damage appeared on his tiny monitor.

Cindy seemed to be doing the best job of evading the asteroids, even though her ship was the largest. She was manning the Ferris wheel and skillfully weaving her way through the endless horde of oncoming stones.

Jimmy dodged several more 'medium' sized asteroids before glancing over at Cindy. She was handling the large rocket with surprising skill, but she didn't appear to see a torrent of asteroids coming at a forty-five degree angle from her left.

"Hang on, coaster riders!" he instructed everyone on his rocket. He viciously turned right and increased his speed as much as his rocket allowed. He flew diagonally to intercept the asteroids hurtling towards Cindy.

"Neutron, personal space please!" Cindy shouted while noticing him flying towards her. The roller coaster barreled past her, only a few yards from her windshield. She dived downwards as the asteroids slammed into the middle section of Jimmy's rocket.

Jimmy was sent flying into the windshield as the asteroids bombarded his rocket's midsection. The kids in that car were slammed into the wall, several being knocked out. "Watch we're you're going!" Jimmy heard an angry voice from that car scream into his headset.

Since Cindy and Jimmy seemed to be helping each other, Sheen tried to move alongside Nick. Sheen's rocket was by far the smallest and most agile, yet he seemed to be having the most difficult time.

Nick rotated his rocket so that the cart two seats above him now faced the asteroids. If another rock slammed into his windshield, it would easily break through and kill him. Being near the bottom of the rocket made piloting more difficult, but he didn't see any other choice.

"We've passed through the first wave!" Jimmy shouted, although his voice was quickly dying on him. His throat burned from the constant yelling he had been forced to engage in for the past half hour. There was a brief lull in the storm as they passed through empty space.

"Is that it?" Sheen asked.

Jimmy angrily shook his head. "New batch coming in!" He warned everyone. "Instigate evasive maneuvers!" He instructed them before banking to his right. Come on, Little Boy. Just die. If the other asteroids could cause enough damage to Little Boy and it completely fell apart, there would no more gravity to pull in the smaller asteroids. They just had to survive a little longer.

Nick let out a primal shout of anger and fear as more asteroids flew towards his rocket. "Come get some!" He screamed while accelerating his rocket towards the asteroids. He squinted his eyes and blocked out the chaotic shouts around him. He focused only on the rocks. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and rapidly spun it as each new asteroid flew past him.

"I'm losing speed!" Sheen anxiously shouted into his headset as his rocket slowed down, although he was increasing his thrusters' power. "Help!" He shouted, but all he heard was static. He was far behind the other kids, and the hundreds of rocks that separated him from them were blocking his radio waves. Suddenly, the largest asteroid he had seen so far slammed straight into his rocket, crumpling the vehicle's nose and sending Sheen spiraling downwards.

A few seconds later, the three remaining rockets met up. "Nick, Cindy, Sheen, I think we're almost through," he told them.

"Good, because my ship's falling apart," Nick warned him.

Jimmy risked a quick look at Nick's rocket. Dents and holes covered nearly every inch of the rocket. Several of the windshields were broken, and the extra plating covering the hull was almost completely torn away. He knew that the other rockets would look the same.

Several hundred more asteroids came hurtling towards them, but they seemed to be moving slower than the others. "Split up!" Jimmy shouted. Cindy veered right and Nick banked left. Jimmy continued flying straight.

"They're not moving as quickly," Cindy told Jimmy while navigating through the asteroids. They were still flying past her, but they weren't nearly as threatening as the ones that came before them. Still, she heard several more slam into her rocket.

After all that they had just experience, Nick, Jimmy, and Cindy found evading these asteroids relatively easy. As they continued flying through the belt, the asteroids stopped hurtling towards them. After a few more minutes, they stopped seeing them altogether.

"Alright, the asteroids have stopped being pulled in by Little Boy's gravity," Jimmy explained while slowing his speed. "This is how an asteroid belt should be."

They all looked around, and they could only spot one asteroid far into the distance. "Safely spread out over an extremely long range," Jimmy finished explaining, breathing a sigh of relief. He cut his thrusters completely, as did Nick and Cindy. They slowly drifted through space.

"Nick and Cindy, check out your personnel. I want a status report in five minutes. Cindy's rocket, use frequency 1034 kHz. Nick's, use 1241 kHz. I'll use the common channel. Sheen, let me know how you are and if you lost any supplies. You've only got one person on your rocket, so you don't need a frequency. Everyone meet back on the common channel in five minutes. Neutron out," Jimmy finished while leaning back in his seat and resting his eyes for a moment before figuring out his ship's damage.

Five minutes later, everyone had turned their headset's frequency back to the common channel. "Nick, what's your status?" Jimmy asked.

"Three broken arms, two broken noses, nearly everyone has minor cuts or scrapes, and seven kids are unconscious, but alive. No casualties."

Jimmy nodded and was about to ask Cindy about her rocket when a familiar voice interrupted him.

"Communications are finally going through," Libby's voice told everyone back in the lab. "I'm trying to get in contact now, but don't get your hopes up," she sadly explained.

"Neutron here, Folfax, and it's damn good to hear from you," Jimmy happily answered.

"Jimmy!" She ecstatically shouted back. "I've been trying to get in contact with you for the past half hour. Did you all get through the belt?"

"We all did," Cindy happily told her best friend. "Looks like my plating for the hull worked wonderfully," she bragged.

Jimmy nodded. "Yes, you did well, Cind. But how is everyone on your rocket?"

"My rocket has two concussions and a broken arm. Minor cosmetic injuries all around. No casualties," she explained.

Jimmy smiled widely as he heard this. "Four concussions and four broken limbs in my rocket. Minor cuts and scrapes all around, but no casualties either. We all made it!" He happily shouted. "What about you, Sheen. Lose any supplies?"

Everyone waited for Sheen to respond. After twenty seconds of silence, Jimmy frowned. "Sheen? Answer me, please. What's your status?" There was still no response. Jimmy turned his rocket around in a circle, looking for any sign of his friend. "Guys, where's Sheen?"

Chapter 30: Stranded

Sheen's rocket spun out of control as its nose was crumpled like a ball of paper by the asteroid. "Mayday! Mayday!" Sheen screamed while frantically turning his rocket's steering wheel. He tried to change his direction, but his thrusters were permanently bent downwards. They continued to push Sheen downwards as small asteroids continued to pound him and take pieces of his hull with them.

He continued falling downwards when he tried to turn off his thrusters. They didn't respond to that, either. "Come on!" He pleaded while slamming his fist into the dashboard. He continued pressing buttons and spinning dials. After several chaotic seconds, the thrusters reduced their power, but not enough to stop Sheen from continuing to spiral to the black depths below him.

Sheen gave up on the thrusters and went back to steering. "Anyone! Does anyone read me?" He asked. "Libby? Jimmy?" he begged while asteroids continued to slam into him. Several more rocks struck his windshield, spreading cracks across it like a spider spinning a web.

He looked out the windshield and saw an asteroid beneath him, and the gap between him and the rock was closing fast. He tried to pull up, but his rocket was slow and unresponsive. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the imminent impact.

Voices from his past swam through his head as Sheen slowly resumed consciousness. "God damn it, Jimmy, I can do this!" "I can do this!" "I can do this!" "You're not skilled enough." "You're not skilled enough."

The voices immediately stopped when his eyes slowly and painfully fluttered open. He tried to move his head, but let out a weak moan of pain. Every single inch of his body ached. He felt dead. He lay there for several moments, scanning the area with his eyes. Ow.

At long last, he gathered all of his fleeting strength and moved his arms. They felt like they had been hit with a sledgehammer and had iron weights tied onto them. He steadied himself and gave one hard push on the ground, but his hands slipped on the slippery rock beneath him.

"Huh?" he quietly asked, still not understanding where he was or what was going on. He waited a moment and tried to push himself up again, this time succeeding. The world spun around him as he sat up for the first time.

His eyes eerily shook inside their sockets as they tried to follow the swirling landscape in front of them. After what seemed like an eternity, the world settled in front of him and came into focus. He looked around him and saw that he was on an asteroid. Little Boy?

Sheen quickly realized that this wasn't the asteroid that he had come to call home for the past three days. It was much smaller; it didn't extend past the horizon. It only appeared to be around two kilometers across. The ground was very rocky and bumpy, as opposed to the relatively flat terrain of Little Boy.

Sheen looked down beneath him to see why the ground had been so slippery. "Ew," he muttered in disgust as he looked down at what he had been lying in. He had been resting in a puddle of vomit, blood, and spittle. He saw that his shirt was also covered with this eerie concoction, so he quickly took it off. He also wiped his face clean with his right arm.

As he continued to sit down and get his strength back, he wondered where the rocket was. With great effort, he turned his head around. He saw the rocket around ten meters behind him. He let out a deep sigh and got to his feet.

As soon as he stood up, his right knee immediately buckled and sent him crashing back onto the ground. Focus, Sheen. Focus and stay off of that leg. He stood up once more and shifted the bulk of his weight to his left foot. He managed to stand upright.

"Ok, alright, doing good," he whispered while painfully limping towards the rocket. "Get to the stupid piece of metal and get back to the others." His hopes for an immediate return to his friends were dashed when he got a good look at the vehicle that had brought him to this desolate rock.

His rocket had been a bumper car design. He could barely tell that from the wreckage, however. The unbreakable glass windshield that Cindy had prepared had indeed broken. Shards of glass littered the ground and the seat of the rocket. They sliced into the chair's cushions and let the foam flow out, like the blood from his numerous wounds.

The reinforced plating that Cindy and Jimmy had made to cover each rocket's hull was almost completely torn off. Only a few squares of the metal were left intact. The majority of the hull itself had also been torn away, revealing the network of wires and the metal framework beneath. It was oddly menacing, reminding him of skin peeling away to show the bone and veins that lay just under the surface.

Sheen let out a moan of pain as he bent down to get a look at the wires. Before he even got a good look, he had doubts that he could fix it. But even his optimistic nature was defeated when he saw the mess that lay in front of him. Several small rocks were lodged inside. Sparks were still flying from several frayed wires. Nearly everything was disconnected. The wires were like a heap of spaghetti now. There was no way that he could figure out where each one went.

The cockpit of the rocket hadn't fared any better. The seat and floor were stained with blood and reeked of vomit. The steering wheel was torn off, probably floating around in space far above him. The tracking chip that Libby used to monitor their positions had been crushed by his head slamming into the dashboard. Not that that would help, he pessimistically thought. The signal would be blocked by the asteroid belt.

He looked up to see hundreds of asteroids flying all around him. Little Boy had broken into several shards, but at least one of those shards was big enough to pull several smaller asteroids towards it with its gravity.

The guns, he urgently thought. I hope they're around here somewhere. I need to give them back to Jimmy and Nick when they come to rescue me. He looked around at the debris that surrounded him, but found no sign of the guns or the bags that he had carried them in.

He walked towards the back of the rocket, and finally saw the torn bags lying in the dirt. He knelt down beside them and looked them over. The bags themselves were torn beyond repair. They had gotten caught on shards of glass and metal on the rocket, and the rough, uneven terrain that they had landed on had ripped the remainder of the cloth.

Sheen threw the strands of cloth out of his way and smiled at the cache of guns that lay beneath them. Nearly all of the guns and ammunition that he had packed were lying here and were intact. He suddenly felt a sharp pain biting into his ribs, and pulled the two boxes of ammo out of his pockets. He opened them up and smiled wider. The boxes themselves were dented beyond recognition, but the shells inside were fine.

He looked in the back of his rocket again to see if there was anything else there. There was no food or water, only a few more tattered remains of the two bags.

"It doesn't matter," he told himself while leaning against the rocket's steel frame and yawning. He was suddenly very tired. "They know I'm not with them, and they must know the rough location of where I crashed. They'll find me in no time," he whispered before slipping into unconsciousness once again.

Chapter 31: A Tough Decision

Jimmy, Cindy, and Nick were all turning their rockets in circles, looking for any sign of their lost friend. "How could we not have noticed that he was gone?" Jimmy angrily shouted.

"We were pretty busy saving our own skins!" Cindy defended them, but even she knew that they had made a big mistake by not looking out for each other.

"When was the last time anyone saw him?" Jimmy asked.

"I think it was right after we came through that first wave of rocks," Nick anxiously answered while continuing to look around for his best student.

Libby was dead silent on her end, staring at the monitors in front of her. Everyone back in Jimmy's lab noticed this.

"Libby? Can you hear me?" Cindy asked.

"He's gone?" Libby quietly moaned.

"He's not gone, Libby!" Jimmy shouted. "We're going to go back and find him, but we need your help. Focus, Libby. For Sheen," he pleaded.

Libby continued staring blankly at the monitors for a moment before blinking a few times and nodding her head. "Of course," she weakly whispered. She cleared her throat and repeated, "Of course," more forcefully.

"Good," Jimmy said. "We need to get his location. Lock on to his rocket's tracing device and send me the data of his position.

Libby took a deep breath and felt a comforting presence near her. She looked to her left and saw that Carl had put a hand on her shoulder. He seemed confused and nervous, but the meaning behind the gesture was clear. He felt for her and would help her.

Libby began to rapidly type several commands. "Damn it," she loudly swore.

"What is it?" Nick asked while slowly flying his rocket around in circles.

"I can't get a signal from his tracer. That means one of three things. Either he's in the dense part of the belt and the asteroids are blocking the signal, his rocket is destroyed, or both."

Jimmy closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Then run a search for his DNA. Give me bio-scans, location, all the data you can gather."

Libby pressed a few more keys and then slammed her fist onto the table. "I can't do that either, Jimmy. The satellites on Little Boy allowed me to strengthen your lab's signals to run DNA searches in space. They're destroyed now. Your lab doesn't have nearly enough power for me to run a DNA scan that far out into space."

Jimmy lay back in his seat and tried to remain calm. It didn't work. He slammed his fists into his seat and kicked the wall of his rocket beneath the dashboard.

"What are you saying?" Cindy asked Libby. "You can't do anything to find him? We're on our own?"

"Yeah, you're on your own," Libby spat back, not liking the fact that Cindy seemed to be implying that she wasn't trying hard enough to save her boyfriend.

Everyone on the rockets was silent for a few moments. After what seemed like an eternity, Jimmy grabbed his headset's microphone and held it close to his mouth. "Alright, I'm going back into the asteroid belt to rescue him. I'll be back."

He started to gun his rocket's engines, but Nick immediately parked his rocket in front of Jimmy's, blocking his path. "Jimmy, how are you going to go back? We've got three rockets. There are no extra ships for a rescue mission!"

"What's wrong with the one I'm in right now?" Jimmy angrily asked while flipping several more switches in his rocket. He strafed to the left in an attempt to get around Nick, but his friend simply followed him and continued to block his path.

"How about the fact that you've got thirty-something kids in there with you?" Nick shot at him. "You barely got through that asteroid belt the first time. How are you going to go back in, perform some sort of rescue operation, and get back out in one piece? You can't risk the lives of the kids in that rocket."

There was a tense moment of silence. Cindy sat in silence, staring at the two boys in front of her arguing over Sheen's life. They sat directly across from one another, looking each other in the eyes.

"You're right, it's suicidal," Jimmy answered, his gaze unwavering. "But if it were the other way around, Sheen would go back for me."

"You can't risk thirty kids' lives for one!" Nick shouted.

"We'll land on a nearby planet," Jimmy explained. "Yours and Cindy's rocket can wait there. I'll let everyone off of my rocket and they can wait on the surface until I return. Alright?"

Nick shook his head. "You just said that this rescue mission is suicidal. That means you probably wouldn't be coming back. And if you and your rocket are destroyed, how am I going to get all of the kids on the surface of that planet back home? Mine and Cindy's rockets are full, Jimmy! We'd have to leave them there to die!"

Jimmy was getting furious at this point. "I can't leave Sheen there to die!"

"He's already dead!" Nick screamed, the veins in his neck popping out. Everyone gasped at the bluntness of his remark. He saw Jimmy cringe and heard Libby moan. "I'm sorry, but you know it's true. If he's still floating around, the asteroids are pounding him. If he crashed into something, he wouldn't have survived the impact. I know he's your friend, but you can't let your emotions cloud your judgment," he sorrowfully told Jimmy.

Jimmy shot Nick an icy glare and slowly shook his head. "No. He's not dead. He doesn't die that easy. He's out there, waiting for me to rescue him. I'm not going to just walk away and leave him to die."

Cindy had been a spectator up to this point, but she finally grabbed her microphone. "Jimmy? He's right."

Jimmy froze and stared in Cindy's direction. She looked like she had been shot; it was the hardest thing that she had ever had to say. "What?" he asked in disbelief.

Cindy looked away as a few tears rolled down her cheek. "Jimmy, if this were any other situation, I'd agree with you. Hell, I'd go with you. But this is suicidal. And if you want to risk your life to save your friend's, I think you should be allowed to. I would do the same for Libby. But there is no way that you can save him by only risking your life. The only way to go back and save him is to risk dozens of other lives. It doesn't make sense."

Jimmy continued to glare at her for a moment, but quickly looked down at let the tears he had been holding in escape from his eyes. He cried for a moment before wiping his nose and looking back up, trading angry glances with Nick and Cindy. "What about Libby?" he pleaded. "You want me to just tell her that we're leaving her boyfriend behind to die?"

They all suddenly froze. "Libby," the three of them whispered at once. They finally remembered that Libby was listening to this entire conversation, hearing Cindy and Nick arguing that Sheen should be cast aside and left to die.

"I can speak for myself," she told Jimmy in a monotonous, emotionless tone. Here voice did seem older, as if the past five minutes had aged her five years. "Is there no way we can save him?" she whispered.

"Go ahead. Answer her," Jimmy spat at Cindy.

Cindy almost shot Jimmy one of her dirty looks, but thought better of it. "Libby, our rockets are heavily damaged. It's suicidal to go back in there. And not just suicidal for the pilot. All the passengers in the rocket would have to be dumped on a planet to wait for their ride to come back. And if it didn't, they'd have no way home. They'd be left there to die."

Cindy waited for a response, but there was none. "Libby, I know how much he meant to you," she struggled to say, "but we can't go back."

Jimmy waited for Libby to argue, but sat back in shock as he heard her response. "Well then," she whispered as a few tears silently rolled down her cheek, "press on."

"What?" Jimmy shouted.

"Sheen wouldn't have wanted you to all die trying to save them. Besides," she muttered before looking away and breathing deeply for a moment, "he's probably already dead."

Jimmy was about to argue further, but he realized he had lost. There was no changing their minds, and he knew that they were right. Besides, Sheen meant just as much, if not more, to Libby than he did to him. If Libby could be so mature as to leave him behind for the good of others, he realized that he had to do the same.

"Alright," Jimmy sadly spoke into his microphone. "We'll press on," he told them in a nearly inaudible whisper while closing his eyes in anger.

Chapter 32: Sheen

Sheen opened his eyes, expecting to find himself back on a rocket,. He quickly lifted his head, ignoring the searing pain that accompanied the movement. But as he looked all around him, he only saw the barren landscape of his new home and the wreckage of his rocket. Well, they'll come soon. "It's not like they'd just leave me behind," he nervously laughed.

He finally got sick of lying down and pushed himself up into a sitting position, albeit painfully. He groaned as every one of his muscles ached and his right leg burned in agony. He looked down at his watch, expecting for a couple of hours to have passed. "It's been twelve hours!" he fretfully shouted, beginning to panic.

"Did they pass over me and not notice me because I was sleeping?" he wondered aloud while struggling to get to his feet. His right knee buckled under his weight once again, but he was ready for it this time. He quickly shifted his weight to his left foot, and he was able to stop himself from falling.

"So what if they did pass over me?" he asked while nervously laughing. "They're going to do more than one rescue run. I mean, I'm their best shot! They can't leave me!" he angrily shouted. "They CAN"T LEAVE ME!" he screamed again, louder.

"Of course not," he calmly answered while swiveling his head around. "Jimmy would never leave anyone behind. He'll be back in no time. Just calm down," he told himself.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. Just wait and see."

Sheen suddenly shook his head violently, giving himself an unbearable headache. He took a few deep breaths and started to pace around in a circle as best he could. "I'm talking to myself. That's not good. That's a bad sign."

Sheen knew that he had never been the most sane person to begin with, but the fear of dying alone in this barren wasteland was quickly tearing away the remainder of his sanity. "Calm down," he told himself while taking a few more deep breaths. He limped towards his rocket and collapsed onto it.

He tried to pull himself up, but couldn't. His right leg was howling in pain, and his arms still felt heavy and useless. He looked down at his exposed chest and saw a river of dried blood that hadn't been there when he had collapsed twelve hours ago. He reached up and touched his nose, which felt swollen. He realized that he must have broken it during his collision. As he gently squeezed it, he felt several pangs of pain and a fresh trickled blood flowed down towards his chest.

"Alright, calm down," he instructed himself. "Let's just take a minute and sort this out. He took a few deep breaths and leaned against the framework of his rocket. "It's only been twelve hours," he assured himself. "They're probably being really thorough in their search, taking a lot of time on each rock. So they might not even reach my area for a few hours." He finished speaking and nodded. He was making sense. He chuckled a little at how he had overreacted. "They'll be here any minute."

Sheen smiled as he leaned back and closed his eyes. He tried to stay awake in case he had to signal the rescue party, but he knew that Jimmy had the technology and smarts to find him. Even though he had just slept soundly for twelve hours, he drifted back to sleep again. The chaos of this adventure was finally catching up to him and making him very tired.

His dreams were riddled with horrors. He watched his rocket slam into the ground. He felt the pain over and over again as he was ejected from the cockpit and thrown across the asteroid. He dreamt of the rescue party flying overhead and looking down upon him, but not seeing him. He dreamt of dying slowly, all alone on a rock.

He finally awoke in a cold sweat. Keeping his eyes closed, he prayed to Ultralord that he would wake up in a rocket, flying towards the Yolkian planet with the rest of his platoon. But as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw that that was still not the case. In front of him lay the barren emptiness of his new home, which he was all too quickly getting used to seeing.

Sheen let out a deep sigh and looked down at his watch. Another five hours had passed. That's...over seventeen hours, he told himself while letting his head sink and feeling the familiar stinging in his eyes that occurred when he was about to cry.

"They're not coming," he whispered. It wouldn't have taken Jimmy more than half an hour to fly back to the asteroid belt. Even without any technological help from Libby and his lab, there was no reason why he couldn't find him in seventeen hours. He knew the rough area where Sheen had crashed. He should have come hours ago.

As Sheen realized that he wasn't going to be rescued, he felt more sick, nauseous, and hurt than he had since he had crashed. He leaned to his right and threw up. He clutched the ground as his stomach radiated waves of pain, and the world swirled around him once again.

He was about to pass out, but a voice inside his head screamed at him. What, do you think that Ultralord would just give up?

Sheen came out of his daze, shocked to hear a voice inside his head. He wasn't thinking those words; they just spoke to him. The combination of blood loss, hunger, pain, fear, and dehydration was nipping away at his sanity.

I said, would Ultralord just give up? the voice repeated.

"What's the point?" Sheen moaned in response. "They're not coming back for me, and I can't repair the rocket. I'm going to die here."

The voice was silent as it realized that Sheen might be right. Alright, maybe you're right. About the first part. Maybe, for whatever reason, Jimmy and the others aren't going to save you. But that doesn't mean that you have to die here.

"What are you talking about?" Sheen asked in disbelief. "Of course I'm going to die here! I can't fix the rocket! That's the only way out!"

Are you sure that you can't fix the rocket? You only took one look at it. Look again. He turned around to look at the rocket, but every muscle in his body sent out waves of pain once again.

Alright, maybe look later. You can't do anything useful until you can move. Let's take a look at your injuries. Every one of them. Then let's see what you can do to fix them.

Sheen slowly nodded as he felt his head. "I've got a headache and maybe a broken nose. There's nothing that I can do about that."

He looked down at the innumerous cuts and scrapes over his arms, back, and chest. "They've stopped bleeding, so that's all I can do for those." He stared down at his right leg. He tried to move it, but the pain nearly made him pass out. "It's broken," he angrily thought.

Alright, so how do you heal a broken leg? You've gone camping, taken health class, all of that crap. Don't you know how to do some kind of first aid? Sheen thought for a moment. Obviously, a doctor would put a cast on his broken leg. But since that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he thought what else there was to do. "I could make a, what do they call it?" he thought while drumming his fingers against the ground. "A splint?"

Bingo! the voice in his head happily screamed. Now, how are you going to do that? Sheen looked around the debris field. There wasn't too much to work with. He only had the guns, the remains of the rocket, and the clothes he was wearing.

"I could use a rifle as a splint, but it might be too big. And I don't like the idea of a gun, even an unloaded one, being strapped to my leg." He took a deep breath and turned around to face the rocket, ignoring the pain all across his body. It was becoming easier to ignore each time he moved. He was quickly getting used to it.

He stared at the rocket. The hull extra plating was torn away and the hull was gone. Wires were everywhere. Even if he could somehow fix the wires with no tools and no knowledge, the rocket itself was in no shape to fly. He almost gave up as he realized that he was trapped on the asteroid.

Don't give up, the voice reminded him. One thing at a time. Focus on the splint. Sheen rolled his eyes and stared at the metal framework of the rocket. He touched his hand to one of the steel beams. It was scraped and loose. He set both hands on it and pulled with all his might. It moved a little, halted, and then separated from the rest of the framework. Sheen looked it over and was surprised that it wasn't as heavy as he had thought it would be. It only weighed around five pounds. "This could work."

Sheen stretched his legs out and placed the metal beam against the back of his right leg. It extended from his ankle to just below his ribcage. It was a little too long, but it would have to do. Sheen then looked around for his shirt that he had taken off after he had first woken up. He picked it up and, trying his best not to get sick, brushed off the vomit and blood. He tore it in two, effectively making two small pieces of rope. He tied the bottom of the steel rod to his leg with one piece of shirt and used the other to tie the top of the rod.

"Well, let's see if I have a future in the medical industry," Sheen muttered while standing up. He smiled as his right knee didn't buckle. He started limping around in a circle, moving nearly twice as fast as before. "Yeah, this could work," he said once again.

He smiled as he felt a sense of peace come over him. He was still afraid of dying and knew that the odds were against him, but when weren't they? Getting out of here was a long shot, but crazier things had happened. He looked around the debris field and tried to find some other job to do, but found none.

"Hey, voice inside my head? Any ideas?" He let out a sigh of relief as his separate self didn't answer. Keeping busy and calming down had seemed to restore his sanity. "Alright, back to only one Sheen. That's good."

He looked around for another minute, but he still couldn't think of any more jobs to do right now. He sat down on the ground and leaned against his rocket. He had still lost a lot of blood, and it was making him tired. He decided to reward his progress with a little nap. "Jimmy," he said before yawning, "I know I'm doing fairly well on my own, but I'd still appreciate it if you came back for me," he muttered before closing his eyes and falling asleep once again.

Chapter 33: Minerva

Everyone was silent as they slowly milled around their temporary base. After making sure that they were fully out of the asteroid belt, Libby had located a nearby planet for them to land on to regroup and perform repairs. Cindy, Nick, and Jimmy had touched down upon it and ushered everyone out of the rockets. They all watched as the three of them inspected the damage to the rockets.

Cindy and Nick exchanged glances as they noticed how slow Jimmy was working. He kept wiping his nose and eyes while looking away from them. They could also hear Libby occasionally crying lightly and sniffing. They weren't proud of the decision that they had made.

"Extensive hull damage," Jimmy summed up for everyone. "Libby, I'm not in the mood to run a manual diagnostic procedure. The tracer chips should be sending you location signals as well as status reports. Read them and summarize them for us."

Libby nodded on her end. She pointed at Carl and Ike, and they quickly began typing on their keyboards. "It will take a minute."

"Roger that," Jimmy quietly answered. He had never felt closer to Libby than he did today. He turned his attention to Nick and Cindy. "Cindy, do some triage for me. Get the wounded to a separate area for me to check out later. Have Butch, Betty, and Brittany help you carry off the unconscious." Cindy nodded and gave him a quick salute before running off.

"Nick," Jimmy continued while facing his general, "I need you to tally our supplies once again. I'm seriously hoping that at least a few people were smart enough to grab some supplies before they hopped on these rockets. Once you're done, help Cindy."

"Yes sir," Nick answered while giving a crisp salute as well. He started to walk away, but stopped and froze for a moment. "I'm sorry about," he started to explain while turning around.

"Just do your job, soldier," Jimmy interrupted while turning away from him to stare at the rockets. Nick nodded and set off.

"Status reports coming in," Libby told Jimmy.

"Go," Jimmy instructed.

"Nick's rocket is in the worst condition. Average operational capacity of all the major subsystems is twenty-three percent. Cindy's is thirty-five, and yours is forty-three."

Jimmy was in no mood to calculate what that all meant. "Can we make it to our parents?" Oh, that's nice. Like she's in a much better mood, you jackass.

"I've run some simulations. With some luck, which you're damn well due, all three rockets should be able to reach the planet. But I'm not seeing how you could fly back to Earth. Besides, you wouldn't be able to fit all of the parents in your three rockets anyway. You'll have to continue with your plan of hijacking a Yolkian ship."

Jimmy nodded as he took this in. His ships were in the condition he needed. Once they got to the Yolkian planet he wouldn't need them any longer. He would just have to hope that luck would be on their side for once and that nothing else would go wrong.

"Thank you, Libby. Take a break. You deserve it," he sadly told her.

Libby attempted to smile, but she only managed to release a few more tears from her eyes. "Thank you, Jimmy. You deserve one too."

Jimmy's lips curled into his trademark smile, but quickly drooped down again. "Neutron out."

"Folfax out." Both of them clicked their headsets off.

Jimmy took his headset off and clipped it onto the loop in his jeans. He rubbed his two sweaty hands through his hair, closed his eyes, and let out a deep sigh. "Back to work. As always," he muttered while staring at the rockets.

"Jimmy?" a meek voice asked from behind him.

Jimmy frowned deeper as he recognized the voice. It hurt him to hear Cindy sound so weak. He turned around and faced her. "Is everyone ok?"

Cindy nodded while walking closer to him. "Most of the ones who were unconscious have woken up. The few who are still out of it haven't lost too much blood and have fair pulses. It looks like we'll get out of this with just one casual..." her voice trailed off.

"Good work," he told her, ignoring her last sentence. He heard her feet hit the ground as she turned around and began to walk away. "Cindy?" he whispered. She didn't hear him and continued walking. He quickly cleared his throat. "Cindy?" he asked louder.

She immediately spun around and stared at him. He noticed that her eyes were glistening. It appeared that she had been crying too. "Jimmy?"

Jimmy took a deep breath and walked up to her. "I, I want to thank you," he whispered.

Cindy took a step back, confusion etched across her face. "For what?"

Jimmy looked away from her; it was the only way he could do this. "For making me realize the..." he struggled to find the right word, "impetuosity of my decision to go after Sheen. I would have put too many lives in danger."

Cindy stepped closer to him and reached for his hand, but he pulled away. "I thought you were going to hate me."

Jimmy sniffed and rubbed his eyes once more. "I can't say that I'm not mad at you, even if you did do the right thing."

Cindy was a little hurt, but she hid it. "I can't blame you."

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "I just can't help but feel that, just maybe, he's alive. And that maybe we should have gone back to save him."

Cindy stared at him pitifully. She wished she could tell him that she knew how he felt, but she had no idea.

"I know it hurts," Nick's voice interrupted their conversation as he walked up to them, "but we did the right thing. There's nothing more that we can do. When we get back to Earth you can grieve. But for now, we all need you to focus, Jimmy."

Jimmy nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "Ok, you're right. How many supplies do we have?"

Nick pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and struggled to read his handwriting. "We've got almost no food and water. Some of the kids brought their bags full of clothes. There are a few boxes of Band-Aids. And," he paused to lift his gaze up from the list, "seven guns."

Jimmy shook his head and sadly laughed. "Seven. Unbelievable."

Nick crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it onto the ground. "Five pistols and two shotguns. The guns were fully loaded. Thank god we finished the loading process after you won that game of capture the flag, huh?"

Jimmy nodded while pacing around in a circle. "Cindy and Nick, go gather all of the conscious kids and have them meet back here. I'm going to check on the wounded. We're going to have a little powwow.

Cindy and Nick saluted him and ran off to find the other kids, who were off exploring the strange planet. The ground was deep purple, and green mountains towered in the distance. Various orange plants stuck up out of the ground. The gravity was roughly the same as Earth's. Jimmy thought that under different circumstances, he would find this place quite peaceful.

At any rate, he unclipped the headset from his jeans and put it back on his head. "Folfax," he began while turning his headset on, "Folfax, can you hear me? Neutron requesting Libby Folfax."

There was a moment of silence and then Mike answered. "Mike here. Hang on, I'll get Libby."

Jimmy waited as Mike got Libby and she put her headset back on. "What is it, Jimmy?"

Jimmy pushed the microphone closer to his mouth as he walked up to the three unconscious children. "Do you know what planet we're on? Is it on my map?"

Libby silently reprimanded herself. She should have already looked up some basic information on the planet that Jimmy was on. Sheen's death was taking an expected toll on her, but she needed to be strong for everyone else.

"Checking," Libby answered while pulling up Jimmy's map. She focused in on the area where the rockets' tracer signals were being sent from. "Yes, this planet is on here. Says you examined it from an observational station that you had set up on Pluto a year ago."

Jimmy smiled slightly at the memory of setting up that station. It was nothing fancy, just a few high-powered telescopes in a makeshift observatory. It was one of the few trips that he had gone on alone. It had taken the majority of his spring vacation.

"You named it Minerva." She stopped talking and leaned back in her chair. "That name's nice. Why'd you call it that?"

"Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom. But there are more important things right now. Is there any way that you can tell me if there is water on this planet?"

Libby chewed on her lower lip as she pondered this task. "Let me pull up the images you have of its surface." She tapped a few keys, and several dozen high-resolution pictures came up. "I'm seeing something that may be a spring of some sort. I have to zoom in a lot, and the image is fuzzy. I think it's around four kilometers from your rocket's position. I'll send the images to the monitor in your rocket. It will take a few minutes for you to receive them."

"That's fine. I have some stuff to take care of here. Neutron out." He clicked his headset off and clipped it onto his jeans once more. He then bent down and examined an unconscious girl that appeared to be a year older than him.

"How are you feeling?" he whispered while looking her over. There were no serious injuries, but many minor cuts across her arms and face. He put two fingers to her neck and checked her pulse as he stared down at his watch. It seems like just yesterday it was fried by my EMP.

"How is she?" Cindy asked as she strolled up to Jimmy and knelt down beside him.

"Pulse is a little weak, but nothing life-threatening." He moved on to the next two kids, two identical twin brothers who he recognized from his sixth-grade gym class. "Theirs is alright as well. I'll let them rest."

"Everyone's ready and rather anxious to hear how we'll continue from here," Cindy said while standing up and extending her hand.

Jimmy grabbed it and she yanked him off of the ground. "Well, then let's go," he said while shoving his hands into his pockets.

The murmuring of the crowd died down as Jimmy came back from the hospitalization zone. Jimmy was always amazed at how quickly everyone submitted to his authority. "Alright, we've got a lot to cover and time is always against us, so let me jump right into it."

"We've had innumerable setbacks so far. Before we even got into space, we lost half of our troops and supplies. Our training was cut short. We've lost one of our best shots and one of my best friends. Virtually all of our guns and supplies are now gone. We've lost thirty-seven more rockets, and the three that we have are in bad condition. And to top it all off, we lost our major weapon, Little Boy. If anyone has some good news that they want to share, I'd be pretty grateful to hear it."

The crowd was silent. They all knew that they had been unlucky in this trip. And that was putting it lightly. But when Jimmy summed up all of the disasters that had occurred thus far, it was incredibly frightening and intimidating. And the worst part was yet to come.

Jimmy waited a moment, but nobody answered him. "But we're not giving up. If we turn back now, we won't be able to build a new fleet of ships and get back to our parents in time. And this is about more than a rescue for me, and I assume that the same goes for most of you. I want to finish this. I want to kill Goobot and see that they don't go after us again. I want them to know, once and for all, that you don't mess with Earthlings!"

"Hooah!" came the unanimous response from the crowd.

"Alright, so we're going to press on. It's an approximately thirty-six hour ride to the Yolkian home world. We're going to set off in twenty-four hours. Cindy, Nick, I want you to finish training these grunts. This is our last training session before we fight the Yolkians, so you better make it count. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir yes sir!" Cindy and Nick shouted while standing straight up and giving Jimmy a crisp salute.

Jimmy nodded, but a scowl was etched across his face. "I am going to fix the rockets and head out four kilometers west of here. Libby's found a source of water. I also think that some of these plants might be edible, "he explained while reaching out and stroking a red shrub popping out of the ground. "I need everyone to leave their backpacks, water bottles, and anything else that I can use to put food and water in."

He paused for a minute and looked out at his platoon. They were bloody, hungry, thirsty, and seemed scared. But Jimmy saw an intense anger in their eyes, a need to finish this fight once and for all. That was good. Anger was quickly becoming their only weapon.

"Move out! I want..." he started to explain, but he heard a voice in the distance and saw Cindy hold up her hand, signaling for him to wait.

"Jimmy, put on your headset!" She shouted from the middle of the crowd.

Jimmy unclipped the device from his jeans and put it on his head. He motioned for everyone else to do the same, and those with headsets did. "This is Jimmy," he said after turning his headset on. "Libby, what's up?"

"Jimmy, I've got some interesting new data. It's, um, bad news."

Jimmy clenched his hands into fists. "Of course it is."

Chapter 34: Conflicting Coordinates

"Alright, remember how when you were back on Little Boy the coordinates of our parents' location conflicted with the coordinates of the Yolkian planet?" Libby asked.

Jimmy unclenched one of his fists and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Yes, I do. What is the bad news?"

"Well, I had been set up the computer to run scans for our parents every five minutes, in case they were moved to a different location. I track their positions anymore because the satellite dishes on Little Boy were destroyed. But I finally got around to checking the last searches that the system completed. Following me?"

"Yes. Keep going."

"Well," she continued, "after I got those conflicting coordinates a couple of days ago, I instructed the computer to also scan for the Yolkian planet's location. Unfortunately, the satellites needed to be fairly close to the Yolkian planet to get its location. Only the last two searches were in the necessary proximity to scan for the Yolkian planet."

"Alright, so what is the bad news?" Nick asked.

"Both searches confirmed that the parents are not being held on the Yolkian planet. You were wrong, Jimmy. The coordinates weren't different because the planet was in orbit. From what the scans have told me, your parents are on a mother ship of sorts. At your rockets' speeds, it is six hours closer to you than the Yolkian planet."

Everyone paused as they let Libby's words sink in. "So, you're saying our parents aren't being held on the Yolkian planet, but rather a ship?" Nick asked. He turned to Jimmy, clearly confused. "And that's bad news how? I mean, we're getting there sooner than we thought."

Jimmy slammed his hand into his forehead and slid it down his face. "Nick, sneaking up on a rocket is a hell of a lot harder than sneaking up on a planet. We could sneak into the Yolkian planet by flying our rockets onto a vacant part of the planet. A ship, on the other hand, has radar and security systems."

"Oh," Nick dejectedly said while looking down at the ground and lightly kicking a rock.

"Libby, thanks for the heads up. We've got a bunch of work to do here. Neutron out." Jimmy turned his headset off and clipped it to his jeans once more. He stroked his chin while pacing around in a circle.

"Well, this may not be completely bad," Jimmy finally said. Everyone was standing around him in a giant circle, listening intently. "I mean, there has got to be a lot less enemy soldiers on a single ship than there are on the planet. And hijacking a ship to escape in will be a lot easier, since we'll already be on one. But getting into the ship will be considerably difficult and dangerous."

"So, what's your plan?" Ike asked while shoving his way to the front of the crowd.

Jimmy glared at Ike, and he stepped back and hid himself within the crowd. Jimmy closed his eyes and tried to think, but he could tell that everyone was staring at him. It was impossible to concentrate with that kind of pressure.

"Cindy, lead everyone a kilometer or so out and continue training them. Train everyone, not just those who were selected to carry guns. Nick, gather all of the supplies and organize them for me. Then meet me back here so that you can help me gather food and water. Let's move, soldiers."

"Sir yes sir," Cindy and Nick answered while saluting Jimmy. They nodded at each other before splitting up and heading off in separate directions. Cindy led the kids south to their new training area, and Nick started organizing the supplies that he had thrown into a pile earlier.

An hour and a half later, Jimmy was lying underneath Nick's rocket. He struggled to grasp two wires in the darkness and reconnect them. Suddenly a loud smashing sound came from above him. "Ow!" Jimmy shouted while crawling out from under the rocket to see Nick knocking on the steel frame. "That echoes, you know," Jimmy grumbled while standing up and brushing himself off.

"Yeah, I know," Nick said while smiling a devilish grin. "How's it going?"

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. "Fairly well, all things considered. I honestly can't do much with these rockets. I don't have any tools. I'm mostly just fixing cosmetic damage and reinserting wires."

Nick nodded. "Well, better than nothing, right?"

Jimmy reached down and grabbed his water bottle that was lying near his rockets. He took a sip and then quickly resealed it. "Anyway, are you ready for a little hike?"

"Sure," Nick answered.

"Where'd you put all of our supplies?" Jimmy asked while cracking his knuckles.

"This way," Nick told him while leading Jimmy a few hundred yards west of the rockets' resting place. "I've done a little more...in depth tallying," he explained. "We've got thirteen water bottles and seven bags full of clothes. Plus the Band-Aids and guns."

Jimmy nodded as he stooped down to stare at the backpacks, water bottles, and canvas bags in front of him. He took one of the backpacks and emptied the clothes out of it. He threw all of the nearly empty water bottles into it. He then emptied one more backpack and two canvas bags. He tosses two bags to Nick and slung his two over his shoulders.

"Libby sent me a rough map to the place where she believes there's a spring," Jimmy said while pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. "I traced it onto this paper from the monitor in my rocket. It's about four kilometers that way," he explained to Nick while pointing to his right.

Nick followed his gaze and squinted, but didn't see any water. "Well, then let's head out," he muttered adjusting the bags' straps on his shoulders and walking forward.

Jimmy and Nick walked the first kilometer or so in silence. They were blinded by the beauty of Minerva. As they headed out farther and farther from their landing site, the scenery got more and more colorful. The ground was splashed with blue, green, and orange. Yellow, red, and silver plants sprouted out of the ground and towered high above them. Small flowers of every color in the rainbow were splotched across the nearby hillsides.

"Damn, this place is sweet," Nick muttered while looking all around him, thoroughly amazed. "This planet got a name?"

"Minerva," Jimmy answered. "It's called Minerva."

They continued walking in relative silence for another few minutes until Jimmy abruptly came to a halt and grabbed Nick's arm. "Dude, what the...?" Nick tried to ask, but Jimmy held a finger up to his lips and motioned for him to be quiet. He pointed to his left, and Nick gazed in that direction.

A creature the size of a squirrel was slowly walking along several dozen yards to their left. It was orange and covered with fur. It vaguely reminded Jimmy of a cat. "Nick, do you have any of those hypodermic syringes?"

Nick shook his head. "No. Why?"

"Damn it," Jimmy muttered while starting to walk again. "I wanted to get a blood sample from it. Add it to my catalogue of extraterrestrial life."

Nick followed Jimmy and frowned at him. "Hey, Darwin, I'd be glad to escort you on a nature hike after we've killed Goobot, but can we focus on the mission at hand?"

"Sor-ry," Jimmy apologized while taking out the map that would lead them to their source of water. "Putting aside our conflicting scientific interests, I think we're around halfway there. Let's keep moving."

They pressed onward, engaging in occasional small talk. They continued staring at the beautiful scenery around them. After twenty more minutes of walking, they arrived at the place marked on Jimmy's map.

"This is it," Jimmy explained while stopping and looking at his map. "This is the most likely spot where we'll find water on the planet."

Nick spun in a circle, looking around. "Dude, I'm not seeing anything."

Jimmy walked a few more yards forward and came to the edge of a small cliff. It was a twenty foot drop to a pond beneath. Nick stood beside him and stared over the edge with him. As far as they could tell, there was no way to walk down there.

"It's smaller than I thought," Jimmy muttered while twisting the few whiskers on his right cheek into a knot. "There's no way that a little pond like that could supply enough water for all of this plant life."

Nick shrugged. "It's a different planet, Jimmy. They probably don't need water to survive."

Jimmy nodded. "True, true. But if they don't need water to survive, why is there water here?"

Nick took a step back and unbuttoned his shirt. "Dude, we don't need lava to survive, but there's plenty of it on Earth."

Jimmy shook his head. "That's a horrible metaphor. Lava is merely melted..."

"Dude, we need water, and there it is. I really don't care why it's here. Now unless you want us to suck down the motor oil in our rockets, I'm diving down there and filling up those bottles," he explained while dropping his bags to the ground and unbuttoning his shirt. He took it off and tucked the loose strands of hair in his face behind his ears.

"We don't know how deep the water is. You could get hurt," Jimmy sternly told him.

Nick shrugged him off and balanced at the edge of the cliff. "Do you really think fate would be so cruel as to have me survive flying through an asteroid belt but die diving into a pond?"

Before Jimmy could answer, Nick jumped off of the cliff and fell down into the pond below. He clutched his knees to his chest and formed himself into a ball. Jimmy looked down just in time to see the water erupt around Nick as he fell into the pond. He nervously bit his bottom lip for a moment, but let out a sigh of relief when Nick surfaced.

"Are you ok?" Jimmy shouted down.

"Peachy keen!" Nick answered while flipping himself over and backstroking across the pond.

Jimmy stared at him for another moment before taking the bags off of his shoulders and starting to take his shirt off as well. "Don't come down!" He heard Nick shout.

"Why not?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't see a way back up. That cliff is going miles left and right. I'll need you to help me get back up there. Just toss me down the water bottles and I'll fill them."

Jimmy nodded and unzipped the backpack with the water bottles in them. "Two coming down!" Jimmy shouted while tossing two of the bottles over the cliff's edge. Nick caught them, one in each hand. He put one in between his legs and used his now free hand to take the cover off of the other.

"Taste the water to make sure it's not dangerous," Jimmy instructed him.

"Don't you have an invention to check it?" Nick asked while tossing the full bottle back up to Jimmy.

"Yeah, back at the lab and in the hypercube that we lost," Jimmy answered while catching the bottle and setting it down behind him.

Nick filled the second water bottle and stared at it for a moment. He then reluctantly took a large sip, swirled the contents around in his mouth, and swallowed it. He refilled the bottle to the top, put the cap on, and tossed it up to Jimmy. "It tastes fine."

Jimmy reached out to grab the water bottle flying up towards him, but missed it. It fell back down to Nick, who caught it. He threw it back up to Jimmy, who caught it that time. "Two more bottles coming down," Jimmy warned while dropping two more empty bottles.

The two boys continued this cycle of Nick filling two bottles, throwing them up to Jimmy, and Jimmy dropping two more bottles down until all thirteen of the water bottles were fill. Jimmy made sure each cap was tightened before putting them in his backpack.

"Nick, do you see any fruit or anything?" Jimmy asked while getting down on his stomach and leaning as far over the edge of the cliff as he dared. He squinted and tried to get a good look at the plant life surrounding the pond, but he was too far up to examine them properly. He crawled back away from the edge.

"Your turn to taste something!" Nick shouted while hurling a squishy blue ball up at Jimmy.

Jimmy caught it and stared at it for a moment. Finally, he took a bite out of the fruit and chewed the soft contents. The juices seemed to swirl around his mouth by themselves and created a tingling sensation, but he did not feel sick in any way. On the contrary, it was one of the best things that he had ever tasted.

"Fill up the bags with those fruits and others like them. They're good," Jimmy told Nick while tossing the three bags down to him. Nick nodded and began picking as many of the fruits as he could from the nearby trees. As each bag was filled, he spun around and hurled the heavy loads up to Jimmy.

"Alright, now how do I get back up?" Nick asked once he had tossed the third and final bag up to Jimmy.

Jimmy stared down at Nick. Climbing straight up a rock wall was not going to be easy. "Do you see any footholds?" Jimmy asked.

Nick stared at the wall in front of him for a moment. "Um, a couple. Enough to maybe get halfway up. Maybe. After that I don't know."

"Well, get up as high as you can," Jimmy told him.

"Easy for you to say," Nick angrily mumbled while sticking his right foot into the first foothold. He slowly climbed his way up the wall and stopped after he was around twelve feet above the ground.

Jimmy stared down at his friend, who was plastering himself against the cliff's face. "Do you see any more footholds?"

"Do you see me moving?" Nick shouted.

"Go back down and find a place where the footholds go higher up," Jimmy told Nick.

Nick let go of the rocks and calmly fell back into the water. For the next half hour he continually tried, and failed, to climb up different areas of the cliff's face. Just as he was about to give up and walk along the cliff's face until he could find a way to walk up, he finally spotted an area of the wall filled with footholds.

Jimmy grabbed Nick's hand as he finally reached the top of the cliff. Jimmy dug his feet into the ground and yanked Nick up and over the edge. They both fell onto the ground.

"Thanks," Nick muttered while quickly jumping up and dusting himself off. He walked back to where he had left his shirt and put it back on. "I'm ready to head back to camp."

"Ditto," Jimmy agreed while slinging the bag of water bottles and a bag full of the alien fruit over his shoulder.

As the two of them set off on their long hike back to camp, Nick finally asked Jimmy what had been plaguing his mind for the last few hours. "Jimmy, you said that the fact that our parents are on a ship instead of a planet will change things. So what exactly is your plan?"

Jimmy sighed as his shoulders began to become strained from the heavy weight of the bags. "You'll find out soon. I want you and Cindy to bring everyone to this spring at exactly eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I'll explain everything then."

Chapter 35: The Suicide Team

Jimmy finally stopped running and collapsed onto the ground. He was back at the cliff's edge, the same spot where he and Nick had gathered water and food the day before. He looked at the watch strapped onto his wrist and wiped his arm across his sweaty forehead. "Sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes to run out here. That's pretty good."

He turned his clock's stopwatch mode off and looked at the time. It was seven thirty; Nick should be there with his army in exactly thirty minutes. He pulled himself together from the ragged heap he had collapsed into and sat down. He crawled as close to the cliff's edge as he could and peered down. Dozens of bird-like creatures were standing at the edge of the pond, dipping their beaks into the water.

"So this is where you and Nick ran off to yesterday," Cindy's flirtatious voice rang out from behind Jimmy. He immediately spun around and stared at her. "Surprised to see me?" she asked while taking a seat next to him.

Jimmy continued breathing deeply, trying to relieve the searing pain in his chest that came from his run. "What did you do, follow me?"

Cindy nodded while flashing him her beautiful smile. "I woke up around seven and couldn't get back to sleep. Then I saw you leave. We haven't had much of a chance to talk lately, you know?"

Jimmy nodded while removing the strands of hair plastered to his forehead by his sweat.

"So, we're leaving after your little speech?" she asked. Jimmy once again silently nodded. "I can't believe that we're finally heading off. To fight them, I mean. No more pit stops, no more distractions, just heading straight there and finishing this one way or the other."

"Yeah," Jimmy finally spoke. "We're finishing this," he sadly said while looking down at the ground.

"This planet is beautiful," Cindy said while fluttering her eyelids and scooching closer to Jimmy. What's it called?"

Jimmy finally stopped gasping for breath and stared at her. The pains in his chest seemed to fade as he moved closer to Cindy. "It's called Minerva," he explained for the third time.

"The Roman goddess of wisdom?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy laughed a little. "Yeah, that's it."

He paused a moment before lashing out and grabbing her left hand with his right. They both blushed as Jimmy intertwined their fingers. "Cindy, um, you know how there's a dance every month at our middle school?"

"Yeah, I know," Cindy said while staring into his cerulean eyes and smiling.

"Well, I don't know when school is going to start, because of all this Yolkian business," he struggled to say, "or even if it will. But, if it does, and if there is a dance, do you think that maybe you'd..."

Both of them paused, expecting for an asteroid to come whizzing by them, or Betty to come running up, or a bird's shrill cry to ring out. They waited for any sort of interruption, but for once there was none.

"Would you like to go with me?" Jimmy asked her. "As a date?" he clarified.

Cindy smiled even wider as she slowly nodded. Jimmy was amazed at how beautiful the simple gesture of lifting one's lips could be. Every one of her teeth sparkled, all impossibly straight and white. "Of course, Jimmy."

They both looked away for a moment and blushed even more. At long last they faced each other once again. They moved closer to each other, and Jimmy wrapped his arm around her waist. He put his other hand along her neck, noticing that this was one of the rare occasions when her hair was down instead of in a ponytail.

Every cell in her body melted as Jimmy wrapped his hands around her waist and neck. She felt pure ecstasy as their lips crashed into each other's for the third time on this trip. There were no distractions, no interruptions. Even the part of her that hated Jimmy, the part that always begged her to hit him instead of hold his hand, the part that wanted to insult him instead of confess her love, stayed quiet as she enjoyed what was the best moment of her life.

Their lips stayed connected for several minutes, their brains shutting down as they delved deeper and deeper into the kiss. But at long last, they both pulled away at the same time. They were still only twelve, that kiss was enough to satisfy them until they became teenagers.

Cindy touched her tingling lips and smiled as she saw Jimmy's face melt into the Charlie Brown smile that infected every boy after his first major kiss. His eyes glazed over as he sighed and collapsed onto the ground.

"You okay?" Cindy asked while laughing.

Jimmy's smile just widened as he lay down on the ground and stared up at the swirling green sky above them.

Cindy lay down next to him and stared up at the beautiful sky as well. Once their daze of ecstasy wore of, Jimmy looked over to her and smiled. He grabbed her hand once again rubbed her smooth skin with his thumb.

"Ok!" Jimmy shouted to the crowd of kids assembled around him. It was half an hour later and Nick had brought all of the kids out to the pond as instructed. Jimmy was standing in front of them, giving one final speech before they set off.

"Now, this is what is going to happen. I am standing in front of the only source of water that we could find on the planet. We have some back on the ships, but not a lot. So after I am done this speech, you are all going to go down and drink as much as you can. Hydrate yourself as much as possible."

"I also want to say that we lost the majority of our supplies when Little Boy was destroyed. This is the only invention that I had on me when we evacuated," he explained while pulling a small, box-like device out of his pocket. "This is a DNA scanner. It only works when you're within close range of something. We can use this to find out exactly where our parents are in the Yolkian ship. It's not much help, but it's better than nothing," he told everyone while slipping the invention back into his pants.

"But the main reason I am talking to you is to relay my battle plan to all of you. You see, as I've said before, the fact that our parents are on a ship changes everything. A regular sneak attack will not suffice. We need to use drastic measures."

Jimmy motioned for everyone to gather closer as he knelt down onto the ground. He ripped off a branch of a nearby tree and pushed its tip into the dirt. "This represents the Yolkian ship," he explained while drawing a saucer-like design on the ground. "This is our target."

Jimmy then drew a large circle a little ways away from the ship. "This is Ergo 22. It is a small planet in fairly close proximity to the ship. Libby told me about it early this morning when I asked her to locate a spot where we could land that was near our parents' location. At our rockets' maximum speeds, it is four minutes away from the ship."

Jimmy drew three X's onto the ground and pointed at each one. "These represent our three rockets. What we will do is land on Ergo 22. We will empty one of the rockets of all personnel and leave those people, along with the other rockets, on Ergo. Then our preliminary offensive squad will get in the rocket and infiltrate the mother ship."

Jimmy paused a moment and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. "You see, we do not have the manpower or weaponry for a full-on assault. And our hopes for a standard sneak attack are also dashed. The only way that we can successfully get our parents back is to send in a suicide team."

Everyone was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend what Jimmy had just said. "What exactly does that mean?" Nick asked.

"This is what it means," Jimmy told everyone while standing back up. He dropped the stick on the ground and dusted off his jeans. "The suicide team will infiltrate the ship. This will most likely alert the Yolkians to our presence. The suicide team will then take out as many guards as they can. If luck is on our side, they will be captured and interrogated. If not, they will be killed in battle. Either way, the Yolkians will believe that the suicide team was our only team. They will think that the suicide team was the only group sent to rescue our parents. That will hopefully lower their guard enough so that the rest of us may sneak in and get those alien freaks."

Whispers of fear and discontent swept the crowd. Jimmy sighed and rubbed his neck as the murmuring of voices grew louder. "It's the only way," he whispered, sure that no one had heard him.

"Alright, settle down! Settle down!" Nick finally shouted. Everyone slowly shut up. "Can we have some more details, please?" He asked Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded. "The suicide team will be in contact with the rest of us via the headsets. If the team is killed, the people on Ergo will hear it. They will wait a sufficient amount of time, so as to allow the Yolkians to believe that nobody else is coming to fight them, thus lowering their guard."

"And if the team is captured?" Betty asked.

"If they're captured," Jimmy somberly continued, "they will utter a code word as they surrender themselves to the Yolkians. Once again, the rest of our army will wait a sufficient amount of time before attacking. This will give the captured suicide team a chance to lie to the Yolkians and say that they were the only ones sent to rescue the parents."

The crowd was silent as they thought his plan over. "This is the best way," Jimmy told them after waiting a moment to gauge their reaction. "Sometimes a few must be sacrificed for the greater good. It is the only way that we can catch the Yolkians truly off guard. Unless any of you have a better idea?" he asked the crowd.

Nobody suggested a different course of action. "Any questions?" Jimmy sorrowfully asked them.

Butch nudged Nick in the stomach with his elbow. "Of course he thinks it's a great plan," Butch whispered. "He's sending some other poor saps in there to get killed so that he can have a nice, safe fight and come out alive." Butch laughed as quietly as he could before raising his hand.

"Yeah, I've got a question!" He shouted out. "Who's on this suicide team?"

Jimmy had heard Butch whispering to Nick. He had been glad to see that Nick hadn't been amused. "I'm the suicide team," Jimmy told everyone.

The crowd instantly fell silent once again. Cindy jumped up and was about to speak, but Nick simply grabbed her arm and pulled her back down, all the while keeping his gaze steadily focused on Jimmy.

"First off, I have to be on the suicide team," Jimmy explained. "I am the Yolkian's target. They are expecting me to come. If we are to make them believe that the suicide team is the only attacking force, I need to be on it. They would never believe that a random group of kids built rockets and flew all the way out here without me."

"And besides," Jimmy sadly continued while staring down at the ground and kicking up a cloud of dirt with his right foot, "this is all my fault. If any blood needs to be shed, it should be mine."

The crowd stared sympathetically at Jimmy. "How is this your fault?" Nick asked.

Jimmy gave the crowd a sad smile. "I'm the one that sent out the greeting message two years ago. If it wasn't for me, they wouldn't even know about Earth and humanity. I'm the one who gave them a map to our world."

The crowd was silent. The majority of the children didn't blame Jimmy for the Yolkian's attacks, but they didn't know how to argue his point. "Besides," Jimmy added under his breath, "I sent Sheen to his death. I overestimated him. I should have known that he would fail. I should have stopped him." He spoke about Sheen in a low whisper, not even sure if he wanted the others to hear him.

The few soldiers located in front of the crowd that heard Jimmy talk about Sheen kept silent.. Jimmy paused a moment and took a deep breath before continuing. "And there can't be anyone else on the suicide team," he explained. He felt hundreds of eyes focused on him. "The Yolkians would believe that I came alone. They wouldn't believe that me and a group of five other random kids decided to head out here. It has to be all of us or just me. And all of us isn't going to work."

Jimmy clapped his hands together and gave a small smile, trying to raise the crowd's mood. If failed horribly. "Well, I think that about covers our plan. I can explain it more on the way there, if you all wish. So why don't you all..."

Cindy finally tore her arm from Nick's grasp, and he didn't try to hold onto her any longer. "I'm coming with you!" She shouted as loud as she could.

Every eye in the crowd placed its gaze upon Cindy. She could feel Jimmy's heated glare, silently reprimanding her for going against him.

"I already told you, that's not possible," Jimmy explained. "It has to be all of us or just me."

Cindy knew that wasn't the real reason why he wasn't allowing her to come. It was the reason that he hated him and the reason that she loved him. He would do anything to save her, even if it meant leaving her behind. "You know that's not the reason," she told him as calmly as she could. "I have to come, and if I don't you're putting hundreds of other lives in danger."

Everyone switched their gaze once again from Cindy to Jimmy. He looked down at the ground and motioned for her to continue.

"There are two problems with your plan," Cindy told him. "Number one, you want the Yolkians to think that you're coming alone. But you also want to keep in contact with us via headset. Why would you have a headset if you're coming alone?" she asked.

Jimmy opened his mouth to answer, but Cindy didn't give him a chance. "And number two is the bigger problem. The Yolkians know you, Jimmy. They know that you're hotheaded, brave, and prepared to die for the greater good. But they also know that you're not stupid. They know that you wouldn't be dumb enough to come alone to face them. They know that you know that you couldn't beat them by yourself."

Jimmy looked up from the ground and stared at Cindy. He knew what she was getting at. "So?" he needlessly asked.

Cindy pushed her way to the front of the crowd. "So, they know about you and me. They know about our...friendship," she told everyone. "They know that when the chips are down that we always team up and get the job done. They wouldn't believe that you're so arrogant and stupid as to come alone. But they would believe that we're both so arrogant and stupid to think that we could beat them."

Nick kept looking from Jimmy to Cindy. "She's right," he finally spoke. "And she's a better fighter than you. With your brains and her brawn, you two could take out a lot of Yolkians before...before," he let his voice trail off, not needing to finish that sentence.

Jimmy stood in silence for another moment, contemplating Cindy and Nick's words. They were right. He did not want Cindy to die; that was the real reason why he had wanted to go into the ship alone. He would sacrifice himself for her without a second thought. But even he knew that he couldn't sacrifice everyone else's lives, and their parents' lives, for Cindy. It was strange to realize it, but he knew that she wasn't worth that much.

"Fine," Jimmy finally answered. "Cindy and I will go in. But that's it. We don't need any more dead heroes. The Yolkians aren't going to believe that Cindy, myself, and some random kid that we don't know would go to save our parents. The rest of you are going to stay behind and follow Nick's command. Is that clear?"

The crowd stared at Jimmy. Any doubts they had about him being a competent leader were dashed. In front of them stood someone who was prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater good without hesitation. "Sir yes sir!" They all screamed out with the forcefulness of trained veterans.

Jimmy smiled as he saw the troops that he, Nick, and Cindy had assembled. For the first time since they had lost Sheen, he truly thought that they had a fighting chance. "Then move out. We leave in one hour!" He shouted.

Chapter 36: Saddle Up

Sheen's eyes slowly opened, as opposed to the way that they had darted open back on Earth, eager to see the light of a new day. Sheen was anything but eager to escape from his dreams, the only place where he felt no pain.

It had been around fifty hours since he had first crashed on the accursed rock that he realized would soon be called his grave. He had tried to keep his morale up for the first two days, and even early this morning, but as he woke up from his nap he knew that he was finished.

"I'm so thirsty," he moaned while struggling to sit up. The pangs of pain that he had experience when he first crashed had increased tenfold. The waves of pain radiated from his stomach as he tried to straighten himself out. He fought them just long enough for him to get off of the ground and lean against the rocket.

He hadn't had anything to drink for three days. He vaguely remembered downing half a bottle of water the night before the whole 'asteroid belt' fiasco, but he couldn't be sure. Time was becoming a blur as his brain shut down. He could live without water, without water even, but not without hope.

He pushed the depressing thoughts out of his mind and looked at the spot he hadn't left in two days. He stared at the rocket that he was leaning on and shook his head at its worthlessness. He had spent the better part of his first day trying to fix it, but had soon realized that it was hopeless. Given enough time, he might be able to repair the wires, but he would never be able to get the damned thing airborne.

Shaking all of those fatalist feelings aside, he turned back to the task at hand. He realized that he couldn't fly himself out of here, but he might be able to summon help. When he had still been strong enough to walk, he had found the tattered remains of his headset. It was smashed, crumpled, and utterly useless. But Sheen had nonetheless spent nearly all of his free time trying to fix it.

"Sheen to Jimmy, Sheen to Jimmy, do you copy?" He whispered into the scraped microphone. There was still no sound, not even static. The thing was dead.

"Man, I guess this really is it," he thought while grabbing a nearby pistol and playfully pointing it to his temple. He wasn't desperate enough to pull the trigger, not yet. He knew that with his luck, Jimmy would come to save him the second he was dead.

Sheen stared down at his right leg, still wrapped inside his makeshift splint. "Do you think it's healed?" he asked himself while untying the discolored ropes that were once his shirt. The metal rod fell off of his leg and clanged onto the ground. Sheen tilted his head and stared quizzically at the injured limb. It had a deep impression from the metal beam being attached to it for the last two days. He slowly bent his knee, expecting to experience crippling pain. To his surprise and delight, there was only a mild discomfort.

"Well I'll be Ultralord's niece," he said while shaking his head. "Maybe it wasn't broken after all. Just..." he paused, trying to think of how to describe it, "roughed up a little."

He took a deep breath and tried to stand up for the first time in over a day, but his right leg buckled under his weight. He slammed back down onto the ground, scraping his bare back against the rocket. "Ok, let's not get overzealous," he told himself. He paused a minute before trying to stand back up. "Overzealous?" he asked, surprised that he knew the word.

"Must have picked it up from Jimmy..." he groaned while slowly pushing himself off of the ground. As soon as he was standing he shifted his wait to his left foot. "...Back in the good old days."

Sheen bent down as far as he could and grabbed the steel rod. He planted it vertically into the ground and grabbed onto it like a cane. He began to walk around, slowly at first, but then almost at his pre-crash pace.

He felt a brief sense of peace and joy wash over him, like when he had fixed his leg that first day. Walking brought the ability to move, to gather supplies, to perhaps find a way off the asteroid.

Yet, just like the dozens of times before over the last two days, his hopes quickly sunk. Sheen had gotten used to his moods rapidly rising and falling. Rising over counting the guns, falling over the fact that there was no enemy to shoot at. Rising over a sparkle of light in the distance, falling as he realized that it was only a star.

"So I can walk, big deal. Where am I walking too?" he pondered while climbing a small hill in front of him. His right leg continually radiated pain, but he found that he could ignore it if he concentrated.

He strolled around for a few more minutes, hoping to find a miracle. He didn't. After five minutes of exploring the asteroid, he turned back towards the wreckage of his rocket.

"Well, that was fun," he dejectedly muttered while falling back down to the ground and leaning against his rocket. He yawned and stretched his arms. He had spent more than half of his time on the asteroid sleeping, yet he was always tired. He enjoyed sleeping; it was a break from his dire situation and the bleak world around him. Plus, there was always the chance that he would wake up on a rocket to discover that Jimmy had rescued him during his slumber.

"Time for a nap," he mumbled while settling back and closing his eyes. Suddenly, a low roaring filled his ears. "Stupid ears," he mumbled while absent-mindedly slapping them. Instead of dissipating, the roaring grew steadily louder.

"What is that?" he asked himself while sitting up. He stared straight ahead, and didn't see it at first. But as his eyes focused on the incoming object, his heart swelled with joy. A rocket was coming straight towards his asteroid. As he stared on in amazement, the ship slowed its thrusters and began its descent to the asteroid.

"They came back!" He happily shouted while jumping for joy, ignoring the pain in his side. "I knew they'd come back!" He shouted while starting to run towards the ship.

His pace faltered as got a good look at the rocket. It definitely wasn't one of Jimmy's fleet. He hadn't seen a Yolkian spaceship in around two years, but he immediately recognized it. Yolkians, he thought while carefully stepping back and hiding behind a rock.

"This is bad," he thought while sinking to the ground. "Ok, ok," he finally muttered after a few seconds of biting his lip, "stay calm. Jimmy said that he would hijack a Yolkian ship once he rescued the parents. It has to be him."

But as he said this, he instantly shook his head in doubt. Could Jimmy really have reached the Yolkian planet, saved everyone's parents, hijacked a ship, and come back to save him in just over two days?

"It has to be him," he repeated while daring a quick look at the ship. He peered his head over the rock just enough so that his eyes could be seen. The ship was only a few dozen meters off of the ground.

"Even if it is the Yolkians," he quickly muttered to himself, "I should still go up to them. They would probably take me prisoner. They'd keep me alive. And even if they didn't, wouldn't that quick death be better than dying here of thirst?"

He peered his head over the rock again as the ship's hatch opened. He held his breath, keeping his gaze absolutely focused on the door. A moment passed, and then another. Still he held his breath, his lungs screaming in pain and his face turning blue. Come on, be Jimmy. Come on, be Jimmy. Suddenly the familiar egg-like shape of a Yolkian came out of the ship. Another followed suit, and then the hatch abruptly closed.

Sheen sank back behind the rock and slammed his fist into the ground. So much for an easy rescue. He drummed his fingers against the ground while whispering to himself. "Why are they here? Do they know about Jimmy's plan? Do they know that I crashed here? Will they kill me?"

Sheen lightly banged his head against the boulder behind him. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. They may not stay long. And enemy or not, they are my only shot at getting off of this rock. I better turn myself in. He let out a deep sigh of despair while standing up. He was about to walk up to the Yolkians when he glanced behind him.

The array of firearms that he had salvaged from the crash lay in front of the rocket, all polished and loaded. They seemed to glow in the light form a nearby star. Sheen ducked down behind the rock once again and continued staring at them. He crawled out from behind his hiding spot and dared a look at the Yolkians. They were hovering above the ground, slowly making their way across the asteroid. They seemed oblivious to his presence. He then looked back at the guns and, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, a small smile spread across his chapped lips.

Chapter 37: Two Down

Sheen sprawled himself onto the ground and crawled as quickly and quietly as he could back to his rocket. The Yolkians weren't too far off in the distance, he guessed maybe one hundred and fifty meters. The ship was even further out. But this asteroid was filled with holes to hide in and rocks to duck behind. They wouldn't see him coming. He came to a stop next to the pile of guns on the ground.

Sheen needlessly counted the guns over once again. One rifles, six shotguns, and twenty-nine pistols. Nearly all of the guns he had packed during the chaos on Little Boy had survived the impact. A few had been lost in space as his ship was pummeled and sent spiraling by the asteroids, but the vast majority lay in front of him, fully loaded.

He suddenly realized that he had a problem. He had a lot of guns, but no way to carry them. "There's always a snag," he muttered while looking behind him. The Yolkians were moving off farther into the distance, still hovering at a leisurely pace.

Sheen closed his eyes and thought. Think, think. What would Jimmy do? He continued to concentrate for a moment before opening his eyes. "He'd look around and figure out a way to use the few supplies that he's got."

Sheen quickly glanced around his camp. He knew that he didn't have much time. The Yolkian ship could lift off any minute. And he had to be sure that he was on it. The thoughts of rescue were numbing his pain, adrenaline heightening his senses. Being left behind on this rock was not an option. It was hijack that ship or die trying.

Sheen noticed that the scraps of his bags were still on the ground. They might suffice as rope. "Getting something," he whispered while closing his eyes and concentrating. "Brain blast!" He whispered as loud as he dared. He immediately clapped his hands over his mouth and looked around, frightened. "I hope Jimmy doesn't have that copyrighted," he nervously muttered.

Ignoring the legal battle that would soon come, he focused on the fight at hand. He got up off of his stomach and kneeled on the ground. He pulled a pile of a dozen pistols towards him. He put six in his waistband. He then grabbed all the strips of cloth that he could. He tied three of the strips together and made a makeshift rope long enough to wrap twice around his leg. He took three other strips and repeated this.

Sheen grabbed another pistols and clamped it onto the front of his right leg with one hand. Struggling to keep it in place, he tied one of the ropes over the gun and around his leg. He then grabbed another pistol and stuck it in between the rope and the back of his leg. He tied two more pistols onto his left leg.

Sheen rummaged through the wreckage of his rocket and found one of the backpack's straps that go over the shoulders. He tied a shotgun to the back of this strap and hung the strap over his shoulder. The shotgun dangled loosely and clanged against his back, but it didn't break free of the strap. He took the strap back off and placed it on the ground. He grabbed the rest of his rope and tied two pistols to the bottom of the shotgun.

Sheen desperately looked around for any more cloth that could be used as rope, but there was none. It had either been lost in space or inadvertently kicked from the camp by Sheen. "Doesn't matter," he told himself while grabbing boxes of ammo and magazines. He jammed as many as he could into his pockets. "I guess this is good enough."

Sheen grabbed one last box of 9mm bullets and clenched it in his teeth. This is it, he subconsciously told himself. This is a real fight. Not capture the flag, not laser tag, not a training exercise. It's win or die out here.

It felt odd to be acting so serious. Where was the old Sheen? He would be hopping around and running straight into battle, guns waving. Maybe I'm finally growing up, he thought. The idea was met with both joy and sorrow. It had to happen sometime. He was fourteen years old, two years older than most of his peers. He had been through more in the past three days than most people would in their lives. And now he was about to fight his first real fight.

Just focus. Screw my ADHD. My adrenaline will be my medication. Act serious. No jokes, no games. Does Ultralord get all twitchy and jumpy in the heat of battle? He asked himself. No. He focuses on the fight at hand, knowing that each one may be his last. I'll make him proud.

There was no more time for thinking. He had to get to the Yolkians before they got back to their ship and left him here to die. Even in his adrenaline-induced state, he could still feel his throat burning from dehydration, his stomach begging for food. He wouldn't last much longer on this rock.

He took one last look at himself before heading off. He was shirtless, his chest stained with dried blood. His buzz cut had grown out enough to fall over his forehead. He had a rifle clenched in both hands and a shotgun hanging over his back. He carried twelve pistols and two boxes of ammunition in his pockets. A box of pistol ammunition was clenched in his teeth, the box it came in dented and covered in his spit. He had grabbed half a dozen fully loaded magazines and shoved those into his pockets as well. Four were pistol magazines and two were for his rifle.

Let's do this, he thought while ducking down and crawling as fast as he could to the Yolkians.

The two Yolkians hovered across the barren asteroid in near silence. Only the whirring of their electronic shells pierced the silence. Suddenly, a beeping emanated from a small device one of the Yolkians was holding.

"This is it," he said while reading the alien signals quickly scrolling across the screen.

"How much farther must we hover? My thrusters yearn for a rest," Jakar, the other Yolkian, answered.

The Yolkian with the device in his hand let out a shrill squeak, the alien equivalent of a laugh. "Your thrusters are fine. It is half of a magnar that way," he answered while pointing straight ahead. Magnar was just one of the many Yolkian words that the aliens used in addition to rough English.

"Why did King Goobot send us to the outskirts of our system?" Jakar asked while following the other Yolkian as he pulled ahead of him.

"You know the reason," Kraka, the other Yolkian, answered. "This asteroid belt has the highest concentration of rubies this side of Wingok."

"We should not be here," Jakar reminded his friend. "These mining expeditions worry me."

Kraka let out a shrill squeak. "You have fought the pirates of Vandor and retrieved the crystal from the bowels of Zirion. Yet this barren rock frightens you?"

"I feel what I feel," Jakar simply answered.

"Feeling or no, we must continue. The king demands it," Kraka responded, a hint of anger and contempt creeping into his voice.

Jakar looked around; making sure that none of the crew from the ship had followed him and Kraka out onto the rock. "Kraka, you know as well as I that Goobot is not fit to rule our great Empire."

Kraka continued moving forward without missing a beat, but his eyes glanced towards his friend, intrigued. "You should watch what you say. Those words are heresy," he calmly reprimanded Jakar. "His right to rule was given by the divine Poultra."

Jakar reach ahead of him and yanked on Kraka's arm. They both stopped. "My words of discontent are paled by the king's heresy."

Kraka's eyes glowed, a sign of curiosity. "What heresy has the king committed?"

Jakar looked around once more and began hovering forward once more. "He failed to secure Poultra's crop. What greater heresy could there be?"

"That was over four cycles ago," Kraka responded. "You must learn to forget."

"Why?" Jakar asked. "If you or I had failed to secure the crop, we would have been fed to Poultra instead. Yet the king goes unpunished. It was unprecedented. He should have been dethroned."

Kraka thought Jakar's words over while continuing to hover along. "The king is the law. He may break it if he wishes. It is not the first time a ruler has twisted our rules," he said with a shrug.

Jakar came to a stop once again. He spun around and faced Kraka, his eyes blazing with anger. "Yes, but the crop was not lost in an unforeseeable mishap. The crop's offspring fought back, Kraka. And won. Do you understand the ludicrousness of that? The humans found our home world, rescued the crop, and brought them back to their planet. The offspring did all of this! Human children bested Goobot and his elite warriors. It is simply unacceptable!"

Kraka stared at his friend and slowly nodded. They continued walking. "There is no argument to your point. The king's failure was great. But he is still the king. Perhaps he shall fare better with the next crop. Only eight cycles remain until the ceremony begins."

Jakar huffed in disbelief. "I am not the only soldier who feels this way about the king. Unrest is brewing in the advising council. I feel that a rebellion is imminent. Their numbers are large; they might defeat the elite guards."

Kraka's usually loyal mind began to think of the rebels destroying Goobot. It could create chaos and a pandemic. Murder of the king, rebellion of the council, it was unheard of. But Goobot's reign had been anything but normal. Perhaps a change was needed.

"All I know," Jakar continued, "is that I would like to get my hands on one of the escaped crop. Or their liberators. I would like to show them what a true Yolkian warrior could do."

As if on cue, three loud bangs resonated throughout the canyon the Yolkians were passing through. One bullet whizzed by Kraka, but the other two hit their target. One of the bullets smashed the glass shield, and the other hit the bottom of the Yolkian's casing. Sparks spewed out, and the Yolkian shell dropped to the ground and fell on its side. Kraka spilled out of the cracked glass onto the ground.

"What was that?" Kraka shouted. He slowly crawled towards Jakar, leaving a slimy trail behind him..

"I do not know," Jakar answered while pressing a button on his shell's control panel. A circle the size of a doorknob opened and a metal rod ejected itself into Jakar's waiting hand. Jakar pressed several buttons on the metal rod, and it extended three feet. A sharp tip on the end revealed itself, and it began to glow. Small crackles of lightning danced across its razor-sharp edges. It was the Yolkian's primary weapon, an electrified spear.

Jakar's eyes squinted as he scanned the area around him. He saw no enemies, Yolkian or otherwise. There were dozens of rock outcroppings, the hostile could be anyway. He clenched his spear tighter and waited for the adversary to show itself. Suddenly another bang echoed through the canyon, and Jakar fell motionless onto the ground. He noticed a smoking hole in his control panel. Sparks danced from it, and there were small puffs of smoke billowing out. He tried to move, but his suit was useless. He was trapped inside a motionless shell.

"What now?" Kraka asked while finally reaching Jakar. Beads of orange liquid appeared on his green body, sweat from having to crawl the five feet. Yolkians were not meant to travel without their suits.

Jakar was about to answer, but he noticed movement in front of him. In the distance, a lone biped was walking towards him. He struggled to think of all the enemy races that the Yolkians had fought, trying to identify the creature. His mind kept coming back to one species, but he kept shaking the thought aside. "Impossible," he muttered in anger.

Sheen emerged from the shadows and walked up to the two fallen Yolkians. His normal grin was replaced by a deadly serious expression. This is the real deal, he told himself while walking up to them. Just like a video game. Keep my eyes peeled, stay alert, and don't fool around. Otherwise I'll lose.

Sheen held his rifle in front of him, aimed on the Yolkian still encased in its shell. He noticed the glowing spear clutched in its right hand. It was armed, and as far as he knew, dangerous. Sheen gripped the butt of the rifle and lifted it over his head. "AHHH!" he screamed while slamming the heavy gun into the Yolkian's armor. It cracked and fell onto the ground in dozens of pieces. The spear hit the ground and immediately retracted back into the small steel rod that Jakar had pulled out of his suit.

Sheen suddenly froze and looked around, realizing that his shout had probably alerted nearby enemies. He aimed his gun ahead and quickly moved around in a circle, peeling his eyes for any sign of danger. After three rotations around the fallen Yolkians, he let out a sigh of relief and put the rifle down on the ground.

"What are you...?" Kraka asked as his eyes widened in fear. Sheen was quickly advancing upon him. He only had time to utter those three words before Sheen slammed his hand into the thick mass of green goo in between the Yolkian's eyes. Sheen moved his hand around inside the Yolkian for a moment before touching a solid ball. Sheen clenched it as hard as he could and ripped it out of the Yolkian's body. It was Kraka's brain.

As soon as the brain was ripped from its body, the Yolkian froze. Its bright green goo rapidly dimmed and turned grey. The eyes sunk into the heap of goo that spread across the ground. The solid goo dispersed into a watery puddle.

Jakar's eyes widened in fear. Sheen knelt down beside the trembling heap of slime. The alien had never seen a fellow Yolkian eliminated so ruthlessly.

"Your ship," Sheen began while cracking his knuckles, "how many of you are there on it?" The Yolkian continued trembling and didn't say a word. "Answer me or you die like him!" Sheen shouted while shoving his hand into the Yolkian and gripping his hand around the creature's brain.

"Twelve!" Jakar immediately shouted. "Twelve! Three pilots, five crewmen, and four soldiers!"

Sheen smiled a little and pulled his hand out of the Yolkian, leaving the brain inside. He was about to stand up when he noticed the steel rod that was a retracted spear. He picked it up and fingered it. "How do I work it?" The Yolkian hesitated. Revealing their technology to an enemy race was a great crime. "How do I work it?" Sheen barked, louder.

"Press the buttons in the middle. Red, green, blue in that order. Then hold the red button down," Jakar answered. Sheen looked the rod over and found the buttons. "Point the end with the insignia towards you," Jakar continued.

Sheen pointed it towards him and was about to activate the weapon when he realized what the Yolkian was doing. He glared at the creature, and Jakar shrank back as he realized that he had been found out.

"I think I'll point it at you," Sheen said with an evil grin while flipping the device around and pressing the buttons. The spear extended three feet forward. The point at the end extended into the Yolkian. Jakar let out a scream of pain as the electrical current ran through him, burning his slime. After a moment Sheen could no longer take the pained screams. He retracted the spear and looked at the Yolkian. It's previously slimy body was now caked and cracked. Sheen slammed his fist into the creature, and it cracked into several pieces and fell onto the ground.

"Yeah, this might come in handy," Sheen muttered while retracting the spear and slipping it into his pocket. He grabbed his rifle, stood back up, and headed towards the Yolkian ship.

Chapter 38: Making Ultralord Proud

Sheen slowly advanced across the asteroid, hiding behind every few boulders, listening intently for the slightest sound. He didn't like how things were going. It shouldn't have been this easy.

Sheen paused behind a rock and coughed violently. He was sweating bullets from his ordeal, wasting the last few drops of water left in his body. "Even if I get the ship, where am I going to get water?" he nervously wondered.

Sheen drummed his shaking fingers against the ground and closed his eyes. He may have gotten off to a good start in the battle against the Yolkians, but he was losing the battle against time. He needed a drink, and fast.

Focus, one thing at a time, he reminded himself. Water won't do me a bit of good if those Yolkians electrocute me first. Sheen nodded at his thinking and checked his rifle. He had only spent four shots. He thought about switching magazines, but decided to wait until his had emptied a little more. He didn't have time to replace them after every shot.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then ran across a small clearing. This was the final dash to the Yolkian ship. If nobody spotted him as he ran through the open wasteland, he would have a chance of sneaking inside.

Sheen tried to clear his mind as his feet pounded the ground over and over again. He was running as fast as he could, but it was nowhere near as fast as he had run the day of the crash. His right leg was screaming pain. It may not be broken, but it wasn't in tip-top shape either.

Sheen dove the last few feet and skidded across the sandy ground. Small pebbles breached his mouth and nose. The ground tore at the weak flesh of his stomach. When he stood up he felt fresh, warm blood flowing down his chest from his nose.

He ignored the red liquid and braced himself against the rocket. He waited a moment, expecting the thirteen Yolkians to come pouring out the hatch. He remained perfectly still, his hands resting on his rifle. After two full minutes of standing completely still, he began inching his way toward the hatch.

Sheen inspected the vessel as he slowly made his way across it. He guessed that it was around two hundred meters across. There didn't seem to be any weapons systems on the exterior of the rocket, but they could possibly be concealed. Just like that level four cruiser in Ultralord: The Video Game, he happily thought.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sheen reached the door to the ship. He was about to reach for the handle, but immediately withdrew his hand. "Could it really be this easy?" he whispered.

He plastered himself against the metallic hull and thought about that question. Jimmy had said on several occasions that the Yolkians were millions of years ahead of humans. Surely they would know if someone opened the front door to their ship. But by the same logic, wouldn't they know if he sneaked in another way? How could he get onto the ship without them noticing?

He let go of the rifle with his left hand and stroked his chin. He imagined him entering the ship a dozen different ways. The door, the windows, the exhaust pipe, every orifice the ship had. But each time he imagined a swarm of Yolkian soldiers ambushing him. After five minutes of thinking, he gave up.

"They're probably going to get worried about their dead friends soon," he muttered to himself. "I've got to act fast." He reached for the door, grabbed the handle, and paused. "Just gotta hope for the best," he nervously mumbled while pushing the door open.

The door swung inside the Yolkian cruiser. Sheen slowly and quietly closed it behind him before grabbing his rifle and aiming it down the corridor to his left. He was out in the open. There were no walls or cover to hide behind. It would be an old-fashioned shootout if any Yolkians came.

A moment went by, and nothing happened. No blaring alarms, no trigger-happy aliens. Just silence. Sheen ever so slightly took his finger off of the rifle's trigger. He braced himself against the nearby wall and began creeping down the hallway.

He tried to keep alert, but he couldn't help but let his mind wander as he slowly inched his way down the dark corridor. It wasn't a completely bad thing, at least his mind stayed focused on the job at hand. Instead of dreaming about Libby or Ultralord, he pondered what the Yolkians were doing on his asteroid. He had been too far away from them to hear their discussion about the rubies.

They didn't pull out their weapons until I shot one of them. And this ship doesn't exactly look like a war cruiser. Plus there are only four soldiers on the ship, if I am to believe that egghead. So they probably didn't know that I was here. Maybe this is some kind of vacation ship? Or a scientific mission, like how we go to the moon?

Sheen shook these thoughts out of his head as he realized that he was finally coming up to the end of the hallway. He gripped his rifle in both hands and set his finger on the trigger. He'd prefer to have a small pistol in his hands right now instead of the cumbersome rifle, but he had no place to store the large gun that lay in his hands. He wasn't going to leave it behind. It had served well as a sniper rifle in his trained hands.

Sheen cautiously peeked his head around the hallway. Three Yolkians emerged from a door to his right and began to walk down the corridor. Sheen instantly hid back behind his wall. He could easily have taken three Yolkians out with the element of surprise, but he didn't want to give away his position just yet.

Sheen waited until the sounds of the Yolkian's hovering shells disappeared down another passageway. He risked another peek around the corner and saw no signs of the enemy. He gathered his courage and stepped into the next hallway.

On both sides of him were doors. He quietly grabbed the handle to the door on his left and tried to lightly turn it, but it was locked. He then looked to the entrance at his right. There was a window in the top center of the door. Sheen ducked down and waddled over to it. He quickly popped his head up and looked inside. There was a lone Yolkian hovering near a table, staring at some machinery and touching a computer monitor by his side.

Sheen turned the rifle over in his hands so that he gripped the barrel of the gun. He wrapped both fists around it and gauged its weight. He gave a slight grin. It would do the job.

Sheen reached up with one hand and opened the door a crack. He listened intently, but the Yolkian didn't seem to have heard him. Sheen slowly pushed the door open with his head and walked inside, still crouching down to half his height.

The room was small, no larger than his bedroom at home. There was a table in the middle of the room and several beeping machines along the back wall. The Yolkian stood there, his back facing Sheen. The alien was running his hands along a pumping piston and then touched a few alien symbols shown on his computer's monitor.

Sheen closed the door as much as could without it clicking into place. He advanced towards the alien and stood up. As he got up, however, he knocked the table over a few inches. It made just enough noise for the Yolkian to turn around.

"Damn," Sheen angrily whispered while swinging the rifle into the Yolkian like a baseball bat. The Yolkian let out a shrill cry before his shell cracked and wobbled in the air. As the rifle finished its swing and came up to Sheen's shoulders, he picked it up over his head and slammed it down onto the exposed Yolkian's head. The shell loudly slammed into the floor. Globs of green slime stuck to the rifle and spewed onto the walls. The alien was still alive, however.

Sheen could tell that this was not one of the soldiers Jakar had described. The pathetic heap of slime at his feet crawled away as fast as it could, screaming in its alien tongue. He guessed that it was one of the crewmen. Sheen reached for its brain so that he could shut the damn thing up, but he accidentally grabbed the Yolkian's eye. He yanked it off of the Yolkian's body.

This only caused the alien to scream even louder. Sheen jumped onto the pile of goo and reached his hand deep inside the struggling Yolkian's body. He felt around near the remaining eye and finally found the brain. He dug his fingernails into the dense ball, making the Yolkian writhe around even more frantically. He yanked it out of his enemy's head and ripped the brain in half with his other hand. The Yolkian immediately turned grey and fell silent.

"What goes on in there?" he heard a voice shout from down the hall.

"Grab the weapons!" another voice screamed, this one closer.

Sheen acted fast. He dropped his rifle to the ground and pulled a Glock .22 pistol out from his waistband. He spun it around his index finger while jumping up in the air and kicking the table as hard as he could. Stacks of paper and bottles of glowing liquid spilled onto the floor. Sheen shoved the table against the door and hid behind it.

He braced his back against it and grabbed onto a nearby counter with his empty hand, praying that the table would hold. Several Yolkians tried to push the door open, but to no avail. Sheen tried to dig his feet into the floor, but the spilled liquid made him slip and flail about. He tried to hold the table in place, but the Yolkians were quickly overpowering him.

Sheen realized that they would file in in a matter of seconds. He'd have to attack first. He let go of the counter and pulled another pistol out of his waistband. He held the two guns up to his head, pointing up towards the ceiling. He took a deep breath, turned around, bent his feet against the table, and pushed off as hard as he could.

The Yolkians quickly opened the door, sending the table sliding across the room. There were five of them. A crewman led the way, and four soldiers hovered behind him. Sheen slid across the slippery floor towards the back wall. As soon as the door opened, he began pulling the triggers on his guns as fast as he could.

The Yolkians had never experienced guns before. Most of their weapons were melee based. The few ranged weapons that they had used plasma, not bullets. But they were incredibly smart and adaptive. After the crewmen in front of the soldiers went down, the remaining four Yolkians immediately formulated a strategy.

The four soldiers stared for a quick second at the fallen crewman beneath them. One of the soldiers stood in front of the other three and covered them as best he could. He was sacrificing himself to provide the others a shield. The other three Yolkians hid behind him in a straight line.

Sheen saw that he was not going to get through them this way. He dropped one of his pistols and pulled the spear out of his pocket. It was his only surprise left. The Yolkians didn't know that he had taken one of their own weapons.

Sheen pressed the first three buttons of the spear's activation sequence as he fired the last shots in his remaining pistol. Once it was empty, he tossed it to the ground and held down the red button on the spear while running forward.

He only got a quick glance at the damage he had done. The first Yolkian that he had shot was down on the floor, a heap of goo. The soldier that had served as a shield was also on the floor, bullets trapped inside him. The Yolkian that had stood behind the poor soul had its glass visor cracked, but was still able to fight. The two Yolkians behind him were unharmed.

The two Yolkians standing behind the damaged alien had their spears ready. So did Sheen. He charged at the line of enemies just as his spear fully extended, He saw the shocked expressions on his enemies' faces. He banked left and held the spear out to his right. It slammed right through the first two Yolkians' shells and began electrocuting the second one. The third soldier that stood last in the line stabbed Sheen.

It was now a one-on-one fight. The crew members lay on the floor. One was missing an eye and had its brain pulled out, the other was simply immobilized, having had his shell shot. The soldier that had served as a shield lay in a puddle on the ground. The two other soldiers had fallen to the floor, still connected by the spear. The spear sent continuing waves of electricity through its tip, thoroughly burning the second Yolkian. The one in front of it had had its brain pierced by the spear.

Sheen fell to the ground and began writhing in pain as the spear began electrocuting him. His entire body felt like it was on fire. Blackness swirled over him and began to envelop him. He could see his enemy's angry face as he was about to shove the spear in further.

Sheen had one shot, and he knew it. He reared back his legs and kicked the Yolkian as hard as he could. The alien flew backwards. The glass shield cracked, but didn't break. The Yolkian had hung onto the spear. The deadly device was yanked out of a screaming Sheen's side.

Sheen didn't have much time to waste. He quickly stared down at his right side. There was a hole near his ribcage, and blood was spilling out. Surprisingly, it wasn't bleeding too badly. The electricity had created enough heat to somewhat cauterize his wound. It was mostly superficial, actually. The spear hadn't penetrated too deeply. He doubted that any of his organs were hit. Luck was still on his side. At least for the moment.

Sheen ducked as the fierce alien flew towards him and thrust the spear where his chest had been. He punched the alien as hard as he could, but only managed to make it wobble back a few feet. He took this opportunity to dash out of the room.

Sheen ran as fast as he could, but the Yolkian could fly much faster. He only had a few seconds before the Yolkian regained its balance and caught up to him. He pulled another pistol out of his waistband and made sure a round was in the chamber.

Suddenly a crackling sound quickly overcame him. A spear covered in green goo went flying past him, only centimeters from his head. The one remaining soldier had yanked the spear out of the two pierced Yolkians and hurled it at him.

Sheen turned around and fired two shots at the Yolkian. Both hit his glass visor, but it still didn't break. Sheen couldn't believe it. The alien was either extremely lucky or had better armor than the others.

Sheen rounded a corner as a knife slammed into his leg. He screamed in agony and fell onto the ground. The Yolkian silently and swiftly hovered over Sheen, poised its spear, and thrust it downwards. Sheen rolled out of the way in the nick of time.

Sheen had had enough of this. He steadied his gun and aimed it pointblank at the Yolkian's control panel. He emptied the entire clip into it. The Yolkian's shell began to spew sparks. It fell onto the ground, shook for a few seconds, and then became still. The spear fell from his hands and retracted itself as it clanged onto the ground.

Sheen prayed to god that that had been the last soldier. There was no way he could take down another of those. Sheen struggled to climb to his feet. The knife was still stuck inside his right leg. He removed it, and blood poured out from the wound. He felt a little woozy. He had nothing to wrap it with. Even if he could bandage it up, he was nervous about the amount of blood being lost.

The Yolkian stared on in hatred as Sheen picked up its spear and held it to his leg. He initiated the activation sequence and watched as the three feet of metal extended. He held the flat part of the spear's tip to his wound. He gritted his teeth in pain as the electricity scorched his skin. Soon it enveloped his whole body, and he pulled the spear away just before he passed out.

He collapsed onto the ground, struggling to keep his eyes open. He looked down at his leg and gave a weak smile. The bleeding had nearly stopped. The electricity had cauterized the wound. He wouldn't die of blood loss. Not yet, at least. He crawled towards the fallen Yolkian and held the spear above it.

The alien's eyes held no fear. It was the polar opposite of the first crewman that he had killed just a few moments ago. Sheen wasn't impressed. He slammed the spear through the glass shield. It finally broke. He let out a sigh of satisfaction as he heard the Yolkian's body sizzle and burn up.

Sheen leaned back against the wall and breathed deeply. The soldiers were dead. Those were his main threat. But he didn't know how tough the rest of them would be. Were they all as frightened and cowardly as the first crewman? Or would they rush into battle like the one that had led the soldiers?

There was no more time to sit and think. He struggled to get to his feet. The world swirled around him and he bent over and threw up. He dropped his pistol and pulled another out of his waistband. He tossed it into his left hand and pulled his spear out of the Yolkian with his right. There were still seven more Yolkians to kill. He wasn't even halfway done.

Chapter 39: Two to Go

Sheen limped down the next hallway. He came up to a flight of stairs that led to the second floor of the ship. He tiredly glanced from the stairs to his injured leg. "Shit," he muttered while pick up his right leg and placing it on the first step.

Sheen knew that at least two of the Yolkians he had left downstairs were still alive. But he didn't have the time or energy to head back down and methodically rip each of their brains out. They're no threat in that puddle state. Besides, I could probably squeeze a little information out of them.

He suddenly froze as he reached the halfway point of the stairs. He clutched his throat and began to cough violently. He tried to quiet himself, not wanting to alert the rest of the Yolkians, but he couldn't help it. He collapsed onto the stairs and coughed so hard that he threw up. He noticed in horror that a good portion of his vomit was made up of blood. He looked down at the wound in his side. Maybe it hadn't been as superficial as he had thought.

The world seemed to darken as he finally reached the top of the stairs. He worried that he might be passing out, but he realized that the second level of the ship was using dark purple lights. He leaned against the wall of the stairwell and took a few deep breaths. He wanted to slide down to the floor and take a nap, but he knew that if he closed his eyes now, he wouldn't be opening them again. Groaning in pain all the while, he pushed off of the wall and continued limping down the hallway.

He wasn't as careful or quiet as he had been downstairs. He was hungry, dehydrated, bloody, limping, and nearly in shock. If any Yolkian wanted a piece of him, he'd freaking blow it out of the sky. He tossed the pistol onto the ground and took the shotgun off of his shoulder. He untied the pistols attached to it and put them in his waistband. "Time for a little payback," he muttered while pumping the shotgun. He leveled it in front of him and continued limping down the hall.

He looked around nervously while navigating the maze that was the ship's navigational floor. He could hear machines clacking and beeping from every direction. He didn't like being surrounded by sound.

It was hard to stay focused as he tried to figure out where he was in the ship and where he was heading. The only thing that kept him from going insane or giving up was that he wouldn't be fighting any more soldiers. Unbelievable. The crew is scared shitless, yet those things are the toughest and smartest soldiers I've ever seen. Pretty big difference.

Sheen noted that he would have to find out more about the Yolkian society. He hated them all and wanted to blow every one of those eggs out of the sky, but he couldn't help but be amazed by the complexity of their actions.

Sheen paused as he heard some voices. He was glad to hear that they were speaking English instead of that weird chirping language that the first crewman had used before Sheen had pulled its brain out.

He slowly edged his way down the hallway he was in and braced himself against the corner. He quickly took a look at what lay ahead and saw a door. There was some sort of a label on the entrance, but it was written in what looked like scribbles. But he could definitely hear Yolkians talking inside.

"Are they ok?" one of the aliens asked.

"They are class 3 soldiers. Of course they are ok. They just need time," another Yolkian answered.

"I am worried about Grabor. Why did he go with them? He is no soldier," a third voice mentioned his concerns.

There was a short, shrill squeak. "True, but he thinks himself as one," a fourth voice answered. Everyone in the room laughed. Sheen clutched his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Their laughter was worse than nails being scratched on a chalkboard.

As soon as they stopped squeaking, Sheen opened his eyes and stared straight at the door. At least four voices. Four Yolkians are in there. Sheen banged his head lightly against the wall and tried to think. I'm not in the mood to go in there guns blazing. Should I wait for them to come out?

The latter was the safest plan. Wait for them to leave the room, and then ambush them. He could easily pick two off with his shotgun before the others could even react. But his gut told him that this was the wrong idea. He looked down at the wounds in his stomach and leg. He wasn't feeling too hot. If he waited, he might be dead before they came out. It was a slim chance, but there might be medical supplies that he could use in there.

Sheen thought it over and finally nodded. He turned the door's knob and opened it slightly. He then kicked it open as hard as he could with his good leg.

Everyone in the room turned to see what had kicked the door. "Howdy," Sheen said with an insane smile pulling his shotgun's trigger. One of the crew was instantly thrown back against a wall. Sheen was affected by the recoil as well. He stumbled backwards and would have fallen if not for the wall he graciously slammed into. The gun was stronger than he had thought.

The Yolkians all looked towards each other as Sheen recovered from the recoil and leveled his gun at another Yolkian. They communicated with quick nods and slight gestures. Sheen paused a moment to study them. It was as if they communicated telepathically. Leave the research and observation to Jimmy, he thought while pulling his trigger.

But it was too late. The split second of hesitation had been long enough for the crewmen to relay their communications and form a plan. They split up into three different directions and hovered as fast as they could down three different hallways.

"Damn hen nuts," Sheen muttered while shifting his gaze from one hallway to the other. He finally decided on the one to his right and ran down it as fast as he could.

A series of clacks and high pitched squeals came from the ship's intercom systems. Sheen cursed the bastards under his breath. They are smart. They knew that he spoke English, and could therefore decipher their plans. They were strategizing with each other in their alien tongues.

Sheen was about to take a right when the ship suddenly lifted up off of the ground. He was slammed into the wall behind him. His eyes wobbled around in his sockets for a few moments as the ship danced in front of him.

The only thing that woke him up from his trance was a spear slamming into the wall a foot to the right of his head. "Curses," one of the Yolkians shouted before retreating behind a door.

Sheen ran straight ahead after the creature. He swung the door open and smiled. The Yolkian had run into a dead end. There was no way out of the room. Sheen had gotten lucky yet again. He leveled his shotgun at the alien several meters in front of him and smiled. "Adios, amigo," he said while pumping his gun and pulling the trigger. The Yolkian's shell exploded into a pile of glass and slime.

Five to go, he reminded himself while heading out of the room. The ship lurched again, but this time he grabbed onto the doorframe and managed to steady himself. He shook off the light dizziness that quickly passed over him and continued on his way.

Sheen backtracked his way to the central room he had entered a moment before. He looked at the other two hallways that the Yolkians had run down. He scanned each one before setting off on the one to his left.

Sheen encountered three Yolkians immediately after he rounded the first corner. They stood side by side brandishing pistol-like weapons in their hands. The two opposing species stared at each other for a moment before the Yolkians opened fire. Sheen retreated and ducked behind a corner.

Sheen waited a moment and then took another look. He noticed that the Yolkian in the center had a design of a ship imprinted on his armor. "Must be a pilot," he mused.

Sheen shook his thoughts aside and pulled a pistol out of his waistband, dropping the shotgun to the floor. He made sure a round was in the chamber by pulling the slide back. He peeked around the corner long enough to get two shots out before another barrage of plasma came his way.

This time Sheen followed the plasma with his eyes as it flew by him. It slammed into the row of computers and machines at the other end of the room. They hit the metal and instantly bubbled, eating away the machines. He gulped. A single hit of that stuff could take off a limb or burn his stomach away.

He waited a few moments and then fired five more shots, pulling his head back not a second too soon. The balls of plasma flew past his head close enough to set his hair on fire. He immediately put it out by slapping his head, but it was a terrifying experience.

Sheen thought a moment. He wasn't sure if he had hit any Yolkians yet. He wasn't risking peeking his head out to look. He barely had enough time to fire random shots before getting his head burnt off. He shot a bullet into the wall, and a chip of the material fell off. He threw it down the hallway, and two balls of plasma flew back at him. Two of them left.

He stuck only his arm out and fired three more shots. Two more volleys of plasma flew at him.

Sheen ejected the nearly empty magazine and crisply locked another one into place. He held the gun up by his face before jumping sideways. He fired the gun as fast as he could while flying through the air, getting off three shots that made their way down the hallway. One hit a Yolkian's glass visor, sending it spinning around and making it lose its balance.

Sheen landed hard into the wall. His right arm screamed pain, but he had no choice but to ignore it. He pulled another gun out of his waistband and readied himself. He then ran back to his previous hiding spot, firing eight bullets. They finally succeeded in taking down his targets.

Sheen waited for the volley of return fire to whiz by him as he braced himself against the wall. None came. He counted to twenty, but there was just silence. Sheen put the pistols back in his waistband and picked up his fallen shotgun. He pumped it and carefully stepped out into the open.

There was still no return fire. The three Yolkians lay on the ground. Two were outside their shells, lying in puddles. The third was still in its shell, but motionless. Sheen walked a little closer to it and fired his shotgun at it. The control panel sizzled and spewed out smoke. Satisfied, he set off down the hallway. He still had two pilots to take care of.

Chapter 40: Making Humpty Dumpty Talk

Sheen struggled to continue walking down the twisting hallways. He was still brandishing his shotgun. He pumped it once more; just to be sure that a shell was ready to be fired. He turned another corner, swung the gun in front of him, and saw no enemies. He lowered his gun slightly and took a deep breath.

He finally came up to a door at the end of a hallway. He had no idea how long he had been navigating the maze of corridors. For all he knew he had been walking in a giant circle. Slowly, he limped up to the door.

He kicked it open with his good leg and aimed his shotgun straight ahead. The final two pilots were in the small room. Hundreds of buttons, dozens of monitors, and three seats were all that was in the small area. One of the pilots sat calmly in his seat, maneuvering the ship through all of the chaos. The other Yolkian stood in front of Sheen, an electric spear in his hands.

Sheen didn't was in no condition for another elaborate shootout. He pulled his trigger, and the alien's shell exploded as his control panel short-circuited. The spear fell to the ground and retracted itself. Sheen turned his attention to the other pilot, who was still maneuvering the ship. Sheen saw that his body was trembling and his fingers were twitching, however.

Sheen bent down and yanked the fallen pilot's brain out. He then stood back up and closed the door to the room. He took a few steps forward and nudged the shotgun into the remaining pilot's back. "Hey, Humpty Dumpty, stop the ship." The pilot continued pressing buttons, and the ship didn't stop.

Sheen hesitated for a few seconds. He needed this Yolkian. But if it wasn't going to help him, he was impeding his progress and would be destroyed. He decided to give the alien one more chance.

Sheen slammed the shotgun into the Yolkian's glass visor, which promptly shattered. The Yolkian fell to the ground and started to spill out onto the floor. Sheen quickly kneeled down and pushed the green goo back into its shell, but not before ripping one of the alien's eyes out. The Yolkian let out a high pitched screen of pain.

Sheen picked up the Yolkian and placed him in the pilot's seat. The Yolkian wobbled a little, but soon regained its balance. Sheen shoved his hand into the Yolkian's body and wrapped his fingers around the quivering creature's brain.

"I have had enough of you freaks. STOP THE SHIP!" He shouted as loud as he could while tightening his grip on the Yolkian's brain.

"Ok!" The alien shouted while feverishly pressing buttons. A few seconds passed, and the ship slowed down. "It's stopping!"

Sheen's arms began shaking. The shotgun was becoming too heavy, and he was getting tired. He dropped the shotgun and pulled a lighter pistol out of his waistband. "Good. You keep doing as I say and you might get through this in one piece."

The Yolkian continued trembling in silence as Sheen pondered his next move. "You know how to fly this ship?" He finally asked.

The alien continued to shake in both fear and silence. Sheen scraped his index finger's fingernail against the Yolkian's brain. "Yes," it immediately answered.

Sheen nodded, satisfied. "What's your name?"

"Dopsil," the Yolkian replied.

"Dopsil, I want you to make your autopilot fly this ship to the Yolkian home world."

The Yolkian ran his hands along the control panel in front of him, pressing numerous buttons and flicking switches all the while. Sheen kept his grip on the Yolkians brain, occasionally pinching a part of it. After a few seconds, the Yolkian stopped inputting commands and held his hand over a single button.

"You'll never get through our planet's defenses in one piece," he told Sheen as forcefully as he could muster.

Sheen smiled. "Don't worry about that. Just get me there."

Dopsil stared at him for another couple of seconds before pressing the final button. The ship abruptly stopped, and then changed direction. "Good, very good," Sheen said while taking his hand out of the Yolkian's body. "How long until we reach your world?" He questioned while sitting down in the seat next to Dopsil.

Dopsil pressed a few more buttons and stared at the monitor in front of him. "In human terms, around twenty-three hours."

Sheen nodded while leaning farther back in his seat. He clutched his stomach wound and breathed deeply. "Now teach me how to fly this thing."

Dopsil let out a shrill squeak, but was quickly silenced by a menacing glance from Sheen. "Human, it can take two cycles to become qualified to pilot this ship. Learning how to activate the coolant systems alone could take..."

Sheen clenched his teeth and held his pistol less than an inch away from the Yolkian's one remaining eye. Dopsil immediately froze and fell silent. "I suggest," Sheen uttered with a tired frown, "that you give me a crash course."

For the next hour, Dopsil quickly went over the basic controls for the ship. He taught Sheen how to steer, how to accelerate and decelerate, where the emergency escape pods were, and a few other fundamental tasks. Sheen struggled to keep his eyes open and concentrate. He was dying of thirst.

"Are you alright?" Dopsil warmly asked. He noticed that Sheen seemed to be fading away. Sheen coughed violently for a moment and shook his head. Dopsil reached towards a compartment in his shell and was about to push a button when Sheen spoke.

"Reach for that spear and I rip your brain out," Sheen groaned.

Dopsil immediately withdrew his hand and sat back in his seat. Sheen weakly drummed his fingers against the control panel. Alright, I've learned all I can from this guy. "Dopsil, I will now take you to the escape pods. Since you've helped me, I will let you go, as promised."

Dopsil stared at his captor quizzically while slowly getting out of his chair. "Really?"

Sheen laughed while lightly slapping the Yolkian on the back. "Of course. Come on, show me where they are."

The Yolkian moved in front of Sheen and began to hover across the room. Suddenly, Sheen lashed out with his left hand, shoved it inside the Yolkian, and ripped its brain out. The entire process took less than two seconds.

Sheen watched as the Yolkian fell to the ground and spilled out of its container. Its color changed from bright green to a dull grey. Sheen gave the brain in his hand one final squeeze before throwing it down onto the ground.

"Sorry," he said while wiping the goo from his hand onto his pants, "but if I couldn't trust my own friends to rescue me, how could I trust you?"

Sheen stared down at the fallen Yolkian for another second before holstering his pistol. He wiped the last few drops of slime from his hand and walked out of the pilots' room.

"Twenty-two more hours to kill," Sheen mumbled to himself while walking through the maze of hallways. "I hope I last that long."

Sheen bent over and clutched his knees. He coughed violently for two more minutes, and then finally vomited. He wiped his mouth and saw blood on the top of his arm. He touched his nose and saw that it was bleeding again. He was suffering the symptoms of the final stages of dehydration. Without the Yolkians to fight, there was nothing to distract him from the cold hard truth. He was about to die.

He continued to absent-mindedly limp his way through the ship as his mind wandered. I don't think I've lost too much blood. Close to life-threatening, but not quite fatal. But I need water.

As he pondered that last thought, he tripped over his own feet and landed flat on the ground. "Darn it," he moaned while struggling to stand up. He rubbed his left knee, which had absorbed the worst of the fall. He then noticed that there was a door to his right.

"Where the heck am I walking to, anyway?" he inquired while staring at the door. He shrugged and walked inside.

Sheen spun around and stared at the room as he walked into it. The purple lights that occupied the second floor had been replaced by the familiar yellow lighting that Sheen was used to. Several comfy chairs lined the walls. A table sat in the center of the room, with an array of technological devices sitting on top of it. Sheen hobbled over to the table and picked up a small circular object. He pressed a blue button, and strange symbols scrolled across the screen. He tried to figure out what they meant, but he couldn't decipher it. He dropped it back onto the table and continued examining the room.

As he finished looking around the room, his tired and glazed eyes suddenly lit up. In the far right corner of the room was what looked to be the alien equivalent of a refrigerator. Sheen hobbled over to it and tried to open it, but it was locked. He shot the handle several times, and the door swung open.

"Sweet mother of Ultralord," he whispered while his jaw dropped. Inside the refrigerator were several bottles of a green, lumpy liquid. His mouth immediately watered, and he licked his chapped lips.

Sheen knew that it was foolish to guzzle down a strange, alien liquid. For all he knew, it was some kind of motor oil for their robotic shells. But he was far too thirsty to care. He grabbed one of the cylindrical bottles and tried to open the cap, but it wouldn't budge.

"Don't panic!" He frantically screamed while using the last of his strength to pull on the cap. It still didn't move. He was about to give up when he saw a small red button on the side of the bottle. He pushed it, and the cap was immediately thrown off of the bottle and fell onto the floor.

Sheen stared at the liquid as it began to bubble. He glanced at the fridge, but saw no other beverages. It was the green goop or nothing. "Well," he muttered while swirling the contents of the bottle, "here we go. Over the lips, through the gums, yada yada here it comes."

Sheen bent his head back and began to guzzle the drink. The liquid part of the beverage washed over his cracked throat and down to his stomach. Sheen found that he had to swallow the floating chunks of matter.

After guzzling it down, he threw the bottle across the room and started coughing. The liquid had tasted like mustard, chocolate, and orange soda. The solid lumps reminded him of Brussels sprouts.

Sheen finally stopped coughing and grabbed another bottle from the fridge. He guzzled it down, and then another, and then other. He paused and threw up from drinking so fast. He wiped his chin and slowly drank from one more bottle while continuing to take a tour of the ship. His leg was on fire, he was twenty-two hours away from any human life, his side screamed in pain, and he was covered in vomit and blood. But as he polished down the last bottle of the foul-tasting beverage, he had never felt better.

Chapter 41: The Final Plan

Back on Minerva, everyone was just about done loading the few supplies that they had onto the rockets. Jimmy was underneath one of his rollercoaster's carts, trying to reattach some wires and remove the rocks embedded in it.

"Knock knock," Nick said as he and Cindy knelt down on the ground beside the rollercoaster.

"Is everyone ready?" Jimmy asked while crawling out from under the cart.

"All the supplies are onboard, Jimmy," Cindy told him while extending her hand.

"Good," he answered while grabbing her palm. She hoisted him up and he dusted off his ripped jeans. "Is everyone in their rockets?"

"Pretty much," Cindy said as he let go of her hand. "Nick and I just wanted to run something by you before they finished strapping themselves in. We think that we should get three other kids to fly the rockets so that Nick, you, and I can sit in one of the carts alone and strategize."

Jimmy quickly pondered her proposal, and came up with a response almost immediately. "Yes, that is a good idea," he told the two of them. "Everyone here is capable of flying the rockets. Besides, we'll need more than a rough plan if we are to get our parents back."

Cindy smiled. "Excellent. I'll go find three pilots." She spun around and sashayed her way towards Ike.

Nick looked to his left and noticed Jimmy staring after her. "You are so in love with her," he laughed while adjusting the canvas bag strewn over his shoulder and hopping into one of the rollercoaster's carts.

Jimmy just smiled as he watched Cindy strike up a conversation with Ike. "No argument," he dreamily replied before spinning around and hopping into the cart with Nick.

"This is Captain Neutron, repeat, Captain Neutron. Requesting sound off of three pilots," Jimmy calmly spoke into his headset. Cindy and Nick sat on either side of him, listening intently to their own headsets.

"Ike reporting in," Ike struggled to answer through the cigarette clenched in his teeth. He took his hands off of the rollercoaster's steering wheel and lit the stick dangling from his lips. "Ready to kick some ass, chief."

"Pilot of Ferris wheel sounding off," Betty calmly answered while chewing on a few strands of her long brown hair. "Waiting for the green light to disengage from Minerva."

"Third pilot sounding off," Brittany spoke in an unusually serious tone. "Give me the word, Jimmy, and I'm pushing this bird as far as she'll go."

Jimmy squinted his eyes. There was a good chance that this would be his last time taking off in a rocket. "Green light, everyone. Activate thrusters!" he shouted.

All of the children in the three rockets grabbed a hold of anything they could as the thrusters powered up. Cindy and Nick looked to Jimmy, silently asking whether the ship could fly after the damage from the asteroid belt, but he simply stared straight ahead. He tightened his grip on the seat beneath him and gritted his teeth. "It'll hold," he assured them.

All of the passengers in the three rockets were suddenly thrown backwards into their seats as the vehicles lifted off and exited Minerva's atmosphere. Even Jimmy found himself holding his breath as the ship lurched and pitched to the right. "It'll hold," he assured himself.

Then, the rumbling stopped. The entire army held in their breath for a moment later, and then exploded into cheers. "This is Pilot Quinlan, reporting that we have exited the atmosphere and are in for a smooth ride to the mother ship."

Jimmy leaned back and loosened his grip on his seat. He looked down and was surprised to see that his fingernails had dug holes into the padded cushions. "Cindy, Nick, and Libby, set your frequency to private channel four. We're going to need some alone time to plan for this mission."

His three friends nodded and changed their headset's frequency from the common channel that everyone used to a private channel. The four of them could only hear, and be heard, by the four of them. "Sound off," Jimmy instructed.

"Libby Folfax operating on private channel four," Libby quickly answered.

"Cynthia Vortex operating on private channel four."

"Nick here."

Jimmy took a quick second to shoot Nick a reprimanding glance for his casual reply. Nick met the gaze with confidence, and both the boys looked away at the same time. Cindy stared on, amused at the subtle power play.

"Moving on," Nick finally spoke while unzipping his canvas bag, "here are a few things we can use." Nick grabbed a notebook and a pen from the bag, clicked the pen, and handed them both for Jimmy. "For illustrating your plan," he explained. Jimmy nodded and took the two items.

Nick rummaged through the various supplies in the bulky bag before finally pulling out two pistols. "Like I said before, we only have seven guns. Since you're not the main attack force, this is all I can spare you. Use them wisely. I can't give you any extra ammunition," he told them, a pang of regret evident in his voice.

Cindy and Jimmy nodded as they examined the guns, made sure that the safety was on, and placed them in their waistbands. "Now let's go over your plan," Nick said while zipping his bag shut and putting his feet on top of it.

Jimmy nodded once more and began drawing a quick sketch of a Yolkian ship on the notebook's first page. "Now, I don't know exactly how big this ship is or what it looks like..."

"Sorry to interrupt," Libby suddenly chimed in, "but I've got some info that may be of help. Goddard's helped me hack into the observational site that you installed on Pluto. I was able to focus the cameras on the Yolkian ship's coordinates. The ship is roughly a kilometer across and around three hundred meters vertically tall."

The three kids on the rockets sat in silence. The ship was much larger than Jimmy had anticipated. But the larger the ship, the easier it would be to sneak up on. "Can you give me a rough estimate on hostile resistance?"

Libby tapped a few keys, her hands seeming to float along the keyboard in the control room. "Processing," her warm and soothing voice told them. But beneath her calm tone, he could sense sadness in her voice. The loss of Sheen had hurt her badly, and she couldn't hide it.

Several seconds later the faint sound of keys being pushed down and flips being switched stopped being sent over the headsets and into the three leaders' ears. "Based on what we know about their fighting styles, ships, and past confrontations - which by the way isn't a lot of data - my estimates put the enemy force at approximately three thousand Yolkians."

"Three thousand?" he shouted while lurching forward and staring incredulously at the drawing of the ship resting on Jimmy's knees.

"More or less," Libby quickly answered. "I'm basing this information on how many Yolkians manned the few ships we've seen before. It's all strictly hypothetical. The ship would hold a maximum capacity of over five thousand Yolkians."

Cindy joined Nick in staring incredulously at Jimmy. Jimmy noticed their stares and tried to put on a brave front. He was their leader, and one of a leader's duties was to keep up morale. He thoughtfully tapped the pen against his chin, trying to control the shaking of his hand. "Well, it appears that we may be outnumbered a little more than I had thought."

Libby pressed a few more buttons on the computer and pulled up the roster of the kids involved in the mission. Carl, Mike, and Goddard had worked on it two nights before. It was split into two sections, the faction of kids on Earth, and those traveling through space. She opened up the roster of the soldiers in space and tallied the total.

"You have one hundred and thirty-seven sold..." she suddenly stopped mid-sentence and felt her eyes begin to water. Stow it, she angrily told herself. They need you right now.

"One hundred and thirty-six soldiers," she corrected, remembering to not include Sheen in her tally. The roster on the monitor in front of her listed his status as KIA; killed in action.

Cindy, Nick, and Jimmy sat in silence, both in a moment of silence for their fallen comrade and to think about how horrendously they were outnumbered.

"If there are three thousand troops, you're outnumbered a little more than twenty-two to one," Libby told them, seeming to read their minds.

Jimmy chewed on the end of the pen, pointing the ballpoint at the reinforced steel wall in front of him. "Well, battles have been won with worse odds."

Nick was about to counter with a sarcastic "Name one," but he held it in. Jimmy had yet to steer them wrong, and he deserved Nick's trust. At least until he told them the specifics of his plan.

Jimmy finally spoke. "Thanks for the information, Libby. Please withhold all further data until I'm done my presentation," he told her as nicely as he could.

Libby tried to tell whether he was angry or not at her interruption. She finally gave up and leaned back in the padded leather chair. "Yes sir."

Jimmy took the pen out from his mouth and tapped his seat with it. "Ok, let's move on. This is Ergo 22, the planet that Nick's squad will wait on," Jimmy told his audience while drawing a circle at the very edge of the paper. "Now, when reviewing the plan that I told you all earlier today, I noticed one problem."

Jimmy cleared his throat and ran a hand through his grimy hair. He hadn't washed it or taken a shower in days. "I said that the three rockets would land on the planet. Then, Cindy and I would empty the kids out of one of the rockets and take it to the mother ship, leaving its occupants on the ground. I had assumed that Nick's two rockets could give them a lift to the mother ship, but now I realize that he won't have the means to do that. All three rockets are filled to absolute capacity. There is no way that you can put another forty-something kids from my rocket onto two of yours," he said while motioning to Nick.

"Let's hear the plan," Nick told Jimmy, eager to hear what his fellow soldier had cooked up.

A small smile spread across Jimmy's lips. "What I have in mind is, to put it mildly, risky. I am not prepared to leave those forty-something kids on an alien planet while the rest of our army fights the Yolkians. We need every man and woman that we can get our hands on to fight. Leaving the kids on that planet would tear our offensive forced down by a third. That is unacceptable."

"Instead," he continued, "Ike will pilot this rocket to the mother ship. He will drop Cindy and me off on top of the hull of the ship. Ike will then head to Ergo 22 and wait with the other two rockets until I give the word for the three shiploads of kids to join the fight."

Cindy pondered Jimmy's plan, not seeing why he had labeled it risky. "Jimmy, what exactly is so dangerous about that?"

Jimmy was surprised that she hadn't figured that out. "The Yolkians are supposed to believe that you and I are the only ones trying to rescue our parents. If they spot the ship flying away, then they'll know that there is a pilot onboard, and therefore another kid. If we're captured, I might be able to convince them it was Goddard or an autopilot. But if they see the other occupants of the rocket, they'll know about Nick's force and they'll lose the element of surprise."

"Damn," Nick suddenly swore under his breath while clenching his fist.

"Indeed," Jimmy agreed, "but it is the only way. We'll have to hope that luck will be on our side."

Cindy nodded as she took all of this in. "Ok, so we've covered getting onto the Yolkian ship, but how do we get into it?"

Jimmy motioned for Cindy and Nick to bend over and look at the drawing lying across his knees. He drew two small stick figures on top of the ship. It was oddly humorous, but they squelched their laughter.

"Libby, I need you to take a look at those images of the mother ship. Tell me if there is a hatch or other entry point on the top of the hull," Jimmy instructed.

Libby quickly kicked her foot off of the nearby wall and rolled across the room. She slammed the tip of her shoes onto the ground, which served as a brake. The chair stopped in front of a computer not currently in use for the myriad of tasks that control team constantly needed to complete. She tapped a few keys and accessed the observatory on Pluto.

"Hang on," she told her friends on the rocket. "Got the pictures. Zooming in, touching up the resolution, searching for entry points," she muttered each step that she took aloud as she ran her hands along the keyboard. "Jimmy, I'm sorry, but I can't zoom in enough. It was a stretch finding that water on Minerva, and this ship is a lot farther out than that. The best I can do is judge its approximate size. You're going to have to find your own way in."

Jimmy clenched his teeth in anger. His frustration wasn't directed at Libby, she was doing a remarkable job in spite of her immense loss. No, he was mad because luck appeared to be nowhere near his side. And he would need its help on the mission to come. "Understood," he finally told Libby.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. "Alright. Cindy, you and I are going to scan that ship when we land on it. If there's a hatch topside, then we'll break in that way. If not, then we can enter through a garbage chute, exhaust systems, or even pry open the hangars to the escape pods. But the hatch would be much easier, safer, and stealthier."

Cindy and Nick nodded. "And once you two get inside?" Nick asked.

Jimmy closed his eyes and racked his brain for ideas. "First off, we might be able to use my DNA scanner to find where our parents are in the ship. I'm not sure what the range is. If we do get their location, we can radio their position to your team, Nick."

"And how do we proceed?" Cindy asked.

"As I've previously stated, we'll covertly take out as many Yolkians as we can before we get captured or killed. If we can reach the control room, I might be able to hack into the Yolkian's computer system. That could give us a nice advantage. I could seal off some of the ship, trapping Yolkians inside so that we wouldn't have to deal with them."

"But," he sadly continued, "that is more of a dream than reality. Even if we could fight our way to the control room, it would take time to learn how to hack into the alien computer. Other guards would kill us before I could do anything. No, we'll simply have to take out as many guards as we can."

"And my squad?" Nick asked.

Jimmy wiped a few nervous beads of sweat from his brow. "As I said before, we will either be killed or captured. If Cindy and I are killed, you will hear it on the headsets. Wait around a day before your attack, so as to allow the Yolkians to let their guard down. If we're captured, we'll utter the phrase, 'alright, you caught us'. Then wait a day so that we can tell the Yolkians that we came alone."

Nick took a moment to absorb that information. "Got it."

"There are also two other code words I want you to know," Jimmy continued. "Any plan, no matter how perfectly made, has a chance of going awry. We may have to quickly change tactics. If I shout the phrase 'Swarm! Swarm!' I want you and your team to come in guns blazing, ready to fight. If I say 'Cloak the dagger' that means that I want you and your team to come in silently and stealthily. Understand?" he asked.

Nick nodded. "Got it. Anything else?"

Jimmy looked to Cindy, who simply shrugged in response. Jimmy let out a deep sigh and peeled a small piece of skin out from beneath his fingernail. "No, nothing else. Let's all get some rest. Thirty-six hours from now, we're finishing this fight. One way or the other."

Chapter 42: More Goodbyes

The next night, Nick was still sitting in the rollercoaster's cart with Cindy and Jimmy. They were both sleeping soundly, along with the majority of other kids on the three rockets. He braced his feet against the wall opposite him and glanced down at Jimmy's watch. Thirty-four hours since we left that planet. Can't be long now.

Nick was far too anxious to sleep. He had spent the better part of last night trying to succumb to unconsciousness, but had given up somewhere around midnight. He simply sat in his seat, continually ejecting and reinserting his pistol's fully loaded magazine.

"Nick, Jimmy, Cindy? Anyone in rollercoaster cart five reading me?" Betty asked.

Nick placed his gun back down on the seat and held his headset's microphone to his mouth. "Nick here. What's up, Betty?"

Betty pressed a few buttons on her dashboard and stared ahead of her. "I'm closing in on the mother ship, Nick. Got here a few minutes earlier than expected. Libby, if you're listening, can you give me an ETA?"

"Reading you loud and clear Pilot Two," Libby immediately answered. She got up off of her seat and strolled over to Carl's computer. He was monitoring the rocket's positions. She saw that the three rocket ships were indeed closing in on the Yolkians. "Give me a minute to process the data."

"Already on it!" Mike's voice shouted out from the other end of the lab. "ETA is nineteen minutes, plus or minus two. You guys better gear up!" He told Nick and Betty.

Nick nodded on his end. "Betty, Ike, Brittany, slow down the rockets. I want at least half an hour before we reach that mother ship. I've got to wake Jimmy and Cindy."

There was a short pause as all of the rockets noticeably slowed down. "Roger that, speed cut in half," Betty told Nick.

Ike tossed his nearly burnt up cigarette onto the floor of the rollercoaster's piloting cart and took a sip of the only soda he had managed to salvage from Little Boy. "General Dean, Ike here. Wake up the suicide team and get them ready. I'm landing on that mother ship in thirty minutes."

Nick was taking the cap off his, Cindy's, and Jimmy's water bottle. He took a small sip and splashed a few drops onto his face. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair and shook his head wildly, sending drops of water onto the sleeping Jimmy and Cindy. "Understood, Ike. Waking them up now."

Nick screwed the water bottle shut and rubbed his palms together. "Hope you two had a good night's sleep," he said while pausing over the sleeping Cindy and Jimmy. A hint of sadness crept into his voice. "Don't make it your last, alright?"

Cindy's long gone fantasy suddenly came true as she woke up to see Nick kneeling over her. "Wake up, sleeping beauty," he jokingly told her while gently shaking her shoulders. As she slowly opened her eyes, he shook her harder.

"Ugh," was all she moaned while rubbing her aching back. Three people sleeping in a single roller coaster cart hadn't exactly been five star accommodations.

"Scrambled eggs for breakfast," Nick told her while moving onto the task of waking up Jimmy. He turned back to Cindy and gave her a slight smile. "But you've got to kill them first."

Cindy felt around the floor for her pistol and pulled the slide back, making sure a round was chambered. "No problem," she said with an evil grin. At long last, her years of karate training were about to pay off.

As Cindy prepped her gun, Nick grabbed the half-dead Jimmy's hand and hoisted him up. "What time is it?" Jimmy mumbled while yanking his hand out of Nick's.

"Six o'clock in the evening," the general answered, "but does that really matter out in space?"

"Good evening," Cindy sweetly said as Jimmy eyed her. He gave a curt nod in response.

"Ike's dropping you two off in less than half an hour," Nick instructed them. "So get packing."

Good advice, Jimmy amusedly thought, but there's not too much to pack. He made sure his tattered clothes were on, holstered his pistol, and grabbed a piece of the alien fruit from sitting on the top of Nick's supply bag.

Jimmy tapped his headset's microphone and heard a hissing sound. Satisfied that it was working, he checked in with his pilot. "Ike, you reading me?"

"Loud and clear, chief," came the quick response. "Did General Dean fill you in?"

"He gave me the gist," Jimmy answered.

"Sleep well?" the pilot asked.

"Best hotel room since I stayed at the Hilton," he sarcastically muttered.

Ike let out a small smile, his first in many days. "I'm guessing you didn't just call to catch up on your correspondence. What do you need?"

"Ike, I need to give you the instructions on how to drop Cindy and me off. Listen carefully, take if down if you need to."

Ike pressed a few buttons on the rocket's dashboard. "Computer's recording your instructions. Shoot."

"Ike, I need you to fly the ship as slowly and stealthily as you can up to the mother ship. Then, cut acceleration and float above the ship. Turn the entire ship upside down and descend as close as you can get to the mother ship. I'll open the protective glass visor encasing this particular cart and Cindy and I will drop down onto the rocket."

"Roger that, instructions received. ETA is twenty minutes. I'll perform the operation then," Ike answered.

"Excellent. Neutron out," Jimmy said while sitting back down on his seat.

Nick stared at Jimmy for a minute. "Something wrong?" Jimmy finally asked.

"Well, um," Nick began, "I hate to nitpick, but wouldn't your plan mean that I'll fall onto the mother ship with you two?"

Cindy was standing in the corner of the cart, which was only a foot or two away. She was twisting her hair into a ponytail, listening to Jimmy's plan. She suddenly stopped adjusting her hair and turned around to face Jimmy and Nick.

Jimmy shook his head no. "Nick, you're going to have to find something to grab onto in this ship and hang on. The visor will only be open for a second. Ike will close it, and you can let go."

Nick hesitated, then nodded. "Sure. Good thing I've been working out," he mumbled while turning around and discreetly flexing one of his muscles.

Cindy snickered as she resumed fixing her hair. She then took a seat next to Jimmy and tried to think of what to talk about for their last few minutes before descending into the bowels of their enemy's ship. For once, she found nothing to say.

Neither could the two boys. Nick, Cindy, and Jimmy spent the next fifteen minutes in silence, the only sound coming from the steady smack! of Nick slamming his ejected magazine back into his Glock .22. The minutes quietly flew by, ticking away their last moments together. Just as the silence was about to drive Jimmy mad, Ike's voice interrupted their thoughts.

"We're about a minute away from the ship. Any last minute instructions?"

"Just close the glass screen once we've exited the cart for Nick. That's about it."

"Roger that," Ike responded. A few more seconds of silence passed, and the three children inside the cart looked through the transparent protective screen. The Yolkian mother ship seemed to be slowly gliding past them as Ike flew past it. It suddenly disappeared as Ike pulled above the ship and floated several dozen meters above it.

"The other ships are on their way to Ergo," Ike told Jimmy. "I'm above the ship. Want me to flip 'er over?"

Cindy was about to give her pilot the go ahead, but Jimmy lashed his right hand out in a signal for her to stay quiet.

"Not yet, Ike. Stay like this for another minute. Wait until I give you the order to roll over."

"Understood," Ike said while leaning back in his seat, keeping both of his hands steadily clasped onto the controls.

"Nick," Jimmy began, "there's one more thing that I have to go over about this plan. I've been debating about whether to talk about it, for it's rather..." he stopped speaking, struggling to find the right word. "It's rather...morbid," he finally finished.

"What is it?" Nick questioned.

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. "If Cindy and I are captured, then you are to invade the Yolkian ship. We've already gone over that. You and your squad will have the element of surprise. But that advantage will not last forever. Obviously, the Yolkians will know that you are onboard soon enough. Once they realize that there was another part of the rescue team, they will use Cindy and myself as hostages."

Cindy and Nick both stared at Jimmy, more puzzled than anything. "What do you mean?" Nick asked.

Jimmy sadly continued. "I mean, Goobot will let you know that he has Cindy and myself under his control. He will use us as a bargaining chip. He'll do something like say that he'll kill Cindy and me unless you and your squad surrender."

"Oh," Nick dejectedly said. Things are not looking good for Jimmy.

Jimmy noticed Nick break his gaze and stare down at the floor. "General, listen to me," Jimmy sternly said as angrily as he could muster. It was extremely important that Nick listen to Jimmy's final order. Nick jumped a little at Jimmy's harsh tone, but immediately looked up and met his gaze.

"This is the most important order that I have ever given you," Jimmy solemnly explained. "I want you to obey it no matter what. Are you listening?" Nick nodded. "Good. No matter what Goobot or the Yolkians threaten to do to us, no matter what they do to us, you must not surrender. You must not give in to save Cindy and myself."

Nick stared at Jimmy. "I understand."

Jimmy immediately shook his head. "This isn't like in the movies, Nick. Don't surrender. In the movies, you would give up despite my orders. And then, due to some incredible strategizing, bravery, and teamwork, you would save Cindy and myself. But this isn't a movie. If you give up, they will kill all of us and our parents. There would be no way for you to save us. So, no matter what they threaten to do to the two of us, push on and leave us behind. Do you understand?" Jimmy asked. "Soldier?" he finished.

Nick stared admiringly at Cindy and Jimmy. Cindy had been intently listening to every word that Jimmy had just said, and showed no signs of disagreeing with him. In front of him stood two kids who were prepared to give anything for everyone else. "Understand, chief."

Jimmy nodded and gave a small, sad smile. "Good. Thank you."

The two boys stood in front of each other, Cindy once again watching and observing them. "Good luck, Jimmy," Nick said while extending his hand.

Jimmy grabbed Nick's outstretched palm and shook it. "Good luck, Nick."

Unbeknownst to them, they were still speaking into their headsets. The control team back on Earth and the soldiers in space were listening to this final exchange. Those who didn't have headsets were sharing the headphones with those who did. The bravery that Jimmy and Cindy were exhibiting bashed their fears and gave them hope. Surely people this brave, this pure, couldn't fail. And they would all do anything they could to help them.

Nick and Jimmy both smiled as they let go of each other's hands. Nick looked to Cindy, who seemed to be watching from the sidelines. "Good luck, valedictorian."

Cindy also smiled and shook Nick's hand. "Good luck, general."

The three kids stared at each other once more in silence. Jimmy finally looked away and wiped a tear from his eye. Damn goodbyes. Damn stupid goodbyes. Jimmy turned back around once his eyes were dry and cleared his throat. "Ike, roll this bastard over and let's get this party started."

"Damn right I will," Ike angrily answered while maneuvering the ship. His heart was filled with a new, intense hatred of the Yolkians. Sons of bitches. Making my friends form suicide teams, sacrificing their lives for the greater good, all of that crap. Let's see how you like it.

Everyone in the rocket who wasn't strapped down to their seats was flung onto the glass ceiling, which now became their floor. Nick grabbed onto the metal bar that kept the rollercoaster's riders into place as Cindy and Jimmy looked through the glass beneath them. The Yolkian ship was slowly coming up to meet them as Ike descended.

Jimmy was about to open the glass screen when Libby's voice swam through everyone's headsets. "Jimmy, Cindy," she tried to say, but ended up having to swallow several times before she could continue. "I...we...all of us will make sure everyone else knows about what you two did. Knows the sacrifice you made. If you don't...you know."

Cindy smiled at her best friend's words. She looked to Jimmy, and he nodded. "We know," she told Libby. "Thanks."

"We'll share that shake someday," Jimmy wretchedly told her. Libby sniffled and nodded at his words. Jimmy popped open the screen, and he and Cindy fell the seven feet down onto the rocket below.

As soon as they exited the ship, Ike closed the partition. Nick immediately pulled up his legs so that they wouldn't get caught as it closed. He let go of the steel bar and strapped himself into his seat. "Give 'em hell, you two."

Chapter 43: Agreeing to Live

Jimmy and Cindy fell the seven feet straight down onto the top of the Yolkian mother ship. They both attempted to shield their faces with their arms, but there wasn't enough time to successfully complete that task. They landed on the unforgiving metal with a sickening crack. "Give 'em hell, you two," Nick told the two of them.

Jimmy lay on the metal for a few more seconds, trying to gather his strength. "Ow," he summed up while standing up.

"Not your best idea," Cindy said as nicely as she could while getting up as well.

"Break anything?" Jimmy asked.

Cindy glared at him and took her left hand away from her swollen and bleeding nose. "What do you think?"

Jimmy quickly felt his nose, and breathed a sigh of relief as he found that it was uninjured. "Alright. Well, we better find some kind of a hatch to get into."

"Fine," Cindy mumbled while beginning her trek along the ship's hull. But as Ike's ship flew away from them at top speeds towards the white ball in the distance that was Ergo 22, both she and Cindy couldn't help but stare at it.

Jimmy watched as the rocket disappeared from his view as it circled to the far side of the planet. He and Cindy stared at each other at the same time. "Shall we get to work?" he asked her.

She nodded and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt. She gritted her teeth as she held it against her broken nose and squeezed. "Yeah, let's go."

The two members of the suicide team made their way across the hull; slowly at first as their bones screamed in agony from their fall, but gradually picking up speed. They realized that their aching bones were nothing compared to the pain that lay ahead.

With each step he took Jimmy moved a few centimeters closer to Cindy. When he was within two feet of her, he casually let his left hand brush against her right arm. Cindy noticed this and looked down. Jimmy began to innocently whistle, and she smiled. She grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers.

They swung their arms a little as they walked. They made sure to shove their joyous emotions and tingling skin aside, however. They knew that they had a job to do. They constantly scanned the hull for any sort of hatch. After ten minutes, they still hadn't found any means to enter the ship.

"Maybe we will have to enter through an exhaust pipe," Cindy finally told Jimmy.

Jimmy slowly nodded his head as his eyes quickly scanned the area around him. He abruptly came to a halt when he saw a rectangular metal box sitting on top of the hull far to his right. "See that?" he asked Cindy while pointing to the horizon on his right.

Cindy squinted her eyes and nodded. "Let's check it out," she eagerly offered while letting go of Jimmy's hand and dashing off to the odd structure. Jimmy quickly set after her, albeit at a slower pace.

Cindy slowed down so that Jimmy could keep up with her and they both slid to a halt in front of the structure. They split up and walked around it. Cindy checked the back, and Jimmy inspected the front.

Cindy stopped her investigation and walked over to Jimmy as she heard him let out a low, shrill whistle. "What's up?"

Jimmy smiled as he pointed to a small keypad attached to the far right of the front of the box. "Looks like this may be our way in."

Cindy tilted her head and looked closer at the keypad. There were three rows of three buttons, but the buttons didn't have numbers inscribed on them. There were strange symbols and drawings on each of the green buttons. "We don't know the code. We don't even know if this is a door," she said while shaking her head. Her words were true. The box was completely silver and smooth, no hinges or any other signs that it was a door. It seemed to simply be an oblong extension of the ship.

Cindy watched as Jimmy continued to examine the device. "This is very interesting, Cindy. What do these symbols remind you of?"

He shuffled a little to his right so as to allow Cindy room. She joined him in staring at the keypad. She looked more closely at the symbols on the buttons. "They're..." she began before pausing. She was puzzled. She was about to admit defeat when a light bulb went off in her head. "They're almost like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics."

"Spot on," Jimmy proudly praised her. "Not an exact likeness, of course. There are some minor deviations from several key Egyptian symbols, but the similarity is uncanny."

Both Jimmy and Cindy suddenly looked up from the strange keypad as static buzzed in their headsets. Cindy looked to Jimmy for an explanation, but he merely shrugged.

"Libby here." Libby's voice suddenly pierced the static. "Sorry about the interference. Control Team's got it patched up. How are you two doing?" Cindy noticed that Libby seemed a lot calmer then when she had bid them goodbye less than twenty minutes ago.

"Fairly good," Jimmy answered. "I think that we've got a way in. Hang on; I'm going to try to get this door. Cindy, you're stronger than me. I need you to use your gun like a hammer and smash this keypad off the wall."

Cindy nodded while pulling her pistol out of her waistband and making sure that the safety was on. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered all of her strength. Her eyelids quickly fluttered open, and she gripped the butt of the pistol in both hands. She swung it as hard as she could, and a large dent appeared in the keypad. Frowning, she spun around and kicked the dented side of the device as hard as she could with her right foot. That sent the keypad tumbling onto the ground.

"Good work," Jimmy congratulated her while staring at the mess of wires that lay behind the keypad had been. "It will only take me a minute to figure out how to open this," he explained while picking up a green wire, studying it, and touching it to a blue one.

Cindy rubbed her strained toes and watched. Jimmy's hands moved over each of the wires with practiced ease, and a low click was heard as the last wire was inserted into its correct place. The metallic door in front of them began to fade from view, and then disappeared altogether.

Cindy and Jimmy stared in amazement as the door simply vanished. Jimmy put his hand through the space where the door had just been, but found no solid resistance. "Must be some sort of advanced holograph with physical properties. We better be careful. If the security is this advanced outside the ship, I can only imagine what they've got in store for boarders on the inside."

Jimmy stuck his head past the doorway and looked down. There was a hole that seemed to drop some eight feet onto the ground. A low purple light came from the opening beneath him.

As Jimmy examined their entryway, Cindy grabbed her mike. "Nick, Libby, everyone else, Jimmy and I are about to enter the ship. Do not initiate any further conversations with us. I don't want to risk the Yolkians picking up our chatter. Only talk to us if we talk first. Got it?"

"Roger," Libby and Nick answered.

"Good," Cindy said. "Cindy and Jimmy out." She then turned back around and looked at Jimmy. "Can we get in this way?"

Jimmy continued staring down the hole, listening and looking for any sign of Yolkian activity. He heard or saw nothing; the area below them seemed empty. "Yeah, but it's another drop. Six, maybe eight feet. I'll lower you down as far as I can and then I'll lower myself down."

Cindy silently nodded her agreement as Jimmy turned to face her. He held out both of his hands so that he could lower her down. She continued staring at him. "Something wrong?" he asked.

Cindy's expression suddenly saddened. "Anyone who's on the ships monitoring our conversations, Jimmy and I are doing some private strategizing. We'll be back on in a few minutes." She flicked her headset off and hung it around her neck. "Turn yours off too," she told Jimmy.

Jimmy's face radiated confusion, but he did as Cindy asked and turned his headset off. "Cindy, what's wrong?"

Cindy walked closer to him and stared at the ground. "What would you say our chances are of surviving?"

Jimmy silently cursed her question. He had been using every ounce of his concentration to keep his mind off of their seemingly inevitable deaths. Now he had to think of it all over again. "I'd say a hundred to one," he told her after a moment's silence.

Cindy sat down on the rocket's hull, and Jimmy joined her. "That doesn't seem so bad. I mean, all the stuff we've been through, they all must have had worse odds than that."

Jimmy shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. But, I don't know." He wiped his hands through his hair and down his neck. "Maybe the odds are worse. But, doesn't this mission, this adventure, whatever you want to call it, seem kind of final?"

Cindy began to nervously twirl a strand of hair that was loose in her face. "How so?"

Jimmy cleared his throat and drummed his fingertips against the metal plating beneath him. "I, it's hard to explain. But ever since I came up with this whole suicide team idea, I just felt like the name did it justice. That, this was it." He leaned back against the one of the boxlike structure's three remaining sides. "It doesn't have to be," he thoughtfully said while staring at her golden hair. "I mean, we've done the impossible before."

Cindy chuckled a little at the mention of the seemingly impossible things that they'd accomplished. "Yeah, we sure have. I mean, how many kids have fought space aliens? Spent days on the moon? Competed on an intergalactic game show?"

"And won," Jimmy quickly added. They both laughed. "Entering each other's dreams, going into alternate dimensions, visiting the future, weren't all of those impossible?"

Cindy sighed as she leaned against the wall, only a few inches away from Jimmy. "Why did you ask? Are you scared?" Jimmy questioned.

Cindy was about to argue that she wasn't scared, but she realized that he wasn't mocking or challenging her. He seemed to simply want to know. "Yeah, I'm scared," she admitted.

"Me too," Jimmy offered. "I don't think there's anyone that's not scared about this last fight."

Cindy slowly nodded. "That's not why I asked about the odds, though. I've been scared lots of times, and I've always done what's needed to be done. You take a moment to let it embrace you, and then shove it down to finish your task."

Jimmy turned his attention from the twinkling sky to Cindy. "Then why did you ask?"

Cindy sighed once more. "I guess, ever since we agreed to be on this suicide team, I've been worried about dying. But I never really realized that, if we do die, this will be the last time we see each other. I don't want to get into a big talk about meeting in an afterlife, but these could be our last moments together. And, well, I guess I wanted to say something."

Jimmy stopped leaning at an angle and sat up straight. He pulled his feet in towards himself and stared at Cindy. Her eyes were closed and pointed towards the ground beneath them. She seemed to be fiercely debating about whether or not to say what she had in her mind.

"Jimmy, I know that we're friends. Maybe more than that..." she paused for the first of many times, "well, yes...more than that. That's evidenced by the past year and a half or so. I mean, back in third and fourth grade, we really hated each other. At least I did."

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. This wasn't coming out right. She looked at Jimmy and locked her gaze onto his blue eyes. "I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm glad you moved here, even if I didn't always show it. Before you came, I thought I was happy, you know? I had friends like Brittany and Libby, I was the smartest kid in school, and there was no competition. I was at the top and would stay that way. I thought I was happy," she repeated.

"But once you came things were different. I had to fight for my spot at the top. I don't want to argue over who is at the top, who's better...not now. But I struggled to beat you, and each victory, no matter how rare or few, meant something. Because it was a challenge."

"And before you came, I thought that I was having fun. Going to the mall, hanging out with Libby. But there was... an emptiness. I didn't really notice it then. Or maybe I did." Cindy suddenly shook her head and laughed slightly. She banged it against the wall behind her and clutched her eyes. "I don't even know what I'm saying."

Before Jimmy could assure her that he knew what she was saying, she started to talk again. "I guess, things were too normal," she continued. "It's like I was too smart for just hanging out at the mall or chilling with Libby. It was fun, but it wasn't exciting. And I wanted excitement. And once you were here, it was there. The things the five of us did, even when we weren't all friends, were amazing and... fun."

Cindy looked at Jimmy, and found that he was staring more intently at her than ever before, hanging on her every word. "And now we might die, and..." she sniffled and wiped her bloody nose, "and..." her voice suddenly became squeaky as she rubbed her eyes. "And you don't know how much you mean to me."

Jimmy started to cry as well. He wrapped her in a hug, and they cried on each other's shoulders, something they had never done before. "Cindy, I felt the same way before I came to Retroville. The emptiness, the dullness, the lack of a challenge." He tried to phrase his thoughts as eloquently as Cindy had, but found that he couldn't.

"Everything you've said, I feel the same way. And," he coughed as the tears flowed faster, "And you mean a lot to me. You're more than my friend. When I'm with you, I don't know. I'm happy, I'm challenged. I loved it when we fought, but I love it more now that we get along. I mean, god, I don't know," he whispered while kissing her cheek.

"I love you," they both said at the same time. Jimmy spun Cindy's ponytail around as they finished crying. They quickly pulled away and kissed before resuming their position on each other's shoulders. They let the last of their tears flow out as rested on one another.

Jimmy had no idea how long it was before they finally were able to pull themselves together. But at the same time, they scooched away from each other and wiped their eyes. "It took way too long for us to say that," he said while wiping his nose.

Cindy laughed while stopping her sobbing. "Way too long."

They both looked at each other and realized that they were blushing furiously. They averted their eyes and stared in opposite directions. "We, um, probably should have done that before now. Before we have to dive into the heat of battle," Cindy told Jimmy, her voice barely above a whisper.

Jimmy nodded while standing up. "Let's, let's make it through this, ok? Let's not let this be goodbye." He tried to smile, but found that he couldn't. There was no way that survival could be as easy as agreeing to live.

"Yeah, that would be best," she muttered while wiping the last few tears from her eyes. "Living is nice."

They both chuckled and finally pulled themselves together. "Ok, let's focus. Enough sob stories," Jimmy said while straightening his clothes and grabbing his gun. "Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, let's feel angry at those Yolkians. They're the ones that are making us say goodbyes," he told Cindy, pushing his love and sorrow aside. He forced himself to be angry. It's our only weapon, right?

"Making us form suicide teams and become martyrs," she offered, her familiar temper rising.

"Killing Sheen," Jimmy said while squeezing his gun. He turned towards Cindy and saw her looking back at him. There was no romance in their eyes this time. Love had taken backseat to the only emotion powerful enough to rival it, anger. Their eyes were ablaze with hatred.

Jimmy turned his headset back on, and so did Cindy. They looked to each other, their eyes meeting. They nodded and pulled their guns' slides back at the same time. They silently and swiftly walked up to the hole that Jimmy had found and stared down it. They holstered their weapons and gripped each other's hands. Jimmy got down on his stomach and lowered her as far down the hole as he could without falling with her. Cindy lightened Jimmy's load by bracing her legs against the wall beneath the gap. She nodded up at him while saying, "Drop me." He did, and she was sent plunging into the near-darkness.

Chapter 44: Goobot

Cindy felt a brief sensation of air flying past her face before landing on the floor beneath the hole. She landed with the perfection of a cat; her two legs split and one hand cushioning her blow. She immediately straightened herself up and pulled out her gun. "All clear," she whispered into her headset.

She continued staring down the hallway that lay directly in front of her as Jimmy landed on the ground next to her. He had fallen from a greater height as he hadn't had anyone to lower him down, but he still managed to land somewhat gracefully. He pulled out his own gun and got a good look at his surroundings.

He and Cindy seemed to be in either a large closet or a small room. It was empty except for a large metal cabinet attached to the wall opposite the door. Jimmy motioned for Cindy to follow him as he walked over to the cabinet and opened it.

Inside were dozens of small metal rods. Each rod rested on two golden hooks. Jimmy pulled one of the rods out and stared at it. There were three buttons on the back of the metallic device. He pushed each one of them several times, but nothing happened. "Any idea what these are?" he asked while tossing one to Cindy.

Cindy caught the foot long device, turned it over, and shook her head. "No idea. But whatever they are, there are plenty of them."

Jimmy put the two retracted spears back inside their hangar and closed the cabinet's door. "Alright, forget about those. We seem to be in a supply closet of sorts. I'll see if I can get a reading of our parents' location." He pulled out his DNA tracker and pressed a few buttons. He frowned at the screen. "No good. I'm not close enough to get a reading. They must be in another part of the ship."

Cindy nodded as she stretched her fingers and then replaced them along the butt of her gun. "We better get moving, then. If we can radio the exact location of our parents to Nick, he can head straight towards them and free them before the majority of the Yolkians confront them. With the parents freed, they could aid Nick's army in battle and help them hijack this ship."

Jimmy nodded at her logic. He let go of his gun with his left hand and walked towards the door. He slowly turned the knob and pulled it open. He then took a tentative step out into the hallway.

As soon as he had stuck his head out the door, he noticed a Yolkian round the corner at the right end of the hallway. Jimmy jumped back inside the closet and braced himself against the wall. "One Yolkian coming. Roughly fifty meters away."

Cindy nodded gripper her gun tighter. "I'll take care of it," she whispered. She braced herself against the wall on the other side of the door. Within a few seconds, she could hear the low whirring of the Yolkian's mechanized shell.

She kept her body completely still as the Yolkian slowly hovered by the open doorway. He either didn't notice that the door was ajar or he didn't care. He simply flew past it, lightly gripping his spear. As soon as he had disappeared out of the doorway, Cindy flew off the wall, out the door, and slammed a roundabout kick into the back of the Yolkian's shell.

"Ah!" Was all the surprised Yolkian had time to shout as it was slammed into the wall on its left. Its glass visor cracked as Cindy's foot met with it and broke as it hit the wall. The Yolkian dropped its spear, which retracted back into a foot-long metal rod.

Cindy didn't give the Yolkian a chance to recover. She jumped towards the flailing creature, slammed its broken shell into the wall once more, and dug her hand deep into the alien's slimy body. She immediately felt its brain, grasped her fist around it, and yanked it out of the Yolkian's head.

As soon as the brain was removed from its home, Cindy pushed herself off of the wall with her free hand. She landed in the middle of the hallway and glanced from the gooey organ in her hand to the grey pile of slime on her side. "One down."

Jimmy marveled at her cold, ruthless efficiency. "Damn straight. Nice work." He couldn't help but be a little turned on as several strands of her hair were clamped to her sweaty forward.

His feelings of love were quickly shoved aside as Cindy pointed towards the corner of the hallway where the Yolkian had appeared. "Let's keep moving while we still have the element of surprise."

Jimmy nodded and ran after Cindy. They braced themselves against the wall five feet from the hallway's end. Cindy edged her way towards the corner and quickly peered her head around it.

"Three Yolkians are resting," she whispered to Jimmy, so low that he could barely understand her. "Must have sent their friend to investigate our boarding."

"Should we shoot them from here?" he asked her.

Cindy risked another look and shook her head. "Their backs are to us. The noise would bring unwanted attention. I'll sneak up on them and take them out the old fashioned way."

"Be careful," Jimmy warned as she holstered her gun and stepped out from behind the corner.

Cindy ignored his needless advice and quietly tiptoed down the corridor. She gritted her teeth and began to nervously twirl her ponytail. What if this is some sort of an ambush? What if they're just pretending to not know that I'm here?

She shook those thoughts out of her head as she came within five meters of the hovering creatures. Very slowly, she lifted each foot and set it down in front of her. She was four meters away, then three, and then within striking distance of the first hostile.

She lashed out with the ferocity of a tiger. She swung both of her arms around the bottom of the Yolkian in front of her. The alien was too startled to do anything as Cindy pulled it towards her and slammed the crown of her head into the back of its shell. The glass shattered and rained down around her.

"A human!" one of the other Yolkians shrieked while aiming its spear.

Cindy was about to slam her fist into the Yolkian that she was still holding, but it spun itself around, smacking the brunt of its own spear into Cindy's side. She was surprised by its strength. She was thrown into the wall several feet to her right as the three Yolkians swarmed around her.

Jimmy could tell that she was outmatched and in trouble. He leveled his gun at the nearest alien and fired three shots. He smiled as its control panel threw out sparks and smoke before the entire shell fell to the ground.

The two remaining Yolkians quickly spun around and stared at the sneering Neutron down the hall. The alien that Cindy had first attacked darted down the hallway towards the new threat, but it made the mistake of traveling in a straight line. Jimmy had plenty of time to take aim and shoot it. Its control panel sizzled, and it fell to the ground.

The one remaining Yolkian knew that it was in trouble. Cindy was now back on her feet and sent a fist flying towards him. The creature dodged the blow and maneuvered itself behind Cindy. It leveled its spear horizontally, adjusted its grip towards the ends of the spear, and slammed the metal center of the weapon into the back of Cindy's head. She stumbled forward, the blow nearly rendering her unconscious. The Yolkian grabbed the human with one hand, was surprised by how little it weighed, and used its other hand to place the electrically charged tip of the spear near Cindy's throat.

"You will drop your weapon now," the creature bellowed while floating towards Jimmy. Cindy was clutched in its grasp, floating several inches above the ground.

Jimmy furrowed his brows in anger and frustration as the Yolkian carried the limp Cindy and flew towards him. What to do, what to do... he mumbled inside his head, desperately trying to come up with a course of action. There was no way that he could get off a shot without hitting Cindy, and the Yolkian didn't look happy. He placed the spear a hair's width away from the unconscious Cindy's neck.

Suddenly, Cindy sprang to life. The Yolkian was caught off guard, and hesitated just long enough for Cindy to push the Yolkian's wrists away from her, causing the alien to drop her. "Shoot it!" she desperately shouted while falling to the floor.

Jimmy immediately fired two shots, hitting the Yolkian in its glass visor. The shards of glass rained down on Cindy, who bent down and covered her head. The Yolkian was knocked off balance, wobbled in the air, and clumsily slammed his spear straight down.

The spear missed Cindy by half a foot. She gathered her strength, jumped up off the floor, twisted her body in midair, and slammed another kick into the Yolkian. This one connected with his control panel, dented it, and sent it slamming into the wall. She pounced on top of the dazed creature, slammed both hands into its body, and yanked out its brain.

Jimmy was by her side as she angrily tore the brain in half and spit on the graying corpse. "How long have you been doing tai chi?" he asked, clearly impressed.

Cindy flashed him a quick smile, her golden locks brushing Jimmy's face as she swiveled her head. "You're shooting wasn't too bad either, Tex." She rubbed the bruised back of her head and flinched in pain.

Jimmy smiled back. "We do make a good team."

Their well-deserved congratulations were cut short by the sound of voices at the far end of the hallway. They both looked down it and saw a stairway that led to a lower level.

"What was that?" a Yolkian's voice asked.

"A skirmish on the top level!"

"Boarders on the king's private vessel? Unacceptable!"

"Could the council have launched an assassination attempt this soon?"

Jimmy and Cindy shot each other nervous glances. Three Yolkians had been quite a challenge, and now at least four more were coming towards them. They both glanced at their guns and nodded to each other. They knelt down on the floor on one knee, gripped their guns, stared over the barrels, and narrowed their eyes. "You take the right, I've got the left," Cindy quickly muttered.

As the four Yolkians appeared at the top of the stairway, seven crisp bangs accompanied a volley of bullets. The barrage of lead struck two control panels and three glass visors. Two Yolkians fell down onto the floor, trapped in immobile shells. One of the remaining two enemies was knocked off balance and fell down the stairs. The remaining Yolkian glanced down the hallway and noticeably tightened its grip on its spear. "Humans!" it shouted out in disgust.

Cindy quickly holstered her gun and ran towards the Yolkian, ready to try unarmed combat once more. Jimmy decided to join her, but kept his gun tightly gripped in his right hand.

The fight that ensued was visually stunning. Cindy dodged the Yolkian's swinging spear as if to music, flawlessly ducking and sidestepping each attack. The Yolkian in turn hovered above each of Cindy's counterattacks. Jimmy merely stood by the sidelines with his free hand clenched into a fist, not quite sure how to aid Cindy.

Cindy's five years of tireless training couldn't compare to the Yolkian's lifetime of military conscription, however. After several moments of eloquent evasive maneuvers, the Yolkian's spear brushed past her side. A strip of cloth from her shirt was torn away along with a small band of skin. The wound wasn't deep enough to seriously injure her, it was little more than a cut. But the contact was enough to send an electric shock through her body, which she hadn't experience before. The searing sensation sent her falling to the floor.

Jimmy decided that now was as good a time as any to step into battle. She had five years of training, I had three hours. Yeah, I am so going to win. As Cindy fell to the floor, Jimmy lowered his shoulders and rammed the Yolkian's side.

The Yolkian had focused on Cindy up until now, and had seemed to forget about Jimmy. This mistake was ultimately what won Jimmy the fight. The creature was caught completely off guard as Jimmy slammed it into the wall. Its glass faceplate cracked, and Jimmy grabbed its wrists. He swung the Yolkian around and slammed it into the wall on his opposite side. The visor cracked, and the Yolkian's eyes swirled about in a daze.

Cindy then jumped back into battle by sending a flying kick into the Yolkian's exposed body. Her foot went through the slimy mess, connected with the brain, and crushed it against the wall. The Yolkian fell to the ground, dead.

As Cindy killed that enemy, the fourth Yolkian barreled back up the stairs. Jimmy saw this and fired two more shots from his gun. The Yolkian fell down to the ground less than three feet from Cindy, its spear still clenched in its hands.

Cindy ignored the pain that wracked her body and stared down at the Yolkian that Jimmy had just shot. She gripped the spear with one hand and used her right foot to crush the fall creature's hands. Its grip weakened, and Cindy easily tore the weapon from its hands. "Thanks," she happily told the Yolkian while staring down at her new weapon.

"Take this," Cindy quickly said while handing Jimmy her gun. "You hand the guns and I'll do the up-close work."

Jimmy nodded as he put Cindy's gun in the back of his waistband. These guns are definitely useful. Looks like bringing them was a good choice. But I'm quickly running out of bullets. He shoved that depressing thought aside as he led Cindy down the staircase.

As Jimmy stepped off of the final step and exited the stairwell, he noticed that the floor was abuzz with activity. Unarmed crew members were about and flying to the opposite end of the room. Jimmy tried to aim his gun, but they were flying around too fast for him to get a good shot.

"All crew should hide! The hostiles are believed to be on the fourth floor! Second Squad, engage! Guards, protect the king!" a calm and mechanized voice blared from the ship's hidden loudspeakers.

Jimmy and Cindy looked to each other, not knowing quite how to proceed. Things were not going as they had planned. They had expected to be swarmed by hundreds of soldiers, not engaged by small groups.

Jimmy and Cindy made their way across the floor. Computers and machinery were strewn across the area. There were no hallways and no doors that they could see. As far as they could tell, the floor simply extended a kilometer in each direction. Jimmy spotted a stairwell at the other end of the ship ahead of them. He saw the panicking crew members filing down it.

"It's just one giant room," Cindy noted as she led the way to the stairwell a kilometer away. "Strange."

They quickly made their way across the floor at a crisp jog. Five more Yolkians appeared from the stairwell at the opposite end of the room and charged at Jimmy and Cindy. Their attempts soon proved futile, however. Jimmy was able to pick off three with the last shots in his gun. He tossed it to the side and grabbed Cindy's pistol. He was about to shoot, but Cindy stopped him. She ran up to the Yolkians, eager to try out her new spear.

A one on one fight with a Yolkian had been a roughly even match for Cindy, and she figured that she could take out two with her new spear. She dodged the duo's first slashes, swung her spear around, and knocked the first Yolkian off balance. She ducked the second Yolkian's blow, jumped up, and slammed the point of her spear through the first Yolkian's visor and into its head. She left it there so she could take care of the second Yolkian.

The Yolkian with the spear in its body wildly flailed about, trying to yank the weapon out, but it was to no avail. The electricity was rapidly burning its body and brain, and it slowly gave in to the swirling darkness around him.

Cindy ducked underneath the remaining Yolkian's swinging spear, jumped up and kicked it, and watched as it wobbled in the air. She took a deep breath and performed a backwards cartwheel, a move that she had only recently perfected. She landed perfectly, ripped the spear from the dead Yolkian's face, and brandished it. She slammed it into the other Yolkian's spear as if it were a sword.

The Yolkian suddenly changed tactics and used his spear like a sword as well. The two opposing forces wildly clashed spears. Jimmy took this opportunity to run up and ram the Yolkian. The alien was sent flying into the floor. Cindy slammed her spear into the Yolkian's brain. After the Yolkian turned gray, she yanked the weapon out and shook the slime off.

"Let's keep moving," Jimmy told her while running toward the stairs. Cindy nodded and followed him, ready to head down to the third floor.

The two members of the suicide team paused halfway down the stairs. Three Yolkians blocked the exit below them, spears glowing. Jimmy frowned at the nuisance. Jimmy and Cindy stood still, and the Yolkians didn't advance. They seemed to only want to block the passage behind them. Jimmy took careful aim and fired three rounds. The trio of enemies fell, their spears retracting once they hit the ground.

Jimmy finished walking down the stairs and looked around. No enemies were in sight. He motioned for Cindy to stop, and she did. He took a seat on the bottom step, the immobile Yolkians glaring at him. "Cindy, something is weird here. We're nearly halfway through the ship, and there hasn't been any major resistance."

Cindy nodded. "It's almost as if they didn't even expect us to be here. We couldn't have encountered more than twenty troops. And didn't one of the Yolkians mention a council assassination?"

Jimmy rubbed his chin as he thought about the situation at hand. "Yes, he did. His first conclusion should have been that humans had come to rescue their parents. Shouldn't it?"

Cindy nodded once more. "We better get moving." She stood up and extended her hand to Jimmy, which he took. She yanked him up and they continued on their way.

The third floor was little more than a maze of hallways. They navigated their way through the twisting corridors, not sure where to go. Jimmy nervously chewed on his bottom lip the whole way. This is the perfect spot for an ambush. They could be anywhere on this floor. Yet he and Cindy encountered only one lone Yolkian soldier, who barely put up a fight. Cindy dodged two thrusts of the Yolkian's spear and easily penetrated his slimy flesh with her own weapon.

After what seemed like an hour, they finally reached another staircase. They tentatively walked down it, expecting another barrage of soldiers to be guarding the stairwell. Yet, once again, there was no enemy activity. "Where the hell is everybody?" Cindy wondered out loud.

Jimmy took this cease fire to inspect his gun. Cindy noticed this and was glad to lean against a wall and rest. She closed her eyes and clutched the wound on her side. "Eight bullets left. That spear still electrically charged?"

Cindy shook herself out of her near slumber and looked down at the weapon in her hands. "Yep, still charged," she told him as a crackle of electricity made its way through the spear's point.

"Good. I'm going to see if I can get a reading on our parents' location again. Cover me," he told her. Cindy nodded, raised her spear into a battle position, and kept her eyes peeled.

Jimmy took out his tracker again and ran a search for his parents' DNA. He impatiently tapped his foot against the floor as the device completed its scan. His eyes lit up when he saw the result. "Cindy! I'm getting a fairly good reading! They must be somewhere on this level. I think ... yes, they're this way," he pointed to a hallway down his right. He flipped the tracker off and put it back in his pocket. He took hold of his gun once more and continued following the twisting hallway.

After several minutes of running, they came to a thick metal door with a keypad next to it. Cindy stepped up, smashed the keypad with her gun, and then kicked it off the wall onto the floor. Jimmy thanked her and immediately got to work connecting the wires.

It took Jimmy less than two minutes to unlock the door. As soon as he had connected the last wires, the steel door slid up into the ceiling high above them. Jimmy jumped in front of the doorway, with Cindy right behind him. He aimed his gun ahead at him and scowled at what he saw. In the center of the room sat Goobot on a hovering throne decorated with space rubies. A half dozen Yolkians surrounded the king and held their spears in front of their lord to shield him. Jimmy noticed that the spears were littered with rubies and had intricate designs on them. Although he didn't know it, the spears showed that the Yolkians holding them were special bodyguards to the king, the best warriors the Yolkian army could muster.

"Where are our parents?" Jimmy screamed as he struggled to aim his gun past the array of spears and onto Goobot's shell.

Goobot's eyes blinked one at a time and then narrowed in anger. "So," he bellowed, "Neutron, you and your little mate have come back to finish what was started. Too cowardly to meet us head-on, no less. Only a pathetic caitiff would secretly strike with some sort of pathetic Earthly element."

Cindy's eyes darted from Goobot and his guards to Jimmy. She had absolutely no idea what the king was talking about. Apparently, neither did Jimmy. "What the hell are you talking about?" Jimmy shouted.

"Your crippling vapors may have temporarily subdued us, but you took too long to mobilize your attack!" the king shouted triumphantly. "We were able to regain consciousness before you and your ..." he gestured at Cindy, "confrere could attack us with your primitive cudgels. You have failed, human!"

Cindy and Jimmy took a brief second to glance at each other. Both of their faces screamed confusion.

Jimmy closed his eyes as he got a painful headache. The lack of Yolkian soldiers, Goobot's confusing words, the fatigue from making his way throughout the Yolkian ship, it was too much. "Enough stalling! Stop playing dumb! Where are our parents!" Jimmy shouted at the top of his lungs.

The guards glared at Jimmy. They wished to tear him apart on the spot. No one had ever dared to speak to the king in such a disrespectful manner.

Goobot had had enough as well. "He talks nonsense, this conversation sheds no new light on the recent attacks. Dispose of him, my brethren."

As soon as Goobot had spoken, the floor beneath him suddenly flew downwards, as if it were an elevator. The black hole was quickly replaced by a brand new floor. Jimmy would have liked to marvel at the impressive technology, but he had no time. All of the king's guards were quickly advancing on Cindy and himself.

Chapter 45: Victory and Defeat

Cindy adjusted her footing so that she stood in a battle stance. Her spear was gripped in both hands and held diagonally from her right shoulder to her left knee. She was squeezing her only weapon tight enough to leave marks in the metal and cause her knuckles to turn a ghastly shade of white.

As Cindy prepared herself for the inevitable melee fighting, Jimmy aimed his gun at one of the advancing Yolkians. He pushed aside his fear as he locked eyes with one of the ruthless guards. He fired a bullet and saw it impact with the Yolkian's control panel and throw out a few sparks, but the Yolkian kept charging. He fired another shot, and this one immobilized the alien. It must have better armor. Either that or it's incredibly lucky.

Jimmy was able to take out only two more aliens, which fell only inches from where he stood. Once his gun was depleted, he looked on helplessly as Cindy used every ounce of strength she had to ward off her attackers.

I knew what this was when I volunteered. I knew I would die. But I'm so close, she sadly thought as the three Yolkians circled around her like sharks, discussing their next move in their alien tongue.

Without warning, the monsters attacked. They swung their spears in perfect precision. One was leveled at Cindy's legs, the other at her waist, and the final one at her neck. It would be impossible for her to duck or jump her way out of the attack.

Cindy's lightning fast reflexes were put to the test as she threw herself backwards and fell onto the floor, three sizzling spears electrifying the air inches from her face. She rolled to her left as the Yolkians hovered above her and slammed three spears into the ground where she had just been.

The Yolkians immediately plucked their weapons out of the floor and circled around Cindy once again. They began a mad series of slashes towards their target. Cindy found herself jumping, ducking, and flailing backwards with only milliseconds to spare. She knew she was only putting off the inevitable.

Jimmy desperately looked around for anything to use as a weapon. He saw nothing useful. The spears that the three fallen Yolkians had carried had already retracted themselves. He could only clench his fists in anger and continue watching the fight.

Cindy ducked another blow and rolled to the left. She was getting tired, and she knew she couldn't do this forever. She needed to get on the offensive. Come on, search for an opening and attack. She readied her spear as one of the Yolkians charged at her.

Cindy thrust her spear straight towards the Yolkian's faceplate. The Yolkian simply dodged several inches to the left and gripped the spear with one of his hands. He yanked it forward, and Cindy was sent flying with it. Another Yolkian held out his spear horizontally, and Cindy's head slammed into it. She fell onto the floor, the world spinning around her.

"Hey, over here! Come get me, you yellow-bellied bastards!" Jimmy shouted as loud as he could while flipping the Yolkians off. It was a desperate attempt to draw the aliens away from Cindy.

The three Yolkians ignored him and circled the girl. One of the Yolkians slammed its spear into Cindy's leg, and she let out a howl of pain as electricity coursed through her body.

Jimmy had had enough. He ran as fast as he could towards the trio of aliens, screaming all the while. Two of the Yolkians stared at him quizzically as the third laughed at the howling Cindy.

"GET OFF MY GIRLFRIEND!" he screamed while running straight at the two Yolkians. They easily strafed away from Jimmy, and he ran straight past them. Unfortunately for the Yolkians, the third alien had been standing right behind them.

Jimmy slammed into the creature and sent it into the nearby wall. It let go of its spear, still trapped in Cindy's leg. Jimmy ripped it out of her scorched limb, spun around, and thrust it into the Yolkian that he had just run into. It pierced through the Yolkian's visor, through its body, and ultimately sliced through its brain. Jimmy noticed the Yolkian graying and pulled out the spear, satisfied that he had killed it.

The two remaining Yolkians had immediately evaluated Jimmy as the new threat. They rushed towards him, spears held menacingly in their hands. Jimmy managed to dive to his right and avoid their first attack, but knew that was all the good luck he was going to have. The two creatures turned around to face him, brandished their spears, and swung them at Jimmy.

Jimmy jumped backwards and blocked one of their blows. He tried to thrust his spear into another of the Yolkians, but it ducked below the blow. Jimmy continued to walk backwards as he wildly swung his spear about in an effort to ward off his attackers. He knew that he could never hope to beat them in this type of fight, not when Cindy had failed.

As Jimmy was valiantly fighting, Cindy struggled to get to her feet. Her right leg buckled, but she simply placed her weight on her left foot. She limped as fast as she could towards the two Yolkians.

Thoughts of all his past adventures swam through Jimmy's brain as he started running backwards as fast as he could. His first encounter with the Yolkians, being stranded on an island with Cindy, fighting on Intergalactic Showdown, and dozens more. Suddenly one of the Yolkians slammed its spear across Jimmy's face. Jimmy was thrown onto the ground by the force, and felt warm blood rush from his nose as he landed.

As the Yolkians raised their spears for the death blow, Cindy weakly punched the Yolkians in the back with two clenched fists. She looked down at Jimmy. He appeared to be on the verge of collapsing and crying, but he still clutched the spear in his hands. She quickly winked at him, and he looked down at his spear.

The two aliens spun around in opposite directions, slamming their spears into both of Cindy's ribcages. The wind was knocked out of her and she stumbled backwards. She tried to shout out, "Now!" but there was no air in her lungs.

Jimmy knew what he had to do. As the Yolkians turned their backs on him, Jimmy fought off the swirling blackness around him. He used all of his remaining strength to jump up and thrust his spear into one of the Yolkian's control panel. The alien began to shake wildly as smoke bellowed from the sizzling shell.

Jimmy withdrew his spear as the other alien spun around from Cindy and faced him. As soon as he Jimmy took his spear out of the Yolkian's shell, it fell to the ground and dropped its spear. Cindy quickly lifted her left foot as hard as she could, kicking the weapon into the air. She knew that if the spear hit the floor it would retract back into a useless metal rod. Some sort of failsafe or something. The spear arced towards her, and she managed to catch it. Getting her breath back, able to ignore the pain in her sides thanks to the adrenaline rushing through her, she stood up and prepped her spear.

Jimmy smiled as the one remaining Yolkian thrust its spear towards Jimmy's abdomen. Jimmy immediately dropped down to the floor and narrowly missed the blow. Thank god I paid attention in Cindy's training class. As the Yolkian attacked Jimmy, Cindy slammed her new spear into the Yolkian's back. The alien's eyes doubled in size as electricity coursed through its body.

Cindy let go of the spear, and Jimmy stared at the helpless Yolkian spinning around in circles in between him and Cindy. He grabbed the spear, thrust it deeper into the Yolkian, and slammed the creature into the wall on his left. The shell shattered, and the electric shock finally killed the alien.

Jimmy spat on the corpse as he walked over to the bloody Cindy. "Cindy, are you alright?" He asked while looking her up and down. Her nose had started to bleed again, her sides and head were heavily bruised, her leg was bleeding and scarred, and god only knew what else.

Yet through it all, she gave a weak smile and nodded. "Been worse," she lied. "You?"

Jimmy's nose was bleeding, he had countless minor bruises and cuts, and the right side of his jaw looked pretty beat up. But other than that, he was fine. "Fine, all things considered."

Jimmy suddenly realized that he and Cindy had single-handedly managed to take out all of the hostile forces, or at least the majority, that were on the ship. He felt a surge of pride. His joyous celebration was short-lived, however, as he remembered Goobot.

"We have to find Goobot!" Jimmy shouted while running up to the area where the floor had disappeared.

"Shouldn't we look for stairs in the main hallways?" Cindy asked as Jimmy stared down at the solid ground, looking for a way down.

Jimmy shook his head. "He's probably locked in a room only accessible via this elevator... or whatever you want to call it. Look for something that can help me break through this."

Cindy hesitated, but then nodded and started looking around the room. She didn't know what he expected her to find, she knew that nothing short of a bundle of TNT was getting them through that floor. But as she slowly looked around the room, she thought she understood what Jimmy was getting at.

"Jimmy, could you use that?" she asked while pointing to a row of computers attached to the wall on their right.

"We're about to find out," he excitedly told her while running up to them. Cindy limped after him. "The computer's equivalent of a keyboard is in an alien language I'm not familiar with," he explained while rapidly scanning the computer. He pressed several buttons and stared at the response on the screen. "I think I can figure out how this thing works, but it will take time."

Jimmy suddenly remembered that Nick and his army were waiting on Ergo 22, and had most likely heard every sound of his and Cindy's fights, all the while keeping silent as commanded. "Nick! General Dean, this is Neutron. We are giving you permission to speak, and please do so!"

There was a moment of silence, a hiss of static, and then Nick's voice replied, "Jimmy, what the hell is going on in there?"

"Long story short," Jimmy muttered while tapping several more keys, "we managed to defeat the brunt of the opposing forces. We have Goobot pinned down and need you to bring your entire army here on the double. Swarm, swarm!"

Jimmy had barely shouted the last two words when Nick could be heard talking to his troops of Ergo. "You heard the man! Betty, Ike, Brittany, take us to that ship! Move! Move!" The sound of the three rocket's engines firing up was clearly audible, and the rockets soon disengaged from their temporary base.

"Jimmy, how do we get in and where are you?" Nick asked.

Jimmy silently cursed as he had to backtrack his progress several keystrokes and press several more buttons. "Nick, listen carefully, I don't have time to repeat this. There is an entry hatch on the top of the vessel on the far starboard side, or south of where Ike dropped us off. It's a six foot drop to the top level of the ship. The top level is level five. Cindy and I are on the second level from the bottom of the ship. Follow the trail of dead or immobilized Yolkians. We're in some sort of ceremonial chamber or Goobot's living area. I believe that the majority of the hostiles have been eliminated, but it is likely several have survived and will use guerrilla tactics to overwhelm your army. Move quickly and destroy any opposing forces that you come across. Keep your guns ready and eyes open. Do you have all that?"

Nick looked over to Jacob, who was listening on his own headset and had rapidly scribbled Jimmy's main points down. He finished scribbling some notes and gave Nick a thumbs up. "We've got all that, Jimmy. We'll be with you as soon as we can."

"I'm coming up to the ship," Ike told Jimmy. "ETA is two minutes. Hold out a little longer, suicide team. Reinforcements are moments away."

"Second that," Betty quickly said.

"Third that," Brittany spoke.

Libby, who had been literally on the edge of her seat monitoring the sounds of the battle and these current conversations, finally spoke. "Sounds like you two did a hell of a job. Anything I can do to help?"

Jimmy wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow and shook his head while pressing several more buttons. "Negative, Libby. I'm turning off my headset for the moment, I need concentration. I'll turn it back on in five minutes, when Nick's team is in the ship. I'll give them directions to this room. Neutron out."

Jimmy flicked his headset off and turned to Cindy. "Cindy, I need you to find your way to the piloting station of this ship. I want you to divert sixty percent of excess power to the engines and forty percent to whatever weapons this bird has. Goobot may have sent out a distress signal, and a Yolkian fleet may be on its way here. I want to be able to blast out of here the second I tell you to, but don't move this ship until I give the word. I want to be one hundred percent certain that our parents are on board."

Cindy nodded her head after carefully listening to Jimmy's instructions. She turned around to find the piloting station, but quickly stopped and spun back around to stare at Jimmy. "I don't know how to pilot this thing."

Jimmy didn't look up from the computer. "I don't care, Cindy. Find a way, I know you can. Just please do it now." His tone was harsh, but he made sure to compliment her so as to soften her temper. He didn't want her second-guessing him. Not now.

Cindy sensed the urgency in his voice and immediately ran out of the room, towards the bow of the mother ship. Pilot an alien ship. Yeah, piece of cake.

Ever since Jimmy had boarded Goobot's ship, he had been fighting a physical battle. But as he rapidly inputted commands into the alien computer, he was able to give off a small smile. He was fighting a different type of battle now, one that he was used to. It didn't matter how alien the computer was, it was still a machine, and he knew that he could figure out how to work it. He became caught up in a daze as he wildly pressed buttons and tried to decipher the symbols that appeared on the monitor.

After five minutes he managed to wake himself from his trance and flicked on his headset. The sound of gunshots flooded his ears. "Nick? Nick! What's going on?"

A groan was heard, and then a shout of triumph. "We're heading down to the second floor, chief. We just killed a small band of aliens. Can you give us some directions?"

Jimmy bit his lower lip and thought about Nick's request. The third floor was little more than a maze of hallways. It was sheer luck that had enabled Cindy and himself to find the staircase to the second floor. "Sorry, Nick. As I'm sure you noticed, it's basically a labyrinth. Follow whatever trail Cindy and I left behind."

"Everyone, this way! I found the stairs!" a voice that Jimmy couldn't put a name to shouted.

"We're coming down, Jimmy!" Nick shouted while firing off two more shots. "Hang on!"

Jimmy suddenly looked behind him, surprised that none of the surviving Yolkian soldiers had tried to attack him as they did Nick. They must be busy fighting off Nick's army for the moment.

He shook these thoughts out of his head and turned back to the computer and resumed mashing the keys. After another minute of studying the monitor, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. He turned around, and let out a sigh of relief.

Nick running into the room, pistol gripped in his hands and held out in front of him. "Stay alert! Guns ready!" he barked while to his army behind him. More than a hundred and thirty kids filed into the room. Only four carried guns. The rest had had to make do with what they could find. Dozens clenched rocks in their fists, three or four had managed to steal working spears, and the rest were empty-handed.

Nick came to a step several feet behind Jimmy, and his squad rested several feet behind Nick. Nick gave a crisp salute, which Jimmy gladly returned. "Good to see you, chief!" Nick shouted.

"Did you suffer any casualties boarding the vessel?" Jimmy asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

Nick smiled and shook his head. "A few scratches and bruises, a couple bloody noses, and a couple of people got sliced by those spears. Nothing serious, though. We managed to pick off most of those alien bastards with our before they could get within fifty feet of us. We simply surrounded and pummeled the ones that managed to get in close," Nick said, visibly beaming with pride and joy.

Nick then looked around the vast room that everyone was standing in. "Now, what is going on? I thought you were supposed to be captured by now."

Jimmy rubbed his chin, struggling to find the best way to explain the chaos that surrounded them all. "Basically," Jimmy began, "there were a lot less soldiers on the ship than we had expected. Less than a hundred. Whether that was a tactical error on Goobot's part is a mystery, but some guards mentioned an assassination attempt on his life. This is strictly conjectured, but it's possible that the majority of Goobot's soldiers are employed in some sort of civil war on his planet."

Nick stared at Jimmy for a few seconds after he was done talking, and then shook his head. "Hold the phone. I don't give a crap about some Yolkian civil war. You're saying that there was merely a lot less soldiers than you had expected?"

"Basically," Jimmy said with a shrug.

"Ok," Nick said while letting out a deep breath and letting his usual happy demeanor crawl back onto his face. "I understand now. Let's move on. Where's that king... Goobot, that's his name. Where is he?"

Jimmy pointed at the floor where Goobot had disappeared. "Jimmy," Nick continued, "that's a floor, not Goobot."

"I know it's a floor!" Jimmy angrily shouted. "Goobot is somewhere below the floor. It's some sort of elevator or something of the type. Regardless, I'm hacking into the Yolkian computer system and attempting to override the locks that Goobot put in place. It will take a few more minutes. Position your men around that circle on the floor and have your weapons ready. Don't go down until I give you the command."

Nick nodded. "You heard him! Circle that circle!" After Nick shouted his command, he turned back to Jimmy. "Where's Cindy?" he nervously asked.

"She's fine. A little roughed up, but fine. She's familiarizing herself with the alien piloting system so that she can fly this rocket home as soon as we confirm that our parents are onboard," Jimmy told him.

Nick still had a lot of questions, and Jimmy saw that he was about to open his mouth again. "Nick, save it for the ride home. I have got to unlock that elevator before Goobot pulls another trick out of his sleeve." Jimmy ran back to his computer before Nick could respond. Nick just checked his gun and joined his soldiers around the circle on the floor where Goobot had descended.

For the first few minutes, all of Nick's soldiers kept their gaze firmly on the floor where they stood, but soon they started stealing glances at Jimmy, wondering what was taking so long. "Jimmy, what's the holdup?" Nick asked.

Jimmy scowled at their impatience and continued pressing buttons. "The lock is more thorough than I expected. I'm trying to find an override, but there's something blocking my progress. I think Goobot has a computer down there. That, or they have a defensive artificial intelligence. Hang on, yes, it's an artificial intelligence. It's not that advanced, only around the same level as the U.S. army's."

"That's not advanced?" Betty asked.

"Not by my standards," Jimmy said with a smile. "I'm cornering it," he explained in laymen's terms. He knew they would never understand the true mechanics of how he was disabling the A.I. "There. Its code is erased. Yes, hang on, yes. This is easy now. I've got half the override code. Sixty percent now."

Jimmy suddenly paused and looked at the ground beneath him as a roaring sound emanated from below. "What was that?" somebody asked. "Sounds like engines," another said.

I told Cindy not to move the ship yet! He angrily thought. But as he listened to the low rumble, he realized that it couldn't possibly be the ship's massive engines. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard and tried to find out what was going on.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered. "He's trying to get in an escape pod!" Jimmy shouted to everyone behind him.

"Don't let him get away!" Brittany screamed.

Jimmy stopped working to stare at her. "Thanks for that advice." He shook his head and turned back to his work. "I'm overriding the escape pods. Give me a second." A few seconds later the rumbling died down. "There. He can't escape. I've locked it down." He pressed several more keys and looked over his shoulder.

Suddenly the floor began to shimmer, and everyone took several steps back. It then disappeared altogether, and all of the kids stared down into the darkness beneath them. "Let me activate the lights," Jimmy offered while pressing several more buttons and staring back at the monitor. The dark first level was suddenly flooded with white light.

Jimmy left his computer, he didn't need it anymore. He stood beside Nick and peered down the hole. "I want a gun," Jimmy demanded.

Nick snapped his fingers, and a girl standing next to him handed him her pistol. Nick in turn handed it to Jimmy, who pulled back the slide and stared down the hole. "Six foot drop or so. Everyone, move in!" Jimmy shouted, resuming his post as commander.

The dozens of kids jumped down the large hole at once. They landed within seconds of each other, causing the floor to shake under their sudden impact. Jimmy, Nick, and the three other kids with guns stepped away from the rest and aimed their weapons around the room.

"Stick together," Jimmy ordered. "Weapons ready. Do not, I repeat, do not kill him. I want him alive."

Several groans arose from the crowd, and Nick glared at them. "You heard the chief! Take him alive!"

Jimmy and Nick led the way, with the three other armed kids standing right behind them. The two boys led the crowd through the large room. They found no sign of Goobot. "We know you're here!" Jimmy shouted. "Show yourself!"

As soon as he rounded a corner in the cavernous bowels of the ship, Jimmy saw the king. He had his back braced against a wall some thirty meters from them, and a spear was clutched in his grasp. The five armed soldiers unleashed a torrent of fire. Goobot started to flee, but it was useless. Dozens of rounds of ammunition pierced his reinforced shell and sent him crashing into the ground.

"Hold your fire!" Jimmy shouted, as he fired all but three of his bullets. Everyone stood still and watched as their two leaders walked towards the alien.

"Don't kill him," Jimmy whispered. "I need to talk to him."

"Whatever you say, chief," Nick answered.

Goobot's eyes widened in fear as the two bipeds approached him. Nick smiled as he saw the alien's fear. He kicked in the cracked glass shield that formed the upper part of his shell as he walked up to the fallen alien.

"Our parents," Jimmy said as calmly as he could while looming over his old nemesis. "You will tell us right now. Where are they?"

"I already told you I don't know what you're talking about!" the king screamed, his voice cracking. Without his guards to protect him, he was a sniveling coward.

"He's playing dumb," Nick whispered to Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded. "I'm going to ask again. Think this time. Where are our parents?"

"I don't understand! We didn't take your parents!" the king cried.

Nick looked to Jimmy, Jimmy nodded at him. Nick leveled his gun at one of the alien's eyes and fired a bullet. The delicate organ seemed to explode, and Goobot let out a pathetic shriek of pain as green blood painted the wall behind him.

Jimmy knelt down and grabbed the stalk of the other eye. "These vapors you told me about. What did you mean? What happened here? Why were there so few soldiers guarding the place where you stored our parents."

The Yolkian seemed to lose some of its fear as Jimmy asked these questions. At last, something I can answer, the Yolkian thought in relief. "I don't know why you ask, Neutron," Goobot spat with hatred, "as you obviously know. But the vapors are what you humans may refer to as a gas. I was talking about the disabling gas that you used to incapacitate my crew, soldiers, guards, and ultimately myself!"

Nick looked to Jimmy for a translation. Jimmy seemed puzzled. "He's talking about a knockout gas. He's saying that we used some sort of a knockout gas against him earlier. Like what he did to you and the other kids," Jimmy told Nick while contemplating the king's words.

Nick shook his head. "He's trying to buy some time until some more guards attack us!" Nick shouted. "Or something!" he added after a moment.

Jimmy nodded, agreeing with Nick. Goobot obviously knew where their parents were, and was trying to confuse Jimmy until a fleet of his ships could come to his rescue.

"One last chance," Jimmy said while reaching inside the Yolkian and grabbing its brain. Any forcefulness that the king had gained a moment ago was lost as Jimmy wrapped his hands around the organ. Goobot began to quiver and moan. "Where. Are. Our. Parents?"

"I don't know!" Goobot shouted while locking eyes with Jimmy, pleading for him to have mercy.

No dice. Jimmy dug his fingernails into the alien's brain and yanked it out of Goobot's head. The pile of green slime in front of him lost its sheen and instantly began to turn grey.

Jimmy tossed the brain on the ground and jumped onto it, sending small pieces of slimy flesh sliding across the room. The brutality of his actions shocked him, but he felt a sense of peace he hadn't felt since fourth grade. Finally. Goobot's dead once and for all. One less super villain to deal with. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief and wiped a slime-covered hand through his hair.

"Uh, Jimmy?" Nick asked. Jimmy let go of his hair and turned to face Nick. "Was that a good idea? I mean, I wanted to kill him too, we all did, but he was the only one left who knew where our parents were. How are we going to find them now?"

Jimmy smiled at Nick's naiveté. "Nick, if he wasn't going to help us, then he was impeding our progress and was a threat. I can easily find our parents. I'll just lock onto their location with this," he said while pulling his DNA tracker out of his pocket and turning around to face the crowd.

A wave of cheers and applause raced through the group of soldiers as Jimmy assured them that their parents could be found. Goobot was dead, and their ordeal was finally over. "Yes, yes, it looks like we've won!" Jimmy said, trying to remain nonchalant, but he couldn't help but let out a laugh himself. "But let's save the cheering for the ride home. There could still be a few hostiles hanging around the ship, and I have to find our parents."

Jimmy motioned for everyone to follow him as he ran to a computer that he had found when he jumped down to the bottom level of the ship. He began pressing buttons and continued inputting commands for another minute, as everyone watched in silence. Suddenly, the hole above them was filled with a shimmering of light, and then the light solidified into a piece of floor. Jimmy pressed another button, and the new circle of the floor slid down to them. "So it is an elevator," he mumbled while shaking his head in disbelief.

"Ike, Brittany, Betty, lead everyone back to the piloting room. It should be somewhere near the bow of the ship. Cindy's probably going to need help getting this rocket moving. Nick, stay here with me and help me find our parents. Everyone, move out."

"Yes sir!" everyone shouted while stepping onto the elevator. Jimmy pressed a button on the computer, and the soldiers were lifted up to the second level of the ship.

Nick stared up after them as Jimmy stepped away from the computer and powered up his DNA tracker. "Um, Jimmy?" Nick asked.

"Yeah?"

"Shouldn't we have given those guys our guns? Theirs are probably nearly empty," Nick told Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded his head as he activated his invention's scanning process. "Yes, but they shouldn't encounter many enemies. They still have some ammo, and they vastly outnumber the enemies. Whereas down here, we're all alone. I think we might need the guns more than them. I don't think we'll encounter anything, but better safe than sorry," Jimmy said with a shrug.

"Whatever," Nick said while strolling up to Jimmy; staring around at the vast cavernous room they were in. "What the hell is this room, anyway?"

"No idea, Nick," Jimmy muttered. "Hang on, this is strange," Jimmy said while staring at the DNA tracker's monitor.

Nick sadly shook his head and looked over Jimmy's shoulder at the invention in his friend's hands. "Of course it is. What's wrong?"

Jimmy pressed a few more buttons and continued frowning. "It says the parents are in an extremely close proximity. Somewhere in this room."

Nick and Jimmy quickly looked around. There appeared to be no places where the parents could be. "You sure they're not above us?"

Jimmy held the device towards the ceiling, and frowned deeper. "No. They are definitely on this floor, somewhere in this room."

He led Nick around the vast room, but saw no signs of their parents. They rounded the corner that led to the dead end where they had killed Goobot moments before. Nick stared down the corridor at Goobot and shook his head. "Nothing down here." He was about to turn around and walk away when Jimmy grabbed his arm.

"Nick, wait. The signal's even stronger in this corridor. There must be a secret passage or something that's holding our parents." Jimmy led the way towards Goobot, and the signal steadily increased.

They reached the end of the hallway and paused. Nick started tapping all the walls and running his hands along them to feel for cracks, but there was no sign of any secret passageway or room. "Jimmy, there is nothing here besides us and Goobot. No secret passageway, nothing."

Jimmy shook his head as he stared down at the device in his hand. "Libby, am I reading this wrong?"

There was a short pause before Libby answered. "Negative, Jimmy. I'm picking up the signal your DNA tracker is sending to the lab. You're reading it right. Our parents should be within a foot of your current position."

Nick threw up his hands. "The thing's broken, Neutron. Let's check the other areas of the ship." Jimmy didn't respond, and Nick clapped him on the back. "It's alright, dude. Not every invention is a winner. Just..."

"Will you shut up?" Jimmy snapped. Nick jumped backwards and stared at Jimmy. "I'm trying to figure this out!"

Nick sighed and ran a hand through his long hair. "Maybe the parents are camouflaged. You know, like the bad guy in those Predator movies?"

Jimmy shook his head. "We would have bumped into them or shot them if they were in this room. I don't understand what is going on," he said while rubbing his head.

Jimmy stared down at Goobot. The DNA tracker said the parents were at the exact location where Jimmy was standing. Jimmy took a step back, and the signal weakened slightly. He frowned, puzzled. He then stepped back towards Goobot, and the signal strengthened. He knelt down and held the scanner over Goobot's head, and the readings on his tracker went off the scale.

Jimmy stared at Goobot. He made sure that his DNA tracker was checking for his parents' DNA. Running a scan for Judy and Hugh Neutron's DNA. Why is it telling me they're Goobot?

Jimmy was about to stand up when he noticed something odd on the Yolkian's broken control panel. He stared at Goobot's shell.

The shell's control panel was basically a belt of innumerable gadgets, circuits, and microcomputers. Yet something stood out. Jimmy reached for the panel and pulled off a small black circle the size of his thumbnail and as thick as a quarter. He put it under the DNA tracker's scanner, and the reading once again increased.

Jimmy angrily stood up and tossed the black circle several feet away. His parents' signal faded, and then increased when he walked up to the strange device. Jimmy picked up the circle and turned it over. Engraved in the back was a small message, the letters barely large enough to be legible. Got you.

"Oh shit," Jimmy shouted.

"What is it?" Nick asked, running over to join Jimmy.

Jimmy handed Nick the black gadget and started to bite his fingernails. "The Yolkians didn't do this."

"What?" Nick shouted.

Jimmy started pacing around, and then ran to the computer near the elevator. Nick grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked Jimmy.

Jimmy put his DNA tracker back in his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck. "Goobot must have been telling the truth. Someone or something used knockout gas, the vapors he talked about, to render everyone on this ship unconscious. They put that device on him, which sent the signal of our parents' DNA to us. It led us here. This whole thing is a trap!" Jimmy tried to run back to the elevator, but Nick stopped him once more.

"That's crazy," Nick told Jimmy, but he began to replay the terrified Goobot's last words over in his mind. "This could just be some sick joke by Goobot or something."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Jimmy shouted. "Why would he have this stupid device on him? It made us kill him! He was telling the truth, Nick! This whole thing, it's all been a set up!"

Jimmy didn't give Nick time to reply. He grabbed his headset and pulled the microphone to his mouth. "Cindy, something's wrong down here. Fire up the engine, blast off, and get us the hell out of here."

Jimmy waited for a response, but none came. "Cindy, answer me!" Once again, there was no response.

"Ike, Betty, Brittany, Jacob!" Nick shouted into his own headset. "Does anyone read us?" Jimmy and Nick looked to each other as there was only silence.

"Jimmy, what is happening on that ship?" Libby asked, just as confused as Jimmy and Nick.

Suddenly, the ship's loudspeakers buzzed on. Jimmy and Nick stared up at the ceiling, and a low, menacing laugh surrounded them.

"This is freaking me the hell out!" Nick shouted while pulling out his gun. Jimmy did the same, and they stood back to back, their guns leveled at the ceiling.

Suddenly, Jimmy heard a hissing sound above him. He and Nick looked up at the ceiling. A pinkish gas was coming out of a ventilation shaft. It spread around them and enveloped the room quickly. Nick and Jimmy started coughing violently.

"This, this..." Nick struggled to say while coughing and clutching his throat. He tried to speak again, but he lost consciousness and collapsed onto the floor.

Jimmy tried to listen to Nick's words, tried to fight off the all too familiar swirling blackness, but knew it was futile. He fell onto the floor, and the last thing he heard before blacking out was Libby's frantic voice shouting, "Jimmy! Jimmy! Are you ok? Jimmy!"

Chapter 46: Mysteries Solved

The world was little more than a blur as Jimmy opened his eyes. Every muscle in his body ached, but that was nothing compared to the pain in his head. He felt like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into it. For a moment he had trouble remembering what had happened, but then he moaned, "Cindy."

As soon as he said her name things came rushing back to him. The travel through space, the loss of Sheen, his guilt, forming a suicide team, killing Goobot, and then blackness. He tried to focus his eyes, but the world continued to spin around him. He tried to lean to his right to throw up, but he ended up vomiting on the floor right in front of him.

"Goobot," he mumbled as his eyes rolled around in his sockets. "Nick... Cindy. You there?" he weakly croaked. He heard no response and tried to stand up, but his legs were unresponsive. He pulled on his arms, but the action was only met by a pain in his wrists. Still not completely sure of what was going on, he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

He slept a dreamless sleep, his body using all of its energy to replace his lost blood and repair the bruised skin along his jaw. This was suddenly interrupted by a sharp pain in his stomach.

"Ow!" Jimmy tried to shout as pain exploded from his gut and radiated all throughout his body, but the wind was knocked out of him and he could only wheeze. His eyes bugged out and he coughed violently.

"Wakey wakey," a devilish voice told him.

Familiar... so familiar, his mind though while Jimmy looked down at the floor and struggled to breath. After a few more seconds of violent coughing he managed to refill his lungs with precious oxygen. The world was still spinning around him, but not so violently as when he had first woken up. He lifted his aching head up and stared at the enemy that stood in front of him. It took a moment for the room to stop spiraling and for his eyes to focus, but once they did he let out a groan of anger. "You," he angrily spat.

The boy in front of him lifted an eyebrow and gave an evil grin. "Good to see that you remember me," Eustace Strych said while wiping his hands off on a towel that he was holding. Red liquid that Jimmy immediately realized was blood coated the towel.

Eustace noticed that Jimmy's eyes were locked on to the stained towel and smiled wider. "Something wrong?"

Jimmy tried once more to stand up, to launch himself at Eustace, but a searing pain flooded his wrists once more. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder and saw that a mess of handcuffs and rope had tied his wrists together and to a pillar that rose out of the center of the room.

"Don't look so shocked," Eustace playfully told his nemesis while tossing the towel onto the ground. "Did you really expect me to not tie you up? I was smart enough to come up with this whole ingenious plan; I'm not about to throw it all away by not immobilizing you."

Jimmy looked away from the rope and metal that trapped him and turned his attention back to his captor. Same old Eustace, he thought. Strych stood in front of him with his brown hair slicked back, his mouth twisted into a smile that showed off his large front teeth. He stood with the dignity and pride of a boy who had never worked a day in his life, and his clothes reflected that. Even during a battle, the boy was dressed in clothes worth more than Jimmy's parent's car.

"I imagine you have a series of questions," Eustace muttered while taking a seat in a small folding chair that he had placed several feet in front of Jimmy. He twirled the antique revolver that he had used against Jimmy on the moon weeks ago.

Jimmy continued to glare at Eustace. "Where is everyone!" he shouted. "If you hurt any of them, I swear that I'll," he began to shout, but Eustace interrupted him by slamming his pistol across Jimmy's injured jaw. Blood flowed from his lips, and Jimmy spat more of the red liquid onto the floor.

"Making idle threats isn't exactly a good idea," Eustace said while grinning. Jimmy spit more blood onto the floor before shaking his head and turning back to Eustace.

"I've gotten a lot accomplished in the ten or so hours that you've been unconsciousness," Eustace continued. "Don't worry about your little playmates, they're safe. For now. You're the main target, Jimmy, but I'm sure a genius like yourself already figured that out long ago."

"And Cindy?" Jimmy said as angrily as he could, but genuine fear betrayed his hostility.

"Tucked away for the moment," Eustace assured the injured boy. "I must say, Neutron, you've picked well. She's certainly grown since we first met, if you know what I mean," he said while chuckling.

Jimmy scowled at Eustace and pulled harder on his ropes, but they didn't give. "You sick bastard," Jimmy growled.

Eustace simply laughed once more knelt down to make eye contact with Jimmy. "Don't even bother struggling with those ropes, Jimmy. Superman himself couldn't break free of that entangled mess you're trapped in. I suggest you just sit back and enjoy the ride."

Jimmy continued pulling on the ropes, even as they dug into his wrists and drew blood. Jimmy finally lunged his head forward and tried to bite Eustace, but he came up two feet short. Eustace just laughed and gave Jimmy a pitiful look.

"How amusing, James. Acting like the atrocious dog you really are," he said while chuckling and standing back up. He paused, kicked Jimmy hard in the stomach, and smiled as Jimmy coughed violently once more and struggled to breathe.

"Never gets old," Eustace mused while turning around and walking back to his seat. "Now," he continued while sitting down, "as I said before, I'm sure that you're wondering how I accomplished all of this, how I managed to beat the famous James Isaac Neutron."

"I'm not beat yet," Jimmy weakly argued, still struggling to breathe. But he couldn't help but ponder Eustace's words. He was wondering how Eustace had tricked him, how he had bested him in a battle of wits. He wasn't prepared to let Eustace know this, however.

Eustace knew that Jimmy wanted to know how he had accomplished this, he could see it in his eyes. "Beat or not, I can tell you're curious. You certainly have a right to be, even I was surprised at the sheer brilliance I displayed during this little, as I believe you would call it, adventure."

Eustace crossed his legs and stared at Jimmy, expecting another hurtful remark, but the boy genius remained silent, wanting to know in spite of himself. "I'm sure you know what this is," Eustace told him while rolling the black circle towards Jimmy. If fell over onto the floor right below his face.

Jimmy read the engraving on the back of the device and nodded. "Some sort of device that carries my parent's DNA and amplifies the signal. It's what led us here."

Eustace teasingly clapped his hands. "Very good, James. That is its description in laymen's terms. It does contain a sample of a... potpourri, if you will, of all of your parents' DNA. It amplifies the strength of those few cells trillions of times, which tricked your little DNA trackers to believe it was all of your parents. The device's signal is so powerful that it also blocks out the real signal sent by your parents' DNA. It wasn't cheap, but good things never are," he joked.

"But that was just one of the many parts of my plan, Neutron. You may have noticed that I've been absent from your life for over a year now, save for that little moon distraction, which I'll come to later. This plan didn't come together over night, Jimmy, oh no. Quite the contrary, it required months of intensive planning."

"You need to get a life," Jimmy angrily told Eustace.

"At least I'll have one by the end of the day," Eustace angrily told Jimmy while standing up punching him hard in the face. Warm blood flowed from Jimmy's nose. Eustace smiled and began pacing around the room, all the while holding his gun and occasionally pointing it at Jimmy, who just stared on with his eyes narrowed in anger.

"First, there was the abduction of the parents," Eustace began to explain. "That was one of the easier parts. I hired several mercenaries who excelled in covert operations. They easily attached the tanks full of the 'knockout gas' to key points around the city, which would be triggered by myself via remote activation. Once they were activated, a larger group of mercenaries easily rounded up your parents and the other adults and older teens in your little town. They were shipped to a base that I had and then brought out into deep space."

Eustace stopped pacing around as he came to stand in front of Jimmy once more. "Now, obviously I could have done all of this during the night and allowed you to be hit by the knockout gas, but I didn't want to risk you waking up and seeing that it was me. My whole plan rested on you believing that the Yolkians were responsible. So instead, I decided to distract you with a feverish battle on the moon. It still amazes me that you never for one second thought that it was more than coincidence that the night your parents were taken, you and I engaged in our longest battle ever, and that it was our first encounter in over a year."

Jimmy bit his lower lip in anger as he listened to Eustace. Stupid! Of course I should have realized it was him!

"You see, Jimmy, the attack on the moon was little more than a distraction. Obviously I tried as hard as I could to kill you, but I knew that you would most likely defeat me. I simply made the battle last as long as possible so that my mercenaries in Retroville would have ample time to complete their task. They kidnapped the parents, destroyed your cameras, and infiltrated your lab."

Eustace laughed as he explained another part of his plan. "You see, my mercenaries broke into your lab and switched some things around so that you would find a video of the previous Yolkian's attack. Do you get it now, Jimmy? The video that you examined, the one that showed the Yolkians abducting your parents, was taken two years ago! It was of the first abduction!"

Eustace laughed until his sides hurt. "It was ridiculously easy to break into your lab, Jimmy. All I needed was a strand of your hair! What were you thinking? Our school library has higher security! So much technology, the heart of all your scientific pursuits, your second home, all I needed was to pluck a strand of hair the comb in your bathroom, you stupid imbecile!" Eustace said between fits of laughter. "Even for the control room, I only needed your fingerprints!"

Jimmy clenched his teeth in anger, especially since he knew that Eustace was right. "I was going to put higher security in this Christmas," he mumbled, more to himself than Eustace.

"So, I assume you know what happened next. They systematically destroyed your video cameras placed around the city, save the one on that Baltic Avenue which they beat the crap out of, leading you to think the Yolkians destroyed it in a hurry. They accessed your lab's security video files, erased other videos from the period in which you thought your parents were abducted, uploaded the old video of an old Yolkian abduction, and then erased all evidence of their presence in your lab. Pretty smart, huh?"

Jimmy continued staring straight ahead, his eyes blank. He continued to slowly move his wrists, but his attempts to free himself were failing miserably.

Eustace stopped revealing the details of his plan and stared at Jimmy, who continued to stare straight ahead. "I know what you're doing, Jimmy. You're listening to what I'm saying, getting angry about it, all of that stuff. But the majority of your brain is thinking about the situation at hand. Thinking about how you can escape. Your mind is like a computer, running through thousands upon thousands of different escape plans, computing variables and odds of success. They range from the simple breaking of your ropes to the absurd concept of some deus ex machina. But face it, Jimmy, it's over. Even if you could break free of your ropes, which you can't I've got the gun. I'd shoot you dead before you got within five feet of me."

Eustace gave an evil smile and continued speaking. "Your friends can't help you, James. They're tied up just as you are, and probably still knocked out. I gave you all a pretty heavy dose of that knockout gas. So I suggest you give up trying to escape, lie back, and listen to this little speech, because it's the last thing you'll ever hear. So enjoy, why don't ya?" Eustace asked while gently slapping Jimmy twice on the cheeks. Jimmy lashed out with his feet and tried to bite Eustace's hand, but Eustace merely jumped backwards and evaded both blows. "You'll pay for that later," Eustace happily promised.

Eustace sat back down in his seat and took a sip from a Shirley Temple he had prepared himself. "So the force field was set. That was no easy task either, Jimmy. It took a year for my scientists to make and cost quite a pretty penny. Luckily I've got trillions of them. At any rate, I monitored your actions, just as you expected. A few hidden cameras here and there really spruced up your lab. Meanwhile, I was off in space on a rather bedraggled and hastily assembled base somewhere near this Yolkian planet. I powered down the force field to let you through and to allow you to keep in contact with your lab. I decided to give you at least that little gift so you wouldn't give up hope and head back to Earth."

Eustace polished off his drink and raised his empty glass to Jimmy. "Thirsty?"

"No thank you," Jimmy slowly said, his voice oozing hatred. He still struggled with the bonds that tied him to the pillar, but he was rapidly realizing that this was a futile effort.

"A shame," Eustace said with a shrug while tossing the glass over his shoulder. "I thought you would at least want to sample a martini before you die. Your loss."

Eustace cleared his throat and pointed the gun at Jimmy's head while making banging sounds. He chuckled a little and twirled the gun in his fingers. "But back to business. The asteroid belt you encountered, contrary to what you may be thinking, was merely a stroke of bad luck for you. But you can imagine how happy I was to hear that you'd lost your supplies, rockets, hope, and friend. That last bit truly amused me."

"I'll kill you!" Jimmy shouted while struggling to get free with new tenacity at the mention of Sheen's death, but Eustace just quizzically stared at him. Jimmy continued to struggle like a fish on a hook, but finally gave up and began to breathe deeply after several minutes. "You sick son of a bitch," he finally murmured.

"But let's move on. Around the time you left Earth, I initiated the riskiest part of my plan, but as you can see, I made it out unscathed. I took a small ship of my own, infiltrated this Yolkian ship, and unleashed a torrent of knockout gas through the ventilation system. Luckily, it works just as well on those aliens as on humans. I attached the black device that amplified your parents' DNA signal onto Goobot and placed dozens of large tanks of the knockout gas in the ventilation systems and prepared them for remote activation. Then I left the ship. Once I was back at my base with your captive parents, I continued to pump the Yolkian ship full of the gas. I wanted them subdued until just before you invaded their ship. That way they wouldn't have a lot of time to spot the black device and destroy it. I also hoped that the knockout gas would anger the Yolkians enough to really give you a good fight."

Eustace started to continue, but snapped his fingers and slapped a hand to his forehead. "Oh, and James, this isn't really a mother ship on which they were guarding your parents. It's actually just Goobot's private vacation vessel. The reason that there were so few soldiers to guard your parents was that there were no parents to guard. They were just a few dozen soldiers that are there to protect the king along with his personal guards. Just in case you're wondering."

Jimmy finally gave up on trying to break the ropes and let out a deep sigh. "You finished?"

Eustace closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "Pretty much. Once you were around a day away from this ship, I boarded it again. The Yolkians were still out cold. I hid inside a supply closet on the third floor. At least, that's what I think it was. Then I stopped bombarding the ship with the gas and allowed the aliens to wake up. I had hoped that the Yolkians could kill you and I could hit them with the knockout gas again. Then I would have taken one of this ship's escape pods back to the base, gather some supplies, and head back to Earth, leaving your parents alone to die."

Eustace holstered his gun and clapped his hands together. "Jimmy, I have one last thing to say. Obviously you're a smart guy, I have to give you that. But you acted incredibly foolish, reckless, and just plain dumb during this adventure," Eustace said with a hint of sadness while pityingly shaking his head.

"You see, Jimmy, this plan was amazing. I'm sure you're thinking that, even if you won't say it. And it succeeded. But it wasn't flawless," Eustace said with a pang of regret. "Obviously, no plan is without risks. The risk in mine was that you would spot and investigate the discrepancies between what you wanted to believe and the reality you faced. I was quite shocked, but greatly pleased, that you failed to follow up on many leads."

Eustace's playful smile returned as he took a seat. "Your stupidity has ended up putting you, your friends, your girlfriend, and your parents in the hands of..." he waved his arms about, trying to come up with the right word, "a madman," he finished while grinning wider.

"There were so many hints, clues, whatever you want to call them, that told you the Yolkians hadn't done this," Eustace began. "The fact that you fought me on the same day your parents were abducted. The fact that you were on the moon during the 'abductions' and didn't see any Yolkian ships travel to Earth. Why didn't you think it odd that the time on the videotape of the Yolkians' abduction was so different from the time that Nick said he had been attacked?" Eustace asked in amazement.

"Goobot's confusion, the lack of Yolkian defenses, all of those things!" Eustace shouted in amazement. He leaned forward in his seat and stared at Jimmy. "But there was one thing, Jimmy. One humungous clue that I realized too late. It was on the video of the Yolkians taking your parents. But you didn't see it. And neither did I, until I watched you all watch it in your lab. Yet you didn't notice. Do you know what it was? Do you know?"

Jimmy met Eustace's glare and replayed the video in his mind. The Yolkians. They flew down, abducted the parents, and flew off. What is he talking about? They flew away past the moon, and then the tape...

Eustace smiled as he saw the realization spread across Jimmy's face. "I see you realize it now," he happily muttered.

Jimmy shook his head and shook his body violently at his stupidity. "The moon," he whispered.

"The what?" Eustace sarcastically asked while cupping a hand over his ear and aiming his revolver at Jimmy's head with his other hand. "Speak up!"

Jimmy looked at the gun pointed at his face and sighed. "The moon," he sadly said while looking down at the floor. "The moon on the videotape was a sliver. Less than a quarter moon. But the moon that night was a full moon. If the video had truly been taken that night, the moon on it would have been full."

Eustace smiled and jumped out of his seat. He started to pace around Jimmy, always keeping his revolver trained on the defeated boy sitting near him. "That's right, Jimmy. You, the almighty genius, didn't notice that or any of the other clues. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You sicken me, Jimmy. Not just because of your stupidity, but also because you're more selfish than I had ever imagined. Even when you thought it was the Yolkians that had taken your parents, you knew that you were the main target. You discussed it with that Dean boy. So why did you take all of those other kids with you?" Eustace asked while shaking his head.

Jimmy tried to answer, to defend himself, but Eustace didn't give him a chance. "Why did you risk everyone's lives? You knew it was your fault, you were the one who gave the Yolkians a map to your planet two years ago! So why did you insist on bringing hundreds of innocent people with you on this suicidal adventure! Why didn't you take some fucking responsibility and take care of the Yolkians, and me, yourself?" Eustace asked in disgust.

"I...I," Jimmy tried to explain, but just gulped and stared at Eustace, truly hurt by his words. Is he right? Why didn't I take responsibility for what I'd done?

"You risked the lives of your friends, your girlfriend, and others when you knew that the enemy only wanted you! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Eustace asked in disgust while kicking Jimmy in the face.

Eustace looked down at Jimmy. His old enemy seemed thoroughly broken. He was staring down at the floor, blood pouring from his nose, lips, and cuts on his face. He had a black eye and a badly bruised jaw. He closed his eyes and thought over Eustace's words, wondering if he was truly to blame for his friend's situation.

Eustace smiled and pointed his gun at Jimmy's head. "And now, old chap, it's time to end this."

Jimmy looked up at the gun, struggled to free himself one last time, and then closed his eyes in defeat. He waited, but heard footsteps instead of gunshots. He opened his eyes and saw that Eustace was at the other end of the room, about to leave through a door. "Huh?"

Eustace chuckled. "Oh no, Jimmy. It's not your time yet. What could be worse than you dying? Dying after your girlfriend. Say goodbye to Cindy, Jimmy. It's time she learned what happens when you go out with a selfish, idiotic dipshit like yourself."

At the mention of Cindy's name, Jimmy's eyes immediately widened and he thrashed around once again, but the handcuffs and ropes held him in place. He continued to flail about even as his bonds cut deeper and deeper into his wrists. "Kill me!" he begged, abandoning the last of his pride. "Kill me, you fucking son of a bitch!" he shouted, trying to anger Eustace enough to hurt him instead of Cindy.

Eustace stared at Jimmy. "Amor Vincit Omnia," Eustace said. Jimmy instantly stopped thrashing around and stared at Eustace as if those three words had cast a spell on him. "Love conquers all," Eustace needlessly translated. "As I'm sure you know, it's Latin."

Eustace knelt down under the doorframe and locked eyes with Jimmy. "You'd think it means that your love for Cindy would allow you to beat me. But you've got it backwards. I think I've figured it out now. The reason you didn't notice those obvious clues back on Earth, the reason you slipped up, is because your love for Cindy distracted you. Your love allowed me to conquer you." Eustace gave a sad smile and shook his head. "Say goodbye to Cindy, Jimmy."

Jimmy watched in horror as Eustace cocked his gun and maniacally laughed while exiting the room and walking down the hallway to find the place where he had stashed Cindy. He finally snapped out of his daze when the tears flowing from his eyes splashed onto his jeans. "Kill me instead!" he shouted as loud as he could, although he knew that Eustace wouldn't listen even if he could hear him. "Kill me!"

Chapter 47: Reunion

Sheen suddenly opened his eyes and let out a large yawn while sitting up in his seat. "What time is it?" he mumbled while yawning once more and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stared at the monitor in front of him and saw a timer ticking down to zero. "Two and a half hours away from the Yolkian planet. Can't wait," he mumbled while jumping out of the pilot's chair.

He immediately cursed that decision as soon as he landed on his feet. His side still hurt, and his leg screamed in pain. Sheen stifled his scream, but then realized that was pointless as there was nobody around to hear him. "Ahhhhh!" he shouted as loud as he could.

In the twenty hours since Sheen had killed Dopsil and found the strange bottles of liquid, he had gotten a lot accomplished. After patching up his injuries as best he could he had gathered up all of the guns he had dropped and all the spears he could find. All of his weapons were in a large metal box that he had dragged into the pilot's room.

Sheen had also taken care of all of the remaining Yolkians that he had immobilized earlier. He had found several soldiers slithering across the floor at a snail's pace and stared at them with amusement. He interrogated all of the Yolkians he found. None of the soldiers would cooperate, so he had ripped their brains out. The few crewmen left alive had hesitantly answered his questions, and Sheen had them locked up in a metal crate next to the weapons. They had insisted that they knew nothing of his parents' abduction, and Sheen had come to the conclusion that it was a secret operation known only to Goobot and a select few. He made sure to check in on them every so often. After touring his new ship, he had lay down and taken a well-deserved break.

Despite his amazing victory over the Yolkians and the quenching of his thirst, he was still far from healed. His right leg had already been roughed up in his crash on the asteroid, and the knife that the Yolkian had thrown at him had nearly made it useless. The side of his stomach wasn't bleeding, but it still hurt from the stabbing and electrical shock. Plus, he hadn't found any food on the ship. It had been nearly four days since he had had anything to eat.

"Still," Sheen happily said while pondering all of that over, "I'm still alive."

Sheen was right. While painful, his wounds weren't fatal. He was worried that he wouldn't wake up when he had fallen asleep for his nap, but now he knew that he was going to survive.

Sheen crawled back into his seat and stared through the giant windshield that lay before him. He could see a small dot at the very edge of his field of view, and knew that it was the Yolkian's home world. "Only two more hours and twenty minutes," he eagerly told himself. "Then I'm back with the rest of the gang and getting our parents back."

Sheen drummed his fingers against the dashboard and sighed. I hope Jimmy and the others haven't fought them yet. I want to help. Besides Sheen's battle experience and superior marksmanship, he had several other reasons for needing to fight alongside his friends. He still had the majority of their guns, and he had seen how effective they were. He wanted to deliver them back to Jimmy before the fight. He also had found dozens of spears on the ship, which he was certain could come in handy. Plus, he thought that the information he had learned about their caste system and fighting styles could also be useful.

"Enough thinking," Sheen cheerily said while leaning back and putting his feet up on the control panel. "Two hours and I'm back with my friends and family. Then a short trip back to Earth and, drum roll please, Ultralord!" He raised his fist and let out a shout of joy at the thought of watching his favorite TV show for the first time in over two weeks.

Ever since the threat of immediate death either from dehydration or Yolkians had been removed, Sheen's new serious side had faded somewhat. He was rapidly transforming back to his old, wild self once more.

Sheen spun his seat around and then placed his legs back up on the control panel. He was rather enjoying having the run of a rocket ship to himself. "Two hours to kill," he murmured. "Should I explore the lower part of the ship some more or twenty questions with the Yolkians?" He tapped his finger against his chin for a few seconds before deciding on exploring. He was just about to get out of his seat when a quick beep came from the control panel.

Sheen glanced down at the computer screen beneath him. Written on it were four words. Human life forms detected. Sheen immediately looked through the glass screen in front of him out into space. The Yolkian planet was still little more than a date.

Sheen heard another beep and stared back down at the monitor. Human life forms five minutes away. "What the heck?" Sheen said aloud while trying to remember what Dopsil had taught him about piloting the ship. He finally rested his hand on a lever and pulled it towards himself. The ship immediately slowed down.

Sheen leaned forward in his seat and looked around. He saw only stars, planets, and black space. He was about to chalk the computer's notes up to error when he saw what looked like another Yolkian ship in the distance.

"Um, zoom in, zoom in," Sheen mumbled while staring at the hundreds of buttons in front of him. He pressed a red button, and the ship lurched forward. He flicked a green switch, and the ship fired some sort of laser cannon. He pressed several more buttons, but none gave the response that Sheen was looking for. He finally pressed down on device that resembled a joystick, and the monitor that showed a view of space zoomed in on the ship.

"Bingo," Sheen thoughtfully whispered while maneuvering the camera with the joystick clutched in his right hand. "What the heck are you?"

Sheen continued zooming in, and he soon realized that the object he was looking at was another Yolkian ship. This one seemed much larger than his own. He zoomed in as far as he could, and he recognized Jimmy's fleet of ships. The three rockets were either resting on the top of the alien craft's hull or floating just above it.

"What the heck are they doing on that thing?" Sheen asked while firing up his own ship's engines and flying towards the mother ship. Jimmy said that he was going to hijack a Yolkian ship after saving his parents. Could he already have rescued them? No, that can't be it. He would have taken a ship on the ground. He's either stealing the ship first... or the parents are on it.

Sheen didn't know which one it was, and he didn't really care. His eyes lit up and the pain encompassing his body dissipated at the prospect of seeing his friends again. "Time to suit up," he said while decreasing the rocket's speed. He looked down at the monitor that his right hand was resting on. Human life forms twenty minutes away. Sheen nodded. That should be enough time.

He quickly climbed out of his seat and hobbled across the floor to the crate of Yolkians. He bent over and began pushing it across the floor. "You guys are going on a little trip," he shouted into the box. He pushed it out of the pilot's room, through the maze of hallways, and down the stairs. He ignored the Yolkian's frightened cries and shouts of pain as they fell down the stairs.

It took a few minutes, but he finally reached the room that held the escape pods. He followed the sequence that Dopsil had taught him and prepared one of the pods to disengage from the ship. He set the autopilot to navigate the pod deep towards a random planet far away, in the opposite direction from the Yolkian home world.

"In you go," Sheen said while pushing the crate inside the small rocket. He made sure that the lid was sealed shut and stepped out of the escape pod. "I don't know where you're going, but have fun," he told the occupants of the crate while slamming the door shut and launching it off into space.

Having taken care of the last Yolkians onboard, he hustled back topside and went back into the piloting room. He stared at the array of guns and Yolkian weaponry, and he was once again struck with the problem of how to transport it all.

Sheen sighed and went back through the maze of hallways. He went into every room he could find and grabbed anything that could serve as rope. Unfortunately, he found no bags that he could put the weapons, only heavy metal boxes that he could never carry onto the ship.

He quickly limped back inside the piloting room and threw down the array of ropelike material he could find. He knelt down and got to work. He shoved six pistols into his waistband and tied two to each of his legs. He shoved as many retracted spears as he could into his deep pockets. He reattached the shotgun to his old backpack's shoulder strap. He tied two pistols and a bundle of the spears to the butt of the shotgun and slung the cumbersome weapon over his shoulder. He then laid a long strip of wire that he had taken from the ship straight across the ground. He found then tied a different piece of wire to each box of ammunition and loaded magazine that he had. He tied the wires that held the ammo to the long piece of wire on the ground. He then took the long wire and wrapped it three times around his waist and tied it into a knot. He now wore a belt that had boxes of ammo and loaded magazines hanging from it.

There were still several pistols lying on the ground, but he didn't want to wait any longer, and he was running out of room on his body. He reluctantly left them on the floor and stood back up. He felt weighted down and flinched as the shotgun continued to smack into his back, but he limped over to the dashboard.

He was only a few hundred kilometers from Goobot's vessel. He slowly maneuvered his ship above the larger craft and touched down on it. He made his way down to the bottom level of his ship, opened the front hatch, and stepped onto the top of the vessel that the other children were on.

"Time to play the hero," he happily told himself while walking along the top of the mother ship's hull, looking for a way inside. "Or at least the delivery boy," he said while looking at all of the guns hanging from his body.

It took a few minutes for Sheen to reach and find the hatch where Cindy and Jimmy had first boarded the alien craft. He peered down the hole and realized that it was at least a five foot fall. He sadly looked down at his injured leg and sighed. "Jimmy, you owe me one," he whispered while stepping over the edge.

He landed on the floor below with a sickening crack. "Ow," he moaned while struggling to lift his head up. "Stupid gravity! I thought this was space!" he muttered to himself. Focus. Remember, everyone's counting on you. Even if they don't know it.

Sheen pushed himself up off the floor, braced himself against a wall as a bout of dizziness overcame in, and then adjusted his grip on the rifle in his hands. He held it out in front of him while walking down the hallway.

"Jimmy! Cindy!" He shouted while cautiously walking down the halls, swinging his gun around every corner. "Goobot?" he asked with a shrug.

He suddenly paused and took a few steps back. A dead, grey Yolkian was lying on the ground to his left. "What the heck is going on?" he wondered while straining his ears to hear any sign of a fight between his friends and the Yolkians. He raised his eyebrows in curiosity as he heard no sounds. The place was eerily silent.

Just as he was about to stand up, he noticed several drops of dried blood on the floor. "Jimmy and the guys were here, alright," he whispered while looking at the crimson red drops that stained the floor. He stood back up, tightened his grip on the rifle's trigger, and went down the first stairway.

He lowered his gun and cocked his head while staring at the strange room in front of him. That's the weird thing. It's not a room. It's just a, a, field, he thought, struggling to find the right words. The entire floor was one giant room that must have extended a kilometer in each direction. There was no furniture or doors, only an array of machinery and computers.

Dried blood and grey slime was strewn across the room. He shuddered as he walked past a stray Yolkian eyeball that seemed to stare up at him. He suddenly paused as a live Yolkian lay right in front of him.

Sheen instinctively raised his gun and made sure that his finger was on the trigger. The Yolkian remained still. He took a few steps forward, and saw that the creature was definitely breathing. It's...sleeping? He thought in amazement. He bent down to get a closer look, and shook his head in amazement as the creature did appear to be sleeping. He pondered shooting it, but decided not to permeate the silence with a gunshot. He coughed quietly as he realized that the air was tinged pick and had a strange taste, but he continued down the next flight of stairs.

"Jimmy? Cindy?" he asked in a whisper while navigating his way through the maze of hallways that was the third floor. He wanted to shout out their names and find them, but he could tell that something was wrong on this ship. The silence, the dead bodies, the clear evidence of a fight, all of it disturbed him. Yet what frightened him most was that the battle was obviously over, yet his friends' rockets were still resting on top of the hull. They were still on this ship, being completely silent. He wanted to know why.

"Nick!" he whispered. "Cindy! Jimmy! Ike!" He continued to seethe. He continued to get no response. Suddenly, he came across a door. He opened it, and light automatically turned on. He peeked his head inside, but saw nothing. He shrugged, closed the door, and continued on his way.

As he rounded another corner, he came across two doors, one on each side of him. He opened the one on the left, peeked inside, and saw that it was empty as well. He then twisted the other door's doorknob, but the door wouldn't open. He slammed his body against it, but the door remained in place. It was locked. Sheen silently debated whether to smash it open or not. He was curious as to why it was locked, but he didn't want to make a lot of noise. Finally, he backed up against the wall behind him, lowered his rifle like a battering ram, and charged forward.

Cindy, like Jimmy, was sleeping a dreamless sleep. Her fragile body was fervently repairing the damage that the Yolkians had inflicted upon her. The knockout gas would keep her weaker classmates unconscious for several more hours, but she was subconsciously fighting its effects. As Sheen made his way across the fourth floor of the ship, she slowly woke up.

"Huh?" she weakly asked while opening her eyes. "Jimmy? Nick?" She struggled to say, but she realized that a band of duct tape was covering her mouth... She had a splitting headache, and her body felt numb. What...what's going on? She tried to stand up, but found that she couldn't. Suddenly, she realized that, wherever she was, she was in near-complete darkness. Only a small sliver of white light came in from under what she assumed to be a door.

"Yolkians. Pink gas," she mumbled through the tape, trying to remember what had happened to her. She tried once more to get up, but felt some sort of rope dig into her wrists. She moved her fingers, and felt some sort of pole or pillar. She also felt it press against her back. Wake up, Vortex. Fight this.

She yawned, but shook her head. She immediately regretted that act as her splitting headache threatened to make her pass out. She fought off the bout of dizziness and pain. After a moment she took a deep breath and sighed. Wherever I am, I'm not going anywhere for a while.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps was followed by a door opening nearby. Yolkians. She then immediately realized the flaw in her logic. Wait, Yolkians don't have feet. It's human! I bet it's Jimmy! She started to shout as loud as she could, but then immediately stopped.

Wait, I think there's duct tape on my mouth. Yolkians don't use duct tape. And we killed Goobot. Who tied my up? The frantic sound of someone trying to open the door began to frighten her. It must be Jimmy, or someone else that helped us kill Goobot. It has to be.

But as the creature outside the door slammed itself into the door without speaking, she began to doubt that it was one of her friends. Besides, how lucky have I really been on this trip?

Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes. Screw fear. I'm not going down without a fight. She struggled to stand up once more, but she realized that that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. She realized that she could move her legs, and she got ready to kick her attacker. Sweat poured down her forehead as she struggled to position herself.

Then, the door cracked and swung open. Her eyes blurred as the darkness instantly gave way and the room was flooded with bright white light. She clenched her fists and tightened her legs, preparing to lash out at her attacker.

But as she was still blinded by the sudden flash of light, the figure in front of her asked, "Cindy?" Cindy immediately unclenched her fists as she recognized the voice.

"Sheen?" she asked in disbelief, but could only mumble through the tape over her mouth. Her vision began to clear, and she saw that Sheen was indeed standing right in front of her.

"Oh my god, Cindy!" He quietly exclaimed while running over to her and putting his rifle on the ground. "This will hurt a little," he sincerely apologized while quickly ripping the tape off her mouth.

"Ah! Damn it!" she mumbled as the adhesive tape tore off some of her lip's skin. She quickly shook off the pain and continued to stare in amazement as Sheen untied the jumble of ropes that tied her in place. Judging by the length of time it was taking him, she guessed that Eustace had used a dozen pieces of rope.

"You alright?" Sheen asked while bending down in front of her and looking her over.

Cindy continued to stare in amazement at the boy in front of her. His buzz cut had gone bald in the center from where he had been hit by the bolt of plasma. He was shirtless and had a noticeable wound on his side. He was covered in cuts and scrapes, and dried blood coated a good deal of his body. Cindy gulped and finally tried to ask the obvious question. "How? You... you were dead," she mumbled.

Sheen tilted his head and gave her a confused look. "I was?"

Sheen took his outstretched hand and watched him hoist her up. "You crashed, or something. You got separated from us. What happened to you?"

Sheen glanced over his shoulder as he thought that he heard footsteps, but saw nothing. He turned back to Cindy ran a hand through his hair. "Cindy, maybe we should talk later. I get the feeling that something's wrong on this ship. What happened to you?"

Cindy slowly nodded and rubbed her wrists. He's right. Focus on what's at hand. "We killed Goobot, so I went into the cockpit to get ready to fly the ship. Then," she paused while trying to remember, "It's kind of fuzzy," she admitted. "Jimmy and Nick were arguing about something on the headset, and something was wrong with the air. I... I don't remember. But somebody tied me up."

Sheen anxiously looked behind him once more. Cindy's words were feeding his paranoia. He was about to speak, but Cindy beat him to it.

"We have to find Jimmy and the others," she told him, her harsh and commanding tone returning. "We'll split up. Did you check the upper levels?" she asked him.

"Pretty much. I don't think anyone's there," Sheen answered.

Cindy nodded. "Alright. You check the remainder of this floor and I'll move on to the lower levels. We've got to find the Yolkians that did this. Do you have a gun?"

Sheen smiled slightly as he eyed the rifle that he had put on the ground. He pulled a pistol out of his waistband and handed it to her. "Need anything else?"

Cindy shook her head as she pulled the gun's slide and aimed it to her right. "I'm good. Let's move out." She was about to run out of the room as Sheen picked up his rifle, but she stopped and gave him an approving nod. "Thanks for saving me," she awkwardly mumbled while running out of the room.

Sheen gripped his rifle and stared after her. She's never done that before. She's going soft on us. He gave an amused smile and exited the room. He continued navigating the maze of hallways that was the third floor, opening every door that he saw. He became excited when several of the doors were locked, thinking that more kids must be behind them. But each time his hopes were dashed when he saw that the room was empty.

"Come on, guys, where are you?" he mumbled while twisting another door's handle. He found that it was locked, groaned, backed up, and slammed his rifle into it. Just like all the others, it swung open as the front of it cracked.

As Sheen entered the room, the lights automatically turned one once more. What lay in front of him was so shocking that he couldn't believe it. This room was huge, nearly four times as large as the others. Over a hundred of his classmates and fellow soldiers were strewn across the ground, tied up and gagged. Sheen ran up to Nick, who was the closest to him.

"General!" Sheen shouted while tearing off the tape that covered his mouth. Nick didn't respond, but his chest was steadily rising up and down. He was alive. Sheen dropped his rifle and began to untie his legs wrists when he began to cough.

The world began to swirl around Sheen's eyes, a sensation that he had long gotten used to. Only as he doubled over and began to cough did he realize that the air in this room had a pink tinge and a strange quality, like on the fourth floor. This is worse, he thought while crawling towards the room's exit. He continued to cough and fought off unconsciousness as he made his way back out to the hallway.

As soon as he had left the room and taken a deep breath, his vision began to clear up. His head was screaming in pain, he was still coughing, but he didn't feel like he was going to pass out. "Ok," he whispered while coughing, "hold my breath this time. Stupid Yolkians."

He took a few more deep breaths and then stood up. He walked towards the entrance and was about to walk back into the gas chamber when the unmistakable sound of a gunshot came from the floor below him. He immediately spun around and pulled a fully loaded pistol out of his waistband. He swiveled around, but saw no enemy. He dropped down to the ground and placed his ear to the floor. He could barely make out the sound of sobbing and shouting.

He immediately jumped up and ran through the maze of hallways. He slid to a stop in front of the stairwell, grabbed the banister, and limped down the stairs. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, pulled out another pistol, and hobbled down the hallway.

Chapter 48: Shootout

Once Jimmy's voice had gone hoarse from screaming at the long-gone Eustace, Jimmy had resigned himself to staring down at the floor beneath him, crying. "Stupid, stupid!" he moaned while the tears flowed down his face, his hands unable to wipe them away. "He's right. He's right," he moaned while sobbing uncontrollably and trembling.

He continued this pathetic display for another minute or so, and then finally clenched his hands into fists so tight that they drew blood from his hands. "It's not my fault," he moaned while struggling against the ropes and chains once more. "I'll kill you, Eustace!" he screamed while thrashing around. Once he finally realized that the ropes were still going to hold, he started to look around the room.

Focus. Escape. Cut the ropes and chains. How? his mind quickly asked. He looked around the room, desperately searching for any sort of tool. His eyes gazed past the towel that Eustace had wiped his hands on, the broken shards of the glass that he had tossed over his shoulder, the gas mask that he had used while on the ship, and various other items. Jimmy let out a deep sigh and stared back down at the ground. "I might be able to make something, but I can't even reach any of them."

He continued to stare down at the ground, completely and utterly stumped. His sadness returned as he realized that Cindy was almost certainly dead by now. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but he started to cry once more. "I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I'm so sorry. I love you," he whispered as he heard footsteps come down the hall.

Jimmy continued staring down at the ground as Eustace walked back into the room, a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. He walked like a zombie, his eyes glazed over and his face oozing confusion. He stared down at the gun in his hands, stared back at the hallway behind him, and shook his head in disbelief.

"Did you do it?" Jimmy asked, still looking down, not seeing Eustace's strange appearance.

"Huh?" Eustace asked.

Jimmy glanced up, saw the knife and gun in his enemy's hands, and stared back down at the floor. "Did you kill her?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Eustace managed to smile slightly and regain his composure. "Oh yes, Jimmy," he began in his villainous voice, "yes I did. Thought I'd run right back and tell you. Do you want to know how I did it?"

Jimmy started to cry once more, tried to hide this from Eustace, and then realized that that was pointless. "No," he whispered.

Eustace sat back down on his chair, chewed on his bottom lip for a second, and then continued his speech. "She's a beautiful girl, James. Well, was a beautiful girl. But I'm afraid that that's changed," he said while giving Jimmy a devilish grin. "I doubt even her mother could recognize her now."

Jimmy decided that he would at least try to go out with some dignity. He knew that no amount of crying could save himself or Cindy, so he met Eustace's stare. "You son of a bitch!" he shouted while lunging forward.

"Uh, uh, uh," Eustace taunted while placing his knife against Jimmy's throat. "Or I'll do to you what I did to her. I got caught up in the moment, I'm afraid. I shot her, I sliced her, hell, I even diced her," he said while chuckling. "I knelt down next to her body and sliced her guts." He leaned his face as close to Jimmy as he dared. "I'm a sick bastard, ain't I?" he whispered.

Jimmy exhaled slightly as he felt the cold metal of the knife's blade press against his Adam's apple. His eyes burrowed to the bottom of his sockets and stared down at it. The silver, polished, shiny steel glimmered back up at him, desperately shouting for him to make up for missing all of the clues back on Earth. Finally, Jimmy's eyes widened.

Jimmy thought of Cindy dying, trying to making himself cry. It wasn't too hard. Go for the bait, Eustace. "You, you cut her?" he moaned, looking up at Eustace with watery eyes.

Eustace smiled. "Went deeper inside her than you ever would have."

It took all of Jimmy's self-restraint to not try to strike Eustace just then, but he needed to play this right. "And then you, you," he whimpered while pausing to bite his trembling lower lip, "you came here to tell me? Why? Why would you do that?"

Eustace leaned back in his seat and began twirling the knife in his left hand. "To torture you one last time before I do this," he said while standing up and slamming the barrel of his revolver into Jimmy's temple. "Any last questions, comments, thoughts?" he insanely asked.

"Just one," Jimmy sadly said, though he smiled while looking down at the ground. "How come there's no blood on that knife?" he triumphantly asked while looking up and meeting Eustace's eyes.

Eustace immediately stopped twirling the knife. It took him a moment to realize that Jimmy had caught him in a lie. "What are you talking about?" he asked while cocking the revolver.

"You said you sliced and diced her, that you cut up her innards. So why is that knife sparkling clean? Where's her blood?" Jimmy demanded.

Eustace scowled at Jimmy and backed up a step. "I washed it off."

"You just said you came right here to tell me," Jimmy shouted. "You said you came right here, not that you stopped to wash off her blood and then came here. Where's her blood?" he screamed.

Suddenly, a thumping was heard on the ceiling above them. Eustace instinctively pointed his gun away from Jimmy up at the ceiling. "Who's up there?" Jimmy asked, his voice growing more and more hopeful. "She's alive, isn't she?"

Eustace tossed the knife on the ground and steadied his revolver with both hands. He aimed it back at Jimmy's face. "You shut the hell up."

Jimmy leaned his head back and laughed in relief. "She's alive," he said both to comfort himself and taunt Eustace. "She escaped."

Eustace slammed the gun into Jimmy's injured jaw, but he was too relieved to feel the pain. "She's going to kill you," Jimmy told him.

Eustace rapidly changed tactics and backed away from Jimmy once more. "She's smarter than you," he quickly told Jimmy. "She escaped when you didn't. All these years you thought you were the genius, but it's really her!"

Jimmy happily stared at Eustace and smiled. "You lost, Eustace. You sadistic fool. You lost."

"I still have the gun!" Eustace reminded Jimmy. "I'm in charge here, I'm in control. Not you, and certainly not your blonde pussy of a girlfriend!"

"If you're so in charge then why have you resorted to mind games?" Jimmy asked.

"Shut up or I'll shoot you right now!" Eustace warned while waving the revolver in Jimmy's face.

"Go ahead," Jimmy dared. "Go ahead and kill me. But you won't. You know that right now, this very minute, Cynthia Aurora 'god bless her soul' Vortex is coming to kill you. You know that she's smart, cunning, and deadly." Eustace's face paled as he listened to Jimmy's words.

"And you know," he continued, "that if she comes here and finds me dead that she'll kill you a thousand times worse. So go ahead, Beaver boy. Pull the damn trigger. It'd be worth it to for me to know that Cindy will kill you." He gazed confidently into Eustace's eyes. "Do it."

Eustace met his gaze for several seconds, but then faltered and looked away. "Son of a bitch damn it!" he shouted while pacing around. There was another crashing sound upstairs, and the two boys looked up at the ceiling.

"Amor Vincit Omnia, eh Eustace?" Jimmy teased while smirking at Eustace.

Eustace ignored Jimmy's taunting and closed his eyes. What to do, what to do. He aimed his gun at Jimmy once more, saw his enemy's confident smirk, and decided that it might be worth it. "Fuck you, Jimmy," he seethed while taking a step closer and steadying his shaking hands. He aimed the gun at Jimmy's temple and gave a small smile as he saw Jimmy's confident smirk falter.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway distracted Eustace and he spun around. He aimed his gun at the door just as Cindy slid to a stop in front of it, her gun held out in front of her. "Eustace?" she asked in disbelief. She hesitated for less than a second, completely taken aback by seeing her old enemy, and then raised her gun at him once she saw the tied up Jimmy behind Eustace.

That second of hesitation was just enough for Eustace to fire his trigger. "No!" Jimmy shouted as time seemed to slow down around him. The bullet leaped out of the smoking revolver and shot straight towards Cindy. Cindy had her pistol trained on Eustace and began to pull the trigger.

The bullet hit Cindy before she could fire her gun. Her eyes widened in shock and pain as blood erupted from the hole in her waist. She stumbled and tripped over her feet, firing her gun well over Eustace's shoulder into the ceiling. She fell backwards farther out into the hallway and slammed into the wall behind her. She tried to scream, but no sound came out of her pursed mouth. She dropped her gun and clutched both hands to the wound in her side. Her eyes drooped closed as she slid down the wall and fell into a crumpled heap on the floor. Eustace and Jimmy stared in disbelief as Cindy's hair fell down over her face, like a coroner's bed sheet.

Jimmy shook his head, refusing to believe what had just happened. No, no. No, no, no, no, no! She can't be dead. This isn't real. This isn't happening. But as he watched the red stain on her shirt slowly grow, he was forced to face the truth. "You killed her," he whispered. He suddenly realized that tears were streaming down his cheeks and that he was audibly crying. He took his gaze off of his fallen love and glared at Eustace. Suddenly, the tears stopped flowing and he stopped moaning. He had never hated anyone or anything more in his life. "You killed her!" he shouted in anger.

Eustace's hands were shaking. He looked from Cindy to the gun in his hands. He was surprised to feel a pang of regret. He shoved it aside and faced Jimmy. "Alright, James, where's your clever words now? Where's that fucking smirk? I thought she was going to save you!" he shouted. Jimmy thrashed around in his restraints with new excitement, but they still didn't give.

"I've had enough of this!" Eustace shouted while strolling over to Jimmy and punching him hard in the nose. A torrent of blood flowed from both nostrils. He slammed his fist into Jimmy several more times, soaking up his pain. He then grabbed Jimmy's shirt and stared into his face as Jimmy's head hung limply from his neck. "Pathetic!" Eustace screeched while tossing his away. Jimmy's head slammed into the pillar that he was tied to, and he nearly passed out.

"Say goodnight, Neutron," he whispered while placing his revolver against Jimmy's temple. "It's been a wild ride."

Jimmy, barely conscious, knew that he could fight no longer. He simply closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He made no pleas of mercy, no shouts of anger, as the bang of a gunshot pierced his ears.

Chapter 49: Sheen's Question

The gunshot was a lot quieter than he had expected. Almost as if it had come from the other end of the room. He kept his eyes closed and waited a few more seconds, but there was no pain. Did I die quickly and painlessly? He opened his eyes, not sure what he expected to see, and immediately assumed that he was in some sort of afterlife when he saw Sheen.

He realized that he was still alive when he saw that he was still in the Yolkian ship. He looked down and saw that his body was free of gunshot wounds. Jimmy then noticed a moaning Eustace lying at his feet, clutching his back. He looked back at Sheen, who was staring at Eustace in disbelief with a gun in his hands.

For all of Jimmy's mastery over the English language, he could only manage to say, "Huh?"

That one word snapped Sheen out of his daze, and he tucked his gun back in his waistband and picked up the knife that Eustace had dropped onto the floor. "Hang on," he told Jimmy while running up to his friend and cutting his ropes.

"Sheen...what?" he asked, still not believing that he was alive, much less that Sheen was.

Sheen cut the last ropes and then noticed the handcuffs. "I can't cut the handcuffs," he told Jimmy.

"Check Eustace's pockets for keys," Jimmy offered, his face contorted into a look of confusion. Sheen nodded and patted Eustace's waist. He then reached one hand into a pocket on Eustace's right and came out with a ring of keys.

It took a few minutes for Sheen to figure out which keys went to which handcuffs, but he eventually matched them up. The handcuffs clicked open, and Sheen helped hoist the shocked Jimmy up. "What happened to Cindy?" Sheen asked while running over to her.

Cindy's name reminded Jimmy of the situation at hand, and he ran over to his girlfriend. One more miracle. Come on, just one more miracle, he desperately pleaded while lifting the bottom of her shirt and looking at the hole in her skin. Blood was steadily pouring out of it, and he instantly took his shirt off and pressed it down on the wound.

Sheen was fumbling around her neck, trying to find her pulse. Jimmy glanced over at him and saw the grim look on his face. "I'm not getting anything," he told Jimmy.

Jimmy's heart sunk at Sheen's words. He was about to take his hands off of the wound in defeat when he noticed that Sheen had his fingers in the wrong position. He forcefully shoved his friend out of the way and placed his middle and index fingers onto her neck. His eyes instantly lit up as he felt her arteries pumping. "Oh thank god," he whispered. He resumed applying pressure to her wound and smiled as he saw her chest slowly rise and her fingers twitch.

"Is she going to be alright?" Sheen quietly asked, choosing not to reprimand Jimmy for pushing him.

Jimmy's smile faltered as he realized that Cindy wasn't out of danger yet. "I, I don't know," he said while staring at Cindy's pale face. I don't think any vital organs were hit, but she's losing blood."

Sheen looked down at the wound on his own side. "Maybe you should do that thing where you heat up the wound to stop it from bleeding?" he asked while pulling a spear out of his pocket and extending it.

Jimmy shook his head. "The bullet's still inside her. I don't want to seal it in. I... I don't know what to do," he admitted. Cindy gave a light moan, and he wiped a few strands of hair out of her face with his bloody right hand. "Hang in there," he told her.

"Shouldn't one of us take care of Eustace?" Sheen reminded Jimmy.

Jimmy cursed under his breath. Sheen's reappearance, his missing friends, Eustace, Cindy's injury; there were too many things going on at once. "Give me a gun," he started to say, but Sheen had already handed Jimmy Eustace's revolver. Jimmy angrily snatched it from Sheen's hands, mumbled a quick, "Thanks," and walked back into the room where Eustace lay.

Jimmy saw Eustace look up at him and try to crawl away. Jimmy easily surpassed the injured boy's speed and stood in front of him. He pointed the revolver down at Eustace's pained face. "I told you to stop it," Jimmy angrily told Eustace.

Eustace resumed clutching the bleeding wound on his back, and glared up at Jimmy. "Fuck you."

Jimmy kicked him hard in the stomach, and Eustace began to cough violently. Jimmy slammed his foot into his waist once more, but he felt no joy at seeing Eustace's pain. The injured boy was still coughing. He finally spat out a mouthful of blood and glared at Jimmy. "Too scared to pull the trigger?"

Jimmy cocked the revolver in response. He tightened his grip on the trigger and watched Eustace avert his gaze. Pull the trigger. Pull it, go find the parents, and get the hell back home. Jimmy nodded at his logic and grabbed the revolver with both hands.

"Well?" Eustace weakly asked, but he still shot Jimmy an icy stare/

The gun was shaking in his hands. Just shoot him. Shoot him and end it. But as he tried to pull the trigger, he realized that he couldn't. He lowered the gun slightly and closed his eyes.

I have to do this. He's insane. He won't stop until me and my friends are dead. The authorities have proven that they can't handle him. If I don't kill him now then he'll kill me later. Or worse, he'll kill someone else, and then it will be my fault. Jimmy knew that he was making sense, that killing him was the only sensible thing to do. But he simply could not pull the trigger. Not after killing before and realizing that it had been in vain.

Jimmy completely lowered the gun and spun around. He noticed that Sheen was staring at him, but his friend quickly averted his stare. Jimmy then focused on the bleeding body of Cindy, lying in a heap on the floor. His eyes narrowed in hatred as he watched her chest slowly rise, far too slowly. He stared at her pale skin, frowned at the fact that her beautiful eyes were hidden behind drooped eyelids. Filled with rage, he spun around once more and fired two shots at Eustace.

Eustace gasped as the two rounds hit him in the stomach. He tried to scream out in pain, but could only manage to let out a wheezing sound. He fell onto the floor, his hands flailing about in an attempt to grab his wounds. Through it all he still glared at Jimmy. Jimmy aimed his gun at Eustace's head, looked away, and fired the remaining bullets.

The wheezing abruptly stopped. Jimmy stared at the smoking gun in his hands, clenched it in fury, and tossed it across the room. He caught a glimpse of Eustace's corpse, but quickly looked away and walked back to Cindy.

"So it was Eustace?" Sheen asked, still confused about the whole mess. "Was he working with the Yolkians?"

Jimmy glanced at the puzzled Sheen. He was sure that he had the same look of confusion etched across his face. So many questions, so little time. "Sheen, do you know where the other kids are?" he asked, ignoring Sheen's inquiries.

Sheen shoved aside his confusion and nodded. "Yeah. They're on the floor above us, in a big room. But the air is weird. It nearly made me pass out."

"Sheen, go up there and untie two people. Tell one of them to wake up everyone else, and then bring the other person down here. There should be a tank either in the room or in the ventilation system that is filling the room with that gas. Find it and shut it off. Do you understand?"

Sheen nodded. "Ok. I'll go get them," he said while standing up and running down the hallway.

Jimmy watched as his friend rounded a corner and then immediately stared down at Cindy. "Hang on, Cindy. Just hang on," he told her while applying pressure on her wound with one hand and squeezing her left hand with his other."

"Please don't die," he begged while tears streamed down his bloody face and splashed onto Cindy's exposed stomach. "I mean, we've been through worse, right? Eustace is dead; you don't have to worry about him. Don't die, not now. Not after all we've been through. Not after we've come so close. Don't die," he pleaded while resting his head on her chest and sobbing. He squeezed her hand, and he felt her lightly squeeze back.

Thirty minutes later, Sheen was running down the flight of stairs that led to the second floor. It had taken him fifteen minutes to find the tank of gas that Jimmy had described, and then another to shut it off. He had been forced to hold his breath and only stay in the room for around a minute at a time. Once the air had begun to turn back to normal, Sheen woke up Ike and Nick. Ike had stayed behind to wake up everyone else, and Nick was several yards behind him, struggling to keep up.

"Hang on!" Nick shouted while slowly jogging down the stairs. His head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and he was a little dizzy, just like when he had woken up on the night of the kidnappings.

"Jimmy and Cindy are down here!" he shouted over his shoulder while rounding a corner and running down the hallway that Jimmy and Cindy were in.

"Sheen, did you come back alone?" Jimmy angrily shouted as he turned around towards the sound of Sheen's voice. He had managed to fashion a makeshift bandage and wrap it around Cindy's wound. He had been cradling her head, but now he gently set her down, stood up, and walked over to Sheen.

"No!" Sheen shouted back.

Nick suddenly rounded the corner, clutched the wall, and began to breathe deeply. He coughed for a few seconds before weakly saluting Jimmy. "What's up, chief?" he asked while still coughing. He then noticed Cindy over Jimmy's shoulder and paled. "Oh my god," he whispered.

Jimmy grabbed Nick's shoulders and stared up at him. "Nick, this is very important. Stay here with Cindy. I know you're not a doctor, but I just want someone here with her. Sheen and I are going to pilot this ship. Eustace must have taken our headsets off, so we can't keep in touch. Just, don't let her die," Jimmy pleaded.

Nick looked over Jimmy's shoulder once more and got a good look at Cindy. There was a large puddle of blood on her waist, and she was unconscious. "Yes, sir."

Jimmy nodded, grabbed Sheen's wrist, and then led him to the bow of the ship. "We've got to get out of here fast," Jimmy explained. "Jake's mom is a doctor. She can help Cindy."

Jimmy found the bridge of the ship and sat down in one of the piloting chairs. He cracked his knuckles and stared down at the array of buttons on the control panel. He saw Sheen sit down on the seat beside him. Sheen immediately pressed several buttons, and the ship began to accelerate forward.

Jimmy stared at him in both amazement and confusion as Sheen began to pilot the ship. "Sheen, keep doing whatever it is that you're doing. I'm going to try to find our parents."

"Roger that," Sheen answered while flipping several switches.

Jimmy saw a monitor attached to the dashboard beneath him and pressed several buttons nearby. It took a few minutes, but he soon had figured out how to instruct the computer to do a DNA scan for human life. The monitor displayed a set of coordinates.

"Sheen, give me a second to activate the auto-pilot," Jimmy told his co-pilot while pressing several more buttons.

Sheen took his eyes off of the view screen and looked over at Jimmy. "I think the red one does it."

Jimmy briefly looked at him, and then pressed the red button. "You're right," he said in incredulity while pressing several more buttons to plot the course. Jimmy nodded towards Sheen, and he let go of the piloting controls. The ship continued to fly itself.

Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in his seat. Suddenly, Ike ran into the room. "Jimmy!" Ike shouted.

Shocked to hear his voice, Jimmy spun his chair around to face him. "What's wrong?"

Ike took a brief second to look around the vast room, and then shook off his wonderment. "Nick wanted me to tell you that Cindy seems pretty good. Nick said that she woke up for a few seconds, but that she's out cold again. Her pulse is still good though."

Before Jimmy could respond, Ike had dashed back out of the room. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."

Satisfied for the moment that Cindy was in stable condition, he turned to Sheen. "Now, what the hell happened to you?"

Sheen leaned back in his seat as well and put his feet up on the control panel. "Long story short, I crashed onto an asteroid. I nearly died of thirst, hijacked a Yolkian ship that landed on the rock, and then flew towards the Yolkian planet to help you guys. I saw this ship and noticed your three ships on top of it. I came in, freed Cindy, and then helped you." Sheen then narrowed his eyes in anger and glared at Jimmy. "Thanks for coming to rescue me, by the way."

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck and gave a nervous laugh. "Sheen, um, well, there's a very good reason why we left you behind. You see..."

Sheen shook his head and motioned for Jimmy to stop talking. "Screw the apologies for a second. Why were the Yolkians and Eustace working together?"

Jimmy shook his head. "The Yolkians had nothing to do with it. It was all a trap designed by Eustace."

"Wait," Sheen continued while pushing his hands forward in a motion for Jimmy to slow down, "The Yolkians were innocent?"

"This time," Jimmy answered.

Sheen nervously bit his thumb's fingernail as he remembered how mercilessly he had dispatched Dopsil and the other Yolkians. Oops.

For the next hour or so, Jimmy and Sheen related the details of their separate adventures. It took Jimmy twenty minutes, but Sheen finally agreed to forgive him for not coming to rescue him.

While they talked, Jimmy continued to figure out how the control panel worked. Once Sheen had finished recounting how he had freed Cindy, Jimmy pressed several buttons, and smiled as he got the response that he wanted. "Two hours until we reach our parents," he said once Sheen had stopped talking. Even better, I'm getting some pictures of the base that they're in. I don't see any guards. They're just fenced in. It's hard to tell, but I think they're under that knockout gas."

"No guards, no need to fight our way in," Nick happily said while strolling into the piloting room. Jimmy jumped a little as he heard his voice, but spun around to see him. "Don't worry, she's fine."

"How fine?" Jimmy asked.

Nick put a reassuring hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "She's awake. It took a dozen of us to calm her down. She was worried as hell about you. Took another half dozen to keep her pinned down so she wouldn't go running around the ship to find you," Nick said with a smile. "I assumed that you wouldn't want her up and about in her condition."

Jimmy closed his eyes and smiled widely. "No. She needs to rest. I'll check in on her soon." He then lifted up his eyelids and stared at Nick. "She's really ok?"

Nick nodded. "See for yourself if you want." He turned around and was about to walk out of the room when he snapped his fingers.

"Oh yeah," he said while turning back around. "Cindy told me that it was Eustace who did all of this. We found where he put our headsets. Here you go," he said while unclipping one from his jeans and handing it to Jimmy. "Thought you'd like to phone home first."

"Thanks," Jimmy said while slipping it over his head. As soon as it was in place, he felt a new calm click into place.

"Now," Nick continued, "I obviously have a lot of questions about what happened while I was out of it, mostly about Estevez here. I also know that you're probably too busy to answer than all. But could you just tell me one thing real fast?"

"Sure," Jimmy said.

"Who the hell is Eustace?" Nick shouted.

Jimmy and Sheen looked to each other. "He's an old friend," Jimmy answered, not in the mood to explain further.

Nick stared at Jimmy for a few seconds before accepting Jimmy's answer. "Some friend," he said while exiting the room.

Jimmy turned on his headset and breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the familiar sound of static. He made sure that the headset was tuned to the common frequency that they all used and then pulled the microphone closer to his mouth. "Folfax, this is Jimmy Neutron. Do you copy?"

Jimmy found that he was holding his breath while waiting for Libby's response. He finally let out a sigh of relief as Libby answered him.

"Neutron!" Libby screamed. "Where the hell have you been? We have been going absolutely crazy down here! We've been trying to get in touch with you for nearly twelve hours!" she hysterically shouted. "What the hell is going on up there?"

Jimmy closed his eyes as her insane shouting began to give him a headache. "Libby! LIBBY!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. Her frantic shouting finally subsided. "Libby, I can't even begin to explain what is going on up here. But we're all basically fine. Cindy got shot..."

"Cindy got shot!" Libby shouted.

"But she's doing alright!" Jimmy immediately assured her. "The bleeding's stopped, she's conscious, and we'll have the Dr. Brigham take care of her once we free her and the other parents." Before Libby could respond, Jimmy immediately continued speaking. "But I think there's someone here that you'd rather talk to than me."

Jimmy pulled his headset off of his head as Libby began shouting again. He handed the device to Sheen, who looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. He immediately snatched the headset out of Jimmy's hands and slipped it over his head. "Libby!" he ecstatically shouted.

As soon as Sheen had spoken, Libby immediately became silent. "Sheen?" she whispered.

Sheen smiled wider than he had since Libby had first kissed him. "In the flesh," he said while struggling not to cry.

"I..." Libby continued, tears of joy falling down her cheeks, "I thought you were dead," she whispered.

Sheen stopped fighting his emotions and started to cry as well. "Me? Die? And leave a girl like you behind? Why would I do that?" he said in between sobs.

The rest of Control Team took of their headsets, not wanting to listen in on Libby's private conversation. Carl smiled and patted Libby's shoulder before following the rest of the kids into the lab's lobby.

Libby tried to think of something to say, but she wasn't sure that she could speak even if she did find the words. She was crying uncontrollably at this point. "How?" she finally asked.

Sheen finally stopped his crying and wiped the tears from his eyes. "It's a long story," he told her, vastly understating his ordeal. "Libby, I...I never thought that I'd see you again," he whispered.

"Me neither," Libby said while laughing. "I can't believe that you're alive."

Sheen briefly looked over at Jimmy, and was surprised to see that his friend was tearing up a little as well. "Libby, there's a lot of stuff to do here," Sheen sadly told her. He looked to Jimmy for reassurance, and he nodded. "I'll talk more once we get our parents back. Love you."

Libby nodded on her end. "Love you too," she whispered while tilting her head back. She clicked her headset off and tried to convince herself that she wasn't dreaming.

Sheen turned his own headset off and handed it back to Jimmy. Jimmy took it and rested it on the control panel in front of him. They both sat in silence for several minutes, looking at the beautiful sky on the view screen.

"Sheen," Jimmy finally said, "I wanted to apologize."

Sheen chuckled a little. "I already forgave you for not coming back to save me."

Jimmy shook his head and clasped his hands in thought. "No, not for that. Sheen, for a long time, even during this whole ordeal, I really underestimated you. I thought that you couldn't pilot the rocket through the asteroid belt, I hesitated to pick you on my capture the flag team, I left a drugged up Libby in charge of the lab that first night..." he rattled off.

Sheen frowned a little at the reminder of Jimmy's distrust of him. "Thanks," he mumbled.

Jimmy shook his head. "What I mean is, I was wrong. I mean, god," he said in disbelief. "If half the stuff you said that you did since you crashed is true, then...wow. Surviving on that asteroid, hijacking a ship, and then coming to help us instead of going back to Earth? That...and then saving me and Cindy?" Jimmy stared at Sheen. "Sheen, I was wrong. I...I don't know what else I can say."

Sheen's anger dissipated and he smiled at Jimmy's flattering words. "Oh, stop it," he said while blushing and looking away.

"No, I mean it," Jimmy continued. "What you did was amazing," he summed up.

Sheen realized that he was due a little appreciation. "Well, yeah." He chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "I guess it was."

Jimmy turned his attention back to the control panel in front of him. "Shouldn't you go to check on Cindy?" Sheen asked him.

Jimmy nodded as he looked down at his bloody hands. "Yeah." He didn't stand up, though. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave a thoughtful smile. "Sheen, there's something that's been bothering me ever since that first night after the kidnappings."

Sheen looked away from the view screen that showed the space surrounding the ship and stared at Jimmy. "What?"

Jimmy continued looked down at the control panel. "That first night, you wanted to ask me something, and we all made fun of you. Then you stormed out." Jimmy glanced at his friend, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. "What did you want to ask?"

Sheen laughed and stood up. "No, it's stupid," he said while pacing around the room.

"No, really," Jimmy told him while watching Sheen walk around the room. "What was it?"

Sheen finally sat back down in his seat and shrugged. "Well, alright. I know there's probably some simple and obvious explanation that will make me look like an idiot, but here it goes." He leaned back and remembered the first night in Jimmy's lab. "Remember the video of the abductions? The one you showed us?" Jimmy nodded.

"Well, I was wondering how come there was only a sliver of moon in the sky on the tape, but a full moon outside that night," Sheen said.

Jimmy took in Sheen's words and shook his head in disbelief. "I know," Sheen said while chuckling. "Stupid, right?"

Chapter 50: Epilogue

Two Weeks Later

"I, I just miss her so much," Libby moaned while crying. She and Carl were standing near the sidewalk outside Retroville Middle School, waiting for their first day of school to begin.

"I know, Libby," Carl comforted her. "I miss Cindy too."

Carl's words failed to subdue Libby's crying. She continued whimpering as a small stream of tears fell down her cheeks. Suddenly, Jimmy strolled up to the two of them with a wide smile on his face. "Hey guys," he said while giving a brief wave. He then noticed that Libby was crying and ran up to her. "Libby, what's wrong?"

Libby sniffled and blew her nose into a tissue. "I just miss Cindy."

Jimmy gave her an odd look. "Libby, we just saw her yesterday afternoon in the hospital!"

Libby nodded while wiping the tears from her eyes. "I know, but we always show up extra early on the first day of school to wait outside together and make fun of you. It's tradition!"

Cindy suddenly wheeled up behind Libby in a wheelchair. "Libby, you know that I'd never break tradition."

Libby spun around, surprised to hear her best friend's voice. "Cindy!"

Cindy smiled as Libby wrapped her arms around her neck and gave her a brief hug. Cindy then locked eyes with Jimmy. "Hello there, Spewtron."

"Vortex," Jimmy angrily spat out while frowning.

Cindy then smiled and rolled up to Jimmy. "Alright, tradition fulfilled. Happy Libby?"

Libby nodded. "Yeah, you can drop the charade now."

Cindy and Jimmy both breathed a sigh of relief. Jimmy grabbed Cindy's hand and lightly squeezed it. "I thought the doctor said that you were going to be bedridden for the next few days."

Cindy looked up at him and stared into his blue eyes. "What, and fall behind in class and let you get a head start on the race for valedictorian? You wish," she flirtatiously said while twisting a few golden locks of her hair in her fingers. "But thanks for caring," she seriously told him.

Jimmy bent down and stroked a few strands of her silky hair. "No problem," he while gently placing his lips onto hers.

Like always, their romantic moment was interrupted. "Hey guys!" Sheen shrieked while hobbling over to his friends on crutches. He picked up his pace when he saw Libby, tripped over a rock, and fell down. Carl and Libby immediately lunged forward and caught him.

"Thanks," Sheen said while adjusting his crutches. "How the heck did you use these things?" he asked Libby.

Libby just smiled and gave Sheen a quick kiss on the cheek. Sheen's eyes lit up and he swooned once more, prompting Carl to steady him.

The five kids were distracted by a car pulling up beside them. They immediately recognized it as Nick's father's. It came to a stop, and Nick jumped out of the front passenger seat. "Thanks for the ride, dad. See you later."

"No problem, kiddo," Mr. Dean said while waving goodbye to Nick and gunning his car's engine. He quickly sped down the street, and Nick smiled as he watched the car disappear around the corner.

"Chief," Nick said as he walked up to Jimmy and his friends. He gave a respectful nod, and Jimmy returned the gesture. He tossed his backpack down onto the ground and leaned against a stop sign. "Man, first day of school again. Seems like just yesterday we started sixth grade."

Jimmy nodded. "Well, at least we got an extra few weeks of summer vacation. A couple weeks rescuing our parents..."

"And a couple weeks for the adults to get the town back to normal," Cindy finished.

There was a moment of silence as they pondered what to talk about next. Suddenly Sheen let out a yelp of excitement, and everyone looked at him. "What are you all doing after school today? Because I had the greatest idea!" he shouted.

Everyone stared skeptically at Sheen. "If it has anything to do with Ultralord, I'm out," Cindy said while absentmindedly running her hands along her wheelchair's wheels.

"No, even better!" Sheen ecstatically screamed. "Alright, listen up. We go to the park and play..." he paused for dramatic effect, "paintball!"

Everyone groaned and shook their heads in disgust. "What?" Sheen angrily asked.

"Sheen, if I never see another gun in my life, that's fine by me," Jimmy said. Everyone nodded and agreed.

"Oh, I see how it is!" Sheen screamed. "I finally find one thing that I'm good at, so you all just sweep it under the carpet and pretend it doesn't exist, just so you don't have to face the facts that I'm better than all of you at something! You make me sick!"

Cindy rolled her eyes. "How the heck are we supposed to play paintball? I'm in this chair for another two weeks, you're in crutches, and every paintball gun in town got lost in space!"

Sheen met her gaze, flinched at the strength in her eyes, and looked away. "Fine, make excuses," he said with disgust. "And why are you in a wheelchair anyway? If anyone deserves a comfy chair that other people push for you, it should be me!"

Cindy tried to roll her way towards Sheen, but Jimmy pulled her back. "It's hard to walk when you got shot in the gut," she angrily said.

As Sheen and Cindy continued to go at it, Jimmy stood next to Libby. "We're still going to the Candy Bar after school for that shake, right?" Libby asked.

Jimmy smiled and nodded. "Definitely."

Just then the warning bell rang, and everyone walked inside the school. Jimmy led the way towards the library, and everyone followed him. Everyone but Cindy plopped themselves down into five comfy chairs, and Cindy rolled up beside them.

"You know," Jimmy began, "that really was one crazy adventure."

"I almost wish that I had gone up there with you guys," Carl said. "Almost."

"I still can't believe that Eustace Strych managed to do all of that," Libby said in disbelief. "I mean, he was really good. If it wasn't for Sheen, you guys would have been toast."

Cindy stared once more at the skinny, insane, and dumb boy that sat across from her. She still found him irritating, but she couldn't help but respect him. And she hated to admit it, but she rather enjoyed having him around. Now that she was going out with Jimmy, she needed a new freak to pick on. She suddenly smiled as Jimmy grabbed her hand and intertwined their fingers.

"Well, I'm just glad that everything's back to normal," Libby said while leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. "We're back in school, everyone's alive, our parents are back, and there are two less psychopaths after us."

Carl and Sheen looked to each other, and Sheen gave a slight nod. "Yeah, about things being normal. Jimmy, Carl and I have something we need to tell you. You're not going to like it."

Jimmy sensed that everyone was looking at him and immediately stopped walking his fingers up a giggling Cindy's arm. They both looked away from each other. "Um, sorry?" he said, not having listened to Sheen.

Carl cleared his throat. "Jimmy, um, well, here's the thing," he mumbled while taking a puff of his inhaler. "Something's wrong."

"Of course it is," Nick, Cindy, Libby, and Jimmy immediately answered.

"Well," Sheen continued, "I better just say it. Me and Carl lost Chowder."

Jimmy lifted an eyebrow in confusion. He waited a beat before answering. "You lost your soup?"

"No!" Carl shouted, which earned him a nasty look from the librarian. He sunk back in his seat in embarrassment. "Your cat. We lost Chowder, your cat. Back after you and Nick had been gathering supplies you asked us to get your cat. He ran away!"

"I can't believe that you didn't notice," Sheen told everyone.

Jimmy was about to tell them that he didn't have a cat, but Sheen continued speaking. "Anyway, we felt really bad, so we got you this!" he excitedly told Jimmy while pulling a happy meal box out of his backpack. A soft meow emanated from it.

"Oh no," Jimmy said while rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Oh yes!" Carl happily told Jimmy as Sheen pulled a tiny black and white kitten out of the cardboard box.

"Awww!" Libby moaned while grabbing the kitty and clutching it to her chest.

"No, no, no, no, no," Jimmy mumbled.

"He's so cute!" Libby whispered as the kitten pawed at her necklace.

Nick finally stood up and sighed. "I can't take this anymore. Libby, Cindy, Jimmy, you guys are cool." He pointed at Sheen and Carl. "You guys are weird. I'm going to hang with Ike in the gym," he said while grabbing his backpack and strolling out of the library.

Jimmy stopped rubbing the bridge of his nose and looked over to Cindy, who just smiled at him. "It is very adorable," she said while laughing and glancing at the purring kitten.

"Well, our work is done," Sheen said as Carl helped him grab his crutches.

"Yeah," Carl spoke while he and Sheen walked away from everyone, "me and Sheen have to hand in our summer reading."

Jimmy vaguely heard Sheen ask, "There was summer reading?" as his two friends walked out the door.

"Libby," Jimmy whispered, but Libby was still entranced by the ball of fur in her hands. "Libby!" Jimmy and Cindy both exclaimed.

"What? Sorry," Libby apologized as the kitten pawed her face. "Jimmy, um, do you think that maybe..."

"Yes, you can have the kitten," Jimmy told her.

"Thanks!" Libby said while running out of the library, the kitten still clutched to her chest.

Cindy stared after her best friend as Libby left the library. "Where is she going? You can't have a kitten in school."

"I don't care," Jimmy answered while closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat. He loved his friends, but it didn't take long for them to tire him out. He then turned towards Cindy. "On a completely different note, you look lovely today," he complimented her while opening his eyes.

Cindy giggled and blushed. "Oh, stop it. But do please continue."

Jimmy grabbed her hand. "Are you sure you're ok? Didn't the doctor say you needed more rest?"

Cindy smiled. He cares about me. "I'll be fine. How are you? Your jaw alright?"

Jimmy opened his mouth and then closed it. "Feeling pretty good." He looked up at the clock and saw that they only had a few more minutes before first period. "Cindy, can I see your schedule?"

Cindy nodded and took it out of her backpack. Jimmy took out his as well and they put them down on the circular table in front of them. They both leaned in to check them out, and they bumped heads. "Sorry," they both said while staring into each other's eyes and smiling.

"Looks like we've got the first two blocks together," Jimmy said. "I know that Sheen, Carl, and Libby have the same lunch as us."

The warning bell rang, and they both grabbed their schedules. "Can I roll you to class?" Jimmy chivalrously asked.

"You may," Cindy answered. She looked up and saw Jimmy smiling down at her as he pushed her wheelchair out of the library.

"Welcome to seventh grade honors English," Ms. Creek cheerfully said as her last two students rushed through the door just before the bell rang. One of them was the famous Jimmy Neutron, and he was pushing some young girl in a wheelchair. They took a seat next to each other in the front row.

"I expect you two to be a little more prompt tomorrow," she sternly told the two of them.

"Yes Ms. Creek," Jimmy and Cindy immediately answered.

Ms. Creek smiled and nodded. "Good." She walked towards the blackboard and wrote her name on the board. "As most of you know from your schedules, I'm Ms. Creek, and I will be your English teacher for the rest of the year."

"These are forms for your parents to fill out," she explained while passing out several stacks of papers. "And this is for your first assignment," she said while giving each student two blank pieces of paper.

The class groaned as one collective body as soon as she mentioned the word assignment. "Now, I know that you all had an adventurous summer," Ms. Creek told everyone, "and I do thank you for saving me and my colleagues from that deranged little boy, but that does not change the fact that we all have a job to do. I must teach, and you must learn. So your first assignment is to write an essay. I want you to pair up and give me at least one thousand words on an exciting aspect of your summer vacation."

The class began laughing and murmuring amongst each other. It wasn't hard for them to think of something exciting that they had done over the summer.

Ms. Creek couldn't help but smile as well. "Now, I know that it is going to be very hard for you to think of an exciting adventure you've had, but please try. The paper is due first thing Monday morning. You may have the rest of the class to get started.

Cindy rolled over to Jimmy's desk and felt the tip of her pencil to make sure that it was sharp. "James Neutron and Cynthia Vortex," she mumbled while writing both of their names on the top of their paper.

Jimmy pulled his pencil out as well. He gently tugged the paper out of Cindy's grasp. "What should we call it?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy thought for a moment and then smiled. He cracked his neck and wrote the title down underneath their names. "The Final Battle."

