"It stinks in here," complained Logan.
"They is the only reason we haven't been found yet," Lisa scolded. "No one wants to look in here because of the smell.
Fern lost her concentration and they all became visible again. Some of the soldiers removed their infrared glasses. It was much harder to see with the glasses on, so they were quite relieved to see things normally again.
"Why did you come here?" questioned one of the soldiers as they grouped all of the prisoners together.
"Over here!" yelled a voice. It was Lisa.
The soldiers turned in her direction, but before they could do anything she disappeared. Those who still had their infrared glasses on tried to pinpoint Lisa's location. Fern and Logan were left alone to do their dirty work.
One of the soldiers suddenly started to hover in mid air.
"Put me down!" she screamed as she floated to the ceiling.
"Surrender or I will crush her and then all the rest of you," bluffed Trever taking credit for the actions of Fern and Logan.
He knew that they were scared of hypo-psycotic powers and trying to use it to his advantage. "Throw all your weapons on the floor." Every single one of the soldiers threw some kind of weapon on the floor, either one they had taken from the prisoners or one they already had. Peter, Hank, Linda, and Wentar began picking up the weapons.
"I said all of them!" Trever commanded angrily.
A few more weapons were thrown on the floor. Trever counted the weapons and was satisfied that all of them were accounted for.
"Good," Trever stated unsympatheticly. "Now I want you to leave the area and don't tell anyone else where we are or I will come after you."
Fern and Logan put the soldiers they had levitated back on the ground. She was so pleased to be back on her feet that she left the area at once. The other soldiers hesitated, but one by one they left until the only ones left in the area were the ones that had come from the Marrot V. Lisa, Fern, and Logan came out of hiding and rejoined their friends.
"Not bad considering we were winging it," Lisa remarked smugly.
They had survived one tight spot, but one of their number was already dead and they wondered how much longer their luck would hold up.
TIME : 8:40 A.M.
PLACE : The Marrot V
"They're up to something," warned Marnia. She could always tell when something was about to happen.
The others braced themselves for another attack, but they weren't prepared for what happened next. The doors to the docking bay were rocked by an explosion. The door stayed firm, but there was a small hole in one of the doors. Large enough for one of the robots to squeeze through.
Grendlin was there to greet the robot before it caused havoc for the rest of the ship. She fired at point blank range, yet the robot wasn't even scratched. The robot raise its arm and brought it down full force upon Grendlin's next. She fell to the floor unconscious.
Rinquin used another sonic attack on the robot and it was destroy. However, it didn't help Grendlin any. Strillan and Marnia put Grendlin on a strecher and took her to the Emergency Room. Grendlin needed immediate medical attention. Her life depended on it.
In his day, Strillan was the best person one could possibly hope for to do an operation on him, but Strillan was getting old. He was planning to retire in a few months, but he had to put all that behind him. Grendlin was his first priority.
Meanwhile, Rinquin continued to destroy the robots as they came into his range. Soon, all the robots were destroyed. The remaining human paniced when they saw what happened to the robots. They got back into their spaceships and fled.
"They'll be back," Drake predicted. "They'll be back with reinforcements."
"I be ready for them," announced Rinquin confidently.
Drake knew that Rinquin couldn't stop the Ruler's troops all by himself, so he asked for volunteers from the passengers to help defend the ship. He got more volunteers than he needed, so he kept some of them back as reserves. He hoped he's never have to use them. Little did he know that the Ruler had something else in store for them.
TIME : 9:00 A.M.
PLACE : The Ship of Death
Trever's luck continued. He found a good hiding place and a nearby room filled with explosives. Fern and Logan went to get the explosives while the others hid in temporary safety. The door was locked, but that was no problem for Fern and Logan.
"What do you think they have in mind?" asked Logan as they gathered a good portion of explosives together.
"I'm not sure," Fern replied. "but I bet they're going to do some damage somewhere."
They wasted no time lingering about. They took the explosives and ran out as fast as they could go. When they got back, they handed the explosives to Trever and Wentar. Fern and Logan were glad to have a chance to rest. They would need to make the group invisible in a few minutes, so they were saving all their energy until they were needed.
"Is anyone coming?" Hank inquired.
He knew the soldiers would warn the Ruler of their presence in spite of Trever's warnings.
"Not yet," Fern whispered back.
She wasn't sure if they should be talking at all with the remote chance that they would be overheard.
"What are we going to do next?" Lisa wondered.
Before anyone had a chance to answer her question, the Ruler issued another series of commands.
"Attention!" announced the Ruler as we always said before saying what he had to say. "Prepare to do battle. Missles will be launched at my command."
The Ruler repeated his message.
"They're going to launch an attack on the Marrot V!" Linda cried in panic.
Peter, Hank, Linda, and Lisa had each seen the Ruler before, but he was at his dead list when he stayed behind the scenes and let other people do his dirty work. It was hardly ever the Ruler himself that caused so much terror, but the people who obediently carried out his work.
Trever knew that they had to sabotage the missles before they could be fired. That was one of the main reasons they were there in the first place. However, he didn't even know where the missles were or how they could be controlled. He thought for awhile about what to do. At last, he came up with a plan.
"It's time for us to start taking some hostages of our own," he reasoned.
Peter didn't know what Trever was up to and didn't think he wanted to know, but he that he was going to find out just the same. Although he wasn't sure about his latest plan, Peter was impressed with the way Trever had taken charge of the situation, especially considering he received his promotion less than an hour ago.
Trever pointed to Fern, Hank, and Linda and asked them to accompany him. The others stayed behind and waited for them to return.
"Why do we have to stay here?" gripped Wentar, even in an emergency he still found time to criticize those in charge.
"Do you have a better idea?" question Peter expecting that to be the end of it.
"Yes, in fact I do," Wentar snapped. "We could sabotage their main engine, escape to the Marrot V, and escape into deep space. The Ship of Death couldn't follow us if it's crippled and we'd eventually loose them."
In spite of his gripping, Wentar's plan was brilliant, at least in theory.
"Why didn't you tell us this earlier?" Peter demanded.
"What difference would it make? Nobody listens to me anyway," accused Wentar.
"That's not true," Lisa protested. "You just never give anyone a chance."
Trever, Fern, Hank, and Linda didn't get to hear Wentar's complaints. They moved much quicker than they did with twice as many people. It not only made them harder to spot, but it also made it easier for them to attack.
Trever saw what he was looking for. A lone soldier was walking towards them with no idea they were there. The foursome was invisible and the soldier wasn't wearing his infrared glasses, so he had no idea what he was walking into. Suddenly, he was hurled into the air.
"Where are the missles controlled from?" Trever insisted.
The soldier could hear the voice, but he couldn't see where it was coming from. All he knew is that he wanted out of his awkward predicament.
"Where?" the voice repeated.
"From the Weapons Chamber," the soldier cried out.
"Where is the Weapons Chamber?" Trever questioned once more.
The soldier gave him directions, it was a rather large room and rather hard to miss. He had told him all he knew, Fern let the soldier go and he went running off in fright.
The four of them wasted no time reaching the Weapons Chamber. Trever checked to make sure he had the explosives. He did. Then, he checked to see how many soldiers they would have to face. There were five of them. Each one was strapped in a chair, so Fern couldn't make them spin around the room. However, Trever saw a way to use that to his advantage.
They chose to attack outright. The soldiers were preparing to launch the missiles and didn't except anyone to attack them. Trever, Hank, and Linda each stunned one of the guards. The other two unstrapped themselves and prepared to return fire, but Hank and Linda were quicker than the soldiers and stunned them before they could react.
Hank gave a sigh of relief. They had taken care of things sooner than he thought. People with hypo-psycotic powers made wonderful allies.
Trever took out some of the explosives Fern and Logan had stolen and placed some on each of the control panels. He rigged them to explode when a signal was giving by remote control and left the room. Fern, Hank, and Linda followed him.
When they were a safe distance away, Trever blew up the control panels. Without the control panels, the missiles couldn't be launched and the Marrot V was safe once more.
Copyright MCMLXXXIX, MCMXCIX