Eric Muller: 7/27/97
We were suspended between the moon and the earth, staring at a station orbiting the moon. It shouldn't have been there - the station, not the moon. I thought something was odd for two reasons - we were still breathing, and John had wings. Since I was looking that way, I saw surprise flash across Kevin's face, followed by a look of extreme discomfort. John grabbed him and pulled him back, while Cab helpfully told Reuben that Kevin had fallen to the other side of the gauntlet. It kind of made me wonder what was holding me on the correct (breathable) side. I tried not to wonder too hard - I didn't want to break it. At John's urging, we joined hands. He turned Krinos (I'm almost getting used to it) and started pulling us to the space station, since that's where the black tendril led. Kasee soon told John to stop, declaring that there was a dotted line across the moon. Wanting a closer look, I wove a lens to focus the light. The dots looked like imperial scout droids from Star Wars - someone must have a sense of humor. I switched my attention to the radio-frequency spectrum and saw a lot of inter-droid chatter, as well as a steady ping to a beacon at Earth's south pole. Suddenly, the ping changed to a more complex data stream - I suspected Kasee had something to do with it. The suspicion was quickly confirmed. Soon after I informed the rest of the group of the problem, a data burst was sent from Earth to the droids. The visible result was the activation of a grid which linked the droids together. From that distance, it was difficult to determine if it was a sensor net, or something more forceful.
John pulled us for a bit, until he sprained a wing. Cab took over, until a road appeared in front of Kasee. At the same time, Reuben announced that something had been launched from the South Pole. I had everyone stop as I visualized a seal and impressed the image onto the starscape, making sure it was large enough to hold everyone. Using Essentia, I wove a sphere around the border of the seal, redirecting electrons and photons around it, except for a small gap in the middle of the blue band. Cab began drumming and burning juniper while I strengthened the sphere. After we were finished, Kasee announced that there were four people in the shuttle - three men in black and one man in a silver jumpsuit. Then Kasee disappeared. I magnified the light coming from the shuttle - since Kasee always seemed to jump into trouble. Sure enough, there she was, with four men and a gun to her head.
I transferred a little of the shuttle's kinetic energy to us, to get us moving toward the space station. As the shuttle got closer, it started probing the area with active sensors. When a probe hit a droid, they started chiming in with information. It looked like sneaking was going to be difficult.
A pirate ship appeared on the horizon. Okay, it wasn't on the horizon, and I didn't know if it belonged to pirates. The lettering on the bow named the ship "SES Argo" It and the shuttle quickly engaged each other in battle - the Argo with cannon, the shuttle with lasers. John managed to disable one laser, by shoving a sword in it during its recharge period. The resulting explosion blew a small hole in the side. My sphere of invisibility had dropped, so we had to move. Seeing an opportunity to rescue Kasee, Cab, Renee and I move toward the shuttle while Kevin and Reuben headed to the Argo.
Renee got sidetracked when John got his hand crisped trying to disable the other laser. About the same time, the Argo harpooned the shuttle and sent a boarding party over. The lead man stuck a dagger through the hull, cutting an opening for the party.