PEGASUS (FARSIDE SAGA: BOOK TWO)

"Sooo...where do we go next?" Samantha asked, enjoying her new body.

Sitting in his chair aboard the Impala, Jason stared blankly at the view screen. Vanessa and Samantha stood to his side's while Nano and Danny stood behind him, all silently staring at him. He knew their eyes were on him, awaiting his answer.

"Sialus Ring!" Jason finally said as he threw a finger up.

"Can you scan section 'Q4E1-47B'?" Pelik asked Danny as he caught on to the captain's answer.

Danny angled the ship in that direction and started scanning. The screen flashed to two sets of ice rings, one just inside the other, rotating in opposite directions. In the middle were seven small planets rotating equal distance to each other just inside the inner ring, around a larger planet directly in the middle. Jason stood up.

"Whatever this is, its slowly feeding me information about Farside. Its got me feeling as if I've been here before...like I can almost see exactly... where we need...to..." He trailed off.

He suddenly walked over to navigation and began manually scanning the area, taking over Danny's job. The center planet, almost resembling Earth, showed up on the view screen. The planet had a purplish aura twirling around it as if it blocked the entrance to a wormhole.

"That...is our destination." Jason said sternly as he pointed at the center planet.

"Anomalous!" The Peacekeepers all said at the same time.

"So what's with this one?" Danny asked.

"No one really knows. It was thought to be a rogue moon at first but it has never moved from this position. We tried to colonize it but it was too volatile to even land, let alone terraform it. Scanners couldn't penetrate the crust, which WAS barren by the way, so we just left it alone and marked it as an anomaly...hence the nickname. That was over three thousand of your Earth years ago. Between these rings, Crystallina, and a few other things, no one has really been in this sector since. Considered too dangerous. There's still a lot of unexplored territory in this sector." Kurie said.

They all stared at the screen as Danny activated the lightdrive. A bright blue flash, and the Impala was in stationary orbit above Anomalous.

"That's weird. Thought you said there was no organic life in Farside? Danny asked as he scanned the planet.

"There isn't, it least it wasn't until now. Like I said, there's still a lot of unexplored territory in this sector." Kurie answered.

"Well now there's plenty of it. None intelligent...I don't think, but definitely organic. Plant and animal life..." Danny said as he brought up the different life forms on a split screen.

"Is that a cat?" Vanessa asked as she peered at the screen.

"Yes, actually it is. Felis Catus, although it's the only thing here from Earth. Everything else is from different parts of the universe." Danny answered as he continued scanning. "...There is a subterranean cavern with an unusual reading located here."

He brought the view around to show a green highlighted area at the base of a small mountain range. Jason ordered the crew to move the ship to the area and prepare a landing party. Just as the ship arrived, the proximity alerts went off.

"Sir, gravity well...portside, five kilometers." The helsman announced.

"Back us off." The captain ordered.

The Impala moved away from the forming spacial rift. Just as more alerts went off.

"Sir, they're popping up all around!" The helsman announced a little more nervously.

Danny activated the lightdrive and took the Impala just outside the gathering cluster.

Just then, Altar's ship emerged from one of the rifts followed by a swarm of fighters and other ships of his kind. Other ships from all over Farside began emerging from the rifts. The Impala' s intercom crackled as Altar's tree-like face popped up on the screen.

"Hahaa!! Thought that was you..." Altar said excitedly. "Abir owes me a helip. We tracked that round thing to these coordinates. We were on our way to Primora 7 when we heard the S.O.S, but, by the time we got there, it...and you had disappeared. We'll talk about that later, right now we have a more pressing issue..."

Before Altar could finish, there was a low rumble that sounded through the hulls as everyone directed their attention towards the planet.

The aura around the planet seemed to thicken as a pool of dark shiny liquid began flowing down the northern hemisphere, covering the majority of the planet. The planet itself began to grow as it rotated around to reveal a glowing purplish white spot on the shiny surface. Recognizing it for what it was, the captain warned everyone to clear the area as the white spot grew to a focal point. The planet finally stopped growing once it was almost twice the size of earth, at the same time, the purplish beam shot through the scattering crowd into open space. A loud roar of anger could be heard that every single person in the sector could feel.

Everyone escaped the beam and regrouped to fire at its source. Another spot began to form in a different area as everyone directed their firepower towards it. The planet rotated, placing the spot in front of them. Once again everyone scattered, only this time, seven smaller beams shot out, locking on to their targets, destroying seven ships out the crowd.

"Ooh, we got a smart one on our hands I see..." Danny started, but was cut off by a loud deep feminine unmistakable....

'HEEELLP...MMEEEE!!'

Small cracks began forming along the shiny surface as the planet seemed to vibrate. A small piece of the surface broke off and was floating out into space before returning back to the planet and reforming. The purplish aura became darker as the cracks seemed to melt closed. The planet vibrated violently before finally coming to rest.

Unbelievable as it was, Jason couldn't begin to comprehend what he just saw.

He now knew who it was he was supposed to rescue. How, he didn't quite know yet. He thought hard. So hard that he hadn't heard the helmsman or anyone else warn him of the small orangish spacial rift opening up directly in front of the ship until his intercom crackled.

"Herion...you here?" A familiar voice said.

Jason recognized the voice instantly and knew he was being addressed, although confused as to how the voice is here.

"Flower guard...is that you?" He asked with a slight chuckle.

"My name is Detok..."

"And mine is Jason, welcome old friend. How..." Jason started but didn't know where to begin.

"You help us...we help you. You have living planet problem? We solve. Not only do we guard good PLANETS, we also destroy bad." Detok said, putting emphasis on the friendly insult to his name.

Just then, another large rift formed behind the group and an impressively very large log like ship with different attachments connected to it slowly emerged and headed towards the bottom part of the planet which was still exposed.

Jason warned them of the beam just as it began to form. The group scattered but the beam aimed straight for the log ship, only to pass right through it. It fired the beam multiple times in multiple ways but to no affect.

"This isn't our first rodeo" Detok said as they continued their journey.

The ship took a stationary orbit above the open area as the attachments began to open, turning the ship into a sort of oval satellite with a jagged like pylon extending from the center. Realizing what they were getting ready to do, Jason tried to stop them.

"What gives Herion? You not want help?" Detok asked confused.

"Yes but, the planet isn't the problem, it's what's controlling it." Jason said.

"No, that planet. No one but us beat planet." Detok said, not believing anything is stronger than a living planet. Even His ship and crew would be destroyed if it were not for the phasic converters and quantum drill lasers.

"Well, now you have competition. Look closely." Jason said.

Detok finally noticed the aura around the planet.

"This new!" he said, more to himself.

"I take it you guys do this a lot." Jason said as the satellite ship disappeared from its orbit, it's massive size reappearing next to the Impala, back in its log like form. Jason almost missed his original design as he studied the huge ship.

"More enough. This, this different. Planet good?" Detok asked.

"Yes, yes planet good." Jason responded.

"Bad company....this tough one. Use to destroy whole planet, not piece. Need thinking on this one." Detok said as he gathered his thoughts.

"I know the feeling." Jason mumbled to himself.

Suddenly there was a deep throated laugh that once again vibrated the ships.

"YOUUU WILLL DIIEEEE!!" it boomed, then took off towards open space.

#GREENCLOUD79