As the Major descends to the planet's surface, he daydreams of the impending encounter. How he figures The Princess will come running towards him with open arms and how he will simply shoot her with one of these inferior projectile firing earth weapons. Then Marshall, the idiot he is, will be stupefied. He will simply shoot Marshall in the back as he runs away screaming for mercy. Then, it's simply load up the bodies and destroy the weapon used and return to the ship, mourning the great loss. Yes, this is going to be easy, he thinks, chuckling to himself.

Silently hiding in the small cold and cramped area of the cargo area of the shuttle, Marlin waits for the first sign that the Major is not trying to save his Master and the Princess. In his hands he holds a fully loaded and charged photon weapon. He is not so sure how to use it as of yet but he figures it will come to him when it's needed.

The Major flips the switch that activates the homing device. Then adjusts it to home in on Tosha's signal. The tracker finds the signal and beeps its alert. The Major then flips the switch that allows the auto pilot to take over. As he leans back in his seat and puts his feet up on the instrument panel of the ship's controls, the auto pilot makes a sharp hard turn and begins tracking the signal. The major closes his eyes and smiles to himself about how easy this is going to be.

On the planet, in a control room of immense size, there is a light-skinned man watching a monitor. He speaks slowly sometimes holding the "S" in a word a bit to long.

A voice breaks the silence in this room.

"Excuse me Your Highness, but sire, we have an intruder in our air space.

The light-skinned man lightly touches a small glowing button. "What kind of intruder?"

The disembodied voice answers "It would seem to be a small "C" Class cargo ship, possibly a shuttle, Sire."

The light-skinned man touches his chin in deep thought, his eyes glowing the faintest red. "I wonder…" he mutters aloud as he absent-mindedly touches the glowing button in front of him. He watches the images now coming up on the monitor from the long-range scans.

"Might I ask where your Highness' thoughts may be wandering?" The disembodied voice asks.

The light-skinned man watches the monitor closely. He flips buttons and types in code to the main frame of this massive computing system.

"Launch a fighter. It'ss orderss are not to engage but insstead to fly as closse as posssible. The Pilot and Co-pilot are to make a ssign of paper or on their individual view sscreenss. Thiss iss to be a messsage to the pilot of the shuttle. The messsage will with out waver read. (Major, You are not alone) then there will be a ssecond messsage it will read, (You moron you have a sstowaway in the cargo area.) End of messsage. Pleasse execute thiss order now." The light-skinned man then rests his head in his palms with his elbows planted on the table. He cannot believe that 2 of the 6 men originally attacking this control building have actually breached his security and are now on the inside of his building.

Inssectss!" he presses the new glowing button. "Ssecurity, level one, disspatch the human boy; we are engaging him now." He then returns to the viewer with the shuttle on it, watching as the fighter closes in.

On board Tosha's ship, the Captain watches the events closely on his long-range scans also.

"The Major just picked up a fighter as he entered the atmosphere." He announces to the ships Fighter squadron officer. "Dispatch 4 fighters as escort for the Major. Tell them to engage the time distortion drive right away. They are going to have to intercept him as soon as possible. He has picked up a hostile and from the looks he is unaware of it." He pauses for a moment closing his eyes and resting his face in the palms of his hands. Resting on his elbows and thinking do I try to contact the major or maintain radio silence?

He picks up the head set, puts it on and adjusts it.

"Major, you have company. Help will be there in two earth minutes. Evasive action now!" he releases the microphone button and watches as the enemy fighter closes in and pulls alongside. The shuttle does not respond in the evasive manner but instead continues on its course. And the Major does not answer his call.

Again the captain tries; this time in a much sterner and commanding voice. "Major Kripstol, you have an enemy fighter all over you; hit the force shield and the repelling shield now and fly the evasive pattern!" Again, no response as the shuttle and the fighter follow the same course. They are so tight in formation it almost appears to be one ship. "Major, hang on. The ship to your left will be intercepted in less than 10 parsecs." this time shouting into the microphone.

The Captain's voice is heard by Marlin who is still cold and hidden in the dark cargo bay. Now a little frightened, he begins to fumble with the many dials and switches on this particular photon rifle, inadvertently turning it to maximum power. He tries to see what he is doing fumbling about and turning the rifle over, he accidentally pulls the sensitive trigger.

The sound of the rifle going off in this cramped area is awe striking. A cross between harsh thunder and the crackle of a high voltage spark. Momentarily, the small cramped area lights up brightly, as a hole the size of a mans head is blasted through the wall of the cargo area. Marshal feels the rush of atmosphere as it is sucked out of the rapidly decompressing room. He braces himself as to not be sucked into the hole but is slowly being forced closer and closer. Suddenly, a book on how to handle emergency situations flies from a shelf behind him slamming into the area of the hole and then opening up, giving temporary relief. Shocked, Marlin jumps from his hiding place opens the doorway and steps into the cargo area.

The photon blot does not stop there; it strikes the unsuspecting fighter flying alongside the shuttle, blowing a large section of the cockpit away and sending flames and thick smoke to slam and shake the shuttle. The fighter, now in flames, veers hard to the right and begins the tumbling dive that will lead to only one ultimate climax, death.

The light-skinned man watches in horror as the fighter dives, knowing it has been attacked but not knowing by whom. Thinking it’s the Major who is betraying him, he presses one of the many now glowing buttons before him. "Disspatch all the fighterss on this shuttle! DO IT NOW!" He slams his fist down hard.

A voice answers. "Sir, we, by order of the high command, cannot do that. They insist we hold our position here for fear you are overrun. It would seem one shuttle is not posing that much of a problem and having lost one fighter already we cannot warrant the order you just gave."

The light-skinned man touches another button on the desk top just as the boy and two men dressed in long black leather dusters and wide brimmed hats enter his office area. He stands for a second then sits, smiling at his new victory.

The Major watches in horror as the fighter spins out of control. Frantically he pushes buttons and flips switches trying to figure where the support fighters are that fired the deadly shot. He ignores the hull breach light thinking the debris from the fighter must have done the damage to the storage area.

The Captain sits back in his chair watching too. "Gunnery room, where was that shot fired from that took out the enemy fighter?"

The gunnery officer answers. "Tracking the trajectory, examine the debris pattern and looking closely at the flash patterns, Sir, the shot was fired from the cargo bay. Most probable weapon is a type CDR photon rifle turned up to the max. We hope the shooter realizes he only has three shots left at that power and only then if it were fully charged. May we add, Sir, it was very clever to place a warrior inside the shuttle bay."

The Captain stares at the monitor, wondering who.

Tosha and Marshall quickly explore the now empty filling station and restaurant, looking for anything they may use to defend themselves with or that may come in handy for their survival. After about an hour of scavenging, they have a small pile of possibly useful items. They found 20 tracer style bullets for a 9mm weapon on the skeletal remains of a long dead soldier in the restaurant section of the building along with assorted sharp tools including a pitchfork and ax. There are also 3 well-rusted cans of tuna.

Tosha opens one of the cans and sets it down close to where the kitten was last hiding. Slowly, it emerges from its hiding place, looking around timidly as the scent of the food is now overpowering. It pounces on the can and begins devouring it.

Marshall can not help but grin at the kitten as it tries to carry off the half full can only to trip over itself and wind up burying its nose in the tuna.

Having cleaned a large area of the room, Marshall pulls the armored blazer into the center of it. Opening the heavily armored tailgate and back window area, he props the window (or what used to be a window) open with a heavy piece of pipe. He then begins going through the various boxes and trunks inside hoping to find things of use. In the first trunk there is loose ammunition; possibly several thousand rounds of . 9mm hollow point shells. In the second trunk are two compact 9mm carbines and possibly one hundred clips.

"Tosha, come here please. I am going to need your help loading these clips for these rifles. We may need these at the ready if we have to make a stand here against whoever that was in the compound back there." The next discovery is bandages, and surprisingly enough, butchering tools. Then he remembers who were the previous owners of this truck and drops the package as if it were suddenly hot.

Gods! He exclaims, shaking and waving his hands as if to rid them of something awful.

Tosha smiles at him thinking how silly he looks dancing around like that cussing. She has already loaded several of the empty clips and reaches for another handful of bullets. One of the bullets slides from the pile in her hand. Marshall and Tosha both watch as the bullet, seemingly in slow motion, tumbles and falls, bouncing off her knee then the tailgate of the Blazer, flipping and spinning it strikes the floor. Just as the bullet touches the floor a large explosion rocks the building blowing out the remains of the already broken windows and sending a cloud of dust, smoke and flame high into the outside air. Marshall jumps and knocks Tosha backwards into the back of the Blazer as sharp shards of metal and glass shower the area.

Grabbing one of the carbines and several clips, Marshall spins around to squatting position shouting.

"What the fuck was that? Stay low!" he quickly makes his way to the wall, peeks out the window and remembers a line from a war movie he watched. The line was 'Stay off the walls, they will get ya killed.' He then moves a few feet back and tries to peek out threw the thick smoke, dust and flame.

"I can't see shit out there. But we must be under attack. Get the blazer buttoned up and be ready to roll." Tosha begins to try to quickly organize the inside of the blazer so there is room to move around while Marshall closes the tailgate and drops protective coverings over the open windows. He then climbs inside and opens up the tiny gunner's holes so he can shoot through them.

The time passes slowly, the blazer begins to heat up as the outside temperature climbs. Sweat rolls from Marshall's nose as he scans the area in his field of vision.

The Major allows the ship to touch down soft and silently. He lands just a few yards from the wreckage of the fighter. Getting out, he peers in the direction of the abandoned building. He chuckles to himself. "You think you can hide, little princess? You forget about our technology? You think I cannot find you?" He begins walking towards the building, holding the two earth weapons at the ready.

Marlin opens the side hatch of the shuttle and loses his balance, slipping and banging his weapon loudly on the side of the shuttle.

The startled Major turns and fires several shots as Marlin ducks back into the shuttle.

Marshall and Tosha hear the noise outside.

"They are coming, Tosha, shoot anything that moves!"

Meanwhile, the Major, not counting on the unwanted guest, quickly turns and again starts for the building.