So who was calling them? And why?
McLyx slipped out of his seat, nearly fell climbing down from his commander's perch, and then almost slipped a third time making his way over to the communications panel. The comm officers looked worried, distraught even. They'd heard the messages through their comm helmets, and there was no doubt they'd unnerved them. Both men had turned very pale.
McLyx finally arrived and took command of the message flows. All he heard was static at first. Static, and a strange pulsating type of music. But then, slowly, gradually, the messages started coming through. They were orders for them to turn back.
But McLyx knew right away something was wrong with this. First of all, there was no one who had the authority to call them back. But even more frightening, the voice on the other end ordering him to return to base was that of a child.
McLyx was convinced at that point he, too, had gone round the bend. The voices in his ear — and there were suddenly more than one — were saying the right words, even using standard SSG codes, but they were children, first ordering him, then pleading, then begging him to turn around and return to Saturn.
McLyx ripped off his comm helmet and hurled it across the room. He looked at the two communications officers. Now they were almost in tears.
He said to them, "This is not a mission we can turn back from. We have to keep going. We have see it through. There's no other choice."
An instant later, they popped back into the void of the Lost Dimension. A chorus of moans came up from those on the flight deck. More vomiting could be heard. The lights within dimmed even further. Outside the windows there were no stars, no planets, nothing. Just blackness.
That's when the scanning officers called out. Something else was going wrong.
McLyx slid his way over to Scan Control. This station had a large screen with a multitude of dials, half of which had been skewed by all the interdimensional jumping. But the screen itself was working, and the image it was beginning to show was both troubling and fantastic.
"Someone is following us," one of the scanning officers told McLyx.
McLyx studied the big screen. One moment it was empty. The next, five objects had suddenly popped onto it. They were moving as fast as the saucer. In fact, they were coming up alongside it.
This was impossible, though. Wasn't it?
McLyx was simply stunned. Other officers were now looking at the long-range scan screen as well. Panic started to seep in. McLyx knew it was crazy, but he had to keep order on his bridge, to keep events from going out of control.
"It's just a blink!" he yelled to the flight crew. "Get back to your stations. These things will go away!"
But they didn't go away.
Just a few seconds later, the five strange craft had pulled even with the saucer. They could be seen very clearly out the starboard side windows. The craft were bulky, gray green, big enough to carry a few people, with a huge metal spinning thing on their noses. The words "U.S. Navy" were emblazoned on their fuselages, along with a big white and a striped red and blue emblem. People in goggles were looking back at them.
"They are not real!" McLyx screamed again. "It's the blinks! Don't look at them!"
But suddenly the comm set in the control deck came to life again. And this time, everyone could hear it. "This is Right 19," an eerie voice said. "We are lost. Can you give us a compass check?"
Still shaken by the previous haunting message, the comm officers lording over the communications gear were too stunned to reply. And what would they say if they could?
"This is Flight 19… we are not sure of our position… can you help us?"
McLyx just stared at the comm officers, and the men stared back, unable to move.
"I'm sure I'm over the Keys," the voice said. "I just don't know how far down…"
With that, the five airplanes banked left and were suddenly gone.
No sooner had they disappeared when another object was detected coming up on the other side of the saucer.
It was another kind of spacecraft, but just as strange as the five objects that had just ridden alongside them.
This vessel was big and white with a black bottom and a high tail. On the nose was the word Columbia, but all other writing on the side of the vessel looked to be burned away. This craft had a slightly delta shape, not quite a wedge, but possibly, to some eyes, the beginnings of that omnipresent Empire design could be seen here. Three huge engine noz-zles were sticking out of its aft section, but no flames or exhaust could be seen coming out of them. The craft was keeping pace with the saucer, but it did not seem to be moving under its own power.
McLyx was staring at this ghost machine now, unable to take his eyes off of it, mesmerized by its sudden fantastic presence. What was it? What was it doing here, in the Lost Dimension with them? How could it be moving so fast without the power to do so?
He ordered it scanned front to back, top to bottom. The scans came back almost instantly. There were no life-forms aboard the vessel. Yet, no sooner had he heard this report when he saw a person at the craft's small window looking over at him. This person waved to him; McLyx had to stop himself from waving back. Then, suddenly, flames started pouring out of the vessel's left wing. They quickly spread up and over its body and soon engulfed the tail. Just seconds later, the entire craft was close to being totally involved in flames.
Yet throughout all this, the man in the cabin continued waving to him.
"It's just another blink!" McLyx roared again. "Stop looking at it! That's an order!"
No sooner were these words out of his mouth when the flames engulfed the craft completely. But it did not explode nor did it melt away. It just simply banked smoothly to the right and soon disappeared into the void. A moment later, the saucer dumped back into real time.
McLyx closed his eyes and tried his best to keep his emotions under control. It was hard to do. He had a distinct feeling that he was slipping… just slipping away to a place that was not good, that had no light, that actually might be very, very hot, yet dark at the same time. He tried to shake away these thoughts, tried to shake away everything but what he had to concentrate on regarding the mission at hand.
When he opened his eyes again, he realized everyone on the bridge was looking at him.
He was about to scream at them to get back to their stations, when the scan officer called out another alarm.
Something else was chasing them now. An Empire vessel. But going very, very fast.
McLyx ordered its image up on the screen. Again, he was astounded by what he saw.
It was indeed an Empire ship. Just a bit smaller than an Empire spaceflghter, it was wedge-shaped. But it had a very high tail, a sort of blunted nose, and open-ended nacelles on either side of the cockpit. It looked very, very old.
"It's another blink!" McLyx roared again.
But this time, he really wasn't so sure.
It was the KosmoVox, of course, hot on the trail of the flying saucer, intent on stopping it before it was able to launch its XWMD weapon at Doomsday 212.
Hunter was still at the controls of the ancient spacecraft, had the throttle buried, and was moving faster than he thought possible in an Empire ship.
Following the saucer had been easy — almost too easy. It was leaving a contrail thousands of miles long and nearly as wide and had flown a straight line from Saturn to the Two Arm. True, it was blinking in and out, appearing then disappearing at infrequent intervals. But it was doing this so rapidly, it actually made it even easier for Hunter to keep up with it.
It was a chase then. A fantastic, exciting, exhilarating chase. And Hunter was nearly delirious from the pursuit.