Author Notes: I know, I know. I got three BLoSC stories in progress. However, I've been building up ideas for this fic for so long, that I couldn't be without putting the first chapter up. Thanks to Captain Buzz Lightyear for info material, EMZ and Heather for ideas and Karen for beta-reading help.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar

Choi Zarah G'Deneb, Ay'noh Darkmatter © Engineer Jess (Ay'noh is a transliteration to English from the Kalevalan name Aino. There's no real translation for that name, since it's dialectal, but it would approximately be translated 'the only one' or 'sole'.)

Mariañ Haydée © Empress Lightyear

EPISODE V

The Phantom Menace

"Alright, troops... activate the jump gate... get, set, lightspeed!"

"Okey-dokey, Captain! Here we go. Unless we are getting the Millennium Falcon effect and the warp drive gets formatted."

"Very funny, XR."

Team Lightyear in its whole combination was on the road again. Almost a year and a half had passed since the exploration on the distant Planet Isgurda. Buzz Lightyear was back in his routines as if he had never been in the arms of the dark side. Of course, all the marks of his insanity times had not been swept away with a featherduster. When examining the determined Captain sitting in the pilot chair of 42, one could at first spot the shaped full-beard, and that he did not care to hide his hair so obsessively, as some years ago. The raven, short locks were partly hiding his forehead under them, matching with the expressive brows. However, his behaviour and virtues were again almost the same as in his hero era, before the fall of the Zurgean Empire. In addition, Buzz did not want to be a spoiled, over-bombastic royal any more, but just almost a normal space ranger jack. The aging, though, could be seen a bit from his features. He would be soon on the better side of his thirties.

"Ahh, how interesting... what an artistic spice in my meal to watch the timelines of the by-passing stars!" the robot yawned.

"XR, how many times have you nagged about that topic in the recent weeks? Hyperspace is meant for fast travelling, not sightseeing!" Mira commented.

"Then why couldn't we be in hypersleep? I'm not hyperactively interested in hyperspace, unlike some folks here, who tend to be hypergeeks concerning every very hyper thing", XR snapped back.

"I'm not a hypergeek!  All I ask is no complaints for once. We already had a long patrol when guarding the intergalactic lepidopterology conference. We were even forced to listen to every single lecture about the topic! Eight hours of that pain and then you begin to moan."

"Shh! Blast, stop quarrelling! XR, what is that?" Buzz suddenly shouted.

"Have your ear sensors gone full of mush or what? Can't you hear that the hyperradar is beeping?!"

"Oh, oh, yeah." The android got his caterpillars rolling and approached his console.

"What is it?"

"Ah, um... seems that we've got company."

"What kind of company? Hostile or friendly? Anything can be expected outside Alliance space", Buzz pointed out over his shoulder.

"Now, don't bug me. This scanner isn't as fast as my circuits. Hmm... the echo request tells that the ship or whatsoever is... HUGE. Oh, boy." XR's voice turned to a little whistle. "Quite a fatso!"

"How 'huge'? Some too-well-eaten Dreadnaught?"

"No-ope... we're talking about hyper-issues now... this baby is nothing compared to your daddy's cute little vehicles."

The android's comments brought everyone's eye in his direction.

"I tell you, we cannot do anything if this hunk is hostile. And besides, the matter scanner gives only some gibberish for an answer. It can't recognise the material or the model. And we're approaching at... ahem... lightspeed."

"I'll open up the palpation channel and give a query." Buzz pushed a button on the control panel. "Come in, unidentified flying object... This is Star Cruiser forty-two, under the supervision of Star Command! Please identify yourself? Do you copy?"

Tens of seconds of silence. Lightyear tried a couple of times again. Nothing. Not even a mouse squeaked.

"Odd..." the Captain narrowed his eyes.

"Say what! It's as silent as a box of rubber boots!" XR replied.

"Ranger Nova, open up the channel to Star Command and ask for orders." Buzz continued, "I'll go to check out the radar myself. This is definitely peculiar. Even if the most diabolical persons in the galaxy are approaching us, they always answer."

While Mira was discussing the orders with Nebula, Lightyear wondered the scanner's holograph his head atilt. "This doesn't make sense! This device can't recognise the hull material, whatever it is... oh, craters... look at the size of that thing..." he exhaled.

"Told ya, cap."

From the other part of the command deck, Mira gave a holler, "Commander says we should take a closer look at it. According to him, it may be some abandoned spacecraft. It has occasionally, yet very rarely, happened that empty ships have been found floating around hyperspace. And there's some article in Alliance Law, which orders that space junk has to be gathered away from the wormholes, since it may endanger the traffic safety."

"Like that seatbelts are obligatory?" Booster remembered the Space Ranger Manual, "But Buzz. why are you walking across the ship without seatbelts if you know they're obligatory?"

"Uhh... sorry, but I cannot use a seatbelt if I walk. And I need to see this myself. Blast... as if there was nothing relevant in the Alliance's vehicle database. I have a bad feeling about this. Or not exactly bad, but..." Some green matrix abruptly was flying across the holo. "Wait... now it's giving some signals. The hull is... what?" he was left with his mouth gagged.

"What?" all the others said in unison.

"Craters, this wreck tries to signal that it's organic material. Carbon, some kind of molecules... and some kind of... possibly alloy structures whose element combination is unparalleled. This thing cannot be... from our galaxy."

"Hot rockets..." Booster gaped at him, "Are you sure?"

"I'm Buzz Lightyear, I'm always sure!"

Mira gave a little snort in her co-pilot chair, so that no one else heard. "Yeah, just like his father...  A bit too self-confident."

However, the Team had to fulfil the task they were given to do. Approaching the odd object, it was soon visible even through the windshield. There, at the junction of two different wormholes, could be distinguished this enormous, black lump of something. Its shape was like a bean, smooth in every place. No wings were protruding out of it, neither any kind of elevon. Just this glabrous, round-arched form was there. Its black, opaque surface did not reflect any light back, only seemed to absorb it a bit. It truly did not resemble anything that the Milky Way's technology had provided this far. Something outlandish, something rather awe-inspiring.

"Gee... now as we see it nearer, it starts to have the measures of Star Command Headquarters..." Nova clacked her teeth together.

"Come in, Commander? We have now approached the target", Buzz spoke for the while. "It's a device of some kind, alright... but doesn't actually resemble a space ship, like you suspected."

"Can you see any markings in it? Plates, signs, anything? Send the nanocamera transmission out." Zeb's austere voice came from the comlink.

"Order in action. I'll activate the T-ray sweepers."

Everyone boosted up his or her senses to examine the red holo that was appearing slowly above the reader. The camera little by little remote-scanned the surface of the target. A couple of jaws again drooped open because of the view. Complex carvings, crossing over each other and forming some kind of strange shapes, were echoing back.

"What beautiful decorations!" Mira blinked in astonishment. "But why would anyone do such work to decorate a space ship? It seems that the whole surface of that thing is full of those."

"Maybe it's a moving space museum of modern and a bit more ancient art?" XR suggested.

"No... this is something completely different. Who knows what it is."

"Look at the screen. It's showing no windows or doors, whatsoever. Who's gonna get into that thing if there's no door? Tangeans?" Booster scratched his bald head.

"Definitely not. That's nothing like Tangeans would ever build," came the response.

"Okay, rangers, you stay there!" Nebula's snap interrupted the small talk from the comm. channel, "I'm getting you enforcements."

"Why? What...?" Lightyear began a bit of wondering.

"We're getting that thing out of there. I believe it's possible with the propulsion and thrust of some bigger transportation vehicles. It's very apparent that it's one of these cases, that someone has been polluting the sensitive ecosystem of hyperspace with some useless trash."

"But Sir, this is REALLY big! Do you think you can...?" Buzz was quite insecure.

"Sure, sure. Star Command can do anything nowadays. Don't you remember the new tugs the LGM's designed? And that the certain Darkmatters helped the project with their technical skills...?" Zeb gave a laugh.

"Ohh ok, then, it's your order, Sir."

Some hours later, that part of hyperspace resembled some Capital Planet crowded parking lot. Although with that dissimilarity, that the star cruisers did not collide much with each other, and the different captains could not be seen nagging with each other about bumper bruises and scratches in the paint. Now it was attaching long wires and trying to use some magnetic grids to aid the pulling work. It was planned that the strange space pea would be dragged out of there like some car junk from the side of a distant highway. Alliance's new gadgets and doodahs allowed nowadays slow floating in the waves of hyperspace, as if it would be considered a normal vacuum. Slowly but surely, the labour task began to produce results. A colossal jump gate device was switched on, and it created a massive hole into the normal Einsteinian dimensions.  Through that portal, the wandering weirdo was hauled out of its long-time home.

Star Cruiser 42 was not actually taking part of the spell, but inspected the whole show at some distance. The ranger instincts were giving Buzz some nauseous cold shivers along his spine, as if he had sensed something bizarre in this whole thing.

"I still say I have a bad feeling about this..." He fingered the place of his cleft, which was now under the black beard.

XR sceptically twisted his metallic face into some grimace, "Now don't start to blabber about using the force, again. Look, we don't live in corny movies or worse, in some animated kids' series! Wakey-wakey, cap."

"Sure, sure... just thinking..." Buzz moreover let his little grey brain cells at once do some humming.

"It'll go to the LGM laboratory... or in this case, outside it. Those green technicians find out what it is. But this far everyone -even I- assumes it's only some useless junk", Mira threw in a comment.

"Hmm..."

-----------

And then... after a couple of days more at Star Command HQ... a preliminary, official-type documentation was put in front of the noses of Team Lightyear.

An unidentified object found in the hyperspace areas of Delta Quadrant. Status: unknown. Material: unknown, primary studies indicate some carbon-based half-organic structure. Use: unknown. Vehicle class: unknown or not a vehicle. Presumed age/ manufacturing year: 10,000 to 20,000 years UGT. Origin: unknown, possibly from an outer galaxy. Other notes: Outside hull decorations, see appendix B. Supposedly a device of some kind.

Commander Nebula's hand-clap woke the flabbergasted team from their thoughts and got their regards to raise up from the text lines. "So, that's what you dragged away from there. And what are we supposed to do with this thing? It's been brought right beside Star Command, giving a not-so-pleasant view straight through my office window. I'd rather watch a rusty tractor than that black... uh... something."

"But, sir, you gave the orders", Buzz replied to the peevish outburst.

"I know, I know... and Madame President has given her two cents too... this will stay here, until it has been found out what it is. The scientists and other big-brained folks who have been here thus far, say they never have seen anything relevant..." The old man took a little walk across his office.

"Is this true what the overhauls tell? 10,000 to 20,000 years old?" Nova looked quite surprised.

"Yes, and that's the main reason why this fuss has started around it. An ancient something, from somewhere... how did it get into hyperspace, why was it abandoned, who made it... what is its purpose? What on Mars and its superdiodes is anyone gonna do with such a thing? Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries."

...to be continued...