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1

BIFROST

Orbiting around a dead sun, deep within the Lundmark Nebula, the small planetoid was under the watchful eye of the young Lensman, Ted Smith. The youth tried hard not to get too distracted. This was his first mission, and he had no intention of messing it up. Minor as it was – this scouting and espionage expedition didn't require the best or the most experienced Lensman to complete the task – the mission itself, as all missions, had to be taken seriously. He was well aware that there were better men out there for this sort of work – at times, he felt that his becoming a Lensman was a huge mistake on someone's part – but now that he was here, he couldn't fail. Civilization was at stake. Many people who he had known in what now seemed to be the distant past would have scoffed at that statement, but it was a serious matter. Civilization was indeed at stake, and any minor misstep might destroy it. Ted Smith took a deep breath, and continued to be vigilant.

So far, no Boskonian on that small lonely world had spotted his speedster. The flare baffles concealed the brightness of the rocket's flare pretty well. If any light did escape the cigar-shaped craft, it was concealed by the shadow of the nearby gas giant, the only other world in the system.

Using the ultra-wave spy-beam, Smith carefully observed the hidden base on the planet. It didn't seem like much – it seemed quite crude in fact, with several pirates walking around in spacesuits rather than in underground tunnels, sheltered from the darkness of space – until Smith noticed the only dome on the planetoid's surface opening up. A long, massive tube emerged from the opening. Smith couldn't quite discern what it was. It could be a telescope, or the barrel of some cannon. Either way, it was fishy; anything that Boskone was involved with always lead up to nothing good. He looked at the tube-like structure more closely, and he took out a slide-ruler. He made the calculations, and with some dread, he realized that the tube was pointed towards Ultra Prime.

Ted Smith took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. A more experienced Lensman would be able to perform this task easily, but he was new, and for him, this was still hard work.

With the Lens, Smith reached out with his mind towards the dark planetoid. He could feel the thoughts of the beings within the base. The vast majority of them were blue Kalonians, but there were a few more aliens that were unimportant to the Boskone hierarchy.

Quickly, Smith retracted his mind so as not to be caught by any enemy with the strong mental potential to detect him. He remembered what Kimball Kinnison, the Gray Lensman had told him.

He searched and searched, until he finally found what he was looking for: an insect – or something like an instect – native to the Kalonian homeworld which had somehow stowed away to this dead rock. With little effort, Smith overwhelmed the insect's mind.

Now he could see through the insect's eyes, and hear what it could hear.

Several Kalonians were at the base of the giant tube, all of them in uniform. One Kalonian stood out, thanks to his uniform, which was as gaudy as it was grotesque. It reminded Smith of images of another Kalonian, Helmuth, the so-called voice of Boskone, who Kimball Kinnison had defeated and slain.

The Master Kalonian was speaking to one of his subordinates. The subordinate in question, Smith quickly realized, was the Master's second in command. Smith could understand that something important was about to happen.

"Is the Jestocost Gun ready to fire?" the Master Kalonian asked the officer, his eyes going from his subordinate to the base of the machine.

"It couldn't be more ready my lord" the Kalonian officer said, trying to appear fearless, when in fact he was quite nervous and fearful of death at the hands of his superior as was natural amongst the forces of Boskone "All it needs now is the Compacted Negasphere"

The Kalonians all got to work preparing the gun as their master left them. Smith needed more information, so with as much subtlety as he could muster, he transferred his mind from the insect to the mind of the Kalonian officer. He didn't take over the man's mind as he had the insect's. Some Kalonians had strong minds, or even mental shields, and such a move could alert them to the Lensman's presence. But Smith didn't need to take over the Kalonian; he only needed to read fragments of the alien's thoughts, and the fragments he needed were near the surface.

Everything was clear – a Ploor scientist had managed to find a way to develop a type of negasphere, which could be compacted, and which could decompact once it touched matter. The problem was that once decompacted, the negasphere consumed the matter it touched.

And this thing was aimed at Ultra Prime.

It didn't have to hit the fortress directly; all it had to do was hit the ground nearby to release the full might of the starving negasphere. And it would be hard to detect – the Ploor scientist had worked hard on making the foul projectile almost invisible to any spy-beam. And adding to that, the projectile would be travelling at an incredible speed which few scanners could trace.

Smith stopped rummaging through the officer's brain once he noticed more people approaching the gun. It was a party of five, one of which carried a box that was big enough to carry a football. They were going to fire it now.

The young Lensman had to act quickly. His mind raced through several scenarios, plotting several solutions. Only one seemed to work within his mind, even if it seemed stupid. He reached out behind the seat and took out the jetpack, strapping it to his back.

He flicked a switch and the flare baffles were blown away from the speedster's rocket nozzles. Flying at full speed, Ted Smith directed his craft towards the Jestocost Gun.

For the life of him, Drull couldn't understand why he had to go out on these patrols. The Galactic Patrol was far away, so there was no chance any Valerian or Lensman would drop from the dark sky to hack them to bits. In addition to that, the planetoid – a recent discovery made by Boskonian pirates – was completely devoid of life. But the Tyrant was paranoid, and he always thought that there was some menace within even the most lifeless of orbs. As if creeping crawling crab monsters were going to come out of the ancient charred rocks to attack everyone.

The four other pirates in front of him didn't seem to mind, but he knew that they hated this detail as well. They were simply doing it because they were afraid of their overlords. Well, as long as Drull kept quiet and didn't make a fuss, he might be transferred to someplace better. To a place where he wasn't either bored, or in constant danger of dying in a horrible manner.

All was silent. The dead planetoid had no atmosphere, so there was no wind of any sort. From time to time, the radio within Drull's helmet would whistle or crackle, but that was just about it. There was nothing out there that would kill them.

Nonetheless, Drull kept looking around. He didn't know why. There was nothing hiding in the dark shadows.

And that was when he saw it.

It was an intense streak of light that extended from the darkness of space towards the new Jestocost Gun that his superiors had boasted about. It lasted for about a few seconds, but it was then followed by a cataclysmic explosion that shook the ground and nearly knocked Drull and his companions down. The sound was deafening even through the filters within their helmets. And then the blaze arose from where the Jestocost Gun had been.

However, as soon as the blaze had emerged from the explosion, it disappeared, swallowed by a growing black orb. Drull looked at it with a growing sense of terror. He didn't know much, but he recognized what a negasphere was.

"By all the demons, what the hell is going on?" asked the squad leader, looking at the black sphere that was now swallowing the installations which had housed the Jestocost Gun.

No one, not Drull or any of the other pirates could answer their leader's question. All they could do was stare stupidly at the sphere.

Their attention wouldn't rest on the sphere for long. One of the pirates turned and gasped. The others looked in the same direction, and they saw something that they couldn't believe was possible.

A man wearing an armored black-and-gold-and-silver spacesuit – no doubt mirroring the uniform worn underneath – with a jetpack strapped to his back landed right in front of them. Within the short time-frame allotted to the pirates, they noticed that the man wasn't very tall or bulky, but that he held within his firm grip a Valerian space-axe, and that he held it well. The leader of the squad, the one closest to the man, was the first to react, trying to draw his blaster as quickly as he could. But it wasn't quick enough. The man in black-and-gold-and-silver had the speed of a panther – his arm so fast it could only be seen as a blur. The squad leader was neatly cut in half. The next two pirates suffered similar fates; one losing his head, and the other having the top of his neatly cleaved off. The pirate ahead of Drull had barely the time to move before the man had shoved the spike at the end of his space-axe into his skull.

Because he was more distant than the others, at least Drull had time to do more than just shiver before being culled. He had managed to draw out his blaster; but in his fright, the shot missed by too much, and the man was on him. Drull felt the butt of the space-axe hit his gut. The man then reached out for the Kalonian's arm, and twisted it in such a way as to break it. Drull yells were muffled by his helmet.

The Kalonian then felt something invade his mind. The invasion was only instantaneous; a second later and it was gone. He sighed with relief, but when he looked up, all he could see was the dureum blade of a Valerian space-axe crash towards his face.

Since the black planetoid had much less gravity than the gravity found on the surface of the Earth, Ted Smith realized that he could travel rather quickly across the surface of the orb in mighty leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, this was something he could not do, since the planetoid was crawling with pirates. Anyone of them that spotted him jumping about could bring him down with a precise shot from a strong blaster. And any fights would be a waste of time. The young Lensman looked over his shoulder, to see the Negasphere growing, and growing, eating up the surface of the planetoid.

Soon, the small world would be consumed in all its entirety. By Klono's iridium intestines, this was going to be close!

Luckily, Smith's destination was on the other side of the planetoid. From the information that the young Lensman had ripped from the mind of the Kalonian pirate that had once been called Drull, he knew that there were two launch sites on this orb. One was close to where the Jestocost Gun had once been – by now it must have been consumed by the negasphere. The other launch site was on the other end of the planetoid, and it was towards this facility that Smith was making haste.

Smith hid behind a rock when he felt that someone was approaching. From behind his cover, he could see that a wheeled vehicle was going in the same direction he was. By now, half of the people on the planetoid knew about the negasphere.

Using the lens, Smith reached out into the driver's mind. He couldn't quite control him (he was still an inexperienced Lensman), but he could influence him enough to stop the vehicle close to where he was hiding.

"What's going on?" the Kalonian passenger could be heard asking the driver. Before any answer could be given, Smith had leapt out of hiding. His left hand shot towards the door handle. The pirates had never expected such an invasion – the door wasn't locked, so it opened without a hitch. But there was still the matter of the occupants to attend to. In a blurry move, his right hand went to his DeLameter. Before the two passengers could draw their own blasters, the Lensman had disintegrated them both with two precise shots. Quickly, Smith slid into the driver's seat, and sped towards the launch site.

In a matter of seconds he was there, crossing guards who were too busy looking at the growing Negasphere to take a care to look at him.

The launch site was like a small spaceport, but poorly built. Perhaps, Boskone had hoped to hide this planetoid's importance by making the facilities on its surface seem so fragile and sub-par. Smith had to admit it – the subterfuge had almost worked. There were several dull metallic longhouses about, all of them containing speedsters – the only type of vessel they could contain, given their size.

Smith stopped the car by the nearest hangar. He jumped out of the door. The pirate guarding the hangar door was caught by surprise and could do little as Smith turned him to dust with his DeLameter.

The Lensman switched the hands with which he held his DeLameter, passing it from his right hand to his left. This left his right hand free to hold his Valerian space-axe in a firm grip. Swinging down his right arm, Smith smashed through the weak hangar door.

The longhouse did indeed contain a speedster, and from the looks of it, it seemed ready to go. However, there were ten more pirates within the hangar, surrounding the speedster. Only two were engineers. The rest were well armed guards.

This time, the guards had time to react. They began shooting at the Lensman as soon as they saw him. Now Smith's training truly began to take effect, as aided by the lower gravity, he dodged most of the shots, deflecting the others with the dureum blade of his axe. Smith returned fire, blasting five pirates, but making sure not to damage the speedster. Through the corner of his eye, Smith noticed one of the pirates trying to lunge at him from his right. Smith lifted his leg and delivered a hard kick to the villain's gut, following that by smashing the blade of the axe into his skull.

Another beam raced past him, barely missing by just an inch. In a swift movement, Smith turned his body and aimed. In a second, the pirate was nothing but ashes.

The other three, seeing that they were all outmatched, turned their backs to run towards the emergency exit. Smith shot them all down. A guardian of Civilization could never show any mercy to a being of Boskone.

The Lensman was going to reholster his DeLameter, when something in the back of his skull told him to quickly move his left hand out of the way – a message perhaps, given by the lens. The sensation he felt was that of urgency, and in addition, he had the vision of his hand being reduced to nothing.

Smith quickly moved his hand. As his hand moved, a blazing blast struck the barrel of the DeLameter, almost singing Smith's fingers. The force of the blast tossed the DeLameter across the hangar.

The young Lensman turned to see the familiar face of Marcus Leroy, standing there with a smoldering blaster in his hand. Smith couldn't believe what he was seeing; Leroy was a former Patrol cadet and a potential Lensman. He was also Smith's fellow classmate.

Leroy was as tall and strong as Smith remembered him – he still looked heroic. Smith was however, shocked to notice that Leroy was wearing the type of spacesuit that was commonly worn by the pirates and Zwilniks of Boskone. Leroy had been something of a bad boy, but this?

Smith also noticed that Leroy wasn't wearing a helmet. Instead, he wore a transparent breath mask. Looking at the top of Leroy's head, the young Lensman realized why this was so. Attached to the young man's head was something that looked like a brain that had the legs of a spider, and a single eye on a stock. It had a proboscis that was buried deeply within Leroy's forehead.

The whole thing looked grotesque.

"What are you doing here Leroy? And what is that thing on your head?" Smith asked his former classmate with complete astonishment.

Through the transparent membrane of the breath mask, Leroy smiled in a way that was no different than when he was showing off his marksmanship skills back on the training grounds of Valeria.

"I know you're in shock Teddyboy, but I think it's pretty obvious that I'm a Zwilnik. I've been one for the past three years."

Smith looked at Leroy in disbelief. "Why? Why would you do something like that, why would you be a Zwilnik?"

The Zwilnik shrugged his shoulders as he smiled smugly.

"The pay is much better" was all he said.

Smith was now glaring at Leroy. "You're a Zwilnik Leroy! If ever a child is beaten by a father hooked on thionite or on bennies, it's your fault! If people die in massacres because of your trade, it's your fault! If every promising being whether they're human or not is reduced to nothing because of your trade, it's your fault! You live off of the suffering of others and that's all you have to say? That it pays better? Your math isn't very good."

A chuckle escaped Leroy's breath mask.

"It's enough for me."

The young Lensman growled

"What's that monstrosity you're wearing" Smith said, pointing at the strange brain-like thing on Leroy's head with his axe.

Now Leroy's smile grew wider. He held his hands close to the strange thing.

"This is my new friend. It was discovered even deeper within this galaxy than this planetoid. It's called a Gonchong, and only the strongest minds like mine can withstand it. In many ways it's like that lens wrapped around your wrist. It makes my mind stronger than it was before. Thanks to it, I could sneak up on you without detection, and I can counter any mental attack you may make on me with your lens. Which means that I can kill you with my bare hands and feed you to the Eich for dinner." The Zwilnik said with a malicious chuckle.

Smith scowled. "Leroy, you've turned into a real rat."

When he was sixteen, Ted Smith thought that the world around him was crumbling to pieces.

He hadn't had many friends in his short life. He was small for his age, not very athletic, and a bit of an egghead who still wore glasses because he didn't want anyone fiddling with his eyes. He was also dreadfully shy. Of the few friends he did have, the closest to him was a girl called Mavis. Although she was a bit more outgoing than Ted was, she wasn't what one would call a pretty girl; any attempt she made to get any attention would be met with utter disaster. But the two of them loved to spend their time with each other, and neither minded when other kids said that they were sweethearts. Ted never assumed that he would end up married to Mavis, but she was the best friend he ever had, and he couldn't imagine living his life without her.

And then, when they were both sixteen, something happened. Mavis blossomed into a very pretty girl, the type that always turned heads. She still wasn't the prettiest, but that didn't matter – she was pretty enough and plenty of guys wanted to ask her out on a date, or impress her. Ted began to get bothered by this, but he understood that Mavis liked being popular, and that she liked the attention, and that it would be unfair to not let her have what she wanted. But then Mavis wanted less and less to be seen with Ted, until one day she said that she would rather see him dead. This didn't just leave Ted devastated, it left him horribly aware of what his life would be like in the future. Whatever friends he would make along his life would disappear or leave him behind, any woman he married would abandon him for something or someone else, because quite simply put, he was a mediocre example of humanity. He decided to enlist in the Galactic Patrol. If he could be a marine, or at least a crew member to a ship, he might, at least, be good enough to be Mavis' friend again and never be abandoned as if he were nothing.

Of course, the Galactic Patrol did not accept recruits that were sixteen years old. He was turned down right there at the recruiting office. That would have been the end of that if not for the fact that three days later a Lensman appeared at the door of his home.

Young Ted Smith had been recruited for a special project. Ted enthusiastically followed the Lensman that had recruited him. His parents gave their permission, although if they had released their son to the custody of the Patrol out of their own volition was unclear.

Thus, the frail and shy boy was taken to Valeria with fifty other boys that were about the same age. He was probably the weakest of them all. The first few months on Valeria were harsh – he was nearly crushed by the planet's gravity. But the boy was determined enough to change to withstand the conditions that had bred the towering Valerian space marines, feared by the evil forces of Boskone.

Little by little, the boy did change. He became a bit more outgoing (enough to attract the attention of a Valerian girl who would, four years later say that she was too afraid to marry a Lensman), and the dashing nature of his fellow cadets did eventually rub off on him.

He learned things that the other boys back home did not, from the higher forms of mathematics, to certain esoteric mental disciplines. More significantly, he was taught how to fight. And they seemed to have taught him everything – every type of grapple, block, punch, hit, kick, and throw – you name it, they taught it. Ted was taught how to fight with his bare hands, with all sorts of bladed weapons (including and especially the dreaded space-axe), and with every firearm known to man. At the very beginning, he wasn't very good, losing all of the spars, hitting wide off the mark, but after a year, he began to hold his own, and then to win some of the fights, and hitting quite a few marks. He earned the respect of his fellow cadets, who always said that he was full of surprises. Ted himself wondered how much of that was true. He knew that he was being fed a special diet and given special medication that toughened his flesh and bones and enhanced his nervous system, greatly improving his reflexes. But the same could be said of every other cadet.

Ted Smith graduated from this training ranked as the twenty-sixth of the entire fifty-one cadets that had been dropped into Valeria, which wasn't bad considering he started out as the worst.

The boy's goal had been achieved. When he received his lens, four years after his recruitment, he was a young man that could hardly be considered mediocre. Anyone of his fellow cadets (the Valerian Fifty, as they called themselves) could tell you he was different from the adolescent boy that could barely walk on Valerian soil at the beginning of training. Anyone else would probably not notice the change, at first. He hadn't grown at all since he was sixteen (or at least that was what it seemed), he still looked frail, and he was still a four-eyed egghead, although now he wore specially crafted goggles that could see in several spectra as well as in the dark, instead of glasses.

Leroy, who had once been the best cadet within those fifty-one that had landed on Valeria, but who had left after one year (thus making the fifty-one into fifty), could not see the change that Ted Smith had undergone. All he could see was the boy who he could throw around easily, who always managed to shoot at anything but the target. The Zwilnik was confident that he would be victorious.

The Zwilnik charged at the Lensman, swinging his own space-axe and expecting to cleave his head in two. Instead, the blade of Leroy's axe hit the ground. Ted Smith had simply side-stepped the Zwilnik, easily avoiding the blow.

Leroy was surprised. He was even more surprised when he received a hard kick to his gut that nearly tossed him to the other side of the hangar. Quickly, Leroy got up and charged at Smith again. Once again, Leroy swung his axe overhead, hoping to cut the Lensman's head in half. But that didn't happen. Smith simply blocked Leroy's axe with his own. In a swift movement, Smith hit Leroy in the face with the butt of his axe.

The man who was once at the top of his class staggered, and he received a few more punches and kicks, along with a few jabs from the butt of a space-axe. Now Leroy realized that Smith had changed. Smith could hit hard now.

The Zwilnik barely managed to block Smith's space-axe with his own, but even the act of blocking left him staggering.

Leroy looked at his opponent, his insignificant looking opponent, and he realized that he wasn't going to be able to beat him in a fair fight. He merged his mind with that of the Gonchong, and he launched a mental attack against his former classmate.

The Gonchong's attack made Smith wince. This allowed Leroy to charge and kick the Lensman in his gut. The attack didn't go as Leroy had thought; Smith caught the Zwilnik's foot. He had it in a grip that was too strong for Leroy to shake away from.

With one twist, Smith had broken Leroy's leg close to the ankle. Leroy yelled out in pain. Then, Smith swung his space-axe at the Gonchong, cutting off the stalk that held the eye. Now Leroy's agony was intensified, and his screams were louder – if they could be heard in space.

Smith gave Leroy one last punch to the nose, breaking it, finally sending the Zwilnik to the ground. The transparent breath mask was now turning red with Leroy's blood.

"I can't believe it!" the Lensman said with some contempt "You used to be the best of us. We thought that you were going to be number one. Yet here we are, me standing here and you down there. You barely put up a fight. A real rat would have caused me trouble. You know what's sad? Of us all, I was only the twenty-sixth of our class; I'm not even the best and I beat you as if you were the last. Some good being a Zwilnik did to you."

The ground began to shake, and Smith took his eyes away from the fallen Zwilnik. He picked up his DeLameter, and then rushed to the speedster and opened the canopy, leaping immediately into it.

The ground began to shake with more violence. Pieces of the hangar were falling down from the ceiling

"Don't leave me here!" Leroy yelled in desperation "You can't leave me here! Please!"

The speedster's canopy closed. As the ground began to shake ever more violently and the vibrations of buildings being torn apart came to be felt, the speedster's flares ignited. In a second, the speedster had crashed its way out of the hangar, going through the weak doors. In another second, it sped towards the dark sky. The roof was ruined by the sudden launch, but instead of falling down upon Leroy, it was pulled backwards.

The Zwilnik turned his head and he saw that the negasphere was now upon him. Everything on the planetoid was being consumed along with the planetoid itself. Leroy's face was distorted in absolute terror.

"DAMN YOU TED SMITH! DAMN YOU!"

And then the negasphere was on him, ripping apart his flesh, and then his atoms, until he was nothing more.

As he sped away from the doomed planetoid, Ted Smith had a hard time managing the controls. The entire ship seemed to be shaking apart, and Smith himself had to overexert himself in order to keep the ship on course and away from the negasphere. But as the ship distanced itself away from the ravished world, the shaking lessened gradually and steadily, until finally, it was still. Smith sat back, and relaxed his aching muscles. He took a quick glance at his DeLameter. It was charred and seemed a bit damaged. He would have to look at it closer when this was all over.

Turning on the ship's ultra-wave spy-beam Smith could see with dread what was happening to the planetoid. What was left of it was now being swallowed up by the negasphere. Boskonian ships that had delayed too much in their escape were caught by the black orb and shredded into small bits and pieces. Very few ships survived, and they immediately switched to Inertialess Drive to escape the negasphere's wrath.

Ted Smith looked at the horror, aware that this would have been the fate of Klovia, the planet on which Ultra Prime was situated, had he not intervened. Smith sighed in relief, and felt some contentment. He had done something right on his first mission.

Smith remembered his orders. He focused his lens and he reached out for the nearest Lensman, giving out his symbol as was instructed in his training. The answer was swift.

First Stage Lensman Ted Smith, this is Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison. I'm reading you loud and clear.

Smith nearly choked on air.

Stay calm kid and tell me everything that you saw, said Kinnison through the lens.

In a rush, Smith gave the legendary Kimball Kinnison the entire rundown of what had happened.

He felt a mental smile coming from Gray Lensman Kinnison.

Good work kid. Now get yourself back home. We have a victory to celebrate.

Smith couldn't help but smile. This was turning into the best day of his life. He turned the speedster towards the Milky Way and turned on the Inertialess Drive. For a few seconds, the speedster was racing across the stars at an incomprehensible speed. And then, without warning and without Ted Smith even touching any of the controls, the Iniertialess Drive stopped working. The speedster was once again moving at its previous speed.

Taking out the ship's slide-ruler, Smith looked towards the stars to see where he was. The Inertialess Drive had stopped while the speedster was halfway towards Klovia. Smith tried to turn the Inertialess Drive back on, but the Bergenholm wasn't working.

It almost seemed as if the Bergenholm had been thrown away mid-flight.

Is there anything wrong kid? The Gray Lensman asked.

I think that this ship's Bergenholm might be broken, replied the young Lensman

Hmm, stay put. I'll get you out of there.

The young Lensman was about to express his gratitude, when he noticed something in front of his ship. It was a glowing green orb that seemed to swell and shrink by the second. And then it began to swell at an astonishing rate.

At first, Smith was more curious then concerned, but this soon changed as once again, the speedster began to shake violently. Smith tried to take control of the ship, but this time, he failed to move the wheel.

Something large was coming out of the green orb. Smith had enough time to see that it was a large, blue, smooth surfaced cylinder. And then, there was a huge crash. The young Lensman was tossed violently within the speedster, despite the seatbelts that were supposed to keep the pilot safe.

As the shaking continued, Ted Smith clenched his teeth. He had done a good job. Just before everything went dark, Smith couldn't help but think on how happy and proud he was to have been a Lensman, even if it was for just a short while.

It had taken a long time – about nine months, a week and two days, for the computer's logs to be decrypted, translated, and then downloaded into separate units, in this case, two black boxes that happened to be quite heavy. VINCENT was satisfied with his work, but he was glad that it was over. Even he was wearied by the effort. And it had been a daunting effort. The vessel he and the four others were currently occupying was quite ancient. The vessel was actually almost as old as the very first galaxies to emerge after the chaotic birth of the universe.

Of course, a human would find it hard to call this machine a vessel – it was too big and too much like a station. Captain Kirk did consider it a ship however, unlike Calvert, who simply called it a habitat. But in order for it to be just another habitat, it would have to be stationary, its movement limited by the presence of a large celestial body. This vessel however, was not shackled down by any planetary object. It moved about freely, not just within space, but within universes.

And this was due to the vessel's own history, and original purpose. As much as he tried, VINCENT couldn't figure out the ship's original purpose, but he did know some of the circumstances of its construction, and he could glean some information from the logs left by the humans, who had occupied the vessel for longer stretches of time than the original builders.

The squat hovering robot extended his manipulators and grabbed both boxes. What would have taken a man like Calvert some effort, was quite easy for VINCENT, especially since his manipulators had been improved, ever since he had arrived on this vessel; where only two claws had once existed, now there were four, which provided much more dexterity when grasping objects, and his 'arms' were more carefully jointed, making them strong and mobile. The robot took the boxes, and made his way outside.

Outside – that was a curious word, for of course, neither VINCENT, nor the others were outside. The true outside was the cold darkness of space. But within this vessel, VINCENT did feel as if he were in the outdoors. Despite his flaws, Calvert was right to an extant in calling this vessel a habitat; the ancient vessel itself was a classic O'Neill cylinder, but much larger than anything any human the robot had known could create. The ancient O'Neill cylinder was large enough to contain within it an ocean, and three continents within the inner surface of the vessel, held there by centrifugal force. Within the central axis of the immense cylinder, where the semblance of gravity did not exist, floated a glowing gelatinous sphere that emanated heat; according to the files that VINCENT had downloaded, this sphere was called a Dummy-Sun by the humans that had created it – the original creators of the vessel had no need for such devices. It shined brightly according to the hours; whenever it was 'night' the Dummy-Sun's glare would diminish, and become more like a moon. VINCENT wondered if the Dummy-Sun's cycle was for the benefit of whatever humans lived in the cylinder, or the plant-life; most probably, it was for both. Oddly enough, although the ancient O'Neill cylinder contained a diverse array of flora, no traces of animals besides the humans – and the two aliens – on board could be found.

The air-car was in the exact spot that VINCENT had left it, in front of the temple's doorsteps – and this was of course, expected, given that the only other four occupants were now within the hotel, and there was no one around to steal a thing. The air-car was a beautiful piece of work resembling a Ford Thunderbird with energetic pads instead of wheels. Almost absent-mindedly, VINCENT hurled the two boxes into the back seat of the car as if they were bags of groceries.

VINCENT hovered towards the front seat of the air-car, and opened the door. He then squeezed into it, his task facilitated by the fact that both of the front seats had been torn off.

All it took was pressing a button for the air-car to lift off from the ground and begin its journey, moving away from the Grecian styled temple. Quickly, it soared over the canopy of trees which covered this part of land within the alien cylinder.

As he let the air-car do all of the driving, VINCENT made a cursory scan of the forest below. There was nothing extraordinary about it; in this particular stretch of forest, conifers seemed to be predominant, but there were numerous fruit bearing trees mixed with them.

The botanist would have loved to explore this forest – the robot was certain of that. The diversity of the flora was quite high. It was unfortunate for the botanist that he could not explore the immense forest within the questing space station to his full satisfaction – or the swamps, grasslands or deserts. It was too dangerous for anything that wasn't human to wander casually outside of the hotel. VINCENT had done his best to convince the robots hidden within the wilderness that the botanist, and the Zotrian girl, were both humans, and at times the robots ignored them as if they were humans. But at other times, they remembered their prime directives, and only VINCENT's vigilance prevented the robots from doing any harm. It was fortunate that the robots were not capable of invading the hotel, and the enclosed garden behind it.

As the air-car zoomed over the artificial landscape, VINCENT noticed the clouds gathering right in front of the vehicle's path. The robot turned on the radio. A strange song, with a strange rhythm started to play. VINCENT had the song cut short; it wasn't to his liking anyway. He opened a channel of communication between himself and the computer within the hotel.

"Am I going to get wet?" the robot asked "Will I have the opportunity of finally seeing cats and dogs?"

"Please rephrase question" the computer said.

VINCENT wanted to groan. He had to remind himself that the computers on board this vessel weren't as sophisticated as he was.

"Is there any rain forecast for the sector which I am traversing?" he said, somewhat displeased at the dullness of the question.

"There will be a light downpour in half an hour" the computer replied.

VINCENT felt somewhat relieved. He could speed the air-car and avoid the rain. However, it wasn't really a problem since the air-car's hood automatically went up, even before the rain would start falling. Nonetheless, the robot accelerated. In no time, he reached the hotel, which stood in the middle of a grassy plain, which was not unlike the plains of North America, apart from the lack of large herds of Buffalo.

The hotel, like the temple in which most of the historical data of the station had been preserved, was built in a neo-classical style. It was enormous, and palatial. Behind it, surrounded by a wall, was the garden, which itself was large enough to contain a lake. The hotel, along with the temple, and two other edifices were the only constructions one could find within the alien O'Neill cylinder. The temple and the hotel were relatively close to one another, just a few seconds away using the air-car, a day away going by foot. The other two buildings were actually quite distant. The factory, which was where the robots were repaired and made, was several months away, going by foot alone. At the other end of the cylinder, there was a tower. In order to reach that in less than one day, one had to use the Cordwainer.

As soon as the air-car was at a certain distance, the hotel's garage door opened, and it floated gently inside, like a leaf being cradled by the wind. The air-car landed close to the Cordwainer. It contrasted markedly from the other air-cars within the garage. To VINCENT's cybernetic eyes, it looked like a white block attached to a curved, long, sloping nose, with two smaller and longer white blocks connected to its main body. Captain Kirk said that it was a modified type-4 shuttlecraft – modified to carry two Type VI phaser arrays – exceptionally powerful phaser arrays. Captain Kirk had stated that they were twice as powerful as they should be.

As VINCENT was leaving the air-car, a serf emerged. Although it looked like a normal human being – in this case, an adolescent male in the usual red uniform – it was actually a lifeless thing made to look human. One could say that it was more mechanical than VINCENT. And this would be true of all of the other serfs within the hotel. VINCENT's description would have been different; to him the serfs were just machines that would never pass a Turing test. Mindless things that could only obey orders.

"Take these two objects to the conference room" he told the serf. Before he turned to leave, he added "Cancel that order. Take it to Captain Kirk's office – take it to the management"

Although the information within the boxes should be known by everyone within the alien cylinder, VINCENT didn't want Calvert prying his fingers into it. Ever since they had met, VINCENT had disliked the human.

The mechanical boy bent over the air-car, and easily picked up the boxes. He was about to leave, when VINCENT once again called.

"Where can I find Captain Kirk?" the robot asked.

"He is at the shooting range sir" the android said. It then turned its back and went straight towards the elevator. VINCENT went into the opposite direction, towards a door that lead into a corridor, that lead into a shooting range. Of course, Captain Kirk, a man of action, would be at the shooting range. VINCENT wondered if Calvert was the target.

Captain Kirk carefully aimed the magnum at the target, and squeezed the trigger. A neat hole appeared on the target's head. Kirk shot off a few more shots. Not all of the shots had hit their marks, and the ones that did created strange markings.

Kirk frowned. He looked at the old revolver. Sulu was the aficionado of such things, not him. His old crewman would have loved handling this gun. Kirk still preferred the black assault phaser he had with him. It felt more civilized, even if it was more destructive.

From the corner of his eye, Kirk noticed a squat metallic form with big cartoonish eyes hovering towards him, the letters close to his head proudly announcing his name.

Captain Kirk let down the magnum he had been using, and shot the robot a smile. "VINCENT, you're back sooner than I thought. Do you have any answers?"

"Quite a few, just not all; I have every reason to believe that the computer is senile – but one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and I do have plenty of information to explain your plight, and I think, this vessel's purpose" the robot said, looking at Kirk with his white cartoon eyes.

"Well then, what's going on?" the captain asked.

"It's quite a long and complicated story. A tale as old as time" VINCENT began to say "One that started millions of years ago. But I already told you about that"

"Yes you did" Captain Kirk said, with a hint of impatience.

"I can now say for certain that this ship – for it is indeed a starship – was not built in either of our own realities. My suspicions have thus far, been confirmed" the robot said.

"And what else can you tell me besides that?" Kirk asked. There were so many mysteries that had to be solved. The last time he had been near his friends and colleagues had been on the deck of the Enterprise B. And then that odd phenomenon had struck, threatening to destroy the new Enterprise even before she had completed her maiden voyage. The grizzled captain found himself hoping for Captain John Harriman's good fortune; he seemed to be a good man, overburdened with an overweighed legacy. Either way, he had suddenly found himself on a strange planet, feeling as if he had been somewhere else before that, looking at the carcass of a refitted Constitution class ship. The name of the ship, and how it had gotten there was just as much of a mystery as Kirk's own arrival and location. He did manage to find a black assault phaser and the Cordwainer, before a new mystery – this alien O'Neill cylinder – had emerged before him.

When Kirk met VINCENT for the first time, the mystery grew thicker. The squat little robot was from Earth, the twenty-second century to be more precise; but it was an Earth that Kirk couldn't recognize. The only conclusion he could make was that he was jumping between parallel universes in which certain events happened differently, or not at all. According to VINCENT, the humanity that he knew had yet to enter into contact with alien beings. What was more evident was that the Earth from which VINCENT had come from seemed to be quite advanced in robotics. Kirk had never seen a robot quite like VINCENT.

The robot had told him a chilling tale of mad scientists and murderous robots, and a mad dash into a Black Hole that had sent VINCENT and several other humans outside of their own Universe. They had found this cylinder, but an alien assault had separated the robot from the humans he had been with, and had triggered something within the ship itself that pushed it along its way. That was, if the ship had been pushed to begin with, and had not begun on its own.

"This vessel was created by beings known to humans as the Xeelee – tremendously powerful beings who seemed to have been considered the most powerful creatures within their universe" VINCENT said "Why they built it is something I couldn't figure out. Perhaps this ship was meant for simple travel, however, its ability to cross into different universes altogether would seem to indicate a slightly different purpose."

"And what would that purpose be?" Captain Kirk asked.

"Perhaps, they wished to use this ship as a means of escape from their native universe" the robot said.

Captain Kirk gave VINCENT a quizzical look. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that, according to the information that the humans using this vessel left behind, the Xeelee, despite all of their power, despite all of their knowledge, were losing a war, a war which could not be lost because it would spell the doom for all of life within their universe, as it eventually did" VINCENT fell silent, letting the information sink in.

"So these Xeelee, lost a war, and their universe as well?" Kirk asked.

"Yes" VINCENT replied

"How did that happen?"

"For that we are entirely dependent on human records. And the humans from this particular universe were quite clear on who defeated the Xeelee: dark matter entities which the humans called Photino Birds." VINCENT said. "They lived within the gravity wells of stars, but the environment was a dangerous one for them, so they aged the stars they used as their homes to the point that they wouldn't become supernovae – or red giants, I presume. Such a process, I don't think I need to add, would make life within the universe impossible for any Baryonic life form such as humanity."

"And the Xeelee tried to stop this?" Captain Kirk asked, aghast. He was used to the idea of cosmic horrors, but these Photino Birds did not sound at all like this. And yet, given the description, they were unbelievably destructive.

"They tried and they failed, even after they had resorted to using time travel. All Baryonic lifeforms within the universe – including what remained of humanity – fled through a portal – called the Ring – into another universe. I should add that the Photino Birds, despite their destructiveness, were not considered evil by the human recording this information; they were simply unaware of the existence of other beings besides themselves and the Xeelee"

After a moment of silence, Kirk asked, "And how do humans figure in this story?"

"They have a rocky history; with highs and lows" VINCENT replied "they had managed to leave Earth, but not the boundaries of the solar for two to three thousand years – I could never quite get the dates clear – until the appearance of an alien species called the Squeem, who conquered humanity using Xeelee artifacts. This conquest was short-lived, but followed by the more brutal conquest by another species called the Qax. The humans would eventually overthrow them, and become incredibly brutal conquerors themselves, driving a few sentient species into extinction, until they waged war against the Xeelee, who stopped them for good. Many humans did survive however, and from the records, seemed to have escaped through the Ring"

Kirk was shocked into silence. He had no illusions about humanity, but what VINCENT described was horrifying.

"How did humans gain access to this ship?" Kirk asked, trying to keep his mind away from the idea of a brutal humanity. He had already met one such version of humanity before, and he wished to never see it again.

"That is itself a complicated story" VINCENT answered "The records again, are not quite clear, but it seems that this ship was first discovered by an organization called Superet. This organization's primary goal was to prevent the Qax conquest, for they had been warned – thanks to the miracle of time-travel. Unfortunately, their efforts were in vain. Nonetheless, they used this vessel as a sort of Ark, to preserve human and terrestrial history. They called it Bifrost."

"Bifrost?" Kirk asked

"Very much so. After a long stretch of time, Superet somehow vanished, and then, once again, humans rediscovered the Bifrost hidden on the outskirts of the Solar System. This time the faction that discovered Bifrost was the Interim Coalition of Governance. Humanity's more xenophobic activities date from the period in which this faction was in power, from what I gathered. They were the ones responsible for populating this vessel with robots that would kill anything that wasn't human. It's implied within the records that they even used the Bifrost to cross universes and take machines and weaponry from other human realities – the Manshonyaggers were most likely taken from another, parallel universe." VINCENT said.

Kirk sighed "That does seem to explain a few things, but not the rest. Like why does it seem that this ship is actively trying to collect sentient beings from other realities?" Kirk asked.

"Because it is" VINCENT quickly answered "The Bifrost didn't stay in the possession of the Interim Coalition of Governance for all of eternity – it was later recovered by time-travelling agents of Superet, who tasked it with searching for human stragglers that had been scattered across reality during the final evacuation of their Universe. It seemed that the Ring was powerful enough to send beings into multiple universes – it is curious to note that the Ring was located around the same vicinity as the Great Attractor. Perhaps the Ring itself had a hand in its creation across realities."

"You do realize that this ship has collected beings that aren't human" Kirk added.

"I can only assume that the agents of Superet wanted to make up for the violent acts committed by the humans of the Interim Coalition of Governance. Of course, they couldn't alter the robots, so that is why this hotel exists; as a sort of safe-haven." VINCENT said.

"That doesn't explain why you and the surviving crew of the Palomino found this ship abandoned, with no animal life to speak of" Kirk said.

The robot was silent for a moment. "I have no answer for that captain. The records finish in an abrupt manner" then, VINCENT turned his head as he heard erratically placed footsteps. A few seconds later Joshua Calvert appeared.

Calvert claimed that he was, like Kirk, a starship captain, but the Starfleet captain found that a bit hard to believe. Physically speaking, the younger Calvert seemed like he could be apt – he was, according to his own words 'geneered' for space flight. Kirk assumed that the word 'geneered' was a portmanteau of genetically engineered. If this was true, someone made a mistake, or a team of jerks had made the perfect prat.

Calvert was tall, muscular, and had Hollywood good looks – Kirk however, had no idea how that type of body would be more suitable for space exploration – as a matter of fact, Kirk had read an old article which stated that the most suited body for radical variations of gravity would be a small, compact one. Calvert may have been tiny in some areas of his body, but his general frame was large. What was most astonishing about Calvert however was that he was from Kirk's future; Calvert had left his home in the twenty-seventh century. Yet the technology he used seemed primitive compared to the technology that the Federation had.

They had found him in the wreckage of a spherical ship called the Lady Macbeth, covered in urine and other waste matter. Calvert claimed to be her captain, although the ship's logs identified a Liol Calvert as the captain. Calvert explained that he had given the ship to his brother, but then had reclaimed it. How he had reclaimed it was a convoluted tale in and of itself.

Calvert could have been lying, but since Kirk had no solid evidence of this, he always spoke to him with some courtesy. He turned to look at the young man.

"Good morning Captain Calvert. I hope you had a good night's sleep" Kirk said, hiding his contempt. According to the clocks within the hotel, it was already ten o'clock.

"It was splendid" Calvert said, with his annoying little accent that made him sound like a douche. "But I didn't sleep all night" and then Calvert winked. Kirk had seen the so called captain in the company of several female shaped serfs. Kirk honestly didn't know why Calvert thought of himself as such a lady's man. Kirk himself had been something of a lady's man, and he never targeted easy and loose women, stupid little impressionable girls, or mindless things that looked like women.

"That's nice to hear. Would you care to join us in a shooting session?" Kirk asked out of courtesy.

"I would love to, but I think that you have other things to do" Calvert said.

Kirk looked at Calvert with a questioning glare "What other things?"

Calvert looked genuinely confused. "Don't you know?" the young man then slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. "Of course! I forgot to tell you! Daisy kept me busy all night last night – the girl couldn't keep her hands off of me. The computer rang the alarm. It seems that another ship with another human was detected close by." Calvert said that with a smile that would earn anyone else a smack on the face.

"How was it that the Captain wasn't informed?" VINCENT asked.

That was a good question. At the very least, there would have been an audible warning all across the vessel, easily heard throughout – a roaring bell or a claxon. Perhaps VINCENT was right – the Bifrost's computers were more degraded than previously thought.

"I was trying to find a few maps when I accidentally accessed Captain Kirk's computer link, and I must have rerouted his messages by mistake" Calvert said. It sounded like Calvert was just hacking into Kirk's files, but the computers within the Bifrost were themselves old and prone to error, so the Federation captain couldn't just punch the man in the face for invading his privacy. He could have been telling the truth.

"Be more careful next time" Kirk said civilly "How long ago did you get this message?"

"Last night!" Calvert said "I would have told you sooner, but Daisy wanted me badly" Calvert then added a smile with that last statement.

Kirk barely stopped himself from punching Calvert in the face. He turned to VINCENT.

"We have to move quickly. Whoever is in that ship might not last for long" then Kirk added, within earshot of Calvert, and with emphasis "If he or she isn't dead already"

Kirk sprinted quickly towards the garage, with VINCENT closely following him. All of the ships detected by the Bifrost's scanners were either hopelessly lost or broken derelicts – and thanks to VINCENT's efforts, it was now known why. Kirk hoped he could reach the poor soul on time. There were few things worse than dying alone in the dark cold void that was space. That was something Kirk didn't usually wish on anyone.

Endnote: My first encounter with fanfiction was when I read Conquest, by Michael Wong on (what I think to be) his website, . Anyhoo, since then, I've read quite a few other crossover fanfictions of the Star Trek/Star Wars variety, chief among them being Chuck Sonnenberg's Unity saga, and Stavros StarCrossed. Recently, I came across a story called The Rift Saga, by a gentleman named Pure Sabacc (here at least; he was called something else on the forums in which I first read the story), an incredibly ambitious story, which wasn't just a crossover between Star Wars and Star Trek, but with other sci-fi franchises. Anyhoo, this scope stimulated my imagination, and like an idiot, as I read it, I imagined characters of other franchises, films, etc. in it. Of course, the story wasn't mine, so I had to endure the fact that certain characters that always seemed interesting to me, would not be present. And then I decided to rip poor Pure Sabacc off, do something ambitious, beyond my scope, and add my own "stuff" (I dare not call the crap in my head 'ideas') to a story that involved Star Wars, Trek, and a few other things.

Anyhoo, we start off not within the boundaries of Star Trek or Star Wars, but with a Lensman - for those of you who don't know, without the Lensmen Series (Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensman, etc.), no Jedi, no Babylon 5 would ever exist. Written in the forties by E.E. Doc Smith it made the space opera truly epic in scope, with good guys and bad guys bashing each other's skulls in with battle axes and blasters. When I read Pure Sabacc's story, I thought that it needed a Lensman. And a few other characters too, chief among them being V.I. from the Disney movie, The Black Hole. One reviewer wrote that VINCENT sucked and was the worst part of the movie - I would like to see said reviewer dumped into a pile of maneur. As for me, VINCENT was the coolest thing in that movie, and I loved the final fight scene he had with Maximilian. I have also made a few references to other characters. I suspect that one will be easier to guess than the other. (fyi: as I started publishing this, I realized I couldn't use the proper spelling for VINCENT's name, because it always ended up as V.I.)

I would also like to add that I made a few references to one of my favorite sci-fi writers, Cordwainer Smith. Jestocost and Manshonyagger are two names that come from his works - manshonyaggers being death machines created by the fifth reich. My avatar is the picture of a Manshonyagger.

As for Joshua Calvert - he's from a trilogy of books called the Night's Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F. Hamilton. As far as I'm concerned, the trilogy was one of those stories that missed out on a lot of opportunities. And if there are any fans of the trilogy reading this, my apologies for my characterization of Joshua Calvert - it's just that I really, really, really hate him.

Right now, I'm giving you only the first chapter. I had four more, but I need to rewrite them. I'm also busy writing another story called Strange New Earth - right now, certain obligations have been slowing my input down, and I need to finish the ninth chapter of that one as soon as possible - I've already been forced to erase what I have already written. I can't promise a rapid turnover. All I can do is promise my best. I do hope that this first chapter at least is entertaining. Anyway, before anyone asks, Ted Smith is not an OC - well, he's not mine at least. I was about to create an OC Lensman for this story (Kimball Kinnison would be too powerful - any enemy's mind would be turned to mush), but then I learned about this character created by famed author Robert Heinlein as a tribute to E.E. Doc Smith: Ted Smith (it's pretty obvious where the name comes from). Oh well, I hope I don't get sued.