MISSION TEN: THE  SABOTAGE OF FURUD SIX

      It was his tenth mission; time for him to go alone. He had been thinking about his situation the whole morning. It was time for him to prove his worth to the team, time to show them te stuff I'm made of, Jed thought to himself. How would he act, and would he even return alive? These two questions had been revolving around his head almost the whole journey.

      He was flying alone. His ship, Claw III, was of an Izarian origin. Specially made, to his exact specifications, Jed drew comfort that the sleek, pointed ship would safely carry him to his destination. Jed's craft was covered in an extract from the shell of an Chertanian beetle, which would mimic its immediate surroundings. This form of camouflage made the Claw III almost indestiguishable, even from several meters away.

     Two flashing lights on the console to his left woke Jed from his contemplation. The display on the console in front of him informed him that he had an incoming transmition. Jed was not surprised, for it was standard procedure for his instructor to contact him before reaching his destination. What did surprise Jed, was that the transmition appeared to be not only encoded, but restricted to audio as well! Pressing a number of buttons, Jed ran the standard decryption sequence, and the opened the audio channel.

      "Flashpoint here, requesting explanation, over," said Jed, using his code name.

      "Greetings Flashpoint, this is Stardust, I'll be your mission informer from now on, over," a woman's voice crackled through the speaker in his helmet.

      "So Stardust, what's up with the audio, and the encryption?" Jed queried. He was confused, because mission briefings were usually conducted over the holo-vid (a hologram projector that receives information through a subspace channel).

      "Here's the deal," Stardust stated, "your mission is to invade the sixth planet of the Furud system. Precise coordinates are being fed to your navigating systems now." Jed confirmed this after typing on his console.

      "It says here that I'm supposed to land near the east entrance of a compound located in the center of the continent of Zadur," Jed relayed, as much to himself as to his informer.

      "That's correct. Once there, you'll have to find an subterrainian entrance into the compound through the mass of caves located beneath the surface," Stardust informed him.

      "And my objective is . . . ?" Jed questioned, somewhat impatient to get the mission over with.

      "I was just getting to that," she began, "Once you have penetrated inside, you must locate the main generator on the one of the lower floors of the compound. This generator supplies power to a device only known as The Vidtracker. The Furudans seemed to have developed a machine capable of intercepting a holo-vid transmition!

      "Dear God," Jed whispered, again half to himself.

      "You and I both now the implications of that," Stardust stated bluntly.

      "Our operations would be finished, and all of us would be eradicated," Jed said with more than a little trepidation.

      "Exactly," she responded, "that's why this mission must be a success."

      "Wonderful," Jed said gloomily, "No pressure there."

      "Once the generator is destroyed, get the flark out of there A.S.A.P." said Stardust

      "Point taken," was all Jed replied with.

      "I'll only be in communication with you while you're above the atmosphere of the planet. Once you enter, they could track our subspace transmitions," said Stardust.

      "I guess I'm really on my own for this one, huh?" Jed asked.

      "Yup," she said, "That's about all I got to tell ya, so good luck." Before Jed could say a word, the interstellar static hissed in his ears, signaling the end of their talk. Ignoring Stardust's abrupt goodbye, Jed settled back in his pilot seat, preparing for the long space flight through hyperspace.

* * * * * * * * * *

      The landing had been uneventful. Jed was not yet sure if that was good omen or a bad one. Jed tightened the straps on his gear, and glanced back to where he had left his ship. Claw III was no where to be seen. Its camouflage worked especially well on this blue planet.

      The surface of Furud Six was covered with a light bluish crystalline rock that was partially see through. The sky populated by grayish-blue gases that shimmered and sparked as they wafted overhead. This caused intricate patterns and strange reflections to bounce off the rocks around him. The resulting effect made it hard to distinguish if the surface or the planet was flat or if one was about to walk straight into a rock wall.

      Jed found that his heat-sensing glasses helped him navigate much easier. He soon approached the opening of what appeared to be a cave. A quick shut off of his glasses confirmed his thoughts. The reflection effect inside the cave was not as pronounced as outside, so Jed switched to his night vision glasses.

      After several wrong turns and long hours of mapping the cave on his wrist display, Jed finally thought he had found an entrance. It was what looked like a sealed off drainage vent to the compound. Closer inspection revealed that the covering was made of an alloy of tisteel, not as strong as pure tisteel, but still not easily penetrated. Jed thought about blasting the covering off, but then decided against it, thinking that the shot could ricochet and cause a cave-in. Finally, Jed reached into his backpack and drew out a thin cylindrical emitter about fifteen centimeters in length. He drew out a small red cartridge of powder out of a belt compartment. The powder was used in the mining colonies of Aludra Five to eat away at rocks. Jed then attached the cartridge to the end of the emitter, pointed it at the covering, and then pressed the central button on the emitter. A fine bright pink stream of energy shot out from Jed's emitter and seared through the covering in a shower of sparks. With the entrance cleared, Jed replaced the emitter and cautiously entered the compound.

      Deep in the bowels of an unknown building, on a hostile planet, Jed had trouble thinking of his mission. I'm all alone down here, Jed thought to himself, got to be strong, got to concentrate! Jed took several deep breaths, and continued onward, determined to accomplish his goal.

      After several hundred meters, Jed approached a grate. Light shown through it, suggesting that he had reached one of the lower floors of the compound. Jed peered through, and found he was looking at the back of a some sort of security droid. Jed pulled his blaster out and checked the power levels. He had around 500 shots left. With any luck, I won't have to reload, he mused.

      The room which the droid was fairly small, with pipes running along the wall to his left, and several gauges on the wall to his right. At the far end of the room on the right, Jed spied a doorway. Nice and quiet, Jed thought. Carefully removing the grate Jed slowly lowered himself into the room. Unfortunately the droid had already started moving, to do a routine check of the gauges. When the droid turned to examine a gauge, its sensors picked up Jed's presence. Turning swiftly, the hovering droid fired with it's built in blaster. Jed barely had time to dodge, but was able to fire off three shots before he tumbled to the side. The first shot flew to the side, impacting on the wall, (thankfully not hitting any of the gauges which might alert the rest of the compound to his presence) the second two shots buried themselves in the droid' side, causing sparks and smoke to spew forth from the disabled droid. Once Jed regained his footing, the droid uncrememoniously crashed to the floor, still sputtering and beeping as its sparking circuits overloaded.

      Finished with that, Jed exited the room and found a metal ladder attached to the wall of the next room. The room was a rectangular column approximately seventy meters high, and he appeared to be at the base of it. Well, I can't say that I never get any exercise in this job, Jed thought unhappily as he gazed upward.

      After several minutes of climbing, Jed reached the top, and cautiously peered over the edge. Expecting to find more security droids, Jed was surprised and relieved to find just another door. He climbed up, and inspected the blinking console on wall to the right of the door. Jed's eyes widened when he realized that the door was locked with a top level security code. Plugging a jack from his wrist display into a slot in the console he carefully attempted a bypass. More than once, Jed thought he bungled it, and would be attacked by security droids. Eventually, however, Jed completed the bypass, and the door slid open.

      His triumphant smile was replaced by one of surprise when he peered into the room, and discovered about twenty motionless security droids clustered in a circle in the center of the room. In the circle of robots, Jed saw two separate devices. One of them appeared to be the main generator, while the other one Jed could not identify. It looked like some sort of circular platform with cables running from it to a sophisticated subspace transmitting device.

      Jed took a step back, and turned so his back was against the wall. This is it, he thought, can't turn back now. Reaching into his backpack again, Jed withdrew a cyr-bomb, which he planned to blow up the generator with. Taking several deep breaths, Jed set his jaw, and dashed into the room. As soon as he entered, a green ray bathed, and temporarily blinded him.

      "Scanning DNA sequences . . ." a deep computerized voice intoned. Dang it! Jed cursed in his mind, the droids weren't activated! Just as he finished that thought, the ray shut off, and the he heard the computer's voice again.

      "No match confirmed. Intruder alert!" it boomed. Jed froze. Power lights appeared on the droids, which turned and opened fire on Jed. Jed dove to the left behind a heavy table, which he flipped on its side to serve as a barricade. As he did so, a small data chip fell from the table and landed beside him. Having no time to examine this object, Jed stowed it away in a compartment on his belt. Peering over the edge, Jed saw the droids closing fast on his position. Soon he would be surrounded. The table was shuddering and denting with each blast from the droids' weapons. Not looking, Jed fired his blaster over the table at the droids with one hand, and tossed the cyr-bomb over the table with the other. His efforts were rewarded with a loud explosion, flying shrapnel, and the subsequent dying of the lights in the room. Many of the droids were still firing, apparently unhurt by the bomb, and Jed thought it time to leave. Dashing towards the door, Jed took a quick look over his shoulder and confirmed that the generator had been demolished.

* * * * * * * * * *

      Safely back in his ship, Claw III, Jed opened communication to his informer, Stardust.

      "This is Flashpoint calling Stardust. The mission was a success," Jed declared.

      "Stardust here, well done Flashpoint. I think I see a promotion in your future," Stardust said happily.

      "Maybe so, but I think there's something I should tell you," Jed began ,"When I was in the generator room I saw a strange device I couldn't identify, and then I happened on a data chip in the room."  Stardust remained silent, apparently waiting for Jed to continue.

      "Well, from what I can determine from the schematic information in the data chip, it appears that the Furudans have developed a teleportation device!" Jed declared ominously.

      "Lord have mercy . . . I'll call an emergency meeting of the council, and I'll, I'll, send out an escort for you," Stardust said in a frantic tone, "this changes everything!"

      "You said it," Jed responded. He engaged the hyperdrive, and relaxed in his seat, glad that he had aided his team.

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