- MBS archive photo, showing part of the Ebolian Zentraedi Fleet at Saturn.
  Taken by Kyle Bartley, net reference [/com.MBS.net/KBart041419/0034.pic]

"It's all right here, Admiral. You'll find it interesting." Kyle handed the data card to Hunter. "That contains all the Veritech and shuttle sensor data, as well as the raw footage from my interviews with the shuttle's crew. I've also attached something else... I'll be writing a story about the Southern Cross's latest toy in the next day or two, but I thought you'd like to see the unedited video first."

Vala Norri, sitting at her station several meters away, grimaced. What is he up to? She forced her gaze back down to her displays, though only briefly.

After a short pause, a slight smile appeared on Rick Hunter's face. "Be careful, Mr. Bartley. If you keep giving me more than I expect, I'll have to revise my opinion of you."

Vala's scowl deepened.

With a smile, Kyle turned around and headed towards the War Room balcony exit, giving Vala a sarcastically jaunty wave as he passed her station. By the time Rick Hunter arrived at her side seconds later, her face was flushed with fury.

"Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

With a start, Vala spun around to find herself facing her superior officer. "Ah... no sir! A momentary technical frustration, sir!" Damn that human! He's embarrassed me again! "I apologize for..."

The Admiral cut her off. "No harm done, Ms. Norri." Vala forced herself to shut up. "Could you scan the contents of this disc for me? The RDF will have its own reports about the Omega convoy soon, but I'd like to know if there is anything useful here."

Vala took Kyle's data disc reluctantly. "Uh... sir? Are you sure you want me for this?"

The Admiral gave her a slight smile. "You're perfect for the job, Lieutenant."

Twenty minutes later, Vala was feeling disturbed. After studying the raw data from the Omega shuttle's computer and the interviews with the pilot and gunner, Vala realized that the story Kyle planned to publish could have been much more sensational. Some of the raw data was terrifying... the entire convoy was out of action within ten minutes. Yet Kyle's story kept a calm tone... though it certainly warned of a new threat to Earth, it maintained a positive outlook by focusing on the heroic survival of the Omega crew. It just didn't fit with the kind of hack reporter she assumed Kyle must be.

To make matters worse, Kyle had indeed included some extra info. She found a bunch of footage, taken from a Veritech turret camera, of several target drones being blasted out of existence by a weapon spitting out spinning discs of plasma. The new Southern Cross fighter gun instantly reminded Vala of long ago battles against the alien Invid... their Shock Trooper mechs fired something similar.

The alarms went off. She immediately scanned her boards, her previous frustrations wiped from her mind as she saw two Zentraedi capital ships thirty kilometers ahead of the SDF-3, flickers from the spacefold still dancing across their surface. One was a common destroyer, but directly ahead was a Zen Command Ship, a four kilometer long Queadol Magnomilla, half again as long as the SDF-3.

By the time Admiral Hunter gave the Veritech scramble order, the enemy ships were already firing.

There must have been a thousand enemy pods in the space between the SDF-3 and the Zen capital ships. Against them were less than two hundred RDF ships, including both the Skulls and an allied female Zentraedi Squadron. Leading Qalliph Squad was Rodila Nifi, who had miraculously survived the destruction of the Zakatech-Quo a couple of weeks before. In one of the RDF's only remaining Female Power Armor suits, she ravaged through the battle like an avenging demon.

The battle was terrifying. The communications channels were filled with the forced calm chatter of combat pilots doing their jobs, frequently punctuated by sudden, cut off screams. Kyle just left his turret camera running, far to busy trying to survive to concentrate on picking up specific images of the battle for MBS.

He had managed to stay close to the Skulls, working as an outrider to Max Sterling's squadron. It had been a very rough fight so far... they were massively outnumbered, and any ship that drifted between the capital ships was almost certain to be incinerated by heavy cannon fire. The SDF-3, at the focus of the enemy cruisers, was taking a major pounding.

It was with a stressed sense of relief that the Skulls received the call from Admiral Hayes. "Attention all fighters! Clear the area! Repeat, clear the area immediately! Main gun will fire in thirty seconds!"

The countdown hit zero, and a burst of searing light flashed out of the Fortress. The Command ship, hit dead on, ceased to exist; it became little more than free-roaming molecules in less than a second. The destroyer came through a bit luckier... one side of the craft was pealing away, small explosions popping across the surface, but it continued to maneuver.

Speaking in a slightly irreverent tone, Max Sterling appeared on Kyle's console. "That second cruiser was just winged. We'd better go take it out. Are you with me?" Kyle's first thought was that it was suicide... the two kilometer long destroyer was still spitting out cannon shots across half its surface, and enemy fighters were all around them.

"All fighters, focus your firepower on that cruiser. We can't let it escape!" Lisa Hayes' voice made it an order, however, so Kyle dived in with the Skulls, launching a bank of cluster swarmers towards a flight of incoming tri-thrusters before diving towards the massive ship and switching over to his heavier missiles.

Seconds later they realized their mistake. One last time Lisa Hayes' voice sounded from their consoles. "All fighters! Retreat! We're detecting signs of an energy buildup in the Destroyer's fold engines! Clear the area! Clear...."

A glowing ball of blue light erupted out of the destroyer, a spinning egg of indigo energy that quickly enveloped the capital ship and anything near it. As the expanding wavefront flashed across Kyle's fighter, the light turned golden, creating a twisting shell enclosing the entire area. Before Kyle could fully register the image, there was a moment of extreme motion, and the shell collapsed.

A huge explosion erupted through the un-damaged side of the destroyer, but Kyle didn't notice. The Earth was gone.

Vala watched helplessly as it happened. The destroyer was now somewhere else. It had taken with it thirty-two RDF fighters, including most of Skull Squadron... and one MBS reporter. Anger at herself warred with an inexplicable tightening of her stomach. Damn him.

"Wow. That was some trip." Kyle tried to keep his voice casual. "Any idea where we are? My long-range sensors seem to have taken a hit back there."

Max Sterling's visage appeared on the right side of his console. "Look's like Saturn's orbit." As Kyle pitched down to form up on Skull Leader, their position became obvious. Kyle found himself staring in awe at one of the most magnificent sights in the Solar System. Stretching across half the universe were the rings of the massive planet, banded and glittering in the distant sunlight.

Another explosion burst from the ruined Zen ship, dragging Kyle's gaze away from the view. Max spoke again, an edge to his voice. "No time to look around - that cruiser's going to go! That fold must have been too much for it!"

Kyle's hands were reacting even before his thoughts caught up. His Valkyrie spun around, afterburners burning to life. Bare seconds later, the mauled Thuveral Salon Destroyer gave up its existence in an orgy of fire.

Nobody had time to dwell on the disaster. There were still hundreds of enemy fighters out there, and they no longer had anywhere to land. The Admirals knew as well as Vala the consequences of that... the SDF-3 was now facing nearly seven hundred Kamikazes.

Vala noticed that one of her console screens was still showing data from Kyle's disc. She paused a second before wiping the display, bringing up more vital status reports in its place. She had no time for personal confusions now.

Four pilots died in the explosion, including two Skulls. A multi-ton slice of hull-metal had plowed into Skull Three, clipping his wing-partner as it flashed past. Max Sterling had just lost one of his top men.

Kyle could hear the pain in Max Sterling's voice, buried beneath the needs of the moment. "Kyle... what are your sensors showing?"

Kyle took a moment to take a close look at the Veritech displays. What he saw chilled him, destroying the illusion of beauty Saturn presented before his canopy. "I'm picking up more than thirty Zentraedi capital ships, most less than a hundred kilometers away." A frown flickered across his face as he studied the display closer. "I'm also picking up something else... the Veritech sensors can't resolve it, but its big."

"You have a high resolution MBS camera aboard your ship, don't you Kyle? If we make it back to the SDF-3, we'll need some video of this."

A quick glance showed that the turret cam was already recording... Kyle had instinctively focused it while scanning the displays moments before. "I'm already ahead of you, Skull Leader." Kyle watched the console for a moment before continuing. "There's something huge in the middle of the fleet... I can't get a good reading without getting closer."

"We'll cover you." What Max Sterling didn't voice was obvious to Kyle... they had nothing to lose. They were a billion kilometers from Earth, with no reasonable hope of getting back. They might as well try to get whatever information they could, because without a miracle, they were dead anyway. Kyle turned towards the enemy fleet.

Five minutes later, the first Enemy pods appeared on his scope. It was Skull Twelve, a female pilot Kyle had never met, that first noticed the pods were not alone. "What are those?" Once he knew where to look, Kyle immediately recognized them.

Crystals... just like the ones that drained the Omega convoy. He immediately reached for the communication controls. "Don't let them get close to you! They can drain your fighter in just a few seconds!"

Max's voice piped up across the comm frequency. "They seem to be coming from inside the Zen ship formation... can you get close enough to see their mothership?"

Kyle zoomed in with the turret camera. "I've got a visual. It's like some sort of giant crystal asteroid, at the center of the Zentraedi fleet!" The image showed an irregular shape... a central faceted object with massive crystalline spikes poking out at random. Three huge irregular spears hung down below the core, giving the entire structure a vague symmetry. Based on the camera scale, the structure read in at nearly fifteen kilometers long, making it nearly as large as a Zentraedi Factory Satellite.

A euphoric wave crossed over Kyle, his peripheral vision swimming away even as the crystal fortress seemed to grow in detail, glittering with internal light. A sudden burst of terrible color flashed outward, overwhelming his senses and flooding his nerves with agony. An immense time later, the light began to fade, leaving a dreamscape in its place. Kyle looked down on a small golden planet floating below him. His consciousness leapt forward, crossing below the atmosphere... he found himself among terrain filled with crystal formations the size of mountain ranges, massive geodes glinting in the sunlight of an orange sun. He floated above a surface evolved entirely from crystal... stark but intensely beautiful. One peak separated itself, slowly forcing itself up, moving majestically into space. Kyle somehow knew that he was witnessing the birth of that massive object at the heart of the Zentraedi fleet.

Something walked beneath his thoughts... an alien essence Kyle could barely comprehend. It tore through his mind, plundering it for information. And yet, at the same time, Kyle was sharing its memories... its desires. Above all else, Kyle got one single impression, one driving need... Energy... Protoculture.... Even as his own brain was laid wide open, a flood of impressions filled him.

And then, with a sudden wrenching of his mind, Kyle was somewhere else. Something fundamental changed. His mind felt empty, small... he was no longer connected to that intensely alien intelligence. With a sense of unreality, he saw himself once again floating above a world... this time a familiar world. He was seeing something else... something that might be. He was looking down at the Earth.

He saw that same crystal, a malevolent presence orbiting above his homeworld... he could feel its driving hunger, as if from a great distance. Energy erupted from the tips of the three massive spines of the crystal, from Eboliar, drilling through the atmosphere. A flash of red and yellow flickered around the beam, and then burst outward, quickly wrapping around the limb of the planet. Kyle watched in horror as the very atmosphere of Earth caught fire, as all life below perished in unimaginable conflagration.

"KYLE!" He suddenly broke out of the vision, hearing shouted questions pounding across his comm circuit. "Knight One! Damn it! Snap out of it!"

It took him a couple of seconds to orient himself, as if waking from an intense nightmare. "Ah... yeah... I'm here."

"We've got a way out of here, if you're back with us, Knight One!" Max's voice had a touch of panic under the calm tones of command... more than anything else, that acted like a splash of cold water to Kyle's thoughts. With a shock, Kyle noticed the chronometer on the Veritech console before him... nearly ten minutes had gone by.

Kyle did a quick scan of his monitors, immediately noticing the Tor Redir Scout Ship twenty kilometers away, most of the Veritechs already throttling towards it. With the garish blue and red paint scheme, it had to be an RDF ship... Admirals Hayes and Hunter must have sent it to Saturn in the hope of finding them. He also noticed the flood of pods and crystals bearing down on his Veritech, just moments away.

Kyle took a couple of quick breaths, finally pulling himself completely out of the dreamlike visions that had gripped him. "I'm with you, Skull One! Lets get out of here!" With a quick flip of the control stick, his Valkyrie was rocketing towards the friendly ship, Max and several other fighters following suit. He gave one last look over his shoulder at the distant crystal, a faint tugging of alien hunger lingering in his mind.

As the last stragglers pulled up beside the half-kilometer RDF capital ship, the commander of the Scout announced himself across the comm, and then the rolling plasma effect of a fold once again wrapped around Knight One. Against all expectations, Kyle was on his way home.

A cheer rose up from the massive floor of the SDF-3 Situation Room when Max Sterling's voice crossed the comm channel. Against all expectations, the Scout ship had succeeded!

Vala had watched as Rick Hunter consulted with Admiral Hayes, and then called up John Stamper, the human captain of the Tor Redir Scout Tever-Duval. It was nearly an impossible mission... they could only guess at the exit coordinates of the fold. In all probability, the Scout would end up thousands of kilometers from the lost fighters, and the trip would require Protoculture reserves the human race could ill-afford to lose.

It was chance that had to be taken, however. The RDF couldn't afford to lose Max Sterling and the Skulls.

Meanwhile, the battle had continued to rage outside the SDF-3... despite the screen of fighters and cannon batteries, several of the enemy pods had gotten through, smashing into the ship with enough force to send a tremor through the floor-plates under her feet.

Twenty minutes after the Tever-Duval folded out, Crimson Squadron had arrived from Armor 7, taking some of the pressure off the beleaguered fighters. The tension level in the War Room continued to increase, though, as Stamper's ship remained missing.

Nearly forty minutes after being ordered to Saturn, a flash of light twenty kilometers to starboard of the SDF-3 resolved itself into the Tever-Duval. Seconds later, Vala founder herself cheering with the rest in a very un-Zentraedi display of emotion.

Even as her displays showed the Skulls throwing themselves back into the battle, Sterling's next words unknotted a tangle of anxiety Vala refused to acknowledge. "SDF-3... Knight One has some valuable information on his flight recorder... it's imperative he reaches the SDF intact!"

Lisa Hayes was the first to respond. "Roger that, Skull Leader. Knight One, head back towards the SDF-3 as fast as possible... Crimson Leader, detail some ships to cover Knight One."

The slightly indignant voice of Crimson Leader came back, causing Vala to faintly smile. "Bartley? But he...."

"That's an order, Crimson!" Rick Hunter replied. "Just do it!"

"Yes, Admiral." Seconds later, half the Armor 7 Valkyries were arrowing towards Kyle, and ten minutes later, he was passing through one of the hanger bay tunnels.

It took another half-hour to finish off the rest of the stranded enemy pods. By the time it was all finished, the RDF had lost nearly a hundred fighter pilots. In addition, the SDF-3 had taken heavy damage... just fixing the main cannon would take a week in the shipyard. The RDF could hardly afford to have the SDF-3 out of action for that time, but they needed the Fortress's Reflex Cannon functional, so they were already heading into a higher orbit, moving up towards the Factory Satellite.

Meanwhile, Kyle found himself facing several of the most important people in the RDF in a small conference room off the hallway to the War Room balcony. Admirals Hayes and Hunter, Dr. Lang, and Max Sterling were all staring at images captured from his MBS camera. It didn't help his nervous stomach any to have Vala Norri running the displays and throwing him occasional distasteful glances.

"My God." Lisa Hayes piped up. "According to the scale, that thing is almost the size of the FactSat!"

Kyle heard Rick mumbling under his breath. "Ever since the SDF-1 crashed on Earth, the universe keeps getting stranger." He turned to Vala, speaking louder. "Ms. Norri... have your people ever encountered anything like this?"

Kyle watched Vala consider the question a moment. "Not that I know of, Admiral. Of course, I was just a combat pilot. Exedore is the one to ask... as Domillan of our race, he was the holder of our history."

"Give him a call, Lieutenant. I believe he's on the Factory Satellite at the moment."

A minute later, Exedore Formo's slightly distorted face appeared on one of the wall-mounted displays. "What can I do for you, Admiral?"

"I'm sending some images to you." Rick motioned to Vala, who hit several keys on the small console in front of her. "Have the Zentraedi ever come across anything like this before?"

Exedore stared off-screen for a moment, his eyebrows rising in interest. "Hhhmm... interesting. I assume this object is related to the crystals that drained the shuttle convoy several days ago?"

Dr. Lang spoke up for the first time in his thick German accent. "That is our current assumption, though it is mostly a guess at this point."

Exedore watched his displays for a moment more. "No, Admiral. I have never seen anything quite like this. However, I was doing some research over the last couple of days... there are records from Zor's initial explorations of the Fourth Quadrant, before he discovered Optera and the Flower of Life. One of the records mentions encountering a planet filled with silicon-based crystalline lifeforms. They were small, primitive creatures, however...nothing like this object. This is something very different."

"I'd like to see those records, if I may," said Lang.

"There's very little in them... just a brief notation, but I'll send them to you."

Hunter once again turned to the wall display. "Thank you, Ambassador. If you come across anything else, please contact us." Exedore nodded, and the screen went blank. Rick then looked around the table. "Well, if there's nothing else, let's end this meeting."

Max gave Kyle a quick glance before speaking. "There is one question I'd like to ask. Kyle... what happened to you out there?" At the questioning glances that were turned on him, Max continued. "For about ten minutes while we were at Saturn, Mr. Bartley was out of communication."

At Max's first words, Kyle's stomach lurched. Here we go. He could handle the curious looks from most of those around the table, but the scowl coming from Vala was almost too much. He took a deep breath. "I've been a little afraid to talk about it... I know it's going to make me sound insane....

"I think that thing out there at Saturn was in my mind for a few minutes." Kyle stared at his lap, not allowing himself to see the looks of disbelief he knew must be on their faces. "It was like a nightmare... like something was plundering my memories for information. But it went both ways... I think I saw a little of its own thoughts as well."

Kyle looked up, instantly seeing exactly the look he expected in Vala's face. He then saw her look around the table, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. As he too glanced around, he noticed that everyone else in the room seemed to be taking him seriously.

"Please continue, Mr. Bartley," said Dr. Lang. "What did you see?"

"Uh... it's a bit of a jumble... like a dream. I saw a planet covered in crystal rock formations. It was beautiful.... I got an impression from it, a sense of its desires. I think it wants energy, specifically Protoculture."

Lisa Hayes interrupted him. "Are you saying that massive crystal is alive? It's intelligent?"

"Yes, Admiral... I think it is. I think I also got a name. I think it calls itself Eboliar."

There was a pause before Rick Hunter spoke. "That's... very interesting, Mr. Bartley."

Kyle took another deep breath... if they thought that was crazy, they would probably lock him up in a padded room for what he had to tell them next. "That's not all... something else happened. After it was finished probing me, I saw something more, a vision, if you will, that didn't come from the crystal. I think I saw the future, or at least a possible future.

"I think I saw Eboliar destroy all life on Earth."