Space Knight Sawyer was walking out of the cave on the fringes of the outpost when his intercom sparked to life with Princess Amelie's urgent call for help. His stomach churned and he felt the color flee his face. Sawyer dashed to his Rocket Bike and leapt into its seat. He reached for the ignition, then paused and bowed his head.
"Lord, help us and may Your will be done. Remind us we face nothing alone, but can do all things through Christ, who gives us strength."
Peace restored, he blasted off, speeding through the barren wastelands towards the lush green fields of Yardaback - where smoke was already rising.
After eons, the sounds of battle emerged and he arrived on the scene. Smoking Nofunabot carcasses littered the ground. It looked like the Warrior Princesses had dealt out some serious damage.
Mimi had beat him there, and was applying first aid to Amelie - who appeared to have taken a glancing blow. Above them, Vivi was laying down covering fire from the turret. It looked like she was having some trouble with a Nofunabot Skywinder.
Drawing his Energy Sword, Sawyer drove his bike under the long beam of the fort and leapt up to grab it. He pulled himself up, then timed a jump and landed on the back of the Skywinder, plunging his sword through it. It immediately dropped from the sky.
Sawyer rode it to the ground and flashed Vivi a thumbs up. She blasted a shot over his shoulder in response. Sawyer spun around to find a Doubleshooter with a smoking hole through it. Vivi grinned and returned the thumbs up.
Sawyer sprinted towards Amelie and Mimi, now with a small ring of Nofunabots around them - too close for Vivi's gun.
"HIIYAAAA!" Sawyer lunged forwards and chopped one clean in half. He sliced his way through them as Amelie and Mimi did the same with their close-quarter Space Knives. A few minutes later, there were no more standing and Vivi's gun ceased booming.
Sawyer glanced around through the flames and the smoke. Panting heavily, he looked at his sisters' worn-out, ash covered faces. He thrust his sword into the air. "Victory!"
With the other outposts in their sector unresponsive on the radio, Mimi, Vivi, Amelie, and Sawyer set out to go check on them. They were not overly concerned - solar flares were common in the region and often knocked out communications temporarily. Nevertheless, given the brush in with the Nofunabots, it was worth a visit. They were halfway across the frozen Ingliv Roohm tundra when the rover began to rattle violently. It gave three short coughs, then died.
"No, no, no! Don't do this to me," Amelie cried. She turned over the key a few times, then threw up her hands and sank back. "I don't get it. I checked the space filters, changed the oil, tightened all the..."
"Did you plug it in last night to charge the battery?" Mimi asked.
Amelie was silent.
"Oh, great!" Vivi crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
"Hey cut me a break, I'm nine months old for crying out loud," said Amelie.
Vivi sighed. "You're right. Sorry sis. I should've checked too."
"Hey, uh, guys, we gotta build a shelter. Fast." Sawyer pointed to the dark clouds on the horizon. Mimi's stomach tightened. Polar storms on the tundra developed without warning and moved quickly, plunging temperatures by as much as 100 degrees.
The Dei clan leapt into action, constructing a shelter from the survival kit in the trunk of the rover. They had barely finished when the storm blasted through. Wind howling outside, the Deis huddled together around a fusion cell, shivering as the temperature in the tent dropped steadily. They had an hour, maybe two, figured Mimi. "God help us," she whispered.
A sudden bright light swept through the tent. "God?" Mimi peeked out from under the tent. She saw two side-by-side halos growing larger. Headlights! She ducked back into the tent. "Guys, a transport truck!" Mimi tried to flag it down. "Stop! Hey stop!"
By some miracle, the driver must have seen her. The truck, shaped like a white bullet with a continuous track, slammed on its brakes. The driver's side window rolled down and a grinning face with a wooly beard appeared. "Hey folks! Little cold for a picnic. Would ya'll like a ride?"
“Sorry your Royal Highnesses, I didn’t recognize you at first.”
Amelie smiled. “No need for formalities. Thank you for saving us. What’s your name, friend?”
“Chuck,” the truck driver beamed. “Traded all over the galaxy, 'cept for the dark side of course, but this is the first time I’ve gotten to transfer a bunch of princesses – and a prince,” he added with a glance in the rearview mirror. His grin vanished. “What the?"
They had just bounced over a hill. On the other side, there should have been a thriving outpost. Instead, there was only molten ruins. Amelie’s heart sank. The truck picked up speed. Chuck leapt out.
"Jenna! Brian! Charlotte?” Chuck fell to his knees by a house shaped rectangle.
Amelie lay a hand on his heaving shoulders. "Chuck, I'm so-" she stopped. Through the wisps of black smoke, there was a white face with a long whiskered nose - its brown eyes full of more wisdom and sadness than any human could fit in a lifetime. "Space Wolf." Amelie whispered.
“You're so Space Wolf?” Vivi asked.
Amelie pointed. Heads swung around.
“What do you think it wants?” Mimi asked.
Vivi shrugged. “Maybe it saw what happened.”
“Wait, Amelie, you studied Canine Speech at the Academy didn't you?” Sawyer asked.
“One class!"
“Go speak to him!”
“Uh, okay. Sure.” Heart pounding, Amelie walked towards the motionless beast. Flowing locks of white fur curled out from its massive body. It was magnificent, yet terrifying.
A couple of feet away Amelie sat and bowed her head. "Bow wow, uh, bark bark, woof woof?"
A smile spread over the beast’s lips. "No, thank you,” it replied. “I do not wish to buy a pair of pizza pants." Its voice was deep but sweet, like galactic syrup over waffles.
Amelie’s face flushed. “Oh! You speak English. Sorry, never met a Space Wolf before.”
“I am Boguila, last of my pack. Your human friends are in danger. They have been captured and enslaved by the Nofunabots...”
“Wait, they're alive?”
“For now."
Forgetting all princess dignity, Amelie yelled over her shoulder. “Hey guys, they're still alive! They’ve just been taken to…” she turned back. “Where did they go?"
“Remind me again why we’re flying around in the middle of nowhere?” Princess Vivi asked, her face pressed against the back window of the space-hopper. Empty marshland stretched out for miles beneath them.
Space Knight Sawyer sighed. “Because. Boguila said that the Nofunabots had taken all our neighbors to the darkside of the galaxy. There is only one known pilot who has flown to the darkside and back and lived to tell of it. We’re going to need to know exactly how he did it if we are going to have any chance of rescuing our friends. It’s not my fault he happens to live in the swampland sector.”
Princesses Amelie glanced up from the steering wheel. “Shouldn’t be too much longer, we’ll be coming up on the coordinates he gave us in about—WOAH!”
The ship shuddered violently. Alarm bells screamed, and the instrumentation dials spun at dizzying speeds.
“What happened?” Princess Mimi screamed over the noise. Her eyes were wide as turnips.
“We just flew into some sort of electromagnetic field. Hold tight! We’re going down.” Amelie yelled.
Vivi gritted her teeth as they plummeted from the sky. She needn’t have worried – her sister expertly guided the ship to a soft landing in the water, close to a beach.
Vivi blew a big breath. “Nice job sis!” She clapped Amelie on the back.
The crew inflated the survival raft and rowed to shore.
“This stinks.” Sawyer sulked.
"Hey could be worse.” Vivi replied. “We’ve got the emergency beacon activated. We’re in a well-travelled sector. Plus, we’ve got this nice beach and all this sand to play with.”
“Yeah… guess so,” Sawyer replied. He grinned. “Let me bury you.” He grabbed a handful of sand and tossed it over her legs.
Vivi giggled. “See it’s not that bad! It’s not like we lost th-"
A sudden explosion ripped through the sky and a pressurized heat wave slammed Vivi’s face. She glanced over at the water. There was a billowing fireball where their space-hopper should be.
“…Oh.”
“You were saying?”
