"Half a million kilometers to target." "Very well. Deploy shuttle." "Aye aye, sir." A small shuttle was cast away from the ship. It glided towards the planet carrying its single occupant. "Helmsman, set a return course to the Moon Kingdom, top speed." "Aye aye, sir." The shuttle continued on its path towards the planet while the ship that launched it speed back to its home port. All was silent in that sector of space. By now, the shuttle was falling into the upper atmosphere. Its single occupent did nothing to correct its trajectory. It really didn't matter. Silvery ribbons shot out from the shuttle to engulf it. The silence of space was mirrored on the planet as a calm pause occured before it was destroyed by the ribbons. ********** Written by Greenbeans Original story idea by Damien Karolev and Tim Nolan ********** Buried amongst the news stories of the day was a small blurb about contact being lost with one of the colonies outKingdom. It was not uncommon for communications to be lost. They were on the edges of explored space and any little glitch could have taken down communications. Most people did not question this story any further. Except one. She was a foreigner to the Moon Kingdom. The people of the capitol did not question her about her origions. These people did not realize a cat could speak. The feline, who had never adopted a name appropriate for the this Kingdom, was curious as to why there were no drastic measures being taken to re-establish contact. The story was unremarkable, but the lack of news about it, the lack of interest by the kingdom's monarchy, was disturbing. Certainly, you would do more than send a scout ship to check on their progress. She wandered the streets of the capitol as she considered what she knew. As she understood the situation, these humans had expanded beyond the planets of their own system roughly three hundred years ago. The colonies that were started suffered the same hardships every other colony attempt she knew off, but humans were quite resillient. They met these challenges head on and overcame them. The colonies prospered and, soon enough, wanted their independance from the mother country. In this case, the Moon Kingdom. The last 80 years have been filled with skirmishes with the colony worlds. It was a standstill due to distance and the sheer costs invovled with bringing a resolve to this conflict via violent means. Her wanderings had brough her to the Palace without her consciously coming here. Briefly, she considered her options. There was no other place on the Moon where her questions could be better answered than here. With that in mind, she walked up to the guard's post next to the main gate. To his credit, the guard did not move when she began to rub her body up against his shin. She purred some, then meandered by the ironrot gate. His eyes followed her, but he did nothing as she slipped between the bars and continued on her way. ***** ***** Pluto leaned against her Time Key for support. It was not often that these bouts of weakness effected her. Only when there was a disturbance in the time stream. She did nothing to correct this disturbance. It was an expected phenomenion that she must allow to occur... The rebirth of Saturn. *****