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Part I
Gene Vogel
Part II
Paul Borgmann
Part III
Dave Ray
Part IV
Dave Ray
Part V
Gene Vogel

The Story Begins...

   "All of this work will not go to waste! I did not risk my soul this far just to turn back out of fear. This treasure is bigger than you or I, and I will not flee!"
   Dagnor wiped the sweat from his face. He knew what Jarron meant, but he still did not wish to die. And for what?
   "If we turn back now" Dagnor replied, "we will live to see another day!"
   "Another day, another failure?!" Jarron replied. "I'll not let these people down! Leave if you must, but I will NOT turn back. If I die, I'll go to god with pride, not in shame!"
   Dagnor turned, and walked away. He turned.
   "I cannot leave you. Damn you! You are my friend, and I owe you my life. And I give it to you." Dagnor walked back to his friends side.
   "Dagnor, I free you of this, this oath, that you think that you have. You do not owe me your life. I want you to go your own way. Do what you will. I can take it from here by myself." He turned to continue.
   "I cannot go. If I leave alone, I will feel endless shame. I will go with you."
   The two men continued down the trap-riddled corridor together.

   Two hours later, they had their goal in sight. All of the pain, the injuries, and the lost companions. They felt that it was worth it all. But they were far from finished.
   "Well Dag, there it is. But be wary. This might be our greatest test of all."
   The two men separated to the opposite sides of the room. In the center: A golden staff that is rumored to give it's user insight into the future. And the past. If you believe in that stuff.
   "I just need to return this to it's rightful people. This one isn't for money or fame. It's for my soul. Our souls." With that, Jarron started towards the staff. "Everything looks fine. Keep your eye out."
   "Yeah, sure. Just be careful. You won't be doing these people any good by getting yourself killed Jarron." smirked Dagnor.
   It was all to easy. But there seemed to be nothing wrong. He put his hand around the staff. Nothing happened. He picked it up.
   The outer ring of the room suddenly collapsed, disappearing into a gaping hole underneath the room. The whole room was becoming a huge cavern, the bottom being several-hundred feet below where the two men were.
   And just as that part of the room disappeared, followed by more of the room. Dagnor didn't have time to react. He was down and dead in a matter of seconds. Jarron, on the other hand, had a few seconds. But that was enough.
   He leapt on top of the pedestal. The room around him was gone. And he could feel the pedestal starting to rock. There was nothing he could do. He looked at the staff.
  "Isight into the past or the future. I could tell you my future without this thing."
   He looked around the room. Nothing to save him. This was starting to look bad for Jarron. Something felt strange in his hands.
   He looked down at the staff. It had writing on it that he hadn't noticed before. And two buttons of some sort. Then the world fell out beneath him. He gripped the staff tightly as he fell. His world went black.

   When he awoke, he was in another time. From his surroundings he could surmise that he was in the ...

Part II

"Damn! Another dead end." Laneela said, dropping the brush and wiping the dust from her brow. "And I was sure this was going to be the one. The ruins, the evidence, even the local legends, they all pointed to this site."

Grotick, her companion, said nothing in reply. Not that she expected any. In the thirteeen months that she had been on this world, she had never heard him utter a single sound, much less anything approaching a word.

She still did not understand the strange customs of this out of the way, backwater planet. She had arrived just over a year ago, another stop in a long series of planets she had visited in her travels since her parents had died in a cave in on Mermax III.

They had been true archeologists. Their work had always been the most important thing in their lives, sometimes rivaling the importance of their very own daughter. At times she had hated them for that devotion to their work, though she understood it, she had inherited that same devotion. She had also inherited their quest, except now it was her quest.

"Well Grot, do you think we should pack it in for the night?"she asked as she quickly bundled up all of her equiptment. "or do you think that the answer to all our hopes lies just over the next ridge?"

She waited her customary 3 seconds for him to answer and then proceeded to head towards her small, but well maitained ship. As usual, Grot was immediately three paces behind her as she approached the hatch.

"Goodnight Grot, see you in the morning" she said as she ducked through the portal, while under her breath muttering "as if I had a choice."

Since she had arrived, the one constant in her life had been Grotick. Ever since humans had landed on this planet almost 70 years ago, two things had remained constant about the natives. One, they did not speak. No one was even sure if they could utter sounds or not.

The second was that as soon as an off worlder arrived, they were granted a ‘shadow’. One of the locals would accomany you around for as long as you remained on the planet. That local was always the same individual, hence her travelling companion, Grotick.

Well, she thought to herself, at least he won’t try to hog all the glory if I should find the Staff. , she thought to herself, at least he won’t try to hog all the glory if I should find the Staff.

The Staff. The legacy her parents had left her. It was said to have been lost by the Original Race. It was said to have powers beyond imagination. It was said, it was said, it was said... it was times like this she wished she knew who it was that had said all these things. No one was even sure that the Original Race had ever even exsisted, much less that they had created and then lost such a powerful artifact.

It was late into the night, after poring over her parents records and her own modest discoveries, that Laneela finally allowed herself to sleep.

Early that morning she arose, to find Grot waiting patiently outside her door, as usual.

"Are you ready for the big event, Grot?" she asked as she began loading her skimmer for another days exploration. "Today we find the Staff, Grot. I can just feel it." One, two, three.

"A little tongue tied this morning? Well I guess I can keep up your side of the conversation today as well."

Several hours had passed with no success, when Laneela brought the skimmer to a halt alongside a narrow crevice in the rock face.

"Well Grot, you silver tongued devil, this is the last place on our list for the day. What do you say we have a quick look-see around, and then head home for a good nights rest?" One, two... oh, forget it. "Just try to keep up Grot."

Laneela allowed herself a brief smile for her last jest. She was the one who would be hard pressed to keep up with Grot if he chose to actually put some effort behind this little hike they were about to take. The natives were not much to look at, in fact they were down right ugly. They were, however, quite strong and could move over almost any terrain with incredible speed.

Strapping on her pack and lacing her boots up tight, Laneela set off towards the defile in the rock face, her faithful companion three paces to the rear. As she approached the opening, she once again thanked the stars for this planets .7 Earth standard gravity.

That’s two things that light gravity worlds are good for, she thought as she proceeded to climb her way down the narrow passage. It took her the better part of an hour to reach the spot where it leveled off. Before her was a winding path, between the cliff faces, with sheer walls that rose at least 200 meters on either side. She followed the path for a few hundred meters and was abruptly confronted by the gaping mouth of an enormous cave. Pulling a light from her pack, she carefully entered the mouth of the cave.

As she proceeded down the narrow passage, she began to notice that the walls of the cave appeared to be getting smoother, and that the passage was starting to look too regualr to be a natural formation. With each passing step her excitement grew. She was sure of it now, this had to be an artificial tunnel.

Rounding a bend in the passage, the walls suddenly disappeared from along side her and she found herself in a large circular chamber. The walls were now perfectly smooth and they shimmered faintly with some luminesence of their own.

"This has to be it" she barely whispered, "the Staff must be here." Sweeping her light slowly around the room, she became aware of inscriptions etched into the walls. As she approached them, she could begin to make out patterns in them, until she finally realized that they were not words but rather pictures.

She quickly dropped her pack and rushed to the nearest wall. She began examining the pictures one by one, most were of scenes that made little or no sense whatsoever to her. Some were vaguely understandable, while others were almost hauntingly familiar.

As she made her way around the wall to the side opposite the chambers entrance, she discovered small cracks in the wall that could only be a door. Excitedly, she ran back for her pack to get out her digging tools.

It was then she noticed the absence of Grotick. It was this small fact that suddenly brought everything else in her mind to a sudden halt. For thirteen months he had never been more than five meters form her side, now he was nowhere to be seen.

"Grot?" she called hesitantly’ "Grotick?" Listening closely, she could hear a faint scrabbling sound coming from down the corridor. Shining her light in that direction, she could see the cowering form of Grot, just outside of the chamber entrance. "What are you afraid of?" Laneela quietly asked him. "If you ever had anything to say, this is the time" she told him. And that is when she heard him scream. It was the first time she had ever heard him make a noise. It was also the last.

When she awoke, she thought she was somewhere she did not recognize. Standing above was a man she had never seen before. And in his hand, was the Staff...

Part III

"Wh...Who are you?", Laneela managed.  "Why did you kill Grotick?"

The man she saw before her was frightening.  He seemed to radiate...she couldn't place it.  The only word that came to her mind was Death. 
"He is not dead,"  the shadowed man said, "He is merely unconcious."
"Th..That's the Staff!" Laneela said, "How do you come to have it? No one has ever been down here since I started excavating it!"
"We have much to talk about," the man said.  "But first, let's get your friend...'Grotick', wasn't it?  Let's get him out of here.  I do not trust these caves.  Too much risk of a cave in."

The mysterious man that seemed so frightening just minutes before...the man whom she thought was going to kill her, now helped her to get Grotick's arms around both their shoulders.  But not once did his
fingers leave the Staff.

'How did he come to have the mystical Staff?' Laneela thought to herself.  No one had even been around the area when she was excavating it.   The people seemed to avoid the area...like something terrible had happened here and they all wanted to avoid that trouble. 

They emerged from the cave to a setting sun.  She led them to the camp that she had erected before entering the caves and they laid down Grotick in one of the shelters.
"Amazing!!...Truly amazing!" the mysterious man said in awe.
"What is?" Laneela tryed to puzzle what he meant.
"That..." as he pointed to her small ship she used to travel to the different star systems.  "What is it, exactly?"
"It's a shuttle...you haven't seen a shuttle before?" Laneela was stunned.    How could this man not know what a shuttle was...then it hit her.  She kicked herself mentally for not noticing it before.  His clothes, the weapon at his belt, the way he looked, none of it was familiar to her.  It was almost as if he was from a different Time, a Time in the past...

Part IV

"Who are you? Laneela backed away a step. She had a feeling this man was very dangerous.
"My name is Jarron, and I have a feeling I'm very far from home..." Jarron stared first at the shuttle, then towards the sky. It was then that Grotick groaned.
Laneela bent over him, "Grotick, are you alright?" He opened his eyes and started to raise his hand to shoo her away, when he caught sight of Jarron. His eyes narrowed and he started for him, and promptly fell from exhaustion.
"Don't try to move...he may have hurt you, but you won't get anywhere with him in the condition you're in, Grotick." Laneela helped him lay back. All Grotick did then was nod his head in agreement, and lapse back into unconsiousness. "What did you do to him...Jarron, was it?"
"He's a tough one, that Grotick, but nothing I couldn't handle getting the jump on him. Now, I must ask, where am I?" Jarron questioned.
"You were in the cave of the Ancients...or the Original Race, if you want to get technical. You mean you don't know?" Now she was sure of her first assumption. He was definetely from another time, or at least another place.
"Cave of the...Ancients. It couldn't be? But it must." Jarron shook his head in confusion. He somehow activated the Staff, and it must have teleported him somewhere, by the looks of it, the future. And what was this Original Race...could she mean the people he was returning the Staff too?
Laneela waited while he puzzled things out in his mind. She could see that he was very worried about something, very confused. "It's the year 2010PD, if that helps you." she shrugged.
"PD? What does PD stand for?" She could see he was definetely worried now.
"Umm...it means Post-Destruction. That's the year on this planet anyway. On Earth, it's the year 2250AD. They have a different Religion than this planet. All the planets have their own history records. It can make things very difficult." She had glanced away in telling him this and when she looked back, his face was as white as a ghost.
"P-planets? You have found ways to travel between the stars easily? Without magic but with those...?" He pointed to the shuttle. "I must take time to contemplate...is there somewhere we might stay?"
"Well, we could probably make it back to the last city, but it will be late when we arrive. Come, let's board the shuttle." And with that, they were headed to the city to puzzle out exactly what had happened the the man they call Jarron.

Part V

SLAM! The ship was slammed on the starboard side. Laneela checked one of the large glowing areas that were in the center of the control board. Three little glowing circles where making their way to the center of the display.

“Dam – Space Pirates!” she muttered, more to herself than her companion.

“Space Pirates?” he asked, catching her words in his well-trained ears.

“Yeah – they monitor the restrict-area and catch cruisers, diggers, and illegals because those types won’t call for help for fear of getting caught.”

“Well, why don’t we call for assistance, then?” he asked, knowing the answer to his query.”

“Because I am a digger. I was at that part of the planet illegally. I am what they used to call an archeologist. Now the Space Feds do all of the digging work, putting me out of business. Money is what it is all about for them. For diggers, it’s more like a religion. It’s too late for a scrambler now – they know we’re here.”

She proceeded into a turn that made him queasy. This kind of flight was new to him. Heck- he didn’t even care for aero planes!”

Suddenly, he realized that he was clenching the staff tightly in his hand. He forgot all about it.

“They have us surrounded. Well, either we fight or surrender. They won’t take bribes, and I have nothing to barter with anyway.”

“What about this?” he asked motioning to the staff.

“Perhaps. Damn – I have spent a lot of time and money trying to find that staff. But if I lose my ship or my equipment, I am useless. Lets give it a shot.”

“This is Alpha-Alpha 4678 – request dialog.”

There was no reply. After a while she tried again.

“Yeah AA-4678, we heard you. This is a new one from someone who has no options but fight or flee. Whatever you have, we can take. Power down so we can make this as easy for all of us as possible.”

“You didn’t count on an artifact did you bandit leader? I have an ancient alien artifact here that is breakable. Worth some major credits in one piece, if you catch my meaning.”

“So we take the artifact – you take off? Is that they deal?”

“That’s about it. And one other thing – I want to be added to your list of friendly’s.”

“You ask for a lot, don’t you digger? That’s a tall order.”

“It’s a nice artifact. It’s from the Galemby species. If you know your space histo..”

“Yes I know my history digger. I know who the Galemby were. Travelers. Lies.”

“Well, you see them your way, I see them mine. But any way you slice it, they are still valuable. You should know that, sir.”

“Yes, you are correct. How do propose we swap?”

“You land then go into low power, we transfer the item and go about our business.”

“Do I look dumb to you? We power down, you transfer your trash and fly off.”

“Yes, but why would I do that after I gave you my ID number? I am not dumb – I prefer not to be a target for the rest of my life. I know the honor-code of the pirates.”

“Yes, but then we have to put out – oh never mind. I have a better idea. We will power down all but one ship. We will land with you, you hand me the item, we will leave you be.”

“With adding me to your friendly list?”

“No deal on that. That’s too much.”

“OK, then I will break it. You know this ship isn’t worth much, and all of the red tape on it would not be worth your time. I have nothing else to offer of any value.”

“Tell you what, how about we just kill you?

“You are going to kill me anyway you look at it unless we make a trade. How about it.”

“This is not the way I deal with you people. Fine, I will add your name to the list with a one-year no bother. After that you are on your own. Deal?”

“Deal. Let’s get this over with.”

She set the shuttle down near the edge of a small hill. “This will help out just in case there is any trouble. They can’t completely surround us this way”. Jarron just nodded, pretending to understand. After the pirate ships came close, he could see that they needed a good-sized place to land.

These ships dwarfed the shuttle that he had just been inside. He guessed that these ships were also used in space travel. They had obviously seen some battle damage as well.

In a matter of minutes, the engines of two of the ships had been completely shut down. Out of one of these ships a tall, scruffy, black-haired man in a leather coat came down the ramp that was being lowered.

“I haven’t seen this one before” Laneela whispered. “Looks important, though.”

“Ok, lets see it. Then I will give my men the signal not to kill you.” He said loudly as he smiled a genuinely large smile.

She smiled herself, as sexy little smile. Jarron felt a little ashamed at being jealous as he realized that she was attracted to this rogue. She held the staff high so he could see from the distance. He held up his left hand, a signal that everything was all right. After this, a little man joined the first man.

The group of four proceeded towards each other. Laneela stopped short and held the staff out to the man. Jarron felt sick inside. All of his work was about to be handed over to a thief. But he would survive, if what Laneela said was true. All that he could do was stare at the staff.

“Don’t forget about our deal, pirate!” Laneela growled as the man started to extend his hand towards the prize. He just smiled smiled.

“Wait!” Jarron yelled at the top of his lungs without even realizing what he was doing. He lunged forward to grab the staff. Laneela had already begun to pull it away from the pirate, at the same time the rogue grabbed for the artifact.

To Be Continued...