Kyle Aarons

Adventure Quest

Chapters 14-17

Robin punched up some details of where he was taking the other two and studied as best as he could while also being the pilot. "It looks like we will be on a very similar latitude as our camp and the area is mountain and forest, so it shouldn't be too much different than what we are used to."

Jeff chewed on his upper lip nervously for a few seconds before responding, "I don't know Robin. What I am reading says there are some pretty big storms off the ocean, especially this time of year. It also has over a dozen Earth mammals which are listed as highly dangerous, including bears, wolverines, wolves, cougars, rattle snakes, and it even says some deer and moose can be dangerous. It also has a couple of Zong's poisonous reptiles, but they are more snake-like and don't build mounds like the lizards we are used to around our camp. Finally, two of the small islands off the south end have a meat eating salamander like thing which are rated as one of the top ten dangerous native creatures of Zong. It is known to swim to the larger island and hunt once and a while, but for unknown reasons have never gotten established on the bigger island."

Steve listened as he scrolled through some more information. "There are a couple of areas where there are highly acidic pools in and around the geothermal features too, so we need to have a PH testing unit ready before taking a dip in any warm water.

"It also has large amounts of zinc, nickel, iron and a dozen other minerals, and it says there are some awesome places to go rock hunting, but there are a several geothermal active areas, making some of the best locations too dangerous to go to. I don't know what panning for gold is, exactly, but it says some of the streams have real gold nuggets. Now, if we could learn how to do this panning thing, I'd be all in for giving it a shot."

Robin let out a light nervous sounding whistle, "I can see why this would be considered an area for Advanced ISTaZ. We only have about one third of the things to think about at our camp as those who go down there."

"I'd risk it for a chance to find quartz, amethyst, ruby and even gold!" Steve's voice betrayed his excitement at the thought of rock and mineral hunting.

Robin couldn't help but snicker, "OK, it's official."

"What?" Steve demanded to know, "You don't think it would be fun to look for rocks, some of them made out of gold?"

"Hey, don't get me wrong," Robin responded with an even larger smile, "it sounds interesting. But I swear, all you spelunking guys are all rock collectors! Oliver and Ajax both talk about trying to find a way to carry a rock collection around with them, like we don't have enough to carry!"

"I'm right there with them!" Steve fired back, "I don't know how you could not be into it!"

"Carrying rocks, even rocks with gold in them, all over an ISTaZ doesn't sound like much fun to me." Jeff countered. "My pack is plenty heavy enough!"

Steve looked over at Jeff with a totally perplexed look. "Come on! It says right here we can keep what we find while out on ISTaZ and gold is going for over 40 credits a gram! If I could get ten grams of it, just ten, I would leave here with more than my allowance for the whole stinking summer!"

Mrs. Anderson glanced into the back of the craft. "My third year out my whole team spent a week panning and we all came back with more than a hundred grams of gold each. We had to sell it to the Corps, but they still paid us seventy five percent of market value, so we all went home with over 3000 credits."

Robin almost choked at hearing such a vast sum of money. "OK, I take back what I was saying. Where do I sign up for one of these panning lessons?"

Jeff's head also bobbed up and down. "Me too!" he squeaked.

Mrs. Anderson chuckled. "I'll give you all a class tonight if you would like, but you'll have to rotate guard duty while I am teaching because we won't be in the secure perimeter and there are more than a few of those things Jeff talked about, which could find us tempting prey, especially in the area we are going to. On the other hand, there is a stream I know about where we can get you, and any of your friends who want to learn, all a couple of grams, even if we are very unlucky."

Robin glanced over with a totally serious look. "I can tell you my whole team will be in and you would have to shoot Ajax and Oliver to stop them."

As Robin was talking the radio chirped, "There is heavy avian activity in the area of touchdown, Lander One-Two-Niner. Readjust your approach and land over the water. Be advised, waves are cresting at over two meters due to high winds coming out of the west northwest. Weather satellite shutdown has increased storm activity planet wide, so there is the possibility of heavy micro-bursts in your area as well."

Robin quickly acknowledged the information and adjusted course to land in the area cleared by Space Command. As he neared the water he cringed, "OK, ma'am, how do I skip the Lander over waves like those?"

"You are going to have to skim the tops, and it is tricky. DO you want me to take over?"

"No way! I have got to learn how to do this sooner or later."

Mrs. Anderson took a deep breath. "Boys, hit your securing fields. This could get real rough."

Robin started to go down, but broke off his first landing pass as he realized he could not hope to land into the wind as he would be hitting the leading edges of the waves. There was nothing to skip off of in the front of a wave. As he angled back up he called into Space Command of an aborted run and a need to keep the airspace open for a few more minutes. The second he got clearance for another attempt he skimmed the wave tops until he was certain he had the height gauged properly. He then cut down to where he was lower than the tops and between waves before he pulled the nose up and disengaged the magnetic drive.

Before the hover fans engaged, the bottom of the Lander skipped off the wave at an upward angle. Robin clenched his teeth as his body told him to do one thing while his brain told him the opposite. The body said to put more power into the back fans to level out the craft since the front was higher than the back, but his brain told him since the wings had not yet retracted the front of the craft would be first to angle back down since there was more lift toward the back of the Lander.

He forced himself to go with his brain, putting full power into the front fan and half power into the back.

A few seconds later the nose of the craft tilted back down toward the waves. With white knuckles on the controls, he pulled back to get himself almost level, but purposefully kept the nose pointed slightly down, since he had more power to the lift fans in the front. This intuition proved to be correct as the whole craft hit the next wave and skipped upwards a second time.

The third skip was even trickier since the wings were now totally retracted and the Lander was now a hovercraft and not a flyer. Robin dialed back the power of the front fan slightly and increased power to the back to give the hover craft close to maximum lift. As he saw the nose angle on the control panel was once again showing the nose was going to impact first, he fire-walled the front fan at the last second to skip over the third wave. By this time the lift fans had the craft off the water so Robin lowered the power and slowed. It took him almost a minute before he could pull his hands from around the controls.

A voice Robin had only heard on holographic videos came over the radio, but it was so distinctive, he identified it right off. "Unreal! Lieutenant Anderson, did our new private just land you, or did you take over?"

"It was all Robin, Colonel!" Mrs. Anderson responded while reaching over and all but giving Robin a hug and a hardy congratulatory shake. "He first timed the landing at Great Kline Lake too! Sending cockpit video and sound now."

"Son of a…" The Colonel McKnight's voice paused as he realize Robin had not even asked for any help, once he understood the basic principles, and had figured out he needed to come in from behind the waves on his own. "Son, I don't know if I am going to shake your hand or give you a bear hug when I see you. I have hundreds of seasoned pilots who could not have pulled off a water landing in these conditions! Now take her up and get to base camp."

"What about the heavy avian concern, sir?" Robin asked, while knowing in his heart the whole thing had been an impromptu test. He also suddenly realized one of the two hits on radar belonged to none other than the overall commander of the Explorer Corps Academy Commander at Dal-Houston. Colonel McKnight had gone back up to watch him try to land over the heavy seas.

"There wasn't any!" Jasper's voice came over the radio with some laughter, "But you did just win me five hundred credits and you a promotion to Junior Corporal."

"The best five hundred I ever lost and the training vid we can make from this will more than pay for his wages over the next few years!" Pure delight could be heard in Colonel McKnight's voice. "Wow, what a landing!"

Robin's left hand crashed into his forehead. Not only had this been a test of sorts, he had been a big pawn in a bet! "You have got to be kidding me." Robin groaned, not even bothering to turn off his throat microphone.

"No," Oliver's voice came over the radio, "there are half a dozen drones up here to get every angle. You just made a training video for the Explorer Corps Robin!"

"What if I had botched it?" Robin couldn't help but ask.

"It would have made a good vid to point out mistakes." Colonel McKnight admitted, "But this… You didn't even come close to going under. This isn't just going to be a vid for the academy. It is going to go out to the whole Corps, and with the onboard images we got from your craft, I'm going to make an awesome recruiting piece."

Robin reengaged the magnetic drive and angled upwards to get well off the water before putting the craft into a gentle loop until he could get clearance into the original destination. When the voice came back over the radio it had a new tone of respect from whoever was behind it. "Corporal, you are cleared in. Both Colonel McKnight and Commander Montgomery are down. You have your choice of vectors. The sky is all yours."

Robin quickly landed and pulled into a small clearing surrounded by energy fences. Behind the fences a small group of Academy cadets, many who had been food servers at the old base camp, where setting up wire fences incase the energy ones went down during the incoming star storm. Ten super light and strong metal-plastic, also known as metalplast, prefabricated buildings were arranged around inside an inner energy fence and an eleventh, larger partially prefabricated metalplast structure was being put up by a small team of Explorer Corps men and women, many of whom were wearing rank lower than what Robin was told he now had.

"Leave the packs you put together in here and grab your normal gear out of the back once we are parked," Mrs. Anderson ordered. "You team numbers are on the buildings you are assigned to, and there is no sleeping out in tents over the next couple of days until we are sure the area is totally secure. As you can see, this is a new camp and we haven't cleared the surrounding area yet."

As Robin powered down to park, he glanced over to Mrs. Anderson. "Ma'am, why did we have to set the packs for a mission when our regular packs are in the back? Wouldn't it have been easier on you all if we had just told you what we would have taken so you didn't have to go back and resupply it?"

Mrs. Anderson simply grinned, while motioning for Robin to complete his post flight checklist. Once it was done she punched in a lock out code and pointed to the smallest of the pre-fab buildings. "I believe Colonel McKnight wants to see you."

Robin grabbed his pack out of the back and made his way toward the small building. The whole place was a beehive of activity. Crews were working to get generators up and the mess hall equipment was still being unpacked so it could be moved into the largest building once it was completed. He paused as he noticed there was no building for Team Eight. While this gave him some inner relief, he still couldn't help feeling like he had somehow failed the whole group. They were part of his camp, after all.

Not normally one to be nervous about meeting anyone, he felt a couple of beads of sweat pop up on his forehead, even as a cold damp cold breeze blew in off the ocean only a couple of hills away. He stopped in front of the door, gulped, stood as straight as he could figure out how to, and knocked.

A few seconds later the door opened. Although Robin had been expecting to see the face, what he didn't expect was the size of the man behind all the video and press articles. Colonel McKnight was easily the largest person Robin had ever seen, let alone met. At a shade under two hundred and sixteen centimeters tall and over one hundred and forty kilos of muscle the guy was beyond massive!

Colonel McKnight looked down with a huge smile, "So, there is my newest NCO! I have heard nothing but remarkable things about you!" He stuck out a hand which was easily quadruple the size of Robin's.

Robin took the hand but found himself pulled forward and all but engulfed in a massive hug. The scary part was, it actually hurt a little and he could tell the man had not even come close to really squeezing. As Colonel McKnight let go it took some effort to hide the fact Robin needed to take a couple of deep breaths so he could replace oxygen all but squeezed out of his lungs.

The massive man backed off still smiling. "Since the Corps took over training of ISTaZ, we have been dreaming for someone like you to come along. No one has ever tried to unite a camp. We have had some intense competitions between teams striving for the best scores, and we have had individual stand-outs from many camps, but this… what you have done is brand new."

Colonel McKnight took a couple more steps back and motioned Robin to join him in his building.

Robin, once again, pulled back his shoulders a bit and did his best to make his posture perfect. He still felt more than a little intimidated, even as friendly as the guy was, but pushed the lingering fear out of his mind and stepped in. The second he did so the door behind him slid closed and he realized he was actually in a studio-like building. There was a desk in an office area, but behind it was a kitchen, a bed and even an entertainment unit. Beyond was a door, which clearly led to a shower and bathroom area.

Along the walls were pictures of various Explorer Corps space craft, worlds, space stations, and behind the bed there were awards, scores of them. Even though he could not read many, all of them were centered around the Corps and some had Cadet McKnight as the name, so they went way back to his academy days. There was also a case which held all the rank pins the man had earned and the dates of advancement under each. It was very clear this man's whole life was devoted to the Corps and exploration. It was also evident the man was proud of his achievements, but the way they were posted was behind everything, out of the way of his office and even the positioning of his desk meant anyone coming to see him would not look at the display.

On the other hand, Colonel McKnight was quick to take notice of where Robin's eyes went. "Don't be shy, if you want to take a closer look go right ahead. This is all considered office and work space, after all."

Robin took a deep breath as he moved closer and looked over the awards and displays. Before he really knew it he had spent half an hour looking over the pictures, awards, orders sending Colonel McKnight out to various star systems, and even a trio of holo-vid displays of other planets. One in particular caught his eye. It was a world covered with lush growth and lots of water. "Sir, this isn't earth or Zong. What is it?"

"That… well it is one of the most dangerous worlds we have found to date… Technically, it is called Omicron Omega Sixty One. Those of us who have landed there have another name, though. We simply call it Terror."

"Why?" Robin moved forward and looked at the stunningly beautiful world again.

The man sat at his chair and spun it so he could watch Robin's reaction as he spoke. "Bottom left side, there is a red button. Push it."

Robin didn't hesitate. As soon as his finger came in contact with the button the holographic picture of the world disappeared and was replaced by a ground crew shooting laser rifles at a massive reptile. Robin took an involuntary step back and gasped, "It looks like a dinosaur!"

"Yeah… Very similar to our own, too. We nicked named the one you are looking at as Tyrannosaurus Giangantous. I lost three very capable Explorers on Terror to those and one of our Landers was destroyed by a Pterosaur looking bird, only bigger. It actually thought our small craft was prey. We had to get extracted by a pair of plasma cannon armed fighters and a heavier and larger Lander. An entire team of six was wiped out by other, smaller, reptiles. Mammal-like creatures on Terror are pretty low on the food chain."

Robin realized after nearly thirty seconds he was holding his breath as a few other creatures were shown. "So the whole planet is kind of in the Cretaceous Period or something?"

"Very good!" McKnight praised the youngster. "I didn't even know what era it was in until our science teams told us once we got back to Earth. Feel free to hit the buttons on the other two worlds shown up there if you want to know why we haven't tried to establish colonies on them."

Robin's curiosity was running rampant by this time so he turned his attention to the next planet. This was nowhere near as beautiful as 'Terror'. It was a much dryer world with only three large bodies of water and the plant life made it look less green and more red. When the scene shifted it showed twelve-legged ant like creatures as they swarmed the Lander and tried to bite at it. By the time it took off it was coated in the nasty critters. Robin didn't bother to watch any more. He turned it off with a shudder.

Colonel McKnight snickered at the reaction. "We did a space evac of the Lander and slammed it right back into the planet, since each one of our landing attempts met with major attacks like you just saw, although the creatures were not the same. We didn't want to chance bringing anything back."

"Good!" Robin managed to gasp out. "I may even have nightmares after seeing how quickly those things swarmed the craft!"

"Been there!" the Colonel snickered.

Moving up to the last one, Robin saw a world basically covered in water. The amount of land was less than half of what Earth had, but what land was there was lushly covered in jungle like plants and the polar caps extended down a great deal further than Robin would have expected. From space the planet was rather stunning since it was a mixture of white, blue and blotches of green.

He moved up and touched the button and literally jumped back as the image of a massive fish, jumping out of the water, snatched a probe. The image then shifted to a view from the probe. Tentacle-like structures inside the creature wrapped around it and started pulling it apart. It took only a few seconds for the feed to go fuzzy then stop. Two other probes were taken out in the same way. The last footage showed a landing crew on one of the larger islands. One of them moved up to take a sample out of one of the trees only to get a face full of thorns which erupted out of the bark as soon as her hand touched it. The video cut off as she collapsed into the arms of two fellow explorers.

Robin tapped the button making the image of the planet reappear. "Did she die?"

"Unfortunately, yes. The thorns have some kind of digestive juice in them. If you would have continued to watch you would have seen one of those trees shoot spines into a badger we released. The vines started growing around it then pulled it next to the bark and a sort of feeding tube came out and drank out the insides, leaving nothing but the skin and fur. It is not much different than what an Earth spider does to its prey. It was because of what happened on Oceana the Corps instituted a policy of releasing a couple of animals to see what happens before we go poking around, but we have yet to see anything like animal eating plants on any other world. We have the fly traps back home, so I guess you can say Earth does have them too, but… Well, I hope to never come across anything like those trees ever again!"

A fearful tingle seemed to roll down Robin's spine, only to extend out to every part of his body. The idea there were other planets with life on them was totally unknown to him. After seeing the videos, he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if one of those life forms ever got off those worlds and re-established somewhere else. It was truly frightening. "Are these the only other three worlds with major life forms?"

"The only ones I have helped to find, but there are a half dozen others. The Europe Consortium also found a couple and word has it the Japan CHZ government has found four, but they keep things real secret because China and Japan have been at a state of undeclared war for over a century now. Both need the ocean floor to expand and since they have all but fished it dry, food is becoming a major problem for both. China and the Northern Asian League have space programs, but our people tell us their space exploration divisions are more for show than anything else. Instead they have both poured their resources into Terraforming worlds they found decades ago. Northern Asia seems to be way ahead of China, and may even have a world on par with Mars. We aren't totally sure, but they have shipped out several thousand over the last five years.

We know Japan is shipping a large group of over ten thousand out on a colony sized ship they have been building, so they may have found something. They have asked us to let them use our gate too, so our guess is it is somewhere within wormhole range of Zong. We will just have to wait and see what they and our probes tell us and when.

"But so far, Zong is the only other world we know of which is safe enough for human and Earth life to coexist with native life. I also understand you have overheard enough to know we do have a trio of worlds we are trying to terraform. All three are in an optimal position with perfect gravity and some water, but no life we could find. One is already showing some atmospheric changes, so we have our hopes up for it. The other two are just too new and too far away to expect much for decades though."

Robin continued to look over the impressive display, "Sir… Um, am I like supposed to know even half of what you are telling me?"

"Technically, no, but as a non-commissioned officer of the Corps, you do have the right to know more than most. Also, your handling of the test at the bunker today coupled with your spectacular landing made me bump you to a full corporal. Of course, you have to want to be one of us for me to submit the paperwork…" Colonel McKnight let his words hang hoping for a quick response. He was not to be disappointed.

"I want this more than anything else ever!" Robin shouted.

The Colonel's face broke into another smile. "Good, so as soon as you are finished over there come have a seat. We have a few things I need to talk over with you."

Robin forced himself to tear his eyes off the wall and made his way back to the desk. "Sir, can I ask a question?"

Colonel McKnight snickered, "By asking the question you already are, right?"

Robin paused and his face scrunched up in momentary thought. "Wow, I guess it does kind of sound silly. Um, maybe I should have asked if I could ask about being in the Corps."

Deep laughter came up from deep within McKnight and actually echoed in the small building. "You are as quick witted as Commander Montgomery warned me you would be! Ask away Corporal!"

Robin took an uneasy breath, "Sir, I just don't want to do this without Gavin and the others, can we stay together?"

Colonel McKnight rubbed his chin, "I can keep you all together in the academy… But you want something more permanent, like a kind of Cohort unit or something, right?"

"I don't know what Cohort, means sir, sorry." Robin responded with some confusion.

"It means comrade or friend…" The Colonel leaned way back in his chair. "How about we make a deal, Robin?"

Robin cringed slightly. One thing his dad was big on was not making many promises and only giving his word when he absolutely meant what he was saying. In his dad's eyes a person's word was the most important thing one human could give to another. "Um… I'm listening, sir."

"If you complete what we were planning on asking you to do, then I will form a brand new, experimental, unit. I will even let you help pick who goes into this unit. Upon graduation, we will assign you all to the same ship… Maybe even before graduation… some of it will depend on how you all do as a cohesive unit."

Robin could not help but break into a big smile, "I'm in!"

"You don't even know what I am going to ask yet, son."

"Sir, for the chance to keep everyone together, I'll do whatever you want, no matter what it is. I don't want to leave Gavin behind and Oliver shouldn't have to go back to Mars unless he wants to. I will also do whatever it takes so Ajax and Fairfax don't to have to go back to an orphanage ever again."

"OK, then… Let's get down to business." Colonel McKnight slid forward and typed a quick access code on a small keyboard off to the side of his right hand. A moment later holographic image crystal popped up out of the center of the desk and showed Zong from orbit.

Robin looked over the rotating planet and read the three dimensional information scrolling underneath. "So this was the deployment of ISTaZ teams six months ago, right?"

"Exactly," McKnight held up a finger to stop Robin from asking more questions, "but nine weeks into their three months stay this happened," he punched in another code.

This time the image of the star system appeared and showed a gigantic Coronal Mass Ejection from the surface of the star. The star flare was so large it hit the closest planet in and shattered it, creating an asteroid belt where there was once a planet. The wave of radiation continued outward until it hit Zong's electromagnetic field, which actual crumpled inward for over six days. The image then zoomed back in on the AdventureQuest camps on Zong and this time most of the dots showing the locations of the ISTaZ teams blinked out. At the same time other large camps for kids not on ISTaZ started blinking in red and a few even disappeared. Three of the weather satellites also got knocked out of orbit and burned up as they entered the atmosphere.

"Oh, not good…" Robin whispered in horror, "What happened to all the ISTaZ teams?"

"Before I answer your question, I need to give some follow up to what you just saw." McKnight took a couple of deep breaths. "The EMP from the star was so massive it took out the emergency beacons of over ninty percent of those on AdventureQuest, not just those on ISTaZ. It also totally took out power to dozens of camps scattered across the whole world and crippled weather control.

"We were left with a rather bad choice, since we have limited resources. We moved the remaining weather sats over normal AdventureQuest areas to give us quicker control. At the same time we pulled all resources in on the worst hit big camps, since there were thousands of kids who suddenly had no support, power, communications, and in several places the EMP even knocked out water so they couldn't even use a toilet. We then moved on to the other camps in order of size and damage. By the time we got to the last few camps we had to bring in hospital ships since some of the kids were close to starving to death, since they had no clue what to do without food stations and there were no functioning holographic instructors left to give them information.

"It was either get to those who had no clue how to handle a mass outage of services or go to the last known locations of those out on ISTaZ. Since we trained kids for ISTaZ to survive, we did what we had to do. We abandoned them. Once we got the camps settled down, we went after ISTaZ teams. We found most of them and a few others got to bunkers and contacted us, but we still have a total of nine teams out there… somewhere… in addition, we have nine other partial teams somewhere, with anywhere from two to five kids in them."

Colonel McKnight let out a long breath, "At least we hoped they stayed together, but since they started fighting with each other and split up, we cannot say for certain if we have groups or individual kids roaming around at this point. We have dozens of teams out searching, but we are afraid time is running out, especially for those who were first year ISTaZ cadets. We sent them into areas where it was early spring, just like we planned on doing with you, but now…"

Robin gulped, "Those areas are now heading into fall, which means if they aren't found they will have to deal with winter and no edible plants and shortages of running water and the like."

"Once again, you're ability to grasp the situation is truly astounding for a young man of only twelve."

Robin glanced up for the holographic image, "So you want me and my team to go look for them?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes, but I actually want more. You have shown all of us you can think outside of the normal box humanity has been thrown into. You and you alone figured out a way to check out a ship no adult had ever figured a kid could get close to safely. You have rubbed off on your teammates as well. Gavin figured out a way to send a signal up to our space station which was incredible. Today, Oliver pointed out a possible danger hanging above the testing group he was with and those around him tried to shoot at it to bring it safely down. None of us ever thought about such a way to circumvent the problem before today. Then, there was your leadership of two others. Your leadership got you into a bunker safely when a full team of Advanced ISTaZ kids totally screwed it up.

"On top of all those achievements, you have consolidated the camp around you. No matter how hard we tried to tweak the tests today, we are down to a baker's dozen who don't have Outstanding marks now, and two of those who didn't quit. When we take out Team Eight out of the mix, who still have no Outstanding grades, there are five kids in this new camp who are not assured a slot at the academy and we have two more tests to give each of them."

Colonel McKnight stopped and stared at Robin. Seeing he had the youngsters full attention, he lowered his voice. "To put this about as bluntly as I can, I am asking you to help us get the six remaining teams from your camp ready to help us find some of the missing ISTaZ kids from the San Diego-San Francisco Combined Habitat Zone before we have to tell the parents we lost their kids."

The man then stared straight into Robin's eyes. "In exchange I will give every kid here rank, with you in command of them, and put you all in a unit with some others and some instructors and let you all take an expedition to some nearby systems so you can find out if being a true explorer is what you want to do."

As Robin left Colonel McKnight's office, with real Corporal rank pins on his collar, he could have sworn his legs were shaking. The offer was beyond anything he could have dreamed of. To actually go out into the stars and explore a system no human eyes have seen, what could be more exciting?

The flip side was every bit as troubling as the offer was exciting, however. Hearing there was more than seventy kids from the last ISTaZ lost on Zong and knowing Colonel McKnight was counting on him and those in the new camp to find them, scared Robin more than a little. Even though he would have offered to assist in finding them without any bonus, he couldn't help but to feel the lives of those missing kids were partially in his hands now, since there was a pay off.

Of course, the Colonel made it clear this was not the case. By just trying to help, Robin was showing what a caring person he was. The problem was Robin's mental abilities had once again kicked in. The guy was beyond worried, and it went well beyond the missing ISTaZ teams. Even though Robin didn't know why, the number forty-four kept popping up in his head, and he was certain this was a vitally important figure. He also caught glimpses in his mind of paperwork showing the partial teams had already been written off by the San-San CHZ government, since breaking away from the team leader was a direct violation of all the ISTaZ rules.

Lost in thought, Robin almost didn't notice Dillon. Suddenly, his mind registered the fact a member of Team Eight was in the new camp and he stopped. As he did so, he noticed the boy was wearing an Explorer Corps uniform with recruit rank, "Hey, where is the rest of your team?"

Dillon glanced over with a bit of a sad look. "I, ah…" the boy stammered.

Sara quickly moved up, also in uniform, only she had specialist rank on. "Dillon is with us now, Robin. Jessie threw in the towel when he blew afternoon testing and Curtis didn't want to be the only guy on our team. Commander Montgomery let us take Dillon in and we' are glad to have him!"

Dillon gave Sara a weak, and clearly forced, smile. "Yeah, I'm with Team Eleven now. Team Eight moved Frank to the leadership spot after the teachers told Randy they weren't comfortable with him being a Leader, especially with a class one concussion. Frank then talked them into waiting out the latest star storm. They picked up Wanda and transferred over to a forest only zone since Mr. O'Mally told them they were dangerously close to failing too many mountain oriented tests. The incoming star storm gave them a chance to switch camps, get a few more days of training, and test out since they do have most of the forest only stuff they need. Mrs. Dietrich said she could shuttle them over and it would give them a shot at doing some kind of ISTaZ and Frank took the offer."

"Why'd they take Wanda?" Robin demanded to know.

Sara gave a half hearted shrug, "Wanda dropped out of Team Fifteen since she was kind of in the same boat as most of Team Eight; and she really wanted to do ISTaZ. She did okay on forest, not so well in mountain survival. Besides, if she hadn't transferred over, Grace would have dropped out altogether. She was pretty mad about Randy getting bumped out of team leader spot, but her and Wanda got along pretty good so she's sticking it out."

"Why?" Robin mused, "If it came between Frank or Randy leading me, I'd take Frank any day!"

Dillon nodded, "Me to, but Grace and Vicky both have Randy's back on everything. I never did figure out why, and to be honest, I don't care."

"No need for you to care about those jerks," Megan responded with a bit of venom in her voice as she moved up to join the conversation. The fact she wore a uniform with junior corporal rank on was not lost on Robin. Neither was the fact Curtis, who was next to her, wore senior private pins. "They don't deserve squat after the way they treated you! Besides, you are with Team Eleven now!"

Dillon managed a real grin, "Yeah, and happy about it."

"So are we," Curtis smiled and patted Dillon on the back. "You're already fitting in great with us!"

Robin let out a bit of a deep breath of relief. Not only would he not have to deal with Randy, the team had a real chance; since this time they had a new leader and would be given some extra training time. He still felt like he had failed the group. At least this way, they were not his problem, since they were not part of the camp. In addition, Dillon was safe and clearly happier. The only problem was, Robin couldn't help but worry about what would happen to Team Eight once they were on their own. Even though he didn't know any of them real well, he was sure Frank was not the leader type. Still, he was a way better choice than Randy, and Robin knew it.

Since there was nothing he could do about Team Eight's situation, he moved on to more important matters. "So, what have you all been told at this point?"

Meghan turned her hands palms up and shrugged. "Not much. We were actually told a lot depended on you. I know Colonel McKnight pulled me, along with all the other team leaders, in and asked us if we felt comfortable not only doing something different than normal ISTaZ, but also having you as our overall leader."

"And?" Robin asked with a pang of fear.

"And nothing!" Meghan responded. "You already are our leader Robin. Without you, most of our teams would be panicking right about now, wondering how we' were going to pass enough tests to get a shot at ISTaZ. Instead, Dillon is my only team member without an outstanding, and the only reason he didn't get one today is because he fell this morning. All of Team Nineteen has at least one Outstanding and both team Fifteen and Seventeen are down to one member without one. Team two still has two, but both Dena and Teri got Excellent marks on retests today, which means they would have gotten an Outstanding if it had been their first time through. I think we will all have one before testing ends! You may be the youngest team leader, but you are the best and we all know it."

Curtis quickly backed up Meghan's words, "Dude, this camp is yours and you have the lead team. None of those who are here questions it. Those Corporal starbursts you are wearing only reinforce what those of in this camp already know. You are a leader and as I see it, in command whenever the adults are not around. We all got asked if we could follow your lead, and once we agreed we were made part of the Corps."

Dillon also joined in with a shy voice. "From what we are hearing, from those who are setting up the camp, this is all because of you. The Corps is building an entire training camp from the ground up for you! If you think anyone around here is going to question what you decide… well, it just ain't going to happen. Besides, you are ranking member and we all had to formally take an oath to the Corps. You are in command, Corporal."

For Robin, the words coming from the older kids were both comforting and scary. The others were deferring to him and his rank which meant his decisions were not going to be argued, but it also meant those lost out in the wilds of Zong where squarely in his hands. From here on, his decisions could be the difference between life and death of over seventy kids from the SanSan CHZ. Kids who didn't even know him were now, unknowingly, looking to him to rescue them.

Sara frowned as she saw some color draining form Robin's face, "You okay?"

"Yeah…" Robin exhaled nervously, "Um, how close are we to having the camp ready and am I the last arrival?"

"They finished the mess hall about half an hour ago while you were meeting with the Colonel and everyone else is here, other than Oliver." Meghan answered. "There are still some generators and electronics going in, but camp is set."

Before Robin could ask, Sara spoke up, "Mr. Montgomery had Oliver take him back up in a flyer for some extra practice and to get his hand looked at by doctors in the space station."

Robin's eyes went wide, "What happened to Oliver?"

"He broke a finger when he saved my life this morning," Dillon looked down with a face full of guilt.

"He'll be fine, though," Meghan assured Robin. "Commander Montgomery wanted to get a non-electrostatic cast put on to prevent the possibility of the star storm messing with the glove-cast circuitry and figured it would be a good chance to get Oliver some space time. They will be back by lights out."

Robin nodded his understanding, but still punched up Oliver's comp pad on his own. "Hey, heard you hurt your hand."

"Nothing major, Robin, just a broken finger," Oliver's voice came back, "but can't talk now. I am getting a crash course on space station docking."

"Bad choice of words!" Robin giggled. "The last thing I want to hear is crash and space station docking in the same sentence!"

This got some laughter out of both Jasper and Oliver, not to mention those around Robin.

Still snickering, Robin spoke again. "Mr. Montgomery, since I was told this was your idea, I know you know the plan. I'm sure you already guessed as much, but I' am going to take Colonel McKnight up on his offer. Can you brief Oliver, since I want to hold a meeting down here and get things set?"

"You got it Corporal."

"Thanks, Commander," Robin couldn't help himself as he grinned at those around him, "and don't let Oliver scratch the paint like Fairfax did on his first docking. Painting up in space sucks and he'd have to do it alone with a bad hand."

"Huh?" everyone around Robin heard Oliver's voice suddenly shout out.

"You'll be fine, Oliver," Robin laughed. "Have fun!" he then signed off, cutting off any response.

"Oh, that was mean!" Sara snickered.

Robin eyes danced with merriment. "At least this way he can't say he wasn't warned. Part of pilot training is being a member of the repair crew whenever you cause damage beyond normal wear and tear. It took us almost two hours to paint the side of the flyer in space suits and zero G after Fairfax put a scrape all the way down the side of the flyer on his first docking attempt. It was not much fun."

"Sounds fun to me," Dillon interjected. "I'd love to spend some time in zero gravity!"

"Hopefully, we'll all get a chance before we see Earth again," Robin smiled.

Curtis eyed Robin carefully. "Really?"

"Yeah, but we got lots to do if it's going to happen," Robin nodded as he turned his attention to the Team Eleven leader. "Meghan, can you get everyone together and have them gather in the mess hall?"

"Sure," The girl answered quickly. "I know we are all wondering what this is all about, especially since they had us all do recordings, telling parents we would be staying on AdventureQuest long term as some sort of bonus, as well as telling them we are now part of the corps and the academy as a whole. I think Jesse would have stuck it out, but once he heard we were going to stay longer he wanted out."

"I still think he was a bit homesick," Curtis stated sadly. "Which is too bad, cause, I really liked him and he loved being here. He just missed his mom and bother too much to stay gone more than three months and even that was going to be real hard on him."

Robin swallowed hard, "Probably best he didn't stick then."

"So, we really aren't going home after our three months?" Dillon asked with a degree of excitement none of the others had heard out of the youngster yet.

"We may not even be off Zong by then," Robin informed the small group with a shrug. "One thing we all need to make sure of is those with us are comfortable not going home for a while, a long while. I need to stow my gear. I'll meet you all at the mess hall in like fifteen minutes or so."

As Robin adjusted his pack and moved toward his team's building, Curtis glanced over to Sara and spoke with a shake of excitement in his voice, "Um, am I missing something?"

"I think we all are," Sara spoke slowly, "But, by judging on your tone, you picked up something I missed."

Dillon nodded, "Yeah… I think I heard the same thing." He chewed on his lip, "Um, unless I just misunderstood, there is a chance we will be off of Zong in three months, but not going home…"

Meghan felt a tingle shoot down her spine as the meaning of Robin's words hit her, "Okay, so where in the hell are we going?"

Sara let out a whistle. "Let's get everyone together! I can't wait to hear this!"

Robin entered the building and noted it was quite a bit nicer than the generic dorm style buildings back at the training camp. Each member of his team had a real bed, a foot locker, a locker, and there was even an entertainment system with a rack of games and movies on mem-sticks. Even as he silently watched Ajax, Gavin and Fairfax playing some shooting game, Robin also noted there were power interrupters coming out of the back of all the electronics to prevent any damage during star storms.

In addition, the small place card racks where the names of those attending ISTaZ training were normally put were gone. Instead, his name and rank were etched into the foot locker, wall locker, and bed. Inside the open wall locker he saw real Explorer Corps uniforms waiting form him, and it even included a pair of red and black dress uniforms. He couldn't help but smile at the fact the Colonel and Mr. Montgomery had indeed guessed he would take them up on the offer. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he had said no.

Before his mind could go further down the 'what if' road, Gavin glanced up from the game station revealing junior corporal rank on his brand new uniform. "Robin! We all got to see your water landing! It is already on its way to Earth to be shown as a new commercial for the Corps. You're going to be famous; how cool can you get!"

Fairfax and Ajax also turned away from the game, nodding in agreement. Both of them wore Explorer Corp uniforms with senior private rank pins on their collars.

Robin tossed his gear on his bed with an embarrassed grin. "Yeah, I can assure you, the first vid we get from our parents will not be saying how cool it is to see me skipping a Lander over the water. I sure hope they give our folks some warning."

Gavin chuckled, "You better shoot them off a vid first, bro. I do not want to deal with having to explain not going home on time, but also what you are doing all over the vids doing a water landing. One is already pushing it. So what is the deal anyway?"

"I'll tell everyone in the mess hall. I'm holding a meeting in like fifteen minutes." Robin glanced over the rank pins and over to Oliver's closed locker, noting it had his rank listed as Specialist. "So how did this whole rank thing happen? So far, all the kids I have seen have real Explorer Corps ranks."

"Everyone at the camp is now getting paid and is in the Corps!" Fairfax stated with exuberance. "Those who have not gotten an Outstanding mark yet, are in as a recruit with an automatic bump to Private if they get one. Everyone else is at least a Private. I'm not sure how and why the upgrades on ranks were handed out, but whatever! The important thing is we are a team and Ajax and I never have to see the orphanage in Chi-Troit ever again!"

"Amen!" Ajax added. "I do want to go back though…"

"What?" Fairfax shouted.

"Yeah…" Ajax grinned fiendishly, "Wearing this uniform and flashing some of the credits I'm now getting paid."

Gavin laughed, "I'd love to go with you just to see the faces of those who messed with you!"

"I'd prefer to see you kick the teeth out of a few of them the way you did to Randy," Fairfax responded with a snort.

"Somehow, I don't think, The Corp would allow it," Robin grinned, "but it sure would be nice to go as a team and show them the new and much improved pecking order."

"Man, that sounds fun," Ajax admitted, then turned his attention to Robin. "So, can't we get a hint as to what all this is about?"

Robin let out a long breath. "They want us to go into the areas where they sent ISTaZ teams from SanSan CHZ and find them."

"They lost a whole team?" Gavin asked with a bit of shock.

"I wish…" Robin shook his head. "No, a star storm way bigger than the one we have heading this way now, hit Zong about six months ago. They lost all the ISTaZ teams. Corps rescue teams found most, but there are still several full and partial teams out there. We need to go out and find them."

Fairfax could have sworn his blood just went ice cold on him. "Six months with no support? Why don't they just go to a bunker and call for help?"

"I'm not totally sure. There are a couple of kids from SanSan Near Ocean Seven who will be able to answer questions, but from what I hear, they are badly shook up and just getting out of medical after almost two months. Colonel McKnight called for them to be brought down from the space station as soon as I agreed to lead the efforts."

Ajax chewed on his lip, "Any chance you can use your future vision thing to help find them?"

"Maybe…" Robin shrugged. "The problem I have, is I don't see a way to connect with them. We can certainly try a few times and if we can find a camp maybe I can go from there too. Is the mind talking still working?"

Gavin gave a shrug with a single shoulder, "We can, but it is not as strong. We kind of hoped you'd give us another boost when Oliver gets back."

"Be a good time to try to find one of the other teams," Ajax added, clearly wanting to feel the tingle in his brain again.

"Sounds like a plan," Robin readily agreed as he changed into a uniform with a short sleeved shirt, "But Mrs. Anderson is going to give us a special class tonight, so we'll have to do it the second Oliver gets back."

"Special class?" Fairfax's voice told the other three he was not thrilled by the announcement.

"Yeah, and you will love it!" Robin grinned, then snickered, as he saw the look of total skepticism cross Fairfax's face. "Dude, seriously, this is something you and Oliver will freaking love. Trust me."

"Okay then," Fairfax stood and set the game controller down. "If this is some kind of trick…"

Gavin rolled his eyes, "If it's something both you and Oliver will be into, it's got to be about rocks or edible plants, which means I'm going to be bored to tears."

"I don't think so…" Robin let his voice hang, showing he fully expected Gavin to be wrong.

"And you aren't going to tell us more, are you?" Ajax grumbled.

"Nope," Robin shot the other three a grin and headed to the door. "Some things are worth waiting for."

Ajax closed his eyes and sent a thought to the other two. 'If this is some sort of work detail, I am going to shove him in the pond outside of camp.'

A strong, 'I heard that!' pierced the minds of all three kids, causing them to laugh as they exited.

This got some strange looks from members of Team Seventeen as they made their way past Robin's building toward the mess hall. Nothing was said, however.

Robin stood at the front of the room and chatted with Mrs. Anderson while other others trickled in. It felt kind of weird to be seen by adults as a leader, but there was no question he was basically seen as a member of the Corps by the adults. The very fact Mrs. Anderson was leaving the whole meeting up to Robin told him just how much respect he had earned from those who he still saw as his teachers.

As the last few came in and sat down Robin let out an audible breath, while using his note-puter to pull up a map of Zong. Several dots appeared in the northern hemisphere.

Talking between the assembled kids dropped off quickly as Robin stood and moved up to stand next to the three dimensional display. "First off, thanks for placing enough trust in me to join me here."

Jason spoke up, "Man, most of us wouldn't be ISTaZ ready without you and your team. We owe you, not the other way around!"

This got a round of mummers of agreement and even some applause.

"As much as I want to say thanks for the compliment, you all may have some second thoughts by the time I am done. By coming here, you agreed to become part of something different."

"So we are giving up ISTaZ?" Lynn asked.

"No," Robin shook his head. "We are still going out, but not where we expected; nor are we going out to simply survive." Robin pointed to the map. "One hundred and sixty seven days ago this was the known deployment of all AdventureQuest camps and ISTaZ teams on Zong. I have all the Advanced ISTaZ teams in orange and the first year ISTaZ teams in red. Green blobs are major camps. The yellow globs are smaller camps. At the time, the Western US and a few thousand kids from the Eastern Asia Consortium were enjoying their time here."

Robin tapped his note-puter and pulled up another image of Zong. This time there were far fewer dots and almost no ISTaZ dots. "Two hours later, the biggest star storm ever recorded, anywhere, slammed into Zong. This is the readings from one hundred and sixty four days ago."

The few kids who were talking, stopped, as they looked at the two displays.

Robin gave everyone a few seconds before he started speaking again. "The storm blew out over ninety percent of the emergency beacons planet wide, while taking out the holographic instructors, food stations, power, and water to most of the camps. The Explorer Corps went into full rescue mode and several US CHZ star ships were brought in, but in order to get to most of the kids, the decision was made to go after the ISTaZ teams last."

Robin put up a third display. This one showed dots of red, orange, and grey. There were two Orange dots, seven red, and nine grey ones. Above each dot was a team description and number. "This was as of fifty four days ago, and it has not changed. Grey dots are partial teams that got separated or split up; parts of those teams have been recovered. Those dots are where the team leaders were found, so the others could be anywhere. Unfortunately, the same could be said of the other dots, because those are last known positions and they have had over a hundred and sixty days of walking between those dots and now."

Robin dropped the first two displays and moved up to the last one. "Guys, it's basically late September where we are and we are pretty close to the same latitude as these remaining teams. They have been out for one hundred and ninety eight days, one hundred and sixty seven of them without any support. Making matters worse, all weather sats over the ISTaZ areas were pulled because there was damage to several weather satellites over the camps. This means they have had to deal with unregulated weather, and it looks like they are going to have to do so again, since all weather sats have already shut down in preparation for the latest star storm.

"To make this nice and short, I'll tell you this… I have agreed to get an extra week and a half of training while we let this latest star storm pass and then go out there and try to find them. We will need some classes in grassland, near ocean, jungle, and straight forest areas."

Robin glanced around the room, "The other thing we will all have to get is winter training; since we are only weeks away from snow falling in some of these areas and the mountain areas have already had their first dustings. This means some of the edible plants will not be there for us."

Meghan spoke up, "Which means they are going to be running out of one of their major food sources too! I'm in and I'll volunteer my team as the second advanced training team!"

The same sentiment quickly rolled across the whole room.

Robin looked upward in some relief, "Thanks, but the next part is where we really come in. Colonel McKnight and Commander Montgomery, along with our other instructors, think we need to be the one to go in and try to find them, because we can think like them. We have all learned how to look beyond what we are being taught, which is why we have so many Outstanding grades. They need us to do the same thing, only this time we need to try to use this same kind of imagination to guess what these teams did and are continuing to do. In simple terms, we need to try to think the same way they are.

"At the same time we have to remember our training so we stay safe."

Jeff raised his hand.

Robin pointed to him, "Question?"

"Um, well, yeah. I mean, as long as my team is in so am I. But, are we like staying out there until we find them or something?"

"The Corps is giving us ninety days, then we re-evaluate. If a team is found, we will get them out and relocate to another area. If we are still having success, we will stay longer. Why?"

"Just wondering why we had to record a message about not coming home on schedule. My folks are going to freak out a bit."

"So are mine," Robin assured Jeff, along with others who were nodding their heads in agreement. "Once we're done there is something else which will keep us away for quite a bit longer. But I need to see who doesn't want to do this. It isn't what we all signed up for and it's a lot more dangerous."

When no one moved, Colonel McKnight came up from behind Robin and spoke, "Robin is absolutely correct and even though the instructors have all talked to you and you agreed to be here, there is no shame in backing out. We will form an ISTaZ team or teams out of any who want to back out and send you to a zone after your final tests if you want."

Again no one moved. Finally, Steve spoke up, "I think I speak for everyone in Team Nineteen when I say we are in, and even if my team doesn't get to go after one of the advanced teams, I think it would be a good idea for all of us to get the advanced training. We are going to need everything we can get once we get out there."

"Same goes for Team Fifteen!" Tasha spoke up, from the other side of the room. "We're with Robin."

Ellen and Patrick, the two other team leaders, quickly followed suit.

Colonel McKnight looked around once more then nodded. "I will get a few more instructors here and get the training ready." He then smiled. "I think I will leave the reward for you all agreeing to try this in the Corporal's able hands." He patted Robin on the shoulder and exited the back of the mess hall.

"Reward?" Sara asked as she looked down at her specialist rank pins. "I thought being allowed to be a full paid member of the Corps was the reward!"

"Only part of it," Robin managed a grin. "The other part is an optional trip."

"To where?" Sean demanded to know.

"Not real sure," Robin snickered nervously. "If we can find enough of those missing, I think the number is forty four, then we get to be part of a real explorer crew and we get to pick what two unexplored systems within wormhole range of Zong we want to check out. Commander Montgomery, and most of our other instructors, will command the ship and show us everything we need to know and start us on our academy classes. We may not be back on Earth for over a year, and if it takes that long, we get to have our next ISTaZ here before we go back."

For several seconds every kid in the hall held their breaths. One by one, each let out a gasp and sucked in a new breath.

Robin nodded. "In addition, I got permission for all of us to stay together, even after the academy, and become part of a starship crew as a group. If we…." Robin shook his head and crossed his arms in front of himself a few times. "Once we find those missing, we will start training to become the core of an Explorer Starship. Even better, when we get to the academy, all of us will have pilot wings, real rank, and a System Exploration Patch with a cluster. The only problem will be, you have to agree to me staying in command of you all. Colonel McKnight wouldn't agree to it otherwise. I tried."

"You already are in charge of us, Robin," Troy managed to point out, while shaking with excitement. "Let's get to training so we can go find the missing teams."

Robin managed a smile. "Today we take it easy and adjust to the new time zone. As long as everyone is still with me, starting tomorrow, I want to have a couple hours of study each night on the new classes and tests, with at least one more hour spent on ideas of what we should all look for once we get out there. Try to put yourself in their situation, think about what you would do, where you would go, and what you would all make priorities if you suddenly were stranded while out on ISTaZ.

"There is a good chance we are going to lose most electronics over the next couple of days, so it will be a good time to think it over. We will all meet back here in an hour to hear from a couple of those rescued. They will be able to tell us what happened and what they did before finally getting spotted fifty four days ago. Also, after dinner and before lights out, Mrs. Anderson is offering a special fun class. I highly recommend you all attended, and those with laser rifles, bring them, since we are going to be outside the perimeter and will need some guards."

Robin stood back and waited until the mess hall emptied. He was somewhat surprised no one took Colonel McKnight's offer to move them to a normal ISTaZ team. He guessed part of it was many of the others realized if the situation was reversed they would hope for someone to come find them. Others were probably too afraid or embarrassed to say they wanted out, though, and that bothered Robin.

Robin took a chair, spun it around and sat backwards on it. He stared at his note-puter for a few minutes before hitting the audio and video record button. "Mom, Dad… I guess by now you have seen or have at least heard of the Explorer vid with me behind the controls. Don't freak out about it, I have some awesome instructors here and they would not have let me do it had they not been certain I could."

Robin smiled and brushed some of his red hair out, away from his eyes before he continued. "Gavin and I have made some friends here as well, and this world is the most amazing place ever. Because we have done so well, we were asked to do a special project and… well I don't think I'll be home when you expect me. Also…" Robin giggled and pulled at his collar, "I am a real Explorer now. This isn't cadet rank, it's the real thing…. I even got enough pull to get you moved over so you and Gavin's parents can be neighbors in a nice building."

He took a deep breath and wiped away a couple of tears, "I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I am going to go to the academy when this is over, so I don't know when I will get to see you again. Gavin is going to be by my side, as are three of the best guys I have ever met. I'll make a vid of all of us so they can introduce themselves before I leave for ISTaZ, but Oliver is from Mars and Fairfax and Ajax are both from Chi-Triot.

"I know it before I say it that it isn't possible… me saying don't worry is about as stupid and pointless as it gets, but I am going to say it anyway. Don't worry. I can't ever imagine being this happy, this free. If you could just see this place… see the stars at night, smell the non-metallic air, and feel rain and snow hitting your face with no smell or pollution… It's all here and I know it will hurt to hear this, but this is my greatest dream."

Robin choked back a few tears and wiped his eyes with the corner of his sleeve. "My only wish would be to have you here with me. I will be back on Earth and will see you, but when I do, don't expect me to stay. Don't ask me to stay. This is where I belong. I'm an Explorer at heart and the stars, not Earth, is the home I want. Please say goodbye to my soccer team and scout troop. I'm going to miss them too. I'll send vids when I am able. Love you all…" Robin cut off the recording before he started to cry.

Robin glanced down at his note-puter while his finger hovered over the erase all button. After a few more seconds of debate, he sighed. Part of him wanted to record a new message, one that showed only smiles, but it felt wrong to do so. Finally his finger moved over to the other side of the small hand held device and pushed the send key. He knew even as he did so, he was certain his parents would be able to see how tough it had been for him to record the message.

He wiped some more tears out of his eyes and took a few calming breaths. As he looked up he saw Jasper, with Oliver, escorting three other kids. All three of the others looks showed there were all but terrified.

Robin tapped his note-puter, turning it off, and stood.

Jasper moved up and looked down. "You OK?"

"Yeah…" Robin let out a long, somewhat shaky breath, "I just know my parents won't really understand why I don't want to come home. Both of them came here shortly after AdventureQuest started and both went home early. Dad always talks about how awful it was to get rained on, snowed on, and be cold. At the same time Mom, only seems to remember how things stopped working and hearing kids cry about wanting to go home."

Jasper patted Robin on the back and squeezed his shoulder, "When they were here, it wasn't nearly as well established or nice as it is now. There were lots of glitches and at the time, there were adults in command of each camp, since holographic instructors and the like were nowhere near as good as they are today, and many of the adults had some problems with OSS. It didn't make for a good combination."

Robin shrugged, "Yeah, but I am loving everything they hated, other than the kids crying part. But we haven't really had too much homesickness like mom talks about." He glanced over to Oliver, wanting to take his mind off the message he had just sent up to the space station so it could be sent back to Earth. "How's the hand?"

Oliver held up a non-electronic cast, from made out of metalplast. "I came close to crying, if you want to know the truth, but they did a quick bone fusing so it doesn't hurt as much. Plus this metalplast cast only immobilizes the pinky and side of the hand, so it is nicer than the electro glove-cast. I will still have to wait a couple of days before I can test out with rifle, though. How is Dillon?"

"Happy to be out of Team Eight." Robin grinned, "You did good."

Oliver forced a smile and turned to the other three kids so he could introduce them. "Robin, I'd like you to meet three of the seven kids from San San's Near Ocean Seven ISTaZ Team."

A moment later, Oliver opened the door in his mind and sent a thought over. 'The older one is Dwight, and he is very conscious about his injuries. The blond is Benjy and is scared out of his mind. The dark haired one is Saul and only a day older than me. Saul is probably the leader of them, even though they are looking to Dwight for some reason. Space command said they could stay and help, but…'

Robin returned the thought. 'Let's give them some time and see what happens. We still have some extra classes to go through and by then we'll have a better feel for them.'

Oliver nodded then pointed in the direction of the tallest kid, a sandy haired, brown eyed kid who had a rather nasty scar running from the left corner of his mouth all the way down his neck. It disappeared under his shirt. "This is Dwight, he is the oldest, but just turned thirteen a month ago."

Robin moved forward and offered his hand. "Were you team leader, Dwight?"

The slightly smaller boy, the one Robin already knew was Saul, moved up. He pushed his jet back hair out and away from his very light blue eyes, and spoke. "No, but Dwight took over after our leader lost his nerve on us." The boy extended his hand and took Robin's hand. "Dwight's right hand still isn't working right, so he doesn't like to shake hands. I'm Saul."

Robin grimaced as he shook Saul's hand. He could feel Dwight's desire to not speak and his nervousness about his facial scar. "Glad to meet you. You all look pretty jittery. Is everything OK?"

"OK?" the youngest boy, a very thin, golden haired, green eyed boy spoke up with a clearly frightened squeak in his already high pitched voice. "I never wanted to set another foot on this world! It killed Ricky, almost killed Dwight and Ryan, then broke Nile! Now I am here again and stuck since there is another star storm coming! Why did I ever want to come here?"

Saul glanced over and protectively pulled the golden haired boy over to him. "Benjy, relax, man. We are here to help find Ryan and Robby. We can't give up on them and you are the one who wanted to join us. You could have stayed up on the station."

Robin moved up and put his hand on Benjy's quaking form. The moment he made contact he saw the image of Dwight holding on to a boy's feet as the boy he was holding onto tried to put a rope through a rescue hook of a third boy who was hanging onto to some tree roots just out of the second boy's reach. At the same time a jagged rock was cutting into Dwight's face. Rain beat down on all of them so hard it stung.

Benjy, for his part, was with another boy. They had the other end of the rope around a tree further back ready to haul up the boy as soon as the rope was put though the safety hook.

Suddenly Dwight slipped as a bit more of the waterlogged cliff side gave out from under him; this sent him sliding some. The rock which had dug into his cheek sliced down further ripping flesh and the boy's shirt. Only the actions of a slightly older and bigger boy prevented Dwight from going all the way over with the other kid he was holding onto. A moment later the kid they were trying to get to, lost his grip and fell screaming. He hit and bounced off a rock hitting the beech almost thirty meters below the group. Even after such a fall, Robin could see the boy was moving, albeit slightly.

Dwight screamed in pain, as the rock continued to dig into him. At the same time his hands started to slip from around the other boy's feet. He gripped down with everything he had and pulled the kid up, but smashed his hand quite badly on the edge of the cliffs as he finally dragged up the other bawling boy.

Robin forced himself to endure the images as he continued to keep his hand on the terrified boy. "You are doing the right thing, and you are in a safe camp. No one here is going to let anything bad happen to you. If you would feel better, I can get a couple from my team to stick by you while you are here."

Saul kept Benjy in a tight grip and gave an appreciative smile to Robin. "Benjy promised Ryan's folks he would take care of Ryan, so he is afraid to go home without him. If you could help us find him…"

Robin seemed to harden with an inner resolve. "We have six teams here, and all of us are going to do everything we can to find as many as possible. I can tell none of you want to be here but refuse to be anywhere else, so let me thank you. Your willingness to do this shows how much you all care."

Dwight finally spoke. When he did, his voice sounded a bit raspy, giving some proof his throat had been damaged as well. "Colonel McKnight already thanked us, but I want to say thank you from us for your kindness and willingness to try this."

Robin glanced down at Dwight's hand, noting it had some kind of nerve monitoring device on it. Not wanting to let anyone dwell on their injuries, especially after the warning from Oliver, he stuck out his left hand. He forced a grin. "An off hand shake is better than nothing."

Dwight accepted the left hand with genuine thanks in his eyes. "I can't let go with the right hand some times. The doctor's say one of two more nerve treatments will get me back to normal, but I have to wait fifty days between each one. The voice thing is probably for life, but at least I can open and close my hand without help most of the time now and can talk, just can't yell. Are you really going to try to find the others?"

"Yeah," Robin nodded solemnly, "this whole camp and everyone in it is here to be a backbone for a base of operations to find those from San San who are still out there. We will do everything in our power to find them all.

Saul eyed Robin, "Word up at the space station says you have four Outstanding…"

"Actually he is five for five." Oliver spoke before Saul finished. "With his help almost everyone in camp has one Outstanding and most of us have at least two." Oliver glanced over to Robin, "I got to take Geothermal Dangers as part of my flight testing and aced it; Jay also got an Outstanding so all of Team fifteen is in."

Robin grinned in satisfaction. "So who is left?"

Jasper rolled his eyes. "Dillon, Dena, Teri, and Tiffany, but we sent Tiffany's up for review. She may have one by the time I give after dinner announcements."

"Awesome." Robin's voice was calm as he glanced over to Oliver. "Round up everyone and let them know our guests are here. Tell them to bring their packs, cause some of what we are going to be told will be about our gear. Also let's put some classes together for Dillon, Dena and Teri. If Tiffany didn't make the grade, we'll hold a special class for her tomorrow." A gleam came into Robin's eyes as he got an image of Jasper's hand held flashing confirmation of the grade for Tiffany. "But I get the feeling she did."

A moment later Jasper's note-puter beeped. All the kids in the room watched as Jasper eyes went momentarily wide. "Yeah… No need to give her extra classes, Specialist."

Oliver gave a quick nod before heading out the door, trying hard not to giggle at Jasper's flustered expression. He sent Robin a thought as he left. 'I'll grab your pack too, and be careful. Benjy is not… Um… totally there… like in the brain or something.'

Jasper glanced over at Robin with a bemused shake of his head. "Corporal, I need to contact command. We need to find billeting for these three. Also, let's keep Tiffany's grade unknown for now. Let me at least have the pleasure of announcing it."

"No problem, Commander." Robin had to force himself not to snicker.

Saul waited until Jasper left the mess hall, "Corporal, I want in."

It took Robin a second to realize the boy was addressing him since he was busy studying Benjy. When it did finally click, he turned his attention back to the boy who was very close to his own age. "Drop the ranks. I'm Robin." He paused and looked over again doing his best to sound surprised, "What do you mean you want in?"

Dwight spoke up. "Look, I got clearance, even with my bad hand, to join in the search. So did Saul and Benjy. We are all recovered enough to go back out. Dwight glanced over to Benjy, "I need to be on a different team than him though. He still blames me…"

"No I don't!" Benjy fired back. "I am just mad we left em!"

Saul shook his head, "Ben, you know the rules and we have been though this; it was Nile's call and he made it. We tried to get down there, but there was no way. You did the right thing by sticking with us."

"It doesn't feel like it." Benjy looked down and kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe. "We left him down there."

Robin's abilities kicked in again as he saw and heard several hours of conversation all within moments. The kids tried half a dozen times to try to get down the cliff, but each time they got close more of it crumbled as the heavy rain continued to pummel them. The attempts broke into a heated argument between the kids of San San's ISTaZ Near Ocean Seven. After nearly two more hours two of the others refused to leave when Nile, the team leader, finally made the call to abandon the boy. Instead of finding a direct path down, Nile decided they would try to skirt the cliffs, find a way down, and attempt to get to him before it was too late.

Begrudgingly, Dwight, Saul, and Benjy agreed, but the other two were having none of it. Nile tried once again to order them to come, but it was to no avail. They were not going to leave their buddy dying at the base of the cliff with the tide slowly moving in.

Four days later the group of four finally found a way down and worked their way back up along the beach, but try as they might they could find no sign of the injured boy or the other two. Truth be told, none of the four were certain of the exact spot the boy had fallen from. Still, they spent another week looking both along the beach and then going back up top and even tried climbing areas of the cliff face once it had dried, but they could find no sign of the other two from their team or the injured, presumed dead, kid.

Robin briefly wondered what he would have done in the same situation. Would he have stayed, risking other team member to try to get to Gavin or one of the others? He tried to hide is horror, but still trembled slightly. Fortunately, at least in Robin's way of thinking, the other three were too preoccupied to notice. One thing was for sure, there was no right answer nor was there a good one. In the end, the team leader probably made the right call, but what a horrible call to have to make.

At the same time, the two who refused to follow the team leader were very much in the wrong, but Robin couldn't blame them either. He seriously doubted Ajax would leave Fairfax under similar circumstances, no matter what Robin said.

Robin looked over the three kids once more, suddenly realizing why Mrs. Anderson had him make three fully equipped packs. He let out a long breath before turning his full attention to Dwight. "I'll try to find teams for you all to hook up with, but I'm not going to guarantee anything. We have spent the last few days trying to unite everyone behind the goal of getting as many as possible to the academy and the teams are pretty tight."

Saul spoke up, "Look, I know we look like we are ready to jump out of our own skins and run, but we need to do this!"

Dwight quickly turned to Saul, "Back off. This isn't your camp or mine."

Robin watched as Saul's eyes flashed in anger but he quickly took a step back and shut his mouth. Actually, he clamped it shut causing his lips to lose color. It didn't take much to see Dwight was indeed the leader of the three, even though Saul really wanted to be.

Partially because of this and partially to make a point about who Robin saw as the better leader, he turned away from Saul and focused back in on Dwight, "Look, I know you can all help us. After everything you have been though, you have proved your are survivors and probably know more about ISTaZ than the most advanced teams getting ready to hit their zones.

I think we can find you all slots, but your guys need to understand if they get an offer to join a team, they come in as a team member and the leader of the team is their new leader. I can't and won't guarantee you slots and I sure can't assure you any team will be willing to take two of you. To be honest, I think it would be better to split you up so you are forced to become a team member instead of being two separate teams in the same group. I need you to take a few minutes with Benjy and Saul, decide if you are all OK with being separated and being part of a team with a leader you all aren't used to. If you are, great. If not, I understand. You can still help us as we get ready and take a few more classes."

Robin glanced back to the other two. "Saul, you clearly are the most comfortable with being here, so I would like you to take the lead on telling everyone what happened with the star storm hit. We all need a clear picture of what it was like, what you all were thinking, and why you all did whatever you ended up doing.

"The best chance we have of finding your teammates and the others is to try to think like they did and try to figure out what they saw as the best options. The more you join in and help all of us the better the chance of getting offered a slot on a team too."

Saul glanced over to Benjy, "Ben, I am going to do whatever it takes to go back out again, even if it means not being on the same team as you…"

Dwight moved up behind Benjy and put his left hand on the boy's shoulder. "Once this latest star storm passes we can get you a fight back up to the station. You can be safe while Saul and me go back out…"

Tears started trickling down Benjy's cheeks as he shook his head. "I left Ryan once, I can't do it again." He took a couple of deep breaths trying to calm some, but failed badly. "Find me a team that'll take me… Please…"

Robin cringed, "OK, but there is no shame in changing your minds, any of you. We have some standard equipment packs set up for three extras, but you may want to go through them and change out some gear once you talk to the whole camp. Also, it would be helpful if you would all add in what you are certified in and what classes you have. None of us have any ocean classes since we were a mountain forest ISTaZ camp, so a good way to find a team to take you, is to let it be known you have some skills and training we don't."

Robin stopped talking as members from Team Two entered the mess hall.

The moment Dwight saw the six girls enter, he took a couple of steps to get behind Robin attempting to hide himself behind the tallest person around him.

Even though the attempt was all but wasted because Dwight was several centimeters taller, Robin could clearly feel the boy was happy to have anything between him and those looking at him. Not sure what the best way to handle this, Robin stayed put and motioned for Ellen's group to take a seat at one of the tables.

Seeing Ellen and Lynn both frown, Robin forced a smile. "Let's get everyone here so I can make a quick round of introductions. Our guests are a bit nervous about being back down on Zong, especially since there is another star storm coming."

Ellen nodded understanding, bust still spoke up, directing her words at the three kids form Near Ocean Seven. "This whole camp has your backs, guys."

Before she finished talking all of Team Seventeen entered. Lynn shot a glance over to Jay, "Nice work on the Outstanding!"

Jay grinned as he fingered his newly awarded private rank pin. "Thanks, but I'd have been so screwed without Oliver. Man, am I glad Team Five gave him a slot!"

At the same time, Team Seventeen's leader, Patrick turned his attention to the three up front with Robin. "Ellen speaks for all of us guys. You aren't alone here."

A bit of confusion flickered in Saul's eyes as he whispered over to Benjy, "This ain't nothing like our training camp."

Benjy chewed on his lip and nodded slightly, "Yeah, they are like one huge team, er something."

Robin couldn't help but grin. "We try."

Before more could be said Team Nineteen and Team Fifteen entered as one large group. As they broke up to sit at their mess hall tables, several of them took a few seconds to congratulate Jay.

"Try, nothing!" Dwight muttered in astonishment. "Back when we went though training it was team against team and at the end it was a scramble to put teams together out of what was left after almost half of the camp dropped out during testing week. Our whole camp got four Outstanding marks!"

Robin let out a bit of an uneasy breath. He really wanted to ask why so few, but to do so just wouldn't sound right nor would it put the three kids more at ease. Instead he decided on a different approach. "The way I see it, we aren't in a contest with each other; we are in competition with our assigned zones. The more we help each other, the more we learn and the better chance we all have to win."

Oliver came back with the rest of Robin's team. Almost instantly Robin picked up on some mind to mind chatter between the other four as Oliver filled the others in on what he knew and had heard. After several seconds, he focused in on the rest of his team, 'Guys, let's give the floor to Dwight, Saul, and Ben. We can mind talk later and I can tell you all need a boost, so I'll give you one, OK?'

Robin quickly found them 'slamming the door' to their mind broadcasting and they all looked up at him with a bit of a guilty look. Oliver on the other hand sent a waning, 'Don't call him Ben, it is Benjy. He gets real mad if anyone other than Saul or Dwight calls him anything but Benjy.'

At the same time, more than a few others noticed the strange reaction of those in Robin's team, but Robin didn't let anyone focus on it. Instead he directed all attention to himself as he started with a quick round of introductions of the three new arrivals, making sure to emphasize Benjy's name.

Robin glanced back at the three noticing all three of them looked surprised at how he made it a point to tell the others of Benjy's preference of being called by his full first name. "So, I guess the best thing would be for me to turn this all over to one of you."

Saul was quick to take the lead as he glanced over to Robin one last time and shrugged off the fact Robin knew something none of them had talked about. He moved forward and glanced over to Oliver as he started talking, "We kind of talked about what we should say on the way down from the medical station. Oliver suggested we start from the point where we lost contact to command and our beacons blew…" He paused and glanced over the assembled group nervously, "Um, do you all, like agree?"

Patrick spoke up, "I am interested in if you all got any kind of warning. Did you know the star storm was coming?"

Dwight closed his eyes so he could not see how many were looking at him as he spoke. "I hurt my throat so this is about as loud as I can talk, so sorry… But um, we got an alert on our emergency comm units the day before warning of potential electrical interference and possible equipment damage. The automated message warned us to discharge our laser and or stunner packs to half so they would not overload, and do the same with any personal equipment, like music player, laser pointers, and the like. It also told us weather sats and communications were going to be down for up to a week.

"Furthermore, we were advised to find a place to hunker down for a few days so there was less a chance of injury, since emergency evacuation flights would not be possible during the height of the storm. It sure didn't prepare us for what happened on the second day of the storm, though."

Patrick nodded his understanding and punched a couple of buttons on his note-puter. "Then I guess, the next thing we really need to know is what happened and when."

When no one else spoke up Saul continued, "Well, the first night of the storm, the sky really lit up as the polar lights extended way down. I guess we probably should have taken this as a warning and done what the alert recommended, but we were not real close to a decent fresh water source. Part of dealing with being on a Near Ocean ISTaZ team, is learning the water purification units cannot pull the salt out of sea water. Instead it has to be boiled, the steam caught and then put through the purifier.

"Because we were pretty much out on an open beach with no good wood around, our team leader, Nile, decided to pick up camp and move to a fresh water lake and stream about fifteen kilometers away. The place looked like a good one to hunker down in since it had a grove of trees, water, and a couple of hills to set up camp on so we could weather out any storms. The problem was, getting there was not as clear cut as we thought it would be.

"Probably because the weather sats shut down, we were hit with a rather nasty rain late the first night and it kept raining hard the next day as we made our way toward the lake. By the time we got to where we planned on crossing the stream, to head up to the lake, it was a river. Nile had us back off to get out of any flash flood danger and we started to set up camp when we had the first problems with our electronics."

Dwight held up his note-puter. "This was the first victim. All of ours went out within seconds of each other. It wasn't until we arrived at the medical station we found out transmitters and receivers can get really bad feedback. If you haven't done so already, you need to disable the send and receive functions. This will prevent feedback from coming into the circuit and frying them since there is another storm due to hit us within a couple of hours now. I am sure you saw the lights last night."

All across the mess hall kids quickly pulled out their note-puters and disabled the features which allowed them to get and send downloads while Robin shook his head. "We didn't see them, but we heard about them. We were still down at our mountain training camp and the lights didn't extend down to us last night. I hear they would have tonight, and we'll really see them here though."

Seeing their warnings were being taken seriously gave Benjy a bit of courage. "The science team also told us most of our music players and portable game stuff would have survived if we had yanked the batteries."

Once again kids dug into their packs and started pulling out a whole host of personal items. At the same time Robin got a peak into Benjy's thoughts. Oliver was right. The kid was a mess. He was scared, angry, worried, anxious, and confused. He trusted no one other than Saul, but like Saul, he saw Dwight as his new leader. So, although he didn't fully trust the older boy, he did respect him. The poor kid couldn't get control of any of his emotions so there was no telling what would come out or when.

Robin sent a thought over to Gavin, 'Can you pull my power packs out of my laser rifle and game player?'

While Gavin smiled, nodded and started to dig into the pack, Dwight glanced over to Robin with a questioning stare. He said nothing but it was clear he knew there was something very strange going on.

Robin did his best to cover by focusing in on Dwight. "So your note-puters got hit?

"No they fried." Saul grumbled as he pulled out his old one and tossed it to Robin. "Something inside turns the signal from a powerful star storm into a power converter to recharge the battery or something along those lines. One of the scientists on the station told me Earth has a network for automatically killing the features if a class three solar storm or larger is detected, but it also includes an auto reboot timed for after the danger passes. Since there is no such network here, there is no such system on Zong.

"Mine got so hot it burned a hole in my vest and burned my arm." Saul pulled down his collar of his shirt showing a small rectangular burn scar on the front of his shoulder. "Our team leader's got so hot it started dripping down the front of his shirt and Ricky's blew up, sending bits of the screen into his shoulder. Those in the medical station told us they had to treat thousand of kids all over the planet for injuries from these stupid things!"

Robin looked at the misshapen glob and cringed. He handed it down to Ellen, "Pass it around. You should all take a look! Team leaders, you all need to make sure all of your team members have turned them off properly!"

Dwight agreed with a slight nod, "Robin's right. Double check them. The rest of us in our team got lucky. I saw what was happening and managed to use my knife to cut the pouches off me and the others before they got burned. We have heard the new emergency message tells everyone to kill the transmission features about an hour prior now." Dwight snorted in some disgust. "But, to be honest, until I got to ISTaZ I didn't even know it could be done."

Robin thought it over for a second and realized Scouts had taught him and Gavin how, as had ISTaZ training, but those were the only times he had heard about the ability to adjust normal settings in a note-puter, and it was by no means straight forward. A cold shiver went down his spine as he realized the larger implications. He glanced at his note-puter and hit the countdown clock. At the same time his weird future power told him the Corps had indeed been updated the message to tell everyone to turn off the two-way communication features, but there were no instructions on how to do it.

Robin's eyes got real wide as he interrupted. "The incoming storm is a class seven! We have less than ninety four minutes before the damaging waves hit! Ajax, go tell Colonel McKnight to have all the holographic instructors programmed to tell kids on normal AdventureQuest how to kill the send-receive! Even if they are told to do it, Dwight's right! Most won't know how!"

Ajax bolted out of the mess hall at a dead run.

Many kids in the mess hall turned a bit pale while others let out gasps. At the same time Dwight blinked a few times. "Wow… No wonder you are the leader…"

Saul glanced over and nodded in total agreement, suddenly having a great deal more respect for Robin. "Even when we talked about it, we never thought about how few would know what to do!"

Robin let out a huge and very loud breath of air. "Will this latest storm damage other equipment?"

Saul glanced over to Dwight with a worried look.

Dwight shrugged. "It takes a class eight or more to do damage to laser rifles and even with the class eight all we had to do was discharge the battery packs to half, so they should be OK, but if they had any other equipment survive, chances are this class seven will finish it off. One thing is for sure, there is no way to warn them. The only difference is, the polar lights will start lighting up the sky again, so if they saw it and put it together with the last star storm, they should know something bad is coming. "

Robin felt like his gut had suddenly formed into a giant knot. Those lost out in the wilds of Zong where about to be hit again and there was nothing he could do about it. He rubbed his hands though his head and focused back in on Dwight. "The last one was officially classed as an eight, but I saw the feeds. It had to be real close to a class nine.

Jason spoke up, "So, you got cut off from where you wanted to go and your note-puters fried. What did you all do then and why didn't you head for the nearest bunker?"

Saul sent Jason a rather nasty look, "While we were dealing with our burns and setting up camp above the river, most of the other electronics started to pop. All our beacons blew, but we can't even tell you if it was before, during, or after our note-puters went. Nile tried to activate his, to let someone know we had injuries, but his was dead so he had the rest of us try ours. It was already too late.

Since the note-puters were all toast, we tried to use one of our terrain overlays only to find it had shorted out as well. The last thing to go was our emergency comm. unit, but when it went it went big and nasty. I lost half my gear as the star storm caused it to do the same thing as our note-puters. But as those of you who took E. Comm. know, those things have a way more powerful battery pack. It's lucky for us I had already taken out the shelter or we would have lost it along with most of my other gear."

Dwight finally moved forward fully revealing his scar, "We stayed put for three days, but we started running low on food. We needed to hunt or fish, so we moved up stream. We knew there was a lake up their somewhere, but without the maps, we had nothing more to go on.

"I still don't know exactly what happened, maybe we were not at the stream we thought we were or something, but we walked for two full days only to find ourselves getting into so hilly territory with no sign of a lake or more than a few trees. Nile had us set up camp, fish out of the stream and touch up our burns while he and Ryan went out hunting. We chopped down a tree, sorted out what gear we had left and stayed there for a full week thinking they would see our fire and find us. But the fishing was poor and hunting only bagged us a few rabbits.

"Finally Nile decided to head back to the ocean and work our way back around to the first bunker we had used, which was real close to the coastline. We must have walked right past it or something. But we missed it and after a full month we didn't see much choice but to continue to move down the coastline. The weather was nasty and we had some big storms blow in on us off the ocean, so we once again moved back some. We set up camp for like another month, but once hunting and edible plants started thinning out we packed up and moved again. By this time what clothing we had was not in good shape and we were down a laser rifle and stunner from carelessness."

Dwight noticeably shuddered as he looked at his feet. "While we were moving to a new camp spot we got hit by a real nasty storm and one of our team, who thought he saw a flash of light moved up to the edge of a cliff. It gave way…"

Benjy broke into tear at this point. "We lost him! He fell and died!"

Robin moved up to Benjy and put his arm around the boy while he looked over to Saul who was having every bit as much trouble as Dwight. The moment he made contact with Benjy, he got the rest in a massive burst, almost like a computer downloading a massive file.

Robin winced with the knowledge, sights, and sounds of the aftermath, but decided to take the lead. The three form Near Ocean Seven did not need to relive it… They needed a safety and friends. To this end, Robin looked out at the group of stunned kids. "Guys, as you heard, they lost one of their team. Dwight was seriously injured trying to save him, and two others from their team refused to leave even though there was no way down the cliff face since it was falling apart. Their team leader ordered them to back off and find a safer way down, but it took four days and they couldn't even be certain they had the right spot when they got close to the area of the fall.

"They searched for over a week, but there was no sign of the kid who fell or the other two who stayed behind. Dwight was getting weak since the cut was getting infected. Making matters worse, Nile and Benjy were both somewhat sick from exposure; so they did what they had to. The set up a new camp and got as healthy as they could, but Dwight had to take over after Nile got so sick he couldn't even care for himself let alone lead.

"They then moved once the hunting went sour. They had to go slow since Nile was still somewhat sick and very frail. Dwight settled on a protected cove with trees and a waterfall coming down a rocky cliff and a shallow cave to sleep in. This gave them fresh water, firewood, easy to grab crabs, shelter, and good access to fishing. They were found there fifty four days ago when a rescue flyer spotted smoke from their camp fire."

Dwight's head jerked up as he stared at Robin. There was no way the kid had gotten some of this information! They hadn't even told the doctor's at the Medical space station about Nile's sickness causing them to have to feed and restrain him so he didn't walk away in a delirious stupor. Before he could say anything, however, Robin spoke up again.

"Guys, we need to find a place for all three. They all want to find a team to take them in, too. I already told them I would not guarantee them a slot and I think it would be better if they spit up and each joined a different team. For now, we need to find them bunks and give them our support. They can all teach us a lot about survival in near ocean areas and after being out for almost five months, they have learned survival tricks we haven't even dreamed about."

Tasha was first to speak up after looking around her table and getting quick nods, "We are down to five and started with seven. We'll be happy to take one of you and add you to our team."

Robin glanced back knowing if any team could help Benjy it would be Tasha's especially since Jason and Troy were both very protective of teammates and had even escorted Oliver around a few times to keep Randy from getting stupid. He gently patted Benjy on the shoulder. Almost as if Robin had spoken to him, Jason stood and moved up, putting a protective arm over the smaller boy. "Come on I'll introduce you to the team and we'll get you settled in."

Benjy glanced back only to see both Dwight and Saul nod. Still whimpering at the memory of losing a teammate, Jason quickly started making small talk with him as he escorted the scared boy over to his table.

Meghan was next to speak up. "Saul, the two guys in my team, would love to have another boy and with your help I bet we can get Dillon an Outstanding grade on his Wilderness Survival test."

Saul nodded slowly, "Yeah, sure… Um, thanks for giving me a shot." He didn't look happy, but his voice told everyone he was surprised to get the offer so quickly.

Ellen stood, "Dwight, as you can see my whole team is girls, but we'd sure love to have you with us. We are the only team with two members without Outstanding marks and only three of us have two. None of us have three, and only three of us have passed any wilderness classes, so we are in need of lots of help."

The offer totally took Dwight's mind off of how much Robin knew about them. Dwight nervously chewed on his lip, "Um, my right hand is still a little screwed up, but um… if you're OK with me not being able to do a few things like I'm not allowed to carry a laser rifle even though I passed, since my finger can freeze up on the trigger, and you are OK with a boy joining you…"

"More than OK with both." Adrienne spoke up seriously. "We all tried to get a few guys to join us back at Dal-Houston, but none of them wanted to join a group of six girls."

Saul flashed Dwight a playful grin as he sat down at the table with Team Eleven, showing he did have a nicer side inside him, "Lucky dog!"

Robin couldn't help but giggle as Dwight turned a bit red and sent a bit of a glare over at Saul. "Mrs. Anderson has packs for them all…" He paused, "Oh, and after dinner, Mrs. Anderson is offering a special class. From the way it sounds it is something we can all do even when none of our electrics are out, but we will be outside the fences, so we will need to break into group so we have a guard detail."

Just as he finished speaking Colonel McKnight came back in with Ajax. The man moved straight up to Robin and patted him on the back so hard Robin had to fight the desire to wince. "Corporal, I don't know how you manage to do it, but you keep finding ways to impress us. You just saved thousands of kids from injury and the corps millions upon millions of credits in medical treatment and gear! We are uploading the instructions to adjust setting in all note-puters to all holographic instructors now."

Robin glanced up, "Sir, you need to thank the guys from San San Near Ocean Seven. "Had they not told us about it and mentioned they didn't know how to adjust setting I wouldn't have thought of it since I already knew how from scouts."

Dwight shook his head, "None of us put it together with those on standard AdventureQuest, sir. It was all Robin."

"Still," Robin shot back, "without you three willing to come down here and help…" He glanced back to the Colonel with a bit of a grin as he saw a way to better integrate the three new arrivals into the camp and their temporary teams. He hoped it would also help all of them with their nervousness and self confidence. "Sir, shouldn't they at least be brought into the Corp and given uniforms?"

"Consider it done." Colonel McKnight squeezed Robin's shoulder and looked at the three new arrivals clearly surprised to see them all sitting with different teams. "If you guys want it, come see me and we'll fill out paperwork to make you all senior privates. If not, Robin's right, the least the Corps can do is give you recruit rank and uniforms.

"As far as needing guards for Mrs. Anderson's class tonight, I'll assign some of the academy cadets so you all have plenty of time to strike it rich."

He glanced around. "Tomorrow we will continue with testing and get you all a list of other classes we are offering you over the next week. After some discussions we settled on wanting each of you to sign up for at least three of them, and every team will need at least one survival class in Near Ocean, Jungle, Grasslands, and Forest. In addition all teams will need two, preferably three members to take a class on Winter Survival. This is a new class for us, so those taking Winter Survival will see we aren't as prepared to teach it as we are the others. To be honest with you all, we are still working on the exact format of the class, so it will not be available for a couple more days.

"Finally, whatever teams are going after the advanced ISTaZ teams, will need at least two members to take Hazardous Earth Creatures and Hazardous Native Creatures, and one member must take Advanced Geothermal Dangers."

At the mention of the last class both Fairfax and Oliver both said "me" at the same time.

Colonel McKnight snickered, "Oh, you two are really going to love tonight extra class. Dinner is already in so it will be early. This may be the last hot meal you get for a few days too since we will lose power in about ninety minutes, so enjoy it."

Robin moved up stream slightly to try his hand at panning for gold. Mrs. Anderson's class was a good one and taught all the basics, like making sure there was 'black sand' which was actually iron, since gold, like iron, was heavy. A push magnet made separating the iron from the gold relatively easy, but separating out the gold from the rest and 'tapping' the pan just right was definitely a hands-on learned and perfected over lots of time skill.

After almost an hour, and only managing to get a few flakes of gold he put his plastic pan down and glanced skyward. The 'polar lights' of the star storm nearly took his breath away. It was by far the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The only problem was he couldn't take any pictures since the star storm had killed all electronics. Still the ribbons of light blue, green, and even some orange tinged light would be something he would remember for the rest of his life and he knew it. He couldn't help but wonder how many other kids all across Zong were admiring the startling display of nature's power, beauty and fury all wrapped up into one.

He also hoped it had served as a warning to those lost out in the wilds of the planet. With limited gear any more damage could prove fatal. Still admiring the light show, he thought back to the meetings with the adults as he actually helped draw up plans on how to help find the missing ISTaZ teams. His biggest idea, which was to use some of the academy cadets to form teams to go in and help search areas once any signs of a missing team had been found, was instantly accepted and given high praise. To Robin this seemed like a minor addition to the plan, but not a single adult saw it like he did. Even Jasper said it was a brilliant addition to the still developing plan and would put more resources into promising areas.

After several more minutes of thinking back to being the only kid in a meeting with high ranking adults, he tore his gaze off the sky and used the light from the cracking fire behind him to once again fill his pan with sand. While the idea of striking it rich was certainly enticing, and it was rather interesting to see exactly what panning for gold was all about. He was not nearly as into it as many others were. Still, he didn't want to end up with nothing when all up and down the stream he could hear kids cheer as they got a good amount of gold flakes or even an occasional gold nugget.

As he used the flowing water to help swirl out the lighter material, he realized this was the first time in his life he had nothing with power on around him. It was so strange, even his trusty note-puter was off. There was nothing beeping, nothing putting off an electronic glow. He paused the swirling of his pan to pull out a couple of larger rocks that would not come out and lightly sighed. It was amazing to think people used to have to live this way. In some ways he found it exhilarating to be able to all but duplicate what those who headed west in the great gold rush had to deal with, if only for a few hours. To think people had to once cook over fires, hunt with ballistic weapons, and not have lights they could just flip on and off at a moment's notice; it was truly astonishing they managed to accomplish what they had.

Other thoughts came as he continued to work with his latest pan, now almost empty except for some sand. He tossed it out seeing almost no black iron meaning there was probably no gold either and moved again. This time he stepped out into the rather cold water and scooped up some sand from beneath a particularly large rock and moved back to the edge to work on his latest pan. He wondered what kids his age used to be like. What did they do when there were no electronic games? How did they study for tests without being able to look stuff up on a computer? It all seemed so hard to fathom.

Of course he was doing something only one out of a million plus kids back on Earth had done; he was out on Zong a stone throw away from being out on ISTaZ with four friends. Robin couldn't help but smile as he realized millions upon millions would probably see what he was doing as 'roughing it', which was kind of absurd, given the fact he had the support of space stations, electronics, energy weapons, and resupply points.

Kids of the time of the gold rush era had nothing… Robin frowned in thought as he wondered what they did for clothing, fishing line, fish hooks, and a host of other things he had in his pack. Without resupply points, they had to make it all. The real question for Robin became how it was done. The more he thought about it the less sense it made. There weren't even stores since people were moving west and establishing towns as they went. Where did they get what they needed when something broke?

His train of thought almost caused him to miss a pair of small glimmering stones in the bottom of his pan. Fortunately, as he picked them up to discard them, he realized they were quite heavy for their size and stopped. He gazed down at one of the oddly shaped large pebble in his hand and tossed it up and caught it. A single word escaped his lips. "Wow!"

Mrs. Anderson moved up as she heard the voice. She smiled as she saw Robin examining the roughly three and a half centimeter long and two centimeter in diameter metallic hunk. "Nice find."

Robin turned and plucked the second, slightly larger one out of his pan and held it up between his thumb and index finger. "Is this really gold?"

The woman moved up and looked at it more closely. "It sure is. Did you get both of these out of the same pan?"

Robin pointed down to his pan and nodded still in some awe over his find. "Uh huh, I got them from under a larger rock out there." He pointed with one hand while handing over the pair of nuggets with his other.

She nodded and pointed down at the pan. Then you best be real careful about the rest of what is in there. If you found both of these then there are certainly smaller ones and my guess is quite a few flakes as well." She gauged the weight and motioned for one of the Academy cadets on guard to come over. "Get me a pouch for our new corporal. My guess is this is close to seventy to eighty grams of gold. We'll get it cataloged and checked for purity once we can fire up the scanners."

Robin continued to use his limited skill to swirl out more of the lighter sand. After nearly twenty minutes he used the push magnet to pull out the iron sand and realized he had another half dozen tiny nuggets and a considerable amount of flakes. He glanced over to Mrs. Anderson, "It looks like there is more gold then sand left, how do I separate it?"

The instructor knelt and talked him through it a few times before he finally managed to get it separated and managed to get almost all of it into his new gold pouch. He then went back out to the rock, got another helping of sand and moved back to the edge, noting Mrs. Anderson was no longer really watching him. Instead she was gazing out to the far side of the stream.

He glanced up, noting the slight rise let to a rocky looking ridgeline with some fallen trees and heavy undergrowth. Since he was only using the campfire light and polar lights to see, it was hard to see much else. He reached back for his ballistic rifle, "Did you see something?"

Mrs. Anderson shook her head. "No, just thinking."

Robin shrugged, but still kept his rifle close since he could feel some discomfort from the woman. He once again knelt and went to work panning, this time only finding a few tiny nuggets, but still a decent amount of gold flakes. As he once again fought to separate the gold from the remaining sand he suddenly put the pieces together. "This is where your ISTaZ team was hit by the storm, isn't it?"

Mrs. Anderson's eyes went wide and she let out a bit of a gasp, giving credence to Robin's intuition. "You're an amazing young man, Robin," She responded in a soft yet clearly surprised voice. "How did you figure it out?"

"Well, you said you panned for gold, the storm knocked down a bunch of trees, and you were on a ridge line." He nodded at the far side of the stream. "It all kind of fits and you have been staring over there off and on since you came over here."

Robin remained silent as he finished off his latest pan and moved the small amount of gold over to his newly acquired pouch. Since the woman said nothing more, he decided to try to force a conversation. "Can we go over there?"

"What about the gold panning?" Mrs. Anderson asked carefully.

Robin shrugged, shook out the pan to dry it as much as possible, and stuffed it into the top of his gear bag. "Oliver and Fairfax will force me to do this a bunch." He smiled, "Now, if I had found a couple more big pebbles then I would be getting another pan from under the rock, then I would have never said a word…"

Mrs. Anderson managed a snicker. "I knew there was a kid buried in there somewhere." She helped Robin secure his pack over his back and pointed over to the same academy cadet who had gotten Robin the pouch. "We are going to look at something on the other side of the stream. There are some dangerous animals in this area, so we could use an extra set of eyes. Come with us and keep your eyes open."

The teen nodded. "Let me get one of the others to fill in the gap and grab my pack, ma'am."

Mrs. Anderson nodded in agreement while noticing Robin had readied his own rifle since the kid had moved off of perimeter duty. "Your diligence is admirable, but with all the noise we are making along this stream, it is highly unlikely we will be seeing any wild animals tonight."

Robin managed a shrug, made more difficult since he was carrying his full pack and had been up for over twenty hours, much of it wearing a pack. "Everyone is here because of me. I'd feel awful if one of them got hurt now, when all I have to do is stand guard for a few minutes."

Realizing there was nothing to counter Robin's argument; the woman nodded in agreement and glanced back over to the ridge line. "There is a small path up just around those two fallen trees with the new one growing out between them. We started to set up camp only fifty meters or so down the other side when the lightning took out the really tall dead tree you can see only because of the polar lights. I have to wonder what you expect to find, though."

"Probably nothing," Robin admitted, "but it can't hurt to have someone new take a look, can it?"

"Agreed, but I have to warn you, I have brought others back here to help me look over a dozen times. We have never found anything."

Robin said nothing. Instead, the second the academy cadet got back with another one, he shouldered his rifle and made his way to the other side of the stream, following Mrs. Anderson. Once they got to the small game trail winding up the small ridgeline, Robin turned to the cadet. "So how long have you been at the academy?"

The young teen glanced over showing more than a hint of resentment at the fact Robin was a real Explorer Corps rank. "Going on my third year, Corporal. I joined at age ten after I scored an Exceptional on ISTaZ training and my team made it through."

Robin brushed off the underlying annoyed tone. "So you were team leader when you were ten?"

"Not at the start." The teen informed Robin with a voice that said he really didn't want to be having the conversation. "Our team leader stepped into a hole and broke his leg and ankle. We elected to stick it out and I was voted in as team leader since I was the only kid on the team with an Exceptional and one of two left with a laser rifle."

"Cool." Robin purposefully kept his voice friendly. "So how is the academy and how do I get in line to come back to Zong to help out?"

"Most of us volunteer and the spots are taken based on grade average, merit points and finally rank. There are almost always more volunteers then slots. But there is always a need for leaders, so since you are a real Corporal, you will certainly be a cadet officer. You'll get to go any time you want as long as you keep up your grades. It isn't all cake walk here though. We still have to attend classes and make sure the ISTaZ camps are taken care of. The cadet officers have overall camp responsibilities too. You will have to make sure all the paperwork gets handled for us and make sure we all have enough time to get our classes and schedule off days. In addition, it will be up to you to get with other camps and make sure there are shuttles so we can enjoy our days off. You only get one day off a week, which most officers schedule back to back so they can go out and have some fun, but it means long spans of work. Once the ISTaZ trainees head out then things get better since we get extra wilderness classes and can take three days a week to do some extra exploring, even the officers get the three days a week.

"We also have to make rounds to some of the normal AdventureQuest camps to check on the kids. No matter how many cameras and other equipment is around to watch out for trouble some kids still get picked on and some don't want to tell the computer they want to go home. The minute we show up, there are always dozens to stuff into Corp shuttles to take kids back up to the space station. Once we get them up to the main station the cadet officers have to help arrange transport back to Earth."

"Man," Robin let out a deep breath as he glanced at the lights in the sky again, "Why would anyone want to leave here a moment before they had to?"

This seemed to loosen the slightly older kid up some. He cracked a slight smile. "Don't ask me. I work my butt off to get good grades so I can come back, cook and clean up after new ISTaZ kids. It means I advance in rank a bit slower since I don't get any of the extra academy leadership training, but I don't care. Besides, being here means I have all my flight certs and way more exploration ribbons than those who stay at the academy for the summer, so it balances out. To be honest, I'd love to just live here."

"Me too," Robin whole heartedly agreed. "So what is your name?"

"Cadet Sergeant Dakota Sinclair, Corporal."

"Dakota, neat name; I have never heard anyone with your name before."

"You're the first Robin I have met Corporal."

Robin turned to Mrs. Anderson. "Ma'am can we just use first names?"

"You hold rank on him Corporal, so if you say it's okay, it is. In a formal academy setting he would still have to address you by rank though.

Robin nodded his understanding. "Let's drop ranks for now." Robin extended his hand, "Nice to meet you, Dakota."

Dakota grinned in earnest as he took the offered hand. "You know there are a lot of older kids who are going to really resent you and all the others you are bringing in with rank. Most of them are going to blame you."

Robin shrugged, "I'll have to deal with it as it happens, but hopefully I will not have to worry about it for a while."

"I heard. I would pay money to be part of the crew of the ship."

"I have been told I can pick others to join, you want in I would love to add you in. It'd be nice to have a few kids who know what the academy is like with us. I can tell you would fit in great and I bet you could point out several others who would as well. But first, I have to help find a bunch of missing kids."

Dakota's face lit up, "I'd help if I could."

Mrs. Anderson found it amazing how quickly Robin had turned a basically hostile cadet into being a friend in a matter of less than five minutes. "Well, we could add you to the roster of insertion teams we are putting together thanks to Robin's idea. They are to go in and search areas if signs of the missing teams are found, but the teams themselves are not. This will allow those doing the searching to move on to other areas. Since you are already an ISTaZ team leader, you could take one of the leader spots. We still need two for the two teams going after the missing ISTaZ teams."

"Sign me up, Ma'am!"

Robin shot Dakota a grin, "Thanks."

"Nothing to thank me for. Getting a shot to go back out for extra ISTaZ time, even as a search and rescue team, is a dream for me!"

Robin smiled, "Maybe your team could pair up with mine. The way we were talking about setting it up is for each team to have a shadow team to check out possible finds. Your team would work directly with mine then split off to search areas once we find something worth a closer look."

"Sounds good to me," Dakota grinned. "Way better than having to go on camp check-ups and babysit a bunch of homesick brats, some of them older than me."

Robin laughed and nodded in agreement. "No argument from me." He then switched subjects seeing Mrs. Anderson was not thrilled with where the line of discussion was going. "Since you have been here before, have you ever helped Mrs. Anderson poke around up here?"

"Not exactly…" He glanced over to Mrs. Anderson before he continued. "I was brought here by Mr. Allen and a couple other adults last year. We were told what happened and told to see what we could find. We were told if we could find anything we would get a promotion and an extra bonus… We got nothing."

Mrs. Anderson looked over, clearly surprised by the information. "I had no idea…"

"I have been taken to two other spots and given briefings about what happened there, too. Everyone I know of who has come to Zong to be ISTaZ camp help has had the same thing happen to them."

Robin actually found some comfort in the boy's words. "It's nice to know the Corps doesn't give up on those who are missing."

Mrs. Anderson nodded in agreement, but remained silent, allowing the two boys to continue to chat. Finally, she got up to the top of the ridge and quickly moved to where a trio of fallen trees made a natural den. She approached with her pistol out, half expecting something to have taken up residence. Once she was satisfied nothing had moved in, she motioned for Robin to come over. "This is where we took shelter to ride out the rest of the storm. I used a couple of mostly straight branches to make a splint for Gus and we found what was left of our E-dome wrapped into some trees almost a kilometer down there two days later." She pointed down the hill in the direction of the ocean, which was barely visible. Only the white tops of the waves could be seen and only because of the eerily ripples of light in the sky.

"Must have been quite a storm!" Dakota gasped. "We didn't know about the E-dome, but we did spiral out almost three kilometers from here, with no luck."

Robin moved into the shelter and noticed he could see the names of those who had used the place to weather out the rest of the storm carved into the wood along with short messages to any who happened to find the markings. There was even a notation at the bottom as to where they were planning on going. Impressed, he ran his fingers over the makings and saw a flash of Mrs. Anderson doing the carving while a kid wimpered in pain slightly deeper in the dug-out den. He could feel how cold they all were and realized the only gear they had on was what was on their vests since their packs had been in the E-dome. He could also hear the very loud roar of the storm and even the snapping of a few more trees. One even sailed over the makeshift shelter as they watched. It was actually quite terrifying to just relive it. On the other hand, since he already knew most of this information, he forced the image to shut off since he didn't want to get too hungry too fast.

He climbed out and glanced over to Mrs. Anderson. "When you carved in the names and what your plans where, did you expect them to be found?"

"Good eyes, those are hardly visible after all this time…" She took a deep breath and shuddered. "To answer your question and be blunt, I wasn't sure. I figured they tracked us to some extent so I hoped they would, but I also wanted there to be something to remember us by. We didn't even know we would find any gear when I carved it, so none of us held out much hope of making it. Finding what was left of the E-dome and our gear was pure luck."

Knowing he was about to give out more information than he was given, made him nervous, but he figured it might help get a better handle on what had been going on around Mrs. Anderson at the time. "The loud roaring and the trees flying through the air… what caused it all?"

Mrs. Anderson's eyes went wide, but she forced her voice to remain even. "How did you… Um, we now think it was a small tornado…"

"A tornado?" Dakota's eyes went wide. "What about weather control? There hasn't been a verified tornado on Earth in years!"

Mrs. Anderson glanced over to Dakota. "This isn't Earth, son. We don't have full control over the weather and while there may not be any verified tornados in the US, many other countries do not have the tech we do. There are still tornados on Earth. One devastated a large section of Paris-Mans in France only a couple of years ago."

Dakota let out a long breath, "Guess the text books aren't quite correct then."

"They tend to gloss over some things. If you look up tornados in the academy central computer you will find there are a few small ones we think hit before weather control can kill them, even over the US, but they tend to be in the deserts of the southwest. We are lucky none have hit a major CHZ in over a decade, but it is probably just a matter time.

"The one we got hit with was probably small, and some think it was actually a couple of them… There was a low pressure system, a hurricane… I found out later it was diverted some, but it was too big to break up and weather control on Zong is not nearly as advanced as it is on Earth, especially out here in the wild areas. Weather control satellites cost millions upon millions of credits and the ones orbiting Zong have to be totally gold plated and made to slip into a cocoon with over half a centimeter of gold covering them to withstand star storms, so most storms out here are left alone. Hurricanes tend to spawn tornados and water spouts, so best guess is we got nailed by a couple of them back to back. There were a pair of damage tracks side by side, which started down the hill and continued up to the top of the ridge. Scientists think one tornado split into two and then hit us back to back. The tracks are all but invisible now."

Robin frowned and chewed on his lower lip. "So the others… were they in their E-dome when it hit?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Anderson admitted. "I know they had theirs set up and then the tree got hit with lightning. I woke up seeing stars with most of my electronics smoking and with toppled trees all around me and the others moaning. Gus was awake, but screaming in pain. Why?"

"Well…" Robin glanced around, "If they were, and the tornado picked it up, it would explain why they vanished."

"Oh, come on!" Dakota shouted. "Do you really think a tornado could pick up a dome full of kids?"

Robin glanced over as he thought about the tree he had seen blow over the den in his vision. He shrugged and patted one of the massive trees lying over the den he had just squeezed out of. "If it could knock over this, my guess is it could."

Dakota looked at the tree then the stump it snapped off of, realizing it was several meters away. "Yeah… okay, so let's say you are right. What good does it do us even if you are right?"

Robin glanced around for a few moments. "I'm not sure… yet…" He left the last word drone on for almost a second. "So, can you show me where the other dome was set up?"

Mrs. Anderson knelt and looked over the area. "It was so long ago…"

"Come on, try." Robin prodded. "Where was yours set up?"

"Over there." She pointed to a spot which was now covered by a pair of fallen trees with moss now covering the rotten wood. "It was clear before the storm hit."

Dakota cringed, "Lucky you weren't there when those fell or you would have been squished like bugs!"

Robin nodded in agreement but didn't want to get off track. "Where did the rest of your team set up there dome… was it close to yours?"

Mrs. Anderson's brow crinkled as she struggled to remember. "Um, it was up hill from ours. We moved further down thinking we would get less wind if we weren't on the crest of the hill. She glanced around trying to get her bearings. "It had to be right around where the big rock is sticking out of the ground. I kind of remember it. I actually think they tied one of the securing ropes to it. I remember I couldn't see much of the dome itself."

Both Robin and Dakota moved up hill and looked at the large rock. Dakota looked around and was first to speak. "The only good place to set up is on this side, meaning the rock would have been basically between them and the other dome. The rest of the ground has too many sharp rocks or tress… at least what is left of them…" The teen gulped as he looked around again. "Man, Robin, you could be right, these trees snapped like twigs and some of them are bigger around them me. A wind capable of doing this could have pulled them right off of the ground and launched them!"

Robin moved over to the massive rock structure and looked around the base for a few minutes. The darkness hampered his search but after nearly five minutes he found a thin wire coming out of the ground. He dug with his hands and found a ground spike. "It was anchored right here. The wire snapped just above the spike. There is so much iron in these rocks there was no way for a metal scan to find it."

Both Dakota and Mrs. Anderson moved up and looked at the four centimeters of metal cord hanging off the uncovered ground spike. The fraying around the end could still be seen. "Damn…" Mrs. Anderson muttered, "Ten minutes and you have found more than I have in years!"

Dakota's eyes were also wide as he realized this had been missed by countless searchers over the years. "Way to go, Corporal!"

Robin ignored the two as they continued to talk over what he had found. Instead he focused in on the spike for a few seconds then reached out and grabbed it like he was trying to pull it out of the ground. Suddenly, a new vision erupted in the middle of his mind. He cringed knowing he would need to eat a lot after this was done and had no easy way to cover for it, but went with it anyway. The second he fully opened his mind, the vision became crystal clear and extremely vivid.

The wind picked up and leaves, pebbles and even small braches. It all slashed into the teen aged boy as he hammered in the stake. On the other side of him the sounds of another stake being driven into the rocky ground could just barley be heard over the roar of the storm. The second the spike was in the teen let out a curse as a rather sharp piece of debris slashed into his left cheek. He glanced down the hill, and made sure the other dome was going up before literally rolling into the one he had just helped to put up.

He winced as the girl inside the dome pulled out a piece of twig from his face and started to put a bandage on it. Her face showed her concern and fear, but it was equally clear she was confident they would make it through this latest problem. The all knew each other and had handled many situations, some just as bad as this.

Before anything could be said another boy dove in the dome holding his hand, cursing about hitting his finger with the hammer. A moment later there was a near deafening crack and a very bright flash of light. An ozone smell quickly permeated the E-dome as electronics shorted out in mass. The girl was knocked cold and the boy with the hurt hand had to yank off his vest as one of the emergency hooks heated up and started to burn his neck.

The teen who had driven the spike into the ground next to the huge rock outcropping felt his hair stick straight out and quickly patted his arm where his emergency beacon was smoking. He started to crawl over to the girl to check on her when a very loud roar drowned out his words. The sound grew and the dome started to buckle. While the other boy used his feet to push on the side of the dome to prevent it from collapsing in on them, the first ground spike tore loose. Moments later two others did the same, one of them slashing into the tent and sticking into the other boy's arm. Even though he screamed in pain, it could not be heard over the wind, thunder and snapping of trees.

The E-dome lifted off the ground with the trio of kids in it, held by the single wire attached to the spike Robin had found. A moment later the wire snapped, making a deep slice into the side of the dome as it did so. The new gash allowed more air in and the whole dome launched violently upwards with a long, very straight, evergreen tree right next to it. The boy who had driven in the spike grabbed both of the others and held them as tight as he could. It seemed like they were in the air forever, but the dome with the holes in the side and the weight of the three teens in the bottom of it acted kind of like a giant parachute. They came down fast, but not dangerously fast.

Suddenly, there was a splash and cold water started to pour into the dome. The boy pulled the other two out through the gash made by the snapping cable and pushed them over to the tree the storm had flung into to the water next to them. Off in the distance he could make out the shore, but there was a small bit of land closer…

The vision ended there as Robin lost connection with what happened afterwards. Robin fell back from the spike and took several deep breaths. Beside him, both Mrs. Anderson and Dakota both gazed down at Robin with shocked looks.

Dakota was first to be able to find his voice, "Son of a bitch, you were right! They flew away!"

Mrs. Anderson spoke next, with a trembling voice. "What the hell… I saw bits and pieces of what happened! How did you do that?"

"It just happens sometimes." Robin spoke weakly as his stomach growled. "It's how I found the missing crewmember of the ship…"

"Wow!" Dakota whistled, "I heard about that! They were able to finally send the missing Major home! It was big news all over the camp. Can you use it to help find the missing ISTaZ teams too?"

"It seems to only work when I have close contact with something where they were at like the ship or the dome spike." He glanced up shaking somewhat, "I need to eat."

Dakota dug out a pair of emergency ration packs and pulled them open for Robin. As he watched the boy all but inhale them, he whistled softly. "So when I saw the kid get hit with the spike and the tent get yanked off the ground, it actually happened?"

"From what I can tell, yes. When I get these things, it seems to be from the perspective of a person, so I see what they saw or at least think they saw."

"I only caught a few images, but they were so… so… stunning!" Mrs. Anderson whispered in awe. "I saw Jackson jump in the tent and Donny came in holding his hand, then the spike slashing into the dome hitting Donny. The last thing I saw was the whole thing getting picked up as the last cable broke."

Dakota tilted his head in confusion. "I didn't see the kid holding his hand, but I did see a girl getting knocked out and her blue eyes were fluttering open and closed. I also saw lots of electronics blowing out. I think I even smelled some of them as they burned up! I also saw a large tree go the same direction as the dome."

Mrs. Anderson glanced over realizing her heart was beating about as fast as it ever had. "Um, I didn't see any of those… Robin, was there more we didn't see?"

Robin took a long swig of water. "Yeah, a lot… the dome didn't fall out of the sky like a rock, it kind of floated down. They hit water and the one you called Jackson pulled the other two out. I pretty much lost it there, but part of it was the shock of how cold the water was. The last thing I got was the water going into his mouth and it not being salty, so they didn't get blown out to sea."

Dakota gazed down in astonishment, "You feel and taste stuff too?"

"Uh huh… My cheek even hurts where the twig stuck into Jackson's face." Robin rubbed the spot, "But it is already fading." Robin took a couple of deep breaths, "This is the first time I have had one this clear with all the senses… I'm really glad I didn't see it through the other kid's eyes… the one who got hit by the spike… I don't think I ever want to know what that feels like."

"Yeah…" Dakota pulled out his last ration pack and opened it. "Here, you look like you could probably use this."

Robin gratefully took it and started eating it a bit slower than he had the first two. "Thanks."

Mrs. Anderson squeezed Robin's shoulder. "How did we end up seeing some of what you saw?"

A few tears trickled down Robin's cheeks. "I don't know… That almost never happens… I don't even know how I get images from outside the tent like I did, when most stuff is from what someone saw then it switches somehow… It has gotten lots easier to do them here, though… I think it's because there are less people and less things going on or something… It's how I knew Randy had beaten on Dillon… Still, whenever I get theses things, they always make me bloody hungry after, and I have not had one be wrong yet… this was one of the strongest ever. I could hear, see, feel, smell and taste things… I didn't like this one at all."

Mrs. Anderson used her other hand to wipe away the tears with her fingers, "Seeing what happened must be hard, huh?"

Robin nodded then lowered his head, "Yeah, but the real problem is now everyone will know I'm a freak!"

"What are you talking about?" Dakota demanded to know.

Mrs. Anderson looked up at the teen. "He's afraid of what others will think about him."

"I ain't saying nothing, dude!" Dakota took a step back while raising his hands defensively in front of himself. "First off, I want to be the team leader of your back-up team and secondly, you are the best shot the missing kids out there have!"

"Robin," Mrs. Anderson spoke softly, "Dakota's right. This thing you have is an incredible gift and the best chance we have of saving not only ISTaZ kids, but also Zong and keep AdventureQuest alive for other kids. San-San has given the Federal Government six months to bring back forty four of the missing kids… It is an almost impossible number in our opinion, but one that sounds reasonable to those who don't understand the situation. It will also keep the casualty rate within acceptable limits the Explorer Corps projected for ISTaZ. If we can't bring back forty four, or at least very close to forty four, they will demand to move some of their population here.

"The press and news stations are already hammering the Explorer Corps for how we handled the last star storm and how many kids from San-San were injured, hurt, and the like. Once San-San tries to move some of its population here, so will other CHZs. If the government says no, then we very well could be looking at a civil war, if the government says yes, we lose AdventureQuest and the best chance we have of training youngsters how to handle open spaces without developing Open Space Sickness.

"Mars has shown us we can't just move people off Earth, no matter what the CHZ governments think, and even worse, we need Zong as a staging and training area for those who are deep space explorers. We used to lose hundreds of crew to OSS each year up to a few years ago. Those numbers have dropped to single digits per year since we started using nothing but ISTaZ grads. Even better, we have yet to have a single multi-year ISTaZ grad fall to OSS. Also, we have only lost a few terraformers to OSS since we switched to using kids who have done three stints on Zong and only one of them was an ISTaZ grad, and she only did it one session."

Dakota glanced over to Mrs. Anderson. "No wonder here there are so many ISTaZ grads in the academy!"

"Yes…" she paused but realized more of an explanation was needed. "We actually seek out and contact any kid who makes it through two ISTaZ stints and offer full scholarships to any who make it through three. We also keep an eye on general AdventureQuest intake and look for kids who want to come back when they are being sent home. Those we identify as possible candidates are given a second year and a closer eye is kept on them to see how they do. This program works…" She then glanced at Dakota, "Um…Everything I just said is highly classified…"

Once again Dakota held up both hands. "My lips are sealed, ma'am. I have already made it through three ISTaZ and don't want to screw up my chance to keep coming back here. I also want a shot at doing the exploration trip with Robin and the others from the mountain-forest training camp! I want to prove I won't get OSS!"

Mrs. Anderson managed a smile. "The chance you will ever get OSS is zero. You love it here too much. Actually, I think you and the rest of your ISTaZ team would be a great addition to the exploration trip Colonel McKnight has offered if enough kids are found."

Robin took another long drink out of his canteen and finally stood, albeit with slightly wobbly legs. He nodded thanks to Dakota as the boy reached out and steadied him. "So no one else will know about me, then?"

"Not from me." Dakota declared.

"I will have to let a few others know, Robin," Mrs Anderson admitted, "but relax. It will stay in a very tight group and there will be no Explorer Corps paperwork either. You will understand more later."

Robin kicked at the ground, clearly not happy to hear this. He forced himself to shrug it off as best he could, though. After several seconds, he looked back up to Mrs. Anderson. "So what about your missing friends?"

Mrs. Anderson sighed, "You said they landed in cold fresh water. I am sure they drowned…"

"No…" Robin shook his head violently, "no they didn't. The all got out of the tent and they were in sight of land. I know the one with the hurt hand made it to the tree floating next to them and I'm pretty sure the other two did as well, but I lost it before I actually saw them get to it."

Dakota's mouth scrunched up as he thought over Robin's words. After several seconds, he spoke. "When we came out here to do a search, we spiraled out as a group. There were only two lakes within three kilometers of here big enough for a large tree to float in. One was up stream from where the gold panning is going on… You know I wouldn't mind learning how to find gold too…"

"I'll teach you and the other camp helpers later." Mrs. Anderson rolled her eyes, never ceasing to be amazed at how fast a kid could switch subjects, "but let's stay focused, because you are right. The other lake is just over a kilometer uphill from us, behind a set of low rolling hills." She pointed, but the hills themselves couldn't be seen, even with the glow of the polar lights.

Robin thought back to the end of the vision. "Does one of them have a small island with some of the Zong short reddish brown pine-like trees on it?"

"Yes!" Mrs. Anderson all but shouted. "The big lake just over those hills does! Why?"

"Because," Robin let out a deep breath before continuing. "They hit the water real close to the island."

"We could get a search party together…" Dakota started only to get cut off by Mrs. Anderson.

"No, we have classes starting tomorrow afternoon and the flyers are grounded until this latest star storm passes. Besides, the lake is way too big to swim out to the island. I can assure you, I'll fly us out there with a search team the second we get clearance to fly again, even if I have to steal a flyer and kidnap a group of cadets for the search team!"

She patted Robin on the back and handed him yet another ration pack out of her own small backpack as she felt his stomach still rumbling. "Wow, I'm going to authorize extra ration packs for you, son. You and your team can take as many as you want when you head out."

"Good…" Robin managed a bit of a grin. "I'm tired of having Ajax and Fairfax cleaning out the mess hall for me."

"So that is where all the food has been going!" Dakota laughed. "There has been a couple of times we have had to cook more since there was not enough to feed us after you all got done!"

Robin cringed, "Sorry… I actually thought we were helping by giving you less to clean up…"

"No, it's cool. We got to cook what we wanted to eat, and it was hotter and fresher than normal too, so thanks!"

Mrs. Anderson raised an eyebrow, "So your whole team knows you can do this?"

"Yeah…" Robin admitted sheepishly, "One of the reasons Gavin wanted a shot at Randy is because he saw what he did to Dillon and wanted to even the odds and to show the rest of Team Eight Randy was not nearly as tough as he tried to act."

"It worked." Mrs. Anderson smirked. "But I don't see why you didn't come to one of us about it if you knew…"

"He would have had to explain how he knew," Dakota countered. "Plus, I doubt you would have believed him even if he had told the truth. Without seeing what I saw tonight, I know I wouldn't have."

Mrs. Anderson remained silent as she led the other three back to the stream. She glanced over to Dakota as they got back into the safe perimeter set up by the academy cadets. "Keep an eye on him and if he needs another ration pack or ten make sure he gets them."

Robin glanced up with a rather disgusted look. "Oh, come on, I could eat another one, but ten?'

Dakota snickered as he grabbed another pack from a fellow cadet and tossed it to Robin, "Dude, this is your fifth; I bet you could eat ten!"

Mrs. Anderson saw the look on the other academy cadet Dakota had gotten the ration pack from and snickered. "Yup, five… all in the last half an hour, no joke."

"Damn…" the girl gasped, "where does he put them? He's skinny as a rail!"

Robin sent her a grin, but said nothing. Instead, he quickly downed the latest ration pack, pulled out his pan, and moved right back to the rock where he had found the nuggets.

As Robin found another large nugget of gold and a decent amount of flakes, Mrs. Anderson made a bee-line for Jasper. She quickly nodded for him to break off his conversation with a pair of academy cadets and moved into the woods.

Jasper quickly finished his friendly chat and moved to join the woman. The second he saw her face he raised an eyebrow. "So… I see you are convinced he really is one of us, huh?"

Mrs. Anderson shook her head slowly. "No, Commander, he is like twenty of us when we are all on a good day. We have to find a way to get him to join us!"

"So he found something?"

"No… well, um, yeah," Mrs. Anderson showed how rattled she was as her voice cracked, "he found something. He then saw everything and even projected images of it to me and Cadet Dakota Sinclair!"

"He projected to a non-psionic?" Jasper gasped.

Mrs. Anderson nodded slowly, "In color, even… Robin has telepathy and hindsight… they are at a level well beyond where our charts even go… He makes your magnitude seven look like a one or a two and my magnitude three basically means nothing. He is a fifteen on a scale of one to ten, maybe even higher. He has something else too; something I can't pinpoint. Even before he had the vision he had something else… and it was a full vision with auditory, visual, olfactory, and more… He passed on quite a bit of the visual to Cadet Sinclair, and I got some of all the others but it overwhelmed me so badly I actually ended up with less than Cadet Sinclair did in the end."

"Will Cadet Sinclair keep his mouth shut?" Jasper asked with a great deal of concern.

"Oh yeah! He wants to be the team leader of Robin's back-up team and Robin agreed. Robin also offered to take him as one of the crew of the exploration ship. So he has Cadet Sinclair's total loyalty and even more interesting, his friendship as well."

"His leadership and charisma continues to amaze…" Jasper breathed a sigh of relief before he continued. "Still, I want Cadet Sinclair sent to me so I can talk to him and gauge where his mind is at."

"I'll see to it, sir, but there is more." Mrs. Anderson stared right into Jasper's eyes. "The real amazing thing is Robin had already guessed what had happened to the missing members of my ISTaZ team and he was right on the money. It is some kind of super intuition and probably a future-sight element as well. He has so much coursing through him he burns though food like a he has a fusion reactor or something inside him. He also has control, so there is not much chance of him burning out his ability before we train him, if we can coach him more than what he has managed to teach himself, which I am not sure we can."

She shook her head to refocus her thoughts. "I felt him shut off the first vision when he was down in the den then forced the second one when he located a spike left behind by the other part of my ISTaZ team. A spike none of us had found, and he even knew it was not found because there was so much iron in the rocks around where it had been driven in, it could not be detected with scanners. I have never… we have never seen anything like this."

Jasper looked skyward and watched the ribbons of polar lights for several seconds. "Send your report up the chain, then, but make it crystal clear we need him to help find the missing kids from San-San and there is little chance we will be able to separate him from his buddies without force, and I will fight it if they try."

"So will I," Mrs. Anderson stated firmly. "Besides, doing so would create even more problems since all of the rest of his team knows he has the gift. He has shared it with all of them."

Jasper felt his jaw drop. "He has projected to all four of them? Was it at the same time?"

"Not sure, sir, but the way it sounded…" Mrs. Anderson tossed up her hands. "Um… well, my best guess is he did. The two SLO's have been grabbing extra food for him and Gavin saw something Randy did to Dillon through a vision which is why he all but annihilated him with the kick we saw."

This actually caused Jasper to smile. "Then they can't take him without causing way too many alarm bells. Gavin's parents are both very high up so we can't touch Gavin and Oliver's father is too important to mess with. Without him, terraforming of Mars would take a giant step backwards. Make sure they understand this as well. We need to find a way to get as many of us as we can on the explorer ship if, by some miracle, they manage to find enough of the missing kids."

"My bet is he will find enough of them, sir. He all but found where my friends disappeared to…"

Jasper stared at Mrs. Anderson for a few seconds. "And you aren't out there searching?"

"The second we can get a flyer airborne, I will be."

"What…" Jasper's tone became totally perplexed. "They blow away or something?"

"As a matter of fact, yes… The tornado, and it was a tornado, took the whole E-dome with them in it."

"And Robin guessed this in advance of knowing?"

"Yeah…" Mrs. Anderson spoke, her voice showing she was still in some awe. "And then his vision told just how right he was and showed him right where it, and those inside, landed. Pretty amazing, if you ask me."

Jasper shook his head, "No freaking wonder he has gotten nothing but Outstanding grades! If he can guess that, then we don't have a chance of tricking him!"

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