Outline Book 1 - Planet Noestra

O YEAR

         

         - Eva and Jana are 17.  Eva and Jana are Vacation & Travel planners, considered the easiest job in Lamur; reserved for recent graduates.  (Katy is 11 and hasn't started B-school yet.  Aliya, Eva and Katy are sisters, telepaths and live in Lamur.)

         - Aiden and Don are 27.  They work in the Deflector Division of the Noro police.  Lamur, Noro's sister state, has no police.  Everything is run by an A.I. called the Guardian

         - Garron is 11 and lives in Noro. He is intimidated by his big brother's athletic triumphs, doesn't do very well in school and feels out of place in his over-achieving family.  He spends his time dreaming about a fantasy world of super heroes.  Garron breaks two vertebrae in a fall.  His mother buys him a new computer system to distract him from the pain.  In a rare moment of compassion, his father brings the most famous Noestran test pilot to meet him, and introduces the pilot as a real super hero.  The pilot promises to take him into space on board the newest fighter, but only if Garron can give him details of the stars they will see.  Garron starts to learn about astronomy. 

         - Garron gets discouraged.  His father tells him about his own rise to the Council, (and gives him "The Councilor needed counselors" speech; sums up "It's not a shame not to understand something.  It's a shame not to TRY to understand it.")  He provides Garron with tutors.  Garron's interests lead him to study more far-ranging subjects.

         - Reggie is 23 and she just signed on with the crew of a freighter that runs between Noestra and the Sol-Duo solar system.  All the crew secretly call her "The Bug" because she always wears a filter mask with a mirrored visor.  She is one of the best mechanical spacecraft engineers on Noestra.  When she starts work on the freighter, she is surprised to discover the amount of smuggling that goes on.  She discovers that one of the crew is smuggling a secret military Force Field suit from Marcona to a "cubie" on Noestra.  ("Cubie"=anti social individuals conceived and grown in an incubator, a failed scientific experiment.)

         - The "cubie" who will receive the FF suit is the chief lieutenant of the biggest drug dealer on Noestra.  The FF suit is transported in a shipment of electronic OT equipment (a new thing on Noestra because very few people have implants) to a warehouse.  The drug dealer owns the new OT stores and warehouses as a cover for importing drugs from Marcona.

         - The "cubie", now protected by the new FF suit, is dispatched to kill a rival crime lord.

         - Aiden and Don are 'stuck' with the case because it was a low priority underworld hit.  When they get suspicious about the witnesses' accounts of an impervious suit, the case is kicked up to more experienced Organized crime officers.  But Aiden and Don are intrigued and can't let the case go. 

         - The "cubie" gets cocky with the suit and starts hitting out-of-town banks independently of his boss.  Aliya is called when a 'lighter' is wounded in a bank heist.

         - Aiden and Aliya first meet and Aliya stares at him.  He thinks it's because he's a 'black hole' and every telepath is startled by him.  (Aliya is 19.  She is a talented telepath and is unusually good at reading emotional states.  Her first two years were spent as an apprentice Guide (therapist).  Aliya's job now is liaison to the Noros police.) 

         - On her return from the meeting she discusses her findings with one of the Lamuri deacons.  She was deeply saddened by Aiden because of his own sadness.  She knows that as a Lamuri, she has no responsibility to help a Noros, but she is so affected that she is too sad to sleep and is given a tranquilizer by the Guardian, the omnipotent A.I. that controls all of Lamur.

         - Garron starts to walk after 6 months; he starts to run at his studies.  His father now brings him scientists from the University to teach him.  It becomes a joke around the University that if you want a grant from Saber the father, you have to get by Saber the son.  For every new theory Garron learns, new fantasies of saving the universe blossom.  The final joke is on the father.  He hadn't succeeded in changing his son into the sober student and future Noros leader he wanted his son to be; he had only succeeded in bringing his son's ambition to be a super hero closer to his grasp.

         - The crime boss tries to get the suit back from the "cubie" renegade and loses all of his men.  He sends an informant to Aiden and Don because they are not so experienced about Organized Crime, and won't trace the informant back to him.  Aiden and Don work together to track down the "cubie".

         



1 YEAR

         - Garron develops more and more programs for his computer until he starts to think of it as:  "The Claw of Righteousness" after a telecom series from Marcona.  It is "Rock Dagger's" space ship and helps the hero out of many disasters.  Garron uses it to spy on everyone (that he knows) and perform retribution.  (On cheating schoolmates - easy; a mean coach who is cheating on his wife – harder; and a mean friend of his brother's who is taking illegal drugs – very hard.) 

         - Eva is a journalist with school friend Jana. 

         - Aiden and Don are trying to apprehend a psychic 'cubie' that nobody can touch because he's illegally gotten a force field suit from Marcona via one of the freighter crew  who travel with Reggie.  They track the "cubie" down.

         - The great number of programs on the 'Claw' need more and more memory capacity and faster interfaces to integrate all his different software programs. Garron asks his father for one of Noestra government's new lightsync interface called "Rex".  His father is shocked that he knows about it, and refuses to give it to him.  However, his father does get him the best new computer on the market.

         - Garron is disappointed that his computer can't do all the things he dreams about.  He decides that he can use it to get the plans for all the new inventions he wants and then he will find a way to get the "Rex" system.

         - Aiden defeats the "cubie" by …(?)

         - Reggie learns that because she did nothing about the secret FF suit, the recipient of the suit killed many people.



2 YEAR

         - Garron is 13 and has been spying on all of the scientists that his family awards grants to.  One of them is working on miniaturizing a new power source.  Garron needs a new power source to boost the signal for the spear waves that his computer uses to hack and piggy-back on all other systems.

         - Aiden and Don are trying to crack a drug smuggling ring but every time they catch a dealer, two others pop up in his place.  They decide they must find the space smugglers.

         - Garron meets the designer of the power rod and underwrites his experiments by hacking into his trust fund.  When the new power rod is completed, Garron takes the proto-type with no thought as to what the scientist will do. 

         - The scientist sells it via Marcona spy to Clavdar who will use it as the power source for new military robots.

         - Reggie knows that her captain is transporting spies and drugs to Noestra from Marcona.  She quits the ship and tricks the captain into giving the drug traffickers whereabouts to the police. 

         - Reggie wants to buy her own ship, but can only afford a part of one.  She becomes a mechanic for a consortium of freighter owners, and steals the parts that she needs from the hulks of decommissioned spacecraft.



3 YEAR

         - Aliya is 22, and an Emergency Responder.  At the end of her year of internship, she's asked to continue for another year.

         - Eva has chosen Vacation Residence Management for her next internship.  Jana's request to remain a journalist has been approved.  She now occasionally gets to go to Noro to get information on stories.  Jana informs Eva that several homes in Noro have been burglarized when their occupants are on vacations in Lamur.  It's logical that someone is accessing the Lamuri reservation files and informing criminals whose house will be empty.  Jana wants Eva to use her manager's access to get information about the reservation office workers.

         - Katy is 14 and dreams of becoming an empath singer.  She is taking singing lessons, and trying to get into an exclusive TP/empath class that teaches the "Feel/Send" empath technique.

         - Reggie leaves the freighter company and borrows heavily from the Noestra Government Bank to buy a life support cabin for her patched together ship.  She sarcastically describes her ship to prospective clients as a "collector's item".  When asked about it, she defends her word choice by saying "Yeah, I made it with all the spare parts I've collected over the years!"  She makes some money smuggling for Marcona, but she won't smuggle drugs because she doesn't want to do business with dangerous drug dealers.



MYSTERY OF ABSENT HOME OWNER BURGLARIES

         - Aiden and Don are called in when a man is killed a neighbor's house during a burglary.  They find information that a series of burglaries at wealthy homes may link back to a 'lighter'.  They ask for permission to examine all civilian messages from the Lamur vacation office to Noro.  They find the source of the leaks and arrange a sting by forging messages between the source and the buyer , who they cannot identify.

         - Eva learns that the burglarized families did not use the same Lamuri agent.  She theorizes that someone in the office is hacking the files from outside Lamur.  The Guardian reviews the reservation programs and finds that none have been hacked from outside, but that there are enquiries into all the victims files by one Superviser.  Jana believes that it must be him, but Eva doesn't as he's been the Supervisor for ten years before the burglaries started.  Eva decides to review Guardian visual recordings – VRs – of the Superviser's office during the suspicious times.  After many hours of research, she decides that a new intern is the culprit.  Learning more about the culprit, Eva stumbles across the forged messages from the Noro police.  Jana and Eva decide to follow the suspect to his meeting to see if he is giving information.

         - Aiden and Don have arranged the meeting to be in the low class, little used bar where the cuprits usually meet.  They arrange for a fully armed tactical team to stake out the bar.  They are surprised when Jana and Eva, badly disguised, follow the 'lighter' into the bar.  Don, worried about 'lighter' casualties, wants to wait until the unknown suspect has left the bar to arrest him.  Aiden refuses to change the planned arrest.  Don warns the Lamuri police liaison about the impending arrest.

         - Eva and Jana are caught in the middle of the arrest and get 'stunned' by the police.  They are suspected of being accessories to the culprit and taken to police headquarters.  Eva's hysterical cries to Aliya are absorbed by Aiden.  They beg him to let them call Aliya, he refuses, but he feels bad.  The Lamuri liaison informs Aliya and Jana's parents about the trouble.  After questioning, Aiden tells the girls they are no longer suspects.

         - Aliya and Aiden meet again, and she forgives him for doing his job.

Although she knows she can't help him, she seriously concentrates on him, trying to help.



GARRON GETS "REX"

         - Don is promoted because he plays the game better than Aiden. 

         - Garron is 14.  He succeeds in using his powered spear waves to steal the "Rex" program.  Needing more storage space than he anticipated, he dumps his family's home's executive computer in order to store part of "Rex". 

         - Garron tries to manage "Rex" and subordinates the household computer to it.  He believes he has control of the situation.  His family first can't get anything done and then "Rex" starts doing too much.  (Garron's mother asks the household computer if Garron is home.  The computer tells her.  "Noestran ID#88425-11432-2, Garron Alexander Saber is currently at: Saber property, 4 Westman Drive, South Dered.  He is accessing computer link site 7893301: "Horny Bad Girls Do What You Like." Garron's mother is shocked at this overload of information.  Then she starts to laugh.  Then a thought strikes her and she stops laughing. "Computer, do any other members of the Saber family link to that site?"  Instead of going to her favorite nail salon that afternoon, she decides to stay in.)   

         - When Garron learns that "Rex" is making problems for the family, he buys 2 new storage systems, transfers "Rex" in and does his best to reprogram the household computer.  He then tells "Rex" that they will both have to work on simplifying his programs, but every program he thinks about deleting, he can imagine some use for, so he leaves them and begins designing a revolutionary new storage system which he calls "Infinity Storage".  He uses an alias to patent it, and sells the designs to Noestra's government.  He becomes a billionaire.



4 YEAR

         - Eva and Jana say good-bye as Jana heads off to her dream job as assistant to Fabulous Fara.  Eva is interning in the Agriculture Department, working with a charity group trying to disseminate a newly developed high yield, hardy type of corn.

         - Katy has gotten a private empath teacher thanks to Aliya's repeated requests to the Guardian.  She is working with an amateur band called "Sunhats R4 Sissies".  The band knows that the name and their songs are considered anti-social by the Guardian so they won't get any real work.

         - (Garron's scientist) continues to sell Noestran military secrets to the Marconan spy.



AIDEN TRIES TK DURING AN EMERGENCY

         - Aliya (an Emergency Responder) is contacted by the Noro Police to help find a lost child on the border of Noro and Lamur.  She is dropped off in the area with several colleagues.  After searching for several hours, her strong TP pinpoints the boy's location and they find him.

         - Aiden has been coordinating a search for a spy.  Don is now his superior officer.  They have information that an employee of a Noros military design company is going to sell secrets to a Marcona spy.  They find out that the traitor will be in a certain bar to meet the Marconan spy.  Aiden arranges for several plain-clothes detectives to be in the bar to observe, while he monitors from a camouflaged van outside.

         - Aiden's squad aren't worried after they scan the bar.  All the freighter pilots and mercenaries inside are known, not psychic and not armed.  There is a male singer/empath performing who is unknown but not a suspect.  When the traitor enters he sits alone and remains alone for over an hour.  The squad starts to believe that it's a 'washout'.  The singer takes a break and speaks to a Marconan mercenary ship pilot.  He hires him for a huge price for immediate transport off world.  The singer goes backstage and the traitor walks down a connecting hallway toward the bathroom, past the stage entrance.  After several minutes the traitor is found dead in the bathroom, and Aiden's squad covers the room.  The singer activates a hidden Marconan military fighter 'bot and together they kill or wound the detectives in the bar.  He takes the Marconan mercenary pilot with him.  The fighter 'bot breaks out of the back of the bar and they escape before Aiden can stop them.

         - Aiden tells Don, who is at headquarters, to send a special police TK-tactics team.  Don tells Aiden to follow but not to engage until the team is there.  Aiden follows and is spotted by the singer, who tries to TK him but as Aiden is a 'black hole' for psychic energy, Aiden is unharmed.  Shots are fired as the 'bot is ordered to detain Aiden while the singer and the pilot enter the pilot's landing craft.  The team arrives and starts shooting at the landing craft.  As the craft lifts off, the 'bot goes through the exhaust burners and latches on to the back of the craft.  The craft fires and destroys half the tactical team, thwarting their attempt to keep it on the ground by group TK.  Many innocent bystanders are hurt. 

         - Aiden is very angry.  Don tells him that the orbiting Defense Satellites will shoot down the craft when it leaves the city area.

         - Aliya calls in a Lamuri Evacuation ship to take herself, the boy and her colleagues back to Lamur.

         - The fleeing craft is shot by the Defense Satellites, but manages to land in the forest on the border of Noro and Lamur.  Aliya and her group witness the damaged craft land and she goes to see if anyone is hurt.

         - Aiden demands to take the lead in the search for the craft, and flies to the area with several police officers.  There are no TK officers left to go with them, so Don advises caution.

         - Aiden thinks that the fugitives may try to double back and steal the police flyer, so he and another officer booby-trap the flyer with an electro net.

         - Aliya comes upon the damaged craft and sees no one there.  She hears noise in the trees but can't TP who it is.  She is frightened and starts to retreat.

         - Aiden and his men come out of the woods, she recognizes him and he explains about the fugitives.  She is alarmed about the safety of her colleagues and the child.  They see the Lamur Evacuation ship land.  They run to the landing site and arrive at the same time as the fugitive singer and pilot. 

         - The shooting begins.  The pilot of the Evacuation ship is killed as Aiden protects the boy, Aliya and the other Lamuri from TK.  Aiden's men are distracted by the singer's fire as the pilot sneaks up and takes Aliya hostage.  Using Aliya as a shield, they get in the Evacuation ship.  Aiden feels such a feeling of rage that he tries to use TK to keep the ship from taking off.  He succeeds in stopping the lift off, but experiences excrutiating pain in his head.  The singer forces Aliya to TP yell that she will be killed if anyone tries to stop the Evacuation ship from going into orbit. 

         - Aiden passes out from the pain of his first try at TK.  The ship lifts off.

         - Revived by his men, Aiden is forced to tell Don that the fugitives now have a Lamuri hostage and must not be fired upon.

         - The Evacuation ship rendezvous with the pilot's Marconan fighter ship.  They disable the Evacuation ship.  Aliya tries to get to the one shotgun that Evacuation ships are allowed to carry, but she fails and they knock her unconscious, leave her on the Evacuation ship and transfer to the Marconan ship, communicating falsely that she is with them.  No one fires at them and they jump out of orbit.

         - Aiden and his battered men go back to their flyer and find that their trap has caught the fighter 'bot.



REGGIE SAVES ALIYA



         - Aliya regains consciousness and realizes that with no one at the controls, the Evacuation ship is slipping into the Noestran atmosphere.  She calls the Guardian for help as she tries to start the ship.  The Guardian's diagnostics show that the ship has been damaged and that she will not be able to activate the re-entry shield.  The Guardian sends out a planet wide distress call but only freighters are in range and cannot reach her in time.

         - Reggie is entering Noestran space when she hears the emergency beacon from the Guardian.  She wants to rescue Aliya for the glory, but then decides there's no money in glory, and makes a deal with the Guardian for Noestran credits.  As Aliya's ship starts to heat up, she is shocked at the avarice of Reggie who is arguing with the Guardian over the price.

         - Reggie swoops in and rescues Aliya's ship sustaining a lot of damage to her own ship.

         - Aliya tries to control her anger at Reggie until she is brought on board and sees her.  Reggie is an albino with yellow frizzy hair and pink eyes. She also has a large scar running across her forehead.  Then Aliya reads her and understands the bitterness and misanthropy.



AIDEN GETS HELP FROM THE LAMURI

         - Aiden is suspended by the police because of the failure of the operation and all the casualties.  He goes to visit his parents.  He's worried he may secretly be a "cubie".  He learns about his birth on Marcona and his family's history in law enforcement. He learns about what his grandmother, Penelope, did when she was on Albeata.  And that his father, who is half Albeata-"Changer", was also trained to shield from birth.  His father only had a mild TK gift and kept it hidden as he rose through the ranks of the Deflector Division of the Marcona police force.  But Aiden appeared to have more of a gift than his father and had more trouble shielding it.  He was the target of bullies at school.  When 'accidents' were getting harder to explain and they were getting desperate, they were given money by Aiden's grandmother, Penelope, to emigrate to Noestra.  Penelope would never admit where the money came from before she died. 

         - Aiden returns to the police but has several other mishaps, which are credited to a vigilante.  Garron discovers that Aiden is the vigilante.

         - Aiden goes to visit Don and his wife who is a sensitive working at the Port Authority and an ex-Lamur.  They are worried about Aiden.  Don's wife convinces Aiden to let her try to help him break through his shield.  As a tiny bit of his TK ability comes out, uncontrolled, their whole house starts to shake.  Some things are broken and Don's wife tries to hide her fear.  She tells him to go to the Lamuri for help.  He apologizes and leaves, then contemplates suicide.  Don takes him from his flat and forces him to go to the Lamuri Consulate.  He waits to hear the result.

         - Aiden decides to go with the Deacon of the Lamuri Consulate, and is taken to a secret place in Lamur to study enlightenment.  Aiden starts therapy with the Lamuri and gets drugs which help him to cope.  He learns that there is no shame in asking for help.

         - After Reggie rescues Aliya and lands her ship, she discovers that it is more badly damaged than she realized and her cargo is also damaged.  The sale of the cargo and the reward money from the Guardian won't cover the cost of the loan payment and a re-fitting.  She will have to go back to being a crew member on someone else's ship to make enough money to get her ship repaired.



5 YEAR, 1st 6 months



REGGIE GETS A NEW SHIP

         - Reggie returns from working on a freighter.  She's making payment to the Noestran Bank for her ship, but can't afford to finish fixing it.

         - Reggie is spending 'planet leave' working on her ship.  She still wears her "bug" mask.  A man from the Noestran government comes to her hanger to talk to her.  He wants to "make her an offer."  She says she's heard that line before, usually from drug dealers, and she doesn't smuggle for anybody.  He tells her that the government wants to give her a ship.  "But you have to do something for us."  Reggie thinks that his attitude is laughable – like a junior spy just promoted from the accounting department.  But the offer is real.  She will be given a ship and must join the mercenaries Marcona has begun to hire.  She will be given a special computer interface which can send and receive messages via the Noestran military space beacons which mark the space ways between all the planets.  She must report on any training she receives from Marcona, and where she is sent and what she does there.  She will be a Noestran spy.

         - Garron is 16.  He has taken "Rex", and has "ironed him, folded him, and put him in a little box."  He has built a monitor that folds to the size of half a paperback novel.  He calls his new creation "Maestro".  He can hack or pirate any program or signal within 5 miles, but only half mile below ground.  He has done nothing with his new found wealth because his parents would be suspicious. 

         - (Aliya is 24, Eva is 22 and Katy is 16.)

         - Katy has been begging her empath tutor to get her a real singing job, now that her band has grown apart and broken up.

         - Don, now 32, is pleased to find that Aiden has returned from months in Lamur and has applied for reinstatement to the police as a TK.  But he chastises Aiden for not contacting him during all those months he was away.

         - Eva goes into the shipping manager's office of the Charity Division of the Agriculture Department.  He wants to commend her on the work she's done on overseeing shipments of vegetable seeds to Ahros.  She humbly says that the scientists do all the work engineering new strains, and testing them, she just sends the approved seeds through to Ahros.  He says, "But you realized that the shipment of new coffee beans meant for Verda were mislabeled and almost sent to Ahros."  She shrugs demurely, "It was nothing.  I just knew that those boxes for Ahros didn't sound right as they were transferred – they didn't sound like seeds.  They sounded too heavy."  Manager: "Sometimes in shipping, accidents happen.  But I'm happy that you decided to intern in Agriculture for a second year, most young people prefer something more exciting.  Maybe you'll think about a longer commitment, in due time.  Meanwhile, I'm putting a commendation in your file."  He dismissed her.



GARRON AND KATY GO ON A CRUISE

         - Garron's father is in the middle of a hotly contested re-election campaign.  His approval ratings have slipped due to increasing crime rates.  His advisers tell him that his nearest rival in the polls, is billing himself as the working man's friend and complaining that Telmer Saber is out of touch.  He and his advisers decide that he should go on a 'typical' middle class vacation with the family.  They decide to go on one of Lamur's Grand Lakes cruises.  Garron resents the fact that he is forced to go, but changes his mind when his mother tells him that his father has always done his best for the family and has never asked for anything in return.

         - Katy answers a call from her tutor and is told that she has recommended Katy to replace a singer who is taking a vacation from her job on a Grand Lakes cruise ship.  She wants to know if Katy is available – can she get the Guardian to give her leave from her classes?  Katy impetuously yelps, "Yes!  Yes, yes, yes!  I'm sure my sister can fix it."  She closes the call and runs in search of her sister, Aliya.



A GIANT VERDAN LIZARD LURKS IN THE BARN

         - An automated hauler in the agriculture's shipping Department has been loaded with many crates from Verda.  As the hauler leaves the warehouse on its way to a small farm, no one notices that the largest crate on the bottom is shaking.  The hauler makes its way along the road by following the beacons imbedded in the asphalt.  After several hours, it follows the shipping program and turns down a dirt road to its destination, a small farm.  After being acknowledged by the farm's executive computer, it follows instructions and proceeds to an outlying cement storage barn.  After unloading its contents, it signals completion to the farm's computer and begins the journey back to the shipping center.

         - Garron and his family are spending their first night on the Grand Lakes cruise.  He is glad that he can rest his face from smiling for all the cameras and journalists who were on the quay as they departed.  He screws up his face as he thinks of the "councilor and his happy family embark on long overdue holiday" articles that are appearing on the journal-links.  He would rather be home than trapped on a floating island with the dull morons who enjoy over-hyped sightseeing extravaganzas.  He has already caught several groups of awed passengers pointing at his family and whispering.  The crew were practically genuflecting every time he walked past them.  He hopes that the ship's band won't be entirely useless as he waits at a table on the side of the dance floor.  Then Katy comes on and starts to sing and Garron falls in love.

         - Eva is asked by her supervisor to go to an outlying farm and check a shipment of samples of Verdan seeds and plants.  She is informed that as this is the first time Verda has sent them samples so they must be studied carefully before growing starts.  When she finishes inspecting the shipment, a group of technical experts will be dispatched to start scientific examinations.  She will go out to the farm when she finishes her monthly status report to the Guardian, the day after tomorrow.

         - At the farm, a tiny cricket has slipped into the large crate through a little crack.  He wants to find a place of his own to sing for a mate.  He gets no chance to rub his forelegs together and chirp when he's seized by huge claws and thrust into the gaping maw of the giant Verdan lizard.  As it crunches its hapless victim, poisonous saliva oozes out of its mouth and drops to the floor of the crate.

         - Garron waits in the cafeteria after most of the passengers have finished their lunches and gone.  His family order from room service and eat in their suite, but Maestro has discovered that this is the time at which Katy usually uses her lunch pass.  He sees her and summons up the courage to talk to her.  She doesn't know who he is, being Lamuri and not very interested in Noros politics, but is warm and funny.

         - Katy can't believe it when Garron Saber, son of the Head Councilor of Noro, comes to talk to her.  The crew of the ship were gossiping all last night about the VIP family.  But she manages to play it cool, as if she doesn't even know who he is.  She secretly thinks that she'd have to be a lizard living under a rock not to know who Garron Saber is.  She allows him to accompany her on a walk around the deck, and finds that she likes him.  That night as she's singing, he feels that she's singing just to him.



EVA IS ATTACKED BY THE LIZARD

         - Eva is in a barn on a small farm outside Lamur.  She is logging in the first shipment of new vegetable seeds and samples from the planet Verda.  She studies a shipping invoice as she sits on a plastic cargo box surrounded by cargo boxes of various sizes.  She has already opened the small ones – about the size of hatboxes – full of seeds, and checked them off from the shipping invoice and written them into her data record.  The larger one full of actual plants, she'll get to last.  Tiny ear pieces are attached to her ears.  She listens to her favorite singers, and laughs to herself as she thinks about how Katy would disparage her choice of these mellow, oldies!  Katy only listened to the newest and, to Eva, the most annoyingly raucous singers.  Eva doesn't hear the scratching and occasional thumps coming from the largest of the closed containers.

         - Katy and Garron spend a second day together.  By this time his family has noticed that he isn't spending every second closed up inside his room on his computer.  His mother thinks it's adorable that he's found a girl to talk to, and his father agrees with her, .But after he returns to his office in the suite, he links to his assistant in Noro and tells him to check out Katy and her family -  can't be too careful – he thinks to himself.

         - Eva has worked her way through the medium sized crates, and wonders if she should stop for the night.  She decides she isn't very tired, and she can finish all the crates if she stays a few more hours.  She begins opening the largest crate.

         - Katy's last song of the show is a famous love song.  Because of her feelings for Garron, her empath ability is more intimate and touching than ever before, affecting the audience and earning her a standing ovation at the end.

         - Garron's father is disappointed by the small amount of information available about Katy.  He only finds that they arrived on Noestra from Marcona 16 years before, when Katy was only four months old.  They were traveling first class with a nurse and a chaperone, and were taken straight to Lamur.  He surmises that they were from a very important family on Marcona, although he can't find their last name "Olly", in any Marconan file.

         - Eva has to put her floodlight down to open the largest crate.  She swings the door open and turns away to pick the light back up.  As she shines the light into the crate, expecting to find golden berry bushes, she sees a gigantic, mud colored lizard.  She screams as it lunges out of the crate at her.  An adrenalin fueled leap and frantic scrambling puts her on top of nearby hay bales, but the lizard starts climbing up after her, flicking its tongue and fixing her with a cold predatory gaze.  No one is near enough to hear her cries for help.  She tries to contact the Guardian and finds that she's out of range, or the cement walls of the out building are blocking her signal.

         - Katy walks with Garron under the stars.  They kiss and Katy thinks that this is the best night of her life.  Garron knows it's the best night of his life.  Then she shivers unexpectedly.  He asks if she's cold and begins to lead her inside.  She says no, she just has a funny feeling.  They walk to her room and she doesn't let him come in.  She reasons with herself it's because she can't break company rules on her first singing job, although she knows from the band members that the rule isn't really enforced.  She thinks that she doesn't want to give Garron too much too quick for fear of losing him.  They have the rest of the week.  As she sits in her room after saying good night, she admits to herself that the real reason she didn't let him in was that she has a very bad feeling of foreboding.  Something's not right.

         - Miles away in the center of Lamur, Aliya stops what she's doing and puts her hand to her head.  A nauseating feeling of wrongness has settled over her.  She's had this feeling only once before, 2 years ago when Eva was stunned and captured by the Noro police.  She'd ignored the nebulous feeling at the time, then found the feeling had been right.  She contacts the Guardian and asks it about her sisters.  It informs her that Katy is on the cruise ship and that Eva is on a farm, out of contact range.  Aliya puts through a call to Katy.  She finds that Katy is fine, but that she too, has a strange sensation of anxiety although she can't say why.  Katy becomes alarmed when Aliya tells her that she had the same feeling when Eva was in trouble in Noro.  They decide they need to contact Eva. 

         - Aliya shifts into high gear when the Guardian tells her it still can't get a reading on Eva's exact whereabouts.  Aliya contacts the farm and finds that the manager has gone home for the night, and there is no night manager or security guards.  There is no one there to help her.

         - Aliya puts the other Emergency Responders on alert and gets into the nearest Evacuation Ship.  The Guardian sends the coordinates of the farm and she takes off.

         - Eva's only escape route out of the barn is blocked by the advancing lizard.  Above her are hanging chains used to move the hay bales.  The hay sinks beneath her as she jumps for the chain.  Her first and second attempts are short.  The lizard is almost upon her as she pushes off stretches for the chain.  She grabs it but quickly realizes that her legs are well within reach of the huge lizard's fangs.  She tries to climb hand over hand, but she's not strong enough to pull herself up.

         - The lizard crunches down on her leg.  Eva yells in pain and drops off the chain onto the creature.  It loses its grip and she scrambles away down the hay toward the door.  She finds that her injured leg won't support her and she must crawl to the entrance to the barn on her hands, using her good leg to push.  But the reptile is large and fast and easily catches her.  It grabs for the larger target of her body instead of her legs, but she grabs an empty crate and shoves it in the thing's mouth.  While rolling out of the way, she sees a metal ladder on the wall leading up to a large catwalk that stretches all around the walls of the barn.  She puts her good leg under her and desperately lunges across the ground to the ladder.  As she clambers up, the lizard's pointed teeth close on empty air inches below her legs.  She hauls herself up to the catwalk and looks back down.  The lizard cannot climb the ladder.  It hisses in frustration and she's surprised to feel its thoughts. 

         - "I am hungry.  You not escape.  I get you."  It sways back and forth, tongue slithering out of its mouth as it contemplates her high perch.  It skulks around the empty containers, then crawls out the barn's large entrance, its tail gliding after it making a serpentine trail in the dirt.

         - Aliya checks the time knowing that she cannot reach the farm for another ten minutes.  She thinks about how large the farm is and how many buildings there are and hopes that Eva will be able to feel Aliya's TP search and signal her.

         - Eva hears a loud dragging sound from outside the barn.  She is afraid to move, but when she hears muted metallic bangs, she decides she must investigate.  She hobbles along the catwalk to the front of the barn toward a small window.  There is no covering over the window so she leans out to see what the beast is doing.  She is horrified to discover that it has moved a hay bale elevator almost to the window.  She looks down to see that the crafty monster is shouldering the elevator into place.  Eva knows that although it couldn't climb the ladder, the elevator, which was basically a long ramp, would present no difficulty for it to climb.

         - She thought quickly.  If the lizard was coming up, she would have to go down.  But her badly broken leg wouldn't allow her to run.  And the lizard could move surprisingly fast.  She decides her only option is to climb halfway down the ladder and hang there.  The lizard has started up the inclined elevator and she uses the catwalk's rails to pull herself back to the ladder.  Her leg hurt so much!  She barely swings her legs down onto the ladder before the lizard is stalking down the catwalk after her.  She lowers herself down just as it reaches the top of the ladder.  It cannot reach her but as it looks down at her, disgusting strands of its saliva fall on her arms and head.  It begins to lower its front feet and massive head down the ladder to reach her.

         - Aliya has arrived at the farm and is actively scanning for her sister.  She discerns hysterically garbled thoughts of fear and pain.  Could that be Eva, she wonders?

         - Miles away on the ship, Katy is in a deep meditative state as she tries to contact her sisters.  She is calling them using TP, when it occurs to her to try to use her highly trained empathic sense as a receiver.  When she forgets words and concentrates only on feelings, she finds Eva in an instant.  She's shocked at the terror and panic she feels from Eva.  Then she feels something else, something carnivorous.

         - Eva sees that the beast intends to fall onto her, so she drops to the ground and screams in pain at the pressure on her broken leg.  As the monster dives toward her, she squirms into her only shelter, the large crate that the lizard came out of.  She tries to shut the door behind her, but it has no inside handle.  The creature's claws curl around the edge of the door and pull it open.  She presses herself back into a corner.  She could almost hear its satisfaction as it looked at her greedily.  She heard the thought – "No escape."  She couldn't believe that she was about to be eaten by an alien lizard from another planet.  It took one step inside the door, then there was an almighty boom and Eva was covered in lizard entrails.  Aliya had arrived at last, and shot the thing with an exploding shotgun shell.



EVA CLOSE TO DEATH

         - Aliya comforts Eva and puts an expanding emergency medical bandage on her leg.  She flies Eva to the nearest hospital. 

         - At the hospital things get worse.  The bite wound in Eva's leg is turning black from the lizard's poison saliva.  Eva, delirious and ranting, is transferred to the best intensive care hospital in Lamur.  The poison reaches her heart and lungs and she requires total life support.  Aliya calls Katy to say that she's sending a mini-Evac ship to bring her home from the cruise. 

         - Katy is already packed when Aliya calls her.  She contacts the other band members and explains the emergency.  Within twenty minutes, the mini-Evac lands on the only deck large enough to accommodate emergency vehicle.  As Katy rises up into the dark, she remembers Garron and wonders if she'll ever see him again.



GARRON SEARCHES FOR KATY

         - It doesn't take any time for Garron to discover Katy's gone.  His families' suite is on the highest part of the ship, except for the control rooms.  When he hears a mini-Evac coming and going, he can't curb his curiosity, so accesses the communication log of the ship's computer with the mini-Evac to find out who was on it and where it was going.  Considering the great night he spent with Katy, it feels surreal when he learns it was her on the mini-Evac.  And that she's being taken to a hospital.  He frantically hacks through all the ships logs to make sure that she wasn't going to the hospital as a patient.  He is satisfied only after he speaks to the crew member who was on deck with the mini-Evac.  Katy was physically all right, just sad and worried.

         - Katy gets information to Garron via one of the band members and feels very guilty that she's concerned about her love life as her sister lies dying.

         - Pathologists have examined the remains of the lizard and found an antidote to the venom, but is it already too late?

         - Garron returns home determined to find out all he can about Katy. He can only find the same small amount of information that his father found.  He searches public Lamur files, and finds out about Aliya and Eva. But when he tries to search for private files he reaches a firewall he can't break into.  He realizes that it's the Guardian.  As he stares at the words "Access Denied", he sits up in his chair and starts to smile.  "Finally – a challenge!" 

         - Garron has succeeded in breaching the Guardian's firewall.  He sneaks inside on a link from the Noro Agricultural Organization's Annual Report on Fertilizers.  "Yup!  Sneaking in like a fly on shit!  Nobody here, Mr.Guardian, just us flies…"  After jumping around the system for awhile trying to locate the Lamuri equivalent to the Noros police, he locates the Emergency Responders.  He infiltrates their secure programs and looks around.  "Come on, the police always have the best stuff.  Show me something!"  He types for awhile.  "Oh, yeah… that's big."  He resumes typing then stops in surprise.  "That's almost 700,000 live streams."  He enters one and his monitor shows an empty bedroom.  He randomly chooses another and finds a woman eating in her kitchen, then an old man in a living room reading a book.  "Oh, yeah.  That's exciting Lamuri life.  I really want to live there."  He says sarcastically.  "Alright, Maestro, find Katy for me."  He types in the parameters of a search and gets up to stretch his legs.



XYBAL ARRIVES ON NOESTRA

         - Xybal, a 55 year old man who has spent most of his life inventing military equipment for Clavdar's company on Marcona, arrives back to his home world.  He hasn't set foot on Noestra for almost 30 years.  And now he arrives as a fugitive.  Not as a fugitive from the Lamuri, who raised him and taught him all they knew about science and engineering, but as a fugitive from the Marconan hell hounds Clavdar has unleashed.  He is traveling in disguise and under a new name.  All he wants is to return to Lamur and live out his old age in peace.  But the horrendous guilt he feels for all those years he spent creating new and improved ways to kill, must be assuaged first.  He has sent out an olive branch to those who his newest invention was created to kill.  They have agreed to meet him here, on Noestra, to receive proof of his sincere regret.  He hopes that his atonement will swing the karmic balance a little more to his side.  But, until his deliverers arrive, he must wait in this strange city and pray that the Marconan assassins don't find him first.

         - Eva recovers from the lizard's poison.  She receives many get well wishes and visits from the concerned community.  Her direct Supervisor, the Charity Division's elite and the Manager of the entire Agriculture Department express their compassion for her trials and relief for her recovery.  They tell her that she can take as long as she wants to rest.

         - Katy, always resilient, quickly recovers from her sister's near death experience.  With the self-absorption of the young, her own problems hastily replace those of her sister, and take center stage. Aliya goes back to work and tries to keep Katy busy to spare Eva the melodramatic ups and downs of the teenager's life.  But after spending a week listening to Katy whine about the loss of her first job and the loss of Garron, Eva and Aliya would do almost anything to find Katy something new to keep her occupied – and Katy knows it.  When Katy suggests she wants to sponsor a rock concert in Lamur for teenagers from both Lamur and Noro, the sisters encourage her and promise to support her.  Aliya and Eva believe that the responsibility of such a big event will soon prove to be too much for her.  But this is all part of Katy's plan because she has been in contact with Garron!



PLANNING THE ROCK  CONCERT

         - Don tips Aiden off that his wife has spotted two suspicious characters on the most recent passenger ship from Marcona.  She has no evidence, only a feeling, but because she's Lamuri, Don believes her.  They trace the two men to a downtown hotel.  But after they check in, they disappear.

         - Xybal checks the clandestine spot he set up for messages from the Albeata agents daily.  He believes he sees Marconan assassins everywhere.

         - Ever since Maestro found Katy for Garron, the two have been secretly in contact.  Garron has found a Noro rock band and a promoter willing to organize a concert in Lamur.  The promoter has no trouble finding a rental agency to provide a giant sound system, stage, stage lights, special effects lights and pyrotechnics, closed circuit video screens and cameras, along with concessionaires to provide food and non-alcoholic drinks.  Now Katy just has to get her sisters to make the Guardian agree.

         - After Aliya and Eva are deluged with all the price estimates for the concert and see how much work Katy has done on the idea, they are forced to agree to ask the Guardian.  Katy has an answer for every question and concern that the Guardian raises.  The only thing that is out of her hands is the logistics of safely moving several thousand people from Noro and Lamur to the concert site and back again.  "But," she says, innocently, "Surely, as Lamuri, logistics is what we do best."

         - After brief consideration, the Guardian agrees to the concert.  It will be held in one week on a large stretch of land very close to the main border crossing between Noro and Lamur.  The Guardian insists that a long list of rules and regulations be adhered to.  And that the entire list be filed in the chip used as a ticket. 

         - The Agriculture Department surprises Eva with the announcement that one year after her request, she has been approved to fly to Ahros to present a report on a new strain of drought resistant corn.  The tell her that they will understand if she doesn't want to go; someone else can take her place.  Dutiful Eva accepts the honor.  The passenger ship to Ahros leaves in 5 days – the day after Katy's rock concert.

         - Aiden finds an informant who knows about the two assassins and their intended target.  But the informant won't give Aiden the information unless he's gets protection, a new identity and a new place to live.



THE ROCK CONCERT

         - The day of the concert all is going smoothly.  All the equipment is set up and tested.  The concessionaires have placed their stands as far back from the crowd as the Guardian dictated.  The Noro police will control their side of the border crossing and volunteers from Lamur (which has no police) will patro the other side.  Aliya and the other Emergency Responders will stand by in case they are needed. 

         - Xybal goes to his drop point and is relieved to find an envelope.  He hides the envelope and hurries back to his room.  He opens it and is surprised to see it only contains a ticket to a rock concert.  He hides the chip with the plans for the Albeata agents in an empty …(?) and gets ready to leave for the border.

         - Aiden and Don have succeeded in making the police allocate credits for the new identity and relocation for the informant.  He tells them everything, gives them descriptions of the assassins and says that they will kill both the Marconan scientist and the agents from Albeata at the rock concert.

         - Garron and Katy agree to meet at the concert at the "Yummy" food stand at eight o'clock.

         - Eva starts to pack for her trip to Ahros.  The trip to Ahros will take two weeks, she'll spend one week on Ahros, then go to Marcona to visit her friend Jana, then travel back to Noestra.  As she packs she finds that her hands are shaking.  She sits down on the bed to try to meditate.

         - Katy is dressed in her best, coolest clothes for the concert.  As she leaves she opens Eva's door to tell her that she's going.  She immediately knows that something's wrong with Eva and as they TP back and forth, Eva starts to cry.  After some time, Eva breaks down and admits that she isn't ready to take this long trip by herself.  Even though she's completely healthy now, she can't stop feeling anxious about being by herself in a strange place.  Katy suggests that she tell the Agriculture Department to find someone else.  Eva knows that it's too late to find someone and she couldn't stand the embarrassment of failing so badly at a duty that is such an honor.  Katy looks at her sister's tear streaked face and makes the only decision she can.  "I'll go with you.  I'll arrange the ticket and visas tomorrow, but tonight we'll stay up late and pack and eat lots of cha-chuks just like old times." 

         - At 7:30 almost all of the concert goers have completed all required identity proofs and are milling around in a large park in front of a huge stage.  Xybal is there and wonders how the agents from Albeata will find him.  Aiden is worried that his team failed to locate the assassins in the entering crowd.  He goes inside the park to see if they are masquerading as stage hands or concessionaires. 

         - At 8:00 Garron is in front of the "Yummy" food stand waiting for Katy.  The crowd starts to chant the name of the band until their voices become deafening.  Xybal is approached by two men.  He shakes with fright until they say the agreed upon password, they signal him to follow.

         - Garron belatedly realizes that there are two "Yummy" food stands, one on each side of the park.  He is sure Katy must be at the other one and starts to make his way across the throng of people.

         - As a last resort, Aiden scans the crowd using TP even though he knows it will alert the assassins, in fact he's counting on it.  As he picks up teen resentment at being scanned by a "Noro cop" he senses alarm coming from the concession stands at the far side of the park.  He rudely uses his TK power to push people out of his way as he runs to the area where he felt the alarm.          

         - The Albeata agents take Xybal behind the second "Yummy" food stand and he gives them the chip.

         - Garron is shocked when a tall man in a Noro police uniform knocks him down and runs ahead to the food stand.

         - At first, the teenagers think that the sound of weapons fire is the stage pyrotechnics or somebody shooting off illegal party-crackers. Then someone at the food stand starts screaming.  Aiden runs up to see Xybal covered in blood, stagger out from behind the stand and fall to the ground.  He notifies his team and the Emergency Responders.  He dashes behind the stand and is immediately fired upon.  He ducks for cover as he snaps up his TK shield and tries to see who is firing.  The park area behind the concession stands is very dark.  He realizes that two groups are firing at each other.  One group is firing from the back of the food stand next to him and the other group is out in the darkness.  He sees his team come running down behind the concession stands.  There is a hollow thump from the group in the trees and an explosive grenade flies through the air landing in front of his men.  As they dive for cover, and the grenade blows up, he hears the group next to him say, "Run! Run!"  The language they spoke was Albeatan. 

                - Aiden hears another hollow thump from the darkness.  He stands to try to focus his TK ability to dampen down the coming blast, but the grenade lands inside the stand and the ensuing explosion sets off a row of propane tanks used to cook food.  He is thrown off his feet and through the air.  Even as he is flying he uses his TK to soften the fall, and directs all his energy to the group in the trees.  He lands softly on his feet and strides to where he can feel the two Marconan assassins are.  As he focuses his TK into a containment ball around them, he just barely hears a third and final thump.  A moment later the grenade explodes inside the TK ball he has created, burning the assassins alive.



EVA, KATY AND GARRON LEAVE NOESTRA PLANET

         - Garron is stunned when the "Yummy" stand blows up.  He thinks that if Katy was waiting for him as promised, she might be dead because of him.  There are so many running, screaming people he can't get close enough to see anything.  Before he knows what is happening, the Lamuri Emergency Responders and the Noro police have cordoned off the area.  He leaves and takes a private car home.

         - He uses Maestro to try to contact Katy, but her link doesn't answer for several hours.  He is more afraid than he's ever been in his life.  Afraid Katy has been killed and he will never see her again. 

         - Katy finally answers his call and his relief at finding her alive is dashed by the news that she's going off world with her sister and won't be back for more than a month!  She's going to Ahros and then Marcona, and who knows what can happen to her out there.  He thinks about all the catastrophes that befall his favorite hero, "Rock Dagger and the Claw of Righteousness."

         - Garron makes the biggest decision of his life and decides that he will be on that passenger ship bound for Ahros and nothing is going to stop him!