Demi looked nervous when she reappeared on Dahl's screen. "Dahl...I have some bad news..."
Dahl's eyes narrowed and she whispered, savagely, "What?" Knowing Wren as she did, she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
"It appears...that Master Wren...has left suddenly."
Dahl pushed her chair away from the terminal and threw her arms up in the air. "You have got to be kidding me!" she cried. "This is the last straw! I'm sick to death of that pompous jerk brushing me off all the time! Demi! Where did he go?"
Demi sighed. "Dahl, I'm sorry. He can be so callous..."
"Yeah, I know."
"Anyway," the tiny android went on, "at least I know where he's going this time!"
"Where is it now? Some remote asteroid in the Field? A new comet hurtling towards Algo? A meeting of the 'How to Avoid Dahl' club? What?"
"No," Demi said, reading a printout Warren had sent to her. "It's a tiny little scientific station on a Dezorian glacier. That's all I can tell you."
"Send the coordinates to the computer on my shuttle," Dahl said. "I'm going."
"What? You mean you're really going to drop everything just to tell Wren you want to know more about Seed's research? Dahl, Wren will have to come back up here anyway before he can tell you anything. The files are all stored away in Zelan's data banks. Maybe it would be best if you just waited for him to come back in a day or two."
"No, Demi," Dahl said, pounding a fist into her open palm. "I think drastic measures are needed here. Wren is so...aloof when it comes to our...relationship, and stuff. I think he needs to see how serious I am about this before he will take me seriously."
Demi sighed again. "I hate to admit it, but you might be right. It's taken you twenty years to learn what's taken me two and a half millennia to get straight."
Dahl smiled.
"I'm sending the coordinates now. I've got to go, but there's one last thing..."
"What?"
Demi gave Dahl her warmest, almost maternal smile. "Good luck. And tell Wren we need to talk." And then she was gone.
Erol, Azur, and Mium were busy at work in the Labs when Dahl came storming out of her office. Her eyes were red and blurry. Her face was flushed, and her fists were clenched tightly at her sides. It was obvious to all who saw her that the Director of Palm II was under considerable strain. As she passed by her friends, Dahl grabbed Erol's shoulder.
"Do you still want to come with me?" she asked.
Erol blinked, then nodded. "Sure. I'll go with you."
Mium shrugged. "I might as well come too, since Azur has been such a total dud with the vacation plans..."
Azur's jaw dropped. "Mium! Well, fine then. If everyone else is leaving I don't want to stay here all by myself!"
"Okay then," Dahl said. She felt a little better knowing that her friends would be beside her when she confronted Wren, but her relief did not show. "Well, there's been a change of plans."
Erol raised an eyebrow. He knew this could not be a good thing. "What's the change?" he asked.
"We aren't going to Zelan," Dahl answered him.
"Then...where are we going?" Erol asked nervously.
"Dezo."
"Hoorah!" Mium shouted.
Azur raised an eyebrow, but was too sensible to get optimistic.
Erol leaned back and slapped his forehead with his hands. "Oh no, not Dezo!"
"Too late," Dahl said, grabbing Erol by the collar. "You've already agreed. And I've already got everything around here taken care of. We are now officially on vacation."
"All right!" Mium said. "I'll finally get to see the infamous ice planet!"
Azur smiled. "Don't go getting your hopes up. Dezo's not all it's cracked-up to be. Nothing exciting or interesting ever happens there..."
Within forty minutes, the diminutive Landale VII was settling down on Dezoris' northern polar glacier. Wren noted that Dr. Urbanich had chosen a prime location for his camp; the surrounding ice was flat enough to be a runway, and thick and strong enough to support the weight of even a large ship. Landale VII would pose no problem.
Wren stepped out of the craft, checked the photon eraser hanging at his side, and held a first aid kit in his hand. Thusly prepared, he stepped to the front of the tent and pulled the flap aside.
The interior of the tent was lightless. It took even Wren's sophisticated optics several seconds to adjust. Even then, details were indistinct.
"Dr. Urbanich?" Wren called. "Are you there, sir?"
Wren took a step inside.
"This is Master Wren, from Zelan Station. One of your robots reported an emergency requiring my personal assistance. I have to come to help in any manner I can." There was still nothing. "Doctor, are you here?"
The tent flap slowly fell shut behind him, casting the inside into complete darkness.
"Welcome, Master Wren," hissed a sinister voice.
Despite the fact that he had not heard it in over two thousand years, Wren recognized the voice immediately. But that was impossible...wasn't it? Unable to reconcile what he knew must be true, Wren asked again, "Dr. Urbanich?"
"The good doctor is unavailable at the moment. I, however, am greatly in need of your help." A red light appeared high on the far wall. It was an electronic eye. "Welcome to my parlor..."
Faster than any flesh and blood creature ever could, Wren flew into action. He flung the fist aid kit at the crimson eye, and immediately raised his photon eraser. He got off several shots and could hear the blasts hitting metal. Each burst from the gun gave off faint and short-lived light, but Wren had just long enough to see what he was hitting -- the deactivated form of a Large Miner robot.
The owner of the ominous voice chuckled and pushed the lifeless form of the massive robot forward, nearly sending it crashing down on Wren. Wren jumped out of the way just in time, and nearly tripped over a Twig Man robot that was sprawled out on the floor, its head burnt to a cinder but still twitching spasmodically.
A buzzing to Wren's right caught his attention. He glanced in that direction to see a small Whistle-type attending to a wounded Dezorian lying on a table. Wren knew at once the man must be Dr. Urbanich, and he surmised that the robot was the same who had sent the distress call.
Wren could certainly see why.
"What are you?" Wren asked, his cannon still aimed at the single eye.
"I have been known by many names," the creature boomed. As it spoke, the lights in the tent slowing came back on. "Men on other worlds, in other times, called me the One Most High, or The Master. But my chosen name, as well as the name given me by my vilest enemy, is Dark Force. And that, sweet puppet, is what you shall call me."
Wren's eyes narrowed as they focused on something Wren had never thought he would see again, as well as something he had never seen at all.
The creature, it could no longer be denied, was most certainly a Dark Force. The facial structure was what confirmed it for Wren. This new monster had the same protruding brow ridges, the same deep sockets, and the same horrifying mouth.
This Dark Force, however, had none of its own teeth, and it was eye-less as well, except for the electronic optic sensor that had been grafted onto its face. Most of the creature's body was gone as well, replaced with mechanical parts obviously crafted by a skilled hand. Only the head, right shoulder, and right arm of the creature was its own. The other shoulder, arm, and the entire torso were like Wren's. Whatever Protector of old had failed to kill the beast had nonetheless succeeded in damaging it far beyond the point of self-healing.
"I will not serve you," Wren said calmly. "I will destroy you. Your time ended long ago."
The Dark Force nearly gasped, and leaned forward on its hands.
"You have power," it said. "That sickening, light-choked power. You have touched the sword? Nay, but you were near it. And you had a hand in Le-Gy-Thoul's downfall, didn't you?"
"The Profound Darkness was destroyed by Chadwick Ashley and his companions," Wren said. "I was among those companions."
Dark Force nodded. "Ironic. Ironic that a servant of the sword should become my new instrument."
"As I said, I will not serve you."
"Oh, but you will, Protector. You will." The Dark Force lunged forward and screamed. Wren tried to duck, but even he was not fast enough. The Dark Force wrapped its toothless maw around Wren's arms, and as it did so it released a sickening black ooze that Wren knew could only be the liquid form of the Black Energy Wave. Flustered, he fired several point-blank rounds into the Dark Force. Each hit their mark, and with each impact the Dark Force's eye flickered, and it grunted. But its body did not appear to be damaged. Its magic was apparently great, greater than that of the Dark Forces Wren himself had faced.
The Dark Force shrieked directly into Wren's face. Wren tried to turn away, but his head was held in place by the metal hand of the Dark Force, which had intertwined its cold fingers with Wren's hair. The Dark Force gurgetated more of the liquid directly on to Wren's face. In a few seconds, the android's struggle ceased.
The Dark Force walked on its hands back over to the slab it had long occupied. It watched as the ooze seeped into Wren's skin, covering his face with blisters and his metal parts with rust and stains.
When the last of the black blood was flowing through Wren like water in a river, his eyes flipped open.
"Ah, marionette," Dark Force said, smiling.
Wren nodded. "Greetings to you as well, master."
Dahl's ship, Landale IX, landed beside Wren's Landale VII.
"Demi was right," Dahl said. "He is here."
As soon as the craft was moored, Dahl disembarked, followed by Erol, her copilot, Azur, and Mium, who was the only one of the four not bundled up in thick snow gear. Dahl, still furious, trudged on at the front of the group. When she had reached the entrance to the tent, she hesitated.
"Are you okay?" Erol asked, putting his arm around Dahl's shoulders. "Maybe you want to go in alone. Or maybe you want to go home...?"
"No," Dahl said. She took a deep breath. "I'll be okay."
"What are you going to say to him?" Azur asked.
Dahl hesitated a second time as she grasped the flap of the tent, and sighed. "I don't know," she said. "But I'm feeling more than a little nervous about what I'm going to find inside..."
To Be Continued....