Chapter Three
By Lanzman



The Admiral rolled his eyes, sighing in frustration. "That's not a very professional attitude, Cyberbeast," he said.

"Maybe not, but that's the way it is," Cyberbeast replied. Doctor Xigeous stared at the Beast with a smug look. "I anticipated your antipathy, so I took the liberty of producing . . . this!"

With a flourish, the doctor pulled a large rock from a drawer in a nearby work bench. "Xenolithic Immobilization Guarantor!" he yelled and bonked Cyberbeast on the head with it. Stunned, Cyberbeast fell to the floor.

The Admiral grabbed Xigeous around the neck. "What the hell are you DOING?!?" he bellowed.

"Hitting this ungrateful doofus with a rock so that we can load him in the shuttle," the Doctor answered calmly. "We'll be airborne before he wakes up."

"I have to admit, I wouldn't have thought of that," the Admiral allowed. He released Xigeous. "Okay, get going."

"Unfortunately, the highly advanced cybernetics I used to create the Cyberbeast are quite heavy," the Doctor said. "I'll need some help getting him on the shuttle. LANZ!"

At the Doctor's call, his assistant came in to the lab. "Yessir?" the man asked.

"Ah, Lanzmanelli," Xigeous said. "Give the Admiral some help getting Cyberbeast in to the X-shuttle, would you?"

"What? Me?" the Admiral sputtered. "I'm the Admiral here, Xigeous! I have people like *you* to lift things."

Doctor Xigeous made a show of stretching and rubbing his back. "I'd love to live down to your expectations, Admiral, but my back is a disaster! You'd best hurry. Cyberbeast won't be unconscious much longer."

Grumbling but realizing the futility of arguing with anyone who used the title `doctor' and complained of a bad back, the Admiral turned to the task, only to see Lanz putting the Beast into the shuttle by himself. "Not so heavy," Lanz observed. "Five, six hundred pounds tops."

"Eats his spinach, doesn't he?" the Admiral observed.

Lanz shook his head. "Brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts," he said. "And orange juice."

Doctor Xigeous clapped his hands together briskly. "Let's kick the tires and light the fires!" he exclaimed.

"We need the rest of the team, Doc," Lanz pointed out. "And I ain't going without my cape."

"Surprised you'll even go to the bathroom without that stupid cape," Xigeous muttered under his breath. Aloud, he said "Yes yes, quite right, quite right. The rest of the team. Admiral?"

"Most of them are on the John Stennis already," the Admiral replied, "waiting for you to arrive with Cyberbeast. We're having a little trouble tracking down Gray Zombie, but that's nothing new."

A groan came from the inside of the shuttle. "He'll have to catch up," Xigeous said hastily. "Come, Lanz, we must away!"

Lanz was pulling a somewhat tattered black and gray piece of fabric from a locker. "Right with you," he said.

They piled aboard the shuttle. Xigeous took the controls. He hit a switch and huge bay doors rumbled open above them. "All secure?" the Doctor asked. Lanz grunted. "Then we're off!" He activated a series of controls and the shuttle leapt into the air like a goosed virgin.

The Admiral waved until the shuttle was out of sight.

Cyberbeast groaned again, with real feeling this time, and woke up. The first thing he saw was Lanz. "You okay?" Lanz asked.

Cyberbeast's face went dark. "That miserable little son of a . . . I will kill him!"

"I wouldn't advise that," Lanz replied. "Doctor Xigeous is still the only one who can fly this bucket, and we've got a ways to go yet before we get to the carrier."

"Quite right, quite right," Xigeous said from the pilot's seat. "Might as well grin and bear it, Beast."

Cyberbeast ground his teeth together hard enough to make sparks. "When we land, I will throw you over the side of the ship," he promised.

"Of course you will," Xigeous replied. The shuttle bucked and shook. "Oh, my," Xigeous said. "This isn't good."