Hypernauts

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Where are you going? Your mech suits are over here.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, what do we need the mech suits for? I want to get up close and personal with these plants.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
And the mech suits are fun, but not all the time. Anyway, this is gonna be a breeze. Just a walk in the garden.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Why does the phrase "famous last words" flip through my mind?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
We've got to get this ship some firepower!

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Is that your answer for everything? Firepower?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Look, I'm sick of running away every time a Triad robot shows it's ugly face.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Right now, we can't even run away. The last jump fried all the generator relays and we can't repair 'em out here. Wherever here is.

Kulai:
We're in the Bellarius system. We'll make for Vekara. It's the largest trade planet in this system. There, we can repair the ship and outfit it with weapons. And we must warn the Vekarans that the Triad is in this sector.

Kulai:
Weapons are the weakest defense of all.

Kulai:
The Triad is real. Their armada covers entire quadrants. Now you know how advanced our technology was and even we couldn't outfight the millions of their war machines.

Zadir:
I heard rumors of some disaster on Payris. I was wondering, when do you think you might resume normal trade?

Kulai:
Zadir, our world has been destroyed like thousands before it. And they will destroy you.

Zadir:
Really? I think you must be exaggerating.

Kulai:
Exaggerating? Let me see if I can explain. First they send in waves of hauler ships, each of which holds hundreds of thousands of war robots, their hunters. Once they've destroyed everything on the planet's surface, they move in with enormous factory ships called Makers. These tear apart the planet for raw materials until there is nothing left but orbiting rubble.

Kulai:
The Triad hate intelligent life and destroy any civilized planet that they find.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
They were gonna shock that manta. How could they?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Maybe they're like whalers. They hunt the mantas for food.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
That's supposed to make me feel better?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Not everyone was raised a vegetarian, Max.

Kulai:
Sharkey, plants are living creatures no less than animals. We must all eat to live. And Max, is it right to judge these people by your standards?

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
This is different!

Kulai:
At any rate, we must speak with them.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Yeah. You bet we will.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
This... manta is invisible to any form of detection.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
That's impossible.

Kulai:
Impossible is a word you must grow out of, Ace.

Kulai:
I've had Horten investigating a world with higher life form readings. They're directly in the path of a Triad prospector probe.

Horten:
Unfortunately, this civilization has only achieved rudimentary electrical and steam power.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Advanced enough for the Triad to want to destroy them.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
But with no way to fight back or escape.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
We have to warn them.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Kulai?

Kulai:
Yeah?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
You're the gloose expert around here. Which is it, a he or a she?

Kulai:
It is both and neither. You must stop trying to force an alien species into your your narrow definition of male and female.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
This is Captain Ace of the Hypernauts of planet Earth. Release our friend at once, or face the full wrath of our invincible Hypernaut battle suits.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Um, Sharkey, where are we?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
I tried to warn you. That buzzing sound we heard was interference from the spy sat. It's scrambled the computer.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
They said the spy sat was dead.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Well, they were wrong. Big time.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
So, um, where are we?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
I don't have a clue. Wherever it is, it's a long hairy way from Earth.

Kulai:
The message speaks of the heat seekers, the white devourers. The last survivor left this as a warning. You must get out of there immediately!

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Tell me about your sister.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, she's three years younger than me. Smarter than me. Oh, and, and, and much prettier than me.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Yeah, right.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, well, she is!

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
No way.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Well, how did you get into the Academy? The Enclave hates the idea of contact with other beings, colonizing, everything the Academy does.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, I had to legally separate myself from my family. Even making calls to my sister broke the Caduceus isolation laws. And my parents, they won't talk to me at all.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
At least you still have a family.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
You don't?

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Ace, will you please calm down?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Lighten up, Max. You never get to have any fun.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, I'm trying to take some bio-sensor readings here. I thought I might've gotten a blip on something.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
On this chunk of ice? Who could be living down here?

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Well, we do find living organisms in the coldest parts of Earth. We could just find something here.

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Oh, sure. The Abominable Snowman, maybe. "Excuse me, Mr. Sasquatch. Can we borrow a piece of your glacier"?

Kulai:
You cannot return to your world. If you do, you will lead the Triad there.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Don't you think that it's kinda weird that the ship's gravity is still on?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
No.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Why would it be on after all this time?

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
Why wouldn't it?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
And, and the air. Why bother with oxygen regeneration if there's nobody here?

Russell 'Ace' Antonov:
Res off, Sharkey. Don't you ever do anything but worry?

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
I'll stop worrying when life stops giving me things to worry about.

Kulai:
Your captain does seem rather impulsive.

Ricardo 'Sharkey' Alvarez:
Captain? Ace? Oh. You must mean that stupid speech he gave when we were facing Paiyin. That was just hot air.

Noriko 'Max' Matsuda:
He's a cadet. Like us.

Kulai:
According to my understanding of your language, that means a student, a young person. Horten, what is the estimated age of these two compared to the life expectancy of their species?

Horten:
15 to 17 against an average life span of 90 to 120 years.

Kulai:
You are children? I let a child go against the Triad?