Retrieval Saga

Galvanized Wills

Chapter 1: Planet of the Frogs

It's been several days since the crew of the North Star had bailed Matt out of jail. Not much had happened since then, but the crew had noticed that several of the appliances and devices were malfunctioning in cases from minimal to quite noticeable. Here's an example of one such incident:

Matt was thirsty so he went to the kitchen to get something to drink. He filled a glass with some lemonade and then activated the ice crusher for some ice. Instead, several ice cubes shot out like a machine gun. Matt dodged to avoid becoming a frozen martini. Once the barrage stopped, Matt muttered, "What's wrong with the freezer?" He opened the freezer door and got a full blast of icy mist that covered in a layer of frost. "I'm f-f-fine," he chattered, "I'll just t-t-turn on the st-st-stove for a m-m-minute." He shuffled over and turned on the stove. Quite predictably, the stove barbequed hi with a flamethrower-like blast. Matt screamed and ran into the hallway, where the fire extinguishers pelted him with high-pressure water spouts. In the end, Matt was left a pathetic-looking wet mess on the floor until Chupy the chupacabra found him and latched onto his butt with his mouth, which made Matt do an interesting dance until he slipped on a puddle and landed on top of Chupy.

That particular incident was the last straw for Matt. So when he was able to reclaim enough of his injured dignity, he ordered Techo to find a place to take care of all the glitches on the ship. Fortunately, there was one ideal place for that: Galva Prime, home world of the Galvans. The crew immediately set sail for it as they've also had enough of the faulty tech. Galva Prime was a relatively tiny world compared to most planets, about the size of Mercury or Pluto. It had three moons orbiting it: Galvan A, B, and C. The Galvans were equally tiny to match their home world, but they had provided on area of the largely industrialized planet for off-world visitors larger than themselves. So it was here that the North Star landed.

As soon as the spaceship landed, Matt opened the hatch door and stepped outside. "Watch where you're stomping!" cried a tiny voice. Matt looked down and saw a couple of frog-like aliens that looked a lot like Grays. "Sorry, didn't see you there," said Matt. "That's what they all say," said one of the Galvans.

"State your business here," said a more official-looking Galvan. "We're here to buy some upgrades for our ship," said Matt, "it's been acting screwy recently." "There's a mechanic's shop over there," said the Galvan, pointing in a particular direction, "it's not far for someone your size and it has a rocket sign on it. You can't miss it. Just try not to step on anyone on your way there."

The landing strip wasn't the only thing built for larger-scaled beings. There was a small community center for interplanetary travelers. It was more like a pit stop than a motel, so not too many people stay long here. Matt walked on toward where the Galvan pointed. Draco, Chip, and Contrinus followed after him. Draco and Contrinus wanted to see if there was anywhere to fly while they were here. Chip wanted to see more of the Galvan homeworld, being part Galvan.

Matt soon found the shop. It appeared empty except for some machine parts hanging on the walls or stacked on the shelves. There was also a counter with what looked like a high-tech cash register with a black and green casing and a bell on it. Matt walked over and rang the bell. When no one came, he rang a couple more times. Suddenly the cash register snapped, "Will you cut that out already? I was trying to take a nap." Matt yelped and jumped away from the talking cash register. "Relax," said Chip, "it's just a Galvanic Mechamorph."

The 'casing' of the cash register jumped off, revealing a rather normal-looking cash register underneath. The 'casing' morphed into a humanoid creature that had a green front side, a black backside, perfectly symmetrical circuit lines on its body, and a glowing green eye for an eye. "Welcome to Pivot's Spaceship Repairs," said the Mechomorph, "how can I help you?" "Well, my ship has been acting crazy lately and nobody can figure out what's the matter with it." "Hmm," said Pivot, "can you be more specific?" "Pretty much every time you turn something on in that thing, it backfires somehow," said Draco.

Pivot rubbed what could be assumed to be his chin and said, "I see, I'll have a look at it and see what I can do. It's on the landing strip, right?" The group nodded and Pivot flipped on a sign that said 'Away' on a window of the shop and then walked out the door.

Matt turned to the others and said, "I didn't know there were Galvanic Mechamorphs here on Galvan Prime." "Where do you think they come from?" said Chip. "I heard something about them being from a moon." "That's right," said Chip and pointed out the window and towards the sky, "they're from Galvan B, the second moon orbiting Galva Prime. Apparently it was rich in minerals so the Galvans mined there often. But then they tried using this self-replicating nanotechnology to help with mining. It backfired rather badly. The nanotech bonded with the moon's minerals and brought the entire moon to life. Unfortunately, the moon isn't that sentient and will devour anything that lands on it, making it essentially 'carnivorous land'. The Galvans used the material from Galvan B's surface to build the Mechomorphs." Matt glanced upwards towards the sky. Since it was nighttime, he could clearly see Galvan B up in the sky. It looked like a regular moon to him, but he thought he could make out a metallic glint on the surface. He turned his attention back to the others and said, "Let's head back to the North Star. I want to make sure this 'Pivot' guy knows what he's doing."

It didn't take long for them to get back. By then, Pivot was looking over the North Star with the landing strip's analyzing computer. "You think you can fix it?" asked Matt. Pivot made eye contact with Matt and said, "I have good news, bad news, and troubling news." "Let's have the good news first." "Okay, the good news is that I can fix this thing, but the bad news is that it might take a while. "Then what's the troubling news?" asked Draco. "According to the scanners, it appears the main reason your ship's been acting weird is because there were several computer viruses in the system."

The others gave Chip suspicious looks to which he responded, "Don't look at me, I had nothing to do with it." "And here's the odd thing," said Pivot, "apparently, the viruses had been affecting the ship's engines, so it has been subtly forced to come near this planet." "Why would it do that?" asked Matt. "Not sure, but it sounds to me that someone wanted you to come here for whatever reason."

As the five of them talked, none of them noticed one of the security cameras acting funny. It gave crackles of electricity and shifted to point its lense at them. The camera studied the group, particularly the crewmembers from the North Star. "I've got you now," muttered a voice and then the camera went blank.


Here's the first chapter of the new story up at last. It wasn't a matter of writer's block, it's just that my primary work computer is unable to connect to the Internet at the moment. Anyways, this chapter's only the tip of the iceberg of what's about to happen. Check for the next update to find out exactly what. Please review.