Chapter 10: The Enemy's Movements

Disclaimer: I don't own Treasure Planet. Just the story & original characters

Captain Amelia called back the entire crew on board the ship for an earlier emergency meeting than planned. It was heard that Mr. Baron, her second mate, had gone missing. The cabin boy, Mr. Te'ul, knowing that he was in danger of "disappearing" quickly ran and found Jim's team at the bar to tell them the news. They then searched for the Captain's investigative group and then her decision made them all come here onboard once again.

"Search the entire boat for any evidence," that was her first order.

After thirty minutes, every nook and cranny of the boat has been checked and double checked, and there was no sign of any stray evidence of a kidnapper, but it was still likely that Baron was kidnapped by a mysterious thug. From the search, not only have Mr. Baron went missing, firearms were also missing, the engines of the ship have been tampered, and so were supplies and cash! How was that all possible?

They sat on the long table, an awkward silence soon followed. The captain massaged her temples trying to figure out what to do, "I can easily call the ISA board to send in arms, supplies and more spare cash, but that would take weeks! Blast it all!" she slammed her fist on the table. Mr. Cunningham, the first mate then raised a question, "How could it be possible that pirates were able to sabotage us and not leave anything behind?"

The people fell silent once more, until Silver finally figured, "The Zeitmanipular…" he spoke in a grim voice, "Methinks they, whoe'er they are, has got it."

"That sounds deductively valid, but the other question is why? What do they want from us?"

"Outlaws are ruthless, what do ya think?" Silver replied sounding darker than before, which was completely different from his usual sugarcoated words. His thoughts were obviously depressing, thinking that "they" could be targeting this crew for a specific reason. Since this crew was set out on a voyage to investigate, "they" must have known about this from going to the future, so they're changing the course of the future by tampering of what is "now". These people, they may just want to stop any form of resistance, making them invincible to do whatever it is they want. They may be even worse than the pirates that were told in the legends; after all, you can control the flow of history with just the use of the Zeitmanipular. No wonder the forefathers wanted to make sure that no one had it. Unfortunately, their so-called "secret" place wasn't so secret anymore when Leland found it. Another puzzling thing was why had they spared our lives when they could all kill us? He noticed the worried look of the crew and student's faces; they could possibly be thinking the same thing. Morph even let out a soft whimper from Jim's coat pocket. The entire atmosphere of the crew was gloomy.

"So this is it, huh?" Teresa, the helmsman spoke. "It's the beginning of the end."

"Don't be daft, Ms. Patti." the captain spoke. "I could negotiate with the ISA to send them faster, if it can take three days, we might still be able to catch up to the enemy."

From the information gathered by Seth, Frieda and Ross, the enemy was a band of malevolent aliens from the Azarath star system – and the students figured it out from a few lessons on extra-solar and extra-etheric life. They weren't the smartest of aliens, but they were definitely brutal. They took over other star systems like Enderox, the now dead star system Pelusa, and Chisuko. This entire Etherium could be next now that they had the Zeitmanipular, which makes travel a lot easier and evidence a lot harder to find. But since they weren't smart, they actually announced their threat to the Etherium in the bar just a week ago, why did they choose the bar? That was unknown.

"Hang on, does anyone realize that tomorrow is Hollow's day?" Canolin spoke, trying to lighten up the situation. "You know…All Souls day, Halloween, Samhain?"

Everyone let out a groan, some hit their heads against the table, others hid their faces with their hands, all of them wondering why Canolin spoke of festivity when the situation was bad. The captain spoke, "Ms. Ma'ir, I feel that this is a completely inappropriate time-"

"Wait, wait, wait! Hear me out guys," she held her hands out and stood up, "I'm sorry for cutting you off captain, but I have an idea. Hollow's day isn't just children camouflaging with the dead to blend in with the dead souls that are released tomorrow, in this part of the Etherium near my home planet, guising is practiced. People go around chanting rhymes, telling tall tales, and sing and dance and play music or whatever. Garner, what do you get from guising in the streets?"

"Money?" Te'ul answered meekly.

"Exactly!" Canolin snapped her fingers, "So if we all go guising, we might be able to raise enough to buy all the arms, supplies and if we have more, we can upgrade the ship too!"

Everybody's face turned to a smile when they had hope, they all turned to look at Captain Amelia Doppler, "Ms. Ma'ir, I think that is an excellent idea. However, does everyone on board agree to your idea?"

Ma'ir gulped, she just thought of some of the gruffy men who just don't have what it takes to sing, dance, play an instrument, or look good chanting rhymes. Ross then spoke out, "Can we do odd jobs instead?"

"Good alternative, Mr. Gilbert." Captain Amelia approved that idea.

"If I may captain, odd jobs aren't particularly popular during Hollow's day. The people prefer giving out their cash to guisers on this festive day." Canolin stroked her chin, thinking of a guising plan that can bring in gold, and then an idea clicked, "Frieda! Your dancing and my lute playing! Men would go wild!"

Frieda jolted backwards when her name was called by that weird lutist, "Me? Can you find someone else to go with you instead like Mr. Silver?"

"Lassie, she meant that ya dance good. Me tall-tale tellin' won't match up, eh?" Silver winked at the bronze-skinned girl.

Frieda felt uncomfortable, should she actually go for the sake of the crew?

"Jimbo, tell the lass she was great that day," Silver told the 18 year-old. "Ya was dancin' with her and ya know better."

"Huh? What?" Jim was blur for a moment, "Oh yeah! You were good, and you should go. You'll get to know Cane better too." Morph also made cute noises trying to get Frieda to go.

"Umm," Frieda thought for a while longer, "Ok, I'll go." obviously she only said that to not let Jim and the crew down.

"Very good," the captain commented. "The rest of you, sort yourselves out to odd jobs or guising."

"If I may captain," Jim suddenly spoke. "I also brought in an extra toolbox so I can help fix the engine room, the crew who has mechanical capabilities may come and lend me a hand so it can shorten the time needed to fix the ship. Six hands are enough to fix it in a day's time."

"Well planned ahead, Mr. Hawkins. Extra points for your excellent initiative." said Captain Amelia. "All hands dismissed."

The students and crew discussed among themselves on what they would want to do. At least, as a collective, they were glad to be able to move on in two days time to find out where Mr. Baron could have been held, and figure out where the Azarath's external base might be to stop them from taking over the Etherium. Silver had Morph called over to help him tell tall tales for tomorrow's guising.

Author's Note: ooooh, now the enemy is unveiled…Happy Halloween's Eve everyone (gosh it's a bit weird, I mean the "een" of Halloween is meant to be eve, so it's Hallows Eve Eve LOL) Treat me with your reviews too ok?