The city was in a state of chaos. The rumors of an imminent invasion had been confirmed by reports of a large scale war going on in orbit, and panic had ensues. For some reason, that meant that the whole of downtown was being ransacked, despite limited police presence.

Leela dodged a manbot carrying a television. Cameron and the lieutenant were on her heels. Poor Fry, having already run his fair share that morning, wheezed along behind. Leela had found the delivery boy waiting nervously by the payphone he had just used to call her, just a scant three blocks from Planet Express. With time somewhere between short and nonexistent, Leela had spared only a few seconds for some hasty introductions, and had taken off again, only looking back once to make sure the others were still following.

The four of them had almost made it back to Planet Express when Fry called from the rear: "Umm, Leela? Look up."

"Not now, Fry", she shouted back. "We're almost-" But her voice was cut off with a noise like the world was coming to an end. And it was.

Leela jolted to a stop and stared up at the source of the sound with abject disbelief. Not fear, not confusion, just simple inability to accept what she was seeing. Up in the sky above the city a second sun was shining. A great yellow orb of fire was slowly making its way across the sky, trailing a long tail of thick black smoke. The sound of its passing was massive, to the point that the noise was as much heard as felt; the air, the ground, even Leela's body vibrated with it.

Fry screamed and dove under the nearest parked hovercar, but Leela didn't budge, knowing full well that no amount of cover would make a difference if that stone fell on their heads.

Cameron asked: "Where do you think it will land?" Her tone was calm.

Leela didn't take her gaze away from the falling star. In a few moments it was over the horizon, headed southwest. "It looks like it's moving slow, so it won't go far." There was a tremendous flash from the direction the rock had vanished. "It probably hit somewhere near the west coast, or maybe in the Pacific."

"I wonder if we'll hear it, all the way over here?"

Fry, having sheepishly clambered out from his hiding place, stared at Cameron with eyes wide. Leela understood. Thousands, if not millions of people had just died, and this woman's seemingly only reaction was to wonder how far the sound would travel.

The people on the street, having stopped to watch the meteor's descent in silent terror, began to stir. A storefront window shattered, and suddenly the looting was back in full swing. With a raise of an eyebrow, Cameron sent Leela a silent question. Leela nodded, and started jogging. They reached Planet Express five minutes later.

"It took you meatbags long enough!" Bender called from the ramp of the Planet Express Ship. Leela ignored him and bolted into the ship, taking two steps at a time. Her four companions, winded, and in Bender's case surly, followed at a slightly less breakneck pace.

Amy and The Professor were already on the bridge. Without thinking, Leela slid into the Captain's seat, but the Professor didn't seem to notice. He was too busy fiddling with a half-assembled piece of nasty-looking hardware that was resting on his lap. On his face was a grin of pure evil.

Cameron, seemingly unperturbed by the day's event, leaned nonchalantly on the navigation console and asked: "So, Captain, what's the game plan?"

Leela regarded her for a moment, not having missed the slight emphasis that Voss had put on the word 'Captain'. Was it an acknowledgement of Leela's authority aboard the Planet Express Ship, or a reminder of Cameron's superior military rank? Leela had been discharged from the military at the end of the war with Spheron 1, but this being a time of war, Voss could legally impress everyone present into the DOOP navy, and Leela, having only attained the rank of private in the war, would have to surrender control of her ship. "So", Leela thought, "which is it? Is she an ally, or a rival?"

Amy spoke into what Leela now realized had been several seconds of awkward silence. "Uhh Leela, who are they?"

Cameron addressed the intern. "My name is Cameron. I'm the captain of The Cumulus. Over there is my second officer, Avis." Voss gestured at the hulking white alien "He doesn't say much. We were stuck groundside when the shooting started. I guess we'll be tagging along with you until we can get back to our ship." This last was said with a meaningful glance in Leela's direction. So they were to be allies then, and Voss would not challenge Leela's authority.

"Nice to meet you, Cameron. My name's Amy, and that over there is Professor Farnsworth. Hermes is in his cabin, doing something with a stapler."

"And who is your metal friend?"

"Oh, that's-"

"Yo mama." Bender cut in. "Come on skinsacks, let's cut the crap and get moving already, before the whole damned sky falls on us." A low roar followed by a distant boom served to emphasize the robot's point. A moment later, a column of black smoke began rising from the direction of the Municipal Spaceport.

Leela reached for the ignition, but Cameron lightly grabbed her wrist. The cyclops glared, but Voss did not remove her hand. "Wait Leela, hear me out," Voss said. "Where are you planning to go?" she asked gently.

"Anywhere's better than here." Bender grumbled darkly from the background, but Leela realized suddenly how very wrong he was. If asteroids were falling at leisure across the planet's surface, the DOOP was surely being overrun. That meant that low Earth orbit would be swimming with brainspawn. But they couldn't stay on the ground either. If one of those rocks happened to land close by… Leela shuddered. She had made all her plans based on what Nibbler had said would happen, but everything was different; Anything was possible. With dismay, Leela realized she had absolutely no idea what to do.

Voss, upon seeing Leela's shocked expression, let go of her hand. "I need to get back to my ship as soon as possible" She said. "My first officer can handle things without me, but you know as well as I do that a Captain's place is on her bridge." When Leela didn't respond, she continued. "Now, you told me that you have more experience than anyone with fighting these brainspawn creatures. Strategically, you're indispensable. If we link up with the fleet, the DOOP could really use your knowledge. Then again, the weapons that you were saying your professor has stashed in the hold might be the advantage we need to win this thing. So it seems to me that we have two options: head for the Cumulus, or try and mine the breaches in our lines with the Professor's toys. Since we can't be in two places at once, we'll have to choose one or the other. If we take option A, we'll waste enough time that the brainspawn might overwhelm our positions before we close the gaps. If we choose option B we risk our biggest asset, your life, and leave the fleet to learn how to fight these guys on their own. This is your ship, Leela, so this is your choice." Cameron crossed her arms and smiled. "So which one will it be?"

Leela thought for a moment. She couldn't help but feel a grudging respect for this woman. Not only had she managed to discreetly point out that Leela didn't know what she was doing without alerting anyone else, Cameron had presented her with a well thought out plan of action, while keeping Leela's authority intact by offering no opinions of her own and giving Leela the final decision. Voss, Leela knew, was a fine military officer.

But, Leela realized, Voss's plan was not quite complete. "You're wrong." Said the cyclops.

Voss obviously hadn't been expecting this response. She blinked twice. "What?" She said, her tone suddenly lacking its confident edge.

"When you said we can't be in two places at once. You were wrong." In reply to the general looks of confusion from her companions, Leela reached down and picked something up from next to her seat. It was the time device. Straightening, she addressed Cameron. "This has been charging for hours now. If we use it for a short trip now, it should still have enough power for a big time jump, if we need it."

Cameron studied the little object. "What do you have in mind?" she asked.

Leela stood. "Amy," she said, "You fly the ship. Let the professor tell you where to put his weapons. He'll know how to use them the most effectively. Fry and Bender, you stay and help the Professor. Cameron, Lieutenant Avis, you're with me."

"Where are you going?" Fry asked.

"To steal a spaceship." Leela replied.

The hangar of the Planet Express Building was deserted. Early morning sunlight was just now beginning to work its way through the second story windows, bathing the Planet Express ship's dorsal fin in warm orange light. The only sound was a distant, muffled conversation coming from the lounge, and an occasional loud pop as the ship's exhaust nozzles cooled and contracted, the metal alloy still warm to the touch from recent use. The sharp stink of the plasma exhaust still permeated the air, but it was dissipating rapidly as the fumes were drawn into the overhead air vents.

There was a flash, and two figures suddenly appeared on the hangar floor. A gust of wind, created as molecules were suddenly pushed aside to make room for the new arrivals, quickly spread across the room, but soon lost its energy and died out.

The two figures, one with purple hair and the other with red, strode confidently to the waiting ship, climbed the ship's ladder, and disappeared inside. Moments later, the intruder with the purple hair reappeared and descended the ship's ladder. Kneeling on the floor by the front landing gear, she propped the paper up on one knee and began to write. A few moments had passed in silence when there was a loud clang from somewhere deep in the building, followed by a volley of unintelligible curses. The second intruder now reappeared in the ship's forward hatch and gestured to her partner. The intruder with the purple hair nodded and dropped the paper and rushed back into the ship. A soft light grew in the room, though if anyone had been watching, they would have sworn it had no source. The mysterious glow intensified, throwing the entire hangar into a dazzling, shadowless brilliance. Ripples appeared on the surface on the Planet Express Ship, as though it were a liquid stirred by a slow breeze. The vessel started to move, though not in any direction that the human brain could understand. As it moved it grew more faint, until it seemed as though it was being seen at a great distance through a dense fog. Soon the ship was invisible. It was gone, having left not even a sound to denote its passing.

Fuming, Amy Wong made her way into the empty hangar. After making her way to the conference table, she proceeded to tear off the shreds of her lab coat, as though it were its fault that the professor insisted on storing the nuclear waste and the sulfuric acid in glass bottles. This time she resolved to make the old man clean up the mess. The phone rang for the sixth time. Apparently nobody else was going to bother answering it.

" Ungh, where did everyone go? Spleesh, why is it that every time I get myself saturated with gamma radiation, the phone rings and everyone else is conveniently gone?"

There was a muffled click as she activated the videophone.

"Planet Express, this is Amy speaking."

"Hi Amy, can I talk to Fry?"

The Planet Express Ship finished its wild four-dimensional flight and settled back into reality. From the bridge, the view was much the same as it was before. In fact, the only sign that anything had happened at all was the sudden change in the position of the room's shadows.

Cameron stood up from her place on the couch and stretched. Behind her, Lieutenant Avis untangled himself from his spot at the rear of the bridge.

"Wow, what a rush!" Cameron exclaimed. "You do this time travel thing often?"

Leela shrugged and pressed a button on her console. The hangar bay doors began to open, allowing a widening pool of sunlight into the hangar and onto the ship's bridge. "The first time is the worst." She said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "You get used to it after awhile."

The screen on Leela's wrist LoJack-a-mater blinked on, and Amy's worried face appeared.

"Hello?" the intern called. "Leela, is that you? We saw a flash through the hangar windows right before we took off. Are you guys ok?"

"Yes Amy, we're ok, and we've got the ship." The hangar doors finished moving. Automatically, Leela sent the ship straight up and out of the building, never bothering to take her eye from the screen "Where are you guys now?", she asked.

Amy started to answer but Fry's disembodied voice cut her off. Evidently he'd learned how to patch the laser turret's comm. system into the bridge vidscreen. "We're over the north pole! Bender and Hermes are tossing one of the professor's death rays out the airlock. You should have seen what happened when the brains tried to fly past the last bomb we threw overboard. It was like, Kapow! And the brains were all like, argh! Nooo! Gack!"

By this point, Leela's Planet Express Ship had exited the atmosphere. Up ahead was a scene of carnage straight out of a Galaxy Wars documentary. Bits of spaceship and brainspawn lay scattered about in all directions. The DOOP had spread itself out, trying to cover ever-widening gaps in the Earth's defenses. An occasional silent explosion lit the cockpit a dull orange.

Leela, Cameron, and the Lieutenant stared silently at the scene until Amy's voice cut through the reverie. "Hello? Are you guys still there?"

Leela snapped back to her senses, mentally kicking herself for loosing her concentration in the middle of a war. "Yes, Amy we're here. I need to sign off now. I'm going to try and find a way to get Cameron and Avis back to the Cumulus. You guys keep doing what you're doing. And Amy?" The PE captain paused for a moment. "You guys be careful."

Amy grinned. "Aye, aye captain!" The video screen went blank

Cameron moved to Leela's side. "Captain, if I might make a suggestion, one of us needs to man the weapons."

Leela nodded. "Right. The ladder to the turret is just down the hallway behind the bridge."

Cameron nodded. "Right, I saw it when I boarded the sh- Watch out!"

Leela whirled. A massive asteroid filled the front viewport. Leela threw all of her weight into the stick. The PE Ship rolled to starboard and upward, narrowly missing the rock's jagged surface. A squad of brains popped into existence. Leela sent her ship into a barrel roll. Green death rays shot by in all directions. A loud curse blasted over the ship's con after a particularly close call and a volley of red laser fire swept overhead, headed in the brain's direction. A pink dot seethed and then was still. Apparently Cameron had found her way to the ship's cannon.

A few moments later the space around Leela's Planet Express Ship was devoid of brainspawn. Leela brought her ship alongside the asteroid that had nearly destroyed them.

"Cameron," Leela called.

Voss's voice came in over the speaker. "Here. Any idea how we can get rid of this rock?"

"No. Even if we had any torpedoes, there's no way we could do anything to it. The damned thing must be forty miles across. How the hell did I get that close to crashing into it without even seeing it?"

"Easy. Because it wasn't there until you almost crashed into it. It just appeared out of nowhere while your eyes, er, while your eye was turned."

"Just like those brains. They weren't there, and then suddenly they were. Since when can they do that?!"

"I don't know, but we've got to do something about this asteroid, or in another few minutes it'll be in the Earth's atmosphere. That professor of yours doesn't happen to keep a spare bomb or two onboard, does he?"

Leela sighed. "He used to, but he's been a lot more careful not to leave them lying around ever since Bender tried to sell one to The Being of Inconceivable Horror."

"You mean Rosie O'Donnell?"

"No, the other one. The one with tentacles."

"Oh… Well, anyway, your friends should have an extra one."

Leela nodded, and then remembered that Cameron couldn't see her. "Uhh, right. I'll call them." She reached for the video screen's on button, but was interrupted before she could press it.

"Captain! Missile!" Leela whirled at the strange voice, one hand automatically reaching for the laser she had stashed under her seat.

Instead of an armed boarding party, Leela found herself aiming her pistol at Lieutenant Avis, who at some point during the last five minutes had seated himself at the nav station. The Lieutenant didn't even register a hint of surprise at finding the weapon suddenly pointed at his face. Instead, he pointed to the radar screen in front of him, where a large red dot was barreling down on their location.

Leela's face paled. Frantically she threw herself back into the pilot's seat. Cameron's voice came in over the comm again. "Uhh, Leela? I see something big and nasty coming our way."

Leela sent the engines into afterburner. "I know. I'm getting us out of here"

The missile flashed by to port a scant few seconds later. Leela spun the ship 180 degrees, hoping to protect the delicate engines from what was coming. There was a tremendous flash, and apartment sized boulders went flying in all directions. Leela gritted her teeth and changed her grip on the stick. The first rock went by overhead. Then two more passed by to port and starboard. Suddenly there were rocks everywhere, and Leela sent the ship into wild evasive maneuvers. Overhead, the ship's laser fired erratically as Voss tried to keep a lock on the fast moving targets. Two blocks of iron shattered into dust as they were connected with a few lucky shots.

As suddenly as it came, the shock front passed. Leela sat back in her chair and let her sweating hands drop from the controls to her lap. The PE captain hazarded a glance in Lieutenant Avis's direction. The alien looked as unperturbed as ever.

The intercom came alive again with Cameron's voice. "Leela, I've found the Cumulus. There are too many ships in the area for me to separate the Cumulus's beacon from the background chatter, but that missile that almost blasted us was broadcasting my ship's signature. I've traced the missile's trajectory back to a Nimbus class warship. It's got to be the Cumulus."

Leela nodded, wondering inwardly what it was going to take to unsettle her new comrades. "Alright, we'll check it out", she said as calmly as she could manage.