Author's Note: I totally screwed up as far as how much info I put on a line goes on this part and
part four, so I fixed them. Other than that, minimal changes were made, so if you read the original
ones, there is no need to read these.

The Forgotten Past Part 3: Contact
Pokey held his breath as Ganiana considered.
"I don't like you and I don't trust you," she answered at last. "But your suggestion is
interesting.I will take it to Giegue." The comm screen faded. A green beam came out of the giant
weapon. Instead of vaporizing him, it paralyzed his ship.
"Great," Pokey muttered. "Now what am I supposed to do? I can't escape." It seemed like
days before she returned with the answer.
"He liked the idea," Ganiana informed him, seeming a little disappointed.
"Whew," Pokey replied. "Can I go now?"
"Not so fast. He wants you here to help us execute it." Pokey cringed at the word
"execute". "We'll need a human like you who will be willing to help us."
The next thing he knew, Pokey was in a Giygan version of a jail cell. There were only
three windows and all of them were tiny. One was a force field protected space on the door,
where they gave him food. The other two were simply barred and gave him a glimpse of the two
cells on either side.
Meanwhile, Ganiana and the rest of the ship's crew were hard at work. The ship was
heading for the orbit of Mars. They also needed a test subject. They didn't want to use one of
the descendants because then they would go through far less pain than desired. Pokey wouldn't do
since he had no Psi.
"Chances are, the descendents will have the strongest Psi on the planet, so..."
"Understood." They ended up deciding on the person who had the fourth strongest Psi
readout.
"Tammai Marlay," Ganiana whispered as the profile came up. She was an unusually short
girl with auburn hair and green eyes. Somewhere deep inside her, she felt sad that it was a child.
"Ganiana, her name is Tammy Marlow. It's not like you to pronounce Earth names
incorrectly," Jezira, another crew member and someone who had known Ganiana for years corrected
her. "Earthlings certainly have strange names."
"I like their names. They're interesting. Besides, they'd probably think our names are strange."
"Okay, are we ready to go?" Jezira was often uncomfortable when Ganiana became edgy or cranky.
"Run the bioscan just to be sure she isn't one of them."
"Right away." A second later, "Bioscan complete. Tests are negative. She is not one of them."
"Now. We're ready." Twenty Galactican minutes later (twenty seconds, Earth time), the
crew had reached the home of Tammy Marlow. It was a small house, about the size of Ness's.
Tammy was word processing a report on Amphibian anatomy (the price to pay for choosing not to
dissect) when her room was suddenly filled with strange beings.
"Yikes! What's going on? Who are you?" Tammy screeched.
"Tammy, there is no way to escape. Accept capture. It is much eaisier," Ganiana told her
in plain English.
"How do you know my name?" Tammy demanded, backing toward her closet.
"That is not important. Come with us." Ganiana advanced a few steps towards the girl.
Tammy whirrled around and opened her closet door. She began frantically searching for something.
"Ma'am, should I stun her?" One of the officers asked Ganiana in Giygan.
"No, let's see what she does."
"It would be more efficient..."
"Let's see what she does. It's not that hard to overwhelm a human. I want to at least
humor her a little."
"Ma'am!" the officer gave her a Giygan salute and fell silent. Tammy finally came out of
the closet with a Red Rider bee-bee gun in hand. Although her aim was good, the shots did little
more than sting a little. She did manage to get past them and into the hallway.
"Now we stun." Ganiana ordered. The first shot missed her by centimeters and did a little
damage to the wall. Tammy whirrled around to face them. Another shot was fired. The aim was
right on. She put her arms up as a shield, realizing how little that would do. Her eyes were
barely open, but right before it was going to hit, the blast seemed to be absorbed in something.
Ganiana muttered something vile in Giygan. She added, a little louder. "She's using Psi.
Change the setting and fire again."
"Psi?" was Tammy's last thought before everything went black.
***
Ness's alarm went off, but instead of playing music, it was in the middle of reporting
Tammy's disappearance. The DJ was saying that the only other thing missing from the Marlow
household was a bee-bee gun.
"Great," Ness muttered. "Why isn't there ever any good news?"
Down in the kitchen, Tracy was telling Mom all about her escapades with Picky yesturday.
"And then I finally got rid of that stupid Caterpie card, but then the guy that traded with me
beat Picky with it. Who'd have ever known it would be so useful?"
"Hi Mom, Tracy," Ness greeted, sounding a little sleepy.
"Ness! Apple Kid called. They changed the meeting site to Saturn Valley because he
discovered something. I couldn'tmake out all that he said, but it had something to do with
apples. Makes sense, I guess."
"Thanks, Mom." Then, he added under his breath, "Apples?"
When he went to pick Paula up, things became even more confusing. Her mom had no
recollection of apples, but said that it had something to do with Nirvana.
"This is great. It either means that Apple Kid has converted to Buddhism or Kirt Kobane
is back from the dead." Ness remarked. They laughed a little, but they were too confused to think
it was that funny.
"We'd better get going," Paula suggested. Ness agreed and he transported them both to
Saturn Valley.
"Ness! Paula! Nice to see you again!" Apple Kid greeted happily. "It is amazing how both
of you have the same sleeping patterns."
"Nice to see you too," Ness replied, "Now what is this about apples and Nirvana?"
"Huh?"
"It was all our mothers could pick out of what you were saying. You were talking too
fast." Paula clarified.
"Oh. OH! I get it now. It's easier to explain it to all of you at once. Come this way.
Jeff arrived a few minutes ago.
Once Poo arrives..." At that moment, the sound of teleportation could be heard. "Nevermind."
"Hello everyone." said a very sleepy Poo. "What is this Chapel of Light? It was all the
ambassador could understand when you called."
"Come on. Jeff is waiting. It'll be easier if I explain it to everyone at once." Apple
Kid led the way to one of the Mr. Saturn's houses. Inside was a giant computer with a 32 inch
moniter. Six chairs were positioned around it. Jeff occupied one of the chairs and a Mr. Saturn
was in another.
"Welcome! Boing!" the MS (Mr. Saturn) greeted. As usual, he talked with that strange,
hard-to-understand accent.
"Hi guys!" Jeff added. He looked like he was going to say something else, but Apple Kid
sat down in the chair closest to the computer monitor and began pushing buttons, indicating that
it was time for the long-awaited explanation.
"The reason I asked all of you to come here is because the Saturns and I have detected
the presence of a large, extraterrestrial vehicle slowly approaching planet Earth. "
"Extraterrestrial?" Ness asked.
"Alien. Haven't you ever seen the movie E.T.?"
"No."
"Are you sure it's heading for Earth?" Paula inquired.
"For the time being, yes. It is heading in that general direction. Here's a visual. It is
roughly a fourth the size of the moon." The ship was a almost boring metalic grey, the color of
steel. There was no decoration, no real color to it. The ship was narrow in the front of the ship,
but widened out in the back, where it looked like the engines were. Nothing that resembled
a weapon was visible.
"Now look at this." Apple Kid pushed a few buttons and the ship shrank to about a fifth
of the screen. Another, smaller black ship that was about the size of a cockroach on the screen
approached the giant. After a minute, a large cannon-like thing emerged from the bottom of the
front of the ship. A few seconds later, a green beam of light shot out of the cannon and
surrounded the smaller ship. Apple Kid stopped the video.
"They're coming this way and they're armed. This doesn't look good." Apple Kid warned.
"Also, does that smaller ship look familiar to any of you?" It didn't. "How about when I do
this?" He used the cursor to make a box around the smaller ship. After pushing a couple of
buttons, the ship enlarged to take up most of the screen.
"The Spider Mech!" the chosen four cried out.
"Exactly." He played the rest of the clip, which involved the Spider Mech getting sucked
into the very metal of the other ship, along with the weird weapon.
"I was also able to intecept a few messages, both to and from the ship. Of course, they
were in another language and I was not able to translate much."
"What were you able to translate?" Paula asked.
"Well, interestingly enough, they call themselves the Giygans."
"WHAT?" they all screamed at once.
"You mean there's a whole race of Giygases?!" Ness exclaimed.
"Apparently so. Most of the other reports mention someone or something called the Apple
of Enlightenment. I don't know very much about that, but he seems to be a prophet of some sort."
"The Apple of Enlightenment? Hey, remember the Stonehenge base?" Ness remarked.
"Who could forget?" Apple Kid muttered. "It's where I got claustrophobia."
"You weren't there when this happened, but didn't that Starman Deluxe mention something
about the Apple of Enlightenment?"
"Yeah!" Paula remembered. "He said that he would not allow the Apple of Enlightenment's
prediction to come true."
"Well, it did, didn't it?" Jeff stated. "I mean, we defeated Giygas."
"What if you didn't?" Apple Kid asked. "What if there was more to it than that?"
"What do you think, Poo?" Ness asked. There was no answer. Ness looked to where Poo was
sitting. A loud snore filled the tiny house.
"He's had a rough week," Jeff said. They all looked at him. "Well, let's just put it this
way. The only time he has to himself is from two until four in the morning."
"If that's the case, we'd better let him sleep." Paula replied.
"Is there anything else? Any real information about the species as a whole?" Jeff asked.
"Not much. They are conquerers, but you've probably already guessed that. Their empire
takes up most of the galaxy and has been in around for about 500 years. Earth is on the fringe
of it. My guess is that Giygas was sent to conquer it."
"Giygas was pretty strong," Jeff reasoned. "I mean, we couldn't beat him without
everyone's prayers. Was he... weak?"
"From what I can decipher, Giygas was powerful. But, he was just one warrior."
"Still, doesn't sending someone like that to a planet like this seem like overkill?"
"We did beat him," Paula pointed out.
"It's because of Psi," Ness said suddenly, remembering his great-grandfather's journal.
Everyone turned to look at him. "They knew we had Psi."
"How would they know that?" Apple Kid asked.
"Well, umm... This is going to sound strange." He reached into his backpack and pulled
out the journal. "Well, when I was at my grandma's house, I found this. I think it belonged to my
great-grandpa." He began to tell what the journal said, in a nutshell. Paula's face became paler
and paler, remembering the dream. [It was true. My dream was true.] At the end of the narrative,
Ness asked, "Paula are you okay?"
Her face changed from white to red. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You looked pretty pale for a second there." Jeff and Apple Kid nodded their agreement.
"I'm fine!" she protested and all of them backed off.
***
That night, the Chosen Four shared the same dream.
The room was dark, except for the light of a torch on the wall. Two men stood in the dark.
The shorter one had huge arms and skin that seemed a shade of yellow-green. His hair was in a
buzz cut and in the light, all you could tell was that it was dark. His clothing suggested that
he was very important, but was not the clothing of a human. The taller man also seemed to be
important, though not as important. His clothes seemed to indicate that he was a priest of
prophet and his manner did as well. He had a long,dark beard and a cloak covered most of his head
and cast his face into a shadow.
"Why are you here?" the taller man asked calmly. His voice was deep and steady.
"You know why," the shorter one replied angrily, as though the priest's infinite calm
annoyed him.
"Then you must know how little I will tell you."
"You do realize that, in my true form, I could crush you like a bug!"
"Yes. But you won't." the short man clenched his fists in anger for what the other one
had said was true.
"Tell me what I want to know. I need to know!"
"You won't like the answer, Giegue."
"TELL ME!!"
"He will fail and die. His main adversaries will be mere children, three boys and a girl."
"That can't happen. It won't happen! I won't let it!"
"I told you you wouldn't like the answer," the tall man said, but Giegue was no longer
listening. In fact, he was walking away.
"Oh, yeah. This meeting never happened!" Giegue declared as he exited the room.
"He was always too emotional," the priest said, shaking his head. The scene faded to black.
From the darkness came a voice. It matched the voice of the priest, except it seemed to
echo strangely.
"I am the being known as the Apple of Enlightenment. I am also the last member of a raceknown as
the Nara, which is Giygan for storytellers. We had the ability to see glimpses of the future, but
I was one of the most powerful of all time. The Giygans have discovered that Giygas failed.
They will send more soldiers, but it is not for the reason you think. If they wanted Earth
conquered, it would have been already, but I have a feeling you could have guessed that.
Remember this: the key to the unknown future is in the forgotten past. It is all I can tell you
now. Good luck!"
When they woke up, all of them had the knowledge that they had to get to Ellay.