The Prophecy


All original characters in this story are copyright to me only.
The story plot itself is also copyright to me only.
Do not re-distribute without my permission.

*Michael Stewart Stephenson*

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Chapter 3 - Miracle

"But, I mean, it only appears for one day every month."
"Yeah. In two days time, the chain's at Never Lake."
Bantam handed the book, page open, to Jess, "We can get there on the day if we set off tonight."
"Tonight? Why tonight?" She paused and did a double take on herself. "Why the hell are we going to the Miracle Planet anyway?"
Charisma thought he should inject a bit of humour here, but he'd already used his 'Resurfacing the Titanic' line, and he couldn't think of any more.
Bantam interjected anyway. "Read the page."
Jess took the book, her eyes widened as she examined the picture at the bottom of the page.
"It's… That cloud thing."
"Yep." Charisma agreed. Now though, 'that cloud thing' had a name.

***

"We can't tell our parents. They'd never let us go." Jess stated the obvious.
"And we wouldn't want that…" Charisma muttered sarcastically. Even though he knew he'd go anyway, to get Becky back.
"Yeah, you're right." Bantam.
"Well, how long are we going to be there?"
"Well, in an ideal world, we'd go there and be back before the planet vanishes."
"Oh yeah, definitely a 'but' coming up."
"But…" Bantam amended. "It probably won't. Quite simply."
"Brilliant." Charisma stated.
"OK, Topic two, Bantam." Jess said. "Never Lake's across the other side of the continent, if we're going to get there in two days, we're not going to be able to walk it."
Bantam grinned, he had thought this one through.
"A while back, Dad had an army career." Jess knew this, but she listened quietly. "At one point, he was posted in the Ice Mountain Zone. One day, he saved someone's life, someone who then said he'd repay our family any favour, any time we wanted it."
Charisma allowed himself a fleeting smile of recognition. "Uncle Ice." He whispered to himself
Bantam picked this up, his large ears more sensitive than Jess'.
"Exactly. Jess, can I use your phone?"
"Sure, wanna tell me who exactly we're phoning?"
He took the book back from Jess and picked up the phone, he dialed the number scrawled on the back page.
Charisma smiled. "We're calling in the big guys."
Someone answered the phone on the other end.
"Ice P? It's Bantam Meeses." There was a short pause as Ice P yelled hearty greetings down the phone.
"Yeah. Listen, have you got a minute?"

***

The wind whistled through Jess' hair, it was cold, but not cold enough that she couldn't stand without her jacket. It was also dark, very dark and quite cold. Jess didn't exactly think these ideal conditions to be standing around outside.
"He should be here by now, shouldn't he?" She asked, worried. She thought for a second that he had gone to their parents, it had taken them a while to convince him not to in the first place. He soon overcame it though, once he knew their intentions.
Besides, even though he was 21, he still thoroughly enjoyed an adventure.
"You've got to allow for some lateness." Bantam defended. "It's not easy to get a huge hovercraft into the village without anyone seeing."
"Well, on the contrary…"
The deep voice came from behind them, causing them all to jump, Jess almost screamed, but she managed to stop herself.
A head floated in thin air, the head of a large white polar bear.
Charisma and Bantam both knew it was Ice P; Jess guessed it was. The thing was, his head didn't seem to have any body to it.
"Its a cloaking field, kids." Ice P. said, then stepped out of the field to prove his point. Revealing his whole body, his whole huge body.
He was at least twice the size of Jess. Maybe a little more. The fur that covered his body was pure white.
He wore a pair of cycle shorts which were a very light shade of blue, he also wore a woolly hat and thick snow boots the same colour.
In conjunction with the awesome power that naturally came with his huge polar bear body, he worked out frequently. His muscles bulged, visible even under his thick layer of shaggy fur.
"So, anyway, nice to see you guys. It's been a while." His eyes moved to Jess. "And I don't believe I've met your friend here."
"Oh, yeah. This is Jess. Jess, this Ice P."
Ice P took a step towards Jess and with a warm hearty smile, held out his hand for her to shake.
Jess swallowed her initial fright at being approached by someone at least twice her size and accepted his hand. Which he shook very daintily considering that fact that his hand was bigger than Jess' whole head.
It wasn't that hard, his smile told her there was nothing she should fear about him, she relaxed and accepted Ice P as a new friend.
"So, come in. See your home for the next couple of days."
He led them into the relative light coming from what simply looked like a large rectangle shaped hole in thin air.
Once inside, the door hissed shut behind them. Then the lights inside the craft came on.
"Wow…" Charisma said, slightly awestruck.
The place was flipping huge. Well, for a hovercraft.
The part they were in was just like a big room with computers and flashing consoles all along the walls. A massive screen adorned one wall, actually filling almost half of it.
There were four green doors on each side of the room, a large, shutter looking door at the back and a large yellow door at the front, surrounded by a kind of… well, a mess of pipes and cables and large blocks.
"Doors on sides are personal quarters, door at front's the entrance to the control deck, back door's the hangar entrance." Ice P said, as if reading their minds.
"There's a hangar in here too?" Jess asked.
"We're in it!" Ice P laughed.
"Oh, right."
"Anyway, come on and meet the team."
"The team?" Bantam queried.
Ice P laughed again. "You didn't think I could run this thing all on my own did you? There's another five people on board this 'craft."
He led them to the control deck entrance and opened the door, he walked in and held the door open for Charisma, Bantam and Jess.
"First up, Skar."
A darkened snow wolf looked up and lifted up his fusion-flaming mask, revealing a long dark scar from his right ear to his chin. "So." He said, in a slightly husky voice, a grin creeping onto his face. "You're the ones that dragged us all this way."
Charisma was about to apologise when he realised that they couldn't have come 'all this way' from the Ice Mountain Zone if it was going to take two days to reach Never Lake. The Ice Mountain Zone was three times as far from the Spring Yard Zone as Never Lake.
He voiced this.
Skar laughed. "Well spotted youngun. Well done."
Ice P chuckled and patted Charisma on the shoulder, which quite hurt, but Charisma just smiled to himself and stayed quiet.
"Let's go and find the others." Ice P said. "See you in a bit, Skar."
Skar pulled the mask back down onto his face and returned to whatever it was he was welding.
They walked a little further, stopping at a corner filled with computer consoles.
"Sarah Sibria."
The white tiger sat at the console swung around in her swivel seat and smiled.
She was pretty, she wore stylishly torn blue jeans and a red tee-shirt, with the number 39 on the front of it, in bold white.
"That's me."
"Sarah's the technical coordinator."
Jess, Bantam and Charisma looked blank.
"I look at all the stuff on these screens and see if anything's going on in or around the 'craft."
"Ah. So is anything going on now?"
"There was a slight engine lurch as we set off, but it sorted itself almost right away."
"We've set off already?" Jess sounded surprised.
"Well, yeah. We're making tough time here still. No matter how advanced the 'craft is."
"So true." A voice came from above them.
They all looked up to see a dirty purple face grinning down at them, hanging upside-down from a maze of cables on the ceiling.
He flipped himself around and floated down to greet them. They could now see he was a bat, his leathery wings extended to catch the air.
He landed and settled a spanner behind his right ear. He shook hands with each of them.
Charisma's first thought was of the little boy in Mary Poppins.
"Jack Sonar. I do the dirty work." He laughed. "I think I have a more official title than that, but I think this one sounds better. More accurate anyway."
They all laughed.
"Anyway, there's almost certainly something else for me to get dirty doing, can't leave them waiting." He jumped up, grabbed a cable and swung himself back into the darkness above.
Ice P shook his head, smiling.
"The youngest member of our group."
"Fleeting visit." Charisma noted.
"As always." Sarah grinned. "We never see anything of him apart from the occasional team meeting." She looked up at the cabled ceiling. "He's always up there. In the limbo between floors... Ah well, he enjoys it."
Ice P shook his head again. "OK, let's get up to the cockpit, so to speak."
Sarah said bye and swiveled back around to her console corner.
Next, they were led up to the darkness at the front end of their current room. Ice P pressed his hand against a turquoise pad set into the wall. There was a brief hum and a door opened in the wall.
"Print analyzed and accepted, access granted." A computer voice said from somewhere.
So, they walked in, the door shut behind them, the same as the entrance door did.
As soon as he walked in, Charisma almost tripped straight over a small blue thing on the floor. "Yaa!"
The thing issued a small cry of protest then started running off into the darkness.
Bantam looked puzzled for a second. "Was that…?"
"A chao." Charisma finished, brushing himself off.
"A chao!" Jess squealed, very unlike her.
The chao stopped at the sound of a female voice and turned back to the group.
"Condisco." Said a voice from behind the chao. An albino bat wearing a sleeveless shirt the same colour as Ice P's shorts, and orange poppers stepped forth from the shadows.
The light blue chao ran and hid behind her right leg.
"Alatus should be around somewhere too. This here is Condisco."
The chao peeked out slightly from behind the leg of…
"Liz Sonar. I'm Jack's sister." She picked up Condisco and held him in her arms. "Have you met Jack yet?"
"Briefly." Jess remarked.
Liz was about to offer her hand out to shake when the ship jolted suddenly, shaking everyone and throwing Jess to the floor.
"Sally!" Ice P roared down the short corridor. "Shields to maximum!"

End of Chapter 3…

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