July 18, 1986

6:15 a.m.

Biff hesitantly approached Catledge's four-post bed. His boss was still snoring loudly, and Biff didn't really want to wake him up, but he knew he had no choice. "Uh, Dr. Catledge?" he asked, knocking on one of the posts. There was a low grunt to indicate Catledge was awakened. "Uh, Dr. Catledge, we've got a problem," he went on slowly.

"Is it major or minor?" Catledge inquired sleepily.

"Uh, that's a tough one, but I'd have to say major," Biff admitted.

"Damn," Catledge grumbled, "What is it?"

"What?" Biff asked nervously, "Oh the problem, you mean. Well, um, it's a long story, and, uh, it's rather, um, complicated, but I guess I should, well..."

Catledge stuck his head through the drapes. "Tannen, what is the problem?" he demanded.

"Uh, well, circumstances being what they are, um, we're in the process of..." Biff stammered. Catledge glared impatiently at him. Biff felt no other option. "Uh, the kid and the spaceship got away," he said weakly.

"WHAAAAATT!?" Catledge leapt like a madman from his bed and swung wild punches at Biff, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST THEM!?"

"It wasn't my fault!" Biff protested as his boss picked up a poker near the fireplace and thrust it at homicidally at him, "It was Scroeder's security team that failed, those buttheads!"

"You think that leaves you off the hook!?" Catledge shattered a rare vase on the mantle in a rage, "If he's not back here...!"

"Uh, why don't you talk to Dr. Faraday about it, he'll bring you up to speed," Biff said quickly, hustling for the door, "I'll go get you your breakfast."

Catledge growled at Biff as he left. He stormed into his main office and pressed a sequence of buttons that brought up a view of central tracking on the big monitor on the wall. "FARADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!" he bellowed at his protégé.

Faraday, who'd been monitoring one of the radars, looked up meekly at the screen on the ceiling. "I guess you've heard by now, Dr. Catledge," he said, forcing a smile, "I want you to know I've got it under control. They're twenty miles west of the compound. I've already dispatched helicopters out there. ETA should be in about two minutes. We'll surround them and round them up."

"See to it you do, Faraday, or I'll get a new project director here!" Catledge threatened him. He pressed the intercom button on his desk. "Tannen, bring up my clothes, too; I'm going to have to work overtime today!" he told his valet. He lit up his pipe. He needed a good smoke now. Hopefully things would get better quickly, or heads were going to roll.

July 18, 1986

6:12 a.m.

"You know Doc, this really isn't so bad once you get used to it," Marty admitted as they soared over the Florida swamps.

"Indeed," Doc agreed, "It's almost like my time train, now that I think about it."

The spaceship came to a stop. "We are now twenty miles from point of origin as you requested, Navigator," the alien told David.

"Good," the boy rose up," "I've got to go."

"Go? Where?" the alien inquired.

"The bathroom," David told him, a little frustrated, "Open the door."

"And while he's doing that, I'd like to have some answers," Doc said, approaching the alien, "I would like to know definitely how this vessel operates and how the space-time continuum can be best restored."

"Whoo, animal, mammal, cattle, MOOOO!" Johnny-5 called out to he several cows standing around outside, who mooed back. The alien zipped over and mooed at the creatures as well. "You learn fast, quick, speedy, swift," the robot told the alien. The alien apparently paid no heed and looked over to where David was going. "What are you doing, Navigator?" it inquired.

"Hey, give the kid a little privacy," Stephanie told it, turning its head away.

"Do not know privacy," the alien told her.

"Well maybe you do know something that can help us here," Doc strode back over to it, "First of all, explain why you've come to this planet and why you had to displace David from his natural time."

"I was sent from Phaelon to study various forms of life around the universe," the alien explained, still not taking its "eye" off the "Navigator," "I selected various forms of life on each planet to study. On this planet, I selected the Navigator."

"Why?" Wayne asked.

"Why not?" the alien said, "Since the beings on this planet use only ten percent of their inferior brains, I filled his with my superior star charts to see what would happen. It leaked."

"Well, what can I say, experimentation; problems always seem to pop up where you least expect them," Wayne shrugged, clearly not understanding a word he'd just been told.

"Well that being said, why were you unable to return him to his natural point in the continuum?" Doc pressed.

"Yeah!" David spoke up having finished, "You took me away from my family!"

"Ordinarily I return my subjects to the exact point in time I picked them up, but it was discovered that his fragile human body couldn't take the trip backward through time," the alien told them all, "So I dropped him here. Unfortunately, my star charts were erased when I crashed, so I need those stored in his mind to return to Phaelon."

"Are you prepared to discuss a possible proposal I'm willing to make to you?" Doc asked him.

"State your intentions," the alien said.

"I have developed my own method of time travel, one that is efficient, instantaneous, and completely safe to the human body," Doc told him, "If you're willing to agree to it, you can take your start charts off David, and I can send him back in time to where you picked him up. Then you can go home to Phaelon with your data and live happily ever after, I hope."

"Either way, Artoo," Marty chimed in, "You'll get something out of it. What do you say?"

Before the alien could answer, Johnny-5's radar popped up. "Danger, peril, menace, threat!" he gasped, "NOVA!"

"No, that's not Nova, but I think that is our cue to get out of here," Newton said, looking to the east. Multiple helicopters were heading straight toward them.

"Holy geez, they don't give up!" Marty groaned as he headed back into the heart of the craft.

"No kidding!" Doc agreed, "When Catledge decides he wants something, he holds onto it, regardless of who it affects."

"Navigator, it is imperative you come back inside," the alien told David, who was still standing outside with his arms crossed.

"Not until you agree to Dr. Brown's idea," David told him firmly.

"Agreed," the alien said, somewhat reluctantly.

"In that case," Doc told it as David scrambled back on board, "set a direct bearing to Hill Valley, California. That's thirty-eight degrees, sixty-one minutes north latitude, one hundred twenty-two degrees, and forty-seven minutes west longitude. And floor it!"

In the tracking center, Faraday and the other watched as the helicopters approached the target. "We've got them surrounded," one of the pilots informed them over the radio.

"Good," Faraday told him, "Don't let them take off."

Just then, before their eyes, the ship began to transform shape again. "Uh oh, not again!" Gately groaned.

"What do you mean not...?" Biff, who hadn't seen what had happened just minutes ago when the spaceship had changed shape, was shocked when it disappeared in a blur. "Hey, where'd it go!?" he asked no one in particular.

"Can you follow it!?" Faraday asked the helicopter crews worriedly.

"Follow it!?" one asked him, incredulous, "I can't even SEE it!"

"That's it, we're dead," Marner moaned, banging his head off the nearest screen in frustration, "Dr. Catledge is going to hang us up by our you-know-whats! My whole retirement plan is shot to hell!"

"Howard, get a grip on yourself!" Scroeder told him, "We have not yet begun to fight." He pressed down on the nearest comlink and added, "Am I right, Dr. Catledge?"

"Of course you're right, Colonel Scroeder," Catledge told him from his penthouse. The supreme scientist watched on the radar screen as the ship zipped clear across the country and came to a stop between L.A. and San Francisco. A location very familiar to Catledge. A devious grin crossed his face. "Very shrewd move, Dr. Orange," he said, "I should have known you'd try and take it back to Hill County. Unfortunately, it's not quite shrewd enough." He picked up the phone and punched in the home number for K.O.N.D.O.R. Industries. "Hello, Captain Skiles?" he greeted his head of security, "Listen, there's something down in Hill Valley I want you and your men to do for me..."