Keoni Solo pushed the Millennium Trumpet to its limits. The Woodwind fleet was right on their tail. The second the case had been clear of Antarctica the chase had begun. Now Keoni was ducking and weaving, flipping and circling, anything to evade the fire of the enemy flute fighters chasing them. It was a beautiful display of piloting skill but none of the case's occupants really seemed to appreciate this. At the moment, Bruchacca was howling at something on the monitor.

"I saw 'em! I saw 'em!" Keoni shouted in response to Bruchacca's guttural wailing.

"Saw what!" Amanda asked.

"Cloud destroyers. Two of 'em comin' right at us."

Amanda glanced over at the monitor and finally saw the real peril of their situation. Two giant clarinet cases were coming right at them to add to the squad of flute fighters chasing them.

"Sir! Sir! Might I suggest-" A-10 started to say.

"Shut him up or shut him down!" Keoni shouted as he pulled off another impossible swoop.

Bruchacca quickly shoved A-10 into a chair and he immediately shut up.

"We can still outmaneuver 'em," Keoni said tensely as he continued his crazy piloting. "Check the deflector shield! I'm gonna make the jump to met speed!"

"But sir!" A-10 tried to protest.

"They're getting closer," Amanda said.

"Oh yeah? Watch this," Keoni said as he flipped another switch.

But instead of the reassuring pulse of the onboard met Keoni heard the engines rev down. The smugness immediately drained from Keoni's face.

"Watch what?" Amanda asked in exasperation.

"I think we're in trouble," Keoni said as he tried to start the metronome again.

"If I may say so, sir. I noticed earlier that the metronome drive motivator has been damaged. It's impossible to go to met speed!" A-10 reported from the chair Bruchacca had pinned him down in.

"We're in trouble!" Keoni said brusquely as he leapt up from the pilot's chair and made for the lower deck. Bruchacca was right behind him.

Keoni went straight into the engine room and searched through all of the interconnected cables of the case's underbelly, trying to find the problem. He climbed down into one of the wire pits that was still open for repairs. He immediately began shouting out to Bruchacca what he might need to fix the metronome.

"Horizontal boosters! Alluvial dampers! ARGH!"

Keoni quickly yanked his hand back from the burning hot wire he'd touched.

"That's not it! Bring me the hydro spanners!"

Bruchacca rushed over with a toolbox in hand. He set it down next to the pit and tossed the required tool down to his partner.

"Don't know how we're gonna get out of this one," Keoni muttered as he hacked into a bundle of cables.

Bruchacca ran off to find another toolbox just as another laser blast rocked the case. The first toolbox was knocked from its perch next to the pit. This wouldn't have been such a big deal were it not for the fact that the box full of tools landed directly on Keoni's head.

"OW! BRUCE!"

Just as Bruchacca came running back to give Keoni a hand the case was rocked again. But this impact was different.

"That wasn't a laser blast. Somethin' hit us," Keoni said worriedly as he climbed out of the pit.

"Keoni, get up here!" Amanda shouted.

Keoni and Bruce immediately ran back up on deck.

"Hail," Amanda reported as Keoni sat back down in the pilot's chair. The Millennium Trumpet had indeed flown straight into a hailstorm.

"Oh no," Keoni said sarcastically. "Bruce, set 2-7-1."

Amanda stared at Keoni in shock. She knew what his command meant and was stunned by so reckless a plan.

"What are you doing! You're not actually going into a hail storm!" she asked, hoping that she'd misunderstood his commands.

"Well they'd be crazy to follow us wouldn't they!" he shouted gleefully.

"You don't have to do this to impress me," Amanda scowled at Keoni as the case was pummeled hard by another large chunk of hail.

Keoni was enjoying himself immensely and chose to ignore her insinuations.

"Sir, the odds of successfully navigating a hail storm of this magnitude are approximately 3,720 to 1!" A-10 tried to reason with the trumpet captain.

"Never tell me the odds," Keoni said, focusing his full attention on the task at hand. There was a strange sort of hunger in his eyes as he dodged the giant chunks of falling hail.

The flute fighters were indeed crazy enough to follow them into a hailstorm. They undoubtedly were better off perishing in this violent storm than reporting failure to their dark master.

Two of the six flute fighters instantly collided with hail and were destroyed. The heat was on.

A-10 gave a shriek of terror as Keoni narrowly missed hitting several boulder-sized chunks of hail.

"You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake. This could be it, sweetheart."

"I take it back!" Amanda said fearfully as another flash of light reached her eyes, signifying that another flute fighter had met its end.

"We're going to get pulverized if we stay out here much longer."

"Pulverized?" A-10 asked nervously. He had gone way beyond afraid. Right now he was somewhere between bed-wetting and a near death experience. Only now it looked like it would be a bit more than a near death experience.

"Can't argue with that," Keoni said casually.

"I'm gonna get in closer to one of the big ones," he added, just as casually.

"CLOSER!" Amanda and A-10 shouted at the same time.

Keoni flipped the craft to the side, evading the remaining flute squadron and managing to destroy another fighter. He circled back and allowed them to pass. Once he was sure they were gone, Keoni flew to a piece of hail that was roughly the size of the case and hugged the case to its underside. The hail plummeted towards the ocean, towing the case with it.

"This is suicide!" A-10 cried out.

"There," Keoni pointed straight ahead. "That looks pretty good."

"What looks pretty good?" Amanda asked.

Keoni flew the case out from under the hail chunk just before it crashed into the ocean and continued his flight. Amanda could see that he was heading for a giant iceberg that was drifting on the ocean's surface.

"Excuse me, but, where are we going?" A-10 asked, barely managing to keep his cool.

Keoni piloted the case all around the iceberg until he finally found what he was looking for. A gaping hole in the side of the berg. A cave. He quickly shot into the opening and flew down the darkened tunnel.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Amanda said nervously as she stared out the window into the darkness.

"Yeah, me too," Keoni added under his breath.

XxX

"That's it. Heritage," Chris said distastefully. The case was approaching a massive swamp. The evening air was full of fog and Chris was having trouble seeing much of anything. He thought he could make out a building of sorts but he wasn't sure.

Tim2 beeped nervously from his place outside the cockpit.

"No, I'm not gonna change my mind about this."

Having said so, Chris checked the scanners on the console.

"I'm not picking up any settlements or technology in the area. Massive life form readings though. There's something alive down there," Chris said apprehensively.

Tim2 beeped another question.

"Yes," Chris answered with a laugh. "I'm sure it's perfectly safe for tenor saxes."

Chris continued to chuckle as he descended into the fog of the Heritage System. He was getting closer to the ground when he realized that all of his scopes and scanners had suddenly shorted out. His guidance was gone and he was losing control of the fighter. Tim2 whistled a rapid stream of warnings.

"I know! I know!" Chris shouted back worriedly. "All my scopes are dead! I can't see a thing! Hang on! I'm gonna start the landing cycle."

Chris did so, but not in enough time. The fighter was hurtling towards the ground at break-neck speed. Chris' vision was blocked by the fog and oncoming branches smacking against the window. Before he knew it the case had crashed right in the middle of a swamp. Chris quickly undid his safety belt and activated the lid. Once it was open Chris stood up and looked around. Yep, it was definitely a swamp. He couldn't see much outside the immediate vicinity of the sinking fighter but there was something he could just barely make out in the distance. It looked something like a giant fork that was missing a few prongs. It looked like it might have been a football goal once. But then again, Chris wasn't one to judge. He'd never actually seen a football goal before, only heard about them.

Chris quickly climbed out of the case and was about to jump into the swamp to wade to shore when he heard several beeps coming from behind him. He turned around and saw that Tim2 had freed himself from his safety restraints and was ready to follow him.

"No, Tim2, you stay put. I'll have a look around."

Chris turned around and was fixing to jump into the water yet again when he heard a loud splash from behind him. He turned and saw that Tim2 was gone. A large ripple was bubbling up just beside the case.

"Tim2! TIM2!" Chris shouted frantically. "Where are you?"

Chris waited a few tense moments.

"TIM2!"

Chris was ready to dive in after him when Tim2's head suddenly popped up above the water. Chris sighed in exasperation.

"You be more careful," he warned the little student.

Tim2 nodded and began swimming…in the opposite direction of the shore.

"Tim2."

Tim2 glanced back at him.

"That way," Chris said, pointing towards the shore.

Tim2 looked sheepish as he started to swim in the indicated direction. He only hoped that his sax wouldn't be damaged by all of this swamp water.

Chris finally jumped off the case and swam to shore. Unfortunately he didn't notice the giant reptile-like creature that was swimming in the swamp. The creature that just happened to be swimming right to Tim2. Chris didn't notice anything until he heard the shrill notes of terror that Tim2 was playing on the sax. He turned around just in time to see the creature drag Tim2 under.

"TIM2!" Chris shouted in horror as he yanked his trumpet from the holster in his belt. But he was too late. Tim2 was gone.

Chris was debating with himself over whether to dive in after the little student or not when a loud roar filled the air and Tim2 came flying out of the water with a high-pitched screech from his sax. His momentum carried hima good ten feet onto marginally dry land. Chris ran after him, finding him crouched up in a ball near the foot of a large tree.

"Are you all right?" Chris asked worriedly as he ran over to Tim2. The little student looked up and nodded his head meekly.

"All right. Up you go," Chris encouraged as he helped Tim2 climb to his feet.

"You're lucky that sax of yours doesn't taste very good. Anything broken?"

Tim2 beeped an encouraging response followed by a stream of unintelligible comments.

"If you're saying comin' here was a bad idea……I'm beginning to agree with you. Oh, Tim2, what are we doing here?" Chris asked, more to himself than Tim2.

"It's like…something out of a dream or…Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm just going crazy," Chris started to ramble.

Instead of getting a response from Tim2, the student blew a great blast of air into his horn and sent a jet of swamp water and mud spurting out of it. Chris just backed off in order to avoid being sludged in the face.

XxX

The newly appointed Admiral Emily shuddered as she entered Lord Fred's private quarters for the second time in her life. This time he was seated in a strange spherical device. The machine was cracked open halfway. Emily's eyes immediately zeroed in on a spot of color visible on the dark Drum Major's body. She suddenly realized that he wasn't wearing his shako. She also realized that she must be the first ever to see Darth Fred unmasked, even if it was only from behind.

Emily shivered again, this time in abject disgust. The horrifying scalp was a strange pasty white color. A jagged scar ran down the middle. There were a few remnants of hair on the lower extremities of the skull. Normally the specialized shako would have hidden all of this. And just then, a machine on the inside of the device lowered the shako back down onto Darth Fred's head and secured it there. Then the seat he was in spun around to face Emily. She immediately straightened up, giving no indication of what she had just seen.

"Yes, Admiral?"

"Our cases have sighted the Millennium Trumpet, my Lord. But- it has entered a hailstorm and we cannot risk-" Emily began.

"Hail does not concern me, Admiral. I want that case, not excuses," Fred said coldly.

"Yes, Lord Fred," Emily muttered as she backed away. She didn't know how, maybe it was in his tone, or the way he had looked at her when she reported. But somehow, Emily felt that Lord Fred knew what she had seen.

It was dangerous to lie to him. Fred always knew.

XxX

In the depths of an ice cave in an iceberg drifting aimlessly through some unknown ocean, the Millennium Trumpet was docked in the cold darkness. Its occupants weren't too happy about the close quarters but there was no help for it. The case needed to be repaired and this was the only safe place where that could happen.

"All right, we gotta shut down everything but the emergency power supplies," Keoni said as he began to power down the case.

"Sir, I'm almost afraid to ask but does that include shuttingme down too?" A-10 asked.

"No. I need you to talk to the Trumpet. Find out what's wrong with the Metronome drive."

Suddenly the iceberg was violently jarred by a large wave, giving the occupants of the case a harsh rattling.

"Sir," A-10 started once the rocking had stopped. "It's quite possible that this iceberg is not entirely stable."

"Not entirely stable?" Keoni said incredulously, glaring at A-10. "Well I'm glad you're here to tell us these things. Bruce take the professor into the back! Activate the tuba and plug him into the metronome drive!"

"Sometimes I just don't understand human behavior," A-10 griped as Bruchacca dragged him out of the cockpit. "After all I'm only trying to do my job and-"

Just then the case was jolted again by another jarring wave. The jolt knocked Amanda off of her feet and straight into Keoni's waiting arms. For a moment, he didn't register this. He just looked overhead, waiting for the rumbling to cease.

"Let go," Amanda protested half-heartedly.

Keoni finally seemed to realize that he was holding Amanda in his arms. He tightened his grip on her and motioned for her to be quiet.

"Let go, please," she said with more force.

"Don't get excited," he said, looking down at her slim form in his arms.

"Captain, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited," she retorted.

"Sorry, sweetheart. We don't have time for anything else," Keoni said as he released her. Before walking away he raised his eyebrows in that familiar cocky grin of his.

Amanda just stared after him for a few moments, anger written across her visage.

Keoni Solo was just so infuriating!

XxX

Chris had salvaged what he could from his wrecked fighter, which was slowly sinking into the muck with each passing hour. Now he'd set up a camp. Tim2 was plugged into a power unit to recharge the robotic portion of his brain. Chris was just sitting down to eat some of his rations for dinner.

"Now all we've gotta do is find this Keena…if he even exists," Chris added. "It's sort of a strange place to find a Trombone Master. This place gives me the creeps. Still, there's something familiar about this place."

This surprised Tim2 and he whistled a question.

"I don't know. I feel like-"

"Feel like what?"

That wasn't Tim2's voice! Chris leapt up, grabbed his trumpet and spun around.

"Like we're being watched," Chris said fiercely as his eyes searched out the intruder.

"Away put your weapon. I mean you no harm."

Chris stepped back in surprise when he saw the tiny being standing directly in front of him. The being seemed to have materialized out of nowhere! Chris could see now that the thing was indeed human, but it stood no more than half a meter tall, fearlessly holding its ground against the towering youth. Chris also realized that "it" was in fact a man. A dwarf, yes, but a man none the less.

The little wizened man could have been any age. His face was deeply lined, but was framed by a blackish- gray buzz cut that gave him an appearance of youth. He wore rags as gray as the mists of the swamp, and in such tatters that they must have approximated his very age.

For the moment, Chris couldn't decide whether to laugh or be frightened. But after some hesitation, he quietly hooked his trumpet back onto his belt. As he did so, he wondered why he felt impelled to obey this little man.

"I am wondering…why are you here?"

"I'm looking for someone," Chris answered cautiously.

"Looking?" the man repeated curiously. "Found someone you have, I would say. Heh heh."

"Riiiiight," Chris said as he started to turn away from the dwarf.

"Help you I can. Yes."

"I don't think so," Chris said skeptically. "I'm looking for a great warrior."

"Oh, great warrior," the little man scoffed as he slowly walked into the camp. "Wars not make one great."

Chris watched the man apprehensively as he explored the camp. But he immediately snapped up when he picked up the bread stick Chris had been eating and took a bite of it.

"Hey! That's my dinner!" Chris reprimanded as he snatched the rest of the food back from the dwarf.

The little man spit the food out.

"How you get so big eating food of this kind?"

"Listen, friend, we didn't mean to land in that puddle and if we could get our case out we would, but we can't, so just-"

"Aww, cannot get your case out," the man mocked, imitating Chris' whining. Then he bent over and began to rummage through the salvaged supplies.

"Hey! Get outta there!" Chris snapped at the tiny man.

The man continued his search, tossing aside objects and muttering with delight.

"You could've broken this!" Chris shouted as he ran to pick up the radio transmitter the little man had tossed aside. "Don't do that. You're makin' a mess."

But the objects had stopped flying every which way. The man had found something he liked. A small hand lamp that he gripped tightly in his small fist. The little light came alive in the man's hand, throwing its radiance up into his delighted face, and he immediately began to examine his treasure.

"Give me that!" Chris demanded.

The man retreated from Chris like a petulant child.

"Mine! Or I will help you not."

"I don't want your help! I want my lamp back! I'm going to needit to get out of this slimy mud hole!"

Chris realized too late that he had issued an insult.

"Mud hole! Slimy! My home this is!" the man said indignantly.

Just then Tim2 reached out a hand and grabbed at the lamp. The tiny man was shocked by this and reached for a stick on the ground. Then he began to beat Tim2 with it.

"Tim2, let him have it," Chris said exasperatedly.

"Mine! Mine! Mine!" the man continued to shout as he beat Tim2.

"Tim2!"

The student finally gave up the battle with a role of his eyes as the small man held up his prize.

"Now will you move along, little fellow? We've got a lot of work to do."

"No! No, no," the man protested. "Stay and help you I will. Find your friend. Hmm?"

"I'm not looking for a friend. I'm looking for a Trombone Master," Chris finally blurted.

The man's eyes opened wide in awe.

"Oh, Trombone Master? Keena. You seek Keena."

Mention of the name surprised Chris but he was still skeptical. How could a little dwarf like this know about such a great teacher of Trombone Knights?

"You know him?"

"Take you to him I will," the man said proudly. "But now, we must eat. Come. Good food. Come."

Chris stared after the man for a moment as he walked out of the camp. This might be his only chance to get to Keena.

"Come! Come!" the man beckoned to him as he walked off into the tall, scraggly trees of the swamp.

"Tim2," Chris said, finally reaching a decision. "Stay and watch after the camp," he ordered as he stood and followed after the man.

Tim2 beeped in protest but Chris didn't seem to hear him.