Talora

by soylentOrange

The Earthican government passes a doomsday weapon tax, prompting Prof. Farnsworth to send his private stash off planet. Umfortunately, unbeknownst to the crew of the Planet Express ship, other people have their eyes on the dangerous cargo in their hold.

3. Part 3

Part 3: Talora

Chapter 14

Bender was not a happy robot. He had been stuck in this stupid container, barely large enough for his ego let alone his body and those of two humans, for hours. The small space didn't bother him so much; his apartment was only a few cubic meters in volume after all. Then again, he didn't have to share those few cubic meters with two whiny mammals. Every ten minutes it was "I'm hungry" or "There's no air in here", or "Bender get off my larynx, you're strangling me to death."

Things had been relatively quiet after he and his human friends had stolen aboard this ship. The two crewmen who had unwittingly assisted the three stowaways had simply put down their crate and moved on to the next one none the wiser. The tube linking the two ships had been withdrawn when all of the crates had been transferred over to their new owners' vessel. Fry, Leela, and Bender had watched a portal in the ships hull through a crack in their crate as the Planet Express ship shrank away into the distance. They could only hope that Amy and Zoidberg would be able to defuse the warheads.

There had been one minor flaw in Leela's plan. Now that they were on the enemy ship, there was nowhere to hide. There was always at least one crewman stationed in the ship's cargo hold, and leaving the crate without getting caught would be impossible. The three stowaways would just have to wait in their box and hope that a bored crewman would not become curious as to what was inside.

Unfortunately for the robot and his two companions, they had a long flight ahead of them. At least Bender had had the foresight to bring along some extra beer. Robots, unlike humans, require alcohol to survive. The chemical energy powers their systems and keeps them rational. Ironically, a robot that has not had enough to drink behaves in much the same way as a human that has had far too much. As Bender sat with his back to one wall of his temporary prison he grabbed another spare beer from his chest cabinet. It occurred to him that this represented yet another reason why robots are superior to humans.

:"Stupid meat-sacks. How do they expect to survive without any way to store stuff for later? They'd just better not think they're getting their greasy hands on my precious booze stash."

Their crate dropped two feet with a jarring thud. The ships engines ceased their roar, and the sound of airbrakes could be heard through the hull. Leela tried to extricate herself from Bender's legs and pressed her face up against the one crack in their prison's wall. She could see blue sky through the ship's porthole. Fry, Leela, and Bender were once again on the surface of a planet. But which one?

The three stowaways presently found themselves being loaded onto another hover dolly. Fry and Leela had plenty of warning this time to make sure Bender remained unheard. One by one the crates were hauled out of the bay, down a ramp, and into glaring sunshine. Leela had been worried that the surface of whatever planet they were being transported to would be inhospitable. It would have been painfully ironic to come all this way only to die from atmospheric poisoning. The cyclops took a tentative breath. "Hmm," she thought, "I'm not dead. That's a good sign I guess. The wristo-majig I wear on my arm reads 73 nitrogen, 21 oxygen, 6 trace gases. Looks habitable to me." Actually, it was downright pleasant. The temperature was about 25 degrees Celsius, there was a light breeze, and the distinct smell of the ocean was in the air. It was almost like they'd flown all the way across the universe only to find that they'd landed in San Diego.

Leela watched their progress as best she could through the little crack. She was hoping to spot something she could use as a landmark in case they needed to get back to the landing site in a hurry. No such luck, the view was just too limited. The close up image of the crate wall was combining with the distant surroundings to confuse her eye. Leela cursed her lack of depth perception for what must have been the millionth time.

If Leela had had a convenient window to look through she would have seen a sprawling metropolis. Skyscrapers towered on either side of a busy two lane road. Ground traffic whizzed by at breakneck speed, while flying vehicles arced over the rooftops. Pedestrian transport tubes twisted in and out of the cityscape like demented snakes. It was actually much the same scene as you might expect in a Terran city of the time period. This planet was definitely not Earth, however. In fact, it technically wasn't even really a planet. Hanging over the city like an offer of imminent doom was the silhouette of a monstrous brownish-red gas giant. The three stowaways were on a moon.

The crates were loaded into a hover-truck and driven through about a quarter mile of city. Finally they were unloaded and hauled into a giant warehouse by burly, rough looking men that the three stowaways had not seen before, and then left alone.

Chapter 15

It was dark in the warehouse, as there were no windows and the door was shut. Nothing had moved or made a sound for hours. Now was the time to act. Bender pushed upward with all of his might. The crate's lid flew twenty feet in the air and landed ten feet away with a clang. The three stowaways were out and running before any would-be assailant could have a chance to react.

Fry paused behind the cover of a pile of boxes. The sounds from their escape faded into echoes. The building was utterly quiet; no one had detected them. With alarm, the delivery boy discovered that his legs were shaking like twigs in an earthquake. It was no wonder either, as the poor man had lost circulation in them hours before. There was a whisper in the darkness "Psst. Fry. Where are you?"

Fry tried to respond as quietly as possible, but it still seemed painfully loud in the silent building. "Over here Leela." the delivery boy waved. Leela caught the movement and vectored in on him.

"did you see anybody?", asked a Leela-shaped silhouette

"Nope. You?"

"No."

"Relax chumps, there's nobody home." Fry and Leela jumped halfway out of their clothes. Bender had suddenly congealed out of the darkness to Fry's right.

Leela motioned for the robot to quiet down. "Shut up you idiot!" she whispered through clenched teeth, "And how do you know there's nobody here but us?"

Bender rolled his eyes and then pointed at them. "Umm hello? Infrared eyes?"

"Ohh… right…" Leela blinked. "Ok then Mr. I'm-So-Superior-To-Everyone, use those eyes of yours to find a door. We shouldn't stay here any longer than we have to."

"Alright fine, but if we come across any cats in this spooky place, its every man for himself." That got an odd look from Fry and Leela, but they both decided it would be better not to inquire.

Bender sauntered off into the inky blackness. Fry and Leela followed close behind.. The robot had no trouble seeing in the dark, but the two humans had to whisper to each other now and then to keep track of each other. Fry lost Bender entirely on two occasions, but the manbot always came back to collect him. It was fairly obvious that Bender didn't want to be alone in this place in the dark, a fact that clashed with everything Fry knew about his roommate. The delivery boy again wondered what a cat could have possibly done to have this affect on the robot.

Bender eventually found the door. The crew was relieved to find that the locking mechanism, a simple deadbolt, was on their side of the door and would not need to be forced. The last thing they wanted was to leave evidence of someone trying to escape the warehouse. Leela was pretty sure Ivan would fill in the blanks and be on the stowaways' tails immediately.

Bender ducked his head out the door. A quick scan of the surroundings yielded a quiet street corner. Even though it was ostensibly the middle of the night, light reflected from the monstrous planet hanging in the night sky yielded enough to see by. It probably never got darker on this side of the planet than it did on Earth at dusk. The robot signaled all clear to his fellows. Fry, Leela, and Bender dashed out of the warehouse and took off down the street. They wanted to be as far from the scene as possible just in case they had been spotted.

Chapter 16

Leela came to a halt after about a quarter mile and waited for her fellows to catch up. There had been no shouts; no signs of pursuit whatsoever.

Fry came to a stop next to his captain and leaned on a handy light pole. "We… made… it!"

"Yeah! That'll show that jerk Ivan," agreed Bender. He and Fry gave each other a high-five, but Leela still looked worried. The cyclops gestured to her companions to keep walking. "Now hold on you two," she warned, "this isn't over yet. We're still stuck on some alien dirtball in the middle of who-knows-where with no way to get home. Also, a crazed lunatic has hold of almost every explosive thing the professor ever made."

Reality suddenly crashed down on the robot and the delivery boy. Fry was the first to speak. "Oh yeah... Hey I have an idea, why don't we go back to the warehouse and smash all of stuff in the crates? Then Ivan can't sell them to anybody"

Leela sighed and shook her head. "I already thought of that. Amy's the only one that knows how Farnsworth's things work. If we go in there and bash them up they might explode. I guess I probably should have taken that into account before I sent Amy home…"

"But the professor knows! Why don't we just find a phone somewhere and call him?"

"And blow our cover when Ivan's picks up the transmission? Don't be stupid Fry."

Fry was confused. "Why would Ivan be listening? It's not like he knows we're here."

"We're not the only threat to him Fry. We probably rank somewhere in the 'minor nuisance that can be squashed under a boot heel whenever the hell I feel like it' range. Ivan will be listening in on every phone call and subspace signal that he can pick up, just in case someone else is plotting something against him. If my hunch that this planet is Ivan's home base is right, then I'm sure that every satellite flying overhead has been bugged."

"So you're saying that Ivan's got some guy sitting around listening to a million phone calls all at the same time? Yeah, Riiiight…" The delivery boy rolled his eyes.

"Don't be stupider than usual, Fry. Its easy to build a computer program that listens in to a bunch of conversations at once and picks out key words and phone numbers. The FBI could even do it back in the stupid ages, uhh, I mean back in the 20th century. Trust me, if I call the professor, Ivan will know about it."

"Then call Hermes, or Amy, or your parents. Its not like Ivan would know their phone numbers or their names."

"Yeah, and a phone call to Earth from the planet Ivan is currently on, plus someone saying 'Hi Leela', is gonna start a little red light blinking on somebody's desk. We might not be that big a threat, but Ivan's still going to be watching out for us."

"Oh…" The delivery boy scratched his head. "uhh then should we tell the cops?"

That got a forceful shake of the head from Leela. "No. No cops. For all we know, this whole planet could belong to Ivan. The police might work for him."

"Well why don't we just steal them?" Of course that would be Bender's input.

"Hey, yeah!", exclaimed Fry. "But, how? The boxes are too heavy to carry, and we'd need some sort of giant pickup truck to hold them all."

"Sheesh, what part of 'Bender is a robot' are you not getting? I've got superhuman strength." Bender walked over to the curb and picked up a parked hovercar, managing to get it over his head.

Leela thought about the idea for a moment while Bender twirled the car in circles over his head, and couldn't come up with any particular flaw in the plan. "Hmm, you know, that could actually work. All we have to do is find a hovertruck that will carry everything." The cyclops paused as something dawned on her. "But wait a minute, how are we going to get the doomsday devices off this planet? We don't have a ship."

Fry shrugged. "So? The whole point was to get the professor's stuff away from Earth so he wouldn't have to pay taxes on it, right? Maybe we can find a place on this planet to hide it."

"All we need to do," added Bender, "is find someplace dirty and uninhabitable where no one would could ever possibly want to go, you know, like New Jersey. There's probably a place like that on this planet somewhere."

"There must be," reasoned the cyclops. "Where else would the people that live here dump their trash? Anyway, the important thing is that we have a plan."

"But what do we do now? Walking the streets isn't helping much" Fry neglected to add that he was about five minutes from collapse. His body was worn out from hunger, fear, and long periods of forced inactivity, and was currently engaged in an all out rebellion against him.

Luckily, Fry was not the only one to feel this way. Leela gave a loud yawn and said: "It's too late to worry about doing anything tonight. Lets get some food and some rest; We'll worry about this in the morning."

There was no complaint.

Chapter 17

Fry woke up the next morning to the discovery that he couldn't move. The three friends had rented a motel room for the night. Unfortunately the only one they could find had two beds; a number, Bender had explained to Fry, that is one less than the number of people that needed to sleep in them. The delivery boy had been forced to share a bed with Bender, but had been knocked onto the floor within half an hour. The hard concrete surface combined with the aftereffects of a day in a tiny little box was enough to send his muscles into all out revolt. They screamed their hatred at him as he slowly tried to sit up. This feat accomplished, he proceeded to attempt standing, but immediately fell back onto his ass with a wince of pain. "Better to wait a minute", he thought.

Leela emerged from the motel room's tiny bathroom a moment later. "Sleep well?", she asked.

"Umm, yeah I guess so", Fry lied bravely. He didn't want to seem like a wuss in front of his captain. Leela walked to his side and looked down at him.

"Uh-huh. Sure you did. That's why your back looks like a pretzel." She bent down and placed one hand on each of his shoulders.

"What are…" the delivery boy began, but his words were cut off. Something happened involving Leela's hands, Fry's spine, and a loud resounding 'Crack'.

"Better?" asked the cyclops.

Fry once again experimented with standing, leaning on Leela for support. He was amazed to find that all of the pain was gone.

"Wow, thanks Leela. That's much better."

"No problem", his friend laughed.

Bender sauntered into the room just in time to miss everything that had just transpired, but early enough to still see Fry's arm around Leela's waist.

"Hello, what's this?" he asked.

Leela pushed Fry's arm away as fast as possible. "Umm nothing," she insisted, "Nothing at all."

"Suuure. But then again, it doesn't concern me, Bender." The robot didn't buy it. He had watched from the beginning as the relationship between Leela and Fry blossomed, and knew there was much more there than either human admitted to him. Besides, it was much more fun to assume scandal.

Fry tried to change the subject. "So, uhh, what have you been up to Bender?"

The tactic worked. With the center of attention now placed on himself, the robot completely forgot about the embarrassing moment he had just witnessed.

"Well, I figured we'd need some money, so I went out and got us all jobs"

"WHAT!", Fry and Leela exclaimed in unison.

"Heh-heh, just kidding. I did get us some money though."

The robot reached into his chest cabinet and pulled out a wad of cash. Neither human wanted to question where Bender had gotten that much dough that fast. It would be safer to just take it and not think twice.

"Oh," continued the robot, "and I found a nice rental place where we can get a hovertruck."

Leela couldn't believe how helpful the robot was being. The idea that he had gone out to look for a rental place all of his own accord just didn't sit right with the woman. "And then to offer us money…", Leela pondered. "That's got to be a first. Usually he's stealing it from us. He must be trying to get on my good side, just in case I'm still pissed enough to carry out some of those threats I made back when he tried to steal Fry's wallet while we were in the crate." Whatever the reason, she was grateful for the help.

"Alright then." The PE captain stood up. She had made a plan, and now it was time to carry it out. "Good job Bender. We can use some of the money you, uhh, 'procured' to rent a truck."

"Oh, you want to PAY for the truck?" The robot was genuinely surprised. It had never occurred to him that anyone would suggest that. What could possibly be the reason? He shrugged. "Uhh, I guess that works too."

"Yes we're going to pay for it! I refuse to be part of any stealing" Leela's eye couldn't help but dart to the wad of cash that still resided in Bender's hand, "… that I can't pretend didn't happen"

Bender blew a raspberry. "Sheesh, calm down chumpette. Its not like we'd really be stealing it anyway. We'd leave it on the side of the road when we were done with it. There's a chance the owners would find it someday."

"Hey wait a minute." Fry had been listening intently to the exchange of words between his captain and his roommate, and thought he saw a flaw in what Leela and Bender were planning. Usually when this happened it turned out that he was simply too dumb to understand some nuance, and Leela always let him know in a condescending voice. Thus, it had taken this long for him to build up the courage to speak up. "Are we talking about doing this now? Won't there be people around to stop us? I don't think Ivan is just going to let us barge in and walk away with all of those crates while he just stands there." The delivery boy was relieved when Leela didn't roll her eye.

"Of course not." The cyclops' eye narrowed in advance of the coming scheme. "That's why we're going to break in tonight."

Chapter 18

The rest of the day was spent in preparation. Fry was worried about the possibility that the weapons would be gone by the time that he and his friends were ready to retrieve them. Leela couldn't prove to herself that the delivery boy didn't have a point, so she sent him off to watch over the warehouse. If any trouble were to arise, he could contact Leela and Bender with the small wrist communicator they had bought for him in one of the many shops lining the city streets. Leela could then pick up any transmissions that the delivery boy sent on her own wrist com while she and Bender were elsewhere.

Leela and Bender had no trouble procuring a hover-truck. The man behind the service counter was a little leery of renting to someone with one eye, and at one point Bender almost had to step in and volunteer to be classified as the driver. Before he had a chance, however, the man made a comment about cyclops drivers being worse than female drivers. Leela made a disgusted sound and slapped the man's glasses off of his face. The man bent over to pick up his shattered lenses. "Well, I guess that proves you have depth perception. You can drive." Several minutes later, Leela and her robotic companion were out the door. "You meant to knock that guy's head off didn't you?" asked Bender. Leela nodded.

There really wasn't much else to be done until nightfall. Leela guessed that left another eight hours until dark, based on how fast the planet's sun was moving across the sky. Whatever planet they were on had much the same rotational period as Earth.

The cyclops and the robot spent the remainder of the day wandering though the city. Leela now sported a pair of sunglasses and a blernsball cap. Purple-haired cyclopes are not exactly a very common sight; Disguise was a must.

It was really very relaxing for the PE captain to finally get a chance to not be in charge. Events would work themselves out when the time was right, but for now Leela could pretend that she was simply on vacation on another world. She planned to waste some time, view a couple of tourist attractions, and not think about anything else for awhile. The only thing she hoped to accomplish before nightfall was finding out the name of the planet they were on. That way when she eventually contacted their friends back on Earth, she tell them where to find the three lost members of their crew. Suddenly thoughts of her coworkers flooded through the cyclops' mind. Leela had not had much of a chance to think about anyone but herself, Fry, and Bender since being marooned on this stupid dirt ball. "For all I know, Amy and Nibbler are dead." She though miserably to herself. A solitary tear trickled down her left cheek. But no, now was not the time. There was absolutely nothing that she could do for Amy or her pet -oh and Zoidberg either- right now. "My responsibility is to the two friends are right here with me", she said to herself. Not for the first time it occurred to her how lucky she was to have such friends. Leela knew that Bender had come along mainly because Fry had, but Fry had come simply because Leela had asked him too. No, that wasn't quite it, the PE captain realized. Fry would have come even if Leela had forbidden it. "He's always watching out for me, and I'm so cold to him." Some massive, unnamable emotion moved deep inside the woman. For the briefest of moments the barriers that Leela had put up over the years to keep her emotions at bay came crashing down, exposing her true feelings to her conscious mind. The stunned woman had only a moment to interpret this new part of herself before it was yanked away from her again, but that moment had been enough. Leela suddenly discovered that she was crying.

Meanwhile, near a certain downtown warehouse, a certain Phillip J. Fry awoke with a start. He had been watching the building for hours now with nothing to report. There had been some activity, but not much. Wiping the sleep from his eyes Fry peered out of his hiding spot in a dumpster across the street. The warehouse door stood open. The entire building had been emptied while Fry was dozing off. Crying out in alarm, Fry reached for the communicator and jammed in Leela's number. The captain's face appeared on screen after just two rings.

"Leela! The warehouse, it's empty!"

It took a moment for Leela to comprehend what her friend was saying. Her mind had been far off in a distant place and was having trouble switching tracks. "What, what do you… oh ok…. Wait, WHAT!" Reality crashed home.

"I know, I know. I'm really sorry Leela. I fell asleep, and when I woke up everything was gone."

Leela practically exploded. "You fell asleep! You idiot! How could you let that happen! You had one job! One! Cant I trust you to do anything!"

Fry felt like he had been slapped. He'd never seen Leela act this way after he screwed up, and he screwed up often

"Wait, hold on, that's not fair." The delivery boy tried in vain to defend himself. "I was the one that suggested we watch the warehouse anyway. If I hadn't said anything, we wouldn't even know the crates were gone until we tried to steal them tonight."

Bender's disembodied voice came over the communicator. "Yeah, come on Leela. Fry screws up all the time. What are you so upset about?"

Leela's face took on a haggard look. She knew she couldn't explain it to them.

The cyclops let out a sigh. It almost seemed to Fry that she was shrinking in on herself. After a few moments of quiet, Leela spoke up again. "I- I'm sorry Fry. I didn't mean that. Its just, I'm just under so much stress, and nothing has been working out right, and you're all counting on me to fix this and…", she sighed, "I guess the important thing is that we're all still ok. How long were you asleep Fry?"

"I dunno, maybe an hour."

"Alright, then we might still have a chance. Fry? Hail a cab and meet us at the spaceport. That we saw this morning. It's the only place anywhere near here that you could park a spaceship, so that's where Ivan will be. That is, if he hasn't left already."

Chapter 19

The spaceport was a sprawling mass of low lying buildings and concrete runways. The only thing that kept Fry from thinking he had returned to the 20th century and ended up at LaGuardia International Airport was, of course, the lack of jumbo jet aircraft. Instead, house sized vehicles of every shape and description flew overhead. Fry could see the Earthican flag emblazoned on the wings of some of the larger ships.

It took the three friends no time at all to find Ivan's ship. The distinctive stingray shape stood out starkly against the other ships, which were mainly of the traditional Roy-Rogers design.

"Well, Its still here." Fry had a profound ability to state the obvious.

"Yeah," remarked Bender, "but so what? The crates aren't"

And they weren't. From their position on the tarmac, Fry, Leela, and Bender could see into the ship's hold. It was completely empty. Fry walked a dozen paces over to a tall spaceport employee, Neptunian by the looks of it, who was busy sorting luggage.

"Umm, excuse me", said the redhead. The alien grunted and continued his sorting. Fry continued anyway: "Do you know, is that ship over there supposed to take off today?" Sensing that this stranger was not going to go away, the Neptunian looked up at the delivery boy and asked "What ship?" Fry pointed. The purple alien's demeanor changed immediately. He stood up straight, and crossed his arms; all four of them.

"That's Ivan's ship. What business do you have with it?" Leela jumped into the conversation before Fry could give anything away. "We're, uhh, acquaintances of Ivan's. His ship was carrying some cargo that we're interested in, but we noticed that its gone. Do you know what happened to it?" The cyclops hoped she sounded less suspicious than she felt. The Neptunian's eyes narrowed. "Are you friends of Ivan's?" Leela had to think that one over. Something told her that to give the wrong answer would be very, very bad. She looked long and hard at the alien standing not five feet away, hoping for a clue. Nothing. "Oh well," she thought, "if I say the wrong thing I can always beat him up later."

The PE captain decided to tell the truth. It was easier than making up some complicated lie. "No, we aren't his friends. He stole out cargo, wrecked ours ship, and tried to kill us, and we plan on making him pay for it." Fry and Bender looked at their captain. They hadn't expected such a direct response..

The Neptunian looked at Leela for a long time. His gaze bored into the cyclops like he could see directly into her soul. It creeped the hell out of her. Leela was just getting to the point where she was too uncomfortable to care whether the Neptunian could help her or not, and was mulling over various ways to beat the tar out of him, when the alien smiled. "Alright, good enough." He said. "There's something about you that says I can trust you. The Neptunian looked around him quickly. "Ok, I cant talk for long without raising suspicion but I'll do my best. The truth is, you picked the right person to talk to. My name is Izar. I'm part of the resistance group here on Talora"

"Talora?" Leela thought for a moment to herself. The name seemed familiar.

"That's about a three day flight from Earth isn't it?" she asked Izar.

The alien nodded.

"Wait a minute," demanded Bender. "You said you're in a resistance group? You're fighting some sort of war?"

"That's right. Ivan has started a campaign of blackmail and murder against our government. Most of the ranking politicians are on his payroll now. The police, secret service, and the military are all under his direct command. It's only a matter of time before he controls the entire planet."

Fry nudged his captain. "Good call on not telling the cops about the professor's stuff Leela."

Izar raised an eyebrow. "What stuff?"

The existence of the doomsday weapons could not be admitted at all costs. Leela would have to give away just enough that Izar didn't suspect that she was hiding something dangerous if she wanted Izar to trust her. "Fry means the cargo that Ivan's ship was carrying," explained the PE captain. "He stole it from us, and well… lets just say that having it fall into the wrong hands would be a very bad thing for everybody. We have to get it back, but its not at the warehouse where we lat saw it, and it isn't here. Do you have any idea what could have happened to it?"

The alien looked pensive. "I might. When Ivan lands here he usually empties his ship into a warehouse as fast as he can. The imports inspector is under Ivan's sway, but Ivan doesn't have quite enough power yet that the inspector can just neglect to search his ship at all. Ivan usually gets two or three hours to clear his ship, but that's it. Once the stuff is in the warehouse, Ivan usually brings in a fleet of small aircraft to haul it to his compound. I'd guess that's where your cargo is."

"Compound?" Fry asked nervously. He suddenly did not like the direction that this particular conversation was turning.

"Its about three hundred miles due East of here. If you want to get your things back, that's where I'd go."

Leela cut right to the chase. "Ok, so how do we get in?"

Izar laughed and shook his head. "You don't. Ivan owns everything within 200 miles of his fortress, and he shoots down anything he doesn't recognize once it enters his land. You could probably make it to within fifty miles before you were detected if you went by ground car, but then you'd have to walk the rest of the way, through barren desert…"

Suddenly Leela was aware of two men in dark jackets and sunglasses standing some distance off. They were currently attempting to look as inconspicuous as possible, and failing miserably. The Neptunian began to fidget.

"We'd better leave before we cause you trouble," said Leela. Her tone became a little more urgent. "One last question. Would your resistance help us? If we don't get this cargo back, well, like I said, it could be really bad for everybody."

Izar's answer was firm. "I'm sorry, but no. There aren't enough of us yet to take any risks. We can't afford to be discovered until we can be sure that we have a chance of challenging Ivan successfully. You have about two weeks before Ivan leaves Talora again, so if you do plan to do something, you'll have to do it by then."

Leela acknowledged the alien with a smile and a nod. The cyclops found herself admiring this unexpected ally. She was confident that he would one day prove a valuable asset to his people. "I understand. Thank you for helping us."

"Think nothing of it. I hope to see you all again under better circumstances." Izar gave the PE captain a small salute, disguised as a scratch of the forehead so as to not interest the two men in suits.

The four conspirators did not want to draw any more attention, so Fry Leela, and Bender walked away without another word. Fry wanted to shake this brave alien's hand, but to do so might alert someone that there was more than an idle conversation taking place here.

Izar went back to his sorting, trying as hard as he could to be as nonchalant as possible. The Neptunian finished his chore and headed to a nearby ship to fetch another load. He disappeared into the cargo hold. The two men in black jackets and sunglasses walked slowly over to the ship that the purple alien had just disappeared into. Without a word they walked up the ramp and into the vessel's cargo bay. There was a flash. The two men walked out again.

Chapter 20

Men in suits had tailed Fry, Bender, and their captain from the spaceport. It had only been by using the city's pedestrian tube system that they had thrown the men off of their trail. Over and over they jumped into the tubes at random. It was actually the most fun Fry had had in weeks. He loved the sensation as suction hurtled him through the clear plastic tubes, sending him twisting and diving over the urban landscape at breakneck speed.

When Leela was finally satisfied that there was no longer anyone following them, she gestured for her friends to follow her into a restaurant.

It was early evening by this point, and the place was almost empty. A green scaly creature was sitting at the bar staring dejectedly into a cold mug, and two signoids were standing by a pool table arguing over something, but the building was otherwise deserted. Fry assumed there were employees somewhere in the back room.

The three main Planet Express crewmembers slid into a booth near the back of the room. A small humanoid robot immediately appeared to take their order, and was gone.

"So, " Fry asked, "what are we going to do now?"

"I vote we go kick that Ivan guy's ass," Bender immediately responded.

Leela shook her head. "We can't! From what Izar said, we won't even be able to get near Ivan's compound before we get blown to bits."

"Well," Fry tried again, "then what do you think we should do Leela?"

The cyclops exploded. "I don't know ok! We cant take back the professor's things by force. We cant get close enough to steal them. There's no one here that can help us. What do you want me to do, pull some magic plan out of nowhere and save the day single-handedly!"

Fry and his roommate exchanged glances. That had been exactly what they were hoping Leela would do. That's what the cyclops always did.

There was silence around the table for the next few minutes while Fry, Leela, and Bender thought things over to themselves. The same droid that placed their orders came by, dropped off some nondescript food, and vanished again. Leela began absentmindedly picking at it with her fork.

In a bizarre twist, Fry was the one to come up with an idea. "Hey wait a minute. Didn't Izar say we would be ok if we walked?"

Bender and Leela just stared at him.

Fry ignored the looks and continued. "Why don't we just walk to Ivan's base?"

Leela sighed for the thousandth time since she had left Earth. "Fry, the base is three hundred miles away. We cant walk that far."

The delivery boy shook his head. His friend was missing the point. "But we don't have to walk that far. We rented a truck right? Izar said we could get within fifty miles if we took a car remember? Why don't we just drive the truck as far as it'll go, and then just walk the rest of the way?"

Leela was unconvinced. "That's a nice idea Fry, but it still leaves us with a fifty mile walk, you're out of shape, and none of us have any experience with desert survival. It would take days to walk that far through rough desert if it's as bad as Izar made it sound."

Fry nodded. "Yep, your right, it probably will take days, but Izar said that Ivan won't be leaving Talora for at least two weeks!"

That little bit of reasoning was enough to cause the starship captain to sit up straight in her chair. "I… I forgot about that. Geez Fry, you might actually have had a good idea!".

Bender gasped in the background. "That makes two in three days!"

"If we start now we would have plenty of time to get to Ivan compound and kick his ass before he left. This could actually work…"

"Eh-hmm," said Bender in an attempt at mimicking a throat-clearing noise. "I hate to ruin your parade, but how are you two meatbags going to live in the desert for a week? Don't you need food and water or something?"

Leela turned to look at the manbot. "Your stomach closet thing is waterproof right Bender?" the manbot cautiously nodded assent, not liking the direction this conversation was headed. "If we filled you up with water, that would give Fry and me more than enough to drink."

"Yeah, and Leela and I could get some backpacks and carry food and stuff. It'll be just like those days when I was in Webelos, before I was kicked out for eating firewood."

Bender crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Suurreee, make the robot carry sixty pounds of water that he doesn't even need. Do it yourself skinbags. That is, do it yourself unless there's something in it for me, Bender." The offended expression vanished from the robot's face. He didn't really care about the weight; it was insignificant to him. What really mattered was whether or not there was a profit to be gleaned.

The robot's two companions each reached into there pockets with a grumble, and pulled out whatever money happened to be there. Bender snatched it before the two humans could think twice. It disappeared into his chest cabinet faster than the eye could follow.

Chapter 21

The three friends had wasted no time. From the restaurant they had gone straight to a nearby mall to search for the few items that they needed. They would be packing light; nothing more than food, water, a couple of tents, and a few odds and ends for cooking and personal hygiene. It was then a simple matter of jumping in the truck they had rented for the day and heading out of the city. When the vehicle ran out of gas, or could go no further, it would be left on the side of the road. Leela tried not to think about her unwillingness to do exactly that when Bender had suggested it back in the hotel.

The trip itself was an excellent chance for the PE crew to unwind. They had been tense for so long that it was getting to the point that they couldn't remember being any other way. The simple pleasure of watching the scenery go by with the knowledge that no one was following them with murder on their minds was a nice change of pace.

Leela drove while Fry rode shotgun. There were only two seats in the hovertruck, so Bender rode in the bed of the vehicle. He could talk to his friends through an open window in the back of the truck's cab.

All signs of civilization vanished abruptly as soon as the truck passed the city's outer perimeter. On the left Fry could see an ocean, complete with sparkling white sandy beaches. On his right was a range of impressive looking mountains. The gas giant took up a significant fraction of the sky overhead. Although it was at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level, some of the taller mountains still sparkled with freshly fallen snow. Between the sea and the mountains the land was fairly temperate, and palm trees mingled with strange looking alien vegetation. There were no roads. Evidently the Talorans didn't come out this way very often. The hovertruck could only hover a meter or so off the ground. Leela had to spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to find an eastward route that didn't abruptly end with the truck bottomed out on some stump or boulder. It was quickly becoming apparent that this was going to be a long ride.

Clouds began building up overhead as the day wore on, and the gas giant hanging overhead disappeared from view. By the time the three travelers were deep into the foothills, the sky was a depressing gray. It started to rain, and Leela was suddenly glad that she had picked the truck with the closed in cab. Eventually the lousy seeing conditions combined with a setting sun were more than Leela could handle. After an especially loud yawn she pulled into a little secluded clearing and stopped the truck. It settled to the ground with a low hiss. Tents were pitched and dinner was nuked, literally. Even though the cloud cover presented the only likely chance that the three travelers would have for an undetectable campfire, the wetness quickly forced everyone into their tents, and the rhythmic plop of rain on canvas soon lured them to sleep.

The alarm in Leela's wristamajig woke the trio reluctantly back into consciousness. Leela didn't even remember falling asleep to begin with. It was raining harder than the night before, and Fry wondered why they hadn't simply slept in the truck. Now all of their gear was wet. "Oh well," thought Fry, "might as well enjoy the water while we have it."

The truck climbed higher, and rain switched to snow. Soon Fry, Leela, and Bender found themselves immersed in a thick cloud layer. This was both a blessing and a curse. Nobody with ill intentions in mind would see them in the pea soup fog. Then again, there was also the very real possibility of being surprised by some inconveniently placed chasm. Fry just hoped that his captain knew what the heck she was doing.

Several close calls later Bender noticed a change in the ambient light. "Hey, I think its clearing up", he remarked. Fry had just enough time to nod his head before the truck blasted through the clouds and into the sunlight.

It was only a short drive further to the top of the pass. Two peaks rose up another ten thousand feet on either side. The land beyond the mountains was basically as Leela had pictured it from the start. A rugged brown wasteland stretched all the way to the curving horizon. A gleam of metal could be seen in the far distance; Presumably it was their destination. The distant landscape shimmered as if it were being seen through a body of water. Although it was below freezing outside her window, the cyclops had no doubt that it was blistering hot where she was headed.

The drive down into the desert was uneventful. The mountains gradually sloped down into dusty flatlands intermingled with boulders and dry riverbeds. Fry became so bored with the inactivity that he began experimenting with the power window. He played with it for half an hour before it finally shorted out. Unfortunately his head was stuck between the sill and the glass at the time, and Leela had to stop the car and pull him out.

Leela had only been driving through flat desert for an hour before the ground became impassible for their vehicle. Jagged rocks poked up out of the ground every dozen feet or so and threatened to tear the guts out of the PE crew's transport. It was time to get out and walk. Still, the GPS built into the truck said that they had come more than 250 miles; just about what Izar had predicted would be possible. The cyclops landed the hovertruck in a sandy area relatively devoid of rocks and jumped out. Fry bolted out after her, ecstatic to be doing something again. Bender emerged from the rear of the vehicle with an armload of gear.

The three friends loaded their packs and set off in a general eastward direction. Leela took one last look at the truck she had 'borrowed', and hoped silently that its owners would eventually see it again.

Chapter 22

Four days were followed by four nights, and still the three travelers had seen no sign of their destination. The days had been hot and cruel; the nights cold and uncomfortable. Fry and Leela were sore, hungry, and thoroughly sick of their metal companion. Bender had taken this hike as a chance to prove once and for all his superiority to all things flesh and blood. While the two humans toiled through the forbidding terrain Bender provided a nonstop soundtrack, humming and singing nonsensically to himself. That, combined with the lack of palatable food, was enough to make the hike seem more like a death march to the robot's friends. Also, the constant sound of water sloshing around in the robot's chest cabinet was beginning to make Fry wish he was dead. At one point Leela had become so sick of dehydrated meat-byproduct that she had gone out hunting, but was only able to zap a couple of lizards with her neutron wrist laser. They tasted like old gym socks.

The worst part had been that they couldn't build a fire. There wasn't enough wood lying around, and they couldn't be sure a fire wouldn't be spotted by their enemies even if they could get a blaze going. Now, on the fourth night since the trio had abandoned their truck, Leela and Fry hunched over the one heat source they had: a small camp stove. Bender had been sent off on a little reconnaissance mission. It would be good to let him vent some excess energy away from the campsite.

Presently, Fry stopped warming his hands over the tiny flame and looked up at his violet-haired captain. He asked: "So Leela, how far do you think we've gone?" Leela looked up and stared blankly at him until she came back from whatever remote mental plane she had been lost in. "Wha…" she started, and then woke up all the way. "Oh. Uhh, well, lets find out." She fiddled with some buttons on her wrist band. "According to this thing I wear on my wrist, we've traveled 315 miles since we left the city." Fry cocked his head sideways and asked: "But didn't Izar say that Ivan only lived 300 miles from the city?" Leela nodded. "Yeah, but we haven't walked in a straight line, and we're probably a bit north or south of where we want to be. If I had to guess, Id say Ivan is…" Bender, who had wandered into the campsite during his companions' conversation, broke in to finish his captain's remark. "… exactly two miles in that direction." The robot pointed off toward the southwest. Fry and Leela shifted their gazes to look at the robot. "Are you sure?" asked Leela. The robot snorted derisively. "Well, its either him or some other stupid human with a giant death fortress and a million cronies." The PE captain looked startled. "And you said he's only two miles away? Were you spotted? They might come after us!" "Nah I wouldn't worry about that," the robot assured his captain, "I was as silent as a fox. They never knew I was there." Bender attempted to demonstrate his stalking prowess, but tripped over a small rock and fell head over heels with a crash. Leela just shook her head, not even slightly convinced.

"Don't worry Leela," added Fry, "I'm sure Bender didn't give us away. Lets just do what we did when the crates disappeared. We'll just sit here and think of a plan. Tomorrow we can worry about Ivan."

Leela looked down at her lap. "Yeah you're right, if we'd been discovered we'd all be dead by now. Lets just hang out here for the night and tackle this tomorrow. It's not like the base will 'disappear' like those crates if we sit here tonight. Leela had meant that last statement as a joke, but the word disappear had come out with a level of venom that surprised the delivery boy, as well as herself.

"Wait a minute Leela," said Fry. "You don't still blame me for loosing the crates right? I mean, I fell asleep from boredom after staring at a building for three hours. It could have happened to anybody." Leela's body was a little more tense than a week in the desert could vouch for, and Fry realized that this conversation was going to end badly.

Fry was not disappointed. Leela's eye rose to meet his, and the cyclops glared at him. "Yeah, except it didn't happen to 'anybody.' It happened to you. This sort of thing always happens with you! You had one job. One! And you blew it, just like you always do."

"What do you mean, 'always do'? I don't screw up all the time!"

The cyclops laughed. "Give me a break Fry! When was the last time we went on a mission that didn't involve you getting someone injured, or the shipment vaporized, or the professor sued?"

"I can think of a bunch of times. Like, there was that one mission that… umm… uhh… Oh, I know! Wait, no… Uhh… Well, I can't think of any, but its not always me that gets us in trouble! Remember that time you got stung by space bees and almost died? Or the time that the robot mafia took over our ship? Those weren't my fault!

Leela's face was bright red with anger by this point. "But almost every other problem that pops up is your fault," the cyclops shot back, "and the disappearing crates were just more of the same!"

The delivery boy was becoming angry in his own turn. "Well then why did you trust me with them, huh? You could have made Bender do it, or done it yourself. Right Bender?"

Bender, still stuck on his back after his recent fall, shook his head and held out his arms as if to fend off an attack. "Uh-Uh no way. I'm not getting involved in this. You two can kill each other, but Bender is neutral." The robot hastily rolled back in forth until he could maneuver onto his stomach. Once in this position, he jumped to his feet and jogged off toward the tents. He had no intention of becoming entangled in what promised to become World War IV.

"Don't ask Bender to fight your battles Fry. Come to think of it, that's your problem. You can't ever take responsibility for anything. You always try and blame everything on me or Bender."

"Oh right, like I even can take responsibility with you around Leela. You always take control over everything. You don't let Bender or me do anything on our own, or even make suggestions. If you'd take my advice once in awhile, the professor's stuff would never have been stolen because we would have turned around before it was too late. If you had listened to me when I told you I had a bad feeling about the Snark, we might have been done with this stupid delivery and back home already!"

"Fry, That's not fair! I couldn't just turn the ship around because of some 'bad feeling' you had!"

The delivery boy's response was simple. "Why?"

Leela didn't want to hear any more of what Fry had to say. She stood up and scowled at the delivery boy, and then walked to her tent. Fry called after her, but the cyclops didn't pay any attention. Fry watched his captain until she disappeared behind a canvass curtain, then turned back to the tiny stove that was sitting by his feet. He turned off the little instrument, got up with a sigh, and walked dejectedly back to his tent.

Chapter 23

Leela emerged from her tent before anyone else, three hours before sun-up. She had not been able to get any sleep, and had spent the whole night thinking about the argument she had had with Fry. She was still angry at the delivery boy, but vowed to keep that emotion buried. There would be time for that if they survived the next twenty four hours. The cyclops just hoped that Fry would do the same. Leela had everything packed by the time Fry crawled out from his tent. Bender emerged from Fry's tent a short time later, already humming. The PE captain caught Fry's eye, and the delivery boy smiled. Good, then things would be ok for now.

The trio packed everything up and hid their backpacks in a crevasse between two large boulders. Carrying bulky camping gear into battle was a suicidal idea, but throwing it away was equally as stupid. Whether by fault of Fry or otherwise, the PE crew was used to running for their lives. If today were to become just one more such occasion, the gear could be easily found again.

Bender led his companions to the compound he had spotted the night before. Leela kept her eye out for any sign of guards hidden in the boulder strewn landscape, but no one could be seen. Everything was quiet except for the call of a few night insects.

The two humans and the robot topped a steep slope and suddenly found themselves at their destination. Leela lay down on her stomach and gestured for her friends to do the same. With everyone safely hidden from view, Leela wormed her way over the top pf the hill and gazed at what lay beyond. A hundred yards ahead was their target. The 'compound' was little more than a dozen rundown buildings surrounding a hangar. Squatting in the hangar's open doorway was the silhouette of one of the now familiar stingray ships. A couple of heavily armed guards patrolled the perimeter. So much for the 'giant death fortress' and 'millions of cronies' that Bender had attested to the night before. This was going to be easy.

One of the guards passed within fifty feet of the PE crew's hiding place, and Leela took the opportunity. She waited for the bored looking man to completely pass by and then slowly crept up on him from behind. The man sensed that something was amiss at the last minute. He didn't even have time to turn around before he was unconscious. Fry and Bender ran up to help Leela drag the injured man out of sight. A nearby dumpster made a convenient body disposal unit. It would be no good letting one of his friends see him lying on the ground. Fry grabbed the man's laser. The idea was to not kill anyone, but it was always a good idea to have a backup plan.

Leela waited for the other guard to pass by, and quickly made sure he met the same fate as his compatriot. She used her wrist laser to fuse the lid of the dumpster shut so that the guards wouldn't be a problem when they woke up again. Now it was time to hunt for the doomsday devices. The PE crew made a quick search of the complex. They came across no obvious surveillance, but hadn't expected any. Technology was deeply engrained into the lifestyle of the people of the 31st century. It would not occur to Ivan that invaders would approach his base without the aid of some kind of flying machinery. There were probably surface to air missiles hidden somewhere in the area for unlucky vehicles that happened nearby, but no need was seen for defenses or surveillance on the ground. What the three friends had expected to see however, was some sign of their missing cargo, but it was nowhere to be found. Building after building turned up empty and deserted. The entire base was a ghost town. The only sign that Fry, Leela, and Bender had come to the right place was the stingray shaped starship crouched in the hanger.

There had to be something that they were missing. Leela refused to believe that they had spent five grueling days slogging through the desert, only to come up against a dead end. She waved Fry and Bender over from their search through a bunch of empty cardboard boxes. What they expected to find in them, Leela had no idea. "Fry, Bender, let's go through all the buildings again. Double check every nook and cranny, make sure we didn't miss anything." The delivery boy nodded and he and the robot followed his captain from structure to structure. At first, nothing turned up, but just as Fry, Leela, and Bender were giving up hope they got a break. Fry was walking across a throw rug in one of the empty buildings and tripped over a raised area hidden underneath. When Bender slid away the carpeting a manhole became visible. There was something underground. The delivery boy slid the cover off of the new found hole in the floor, and the three friends found themselves looking into some kind of shaft. A ladder disappeared into the gloom after the first few feet. A faint light could just barely be seen at what Leela assumed to be the bottom of the shaft. Fry caught Leela's eye and gave her a questioning look. Leela replied with a nod and sat down on the edge. She rolled over on her stomach and slid into the hole until her boots made contact with the ladder's top rung. She started descending, and was soon nothing more than a vague shadow. Bender started down next. That just left Fry. The delivery boy stared down into the depths and gulped. He waited a few moments for Bender to get a little farther down the ladder, and slid into the hole. Leela looked up just in time to see the delivery boy haul the manhole cover back into place. The dim light of dawn went out with a clang.

When Fry reached the end of the ladder he found himself in a square room slightly larger than a broom closet. A metal door and a faint florescent light were the only signs that the delivery boy had not wandered into some abandoned well. Fry flattened himself against the wall opposite the ladder so that his friends had a little room to stand.

When all three of them were safely on the ground, Leela worked her way to the door and started turning the wheel attached to its surface. The lock popped open with an audible thunk, and Fry leaned out into the space beyond. A lit corridor led in both directions from the PE crew's current location. There were two green arrows painted on the wall facing Fry. One pointed to the left and was accompanied by the words 'Armory and Storeroom". The other arrow pointed out the location of the kitchen and dormitories.

Fry signaled the all clear to his companions. Leela took the lead at this point and started off in the direction of the storeroom. Bender followed, with the delivery boy taking up the rear with his confiscated laser at the ready.

Leela led her friends down twisting corridors, always following the green arrows toward their destination. Fry found himself getting disoriented after only a few minutes. He just hoped that they wouldn't miss any turns on the way back out. From time to time Fry thought he heard voices down adjacent hallways, but he and his friends were lucky enough to only find one person directly in their path of travel. Fortunately Leela had seen the man's shadow before he had been able to walk around a corner and spot them. Fry, Leela, and Bender had dashed into a nearby abandoned room to avoid detection.

Corridor after corridor passed by at regular intervals. Fry began to wonder if they had been going in circles, but eventually the delivery boy and his companions reached the end of the arrows. Small red letters painted on an ordinary wooden door read 'storeroom.' Leela pushed open the door and a broad smile broke out on her face. She had found the crates.

The three friends went from box to box examining the contents. Every one of the professor's doomsday devices lay untouched in their packaging. Best of all, a way existed to get them out of the compound. The roof of the storeroom was in actuality two monstrous doors. When opened, a starship could land in the storeroom just as if it were a terrestrial garage. There was currently a small one man ship occupying the far corner of the room.

"Hey Leela I think we should…", Fry began, but he was cut off before he could finish his thought. The sound of footsteps could be heard outside in the hallway.

Chapter 24

Fry, Leela, and Bender bolted for the shelter of some boxes that were lying in the corner. They were just in time. Six men walked into the room just seconds after Bender's head disappeared behind cover. Four of the men brandished pulse rifles. The other two carried holstered laspistols and were in the process of having some sort of argument. One of the arguers wore a green jacket and was unfamiliar. The other one was Ivan.

The cyclops was certain that she had once again been caught in a trap, but the men seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they had company. Ivan and green jacket walked over to the spaceship and continued their verbal battle. The other four men gave each other bored expressions and sat down on the crates.

Leela looked over her options. There were two things that she could do. The first and most agreeable option was to grab Fry's laser gun and start blasting. Unfortunately the chances of knocking out all six men before someone managed to pick her off were practically nil. With one gun the PE crew just didn't have much of a chance. Leela had her wrist laser true, but it wasn't powerful enough to seriously injure anything much larger than the desert lizards she had zapped with it earlier. The only viable option then was to wait the situation out. Hopefully the men would simply go away before detecting the cyclops and her friends.

Violence was impossible, so the mutant, the human, and the robot sat and waited for their adversaries to walk out the door. It was working too. The four guards were finding the argument between their boss and his underling to be quite entertaining, and so they never got bored enough to wander around the storeroom. Fry tried to hear what Ivan and green jacket were saying to each other, but all he could make out from his position was something about needing more potatoes. "Wow, we're going to get through this," thought the delivery boy. "All we have to do is not make any noise for the next few minutes and…" Fry's winced as his thought was drowned out by the hiss of static, and then a loud female voice.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? If anyone can hear this please…"

Fry's head whirled around to find the source of the voice. It was Leela's wristamajig. The cyclops was desperately swatting at it, and eventually managed to get it to shut up. It was, of course, much too late. Within moments Fry found himself eye to eye with the business end of a pulserifle.

Chapter 25

Once again Leela found herself locked in a small room with her two closest friends, only this time she was shackled to a wall. Ivan stood three feet away, gun in hand.

"So let me get this straight," said Ivan. "You three followed me all the way to Talora from where I marooned your ship in deep space, discovered the location of my hideout, and walked 60 miles through the desert to get here, and then invaded my compound with the hopes of getting back your cargo?" Bender spoke up. "That's right, and we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for your meddling guards." Leela rolled her eye and nodded affirmative to Ivan's question. She figured it would be smart not to clarify how she had followed Ivan to Talora. If she was lucky enough she might be able to bluff her way into making Ivan think she had backup of some kind.

Ivan ignored the robot and concentrated on Leela. It occurred to Fry that he had done the same thing during the last occasion that they had met. In fact, Ivan had ignored the rest of the PE crew as well, only acknowledging their existence when asked a direct question. "Why is Leela so important?", Fry wondered to himself. "Is it just because she's captain?" Not that Fry minded being ignored by this particular maniac.

"That was very brave of you, Leela." Ivan was saying. "But it was also incredibly foolish. How did you ever expect to get away? Even if you had managed to steal a ship, I would have shot you down before you made it a quarter mile." That thought had of course occurred to Leela on many occasions. She had hoped that by flying vertically at max speed she would be out of Talora's atmosphere before any defenses could catch up with her. Once she was in space Leela was confident that she could handle anything short of an entire fleet of ships.

Ivan continued his monologue. "Now here you are, strapped to a wall in the middle of an army of my men, with no hope of escape. Oh, and don't think I'll be a good sport and just let you go again. You three have proven to be quite an irritant to me."

Fry piped in from somewhere to Leela's left, but head restraints prevented the cyclops from turning her head far enough to see him. "What are you going to do with us?", asked the delivery boy nervously. As soon as he said it he realized he didn't really want to know the answer.

Ivan turned to look directly at the delivery boy. "Why, its quite simple," replied Ivan. "The three of you will be led up to the surface at dawn tomorrow. Once there, I will shoot each one of you in the head. Leela, you will be the last to die so you can watch what happens to your friends."

Although the two human captives were terrified, Bender was closer to incredulous. "Hey chump," addressed the robot to his captor, "how do you expect to kill me with a gun?" I'm a robot, not some pile of meat like these two chumps" Bender tried to gesture toward his two friends but then remembered he was riveted to a wall.. Shooting me in the head isn't gonna do much more than hurt slightly."

The scarred man chuckled. "Oh don't worry my metal friend. I'm sure I can plug you full of enough holes that it does more than 'hurt slightly'." Bender scoffed. "Oh please, like that's even possible." Ivan smiled mirthlessly: "Well, we'll just have to wait and see wont we?"

It seemed like an eternity passed before the next dawn arrived. The three captives remained strapped to the wall for the duration of their imprisonment, and they were not allowed to speak to each other. Fry had been meaning to apologize to Leela for the way he had acted the night before, but had not had a chance. Now, as he was being led up a ladder into early morning sunlight, he realized with despair that he was never going to have the chance.

Fry, Leela, and Bender were led one after the other to the side of the empty buildings that the three friends had first seen when stumbling upon Ivan's base. Men with laser guns motioned for the trio to line up with their backs facing the wall. Ivan stepped out from the throng of armed cronies armed with an antique projectile weapon in his right hand. The scarred man looked at each one of the PE crewmembers once in the eyes.

"You three have dared to confront me after I honored you by saving your lives. In doing so, you have earned my respect, as well as my contempt. Leela, you have proven to be a worthy adversary. As such, you cannot be allowed to live. But first, you will be forced to endure the worst thing a captain could imagine: watching as the lives of your friends and crew are extinguished in front of your eyes. Err, eye. Err, whatever."

Leela was desperate. "Please…. Please don't do this. Please!"

Ivan just laughed. The scarred man raised his weapon and pointed it at Fry. This was the end, and Fry knew it. The delivery boy watched Ivan's finger close around the trigger. Everything happened in slow motion. Ivan's finger squeezed. There was a bang. A tiny glistening cylinder of incarnate death accelerated through the barrel, propelled by a puff of expanding gas. The bullet flew through the air at several times the speed of sound. Fry felt something solid hit him in the chest, and an irresistible force hurtled the poor delivery boy to the ground. Darkness began to close in, cutting Fry off from the world. "Leela, I…" He started to speak, but his body could no longer form the words. It was shutting down. Somewhere far away somebody was screaming. Fry was sinking… sinking…

Chapter 26

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Amy fired. The little figures on the ground fizzled and sparked. The intern hurtled vicious insults at her foes in Cantonese as she blasted them with the ship's laser. Hermes rolled the ship to the right to give his gunner a better shot at a couple of men who were busy assembling an air defense weapon. Red bolts of death from the Planet Express ship cut the half finished gun to pieces. A moment later the hangar came back into view. The intern was relieved to see that Leela and Bender had dragged the fallen Fry into the shelter of a building. It looked like they were going to be ok.

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Fry awoke to the sensation of Leela slapping him repeatedly in the face. "Wake up damn it!", she was yelling. "We don't have time for this!"

The delivery boy's memories came back in an instant, and Fry surged to his feet. "What, what's going on? Why am I still alive?" He was standing in a small, empty building with his two companions, each of whom brandished laser rifles.

"Amy showed up at the last second," explained Bender. "She used the professor's spaceship to blow a hole in the dirt twenty feet from that Ivan guy, right as he was shooting you. You lucked out buddy. The shockwave from the laser blast knocked off Ivan's aim. He missed ya. Leela and me dragged your body into this shack here while all the bad guys were concentrating on shooting at Amy. Oh, and we picked up these babies from a couple of dead guys that didn't need 'em anymore." The robot showed off his weapon.

"Oh, well that explains why I'm not dead. But wait, then why did I feel the bullet?"

Leela explained hurriedly. "You got knocked over by the shockwave and hit your head. Now we need to stop talking and get out of here. We're still fighting Ivan." As if to prove the point, a laser beam blasted away a chunk of wall not two feet from Fry's head. Leela, in a casual motion, dropped the man standing in the doorway.

"But where are we going?" asked Fry. "It's probably safer in here."

"Yes it probably is safe in here Fry. That is, until someone finds out we're in here and decides to blow us into tiny pieces of squishy goo. Now, stupid comments aside, this is what we're going to do. First, we'll make our way into the desert. Once we're far enough away I'll use my wristamajig to call Amy and tell her where we are. Then we can get out of this awful place. Now take this." Leela handed Fry the lasgun that had fallen by the body in the doorway. "You ready?" Asked the cyclops. Fry nodded. It appeared that he didn't have much choice. Leela gave her two friends a long look, and ran out the door. Fry and Bender were right behind her.

Fry jumped from the safety of the building. A near miss zipped over his head, nearly singing his hair. The delivery boy's instincts twisted his body around and fired his weapon before Fry was even conscious of it. One of Ivan's men fell to the ground surprised. There was no time to pause and think about the death. Two men and a woman raced around the corner to aid their fallen comrade, and Fry took off, shooting randomly in the direction that the lasers were coming from. Leela, only a handful of paces in front of Fry, turned and picked off one of the men with a crack shot. Bender was now in front. He led the party through the war zone. Amy had done a fantastic job of blowing holes in things. In fact, she was still doing a fantastic job of blowing holes in things. As Fry and his companions ran they could clearly make out the Planet Express ship flying back and forth while it picked out targets at its leisure. Why there were no surface to air missiles being fired at the invading spacecraft, Fry had no idea. "I just hope that Amy can tell the difference between us and the bad guys from that far away." Thought the delivery boy.

Fry zigged and zagged. Lasers and plasma pulses came at him from all directions. A searing line of photons came close enough for Fry to feel the heated air. Periodic explosions were a constant reminder of an angered young Martian flying somewhere overhead. A figure appeared in his line of sight, and Fry squeezed the trigger. Two men emerged from a door to Leela's right. One of Leela's fists connected with the first man's forehead. A blur of motion, which Fry assumed was Leela's other fist, connected with the second man's chest. He went down with a plop.

Moments later, Fry followed Bender behind a corner. Leela was once again in the lead. Someone opened fire at them from a jagged hole in a shack up ahead. Bender let out a harsh laugh and pulled the trigger. The incoming fire ceased abruptly. The spaceship hanger that the three friends had seen when they first arrived at Ivan's compound was currently to their right. The hanger doors were still open, just like the day before. As Leela, Bender, and Fry ran by the open doorway, things got suddenly worse. A lone figure with a weapon that looked like a mini radar dish stepped out of the hangar's shadow just as the two humans and the robots ran by. The man smiled cruelly and aimed the weapon at Bender's back. An electromagnetic pulse crackled through the air and struck the poor unsuspecting robot with a direct hit. Completely paralyzed, Bender tipped forward and crashed into Fry. The delivery boy ended up facedown in the dirt with his legs pinned down by the bulky robot. Leela turned to assist her fallen friends, but a blow to the head sent her to the ground like a load of bricks. Ivan laughed.

The scarred madman bent over and scooped Leela up in his arms. Fry tried to reach his lasgun, but it had flown out of his hand as he fell and was now beyond his reach. He could only watch helplessly as his captain was carried into the hanger and into the starship that rested there. Bender twitched. It wasn't much, but it was enough. The shift in mass gave Fry the leverage he needed. Apologizing to his metal friend, Fry shoved the robot. Bender rolled just enough for Fry to extricate himself. The delivery boy ran toward the ship as fast as he could. He almost made it. The ship powered up and blasted out of the hangar. It raced skyward and was gone.

Fry realized immediately that Leela was beyond his help, so he returned to the side of his fallen robot companion. The delivery boy held his position as long as he could, but it would be just a matter of time before he was surrounded and overwhelmed. It was just getting to the point where Fry would be forced to retreat when a large shadow fell across him. The Planet Express ship hurtled down out of the air and landed not five feet away. Zoidberg and Amy jumped off the loading elevator before it could reach the ground. "Quick Fry, help roll the robut over here and lets get out of here!", yelled the lobster. Fry took a couple of last minute potshots and then helped the alien and the intern roll the incapacitated Bender onto the elevator. "Drive you idiot, drive!" the professor yelled from somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship. Fry felt the acceleration as the nimble craft launched skyward.

Chapter 27

Talora's disk filled the view screen a short time later. Fry watched the orb float slowly by from the couch on the bridge of the Planet Express ship. Amy, Hermes, Professor Farnsworth, and Zoidberg were there with him. The professor was busy punching away at buttons on one of the ship's instruments.

Amy sat down next to the delivery boy and took his hand. "Don't worry Fry. I'm sure the professor will find out where they went," assured the intern. Farnsworth's voice broke in from behind the couch to add: "You're absolutely right Amy. All ships leave a trail of charged particles in their wakes. All I have to do is find the right trail, and we'll know exactly where they're going." Fry's heart left the pit it had been resting in. There was hope!

"How long is it gonna take?", Fry wanted to know. The professor's voice answered in a huff. "How should I know? What am I, some kind of genius? Of course I am, who suggested otherwise! Anyway, It'll take as long as it takes."

"Oh." Fry's shoulders slumped, and he sank deeper into the couch. A few moments of quiet passed until Fry's slow mind realized that his current situation didn't quite make sense. He turned to Amy and asked: "Hey, how did you guys get here anyway? I thought the Planet Express ship's engines got all broken in that space battle"

"Well, it wasn't easy. Zoidberg and I managed to stop the timers on the torpedoes before they blew up, but we were stuck floating in space for awhile. Finally the vidphone started working again and I could get through to the professor. He told me how to fix the engines when I explained what happened." "The secret was duct tape!", interrupted Zoidberg. "Shut up ya spineless crawdad and let ta woman finish!" That was Hermes of course. "Anyway," the intern continued after shooting the lobster an irritated look, "I didn't have the right tools to fix up the ship all the way, but I got the engines patched up enough to get us back to Earth. Some of the cardboard in the dark matter reactor was so bent up that I… well you probably don't care about the technical stuff. Anyway, the professor fixed up the ship all the way as soon as we got home. We headed back out to rescue you as soon as we could."

"But how did you know where to look?"

"Spluh. We looked up his home planet on mapquest. The professor picked up the frequency of Leela's wrist thingy when you three were in that storage room you were talking about, and then again after you left the bunker you were being held prisoner in. That's how we found you. If you'd been in the storage room a minute longer we could have pinpointed your location a lot sooner."

"So then was it you guys that called Leela's wrist thingy?"

The professor broke in: "Yes. I had Amy call Leela when we first got to the planet. That purple-haired ninny hung up on her before we could get a fix on your location."

"She was kinda hiding from a bunch of guys with laser guns at the time" Fry said

"Well that's no excuse for rudeness," huffed Farnsworth.

Fry ignored that last remark. After all, the senile old scientist would probably forget the whole conversation in ten minutes anyway.

The delivery boy turned to address Amy again. "But that still doesn't explain why no one shot at you while you were flying over Ivan's base. Some alien guy told Leela that anything that Ivan didn't like would get blown up before it could even get close."

Amy and Hermes exchanged glances. They hadn't come across any defenses of any kind during their approach. "Umm, maybe the alien that told you guys that didn't know what he was talking about," guessed Amy. In reality, the Planet Express ship had been quite lucky. There were scores of defenses hidden amongst the boulders surrounding the base, but they all were manned by humans. Ivan, in his limitless arrogance, had decreed that all of his men would watch the execution of the Planet Express crew. Nobody shot at the approaching vessel because there was no one monitoring the skies. Amy had managed to destroy the power grid by the time Ivan's men had manned the defenses, so the compound had been entirely helpless.

Before Fry could ask any more questions, the professor stood up. "Huzzah!", yelled the old man, raising his arms over his head.

Fry jumped up off the couch to face Farnsworth. "What? Did you find something! Please say you found something!"

"Huh-wha?"

"Did you find out where Leela went?"

"Who?" The old man scratched his head confusedly.

Exasperated, Fry tried again. "Leela! Did you find out anything about what happened to Leela!"

"Huh? Oh right. Yes, I found out what happened to that purple-haired friend of yours." Farnsworth gestured for Fry to walk over to him and look at the monitor that the scientist was standing over. "See that line there?" A wrinkly finger traced out an arc on the screen. The red head nodded ascent. "This represents the path that Ivan's ship took when it left orbit," explained the professor.

"Then we can go after her!" An expression of hope erupted on the delivery boy's face, but the professor didn't respond quite in the manner that Fry expected.

"I suppose it is technically possible, but we don't have enough spaceships to do that.

Now it was Fry's turn to be confused. "Huh? We have a spaceship right here. We need more of them?"

"No, we only need one, but this one can't go off looking for people that got themselves kidnapped. First we have to rescue my precious inventions." Once I finish calibrating the lasers to fire through the ceiling of that hanger you were blabbering about earlier, we're going right back down to the planet."

Fry had completely forgotten about the doomsday devices. "But Leela…", he started.

"Think about it mon. Leela is only one person. If da professor's doodads fall into da wrong hands, millions of people could die. Den again, come da tink of it, dat many deaths would mean mountins of paperwork. Sweet Hen of Lisbon, think of the requisitions! It would be a bureaucrat's heaven!" The Jamaican sighed. "But no, as great as it would be, its not worth it."

"But, we can't just desert her!"

"Don't worry," Farnsworth assured, "We'll look for Leela when we get back the doomsday devices and they're safely in storage."

"But who knows what will happen if we wait that long! Ivan might hurt her! You can't just abandon her like this!"

"I can do whatever I want. This is my spaceship." Farnsworth said this in a tone to suggest that this was the end of the debate, but Fry was far from finished.

By this point, Fry's face was contorted with rage. To his knowledge, he had never in his life been so furious. How could they even consider doing anything other than going after Leela? Fry needed to find someone that would support him. Farnsworth and Hermes had already made their opinions clear. Zoidberg's support was meaningless. Bender still lay mute and immobile in the cargo bay. That left Amy.
"Amy, you agree with me right?"

The intern was still sitting on the couch near the bow of the ship. She had been facing forward and gazing out the bow window while the argument was going on, trying to sort out her own emotions on the matter. Many people could die if somebody got the idea into his head to use the professor's weapons before the PE crew managed to save Leela. Yet, to let Ivan get away with his captive could very well be a death sentence. It was a hard choice. Amy found herself envying Hermes, who solved any problem with simple economics. If they saved Leela, millions of lives could be lost. Millions of lives are more valuable than one, and that's that. "If only it were that simple…"

"Amy, are you listening?"

"Uhh wha? Oh, yes Fry I'm listening." No more time to ponder morals. Fry needed an answer now. The intern turned around to face the angered red head. "I'm sorry Fry, but Hermes is right."

Fry started to protest, but a quick re-scan of his friends' faces revealed that the argument was a lost cause. "You guys would actually do that to Leela? Just write her off, like she's worth less than a wad of used gum! This is unbelievable!"

"Fry, that's not fair…" Amy tried to reason with the enraged redhead, but Fry wasn't having any of it. He stomped off the bridge with a snort of disgust.

Some time later, Amy found the delivery boy pacing back and forth in his tiny bunkroom. Fry crossed his arms and glared at the woman. "What do you want?", he demanded. The intern sighed heavily. "The professor's finished modifying our laser to burn through the storage hanger's roof. We're going to need to get everything on board as fast as we can once we land. I was kinda hoping you would help."

The expression on Fry's face didn't change for a long time but eventually Fry was overwhelmed by the situation, and he sat down heavily on his bunk with a sigh of defeat. "Alright, I'll help, but you promise me that we'll go look for Leela as soon as we can ok?" The intern's face brightened, and she nodded enthusiastically. "You bet," she said

Chapter 28

Once again the Planet Express ship found itself over Ivan's compound, but this time the crew was not looking for a fight. Not a shot was fired as the green rocket ship descended. The power was still out then. Without any sensors up and running, no one from the base could see the intruder.

Amy, being the best pilot of the group, was at the controls. It only took a moment to find what she was looking for. Two adjacent metal slabs marked the hangar roof. The intern slid the ship gracefully into position, and with a nod from the professor, gave Fry the ok to begin firing. The ship's laser went to work.

Minutes went by, and nothing seemed to be happening. The professor muttered angrily and fiddled with some controls, but still there was no effect. Amy was just about to ask the professor if something was wrong, when Farnsworth let out a loud 'huzzah!' of victory, and the hangar door metal began to glow. It went from red to yellow, and then white. Globules of liquid metal boiled into vapor, and the doors began to sag. In a few moments the crack between the two doors was wide enough to fly through. Amy gently nudged the ship into the hangar bay below.

There was no one in the hangar to meet them. Amy landed the ship in the center of the room. The cargo elevator came down, and the entire PE crew bolted out of the bowels of the ship. Well, almost all of the crew anyway. Farnsworth's maximum speed was more of a 'shuffle' than a 'bolt', and Bender still lay immobile in the ship's cargo bay. Every once in awhile the robot's voice would come back, and a string of curses aimed at his coworkers would fill the room. The professor had not had time to fix him yet, and Bender was furious for this schism between the robot's priorities and that of his fellows.

Zoidberg and Hermes ran to barricade the door before anyone barged in on them. All that could be done was to push a few heavy boxes in front of the door. It would only be a temporary barrier, but it would hold for a few minutes in an emergency. So far the PE crew had made very little noise. It would be quite possible to get away without anyone ever being aware of them.

Amy, Fry, and the professor started to load the ship with the doomsday devices, and Zoidberg and the Jamaican accountant came over to help once their job was finished. Fry was trying desperately to concentrate on what he was doing, but anger still seethed in him immediately below the surface. He hated himself for not being able to help his captain. No matter what logic he used, the whole situation smacked of just leaving Leela to die.

The hover dolly that Fry was pushing stopped with a jolt. The delivery boy's mind had been elsewhere, and he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going. Now the dolly was stuck in a narrow space between two boxes. Grumbling to himself, Fry yanked at the obstinate dolly, and it jarred loose. Fry looked around for an easy path back to the Planet Express ship's elevator, but his eyes found something much better. He laughed, and started to run. "Why didn't I think of this earlier?"

Amy heard Fry's laugh and turned to look for him. He was standing a dozen paces away with a wide grin on his face. As she watched, the delivery boy took off running, jumping over and between the boxes that were in his way. With a chill in her spine, the intern realized that Fry was headed for the dart shaped fighter sitting in the corner. Amy saw Fry's plan in a flash, and sprang after him before he could implement it. Unfortunately for the intern, Fry had too much of a head start. He was already in the cockpit before she reached him.

"Fry, wait! Don't do this!"

"I have to Amy. I can't just leave Leela like this. I… I love her."

Amy's protests died in her throat as her mouth shut with a click. "Oh." was all she could manage to say. How could she possibly argue with that? The intern took a long look at her red headed friend. Fry's face was the essence of determination. He was going, and there was no way that she was going to dissuade him.

The other crew members began to file up one by one, attracted by the shouting. A low hum announced that the little ship's engine was waking up. "Great muskrat of Adirondack! Fry mon, wot do think your doin?", demanded Hermes.

"I'm going after Leela. The professor said we need another ship; Well I found one, and nobody's going to stop me." Fry said this as a statement of fact, beyond compromise.

"Listen you red headed dope," yelled Farnsworth. "If you go off by yourself, nobody will be able to help you when you screw up."

"Why do you always assume I'm going to screw up?" No one bothered to supply the obvious answer, but the professor moved in to interfere with the angry redhead's takeoff.

To everyone's surprise, Amy stepped in front of Farnsworth to block his way. "Let him go," she said simply.

Hermes was incredulous. "Are you mad woman? He'll get himself killed!"

Amy started to explain, but stopped. Explaining why she had changed her mind would be pointless. The others would just dismiss what Fry had said to her as irrelevant. The intern, however, could now see a depth to the delivery boy that had not been there before. "Or has it always been there, only I never bothered to look?", she wondered. Either way, she knew with conviction that the feelings playing across her friend's face were in no manner irrelevant. He would be able to take care of himself, Amy was certain of it.

With the professor's path blocked, and the others standing around staring quizzically at Amy, Fry took his chance. The cockpit canopy closed with a snick, ending any possibility of verbal debate. Fry reached out and eased the throttle forward. A roar replaced the engine's low hum, causing Fry's coworkers to hit the deck. The little needle ship rose off the ground and pivoted 180 degrees, then floated forward into a shaft of sunlight. It reared back to face the sky, and Fry pushed the throttle forward all the way. A four dimensional sphere of warped space-time sprang into existence behind the ship, and the silver dart leapt into the sky.

Amy stood up, and brushed herself off. She turned to look at the hole in the ceiling that her friend had vanished into. "Good luck," she whispered.