Well, judging by everyone's reviews, all of your mental stability levels have reached a fine boiling point. I'd like to thank Mr.Beep, he's been a helpful plot device, and now it's time to reveal his mystery to the world. Hope you all enjoy the surprise, I really do. Also, sorry to any of you who hate my cliffhangers, but they're to much fun to stop now. And away we go!

Heart of Darkness...We're Under Attack?

The lights on The Condor's bridge seemed to darken with the presence of the two Cyclonian battle cruisers now bearing down on them. With no way to evade, or even fight back, panic was now beginning to creep into their minds. Aerrow knew now was not the time to lose their heads, he just needed to think of something.

"Stork!" Aerrow yelled over at the merb, the yell was necessary to get his attention away from the danger in front of them. "How long do we have before we're within range of their blasters?"

"Let's see." Stork was now running the numbers in his mind and ticking off the various factors with his fingers. "Given our current speed and theirs, as well as our inability to make any maneuvers. I would say we have till.." He was cut off as a blast of red energy fell just short of The Condor's right pontoon. "... their next shot."

"We need to make evasive maneuvers, now!" Aerrow said, already knowing how futile it was, given their current situation."We can't even fire back because our gun ports are sealed."

"Thanks for stating the obvious!" Stork yelled at Aerrow.

"Why did you have to install a lock down mechanism anyway?" Aerrow yelled back.

"Well maybe if certain people weren't always leaving The Condor unguarded..." Stork started.

"Guys!" Piper yelled from where she stood in the doorway. "Really not the time!" She pointed back towards the cruisers, red energy coming from their guns once again.

Aerrow ran over to the speaking tubes. "Finn! Junko! Brace for impact!"

Aerrow grabbed onto a hand rail on the wall, Piper grabbed the door frame, and Stork gripped the unresponsive controls hoping for some reaction from them. And then the energy blasts came down towards The Condor and... nothing happened.

Stork opened one of his eyes, which he had been clinching shut, and looked around confused. "Um, not to sound ungrateful that we're not a ball of flames, but shouldn't we be exploding in a horrible ball of flames right now?"

Aerrow and Piper looked around, they were just as confused as Stork. "It looked like the shots were on target." Aerrow said. "Did they miss?"

"We're a steady moving target that's not even firing back at them, even a blind man could have hit us." Stork said, he was now reading over various gauges and readings, trying to make sense of it all. The he looked at a indicator light he hadn't looked at since they're first engagement with the Cyclonians. "Well, this was unexpected." Stork said with genuine surprise in his voice.

"What is it?" Piper asked coming over to stand next to Stork.

He pointed at an indicator light that was on over a slightly dusty gauge. "It would seem our shields are working again." He wiped the dust off the gauge. "Better than they did before. That's why we didn't feel anything from the blasts, the shields completely absorbed the impact."

Piper looked at the gauge, still feeling confused. She looked outside the forward window and saw a clear purple field enveloping the ship. "But I thought our shields were knocked out permanently back in our first battle with the Cyclonians?"

"They were." Stork said, suspicion now rising in his voice. "Somebody must have replaced them."

"Hold on a second." Aerrow said, remembering their current situation. "Stryker has basically sent us on a suicide run at Cyclonis, but was kind enough to give us amped up shields? And now we have Cyclonians using us for target practice. Can this get any worse?"

As if on cue, a burst of energy blasts shot from both of the battlecruisers. Just as before, they hit the shields, there was no feeling of impact. The lights flared a bit after the blasts hit. Stork looked up at the lights and simply said. "Well that can't be good."

"The shields must be tied directly into main power." Piper stated, she went over to the power readouts and began looking over their readings. "It must be some sort of feedback power surge." She paused to collect her thoughts. "This is still weird though."

"How so?" Aerrow asked, he went and stood beside her as she studied the power readouts. The Cyclonian ships were still regularly firing at them, but with no way to maneuver or fight back, they could only sit back and hope the shields didn't drain all their power.

"These reading don't really make any sense." Piper said, she had a confused look on her face as she stared at the readouts. "I have to go and look and this shield generator, it might give me some clues as to what's going on here." She began to move towards the door.

Aerrow grabbed her arm. "Wait a second." Aerrow had a serious look on his face as he spoke. "Chances are Stryker doesn't want us messing with whatever he's had installed. It might be rigged with traps or something."

"This whole thing is a trap." Piper countered, she shook her arm free from Aerrow's grip. "We won't know what we can do till we go look at it. We can't just sit here while we wait for whatever Styker has planned to just happen." She went back towards the door, making her way to where engine room where their old non-working generator used to be. Aerrow followed her, uncertain of what exactly they may find.

Stork looked back at the from where he stood at the steering console. When they were gone he simply said, to no one at all. "That's right. Just leave Stork on the bridge while you go look at a potentially booby trapped device. Not like I know anything about traps." He let go of the unresponsive controls and looked outside at the Cyclonians still firing at them. The lights still dimmed and brightened back up again after every shot, but still no real feeling of impact. He looked further into the distance, the craggy peaks of Terra Cyclonia were starting to appear on the horizon. Stork estimated they had about an hour before they were right on top of the Cyclonian Citadel. "Doom on the inside, doom on the outside, and doom on the horizon." His eye twitch was still in full gear along with the twitch of his ear. "Guess I better go make sure that they don't blow us up before Cyclonis can have her turn to destroy us." He let out a sigh, and followed them to the engine room.

...

Piper made her way to The Condor's engine room. She was still trying to make sense of how the shields were working. The reality is that they should feel an impact from the blasts being fired at them. It was obvious that they weren't dealing with conventional shields, but she wouldn't know more till she had a chance to examine the generator. She was so lost in thought she didn't notice Junko walking towards her and bumped into him.

"Oh, hey there Piper" Junko said, his usual grin crossing his face. "Sorry, didn't mean to bump into you there."

"It's okay." Piper said, she was already beginning to step around him. She was a bit impatient to get to the generator, so much so she bumped right into Finn.

"Wow Piper, you should probably get your eyes checked." Finn said in his usual mocking tone.

"I'm just in a bit of a hurry Finn." Piper said, now starting to feel a bit frustrated. "I need to get to the engine room."

"Well, you might wanna take a look at this first." Finn held up a device that Piper wasn't familiar with. "We found it where all the speaking tubes intersect. It's probably what played Stryker's little love message."

Aerrow had caught up to them now. "Looks like a simple voice recorder to me."

It was Junko's turn to speak up now. "Ya, but if you look closely, you'll see that it has some sort of remote activator on it. Short range type as far as I can tell, so whatever triggered it is on the ship, but in a different place."

Aerrow thought for a second. "Okay, Finn and Junko, you guys go to the bridge and keep an eye on the situation. Piper and I will keep heading to the engine room." With that, both he and Piper continued to the engine room.

Finn looked up at Junko, a slight confused expression on his face. "What's the situation on the bridge?"

Junko had an equally confused expression on his face. "Dunno, maybe it has something to do with when Aerrow yelled something about an impact before, but nothing seemed to hit us."

Stork came by just as Junko finished speaking, he didn't stop moving, he just calmly spoke to them as he passed them. "We're under attack by two Cyclonian battlecruisers, and have no way of fighting back. But, try not to worry to much, the shields seem to be holding up quite well." And with that he continued on his way, not even looking back.

Finn looked up at Junko, a worried tone in his voice. "Cyclonians?"

Junko looked back at Finn, a confused expression on his face. "Shields?"

...

Piper entered the engine room and went to the corner where the once defunct shield generator sat. Aerrow stood next her as she examined it, staying alert in case anything should go wrong. From just looking at, Piper couldn't see anything different about it, it didn't even seem to be on. Getting closer she could start to hear a slight humming, but it wasn't coming from the broken generator. She looked behind the broken machine, and that's when she saw it.

It was small, shaped like a cube, no higher than Piper's knee. Various cables were attached to it's black exterior, they connected to the old shield generator's cables that fed into the shield emitters. Another set of cables fed through the floor and, most likely, into The Condor's main power lines.

Aerrow crouched down in front of it, next to Piper. "Any ideas?"

Piper didn't take her gaze from the device. "It's obviously what's responsible for powering the shields, but it seems kind of small for a generator." She got closer to it, looking for any signs of how it worked. "It doesn't have any normal access point or gauges of any kind." She pointed out a small antenna on the top of it. "A short range antenna, just like the one on the recorder Finn and Junko found. So it was remote activated by something else on the ship"

"Great." Aerrow said, he stood up and started looking around the engine room. "I'm starting to really dislike Stryker and his unwelcome gift giving."

Stork entered the engine room at this point, he looked at both of them, his eye and ear seemed to twitch more violently than before. "So how doomed are we?"

Piper looked at him. "Hard to say, but for now it doesn't look like anything is going to blow up." Then she noticed his severe twitching, she became worried about Stork current mental state. "Are you okay? You seem to have a stronger twitch than normal."

Stork looked at her, he seemed to not be too concerned about his current state. "Yeah, I've noticed my ear has been twitchy since I fell out of bed the other day. Probably nerve damage or something more severe. Nothing to big to worry about given our current state."

Piper stepped closer to him, she was noticing something but couldn't tell what. She had an idea suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Stork's hand. "Come with me."

She pulled Stork towards the bridge, once they had arrived Stork shook his hand free of Piper's grasp. "No touchy! You know how many diseases are transmitted through touch?" Stork was speaking in a shaky voice, but his twitch was less severe.

Finn and Junko were on the bridge staring out the front window. "Um, how come Cyclonians are blasting us and we're not even shaking a little bit?" Finn asked, his worry and confusion evident in his voice.

"Still working that one out." Piper said to Finn before turning her attention back to Stork. Looking at him closely, she noticed that his twitching, unlike normal, had a rhythm to it. Also, it wasn't noticeable here, on the bridge, as it had been in the engine room. She was getting an idea, but was still working out the details. "Stork, i have an idea."

"It doesn't involve you grabbing me again does it?" Stork said, he was still rubbing his hand as if he dirt on it that wouldn't come off.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Grow up for a second and listen. The receiver on that device attached to the old shield generator, I think it's still receiving a signal from whatever activated it. And, if my guess is right it must be an ultrasonic frequency."

Stork stared at her, he was showing signs of impatience. "Okay, but why did I have to be manhandled by you?"

"You said it yourself before, remember?" Piper then lowered her voice so low it was barely a whisper. "Your ears are more sensitive than the rest of ours." She brought her voice back up to a normal level and continued explaining. "So whether your aware of it or not, you must be hearing the signal. It's more severe in the engine room because the signal is being sent there. So if we can follow the signal from the the engine room, we might be able to find whatever else Stryker put on the ship."

Stork stood there for a moment taking in everything Piper had just said. "So how exactly are we going to do that?"

"First things first." Piper looked over to where Junko and Finn were still gawking at Cycloian's impactless attack. "Junko!" The young wallop turned to look at her. "I want you to head to the engine room and see if you can give me any ideas on just how that shield generator works. Aerrow will show you where it is, just be careful it could be rigged with something." Junko nodded and went on his way to the engine room. "Finn, you can stay here and keep am eye on things, yell if anything changes."

Finn just gave her a look. "Considering how things are right now, I'm not sure it couldn't get any worse. But I'll keep an eye out."

Piper then looked back at Stork. "Your coming with me."

Stork tensed up. "No touchy."

Piper rolled her eyes again. "Not the time to be sweating the small stuff. I just want you to walk in front of me as we walk the ship. I get the feeling I'll be able to tell where anything else is by how much your ear twitches."

Stork let out a sigh of relief. Then both he and Piper started their search for whatever else Styker might have had placed on the ship.

20 minutes later...

Piper and Stork were standing on the bridge again, Finn was still staring out the window, and Junko was coming back from the engine room with Aerrow in tow. All of them had a a worn look on their faces.

Aerrow took charge, as best he could. "So what's our status?"

Finn spoke up first. "Still being blasted at with no signs of letting up. Man, being under attack has never been so boring." He let out a yawn.

Piper went next, she sounded even less enthusiastic than Finn. "Me and Stork went over as much as the ship as we could. There were a couple of times his ear twitched a little faster but, sine we were close to the engine room when it happened, I figure it was from being close to that cube."

"Well there was that bit near the living quarters." Stork chimed in, his voice in is usual depressed tone. "But we searched all around in the rooms and came up with nothing."

"We didn't check your room Stork." Piper added.

"No one gets in my room but me, I have to many counter measures in place for anyone but me to be able to open my door and live." He let a slight smile cross his face at that. "Trust me, my room is secure."

Aerrow walked towards Stork now, trying to keep hold of the situation. "We thought that about The Condor too, and look where we are."

"My security measures are perfect!" Stork was getting defensive now. "I don't have any idea how they got on the ship! All the doors are secured every time I have to leave with you guys. I check every lock twice! They would have had to cut into the side of the ship to get on!"

"They did." Junko suddenly spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at the wallop, Aerrow asked the obvious question. "How do you know that?"

Junko cleared his throat then began his explanation. "While I was examining the thing they have stuck on our old generator, I noticed not all the cables went to the usual places. Most of them were tied into our main power and the emitter cables, but a couple went lower than I could see."

"Is that why you started taking up floor panels?" Aerrow asked "Why didn't you tell me back then?"

"You wanted to head back to the bridge, so I figured I'd tell you here." Junko explained, then he went back to the original topic. "Anyway, after I took up some of the floor I was able to see some of the inside hull. The were marks from where it had been cut open and welded back shut. The cables I saw still lead to the outside, through the hull."

With that, Stork got up quickly and went over to one of the periscopes that gave them an underside view of The Condor. After a couple seconds of Stork swiveling around, he finally stopped and let out a slight growl.

"What is it?" Aerrow asked coming over next to Stork.

"Take a look for yourself." Stork said, disgust was evident in his voice as he stepped away from the periscope.

Aerrow grasped the handles of the periscope and took a look through the lenses. What he saw was a black device of some sort clamped onto their bottom hull, the cables Junko had mentioned were bound to the hull and led back towards where the engine room was like thick black vines. Aerrow stepped away from the periscope, he felt some of Stork's disgust after seeing it. "It looks like we found our problem."

Piper came up now and started looking through the periscope. As she was looking through it, Stork was stomping around, shaking his hands with anger. "It looks like they gave The Condor cancer!" He spat out these words, anger clear in his voice. "I'll make Styker pay for attaching something so vile to my precious Condor."

Piper was taking in what she could from her limited view of the device. This is probably what is generating our shield. She thought to herself, she started guessing as to how it worked. "The cube in the engine room must be some sort of power relay device. Looks like a sending and receiving antenna on it, so that explains where the activator was. But how is it absorbing the impact and power of the blasts? The only thing I know of that absorbs crystal energy like that is... She stepped away from the periscope, the thought just occurred to her was more dangerous than the Cyclonians outside.

"Guys, we're in trouble." Piper said, looking at them all with obvious fear in her eyes.

Finn spoke up from where he stod by the window. "Uh, Piper, not exactly a newsflash."

"No I mean worse trouble." Piper started to panic now.

Aerrow tried to calm her down, keeping his own voice in check. "Piper, calm down, and slowly tell us what you mean."

"I don't think we really have a shield around us." Piper said, trying to keep calm as she spoke, but she could feel time was running out. "It's more like an absorption field, we're absorbing their shots before they hit us. The power is being pulled through our emitters, through the relay in the engine room into that thing on our hull."

"So how bad is this to us?" Aerrow asked, not quite catching Piper's meaning.

"Think Aerrow, it's like we're a giant flying Leech Crystal. We're absorbing power, and it's most likely being stored in that thing. Now, what's gonna happen when it gets full?" Piper said, looking at each of them, seeing that they were all finally getting it.

"So we're gonna go boom!?" Finn asked, panic now rising in his voice. "But wait, these guys have been firing at us for awhile now, how much longer do you think we have?"

Piper thought for a second. "The power relay in the engine room has been most lilely siphoning off some of the energy into our own power systems, making it so we didn't explode to quickly. I'm guessing Stryker doesn't want us exploding before we are in range of Cyclonis' citadel. He must have timed this all out, that's why he didn't want us making any side trips."

"But why would he want to blow us up?" Finn asked, he was gripping the back of a chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "Cyclonis sure, but why us? I'm too handsome to be blown up!"

"Finn, get a hold of yourself!" Aerrow yelled at his panicking friend. He turned back to Piper, hoping she may have a solution. "Do you think we could just cut the cables leading to it, maybe it will stop the power build up."

"Yeah, maybe." Piper thought for a second, then let out a sigh. "But we would still be unable to control The Condor, and have nothing between us and the Cyclonian's blasters. We would be destroyed in no time."

Stork, standing once again by the unresponsive flight controls, spoke up now. "I don't think that matters anymore." He pointed out the window into the dark distance. "We're here."

In the distance, the clouds parted just enough to show that they were now coming up on Terra Cyclonia. A dark, menacing, tower extended up from the ground below. They knew the sight well, they'd seen it before last time they come this far into Cyclonian territory.

"If we get in range of their defense turrets the power build up will will take us over the edge for sure." Piper said, panic had creeped back into her voice.

Aerrow looked over to Stork. "How long till we're in range of their guns?"

Stork had a slight calm to his voice as he spoke. "Three."

Aerrow looked at him, confused. "Three minutes?"

Stork kept his eerily calm voice. "Two"

It dawned on all of them what he meant at that point. They all now stared out the window, toward the dark tower before them.

"One."

Like a swarm, glowing red energy flowed up from the multitude of turrets that sat on the citadel and various outcroppings around it. Many things happened simultaneously at this point. The blasts struck the shields at the same time, power flowed into the emitters, causing most of them to overload and short out. The mass of energy flowed through the cables into the power relay in the engine room, melting it, the power flowed into both The Condor and the black device on it's hull. The lights and some consoles exploded from the power surge. Beneath their feet, The Storm Hawks could feel a humming that quickly became a rumble. They all closed their eyes, expecting what would come next would be a massive blast of power certain to destroy them.

Instead what they got was the feeling of something passing through them, followed by the feeling of falling. Aerrow opened his eyes ,out the window in front of him, he saw a wave of clear purple shooting out in all directions. Looking around he saw that there was no power anywhere on the bidge, it was dark save for the lights outside coming through the windows. He looked over at Stork, the young merb was pulling at some lever he had never seen him use before. Stork pulled the lever, and suddenly it didn't feel like they were falling anymore.

He finally found his voice. "What happened? Why aren't we in a million pieces?"

Stork was fiddling around with various levers and switches. "Your guess is as good as mine at this point. I'm just trying to restart everything, but nothing is responding."

Piper now spoke, she was as confused as the rest of them. "Wait, if there is now power, how are we staying up?"

Stork spoke as he continued trying various restart procedures. "Emergency chemical based thrusters. Put them together myself after that whole Black Gorge thing. I designed them to lift off, or keep us up, if we ever had lost power. But, they'll only last a couple of minutes. Should have been enough time to restore power under normal circumstances, but I can't get any response out of any thing.

Piper looked outside, The Cyclonian cruisers were going down fast, no power could be seen anywhere on them. "That wave must have neutralized all crystal power in the area." She looked towards the citadel in front of them, the wave had just passed through it, it was completely dark. Then she realized the point of all of this. "Cyclonis' crystal heart! Stryker wants this wave to depower her heart, and he used us as a convenient sacrifice."

Stork stopped flipping switches and pulling levers. "Well we may still be a sacrifice." He looked at the all, no hope in his eyes. "I can't restore power, and the thrusters will be out of juice pretty soon. Thirty seconds at best, then we will fall too."

Aerrow was trying to keep his confidence, he needed to be strong for his team. "We need options, now!"

Stork grabbed a box from beside a console. He opened it quickly and brought out four items that looked like book bags. "Everyone come here." Stork said as he moved to the center of the bridge. His voice carried a strong sense of urgency, so everyone gathered quickly. He gave each of the one of the packs, and went back towards the flight console. "Put them on, now!"

After they had put on the packs, Piper looked over at Stork. "What are these things?"

"Glider packs. Make sure to pull the cord at the peak of the jump." He was speaking quickly now.

Piper looked at him suspiciously. "Wait, where's yours?"

Stork looked back at her, a slight grin on his face. "Silly Piper. Someone has to pull the lever."

Realizing where they were standing, Piper quickly jumped forward just as Stork pulled the lever down. Her pack snagged on the rising platform and ripped off. Three slightly confused teenage males, one Radaar and a ripped bag were then flung from the bridge of The Condor.

Stork stared at her, anger rising to his face. "Why did you do that!?"

Piper just looked right back at him. "I could ask you the same question! I'm not just going to leave you here to go down with the ship!"

Stork was about to yell something back at her, but was interrupted by a loud sputtering sound. He looked over at a small gauge, it read 'empty' like he figured it would.

Piper tried to remain calm. "Come on Stork, reset the platform, and grab another pack for me and you. We can still make it."

Stork just looked at her, another small grin on his face. "It's almost funny." He let out a small laugh, the view through the window behind him was now starting to point downward. "Piper, listen, I had only made up those four packs so far, there are no more packs. All our parachutes are in the hanger, which is still locked. The platform may be spring loaded but the reset mechanism is powered by crystals. So it look like you and me are taking a quick trip straight down."

Piper was starting to panic again, the floor had pitched forward enough now that she was forced forward. Stork grabbed her as she was going past. Out the window, the ground was rushing up at them.

Piper looked at Stork. "Is there anything left that we can do."

Stork looked at her straight in the eye. "Only one." He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry Piper" He then hugged her close. They hit the ground and darkness surrounded them both.

...

Aerrow found himself suddenly flying through the air, confused as to how he got there. He felt himself slow and then remembered what Stork said. He quickly pulled the cord on his pack and a pair of loosely stitched together wings came out to form a small glider. He looked over and saw Finn and Junko had managed to deploy theirs with no problem. He looked around for Stork and Piper, but couldn't spot them.

"Where are Stork and Piper?" He yelled over to Finn.

"I think Piper dove off the platform before we were lauched," Finn yelled back, he looked back at The Condor. "I'm sure they'll be off it in a second."

They continued gliding towards the craggy ground of Terra Cyclonia, Aerrow looked back as he heard a loud sputtering noise. And then he saw The Condor start to fall. He looked over at Finn and Junko. "Did they get off yet?"

"I don't know." Junko said.

They all kept looking back as The Condor fell, they didn't see anyone else getting off. They got close enough now to the ground to land, careful not to get caught on any of the sharp rocks.

After landing Aerrow looked back up at their falling home, still no sign of his friends.

And then, The Condor, hit the ground.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Aerrow screamed out. He fell to his knees, tears forming in his eyes.

Finn came up beside him. "Aerrow!" He knelt down in front of his friend, putting his hands on Aerrow's shoulders. "Calm down Aerrow. We don't know if they were still there when it went down. None of us had a a constant look at it as we were gliding. They could have gotten out and we just didn't see." He looked his friend straight in the eye. "They could still be alive, just keep faith in your friends. Now come on, we have to move, right? We can't stay out here in the open."

Aerrow pulled himself together and stood up. "Your right Finn." He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. "We have to move. The Talons, even with out crystals, are still dangerous, and might be looking for us. Let's go." He turned and the started to make their way for cover, moving in the direction of the powerless citadel.

Finn was glad Aerrow was able to pull himself back together. He was also glad Aerrow was in front of him and couldn't see his face. He knew his friends hadn't gotten off The Condor, it was written on his face, but he couldn't let Aerrow, their leader, lose hope. He wiped the tears from his eyes, and motioned for Junko to do the same.

They needed to move.

...

He felt something break in his pocket. He reached in and pulled out the shattered remains of a small crystal. A large smile now crossed his face. His aide was standing next to him, and noticed the broken crystal. "Was that important, sir?"

"Very." Stryker said, his smile didn't leave his face. "It's a sign."

"A sign of what, sir?" Stryker's confused aide asked.

"Many things." Stryker responded, then proceeded to count them off. "That I am a genious. That certain annoying obstacles have been removed from my skies. And, most importantly, we are on the verge of the greatest victory in all history." He began to laugh now, loudly, startling his aide.

Stryker looked out from the command deck of his personal carrier. To his left and right were four other carriers similar to his own, gold and white in color. Behind these ships were seven Sky Knight squadrons. All ready for battle as they now entered Cyclonian territory.

Well, here we are again at the end of one of my longer chapters. Only this time, no Beeps. I'm sure some of you have some things to say now, and I'm willing to feel your love, or even your hate for this chapter. Reviewing is the only way I'll know. So til next time boys and girls, see ya.

P.S. Sorry for how long it took to get this out, busy work and games a calling me down from my keyboard. Hope to have tthe next chapter out soon.