Chapter 1:

The first person to come to was Captain Power and the first thing that greeted him was the acrid smell of smoke. He knew that smell belonged to frying circuits within the control panels. "Damn!" He screamed as he unbuckled himself from his seat and raced to get the nearby fire extinguisher. His head was still light from the wreck but as he moved, he was surprised and grateful that no bones were broken. He sprayed the nearby fires with the extinguisher, putting them out.

Satisfied that the ship wouldn't blow up after shutting down all unnecessary systems, he went to check on each of his teammates. Relief washed over him when he found that all of them were alive and relatively unhurt, just shaken up. Scout had a lump on his head but no concussion from what he could see, he'd be fine. "Good, because I need every man functional" he thought to himself.

"Status and damage reports everybody. Scout, go with Tank and check the exterior of the ship for any major external damage, see if we can't get her flying again." Power ordered. Tank nodded, helped Scout to his feet and went outside. "Hawk, you okay buddy?" He asked, laying a hand on the one who had been the closest thing to a father to him since his real father died.

"Yeah, I'll live. My butt is sore from the hard landing but I'm good enough to kick Dread in the teeth."

"Good to hear it. Let's join Tank and Scout outside and do an inventory of our stuff."

The two went outside. Power took out his holo-map but something struck him as odd as he looked at the landscape. It was barren desert; from the best he could determine, they were in the Mojave Desert, way off course from where they should've been which was the town formerly known as Gardena. He compared what he saw with his eyes with what was on the map and got a feeling of uneasiness.

"Something the matter John?" Hawk asked, seeing the expression on Power's face and feeling concern himself.

"I don't think we're where we're supposed to be. Sauron must've somehow knocked us off course."

"Well, where are we Captain?" Tank asked in his deep voice with a heavy Scandinavian accent. From his size alone, he lived up to his moniker "Tank" easily, not to mention that he was the team's heavy weapon's specialist. His power suit carried the most and most powerful armaments.

Power scanned the area and took a deep breath before answering. "Well, best as I can tell, we're in California but the topography is off somehow. Not only that, do you guys smell that?"

They all sniffed the air, trying to figure out what their leader was talking about. "I don't smell anything Captain." Scout said.

"That's just it Scout, there's nothing to smell. The air is actually fresh, no burning. With the plasma fires that Dread used to scorch the landscape of California in the Metal Wars, we should still be smelling burning material, the air is…..well, it's fresh." Power replied.

In the distance, they could hear a low, throaty roar coming from the west. With practiced efficiency coming from a lifetime of combat, they all dove down toward a nearby rock formation. Power peeked his head over the rocks and saw black smoke and recognized the roar as an engine. What he saw almost knocked him down to his haunches. "I don't believe it…." He muttered.

At that, they all took a look at what had Power so flabbergasted and then they all shared his state of mind. What they saw was a truck, or more importantly, a semi-truck from the late twentieth century, two hundred years before any of them were born. "How is that functioning, let alone moving unimpeded without Dread's forces blowing it up?" Scout asked amazed. "And where is Sauron?"

"I'd like to know the answer to the first question, as far as your second; well some things are best left unanswered." Hawk said, chucking Scout on the shoulder. The two of them chuckled.

Despite the jocularity of his crew, Power decided that Scout had made valid observations. He had a funny feeling in his gut. When a minute later, another vehicle, this time Power recognized it as a Volkswagen, drove by, that feeling grew stronger. He couldn't believe what he was thinking but the pieces seemed to fall, logically into place. "Scout, grab the provisions and cloak the jump-ship, we're going to take a little recon down that strip of road those vehicles are driving on. As he said that, yet another vehicle zoomed by.

"What's going on Captain?" Tank asked. There was no nervousness in his question but there was concern.

"A hunch Tank but if I'm right, this can have greater implications than anything, anyone could ever imagine. Saddle up people!" Scout passed out the water and food and the quartet marched along the road, the sun mercifully setting ahead of them.