Skipper's Log. 20:00 Hours on August the twenty seventh.

"We failed.

"Everything had started off according to plan. We infiltrated the base on schedule this morning at oh-four-hundred. Our plan was simple: to get to the communications room. We wanted to send a broadcast to all of the troops. We wanted to let them know about their corrupt leader and how he was just planning on using them to bring the world to its knees. About how they would be used to commit murder in only a few weeks.

"Getting into the base was far easier than we had anticipated. We had thought it would be a slow process – rounding corners carefully, avoiding cameras, taking out guards one by one. That was at least what I was imagining this sort of thing to be like. I was surprised when we managed to basically walk in through the front door.

"We accessed the main entrance through the ventilation shafts, like we had planned. There were only two penguins guarding the main gate, though. Little did we know that it wasn't even locked. It made me suspicious for a while; like Sarge knew we might return, and was welcoming us with open arms. Now I wish I had acted on that suspicion earlier.

"One of the penguins had been sleeping, and Manfredi quickly knocked the other clean out. We didn't want to resort to using our weapons at all, if possible. We were limited on ammo and time, and needed to remain quiet. Besides – I don't think any of us wanted to open fire on the other penguins anyway. They were our squad mates only a day ago. Besides, I don't know if I'd even be able to handle gunning down another man.

"We moved quickly through the infrastructure. There didn't seem to be a soul around. We tried our best to avoid the cameras, disabling them where necessary. I had the strangest feeling that nobody was even on the other end of the feed, though, watching our every move. I had thought that after only a few cameras were disabled, some alarm would have been triggered.

"We got to the communications hub far before we would have expected. Johnson and I watched the door while Manfredi used the console to send his message out. After activating the morning bell to wake the troops up, he used the equipment to broadcast about Fishslader. It was a heartfelt message, and I almost thought I saw him wipe a tear out of his eye. He first explained the situation: about the plan for the upcoming battle, who they'd actually be fighting, what the ultimate goal was. Then he gave a personal note: he spoke about his loved ones who lived in the town they'd be attacking.

"That was a huge mistake. I had asked him not to give that kind of information. Caspian Fishslader had no idea that Manfredi had family in Antarctica. Now he did, and I have a bad feeling that he will be using that against us now that we failed to convince the troops to rebel.

"It wasn't long into Manfredi's speech that someone began coming down the hallway towards our position. They meant business; armed to the teeth with grenades at the ready. We were cornered in the room, and barely made it out through a ventilation shaft as the flash bangs went off behind us.

"We thought we were home free until we found our way back out the same shaft we had come in from. Fishslader and around one hundred troops were waiting for us on the other end of the ventilation tunnel. Their guns were at the ready.

"Manfredi's attempt at converting the troops, or at least a few of the troops, to our cause had been completely void. The penguins had been kept in the dark for so long that they had not believed what Manfredi said. The ones that saw a sliver of truth in it were too afraid to attempt to join us. Some of the penguins had been brainwashed into believing we were the enemy. Sarge had been running the entire operation exactly as he had planned. He played the entire Penguin Army for fools, but nobody but us saw what the truth was. He had won the psychological war.

"Manfredi had pointed his rifle directly at Sarge when we exited the shaft. He was breathing heavily; his entire body was shaking. He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger, though. 'I can't do it Skipper,' he said to me, 'I can't take his life.' Despite the pleas of Johnson, he threw his rifle to the ground after that, and gave himself up. Johnson and I had no choice but to follow in his footsteps after that point.

"They took us to a holding area after that point. Kept us locked up so they would have enough time to organize and perform a proper execution. Fortunately for us, however, Manfredi had just been in that cell, and he still remembered how to pick the lock. The guard who was watching over us was young. I almost would say he was younger than Johnson. He hardly knew how to defend himself; but we still had to deal with him before he activated the alarm.

"We managed to find three new rifles. And by some miracle, my tape recorder. We didn't find Johnson's journal, though. He was heartbroken – he had recorded his entire life into it. I had to hold him back from charging headfirst back into that hell for it. Manfredi managed to calm him down. He was the one who had already lost all of his pictures, his memoirs, his items with sentimental value. According to him, Sarge had burned them right in front of his eyes.

"It seems like now we are where we are were exactly twenty four hours ago. Camped out in the woods, the penguin fortress just visible in the distance. This time, however, we don't know where to go. There is no way we are going to take on Fishslader now. No way that we can stop his army. No way that we can save Manfredi's family.

"No way that we can save the world..."

The Speed of Darkness
Chapter 31 – Explanation

"HE'S NOT BREATHING!"

Marlene looked worried. She was shaking slightly, and her face was drained. She had her ear pressed to the robot-penguin's chest, and held his flipper in her paw. It was like she was trying any possible way to receive some sort of feedback that the mechanical penguin was still alive.

Skipper, too, was worried. He didn't quite understand the feeling when his gut tightened into a knot. Up until only a few weeks ago, he had thought Manfredi had been dead. Skipper had already mourned for his fallen teammate. He didn't think he would be able to mourn again. Did Manfredi just sacrifice himself for a boat?

"Marlene, is he... dead?" came Private's squeak. He was backed all the way up against the wall of the cabin, like the sight of the possibly dead body in front of him repulsed him. Skipper wondered briefly if Manfredi terrified his specialist more in death than in life.

The flat-headed penguin redirected his attention toward the penguin laying on the cold metal floor not far from him. He looked limp, but his organic eye was still open. The red, mechanical eye on the other side still emitted some sort of low light. It seemed to be flashing a deep, dark red. Was that the large penguin's death call? Was the light attempting to signal some outside force to take Manfredi away? Skipper shook his head as Marlene spoke.

"I-I think so," she said shakily, looking at Private. "I can feel his heartbeat, but he's not breathing. He probably doesn't have long left." She still looked shaky, but she seemed to be handling the situation far better than Private. She looked at the short penguin still sitting near the electronics panel. "What should we do, Skipper?"

Skipper sighed, "We'll finish what Manfredi was attempting to do for the past two years."

He hopped up onto the driver's seat of the boat and hit a few switches. He was not entirely sure what most of them did, but he did recognize the one that raised the anchor. He had seen a similar switch on the large shipping barge they had stolen all that time ago. After he heard the satisfying clank that showed the anchor was safely stowed on board, he knocked the boat into full reverse. They pulled away from the dock. It was only a few minutes before Skipper spun the boat around, allowing them to go full speed in the right direction. The leader-penguin glanced behind him and saw the coastline of New York become fainter and fainter, being shrouded in a fog that began rolling over the ocean. It was the last they'd see of New York for a long time.

"What's that, Skipper?" he heard Marlene say. He hadn't realized the other animals had crowded around the base of the seat, looking up at him. "There's something much bigger going on here than just rescuing Kowalski, isn't there? It involves this 'Sun', doesn't it?"

Skipper only sighed again. He knew it was time to spill the beans. Private, Rico, and Marlene were trapped on a boat with him, going to rescue Kowalski and confront Sarge. Marlene may have brought herself into it by leaving the zoo, but Private and Rico hadn't asked for any of this. They hadn't asked for their friend and teammate Kowalski to be penguin-napped. Even though, they stuck with him. They fought with him on the dock. The least he could do was tell them what they were fighting and why.

"You're right Marlene," Skipper began. "Rescuing Kowalski is a big part of this whole operation, but there much more to it."

Skipper turned the boat so it faced directly southeast. When they got far enough from the coast, he would point it directly south. He continued, figuring it would be best to start from the beginning.

"You probably remember me talking about Manfredi and Johnson. Remember how I said they went on all those dangerous missions? Fought off countless enemies? Wound up digging their own graves with teaspoons?

"Those things didn't actually happen. There is no denying that Manfredi and Johnson were heroes, though." Skipper glanced at the dead Manfredi, laying not far from him. He shivered. "I was their teammate about three years back. We were Beta Squad, one of the most highly trained and respected teams in the Penguin Army. Our battalion was made up of around one hundred penguins, while the others had many more. All in all, the Penguin Army was a able fighting force of around three thousand bodies.

"One day, Manfredi got promoted to Corporal. Sarge did the ceremony. With his new officer position, Manfredi got into the intelligence of the actual army itself. It wasn't long until he found out what the Penguin Army had actually been founded to do.

"We were destined to attack a small settlement of Antarctic penguins not far from the south pole itself. There wasn't much reason behind the madness – this settlement wasn't going to be able to fight back. It was going to be a massacre, and Manfredi wanted to stop it.

"As soon as he tried suggesting alternate plans of attack, or to not engage with the civilians, he was put on the execution line. He narrowly escaped, and Johnson and I fled the Penguin Army with him. We tried to stop Sarge from invading Antarctica in any way we could, but we failed. Sarge's plans came through."

Skipper looked thoughtfully out of the stained window of the boat. There wasn't much to see now. It was pitch black, and the fog had fully rolled in, blocking out the moon and all of the stars.

"Where does the Sun come in, and why is it so important?" asked Private, enveloped by the story. Rico wheezed, also eager to know.

"That was Sarge's goal from day one. It was his intention far before he had formed the Penguin Army. On top of that, the army had not been formed for getting the Sun in the first place. Sarge knew he could do that alone if he wanted to. The army had been formed for defending the Sun after he already got it."

"What does the Sun do?" asked Marlene.

"The Sun is some sort of ancient artifact. I don't know exactly what it is capable of, but its got some serious energy behind it. From what the locals in Antarctica said, it is Earth's life energy itself."

Skipper heard Private gasp.

"It's kept in this large temple-like structure that extends deep into the ground. It's somewhere at the very bottom. It is held in this crazy machine... almost like it is plugged right into the Earth's core. When Sarge removed it the first time, it was like the entire world started to fall apart. Right away, this massive earthquake shook Antarctica. We all thought that it was going to be the end, like the Sun was never supposed to be removed in the first place.

"It stopped after a little while though. However, even weirder things happened in the coming days after the Sun was removed. It took a few days for us to realize it, but it was as if the Earth had stopped rotating entirely. The sun, the one in the sky, seemed to have frozen in place. On our way away from Antarctica, it was hard to notice, but it never became night. We were on the boat for several weeks, and the Sun was always in the sky. Even when we made it all the way back to the penguin base, the Sun still remained high in the sky.

"And it was hot. It was like being trapped in the desert, except we were far from it. The Sun had only been removed for a couple of weeks, but it was like the side of the earth facing the Sun was becoming scorched. I can only assume the other side of the earth was beginning to freeze.

"Of course, when Sarge got his prize he headed straight back to Denmark, his army, and his fortress. I can only assume he didn't realize what was happening to the earth. When he got there, he used the Sun to power his base's defense matrix. I don't know where he got his hands on the technology to harness that kind of power, but he had it."

"Was that all Sarge wanted?" asked Marlene, "To power his base?"

"It was part of it. That's where the Penguin Army comes in. The reason he had been training us Penguins to form an army was to defend it. He knew that when the humans found out about the sun and what he was doing with it, whether by their own accord or when he told them, they would come knocking.

"He wanted them to come. He wanted to wage war on the humans. That had been his goal from the start."

"But Skippah," came Private's squeak, "Why does Sarge hate the people so much?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Private. Whatever the reason, though, he had this planned out. By operating in the secrecy of the wilderness in northern Denmark, he was able to set his base of operations and form his army without interference from the people while he was still weak. Had the humans discovered him before he got his hands on the sun, he probably would have been stopped way before Manfredi, Johnson, or I even got dragged into that whole mess.

"His plan was a good one, too. It wasn't something he was making up on the fly. He chose a specific day and time to make the planet stop rotating. It left the sun in the ideal position for Denmark and a very thin few miles around it. Because it was fall and the days were becoming shorter around there, the sun was locked in a permanent sunset. It kept Sarge's fortress and a little surrounding area a comfortable temperature, while the rest of the world either froze or burned."

"You got the Sun back, didn't you, Skippah?" asked Private.

"Yes. Not without Manfredi and Johnson's help, though. We managed to get to the core of the penguin base, and I ripped the Sun out of there as fast as I could. After I removed it it caused some sort of catastrophic meltdown. We raced to get out of there in time. Johnson got caught up somehow on the way out, though. He ran back in for some reason, but to this day I still don't know why. Manfredi followed after him, trying to rescue him.

"The last time I saw Manfredi until he attacked me at the zoo, he was racing back after Johnson. The entrance to the base collapsed after he turned around, and that was the last I saw of him. Judging by the explosion that followed after the collapse, I was sure that they were both dead. I guess Manfredi made it out, somehow."

Private seemed to shake his head in disbelief. Rico scratched his head in confusion. Marlene, who still hadn't let go of Manfredi's flipper, looked up at him wide-eyed. Private spoke first.

"Why didn't you tell this to us a long time ago?"

Skipper sighed, looking away. "It's my past, Private. It was never any of your worries. Now, I've dragged all of you into this."

A moment of silence enveloped the group. The only sound that could be heard was the cold nighttime wind whistling over a crack in the window. Skipper briefly wondered what would have happened if he had never left the zoo; never got tangled back up in this mess. Maybe he would have been able to confront Sarge with Kowalski, Private, and Rico like he should have. Maybe Kowalski never would have gotten penguin-napped. Maybe they never would have had to hot-wire this damn boat...

"K'waski!" came Rico's hoarse voice. He now looked determined, rather than confused.

"Rico's right," affirmed Private. "When that bloody crook stole Kowalski, he made it personal."

"And if rescuing him means confronting this greater evil," continued Marlene, "then we're with you Skipper."

Skipper looked down at the other animals in the cabin. Marlene had her arms crossed, looking confident. Rico was smiling widely, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Private had his flippers balled into fists, his face screwed up into an angry frown. The cut across his face gave him an intimidating look that Skipper had never seen out of the younger penguin before. It reminded him of Johnson.

Skipper wanted to thank them for coming along. He knew that he wouldn't be able to take down Sarge again without them, especially with Manfredi possibly being out of the running. He knew that his teammates hadn't even said a word against going to the docks. They knew it was probably a trap. Skipper had warned them. They didn't turn back, though. Even though Marlene had not been invited originally, she too had been invaluable to the operation so far.

All Skipper could think to do was nod. "You three should go get some rest," he offered, "I'll drive this raft for the night."

"Aye-aye Skipper," said Private, yawning.

"What should we do about Manfredi?" asked Marlene, pointing to the near-death penguin laying on the floor of the captains cabin.

"He's not going anywhere, and I'm not declaring him dead until he has absolutely no pulse."

"You seem confident that he might survive that shock," returned the otter.

"He's escaped death once already. I have a feeling he's not going to let death win today, either."

~Author's Note~ So there you have it. This is the third chapter I promised, though it is a few days late. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I probably won't have much time to write for the next few months because of school, but we'll see. Thanks for sticking with this story and reading up until this point, though, even though I'm a slow writer.