The feel of Saber's armored body laid out on top of her was the first thing Angela became aware of, as she all but clawed her way back to consciousness in the wake of the massive explosion that the four of them had all been forced to weather. Breathing heavily as she tried to brace herself against the floor, aiming to push Saber's body off of her so she could at least try to examine the lad more closely, Angela paused for a long moment as she saw the lad's armored form glowing a bright blue.

Turning Saber over, Angela gathered the lad up in her arms once he'd finished transforming back. Looking up at Slade, as he transformed out of the armor that had protected not only him and Saber, but also her and Balzac, Angela made her way over to him.

"I'm glad to see you lads made it through all right," she said, smiling as she made her way over to where Slade was standing.

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Vision clearing as his eyes fluttered and opened, Cain blinked.

"Mom?" he muttered, trying to sit up, even as the lingering confusion cleared and Cain found himself helped back to his feet.

He also heard the sound of Ness laughing at him over the open link between their three comms.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Nessie," he said, rolling his eyes as he stood back on his feet; the sound of Angela's own, gentle chuckle drew his attention, then.

"Miles told me, over and over, how he'd have been proud to have the both of you lads as sons," Angela said, and Cain could hear the smile in her voice, even over the slight distortion of the radio link. "Still, I think we've spent enough time recoverin'."

"Yeah, we should get to the spaceport," Ness said, turning to look down the ravaged tunnels, in the direction that would take all of them to the single, remaining spaceport.

The spaceport where Sword would be waiting for them.

As the pair of them took point, with Angela hurrying to keep up with them, Cain turned back to look at Pegas as the mech continued following along behind them. The sense of Ness' teknocrystal – the same sense that Cain had always had of his own, though muted – came from behind him, and Cain could only wonder just what kind of circumstances could have led to Ness' crystal ending up in such a strange place. Cain's own came when he called it, and there was a part of him that was curious about that, too.

Still, it wasn't like either he or Ness had the time to look into it, so Cain shoved his curiosity aside and kept moving; really, that was all he and Ness could do: keep moving.

1110101001111

When they'd lost contact with their team on the Space Ring, Star had felt her heart clenching. She knew that there were still Radam forces there, and in particular one of the remaining Teknomen who had been forced to serve them. She didn't know if it was Spear, Sword, or if the both of them were planning to meet up again at the Space Ring, but after everything she'd seen even a single Radam Teknoman do, Star couldn't help worrying.

She could help wondering just how Slade, Saber, Balzac, and Angela were all doing, considering what they might already be facing.

"Something's showing up on the Space Ring's exterior sensors," Ringo reported, and Star found herself making her way over to the monitoring console to stand beside him, wanting to see how things were going with her own eyes. "Must be the enemy Teknoman; looks like there's only one of them, so we can at least be grateful for small favors," Ringo continued, trailing off into muttering as though he was thinking out loud. "If we don't get to Spaceport number 8 before that Teknoman does, we're gonna be stranded."

"Meanwhile, I'd like to know what's going on with Slade, Saber, and the rest of their group," she said, leaning in as Ringo started switching from one intact camera to another, trying to find some trace of the friends they'd separated from.

"I don't know, I'm not having a lot of luck finding those kids," Ringo said, continuing to search. "The interior sensors are all out of whack."

"Maggie, isn't there something you can do to fix them?" she called down to the other woman, watching as the redhead shimmied out from under a nearby console.

"Gimmie a minute," Maggie sighed. "I'm working as fast as I can," groaning softly as she stood back up, Maggie made her own way over to the console where she and Ringo were standing. "Restoring weapons, communications, and now the sensors? I'm good, but even I can only do one thing at a time."

Watching as Maggie made her way over to another monitoring console, Star turned at the sound of Ringo sighing.

"We have no way of knowing if they're even dead or alive," he muttered, and for a long moment Star found herself biting her lip.

She didn't want to think that anything worse had happened to Slade and Saber, but she knew that as long as even one of Darkon's Teknomen remained, all of them would be in danger.

"Well, speaking for myself, I'm definitely alive," Balzac said, making his way back into the control room where the rest of their group had gathered together; the place where they were going to make what Star could only hope wouldn't end up being their last stand against the remaining Radam forces. "Had my brain scrambled a little bit, but then what else is new?"

It was the same kind of gallows humor she'd heard so many times before from Saber, and Star found herself thinking back on when Balzac had first come to the Space Knights. It had been about as far from an auspicious meeting as any but the one that she herself had had with Spear, and only because General Gault had been nominally fighting for the Earth. Though honestly, that man seemed to have been fighting for himself, above all.

Star didn't like thinking about that, but it was always the first thing that came to her mind when she found herself faced with Balzac.

"What happened to Slade and Saber? Were they all right when you left them?"

"Come on, Star, if I came out of that scrap all right, those kids are pretty much guaranteed to have come out of things fine," Balzac said, smiling in a way that he clearly intended to be reassuring. "We just got separated in all the fighting. I thought, if you guys managed to get the Space Ring sensors up and running, you'd have a better chance of finding out where they are than I do."

Given everything that had happened, everything that was still happening to Slade and Saber, Star couldn't find it in herself to take comfort in what Balzac was telling her.

"Got it," Maggie said, before anyone else could say another word. "Now, let's see what's going on up there," the redhead continued, lightly shoving Ringo aside so that she could take his place at the control console. "All right, here we go."

"Maggie, you managed to fix them?" Ringo asked, righting himself as Maggie's fingers practically flew over the controls.

"I managed to fix the video sensors, but most of the audio has been overloaded," Maggie said, sighing as she continued typing. "Still, we should at least be able to see anyone in this quadrant of the Space Ring."

Biting her lip as Maggie muttered to herself, Star watched as the wireframe schematic of the Space Ring was replaced by an image of three figures in space suits, and the Teknobot following close behind them. Sighing in relief, even as she heard her friends and fellow Space Knights talking all around her, Star turned as she felt Ringo's hand on her left shoulder.

"C'mon, let's get outta here," he said, grinning widely. "Maggie'll work faster if she knows that lover-boy of hers is getting some backup, and I'm sure you will, too," turning to Balzac, even as Star shook her head in relief and exasperation, Ringo called out to the other man. "Let's get into our Tekno-suits and give those kids of ours some moral support."

As Ringo and Balzac turned to leave the room, Star couldn't quite decide what she was going to do with herself. She wouldn't be getting in Maggie's way, of course, but there had to be at least some way that she could help. Something she could do to support Slade and Saber, even as far as she was from where the pair of them were.

Making her way back over to Maggie, Star gave the other woman's right shoulder a gentle squeeze, then hurried to catch up with Ringo and Balzac.

00010010010000

As the three of them continued on their way through the Space Ring, headed for the sole remaining spaceport, Ness found himself turning over what Cain had said in his mind. It didn't make sense, having his teknocrystal implanted into the strange robot that seemed to be following in his footsteps – his in particular, since it was his teknocrystal implanted into the front of it – but for the moment Ness was more concerned with the smaller issues.

He could talk to the rest of the Space Knights about how all of this had happened later, but for the moment…

"Slade, I do not understand why we have stopped," the machine said, as he and Cain stood before a large viewport that allowed them to look down on the Earth; the very planet that both of them were still fighting for.

"Just thinking," Cain said, before Ness could tear his attention away from the Earth, so close and yet so far away.

"Come on, lads," Angela said, clapping him and Cain on the nearest shoulder. "I know ya sometimes need remindin' of what it is you're fightin' for, but we're short on time."

"Yeah," he said, sighing as he forced his attention away from the Earth and back to the battle he and Cain were going to be fighting with Sword. "Thanks," he muttered, as he and Cain started walking again.

Leaning into Cain's embrace as his younger twin wrapped his right arm around his shoulders, Ness closed his eyes briefly, though he still made sure to keep up the pace that Cain had set for their small group. The heavy sounds of Pegas' footsteps, sounding even louder on the bare metal of the Space Ring and through Ness' own enhanced hearing, was really starting to annoy him.

(I know this robot has my crystal for some reason,) he groused to Cain, over the mental link that the both of them shared so that Angela wouldn't feel the need to stop and talk to them. (But, it's still annoying to have something so loud staying so close.)

(Yeah,) Cain said, the mix of amusement and annoyance his younger twin was feeling coming through clearly over their mental link. (It sounds like someone keeps dropping pots on the floor each time that robot takes a step.)

(That's what I was thinking, too,) he said, sighing as he and Cain kept walking. (That, or someone banging that ladle against the floor. I mean, the metal one that Conrad bought for himself.)

(I didn't think you were talking about that dinky plastic one,) Cain said, clearly more than a little amused. (Or that tiny one that Dad bought for his coffee. You remember that one?)

(Yeah, I do,) he said, feeling a grin pulling at his mouth. (Dad and his coffee.)

(Yeah.)

Chuckling deep in his throat, Ness heard Cain doing the same, and kept walking; the pot-dropping, ladle-banging sound of Pegas' footfalls followed them deeper into the Space Ring.

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Keeping up with Ringo and Balzac, as the pair of them searched for Slade and Saber, Star couldn't help but wonder if they were going to be able to find the twins before the Teknoman that had been destroying the Space Ring's spaceports found them. She also wondered if it was Spear or Sword that had been destroying the spaceports to begin with.

Having never actually met Sword, Star could only hope that Spear wasn't the one waiting for them at the end of all this.

She hated Spear, not only for what he'd done to the twins, but also for the way he'd tried to gaslight her that time the pair of them had met, back in the church where he had been lying in wait for Slade and Saber. Back before Shara had caught up to the pair of them; before that poor girl had died, in a desperate effort to protect her older brothers from the rest of their brainwashed family and friends.

Back before the Space Knights had been forced to retreat to the Alaskan Command Center, and before either of the twins had been forced to undergo that secondary transformation that had caused so much trouble for all of them.

Stopping the transport, just before she would have run right into the piles of rubble that had become an unfortunate fixture of traveling through the Space Ring, Star jumped out of the transport so that she could scan for anything that might be waiting for them.

"I'm not picking up any enemy activity," she reported, knowing even as she did so that that could change at any second. "Just Slade, Saber, Angela, and the Teknobot, but we won't be able to get to them this way. It'll take too long to get past all this rubble."

The sound of metallic footsteps on the steel and alloy flooring let Star know how close Ringo and Balzac were to where she was currently standing, so Star felt at least some comfort as she turned to take a different path to the sole remaining spaceport. When Balzac called out to her, pointing out that said spaceport was in the opposite direction from where she was heading, Star turned to look back at him.

"Yes, I know," she said. "But this way's a shortcut."

Making her way over to an intact wall, Star fetched herself the same kind of helmet that Slade and Saber had been wearing the last time she'd seen either of them.

"Oh, I see, we're going to take a little spacewalk," Ringo said, sounding like he approved, but was a bit apprehensive at the same time.

"That's exactly right," she said, understanding Ringo's concern, but knowing that this was likely the fastest way to get where they needed to go. "Exiting the Space Ring and cutting diagonally across the surface of the station should let us avoid any Spider-crabs that might still be on the Space Ring."

"Yeah, and we might be able to spot an enemy Teknoman before they get to us," Ringo said, his cautious pessimism echoing her own, even as she fitted the helmet on and locked it to the suit she was wearing.

As Ringo and Balzac made their ways over to the pair of levers that controlled the air lock doors, Star braced herself against the turbulence of being blown out into space. She almost wondered if this was how Slade and Saber had felt, those times when they had ended up in space. Then, forcing her attention back to the matter at hand, Star used her suit's thrusters to right herself, jetting off toward the spaceport.

She didn't know how much time any of them had, so Star didn't want to waste it.

00100100100000

Shuddering slightly, as she made her way into the Space Ring's sole remaining spaceport, Sword looked around at the place where she and the rest of the Argos' crew had departed from their home on Earth. It felt so much longer than the near-year that had actually passed since that time, and as she paused for a long moment at the threshold of the hangar bay door as it opened before her, Sword found herself thinking back to the day the Argos had departed from this very spaceport. The day that her beloved Conrad had announced his intention to wed her.

The pair of them had even been making tentative plans to have their wedding before the very rings of Saturn itself; though such plans had naturally been put on hold when she and the survivors of the Argos' crew had been made a part of the glorious Radam Empire.

Still, Sword couldn't help but reflect on the odd serendipity of their encounter; a day later, and they likely would have spotted Lord Darkon's Deep Scout craft when more of the family were awake, and there was every chance that the crew would have chosen not to investigate the craft. Every chance that she would not have become Teknoman Sword, and that her beloved would have remained simply Conrad Carter, rather than becoming Teknoman Spear.

Every chance that Conrad's beloved family would still be whole; that his last remaining brothers would not have been traitors.

Still, the simple facts of their situation remained true: Slade and Saber were traitors, and actively murderous at that; her beloved Spear and her Lord Darkon were depending on her for protection, and Sword was not going to fail them.

Sealing and locking the hangar bay door behind her, Sword turned her attention to the remaining ships that had been stowed there. They were of a kind to those that Conrad had described to her, the high-speed attack craft that had lead one of the humans' more damaging attacks, and so destroying them gave her more satisfaction than usual.

It was spacecraft such as these, after all, that had destroyed the power generators that their Spider-crabs had relied upon to mature.

111010010010111

The sound of alarms blaring all around them, annoying as it had already been back when he'd still been human, was at least somewhat muffled by the helmet Cain was still wearing.

"This access corridor should take us right to the spaceport," Ness said, bringing Cain's attention back to the present; the present, with all its emotional upheavals.

"Spaceport Eight," Cain muttered, sighing almost involuntarily.

"Yeah, I know," Ness said, patting him on the right shoulder as the pair of them, plus Angela and Pegas, continued on their way; closer to the spaceport, closer to their confrontation with Sword.

"Is the place special to ya lads, somehow?" Angela asked, drawing Cain's attention to the fact that the pair of them weren't the only ones on their way to a confrontation with Sword.

"It…" Ness trailed off for a long moment, and Cain reached out to give his older twin's left arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze. (Thanks, Cain.) "It was the place the Argos launched from. We all left the Earth from that spaceport."

"It pretty much explains why Sword went there last," he said, narrowing his eyes slightly, even as he kept close pace with Ness on their way to the spaceport. "Warped as they are, all of the Radam Teknomen remember where we came from."

"Ah," Angela said. "I suppose that makes sense; that place would hold a lot of memories for all of ya."

"Yeah," he muttered, narrowing his eyes as he and Ness – with Angela and Pegas tagging along behind them – continued on their way through the access corridor that would take them to Spaceport Eight.

0010000010100010110

Crawling back out from under the computer, Maggie sighed.

"There, that should do it," she said, turning to one of her fellow techs as she settled back on her haunches. "I hope that'll give us some firepower," she said, turning to face the man sitting next to her more squarely. He looked like an older version of Ringo, and she thought his name might have been Andrew, but their social circles didn't overlap, and since this was really the first time that Maggie had needed to work with the man for any appreciable length of time, she really couldn't have said. "See if the laser-cannon will respond now," she advised maybe-Andrew.

Once the pair of them had managed to determine that the laser-satellites – the same satellites that the Radam had turned on the people of Earth for so long, so there was a part of Maggie that actively enjoyed the chance to turn those satellites right back on the Radam – Maggie sighed as she heard the surprised voices of the three friends and fellow Space Knights who'd gone deeper into the Space Ring earlier.

"Negative, that was only me doing a weapons check," she said, in response to Ringo's worry that it might have been the Radam. "Everything seems fine."

"Great, but how about a little warning, next time, huh?" Balzac asked, sounding a little rattled and a lot unimpressed.

"Maggie, do you know where Slade, Saber, and the enemy Teknoman are, right now?" Star asked, sounding about as worried as Maggie had found herself, given how long it'd been since the men they loved had been separated from them.

"I've been tracking those two since they left," she said, pulling her tracking program up again. "They're all in Spaceport Eight, practically on top of each other," she took a deep breath, biting her lip as she found herself wishing for the nth time that she could have been there with them; even if it would have been dangerous. "I'm also detecting strong energy spikes from that spaceport, so you'd all better hurry and help our boys!"

1110100100101111011

(The signal's getting stronger,) Cain said, as the pair of them started sprinting; Angela and Pegas were keeping pace with each other, so that the big robot would be better able to protect her when the pair of them confronted Sword.

(We're getting close,) he said, narrowing his eyes as he concentrated harder on the mental link that would lead him and Cain to Sword. (We're also running out of time.)

(Yeah, that too,) Cain said, his younger twin's apprehension coming through loud and clear over their mental link.

Of course what the pair of them found, once they made it to the end of the access corridor, seemed about par for the course they'd been on for so long: the spaceport was in ruins, and the armored form of Teknoman Sword was waiting there for them.

"Hey, Kathy. I thought we might find you here," Cain called, his voice light, easy, and all the more dangerous for how cheerful he was attempting to sound.

"I'm surprised Conrad's not here with you," he snapped, narrowing his eyes as he and Cain closed with what was left of Katherine.

"You traitors won't ever be seeing him again!" Teknoman Sword snarled, launching herself at the pair of them.

Cain quickly transformed into Teknoman Saber, throwing himself in her path, and the last thing Ness saw – before he turned away to head for Pegas and activate his own transformation – was Teknoman Saber's lancer locking with Sword's.

"Good luck out there, Slade!" Angela called, and he nodded to her as he hurried over to where the robot with his teknocrystal imbedded in it – he still found that thought more than a bit strange, but he didn't have time for anything but fighting, right here and now – was standing, seeming like it was waiting for him.

Ness almost stopped right in his tracks, even in spite of the limited time he could practically feel closing in on him, when the robot opened up in response to his approach. Still, Ness knew that he couldn't leave Cain to fight alone. So he jumped into the open space inside the robot, feeling the familiar rush of energy that transformed him into Teknoman Slade again.

Leaping at Sword, as soon as he'd finished his transformation and Pegas had ejected him, Ness caught her lancer on his own; with the spaceport destroyed, the only thing that he and Cain could really hope to do was drive Sword off before she could do any more damage to the Space Ring as a whole.

00010010001001011

The feel of his awareness spreading throughout the Deep Scout that he'd been placed in command of, for all that he had steadily lost awareness of everything below the base of his neck, was a rather unsettling feeling. Rather more unsettling, however, was the way he'd steadily become more aware of the struggling mind of Raukko Kaura. He'd used this body for so long that he'd almost been able to forget that he had not, in fact, been born to it.

Still, as the same kind of wires that had connected him to his Deep Scout while he had been searching for a new species to bring into the Radam Empire crawled in through the large ears of the body he'd used for so long and the awareness of his Deep Scout steadily displaced his awareness of the body he'd been originally making use of for such a long time, Raukko Kaura's mind steadily regained awareness of itself.

It was an odd thing to experience, but Dakonith supposed that being permanently fused with his own Deep Scout would necessarily disconnect him from the body he was no longer going to need to make use of nearly as much as he once had.

11010101111010101101

The first thing that let Cain know that he and Ness weren't as alone in their fight against Sword as they'd previously been was the sight of Sword being shot in the face by one of the Tekno-suits moving in quickly to his and Ness' sides.

"Fashionably late again, I see," he said, smirking under his helmet as he made his way over to where Ringo was standing.

Surprisingly enough, he was firing some kind of blasts from his right wrist, as opposed to using that huge gun of his. Sure, Cain knew why he was doing it – all of them had to do whatever they could to keep Spaceport Eight at least somewhat intact, after all they'd done to get to it – but he hadn't known that either Tekno-suit had more than just that single, huge gun that he'd seen the both of them using at one time or another.

When someone opened the air lock, the four of them took the opportunity to drive Sword out of the remains of Spaceport Eight, and Cain quickly brought up his teknolance to deflect the enemy Teknoman as she charged at him and Ringo. His fellow Space Knight was staying close, probably both for protection and because the man considered himself Cain's friend. Even if he did keep getting Cain's name wrong.

"Better late than never," Ringo said, and Cain got the feeling that the man was grinning at him.

Chuckling, even as he turned his attention back to Sword, Cain quickly met back up with Ness and the two of them took point against her while Ringo and Balzac took potshots when they could. Of course, the fact that there were no Spider-crabs around to harass them meant that Ringo and Balzac didn't have that much to do, since he, Ness, and Sword were all fast enough that neither of the two humans had much of a chance to contribute to the fight at all.

Still, as he and Ness fought, driving Sword back and away from the Space Ring and their fellow Space Knights, Cain found himself feeling a strange sort of pressure. Almost as though the energy inside him, the energy that had allowed him to transform in the first place, was growing stronger, somehow…

00100100000100100

…Shaking off the strange feeling he'd been having, Saber turned slightly as Slade rushed past him, ramming into Sword while Saber fell in behind his older twin. Sword, for her part, actually seemed more than a bit scared of the pair of them. As well she might be, considering the sheer gulf between her feeble powers and those that he and Slade possessed.

Still, when he and Slade fired both of their Vortex-bolts at once in an effort to finally be rid of her, Saber narrowed his eyes as the mental connection between them remained firmly in place.

(Looks like she managed to escape.)

(How annoying,) Slade grumbled.

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Shuddering, even as she pushed her thrusters for every bit of speed they could give her, Sword gave what attention she could to Lord Darkon.

(I'm sorry I wasn't able to complete my mission,) Sword said, once she'd managed to regain enough of her composure that she was able to actually speak coherently to Lord Darkon.

(You had little enough chance against a pair of rogue Generals, my soldier,) Lord Darkon said, and she could sense that the annoyance that her Warlord did feel was directed at the traitors, rather than her.

(How is Conrad doing?) she asked, still finding that she was rather annoyed with herself, for all the understanding that Lord Darkon had shown in the wake of her continued failure to finally rid them of the traitors.

(Currently undergoing the Harrowing, though you've no need to fret, my soldier,) Lord Darkon said, projecting nearly all of the confidence that Sword couldn't quite manage to feel at the moment. (Spear is strong enough to survive; he will come back to you soon.)

(Thank you, my Lord,) she said, relieved, though still feeling rather annoyed with herself.

She was not about to allow herself to begin doubting Lord Darkon's words, of course, but Sword couldn't help feeling that she should have been able to do more. Particularly when she recalled the sheer anguish in her love's voice when he had been mourning his murdered brother. The last brother her love had truly possessed, anymore.

Meeting up with the mount that Lord Darkon had bred for her love to use, the one that had passed through their dear departed Axe's hands before it had come to her to use, Sword turned to make her way back to the Moon once more.

0001001001001011000

Dragging the unconscious forms of their kids back to the remains of Spaceport Eight, Ringo looked down at Saber's armored face as he caught a brief flicker of the kid's eyes – those bright, blue lights that sometimes shown through the kid's visor – and pushed his thrusters for more juice.

"Don't worry, kid, we're almost there," he said, hoping that Saber was lucid enough to at least hear him, even if he couldn't respond. "You'll be okay."

"Ringo, what's going on out there?" Star asked, over the radio that connected their little group of Space Knights to each other.

"Seems like our buddy Darkon called Sword back," he said, gathering Saber up in his arms, holding the kid closer as he flew the pair of them through the air lock and into the remains of Spaceport Eight. "The kids transformed into those new forms of theirs again," he said, sighing softly, wishing for a long moment that neither of them had been forced into that position again. "We'll have to keep an eye out for anything else they might have forgotten."

"Yeah," Star said, and Ringo closed his eyes briefly as he landed just inside the airlock, making his way back into the spaceport as the familiar, bright blue glow of Saber's transformation enveloped the kid, leaving behind the space-suited form of the kid Ringo wished more than ever he could actually protect.

The sight of Pegas opening up, just visible out of the corner of his left eye, drew Ringo's attention for a moment, before the sight of Saber trying to stand back up pulled his gaze right back.

"Easy, Saber," he said, supporting the kid as he climbed back to his feet again. "I've got you."

"Thanks, Ringo," the kid said, leaning a bit more on him as he helped him over to where Star was waiting for the both of them.

"Are you okay?" Star asked, as soon as both of their boys had managed to meet up with her again.

"Star, I don't even know what else we might have forgotten," Slade said, after a long moment spent cuddling with Saber; if the pair of them hadn't already ended up staying together in one of the rooms they'd been given, they were clearly going to end up together after all of this. "I don't know what we're going to be able to do."

Making his way over to where the Wonder Twins had curled up together, finding himself smiling sadly as he saw the way the pair of them were huddled, Ringo gently set his right hand down on Slade's head. "You kids'll be all right."

"Yeah," Saber scoffed, but didn't resist when Ringo pulled him up. "Sure."

As the six of them all made their way over to the personnel entrance for Spaceport Eight, waiting for the repair crew to relive them, Ringo couldn't help wondering if they were going to be able to get any use out of the spaceport at all. Sure, that super Tekno-bolt their boys'd both fired to drive Sword off had been at least a comfortable distance from the Ring, but the Teknoman herself had torn the place up badly enough that he couldn't be sure of anything. Sure, Maggie and her techs were good, but this might end up being too much for even them.

101001001110100100111

When he finally managed to regain awareness of just where he was and what he was currently doing, Spear almost felt as though he was too large for his body. There was also the strange, raw feeling all over his skin; almost as though his nerve endings had been pulled free of their sheaths and laid out all over his body.

(You've done very well, my General.)

(Thank you, Lord Darkon,) he said, finding himself smiling as he felt the powerful presence of the Warlord enveloping him; he'd wondered, for those moments when he had been climbing into the teknopod that had been prepared for him, if he'd have been able to tell when Lord Darkon had completed his own transformation.

Really, he should have known better.

(The energies within you will stabilize soon enough, my General, for now remain where you are.)

(Of course,) Spear said, pausing for a moment as he sensed Kathy reaching out for him. (It's good to have you back, Kathy.)

(I'm so glad you made it through this all right, my love,) Kathy, who'd stood beside him through all of the upheavals all of them had been through at the hands of his traitorous younger brothers and their Space Knight allies, said.

(I'm glad, too,) he said, settling back into the teknopod as he sensed Kathy coming steadily closer, then smiling as he caught sight of her through the translucent membrane.

Reaching out to lay his hand over the hand that Kathy herself had placed on the outside of his teknopod, Spear smiled.

(I missed you, my love.)

(I missed you, too, Kathy.)