Chapter 1: DISAPEARANCE

It was a dark and stormy night when the alarm siren cut through the night air like a hot nine-iron through butter. The Mad Scientist rolled out of bed, put on his lab coat, and yawned. He knew this was probably another food pantry alarm set off by those insatiable Lardbutians, so it was nothing to get worked up over.

Better go ahead and check it out, he thought to himself, lest that crazy wolf get to them first. The last thing this place needed was another cosmic political scandal caused by one of MDMI’s chief enforcers. After the last incident, he knew that the Intergalactic Council would have little tolerance for any further episodes originating in the Milky Way Sector.

As he walked through the vacuum tube connecting the living quarters with the operations base-pod, he chuckled to himself at the thought of the Lardbutians. As alien species go, they were one of the most loyal and hardest working that he had ever encountered. But, as the laws of thermal-physics goes, that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, their hard-working demeanor was offset by an appetite that was never satisfied, no matter how much food you gave them. Larbutians were gentle creatures that had a very curious sense-of-humor, which was great comic-relief during the long stretches of monotonous lunar orbitronal cycles. That is, their sense-of-humor lasted until their food supply was endangered. As he recalled the last incident involving the Lardbutians, his pace quickened, as an even greater display of rabid food protection was displayed by that crazy wolf.

As the Mad Scientist reached the final decompression tube, the swift sound of a tri-vibroid chamber door could be heard around the corner. Before the blink of an eye, he was face to face with that crazy wolf.

"Micropain!!" the Mad Scientist exclaimed, "Please tell me that you didn’t bite one of our Lardbutian friends again! You know that we cannot afford to ha…"

Before he could finish his sentence, his brain waves were manipulated to receive a rather urgent message. The look on Micropain’s face should have said it all, but what the wolf telepathically informed him was something he was not prepared for and stopped him cold in his tracks.

"
The Four Banger has disappeared!!!"
Go to Chapter 2: SVS FOUR BANGER