Disclaimer: The following is a crossover parody between CH, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai, and a little bit of ER. The characters involved are the property of David E. Kelley, John Tinker, Michael Crichton, and Earl Mac Rauch. Any similarity between actual people, either living or dead, is only slightly coincidental ;-). The Truth About Kate and Doug by Gail M. Eppers Christine Lahti sat at a small round table, smoking a cigarette while she studied her script. Oh cool, she thought, I get to cry again next week. It had been a few episodes since she had shed a single tear, and she missed it. Crying was her specialty, afterall. All she had to do was think about home, and how much she wished she were there. Planet 10 was much more pleasant than this hellhole. But no, she had a mission to perform. She had to rescue her comrades trapped in the 8th dimension, and the only way to do it was to perfect the overthruster. John Whorfin, who had been killed on a previous mission with the same goal, had designed an overthruster, but it was flawed. Her people suspected that the flaw had to do with their lack of knowledge about humanoid physiology and had dispatched a second mission to first learn the physics of the human body, then incorporate what they learned into the overthruster. It was a time-consuming mission, and she had been at it for almost two full years now. She didn't think she was learning anything at her assigned task. Had she misunderstood? Her orders said to impersonate hospital personnel, but if this was supposed to provide information it was not working. She sighed and turned the page in the script. "Christine!" The human named Adam approached her, with another man at his side. The second man was of average height, but lean build, with a long face and a child-like mischievous grin. He walked with supreme confidence. "Have you met our new medical advisor?" "No, I haven't." She said. Hmmmm. Medical advisor? Maybe he'd be able to give her more information..... "Christine, meet Dr. Bonzai. Dr. Bonzai, Christine Lahti." Adam said, then stepped aside. Dr. Bonzai held out his hand, "A pleasure to meet you." Christine shook his hand briefly, "Doctor." Suddenly, the name reverberated in her brain. "Excuse me, what is your first name?" She asked. "They call me Buckaroo. Buckaroo Bonzai." He said. "Buckaroo Bonzai," she repeated. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. "Nice meeting you. We'll do lunch soon." She folded up her script and rose, "Excuse me." Trying not to seem too obvious, she left the soundstage and headed to the offices. Watching to make sure she wasn't followed, she entered the building. She walked down a long corridor of offices and stopped at a door marked 'John Tinker'. She opened it and entered an outer office, where a secretary sat at a desk, doing her nails. "I have to see Mr. Tinker right away!" She told the secretary as she walked right past the desk and opened the inner door. The secretary blew on her nails. "Stop. You can't go in there. Stop," she said without enthusiasm, making no moves to prevent Christine from entering. Christine knocked once and opened the door to find a middle aged man sitting behind a four-mile wide desk, writing on a pad. She closed the door immediately and locked it. "John Tinker, I have to talk to you!" John Tinker stopped writing and looked up. "What is it, Christine Lahti? Upset with the boy's club again?" "Have you met our new medical advisor?" Christine came right up to the desk and leaned on it with both hands. She leaned forward to get as close as possible and still wouldn't have been able to touch him without a yardstick. "It's him! Buckaroo Bonzai!" She felt her two years of non-work crumbling beneath her. "Did he recognize you?" John Tinker was calm. Christine stood up and folded her arms. "No. I don't think he's ionized anymore. We shook hands and I didn't get a shock. But that doesn't mean he won't find out." "Then relax, Christine Lahti," John Tinker said. "How can you say that?" She whirled around and began to pace, "he's the one who foiled the last mission. Thanks to that traitor, John Parker. We have to disguise ourselves even better, and we'd better lay low for awhile. We don't want anyone to know why we're here." She slid the script across the desk to him, "Edit this. It shows too much medical knowledge. They'll think we're learning something and we can't afford to do that now. And you....." John Tinker looked at her expectantly, "you need to change your name as soon as possible." "What? Why?" " 'John Tinker', " she quoted. "That's one of the things that tipped them off before. That's why the rest of us have taken other names. You're too much of a traditionalist, John Tinker." "I'm in charge of this mission, Christine Lahti. One John is almost unavoidable in any group. It'll be fine." He pushed the script back at her. "As for this, I've already edited it until I was blue in the face. I can't stand the sight of it anymore. Use it as is. We carry on as usual, as if nothing happened. Am I clear?" Christine bit back what she wanted to say. John Tinker WAS in charge. Unfortunately, she thought, John Tinker was also an idiot. He couldn't smell danger if he were inside a lion's cage. "You're not going to fire Dr. Bonzai?" She asked incredulously. "No, I'm not. He can't see us, like last time. There's nothing for him to see, is there?" John Tinker stressed the last question. Christine sighed, and picked up the script. "No. Nothing at all." She still didn't agree with his decision, but didn't dare jeopardize the mission by arguing with him further. She left John Tinker's office and returned to the soundstage, where everyone was waiting impatiently for her. Forty-seven minutes later, the director sent her to her trailor in a pique of anger after she'd created enough blooper reel footage to last six years. Still angry over her conversation with John Tinker, she slumped in her trailor and pouted. It was too risky keeping Bonzai around here, and she knew it. She needed an ally, but she already knew that Mark Harmon would back John Tinker because he was also an idiot. She needed someone with intelligence. Someone who had some clout with the supervisors. She picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello?" "George Clooney?" "Yes, this is he." The sign of intelligence. He didn't say "him". "Are you alone?" "Yes. Who is this?" "This is Christine Lahti. We have a problem." She heard the sound of a door closing. "Go ahead." "Buckaroo Bonzai," she said. "He's here. Someone's hired him as a damn medical advisor." George Clooney laughed. "Hey, you guys need one! Haven't you learned anything in two years?" Christine Lahti's patience was at an end. "Shut up! This is serious. If this mission fails, we're through. We don't have the personnel to do this again." "What do you want me to do?" George Clooney asked, still laughing under his breath. "Think of something!!!" Christine Lahti growled, and hung up the phone. Just then, there was a large flash outside her trailor. Someone screamed, and there were shouts to call 911 and sounds of running. Christine Lahti looked out her window and saw her dream come true. Buckaroo Bonzai was lying on the ground, his body smoking slightly from an apparent electrical shock of some magnitude. A cameraman knelt beside him and prepared to do CPR, but then rose suddenly when Bonzai's arm moved. Buckaroo Bonzai sat up and shook his head to clear it. "I'm all right," he said loudly to everyone around. Christine Lahti ducked behind her curtain, then peeked outside again. The crowd was already dispersing, and Bonzai stood up and brushed himself off. Then he looked up directly at Christine Lahti. She ducked behind the curtain again, but she knew she wasn't fast enough. He'd seen her, she was sure of it. Really seen her. She waited for the knock on her trailor door that would be him coming to accuse her, but there was silence. Staying below window level, she again reached for the phone. This time, she called John Tinker's office. His secretary answered the phone. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tinker is in a meeting and can't be disturbed." "Tell him it's Christine Lahti, and it's a matter of life and death." For some reason, she was whispering. The secretary sounded bored. "Everyone says it's a matter of life and death, Ms. Lahti. Mr. Tinker was very specific in saying no interruptions during this meeting. I'm sorry." "Who is he meeting with?" "Someone named Penny Priddy. But I'm sure it's a business meeting." "Yes, I'm sure it is. Thank you." She hung up the phone again, and remained seated on the floor for a long time. As the phone rang in his office, Aaron Shutt stared at it. For the briefest split second. He stared at it, because he was absolutely positive who it was and it didn't make any sense. It was the same bell, same room, same everything as any other call he'd gotten here, but the ring itself seemed different. In the middle of the second ring, he picked it up, but didn't say anything. "Aaron? Is that you?" My God, Aaron thought. It was him. Jeffrey Geiger. "Hi, Jeffrey." "Aaron! Aaron, I've got to talk to you. It's very important. Can you meet me at North Beach? The bench?" Aaron was still stunned. "What? When?" "As soon as you can get there. This can't wait Aaron. Are you free? Please tell me you're not scheduled for surgery." "I'm not. Jeffrey, what is this about?" "North Beach, Aaron. I'll be waiting for you." There was a click and the line went dead. Aaron hung up the phone slowly, still staring at it as if it were going to bite him. He hit his intercom and told his secretary he would be leaving now, then exchanged his lab coat for his suit coat. Jeffrey was sitting on the bench when Aaron got to North Beach. It was a warm, sunny day, with a mild breeze coming in from the lake. Aaron approached the bench from behind, and slid into a seat next to his friend. "All right, Jeffrey. What's up?" Jeffrey peered at him, then broke into a broad smile. "Aaron." Then he became serious. "I heard you got a new, um, assistant." Aaron sighed, hating the intrigue and roundabout way Jeffrey was using. "Yes. I met him this morning. He's not just my assistant, though. He kind of advises everyone." Jeffrey nodded. "I recommended him." "You did? Where on earth did you meet him?" Aaron thought he'd met all of Jeffrey's friends years ago. Jeffrey explained, "You remember that list I was number one on? Well, Dr. Bonzai was number two. The Top Ten on the list got together for a kind of medical retreat, and Buckaroo and I really hit it off." "So why is this so important?" Jeffrey leaned his elbows on his knees and looked out at the lake. "Dr. Bonzai was responsible for stopping an invasion force a few years ago. I suspect there's another force forming at Chicago Hope. There are aliens working there, Aaron." "You mean Mario and Juan? They have their green cards. What's the problem?" "I'm not talking about that kind of alien." There was silence between them. Neither one looked at the other. "Outer space aliens?" Aaron asked sarcastically. "Jeffrey are you feeling all right?" Jeffrey turned his head to look at his friend, but remained hunched over. "I know what it sounds like. But Buckaroo's been there before. Talk to him. He'll need your help." Behind the camera, Christine Lahti was standing nearby, eating a donut and reading the newly edited pages of script that were being shot. As she read the conversation between Aaron and Jeffrey, she began to fume. "Oh my God," she whispered, nearly choking on the donut as she turned to the next page. She looked up to locate the crew truck, and hurried inside it, to the cramped room that was her dressing room for the shoot. She closed the door behind her and locked it, then picked up her cellular phone. She almost broke a finger punching the buttons. "John Tinker's office." Came the secretary's indifferent voice. "This is Christine Lahti for John Tinker." \tab "One moment please." Christine Lahti waited, tapping her foot, turning page after page of edited script and whispering "Oh my God" over and over. Finally, John Tinker came on the line. "John Tinker, what have you done?" "You finished reading the script?" "Not finished, but I've gotten far enough to know we're in big trouble." She tried to keep her voice down; these trucks weren't exactly soundproof, afterall. "What's with all the free advertising for Buckaroo Bonzai?" "Christine Lahti, you mean you can't figure it out?" She flapped the script in the air. "Figure what out? You're about to tell the whole world we're here and exactly what we plan to do! Everything's in here, isn't it? If this airs, we're sunk! You have to have it pulled!" "Listen. We're beating Buckaroo Bonzai to the punch. We come out with all of this like it's so much fiction. Then, when Buckaroo Bonzai starts trying to tell people the whole story is really true, he'll look like a lunatic. End of problem." Christine Lahti was speechless for a minute. "Well, it's so simple," she said finally, still unsure if she agreed with the idea. "John Tinker, you're a genius." The sarcasm was lost on John Tinker. "Thank you," he said. "Now stop wasting my time." John Tinker hung up the phone, and turned back to his task at hand. Penny Priddy sat in a simple wooden chair, bound and gagged. Her eyes were wide with fright. "Don't worry, dear," he told her. "I'm just making sure you don't help Buckaroo Bonzai before the show airs. You'll be my guest until then. My apologies about the accomodations." He pushed the chair against a wall and brought a curtained dressing barrier around her. "I'm working on improving them, but you'll have to be patient. I also have to perfect the overthruster, and I'm afraid that demands a lot of my time." He sat back at his desk and pulled open the pencil drawer, from which he extracted a large piece of paper. On the paper was a highly technical drawing of his overthruster. The next day, back on the old familiar soundstage, Christine Lahti was hiding in her trailer. Every so often, she would peek out the window and she could see him walking around, chatting with the rest of the cast and crew. She was thanking her gods that they had thought to spread themselves thin this time. Get humans for the busy work, keep the Lectrons hidden in the offices. But Buckaroo often craned his neck, looking around, watching. All the time, watching. Christine Lahti was afraid to leave her trailer. They'd be calling her to the set soon. She'd have to defend herself. She implanted a set of spiders in her throat. It was an organic weapon; the humans had called them spiders, but they resembled very small starfish. They took up a parasidic residence deep in her throat. With a hiccup, she could dislodge one and send it several feet if need be. It would puncture the skin of a human, and in minutes the human would be dead. But her throat would only hold two. It would be plenty, if she got Buckaroo Bonzai. When they came for her, she wouldn't even let Bonzai sound an alarm. Being prepared relaxed her a little. She looked out the window and saw Buckaroo Bonzai discussing something with Adam Arkin. Adam pointed to his watch, and then to her trailer. Buckaroo nodded, and began walking toward the trailer. She ducked back against the wall, and seconds later there was a knock on her door. "Five minutes, Ms. Lahti!" Buckaroo called loudly. Thinking quickly, she moved in front of the door. "I'll be right there. Just trying to get this zipper...." She faked some sounds as if she were struggling to zip up her back. The door opened. Christine Lahti hicupped and fired. Buckaroo Bonzai heard her hicup, and ducked instinctively. The spider flew through the air over Buckaroo's head and lodged in Adam Arkin's hair, completely unnoticed. Adam was now talking animatedly with Jayne Brooke. Buckaroo Bonzai barely had time to notice where it had landed, though he wanted to make sure no one was hurt by it. Staying low, he reached into the trailer and grabbed Christine Lahti by the ankles, which crackled at his touch, causing her to fall backwards with a thud, just as she had hicupped a second time, sending another spider flying. It collided with a cupboard door, and dripped to the floor. As Buckaroo climbed into the trailer he closed the door behind him and stepped on the spider to make sure it was out of commission. He looked down at the creature still sitting on the trailer floor. To him, it didn't look like Christine Lahti. It was humanoid, but had very small ear buds, and green skin. Instead of hair, the head was covered with ridges. "You're empty." Buckaroo said. "Are you sure?" She asked mysteriously. "Yes," he replied with complete confidence. "Are you still trying to rescue your people from the eighth dimension?" Her comrades, criminals on her home, planet 10, had been banished years ago to the eighth dimension, which her people knew to be a nameless void. To get there, they needed a working overthruster for their ship, currently housed in an abandoned, boarded up soundstage. Christine Lahti said nothing. "Who's with you? Are you in charge of the mission?" Buckaroo kept one foot on Christine Lahti's stomach, preventing her from getting up. "Where's your ship?" Buckaroo quickly realized that this Lectron would tell him nothing. He removed his foot, but crouched down. "You won't accomplish anything. You tell your people that. I won't let you." Then he rose, looking down on the defenseless Lectron, as she began to cry. "All right, that's it!" He kicked her in the face, causing a brief crackle of electricity leftover from his accident, knocking her unconscious. Then he left the trailer. "Christine Lahti isn't feeling well," he told the director of the week. "Let's skip to the next scene." Christine Lahti came to some time later, rubbing her jaw. She remembered what had happened, and rushed immediately to John Tinker's office. She burst in unannounced, to see John Tinker working intensely on the overthruster design. Startled, he grabbed the paper and shoved it into his pencil drawer. He glanced nervously at the dressing barrier near his desk, which hid Penny Priddy, then recognized Christine Lahti. "Christine Lahti, what are you doing here?" He asked angrily. "Buckaroo Bonzai just attacked me," she said. "What do you mean? He would have killed you." "I don't know why he didn't kill me, but he did attack. He said he would not let us accomplish our mission. It was a mistake to let him stay here, John Tinker." She noticed his furtive glances at the dressing screen. "What is that doing here?" She went over and peeked behind it, and saw a delicate young blond woman bound in a chair and gagged. The woman jerked in the chair, trying to scream through her gag. "Is that who I think it is?" Christine Lahti asked John Tinker as she returned her attention to the man at the desk. "Yes, of course. I told you I had everything under control." John Tinker again brought out the overthruster plans and motioned for Christine Lahti to look at them. "I've made progress on the overthruster. Look here." Christine Lahti came closer to the desk and looked at the plans. "You changed the whole interface." "Yes. We'll have to adapt the socket on the ship as well. It still needs work in this area," his finger made a circle around a central portion of the plans, "but with this interface, the rest is just extrapolation. There really is only one way for everything to fit. I just have to figure out which way." "I see. How soon?" "It depends on how much time I'll have to work on it. Scripts just keep interrupting me. Perhaps another week, and we can begin phase two." Christine Lahti sighed. "A week is too long. We have to speed things up if Buckaroo Bonzai is already after us. Forget the scripts. They are unimportant. Farm them out. Enough of these humanoids working here seem interested in contributing. That one called Peter Berg, he loves this stuff." "A good idea, Christine Lahti. I will do that. I will try to get the design finished tomorrow, and build the prototype the day after." "That will have to do, I suppose." Christine Lahti was still not happy with the change in their schedule. "What about her?" She nodded toward the screen. "She'll remain here." "He has other friends." "I know. We'll have to deal with them as we go. Keep me informed." His tone told her that she was dismissed, and Christine Lahti left the office. Behind the screen, Penny Priddy, after much struggling, had managed to free one hand, and she yanked the gag from her mouth, stretching her aching jaw. She was going to have to escape and warn Buckaroo. Buckaroo knew he had two things to do. If they had anything close to an overthruster, he had to destroy it. He also had to destroy the ship. The Lectrons themselves would be a more difficult problem. He didn't know how many there were, or what positions they had taken. Yes, he could recognize them on sight, but even if he could find them all, destroying them as he and his gang had done before would not be an option. They'd gotten a bit smarter, taking on high profile personalities with a variety of names. And the scene he'd witnessed the other day revealing the whole story prevented him from going to the media with it. He needed his buddies on this one. Perfect Tommy, New Jersey, Reno Nevada, Pinky Carruthers. It wouldn't be hard to get in touch with them. The Hong Kong Cavaliers were due for a practice session that very evening, in fact. But he hadn't seen or heard from Penny Priddy in a couple of days. He was beginning to suspect that the presence of the Lectrons had something to do with that. He drove his car through his palatial gates and up to his mansion. When he walked into his music studio, he found the Cavaliers setting up their equipment. They welcomed him with smiles, but he didn't smile back. "Gentlemen, the concert is cancelled. We have a more serious problem." And he explained to them all what he had seen that day. "Okay," Reno Nevada spoke up when Buckaroo had finished, "we can't raid the studio, like we did Yoyodine. So what's our plan?" "That's what I came here for!" Buckaroo replied. "We need to find their ship, destroy it and their overthruster --" Las Vegas snapped his fingers, "But we have to get rid of them, too. Do you know where the ship is?" "Somewhere on studio grounds, I would imagine." Buckaroo could see that Las Vegas had some kind of idea. He had that look in his eyes. The look that went deep inside him instead of outward. Las Vegas crossed the room to the computer terminal and his fingers flew over the keyboard. "I think we can take care of everything from here." The rest of the Cavaliers moved to stand behind Las Vegas and looked at the monitor. There was an access screen, prompting for a password. Las Vegas typed in "Lectrons", but access was denied. Then he typed in "planet 10", but again access was denied. "It's just a matter of finding the right password." He muttered, as he continued typing selected words. "Wait a minute," Buckaroo said. "You're trying to break into an alien computer?" Las Vegas kept typing, his eyes never leaving the screen except to peek at the keyboard now and then. "It can be done. I saw it in a movie." "That's it!" John Tinker shook with excitement. "The overthruster is perfected!" He gathered his papers and calculations. "I'm going to start building it right now." He peeked behind the dressing screen to see Penny Priddy still bound and gagged. She must be secure if she hadn't gotten out of it yet, he thought. "I'll be back for you in a few hours, Miss Priddy. I'll be in soundstage eighteen. But shortly, I will be in the eighth dimension!" He cackled a bit, then withdrew and left the office. Penny waited a few moments until his manaical laugh faded, then brought her free hand up to pull out the gag again. She reached blindly behind her to free her other hand, but it was difficult to feel out the knot. She closed her eyes to help her visualize, as she continued to work at it. As John Tinker walked through his outer office, he told his secretary to contact certain people and send them to stage eighteen. Minutes later, he entered stage eighteen himself, where the huge, spikey ship sat on a hastily built platform. He began to gather the hardware he would need and spread out his drawing. Christine Lahti arrived first, then one-by-one the rest straggled in. Mark Harmon, Jamey Sheridan (who'd been living under a stairwell somewhere), and George Clooney (from a competitive studio). They gathered around John Tinker as he pointed to the drawing and explained what he had in mind. "Jamey Sheridan, you go in the ship and work on adapting the socket to this interface. The rest of us will begin constructing the prototype." Jamey Sheridan nodded, studied the drawing for a moment, and entered the ship. George Clooney sauntered closer to John Tinker, "What's the hurry, John Tinker. Couldn't you handle Buckaroo Bonzai?" John Tinker gave him a look that would have wilted a rock. "We've been behind schedule from the day we landed, George Clooney. If you don't want to complete this mission, you are free to stay here as long as you like." "You know, I kinda like it here. *I'm* popular, you know." He ran his fingers through his trademark haircut. John Tinker hiccupped. George Clooney stumbled backwards, clutching at the spider stuck in the middle of his forhead. He pulled it out, but it was too late. He dropped to his knees, then fell backward. The rest of them stared at John Tinker in horror, but said nothing. Apparently, this was no time to cross him. Her left wrist was bloody by the time Penny Priddy got it free. She ignored the pain, and bent to untie the ropes holding her feet. With both hands, and the knots in plain sight, it went much faster. In just a few more minutes, she was free. First, she ran to the bathroom attached to John Tinker's office to relieve herself, then she opened a window and climbed out. Looking both ways, she hurried to her car, and sped away to Buckaroo Bonzai's placial residence. She found them all in the music studio, clumped around the computer. Las Vegas was at the keyboard, and the rest hung nearby, suggesting passwords. "Try 'dimension'," said Reno Nevada. But they all looked up when Penny Priddy burst into the room. Buckaroo hurried over to hug her. He noticed her wrist and although she told him she was all right he went to get the first aid kit. Penny joined the rest of them and looked at the monitor, understanding quickly that Las Vegas was trying to break into the shipboard computer. "Stage Eighteen," she said breathlessly. Las Vegas looked up at her questioningly, but she nodded for him to go ahead. He typed in "stage18". The computer beeped, and everyone cheered. "We're in!" Las Vegas said excitedly. Buckaroo returned with the kit in time to hear the cheer. He had Penny sit down while he tended to her wrist, but they were both still close enough to see the computer screen. "Las Vegas, what are you doing?" Buckaroo asked. Las Vegas swiveled the chair to face Buckaroo, while on the screen a "thermometer" measured an upload in progress. "I'm uploading a flight plan. It'll take them out to the intergalactic void, overriding any attempt to abort, or shift dimensions if their overthruster works. At best speed it will take them over a hundred years to finish the flight plan. They'll wander in space until they rot." "Seems kind of cruel," Penny said sadly. Buckaroo held up her wrist as if to say 'and they aren't?'. "But not too cruel," she amended. "File's Done," the computer said. In Stage Eighteen, John Tinker tightened the last screw and held up the gadget, about the size of a computer mouse, to admire it. "Isn't it beautiful?" "Yes, it's gorgeous," Christine Lahti agreed readily. "Now can we install it and get on our way? I'm surprised Buckaroo and his friends haven't popped in on us yet." He glanced around at his friends, "Let's go. Bring George Clooney's body. We must leave nothing behind." He thought for a minute about the girl tied up in his office. Then shrugged, "Nothing that's traceable to us, anyway." The construction crew joined their friends inside the ship, and they began strapping in for lift off. "Install the overthruster!" John Tinker ordered, as he handed it to Jamey Sheridan. "Engage the engines. Power up defense shields." John Tinker himself did nothing. Christine Lahti took the pilot's seat and began the launch sequence. From the top of the ship, a blue beam, which split into three, extended forward toward the wall of the soundstage. Embedded in the wall was a diagram with three spots on it. The three separate beams wandered over the diagram searching for the spots. Moments later, the huge ship burst through the wall, the beams never having found the spots. The ship lifted itself up and into the sky. Suddenly, it veered eastward, then shot away from Earth. Inside the ship, John Tinker noticed. "Hey, Christine Lahti, what are you doing?" \tab Christine Lahti held up her hands, "I didn't do anything, John Tinker, I swear! Something's wrong with the ship's computer!" John Tinker looked at the instruments, "Turn us around, you fool!" Christine Lahti played with the controls, but it was futile. "The controls are locked out," she explained. Then she swivelled her chair, "Buckaroo Bonzai." "What?" John Tinker asked. "How?" "A remote link-up. Damn! The flight plan won't abort." She looked out the viewport at the endless blackness ahead of them, slamming her hands on the panel in frustration. "We're heading for the intergalactic void." "I thought we were already in the intergalactic void," Jamey Sheridan muttered. John Tinker hicupped, and Jamey Sheridan fell to the floor. Christine Lahti stood up, "John Tinker, that was not necessary." John Tinker simply looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Christine Lahti sat down again in her chair submissively. "Do you realize how long it will take us to finish this flight plan before we can initiate another?" John Tinker simply nodded. "Can we send a message home?" Christine Lahti checked her instruments. "They were very thorough. Communications are blocked." She shot a look at John Tinker. "Plan B?" John Tinker nodded again, sadly. "We have failed. Initiate self-destruct." Back on Earth, in the Cavaliers' music studio, the gang was watching the ship's trajectory via a satellite hook-up. The small white dot blinked and moved a pixel, then blinked and moved another pixel, and so on. Then it blinked, and didn't come back at all. "Buckaroo!" Las Vegas called. Buckaroo pulled himself away from Penny and came closer to see the monitor. "It's gone?" He paused, then voiced what they all already knew. "They self-destructed rather than spend the rest of their lives in the intergalactic void." He sighed, as Penny came up next to him. "You blocked communications?" He asked Las Vegas. Las Vegas nodded, "Yes." Buckaroo shook his head slowly. "They'll be back. The Lectrons aren't finished here." "How can you be so sure?" Reno Nevada asked. "I don't know. But I am." At the studio, someone else also saw the light blink and disappear. He turned off the monitor and turned his chair to look out the window. He'd been so well hidden, even team one hadn't realized he was here. The rest of team two were scattered widely through the city. He would be contacting them soon. The failure of team one was not the failure of the Lectrons. The mission continued. Outside his trailer, he heard the director of the week shouting, "Where the hell is everybody? I'd really like some actors on the set NOW!" There was a knock on his door. "Five minutes, Mr. Carroll." THE END }}