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A half hour has now passed since the Sliders� capture (on the show; it�s only been about five seconds in real time). As the Sliders are escorted into the Hall of Inquisition at the Central Detention Center, they see that the room is painted black and is unfurnished except for a throne-like chair at the head of the room. In that chair sits a portly KroMagg adorned in a black hooded robe, an outfit clearly designed to intimidate. To his left stands a lone KroMagg guard, apparently the KroMagg version of a bailiff. The procession comes to a halt in the center of the room.

The bailiff breaks the silence, saying, �Royal Inquisitor Kodai will now render his sentence in this matter.�

�There hasn�t even been a trial!� exclaims Colin quite unnecessarily�not to mention futilely.

�Unidentified humans,� the Inquisitor begins, undaunted by Colin�s outburst, �you are hereby found guilty of espionage and attempted invasion of Dynastic territory. You are sentenced to death by firing squad. Your sentence will be carried out tomorrow at mid-day. That is all.�

And with that, the trial (such as it was) is over. But when the soldiers begin to turn to escort the Sliders out of the room, Geiger speaks up for the first time since arriving on this earth. �Your Honor!� At first, the Inquisitor ignores him and simply gets up from his chair and begins to exit through the door behind him. �If you kill us, you will die.�

As he�s heard such threats before, the Inquisitor continues to ignore Geiger and begins to shut the door behind him. Then Rembrandt shouts, �We have the virus!�

That gets the Inquisitor�s attention�not enough that he�ll turn around, but enough that he�ll stop in his tracks. Noticing that progress is being made, Logan chimes in. �We demand to speak to the emperor�or you and your entire race will die within the week.�

The Inquisitor turns around then. �You know of the virus?� he asks.

�Not only that,� says Wade, �but my friend here is infected with it. And if you don�t let us see the emperor, you will be too.�

Colin then speaks up. �And if our colleagues on the homeworld do not hear from us soon, they will open another wormhole to this world and release the virus into the air.�

The Inquisitor is uneasy. It could be a bluff�a desperate attempt at stalling the inevitable. But what if it isn�t? He doesn�t want to be the man that doomed his entire race.

The Professor chimes in. �Your emperor is no doubt familiar with us. We are the humans you detained on Earth 113 four years ago�the humans who were not from your Home World yet who nevertheless possessed sliding technology. You believed we posed a threat then. Believe it now.� Then, to deliver the final blow, he added, �You have twenty-four hours�or we release the virus.�

With that, the Inquisitor departs, his mind having been made up. In the meantime, the Sliders are escorted to a single cramped holding cell. �You think he believed us?� Rembrandt asks as they�re led down the hall.

�I hope so,� replies the Professor. �For their sake as well as ours, I hope so.�

* * *

Three hours later, the Sliders and Geiger are still anxiously waiting in their cell. Then, Inquisitor Kodai arrives with several heavily-armed Imperial Guards. He tells them to follow him; he�ll take them to the emperor.

They�re taken to a transport and loaded in. Less than five minutes later, they arrive at the massive Imperial Estate, a hollowed-out redwood that is astoundingly at least five times the size of all the other impressively-large trees in the area. They are taken to the Central Chamber and introduced to Emperor Kroatoanus Dar and Chancellor Kryptus Karagg (both of whom look more like the KroMaggs from �Invasion� than those from later episodes).

The Sliders inform them that they are here to accept the KroMagg Dynasty�s unconditional surrender in its war of aggression against the multiverse. All off-world troops will be recalled to KroMagg Prime at once. They have exactly 72 hours. After that, all wormholes going to or from KroMagg Prime will be redirected to the newly-reprogrammed Slidecage, where anyone in those wormholes will be forced to live for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, if the 'Maggs fail to comply with these demands within 72 hours, the Sliders� colleagues on Home World will release the anti-'Magg virus into the air here on KroMagg Prime. Their entire race will be wiped out in less than a week. At any point during that week, there is still time for the Sliders to release the antidote into the air, sparing those not yet infected. If the emperor wishes that no one die, he must comply with these orders immediately; if he thinks the Sliders are bluffing, he can wait�and watch the death count rise by the minute once the virus is released. On Home World, the Sliders� companions await a specific 18-digit numerical sequence that must be right the very first time. If they receive that sequence, the virus will not be released until the end of the 72-hour deadline; if they do not, it will be released in approximately twenty hours and the extinction of the KroMagg race will commence. As a result, the Sliders will not only need the KroMagg Dynasty�s unconditional surrender, they will also need their timer and transmitter back.

Well, this aggressive approach doesn�t sit well with Kroatoanus. And besides, he�s convinced that the whole thing is an empty threat and a pathetic ploy by humans desperate to regain control of their homeworld from the Dynasty. Kroatoanus orders that the Sliders be sent back to their cell and executed tomorrow at midday, as scheduled.

Before they�re dragged out, however, Geiger turns to Chancellor Karagg. �Karagg,� he shouts, �You know I wouldn�t make this up! I know you too well�and you know me too well�to think that we could really deceive each other! It may have been more than thirty years, Karagg, but you�re still the same honorable man I once knew! Don�t let your Emperor throw away the lives of your entire species out of stubborn pride!�

There are several moments of tense silence between them, and then Karagg replies, �We knew each other once, Oberon, but I am not the same man I was all those years ago. War and exile will do that to a man. I serve the Dynasty proudly, and had you and your impudent race done the same, we could have avoided decades of bloodshed between us. But now�there is no turning back.� He then turns to the guards and says, �You heard the emperor. Take them away!�

And with that, the Sliders are carted back to their cell, their last, best hope for a peaceful resolution now gone. Just over twenty hours from now, the KroMagg race will begin to die a quick but excruciating death�and all because of stubborn pride.