Chapter 1: Max Fosterlaire

Max Fosterlaire woke up one morning. It was a very pretty morning, but a terrible one. This morning would be a morning that Max would later wish that he could strike from his calendar from ever happening. But what happened did happen. He looked out his window and said to himself, "Spearford is such a great planet" Saying that Spearford was a great planet would be the same as saying that Earth was a great planet. But it was Spearford that he was talking about. Max was a small dragon, about a foot shorter than he should have been. Don't picture those big ugly things you see in fairy tales, a real dragon is in fact shorter than a man, and doesn't breathe fire. They have lives just like you and I do, a similar economy, wear clothing, and all that stuff. Max was 4 feet tall, and he was a college student. When he locked the front door that morning he didn't know that he would never see his house again, except once. He would never see his belongings again, nor his peaceful suburban life. Somewhere in his mind as he drove to school in his scholarship-earned car was the thought of, well, them. They were not a big part of his thoughts, as they weren't a pleasant thought. Plus, they hadn't attacked in a while, so why worry?

Chapter 2: Escape

Max was thinking about this when an ominous alarm began to ring. Traffic stopped, and everyone got out of their cars and ran for shelter. Max stayed in his car, because the vibrations of the alarm made his car set off its car alarm, and his doors locked and wouldn't open until the alarm stopped. Let me tell you now, that feature saved his life as a swarm of gray spaceships, some painted red in some places, some painted green on the same places but on their spaceship, came on opposite sides of the air above him. Max realized that that swarm of red spaceships was the entire civilization of them! He knew this was the end. Well, it wasn't the end. Not for him, anyway. "If they destroy our fusion power plant then we're doomed!" Max exclaimed. He watched as a group of the reds went down a large shaft that was built in the middle of the block. That shaft led to the center of the planet where there was a fusion power plant. If they blew it up, Max didn't want to think about what would happen! Max saw the red spaceships come out and zoom almost earnestly off the planet. Seconds later Max saw something as discouraging and terrible to Max as you seeing a hydrogen bomb falling towards your city, a thermo-nuclear missile falling towards the tube. It had 100 miles to fall, the about 10,000 to the plant, which gave Max fifteen minutes to escape his planet. He zoomed into reverse and drove backwards to the suburbs, and did something you should never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never do no matter what unless Earth is going to blow up. He flung a 180o on his car, and drove straight into his house. The alarm was too faint for his car, so the doors unlocked. He grabbed his pet lamp that was imported from planet Pixard (make sure you pronounce the "d" silent), and ran into a laboratory, where there was a circle of machinery around another green spaceship. He ingressed and said to his pet, "We're going to live to tell the tale, my friend". Then he activated the engine, and burst through his roof. When he got outside of his planet's atmosphere, there was an entire fleet more of reds. Suddenly, the entire area was filled with a blue flash of light, and Max checked his mirrors to see what had happened. He saw a raging expanding ball of fire that was engulfing the slow, lumbering red ships but was no match for Max's speedy Spearfordian engine. The fire faded, and all that was left was empty space. Max banged his head on the dashboard. "I've escaped a planet that blew up to starve to death in space!" he said. Aluminum, his pet, let out a sympathetic whistle.

Chapter 3: Starbound

They were musing when a voice came on over the radio that sang, "I'm all aloooooooone. There's no one besiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide me. Butcha gotta have frieeeeen-" Max picked up the radio and bellowed, "IS THAT REALLY YOU, DALE?" Dale was his best friend in college. "Oh my gosh, that actually worked" Dale said, "Where are you?" "X coordinate 4476528290344 Y coordinate 443092826744 and Z coordinate 289206374444" replied Max "On the way," Dale said. It took him a couple of minutes to get there. It seemed Dale had seen the missile, too, and ran over to the military station and hot-wired a spaceship. As they were talking, they heard another voice and saw a ship appear out of the darkness. A third voice said on the radio said, "Hey! Who's there?" "Why it's Dale Justman and Max Fosterlaire, who are you, and what's your story?" said Dale. "Yesssssss! I'm not alone! Well, I'm Mike, you know, the rookie police officer. I was fighting, and, well, I chickened out. But I'm glad I did. Now I get to live with a Commander Sterling-free life," Mike said, referring to the chief of police that was constantly picking on him. Then a fourth voice made everyone jump as it said, "I HEARD THAT, YOU NOVICE YOU!" It didn't take a genius to know this was Commander Sterling. The first three were all irritated that Sterling survived. "Good evening, Commander" said Max cautiously. Too bad, Sterling found a way to make him wrong. "A very good evenin' it is, considerin' our planet just blew up. And plus, it would've been mornin' if it was still there" Max now recalled that Sterling had a Texas accent. Now a fifth voice came in. "Hi. Where's Spearford?" All four knew who this was. This was Ellen, a cargo ship driver. She was delivering Celsium (a very dangerous and radioactive resource) to Therall when it happened. The first four ships looked up at the giant spaceship "It blew up" said Mike, "and now we're gonna starve to death" "Well, you're forgetting what Spearford always used to trade with Therall. It traded food!" said Ellen optimistically. "Yes, that solves the food problem, but we're all starbound for Pixard or Therall, depending on what we want to do" said Max, using a phrase that in that case meant technically 'bound for the stars', but really meant 'we have to decide to take a very long journey to either Therall (which is hundreds more light days than to Pixard) or Pixard (which means crossing directly through enemy territory)'. "Critical hit" cracked Dale. "Shuttup," said Sterling, "Max got a point there". "I think we're actually starbound for Koltar" said Ellen, "The only obstacle is unexplored territory, except for that disappeared explorer Thor Pacific, and it's only a light year away". "Seems logical, except we may find nothing or the most powerful civilization in that territory. We'd risk quite a lot by doing that. But we don't know, so it's still logical," said Dale, "Mike, are you dead?" "Roger" "No you aren't dead, how could you be talking?" "Roger means no!" "Actually, it means yes. Hey, who's leader?" The last four ships turned and looked at Max. "Waaaaaaait. You think I should be the leader? No, not me! Uh-uh" All four ships continued staring at him. Aluminum hummed and shook himself, which meant, "I think that we have an election". Max continued to defend himself, "What about Sterling? He was chief of police!" "For once I admit, rank ain't everythin'" Sterling replied. "Well, what about you, Dale? You were head of the science class" "If you don't recall, I was a very bad one" "What about you , Mike? You have a full-time job while I am still in college" "I'm a novice at it and you have a better education" "What about Ellen? I haven't gotten my spaceship license yet when you pilot daily?" "So what? We'll all be piloting daily now" "Ummmmm what about Aluminum? He's more loyal than I am!" Aluminum lightly shocked Max with it's cord to say, "You've got to be kidding us. I'm a living lamp!" Max gave in, "Fine. As leader, I say that I get more rations" Aluminum did something really nasty to Max and Max said "Comment withdrawn. I say we stop wasting time and start moving. We have a long journey".

Chapter 4: 2 months later

"'Log for sixtieth day: We are one third from our goal. I see the Milky Way in the distance. We are traveling at twice the speed of light. We are low on fuel and must stop to mine a planet in the Milky Way galaxy. This marks the beginning one of the unknown quadrants of the universe. I guess we have to hope for the best that this galaxy is uninhabited. I don't think I trust it that much' How's that, Aluminum? A good paragraph" said Max. Aluminum's light bulb flashed as he woke up and pulled his cord out of the ship's power socket. It gave a short, high whistle to say that he didn't quite catch that. Max irritably said, "Never mind" and spun around again to face the dashboard. "That would be outdated anyway. We're in the Milky Way. Hey, that's a funny looking planet up there" He saw a planet that was white, green, and blue. When Max ran a surface scan, he saw that it was about three quarters water, one twelve mountains and deserts, and one sixth inhabited/inhabitable land. Guess what. If you guessed Earth, you're absolutely correct. If you guessed something different, you learned some facts. "STOP," Max said over the radio, "I think we have a problem. That's an inhabited planet up there. As soon as we come within their radar parameters we might experience some trouble" "We could go around it" suggested Dale "No, that would use up too much of our gas. We must choose differently" said Max. "We could just zoom through its radar system and hope they don't have fast ships," suggested Ellen. "Too risky, but a good backup plan" said Max. "We can take it easy through the field and if there're signs o' hostility we can speed up" said Commander Sterling "That's a better plan, but they still may have fast ships" said Max "We could land on it and take the risk of hostility. What if we can cheat them for gas and food?" said Mike, not trying to find a good plan but to make conversation. "Good one, novice. How bout' ye try yerself and if it's fine, you call us," said Sterling said and gave Mike's ship a slight bump towards the planet, "I said go!" He bumped Mike out of orbit. "Help me!" said Mike as he crept towards the atmosphere. "Sterling! As the group leader, I command you to tow him out" said Max. Mike began descending faster and he worriedly tried harder to regain control of his ship. Sterling shot a hook and attempted to tow Mike out. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. The added weight made them both descend faster. "Ellen has the biggest ship! Help us!" yelled Mike Ellen tried to help, but the ship couldn't fight the gravity. All three landed on different points of the earth. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!" said Dale.

Chapter 5: Where Mike landed

The town of Alert is a small Canadian town. According to my map, it is the farthest north town there is. It is near this town where Mike landed. Mike screamed and moaned the whole way down until his ship finally crashed and skidded, which gave him an indescribable pain. He stepped out of the ship looking like a war veteran. There was a small child standing there. It smiled and said, "Puff!". "Puff?" Mike said. "Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea" sang the child. "Great, just great. These people are intelligent" muttered Mike. In the distance he heard a voice say "Andrew! Hurry! Get your Tommy gun! We're in danger!" Huh? What was a Tommy gun? Didn't sound like something good. And it wasn't . Andrew began shooting Mike. Mike's scales naturally deflected the bullets, but it scared the heck out him. He ran around trying to find shelter. "Puff? Where go?" cried the child. "So much for being friendly!" murmured Mike as he ran towards the town to find shelter. He realized that he had left his spacecraft just sitting there, almost asking to be captured.

Chapter 6: Where Commander Sterling landed

What Sterling did all the way down was not the same as Mike. He yelled and cursed as he flew down to the ground. He landed somewhere in the Sahara desert, some remote part where there is still probably some ancient tribe that hasn't been disturbed by real mankind since the beginning of time. Anyway, his ship landed straight into the sand about a mile from some unnoticeable town in Niger. A big balloon popped out of the steering wheel, sheltering him from breaking his skull against the glass windshield. "Thank goodness for Spearfordian airbags" he said. He salvaged all the tools he had inside the ship and got out with a plasma pulsar (a very good Spearfordian type of rifle), a light diode (a Spearfordian flashlight), a flare gun with flares, a five-mile range radar, and a small supply of food. He saw the village and knew that if he could get more food and some shelter at that village, he should take it over. After all, he could only see a few houses, maybe a road leading through it, a crutty-looking railroad, a gas station, a department store, a town hall that was originally a house, a post office, and a large mayonnaise factory. It would be very easy to take over, Sterling thought. 20 minutes later all of the civilians were hostages, and Sterling had control of the entire area. Anything that came within a one-mile radius of that village was never seen again while he was mayor (or actually he wasn't mayor because the mayor was tied up in the basement of town hall). Sterling soon saw something that he didn't notice before. There was a National Guard beacon hidden under the mayor's desk. Naturally, it had been pushed. He checked his radar. Sure enough, there were three tanks on the edge of the screen closing in at 30 mph. "More visitors?" said Sterling, "That's great. I just love company"

Chapter 7:Where Ellen landed

Ellen was the only dragon that didn't freak out over reentry. She simply maneuvered around to minimize the shock of impact. She landed almost like an airplane, as if the water was a runway. But it was still rough. The over-sensitive airbags inflated, blocking her eyesight. She crashed right into the Statue of Liberty. The airbags were thankfully still open, so all she got was a minor whiplash. As the airbags deflated, she looked up and whistled. "Well, we certainly aren't in the stone age, are we?" she asked herself. As she egressed, the once curious townspeople ran for their lives for absolutely no reason. One young boy said to his mother, "Don't be scared, mom. It's just computer-generated like you taught me". Ellen didn't bother to listen to his mother's reply. The only problem with them running away was that if you are on an island, there isn't that much space to run. So since Ellen could understand humans, she tried to ask for directions to a place where carbon corium is sold so that she could refuel her ship. Instead it became a wild-goose chase all around the island until everyone piled into the Statue of Liberty and began running up the spiral staircase Ellen took a short cut by using her salvaged jetpack (dragons were stripped of wings by evolution years ago) to fly up the center. The crowd was at the top. And Ellen was blocking the stairs still asking about carbon corium. Ellen heard a voice outside that said, "COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP" Ellen peeked out of the crown and saw helicopters, boats, and people that were all labeled 'POLICE' Ellen curiously shouted back down, "Why?" The police were silent for a moment "BECAUSE WE SAY SO. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP" Bad answer, thought Ellen. She said, "What's supposed to be so special about you saying so? Why do I have to come down to you? Are you too lazy to climb up all those stairs?". The police all looked at the person with the megaphone. Ellen caught something about not having permission to blow up landmarks. All of the police ran inside the building. Ellen was amused with herself. She would soon meet these people and see what they were like in a conversation.

Chapter 8: Where Max and Dale landed

Their ships jerked and bumped into each other all the way to France. "Geez. I think that this planet has different atmospheric conditions than Spearford!" yelled Dale over the radio, his voice slightly muffled from the sounds of their ships burning up in the atmosphere. He sounded like he was being shaken up and down when he said so. Max didn't blame him for sounding odd, as he was experiencing the same conditions. "I think it's time to lower the landing gear!" shouted Max as he reached an altitude of 1,000. "Roger" bellowed Dale. Max looked out and saw that Dale had listened. They touched down and threw on the brakes to the maximum amount. The noise died down. "Oh no! We're gonna crash into that humongous antenna up there" said Dale, heading straight for the Eiffel Tower. All of the French people jumped put of the way as the cars zoomed through restaurants, benches, trash cans, and other stuff that is too much to list. And they did everything at the same time. They crashed into the Eiffel Tower at the same time, their airbags popped out at the same time, and they dizzily got out of their spaceships at the same time. Aluminum was a complete wreck. They walked over to some restaurant that they hadn't broken through. As they sat down, a funny-looking blind man walked up to them. He wore a fastened cloak so that you couldn't see any body parts. All you could see was a pair of sunglasses. "Hello" said Dale. The blind man said, "Coffee? 'Spresso?". "Coffee" said Max. "Coffee" said Dale. Aluminum flashed a pattern and jumped. "De coffee, une 9-volt battry". "Wait a minute! How do you know Lampish?" asked Max, as the blind man stopped, "No mean to intrude, but why are you hiding your identity?". The stranger took off his glasses. He then took the hood down, revealing his face. There was the face of Thor Pacific, the disappeared explorer! "Thor Pacific!?" Dale exclaimed. "Not so loud! I've lived here a while, and I don't want to be killed now! Anyway, I thought I'd never see a dragon again when I landed. I destroyed my ship when it was irreparable, and I am pretending to be a human now" said Thor "Well, hopefully you'll see three more because there are five of us. Let's go find them" said Max. "No, we aren't going to do that. This is a bigger planet than Spearford. They will probably be the headline of every newspaper tomorrow. Why waste time and money?" said Thor. "I hope they aren't dead by tomorrow" said Dale.

Chapter 9: A translated summary of the next day's Daily Courier headline

"'Yesterday, there were 4 strategic attacks placed on the world by aliens. 5 ships crashed into Alert, somewhere in Chad, New York City, and right here in Paris.

At Alert, a young child was provoking the alien when saved by her father's Tommy gun. The alien ran into the town and has been sighted once or twice around the area. Citizens are advised to evacuate as the military closes in.

At a nothing place in Chad, a ship crashed a mere mile away from it. The alien managed to capture all the citizens and throw them into the town hall basement. The mayor pushed the emergency beacon and five tanks were captured, not blown up, by the alien with a mysterious weapon. No one wishes to make this alien more powerful, so no more military units were sent in. The alien is perhaps the most powerful, and all the surrounding towns are guarded and on full alert in case this one makes an advance.

At New York City, it landed and crashed into the Statue of Liberty. It chased civilians up to the crown, and refused to let them go. When the police went up to get it, it jumped out the window and flew over to the Empire State Building's needle, then the Chrysler Building's needle, and has flown to various landmarks of the city. The police denied commentary and walked away.

In Paris, two ships crashed and the momentum was controlled by the drivers to leave a trail of wreckage and rubble through important sections if the city. Their scheme was ended by a direct hit into the Eiffel Tower, causing them to egress and run away.

Conclusively, since all attacks weren't even five minutes apart, it is decided that these attacks are the skirmishes of a cross-species war. Every citizen worldwide must be on full alert for any suspicious activity. If you need to report something, a hotline has opened up at 1-(800)-A-ATTACK'. I believe we know what to do now, don't we?" read Thor, setting down the newspaper as they sat in his café. "How are we going to get to Alert, a place 5,433.75 miles away that has no public transportation to it whatsoever, somewhere in Chad that we don't even know the location of, and New York City, where we don't have any jetpacks to scan the top of the buildings" said Max. "Well, for Alert, we can just steal on of Air France's Concordes, for Chad we can just look at this map on the back page", Thor said, showing them the map with a red dot on the town of Mayo Ayo, "and we can steal a helicopter from La Guardia airport. Shouldn't be too difficult. The Concorde can easily take us anywhere. We don't have all day, let's go!" "I don't like the sound of that" muttered Dale.

Chapter 10: Saving Mike

That night . . .

"OK, let's move onto the next hangar" said Max. He and Dale moved on to the next hanger when the coast was clear. Thor was inside the airport. "This is it" said Dale. They entered the hangar and turned on the lights. "Wow, that's one good-looking aircraft for this planet" said Max. They stood surveying it for a second. Then both opened one side of the hanger doors. Dale then jumped into the pilot's seat and said, "I get this seat! I get this seat!". "Pilot is a synonym of leader, and I am still the leader" said Max. Dale frowned and got into the co-pilot's seat. Max got out a walkie-talkie and said, "Proceed to step two, Thor, over" "What is the gate, over" "Gate 35, execute now, over" "OK, over" Thor walked in his cloak disguise over to a wall. Behind his back, he pulled the fire alarm and soldered it down with a small pen-sized kerosene lighter. The alarm forbids any planes from taking off. He ran quickly to gate 35, burst the door open, and ran down the tube to the Concorde that was waiting for him. "Move, before we're caught!" said Max urgently. Thor ran inside and slammed the hatch shut. "ATC, this is an armed Concorde at gate 35 requesting permission to takeoff" said Dale. Of course the Concorde wasn't armed, this was just a trick. "Concorde, you do not have permission to takeoff due to a fire" replied Air Traffic Control. "Now listen up, ATC. You will give me permission to takeoff, or your control tower is going down" said Dale, moving the ailerons so that in the dark it looked like a gun was being adjusted. "Concorde, takeoff on runway 4 via the green line on your GPS. What is your destination?" said ATC "Why do you need to know?" asked Dale with an I'd-watch-yourself tone. ATC was silent for the rest of the flight. They were silent the entire 7-hour flight to Alert. When Alert came in sight, military units began firing. "Give me the wheel. I can do this part" said Thor. Thor easily maneuvered it to the ground, except they dropped so quickly that it looked like they had crashed. "That shakes them off our trail" explained Thor. They slid down the ramp that comes out of the doorsill to get out because Alert had no airport. They explored the abandoned area until they found Mike hiding in a nuclear power plant. "I'm so glad you rescued me! I was running out of hiding places" said Mike. "The military units are closing in fast, we have to get back to the Concorde we stole" said Dale. They sprinted back to the damaged Concorde. As they gained speed for takeoff they heard shouts and gunshots. The Concorde was under attack! "Come on, come on" said Thor, slowly moving the throttle up. "Oh, give me that" said Max. He yanked the steering wheel back and threw the throttle to the maximum. The Concorde put out a humongous burst of speed and flew southeast towards Africa.

Chapter 11: Saving Commander Sterling

The village of Mayo Ayo is not existing anymore. If you somehow manage to find its location, you will see nothing, unless there is still some rubble. Back on the point, the Concorde skidded the sands of Mayo Ayo. Sure enough, there were at least ten tanks fighting Sterling. Sterling had re-wired the circuits of each of the 20 tanks to create a big remote control that controlled all of them. He had his plasma pulsar in one hand, and the remote control in the other. It was quite a sight as each tank became dysfunctional one by one. When all were sitting there driverless, Sterling noticed them and said, "Hi. Here already? I was just starting to have some fun. Can I stay a little longer?" asked Sterling. "No, because I see a nuclear satellite zooming in on us" said Thor tonelessly. Everyone once again ran for the Concorde. I don't know how they climbed up that slippery yellow slide (and retracted it) or took off before the bomb blew up. All I know is that in less than a minute they were heading for New York City.

Chapter 12: Saving Ellen

The Concorde rolled down a runway and braked to a slow ten mph. They ignored ATC and wandered over to the hangars and switched on X-ray. They wandered along until they found a helicopter inside one of them. They left the good old Concorde sitting in the hangar. They got into the helicopter and flew over to NYC where they found that Ellen wasn't flying around (I wouldn't be surprised if it had run out of fuel). It was still easy to find her because they saw a lot of police crowding around the Statue of Liberty again. They flew to the crown and found Ellen trying to fix the jetpack. "Oh, you actually came. That's OK. I got a nice and private aerial tour of the city" said Ellen. "We don't have all day, let's move. You can fix that with tools while we fly to Cape Canaveral" said Sterling. Ellen agreed and boarded. The police shot, but the helicopter came out unharmed. Soon the Concorde was flying to Cape Canaveral. They were unbelievably lucky that there was a launch that day. They landed the Concorde in the swamps of the Kennedy Space Center. They managed to get onto the deserted Endeavor, and soon Dale had hot-wired it. "Are we really ready for this, the technology looks complicated" said Ellen. "Naturally. This is far beyond an antique, what do you expect? I still know how to fly it, though" said Dale, starting the auto-countdown. Everyone strapped in and prepared for the last stage of the mission. The shuttle lifted off and zoomed towards space. "Yes! We did it!" cried Max. Everyone cheered and smiled as they were creeping higher and higher.

Chapter 13: Note to all readers

This is a disclaimer to my story. It needs a better ending. If you wish to believe that they did manage to get to Koltar, and that they lived happily ever after, set this piece down, and do something else. If you think you are a good ending withstander, you may continue reading and find the real ending and get mad at me for writing such a bad ending. If you decide to read the ending and get mad at me, understand that the story does not end the way it seems. I do write a happy ending, except I don't write it in this book. It is in a different book that isn't in existence yet unless you are reading this years from when it was written. The point is, one way you are sure to have a happy ending, and the other you are risking that. Make your decision.

Chapter 14: The ending

BOOM! The ship came to a jerking stop in mid-air. The warning lights came on and they lost altitude. "Aye! We're being attacked!" yelled Mike taking a look outside the window. BOOM! BOOM! came more shots from below. The ship now fought to get to the ground. "Negative, Mike. We're in a thunderstorm, and being shot down. We basically have a 1% chance of living, and if we survive, we have a 99% chance of being captured" The ship now flew straight down and Dale had to crash land in the Atlantic Ocean. A few ships came out and towed it to a laboratory on a flatbed truck, where they were told they would stay here for a very long time, and that they would be separated. Max was put in a cell with two humans and a dinosaur. They introduced themselves immediately. One human said, "Hi I'm Lloyd Floyd". Another said "I'm Moe Schmoe". The dinosaur said, "I'm Thorin Phorin. By the way, in case you're wondering what your fate is here, it is to die"