Act 3: The Beginning.
Chapter 21c: The Problem With String Theory is That Everyone is a Puppet.

Captain Lasivelle walks to the deck of the bridge of her ship, going across the view screen to the science officer's station. Stopping by the officer manning it for a brief second, she leans over and whispers to her. The science officer looks at her for a second and then nods her head, before stepping away from the station and heads for the captain's office. Captain Lasivelle repeats the same gesture to all of the other bridge personel, and the comply with the orders given.

Having the bridge empty, Captain Lasivelle stands by her command chair and enters a series of coded directives into the ship's computer. Looking around for one final moment about the bridge, she walks into her own office.

#

Within a the middle of a long hallway of some deep underground labyrinth, a temporal portal opens, and three figures dressed on laboratory attire step into the hallway and look about themselves. As quickly as it appears, the portal disappears.

"Alright fellas, this is it.", the female of the group says to the other two, "Set weapons to minimum output, we don't want to kill anybody..."

"...Yet.", one of the two males speaks.

"Listen Mr. Luke- I choose you because I thought I could trust you in not joking around during the mission... Do you Want To Be Sent back?", the female sternly makes her statement clear to her companion.

"Aye, aye sir...", Frank Luke says.

The female walks by him to look down the hall and then whaps Frank's rear with the comm board. Frank jumps up with a yelp, as she continues to step away from them, making a statement out loud to herself, "Don't 'Aye, Aye sir' me... damn I swear..."

"Where to now, Hepzedah?", Albert asks.

Hepzedah looks around, down the long corridors, then she starts walking to her right, "This way."

They both follow her to the end of the corridor until they come to the end of it where they get to a door.

#

Hiding among the floating rocks of the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, a group of six single seat fighters wait. Though they wait, some are beginning to show their impatience.

"How much longer must we wait?", Edward says.

"What for, so you can cut your teeth onto an alien score?", Max stated.

"The sooner we start his, the sooner we can finish this and we can be home celebrating.", Edward answers.

"That is all you care about, the celebration?", Max asks

"Will you two keep it quiet!", Oswald barked at them, "We're supposed to be silent out here until we get the signal!"

"But our objective went by us hours ago.", Edward stated.

"And until we get the signal, we wait. Now Shut Your Maw!", Oswald orders him and the others.

With some impatience, silence is restored as everyone waits for a signal that has yet to come.

Out from the darkness, a bright red light starts to flash on all the consoles of the fighters. Engines start to flare up into full power. The six start to move onward out of the asteroid belt.

#

Just above in a geostationary orbit above the Martian North Pole, 4 lone fighters wait.

"There it is, just coming into my screen at the top right...", Werner says.

"Anybody else got confirmation?", Manfred asks.

"I do... look at the size of that thing...", Georges says.

"We all have our assigned targets, so lets get to it.", James stated as he reached to his controls and started off to lead the group. The others follow.

#

Tabitha enters the medical facility and looks about the various examination stalls for Zyekmal, as the medical staff looks at her in awe. Not in many generations has there been a pure-fur such as her in their mist. But as they stare at her, some summon security through silent alarms as she enters the stall where Zyekmal was being held.

For a moment she looks over the medical display panel, finding his vitals weak but still alive. Momentarily she looks up out to the rest of the facility, finding the staff and some patients staring at her in silence and then suddenly going back to what they were doing. She begins to unsecure the rolling medical bed unit to move it out back to where she entered the ship through the portal.

Security starts to enter the medical facility as Tabitha starts to the roll the bed out into the open, and she sees them as they see her. They begin to raise their weapons to her.

"Damn, I hope somebody is on the other side is listening...", Tabitha says as she slowly reaches into her pocket, finding on of the temporal beacons inside. Slowly she activates it, but the temporal portal does not open.

#

"Dryxon, more power to the grav-generators.", a old and tired raccoon looks on to the wall size image monitor that displays the actives on the other room along with tactical displays and energy readings.

A spotted paw reaches out to a flat panel and slides across a row of lights, activating more lights behind the trail he creates.

Little has changed on the other unoccupied room other than temperature increase to the air inside rising a few hundred degrees. But for intents and purposes, nothing's changed.

"Damn it- turn on the holographic display counter.", the tired raccoon says out loud.

A table rises from the floor, stopping less then 2 feet as short stems pop out of its rim and a 3d image of the room begins to be formed. Several knowledge professionals circle about the display as the raccoon approaches closer to it than the others.

The sphere seems to be fluidic, as tiny ripples can be seen coursing about its surface.

"Dryxon, how much more power can be spare to the grav-generators?", the raccoon yells as he stares image of the ball floating in space.

"We're at 65% now. But to add more means taking power from the rest of the complex!", Dryxon yells from his console.

"Then do it!", the Raccoon yells.

"But sir! That requires clearance and allotment!", Dryxon says as he turns on his seat to face his master.

"Boy, I swear- I want 1000% output on that thing so it can work without problems. I will take responsibility, so just damn do it!", the raccoon yells at Dryxon.

Dryxon sits down nervously, as he starts to access the controls to leech power from other systems and experiments. No little time, the only place within miles of the complex with power is these two chambers. Security starts calling for emergency procedures, and hundreds of workers and thousands of visitors stand helpless in the dark.

"I have all the juice this place can spare...", a nervous Dryxon says across a quiet and darken room.

"Then do it- Full Power to the Grav-Generators and take it to 1000%!", the raccoon yells.

Dryxon's nervous paw slides up the console with a trail of lights behind, but not all the way as his master intended. The image of the ball seems to have shrunken by half, as all look.

"Look doctor! its shrinking!", a voice yells.

"Dryxon! I said 1000%!!!", the raccoon yells at the same time the door to their room gets kicked opened.

"STOP THE EXPERIMENT!", a female albino skunk in lab attire yells as she runs to Dryxon's station. A wolf and a fox, both in lab attire walk about the room, signaling to those by various stations to step away from them, the hand gun in their hands being the incentive for which they leave. The albino skunk runs her fingers through the console and shuts down the experiment.

"HOW DARE YOU!", the raccoon yells from across the room.

"HOW DARE I? HOW DARE YOU! RUNNING AN ORION'S RIFT OF THAT SIZE IN A PLANETARY GRAVITY WELL! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED?!! IT WOULD HAVE EXCEED THE CONSTRAINTS YOU HAVE IN PLACE AND NOT ONLY DESTROYED THIS PLANET, BUT THE RESULTING SHOCK WAVE WOULD HAVE IMPLODE THE SUN!", the albino skunk yells back at him.

"AND WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS?", the raccoon yells at her as he approached her.

Pulling out a temporal beacon cube from out of her pocket, "I'll gladly show you." The raccoon gives her a puzzled look, unsure of what to make of the cube she has between her fingers, as she gave it a gentle squeeze and it begins to glow.

#