The City of Steel

Suddenly, as if by magic, two large angelic wings exploded from back of Private Lucas. The wings were so large that it knocked all three soldiers off their feet. Lucas began to lift off the ground. By the time the other soldiers got to their feet, he was well on his way to the top of the tallest mountain cave.

After his flight, Private Lucas had finally reached the mountain cave. The mountaineer slowly glided into the mouth and collapse from exhaustion and from pain. Other mountaineers ran over to assist their wounded brother. Then a man of great bulk dressed in a commanding uniform walked forward. The other soldiers moved away from the wounded soldier as he approached.

"Excellent work private," he said, "you will surely receive a promotion for this."

"Thank you Colonel Robinson," weakly replied the soldier.

"Before you are taken to the medical center, I must know: did you acquire any information?"

Private Lucas reached into the inside of the uniform and extracted a small circular disk. "It’s all in here. I picked up a conversation from Captain Peacock and a professor who was showing him newly invented equipment." He handed the disk to the colonel. Then he was put on a stretcher and carried deep into the cave.

Colonel Robinson immediately took the disk to the central computer room where he handed the disk to one of the technicians. "Display this on the main holograph pad," he said as he handed the disk to him. As the technician was readying the program, the colonel turned his attention to everyone in the room. "Attention everyone," he began, "one of our spies said he has brought information for us and I want you all to see this." Just then the holograph pad began to display the images of Captain Peacock and Professor Granger. The entire room was silent as they saw the conversation and the new weapon and the plan that was in store. When it was finished, the colonel smiled, "this is perfect! This is the information we needed! With this information we can finally persuade the water region to form an alliance with us! Now the captain said three hours, and the disk said this conversation took place at 13:02, that gives us almost two and a half hours! Quick! Signal the water region. Tell them we have valuable informat ion that could destroy their civilization if they do not hear it."

The communications officer spun his chair around to face the keyboard and began pushing buttons. Within minutes the screen displayed the picture of the queen of the water region. She sat on her throne made out of the finest coral surround by a dozen or so of her royal servants. Then she began to speak, "well colonel, you say you have valuable information? I would like to hear it."

"I would like to tell you this information Queen Zora," replied colonel Robinson, "but that would go against the code of the mountaineers."

"What does this code say?" Asked the queen.

"The code is that no mountaineer is to give out information to anyone except to our allies. I’m afraid I cannot give you this information. But, if we were to form an alliance…"

"Alright," interrupted Queen Zora, "we shall form an alliance. I wish we could hold a ceremony but time is short. We shall consider this a verbal contract. Besides, I think we both want the same thing: to destroy that city and return this planet to the way it was."

"Agreed," said Colonel Robinson, "The pollution from the city will soon take its toll on the rest of the planet."

"I hate to change the subject, but what was the information you had for me?"

Colonel Robinson informed Queen of the attack that was to be brought on in just a few short hours. After hearing this, the queen was whispered something to one of the servants, the servant nodded and walked away. Then the queen did something completely unexpected: she began to laugh.