"Come around again, Rex," Grundar ordered.

"Aye, sir."

How can it be? Grundar thought. The station is already liberated? Is there no purpose we can serve now? He took a breath and leaned back in his chair.

"She's a bit sluggish today, Captain," Rex said. "We need repairs. Maybe we can get them at the station, now that - "

"No, we must make sure that he is not here. Maintain radio silence," Grundar said, as he stood and walked towards the main screen. "What is that blip? Can you bring us closer, Maggie?"

"Aye, sir," the navigator said.

"Looks like one of those Walker Bots, sir," Rex said. "Whoever he is, he's being attacked."

"I knew it."

"They're fuzzles, sir," Maggie said, swiveling her chair around. "Evil fuzzles..."

"What in the name of Neopia was that!" Grundar shouted, his green face turning a dull purple.

"It's, it's..." Another crash echoed as Maggie's fingers whirled across the screen. "It's the fuzzles, sir. They seem to be ramming the ship!"

It was true, outside the ship, thousands of small furry creatures threw themselves against the ship desperately. Scattered among the small hordes of red fuzzles, were larger black ones, grinning insanely, slowly moving in to crash the ship.

"It's the big ones that are causing the booms, sir. The smaller ones are only slightly depleting our shields."

"Well, we'll have to slightly deplete their ranks!" Grundar said, motioning to the gunners. They nodded and opened fire, red lances streaking across the blackness of space. One hit a smaller fuzzle, but it just shuddered and moved on. It was taking too much fire to destroy them, and they seemed to be moving faster.

"Captain, take a look at the Walker Bot on the station..."

Grundar did, to see him ripping apart the fuzzles, when the comm activated. A face lit up the screen, a young Grundo with hands on the fire controls.

"Hey macho man, I suggest you beam me aboard before your ship is torn apart by them fuzzies!" he said arrogantly, making the captain blush even more.

"And who might you be!" Grundar asked with a strain in his voice.

"Call me Zygorax. I'm here to save your butts!"...

"Took you long enough... where have you been?"

"Having breakfast," Grundar responded. He noticed that Zygorax was not your standard Walker Bot driver. He was wearing a ratty t-shirt, tucked into a pair of blue jeans, and a black leather jacket that looked older than Tyrannia. And one of his antennae was pierced.

"You're out of uniform, soldier..."

"And you're out of shield, captain," Zygorax smirked, as another herd of fuzzles pounded into the ship. "Here," he said, handing Grundar a disk, "this is the new shield program developed by Nakron and Chiatech's secret military research department."

"Nakron and Chiatech don't have a military research department."

Zygorax grinned. "Yeah... that's the secret." Another wave of fuzzles slammed into the ship.

"Captain?" screamed Rex, trying to avoid the sparks flashing from his terminal.

"Load the program, lads." They took the disk from Zygorax, and began transferring the files to the ship's main drive.

"Hurry... hurry!" begged Grundar, staring desperately as three huge, black fuzzles honed in on the ship.

"Got it, captain! Shields are up!"

Zygorax nudged Grundar. "This is the fun part!" he said. The three black fuzzles came closer... and closer... and popped! Where three black fuzzles had been, now were three huge balls of cotton with fuzzle legs kicking frantically off into space. "I love that part."

"Does it always do that?" asked Grundar.

"Nah... the red ones become pudding," Zygorax said. "So, my job here is done. If you could just drop me back at my Walker Bot, I'll be on my way, and you can get your ship repaired."

"Repairs... yes," Grundar said, musing off into space. "But is he still there?"

Zygorax looked perplexed. "He who?"...

"Well, of course not! We Grundos and a few helpful Neopians defeated him quite sometime ago... or I should say he just disappeared... we never found a body," Zygorax explained, equally surprised it seemed.

"Defeated? Are you saying you and a handful of Neopians did in a short time what we couldn't do in years?" Maggie said in a voice full of disbelief.

"A handful? The whole of Neopia was involved in the downfall of Sloth. You really have been gone for quite some time, haven't you?" Zygorax said in a suddenly quiet voice, as if he knew something they didn't.

"What do you mean we've been gone? We just left the home planet a few months ago. When we left, Dr. Sloth was still at full power and on a mad dash for the planet down there... Neopia," Grundar explained with a hint of suspicion edging his voice.

"Captain Grundar, you and your crew... this entire ship even... you've been missing for 2 years," Zygorax said in a voice suddenly tinged with forboding...

"I don't know what exactly happened up here, but this entire ship, including yourselves, has been out to space for two years. Dr. Sloth is long gone, although some theorise he's merely in hiding in some unknown, forsaken part of Neopia, or beyond, but the point is, you left two years ago and are just now returning," the arrogant young Zygorax informed the disbelieving crew.

"I don't believe you, surely you jest. We could not have been gone that long, it was merely two months not years!" Maggie volunteered from her station.

Zygorax pulled out his pocket calendar, proving to the unbelieving crew that they had be lost in space for two years, not two months.

"What on Neopia happened then? How could we have passed time so slowly up here?" Captain Grundar spoke aloud the thought on every Grundo's mind.

"Computer, scan through the log, look for any abnormalities during our journey, report back your findings," the captain ordered.

While the computer referenced the log, the weary Grundos absently watched fuzzles attack the shield, only to be turned to either pudding or fluff. After a few moments, the computer spoke, "Captain Grundar task complete. There is a rather large abnormality reported on the 16th day of Running."

"Show it on the screen, computer..."

"So that's what..." Grundar's voice trailed off. "Well, what do you think we should do, Zygorax?"

"I dunno, but," Zygorax questioned uneasily, "have you heard of what happened on the 16th day of Running? It's on old Grundo secret.

"You see, many years ago, an evil villain rose up to the world with only one thing on his mind: destruction. He swept his army through all of the world, slashing out any civilisations that refused to cooperate. Those cities that he left behind planned an attack on him.

"They dug underground tunnels leading throughout the world, where they hid for this evil tyrant to come back, and when he did, he couldn't figure out where these people were. Catching him by surprise, they leapt out and attacked him, beating him and his army.

"Those people living in those cities were Grundos. And that world they lived in is present day Neopia. That evil man was Dr. Kappybara, Dr. Sloth's great-great-great-great grandfather." Zygorax winced, as if he had just ended all of Neopia with those words.

Grundar inquired, "Do you think - could it be - it's just a guess, Zygorax, but could that have anything to do with my time problem..."

"As the story goes, the Doctor had one last trick up his sleeve. He had a spacecraft orbiting Neopia, with an Automatic Radioactive Plasma Bombardment Kinetic Beam on board. At-Ra-Pla-Bo-Ki-Ba for short. The wavelength of the beam is related to Do-Re-Mi... never mind, I won't bore you with the details."

The Grundo smirked. "It'd be deadly in the Battledome - if it still existed.

"Problem is, it wasn't complete when Dr. Kappybara tried to use it. It backfired, and the entire spacecraft that carried it was sucked into its deadly vortex of energy. I'd be guessing that - "

"The beam ripped a hole in the time-space continuum," finished Maggie, fingers flying across the ship's console. She was frantically pulling up lists and tables of data, as if possessed.

"Yeah," muttered Zygorax. "What I would've said if I hadn't been interrupted." Grundar started to speak, but Zygorax held up a finger, struck by a sudden thought. "I think there's one more thing. If you went through that time-space hole, you probably encountered residual beam particles. They would be attracted to the metal of this spacecraft."

"So we're not only two years late for the war, but this ship may be radioactive?!" yelled Grundar, disbelieving.

"Basically," Zygorax said, suddenly grim with the realization. "The whole ship is probably surrounded by particles - that must be what's attracting the fuzzles."

Maggie, pulling out one last data reading, gave a cry of shock. "Captain! He's right! And if we try to land, Neopia's atmosphere will excite those particles... and they'll blow this ship to smithereens!"...

"Looks like we'll have to, Captain," Maggie said quietly.

"We are living on a radioactive ship," Grundar said, ignoring Maggie. "We can never land this ship, we will never see our families again, we are being attacked by fuzzles. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Grundar realized how loud he was, and quickly lowered his voice. "Things could not be..."

Maggie quickly said, "Don't you dare say worse! Whenever anybody says that, things get worse!"

Zygorax smirked. "You may not have to live on this ship forever. We can call another ship to come and get us off Grundo's Moon and just leave the ship."

"What's the closest ship?" Maggie asked.

"The Flotsam Sea," Zygorax replied.

"Can you call them now?" Grundar asked.

Zygorax swung around in his chair with a guilty look on his face. "Actually, I tried calling them three times already. Something's wrong with the computer..."

"I don't know Captain," said Zygorax nervously. "but I do know that I've been effected by it too, so I can't go down either."

"Wait, Captain." Maggie swung around in her swivel chair. "A frequency is coming. But I can't seem to read it. I'll let you hear it." A bunch of fizzles and bloops followed. "See? It makes no sense."

Zygorax hurried over to Maggie's station, pushed a series of buttons and spoke. "Zypper 5 to Freddy 8. Come in Fred."

Another voice suddenly cut through the static. "Hey, Zygorax! Didn't your mother ever tell you not to hang out in unidentified spaceships?"

"You don't understand!" said Zygorax to his friend. "This is the Grundo's Moon! The one that disappeared two years ago!"

"Woah! Why don't you and your friends come down h-sizzle-ere an-pop-d..."

"Fred! We're losing you! Come in Fred!" But the other Grundo's voice had disappeared.

"Uh Captain?" said Rex nervously. "There's something off the port bow." Sure enough, a huge fleet of ships was coming right at them! "Sir! If they come too close, we may blow up!"...

"You can't! Fred is part of the Neopian Space Police!" said Zygorax.

"What should we do then?" cried the Captain.

The ship was beginning to hum. Small particles in the ship's metal compounds began to glow.

"I think... Zygorax, can I modify your Fuzzle Shield Program?" asked Maggie.

"What for?" Rex asked.

"I think I can get the program to cancel out our radioactivity."

"Wonderful idea! I'm glad I thought of it," said Grundar.

The others paid no attention to him. "That might work!" said Zygorax.

Maggie started to work on rerouting the systems. Once she had the program set to 'RADIOACTIVITY' instead of 'EVIL FUZZLES,' she took the disk out.

"Now what?" asked Zygorax. "You'll stop radioactivity from going in, but now what?"

"She can magnetize it to make the program work backwards," said Rex.

"That's a good idea! I just changed it from cotton to our special Neo-steel plating," said Maggie as she began.

Zygorax found a magnet. Maggie took the completed disk and brought it to Zygorax. The Grundo held the magnet to the disk.

HISS! Sparks flew. Maggie dropped the disk and looked at the ships. They would reach them in about thirty seconds! Rex grabbed the disk, jammed it in the slot and pressed the start button.

POP! All the shiny bits of the metal turned regular gray.

"Now we're all safe," said Captain Grundar, who came out of hiding in the corner, "thanks to my good wits."

Everyone sighed and decided to contact the ships.

The End