Could we still be on the moon? I didn't want to take the time to get to a porthole to find out. Creeping Inch by inch toward the saucer's control room... I needed to make sure there was only one alien on board. I mustered the courage to look inside and could only stare in shock! Not only was the hideous monster sitting there, but it had Sam! The little 'weasel' had gone and gotten himself captured! How was I going to rescue him without us both ending up as Indian sushi in the creature's fancy galley?
No stranger to feelings of panic through out our whole alien contact ordeal, I remembered the first time we'd climbed Skeleton mountain. The peril we were in then and now, though different... was insidiously connected. The act of freeing Sam caused the alien ship's controls to go crazily awry. Weak and drained from struggling against the ship's death spiral, for a moment, I just wanted to forget, to let the forces of the spinning saucer take me with it into oblivion. But I couldn't give in. Sam had to make it and the only way this was going to happen is, if I made it too. So Daniel Tadpole, son of the 'ani-tsa-la-gi'...Cherokee and 'da ni ta ga'.. the older brother had to quit feeling sorry for himself. The desire to protect Sam flooded back renewing my strength and faith in myself, helping me to remember, not for the first time, the survival of our planet pretty much depended upon us...'Wha...?' My internal struggle to make sense of things was suddenly interrupted by a horrible screech. The noise assailed my eardrums. The monster's rage reverberated off the bulkhead as it thundered along the saucer's deck.We straightened and raced the rest of the distance to the compartment holding our only escape. Somehow we made it into the little pod. "It's coming, Sam! Hang on! We're out of here!" The giant 'alien' threw itself at the rails, as I punched the button. The engines of the escape vehicle came to life with a roar. Giving one big shudder it launched. Behind us, with a strange, almost defeated look in it's furious, red eyes, the alien was sucked helplessly into space. I searched the display screen. The saucer we'd just blasted away from and the alien's spinning body became tiny blips. Where was the rest of the alien armada? Had they begun their assault on Earth? The possibility came to me we might have made things worse. Suddenly my head felt like it was going to explode. I lost interest in the alien and its now distant ship. Strapped inside the tiny escape vehicle, Sam and I fell helplessly through the blackness of space.
The escape pod seemed to have a mind of it's own as it picked up velocity. Like an arrow aimed by a giant bow, it followed an automatic trajectory,racing toward the huge, blue green and white planet below. While the strong, brave Tadpole Brothers, Alien hunters, Destroyers of Alien ships, Mutant Cyborgs and Alien 'Bugs' (well, at least one cyborg, one alien ship and one 'alien bug'), Defenders of Earth, mercifully passed out.
