From last time
In a few minutes the three were on their speeder bikes, heading south out of town. About a mile out, Loren called to the others, "Ya ready to fly?"
"Totally, let’s do it!" Cameron said, powering up the thrusters on the bike and launching forward in front of Loren.
"Dude!" exclaimed Loren, laughing as Cameron's bike lurched. "Take it easy!" He and Eliana rose gracefully into the air and selected the destination coordinates. Their speeders turned slightly left.
Eliana chuckled. "Let's see how far ahead he gets before he realizes we aren't behind him," she commented to Loren as they headed over the forest. "I think he forgot to select his coords!" The two grinned at each other as the distance between them and Cameron grew wider.
And now:
Loren looked up. "Hear that, Eliana? I think Cameron's back!" As he said it, the SpeedStar 250 glided over the trees and descended to the clearing floor.
Cameron landed the speeder, as the engines powered down he unbuckled the helmet and jumped off. "Wow; that was fun"
Loren grinned. He assumed that Cameron has enjoyed himself by taking a roundabout way so he could have more time on the SpeedStar. "I knew you'd like it. So, here's the device I was talking about."
Loren indicated a strange metal platform. The center was a circular platform 6 feet in diameter.
"Holy smokes, what the heck is that thing?" Cameron said, adjusting the phazer belt his new friends gave him during his adventure. The gun was so much more efficient than his old repeater rifle and more powerful too.
Eliana shrugged. "That's what we'd like to know. It's certainly peculiar."
"Model number TRAN345," said Loren. "Not that that means anything."
"It's electronic, but that's about all we know. It seems to be in good condition, too. Missing a piece, though." Eliana indicated an apparent connection port on one side.
Cameron looked over the odd machine-thing "So, where did it come from?"
"We don't know. The plate with the company name is mostly worn away, but here," and Loren knelt down and indicated the metal information plate, "the last three letters are T-T-Y."
"I can't think of any company name with the last three letters... But what if TRAN stood for 'transport' could it be some kind of transportation device?" Cameron bent down beside Loren to examine the information plate for himself.
Suddenly Eliana exclaimed, "Look at this!" Loren and Cameron hurried over to where she was bent over by a tree on the edge of the clearing. "What is it?" asked Loren. "It's the missing part!"
She straightened up and held in her hands a keypad with a connection to match the one on the strange device.
"Well, that’s gotta be important" Cameron said, lifting his eyebrows. "Let's try it out"
Loren hesitated. "Well..." He paused. "I don't want to turn on some sort of weapon, or something we can't control."
"But it doesn't seem to be connected to any power source. That's one of the first things we checked, remember?" Eliana reminded Loren.
"Huh, good point. All the same, I think we should try it," Cameron said. He wasn't one to let things sit for any amount of time.
Loren and Eliana looked at each other. Suddenly Loren smiled. "Hey, why not! I'm been dying to do this!"
Eliana and Cameron grinned, and they hurried over to "the device." Eliana handed the keypad to Loren. "Uh, you do it." She backed off a little. "I'm not sure I want to be hit with hi-energy electrical arcs, in case there are some huge capacitors in there..."
"OK, here goes!" Loren said, and firmly pushed the keypad onto the connector. "Ow!" he yelled, and backed up, nursing his arm. "Oh, oh, ouch."
Eliana hurried over and took his arm in her hands. "Ouch!" she said and let go, looking at her hands confusedly. "Oh, that feels weird!"
"What happened?!" Cameron asked, drawing his phazer pistol as if he expected to have gremlins jump out of the machine or something.
Loren laughed shakily. "Some kind of shock, feels rather like..."
"Like I hit my funny bone," said Eliana.
"Yeah, that's it. Must have had some juiced up capacitors after all. Huh. Well, I am going to punch some buttons."
"You do that, Loren" Cameron replied keeping his distance.
"OK, so," said Loren, "this button looks like-" and he pressed it.
The screen glowed blue and the words "TRAN345 3rd-Generation Hyperspace Transport Device" showed up for 10 seconds.
"Hey, it is a transport device, Cam! You were right!"
"Well, would you look at that." Cameron leaned over the screen next to Loren.
"Where's it getting its power?" as Eliana, confused.
"Beats me!" admitted Loren. "Maybe there's a main connection underneath. Well, now's it's asking me to choose a local destination!" Without thinking, Loren selected the one that read "TRAN344 - Milton City."
Immediately, blue electrical arcs shot out form the four points of the star-like device, growing brighter. Loren and Cameron stumbled back. The arcs crackled and popped, and suddenly there was a bright flash, so bright and hot that the three of them fell to the ground.
"Loren!" Eliana screamed. "I can't see!"
"Ellie! Ellie! Where are you! Oh, my eyes!"
Cameron let loose a long stream of curses in his deep southern accent as his vision darkened. He hit his head on something hard and blacked out. Though he would never know, because his vision was already gone.