Chapter 8

TUESDAY 4:00 A. M. Local Time: Valley of the Rainbows, Hawaii

Lelanie Makuakanee' gathered new materials in preparation for her daytime rest. It had been a fruitful night, as she and her fellow menehunee' had accomplished much. It seemed that lately resistance to getting tasks accomplished was becoming less and less.

'It's as if the flow of manna were edging closer to the 'day time' world, ' she mused, 'how strange this is. I wonder if Lono will be returning soon. That would be nice; it's been so long since we last danced with him.'

As these thoughts passed through her mind, she gently removed the Lei of Moonflowers and set it in its place of honor. It would not do to crush this ancient treasure that had been passed down to her from her Great-Great-Grandmother.

TUESDAY 11:00 A. M. CST Oort Cloud, Outer Boundary, Sol System

It has been said that in space no one can hear you scream, but Miklit was just about ready to give it a shot. The closer it and its shipmate got to their destination, the more its deep seated anxiety seemed to be trying to completely overwhelm its being. The emotional turmoil became so intense that Miklit finally broke out the scent bulb and took a deep cleansing whiff.

Feeling the incipient panic starting to recede from such dangerous levels, Miklit signaled to its shipmate to proceed. Slowly, they wove their way among the rocks and ice masses, trying desperately to avoid disturbing any of the debris, and at the same time, also not leave any kind of trail through this region. So focused were they on the path they were taking that they never once noticed the string of admirers they had acquired on this journey.

Clearing the Oort Cloud region, the Pilot applied a minimum impulse of Delta-V and then shut down the engines to standby. The shield was then boosted to maximum strength and passive sensors were tuned to their most sensitive settings.

Directly behind the not-so-intrepid duo, ZZ-1340 noticed the reduced drive coming from his target and instituted a similar posture while trying to keep out of detection range. His change in status unwittingly tipped off the rest of the merry band of followers and one by one, they also went into deeper stealth modes.

If anyone with Earth based technology had been scanning this region of the Solar system, they would have detected nothing. Fortunately for the inhabitants of our fair planet, the Hubble telescope was not the only thing scanning the heavens at this time.

The Crystal Dragon Cadre had taken the idea of threats from all three dimensions quite seriously after putting a halt to the nuclear payloads in orbit and had been continually scanning all possible vectors. When the first ripples of movement on the interior edge of the Oort cloud impinged on their awareness, they drew on the collective power of their clan segment and sent a single ping into the area.