The airlock alarm sounded in the lander, while Girtset was shaking Lady Izkibel back to wakefulness. The Lady complained, "Sword-master Girtset! You needn't sound alarms to wake me. My drowsiness is from my regeneration cycle working." He growled softly at her,"Lady! Rouse yourself! We have intruders on the second level of the ship at the docking airlock, though no ship shows as docked with us. I will confront the intruder. Arm yourself mightily." Izkibel turned her milk-pale face back to her instruments and waved a weak hand at him in dismissal and whispered, "I am mighty armament. Die with honor." "Live with victory", he said in return as he took his crystal bow in hand, and kicked up the micro-gravity docking tube. He slid the door at the top of the tube open silently and stepped quietly into the synthetic gravity of the life module. He arrowed his bow and stepped around the only remaining working hibernaculum. The intruder had a seeming of a tall, athletic woman with an untidy mop of blond hair on her head. Her nose was like unto the Lady Izkibel's, in the center of her face. She was grinning like a mad-woman and when she looked upon the Sword-Master holding bow on her form, broke into incredulous laughter. She said in the common tongue of Naurasia, "You HAVE to be KIDDING ME! A plastic wand, a rubber band and a POINTED STICK?! Oh my GOD! I ought to blast you with a lightning bolt for sheer stupidity! HELLO? We are like on a STARSHIP? Duhr?" Grimly, Girtset said quietly,"Lightning? You blow wind as a storm and try to thunder, but I see no lightning. You are an intruder. Explain quickly, lest I have to defeat you in battle." The woman laughed mightily for a long moment and looked at Girtset and said,"You are so full of crap, you nut-case!" Girtset nodded at the insufferable insult to his honor and let fly his Boomer arrow. The arrow flew it's length and exploded into a parabolic mirror form two meters across as it's nano-technology snapped into action. The arrow core detonated into eye-searing flickers of light and pulses of infra-sonic thunder at the intruder. At that instant, she actually DID discharge a star-core temperature lightning bolt at the arrow, that reflected off the mirror and struck her back. She was reeling, stunned when the Sword-Master punched several pressure points on her body and dropped her unconscious to the deck-plates. While he bound her hands and feet, the voice of the Altha-Krommium Lady,Izkibel, sounded over the intercom,"Master Girtset! I am showing that part of a Meta-probability weapon system is now on-board! If it isn't one of the Four Riders, it just might be one of the Four Sisters, if that system had ever gotten on-line. I hope you didn't kill whoever it is. We need answers." He rolled his eyes, and sighing with irritation,"Naurasians do NOT kill over mere words! She is alive, and did throw a lightning bolt at me. I will bring her down to you, and try to rouse her to wakefulness. She seemed arrogant and full of herself, though no warrior. She might not be in her right mind." He moved tactically over to the airlock door and looked out the window in the door and saw naught but the horizon of the icy planet below. He said in wonder, "No sign of a ship." He watched the replay of the proximity cameras. She simply appeared in space next to them amidst golden rings of light and floated to the door and entered their ship without problem. A tremor of fear shuddered through his shoulders as he gazed upon her in wonder. So much power, and he defeated her easily. He wondered what mysteries this system might hold for him and his people. --TO BE CONTINUED!--