But Mae frowned and crossed her arms. "I don't want to be the princess," Mae cried. "All the princess does is scream - and she always has to be rescued from the evil Black Dragon!"

"But you're a girl," Jin pointed out. "You can't be a prince."

Mae stamped her tiny feet, turned, and walked away from her brother. As she left, she called to him over her shoulder.

"I'm going to tell Mother," she declared.

"Go on and tell!" Jin cried back defiantly. Then he turned around and ran across the deck, his green cape billowing behind him. Jin knew his playtime was going to be short once his mother found out he'd sneaked his cape aboard the ferry. As he stared over the railing at the choppy waves, Jin frowned.

Bad enough I'm missing today's episode of Gecko Prince of the Universe, Jin thought bitterly. Any minute now, Mother is going to arrive and take my cape away from me again.

Jin decided to make good use of the time he had left. Three times around the bulkhead means I'm going to Mars, he decided. Four times around and I'll arrive on Jupiter. The little boy thought about it for a moment before deciding to go all the way.

"Gecko Prince ... fly to Jupiter!" he cried as he took off in a run. His head down, his arms and legs pumping, Jin ran headlong around the bulkhead of the rusty ferry.

"Black Dragon, face me now, you coward!" Jin cried as he completed his third lap around the bulkhead. But as he came around the corner, Jin screamed.

To his amazement, he had come face-to-face with the Gecko Prince's archenemy - the Black Dragon himself.

Jin took three steps backward, then fell on his rump. The dragon, swimming in the ocean only a few feet away, turned its mighty head and stared at the little Chinese boy. Then it blinked and hissed angrily.

Jin screamed again. Then the boy heard excited voices. Some of the pa.s.sengers had run out onto the deck, pointing at the monster, which quickly swam past the ship. Cameras were produced, and many of the amazed pa.s.sengers began to snap pictures of the creature.

Jin, still stunned, closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fists. When he opened his eyes again, the dragon was gone. Only a ripple on the ocean waves indicated that it was ever there at all.

Suddenly, Jin felt a hand on his shoulders. He looked up into the angry face of his mother. His little sister, Mae, stood at her side, a triumphant smile on her tiny face.

"I told you not to bring that stupid cape on this trip!" Jin's mother cried.

"But, Mother!" Jin protested. "I just saw the Black Dragon! He was swimming right out there." Jin pointed to the deep ocean.

"That's it," the woman declared. "You're not watching that ridiculous television show anymore!"

"But, Mother -"

"Don't argue with your mother," the woman commanded. Then she dragged the boy up off the deck and pulled him away. Jin protested the whole time.

Sat.u.r.day, December 9, 2000, 1:15 P.M.

Independent News Network, Studio B.

World Trade Center Tower.

New York, New York.

"What is this? A rerun of Independence Day?" Larry Jones quipped with obvious irritation as he pointed to the fuzzy picture on the television screen.

n.o.body in the control booth seemed to understand the man's reference - or they pretended they didn't. Instead, all eyes in the studio were glued to the monitors - two of which were blank. That was because two of the five major broadcast networks were off the air; they'd been off for two hours.

The Fox Network was still up, but its picture was broken and fuzzy, and often the audio track simply faded out.

PBS was still broadcasting - at least in New York City. The cable channels were not faring much better. Most of them were off-line, and more were going down every hour. And in the last several hours, telephones, fax machines, and even computer lines were being affected by some sort of ma.s.sive glitch.

"I guess we're not going on the air today," Brian Shimura complained. "Too bad, too, because I have some great stories ... rumors of a UFO in orbit above the Earth ... earthquakes in Peru ... and get this! Someone actually took a picture of a dragon off the coast of the Philippines!"

"A dragon?" the director said from his chair. "Are you sure they didn't spot G.o.dzilla?"

"Nope," Brian replied. "I saw the photo on the video newswire. And trust me, I know the difference between G.o.dzilla and a dragon."

The producer sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.

"Actually, Brian, dragons sound about right," he said miserably. "Because at this rate, n.o.body will be on the air by this time tomorrow. As far as communications go, if it ain't hard-wired, it ain't happening."

"Yeah," the director added. "It looks as if we're all entering a new Dark Age."

Sat.u.r.day, December 9, 2000, 1:55 P.M.

Bridge of the Destiny Explorer.

Near the Ecuador/Peru border.

Off the coast of South America.

Sh.e.l.ly frowned when she saw the stricken look on her father's face. He had just completed a long radio call to New York - one of the first they'd managed to complete in many, many hours.

It looked as if the airship's communications system was going haywire, and for no apparent reason - at least none that Sh.e.l.ly could find.

"What's up?" Sh.e.l.ly asked, knowing it was bad news and not sure she wanted to hear it. Things had been going pretty well since they had departed from Orlando. The lights were working properly now, thanks to a software solution dreamed up by Leena Sims.

Ned and Peter had gotten the Messerschmitt-XYB prepped and ready for a test run, and Michael had corrected some of the glitches in the airship's navigational computers.

Sh.e.l.ly knew that the good times were about to come to an end. She suspected as much when she heard her father yelling at someone over the radio a half hour ago.

Simon Townsend looked at his daughter, then at Captain Dolan, who was still at the helm. Outside the bridge windows, the day was misty and overcast. The gray skies somehow fit the sudden changes of mood on the bridge.

"We've been ordered to land the Explorer in Lima," Simon announced, clutching a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled some notes during the radio conference.

"What?" Sh.e.l.ly cried. She and Captain Dolan exchanged shocked glances.

"You mean we're, not going to Antarctica?" Captain Dolan demanded, sounding more upset than Sh.e.l.ly or Simon would have expected him to be at the news.

"Oh, we're going to Antarctica, all right," Simon Townsend replied. "But our pa.s.sengers aren't. We've been ordered to leave them behind in the care of the American emba.s.sy."

"But why?" Sh.e.l.ly asked.

"We're supposed to take on a unit of U.S. Army Rangers with full combat regalia."

"Rangers!" Sh.e.l.ly cried. "Why Rangers? Has some kind of war broken out?"

Simon looked down once again at the sheet of paper in his hand.

"The United States government has just taken possession of this airship and its crew," he announced. "A state of emergency has been declared. Something is happening in Antarctica, and the Rangers are supposed to investigate it."

Unnoticed by Sh.e.l.ly or her father, Captain Jack Dolan paled. His hands clutched the control wheel of the airship, and his eyes remained fixed on the horizon. But turmoil blackened his features.

Could it all be true? the captain wondered.

"Why can't they just fly an airplane full of troops down to the South Pole?" Sh.e.l.ly demanded. "Why do they need our airship?"

Simon looked at his daughter.

"For one thing, it's not our airship. It belongs to Mycroft E. Endicott," her father reminded her harshly. "And according to this message from Mr. Endicott, there has been no communication with anyone on the Antarctic continent in three days.

"Every airplane sent over the South Pole simply disappears, and a spy plane sent over the region a couple of days ago discovered that a seventy-mile-wide hole has opened up in the ice."

My G.o.d in heaven! Captain Dolan screamed to himself. His heart began to race. Perhaps I'm not on a wild-goose chase after all!

"Is all this weird stuff connected to our communications problems?" Sh.e.l.ly asked. Her father nodded.

"And not just ours," he replied. "It seems the whole world is having troubles with its communications systems."

"This can't be happening!" Sh.e.l.ly moaned, striking her hands on the wall of the bridge. "We can't lose the Destiny Explorer to a bunch of tin soldiers!"

"I'm afraid we can, Sh.e.l.ly," her father said grimly. "We've gotten our orders from Endicott himself."

As tears welled up in Sh.e.l.ly Townsend's eyes, her father addressed the captain of the airship.

"How soon can we land in Lima?" Simon Townsend asked.

"We'll get there in five hours," Captain Dolan replied. "But how can we land this thing without a ground crew?"

Simon held up the crumpled paper in his hand.

"According to Mycroft, a tower and a ground crew are waiting for us at these coordinates."

Sat.u.r.day, December 9, 2000, 1016 hours.

NORAD s.p.a.ce Command Center.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

"Launch alert, Colonel," Airman Miles Jackson announced. Jackson, a three-year veteran of SCC, had relieved Sandy Stilson an hour before. Colonel Wistendahl was still on duty, and would be for another two hours.

"Where is the point of origin?" Wistendahl asked.

"Baikonur," Rodofsky cried from the Teal Sapphire monitoring station. Colonel Wistendahl nodded.

Unlike an unplanned launch from Antarctica, a launch from the Russian version of Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center was easy to detect.

"Get me the Cinc," Wistendahl demanded, referring to General Bierce.

A moment later, Jackson looked up at his commander. "Bierce is in a video conference with the president, sir," the young man informed him.

Wistendahl nodded his head at the news. "I guess we'll handle this one ourselves," he muttered.

"I have a course and speed, sir," Jackson reported.

"Cut to the chase and tell me where it's going, Airman," Wistendahl replied as he sank into the command chair.

"Sir ... I think you should see this," Jackson said, his voice tense. "The computer estimates that the rocket just launched is an orbital ballistic missile. The missile is on an intercept course with the object ... I mean, with Gigan, sir!"

"Holeeee -" Wistendahl bit off the words as he jumped to his feet again. Then the colonel shook his head. "Looks like the Russians were tired of watching their satellites being knocked out of the sky," the officer announced. "They decided to do something about it."

The s.p.a.ce Command Center grew quiet and tense as everyone watched the blip on the screen steadily approach the red dot that represented Gigan. It took six minutes for the two computer images to converge.

Rodofsky looked up from his monitor. "Teal Sapphire has just recorded a nuclear blast in s.p.a.ce," he reported gravely.

"They used a nuke!" Colonel Wistendahl cursed.

"Well, sir, maybe they finished it off," Rodofsky offered hopefully.

"No such luck!" Jackson cried. "Gigan is still there ... and he's p.i.s.sed!"

"Clarify, Airman!" Wistendahl barked.

"The creature has changed course, Colonel," Jackson reported in a brisk military fashion. "It is beginning a descent."

"Oh, my G.o.d," Rodofsky muttered. "It's heading for Russia!"

"More accurately," Jackson announced, "it's heading for Baikonur Cosmodrome."

10.