Chapter 8

Ultra Woman sat on a rocky crag on the oddly shaped moon of Mars, Phobos, contemplating her next move. After her encounter with the Zoolian pirates, she quickly returned to the chambers of the alien wizard Merlin. Dawn explained to Merlin her confrontation with the pirates. After some discussion, they agreed it would be best for him to release his two prisoners.

Merlin waved a disk-shaped hand toward the enclosure holding the two gray-skinned Zoolians. The walls disappeared in a shimmer of faint blue light. The shocked prisoners stared in wonder, standing stock still. Merlin gestured again, and the two Zoolians disappeared.

Merlin slid over to where the prisoners had discarded their heavy fur coats. He lifted them and examined the bluish hairs that covered them with interest. “I placed them near to their compatriots on the surface. Hopefully, they won’t be too uncomfortable without their coats. Their garments appear made from an extinct species of water-dwelling pisceans. I will add them to my museum.”

Dawn watched as Merlin put the coats in a display case that rose from the floor. “That’s wild, Merlin. Do you mean that fur came off of a fish? Wonder what planet it came from?”

“Yours.”

“Excuse me? How did a coat made from a fish from Earth get on the backs of aliens from another planet?”

Merlin adjusted the coats on the metal poles they hung on inside the case. “An exciting mystery, isn’t Dawn?”

Satisfied that the coats were displayed to best effect, he shut the case and turned to Dawn. “There is another ship orbiting the planet. It had been observing my world for some time.”

“Hmm. I’ll go check it out,” Dawn said.

“Be careful. If they detect your presence, they will either try and destroy you or transport themselves instantly to their fleet for reinforcements,” said Merlin.

Ultra Woman nodded, and she soared into the atmosphere with an even greater burst of speed and power. She spotted the larger of Mars’s two moons as she saw the strange shimmering wake made by the rocky satellite. It was like the waves produced by a boat crossing a still lake. She got caught up in it, and she let herself be taken by this ethereal current to land on the stony surface of Phobos.

Dawn Beaumont smiled and drew a breath as she stood among the vast blackness of space and its brilliant brilliance of stars. Or she would have if there was any air around. Dawn panicked, desperately attempting to keep the rest of the breath in her lungs. But as the seconds passed and she didn’t feel any of the symptoms of suffocation, she began to relax. She felt stupid. Her new body either didn’t require oxygen or found another way to sustain itself.