Date: 6/27/2673

The bar was now empty except for the 4 men and the body. "Well, Well…" The Cosmic Bandido said "If it isn’t an… MTV assassin…" He spitted the word ‘MTV’ out of his mouth (A thing that was quite common among all Heepsters…).

"Umm… We should be more careful Cannibal," Wizard said quietly "You ARE our intelligence man, and looks like it’s not going to be a walk in THE PARK… maybe your intelligence sources weren’t so accurate…" He sounded angry, as if the voice wasn’t coming from him…

"What?! Don’t you ever insult me or how I work… I know my job better than you do!" Boris shouted… then, he thought a bit and his eyes widened "It’s not good…". He walked towards Double Trouble, called Thommie as well, and the three of them went to a distant corner of the room, when Cannibal started whispering, so Dave won’t hear them.

"Rich, Thommie, it’s what I’ve feared from… it’s the DD…" Cannibal said.

"Dave is under the affect of the DEVIL’S DAUGHTER?!?!?!?! I thought we destroyed that project while we were on the Gypsy!" Double Trouble almost shouted.

"Umm… Am I missing something, guys? What’s the Devil’s Daughter exactly?" Thommie was confused. He probably didn’t remember that campaign… A lot of people died out there, and the memory has been somehow erased out of a lot of people’s heads…

"Let me explain it to you, Thommie" Cannibal started "While we were on the TCS Gypsy, we found out that the heads of the MTV are working on the Devil’s Daughter project. The purpose of the project was to create a device which will cause the Heepsters to fight among each other… fortunately, we destroyed the only lab which contained the data for such a device, but unfortunately, I see that Dave is under affect of the device, or something similar to it right now…"

"I know you’re talking about me! you think you’re better than me, huh? Yeah… well, you’re wrong!" Dave’s eyes were wide, and he had a crazy look on his face.

"We gotta find a cure…" Boris said "And I never heard of cure for the DD…"

Thommie and Rich started thinking, and eventually, after a few seconds they both (!!!) jumped as if they found the answer.

"I have the answer!" Rich smiled "Beer! Dave has to drink some Beer!"

"Hey, that was my answer too…" Thommie smiled.

"Well, barkeep, give him some beer then!" Cannibal smiled, but surprisingly, Rich’s face turned grim.

"There’s a problem" He said "Dave will need REAL Beer, and all I have here is all that replicator beer… you know it’s not the same…"

Boris’ face were full of surprise ‘People DO change…’ He thought ‘When we were on the Gypsy, the motto of other factions in the Confederation was: Where there are Heepsters, there’s beer. But now…?’

"That’s a surprise, but it won’t be to hard to find beer around here… I heard that Alex is in the Draconis system and that’s only 3 jumps from here! Alex would surely find us some real beer…" Cannibal smiled "But, in the meantime, we have to restrain Wizard…" He started thinking, but then, The Judge and Traveler both entered the Bar, as if they are answering his question.

Date: 6/28/2673

Pete gave Stem the whole control of the ship while he went to talk with Boris.

"He’s been screaming like that for the past 3 hours…" The Judge said. He looked at the Special video screen that was monitoring what’s happening in Wizard’s quarters. Wizard was locked inside his quarters, and didn’t stop screaming only one word again and again: "AAAAAAHHHHH". Actually, The Judge was also curious about how Wizard could have scream for so much time without stopping.

"It’s strange. The DD was supposed to cause him being angry at us, and that sort of things… but in addition, it also made him crazy…" Cannibal had a confused look on his face, as he turned around to see the Cosmic Bandido approaching.

"I really hope the beer will help…" The Bandido said.

"Well, you and Rich are the ones who studied all the illnesses at the Beer research center… not me…" The Judge smiled.

"Yes, we did. Did you know that beer can be used as a cure to more than a half of all known diseases?" they started laughing.

"ALL PERSONNEL ABOARD THE SHIP, PREPARE FOR PLANET LANDING… WE ARE ABOUT TO LAND ON DRACONIS IV…" Traveler’s voice thundered in the loudspeaker.

The entire gang was walking in the Spaceport, looking for Alex and Mac who were supposed to wait for them. Double Trouble was leading the gang, and The Judge was last, as the two were the only ones who had fasers. Cannibal, The Cosmic Bandido and Traveler held Wizard and didn’t let him run away, or break the Durasteel chains that they putted on his hands and legs.

Pete and Rich held the fasers in their hands, and they all wore Confederation uniforms, so the large crowd of people in the spaceport stayed away from them, and the path was clear and without any problems. Alex and Mac were told by Confed representatives in the area to wait in deck 23’s bar, and so they all went to the nearest elevator.

Surprisingly, Wizard was quiet and didn’t scream, though his face had a devious look on it. He looked at the crowd around them, and made scary faces to little children.

"He’s totally crazy…" The Judge murmured to himself.

Eventually, they reached the elevator and waited as it quickly moved up to the 23rd deck. They got out of the lift to deck that was virtually empty. Only Lt. Commander Mac "Spider Woman" Steagall was there, and of course, the bartender.

"What took you so long?" Mac laughed as he approached the gang. Then he looked at Wizard and his chains… "Umm.. What’s that???" He scratched his beard.

"That’s a long story, Mac… Do you have any beer around here? It’s supposed to solve the problem…" Rich said.

"I don’t know, but Alex probably does…" Mac smiled, still not understanding what’s with Dave.

"Speaking of Alex, I don’t see HIM around. Where is he?" Stem asked.

Mac pointed at the window "You see that large ship out there? Alex couldn’t resist it, and started repairing it, for FREE!"

"One thing is certain about our Mr. Majestic… he likes being Chief Tech!" Stem said, and they all started laughing (well, except Dave…), as Alex noticed them from outside. He said a few words to the owner of the ship and got inside, with a big smile on his face.

"Mr. Majestic is here!" Mac declared, and they all shook hands (again, except for Dave…).

"What’s with Dave???" Alex was even more surprised than Mac.

"It’s a long story… and we need some REAL beer to fix the problem…" Rich said.

"Oh, that’s not a problem." Alex reached his hand to his tool-box and reached out a bag with a lot of beer bottles. The weird part, was that Alex’s tool-box was smaller than the beer bag, but no one noticed that… They all sat around a table, and started pouring the beers into glasses.

"Haha, you said that it’s going to be a long story regarding WIZARD, and he’s going to drink my beer, so now I understand what ‘He told me tales and he drank my wine’ means!" Alex laughed, and they all started singing, while the Clown and The Cosmic Bandido poured beer into Wizard’s mouth. The result was surprising…

Dave suddenly jumped, like he was charged with enormous power, breaking his Durasteel chains and joining the song with everyone. Now, they knew that he’s well… ‘We all have one thing in comment, and that’s… HEEP!’ Some of them thought, while others were drunk, and their minds weren’t very clear. They continued drinking and singing for about an hour, but they knew that they have orders, so eventually, they returned to the Manchester.

"Have you managed to get the plans, Kurik?" A short man sat on a high, thronelike chair. He had a large and long scar on his right cheek. Kurik, the man that stood in front of the scarred man, had a devious look on his face.

"Of course, sir… all the details about the SD74 CD are here…" Kurik answered as if it was obvious.

"Good… now, we will know how to build our own SD74 CD, and we could also sell the plans to the Kilrathi… Muha Ha Ha!" The scarred man laughed evilly.

"Sir… Don’t you think about another something?" Kurik’s face turned even MORE devious.

"And what will be that?" The scarred man was curious. One of his mutant disadvantages, was that whenever he was curious, strange bubbles started moving on his skin. Anyway, he DID form the M.T.V because of that reason…

Kurik smiled, as he understood that the master is curious about his idea. "You probably know, that the Confederation has sent the… Heepsters… against us. They all believe that their SD74 CD is going to make us surrender, but now, as we have the plans of the SD74 CD, we know what are the weak points of the device, and therefore, we will destroy the Heepsters!" Kurik and his master started both laughing evilly.

The two ships were very close to each other, and the sound of their engines was heard all over the system as they were set to full volume. Both of the ships were Heepster ships, so their engines had a very unique sound - a classy guitar solo that experts believe is the original Gypsy guitar solo from 1970, though there is no proof that it is the same one. Anyway, this was the unique Heepster ship engine-tune… Other Confederation ships had either very the popular "Since You’ve Been Gone" which was rejected by the Heepsters, as it was not a Heep tune, and other ships also had the old engine roar which was kind of boring to the Heepsters, so they rejected it as well.

But, there was another important reason why all Heepster ships had the Gypsy engine roar. The old Heep War Song, Gypsy, revered by Heepsters world wide, contains a very important ingredient in it... An instrument called a "Moog SIMPLIFIER" was used as a major part of the song. Only those people pre-disposed to become true Space Force Heepsters were affected by it for the rest of their lives once they heard it.

It contains a 2 bar passage that physically altered a section of the cerebral cortex to allow these people to communicate telepathically at will. No one has ever discussed this trait...NOT EVER...NOT EVEN THE HEEPSTERS!!! As the prime directive is to band together, and fight the Kilrathi, and also to never let it be known that we have this "power". For if it were known...evil forces could train themselves to do the same thing, and since we are outnumbered 10,000 to one, in space...it would be the end of life in the galaxy. This is the reason why Heepsters sometimes make up weird explanations as answers to the question "Why does your engine roar sound like that???". The engine roar was also nicknamed "The Key" to the Space Force Heepsters by Confed’s high command.

This Key to the Space Force Heepsters... was created under the order of the famed Byron/Thain conservatory of science many years ago, and it is the key to the survival of all Heepsters!!!

Lt. Commander Steagall pressed on a few buttons and took the microphone in his hand.

"TCS Spaniards, you Won’t Have To Wait Too Long before we could get a ‘No Return-Linkage’ so get ready for paying a visit here on the Manchester!" He said, as he saw a face on the communications screen. It was the expert for ancient Heep believers, and their gods - Miguel "Dreamer" Terol.

"Would you just Look At Yourself??? When was the last time you guys cleaned it?" Miguel laughed.

"Hey, It Ain’t Easy!" Cannibal said after he grabbed another microphone.

"Well, I’m coming aboard in a few minutes… In the meantime, Carry On with what you were doing a few seconds ago. You know What Should Be Done…" Then, Miguel clicked on the ‘end message’ button, and the screen went blank.