Prologue:

Monitoring Outpost Alpha 12, outer rim of Terok star system.

The Terokian Comm Drone dutifully noted the alarm in his duty log. The alarm signaled the failure of a Terokian Exploratory Probe Unit some 87 light years distant.

Within microseconds, the Comm Drone devoted a substantial percentage of its resources from its primary mission in order to focus on the distress signal from the Hapgood Unit. The Comm Drone’s primary mission was to monitor signals from distant Terokian Probes gathering data needed for the very survival of the Terokians.

The Terokians were a race of sentient machines residing in a sector of space virtually uninhabited by organic life forms. Stars in the region were dense, emitting concentrations of space radiation that kept planetary systems virtually sterile. The Terokians were unsure of what race had originally created them. All traces of their origin had been long lost.

The mechanical race had existed as self-aware entities for millions of years, but now faced extinction due to the eminent supernova of their sun. Although extremely advanced in space travel, the Terokians had chosen not to leave their dying star system. Instead, the machine race had been working for centuries on a project to encase their shrinking sun with a giant sphere made from the unused planets and other rocky matter in their system. When completed, the massive sphere would trap the remaining energy from their star and prolong it’s life by millions of years. Thousands of Terokian Deep Space Probes were cruising the Galaxy to gather important data to assist the Project.

Unlike other Terokian Probe Units, this particular probe was a hybrid. A hybrid comprised of the brain of a human space explorer known as Jimmy Hapgood and a modified deep space probe unit. Decades before, Hapgood and his primitive space craft had ignored space beacons and had slammed into the Terokian’s space defense shields. The science council had decided to rebuild the human and it’s spacecraft. Lacking specifications on what a human should look like, the Terokians had combined the human’s surviving brain matter with a Terokian Deep Space probe. To the Terokians, this was a logical choice since an examination of the Hapgood log entries revealed that the human had left it’s home planet of Earth on a mission of exploration.

After several decades on Terok Prime, Hapgood had insisted on returning to space. The science council had expressed concerns, of course, but Hapgood was not to be dissuaded. He had to leave, he argued, to keep a promise.

The Comm Drone quickly began analyzing the data streaming in from the Hapgood Unit through hyperspace transmission bands. Something had caused catastrophic damage to the unit and his spacecraft. A collision of some sorts, it determined.

The sparse data puzzled the Comm Drone. The Hapgood Unit had been decimated after colliding with what appeared to be planetary space debris. Why had the debris penetrated the Terokian designed deflectors onboard the spacecraft?

Even more puzzling to the Comm Drone was the failure of Hapgood to utilize his backup unit. The Terokians had equipped the spacecraft with an automated laboratory programmed to construct a duplicate of Hapgood that would be used in such an event. The logfiles being received indicated that the backup unit and the lab had been jettisoned from the spacecraft several weeks earlier (see "Canyons of the Soul").

Without the backup unit, Hapgood would cease to exist. Hapgood would be dead, as the humans referred to a state of nonexistence.

The Comm Drone searched for solutions. There were no other Terokian units in that sector of space to attempt a rescue. Hapgood was on his own. The drone decided his only option was to establish a hyperspace link to allow it to interface with the Hapgood unit. It began the initialization process and then stopped abruptly.

The Hapgood Unit had stopped transmitting.

***

Eighty seven light years away, thirty minutes earlier:

Jimmy Hapgood was a man of regrets. Mainly because of one decision made decades earlier. At that time he had turned down a request by a man named John Robinson to take his children back to Earth.

Hapgood had met the Robinsons on a desolate planet they had dubbed Priplanus. He had been several years out from Earth in his spacecraft he had dubbed Travelling Man. His original destination had been the inner moons of Saturn, when his guidance system malfunction and sent him off course out the Sol system enitrely.

Hapgood had hopped through several star systems when he picked up a radio beacon and homed in on the Robinson party. They were lost in space just like he was. They treated Hapgood with kindness and yet he had resisted the idea of taking the youngest members of the Robinson family back to Earth. He had left the Robinsons marooned on Priplanus.

Years after leaving the Robinsons, he had a change of heart. But by then he had suffered a devastating accident on Terok Prime. When he finally left the Terokians he had found that the Robinsons were long gone from Priplanus (See "Welcome Back Stranger"). In fact, Priplanus itself had been destroyed when its core imploded. He had been following the radioactive trail of the Robinsons’ spacecraft from Priplanus ever since.

Hapgood had made a brief visit to Earth after leaving Priplanus. Steering clear of Earth herself, he had monitored communications from the relatively safe distance of Saturn’s orbit. He tapped into Earth’s databases long enough to learn that the Robinson expedition had never returned home. Despite odd reports of sporadic contact with the Jupiter 2, the fate of the Robinsons was still a mystery.

Hapgood had searched for the Robinsons, but had never reached them. Hapgood was beginning to wonder if he would ever be able to keep his promise.

Now Hapgood was determined to keep another promise he had made.

A few days earlier, his quest for the Robinson’s had led him to an abandoned space station that the Robinson’s had visited 27 years earlier (See "Haunted Dreams"). They had left behind an alien boy named J-5 who wanted to return to his home planet. Unfortunately, the space station had drifted off course and the resupply ships had never visited the station and J-5 had never gone home.

J-5 had grown up in the company of a man who called himself Colonel Fogey. A simple, but well intentioned man who eventually adopted the alien child as his son. Colonel Fogey had tried to return J-5 to his own planet, but had died before succeeding.

Hapgood had promised J5 that he would get him back home. Even if it meant moving the entire space station to do so. J5 had survived all those years because of the protection offered by an energy being known as a Zabo. To protect J5, the Zabo had merged with the station’s energy grid and could no longer leave the physical confines of the space station. J5 had refused to leave his protector behind so Hapgood had equipped the space station with hyperspace boosters to allow it to travel to J5’s homeworld through hyperspace.

Now, Hapgood trailed behind the station. Waiting as the large craft powered up the boosters to drop down into hyperspace. He was waiting around to make sure the jump went smoothly.

But something was wrong.

Traveling Man signaled an alarm as a jagged rift in hypersace suddenly opened up in front of the space station. Collision alerts sounded as clouds of debris spewed forth from the rift. Within moments, clouds of rock and dust began peppering the shields surrounding Hapgood’s spacecraft.

With sickening clarity, Hapgood could see that the space station’s shields were not functioning and debris began peppering the surface. Hapgood acted instinctively and diverted Traveling Man’s shields to cover the space station.

Unprotected by it’s shields, a basketball size chunk of rock slammed into Traveling Man, opening the cockpit to the vacuum of space. The atmosphere within instantly crystallized into fine particles of ice. Hapgood was exposed to the harsh extremes of deep space.

Traveling Man continued to be a target of space debris spewing from the rift. Large sections of the craft disintegrated upon impact. Hapgood felt a sense of helplessness flooding over him. His ship was slowly being ripped apart, yet it continued to transmit data to him.

The data was perplexing.

Traveling Man had automatically scanned and analyzed the rocky material exiting the hyperspace rift. The data raised more questions than answers. Traveling Man and Hapgood had encountered this debris before. The debris destroying them were remnants of the dead planet known as Priplanus.

Hapgood had no time to reflect on what the data meant. He had more pressing concerns to deal with.

"Hapgood, what’s happening out there?!"

J-5’s voice was frantic. The man had lived alone for most of his life and, despite surviving years on a space station, he was quite inexperienced in the true nature of deep space travel.

"I can’t talk now, son" replied Hapgood. "Your shields have failed. I’ve diverted Traveling Man’s to give you cover ‘til you drop into hyperspace …"

"Zabo says you have suffered damage …" J-5’s voice did not mask his concern.

"Don’t worry about me and Traveling Man" growled Hapgood. "We’ve seen worse potholes than this."

Hapgood was being honest. Even as he watched his ship being ripped apart by chunks of rock and gravel, he could vividly recall the accident on Terok Prime. He and Traveling Man had literally disintegrated upon contact with the planetary defense shield. This time, however, there were no Terokians to pick up the pieces.

Hapgood scanned the data flowing in from Traveling Man. The space station had suffered no significant damage and was only seconds away from dropping into hyperspace. Once out of Normal Space, it would be safe since the debris could not exist in Normal and Hyperspace simultaneously.

Another large chunk of rock tore through Traveling Man, slicing the ships Power Core away in the blink of an eye. Only battery power kept the ship from total shutdown.

Come on, Traveling Man, cajoled Hapgood. Just a few seconds longer and our job’s done. We’ll get out of this somehow.

Hapgood held no delusions, however. The reality of his predicament was clear. Once the station was safe in Hyperspace he could redirect the shields to protect what was left of his ship. However, without the ship’s power core, the shields would fail and he would once again be at the mercy of the pounding waves of space rubble.

The next impact caught him off guard. A chunk of rock the size of a refrigerator rolled up in front of Traveling Man and literally split the ship down the middle. Hapgood stayed in the cockpit (what was left of it) only because he was literally bolted in. He looked down in dismay to see the impact had torn nearly a third of his mechanical body away, exposing his internal Terokian technology. He felt his energy draining as he realized that his own power generators had been ripped from him.

"Thank you, Mr. Hapgood", crackled J-5’s voice on the radio. "Zabo says to thank you also."

There was a flash ahead of him and he managed to let out a Texas whoop as J5’s station dropped into Hyperspace.

The remaining shields automatically regrouped in front of Traveling Man and the onslaught of space debris slowed. Hapgood knew the respite was only temporary. Even if Traveling Man weathered the rest of the storm, Hapgood would be gone. He could feel his energy draining away into the cold of deep space.

With a start, the Texan noticed that his ships power reserves were dropping even more dramatically than his own. In an instant he realized why.

"Damn you, Traveling Man!" he snarled. "Stop redirecting your energy cells to me."

Traveling Man was mute.

"There’s nothing you can do for me – I’m too badly damaged." Hapgood said softly. "But there is one final thing that has to be done."

Hapgood could feel his internal processes shutting down as power was depleted. Soon his very thoughts would fail him. He knew what he must do.

He raced trough his memory core, pulling out the most critical data about his mission to rescue the Robinson family. He was determined to get a message out to the Cosmos to ask someone to carry on his mission.

Within seconds, the data packet was compiled and ready for transmission. Hapgood added a personal addendum:

"This here is all the data I have on the Robinson party. If you recover this, whoever you might be, I ask that you help this old space cowboy keep his promise. Get that family back home somehow. Especially Will and Penny."

Hapgood extended his remaining arm to press the transmit button. As he touched the button, a chunk of rock some fifteen meters across hit Traveling Man dead center. The ship and Hapgood were instantly obliterated.

***

Epilogue:

The transmission from the Hapgood unit ceased abruptly and the Comm Drone found itself strangely affected. It had developed an attachment to Hapgood that it did not experience with the 123 other units it was tasked to monitor.

During the past year or so he had performed regular maintenance on the Hapgood unit. Periodically it had transmitted a signal to shutdown the Unit while it downloaded a copy of Hapgood’s memory core for the Terokian database. Even Hapgood had been unwittingly providing data during his quest that might someday aid the Terokians master project.

During those periodic downloads, it had been up to the Comm Drone to preoccupy Hapgood by triggering a visual sequence into his subconcience. Hapgood thought of these sequences as dreams. The Comm Drone had tried to be creative in the choice of material. Sometimes selecting events from Hapgood’s past that related to a current situation.

The Comm Drone scanned the terrabytes of data that represented the last moment’s of Hapgood’s life. He momentarily considered studying it in greater detail to try to understand what had ended the human’s journey. But the Comm Drone had other exploratory units to monitor.

After a brief hesitation, he filed Hapgood’s databanks away and turned his attention elsewhere.