NARRATOR: Welcome back to Mahuitalotu, readers. The Toughs, of course, are here for the first time.
KEVYN: My little robot is off to save the galaxy. I could cry.
BUNNIGUS: You softy, I didn't think you had that in you.
KEVYN: Well... he's got our ship. That's ninety-nine percent of our firepower currently unavailable for the rescue mission I'm supposed to plan.
KEVYN: The tactical situation is horrible. According to this report, Tagon will be up against a half-dozen retainer troops and as many as twenty elite mercenaries.
KEVYN: Worse, they're all buried under a kilometer of rock and gravitic shielding.
KEVYN: Oh, and three independent anti-teraport systems are going to get cranked up to the point that his only way in or out is compromised.
BUNNIGUS: The teraport is your brain-child, Commander. Can't you cobble together something scientific?
KEVYN: You mean a "plot device?" No.
KEVYN: Don't think I haven't considered it, though. I've been racking my brains trying to come up with some way to reach into that fortress undetected so we could even up the odds.
BUNNIGUS: Twenty elite mercenaries, you said?
KEVYN: They're from "Pranger's Bangers." Colonel Drake Pranger is there himself, along with his personal honor guard, to close a very rich deal with our captain's target.
BUNNIGUS: But they're mercenaries, right?
KEVYN: Not just any mercenaries... the best in the galaxy.
BUNNIGUS: So... why don't we hire them first?
KEVYN: I... oh. Ohhh...