He-Man turned back towards the alley as the police, scattered by the exploding car, began to regroup. He saw Duncan running down the alley to Ror, who was struggling to get up off the pavement. Tri-Klops and Clawful were watching the scene carefully from the side, in something of a standoff with Teela, Man-E, Gwildor, and Orko.

The female officer who was apparently in charge led the other officers, guns raised, to the mouth of the alley. They fanned out, effectively blocking any escape, and the woman barked out, “You! Helmet Guy! Freeze it right now!” She had him centered in her sights.

“My friend is hurt,” he said calmly, gesturing to Ror. “He needs help.”

“We’ll get him an ambulance. You don’t move.” Her voice lowered an octave on the last order.

“He’s wounded, and he’s bleeding. If you want to shoot me, go ahead.” Duncan turned and headed for Ror. He pulled out a small bandage pack from his armor, holding it up so it could be clearly seen by the police behind him. He put his arm under Ror’s, led him to a wooden, and eased him down. Unwinding the bandages, he began wrapping them around the wound in Ror’s calf. It wasn’t serious, but Duncan knew it needed immediate tending to prevent an infection amid all the trash. The female officer never took her aim from him, but did not fire.

One of the policemen had turned and had his weapon trained on He-Man. “No trouble from you, Goldilocks,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. Seeing a man toss a car into the air without breaking a sweat was a new experience for him.

“Please, I don’t mean anyone here any harm. There’s no need for the gun,” He-Man said, trying to be as re-assuring as he could.

Suddenly, a large van came veering around the corner, the sound of police sirens closing in behind it. The officers turned for a split second at the unexpected intrusion; Teela took the opportunity to whirl around and fire her freeze ray at the ground where the police stood. It almost misfired, but a quick smack from her left hand started the beam.

The officers were taken off guard, and found themselves also off balance when they tried to free their feet. The momentary distraction gave Teela the chance to fire off several more quick blasts, freezing all but one of the police revolvers before it malfunctioned. The last officer fired a shot at her, but she was already moving, diving down and rolling back onto her feet. He started to squeeze of another shot, but the gun was knocked from his hand by Duncan’s airborne battle club. Teela turned back to see that Tr-Klops and Clawful had beat a hasty retreat down to the other end of the alley.

The van screeched to a stop, and the door flew open. A familiar face framed by long blonde hair poked out the door. “Quick, get in. There’s six of them on my tail.”

He-Man stood motionless for a second. “Andrea?” he said, eyes wide.

“Move it, big fellow. Please?” she insisted, popping open the van’s sliding side door and then moving back over into the driver’s seat.

Overcoming his initial shock, he waved his companions to follow. Duncan and Ror came first, Ror still moving with a slight limp, but able to run under his own power. Teela, Man-E, Orko and Gwildor followed within seconds, piling into the van, just as three police cars rounded the corner. Andrea Steele floored the accelerator, as the side door was pulled closed, throwing the still floating Orko into Gwildor. “Find your own seat!” the Thenurian scolded indignantly.

“Hang on!” Andrea warned as she peeled around a corner, the van taking the turn on two wheels. The police were still close behind, but losing some ground. She looked into the rear view mirror, and shouted back, “Anyone have something we can use to throw them off?”

“I’ve got a trick,” Orko said.

“Aw, no, we’re in enough trouble right now,” Ror exclaimed, holding up his hand.

“Teela’s freeze ray is out, and I can’t think of anything else to slow them down without hurting them,” Duncan countered. “We don’t want to injure any of them; their just doing the same job we do. Orko, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what do you have that could help?”

Orko rolled up both sleeves, and floated to the back of the van. “Do these doors open?” he asked.

Andrea replied, “Yes, but you don’t want to open them at this speed.”

“I’ll be okay, if Duncan will hold on to me.” The Trollan narrowed his eyes as his friend grabbed him around what appeared to be his waist. Teela fumbled with the latch, and the rear doors opened. Orko held out his hands, and chanted, “Do as I say, say as I do, turn the road to a pile of goo!”

“That’s terrible!” Gwildor shook his head.

“It’s also not working,” Duncan added.

“Wait! Look!” Teela pointed to the police cars. Their tires appeared to be melting, sticking to the pavement as they wobbled to a stop. The doors opened, and the officers crouched down behind them, firing at the van’s own tires. Andrea started swerving to and fro when she heard the first shot, and managed to avoid a direct hit.

“I thought the road was supposed to turn to goo,” Gwildor asked Orko, eyebrow arched.

“It stopped ‘em, didn’t it?” Orko retorted, hands on hips.

“It did indeed,” Duncan said, placing his hand on Orko’s shoulder. “Good job.”

“Just remember you said that next time he dumps a bucket of water on your head,” Ror said with a grin. Duncan chuckled as Orko folded his arms and glared at Ror.

“Andrea, not that I’m not grateful,” He-Man said, turning to her, “but how in the world did one of the few people we even know on earth happen to show up right when we needed you?”

“You must be living right,” she shrugged.

The warriors and their rescuer quietly walked up the narrow stairwell, having left the van parked behind the building, mostly hidden in the shadows.

“This your place?” Ror asked softly as they reached the top and headed for the nearest apartment door.

“No, a place my landlord asked me to look in on while he’s off to Florida. I didn’t want to go home in case the cops got my license number and traced it.”

“License number?” Orko asked.

“On the back of the van; a metal plate with letters and numbers. For identification.” She opened the door and ushered them in. “If the police saw the plate, they could run it through and come up with me and my address. And I didn’t think you wanted more police around.”

“Not if we can avoid it,” He-Man agreed. “It sounds like you took a chance on getting into a lot of trouble saving us back there. Thank you.”

She tossed her hair back and smiled. “You people saved this whole planet once. Least I could do.”

“I’m assuming from all this we know the lovely lady?” Gwildor asked, a bit puzzled.

“Andrea is an astronaut, like the Queen,” Duncan explained. “She and her commander, Mark Blaze, accidentally came through the same warp that brought Marlena to us from Earth years ago. They were carrying an explosive to destroy a huge magnetic meteor that was threatening this world; we helped them get back and stop it.”

“You all did more than that, Duncan. He-Man here served as our launching system. He saved us all.” She headed towards the kitchen. “Gwildor, is it?” She looked back at the Thenurian.

“Yeah,” Ror said. “But don’t ask too much more about him; he’s hard to explain.” Gwildor gave him a disapproving glance. “My name’s Ror, and this is Man-E-Faces.” The actor nodded slightly.

“Glad to meet all of you.” She opened a cupboard and started pulling out boxes. “Doesn’t seem to be much here but dry cereal and crackers; hope your not too hungry.”

Duncan looked at Teela, who had a devilish grin on her face. “My father’s always hungry.” He harrumphed loudly, and tried to suppress a grin of his own.

“Sorry. I guess he wasn’t expecting visitors,” Andrea turned around and faced the entourage from Eternia. “Then again, neither was I. We’ve been having a lot of strangeness going on all over the planet, and now all of you suddenly appear. I’m assuming there’s a connection?”

Duncan nodded slowly. “Afraid so. Let me fill you in on what’s been happening.”

Andrea sat down at the small kitchen table, Duncan taking the seat opposite her, and listened as he explained the events that brought them there. When he was through, she leaned back, and sat silently for a moment. She then shook her head and walked over to the small window in the living room, propping her hands on the sill. “So you have to save the world again,” she said finally, her voice strangely distant.

“And we’re going to need your help, Andrea,” He-Man said.

She slowly turned around, and He-man saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Last time I helped save the world, He-Man, things didn’t turn out very well.” There was pain in her voice, and anger.

He-Man went to her side and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “Andrea, what’s wrong? What do you mean?”

She wiped her face and turned back to the window, staring out into the rain. “I’d actually begun to wonder if you even existed, you know. I almost lost it when I saw you on the news before, tossing police cars around.” She paused, and took a breath. “When Mark and I came back from Eternia, we ran into a problem. We crashed.”

Duncan’s eyes widened. “But we went over the ship before you took off. I

was sure she was in working order.”

“She was, Duncan; in fact, she’d never handled better. It was a chunk of the meteor; we’d detected it approaching re-entry, and tried to avoid it. But this chunk was still magnetized, and it homed in us. It hit hard, and we lost one of our retro-rockets. We crashed into the ocean, and started to sink. Mark was hurt in the collision, and I had to get him out; the console was damaged, and I couldn’t get the flight recorder out and save Mark at the same time, so the ship went down in a very deep part of the ocean with all the proof of what had happened.”

“Proof?” He-Man asked. “Are you saying people didn’t believe you?”

She laughed bitterly. “We came just short of being brought up on charges of treason.”

“Treason? That’s ridiculous!” Teela said.

“We disappeared from radar for long stretches of time, they couldn’t get any transmissions through the heavy magnetic field the meteor generated, and then we crashed the ship and the recorder in the ocean. They suspected that we had cloaked the ship somehow to cover our landing somewhere on Earth so an enemy power could examine the ship and the warhead before we completed our mission, then deliberately ditched the ship to destroy the evidence. If they had had a little more evidence, we’d both have been tried and convicted of high treason. As it was, they gave us both section eights to get us out of the service.”

“Section eights?” Gwildor asked.

“Discharge for mental instability,” she replied flatly. “They told us it was either that, or they would put us on trial, no matter how shaky their case. I wanted to fight it, but Mark’s lawyers convinced me we didn’t have much chance, and I’d only make it worse for both of us.”

Teela frowned. “The two of you save the world, and they treat you like traitors? What kind of planet is this?”

“A very paranoid one,” Andrea answered. “In some ways, I almost can’t blame them, I guess; I mean, another world with magic castles and talking green tigers? I don’t even want to think about the looks we got when we started describing Skeletor.” She bowed her head. “Mark was devastated; his whole life was the service. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of years. Thought it would be best to let him distance himself from me.”

“Why?” Duncan asked.

“Mark’s record was impeccable; mine had a few…incidents. I sometimes wasn’t too great at following orders I didn’t agree with in my early days.”

Teela looked at her father, who smiled as he glanced her way. “Don’t say it,” she whispered. He winked.

Andrea continued, not catching the exchange. “That combined with how I kept pushing our account of what happened didn’t sit well with the higher-ups. We were ‘encouraged’ to just quietly accept the discharge and shut up; didn’t look good for the space program to have a couple of nuts ranting about finding Marlena Glenn on another planet along with magic swords and guys who can throw a nuclear warhead overhand. I made it worse for both of us by not backing down sooner.”

“You told the truth,” He-Man said gently. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, just because their minds were too closed to believe you.”

She turned around and looked up at him. “I was starting to wonder if they were right, that it was all in my head. Only one person has ever really believed me about any of this.”

“Who’s that?” Orko prodded.

“The man who’s running the lab I work for now. I kind of went from job to job until about eight months ago, when he contacted me, and…” She paused, her eyes widening. “Omigod!”

“What’s wrong?” He-Man asked.

“It just hit me. Last night, before I left work, I saw the big boss talking to one of the technicians, and I overheard something that didn’t register until now.”

“”Something important?” Duncan pressed.

“He said, ‘The stone is back.’” She looked to He-Man, then Duncan. “Coincidence?”

“Where exactly is this lab?” Duncan queried.

“Just southwest of the city,” she replied.

He-Man and Duncan exchanged a glance, then looked at Orko. “You pointed southwest before, right?” He-Man said to the floating magician.

The Trollan thought for a moment. “Yeah, it was southwest.”

The others headed immediately for the door. “We’re leaving?” Andrea asked. He-Man gently grabbed her arm and pulled her after him. “We’re leaving,” she affirmed, snatching her keys off the counter as she raced by.

Swift Wind tried to steady himself as the winds buffeted him; She-Ra had almost been thrown at least twice as they flew above the small band of rebels below. “ I don’t know how much longer I can keep us aloft,” he shouted to his rider.

“Just a moment more, Swifty,” She-Ra said, scanning the forest ahead of them, squinting against the rain. The storms were getting worse, and the group had been making their way through a veritable downpour for the last hour. She-Ra’s waist length blonde hair, usually full and flowing, was matted to her back, as was the red cape that usually flew out behind her as she and Swift Wind soared through the skies of Etheria. She looked up into the clouds and frowned. They weren’t just dark, they were black, and they covered the sky without a break. It was nearly noon, but it might as well have been midnight for all the light available, making their scouting excursion all the more difficult. The Princess of Power focused back on the surrounding forest, and spotted something off to the east. “Swifty, over there,” she pointed. “That clearing; looks like some kind of activity.” She wiped her face and put her hand on her forehead, trying to block the rain from her eyes for a moment. There was indeed movement in the clearing, and a large vehicle with a red logo on it’s side, barely visible through the storm. She didn’t have to see it clearly to recognize the Horde symbol.

“A Horde picnic?” Swift Wind joked.

“Something a lot worse, I’m afraid. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it right where we’re headed,” she observed, noting that the group below was moving straight toward the clearing. “We’d better get down there and warn them.”

They swooped down, the mighty unicorn still fighting the fierce winds, and landed just ahead of the heroes.

“Did you see anything from up there,” Glimmer asked.

“Horde activity up ahead; I’ve got a feeling we aren’t the only ones homing in on the stone.”

“Oh, joy,” Frosta sighed. “If they are looking for it, I wonder how they found out?”

Castaspella closed her eyes for a moment, knitting her brows tightly, and then shook her head slowly. “Shadow Weaver.”

“Isn’t she the Horde’s resident witch?” Fisto queried.

“Yes, and a powerful magic maker,” Casta looked off in the direction She-Ra had indicated, her eyes hard. “A very dangerous one, too.”

“And sneaky. And ugly,” Bow added.

“We’ve beaten her before, we’ll do it again,” Spinnerella said confidently.

“Don’t get too cocky, people,” Glimmer cautioned. “We need to take things a little slow and find out what’s going on before we blunder in.” She-Ra couldn’t suppress a smile at Glimmer’s words; a few short years ago, it would have been Glimmer charging ahead without thinking. The young princess had matured much in a short period of time. In war, you have to, she thought sadly.

“A little reconnaissance first, then?” She-Ra dismounted and joined the discussion.

“I could get close enough to see what they’re up to without attracting attention. I’m small and quiet,” Dree-Elle offered.

“And brave, little one,” Fisto added. “She has a point though; it’s not like she’d be stepping on any twigs to alert the Horde.” He managed a smile at his floating companion.

“Dree-Elle, could you magically transmit what your seeing through me?” Casta wondered. “It would save time if we were getting- what does the Horde call it?- a… live feed?”

“I think so; my powers aren’t as strong as usual, but I should be able to manage that.” Dree-Elle said.

“We could move up close behind you, just out of earshot of the Horde. That way it would be a short distance to send the …”feed”…and we’d be ready if anything went wrong,” Glimmer suggested, looking to She-Ra. Though technically in charge when Adora was absent, Glimmer still tended to defer to She-Ra when she was around. The princess of Brightmoon wasn’t quite sure why she did so, but it seemed almost instinctive at times, so she rarely questioned it anymore.

“Sounds like a good idea, Glimmer,” She-Ra agreed. “Chances are, with this breakdown, as Fisto calls it, Weaver won’t pick up on Dree-Elle’s magical transmission. Flutterina, you, Swift Wind and I will try to keep airborne just out of sight of the Horde camp. If something happens, those on the ground can signal us, and we can create a diversion from above.”

Flutterina frowned. “That’s not going to be easy in this storm.”

“Tell me about it!” Swift Wind said, snorting loudly.

Ror shifted uncomfortably in the passenger’s seat of the van; it was obviously not built for a large Eternian warrior. He preferred to be up front, though, as the storm had worsened, and the roads were barely passable; his keen sight and hearing had already prevented two near accidents as Andrea drove them to the lab outside town.

“It’s not much farther,” she said to the group. “If things were clearer, we’d already be able to see the building.”

“The storm may have worked in our favor. The authorities are so busy with other things, I doubt they had much time to look for us or the van,” Duncan observed. “Still, the little alterations you made on the…license plate?.. probably wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Saw it in a movie once; a little colored electrical tape in the right places, and you have a new plate. Figured the police wouldn’t be able to see the plate well enough to notice the little fix-up.” Andrea glanced in her rear view mirror, looking at the side of the van. “Changing the color was a good idea, too, I guess.”

All eyes in the rear of the van fell on Orko. “It was,” Duncan sighed. “At least the way it was supposed to turn out.”

“You asked me to change the color of the thing, and I did!” Orko said indignantly.

“To neon green?” Man-E-Faces pointed out with a slight grin.

“I was trying for dark blue,” Orko muttered, folding his arms in front of him and turning away.

“The idea was to make the van less conspicuous, Orko. Bright green is not inconspicuous,” Duncan continued.

“Boy, you make one little mistake in your life, and nobody lets you forget it,” Orko complained.

He-Man smiled, and arched an eyebrow. “’One little mistake in your life’?” he said in an exaggerated tone.

“It’s okay, Orko; I was going to get the van repainted soon anyway,” Andrea assured the Trollan.

“I think we have more important things to worry about than color schemes right now, anyway,” Teela broke in. “Andrea, you were telling us about this project you’re working on, but I’m still not quite clear on all of it.”

Andrea peered down the dark roadway, and explained. “The warp that took Marlena Glenn and our ship to Eternia is evidently a stable rift in the fabric of space; it’s still in about the same place it was over 20 years ago. The man who started this project heard about my story a little over a year ago, and started doing some investigating. He had some of his top people look into the possibility of a space anomaly where we passed through the warp, and evidently they found enough oddities in the area to warrant further study. He’s a big supporter of space travel, and thought that the discovery of one space warp could mean others exist, maybe even enough to create some kind of network around the galaxy. He wanted to prove the warp was there, and maybe even find a way to tap into it to travel to another world. Once he was convinced there was something there, he contacted me, and asked if I was interested in joining the project he was planning.”

“Smart move on his part,” He-Man said. “You know more about the warp than anyone else on Earth.”

“Yes, a little more even than Mark. I was the navigator, and I plotted the course on the way back.” She paused for a moment. “They contacted him, too, but he… didn’t want to dredge all that up again. Can’t blame him, really.”

“But you signed on,” Duncan pressed her gently to continue.

“It was a chance to prove I wasn’t crazy; I jumped at it. And we’ve made a lot of progress in the past months. Last week, our researchers believe they actually tapped the warp for a split second, with the “Warp Gate” they constructed. It’s a huge apparatus the engineers put together to do precisely that. Cost a fortune, and it’s way beyond anything I understand, but if we can open a stable pathway, it would be like a technological version of the dimensional portals you mentioned. It’s amazing stuff.”

“You said ‘they.’ You haven’t taken part in the construction?” Duncan asked.

“No, like I said, the level of technology is way beyond me. I’ve been working more on the theoretical end.”

“And the stone?” Teela interrupted.

“A few really hush-hush projects have been going on there, government stuff, supposedly. I remember hearing some scuttlebutt about some sort of artifact being discovered, something the big boss had had teams searching for that was connected to the project somehow, but everyone was sworn to secrecy about it. I think that’s why so many people concluded it was some kind of military related thing. A few claimed it was just some kind of rock, but the boss was particularly happy about it, whatever it was. The comment I heard about the “stone is back” last night kind of clinches it, I guess. I hope it’s the stone your looking for.”

“I’m convinced it is,” Duncan assured her. “If what you say about opening a gate through the warp is true, it would explain why the stone came back here. A pathway had recently been established, and the dimensional barriers were probably still weakest along that path, especially with the reality breakdown. When the stone returned to Earth, it simply followed the path of least resistance, back to your lab. Might also explain why Skeletor’s goons wound up appearing in the same area. Probably helped us to land close by, as well.”

“Makes sense,” Teela agreed. “To bad it didn’t take us right to the stone, though. From what Andrea said when we left, we’ll have to basically break into the place, and then hope we can find the stone before we’re stopped.”

“We’ve been winging it so far, but I think we could use a good plan here,” Ror said. “And pretty soon; I think that’s the building up ahead.” He pointed slightly to the left; no one else saw a thing.

“Are you sure?” Gwildor asked. “Perhaps I should take a quick reading with my mini-key.” He extracted a small device from his robe; it looked like a pared down version of his Cosmic Key.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Duncan noted, fascinated by the device.

“It won’t open a dimensional gate, but it does perform several of the Key’s other functions. It may not be working at top efficiency right now, though, breakdown and all.” Gwildor flipped open a small panel on the bottom of the mechanism, pressed a button, and it began to hum.

Ror turned around as much as he could. “Short stuff, I hear one tone on that thing, and you’re walking back to Eternia when this is over.”

Gwildor glared at Ror for a long moment, then set the mini-key down beside him. “I was only going to take some readings!” Ror twisted around further, and set a pair of hardened eyes on the Thenurian. “Alright, alright! No readings.” He shrugged, and looked around the van at his compatriots. “ You do have a point about a plan, though. Anyone have one handy?”

“I think I may just have one of those,” Man-E offered. “Andrea, about this ‘big boss’ of yours…”