Several of the algren ships landed, and from them algren soldiers emerged. 

     They went to create a perimeter around the portal so that, when Adam and Galatea arrived, the algren would be the first to grab them. 

     Gramps fired his rocket launcher into a pack of them. 

     It blew them to pieces.

     Gramps felt not a whit of remorse. It was agreed by just about everyone that the algren were the scum of the multiverse, and they, themselves, never showed mercy, so...

     It made him a target, though, even though he was invisible, blasting away like that. 

     Gramps dropped even as the air above him filled with weapon's fire. 

     The rocket launcher presented a problem because Gramps couldn't roll properly with it strapped to his shoulder. He had to crawl like a crab to avoid getting hit by any fire aimed at where he'd just been. He moved much faster than any normal human, but still...all that muck...Ugh!

     The algren had their own anti-gravs. A dozen rose to float towards the portal entrance. Niki took two of them out before they realized she was there. The others went into an aerial defensive formation. It'd be harder now for Niki to take any of them out without giving away her position.

     But then,

     ZZZZZZZZZ!

     Kevin Klawmaker's Maserati blanketed the area around the portal with some sort of sonic vibration. Not only was it shrill to the point where it hurt Niki's ears, it was also so strong as to be phyisically destabalizing. 

     It knocked everyone standing off their feet. 

     To Niki, it seemed like, one second, she zipped around firing off her pistol, the next second she hurtled for Earth. 

     She twisted so that, when she landed, it was flat on her back into Mother Naturia gunk. 

     SPLASH! 

     The muck was so thick, Niki completely submerged when she hit it. She sat up and wiped the oily gook out of her eyes and away from her mouth. 

     The shrill shriek from the Maserati scattered her thoughts, made it hard to concentrate on what her next move should be. 

     The Maserati hovered over the portal, ready for battle.

     Even Gramps found it hard to keep his head out of the gunk as scrabbled along, fighting the sonic vibrations that pulled on him like gravity gone mad.

     Come home please, Adam, Gramps thought.

     And hurry, please.  

                                                      CONTINUE