Avean Captain
Listen up, soldiers!

An Avean Captain speaks to two grunts inside the tower.

  Avean Captain
Interstellar Communications Towers -- including the one we're standing inside right now -- are a critical piece of infrastructure of our glorious empire. They create signals that carry over to distant star systems at superluminal speeds.

  Avean Grunt
i already knew that

  Avean Grunt
Yeah, me too

  Avean Captain
Quiet!! I am telling you this to impress upon you the importance of keeping this from falling into the hands of Cliff Mason. We, the pride of the Avean empire, will do everything in our power to prevent him from--

The Aveans in the console room are blasted down in a hail of gunfire.



Cliff hurries into the room, approaching the Avean console with intent. He is placing Allen on the table next to him.

  Cliff Mason
Alright, Allen. How about we just... say hello to my family real fast?

Hh hh

  Cliff Mason
Glad to hear it. Okay, okay, gotta be quick here...

Cliff cracks open the console and starts rewiring the innards.

  Cliff Mason
The Earth relays are reverse engineered from the Avean ones, so they should be compatible. Just need to do a bit of recalibration.
Once I get onto the planetary relay, then I can link up with Mesa's network, and we can...

Hhhhhhhh

  Cliff Mason
You're right. I'm getting ahead of myself. Find Earth first, focus on what comes next then..

  Cliff Mason
Earth... Earth... Okay, this looks right...!

The console shows an error message.

  Cliff Mason
Damn it! No signal.
Mesa would know how to troubleshoot this... C'mon, think. Maybe I need to--

An Avean Heavy appears behind Cliff, startling him. They fire off a rocket straight at him!

  Avean Heavy
General Ribrax sends her regards!

  Cliff Mason
Wait, no--!

Cliff scoops Allen up and dodges out of the way. An explosion goes off-- Cliff protects Allen from the blast with his body.



HhhHHH HHHH!!











  Major Mercy
Excellent work, Mason.

Cliff looks up behind him. The console has been destroyed.

  Major Mercy
Five out of five comms towers deactivated. Mission complete.