Now Damon the Alien Frog wasn't buying the notion of a
object hidden in the moat that could destroy everything.
Damon was after all,still set in his ways and Francis
Bacon wouldn't be inventing gunpowder for another 3 centuries.
So the Captain figured that "seeing is believing"
and escorted Damon to the Florian VIIII.
The Captain was a bit shocked,and somewhat annoyed,
to discover that whilst he'd been traipsing about
to the East,the Witch in the West had turned all of the Royal Family,including Princess
Elizabeth,into the good old
terrestrial frogs.
Some of the crew had headed out to the West and brought the froggy Royals back to the Florian VIIII.
The Royals weren't too bright as croaking frogs,and when Damon
the Alien Frog asked if his relatives could be 'upgraded'
the Captain flatly refused.
They still had a ticking self-destruct mechanism
to deal with.
Now on Frog Planet the alien frogs had discovered vast
quantities of red gems I'll call
Ruby 235,which besides
making a fantastic hyperdrive fuel,was also heavily used
in the alien civilization's highly advancedtechnologies.
The Ruby 235 gems in the Florians self destruct had melted down
and thus there was no way for the frong Engineer to shut the thing down.
The aliens had noticed that the castle treasury had once contained small
quantities of red gems,which they'd hoped to steal from the Royals and rebuild the Control Circuits
with.
Alas when the crew of the Florian had gone to the Castle,the Royals were hopping about and
croaking,and the Witch had run off with the vitally needed red gems the Witch had scooped up
before fleeing back into the forest.
There was nothing for it
but to fire up the Florians orbital engines
,leave the moat and go after the Witch and those red gems.
And so Damon the Alien Frog found himself at one of the
Sensor Stations as the starship slowly rose out of the moat...