It must have been on the final reserves of its power,for suddenly
the supposed wormhole portal struck out into empty deep space with a beam of light that shot out one thousand miles.
Though Max and Ted hadn't seen it,the deep space radar aboard Pluto X
detected a object being hurled out along that beam of light
like a pebble being shot out of a sling shot.
The deep space radar tracked it as it accelerated towards the speed of light,at which point
the alien object was lost to the radar beam.
It wasn't a wormhole they'd discovered,but some kind of
slingshot/catapult they'd found.
As soon as the device on Pluto hurled its payload towards some unknown distant location,to another star system?
the device shut down,its power drained.
Pluto IX, stationed a months travel behind the Pluto ship,relayed the message back to Mission Control.
The dolphin running things at Mission Control knew that the newer spaceship was capable of faster than light compressed space speeds.
If they were going to make contact with the civilization that seemed to have caused
all these changes to the Earthjlings,the Pluto X was going to have to get a move on.
She clicked/chittered her orders.
The Pluto X would go chasing after the alien artifact,whilst
the Pluto IX would move forward and examine the inert slingshot more fully.
And so Max and Ted hastily headed back to their ship and after
a final check,the crew of 5 were-dragons,33 dolphins and 9 were-humans fired up the orbital compression engines and headed into deep
space,chasing after the aliens.