(If you've seen the cartoon "Starcraft Cheaters" in br.com you will recognize my name as a lame Korean who made that large-and-lame bitmap cartoon. Well, thanks anyway... :P) _____________________________________________________________________ Prologue

-Dave turned back and ran. His eyes were filled with terror. He couldn't stop now. He just had to run.

But for what?

He turned again, and his eyes helplessly made eye contact with 9-foot tall alien. Its own devil-like eyes blazing. He saw a light, but fast movement in that alien's plated arm. And then he felt an intense pain... 'Hell, it would've been better if I killed myself,' But why? Why was he running away from that monster? Is this a nightmare? Is this some kind of illusion? Or is it real...?

Another intense pain waved through Dave's body as he dropped to his knees and splashed down to the pool of his own blood. His vision blurred. He just couldn't die here. He had so many things to do. He knew people who would greet him when he return to home. He missed his family. Mom, dad, Jack, little Molly...

He smiled. He had no idea why. But he just did... He could feel something escaping through his body. He saw the tall-alien figure walking away... He just looked at it helplessly. He was sure that he is going to die here. He smiled again as tears dropped down from his chin...

The Planet Tarsonis. So many people to meet, so many things to do, so many things to see. It was a big-happy town as long as you were not one of those victims of war or crime. People greeted each other on the streets. The lawyers and governors walked through the forest of tall buildings that made the sky jealous. The news-broadcasting towers fed informations to people every second.

The Planet Tarsonis was much like Old Earth. Although no one in Tarsonis remembered anything about Old Earth. The name of Old Earth only appeared in dictionary or history books in school libraries. No one tried to know anything about the Old Earth, although that's where all the humankind came from.

Desert-yellow sand dunes caught Dave's eyes. He turned off his radio and took off the headphones. He struggled few seconds with wires as he cursed under his breath. Then he fixed his eyes towards the horizon. The blood-red sun was hiding slowly behind the bright-sand colored horizon. It was such a beautiful sight. The sunset in Tarsonis matched its planet's name. Somehow Tarsonis sounded yellow to Dave. He sighed, and the shrugged.

'Maybe that's why girls like blond-hairs,' Dave thought, as he scratched his inky-black hair. 'Too bad... I don't have any.'

He shrugged again as the transmission device made ripping noise few time before he could recognize the voice. He shook his head and punched in some commands.

"Mr. Hens."

"Dr. Logan." Dave replied, as he saw Dr. Logan's pale face on the blurred screen.

"Sumthin' wrong, doc?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm just tired, that's all." He replied in his usual gray-tone. Raising his tone at end of the sentence as usual.

"Did ya hack-in again, doc? I told ya not to..."

"But I just have to do this, Dave! How many times have I told you that this damned government has the answer?"

"But doc, didn't you hear the news? You'll pay your life for it if you get caught like those gangs!"

It was sure that government of Tarsonis kept many secrets, but no one ever dared to hack in and find out what it is. It was not because of the tight online security, but because of the harsh pay-back. They have brain-panned many hackers into Marines or pilots when they caught them. Or in the other way, they became living-targets for the special forces called "Ghosts".

"But Dave, if I don't pay my life for our freedom of speech, then who is going to do it?"

It was quite true. The Planet Tarsonis had many rights. They even once had "freedom of firearms". But they never had freedom of speech. All the net service servers were owned by government. Poor doc, although it costed him a fortune, he illegally bought his own server. He was the kind of guy who had a lot of money but have no idea about how to spend it before losing it by heavy-tax system of Tarsonis. Even Dave once tried to win some big bucks by doing the same thing as doc did, the lottery.

"Hell, doc. If I were you, I would spend all that money for cars and buy houses and stuff..."