However, one day, Thorpe returns from his morning routine and discovers that Nova has disappeared. Knowing his sister would never run away from home, Thorpe comes to the conclusion that she had been kidnapped, but does not know who the kidnapper is and why she was taken. Frantic and desperate, Thorpe turns to Warlord Xian for help. Despite his ominous title, Xian is not entirely a warmonger, considering his heroic past; he listens to his people and is sympathetic towards them, and has provided a reasonable amount of order and security in a chaotic world, despite the fact that some of the people under his rule have expressed a degree of ungratefulness and resentment towards him. He listens to Thorpe's grievance, and while he feels for him, he cannot help him because he does not have enough possessions to trade for Xian's services. With that, Thorpe leaves in anger but is suddenly met by Nova's best friend Maggi Sorenson (Elisabeth Harnois), a cute and cynical teenager who happens to be the granddaughter of General Lars Sorenson (played by veteran Australian actor Rod Taylor), a man who was a former soldier of the now extinct Galactic Republic. Maggi introduces her grandfather to Thorpe. Sorenson knows what Thorpe wants and offers to help him by searching for Nova using his starship, the Osiris. However, he informs Thorpe that he must help him first by applying his thieving skills to steal precious jewels from the Warlord Xian's treasure chest, so that he can pay someone to fix his ship. Thorpe and Maggi are nearly caught by the Warlord's henchmen, but they subdue them and eventually succeed in obtaining the goods from the treasure chest. Before long, Thorpe, Sorenson, and Maggi arrive on a shuttlecraft to the Osiris, a sleek ship that resembles a shark, parked out in deep space. Once inside the ship, they bump into Thorpe's long-time friend, Wally Price (Darryl Theirse), a man who has "really strong feelings" but is not actually a telepath or a psychic. Sorenson is greatly puzzled about how he managed to get inside the Osiris, since the ship is genetically keyed. Wally convinces the gang that his extraordinary intuition will aid in Thorpe's search for Nova. All that remains now is for the ship to be repaired. Sorenson hires cloaked humanoid aliens, a race known only as "The Engineers" to repair the ship's engine. These beings