A Re-write by:

Anthony E. Rotramel

Pages:130 Words:19,735

Started: 03/10/05

Finished: 04/14/05

This FanFic was written to fix some of the things that I thought were wrong with the third installment in the Balto Story You will notice that the basic story remains the same, but that there are some major differences, like the absence of Stella for example. I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I did creating it.

Balto (1995), Balto II: Wolf Quest (2000) and Balto III: Wings of Change (2005) are the copyrighted property of MCA Universal and Amblimation enternainment, the story and all of the characters except: Mr. Harrme, Mr. Jacobs, Luke, Herash, Light and Duke (the dog) are copyright to them, the others are Copyright 2005 by Anthony E, Rotramel..

Prologue

Balto was sitting on top of a mountain outside Nome.

He and Jenna had hiked up here last night to spend some time together.

The pups were all gone by this time, and Balto and Jenna were catching up on some alone time that they’d been missing since the pups were born.

They’d stayed up talking and laughing for the better part of the night, and then decided that, since it was very late, they’d just stay up there for the night, and together they’d watch the sun come up in the morning.

Balto was awake and ready to go, but Jenna was a little droopy. She was lying on the ground with her paws over her face.

“Jen, come on, you’re going to miss it!” Balto said.

He turned around and ran back to her, hitting her playfully, and rolling her over.

“Balto,” Jenna said groggily, “I’m tired, come on, let me sleep.”

“Jen, get up!”

Jenna opened her eyes and saw Balto standing over her, tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth, as full of energy as ever.

“How does he do it?” She thought.

“I guess you’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”

“Of course not,” Balto said.

He began running around her like a little pup.

“Then you’d miss out on the view.”

Jenna sat up and yawned.

“What view?”

Just then the sun peaked it’s head over the horizon, spreading orange light across the frozen mountain side.

“Wow,” Jenna said, “it is pretty.”

Balto smiled.

“See.”

Jenna yawned again.

“Now can I go to sleep?”

Balto began to nod, but he froze, he just stood there.

“Balto?” Jenna said, “what is it?”

“Can’t you hear it?” Balto asked.

“Hear….” A faint rumbling sound reached Jenna’s ears then.

“…what is that?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” Balto said, “I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

“It’s getting louder,” said Jenna.

Balto walked over to the edge of the cliff.

Suddenly a chrome blur shot upward, right in front of his nose.

Balto was afraid he’d be hit by the speeding whatever it was, and he jumped back.

The airplane shot over the mountain, and did a corkscrew turn.

Balto watched as it vanished beyond the horizon.

“What was that!?” Jenna asked.

“I have no idea, a flying machine of some sort.”

Jenna looked at him a little disbelievingly.

“Machine?”

Balto nodded.

“There was a human at the controls, and I smelled something… different coming from it.”

“Well I don’t like it,” Jenna said. “It almost ran over you.”

“Jen, think about it.”

Balto closed his eyes and looked up at the sky.

“Soaring above the clouds.”

Balto looked back down at her and smiled.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what it’d be like?”

Jenna laughed.

“Me, no. No, no, no. I’m just happy where I am, I don’t need to “soar above the clouds.”

Balto smiled at her again.

“Well I think it would be awesome.”

“You would,” Jenna responded. “Why is it that everything you like to do involves considerable bodily risk? Can’t you take up something like sitting by the fire or something else that’s not dangerous?”

Balto smiled at her.

“You’re not dangerous, and spending time with you is my favorite thing to do in the world.”

Jenna smiled back and winked at him.

“You’ve just never seen the dangerous side of me.”

She bared her teeth and slashed at the air.

“Yes I have,” Balto said, “but you aren’t that way with me.”

“Never,” Jenna said, “I don’t like having to be that way at all.”

“Come on Jen,” Balto said, “let’s go back to town. I want to tell Kodi about the… whatever that thing was.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, “Kodi is probably rolling into Nome right about now. You know that mail team job really does mean a lot to him, he’s hoping to be lead dog.”

“I know,” Balto said, beginning to walk down the hill.

Jenna followed.

“He looks up to you an awful lot.”

Chapter 1

“We’re going to be late!” Kodi thought.

He was running as fast as he could, but the leader just didn’t want to run hard enough.

“The mail’s never been late, how could this happen to me!”

Kodi could see Nome growing on the horizon.

“We might make it,” he thought.

“Relax Kodi,. I know what you’re thinking.”

Kodi looked to his right, and saw the gray husky, Dusty running beside him.

“I was just thinking that we we’re going to be late Dusty,” he said, besides, Duke isn’t running fast enough.”

“Yeah,” said Dusty, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

The team was pulling into Nome

. and the musher, Mr. Harrme called out the command to take the turn left that would take them onto Main Street, and the Post Office

“Hee!”

The team took the turn easily, and ran down Main Street until they came to the post office.

The postman, Mr. Jacobs, was standing on the porch, his pocket watch in his hand.

Mr. Harrme, threw the ice hook out, and called out the command to stop.

“Woah!”

The team slid to a stop.

“Awful close Mr. Harrme.”

The musher got off of his sled and started tossing the bags of mail to Mr. Jacobs.

“Yeah I know, there was deep snow on the pass today.”

The postman set the last bag of mail on the porch.

“Do you want to come in for some coffee?”

Mr. Harrme smiled.

“Sure, just let me unhook the dogs.”

The musher unhooked all of the dogs, then followed the postman into the post office.

Duke began to walk away; Kodi started after him.

“Kodi,” Dusty said, “Go easy on him.”

Kodi turned.

“What? I’m not going to hurt him, I just want to talk.”

He turned back around, and began making his way toward Duke.

“Hey Duke,” he said, as he closed with the huge dog.

Duke stopped and turned around.

“What is it Kodi?”

“I was just wondering why it was that we were almost late, I know that you weren’t running as hard as you could have, why?”

Duke smiled.

“I had a thorn in my paw, and it was sore. I’ll get it taken care of tonight.”

He began walking away again.

Kodi watched him go.

“Your paw hurts?” He thought.

Dusty ran up to him.

“Well, what did he say?”

“His paw hurt.”

“Well,” Dusty said, “I suppose that might be alright.”

“No,” Kodi said, “people are depending on us, neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail will stop the U.S. Mail, that includes hurting paws.”

Dusty was about to say something else, but at that moment, from across the street, Balto called to his son.

“Hey Kodi, come here!”

Dusty smiled at Kodi.

“Well, I better go, see ya tomorrow.

“No, don’t…” Kodi started, but Dusty had already run off.

“...go” he thought to himself, as he watched Dusty run away.

Balto ran up to him then.

“How are you doing Kodi?”

“Pretty good Dad,” Kodi said, turning to face his father.

“How was the run?” Balto asked.

“It was alright,” Kodi said, “but our leader… I don’t know, today he was slow because he said his paw hurt, I mean, Neither rain nor snow…”

Balto finished the slogan.

“Nor sleet, nor hail, will stop the U.S. mail. I know, but just remember that they’re just dogs, they aren’t going to be perfect, in fact, far from it.”

“Yeah,” Kodi said, “but all the same, I should be lead,