Chapter 7: Return to the Station

"What the hell was that?" Chameleon yelled.

"No form of teleportation I've ever seen" Cirrus replied.

"He just melted away into nothing!" Ruse said astonished.

"Hmm, much like the interest generated by our neutral group of LONAC" Scamp said critically.

Admiral looked to Scamp sternly. "Will you get serious for just a minute?"

"You know what this reminds me of? The little run in we had with that Cult a long while back." Ruse was rather enthusiastic. Despite how others felt Ruse actually enjoyed the battle with the Cult of Mordalis.

Waitstate joined up with the others. They were standing around looking rather confused. "What happened here?"

"He just disappeared" told Waitstate. There didn't seem to be much else anyone could say.

Waitstate paused for a moment. "You can explain this to me later, right now Stardrive is coming to in the medbay."

------------

"I'm sorry master, they just didn't buy it" the Mirror Stardrive pleaded.

A figure in the shadows looked back at Mirror Stardrive. "You did well enough Stardrive. We've completed all the preparation we needed while you kept LONAC busy. However, I'm not going to save you next time."

Mirror Stardrive became more relaxed. "Next time I won't make the same mistakes. If only you had let me finish my double-"

The figure in the shadows cut him off. "There will be plenty of time for that. Soon, the LSS Freedom will be making a full course reversal and return back to the station."

"How can you be sure of that?" Mirror Stardrive asked him.

The figure in the shadows laughed. "Let's just say the maintenance bots were 'more than meets the eye.'"

------------

In the med bay, Stardrive slowly starts to move again.

"Are you okay Stardrive?" Waitstate asked.

"Yea, yeah, I think I'm alright now," Stardrive said looking from side to side. "How did I get here?"

"We saw you drifting in space deactivated and pulled you in" Waitstate told him.

"Deactivated floating in space huh? Talk about déjà vu." Stardrive was reminded of the time that he spent drifting in space for tens of thousand of years. It was not amongst his favorable memories.

Suddenly, Junky Laford interrupted the group.

" Engines' warranty expired, no money back. I suspect we may have foul play, Watson" Junky reported.

"He said something is wrong with the main engines" Stardrive replied.

"Can't you fix it using the stuff we picked up at the station?" Waitstate asked.

"Please return for a full refund" Junky told Waitstate.

Stardrive shook his head and looked to Waitstate. "Seems someone ripped us off Waitstate."

For a moment Waitstate was speechless. "That's impossible, I saw them load the stuff on the ship."

"Looks like we've been had" Admiral commented.

"Whatcha want me to do boss?" Cirrus asked Waitstate

"There's only one thing we can do now, and that's turn this ship around. We can't get anywhere in this condition" Waitstate told Cirrus.

Ruse turned to Waitstate. "We're most likely walking right into a trap."

"There's no most likely about it, we're definitely walking into a trap" Scamp replied.

"There's nothing else we can do." Waitstate was very somber. "We're practically in the middle of no where, and at any given moment our ship may leave us stranded. Cirrus, hold our position. The rest of you, follow me."