Drake carefully looked around at his crewmates waiting for his head to start hurting again. When no pain came he looked at Ice speaking gravely. "That hurt rather a lot." He slowly stood up. "No Alice I don't mind if Ducky lets you use the nano field to make a body. Why would I?"

A large muscular woman slowly formed in front of them. She was wearing a leather apron and a pair of Jeans with a long sleeved shirt. "Hello everyone." Her voice was deep and sounded like the roar of the ocean. "Hello Ducky." She patted the much smaller nano mallard as it rushed to hug her. "Shall we continue the meeting or are we done? It was quite difficult to follow everything in that low power state."

After Ice had indicated that they were indeed done everyone slowly left the room leaving Ice, Raven, Alice, and Drake alone. "I'll need to do a memory scan on you still Drake but I believe that you'll do nicely." Alice practically purred as she turned to Drake.

Drake looked helplessly from Ice to Raven, his eyes pleading for salvation. "Ah of course whatever you need. I'm not sure if I'll be the best Frontline fighter what with…" He gestured towards his missing arm.

Alice and Raven both burst out laughing at the same time. "Oh don't worry we have the best printers in the universe on the Nano Forge we will have that taken care of within the hour." Alice answered him, still chuckling to herself. "The real question is what will the store decide you should do."

_______________________________________

Some hours later…

Ice and Drake were on the bridge Drake playing with his black nano prosthetic. "So Ducky tells me it's at least a month to travel back to the planet we were on. How did we get here so fast?"

"Oh …." Drake looked uncomfortable with the question. "We used the Dimensional travel gates to shunt us. It's very fast but has been illegal for as long as I can remember. Longer even than the existence of the empire."

"And we can't use them because?" Ice asked the man again.

"It's illegal." Drake stated simply.

"And we care because?"

"We're not the bad guys." Drake was starting to break down.

"Who made it illegal?"

"Emperor declared it……Oh."

Ice nodded. "Oh."

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"I suppose my command code might still worm if we hurry the gates only receive messages once a month."

"Let's hurry then Ducky lay in a course…"

_______________________________________

Francis worried about his new friends. Ice and Raven had disappeared after going to a small Theriope nest in the southern mountain range. It was further than he could send his automatons. So he couldn't even check on them.

It had been almost a week since he had spoken with them and it should have only taken about a day to clear out the nest. Sighing, he sent another automaton to cut a piece of the small Corvette Ice had brought back. The metal was helping to shore up his defenses.

_______________________________________

Some three days later, Ice and Crew looked at the planet where just over a week ago Ice had crash landed. He could barely believe it when he asked Raven but she had been adamant that her sense of time was accurate. It was almost unbelievable that he was looking forward to going back to the planet to hide.

"No Brigham I can't make you a nano prosthetic without an AI that's not how it works." Ducky argued with the former Sergeant for what must be the tenth time since Drake had shown off his new arm.

"Will you both be quiet, I'm trying to think." Ice grouched at them.

"What's to think about? You're going back to the planet we found you on and this time you have help. I bet we can clear the planet in less than a month." Drake's voice drifted down the corridor from the mess hall. The former officer put away an awful lot of food. For how skinny he was.

"Drake, did Alice explain how you get points yet?: Ice called back down the corridor.

"Yea, yea kill Theriope get points buy stuff. Seems simple enough." The man called back.

"Well at least he seems to have finally relaxed a bit." Ice muttered to himself.

"That would be part of the emotional suppression. It lessens the sense of … duty? Formality? Something he is feeling." Raven answered from her seat in the dayroom where she was watching a movie that looked suspiciously like Demolition Man.

"Raven, what are you watching?"

"Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallon."

Well that answered that question. Ice shook his head as he walked back to his quarters and relaxed into his bunk. Everything would be relatively back to … well not normal but close enough soon.

_______________________________________

Emperor slammed his metal clad fist into the class surface of the Celestial Map. They had escaped him. He didn't know where they would go but he would find them and bring them back so Ice could be tested. "Francis, prepare the fleet we are going hunting. I want the Tinker's Rage fueled and ready by the end of the day." He hadn't used the massive warship in many years but he had carefully manipulated the technology of the empire so they never even came close to its power. After all the cattle exist to be culled not to do the culling.

Proceeding down to his armory he caressed the skull of Maria the so-called First among System Users. She had taken him years to track down. And when he did she had refused to join him saying he was insane. He knew she just didn't understand the revelation he had gone through since Francis went silent. Since he was alone.

So alone…