Chapter 2: The party and the return.

At 9 o'clock Rose knocked on the door to ask if Hawke was ready. Hawke shouted from under the shower to Dako that he had to let her in. Dako opened the door and told Rose that Hawke was still in the shower. He said she could wait just a couple of miutes in the 'livingroom' part of their room. She asked Dako why he didn't want to come. "Well, I just don't feel like partying, because we had a large party yesterday, and i still feel a little bit drunk." He replied. "Oh that's ok, I don't mind, I just think it's a bit lonesome for you all alone the whole evening." "Oh don't worry, I am a Voran, and we Vorans don't feel lonely so soon. Maybe I'll go view the ship..." "Oh that's a good idea, there's lots to see onboard, maybe you can even go to the bridge and take a look there!" Dako glowed after she had said that. The bridge of such a beautiful ship! That really had to be something. He was so excited about it that he didn't even notice Hawke coming out of the shower. "Hey Hawke," Rose happily said to Hawke when he got out. "You're a bit slow don't you think?" "Yeah, sorry 'bout that, I had to find some decent clothes, didn't expect to go to a party. Anyway, welcome to our simple room!" "That's ok, my room isn't much bigger, because I don't want something that i don't actually deserve." Hawke let this remark go through his head, and not seeing much in it, he said that he was going to get dressed, and left the room. Dako and Rose began to talk again, this time over Hawke. Dako started talking. "You're not thinking that we're staying here long are you?" "Well, no, not really, although I am not preparing myself to wave you two goodbye yet, I'm just thinking about tonight, nothing more." "Good, because Hawke wants to stay I think, but we must report back at the Delta-2 again, and if I'm not mistaking pretty soon." "Oh don't worry, he won't stay because of me, when we say goodbye tonight we'll probably never see eachother again..." "Well, I am going to scout the ship a little bit ok? Maybe I'll see you two later. Bye" "Bye, and have fun." As Dako left the room, Hawke got back in, dressed completely in black. "Ready?" He asked. "Yes," answered Rose.

At the amusement floor the party already was quite busy, and Rose and Hawke had difficulty moving through the crowds. They managed to find two seats at the bar, and ordered some drinks. They started talking about eachothers past, and after an hour they were done talking and both wanted to dance. On the dancefloor, they had great fun, and after more then an hour of dancing, they went back to the bar, exhausted, but content. "So Rose, there's something I wanna ask you..." Hawke started. "It's about tomorrow, and..." "..Wait," interrupted Rose him, "I wanna sk you something too. I know you are leaving tomorrow, but..." "But...?" "...Can I come with you two? I mean, it's getting pretty boring here on the Alpha, I've been working here for 3 years!" "Hey, that's the same I wanted to ask you. So you're coming with us! God, I feel so happy now..." They stared at eachother for a while, when suddenly Dako joined them at the bar. "Hey, what's up? Still hanging around here I see? It is past 2 AM you know!" "Dako, Rose is coming with us back to the Delta-2. Cool huh?" Hearing this, Dako was quiet for a couple of seconds, then he said that he was happy to hear that, but truly he was mad. Mad at Hawke for asking her to join them, even after he said that he didn't wanted her to come along. Or maybe SHE asked to come! Whatever happened, she was coming with them, and he was not happy about it. But being a Voran, he decided to make the best of it, and forget about his silly mad thoughts. He couldn't understand why he didn't want her to join them in the first place, but after thinking about it for the rest of the evening, it didn't even bother him anymore.

After the three of them left the party around 2:30 AM, they split up and agreed to meet at Hawke and Dako's room the next morning at around 11 AM. Rose went to her room, as did Hawke and Dako. When the two guys entered their room, they walked towards their beds, fell on them and instantly fell asleep.

The next morning, at 10 AM, Hawke woke up, and took a shower. While Hawke was in the shower, Dako also woke up. Dako noticed Hawke was in the shower, so he prepared some breakfast. When Hawke was out of the shower, Dako went in. Hawke thanked Dako for preparing breakfast, and started eating. While he was eating, he got dressed so he would be ready to pack his bags before Rose came. Dako was soon finished showering and started his breakfast too. When they both finished, it was about 10:50 AM and the two boys hurried up in packing their stuff. When the doorbel rang, they were finished with packing, and Hawke opened the door. Rose was standing in front of him, with three large bags on the floor next to her. Hawke asked her if that was all, and Rose laughed. "Do you want even more???" "No, ofcourse not, I'm just afraid that I'm the one who is going to carry all that." Dako said hi to Rose as she entered the room, and after cleaning the room up, they all left to their ship in Bay 41.

Arriving at Docking Bay 41, Hawke asked Rose how she had managed to be allowed to leave at such short notice. After all, she was doing some pretty important stuff on the ship, not that it couldn't be taken over by anyone, but still. She told him that she had been talking about leaving the ship for a long time already, and therefore it wasn't very hard. They walked to their ship, the HOLS, and Hawke opened the doors. "Welcome to our humble ship," he said, "please don't touch anything, it may blow up!" As he said that last remark, they all laughed and entered the craft. Hawke took his place and so did Dako. Both Hawke and Dako were pretty suprised when Rose took her seat in the Navigator's seat, as she hadn't told them she was a navigator. "You're a navigator??" Asked Dako. "Yes, and I can also use system computers on small starships such as this, but I'm not very good at that." She answered "Cool, we make a good team!" Hawke noted. After this, Dako contacted Flight Control to ask permission to take off. "HOLS-Traveller 176-RLM, you are cleared for take off at noon exactly. Await further instructions." "Thank you Flight Control, awaiting further instructions." After a minute Flight Control cleared them, told them the newest location of the Delta-2 and wished them a happy journey. Hawke opened up a SubSpace entrance, and slowly moved the ship in it. They felt a short trembling go through the ship, and entered the SubSpace. During their visit, the Alpha Cruiser and the Delta-2 had moved pretty far away from eachother, so the journey was going to take more time than on the first trip. The three friends (as they have become during the visit) decided to play a game, a game of Channa, which resembles the Terran 'chess' a bit. The purpose is to conquer the enemy's 'castle,' and also take over their flag. The method used to reach this is plain fighting with small cyber-bots, and you use a sort joystick to control the bots. It is playable with up to 10 people, and is one of the most played games in the Sectors.

"Take this, you big bot!" Hawke shouted as he gave a hard kick with his bot into Dako's large defender. Dako, seeing that he was almost going to lose, quickly used his virtual credits to buy an agile warrior-bot to attack Hawke back. Hawke was prepared for this, and summoned his own warriors to attack Dako's. Rose was busy destroying the castles of the two men; they were so used of playing with just the two of them that she didn't have much resistance, all was computer controlled, but the computers only put bots in the way, which only hold enemies up for a short while. When both Hawke and Dako noticed that their castles were practically incinerated they allied up against Rose and pushed back her attack forces. When Rose's armies were driven back enough Dako and Hawke broke their alliance to continue fighting again. This time they kept a much better eye on Rose, and when she saw that she couldn't sneek up behind them anymore, she joined the battle.

After an hour of intens virtual fighting the three were exhausted. Hawke noticed that they were almost at the location of the Delta-2, so they put away the game and took their positions once again. Hawke slowly exited the SubSpace, but instead of seeing a large Delta-2 Cruiser, they saw a lot of rubble and metal floating there. It was a very scary sight, and when the three realized that the rubble had to come from the Delta-2, they were shocked to say at least. "What the fuck is this??" Hawke exclaimed. "Damn, it's gone!" Dako shouted. Rose, not quite understanding what she saw, asked: "How could the whole ship have been blasted in so many pieces??? What could've done that???" "I don't know, but we must be careful, because whatever it was that destroyed the Delta-2, it might still be here!" Dako answered. Hawke shook his head hearing this. "No, please let it be gone!" Dako took the microphone and tried to find any ships. "I will check the areas to see if there is any large ship near," Rose quickly said. She switched a monitor to display the surrounding area, but she couldn't discover and large ships, or many small ships flying together. All she saw was energyless metal. Sometimes there was a very small energy-source dot blinking, but it always disappeared shortly after. "It looks like were alone here," she said. Dako was still trying to contact any ships, not thinking of survivors. "*KRRR* Is someone there? *KRR* He-*KRRRRR*" was heard through the speakers. "Hello? This is HOLS-Traveller 176-RLM coming out of SubSpace. Is anyone still here???" Dako said uncertain. "PLEASE! H*KRR* US! WE ARE FLOATING *KRR* IN AN ESCAPE POD!!!" After this sentence from an unknown person they decided to go find the escape pod, as it was probably their only chance of getting to know what had happened. The HOLS floated carefully between the rubble, and Dako kept talking to the pod. Suddenly the creaking disappeared and the people in the escape pod were talking with very clear voices now. Dako said that they had to be very close now, so Rose checked the screens for any heat-emitting pieces. She found a little piece which was emitting a gentle form of energy which kept glowing, and told Hawke the location of the pod. Hawke looked around and saw a little capsule floating aimlessly around. He tried to get as close as possible, and when he didn't dare to come closer, he started a tractor beam to let the survivors enter their ship.

The survivors announced themselves as Toren Lioth, a Khrin-Tahri male, and Rhani, a Chari female. Rhani told them how they got on the Delta-2 [see my glossary for that] and how they survived the destruction of it. They were working in a Docking Bay when suddenly the Master Alarm went off, and they decided to jump in the escape pod, which was pretty close to them, for safety. It was the right decision, because not long after that the Docking Bay was filled with fire from a huge explosion which pushed the escape pod in outer space. Their pod drifted out the Delta-2 when it exploded into a million pieces. A large piece of metal bumped into them causing the engines on the pod to stop working. They drifted around aimlessly until the HOLS showed up.

Hawke asked them if they were hostile, which was understandable since the Khrin-Tahri and the Chari aren't very friendly with the other races. Rhani reassured him that they were absolutely harmless to the Terran and his friends. Toren said that they might even be of use to them, as he was the only one onboard with a good weapons and defense skill. Dako asked them if they knew who destroyed the Delta-2, but they both shook their heads. "I have no idea who it was, but I sure want to kill the ones who did!" Said Rhani. "Rhani, I don't think that you can take them on all alone..." Toren explained. "I don't care, I'll take them one by one and..." Rhani stopped, looking straight into Toren's eyes. "I think you two should get some rest, you've had an exhausting time, I'll prepare your beds." said Hawke softly. "I agree with Hawke, and tomorrow, we'll decide what to do, ok?" added Dako.

When the two were asleep, Hawke, Rose and Dako were discussing what to do. It was definetely a weird situation, and they weren't able to come up with any good and really useful ideas, as they were very far from an inhabited planet. The evening fell, and the three friends still hadn't come up with anything useful, so they decided to get some good rest and hoped that the morning would come with good ideas.

Wow! I got this chapter finished in 4 hours!!!! I never thought I had the ability for such fast writing. Maybe it has caused the chapter to be a bit smaller than the other two, but that doesn't matter much. Email me your comments on this chapter please. And if you'd like to, you can make a little shrine for one of the characters from the story, I'd love to see them, and I'll place them on the Shrines page with your name on it, and your name will also come on the Thanks page for creating a Shrine! Anyways, please let me hear your feedback, Faruk.

You can E-mail me your comments at safe.fire@worldonline.nl!