"Channa, let's play Channa!" Hawke wanted to get his mind of matters at hand, and Channa was an excellent game to do that. It required full attention, and even though it was agitating to play, one would feel relaxed and calm afterwards. It was naturally one of the most populair games in the Sectors, as it was addictive and tremendously exciting. "No, not now. We have some serious thinking to do Hawke, we have to do that first." Dako responded in a tired way. His struggles with the soldiers weren't exactly easy. "The soldiers!!!" he shouted, now that he was thinking about them. "Oh great, more passengers!" replied Hawke. "Well, what should we do with them?" asked Rhani, with a scared voice. "There's only one option: dump them into space." Everybody looked at Toren who said it, he was standing in the dooropening, rubbing his head. "Hey, are you ok?" asked Rhani. "Yeah, fine. But I really think we should dump them! If they wake up, all hell will break loose again. Only their weapons are of use to us, not themselves." It was a cold action to be done, to throw living bodies into space, but they really didn't have a choice. They all gave it some thought, and decided to do it. Yes, they would probably feel terrible afterwards, but if they didn't do it, the soldiers had to be tied up and fed too, and they didn't have the resources for that. It was best done quickly, so that the soldiers wouldn't feel anything while unconscious. "Wait, Hawke!" said Toren suddenly. "What?" Hawke responded. "We're in SubSpace, where to??" "Ah, um, I directed us to Masunu..." "Stop the ship!" interrupted Toren him as soon as he heard Masunu. "Why?" "Just stop the ship now, immediately!" Hawke did what Toren said, but not without asking why again. "Toren simply answered that he would explain as soon as they were out of SubSpace. Hawke had to override all the ships course systems and manually exit SubSpace. After a few minutes work, they were exiting the SubSpace.

"Well?" asked Hawke and Dako. Rose and Rhani didn't say anything, but waited until Toren had explained. "Masunu is much too far for us to reach..." Hawke interrupted him. "Yeah, but I thought that we could just fly until our SubSpace fuel was depleted, and then..." He noticed the angry look in Toren's face, and only then he realised that it would be likely that they would've ended up in the middle of nowhere, without fuel, and with little food too. "Ok, I get the point. Sorry..." Toren removed his angry looks of his face and pat Hawke on his shoulder. "You just had to think too quick back there, it's not your fault." Hawke didn't say a word, and just sat down again. "I think we should have a little meeting now." said Rose after a moment of silence. "We have to get rid of those soldiers first, and quick!" said Toren. He was apparently feeling well enough to be the leader again, but as he was probably best cut out for it, nobody argued about it. After making sure there weren't any ships around, they all went down to the five soldiers. With their minds filled with disgust, they dumped the soldiers into space. "Let's all try to forget about this." said Hawke softly. Nobody said another word until they were back in the control room. "First, let's find out where we are, ok?" Toren was definitely a leader-type, as he enjoyed giving orders. Hawke didn't quite like being ordered, but he had other things to his mind now. Rose examined the nav-screen, Hawke sat in the pilot seat and tried to sopt anything recognizable, Toren and Rhani walked around a bit, as they couldn't help much, except looking outside to spot anything they might know, and Dako tried to get anyone on the communicator. "Guys!!" shouted Rose. "What?" answered everybody curiously. "We passed a planet!!" she stated. "A what?" asked Hawke her. "What are our coordinates? And the planet's coordinates too!" "We're in block 371-5549-6239. In that block our exact location is...33 hours, 2 minutes, 17 seconds X, 82 hours, 54 minutes and 9 seconds Y, and 12 hours, 1 minute and 40 seconds Z." "Ok, thanks got it. And the planet's?" answered Hawke, who was one of the two onboard who could calculate coordinations so quickly. "Just a second, I have to send a signal to get it's distance first." Rose paused for a few seconds, while Hawke was turning the ship around. "Ok, here goes: 33 hours, 27 minutes and 2-to-15 seconds X. Then, 82 hours, 56 minutes and 41-to-54 seconds Y, and 12 hours, 4 minutes and 12-to-25 seconds Z." "Thanks sweetie, course is set." Hawke said this without considering he wasn't alone with Rose now, so when he looked up after inputting the course, he looked at three surprised faces. "Sweetie? You're going fast my friend." Dako said this a bit sarcastically, but he knew that Hawke wouldn't seek anything behind it. Rhani and Toren looked at eachother, but they both knew it wasn't of their concern, so they let it be. "Uhm, we got about half an hour until we reach the planet, does anyone of you know which planet it is?" Hawke said, and looked at all the others. "Is there a holomap on this ship?" asked Toren Hawke. "I think so...wait, yes, there is. It's in that cabinet next to you." Toren searched for the holomap, and found it after a while. He turned it on, and input the block coordinates after asking Rose what they were again. "We're at the border of the Nexus sector, really close to the border...and pretty much at the top too. Hey!" Toren paused, and everybody looked at him, waiting for him to explain. "There isn't any planet in this block according to the holomap. How old is this map?" Hawke and Dako looked at eachother. It was from the Delta-2, which itself wasn't anymore. It couldn't be really old, as the Delta-2 always had the latest information and maps. "Is this block secure? And is it completely discovered?" Hakwe didn't answer Toren's question, but asked two questions himself. "Let's see. Hmm, strange..." He paused again. "There isn't any information about this block. It doesn't even have a security level!"

Everybody let his words sink into their heads, and a scary thought crossed their minds. "Is it possibly a Chari or Khrin'Tahri military block??" asked Rose with a terrified tone in her voice. "I don't think so, I would've know that if it was Khrin'Tahri..." "And me if it was Chari..." answered Toren and Rhani. They all looked at eachother for a while. Hawke was thinking about everyone's characteristics. Toren was Khrin'Tahri, a proud one too, who didn't really like being a Khrin'Tahri as he disagreed with their ways. Why Toren wanted to become a pilot was very unclear to Hawke, but he didn't mind. If Toren would ask him to teach him piloting, he would help, no matter what. He noticed that he was beginning to trust Toren and Rhani more and more. At first, he had no reason to trust them, which was logical, as they were the only two to survive the destruction of the Delta-2. But now, they 'proved' themselves trustworthy, so he trusted them. Dako was a Voran, and although Hawke and he had been real close friends for several years, he didn't know much about his background. He only knew how his father died, and that his mother was still alive, but that was about it. Dako was not always acting a Voran, probably for Hawke's sake, as he wouldn't like it much. Always being corrected when making a little error is frustrating, and he knew that Dako wouldn't do that to his friends. Sometimes though, Dako felt completely Voran again, and showed his interest in everything, and his wit. Hawke and the others were used to it, and didn't do anything about it, not that it was really necessary to do anything anyway. Rose, sweet Rose, she was always kind to everyone, her heart was big. Hawke didn't think that he and his companions were the best people to be around Rose, as she had a more 'soft' character. However, she seemed to enjoy everything, so he decided never to talk about it with her, even not at times that he thought were too rough for her. Rose had a lot of energy, she never really complained about being tired, when all the others did. He liked her a lot. Although she was mainly a docter and psychologist, she acted much more like a navigator since the beginning of all this. Perhaps she enjoyed 'navigating him.' And then Rhani, who also seemed to have lots of energy. Rhani looked, despite being Chari, calm and proper. She didn't have the spikey, crimson colored hair which is a sign of being Chari. He always wondered that a bit, but thought that she simply cut it off and painted it, so that she would look like a Voran a bit more. He always wondered how Toren and Rhani were able to get on the Delta-2 as believable hybreds. They certainly didn't look much like Vorans, so how did they get on the ship, and even work normally too?! "Hakwe..." said Dako. He interrupted Hawke's thoughts. Hawke snapped out of them, and responded. "Yeah?" "Do you still have our order form?" he asked. "I think it's in my room, somewhere. Why?" "Do you remember the strange style of writing?" "Yeah, you said something about it, but I didn't get it. What's so special about it anyway?" "It's not common for Terrans to write like that." "Hey, let's make an inventory of everything we have, and all the happenings that occured." interrupted Rhani him. Everyone agreed to it, so they started right away. They completely forgot about the order. "Ok, we have food for another four days, drinks supply for six days, rooms could make a problem: only four, for five people." Hawke said this, and he ended with a little hope in his voice. "I think you and Rose should share a room." said Dako, and he looked at Toren and Rhani. They both nodded, and then Rose and Hawke looked at eachother. Rose expected Hawke to deliberately bring up this subject, but she didn't mind. No, she even enjoyed it. "Hmm, I think that would be the best solution, right?" Everybody nodded, and then some giggled softly. "Anyway," continued Hawke, "we have a blown up Delta-2, which only Toren and Rhani survived as far as we know. We have a Mantis which is fully completed and most certainly powerful. Then there's the Alpha Cruiser which is probably on its way to the nearest TAG station, but that is either Somma-V or Ecto-Prime. Both are very far from where the 'chase' was, so it'll take a while before adequate action will be taken. Well, anyone want to add anything?" Hawke took a deep breath. Toren praised Hawke for his fine inventory, but Dako wanted to add some things and stood up. "There's also that computer Hawke, which could well have something to do with all this. And also this unknown planet, which might hold secrets or something like that! Then we have the sudden appearance of those thousand or more missiles coming towards us all at once..." He stopped, realising that he was perhaps overdoing the degree of conspiracy possibilities. He was getting way too suspicious about everything, so he took his seat again. "Yes, well, you may have a point there Dako, but I think we should keep our minds at the facts, and not at our thoughts and the possible things." stated Toren. Soft snickers could be heard, but Dako didn't pay attention to them. He felt like he was completely right in what he said, and he didn't like that they wouldn't take him serious.

"Well then, now that we have finished our inventory, who is going to write all of it down, and what shall we do about it?" Toren spoke as a true leader this time, which came a bit of a surprise to all, even though he was a leader-type. Rhani offered to write all of it down for ease, and Rose came up with the idea of waiting in orbit over the unknown planet to study it first, for safety measures. Her idea was praised by all, so they did. After a couple more minutes of waiting, Rhani finished the paper-back version of their inventory, they arrived at the planet's orbit.

It was a sandy planet, the looks from above were mostly dune-colored and with an occasional twist of water through it. Rose did a surface scan with the help of Dako, who for some reason knew more about that. After the scan, they printed everything out. "Oxygen levels and temperature are acceptable for all of us, there aren't any important issues about it, except for the fact that there isn't much life on it. Most readings show only small animals..." Rose was interrupted by Hawke. "MOST readings? And were there any readings that did show humanoid lifeforms?" Rose shook her head horizontally. "Great." Hawke said sarcastically. Nobody said a word for a while, until Rhani finally spoke: "Look, sunrise!" And indeed, it was now sunrise from where they were. All stared at the beautiful sun, which was a D-4 type star, rising over the horizon.

"C'mon, let's play Channa now..." Hawke was really addicted to Channa, or so Dako thought. He groaned, but he played the game too. They decided not to do teams this time. Everybody was all alone now, and then they started. The first strike was delivered by Rhani, who managed to hit Toren's bot in the back. Even before Toren had maneuvered his bot to attack Rhani, she managed to strike even harder again, and so Toren lost his first bot within minutes. After he had gotten a new bot, Hawke and Dako were trying to destroy his castle. Toren was the strongest player, so even though it wasn't a team-play, they were all going for Toren first. Rose and Rhani started beating eachother when they saw it wasn't really fair to Toren, but Hawke and Dako kept attacking him. Toren stood firmly however, and quickly launched a ballistic attack to Hawke's castle, which hit. Hawke had to retreat, so Dako was now one-on-one against Toren. Needless to say, he lost his bot. Rhani and Rose had beaten the crap out of eachother's bots and, with new and stronger bots, they were attacking Toren. Toren anticipated their attack, so he bought a few zipper-bots to confuse their attack. He sent two of them to attack Rhani's castle, one to attack Rose's, and the other three were attacking Rose's attack bots. Rhani was scared by the two zippers near her castle, and ordered her bots back again. Rose however saw no threat in on weak zipper, and kept attacking Toren from the side. She failed to kill his three zippers attacking her attackers, but she managed to break through Toren's defense and shoot at his castle. She hit it, but not strong enough to reach his flag. Hawke had now recuperated from his attacked castle, and was now helping Rose to demolish Toren's castle. In the meanwhile, Dako saw Rhani having difficulty with the two automated zipper-bots by Toren, and took advantage of her situation. He powered a blast and shot it at Rhani's castle, destroying it. The zippers took the flag quickly, so Dako had to charge his cannon-bot again. When the zippers nearly reached Toren's base with the flag, which would've given him lots of credits, Dako finally charged his bot and shot the two zippers to pieces. Rhani tried to use her fastest bot to retrieve her flag, but Hawke already took it and brought it back to his base. Using the newly acquired credits he bought a whole platoon of zippers, and pointed them all at Toren. Toren was, despite being an incredibly well Channa player, too overwhelmed and was completely wiped out. Hawke only lost two zippers, and with his fast actions he also took Toren's flag. Now he had two enemies: Dako and Rose. He had a lot of credits, so Dako and Rose temporarily allied with eachother. Hawke sent his whole platoon towards Dako's castle, but had to bring most of them back again, since Rose was almost near destroying his castle. Just in time he managed to save his castle and crush Rose's attackers, so now the road was clear again. Dako was still repairing his castle, so Hawke didn't have much struggle in wiping Dako out too. When he took Dako's flag to his base, he felt invincible. He had an awful lot of credits now, so he used them all up at once to buy a whole army of fighters, attackers, defenders, zippers, cannons, and more. Rose saw his army coming to her castle and shivered. She put up a terrific fight against the overwhelming forces, but she lost the battle. Hawke had won, and the others were 'magically' very tired, even Rose was tired! Hawke let them be tired, but he knew that they just didn't want to listen to his victory stories, as they were all there when it happened. Seeing everybody was so tired, Hawke suggested that they would rest now, and see what to do next morning. They all agreed, so they went to bed. Hawke and Rose had to share the room, while the others all had their private room. Rose looked at Hawke, he was smiling at her. Both were thinking about the two of them, but noeither one actually said anything. There was a bit of tension from the evening, and all the happenings, so they just kissed goodnight and went to bed. Both were really tired, as they fell asleep within minutes, waiting for what the next day would bring them...

Yes, not much action this time, and I have to disappoint those of you who want action. In the next chapters action-levels will be low, with a few exceptions ofcourse. Plot elements will develop more in the coming chapters, which could be as exciting as plain action, so lighten up! Anyways, tell me what you think of my story please. Well, that's it, bye! :)

Faruk.