"Tyran, we're approaching the
station." called Karissa from the cockpit.
Tyran limped out of the rear copmartment and into the cockpit.
"Where's the Ronin?" he asked as he scanned the station but couldn't see the ship.
"She isn't anywhere on sensors sir" replied Karissa
"Open a channel to the station" choked Tyran
[Commander Tyran are you alright?] asked Commander Owens as she appeared on the small viewscreen. [What on Earth has happened to you?]
"I had a little scuffle with my double,and he didn't play fair. But I'll be fine. Where is the Ronin? I thought we were meant to rendezvous with her?"
[Commander, I'm affraid that the Ronin has been destroyed.. the duplicate too]
Tyran was taken a back by this, and he sat down painfully into his chair. Dinara put her head in her hands and began to cry as Doctor Jin comforted her. Chief Talsmin and Commander Bentara, the newcomers, didn't know anyone on board but never the less felt the same pain.
[Commander Markos is in our infirmary and asked to see you as soon as you were back]
Tyran looked back up at the monitor wiping a tear from his eye. "He's alive?" he stammered.
[Along with a few other lucky people. You are cleared to dock on Pad E and Commander, welcome back.]
"Thankyou Commander"
Karissa knew what to do and brought the runabout swiftly to land on Pad E. The crew quickly disembarked and headed for the infrimary. The doctors on duty gave them an odd look as they barges in. Covered in mud, bruised and battered. These looks didn't hold them off however. Tyran headed for the bed where Kira was lying in a room seperate from the rest of the infirmary. Tyran limped forward with Dinara as Doctor Jin went and read off the monitors to check his status. Karissa and Talsmin stood behind Dinara and Tyran.
"Never thought we'd be looking at each other this way round" joked Tyran. (Normally it was Kira looking down on him)
Kira opened his eyes and looked up at Tyran and Dinara.
"We did it Markos. We got them back" added Dinara.
"Well done he said struggling with the words."
"Markos, what happened?" asked Tyran.
"We were ambushed, they came on us out of no where. We did our best but we couldn't have won. The duplicates got away, but at least we took their ship from them."
"Our ship?"
"I can only assume that it was Tyran who set it up, but they all evacuated the ship before hand and set it on a collision course. We evaded as long as we could to get all the crew off, but the program was adaptive and followed us wherever we went. Everyone got off safely except me."
"You were still onboard when it exploded?!" exclaimed Dinara.
Karissa and Talsmin looked at Kira with surprise eager to know what happened.
"I was able to create an energy field around myself. Luckily Sular beamed me onboard the shuttle. I couldn't have held that shield any longer, my energy was completely drained."
"Were there any casualties?" asked Dinara
"McQueen and Fenris, they didn't make it. Their escape pod was hit by a randomtorpedo fro the duplicate."
"Damn!" said Tyran. " So he got his vengance!"
"You what?"
"Never mind, I'll explain later. Rest now, I'll sort things out."
"Not until you get proper treatment" butted in Jin. "Your too beat up to go around sorting out something on a scale such as this.
"And who else is going to do it doc? You? I'm going to get in contact with Command and speak with Commander Owens. Dinara, Karissa, see to the crew. I'm sure they could do with some counselling about now. Talsmin. I want you to go over teh stations sensor logs and see if you can find out where those doubles went! Jin, see to Kira." With that, the remaining crew set off to attend to their assigned duties.
