"It's been an hour." The tactical officer informs Mina. 

She looks at the clock above the view screen and sighs. The captain told me to give him two hours before sending over any more help, but he should have checked in by now.

Mina sighs once more and looks back to the tactical station. "Ten minutes. If you don't hear anything, send the security teams."

The officer nods and begins to punch orders into his computer. Mina slumps down into her chair.

The turbo lift doors on the back of the bridge open up and Raye walks in and looks around. She sees everyone busy at their stations.

She sighs. Maybe later. She thinks to herself. She turns back around and hits the call button on the turbo lift.

"Hi, Raye!" Serena says from her station. Raye turns and smiles at Serena. 

"Sorry," Serena states as she turns back to her work.

Then she realized that Raye didn't scowl at her.

She smiled.

Serena hops up in just enough time to stop the turbo lift doors from closing. She grabs Raye's arm and pulls her back onto the bridge.

"How are you?" Serena asks as she leads Raye over to her station.

"I'm –" Raye pauses to think for a moment. "Better."

Serena smiles and gives her a hug. "Whatcha doing up here for anyway?"

"Yeah," Mina says from her seat.

Raye sighs. "Do you have a minute?" 

Mina nods and motions for Raye to follow her into the conference room. Serena starts to follow, but Mina stops her.

"You have the bridge, Serena."

Serena's eyes go wide as saucers. "Me?"

"Her?" The rest of the bridge crew asks.

Mina just growls at them as she leads Raye off into the conference room.

Serena looks around and smiles as she goes to have a seat in the captain's chair.

The entire bridge crew just continues to look at her as she makes herself comfortable.

"As you were." She states.

The crew eyes each other worriedly as they resume their duties.

Mina sits down in the chair at the far end of the conference table. She leans back and crosses her legs. Raye continues to stand, and looks out the window.

"Can I be informal with you?" Raye asks, continuing to look out into space.

"Of course." Mina states.

Raye sighs and turns to Mina.

"A lot has happened to me over the past six months. A lot of changes. A lot of things that I wasn't expecting. A lot of things that I was not prepared for. Because of this, I have been, for lack of a better phrase, a reclusive bitch."

Mina doesn't nod but certainly agrees with that statement.

"I have learned a lot over the last couple of weeks. About myself that I didn't know before. I learned that I can be selfish and cold, without taking into account what other people feel. I always thought I was just outgoing and forward, but now I know that I was rude and insensitive."

Raye softly begins to cry. Mina shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

"Did you ever notice how people act when I pass them by? How they try their damnedest to avoid me? Is this why the only man I could get was a ruthless killer that was supposed to marry my best friend?"

Raye was no longer softly crying. She was now crying in full force. Mina stands and starts to walk over to her.

"I spent the most important years of my life treating my friends like something I stepped in. And through it all, none of them deserted me. I deserted them.

"It's changing now, though." Raye bawled.

"Oh… Raye…" Mina sniffled as she embraced her friend. "We forgive you. You know that we do."

Raye inhaled deeply and cleared her eyes. "I need to help."

"I don't really know if there is anything you can do," Mina said.

"You are sending another boarding party over. I want to go."

Mina grimaced. "I don't know."

"You know damned well I can fight. I know Lita is over there and I need to be able to help her - since I refused to help her before."

Mina sighed and nodded just as her communicator chirped.

"Mina?" Serena asked.

"Yeah?" Mina asked back.

"Weapons guy says it's been 10 minutes."

Mina laughed. "Tell him to stand by; one more member of the boarding party is on her way."

"Uh, he said he heard you."

Mina laughed again and closed the channel.

"Good luck," Mina told Raye.

Raye nods and takes off running through the conference room, across the bridge and into the turbo lift.

Lita tossed one of the phaser rifles that was dropped when her bosses disappeared to Ryouga. He quickly takes aim at the drones and prepares to fire.

"Wait!" Lita screams. 

Ryouga shifts his eyes towards her. "Why?"

"We need to come up with a plan. If we just shoot at them randomly they will adapt before we have killed all of them." She explains.

"Fair enough, so what's the plan?" Ryouga asks.

"Still working on it."

Ryouga groans as one of the drones charge them. He promptly fires and hits it dead center. The drone begins to spark and falls to the ground.

"One down, ninety-nine to go!" Ryouga chuckles cynically.

"Okay, got it." Lita points to the floor where she has drawn up a hockey-style game plan.

"We are going to go straight down the middle, forcing the drones on the side to swing at us, hopefully killing each other." Lita grins.

"Hopefully?"

"Well." Lita chuckles nervously. "No plan is 100% foolproof."

Ryouga nods. "On your command."

Lita nods back. "Let's roll."

Ryouga and Lita both begin firing. They start to take out the first batch of drones in the front. The plan begins to take fold. The drones on the side start to move in behind them as the other drones swing at them, causing a massive pile of Kuno drones on the floor. After exhausting all their phaser rifles and the hand phaser Ryouga brought with him all the drones lay dead on the floor.

"Hey, it worked!" Lita stated, partially surprised.

Ryouga, panting from the running they did to get through the drones, nods.

Lita slowly walks up to the hatch to get to the command deck. She looks up and sees nothing. Slowly she climbs the ladder and sticks her head out at the command deck. 

"Looks clear." She calls down to Ryouga.

Ryouga climbs up the ladder underneath Lita and watches her finish climbing.

"Nice." He quietly grins to himself.

"What's that, Ensign?" Lita calls back.

"Ice." Ryouga lies. "I feel hot and could use some ice."

"Oh," Lita replies as she pulls herself up out of the hatch. She helps Ryouga up as well and then pulls out her tricorder.

After studying it for a moment she points down a short hallway, only about a hundred meters, and grins. 

"Through that door is the main control center. In there I am picking up four bio-signs."

"Is one of them Akane?"

Lita rolls her eyes. "I think so."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Ryouga goes to pull out his hand phaser and then realizes that he doesn't have it anymore.

"Dammit." Ryouga groans at Lita. "Did you take the fact that we don't have weapons anymore into your plan?"

Lita chuckles. "Well, yes. We will just have to do this the old-fashioned way."

Lita cracks her knuckles and points to the door.

"Charge!" She yells.

"Who are you?" Kodachi asks.

Both Ryouga and Lita stop in their tracks.

"I asked, WHO ARE YOU?" Kodachi yells. "And what are you doing on the great and noble cube of Kuno?"

"I'm Commander Lita Gosnell of the U.S.S. Sisko. We are here to retrieve our crew members."

"So…" Kodachi glowers. "You are in love with my darling Ranma as well."

"Huh?" Lita asks.

"Shame on you. A married woman." Ryouga scolds.

Lita promptly stooge slaps Ryouga and returns her attention to Kodachi. "Captain Saotome needs to return to his ship, and I am here to make sure that happens whether you like it or not."

Kodachi laughs at Lita's smugness. "Is that so?" Kodachi promptly rips off the dress she was wearing and strips down to her rhythmic gymnastics uniform.

"What?" Lita ponders as Kodachi throws a rubber ball at Lita. Lita easily dodges it and it hits the ground.

The ball explodes.

"What the hell?" Lita asks as the air fills up with a pepper-like mist.

"Paralysis powder." Kodachi grins as both Lita and Ryouga fall to the ground. "Now, to finish you both off so that Ranma and I can be together forever!"

"Yup, boned," Ryouga grumbles while struggling to move.

Lita starts to move her arm. She manages to grab her tricorder and flips it open. She punches in a series of keys with her moveable arm and shoves the tricorder close to Kodachi.

Kodachi walks over, kicks the tricorder behind her, and draws her katana.

"So, the powder doesn't completely affect you then, does it?" Kodachi begins to cackle. "That's okay; my sword will take care of that!"

Lita hits her communicator just as Kodachi begins the upward motion of the sword. The tricorder beeps three times and then explodes.

Kodachi is knocked forward in the blast, where she loses her grip on the blade. It falls, narrowly avoiding giving Ryouga a circumcision, and sticks into the ground.

Lita gets her leg moving and promptly kicks Kodachi over Ryouga. Kodachi growls.

"SUCH INSOLENCE!" She bellows.

Suddenly about one hundred Kodachi drones appear in front of the door to the control room. Kodachi cackles and disappears into the drones.

"Try and take my darling Ranma away from me now!"

Lita manages to start moving all her limbs again. She slowly staggers to her feet and pulls the sword out of the deck. She then drags Ryouga who is starting to regain movement, behind her.

"How come the powder didn't affect you?" Ryouga pondered as she dragged him down the corridor.

"While in Section 31 training I was drugged with just about every powder available. I developed a resistance." Lita replied as she dropped Ryouga and took up a defensive stance in front of him.

Ryouga nodded as he began to stagger to his feet. "Plan?"

Lita shrugged. "Kill 'em all?"

Ryouga grinned as the first drone attacked.

"They are made out of metal, right?"

"Yeah," Lita replied.

"Ha." Ryouga smiled and he flipped over Lita and landed on the first drone.

"BAKUSAI TENKETSU!" Ryouga screamed, placing his finger on the drone. It looked up at him and glowered, right before exploding, sending blue ooze and black rose petals everywhere.

Lita followed, slicing and dicing the drones as they attacked.

But more and more drones were materializing as the others are killed.

"How many could there possibly be?" Ryouga gasped, dodging a katana strike from one of the drones.

"I don't know, but we will never get through them at this rate," Lita grumbled.

Ryouga backflipped and landed next to Lita. The pair is forced backward several meters, almost to the other end of the corridor.

Lita sighed. "It's a shame you don't have a ki attack like Ranma has."

"I do." Ryouga acknowledged. "But I need to be very depressed to use it, and I'm not."

Lita grinned. "Is that because you made it with Mina?"

Ryouga turned stoplight red.

"Seriously though, if we don't get through them Akane and the others will be stuck here forever."

Ryouga nodded. "Akane being stuck here forever makes me upset. But Ranma being stuck here forever counters it."

Lita pondered what she could say that would make Ryouga so depressed that he could blast his way through the wall of drones.

Lita noticed her wedding ring out of the corner of her eye. She looked at it and smiled.

"Ryouga, no one has told you this yet, and it was supposed to remain a secret, but I think you're ready."

Ryouga raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Akane and Ranma are married."

Ryouga lowered the eyebrow and grinned.

"Nice try."

"No, seriously," Lita said as she begins to dig something out of her pocket. "See, it's me and Gosnell at their wedding."

Ryouga eyes the picture. It shows Lita on the left, smiling as Gosnell is behind her giving her bunny ears. On the right side of the picture are Ranma and Akane. Kissing.

"When???" Ryouga stammered.

"Several weeks ago."

Ryouga started to turn blue. "Ranma…"

"He's that way." Lita encouraged Ryouga by pointing the way through the drones.

"RANMA!!!!!!!!!!" Ryouga screams.

An extremely large glowing orb appears on his palms as blue flames start to weft off of him.

The drones all look at each other in fear.

"Oh shit!" They cry in unison as the orb grows to human size.

"SHISHIHOUKOUDAN!" Ryouga screams, sending the orb through the drones and the wall behind them.

"No worries, family," Kodachi informs George and Tatewaki. "The intruders are stuck behind a battalion of superior Kodachi drones."

"Are you calling my drones lackluster quality?" Tatewaki demands.

"Well look! He hasn't even fixed that wall yet, brother dear." Kodachi exclaims pointing to the drone that has been put on clean-up patrol.

"I will have you know –" Kuno starts.

"SHISHIHOUKOUDAN!" Ryouga's voice is heard through the walls.

Ranma starts to rock back and forth. Akane tries to stop him.

"What are you doing?" Akane demands.

"We want to be flat," Ranma replies and tips the two girls over.

George looks up from his terminal and towards the sound, and now rumbling.

"What the-" George doesn't have a chance to finish.

The wall to the command center is blown into a million pieces. The blast continues past the group and through the next wall. And the next. And the next.

"HULL BREACH, COMMAND DECK!" The tactical officer yells as debris comes flying out of the side of the Kuno cube.

"JESUS!" Mina screams, hopping out of her seat. "Scan for life signs!"

"One!" The officer replies.

"Transport-"

"Already done."

"Good job." Mina states. Serena stands and looks at Mina who is on her way back to the turbo lift. Mina looks at her. "Take the bridge."

Serena nods and rushes to her seat while Mina goes down the turbo lift.

In sickbay, a doctor is examining a man on the bed. "How are you feeling?" The doctor asks.

"Cold." The man replies.

The doors to sickbay open and Mina walks in, followed by thirty security officers.

"Who are you?" Mina asks.

George sits upon the bio-bed. George is no worse for the wear, with the exception of his clothes being torn and a big lump on his forehead. He also has the appearance of being scorched from top to bottom.

"I'm George Kuno, of the Kuno Collective. Thanks a lot for saving my ass out there."

Mina nods. "Yeah, sure. Now, where are our people?"

George lies back down. "If they are still alive after that blast, they are in the command center."

Mina nods to a security guard who promptly scoots off to inform the others.

"Do you have emergency force shields on that deck?" Mina asks.

"Yeah, but they won't last for long. The ship will shut down for its regeneration cycle in thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes? You may have been cutting it very close."

"No, once the ship is in its regeneration cycle it transfers all power from life support to the shields and the regeneration cells. The engines would then be completely repaired in six minutes. I then had it set to prematurely come out of its cycle, cloak, warp off, and then finish."

George sighs. "It was the perfect plan. Just didn't plan on THAT!" George waves his arms to simulate the explosion.

"Why are you being so helpful? You do realize that you are under arrest, don't you?"

George laughs. "Man, I am getting too old for this crap and dealing with those maniacs. Take me to jail."

Mina shrugs to one of the security officers. She then turns to the doctor. "Treat him." She turns back to the guard. "Keep an eye on him, and as soon as he is released take him to the brig."

The guard nods and Mina walks off. She hits her communicator.

"Aino to Hino."

Raye slinks forward to a doorway when her communicator chirps. She signals to the others to stop.

"Go."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Raye acknowledged. "Little plaster fell on our heads and some steam hit us from the pointless steam ducts, but we are okay."

"Good." Mina's voice sighed. "Do you detect any bio-signs on the deck above you?"

"Yeah, seven," Raye stated looking at her wrist-mounted tricorder.

"Good they are still alive." Mina sighed in relief. "Your team will have less than thirty minutes to get them and proceed to the beam out point. After that, the environmental force shield will collapse, and all life support will be diverted to the shields."

"Got it. Out." Raye stated. She then turned to her team of twenty soldiers. "You heard the lady, thirty minutes."

She received a silent acknowledgment from the people on her team as they made their way down the corridor and to a hatch. Two of the soldiers walked up and started to push on the hatch.

"It won't budge!" One stated.

One deck up, what is left of the ceiling is lying on the floor, on top of the hatch. Ryouga and Lita both lie unconscious next to it.

One deck down, Raye inspects her tricorder. "There is several tons of debris lying on the hatch."

"It will take us hours to cut a new hole." A soldier states.

"Yeah, so we will need to find another way," Raye replies. She checks her tricorder again. "There is a turbo lift shaft eighty meters that way."

Raye points down a darkened corridor. Six of the soldiers nod and put on their night vision gear. They make their way to the lift and pry the doors open. They look in.

"No access ladder." One states.

"The actual lift is three decks above us." Another one adds.

Raye comes over and checks her tricorder. "Shit, and it's coming off its tracks. It could fall at any minute."

The soldiers all look at each other as Raye tries to come up with a plan.

"SNORT!" Trevor snores. Foster, who had been reading about human history, begins to laugh.

Trevor begins to stir from the noise of Foster's boisterous laugh.

"Whaaaa?" Trevor grumbles.

"Your people make such funny noises when you are regenerating yourselves."

"He's usually mumbling about Ami." Ami computer pipes in.

Trevor swings to take a bat at the computer but ends up just whacking his hand on the console. After swearing for a few moments he yawns and walks over to his seat behind the controls of the Runabout.

"Are they still out there?" Trevor asks.

"Yes." Ami Computer replies. "They are still in a high orbit."

"They haven't searched at all?"

"No."

Trevor looks at Foster. "What do you think they are up to?"

"I could go ask them," Foster replies.

Trevor shakes his head. "No, I think that will probably make things worse, rather than better."

Foster nods. "Well, in my opinion, I think they are hoping that you will come back, and they will grab you when you do."

Trevor laughs. "Well, let them hope!"

Foster laughs along with Trevor till some alarm bells go off. Both of the pair stop laughing and simultaneously look down at the sensor screen.

"What the hell?" They both ask Ami Computer.

"There is an unidentified ship traveling at warp two into the system. I don't recognize the configuration, but it's constructed of the same materials of the other ships in high orbit."

"What does this mean?" Foster asks.

"It means they have warp drive and we are getting the hell out of here," Trevor states as he powers up the thrusters and begins to lift off of the moon's surface.

"Ten seconds to intercept." Ami Computer states.

"Hail the Crossroads!" Trevor yells.

"They're jamming!" Ami Computer replies.

"SHIT! FULL IMPULSE! GO!"

The Runabout lifts off and starts to zip towards the crossroads as the Zima ship drops out of warp, and nails the Runabout with a tractor beam.

"They got us!" Foster states.

Trevor starts pushing buttons, firing the thrusters and impulse engines, in a feeble attempt to dislodge the Runabout from the larger ship's grasp.

A red pulse runs down the tractor beam and slams into the Runabout. Trevor's ship goes dark. The engines shut down and the thrusters refuse to respond.

"Computer, status!"

No reply.

All of the panels on the Runabout go dark.

"Shit." Trevor groans.

The tractor beam from the Zima ship begins to shorten. A bay door opens and the Runabout is pulled towards it.

"HAIL THEM!" Ark orders as Ami comes bolting onto the bridge.

"No response!" The communications officer replies.

Ami pushes Ark aside and stands right behind the helmsman. "Open a channel."

"Open."

"Unidentified vessel, release that scout ship or prepare to be fired upon," Ami ordered.

The viewer shows the Runabout still slowly being pulled towards the open bay door.

"Target the tractor emitter and fire." Ami orders.

The weapons officer complies.

A phaser blast sprays from the forward phaser emitter on the larger Sovereign-class starship and impacts the tractor emitter. A small explosion results and the tractor beam disengages.

"Grab them." Ark orders Vong. Vong starts to comply as the communications officer speaks up.

"They are hailing us."

"On screen," Ami responds.

"EXPLAIN YOURSELF FIRE ON MY SHIP!" A man on the other end, who is red as a beet, screams.

"I am Captain Ami Mizuno of the Federation Starship U.S.S. Crossroads. You were attempting to take Federation property and a Federation citizen."

"You can keep the ship." The man replies. "But I demand you return your 'Federation Citizen' to us for prosecution."

"What crime?"

The man pulls out a sheet of paper. "He has warrants for his arrest for violation of the mental health charter section nine, subsection four-paragraph six subparagraph nine sentences five sub-sentence fourteen."

"Huh?" Ami asks.

"He was talking to himself. That's a class one felony. Then there are the escape charges, the assault on Zima Confederacy security officers, trespassing – should I continue?"

"They are on board." Ark quietly informs Ami. Ami looks back and silently mouths "They?" to Ark. Ark shrugs and walks off. Ami returns her attention to the man on the screen.

"If you would like to come aboard I am sure we can work this out," Ami asks.

"A plea agreement? Is that what you think?" The man asks.

"A compromise. I think that it is fairly obvious to you that you are not going to come out of an armed conflict in good shape. We wish to respect your laws, but you have to understand all the facts." Ami smiles.

"Well, I can't do anything with you, but I will go and pick up a magistrate, and we will meet back here in one hour to work out your 'compromise'." The captain states. The channel then closes and the ship turns around and heads back towards the planet.

"Ma'am?" Vong chimes in.

"Yes?"

"The Sisko is asking if we have any rock climbing equipment on board."

"Do we?" Ami asks.

"Yes."

"Then tell them yes."

Vong pauses. "I'm sorry, they also want to know if they can use it."

"Yes, set a course over to them."

Vong pauses again. "The people on the cube need it."

Ami nods to Vong, not really caring what he is saying anymore. She walks up to the tactical officer. "Have security escort the Runabout passengers to the deck two observation room."

He nods as Ami walks into the turbo lift.

"Fifteen minutes." One of the soldiers states to another who is waiting in a large open area.

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbles. 

A familiar noise is heard and in an instant, a blue flash of light is turned into the rock climbing equipment that they had requested.

The two soldiers quickly scoop up the equipment and bring it over to the turbo lift shaft. At the shaft two soldiers are shooting the rails right below the lift, causing the rails to glow a hot red.

"Any minute now," Raye mentions.

Within seconds the heated metal bends and the lift drops past them and down the several decks with a bone-shattering crash at the bottom of the shaft.

The soldiers waste no time in setting up the climbing equipment. One works on using magnetic pads they got from the Crossroads to climb the side of the shaft.

He comes up right below the door to the command deck and drills three pegs into the wall. He then connects ropes to the pegs and allows the free end to drop down to the others.

He then finds the inside emergency release for the doors and releases them. He draws his weapon as he opens the door.

The deck is dark. The soldier activates his night vision and pulls himself up. He looks around and does not see any people. Down a couple of hundred meters though he can see where the hull of the ship was breached.

Raye pulls herself up and begins to scan with her tricorder. "Two that way." She points in the opposite direction of the hole. Six soldiers go off to find the two. The rest come with Raye.

"Five up here," Raye states.

The group walks a few meters when Raye's communicator chirps.

"Go."

"We have Commander Hino and Ensign Hibiki." A soldier states.

"Take them to the beam out point and transport back."

"Yes ma'am."

They continue down the corridor till they reach a pile of Kodachi drones on the floor. Raye scans them.

"One here."

A couple of the soldiers start to pull the drones off the pile while the rest stand ready to shoot. After a few seconds, there are no more in the pile.

"DEATH TO YOU!" Kodachi screams as she hops up from the pile and charges the group. Everyone simultaneously turns and fires on Kodachi. Some of the shots deflect off of her, but several impacts her, sending her flying across the corridor.

A field medic walks up and checks her for a pulse. He looks to Raye and shakes his head.

Raye nods and motions for the group to continue following.

After continuing down the corridor for about a hundred more meters they come to what appears to be the remains of the central control room.

<CLANG>

"What was that?" Whispered Raye.

<CLANG>

"It's coming from over there." One of the groups whispers back while pointing at a door in the opposite corner.

Raye slowly walks over to it and checks her tricorder. "One bio-sign."

<CLANG>

Raye draws her weapon and nods to another guard who hits the door release.

The doors slide open. Raye lowers her weapon.

"Commander." Raye acknowledges.

A soldier kneels down and begins to remove the rope and duct tape keeping Shampoo immobile and silent. Once unbound, Shampoo stands and puts her arms out.

"Give Shampoo rifle." Shampoo ordered.

Raye shakes her head. "Sorry Commander. You need to return to the ship and go to sickbay."

Raye nods to a couple of the soldiers. Shampoo begins to protest but the guards promptly lead her off and back towards the turbo lift shaft.

Raye and the remaining soldiers walk towards the open hull. Once at it, Raye touches the force shield simply to verify that there was one there.

She then checks her tricorder. "Under this pile of stuff, there are three."

The soldiers nod. One of them checks his tricorder as the others start to pull off debris.

"Four minutes."

Raye nods as she stands ready to fire. Within thirty seconds the pile was off. Ranma-Chan and Akane were both unconscious, with Akane having a gash on her forehead that was still bleeding slightly. Ranma appeared to be okay, with the obvious exception that she had an unconscious Kuno wrapped around her.

The soldiers quickly cut the binds. Two of them hurriedly carry Akane off. The others can't seem to pry Kuno off of the captain.

"Can you wake her up?" Raye asked the field medic.

He nods and pulls out a hypospray. He zaps Ranma with it. After a few seconds, Ranma weakly opens her eyes.

"What happened?" She slowly asks.

"Explosion." Raye acknowledges. "We're getting you off of here, but there is just one problem."

Ranma smiles. "Commander Hino. Nice to see you again."

"Yes, ma'am - sir. But, about the problem."

Ranma continues to smile as she notices Kuno holding her.

"Isn't that cute?" She asks.

"Sir?" Raye asks.

The field medic runs a quick scan. "He, uh, she has a concussion."

Raye nods. "Can you wake him up too?"

The medic complies and injects Kuno. Within a few seconds, Kuno is awakened.

"Oh… Pigtailed girl…" Kuno moans.

"Kuno baby?" Ranma asks.

Kuno wakes right up and sits up, letting go of Ranma in the process. "Pig-tailed girl! Oh, how I love you!"

Raye shoots Kuno before he has a chance to grab Ranma once again. Kuno falls over unconscious.

"KUNO BABY!" Ranma yells.

Raye nods to the medic who quickly sedates Ranma. The remaining soldiers quickly assist and rush off with Ranma.

Raye takes one last look out of the hole. She smiles and laughs when she sees the Crossroads pull to within a few hundred meters of the Kuno cube.

"Better late than never!"

"Commander!" Raye's communicator chirps. Raye realizes how much time she has, or doesn't have, left and begins to run back towards the turbo lift shaft.

"Right behind you –" Raye is cut off by the sudden sound of the force field deactivating.

Debris begins to blow out of the hull breach. Raye is no exception. She is blown towards the hole. She manages to grab ahold of a stool stand for one of the consoles. She takes a deep breath and holds it. 

Once all the air is evacuated from the area Raye swiftly lets go of the only thing that kept her from blowing out into space and begins to run back to the turbo lift.

Raye quickly becomes very weak from the running and the lack of oxygen. The temperature on the cube has also dropped well below zero degrees and is dropping more every second.

Raye slides down the rope and swings into the deck. She crashes to the ground, forcing the air out of her. She makes it no more than twenty meters before falling to the ground.

Raye looks towards the transport zone, surrounded by the transport enhancers, and sees it clearly. As she starts to black out she smiles, for she knows that she helped save several lives.

Her smile fades as she nears death. 

She knew that this was to be expected.

For her to be here, freezing, on the floor. 

Alone.

She saw it coming.

She knows what goes around, comes around.