Hello and thank you for deciding to give this story a chance. I ran out of short story ideas and decided this would be a good time to start a new novel now that my "Jak and Daxter" one's over. I must admit, I am not super good at writing sci-fi, but I got this neat idea that I simply couldn't pass up, and I just hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it.

Utopia

Chapter 1: Looks Like the Doctor's Not In

There were few things quite as unsettling as docking at a dead space station.

Or finding a spider in your shirt when you're in the middle of putting it on. That's pretty bad, too.

Ratchet and Clank had just caught wind of a strange occurrence over in a sector of the Solana Galaxy so distant, no one had even bothered to name it, when a dead surveillance satellite was found drifting off course, and when the authorities traced its programmed route as they tried to locate just where it had been rendered in such a state, what did they find but an unidentified space station smack dab in the middle of nowhere, rumored to be the newest base of none other than the duo's greatest nemesis, the robotic supervillain Dr. Nefarious….

Well, rumored was a bit of an understatement, considering it was designed to be the spitting image of the sinister scientist, green, glass dome and all, in much the same manner as his previous space station back when he was bent on rewriting history for his own twisted ends. While it was a good deal smaller (the doctor must be rather strapped for bolts these days), there was no doubt as to the station's owner. Unless he had a rather big fan, but considering the scientist's penchant for betraying anyone he had ever sided with, that was rather unlikely. And for the first time in all their many years of infiltrating enemy territory, they were met with a rather quiet reception.

Well, none actually.

In fact, the Lombax and his small robot companion entered the space station with no more commotion than a wave and a hello from one of the Galactic Rangers that had been sent to investigate the disturbance, along with an admittance that if anything out of the ordinary occurred here, they'd leave it up to the two of them to deal with the situation. And while it wasn't an entirely unexpected statement, it was just a bit disturbing that it was these very robots the residents of the Solana Galaxy relied on to fight wars in their stead. With that attitude, it was no wonder the duo was so blasted busy all the time.

As they strode down the maze of hallways that greeted them beyond the hangar doors, they found the place to be black as space, the only working lights to be those the Rangers had brought along, and while these proved to be more or less sufficient, it didn't prevent the robots from quivering at the slightest movement of their own shadows in the twilight, and Ratchet rolled his eyes from inside the space suit he continued to wear even inside, as Aphelion had detected a depleting supply of oxygen now that the station's life support systems were as defunct as the lights (the Lombax was pretty certain it had never occurred to Nefarious that a space station comprised entirely of robots had little need of life support).

As the two of them strode by yet another Galactic Ranger they had caught who was busy doing next to nothing, save for loitering and looking over his shoulder for whatever he suspected might sneak up on him from out of the gloom, it became more than apparent that the station had fallen victim to something much worse than a mere power outage as they passed countless robots lying motionless on the ground. It was clear they were Nefarious' troopers, based on the green domes that comprised the upper half of their frames, and it was equally as clear that they, just like everything else, were completely and utterly dead.

"I must admit, it's pretty spooky in here." Ratchet stopped to nudge at the nearest robot with the end of one boot. "I wonder what happened." He crouched down to tap at the glass of its head with a gloved finger, this act also failing to return any life to its circuits. Not that he would want to. Nefarious had quite the habit of giving his troops rotating saws for arms, along with any other cruel instruments that were well-suited to slicing and dicing "squishies". As if trying to open a pickle jar wasn't difficult enough…

"Well, based on the lack of any physical damage, I would have to conclude that someone set off an EMP device in the vicinity," Clank said with a hand to his metal chin. "These poor robots. They did not stand a chance."

The Lombax stood and attempted to scratch the back of his head before he remembered he was still wearing a helmet. "An EMP? Could it—"

"Yes, an electromagnetic—"

"I know what an EMP is. But, could it really do this to an entire space station?" Ratchet gestured about at the strangely serene massacre as he turned to continue his patrol down the hallway, though he highly doubted he would find anything besides what they had already seen.

His robotic companion made to follow. "Why, yes, quite easily, actually. You see…"

"It's horrible! I can't stand another second in this place! I think I'm gonna throw up!"

They jumped out of the way as a Galactic Ranger came screaming around the corner in front of them and ran by with his hands clutched to his head, and he continued to shriek in terror long after he was lost to sight in the blackness where the lights didn't reach, which only served to give him a whole new thing to scream over.

"What's his problem?" Ratchet asked as he jabbed his thumb in the direction the frightened robot had gone.

"I know they may look like mere pieces of metal to you, Ratchet, but imagine if these hallways were littered with the bodies of organic life forms."

"Yeah, I guess I see the point. Though, no offense, but I don't really care what happened to a bunch of Nefarious' lackeys. I just want to know who did this and where Nefarious is." The Lombax peered off into one dark hallway none of the Rangers had yet to venture down. And likely never would, though due to fear or sheer laziness, it mattered little. "Come on, Clank, let's get to the bottom of this. We won't find anything if we stick around these numbskulls."

It wasn't long before the duo began to venture into uncharted territory using a cloud of glowing nanorobots, courtesy of Big Al, to light the way, but everywhere they went through the cold, dead hallways of the silent space station, they found nothing but robots reduced to scrap metal, and Ratchet fiddled with the controls of various consoles they passed along the way, only to find they had fared no better.

"They're all completely fried," Ratchet said before he stopped in front of an elevator and pressed the button nearby with rather low expectations of what he thought might happen. And he was not disappointed.

"Darn it! How are we going to find anything in this place if we're stuck on one level?"

"Ratchet," Clank began from his place as Ratchet's backpack, a position he so often took up when they were in the middle of exploration or any other situations with the potential for peril. Even if today didn't seem to be one of them. "I really do not think it would be safe to attempt any form of ascent using the elevator at a time like this, even if it was still functioning. I suggest we take the stairs."

"There are no stairs! Look, I have an idea." The Lombax began to pry at the elevator doors with all his might, but when this produced no results, he took out his blaster. "There's nothing a little firepower can't fix." After a few well-aimed shots, he tried the doors again, this time with more success when he was able to force his fingers in the gap his pistol had made. Once he had succeeded in pushing the doors apart just a bit further, he took up his trusty wrench, and the doors came open enough that he was able to squeeze through, but no sooner had he done so that he yelped at the abyss that opened up at his feet.

"Ratchet! What's going on?"

"Nothing! Everything's perfectly— I don't see any sign of the elevator, though…."

The Lombax's gaze jerked upward when he heard a screech from above, and he jumped back just in time as the elevator came screaming past with the sound of metal scraping on metal, and he stepped forward again to stare wide-eyed down at the light given off an increasing distance below by a corona of sparks.

"Well, that was close."

"This would not have happened if we had taken the stairs."

Ratchet rolled his eyes before he began to tackle the elevator shaft with the help of his Gravity Boots, each step producing a metallic clang that rang out before and below him, and while he had been defying gravity in such a manner for years, walking vertically up a deep and dimly lit elevator shaft did have a way of making one rather queasy, and he was just grateful when he was given the chance to return to more horizontal footing upon his arrival at the highest level the elevator shaft would take him.

His relief was short-lived, however, as the fur on the back of his neck began to prick up at how completely silent it was without even the chatter of the Galactic Rangers to mask the deathly lull, and as he started forward, he found himself flinching at the sound of his own footsteps as they echoed off ahead of him down a hallway that seemed in the darkness like it could stretch on without end, and he was tempted to take out his blaster (or the RYNO, for that matter), even when, just like the hallways prior, there was no sign of movement of any kind.

"You don't think Nefarious accidentally did this to himself, do you, Clank?" Ratchet said as he picked his way among the scattered bodies of robots that littered the floor.

"I do not think so. Even he would not have been so careless."

"Then, who do you think did it? Another enemy of his, perhaps?"

They wandered about for what felt like a good hour, and just when Ratchet was considering giving up and hightailing it out of here, he came upon a door that looked particularly promising, based on the emblem revealed upon its surface as the cloud of nanorobots circled slowly about him, and he worked on prying it open in the same manner as with the elevator, only to obliterate it with the Negotiator when his patience wore thin.

"Was that really necessary?" the robot asked.

"You bet it was."

The Lombax strode through the now smoldering doorway, his gun still smoking and held at the ready, and he stopped within a room that was not at all what he was expecting. This was Nefarious' office, sure enough, based on the furniture (and did the supervillain really have…an action figure of himself displayed on his desk?), but everything was…completely fine.

In fact, there appeared to be no sign of a struggle whatsoever. No toppled furniture. No sign of missed gunshots. Nothing. It was as if the scientist had simply left and intended to return later, if it wasn't for the obvious fact that something had happened here, or else the space station wouldn't be without power and every single trooper littering the hallways indisposed. And finding the room without one object out of place was quite possibly the most chilling thing of all.

It was bad enough that someone had so easily managed to sneak this far into what should have been one of the most heavily guarded places in the galaxy, but for them to have done so without any retaliation from the supervillain… Dr. Nefarious may have been a lunatic, but he was not so easily tricked, and he never went down easily. And the Lombax would know. But, what did he expect from someone who could shoot lasers from their hands?

Clank dropped to the floor to make a closer inspection of the large room, in case there was something he was missing, while the Lombax made a slow sweep of his own to inspect the expansive aquarium built into the back wall and several vicious-looking robotic fish that were now lying motionless on the bottom.

"Find anything—" he began as he moved down the wall with a hand running over the glass, but his words and his stride were cut short when his gaze caught something on the floor.

Blood.

"What is it, Ratchet?" Clank asked as he joined him, but his question was answered when he, too, looked down at what had caught his companion's attention. "I see. It would appear…an organic is responsible for this."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't tell us who. Did you find anything else, Clank?"

The little robot shook his head. "No. All I can conclude from this is that either Dr. Nefarious succumbed to the same fate as all the other robots under his command or he is not here to begin with."

"You're right." Ratchet's eyes fell to the drops of crimson that speckled the floor one, final time. "Let's get out of here."

The two returned at once to Aphelion, passing countless Galactic Rangers on their way back that had still yet to muster up the courage to venture beyond the first few dozen yards beyond the hangar, and they took off in the direction of Kerwan, both remaining silent as they pondered over what they had found, or what was more unsettling, the fact that they hadn't found anything, the existence of the one who had turned the space station into a drifting tomb an impossible enigma when they had left behind no sign they had ever been.

They travelled for an hour or a few through the endless void that was space, with nothing but the countless speckle of stars and the murky depths of nebulae for company. It was a place that felt so empty, and yet which contained so much, it was impossible to fathom. This far out in the middle of nowhere, not even a ship passed by, and there were times, more than Ratchet cared to count, that he worried the universe as he knew it had ended during their time out in all this nothing, and no matter how much they wandered, they would never again find another soul. He shivered. Better not think about it.

The Lombax began to fidget as the silence started to remind him a bit too much of the place they had just left behind, and he reached for the radio, only to withdraw his hand at the crackling of static, and while at this instant he took back his wish for noise, it was a wish that came too late when a familiar voice came in over the radio.

"How's it goin', cadets?" said the voice of none other than Captain Copernicus Qwark himself. "Did you find anything interesting in my…" His voice lowered to a tone he surely found far more dramatic. "My nemesis's evil lair? I mean, my…neme-nemesiseses…my…"

"No, we didn't, Qwark," Ratchet said, and he attempted to turn the radio off, but was prevented from doing so by a glare from Clank.

"It appears an EMP was used to disable all the electronic devices in Dr. Nefarious' space station," the robot said.

"A what?"

"An EMP. You see, it is an electromagnetic pulse used to interfere with and disable—"

"Ratchet, he's starting the nerd-talk again…."

The Lombax rolled his eyes. "What Clank's trying to say is Nefarious' space station is toast. And no, we didn't find any sign of your 'evil nemesis'. Something happened there, sure enough, but we don't know anymore now than we did before we got there." Less, actually.

"Phew, that's good to hear," the superhero said. "I have this appointment for a facial on- Ahem, what I meant to say was, I'm just glad to hear that the two of you are safe—"

"Sure you are."

"—and I can always just track that villain down another time and give him a taste of my two good friends here, the Long Arm of the Law and Hey, Good Lookin'."

Ratchet frowned. "And who exactly are they?"

"My fists, who else? Once my appointment's over, of course. But, the point is…I'm just glad—"

"Lombax distress signal detected."

"—no one got hurt. I've always believed—"

"Hold on a second, Qwark. Aphelion's found something—"

"—that violence wasn't really the answer. I mean, okay, yeah, killing people is a pretty good way to—"

"Qwark, I gotta go." Ratchet turned off the radio. "Aphelion, what is it?"

"Lombax distress signal detected. Point of origin is on an unknown planet .5 parsecs away."

"Lombax? Did she…Clank, did she say—"

"Yes, that is what she said, but that does not mean—"

"Well, what's it say exactly, Aphelion? There has to be more to it than that."

"The message is in Lombax and encrypted with a 2048-bit LKI encryption key and can only be deciphered by a device of Lombax origin."

Ratchet huffed. "Well, that's perfect. Decipher it, then!"

"The message reads as—" Aphelion began, but her voice became lost in a jumble of static.

"There appears to be some kind of interfe—" Clank said.

"I know! Clank, do something!"

"And what do you suggest I do? It would be most effective to simply try again once we are out of range of whatever is causing the disturbance."

"Yes, but then we might end up out of range of the distress signal! You're smart! Figure it out!" The Lombax struck the ship's console with his fist, which only succeeded in jumbling the message further.

"You remember what Captain Qwark said. Violence is not the answer." The robot giggled that distinctive laugh he so commonly practiced, but he received only a snarl in response.

"Clank!"

"My apologies." Clank turned a knob on the console this way and that, Aphelion's words coming through in varying levels of clarity. "There, that seems to be better. On second thought—"

"—a very special day t'day-hic-'cuz t'day's our very own Cap'n Slag's birfday! Why-hic-Cap'n, ya 'ardly look a day-hic-o'er t'ree!"

"Aw, shucks, Pete!"

"Excuse me. Let me try something else," Clank said, and he turned another knob, but only succeeded in raising the volume.

"—'e's a pretty neat fella, fer 'e's a pretty neat fella, fer 'e's a-hic—"

"Pete, what I saying about singin'! There'll be no singin' t'day! D'ya hear me! Be quiet!"

A gasp was heard through the radio, and Ratchet's hands tightened their grip on the yoke.

"But, Cap'n, pirates always sing catchy ditties!"

"I know, but I jus' don't feel like it t'day, Pete!"

"Say it-hic-ain't so, Cap'n! Say it—"

"It's so, Pete! It's so!"

Further fidgeting with the controls produced little more than static again, only to clear up just in time to catch the sound of sobbing.

"Ah, come now, Pete. Don't start that. Y'know what 'appens when ya cry. You start cryin', then I start tearin' up, an' then b'fore ya know it, we'll all be blubberin' like sissy, little landlubbers, and who's gonna take a buncha weepy pirates seriously?"

"I dunno-hic-Cap'n. I jus' don' know."

"Clank, please, make it stop!"

This time, the robot's efforts met with more success, and Aphelion's voice returned to them mid-sentence. "—send help imm—"

"It seems we must have cleared the—" Clank began, only to be hushed by his companion.

"Wait a minute," Ratchet said. "Start from the beginning."

"The message reads as follows: 'Help. I am stranded and definitely not armed. Please send help immediately. I am in mortal peril. Especially since I'm not armed.' End message."

The Lombax frowned. "Huh, well, that was a little…"

"Suspicious, yes. Ratchet, I really must insist we exercise caution in this matter. I do not have a good feeling about this."

"Yeah, but…it's a Lombax, Clank. Who else could've sent it?"

"Actually…"

"I know the message was a little sketchy, but if there's even a remote possibility another Lombax is out there, I have to find them." Ratchet's face cracked in a sly grin as he nudged the little robot with one elbow. "But, hey, look on the bright side. They said they weren't armed."

Clank frowned. "You do realize that whenever I am this trusting, it often does not end well and results in you becoming cross with me."

"Yeah, I know. Let's get going, Clank." With that, Ratchet activated the ship's boosters and sped off for the source of the mysterious signal.

"By the way, we are low on fuel, and using the boosters will surely cause us to run out twice as quickly."

"Just stop talking, Clank."

Did you know they sell Dr. Nefarious action figures? I have one. It's awesome. And I obviously have no idea how space travel works, considering I haven't exactly had a lot of experience in the area. I just went on the Internet and found some words, and I used them. I used those words.

Anyway, this chapter turned out pretty good after some serious editing. I hope you are enjoying my story so far, though I may not be able to keep up weekly updates as I've done with past stories. Sorry, my darlings. I promise I won't make you wait too long. But while you wait, why don't you review? Hey, what a great idea!