Rune met the first of his Motavian friends shortly after Demi had docked 'Buggy' with Zelan and they had made landfall. It felt great to be able to stretch his legs again. He had nothing against Demi's ship but he didn't want to be getting back inside it anytime soon. Chaz was hanging out by himself in the landing bay, sort of pacing around impatiently. The others were currently at Zelan's main observation area but Chaz had wanted to wait around for Rune and Raja to get there. He didn't think he'd ever be able to see the two again, so he was pretty nervous. He and Rune had become friends during the Great War but the esper tended to pick on him. Would things still be the same?

The esper and the dezorian turned a corner in the passageway, led by a jabbering Demi who was trying to explain to them the modifications that had been made to Zelan in the new millennium. Chaz was alerted to the sound and immediately stopped his pacing, staring at them like an animal that had been caught in the headlights of the land rover. "Rune." He breathed in recognition.

Rune knew that he had not changed much in the past three years and neither had Raja, but they were both adults during the Great War while Chaz had only been a child. Great Light, the boy had grown! He was two or three growth spurts taller and had lost a fraction of his baby face, dressed in civilian clothing rather than his usual hunting gear. Chaz had not come in preparation for a fight. Even his voice had changed, by saying Rune's name once he could hear how deeper and more adult it had become. Rune gave Chaz a welcoming smile. "Hey shorty." He said.

Chaz smiled back widely and closed the distance between himself and the others, unexpectedly grabbing Rune in a wild hug. Everybody was going to be hugging him today he figured, it was becoming a trend. He must be so popular around here. Chaz laughed. "I knew I'd get to see you again someday! Never meet each other again, yeah right! How are you, Rune? What have you been doing these couple of years?"

"Why, he teamed up with me and we took Dezoris by storm with our unstoppable comedy routine! The barmy bishop and the loony Lutz! We can't even get into Jut anymore without being swamped by fans!" Raja chortled, jerking a thumb at himself. Demi looked up at the old man earnestly, the only one naïve enough to believe his tale.

"Oof, I told you last time what I'd be doing. I've been in training. Let go of me brat, you're making it hard to breathe." Rune scolded, trying to palm the boy away from him. Chaz obeyed and backed away a couple of steps, grinning and rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. The hunter had grown some but he still seemed to act like a kid. Rune straightened his robes out that Chaz had messed up. "Where are the others?" He asked, a little eager to meet Rika and Hahn but even more anxious to get down to the business of what he had seen. That was very important.

The hunter was about to speak but Demi beat him to it. "They should still be with Master Wren on the observation deck. I was ordered to take you up there too." The girl looked around a little bit, as if she expected that somebody was listening in on her. She added; "When you see the ship on the deck please act like it is the first time you have seen it, or else I might get into trouble for loopholing an order."

He doubted that Demi would actually get punished for something like that but he might as well do her a favor anyway. The foursome of people walked together again after so much time apart. Thoughts of the worldship that he had seen weighed heavily on Rune's mind. What was it doing there and what could they do with it? He shouldn't try and figure out answers to these questions until he was out on the deck with the rest of his friends. "How are Hahn and Rika?" He asked Chaz, the hunter keeping in step with him easily.

"I've started to wonder lately if there really is such a thing as a perfect happy ending. If it does exist then we are living it, my friend. Hahn is doing great, he climbed up the educational ladder and now he has his own pre-collapse history class. He's been keeping in touch with Zelan for all of us, but I think his real reason for doing that is to wheedle information for his classes from Demi and Wren." Demi smiled and nodded to Chaz's words. "As for Rika… she's as radiant as ever. I thought she might have trouble adapting to normal life but she just fit right in. She's retired from fighting now Rune, she says she's had more than enough of it to last a lifetime."

Fair enough for her. Rune would have like to have put away his stave for good too, if he had been given the chance. Lutzes never got that chance. They had always been trained for combat, from the cradle to the grave. Rune could see the pure sense of admiration and love on Chaz's face when he spoke of the numan girl. There was something there, a connection that only an idiot could not see. He was glad that Rika had chosen to stay on Motavia instead of the other alternative. Chaz was happier for it too. "So when's the wedding?" He asked nonchalantly, watching Demi flinch, her gossip getting out of hand. That was the way gossip spread though, from person to person.

"Oh, so you know about that, huh?" Chaz replied casually, but the question that was lingering on the tip of his tongue was more along the lines of; 'how do you know about that?'. Demi wasn't going to say anything, so let the blond-haired man think that Rune was telepathic. It would make things much more fun. Chaz looked a little bashful, tugging at his shirt collar. "It's in five months time, in Aiedo. You can come if you want, provided you're not busy."

"Maybe I will." Rune answered promptly, then stopped in his tracks when their guide ceased moving. Raja nearly bumped into him from behind. They were still in a sort of corridor-like area, but this part of Zelan looked slightly older and shabbier compared to the areas that they were familiar with. There were many closed doors along the corridor and each one was numbered. Demi was standing outside room thirty nine and was staring at it in a sad, meaningful way, like a little girl locked out of a candy store. Rune tapped her gently on the shoulder. "Is this it?" He questioned, voicing the words for all of them.

Demi looked at him and shook her head, turning on her heel and leading them on along the corridor. No explanation was given for her unaccountable halt. Rune kind of got the feeling that whenever Demi walked through here she stopped at that door all the time, only this time she had forgotten that she had visitors with her. It was a long trek to the observation deck. Zelan surely was a gigantic place. Twenty minutes later they reached the big doors that led to the open space on top of the station. It was sealed with a special gravitational field that prevented people from simply floating off into space or suffocating.

The android girl pulled back a pressure release lever for the hydraulics of the door and it slid open soundlessly, a slight pressure change in the air around them causing their ears to ache. Chaz stepped inside first, already familiar with the area around him. Rune and Raja followed with Demi bringing up the rear. It was quite a spectacular view. All around them were stars, the lazy swirl of galaxies, and in front of them were the rest of their friends.

Wren looked just as he was and always would be, but Rika beside him was a sight to behold. Rune had never imagined Rika in a dress before. The look really seemed to suit her and pink was always her colour. Hahn had grown his hair out and was wearing civilian clothing too. This did not look like a reunion of seasoned fighters at all, but Rika and Hahn looked great, happy and healthy. It almost made Rune wonder if he had really accomplished anything during his brief three years of training. There was so much change around him that it was hard to keep track of it all.

"Ah, they are here." Wren said calmly as Rika ran from her place beside him and touched on Chaz for a moment, giving him a little squeeze before moving on to the others. Rune had expected to receive Rika's attention first but she jumped to Raja instead, embracing him like a long lost grandfather. The bishop just ate up the attention, which made Demi and Hahn laugh. Wren folded his arms and regarded Rune carefully. "Thank you for coming, Reverent Fifth. Shall we begin?"

"First things first!" Rika giggled, hugging her most favorite dezorian in the world. "I haven't given everybody a hug yet." The girl disengaged from Raja and turned to Rune. She knew that he didn't like overly physical contact much. Much to her surprise, however, Rune held his arms out to her. The unspoken offer was more than obvious.

"Come on, everybody seems to be doing it today. I think I can stand one more." He reassured her, smirking in his own trademark way. Rika beamed and slipped into his arms, planting a fond kiss on his cheek. That pretty much made the attention worth it, then and there. Rune could almost forget about the worldship and his reason for coming here, it just felt good being with his friends again. He had missed that feeling and he hadn't even realised it.

"The worldship." Hahn said aloud, gesturing towards the astoundingly large spaceship caught in orbit around Algo's star, just as Zelan was. Its sheer size was not something that could easily be described or ignored. Its girth was equal to that of a small continent, a small moon. The seven people on the observation deck could see it clearly in all its mystery. Rune was still holding onto Rika, but the esper let go of her modestly. The ship bore many domes and only its underside looked like the workings of a proper spaceship, but its thrusters seemed to be dead or nonfunctional. Around the ship two tiny satellites slowly rotated, one green, the other blue. It looked to be an incredibly sophisticated facility.

Raja broke the awkward silence that Hahn had created by making an impressed whistling noise. Rika moved toward Chaz and took his hand, watching the ship alongside him. The wreckage of a worldship had crashed on Motavia once, shattering the domes and punching a large crater into the ground. That broken ship had only been a flea in comparison to this great beast. It was a wonder to see that one of them was spaceworthy after so much time. "Are there living people aboard? You said you didn't know if the life support was still functioning." Rika said, addressing her question to Wren.

Oh, there were still people alive on that ship, Rune and Raja knew of that well. It was the presence of their souls that had called out to them rather than the appearance of the ship. Under those domes were lands not unlike the terrain of Motavia, Dezoris and Palma. Harsh and stifling, frigid and chilly, lush and verdant. One of the key worldships, information that one of the dead Lutzes in his mind knew well. "There's around forty to fifty thousand people staffing that ship. It has satellites, so that makes it a key worldship. Only five of those variety were made because of the massive strain on resources. Even Mother Brain had her limits."

The sureness in Rune's voice immediately made him the center of attention. The magician was not very impressed, but he could see now why Wren had invited him here. The android was too young to have a detailed knowledge of the collapse exodus. Wren had been made a couple of years later. How sneaky of him. Well, he could have all the information that he wanted now.

Chaz raised his hand nervously, meekly. "Um… I don't know about the rest of you, but I have no idea what is going on. What kind of ship is that? Could I get an explanation please?" Raja also grunted in agreement.

Hahn spread his arms in the beginning of a tale. Biology had been his major subject at the Academy but circumstance kept pulling him towards the branch of history. Wren, Rika and Rune continued to be silent, so this tale was his. "One thousand years ago Palma exploded, as you all know. The event was dubbed the 'Great Collapse'. When Palma was destroyed a multitude of ships carrying refugees and lost technology escaped, determined to seek a new home. Of the great many ships only five of them were properly equipped for long-term survival. When I say long-term survival I mean hundreds and hundreds of years. They were called 'Key Ships' and had satellites for external support."

"Those ships escaped the violent 'Collapse Wars' that ravaged Motavia and Dezoris for decades after the disaster," Wren continued, picking up from where Hahn had left off, "and it was believed a fraction of these key ships successfully escaped the Algo solar system. Many other ships were destroyed mysteriously, some hypothesized by a remnant subroutine left by Mother Brain in the ship's data banks. It is my belief they were rendered inoperable by a myriad of technical defects. Now it is one thousand and one years after Palma was destroyed and a key ship has returned. I ask why."

Rune couldn't answer Wren's question. He had no idea of the reason why. The ship had just appeared, popped up out of nowhere one day, as if it had sailed straight into a wormhole and by a vast improbability had ended up right near its point of origin again. The esper sighed and shrugged, defeated. "I don't know. I know the history better than anybody else here but I don't have an answer for you. We shouldn't be worrying about the 'hows' and 'whys', we should be thinking about what to do with it. Do we leave it as it is? Let it make landfall on one of the existing planets? Send it on its merry way to a more charitable star system?"

Chaz found that a little funny. He knew rather well what it was like to get booted out of places. "'Sorry guys, we can't spare the resources even if you are family, move along please?' That's kind of cold, Rune, but I guess I can see where you're coming from."

"The collapse wars did not happen for no reason." Wren said gravely. "Populating Algo when the planet's resources cannot carry the strain would lead to famine and conflict. Granted, current civilization does not possess the means to fight as ferociously over land as they once did, but the results would be quite similar. This key worldship must not be permitted to make landfall on Motavia or Dezoris." Fortunately it didn't seem like the ship would be able to land anywhere even if it wanted to. Its propulsion was shot, only its life support system seemed to be functioning normally.

Wren seemed curiously knowledgeable about that long-distant war. Rune would have found that strange for a system control android but he also knew that Wren had spent the first years of his life in such a war-torn age. He had a good point though, the worldship couldn't stay here. "I have an idea." Said a little voice from behind all of them. It sounded hopeful and calm, but a bit shy.

Demi had not said anything for quite some time. She had listened instead, piecing together all the fragments of information without letting her own ideas get in the way. All eyes fell on her and she felt the pressure from them, the girl clasping her hands behind her back, like in a recital. "The only thing that we can do from here is observe the ship and make assumptions based on visual info. I propose that we investigate further, maybe try sending a signal to the ship or go down into it for a first-hand look."

What Demi was suggesting was no light matter. It could be severely dangerous if not handled properly. Dealing with the inhabitants of that ship would be like dealing with the members of an alien culture, separated by a one thousand year old generation gap. Yet Demi's idea did have some merit in it, they were accomplishing nothing by merely staring at it from afar. "Very well. I will organize a signal to be sent towards the occupants of that ship, asking for its name, origin and destination. I was going to do that anyway before I started to get emergency transmissions from both sides of the system." Wren said rudely, referencing his guests from Motavia and Dezoris.

"You make it sound like you're not happy to see us." Hahn observed jokingly, placing his hands on his hips. Wren didn't answer him but went to one of the major computers situated on the observation deck, starting his work without so much as a word. Rune thought that it was actually pretty unfriendly of him, but obeyed Demi quietly as the girl ushered everybody else out of the room, closing the doors on her master once she was done. She sighed, looking at five very expectant faces not quite willing to ask.

She answered the unspoken question anyway, apologetically. "I'm sorry. Master Wren has been in a bit of a foul mood ever since the worldship has turned up on our doorstep. I think it symbolizes to him events that were tied up long ago beginning to come loose again. I've had this strange feeling in my neural matrix all morning and I feel really excited all over everything. Instead, Master just seems to have developed a headache." She rubbed the side of her head slightly to emphasize this. Rune knew that this was typical of androidkind, or any system that held a hierarchy within it. The faults of the masters were always the responsibilities of the servants.

"That's okay Demi." Chaz smiled to the green-haired girl, having to lean down to talk to her properly. He surely had grown. "We can wait for a little while. Let's go and find a comfortable place to hang around."

"D'ya have any tea on this floating metal island?" Their resident bishop asked hopefully. Demi shook her head and Raja sagged a little. "Figured as much."

Rika patted the dezorian cheerfully on the shoulder. "Don't worry. Fortunately Chaz and I thought ahead. We packed a really big lunch because we had the feeling that we'd see some of our friends again. I left the basket in the main hall. Do you want to have a picnic?" It was all about strange feelings today. It made Rika wonder if they were connected to each other in a deeper sense than she had originally believed. Rika smiled prettily at another silly thought. "A picnic in space? How many people can say that they've had a picnic in space?"

Hahn started to chuckle. "I like the idea of that." He said.

†††

Wren fancied that maybe he did indeed have a headache. It was the only vaguely logical explanation he could come up with to explain the strange feeling that he had. He didn't like it, it was something annoying and obstructive that was not meant to be there at all. Wren did not believe in the sixth sense, and even if it did exist then he was certain that he did not possess it. He was only worried about the worldship that had fallen into his responsibility, that was all.

…And maybe that was a bit of a lie, but that did not matter. Wren was hunched over the computer controls thinking, mostly on what to broadcast to the ship violating Zelan's airspace. He wasn't even sure if he would get a proper answer. After one thousand years the likelihood of a pilot still being at the helm was low. Maybe he had been a little cold to his friends before, but that did not matter either. Wren knew that friends were hard to come by on such a dead system like Algo and they were all too easy to lose again.

"If you're going to continue to bring me your boys' bodies at least be gentle with them, even if a few are enemy soldiers. This is a clinic we're in, not a mortuary."

By the Creator, when was the last time he had been ordered around? By somebody with an honorary title, no less? His thoughts about the past, the worldship and the topic of friends had linked him to some old memories, ones that were better left buried. He couldn't muffle them, the floodgates had been opened and the memories just had to run their natural course now. Wren did feel bad over his coldness to his friends. He would be kinder to them next time to make up for that fact. There was no reason to sour several friendships just because of the presence of an unwanted feeling.

"Stop loitering in the hall, soldier! Don't you have a war to fight? …Off duty? Well, so am I. Let's go see if the mail is in yet, friend."

The android caught himself wishing for the first time in many years that he had a superior to report to, somebody with a greater knowledge than he who would be able to sort out all these problems without breaking a sweat. It was foolish of Wren to wish for something like that, because the only things he had left of the past were Demi, his loyal servant, and Zelan. His cybernetic body too, not that he counted that.

Wren picked up the receiver of the computer's radio and prepared to send a radio broadcast directly to the source of his problems. The up-link was open, he only had to hope that either a crewman or the ship's computer itself would hear him.

"You know what, Forren? I think you're the first android friend that I've ever had. Only motavians and palmans have been nice to me before. It always made me feel like I had blood in my veins, instead of electricity."

What should he say to them? Ugh, the moth-eaten memories of the past were distracting him. He shouldn't have brought up the collapse wars in correlation to the worldship, he was only prompting his positronic brain to dig skeletons out of the closet. Wren focussed and decided that the standard message of contact programmed into him was best. It was cool and impartial. Wren liked cool and impartial. "Hello, this is the space station Zelan calling unknown craft. Unknown craft, please respond with your name. This is the space station Zelan calling unknown craft. Unknown craft, please respond with your current destination and place of origin. Please respond."

It would take two minutes at the most for the ship to reply. Wren waited patiently. After eight minutes of no reply he attempted the message all over again with the same results. The ship did not recognise the signal or chose to ignore it. Wren put a hand to his brow like he did very much have a headache. If the life support was functional then the ship's computers must be functional as well. It should respond, even if it was only with a stale recorded message. The worldships had been built with no expense spared, especially the key ships.

With his old memories taken out of storage and shaken free of the dust, Wren decided to try a different strategy. It was possible that the ship would not recognise Zelan as a severe authority in the Algo solar system. Why should it? In the time of the launching of the worldships Zelan had been only a station for meteorological research.

The Motavian and the Palman military had been the pet forces of Mother Brain, the only hard spot on a soft, soft world. When she had died the military had stood on its own two feet and helped to hold the entire system together. That was the one thing that both the government and the enemy resistance agreed on. Algo needed to persevere. The group who would lead the way was only a minor detail, a detail that had started the war.

He thought that he'd give it a shot. "Hello, this is an emissary of the orbiting satellite Zelan. I am Lieutenant Colonel Forren one thousand and eighty three of the third armed division, general palman infantry. I demand that you give me your ship's name, origin and destination. Respond now and I will not classify your ship as hostile. Please comply. Should you refuse to comply I am afraid I will have to take antagonistic measures."

Wren had not used his military rank or even said it out loud for well over a good half of the last millennium. There was a chance that it would give him significant leverage over the ancient spaceship if it recognized him as a figure of authority. It might, or it might not. This ship had been launched long before Wren had even been conscripted to the military. He waited two minutes for a response, utterly silent. He felt unnecessarily tense. It was strange.

Almost exactly after two minutes had passed Wren got a reply. It was an autonomic recorded reply played mindlessly by the ship's computer but he was fine with that, because it contained most of the information he needed. "We acknowledge you, unidentified ship." Wren was a little irritated being called 'unidentified', as he had identified Zelan many times. "We are the Alisa Three, ship three of two hundred, key ship three of five. Our origin is the planet Palma of the Algo system, the gem in the midst of Medusa's crown. Our destination is as yet unknown. We wish to find a suitable planet to settle upon."

"There is no place for you in this system, Alisa Three. I respectfully ask you to leave this star and seek settlement elsewhere." Wren replied solemnly into the radio speaker, knowing that as he said this he was probably sentencing the palmans inside the ship to another thousand years of fruitless searching. There was nothing else that he could do for them, and Wren had to remind himself that they weren't his people anymore.

"Negative." Replied the robotic recording, sounding like a boring woman speaking in monotone. "Alisa Three has no pilot. Auto-pilot is currently disabled and must be activated manually. This can be achieved from the main flight bridge."

So if Wren wanted it out of Algo somebody would have to reset the auto-pilot from the very helm of the ship. That would require actually venturing inside the Alisa Three. The prospect didn't sound too tempting but it still had to be done. To get the ship out of Wren's way, and also to send the abandoned children of Palma back on their journey of colonization. "What routes exist that allow access to the bridge from an external source?" He asked, aware that he wouldn't get an easy answer. The bridge was the most fortified area of a spaceship and was bound to be hard to reach from the outside.

"Two external routes exist, one from satellite Dahlia, the other from satellite Azura. They are equipped with functioning shuttlecraft bearing authorization to reach Alisa Three's bridge." The message announced blandly. Wren looked up and studied the two moons. The blue moon was closer to Zelan, lazily floating in space. That would have to be their target. At least the moon didn't look too threatening.

"Thank you, Alisa Three. Space station Zelan will do what it can to send you off on your mission again. Are you able to open a route to the blue satellite for our crewmen to access?"

"Affirmative. Entry to satellite Azura is now open. Alisa Three thanks unidentified ship."

"Over." Wren said and ended the transmission, lowering the radio receiver from his mouth. The android had learnt much in talking to the computer of the worldship, information that he would surely pass on to the others. He hadn't needed Rune or the other protectors to do this but they had come anyway, and now Wren had a use for them. He could go down to the satellite Azura but he certainly wasn't going to go alone. He couldn't do everything by himself when the job required an extra pair of hands. Wren had learnt that from the war.

"Forren? Hey, hey, Forren? Do you have a moment? If you're going to the front lines tomorrow give them heck for me, and I will try and make sure your boys don't suffer a single casualty. To be honest I don't miss the trenches at all. Ha ha."

Wren pressed a hand against his face. That feeling! That horrible feeling! And guilt too, the dry shadow of a dusty skeleton. What was wrong with him? It didn't matter. Once the Alisa Three was infiltrated and the ship safely on its way to the stars again everything could go back to normal.

But what Wren didn't know as he stood in front of the control panel and thought of the past and the future, what he didn't understand or even comprehend yet was that something huge had begun, something that would shatter his sense of 'normalcy' for forevermore. Wren had no idea of the vast pain and suffering that the future held in store for him. He did not know that his sanity and the thing most precious to him were about to be put on the line, possibly lost for good.

He was not aware of this. But one thing he did know, a fact that he had not thought about for ages was just how fragile the psyche of an android could be. Whereas a palman would bend and learn from a horrific experience, a terrifying blood-chilling experience, an android might snap, so easily. Driven completely mad. Suicide was not uncommon when an android had turned that way. He had seen it happen before, too.

It would never happen to him though, of course not. Wren had fought against the Profound Darkness itself and had come out alright, so he was immune to such things. Thinking so proudly and so loftily of himself was one of Wren's great mistakes.

Yet the biggest mistake he was to ever make in his near-eternal life was the decision to send himself and his friends to Azura.

In doing that, Wren effectively took their happy endings away.