Square-Enix owns Star Ocean. I'm just a two-bit hack who writes about it.

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"Weapons system online, Captain."

Marietta and Steeg were working right alongside me, having arrived shortly after I did. Maria nodded and began instructing us. We had never attempted to use this weapon before, and only Maria really knew how it worked. "Deactivate shields and engines," she ordered.

I looked at her hesitantly. "Are you sure about this, Captain?" I asked.

"Of course. There's no other option," she replied simply. "We only need portside weapons. Deactivate starboard."

It was becoming obvious what she planned to do, and I only hoped it was the correct course of action. Of course, it was the only available course of action, but that didn't necessarily mean it was correct. I keyed in a few more commands, deactivating all unnecessary systems. Soon all available power was diverted to the portside weapons.

Next we began to cut off individual weapons, one by one, until only one remained. The Terminal Detonator, it was called. Before we could begin preparing to fire, though, a noise caught our attention. Footsteps on the stairs... a voice yelling to its comrades...

In seconds I had flattened the pirate. The few who had followed him up, also followed him down. Once they were taken care of, Maria gave her next order.

"Mirage."

"Yes, Captain?"

"You stand guard."

I had planned to finish the preparation, but even wounded I was the most capable fighter here. I nodded and stood next to the door, waiting for the next pirate to show up. Soon, the door slid open, and three figures charged inside. I was about to destroy them, when the first one held up his hand. "Wait," he said calmly. "We don't want to fight."

I thought for a moment. I knew that some of the pirates were our allies, for some reason, but I didn't know which ones. After a minute, I decided. "Alright, but you'll have to stay locked up in the sick bay," I informed him. "We'll decide how to deal with you when we get to the nearest planet."

Nodding gratefully, the three stepped into the sick bay, and even seemed to be smiling as I closed and locked the door. Happy about being locked up. Go figure.

It was precisely as I was returned to my post that about ten more pirates burst in. But they didn't seem interested in attacking me at all. They were more focused on fighting each other. Rather than interrupt them, I decided to watch. This turned out to be a better idea, as by the end all of them were unconscious. All that was left was a short haul to the sick bay with their comrades, and I was back to watching the door.

A few minutes passed, and nothing happened. Then, without warning, a shirtless man brandishing a sword ran straight onto the Diplo. A tense moment passed as he seemed to be getting his bearings and deciding whether to attack or not.

"Hello, Albel," I said simply. "Trying to be more like Adray?"

At this he made up his mind. I think he would have killed me, too, if he hadn't been restrained from behind. "Oh, I see Nel's here too," I added, mildly surprised to find that her appearance was slightly disheveled. "You two had a rough time getting back here, I see?"

"Er... yeah," Albel said, avoiding eye contact and relaxing a little. "Those pirates, they did something... I don't know..."

"It was some kind of gas," Nel confirmed. "I got this weird floating sensation, and... I'm not even sure what happened after that."

Gas? A nerve gas, maybe? Now things were looking bad. The others still hadn't returned, and I doubted they would be safe if the pirates used nerve gas on them. There was no time to think about it, though, because that was when the pirates began flooding in after them.

Nel rushed right into the middle of the group, and began striking with perfect accuracy, countering every attempt to attack her back. Albel just started hacking at whoever was closest; most of them tried to keep their distance, but it didn't work very well. I stood back a bit, letting the pirates come to me. It was absolute chaos. The pirates were fighting not only us, but each other as well. Finally, the fighting broke off. Few pirates entered, and the ones who did were mostly dispatched by the ones who were already here. I motioned for those to join their comrades in the sick bay, and they went along with it.

Now I watched for the sign that Maria had told us meant the weapon was approaching maximum charge. Just as the flash of light illuminated the area in front of us, a shriek pierced the air and in bolted a group of pirates, all apparently directing their attention to one spot. Shoving a few of them aside, I realized that in that one spot were Sophiia and Lieber, guarding two unconscious children. That tipped me off that all of these pirates were on the same side. We made short work of them, and then I led our newly-arrived friends up to the bridge. Albel and Nel could handle the incoming pirates. My leg was starting to hurt, anyway.

"What happened here?" I asked, looking at Peppita and Roger.

"Well," Sophia explained, "Peppita was unconscious when I got there, and I had to feed Roger chocolate to open the cell door."

This made perfect sense, and undoubtedly Sophia was on the verge of collapse after dealing with Roger on sugar, even if she didn't show it. "You just stay here and rest," I told her. "I need to be getting back to the others."

"But what about Fayt?"

"Fayt hasn't arrived yet, he should be here any minute."

Sure enough, seconds later the familiar voice came from below. "Albel! Watch where you're pointing that thing!"

"That's my cue," I said, returning to the docking area. Fayt had a terrified look on his face, but Albel simply shrugged. "Thought you were a pirate," he said as he put his sword away.

"You thought I was... you thought... HOW COULD YOU THINK I'M A PIRATE?" he yelled.

Albel shrugged again. "What does it matter? It's not like I actually stabbed you."

"But you were going to!"

"But I didn't."

"You... you..."

Finally, I decided to break up this intellectually stimulating conversation. "Enough. We're still one short."

For a moment Albel didn't seem to know what I was talking about. "Er... what are you talking about?" he asked. "Has the large oafish maggot failed to return?"

I nodded. "Yes, that's the one," I said, turning my attention to the door as a new wave of pirates streamed in. Of course, with four of us now we had no trouble at all removing all hostile parties.

Finally, after a prolonged fight that I could have done without, there was a second flash of light. Immediately after that, the Terminal Detonator fired.

When this happened, the area directly next to the Diplo exploded. In this case, that meant the pirate ship exploded as well. I hurried back to the bridge to see the majority of the enemy ship reduced to scrap metal. Engines, weapons systems, everything was simply destroyed.

Everything.

Stiffly, I walked back to the door. Staring at it, as if it could respond, I whispered...

"Cliff."

"Yeah?"

At the voice, I spun around in surprise. Cliff was lying on the ground, on a mass of pirate corpses.

"Let me tell ya, I didn't think I was gonna make it," he said. "I think I got burned pretty badly in that explosion."

I thought I might hug him, but I wouldn't be the same Mirage if I let myself be pulled into a big emotional reunion scene. Instead I just straightened up and said, "Welcome back."

Victorious, we all headed to the bridge. "Mirage, take us home," Maria said.

After a brief pause, I shook my head. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Maria."

"Why not?"

"Our engines," I explained. "We rerouted all the power to the Terminal Detonator, and then they were damaged in the explosion. I can't make them work on the limited amount of power we have left."

Maria sighed. "Well, I guess I should have seen this coming. Are we at least moving?"

"Yes. With the trajectory influence from the explosion we're drifting toward coordinates..."

"The coordinates aren't important."

"They're not?"

"What are we going to do about them?"

"You have a point."

With that we floated along in silence for some time, until Maria decided to speak up again.

"About those coordinates."

"Yes?"

"What are they?"

"Well, you won't believe this, but..."

Suddenly the ship began to shake unexpectedly. "We're here," I said, as we lurched forward. The ship began to pick up speed, dropping toward the planet below.

"Captain, we're breaking up in the atmosphere," Marietta warned.

"It doesn't matter," Maria reminded her, "there's nothing we can do about it."

Quckly we took shelter in various rooms. Our impact with the ground was not a gentle one. We were thrown against walls, before crashing painfully to the floor, but we did survive.

And as we stepped from the smoking wreck, Cliff blinked in disbelief.

"I don't believe it," he said.

We had landed back on Elicoor II, near the entrance to the Aquatic Garden, the last place most of us thought we'd ever see again.

"It seems fate has conspired to bring us back," Maria commented.

"Hey," said Fayt, "don't blame this on me!"

"No, I mean fate... destiny... cinniúint," Maria said, though this last one only seemed to confuse the issue further.

"Well, whatever you call it, the Diplo is beyond repair now," Cliff informed us. "And I don't think we'll be getting any rescue crews either, seeing how out of all the places we could have been stranded there's at least a ten-million-to-one chance against us ending up back here."

"I guess there's only one thing to do, then," Sophia added, surprisingly cheerful for someone who's just been informed she's stuck on an underdeveloped planet with no way off for the forseeable future.

"Build a new ship?" Fayt asked.

"Curl up into a ball?" Cliff contributed.

"Sacrifice all of you to Crossel?" Albel suggested.

Silence.

"What?"

"No, we'll just have to accept that we're going to be here for a while and make the best of it," Sophia said.

I wasn't so sure it would be that easy.

Then again, what ever was?

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They say history repeats itself. So our heroes find themselves back on Elicoor II, once again, and why fight it? After all, it's not like they have anywhere else to be. Anyway, that's how it happened, all that's left is the epilogue and the sidestory, and of course the sequel. You will read those, right? Please read and review.

They say history repeats itself. So our heroes find themselves back on Elicoor II, once again, and why fight it? After all, it's not like they have anywhere else to be. Anyway, that's how it happened, all that's left is the epilogue and the sidestory, and of course the sequel. You will read those, right? Please read and review.

They say history repeats itself...