Trance woke from her, uh, trance, and heard someone knocking on the outside of the Maru.
"Come on Trance!" Harper pleaded. "Please forgive me. I'm not sure what I done, but it must have been pretty bad. Please just open up so we can talk."
Trance realized that Harper must have been referring to her lack of presence during the last few weeks. "He thinks I've been avoiding him. I guess I should have told everyone that I would be meditating every free moment I had, but how was I to explain the reason for my meditation or why it was so crucial at this time? I couldn't just come out and tell them "Hey everybody in two months we're going to come in contact with the world ship again and I know this because I'm an Avatar."
Trance began to head toward the door to the Maru to let Harper in, when a Teserect portal appeared in front of her. She smiled as she saw her younger self step out as the portal immediately vanished.
"It's good to see you again Trance." Golden Trance said.
"I thought I just left you." Purple Trance said. "Didn't it work?"
"It worked, but there's been a change in plans. I have already fixed most things that I came back to fix, but it's almost time for Andromeda to confront the abyss and the world ship. I need you. Will you help me?"
"Of course I'll help. I'd do anything to protect Andromeda and my friends."
"I knew you'd say that."
"Of course you did." Purple Trance giggled. "You're me."
Golden Trance informs Purple Trance of recent events and about the vision she just had with her multiple selves.
"That's just,… weird." Purple Trance said. " Do you think we can defeat the Abyss together?"
"We have to." Golden Trance said, and Purple Trance agreed.
"Trance if you don't let me in,…" Harper stopped to think of something that would motivate her to want to open the door. "If you don't let me in, I'll tell Rhade you're secretly in love with him and want to…
The door opens and Golden Trance pulls him inside.
"I am not secretly in love with Rhade Harper." Golden Trance said.
"I know, but it got you to open the door." Harper said with a cocky smile.
"Harper, I want to apologize for not spending much time with you lately. I'm not upset with you. I've just been doing some much needed meditation. I'm sorry if you thought that I was intentionally avoiding you."
"Hey that's OK. I mean, … I know we're not as close as we used to be. Hey, I'm OK with that. I mean you're gold not purple. I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never have my purple princess back again so I'll,… just,…uh,… Trance?"
As Harper was babbling away, purple Trance stepped into the room, in front of Harper.
"Hi Harper!" Purple Trance said, as Harper passed out on the floor of the Maru.
"Um, I guess I should have let you tell him first." Purple Trance said.
"Perhaps,…but did you see the expression on his face when he saw you?" Golden Trance asked. "That was priceless."
Rommie came running into the Maru and the first thing she saw was the two Trances. She was about to question them when she saw Harper lying on the floor. "What did you do to him?" Rommie asked with a threatening tone.
Before either Trance could respond to Rommie's question, she quickly picked Harper up and rushed him to the Med deck. As she reached the Med deck, Andromeda informed her that Harper's vitals were fine and that he was merely unconscious. Rommie gently laid Harper on the medical bed and waited for him to regain consciousness. As Rommie waited at Harper's side, Purple and Golden Trance entered.
"Um,.. Rommie, we need to talk." Golden Trance said.
"You think?" Rommie asked.
"Rommie I'm sorry." Replied Purple Trance. "I didn't mean for him to faint. I just wanted to surprise him."
"I'd say you did that.,… Trance?"
"Yes Rommie it's really me."
"I thought that you two switched places."
"We did.." Golden Trance said. "But things aren't turning out as I planned. So instead of her going back to my future, she came here, to a point in time that she can be the most help."
"Doesn't the two of you being here at the same time break a few cosmic laws?" Rommie asked.
"Um,… we're not really breaking them Rommie." Purple Trance said. "We're just sort of,… bending them."
Rommie wondered what the purple one meant by that, but before she could ask her to explain herself, she noticed Harper waking up.
"Rom Doll?" Harper said, when he saw her sitting by his side. "I just had the craziest dream. I was going to the Maru to talk to Trance, but when I got there, I saw two Trances. My Golden Goddess was there as well as my beautiful Purple Princess. Is that crazy or what? Uh,… Rommie?"
"Harper." Rommie said. "I don't want you to pass out again, but,… that wasn't a dream."
Harper looked over to the other side of the room, where he saw not one, but two Trances.
"Trance?" Harper asked, not quite daring to hope that this could possibly be true.
"Um Hmm." Purple Trance said, nodding.
"Trance is that really you!" Harper asked again, as he stood to his feet.
"It's really me Harper."
Harper ran to her, wrapped his arms around her, and gave her the biggest hug imaginable.
"I can't believe this! How is this possible? I thought you went to the future."
"Well, this is the future." Purple Trance said. "I just didn't go quite as far into the future as what we had originally planned."
"Does anybody else know you're here yet?" Harper asked.
"Rommie knows, so I assume that Andromeda does too." Golden Trance said.
"Andromeda?" Harper asked.
"Yes." Andromeda's hologram responded as she appeared in front of Harper. "I know about Trance's return, but I have not yet informed the others. I thought the three of you might want some time to get reacquainted."
"Thanks Andromeda. You can tell them now if you want."
"Thank you Harper." She said, and immediately vanished from the room.
Harper looks back at his two best friends.
"I assume the reason that my Purple Princess has returned was not entirely for my benefit." Harper said.
"Not entirely." Golden Trance said.
"So,… we must be going to come up against someone mean, nasty, and powerful."
"I'm afraid so Harper." Golden Trance replied.
"Oh no. Tell me we're not going to face ole Red Eyes and his traveling Magog circus again."
"I'm sorry Harper, but we can't avoid it"
"Don't worry Harper." Purple Trance said. "I have a feeling things will be better this time."
"Better." Harper said. "I hope so. Because I don't feel like carrying a litter of Magog around again."
On the command deck, the rest of the crew were running battle simulations. "Rhade fire Nova bombs!" Dylan ordered.
Rhade pressed the buttons to launch the simulated bombs.
"Becka get us clear of this system."
"Entering slipstream in 3,…2"
Andromeda interrupted her. "I'm sorry, but you failed to escape the nova blast, We're all dead. To make things worse..."
"Don't tell me." Becka said. "The World Ship is still there?"
"Affirmative. According to the sensor scans I took the last time we faced it, no amount of Nova bombs hitting it's exterior will destroy it, just stun and disable it for some time."
"You could have told us that before we spent two hours running these simulations." Rhade growled.
"Rhade, calm down." Dylan said. "To be perfectly honest though Andromeda, I'm a bit curious too why you never mentioned this bit of information when we first started running the simulations."
"I'm sorry captain, but I have been,… distracted."
"Distracted?" Becka asked. "I thought you could handle billions of tasks simultaneously."
"I am embarrassed to say that something occurred, a bit out of the ordinary, that took my attention from your actions."
"What could possibly have been so important Andromeda?" Dylan asked. "Everything that happens with this crew is out of the ordinary!" Dylan didn't mean to sound so angry, but there was a threat coming that could destroy their whole way of life,…again. He couldn't have Andromeda be distracted right in the middle of attacking the real World Ship.
Andromeda's hologram appeared.
"Captain. I can explain." Her hologram said.
"This better be good, otherwise I'm thinking Harper may need to run a full diagnostic of your programming to see if you might have contracted a virus."
"No virus Dylan, but it does involve Harper."
"Has something happened to Harper?" Becka asked, jumping from her pilots chair and running toward the exit.
"He's alright now." The hologram said. "He just passed out."
"That hardly sounds like a reason to divert all your attention Andromeda." Dylan said. "Harper's been a lot sicker, and you managed to stay focused on all your duties."
Andromeda already felt bad, but everything Dylan said just made it worse. He was her captain, and she was supposed to be there for him. He was the only link she had to her life as it was, before being trapped in the black hole.
"I'm sorry captain, but when my Avatar found Harper, he was lying on the deck of the Maru. For an instant we thought he was..."
"Dead?" Becka asked.
"Yes, but he wasn't. He was only unconscious. My Avatar assumed that the two standing beside him had committed a despicable crime, and was about to retaliate. Instead she picked Harper up and rushed him to Med Deck. My sensors quickly let her know that he was merely unconscious."
"I have a question." Dylan said. "You said two people were standing over Harper. There is only one other person on this ship, that person being Trance. So are you saying we've been boarded and you neglected to tell us"
"Yes captain we've been boarded by hundreds of brain sucking slime creatures, and I didn't tell you because you're a mean ole Poo Head." This thought came to Andromeda, but only for a nano second. She quickly discarded it.
Instead she replied. "There is nobody on board other than my crew. But we have been boarded."
Seeing their confusion, she continued.
"The two beings that were standing over Harper were Trance."
They still didn't understand.
"Who was with Trance?" Dylan asked.
The thought, "No, Who's on first." Crept into Andromeda's planet sized mind. "Where are these thoughts coming from?"
"Trance." She answered instead.
"Yes Trance!" Dylan said. "what was the person's name with her?"
"No What's on second. Apparently I do need Harper to run a diagnostic of my systems.
"Trance." She replied again.
"Andromeda." Dylan asked, trying to remain calm. "Where are Harper and Trance?"
"In Medical." The screen persona answered.
"Thank you. Becka you come with me. Rhade you have Command Deck."
"Is something wrong with Andromeda?" Becka asked.
"I don't know." Dylan replied, as they both headed to the Medical deck, hoping to make some sense of what was going on.
"Third base." The hologram said smiling.
"What did you say Andromeda?" Rhade asked.
"Nothing,… nothing at all."