Malthus Sector

When Aphelion finally caught up with Talwyn's ship in hyperspace, she seemed as if she had been worried.

"Where the HECK have you two BEEN?!" Talwyn said via Visi-Chat. Ratchet had presumed correctly. She had been worried. It was apparent ever since he saw her face again.

"We were caught up in deep space." Ratchet replied. But then he looked at her again, and realized that that wasn't enough. "It's a long story. There were some Vorselon fighters that we needed to take care of."

"If Vorselon's giving us trouble, then we ought to be on high alert." Talwyn observed. "I've got a feeling that this time, he's prepped and ready. He's probably got his armies very heavily armed."

But Ratchet had heard this excuse before. "When aren't they heavily armed?" He replied.

"Now entering Malthus Sector." Aphelion said as they exited hyperspace.

"Malthus Sector?" Ratchet said, dumbfounded. "Never heard of it."

"I've heard of it," Said Talwyn. "It's said to be home to some of the most technologically advanced planets in the Omniverse."

"Might be an ideal vacation spot sometime," Ratchet said.

"Hey," Ratchet said, "isn't that Vorselon's Warship?"

Everyone looked out their windshields at that point. Ratchet was right. There it was. The giant, green, frying pan-shaped warship that was probably the size of two of the Apogee Space Station. And there was the tiny landing bay. They had set course for it when they had suddenly taken fire from enemy fighters! Clank was right! Ratchet thought, and resolved to listen to his friend more.

Everyone broke course and engaged the squadron. They released their weapons, but the fighters were clearly highly trained, and immediately broke their own formation.

No one seemed to care, though. They locked on their crosshairs once again, and let loose their best missiles. This did the job of sending half the squadron plummeting to the unknown of the space below them, but the other half easily evaded the projectiles.

"It's like trying to hit nanomites from a kilo cubit away," Ratchet commented. But, after what seemed like several painstaking hours, they finally brought down the fighters with their remaining ammo.

That is, all except one. Its pilot was fighting to survive his damages, and, in his agony, let fly all the weapons his little ship was carrying. All the missiles missed them, but one rather powerful one hit Talwyn's ship.

"AAUUGGGHHH!!!!" That was all Ratchet heard over his radio for five seconds. "Ratchet!!! I'm hit!!! My landing flaps are offline!!!! I can't land!!!! WHAT DO I DO?????!!!!!!"

"Well," Ratchet began. "First of all, calm down. I'm bleeding from the ears. And secondly…"

Ratchet looked around for a planet. Finding one, he continued.

"Secondly, land on Planet Mektar. I'm sure that they will have the technology to fix your ship. I'll meet you on Planet Pokitaru."

Talwyn realized that she had no choice. She coasted her ship on a reserve tank to the unknown planet.

"Looks like we're flying solo, Clank."