Chapter 9

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Welcome back!

Ahhhh!!! I didn't realize it had been this long! Crap! I'm so sorry! :/

*sigh* At least it's a long chapter. Maybe that makes up for it?

On a brighter note, over 200 reads! Thanks everybody! 

Here goes nothing!

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--Data Readout--

Date- Classified

Time- Classified

Test 1071

\####- Wormhole drive initiation/

\####- Entry portal stabilized/

\####- Exit portal established/

\WARNING- Catastrophic wormhole stabilization failure/

\--Imminent collapse of wormhole--/

\SIGNAL- CODE 819/

Aclain June glanced at the readout with disdain. A pair of safety goggles hung off of her neck, burned all the way through and dripping with molten plastic. Her lab coat was little more than a mess of burned synthread, even with the triple-coating of fire retardant spray.

It could be worse. Her previous lab partner currently existed as a heap of liquefied flesh, shoved into and ejected out of an airlock to mitigate the awful scent.

Her laboratory was drenched in a thick coat of firefoam. The entire room smelled of burnt plastic. There was a trail of blood leading to the port airlock, and atmospheric shielding flickered over multiple large gaps in the outer hull of the research station. In the corner sat a large machine, which had melted itself after the wormhole collapsed.

In twelve hours, a replacement assistant would arrive to take the dead man's post. June would have to clean up before then. Having the assistant's chair covered in blood was not ideal, nor was it welcoming towards new recruits.

June signaled for the cleaning drones to scrub the entire lab down and shuffled around the fried machinery into her claustrophobic bedroom.

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Ortaan R"sota awoke to find himself in an unfamiliar medbay. A rusty BY-0s1 medical droid, a relic from the Resource Wars, was a few inches away, probing his arm with a hypodermic needle.

His left arm was locked in a regenerative cast. Part of him didn't want to know what had happened to it, considering the readout said the cast had reportedly pumped his veins with a massive, lethal dose of Corbyial III. Any human would've been dissolved from the inside out in less than an hour.

A quick glance around the small room revealed another figure seated in the corner. Her young face was partially covered by a red-tinted facemask.

"I couldn't save your friend," she said without warning.

"I hardly knew him," R"sota responded, his voice completely devoid of any remorse.

"His body's in the stasis tube."

"Waste of energy. Kick him out an airlock, for all I care."

The room fell silent.

"I kind of expected you to attack me," the female said after a while.

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