Scuttari awakens in the medical room, and see Sark at his side, in the other bed. They smile to each other. Andre enters.
Scuttari: You dida big mistake, Andre.
Andre: Not really. Nicholas identified this system with Cygnus 32 which have a connection to the slavic systems. And we can jump back to the gate.
Scuttari: Did the tactical officer of this shipmade any radiometric scanning in that gate?
Andre: No. Why?
Scuttari smiles sarcastically: This is a one-way gate, Andre. Theres no way back.
Andre: What to you mean, theres no way back?
Scuttari: We returned to Texas after we jumped in this new system, but everything was different.
The scene goes back to when the Perseus returned through the gate:
Scuttari: So, its a new system. A nice discovery that will render me another medal, and lots of money from the doms.
Oshima: Yeah, you can even think in retirement now.
Scuttari: Common, do you think that Im so old?
Woodland: Captain, theres something wrong here
Scuttari looks to the scanners: What John?
Woodland: There is a antimatter cloud coming through the alien gate, and its following us.
Scuttari: Oshima, order to turns the ship 45 degress in direction of Houston.
Woodland: Its not working, it continues to follow us.
Veronica: Oh, no.
Scuttari: What is it?
Veronica: The patterns used for communications are all messed up. Its like they use another encoding.
Raphael: Give it to me. I will try to decrypt.
Scuttari: Try to detect some pwzor transmission.
Pwzorsthe little alien race that disguises as humans and sends open channel communications to all ships in the systems. Their transmissions usually consists in lol and : D. Some minutes passes and nothing comes, not a single pwzor transmission.
The scene goes back to the medical room in the Theseus.
Scuttari: And not only thatthe long range scanners dont picked ships from the SA or HF, which are currently at war. We waited for hours, but the anomaly changed everything.
Andre feels some horror: Anomaly? What anomaly?
The scene goes back again to the Perseus. They reach the Houston planet, and notice that theres not many capital ships around. All seems to be quiet. Scuttari orders the ship backs to Beaumont. He check the news in the station, since something strange seems to be happening. He dont find anything about the war between the SA and HF, but find about a trading agreement between bretonians and kusarians, that can raise the trading in the Taus, and thus bring more profit to pirates acting there.
As he returns to the ship, Raphael shows that the patterns used for communications suggests they crossed a interdimensional gate.
Andre: Thats madness.
Scuttari: I initially thought the same. But we got to New York, to California and then to Cortez, with the antimatter cloud following us in Texas until the New York jump gate. In Cortez we found a gate to a system called Panamaand this gate was never there. When we returned to the location of the alien gate, it had vanished and there was only a jump hole with that same antimatter cloud around it. When we returned to this system with the double stars, we saw it was still the same, but the jump hole had also disappeared. Its a anomaly.
Andre: Thatsthats not possibleyou have taken too much cardamine
A officer enters in the room, desperately out of breath.
Scuttari: John had made a radiometric scanning of the gate, and it showed it was not being used for five hundred years. Guess why the nomads dont used it?
Officer: Sir, theres grave newsthe gate disappeared from the scanners.
Scuttari have a nice laugh, that echoes throughout the room.
After him and the others are cured by the advanced medicine in the Theseus, they meet together at the bar of the ship. Andre is drinking, sad about what happened. Nicholas sits at his side in the balcony.
Nicholas: Hey man, you dont need to worry. Everybodys here, except Rob Razor. Andre: I have lost everything I build with so many effort.
Nicholas: The universe is unpredictable. I learned that when the Twilight had wrecked in Omega 55. And I learned that we can start all over again. I read in the news that a revolutionary movement is concentrating in planet Los Angeles, involving rebeled liberty navy fleets. Perhaps we can work for them? Lets made a toast for our hopes, and forget our fears.
In a table, Scuttari and Sark play cards.
Sark: Well, friendI said to you, this game is much more better than that other that we were playing before in Alcatraz. I just learned this one from the downloads that Raphael made from the Houston planetary network.
Scuttari: Raphaelthis guys always impressed meyou known we dont have access to that network, but with him, theres no limits in the cyberuniverse.
Sark: For us, too, there will be no limits in this new universe we have to explore and conquer.
Scuttari takes his cup full of beer: Lets made a toastto a life of freedomwithout the restraints of petty moralism, and with better games as well.
They toast, they drink, they commemorate. They are freemen, and for freemen, the universe dont known limits.
