With the alien ship discovery being debunked and written off as a dead colonist's fancy dream of a big discovery and getting rich quick, the Daedalus left orbit of LV-426 with a completed mission and bonus hazard pay for working in such a dangerous environment.

Surprisingly, I was allowed to remain onboard the ship for the rest of its patrol route, despite the company sending quite a few scathing messages to the captain about my presence. Since he had full access to my file and to what I said to the ships psych eval officer, all the messages did was confirm my situation and reassured him that I wasn't crazy or about to take over the ship.

Why did he think that? I was not part of his command structure and it didn't matter if I murdered everyone else onboard, I could not assume command of the ship. It was a case of blind faith in reality, since I had pretty much reworked and rebuild the entire ship's computer system. He didn't associate my help with that to taking over, though. I deferred too much to authority to become a mutineer.

On the down side of that, I stopped spending my spare time with the XO. She wasn't interested in me in the least, since she saw my good looks and my money as the only things I had going for me. I had thought about flaunting my ambition about ship construction, only to completely lose her interest when I mentioned the subject.

The female lieutenant avoided me as well, even when I visited the colonial marine sections of the ship to work out with their equipment and to hang out and eat with the enlisted soldiers. Apparently, that one punch where I pretended she knocked me out, was enough for her to dismiss me as a potential mate, just like the XO did, only for different reasons.

She didn't see me as weak like the XO did, though. No, she was embarrassed that she had lost her cool and could have ended her career if she had punched the captain like that. Every time she looked at me, she saw me as her failure and she couldn't get past the fact that I reminded her of it. I tried to apologize for it and that just made her regret it more, because she was the one that should be apologizing.

At the last stop for refuelling before they returned to Earth for their scheduled downtime, which I definitely did not want to do with Wayland-Yutani gunning for me, I submitted a request to be dropped off. I hadn't really planned anything past that, except I had seen another ship docked to the station.

It looked like a long distance cargo hauler and was much smaller than the Daedalus. It also looked faster, if only because it had a sleeker design. Instead of the large and bulky gun-like shape of a military ship, it was compact into a long tube-like hexagon shape and had four large engines mounted on the back of it.

Only the grunts and the captain were sad to see me go. The captain only sent a message of regret while the PF1s and the maintenance crew had seen me off at the personnel docking tube. They understood my not wanting to put myself back under company lockdown and I had delayed my next psych evaluation by going early to the ship's psychiatric officer.

I gave a gold coin to each of the men and women that had seen me off and they all thanked me and would tell everyone that didn't want to come that they had missed out, which was why I did it. I entered the station and it was fairly small. I also regretted not wearing a copied military uniform, because I received a lot of unfriendly stares as I carried my silver briefcase and suitcase to the dock manager.

I thought about going to the station's bridge and finding a room to rent or something, then decided I didn't need to waste time like that. I entered the office and talked to the man there, whom gave me the information on the other ship, and I thanked him and left. I went to the docking port the ship was attached to and there were no guards or anything.

I couldn't sense anyone nearby, or a camera, so I stored my suitcase and briefcase and checked the airlock hatch. Surprisingly, it wasn't locked. I opened it and went inside, then locked the hatch behind me with a 15 digit code. I entered the ship proper and it was bare bones. Metal grills everywhere, no floor plating or covered walls, and that was just sad.

I made my way to the bridge, which was easy to find with the straightforward design of the ship. It wasn't locked either, which made me chuckle. I hoped the personal quarters of the small crew would be locked at least, and shook my head. It didn't matter, sine I was going to copy the ship if it was empty.

It only took a few minutes to open the computer access and I checked the computers for the cargo listed as being onboard and then the destination, so I could avoid them. A quick check of the internal sensors let me know there was no one else onboard, so I lifted my head from the screen and looked out into space.

A step later, I was looking into the cockpit and placed my hand on the ship. A use of my copy power later, I had my own ship and a lot of work to do. I stored the copy and stepped back inside the cockpit, erased my work, and went back to the dock. I deleted the code lock to the door, even if it would have been funny to let them discover that someone else had locked their ship for them.

I went back to the main area and saw several people were trying to not stare at me. When I moved off to head to another part of the station, two of them started to follow me. I touched their thoughts and they saw me as an easy mark and were going to trick me into giving them my credit account info and would fleece me for everything.

Apparently they thought I had joined the cargo hauler crew, because I had returned to the station without my luggage. It was a valid assumption, though. It did look like I dropped my things off and I made the decision to head to the bar where they knew the cargo hauler crew was.

Thankfully for them, there was always someone else in the hallways and I made it to the bar before they could assault me. I entered the place and it was dark and dingy, like all good bars are supposed to be, and I easily picked out the ragtag crew of the cargo hauler from the usual inhabitants of the space station.

They wore similar uniforms to each other and I easily touched their minds to find out what their jobs were. The ship was technically supposed to be run by a crew of five; but, I could easily automate it and make it into a ship that could be run with one person.

Well, it wasn't like I needed to work it like a normal ship, anyway. After the upgrades I planned, with access to the derelict alien ship and the technology inside, I was sure my ship was going to go through a few changes before it was going to be fully functional.

As a thank you for being convenient for me to copy their ship, I bought a round of drinks for the cargo hauler's crew. I toasted them for staying independent and for not selling out to the company, because they would have screwed the crew over already if they had. Half the people in the bar laughed and joined the toast, so I bought them a round, too.

Why was I doing that? Because I wanted word to get back to the company about it and that I had completely disappeared from this station. The cargo hauler was going to be a dead end for them and I was sure they would have to give up looking for me.

As a joke, I would have to show up at different out of the way colonies that the Daedalus had visited on their patrol for my next three mandatory psychiatric assessments, just so I didn't violate the terms of my sentence. Also, since my commercial flight license had been revoked, I wasn't allowed to operate as a pilot on a commerce ship. That didn't mean I couldn't fly my own personal ship, though.

I left the bar after an hour and everyone cheered when I bought them another round. The Daedalus had already left and my followers were no longer following me. I went to the living area and found an unused apartment, opened the locked door, and went inside. Once I was out of sight of the cameras, I stepped outside the station into space and flew a good distance away.

I didn't want then detecting my ship lighting off its engines and me leaving the system for an empty one nearby. I had a huge list of planets from both the military database and Wayland-Yutani's computers, and any one of them would be suitable for me to stop at to work on my ship and the alien ship.

With luck, my reworked ship would be finished long before anyone at the company figured out I had slipped their leash and had disappeared.

*

Camilla Burke hid her frustration as the alien samples were brought out of the medical stasis pods. That had been her assigned project and she had the main witness in her grip and the only source of information not restricted by the company, then the bastard had disappeared from the station without warning.

It had taken a few favors and some backroom deals to find out he had stowed away on a USCMC military ship and had made his way to LV-426 on his own. How could he do that to her? Didn't she help him as much as she could? She even kept him from serving prison time.

In fact, the company had only received a concerning call for possible help about missing colonists a few weeks before the Daedalus had come back to Gateway Station. The company reps hadn't even discussed sending an official mission to the place, which they wouldn't do, unless the situation escalated.

She followed the samples to their high tech experimental labs and she entered the observation room with the other reps to watch as several medically programmed synthetic androids decanted the things. Her mind went over the prospects of having access to such wonderful biological weapons and her disappointment started to fade. She had gotten the samples anyway and now everything can move forward.

The three stasis containers were opened and each of the specimens were lifted out, to be transferred into the long term environmentally controlled stasis pods, then all three specimens almost instantly withered and died before their eyes and dissolved into goo.

“NO!” Camilla Burke yelled and hit the glass window with a fist. “Gather it up before it slips...”

Her words were too late, as the various drains in the floor allowed the liquid to flow away and into the decontamination system. She didn't bother trying to call the engineering department to suspend it, because she knew it was already too late.

“Do what you can to recover anything from the stasis containers.” Another rep said.

Camilla knew it wouldn't be enough, not for a very long time. They didn't have the technology yet to copy and clone alien DNA, so even a partial sample would be worthless. She left the lab and went back to her office and sat down with her head in her hands. She thought about what she wanted to do, now that her project was over, and her computer beeped at her.

She sighed and check it, figuring it was something else to waste her time, and saw the three psychological evaluations Alan Ripley had performed for the military's psych officer. She read through them and they were what she thought they would be, except he was written off as sane after each one.

Alan hadn't suffered any lasting trauma from what he went through and he wasn't having nightmares. How was that possible? She had nightmares about it and she hadn't even watched the recreated footage.

Camilla typed on her computer and made an inquiry of where he last was. It took a minute for the response. He had been dropped off, at his request, at the previous refuelling station. That gave her somewhere to start the search for him and she checked the current company ships moving around and their schedules.

She could be on that station in three days if she rerouted an asset to Gateway first. She submitted the request and it was approved, so she issued the changed itinerary for the incoming company ship and would track down the man that had screwed her out of her huge bonus and a possible promotion. She wasn't sure what she was going to do to him, only that she needed to find him first.

Her chase would become an urban legend as she followed the man across the galaxy to many worlds, stations, and colonies. She would always be just a little too late to catch him, every single time. The tale would grow in the telling and the reasons would change from her pursuit of a suspect to her searching for her unrequited love and the two of them always missed their chance to be together.

*

My ship was a thing of beauty. It was now half the length it was, with the rear engines the same size, only much more powerful, and the hyperdrive was in a class by itself. The entire interior had changed and was upgraded, as were the computers and engine room, and everything was automated to allow one person to easily run the many departments from the pilot's console.

The alien ship's technology was fairly easy to work through, thanks to my tinker powers. They were bullshit and let me decode the computer's information and the language was as easy to read for me as every other language was. I didn't bother powering up the alien's reactor core, since it wasn't needed. I pulled everything apart, even their hyperdrive, and made my technology that much better.

I dissolved the remains of the original alien ship and the parts I didn't need, copied everything else as a backup, and stored it all. I boarded my ship and caressed the bulkhead as I went to the updated cockpit. It looked fantastic, like the best science fiction ships, and I sat down. I started it up and the hum of the engines made me smile.

With my own personal ship, I was no longer bound by the shackles that every other means of transport had. I could go where I wanted, do what I wanted, and there was no one and nothing out there that could stop me.

World Paused.

I stand corrected. I thought with a chuckle. Really? Now? When I'm about to head off into the wild blue yonder, or I guess it's black yonder because of space?

We all know you would have fun having adventures out in space. Fate's little blue box said when it appeared. But, wouldn't it be more fun if you were in a universe where other races actually existed?

Don't the Predators and Arcturians exist in this universe? I asked.

Ah, I see where you would assume that. Fate responded. You see, the predator race doesn't exist in the Aliens universe. However, the xenomorphs exist in the Predator universe.

That... huh. I guess that does make sense.

It also explains why there haven't been any sightings or recordings of Predator appearances or their many ships and technology anywhere in the Aliens universe, despite humanity spreading out to many worlds after discovering space travel. Fate told me.

I never thought of that. I responded. Even just accidentally running into them should have happened a bunch of times in the last hundred years or so, shouldn't it?

Despite how large the universe is, it's not big enough to completely miss an entire species dedicated to hunting. They also know where Earth is and never once going there to visit them or any of the colony worlds is just silly.

I laughed. Good point.

You can come back here whenever you want and enjoy a few weeks or even years floating around in space. Fate said. But, you know there's not much here. Not like in other worlds.

My thoughts went right to the biggest optimistic sci-fi show I knew about. I get what you're saying. I can have some adventures here or I could go somewhere that there's always adventures.

I see you already have one in mind. Fate said and the text box showed the word 'giggle'. Go have fun and I'll see you soon.

I brightened up at that and smiled. Count on it. I thought and brought up the menu choices. I had been planning on doing this one for a while and figured I could have a lot of fun playing the role. I even had the perfect spot to insert myself without disrupting anything.

It was in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that Commander Riker beams down to an inhospitable planet named Nervala IV and discovers his duplicate, Lieutenant Riker. He had been in an altercation nearly eight years with a disruption field that caused the transporters to malfunction before they worked out using two transport beams to retrieve him.

Riker was barely able to transport up to the ship he was serving on at the time, the USS Potemkin, and was given a commendation and then a promotion from Senior Lieutenant to Commander. However, the second transport beam bounced off of the disruption field and created a transporter copy of Riker and he remained on the planet.

My insertion point? I'll be the one materializing on the Potemkin's transporter pad as Lieutenant Riker. I set up the details and spent the extra Karma Points for inserting long before canon starts and for making Riker the focus of the story. It was worth the cost and would eventually give me access to all of the Star Trek technology.

I initiated the procedure and closed my eyes as everything went black.

*

I regained consciousness as I appeared inside the transporter beam after my molecules had been rearranged and reassembled. I also received the pile of memories that Riker had from his 27 years of life at the time. He was clean shaven, a bit arrogant, and confident. He knew his capabilities and knew he could handle just about anything thrown his way.

As soon as the energy wave of teleportation stopped, I felt exhausted and relived. It had worked and no one would know I wasn't the real Riker. I could live my life in a futuristic society and would have a great time.

“No, I don't think so.” A familiar male voice said from across the room.

I stilled as my eyes locked onto Q, an all powerful ascended being whom looked just like a young John DeLancie. He wore the same fancy robes he used to judge humanity in the first ST:TNG episode, too.

“I don't like others playing with my toys.” He said and raised his hand. “Go have fun somewhere else.”

My eyes widened as he did his snap thing and I was consumed in a bright flash of light.