I read you loud and clear

Krate and Ash sped anxiously back to Earth and the stability of home.

During those next weeks, Ash often lay awake in his bunk thinking about the events that had transpired to bring him here. His friend Krate Azimuth was a good man, and seemed very different than he had at the beginning of the voyage. There was a confidence – an inner strength that Ash now saw in him. A strength that comes from great suffering. Ash knew that Krate blamed himself for what had happened on Callisto, though it was all the doing of Wormhole.

Ash thought of the space girl often. Her face was still etched clearly in his mind. He thought of Flash Meridian. Lander blamed himself for their failure to save Flash. Whether sleeping or awake, Ash often saw, in his mind’s eye, Flash’s ship, sailing forever into unknown space beyond our galaxy.

Godspeed, Flash Meridian he often thought, or even said quietly as he gazed out the porthole on his ship.

MEANWHILE…

Flash Meridian continued to attempt to contact Earth with no reception. There had to be something wrong with his equipment. The computer picked up nothing at all from Earth. The radio was useless. It was as if Earth were uninhabited. Flash, in a desperate attempt, began pushing every button on his handset and flipping every lever, in an attempt to pick up something… anything.

After a few moments of this, Flash did hear something. It was a voice. It was from Earth.

Come in, Alpha Control!

Come in, Alpha Control!

Flash nearly shouted into the radio. Then he realized he was on a short wave band.

Short wave bands haven’t been used for decades he muttered and continued to make himself known.

Do you read me?

This is Flash Meridian! He called

I read you loud and clear came the voice.

MEANWHILE…

P. J. Raygun began devising a scheme to make the Nebula X profitable to him. He had actually convinced himself by this time, that this was his rightful property. Though he wasn’t completely above stealing, he saw the X unit as his chance to make an honest living. There would be no convincing the other residents of S-120 that he had come upon the droid honestly, so he tried to keep his windfall a secret.