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// The Entry 
// Story: Heat Death 
// by ScottTrek 
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	Twilight sat in the airlock staring at the inner door.  She felt numb; she was excited of course, but who knows what had happened on the ship in the elapsed time since she’d last seen it? Theoretically the crew had been frozen in time, but they could be long dead, or twisted and corrupted by the forces that existed outside time and space or… 

Twilight grunted and slapped down the fear welling up inside her. It was these kind of thoughts that had felt her listless and paralyzed for so long, drifting through space waiting to die. No they were ok, Ember Glow was formidable magic user even by Twilight’s deictic standards. After all the Valkyrie’s defence grid was still operational, though this did mean it was impossible to scan inside the ship and that the teleport scramblers were active. She and Forge were going to have to go in blind. 

Twilight frowned, she hadn’t actually considered that. What was Forge going to do?  

“Twilight unit.” Forge’s voice came, much smaller in her mind than usual. What was walking towards her along the hull was tiny in comparison to the full article, but was unmistakably Forge.  The main abdomen was practically identical to Forge’s hull with a single red eye midway down the front. The body was supported by a single set of backwards bending legs, and at least six arms were visible tucked up under the abdomen. 

“Snazzy.” Twilight commented, “But won’t the defence grid prevent you from transmitting from your main body to this unit?”

“This unit contains a scaled-down version of my primary data core, I have transferred my primary cognitive functions for this mission.” Forge explained stepping into the airlock with Twilight, “For all intents and purposes this body is now Forge.”

“Excellent!” Twilight grinned, tapping the console she’s spent the last 15 minutes hot-wiring. The outer door clicked shut behind them. “Main computer seems to be offline but from what I can tell from here environmental controls seem to be still operational and…BLERK!”

Suddenly Twilight collapsed, hacking and coughing in wild fit. Forge rushed to her side, mind racing to work out what was possible causing this reaction. “Twilight unit?” He beeped nervously. On the ground Twilight was turning a ghastly colour, her entire body becoming bloodshot as veins bulged under the skin. Forge tried to telepathically read her but got nothing but a scramble back.    

Forge couldn’t detect any unusual external stimuli and was about to smash down the outer door to get her out of there when Twilight’s body flashed with internal fire for half a second and she sat up. Twilight drew in a deep breath and began laughing. Forge noticed that her voice that her voice was noticeably deeper, for a moment he could not work out why then the two puzzle pieces slotted together in his mind.

“Oxygen.” Forge said, speaking with a long unused vocoder as Twilight pulled herself to her feet.

“I haven’t been in an atmosphere for millions of years.” Twilight grinned, “Not that I’ve needed to for a very long time but…yeesh! I’d forgotten my body would need a moment to adjust. I also forgot telepathy’s scrambled when the Valkyrie’s in maximum lockdown.”  With a clunk the inner door opened, Twilight took a step forward but wavered on the door way. Between the defence grids scramblers and her own utter exhaustion Twilight felt more mortal than she done in aeons. It was scary. But there was no turning back now. Nothing was going to stop her now.