The team members realized that something was off only a few seconds later as they saw the look on Max's face change.
"What's up boss?" Nico asked as she poked him in the side to get his attention.
"The Greater Energy Being here is closing the portals and kicking everything out, as you suspected, but she's not completely sure what to do with us. The cats are fond of the crab drones, but she's still got one track of her mind working on deciding what to do with us." Max explained.
"So, the getting kicked out to some random spot might be a very real concern?" One of the team members asked.
"I would say so. She recognizes that we're not a threat, but views us more on the level of unsafe cat toys, so I wouldn't expect much sympathy for our travel time." Max explained.
"Alright, we should bring the Mecha back to the Cutter then. It will be a tight fit to get everything loaded back in, since our numbers have increased, but we can fill some of the spare rooms that should be crew areas with drones, and pack the side hallways with Corvette Class Mecha.
We're not a cargo ship, but we can still pack it up pretty full."
The majority of the Mecha and drones were already on the way back before Nico even finished her sentence, but she opted to leave one team, a single large drone with fifty smaller crabs in each city, just in case the effort to eliminate the enemies was unsuccessful.
By the time that the Guardian of this place was certain that she had purged all the enemies from her realm and started to move it through the boundary between layers, she had come up with a proper solution for the invasive human infestation.
They weren't harmful, so she would just find a good spot and put them outside.
She had even found a good spot. It was quiet, out of the way, and they wouldn't bother anyone else if she dropped them there. It was perfect.
In fact, it was so perfect that there weren't even any others of her species overseeing the area, so this rogue human population should be able to thrive for a generation or two. Probably two at the most, as they only had one male with them, and after one generation, breeding would become an issue.
Max did his best not to laugh as she carefully considered where she would drop them, but there wasn't much he could do. They had no way to communicate while the Greater Energy Being was hiding inside the planet and moving it rapidly through the space between layers of reality.
The final moment came without warning. The occupants of the Cutter found themselves sitting on the surface of a planet, looking out at a starless sky.
"Well, we're back in our home layer of space. Cats, kittens, staff and friends, I would like to welcome you to our home. Or somewhere in the same segment of the universe as our home, anyhow. Until we get a signal or see a few stars, I can't tell where we are, but everything aboard the Cutter is now back online, and we can safely return to orbit to get a better look." Max informed the occupants of the vessel as if this were an intended outcome.
The crew politely clapped, then burst into laughter as they returned to their stations in preparation to return to orbit. Once they were off the surface, they could get a much better idea of where in the universe they were, and if they were really lucky, they might even be close enough to civilization to pick up on a few wayward signals that they could use to locate their route home.
[Wait! We can't go anywhere yet. There is no food.] One of the cats complained.
Max checked the thoughts of the others on board and then pointed to one of the side rooms.
"There is food. It's in the gymnasium room there, where we built the climbing obstacles and the splash pool. If you go through that door, you will find fresh food and water." Max explained.
"Has anyone told you that you're really good at that?" An Innu researcher asked from her station on the bridge.
"I have plenty of experience at making sure that people get to where they need to be, even if it is only five metres away." Max agreed.
[Commander, we have a signal. There is an Android Fleet AI transmitter somewhere in range. We are analyzing it now.] The Mecha Regiment's android leader reported.
Before Max was finished reading, the data was up and while it did give them a good idea of where they were, it was not particularly encouraging news.
They had been dropped somewhere in the furthest reaches of the Anomaly Region, relatively near to where the now defunct second Anomaly had been before the god of the Myceloids had closed it while taking away his people.
Even at Maximum Warp, they would need months to get back to anywhere stable enough to portal, and even longer to get back to civilization. The guardian of the Golden Legion was right, though. There was nothing out here watching them because there was nothing out here at all.
"Take us into orbit, I want to know exactly where we are. Perhaps we can find signs of other intelligent species in this region, like the kinfolk of the Greys that we found hiding underground last time we were here." Max ordered.
The team members looked from the monitors to the handful of cats that were still wandering around the common areas of the ship and not playing in the large climbing structure.
"Well, we've had pretty good luck with meeting new people, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we spent a little time looking around to see what's out here."
Max laughed as the ship lifted off and moved into orbit, with a gentle vibration through the hull that caught the attention of the cats. Like some other species, they could almost always sense the vibration in the hull and tell when they were moving, no matter how smooth the transitions or power supplies were.
