ɪɴ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴀʀᴋɪᴘʟɪᴇʀ (ᴘᴀʀᴛ 1)

ᴡᴇ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴇʟᴘ

"Let me see your hand..." the bandit asked, gently taking Alise's hand and looking at it, then she attached something to it, causing the Captain to flinch. "This is a portable wormhole generator" she explained, before any of them could ask any questions "Takes a lot of juice to tear holes in the universe... I've never seen a warp crystal like that before, y'all have more of these on your ship?"

"Oh yeah, definitely, loads more..." Mark said, quite sarcastically, but the bandit didn't seem to catch onto that, sarcasm mustn't have been a popular thing in her home planet.
"That is wonderful..." she replied with a grin "And I guess you aren't as dumb as you look"

Mark smirked proudly, but then another question came to mind "Wait- how are we going to get back on our ship? We're probably several astronomical units away from it-" he asked.

"Oh don't you worry about that..." she said, pressing a button on the wormhole generator "Aand just like that we are off to the races!"

"What does that mean?" Alise asked, noticing the crystal on their hand beginning to glow.

"If that thing is the real deal... you'll see exactly what I mean"

Suddenly, Alise found themselves in a place they were too familiar with- it was a wormhole! But... not like the wormhole their ship was stuck in, no, this wormhole felt somewhat different... more friendly and easier to control. They could hear the jumbled-up voices of both the bandit and Mark, and before they could process it, they were back on the Invincible II! But... something felt incredibly off...

"I'll be damned, we made it!" the bandit said, grinning, but soon it faded once she saw the state of the ship "You guys were flying around in this thing?"

"Uh, well- she's seen better days..." Mark commented, looking around as well.

"Better days?! What the hell happened here?! We couldn't have been gone for more than an hour, what is this?!" Alise freaked out. The lights were flashing red, there was dust all over... a SKELETON on the control panel! Were those the effects of the wormhole? Were they too late? Was this timeline doomed as well? "Computer, where's the crew?!" they called out. 
The only thing answering was a completely distorted chatter which chilled their blood.

"That's... normal right, that's just how your people build computers, right?" the bandit asked, looking quite freaked out as well.

The head engineer tried lightening the mood "Well that's not... not how it's been in the past..."

"No we don't! This- this is all wrong! This- this doesn't make any sense; this shouldn't be happening!" Alise panicked, trying to give various commands through the control board, but it was unresponsive. "Why? We did everything right, we got help! There's... there's no way everything went to shit so quickly... there's no way everyone's dead... no... not again..." they cried, their voice straining as they held back sobs. It was so unfair, even when they'd done everything right... they couldn't keep the crew safe... they could feel themselves lose their spirit, what was the point of trying to take the best choices if things would slip out of their control like that as soon as they looked another way? They couldn't go through everything all over again...

Suddenly, they heard a banging on a Cryo-pod, they could see someone was inside, a survivor maybe? Alise stepped towards the Cryo-pod while Mark and the bandit took some steps back. The head engineer had worry in his eyes, both from the current situation and from the Captain's words. He could see just how painful this all was to them.

Alise opened the pod... and what they saw shocked them... another Mark?

"That's not me, Captain... that's not me-" he said in a quivering voice.

They turned around, staring at Mark in terror.

"Well that's not me!" the head engineer argued.

But when Alise turned back to the pod, that other Mark had completely vanished.
Then a door opened, and yet another Mark peeked out from it, a coffee mug in his hand; he asked the Captain if they'd slept well, before being dragged away by a monstrous clawed hand. The door closed.

"PLEASE tell me this is just how human ships are-" the bandit asked, completely in a panic as well.

Alise felt guilty for dragging her here, they felt guilty for leaving the crew, they felt guilty for letting everyone down again- how long would that last? Was there any way they could break the cycle? There HAD to be a way... but it was useless to try and do anything now, the crew was gone and the Invincible II had been taken over by some kind of evil entity-
Even playing by the rules and making the best choices seemed fruitless in the end, though they should've understood it after their first rodeo; they'd done everything right back then, they'd saved everyone... and yet it still wasn't good enough. Would things ever be good enough? Was being rational even worth it anymore? They'd taken the most rational decisions up to that point, but that hadn't changed a thing, the crew was still gone, and the ship was in the worst state it'd ever been in... it all felt pointless, like no matter what choices they took, larger forces were always going to take control away from them.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, then a voice spoke up "Hey, how's it going? It's uh, one of the crewmembers, an important one, I uh... forgot my keys in the bridge, could you... open the doors for me?" it sounded kind of like Mark... but also didn't.

Everyone froze, staring at the door, then Mark worked up the courage to speak up "Uh, well, before we do that... can you tell us which crewmember you are specifically?"

"You know, it's not really important who I am, what's really important is that you need to open this door and quick" it chuckled "I've got a uh... dark surprise for you on the other side, it's very uhm... dark. wink wink. Just think of this as... the dark path to get to the uh... warp core"

"J-just use the device and get us the hell out of here!" the bandit frantically said "Why are we standing around like morons?! Just get the hell out of here!!"

"Hey, we still need to save the ship-" Mark objected.

"You didn't tell me how messed up your ship is" she gritted her teeth.

"Don't insult her! She's got character!" the head engineer continued, set on defending the Invincible II.

"Yeah, I've got character, just open up this door and see how much I've got" the thing spoke up again.

The bandit shot a glare at the Captain "Do NOT open that door"

Alise sighed. They knew what the right choice was... or did they? It was all useless anyway, if they teleported out of there they would've never reached the warp core, but if whatever was behind that door were to attack the other two, Alise could've never forgiven themselves for that... but opening the door might've led them somewhere new... and at that point, they were willing to do anything if it meant shutting off the wormhole.