"Lena, you didn't!" Vanessa cried out.

"He tried to escape, its not my fault." She simply shrugged. "Now are we going to go around lamenting him or can we move on and live our lives?"

"What do we tell the Earth?" Miles asked. "They're expecting a trial."

"They'll be fine. Listen to me, as soon as I saw that video, Brody was a dead man. He was never going to make it back to Earth, I was just hoping to get more support on it. He killed Vanessa's father, and tried to kill both of you, a close friend of mine and the man I love. Why this is an issue I don't know. Did you really want to spend four years on a ship with him as he prepared his insanity plea?"

"She has a point," Pepper admitted. "He confessed in the video, and there is no doubt he planned for that situation. That sled didn't blow up on its own, he had to have taken some explosives from the ship with him."

"I had demo charges packed, he knew where they were," Miles confirmed. "He must have grabbed some before the mission."

"See, premeditated murder, and he didn't care who was in the way. The fucker got what he deserved," Lena said with a shrug. "Now, can we please move on to more pleasant subjects?"

"I'm with Lena on this. When I was on my way here with Miles, I had been tempted for you to send Brody over so I could use the ship's weapons on him. That might have been fun," Pepper grinned. "But now that we have some free time, I'd like to explore this ship. We also should decide what to do with Anton."

"I think we should put my father over in the cargo hold with the alien bodies and just bring him home," Vanessa said sadly.

"I was expecting you to consider a burial at sea, or the space equivalent to it, and drop him down on the planet," suggested Pepper.

"Huh, that is actually a good idea!"

It took a few days, but after discussions with Jason back on Earth about both Brody's 'escape' attempt and the funeral plans for Anton, the go ahead was finally given. Emily and Xavier came over, leaving their ship in orbit, along with an assortment of the items they had found. They brought all the memory sticks, a dozen of the guns, two dozen of the tablets and several of the papers and clothing items. In addition, they brought over all the food, water, medical gear, and spare helmets to replace the broken ones from Miles' and Pepper's suits. They even parked a trio of fully charged sleds in the air lock. With all that equipment, they could remain on board for years. It meant that they didn't have communication with the Earth, but based on the speed of the ship, they could easily be home in under a week if they wanted, so that didn't seem like an issue. Pepper also grabbed the tiny gun and all the toys that Lena had loaned them, since she didn't think that they would be back on that ship any time soon.

Once the ship had no more of the supplies and cargo they needed, they launched it back towards Earth at full throttle. Once the engines burned out, it would take almost five years to get back with the added weight of the three alien ships attached to it. By the time it got close, they would be able to intercept it and board it to bring it in to dock at the PASSpace space station.

In the meantime, the crew had the alien craft to use, and the pilots took great pleasure in trying out the helmets and getting accustomed to flying it. They uniformly praised it and would good naturedly argue over who got to fly it next.

Finally, after one too many arguments, Pepper sidled up to Miles. "Just tell her that there is another one of these, and two smaller ones. I'm not sure if they work because they were floating, but they're worth a shot. Then they can stop arguing!"

Miles just gave her a little smirk. "You're right. I think this just might be the time." He took a few steps to stand behind the pilots. Emily and Xavier were in the pilot's seats, and Lena was in the command chair, egging them on. "You know, this would probably be a lot more fun if you each had your own ships."

"Damn right it would be!" Lena yelled, then turned and looked at him in surprise. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Want to go find out?" Miles gasped as Lena launched herself onto him, ready to rip his clothes off on the floor of the bridge before he picked her up and started to kiss her passionately.

Emily looked back over her shoulder at Pepper. "So, what did I miss there? Something about more ships?"

"In the hanger where we got this one, there was another just like it, and then a pair of smaller ones that were floating, looked like they had just drifted. If those two ships work, and they most likely do, then there are three more working ships," Pepper explained.

Xavier started jumping up and down in glee. "We're finally going to get that race!"

"Hold on, I'd like to take care of my father first," Vanessa requested. "Once that is done, we can go check out the other ships. You're more than welcome to try them out, while Pepper and I keep exploring. If we have our own ships, then we can all return to Earth whenever we like on our own schedule."

"I like that idea," Miles agreed as he detached his mouth from Lena's. "Regardless of how things ended, Anton is the reason we had the funding and means to come out here, and he deserves a good send off."

"We should be able to head to the ruined ship, have a ceremony there, and then pull this ship inside. Once everyone is suited up, then we can check out the other three ships," Pepper suggested. "This ship's airlock button worked from the outside, and then when I closed the outer lock it turned on the gravity. Once inside, everything else came to life. I assume it has motion sensors of some sort."

"There was a second one like this?" Lena confirmed.

"It looked the same to me, but I was just trying to survive at the time. We'll have to check it out." Pepper replied with a shrug.

The trip back to the ruined ship wasn't long, with the new ship they were there in a few hours. The hole that Pepper had blasted out of the side was easy enough to see once Pepper directed them to the far side of it, and Emily brought the ship up next to it. With the ship stationary, they all got into their suits and to the airlock with Anton's body. Once everyone was ready, they cycled the exterior doors, and slipped out into space, looking down at the giant blue ice planet.

"Goodbye dad, I love you," whispered Vanessa. It wasn't much of a sendoff, but her heart just wasn't in it for a speech after the last week.

Lena took Anton's body on a sled, and brought it closer to the planet, giving it plenty of velocity to be pulled in by the gravity before releasing him and heading back. The group headed back in and then Emily lined the ship up with the large hole, and guided it in.

"One shot made that hole?" Xavier asked as he examined the size of it.

"One shot from this ship, yes, the larger ship obviously had better weapons," Pepper confirmed.

"Oh shit, look at that baby!" Lena yelled as the saw the second ship sitting in the hanger. The two smaller ones were floating gently through the interior but didn't appear to have taken any damage in their travels.

"Everyone sticks together!" Emily commanded. "I know we're excited about the new ships, but we need to make sure we're safe here. This hanger bay is still very unstable from the looks of it. We do the other big one first, and then in pairs to the smaller ones."

"Got it!" Lena answered with a grin. As long as she ended up with a ship, a few minutes for safety was worth it.

By the end of the day, they had determined that the second large ship was of the same design as the one they were already using, and the two smaller ones were twin seated ships, most likely some sort of an attack craft. The smaller ones didn't have the additional compartments for the crew, but did have a small amount of storage, a food dispenser, and a pair of comfortable looking bunks. Through some sort of mutual understanding, Emily and Xavier took the smaller ships, while Lena and Miles commandeered the other large one. Everyone seemed thrilled with their finds.

"Vanessa, with these two small ships, are we turning any of them over to people on Earth?" Xavier asked as they all gathered for dinner.

"I hadn't really thought about it. Jason and the team he put together would probably get more use from something working, than the other alien ones that we've sent on their way. But in my mind, we've donated more than enough. No other company is going to come out here if we control the working ships. They would still take years to get here while we could take a week, and we could easily strip everything before they got here." Vanessa said. "I'll leave that decision up to you, if you want to turn over one of the two smaller ships. I haven't discussed it with Pepper, but I don't want to give this ship up, and I'm betting Lena and Miles won't want to give theirs up either."

"No chance. I'm keeping my baby," Lena scoffed. "They can kiss my ass if they ask."

Emily and Xavier shared a look. "What do you think babe?" Emily asked.

"I think I've had enough. If the mission money is still on," she hesitated with a glance at Vanessa, who nodded in reply, "then I think I'd like to start a family. I don't think we can do that in space."

"But we're keeping one of the ships, right?" Xavier seemed worried that he'd have go give them both up.

"You don't even have to answer that," Vanessa interrupted. "You're keeping one as an early baby shower present. We'll give one to Jason and the team, maybe we'll let them check out the medical beds someday, and we can even give two of the fox aliens' ships to the agencies on Earth to appease them."

"That should sooth most bruised egos," assured Pepper. "What are you two going to do with your ship." she directed at Lena and Miles.

"I have no idea," Lena replied with a shrug. "Maybe we'll go check out the other planets. There is a lot of the solar system out there."

"Yes, there is!" Vanessa concurred.