Star Word

“Take me out,” murmured Tom, laying back in the chair and raising the whiskey bottle to his lips once more. The brightly lit console in front of him winked knowingly before the voice of the ship’s AI, Orion, spoke up.

“Mr. Costigan, you are proposing that I guide this ship out into the void of intergalactic space, when it has been stated multiple times that this collection of systems has no planets or life forms whatsoever.”

“That’s right.”

“Is that advisable?”

The whiskey seared his throat viciously, and he gritted his teeth, tilting his head until the pain blossomed into a warm fuzzy ball in his stomach. He lifted his slightly watery gaze back up to the console. “Just do it, Orion. That’s an order.”

Without another word, he felt the Traverse Engines kick in, and he sank back into the chair a little further as the tiny ship zipped forward like an aimless bullet. Through the wrap-around window above the console, Tom could see nothing but distant stars and the blank backdrop of space, apparently devoid of life. Perfect.

The Graywing rattled quietly, a comforting feeling. Tom sank yet deeper into the chair, clutching the whiskey bottle close to his chest and closing his eyes slowly. He could think of nothing better than flying into an abyss, away from his insanity-ravaged galaxy, away from the Humans, the Sangis, even the Tocians. It was a peaceful idea; one that he could accept without feeling conflicted at all.

He took another pull from the bottle without opening his eyes, and savored the satisfying burn as it went down. A small smile crept soundlessly over his face, almost imperceptibly. No more bullets and bloodshed out here, in the darkness by himself.

Before long, he felt his grip on the bottle slipping, but found he could not save it from sliding between his fingers and thumping against the floor of the ship, thankfully not shattering. He did not acknowledge it—his eyes were resolutely shut, and his extremities too numb to even twitch. The world around him faded, both physically and mentally. It was a welcoming prospect.

- - -

All too soon, he was roused from his peaceful slumber by the hectic flashing of a red light from the console, filling the small Graywing’s cabin over and over. He groaned, and mumbled something that even he couldn’t understand.

“Mr. Costigan!” barked Orion, louder than Tom had ever heard the AI speak. He sat up violently, flailing his arms and legs simultaneously—his left foot made contact with something light, and he realized after a few seconds that he had kicked his bottle across the cabin.

“What?” he growled, seizing the arms of his chair in an attempt to steady his spiraling brain.

“We have emerged somewhere that I cannot track. We are no longer in the Elfus system. I am unable to hail any local frequencies, though they appear to be in abundance all around us.”

The artificial voice was still stating everything quite urgently, sending an ache through Tom’s already throbbing head. “What do you mean, we left the system? We must be in a different one now!”

“Precisely, Mr. Costigan. However, it is not a system that is tracked by the Administration, and the communications are foreign and do not recognize my signals.”

At this point, though the information made no sense, Tom finally managed to peel his gaze up, through the agonizing red flashes on the console, and he stared through the window. A massive planet reared up in his vision, a very familiar color…

“We are also upside down,” added Orion. “In a free fall for this planet, which I also cannot identify.”

“WELL CORRECT, DAMN IT!” Tom roared, attempting to pull himself upright. He slipped as the ship gave a shuddering jerk, and he toppled over the right arm of the chair, crashing to the floor on his shoulder, which shrieked in agony. He let out a grunt of pain, and for a second he lay still as the spastic movement continued.

“Power failing,” announced Orion, still in an uncharacteristically blaring fashion. “Rexin supply currently at one ninth of full capacity.”

“How long have we been traveling?” Tom growled in response, pulling himself slowly to his feet and shrugging off the stabbing pain now in his shoulder. Without waiting for a reply, he seized the side of the still flashing console and snarled into it, “Orient this ship and get us away from this planet!”

“I am unable to navigate the vessel away from the planet, Mr. Costigan. I am sorry, but we have already entered the atmosphere.”

“Divert all power from shields and cloaking to the main engine,” Tom ordered, his brain now working at a slightly quicker pace as the buzzing in his head receded. There was a low grumble from all around him, and the ship abruptly flipped off of its side, orienting on the steadily approaching planet in front of them.

“Can you land this thing?” he asked the console, still clutching at it with white knuckles.

“I can, but I will not be able to change the position of the vessel from the point that we have arrived at. We can only hope that there will be a land mass below us.”

Tom swallowed this news slowly, and ran a hand over his face. The Graywing was now passing through the cloud cover of the mysterious planet, and a realization rose in his throat like vomit: he could do nothing but rely on Orion to set the ship down. The very familiar sensation of helplessness engulfed him as he stood holding onto the console like it was a lifeline—the ship was not his element.

For several minutes Tom decided to save his words for when they were necessary. The wrap-around window showed nothing but white fog, clouds shifting by the ship like gentle hands that refused to catch the failing craft. From outside there came a high-pitched whistle that Tom unfortunately recognized from past free-falls toward a planet surface. It was the whistle of wind… and at the same time he could feel himself sliding gently toward the back of the cabin.

After several arduous minutes of tense silence within the cabin, the clouds seemed to part like a gateway, and the planet’s surface was clear—though there was not much to see. A blank slate of white land stretched across the world as far as Tom could see through the window. It had to be ice—they were going to land on a frozen planet.

Just as he began to accept this strange idea, his eyes caught a small patch of green amongst the icy expanse. It was only a pinprick against the blankness, like a speck of dirt. It continued to grow bigger as the Graywing angled toward the planet, however, until it eventually resolved itself into a tropical oasis, full of bright green palm trees, thick grass and waterfalls. The sight was so out of place in the midst of the wasteland that Tom actually stared at it for several long seconds before he realized that the Graywing was now only a few miles above ground level.

Just as this fact came to him, however, he felt the ships descent rapidly slowing. He let out a loud whistle of relief, and muttered quietly, “So there was enough power left to slow up and avoid a crash?”

“Negative,” replied Orion calmly. “There is only enough power to slow the vessel for another few seconds. I suggest that you brace for impact, Mr. Costigan.”

Tom leapt into the chair immediately, swearing through his teeth as he belted himself in. He eyed the ever-looming sheet of ice warily as it approached the window, now at a worryingly rapid pace. He gripped the arms of the chair fiercely, unable to tear his gaze away—

A second before impact Tom shut his eyes tightly. There was an earsplitting bang of metal on ice, and he felt himself fly forward roughly, the belts restraining him in their vice-like grip. The sound of shattering glass reached his ears a moment before he felt himself pelted with razor edged shards of the wraparound window. He kept a firm grip on the arms of his chair, praying that it would not dislodge itself from the floor… an unpleasantly intense screeching sound was now assaulting his ears, flooding through the area and rattling his mind, as well as every object around him. For several seconds he remained this way, simply holding on for his life as he waited for the noise to end.

The shaking gradually died down, as well as the screeching that had accompanied it. After a few seconds of silence, Tom opened his eyes—the cabin was a complete wreck, the console flattened and destroyed, wires dangling from the ceiling and the walls of the Graywing torn roughly open, leaving gaping holes where there had once been several inches of sturdy metal. He was encased mostly in darkness, save for a few beams of light filtering down through similar tears in the ceiling.

He unbelted himself and fell from the chair, landing palms-down on the frayed floor of the cabin, feeling drained and shaky. This was not at all the worst crash that he had ever endured, but it was not something that he planned on getting used to any time soon. He lifted himself slowly to his feet, the top of his head brushing the ruined ceiling of the Graywing. Dry sounding wind was whipping through the holes in the ship, and for a moment Tom considered the prospect of leaving the ship and dealing with the weather. He concluded that he had no other pieces of clothing in the ship aside from the thin black jacket that he had on.

He stumbled to the back of the cabin and tore open the dangling closet doors. He seized the Stebb M. 7 handgun that was still stored on the top shelf and backed away, checking the two clips by instinct. Both were full—he tucked the gun into his belt and made his way to the hatch, sliding it open cautiously.

He was bathed in a sea of blinding light, causing him to hold a hand over his eyes for a second to adjust himself. The wind hit him after the light, whipping his hair back off his forehead and almost forcing him to take a step back. He shook himself mentally and stepped out of the destroyed ship, onto the ice. His shoe dipped into an inch or so of snow before he made contact with solid ground.

It truly was a wasteland, stretching from horizon to horizon. To his left was the beginning of the inexplicable oasis, bright green trees rising high up over the rich, grassy soil. Tom stared at it in utter confusion, twitching his fingers.

“Your luck astounds me, Mr. Costigan.”

He jumped and nearly went for the Stebb before he realized that the voice had come from his pocket. He dug a hand in and pulled out the data card, Orion’s voice still rattling out of it.

“That’s the third crash that you have survived with me piloting.”

“Yeah, maybe I should get a new driver.”

The AI chuckled quietly, a rare sound that was almost lost with the wind. Tom eyed the red card fondly, grateful that here, lost on this unknown planet, he still had one familiar thing left with him. He jerked his head toward the oasis to his left. “Any idea what the hell that thing’s doing in the middle of an ice field?”

A few seconds passed before Orion responded. “I cannot say, Mr. Costigan. Knowing you, I can only guess what the next step will be.”

Tom shoved the card back into his pocket. “You know me too well.”

“No chance you would settle for reviewing the files?”

General Viscen fussed through a folder of documents as Drake Keir fell into step behind him and his smartly dressed, dark-haired, silent attendant. The superior officer gave Drake nary a glance as they passed through high-ceilinged corridors. In recent years, the Alliance padded their steel-walled bases with sheetrock and homey wallpapers, tiled the floors, and carpeted most of the hallways. The residents might have been comforted, but Drake only felt suffocated—presumably from being away so long.

“You know I never liked paperwork.”

Viscen sighed and passed the documents to his attendant, who nodded. “Drake, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad you don’t work here anymore.”

“You’re the one who asked me to come.” He smirked, decidedly not feeling guilty when the General muttered about having better things to do with his time. Sometimes, Drake wondered why Viscen put up with them. The answer was obvious, but somehow unsatisfying.

“Alright, you insensitive black bastard,” the General declared—resigned to the abuse—as they turned and passed through large automatic doors labeled “Surveillance Beta”. Four holographic screens danced above LED consoles, operated by a monitoring team of two per screen, their fingers tacking swiftly at their key pads. The holographs themselves were interactive, but touchpads were a quicker interface. “Bring up the disturbances from oh-four-hundred.”

“The anomalies, sir?” asked one of the team, already queuing the requested information onscreen.

“Yes, thank you.” The General beckoned Drake closer and stroked his chin. “Take a look at this.”

The half-dragon came to stand next to his officer and perused the information. Images on-screen depicted ripples in space, just outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Paragraphs of jargon occupied one half of the massive holographic screen. Parsing through it, Drake quirked his brow and looked to Viscen.

“Spatial transference? Really?”

“Matter definitely came through, but it happened too quickly. Whatever it was burned up in Earth’s atmosphere before we could monitor it.” He paused, smiling wryly. “The first time.”

“It happened again?” Drake looked more perplexed. “It can’t be natural. Is Dark Horizon responsible?”

The General shook his head. “They’ve had no activity outside the planet in months. Their forces are too busy licking their wounds. I doubt they’d make a move now. Either way, there’s been no electromagnetic activity, so it can’t be the work of a machine.

“Take a look at this, from oh-nine-hundred.” Viscen pulled up a frame-by-frame video on-screen.

Drake watched as a wave echoed outward in space and, from the point of origin, a small red dot catapulted away. “Stop. Magnify.” The image scaled and resolved, clearly displaying a hunk of molten metal. “Is that…?”

“Yes. A ship.” Viscen scowled. “The make’s impossible to determine. Damn thing looks like it went through a trash compactor. I’m guessing, whatever that spatial disturbance is, you don’t want to go through it.”

“That’s why you called me out here?” asked Drake, looking his officer in the eye. “To say you have no idea what you’re looking at?”

Viscen seemed to have lost focus for a moment. Suddenly, he blinked and came to. “What? Right…” With revelatory concern, Drake saw the lines under his old friend’s eyes. “I wanted to tell you to keep an eye out. Both events were preceded by ‘readings’ our equipment can’t identify. We’ve been getting similar readouts from the atmosphere over your lair.”

“Sir, have you been sleeping?” the former soldier asked suddenly.

Viscen rolled his eyes sardonically, walking out of the room with the half-dragon in tow. “Oh, now you’re concerned.”

“I’m sorry,” Drake said, stopping Viscen with a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t realize.”

The General huffed in mock-amusement. “Rebuilding a world’s political system and uniting them all under a former covert military organization they don’t feel can be fully trusted… It ain’t easy, kid.”

“They support the Alliance more than you realize, Viscen.” Drake gave an encouraging smile. “Dark Horizon tore this world apart, enslaved it, and you risked everything to stop them. If it weren’t for the Alliance…”

“Yeah, yeah,” the General brushed off his friend’s words, though they left their mark in the form of a grin. “Anyway, how have you been?”


***


The Great Dragon appeared on a small patch of land in the midst of a great lake, several miles in each direction. Massive cliffs rose on all sides, isolating the basin from the cold air outside. Melted snow poured down in thundering waterfalls, then drained back into the Arctic soil to repeat the process. No clouds or storms were allowed in the sky above the basin. Here, the sun penetrated easily, keeping this oasis warm and nourishing the foliage on the tiny islets all over the lake.

The half-dragon had yet to come to terms with his Master’s departure. The title ‘Dragon God’ was bestowed so unexpectedly. In terms of power and perception, there was no comparison between Drake and the former Great Dragon. Thoughts like this filled his head whenever he returned to the Arctic oasis. But as Emissary, Drake trusted his Master; as Great Dragon, he would do the same.

He stepped off the teleport pad and welcomed the sun’s rays. This particular islet nested against the largest waterfall; behind it, the Great Dragon’s lair. Drake parted the waters with a raised arm and stepped into the dark, eyes quickly adjusting.

To his surprise, someone’s back nearly bumped into him. The dragon-man’s instincts flared. Razor claws jabbed outward, pinning between them the cushioned flesh of a human neck. One squeeze was all it would take. A cold pressure against Drake’s forehead confirmed his initial alarm: this man was armed.

For a split second Tom glanced over the man that had just arrived—he was tall, black, with very unnatural looking claws sprouting from each finger, many of which were at his neck at the moment. Probably an augment.

The man twitched, and Tom took his chance, throwing his head back and kicking out as quickly as he could. The figure reacted just as fast, swiping away the strike with his free hand. For a fraction of a moment, the claws eased off from his neck, and Tom spun away a few feet, leveling the Stebb at the man’s face—to his inward surprise, however, his assailant had already drawn a gun of his own, with what looked to be a silencer attached to the muzzle, and had set the sights on Tom at almost exactly the same moment.

For five full seconds the two men held the firearms on each other, not saying a word. All sound seemed to have magnified—the cave was feeling especially damp and constricting.

“Who are you?” Tom growled.

The man didn’t answer for a second, though his gaze did not waver at all. His eyes were slightly squinted and set directly on his target. “I am Drake Keir. Now let’s have yours.”

Tom also kept the silence stretching for an extra few moments, considering. He had no knowledge of where he was, and nothing much could be gained from withholding his information.

“Tom Costigan.”

The man named Drake nodded slowly. “What are you doing here?”

“My ship, it crashed just outside this oasis thing, whatever the hell it is. I have no idea where I am. I came here looking for help.”

Still the guns did not lower.

“Where are you from?”

“Earth.”

This word seemed to confuse Drake, as he cocked his head almost imperceptibly at its utterance. Tom kept his grip tight on the Stebb.

“You are on Earth,” Drake responded calmly.

The words washed over Tom, and he almost pulled the trigger, resisting the urge as all of his warning signs flared. He could feel all of his individual muscles in his face and arms working in a tightly knit group. “What?”

“I said, you are on Earth. This is the Arctic.”

Tom shook his head, the tendons in his neck seeming to stretch too far from the movement. “No. No, I am not on Earth. My Arctic doesn’t have a goddamn tropical forest in the center of it!”

He could visibly see Drake tensing up even more at his words. “I assure you it is the truth, Costigan.”

“No, it bloody well isn’t!” Tom snarled, his voice rising rapidly in volume. “Earth is run by the Administration, it’s got a Docking Field around it, and it’s in chaos right now, like the rest of the f***ing galaxy!”

Drake did not move. “This is Earth. I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but this is definitely Earth, and your ship just crashed on it. If you didn’t come here looking for me… I can probably help you.”

Tom pulled his voice back with marginal difficulty, and he kept his finger resolutely on the trigger. “Mate, you’d better give me a hell of a lot more to go on before I lower this gun.”

“You barge into my cave and demand I explain myself?” Calling this too stupid to be an act was an understatement. For a moment, Drake considered lowering his pistol, but the fire in Tom’s eyes banished that inclination. Focusing, he noticed redness in Tom’s retinas and the scent of alcohol. No, the pistol definitely was not moving.

“Alliance General Viscen Zeth hailing Drake Keir, please respond. Over.”

Drake frowned at the electronic yet clear voice, then fixed a glare on the fiery Irishman. “Don’t move.” He lifted his com with his free hand and, without looking away from Tom, spoke, “I know who you are. Stop the goddamn radio bull****.”

Viscen ignored the complaint. “Drake, we’re picking up a huge anomaly in Alliance airspace. It’s close. Over.”

After a growl of defeat, the half-dragon answered. “Is that significant?”

“Considering the size, there… Holy ****!”

Drake scowled. “What happened?”

The General shouted something, but it was lost in static. Before Drake could speak, Viscen’s frantic voice returned: “Repeat, a battleship has emerged from the anomaly. It’s some kind of ****ing portal. ****, Drake, there are more above your oasis! Dozens of them, it looks like a meteor storm!”

****, Drake swore to himself. “Don’t worry about us. What about that ship?”

“Its weapons are primed. Engines are at full-thrust. We’re at battle stations. Hailing it now.” There was a long, tense silence. Drake eyed Tom whose brow sweated nervously. Finally: “No response. We have visual confirmation. There’s a designation on the side: SA-Ekko. Oh, god… It’s coming in too fast. ****! Evac, evac—”

The channel went dead. Drake stared at his com, wide-eyed. His gun had lowered without his noticing. Tom’s had also veered off-track. He looked as though his skull was splitting open.

“What the ****?!” he exploded.

Suddenly, the earth swayed to a violent crash, throwing them both to their feet. Drake crawled to his knees, nearly thrown down again by another tremor. “We have to get out of here!” he yelled over the tumult. “If this cave collapses with us in it...!”

Tom’s head swam and barked simultaneously as another teeth-rattling crash shook the cave. The words rang in his head, drifting back and forth eerily as if to gently remind him of what he had just heard—SA-Ekko…

“We have to get out of here!” came the urgent voice of Drake, cutting through his haze as well as the quakes. “If this cave collapses with us in it…!”

Fair enough, Tom thought idly. He pulled himself off of his knees and stretched out a hand, which Drake took after a second of what must have been indecision. In the back of his head Tom noted that this strange man’s black skin felt leathery to the touch, and the nails did not feel like hollow augmentations. Together they sprinted for the entrance of the cave, slipping every few seconds as another deafening report sent rubble down on their heads.

They rushed out of the circular entrance and leapt simultaneously through the waterfall, emerging onto slick rock, which quickly gave way to strikingly green grass. The basin rose up around them imposingly, and for a moment Tom had to remind himself he was, in fact, in the center of an icy wasteland—apparently the Arctic.

Far above the oasis, the two figures watched as ripple after ripple shot through the skyline, from each emerging a sizeable chunk of molten rock. The comets rushed alarmingly quickly toward the earth, crashing one after the other in and around the basin, kicking water and dirt up everywhere. The noise was unbelievable, a mixture of churning metal and explosions that ate up reality.

As Drake and Tom continued pumping their legs across the grass, the ripples in the atmosphere seemed to strengthen, bending back and forth and firing out the rocky missiles with even more rapidity. They crashed down viciously into the grass around the two, and Tom stumbled roughly when one impacted no more than twenty feet away. “Sh**!” he growled, pushing himself up with the palm of his hand as clumps of dirt assaulted his right side. From his shaking vision, he saw Drake sprinting toward what looked like an unremarkable metal pad situated in the midst of the field. Home base.

Tom picked up his pace, punishing his feet against the trembling grass with as much strength as he could currently muster. He tore across the intervening space between him and Drake in a matter of seconds.

“Get to the pad!”

Three more brain-rending explosions sounded, and both men were hurtled off their feet, tremors running through both them and the environment. Tom felt himself sailing uncontrollably through the air, his grip somehow still tight on the Stebb—he crashed lamely onto his back, sending a sharp, metallic ring through the air and a sting through his body. The ground felt cold and flat—before he could check to see if Drake was okay, his eyes fell on the sky above him. A meteor, the biggest one he had yet seen disgorging from the sky, was falling straight for him—

Before he could even blink, however, there was a buzzing in his abdomen, and he found himself staring up into a clear, cloudless sky, albeit still wavering mysteriously.

He caught hold of the rest of his senses in time to hear both the coughing of Drake to his left, and the surging, overpowering roar of struggling ship engines.

Drake dragged himself to his feet and spat out a mouthful of dust. A vain endeavor; the air was so thick with it that he could barely see. He drew his cloak around his mouth and grabbed Tom’s arm, jerking the smaller man to his feet, who shielded his mouth with his sleeve.

The splitting whine of a starship’s engines slammed them to the ground again. Drake’s back burned from the intense heat for several excruciating moments until finally the deafening wail began to wane. The dust had swept back, forming a solid wall. As Drake rose to his feet, he watched the battleship Ekko tear itself free from the unearthed wreckage of the Alliance base. Debris shook loose from its underside, much of it presumably from the Ekko itself.

Now at a distance, the ship’s shape was easier to take in. Drake scanned the arrowhead-shaped vessel, assessing damage. Its resembled some cobbled-together vessels which frequented the UBM, but this was no factory hackjob; too sophisticated and much larger. It could easily hold a small army.

“Tom,” he said, turning to face the fuming Irishman, “you know that ship. Tell me about it.”

Tom focused his shivering gaze on Drake, and found he couldn't prevent himself from running a hand through his hair. The fading starship Ekko was still roaring through him like a physical force, and he found it difficult to focus on anything else.

“It’s… a starship crafted for transporting armies for drops, and it’s outfitted heavily,” he muttered. Drake swept the hair out of his eyes in response and turned to gaze silently at the craft. Tom wasn’t sure what to say, as his nerves were still rattling through him from the meteor shower.

Drake flipped his odd gaze back onto Tom. “Enemies of yours? Why?”

Tom dropped his hand, suddenly aware of how unsure of himself he looked. “Why? That’s difficult to explain.” He paused and shook his head. “The ship belonged to a man named Jakob, who was hunting me around the galaxy for months, and who I thought was dead," he continued warily. "If he is onboard that ship, we have to follow it, now.”

At his words, Drake again turned his back on Tom to fix his eyes on the ship. Taking a few steps toward the wreckage of the mysterious base that Ekko had crashed into, Drake spoke. “One more question. Are they a threat to this planet?”

Tom chuckled, a sound that slipped out from him before he could decide if he wanted it to. “Yes. We have to deal with this now, or there’s no telling what could happen.”

Drake tilted his head back toward him, a rather twisted smile on his dark face. “In that case, we're both itching to get aboard. Come, there's a hangar under the base. With the ceiling gone, we can go straight in."

With that, the strange man took off at a light jog toward the destroyed base. Tom shook his head softly again, and even batted a palm against his temple a few times. Get your head right, god damn it. A subtle hum from his right pocket swept through him as Orion’s calm voice emerged for the first time since Tom had entered the oasis.

“As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, now we have to worry about Jakob, again?”

Ignoring the AI, Tom jogged quickly to catch up with Drake, his brain still feeling more like dead weight than an organ. As he fell into stride with his new companion, he felt that he could no longer hold his own questions back. “Look, Keir, I need answers here. I told you what happened: my ship crashed and I went looking for help. You told me this is Earth, but I just came from Earth!”

His voice rose to a near shout with the last few words, the result of his helpless uncertainty.

“This is as new to me as it is to you,” Drake growled beside him. “I've served the Alliance for most of my life, but I've never seen something like this. If it weren’t for you and that ship Ekko, I would assume that those comets were teleporting in.”

He quieted for a moment, catching his breath, then leapt up and scaled the collapsed wall of debris that lined the base's extremities. "The Alliance has only mapped a few neighboring galaxies, and most of that was borrowed from other races. It's possible there is another Earth out there. Otherwise..."

He trailed off, and Tom kept his eyes on him, considering each word. This man had an odd manner of speech, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Drake knelt and extended a hand to help Tom up onto the wall. Tom brushed it away impatiently and seized the edge of the great slab of concrete, pulling himself swiftly up and planting his feet.

Drake grinned. "Good to know you can pull your own weight."

Tom nodded, and they continued along the destroyed path. "Another Earth, with another land mass labeled the 'Arctic'?" he replied in a flat tone, eyeing Drake carefully. "What continent are we on now?"

"Near the center of North America," Drake replied, scrambling over broken beams and avoiding jagged steel. "This area is currently uninhabited, aside from the Alliance. They prefer to keep a low profile, though at this point it's mere habit."

As Tom followed the slow progress over the mess of rubble, he ground his teeth. “North America, the birthplace of ignorance and wars,” he snarled. “That proves it, then. This isn’t my Earth, but this is Earth.”

Whilst he continued stepping carefully over the blackened remains of the base, he acknowledged silently that the situation made no sense, and there was slim to no chance that it would be explained any time soon.

Drake stepped carefully over a charred piece of what appeared to be a support beam. "No argument there. Although, this particular war began millennia ago in what is now Europe—”

Cutting off mid-sentence, Drake lurched back, and Tom lunged forward, but he was a second too late—the section of steel that Drake stood on shuddered and caved smoothly, opening up a clear hole like the gaping maw of some animal. Drake dropped through like a stone, and Tom felt the claws slip over his palms before he could grab firm hold. “S***!” he heard Drake shout. Tom threw himself over the piece of steel and landed next to the collapsed section, dropping to his knees and peering through the hole. Drake, merely a dark blob against the black backdrop, was hanging by one arm clutching a jutting girder.

“F***,” mumbled Tom, extending a hand toward the dark man. “We can’t catch a break, can we?”

“Yeah,” breathed Drake, stretching his free arm out. “At least it stays interesting.”

At the last word the girder gave a deep groan, and Tom again lunged toward the extended arm. A loud pop sounded, and the girder swung free of the ceiling. Drake wrapped both arms tightly around the steel as he fell out of sight, bellowing expletives the whole way.

“Drake!” Tom yelled, his filthy hand extended into nothing but a blank canvas of darkness. A harsh metallic strike sounded, followed quickly by a sickening thump that he attributed to Drake’s body finding the ground. Tom leaned further into the hole, blinking rapidly. Gradually the girder came into greater focus, and he saw the end that had swung into the hole was now resting atop a gray, two-man starfighter, forming a bridge straight down.

“Funny,” coughed Drake’s voice.