The pilot Thisan. Sandy is his ship and he's quite attached to it…her. He's not exactly an outlaw, but neither is he on the good side of the authorities.
The assassin Celeste took control of Thisan's ship after her ship was confiscated. She can't fly it, so she's keeping him and the others as hostages until they take her to the Kirin fortress and her lover.
The bartender Danakin is also an aspiring peacekeeper. Once merely serving swordsmen in a bar, now she's one herself, brandishing the 'Amazing Papercut Sword of Doom.'
The slave Azor is a Tyche, running away from the Swordsman Academy to find the girl he's been having true dreams about. Unfortunately, when he's awake, he doesn't know what she looks like.
The experiment has just escaped her captors, and snuck aboard the ship. She's just been found out, but no one realizes that she's TY7583, the latest development in the Kirin elite forces.
The earthling Daric is always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and never in his own dimension. Right now, he's just landed on Thisan's ship in mid-flight, and everyone wonders who he is and where he came from.
"Look what you did!" Thisan screamed at the others still lying on the floor. "You wrecked my ship! Sandy…Sandy, speak to me!"
"It's a ship," Celeste said with contempt, pushing herself off the floor, which was actually the wall.
Thisan turned on her, eyes blazing. "Don't ever refer to her that way—ever!"
The assassin rolled her eyes, walking over to the door. Slamming her fist on the panel, it slid open. "Love to argue over the grammar of your sentence, but I'm going to see if I can book another flight, as this one seems to be delayed."
"Hey, wait you can't—" Thisan stopped mid-sentence as she had already disappeared. "Stupid woman," he muttered, then began picking about the mess that was Sandy to find the others.
+
Daric laid still. Somehow, somehow, he knew that it had happened again. That made it…um…he raised a hand to count using fingers. There was the time he fell down his stairs and landed in Kansas-that-was-not-Kansas, then he fell down the prison stairs there, and was in the strange Wal-Mart, and then he fell off the Stairmaster, and ended up on some guy's spaceship…three.
Was that it? He supposed that was a pretty high number, considering how rare it truly was to land in other dimensions…he just wanted to go back to Earth, where it was safe, with the fancy cars, the floating swimming pools, the dangerous movie theatres, the ska bands.
He opened his eyes and immediately shut them when the bright light of twin suns burned his retinas. "Shit!"
Frowning, he tried to remember what he had seen. Two suns? Sounded like Star Wars. He sat up first, brushing sand out of his hair, then opened his eyes more cautiously. Sand, everywhere—oh wait! There was a sign directly above him.
Daric licked his dry lips and sandy lip ring. "Gleh…sand in my mouth. Not nice." Standing up, he backed away until he could read the sign. Then it occurred to him that it was in Japanese. He couldn't read Japanese. He couldn't read it. "Bugger nuts."
+
TY7583 heard the pilot calling. Sitting up, she noticed that they were the only ones left on the ship. "Yes?"
He spun around to face her. "Oh, you…I thought I was the only left on the ship."
She shrugged. "No. Where are the others?"
"I don't know…Celeste jumped ship, but I haven't seen anyone else—but you."
The experiment nodded. Pushing herself up, she looked around the ship. "Now what?"
"Introductions!" The pilot said, holding out a hand. "We were never properly introduced. I'm Thisan Rever."
She took his hand cautiously. "I am—" she realized she couldn't call herself TY7583 any longer, not without being recognized as an experiment, "I am Sev."
Suddenly, she found herself staring down the end of a gun. "Sorry, Sev, but you did sneak aboard my ship. So, I'm going to have to punish you."
TY7583—Sev—faced it calmly. "Very well. I only say that if I had had time to inform you, I would have."
Thisan stared at her from the other side of the gun. "Inform me? This is my ship."
"I am aware of that." Sev blinked slowly, waiting for him to do it.
"Aw, hell," Thisan said, "never mind. I mean, we're the only two here on Sandy, and who knows where we are on the ship."
Sev nodded. "Should we find a town then?"
"I say, Sev, that's a brilliant idea." He smiled, the earlier threat forgotten. "Let's find us some water, disguise Sandy, and go for a lovely stroll along the beach."
"Beach?" Sev asked, confused.
Thisan shrugged. "Okay, then we'll find out if it is a beach."
+
Azor ignored the sound of glass breaking, keeping his back to the wall of the alley. Fingering the spikes around his neck, he pulled the robe closer around himself and tried to melt into the wall. Stretching long legs out, he sighed with a sort of contentment. For once, he wasn't concerned with another's messes.
He heard humming. Opening his eyes a crack, they flew fully open when he saw the woman carrying a full paper bag. Trying to scramble out of her way, he only succeeded in tripping her. The bag's contents flew everywhere.
Staring in horror, he immediately bowed low to the ground, apologizing profusely in his native language. Much as he hated it, this was the only existence he knew: being less than others.
A hand on his head forced him to stop. Looking up cautiously, he saw the smiling face of the brown-haired woman. "You didn't hurt me. Are you hurt?"
Azor shook his head, unable to speak. She smacked him on the head. "You spilled my pudding. I don't like food to be wasted."
Scrambling up, he crouched with his back to the wall protectively. He apologized again rapidly in Tychen, picking up the scattered pudding cups.
"What are these?" she asked, touching one of the spikes attached to the band. Jerking away and dropping the pudding, he wrapped himself in the cloak. Rushing to his feet, he took off down the alley.
"Wait!" she yelled after him, "don't go yet!"
He kept running down onto the street and out of sight.
+
"My head…" Danakin reached up and rubbed her forehead. "That is the last time I ride with you, Thisan," she grumbled. Getting no answer, she opened her eyes.
"You're awake, miss?" A man wearing a white coat asked her from where he was standing, near her feet.
Danakin closed her eyes. "I think so." Clearing her head, she sat up. "Where…um, well, am I?"
"You're in—" he cut off, following a nurse who had come up behind him. Dan sighed; obviously he wasn't going to be giving her any answers. Sitting up, she looked around the small sick bay. It wasn't much bigger than the inside of Thisan's ship, and just as busy.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, waiting for the dizzy spell to subside. Looking up, the nurse and doctor were speaking, the nurse gesturing towards her with some feeling. "I wonder what I've done now," Dan said to herself, using the bed to help herself stand.
The nurse rushed over. "Please, miss, don't get up."
"Why not?" She kept her hand on the frame, seemingly in control of herself. A closer look would reveal the tightness of her grip on the metal.
"You were hit badly in the explosion. Please, lie back down," the blonde woman tried to help Dan sit without being too obvious. Giving up with the strain of standing, Dan slid back down onto the edge of the bed. "Explosion? The ship blew up? No," she continued to herself, "it couldn't have. I would have felt it. What about that boy?"
"Boy?" The nurse asked. "You were the only one that was recovered. Are you saying that there were causalities?"
"I don't know. Maybe." She shrugged, then winced with pain. "I think you're right, I need to lie down."
+
Her entire body shook as she coughed up sand, fingers scrabbling in the sand uselessly.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to leave the ship so quickly, she thought, unable to swallow. Damn that human and his tricks.
Dragging herself laboriously to her feet, Celeste brushed off her shoulder slowly, swaying in the heat.
Squinting against the light, she thought she caught sight of a town, albeit blurry. Blinking, it was gone. She blinked again, and it was there. Frowning, Celeste decided just to head in that direction and hope for the best.