Neither Brak nor Sisto knew entirely what happened in the pirannamyte nebula; they both had an incomplete picture as Sisto had not experienced it and Brak could barely remember it.

Brak and Sisto had just lost to Space Ghost and missed their chance to steal a shipment of gold duraxite. Brak's main ship was usually stocked with two smaller ships for solo missions or close escapes; Sisto's had been used at the beginning of the mission, so only Brak's was left. It was this ship the brothers used to escape from Space Ghost. Unfortunately for them, their escape was short-lived; Space Ghost used his power bands on their ship just before they were out of range, and from Sisto's readings it seemed he destroyed their power source. Without power, their ship was impossible to control, and a moment later they were drifting into the pirannamyte.

The full weight of what was happening hit both of them at the same time the pirannamyte did. For one extended, horrifying moment they were frozen. But Sisto was fastest. Normally he deferred to Brak as his master and obeyed his every order. This time, however, his survival instincts were commanding him. He glanced behind them, trying not to telegraph his action as Brak hopelessly banged the control panel. It was there. The escape ship was tiny, but Brak had an undersized footlocker stuffed behind the seats. It kept emergency weaponry and was lead-lined for radioactive arms.

Sisto leapt into action. He yanked the locker open quick as a cat. Brak saw what he was doing and scooped out the weapons, but before Brak could sneak in ahead of him Sisto jumped into the locker and yanked the lid shut. He held tight to the inner handle. He expected resistance, or to hear Brak shouting at him and banging on the lid, but that never came. He heard the sound of metal ripping and tearing, and he knew that in a matter of seconds they would breach the outer walls of the ship and he would be flung out into space, but still he held tight, eyes squeezed shut, praying to a god he didn't believe in that he wasn't about to die.

The engines suddenly whined heavily to life. Sisto felt himself pressing into the back of the trunk as the ship screamed forward through space, before stalling again. When they died, it was silent. Sisto realized that he could no longer hear the pirannamyte attacking. A moment later, he felt the pull of gravity against his body. Then, with an almighty jolt, he felt his surroundings touch down. After that, there was silence.

Gently, Sisto opened the locker. He knew that as soon as he did, he would be contaminated, but he had to see what happened. The ship looked like swiss cheese. Through the holes he saw the sky above them was green, and they were surrounded by an orange, rocky landscape.

Brak was in Sisto's seat, at the controls, still strapped in. His face was blotchy, and his mouth and chin were covered in bloody vomit, as were the controls. His whiskers were gone, as were patches of fur. All over his body were tiny little pinpoints, like he had been stabbed with millions of needles. Something had stopped the pirannamyte from devouring him fully, something Sisto couldn't imagine.

"M-Master?" Sisto said cautiously. Brak didn't answer. Sisto climbed over to him and put his hand in front of Brak's open mouth. He was breathing but did not respond to Sisto's touch. "Hold on," said Sisto. "I'll find help."

There were emergency supplies mixed in the pile of weapons Sisto had emptied from the locker. He chose a flair gun first and fired up an SOS. The most likely person to respond was Space Ghost, but Sisto had to take that chance. Now that the immediate danger had passed, he was beginning to feel a rush of panic welling up inside himself.

Not too long after his signal went up, he saw movement in the distance. It was flashing a blue light, which was this sector's agreed-upon signal for search and rescue vehicles. "Someone's coming," said Sisto, in case Brak could hear. "They'll be here shortly. Just hold tight, all right?"

Brak mumbled something inaudible.

It took far too long for the vehicle to reach them. Sisto knew he had been exposed to radiation, but he couldn't tell if how sick he felt was from that or from fear and worry. When he threw up it could have been from either, but it wasn't a good sign. The whole time he kept checking that his brother was still alive but had no idea what else he could do.

When the rescue vehicle was close enough that Sisto could make out the vehicle type, he reached back into the emergency supplies and cracked open a green flare, which was the signal that they were contaminated with radiation. No sense in the person coming to help them getting exposed and not being able to treat them on their way back to civilization.

The rescue vehicle was an old GroundCrawler, Sisto recognized. The GroundCrawler was a standard vehicle that was designed to hover two to three feet off the ground, meaning it could cross all types of solid terrain with little trouble, as well as keep steady over jagged rocks and violently uneven ground. It was usually manned by two, with a wide area in the back that could carry six more passengers at a time. The GroundCrawler X could carry up to twelve, and the GroundCrawler XS could carry fifty, though its size made it expensive and impractical for use and it had been discontinued. Thinking about vehicles was easy, far easier than thinking about why he was looking at one.

The transport stopped thirty feet from the crashed ship, and a moment later a mantis alien in a hazmat suit jumped out the back. Sisto was hanging out the doorway and he waved wildly.

"How many!" the mantis called through a bullhorn.

Sisto held up two fingers and shouted back the same.

The mantis pulled a stretcher from the back of the ship, with his kit on top of it. He rushed to close the distance between them with everything, and he made it to the ship in a matter of seconds.

Sisto pointed at Brak. "I don't know what happened. We drifted into the pirannamyte. I was in the lead-lined box, I don't know how we got out. He was like this when we crash-landed."

"Did you say pirannamyte?" the mantis asked with shock on top of skepticism. "I'm not surprised he's this bad." He pulled down Brak's glove and sanitized a spot where he could feel a vein before jabbing a needle in, then fixed the port to a clear bag of intravenous medicine. "You're lucky this ship was overstocked with RadAway. I can't even get a good reading on how exposed you are. I'm going to have to call in a clean-up ship to take care of this. Sorry, say goodbye to your ship and your stuff, you're not going to see it again."

The mantis heaved Brak onto the stretcher, then grabbed Sisto's arm. "Sorry, this is going to pinch." He did the same as before, sanitizing and sticking him to administer the treatment that would remove the radioactive particles from his system. Sisto flinched but didn't make sound. "Can you walk?

"Yes," said Sisto.

"Great. Follow me. Zeb should have the back set up by now. We're going straight to the city. There's a hospital there, they'll take care of you."

The mantis rolled the stretcher back to the GroundCrawler and heaved it up into the back with no resistance. Sisto climbed into the pristine interior. There were small cabinets on the wall to hold supplies, a long bench seat opposite them for the passengers, a second stretcher, and some snaps on the ground to keep them both in place. There was a wall and a window between the back and the front seats, which was sealed tight. Sisto noticed a half-empty blister pack on the ground, and the unused capsules were a common preventative measure to reduce irradiation before exposure.

"Hold tight," said the mantis, and he banged on the window twice then called, "All right, let's move out!"

The GroundCrawler was fast, but it still took an agonizingly long time before signs of civilization came into view. There was a city just on the other side of the badlands, with tall buildings built into the changing level of the land. In the front seat the driver, Zeb, was talking on the radio, announcing their estimated time 'til arrival and describing the state of the passengers. Sisto alternated between looking out the window because he couldn't bear to see the state his master was in and watching Brak because he couldn't bear to think of something happening when he wasn't looking.

The mantis was talking in a smooth, even voice to help keep Sisto calm. What he was saying didn't matter but having something to listen to helped immensely. "You're lucky we were at that outpost. It would have taken forever to follow the flair if we had been at the next one. No telling if this one would still be alive even right now if we weren't. But a meteorite crashed in the badlands last week and a bunch of damn fools went looking for it. Scavengers, thinking it might be made of some valuable material to hock at the trading post. We're here 'till the new moon tomorrow night in case there were any stragglers."

"Mm." Sisto thought he saw Brak flinch as the mantis inserted another IV needle on his other arm.

"But it looks like they didn't get to eat him."

"No," said Sisto.

"Looks like they were just getting started… do you have any idea what happened?"

"No."

"We're turning onto the street now," Zeb called from the front seat.

"All right," said the mantis. "As soon as we get in, we'll run decontamination so you can be treated. Just do what I say, and you'll get by."

As soon as the vehicle pulled into the intake bay, time changed speeds. While before it was crawling along like an arthritic insect, now it moved so fast that Sisto couldn't keep up with it. First, he was yanked out of the back and shoved into a chamber, doused with a pink cloud that smelled nauseatingly fresh, then he was pulled back out and dragged down a corridor by a different group of aliens. He didn't even know what species they were, nor could he take in what he was seeing, because they were hustling him away from his brother.

"Wait," he said, "what about my master? What about Brak?"

"He's got his own team," said one of the aliens. "Trust me, we're doing everything we can."

"But—but—" Sisto stammered but couldn't come up with an argument. His vision was fuzzy around the edges, and he stopped thinking. He simply did as he was instructed, but none of the words or sights around him penetrated his mind. For the moment, all he could do was exist.