Special thanks to MrDrP and DrCyrusBortel for their reviews! A package of Jammie Dodgers is on its way to MrDrP for his badical beta-reading skills.

Thanks to everyone for reading!


I.

For over a thousand generations the Monument had kept watch over the capital city from its position atop Advent Peak. Composed from a single large stone dredged from the bottom of the sea, the megalith was sculpted, transported and erected upon the summit in the days when the skies were the color of soft silver rather than of harsh rust. Not merely a metaphoric sentinel for the Lorwardians, it was intended to serve as an object for their reflection and introspection. Both upon how far they as a people had come and upon how much they could achieve.

However, the Advances of the past four hundred generations made it a hazardous location to reach and, as a result, rarely had visitors. In addition to the lack of oxygen-thanks to the Advances, a general condition over the planet's entire surface, the peak was consistently buffeted by fierce windstorms that stirred up swirling clouds of millions of fine but dangerous shards of copper, silica, and zeiton. These fragments, especially those of zeiton, attached themselves to every inch of the Monument's surface. Settling in numerous layers over the eons, these sediments both substantially increased the megalith's apparent size as well as severely obscured its original form.

Accordingly, the original purposes of the Monument were likewise concealed over time. Instead of a load stone for self-reflection, it morphed into a mere symbol. Primarily, one used to instill fealty to the Empire. However, it also developed another more cryptic role. Eons of myth contended that, despite its name, Advent Peak was the departure point for the Great Blue. Once he delivered the Lorwardians to their new home, the summit was the last place where his mighty feet trod before he left for the stars.

And for even longer, a handful of legends singled out the Monument as the site of his eventual return.

II.

As she kneeled in the Lorwardian's execution device, the adrenaline spike in Kim's bloodstream made her extremely alert. Subsequently, the milliseconds between when she placed the recorder in the blade's path and when the blade finally struck it seemed to stretch until they became, if not an ocean, a cove of time.

Against the red background on the underside of her eyelids, she swiftly plotted out her next moves after the recorder stopped the blade. In the ensuing seconds of Lorwardian shock, Kim would free her buttered right wrist from its restraint and attempt to do the same with her butter-smeared forehead. If her head refused to come free, she would spin her body one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and lift the restraints' top portion (and the blade) with the strength of her two free arms just enough so she could get free. Then, she would take out one of her guards with a roundhouse kick and take out the second with a leg sweep. As the guards along the walkway began their inevitable charge, she would employ a combination of Lotus style kung fu and handsprings to evade them and reach the potential sanctuary of the rocky terrain beyond.

Of course, there was always the chance that the recorder wouldn't stop the blade. Kim quickly dismissed this as unlikely. And that wasn't her propensity for optimism talking; it was her faith in Wade. If he claimed the Doctor's musical instrument was extremely strong, then it was. And if this did turn out to be the only time Wade was wrong, what did that matter? She would be dead, but at least she had tried.

A sudden shudder along her left arm brought Kim back in time; her eyes sprung open.

The blade hit the recorder-it worked!

Then she heard an unexpected noise like a guitar string snapping—a very large guitar string. That was quickly followed by crashing.

Kim refocused on her plan and went to free her right wrist only to discover it was no longer being restrained. And neither was her head. Sitting up and turning in the direction of the crash, she discovered the upper portion of the restraints as well the rest of the frame and part of the crossbar were laying on the ground to her right—almost as if they had been ripped from the rest of the device and tossed to the side. As for the blade, it was embedded in the roof of the Synod's observation patio; the blade's retracting wire was whipping in the air. All three judges were huddled together, their arms covering their shuddering heads. From all appearances, the recorder had not only stopped the blade, it had sent it rocketing back up the device and through the crossbar.

Spankin'!

Kim jumped to her feet, placed the recorder back in her cargo pocket, and took off. Unfortunately, she had not anticipated how kneeling on the points of her knees would impact her ability to run. Her steps were uneven, hobbled. A quick glance told her that most of the guards were still in shock, but she was losing valuable seconds. As she reached the edge of the disc, her two guards broke from their trance and raced to intercept her. The soreness in her knees told her that she wouldn't be able to perform the roundhouse or the leg sweep.

Have to improvise then.

She decided to slide between them. Then she saw the eye-patched guard on the left snap his fingers.

The restraints! Shoot!

Having no real option, Kim went ahead with the hip slide. As she did, the panels zipped just over her head and wrapped themselves around the wrists and ankles of the guard with the scar. Unfortunately, her slide didn't take her quite as far a distance as she'd hoped. In fact, she stopped just a few feet to the right of the furious eye-patched guard.

"Hey," she smiled weakly up at him.

He did not return her greeting; instead, he menacingly lifted a booted foot.

She rolled out of his path and continued to roll until she was under and beyond his floating colleague. When she stopped, she heard an odd noise. Looking in its direction, she noticed a guard from the walkway fumbling with a control box on the far edge of the disc. An ominous rumbling began under the disc's surface. She immediately recalled the thin, evenly-spaced joints that connected the disc to the walkway.

Great!

She climbed to her feet and began to race to the edge of the disc. Just as she realized her knees were feeling much better, the guard with the eye patch jumped into her path, his spear at the ready. A roundhouse kick knocked it from his grasp, and a leg sweep sent him crashing to the ground a few feet from his restrained partner. The rumbling noise became a frightening vibration, and Kim leaped off the disc. As she landed chest-first on the walkway, a terrifying squeal of metal assaulted her ears. She turned her head and saw that the disc was gone. The eye patch guard had fortunately managed to cling to the waist of his restrained colleague before it had fallen. They were floating but had begun to sink slowly under their combined weight.

Kim stood and was surrounded … sort of. There was a row of about a dozen guards lined in front of her and about half a dozen behind her. Now that the only space to stand was the narrow walkway, all the guards were arranged single file and were in no position to rush her without pushing at least some of their companions to their deaths. After a moment's hesitation, the first guard at her front charged, she swept his leg. He went over the walkway's border and landed against the rock formation to Kim's right. Hearing the charge of a guard to her rear, she ducked, and he plowed right into the next guard waiting in front her. Since the tangle of their bodies stopped any advance from that direction for the moment, Kim decided to focus on the five remaining guards to her rear. Turning around, she discovered the five had somehow become twelve. Looking past them, she spied the corridor through which she had entered the stadium, it was jammed with advancing guards.

But … of course.

The first guard in this ever-expanding line swung an ax-like weapon at her. She dodged his blow, and, as he tried to free his blade from the walkway, stepped onto his head, climbed on his back, and leaped over the border wall and onto the rocks. While seeking refuge in the rock formation may have been Kim's initial goal, she hadn't had this part of the outcrop in mind. On this end of the walkway, it was much more dramatic, the stones were jagged and extremely steep. And it was crowned with chimney-like outcrops. Most importantly, unlike the side nearest the Synod's chambers, this part seemed free of navigable paths. As she clambered up the notched rock wall, Kim really wished that she had put on a pair of mission gloves when she finished her bath.

A guard grabbed at her foot, and a handful of others began to hurl plasma-edged spears at her. These made a hissing noise in flight but quickly lost their 'glow' after hitting and then sinking into the stone surface. Two stuck just above Kim's head, and a third caught the untucked tail of her shirt.

So can't stay here!

She kicked her foot free, and, hoping the spear nearest her head was lodged fast into the rock face, she jumped for it. Grabbing its end with both hands, she instantly realized this move had been a mistake. She had planned to use the spear as a makeshift gymnastic bar to flip herself to the opposite side of the outcrop. However, generating the type of momentum such a move required would take too much time; unfortunately, that wasn't her immediate concern. The spear was severely bowing under her weight—putting her feet within easy grasp of the nearest guards. A pair of guards snatched a foot each and began to pull her down. As she started to lose her grip on the spear, she heard them and some of their cohorts begin to laugh. Using all the strength in her legs, she brought her feet together fast, banging their knuckles against each other. They simultaneously released their grips, and the spear snapped her high into the air.

Although this didn't put her on the other side of the formation, Kim did find herself near the top of one of its tallest chimneys. She quickly scrambled to its leeward side just as a barrage of spears struck the stone column. She took a few seconds to catch her breath and, for the first time since she had escaped the device, glance at the stadium. Surprisingly, the crowd wasn't in an uproar. The general vibe she got from them was confusion. Almost as if they didn't know how to react and were waiting to see the outcome. Two plasma blasts overhead cut her observations short. Although they hadn't been close, they convinced her of the need to keep moving. She began weaving her way carefully between the chimneys, frantically seeking a route that would lead her to a less exposed area.

After a few minutes without hearing more blasts or even the cries of outraged guards, Kim briefly turned her attention to what lay beyond the formation. From this height she could determine if there was a potential sanctuary in sight and then plot a course to arrive there. And she did see less treacherous terrain in the far distance on her right. The problem was it lay outside the liquid shield, where she had every reason to assume there was no breathable air. Before this discovery could lower her spirits, she was startled by the sudden appearance of a column of steam a few yards to her left. After it faded, she picked her way toward where it had been. It was a short distance, but the way was so difficult, it took her a couple of minutes to get there. She discovered a metal grate wedged in a crevice.

"That's unexpected," she said softly. Another burst of steam erupted from it. Although she was only a foot from the column, she didn't feel particularly hot. She tentatively tested the steam with her elbow. The temperature was between tepid and cool. Whatever its source, the steam had had a long time to cool by the time it reached the grate. "I wonder where you lead." Once the steam started to thin, she brushed the remaining wisps away with her hand and peered inside. From what little she could see there was a tunnel/pipe that extended some ten feet or so down and then seemed to curve to the left.

She tried prying at the grate, but it was either all-of-a-piece with its pipe or welded to it. Shaking her head, she muttered, "What are you thinking, Possible? There are so many reasons why that would a terrible idea, even if it was doable."

It was about the time she reminded herself to keep all her conversations with herself, well … silent, that the air erupted with a volley of yellow plasma blasts. A shower of rocks and dust covered her. She reflexively raised her arms to shield her head and realized that she couldn't move her right arm. When the air cleared, she discovered why. Her upper right arm was exposed, the shirt's fabric beneath the shoulder burned away. And the exposed skin was black with ugly, red streaks. She didn't feel any pain and that worried her.

Am I in shock?

As the staccato rhythms of a Lordwardian's voice pierced the air, a prickly, intensively unpleasant sensation began to emanate from her wounded arm. Stepping toward her, his handheld weapon pointed at her head, was the larger of her two green judges. He continued to speak, either unaware or uncaring, that she could not understand him. She shifted her position slightly to readjust her injured arm. His response was to shoot another plasma blast at her—this one was red. It landed in the crevice just to her left.

She was able to raise both arms to shelter her head this time. However, the pain in her right arm killed.

"Aaaaaie!" she cried out.

The judge laughed and continued to speak his language with menacing inflections.

He fired another red blast, this time at a rock directly to her right. It exploded. Rolling away from the dust cloud it produced, Kim noticed that the grate in the crevice to her left was gone; the pipe was exposed.

The judge screamed.

At first, she thought he had been hurt or attacked, but when she looked at his face, he was wearing an extremely pleased expression. He was still talking, and although she had no idea what he was saying, his eyes made his intentions plain. It was not the first time she'd seen that look in an adversary's eyes. He had decided not to take her prisoner. And he had relished making that decision.

He raised his weapon again and pointed it directly at her head.

She threw a rock shard with her left hand as hard as she could at his face. He batted it away without a word and took a step closer.

Kim closed her eyes.

Ron.

They were both suddenly enveloped in a steam cloud. Without the grate, the steam had escaped the pipe in a much wider berth. Quicker than she could decide to do so, Kim snatched up another shard and hurled it at the judge's face. Momentarily disoriented, he was too slow to block the strike, and the stone hit him in the eye. He howled in pain and began shooting wildly.

With little choice, Kim awkwardly jumped into the exposed pipe and let gravity do the rest.

After falling straight down and then banking to the left for several feet, Kim found herself lying in a horizontal, circular shaft. It was somewhat roomier than the narrow pipe had been, but not by much. Her arm was still killing her, but she bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out. The vicious cries of the judge were faintly echoing down the shaft. Then she heard other Lorwardian voices join his.

She got to her knees and began crawling as fast as she could away them. Unfortunately, as she got farther away from the voices, she also got farther away from her only light source. Soon, she was crawling in utter darkness. And then the steam covered her.

She held her breath but only after she had already breathed some in. She gagged, but that seemed to be only due to reflex. From what little she could tell, the steam seemed to be made of water vapor. Of course, she knew that conclusion might just be hopeful speculation. One thing about the steam her optimism couldn't speculate away was its temperature. It was most certainly warmer than it had been on the surface.

Regardless, Kim continued to crawl forward. Despite the utter darkness, the terrible pain in her right arm, and the periodic steam blasts that kept getting hotter, she knew she had to keep moving.

Even if there was no place for her to go.

III.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Yaz whispered. In the years she had spent with the Doctor, she had learned to identify the Timelord's facial cues that might herald catastrophe.

The Doctor's eyes met her companion's briefly and then darted back to the console. "Something's not right. We're right over the planet, but I can't get any readings." She sighed. "At least any that make sense."

"Are we going to be there soon?" Ron asked hopefully from the opposite side of the console room. He had been nervously stroking Rufus for the past ten minutes, and his pet was just starting to complain.

"Do you want to give him to me, Ron?" Jack offered.

"We're there," the Doctor replied, "but there's a problem."

"W-what's the problem?" Ron asked, carelessly handing Rufus to Jack before the latter was properly within handing off distance. Fortunately, Jack caught Rufus in time. Rufus, for his part, was too concerned with the Doctor's ominous reply to be upset.

"The Tardis doesn't recognize it," the Doctor grumbled. She rested her hands against the console and blew a few stray hairs from her face. "I mean, it is the right planet, but everything's off. I'm not even getting life readings."

The color drained from Ron's face.

"Not the example to lead with," Yaz advised her.

"Let's just land and take a look around," Jack suggested.

"We can't," the Doctor said exasperated. "None of the readings are stable. Without at least one consistent reading of some kind," she explained, "the Tardis will not materialize on the surface." She dropped her head abjectly and sighed.

Yaz went to comfort Ron, but she didn't get two steps.

"Hang on!" the Doctor exclaimed, her head back up and wearing a beaming grin. "I can use the coordinates in the Tardis memory banks from the last time I was here!" She began typing feverishly on one of the console's many keyboards. "Just have to remember to keep the year current, so we don't end up arriving at the last time, literally," she explained. Jumping to the adjacent console, she pulled a lever.

The room pitched to the right and then back to the left. Oblivious to the turbulence or its effects upon the other Tardis occupants, the Doctor gave Ron a reassuring smile, "See, Ron? Problem solved!"

There was loud thud and the Tardis ceased moving.

"We're there!" the Doctor happily announced and headed for the doors.

Ron was understandably dazed by the rapid turn of events.

Yaz placed an empathetic hand on his shoulder. "You'll get used to it," she said and then ran after the Doctor.

"No," Jack said a second later, patting Ron's other shoulder. "Trust me, you won't."

When he and Jack stepped out of the Tardis, Ron discovered they were standing on the summit of a very tall mountain in the middle of a desolate landscape. It looked to him like the Australian Outback had gotten into a fight with the Wyoming Badlands. Except, there were absolutely zero trees and bushes. A large lake that made the Dead Sea look inviting. And, of course, the ginormous green cloud that swallowed up most of the sky.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Yaz's voice broke the silence.

When Ron turned toward her voice, he saw that Yaz had her arm around the Doctor's shoulders. The Doctor looked extremely depressed.

"What have they done?" she muttered. She closed her eyes tightly. "They destroyed it."

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

"It wasn't a paradise, maybe," the Doctor said in an agitated tone. She started to pace. "The weather wasn't perfect, of course. Nottingham in March. Overcast, gray, wet. Except, you know, all year." She gestured helplessly at the gaunt terrain and then at the sky. "There isn't even any oxygen left!"

"Uh," Ron said, raising his hand. "I hate to bring this up, MsD, but if there isn't any oxygen, how are we …"

"Air field around the Tardis," Jack and Yaz explained in unison.

"And it was all verdant," the Doctor said wistfully. "Verdant and silver."

"Silver?" Yaz asked.

"Yes," she nodded absently. "I had some leftover seeds from home."

"And that angry giant green cloud?" Jack asked.

"Oh, that?" the Doctor said, looking up. "No, that's always been there."

"So, are we saying that they destroyed their planet and then ditched it?" Ron interrupted. "I-I mean, if they did, where did they take Kim?"

"Oh, no, Ron," the Doctor said, walking toward him. "They're still here," she pointed behind him.

When he turned, he saw that on the other side of that dismal lake was a large city. A buried city.

"Are they living underground?" Jack asked.

"With zero oxygen in their atmosphere, they'd have to be," the Doctor nodded.

"Well, where are they getting it pumped in from?" Jack persisted, "I mean, they can't be making it underground."

"Stealing it from other worlds?" Yaz offered. "I mean, maybe that's why they tried to conquer Earth."

"No," Ron said, still staring intently at the city. "They conquered Earth for payback. Payback against Kim."

"Right," Yaz nodded. "What does it matter how they get their oxygen? We need to rescue Kim."

"Well, what's the plan?" Jack asked. "We can't just waltz through the city gates." He added dubiously, "Are we going to disguise ourselves as Lorwardians?"

"I don't need a disguise," Ron said coldly, still regarding the city. "I'll just kick in the city gates and go door to door if I have to." The dangerous tone that had crept into his voice made Yaz and Jack exchange worried looks.

"Locating Kim first would make things much easier, Ron," the Doctor called from some distance away.

Ron pulled his eyes away from the city and followed the other two to find the Doctor. She was on the other side of the Tardis, examining a large, fuzzy-looking block of rust. It was roughly the same shape as the Tardis and about twice its size.

"That looks familiar," Jack said wryly.

"Yes, I know, Jack," the Doctor replied. "Shush! I'm working."

She was pointing a large silver pen with a glowing tip at the block. She pulled the pen from the block and stared at its glowing tip for a few seconds. "I know what's playing havoc with the Tardis's readings. Jack, this may also explain where the Lorwardians got their cloaking tech."

"What is it?" he asked.

"There is a significant amount of zeiton-8 in the soil and, more than likely, swirling around in the atmosphere itself."

"And that means?" Yaz prompted.

"Zeiton-7 is a mineral fundamental to the Tardis's orbital energy," the Doctor explained. "Zeiton-8 reacts … poorly with it. I didn't notice the last time I was here because the topsoil must have provided a sufficient buffer, but, now, there is no topsoil."

"What does that mean?" Ron asked.

"It means, unfortunately, that most of the Tardis's normal scanning abilities will not work here."

"Like scanning for Kim." He spoke leadenly; it had not been a question.

She didn't meet his gaze, only stared at his chest.

"I'm going," he said hotly. "Come with me if you want." He turned and started walking in the direction of the city.

"Ron, there's no air!" Yaz protested.

He stopped in his tracks. Everything was going wrong. Who knew what was happening to Kim right now? He had traveled all the way to the planet she was being held captive on and was still no closer to helping her. Someone put a hand on his shoulder; he reluctantly turned to face them. However, he found it was the Doctor, not Yaz, standing behind him.

"I can't scan for Kim," the Doctor said solemnly, "but I can track her."

"How?"

"By her DNA."

"Really? D-do you have KP's DNA?"

The Doctor smiled and then reached out and pinched at his shirt just over his chest. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a long single strand of red hair.

"I do now."

IV.

Kim had been crawling on her hand and knees in complete darkness for what seemed like hours. Her back had been aching for some time, and her knees were killing her. She had made a makeshift sling from a torn section from the bottom of her shirt. Not an easy task to complete in such a small space while being effectively blind, but she had managed. Her right arm wasn't broken, but while it was in the sling, she was reminded not to use it as she inched along the pipe shafts. On the plus side, the burning sensation in her upper right arm had ceased, so that was good news.

Unless, of course, I really am going into shock.

It was so difficult to determine how far she had come or even where she was going. For not the first or the last time, Kim wished she still had her Kimmunicator. Even if she couldn't contact Wade, it had offline apps that would at least let her know how long she had been in here and a general idea at how much distance she'd crossed. The only thing she knew for certain was that every time she stopped to rest, she could hear the distant cries of angry Lorwardians, coming from behind or from above her. Each time, these sounds encouraged her to cut her rests short.

However, when she stopped this time, she didn't hear anything. She embraced this invitation fate had granted her. Edging onto her left side, she let the throbbing in her knees ebb into the surrounding void. She re-positioned herself so that her back wasn't touching the side of the pipe, removed the sling, and carefully stretched out her right arm in the most comfortable position along her body.

Time to eat.

Gingerly, so as to not to jostle her injured arm, Kim put her left hand into her right cargo pocket and pinched off a small chunk from the remains of the stick of butter. She was so tempted to gobble it down, but, with great restraint, slowly sucked at it on her fingers. She had completely forgotten about it until she reached that first y-juncture in the pipe. As she waited to determine which of the two pipes periodically produced what had become a very hot blast of steam, she had felt something that was most definitely not sweat drip from her forehead. Initially, she feared it was oil and that she had been totally wrong about the nature of the steam. For whatever crazy reason, she had decided that giving the viscous substance a taste was a good way to figure out what it was. It had turned out to be some of the butter she had smeared on her forehead when she had feigned collapsing before the guillotine. And that had reminded her of her right pocket's remaining contents. Congealed butter that had been unrefrigerated for the better part of a day wasn't her meal of choice, but it would do until something better came along.

If I can just find a puddle of rancid water, I'll be so set.

More than anything else, Kim wanted to find a sliver of light somewhere up ahead. Where she was now it was so dark that she could detect no difference from when her eyes were open than when they were closed. In such a sitch, it was very difficult not to think about death. Although a dreary topic, it didn't depress her to confront it. Rather, thinking about death kept her motivated to keep going. And, at the very least, it kept her from thinking about THE WORST THING.

Kim recalled a quote from the AP English class she had taken senior year at Middleton. Invariably, this class had been taught by Mr. Barkin more frequently than by its assigned teacher, and, accordingly, she remembered the quote in his voice. "Death concentrates the mind wonderfully." She had to agree. And, right now, she was concentrating on all she would miss if she gave up and surrendered.

In addition to the obvious (her parents, the Tweebs, Wade, Rufus, her friends from college and high school), an odd assortment of unbidden memories manifested in her imagination. The smell inside her bike helmet on the morning of her tenth Christmas, the taste and crunch of that super-sugary cereal that Ron convinced her to buy last summer and that she had sworn she would never eat again, the feel of bubble wrap when you squeeze it right before it pops, the look of an overcast sky in early March, and the unexpected sound of a tree branch cracking in the far distance one January morning Junior year.

It went without saying that Ron was also on her mind. But she had to tread carefully since he was also involved with THE WORST THING. Of course, their wedding made the list. At the very least, there was no way was she going to miss seeing Monique's designs for both her dress and those of her bridesmaids. However, the dresses or the ceremony itself weren't at the top of her list. No, the first thing she absolutely refused to miss out on was their wedding night.

She smiled broadly in the dark.

Although she had never shared it with any of her girlfriends, she was certain that her wedding night fantasy was unique. And what made it unique was that the first time Ron and she made love it was going to be so, so very awful. No question about it. Awkward, painful, unfulfilling, all of the above. On occasion, the fantasy played out with Ron goofing it up. Other times, her natural Kimness raised its overachieving head and tanked the whole thing. Regardless, the first time was going to be terrible. However, despite this initial failure, they would laugh and cuddle afterwards and, eventually, fall asleep in each other's arms. And then. And then they would wake up in the middle of the night and try it again. And it was this second attempt that would be everything they hoped it could be. In a word, unmissable.

She basked in the afterglow of the yet to be for a few more minutes, and then slowly got back into mission mode.

After crawling for another five minutes, Kim noticed that the air smelled a lot better, and she thought she felt a cool breeze. Continuing on, she thought she detected a shift in the blackness. Was it getting lighter? She shook her head. Jumping to positive conclusions would be bad, better to keep going assuming the void kept going, too. At least for the moment. But, no, it was true; the pipe was getting less dark. In fact, it was also getting larger. Ten minutes later, it was bright enough for her to see that there was almost enough room for her to stand. When she finally could stand, the breeze she had been feeling had become a wind.

She walked against this wind for some time. As it got stronger, the pipe kept getting lighter and lighter. She was able to see more details. Although she couldn't be sure if they had existed further back, there were openings on the top half of the pipe for what appeared to be smaller pipes branching from it. Her pipe gradually curved to the right and when it straightened again, she beheld what she had been seeking, a literal light at the end of a tunnel. True, the light was flickering, but still. She started walking fast towards it, but this proved difficult because the wind was also getting stronger. And then she heard a sound. It was familiar but she couldn't place it. She kept walking against the building wind and, before she knew it, she was running against it.

As it occurred to her that she might be running headlong into a trap, she recognized what the sound was. It was the spinning of rotor blades. Kim slowed her pace. The wind was so strong now that she needed to shield her eyes with her hand in order to clearly make out what was up ahead. And then she saw it. About fifty yards ahead was the end of her tunnel. The source of both the light and the wind. Approximately twenty feet in diameter, the tunnel's end was covered by a giant, whirling fan.

She tried so very hard not let this discovery crush her spirit. She tried to wipe the tears from her face with the torn edge of her shirt only to discover they had already been blown back by the wind. She sighed and kept moving forward. Maybe there was some space between the blades and the edge of the pipe, space large enough to squeeze through. Or something else. Anything else so long as she wasn't at a dead end.

The floor of the pipe gave way, and Kim was suddenly falling through space.

She felt the bang before she heard it. And then nothing.

When she came to, she felt extremely hot. She glanced around and discovered that she was laying on an extremely large metal trellis that was connected by a series of wires to a ceiling about a hundred feet above her. Looking up, she saw 'her' pipe about twenty feet directly overhead. And in the middle of the pipe, there was a rusty hole. Kim was covered in rust flakes. She looked over her exposed arms; there were some nicks and scratches, but she didn't seem badly wounded.

Did my last tetanus shot cover Lorwardian metal or just Earth metal?

She was still confused by the source of the heat. The words 'heating lamp' popped into her head. Although she saw dozens of small lights arranged sporadically on the ceiling, none of them matched that definition or could produce the level of heat she was feeling.

Kim tried to turn over and realized her mistake. About five feet away from her in practically every direction, there were socket shells almost as tall as her. She could only imagine how large the bulbs might be on the underside of the trellis. She wasn't under a heating lamp, she was on top of it.

She looked down to see what might need so much heat and was immediately blinded by an oppressively harsh glare. She reflexively went to cover her eyes with her right arm. The resulting shot of pain caused her to lose her balance. She reached out desperately with her left hand to steady herself, but she was already falling.

Fortunately, she folded herself into a ball before she crashed through the branches. She broke through several and painfully bounced twice against two of the larger ones. Although these impacts knocked the wind out of her, they effectively broke her fall.

She hit the ground hard, but not hard enough to break anything. Dazed, she attempted to stand. However, the considerable pain from the fall overwhelmed her, and she collapsed against the base of the tree.

Within a half-minute, she had passed out.

For most of the next hour, Kim slept uneasily against the trunk of a tree in the middle of a large underground forest on an alien world. A forest of trees with silver leaves.


To be continued ...