Somewhere North of heaven

Where eagles fear to fly

The sun burns hot as the devil's gate

The desert meets the sky

And tattooed on my memory

Is the image of an angel's face

North of heaven, South of Santa Fe

Stevan's eyes refused to focus on the heads-up display, making it impossible to read the chronometer. He tried to remember how long the Command Wolf had been walking across the desert, but with equally little success.

The air-conditioning system was working overtime to keep the cockpit cool, but was fighting a losing battle. Cold air was escaping and hot desert air was coming in through the jagged holes in the cockpit canopy. It was dry heat, without the slightest moisture or humidity, but Stevan was sweating profusely.

The perspiration mixed with blood. The left side if Stevan's shirt was already soaked, and some had dripped down to the cockpit floor. He was only dimly conscious of all this. The pain had long ago dulled into a buzzing, pulsating noise, and foggy haze that permeated his vision.

Stevan knew he had to stay alert. They might still be coming after him. He swivled his head back and forth (conscious of the pain in his side surging quickly) and found it took an inordinate amount of effort. The horizon should have been a clear contrast between the golden sand and blue sky, but in Stevan's vision the two colors seemed to blur.

Satisfied that there was no immediate threat on either of his flanks, Stevan let his head fall back against the cockpit seat headrest again.

Not five hundred yards away was a small building. It was clearly nothing more than a dwelling place, and a very small one at that. It was absolutely alone. That was odd. Solitary individuals, human, machine, or otherwise, rarely survived long in the desert.

Solitary. Alone. Like he was now.

He realized with distress that he couldn't remember what had happened to Calypso and Leah. He couldn't even remember how he had been wounded.

He also realized that he had overlooked the house completely until it was practically right in front of him, and wondered if he could have missed an approaching enemy also. Am I really that badly hurt? He glanced back and forth again as the Command Wolf moved slowly toward the little white house. There was a chance that the house wasn't there at all. He had heard of desert mirages. He had never seen one before, but there was a first time for everything. And there was also the possibility that he was hallucinating as a result of his injuries.

As he got closer, he squinted at the house, trying to make his vision clear. He noticed that while the house looked weather-beaten and run-down, no sand had drifted against its sides.

He was painfully thirsty.

The house really was quite small. The Command Wolf dwarfed it easily. Stevan wearily brought the Zoid to a stop and opened the damaged cockpit canopy. The Command Wolf crouched and lowered its head so that he could climb out. Unbuckling his harness was difficult (his fingers seemed to have lost all dexterity) and swinging himself over the side of the cockpit was an act of incredible exertion. He fell the last few feet to the ground. His balance deserted him, and he fell on his left side.

The Command Wolf looked down at him and rumbled its concern. Still laying in the dust, Stevan tried to examine the Zoid for damage. No problems jumped out at him, but in his present state he didn't trust himself to see a gun pointed at his face five feet away.

Slowly, painfully, he picked himself up, deciding as he did so that he probably had at least one broken rib. Clutching his side, he walked (although it was closer to a a stagger) towards the house's door.

He reached the door and almost fell again, exhausted by the effort. He leaned on the door and banged against it with his right arm, knowing that if anyone was inside, they probably would have seen the giant Zoid and come outside already.

To his complete surprise, the door started to swing open. Unable to shift his weight fast enough, he fell across the threshold, producing more pain.

He craned his neck and looked into the house. It was dark inside. Under normal circumstances, he would have been half blinded by stepping inside from the blazing desert sunlight. As it was, the details of the house's interior were totally indiscernible.

He gave up peering into the darkness and became aware that someone or something – he hoped it was someone – was standing over him. Someone opened the door.

Supporting himself with his right arm and keeping his left hand (which was now covered with blood) on his side, he moved his gaze slowly upward, because slowly was all he could manage. He saw a slender female form sheathed in a simple white dress. The face was a blur, until the woman bent her knees and stooped down beside him. For a brief moment, everything came into focus.

Shoulder-length blonde hair, a mix of varying golds and highlights. Deep blue eyes beneath elegant brows, a small, attractive nose, and slightly parted lips in a lovely, delicate heart-shaped face. A face that showed concern.

A face he knew well.

His mouth dropped open in shock. At that moment, his right arm gave out and as he dropped back to the floor the face became a blur again. . . .How? he thought, but when he tried to speak the word aloud, his voice failed him as his arm had.

She slipped one arm around his shoulders, and took his right hand in hers. Her touch restored his strength; if only slightly, enough to pull himself to his feet. A wave of vertigo almost overcame him, and he nearly fell again. Glancing down as he steadied himself, he saw a small, glistening red pool where he had been laying. Slowly, she led him into the house (which was still too dark for him to see in), leaving a trail of crimson droplets that dotted the wood floor.

She helped him to a cot in a corner. He tried to sit down, but he ended up flopping awkwardly across it. The shadows spun around him, making his whole head ache. He closed his eyes tightly. When the pain subsided into the throbbing hurt that had become the accompanying dirge of his existence, he opened them again and was rewarded with another moment of clarity.

She was kneeling beside the cot, examining the bloody hole in his shirt, and, beneath that, his flesh. Her face grave, she began peeling the shirt away from the wound. He was shocked anew by his weakness as he tried to help her and found his heavy arms and hands barely up to the task. Together, though, they managed to remove the soaked, clinging garment from his torso. Blood dripped onto his face as they pulled the shirt over his head, and metallic wetness fleetingly dampened his parched mouth.

She looked at the wound again, and he heard her stifle a gasp as she saw the full extent of the damage. After considering for a moment, she stood up and walked to the other side of the room. His eyes strained to follow her, but couldn't pierce the darkness. He used his ears instead, listening intently to the unidentifiable sounds from across the room that meant she was still there, that she hadn't left him, that she hadn't just been a momentary delusion born of his injuries.

She returned a minute later. His gaze followed her as she kneeled down again and began cleaning the blood – some of it older, dried and caked to his skin, some of it still wet – from his torso with a sponge. When that was done, she returned to examining the wound. Gently but firmly, she applied pressure to the area with her fingers. An involuntary hiss of pain escaped his lips, and she stopped. She turned and looked directly at him for the first time since they had entered the house. He stared into her eyes, which seemed to be the one clear point in the blur around him.

She spoke, but he couldn't make out the words. What? he mouthed, shaking his head. She leaned closer so he could hear better. Adrenaline gave his arms a momentary flash of strength. Impulsively, he reached out to her. Placing one hand on her back and the other in her hair, he pulled her closer to him. He kissed her, gently at first but then with more urgency. Her lips were soft. And moist, which made him notice how dry his own were and remember again how thirsty he was. Just as she seemed to relax and begin to accept the kiss, she pulled away.

He could tell through the blur that her face was flushed slightly, and she seemed unsure what to do. She turned her gaze away, staring off at nothing, then stood and crossed the room again. She came back with a canteen, which she offered to him. He took it and gulped the water with gusto. He tried to say "thank you," but even with the water, he could still only manage a whisper. But she understood, and smiled at him.

Her smile disappeared quickly. She turned and walked over by the door, opening the blind on a window that he hadn't even realized was there. Bright sunlight beamed into the room, illuminating a golden rectangle on the floor beside his cot. She stared out the window for a long time. What's wrong? he thought. Too weak to pull himself up to walk to the window and unable to see out any other way, he was once again forced to rely on his ears.

He could hear nothing, until the Command Wolf split the silence with a warning howl. Then he could hear it: the low, rhythmic rumbling of approaching Zoid footsteps. He couldn't hear her when she spoke to him, but he could hear the sound that heralded his doom. Cruel irony.

They were coming for him.

For him. Not her. He tried to lift himself off the cot, but the pain in his side was awful. She turned around in time to see him fall back on to the cot. She hurried to his side and knelt again, putting her hand on his shoulder. She spoke again, a single word that he could make out by watching her lips. Don't.

But he had to. It was his fight, not hers. He wished he could stay, wish he could ask her all the questions he wanted to ask so badly. But he lingered only a moment, enjoying the feel of her hand on his skin. Then he heaved himself up again, and the feeling was drowned by the agony. When he found himself sitting up, she had taken her hand away.

The act of standing triggered an aftershock in his side, but nonetheless he got on his feet and walked unsteadily toward the window. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark by now, and the view outside was incomprehensible brilliance. But he could still hear them coming.

He lurched away from the window, and two staggering steps carried him to the door. He opened it and stepped outside. The Command Wolf turned to look at him, growling a greeting with a troubled undertone.

He turned around and found her standing in the doorway. He gestured at the Zoid and mouthed Take it.

She shook her head.

Get away. His whisper was almost drowned by a desert breeze that dried the sweat on his forehead. They want me.

She shook her head again, more vehemently this time. He could make out tears in her eyes as she spoke. I won't leave you.

He turned again and looked at the Command Wolf, which was holding its head low, regarding him. What could he do?

He would have to fight. He stood no chance in his condition, but he had to try. He stumbled toward the Zoid, which opened the shattered canopy to admit him. Climbing into the cockpit was torture, but on his third attempt, he flopped into the cockpit seat. The damaged orange canopy swung closed and the Command Wolf raised its head as it turned away from the house to face its assailants.

There were three of them, Rev Raptors, maroon and black color schemes yielding no reflections to the sun. They advanced slowly but deliberately as he walked the Command Wolf out to meet them. He had to keep them away from the house.

The Raptors plodded on and finally came to a stop only a hundred meters away, seemingly daring him to make the first move.

Their mistake, he thought. He centered the glowing targeting reticle on the middle Rev Raptor and pulled his trigger.

He heard the crack of the dual beam cannons firing, saw the dazzling white blasts streak toward their target, reach it, and disappear. The Rev Raptor showed no signs of damage as the smell of ionized air reached Stevan through the holed canopy. It didn't even react.

Mystified, he fired a second time. Again, the shots winked out as they reached the Rev Raptor, like they had been swallowed by a black hole.

The three Rev Raptors began to move again, their grinning fang-lined mouths seeming to mock his failure. Snarling in frustration, he fired again and again as the three Zoids marched closer to him, but always with the same result.

Giving up on the cannons, he slammed the control column forward. The Command Wolf broke into a run from a standing start and leaped through the air toward the lead Rev Raptor. Stevan braced himself for the crash of metal as the two Zoids made contact, but it never came. The Command Wolf made a bone jarring landing in a crouched position, behind the Rev Raptor, which continued toward the house as if nothing had happened.

Stevan turned the Command Wolf around, and the Zoid and its human partner stared at the backs of the ghostlike Rev Raptors. Stevan squinted, closed his eyes altogether, and then opened them again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

The house was gone. In its place was a large white object, larger than the house had been. Its appearance undefined and blurred from the heat and the haze that remained over Stevan's vision. Too dumbstruck at first to act, he walked the Command Wolf forward, following the Rev Raptors, which had stopped by the indistinct object.

It was a Command Wolf, its battered metal form pockmarked with bullet holes and scorch marks. The cockpit was a blasted-out wreck.

As Stevan realized all this, his world started to go dark.

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Stevan awoke to a persistent, low, thrumming sound. He couldn't place the noise, but he was able to identify it as having contributed to the similar sound in his dream, which he had assumed was a symptom of his pain.

More alarmingly, he couldn't remember where he was. The bed he found himself in was unfamiliar. This realization made what left of the sleep-fog dissipate in a second. He sat bolt upright as he snapped to full consciousness, breathing heavily. He hated having dreams. He had them only rarely, and when he did his dreams were never pleasant. I thought you weren't supposed to be able to feel in a dream, he thought. His hand went to his left side. Sheepishly, he pulled it away. There was no wound there.

The thirst he had felt in the dream, however, was there. He rolled out of bed and walked briskly to the small bathroom adjoined to the bedroom and gulped a cup of water. He leaned on the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The thin, unkempt hair on his chin and upper lip looked even more ragged than usual, and dark circles were beginning to appear around his eyes.

He turned around and looked back into the bedroom, and only then did he remember where he was: the Spirit Cats' WhaleKing. The thrumming sound was the enormous aircraft's engines.

He checked the digital clock by the bed. It was late morning. At cruising speed, the WhaleKing could have traveled halfway across the Central Continent already, or might even conceivably be over the ocean. That depended on what course it had taken.

He slid the shade cover off the portal in the bulkhead and looked outside. He expected to see clouds, but instead got a view of a landscape covered with rocky, spine-backed ridges and plunging valleys. A fairly substantial river – which name he should have been able to remember but couldn't - ran across the panorama. Nice to see something other than desert, he observed.

Any brightening effect that might have had on his mood was quickly swept away, however. It occurred to him that the past two times he had woken up, he had ended up fighting or fleeing for his life amost immediately. He made an effort to shake off the thought, but it lingered nonetheless.

He found his clothes on the floor. After pulling on the rumpled jeans, shirt and boots, he opened the coor and left the room.

The corridor was lined with small lights and handholds that could be used by a person to maintain his or her balance if the WhaleKing had to bank or pitch suddenly. The weak lights, near the ceiling, provided poor illumination. There was no need for the handholds at the moment, but when Stevan paused for a moment to get his bearings he could tell that the huge aircraft was in a shallow descent.

With that information in mind, Stevan started down the hallway, remembering the previous night.

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Golden flashes from the Rev Raptor's laser cannons illuminated the Zoids like a strobe light as it came around the corner, catching Calypso by surprise. "That's it," she was saying, "we've got to get out of here before their reinforcments…" Static smothered the rest of her transmission as the Backdraft Zoid's shots struck home.

The salvo crushed the ammo feed system for the GunSniper's left-side gatling gun, setting off the shells still in the magazine. A fireball erupted from the GunSniper's left side and the gatling flew off. The Zoid was thrown sideways by the force of the blast and lay on its side, its underbelly a perfect target for a follow-up shot from the Rev Raptor.

A shot the Backdraft Zoid never got a chance to deliver, as Stevan's wild barrage savaged the Rev Raptor a moment later, freezing its command system and knocking out most of the wall of the building behind it as well.

"Calypso, are you OK?" Stevan asked, moving the Command Wolf closer to the fallen GunSniper and watching for more attackers.

He was relieved to see the black-and-silver Zoid pull itself slowly to its feet a moment later. "Good thing I had already used most of my ammo," she said.

"Stevan, Calypso, watch your back!" Leah shouted. The Command Wolf and GunSniper spun around to face off with a charging Rev Raptor, its head thrusting low and its blades extended with deadly intent. Before either of the Chimeras could pull the trigger, a hulking dark shape flew out of a side street and slammed into the Rev Raptor an avenging fury. In seconds, the Saber Tiger's claws and huge fangs had reduced the Backdraft Zoid to scrap.

Rebecca gave them a smile as her face appeared on a new comm window. "Looks like you could use some help."

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The sounds of the remembered battle gave way to the echo of his footsteps against the metal floor as he reached the end of the corridor, where he was comfronted with a door. Finding the control, he touched it and the door slid out the way into the walls. He found himself in what seemed to be the WhaleKing's living area.

The room was appointed with basic but relatively attractive furniture (all bolted to the floor, of course.) The wall on the right was dominated by a large window, through which light from the passing skyscape flooded in. On the left was a small kitchen area. There was another sliding door like the one had entered through on the far wall. Calypso and Leah were sitting on the couch and chair, looking as tired as he did.

"Hey, guys," he greeted them.

"If it isn't sleeping beauty," Leah commented.

Stevan's face, which had momentarily brightened, rearranged itself into an annoyed frown. "Don't start with me." He considered sitting down, but decided against it. He settled for leaning against a wall instead, his arms crossed over his chest. "Any sign of our hosts?"

"Nope," Calypso replied.

"No great loss," remarked Leah. "The Ice Princess isn't a great conversationalist."

Stevan considered admonishing Leah for her ingratitude, but decided against it. Instead, he merely nodded, then pushed off the wall and walked over to the window.

"Nice view," he commented. And then added, as he turned away from the pane: "Reminds me of the area around the Academy."

He felt his teammate's curious, surprised stares on him. He never talked about his time at the Academy. To hear him mention it must have been a shock for Calypso and Leah, almost as if he had said something obscene. He glanced at them as he returned to his position against the wall, and they looked away quickly. He was a little surprised himself. What made me think of the Academy? he wondered. The landscape below bore only a superficial resemblance to the area around the Academy, which was hundreds of kilometers away on the Central Continent's Northern coast.

That dream, he realized. His eyes snapped shut involuntarily, and he felt his whole body tense. Just as he became aware that he was probably attracting more attention from his teammates, he heard a door slide open.

He opened his eyes in time to see Rebecca walk into the room and the door on the far wall slide closed behind her. She was dressed in a gray jumpsuit, and her silver hair was tied back out of the way in a pony tail. In contrast to the Chimeras, she exhibited no ill effects from the chaotic night before.

"Good morning," she said. The Chimeras returned the greeting.

Stevan pushed away from the wall and faced her. "I wanted to say thanks for saving our necks last night," he said to Rebecca with a nod. He paused, then added: "And I wanted to apologize for what I said at the diner in Sol."

She smiled. "Consider it forgotten," she said. "And you're welcome."

"Where exactly are we going?" asked Calypso.

Rebecca walked over to the window and examined the same view Stevan had taken in earlier. "We're not going anywhere," The WhaleKing was still steadily descending, and now the Chimeras could feel it begin to gently bank to the right beneath them. It was circling to land. Rebecca turned back to them.

"We're here."

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Author's Notes: Lyrics to "South of Santa Fe" by Brooks & Dunn are copywright 1998 Arista Records. The dream sequence in this chapter was ripped off from-…er, inspired by the music video for that song.

In case you somehow haven't already figured it out, passages in italics are flashbacks.