The Crimson Sworder dipped its wings as much as the low altitude would allow. When the beam had dissipated, he snap-rolled and banked right. He then rolled back to get a look at what was shooting at him.

There, preparing for another salvo, was a zoid he had never seen before. It looked like a violet Rev Raptor, but bigger and without the blades. It stood, ready to fire again, and all Seth's training and the blaring alarms in the cockpit told him to take further evasive action.

Indeed, he pushed to full throttle and pulled up, streaking into the sky just as the mysterious zoid fired pulse laser rounds.

Despite feeling that any attempt at making radio contact would be pointless, he opened hailing channels and broadcasted "Cease fire, cease fire! This is a friendly! Cease fire!"

Still, the radar lock warning sounded, and he knew another shot was on the way. Reversing course as another salvo fired, he armed the weapon systems.

Deploying the arm thrusters and cutting the main ones, he rotated the Crimson Sworder to line up the cannons and fired. The target deftly dodged the rounds, but not before the Sworder's recon systems analyzed it. Seth turned, putting the enemy on his left and the sun on his right, and pushed the throttle back up to full burn.

The analysis displayed on screen. The enemy seemed to have a small collection of melee weaponry, a short-range laser gun, a pair of long range pulse lasers, and...

"No..."

The weapon it first fired was a charged-particle beam. This meant part of the abomination he tried to escape had survived. The hibernation plan was all for nothing!

There was nothing for it. The zoid before him had to be destroyed. That weapon was nothing but evil.

The hostile zoid had already demonstrated it could dodge cannon fire, so Seth locked on a pair of missiles and fired them so they would fly to the right as they tracked. Predictably, the enemy moved left, directly into the line of his new burst of cannon fire. The impact caused him to trip up, letting the missiles catch him in the side.

Taking full advantage of the break, Seth flew in close and deployed the arm blades. The enemy dodged a strike to the head and countered by clawing at the Sworder's underbelly. Despite directing all available thrusters down to climb, Seth still heard the sickening screech of metal-on-metal.

When the right arm's controls went stiff, Seth knew the Crimson Sworder didn't want to retreat. He reached the left arm back and jammed the blade into the enemy zoid's shoulder.

Strangely, at this strike the enemy immediately moved to retreat. Seth pushed the thrusters to keep up, but it fired a barrage of laser rounds that made contact and forced Seth to duck behind a hill. When he climbed over the crest, the enemy had disappeared. He soared higher, trying use the radar to find it again, but it had used the hilly region to it's advantage, perhaps finding a cliff to hide under.

Much as Seth was driven to find the hostile zoid again, a handful of system alerts convinced him otherwise. He had to find a safe place to investigate the damage he had incurred.

"Slate One-Actual pilot's log. Post-awakening, day two, approximately twenty-two hundred hours."

"My recon in the village proved valuable. There seem to be two nations, which could explain the conflict I saw when I awoke. It's clear the nations were at war at some point, but it's not clear if that is still the case. It's difficult to know where I am in terms of national borders, so until I can determine that, I'll avoid discussing the local politics with the natives. ...Feels strange, calling these people 'natives.' They don't remotely feel like the civilization I left when I went under. I'm starting to wonder where they came from.

"I've been flying low to avoid detection until I can determine who to trust. Three hours ago, I encountered a hostile unit with charged-particle capability. After unsuccessfully hailing, I returned fire. I was able to inflict a small amount of damage before the hostile retreated. This behavior defies convention. A scout would have retreated like that, but it wouldn't be that heavily armed, and I would have seen reinforcements by now. My analysis shows it was equipped for offence, not recon, and there are no signs of a military installation it would be guarding. It may have been a rogue unit, and I should keep my eyes peeled for it in the future.

"During the battle, I sustained minor damage to the lower fuselage and the right wing. It's nothing critical, and a few hours should have it in serviceable condition. If I finish in time I'll fly by night to find a better place to hole up temporarily. Until then, I'll need to keep a sharp eye out. There are too many small animals in the area, and Sworder's proximity alarm is going off constantly.

"...That hostile zoid from earlier is bothering me. It's strange that it retreated so easily. And the Sworder's core seemed compelled to destroy it, fighting my attempt to retreat even momentarily to gain altitude. I'll have to scour the data logs once I've found a more secure location. End of log."

After making the repairs, he took to the night sky, flying high with a light throttle to keep from being heard by anyone on the ground. There was nothing he could do to avoid all radar detection, but by avoiding other radar contacts he could at least minimize the risk.

Now, more than ever, he was grateful for the navigation and reconnaissance systems installed in the Crimson Sworder. By using the terrain-following radar designed for nap-of-the-earth flying, he could search for a usable hiding place. And, because it was the dark of night in the desert and any civilization would be as visible as a spotlight, the thermal imaging system worked perfectly to avoid any potentially curious locals.

Eventually, he struck paydirt. At first glance, the rough shapes on the radar and cold temperatures looked like a bunch of old ruins, which suited him just fine. But once he landed, he found it was actually a recently abandoned and heavily damaged military installation. He saw a hangar that looked structurally sound, with its entrance on the north side, and found it to be a perfect hiding place. He backed the Sworder into it, to hide the still-hot engines from just the kind of thermal imaging he used to find this place, and, because the hangar opened to the north, the Sworder would be kept in shadow all day.

Pulling a scoped rifle and some ammunition from the small arms cache in the Sworder, he made camp. The old control tower was still mostly intact, along with a fair bit of equipment, so he was able to power it up using the Sworder's internal batteries. It took some doing, as he couldn't read the aged and miniscule writing on the equipment. But in the end, a radio is still a radio, and he had it scanning channels in no time. There wasn't much to pick up, this far from civilization, but there was a good chance any scouts passing through would radio home if they had spotted him.

The rest of the facility was already picked clean. Ammunition would have been the first to be scavenged, obviously. It was the first thing he looked for. When that came up dry, he started looking for tools. He was able to repair the Sworder well enough the night before, but that was only light damage and required only simple tools. He was on his own in this new world, and anything he could find could be of help and he dared not pass it up.

Any chance of food or water was nonexistent here, so he knew he couldn't stay long. He would leave at nightfall. Until then, he'd stationed himself in the control tower with his rifle, getting some much-needed rest while listening to the radio scan channels and keeping an open ear for the Sworder's proximity alarm.