I'm back. Miss me?

Well, back into the Game.

It's worth noting Dr. Merc takes not credit for the works of Anne McCaffrey.

MEMORIES

Capris came to. Her cockpit was bathed in red light from the emergency lamp in the console. The lights and screens of the consoles were all dead. She tried to figure out why she couldn't see from her left eye, only to realize that it was caked with blood; her helmet had cracked, causing fragments to lacerate her forehead above her eye.

The pilot shrugged her helmet off, letting it clatter to the bulkhead beneath her feet. Only while clearing her eye of blood did she truly realize her predicament.

Her Stiletto was just beneath the surface of the ocean that she had been flying over just moments previous. And it was sinking fast. Light filtered down through the waves, flickering above her.

Oh, shit, Capris thought, realizing the amount of danger she was in. After the battle she had fought, she was amazed the craft she was in was still airtight.

The battle. Falsner, the Battlecruiser, what was happening? Were they alive? She didn't have time to think about that. She had to get out of this mess she was in.

Leaving her helmet in the cockpit, she tightened the straps securing her to her seat and, with one final glance up, squeezed her eyes shut and primed the Ejection seat.

For the briefest off moments, nothing happened. Then, in an instant, the magnetic seals released from the canopy and the cockpit seat, with Capris strapped to it, shot out and into the sea beyond. It took only a fraction of a second for the rocketing seat to breach the water's surface, the salt of which stung the wound in Amata's forehead, and shoot out into the atmosphere beyond. The rocket motor propelled the seat hundreds of meters into the sky, high enough for its passenger to have a decent panoramic view of the world she had crash landed on.

It was after her chute had deployed that she saw it; a landmass, far off in the distance on the horizon. She wondered if she could swim it, being thankful that the prevailing winds on the world seemed to be blowing inland today. As she dangled in her seat, three hundred meters above the ocean, watching the skies and searching for any signs of fighter craft or any life at all, she wondered where they all were, her fellow wingmen, and how they were all doing.

She hadn't much time to think, as the ejection seat plummeted fast, splashing down into the water, the flotation devices embedded in the base inflating to prevent it from sinking.

Capris unbuckled her harness, splashing down into the water below. She wondered briefly, on whether she should try to swim for land or stay with her seat. The beacon embedded in it would likely be broadcasting by now, so she decided to stay with it.

As she sat in her seat and bobbed in the sea, Capris wondered about where Falsner was. Or the rest of her squadron for that matter. Had they won? Were they all alive? Were they dead? The most obvious answer was a hopeful yes. At the very least, they had succeeded in stopping the Crosseye Battlecruiser the proof of which was all around her; the planet was still there and not a brand new asteroid field.

She thought about her predicament. Here she was, alone, bobbing like a cork in an unknown and alien sea.

Something bumped into her seat, brushing against her legs. She almost panicked, wondering what it could be. And then she saw a fin pop out from the water to her left.

And then she screamed.

What looked like a very large fish popped out of the water next to her before slipping back under the waves as if it never existed. Another creature appeared to her right, and then suddenly several surrounded her tiny boat.

Fantastic, Capris thought. There has to be better ways to go than to be devoured by the local fauna. These creatures did seem familiar somehow, as if she'd seen them somewhere before.

One of them surfaced close to her, rolling onto its side. The lieutenant saw what looked like its head, a narrow snout with razor sharp teeth and small black eyes. It waved a gray flipper at her, as if to say hello.

"Yeah, hi to you too," Echo said, warily looking around her at the gray shapes. One of them started to tug on the floaters, followed by the others.

"Hey, don't do that-"

"Weee help you." One of the largest creatures suddenly spoke in what sounded like broken Terran.

Capris looked at the creature. It could talk. In old English too. She started laughing hysterically, as the dolphins started pulling her in the general direction of shore. That's what they were called, dolphins. Why did she know that? Something from her childhood?

Her thoughts were scattered as the world around her was bathed in white light.

It came from out to sea, far, far off in the distance, from behind her. Moments later she felt the searing heat wash over her, knowing that something big had just exploded behind her. When she knew it would be safe to look, Capris squinted to find the source through the bloom, only to see a mushroom cloud rise from the surface of the sea, far, far off, well beyond the horizon. The battlecruiser, in its death throes.

"We won," Capris mouthed, silently at the sight she beheld.

They bobbed in the water for several hours, drifting towards a slowly growing landmass. The creatures dragged her seat to the shore of an alien island, onto the beach of a distant world far from her own home. They said their goodbyes, asking her to be safe. Echo mumbled a reply, still dazed they could speak. She recalled that countless pods of dolphins roamed the open shallow seas of Aquilos, brought there when colonists first settled her homeworld. Dolphins were one of the few Earth creatures to survive the Exodus from Earth. But she couldn't ever recall them being able to talk.

She looked around the alien beach that surrounded her, the rolling waves of the ocean behind her. She noted the strange bluish trees further from the beach. The stress of the last few hours had finally begun to wear on her, the stress of seeing her friends die and knowing they were all quite likely dead.

She collapsed to the sandy beach, alone, and cried.

Falsner floated in darkness. He couldn't tell which way was up, down, left or right. When he came to, his last vivid memory was flying his strike craft into the main engine of the sinking battlecruiser.

The only thing he couldn't figure out was why he was still alive. For all intents and purposes, he was dead. So where was he? Purgatory? Unlikely, there wasn't anyone else here. Hell? If this black void was Hell it was better than fiery land of brimstone that he imagined as a child.

"Oh no, you're not dead yet," A strangely familiar voice spoke from somewhere in the blackness.

"Who is that?" Falsner heard himself ask.

The lieutenant heard a chuckle. "Isn't it obvious? Just open your eyes." And Falsner did.

He found that he was sitting off to the side some kind of large chamber, with countless rows of seats, all filled with people. Massive crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, lighting the impossibly vast room. Falsner realized he was sitting in a VIP box in some kind of immense theater. It was even bigger than the Parliamentary Hall on Exodus Prime he had once visited.

"Quite a show, isn't it?" The voice asked from next to him.

Falsner glanced over to see a young, pale woman, sitting in the chair directly next to him. She was dressed in all white, from the bright white hat she wore to her pale satin dress. On a closer look, Falsner realized she was an albino; in addition to the fact her skin was colored like pale alabaster, her eyes lacked any pigment, her irises blood red as a result.

"Have we met?" The lieutenant asked her.

"We have, once before, on Farbanti Prime. Remember, the last campaign? You were shot down, and I saved your life. Oh, yeah, that's two you owe me."

Falsner remembered. It had been during the last weeks of the conflict. CTS forces had finally broken through the last defensive lines of the Farbanti rebels and had begun launching fighter strikes on the capitol world. He had been shot down, miraculously surviving the crash when the eject system in his fighter craft failed. At least, that was what he was told when he woke up aboard a Confederation hospital ship three days later, the doctors themselves stunned that he had survived such a horrific accident practically unscathed, as if someone or something had intervened to save his life.

"That was you, wasn't it?" Falsner said.

"Yep, pretty much," she spoke, smiling. The albino woman gestured out towards the crowd below and the stage beyond. "Take a look why don't you. It's a great show that's going on."

Falsner looked out at the crowd. Only it wasn't a crowd; Falsner had difficulty telling exactly who or what was sitting in the seats below, their bodies obscured by weird, floating, static. The screen however was crystal clear. It showed a replay of the events right up to Falsner flying his Stiletto JSSF into the central engine nacelle of the Crosseye battlecruiser, the strange draconic creatures that had escorted him, even the colossal explosion that was the result of his kamikaze attack that he didn't have the chance to witness in person. All replayed from a third-person view, as if someone had been following with video recorder.

"So, this is from your perspective?" he asked the woman next to him.

"As sharp as ever my dear lieutenant," she replied. "Yes, I have been watching you for a while now. Although it has only until now have I refrained from, how should a say, intervention."

"I can see that. So then, what is it that you want from me?"

"I only want you to live," She stated. "And, if the need arises, a favor. You owe me two so far."

"Capris, Texas, Raccoon, Chuk-Chuk and the rest of them. What about them?"

"You mean your wingmen, as you would state it?" The stranger leaned back in her padded chair, thoughtful for a moment. "Oh, they made it so to speak, and under their own volition to boot. You'll see them all again soon enough."

"Okay." Falsner settled in his own seat. He noted it was rather quite comfortable. "Where is 'here' anyway?"

"This is what your head looks like, so to speak. I suppose you could say that you are dreaming." "Oh brilliant," Falsner said. What are you, some kind of head person? A hallucination?"

"No, not at all my dear Thomas," She spoke softly. "I am a messenger, a person who would like to see you live." All you have to do to return is wake up."

"Say what?"

"Wake up!"

Falsner was up at a start, his eyes flashing open, only to be blinded in an instant by harsh sunlight. His head was pounding and he was sore all over, pain receptors bombarded his brain as if it had all been off for years.

"Hold still, I need to wrap that cut on your head," He heard a voice speak nearby.

"Capris?" Falsner choked? "I thought you were dead!"

"I could say the same about you," She spoke, relief etched in her voice. I thought we were goners back there."

"What happened, to the others?" Falsner gasped, throat dry from thirst.

"You're the only one I've found so far that's washed ashore." She spoke, tears welling up behind her eyes. "I don't think they made it."

"Ashore?"

"Yeah."

Falsner said nothing. The words of the Albino woman echoed in the back of his mind, beginning to fade away at an oddly quick rate. You'll see them all again soon enough. In the distance, he heard the sound of waves crashing ashore, steady and rhythmic. He dimly recalled that the planet they had found had oceans, water oceans at that.

"How'd you make it?"

"What?" Capris spoke.

"I saw, your ship, blow up," Falsner spoke, methodically. "No ejection seat, no emergency beacon, nothing. How did you survive, this is important, trust me."

"Okay, you might not believe some of it though." And Capris told him. She told him how the Stiletto had taken a beating and gone down into the oceans of the alien world they had fought on. How she had woken up in a sinking craft, how she had ejected into an alien sky. How she had met a pod of talking dolphins which had dragged her ejection seat ashore. She told him how, after making it ashore, she had wandered the coastline for a good few hours, before literally stumbling across his body. Finally, she told him how she had witnessed the fiery demise of the battlecruiser, and how they had claimed victory.

At a horrific price, Falsner thought to himself. Most of his wingmen were dead. Or worse. He hoped Raccoon and Chuk-Chuk had made it safely away at least. Val and Tex… His thoughts trailed away.

"I made it out," Amata spoke, as if knowing what he was thinking. "Maybe they did too." She finished with her dressing, leaning away. After looping an arm under Falsner's shoulder, she helped him up, the Lieutenant stumbling wearily to his own feet. Falsner got a good look around at the surface of the alien world for the first time. A blue sea stretched out in front of him, gentle waves lapping at the shore. A wide, flat beach stretched out in two directions as far as he could see. A thick forest of blue and green trees lay behind him. A planet, teeming with life.

"Nice place," the Lieutenant spoke. "Might be a good place to vacation one day."

"I don't think we'll have a say in that matter, not until rescue shows up."

Falsner had thought about that. Two of his guys had enough time to make it away; as far as he knew they'd had a chance to radio an SOS with Rac's sensor load-out before bailing out somewhere dry. Perhaps Himself and Capris could backtrack to her seat, try to boost the emergency transponder-

His thoughts were interrupted by his growling stomach, reminding him of the last time he had a meal. "I think we should head back to your pod," Falsner spoke. Get a meal ration before we decide what to do or where to go from here."

"That sounds like a good idea, I guess," Capris replied. "It's about four kilometers that way," she said as she pointed down the beach. "Can you walk?"

Falsner shrugged off her arm. "I think I can manage."

"That's good." Abruptly, she took off, running across the sandy shore. Falsner immediately fell into a light jog, following her in her footsteps. Barely five minutes before Amata had been on the verge of tears. Now she had returned to her old self, somewhat. Amazing what a little relief could do to a person.

An hour later, and they both sat propped against the ejection seat from Capris' Stiletto, sharing the contents of her three-day mean ration. The planet's sun had begun to set, the twilight of dusk rapidly approaching.

"It'll be night soon," Amata spoke.

"Yeah."

"Think we should try and build a fire?"

"I don't think we should, might attract the locals."

"You seem worried about them, why is that?"

"CTF Standard Operating Procedure when encountering an alien species, avoid contact unless you're trained to make contact. That, and they might not understand what the hell happened today, might think we're responsible for any casualties that they may have suffered." He recalled the multicolored avians that they had encountered that day. How they had displayed such bravery against such impossible odds. Or overwhelming stupidity.

"I know it's pointless to argue at this point," Amata spoke. I guess I'll be in for a chilly night."

Falsner sat there, quietly thinking. She was right, more or less, he had thought over contact with the locals. They looked like humans riding domesticated animals, there was a colony ship in orbit of human origins. Perhaps…

"Amata," Falsner said suddenly. "Get that torch out of the storage compartment. We're gonna have ourselves a little bonfire tonight."

"That sounds like a good idea," she replied, hopping to her feet to dig through the open compartment.

Falsner knew he was going against his better judgment. At the moment though he simply didn't care. While his wingman fiddled with her gear, he walked over to the nearby woods, searching for any dry wood before darkness fell. He recalled, a long, long time of two weeks ago, that he had been looking forward to some shore leave on Tzu 32. It might have been a little late, and a little unexpected, but god damn it he had a feeling he was going to get his leave.

He reached the edge of the woods, and, somewhat tentatively, took his first of what he imagined would be many steps into a new world.

In a distant star system, far from any human habitation, a tiny craft exited slipspace and set course for a massive asteroid orbiting a distant red giant.

The alien craft was a small one, created not for combat or defensive purposes but for speed. The ship carried an encoded message from the battlecruiser that had deployed it. As it approached the asteroid, countless small objects began to come into view, growing larger as the craft came closer, the objects became larger, until the objects orbiting the rock dwarfed the tiny craft.

The craft set course for the largest of the massive vessels, itself many times larger than its companion ships. In the underside of the immense vessel, a single port slid open, allowing the tiny craft access. Continuing at its same speed, it entered the port without slowing, the port itself sealing shut behind it.
It docked at a receptacle within the ship, the chamber pressurizing. It was pitch black at first within the bay, the only sound forming as the room filled with gases was the whisper of the cooling engines of the craft.

The relative silence was broken by the sound of a port opening on a bulkhead, darkness retreating as light cascaded from the newly formed door into the bay. In the doorway stood a lone figure, clad in a long, flowing white robe. It stood there in the portal, gazing inward at the craft that had just arrived and docked.

After what seemed to be an interminable period of silence, the figure strode forward, bee lining for the front of the craft, reaching it in mere moments. After studying the surface for a moment, it reached out and touched the surface of the craft. At its touch, a panel popped out of the craft, exposing an interface concealed on the craft's surface. Its fingers danced across the interface, tapping buttons, its hand a mere blur as it analyzed the information it had received. After about a minute of typing, the figure stopped, hand falling once again to its side. And then, it threw off its hood, exposing its face, a smile from ear to ear.

The figure had the form of a young human male, but human it was not. This figure was a mere construct of greater beings, meant to act as an interface for specific tasks. The figure glanced over the craft, lost in thought. After a moment, he spoke, his voice echoing through the room.

"So, my brother, what is it that you are up to, on this world called Pern?"

And holy shit, that's a wrap.

I won't lie to you, what I was thinking of when I started to write this out two years ago, how to end it, it kind of sucked. Of course, at this point, you're probably wondering where I've been. You also probably don't expect a Dead Fic to suddenly rise from the grave now, do you? Suffice it to say, recent events made me gain the necessary creativity to bypass a sort of writer's block I've had recently. I'll leave it at that.

Now, in the wake of my absence, I think I will answer a few last questions:

cklammer: Well, as for those two questions, you'll just have to wait and see in Part 2. The Crosseyes aren't gone, And "First Contact" will happen sooner than you think.

snowecat: No, I don't have anything against Ista Weyr. But, it will play an important and upcoming part.

Well, aside from that, logging out for now. Look for the second part popping up in a few days. Also, one last chapter for this, a sneak peek at the upcoming second part, The Shifting Sands.

-The Merc