Chapter Two

Below the atmosphere on a larger continent, on a desert plane, thirty minutes before impact.

The sun was setting down under the red-orange colored rocks. The sky above was transforming into a darker blue further away in the other direction. A young woman was riding a dirt bike on top of a bumpy plateau just to get some exercise in for the day. She had been all around the desert trail. Her home was several miles away. She was about to head back, since the sun was going down. The night was dangerous out there. She turned her bike around to face the sun as the light bounced off of her glasses that were speckled with some dirt form all the riding she'd done. She wiped her lenses with her thin shirt and some of her hair came loose from the ponytail that held it all together. When she put them back on she could see a great view of the desert below her and all around her. The woman sniffled and sighed through her nose and she dug through the pack on her back for a coat that she brought in case she didn't return before the sun set. She knew how cold it got there at night. There was something that caught her eye in the distance. It looked like a flashing light in the sky almost above her head. The stars were just coming out now and so were a couple planets. Depending on the season you could see a few at night from this location. She didn't recognize this star though. Maybe it was a plane? Or maybe it was a satellite? She squinted her eyes trying to figure it out but it didn't work so well for her. There was a reason she wore glasses, her eyes were terrible. Somehow it looked like it was getting closer, too. That was strange. The young brunette woman shook her head lightly and put on her coat. A necklace she wore around her neck almost slipped off its chain. Her hands caught the gem and fixed it with an annoyed huff. She placed her feet on the pedals of the bike and started riding off in the direction of home. It was about ten minutes later that she bothered to look back again at the flashing light in the sky. It had gotten bigger and she could almost hear it. She stopped her bike and gazed up again. Her eyes were wide now that she could make out what it was. It was some sort of ship, like a military jet or something. It was going to crash. Her gasp was drowned out by the craft flying about thirty feet above her head. It whistled loudly breaking through the air. The wind kicked up dirt and debris around the biker. There was such a loud crash into the ground she could feel the tremors. When the dust cleared she took her head away from her arms and saw the plane several feet ahead. Something else came crashing through the clouds after the ship. She couldn't see what it was. Probably some miscellaneous part from the aircraft.

"Oh, my god…," she said under her shaken breath. "Oh, my god!"

Her bike skid down the path and she pedaled as fast as she could to the smoking wreckage. It took almost ten minutes to reach it; the path was rigid and not much of a trail anymore. Her bike lost its grip to the ground and toppled on its side. The woman didn't care much. She just jumped off and continued running the rest of the way. Her breath felt sharp on her lungs. She panted the whole way until she made it. What was in front of her was something she'd never seen before. A baffled expression was plastered to her face; she was hesitant to even approach it. Her feet slowly brought her to the ship. The lights on the outside flickered and smoke clouded the inside. She didn't know if whatever was inside was even alive now. A sinking feeling sat heavily in her stomach. Her nerves were starting shake. She tried desperately to figure out a way to open the thing up. She couldn't see a door but just that it looked like the glass part with the large window opened up. Her intelligence told her that she couldn't just lift it up even though she tried. It felt hot. Her fingers removed instantly at the first burning sensation. But suddenly the hatch popped open spilling out all the smoke inside. The woman coughed and narrowed her eyes attempting to see what was within.

"Hello?" she called out. "Are you still alive?"

She felt like that was a stupid but legitimate and honest question all at the same time. When the smoke cleared she could finally see what lay inside. There were frankly no words she could say. The things that were before her made her blink again and again. Was it a dream? This had to be some kind of dream. She saw closest to her in the driver's seat something that looked like a cat or a person that looked like a cat. Or something. And next to him was a small robot. They were both unconscious. She could tell the driver was breathing. The mask he wore kept the smoke out of his lungs luckily. The antenna on the little robot's head was blinking occasionally. Maybe that meant it was okay, too? She had no idea. The woman had to look past her apprehension and tried to wake up the pilot. She tampered with the seatbelt but to her dismay it was jarred—that or she couldn't understand how it worked. The suit he was wearing looked like something from a futuristic, Science Fiction movie. Actually, this whole setting did, the ship, the robot, the pilot. She leaned into the ship to try and shake the unconscious creature awake by gripping at his shoulders. When that didn't work, she tried nudging on the sides of his face. Still nothing. She remembered that in her backpack was a bottle of water. Maybe that'll work. The woman just hoped his suit was waterproof. She pulled out the water bottle and squirted some of its contents into his eyes and whatever body part that was exposed. To her surprise he flinched a little and made a grunt through his mask. She continued to shake him conscious until his eyes opened a crack. Her hand was taken away when she noticed him coming to finally.

"Are you alright?" she said still leaning into the craft.

Her words sounded muffled and unintelligible to him. He looked at her with his eyes barely opened. His hands moved slowly to find the release on the belt and it loosened him from its grasp. His rescuer watched him undo the latches to his oxygen mask as it tumbled to the ground at her feet. It startled her momentarily but her attention was brought back to the pilot who looked like he was trying to get a grip on the situation. He turned his head to the woman looking back at him with a blank yet astonished face. He'd never seen her species before. His ears flinched and his eyes tried to open further.

"What's the matter? Never seen a Lombax before?" he said tired and fatigued.

The girl with the glasses only stared at him with furrowed brows and watched him try to exit his craft. She barely caught a hold of him by the underarms when he stumbled out. His weight pushed against her but he didn't feel that heavy. She kept her balance and him steady as well. The pilot grasped onto her arms before he could keep himself on his own two feet. He exchanged a look to her briefly, raising a brow and something of a smile. She let her hands off of him and he used her for balance for the moment. His muscles were in a state of slight shock from the impact on the planet. The armor that he wore, however, was able to take most of the damage. He gently pressed himself off of her to look back at the ship. The little robot was still there. The pilot began to make his way back to his friend. The woman just watched him when he started to talk to the robot. She couldn't understand him. What was he speaking? Her eyes and ears still couldn't fathom the moment. She noticed the tiny machine waking up and continued to stare.

"Clank… Clank…" Ratchet knocked on his friend's head. "Wale up. We crash landed in some desert. Turns out it has some nice-looking alien female species, too," he added with a small philander of his brows.

Clank's eyes finally opened with a spin of their metal covers. He shook his head and sat up in the ship taking note of the confused alien near them.

"Have any idea where we are?" Ratchet asked.

His friend pondered.

"Before we crashed I was able to see some planets' features, including this one. However, I have no idea where we are." He shrugged regrettably. "Perhaps she can tell us our location?"

"Right," he said with a small smile.

Clank hopped out of their vessel and walked alongside his friend to the woman who still stood there in perplexity. This had to be some kind of a dream. Nothing like this ever happens. Ever. Her life was normal—supposed to be normal—and this was interfering with everything normal that she knew. Her eyes followed the two "aliens" as they approached her. The one with the funny ears was speaking to her but she still couldn't understand his words. All she could do was stare and blink looking like some idiot.

"Um…" Ratchet scratched the side of his face after getting only one reaction from her. "You don't understand me, do you?"

Still the same reaction.

Ratchet took a small device off of his belt that looked like a pocket communicator of some sort. He pressed a button on it and held it out to the stranger. Her eyes converged to look it and one of her brows perked wondering what he wanted her to do with it.

"Just… eh…" He paused. "Speak into it. Like this."

The mechanic started talking at the device for a few seconds and it registered his language as he spoke. He then held it up back to her in hopes she would catch on to his example. She really wasn't sure about it. She looked at the device and then back to him. He nodded his head up quickly to let her know to go ahead with it. With more than a little vacillation, the woman with glasses leaned in forward and spoke into the tiny machine. She didn't say much but a few words. Unfortunately the device needed more than that. Ratchet made a hand gesture for her to keep going. She didn't know what to say. She said her name, where she came from, how old she was, or what she did today. Things like that. The more she spoke, the more data the translator could gather about her language. He pulled the device away and looked at the digital screen. The language came up as unknown but he let the download commence with a shrug. After a moment Ratchet put the object back on his belt and glanced to the woman this time with a sigh before he opened his mouth.

"Can you understand me now?" he asked.

"I… Yeah, I can." Her eyes were a little wide again.

"Alright. Can you tell us exactly where we are?"

"You're in the Sonoran desert, in Arizona?" She spoke rather slow and quiet.

"Who?" Ratchet tilted his head.

"It is like I said before, Ratchet. When I caught a glimpse of the other planets around us, I did not recognize any of them," Clank reminded his friend with a frown. "When we exited that wormhole, I believe we ended up in another sector of our universe. Although, the possibility still exists that we are not even in our own universe any longer."

Ratchet's ears parted to the sides momentarily and his tail swayed back and forth while a sigh escaped his breath.

"Well, that's great." He looked at the woman. "So, what do you call your planet?"

"Earth. She's the only planet in our solar system with life. Well, intelligent life, I guess."

"Earth? And what's your species?"

"Human beings?" she shrugged with her palms out. "Or if you want to be technical we're called Homo sapiens." She stopped and stared with question. "What about you? Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from?"

A chuckle left Ratchet's mouth.

"My name's Ratchet and this is Clank. To keep it short, I'm a Lombax and he's a, well, he's exactly what you think he is."

"I am more than just a robot," Clank squinted his eyes judgingly to his friend.

"We came from a wormhole. On the other side is a galaxy called Polaris. And that's where we've been for the past few months."

The woman was taking in all of this strange information one tiny piece at a time. She did find it somewhat funny that a galaxy was named Polaris when they had the exact same name for one of their stars.

"And what is your name, Miss?" Clank said interrupting her thoughts.

"Me? Um, I'm Femka."

"Nice to meet you. Now that that's out of the way, I need to see if I can fix the ship." Ratchet made his way to the end of the transport. "I'm actually surprised. This thing was more durable than I thought it'd be," he said aloud as he inspected the area.

Clank joined him after a moment to see what the damage was. Femka stood at the same place she'd been standing at for the past several minutes and contemplated what on Earth what she would do. She was still trying to get a grasp on reality. Her thoughts took over for a decent amount of time until she noticed something else in the distance. That's right. Something else fell down from the sky. It wasn't that far, so she decided to investigate it anyway. Maybe they needed it for their ship. Femka pushed up her glasses when she arrived to a crater around the fallen object. It was glowing brightly. It was beautiful, actually. Her lips circled to a fascinated shape.

"Oh, wow…"

She continued to gaze at the mystifying rock. It reminded her of the necklace that she wore. It was the same color and everything; it was the same shade of blue and purple. She had no clue what it was for though. She imagined anything that it could be used for. It was kind of fun thinking that way. She met aliens from a different planet. A different galaxy even. And possibly a whole different universe! Maybe this was some kind of power cell? It excited her to think about stuff like this. Her hand extended out to touch it lightly. It was pretty warm still. She tried digging around it; it seemed lodged into the dirt and when she tried to pick it up the first time it didn't really budge. Digging it out took her a few minutes. The thing looked to be the size of a grapefruit or a watermelon and when she attempted to pick it up she thought she might throw out her back. Holding it in her arms she noticed its features. There were cracks around it now but despite that Femka would bring it back to the two she just met. She tried to watch her feet carefully so she didn't trip over the rough terrain. It was a nice thing that this rock was glowing. It was pitch black outside aside from her and Ratchet's ship being the only things that were illuminated.

"Hey, do you need this by any chance?" she said coming up to the vessel. "It's a little heavy for me."

The mechanic looked around the corner of the ship to see Femka struggling with the artifact. His ears lifted up in alert when he registered what exactly she was carrying. That rock was the reason they were in this mess in the first place and for that reason Ratchet wasn't too fond of it at the moment.

"Don't touch that!" Ratchet yelled out.

Femka was startled by his shout and his reaction. Was it radiated or something? Oh, god. Would it kill her? Did have some kind of alien disease or bacteria that could eat her alive? She panicked and pitched the rock as hit the ground again with a hard thud. That wasn't what the Lombax wanted her to do either. His shoulders tensed when it landed on another rock but only rolled a few inches. When nothing happened he eased himself and cocked his head a tad to the left, staring at the artifact. Femka's face was still in shock but staring down at it as well.

"Huh." Ratchet shrugged. "I guess nothing happened…"

Suddenly the light coming from the fractured artifact glowed stronger. The blue and purple light spilled from the cracks causing Femka to cover her eyes. A light shot up in the air. It seemed to go forever.

"Get away from it!" the alien called out to the woman.

She started to back away but she felt a strange tug around her neck. Her necklace was reacting with the rock. It was emitting a glow of its own. A current of electricity—or something like it—came rushing through her. Nothing like that was pleasant. It stung and forced out of her a short scream. She was consumed into the light within seconds; her glasses flew in another direction. The sparks flew at Ratchet's ship as well. The light that was coming from the artifact expanded but dimmed. Femka was rendered unconscious from the strain as her body began to lift off of the ground. It wasn't hers only that was lifting. The ship moved from its position of being stuck in some dirt and terrain and was now a couple feet in the air. Clank's body lifted up to his surprise and Ratchet's followed in the tunnel of light. Ratchet spun his body around to try and keep himself straight. It was like zero-gravity but they just kept lifting.

"Ratchet, I have a theory of where we are going," Clank alleged as he drifted.

"Yeah, so do I, so let's get to the ship!" he said floating upside-down.

"What about Miss Femka?"

Ratchet looked about for her. She was floating not too far from him. Ratchet made an effort to swim after her. He reached out to her arm and pulled her close to him. He noticed his oxygen mask drifting in the beam of light they were trapped in and grabbed it as well, heading inside the ship as they continued to rise through the sky. He placed the woman in an empty seat on the ship and strapped her in while Clank took his spot at the passenger's side as usual. Ratchet closed the hatch and buckled himself in taking the controls and attempting to engage the ship. The computers were online and functioning. One of the thrusters was offline and damaged but the other seemed to be working at eighty-percent capacity. The ship couldn't be moved from the beam they were engulfed in; Ratchet had tried. It was better to just see where this thing was taking them. Within minutes they were going through the Earth's atmosphere. The light phased through the thick ozone and lead them through the exosphere into space. Their speed increased greatly as they dashed past the other planets in the solar system. The light appeared to be guiding them back to the wormhole. Ratchet thought it to be a miracle if the transport made it through the wormhole again. The light back on planet Earth was dissipating. The artifact exploded into thousands of little shards back on the ground. People on the outskirts of the desert saw the light. Whatever speculation they thought it was would leave them clueless for now. Meanwhile, the ship was commencing through the space anomaly. Just like before, it was a strange experience. Light flashing and changing, a distorting sound ringing into their ears—a very unpleasant detour. Ratchet's eyes remained open during the duration of their wormhole adventure and when the light stopped the ship was thrust out the other side and back into the Polaris galaxy. The two stared out into space until Ratchet looked over to Clank.

"We made it."

"And it would appear just in time," Clank noted as the wormhole behind them was coming to a close.

"Kind of a shame we had to leave that thing behind, huh?"

"Indeed. But what about Miss Femka? We must make sure that she is alright."