"I'll stand," I said, looking at the cards in my hand. Two tens. A nearly perfect hand. Dreamer has a king, and the chances of his other card being an ace are low. I should be safe.

"Twenty-one," the simple machine the Dreamer was controlling, flipped its hidden card, an ace.

"Shit! How do you always pull a twenty-one at the worst times?" Sure, I've won against Dreamer in blackjack, but only ever when I get a twenty-one. I harshly slammed my cards onto the table, stood up, and moved to my cot. The mat is firm, yet soft enough to still accommodate my armor. I spent quite a bit of glimmer on this mattress. "Can't make a mat like this with fabrication."

"Sore loser, you've just got bad luck," Dreamer floated up next to me, his blue eye shining light on the rest of his Orchid Shell. "I know what you're about to ask, and the answer is 71 hours."

"Damn near three days. This is the most boring thing I've ever done. At least with recon missions, I know what I'm looking for." My disappointment was immeasurable. I didn't have many friends in the Tower. Most of my close ones died in the Red War. Only one was left: Zavala, and that's more of a work relationship. I was the recluse among Titans, but I missed it. I missed my room in the tower. The Minerva was nice, and it was my second home, but there's nothing quite like being properly grounded.

"I miss the Tower, too, if it makes you feel any better." I got up from my cot and walked through the corridors of the Minerva. It had quite a few rooms, being as large as it is. I turned into the forge room. The only hobby that I maintain is smithing, and I paid a decent sum of glimmer to have a smithy built within the Minerva. I drew my sword and looked at its intricate design. I longed to make a better sword than this. A tall task to match the golden age's smiths. One of the reasons I wished to find more of my past was to find a connection to who made my equipment. Perhaps it was made by the me before my first death. No matter.

I reached toward a shelf on the wall and pulled a long, thin sheet of metal. Working with the scraps of the Golden Age doesn't exactly make it easier. After the collapse, humanity's technology was sent back to the Dark Ages. Hence the name of the era before the Last City was built. Without the help of glimmer and the Ghosts, we'd still be hundreds of years behind the Golden Age level of tech. Unfortunately, what held us back was their techniques. So many masters of so many crafts had been killed off, along with their knowledge.

Solar energy rolled off my hand as I heated the metal. We found one mention of a smithing technique. According to the notes, old masters of smithing, even before the Golden Age, would fold their metal thousands of times to increase its strength. Worth a try.

"I thought you said you would wait until we reached ground to test out our new information," Dreamer asked as his red and white shell shimmered into view.

"I did, you're not misremembering. I'm just incredibly bored," I took each end of the plate, and brought them together with my hands. The entire plate was red with heat. It was easy to mold, and I repeated the process. The notes we found weren't very specific at all, so some trial and error was to be expected.

Through several scrap worthy swords, we found out exactly why this technique is ancient. Its to remove impurities in the metal content, and spread the carbon more evenly through the blade. However, the metal thats already in use has been refined enough as it is. So, this technique is useless to us.

"Damn. That's depressing, but I'm glad we learned more," I took the multiple swords I had made and put them into a large metal cylinder hanging from the the ceiling. Heat flowed from my hands and into the cauldron, melting the metal. Several ingot molds were below the cauldron, and I poured the molten alloy into the molds.

"Yes, though the technique itself isn't useful to us now, it could spark inspiration for a brand new, more useful technique in the future," Dreamer's scanner gazed at the newly melted metal. "This metal has fewer impurities than the metal we usually melt down though. It could still be useful for increasing the quality of recycled metals. Silver lining and all that."

"Yes, it'll be nice if we end up stuck where ever we're going for a long time," I got and left the forge, Dreamer closely following behind me. This time, making my way to my cot. Sleep isn't absolutely nessacary for Guardians, but it definitely helps their mental state. Tremors shook the ship as I walked down the halls. "Are we slowing down?"

"Yes, it seems. Get to the cockpit, we need to land as soon as we're out of FtL space," The sound of metal boots hitting the metal floor echoed through the ship as I ran to the pilot's seat. I sat my ass down quickly and oriented myself with the controls. It didn't take long after I buckled into the seat for the Minerva to burst through the light.

The planet that sat in front of of us looked familiar. Like Earth, but clearly not. Too many things different. "The continents are different. Very much so."

"Gelum, look above it. Look at its moon," My eyes followed his gaze, and there it was. A broken moon. More than half of it trying to float away into space, but for some reason not moving at all. Unnatural, if it happened recently, the debris would still be moving, if slowly. But its like its frozen in time.

"Start sending put SOS signals. Maybe we can hope for another lost ship to find us. We're much too far away to find the Sol system on our own," the desperation on my voice was clear. This far out, the chances of civilization was little to none.

"I'll try, but its unlikely. We'll have to land soon though. My vote is on the nice forested looking continent," he sounded as disappointed as I was. Though it seemed that this planet had ample life, so taking a vacation here didn't seem like too bad an idea.

AN: So, I don't really love making an Author's note at the end of each chapter, but I really just have to say something about these reviews. Second one that supposedly wants to turn WW into a comic. They're professional glazers.