Notes

On the barren surface of Mars sits an old base, constructed from a series of cylindrical segments docked together and largely covered in the Martian sand, having not been maintained in decades. Near it sits a small cargo ship that had seen better days, but with fresh scorch marks on the sand and stone under it made by the engines during landing.

"Alright Jay, the main database server should be just ahead and to the right. Do you still have that drive I gave you" A voice comes through Jason Cornell's earpiece as he cautiously walks through the base with a flash light to illuminate the dark passages. He is wearing a pressure suit under his leather jacket and cargo pants which he had used to get to the base from the ship, and near the back of his neck is a folded up space helmet. As he turns a corner the light illuminates a series of dusty server racks and Jay says "Mark, I found it. So I just insert the thing and turn the computer on?" The voice replies, "Yep, it's a flash drive which is spoofed to look like a network backup drive. I've hooked up the computer's power cables to the ship's reactor."

Jay takes out Mark's drive which appears to be a USB flash drive with a few exposed and modified parts, he plugs it into a free USB port on the server system and begins flipping power switches. The sound of cooling fans can be heard around the room and a monitor comes on with a window saying "backup failed: no data".

Behind Jay on a server rack a red light on some device begins flashing, blending in well among the many flashy lights around the room with the words "intrusion detected" above it.

~~~

Inside the ship sits Marcus Brown in front of a computer system set up in the ship, wearing jeans and a plaid blue flannel shirt over a white t-shirt with a logo on it referencing some video game. "Is it working?" asks Marcus. He suddenly notices something odd. "Jay, the server system just stopped drawing power from the ship, what's up with that?" Jay's voice comes through the speakers saying, "What? It says the backup failed but the computer is still on and-" His voice is replaced with static. Mark yells, "JAY! Are you there? Can you hear me?"

Alison Snow comes down from the cockpit of the ship wearing a light blue hospital uniform with jeans and a red hoodie over it. "What's wrong?" she asks. "I don't know yet, but it looks like the communications are being jammed or something and the server appears to be using some second power source within the base." replies Mark, "I'll keep searching for a signal, we should get our pressure suits on just in case."

~~~

"Mark? Alison? Hello? Can you hear me?" Jay listens to the static coming through the comms line wondering if his friends are OK. Suddenly he hears some strange noises approaching. Footsteps? That couldn't be right, this base has been abandoned for decades and there is no way Mark and Alison could get here so fast from the ship.

"I need to get out of here." says Jay under his breath as he dashes out of the server room. Is someone there? Who and why? This base was the site where the Heiwa Federation once carried out unethical experiments on people before the Solar Alliance shut it down, the only reason he is even here is to salvage any valuable data and scrap left behind.

Jay runs through the corridors, turning corners and trying to remember how he got there from the airlock. Marcus was the one with the map of this place, but without communications that doesn't do much good.

As he turns another corner he stops dead in his tracks as the color drains from his face. He finds himself standing in front of a group of soldiers aiming guns at him. "Slowly put your hands above your head." demands one of the soldiers. Jay obeys, still speechless in his shock and confusion.

~~~

"It's been 20 minutes, Jay should be out by now." says Mark, looking at the base through the ship's window. Alison walks toward the airlock and says "What if he's in trouble? Maybe we should go check on him."

A few minutes later Mark and Alison step out of the ramp at the back of the ship wearing pressure suits and make their way to the old surface base. They enter the airlock and pressurize it so that they could enter the base but the moment the inner door opens they are greeted by armed soldiers.

As Alison looks out the window she sees their ship as it is hit by an orbit-to-ground missile and explodes in a flash of light. Even through the thin Martian atmosphere and the walls of the base the bang can be heard, and the debris rains down over the scorch mark and the twisted metal where the ship used to be. "What was that?" asks Mark. "Our ship, it's gone! Destroyed!" replies Alison, almost in a panic. "Stop talking and come with us." demands a soldier as they begin walking down the corridor.

Before long they come to one of the crew quarters modules full of old beds, and two of the soldiers work together to push one particular bed to one side revealing a hidden passage leading into the ground to an elevator. They pile into the elevator and descend further. Mark looks around and whispers "This isn't on the map, and it looks a lot newer than everything above- Oww!" A soldier pokes his gun barrel at Mark's side as a way of telling him to stop talking.

The elevator doors open revealing a large room that looks like a hangar bay where multiple pieces of debris and a couple small strange looking space fighters are sitting on the floor. They walk past it on a catwalk to another room containing a few prison cells. One of them is occupied and Jay's voice comes through it saying "Mark? Alison? Man, am I glad to see you right now." The soldiers put Mark and Alison in the cell with Jay and as they walk away one of them mumbles something about figuring out what to do with the prisoners.

Once the guards are gone Mark breaks the silence by saying "Those are definitely Zaxoid fighters, they have Zaxoid ruins here, and like 3 complete fighters, and what looks like a capital ship engine, and hull plates, and-"
Jay interrupts, "Slow down, what? The Zaxoids are the creepy insect ones that died a long time ago, right? Or am I thinking of something else~..."
Mark replies, "Yes, they are the long dead insectoid aliens found by the crew of the Starship Aegis who probably once ruled the galaxy or something around when sharpened sticks were the pinnacle of technology on Earth, they had more technology then anyone we know of has today, and some of their ruins are here."
Alison adds "I'm just thankful to whoever killed them, I took a few classes on Zaxoid culture and language and they would sometimes destroy sentient species for sport."

Changing the subject, Mark says "About this lock... Jay, can you pick it?"
"Not without the passcode." Jay replies, it's a two factor lock that needs both a physical key and a code. Your the computer guy, maybe you should take a look."
Mark looks over the lock. "An 8 digit passcode and a key... Yeah, no way I'm brute force hacking that without-"
Alison cuts in, "I saw them type the passcode, it's 33765482."
Mark tries the passcode and the screen reads "Authorized: use key to unlock."
"Well, that worked." says Mark, "Jay, can you do your magic now?"
"I can try." says Jay as he takes a couple paper clips and a multi tool from his pockets and uses the multi tool to bend the paperclips into the shape of lock picking tools. After a few minutes of trial and error there is a clicking sound as Jay turns the lock. "Bingo!"

Jay quickly hides his makeshift tools as a soldier approaches. The soldier stands in front of the cell door and says "I'm afraid we won't be able to release you but there is a secure facility on Luna where you will be taken for-" Suddenly Jay kicks open the unlocked door which swings open and hits the soldier, taking advantage of the few moments of confusion Jay yells "Run!" and dashes out of the cell followed by Mark and Alison. The soldier says "Hey, get back here!" and chases them.

As they turn a corner Mark and Alison follow Jay into a room to hide and right as they shut the door the guard runs right by unaware that they are there. Mark looks around and says "I think we are in a server closet." Around them are a series of server racks with the hum of cooling fans coming from them. "I think this might be a good opportunity to see what's going on here." says Mark as he uses one of the interface terminals on the server to access stored data, and the others gather behind him to see what he's doing. Mark continues, "Crap, a lot of this data is encrypted. I do have access to the CCTV security cameras though, the bad news is that they know we are here now and we got like 30 seconds to get out." Mark hurries over to one of the blade servers on the rack and borrows a screwdriver from Jay to get it open and remove one of it's data drives. Putting the drive in his pocket he runs out of the server room followed by Jay and Alison just in time for a group of soldiers to turn the corner and and chase them further down the hall.

Once they arrive at the catwalk over the hangar room they notice more soldiers ahead of them. They are approaching from both directions. Jay, Mark, and Alison all just stand there not knowing what to do for a few seconds when Jay says "Follow me." and jumps off the catwalk. Mark and Alison reluctantly do the same. The drop is high enough that it would definitely break some bones in Earth gravity, but in the weaker Martian gravity it is not as bad. Jay and Alison land properly but Mark twists his ankle and lets out a yell. Alison helps him up and they continue moving.

The scientists studying the Zaxoid debris give some confused looks as the group runs by. "All the exits are blocked." says Jay as he looks around. The crack of a firing gun echoes through the hangar as a bullet hits the floor next to them. "That was a warning shot." says an officer on a megaphone. "You are surrounded, surrender immediately and hand over the drive."

Mark whispers "I have an idea" and gestures to one of the Zaxoid space fighters. As they run to the fighter the soldiers open fire, and they duck behind the fighter for cover. The space fighter has a glass canopy on to where the pilot sits, designed to fit a Zaxoid pilot who would be somewhat larger than a human.

"How do we open the canopy to get in?" asks Jay as he leans against the fighter. He accidentally leans against an oddly shaped lever which flips under his weight and causes the cockpit canopy to lift open. "Never mind, I got it." The three climb up into the ship as fast as possible and find the lever in the cockpit to close the canopy again. As the glass canopy comes down a bullet manages to slip through and hit Alison in the shoulder. She screams out in pain and putting her medical training to use immediately tries to stop the bleeding by ripping off part of her shirt and using it as a bandage. A few more bullets hit the fighter but they don't make a dent in it's advanced armor.

Jay furiously looks at the controls saying "This clearly isn't designed for a human! How do I even start this thing?" He flips random controls until humming sounds come from the ship. "I think that did it." Holograms appear around them with strange looking Zaxoan letters everywhere. Mark figures out how to power up the engines and all try to figure out the flight controls, causing the ship to zigzag around bumping into a lot of things.

"The hangar door on the ceiling is closed, we can't get out!" says Alison, who is shaking slightly from her injury and anxiety. Mark adds, "Actually, I've heard that Zaxoid fighters have something called a blink drive which lets them detach from 3D space and enter inter-dimensional space for a fraction of a second before reappearing somewhere else. Basically teleportation."
Jay says "Great, but how do we do that?"
Alison adds "Actually, I've studied their language a bit. Just a semester though. I know that the hologram to your right says 'blink drive'"

Mark looks at the hologram which displays a 3D representation of the surrounding objects with the control panel next to it. He fiddles with the controls until a marker appears on the hologram and the sound of the blink drive spinning up can be heard coming from inside the ship.

In a flash of light the ship appears above the ground and familiar red dunes and orange sky can be seen outside the window. "Wow, that was awesome!" says Jay, accelerating the ship up into the sky.

Alarms go off as an anti-air middle is launched at them, but Mark just does another blink which makes the missile loose it's lock. "I think this blink drive range is reduced by gravity, the higher we go the further it is letting me blink." says Mark. He does another blink which brings them to space above Mars, but once again it doesn't take long for proximity alarms to go off. This time Solar Alliance space fighters had been sent for them, and they begin shooting their particle cannons which penetrate the Zaxoid fighter's armor and begin to damage internal systems. "Oh no this isn't good... Quick, blink again!" orders Jay.

Mark does another blink and in a flash of light Mars seems to jump further into the distance. "It'll be a while before they can send anything this far." says Mark.
After taking a moment to calm down Alison says "Why? Why would the entire Solar Alliance be after us now? What did they tell the military to make them attack us? Surely the entire ministry isn't in on whatever was going on down there."
"I don't know." replies Mark, "I'm more worried about this though; I think the blink drive needs fuel and it looks like we only have enough for one more blink. At least I think that's what this indicator is."

Suddenly another alarm goes off.
"What is it this time?" complains Jay.
"Overheat alert." replies Alison.
"Crap, are they aiming asteroid defence lasers at us? Crap, I guess light is one thing that can get out here pretty fast." says Mark
Jay orders "We need to blink out of here!"
Mark asks "Where?"
Jay replies "Anywhere, just charge the drive!"

The sounds of the blink drive charging start again. The air around them becomes noticeably hotter under the heat of the lasers and overheat alerts pop up everywhere. The ship once again vanishes in a flash of light.

"I- I think I forgot to set a destination." admits Mark. Outside the window are strange colourful shapes almost like nebulas which seem to constantly morph into different shapes, and a bunch of glowing curvy lines stretch in every direction which also slowly bend and morph in strange ways one of which passes very close to them.
"What the actual fuck, who ordered spaghetti? Where are we? Am I tripping out or something?" says Jay.
Alison says "I see it too, and I don't know of any hallucinogen which could cause anything like this."
Mark replies "I think we may have just broken free of space and time. Just a hypothesis, this ship's blink drive isn't even supposed to be powerful enough to do that under it's own power though. "
Jay adds "And I thought my day was weird enough already..."

Suddenly they feel some kind of tug on the ship and a strange echoey monotone voice says "Help."
"Did you hear that too?" asks Alison.
"Yep." replies Jay.
"Since when could space speak?" jokes Mark in confusion.

The strange force pulls them towards one of the glowing threads, they accelerate faster and faster until they collide with it, and in yet another flash of light they are in normal space again. There are stars, the Sun, and a planet. "Is that Earth?" asks Alison. As they stare at the planet they realize that it's continents look vastly different than those on Earth and constellations in the sky are unfamiliar. "It's clearly Earth-like, but definitely not Earth." replies Mark.

They all stare at the strange world in silence for a moment before being snapped out of it but the sound of alarms. The planet's gravity pulls the ship down towards it and before long they reach the edge of the atmosphere. "Blink us out of here, I have almost no thruster control!" orders Jay. "I can't, we don't have enough fuel!" replies Mark. "I can't understand most of these words but the warnings say something about too much heat and certain things melting." says Alison.

The outer hull of the ship glows orange and they begin to leave a glowing trail behind them as they get into thicker parts of the atmosphere. Jay uses what little control he still has over the thrusters to point the nose of the fighter forward and control their trajectory to be one that puts minimal stress on the ship. Alison passes out from a combination of high acceleration and blood loss. "I don't think this ship is made for atmospheric flight..." says Jay.

After a few tense minutes the ship's hull cools down as air resistance slows them to more reasonable speeds. Below them they can see a city which looks a lot like the ones on Earth. Jay steers the ship to go in the general direction of a part which seems quite uninhabited, a desert area. Alison regains consciousness just in time to hear Jay say "Brace for impact!".

The ship violently impacts the desert sand, bouncing and tumbling a few times before sliding to a stop leaving a shallow trench and a few pieces of debris behind it. After coming to a stop the cockpit canopy breaks off revealing Alison, Mark, and Jay all unconscious and injured. Mark is the first one to regain consciousness and after verifying that Alison and Jay are still alive by checking for a pulse and breathing he carries the two of them out of the ship to the ground. Alison regains conscious next and immediately gets to helping Jay who had been injured the worst. His