A well dressed man sat quietly in the empty office room. Shahid watched him through the security camera however he couldn't see the man's left hand tapping to rival a metronome. After a few moments, Zarina entered the room.
"Now, this is just routine." She said as she sat down. "So, what's your name?"
"This isn't a good idea." The man replied calmly.
Zarina then noticed his perfect tapping.
"What are you doing?"
"Counting."
"Counting what?" She asked.
"The seconds we have left." The man replied with a resigned expression.
Walt stared in shock at the massive man that had climbed the rope after him. No, climbed was the wrong word. The man had jumped up and latched onto the craft. The pod racer tilted dangerously.
"Is your friend an elephant?!" Ioan shouted as he struggled to make the craft rise.
"No, that would be the giant axe wielder that's attached to the engine." Walt gulped.
"What?!" The imp turned to look.
"GO!" The axeman roared, swinging his axe at approaching Gresh. "GO!"
"You got it!" Ioan punched the accelerator. "Hold on to your pants!"
The engine groaned as the pod racer shot out of the hole in the roof of the cave. With a choking roar, the craft sped away at half speed. Ioan struggled to maneuver the craft through the desert canyon as they raced towards the gulf. Holding bandages to Jack's wounds as best he could, Walt tried to keep him awake.
"Brace yourselves!" The imp roared, trying to turn the pod racer sharply.
A stone wall was approaching fast. Suddenly the engine whined and the craft banked sharply. Walt threw a glance at the axeman and saw that he had dug his axe into the ground, pulling the craft hard right.
"Good man!" Ioan called, seeing the act. "Keep an eye out for danger!"
They continued like this until the great gulf came into view. The weight of what was about to happen sank deep in their hearts. Only the unconscious Jack was unworried by the rapidly approaching edge.
"Ioan, I have a bad feeling about this..." Walt started.
"Nonsense! If he drops the axe, we'll...be fine..." The imp tried to sound confident.
The axeman raised an eyebrow and reluctantly threw his axe aside. The engines jumped a little but the craft didn't rise any higher. The realization that this indeed was a bad idea came too late for any of them to do anything. The pod racer shot out over the great gulf and plummeted. There wasn't even a brief second of cartoonish suspension.
Ramblers sneaking about the wreckage of the world froze, hearing what they thought were the screams of some fantastic creatures. One looked up out of the bones of an engine. Seeing no great flying predator, the plummeting pod racer caught his eye.
"Yensidian!" He called with a whoop.
Other Ramblers called in return, coming out to watch.
Ioan screamed as the ground rapidly approached. Putting his feet on the dashboard, he pulled up on the controls with all his might, trying to arrest their fall. The engines coughed and shuddered as they struggled to obey. Finally, the nose of the pod racer lifted slowly out of its dive. The imp was almost relived until he saw the wreckage they would have to dodge.
"Holy-!" He yanked the controls, barely missing a shattered wall.
Walt glanced up from his work, and saw some people running next to them. The Ramblers, normally content to watch a crash, were assembling a jump engine on the run.
" Niatnuom roirraw!" One shouted, as he connected two short poles.
" Ronoh ot eht naitnoum!" Another called, configuring something that spun two different ways.
"What are they saying?" Walt asked, yelling over the roar of the engine.
"They speak backwards!" The axeman roared back, tiredly adjusting his grip on the pod engine. "I'm too tired to puzzle it out!"
" Stnenopmoc!" The lead Rambler called.
The other Ramblers tossed their bits of engine to her. She jumped as she ran, grabbing the components with a dancer's grace. As the engine began to take form in her hands, Ioan looked over.
"What is she-?" He started. "Oh snap!"
Before any of them had time to react, she ran in front of the pod. With inhuman skill, the Rambler leaned back as the pod ran over her with inches to spare. With a quick motion, she placed the engine on the underside of the pod. Then she stood up after the craft finished passing over her. Seconds later all heck broke loose.
The jump engine ignited and shot the pod racer straight up. Walt thought for a second that they lost the axman then saw his thick fingers bending grooves in the metal. The shreds of war sped past beneath them as they drew closer to the wall. The craft's trajectory went diagonally up. Ioan realized this and tried to calculate how far up the wall they would be when they reached the solid structure. Had they not had a jump engine quickly bolted to the pod racer, the craft would have automatically prepped for docking. However, Rambler jump engines have no regulations so the imp would actually have to try to drive the pod with an independent engine.
The Ramblers watched, holding their breath. From their vantage point they could see it was going to be close. As the craft drew level with the porthole, a flash of light caught one of the Rambler's eyes. She looked towards the light and saw some one silhouetted in the beam of light. Then just as quickly, the light and silhouette was gone. The Rambler looked back towards the craft and saw the portal closing. There was a scrape on the edge of the wall but no wreckage falling from the sky.
"Woah! Wooah!" Oli shouted. "Turn off your engine!"
"I can't!" Ioan shouted back. "It's a Rambler jump engine!"
The engine sparked madly as it tried to break free of the cradle that had latched on to the craft. With a mighty heave, the axman kicked the engine. Astounding Oli, the engine crunched inwards and fused together.
"Engine off!" He grunted, letting himself fall onto the walkway.
"Help me with him!" Walt called, changing the bandages on Jack.
Tying up the man's arm, he noticed that Jack's blood shimmered strangely. Ioan shakily climbed over to him to help. Pulling off a spent bandage around the young man's middle, Walt saw something sticking out that shouldn't even be in someone's body. He carefully gripped the frayed end of a cord and gave it a tug. Jack lurched awake and grabbed the older man's wrist.
"Don't do that," he said and his eyes rolled back. "You'll pull me apart..."
"Ioan, I've got to call this in," Oli gulped, looking into the craft at the bloody scene.
Walt, Ioan, Oli and the axman sat quietly in the waiting room. The axman had been patched up and given some clothes. He looked rather odd sitting there in grey sweats, overfilling the small chair. Walt fiddled with the cane, trying to focus on the here and now rather than dark past memories. The problem was, the here and now strongly reminded him of the distant past. The four started to attention as Dr. Calico stepped into the room.
"Alright boys," she held up clipboard.
"Is he alright?" Walt interrupted.
"Physically, he'll live," she replied with an arched eyebrow. "However, our scans show he has a mixture of wires and mechanics running through him. We don't know what it's for so we can't tell if its terribly damaged."
"He's a robot?" The older man's eyebrows shot up.
"Not entirely." Dr. Calico flipped a few pages on the screen of her clipboard. "He appears to be mostly organic hence why he bleeds."
"Half android?" Ioan looked at Walt. "What kind of friend have you got?"
"You sir, are an imp." Walt replied. "And you think a man full of wires is strange?"
"Yeah, but at least I know what I'm for." The short man replied. "You're his friend. Do you know why he's full of wires?"
Walt didn't have an answer for that. How could he explain that yesterday he was untold thousands of years into the past? He doubted they would even believe him.
"Now, if you're done squabbling," Dr. Calico said. "He's awake if you want to talk to him."
The four jumped up.
"Woah. Woah. Not all of you at once." She held up her hands.
"That's alright." Oli said, rubbing his hands. "I'll go check on me brotha."
"Oh, what's Stan done now?" Ioan asked.
"He fell outta window."
The others winced.
"Give him my best." The imp said. "And tell him he's getting old if falling out a window messes him up."
"I will stay." The axman said solemnly. "I doubt he wants to see me right away."
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