The desert was cold at night, so cold. Despite the slight warmth afforded by his Plasma heater, it was cold.

He could hardly remember his name anymore, he had crash landed on this desert planet almost ten years ago... He could always find just enough to let him survive, to keep him starving, yet alive. It was strange that... Very strange. Sometimes he wondered why the... the... the spaceship guys... he was one of them, wasn't he? A pilot... the 56th star somethings? Star gunners? Star blazers? Didn't matter anyway... He just wondered why they hadn't come to get him yet... they had a great big floating thing... orbital, around a planet somewhere near here... blue... green? He couldn't remember. It was all so vauge... He could remember, a city... with animals that looked like him... Humans? That was it... He was Human. Strange word... Unfamiliar... He looked around. He looked up at the bright pinpricks of light, Stars. It was strange... whenever he moved, they should move too, shouldn't they? He never got anywhere if he walked. Just more desert... once he tried to get back to his ship, but he couldn't. Must have been swallowed up by the sand or something.

He was abandoned, abandoned by those guys up in space... the something forces... Explorational forces? Yeah... that had to be it. He thought back... he started thinking hard. I'm Frank Green... Captain Frank green... A pilot in the 56th Star runner inteceptor squadron.... in the explorational forces... Yeah, that had to be it. He could remember his commanding officer, an admiral in a funny suit... Admiral Shark? Admiral Sharga? Yeah... Sharga, looked like a Shark though... First alien to reach that high rank...

He looked up at the Sky, and saw a streak of light going across the sky... A shooting star? No! It was a rescue transport! It had to be!

Frank grinned like a maniac and turned around to get his case of Flares. He paused suddenly. Something was wrong... The Air... it... It Rippled... What the hell? It was like a cloaking device! Frank reached for his service laser-pistol and looked around cautiosly... This was bad... It was very very bad...

Suddenly a point of light started at about head level, and then it started pulling slowly across to the left, leaving a red hot trail... this wasn't natural, was it?

He heard voices from the other side of the light...

"Dangit, Sir! This thing is tough, Anyone got a spare Fusion Cutter?" "In X-Com we always come prepared! Gimme that Blaster Launcher!" "Sir, the guy on the inside! He'll be killed!"

After a second the point of light stopped... On the Inside? this was a planet! Massive! How could he be on the Inside, when it was the outside?

"... Alright, Fine. What do YOU suggest we do now, Huh? 'Squaddy'?" "Dangit, Look, We're just using the ranks those bastards gave us because it fitted our Story.... Davids?" "Yeah Barns?" "Go back and find Ramirez in that power suit of his, get him over here." "Gotcha!"

There was a sound of running feet from behind the strange point of light... Drank turned around, he saw a transport landing. He looked back at where the ppoint of light had dissapeared... there was a cooling trail of molten steel in the shape of an upsideown L. He reached out, and tried to touch the space between the two legs of the L. His hand passed through... and the L shape got a bit more distant, while everything else stood the same. He withdrew his hand, and it came back. He looked around, then heard a metallic whine and heavy footsteps approching him from the other side of that L shape.

"Barns?" "Hey, Ramirez, Tear this thing open, wouldja?" "Gimme a moment to power up..."

He looked back at the transport, and a landing party of five exited, one spotted him, and started running towards him, yelling "Frank! Damnit! I've missed ya you Moron!" He looked back at the L, then at the approching figure.

He looked at the L again, and saw three massive fingers stick themselves through the corner of the L shape, all three were metallic, big, armored?

There was a tearing sound, and the L ripped down and to the left.

IT revealed a team of four guys, in weird armor and helmets. There was one in really bulky looking stuff, almost like a bay loader. Power suit maybe? As that Barns guy had called it?

One with 'Davids' written over his helmet looked in, and then reached forward to Franks head.

One in the background stated bitterly, "But I'm the commander... you should listen to MEEEE..."

The one with 'Barns' written over his helmet looked at the 'Commander'. "Dangit, get a Grip will ya Idaho? Just 'cause you come from that Apocalypse and you got a high rank in there doesn't mean you get to lead, Alright?"

Davids pulled something away from his head... and the desert faded away, and there was just this dark room, small... he was sitting in a chair? Wires ran from his arms and legs.... Davids had a handfull of wires in his armored hand.

Frank finally spoke... "What the...."

The one in the 'Power Suit' nodded to Frank with a helmetted head, then bent over and picked up some bulky gun, it had green lights on it. He walked down a darkened corridor with it.

"Hey, No problem man, Just get used to 'reality'." Davids said, then he turned to face Barns. "Hey, Barns. This is dang advanced, not a big holographic room like ours was... this one is new, plugged into the guys head! Kinda looks like the environment booths we shoved the Bugs in, Yaknow?" Barns blinked, looked at Davids, then looked at the commander. "Okay Soldier, We're all in X-com here and we have an innocent here, I'm guessing some sectoids or somthing captured us and put us on this ship!" "Sectoids? SECTOIDS?!" Idaho started laughing, he was in a fancy looking armored suit. Sorta red and gray, metallic in places. Looked heavy. "Sectoids ain't a threat no more! I bet it's those Stinkin Micronoids!" Barns shook his head, and turned back to Frank. "You must be confused huh?" Frank nodded mutely. Davids looked up the corridor nervously. Hey, Barns, I'm gonna go get the underwater guys, maybe we should get back in the same place, yeah?" Barns nodded to Davids. "Just take your Laser Rifle with you! And try and see if the technicians can get that tank thing that the 'Warhammer' armored guys had to work! Maybe we can blow our way out of here." Davids nodded and ran up the corridor, grabbing a strange blue and red rifle on the way.

Barns turned to face frank again, and started talking. "Alright Pal, I dunno whats going on here... But one day Me and my freinds were dropped into an assault mission against a crashed alien UFO, My freind you saw earlier, Ramirez, was going point in his power suit, latest stuff, new technology!" Idaho broke in. "Yeah right! It's more than seventy years old!" Barns continued. "Anyway. Aliens gave us a hell of a fight, we ran and scattered. Eventually Ramirez ran into a wall where there shouldn't have been one. We all regrouped, figured it was some alien forcefield. We got lucky, we killed the aliens. Ramirez took us to where he ran into the wall, we looked it over, couldn't touch it if we did it slow. But if you had to move really fast you could touch it. I got out a laser rifle and fired, and nothing happened. But after about three minutes of sustained rapid fire the thing started melting, we saw the molten steel pouring down. After about a half hour of fire from the whole squad we broke through into a corridor like this one. Anyway, at first we figured that the Sectoids had captured us all and put us in battlefield tests to try and work out how we fought... It was a scary thought..." Frank watched, and nodded mutely.

"anyhow, we ran around, found doors, opened em. We found guys who supposedly came from X-com too, but some of em were from one they claimed was almost forty years after our war... then more guys from a space one, they thought they were from around twenty years later... then we came across Idaho over there, he claims that in his world he was eighty years after our war... more guys who claimed they were from more spots, a lot of em from X-com. We all talked, realised that the lives we were leading were damned amazing, almost like stories, from a book, Y'know?" Frank nodded... "Anyway, we found out that our guns work in the outside stuff, but so far we have yet to get anywhere. We found a big door, went through that... Found ourselves in this really big corridor, just about big nough for a skyranger to fly through it... anyway, There were more doors that were big, there was one labled with 'Warhammer 40K', another with 'Battletech', and it went on and on... we found others, we found a squad in the warhammer 40K place, all with some serious guns. Anyway. We're all confused here, we found a door in this place labled 'Non-Fanfic', and we went through that... and there were these sections, right? And we came across this one labled 'Skonar\Mark M. Cagnacci' And we found you in this tincan we couldn't get open... and this is where we are."

Frank blinked, looked around... slowly said "I want to.. get up." "Sure, no problem kid."

TO BE CONTINUED...

By Skonar