The evacuation pod shuddered as it tore through the Dead Zone's atmosphere. Inside, Alexei's unconscious form shifted with each violent movement, blood trickling from a gash above his eyebrow. Warning lights flashed crimson as systems failed one after another.
Impact came with a deafening shriek of metal. The pod carved a jagged scar through barren earth before crashing into what might once have been a school building. Then silence, except for the soft hiss of escaping coolant.
Hours passed. Alexei's eyes snapped open.
For a moment, confusion clouded his vision. The horizon seemed to split and triple before him – not just the ruined landscape visible through the cracked viewport, but ghostly overlays of the same scene in different conditions. Snow covering the wreckage. Vines reclaiming the metal. Bodies scattered around the impact site.
Pain lanced through his skull. He pressed his palms against his temples, forcing the visions away.
"System malfunction," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Location unknown."
The pod's emergency supplies were meager – a basic medkit, two days of ration bars, a compass spinning uselessly under the Dead Zone's magnetic anomalies. Alexei checked his physical condition with clinical detachment. Three cracked ribs. Laceration on forehead. Possible concussion.
He forced himself upright, ignoring the protest of damaged ribs. Through the shattered viewport, he saw a landscape both alien and eerily familiar – twisted metal structures emerging from cracked earth, ruins of civilization reclaimed by a wilderness that wasn't quite natural.
The rendezvous coordinates where Roth would be waiting were at least three days' journey, assuming he could navigate without functioning equipment. His chances of survival alone in unknown territory were...uncertain.
Alexei gathered what supplies he could salvage. Before stepping out, he caught his reflection in a fragment of broken glass – blood crusting along his temple, eyes alert despite the pain. For a brief moment, his reflection seemed wrong somehow, as though someone else were looking back at him.
He blinked, and the sensation passed.
With a final look at the ruined pod, Alexei stepped out into the broken wilderness. But instead of heading toward the rendezvous coordinates, he turned in the opposite direction.
Why not go to Roth? The question seemed to come from somewhere inside his own mind, but with a voice that wasn't quite his.
"Not yet," he answered aloud, then frowned at himself for speaking to empty air.
Something was happening to his mind. Whatever it was, he couldn't afford to let it distract him from survival. One step at a time. Shelter. Water. Information.
Then he would decide what to do about Commander Roth.