Stranger Things on Heaven and Earth

"I don't suppose you could recruit someone I won't need to babysit, Festina," she said.

"Verse..." Festina groaned, rubbing her face. "I didn't recruit him. He's here because Skorzeny would torture him if we left him behind."

The ramp we had landed on started to whirr closed and I felt the faint rumble of the Normandy's engines underneath me. I started to stand, the muscular Samoan woman helping me to my feet, slapping my shoulder. She grinned slightly, her voice soft.

"We all had to go through what you're going through. It'll pass."

What I was going through was the dry heaves. I wheezed and leaned my hands on my knees, panting and gasping as I ducked my head forward. I felt my head spin. I felt Twilight's hands on my back. She caressed me and whispered.

"Hey, Malik, just breathe. Just breathe."

"S-Some summer vacation," I gasped out, my eyes closing tightly.

I wasn't real. I wasn't real. None of these people were real. It wasn't a repetitive thought, a mantra, like you see in fiction. No. I wasn't hoping that this wasn't real. I wasn't hoping that I'd wake up from a dream. I was trying to grasp the fact of my unreality. I breathed faster and faster, then clenched my jaw. I forced my knees to stop shaking. I was fictional. But this felt real. The deck felt real. The people around me felt real. I had to at like it was real. I breathed in, then out, then stood. "Okay..." I whispered, then looked at Festina. "W-We should do introductions, right?"

Festina looked as if she was evaluating me. Whatever she saw made her nod slightly. She smiled, then stepped back, so she could gesture to the two other women. "All right. Lets get everyone to the mess hall and do introductions there." She nodded. "Agreed?"

"Eh, I got nothing better to do," the feathered woman said, rolling her shoulders. As she walked off, she put a roll to her hips that made my eyes bug out slightly. I shook my head, flushing as I noticed Twilight watching me. She huffed slightly, then walked off. I stammered -- starting to apologize, but the Samoan woman chuckled and slapped my back.

"Don't worry, kid. Everyone looks at her butt at least once in their lives."

***

In the end, there were six women and me seated around the table. Well, save for Verse, who refused to sit, even after Festina had dragged her into the room by force. She leaned against the wall. And the brown haired girl who was literally vibrating as she sat on the table rather than her seat. She was looking at me with wide eyes and as I waited for Festina to start, she said -- in a thick British accent: "You won't believe how nice it is to have someone else from porn."

"Pardon?" I asked.

"Lena!" Twilight squeaked.

"You didn't tell him?" the brown haired girl asked, flushing. "Bugger."

"Porn!?" I looked at Festina. Her right cheek was almost as dark as her left.

Verse grinned then leaned her elbows on my chair, her chin resting on my head. "Oh yeah, kid. You're from the incest world -- spun off some website called Literotica. You fuck your mom, or mostly stick to your sister?"

"What!?" I spluttered.

"I think it's perpetually almost summer there too," Verse said, nodding. "That's what the scans said. Maybe you dick her on the beach -- she wear some hot ass swim-"

"Verse!" Festina snapped. "Give him space, he's almost fainted twice today." She put her hand over her face. "Fuck. There's no way this isn't going to sound like we're all in high school again...but...lets start with names and origins." She sighed. "Festina Ramos." She pointed at herself. "You've read the, uh, books, Malik." She managed to say the words without making a face. But I could see in her eyes that something inside her grated at having to admit that she was from a fictional universe. Then something else occurred to me.

The first novel in the League of People's series was from Festina's perspective. It had her inner thoughts. Her inner feelings. Her most intense demons, her biggest regrets, and all of her neurosis, everything she never mentioned to any other character all throughout every single other book. She was always a pretty fucking important character in the other stories, but not the viewpoint character. I wondered what it was like, knowing someone who knew everything. Everything.

My eyes flicked away from her real quick.

The brown haired girl -- Lena -- grinned and waved at me. "Lena Oxton. Overwatch." She winked at me saucily. "The porn version. Might as well be upfront about it."

I gaped at her. "Tracer!?"

She beamed and puffed up her chest. "The cavalry's here!"

I decided now was not the time to mention I mained Mei. I looked from her to the Samoan girl. She sat up a bit taller and firmed her shoulders. "Bobbie Draper -- former Martian Congressional Marine Corps." She paused. "The Expanse. Uh, by S.A Corey?" She glanced at Twilight, who nodded. Twilight, then, smiled at me.

"Twilight Sparkle, princess of friendship. Equestria." She nodded. "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Um, and Equestria Girls sometimes." She giggled, nervously. "And the Movie. There was a movie too. Um." She ducked her head forward, blushing.

The girl sitting next to was, in her own way, just as recognizable, despite the fact I couldn't see her face. She was dressed in a skintight space-suit, with a face concealing mask. Even the clear part was clouded by a dark purple fog, revealing only a hint of silvery eyes. She was also curvy and beautiful and exotic -- with three fingers rather than the normal five. She inclined her head, her voice husky and exotically accented: "Tali Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy." She chuckled. "Technically, this is my ship."

"I know you," I said, gulping.

"And then there's me," Verse said from behind me. I swung my chair around. She grinned at me. "Verse, formerly Scarlet Chorus. Terratus." She leaned forward. "The video game Tyranny, by Obsidian. And since none of these girls have the balls to say it, I'll make it blunt: This isn't a job for the faint of hearted or the weak of arm. If you can't hack it, we'll kick you into a cushy recursion and not look back. Got it?"

Festina clenched her jaw, but didn't contradict her.

I frowned. "I..." I sighed. "I need to know where I'm from. Like, you said my world spun off from a website? How? Why are people from a bunch of different...worlds...here?"

Festina looked at Twilight. Twilight reached up and brushed her hair back. "That's-"

An alert sounded -- a low, whining drone that rang through the room. We all looked up as Festina swore. "Goddamn motherfuckers -- what is it, EDI?"

"Admiral Ramos, we have detected five radar signatures heading through the Chaosphere towards us," a cool, feminine voice came from the speakers. "They match the silhouette and design of the Race's killercraft. They are escorting a larger ship."

"Balls!" Festina swore. "Bobbie!"

"I'm on it!" Bobbie sprang to her feet and turning to run -- heading down the corridor adjacent to the mess hall. She rushed towards the place I remembered from the video game as the, uh, gunnery control room. Tracer didn't spring to her feet. She just buzzed away and vanished from the table, leaving behind the jeans and T-shirt she had been wearing behind. As they thumped to the ground, I heard her voice from up the stairs: "Bugger!"

"The Race?" I asked as I followed Festina to the bridge, Tali and Twilight rushing to their own posts. Verse remained by the table, sharpening her knives.

"From a series of Harry Turtledove novels called Worldwar," Festina said. "Basically, imperialistic space lizards, big on conquering less advanced planets. Kind of assholes. Those that have figured out that the Strange exists are fucking desperate to conquer as many recursions as they can. They have no idea how fucking dangerous this place is, and they have shown a classic inability to understand how fucking sneaky homo saps can be." She looked at me, pausing on the stairs. "That's why they're working with Skorzeny, as far as we can tell."

We came to the bridge. The holographic display that normally just showed the galaxy in the video game showed instead the local area in miniature. The five killercraft were sweeping forward around a larger shape, and all of them were approaching us at a steady clip. Festina sighed, then called to the front: "Tracer! We got a better idea of what the big ship is?"

"It's not in the computers," Tracer said. Her nudity was hidden from me by the curve of the chair.

"Complete scan coming up," EDI said, and the holographic view shifted with a pop. It revealed a hammerhead shaped vessel -- sleek and curved, but covered with blast marks, as if it had been peppered with high energy impacts. The dull red paint job along the sides contrasted with the black snarls of damage. Festina frowned at it as I walked away from her, stepping slowly around the holographic image.

"It's an Old Republic ship," I said, quietly.

"From?" Festina asked.

"Star Wars!" I said, then looked at her. "I got a bad feeling about this."

And, at that moment, Tracer shouted: "Missile lock!"

Through the narrow window at the very nose of the Normandy's bridge, I could see the hissing white contrails of almost thirty heat seeking missiles, arcing towards our ship. I stepped back, my eyes widening as Tracer's fingers danced on the controls. The Normandy started to slew backwards, like it was falling -- and Festina shouted: "Bobby!"

"I'm on it!" Bobby's voice came through the communicator.

The front of the Normandy lit up -- visible through the narrow windows and the hologram -- as tracery of point defense guns swept outwards, meeting the missiles in the swirling chaos that surrounded us.

***

The bridge of the Harbinger remained scattered with the bodies of Republic troops. They had been cut down by sword and by saber, by shadows emerging from the darkness. They had not begun to rot, but the time would come eventually. Kneeling in the center of the carnage, surrounded by a ring of the last few crew who had been left alive, was a figure that should not have lived...and yet did. Rippling with muscles that had been split and broken repeatedly by sword and blaster and lightsaber, his chest was a history of violence, writ in scars and still slowly seeping wounds. His skin had desiccated to a pale gray.

By all rights, he should have been dead.

But he breathed.

He breathed and he seethed with pain and anger and hatred. That hatred smoldered deep in his breast, a passion that could not be quenched.

The door to the bridge hissed open. A small figure started inside, dressed in nothing but body paint -- elegant swirling patterns and sharp colors. The figure was a lizard -- short and stocky, with a long, whipping tail, and chameleon eyes that swiveled about independently. He walked, daintily, over the corpses that littered the bridge. He opened his mouth to speak -- but the gray figure kneeling in the center of corpses lifted his right arm and clenched his fist.

An invisible force closed around the lizard's throat, lifting up off the ground. The lizard clutched at his throat, kicking his legs, his tail lashing as he gasped and choked, struggling for air.

"Why have you come, Hassov?"

The voice that came from the gray skinned man sounded like gravel grinding and rumbling against one another. An avalanche of a voice.

"Please...don't...kill me..." The lizard squeaked, his eyes flitting wildly as his legs kicked. "Please..."

The man opened his hand and Hassov slammed to the deck as he was dropped. He gasped and clutched at his throat, coughing. "Honorable sssssuperior ssssir!" he hissed, coughing, his eyes flitting down in a sign of utter abasement. "Our killercraft...they cannot...penetrate the sssship's sssshields, nor their anti-missssssile sssssystems."

"Superior Sir?" the figure started to stand. His shoulders rolled.

Hassov realized he had made a mistake.

He coughed, then bowed desperately lord. "D-Darth! Darth Ssssion!" he hissed. "Lord Sssssssion!"

Darth Sion, the Lord of Pain, chuckled softly.

"It seems that Skorzeny has failed," a wry voice spoke from the darkened corner of the bridge.

Darth Sion turned from the abjectly bowing lizard to face the finely suited human who was walking towards him. Like Hassov, he stepped over the bodies. Unlike Hassov, he seemed to be roughly as distressed as he might have been by the rain. He was handsome, with inky black hair and a finely cut suit, which pressed to his slender body in an unfamiliar style. He held up one hand, his fingers stroking his cheek as he considered. He chewed his knuckle, then smiled slowly.

"And it seems that the Race remains unsuited to tackling the System Alliance," the suited man continued. "My associates-"

"Are not here," Darth Sion growled. "And I am in charge here. That's the agreement we settled on."

The man paused. Quietly, almost beyond the range of human hearing, a soft...zzzsh...srrrsh...noise could be heard. He smiled slowly.

"Of course, Lord Sion," he said, bowing his head. "My associates only wish to help."

Darth Sion was silent for a time. Then he lifted his hand. His lightsaber flew from his belt to slap into his palm. He triggered it with a flare of red light. Energies crackled along the blade as he lifted his head.

"Can your associates get me aboard the ship, Mr. Morden?" Darth Sion rumbled.

Mr. Morden smiled.

"Of course, Lord Scion."

CHAPTER TWO: Strange Sabers

"Can we run away faster?" I asked, gulping slightly.

Festina, her hands gripping the railing that surrounded the command platform on the Normandy's bridge, shook her head. "No. The FTL engines on this thing can't work in the Chaosphere. So that leaves only the gravity engine -- basically, generating a gravity well behind us and letting us fall into it -- or the ion engines. And we both of them going as hard as they can." She sighed. "Never thought I'd miss the fucking Sperm field generator."

And ahead of us, the Star Wars ship was continuing to loom ahead of us. It hadn't fired it's turbolasers (or whatever the fuck it was armed with), but the jets flanking it had fired off their missiles...and we had knocked them down. A few had gotten past the array of point defense guns and then smashed into the shields of the Normandy, which had reduced their damage to almost nothing. Which was nice. And the prolonged time we had to scan it meant that we at least had time to spot the name painted on the prow: Harbinger.

And that wasn't creepy at all.

"Can we shoot it?" I asked.

"Hah!" Tracer laughed from the pilot's seat.

Festina shook her head, sighing. "No."

Her voice was quite flat.

"Why not!?" I swung to face her.

"I have one rule!" Festina said, angrily. "We only use violence when it's the absolute last fucking resort. And even then, we are damn sure the bastards we shoot fucking deserve it or aren't anything more than...shadows." She shook her head. "I want to go home one day."

It clicked.

Festina came from a novel series set in a galaxy that was ruled by a bunch of hyperadvanced aliens called the League of People's. Basically, imagine Q from Star Trek, but more so. And unlike Q, they did more than just fuck around with lesser begins. Instead, they had a rule: If you commit murder, you are a non-sentient critter. If you're non-sentient, and try to travel between solar systems, they instantly kill you. So, if Festina killed a fellow sentient...she'd never get to go home. And if she let someone else kill a fellow sentient, she'd be aiding and abetting a non-sentient. Which is just as bad.

I shook my head. "But-"

Festina glared at me. "Don't you start."

"We're all fictional!" I said.

Festina flushed. "We're based on fiction. But we're still real. I got a heart beat, and I plan for it to keep beating when I get home. Plus, more than that?" She shook her head. "I actually fucking believe in the whole 'the right of sentience beings' thing. The League just makes it harder to abandon that."

Tracer put her feet up on the console. She leaned back in her seat -- and this reminded me that when she had super-speeded (or whatever Tracer did) up to the bridge, she had left her clothes behind. My eyes widened as I saw the curve of her breasts and the flatness of her pale belly. She was grinning as she rolled her head back, her eyes glittering through her orange tinted goggles.

"We've all tried the arguments," she said. "Festina won't budge on this. It doesn't help Twi's got her back, and Tali thinks it's all very rational."

I sighed. "Okay. We won't shoot them. They will keep chasing us. What's the plan, Admiral Holdo!?" I looked at Festina.

"Who?" Festina's brow furrowed.

"Cause, it's, um, like a bit in the...never mind," I said, shaking my head.

Festina snorted. "Listen. We're backing up towards the Orb of Worlds -- a bunch of recursions floating near one another. A few of them may have friends we can find, resources we can use. We just need to survive till then." She sighed. "And while we flee...maybe you want a bit of an explanation?"

I sagged slowly against the curved console that surrounded the holographic display of the Normandy. I watched the holographic representation of the jets and the Star Wars ship that was chasing after us on the shimmering display. I nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I think I might."

Festina rubbed her hands on her face. She tapped at the console, then cracked her knuckles. "Hey, Tali."

"Yes, Admiral Ramos?" Tali's voice was soft and calm.

"Can you come up here? We need to finish bringing Malik up to speed," she said. "You got a better head for this shit than I do."

"Of course!"

A few moments later, Tali walked onto the bridge. Have I mention that I've had a crush on Tali since I first played Mass Effect? Seeing her up close and personal was very different from seeing her in a game. For one thing she was...real. In my head, I had always imagined her looking kind of like a CGI creation in a movie. But seeing her in real life (or whatever the fuck I was currently in) was so different. It didn't help that, in real life, when she wasn't just a polygon with a texture...

She...

Jiggled.

Deliciously. She walked past me and bobbed her head to me in polite greeting. Then she gestured with one of her three fingered hands to the hologram, while pressing buttons on the controls. The image of the Normandy and the Harbinger vanished and were replaced with a hologram of the Earth. She looked at me.

"This is the Earth," she said. Then, coughing, she added: "O-Of course. You, um, already know that. But, uh, Earth is in a galaxy!" She pressed more buttons and the view zoomed outwards, showing the Earth and a bunch of stars. "But the stars are only part of what makes up the galaxy. The rest of it is invisible. Dark matter. Dark energy. But what if it wasn't just...random matter? What if it was actually an ancient alien faster than light travel network existing in Baryonic space!"

I blinked.

"Is it?" I asked.

"Yes!" Tali exclaimed. "That's what we're in right now! The Chaosphere! Or, as the humans call it...the Strange."

"No one fucking calls it that, and the first person I meet who does gets kicked in the dick," Festina said, grumpily. "Next you're going to tell me an FTL field is called a Worm field."

I snorted.

"I...don't follow," Tali whispered to me.

"In Festina's, um, universe, an FTL field looks like a white bubble with a long whippy tail..."