New Mages #1
"The Modern Age"
(Still Act I)
by Jacob Milnestein

Tanya Clandestine looked up at the pale orange sun, flares of light seeping in from the cold vacuum that surrounded the planet. Braeburn was so beautiful at night, the orange skies and the vast towering structures of cities now rebuilt. These people had only recently been slaves and yet here they were, learning to live again despite the shadows of the past.

She shivered slightly and brought her coat in closer around her waif-like frame, a sure sign that the night would soon be upon them. It was so cold at night, so beautiful and yet so cold. On the horizon she could see the Hive working, rebuilding the outer cities with their powerful limbs. She sometimes wondered how they could tolerate Braeburn's climate.

She shivered again, brushing a strand of dark hair from her pale forehead. It wasn't that bad here, she reflected, her only qualm was her uncertainty as to the remainder of her splintered team...if any had survived at all.

Movement broke her silent reverie and slowly she turned, sleepy eyes not quite taking everything in. A silent figure stood upon the threshold of her room, watching her as she turned her attention back to the world ahead from the comfort of her balcony.

The figure drew back his dark hood, revealing a pale white ghostly face wizened with age. Various pieces of metal surrounded the face, framing it within a strange technological context that both baffled and terrified her.

"I bring you news, Miss Clandestine." The figure rasped, his voice little more than a faint whisper.

Tanya arched her eyebrows.

"I was beginning to wonder when Mikael would become restless." She half smiled, half smirked.

The Galactic Stranger's expression did not change, the dark eyes, so prominent in his sunken white face, never once blinking.

"We have been here for years now, Miss Clandestine, it is only right that we should at least make attempts to discover the fate of our comrades. They may not even be in this universe." He reflected.

"Or they may be dead." Clandestine muttered, her cold comments cutting through the air like a knife.

"This is a possibility." The Stranger conceded. "One that disturbs me greatly but a possibility none the less."

Clandestine shrugged, moving in from the cold of the balcony and aimlessly folding the clothes she had brought from the marketplace into neat piles before shaking them free once more and throwing them into a heap besides her bed. It was a nervous habit, one that had been present since her childhood.

"I take it Mikael is anxious to leave?" She said quietly, not masking her understanding of the elder Malachim's peculiar mood swings.

"On the contrary, it is I who have become restless. Mikael seems to be quite at home here, I, however feel out of place. As if I were missing a part of myself." His pure black eyes clouded with melancholy.

Clandestine looked up suddenly.

"I'm sorry, Stranger, I didn't know..." She began.

"It is besides the point." He cut her short, waving a bloodless hand in the air. "We shall be departing come morning, make sure you are ready."

She nodded and with that he left her quarters.

* * *

He placed two awkward feet upon the dark sands of that strange world. The burning intensity of the sun had given way to the cold of night and the promise of frost as the distant planet prepared for its longest night. Silently he watched as his twisted, techno-organic feet pushed down into the sand, black beads rising up between his toes and swamping him in the inarticulate emptiness of its texture. This world was a place of dead things, a place where the sun burnt consistently for several months before giving way to a dark, extensive night of similar proportions. If the burning heat of the near desert world's climate didn't kill you then you could be certain that the lengthy night would.

He looked about him, slowly taking several steps forward and trying not to flinch as he crushed the still warm sand underfoot. Once Braeburn had thrived, a sprawling world with expansive rainforests and vast oceans. All that was gone now, the only water remaining being the poisoned gulf that continually washed against the shores of the southern hemisphere…in the day at least, during the night it was nothing more than a desert of another kind; a desert of ice. Once it had thrived now it simply petrified, its life drained from it but the successful legacy of a different world.

A scowl crossed his face and he turned his motion sensors up into the emptiness and towards the distant point in space where the Earth resided. It was Earth but it wasn't the Earth he knew. In his time, the being known as the Cybernetic Man had journeyed to many worlds through many times. He had seen countless variations of Earth in countless time periods and never had he been so insulted by the one he found himself confronted with in the reality they currently occupied, the reality that Braeburn's ancient Space Hammer had driven them into.

The Earth of this universe contained an anomaly, a stain on one of its continents. Of all the Earths that he had seen, none had contained a Pacific City.

He seethed quietly to himself, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists. Being a product of the great universal omni-matrix, the system that had programmed mathematical life into a billion stars and populated a hundred worlds in his own time period, the Cybernetic Man resented anomalies. They were a direct insult to the hierarchy of the universe, the same hierarchy that the omni-matrix artificially upheld in his own time. He stood and glared at the point in space for a moment longer before angrily turning away, his dark cloak trailing against the warm sand and exposing his pale organic machine body to the colds of the planet's long night.

Silently a weatherworn and defaced statute sinking in the distant sand on the horizon stood guard, the only witness to his journey this far into the planet's empty places. The Cybernetic Man paid it no heed and quietly focused on his own anger as he returned back towards Braeburn's last remaining village.

* * *

Mikael watched the powerful movements of the insect like Hive creatures as they continued their work on the burrow-city well into the bitterly cold night, their powerful eight appendages working the materials and the two separate mouths chewing bitter sand into congealed lumps of a clay like substance in order to lay the foundations of the buildings. They were a truly fascinating race, completely and utterly alien in comparison to anything else he had seen.

The lower feathers of his giant hawk wings twitched slightly and the elder Malachim turned quietly to look upon the guise of the Galactic Stranger, the omni-matrix's most impressive sage machine. Both he, the Cybernetic Man and the Stranger had risked everything travelling back from the future in order to save the splintered members of their team such was the omni-matrix's respect of the past. There was a bond between the three of them that remained unbroken despite the odds.

"It is time." The Stranger announced sullenly.<.p>

Mikael straightened himself and took a step forwards, brushing a hand through his thick ash coloured hair.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" The Malachim asked, his voice deep and powerful.

The Stranger nodded sadly.

"We can delay no longer. If we are ever to find a way back to our own Earth then we must use the advantages that this one offers us."

Doubt crossed Mikael's square shaped face and he averted his eyes.

"Are you sure we can manage that? Are you sure we can undo everything that the Bowler did to our world?"

The Stranger's eyes settled piercingly on Mikael's hawk wings.

"Of all people, Mikael you should know the answer to that."

The Malachim's face turned red, shame and pride both burning visibly upon his face.

"I didn't Fall." He hissed through gritted teeth.

The sage machine arched a thin eyebrow.

"Then why did she cast you from Albion and into the clutch of the omni-matrix, Mikael?" He asked, his voice cold and questioning. "Why were you driven from her bosom and out into the void?"

"I didn't Fall." Mikael repeated.

"It is of little consequence." The Stranger announced dismissively. "What is important is that at last we have a chance to return home."

Mikael bowed his head solemnly. "Its not my home." He whispered sadly.

"Technically neither is it mine," The Stranger hissed. "But it is the place I belong, the place that has the most meaning to me." He turned, his cloak drawing a line in the sand as he did. "It should be a simple operation, once we arrive at Moonbase Churchill we shall be able to propel ourselves towards this Pacific City." His voice curdled in unconscious distaste. "From there we can use their resources to make the leap backwards in time to our own Earth."

"And how will we achieve this?" Mikael asked, doubt creeping into his voice once more.

"I'll do it." A voice announced from the doorway.

Both Malachim and machine turned to the door and gazed upon the slender figure of Tanya Clandestine, once more dressed in the tight one-piece uniform, which they had all once worn as members of the team. About her shoulders was also a long, velvet cloak, adorned by a silver scarab beetle broach. Mikael looked awkwardly away, trying not to look at the woman's broach.

A small, triumphant smile crossed Clandestine's face.

"Feeling uncomfortable, brother Mikael?" She asked, brushing her raven feather hair back over her shoulder.

The Malachim refused to turn and look at her.

"This Earth, #746387..." He said sadly. "This is the place Winters came from, isn't it?"

The Stranger's techno-organic face twisted with barely suppressed anger, his dark olive eyes narrowing within the pale and serpentine features of his machine face.

"Yes." He answered coldly. "It is."

"And if the other Winters is still there...?" Mikael asked hesitantly.

"We kill him." Tanya said, an air of finality about her.

"As you wish, sister." Mikael whispered, doubt clouding his mind.

The room lapsed into silence, awkward and heavy. The sound of the Hive workers as they continued tirelessly outside on the reconstruction of their world filtered in through the empty windows, carried by the stillborn air with its taste of sand and glass.

"I take it this meeting is overthen?" Tanya asked abruptly.

The Stranger looked up, awakened from his reverie.

"Quite." He said softly. "I shall ask the Cybernetic Man to attend to the Space Hammer and prepare for imminent exodus."

Mikael watched the floor with patience. "So we're back. We're finally doing what we always should have done."

An odd smile crossed the machine's face.

"That is correct." He said with pride. "The New Mages live once more."

* * *

The skull was heavy upon her head despite the absence of its lower half. Beneath it, her long copper hair spilt out over the thick coat of matted fur she wore on top of the torn and dirtied one-piece New Mages uniform.

Over her years of travel since their enforced exile upon Braeburn, she had grown accustomed to the desert and the harsh conditions that governed it. Now, after a long and arduous journey beyond the plains of the desert, she was finally returning to the planet's remaining village and its insect-like culture.

Silently she stopped before the defaced statue at the edge of the desert and bent down on one knee; bowing her head low and ignoring her bag as it fell from her shoulder and onto the black sand beneath. The statute was depicted as wearing a similar costume to the standard New Mage dress uniform, something that had surprised all of them upon their arrival on the harsh, inhospitable planet. The design was simple and effective, a small circle in the centre of the chest situated on a background that was divided by stone lines on each side, indicating the two separate colours of the statue's uniform.

On her own uniform, and, by default the uniforms of her comrades, the circle was yellow on a white background, framed by light purple. Whilst the statue was colourless aside from the yellowing of age, she knew what colours its creators had intended the costume to be. A yellow circle on a red background framed by white. It was painfully familiar; identical even to the original costume of a man they had all known a very long time ago.

She bowed low, pushing her face into the burning sand and whispering prayers to the silent statue.

For Eldritch and her team members it had been six years since the destruction of their own Earth, however in this reality, 25 years had passed since the fateful day in 1977…a day that had never happened.

Tears stung the corners of her eyes.

She remembered how they looked, each and every one of them; Chastity, Fast-Forward, FireKing, Magenta, Lady of Knives, Doctor Creep, Sparkfly, Deadboy Smith, Freelancer, Champion, even their own world's version of the Fightin' Fist Four and she remembered how each of them had died in pain and anguish. She remembered what it looked like, still dressed in the tattered remnants of its suit as it had torn the flesh from both Millennium Man and Millennial Boy.

Then came the emptiness heralded by the end of the world and their slow motion through cold space towards this universe...the home of that other bastard Winters who had left them all to die.

She looked up at the statute and smiled sadly.

On her world they had been lovers despite the obvious age difference between them. The wolf girl and the sun god; it was ironic considering her vows of moon worship but the power he expressed, the awe inspiring beauty of his celestial nature was such a strong aphrodisiac that even she, like her mother before had, had fallen for his charms.

Power through light, a light that shines in the darkness...it was the first thing she remembered about her early Christian upbringing, before she had renounced that and dedicated her life, and powers, to the worship of Diana. Henry Burke III had expressed everything that Christian authors had been trying to describe in regards to their own saviour for centuries; his radiance was almost a physical presence on its own.

Slowly she rose, pulling the coat of blood stained wolf fur close around her body as the desert winds gathered. The statue remained fixed before her, its vacant eyes never once moving away from her. It was fitting that Braeburn was the seat of Millennium Man's powers. The conditions of the strange backwater world mirrored the absence of Burke's soul from the power, a sign that he had died in this reality also. She wondered idly what had happened to Bruce Todd in this time - had he been Millennial Boy here also? Was he Millennium Man now?

She sighed sadly and began walking past the statue and its unmoving eyes and onwards to the village of the Hive.

There were other Millennium Men out there, everyone knew that; anyone with even the slightest hint of precognitive powers could tell that one day, the gathering multi-dimensional forces of that fleet would notice them. It was inevitable.

She shuddered and tried not to think of it. Of all the things she resented in the universe it was the idea that somewhere there was a version of Burke that had become corrupted. As a child she had idealised the man, he had been her shelter from the tumultuous relationship with her parents. As she had grown they had realised a new dimension to their friendship and, at the age of 16 she had lost her virginity to him. The four months that had followed that had been the happiest days of her life...then the Bowler came, as did the end of the world.

She glanced over her shoulder at the unmoving statue. That had all been six years ago, she was 21 now and she had abstained from sex ever since...not there was much choice on Braeburn of course. Between the insect Hive and the retarded male members of the New Mages there wasn't much of a gene pool to draw from.

Pushing thoughts of the past and future from her mind, she continued towards the village. It had been five years since she had embarked on her journey and she had discovered much in regards to the planet's lost human civilisation and the origins of Millennium Man's solar powers. A knowing smile crossed her face and she couldn't help but reach for her shoulder bag and pull back the canvas and torn material just to make sure it was there.

The smile widened on her youthful face and she felt good.

Soon everything would be perfect again. Soon Millennium Man would return to them.

* * *

The Stranger sat in silent communion with the future, listening to the whispers of unborn possibilities. Each life on the web created its own vibration, its own distinct sound signature. The omni-matrix knew this just as it knew the eventual outcome of all life. Alone at the end of the universe, the omni-matrix presided over a vast empire of emptiness. Of the six of them that comprised the surviving members of the New Mages, four had come back from #3122.

Alongside Captain Albion, the Cybernetic Man and Tanya Clandestine, the Stranger was privy to the forbidden knowledge of that other place. He knew of the war against King Og of the Bashan Empire, he knew of the Rephaim of Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzims of Ham and the Emims of Shaveh Kiriathaim and their crusade against proud Chedorlaomer, the king of planet Elam, but most of all he knew of the collapse of the Imperial Magistrate.

It was this that had given him power within the group.

The Bowler had ravaged Earth and killed many of Eldritch and Black Stars companions, an Earth that had adopted Tanya, Mikael, the Cybernetic Man and himself. However what Eldritch and Black Star did not know was that it had been Mikael, whilst in service to the Magistrate, who had taken the infant Bowler from his weeping mother and launched him into infinity all those many years ago.

The present Captain Albion, and there had been many, had also been the man who, at the command of his mistress, had begun the cycle that resulted in the end of their world.

He allowed a small smile to cross his face. The ways of the omni-matrix were chaotic and foreign to outsiders but both the Cybernetic Man and himself understood their pattern and this was the true reason why the reconstruction of the Space Hammer could not be allowed to fail.

Silently, the Galactic Stranger returned to his meditation, waiting out the days and knowing that each passing moment brought them closer to a universal truth and a new cosmic order.

* * *

"Jesus Christ, no!"

He sat bolt upright in bed, hair stuck to his forehead with perspiration and eyes wide with panic. Madly he looked about the room, his heart pounding in his chest before slowly realising where he was and calming, muscles relaxing as the realisation that it was only a dream dawned upon him.

Soft hands reached out and touched the smooth skin of his chest.

"Are you okay?" Tanya asked softly.

He nodded mutely as he searched for words with which to respond.

"Was it the Bowler again?"

"Y-yes." He finally answered, a hint of fear in his voice. "It's always the Bowler. I-I saw Millennium Man as...as the Bowler tore his head from his shoulders and Winters...that other bastard Winters, as he left us all, running towards that machine of his with his wife and friends and leaving us to die alone."

Anger rose within him, the deep burning hatred of the four that had ventured into their world and stood by whilst the Bowler had laid it to waste.

He remembered standing on the shores alongside Tanya, Bird of Paradise, Eldritch and Guanyin, watching as the world around them erupted in fire and flame. Together with Mikael, the Galactic Stranger, Ahmedabad, the Cybernetic Man, Ellyst, Doctor Summoner and Iron they had answered Champion's call for assistance. Picking through the debris in time to see the fall of the Mages of America at the Bowler's hands. Within 24 hours, Earth's finest heroes had been overcome, the New Mages had splintered as, in a last ditch escape attempt, the Cybernetic Man had moved them all from the heart of their own world and out into the depths of the shadowy other Earths that existed in the vast possibilities of time. Aside from the six of them, the fate of the others remained a mystery - perhaps they had survived amongst the myriad of other Earths, perhaps not.

He ran a hand through his damp hair and nervously began to roll a cigarette, the tobacco substitute being the harsh roots that thrived beneath the sand and soil of the strange planet.

Since the day he had become a Science Hero shortly after his 12th birthday, Antonio Chrysostom had believed in a cosmic agenda to the birth of human beings with supernatural powers. A once devout Roman Catholic, he had been the finest of the Mediterranean's pantheon of superheroes and had even met the Pope on one occasion. As a member of the New Teen Argonauts he had soon proved himself to be a powerful and just protector of not only Italy but also Europe and the Catholic faith. He graduated to the New Mages, a name he still wasn't entirely comfortable with, at the age of 20 and from there on his life had gone down hill.

Changing his name from Kid Elysium to Black Star had not been the wisest decision, neither was the supplementation of his powers with a unique astro-staff designed by Magenta the Magician. The people and Church of Rome didn't like magic and they most definitely didn't like names with 'black', or indeed anything representative of a darker nature, in the title...

But that had been on his Earth, an Earth that had ended with the arrival of the Bowler. On the world they were destined to visit, history may have played out differently.

Quietly he lit his home made cigarette and relaxed thankfully into Tanya's warm embrace. She was convinced that Magenta lived still on the Earth of this reality and through the use of his scarab, the corresponding gold scarab to her own silver one, they would be able to return to their own Earth and prevent the destruction caused by the Bowler. It was a gamble but it was all they had.

Often he had wondered what his own incarnation was like in this timeline. Was a hero here also and if so what kind of hero?

He tried to concentrate but the warmth of his strange girlfriend helped push such thoughts from his mind.

Surely if Tanya, the Galactic Stranger, Cybernetic Man and Mikael had all been members of a future New Mages beyond 1977 then their mission was destined to succeed...surely...

He closed his eyes and felt Tanya lift the cigarette from between his lips, gently stubbing it out in the crude obsidian ashtray besides their bed.

His mind drifted back into sleep and for once he was blessed with being able to ignore the horrendous events of his past.

* * *

The Cybernetic Man was descended from the omni-matrix's oldest zaddik-machines, a race of synthesised priests that had been released in the early 27^th century in order to further the teachings of the machine faith. He had been created on the monastery world of Qumran and installed with all of the teachings of their greatest prophets and writers.

It was due to this unique understanding of machine language that made him the ideal choice for correcting the eroded and decayed circuits of the Space Hammer.

The Hammer itself was an ancient artefact, older than both Braeburn and Earth combined. During the great expansion initiated by the zaddik-machines, explorer units known as the Josephus series had uncovered no less than twelve different Hammers across and beyond the omni-matrix empire. They had been studied and examined for centuries after. It was with the knowledge of this that the Cybernetic Man and Galactic Stranger were able to build a falsified Space Hammer on Earth #746364 upon their arrival.

"Still worshipping your arcane machinery, zaddik?" A cold voice called from behind him.

He turned, his dark eyes focusing on a figure moving slowly in from the desert. At first he mistook her for an animal of sorts before finally equating her with the girl that had left them five years previously.

"Eldritch." The Cybernetic Man announced coldly. "I feared you had perished."

"You wished I had perished, robot." She hissed, the corner of her lips curling up in a snarl.

"Ungrateful heathen." The machine priest responded. "Why not take your primitive animal worship and return to the desert?"

A cruel smile spread across her curled lips.

"You didn't want me to return did you?" She asked, knowing full well the answer.

The Cybernetic Man turned from her, his coarse robes brushing a small layer of sand over her worn boots.

"This is correct." The priest announced after a lengthy pause. "You are unstable."

She blinked and waited for a further reason but none was forthcoming. Around them the slow, lumbering forms of the Hive workers had paused from their soil and slowly began to form a circle.

Eldritch stepped back, suddenly all too aware of their threatening presence.

"It was the influence of your primitive psyche that drew us to this matrix forsaken world." The other snarled bitterly. "Without you we may have arrived on a civilised world but because of your crude superstitions and disgusting totemic animal praise we ended up here." He threw his arms wide, revealing his withering semi-organic body in full. "This backwards world, this pathetic excuse for a planet. All because of your infatuation with a dead man several times your senior. Without you, we would have been free...but instead you condemned us to six years of life amongst these weak-minded insects."

She looked from the withered and enraged countenance of her former colleague to the advancing Hive monstrosities.

"And so you're planning on killing me now, is that it?" She questioned.

"Yes!" The Cybernetic Man shouted in reply. "That is exactly what I plan on doing!" He threw his head back and howled in laughter.

She smiled and joined him in his laughter, her long canine teeth exposed.

The laughter died in his throat and sudden worry settled upon him. The wind gathered, her long copper hair dancing beneath the dead wolf face she wore above her eyes.

The first of the creatures lunged suddenly forwards, its multitude of claws flailing wildly and she leapt into the air, somersaulting over the beast and landing firmly behind it, her wrists pushed firmly together and her palms facing outwards like the blossoming petals of the lotus flower.

The moment froze, a small pearl of moonlight dancing between her hands. It expanded and the ground shattered in a crater about her. The Cybernetic Man's eyes widened. The ground shattered once more, the crater spreading as the light between her palms grew stronger.

He stumbled, losing his foothold in the shifting sand.

Around her she could hear the other creatures bellowing in rage, the remnants of the old village awakening with sudden and unexpected fury.

She smiled and closed her eyes, the ball of lunar energy exploding from her hands, tearing through the Hive creatures and gaining momentum as it moved.

The Cybernetic Man opened his mouth to scream but could find no words. With sudden fury, the energy ball slammed into his chest and blasted him into the Space Hammer, fusing the two disparate technologies in to a hideous statue of machinery. Moonlight exploded from every pore of his pale artificial skin and the ancient Hammer awoke once more.

* * *

Governor Carrington sipped his Darjeeling tea cautiously, his bushy great moustache bristling with anticipation, as he looked out of the main window at the rising sight of Earth just visible beyond the bulk of the maternal space station Utopia and the long winding umbilical chord that connected it to the small, modest sized facility that was Moonbase Churchill.

He stood with the cramped main office with its domed roof and sparse accommodation and felt strangely proud of himself. Despite the millions of pounds it had taken to get the retired Brigadier up from his armchair and into a space shuttle, Charles Edward Carrington liked to think that he had been worth the wait.

Not that Churchill was anything to be too proud of but considering that it was roughly the same size as Saint Paul's cathedral in London, Carrington felt they could have done a lot worse. He smiled proudly and took a sip of tea, little finger extended slightly. As his lips met the warm liquid the clock on his office wall struck four o'clock exactly.

It was a good time to be English, he thought absently to himself. Despite the odd bad apple like that awful Winters fellow who had been in the papers again as of late, Britain was keeping well out of the bloody pantomime the rest of the world seemed fervently engaged in. It was no loss really. What they lost in costumed pansies they gained in quiet intergalactic expansionism. There were even rumours that, whilst the United States ploughed more and more of its defence budget into Science Heroes, Britain might consider an expedition to Mars. Of course they couldn't have done it without the work of the Ruskies in the Cold War. He chuckled quietly to himself, careful not to disturb the surface of his tea. Sterling fellows the Ruskies, but not very good at forward planning. He smiled at his own joke and leant forwards for another sip of tea.

The alarm bells went erupted in sudden noise and the lights turned abruptly red. He hollered in shock and dropped his tea, finest china shattering on metal flooring and spilling its contents over his rather expensive shoes - shoes that had been an anniversary present from his dear wife.

He scowled angrily and marched out of his office and into the adjourning, and very crowded main operations room.

"Hopkins!" He shouted above the wail of the alarm. "Hopkins what is that bloody awful racket for?"

Gerald Hopkins, a nervous looking man in his early thirties, rushed quickly over, pushing through the assembled staff of Moonbase Churchill, each rushing to and fro like headless chickens.

"There's an object approaching us, sir!" Hopkins shouted in his superior's ear. "Something entirely alien...something from beyond our solar system!"

Carrington pulled back, a look of appalled shock on his face.

"Don't be so preposterous, man." He snarled. "And could someone please turn that bloody alarm off?"

The alarm died abruptly, the clamour of voices dying to a whisper as all eyes turned slowly to their appointed senior.

"There's no such thing as little green men." Carrington snapped angrily, unaware of how absurd such a statement was when issued from the mouth of a man standing in an artificial dome on Earth's moon. "Now will someone please tell me what the matter is?"

A sudden explosion knocked him almost to his feet and the red light died suddenly, as did every other machine in the operation's room.

"Now what the bally hell was that?" He bellowed furiously.

There was silence and a moment later the emergency generators kicked in. The old man turned and looked down at the flustered face of his subordinate and scowled.

"For God's sake, man, don't just stand there, get in contact with Utopia." He snapped.

Hopkins nodded, rushing over to a spare Albion terminal and hammering the keyboard into life again. He froze the moment the screen awakened.

"Sweet Jesus..." He murmured, his voice deathly small. He turned, face as white as a sheet and looked at Carrington. "Sir...something's...something's appeared on the Serpent Road."

Carrington blinked.

"Appeared? What do you mean appeared? Things can't just appear! Hail Utopia and ask them what the hell is the matter with the tunnel."

A second, more urgent sounding alarm suddenly erupted.

"The alien object has changed course, sir." Called out a new voice. "It's heading straight for us!"

The world went quiet for Carrington. He didn't turn, didn't listen, instead he stepped slowly over to the nearest monitor and looked at it. It was black, dotted by pale flickering white. There was a sudden flurry of motion and Carrington's unconscious mind registered that the screen had suddenly become white.

Two seconds later and the object from outer space collided with Moonbase Churchill.

* * *

Reality blistered into existence again. Mikael rose unsteadily to his feet, tears of pain in his eyes as he drew a thankful breath of air into his ancient lungs.

The Cybernetic Man lay in the corner of the room, his body fused with the Hammer surrounded by the scattered and torn pieces of the Hive workers who had been caught in their relocation from Braeburn to Earth's moon. He looked up at the ceiling and saw the great tear in the dome now filled with emergency self-generating materials.

"W-What happened...?" He asked out loud, his voice shaken and awe stricken.

"The Space Hammer was only programmed to move those with identifiable non-indigenous DNA." A voice sounded from behind him.

He turned, almost yelping with fear and saw the Galactic Stranger hovering slightly over the floor.

"All Hive creatures caught in transit were destroyed as the machine reconstructed the DNA of its programmed travellers - us."

The Malachim nodded slowly, charred feathers dropping from the tips of his great hawk wings.

"What about the inhabitants of this outpost?" He asked with uncertainty.

"Dead." The Stranger responded with a barely concealed tone of indifference. "They exploded when the atmosphere was torn from the dome. Fortunately the Hammer waited for the emergency repair measures to begin before reconstructing us."

Mikael nodded slowly.

"So...so they're all dead?" He whispered, slight anguish in his tone.

"Yes." The Stranger answered coldly.

The Malachim looked uncertainly about.

"W-We should find the others, shouldn't we?" He asked.

"Yes." The Stranger repeated, lowering himself to the ground. "Although first it may be prudent to evaluate our surroundings. It is unlikely that our arrival will have gone unnoticed."

Mikael nodded hesitantly again and stepped slowly over to the door controls on the far side of the room, gingerly moving out of the path of ruined Hive and human remnants alike. With shaking hands he reached for the release mechanism.

The door opened abruptly and a dark fear fell suddenly upon him. The path before him extended in a wide, narrow corridor that led all the way back to the neighbouring space station. He blinked but still the darkness remained, sullen and empty.

He caught his breath and stepped forwards onto the long path, his eyes scanning the shadows. Hesitantly he glanced back at the Galactic Stranger and barely managed to stifle a scream as his very heart rose up in his throat.

The Stranger's eyes rolled upwards and black liquid seeped from his mouth. He reached out for Mikael and failed, falling face down to the ground.

Standing behind him was a tall woman, dark hair spilling across her shoulders. From her back rose two mighty wings of black feathers and her very visage was like that of a statue carved in marble. The face cracked, twisting in a viperous smile.

"Hallo, Mikael." She purred.

His eyes travelled downwards and caught sight of the mighty sword she held in her hands, its blade stained by the Stranger's dark blood. The feathers of the woman's wings fluttered slightly and she retracted them revealing five distinct figures: three men and two women. His eyes stopped on the uniform of the largest of the three men and horrific understanding dawned.

"You...you're..."

The woman nodded and smiled viciously, her snake like tongue flickering behind the rows of barred teeth.

"That's right, sunshine. We're the New Mages and you," She turned the sword and pointed it directly at him. "You're history."

His eyes widened and the mighty Malachim warrior opened his mouth wide and screamed.