Tomat seemed to be the first to recover. He came out slowly first, but quickly. His high metabolism allowed him to easily bounce back from knock outs when compared to humans.

He didn't know why but it seemed that there didn't seem to be a ship anymore. No ruins nothing, and yet he was still wearing his suit and everyone who went on the expedition was knocked out cold in the same area.

It seemed as if the ship didn't even exist.

He looked around his surroundings, It was a desert landscape that seemed to stop a couple of miles out. There seemed to be a huge cliff wall everywhere he looked. It was as if someone or something put them in a giant bucket filled with sand and they were ants within it.

He decided to look up at the sky, there he saw a purple sky, and what seemed to be an obsidian obelisk suspended in mid air.

It was hard to convince himself that he wasn't hallucinating. He would simply have to wait for his fellow members to awaken before taking any action.

He decided to whip out his T34 to contact the station: The only message he got was " Out of Area"

His head was spinning. Ryan Hawke slowly sat up, though the dizziness didn't make it at all easy. He looked up and soaked in the sight. His jaw dropped. "My god! Where the hell am I?!?" He looked around and saw some of the others lying around and then saw Tomat standing away a bit, holding his T34 and cursing in an alien tongue Hawke wasn't quite familiar with.

He got onto his feet and approached him, "Mr. Tomat, any idea how we got here?"

Marcus woke up. His first thought was, "Am I still alive?"

He opened his eyes. His second thought was, "Holy crap! It's a purple sky!"

He realised he was on his back. His third thought was, "Oh shit! The nuke!"

Jumping up, Marcus spun around a few times trying to get at the case on his back before calming enough to detach it properly and inspect it. There were a few dents but it appeared that the nuke wouldn't detonate unintentionally for the time being.

Whew! Lucky. Didn't even get time to place it before things went FUBAR. At least John planted his. Looks like I'm stuck with this thing wherever the hell we are

He did a quick check and found that all his gear was still there and in working condition. Looking around, he spots Tomat and Lt. Hawke up and about, some ways over. He waves at them then walks over.

John's head spun. He opened his eyes, but the world was spinning. He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. John began to gag and puked a large amount of liquid. He coughed and gaged until finally he was able to catch his breath. John came up to one knee and looked up. The color of the sky made him sick. He stood up and the brightness of the land glared into his eyes. He felt his side and could feel that he still had his pistol. The weight on his back was heavy so he assumed his rifle was still holstered. He say the Doctor and a few Soldiers standing a few meters away. He stood and took a step in the sand, but his legs immediately gave out and he fell to the sand again. He stopped his fall with his forearms and stood again. He staggered as he moved across the sand until finally his body and regained control and his nerves were in line. "Where the hell are we!? He shouted as he approached.

Dr. Brink had only just woken up from his coma. The first thing he noticed was commotion beyond belief, everybody was yelling different things.

He noticed Tomat with two marines, perhaps Marcus and Ryan? Or maybe not.

The he then heard someone scream, "Where the hell are we?"

An excellent question Ludgar thought to himself. He had never seen an alien world like this , purple sky. Seemingly endless desert blocked by huge cliffs at the distance.....

He took out his T34, no signal......

After careful thought he decided to contact Tomat's T34 instead...

---------

Tomat saw both Marcus and Ryan walk up to him. One of them asked, "Mr. Tomat, any idea how we got here?". Tomat thought for a moment The Orb in the control room? He then stopped and carefully replied, " No..... I haven't the slightest idea...."

His T34 began to rumble. The Station? No.... it's just Brink

He opened up his channel and heard Ludgar's voice filter through, " Thank god short communications work! Alright Tomat I have no idea what's going on but first thing is first we have to survive." Tomat was keen to take charge and he replied, " Very well, I'll lead."

This only made Ludgar angry, " Listen Alien...., this isn't an expedition anymore. This is a test of survival in an unknown area. So if I were you I would gather everyone up and listen to me."

Tomat swallowed his pride, he knew too little about the landscape to force a mutiny. "Fine.." He replied

---------

After gathering everyone around him Dr. Brink made an announcement.
" As of this moment we are not longer on an expedition. We are now trying to survive.... Of course we won't survive long if the air here isn't breathable. The sensors in my suit says the atmosphere can contain..... humans....... but we can't be completely sure. So I volunteer to take the plunge!"

At that moment he shrugged off his helmet and held his breath. He started breathing slowly at first then normally.

It seemed that the sensors were right. The air was breathable

Now they just had to find food and water....

Somehow a frequence came down to Tomat entailling "This is Asanagi. We have obtained the next predicted location of the Prothean ship. Will you be there, or has there been complications?". The message was sent to Tomat directly and non-audio, this way anyone who wasn't supposed to hear wouldn't.

Something blinked on Tomat's T34 some one not in the immediate vicinity was contacting him.

He saw a written message spell out. He decided to write back

" Forget our deal, things have just gotten out of control."

He wasn't going to deal with that anymore, since it already got him into a sticky situation. As far as he was concerned Asanagi and Triple Upsilon were on the other side of the universe.

A response was sent to Tomat's message "Are you sure you don't want a lift? There is about 7 hours to the next appearance.".

He thought about his response long and hard.

"I'll see what happens"

That was the best way to describe his situation at that moment.

Marcus could only stare incredulously at Dr. Brink as he just ran roughshod over Tomat to assume leadership. He knew that some scientists did field work, but the doc was too eccentric to be an effective leader. Adviser, yes, but not a leader. However, now was not the time to arguing the point.

He shook his head in disbelief at the doc's theatrical display of sampling the air. Marcus left his helmet on and his suit sealed. He'd rather let the suit filter the air in-case of any unknown contaminants, standard OP for unknown environments which was doubly reinforced by the events on Feros and the Thorian.

He noticed Tomat using his T34, but thought nothing of it. Marcus was more worried about the dangers of the doc's enthusiasm.

" Alright then, we shall all stick together and try to find some food and/or water." Brink told the crowd with enthusiasm, " Let's go.... that way!"

Although many people rather disagreed with Brink taking command they really had no objections to exploring their situation.

---- 15 minutes later ---

The crowd had seemed to come upon the debris of a ship. Similar in design to the one they boarded earlier but surely smaller. Almost half of the ship seemed to be buried underneath sand, and the rest jutted up to produce an almost cave fashion.

The doctor was the first one to go in followed by Tomat then everyone else.

Most of the ship was destroyed and hardly anything seemed to be worth any value. Brink seemed to be fascinated with a large dangling cable in front of him though.

He gathered everyone's attention and announce , " I'm going to take down this cable, we might be able to use it for something later."

Tomat was quick to counter that, " We don't even know if this thing is unplugged, if you touch it, it may kill you."

And so the progress seemed to be brought to another standstill due to arguing, many people knew of course it was more of a power struggle than a concern about death in this case.

Ryan approached Dr. Brink, helmet under his right arm and cleared his throat. "Dr. Brink? Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hawke, sorry we hadn't the oppurtunity to meet prior to this uh... incident. I was busy coordinating with the Nautilus on expedition defense. I'm sure you're quite busy bickering with Mr. Tomat, but I have to say that's quite counterproductive."

He looked around at his surrounds. Sand, wreckage, wear and tear. Prothean stuff never comes intact, does it?

"Dr. Brink? Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hawke, sorry we hadn't the oppurtunity to meet prior to this uh... incident. I was busy coordinating with the Nautilus on expedition defense. I'm sure you're quite busy bickering with Mr. Tomat, but I have to say that's quite counterproductive."

Brink stopped and looked at the man, he realized he was right and that a power struggle wasn't getting them anywhere. He briefly turned to Tomat and told him, " We could learn a thing or two from this man"

"indeed" Tomat agreed.

" In either case" Brink continued " I'm taking the cable"
Ludgar put a tight grasp on the cable and gave it a tug loosening it instantly. As it fell to the ground a small spark came out and landed on the floor, the spark soon seemed to grow to the size of a small bushfire and it danced along the floor memorizing everyone. Within moments it vanished as soon as it appeared.

Everyone was quiet then Tomat let out a small whisper, " I told you so"

John followed the group into the ship. He stood near the back yawning. He was exhausted, but there was no time to rest. Whatever had happened to them wore him out, and he was tired. They were arguing again, which was not a good sign. They couldn't decide on whether to pull a cord or not. How would the decision of what to do go...

( Here's a little picture of what we saw dancing around)

Dr.Brink reached down to pick up the cable and announced, " In any case it will still come in handy"

"Well" Tomat sighed, "What do we do now?"

Ludgar gave a quick answer, " We move on that's what"

everyone stared at Ludgar as he walked a few paces turned around and asked, "What?"

....

Tomat asked Ludgar, " Do you believe in ghosts Doctor?"

Ludgar placed his hands on his forehand and told Tomat, " No, No I don't. Can we PLEASE GET MOVING?"

Tomat looked around and saw that everyone didn't seem to be in a mood to walk and casually replied " No I don't think we will"....

Ludgar was furious at this point and screamed, " Fine then! Die here if you all want to!" He began to turn and run before tripping over face first.

When he came to he looked at his foot and saw a small trinket sticking out of the ground that made him trip. He carefully pulled it out of the ground, it looked like a small golden fish attached to a wire.

He looked confused and asked a general question, " Was this here before"

holding it up the fish began to spin in circles.... faster and faster.... until it stopped, pointing north...

John didn't budge when the alien fell. He was drawn and amazed at what he had stumbled over. It began to spin until stopping on a point. It was facing North. "What the?" John approached from the back of the crowd. "Do you think it is pointing to a way out?

Dr. Brink looked at John and asked him, " Do you ask for directions from fish?"

Tomat was quick to voice his protest and said , " He could very well be right"

Ludgar seemed to be defeated at the possibility, he moaned and said, " Fine let's go then."

John was unsure if the Doctor was wise or looking for an argument. The other however agreed with John. "I am not trying to knock you off your thrown doctor, but at the moment we have no leads. It wouldn't hurt to search up North"

Ludgar had heard John tell him, " I am not trying to knock you off your thrown doctor, but at the moment we have no leads. It wouldn't hurt to search up North"

Still walking North with everyone else and not even turning around he sarcastically replied, "Thanks for the advice" and continued walking.

-10 minutes later-

The team had stopped at what seemed to be a non nondescript location. The odd thing was, whatever Dr.Brink had found seemed to be going in circles, like a compass does at one of the poles on earth.

Everyone stared blankly at it, before Tomat interrupted and simply voiced everyone's thoughts, " I'm drawing a blank."

"Well gentlemen, we seem to be at an empasse." Ryan placed a hand on his chin, the other arm crossed beneath it. "We have no clue where we are, our only navigational lead turned up empty and here we sit, alone. Were I head of this expedition, I'd make it my priority to pool our resources to make everyone last as long as possible."

Hawke pulled his survival supplies out of various pockets on his body armor. He placed it all on the ground. "I have a few packs of survival rations and a canteen of water. Everyone else might want to pitch in. It may be a while before help arrives or we find a way off."

Dr. Brink looked at his suit, and began to pull out some things he had while saying " That is a good idea"

The only real things he had on him was a survival ration and a collapsible shovel which he began to unravel as he pulled it out. "This might prove useful"

Tomat also checked his pockets but simply replied, " Sorry I don't have anything beyond the T34's I thought this was a temporary mission" He shot a glare at Ludgar in the process.

The Fish that was spinning was soon thrown on to the floor by Ludgar , "Worthless thing!" he said as he spat at it.

At that moment the fish seemed to have magically stood up, as if it was balancing by itself. Ludgar gave a quick step on it, but it simply stood back up.

"Curious" Tomat murmured to himself.

there seemed to be a hush moment of silence that befell everyone there. Dr.Brink was the first to make a comment, " I think there might be something underground" He quickly pulled out his shovel. "Being the only archaeologist here I think it's logical that I dig." Nobody seemed to show any complaints.

At first he couldn't quite pierce the ground with his shovel, but after a few tries to broke ground and the digging was underway. The ground was soft and muddy in extreme contrast to the sand on the surface. Eventually the doctor stopped digging and faced the crowd before him to make an announcement. " The ground seems to be very unstable, anything can happen. I suggest everyone stands back because I'll need room to carefully excavate this."

the crowd slowly backed away as ordered and he continued digging

-15 minutes in-

The doctor gave a hard push in what seemed to be almost solid rock only for it to give away instantly to his shovel. The ground around him seemed to crumble like dust underneath his feet. At first he was surprised and yelled, " What? The ground is giving way!" soon this turned into a scream as he plummeted down the ever growing hole. Tomat leaped to grab his hand, but it was too late...

Staring down the hole Tomat turned to the gathering crowd and told them, " I can see his body at the bottom, the cave in seemed to have created a ramp down..... but he's not moving....."

As the doctor dug John took a seat on the sand, and became to relax. The doctor was working hard digging and soon he was deep into the sand. Then he was gone. John leaped to the edge of the hole, but it was too late. The doctor had fallen.

" I can see his body at the bottom, the cave in seemed to have created a ramp down..... but he's not moving....."

John grabbed a flair from his belt and pulled the wick. It sparked then lit. John dropped it into the hole and it illuminated the dark cave as it fell to the bottom next to the Doctor.

Marcus looked down at where Tomat lay then eyed the ramp of sand appraisingly.

"Doc, we're going to have to get down to Tomat but we have to be careful that we don't knock anything onto him. We should use the cable to help us get down."

( Skyr, I don't want to intrude on your post but Doc. Fell down not Tomat :) )

( At this point due to a lack of post I'm thinking of propelling the story by itself, thanks to everyone for taking interest at one point)

Tomat threw the cable down the hole and tied one end to a rock nearby. " It was really hardly necessary" he thought to himself, " The ramp wasn't too steep" He slowly walked his way down to Ludgar crumpled body.

Tomat had taken courses on determining if the vital signs of organisms close to his structure were still alive. He took Ludgar's pulse..... nothing....

A wave of discontent washed over Tomat, he had never really liked Brink, in fact you could almost say he hated him. But Tomat never wanted anyone to die.

He just sat and looked at the body oblivious to the catacombs underground that now surrounded him.