Pazu said something which Snowflake couldn't make out. She roused back to some semblance of consciousness, staring up at the canopies of red and white silk bouncing above her head. She twitched and made to rub her face. "What? Where ...are we? Whazzat those cloth things? There. Outside the canopy?" Pazu groaned and sighed,"For a Machine-life to sound as groggy as you, you're probably concussed, too." After a moment of running a diagnostic on herself she said sadly,"At least the majority of my organs are functioning at some level. On the level. Are we off level? Nose up? Climbing in reverse? My voice is slurred. What happened?" Pazu sighed again,"You are a REAL living creature. A Dark Energy bomb on the Asuran Battleship detonated while we were leaving the area. We...we Melosi ran into Dark Energy bombs before. They have to be frequency specific. Otherwise they kill ALL life they encounter, including the makers of the bomb." "Freaky-see? Frequency. Right. Impairment of mental state detected." Snowflake looked out the right side or the cockpit from the dead instruments. Pazu continued,"Frequency! Like LIFE has. Galactic level technology went dead when it went off. We were heading for a soft landing when the bomb went off. I thought it would. Secondary charge destroyed the fighter. I triggered the parachutes when it seemed low enough. That's all the good news I have." "Look over there to the right, where we're drifting...what does that mountain look like?" Pazu asked like it was the build up to a joke. "Voc-lano. No. Vocal anal. No. Volcano! Molten lava and such! Got it. Dammit I need my brain not to swell like. We're drifting toward a VOLCANO?" Snowflake sounded shocked. Pazu remarked matter-of-factually," My leg is broken, my star-fighter is debris, we're both concussed, and on a whole ice-world--WE'RE falling into the only active volcano I can see in sight!" Snowflake looked down, and said,"If we rock side to side, we might get one of the parachutes caught on the rim. It's very rough blow. BELOW. Under us. Crap." Pazu said quickly, as the yawning steam-filled hole rushed up at them,"A moment from now, while we're boiling in lava--don't scream loud. I have a head-ache. You're the best gunner I ever flew with. Good job, rookie." She would have said something wise and profound, but picked then to black out again, as the huge ice-mountain's mouth swallowed them from sight. --TO BE CONTINUED!--