"Ye gods!" Molly Glenn heard someone whisper.  "The ugliest ship I've ever seen!"

"Monkey-woman," whispered someone else, as she regained consciousness.  "Hordak’s been mutating Mystic Mountain bat-monkeys to use, as drones in his war-machines, you know."

"How barbaric," remarked a bearded Hugh Grant lookalike in Elizabethan drag, as he leaned in for closer inspection.  "As if flying that hideous space-tub wasn't torment enough!  Do you think the neuro-semantomy cap worked, Dr.  Geiger? Can this .. thing .. understand us?"

"I can sure can smell'ya, Hamlet!" Molly sputtered, fixing her half-crossed eyes on Prince Randor and choking on rocket fuel fumes.  "Doesn’t anybody take a bath around – where the hell am I, anyway?!"

Howls of laughter erupted from the fog behind Hamlet, and his bearded, young face flushed with outrage! As Captain Glenn rubbed her eyes, she could see that she was laying in some sort of trench, and that there were other costumed figures standing around Hamlet, in a dense fog.  Even through the haze, Molly could see they all had something else in common, besides the costumes and the laughing.

Every one of their fifteen rifles was trained on her.

Suddenly, the violence of the crash, the shock of the UFO simulation, the taste of anchovies and birthday cake, flooded Molly's brain!  In her delirium, the madwoman grabbed Hamlet by his big, puffy collar.

And the fog around them abruptly stopped laughing.

"You .. filthy .. BEAST!" Hamlet squealed, scrubbing Molly’s kiss from his lips and leaping to his feet.  "No doubt, you've infected me with some synthetic germ that will .. eat off my HEAD!!"

As Hamlet raved about germs and barbarians and itchy undergarments, a loud crack of thunder sounded from the darkness overhead! The costumed figures instinctively ducked, cocked their plasma rifles and looked up.  High, in the black clouds above them, snakes of fiery, pink electricity rippled across the sky in every direction!

The sound of their crackling bedlam filled the air, ..followed by a cold, dead silence.

Old Banquo rushed to Prince Randor’s side.  "Sire, Bright Moon Company just picked up Duncan the Graylander on the north shore! I sent’im back to camp in a trak."

Randor turned to the old man, inquisitively.  "Very well, old friend.  Now, out with the rest! The force shield?"

Old Banquo nearly stammered.  "Gone, milord.  The Horde Skyslayer Rakash has been detected .. eighty kronars above these Berserker Isles, sire."

For reasons unknown to Captain Marlena Glenn, a sea of narrowed, hateful eyes turned to her.  In the middle of all of them, Hamlet motioned some of the other costumed freaks to come closer.  "She’s with them.  Take this Horde spy away!"

Enraged, Molly struggled to stand! "What did you call me?!"

Prince Randor gestured to his soldiers.  A bolt of lightning tore into Molly’s chest, and her eyes closed.

When they opened, there was smoke everywhere!  The heat was suffocating, and Captain Glenn fumbled for her photon pistol, as she struggled to stand up and push her way out of a small, dark gray tent.  The ground beneath her heels shook.  She stumbled slightly, and in that instant, her finger instinctively tightened over the trigger.  A bright blue ribbon of light rippled from the weapon in her hand, and Molly was cutting down anything that came at her.

Was this real?

As she staggered through the smoke and heat, Molly realized everyone, who took a swing at her, was wearing a costume.  Medieval-styled armor.  Dog masks.  Lizard masks.  Roman-styled helmets.  Some of them were working each other over with medieval weapons -- maces, hammers, broadswords and oversized axes.  Others were spraying the scene with high-tech firearms that seemed to pump out EM energy faster than anything the Pentagon or the FSA had ever shown her.

Run, Molly thought.  Run like hell.

Nothing to run to, but the ground shook so hard that the rock beneath her feet shifted, and her legs just started pumping.  In swift succession, five, big tremors hammered the land.  Molly half-stumbled.  Through the smoke, she saw a thick crowd of men and women in medieval-styled armor running in her direction, .. and with so wild a pace that they didn't seem to notice her.  Shielding her head between her forearms, she slipped through the throng and into a shaft of light.

The wind kicked up.  Hard.

Through the black clouds overhead, something moved.  Even when the smoke had dissipated enough for Captain Glenn to see it, her eyes refused to believe it.  A large, metal, cigar-shaped thing, the size of an ocean-liner, hovered in the sky.  The glare of searchlights swept over her face.  Blinding her.  She squinted before it.  Her eyes fluttered, and she saw that the armored uglies she was elbowing aside were running away from the damned thing, .. and some of them were not running at all.  A charred smell, like Jacksonville barbecue, filled her nostrils, and she followed it to a pile of metal and raw hamburger at her feet.

She was standing in it.

This was some kind of movie set she'd crashed onto, Molly thought.  Some big Hollywood type is shooting a goddam space movie on location, probably in the Hawaiian islands or somewheres.  Sure!  Maybe, she'd even gone down in California, not too far from Edwards Air Force Base, and crash-landed right into this goddam movie set -- and nobody noticed?!

Something slammed into Captain Glenn from behind, knocking her to the ground and into a trench!

"Get the hell offa' me .. and keep your hands where I can see'em!" Molly growled, wriggling out from under her armored attacker and climbing on top of him.  He had a hard face -- a strong face, with a thick, short red beard and mustache, framing a pair of piercing, iron-grey eyes.  Molly didn't stare; she had the barrel of her laser pistol squarely up one of his nostrils, before the guy even knew what hit him.  "Who are you?! Now!"

"Duncan." Armor-All hissed, in a heavy, almost-Scottish accent.  "Duncan! Last of the Graylanders! I just saved your ..!"

Captain Glenn slammed her fist into her prisoner's cheek and climbed off of him.  Bracing herself against the trench's side, she kept her weapon trained on him.  "Answer the question! WHERE are we?!"

"Point Vulnar -- Beserker Islands," the man answered with an uncertain smile.  "What's left of them.  That was a bloody skyslayer back there, y'know.  You ever seen what one of them can do to a city?  I just saved your .."

"I heard you the first time!" Molly kept the weapon where she'd aimed it. "Some costumed jerk just called me a whore-spy and shot me in the chest! Don't even think about getting thanked right now! What the hell is ..?"

The armored oaf actually started laughing.  Laughing his head off, .. with a gun in his face!

"What's so funny?!" Molly growled.

The big, doofus just kept laughing.  "Horde."

"What?" Molly asked again.

"Not 'whore', woman," the laughing man choked, wiping his eyes.  "Horde.  Horde-spies are everywhere.  You really aren't from around here, .. are you? Maybe, you banged your head in that crash, eh?"

Molly didn't answer, unsure just how much she should reveal about her situation .. or how much she should trust Highlander here.  She tried to place him among the faces she'd seen earlier, when some other armored nutcases were pulling her free of her starship's wreckage.  She racked her brains for some grade school memory of where the 'Berzerker Islands' was on a map.  Neither registered.

"Where'd you say you were from, again?" Armor-All asked.

"I didn't," Molly replied carefully, but something broad and uncomplicated about this Duncan's face got to her - reminded her of Buck.  "I'm .. from the U.S.  I'm an American."

"Never been there." Armor guy grimaced.  "Don't 'spect it to be there, when you get back, either.  It's been a year, I've been fightin' these scum, .. alone!  They wiped out my entire tribe in less than a day.  Crushed the Black Desert Republics in a fortnight.  Now the Eternian Kingdoms are .."

Duncan's words were cut off by laserfire.  Something shot his American captor's gun right out of her hand.

"The Eternian Kingdoms, as usual, are surrounded by invading alien hordes, barbarian scum .. ," Prince Randor sighed wearily, waving his laser rifle over the trench and locking eyes with Molly, " -- and spies, .. like Monkey Woman, there."

At least, he didn't call her a 'whore' this time, Molly thought.  Plain, old 'spy' was virtually a promotion.  "This is the bum, who shot me in the chest.  You two know each other?"

"Everyone knows his brother, now," Duncan snarled.  "Eh, Randy?  The Horde just made him the governor of Serpentia!  How long's it going to be, before you fetch for'em, Your Highness, .. and sell all these good people to the sod-heap for a pat of butter?"

"That THING in the desert is not Keldor!"  Banquo raved at Randor's side, as his soldiers gathered behind him.  "I seen Lord Keldor die with mine own eyes -- saved us all, he did!  E'was a good man!"

"Was." Duncan mocked, half-under his breath.

Old Banquo drew his dagger and lunged towards the trench, where Prince Randor had Duncan and Captain Glenn trapped, when his young lord held him back.  "You godless, dog-eating savage! I oughta' cut you open and..."

The old codger's fury was so palatable, Molly felt herself digging her heels into the dirt of the trench.  She was sure he'd never admit it, but she'd seen Duncan flinch, too.  This whole scene was getting too weird and too real.

"Easy, Man-At-Arms!" Prince Randor whispered to the heavily armored, old man, gently restraining him.  "Stand down.  Report."

"All shields secured, milord." Old Banquo answered him, composing himself.  "The Skyslayer Rakash has been successfully repelled and was last logged proceeding South, at fifty hundred kronars a second.  We suffer casualties.  Many casualties."

Randor turned back to the trench, pointing an accusing finger at Captain Glenn.  "You -- monkey-woman!  You're the cause of all of this!  You were sent here by the Evil Horde to destroy our shields and expose us to attack!"

"Evil Horde -- are you kidding me?!" Captain Glenn laughed.  "Cut and print this, Polansky!  That wreck you pulled me out of is the REAL THING -- okay?  I'm a REAL as-tro-naut, ..Captain Marlena A. Glenn!  I'm -- I was exploring the very REAL planet Vee-nus!  Shit!  I just survived a CRASH -- probably need to see a doctor!  I'm Captain Marlena A. -- don't any of you Tinseltown geniuses read the papers?!"

A hush went over Randor's soldiers, as all very carefully turned to him, perplexed.

Even Armor-All slipped her a confused look, this time.

"Read the papers?"  Randor's bluish-gray eyes narrowed at Molly inquisitively, and he paused.  "You really are mad, .. aren't you?!"

"Could be, Shakespeare," Captain Glenn mused, with an awkward smirk.  "Of course, if I was dreaming, you'd be barefoot, half-naked and repairing something.  Y'know -- like light plumbing, puttin' up drywall, .. building me a new deck.  Something greasy .. and sweaty!  You'd also be wa-aay better-looking."

"Oh, yeah," Armor-All snickered, rolling his eyes.  "She's mad."

"Actually, .. I'm lost!"  Molly couldn't quite figure out where Hammy was going with this.  "Somehow, my ship dropped off the radar and crashlanded in the middle of your movie set! What is this, High-Lander?  Star-wars, maybe? What planet is this supposed to be?"

Hamlet and Armor-All searched each other's faces for some clue to what Molly was on about.  Armor-All smiled politely, "Eternia.  Planet Eternia."

"Eternia?!" Molly's eyes lit up.  Then, just as quickly, she buried her face in her hands.  "Okay -- don't tell me.  Gimme' a sec, here.  Oh, hell.  I give up! What sci-fi franchise is that in? What movie are we shooting, here?"

No one answered.

Molly looked up at the outlandish collection of characters gathered around her.  Not their costumes.  Not the masks they were wearing, if they were masks.  In each face, she read a long, rambling epic, full of triumph and sorrow.

Hunger.  Hope.  Grief.

Not the kind of crap you see on Lifetime between pints of Edie's.  Oh, no.  This was deep doo-doo of the Conrad-Mailer variety.  This was the goddam heart o'darkness.

Some fifteen paces behind Hamlet, Captain Glenn saw a heavily armored man on his knees, cradling the limp form of a teenaged girl.  The girl's armor looked as though it'd been cracked open with a jackhammer.  Her blood was all over him.  His eyes, stretched wide and glassy with tears, made a scream his gaping mouth and throat could not find anymore.

His eyes asked Molly for a warmth and comfort that was spilling out into the scorched dirt underneath him.