The 4 eggs were next to me and I was in a kind of cupola surrounded by electric wires to serve as a nest.

All around me, it was dark and damp, and from time to time I could see sparks on the ceiling and floor. They were crackles.

My body, always the same, had reverted to that of a baby dragon, the size of a 2-year-old on all fours if you exclude my elongated neck and tail, which was the length of my body and neck together.

Next to me, there were mitary cans and against one wall pallets of corned beef, Military Rations....

I approached these cans and saw that they were in English and French. !!!! French??? and Spanish?

Obviously, I was no longer on Alpha... but on Earth...

But Earth disappeared centuries ago.

Something's not right.

I began to crawl and my reflex was to hungrily bite anything that moved. Like a reptile hatching from an egg.

But nothing moved and I pounced on the tin of corned beef.

I bit into the metal and the can resisted...

My teeth hadn't fully erupted from my gums and, regaining my senses, I pulled the latch and engulfed my snout and tongue to revel in the jellied meat contents...

It was delicious, and then, coming to my senses, I carefully licked the sides, avoiding the sharp edges.

Best before date: April 2026 Last before date: 2028.

The boxes weren't inflated so it should be before 2028 and as the contents were delicious, it had to be before 2026!!!!

Then, looking at Tiamat who was lying on her side with a head and 4 neck stumps cauterized with flame, I smelled something ranse and dried blood.

I continued to explore and saw that we were in my lair, but it was as if the sphere had been half crushed and then cut in two, partially melted.

The whole control section had... disappeared and in its place were rocks, as if a titanic force had pushed the ship to the bottom of a volcanic cave.

I leaned my head against the rock and it was hot, burning in places and frozen in others.

Tiamat addressed me.

"My little one...It's the end..."

?????

"Mommy? What's happening?" I caught myself saying Mommy... something was wrong in my head and I realized I was like a new child with memories of a previous life... It was a strange sensation."

I approached the amputated monster and faced its head to look into its eyes, but to my horror I saw that almost half of its face was missing and that scar fluid was oozing out.

Immediately I thought of my paladin prayers and healing powers.

She raised a paw: "No.. Don't try, it'll finish me off! I'm a demon and I'm on my way to Faerune or my final judgment. I've lived too long..."

I understood why she was lying on her side!

She was missing her front and left hind legs! She was practically cut in two, her organs held together by scarred skin. Mama Tiamat was dying - well, she wouldn't last more than a few months, if not weeks.

I started to cry and snuggled up to her.

What's happened?

Where are we?

After these words, Tiamat's breathing became wheezy, almost exhausted.

"I've given you back your life! ..but I beg your pardon... I've taken so much from you and all that... for nothing.... It's all over! but I've realized that everything I was looking for, everything I fought for, was really for you... to find... my poor little..."

Ah... I realized I was a female dragon.

I wanted to ask a question, but Tiamat had fallen asleep, passed out.

I got up and surveyed her wounds.

Her body was literally crushed and burned, despite her powerful regeneration and immunity to physical attack.

What could have done this?

So I began to inspect the surroundings and went round the "garage".

With a splinter of stone, I inspected the sizzling wires and separated the short-circuited ones. It was a reflex to save energy, but at this point I had to see what was still working and what was destroyed, and whether there was a potential risk of explosion or fire, or worse, contamination.

My senses told me that there were traces of radiation on the molten edges cut and welded into the molten rock. It was like an amalgam of rock and cooled molten metal.

I realized I was in a wreck, a carcass. And worse still, if I somehow cut through the panels and beams to rebuild my base, the cave would collapse on us.

So I reached a trapdoor on the floor, turned the human-sized lever and gained access to the technical basement.

There, at the end of a corridor lit only by faint red LEDs, I reached an engine section control room.

I opened a fuse panel and took note of which fuses were up and which were down. There was a mana battery backup power supply, untouched.

On a server-type rack, I pulled out the drawer and a monitor and keyboard appeared.

Then I switched on the monitor.

Immediately, I saw the ship's schematic in red, with only the area where I was standing green.

I then launched a command to scan the extent of the damage and what I could do if there were any repair drones or mana crystals I could use or ingest to recover magic.

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The result wasn't long in coming: the ship was cut in two.

The structure crushed, leaving only 30%. The command center, gone. The power and energy storage center, gone. The atomic power plant... vaporized... the workshop... melted...

all that remained was the dimensional engine, the floor and part of the uncollapsed vault.

Basically, all that was left was a piece of armor holding the rocks above us and the base. We might as well rebuild the whole thing, the base being as twisted as the rest. And the dimensional engine, even if I added mana or power, would explode. It's a miracle it didn't explode and take half the planet with it... or collapse into a black hole...

Then, defeated, like Tiamat I lay down on the floor under the desk like a beast and started to cry...

I was a child with a new life ahead of me, and my memories of my previous life were like an insidious poison.

I remembered the padre's words...

"You live, you breathe, be happy that you have all your senses. He had said other things, but my sobs got the better of me.

I had to know more.

The computer date didn't mean anything because it was for the old world, the world before...

Then I remembered, radio, TV... a signal perhaps?

I went back to the industrial pc and turned on the radio or tv function, to pick up something but I got sizzling and pixel fog, but every now and then, there was like a zigzag!...

Yes... there's signal.

Then, a voice... with a woman on the screen, like a newscaster... but the image disappeared.

Bong sang!

Yes! The signal... it's not coming through!

We need an antenna but we're underground, yet if I'm getting a weak signal, we can't be far underground.

But my baby body was beginning to fail me... I got sleepy and just had the strength to turn back to Mom.

Where were we? Where were we? And what was to become of us?

I had so many questions!