The Late Great Bazyli Heinrich's... Return?

As they drew near the Gracious Beacon, Sam noticed an alcove on the right side of the ship that they were approaching. Two arms extended out from either end of the transport and as it raised up towards the ceiling of the alcove they locked into two clamps that pulled it into place. The door to his left slid open and the soldiers began to file out.

The otter commander chittered at him. "Follow Officer Sinzarus. He will guide you to one of our available officer's quarters." Outside in the corridor an otter soldier was looking at him expectantly. Sam nodded and followed the officer's lead. He quickly lost track of any sense of direction as they turned corners, ascended stairs, and then wound up a ramp. They arrived into a long hallway, and after passing a few doors they walked through one.

"You are permitted these quarters for your own use. I would advise against living this room without prior approval from Commander Grielda." The soldier bowed slightly. "I take me leave of you now." With that he marched out into the hall and returned the way they came.

With a big breath, he fell back onto the bed, only to find it wasn't as solid as he had thought. "A water bed? I guess it makes sense, being otters and all." Rolling back off the bed he felt something crumple in his pocket. "What the?" Pulling it out, he realized it was the note that came with the belt. Straightening it out, he began to read it's contents.

"Samuel, you are a terrible scientist." Wow, what a great way to start a note. Sam thought. "You are indeed dreadful, but your heart bursts full every time we do an experiment. For that, you have my utmost respect. I seem to remember your birthday is coming soon, and if you recall I am getting up there in age, so my time comes as well. I worry about your future once I'm gone, so I made a gift for you. I'm sure you understand how how to use all my past inventions by now. so this belt shouldn't give you too much trouble. I have two new inventions that I have never released along with it. The pouch and the dialing piece are the most important parts. The pouch is a quantum dimensional pocket. You can store near limitless items inside. Of course, it's limited to what will fit in the opening, but it is most likely the simplest of my inventions, so you should have no problem figuring it out. The second, well, reach in. It's already set for that to be the first item withdrawn. Good luck my young friend."

"Well I guess I might as well." Reaching in he felt a metallic disc. No sooner had he pulled it from the pouch, it jerked out of his hand. Landing on the floor, it began to transform. First it detached legs, then arms, followed by a small head.

"Finally!" Came a familiar voice. "Do you realize I could feel and hear everything? You took forever to pull me out. All I needed was your fingerprint and I could act, but I had to wait on you!"

"D-Dr. Heinrich?"

"Yes? Why are you so shocked?"

"But you died..."

"Oh my original self died rather quickly didn't he?" Sam still had a confused expression, to which the small metal Heinrich sighed. "So this particular invention had unforeseen side effects that I couldn't account for. As soon as my original self designed the appropriate apparatus and scanned his brain, his entire body was washed with a unique energy not natural to Earth. He built it with a foreign mineral from an meteorite he procured."

"Did that energy give him cancer?"

"Oh is that how he died? I suppose it makes sense. The energy began to cause a break down of his cells. It could have caused a much faster breakdown in his DNA that would amount to cancer. Rather quick for death though." It placed a tiny metal hand on what must have been it's chin. A very Heinrich-like behavior.

"The doctors did say that his age had to have played a part in the cancer taking him without setting in heavily."

"Ah yes that makes- that's neither here nor there! We're off track." It launched into the air and landed on his arm. "Here give me that translation device." Sam did as he was told. Heinrich began to disassemble it and integrate different parts to itself. Some it immediately discarded, while others it kept.

"Doctor, I don't think that's a good idea. I need that to underst-"

"Quiet! I'm a pretty advanced piece of technology, even by Earth standards. If given enough time I can understand and absorb any technology." With a final addition, it let the rest of the translator fall to the floor. Climbing up his arm, Heinrich attached himself to Sam's ear and began to transform again. Looping both arms around the back of his ear, the little robot spider changed into what seemed like a wireless earpiece. "Now I can act as a translator. I can also store all conversations you have and play them back for you. Next step is to gain some information about this world. Look for what looks like it might be a means of accessing the ship's systems."

Doing as instructed, Sam searched the room. It didn't take long for him to find a terminal hidden behind a panel. Heinrich reverted to it's spider form and landed on it. Like before it began taking a part the terminal, but this time it was cleaner about it. He thought Heinrich was probably trying to hide the vandalism it was causing.

"This one will take me a bit longer. There is a bigger gap in the level of advancement between the translator and this ship. I can feel a large amount of data lurking within this beauty though."

Sam found a table and chair in a corner of the room and sat down. Obviously he'd be waiting for a little bit, so he took the time to assess the inventory contained within his new pouch. The dial piece was only small enough to show the name of whatever was selected. Scrolling through it he began taking note of the most useful items. Chief among them was a water purifier, a scanner with many functions, a watch that can uplink with many wireless signals, a recycle bot that can convert materials from one thing into another thing, and weirdly, a retractable sword. After putting the watch on, and sliding the sword into his pocket, he placed everything else back in the pouch.

"Aha! I'm starting to draw on the data now. I have a local map... nation structure... a ship layout... oh very interesting."

"What?"

"Well I discovered some interesting things about their neighbors. So there are these-" Heinrich was suddenly cut off by the door opening. He quickly skittered over to Sam before their visitor could notice, positioning itself as the ear piece again.

"Your presence is requested by Commander Grielda." The otter Sinzarus announced, before gesturing that Sam follow him.

As they followed the soldier, he listened in to Heinrich. "As you undoubtedly noticed, it's almost like you were hearing him in our language. I've developed a link to your nervous system. I'm translating for your brain directly so long as I'm attached to your ear. Over time your mind should retain the meaning of the words in their language even without my assistance, but for now this is how it has to be. Speaking it may be harder without my help however. I'll feed the proper language through you myself."

"While I'm grateful Doctor, that is also terrifying."

"I'm sure." They climbed a ladder directly up four floors and came into what appeared to be the bridge.

"Welcome Human. I hope you have become more comfortable to speak now." The female otterperson from before called to him. She was sitting in an opulent chair in the center of the room. It appeared to be crusted in various ores and gems. Now that he looked at her more clearly, he could only see the vaguest outline of a bust. Other than that, all the otters looked the same to him.

"Uh, I guess. Where are we?"

"We are currently patrolling the edge of the greatest nation on Terra, the Rupes Imperium. I am one of the top four commanders of her military. I'm commander of the Western Breakwater. We found you in a lab run by infiltrators. Though your presence was unknown to us, we had planned that raid for over a month now. Is there anything you can tell us of how you came to be there? Something more than you already shared?"

Sam shrugged, to which Grielda tilted her head. "I have no idea. Frankly, I'm probably more shocked than you in this situation. I have never seen anything like you guys."

"Elaborate."

"Well," He paused to clear his throat. "Where I come from, otters don't speak, and they definitely aren't as big as you." He froze. A palpable tension rose in the room. "Did I say something wrong?"

One of the soldiers began to march up to him immediately, but Grielda held up a hand, halting his approach. "You are foreign to our nation, so you shall be forgiven this once. 'Otter' is a derogatory term. It is classified as hate speech and is not tolerated, am I clear?"

Sam gulped. "Uh yeah, crystal. That's just what we call them where I'm from. You are probably totally unrelated, yeah. Let's agree on that." The tension in the room relaxed. "What are you called then?"

Grielda tapped a few buttons in the arm of her chair, and a big image appeared in the air above a large table in front of her. It was obviously a globe, but it took Sam's breath away. That's Earth! "In our world, there are many peoples. We all call ourselves the Anima, but our particular people are the Lutra. We are a peace loving people who attempt to maintain that peace as much as possible. Unfortunately many of the other nations prefer war, particularly the lizardfolk. We've been in a lukewarm war with them for centuries." There were chitters of ascent throughout the bridge. 

From one of the doors to the Sam's right came one of the scientists from before escorted by a soldier. "Please have mercy!" He immediately began to beg.

Once they were in front of the commander the soldier slammed his staff into the back of the scientist's legs, dropping him to his knees. He looked to be a dogman. If Sam described his breed, it was probably similar to a husky, but his face was definitely a humanoid dog face. 

"Mercy is reserved for those who have earned it. Your people were devising weapons and plans to undermine the Imperium." Grielda quietly intoned, the full power of her position still clear in her tone.

"We would never! We were just experimenting like our visa allows for! We are on that mountain because it suites our needs well!"

"You mean your needs of privacy, scum." The soldier behind him spat.

"Well, if our experiments have dangerous results, it's best to be away from a local population-"

"So privacy then!"

"No! That's not why!"

"Silence" The commander interrupted. "Trooper, I will question him." The soldier snapped to attention and said no more. "No, as you've admitted you needed to be away from prying eyes, we'll move on to the forms of sabotage you were attempting."

"That isn't true!" The dogman was sobbing now.

"Please, make this easier. We already have evidence of it." At this, Sam noticed the soldier who was at attention turn his head slightly and glance him. "You may commute your charges to something less severe depending on what you tell us."

"There is nothing else to tell!"

Grielda sighed. "Remove him. I'm already exhausted from this. I'll question the others later."

"Yes ma'am! Yoka!" After a slight struggle to move him, the soldier took the scientist out, leaving the room relatively quiet once again.

"My apologies. We've been struggling with insurgents a lot lately."

"It's alright. It didn't bother me much." That bothered me a lot, but that's military stuff I guess.

She motioned to the soldier that had brought him. "Please escort him to his quarters, Sinzarus. I'll allow him to rest until tomorrow. Have his meal prepared and brought to him within the hour."

"Yoka, commander." The officer responded.

Turning on his heel, Sam quickly followed after his escort, returning to his room soon after. "Wow that was intense."

"Hardly." Heinrich responded, dropping onto the waterbed in it's half disc spider form.

"I meant the atmosphere in general." He found a mirror behind another panel and looked himself over. His neck length brown hair looked disheveled, most likely from getting blasted to another world. Rolling his shoulder, he saw his muscular arm peek from beneath his shirt, and felt an ache shoot through his whole torso. "Did you see the globe hologram?"

"I did indeed. It seems whatever reaction happened between my falsely started experiment back home, and the one they were running here, it pulled you into an alternate reality here on Earth."

"Terra."

"What?"

"Didn't you hear her? it's called Terra here."

"Oh shut it, that's semantics. More importantly, something doesn't seem right here."

Sam arched an eyebrow as he looked at Heinrich in the reflection. "Like what?

Heinrich began bouncing on the bed. "Well firstly, they seemed to be quite hateful to that dog person for a group of people who love peace."

"They are probably really annoyed at all the trouble they are causing the Imperium."

"That would make some sense, however the guard looked at you when Grielda mentioned having evidence."

"I noticed that too."

"Not once did he look at anyone, except for two incidents. When he engaged with the prisoner, and when he looked at you. What was significant enough about what she said that he felt the need to look at you?" Heinrich did a flip in the air. "There isn't much to go off of, and we don't already know even less. However, if I were to make an educated guess, we weren't informed correctly."

"You mean she lied to us?" He ruffled his hair and turned around. "I'd really like to not start suspecting everything as soon as I meet someone."

"It may save our skins though. Better to be suspicious and wrong, than trusting and dead."

"What about the information you pulled from their systems?"

"I was interrupted part way through, so I didn't get everything. I have names of important figures, the various races in this world, and some of the neighboring countries names and government types. I went through it all during that audience, but there's nothing to tell us anything for or against what that commander said."

Suddenly, Sam was thrown from his feet as something rocked the ship. "What was that?!"

"I detected an explosion somewhere on the ship. I believe based on the schematics I have that it was somewhere in the computer core or the engines, both of which are located in the same area."

What sounded like blasts echoed through the door to the room. After a few screams of combat followed by pain, the door slid open. Heinrich was already settling into it's position on his ear when a pair of snake-like eyes appeared before them. "Found you." Before them was a tall lizardman. His scales were a dull amber, and he had a small crest on his head. "Come with me Strange One." It beckoned with a clawed hand that held a scimitar. The blade crackled with sparks of electricity.

"Strange One?" Sam squeaked out.

"Yes, that is you. Your name is unknown."

"I'm Samuel Grier."

The lizardman let out a growling purr. "I see, well come with me Samuel Grier."

"Why should I?" He slipped his hand into his pocket and readied his collapsed sword.

"Because if you do not, you will be questioned until you are of no use, and their charade will no longer shield you. It is your choice." With that, the lizardman turned and took a left back out into the hall.

"What should we do doctor?"

"Don't just stand there, go!"