Notes from GobHobblin: This is based on a story idea that Chuckman had pitched over at the EvaGeeks forums. The concept was so one that I just had to take a stab at. Now, fair warning: I have not seen 3.0. Considering the setup, however, I think I can make a safe case for an alternate time-line following the second Rebuild movie. So…there are some differences. Just saying…

"We are but intruders here, over this empty land."

"What?"

Maya Ibuki sniffed, and waved distractedly at the air. "Nothing," she mumbled. "Just a mimsy, you could say."

"A mimsy?" The sergeant's tone was one of confusion, but his face was bland and detached.

"A thought with no reason. Passing fancy. How far out are we from the beacon?"

"Fifteen miles and closing, ma'am."

"Good. Have the team go through final checks," she said, gazing out of the window. The Wille sergeant nodded, disappearing into the main body of the glider. Maya traced a finger on the window, trying to remember a blue ocean. There was something about crystal in the memory, something...Maya sighed. She couldn't capture it. The red below was all she could see in her mind's eye. It had displaced any concept or images of the ocean she would have had from long ago. The red crawled at her, reminding her of its unnatural existence. "Welcome to Earth," she grumbled, "Please stay a bit."

She shook herself and looked back into the cabin. This mission was beneath her, technically. Protocol dictated that a lower ranking officer would have been better positioned to command this little expedition. If this little blip in the middle of nowhere was what they thought it was, however…well, this could be a very important task indeed. She smiled despite herself, thinking back to when she had been a mere lieutenant. A whole lifetime and a whole ranking system ago…she was a different person then. She didn't feel so empty, in those days.

"Ma'am," the sergeant said, bracing himself against a nearby seat. "We have three minutes until touchdown."

"I see," she noted, and felt the glider lurch as the pilot began to circle around. "Has Nerv felt inclined to show itself?"

"No sign, ma'am," the sergeant confirmed, stepping back as Maya pushed herself up. She began to work her way towards the pilot's cabin, the sergeant carefully following.

"We may get through this, then," she said. "Ten years and no peep, and then it gets noisy…"

"Ma'am?"

"Thinking out loud, don't worry about it." Maya ignored him after that, concentrating instead on navigating the rolling cabin. She should be sitting and waiting for touchdown, but she wanted to be near the cockpit. She wanted to keep an ear on any possible Nerv movement, she wanted to see the source of the beacon. Confirm it was what they hoped it was.

They were in need of Pilots.

Maya eased through the open hatch of the cockpit, glancing right at the radar operator. All five of the flight crew wore bulky headgear, with integrated instrumentation built into the goggles. Three of them sat at the front, the minimum crew required to fly the massive glider. To her left, the communications officer was immersed in his various panels, listening intently to both the beacon and all other airways. Listening for Nerv. Maya ignored him, and leaned over the radar display. She didn't need to ask the woman for an update: she could read the panels just fine herself. The beacon had been lined up to the front of them nicely. Still, no unknown contacts.

That was good.

She pushed past the operator and leaned over the central pilot, the senior officer in the cabin. "Where are we, Lieutenant?"

"Not too far out now, ma'am," the woman replied. The bulbous, glass cockpit provided them an excellent view of everything above, below, to the sides, and to the front of the glider. The two other pilots were partially suspended in space, acting as lookouts for the senior pilot behind them. Maya could see past them, the ugly gray and brown smear of coastline, licked by a soppy, gory sea. To the right, the coast drifted off into land, what was left of American Alaska. No one lived here anymore, beyond a few brave souls manning forward observation stations. It was one of those stations that had reported the first whispers of what would lead Maya and this team of hers. She shuddered, thinking about living in this dead, empty place.

"Still no sign," one of the junior pilots chanted. "Nothing…wait…there it is." The pilot toggled something on his instrument display, and the other two pilots cocked their heads in the same direction. Slowly, the glider began to drift in turn.

"We'll pass right over the source, ma'am," the senior pilot reported. "In ten seconds. You should see it now." Maya leaned forward, gripping the back of the crash couch. A shape had formed, just past the lapping waves. Something artificial, breaking against the earth around it. Silently, the land funneled below them, the shape crawling closer…closer….

It below underneath them, but it was enough for Maya to recognize it. She had spent weeks memorizing every technical detail associated with the ship, and there was no mistaking it.

It was the Kessen Maru.

"Bring us back around and locate a suitable landing point as close as possible," Maya said.

"Long landing or short, ma'am?" the pilot asked.

"I'll leave it to your discretion. Don't worry about me, just get down as quick as you can."

"Aye, ma'am." There was a sudden roar in the cabin as four turbojets kicked on for the first time in their flight, powering them up for a minor burst of altitude. Maya worked her way back to the seats with practiced ease. The sergeant who had followed her was still in the access corridor.

"We've found it," she confirmed. "We'll be moving out as soon as we touch down." He nodded, and began to push back to the rear of the aircraft quickly. He needed to notify the ground team before landing. Maya, for her part, found an empty seat and strapped into it. She felt the glider jitter, and then rotate nearly to its side. She could see blue sky through the port side, and ground and surf through the starboard. The sea moved to the right side, and the dead land occupied the left now. She watched it, watched as it quickly rose to meet them. She grimaced, and gripped her armrests. The pilot was going for a short landing. Craning her neck, Maya could see the massive wings of the glider vibrating as they slowly rotated up, spilling their altitude and breaking their forward momentum. She closed her eyes, and pressed back into the chair. Soon now…soon…soon….

The glider shook violently, and Maya bucked against the restraints. "Not today," she mumbled. "Not today. Not today. Not today." Ever since that day, long ago…when the Event happened…Maya said it. She always said it. Not today…not today…not today…

The shaking stopped. She opened her eyes, tasted salt on her lips. She had been sweating very hard. She sniffed, and shakily undid her restraints. They were no longer moving. There was a sound of fury and commotion from the rear of the glider. That would the main troop compartment opening like a clam-shell, disgorging most of the main complement. Maya moved back to the cockpit, and leaned in. "Lieutenant?"

"Ma'am!"

"Inform us of any unknown contacts that arrive. I will be accompanying the ground contingent. Is that clear?"

"Aye, ma'am." Maya turned, and moved to the back of the glider at a brisk pace. She could smell salt and blood well before she pushed into the sunlight. Three of the ground troops still covering the aircraft glanced back at her when she appeared from the plane. She sniffed, wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of LCL, and watched as the main body of troops rushed across the short space between them and the rusted cargo vessel. There were two LMGs mounted inside the glider, covering the approach. Maya waited patiently for them to close on the vessel, waited for them to secure it. She winced at the sudden thump of a breaching charge, as they blew a hole in the hull in order to enter and clear the ship. It took them only five minutes to do so: these troops were very good at what they did.

With an escort of two troops, Maya crossed the sand to the ship. At the breach, she was greeted by an American technical sergeant named Sutter. He was a black man with a nasty scar from his nose to his chin, cutting through his gums and teeth. He jerked a thumb towards the interior. "There was a mess in here, ma'am."

"A mess?"

"Yeah…bodies everywhere." She wrinkled her nose and entered the dank, stale vessel. Glowing chem lights lay scattered along the floor, and Maya followed the trail slowly. She encountered the first desiccated corpse with a gasp of recognition: it wore the old Nerv uniform. A stab of nostalgia cut into her heart. How strange, she thought, to think of the that time at Nerv as the 'Good Old Days.' Extinction had hung in the air then, too. It had felt less present, though. Less desperate. Where had the hope gone? She felt old. She wasn't, but she felt it.

"There's more inside," Sutter lisped. "It looks like they killed each other."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Maya said. "There was a lot of…confusion. At the time."

"Are you saying that all of them weren't on the same page?" he asked, turning to lead Maya down to the main cargo bay.

"I'm sure they weren't," the lieutenant-commander confirmed. "Between Gendo Ikari, Seele, and those of us doing what we thought was right…I wouldn't be surprised if everyone was a little surprised by who was on this ship."

"Sounds messy," Sutter lisped. He paused, to wipe at a fleck of spittle on his lip. "Excuse me."

"I'm surprised you haven't gotten corrective surgery," she said. She paused in the corridor, suddenly embarrassed. "Pardon me…that was rude."

"It's fine, ma'am," Sutter said, turning and giving her a smirk. "This was the result of the surgery. The initial injury was a lot worse. I could probably patch it up but…well, I haven't ever gotten around to it, you know? Too busy to wait for rehabilitation, and all."

"Right," she said. She actually did know. These days, it seemed that it was all she could do to find time for just…basic things. She continued to follow the technical sergeant, until the claustrophobic, bloodstained, corpse-choked corridors opened into a larger space. Maya stopped, gasping. The room was empty, save for a single, cylindrical object at the center. Thick bolts clamped it to the steel deck. It had also once been strapped in, as well, but the harnesses had long eroded and frayed. They lay tangled around the cylinder like molted skin. The cylinder itself was at least eight feet tall, and from where Maya stood, it had to be five feet across. In the center, in peeling paint, were the numbers '02.'

Two of Sutter's soldiers crouched next to the cylinder, utilizing portable computers to analyze the cylinder and determine its contents. Maya was quite certain what was contained inside, but…

She frowned. She didn't recognize this device.

"Are you sure this is the only piece of cargo here?" she asked, turning to Sutter.

"There's plenty of equipment on board, ma'am," he said. "But this is the only thing that matched the technical readouts for what we're looking for."

"This…isn't…hmmm." Maya crossed the deck, her boot heels clicking against the steel. She put a hand on one of the soldier's shoulders. The young man glanced up, and nodded.

"Ma'am," he said, backing away from his computer. She knelt down and glanced at the readouts. The other soldier scoffed.

"I can't believe this thing is still active," he mumbled. Maya listened with half an ear. The screen was spitting out all technical data, none of which really made any sense to Maya. That concerned her. If this was a medical recovery pod like Commander Akagi had said, then Maya would recognize these readouts. This was…different. The coding was something else entirely.

This was not a medical pod.

"Ma'am," someone called from the corridor. "We've found the beacon."

"How was it activated?" she asked loudly, not looking up from the console.

"Dead man switch, it looks like. Activated after a ten-year countdown."

"Why ten years?" she mumbled.

"Pardon, ma'am?"

"I was wondering why it was set to activate after ten years," Maya replied. She turned to the soldier next to her. "What's the status of the occupant?"

"…uh…well…." The soldier squinted.

"What?" Maya snapped.

"I'm…not sure, ma'am." He turned his console towards her. Maya looked at it, and made a face. He had brought up a successful interior map of the cylinder and it revealed…

Nothing. She glanced back at her own console. The data had finally begun to sort itself into something more readable, and Maya could determine a way into the cylinder's computer. She queried on the contents of the container, the status of those contents, any possible disruptions in the past decade.

She grunted in irritation. The pod did indeed contain what they were looking for, it was claiming that the occupant was in good health, and that there had been no disruptions. Maya didn't like that. The computer in the pod was designed for abuse and longevity. Unless it had been deliberately tampered with, there should be no reason for it to be spitting out errors. Was the pod a decoy?

She closed her eyes, trying to think. If there was an occupant in the pod, their body would have been detected and outlined in the initial map. Something about that thought brought a sense of alarm to Maya. She glanced back at the console, looking at the interior temperature of the pod.

It was 38 C. It should have been significantly lower than that. She felt a sense of defeat creeping over her when the soldier next to her said, "Okay, this is weird. There is something inside the pod, roughly correlating to three times the mass of a human body, and…liquid. Some sort of liquid." Maya looked up.

"Liquid? Wait…a mass? What mass?"

"Right here. See this fuzzy patch?" The soldier pointed at a spot in the upper portion of the pod. "I'll clean it up, but I can already tell you that this is a sphere of some sort, maybe about…three feet across, give or take."

"A sphere…" Maya sat back on her heels. A sphere…in a container of liquid. Her eyes widened in shock.

"That's a core," she mumbled.

"A what?"

"Never mind. Sutter," she turned to the sergeant. "We need this pod loaded into the glider as soon as possible."

"Can do, ma'am," he said. "I take it we found what we're looking for?"

"I think so," Maya murmured "We need Commander Akagi to take a look at it, to be sure. Either way, I'm pretty sure that we found Capt. Langley…or at least what's left of her."