It has been two years since the disaster on Awal Kabab. Ryan had just traveled to Ryu 97, where he found Weasel after a year-long search. Weasel did not want to come with him, however, and instead gave him a lesson on "neutral jing". Instead, after his recent failure to liberate the entire Ryu system from Tate (though he did manage to liberate Ryu 97), Ryan has ventured to Ishgabangaloodoo, which has escaped Tate's occupation due to a lack of a military. On Ishgabangaloodoo, he plans to find his old friend Michael and talk with him about starting a rebel group to resist Tate's rule galaxy-wide. Meanwhile, Nate has found himself on the ruined planet of Aztlan to search for survivors of the cataclysm that befell his home planet three years earlier. He lands his ship in what used to be called The Zocalo. The city was in ruins, with statues and other random debris littered everywhere. All the trees were dead, having been killed by the heat wave that followed the asteroid impact. However, the seeds of rebirth were visible, as some new plants were beginning to grow in. Lake Coxcote was still choked with ash and dust, and sea life could only survive at the very bottom. There were no signs of life in the city proper. However, Nate did find a small tribe of survivors deep in the Cenote that had been surviving by cannibalizing the bodies of the asteroid's victims and farming along the waters of the sinkhole. When they first saw him, two of the scouts from this civilization kidnapped him and took him deep into Cenote, where they were about to kill him and eat him when Montezuma One Who Speaks, a parrot who recognized Nate, told everyone to stop. Nate then said he was on Aztlan to see if there was anyone left alive, and now that he had found this group, it was his job to help. Nate asked if Daniel Rainbowmask or Cullen of Hensley were still alive, to which Montezuma answered that both of them died soon after the asteroid impact. Nate decided that his first objective would be helping the group rebuild The Zocalo. However, the only structures still standing were the Pyramid of the Sun and a statue of Atahualpa. These two structures were immediately retouched using debris scattered around the city to fill in the holes and cracks. Next, the central square of the town was rebuilt the same way it was originally designed. Nate then decided that most of Lake Coxcote would need to be drained because of how much ash and dust was in it. Once this was accomplished, the lake was less than an eighth of its original size and the city of The Zocalo was no longer an island. Nate then began redesigning the city proper. Once the city was done being planned out, it ended up being much larger than the original, even covering most of the drained lakebed of Lake Coxcote. However, Nate then left The Zocalo, saying that he still had work to be done elsewhere on Aztlan. Nate then ventured west into the semidesert that used to be the Zultun area. Zultun Dock was reduced to a bunch of uninhabited debris on the western edge of The Zocalo, while Cloudburst Jungle was a semidesert with some new trees starting to grow in. The ruins of Palo Alto were littering the ground, since there were no fully-grown trees left to support it. However, Nate did find that the Tar Pits were more-or-less completely untouched, and that the surviving Avians were living in there with the Spike Horns that have mined the area for ages. For food, they survived by harvesting the dead bodies of wildlife that had been killed off by the astroid. They had also used some tree seeds to plant a small jungle in part of the caverns, in which dwelled the last living wild dinosaurs. Though none of the people Nate met the last time he was there were still alive, Nate wanted to help them rebuild regardless. He thought that Cloudburst Jungle should be allowed to regrow and go back to nature to provide a home for the surviving wildlife, so a city there was ruled out. He then decided to turn the cave into an underground city called Tlallantepetl. He helped design the city, but did not stay for its construction, since he wanted to see if anyone in the northern mountains was still alive. When he arrived in the northern desert, he found it almost exactly the same as it was when he last visited Aztlan, except the desert temples had all been blown to smithereens and there were no cacti to be found, except for recent seedlings. It then occurred to Nate that the desert's small population had gone extinct. The only living things Nate was able to find here were the Cactus and the Eagle, which had been moved at the last minute to an underground safehouse by the last survivors. Nate then journeyed into the northern mountains. He did not recognize the pathways, which made him realize that the Twin Giants had erupted during the cataclysm, changing the shape of the mountains. Though he thought nothing could have survived that, Nate eventually found a group of survivors living in a village they built underneath the volcano. When Nate found them, he encouraged them to return to the Twin Giants and make use of the volcano-enhanced soil to terrace farm. Once this project kicked off, the city of Cusco was founded directly between the Twin Giants. Nate then journeyed southeast to Veracruz. Here is the only area in which Nate was unable to find any survivors. He knew the Monquistadors had abandoned the colony immediately after Xibalba struck, but none of the Aztlanians who used to live there survived. The marsh more resembled a hilly, wet plain than a marsh, with the grasses starting to grow in with only a few trees. Meanwhile, Taftenkhamun journeyed to his home planet of Eaglypt to look for survivors of the other cataclysm Tate caused years earlier. When he arrived, he found that the Bahariya Oasis, the single source of water on the planet, had cleared up from the sandstorm Tate unleashed upon it. However, the damage had already been done. There was no sign of life anywhere, and Taftenkhamun was immediately attacked by mummies when he tried to enter the tombs. However, Taftenkhamun did manage to make a detailed map of the planet. Eventually, his food rations ran out and he had to leave for the nearest planet, Planet Squid. Once he fed himself, he went into the Savannah, where he found Reshon, an old friend from Taftenkhamun's last visit. Since there was an order out for the immediate execution of any of Weasel's friends and Taftenkhamun had reason to believe that Tate would soon invade the planet, him and Reshon decided to leave the planet. Elsewhere, Maxwell and Ryan had finally convinced Michael to form the Aurean Alliance, a group whose purpose was to rebel against Tatian rule galaxy-wide. Once Ishgabangaloodoo formally started it, Ryan and Maxwell decided to travel the galaxy to reassemble Weasel's friends and get them to join. Meanwhile on Caput Tatiium, Kira had moved back in with the Possumwhatan Tribe in an attempt to hide in plain sight. However, she soon learned that Tate was sending a large portion of his army into the area to punish the nearby Turkeyquois Tribe for insubordination. She looked on in horror as the Tatian Army, with their ships and walkers and legions, completely annihilated the Turkeyquois's braves. Since this meant that Tate would now be keeping a much closer watch on the area, Kira stowed away in a box on a trade canoe bound for the vast Arctic region. Once she was there, she moved in with the Walruskimo Tribe, who taught her their way of life. Meanwhile on Ishgabangaloodoo, Morgan was found living in an apartment after Michael went through the planet's census records. Morgan grudgingly agreed to come out of retirement and join the Aurean Alliance. However, they hit a wall when trying to find a way to find all of Weasel's old friends scattered throughout the Galaxy without arousing the suspicion of the Tatian Government. The latter part proves futile, however, when Tate learns of this from an informant who wiretapped the Ishga Government at the time of the Aurean Alliance's formation. Tate then says that he will prepare a fleet to attack Ishgabangaloodoo. News of this Aurean Alliance soon spread within the Tatian Army, and it eventually reached Lane, who had been living in exile since Awal Kabab due to the fact that Tate viewed him as a failure. Lane decided that he would win Tate's respect back by finding and capturing the Alliance's members. He then hired a group of bounty hunters, each with their own private army, to help him complete this task. The bounty hunters were named: Benjamin, Occultatum, and Yin. Benjamin was from Awal Kabab, Occultatum was from Olympia, and Yin was from Ryu 97. In addition to their private armies, Lane gave them each a cohort (800 men) of Tatian Legionnaires). To begin their search, Michael and his group went to the Pa-Ankh to check the recordings of the day Weasel and his friends split up to see if they could find any subtle leads as to where anyone went. The only thing they found was that Kira was returning to her home planet. However, they had absolutely no idea where that was (since Kira had never revealed this to them out of her paranoia of the Tatian Government). Michael then searched Kira's species (Possum) in the Ishga Archives, and was shocked to find out that she was on Caput Tatiium. Michael and his group were going to have to somehow get there without detection from the Tatian Military, and once they somehow got there, they would have to somehow avoid being detected by the millions of troops Tate has stationed there. Almost as soon as their ship left Ishgabangaloodoo's atmosphere, their ship was attacked by Benjamin. Though Michael and his group managed to use the cover of an asteroid field to escape, Benjamin got a good enough glimpse into the cockpit to see what everyone looked like. Once Michael and his group reached the deflector shield around Caput Tatiium, they discovered that the only way through it was one gate which the shield's crew would only open if Michael and his friends could tell them their clearance code (official permission from the Tatian Military to land there). When Michael and his friends could not provide this, Tatian Fighters were immediately sent after them. Though they managed to destroy them all and escape, it became clear that Michael and his friends would have to come back with a clearance code, and with a different ship. However, before they could even think about this, they crashlanded on Malkior 7, an unregistered asteroid drifting nearby. The asteroid happened to have a breathable atmosphere and a trading post built there. Malkior 7 had no native sentient life, however, and was populated by all sorts of people from all over the South Galaxy. In order to avoid detection, they decided that they would all have to assume new identities. Ryan became Thomas McGillicutty, Maxwell became the Destruction Oni, and Morgan became Kelly Gustin. They then stole some clothing they found on a clothesline in someone's yard to disguise themselves and hid their old clothes in the ship, which they parked in a secure parking garage. They then looked around for a less suspicious ship they could rent for a while. Michael then paid in cash (from the Ishga treasury) to rent a Danterine327 (the most popular and generic-looking spaceship in the galaxy) for a week. They then went to the market, where they bought some food and other supplies for their trip. Before they left, they went to a bar, where they found Taftenkhamun and Reshon, whose ship had broken down and was at a repair shop nearby. Michael told them what the situation was, and they agreed to change their identities to Robert Zafari (Taftenkhamun) and Dave Dukeson (Reshon). They then went and stole some clothes from another clothesline. Then, Michael contacted the Tatian Military and asked for a clearance code to Caput Tatiium, saying his name is Thomas McGillicutty and that he has family there that he is visiting. Michael then had to tell them their rental ship's PIN number, and prove to them that the ship was unarmed. They then got the clearance code. Once they had the code, they flew the Danterine327 to Caput Tatiium, where they simply transmitted the clearance code to the shield crew and were allowed in. Since Michael knew from the Ishga Archives where the Possumwhatan Tribe was located, he knew to land the ship in their territory. On their way in, they saw the smoking ruins of a Turkeyquois village, an ominous warning of what was to come. Once they landed, they asked a Possumwhatan Tribesman if they had seen a Possum named Kira there recently. They said that Kira had been living there for a few months, but she mysteriously vanished over two weeks earlier. However, the tribesman suggested that they look in the territory of the nearby seafaring Mooseachusett Tribe, since she most likely tried to leave by sea (her spaceship was still there, indicating she did not leave the planet). After a long and dangerous trek through the forest, Michael and his friends eventually reached the Mooseachusett Tribe's lands. On arrival, they were spotted by a Tatian soldier, who recognized their faces from a wanted poster Benjamin had put up after his encounter with Michael and his friends. The soldier then called in more troops, who eventually surrounded (except for the rear, which was facing the sea) the tavern that Michael and his friends were in at the time. However, by the time the army entered the tavern, Michael and his group was already inside a bunch of crates on the dock behind the building. Once the Tatian Soldiers found nothing, Michael and his group stayed in the crates and waited to be placed onto an outgoing cargo boat. However, one of the sailors opened the crates to inspect them and threatened to report Michael and his group if they did not leave immediately. It was when he mentioned something under his breath about finding out that he transported a Possum stowaway to The Arctic that Michael figured out where Kira was. After this, Michael and his friends go to another dock nearby and rent a canoe, which they use to paddle across the northern sea until they reach the frozen lands of the Walruskimos. Michael and his friends wander from village to village, asking if they've seen a possum. Eventually, they stumble upon Kira in her tent. They then explain to her what they are doing and that they want her to join. Kira then joins the Aurean Alliance and agrees to go back with them. Kira then assumes the identity of Ellie Robertson. Michael and his group then take a ferry back to Mooseachusett Territory and then trek back to Possumwhatan Territory, where they get into the Danterine327 and leave Caput Tatiium. Meanwhile on Aztlan, Erin arrives to do what Nate went there to do. When she finds The Zocalo being rebuilt and Lake Coxcote being drained, she is overjoyed by the fact that some of her people survived Xibalba. However, she also sees the grave of Nate's father, Nezahualcoyotl, on a street corner. She eventually meets up with Nate, who was helping to oversee construction. However, she also breaks the news to Nate that his father did not survive the cataclysm. Nate and Erin then visit the grave to pay their respects. Nate then sets off a space flare, a traditional last rite of an Aztlanian chief such as his father. The flare left the planet's atmosphere and flew high enough into outer space to be noticed by Lane. When Lane saw this, he ordered Yin to go to Aztlan and investigate. When Yin landed, he eventually found Nate and Erin, who matched two of the descriptions that Lane had given him. Meanwhile, Michael and his group returned to Malkior 7, where Benjamin and his cohort had set a trap for them after hearing of their whereabouts after the incident on Caput Tatiium. However, Michael and his group eventually escapes by moving back into their old ship and using the Danterine327 to fake out the enemy soldiers. Michael and his group then sneakily followed Benjamin's ship to Aztlan. Benjamin then joined up with Occultatum and Yin, who were already attacking New Aztlan and waging war against the new colony Nate had set up there. When Michael and his friends arrived, they landed in The Zocalo, which was in the process of being rebuilt. They saw Aztecosaurs battling with Tatian legionnaires and losing badly. Michael and his group were glad to see that some Aztlanians survived Xibalba, but were more focused on finding out who was leading them. That night, when the Tatians and Aztlanians retired to their camps, Michael and his group found Nate and Erin leading the operation. They told them about the Aurean Alliance and how they wanted them to join it. However, Nate said that he was not abandoning his people again and was going to fight to the end. Michael and his group then realized that if they were going to leave with Nate and Erin, they would have to win this battle. Michael and his friends knew that if they wanted to turn the tide of battle, they would have to move it away from The Zocalo, since the Tatian Legionnaires had an advantage in city fighting. Using the cover of night, Michael told Nate to leave some troops in reserve in the Cenote, while the rest performed a feigned retreat across Lake Coxcote. The Tatians fell for this, and were caught completely off-guard when the "retreating" troops turned around and attacked at the last minute. Then, the reserve troops came out of the Cenote and flanked the Tatians. With nowhere to go, the Tatians were decimated. Benjamin, Occultatum, and Yin were all killed in the ensuing chaos. Nate then agreed to join the Aurean Alliance and made the planet, dubbed New Aztlan, the third member planet.