Remember also that they were expecting the jump engines to move them some very far distance, as was the case with the previous test on the Pathfinder (you can read the story of that ship here). Before this happened to them, no one ever thought about the possibility of… moving in some other sort of way.

Thanks for the comments! I will consider making a few adjustments to the dialogue for the printed version to help make things a little more clear.

Maybe add a line to that bridge guy saying ‘I’ve got triangulation on Earth and Mars (or just Earth and Moon), it looks like we haven’t moved.’ That way we get a hint something appears unchanged and dead Earth doesn’t come out of left field.

@Seafog– I know, I know! It’s difficult, not to mention annoying, to have to follow this stuff at the page-a-week rate. But here’s the basics to catch you up: you recall the initial jump, yes? It appeared, at first, that their jump engine didn’t work at all, and they were still where they started. Fusella was ready to turn around and head back to base, but Scavina insisted that they first do some further research before concluding the experiment was a failure. Fusella talks to her Chief Engineer, who says the engines performed properly, and she can’t explain why the jump didn’t seem to happen. On the other hand, Mal’s lab team reports anomalies in the star patterns, suggesting something odd is going on. Given all that, and the fact that they were unable to contact anyone on the com link, Scavina orders the ship back to Earth to see if they can get to the bottom of the mystery. A whole chapter later the ship finally gets there, and the scenes on this page are what they found.

(I hope that helped!)

When I say the alternate Earth I did think of this:
Star Trek TOS season 1 – Miri
Ex Astris Scientia: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/tos1.htm

Good heavens! She is a Trekkie! (*little dance*)
Like I keep telling my manga creator wannabe daughter – It’s all in how you tell it.

So “No more blah, blah, blah!” More pages!!