I never quite understood the fascination of archaic Human Gods and their billions-large pantheon, but I imagine Reality as a gorgeous creature; An angelic creature beyond comprehension, sitting on a throne of galaxies and emplaced before all life of the universe, upon which rested the soul of her Kingdom.
I like to imagine that the Universe is more akin to the Empyrean Heaven, especially in comparison to the richer folk and their palladium squabbles, the elitist functions across the international border. It is interesting to find that while Humanity begs for Heaven-on-Earth, they forget they are emplaced in one such Empyrean spanning the entirety of known Reality. Archaic terms like 'Space', 'Void', or 'The Expanse' are still often resurfacing in ecclesiastic dialect, which is what drew me to think that heaven is the Universe itself---it just makes you see how expansive such ideas are among the Proletariat when every single Human understands what you mean by 'Empyrean'.
Besides that, what else but Heaven can one call the most gorgeous things in all of Creation? No man can merely make a world so beautiful as Agarran the Solar Jungle with its pale plant life under a blinding bright sun, or the ocean worlds we all so beg and envy to enjoy, such as the Rimworld I left this day prior.
I also like to hope that I won't be stranded for so long in this alien world.
I sit here beside the Stellar Engine, having dug a hole in the sand and placed a sheet of aluminium debris as a roof to prevent myself from being so directly hit by wind and sun. I had been roughly and vaguely 'enjoying' my time here. Wasn't so much to keep track of anymore and all I can hope is that where I landed was on some colony of a kind, and I was hopefully spotted and rescued. That's how it should be, though---most places in the galaxy were conquered and inhabited, minus the Final Frontier on the southern sector, which was supposedly where mankind originated from.
It was irrelevant now, and as I've been praying to whatever mother of Reality there was, I've only recently concluded that I should not sit idly beside the crash site.
I lift myself and crawl from the foxhole I dug, returning to the inside of my Stellar Engine's cabin. The blood on the floor from my late companion brought to mind some disturbing urges, and I almost bent down to taste the dried ichor that paints the floor in morbidly beautiful red. But I turned away from the mess out of respect, as one should. Though I'm not sure what to do with the body---I never seemed to feel interested in death. At least, I never pondered on it.
I quickly returned to my mind and thought for a second to recall my presence: Ah yes, a map.
Moving to the dashboard, I found the heavily damaged slab of silicon and ceramic, looking sideways at my porcelain gauntlet. Perhaps it may be useful to me here in this desert---the thing is supposed to have extra features, which I forgot about long ago. I'll figure out what it does when the time comes. But, for now, the sound of metal and ceramic clanging and clicking as it formed to the shape of my hand and locked around my wrist struck through the eerily silent air. It was the loudest thing to occur since I pushed the slat of debris against the train to make for cover.
But now with my left hand fully encased in porcelain and metal, I felt just slightly safer. I reach into an extra compartment beneath the main control dash, which reminded me much of going under my desk back in grade school, and pulled a self-assembling firearm and put it under the wrist of my gauntlet. It was an interesting bit, I knew that it was compatible with most small firearms such as this self-assembling pistol. It was favoured for such versatility in what I could remember of the ancient intelligence sectors.
I felt almost complete, now, minus my one henchman which I knew so little about. It wasn't so much painful to lose the stranger, I tried being nice before launch from the ocean Rimworld, but he seemed to have a disdain for me. I walked around the poor soul's body---quite gorgeous might I add, he was a prime-condition Canine Colonist---and I jumped from the hatchway, landing in the soft sand that was stretching for kilometres out, besides the ocean that was a few hundred feet from the head of the Stellar Engine.
I stumbled in the ocean of white and looked down into the data-slate in my right hand with squinted eyes---the glint of the sun burning my retinas as I resumed my shade against the Engine. Looking at it, it presented a simple compass, because that was all it could do at best, and now it was up to me to determine the space between myself and wherever I was going.
There was a smaller arrow in the top right of the screen and several others in a column that were each labelled with points of interest. Of course, the one at the top was the highest priority---It was labelled 'Wagon 1512'. It was a technical haul, some stuff being returned to society because the colonists no longer required it---a method in which Colonies made a few more bucks by selling off colonisation equipment at prices totalling the cost of the trip itself. Of course, those costs were low, and the people colonising made major profits from this method.
It was interesting to know the data slate was pointing that specific wagon out---the exact distance was unknown, however. As far as I knew, the most important thing I could need was on the other side of the world. The distance across a sphere is much farther than direct routes, which was obvious and common. However, the experience of doing so on foot was long lost; Even the cheapest colonies possessed flight.
But much to my dismay, I did not possess such an aircraft. I possessed a gauntlet, a partially functional Stellar Engine, a dead body and maybe some food.
Oh, right. I still needed to eat.
My mind moved on, my legs dragging me to the booster coach and finding myself digging through the emergency compartment built into the side of the engine---the booster coach was a spare engine in case the primary Stellar Engine ran into issues, which effectively made it a modular articulating locomotive. Such an exciting device, so sad that neither thing fared well enough in the crash. I couldn't even recall the last time I had to ignite the booster engine. It's just an aesthetic at this point.
I pulled stuff out of the side of the compartment built into the engine, taking out survival kits with physical text so old and untouched that they were all illegible. The only thing I could even consider was the small fabrication device held at the back of the chamber---one of the first of its kind, but then again all of these Stellar Engines were old as the human race could remember.
Pulling out this fabricator, I gripped it tightly with my gauntlet and initiating another click, locking it somehow to my porcelain hand, before the lighter-sized device morphed into the rest of my mechanical glove. I had to admit, it was pretty cool. The only time I ever really used the storage feature was back on a delivery to an Ecumenopolis; It was really useful in hiding a modular firearm, especially rifles or scatterguns when you used the extended form of the gauntlet.
It took me a moment of thought and made me wish I had one of those full-arm devices, much like the one on my wrist. I might need them here, to protect myself in this world. Who knew what creature resided in the very earth under my feet?
I looked in the reflective metal that coated the side of the booster engine, the paint scraped away by sheer heat and friction with sand, creating a weirdly smooth mirror. I saw myself for the first time in a long time, shutting the compartment door for the survival compartment. I left all the rotting pamphlets on the sand as I registered what must be me.
I saw plain white. Skin so smooth and pure one could think nothing but the future we so dangerously lived in. Flesh so pale it made the sands dark, an empty face with mandibles and a maw of teeth with large incisors---I opened my mouth and watched as the three members split into a hollow abyss, pulling the clawed flesh to check my lips. My featureless face, my hairless body.
I looked at my legs and was reminded of avians.
What am I?
"First-degree sapient entity, iteration nought-nought-prime. Progenitor subject, human transplant in Bioengineered Wetware Interfacing Platform. Commission Program, link with database non-functioning, please reconnect with primary Mainframe," my voice was not my own, cast out in a way that seemed programmed into my mind. I looked at the reflection again to find I had stood at attention.
I stepped back in shock. It was but sunrise a moment ago, and now upon me was the setting of it, that celestial flame. How long have I been standing here? My joints popping and crackling, like I had been without motion for hours, as I moved them and flexed my clawed hand and glanced at the peculiar porcelain gauntlet that stretched up to my elbow.
Space, what happened? What have I to stand here for hours unknowing without a pang of hunger in my stomach nor the dry of thirst from dehydration? I stumbled again, turning, grabbing quickly the data slate which was the compass, and I ran away from my stellar engine. That craft that had so seemingly entrapped me for the entire daylight cycle.
As the sand billowed from my sprint, I glanced towards the wreckage behind me, derelict in my duty to protect it and to return my freight to society as a whole. I darted through it all and it felt almost instant, as the sands turn to earth and the earth turns to life and the life turns to the forest---or jungle, perhaps, was its name?
Unsure of the difference between a forest and a jungle, I entered it with haste, hie to its depths as I were to train my sights on finding that debris having gone some few kilometres from the primary crash site. Though, that changed as I came to and blinked, recollecting myself in my horror at what I had seen in that reflection.
This entire time, I was even less than human. How could I have never seen it? Who am I? What am I? It was a mirror made of steel and metal, but yet that reflection was not my own, where my only memory was of plain blue eyes staring me down.
Skidding to a stop, my talons skidding into the earth and digging their pits as the peter and roots help me catch myself from my sprint. I did not breathe heavily as one would expect. I was complete with my breath, and I had seemingly lost no energy in my run so far away. It scared me so much more that I was a perfect machine.
At that moment, I fell to my knees and cried.
Looking upon those claws I put on my face, of which I saw were flesh, were not flesh. They were fake, they were made of porcelain plates so slightly out of place to be unnoticeably different from the flesh across my body. I felt them, cold as Sin, and realised I was less alive than before. My porcelain gauntlet on my left hand shifted slightly, and I only then could not feel what they touched, but instead felt a tingling sensation that became more intense as they pressed into things.
My face was cold with my weeping, my claws reaching again to the earth below me and burying themselves in it, dragging my fingers up and down in the dirt of leaf, twig, and unknown ground. I looked and lifted my palms, with which they let slip the silty filth between their slick joints. I turned my palm over, putting it back onto the ground and standing to my feet.
I was a man. I am a man. I am Human. I must be, I have to be. Why can't I remember? My pale flesh is soft of skin, my hands in their kindred, my eyes have whites and a blue I solely recognise as mine own. My voice.
"My name is Franziskus Amadeus Ivanova. Franziskus Amadeus Ivanova. I am Franzis. Franz. My name..."
I understood it, a foreign accent made me confused as I came to. What was it? What is that sound? I remember... Polski. I remember the facility in which I entered and found myself bearing witness to experimental technologies. Things of imaginative quality, things from storybooks in my time.
My time? I am ahead of myself.
"The site. I must reach my target. Wagon fifteen-twelve," I came to once again, pushing myself on a tree, watching my legs flex and complex muscles move beneath my vulnerable, naked flesh. My mortal form.
It was cold, here.
I walked forward, lifting one foot and placing it in the earth once more, my digits flexing as it moved. I could not control them so much as my legs controlled them. They flexed shut when I lifted my legs and they opened across the ground as I watched them move. How had I never noticed this?
I looked forwards, walking, moving finally with caution and wary to keep my wit. I had but a moment's notice if any predator caught me alone. I needed my firearm.
I lifted my gauntlet, the whir of servos and actuators the only sound from it, then clicking as I turned over my wrist and flexed to cycle my compact pistol. It reconstructed the object to its full unfolded form. A simple tool, utilising solid projectiles and a chemical cartridge to propel it. A fatal tool, albeit, though used rarely by the likes of me.
And yet, I could not confirm what exactly the likes of myself were.
It resting, then, in my grasp, pulling back piece on the action to show a cartridge in the chamber. It was reflexive, even if I knew not the extent of its use.
"I pray," spoke me unto the silence around me, "my words do not fall upon deaf ears, and to those whom I cross pale not before myself and rest then into the earth. May this weapon not be used in malice, but in survival, and may those who stand before it bow to the progeny of the Universe."
I put the weapon with my other hand, aiming it down and just in front of my footstep. I was taught this, I am sure. But that was not the forefront of my thoughts.
Stepping again forward I felt a breeze of air, a shadow glance over me, and realise I had not gone unheard after all.
I lift my weapon and hunker into a crouch, walking long strides and aiming up at where the shadow emanated form. As I glance about, I see distant metal debris, with which to cause my glance upon my data slate and see my indicator sway when I move.
'I am close,' my thought floating there as I watch a winged thing come to the ground but some metres fore. It was with feathers and with an upright posture. As alien as I was to myself, it covered in feathery plumes of snow-white and earthy brown. It had yellow across its face, a jutting object. A beak, if I recall it, and which were notable on avians. It was unlike myself to draw such conclusions, but I couldn't help spotting intellect in it, as it then spake to another one of its kind.
I studied it closely, watched as they seemed to convey something to the other and moved on. Oddly enough, they possessed only melee weapons at first sight, though they passed off as civilised with armour. Leather skirts with studs and plate-mail, helmets that opened clearly to their faces and those gold beaks. They were very decorative, and I could align a sense of hierarchy between them due to slight alterations in their armour. One wore a crest of sorts along the spine of their helm, yet the other did not.
I lowered my firearm, their plate and mail were ancient in their pattern, and I could not label it accurately. It was, however, not clearly in any re-enactment.
After they made off, I lifted my data-slate to check where I was going, and then buried it into the tree I hid behind and covered it in brush and foliage from my feet. I turned towards where my target was and immediately made my way. I had no concept of what to expect here, but I knew there had to be something of some value, as indicated by my data slate. There was no real reason not to have followed it, after all.
Moving through the brush and keeping my eyes open to all of the surrounding, I felt no more comfort. As though all things were not right.
I saw nothing amongst the wreckage, there was but the sixteen-metre long wagon split in two on its side with technology strewn about the site. I thought nothing of it since it was expected it wouldn't have survived so well, but all the debris everywhere gave some clue to how well anything valuable could fare. Shrapnel was dug deep into the earth, remnants of large and heavy machinery were skewered into trees. Black splashes of ashes and coals all around spoke a story of a short burn gone a good time ago.
I got closer, standing up and hurrying off to gather resources---I immediately hunted for the security kits that were originally being transported with the colony surplus. If I could find one, I may be able to reassemble a rifle and get a small ammunition fabricator. Then, maybe, I could expect to survive on a much more secure note. Or maybe have a higher chance of shooting myself in the foot. Even then, I would be safer with a hole in my foot and a gun in my hand than I would be running away from flying indigenous species.
Of course, I found no such ammunition fabricator, but I did find a semi-automatic ballistic rifle. Whatever it was called, it was now going to be called my best friend.
Picking it up, shouldering it and it adjusting to my shoulder and my grip to be perfectly ergonomic, I grabbed ammunitions from around me and stuck them along my gauntlet, where it stuck via magnets beneath the porcelain. I loaded one of the magazines into the rifle, pulling the lever on the side and ripping it back, echoing into the surprisingly silent forest with a gloriously resounding clack. Space, mercy me, I have found an angel.
I threw the lever for the weapon's safety to make sure it worked, leaving it on safety, and lowered the barrel. It was an intimidating tool of protection, advertised as so much more than the ever-versatile hand weapon I always used. Now, I could guarantee my protection with solid titanium and a flash of light. Compared to the industrial-appearing object I now possessed, I turned to view the surrounding tree line, of fallen wood and lifted earth.
I grabbed one of the only unburnt uniforms, putting it on quickly. As once I was pale, I was now hidden in a smoky blue digital camouflage. I entertained myself with body armour, having a second to try and find plating to fit my legs with no luck, and only a polymer breastplate.
This will do.
However, it appears my presence was not as welcome here, as I was to these new tools.
I heard squawking from behind myself, turning to find myself at the faces of the avian-things from prior. They were looking directly at me this time, pointing spears made of wood and tipped with metal. I stood up fully, from a crouched position I had taken, and made myself known entirely. They reached closer with the spears coming nearer to my form before I made a lightning-fast swipe and disarmed them of their sole weapons. It was not as exciting as some may think or show in film, with me merely swinging my arm up and catching both their spears in hand, ripping them behind me. They stepped back, a glimpse of surprise in their human-like eyes, before coming to and doing what I could only assume as 'making demands'.
Still could not understand a single word they said. But, that was no matter.
This was my stuff now, and their throwing squawks and claws around as if to say for me to disarm myself and surrender. I've seen enough alien sci-fi movies and shows to know what they were doing. It was the same for every legion across the Empyrean.
"No," I simply stated, my entire maw split as I shared with them my thoughts, "my things," I pointed at my self with my thumb, and then swung my arm out to encompass the materiel behind me. I returned to attention and maintained my rifle to the ground. I would not point at them with my tool, as that was not how things were done. Instead, I turned my back to them for a moment, which was met immediately with a rejection of my declaration.
The avians were attempting to take me on, I could tell as they tried to dig their claws into my uniform. It didn't work, but they were also met with more resistance by my rocking forward, pulling them into the mass of slick metal and debris, which would hurt their fleshy feet, unlike my scaled talons. I turned around, them releasing me as they avoided stepping in the dangerous material, and I lifted my rifle to them directly. I quickly swung my arm out, slamming the one who looked more learned in the face with the metal stock of my rifle. This was met with a loud clang on their helmet.
It was a bit abrupt on my end because I failed to recognise that very important detail.
He was unaffected (I thought it was a he, his voice was masculine) and he returned to me with a swinging claw to my face. I was not trained in advanced combat, but I was trained in self-defence. I returned to him with a block, lifting my armoured left fist to catch his swing, locking his arm into a grip and throwing him into the ground. I would not fire my weapon.
The other one was also on me, trying to throw a kick at my legs and possible break my ankles, or at least trip me. It was not successful, because he was very ill-educated in combat. I dismissed him with an elbow into the face, and he stumbled back with a crack along his beak, bleeding and passing out. I did not linger on it so much, returning to the one who was more of a threat.
He was on the ground, so I put a weapon towards him and spake unto him, "Fear not, man or beast, I shall mercy you. Your kind will suffer no loss today but suffer only injury. Smite me and---" I was quickly interrupted by his attempt to disarm me.
A loud crack filled the air. A bang; an explosion. My rifle flashed, and so did the life in the perpetrator's eyes.
I grimaced in frustration, screaming angrily as I turned to the other avian. I fired a crack again, ripping a shot in the dirt and the once-unconscious foe stood and flew away, blood splattering me gently in his escape. I felt nothing in this alien's death but anger in that was what I had to resort to. Why would he not just stop? He luckily passed in what appears to be a peaceful manner.
But now, a life was lost, and the aliens were going to put it on me. Perhaps they will tell the truth? That was ignored, then, as I heard distant calling alike to the alien's speech patterns, and an alert of many more such noises.
' I must leave' and I then left with haste.
I knew they would now look for me, as I detonated the wagon, which suddenly blasted into chunks and shrapnel through a chain-linked ammunition detonation. I'm surprised It all didn't burn off already. I will have to count how much ammunition I currently had, as there were now only eight magazines at my disposal, including the one in the rifle. This would perhaps not be so bad, as I can perhaps find another fabricator?
I would have to consider that at another time, seeing shadows cross above me and avians like before a crash to the sands in their armour, effectively surrounding me. Stopping and looking around myself, I estimated about fourteen.
They screeched at me again, their voices shrill and piercing.
"What are you saying?" I beg them, lowering my weapon and looking them past their spears and into their angry eyes. They felt so human, their eyes. Those eyes with whites and colourful rings about an emotional centre. Their brows furrowed, like my father and my mother and those among them. I felt anger surge through me.
I swept my rifle up, their screeching taught and hoarse, before they rushed me. Their spears cut me and sliced me, almost shredding me, but five suffered a fate worse than death as cracks of thunder echoed into the sunset. I felt steel and wood and flesh bash into my form, slamming their fists into my skull and their talons trying to rip my flesh. I am lucky the porcelain on my mechanical gauntlet would suffer no damage here.
Your Majesty of the Empyrean Kingdom, I welcome you.
For a moment, there was screaming, and once again I was met by the depths of my unconscious.