Admiral

I’m still slumped in my makeshift chair, an oddly comfortable mound of foam strapped to hastily welded metal plates. It’s been several minutes since the alert sounded, and my observation droids are deployed miles away, tracking this human group. Hundreds of them. Damn, I’m starving. My stomach growls, distracting me for a moment. I pull off my vision helmet, desperately scanning the room for crumbs. Nothing. The ship’s rations were obliterated in the crash, sunk into the lake, or lost at the other crash site—and my droids haven’t retrieved anything.

I groan as I slide the helmet back on, the weight of everything pressing down on me. The humans emerged from the forest to the north and are now venturing into the massive debris field. They walk in the largest debris field, north of the dragon, not the section I'm currently scavenging. Through the grainy feed from my droids’ cameras, I observe them. It’s better than the infrared view. I’ve kept the droids at a safe distance, careful not to risk detection.

Their progression resembles a military column. Clearly, some kind of authority has organized them—a nation or a state-like structure of some sort. That’s bad news for me. They’ll come poking around and interfere with my preparations. I’m lucky—or rather, they are—that the Colossus didn’t crash into one of their cities or whatever equivalents they have here, in this world.

I begin to strategize, thinking of ways to delay them or predict their exact destination. But then, something else unfolds before my eyes. A cloud of dust and ash, a deep rumble.

The feed becomes even blurrier, and then—a mass emerges. An abomination. It’s as though this damned forest is full of them. It’s a pale imitation of the dragon, but honestly, any creature would pale in comparison to that beast. Still, it’s terrifying. Its skin is marked with deep fissures, and its limbs are studded with molten metal embedded in its flesh, as if the Colossus’s debris had fused with its body. Burned, mutilated, yet it moves with an unsettling mix of force and speed for something so massive.

I sigh. How are these small humans going to deal with that thing? Should my droids intervene? No, absolutely not. I sit back and watch, tense, my heart pounding with stress, fatigue, and hunger.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The group reacts immediately. A formation. Their discipline is impressive. I don’t understand their roles entirely, but they organize into several circles. Mobile, evasive, and solid against something so big. Despite their preparation, the creature sows chaos as soon as it charges. It hurls chunks of metal, scattering bodies. Screams pierce the air, crackling in my ears despite the distance. The sensor must be busted; static mixes with the troll’s guttural roars and human despair.

I feel like a spectator. Sitting in my chair, VR goggles strapped to my face, watching this titanic battle play out. Like a movie. All I’m missing is popcorn, but this isn’t a film. It’s real. And it’s... unsettling. I see strange spheres of energy—protective barriers, perhaps? Magic? Fuck, have I really landed in a fantasy world? A dragon, a giant, magic?

I’m so bewildered that the violent combat almost becomes background noise. I watch adventurers dart between the debris, harrying the beast with quick strikes, targeting its joints where the metal is most exposed. I can’t make sense of it. Someone tries to climb the creature, only to be thrown to the ground. Others gather in a circle around one man. It’s beyond me.

Then something is launched at the troll, and the impact is catastrophic. The creature disintegrates, its body reduced to a rain of fragments and metal shards.

I sit frozen, my palms damp, watching the silhouettes of humans rise from the wreckage. They’ve won. And that scares me more than seeing them lose. A few transport droids or a well-placed energy cartridge could have taken out the thing. But these people—these humanoids, because I’m not even sure they’re truly human with the sensor malfunctioning—what would it take to defend against them?

I’d half-risen from my seat, but I let myself fall back into it.

Their group has suffered losses, at least injuries, though their mages—or whatever they are, must have done a decent job protecting them. Some are already rushing toward the remains, scavenging what’s left of the scattered corpse.

I lean against the metallic wall of my makeshift cabin, my eyes heavy with fatigue. I need to move. This army is far too dangerous, and this battle is only a glimpse of what they’re capable of. Where are they headed now? Their southward advance might lead them straight to my position, and I can’t afford to wait for them to get closer. The reactor must continue its course. My time is running out.

And, yeah, I really need to find something to eat. I’m not going to starve to death, no way. Roots, small arboreal animals—whatever my robots can find—I don’t care. Yeah, I’m dependent on them, and so what? I don’t have magic like they do. I don’t have... I don’t have colonists. I have nobody