Cosmic Date: 2122, April 2nd, Unknown Unknown

“wa…”

I shift in my sleep, trying to find a more comfortable position.

“ke…” Mmm— please, five more minutes.

“—WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU TYRELION DOG!”

My eyes shoot open, seeing a pair of purple eyes staring down at me.

What on Earth. I look around, directly across of me was Hatch & Helena passed out, cold, splayed about on the cruisers cold metal flooring, to my right, through where there use to be a window of reinforced glastic, I see Camerai standing on the nose of the ship looking out at—

—What the fuck? Is that the sky?

Did we crash on Earth? Luci helps me to my feet, by literally pulling me to my feet. I stumble a little, feeling soreness in every fiber of my body, like I’d been tossed about in zero-g for two days straight.

I quickly begin regaining my mental faculties, the resurgence of sensation clawing its way back to my nerves. My HUD flashes to life, informing me of a number of injuries.

[PROPERTY STATUS: 79% Injuries - Multiple fractures, Heavy Ecchymosis, Minor Cerebral Trauma]

[REGENERATION ON-GOING: FIVE HOURS, SUSTENANCE REQUIRED!]

I wince as if the sudden recognition of my injuries had also reminded me of the pain I should be feeling. I limp after Luci to join Camerai, the pain already quickly subsiding under the regenerative powers of my nano-bots.

The two of us climb over the ships control panel, avoiding the shattered glastic spewed across the console — I was hit with the choking smell of fire and metal, the cindering scent of our crash filled the air and a column of blackened smoke rose into blue sky above us.

I still couldn’t believe we crashed landed until a sudden guttural scream pulled me from my stupor.

I was about to lament the woes of hearing a guttural scream before utter chaos but Camerai interrupts me.

“NO HABLO ESPAÑOL? CABRÓN!” Camerai screams back in perfect spanish while waving a PDS threateningly in the air.

It was the who he was screaming back at that took me by surprise.

And the ensuing — what?

A small band of rather angry looking… goats?

‘Goats’ was a gut-reaction label, for they stood not on four legs, but on two hooves. Bipedal goat-faced men with animalistic hock-jointed knees, around five feet tall with thick black ribbed-horns that curved menacingly backwards.

They were similarly screaming murder, waving around their own weapons threateningly, though theirs were a little more… primitive.

All of them were holding barbarically sharpened pieces of wood, with the exception of a larger goat-man, one who was considerably bulkier and taller by a head than the others, holding a shiny bronze looking spear.

I took only a second to glance around us, we crashed in what looked to be a large ruin, constructed with huge blocks of stone, collapsed columns and layered in weathered pigments. It seemed we had coincidentally smashed smack-dab in the middle of a goat-man encampment as all around us was a host of patchwork leather tents, and a buffet of various butchered meats strung up to bleed.

“What the hell is going on?” Luci muttered next to me, similarly taking in the absurd sights.

“WHO CARES WHATS GOING ON!” Camerai shouts back, “WE HAVE ANGRY GOAT-FUCKERS HERE!”

“Ammo?” I ask quickly.

“Three shots!” He replies.

Luci looks down at the goat-men in disgust, “I got nothing...” She adds to her dismay, “And there’s no extra arms on-board, just emergency packs, maybe a multi-tool or two.”

Shit.

I look back down at the goat-men, seeing them snarl at us through snouted faces and raging rectangular eyes. The biggest goat-man snatches a wooden spear from its comrade and begins to rear backwards into a javelin throw.

“HEADS-UP!” I warn.

The goat-man launches the spear forwards with surprising strength.

To my own surprise, my eyes easily track the missile with relative ease. It whistles towards us but clearly misses me until Luci snatches the spear out of the air, smoothly twirling the momentum out in a flurry of impressive spins. She grins in satisfaction, the spear spinning comfortably in her hands.

“I don’t think they’re very strong,” She mocks, looking at the rather primitive weapon in her hand, “--or all that smart.”

Camerai looks over at me, “Do we just send it?”

I considered it for a moment, looking down at our W.E.T-suits, “I don’t think wooden spears will penetrate, but I’d be careful of the big guy and his shiny spear.”

Camerai and Luci give me a nod, the latter of the two a little too keen to get up close and personal with what were clearly monsters.

“Move on my distraction!” Camerai says taking point, he steps out of view for but a moment, before a hologram of himself proceeds to throw itself off the nose of the ship in perfect spread eagle.

The group of goats yell in surprise, all of their rectangular eyes following the hologram like dogs. Completely ignoring the three of us rapidly descending the side of the ship. We land onto dry, almost arid earthen ground that lifts in small plumes of dust on impact.

We waste no time, Camerai throws me his PDS before sliding into active-camouflage. Luci practically skips forwards at the closest goat-man, still confused at the dissipating hologram floating above it.

The spear in Luci’s hand blurs out of vision, before stabbing forwards in clearly practiced movements. The tip of the weapon explodes on impact, making a gory mess of the unsuspecting goats brains. She drops the spear and steals her victims’ weapon before quickly moving onto the next.

I follow close behind her.

A goat-man leaps at me, sending a spear towards my gut, its movements are far too slow in my enhanced vision and I dodge to the side, though nowhere nearly as gracefully as Luci does.

My hand snaps towards the wooden shaft, grabbing hold of the spear and twisting it forwards. The goat-man yells in goat-surprise, as I rip the spear from its hands before slamming the butt-end into its face. The wooden spear smashes into its nose, shattering to bits.

I used the broken spear like a club, sending a crushing blow into its rib-cage before impaling it through the throat.

Before my first opponent could even fall onto its back while gurgling black putrid blood from its mouth, from the corner of my eye I sense a blur.

I instinctively duck, feeling the wind whipping wildly just overhead. I half-roll away, bouncing off my back to my feet to see the largest goat-man screaming down at me, its bronze spear glimmering in its four large fingers.

I use the last of our ammo with no hesitation.

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Aiming the PDS at its furry chest. The beast barely registers the incoming projectiles as three stunner darts stab into it. A wave of electrical current flushes through the beast. It howls in pain as it erupts in an almost blinding cacophony of blue electricity.

In a surprising turn of events it manages to hold on to consciousness, falling to its hands and knees in convulsing breaths. The bronze spear drops to the floor by its side.

And before I can even react, the spear begins to float — to the surprise of the goat-man. The spear plunges into its chest, revealing Camerai behind the shaft.

He pulls the spear back out, gives me a thumbs up and runs to join Luci, who honestly needed no help.

She was a hot-knife through butter, a whirlwind of death. Her nano-enchanced strength of House Leganto on full display as she smacked away incoming spears like one would a house-fly. The goat-men, seeing the death of their leader wailed, opting to turn-tail and run… or, bound?

The storm of debris and dust slowly settle in the aftermath, only the sound of our ship burning behind us fills the air.

“Well…” I say to the two, “that was… interesting.” I swap my vision to infrared vision, then to x-ray to make sure there aren’t any other goat-men hiding amidst the ruins.

Camerai nods, looking back up at the plume of smoke rising like a beacon against the clear blue sky above us. “We should probably stop the fire before Ol’ Hatchelena gets turned into Sunday roast.” He says and I agree. The two of us begin to climb back up the side of the cruiser when Luci calls out to us from behind.

“I’m going to take a look around these… ruins.” She says eyeing the spear in Camerai’s hands greedily, “And give me that spear — your form is atrocious.” Camerai turns to me in disbelief, I shrug as he sighs dejectedly before tossing over his hard earned stolen loot.

Luci catches it into a graceful spin, smiling as the weapon feels at home in her hands. She turns and begin looking around. I see an odd glint in her eyes… one of, familiarity?

—

Back aboard the ship me and Camerai are busy spraying fire extinguishers into the sweltering flames bursting from the back of the ships three vortex engines. What remains is only a charred mess, with little hope of ever being repaired. We’re both drenched from head to toe in sweat, our W.E.T-suits absorbing the precipitation that creates a buffer against the heat while our nano-bots work overtime to cool and heal us.

Ever since the end of the skirmish, my stomach has been roaring in hunger. “I could eat a horse.” I say to Camerai, and he smirks.

“What about goat-man?” He replies and I turn to him in minor disgust. He puts his hands up in mock defense, “joking joking… unless?” I sigh and climb back into the cruiser seeing Hatch & Helena still out cold. I adjust their positions, making sure they don’t suffocate on their own tongues. Hatch stirs a little but doesn’t come to.

I find the emergency cabinet and pry it open. The contents spill out all over the floor the moment I open the door, likely dislodged during the crash.

I quickly sort the items into four piles: Corrective, preventative, drug, and food.

There is only a months worth of nutrient paste and water. Which means with the five of us… a little less than a week worth of food and water perhaps?

A smaller amount than I’d hope for, but a buffer I’m grateful for. There’s a good amount of emergency-stims and other supplies for Hatch & Helena. I’m unsure how effective my nano-bots would be if I was, say — amputated.

Something to grill Camerai & maybe even Luci about later, hopefully.

I needed to know the full extent of my regenerative powers, plus the differences in our strengths to understand my own.

I found Camerai standing on the nose of the ship, staring out into the landscape around. I stepped up to join him while sucking down a packet of nutrient paste.

“Where are we…” He muttered, his eyes stuck on something in the distant horizon. And, for the first time since waking up, I took a good look outwards.

The ruin we had crashed onto was built-up like a citadel. Encompassed by a defensive wall built from stone far too large for mere men to lift. Inside the four to five acre large space were countless half-demolished buildings made of smaller head-sized rocks. Only a few were standing, namely the largest palace-esque structure at the highest point. I say palace because of the large two story columns that lined what looked to be the entrance.

The North, East, and South sides of the hill dropped into sheer, sharp cliffs of white, almost chalky lime-stone, save for the western front which sloped gently down towards a large river in the valley below.

From where we stood, we had quite the commanding view, with only a larger mountain flanking our southern flank, I could see far into the distance. All around were rolling foothills, juxtaposed by erratically spaced monoliths that bulged out in the relatively lush landscape.

I saw a plenty of green, what looked to be olive trees and thin trunked oaks dotting the hills and valleys, with an abundance of wild grasses and shrubs that painted the landscape in a myriad of floral life.

It wasn’t until my eyes started drifting further out did I realize something odd about the landscape.

In the distance, far in the north, where the sky kissed the horizon, a monumental mountain rose. Stretching unfathomably high into the sky, with dark, clumping clouds clinging to its throat obscuring a peak I couldn’t even glimpse. An absolutly colossal mountain that stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the tall yet reasonably sized rolling mountains around us. How I had not seen such a fucking unfathomable sight eludes me.

Me and Camerai were dumb-struck at the sight, our mouths ajar.

“Hey Sada…”

“Yeah man?”

“You ever seen Everest?”

“Only once…”

“Was it — at all — as big as that?” He asks, pointing with his jaw at the sudden elephant in the room.

‘…’

I sucked in a deep breath, my neck already hurting from looking up. “No man, not even close.”

—

Luci returns just in time to see Hatch & Helena awaken. Her purple eyes are wide and filled with a rather scary intensity. I give Camerai a look and he seems to think it means something else, “Do you think she’ll give me back the spear?” He whispers, and I shake my head in disbelief.

I wouldn’t let her even if she tried. She was obviously incredibly proficient with the class of weapon, it’d be a waste to let him have the spear.

Helena gripped her head in pain as she sat up, “I feel hungover.” She manages to weakly mutter, I nod giving her and Hatch a bottle of our water from our limited supplies. Hatch looks around, “Did we escape from Osiris? I don’t remember what happened after we launched—” He suddenly stops mid sentence, his eyes caught on the blue sky in the distance, now dyed in a slight purple hue as the sun had began its descent.

Helena also sees the sky and nearly chokes on the water she’s chugging down. “Wha-- did we fucking crash land?” She stammers.

Camerai laughs, and I interject before he can say something stupid, “Yes,” I say to Helena, before turning to address Hatch’s memory loss, “We don’t know what happened either, we woke up awhile ago, maybe two hours back and have been putting out fires and dealing with the local… how should I say?” I try and find the right way to effectively communicate our interactions with the goat-men.

“Goat-fuckers! Cabróns — through and through.” Camerai says while crossing his arms like he was some lyrical sage.

Hatch and Helena cock their heads in confusion. Luci sighs behind me but agrees, “He’s not fully wrong, if only a little crass.”

I sigh.

“Yes… it’s hard to explain quite adequately, but we had to fight off a small band of goat-men, well, men with goat heads?”

“No, no, I think they’re goats that look like men!” Camerai corrects.

I scratch my cheek, “Then why wouldn’t they have hooves for hands?” I question and he seems to sink into a deep ponder.

Luci groans, “You’re not helping.” She says, and Hatch & Helena nod in confusion. Luci looks the two dead in the eyes, her purple stare the only emphasis she needs.

“Monsters.” She says, plain and simple.

Hatch grimaces while Helena groans, “More fucking viruses?” She asks and we all shake our heads.

I look over at Luci, “Have you seen the mountain?” I ask and now she cocks her head in confusion.

“We’re surrounded by mountains.” She replies, and me and Camerai share a knowing look.

Camerai waves his hands, “no, no — THE mountain.” He emphasizes.

“Fuck me, can we all just go outside, I could really use some fresh air.” Helena pleads and we all climb out to the nose of the ship.

‘…’

There is a palpable confusion in the air as the three of them stare at the insane peak in the distance. Camerai points down at the small battle-field below littered with goat-men corpses. “Goat-fuckers.” He states plainly and Hatch & Helena’s eyes drift downwards.

Then back up at the mountain.

Then back down at the goat-men.

Luci snaps her finger, before lightly tapping the sharp edge of her jawline, “Well, this concludes it.” She says turning to the rest of us.

“I had a feeling we weren’t on capital ‘E’ — Earth anymore, but from the goat-men to the mountain literally scraping low earth orbit, and the magically glowing obelisk in the ruins below us, its safe to say we’re quite—”

She claps her hands, her purple eyes almost glowing in excitement, “--quite far from home.”

Glowing Obelisk?

—

In the shade of an olive tree, on the side of a mountain, two men cloaked in drab clay-red cloaks stare down at a dissipating plume of black smoke rising from a long fallen akropolis. The younger of the two, firmly grips his ash-wood bow until the limbs begin to creak under pressure. He is unable to understand what he is seeing, the glints of metal from within the ruin catching his green eyes erratically.

His partner grasp his shoulder, the firm grip bringing the young scout back from his deep focus.

“Easy brother.” The older man says, his voice weathered through years of experience. His hazel eyes, sharp as a hawks’ peers down at the ancient ruins with a more patient and observing gaze.

“We must return.” He says and the younger scout nods letting the older man continue.

“The Anax will want to know…” He says as his eyes follow the black plume upwards until he is staring deeply into the purple and orange tinged dusk sky above.

“That something has fallen from the heavens”