User blog:Darknessabove/Strange world: Volume 1, chapter 1: Crashland

"Well this is a fucking great start" I though to my self as i continued to press my foot in the chest of this tanned tribeswoman, standing over her while pointing my gun at her, just incase she got any ideas of trying to get up.

"Get your foot off her, male" one of the other tribeswoman said, pointing her sword towards me.

"You don't seem to understand" I said as i fired a round into the leg of the woman i was restraining on the floor, causing her to scream in pain while the other tribeswomen and indeed some of the members of the merchant caravan i'd been guarding looked in our direction, mixes of anger and fear on their faces.

"When i told you to piss off and leave this caravan alone, i wasn't joking" I said as i moved my gun so that it pointed at the womans arm, with her glaring at me in anger.

"You should be under my fucking foot, male" she shouted at me, though i ignored it for the most part and just focused on what seemed to be the leader of these tribeswomen.

"This being my first escort mission, i'm in no mood for any one, much less a bunch of skantily clad woman, trying to steal from what i'm paid to protect" i said coldly, pausing while looking around, 8 hostiles including the one under my foot, had managed to disable half of the 20 man guard of this caravan, while suffering no casualities, it was pathetic how easily the guards had been overpowered, even if it was a surprise attack, but these.....monsters, as they called them, looked pratically female, baring the scale likes tails protruding from them, i was expecting bloodthirtsy beast with razor sharp claws and teeth caked in blood, not women who could easily pass off for being human, though their physical strength and skill easily outstripped the guards, so in terms of fighting strength, we weren't in a favourable situation, which is why i had resorted to pinning one of them down and threatening her people with her execution.

"So once again, i will tell you, piss off, or i will kill this one under my foot, before turning on the rest of you" i said to our would be attackers as i glared at them, with them glaring back in response.

"So what will it be?" i asked them.

"If you surrender to us now, we'll only break a few of your bones in response to your defiance" the leader of the tribeswomen replied, staring right at me, though she sounded confident, i could see the fear in her eyes.

I fired again, this time hitting the one i stood over in the arm, yet again screaming in pain, tears were now streaming down her face and while a small part of me did feel sorry for her, they had decided to attack this caravan, so they did it knowing there could be risk involve, thogh i doubt any one here even imagined it would play out like this.

I moved my gun to point at the girls head.

"Next shot will kill her, thats if she doesn't bleed out first" i shouted, causing the tribeswomen faces to switch from anger to fear, precisly what i wanted.

"so, i'll ask you again, what wil...." i was in the middle of speaking when the sound of crashing stopped me, members of the caravan and the tribeswomen looked around as the sound kept getting closer and closer, the source was coming from behind me and rapidly getting closer.

I turned around to see the tree that was once behind me split, pieces of bark and wood showering me as i saw something dive right.

"Fuck" i said as i jumped backwards, firing off a round as i did, wondering how the hell i ended up in this situation in the first place.

3 weeks earlier.......

When boredom turns to danger

"Well, this is bloody boring" i though to my self as i sighed, after i had turned in a bounty at the local station, i had decided to head towards the milky way system, to the core worlds, to do some trading, since while bounty hunting was lucrative, it had its share of risk.

Unfortauntly, since the gate system had been out of order due to a recent pirate attack and with me not being patiant enough to wait, i had decided to instead warp to the milky way, though it would take several hops to do so, since i'd have to charge the warp drive after each jump, so i had programmed the auto pilot to jump me in range of any suns in rnage, so that the solar reactor could charge the warp drive rapidly.

Still, it was a long process, which was making me tired.

"Guess i'll have a nap" i though to my self, yawning before i started to close my eyes.

"Warp signatures detected"

My computer alerted me, 3 corsairs had dropped out of warp and heaidng right towards me.

"Weapon signatures detected, they are charging weapons"

My computer alerted me yet again, with me tapping on the controls, getting ready for a fight, unfortantly, something else decided to join them.

"Large warp signature detected"

At this point my ship was pointed towards the incoming ship, it was what i called a "rust bucket", much larger then corsairs, which were one man fighter class vessels and they had the firepower to prove it.

"Recieving transmission" my computer told me, before putting it up on screen.

"Hello karl, we're here to pay you back for what you did to my brother" the person on screen said, she did not look happy.

"Which one?" i asked in a monotone voice, causing her to start swearing and cussing, before cutting off the transmission, her ship powering up to full thrust and heading right towards me.

"shit, okay, whats the status of the warp drive?" i asked my computer.

"67%" it responded.

"That'll have to do" i muttered to my self before hitting the warp drive sequence, by now i was being fired at, the armor plating would hold agaisnt the corsairs weaponary, but if that rust bucket got near, it would tear my ship in half with its large cannons.

3....2....1....warp engaged, my ship started to shake as a warp portal opened in front of me, but just as i went through, my engines got hit by one of the stray lasers being fired at me, causing it to explode.

"Warning, warning" my computer kept repeating as i went through the warp portal, i checked the system read out, it wasn't good, that explosion had knocked the warp drive navigator out, in simple terms, i was basically warping with no set destination.....which could put me into the middle of an astroid.

I held on to my seat as my ship travelled through the (uncontrolled and unstable) worm hole which it had created, all i could do at this point was wait to drop out of warp.

Rough landing

My ship continued to shake, looking from the cockpit, i could see the armor platers on the wing start to tear, if i stayed in this worm hole any longer, my ship would tear it self apart.

I grabbed the controls as i hit the command the console in front of me, switching form auto pilot to manual and shutting off the warp drive, which flung me out of the worm hole, towards a planet, one that was not listed on any of the star maps.

I had one engine left, but due to the speed i had been flung out off the worm hole, i would not be able stabalise my self to avoid getting caught in the gravity field of the planet.

"Alright then, lets roll with it" i though to my self as i used the forward thrusters on my ship to slow it down, while using my remaining engine to help contorl the path my ship was taking.

Soon enough, my ship entered the atmosphere of the planet, a terran class planet, i did not have long to admire it since the ships power just went out suddenly, leaving me with no thrust, my ship, was now nothing more then an extravagant piece of metal that would soon hit the planets surface.....hard.

I ran out of the cockpit towards the reactor, it was a custom design of mine, with a back up capacitor that was shielded incase this happened.

I switched it on, cuasing power to flow bakc into the ship, though by the time i got bakc to the cockpit, i could see the ground below getting closer, very fast.

I grabbed the controls in the cockpit, pulling them towards me with all my might, desperatly trying to level out my ship.

300 meters.....200 meters.....100 meters.

The nose of the ship lifted in time, but unfortanly, i hadn't gained enough lift and hit the ground with the bae of the ship, sliding across the ground, the ship shaking violently as it went through a forest, the trees splitting as it went past.

I turned the engiens off and used the forward thrusters to try and slow the ship down, the ship slowing until it came to a stand still.

I fell back into my seat, holding my head as i tried to catch my breath.

"One of these days huh?" i muttered to my self, before getting out of my seat, heading towards my quaters.

Gear

I entered my quaters, going towards a wall hanging mirror inside, looking into it, i saw my face reflected, black hair, 2 blue eyes, though my right one had a large scar going across it, which extended from my hair to where my the bottom of my nose was, a consequnce of the many fights i've been in, though, it served as a reminder never to be caught off guard, one that i seemed to of ignored time and time again.

i then turned away from the mirror and headed towards the locker i had in my quaters, opening it, i looked at the contentfs inside, before taking them out.

First, a change of clothes, putting on blue jeans and a light green t-shirt, since the ones i had worn during the crash were a bit battered.

Next, i put on the combat vest, this sleeveless vest had saved my life on countless occasions and it showed, the jacket was covered in stiches from where i had patched it up, but its was as durable now as it was the day i bought it and it would continue to serve me yet again.

On the vest was varous pockets for storage, medical supplies, ammunition, grenades, all the things any one exploring the cosmos should have handy, while on the back, it had 2 leather holsters, some thing i had added to it, since carrying a rifle around in your hands makes people nervous or any weapon for that matter.

After equiping another set of holsters to my jeans (so i coudl carrying sidearms) i then started to grab the remaining contents, 2 pistols, each with 12 round mags, firing 12mm rounds, 2 jackel grenades, 2 flashbangs, 1 sensor grenade (reuseable), 1 reaper assault rifle, 40 round mag, firing 15 mm armor piercing rounds, with shotgun attachment underneath, "stubby", as i called it, 4 round capacity, 12 gauge, one retractable staff, "shocky", made out of carbon fiber, each end of the staff had small metal coils, with a small capacitor inside the shaft of the staff, which allowed thee staff to emit power bursts of electricity from ether end, highly durable and useful for blocking, amoung other things, 1 "hotman" grappling hook, with small rocket booster attachment, useful for scaling walls.

I checked each piece of equipment, making sure each was ready for use, since maintaining ones weapons was a nessesity when you could go months without visiting a planet or trade station.

I then did a check of what supplies i had, 4 pistols magazines, 2 reaper mags, 5 unloaded slugs (i always kept my wepaons fully loaded in case i had to grab one, i learnt the hard way what happens when your unprepared), 1 set of bandages, 2 nanogel syringes, which could heal major injuries quickly, 1 water canteen, able to hold 500ml of water, with a built in filter, to get rid of any toxic substances or poisens.

With the inventory check completed, there were 2 things left, my gloves, which had neuro pads on the inside of them, which served 2 purposes, first, any data from a sensor grenade could be fed directly into my head and secondly, while i held "shocky" in my hands, i could recharge its capacitor, which was done through the gloves converting excess heat generated from my body, converting it into electrical energy, then transfering it to the staff, since both the middle of the staff and the gloves had electrical sensitive padding on them which allowed them to absorb electricity, 1 survival knife and finally, 1 pack of gum, 2 pieces left.

The final item was my hooded cloak, black in color, it keeps me warm when its cold and hides my sillioette in the dark, along with hiding my face, which is useful when your wanted by some of the less civilised of people.

With everything in ordered, i headed towards the reactorbay, food was less important at this point, i needed to see what the extent of the damage was.

Meltdown

I enetered the reactorbay, looking at the reactor, it seemed to be relativly undamaged, though consideirng the lights on the ship were flickering, there was something wrong.

I looked at the reactor console, it was black, so the reactor was off line, well, i wasn't getting off this planet without it being on, so i hit the manual power up switch, which caused the reactor to spring to life.

"danger, danger" the console kept whining on and on, no doubt it had caused a slight gli......"oh you got to be kidding me" i said to my self as i started to use the console controls, the reactor was channeling to much power through it self, which was weakening the resistors, which were used to regulate the power of the reactor to prevent this.

I quickly ran over to the manual shut off lever and pulled it, nothing happened.

"Danger, danger, reactor reaching critical levels"

"Fuck" i shouted as i ran towards the cockpit, the crash had basically smashed the shielding of the cockpit, and well, that was the fastest way out at this point.

I climbed out of the ship, running down the nose of the craft before jumping off, rolling on the ground before getting up on my feet and sprinting again.

I only managed to get a short distance before the ship exploded, knocking me off my feet as shrapnel flew all over the place, causing the bark of several nearby trees to simply explode due to the intense heat, the explosion it self may not be very big, but anything within its "killzone" would of ether been reduced to ash, or simply of meated from the intense heat, even from where i was, i could feel it.

I got back up, turning around to see what remained of my ship, nothing but scrap metal now.

"Well, if i knew that was gonna happen i'd of stocked up on food as well" i muttered to my self, before turning around and running away, this planet had trees, and where there'ss trees there's life and life comes in many different forms and i'd rather not encounter the hostile kind.

Signs of intellegent life

After a while i slowed down, i felt that i had gotten far enough to hopefully avoid the attention of anything drawn to the ship, since i didn't fancy anything eating me.

I took a look at my suroundings, trees, bushes, more trees, as far as the eye could see, this wasn't gonna get me any where, so i decided to get a better view of the area, using "hotshot" to grapple onto one of the trees, climbing up until i could see above the treeline.

Looking around, i coudl see the forest extending in all directions, though i spotted 2 villages in the distance, one of them was close, probally a miles walk, the other, about 4 miles away, which also happened to be the larger of the 2.

I jumped down from the tree, landing on my feet.

"hejsu?" a voice drew my attention as i looked up, there, standing about 30 meters away from me, was a woman, though, she wasn't human, even though she had slightly tanned skin, she also had brown scaly feet and arms, large claws clutching a even larger sword, most likly a broadsword, with a large brown, scaley tail jutting out of her behind.

i looked at the rest of her, the same scaly material covered what seemed to be breasts, modoratly size, though when i saw covered, it just barly prevented them from poping out, in fact, she was showing a lot of skin, with only some thin cloth materail covering her breasts and her more vital area.

I moved my eyes towards her head, she had light scarlett hair, but what drew my attention were her eyes, a shining gold, staring right back at me, her face had a neutral expression on it.

"Aje jku m warrior?" she said, i couldn't understand most of it, not surprising, being an unexplored world, but that last part, i could possibly be suffering from a light form of concussion from the ships explosion, but it sounded like she said warrior.

It would of been useless for me to talk, so i instead held up both my hands and shook my head, which seemed to cause her to frown, before her eyes started to look down towards my belt, she was staring at my knife.

"Maybe she wants it?" i though, if there were more of her kind, i'd rather not have them trying to hunt me down, plus, its not the first time i've given a gift to primitive tribesmen, which as resulted in varouis reactions, i just hope this is a good one.

i grabbed my knife by the handle, but as i brought it up, i saw her grinning.

"I hdue jku baq faoq ckwo" she shouted as she charged me, her tail waving wildly as she prepared to swing her sword at me, obvously, this wasn't one of the good reactions that i had hoped for.

Persistance is key for first impressions

As she swung her blade i dodged to the side of a tree, causing her strike to miss me and hit the tree, causing the blade to get stuck in the tree, though that was after it went half way through the tree, not something i want to get hit with.

"isut heurt" she shouted, i simply bolted as she attempted to retrieve her blade, weaving through the trees to find a dirt path through the forest, which i promptly ran along, hoping to reach one of those villages, i needed food and water and a village was a good sign that both were near by.

After a while i slowed down, i could see the village gates in the distance, so i decided to simply walk, as to not use up any more energy.

I pulled out my pack of gum and took one of the pieces out of it, chewing on it, it was strawberry flavour, which i had a weakness for, also helped keep me calm.

"bausieh, skuri gh" a shout behind me drew my attention, just giving me enough time to dodge the swing of a blade, it was the strange warrior woman i met earlier.

"Persistant bitch" i muttered as i spat out my gum, before making a dash towards the village, with her in close pursuit.

I ran through the village gates, trying to catch my breath, though i had to dodge yet again as another swing from this strange woman, who seemed determined to bring me down.

"fine, have it your way" i said as i drew my staff, darting right at her in an attempt to bring her down.

"jay jsiu" a voice behind me shouted, before i knew it, several tanned women had surrounded me, about 5 meters away form me, all weilding swords.

"fucking...great" i though to my self as i readied my self, my only choice was to fight now.

Just one of those days

I was surrounded on all sides, towards the gates where i had entered this village, the strange brown scale woman, and all around me, tanned women, seemed to be some kinda tribe, considering they had a large number of tatoos all over their body, the lack of clothing (cloth materail covering only their chests and nether regions), though they were mostly human, baring the tails, which were thin, but looked to be made up of purple scales.

One of these tribes women raised their sword, shouting "jskjdue, ks juu a juw ksj pa shj lisoe", while the other tribewomen stared.

Though, things only kicked off when the strange brown scaled women lunged at me, preparing to swing her blade at me, her tail seemed to be emitting fire at this point.

"Alright then" i said as i lunged at her, dodging her swing and jabbing my staff into her stomuch, before hitting the siwtch on my staff, causing electricity to course through the tip of the staff and through her, causing her to convulse before hitting the floor, she wasn't dead, probally.

The tribeswomen started muttering to each other before they turned their attention to me, i was now walking in a circle, pointing my staff at them, before pointing at the woman on the floor, i was tyring to warn them, that if they went after me, they'd get the same treatment, hopefully this would get them to back off.

It did not, infact, they all were grinning now, guess this meant they weren't gonna let me go.

"Fine then, i'm gonna kick all your arses" i shouted, before lunging at one of the tribeswomen, swinging my staff at her, catching her off guard and hitting her in the head, the coils brimmed with electricity as she fell on the floor, though i had already switched to a new target, this wasn't fight i wanted to drag on.

Never that easy

I went for the second one, but quickly backed off when she swung her sword, trying to knock my staff out my hands.

"Guess they aren't all that easy" i muttered to my self, though i didnt' have much time to think as one of the other tribeswomen had charged at me, swinging her blade in an attempt to cleave me in half from my waist, with me using my staff to block the blow, which was not the best idea, since it sent me flying, though i did land on my feet.

She did not give me much time to recover as she pressed her assault, which seemed to cause the others to try and join in, all of them swinging their swords, me barly weaving and dodging, i couldn't counter attack since i had to use my staff to deflect any blows i coudlnt' dodge, swinging my staff in tandem.

One of them attempted to hit me from behind, but was surprised when i vaulted over her, grabbing the materail on her back, the moment i landed i pulled with all my might, flipping her over my back, before hitting her with my staff as she was in mid air, she hit the ground quite hard as she rolled across the ground, not getting back up.

Another one down, only 17 more to go, i wasn't gonna win this, instead, i had to buy time until i though of a way out, i didn't want to use my guns, since i had very little ammunition and no way of making any more (well, provided i could get the materails, i could create the molds needed).

That problem was about to be solved as suddenly balls of fire started hitting the tribeswomen, the explosions from the impact causing them to go flying.

I looked behind me towards the gates of the village to find that strange brown scaled woman back on her feet, a massive grin on her face as her tail swung wildly, a vibrant red flame now.

"jsyr jkis lw sighe" she shouted as she charged at me again.

"This shit again" i though as i lunged at her, i was gonna do what i did to her before, though this time, i would ramp the charge up, since it seemed it hadn't had the desired effect before.

Sad to say, this time she moved faster then i anticipated, grabbing my staff with one of her claws as she swung her sword at me, fire in her eyes.

I let go of my staff and dodged backwards, the blade slung through the air as the tip grazed my vest, damaging the fabric.

I now had no melee weapon to defend my self (a knife would be bad idea for blocking a blade like that), which left me no choice but to use my pistols, taking them out of their holster and pointing them at her, with her grinning, her gold eyes shining as i stared at her.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

"Nothing personal" i said as i opened fire, only needed one shot to kill her.

Or so i though, as the bullet hit her in the forhead, brown scales quickly formed, causing the bullet to bounce off and hit the floor.

"Fucking hell, you got to be shitting me" i said as she charged me again, seemingly unfazed by the attack, swinging her blade at me as i dodged, though she quickly went for another attack, chaining her attacks one after another, which left me no choice but to dodge, ducking and weaving, avoiding attack after attack.

This went on for 5 minutes, the sweat starting to pour off my face as i continued to dodge, with her just swinging faster and harder, i looked at her face quickly, the expression on it was one that seemed to be of....happiness.

"Great, a combat nut" i thought to my self as i went to dodge another swing, but this time she caught me off guard when she spun around, using her tail to attack, hitting me right in the side, the force sent me flying, before hitting the dirt, rolling on the ground before i rolled back onto my feet, though the blow certainly did some damage, even with the vest absorbing some of the force behind the blow.

There was a silver lining to this however, she had knocked me right next to my staff, which i promptly picked up, putting my pistols away since that one shot had been completely nullifed and she didn't seem the slighest bit frightened by the attack.

"Fine, now we're equal, but i'm still gonna kick your arse" i shouted at her, my blood was boiling at this point and i was pissed off after all that had happened today, which was bad news for her.

I snapped out of this rage however when one of the tribeswomen attacked the brown scaled woman, with others quickly joining in, they seemed quite pissed off about the attack she had landed on them before, though, i was confused at how none of them had been killed by her attacks, still, it gave me a chance to run, though i made sure none of them would follow me by using a flashbang, throwing it right into the ground as i whistled, grabbing their attention just in time for them to be in full view of the flashbangs explosion, i heard screams and shouting as i turned around and ran out the gates.

All you can do sometimes, is move forward

I walked through the forest, moving towards the direction of the second, larger village i had seen earlier, i had seen some of the buildings made out of stone, so hopefully it didnt' contain sword weilding nut jobs, i had seen enough of them to last me the day.

"Who the fuck were they" i shouted as i hit a near by tree with ym fist, i was still pretty pissed off, today had been a very, very bad day, my ship had exploded, i had been chased by a sword wielding, fire spewing combat nut, which had caused me to enter a village full of sword wielding tribeswomen, who were intent on bringing me down, not to mention i had no food or water.

Still, i had one thing left, my life and so long as i had that, i could at least salvage what had been a shit day, i just hope that larger village turns out to be more, hospitable towards strangers.

The rustling of leaves caused me to quickly draw my pistol, aiming it towards the source of the noise, the sound of gunfire erupted as i opened fire on the bush.

When i looked into the bush, i found a small, rabbit like creature dead in it, though it had 3 red eyes and scarlett fur.

"At least NOW i have food, now i just need water" I though to my self, before the sound of thunder boomed overhead, followed by heavy rain fall.

I sighed as i opened my canteen, gathering up what water i could as i carried the dead rabbit with my hand, not quite how i wnated thinsg to turn out, but it was a start and at this point all i can do is move forward, its what i've always done and so long as i'm alive, its what i woudl continue to do.

I continued to walk through the forest, before reaching anpother dirt path, which lead to the gates of the larger village, which was now 100 meters away from me.

"i hope they are friendier then the ones i've met today" i muttered to my self as i started to walk towards the village, at this point in time, i didn'#t have much left to lose, though i kept one of my hands near my pistol.....just in case.

Chapter 2

Index

Authors notes:

OAlright, thats one chapter finished, with this series i've got a few goals.

1. i want the prospective to be that of someone that doens't know the slighest about the mge world, as such, taking any attack to be one of hostility, not to mention no knowledge of magic.

2. i want the main character to grow as he learns more about the world, adapting to the world as he does.

This is probally gonna have less comedy then the explorer, but well, i have always admired my anti heros, so it shoudl be fun creating some one that isn't all good and rightous.

For the enxt few days i'll be doing other stuff, so new posts are unlikely, though i may drop in to comment.

laters

Critism is welcome as always.