FSE

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Humans had existed once. Traget remembered that much from her history classes. The last one had been killed millennia ago, taking with him the history of the world before the time of the Valravne. There was little known from before the new era, beyond there having been a war. The clashing of two almighty armies, one fighting for power and control, the other for freedom and justice. Leading these soldiers of justice had been a great man, his name long lost to time. A sorcerer of great skill and kindness, beloved by his people and respected by his enemies, he had been the creator of the Gryphons, the proud and arrogant eagle-lion hybrid.

In contrast, the Dark Sorcerer was a power hungry man of cruelty and depravity. Having been concerned only with himself and the powers he could achieve, this man, if he could be called such, used every available means to control and dominate. Blood magics, collected from the pain and suffering from his enemies and slaves, were channelled into magical weapons of his own to wage war against the armies of the light mage. The Valravne, a quadrupedal hybrid of wolf and Raven, were little more than living weapons to their creator, trained and conditioned to blindly follow the orders of their superiors, and abused and tortured when they failed. His name, while remembered, was not to be spoken. The valravne, created by this man as a cruel parody to the Gryphons, held such hatred towards his memory that they refused to speak his name out of spite, as he did not deserve even that much honour. Their own species had originally been named after this mage, though they no longer recognised the title he had given them, instead choosing to call themselves Valravnes.

The exact events that ended the war were lost to the ages, valravnes having had little interest in recording history during their earliest years. More recent historians had scavenged the ruins left during that time for little reward. The valravnes, born weapons fueled by hartred, had survived whatever battles had taken place. Some historians believed that they themselves had been responsible for the genocide of humanity, turning on their masters and systematically hunting down every other sapient being. Regardless, they survived when others had not. The years following the valravnes rise to the top of the food chain were brutal and bloody, with the strongest and most violent attracting the better mates, or merely raping their way to genetic continuation. During this period, almost all of humanities knowledge was lost to the world. Lacking any ability to use magic themselves and furious about this, valravnes had chosen to shun the very idea of magic, destroying any magical artefacts they found and instead turning towards machines and technology. Over centuries, those willing to work together began developing a culture of their own. These tended to be the smaller, weaker creatures, who needed the safety afforded by superior numbers to fight off the bigger, more aggressive members of their species.

Intelligence had now become an attractive quality for mates. Through centuries of hard work, they re-learnt the lost arts of farming, mathematics and black smithing, allowing them to support a larger, more adaptable population. Their original design having been for killing, it had afforded them little dexterity in their foreclaws. With oversized talons, poor mobility in their fingers and no thumbs, even simple tasks were trials of frustration. Angry about the lack of opposable thumbs on their foreclaws, a few intrepid inventors began the designing of and, eventually, the completion of clockwork foreclaws that could be fitted over their hands like metal gloves, giving them rudimentary fingers and thumbs. Now able to perform complex manipulations and without magic to fall back on, the valravnes began advancing their technologies at a rate never before seen on their planet. With these new found tools, the smaller, weaker, now smarter valravnes finally had the physical ability the flip off their bigger counterparts, before pulling out crossbows and establishing their dominance.

Millennia passed.

The planet had been lifeless for decades now. Countless generations at war, intent on building bigger and better weapons than their enemies, had exhausted the planet of its resources. Incredible advances in science and technology had risen only to be turned towards destruction. Computers of war, spacecraft bristling with lasers and missiles, rained death from above. Battle armours worn by the infantry, equipt with force fields and inertial dampeners to keep their users safe from even direct enemy fire, that were fitted with on board medical systems to keep them going long after their bodies should have given out, were used to hunt and destroy. Cities had been levelled in small skirmishes, with entire continents being scoured of life before the end.

Few settlements were still standing, most were no more than mass grave yards, filled with the dust of fallen soldiers and innocent civilians, forgotten and left to the elements. The species had ended the way they began, through war.

A flash of light could be seen near the outskirts of the city, had there been anyone to witness it. The sun reflecting from a metal surface that hadn't been there the day before. An old starship, painted a dark grey with the word "Mako" barely visible on the side, rested in a small clearing amidst the rubble. Two stories high, with a long fuselage and twin engines hanging from the sides, the scarred and dented exterior made a quiet ticking noise as the metal cooled. It's owner was not quite as relaxed.

Traget had always hated the sound of her own breathing echoing inside the environmental suit. Now the valravne found she missed such a simple sound of life as the howling winds drowned out all other noise. Standing atop a crumbling skyscraper, she needed all four legs spread for balance, as well as keeping a tight grip on an exposed crossbeam just to prevent herself from being blown from her perch. A sad expression etched on her face as she look out across the remains of her home city. Dozens of buildings, once proudly reaching for the sky as a tribute to the capabilities of their creators, now lay torn and twisted on the streets below. A memorial to her species capacity for destruction. The trees and grass, flowers and wildlife that used to thrive in the various parks, now long dead and turned to dust. The missiles that had caused such damage had spared no one. Those unlucky enough to have survived the initial blasts had died in agony as their bodies had collapsed within minutes of the radiation exposure as it swept across the country.

Traget glanced at her Heads Up Display, checking background radiation. Nearly forty years had passed since the final bombs had fallen, yet this city was still soaked with enough radiation to be lethal were she to go without her protective shell. A warning message caught her attention, pointing towards the dark clouds building on the horizon. Traget shifted her gaze from the clouds back to the read out. Acid rain, yet another gift from her ancestors. Half at hour at the most before it reached her, the pock marks and holes in the concrete and steel from previous rains testament to the corrosive power of the phenomenon.

As the last valravne, Traget considered it her right to inherit ownership of all remaining technologies, regardless of their prior classified or secret status. Many years of perusing the remains of military bases, government storage warehouses and highest level scientific research labs had left her with a significant stockpile of toys. Military grade weapons and armour, experimental or untested prototypes, terabytes of classified data and now, if her research was correct, this tower should be the home to one of her species greatest achievements. An experimental reality drive, capable of tearing a hole in the universe itself, creating a bridge to a new world and, perhaps, a new home. Traget flicked her tongue out to tap the button on the inside of her helmet, activating the HUD once more. The cursor followed her eye movements as she selected communications.

"Start count down, thirty minutes, then prepare the Mako for launch." Traget spoke into her head set.

"I'm sorry, I did not understand that." the ship's computer replied.

"Set. Countdown. For. Thir-"

"I'm sorry, I did not understand that."

"Fucking speech recognition!" Traget snarled suddenly, her temper flaring. Thousands of years of evolution had done little to calm the rage that burned in her heart, an unwanted aspect of her design left over from her species origin. After taking a breath to calm herself, she let go of the exposed beam she was holding onto, allowing her mechanical fingers to slide back into their housing. Small nails with rubber toes imitating a wolf's paw had now replaced the dexterous fingers, allowing her to scramble down into the building as easily as any ground based animal, looking for a place out of the wind.

The floor beneath her groaned as she stomped across the remains of the office block, the enormous weight of the metal suit she wore straining the aging structure around her. Entering a small storage room and slamming the door violently shut, the door disintegrated in her hand. Biting back her anger, Traget dropped down on her hindquarters and lifted her foreclaw up to get a better view at her wrist keyboard, preparing to text her commands to her ship. More than four hundred kilograms of military grade armour and an unspecified number of kilograms of valravne proved too much as cracks formed on the surface she was sitting. With a soft crunch, the ground beneath her gave way, causing her hind legs to slip down the newly formed hole in between the floor supports. Powerful claws sprouted from her gloves before grabbing at the remains of a carpet, gouging into the concrete beneath. Having now succeeded only in wedging herself inside the hole, she twisted her body, trying to break free. With her hindquarters on one level, torso stuck in the floor and furious head poking out on another, her temper took over. Gone was the sad, thoughtful creature that had been contemplating her species self destruction, replaced with a beast of spite and rage. Slamming her wings outwards, the magnified strength her suit gave her easily cracked the concrete imprisoning her, bending the metal support beams as she fought to escape. Unable to hear any sounds of danger over the thunderous roar of the winds outside, she failed to notice the entire floor flexing. Years of neglect and abuse from the elements had decayed the strength of the concrete and with Traget's enraged struggling, it finally surrendered.

With a shriek of protest and unable to withstand Traget's augmented strength, the floor gave way. Dropping at an angle, Traget was thrown sideways, slamming into the wall of the level below, before rolling down the tilted floor towards the hole in the side of the building. Snapping her wings open as she fell, and screaming a slew of obscenities to an uncaring universe, she ignited her wing jets, hurling herself forwards just as a lump of concrete smashed across her back. Designed for space duty and other hazardous environments, the impact caused little damage to the suit Traget wore. This made no difference to the wearer, who's natural instinct to a back attack took over and she attempted to spin and retaliate. Her right wing clipped the ground at speed and sent her spinning across the floor, before smashing through a wall into what remained of an set of offices. After a moment of laying crumpled against a concrete room divider, she leapt to her feet and, screaming incoherently, grabbed a nearby desk and hurled it towards the ceiling. Wooden splinters rained down around her as she vented her frustrations.

Snarling, Traget activated the wing lasers on her suit and unleashed an immature retaliation towards this inanimate object, this building that dare attempt to frighten her. Brilliant green beams of energy sliced through walls, floors and anything else they crossed paths with. Glaring through her targeting sights, she paused when she noticed the ceiling had continued to collapse. Beams of light began appearing through cracks as the daylight attempted to sneak inside for the first time in decades. Realising her folly, Traget turned and ran, moments before the ceiling gave into it's threats and buried her under tons of rubble. Scrambling across the decayed remains of tables, computers and privacy partitions, fury replaced with terror, she looked for an escape. Heading deeper into the building now, she had cut herself off from the sky and freedom. Shoulder charging through a wall, she found herself in a corridor leading left and right. A sudden tilt of the floor sent her reeling as the top of the skyscraper began to give out. Supporting pillions, girders and tension bolts, rusted and corroded, concrete walls and floors, pitted and damaged by acid rain, finally lost the battle with gravity. With a heaving shudder and the scream of rending metal, the top four floors of one of the last intact monuments to the past came crashing down.

Traget saw an escape. A set of elevators were at the end of the corridor. Racing towards them, dodging the projectiles raining from above, she panted heavily in her suit. This much physical exertion was a rare and unwanted experience. Slamming her talons into the elevator's doors and wrenching them open, she threw herself into the empty shaft, claws digging in to the sides as she struggled not to fall down the fifty story drop. Sliding down the shaft, using her spread wings to brake herself against opposite walls, Traget struggled to control her panic, wincing as small bits of rubble bounced off her suit. This was not how this mission was meant to go. She was supposed to come down to the city, find an old piece of technology and return to her ship victorious. Now, due to her own temper, she was running away from a building. A flicker of movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Lighting up her external flood lights in time to see a thick metal cable whip past her, a horrified realisation came to her. Whipping her head up, she had just a moment to see the elevator car falling before it slammed it's entire weight into her, striking at terminal velocity. Barely aware of the next few moments as she fell, struggling just to remain concious as she ricochet from one wall to another. Tumbling end over end, her suit's inertial dampening system the only thing keeping her from shattering every bone, Traget descended to the bottom of the tower.

Striking the ground hard before being bouncing back up, she met the elevator car once more as it threw her to the ground and exploded into shrapnel on top off her. Curled in to a ball, listening to the rumbling noise from outside and the warning alarms inside her helmet, she waiting for things to settle.

After several minutes, Traget unfolded herself and climbed to her feet, scattering wreckage as she did. Forcefield off-line, inertial dampeners failing, seals compromised, a long list of damaged components scrolled across her vision. Minimising the worryingly red status report the suit was placing up on her HUD, she stretched her body to check everything was where it should be. After a moment to orientate herself, she reached out and pulling open the doors leading to basement. With her light shining around the room, Traget climbed out of the shaft and gazed around. An old security check point was in front of a glass wall and door, still intact.

Grinning now, she activated her headset. "Traget to Mako, set count down for twenty five minutes, then prepare ship for launch."

"I'm sorry," the computer replied, "I did not understand that."

Close your eyes and count to ten, Traget thought to herself. It's your own fault for not testing it before you came out here.

Shaking herself irritably, Traget trotted over to the glass door and punched through it, before battering the whole wall down and entering the next room. Having learnt nothing from before, she charged up her wing lasers and headed deeper in to the gloom.

---

The patter of rain echoed throughout the facility. The gentle sound almost soothing to Traget as she inspected the machine in front of her. An enormous device, two stories high and more than a hundred meters in diameter, yet it somehow still failed to impress. Designed for function with no thought to aesthetics, it merely resembled a large collection of computer servers set in a ring around a raised platform. Underneath this platform sat a small reactor used to power the device.

Igniting her thrusters, Traget spread her wings and leapt in to the air, soaring across to the platform, before landing heavily on it. This silver platform was easily large enough for a dozen valravnes to stand comfortably on. Made of a smooth metal, devoid of any marks or blemishes, Traget found it difficult to get any traction, her feet sliding across the surface as though it were oiled. Above, hanging upside down from the ceiling of this underground warehouse was an identical platform, hundreds of cables connecting the twin systems together.

Traget slowly spun around and after spotting what appeared to be the control room, took to the air and headed over. Several rows of consoles were lined up against one wall, in unknown condition after having lain dormant for so long. Covered in dust, an old coffee mug sat on one of the monitors, mould growing over the unrecognisable contents. The radiation level shown on her HUD suggested it was safe to be here, however Traget decided to run a full repair program across her armour before she trusted the scanners after her earlier fall.

Turning back to the enormous systems behind her, Traget considered her options. Rather foolishly, she had hoped she could carry reality warping technology back to the Mako and study it at her leisure. That was clearly not a possibility as she pulled the weather report up on her HUD, toes tapping idly against the ground. Months of work had been required to find and resurrect some weather satellites, before moving them into a usable position. The report they were now showing indicated that the acid rain would last for several hours before moving on. Her environmental suit could normally handle the corrosive liquid, but after her earlier fall, Traget wasn't thrilled with the idea of heading out whilst there was a chance the suit could leak. For now, she was stuck here and it may be worth exploring the underground laboratory more thoroughly to see if it would be suitable for a long term base. That was for later, however. Right now she was more interested in the workings of the machine in front of her. After dramatically blowing air through her beak, the valravne settled down and began the task of learning the secrets housed in these computers, just waiting for her.

To be Continued