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Chapter 1: Sheon

I skirted behind the crate and spun the dial on my gun, adjusting the frequency. I rolled my eyes across the HUD on my visor, upping the power to my shield and then rolled across the floor, holding it in front of my body as I thrust the barrel of my gun through the thin magnetic field. I fired at my enemies, and finally stood up and shot at the last one, taking note of his head being cleaved clean off. I pulled the smoking battery from the gun and tossed it to the side, waving my hand to try to cool it off. I grabbed another battery from my belt and stuck it in the gun.

[Jesus Christ that's a cluster fuck to read. My point with this chapter was to just throw the reader head-first into the world, without properly explaining anything. Since I no longer intend to continue writing this, I'll just go ahead and explain some of it now.

_ The idea is that technology has exploded, guns are plasma and energy based, which is great against normal metals, but it's possible to design armors capable of discharging some of that energy, and more importantly it's practical to make shields of electromagnetic fields to disrupt and collect the energy from these high-tech rounds.]_

I wandered through the empty room, stepping over the carcasses of deceased Carfleigs, occasionally finding an unbroken Creuss Stone. I was told to gather any I found, but more importantly I had to find a single information cell from within this old mining facility. I finally made my way to the control room and found a single, remaining Carfleig, but this one was different. His skin was a pale blue, his mouth was covered in a bony beard, and his eyes were bleached. He wore no armor, but instead wore robes with shoulder pads and a crown of a green, glittery metal.

[Carfleigs were made up to basically be Halo Grunts, and "Creuss Stones" are kind of a nod at Fantasy Flight's "Ghosts of Creuss" from Twilight Imperium, Third Edition. They come up a bit from time to time in this story. Based on where I take the Creuss Stones later, "I was told to gather any I found" doesn't really make sense, but hey, who gives a fuck?

_ I'll explain the carfliegs later, when shit gets less weird.]_

He did not look at me, but his voice rang loud and clear as he spoke, "You're not human."

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the common mistake of primitive creatures, "I am no less human than you are; we just have a different definition of what makes something human."

[Fun fact: the common language of the entire galaxy is English, and all intelligent creatures capable of reproducing the sounds required to speak it eventually learn it.

_ Also a fun fact: aliens define "human" as intelligent life, not "homo sapiens" or "carfleigs", because then shit would be annoying and confusing as fuck.]_

He looked at me, and pupils formed from the murky smoke. He blinked, and his eyes cleared completely. "I see nothing when I look at you. Pulsing sounds and a feeling of hope, but also a feeling of dread. What are you really?"

[Fun fact: Carfleigs would be spiritualists in Stellaris.]

"I'm nothing you've ever seen before, and I'm nothing you'll ever see again. I'm going to do you a favor: I'm going to kill you. If you return home alive, it'll destroy your people with questions."

He nodded, "This world is bigger than I can comprehend, and I am the smartest one in the world. If I can't understand it, how can I hope for everyone else to?"

[I guess the idea here was they made the smartest person on their home world their leader, but then another kind of Carfleigs captured him and... You know what, he's a primitive, who gives a fuck? Kill him, currently unnamed main character!]

"You can't. But don't worry, any chaos your world is in now, it can't get any worse." I pressed the barrel of my gun up underneath his beard and unmade his cranium. The remainder of his body slumped to the ground lazily. I turned to the monitor and grabbed the information cell, deeming its size unusually large. I turned around and walked back through the seized mining vessel and finally to my own craft, the Iron Haul. As I stepped aboard, I felt the artificial gravity shift to nearly double what I had been experiencing before, and welcomed the sense of sane movement.

I closed the door, and activated the air lock. After waiting a moment I pulled my helmet off and spent five minutes removing my suit. I set it in its charging station and proceeded towards the hold of the ship, where I found my crew: Romeo, Su'iz, and Ad'dyer.

Romeo had known me the longest, since before he'd rescued me from my home planet, even. He hailed from the basest of all worlds, a sentient race of fungoids who referred to themselves as "the Enruids". Their tale of galactic emergence is akin to that of the Blorg, except the Enruids weren't hideous, and they had built a Dyson sphere around their star before leaving the system, upon which sat the only disrupter powerful enough to close the Creuss Gate. Romeo stood about two meters tall, and being the Enruids are large pillars with smoothed surfaces, he only stood. Like all Enruids, about two thirds the way up his body were four tendrils, about a meter long each but almost always tucked in, and three fourths the way up was a sharp slit, that glowed as red as the rest of his body.

[Yes, I made up a race of people who basically the Blorg but not, because I prefer that one mulluscoid skin over Blorg skins in Stellaris]

Su'iz was a Creuss refugee, and little can be said for the Creuss beyond being suits of armor, intricately laced with complex patterns whose meanings naught to non-Creuss. Despite sounding both robotic and ghastly at the same time, her voice was yet smooth, as smooth as they come, and the suit's figure was clearly designed for some seductive purpose, assuming they think of attraction as Huerons do.

[In this story, the Creuss gate from TI3 sort of exploded in a war or some shit, but apparently there are these "Creuss Stones" scattered meaninglessly about the galaxy that I guess can get her back home or some shit.

_ Also, yeah, the main character's race is "Hueron". Catchy, ain't it?]_

Ad'dyer, to top it all off, is our newest recruit; a Hacan who was sold into slavery by his own people. I traded a Carfleig for him, and after having left the system declared him a free man and watched him stare at me in annoyance. It's not like he had a choice, it was either work on a smuggler's ship or get put back into slavery by less friendly folk. The Hacan are effectively Lion people, hailing from a system of arid worlds, void of anything but sand and known for legendary floating cities.

[Oh look, another race ripped off from Fantasy Flight for the sake of lazy writing!]

I sat down at the table, putting my feet up and yawning, "Ad, where's the closest enlightened planet?"

The lion went over to a computer and spoke over his shoulder, "The Centauri system's pretty close. Personally I could go for a good ol' Scu'un myself."

Su'iz piped in, "Sheon, we can't go to a bar just because you have the information cell, you said it yourself, we need to take it Darm. It's vital for his research, which- if successful- will allow us to buy a system each. We need to head to Resculon."

[Resculon is also from TI3. ... It's like the most valuable system in the base game.

_ Also, Su'iz is Gamora, in case no one caught that dynamic forming.]_

I growled and looked to Romeo for help, "Come on, you know a cold drink and warm body would be nice right now."

[And the main character is Peter Quill...]

The voice emanated from deep within him like always, "Sheon, this could make us rich. We could give up smuggling and piracy and turn to things we'd rather pursue like science and enlightenment."

[The main character is named Sheon...]

"The Exema system is just a little bit out of the way! Come on, one night."

Su'iz shook her head, "You mortals are petty."

I pulled out a Creuss shard and showed it to her, "I picked up at least eight of these. I know how many you've got stashed in your room, just fifteen more and you can build a gate; you can go home. Every time you agree to do something irrational with me, I'll give you one."

[Okay, Sheon, roll for Bribery!]

There was a pause, and then she held out her hand, "Ad'dyer, set course for the Exema system."

[Natural 20! How 'bout that?]