I sat in darkness waiting for him to return, he wasn't usually this late. I jumped a bit as the door opened. Looking through the doorway I let out a sigh of relief.
"Hey Scraper, found anything interesting?" I asked my four-armed bot as he entered through the front door of my little workshop.
Scraper nodded before he walked over to me with his mostly filled bag. Turning it upside down, all sorts of parts fell down onto my table.
"Thanks. Remember to hook yourself up to the solar panels before you turn yourself off for the night." I said with a smile.
He nodded before walking into the door behind me into our "house". Turning on the small lamp above my workshop I begin to look through the parts. Another robotic arm, I can't give Scraper five different types of arms, he has enough problems with the four different ones. I thought to myself before I began to dismantle it. Looking up through one of the holes in the tarp above me I could see the star-filled night sky. A storm had just settled. It wasn't often this clear as there were most of the time a space storm either brewing, ongoing or fading. That's why there was always new scrap on this planet. Ships, satellites, space stations being thrown into this planet of ours. Some of the gangs say that the rings around our planet are mostly made up of old parts, just waiting to fall down. One day I will build a ship that is capable of leaving this planet and find out. Having dismantled the arm I continue to look at the parts.
"Still no voice chip for Scraper..." I mumbled to myself before I began sorting the parts into the shelf with similar parts.
Grabbing the rifle I have made for myself I turn off the lamp and carefully walk outside. I hadn't built my base in a tactically smart area. not yet at least. I could imagine it all as I looked at the small edges around me. Building walls around the edges of the wide crater would make for an ideal city one day. I wish it was a bit deeper tho, it was currently almost two meters deep. I snapped out of my imagining and instinctively looked up as I heard the sound of something entering the atmosphere, the momentarily loud humming before I saw a large ship soar through the sky. I climbed atop of my shack before continuing atop of the Crowsnest like construction where I had fastened the solar panels and antennas. I watched in awe as the ship inched closer and closer to the ground far away from here. Grabbing the railing as I prepared for the quake of the space cruisers impact. I smiled as the shacking began, the impact must have been about an 8 of magnitude and none of the things I had built since the last impact was destroyed. I only imagined the impact where the space cruiser had made contact with the planet. It had to be about nine days of travel from here if I used my bike, maybe twenty-four days by foot. Looking up at the sky I could see a long smoke trail from where the cruiser had fallen and a light. I looked at the light in the smoke confused before moments later something impacted the edge of the crater before skipping a bit further away from my base, sending small rocks in all directions.
"An escape pod..." I said out loud in awe before climbing down running towards it my grip tightening around my rifle as I knew it would attract the Dune gang.
I stopped about twenty steps away from the pod, it was so fine in its design compared to the other stuff I had seen fall onto this planet. My hand wrapped around the grip of the rifle and my finger resting on the trigger. The door of the escape pod flew off as the escape pod probably hadn't been able to calibrate to the pressure difference, the circular door digging itself into the rocky ground. A helmeted figure climbed unsteadily out of the pod clad in a gray jumpsuit with a deep orange vest. I keep my rifle pointed at the figure as it crawled down onto the orange dirt ground. It slowly took off its helmet revealing a strange figure. A humanoid but nothing like I have ever seen before, on this planet there are for the most part only of the Ereat race. It raised its arms above its head which had pointy ears that caught my attention, its features were a bit strange to me. They were finer than the normal features of an Ereat, its skin a bit more of a concentrated pink than mine who had been turning a bit more of a color similar to the orange-red ground around us as I spent much time outside.
"Where am I?"
"What?" I replied not expecting to be able to communicate with this being.
"Where are we? Which planet?" It asked again looking around before it's bright purple eyes onto me. "I am no danger to you young girl,"
"I'm no young girl, I had my 18th cake day a few weeks ago," I said still pointing my rifle at the being.
"Well, I am still no danger to you as long as you don't try to hurt me, young lady,"
I looked at the figure for a few seconds before lowering my rifle but had it still by my side; "You are on the planet Fragmentum, under the protection of the Golden Empire..." I stopped talking as I looked at the shocked expression the figure gave me.
"Is there any intelligent life on this planet?" the figure asked.
"I don't know, who am I to say what is intelligent? For all, I know you and I aren't intelligent to some alien race out in the wide galaxy." I snapped back as if I didn't answer enough.
The figure smiled, "I would say at least that you little girl is rather intelligent. I'll clarify my question. Is there any other species that we can communicate with the help of language."
"Yes... but most of them aren't much of talkers. People around here shot first and asks later."
As if I had summoned them I could hear the roaring sound of engines.
"Can I trust you?" I asked the figure.
"Can I trust you?" He asked back.
"You don't have another choice if you want to survive, follow me," I replied before beginning to run back towards my base, activating Scraper as I ran with the help of my remote control. I was surprised to see the figure catching up to me, the two of us running side by side as we reached my home.
Closing the metal door of the inner room I looked at the figure for a few seconds. I stated to myself that it was a male, he was standing in the room studying Scraper who seemed like was studying the figure.
"We need to burn my clothes." He started turning his back to me before he began to undress right in front of me leaving him only in his underwear.
I threw him some old rags trying not to look as he quickly got dressed. The roaring engines were even louder now that they were even closer.
"Your name?" I asked him as I handed him a blaster. He seemed like he was stalling, not really wanting to give me a name. "So I know what to write if you don't survive..." I mumbled.
"Weus... yours?" He asked back.
"Thea, but I will survive. Don't fire unless it's in self-defense okay?"
Weus nodded.
"Scrapper, burn Weus clothes and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, I'll be right back," I said before walking out into my workshop grabbing a few items before walking outside waiting for the Dune gang to appear.
Standing outside I could see one of their vehicles drive down into my crater it's one light contrasting against the night sky. I could already see that it was Rusty and Catcher who drove the vehicle, I didn't understand why they were named such stupid names when they joined the gang. Rusty who was clad in a very fitting rusty armor jumped out of the now parked framework of a vehicle.
"You know the rules!" He started yelling in his screechy voice. I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes before he continued; "Everything landing outside your crater is ours to take. If we leave something behind you are free to take it~"
"Yes, I know. Can you please go be stupid somewhere else?" I interrupted.
"You don't know what you are dealing with..." Catcher said through clenched teeth.
"Have you two forgot the rules?" I looked at both of them as I fastened my gripping around my rifle. "You are in my territory now, I can kill you two if I want to without it being of any consequence to me."
Rusty narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't do anything that foolish." He said, almost like he was trying to convince himself.
"Why are you guys here anyway? I didn't take anything." I said technically telling the truth, but I knew they were here because of Weus.
"We saw footsteps from the fallen piece, they were heading towards this location."
"Oh, yes my new slaves... It isn't my fault they walked into my crater at their own will."
"You... You think you are so clever don't you?" Rusty asked placing a hand on his pistol.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked after I had placed the carrying strap of my rifle over my shoulder moving my ragged stitchwork poncho to the side grabbing the plasma revolver which had been fastened with a holster to my ribcage. As my fingers wrapped around the blaster grip the energy drum lit in a pulsating purple to red color scheme as it recognized that it was me holding it. I could swear I heard the gulping sound of Rusty swallowing in sudden regret.
"Keep the slaves. We don't need more mouths to feed anyway." Rusty said before he spat onto the ground in front of himself.
He sat back down into the vehicle and drove off. I let out a sigh of relief as the sound of their engines faded slowly.
Walking back inside I immediately led Weus into my small personal room, the two of us stopping beside my desk that was standing beneath my bed that was built about a meter above the crude desk. I looked in one of the drawers where all of my "secret" blueprints were stored and picked up the one with my plans for the space ship.
"Will it work?" I asked impatiently.
After some time of studying the blueprint, he said; "No... You will need some form of energy in all directions you want to move in. You can't just have engines on the back side of the spaceship."
I looked at the blueprint with a feeling of failure as I had been working a long time on the design.
"We don't need that anyway, take a look at this," Weus said before fishing out a small chip placing it on the table he pressed the slike side pointed towards us making a hologram appearing with a digital blueprint a schematic of what looked like a communication device. "Can you make it?" He asked as I had looked at it for a while.
"Probably, but I don't know if I have all the parts," I replied.
"Well, let's see if you do," Weus said his voice now filled with hope.
The two of us walked out into my workshop and began to look for the parts I needed. I surprisingly had most of the items, the few of the parts I didn't have was possible to make or improvise with other similar items.
"Now we only need a powerful processor..." easier said than done I thought to myself looking in the empty bin where the more powerful processors would have been stored.
"What about that robot of yours?" Weus asked nodding his head towards Scraper who was standing in his charging dock.
I looked at Scraper standing there peacefully.
"You could always buy a better body when we get off this planet," Weus said.
"What would I trade with?" I asked.
"You wouldn't have to trade anything. The reward of returning T.F.F personnel to T.F.F is ten thousand credits as long as they are alive that is. That's enough to buy yourself a one-person space ship..."
I looked at Scraper for a while before I let out a sigh. walking over to Scraper I start the disassembly process by taking out the brain ship of Scraper, placing it into my inner pocket before beginning to disassemble him making my way towards where the processor was held.
"Where am I?" I mumbled to myself, looking around at the unfamiliar surroundings I could see that I sat alone in a white room. A calm voice filled the room as I looked around.
"You are on a T.F.F space cruiser. Don't worry you are safe. We just want to identify you before we let you walk freely around. Let's start with some easy questions. What is your name?" It asked, I looked around the room for a speaker or anything like that but didn't see any.
"Thea," I said.
"Last name?"
"What?" I asked confused.
"Family name?" The voice said.
"I don't understand..." I answered confused.
"We have a code-" Was all I heard before the voice was cut off abruptly.
Looking down I realized I wasn't wearing my clothes but a soft blue skin tight jumpsuit similar in design with the one Weus had been wearing when I first met him.
My head felt strange, not hurting but heavy in a way as I tried to think back on what happened. I remember getting the communication beacon to work, collecting my most useful stuff and gathering a container full of dirt before seeing the space shuttle land in my crater. The last thing I remembered was sitting on the space shuttle on my way to the big space cruiser with Weus. He grabbing a mask... that's the last memory I had before I woke up here now. I stood up from the single chair in the room. Walking a bit before sitting back down.
"Is this an interrogation?" I said out loud into the empty room.
"No, we use the term interview, the voice replied. Don't worry we are just filling out a few documents for you." The voice said calmly.
"Where are all my stuff?" I asked feeling my heartbeat begin to raise a bit not knowing where Scrapers "brain" is.
"Safely stored in a container."
I sat in the single chair frantically cleaning the underside of my fingernails as I waited for the voice to speak again.
"Well, Thea your last name or family name will be Star until you change it into something else." The voice said finally breaking the silence of the room. "Second question, how old are you?" The voice paused a bit, "How many cake days have you had?"
"Eighteen" I replied.
"Do you know your parents?"
I didn't answer.
"I take that as a no..." The voice said after a few seconds of silence.
The voice continued to ask me all sorts of questions like how long I had been on the planet, how I ended up there in the first place and much more before finally saying; "Well that was all, please leave the room." As a door formed on one of the white walls. Standing in front of it I was surprised to see Weus standing on the other side as the doors opened.
"Well, Thea, Star... Let me be the first to welcome you aboard this T.F.F space cruiser, S.S-18.01," He said with a smile. He was now to my surprise not wearing the same outfit as I had seen him exit the escape pod with. But instead, a two-piece suit like a uniform with padded shoulders or at least they looked to be padded as there were slim golden epaulets on each of his shoulders making it hard to actually know.
"Thanks... Do you know where my stuff is?" I asked quickly.
"Eh, yes. I was going to show you your room for the trip to Pacem. Follow me" He said gesturing for me to follow him down the mostly white and gray hallway people strangely saluted him as they passed us.
"This is your room," He said stopping in front of the faint outline of a door.
I took a step towards the outline, as soon as I did a door opened revealing a large room. I was first met by the sight of a living room and kitchen hybrid room. Weus walked over to the sofa and took a seat, gesturing me to do the same.
"So I have some information for you..." He started finding a device in his pocket he placed onto the table in front of us. "First of all... You are human,"
"What~"
"Exactly 96% the 4% are Ereaten, we used the method of Dr. Taraia the leading scientist within T.F.F."
I sat in the sofa seat astonished by this news, I couldn't believe all of the good news.
"We have a job offer for you... If you would be interested." He said as he stood up and walked towards the door Your reward as promised." He said throwing a small purple chip towards me.