A Journey through known space- episode 1. A fanfic by AamirRyuu Blue skies stretched across the sky, the sun sparkling like a diamond, sending white light illustriously across the tower. AI units bustled about, all going somewhere yet nowhere, a real marvel of engineering. It seemed to me robots were incapable of being bored. All in all, another arduous, beautiful day. Always work to be done….for those who earned it. An artificial bird chirped somewhere. Artificial I thought. How I longed for the green, cool forest from back home. I hadn’t been there in what, decades? I missed the natural fauna of my homeland. The Tower was gorgeous in its own right, believe me, but it just didn’t compare to my place in Northern Venus. My full name is Rani Ver’ Marson A’il Viono Reamx. I would say my friends call me Ream, if I had any. My classmates use to call me A’il the fail if that counts. Mostly when I couldn’t lift the training weights any higher than my knees or missed the targets in training practice, or failed the big test by one point….again. So instead I shall say my superiors simply call me Ream. “What an odd name” is probably what you were thinking. See my mom was human and my dad was awoken. That seems to be a popular combo nowadays. Male awoken are always running off with human girls because awoken are a matriarchal society, meaning females have the hierarchy. In a world full of dominatrixes, I guess the dudes just wussed out. Tired of being nagged and whipped, they journeyed to romance the human and exo races. I know I know, what am I doing sitting here rambling on about the consummation of awoken and human marriages? The truth is, I only recently graduated from the guardian training academy led by Lord Shaxx. The truth is, I graduated middle of my class. I’m not joking! We had 99 students and I was dead 45th! I couldn’t really do the whole warlock space-timey jazz, and I was extraordinarily weak, cutting out the titan option. I was always better than some, but worse than most. Finally I accidently managed to score decently on my firing range test, so I got put into the hunter class. So today, I am just sitting on the walls of the Cosmodrome, part of guard duty that most new recruits go through. Now most guardians are done with this duty in a couple weeks or so. However since Lord Shaxx himself deemed me, “so astoundingly talentless” here I stay 3 months in. All the recruits have taken to calling me “Ream the dream recruit” a rather irritating, yet oddly flattering title. Abruptly interrupting my 3rd nap of the day, a loud annoying screech pierced the silence. “REAM!!!” an officer shouted. Still drowsy, I crawled to my feet to see who had the audacity to wake me up. “oh shit” I huffed, it was the head guardian for the Cosmodrome wall defense squad. She stomped over to me, her pink and black armor glistening in the midmorning sunlight, her helmet releasing steam from her nose as if she was a bull. Huh, I guess I always did call her a cow… “REAM YOU FILTHY HALF-BREED GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP THIS INSTANT!” I clutched my ears. “Damn it all Sophie why’d ya have to wake me up? Not like I ever do anything.” Sophie glared at me, her red eyes reflecting her killing intent. I think she gets it from her purebred awoken parents. She let out a long sigh during which I took the liberty to do a few wake up stretches. “Which is precisely the problem. It was your turn to scrub the barracks, you didn’t clean your gun, and your ghost couldn’t find you because you left him AGAIN, you were supposed to relieve Warren of watch duty, and most importantly, you forgot our anniversary!” What a bitch right? She has this thing were since no one is ever around long enough, she has without my consent, entered me into a relationship with her. Do you know what it is like being forced into sleeping with a girl who will, in all seriousness, strangle you if you so much as glance at say, the hottie warlock chick from sector 2? I would love to go on and on about my personal life, but no, you didn’t come here to get buddy buddy with me, you want blood, action, suspense! Well hold your horses I’m getting there. After a brief hit to the head from my darling angel Sophie and a long lecture of which I tuned out, I noticed a strangle sparkle growing brighter in the distance. I didn’t have a clue what it was until the glowing shock rife shell entering my leg kinda clued me in. “Shit that hurts! Fallen skiff guys look lively” I shouted across the wall as I mashed the alarm button near my post. Trying to look badass, I kicked my standard issue Badger scout rifle into the air and… missed it. My comrades and enemies alike staring, I embarrassingly picked it up correctly and scurried off. Peering out from a bubble popped by Sophie, I popped off a couple rounds of suppressing fire. Feeling the Blessing of Light surging through me, I hopped off the wall for a flanking maneuver. Alternating dashing to another rock and hiding, I eventually found myself about 30 meters from the skiff. I was about to run into the skiff to take out the pilot, when I whiffed the nauseating smell only a captain reeks of. Trying to avoid puking, I lobbed a tripmine at his feet. Rewarded with the satisfying sight of watching the captain being launched head over heels into the air, I laughed my ass off as I let out loud hoot before vaulting out of cover, shotgun in hand. “Suck buckshot assholes!” I cried whilst inserting 20 grams of lead into a dreg’s skull. Strange thing fallen skulls. You would think the brain would be well, muscle tissue; for them, it is all liquid. A liquid brain, go figure! I imagine vertigo is a common problem among them. So the battle went on. For some recruits, the only thing they fought was their hardest not to cry while they shot a gun for the first time. For others, it was just like target practice, but for most it just a routine job. That’s what we all thought until the ketch of the house showed up. Normally this would have meant that the battle would simply last longer, but this time, the ketch was donning a strange flag with a crown on it. And I get the distinctive feeling it wasn't Burger King.