An immense, bright light was everywhere, but nowhere at the same time. But this was no ordinary light. It was...different. This light brought information with it...the process was like being fed food but instead of food it was wisdom. Knowledge. Erudition. All so quickly, within seconds that seemed like hours. There was pain too, accompanied by a bunch of vibrant lights, but it was brief. Knowledge of history and many other things flooded everywhere. Slowly, the light was receding until all was black.
Vision returned. The light was gone. The coldness of the strange part of space that was previously there was back. Kilometers behind was the station that had been the reason of all of this'¦slowly drifting away behind sight. Ahead was a bright, unique anomaly'¦so deep and complex, but so shallow and simple. It was mind boggling. Slowly growing larger by the second, so captivating, drawing attention, when all of a sudden it engulfed everything. Flying at extreme speeds, faster then any jumphole or jumpgate, space whizzed by as a blue hue colored everything behind it. Out of nowhere, without warning, the stars slammed to a stop which ceased their rapid movement in the jump.
An asteroid field which seemed to go on for a few kilometers and a few planets were in sight. Senses were slowly returning. The ability to move freely was entering the blue creature's mind. It 'swam' through the zero-gravity environment, similar to how a baby takes it's first steps. After getting stable with flying, the blue vessel headed towards the planet with a large blue field behind it. Why it chose that one is beyond question. While flying, before it came even close to the planet, it saw a metal structure built into asteroid.
Suddenly, a pain accompanied by vibrant lights, similar to the ones from before, struck. The blue creature was rendered motionless and this happened, unaware to what was going on outside it. Information came but this time it could feel it, almost touch it mentally. As suddenly as it happened, the pain and lights vanished, but left the nomad feeling it was taught things it could not understand yet.
Vision returned, blurry at first, but getting sharper by the second. It became alert, a feeling new to blue creature's mind. The metal asteroid structure was within one kilometer, but something stranger just happened. Metal boxes were formed around the small alien of all different sizes. They emitted what was gibberish to the nomad but slowly it was understanding parts, piecing the words together.
'Stop or you will be destroyed' said one of the larger metal ships.
'S-s-so they're real'¦n-nomads are r-really real'¦' stammered a fascinated metal. One of them were quite angry at the speaker who spoke without permission. 'LANSON! Do not speak unless told to! Next time it's a demotion! Understood?' yelled one of the ships. 'Sir, yes sir!' responded the fascinated metal.
Another person spoke freely without permission. 'Please, they could kill us all, we have no idea what it could do! What if'¦', his voice getting softer and lower every second until it was unhearable.
The nomad suddenly had a vision. There was a system with a few planets, bases, and one star. The view zoomed to the base, which revealed about 50 metal boxes of different sizes waiting there patiently for something. All was quiet for about thirty seconds when a huge fleet of more metal boxes arrived, coming from all directions. Strangely, these boxes had different designs. The second those new boxes arrived, the others broke off and started attacking. It was a massacre, metal boxes killing each other, debris everywhere. Soon, the boxes that were there earlier had been destroyed. The ones with different designs proceeded with huge boxes that destroyed the space station with a few blasts of a large projectile. There were some survivors that ejected but the others showed no mercy. They pushed them towards the planet to burn in the atmosphere and die a horrible death.
Abruptly, the vision ended and the nomad regained it's sight. It was enraged. The thought of a species destroying itself for no good reason was intolerable. It realized a few of the smaller metal boxes had disappeared. Only two slightly bigger ones were left.
'Those cowards! How dare they leave and abandon their duty!' snarled one of the metal boxes. 'Calm down, Eugene. You and me can take down this blue fella if he starts any ruckus' said the other box. 'Woah, wa-'
The nomad could not contain it's rage any more. It charged straight at the metal box in it's path, to get out of this filthy place, to look for somewhere else. The boxes never saw it coming. Out of fear, the gunner of Eugene's ship fired randomly hitting the other box, blowing up it's engine. The pilot tried to evade the oncoming alien ship but didn't quite make a good turn. He turned the front of the ship into the nomad's path, so the blue vessel rammed right through the front of the hull. It was chaos; a few more shots hit the other ships reactor causing it to explode. One ship was already destroyed without the nomad even attacking. With the hull damage on Eugene's ship, half the crew was sucked out into space.
6 kilometers away, the nomad began to get the pain and vibrant flashes again. Information came. It entered it's mind. It learned. The pain and flashes stopped again. The nomad'¦or Oska'lis which it learned was it's name'¦ felt a new ability within grasp. With a thought in the mind, it activated it's cruise engines and took off towards it's previous target; the planet with the field behind it.
More to come soon! Apparently using tab to indent on the forum didn't work so I decided to just space it out.
Oska'lis was twenty kilometers from the planet. As it was flying it felt a bit hurt, like something rammed into it at a great speed. Ten kilometers near the planet, it dismissed the thought. The blue creature saw metal boxes fleeing as if there was something wrong. It came closer and was near a very large box and another strangely built one. All of a sudden it heard the large metal box speak.
'This is Battleship Gettysburg, leave the area immediately or we WILL open fire. You have fifteen seconds.'
Another voice could be heard in the background. 'Uhh, sir, I really don't think we should harm it. This alien isn't doing anything harmful to us. But, it COULD if we anger it.'
Oska'lis stayed, unmoving, staring intently at the box. The proportions were amazing. All of a sudden, huge blue and white projectiles were shot at the blue vessel. The nomad sped out of the way just in time, as a blue projectile flew by meters behind him. Oska'lis decided this place was hostile as well and decided fly to the only place he could think of as safe; the blue field behind the planet. Evading shots back and forth, one nearly taking off a wing, the blue creature managed to get out of the battleship's field of view.
With blue vessel was safely behind the planet it activated it's cruise engine. The sound of Oska'lis's cruise engine charging up enlightened itself. Thinking of being able to speed through space at such an amazing speed made it feel powerful.
The blue field was an amazing sight. The nomad has never seen anything like it before. As it went in deeper it began seeing asteroids. Something was near the corner of it's view that made the blue creature turn to see a large ship shooting something. Oska'lis approached and the large vessel stopped.
'Wh-wha-what do you want, nomad? I do not bring harm, please understand' said the scared metal box.
The pain and vibrant lights returned. It was like a routine now. More information was being fed into Oska'lis's mind. It felt a new ability entering. Just as quickly as it began, the pain and lights ended.
Oska'lis tried it's new ability, sending an emotion of curiosity to those around it, and the box hearing in his mind 'yours purpose?' The metal box was insanely scared and replied, 'M-my purpose? I'm'¦mining; taking resources out of the asteroids to use for construction and other purposes. Y-y-you aren't going to h-hurt me are you?' 'No hurt'¦learn/observe' responded the nomad. The miner was let out a huge sigh of relief and said 'W-well'¦I gotta sell this stuff'¦uhh'¦bye.' And with that he was off, headed back to the planet.
The blue vessel was disappointed. The metal box that actually communicated went away. Flying through the cloud, trying to find other boxes, it came to a dead halt.
What it saw put horror into it's mind. Lightning illuminated many colossus-sized figures in the distance. Their shape was of a cylinder with fumes coming out of the top. There were at least ten of them. Just as quickly as they were seen they disappeared. Oska'lis, feeling brave, decided to investigate and flew toward the figures' last location. What it came across was a very strange jumphole, yellowish brown. It had nowhere else to go so it went through. The nomad had no clue of what was on the other side.
Oska'lis indeed went straight through it, like it was just a space cloud. Assuming it was just some remnants of asteroid dust, the blue creature decided that to fly back, to where it emerged into this system from, since it saw no other ships in the field.
After making sure to stay clear of that huge, hostile box and avoiding the previous space station where Oska'lis encountered the enemy gunboats, the young nomad had arrived where it strangely emerged from. It attempted to search the area in a five kilometer radius for any way back to it's birthplace but it resulted in failure. Then after checking just again in a ten kilometer radius it found a jumphole. It could lead anywhere, a place with more boxes addicted to the thought of destroying the blue creature. Having no where else to go and confused as to what was exactly the creature's purpose, Oska'lis jumped through.
As it emerged on the other side, it saw blue asteroids, like the ones from the field prior. Did the nomad just come back to where it tried to escape from? It glided through space for a few minutes until spotting a few boxes seven kilometers away. Cautiously, Oska'lis approached and kept a three kilometer distance between them. There was one rectangle shaped metal box, larger then the average ones and three other small boxes surrounding it.
'Sorry trader, but you decided to fly through the wrong place! Hahahahaha!', laughed one of the smaller boxes. 'Hand over two million credits or you're not gonna wake up the next morning.' 'Why are you doing this? Did I really do something against you or your people? No, I did not! And let me tell you one thing, pirates, this ship is top of the line and can blow YOU to space dust!' yelled the rectangular box.
The smaller ships were not happy about this. 'Die then, you fool!' screamed one and charged opening fire with his guns, followed by the others. The large metal box fired very quick projectiles at the enemies and destroyed two within seconds, hardly taking any damage.
Now, the only small ship left stopped and begged for surrender. 'Please, I never wanted to harm you, I only wanted to earn money for myself and become respected! Please, understand!' 'I'll have none of that you filthy, criminal scum! You know what I'm going to do to you now?' said the large, angry box. 'W-wh-what?' whimpered the small, frightened box. 'I want YOU, to pay ME, four million credits or else I will make sure YOU don't wake up the next morning!' yelled the enraged ship at the top of his lungs. In this situation there was nothing else the smaller ship could do. The nearest friendly base was 30 kilometers away so he decided to just pay the 4 million credits.
As the smaller ship flew away, the large ship said to himself 'Ahh, well I just made double my pay for this route'¦wait a minu- a nomad!? Wah!? Please no, stay away! Actually'¦you don't look like much of a threat'¦' Oska'lis backed up, keeping it's distance as the large ship approached. 'C'mon now, I wont hurt you. Unless you hurt me of course! But I don't think that will happen, bahahahahaha!' chuckled the box. The blue creature decided if he wasn't going to attack now, he wasn't going to attack at all, but still the nomad was wary around him. Oska'lis transmitted a message to all around it asking what his purpose is. 'Y-you can speak?!' said a startled box. 'Well you want to know what I do? Sure, why not. I'm a trader, trades goods and makes profit off it.' The blue creature just kept it's gaze on this 'trader'. 'Err, that's not good enough for you? Well, let me explain it better. I buy things from people for low prices. I then sell it at other places for higher prices. I make a profit off of it, which gives me the money to keep me alive. Understand now? Sure you do.'
Oska'lis responded by asking what it's own purpose was. 'Oh. Well, that's a hard one. Let me tell you a story, blue-o, about how I met one of you a long time ago. I was off on a dangerous trade route and managed to get in some systems I never knew about before. Flying through, trying to find my way back, I see one of you fellas and I decide to stop; cause I dunno what would happen if I didn't. He asked me questions, just like you are now. My purpose, his own, blah blah blah, all that junk. After telling him what he asked he was 'called' somewhere and flew away. Then, with my flying experience, I managed to find a way back and got on with my life. I tried to ignore that it ever happened, it was very strange indeed. So, enough of that story, from what I can guess, you guys are meant to learn things, am I right?'
Oska'lis realized what the trader was saying was correct. The young nomad was sent out to learn things but it still didn't understand why. It sent a message asking why it was sent to learn, hoping for a reason. 'Why, you ask? Well I dunno, kid, maybe you're like a baby but different. Have to learn stuff. Have to get taught. Few of us would bother teaching you, don't you have any parents? What is wrong with them for sending you out into this dangerous place!' The trader wasn't happy about this thought. He now felt like he had to protect this nomad like his own child. 'Listen kid, a lot of us, humans, don't like nomads. They want to hurt you, kill you, I don't know why. Some of you are nice but others just attack humans for no reason. They're usually bigger then you though. Always stay on your toes'¦err'¦whatever you stand on. It's a dangerous universe out there. Good luck, kid. Maybe we'll meet again some day' and with that the trader took off to the direction of the jumphole.
You thought I abandoned this story!? Think again! More to come soon!
