I can hear Scrakna screaming over the comms, raging at her men to do something, anything to stop what’s about to happen.

Last I saw, the Drill had just imploded and sucked several over her ships that were too close to resist the split-second gravity of the blast and got sucked in.

But we’ve broken through. She was wrong to trust so blindly, to trust in reason. Four-Seven isn’t guided by reason, not right now anyway. Now, he is guided only by his protocol.

And that means tearing through what’s left of Rim’s atmosphere and shuttling through the clouds full of acid to land…somewhere.

To be honest I can’t speak for his thinking at the moment. I’m rather busy facing what looks like my demise.

I’ve never re-entered like this, so rough, so unplanned and uncoordinated with the proper infrastructure. But then again, the proper infrastructure has been blown to bits and has either crashed back on the Planet or been sucked into space.

Safety and procedure were never an option anyway. Not with the Fei right on our tail.

Ha! It’s an absolute miracle they haven’t blown us to smithereens, they must really be desperate for my help. My help in fixing Lord knows what on the Drill.

Not that any of it matters now, the atmosphere is torn thanks to the bombardment, our shields are down and most radiation protective infrastructure on the Planet has likely been destroyed.

I’m going to die down on Rim. Likely from Radiation, but perhaps the stimulant the facility administers will still be active within me for a week more and I’ll die from dehydration and starvation instead.

The hilarity of it is not lost on me. Falling through the clouds now I can see my limp body being dragged to Council HQ by Four-Seven, to think my own bodyguard would be the death of me…such irony.

I can hear him muttering something now, in that static, stiff robotic voice that tries so hard to imitate human life. I don’t care to listen.

If we die upon impact then…then…

Is that…water?

***

For the entirety of its history, Rim has always been a terrestrial planet with no water bodies to be seen on the surface; a legit rock.

However, while on the spurs of colonization, Sildor colonist discovered that despite the fact that Rim seemingly had no water, a closer look brought to light the beautiful red plants constantly blooming all over the planet’s surface.

Plant life meant water no matter what planet or galaxy you’re on. The proof of life on the planet meant that Rim was not in fact devoid of water, and all we had to do was dig to discover it.

And we had to dig very, very deep within the planet’s crust and past many of the safe layers, following the extraordinarily long and resilient roots of the Planet’s favourite red plants to find the first oceans of water hidden away.

But even now, after more than a hundred years since the first colonies were established on Rim, water has never been brought up to the surface in such large and deep quantities as I see now.

The Fei have done irreparable damage to Rim and brought about the very first surface body of water…one we crashed into.

Perhaps in a sick turn of events, the new above ground ocean didn’t swallow us up upon re-entry, in fact, it washed us up to the newly found shores of civilisation, a civilisation that now stands on the edge of complete and utter destruction.

In another sick turn of events, the crash seemed to have shut Four-Seven down, at least, I think so. He is splayed over on the floor and is so far unmoving, not even his robotic voice greets me as I wake.

For now, I ignore my protector/prisoner and instead try and get myself a better view of the outside.

As I stand to my feet, I nearly fall back down; vertigo, perhaps I have a concussion?

With this thought I notice for the first time that my vision is unequally coloured, one eye speaks to me in bright red. Raising my hand to my head I confirm by the slick wet feel and the unmistakeable tenderness that I banged my head somewhere.

And now it stings. As I wobbly walk out of the Fei Craft I wonder if the sting would be there if I hadn’t found the injury. Probably.

The first thing that greets my eyes is the bright blue light of the star in the system, the star whose Dyson Swarm is now being taken apart by the Fei. A shame this planet will likely never have full power again…at least, not in my life time.

The second thing that greets me is the wet feel of water on my feet. I groan at the inconvenience of having soaked shoes but I am soon distracted by the many, many plumes of smoke rising through the air.

And then, I finally get a look at Rim.

It’s terrible. Every single thing in view is broken and utterly unrecognizable. The Highways that soared several feet into the air, the many buildings, offices, homes and…it’s all gone.

In front of me are the remains of my world, Rim and it’s still burning.

After a long moment, I finally get the strength to look away and accept that this is the new reality of my Home world.

Tapping my band, I get on with my life. First things first; where am I?

Normally one would be able to tell their location by looking out for landmarks, signs and asking passers-by but…well, there’s no such thing anymore. I can only hope that some places have been spared the brutality of the bombardment.

Namely the Band network towers.

The towers and the many, many stations sprawled over the Sildor territory allows anyone with a band to communicate and connect. I’m hoping I’m close to one semi-functioning tower.

Navigation is impossible without it. With the current scenery of collapsed infrastructure, I’m not exactly the most hopeful person in the world, but as the page loads on the projected holo screen of my band, there’s nothing more I can do but hope.

Ding!

I gasp aloud as my lack of faith is surprisingly rewarded. A map of the area comes up as well as all my past locations on Rim, the connection is slow and has lost the satellite feed- for obvious reasons- but it’ll do.

It doesn’t take me long to get the directions to home, or what is likely now the leftovers of home. It’s the only place I have left to go now, only place to go; can’t exactly lounge here by the newly created and heavily irradiated ocean, can I?

But now that I’ve got a goal, I wonder…how do I get Four-Seven out of the Craft?

I couldn’t possibly pull him out of there; he may look like he weighs the same as any other human but that’s a lie, he’s made up of the metals that are far too heavy for any human muscle to carry.

I think- What’s happening now?

Looking up to the bright burning sky lined by several plumes of smoke, I can easily make out an object hurtling through.

BOOOM

The unmistakable sound of something breaking through the sound barrier as well as the atmosphere of the planet.

It’s getting closer; I can make out some colour out of the flames, it’s black. But more importantly, it’s going to land close by.

The object zooms over my head, bringing a wild gust of wind followed shortly by a wave of heat as it hurtles straight ahead and in the direction I’m about to take.

BOOOOM

Another crash, I guess that’s what mine must have sounded like; earth shaking, mushroom cloud making-except with water.

Even with the object undoubtedly not being a Craft, I don’t feel the safest going in that direction anymore. But that’s far from my immediate problems.

If I’m going for a journey, I’ve got to pack up some food packs, water and clothes and Four-Seven of course; aside from the plethora of weapons to choose from in the Fei Craft, he’s the best one to protect me.

And protect me he will. Now’s a good chance to reprogram his protocols, I can’t wake him up just to be dragged in a pointless search for government. Rim has no government, not anymore as far as I can tell, this is grounds of the first scars gotten in this war with the Fei.

However, I wonder if I can reprogram him, computer engineering is not exactly one of my skillsets much less AI mechanics and programming.

Didn’t he come with a manual?