Chapter 1: Foreign

When Collin opened his eyes, he could not believe what was before them. He blinked, as if it would clear this false view, but everything remained the same. Or rather, nothing was as it should have been. He was somewhere completely foreign, and it did not sit well with him.

Where was he? How had he gotten there? The questions swirled in his mind.

He was in a room covered in various shades of green and brown that had been accented with the strategic arrangements of colorful flowers. Vibrant and exciting, completely unlike the boring greys and mono-tone blue that engulfed the entirety of the ESF.

He could feel a cool breeze through the cracks in the wooden walls that made him wish for a blanket thicker than the one he was wrapped in.

The resting place he had woken up on was a simple boxed pile of straw covered with a piece of fabric far too thin to prevent the straw from poking him. It was very uncomfortable, but the tantalizing smell of something delicious wafting to his nose demanded his full attention. The smell seemed to stem from a black pot hanging over a small fire across the room from him.

Drooling at the mouth, Collin was about to get up and help himself before it all started to come back to him. He was on a primary expedition to scout an unknown planet and it was not long after he had entered the atmosphere when his ship had exploded sending him far off course.

"Damn it," he muttered to himself. "How could I be so stupid and screw up on my first mission?"

Collin let himself wallow in self-pity for but a moment before regaining his normal stern and focused disposition. As he sat there, he remembered more and more details of his ships demise. Thus, he concluded that whatever he had stocked on the ship was most likely gone for good. He would just have to make do with whatever he had on him.

Reaching up to his ear, he felt the Soldiers Support System. The SSS is a small metal device that wrapped around the user's ear. Its purpose was to assist soldiers in making strategic decisions among other information related tasks. He pulled it off popping open the back and checking the small cartridge. Only half of the power left.

Collin fixed the SSS back around his ear before reaching to check his belt pouch. Among the relatively few and mostly useless items, dust and lint included, he found another small cartridge as well as two larger ones. The bigger cartridges were needed for weapons such as the one he had been issued.

Collin pulled it out from its pouch on his tailbone. It looked like a black grip with a blue stripe running down the middle, just the size of his hand. The military's most standard issued device. The Modern Assault Swiss Army Knife. A weapon that was uniquely named after its ability to take different shapes. Popping its cartridge from the bottom, Collin frowned noticing that it was almost empty. Another bit of bad luck.

A small scuffling caught Collin's attention. Footsteps. They were coming from outside. Fearing the imminent attack, Collin quickly forced the cartridge back in the knife before falling back on the bed pretending to be unconscious. Given his current situation, he determined that a surprise attack was the best course of action.

The footsteps soon stopped before the door.