Starborn: Origin of the Stars

A huge explosion tore through the dark void of space. The shields of a big spaceship flashed brightly while they fought against the raging flames. Two more energy projectiles, fired from another ship, shot forward and threatened to tear the fragile defenses apart.

A young man sat in the cockpit of a small fighter and observed the epic battle. His little vessel shook with each detonation and when one of the ships finally lost all its shields, a loud, dull explosion could be heard.

“Really? Sounds in the depths of space? Come on, at least put some effort into this!” Robin complained while the movie was interrupted for the advertisement of some new racing ship.

“...with its new Ion-2 thrusters it's one of the fastest ships in its class! Do you want to start a racing career or just like speeding over the plains of Ruca II? Today is your chance! Find your nearest Apex ship dealer today and get a 2% reduced interest rate for the…”

“As if we don’t have other stuff to worry about - racing on Ruca II? Sure thing, just let me grab my stuff!” With a sigh, Robin turned off the screen and walked over to the kitchen. While he waited for the food-generator to make his breakfast, he took a look at the digital clock on the wall.

“07:10, Mondays suck…but I’ve to hurry up a little bit.”

After a long night of tinkering with his newest projects, the time to work came way too early.

A beep made him aware that his food was ready. Robin happily recognized it as some kind of cereal with a milk-substitute and took the bowl from the big machine. The food-generator was definitely a blessing. He got it just a few weeks ago from a lottery - who knew that you could really win stuff there? It was quite the good model and produced decent food, all while needing only the standard refill packs.

Besides the kitchen, which was cleaned up and well sorted, even with the generator using up almost all the available space, the rest of the flat was more reminiscent of a workshop. The gray couch in the living room was packed with boards, cables and tools, as was the small table, the two green chairs and most of the floor.

The door to the bedroom was open just enough to see a big messy bed, peppered with notepads and other devices.

“Reminder: Train departs in 20 minutes!” A neutral, monotone voice announced.

“Thanks Hess!” Robin answered, still in the middle of his breakfast. Quickly he put the bowl aside and reached for the bag next to the door.

“I’m leaving, see you later, Hess!” He announced and left.

Just before the door closed, he heard the standard reply from the system “Home clear, starting surveillance mode” and reminded himself once more, to take a deeper look at the module. It definitely should be possible to modify it in a way that its answers would become more diverse, more fluid in its speech. Preferable with a nice sounding voice of a woman.

‘Yep, definitely a project worth investing some time into… again.’ He thought with a flinch.

After he took the elevator and moved down the 31 floors to the deserted main hall of the complex, Robin came to a stop at the autonomous security station. To both sides of the exit were cameras and lots of different sensors. Mostly identity checks, but also some to prevent spreading of contagious infections and stuff.

A display to his right showed his details:

Name Robin Tulward

Race Human

Homeworld Rucasur

Age 32

G-Anomaly Class E - Minor Energy Senses

Job Technocrafter at Jim’s Broken Wing

The details came together with a photo of a pale young man, with black hair that was short but not trimmed, a black bearded chin, green eyes and a small scar above his right brow.

“Yeah, that’s me. Like every morning, what a surprise!” Robin exclaimed without much enthusiasm and pressed his thumb on the scanner next to the screen.

The terminal gave a short beep.

“Identity confirmed. Have a good day, citizen!”

With that, the door opened and he walked out into the lively city.

Even this early in the morning, the street was already full of people that hurried along and many PTVs and CTVs that rushed around. The People Transportation Vehicles, PTVs, were mostly autonomous driving cars owned by rich pricks or used for taxi services. They could only drive on the special streets throughout the city and weren’t able to fly, in turn they were much faster than most of the transportation models that allowed low altitude flights.

The Cargo Transportation Vehicles were the backbone of planetwide economics and brought goods from one end of the city to the other - sometimes even to neighboring ones.

For most people in Seka, the capital of Rucasur, owning a car or ship was stuff from pretty pink dreams. Not that the living conditions for the majority were bad or that there were many problems with poverty. At least not as far as Robin was aware. Sure, Seka also has its slums, like every other big city, but mostly public transportation was good enough for all needs, so buying a private vehicle was just unnecessary.

‘At least, if one does not want to go racing on Ruca II…’ Robin thought, as he observed the crowded street.

Clearing his head, he hurried to the nearby train station and passed some checkpoints again. He had to wait for the train to arrive along with hundreds of other people who were on their way to work. At least they were all standing in orderly lines in front of the nine entry points. There was another one further up, where the front of the train would come to a stop. Only a handful of individuals were waiting there, all well dressed and often marked with a logo from some big company or the government.

“We are jealous of these people, because some lucky encounter got them a good job or they hit the jackpot with their G-Anomaly. But believe me, as we are looking towards the train’s first class, they are chasing their dreams of leaving all this behind and traveling by PTV. We always want more.” The man behind Robin tried to start some sociological-shit conversation after he caught him looking at the VIP entry.

“Sure, yeah.” Robin shut the attempt short, before the Ommih could really get into it. It was definitely too early for him to have such a conversation… and to be honest, there probably will never be a good time!

The man seemed to get the message and looked for someone else he could bother. Ommihs do look like your average human, but without any hair and two little antennas instead. They were known to be very open minded, friendly and social. It’s said that their gene-anomalies often awaken powers aligned to the mind, like enhanced empathy or even telepathy.

When humanity met them, a hundred something years ago, it didn’t take long for them to mingle into human society. Their home planet is just two galaxy-jumps away and today they can be found on a lot of human planets.

As the borders of the Civilized Territories, the former region of the Starborn’s empire, weren’t as safe as they used to be, the Ommih officially joined the United Alliance of Stars, UAS, not too long ago. Pirate raids and skirmishes with local rogue factions were increasingly overshadowed by bloody assaults of hostile races that started to stir after decades of feeble truce.

Realizing that he was still staring at the man, Robin quickly turned back to wait for the train, which shot in with a high pitched whistling, just half a minute later. After he got a seat, Robin turned on his Interface and took a look at the latest news about the Starborn.