The Centurion Saga

[TheFlameTouched]

The story of my pawn Centurion in attempting to survive a frozen mountain range. I do play with mods, so there'll be quite a few references to them. Before we begin, let me introduce you to my pawns.

Centurion: Vatgrown Soldier + Space marine. Main character and main point of view.

Dev "Blackout" Dilorenzo: Military Child + Government Agent. Centurions commanding officer.

I woke to the sound of an alarm blaring a warning "Critical failure, life support systems at 20%. multiple hull-breaches detected. Recommend immediate evacuation." The automated system calmly stated its looping message. I felt my instincts kick in as I hit the release for the cryopods hatch. As the hatch smoothly slid open I became aware of the smoke that seemed to be filling the room and then the heat. Fire! I leapt out of the pod and raced down the hallway towards the armoury, if there were boarders on the ship I would need to be able to fight back. From the looks of the empty hallways and locked doors I was the only one moving at the moment, so grabbing my rifle from the armoury I headed for the bridge.

Upon reaching the bridge I was presented by the sight of a planet looming ominously close to the ship, and a glance at a nearby monitor confirmed my fears. The ship was about to enter the atmosphere. I activated the emergency evacuation protocols before turning and sprinting to the drop pods, hopefully I would make it there before the ship began entry to the planets atmosphere... other wise I couldn't hope to survive the inevitable impact against the surface. A thought lingered in the back of my mind "Where am I and what year is it." Reaching the drop pod hanger I noticed movement off to my side, and upon recognizing the cause of the disturbance as Dev "Blackout" DiLorenzo, my commander, I quickly moved to help her into a nearby pod.

"Centurion" she said with a brief smile, "I was worried I was the only one awake." "Not quite ma'am" I've activated the evacuation protocols, but unless we drop now, we wont be able to get out of the ships slipstream. We have to leave now." I responded. A nod was all the assurance that I needed to prep my drop pod, the sound of the hatch opening next to me turned my head, and I watched as Dev's pod quickly dropped out of sight. Closing the hatch on my own pod I waited for a few seconds longer before activating my hatch, to ensure that she was clear from my path.

As the pod fell, I managed to get a look at the dying ship lumbering towards the ground at a speed that would surely kill everyone still on board. I watched it fall as I waited for any sign that someone else had made it off of the ship besides myself and Dev.

Nothing. No other pods launched, so I locked my pods trajectory to match that of Dev's and steeled myself for the trials to come.


More to come soon, I'll update it on a daily(in game) basis.

[TheFlameTouched]

Chapter 2: Blizzard

The pods landed within ten meters of each other, which was good news. The bad news was that something had gone wrong with the pods survival programming, and we had been landed in the middle of a blizzard, the outside temperatures are well below freezing point at -57°C. I prepared myself for the shock of what was about to come and opened the pods hatch, took a single step and immediately regretted my choice. The howling wind was driving small ice particals at immense speeds and the cold was physically painful to be in, steeling myself I gathered my strength and took another step away from the relative shelter of the drop pod and towards Blackout's pod. After a few moments fighting the wind I reached it and felt grateful for the moment of respite that its cover afforded me. If I had known we were going to crash on a frozen hell scape I would of brought a scarf.

Dev opened her pod as I arrived and stepped out onto the snow and began shivering almost immediately. "Options?" she asked, stepping into the role of commander easily. "Limited, we need shelter from the wind and heat against the cold. The blizzards hiding too much from sight to make an informed decision on where to go." I responded, realizing that once she had stepped up to command things didn't look so bleak any more, a fact which I attributed to her being an officer and myself having been bred to follow orders from a superior without question. "We won't survive the cold if we wait for the blizzard to subside" she said, "We have to smart moving and find cover, head south, and I'll follow you, hopefully there is some form of shelter nearby. I'd hate for us to have landed on a plain." I snapped a quick yes ma'am and turned, prepared myself for the shock of the wind and pushed forward. I must of covered almost 300 meters in the wind and freezing cold before I finally walked into something, a wall, shouting for Dev to catch up I quickly checked it out, breached in two places, dirty and cold yet it was far better shelter than the open.

Dev caught up quickly and sighed with relief as she entered the room. "Block up the hole on the north side with something, and I'll see if I can start a fire from the survival kit she ordered." I began moving almost as she spoke, allowing the lifelong habit of following instructions take over. "And we need to come up with a plan. once the blizzard subsides we need to head back to the pods and gather the survival packs and anything else useful in the area." She looks embarrassed for a moment before continuing "I forgot to grab my pistol from the pack". "I didn't" I say, hefting my rifle "I also grabbed a few ration packs for in case." She smiled at me, "at least one of us is thinking properly. Lets try conserve energy and wait out the blizzard." she says, "And then we can see about getting proper shelter up."


I've never played on an ice map before, much preferring the arid biomes so similar to where I live and the temperature was such a shock starting out I was forced to review how I normally play. More to come soonish.

[TheFlameTouched]

Chapter 3: A volatile situation.

Once the blizzard had cleared up we could see that we were, in fact not on a plain of ice, but rather in a rather mountainous area. Our situation however was no less perilous, daytime temperatures went as high as -43°C and we were running out of things to burn, and with the landscape being such a convoluted area it was doubtful we'd ever be found by a search party, if they even thought we had survived the initial ship incident. Survival instinct, honed by years of military service, had kicked in however, and Dev had made the decision to dig a shelter into the side of a nearby rock face. While I busied myself with the excavations Dev tried to retrieve information from her pod's datalink, and while it was largely corrupted, she was able to pull the specs and blueprints for solar panels, and heating devices from the uncorrupted data.

Once we had managed to set up walls against the wind and cold for our new shelter, we worked on providing heat and power to it, and before the end of the day had managed to set the first solar panel and a few heaters. With heat slowly returning to our bodies we prepared to call it a night and wait till morning before braving the cold again, Dev already had a case of frostbite on 3 of her left hands fingers, and we didn't want to risk more. As I settled in for the night I heard a shout from outside.

"Hey! Is anyone in there?" a voice called out to the shelter. I moved to stand by the door rifle in hand. "Identify yourself!" I called out, ready to take action. "I'm Garvey, a nurse. Can I stay the night? I'll be on my way at dawn." I turned to look at Dev, standing nearby with her pistol drawn. Once she had nodded I called out to the voice " Alright, you can come in, but I'll be watching you, no sudden movements."

A figure staggered in from the darkness, his parka was ripped and barely holding together. "Thank you so much" he said as he collapsed onto the floor infront of the heater. "I thought was done for. I got separated from the others in the blizzard and have been wandering ever since. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw your wall." Dev looked him over for a moment and true to her no-nonsense nature spoke her mind boldly "You're the ugliest nurse I've ever seen." Garvey raised an eyebrow before responding, "would you believe I'm a nudist too?" Dev laughed "thank the gods its so cold then. At least we'll be spared that sight. The names Dev, I am, or was, a govermental agent on route to my next assignment before every thing went haywire. The big guy who let you in is Centurion, a vat grown soldier and space marine, and a member of my unit." I merely nodded as he looked over at me. "If he makes any references or says something you don't understand, don't stress about it, he's over 3000 years old an-" "I'm 3000 this year." I interrupt "I've been in and out of cryopods for the majority of that, and I'm only 21 biologically ." I state.

Dev shakes her head and continues, "You said you are a nurse?" without waiting for an answer she sticks her hand with the frostbite out "Can you do anything about this?" Garvey inspects her hand for a moment before responding, "I can't do anything for it, but if you keep it warm you might recover completely from it with no ill effect." Dev sighed, both from frustration and relief. "Thanks doc. We're down on the medical side, he wasn't programmed with it in mind, and I only know basic first aid... If you wanted we'd be willing to take you on with us, we'd all benefit from sharing our skills." She said, clearly waiting for an answer. "I dunno, its tempting... and what skills do you have to offer should I join?" Garvey asked.

"Aside from the fact that one of us is a genetically modified soldier and the other one has access to a datapad and the skills to get the information off of it and working in real time?" Dev countered. "Fair enough, I'm in Garvey said".

The next few days passed without incident as we slowly built up our shelter more. Dev was focused on the datapad almost constantly and Garvey was just lounging around most of the time. I mentioned my concerns to Dev that Garvey was just riding along without contributing to anything, and as such was becoming a drain on resources. Her response had been a simple, "He stays until we don't need him". I withdrew my complaint and returned to the area where I had been attempting to create a longcoat out of some snowhair hides we had from hunting. When I reached the table however I noticed the lights flickering dimly before going dark completely. I called for Dev before I headed out side to examine the solar panels and battery. Nothing seemed to be wrong with them, and when Dev reached me she confirmed my thoughts, "They're fine, just not working at the moment. I wonder why..." The data pad beeped twice, drawing out attention to it. " A solar flare!" Dev swore as she read the screen. All our electronics are worthless while the solar radiation lasts. Back inside. Now!" "Uh guys... you might wanna look at this" Garvey said looking to the east. As I turned I spotted the problem immediately, two men, armed with a sword and a pistol, running towards us.