Life's never been easy on me. In fact, for a long time, I've been expecting to die prematurely. Well, prematurely for pretty much everyone except for me… You see, I was born with a rare genetic disorder. I won't bore you with the details, since it's been treated now. Unfortunately, this didn't mean that I was out of the woods… Far from it, in fact !
The problem with my disorder was that we had no way of treating it at the time. So, my parents, desperate as they were that I survived them, used most of their savings to have me join a certain program… It didn't matter to them that the program was considered a sham by some people or that it was ridiculously expensive. They just wanted to live with the illusion that I'd be okay, somehow…
So I was put in cryostasis in the year 2021. I was 16 at the time. After this, I don't really know what happened, either to my parents, or my world. I woke up centuries later in the year 431 after the Terran Expansion. Terran was what the race native from Earth called themselves now. Apparently, Earth also changed its name to Terra (even though it just means Earth in Italian…) but it's long been abandoned by the Terran Empire… Some kind of cataclysmic event or something… I have no idea how long it's been since I've been frozen.
More surprisingly, I woke up on a starship… Though I didn't know it at the time. Apparently, I was 'saved' by a team of Imperial researchers who liberated me from an underground facility and brought me out of stasis. They also treated me completely : I was now healthy ! Unfortunately, I didn't have the money (credits, here) to pay for it and although they probably knew that, they did it anyway ! As per some kind of bullshit imperial law, I was drafted into their military to pay the Empire what I owed in blood and sweat…
The training was gruesome and dehumanizing to say the least. I was expected to carry orders to the letter, never mind my personal opinion or safety… As it turned out, the missions the army (and later the navy) sent me to, required it.
It's still too early to recall this part of my life so I won't delve too deep into it but… Let's just say it was a miracle that I survived and even retained my sanity. Those few years were hell !
And if that wasn't enough, a few weeks ago I was selected by the navy to pilot one of their new experimental starfighter. It was unimaginatively dubbed the SFVI-01, supposedly because it possessed a new kind of virtual intelligence meant to help pilots in fights and stuff. Apparently, during one of my simulation on the VR-pods, the computer tagged me as 'extremely compatible' with it or something. I didn't really understand why or even how it worked but… It was an order. And in the imperial navy, you can only comply with those.
Unfortunately for me, and possibly for whoever was at the helm of this project, I never got a chance of really figuring out how good it was. During the SFVI-01 first maiden voyage, a squadron of starfighters suddenly dropped out of FTL in my vicinity and without so much as a summation, started to try and blast me out of the sky.
That was the situation I found myself in, swerving left, right, up and down just so that I could minimize the mounting damage on my ship. I headed for a moon not far from my location with the hopes of losing them in the atmosphere (not even knowing if it had any…) when laser fire hit my engines. I managed to enter the moon's atmosphere and adjusted my entry so I didn't end up dying a fiery death, only for the engines to finally explode !
I blacked out. Maybe I died even… I'm not sure. The reason why I'm not sure, you'll ask ? Well, I was now standing on the surface of this rocky moon, swept by acidic cloud gases, part of my flight suit torn and my skin in contact with the elements… And I didn't feel much pain. Well, the explosion did a number on me for sure, and I even sported a few chemical burns as well as some normal ones. But all in all, I was alive and breathing… Something that probably shouldn't be possible.
Oh ! And there was something else too ! Like a voice in my head. At first, I thought someone else was down here with me. Afraid that it was the guys who shot me down, I hid behind some rocky outcrop. Then I realized, somehow, that the voice wasn't Terran. No idea how I knew. It was like a… an intuition, you might say.
I only knew that it was young, weak and that it needed me ! As if compelled, I headed toward where I knew the voice to come from and found it… a blue, pulsating with light, crystal the size of my fist. I knew it was alive and that it was communicating with me. I also knew that I 'bonded' with it during the explosion. I could only guess that it was part of the starfighter's hardware or something… For now, I didn't know and didn't care.
I only knew that we needed to stay together, and that I should protect it as best I could for now… I got it out from under the bits of metal it fell with and secured it in my flight suit. Now, was the hard part : survival !
Thanks to my military training, I knew a fair amount of techniques to survive in hostile environments. The problem, however, was that I wasn't sure it applied on the rock I found myself on. I mean, with the atmosphere being what it was, I doubted I'd find anything edible ! Though water was probably a more pressing concern… I only had a tumbler worth of it in my flight suit so I needed to drink it sparingly until I found another source.
I started walking, choosing a direction at random. As I walked and observed my surroundings, I started thinking about my situation. Since I couldn't dwell on the hopelessness of it all, stranded on a desolate moon without a means to send an SOS or flying off of it, I thought about the damage to the suit and my wounds. It was weird to say the least… For all intents and purposes, I should be dead ! The suit was designed to be hermetically sealed, in order to prevent my skin from freezing due to the void of space and protect from other dangerous environments. Moreover, it was also sealed for the oxygen in the tanks not to leak. Yet, here I was, alive and breathing.
Then, there was the crash… I'm pretty sure the starfighter exploded high above the ground. Barring a miracle, which apparently happened, the fall, not to mention the explosion, should have killed me ! Finally, the burns… Some of it were caused by the explosion, sure… The rest however, weren't ! They were chemical burns, something I've seen a number of times in my time in the military. It wasn't caused by the destruction of my ship…
From the few systems still working on my suit, the environmental detectors told me the atmosphere contained unidentified or unregistered acidic gases, not suitable for human lungs. And yet… I didn't really know why, but I decided to try something. Unlatching the sides of my helmet, I unsealed and took it off before breathing in. It burned a bit the first time to be honest. It also smelled quite strongly. But it didn't kill me ! Better even, I could breathe the air without worry it seemed. In fact, for some reason, breathing here felt… empowering. I didn't know if it was just an impression or something…
I continued to walk, helmet under my armpit, looking for some kind of shelter and/or water. Despite my dire situation and the growing certainty that I wouldn't find anything to drink, I was surprisingly calm, all things considered. I thought it was shock at first but as time went by, I realized it wasn't. If anything I grew curious about both my situation (and the fact that I survived) and the moon I stepped feet on.
* * * * *
The crystal life form awoke to a violent and beautiful display of color, fire and light. It felt the life source of its bonded landing on it and giving it sentience and soon, called out to it/him. As expected, the bonded retrieved it and the crystal could see itself from the eyes of its partner… He also felt how his bonded felt about it : curious, confused, awed. He thought that it was beautiful and that he should protect it… Indeed !
Through atavism, knowledge gradually came to the crystal about its species as well as that of its bonded. More curious about the latter, it soon realized that his partner shouldn't be able to survive here… Especially given the state his 'protective flight suit' was in. Humans or Terrans couldn't breathe in an atmosphere like this and their skin when subject to the acid in the air, would… should melt. Yet, it was not happening. The crystal was glad !
He didn't yet understand but he was satisfied that his partner, as well as the one he depended on right now, was in no immediate danger. Though, from what it perceived of his thoughts, it seemed it wouldn't last if he didn't find sustenance…
His Terran partner seemed to be named Simon Schneider. A name was quite a strange thing to it, and it wondered if it too should possess one. Apparently it made calling for things easier. More practical. Then again, the crystal couldn't really use spoken language so… it didn't matter, really. Once it understood its situation, it'd see with his bonded whether or not it should get one.
For now, it let the information coming from his kin flow through it, bathing in it so it could understand its situation. Apparently, it was part of a race of living crystals. Normally without sentience, it was believed that it acquired one only in the presence of a 'chosen', recognized by the resonance emitted by the crystal, after some of the 'chosen' was absorbed by it. In this case, it happened in the midst of the explosion. Frankly, it was a miracle they both survived it and even managed to bond !
His bonded didn't know of it at all before this, and he, much like him, was gradually understanding more things as he walked through the hellscape of this moon. A by-product of the bond, or perhaps, a consequence would be more appropriate, is the development of new potential in the bonded. In this case, both the crystal and Simon thought it the reason why he was still alive in an otherwise deadly situation.
Still, it, as well as its bonded, knew that they still were in a pretty hopeless situation… Instead of dwelling on something it couldn't do anything about, the crystal decided to go through his bond-mate's memories.