1 Seriously?

5750 was the year the Terran Space Empire fell. At the height of all its glory, might and prosperity amidst its golden age, it was struck down by what appeared to be a force of nature.

Cain Titanus Universe stood glaring out the front view screen at the vast, nearly empty blackness veil of space seeing only pin pricks of light from distant stars where but a moment ago the proud Hercules Division of the Terran Space Navy once occupied. It was named the Hercules Division after the mythological hero who was a child of Zeus a god and had superhuman strength. It was the strongest and most elite armada that the Terran Space Empire possessed and for it to be instantly obliterated with no power to fight back was chilling enough to send shivers down even the most battle hardened veteran. The view screen wasn't actually a window into space as that would have too many structural weakness throughout the skin and be hard to repair once damaged. It was actually a feed from the sensors that allowed images and data from outside the ship to be seen and at this moment the images where horrifying and everyone was wishing that what they were seeing was an illusion or elaborate ruse.

What remained was nothing of Earth origin, whether it was the humans themselves or their powerful war machines. Instead an azure lightning cloud was rapidly approaching the ship he was on. That said cloud had just devoured the entire fleet, so it left little to the imagination that the same fate was awaiting them and was rapidly approaching.

Cain watched with wry amusement as the enlisted personnel and officers alike began babbling in hysterics or running around like headless chickens. In some cases both. Only the captain sat calmly in his chair like an unshakable and immovable rock, the figurative eye of the storm in the maelstrom unfolding. If one looked closely however, they would see he wasn't entire unaffected either judging by the sweat beads on his temples and the rigid death grip akin to rigor mortis his hands had on the armrests of his command chair.

"Huh so much for the elite training and superb mental conditioning everyone is meant to undergo as part of the armed forces. Well the captain seems to have frozen like an ice sculptor in shock or is just resigned to the fact we can do nothing to stop this calamity and thus he did not issued any orders, so I guess there is only two things left to do. One would be to mutiny and take the ship by force and attempt to stop whatever the cloud thing was but that would most likely prove futile and fatal as our combined fleet could do nothing much less a single ship with greatly reduced firepower the a fleet. The second option would be to fleet and abandon ship to ensure my own survival. With my brothers and sisters, not biologically but the genetic misfits and experiments that I grew up with dead on the other ships, I owe it to all of them to survive, otherwise all of our suffering from all the years will be for naught. With that in mind I will commandeer a ship and find a remote place to hid in. When the stars all wind down to die and the universe gasps its last breath I want to be the only thing left to see it. Well that and the cockroaches as I guess they will be there as well."

With that Cain spun on his heels with his cloak billowing around him and left the bridge. The cloak was a crimson colour and was a mandatory accompaniment to his onyx nanite battle armour as it denoted his rank of commander. Though he wasn't overly fond of the cloak, one had to admit combined they did look pretty intimidating especially the face plate as it was tinted to reduce glare and allow enhanced vision. It linked up with data uplinks from ships, satellites and other armours to produce a real time heads up display or HUD and tactical map. The battle armour had a self repair function from the nanites, a cloaking device to shield the user from the naked eye and most instruments, contained a jet pack for flight and boots that could magnetize among other things as well as a defensive force field that could absorb kinetic impacts to maintain the integrity of the force field though it did have a limit Too much and it would eventually collapse. It could also recycle oxygen and rounding off was the pulsed rifle with variable fire modes and a 3ft 2in plasma sword capable of cutting through 6in steel alloy like butter. With the advancement of technology everything was coded to Cain's genome so that no other person could use it. When desiring to carry extra supplies or stow away his weapons or armour it was transferred into data and energy stored in a buffer contained within his codex fused underneath the skin on his left wrist. All of this made it sound ultra high tech but the truth was that it was outdated and standard equipment for the rank and file grunts. Not what someone in the spec ops should have and even less what a commander in the spec ops should have. Unfortunately despite being trained since birth in all combat and warfare techniques known to man we wasn't valued. a lot of the seniors or people in other divisions and branches of the armed forces felt either threatened or dismissive of the so called wind up children's toy soldiers.

Most of the crew were busy at their assigned stations so Cain was able to get to the flight bay unchallenged. To be more inconspicuous Cain, with a simple mental command stowed his gear and headed toward the long range Osprey class scout ship aptly named Seeker. When he was two thirds of the way across the deck an all quarters announcement was made by the captain for everyone to brace themselves for an incoming shock wave of unknown cosmic radiation. Looks like he snapped out of his funk long enough to give an order for all the good it will do. The shock wave hit the warship with such intensity that the entire ship shuddered and everything was launched through the air with Cain being no exception, face planting on the bulkhead as he went careering into it head first.

With his head pounding like someone played a game of whack-a-mole on it Cain groggily got to his feet realizing he must have blacked out very briefly. Looking around he was saw everyone on the ground immobile either dead or unconscious. With no time to lose he stood up to make a break for the Seeker when he heard a man running and screaming toward the flight deck. Turning around to look he saw a man get over taken and swallowed by the azure lightning cloud. It was horrifying as the immense amount of pain could be seen on the face of the enlisted man before he was ripped apart and devoured.

After everything that had happened Cain suddenly remembered some ancient text from alien ruins dated over 100000 years ago. It spoke of an entity know as Jekkan Arosst or translated Great Devourer. It was believed by that race to be so old as to possibly be part of the universe itself and it would devour a planet clean of anything living, be it creature or plant no matter how small.

That was only a fleeting thought for that was all the time would allow and the cloud was upon him. Excruciating pain unlike anything Cain had ever felt before.

"I REFUSE! Not like this!"

Those were the semi coherent thoughts as well as the need to survive, the will to survive that Cain had. As the lighting cloud raged around him Cain suddenly vanished.

BEEP BEEP!

Still in agonizing pain Cain barely had time to throw himself out of the road and into a nearby alleyway, avoiding the on coming car and the definite possibility of becoming a meat patty. Well truth be told he would mostly survive the impact relatively unscathed but just on the off chance he wouldn't and to avoid any unnecessary damage and complications he opted to roll out of the way.

"What the hell? Wheeled vehicles? They haven't been used in centuries where am I?"

"Hey buddy, this is our turf. Gimme yo' wallet and we'll let you walk away."

Turning round Cain saw three dark skinned men sporting ridiculous hair styles adding at least five inches height to each of them and decked out with jewelry. Two were armed with steal pipes and the other, presumably the leader as he was uglier, had an even bigger hair style then the other two and was the one that spoke had a knife.

After being trained in combat since birth as well as all his other endowments Cain had only one thought in his mind.

"Seriously?"