Gaining awareness

His arrival on Bellum began with trying times. He started much like most of the poor sods that somehow got stranded here. Many were pirates or smuggler bands that were after the planets rich natural resources. Apparently the location and state of space around this solar system makes it very hard to safely reach, much less leave again. Electromagnetic storms raged high up in orbit, making it a deathtrap to those that approach the planet when it's season for arrivals to take place.

He still remembers how he suddenly acquired awareness. He did not know how he got there, neither what was going on. Somehow getting out of this situation alive after he cleared himself of his stupor. It was the first time he killed somebody, back then it was still regrettably not the last, but merely the beginning of a journey. A Journey that led him to finally get his shit together and only then trying to form a plan to escape this hell and maybe even achieve greatness as a product.

The time was two and a half of Bellum's seasons ago, or 6 galactic calendar years.

Finn blinked, his vision occupied. His eyes were burning. He blinked again. Sand. Rocks. Dust in his eyes. He coughed, and coughed another time. Dust in his lungs. His ears hurt. Actually his face also hurt a lot. Maybe because he's lying face down on the ground. A suffering long groan escaped him. Dust in his mouth. He turned his head sideways, there was dust. Dust and flashing lights.

It was at this point that his adrenaline probably decided to decrease itself and more pain came upon him. His body hurt even more than his Face. Was he hit by a car? What happened? Or better what is currently happening. It turns out these flashing lights are not actually any sirens. They were streaking sparsely across his vision and made a highly unusual sound.

He sat up, only to be forced to the ground again by a blast wave that hit him straight in the face. 'Aaahh fuuckk'. A desperate gasp sounded, followed by heaving. Was was that? A fucking explosion? There were no explosions normally. Wait, a sudden explosion by unconventional means probably spells danger. He's in danger!

He sat up again, faster than before, ignoring the pain, having acquired enough adrenaline again. The dust before his eyes settled slightly. There were loud bangs and more of the red lights streaking around. He figured they might be shots by some gun, at least dangerous. He decided to not want to get hit by one. After a few seconds of just staring around he patted around himself in the search of a weapon to defend himself with.

He began to crawl around in the search of some sort of weapon. Even if there was nothing he would keep with a direction and maybe escape while being slightly hidden in the setting dust. Setting dust! He would surely be seen any second now. It wouldn't do any good to be in the middle of a gunfight suddenly, looking probably hella suspicious.

There! There's a ragged looking person lying down with a weapon next to him. Grabbing the weapon he was met with an odd looking rifle. All scratched and bulky, not something he ever remembered seeing before. It didn't matter now, the next step was finally getting into safe cover. He could make out a rocky cropping a few meters in front of him. Frantically scrambling to his feet and hurrying in a ducked position behind the rocks he could finally relax for a second.

Examining the rifle again he again noticed the odd looking parts and shape of it. But it looked and definitely felt real, it was quite heavy. The trigger was obvious, it also had a stock and a place where you can grip it on the front barrel. Easy enough. He held the gun away from him and pressed the trigger, nothing happened. He tried again and again but it felt jammed or something. Deciding to rattle it and give it a nice slap, something clicked. Trying again, a mighty red beam projectile escaped the front with a loud *pew*. The recoil was negligible. This was crazy!

He tried to listen to the sound of battle to ascertain it's outcome. There was less fire now, and came actually from quite some distance. It seemed like he got farther than he though. It sounded like the *bangs* belonged to one side and the *pews* to the other. Another explosion sounded quickly followed by another more powerful one. At this point he was still breathing heavily. Trying to at least calm him enough to not have shaky fingers he took the risk and peaked from his cover.

The Dust all but settled, he just traveled a long distance. In his panic he just kept crawling and it it just kept working. He could observe the origin of the red streaks from his position, but not the persons actually firing. They fired into the other end of the dust cloud. Having seen enough, he ducked back behind cover and decided to wait it out and remain hidden. It would be the safest way for now, he didn't know where he could run to.

Only after an excruciatingly long time, that actually was only half an hour did the shooting stop long enough to consider checking the situation out again. In that time he moved his position to a bit more of a high ground, having to climb on top of upwards reaching rocky terrain. The Dust finally settled, no recent explosions happened to throw it up again.

He had time to check himself while waiting in relative safety, luckily he had only minor external injuries, what really hurt was his chest area, maybe broken ribs, he had it happen to him before. His face stopped hurting but was a bit swollen at the parts it was scratched up. It must have happened before he got aware. He also finally got the dust out of all his orifices, arguably the most important. It wouldn't do otherwise.

He was clothed in things he would have never though to ever wear. They were fitting for this kind of environment, but he looked like some dirty vagrant. It was mostly cloth lined with some leather pieces here and there at stress points or minor protective places. The best part were the super nice fitting leather boots, never had he imagined almost primitive boots like this too feel that solid and fitting. All in all comfortable for sure, but a little hot for this kind of weather.

Feeling brave enough to take another look, he let the top of his head peak out between the rocks. It was quite far away but he could ascertain some figures. A lot of corpses were lying around the middle of the battlefield. It looked like an exchange or gang deal gone bad. The place with the most dead combatants had the wrecks a few small crafts lying there. The leaders of both sides probably lying among them.

He could also clearly differentiate the two sides by their choice of dress. He had similar clothing on like the ones he though most likely lost the battle. And he was right, there were figures moving down from their earlier position on the slight high ground he observed. It means they were sure that there would be no survivors left of their enemies. This is bad news, if they find him, it would be a clear death sentence.

There were four persons left that he could see. Merely a fraction of the total of corpses here. It must be at least about 30 remains down there. He was noticing that he was feeling unnatural calm about all this. Maybe because he doesn't actually see's them up close.

The figures looked around the place of action very carefully and thorough. Making sure that everybody was dead and checking if one of theirs was still alive. After that three of them rounded up all the valuable loot that was either too precious to leave or could be useful to them. The last one seemed to look around the crafts to check if they still worked or if they were repairable. The loot was all taken to a pile next to one of the strange crafts, looks like they found one still working.

All of this took about two hours until they looked finished and ready to leave, a very long time wich did not make him any less relaxed and sure of his safety. They managed to scavenge another smaller craft that was also still working. Of course he only looked out from behind his hiding place every now and then. This time however he noticed something bad happening. One of them had noticed the many tracks he left behind while crawling into cover. This was very bad, it meant they were onto him.

Choosing to keep observing their actions he kept a keen eye on the one that followed the tracks to the body he took the weapon from. Now he was about 100m away from him, he could see his hands gripping his weapon and making himself combat ready, looking into the direction of his footprints. Luckily it wasn't where he was currently hiding, he traveled quite a bit further left and up the rocky hill.

The person called something to his accomplices to inform them. After that he slowly crept towards the rock he first hid behind. Finn didn't really know what to do now, he was already panicking a bit again. He could try to shoot him, but he wasn't sure if he had it in him to just kill another person. But that meant he would be in grave danger and most probably killed instead.

The only thing that held him back now was the chance that his aim would be off and he would miss, making the person aware of his position. After that there were still the other three and with his position compromised he would be screwed either way.

Finn decided to either die trying rather than just get shot without a struggle. He would just make sure that he was really about to be discovered, there was still a chance they wouldn't find him. Trying to get into a better position he leaned against a rock and lowered his rifle onto a boulder aiming towards the place his would be killer was currently located. There is a brief moment where he would be behind a rock and out of sight, continuing out the other way meant he was able to follow his tracks. He aimed at that exact spot, and steadied his breathing.

Any moment now decided if he would live or just maybe live. 'Breath out, breath in, you got this'. A shadow was seen moving in his iron sights. 'Please don't. It's not worth it man. Get your loot, squad and get out of here'.

Lady Luck did not smile on that particular person this day it seemed. He came out from behind the rock and looked into his direction onto the hillside. 'Fuck'. Finn pulled the trigger. *Pew*. It hit him straight in the neck. This part could not have gone better. Suppressing his emotions and urge to start getting shaky hands again, he turned 90 degrees left and aimed at the now valiant trio. The blaster sound having alerted them.

They were not yet shooting at him or knew his exact position. Maybe they though their friend took the shot. They were the ones with the blasters. He didn't wanna wait any longer only for them to come here and investigate as a more sizable force. Aiming at the leftmost one that repaired the crafts earlier he made another shot. This time not so lucky, it missed and pretty far too. But it at least made them panic now.

They realized that there was another enemy here. And it looked like the enemy wasn't of either faction, meaning not exhausted from the battle and with a very advantageous position. Of course this was not entirely true. Finn just didn't realize the extend of his actions yet. They struck fear into the three combatants, it was only them left and they just lost another quarter of their strength. Maybe too desperate to stay alive, they didn't notice the obviously bad shot from Finn and choose to live.

He of course took another few shots at them, but none claimed it's target. They were already far off on their craft, swerving slightly to not get hit. Still unnaturally fast, they disappeared into the hilly landscape and eventually the horizon.

Finally he could relax. Feeling much better already, but still quite shaky from taking another life just now. But that feeling also quickly disappeared, only the pain still lingering around he was already getting used to. It was time to take action and stock of his situation. The bright sun slowly crept lower towards the horizon and from what he knew, desert landscapes could become quite cold at night. He wasn't quite ready to meet his end after all. He was also getting quite thirsty.

Hyping himself up a bit and stretching his stiff muscles, he finally left his hiding place and climbed down to start his adventure in the mesa wastes.