Lightspeed Legacies- Chapter 1: Kallen

Darkness.

...

A small, thin light, growing bigger and brighter every second.

...

A strained gasp for air, as if she been underwater, drowning.

The light is all around her now, and blindingly radiant.

Deep, panicked breathes as she indiscriminately feels around.

She's in some sort of box. From the padding she was sleeping on, and the hexagonal shape, she can only presume it's a coffin.

"Am I dead?" she wonders.

The front wall falls away, letting in even more light, and letting out a dazed and confused Asian-American girl.

Her foot catches the sill of the opening, and she falls flat on her face.

As she pulls herself up and rubs her eyes, trying to get them to adjust, her ears catch mechanical clanks from behind her, like metal plates unfolding and reconfiguring.

Her eyes finally adjust, and she fearfully scrambles to her feet, beholding as her former imprisonment finishes its transformation to an eight-foot tall being of steel, the digital screen that is it's face displaying a single, unblinking, blue eye.

It looks down at her and stares, but makes no other movements.

The girl takes the moment of quiet to look around for an escape route; they are on top of a grassy knoll, the robot in front of her standing in some sort of impact crater. Behind her, at the bottom of the hill, lies a thick forest. She pauses to look questioningly at the trees; their bark is orange, not brown, and their leaves are more teal than green.

Behind the robot lies an ocean of hills, each wave bigger than the last, way into the horizon, where they form into a mountain ridge.

She looks back to the machine. It is vaguely humans shaped, and, while being freakishly tall, is actually very thin, it's armor plates like thick, stiff sheets across it's arms and legs.

Deciding that, if it wanted her dead, it would have done so, she straightens herself and speaks to it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Miss Fen," it replies calmly, in a deep, echoing voice.

"Uh... you know my name?"

"Zi Fen. When translated from Chinese to English, it means, 'Self-ignition'."

"I meant, how do you know my name? Who are you? What are you?"

"It was programmed into my memory files, my unit designation is Kepler-0001, and I am an Aegis model companion droid. Your Aegis model companion droid."

Companion droids. Her father owned a company that made companion droids. Most were mechanical dogs, or sentient house-hold appliances. This one though... she couldn't see any weapons, but from both the model name, and the model itself, she could Zi could guess this one was made as a defender.

"So... you're here to protect me?"

"Yes."

"From what?"

A small trail of light quickly flashed around Kepler's eye, like a cursor when waiting for a website to load.

"...Unknown."

"Did my father build you?"

"...Unknown."

"What do you know?"

"That I am to protect you at any cost, over 684 military stratagems, 937 medical procedures-"

It suddenly looked up towards the forest of orange trees.

"And that 34 unidentifiable lifeforms are rapidly enclosing upon our position."

With a single stride, Kepler planted himself between Zi, and the forest, just as a few dozen translucent blue humanoids dashed into the open, wielding steel-stopped spears, slingshots with pouches full of wriggling red jellyfish, and clothed in animal skins.

More soon...