The ground under him gave way, and the captain tumbled down the shaft...

[Hi there, thanks for reading this post. If you want to know a bit more about me, check my introduceyourself post. Just a quick word on "Interactive Fiction". I don't mean for "interactive" to be the same as "anything goes", rather I'm hoping to use interactive elements to find a balance between the stories and characters I want to write about and the ones you want to read about. Anyways, without further ado, let's start:]

The Solless Galaxy - Opening

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/universe-sky-star-space-all-2742113/

The ground under him gave way, and the captain tumbled down the shaft. His powered armor protected him from the blows, but not the nausea. In fact, hearing his armor’s machine mind stutter into his skull made the whole thing worse. Once he’d landed, he took a few seconds to recollect himself. Captain Pyrrhos Kolbe was not about to let anyone see him flat-footed, least of all his own crew. When the dizziness had faded, he gave the clear for the rest to follow.

The first one down was the witch. Achinoam Fierro was how she liked to be called, but ‘witch’ was good enough for the captain. She wore a mask to hide her human face, a white mask etched with pagan glyphs, but did nothing to hide her fox ears and tail. Besides the mask, she always wore as little as he would let her get away with, which for this mission was a tight tube top and even tighter shorts. All her exposed skin, and from the looks of it the non-exposed part too, was covered in more pagan glyphs which she’d smeared on herself with mud and charcoal.

“Looks like your vision proved true so far,” the captain said as he pointed further down the cave. Sticking out from behind the dirt and rock was the silver sheen of a metal wall. “Now do your thing and find its entrance.” He wanted to be out of here before this planet’s locals discovered what they were doing. He didn’t know what an angry mob of puritan peasants could do against him and his crew, but he didn’t care for finding out today either.

“You know that the visions of she-who-sees never lie,” the witch said as she walked towards the metal wall. She grabbed out of her pouch a clump of mud, or maybe shit, whatever it was she used, and started drawing on the metal wall.

“What I know, witch, is that you’ve delivered so far, and that you’d better keep delivering,” the captain said, and he meant it. He’d had to throw his previous chaplain out of an airlock to make her part of his crew. Not that he’d ever liked the man anyways. The new one, chaplain Luzzatto, was more the captain’s kind of guy. But chaplain Laninga... He’d had connections with the ecclesiarchy, and that’d been worth a lot of irritation. The witch still needed to prove how much irritation she was worth.

From the back, if he ignored the tail, he could definitely see why she’d been worth a fortune on the slave market. That was his back-up plan. He’d have to sell that sister of hers too, but two beastkin sisters that looked like they did? On the right market, he could get himself a second ship, become admiral Kolbe.

As the captain was admiring that mental image, the rest came down behind him. The witch’s sister, Ensign Fierro, with her powered staff, and the two lieutenants, Kaleisch and Reis, with their ancient blasters. All three wore the same blue-and-red uniforms he’d chosen for his crew. Not too tight, not too baggy, and with plenty of pockets for tools and weaponry. Looked stylish too, if he said so himself, and he did. At only five of them this was a small party, but for an expedition like this he needed only people he could trust not to get them all killed. Well, people he could trust and beastkin he could use.

The captain’s own powered armor was a hulky brick of dull blackish grey. He would’ve liked to spruce it up, but no modern paint would stick, and he liked to think he knew better than bankrupting his whole operation over a bucket of ancient paint. But if this find proved a treasure vault... yeah, he had ideas. Red surface, white stripes on the sides, and then on the front and back chest plate a detailed painting of his greatest triumphs. He wasn’t sure what those would be yet, but he’d think of something when the time came.

The witch had walked a dozen feet further down the cave, and was pointing at the cave wall. “Behind here, there’s an entrance.” When she felt this was understood, she added, “the corpses inside look plague-felled, we should protect ourselves.”

“You’d better be right about this,” the captain said, and motioned to Ensign Fierro to do her thing. She whispered to her powered staff, then went by each of them to press its blunt tip on their foreheads. The lieutenants only needed to make a small bow to present their foreheads, but the powered armor made the captain a good three feet taller than anyone else. He needed to get down on one knee, and order the machine mind to open his visor. The staff’s tip felt cold, followed by a short but stabbing pain. As always his powered armor’s machine mind went haywire about infectants or whatever, and he told it to shut up. The ritual was irritating, but that staff had lowered his crew attrition rates by half since the fox girl had joined.

The lieutenants lined up and began blasting the cave wall. After about a minute, the sight of a round hatch in a metal wall appeared from behind the rubble and smoke. “It should be unlocked,” the witch said. “It better be,” the captain said, and opened it. Air that had not mingled with this planet’s atmosphere in eons rushed outside, and the inside of the ancient construction revealed itself.

END OF OPENING - Continue to: The Solless Galaxy - Part II

I hope that peaked your interest. Just for a quick note, if you're familiar with the Warhammer 40k universe, you'll probably notice that this setting is clearly inspired by it. I don't intend to hide that influence, but I do want to emphasize that this setting is also very different from 40k in fundamental ways. It is meant to be a different, my own, take on the kind of setting 40k is the poster child of. Whether you like or dislike 40k, you may find things you like or dislike in this setting, dependent on what parts of the 40k setting do or do not appeal to you. Anyways, feel free to comment, and as for the interactive part:

From which character's perspective should the next chapter be written?

1) Captain  Pyrrhos Kolbe (same as this chapter)

2) The Witch, Achinoam Fierro

3) Ensign Draha Hedda Fierro

4) Lieutenant Blasius Gordan Kaleisch

5) Lieutenant Alwin Reis

Please vote by commenting. Every vote counts, only if there are literally zero votes will choose for myself. So the less votes there are the more yours will count! ;)

Part II is now up! Go read it here: The Solless Galaxy - Part II