Spacecore R>M>G>S>

GRIFFITH

An escape pod, gradually drifting through the vast, empty outer rim of the Odysseus System. Gravitating closer and closer towards the planet Exopia, home of the Vreen. It enters the atmosphere and exponentially gets faster and faster, piercing through the air like an arrow. CRASH! It collides with the surface creating a crater in the middle of a city. All bystanders instantly stopped what they were doing and looked towards the sound of the wrecked spacecraft. They all move closer to the crater with curiosity, peering over the edge as the pod door slides open. Inside they find a human baby bawling its eyes out. A civilian walks down to the pod and lifts the baby into their arms to comfort them. "Do not fret little human baby boy, you shall have a place in my home." As he walks away, he looks back at the pod again and notices lettering printed on the side: GRIFFITH.

KLAUD

A house, home to a family of four humans, located on the planet Endopia. Approximately 225 million kilometers from Exopia. A father is tucking his kids into bed. "There you go, now you're all ready for bed!" he says, "Goodnight, don't let the bed bungles bite!" "Goodnight!" they chirped, in unison. Click. The father turns off the light and closes the door silently. He tip-toes across the hall to his bedroom to find his wife already out cold on their mattress. He jumps in beside her and wraps himself in the covers and shuts his eyes. BANG! BANG! It came from the front door. BANG! BANG! Awoken by the noise, he jolts out of bed to investigate. He strides towards the door as the banging continues. "OPEN THE DOOR!" they commanded. And with a quick kick, the door breaks free from the constricting doorframe and lands flat onto the floor. Three heavily armored men with blasters greet him through the doorway. The one in front raises his blaster towards the father and aggressively hollers "HERE'S JOHNNY!" The father raises his arms up and desperately cries, "YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING! JUST NOT MY FAMILY!" He falls to his knees. The armored man had a confused look on his face. "Look we're not gonna hurt your family, we just need to know if a cyborg by the name of Klaud lives here." The father looks up, "Yes, that would be me." He replies in a serious tone, "Come with us." They put him in restraints and escorted him out the house. Klaud's family wakes up from all the commotion and are suddenly driven by panic. "KLAUD!" his wife shrieks out. "DADDY!" his children cry. They run toward him but are blocked by one of the armored men. "Amelia!" he calls out, "I'll be okay, everything will be fine, I'll be back. Don't worry." They continue to escort Klaud while his wife's screams and cries echo in the distance.

THE LETTER

It was just like any other day in the foster home. Chaos EVERYWHERE. While everyone else goes wild throughout the house, I sit in my room alone, surfing the Web. Or Galaxy Wide Web if you want to get technical. That's pretty much how I spend all my spare time. Pathetic, I know. But, it's a lot better than dealing with all the foster kids and their antics. I've lived here for as long as I can remember. Life was miserable before I got my beloved computer. Well, not entirely miserable since Keith (my best bud 4 life) and my foster parents were somewhat nice to me. Still, I can't help but wonder if my real parents are out there somewhere. Just then Warren (my foster sibling) yells from downstairs, "Griffith! There's a letter for you!" I get up and say, "Coming!" as I leave my room. I shuffle down the steps and grab the envelope. I tear it open and skim its contents. "Blah, blah, blah. Something, something. We are pleased to inform you that your biological father has been confirmed to be alive..." My eyes grew wide as I read that sentence. "Dude! This says my real dad is alive somewhere!" I exclaim, "I finally have a chance of finding him!" Warren responds wittily with, "Good, maybe you can finally leave." My smile instantly fades away. "Eh, anyway, how am I gonna find him if I don't even have my own car?" Just then my buddy Keith chimes in, "You could always apply for the RMGS." "The RMGS?" "Yea, 'Radical Mercenary Galaxy Squad,' it's a military program that lets you travel all over the galaxy. They're pretty desperate for volunteers." "Sweeeet! I'm gonna go apply right now!" I speed up the staircase and into my room. I go to the RMGS website and skip past all the terms and conditions, of course, and click the "sign up" button. Now all I have to do is sit back and relax until Monday when I have my first mission.

MR. BREEN

Klaud gently opens the door to a small, cold, minimalistic office to find a man sitting at a desk waiting for him. "Hello Mr. Renegade, nice to see you again." the man says with a sly smile. "Please, take a seat." he gestures to the chair in front of him. Klaud takes a seat and asks, "Why am I here?" "Why is anyone anywhere? the man replies. Klaud slams his fist on the desk, "I'm not playing your games Breen! Why did you have your men take me back to this place!?" "Well, if you really want to know, we want you back on the team. You're a valuable asset to all of us." "Breen, I have a family now, you know this. Why do you need me now?" "We recently had an unexpected influx of new recruits and we could use your help to guide them for at least a day or two." "What's in it for me?" "We'll pay you handsomely." Klaud raises his eyebrow and smirks, "How much we talkin'?" "Fifty thousand Endopian Krones." With little hesitation Klaud says, "I'm in, just promise you won't do anything to my family." They stand up and shake hands. "Great! We'll have you board the ship in a few hours." He gets ready to leave when Breen says, "Oh and Klaud, be careful. We don't want you getting into another accident now, do we?" He turns away and shuts the door behind him.

WELCOME TO THE RMGS!

Monday arrives and I'm on a space shuttle on its way to Endopia since that's where their headquarters is. This is actually my first time on a space shuttle believe it or not. It's so cool to look through the window and see the entire Odysseus System. Plus, there's so many interesting looking people here. I might be making them uncomfortable by staring at them though. Anyways, my stop is about to come up. The shuttle lands on Endopia and I step out. Everything looks so different, but oddly familiar. All the buildings wind up like tendrils and reach up to the clouds. And I barely see the sky since there are multiple layers of flying cars whizzing above me. It's very overwhelming. I grab a map and head towards the RMGS HQ. I squeeze through the bumbling crowds the whole way there. Ah finally, the RMGS. I strut into the building and check in with the receptionist. He had a jaded look on his face. "Hey I'm Griffith and I'm new here, where do I need to go?" "Report to the hangar bay." he said in a mundane voice. "Uh, where would that be?" He points toward the ceiling, "Go up." "Uh, thanksss." I walk to the elevator and I can't help but hear him mutter under his breath, "I hate my life."

I get in the elevator and someone else steps in. He was a big burly man with two awesome looking robotic limbs. I wonder what happened to his actual limbs. "Do you know which floor is the hangar bay?" I ask him. "Floor 42." he replied in a deep gruff voice. "Thanks." I press the button that says '42' and I notice that the building has over sixty floors. They most likely don't need that many floors, so why are there so many? Anyways, I ask him, "Where are you headed?" "Also the hangar bay." "Oh, are you also a new recruit?" "No, I'm actually here to help the new recruits." "Cool, so you'll be helping me." "Yeah." He didn't really seem interested in the conversation so I just stayed quiet the rest of the way up. The elevator music was so calming that it could probably put me to sleep.

The elevator dings and opens its doors to the hangar. He speeds past me as I step out. I pause for a minute to fully take in and marvel at the cavernous room of spacecrafts and airships. I quickly catch up and cling to him since I still have no idea where I need to be. We seem to be heading towards a group of people huddled around who I can only guess is some sort of general. "Ah, Lieutenant Renegade and another recruit, just in time!" the general said zealously. "I was just about to explain the mission!" I merge in the crowd as he continues to speak. "So, as I was saying, our main objective in this mission is to blow this ship known as the 'Agamemnon' to smithereens." he paces back and forth making hand gestures. "Their whole crew is wanted for illegal cloning and human experimentation. Lieutenant Renegade will guide you step-by-step throughout the mission and Commander Crunch will pilot the spaceship behind me with you guys in it. Good luck out there! We're counting on you!" The ramp to the ship lowers and steam releases. We start loading crates and boxes full of food, water, and timed bombs. Then we all boarded the ship.

The ramp closes up and the thrusters start up. Crunch turns the craft towards a giant sliding door. As it opens I can see a great view of the city beneath us. We leave and zoom past the spiraling skyscrapers into the atmosphere. Stars fly past us as we travel among the cosmos. I sat next to the lieutenant, "Hey, I didn't really get to introduce myself properly, I'm Griffith." I reach out for a handshake. His metal limb feels cool to the touch. "The name's Klaud." "So uh, how'd you lose your arm and leg, Klaud?" I ask. "On a previous mission," he replies. "Oh I'm sorry that happened. It must've been a pretty expensive mission... Y'know, because it cost you an arm and a leg." I snigger for a bit. He gave me a stern look and that was my queue to shut up. The rest of the ride was met with awkward silence.

REVELATION

Once we reached the Agamemnon we had to somehow board it without being detected. Klaud tells us, "Put on your cosmonaut suits, we're going to spacewalk to the outside of the ship and work our way inside from there." It sounds kind of dangerous but I go along with it. We put on our suits and enter the airlock. The pilot announces, "Opening the airlock in three, two, one." The door swiftly opens and we all get sucked into the vacuum of space. Slowly drifting towards the Agamemnon, I cling onto the side. Klaud cuts a circular hole and we enter through there into the vents. We crawl through them and drop into an open space. "What do we do now?" I ask him. He hands all of us a couple sticky bombs each. "Plant all these bombs throughout the ship and meet up back here when you're done." So I split off from the group planting bombs everywhere all willy-nilly and came across a strange room.

The room was this vast hall lined with what looked to be blue stasis pods which illuminated the whole room. There were people in all of them in suspended animation. I walk up to one to get a closer look and it looks eerily like me. All of them looked like me. I feel a chill down my spine as I feel an overwhelming presence looming over me. "Hello Griffith." I look over my shoulder and see an ominous-looking man behind me. "D-do I know you?" "No, but I know you." "Who are the people in the stasis pods?" "They are you and you are them. I created you, Griffith. All of you." "What do you mean?" He slowly paces forward into the light. "I am your father." No amount of words could describe the confusion I felt after hearing those words. "N-no, that can't be. W-what? How?" "You are one of many genetically engineered clones designed by yours truly. Unfortunately, you were deemed defective so I disposed of you with an escape pod. I didn't think you would survive for this long, I underestimated your abilities." "Why are you cloning me?" "My one true goal in life is to create a superhuman, to test the limits of the human body. I am a scientist after all." I had a loss of words, I was utterly shell shocked. I felt like my whole life was a lie. "Y-you're not my dad." I say as I back away slowly. "Of course I am, I just explained everything." he says while trying to close the gap between us. "Come here and give your dad a hug." "No." I turn around and start running with tears streaming down my face.

I retrace my steps by following the trail of bombs I planted along the way. I met back up with the group. "Are you okay?" Klaud asks. "Yea, I'm just peachy." "Alright, well c'mon, the bombs are going to go off soon." I followed him through the vents and went back out the way we came in. We glide across the cosmos and enter the airlock. We take off our suits and I plop down on the seat cushions. I look at the window as the ship explodes in the distance like a firework display. "Are you sure you're okay, kid?" Klaud asks again. "Yea, I said I'm fine!" I say kind of frustrated. I am, in fact, not okay. I tilt my head back and shut my eyelids in an attempt to fall asleep. And soon I was in a deep slumber.

REPATRIATION

When I woke up we were already back at headquarters. Everything that happened flashes before my eyes. I get up and exit the aircraft. I still feel half-asleep so I walk sort of clumsily towards the elevator. I look alive but it's hard when the music they play is so smooth and calming. I walk out the HQ and catch the next space shuttle to Exopia. I don't plan on going on another mission since I've already done what I've set out to do. After a long ride I finally arrive back home. I've missed this. "Hey Griffith!" Keith exclaims. "Were you able to find him?" "No." I say. "Oh man, I'm sorry, maybe next time." "Eh, it's fine. I think I like it better in the foster home anyway." "Really?" he said, genuinely flabbergasted. "Yea, 'cause I get to hang out with you everyday, dude." "Sweeeet! Oh yea, I got a new video game. You wanna go play it?" "Maybe after I rest for a while." "Alright, just tell me when." "Yea, I will." I go upstairs and jump into my bed. I stare at the ceiling thinking, maybe things'll be alright.

Klaud returns home to his family and they all greet him with a warm embrace. He gets his children ready for bed and joins his wife in bed. "Sorry I was gone for a while." he says. "It's fine. I'm just glad you're back in one piece this time." she turns toward him. "So how was it?" He turns to her, "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually sort of nice." "Oh really?" "Yeah, there was this one recruit that reminded me of my younger self." "That's good. Anyways, goodnight, love you." "Goodnight, love you too." Click. She turns off the lamp and they're enveloped in darkness as they both slowly drift off to sleep.