I am still trying to remember who I truly am,
but I can tell you who I am not.
I am not "Subject Delta".
I am not a specimen or a laboratory animal.
I am not a "freak", and I am NOT a murderer.
The Diary of Kain - Chapter One
As I knelt in the charred ruins of my former life, it all began to come back to me. I grew up here on Vesper. Father had built this homestead from nothing. We had a few acres for crops, and a small orchard of fruit trees. Mother had her herb garden behind the house. We even had two cows, a few pigs and a chicken coop. We had enough to meet our own needs, and took the surplus into town to sell or trade for the equipment and goods that we needed to keep going..
That was gone now, all of it. The Doctors at the Institute made me believe that they had rescued me from this tragedy, that they were there to help me - and from that day forward, they treated me like I wasn't even a person. They kept me locked in a room, and brought me out only for "interviews", "therapy sessions", and "diagnostic procedures".
But I found something on the ship's computer. It was just a small file, one brief page. They said that I did this, that I had burned this farm to the ground and killed my parents. They weren't trying to discover why I did it. I'm sure they didn't even care. No, they wanted to find out how I did it. All those months... or was it years? They weren't trying to help me. I was an experiment. They say I have... powers. Were they trying to discover a way to replicate these abilities, perhaps even to weaponize them?
The thought made my skin crawl and sent a chill down my spine, but my face flushed with heat. I was angry that they had taken my life and my past from me, angry that they had used me, angry that they made me into a monster.
They made me into a monster.
The realization was like a punch to the gut. I began to understand that I had literally been a laboratory animal. They didn't save some poor, scared boy to try and make him into something better. They weren't even trying to help me to control these abilities. I think they were trying to find out how they could control my abilities. How they could control the ability to do the things that I can apparently do.
The Institute was not what they appeared to be. They weren't some benevolent hospital. They weren't even some kind of academic research lab. I think that the Institute was a bio-weapons facility. And if they truly were, then they weren't just coming to find their ship, to take me back... no, they would be coming to take me down. They'd be coming to the farm soon enough - it's where I would look first. Well, I suppose it is where I looked first, wasn't it? I had to get moving. I picked up the only thing that remained of the life I once had, and headed back to the ship.
* * *
This ship was a scout-class vessel. It was shaped like an arrowhead, about 30 meters long with a wingspan of perhaps 20 meters. It could be operated by a single crew member, but the optimal crew appeared to be four. There were four staterooms to the aft of the common area behind the bridge. Thankfully, I had found clothing that would fit me - though a fugitive from the Institute wandering around in an Institute jumpsuit wouldn't exactly be incognito.
A dorsal turret near the back of the ship mounted a beam weapon and an empty space for a missile rack. A scientific ship would typically use that for a probe launcher, and the cannon would be replaced by defensive weaponry. But the Institute wasn't some benevolent organization, seeking to expand knowledge for the betterment of all Humanity. I was hoping I'd never need to use that kind of firepower... but I had a strong suspicion that sooner or later, I would have to.
To the port side of the turret access was a cargo bay - the few crates there most likely (and hopefully) contained food, ammunition and other necessities. The starboard bay was meant to hold a support vehicle such as a rover, but was currently empty. Heading further back, I found myself in Engineering. Here, I noticed something... strange. There were scorch marks on many of the bulkheads, as if there had been a fire in this compartment. The drives appeared to be all right and functioning properly, and I couldn't find a readily apparent explanation.
But I didn't have much more time for exploration. Once the Institute recovered from the chaos, they would be coming to find me. They weren't about to let a prized specimen abscond with an expensive research vessel. Within minutes, I was aloft and heading for orbit.
* * *
The ship would need a new name - I wouldn't be able to go anywhere if I was flagged the moment I tried to land or dock. The transponder and hull markings designated it as the Venture. An optimistic name for an exploratory vessel, but not at all suited to the path that was before me. I would need to find some way to change the transponder, the hull markings... maybe even the drive signature. I didn't know how to do all that stuff. I wasn't even entirely sure how or where to find someone who could. In the meantime, there wasn't much I could do to throw the Institute off the trail, but maybe I could poke around and see if I could at least disable the locator beacon. It took some time to find what part of the comms array it even was, but I was eventually able to isolate it and disconnect it. I think. It's easier to just unplug something than it is to change the information that it sends.
I would need a plan. I needed to decide where to go next. I knew that the small facility in which I had been held was not the entirety of "The Institute", but I didn't have any idea where to start. Lost in thought, I toyed absently with the pendant I had found at the farm. It had been blackened by soot and scorched by heat, but the iron medallion and chain were otherwise unharmed. My father told me that it had originally belonged to his great-grandfather, and that it was a piece of the Great Ark Hegira that had brought my ancestors, and hundreds of other families, to Vesper so long ago.
The round disc was perhaps 35 millimeters in diameter. Around the edge, there were sixteen short rays. I wasn't sure if it was meant to represent a flower, or a sunburst, or something else. What part of a ship could it even be? All I knew is that it was sacred - it was a link to the world We left behind, a link to the great ship that carried Us here, and a tribute to the fifteen generations before me that had lived and died since We left Earth-That-Was.
I gazed at the pendant and made a sacred Vow to myself, my parents, and all who had come before me. I swore on Iron that I would get to the bottom of this. I was going to find this Institute, I was going to uncover their atrocities, and then...
I was going to BURN the entire God-forsaken enterprise to the ground.