PROLOGUE

Into Ashes

There it goes.. Off in the distance.. The last rocket off this blasted rock rises from its launchpad.

Here I sit, alone, on the edge of a cliff, staring far across the open plains and rolling hills of what was once a beautiful world now turned to ash. Suffocated.. Withered.. Burned... Cleansed of all it used to be in its former majesty.

The gentle rumble of the engines.. The heavy cloud of exhaust billowing in its wake as it climbs high into the ashen sky.. climbing higher.. higher, quieter, softer.. The glow of the engines slowly dims and fades away until they are gone from sight. No more. Higher the rocket climbs. Higher.. higher... Gone. Gone from sight. Gone from this world. Gone.. with all aboard but myself. I, with only the bare necessities, remain on my own. Alone.. Marooned.... Stranded, on a dead, lifeless alien world. Forgotten.

Gone are the youthful days of this planet. What was to become my new home following the self inflicted devastation of the old world is now dead. Nothing remains. No life.. No Equines.. No Hope. All that remains is a lone soldier, me, and all the ashen souls of everything that used to live here.

We came from a star many light years away in search of a new home, after ruining our last. We've known of this planet for some time. Studying it. Monitoring it. Planning. Waiting, waiting for our fleet of nomad ships to finally arrive after generations spent in space and colonize the planet for ourselves. What we did not know however was that the planet already had a claim. A claim made by several species of semi-intelligent creatures. Most prominent of them being the Equine race. But we had come too far to turn away at that, it had to become ours. We had to.. Make room.

And so began our global invasion. Our mission, to systematically eradicate all sentient life forms to make way for our vast race. And we succeeded. With our overwhelming technology and power, everything was erased. Quickly too, it was a short invasion, much shorter than anticipated. Progress was swift, casualties were kept at a minimum, and everything rolled on so smoothly. But in doing so we upset the very delicate balance of this system. Not long after the Equine capitol and all her sister cities were destroyed, the world began to fall apart ecologically. The trees began to wither, the grass and brush slowly expired, flowers wilted.. It was as if our very presence began to suck the life force from the planet. Too quickly for us to do anything about reversing it. But we pressed on, and by the time our mission was complete, the planet had fully died, along with its inhabitants. It almost seemed that the life force, the breath and heartbeat of this planet was somehow connected to those who lived here.

What a shame. I had never seen such beauty before. Only in pictures, and sometimes in dreams. I had never seen so much green, so much life. All I knew was metal, and the infinite gaze into the stars beyond the glass of every window. That was it. No natural green. No animals, no nature.

So much had been lost it what was humanity's greatest waste of time that we saw fit to further ruin this perfect world despite it already having been rendered unfit for colonization. After the life force went away, we decided essentially that if we couldn't have this planet, nobody could. If there was anything left alive after our initial invasion, our next move removed it.

So began a slow process of engulfing every last square inch of the surface in a global firestorm. Our fleet orbited the planet north to south. As it rotated underneath, our ships drew long blazing arrays of lasers to scorch everything below them in their path. It was thorough and took weeks, and after a few subsequent landings the planet was officially declared deceased. And so we decided to move on in search of another home. The last of my kind to follow on in that journey are on their way back to the fleet right now.

And so here I am, the last of my kind to remain on the surface. But I was not left behind on accident. It was of my own doing, I chose this. Why? I can't say for sure, not yet. All I know now is that... Well that I don't know, I don't know anything anymore. Everything I know is over a hundred miles directly overhead, in space, and there's no way for me to reach it. This is not what I wanted, but it's what I had to do. And now I must... Do my best. Whatever that means. To carry on with the mission. The mission to claim this planet as home.

It will be difficult. I will be met with many challenges. Much adversity, strife, struggle, and pain is to come. But it is all of what I had mentally prepared myself for before making this decision. I won't last long, I already know that. But what is to be expected of living on a dead world? Of living on a world where everything has been burned? Destroyed? Ruined... Forever.. By my own kind. Everything.. Every last bit of it turned... Into Ashes.