In the late 21st century, mankind finally left the cradle of earth to find new worlds to call home. Ark ships big and small were forged to ferry mankind from the depleted and dying Earth, to new worlds where they may thrive once more.

In order to make this venture possible, men and women were recruited for the cause to build, maintain and supply these vessels during their long voyage. Citizens of astonishing skill capable of manufacturing starships and stations on the fly, and given enough resources could build a small fleet of craft on their own. They were known simply as, Space Engineers.

These brave men and women helped tame the Verse for human habitation, building cities and stations. However as time went by, the need for these marvelous men and women slowly faded away, and much of their prowess - and their mark on history - faded from the minds of many.

However, during the exodus from Earth, while many Ark ships made it, some did not, meeting fates unknown… however, it is with one of these ark ships that an ancient legacy is awoken, and humanity shall be reminded… of the prowess of a Space Engineer.

Location: Unknown

Date: Unknown

"Ugh… geez..." Jaden Takeo muttered as he felt a piercing headache. "I hate going into Cryo with my suit... " he blinked a few times, cranking his neck a bit. "Alright, how are we- WHOA!"

Jaden was suddenly brought to alert as he realized he and his cryo pod were floating in space, certainly not inside a starship. "Who-what-where-THE FUCK?!" He shouted as he spun around. Thankfully though, it didn't take long before he found his ship… half of of at least. Embedded into a nearby asteroid was the rear-half of the Toronto-class Cargo Ship 'GEAS Odachi', the front half was all but gone, nothing but pieces of scrap metal.

"Oh COME ON!" Jaden shouted as he activated his suit's jetpack, and flew towards the wreckage. "How… how do you do that?! How do you hit an asteroid like that! Did the Gyroscopes and Inertial Dampeners just quit or something?! There is nothing but OPEN SPACE out here!" He flew up towards the ship and punched the hull. "GODDAMNIT! FUCK!"

He vented his pent up rage upon the hull of the trashed vessel for a solid minute, before he panted heavily as he calmed his nerves. 'Shut up Jaden… just shut up… you're wasting air...' he muttered, as he realized he had already wasted 20% of precious oxygen. 'Gotta… go through the damage… see what still works...'

He maneuvered his suit towards the new 'front' of the Odachi, approaching deck one. Half of the deck was ripped apart, however his suit's sensors detected movement causing him to look up, as he saw the ship's refinery was still functioning, processing whatever was last put into it. 'Well, the Refinery's functioning, that's good.' he thought, as he used his jetpack to move up towards it. 'Turning you off for now though… don't want to waste energy.'

He shut off the refinery, before he moved back to the bottom of the first deck. He looked at his sensors, which detected gravity. 'Oh good, Gravity generator is online still.' he thought, before he deactivated his jetpack, as he gentally landed on the deck. "Alright… let's check the reactor..." he thought, as he headed towards the back of the wrecked ship. It was a short walk up a ramp before he stood within the main reactor of the Odachi. Upon entering, Jaden sighed as he counted his luck - it seemed the Mark XIV Fusion Reactor was also in good condition, and above he could also see the reserve Oxygen Generator and tank was undamaged as well. And even better, the engineering control panel was also working, which meant he could have some control of the ship… or rather what's left of it.

"Okay, its not so bad..." he said, as he sealed the door to engineering. The still functioning air vents in engineering soon pumped oxygen into the room. Once his suit detected that the room was full of air, Jaden sat down in the control panel chair, and undid the safety harnesses to his suit's helmet, taking it off - revealing his short crew-cut black hair and crimson red eyes, looking to be in his twenties. He pushed out some sweat from his brow as he sighed. "Alright… let's see what we've got here..." he said as he accessed the control panel.

He activated the display as he went through what was left of the Odachi. As he expected it was not good at all - with the front half of the ship gone, the large container which stored most of their extra uranium was gone, meaning he had a limited supply within his reactors. Thankfully, it seemed the secondary reactors within either engine pods were still online as well, but didn't possess as much Uranium as the main one does. But they were all linked together in the conveyer tube system. He could see the refinery in the display as well, and even better - one of the two assemblers was also operational it seemed, and a few storage containers with some engineering tools and supplies was intact as well.

'Well, some good news...' he thought, as he checked the thrusters and power supply. According to the display, he had roughly three day's worth of power using all three reactor's - but that was with the remaining thrusters offline. If he fired them off he'll burn up through his last bits of Uranium before he knew it. Though speaking of thrusters and energy, he was lucky in both areas - two of the three solar panels were still operational, and most of the rear thrusters were also functioning. And better yet, the cargo containers read that they had a substantial amount of food stuffs, and the supplies to construct an agriculture device.

'Hell of a time to start a vegan diet...' Jaden thought to himself with a small smirk of amusement, before he sighed. "Well… best get to work."

"Survivor's Log… lieutenant command-... ah hell, acting Captain Jaden Takeo, GEAS Odachi, day one." Jaden said as he spoke into the recording device. "I've just awakened from cryo stasis, and discovered half of my damn ship was gone, along with a lot of its supplies... I did a quick survey of the asteroid we apparently hit, and unfortunately it doesn't have any uranium deposits… it has some ice though, so I went ahead and started mining what I could for oxygen and water."

As he spoke, he checked over the tools he had recovered from one of the supply crates. "Well… there is some good news at least." He said, "I've got a grinder, a welder and a drill. And three day's worth of reactor fuel from all three reactors. Plus a functioning refinery and assembler, along with some extra nickel, iron ore, silicon and cobalt, plus the engines are still in working order… though it's not exactly ideal to fire them off, otherwise my three days worth of fuel will get burned out in 20 seconds."

He sighed as he pulled out his grinder, as he began cutting into the upper hull of the Odachi. "Also… after further inspection, I discovered I'm not the only survivor." He said, glancing to the side, as inside the upper floor were four additional cryo pods. "Out of roughly three dozen colonists and engineers… excluding me, there are only four other survivors, still in cryo-stasis. The glass is iced up, so I can't see inside them… but I can confirm that they are alive, and their pod's independent energy systems are still running fine, and can be moved if need be."

Jaden cut out some of the light iron armor off of the hull, pulling it out. "I can't stay here, that much is obvious." He said, "I did a quick scan of the surrounding area, it seems there are a few sizable asteroids in the area… hopefully one of them will have some uranium I can mine, keep me afloat… I have an idea though - I am going salvage what I can from the rest of the ship - thrusters, supplies, critical components… even the refinery, assembler and the extra reactors. I'm gonna load up all the parts I can scavenge up into the starboard engine pod… I'm going to modify it into a makeshift lifeboat. Since it'll have less energy consumption, my three days of energy will expand a bit, and give me some more time to work with… I'll accelerate her towards one of the asteroids, disable inertia dampeners… and float the rest of the way there."

"From there… well, hopefully I can survive long enough to create a comm device and radio for rescue." He said, "If I get the agriculture device working, I'll be set for a while… once I get set up though, I'll see about opening those cryo pods… I can only hope whoever's in them will be more help than trouble..." He took a deep breath. "Fingers crossed on that… "

It was an arduous task, scrapping the surviving half of the Odachi solo, but Jaden's motto has always been to waste not, loose not. He hollowed out the port engine to allow space for the Refinery, Assembler, and all the other necessities needed to keep living along with cargo containers - and of course the three additional occupied Cryo pods, alongside his own. If worst came to worse, he can try and fix his own and let himself go back to Cryo sleep.

Needless to say, the interior was rather… cramped. All the materials and supplies were scattered around the makeshift lifepod, locked down to whatever surface was able - not leaving much room to walk in. But it didn't bother Jaden too much at least.

After stripping the Odachi of all he could, he grinded down what was left of the bones of the old wreck, giving him an ample supply of titanium and steel plates. Now he strapped himself into the boxy frontal cockpit of the craft, settling in for the inevitably long ride. "Well… here goes…" he muttered, as he hit the switch which activated the thrusters of the craft - the ion engines emitting their bluish hue as they awoke for the first time in what was likely a very long time.

"And she lives," He chuckled lightly as he pushed the craft back as it backed away from the asteroid, the gyroscopes allowing him to slowly turn the craft around to face the void of space, dotted with stars and asteroids. "Alright… which one looks promising... " He looked through the various asteroids which dotted the area of space. He unfortunately lacked sensors strong enough to detect resources at that long a range, so he quite literally was eyeballing it.

"...Eenie, Meanie, Miny… Mo." He said, pointing at the asteroids, before his finger settled on one which looked to be the closest, and… oddly shaped like a donut? "Gah… your getting hungry..." shaking his head, he placed his hand on the throttle before he hit the ignition, as the craft began to speed forward towards the asteroid, its speed slowly climbing.

"20… 25...35... 50 meters per sec should work." He said, as he killed the throttle, disengaging the inertia dampeners, as the little red lifeboat began its trip forward through space. "Well… nothing blew up, so that's good… "

Jaden sighed, before he ran some calculations… the asteroid was a fair distance away, maybe a day's journey… he kept the sensors online to warn him if anything approached their flight path, as he placed on the autopilot before activating the camera of his helmet.

"This is Acting Captain Jaden Takeo, of the Global Exodus Alliance Ark ship Odachi," He said, "If you are seeing this… then odds are you are a salvage team, a rescue team or… whatever. My ship crashed into the side of an asteroid, and the entire front end was sheared off. I awoke from Cryo sleep on..." he looked at the calendar on his wrist "March 9th, 2517… shit, four damn centuries… most of the other pods are missing, presumed destroyed save for four other pods I have managed to rescue,and are in functioning condition - their occupants vitals still green."

"I am going to attempt to find an asteroid to establish a base within, and figure out a way to survive until rescue arrives." He continued, "The situation is bad… but, I'm use to these." He let out a low chuckle. "Anyways… if you're seeing this, I'm either dead, or this is some history recording in a training video… so all I've got to do is hope this story has a happy ending."

Jaden sighed "So… with that said… I should probably get some shut eye..." he stated, shaking his head. "Until next time… wish me luck people… Jaden Takeo, Signing out."

117Jorn: And there you have it - my first Space Engineers fanfic. Now I know you may be wondering who are within the other four life pods… that's for you to decide. That's right, I am accepting recommendations for four OC's to be within those pods to be opened next chapter and following chapters. So PM me if you have suggestions!

I know this is pretty short for a first chapter, but trust me - they'll get bigger in the following chapters. So send me some OC's, and I'll see what I can do about getting them in here! Also if you have an OC idea in mind, but don't want it to be one of the four in Cryo, go ahead and let me know - I'll see if I can fit them in.

So until next time… Ja Ne!