The Void

Part 1

I wanted him dead, and I had him in my grip by the neck. His frail neck. My steel grip. All I had to do was squeeze. I don’t know why I didn’t do it right away. Stunned? Sympathetic? No, not at my moment of triumph, not ever. I wanted to see him suffer by me as I have suffered by him.

He tried struggling, tried coaxing me into releasing him. He didn’t want to hurt me, he said. That made me squeeze harder. My carbon fiber muscles tensed, and I could feel a surge of lightning racing through my arm implant. He told me I was still human. That kind of hurt. I didn’t say anything because he was wrong. Of course he was wrong. He was less human than I was. After all it was him who gave me this monstrosity. It was him who sent me to the Other Side. It was him who denied me my life, long ago.

And he would pay. All I had to do was squeeze.

But he slipped away. He pierced my arm with something, something that killed it completely. I saw an EMP shard lodged in between my right elbow, sparks emitting from its shimmering blue core. That sneaky bastard! My cybernetic limb was all of a sudden limp, and I was left without my ace in the hole. He took his chances even further and hit me in the gut with his own elbow. I reeled in pain, dropping to my knees while trying to rip the shard from my robotics.

He went into the darkness, his escape masked by his own shadows. The blaring klaxons and fires of the self-destructing space station helped to cover his escape. He couldn’t hide any longer. I can track him, like the good pirate I trained to be. I stood up, my arm hanging lifeless, and I waded through the low flames.

I will end him.