Starbound: A Space Odyssey 56 The Floran Colony 12

John's knife glinted with sharpness.

*Puchi*

"Urgh..." The soldier groaned in pain as John's knife went through the soft spot of the armor by the neck, John used his other hand to stop the struggling soldier from doing any more noise.

Fresh red blood leaked from the deadly wound on its neck, drenching John's hand.

John silently dropped the dead body on the floor, with plop sound, it rested on the ground, forming a pool of blood around the corpse.

He looked behind him and made a few hand signals, soon enough Peri emerged from the corridor, her hands were drenched with blood.

John looked at his own hand. He realized it was slightly trembling, he cleaned his hand and knife at the soldier's clothes.

[They are enemy... Enemies...] John shook the unnecessary thoughts away. He mustn't feel bad for them, he needed to go on.

Peri curiously glanced, she lifted an eyebrow when she saw that at John was acting a little strange.

He crouched by the body and retrieved the soldier's PIPS. After looking around the soldier's PIPS for a while he finally saw what he wanted, a map.

"We are close..." John spoke to Peri that was beside him. "Let's keep moving."

...

"Sir, we lost contact with A3 and B6..." A soldier reported to A1.

"Where are them now?" A1 impatiently asked the soldier through his PIPS.

"We... We don't know..." The audibly gulped. "They are avoiding the cameras and sensors."

"Hmm..." A1 minimized the call with the soldier and switched to see the map in his PIPS. After a careful look, he realized something. "They are going for the power room!" A1 went back to call with the soldier and ordered, "Send every nearby soldier toward the power room, they will be there!"

"Yes, sir!"

...

Lenny leaned his back at the tree, he was breathing heavily.

*Drip, drip...*

In the place where his left arm once was, there was nothing, only faint droplets of yellow plasma that kept dripping from his wound.

"That's quite unfair don't you think." Lenny spoke while he reloaded his revolver with difficulty. "Using a Barrier Tech Ability around... That's dirty."

Techs are enhancements that can be equipped into the PIPS to enhance movement and provide new abilities to the user. This Tech can affect the user's body in a molecular level making it possible to use fantastic powers and break their limits. They use the UE (Units of Energy) stored inside the PIPS to be activated.

The Tech Ability that Oscar was using is called Barrier. It basically creates a forcefield around the user that protect him against any type of harmful force for as long as he kept the barrier activated.

Oscar that was a few meters away from Lenny and also hiding behind a tree, smiled. "I never said we were going to have a fair duel." Oscar finished reloading his shotgun. "Why don't you use your little power anyway... No, I'm not talking about that stupid Bullet Time thing, but your other power."

Lenny's expression darkened. "Stop provoking me... You know really well why I won't use it."

"Oh, come on..." Oscar left his hiding spot and looked around, trying to figure out where Lenny was. "If you don't use it, you are going to die..."

Lenny clenched his teeth together. All around his body s.h.i.+ning blue particles started to appear.

"Why don't you just die? Isn't what you want, what you always wanted ever since we left that h.e.l.lish place?" Oscar started to walk around, searching.

Lenny's body slightly trembled. He finished reloading his weapon and glanced at Oscar that was a carefully looking everywhere while he was walking.

"One thousand lives..." Oscar's lips slowly lifted. "You killed more than a thousand, presumably, innocent people." His smile slowly got wider. "I'm not saying that I'm innocent neither... I killed a lot of people in that place as well... You are a monster, just like me. Even after all these years, seeking redemption, drinking away your sorrows, you still have a death wish. You want to die, but something... Something kept you from completely giving up on life, a goal, a desire..."

Lenny clutched his chest, in pain, as memories from all the things he had done pa.s.sed through his mind.

"Ferris... I know her very well. I was never bewitched by her like you always thought. She sees me like a toy... No, it's more like a p.a.w.n. But I already had future planned by following her. You and me, we are like the same, Explorers, wild and unrestrained. We would never stay caged in the Starkid Outlaw Crew. That's why I wanted to forge my death at the USCM's base. It was supposed for you to die there and they would presume that I would have died there as well. But... Not everything goes as planned... I don't know how or why I was thrown in the Challenge Dimension together with you. It was truly... A h.e.l.lish experience... Thousands of lives.....lost in our hands.

Oscar stopped walking and took off the leather gloves of his right hand. A faint light blue glow came from his burned mark. "We are sinners, Lenny. We weren't supposed to have survived in that place." Oscar grinned. "You know very well that there are more people like us, people who have been marked. For the l.u.s.t of power that we were granted by these marks, we are bound to go around killing anyone that has it."

Oscar placed his glove again and readied his weapon. "You were the true winner of that Challenge Dimension while I was just another 'Survivor'. As the winner, you were granted power. A power to break the limitations of your physical body and do things considerate impossible. You refrain from using that power because it was earned after so much spilled blood. The more 'Survivors', or so to speak, you kill, the stronger the power gets. You killed a lot of them, haven't you? Your bounty hunter jobs were just a way for you to locate people who survived the Challenge Dimension. You devoted most of your recent years in eliminating all those who had been marked, it's your redemption, isn't it?"

[Shut up...] Lenny yelled in his own mind. The blue particles around his body started to get restless.

"You want to die... But before that, you want to kill me, the person who heartlessly betrayed you. Your desire for revenge... Is what kept you alive." Oscar scanned his surrounding and soon he was able to see some blue particles moving around behind a tree, no more than 3 meters away from him. He smirked and aimed at it. "So let it be... Let everything end... Today." He steadied the aim and pressed the trigger.

*Bang*