[Location: Federation Drop Ship Vanguard - Atmosphere of Sector 7] [Time: Life #2.]
"Drop in three!" Silas roared. "Two! One!"
The floor dropped out from beneath us.
I was screaming before we even hit the ground. My hands flew to my chest, tearing at my tactical vest, searching for the massive, jagged hole the Stalker-Unit had just punched through my heart.
There was no blood. No metal. Just the phantom, agonizing echo of a severed spine and crushed lungs.
"What is wrong with you, rookie?!" Silas yelled as the pod slammed into the asphalt, the doors blowing off. "Move!"
I stumbled out into the ash-choked air. It was exactly the same. The same burning hover-car. The same roar of plasma artillery. The same kid running to my left.
"Get down!" I screamed at the kid.
I dove for him, but I was too slow.
ZAAAAP.
The red beam swept across the street, vaporizing him from the waist up. His legs collapsed into the rubble, just like before.
"Contact front!" Silas yelled.
I scrambled behind the burning hover-car. I knew what was coming. Through the smoke, the Stalker-Unit emerged, twelve feet of oil and blades.
Target acquired.
"Not this time," I gasped, raising my rifle. I aimed right at its chest and held the trigger down.
The pulse-rounds sparked harmlessly off its carapace. I hadn't learned. I was panicking.
It lunged.
I tried to dodge, throwing myself to the right. The scythe-blade missed my chest, but it caught my right leg, severing it cleanly at the thigh.
I hit the ground, shrieking in agony as my arterial blood painted the asphalt. Silas fired her revolver, but the machine ignored her, raising its other blade to finish me off.
It drove the steel through my neck.
[BIOLOGICAL CESSATION DETECTED. TEMPORAL SINGULARITY ENGAGED.]
Flash. The white-hot lightning up my spine. The reverse tunnel of screaming light.
[Time: Life #3.]
"Drop in three! Two! One!"
The floor dropped. We hit the ground.
I didn't try to save the kid this time. I turned and ran the opposite way, sprinting down a ruined alleyway, abandoning the squad.
"Coward! Get back here!" Silas screamed behind me.
I didn't care. I just wanted to live. I ran until my lungs burned.
BZZZT.
An Algorithm Drone, hovering silently above the alley, dropped a plasma-grenade at my feet.
BOOM.
[BIOLOGICAL CESSATION DETECTED.]
[Time: Life #5.]
"Two! One!"
We hit the ground. The kid died. The Stalker charged.
I threw my rifle away and raised my silver Ouroboros arm. I didn't know how to use it. I just tried to punch the machine as it lunged.
The Stalker's momentum shattered my collarbone, driving my own metal fist into my face.
[BIOLOGICAL CESSATION DETECTED.]
[Time: Life #8.]
"Two! One!"
The kid died. I stayed perfectly still behind the hover-car, not firing, not breathing.
The Stalker leaped over the car and landed directly on top of Silas, cutting her in half. Then it turned its glowing red optics down at me, cowering in the dirt.
It stepped on my head.
[BIOLOGICAL CESSATION DETECTED.]