“What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying that there are some things you can’t change yourself and you just have to live with them. If you commit genocide on the ghouls that attacked your comrades, it won’t bring them back to life any more than I can change the reason for my existence.”
Norah hiccupped. “I know. I think I understand, but it doesn’t change anything.” She hung her head, letting her curls fall over her face. “I still want to go back down there.”
“I still want to kill the Trentians.”
“But you stop yourself…”
“I stop myself because if I did kill them all, there would be none left and that, Norah, I don’t think I can recover from.”
She squeezed his hand and they gave the horror of their thoughts a moment of silence. When he didn’t smell the salt of her tears anymore, he turned back to the notifications that flashed over the control screen.
His ship had never left the airspace of Axone. Stryker sighed.
Of all the crew that left, Matt had to stay.The thought didn’t stop him from feeling that something was wrong. Matt could be in danger, or dead, and those thoughts made him worried. He actually cared for the guy. To find him in a drunken stupor would be a relief at this point.
“Have you ever seen an alien beast like–like those?” Norah asked, her hand waved over the images. Stryker felt another mission, another goal come to the surface of his being. Matt and his ship. An easy tally for him.
He swung the ship around and piloted to his own ship’s spot. Axone and its hellscape blurred beneath them as he shot the EonMed vessel toward his. A swirl and line of color flooded his vision and was at its position within a matter of minutes.
“I’ve seen worse.” He docked the med ship up with his and sent out a call to Matt. He was close enough to connect to his vessel and control it from afar but found a chorus of errors when he tried. System malfunctions, overheating, program errors. It was far worse than he’d expected and far beyond anything his crewmate could have done to the ship.
He jerked his head and snapped at the space before him. He snapped his fangs to the nothing at his side. His tongue split in half and forked again. His snake couldn’t be controlled. The metal bands in his stomach ground against each other while he played out every outcome in his head.
Stryker reined his beast back in and continued, “I’ve seen creatures that could block out the sun, and things that fed off of the metal bullets that I shot into their bodies. I’ve seen humans, or what could have been humans, on faraway planets that had never evolved into sapient beings. The EPED has classified records of creations–structures not done by human or Trentian hands but by an unknown hand we have yet to find. Ancient civilizations and entire worlds, flush with plants and animals, with nothing and no one left but old structures. Things that you would think impossible. Gods that you wouldn’t even want to know that had once existed.”
Norah stared at him wide-eyed as if he had just cracked open her head.
“Why do they keep it a secret?” she whispered.
Stryker shrugged. “It would flood the network channels. And your species’ attention would be waylaid by unimportant matters. It’s why they employ Cyborgs, amongst other things. We know how to keep secrets. And if we didn’t, the government might just think about reviving the Cyborg program and make more.” He unstrapped his buckles and stood up, feeling a foreboding sense of unease pass through him. He didn’t like it. But he didn’t like most things.
“And the things on Axone? What do you make of them? Are they just another creature in your bestiary or are they something else?” Norah released herself from the chair and stood up with him. “They followed us, they came after us. They knew how to trackus. If that isn’t crazy, what is?”
Before he knew what he was saying, it fell off the tip of his tongue. “You should become a Monster Hunter, babe.” Stryker closed his eyes as the words left him and the jerk of the EonMed vessel latched onto his.
He hated when anything touched his ship. He couldn’t keep the exterior pristine when he was traveling through space. The idea of a scratch could haunt him for an entire mission.
Norah hiccupped then laughed, “I’m not a hunter nor am I a survivalist. I’ll never be qualified for your job–”
Stryker interrupted her, “Where is your arsenal?”
“Across from the medbay. Why?” she asked as she followed him out of the bridge. He followed her directions. The door of the weapons unit opened up for him and he stepped through.
“Never enter an unknown situation without a means to protect yourself.” He eyed the supplies that were given to the EonMed scientists with disdain.Nothing here for soldiers.He picked his way through a series of pistols and electric tasers to add to his space suit.Nothing here for a Cyborg.
Stryker weaved himself into shoulder straps that had gun clips attached and a belt that was a little too tight for his frame. He looked stupid with everything cinched around his body.
Norah put on her own belt and clipped in a new gun. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“You’re avoiding my question, Stryker,” she barred his exit, standing in the center of the doorway. “What do you think of those creatures back there? I won’t stop asking.”
He slid his hands up the frame of the doorway above her head and leaned into her. To his surprise, she didn’t back off or flinch from his nearness, from his invasion of her personal space.
“You care too much,” he looked down at her.
“I’ve never cared enough.”
