Through the cracked viewport of his helmet, a blur of chitin and claw accelerated toward him. A Void Strain Harvester, its segmented form a dark smear against the flickering emergency lights of Aethelgard Station.
Kaelen raised the energy shield integrated into his gauntlet. A violent discharge of plasma slammed into the kinetic barrier, throwing a jolt up his arm, making the scarred tendons ache.
He had anticipated the assault, aiming to deflect and counter, but the sheer force buckled the shield. A familiar thrum of failure resonated through him. *Not clean enough. Again.*
His plasma-edged vibro-sword arced down, a hungry blue line aimed for the Harvester's cranial plate. It twisted with an insectile jerk, but the blade still struck its shoulder, shearing through thick chitin with a sickening hiss.
The impact sent a jarring vibration up Kaelen's arm, a dull memory of countless similar blows across countless cycles.
"Urgh… you're dead, human," a low, guttural growl pulsed directly into his comms, a psionic echo from the creature's fractured consciousness. It pulled its bio-scythe closer, swinging in a short, brutal arc.
Such a practiced move. He had seen it hundreds of times.
Without hesitation, Kaelen lashed out with his boot, a reinforced durasteel toe cap connecting squarely with the creature's abdomen. The Harvester staggered, its multi-jointed legs fumbling for purchase on the grimy deck plating.
Close-quarters combat in the crumbling corridors of Aethelgard — a chaotic, desperate brawl. Falling here meant *another* twenty-four hours to erase. Another failure to add to the ledger.
Kaelen flicked his gaze away from the reeling Void Strain. His grip tightened on the sword, scanning the shifting tableau of friendly fire and alien savagery. His allies, the few remaining troopers of the 33rd Tactical, were fighting with grim, exhausted fury.
Losing composure, charging blindly — a quick path to a reset. Mimicking a berserker didn't make one a hero; it made one a memory.
He knew his limits. He knew the limits of *this cycle*. Don't waste the knowledge.
A bladed limb, a curved shard of hardened bone, swept in from Kaelen's periphery. He intercepted it with his energy shield. The impact rattled his bones, the barrier screaming under the strain. The flickering blue field began to crackle, energy bleeding away in visible tendrils.
This barrier wouldn't last more than a few more hits.
Keep attacks short, decisive. After blocking, Kaelen tightened his grip, pivoted, and swung. The satisfying *CRUNCH* of superheated steel on chitin echoed up his arm. An unlucky Harvester crumpled sideways, its headpiece shattered.
Before the alien could recover, a Federated Trooper, a young woman whose face Kaelen vaguely remembered from three cycles ago, drove a pulse-pike deep into its exposed thorax. The creature thrashed, a dying soundless scream ripping through Kaelen's comms.
The Trooper struck repeatedly, a mechanical, brutal rhythm. The pike punched through its armor entirely, burying itself in the alien's biomass. The Harvester vomited corrosive fluid, twitching as it clung stubbornly to the embedded weapon.
"Let go! Damn it, let go!" the Trooper yelled, pulling back with all her might. The creature's grasp held firm, forcing her to abandon the weapon and snatch a discarded rifle from the deck.
Satisfied, Kaelen stepped back, his chest heaving under the weight of his suit. He took a single, deep breath, the filtered air tasting faintly of ozone and burnt metal.
His mind, honed by cycles of repetition, instantly mapped his position, the precise locations of allies and enemies, the ebb and flow of this brutal push. Step forward blindly, and he would die. Charge into those alien lines, and he would become biomass for the Void, no different from the Harvester with a smoking hole in its chest.
Perhaps that creature had grown overconfident, or perhaps it was simply unlucky to cross blades with Kaelen in *this* cycle.
The deck plating was slick with ichor, blood, and lubricants from failing systems. Despite the carnage, a pervasive dryness hung in the air, a metallic tang that coated Kaelen's throat. He swallowed thickly, scanning for his squad members.
Not that they were easily visible in this chaos.
Instead, a choked cry erupted nearby.
Two meters away, Commander Relon, a seasoned veteran from Beta Company, lunged with his vibro-knife. The thrust was clean, but his right boot caught on a dislodged conduit. He pitched forward, falling flat on his face, his weapon skittering away across the deck. His helmet, emblazoned with a faded Gryphon sigil, bounced once.
*Are you trying to get killed, Relon?*
The sight of the Commander lifting his head, a gesture that looked eerily like supplication, flashed a moment of weary irritation through Kaelen. He shoved the thought aside.
Kaelen advanced, his damaged energy shield flickering protectively as he braced his muscles, holding his breath. An enemy claw-arm crashed into his shield. The impact reverberated, spreading from his arm through his entire combat suit. Though he blocked it in time, the last vestiges of the energy barrier shattered, sparking violently.
He hurled the now-useless shield forward, putting all his reinforced strength into wide, sweeping slashes. One from right to left, then another, left to right. On the second swing, his vibro-sword caught the bladed arm of a Void drone.
The clash sent a shower of sparks into the dim light, and the drone's weapon, a jagged bone-blade, slipped from its grasp. Kaelen seized the opportunity. He didn't trust his sometimes-mediocre execution, but he relied on the raw power he'd honed through countless repetitions.
That strength had bought him an opening. Still, he didn't rush forward. In battle, opportunities often came with hidden dangers, lessons etched in his memory by a thousand painful ends.
Disarmed, the Void drone hesitated for only a fraction of a second before lowering its head and charging, a lumbering beast of chitin and sinew. Kaelen feinted a slash, then dropped his sword. He crouched low, letting the momentum of the charging creature carry it, then hooked his arms under its mass and lifted.
The weight of the drone, its hardened armor and dense biostructure, pressed heavily on his back. His waist and thighs screamed in protest, but Kaelen ignored the familiar pain. He stood upright with all his might, gritting his teeth.
The Void drone flipped over his back, landing hard on the deck with a wet *THUD*.
Kaelen didn't look back. His position was just inside the allied line, a kill-zone where three types of Void Strain often appeared:
The unlucky drone, pushed to the vanguard.
The overconfident Harvester, blinded by past kills.
And the true Void Stalker, patiently surveying the battlefield.
The drone he had just thrown was the first type, a mere obstacle.
He retrieved his vibro-sword from the deck. Nearby, the clumsy Commander Relon was picking himself up, his helmet split cleanly across the visor. A thin trickle of greenish fluid, a mix of coolant and blood, ran down his face.
Moments ago, Relon had almost died, only to be saved by Kaelen's almost-reflexive action.
He even recognized the Gryphon sigil.
"Relon," Kaelen's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "Did getting your head split make you lose what little sense you had?"
The Commander wiped the ooze from his faceplate, his breath ragged. "Damn it… Barely made it out alive, Vance."
"If you're alive, watch my back."
Ordinary troopers couldn't grasp the tactical overview of a station-wide assault. Squad leaders like Kaelen often served as conduits, relaying orders, not crafting grand strategy. Yet, Kaelen could feel it.
Cycles of battle, of blood and steel and plasma, had sharpened his instincts. His memory had. Something was about to go wrong, something specific, something he'd seen before.
"Alright, alright," Relon muttered, picking up his discarded vibro-knife.
Relon took cautious steps forward, advancing two paces. A crimson flash streaked through the air, impossibly fast. It pierced his head through the gap in his broken helmet, embedding itself deeply. The impact shattered the remaining visor, and a gelatinous orb, an optic nerve mass, splattered against Kaelen's chest plate.
Relon died without a sound, his lips parting in a silent gasp.
Kaelen averted his gaze. Far above, in the dim, smoke-hazed expanse of the ruptured station ceiling, a fleeting shimmer caught his eye. A Void Stalker. In that instant, he knew.
The next shot was meant for him.
Kaelen closed his eyes. How many people could remain composed at the precise moment of death? He had died countless times. This was not fear. This was profound, bone-deep weariness.
The noise of the battlefield faded. The sensation of his own breathing felt sluggish, distant. That fleeting perception of unreality vanished as quickly as it came. The clamor of battle returned, along with the reassuring thrum of his own suit's life support. He hadn't died *yet*.
"Praying out of gratitude for being spared?"
It was Tech-Sergeant Jorvin, Kaelen's right-hand. Jorvin had shoved him, sending him sprawling. The hyper-velocity projectile, a concentrated shard of Void energy, embedded itself harmlessly in the deck where Kaelen had stood a second before.
"Void Stalker's active," Kaelen stated, his voice flat.
"You think dodging will make a difference against one of those? They lead their shots, Vance."
"I'll deal with it," Kaelen said, pushing himself up, the movement fluid and practiced. "Just hold formation."
Jorvin was also uniquely unhinged. Kaelen gave a small nod.
"You're not planning to give up on life, are you? Saw you skipping training, napping on duty earlier today." Jorvin's words jabbed, oblivious to the true reason for Kaelen's occasional detachment.
"Are you regretting it now?"
"I'd feel uneasy if I saved someone eager for the big sleep."
"Damn it, who the hell wants to die?" Kaelen retorted, the weariness in his tone barely masked. Living by the blade wasn't the same as seeking the void.
"You always fight just fine, but at critical moments, you close your eyes. Every time."
"You think I do that on purpose?" Kaelen felt like he’d already responded to something similar in a dozen other cycles.
Jorvin hefted his heavy combat axe in his right hand, a jury-rigged pulse-emitter affixed to its haft. In his left, a salvaged power coil. The mix suited him, a brutal, versatile fighter.
He scratched his helmet-covered head with the axe hand. Scratching through the durasteel didn't seem particularly satisfying.
"Damn, this comms unit reeks."
"Can't argue with that."
"Focus harder when it feels like you're about to die," Jorvin said, his voice unusually serious. His words were familiar, a common sentiment in the Federation ranks.
Kaelen knew what they meant. In those moments when death felt imminent, when your life was supposed to flash before your eyes, people supposedly tapped into a transcendent state of focus. But for Kaelen, his life didn't flash. Only the ghosts of a thousand failures, the bitter taste of cycles wasted.
*Damn it, but was that even possible?*
That was talent — facing the brink of oblivion with open eyes, staring down the enemy, and doing what needed to be done. Not for him. Not anymore.
"Focus, my ass," Kaelen muttered under his breath.
"Well, you'd figure it out after dying a few hundred times," Jorvin chuckled, utterly unaware of the bitter irony, "but you've only got one life. Anyway, see you out there."
Jorvin sprinted back into the fray, a whirlwind of steel and plasma. Kaelen refocused on the battle.
He fought with allied troopers at his side, a continuous, brutal dance. Kaelen thrust his vibro-sword forward. If lucky, he'd impale the enemy. If not, they'd dodge.
The sword would land a blunt blow, unable to pierce the Void Strain's thick armor, merely pushing them back. The struck creature would groan, stagger, only for a passing ally's heavy pulse-hammer to smash into its head. The repetition was exhausting.
Kaelen cleared his mind of distractions. The constant effort to block, dodge, and counter the onslaught of bio-blades, tendrils, and blunt chitinous clubs wore on his nerves. Without his energy shield, he felt exposed, so he picked up a fallen piece of durasteel plating, using it as a makeshift buckler.
With his allies still nearby, he blocked, struck, and stabbed. When opportunities arose, he executed the clumsy, sometimes-faulty sword techniques he'd learned and re-learned. Stepping forward with his left foot, shifting his weight, and extending his sword tip without losing control of his arm. With just the right tension in his muscles, sufficient focus, and an eye for openings, it should have worked.
*Ting. Tch-tch-tch-tch.*
Kaelen's thrust only partially succeeded. He'd aimed for the gap between the Harvester's cranial plate and its neck segment, but the creature shifted, and his strike veered off. A long gash appeared on its neck — not a fatal wound, though.
The bloodied Harvester locked eyes with Kaelen. Its multi-faceted gaze brimmed with chilling malice. It clenched its mandible with a grinding, psionic snap.
His instinct, honed on countless battlefields and even more deaths, screamed. As Kaelen stepped back, an ally, a new recruit, filled the gap.
The Harvester crouched silently, then struck the ally's shin with a weapon-clenched fist, a serrated shard of bone. A bone-snapping sound followed, sickeningly clear even through Kaelen's helmet. As the injured ally collapsed, the Harvester drew a short, wicked bio-dagger and drove it into the fallen trooper's throat.
The swift stab-and-pull motion felt almost rehearsed, a grim choreography of death Kaelen had seen many times. Corrosive blood sprayed, staining the Harvester's chitinous armor. It shoved the dead soldier aside, its gaze already locked on Kaelen.
A fleeting memory. The boundary between life and death. Images flooded Kaelen's mind like a malfunctioning lantern, casting distorted shadows. Those shadows depicted his failures. Like the dream he had last night, or the cycle before that, or the thousand cycles before that.
At the edge of it all, as everything slipped away, the Harvester's bio-dagger drove into Kaelen's neck. It had mirrored his thrust — perfectly. At least, it seemed so to Kaelen.
Fiery pain coursed from his neck through his body. The world turned to static.
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