The railgun had gone clean through her, destroying her insides and spine. Time was moving so slow as I racked my brain to find a way to save her.

Nyx dimmed her crimson visor to reveal her pale face. “Sorry, Commander. Sorry, Commander. Sorry, Commander,” she repeated like a mantra over and over again.

“It’s fine Nyx, you are gonna be okay,” I lied to her as much to myself. I tried injecting hemostatics to slow the bleeding down but it wasn’t working.

“Hey Commander… we were friends, right? Like real friends?” she asked, coughing up blood into her helmet. 

What? Why are you worried about this now of all times, you idiot! And I… I don’t know. What’s it like to have a friend?

Nyx didn’t talk to anyone. I guess she spoke to me the most out of everybody, and I did feel closer to her. It’s not that I wasn’t close with the rest of the squad. It was just that I was closer to Nyx. She always made an effort to speak to me, even if it seemed to make her uncomfortable. I was just thinking earlier about how I felt comfortable around her. 

Perhaps. This is what it means to be friends. I stopped fiddling around with random medical equipment and steeled myself. I can’t save her… I can’t save my friend.

I dimmed my visor to respond, “Yeah, Nyx. You might have been my only friend. Thank you for sticking with me all these years,” I chuckled nervously to myself for the first time in my entire life. “I probably wasn't a very good friend.” 

She gave me a genuine ear-to-ear smile. I had never seen her smile so brightly before. “Yeah— you kinda sucked. I wasn't much better, but I’m glad… and hey, I told you, didn't I. That I didn’t trust Zeus and the 3rd Gens,” she said weakly. 

She has lost a lot of blood. The fact she was still alive was a miracle in itself. She should have died instantly from this wound. I ignored the thundering of metal boots outside. It didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was seeing my friend off.

“You did try to warn me. Sorry, I failed you.”

“It’s fine. I’m just sorry I have to die first. I didn’t want you to go alone but it looks like I failed the both of us,” she said, even weaker now. The light was starting to fade from her eyes. 

There was no point in sugar-coating it. The odds of us surviving this was astronomically low from the start. Even if we managed to get to the Tiger, we were surrounded by an entire fleet with a dreadnaught. We wouldn’t have even made it out of the station alive.

“I’ll be joining you soon enough, Nyx,” I said. 

With her dying breath, she left me with one final wish. “Maybe… just maybe…if we are lucky… I’ll get to see you again someday, Commander.” 

I shut my eyes tightly. I never would get an opportunity to respond to her final wish as her squad light went from a bright red to black. 

I prayed for the first time in my life, not for me but for Nyx. Perhaps, if there really were a god, it would be merciful to her. She didn’t deserve to die, not like this.

A familiar voice called out to me from the hallway. “Doesn’t have to be like this, Commander, just turn yourself in and this can all be over,” yelled Zeus. I could see the barrel of the railgun he was carrying from the doorway. 

Currently, I was in some type of shopfront type room behind the counter. A swelling feeling rose in my chest and reached my head. It clouded my vision and my heart thumped in my ears. Is this what it’s like to feel anger?

I might have been suppressing this rage since the raid on the facility, unsure what to do with it or even make of it. But, I had never felt that way until that night.

I should just give in, turn myself over to them. Fighting these soldiers has no point anymore. My time has come, and I should be embracing the fact that Humanity no longer needs me. It means I’ve finally completed my purpose. But when I look down at Nyx’s cold dead body…. none of that matters anymore.

I prepped and tossed another shredder grenade with a plasma core towards the doorway. If I was going to die then I would take as many of the scum that killed her with me to hell.

What I had not been expecting was for Zeus to suddenly appear in the doorway and activate a plasma shield. He used the shield like a bat and swatted the grenade combo right back at me.

The following explosion destroyed the counter I was using as cover and decimated the entire room. White flakes of heated plasma metal pelted my body. I didn’t need to feel the pain to know I was beyond repair. 

My legs had been ripped clean off from the wave of superheated plasma from the core explosion while the shrapnel turned me into mincemeat. I had taken an immense amount of internal damage. I was only conscious because of the combination of my armor working overtime to stem my bleeding and the Ambrosia coursing through my veins. But my hands still worked, and I wasn’t dead yet.

I took out my bolt pistol and began firing through the walls. I heard the distinct whining noise of Zeus’s plasma shield being battered, so I adjusted my aim further down the wall. I was rewarded with sounds of bones and armor being blown to smithereens as my bolt rounds exploded through the walls into anyone unfortunate enough to be in their way. I wasn’t sure to what extent the other members of Elysium Squad were involved, but it didn’t matter to me. 

They will pay for their transgressions with their dying breaths. Unfortunately, I had to reload, and no good soldier would let me get away with that. Not to mention my ammo was stored where my legs used to be, and those excess rounds just added to the carnage. 

Finally, my bolt pistol clicked with every pull of the trigger, the steam rising from the red hot barrel clouding my vision. Elysium Squad breached the room and dispersed the haze. A random soldier shot me once in the shoulder, only for the round to ricochet off my armor. 

Zeus slapped the weapon away and sauntered over to me, and crouched down in front of me with a plasma pistol in hand, poking my chest. “Well, you just had to go and make a mess? Do you know how many good men died today because of you? You killed a lot of my friends today…” Zeus gave my helmeted head a hard slap. “Hey! Are you listening to me?!” Zeus continued to yell at me while driving the barrel of his plasma pistol into my injuries. 

Of course, I felt nothing, and I said nothing. 

He just laughed. “Look at how the mighty have fallen. Don’t tell me you bled out now, Commander? Surely this can’t be how Humanity's finest weapon is done in? By losing a little bit of blood? Pathetic. Guess your stories were just stories after all.”

Zeus seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much. Perhaps he is a sadist or something. But his overconfidence will be his downfall. He got careless. I may be dying but I am far from dead, as I was beyond angry for the first time in my entire life.

With surprising speed from what seemed like a corpse just moments ago, I swatted the pistol out from his hand then dragged his arm into me as I put him in a bear hug. I mustered all my strength and squeezed as hard as I possibly could. I felt my ribs crack even more, but I also shattered his in return. I put every ounce of strength I had left into crushing this man into a pulp.

He was screaming and trying to push away from me. He was far beyond an average Human in strength and speed but he was nowhere close to me.  Ambrosia only made the gap between us wider. 

However, it seems I underestimated my injuries as I began to waver. I guess I had lost a lot of blood already. I was probably squeezing even more of my own blood out of me now. The warning in my helmet was ringing incessantly but I ignored it.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep the same strength up as he pushed off me and rolled over gasping for air and coughing through his helmet. Finally, Nike walked over to us while I began to struggle to stay awake.

“You fool, Zeus. You should have just shot him in the chest and been done with it. Doctor Octario only needs his head intact. Now here you are dying right with him. Just because you wanted to play around, you always do this crap,” Nike reprimanded.

Nike stood over me now and pointed his bolter at me. “Sorry, Commander. It really wasn’t personal, but I guess you had to go and make it personal. In my honest opinion, I thought you were a good man and a good leader. And if it helps, I am sorry about Nyx. She shouldn’t have died with a bastard like you. I'll make sure her body gets a proper burial." 

I heard the bolt rack as time slowed down again. The bolter round barreled into my stomach as I began to blackout.

At least I could die in solace knowing I had avenged Nyx. I used Zeus’s ribs as daggers to stab into his lungs, stomach, and heart. It was doubtful there would be enough time to save him even if they worked right now. Even a Death Commando needed a heart. I felt the round blossom with heat in my chest and expand. 

Then there was nothing.

I seemed to be floating away in an endless black void now. So, this is what it’s like to die. It was warm, even comforting in a weird way. No pearly gates or bearded man awaiting me, nor was there a hellish fiend waiting to drag me down to the depths of hell. 

Wait, what was that? Who’s there?

The feeling of someone being there was replaced instantly by a bright light. Ah, the infamous light at the end of the tunnel, huh? I had heard many final breaths on the battlefields as Marines called out to the light, embracing it, only for the light of their life to flicker out from them. 

I had often just ascribed that behavior to the dying mind, but now it seems it is accurate. I was moving faster toward the light, or was the light coming to me? I guess it doesn't matter. Suddenly, the light began to hurt, and excruciating painful noises assaulted my head. 

Wait… pain? You aren’t supposed to feel pain when you die.