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Two enhanced super-soldiers mid-air in combat, one wielding a plasma blade, the other a plasma whip, in the floating ruins of a shattered orbital station with exposed wiring and debris. Flickering emergency lights and backlight from a cracked glass dome showing the planet below. Cyberpunk-meets-space-opera art inspired by Eddie Mendoza and Paul Chadeisson. Close-up action shot, high angle with dynamic motion blur and sparks flying from impact, kinetic blur, purple/teal grading, glitch distortion on damaged suits.
On paper, the war had ended three weeks ago. Mars signed first. The League
signed after its fleets ran dry and its admirals ran out of other men’s sons. Bastion
Nine received the cease-fire with half its ring open to space. By then Seravey and
Corven had stopped fighting for governments. Governments could surrender. Their
dead could not.
The station hit atmosphere sideways. Its kilometer spine flexed like an animal finding
the hook in its gut. Solar vanes ripped free and went white. Docking towers folded
backward. Hull plates tore loose in sheets as the sky ate them. Seravey came at
Corven with a plasma knife burning along his fist.
Corven’s whip cracked across the chamber. Violet filament wrapped Seravey’s
forearm, cut through armor, bit to ceramic. Corven hauled. Seravey rode the pull,
boots screaming over the tilting deck, and buried the knife under Corven’s ribs.
Corven trapped Seravey’s wrist against his own body and smashed his forehead into
Seravey’s visor. Glass crazed. Blood jumped inside both helmets.
They had killed each other by inches for twelve years. Seravey took Corven’s eye
above Tarsis. Corven burned the nerves from Seravey’s right hand at Nemea.
Laboratories rebuilt them, decorated the seams, sent them back. Each returned
harder and less separable from the weapon his enemy had made of him.
Bastion Nine rolled. The planet became wall, ceiling, then a blue-white mouth below
their feet. Atmosphere punched through the dome in a furnace roar. Consoles tore
loose and vanished into flame.
Seravey ripped the knife sideways. Corven’s abdomen opened under the armor. He
did not fall. He shortened the whip and dragged it across Seravey’s shoulder. Metal
ran. Flesh blackened. Seravey smelled himself cooking and punched the knife into
Corven again, sawing for the spine. Corven hooked a leg behind Seravey’s knee
and drove him through a display table. It burst. They fought in its sparks.
Twenty seconds to liquefaction, Seravey’s helmet announced.
Corven heard it and cackled.
Corridors sagged into glowing troughs. Pressure doors softened. Ammunition
cooked off aft, each concussion kicking them nearer the planet. The cease-fire
repeated while Bastion Nine became a red coin hammered flat by the sky.
Corven looped the whip around Seravey’s throat and pulled until the filament raked
bone. Seravey rammed the knife through Corven’s chest, missed the heart by a
finger, withdrew, stabbed again. Corven pulled harder. Seravey stabbed deeper.
Neither had air to curse. Neither needed any.
Five seconds.
The observation drum folded around them. Steel became syrup. Glass became rain.
Corven’s armor fused to the deck; Seravey’s boots melted at the heels. The planet
filled everything.
Seravey drove the knife through Corven’s heart.
Corven twisted the whip around Seravey’s throat.
Bastion Nine became molten rain. Somewhere inside, two droplets battled on.
