Am i going to die here?

The thought crawls in the back of my mind as I press on the claw gash on my gut, trying in vain to stop the bleeding. If there was only one of those wounds it might be worth the time to try but no crying over spilled milk.

I get up from the floor, managing to increase the bleeding but as I raise my gaze above the crates I was hiding behind, I'm greeted by the ugly face of a Rachnid.

These insect-like creatures are the reason why I'm in this sorry state, and why everyone else in my ship is dead.

As the creature recognizes me as a living target, it charges with its 8 legs and it’s bizarre beak for a mouth, but a kinetic bullet from my handheld railgun dissolves half of it’s head, after which it crashes just past me.

I look at the gun in my hand, that was the first bullet of my last mag, so i’m gonna have to make it count. I have no expectation of making it out from this ship, but at least i can try to kill as many fucking Rachnids as i can.

That would be the last mission of Lieutenant Lilith Zsofia, from the UN-Charon.

Several insects try to get the last of me as I slowly make my way to the bottom of this infested ship, but I manage to kill every single one of them, although my wounds just keep increasing. Ironically, as my condition collapses I'm actually feeling better, so i’ll probably die very soon.

My vision gets blurry, and when my knees finally give up, I can just gaze at the floor, covered with organic tissue, the symbol of a Rachnid nest. Something brushes my shoulders, and after a few seconds, I raise my head to look at one of the most disgusting and abhorrent creatures in my knowledge, a Rachnid Queen.

Looks like I actually managed to get here, nice.

The thing that brushed me earlier and is silently ensnaring my whole body are the tentacles that sprout instead of legs from this creature, similar to a centipede, coiled in place, and surrounded by what look like eggs.

It raises me in the air, and carries me close to her, after which I feel like the amount of tentacles surrounding me has increased. It’s probably trying to infest me, make an incubator of my corpse, to make up for the lost soldiers that I killed to get here.

I smile at the thought.

The queen seems to notice; hard not to when she’s looking at me with what look like at least a hundred eyes. The tentacles stop, and notice my expression. Seems like it’s not totally stupid, her focus on my right hand.

Which holds tightly my gun.

With my arm snared, I can't actually aim at here, but I discreetly aim at my hip, specifically, to one of the explosive shrapnel grenades in my belt.

A gunshot rings.

My vision goes black, then red, then black again.

A searing sensation burns the whole right side of my body. I can’t feel my legs… actually i stopped feeling everything. So, whatever. Let’s just die and get this over with.

I feel time passing but i’m not sure if this is the “life flashing before your eyes” thing that people talk about. It’s just a black void.

Time has no meaning in this place, and i might have been here for a day or for a year, but i feel quite comfortable so it’s a nice change from a lifetime of faring war.

After some more undefined time passes, I start to feel something again.

And it’s pain.

Unbearable pain.

Why the fuck did this change? Am I in hell?

The pain lasts too much. When did it even start?

But, almost when the pain was about to erase whatever figment of my mind was left, the black void dissapeared, and i saw colors again.

I saw a glass wall, and people behind it, looking at me.

They were smiling, some even applauding.

Then I saw myself, reflected on the glass wall. My body was naked, but… there was something… metallic attached to me. To my legs, my right arm, and half of my face.

The memories came, the Rachnids, the Queen, the grenade… I lived?

This is what was left of me?

The confusion must have been obvious to the old men behind the glass, because one of them, the one with the most wrinkles and the whitest beard, then spoke.

— Welcome to 2290, Miss Lilith! You are the future of mankind!