The Last Line of Pride
“F…uck…”
The frozen curse scattered into the cabin air. My sense of time went numb. My brain refused to accept the scene before my eyes as reality.
It wasn’t a child. It was something shaped like a human. My common sense and reason screamed in warning. ‘Identification impossible. Threat level: maximum. Eliminate immediately.’
Back in my military days. The engagement protocols I’d drilled a thousand times flashed through my mind. Reflexively, I gripped the handle of the Guardian pistol at my waist. Not the flailing grasp of terror, but the mechanical, lightning-fast motion etched into my bones from rolling through countless battlefields.
Click.
No hesitation—I flicked off the safety and chambered a round. The muzzle locked dead on the thing’s forehead, the surest kill shot. Only then did the cold bite of metal drag me back to reality. My breathing steadied. Tension hung thick in the air.
Then the child’s upper body slowly closed again, as if nothing had happened. Skin met skin, sealing seamlessly. Not a single scar. As if it had never split open to begin with.
The child gazed at me quietly. No hostility in those eyes. Just a demand. Simple. Familiar. Hunger.
I licked my dry lips. The taste of blood lingered on my tongue.
‘Shoot now, and it’s dead for sure. Contamination risk? Maybe safer to vent it out the hatch.’
I refocused my sight picture. What I saw: a monster in the shape of a ten-year-old girl.
‘Not a hallucination. What the hell is that thing? A secret lab subject? Some military bio-weapon?’
To steady my churning thoughts, I recalled the mantra I always repeated. ‘Don’t overthink. Just survive. Kill the monster.’
But against my thoughts, my trigger finger wouldn’t budge. My head knew it: that’s a monster. And yet… the weight when I’d lifted it earlier. So light, so small, just like the empty eyes staring back at me now.
What if I’d just shot the kid back at the lab? Would I regret it less now…?
“……Damn it.”
The curse slipped from my lips. Did that monster know how many times I’d wrestled with killing it?
The monster ignored me. It just stared with round eyes at the nutrient pack I’d dropped on the floor earlier.
Drip, drip. White liquid oozed from the torn foil, pooling on the deck.
Then the monster moved slowly. On all fours like a puppy, it started lapping up the spilled nutrients.
“……!”
That was the moment. My finely aimed muzzle wavered. Over the grotesque sight, a memory from my past overlaid it—vivid, unforgettable. One I wanted to erase… no, couldn’t forget.
A rain-slicked back alley in a massive city. By a dumpster, I’d been just like that kid. A garbage bag of food waste tossed from some upscale sector restaurant. Inside, a squashed chunk of bread. I shoveled it into my mouth, muddied with rainwater, forgetting the filth in my desperation to survive.
Dignity was a luxury before the brutal instinct of starvation. That’s why I admired them. The ones in gleaming uniforms on hologram news, cheered as saviors. They were my only hope, my aspiration, amid the hunger and contempt.
I wanted to be like them. To be acknowledged. Treated like a person, not trash.
So I enlisted.
But reality wasn’t the news. The buddy I’d shared smokes and laughs with yesterday was found bisected in a xenoform’s gut tomorrow. Orbital barrages looked like fireworks from afar, but up close? Hell, screams and entrails.
The more I survived, the more medals piled up. But something inside me rotted away. What we protected wasn’t honor or humanity. It was the Federation’s convenient facade, corporate profits. We were expendables.
Discharged with a single certificate, all I had left was a broken body and seething misanthropy.
That’s what the kid before me was now. Grotesque splitting body, unknown entity. But hunched over, lapping cold liquid from the deck? Not a monster—just a desperate life clawing to survive.
Created for someone’s need, discarded when useless. What made it different from me, battlefield fodder?
The strength drained from my gun hand. What was I aiming at? An enemy? Or my past self?
But no time for rumination now.
“Hey! Hey, what the hell are you doing!”
The shout burst out unbidden. I strode forward and grabbed the kid’s shoulder.
“Why eat shit off the floor? It’s filthy!”
The kid flinched at my touch and looked up. Blank black eyes tilted in confusion. Then, thinking I was stealing its food, it raised tiny hands in threat.
“Gr-rrowl.”
Its gaze fixed on me, but flicked hungrily to the spilled pack. I released its shoulder and backed away. Muzzle trained again.
‘Xenoform? No. Behavior’s off. No blind aggression toward lifeforms. Lab experiment, then.’
Thoughts stormed like a gale. Who the hell experiments like this on a child?
I jacked into the ship’s control system frantically. Fingers and eyes danced over the screen. I ran the cipher-decryption algo from my army days. Analyzing the data fragments swiped from the lab revealed a hidden signature code no standard scanner would catch.
> Hidden Signature Detected
> [Security Level: Class 3]
> [Affiliation: A.I. (Apex Industries)]
The code hit me like ice down my spine. A familiar, chilling shiver.
‘Apex Industries.’
To civilians, that name meant salvation, hope. But frontline grunts who’d tasted their “support” knew better. The stimulants in their rations. The meat grinders they sent our squads into for new weapon tests.
Savior in the light? Bullshit. They were the kings of war-profiteering parasites. The dirtiest hands around.
Anyone who uncovered their secret kid bio-experiments? Their fate was obvious. No need to imagine.
I had to bail.
“Damn it!”
Decision made. Survival instinct crushed all else. I yelled at the kid.
“Stay put!”
No clue if it understood. Didn’t matter. I bolted to the cockpit, swung the Night Raven’s nose around. Back to X-41 Planet. That hellhole lab I’d just escaped.
Erase traces. Landing logs, footprints, everything I’d touched. Not a shred of evidence.
Perfect incineration, army-style.
*
While the Night Raven descended back to the ashen planet, my head was a mess. Over the lab, I grabbed the military explosives from the cargo hold. Suited up in the hazmat again, hatch opening—paused to glance at the kid left alone in the cabin.
Huddled in the bed corner where I’d laid it, face buried in knees. That small, lonely back. Overlaid my rookie days: trembling in the trench corner as squadmates died.
Grimaced, gritted teeth, popped the hatch. No time for sentiment.
The lab innards still writhed grotesquely. Familiar turf now—no hesitation. Load-bearing walls, data server cooling, power sources. Structural weak points for total collapse. Rigged them all.
Last bomb set, I exited and paused at the shattered tank where I’d first found the kid. It had said it was hungry there. Leave it? Starves or Apex recovery team grabs it.
Recovery? Obvious. Back on the slab, treated like machine parts or trash till scrapped.
Like us on the frontlines, used up for their profits.
Shook my head, returned to the Night Raven. Lifted off, cleared safe distance, hit the detonator.
A silent flash bloomed on-screen. Precision blasts caved the lab inward, swallowing it in fire and dust.
* * *
Left the burning lab behind, punched back to space. Strapped in the cockpit, stared at the stars for a long stretch. External threats: gone. Internal: the biggest problem aboard my ship.
Three options swirled in my head.
First: Dump the kid back on the planet. Rational. Drop near the lab, like it never happened.
Couldn’t. My past—abandoned by all—blocked it. Ditch it, and I’m no better than the lofty Apex scum who treated me like trash.
Second: Kill it myself. Surest, safest. Only witnesses to the secret: me and it. Erase it, and with traces wiped, the link snaps.
I toyed with the Guardian at my waist. Its chill seeped to my heart.
I’d stolen, scammed to survive. But never pulled on innocent life off the battlefield. Hypocrisy? Yeah. But my last line, my final defiance against them.
Stood quietly. Headed to the cabin.
Kid still huddled. Sensed me, lifted head. Empty eyes met mine. No fear, no hope. Just void.
Stopped before it. Slowly drew the pistol.
It didn’t flinch at the gun. Muzzle to forehead. Squeeze, and it’s over. This brief curse, all future risks.
But my hand shook. Over the kid, my despised, mocked past self overlaid. Their contemptuous stares. Now staring at this kid the same way.
“……”
Silence. Lowered the gun.
Third option. Most irrational. Most dangerous. Most foolish.
Go together.
Yeah. Lives discarded by the world anyway. Mine was burden enough, but one more little monster? What’s it gonna worsen?
Not pity. Not compassion. My final thrash to not despise myself.
A middle finger to the world that used us as disposables. Proof I’m human, unlike them. An old soldier’s stubborn pride.
Turned wordlessly, grabbed two nutrient packs. Bit one open for myself, squatted before the kid, tore the other, offered it.
“……Eat.”
Kid eyed me, then took it gingerly. No grotesque maw—instead, brought the end to its lips. Like it’d watched me.
I stared blankly. Resolved.
Back in the cockpit, changed destination. Beyond Federation sector 12. Where their light doesn’t reach. Law and order meaningless.
Outer Rim.
Somewhere there, a hiding spot for us.
Plotted the course, gripped the stick. The Night Raven silently turned, slipping into endless dark.