Era of Madness

The mistakes you can't fix 12

John, on his knees, panted heavily. He was struggling to get up, covered in scratch. His spatial ship had been destroyed, and when he had managed to enter the pirate spaceship, he had had no idea of what was awaiting him.

'Ah... just why... this sht only happen to me...'

After the mysterious ice manipulator from the Paradise Council, he had came across yet another man that had power defying the logic, that weren't mutant or cyborg powers. Worse, this one seemed even more monstruous. How unlucky one had to be for something like this to happen?

'I guess the world gave me the ending I deserve' John thought.

He just closed his eyes, and waited for the end to come, defeated. He waited for what felt like an eternity, with each second passing by adding to his anguish, and making him sweat more and more. He didn't want to die. But he also wanted to finally stop feeling like this.

"You know, if you really want to die, you should at least make sure not to put your blood on someone else's hands"

John weakly looked up, at the person who had just destroyed his ship and put him down without the slightest effort. It was a man below the average 1m93 in the galaxy, probably 1m88 or 1m89. He had a fit stature, not overly muscular but still really athletic, the kind that was trained for combat. He had a mid-long beard and strong facial features, but the whole somehow gave a soft face as a result, and made him look really handsome along with his light-brown hair and piercing blue eyes.

"What do you mean?" John asked on a dry tone.

"You threw yourself at an unknown spaceship, even knowing that in the cosmos, spatial ships like yours are at a natural disadvantage in this situation" the man said. "Then, when you see your ship is about to be destroyed, instead of trying to escape or negociate your live, you throw yourself in with a few grenades and firearms. You don't really look mentally-ill, so it's obvious you didn't get near with the main goal to survive. I'm pretty sure we don't have enemity with you, so that leaves the option that you just want to die"

"I... you know what, find, let's just assume I came here to die" John said, rolling his eyes. "Now if you don't want to have my blood on your hands, you can just throw me out of the ship, space will have my blood on its hands... whatever is the equivalent of hands for space"

"Haha, okay, that was funny" the man said with a scottish accent, not even paying attention to the proposal. "My name's Ethan, and you?"

"..."

"Not really talkative, are you?"

"You just destroyed my spatial ship"

"And you were the one to just go and throw yourself at us"

"...
Just tell me what you want from me already"

Ethan looked at him, scratching the back of his head, and sighed:

"Honestly, what am I even supposed to want? None of us were hurt, our ship didn't suffer much, and even if you made us lose some time, it doesn't really matter since the person we were chasing already managed to escape" he said. "On the other side, I don't see us just take you in, nor you accepting. Aaaand, considering that from what I understood you're from Cifer, I don't really see us just drop you on a random planet, especially considering we're in the Council's territory. So, I return the question: what do you want us to do with you?"

John looked at Ethan. Then he looked at the other men and women behindhim, all having a cybernetic arm or hand. He finally stopped, laying on the floor and looking at the ceiling, thoughtful:

"I... I don't know" he said. "I'm not even sure you people are not from the Council, or another galactic governement"

"If we were from the Council, I garantee you we wouldn't be staying in the backwater part of their territory like this, and I also garantee you that most of the Stellar Fields governements, not talking about the SGO Republic and the Andromeus-Silveren Empire, hate the Council enough to actually give assitance to Cifer, same for other terrorist organizations" Ethan retorted. "Fine, here is the deal I propose you: you lead us to one of Cifer's bases so we can get contact and trade information, and in exchange we drop you there and make sure nothing happen. Of course, if you're still worried, you can just indicate us a planet that doesn't belong to Cifer and where there's just a base, and then set up an encounter"