The following piece is a continuation piece of the author's submission to the first edition of The Glaive. To view the original submission, please visit the following link: https://eadsnf.wixsite.com/theglaive/post/chandler-mcclesky
Ping! A flash of vibrant red light flashes past my eyes as an arrow would flash past a lucky belligerent. Instantaneously, sparks rise from the floor in the station room as a blurry figure begins to materialize in front of our eyes. Satirically, I think to myself, "Great, not only do I have to deal with malfunctioning doors, and cosmic scavengers, but now aliens can teleport..."
My immediate thought is to reach for my Tase-Cannon 3000, the quickest tasering neuron neutralizer on this side of the Southern Pleiades; however, as previously mentioned, my arm's five million wires are currently sweet talking my battle seat's main CPU, and thus my arm is rendered rather helpless at the moment. Subsequentially, I looked around for alternative methods of self-defense and, in doing so, managed to catch a glimpse of our alien intruder. The being's face, or at least what one would traditionally call a "face" on a standard anthropomorphous creature, matched roughly with my data center's file on the main antagonist from the ancient Earth film Predator. However, my extensive Jovianology studies, coupled with my five star Pictionary skills, allowed me to identify the being as a Jarovi from Jankar IV. I met one on Ceverius Plat, a regional mining community in the Lambda Scorpii system. A nice fellow at first, but he tried to blow my head off after I bested him in Galoker 21. I thought it was because of the card game, but apparently, it was because his wife was giving me sweet eyes over the table, and he did NOT like that. I do not remember a lot from that night. Still, I do recall one of my tablemates saying that Jarovi's are known for being some of the most notorious bounty hunters in the Sigon Belt, and come to think of it, the being in front of me is starting to look oddly familiar...
At any rate, this is turning out to be only the second-worst Thursday on board Garrison 3223. The worst Thursday was back in my training rotation when I had to perform a spacewalk without assistance for the first time to inspect the ship's exterior hull, and my tether broke. I was floating in space for three days before the search and recuse cruiser found me. Luckily my internal generator kept me warm as I floated through the cosmos, as I am a cyborg after all. However, the desolate solitude of drifting through the dark abyss of space was draining on my artificial psyche. Anyways I am fine now, besides the night terrors and PTSD flashbacks, I'd say I left that Thursday pretty much unscathed. Anyways, one of my favorite quotes is that "All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously." Thus, I aim just to laugh off my sorrows nowadays; however, my current predicament is somewhat hard to frame in a humorous light.
Back to my newfound, or "old-found" friend, if you will, my facial recognition sensors determined that this was the same Jarovi that I had met with back on Ceverius Plat, so this should just be a marvelous reunion. My acquaintance, as I believe our friendship status is more so one sided, reached out for what appeared to be a large canister of sorts, and now he's running towards me in an alarmingly quick fashion. Just as I am finally able to get my wires loose from my battle seat, the Jarovi tackles me to the ground. In a tango of sorts, we wrestle on the ground for a moment as he attempted to place the jar over my head. I was perplexed, then I remembered a Jovianology 101 lecture back from my time at university. Jarovian bounty hunters used to take the heads of their enemies and place them in preservation jars.
I always thought it was tacky when my mom would put my track and field trophies up on the mantel, but I guess clear containers of one's mortal enemies make Jarovian mothers very proud.
Regardless I knew that if the canister touched my neck, then it would close off, and I'd be a goner. Thus, I did what any reasonable cyborg would do in a situation like this and I activated my lodestonian receptor, or what I use to grab Cokes out of the fridge when I am too lazy to get up, and my Tase-Cannon 3000 shot right into my arm. I shot once at the being's torso, but he was wearing samurai-like armor, very 2050 of him as that style of bodywear went out of style after the Winstian IV riots, which deflected the blast. He punched my lower ribcage but luckily for me my ribs are constructed with twice reinforced steel so rather than repetitive cracks his jab was met with his outcry of pain as I believe he broke his left claw. Regardless, this opportunity provided just the amount of time needed for me to take another shot at the figure’s neck and this one landed. Within a split second he was out on the floor, but he was just undergoing slight paralysis. I had to act quickly, so I reached for my responder and called my buddy John down in security. He gave me a hard time because the 1,016 season of the bachelor was on, and the entire security department believes that "this is the year that Sarah will finally find a man." Anyways, he's sending the cleanup crew down now, so I should be okay. I think in the mists of all of the violence this big Jarovi and I may have actually learned something about ourselves. Who knows, maybe fifteen years down the road, this guy and I will be friends, and we'll laugh about today as we drink Peach Moons by the Capsonian Sea. Or he'll have broken out of Curmax Prison and will be hunting me down again to kill me. Either way, I'm sure everything will be fine... totally. At any rate, I am signing off for now, so I hope this mission log helps the crew... wait something is not right. The Jarovi's gone. He was just there I swear, and that dosage of neuron neutralization should have been enough to put a Glazerion mammoth out for a week. Hmm. Wonder where he went. Let me call John back. "Hello?" "John?" "KRR KRR SUHSSN KRRRRR..." "What the?" "John!" "John, can you hear me man!" "Kran curo gari conweva kno cron cariolig!" Wait I hear something behind me... What the hell? Since when could Jarovis duplicate. Great, okay, just... great. It's decided. This is now officially the worst Thursday I have ever had on board Garrison 3223.