"One klick out. Half a klick. Decelerate. Do you see anything?"

"Nope. Just asteroids."

"That means he either dumped your clothes in the middle of space or he's cloaked. Let's hope it's the latter."

"Let's hope."

Stryker also upgraded my suit to be airtight, so I can now just bounce around in a vacuum safely. Turns out that a jumpkit doubles as a space mobility kit pretty well anyway. Why he'd give me the ability to kill him easier, I have no idea, but he's dying today. I keep on until I slam my helmet into what I hope is a cloaked ship's hull. Which-whaddya know?-happens to be just that. Now, finding the airlock of a cloaked ship is a pain in the ass, let me tell you. A while, however, and I do. I float in and then hit the ground -hard- and push myself to my feet. I feel the air pressurizing around me, and cloak. The camera can't see me, I know that, but Stryker has to know what's going on. Despite this, I continue into the ship and find more guards than I remember, which is no high bar, because I remember the ship being unguarded. My cloaking won't fool them here, so I need to get rid of them, fast. Before they get rid of me. I grasp my Flatline, uncloak, and begin firing. The first to notice me only noticed me because of the bullet in his throat. The second caught on faster, and another noticed for long enough to call out. They're all around me, telling me to put my hands up, and other things that'll never happen. I blink behind the one directly in front of me, wrestle his rifle out of his hands and start firing it at the others, firing a weapon someone else is holding tends to be inaccurate, so I only get one or two before I decide to dispatch this one and move on to the others. I snap his neck and push forward to another using him as a shield. I throw my makeshift meatshield on top of the next and use the revolver I took off of him before killing him to finish the guard pinned to the ground. I blink once again, appearing in front of another, a woman, and dodge a knife. I grab her knife, kick her back, and the force of the kick is enough to tear the blade out of her hand. I spin, throw the knife into another man's head and turn back to her. She's crawling away, holding her hand. I can't see any others now, I think they're all gone. The knife cut her while I took it away. She tries to draw her sidearm on me, but I crush her wrist, forcing her to drop it. I draw my pistol and center it between her eyes. My finger's halfway through the four-pound trigger weight, then I look at myself, and the pistol. She's unarmed. I turn on the external speakers on my helmet.

"Go."

She's more than happy to oblige and crawls into a convenient escape pod nearby. I hear the muffled sounds of engines engaging and then nothing as the vacuum of space separates us. As I continue further into the ship, I hear the intercom engage. The screech of feedback and then:

"Hello! I see you... murdered... the welcoming party. Either way, we hope you're having a nice day here."

"Can you hear me?" I yell through my suit's speaker array.

"Yes, we can hear you, Jason."

"Where is she?"

"Not a point of concern right now. What is, however, is the fact that you just eliminated or neutralized six very well trained and expensive mercenaries, Apex Predators. Everything you do, I watch. Everyone you kill, I've tested. I'm testing your limits, friend, and I still haven't found them."

"You're not Stryker."

"I must admit, I didn't think you'd fall for that. Well, he's served his purpose, so I suppose you knowing why he did what he did can't hurt now. He had a killchip in his head, Jason. We controlled his hormones, and made him say what we told him. He had simply run out of cortisol. He knew the stakes, but he didn't have any fear to show."

"You still haven't explained why he's alive."

"Well, I'm the villain of your story, and I think we've had enough monologuing for now. There's an escape pod with coordinates already set next to the airlock you entered from. And remember, Jason, I'm always watching you."

"I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to enjoy it."

"All the times you've said that, and you still haven't."

I decide to forego the dignity of a reply, and just walk over to the escape pod. I didn't have a plan B, and I didn't plan on an escape route other than the ship itself. It was clear that the people here were sure of their defensive measures, and I figured the escape pod was my only choice. I climbed in, and pressed the "Evacuate" button. Let me just hope this isn't a trap.

(Sorry for the shorter chapter, I've been trying my hardest to think up ideas, and I'm running out of them. Next chapter will be slightly longer to compensate!)