Revenge of AIN SOPH, Level 1

Cut Scene 12

Kilgore didn’t even realize he’d picked up two grenades from the pirates that tried to board him in the Spidron wastes. Before he set out on this quest, he dropped everything to make room for fuel and supplies. A Galaxy Knight’s helmet could not be removed to eat, so the human body was powered by the CybR. The suit plugged into the ship for long flights, and Kilgore carried no cargo but ammunition and auxiliary batteries. 

Kilgore always forgot his grenades. He picked them up with any other loot he may come across, put them in the back of his equipment, and discarded them when he became too heavy to run. He rarely had enough to sell in lots, so they must be haggled individually with Blue merchants for not enough credits to be worth the effort. 

Kilgore hadn’t even looked through the loot crate he picked up after destroying their ship, it had been sorted by Sephiroth and distributed through his equipment list automatically, according to frequency of use. Ammo and fuel came first. Grenades went automatically to the back. The result was a pleasant surprise.

The first grenade was a Concussion Bomb. These were attached to the hulls of space ships to blow them open for mid-flight boarding. Fairly standard pirate tool. In a melee, Concussion Bombs had huge, fiery areas of effect, and Kilgore was shielded from damage from his own weapons by his CybR suit. The other grenade was a vastly powerful Void Bomb that was largely useless unless Kilgore could score a direct hit upon explosion.

Kilgore switched to the concussion bomb and tossed, targeting as close to Duke as he could in the moment he had. Duke moved impossibly fast across the open area. The bomb struck before Duke and exploded on impact. The blast was tremendous, filling the courtyard with fire and reducing rock to atoms in the split second it existed. Duke was unmoved.

That was not true. Duke had moved. In the time Kilgore’s optics were clouded by fire, Duke had charged into striking distance and was slamming his glowing sword into Kilgore’s chest, piercing the tender living body within. A single strike killed Kilgore before he even knew he was dead. 

Game Over.