“I nearly fried a circuit when you showed up here. I begged to end you. I felt punished to have to merely watch and gather intel. But it seems fate is stronger than the chain of command, eh?”

A flick of the wrist, and Cole’s pinky popped into the air. His entire artificial hand was on fire from the myriad wounds. He splashed backward as the ground beneath him shook, sending small ripples radiating out across the surface of the rain-streaked water.

The small man maintained his range and smiled. Cole wanted to throw something through those teeth, wanted to unleash the full power of his new elbow and hurl something at the man, just as he’d thrown the wrench through the skimmer. But all he had was his goggles, and throwing them would mean he couldn’t even see his own demise coming. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could even hurl the goggles properly with only a thumb to grasp them—

“You can’t even put up a fight with your better parts, can you? Just imagine what I’m going to do to your flesh!”

The unseen blade whistled through the air, slicing the rain in half. Cole’s thumb came off with another bite of pain. It flew up like the others, flashes of inner metal spotted with dollops of subcutaneous blood. Cole watched the digit spin, end over end. As it began its descent, he found his hand turning over beneath it, palm flat, his body reflexively moving to catch a piece of himself.

It landed in silence, all of hyperspace standing still as Cole gazed at the eerie realism of the thumb, its nail still pink and edged with a line of deadened white. He looked up, saw the smile on the man’s face turn into a sneer, lips trembling with raw hate.

Cole leaned forward. He cupped the thumb in his palm, cradling it with what remained of his hand. He dropped his shoulder, brought his hand back as he twisted at the waist, then let fly with everything he had. Every ounce of fear and rage, every vibrating cell in him that wanted to kill in order to live, was unleashed. His hand seemed to boom through the very air, breaking the speed of sound, as it whizzed past. There was a crack as his elbow flew straight, then the sickening feel of his shoulder leaving its joint, his arm yanking forward where it didn’t belong.

Cole cried out in pain and fell forward, sinking down to his knees. He gripped his dislocated and ruined shoulder with one hand and ground his teeth together, fighting to not pass out. Ahead of him, he heard the sizzle of a passing blade, saw the water bubble as something fell through the rippled surface of hyperspace. Cole looked up as the small man sank to his own knees directly before him. His head came level to Cole’s, but the sneer was gone. Half the man’s head was gone. It had been opened up by the bullet-like thumb, a metallic sphere blossoming wide like a silver flower. Tufts of hair stuck to portions of it, and half a flapping face hung to one side.