Page 66 of Alien Barbarian's Little Human

“And the people you serve are somehow better?”

“I don’t serve anything other than the idea of freedom. If the Precursors foreordained everything that will ever happen to everyone in the galaxy, then our free will means nothing. Only by eliminating all traces of your flawed species from the Galaxy can peace and freedom truly exist.”

Nerita sneers.

“So you’re going to prove your message of freedom and peace by committing murder? Makes perfect sense.”

Svarz’s smile fades.

“Murder is an organic term. A dead body has the same amount of molecules as a living body. The organic brain is effectively a computer. When a computer stops working, you don’t mourn, you acquire a new computer.”

“Sounds like he’s projecting to me, Magog.” Nerita narrowed her eyes. “I know for a damn fact you weren’t impersonating Jessica the entire time, so I’m going to ask you again: Where is she?”

“Oh, I’d imagine she’s pretty confused right about now. I wore your face, Nerita, to trick her into hiding. She’s probably wandering around your pathetic little hospital, crying her eyes out and wondering why you all abandoned her.”

My stomach twists in disgust. Despite his claims of altruism, this nanotech entity is irredeemable. Perhaps he does not believe in organic terms like good and evil. But I do. Nerita does. And I refuse to allow this evil to destroy my love yet again.

“You’re a monster,” Nerita sputters. She moves as if she’s going to throttle Svarz, but I hold her back.

“You might as well let her go, Magog,” Svarz says, still wearing Jessica’s face. “We can get this over with quickly. As usual, I only need to kill one of you. Make things easy for me, and I’ll let you and all of the patients on board live.”

“If you only need to kill one of us, then make it me,” I say, stepping forward. “Then you can let her go.”

“Hmm. Generous offer, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.” Svarz grins wickedly, his eyes flashing yellow. “You see, the two of you have already been intimate, so there’s a chance Nerita is pregnant. Such an early pregnancy would not be detectable by my sensor array. Slaying her is the only safe option.”

Svarz gestures as if I should step aside.

“Move, cyborg. You cannot stop me. You know this to be true.”

“Maybe not, but I can.”

Nerita steps out from behind me, wielding an electric suture device. It ‘welds’ cuts and lacerations together, useful when you don’t have time for stitches and the patient is losing too much blood.

Svarz smirks at the sight of the device.

“That can’t cause me the slightest harm. It’s merely a Zerberutech XLR.”

“Yeah,” she says “but this one’s been modified with you in mind, Jerk.”

Nerita pulls the trigger stud. An arc of blue light streaks out of the gun and envelops Svarz. Jessica’s form dissolves, falling apart into what looks at first glance like a silver liquid. Closer inspection reveals tiny cubes, not much larger than a grain of sand.

“I don’t know how long that’s going to last,” she says, powering down the device. “But it should disrupt Svarz’s magnetic cohesion for a while.”

I give her a look.

“When did you make those modifications?”

“About a day after my past life memories started banging around my head.” She puts a finger on her temple and grins. “Fortunately, the clinic database had a ton of info on nanotech, so I didn’t need the holonet for research. But as I said, I don’t know how long it will last. We need something more permanent.”

I look around the cockpit and frown.

“A pity we do not have an airlock, or we could just jettison him into space.”

I draw up a schematic of the original hover tank in my on board hard drive. No airlock, but there is a chute for the disposal of waste products.

“I think I have a plan, Nerita.”

I turn to find her holding a vacuum tube.

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