Harland Linken and Sullivyn Gul- Total Badass Cyborgs.

As it turned out, Harland and Sullivyn were happier dead. After being pulled from the wreckage of the Gena Lee, the two rambunctious spacers were mangled and shredded nearly beyond recognition. Fortunately for them, Gaven Jencks was a certified madman, and with sadistic glee, set about rebuilding their bodies. He took steel from the Lee and welded it to bone and muscle, sparking circuit boards and wires were roughly jammed into scorched and melted brain matter. He screwed camera optics into eyesockets, cracking bone and sending flecks of skull flying.

Days of intensive, vile, blasphemous labor later, his creations were complete.

“Rise, my children. Become my talons. Pierce into the heart of our enemies. COVER THE GALAXY IN BLOOD! YOU ARE MY TERROR UNLEASHED!” He screamed, eyes shining with madness. He threw out his arms, his work complete, buoyant and howling with fury.

Servos whined, metal creaked, and red eyes snapped open. They rose in unison. Comrades in life, twins in death. Their raised their arms, examining the disgusting unison of technology and flesh. They looked at each other.

“Bad. . .ASS!” They screamed. Throats shredded beyond repair, their voices were harsh and guttural.

“We are so metal!” Harland Linken barked.

“Oh my god, I see what you did there!” Sullivyn Gul hissed back. They began to wildly pinwheel their arms.

“No. . .no. . . no! They’re. . . they’re idiots!” Jencks screamed.

As if in answer, the two cyborgs slammed their heads together.

“Yes!” Gul howled. “Totally metal and awesome!”

Linken threw back his head and roared. “Let’s go kill someone!”

Jencks’ eyes narrowed. Maybe they would be of some use after all.

Minutes later, the two were engaged in a titanic fistfight.

Jencks sighed. Then again, maybe not.

Screams from every angle created a harrowing cacophony inside the hospital. As the only place where the wounded could be treated in the entire colony, everyone brought their dead and soon-to-be dead there. The emergency room was utter chaos as doctors, nurses, and the injured ran through the crowded halls every which way. People, blood, papers, and stretchers flowed through the halls like a demonic river.

Everyone was scared because they were coming soon. No one knew how many were attacking, but it was at least two. No one knew what they were, but the few who survived and were brought to the hospital stuttered short descriptions between bouts of choking on blood.

"....red...eyes........"
"....half..........machines....?"
".......bad....assssss........"

Dr. Sheila and Emmett Hurst were husband and wife doctors in the hospital in the trauma ward. They were taken by surprise by the mayhem and tsunami of wounded that flooded the hospital in minutes. All they knew was what they could discern from the victims. It was a small colony, so there were lots of people that knew one another. As Sheila and Emmett treated victims, they could tell where the monsters were working their harrowing craft. They met one another as residents in the hospital seven years before, but no training they ever had could have prepared them for this medical nightmare.

First were several of their friends from the housing districts. Then some shop owners and policemen. The colony was arranged into a long rectangle, and the hospital was last in the line. The people were flowing in at an alarming rate, and they just cleared the trauma room when another casualty came in. Emmett was gathering supplies behind her, but Sheila remarkably recognized the disfigured and bleeding face right away.

"Principal Carters? Oh Jesus, has the school been attacked?!" The broken man just grunted as nurses patched up his wounds with gauze.

"...Carters?!" said a surprised Emmett, who whipped around and darted to the operating table.

"Are the children hurt?!" yelled Emmett. "Is Charles safe?!" screamed Sheila, breaking down in anguish. They were so busy that they forgot that the only school in the colony was right next to the hospital. Their only son Charles attended this school.

An explosion rocked the entire ward and shockwaves pushed everything into the room against the far wall, knocked everything off of shelves and tables. More screams and terror were heard throughout the now smoky hallways. Red emergency lighting came on after the normal lighting failed. Sheila was pinned behind Principal Carters' operating table, but Emmett was in front of it, still knocked to the ground but able to move and maneuver.

Emmett's glasses fell off in the shockwave and he was scrounging on the ground looking for them. He went outside the operating room into the hallway as he pushed his hands on top of piles of rubble and debris hoping to hit something that resembled a glasses frame. Pile, pile, pile, pile...here! He felt the plastic and shape of his glasses, picked them up, but dropped them in the excitement.

He dropped to the floor again and reached out and grabbed them when a giant steel boot crushed both his hand and the glasses beneath them. Emmett screamed out in agony as he turned his head upward. He couldn't see clearly without his glasses, but the hulking figure of a man was obvious. No, two men! One with three red eyes and another with one red eye. Their eyes created distinct red beams in the smoke enveloping the room. Emmett could also hear the whizzing and whirring of machinery whenever they moved. The one with three red eyes turned to him, and pointed the cannon he was holding towards his face. Emmett could see that their hands were mechanical laced with flesh.

Still on the ground, Emmett turned and tried to pull himself free from the madman's crushing pressure. He heard a third creature come from behind the two others and throw something into the operating room.

"Auuuugh! Sheila! Run!!! Shiiieeellll-" Emmett's exclamation was cut short by the recoil of the three-eyed one's arm cannon. The operating room exploded as the three figures turned and made their way down the next hallway to do what they were created to do by their leader Orion: kill with complete and utter malice.

"What's the next colony we hit?", grunted the three-eyed one.

"Carolina," the one-eyed one hissed.

The three-eyed one stopped walking and shooting for a few moments. That name sounded familiar to him, but he didn't understand why. After a few more seconds of confusion, he discarded the train of thought, and uttered his typical response to all of his work:

"Bad...ass."

Their days spent aboard The Viledosta were mostly passed in boredom punctuated by intense periods of rage and headbanging. Their quarters were a mess, resembling a battleground of twisted metal, carbon scoring, craters, and blood. They weren’t very close to the rest of the crew, save a slavering, horny devotion to Aiviry Krain. To Captain Jaxon Hazzard, they were simply useful instruments, point them in the proper direction and let them loose. Dumb, violent, and vicious, they were like Tasmanian robodevils.

And to their creator, Mad Scientist Gaven Jencks, they were a constant source of embarrassment, pride, frustration, and wonderment. He loathed them with every fiber of his being, and loved them more than his own flesh and blood. When he wasn’t trying to trick them into drinking detonator fuel, he was dreaming up sinister upgrades.

As it turned out, the trip to Carolina was uneventful. Harland shot Sullivyn once or twice, and Sullivyn rammed a bayonet through Harland’s stomach. Same old same old.

These are our tools. These are our lives.