The general feel of this is good, with some nice references to a backstory that, if you sequel, you might fill in later?

A few pointers:

1) At the start of the second paragraph the use of ‘while’ is a little jarring – if you remove it I think that line will read better.

2) Just a personal preference, you might want to put Londheim’s thoughts in the second paragraph in italics to distinguish them from speech.

3) The ending isn’t quite as impactful as the build-up – perhaps ‘he felt a blow to his back – and then everything went dark.’ would have a bit more oomph :D

Otherwise, you’ve made a brave and well-written hero, written a good bit of action and hinted at a mysterious backstory – welcome to Ficly! MH :)

Thank you very much for the pointers, they were really helpful :)

Good to see a newcomer taking the advice – the story is certainly polished now :)

I didn’t see the story before your edits, but this is pretty well done. I love sci-fi and robots, so this is right up my alley! My only suggestion is to not use “Suddenly” at the beginning of your last paragraph. Many writers overuse this word, and it only works well with strong action. “Suddenly hearing” something doesn’t really imply tension or immediacy. You can still create the tension by writing something like, “The metallic sound began to grow louder.”

Nice first entry, and welcome to Ficly!