“What are we doing today, Sir?” Oakes asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Rhodes pushed a piece of paper away from himself and pulled another one forward. “It looks like I’m doing this today until Coulter comes back. I guess if I really wanted to know I could ask General Brewster or Colonel Kraft, but I don’t really want to know.”

“Aren’t we supposed to have any more training sessions?” Thackery asked.

“No one tells me anything,” Rhodes replied. “Besides, we aren’t going anywhere until the medical team checks out all of us for the same problem. It might take a while for them to modify our SAMs with the new programming to wake someone up if one of us has a life-threatening malfunction.”

He snorted to himself, but he decided not to say his next thought out loud. The fact that the medical team didn’t include this in the SAMs’ original programming—it really spoke volumes about how much the Battalion 1 project cared about its people.

Henshaw picked up the piece of paper Rhodes just finished drawing on. She held it up and studied his drawing. “This is really good, Captain. You’re a natural.”

“I’m not a natural. I went to art school for three years before I joined the Legion. I’ve been drawing in my spare time ever since.”

“What the hell did you join the Legion for, then?” Rhinehart asked. “You could have been an artist instead.”

“I didn’t want to be an artist. I wanted to be a soldier.”

“And kill people and get shot at?” Dietz asked. “You’re a real boon to humanity, aren’t you?”

Rhodes grinned at him and went back to the drawing in front of him. His pencil scratched the surface and left smooth lines over the paper.

“You’re really good, Sir,” Lauer remarked.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Henshaw tilted her head sideways. “Who is that? It looks like a bird, but it also looks like a person.”

“It’s Fisher.” Rhodes pushed it away and threw down his pencil. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency.”

“Isn’t it always?” Oakes asked.

Rhodes didn’t answer. He headed for the door, but he stopped in his tracks when Dr. Neiland showed up. “Shouldn’t you be working on Coulter?” he asked.

“Dr. Montague and Dr. Irvine are working on Coulter. I thought you’d all like to know that he’s awake and he’s going to be fine.”

“Says you,” Rhinehart muttered from behind.

“If you’ll all follow me, I’ll take you to your next training session.”

“Why do we need to follow you?” Henshaw asked. “We can find our way there on our own.”

“You aren’t going back to the same training room. I have a surprise for you.”

The whole unit exploded in protests.

“No, no, no!” Rhinehart exclaimed. “No more surprises.”

“I ain’t going anywhere with you, lady,” Lauer snapped.

“You’re supposed to be checking our SAMs for the same malfunction,” Rhodes pointed out. “How do we know the same thing won’t happen to us?”

“We can access your SAMs from the lab,” Dr. Neiland replied. “We’ve installed the new protocol in all your SAMs. None of you and none of your SAMs are malfunctioning, so if you follow me, I’ll show you to your next training session. This one will be different. Each of you is getting fitted with your own ship.”

Rhodes and the others exchanged glances. “Ship?” Oakes asked.

“They’re state of the art. I’m sure you’ll be delighted with them.”

Rhodes didn’t want to trust that, but his curiosity took over. He had to at least see these new ships. He would decide after that if he liked them.

She must have seen his reaction. She left the barracks without another word and the battalion followed her.

Rhodes didn’t know what to expect. It would have to be something pretty spectacular for him to get delighted about anything around here.

She headed for the loading dock, but she turned off into a stairwell before she got there. The battalion descended five flights of stairs and exited in another long, low landing bay full of ships.

Actually, it wasn’t full of ships. There were only twenty here. Rhodes didn’t recognize their make or class.

Each one resembled a smaller version of a Predator. These had shorter, stubbier wings and a powerful, armored look.

The long, sloping cockpit window ran half the length of the fuselage and ended level with the wings. A booster rocket flared outward from the tail.

“I don’t see any weaponry,” Oakes pointed out. “I’m not delighted.”

“Each of you can go on board,” Dr. Neiland told them. “As soon as you lock into the cockpit, each ship’s SAM will interface with your onboard SAM. Then you’ll be able to read the controls, pilot the ship, and activate the weapons system.”

“These ships have their own SAMs?” Thackery asked. “Are they the same as our own SAMs?”

“No, these ships have new ones. None of these SAMs have ever been activated before. Their only function is to fly these craft.”

“What are these craft?” Dietz asked. “I don’t recognize them.”

“They’re prototype Striker class,” Dr. Neiland replied. “These ships have been specifically designed for Battalion 1 so they can be piloted by SAM interface with the pilot.”

Rhodes and his people exchanged glances. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He didn’t trust anything the Battalion 1 project thought was a good idea.

On the other hand, he’d come to rely so heavily on Fisher. Rhodes instinctively trusted this pilot SAM without even meeting it. He trusted another SAM more than he trusted anyone on the medical team or in any command position.

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Dr. Neiland went down the line assigning everyone to their ships. She assigned Henshaw, Dietz, Fuentes, and Thackery before Coulter showed up.

Bruises covered his face, but at least he was lucid. “How are you feeling, Corporal?” Rhodes asked.

“Terrible,” Coulter muttered. “Thank you for stopping me, Sir. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You were in pain. I’m sorry it happened.”

Coulter looked away. “I need to talk to you, Sir—in private.”

“Do you want to do it now or another time?”

Coulter looked around at Lauer, Rhinehart, and Oakes watching and listening. “Later, I guess.”

“Are you sure? We can do it now if you want.” Rhodes waved the other four men away. “You men go about your business. Come here, Corporal.”

Rhodes led Coulter to one side of the bay out of earshot from everyone. “What’s going on?”

“I…..uh…..” Coulter shuffled his feet. “I don’t know what happened….”

“Murphy said you had pressure in your head. He said that’s what was causing you pain.”

“It wasn’t that—I mean, it wasn’t only that.”

“What was it, then?”

Coulter opened his mouth and faltered.

Rhodes didn’t know what made the connection for him. He couldn’t put his finger on anything specific, but he knew.

“I think I understand, Corporal.”

Coulter refused to look at him. “I couldn’t say it won’t happen again, Sir. That’s all I can say about it.”

“I understand,” Rhodes murmured. “If it happens again, we’ll just deal with it.”

Coulter opened his mouth a second time, but no sound came out.

“Does Murphy know?” Rhodes asked.

Coulter nodded at the wall. “Don’t tell anyone, Sir,” he mumbled. “I don’t want them to think I’m crazy.”

“You aren’t crazy. You’re normal. Believe me, everyone in this unit is going through the same thing.”

Coulter looked up. “They are?”

“Of course. You don’t have to worry about them. If it happens again or if it doesn’t work out, that’s just the price of doing business.”

“I don’t like letting the battalion down, Sir.”

“You aren’t.” Rhodes clapped him on the shoulder. “You did great yesterday and I’m sure you’ll continue to do great. We all just have to make the best of it. Do you feel like coming back to the battalion now?”

Coulter nodded. “I got nothing else to do.”

Rhodes found himself smiling. “Come on. Maybe something good will come from these ships.”

He led Coulter back to the bay where Dr. Neiland assigned both men to their ships. Rhodes interfaced with Murphy and Coulter on the way across the floor.

Rhodes didn’t pick up any obvious sign of distress apart from the bruising around Coulter’s facial implants. He acted fine—but he wasn’t. No one was.

Rhodes couldn’t even say that Thackery was fine. She showed the least distress of the whole group, but her behavior actually unsettled Rhodes more than Coulter’s, more than Rhinehart’s—even more than Fuentes’s.

Rhodes would have felt better if she didn’t act so thrilled about being a part of this battalion. If anyone here was giving up their humanity, she was doing it the fastest. She couldn’t give it up fast enough.

People like Rhinehart, Fuentes, and Coulter—Rhodes never doubted for a second that they were still human. He was never more certain of anything. Their very distress proved that beyond any doubt.

Getting implanted with all these robotic devices didn’t take away their underlying humanity. If all of this couldn’t make them less than human, maybe nothing ever could. They were human. They always would be.

Rhodes climbed into his cockpit, sat down, and seven identical prongs stabbed him in the head and body. They didn’t put him into a conversion cycle, though.

The ship’s cockpit didn’t have any visible controls. It was just a small compartment with one main seat with a much smaller, compact seat behind it.

The second seat barely looked big enough to carry another person, but it couldn’t have been built there for any other purpose.

The instant the prongs locked into him, he dropped into The Grid. He still saw himself sitting in the cockpit of his ship, but The Grid erased the blank dashboard and everything outside the cockpit window.

He saw himself sitting in his seat in the middle of The Grid with nothing around him.

He barely had time to look around before another compressed tangle of grid lines materialized in front of his eyes. It went through a few rapid transformations from animals, faces, abstract patterns, and horrifying monsters.

It finally settled into a composite animal-human face, but this one looked nothing like Fisher.

This face had a round, flat look with narrow, slit eyes. They curved upward in the middle into two smiling half-moons. The face’s round cheeks glowed with inner light.

The mouth opened way too wide in a grin that took over most of the face.

“Who the hell are you?” Rhodes asked.

“I am Rio!” the SAM replied in a high-pitched, childlike, chirpy voice. “Ah! I’m interfacing with you. You are Captain Corban Rhodes, commanding officer of Battalion 1! What an honor! And you must be Fisher.”

Rio turned to Fisher. The two SAMs studied each other across The Grid in front of Rhodes.

Rio’s eyes stayed in their half-moon shape. The SAM always looked super-duper excited and cheery to be talking to whoever he was talking to.

“Can you interface with the other ships?” Rhodes asked.

“Of course, Captain! Who would you like to interface with?”

“All of them—and show me the ship’s controls so I can learn how to use them.”

“There are no controls,” Rio replied.

Rhodes stopped breathing for a second. “There’s what?”

“You pilot the ship through The Grid. That’s all you have to do.”

“How do I control it, then?”

Fisher interrupted. “You control it the same way you control and adjust The Grid in the training room. You can modify the ship in any way you want to….”

Rhodes gasped. “No way!”

“You will be able to maneuver the ship and adjust the weapons system…..”

“You haven’t told me which weapons the ship has.”

“You can modify that, too. The ship is controlled entirely from The Grid.”

Rhodes glanced back and forth from one SAM to the other.

He might be willing to believe he could change the ship’s shape and controls through The Grid. He’d seen enough of that during training sessions.

He didn’t want to believe he could actually change the ship’s weapons configuration to whatever he wanted it to be. That sounded too good to be true.

“Lieutenant Oakes is interfacing with you, Captain,” Rio told him.

Rio turned his head and looked to the left. Rhodes didn’t see anything over there until he looked that way, too.

As soon as Rhodes turned his head, another ship materialized in The Grid. The grid lines appeared first. Then the ship’s outer skin developed color, texture, and depth.

The grid lines changed again and he looked straight through the fuselage at Oakes sitting in the cockpit.

Dash and another SAM hovered in front of Oakes’s eyes. Oakes’s Striker SAM had the face of a bear with grid lines radiating outward from the thick ruff around his cheeks.

“How are we supposed to train with these things, Sir?” Oakes asked.

Rhodes fought himself back to reality long enough to remember Dr. Neiland’s words. She brought the battalion down here to train with these ships.

“I’m not sure.” Rhodes turned back to his own SAMs.

“I’m accessing the battalion’s schedule on the station roster, Captain,” Fisher told him. “The battalion is scheduled to run through a training course to orient us to these new ships.”

“What course?” Rhodes asked. “How does it work?”

Fisher cocked his head to one side. “I’m accessing the station database…..”

“The session will start as soon as the battalion launches, Captain,” Rio interjected. “The training hall is beyond this landing bay. You’ll enter the training hall as soon as you launch and the session will take over.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Rhodes replied.

Rio turned his head very slightly and The Grid around Rhodes’s ship changed. Rio showed him a layout of Coleridge Station including the loading dock, all the side wings, the concourse, the labs, and even the battalion’s barracks.

A red square showed the landing bay. Rio pivoted the chart to swing Rhodes’s view into the bay and then forward into another much larger chamber.

“This is the aerial training hall,” Rio explained. “It will be big enough for the battalion to fly in and test the ships and their SAMs.”

“So…..we just have to launch?” Rhodes asked.

Rio split in an even bigger, brighter, wider, cheesier grin. “Exactly, Captain!”

“Okay. Interface with the other pilots.”

Rio didn’t do anything that Rhodes could see, but the rest of the battalion instantly appeared on The Grid. Rhodes could see all of them in their cockpits along with their SAMs—two SAMs for each pilot.

He didn’t have time to get acquainted with all the new SAMs now. “Stand by to launch,” he ordered.

“What are we doing in there?” Henshaw asked. “This SAM won’t explain anything to me.”

“I guess we just try it and find out. Let’s go. Follow me and be ready for anything.”

Rhodes said those words, but he still had to think about it before he figured out how to fly this ship. He wasn’t used to flying something without controls.

His hands automatically extended toward the dashboard to take the cradle to steer the ship.

Without warning or him even doing anything, grid lines snaked across the dashboard, formed the outline of a cradle, and it solidified in his grasp.

He didn’t give himself a second to question. He knew how to fly like this.

End of Chapter 20.