Rhodes really, really didn’t want to see Drs. Neiland, Irvine, and Montague again. He couldn’t decide which was worse—living with this gnawing pain or submitting to whatever moronic plan the doctors came up with to try to improve his state.

He shut his eyes again when the door opened and footsteps crossed the floor coming closer. He had no choice but to open his eyes again when the footsteps stopped next to his capsule.

He blinked for a second when he looked up at two completely different doctors. One was a tall man in his thirties.

He had sandy brown hair, pale blue eyes, and freckles, but he didn’t look like an overgrown child like General Brewster.

This man had a serious air like Colonel Kraft’s. This doctor didn’t act at all delighted to be dealing with Battalion 1.

The other doctor was much younger. He couldn’t have been over thirty. He looked like he might be twenty-six or twenty-seven at the most.

He had plain brown hair, soft brown eyes, olive skin, and a deep, thoughtful expression. He studied Rhodes way too closely—almost as if this kid could see everything going through Rhodes’s mind.

“Good morning, Captain,” the older doctor began. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’m in pain—and who the hell are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

“I’m Dr. Nicholas Osborne. This is Dr. Felix Trudeau. We both just joined the Battalion 1 project. We’ve been assigned to monitor your recovery on our final approach to Coleridge Station…..”

Rhodes’s head shot up. “I’m not at Coleridge Station now?”

“No, you and the rest of your battalion are still on board the Ero. Your injuries were too severe for you to survive the trip in stasis, so General Brewster sent us out to treat your injuries, repair your implants, and monitor your recovery on our last week’s approach to the station.”

“So…..you’re going to hand us back over to Montague, Irvine, and Neiland as soon as we get there? Is that it?” Rhodes asked.

“Dr. Trudeau and I will stay on the Battalion 1 medical staff once we arrive at the station. We’re permanently assigned to the project going forward.”

Rhodes studied both men. Did they get taken from their families just like Colonel Kraft and everyone else? Was that the hidden subtext Dr. Osborne wasn’t saying out loud?

He hesitated and then went on, “If you’ll allow me to examine you, I’ll determine where the pain is and hopefully we can do something to relieve it.”

Rhodes clenched his teeth and looked away. “Fine. The pain is everywhere—in all my implants—all the implants below my neck, that is.”

Osborne bent over the control panel on the side of Rhodes’s capsule and started pressing buttons. “Your systems are all reading within normal parameters besides that.”

“I know that,” Rhodes snarled. “My SAM already told me.”

Osborne looked up and his eyes brightened. “What else did your SAM tell you?”

“He said you might be able to either dial down my pain response or give me an analgesic for it.”

Osborne frowned at his controls. Trudeau tapped away on a remote device. “There is still quite a bit of swelling in your organic tissues.”

Rhodes locked his jaws to stop himself from saying that he already knew that, too. This pain really aggravated his nerves. The fuse on his temper was rapidly burning down to a volcanic eruption.

Osborne crossed the room and adjusted something on a panel of computer components attached to the wall.

Rhodes shut his eyes and turned away. He didn’t need to see this. He no longer trusted anyone on the Battalion 1 medical staff to do jack shit for him.

He stiffened when Trudeau put his device aside and bent over Rhodes’s capsule. Trudeau brought out another device and moved two electrodes close to Rhodes’s chest.

Rhodes had developed a pathological revulsion of these devices and the people attached to them, but he was too weak to fight back.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He just had to lie there and take it while Trudeau fiddled with something on Rhodes’s chest plate.

He jolted when the electrodes touched his implants and then a rush of sweet relief nearly made him collapse as the pain faded.

“There are some misaligned components in your peripheral processing core,” Trudeau murmured under his breath.

He had a soft, gentle, thoughtful way of speaking—almost like he was talking to himself or someone Rhodes couldn’t see.

“The components aren’t registering sensation properly. We can modify that so they don’t feed you such a powerful physical pain response to the swelling in your organic tissue.”

Trudeau straightened up, made eye contact with Rhodes for a split second, and turned away to go back to working on his remote device.

“The captain’s neural core itself has taken damage, too,” Osborne called over his shoulder. “The Emal trying to remove it distorted some of the connections. That may be why the core is sending such a strong response.”

“He seems like a very good doctor,” Fisher remarked. “They both do.”

Rhodes didn’t answer. He didn’t know how much these two doctors understood about the SAMs. He didn’t want to start talking to someone they couldn’t see.

He also didn’t want to start trusting them—or any other doctor. If they fixed him and eased his pain enough for him to function—that was just them doing their job, wasn’t it? They had a long way to go to earn his trust.

They kept tinkering with him until Dr. Osborne came back over to Rhodes’s capsule. “I think we shouldn’t make any further adjustments for today, Captain. If the adjustments we’ve made just now give you any relief, I think we should leave them and see if anything happens as a result—either good or bad. Do they give you any relief?”

“Yeah,” Rhodes murmured. “Yeah, it feels much better.”

Osborne consulted his own device. “Your records indicate that most if not all the adjustments and modifications to your systems have caused unforeseen consequences—some of them catastrophic.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Then I suggest we pause and see if these modifications cause any unforeseen consequences, too. If they don’t, we can fine-tune later.” He frowned at his device some more. “In the meantime, it appears you still have some time before you fully recover. Feel free to stay here—or, if you’re feeling strong enough, you can return to your hold.”

“Is anyone else down there?” Rhodes thought about it. “I can’t interface with the other SAMs.”

“The interface is offline for now. We weren’t sure if the malfunctions you suffered on Sulia would be transmissible between you and your subordinates. We’re keeping the SAMs isolated for now.”

“Then how did my SAM know which of my subordinates was out of stasis?” Rhodes asked.

“You would have to ask him, but I suppose he can access the Ero’s logs, crew rosters, and passenger complements.” Osborne put his device down and leveled Rhodes with a direct gaze. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. If you need anything, you can contact me through the ship’s internal communications system.”

He and Trudeau left and Rhodes did his best to relax in his capsule. He still felt terrible, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it was just a few minutes before.

“I wish they’d let me interface with the others,” he muttered. “I don’t like staying isolated.”

“Better to stay isolated than for malfunctions to spread through the battalion,” Fisher pointed out.

“It would be nice to have something to do. I hate being in the hospital.”

Fisher inclined his head to one side. “Your physical pain response is much less now.”

“Have you been able to figure out what caused all the malfunctions on the planet?”

“Apart from what we already know about the injuries and damage to everyone’s implants? As far as I can tell, the SAMs got scared when their hosts got injured.”

“Then why didn’t you and Rocky malfunction? Zen didn’t malfunction, either.”

“Maybe something in our personalities made us more resilient to the situation.”

“Are you saying your personality or Zen’s personality is more resilient than Dash? Oakes is a hardened soldier. He shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“Oakes is, but Dash is brand new. He’s never been in combat before.”

“What about you?” Rhodes countered. “You’ve never been in combat before.”

In a very rare show of disturbance, Fisher looked away. “I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before I react the same way, Captain. I hate to bring it up when the battalion is already going through so many problems and malfunctions.”

Rhodes sighed and shut his eyes again. He could do that without shutting out Fisher. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

“So far, all our malfunctions have been mechanical. What happens when I have an emotional malfunction and it affects you? You could become completely incapacitated the same way Oakes did.”

“I know,” Rhodes murmured. “I guess we just have to deal with it when the time comes.”

“It would be better if we found a way to avoid the situation altogether. You malfunctioning in battle puts the whole battalion in danger.”

“Me malfunctioning in battle only puts the whole battalion in danger if we all malfunction at the same time,” Rhodes pointed out. “One of the others has always pulled me out of it each time.”

“So what do we do if it happens to all of you at once?” Fisher asked.

“I wish I knew, pal,” Rhodes murmured. “I don’t have any answers.”

Fisher fell silent. He kept angling his head from one side to the other and studying Rhodes way too closely.

After a few minutes, Fisher shrank to an invisible dot in the corner of Rhodes’s field of view. Fisher didn’t ask for permission nor did he ask if Rhodes wanted Fisher to go away.

Fisher just did it. He left Rhodes alone with his thoughts.

Good old Fisher. He always sensed when Rhodes needed time to himself.

Fisher was still there. He would always be there, but he disappeared when Rhodes needed him to.

Rhodes didn’t realize until now how exhausted he felt. The pain he experienced when he first woke up drained him more than he expected—or maybe he was just still weak and sick from the conversion cycle.

He relaxed in bed without trying to do anything. He didn’t want to think, but he found it impossible not to.

He really wished he could talk to his subordinates, even though the interface—but at the same time, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to rest and that’s what he did.

End of Chapter 5.