Chapter Twenty-Four

Dark of Night

Edwards adjusted his grip on the rifle and fiddled with the controls on his night vision again. The damn thing just wouldn’t show a clear image tonight.

Giving up, he continued his patrol.

Of all the times to get guard duty, he had to pull the midnight shift when it rained. The mud sucked at his boots as he moved, and he cast the occasional longing look at the large tents the rest of his scouting party were safely ensconced in.

Another flash of light blinded him, and he swore as he stumbled.

Blinking madly, Edwards gave up and yanked off his helmet. The rain immediately slid icy cold fingers down the back of his neck, but at least his eyes got a break from the sickly yellow glow of the cheap night vision add-on.

He’d worked his ass off for two years as a copper to make it to bronze and leave the shitty armor behind… only to find the bronze armor was barely any better.

Edwards hurried under the dubious shelter of a small tree and leaned against it, his back to the darkness. The camp was dimly lit, just a few glow packs chucked around the outside of the tents. The idea was not to attract attention, which he understood. They had been attacked a few times while building the base wall, but he really didn’t see anything hunting in all of this rain.

Just as he turned away, Edwards saw what he thought was a shadow as something crossed the light behind him.

Turning back, he flicked on the light emitter on the rifle and played it across the camp, looking for any sign of what might have caused it.

The beam played over one of the tents, and he winced.

That was Silver’s tent. If he was caught without his helmet on…

Edwards hurriedly slammed his helmet back on, locking it in place and then swearing as his night vision flared to brilliant white.

He had forgotten to turn the fucking emitter off!

Ten minutes later, he was getting a splitting headache.

The damn thing kept flaring, and nothing he did was making a difference. He’d adjusted the gain, and the sensitivity, added and removed each of the three filters, and it made no difference whatsoever. Something out there was making the night vision flare, and there was nothing to be done about it.

The next flash came as he was stepping over a rock, and his foot came down on a slippery bit.

Edwards fell, splashing into the mud and swearing as he tried to get his bearings and… and he had reached his limit.

“Fuck this shitty thing,” Edwards reached up and turned off the night vision for good this time.

“What the ever-living fuck are you doing, Edwards?” Baker, his fellow Bronze, called with clear amusement in her voice.

“Baker?”

“Get up, you silly bastard,” She laughed, and he turned to see her leaning against the same tree he had sheltered under earlier.

Struggling out of the mud, Edwards was glad he had left the helmet on. At least she couldn’t see the blush coloring his cheeks as he scrambled to his feet. Baker the Heart Breaker. Baked to perfection. The best-looking girl in the fleet.

“Damn night vision keeps flashing full bright,” Baker said, trying to explain. “I can’t get it to stabilize.”

“So, turn it off?” Baker offered.

“I didn’t want to—”

“Fuck that,” Baker’s suit lights lit. “You have to be able to do the job, Edwards. That is the first thing. Letting everyone sleep well is second.”

“Yeah, I know.” Edwards sighed. “But if I want to make Silver…”

“Aww, poor baby Edwards doesn’t like being a bronze?” She laughed again. “Don’t rush to silver; it might not be any better than bronze.”

“I really, really, really hope it is,” Edwards chuckled.

“Me too,” Baker admitted. “Go get some rack time. I’ve got watch until sunrise.”

“Are you sure?” Edwards hesitated. He was wet, muddy, and fed up, but this was the first time he had ever been alone with Baker.

“What? You want me to come and tuck you in?” Baker teased.

“Saying ‘Yes, please’ would be pathetic, wouldn’t it?” Edwards joked. Half-joked.

“It would,” Baker sighed.

“Then I’ll just say goodnight,” Edwards slid and stomped through the mud back to his tent. Out of the rain at last, he ripped off his armor and was washing his face in the sink when he heard the zip on his tent.

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t work,” Baker said as she stepped inside.

Twenty minutes later, Baker slipped back out of the tent, and Edwards lay in his bunk with a goofy grin as he stared at the ceiling. His eyes still ached, and his whole tent was damp and cold, but he could not have cared less.

He had nail marks on his back.

It was like something from one of the restricted entertainment cubes, but it had happened in real life, and what was even better was the definite hints Baker dropped that it would not be the last time.

He quickly set an alarm for a half hour before sunrise… just in case.

It seemed to go off about five seconds later, but even tired and stiff, Edwards practically shot out of his bunk.

After a few quick stretches, a wash in the sink, and a comb through his hair, Edwards was about to scramble into his armor when he saw the weird coloring on the side of his tent. It looked like something had sprayed over it but then been washed away.

It was weird, and the first hints of sunlight made the color difficult to pin down. One second, it looked red; the next, it was orange.

Whatever it was, it shouldn’t be there.

Edwards knew he should check it out.

He really should.

And he absolutely would.

Right after he found Baker.

Edwards grinned to himself and armored up.

The rain had mostly stopped now, and the mud was slightly less slippery than last night. Edwards had to search most of the patrol path before he found her, leaning against a tree to keep out of the rain.

“Hey, Baker,” Edwards called out, suddenly feeling awkward again.

She didn’t respond, and he saw her head leaning against the tree.

Ooh, crafty. She had found a spot to have a nap while still looking like she was working.

Well, Edwards already knew she was a very creative girl. He sniggered to himself. Wow, he was really falling hard and fast. It normally took him months to get this silly.

The trick was, he decided, not being a massive dick. He would not pretend to be the Silver or jump out and startle her. It was amazing how much of his life had been wasted in learning that those were not the actions of a man who wanted to continue getting laid.

But learn he had.

“Hey, Baker,” He called quietly as he reached out and touched her arm gently, wanting to wake her. “WHAT THE FUCK!” Edwards yelled as she fell over into the mud, face down and unmoving. “Shit! Baker!”

He dropped his rifle and jerked her out of the mud.

Even as he picked her up, he knew something was wrong. The body was stiff and unmoving, the limbs as stiff as boards.

For a moment, he felt relieved, thinking it was some kind of a prank she was pulling… until he saw the hole in her faceplate.

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It was thin and long, like the blade of a knife, and it was ringed in dried blood.

Edwards lowered the body back into the mud, pulling off the helmet with trembling fingers.

Baker’s face was grey and pale, a dark hole where one eye should have been.

Edwards stared at it, flashes of the night before playing in his head. The skin flushed and pink, the eyes shining, and her breath in his face. Sweet, like cinnamon.

It took a second to register, but when it did, it hit him like a truck.

Baker wasn’t just dead. Someone killed her.

Clutching his mud-encrusted rifle in one hand, Edwards sprinted for the camp, yelling for help as he went. It took him seconds, but still, he had expected everyone to be piling out of their tents.

Sliding to a stop, Edwards looked at the utterly silent camp.

No one moved. No one called back.

His eyes raked the tents, seeing more and more things wrong.

The tent on his left had a long slash down the side; the center one was sprayed with something in a long line on one wall.

Edwards flicked the safety off on his rifle and pushed the first tent open.

Two figures inside, still in their bunks.

Blood pooled on the floor.

Going from tent to tent, Edwards found one after another lying dead. Some had died in their sleep; others seemed to have woken up too late to even call for help.

No weapons burns or signs of anything but knives.

The gold, two silvers, the other three bronzes, and all the coppers.

Dead.

Everyone but him.

Edwards hesitated as he went to leave the command tent and the dead Gold inside. Everyone was dead.

Swallowing hard, he tossed the rifle out onto the floor outside the tent and stepped out, hands in the air.

Seven figures were standing in the rain, waiting for him. As Edwards looked, their cloaks shimmered, becoming dark grey, and they emerged like phantoms stepping into reality.

His eyes locked on the one in the lead, the one with a knife in each hand. Each one of the knives had a blue tint to the edge of the blade, which he had never seen before.

“Uh, hello?” Edwards tried.

“You can call for help if you want,” the leader said, her voice soft and amused.

“It won’t work, though, will it?” Edwards asked. “I mean, I’m dead either way.”

“You might be able to warn your friends,” the leader offered.

“Yeah, fuck them,” Edwards shrugged. “They brought us here, which, right now, I would rather they had never done.”

“Anything to say before you die?” the leader asked.

“I surrender?” Edwards tried. It wasn’t going to work, but it was worth a try.

“What?” the leader asked.

“I give up. I surrender. I do not want to die.” Edwards tried. “Me no fighty, you no stabby?”

“Hold on a minute,” the leader said before turning away a little. “Paren, can I get a little help here?” A pause. “Yes, he really said it.” There was a longer pause.

“You,” the leader turned back to him. “Do you know much about the Imperial Line and the base here?”

“I do, at least about the base. I helped to build it,” Edwards said quickly. “And I know Imperial Line tactics. Does that help?”

“Will you tell us everything you know?” the leader asked again.

“Absolutely! Happy to help!” Edwards said. “Anything I can do.”

“Aren’t you upset we killed your girlfriend?” the leader asked.

“Baker was fantastic, she really was,” Edwards said. “I really hoped something would happen, but we only just met. All things considered, I’d rather live. If that’s okay with you?”

“I can’t believe this guy,” the leader said. “You heard that, right?” Another pause. “What’s a comic relief? Is that an actual squad rank?”

Finally, she turned back to Edwards.

“Do I live?” Edwards asked hopefully.

“Apparently, you do.” She pulled off her hood, revealing her face. “Come on, let’s get you back to base.”

“You got it!” Edwards hopped up. “Hey, do you guys have a medical plan? I mean, I could use a job once this is all over.”

“Name?” she asked.

“Carl Edwards, thanks for not stabbing me,” Edwards said politely.

“Carl, can I give you some advice?” she asked, not turning around as they walked out of the camp.

“Of course,” Edwards said.

“Shut up for a little bit, okay?”

“You got it!” Edwards said and shut up.

===<<<>>>===

Being dragged up into the side of the rocky Mesa by a length of rope was not the most comfortable experience for Edwards, even if his armor did block the worst of it.

What waited inside, however, completely stunned him.

It seemed to be the day for shocks to his system, and it was all he could do to keep moving. The inside of the rock was not the damp cave he had been expecting but an elegantly appointed and brightly lit building complete with—and he had trouble pulling his eyes from this—an actual couch in the waiting room he was told to stay in.

Carefully avoiding the clean couch in his dirty armor, Edwards tried his best to figure out his best play here. These people were clearly organized and, more to the point, dangerous. It was entirely possible that they were from the Nanite Imperium. If that was the case, it would be even more evidence that everyone was massively underestimating them.

To be fair, the fact that they had crashed on the planet as their leaders panicked about the number of ships lost in the attack had also been a pretty big clue.

Now, unlike most of his fellows, he had very carefully read his contracts, both the standard service contracts and the action service ones. They were completely clear about what happened to those who failed or were captured.

He was on his own.

Not a shock, as no one had ever exactly been on team Edwards. There was a reason he ended up working for the Line in the first place. It certainly hadn’t been because it was his best offer.

It had been the only one.

“Objective one: Don’t fucking die,” Edwards muttered to himself. “Objective two: Still don’t die.”

He never got as far as a third objective, as the door opened as a nightmare in shiny black skin walked in and told him to follow it.

The skeletal creature, with its chitin-like skin and too-white teeth, led Edwards through the complex, and he did his best to take everything in, having no idea what might be useful later.

It was quite a tour.

They passed through a hall where grey-skinned people with bald heads and deep sunken eyes moved through what looked like some kind of martial arts moves. Each one held blades in each hand, which was mildly terrifying. The familiar woman at the front gave him a stern look when she caught him staring, and Edwards felt a shiver as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

From there, his silent escort led him through a series of corridors and stairwells, past another large room where more of the chitinous people were working on putting together pieces of armor and other tech that he had never seen before.

He did at least recognize the shape of one of the items slowly filling racks on the wall.

Rifles.

The next stairwell brought them to a wide hallway that seemed much too small as he pressed himself flat against the wall as a massive bear shambled past.

“Teddy is a friend of the sisters,” his guide said, patting the creature as it passed them. “Very fluffy.”

Not even a gun pressed against his testicles would have made Edwards test that with his own hand at that moment, so he simply concentrated on not pissing himself instead.

“Come,” His escort waved again, and they arrived at a pair of doors at the far end of the corridor.

The escort did not knock but just waited patiently to one side.

Edwards decided the wise thing to do would be to copy it, so he did.

After about ten minutes, a voice called for them to come in.

Immediately, Edwards felt a little relief. It was a soft voice, feminine and playful.

It sounded gentle.

If he had believed in any form of Hell, it would have been what he would have called the sight that awaited him on the other side of the doors.

Strange lights created an ominous glow that gleamed off sheets of skin hanging from the walls while flesh moved oddly in vats to one side. Metal and machinery were half-finished on every available surface while a silvery substance slithered backward and forward from one piece to another.

In the center of all this, wiping her hands clean of a mix of blood and oil, was a young woman of, to him at least, incredible beauty. Her skin was perfect, her eyes bright, and her hair seemed to shift colors and shape as she moved. It was the rest of the details that made his blood run cold.

She moved on four powerful legs, shaped like something from a spider, while one arm was a mechanical glove from the wrist down. As for those sparking eyes… they looked at him coldly, and for a second, he thought he was standing in a scanner, his every molecule taken apart and inspected.

What was worse? It seemed like she decided the results were a disappointment.

“I’m Paren,” she said simply, hands on her hips.

“I believe a more complete introduction might help matters,” a deep voice called from behind him. Edwards turned to see a giant robot standing in the doorway with stone-carved arms and heavy armor.

“Really?” Paren sighed. “Go on then.”

“Allow me to present Paren Bonne Chance, Princess of the Nanite Imperium, Head of Research and Development, Prime Drone to the Queen. First Made and Greatest Pride.” the robot intoned.

Edwards turned to look back at the woman, finding a brilliant smile on her face.

“Carl Edwards, absolute nobody,” Edwards said anxiously. “Nice to meet you?”

Paren laughed then, and Edwards felt his soul shiver at the sound.

“Sit,” Paren said, waving a hand as a silver chair seemed to make itself out of nothing.

Edwards sat.

“You have a choice, Carl,” Paren told him. “It is a one-time offer, and you do not have to think about it for long. Do you understand?”

Carl nodded, his mouth too dry to speak.

“I need to test a theory, Carl. I really do. I would not normally do this, but you have a lot of people on this planet, and I need to be able to keep my people safe. In order to do that, I need to be able to convert them.”

Carl guessed she saw the confused look on his face.

“I inject nanites into their system and make them stronger, faster, just better in every way,” Paren explained. “The problem is, I have only ever done that for my sub-drones. Animals, in other words. I don’t have to worry about leaving them things like free will, or the other things Nellie, the queen, is always so worried about.” She leaned down, looking him in the eyes as she scowled. “To be honest with you, Mister Edwards, I couldn’t give less of a shit about that. You invaded our home, attacked our people, and tried to kill our friends. As far as I am concerned, you are all just test subjects for my theories. Understand that?”

Carl nodded again.

“However, my mother is a bit touchy about enslaving people, so I don’t do it,” Paren said, her voice showing she thought it was a great sacrifice on her part. “However, in this case, I need to know if I can convert someone and leave them mostly the same,” Paren said, her eyes hard as polished steel. “I have no intention of testing that on one of my people.”

Carl stopped breathing, his eyes wide as he realized what she was saying.

He was the test subject.

“Now, you do have a choice,” Paren huffed. “Because my mother would have a fit if you didn’t. You can VOLUNTEER to become a drone and maybe become a mindless servant. Or you can not.”

“What happens if I don’t?” Edwards asked.

“I honestly haven’t thought that far,” Paren admitted. “I’ll have to think of some other use for you, I guess.”

Edwards looked around the room, seeing the sheets of skin and vats of flesh…

“I volunteer?”

Paren smiled. “Good boy.”