My horrible human hands - Fillipe Johan Fry, Age of Paranoia playwrite, conductor, and musician
The bionics clinic was silent except for the soft clicking and humming of the workstations. The tissue regrowth vats were empty, the surgical bays in storage mode, and the mechanical fabrication units on standby. The lights were dim in the bays, bright only in the main section, where a handful of technicians, a few nurses, and some doctors were passing the time studying all of the updates on cybernetic and bionic systems.
Major Yvette Carl Stenmeyer was the lead cyberneticist and bionic doctor for the clinic. She was largely bored, reading a section on greenie microfab implantation advances.
One thing she had noticed is that the rate of advancement in technology had slowed to a crawl. Just looking over stuff she could see improvements that could be made to the improvements and technical advances.
She had even used the eVR systems to check her work, had even printed out a cybernetic spine replacement with the upgrades she had designed. It had passed every test.
But there were no warmeks, no mekaneks, no heavy combat cyborgs in the Gray Lady's inventory. There should have been nearly three hundred of them, but the SUDS still hadn't kicked out the templates for the mekaneks that had been aboard the Gray Lady when she had gone dark all those eons ago.
There was the whoosh of the door opening and she looked up, expecting little more than someone who was lost or maybe an officer coming to ask the status of the clinic.
There was still at least a week before the Gray Lady reached the next line in the sand.
Instead, it was a Lanaktallan in regen casts. His two front legs, both arms on the left side, were held in regen casts, the gauzy and fibrous looking regen scaffolding floating in the pale blue liquid. The Lanaktallan had bandages on his upper torso, his lower flank, and was missing the hand on the lower right arm, once again sporting a regen cast.
The Lanaktallan moved slowly and painfully up to Melds Flesh with Warsteel and nodded painfully.
"Hello, how can I help you, Trooper Third Class?" the russet mantid asked.
"My apologies. It is not you I wish to speak with," the Lanaktallan said. His voice was rough and strained, a sure sign of vocal cord damage.
"Who would you like to speak to?" The russet asked.
"Your lead ripperdoc," the Lanaktallan croaked.
Melds drew up slightly. "We're cyberneticist and doctors of bionic systems, not 'ripperdocs', Trooper," she said.
"Then I am in the wrong place. My apologies for disturbing you," the Lanaktallan said. He began to turn around.
"One moment," Major Stenmeyer said. She waved the Lanaktallan over. "I'll talk to him, Melds."
Melds looked a bit huffy still over the street slang but just nodded and went back to studying the advances in synthetic heart tissue.
To her eyes, it looked like after the Second Precursor War, almost everyone but the Telkans had abandoned cybernetics and bionics for cloned replacement parts. The Telkans had stuck with it for almost a century before letting it languish.
She knew most races didn't like cybernetics or bionics, some finding them repulsive enough to create physical nausea or worse. The Lanaktallan in particular disliked obvious cybernetics and were repulsed by bionics.
The Lanaktallan hobbled over to Major Stenmeyer's desk and looked down. "May we speak privately?" the Trooper asked. Stenmeyer could see that his name was Cyb'rmo'o, a Private First Class in the Confederate Army.
"Of course," Stenmeyer said, pressing the button for the privacy shield. "How may I help you?"
The Lanaktallan motioned with his one remaining hand at his own body.
"I wish you to cut all of this away. Give me the body I was meant to have," the Lanaktallan said.
Major Stenmeyer raised an eyebrow, tabbing up the Trooper's psych profile and other relevant tests and metrics. "And what body is that?"
"A bionic one. A full conversion heavy combat chassis," the Trooper said. He curled his lip and Stenmeyer noticed that one side of his face was slightly saggy. "I wish to divest myself of weak and pathetic flesh."
"I see," Stenmeyer said. "You realize that you don't come back from it, right? You can't change your mind later. Some of the genetic tweaks you will need for optimum performance as well as your experiences will prevent you from having a body cloned."
"I care not for this disgusting meat," the Lanaktallan said. He lifted his head. "One of my ancestors fought the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, the Mad Lemurs of Terra, and the Atrekna as well as their vile spawn as a full conversion cyborg. His chassis is in the Hall of Rememberence and Honor on my homeworld. I went to view it often."
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Major Stenmeyer took a look at the file. The Lanaktallan just stood there as she went over the data. No trace of body dysmorphia in his file. No listing of ever wanting it before.
He'd been injured in all three of his last three combat drops against the Mar-gite. They'd dismembered him the last drop. He had been dragged back aboard the dropship by one of the power armor jocks.
She brought up his genescan and his biometrics.
He was a perfect match.
She looked up at him. "You will never be able to rejoin Lanaktallan society. The cultural taboo against bionics is too strong, even now."
"I care not," the Lanaktallan said.
"How far do you want to go?" Stenmeyer asked.
"As far as you can take it. I only request that my lower jawbone and eyes remain in the cerebral housing," he said.
Stenmeyer frowned. "Why?"
"As Chromium Phillip the Redeemer once said: Because it is funny," the Lanaktallan said.
Stenmeyer looked over the profile.
Everything from his psych metrics to his biometrics and his injuries all made him a candidate, but she was loathe to do the procedure. She closed her eyes and opened them.
"If you can get ninety-nine others, I will perform it for all of you," she said. "It will take weeks for you to be ready for combat."
The Lanaktallan nodded. "I shall return."
With that he slowly shuffled to face the door and stagger-limped out.
Stenmeyer opened the files and started looking over Lanaktallan cybernetic and bionic systems. She doubted that he'd be able to find ninety-nine other Lanaktallan to undergo the procedure.
But she just had this gut feeling.
-----
Less than six hours later, before even her shift ended, the Lanaktallan returned. As polite and formal as before with Melds, he thumped up to Stenmeyer's desk, holding out a dataslate.
"I have six hundred thirty one volunteers for total cybernetic conversion," he stated. He set it down. "I have their videoed consent as well as went through the checklist to ensure they understand that this will be painful, degrading, and some of us may not survive."
Stenmeyer just blinked.
"I have prayed to Enraged Phillip, Gravity, Inertia, Chrome Peter, Armored Matthias, and Menhit the Singer for wisdom and if this course the correct one," the Lanaktallan rasped out. He coughed for a moment and Stenmeyer saw a blood clot slide through the transparent tube connecting his throat to his stomach. "I saw my ancestor galloping in my dreams, waving his unit's banner, defiant in the face of the vile Atrekna."
He stared for a long moment.
"I am prepared, Lemur, are you?" he asked.
-----
Cyb'rmo'o felt awareness come slowly. He hurt. The pain was great. A living thing that snarled and twisted inside of him.
But he paid it no heed.
He forced his eyes to activate, pushing with muscles behind his eyes that he had never had before. Only two activated, but he waited for them to go through the startup.
His vision was black and white, grainy, but he could see.
He could see the lemur bionicist across from him, checking the vitals on several other Lanaktallan.
He managed to speak, to force the vocoder that had replaced his pathetic flesh. Only two words.
But they summed up everything for him.
"At last."
-----
Captain N'Skrek checked his computer terminal again.
For some reason he had an appointment with the former command officers of the Gray Lady in ten minutes in Briefing Room 87. There was no annotation to tell him why they had wanted to meet not only N'Skrek but his entire command staff.
With a sinking feeling N'Skrek was afraid he knew why.
It was bound to happen, but better now than under fire, he thought to himself as he got dressed. He made sure his sash looked good, with his former command crests updated as well as his rank.
He felt almost like a fraud as he entered the briefing room and saw the arrayed braid and medals sitting around the table.
He was unable to frown but he noticed that the head of the table was empty and that his command staff were sitting on either side of the empty spot.
"Ah, Captain N'Skrek, good of you to make it," Vice Admiral of the Iron (Upper Decks) Breakheader stated, standing up. N'Skrek shook the Vice Admiral's hand almost out of habit and the handshake subtly guided him to the top of the table.
He felt like a fraud as he sat down.
"We realize this is somewhat unorthodox, Captain," the Vice Admiral said. "But my former staff and I feel it is an urgent priority that should be handled before we drop from hyperspace."
N'Skrek nodded. He could feel it coming.
They were going to try to take commmand.
Well, it wasn't like they weren't capable. There was nearly three thousand years of naval combat experience, ground combat experience, and everything else at the Vice Admiral's disposal.
His naval combat career had been nothing but defeat after defeat, retreat after retreat. A litany of lost planets, a funeral chorus of lost systems, a dirge of dead civilians, and a trail of lost ships.
"The pomp and ceremony of a standard change of command would be best to set aside at this time," the Vice Admiral said. He gave a rueful chuckle. "It's largely ceremony that the rank and file dread and couldn't care less about anyway."
That got a round of chuckles from the Terrans at the table.
I'll be replaced as quietly as I was put in command, N'Skrek thought to himself. Part of him wanted to come up with arguments of why he should stay in command of the Gray Lady, and the idea of his first command being stripped from him filled him with shame.
But he knew the truth.
It was circumstances only.
"The biggest issue, right now, from our point of view," the Vice Admiral said, waving at his staff. "Is experience."
There it is. The perfectly valid reason to replace me.
"The problem is..." the Vice Admiral looked uncomfortable for a moment and N'Skrek felt a small bit of satisfaction. "Well, to put it bluntly, the problem is... we don't have any."
N'Skrek was nodding before the last part of the statement and stopped, staring.
"My staff and I, our experience is from forty thousand years ago. From different wars. Different doctrine. Different equipment," the Vice-Admiral said. "There are, undoubtedly, small and large changes to Space Force doctrine that we are completely unaware of. Changes that our actions or responses would be in complete opposition to modern Space Force warfare. Those changes can and will lead to mistakes."
"Mistakes that cost lives," the Vice Admiral said. He heaved a breath. "I realize that it is unconventional. Captain N'Skrek, but you are the man on the ground, you're the best hope we have. A trained and experienced Space Force Captain, knowledgeable in modern doctrine," he waved at his staff again. "Sure, we've got war fighting experience. But that experience is for a war that we all died before we could finish."
More nods from his staff.
"We have discussed it among ourselves, and we are perfectly willing to fill whatever slots in the TO&E that you feel we would be best suited to," the Vice Admiral said. He gave a tight lipped smile. "But before we do any of that, we feel that a change of command briefing should take place, so that we can inform you of what we knew and what we know."
The Vice Admiral smiled wider.
"With you at the helm, Captain N'Skrek, maybe we can show the Mar-gite that they can't just take what they want."