'Jane, would you mind staying here for a bit? I need to talk to Mentuc about a few things. In private.' Leonne knew she was being blunt, but her friend preferred honesty. Just like Mentuc, Jane did not take being lied to very well, albeit their responses to it were vastly different.

Jane's expression turned thoughtful as she pondered the request. While Jane's official degree was in political history she had shared a fair amount of psychology classes with her. You couldn't understand history nor politics if you didn't understand the human psyche after all. As such she could read the atmosphere in general, Leonne in specific and Mentuc not in the slightest.

They also shared a bond of deep trust and Jane eventually nodded, clearly still not too pleased with the idea of letting her friend out of her sight, not entirely trusting the husband.

'Thanks.' Leonne gave her friend a warm smile that reached her eyes, before standing up and motioning Mentuc to follow her.

Mentuc fell in beside her without a word, neither of them speaking until they had created a fair distance between themselves and the house.

'So, lover dear. How are you?' It was a loaded question.

'I am struggling, but managing,' came the honest response. She squeezed his arm in response. One of the more delightful things about him was that he never avoided any topic and gave straight answers, making communicating with him incredibly easy, even with a mind as alien as his.

'Care to elaborate?'

'Yes.'

She waited for a bit and when nothing more was forthcoming she slammed her elbow into his side.

'Ass!' she laughed. It was a good sign if he was making jokes, even if they were so horridly bad they approached being good from the opposite direction. You could easily tell how much he felt at ease by the amount of emotions he displayed.

He gave her a soft smile before continuing.

'It is hard to deal with a stranger inside my base. House. So many alarms going off in my head, screaming for me to take action.'

'Are you holding up alright?'

'I'm keeping them in check.' His smile broadened. 'Haven't killed anyone as of yet.'

She hit him again, harder this time. It didn't faze him in the slightest but it conveyed her displeasure.

'Bad joke?' he asked. She relented.

'Yes, very bad. And inappropriate.' She gave him a faint smile.

'You don't make jokes about killing people.'

'Are you sure?' There was genuine wonder in his voice.

'Yes. Maybe it is appropriate in the military, but I'd appreciate if you didn't joke around about ending the life of my best friend.'

'Because you fear it might happen?'

'Won't it?'

'No.' She brightened at that. He was as good as his word. He didn't do false boasts, bragging or lies.

'Right then. I'd like to ask you if you would consider the possibility of me confiding in her. About what you are.'

'No,' came the immediate response. Then he paused as he reconsidered. 'Why? You know how much is at stake. If people find out what I am they will go to the end of the Galaxy to hunt me down and you as well. I am a living weapon of the Empire. People hate the Empire. And that is the better outcome. If they find out about Nightmare...'' he trailed off, shaking his head.

'For one, she is my best friend and I can vouch for her.'

She saw him mull that one over. She did not have specific clearance and his military focused mind struggled with whether or not to accept her word on that. She could see him weighing of the risk versus the merits. She waited for him to draw a conclusion and when he eventually nodded she knew she could continue, that he'd decided to wait until he knew more. 'Secondly she majored in political history. She would kill for the chance to talk to someone who was alive during the Imperial reign.'

'Is that a joke?'

The corners of her lips twitched upwards. 'Maybe. I think she might, actually.' She raised up three fingers. 'Thirdly she is my friend. She would never betray my trust. She has no reason to. It would also mean the world to me if I didn't have to lie to her about you. Nightmare's existence isn't a factor in this.'

Onoelle shuddered at the thought of the alien being. If Mentuc's behaviour could be labelled as disturbing at times, then that of Nightmare was far beyond unnerving. Something she'd rather not think about and something that certainly didn't matter to the topic at hand. She looked at her husband, awaiting his response.

Mentuc crossed his arms, clearly unmoved. 'So far I see no reason to agree.'

She nodded, reformed her arguments and resumed her plea. She really wanted him to let Jane in on his secret. 'She loves history and she cares more about the truth than she does about pride, glory or publicity. She would hound you with questions and—'

'She would write things down,' he stated, tensing up.

She didn't need to see his eyes to know that they had gone ice cold. Onoelle mulled that one over, considering her next words with great care. There was no denying that Jane would write down everything meticulously. 'Yes, but we could make it so that she only writes down things on paper. A notebook. One that stays with us, in our house. Within your sight.'

She could see him relax. It wasn't a lot, just a tiny bit, but it was a chance!

'That way she could come visit us more as well. I know you're ill at ease with others visiting us, but this would make a great step in between us going to the city and us remaining here. It'd give you a chance to get more used to dealing with people. Adding a third person to our conversations would also give us better options when it comes to making you more human and getting over your PTSD! I would also be able to see my friend more often and I really missed her!' she pleaded.

'You did not try to contact her for the past year, however.'

Dammit, there he was again with cold rational arguments. But she could play that game too! 'I was distracted.' She twirled around and pressed her back against his chest, moving his arms so they held her. 'You can be very distracting,' she countered.

'And you are an airhead, apparently.'

She stamped on his foot, but it was more a sign of affection than anger. He was relenting.

'If your friend only took notes on paper and they stayed in our house. If you genuinely think she might help me move on from my past. If you can vouch for her that she will keep it all to herself.'

Yes! She turned around in his arms, a broad grin on her face.

'Then I might be willing to acquiesce you. In due time.'

Oh. Her grin faded into nothingness.

'I want to get to know her first. You say you vouch for her and I do trust you in a great many things. Operational security, however,' he said very pointedly, 'is not one of them. I do not gamble with my life, nor with yours.'

'That is...' She pinched her nose. 'Fair, I suppose.' She was annoyed with the outcome, but it was fair and he already made a lot of concessions for her when it came to breaching his comfort zone.

'Given that, it might be necessary for her to know that I am different if she is to stay without suspecting me of kidnapping you or holding you enslaved through other means.'

'She doesn't think that!' she protested, defending her friend.

He took off his sunglasses and gave her a look. Her meagre defence folded in on itself instantly. They both knew she did and that despite Onoelle's insistence that it was not so, Jane hadn't ceased worrying. He put his sunglasses back on and picked her up, his face thoughtful. 'I am not good with these things. How would you explain me to her without saying too much?'

She didn't reply immediately. It was a tough question. She looked out over the fields. Afternoon was properly settling in and the sun was caressing the land. How would she explain to her friend that her husband was a human with an alien mind? That if frightened his first reaction was to kill anything that could possibly be a threat? That he was the remnant of a nation that the whole galaxy hated with a burning passion? That his lack of emotions or normal human behaviour was brought on by having come into life as a pre-programmed sentient weapon? She turned back to face him and studied his features.

Mentuc. Dreamer. X-12845623. A man with a complicated past. A supersoldier from Project Genesis. A loyal subject of the Empire. A renowned mercenary. A loving husband. Her loving husband. Her mind went through their time together, short in time but long in memory and she bent down to kiss him. His usual cold nature gave way as her lips gingerly touched his and he returned it. It was a soft kiss, not distracting her from her mental search for a good answer, but bolstering her motivation.

When she finally broke away from him she drank from his face as he looked at her, his sunglasses gone. The three lenses in each eye no longer frightening, but endearingly familiar, gazing at her in wonder. After all this time he still did not take her for granted and his endless love for her was ever-present. It was a comforting thing. To know that she could eternally rely on him, that he wouldn't abandon her for some silly emotional reason that seemed to plague so many other relationships amongst her age group. 'I will tell her half the truth,' she opened. 'That there are things about you that I can't say of yet, but that I will ask the same of her as I asked of you. To trust in my judgement. That you struggle with displaying and expressing emotions and that you faced a lot of hardships in your youth. That you are dependable, but very wary of strangers and this is why you keep from others. It would be very little in total, she would know nothing more of you than that, but I think it would be sufficient to placate her. Especially if she stayed for a while. But that you are loyal and dependable and worthy of trust.'

She freed herself from his gentle embrace and started walking back towards the house. 'Who knows,' she said, her lips smiling and her eyes dancing.

'You might even warm up to her.'

X-12845623 kept his trigger pressed down, hosing the charging bugs with repulsor fire and blasting them back nearly as quickly as they came. The arrival of him, 21, 27 and 28 had bought the beleagured soldiers of Grey platoon a fair amount of breathing room, but the bugs had simply regrouped and resumed their massed charge. It was working too.. With the exception of the maintenance corridors, who had been thoroughly blocked off by a wall of corpses that the bugs were struggling to remove, they were steadily losing ground. Their combined network had listed well over five hundred dead bugs but they just kept throwing more troops at them and they were getting close. If Doctor Eisel hadn't insisted on them being equipped with repulsor carbines and they'd have gone with the standard gauss weaponry load-out, they'd have been overrun already. The resistance Grey Platoon had faced was less than half of what the Genesis forces were holding off and casualties were mounting. Shields had been overloaded and limbs had been melted off, but the supersoldiers reaped a deadly toll in turn. Even better was that their ammo reserves were virtually limitless thanks to their fusion generators rapidly recharging their energy cells. And they had kept most of their grenades in reserve, unlike their fully human counterparts.

The battle was running wild throughout the entire ship but the wealth poured into Project Genesis was paying itself back twice over. They had abused the access to the ship's sensors and all throughout the dreadnought the platoons were engaging in running battles with the bugs, ambushing them and disappearing, over and over again. The men and women of the 74th had chosen to regroup and bunker down where ever possible. They had taken severe losses when the bugs launched their counterattack and well over a third of their number had been slaughtered, the bugs' relentless charges overwhelming the firepower the soldiers could throw at them. Once grenades and missiles were depleted, the bugs shoved a few of their melee versions to the front and let them soak up the incoming fire before tearing them apart. They still killed more than they lost, but the bugs held a significant numerical advantage.

On more than one occasion a Genesis platoon had used the 74th as bait to launch a murderous counterattack of their own. They worked on splitting the enemy forces, tunneling them into easily held passages, left boobytraps and once an enemy was whittled down to a more manageable size they switched tactics and simply slaughtered them to the last with overwhelming firepower. A Genesis soldier hit by a plasma shot was protected by his shields. A bug hit by a repulsor shot would be wounded, hindered and severely off balanced, if not outright dead.

The internal systems were being weaponised as well as the Muninns still connected with the bridge's systems were breaking through the last defences. Grav-plating started changing direction, gravity jumped or lessened and threw enemies off balance or sped up allies. Where possible airlocks were opened, flinging dozens of bugs out into the void, sending them to a frosty death. It wasn't as violent nor as effective as a fully focused internal defence, they couldn't dedicate the manpower to that and without direct user interface the computers were limited in how much havoc they could wreak. Still, it got bugs killed and that was all that mattered.

All of that was a secondary concern to X-12845623 as he jumped out of cover and ran his carbine over a trio of bugs, feeding each of them a short burst before he returned to cover on the opposite end of the hallway. All throughout the area the four supersoldiers were doing the same, weaving in and out of cover, changing locations, allowing themselves to be briefly exposed to enemy fire in exchange for having a clear and open line of fire. Their shields were taking a beating but they took turns, covering for one another while those protected by a solid chunk of metal had the time and cover to let their shields recharge.

'Sheepdog, pull third squad back into the bridge. Then fourth. We will cover. Be advised, we will be running through your field of fire. On mark fifteen.'

'Roger,' the lieutenant replied.

'Mark!'

X-12845623 heard him start barking orders on the local network that the rest of Grey platoon was in. He assumedgiving them fifteen seconds would be enough to get ready. Sheepdog had confirmed, so it would have to do. He didn't bother to order his three brothers. They had heard him and five seconds would have been plenty for them.

His lenses kept dancing around the environment and fed the information to his mind. His HUD told him exactly where his allies were and what status they were in as well as where actual and possible enemies were, but it did not translate the cover, how his brothers were perched down behind a bulkhead, how they were holding his weapons, what the enemies were doing and a million other tiny details that were of vital importance when it came to assembling a battle plan. Looking at six separate things at once and constantly jumping from one thing to another was an incredible advantage. As the timer hit one the Genesis soldiers jumped into action.

Glands pumped a cocktail of battle hormones in his bloodstream and he felt the vicious thud of his own heartbeat ring in his ears as he lunged out of cover, his three brothers doing the same. The green rain of repulsor fire turned into a veritable storm as the four superhumans opened up, disregarding the heat build up in their weapons, their lack of cover and the mass of furious bugs in front of them. The blue streams of plasma fell to a trickle as carapaces were punched apart by the violent impacts, green ichor spilling from the wounds, forcing the bugs' self preservation instinct to take over for a brief moment as they ducked for cover. Behind him third squad made a mad dash for the relative safety of the bridge itself, the last point they could fall back to but also the one that provided them with the most cover.

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He counted the shots in his head. He reached two hundred and pressed down on the eject button, letting the empty cell fall out of his carbine. The moment the cell cleared the weapon he slammed another one in. He didn't have the luxury to waste time on recovering the empty one. Either they kept up the rate of fire or they'd be overwhelmed in an instant. Time was slowing down as he saw the bugs resume their assault, braving their fire to do so and taking heavy losses in the process, but the plasma fire intensified once again. His HUD told him that third squad was passing by fourth squad and running to their new position in a straight line. He saw a plasma shot come his way and wanted to dodge it. Then he realised that the shot would pass him by and would slam straight into the back of one of the retreating soldiers. He gritted his teeth and braced for impact. The shot smashed into his shield, bringing up the temperature by a few degrees as it flared to life and dissipated the energy. The bugs were playing it smarter now, keeping the corpses of the dead bugs standing and firing from behind them. The repulsors were powerful weapons and while his superhuman genetics could overcome their horrid kickback, their abysmal penetrating power was beyond his abilities to solve.

More plasma fire came their way and one of the soldiers of third squad took a glancing hit to the shoulder. It burned through his shoulder and blistered the rest of his arm, most of his chest and part of his face, but the man bore the pain stoically and somehow kept hold of his weapon. He jumped over a protective bulkhead and slid into cover, the last of third squad to arrive. Immediately fourth squad started retreating, this time sticking more to the walls, trading most of their speed for better cover.

X-12845623 was glad for it, it freed him from the need to stand in the way of shots. His shields were protesting, the Muninn informing him that they were about to shut down. He couldn't afford that, not now, not while the rest was still retreating. His brothers were in a better shape, they hadn't seen the need to cover the men behind them. They believed, perhaps rightfully so, that they were inconsequential. They were significantly less capable and their weapons lacked both the penetration and stopping power needed to halt the bugs. He found that assessment to be correct. He'd have gladly exchanged the ten soldiers behind him for one of his brothers.

Another rifle was aimed at him and two of his lenses homed in on the bug holding it. He shot at it just as the bug turned the trigger, but X-12845623 was already throwing himself aside and the shot splashed against the wall, molten drops of starship hull falling down as the plasma ate away at the metal. His own return fire slammed into the bug's hand-like claw and pulverised it, but the rest of his salvo failed to penetrate the corpse it wielded as a shield. The sheer impact did topple him. His brothers saw the opening and poured fire into it, the shots flying over the fallen bug and killing another handful before the hole was closed. More shots came his way and he tried dodging, but there were too many and his shields took a beating, the impact nearly off-balancing him, only his superhuman abilities keeping him from falling over.

More bugs swarmed them and the hallway was now filled with plasma. The Genesis troops tried to hold them off but were forced back by the sheer amount of fire being thrown their way. X-12845623 briefly considered diving into cover but his HUD told him that doing so would condemn the men behind him to a gloopy death. As it was, two of them had already taken glancing shots but were still combat-capable, but a third had moved out of cover too much and now two shots were coming his way.

Everything drilled in him told him that the man was lost. The soldier would die. There was no reason to risk himself for him. His shields would shut off if he tried to block them and he'd be dead shortly thereafter unless he took cover as well. Given the time needed for the rest of fourth squad to reach cover themselves, that would be a death sentence for them. Four men could barely hold the bugs down. Three would be overwhelmed.

That entire train of thought blinked through his head when he, for some inexplicable reason, found himself standing in the way of those two shots. His shields flared up in defiance, then sizzled out and died.

Why am I not in cover? he numbly thought as he stood still, firing from the middle of the hallway, completely exposed to enemy fire.

His shield going out prompted his brothers into action and they moved to cover him. They wouldn't sacrifice themselves for Grey Platoon, but they would gladly take shots to keep one of their own alive, as it was a good trade off. It was the rational thing to do. Their shields had taken fewer blows than his, they hadn't protected the others behind him. Would his shield still be up if the four of them had taken shots? Possibly. Would they have done so if he had suggested it? No. Definitely not. He was already the odd one out. That would have worsened it for no gain.

The Genesis soldiers tossed their grenades. They each only had two and had been loath to use them so early in the fight given the number of bugs that remained, but they expended them in short. It was necessary now to keep their brother alive. For a brief moment the hallway was blisfully quiet, with the exception of the retreating soldiers. Then the bugs returned once more and this time they charged in force, their dead comrades having blown against the walls, giving them a clear path to their enemies and the two groups traded fire once more, the battle kicking into full swing within moments.

Another group of shots flew his way and 21 violently kicked him, sending him sprawling into the cover behind a bulkhead. It hadn't been enough. He had been hit and felt plasma burn through his armour, his Muninn sectioning off parts of his armour, sealing around his skin while the internal systems whirred to life to deal with the immense heat. The metal melted, his skin blistered and then the plasma was through. He felt the plasma bite into his flesh, melting part of his chest. His body worked overtime, his incredibly tough constitution protesting the abuse and fighting against it. He registered the pain numbly as he climbed out of cover, firing as he did, refusing to go down even as the plasma liquified part of him. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He had been hit, shot, beaten, cut and suffered countless injuries in training before, but this was on a whole different scale. His body was on fire and it stirred something sleeping in him that he had not been aware of before.

A hormonal gland located within his brain sparked to life. A final failsafe to protect Doctor Eisel's greatest creation from dying, or if they had to, to give them a last reserve of strength to inflict horrid damage on the attacker. A special cocktail of very classified and highly illegal combat drugs flooded his system, banishing the pain and most of his awareness and flooding X-12845623 with something he wasn't familiar with. He was a soldier. Trained. Disciplined.

Now the aptly named Berserker Gland was overriding all of that as the urge to kill indiscriminately flared to life. Everything else became secondary. He felt anger, white-hot fury flare to life, its burn surpassing that of the plasma as he roared in defiance. His mind abandoned the notion of tactics, teamwork, the strategical overview of the battle and reduced him to a very single purpose. To kill the enemy with everything he had and with everything he was.

Project Genesis soldier X-12845623 activated the magnetic function of his armour and stormed up the wall, his disruptor blades whirring to life with a sickening sound. With a roar that reverberated through the metal hallway he abandoned caution, tactical sense and the cover of his brothers. The limits that kept a human from exerting more force than their limbs could handle were much higher for a Genesis soldier, but no less present. Within X-12845623 they were completely eradicated. He blinked across the remaining distance, the bugs reacting far too late to the berserker charging across the ceiling straight at them. Third squad and his three brothers could only look helplessly at the scene as fourth squad finally reached cover. The three battered but breathing super soldiers dove for cover, processing the new tactical information. None of them was aware of the Berserker Gland and its effects, but neither of them were keen on opening fire on the enemy when one of their own was in the midst of the enemy. It was a problem that would soon rectify itself, they assumed.

They assumed wrong.

Like a wild bull X-12845623 jumped down from the ceiling, deactivating his magnets and using his sheer weight to flatten one of the melee bugs that was too slow to bring his blades up. He was in their midst, surrounded on all sides and surprised as they were, it availed them none. He moved with blistering speed, his disruptor blades ignoring the feeble resistance the bugs' carapace offered, sliding through them with a sickening sound as the field cleaved them apart on a molecular level and for a brief moment there was a space devoid of life around him as bisected bugs fell apart. Then the element of surprise was gone and the bugs attacked him in force.

X-12845623 danced between them, his instincts, heightened senses and Muninn feeding him information faster than he could comprehend, but it was enough. His blades danced through the air, arcing not gracefully but in straight lines, flowing from foe to foe. He dodged return strikes, shattered carapaces with violent kicks, lashed out in very direction and kept pulling back just enough to dodge the inevitable counter attack. He moved around them, forcing them to line up. This close they were incapable of lining up shots and even if they were the rifles simply weren't the right tool for an enemy this close. Bugs fell and more came and even the melee bugs failed to keep up with X-12845623's vastly superior speed and agility, but even that difference was overcome by the sheer number the bugs threw at him. Blades started cutting through his armour and a killing blow was narrowly avoided as his Muninn detected the danger and forcefully activated his shields, the tip of it screeching loudly as it slid of the protective field as the emitters fought against the strain. The computer beeped at its user that the shields emitters had overloaded and were now down and would not recharge. X-12845623 never even saw the message. For all his ability he could not keep up. More blades cut through his body and even the claws from the weaker ones were leaving marks on his armour, slowly but certainly cutting through, one scrape at a time.

He snarled and growled and grabbed the un-bladed part of the arm of a melee bug, muscles groaning in protest as he blocked the blow. Before the bug could bring its second arm to bear, X-12845623 smashed his own blade upwards and neatly bisected the bug's mid riff. It fell to the ground, disembowled, but another immediately took its place.

The staggering amount of wounds and the duration of the combat, brief as it may have been, were taking its toll on the supersoldier. His muscles were tearing themselves apart to let him be quicker than the enemy. His everything was aching and he felt himself slowing down, exhaustion making itself known. He felt it, knew it and promptly discarded it as useless information. It did not help him kill.

A trio of melee bugs jumped at him, sensing his growing weakness. The first one was decapitated but the second just jumped him. He roared and pulled back, but the bug followed. He switched tactics and took a step forward, slamming his fist against and his blade through the thing's chest. Exactly as the bugs had wanted. The third one had circled around the corpses of the previous two and while the second one was still in its death throes, the third one struck. X-12845623 turned, the white of the disruptor blade turning green briefly as the ichor that coated it evaporated. Time slowed to a crawl as he saw the blades approach him. He felt his own arm move sluggishly in comparison. The two lethal strikes slowly crept towards one another and for once his analytical mind failed him and could not tell him which one would strike first.

The answer came half an eternity of mental torment later when the two collided at the exact same moment. The bug was cut in half, but the two blades slammed into him vertically, before being pulled back out through the front. Only their sheer sharpness, which had cut a straight line through his armour rather than ripping it open, kept him alive, ironically enough. Rather than his innards spilling out, they were merely squished against his own armour.

This much damage was too much, even for a supersoldier. His muscles became unresponsive, the effect of the Berserker hormones fading away and he fell down. He did not feel remorse, sadness, anger or pity. He was a sentient weapon. Beyond all that. He was not designed to feel emotions.

Yet, for all that, he felt a sliver of grim satisfaction when his short-range minimap showed a series of green dots popping into existence as reinforcements in the form of the 16th Genesis platoon joined the battle.

'Wait outside for a bit, okay? I want to have this chat with her one on one. You could go back and finish the field. We'll be a while.'

He nodded. She could tell that he didn't like it one bit. Ever since they had gotten married she could count on one hand the amount of times that they had been apart. He preferred to stay close to her at all times. So she'd throw him a bone. Lessen the pain.

'You can go all out. No need to hold back. Just don't break the plough, okay?'

The half-smile that tugged on his lips told her that her attempt had succeeded.

'No promises.' With those words he turned around and ran off.

She knew it was meant as a joke, but part of her couldn't help but wonder if she was going to actually see that plough ever again while it was still in one piece given the frustrations he'd be working out on the poor thing. Regardless, she had other concerns now. She knocked on the door and pushed it open. 'So Jane!' she began, cheerfully. 'We need to talk.'

Her friend noticed the lack of her husband immediately. 'Are you alone?' A smile accompanied the question.

'Yeah.'

'Good.' The smile disappeared and a stern look took the place. Oh boy. That didn't bode well.

'Yes,' her friend confirmed. 'We most definitely need to talk.'

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