Humanity has long since moved past the borders of Earth. We have used up our ancestral home. We now hold fifty worlds and the question is no longer, Can we achieve it? No, the question now in the minds of the United Human Republic is, Can we hold it?

Unranked Officer Benjamin Hargrave stared at the screen in disgust as he watched yet another group of privates being slaughtered by the enemy army. He had seen it before, the leadership of the Advanced Human Forces callously wasted lives every day simply because they felt it necessary. He protested on more than one occasion after seeing soldiers deployed without proper training. As it turned out, even the experience of a thousand years of war did not matter when confronted with politics.

Hargrave itched to join the battle and protect those who could not fight well enough to save their own lives. The single battalion was not enough to defend the small colony, a fact made very clear when the settlement had been looted and destroyed. The enemy was so confident in their victory that they had already pulled out, leaving a single destroyer to act as a guard should reinforcements arrive. The Rear Admiral already denied his request to be that reinforcement, further informing him that his wants did not matter. He claimed he would rather lose lives than allow the enemy to know that Hargrave still lived.

Still lived.

Using those words to describe his existence was a mockery. His body had been rebuilt so many times that nothing organic remained. In fact, the ability to transfer his mind into a machine was part of what made him so pivotal in the war. On that day, he had become Steel Cast, a new race of pseudo humans that made the change to an inorganic existence.

As the need for action intensified, he ran an internal diagnostic. The process verified that every part of his metallic body was ready for battle. Tearing his eyes away from the carnage, he routed power to a newly installed module. If he didn’t do something soon, these young soldiers would join the voices that screamed at him from the shadows.

Without saying a word, he walked away from the command deck, the gate room his unmistakable destination. “Officer Hargrave,” Rear Admiral Swanson began, “just where, in fact, do you think you are going?”

Not breaking stride, he glanced over his shoulder and replied to the infuriatingly petty man. “I am going to join those brave men. They do not deserve to die simply because you can’t plan a war.”

The words would sting the prideful admiral, but in his many years of life, Hargrave found he cared less and less about what others felt about him.

“You will not leave this ship,” the Admiral said to the retreating man. “You have orders not to abandon this post. The secrets in your body alone are not worth the risk or your death.”

“You don’t command the Unranked Officers, Admiral. I will not fall in battle, and even if I did, this frame would disintegrate, and I’d return to the next body I have prepared.”

The Rear Admiral became even more irate and screamed, “This is my ship and my rules. It is not worth the risk!”

“You’re wrong on both counts. I built the ship, therefore she is mine and so are her rules,” he said, taking another step down the hall. “Or perhaps you think you can force me to stay? Have you finally found a way to detain me?”

A dark grin spread across the admiral’s face. “Oh, we have. We even built it outside of the ship’s primary system so that your little override wouldn’t work.” He raised his hand and a sphere of light surrounded Hargrave, stopping his progress out of the room. The trap had been built intending to hold the gods known as the Unranked officers, Hargrave specifically.

Connecting to the ships on-board systems, Hargrave found the admiral had spoken the truth. The barrier surrounding him had no connection to the primary computer. They had gone out of their way to construct a trap that he could not break. In a way, he was proud of them for creating something without the help of one of the seven. In retrospect, it surprised him that it took this long. It was only a matter of time before they would accomplish the feat. Believing otherwise was just foolish on his part.

If Swanson knew that he already had his method of escape, he wouldn’t have even wasted his time.

Turning to face the admiral, Hargrave raised his hand to his chest to activate the new module. In a matter of nanoseconds, it was ready for execution. “That is impressive, Swanson. Too bad I already have the counter to your little trick. Don’t wait up. I am going fix your little issue,” he said as he initialized his personal gate.

Swanson’s face was one of shock as he saw the telltale signs of gate travel beginning. It didn’t take long for the man’s body to turn translucent and crack. Mentally pushing the process, it slightly irritated Hargrave to be put in a position that he needed to reveal this facet of his power. The cracks deepened and extended; he felt as though he were a hot glass that was thrown into cold water. Suddenly his body, which had taken the appearance of cracked stained glass, shattered. Before the shards could travel more than a few inches, they dissipated into nothing more than motes of light.

Grinding his teeth, Rear Admiral Swanson turned his attention to the monitor, knowing what he would see. As expected, he watched the process he had just observed reverse itself. The man reformed from nothing but motes of light in a matter of a second. Hargrave, you fool. Your morality will get us all killed one day, he thought as he stared into the monitor, hoping that the coming display of carnage did not attract the attention of the Wandering Legion.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The moment his body reformed, Hargrave broke into a sprint, knowing that catching up to the enemy forces would be the only way to enact retribution. Preparing for the coming battle, he pushed politics out of his thoughts. A rational mind was essential for something like this. Running with as much speed as his mechanical form would allow, he mentally went over the list of weapons he currently had.

After several minutes of running, he arrived in a clearing littered with bodies. Ahead, the enemy cruiser had closed its hatch and was rising into the air. Cursing himself for being too slow, he increased his power draw and selected his arm-mounted grapple. The miniature dwarf star mounted in his chest cavity supplied more than enough Light to power all his systems at max capacity. Raising his arm, he shot a blade no larger than an arrowhead at the escaping vessel.

Once his HUD confirmed it was attached, he energized the connecting monofilament wire, causing it to retract. The speed it pulled him upward was only possible because of his metallic body. A human arm would have been dislocated at the very best, torn off at worst. As he neared the ship, he reached down with his free hand as a short rod extended from his thigh.

Visualizing the weapon’s desired shape, he activated it moments before impact while also magnetizing his boots to secure his footing. Raising the weapon, he sunk the blade of the Li-Tech spear into the armored hull, cutting through it like a hot knife through butter. After creating a hole roughly his size, he attached an anti-gravitation disk to the now loose section. Activating the device, the section of armor lifted away with no difficulty. Climbing into the vessel, he immediately set off in search of any surviving AHF soldiers.

Before long, he found what he naively hoped he wouldn’t. Something had forcibly cut four AHF soldiers from their armor with no consideration to the life form inside. Their shredded bodies lay in puddles of blood on the prison floor. Amazingly, Hargrave’s HUD showed they were still alive. Barely, but still alive. Acting quickly, the officer copied each of their minds to his internal storage. Now that other lives were on the line, he knew he couldn’t let this body be destroyed.

“Please…” a pained voice said from the corner. Apparently, one of these poor souls was still conscious.

“I’m here, private. You’re going to be ok,” he said, crouching down beside the man.

“Sir, save me, please…” His begging was cut off by a hacking, bloody cough. “I don’t want them to kill me. I don’t want to die.”

Making the hard decision, Hargrave knew he couldn’t extract these men physically. “I’m not Theresa,” he whispered. “The only mercy I can give is to allow you to join the Steel Cast brigade. I’m sorry.”

A blade of crimson formed in his hand and, with a quick motion, took away the soldier’s pain. “It is a fate I wish none had to bear,” he said, standing. His resolve to destroy the vessel and all its inhabitants doubled. Senseless torture was something that must be repaid in kind.

He quickly and effortlessly dispatched the inhabitants of the ship as he encountered them. After a while, massive pipes and a continuous humming gave away the presence of his destination. A large, reinforced door stood at the end of a nondescript hall with no other visible entrances or exits to give further credence to his suspicion that he had found the engine room. Approaching, he saw a bio scanner set off to the side of the door. Code breaking and infiltration were not his skill sets. Those belonged to Tobias. His own skills were far less subtle.

Allowing his HUD to search and analyze the weak points, he prepared to blow the door. Removing several small disks on his arm, he filled their Light cells and attached them to the door's imperfections. He stepped out of the radius and sent the command to trigger the weapons. The white ring of light around each device turned a dark crimson as they readied themselves for detonation.

Hargrave had designed these magnetic devices for situations exactly like this. Unlike their ancient cousin, these incendiary grenades used a pulse of Light instead of phosphorus as the primary fuel. When triggered, they would release all stored energy, creating extremely high temperatures capable of liquifying most known metals. Having released the stored energy, the series of disks intensified to a brightness that would damage his eyes… if they were still organic. Light fading, there was nothing but the expected pile of slag where the barrier once stood.

A war cry sounded as a being three meters in height charged out of the room, wielding a black battle-ax with a red glowing edge. Reacting with almost bored ease, Hargrave readied his weapon, reforming it into a saber as he blocked the incoming strike. His HUD constantly plotted and revealed each potential attack, allowing him to dodge the next several strikes. Side-stepping a backswing, he slashed across the creature's abdomen, the sound of hardened Light rending flesh familiar in his ears.

The creature cried out in a mixture of rage and pain. Pivoting to face the officer, it let go of the ax with one hand and swung at the weapons officer. Hargrave parried with his blade and severed the arm at the elbow before reversing his cut back across the stone-like chest of the creature's skin. Flipping the pommel of his weapon, he reshaped the blade yet again into a long dagger before plunging it through the creature's chest and into its heart.

As the creature slowly died, the AHF Sentient Beings Database finally found a positive identity for these creatures. “Raak’Shee,” he said to himself as he skimmed the information that floated in his vision. Entering the now unguarded room, he found he was partially correct. While not the engine room, it was the ship's central computer, an arguably more important piece of hardware.

In front of him stood the central switching and relay terminal responsible for controlling the sub-light engines. The only true difference between this and human technology was that they built the system out of silicate-based components rather than a hybrid of several elements. Before destroying the terminal, Hargrave took a moment to scan the technology and send a full rendering of the tech back to his shared laboratory. The idea that he might use the rendering to reach new technological revelations highly intrigued him.

Once the scan was finished, he carefully placed five more of the incendiary disks in key points around the control system. Targeting both the temperature regulator and the CPU would cause the loss of the heating unit and force an uncontrolled ascent into the blackness of space.

He had nearly reached a full charge on each of the grenades when the ship’s inhabitants finally noticed that something was wrong and started searching for him.

At the end of the hallway, three more gray-skinned Raak’Shee rounded the corner with weapons raised. Deciding that continuing to fight would be a complete waste of his time and patience, the metallic soldier started the detonation sequence. As the enemy forces began firing, his body once again took on the look of a cracked stained-glass window. With precision only he could truly replicate, his body fully shattered as the timer hit zero. The last thing he saw of the Raak’Shee cruiser was a melting terminal.

Ironically, the first thing he saw in his laboratory was a replica of the terminal he had just left.