Earth

2027

Morfrain shrugged. "I'll only make you Commander if you're willing. I've tried forcing someone to play the part before. It did not turn out well. I can only encourage you to reconsider."

Reconsider? This wasn't some job interview. "You're crazier than Vehru."

"I could even make the case for you to bring more than the two who are usually allowed. There could be a place for your squad." He laughed. "Hell, you could bring the mistress if you really want to let Aeryn have her little Earthling." Morfrain looked over at a picture of Theo and Aeryn hanging on the wall. "Whatever you're into is fine with me."

Jace shook his head, at a loss for words.

"I hope you will come around. Vehru refused the offer at first too. She agreed in the end." Morfrain lifted his palms in the air. "She simply needed help understanding what kind of life she would be subjecting her family to. You need the same help."

"Don't–"

"Please, spare me from your pathetic pleas. You have the opportunity to save them and give them a peaceful life. That opportunity will remain for some time. All you have to do is seize it. So, don't beg me to show you mercy when you deny it for yourself and for them. Just know that whatever happens to your wife and child is something you could have prevented. Know it is entirely your fault."

Panic pounded hot in his temples.

"We might as well get started."

The pain Jace knew too well erupted over his body and dropped him to his knees. Just as it began to seize him, heat enveloped his body, and Morfrain transported him away from Aeryn's house.

They appeared high in the sky above woods to the east and a field beyond that. Jace caught himself as he started to fall and used his flight mods to hover in the air. The aftershocks of the neuroweb popped along his body, but it hadn't been used long enough to really bring him down.

"I needed to send a message," Morfrain said.

"To who?"

The man only smiled. "You've really mastered your flight mod." Morfrain studied him. "It looks like you're using my tech when I know yours is not as good. It took you nearly twenty years but you did it."

Jace drifted closer, snarling. "Why did you bring me out here?"

"You're very curious to see what I can do and how much you've managed to accomplish as you've pushed yourself with training." Morfrain lifted his arms out wide. "Let us have a test. Hit me with all you have."

No need to tell Jace twice. He'd planned to do that anyway. This way, they wouldn't draw attention being in the middle of nowhere.

Instead of launching straight for Morfrain, Jace flew up in the sky with the sun to his back. Morfrain surely had good enough eyes for the sunlight to not bother him, but Jace would take any potential advantage that he could.

He spiraled down at full speed straight for Morfrain, with his fists and arms already powered up by his mods. Jace threw himself to the left with his thrusters, twisting deftly to punch Morfrain in the face with a ball of energy surrounding his fist. The hit slammed into the commander's cheek so hard that it rattled Jace down to his bones.

Morfrain didn't flinch or jostle from the impact. "I think you can do better than that."

Jace dove down as Morfrain moved for him. The man was too fast though. No matter how Jace evaded, Morfrain ended up right in front of him, taunting him.

No way had Jace trained all these years to not even make the commander wince. He growled in fury, threw himself full force for Morfrain, and drew his hands together to combine the blast from both palm mods into one. But Jace did not simply hurl the energy against Morfrain's chest. Using his flight mod and thrusters, Jace rushed the commander and slammed both fists into the man's sternum while releasing the energy against him.

The force of the blast sent Jace's own body hurling in the opposite direction. He spun through the air and jerked to a stop when he caught himself. Morfrain hovered a foot away from where he had before, staring down at his chest. A grin wide enough to look as if it would split his face spread over his cheeks. "Incredible." He touched his sternum. "That actually hurt. My nanobots will have to fix the damage."

The reaction, even more than the fact that Jace had managed to hurt him but so mildly, shook him. He eased back in the air, desperately searching for any strategy he could use against the commander.

"It's truly amazing what you have managed to do with a weak, human body. You could be so great with an upgraded form. Look at you, though. You can't possibly understand. We've been terribly soft on you." The commander's eyes gleamed. "Would you like to see what an advanced human is capable of?"

As certain as Jace was that he did not want to see, part of him was so curious that he almost felt willing to take whatever pain he knew was about to come. He'd dedicated his life to pushing his limits and there was only so far he could go as he was.

But this was not how he wanted to find out.

Jace gathered a ball of energy in his hand, except Morfrain vanished.

The commander appeared directly in front of Jace, fists flashing across his chest too rapidly to actually see so pain became his only guide for knowing what he'd hit. And it seemed to be everywhere. Jace dipped, his entire body trembling from the shock of the sudden damage, as white hot stabs of agony erupted over every single rib.

The commander caught Jace by the arm and held his limp body in the air. His eyes scanned down Jace's chest. "I missed a spot. How careless."

Morfrain rammed his palm low into Jace's ribs in what felt like a bone shattering hit. Jace could not hold in his scream.

It felt like Morfrain had crushed his ribs. Actually, crushed them into fine bits of powder. As badly as it hurt to breathe, Jace could draw in air, so the bones had not punctured his lungs, and his chest hadn't visibly caved in. He'd cracked enough ribs in his life to recognize the pain of it, though, and that sensation criss-crossed his chest like some intricate design.

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"Are you surprised?" Morfrain poked his sternum where Jace had landed the hit on him, eliciting a gasp. "My integration with my AI and all my tools function so sophisticatedly that they're as simple to use as my own hands. It's all impulse. Here, take a look at what I see. Marvel at what the synthetic body is capable of and have the sense to join me."

Jace gasped for breath, in agony as the effort expanded his lungs. He could hardly register what Morfrain said, but an image flooded his mind.

"The neuroweb allows us to connect in a similar way that synthetic minds can. It's not as advanced, but it does give you a taste of what you're missing out on."

An x-ray view of a set of ribs filled Jace's mind. Fractures branched out over the bones like an intricate spider web, none of the breaks deep enough to cut through entirely and shatter his ribs, but all deep enough to look dark. It was surgical. And Morfrain had done it in a matter of seconds.

"You see what you could become. The Federation favors Vehru's approach because of the purity of the consciousness, but we have an abundance of planets ready to be harvested. With war-enhanced synthetic bodies, we could conquer a hundred planets in a year. Maybe more. The net gain will exceed the loss with enough generations of births."

It sickened Jace to hear Morfrain explain himself so excitedly when he'd just eviscerated his ribcage with enough precision for it to be like some kind of work of art. And now he mused about galactic genocide?

This man had to be stopped.

Jace needed to kill Vehru and could not agree with her on anything, but maybe this was the one thing she'd ever done right in her miserable life. Trying to get rid of Morfrain was a service to all of humankind. She'd likely learned it the same way Jace was now, after suffering through torture with the neuroweb, and this demonstration of his power.

"There's so much more I can do," Morfrain said. "Try to stay awake long enough to see."

Jace gathered energy into his palms and released it against Morfrain right as the first wall of pressure smacked into his face. Blood burst from his nose and mouth. The blast from Jace's handmods bounced off Morfrain, not even scratching him. Flying through the air, unable to stop himself, Jace braced for another hit that slammed into his back. Hit after hit caught Jace just as he started to plummet toward the ground so that he was bounced back into the air.

Morfrain appeared below him, lifted his hands, and then left Jace suspended in the air.

He writhed in pain that he couldn't even wrap his mind around. Those last hits hadn't been as hard as the ones that shattered his rib cage, but they left tingles that felt like electricity dancing across his skin.

Blood dripped from his face and landed on Morfrain's cheek as the man looked up. "You probably think I'm going to kill you and there's no way you could survive this." He didn't even wipe away the drops of red sliding down the side of his face. "I can tell exactly how much you can take. Do you know what you can do to any enemy when you can read their body so easily? You see now how hopeless your little war is."

"You're… psychotic…"

Morfrain lowered them both to the ground and dropped Jace down. "You know you want this power."

Had that worked on Vehru? Yes, Jace desperately wanted to continue getting stronger to protect his family, and just because he was hungry for it. He had always loved the challenge of training. Power wasn't something he craved, though. Jace wanted to master whatever he set out to do more than simply become strong. Morfrain was wrong if he thought that the potential of a biomechanical body would tempt Jace enough to sway him. The cost completely overshadowed everything else.

The only thing that appealed to him was knowing that he'd be able to protect Aeryn and Levi. How could he fight as he was? Jace had worked so hard and still he was so weak compared to the commanders.

"I know," Morfrain said, looming over him. "It's hard to accept. You're trapped, though. You're forced to fight a war you have no hope of winning out of desperation to save your family and other families like yours, but your very efforts are likely to get the ones you loved killed. It's such a predicament for you. That's why I hoped you'd realize that you need to accept my offer."

Jace needed a synthetic body to defeat Vehru and Morfrain. Maybe there was a way to get one. Surely, it came with stipulations. What if he agreed to Morfrain's plan and then betrayed him? Then again, once Jace had a new body, there was no telling what they would do to his mind. Maybe Morfrain would alter him so that he became a killing machine with no hesitance to slaughter the innocent.

A terrible thought filled Jace's mind. What if Vehru had fallen into the same trap?

No, Morfrain was unhappy with her. She had free will and a mind of her own. She felt guilt. Vehru had made her own terrible choices.

Jace tried to think it through but each passing moment dragged him deeper into the depths of his suffering. He moaned involuntarily, twisting his head to the side at the pain radiating through his ribs. It hurt too badly to breathe. He gasped in shallow breaths, leaving him dizzy.

"I suppose you could give up on your family. That's really your only alternative." Morfrain knelt down and smacked Jace's face, forcing his attention. "Stick with me. Are you listening?"

It was too hard to stay awake. Another slap from Morfrain helped him to hang on, but Jace wasn't sure he could keep his eyes open much longer.

"I pity you, honestly. If it wasn't for Aeryn, you would have had a very different life. You know it somewhere inside you. You know she's the worst thing that has ever happened to you? That day you put your body between hers and a bomb you must have known."

"Shut up…"

"Have you reconsidered my offer yet?"

Jace wheezed in a breath, his body burning. "Never."

"One day, it'll be Aeryn beneath my heel." Morfrain slammed his boot against Jace's broken ribs and wrenched a scream from his tightly closed lips. "And Levi." Another stomp. "You'll hold their broken bodies and remember you caused it with your stubbornness."

Jace's head rolled back. He couldn't breathe or hope to speak. It was a struggle to even curl his fingers into the soft earth beneath him.

"I could do it today." Morfrain leaned his weight against the heel pressed into Jace's chest but did not put any force behind it this time. "I rather like the idea of you not knowing when it could come. Could be tomorrow, or a week from now. A year from now. I could do it one time or a hundred times." He laughed low. "You'll beg for the neuroweb because at least it's fast and you heal quickly."

Jace forced his eyes open to see Morfrain's grimacing smile through his blurry vision.

"You'll have the comfort, at least, of knowing your son didn't turn out like me." The commander tilted his head back and heckled. "The things a primitive human says."

It seemed his entire life had been a fight as hopeless as this one but he hadn't given up yet. Jace's arm shook as he dragged it off the ground and clutched Morfrain's boot. Torn muscle and fracture bone howled with pain inside him but he still energized his hand mod, barely able to muster the physical strength to control it or even the mental acuity to do what normally came on impulse. With his vision waning and his grip on consciousness threatened, Jace shoved Morfrain's boot back with the power of his hand mod.

The commander looked entirely amused, and chillingly eager. "You see… You could be so perfect. I need someone who never breaks."

Bending, Morfrain grabbed Jace's hair with both hands and flew into the air. The pressure squeezed his battered body and ripped at his insides. A broken, gasping cry broke free of his breathless lungs.

"One day, the offer will no longer stand." Morfrain held Jace so his body dangled over the treeline below them. "I know you need time, though. So, for now, you let me know when you change your mind. I think we could make wonderful partners."

"I'll…" Jace's bloodied lips barely twitched. "Kill… you…"

"It's so fun to watch you try."

Morfrain threw him into the air, aimed his palm, and blasted Jace with a ball of energy that hurled his body down toward the ground. He crashed through the feathery tops of trees, rammed straight through a limb that snapped against his back, and didn't even slow down as he hit a trunk that cracked from the force. His body spun, out of control and limp through the leaves of the trees and slammed him against the ground so hard that he scraped across the earth, ripping up chunks of dirt and grass.

A path of torn ground stretched before him while he lay prone and unable to even twitch. Pain too overwhelming to actually feel beat against his body in thrashing waves. The smell of his own singed flesh and clothes nearly kept him from losing consciousness, but he faded from the world he tried so hard to hold onto.

Morfrain hovering over the trees, smiling down on him, was the last thing he saw.

What if he did this to Aeryn and Levi? What if…