by Dan Davis
“I feel light as a feather,” he said.
He looked at himself, walking forward in the reflection. Towering over Kat on one side and R1 on the other, he looked like Rama Seti.
“I’m me again,” he said. “But… am I… smaller?”
“Oh, yes,” R1 said. “They made your final height and mass to be within the normal human range, although at the extreme end of it and still taller than you were in your very first body. I believe they wanted to retain your larger than life effect but also allow you a more normal existence.” She blushed as she said it and lowered her face.
Kat smiled. “You used to be six-foot-five and then your clone for the wheeler fight was eight-foot five now you’re something like seven-five, Ram.” She shrugged. “So, think of it as average… for you.”
They were all smiles but Ram felt a powerful ache when he thought of Henry. First, he had given his mind and then finally he had sacrificed his body. Ram had spent everything he had trying to connect with that body, to become one with it, to accept it for what it was and to become one with it. And now it was gone. He had what he wanted, victory, and his old body back. Or a copy of it, at least. But the feeling of loss was so powerful he almost fell down and took a sedate step forward and leaned a hand on the black window.
“Woah there, big guy,” Kat said. “Best you sit for a while until you’re in sync with yourself again.”
“I’m in sync. I’m fine. What happened? How long has it been?”
R1 answered the second question first. “More than three years.”
“After you killed that bastard, we recovered your body and your brain. We oxygenated it right away and there was almost no damage. That body, though, was shredded and filled with toxins, and just basically destroyed. It was a bag of bloody bones. The team worked round the clock for days and saved your memories but that body was beyond saving.”
That body.
“Henry’s body,” Ram said. “What happened to it?”
“We held a memorial service.”
“Stirling?” Ram said, blurting it out. “What happened to Stirling?”
“He lost consciousness shortly after you won in the arena and died three days later. He wasn’t in pain by that point.”
Ram stood up straight. “No new body for him?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sure, I get it. I’m a propaganda tool.”
“You’re a bloody hero. You saved us, twice over. Anyone would do anything for you. This was the least they could do.”
“What about the Hex? What about the war?”
“Orb Station Alpha closed up the wormhole so there’s no more reinforcements for the Hex forces in the Sol System. So we’ve been taking back what we lost, bit by bit.”
“Where are we, Lieutenant Commander?” Ram asked, looking around at the size and shape of the room. “This isn’t the Hereward.”
“It’s not the Hereward, no,” she said and tapped a finger against an insignia on the collar of her working uniform. “And my rank is Captain Xenakis now, thank you very much, Lieutenant.”
With that, Kat walked toward the side of the window and tapped on a control panel. The way she moved was very odd, with a strange loping bound.
The black mirror in front of him was broken across the center as a white horizon sliced through. Two shutters opened, revealing the mirror to be a window. As they peeled up into the ceiling and down into the floor, Ram had to squint and cover his eyes at the brightness beyond. But his eyes quickly adjusted and he realized it wasn’t very bright outside at all. In fact, it was rather dim. And rocky. There were a few buildings scattered out there and beyond was a ridge line of jagged hills. The horizon was noticeably closer than it was on Earth. Ram recognized where he was at once.
“This is Mars,” he said.
Kat was grinning from ear to ear. “What a battle. We came in from multiple directions at once behind a barrage you wouldn’t believe. We hit their orbital stations and their bases on Phobos and Deimos and our ground teams working in coordination with resistance fighters rounded up thousands of Hex on the surface. And the Hex fleet ran. They barely contested it and retreated to Earth.”
“Just like when UNOP didn’t contest the Hex invasion,” Ram said without thinking.
Kat’s smile fell from her face. “We paid a little of that back, Lieutenant, and we’re going to take back our homeworld in time.”
“In time?”
“There’s plenty of work left to do before then. We need to take back occupied stations, there’s still loads in the Belt, and we need to coordinate and support a mass insurgency on Earth and defeat the Hex fleet. We’ve got six more years before the next Orb Station Alpha contest and we need to be ready for whatever happens.”
Ram thought about New Haven and the people there. They were probably all dead, just like everyone else he knew on Earth. But there were still millions of people suffering and in need of salvation.
“I want to help,” Ram said. “I mean, I don’t just want to be a propaganda tool, I want to fight. I need to fight.”
Kat nodded. “Course you’re going to fight, you daft bastard. You’re a lieutenant in the UNOP Marine Corps. As soon as you’re on active duty you’ll be leading teams in boarding actions and planetside assaults for the rest of your service. And seeing how they keep bringing you back in new bodies, that could be a hundred years of nonstop warfare. Keep winning, and it could be a thousand.”
“Count me in,” Ram said, and he meant it, although there was something else on his mind. Not just fighting, not just dying. But also living.
Ram looked down at R1 who smiled and seemed happy just to see him.
“Captain Xenakis, how long before I need to be on active duty?”
Kat shrugged. “It’ll be a while yet before you’re shipshape and Bristol fashion. You’re practically a newborn.”
“Good,” Ram said, and turning back to R1, cleared his throat. “I don’t know where or when but, R1, would you like to have dinner with me?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review on Amazon! Even a couple of lines would help me enormously by making this book more visible to new readers.
***
Thank you for reading.
Dan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Davis is an author of action-packed sci-fi, fantasy and historical fiction. He writes THE IMMORTAL KNIGHT CHRONICLES and the GALACTIC ARENA series.
Dan is a massive history fan and brings a dedication to historical authenticity even in his books about vampires. One of the main factors in writing a series that takes place over centuries was so that he could explore his favorite historical events and the key battles in English and European history.
Dan is a husband and father living in the county of Essex in England.
WEBSITE: dandavisauthor.com/
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/dandavisauthor
EMAIL: [email protected]
TWITTER: twitter.com/DanDavisWrites
Thanks so much for reading
BOOKS BY DAN DAVIS
The Immortal Knight Chronicles
Vampire Crusader (Book 1)
mybook.to/VampireCrusader
Vampire Outlaw (Book 2)
mybook.to/VampireOutlaw
Vampire Khan (Book 3)
mybook.to/VampireKhan
Vampire Knight (Book 4)
mybook.to/VampireKnight
Vampire Heretic (Book 5)
mybook.to/VampireHeretic
Vampire Impaler (Book 6)
mybook.to/VampireImpaler
Vampire Armada (Book 7)
Coming soon
The Galactic Arena Series
Inhuman Contact (Prequel 1)
mybook.to/InhumanContact
Onca’s Duty (Prequel 2)
mybook.to/OncasDuty
Orb Station Zero (Book 1)
mybook.to/OrbStationZero
Colony Sentinel (Book 2)
; mybook.to/EarthColonySentinel
Outpost Omega (Book 3)
For a complete and up-to-date list of Dan’s available books, visit:
http://dandavisauthor.com/books/
