The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Hey, how’s it going, Doc?” Mark said with a wink and a lazy grin.

  “How many painkillers have you given him?” Ava queried Sarah.

  “All of them.” Sarah came through the suit’s speakers in the same frustrated tones. “His legs are gone. He’s got compound fractures, stress fractures, muscles blown out, tendons are snapped. Abdominals are messed up too. Feeding you a scan.”

  “Damn.” Ava looked impressed.

  “It’s not that bad,” Mark said, still in his suit and grinning. “Traitor.”

  “Idiot,” Sarah shot back.

  “Not that bad? NOT THAT BAD! I should let you put yourself back together. For a full repair, this is going to take weeks. It might even be easier to cut off your legs and put on new ones.”

  Mark grimaced. “Been there, done that. No thank you—I’d like to keep the third ones please.”

  “THIRD?”

  “Long story.” He yawned.

  Her eyes blazed at the grinning Mark, the stare like water on him.

  They’d reached the med bay, Mark realized in some small part of his brain.

  She sighed, taking her gauntlets off and attaching them to her suit. She opened a nanite vat above Mark’s head. “Might as well get the nanites started.” She manipulated a control panel as Mark was picked up out of his open armor and inserted into the nanite vat head first.

  “A little warning first!” he murmured into the space that cleared around his ears, nose, mouth, and eyes. The nanites were like silver water moving without regard to physics as they encapsulated him, eating away his stolen fatigues, rapidly changing from frigid cold to match his temperature. They hummed around him, getting a more detailed scan of his body than Sarah had given Ava, and then moved to set bones, close wounds, reconnect tendons, and rebuild muscles and nerves.

  ***

  While Mark was assessed by the nanite vat and received immediate care, Ava tended to a legionnaire with severe burns.

  Just as she’d finished, Kela sent a holographic image through her optical nerves.

  “What’re these—readings from his brain?” She bit her lower lip in confusion.

  “The neural interfacing nanites have become intertwined with his neural pathways, actually in between the synapses.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean they wouldn’t be able to send messages?”

  “They should but the nanites are acting as a link, sending the messages thousands of times faster. It would explain how he was able to attain three hundred meters per second.”

  “What? Well, that would explain the ruined legs. Can we remove the nanites?”

  “No. They’re embedded in his neural network and his brain is already compensating to deal with the new changes.”

  “What will this mean for him?”

  “He’s going to be the fastest human in the known galaxy. With a body filled with shrapnel, scar tissue, some half working organs and joints that are already wrecked by changing gravities too much too fast.”

  “We can heal all of that though?” Ava said, confused.

  “We can, but every time Sarah and he merge and he uses the power of his suit instead of his own body to move the powered armor, he’s going to destroy his own body.”

  “Ouch. Is there any way we could help him use this new speed?”

  “He needs a full body mod,” Sarah said, opening up a NIAI net.

  Ava had dealt with it more often than not with patients but there was something overpowering about Sarah’s voice. It wasn’t robotic or dulled like when Ava talked to other NIAIs. It was as if she were a person or an AI talking face-to-face with her but overpowering, as if she were a lecturer trying to bring some students around before judgment would be brought down on their heads. She seemed to take over her brain more than Kela would, even.

  “Why?” Her voice sounded feeble compared to the NIAI’s.

  “If he doesn’t and we continue to merge, he will die.”

  “Merge?”

  “As you’ve seen, the nanites that a NIAI would use to monitor the user’s brain waves are now interlinked directly into his brain. When we merge, the connections between the NIAI processors or my core and the thoughts and ideas of his brain become interlinked. Every thought he has, I know instantly. If I can isolate his brain patterns, then I can answer questions or do things for him before he even thinks about it. Instant information on the battlefield, communications with anyone, fire plans for fire support: anything I am connected to, I can access for him. The nanites speed up his brain as well, meaning he has faster reflexes and he can truly multitask. He can be killing Maraukians while calling in a fire support mission and creating a plan for a fallback position and coordinating with other people and units.”

  “We can’t give him a full body mod.”

  “I see that. For the kind of work he’d need, he’d need to be in a Roma facility. Even then, there is knowledge I have that no doctor has done before. Mark is only adding to it as he’s connected to the net. Mark and I are already evolving. In order for him to survive, he needs massive body modifications. It will be unlike anything seen before, though we will need you to unlock the nanites.”

  Ava hissed. “You know why no one would think of doing that. I’ve read about the rogue nanite weapon techs.”

  “We’re not going to send them as a rampaging, self-materializing cloud around the base and onto the world.”

  “To control an unlocked nanite tank, you need to be a level four morph at least. I’m only a level three.”

  “We can deal with it easily.”

  “You’re both untested as morphs.”

  “He’s going to love this,” Sarah said dryly.

  Ava felt a building hum through her link with Mark’s nanite tank.

  “Onetwothreefourfive, six…seven,” Kela said as fast as the morph levels raced past Ava’s face. All color drained from it as she looked at the tank and the unmoving body of Mark.

  “He’s a level seven morph, Kela?”

  “Yes. I don’t even think he was working for it. He’s already surpassed us by leaps and bounds, his body is made up of nanites after all.”

  Morph levels were given to people who could work with nanites by the swarm, which was one mother nanite told the other nanites—about a hundred thousand—to do a specific job. If you could control ten swarms, you were a level one morph. You were awarded a higher morph level as you increased the amount of nanites you could manipulate by a magnitude. This made Mark not four times, but four magnitudes more powerful than Ava.

  “We estimate for us to complete a full body modification, it will take three days. He’s already picking out what he wants to do, and that’s why I’m talking and not him. Though he did say for safety’s sake you should have the incinerator on a separate system, just in case. Preferable a manual one as we can access anything connected.”

  “I’m going to have to ask someone higher.”

  “I’ll get Legatus Pullo for you.”

  “Huh? Wai—”

  Kela informed her she was now connected with the legatus through Sarah.

  “Medico Desialias, I’m told I’m being relayed through Mark’s NIAI Sarah?” Pullo’s tone turned the statement into a question.

  “Yes, sir. It’s about Mark wanting to perform a full body modification.”

  “Why would he need that?”

  “As far as I can tell, he and his NIAI have become interlinked and if he doesn’t have it, he’ll still be faster but his body won’t be able to deal with the stresses and will consistently fall apart.”

  “Ouch. So I guess he has a plan to fix this.”

  “Yes, sir. He wants to perform a body modification. I don’t know who’ll...”

  “Mark and I can perform the body modification on ourselves,” Sarah interjected.

  “How severe will this body modification be?” Pullo’s voice was serious.

  Ava heard the worry in the man’s voice—strange from the man who was more similar to an ice block than a p
erson, many said.

  “We believe he will never be able to become a human again,” Sarah replied.

  Ava turned to the calm nanite tanks, which belayed the severity of the decision its occupant was making.

  “Mark.”

  “Yes, boss?” Nothing moved in the tank as Mark’s thoughts were turned to speech.

  “You sure about this?”

  “If this works out how I plan, I might be able to give you an assault force.”

  “That does sound nice,” Pullo said, dismissing it, “but are you sure you want to change your body this much?”

  “If I don’t, I’m going to be a permanent patient. We both know I stopped being human a long time ago.” Mark’s voice was husky.

  “All right. Ava, set up the incinerator. Mark, keep your damned self alive.”

  “It’s what I’m good at.” The gruffness in his voice made Ava wonder what he was talking about.

  “Once the incinerator’s set up, you may begin.”

  Ava pulled the incinerator’s manual red button out so it extruded from the vat tank’s side. Covering it with her hand, she put her other hand into the nanites, creating a direct connection. She accessed Kela directly, stopping the vat’s security protocols, and then moved to the nanites’ internal security locks. Her breath escaped in a whoosh as she released them.

  The nanites that had been moving stopped dead. Slowly and then faster, she felt another presence taking over. It was like watching a tsunami. She thought it would stop but it kept going, the same power touching every nanite. She felt it grow then pause; the power turned into action as nanites raced through the vat, mapping Mark’s body down to the molecule. They flowed over his body, concentrating on his brain and solidifying the connections between the nanites and the synapses. For a few minutes, they waited.

  “All right, if the nanites do anything but destroy and rebuild my brain, destroy them.”

  “Huh? Wha—” Horrified, she watched as nanites ate his skull and then started making structures that Ava couldn’t understand or had ever seen in a brain, destroying sections as the combined organic and inorganic structures took up the slack of the old brain. Ava watched the monitoring equipment as it showed the systems interacting perfectly. The NIAI armband disappeared as Sarah took up residence inside of his skull too. Time seemed to slow for Ava as the nanites worked at a fevered pace.

  “All right, now time for the trimmings.”

  She watched, mesmerized, as nanites went down his spine, replacing it with an inorganic and organic structure. At the same time, his body was pulled apart, divided and began changing. Millions of nanites got to work as they kept all the organs functioning, including Mark’s brain and linked NIAI unit. Organs were replaced or changed. A new heart was grown as well as secondary organs; the blood turned from red to gray as muscles were strengthened. Skin was formed with thin layers of carbon hendral plating.

  Even with the changes that were still going on, the scars and the tattoos formed on the skin. Shrapnel which had been inside of his body for too long was pulled out and destroyed by the nanites, probably flowing back into his body as something else.

  “Ava, you should take a rest. I’m sorry—I was so concentrated on working, but you’re close to collapse.”

  Mark’s tone was strangely calm, Ava thought, as the man was taking apart his own body.

  “I haven’t been here long. It’s only been a few minutes.”

  “Interesting. Merging must have an effect on linked people,” Mark said, lapsing into thought.

  “Huh?” Ava said, bringing him back onto the subject.

  “Ah yes, well, it might seem like a few minutes. I think it might have to do with me being merged and thus processing everything faster. Your brain takes everything as being slower to compensate messing up your perception of time.”

  “The point?”

  “It’s been two days since I got to the med bay.”

  “What!?”

  “Yeah, sorry. My fault, I believe. If you want, I can do something about not feeling like total crap when you disengage.”

  “All right.” She feared coming out after two days. She felt a cool sensation spreading and then a gradual feeling of feeling better and then the cold retreating.

  “Okay, that’s it. I’ve done all of the pulling apart, anyway. Now it’s just the rebuilding so it won’t freak anyone out, hopefully. Get some rest, Medico.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  She drifted away from the tank, feeling herself coming back into her body. She opened her eyes, instantly feeling more tired than she could ever remember.

  “Ava?” Danielle, Ava’s fellow medico in the Death Dealers, rushed to Ava’s side. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, just tired.” Ava looked at her recalcitrant legs, which seemed to not want to work for some odd reason.

  “Here, get on this and sleep. Everything’s fine.” Danielle read her thoughts as she guided Ava onto the sleeping pallet beside Mark’s vat.

  “Look in on him, though don’t get weirded out—he’s just a half-formed skeleton with organs everywhere.”

  “Okay...” Danielle said.

  Ava looked at Mark’s vat, the swirling nanites the last thing she saw as sweet Morpheus took her.

  ***

  “All right, lungs almost done—just time for the Lego part,” Sarah reported to Mark as she ran the grudgingly long scan of his entire body.

  “Think it’s going to be interesting with two of us in here,” Mark said.

  “Don’t worry. There is plenty of room—you sure aren’t using it,” Sarah said cheerfully.

  “Watch it,” Mark growled back, feeling a grin on his phantom lips.

  “What the heck?” the fourth watcher since Ava left said as they looked in on Mark.

  “Calm down there, watcher. I’m almost done.” Mark saw the watcher’s hand suspiciously close to the incinerator control.

  Mark pulled his bones together, now with a carbon hendral center, which would replace the soft bone. Then came the muscles and tendons, highly dense and filled with miniature servos to get the most out of every movement. Then the organs attached them and tested them in sequence, pumping them with everything necessary. Then came the skin. The multiple layers settled down, growing together as the scraps of Mark’s old skin stretched to fit his bigger form being etched into the skin. A tattoo marked him as a trooper, with another underneath with M, A&T with a V backing it were stenciled into his now gray skin.

  Systems were coming online; other processes were growing.

  “Scan please?”

  “Everything looks functional. Growth rates are good,” Sarah said after a few seconds as she checked the sensors littered throughout his body and used the vat’s sensors as well. “So are we blowing this popsicle stand or what?”

  “I guess so. If you please, Sarah.”

  “With pleasure.”

  The bottom of the tank opened with the nanites faithfully staying inside the tank, their security locks now re-engaged, as Mark went out feet first. Boots and clothing formed on his body as he left the tank. Finally all of the way out of the tank, Sarah used the grav lift to bring him upright as he put his feet on the floor.

  He shook his hands, opening and closing them, and studying his arms as Sarah linked him to the sensors in the med bay, displaying it through his visual processors. He opened his eyes and looked down on himself as his now ingrained HUD came to life, overlaying his view.

  He was now two feet taller than before to fit everything in, standing at a dominating eight foot five and with the muscle mass he’d had in his prime to fit. He weighed over seven hundred pounds and he knew he’d be closer to nine hundred once all of his systems had replaced the old. He moved his limbs, turning and bouncing. It was strange; it wasn’t the body he’d had for nearly thirty-eight years but it felt as if it were. His peripherals saw 270 degrees, with sensors in his skin showing the rest. He could zoom up to objects three kilometers away. His blue vei
ns were now gray with a bio-nanite plasma. The nanites moved away from his hands as he touched the scars covering his body, including the tattoos on his shoulder. He smiled sadly to himself as the painful memories washed over him, letting himself remember for a few moments before he cut off the memories. They’d haunt him in the night, anyway, and he would have revenge.

  Mark looked to the sleeping form beside his vat. “Even when I’m not loopy on drugs, she’s a good-looking girl.”

  “Well, ask her out once she wakes up,” Sarah teased.

  “No,” he thought-spoke. Memories of others who had got close filled his mind. He couldn’t take it again.

  And there’s no way in hell a girl like that would want a dude like me. Mark gave Sarah an order before she could say anything. “Sitrep?”

  “Pullo is currently on his way. He’s got protection, so nothing fast—should be here in a minute and a half. Also, I have a meal already on its way here a few minutes behind him as to not freak the guards out too much.”

  “Thanks.” The feeling of hunger was catching up with him; after all, there was little in his systems. There were others who needed the organic resources more.

  His biological systems could survive for weeks, with his inorganic systems supplying their needs. He didn’t need much food, everything he consumed was broken down, refined and stored, after filling up his resource reservoirs of different materials he could happily burn through them over a long period of time. His biggest need wasn’t organic energy but direct electrical power. This could be gained through solar diodes on his skin, the organic material bio reactors or heat-dissipating power systems.

  However, he needed to have something in his systems to start. Right now, he had barely any organic materials running through his body.

  Four powered armor-wearing legionnaires marched in, their weapons pointed at the ground but ready moving. Pullo walked in after them, wearing another suit, his helmet clamped to his chest plate.

  “Hello, Mark.”

  “Pullo, do you want to move this to the supply closet down the corridor to put everyone at ease? Wounded and on-edge bodyguards don’t mix, I know.” Mark pitched his voice so Pullo could hear him but not the bodyguards.