The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Wait—nanites inside the weapon?”

  “Yup, which means no more maintenance. The gun’s broken, or needs cleaning, the nanites will take care of it. You just need to supply it with blocks and a power source if it depletes itself.”

  “Won’t the user need to have a morph level?” Michales asked.

  Dodger didn’t know when he’d arrived. Dodger looked to see the training cadre were all watching.

  “Nope, the nanites are pre-programmed; they’ll only act under certain circumstances.”

  “Mind if I try?” Michales asked, coming from the crowd.

  “Certainly, Centurion.” An armory locker appeared behind the firing line with M19As and the high-density blocks. With, conveniently, enough rifles for everyone.

  After Michales had gone through a few magazines, he turned to Mark. “It all feels real but would this even work in the real world?”

  “It would, though the coding for the nanites would be a bitch—say, a few weeks if I had a crack at it. And while it is a very nice rifle, the em-nineteen is also a very nice rifle. Sure, it doesn’t have a launcher, not the rate of fire and it breaks down. Though replacing them for the alpha version would be a bitch, swapping out millions of them. I would not want to be a part of that. I uploaded the plans to the net so any planet or person with the rights and security clearance that wants to can make it, slowly phasing it in. They’re going to have to change tactics as well, using this rifle, so I’d rather those looking for something like this find it instead of everyone using it the wrong way.”

  “All valid points. I’m going to see if I can get some quality time with a forge and test this out in the real world.”

  “By all means, sir.” Mark smiled.

  “It’s pretty fun.” Dodger switched from normal rounds to heavy rail gun rounds, to the HE rounds.

  ***

  Since the changes to his body, Mark didn’t really need to sleep, so he continued to work on “the suit.” Sarah pinged him as he was looking at weaponry. Not even the M19A would be enough.

  “Sarah, did you get access to that forge in storage?”

  “Yep, hooked up to the power. I have robots currently through the floor and are excavating materials needed.”

  “I have an idea for the space. Say, could we put this there?” He pulled a plan from his personal memories, feeling the NIAI equivalent of glee.

  “I think we could do something about that. Though we’re going to have to add this in.”

  “Also, do you have those long-range scans I was looking for?”

  “I already got access to the proper sensors and am checking the readouts. Should take two weeks to get the information we require.”

  “Did you clear your tracks?”

  “Of course. You think this is my first time doing this?” she said, agitated.

  “No oh, queen of the data and all things electronic,” Mark said sarcastically as he grinned.

  “That’s better.” She had a note of humor in her tone as she tried to sound uppity.

  Mark laughed in response, shaking his head as he returned to other, more immediate plans.

  After the first week in the sim with sleep deprivation, everyone was feeling sluggish. Even Mark was spending a little less time in his own world.

  They trained with shields and swords. It was hard and tiring work. You had to trust those around you implicitly. One screw-up and your shield wall could come apart and you’d have a Maraukian in your face.

  It was used as discipline as well as training. They learned the legion’s weapon systems, their medical procedures, their Mars armor and the legion’s defensive doctrine.

  It was the Roma Legion’s duty to assist every inhabited planet to defeat the Maraukians and give them a chance.

  Maraukians created vaults on planets, nine of them hidden in the planet. After the legion had been on a planet for eight months, they would start pouring out of these vaults and killing anything they could find.

  They were too big, strong, and fast to fight in the open, so the legion built massive defensive fortifications and held on. The Maraukians were driven to kill so much that they would suck up dead and wounded, tossing them to the rear to feed the rest of the horde and continue to press the attack.

  For two weeks, they were thrown into defensive positions and they held on, using the weapon systems, even the shield wall, to retake positions.

  ***

  “And that is the end of your tester,” Centurion Michales said after the second defensive training scenario. “Go get a beer and take some time off. You will be attached to active centuries and put on the lines soon enough. Once the threat is finished on Tricticus, then expect to be thrown into a training cycle with your new century. The legion owns you for the next twenty-five years. Welcome to the legion.”

  He got tired yells back and the newly tested legionnaires dropped out of the simulation bubbles.

  “Showers then meet in my office for the evaluations,” Michales said to the training cadre.

  Optio Joles was the first to start the evaluation discussion. “Okay, he obviously passed everything but what about working with a group? Sure, he talked to a few people here and there but he was never really part of the group.”

  Dodger removed his interface, which was created by his NIAI inputting the images directly through his optical nerve so it was invisible to the others; it was gone with a flick of his hand from his bunk. “That’s true but I’ve fought with him before on the Bollas. He cares for nothing but the people with him. I watched him kill himself to rescue one of my men who’s alive today because of him. Mark would be dead right now if he hadn’t changed his body because he saved my man. He might not be the most sociable person, but, he cares for those in his unit and around him, that’s clear. He hadn’t met the man before, yet he didn’t care as he put himself at incredible risk.”

  “Yes, he saved your man but I couldn’t trust him. When we were fighting in the sim, he was always ready to help but I found he was overly helpful. Those kinds of people always have something to hide.”

  “Many people owe him their lives, this is correct, but he does need to interact more with people. I think this is something we can work on further. I think the reason he offered his help was because he saw the Maraukians’ actions changing on your sector,” Chyna added, cleaning his mono-blade and nodding to Dodger, who nodded back. Leaving out the fact that without Mark slaving the weapons systems to himself and using them to cover Joles’s section, Joles would’ve lost it.

  “All right, so Mark passes, needs help with socialization. Next candidate.” Michales settled it and his NIAI added that to his file as he stabbed his thumb down on his pad.

  Chapter 2

  Legate Nerva’s estate

  Orbiting gardens of Ageia, Hellenic system

  6/3350

  “Nerva, I have some news,” NiDenise said in Nerva’s mind.

  “What?” Nerva looked out of his apartment and over his estate.

  It had been months since he had reached Earth, only to find out Tyler and Alexis had been murdered. Mark had been recovered, but then pronounced dead.

  Even with all of the power he commanded, he hadn’t been able to save them. He’d stayed at his estate, looking over the gardens, but inside, he felt hollow.

  It was as if his children had been murdered. It tore him up inside.

  Jerome was the only survivor of the Victors. Ortiz, Dominguez, and the Triple-Two’s who had survived, including Bobbie, Yu, and Young, had grouped together and taken control of the Victor Corporation.

  They were protected but Nerva couldn’t help but feel useless.

  “Mark is alive,” Denise said.

  Nerva sat there, thinking that he’d dreamed of the words.

  “He’s actually alive. It looks like he was stowing away on ships until he reached the Emarl system. He’s on a planet called Tricticus. Lucky for him, Legate Pullo is currently trying to defend the planet against Maraukians,” Denise said.
r />   “Tell me everything,” Nerva said. The lethargy from only moments ago fell away.

  “It seems that there was a complication on Fernix when Legionnaire Asual tried to pull him into the legion. The nanites went between his synapses instead of creating a net around them. Over the years, his brain adapted and worked around them. When he was pulled out of Earth, he healed himself up and fled. For months, he’s been traveling as far from Earth as possible. He got to Tricticus and used a NIAI. It connected to the nanites in his brain and sped him up. He nearly died from using it and a set of Mars-powered armor. He fought Maraukians hand-to-hand,” Denise said.

  “How?” Nerva watched the same recording Pullo had seen.

  “The anomaly with the NIAI and the nanites—it sped up his reaction time. It was like when the first people found the Maraukians’ up-loaders. They might have pushed us forward generations, but they burnt out their own minds to do it. Mark used his powered armor to fight. He tore his body apart and his mind. He kept fighting until he passed out from the damage,” Denise said.

  “How is he?” Nerva couldn’t just learn Mark had survived to know he died again.

  “He went through some…changes.” Denise showed a video of Mark coming out of the nanite vat, clothes forming around him. He was large, even larger than normal.

  “What kind of changes?” Nerva asked.

  “His human body wasn’t able to deal with merging, as he calls it. So, he made this body. Honestly, I don’t know how to explain it, there’s little information on it, and the scans—well, nothing can penetrate his skin. He’s covered in nanites, maybe even made of them. His bones are carbon hendral. He’s got generators, massive capacitors, and machines keeping him active. His own mind is a bio-mechanical construct that even an AI couldn’t figure out.”

  “So he rebuilt himself into this form?” Nerva had seen some crazy shit in his time. This was up there.

  “Yes.”

  Is it even Mark in there? Nerva thought privately. Do I intervene or not?

  If he did, then it would show favoritism. Mark was not some babe; he was a full-grown man. Having Nerva coming in and running over him? Nerva shook his head. He would leave Mark to his own devices.

  “Pullo has sent you a report through back channels. It was how I originally figured it out. It won’t be long until the senate gets a hold of this. Mark says that he can make a force like him, one fully capable of fighting the Maraukians on the field of battle,” Denise said.

  “If Mark makes a unit capable of that, then they’re going to want control of it.”

  “Turn it into a political tool instead of a real fighting force,” Denise said, finishing his thought.

  “Yes, and we both know how Mark will react if they try to make him another puppet. He had enough of that when he was a trooper.”

  “That wouldn’t go over smoothly.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Nerva tapped his chin in thought. “Does Damus know of this?”

  “Not yet.” It showed the kind of favor that Nerva had garnered from his people. Pullo should have reported this straight to the commander of the Roma legions. Or he could have given it to the senate to show favor with them. It would be one hell of a political coup.

  Instead, he’d given it to Nerva, asking for his advice and what he should do.

  “Denise, send a message to Pullo. I want him to create two reports, one for whoever he desires in the senate and another for Damus. He will send the first to the senate, then one to the commander of the Roma legions. I will build a case for Mark in the senate. That way, he will get more sway in the senate and the non-legion senators will approve of his angling. I will contact Damus first and make sure he knows of what is going on. That way he is covered from both avenues. People will only see that Damus is getting the information late. When he comes to a decision quick, it will show how he is resourceful and a man not to be underestimated.” Political games were like any battle tactics; he just knew a lot more about his opponents.

  “Sending.”

  “Get me a private meeting with Damus Versanti. If Mark’s plan is successful, then I want a record kept to transmit to the emperor. As the senate means well, that kind of power—I don’t think that it can rest in the hands of men and women who are playing the game of politics instead of trying the best for their people.” Nerva stood and went to the bathroom.

  “Sir,” Denise said.

  For the first time in a few months, Nerva felt alive. He would leave Mark to wage his own battles, but he would support him however he needed to.

  He looked at the beard that had formed. A shower and a shave later, he looked like the real Legate Nerva. His cold blue eyes looked back at him.

  Tyler and Alexis’s losses weighed on him. The losses of every person at his command weighed on him. Though he had been left behind, he was not going to waste his life in grieving.

  There’s work to be done.

  “Damus Versanti, the commander of Roma’s legions, has agreed to a meeting, tonight. Pullo has replied with his thanks and asks for you to review the details of his submissions before he sends them,” Denise said.

  “Very well. Call up my guard. I think we should take a walk around the estate. Been cooped up too long and we can work on fine-tuning our plan,” Nerva thought-spoke.

  “Yes, sir.” Denise sounded enthusiastic.

  Chapter 3

  Legionnaire Tower

  Roma, Hellenic system

  7/3350

  Commander of Roma’s legions Damus Versanti had been fighting Maraukians since he was eighteen and joined the legion. He’d been born on Roma and happily taken his rail gun and popped Maraukian skulls. He still had the scars from when it had gotten close and it looked as if he wouldn’t be making it home after all; indeed, many of his friends hadn’t. Damus Versanti had worked his way through the ranks of merit, learning too late that officer’s positions needed filling and he was headed that way instead of back to the battlefield he craved to make a difference on.

  He’d become a paper pusher after seventy-three years of fighting. Instead of quitting, he saw it as his duty to help keep the legion running from the top. So, his reluctance for getting farther from the battlefield turned into a burning passion. Two wives and two hundred and fifteen years later, he reached the top, becoming the thirty-first Roma’s legions’ legate, commander of the Roma’s legions’ ground forces. Still working to keep his people alive however he could, now from above rather than on the battlefield.

  He’d been going through reports on a newly cleared world in the Theta system when Legate Pullo on Tricticus contacted him.

  The games begin. He remembered the meeting that he had not had with Legate Nerva. His political feelers had already started to hear some rumors of a political alliance moving to capitalize on Mark Victor’s revelations.

  “Roma’s Legions’ Legatus legionis Damus.” Pullo saluted.

  “Pullo, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Well, an old comrade of mine has appeared and as per his norm, stirred up something. I’m sending over the information as I have it to you. Basically, he has something that could allow a centuria of eighty suits with the right fire support and resupply to attack Maraukians.”

  “Is this the man I’ve been hearing so much about, this Mark Victor?” A screen opened as a third man studied Pullo through the real-time link.

  Damus sighed, thinking he was going to need to upgrade his long-range communication codes again. “Pullo, I believe you’ve heard of Charles Welckt before?”

  “Yes, the head of suit research and development.”

  “He’s good,” Charles said.

  “Charles,” Damus said in a warning tone, feeling the need to rub his brow.

  “Not trying to be rude, but how have you heard of Mark Victor?” Pullo’s eyes were like glaciers, making Charles gulp before he went on.

  “Well, I saw his plans on the net, of course. They’re under some of the best security I’ve seen, and I think he was mak
ing it easy for me to find them. Everyone else I’ve asked to try to find them hasn’t been able to.”

  “Which plans?” Damus asked.

  “Well, the plans for the Pluto-powered armor.”

  “He already started on it?” Damus directed his question to Pullo.

  “Well, of course. What do you want him to do? Sit there and twiddle his thumbs instead of work on coding from the base up, which is as complex as a class-six AI on the surface for normal operations and then a class eight for when he and his AI merge? It’s the most complicated coding I’ve ever seen. The components are incredible. He brought together and combined theories I’ve been working on. Then there’s the nanites! They work on a—”

  “Thank you, Charles,” Damus said, the man not realizing who Damus had actually addressed with his question.

  “Pullo, in your opinion, is this man trustworthy? I do see he arrived by climbing aboard a supply shuttle at Earth.”

  “Yes, fortune does favor us. I trust this man more than I trust my mother—if I knew her.”

  Damus held Pullo’s eyes his expression heavy as he frowned.

  “Will you say yes already? Or I’m going to go there anyway and make the damned thing,” Charles said, not willing to wait around.

  “Charles, you’re needed here for development.”

  “All right then, I quit and request to have my retirement on Tricticus.”

  “You want to do this that much?” Damus couldn’t hide his surprise of Charles even thinking of leaving the post he loved. Charles was so attached to his department—even his workshop—it was rare for him to want to go anywhere else to work on a project. Let alone quitting just to get this one.

  “Yes, you don’t understand, Damus. This suit isn’t just a bigger version of the Mars. It’s a few centuries ahead of anything I’ve even thought of. Sure, he took my basic ideas here and there but he combined them with information I didn’t even know existed. This suit by itself, if reversed engineered into components, could bring along a revolution in technology.”