“Uh, where have you been?” Danielle’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t missed the others’ reaction.
“Training. I’m in an experimental unit.”
“Oh. Well, are you done now?”
Ava looked up at Mark, who let a bare grin go, as well as the others.
“I think I’m only just starting,” Ava said, getting a few laughs.
“Oh, well, uh, I’ll see you around then,” Danielle said with a nervous smile as Ava waved good-bye.
“Looks like we’ve changed more than we knew,” Ava said to the others.
“Yes, you have. Meet me in the simulator tomorrow. Take the night off, get a beer, some sleep and a shower.” Mark looked to them.
They all agreed.
Mark stood. His nanites had already eaten through the meal.
“That’s got to suck, absorbing food instead of eating it,” Dodger said.
“I’d think it is pretty economical,” Chyna said.
“Of course you would,” Ava said.
Chyna grinned at her. Their relationship had changed from teacher and pupil to comrades and fellow students. He still had a lot to teach Ava, but there had been a shift.
Chapter 22
Senator Rimateus’s Estate
Roma, Hellenic system
11/3351
Rimateus looked up from his reclined position, waving the servant feeding him out of the way as the messenger moved closer, kneeling and bowing to the senator.
Rimateus was a good-looking man, a well-shaped beard along a strong jawline and hair done up in the latest fashion. His image made him look amicable, easy to approach and quick to smile.
In the outer systems and empire, there were few more powerful than a sitting Roma senator. A senator could walk through the worst planets and no one would lay a finger on them. Doing so would doom the entire planet.
On their estates, they were more powerful than gods. Servants who served a well-to-do senator would do anything to retain the position. The honor it brought on their family, and the stipend, was generous.
Rimateus’s guests continued their conversations. He didn’t doubt that they were all listening to him.
He was a rising star in the senate. He had taken his father’s power and turned it into a small empire in its own right. His father had been a legate, his mother from a well-to-do merchant family. Rimateus had studied politics and the art of rhetoric as a child.
He’d quickly learned how to turn people over to his side and move through any obstacles he found. The senate, and the Union: it was the greatest game he had played yet.
People had made talk of him making a play for the emperor’s seat.
Rimateus wasn’t that foolish. The emperor was powerful and the legions loyal to him. Although being emperor would bring great power, it wouldn’t allow Rimateus to bicker and play with his current position. The backdoor deals, the maneuvering, gathering of allies and suspecting spies: it was what kept him alive.
Rimateus smiled at the messenger. He could have turned his NIAI on but having someone relay the messages to him only further elevated his position.
Every gesture and motion was a display in some way.
“Senator, one of your friends from the house wishes to pass on a message. They say it is of great importance.” The messenger’s voice was monotone, keeping away from titles and names.
Rimateus held his chin in thought. They wouldn’t want to talk to me personally other thab to make themselves look more powerful, or to tell me something of grave importance.
“Who is it?” Rimateus asked his head of household, Marcelle Saubon.
“Senator Rufius,” Saubon said.
Rimateus nodded and rose from his simple but elegant chair and addressed those around him.
“I am most sorry, but the Union does not stop. Please excuse me. I believe a sampling of our fine friend Caecius’s fine winter wine is next.” Rimateus gestured to the plump woman who owned the vineyard and other larger companies.
Rimateus smiled and gave a slight bow as the room turned into Caecius’s auditorium. The woman was a quick riser; with Rimateus’s backing, he could turn her into a true player and ally for life.
He stepped out of the room and walked to his office.
Standing there was a perfect hologram of Senator Rufius. He was one of the old guard who wanted the power to stay in Roma and with the senate. He constantly thought there was someone trying to take power away from them.
Rimateus didn’t want to see power going anywhere else, so they had made good allies.
“Senator Rufius, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Rimateus smiled at the man, as if he weren’t peeved at him for messing with his dinner plans.
“A little bird of mine has some rather interesting information. I can hardly believe it myself. I thought it was a hoax until I saw a recording.” Rufius looked troubled.
The old man had served with the legions. Seeing him troubled raised Rimateus’s hackles.
“A new unit is forming. It will take people and give them abilities, and if they’re successful, armor which will allow them to fight Maraukians.”
Rimateus cocked his head, not sure what the old man was saying.
“Instead of hiding behind walls, they can go out and hunt the bastards down,” Rufius said, annoyed he had to explain it.
“Where is this happening?” Rimateus asked, wondering how long this information had been circulating.
“Emarl system, some backwater. They’re still fighting the Maraukian vault on the planet. I have a confident source that knows the CRL won’t be getting a report for another two weeks.” Rufius smiled.
Impressive. If we can pull one over on the commander of Roma’s legions, maybe we can start looking at inserting our own people.
“Why is this happening in a backwater planet instead of here?” Rimateus’s expression darkened.
“That’s what I was thinking. That’s not all. They’re allowing auxiliaries to try out for these new positions. Don’t think that proper legionnaires have the stones to do the fighting.” Rufius was incensed, building himself into a rage.
“This will not stand,” Rimateus promised, taking a breath. “I have guests here at the moment. Once they have left, I will make some calls and we shall start to put together a plan to have this program moved to Roma.”
“Understood,” Rufius said.
“We must go into this with level heads and a clear plan,” Rimateus said, hoping it got through to the other senator.
“A real plan of battle to beat that patsy Damus over the head with,” Rufius agreed, expanding his chest and standing straighter.
“Exactly. Now I must go, but thank you for the trust you’ve placed in me. Know I am honored you thought of me.” Rimateus bowed his head slightly.
“There is not a man in the senate I could think of who would know what to do better with this information. I was ready to spread it across the Senate House, but you’ve cooled my temptations. I might be an old man, but sometimes the fiery blood of my youth comes back.” Rufius smiled.
I know. I’ve seen the pictures of the girls you visit in those brothels.
“Quite. If we had ten more of your stature, we might have all of the legions stronger because of it!” Rimateus was laying it on thick, but he needed the other senator to trust him on this.
“You embarrass me with your praise. I will let you get back to your party. I hope we can meet soon to discuss matters,” Rufius said.
“You have my word.” Rimateus bowed.
Rufius returned it and canceled the hologram.
Well, this will be an interesting month. Rimateus left his office and headed for his courtyard, where his guests were laughing at Caecius’s wit.
“Are we safe from the brutes, Senator?” Caecius smiled. It looked as if she knew how the game was played, making him once again the master of ceremonies.
“Yes, they have been dealt with, one pesky bit of paperwork at a time. I swear, you’d think they’d do awa
y with the papyrus and scrolls!” Rimateus shook his head in mock sadness, getting chuckles and tittering laughter from his guests as a servant held him a glass.
He sipped it.
“So, where were we?” He lay back down on his reclined seat.
Chapter 23
Camp Epsilon
Tricticus, Emarl system
12/3351
Mark leaned against a wall of the room as they followed shortly after gathering around. He looked at all of their faces and stepped off the wall as he walked in front of them.
“So now is the time to decide if you really want to continue. I won’t pressure you in to this or out of this. It is your own decision and it’s too big for me to force you to do it. There will be no going back if you decide to continue.”
Dodger looked to the others, Mark practically feeling the net alive with their conversation.
“We’ve come this far—let’s take it all the way,” Dodger said.
“Are you all sure?”
“You bet your nanite-filled ass,” Ava said to the grinning nods of Jarek and Dodger, with the polite bow of Chyna.
“All right then, so how long do you want off?”
“Want off? Mark, we’ve got roughly eight hundred candidates we need to whittle down to people crazy enough as us. We can’t take time off, not until we get through this,” Jarek said.
“As Jarek says,” Chyna said with a slanted nod.
“So how is this going to work?” Ava asked.
“Say hello to your blanks.” Mark took them into a room. There were four bodies in medical tanks which hadn’t been flooded with nanites yet.
Beside them were empty and waiting medical tanks.
Each of them were given a way point. They walked to the bodies, seeing familiar features.
“What is this?” A chill ran down Ava’s spine as she looked down on a body which seemed to have been half-formed—a scaled-up version of herself.
“To become Elves, you must destroy yourselves. Lose your human body in order to become the protectors of humanity. I was able to break myself down and reconstitute myself into this for you to see. My way—not many will survive this. This is your chance. Your minds will be destroyed, ripped apart and transferred into your blank. It’s unformed, clean of all influences. They will be your bodies. All I’ve done is put the clay at your fingertips,” Mark said.
“We destroy our minds and transfer ourselves into the blanks. Into these bodies?” Jarek confirmed.
“Yes,” Mark said.
“Will it hurt?” Dodger asked.
“I don’t know.” Mark shrugged.
“We’ve come this far.” Chyna got into the empty medical tank next to his blank. Nanites flooded into both chambers.
“Once you do this, there is no going back. The current form you are in will be useless. Its mind and nervous systems pulled apart to create a map for the new blank.” Mark looked to them.
Ava stepped into her medical tank before she could think of it too much. Jarek and Dodger did the same.
The nanites started flowing over her and she felt herself calm as drugs were injected into her system.
Then the pain started.
***
The screams had devolved into noises a few seconds ago. Mark felt sorry for his friends. It was apparently as painful as his own experience, by the screams.
“Strange to think in a few moments we’ll no longer be alone,” Sarah said, taking Mark’s mind off their pain.
“Yeah.” Mark was tense, wondering whether there was any way he could make the process less painful.
“Why did you add in the extra program with all of your personal information?”
“Trust, Sarah.” He could feel her confusion. “I’m going to be fighting alongside these people in the future. How do I expect them to trust me if they don’t know who I truly am? All they know is Mark Victor, a man without a past before stepping on a supply shuttle and ending up here.”
“They trust you anyway. Why jeopardize that?”
“For exactly that reason—because they trust me, I must trust them.”
“Damn humans, always over complicating things.”
Mark just smiled to himself as he merged, absorbing information and trying to figure out why he’d been on that shuttle or who had made Sarah for him. As well as where the Maraukians came from.
***
Ava felt herself move. The pain was gone. It was as though she were waking from a nightmare. As if she had left behind weights she’d been carrying all of her life. Her mind was open to the net, the information, the possibilities. She pulled herself away from it as she not only felt the power in her new body, she understood it and knew it.
Systems started to come online throughout her body. Energy, like a slow trickle, grew, flooding and empowering her.
Then a connection snapped into existence; there was another, a light in the net. A beacon not quite human and not quite AI.
“Hello, Ava.” Mark’s voice passed through her mind. It wasn’t like someone talking on the net. She could hear the emotion in his voice, and it was fast.
“You’ll get used to it.” He sounded amused.
There was another consciousness—Chyna—then Dodger and Jarek.
She sent commands to the medical tank and her body.
Nanites not part of her drained away as legion fatigues covered her body.
She sat up and looked at her hands. They were gray with silver veins.
Mark’s “skin” changed, turning to the same grays and silvers.
Only their eyes showed different colors.
It was a lot to take in: The information of the net. The feedback from her body. How much she could see. The temperature in the room. The darkest shadows.
It was all sensory overload.
“Bit by bit, you’ll start to get used to it. For now, just go to basic functions. We’ll get in the simulator and you can start seeing your new limits.”
Mark turned and walked out of the room. Ava looked to where she had gotten into the medical tank. It drained away to show nothing; her body had been pulled apart in order to implant her into her new body.
There’s no going back now.
She stood with the others and followed Mark, looking at the world with new eyes.
Mark didn’t pause walking into the simulation room and right into a bubble.
Mark ran them through the most grueling course Ava had ever seen or heard of. They pushed their bodies in ways they couldn’t even imagine. They finished the stairs in under an hour instead of in five, only breathing hard for a couple of seconds, and did it again. They lifted, pushed, and pulled weights—at one point, even pulling Ares fighters.
After two days, they arrived at what looked like a small base with a simple outer wall connected to a main hub via spider web-looking hallways.
“Now you know how your bodies work some, we’ll begin with the second part of training: using merging and the Pluto-powered armor.”
They communicated on a near instantaneous level. They could communicate on the net as fast as they could think. Information could be sent in a file, the recipients’ NIAI integrating the information into its memory banks. Communication was their greatest tool, someone didn’t know how to do something they pulled memories from the others, without a pause they went from not knowing what they were doing to a veteran. This increased their reaction speed to an unbelievable level.
They were like one being, separated into different independent units. They breached the wall of individuality, crossing into the realm of hive mind, taking the strengths of both thought processes.
“We have two months sim time to learn everything there is about merging, your new bodies and what the Pluto-powered armor can do. We also need to make a playbook for tactics.”
“Well, I guess we better get started then.” Dodger grinned as Pluto-powered armor appeared behind him and he walked backward into it.
Mark grinned as he and the others did the same, the
desert changing to a mountain range.
Chapter 24
Camp Epsilon
Tricticus, Emarl system
1/3352
“It’s as Damus said. The entire force is being dedicated to finding out what they can do.” Charles sat down with Jess, Gomez, and Maxine, all from the design team, after their first inspection of the new recruits who were getting the Pluto-powered armor.
“We know how they need to be used. We don’t know all of the abilities of the suit, though, which makes me agree slightly with the senate’s ruling.” Gomez shrugged.
“From a practical standpoint, I agree with them, but the fact the Maraukians now have the A-drive, allowing them to hit us anywhere, means we need everything we’ve got to fight them. We need Elves to fight them where they land. Able to be the vanguard to clear out areas for us to drop legionnaires in.” Charles made a chopping motion for every point.
“Mark is about to start training his force on Tricticus,” Maxine said.
“Yes but we need a force, the size of a legion. He might have half of a century if he’s lucky and then he has to make the suits and who knows when they’ll be pulled off Tricticus to do anything. That doesn’t bring in the fact the senate will go apoplectic if they find out there’s a combat-ready group of Elves out there they didn’t know of.”
“Mark also sent some plans for a few toys,” Charles said.
Maxine grinned, tapping her chin in thought. “Well, we do have all of that production power and I don’t see us needing all of it for suits.”
“I’d say we need about twenty percent, at least, for further development,” Jess said thoughtfully. The corners of her mouth lifted upward.
“It’d only be right,” Gomez agreed.
“Plus there are all of those machine shops that are just sitting there. Plenty of automated machinery to work on ammunition blocks, too,” Charles added. His eyes danced as they brought up their interfaces.
Chapter 25
Camp Epsilon
Tricticus, Emarl system
2/3352
Evan Miles watched as a drop-ship was placed on its cradle by anti-grav lifts. The drop-ship’s ramps released as people carrying a duffel, each wearing either the blue uniforms of Crisidium or the green of Gtrul, scanned the massive room and walked toward the awaiting legionnaires in their desert camouflage fatigues.
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 17
