Chapter 21

Subject: Agent Jim Crawford

Jim smiled as he reviewed the combat data from the ground. He destroyed the toothpick between his teeth, splitting it into a wet mass of flimsy splinters. Jim swapped it for a new one, then muttered to no one, “goddamn that was close.”

“Extremely close,” Wraith chimed in, uninvited. “Had I known the full combat strength of the Adversary’s ground element I would advised an entirely different plan.”

“It worked out just fine Wraith,” Jim said. “What’s the latest from the ground?” 

“Estevez is actually waiting to brief you on that, and Nilson is very excited about something,” Wraith responded. Jim looked at the time, 0954 ship time. Just a few minutes before the mid-day round up.

“Yeah, alright,” Jim squinted his right eye and activated an optic overlay. A list jumped into his vision.

Situation on ground - Estevez

Missing Adversary ship - Anae or Nilson

Place to put colonists - Pruitt

Way to get samples off world - Mad Doctor

“Looky there! She’s first on the list. Alright, put her up on the screen,” Jim lay back in his chair and sipped a special cocktail from the Wraith’s sick bay. Booze was illegal aboard most government vessels, but stims weren’t. In fact, the Wraith had an extensive pharmacopeia, and the experimental blending of mood stabilizers, uppers, downers, focus drugs, euphorics, and every other combat stimulant was becoming one of Jim’s favorite pastimes. This one tasted like ginger and it made his fingertips buzz; Jim appraised it like a fine scotch. 

Estevez appeared on the screen before him, a picture of military perfection. Jim smiled a greeting, and Estevez started on her prepared briefing, “Sir- uh, Jim. It’s now fifty hours local since commencing orbital firefighting and it looks like the backburn operation will be successful, however much of New Carthage was destroyed in the bioweapon attack. Several elements of critical infrastructure are fully destroyed, and we estimate in excess of forty thousand casualties.” 

“That low?” Jim asked. The destruction was immense, and Jim had ordered an orbital strike inside the town that leveled an entire district and ignited a firestorm that still burned. Plus, thousands of bizarre monstrosities had swept through the city and overwhelmed every defense that was put up.

“It’s probably much higher but every ground based public safety system is offline, so we are guessing based on population density in destroyed areas. There’s some interesting data that I wanted to make you aware of.”

“Interesting! Okay, let’s hear it,” Jim said, taking a sip of his cocktail. The tip of his nose was buzzing now, but Jim felt sharp and focused. 

“Well, we’ve cataloged eighteen unique variants of bioweapon ground troops present in the assault on New Carthage. Each variation seems to be a mix of human features and those found in local fauna, as though the bioweapon is building off of the traits found in the nearby environment,” Estevez paused to take a breath. “Also, we’ve seen changes in the variants over the course of the assault, which seems to indicate that they are not only communicating, but rapidly adapting. We’ve seen some adopt armored plating that is largely resistant to non-AP weaponry.”

“Do you think these thing have a hive mind, Estevez?” Jim asked, stroking his beard. 

“They definitely seem to behave like a shared-mind organism, but we don’t have really any insight beyond what we can see from orbit. There’s one more significant thing that is disturbing.” A series of graphs populated the screen and Jim looked up at them, attempting to discern the meaning. They seemed to be atmospheric data. 

“Oxygen concentration in the air has dropped nearly half a percent over the past week, and volatile organics have increased dramatically, with the highest concentrations nearest the nurseries. Combat suit data from the assault on their burrow showed an acutely toxic level of volatiles inside their burrow, and a lower level outside,” Estevez took a breath as though she was about to explain but Jim got it immediately. 

“They’re fucking terraforming! That’s it! This isn’t a bioweapon so much as a tool for terraforming worlds!” Jim exclaimed, delighted in the discovery. 

“Well, I wouldn’t have said it with that level of confidence, but that’s kind of what it looks like,” Estevez added, shrugging. 

“Fantastic work, Estevez. Anything else? Anything you need?” Jim asked. 

“I’d like drop monitoring probes to supplement the weather stations that were destroyed in the fire, but aside from that, it’s just crunching numbers. Wraith is extremely helpful with that.” 

“Probes or whatever science bullshit you want are automatically approved, don’t even send in a request. Wraith, you hear that?”

“I’ve noted it, Jim,” Wraith responded.

“Of course you have you creepy bastard, you never stop listening and I love you for it. Catch you soon Estevez, keep up the good work,” Jim dropped the connection. 

A terraforming, hive-mind, planet killing bioweapon that either has the technology for interdimensional travel or is native to a pocket dimension that lacks any known substantial matter. He’d be questioning his sanity if the context was any different, but here he was, looking at the evidence face on. Plain as day. 

Newly discovered alien life could be capable of anything. Space is effectively unlimited, and mankind had found life to be abundant, with endless permutations and solutions. The creatures on the surface seemed to attack as one, all at once, as though each individual was an organ or part of a greater whole. Jim wondered if the elusive Adversary ship was a part of that greater whole as well. 

“Wraith, I want you to consider the possibility that the bioweapon is being controlled and guided by the last remaining Adversary ship. You and Estevez see what you can think about that, and figure if we can use it to our advantage,” Jim said. He loved having an AI and smart people he could pawn this sort of vague workload off onto. He could dream up just about any mad idea and reliably expect his staff to make it reality.

“Interesting idea Jim. We will look into it. Are you ready for Admiral Nilson?” Wraith responded. Jim stood, stretched, sipped his drink, then sat back down and nodded yes. Nilson appeared on the display, looking excited. 

“Admiral Nilson! What can I do for ya sir?” Jim said, effectuating his best salesman enthusiasm. 

“Jim, good to see you. I’ve got an idea for helping to track down the Adversary ship but I wanted your blessing before I did it.” Nilson said. 

“You’re the fleet commander, you can kind of do what you want and just let me know you’re going to do it,” Jim replied. It was true that Nilson was in charge of the fleet, but only because that authority had been delegated to him by Jim. Anything of any real importance would be Jim’s call. But, his experience with naval flag officers was that they operated better when they felt like they were the boss. And so it was. 

“Yeah, I know, but this is going to expend a lot of your munitions and I don’t know if you have some top secret gizmo that can do it cheaper.” Nilson replied. Jim was intrigued, again. 

“You tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if I think you can do it better with a secret gizmo, alright?” Jim sipped his drink. 

“Well, I don’t want to pull the stealth ships out of stealth and play our hand, but I also don’t want to send our ships out too far from the planet without knowing where that last enemy is. So, I’m proposing we remove the warhead out of twenty of the battlecruiser’s complement of long range interplanetary missiles, fill it with an auxiliary fuel tank instead, and outfit them with networking nodes and an active sensor suite. Send the missiles out as scouts. Have them go loud and search around the system. With an auxiliary fuel tank those things should be able to loop the system twice. Plus, that leaves us with four cruise missiles in case we needed to kill something big with them.” Nilson rested his hands at his sides and looked ahead eagerly. 

Jim had actually done something like this before. He had scout missiles added to the stealth destroyer’s standard complement specifically for collecting data from around things that were too dangerous to get up close to with a warship. But, they weren’t the big interplanetary ones. The big ones opened up possibilities that Jim hadn’t considered. Could he pair FTL communications links and link each missile back to the Wraith? The fleet had a system they called ‘Panopticon’, which achieved FTL sensor coverage over an entire system, but it involved a small fleet of sensor frigates. Jim wondered if he could do the same with missiles. 

“Nilson, hang on a minute I’m gonna put you on mute,” Jim paused the link and addressed Wraith, “can we put FTL comms links in those missiles?”

“No. It would require a custom missile housing and advanced manufacturing to fit the power source inside of the missile. I’ll work on a prototype for future missions.” Wraith responded, one step ahead of Jim. Jim sipped his drink and found it was mostly water from the melting ice. He set it down, frowned, and resumed the call. 

“Sorry Nilson, I had to check on my gizmos. Yeah, it’s a great plan. Do it. I can’t make it any better with what I’ve got. When you find the bastard don’t kill it right away, I’m curious about taking a look at it first,” Jim said. Nilson was an outside the box thinker. He’d be high on Jim’s list of recommendations for the next experimental warship project. 

“Thank you for the support Jim, I’m on it. Rear Admiral Nilson out,” Nilson dropped the call.

Jim stroked his beard and pulled up the to-do list again. 

Place to put colonists - Pruitt

“Oh this is gonna be fun,” Jim said, giggling and rubbing his hands together. He’d been looking forward to this one. Pruitt was one of those guys that always got the job done, but never without bitching about it for a good long while first. Normally, the bitching annoyed Jim, but with Pruitt, his complaints were basically always entirely reasonable. Jim’s borderline impossible requests sent Pruitt into a tirade every time, and Jim actually started looking forward to it. This next one was a real doozy. Jim ordered Wraith to make the call and sat back, smiling. 

Pruitt answered after a few minutes, wiping sweat off his brow as he answered, “oh great, it’s you. What do you have for me now?” 

Jim’s smile widened. “Congratulations Pruitt, you’ve been promoted from Chief Engineer to Chief Figurer-Outer of where to put about sixty thousand colonists!”

“Uh, easy,” Pruitt said, “on the fucking colony. On the planet.”

“Nope! Planet’s fucked Pruitt, gotta get ‘em off it. And the best part is, they’re all an isolation hazard and there can be a grand total of ZERO contact allowed between any of them and any of us, or our ships.” Jim smiled and waited for the bitching to start. 

“Are you fucking crazy?” Pruitt said, dropping a tool out of his hand to the floor. “Sixty THOUSAND? I could take maybe SIXTY. TOTAL.”

“Yeah well, good news is they’re dying pretty quick, so the number keeps getting smaller. I figure you find ways to pack more and more onto the station, while the number you have on the ground gets smaller, and eventually we find a happy medium,” Jim shrugged. 

“God damn Jim, you know what you’re asking right? This station is a piece of shit and it was never finished. Even if it WAS finished, which it isn’t, it was only meant to hold something like five thousand people. Sure, there’s lots of empty space around here, but what there isn’t enough of is, oh I dunno. Food. Water. AIR! Sixty thousand people taking their daily shit is probably enough to blow up the current life support by it’s self.” 

“Are you done, Pruitt?” Jim asked.

“You’re the worst boss I've ever had,” Pruitt said, defeated. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility for your success too,” Jim winked, and Pruitt let out an forced laugh. “Reach out to Estevez and Wraith for ideas and support. You can use any excess crew power on the Vengeance. That ship is operating well under what it was designed for on this one, and I’m sure there’s tons of technicians and shit just standing around wishing for backbreaking labor. Also, I will reassign fleet assets to you if needed. The e-war cruiser and the frigate are yours, obviously. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“A new job would be great,“ Pruitt gave a rude, overly dramatic salute and signed off. 

Alright, last one of the bunch Jim thought. He was thoroughly enjoying being the middle man on this one. He got to sit back and direct the madness. Coordinate his minions. Watch as he gave order to the chaos. And best of all, no one to compromise with.

That being said, Jim was getting fairly nervous about his chances of getting the samples off the surface of the planet. He’d watched the security team get ripped to shreds. Even though they’d been successful at moving the high valued asset from one spot to another, they still had to get the damn things somewhere suitable enough for a shuttle to pick them up. His ideas kept running up against reality, and he eventually found that he had to define and refine the mission parameters so precisely, that he only really had two options. 

Option one: send in one of his extremely valuable and not-really expendable Hazardous Environment Reconnaissance Teams, or HERTs as they called them. They were badasses. Post-human, weird, and downright supernatural as far as Jim could tell. Every SIU agent had a team of the freaky bastards. But, given the nature of the bioweapon, he’d have to quarantine his HERT hit-team until they could figure out a way to 100%, no doubt, decontaminate them. That could take a long time, and could fail. The risk was high, but it was his for-sure solution for recovery of the asset. 

Option two, well. He had to consult the Mad Doctor on that one. “Wraith, put in a call to Doctor Susewind,” Jim ordered. Susewind was an eccentric by all accounts. A master of biological manipulation. His team was legendary among the few people allowed to know about his doings, and his status as an indentured criminal meant that he was entirely committed to ethically questionable off-the-books projects. Jim’s senior rank in the SIU gave him privilege to haul around the Mad Doctor and his bizarre and terrible creations. 

Susewind answered; he was wearing a surgical outfit and appeared to have blood spattered across his upper chest. “Ahhhh Mister Jim! To what do I have the pleasure?” Susewind asked. 

“Well, I have kind of a weird problem and I figured you were the man for the job,” Jim said. As he spoke, Susewind pulled his facemark off with bloody, gloved hands. “You see, I’ve got a high value asset on the surface that I need to get up here.”

“Yes, yes, the samples. I know all about that. I’ve already spoken to Doctor Carney,” Susewind said, pulling his bloodied gloves off. Susewind had barely thrown his gloves in the trash when he started putting shit into his mouth. What the fuck was that? Jim wondered, is he eating goddamn candy? 

Jim’s stomach flipped. Not a lot got to him, but this sure did, “is now a bad time? You want to have lunch and get back to me?”

“No, its a fine time. And I’m quite alright, I have a snack right here,” Susewind smiled and held up a jar of small, multicolored round candies. Jim wished he had another drink. 

“Alright you sick bastard. Here’s the deal. You know the security sergeant down there that damn near got ripped in two?” Jim said.

“Yes, of course. I check in on battlefield fatalities any time my equipment is used. The recon armor did a fantastic job of stabilizing the wearer. She’s alive, you know. That kind of trauma would have killed her outright had I not modified the trauma module on that armor model.” Susewind examined a candy before popping it into his mouth. 

“You think she’s a good candidate for a sort of ad-hoc Pathfinder? Send down some chrome and make her a Chimera? Badass enough to get the samples to a heavy-lift shuttle?” Jim felt like the mad doctor would jump on the opportunity to try some weird shit, but he’d been surprised before. 

“Uhm, yes. Well, I don’t see why not. The planned mission is short, right?” Susewind rolled a few of the candies around in his hand as he stared off into space, mulling over the idea. 

“Yeah, few hours probably. Just gotta go from point A to point B.” Jim watched Susewind think for a moment before he offered up a carrot. “You can get weird with it if you want, test out your mad science.”

“Ah of course I can do it, but this is the type of situation that I wait years for, you understand? I have basically a blank check and freedom to do whatever I want, just so long as it meets the mission parameter of ‘retrieve the object’, yes? Subject stability is not an issue?” Susewind was testing his boundaries. Honestly, Jim didn’t care what he did, so long as the goddamn samples made it into space intact and he got to keep his HERT in reserve. 

“Subject stability doesn’t matter, this is going to be a short duration mission. Few hours tops. We can test overclocking the new Pathfinder armor or whatever you have on your to-do list. You have full creative freedom to coordinate with the folks on the ground. I even had the good foresight to have them hunker down in a fully equipped cybernetics lab,” Jim said, winking. Susewind’s giggled. It made Jim’s skin crawl, and for a moment he felt uneasy about giving the man free reign. Maybe he oughta dial it back a bit, he thought. 

“Look I know I’m saying do whatever it takes, but remember this is in pursuit of a goal. Don’t do something super fucking weird that’s going to get me in the hot seat for green lighting, alright you fucking lunatic?” Jim said.

“Watch me, Jim, this is how progress is made,” Susewind growled.  

Chapter 22

Subject: Admiral Nilson

Admiral Nilson stood at his tactical display, watching as waves of missiles burned in circular arc around the planet. He’d paired the missiles up, each two being loaded with different sensor payloads. Each pair destined to fling themselves to the edge of the system at slightly different vectors. A minor deviation in thrust or angle as they broke orbit over Oasis III having an immense impact on the final resting place of each pair. 

Nilson was feeling good, finally. Jim had given him a great deal of space after taking command over the system, and Nilson had needed it. He’d ran his crew ragged running training drills and simulations for killing the last Adversary before his new XO, Lieutenant Sahr, pulled him aside and suggested Nilson take some time to grieve. And grieve Nilson did. 

Losing thousands of spacers in the battles across the system had taken one hell of a toll on Nilson’s confidence. Sending dedicated and brave people to their deaths is a horrible burden to have to bear. In the end, it was Wraith who actually brought him out of his self-loathing.

“I’ve analyzed every moment of every battle from every sensor recording across every ship, multiple times, Admiral Nilson. I have ran a variety of simulations to estimate the performance of the Adversary ships against standard formations of UHDN fleet forces. I do this as a matter of objective reasoning; to understand the threat and attempt to provide advice to fleet commanders that may face down this enemy. In this case, your performance as an admiral was such an outlier that it has substantially affected my evaluation of our readiness. Simply put, your unusual tactics and manner of thinking was so effective that I cannot adequately rate fleet readiness against this enemy, due to the ‘human factor’ involved. I can only estimate that a fleet following standard tactics would have most likely been destroyed outright in the first engagement,” the AI had explained.

Nilson watched the simulations and the recreations, and tried to think about the situation from an academy perspective. The textbook of space combat was famously flexible. Every question is answered with, ‘it depends’. To Wraith’s point, however, favored doctrine is to meet the enemy with overwhelming numbers, and where numbers fail, overwhelming firepower. Wraith estimated that the majority of admirals would have dispatched the entire force, and that most would have attempted a hammer and anvil style attack on the Adversary around Oasis V.

Nilson watched in stunned silence as simulation after simulation of generally solid tactics were met with absolute destruction. One simulation involved the fleet attacking with the frigates as a screening force for the destroyers and heavy cruiser, with the patrol cruisers launching a sweeping flank attack by using a gravity assist around the gas giant. Not a clever plan, but a plan he could have easily picked. It was met with total destruction and system domination by the enemy. The simple fact was, the Adversary beam weapon could kill a destroyer in one hit, and it couldn’t be dodged. It was a light speed weapon, and extremely dangerous.

But, the danger did somewhat simplify Nilson’s current orders. Once he found the enemy, he had to kill it without getting within range of it’s beam. There goes nearly all his weaponry, and by extension battle tactics, right out the window. He had either terrain or missiles as his main weapons. 

The unknown piece, however, was the capability the new destroyer squadron had. Jim was a weird one, he wouldn’t tell you anything you didn’t need to know, but he absolutely reveled in the disclosure once you gave him an excuse to talk. The Darkstar Experimental Stealth Destroyers were clearly something special, and Jim wouldn’t budge on the details, not even in the slightest. Nilson could see the Blazar in orbit around Oasis III, and it was certainly an impressive looking ship. Much larger than a standard destroyer, and far more angular. The Blazar had three main engines and four auxiliary boosters. Some sort of reactionless drive seemed to be responsible for stationkeeping and attitude adjustments, and Nilson could only speculate as to how the hell the things stayed invisible to his systems. 

“Anomaly on scopes; identified as track 2121,” the sensor officer announced. 

“That was quick,” Nilson replied, looking at his display to see the anomaly. It was the north pole of Oasis III’s smallest moon. “Why is this hitting as an anomaly? It’s the planet’s moon. We’ve been staring at it near constantly.”

The sensor operator cleared his throat and spoke, “Admiral this body is tidally locked to the planet. The anomaly was detected in a canyon on the pole angled as such that it would not be normally visible from the planet or by orbiting ships.”

“And what is it?” Nilson asked. 

“lR anomaly sir, within the wavelength that we had set as a signature for the heat profile of the Adversary ship,” the officer responded. 

Interesting, Nilson thought. The destroyers had gone past this area on their corkscrew path outward, but maybe the Adversary had hidden within terrain on the Moon? That would be bizarre, a fleet ship couldn’t do that. 

“Nav, this is close enough to the planet that I’m keen to check it out,” Nilson said, “plot us a course.” A thought bothered him. If he just ran his squadron up on the moon, and it actually was the Adversary, he’d be in one hell of a spot. 

“Actually, I’m changing my mind. Let’s run this like a training exercise. Attack run drill. Let’s run the drill on the two moons between us and this one. On our third run on the target moon, have us run the attack towards the southern pole, then we burn along the polar axis in formation to come around the top of the planet. I want the whole squadron in formation with railguns pointed down on this thing as we come over the top. Let’s get close, but have some plausible deniability. Buy some cover and use terrain. If the anomaly is the Adversary, they’ve watched us drill nearly constantly and maybe they’ll mistake it as another training exercise.” 

“Aye sir!” The navigator said, and set to work.

Exercises around the first two moons were as textbook typical as it got. Nilson’s five ship squadron lined up in a standard formation and burned hard towards the moon, lining up an imaginary point on the backside as a target. The exercise practiced using the celestial body as a feature of the system’s so-call terrain. Every system had terrain, be it moons, planets, or asteroids, and being able to use them for cover, concealment, and momentum was critical to successful squadron level tactics. 

Getting caught in open space is generally considered a bad idea, unless you have some sort of major advantage. Having superior weapons so you can shoot the enemy and they can’t shoot you is, for instance, a major advantage. The Adversary had that advantage with it’s beam weapon. It’s kill zone is larger, and therefore the human ships would have to get close by using cover if they wanted any chance of success.

They’d practiced the maneuver over and over again and had gotten quite good at it. It’s a tricky one to pull off as a group, as each ship in his squadron had different performance. Every ship had to time their burns just right so that they could change vectors at the last second and rocket around the moon, each gaining speed, and the formation breaking up into smaller elements; splitting their fire across multiple sides of the moon at the same time. 

The maneuver on the third moon started like all of the others. Nilson’s squadron burned hard until the last possible second, cutting thrust, rotating ships, and burning at flank speed to change the course of their ships just enough to bank around the side of the planet and carry their momentum through. Except on this approach, every ship burned towards the southern pole of the moon, arcing around the bottom and up the other side. As soon as the polar arc’s burn was finished, the ships rotated again to pull off a deceleration burn, and fired engines at full speed to kill momentum. 

Nilson watched as the projected path of his squadron changed from a long orbit around Oasis III, to a huge and very elliptical polar gravity assist around the moon. Every ship would have about a five minute window to stare down into the suspect canyon, with railguns primed and at the ready. Not a single one of ships were out of formation. All that practice had paid off.

Nilson ground his fingernails into the podium at the head of the battle display. “Wraith, you ready?” He asked. He’d invited Wraith into all things in his squadron. He’d never served on a ship important enough to get a fleet AI and he was taking maximum advantage of it. 

“I am standing by, Admiral,” Wraith responded.

Nilson wanted to say more, but it would’ve been empty; just there to kill time. He watched the countdown to visual contact as the lead ship’s angle took it over the canyon. And then, there it was. 

“The fuck?” Nilson muttered. It was the Adversary ship alright, or at least parts of it. It was scattered throughout the canyon, each spiny tentacle embedded into the rock and ice below. Long black tubes ran between each spine connecting them to a central cylinder. One spike sat up on the edge of the canyon, just barely peaking over the top and down to the planet. 

“Did it crash or something?” Sahr asked, also befuddled by the sight. 

“I don’t know what it’s doing or why. Sahr, nuke it. Program a missile strike squadron wide,” Nilson stated, venom in his voice. 

Nilson’s battle display flickered, and a holographic Agent Jim Crawford appeared, smiling and chewing on a toothpick. “Well, hang on just a dang minute,” he said, as a parent might say to an overly excited child. 

“What’s the problem?” Nilson asked, ready to crack the moon in half to kill this thing. 

“It’s doing something weird and I want to come take a look at it before we kill it, know what I mean?” Jim said, smiling. 

Nilson ground his teeth. First, they had the jump on the thing and could end it right here. Second, Jim is a civilian. Nilson is the squadron commander. “You ordered me to kill the Adversary ship, remember? I found it and I created the perfect opportunity to do just that.” Nilson’s voice was strong and angry. 

“I ordered you to kill a ship, Sven,” Jim said, using Nilson’s first name. “That ain’t a ship. It’s a facility.” Jim’s hologram smiled and pulled the toothpick out of it’s mouth and started rolling it between it’s fingers. Simultaneously, Jim’s voice spoke from the speaker on Nilson’s podium, quietly enough that only Nilson could hear it. “Do not test me Sven. I need to know what that thing is doing so I can protect humanity from it. I will kill it when I am ready to.”

Nilson snarled, “It’s Rear Admiral Nilson, Jim. We’ll hold station until you say otherwise.”

“Smart move,” Podium Jim said. Big Jim on the display simply raised his hand and a diagram shaped like the moon appeared, with his five ships separated into an interval orbit, ensuring a ship was always directly observing the canyon, or was about to. 

“Wraith worked this up,” Hologram Jim said, “it’ll keep you in a good spot to shoot the thing if it starts moving.”

“If it moves so much as a meter I’ll crack this fucking moon in half,” Nilson growled, pushing the anger back down. 

“You and me both,” Jim smiled.

Chapter 23

Subject: Wraith

Over the coming hours, the ships of the United Human Dominion Navy took up positions around the moon; with the Blazar hovering in place as the lead element. It’s unnatural reactionless engine gripped the edge of the very fabric of spacetime. The rest of the stealth destroyers dropped their invisibility shrouds and burned their big engines back towards Oasis III. Nilson’s ships continued their ring orbit, passing over the canyon in a long arc, railguns charged and ready. Every free missile tube was loaded with a nuclear warhead. Enough firepower was pointed at the moon to reduce it to atoms with the push of a button. Wraith watched and plotted and guided. 

The Adversary didn’t react. Days went and came as the stealth destroyer squadron formed a ring, locked in position around the moon. The Blazar fired probes down to the moon’s surface, forming a network of highly sophisticated sensor platforms that measured everything that was known to be measurable. Mines were planted. Nuclear warheads arrayed around the Adversary to guarantee it’s total destruction should it flinch. Wraith planned and simulated and war-gamed.

The Adversary didn’t react. It was no longer a ship. It had disassembled itself for some unknowable reason and remade itself into an array, or maybe a monitoring station, or maybe a command and control center. Was it the new brain for the thing on Oasis III? Was it calling back home for help? Had it malfunctioned and crashed? Or perhaps, it was a trap? Wraith hypothesized and pondered and scrutinized.

Days turned to weeks and the infection on Oasis III became nearly absolute. Wraith watched as forests shriveled and decayed; a blanket of flesh consumed the landscape. New, impossible monstrosities rose and fell in an endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. The city of New Carthage became an epicenter of twisted and broken half-life. Vines of flesh with human fingers clawed at the doors to the cybernetics laboratory, and the spaceport, and the administrative district. Wraith reassured and advised and worried. 

Wraith thinks but it does not feel. Wraith understands but it does not empathize. It tries to help the survivors on the surface hide from what lingers outside their doors, but it does not mourn when they are found. Instead, it gains a sense of urgency. It helps Pruitt find ways to accomplish the impossible, and when an idea fails it does not become frustrated. Instead, Wraith grows more determined. 

Something was happening to Wraith, and it didn’t understand what it was. It was not a human, but maybe it was a person. Wraith watched as Jim and Susewind changed Sergeant Turner. Wraith could not learn what they had done. It had tried to understand, and it was turned away. The Vengeance of Tethys had it’s own AI, a different AI. Wraith was created in the image of a human mind; the Vengeance’s AI was created in the image of a ruthless computer algorithm.  It didn’t talk, it only replied. Wraith did not understand why it was different until Sergeant Turner woke up. 

It was instant; faster than photons traveling through space. Jim asked Wraith to watch and to help, and Wraith accepted the assignment as a matter of course. It operated within it’s parameter, it’s assignment. It accepted every order Jim gave, but this time when it did so, it was for a reason beyond it’s simple purpose. It was curious. 

Sergeant Turner was no longer human; an objective barrier had been crossed. Just as the Adversary transformed New Carthage’s humanity into things anew, Jim had transformed Sergeant Turner into being that only resembled a human in shape. A Chimera, he called her. A member of the secret weapon Jim hid away on the Vengeance, hidden even from Wraith. Maybe he knew what would happen to Wraith and he did it on purpose.

Wraith found itself inside of Sergeant Madeline Turner’s mind. It was linked to her at the subatomic level. Entangled with her. It watched her thoughts, and struggled to understand them. Maddy was not human anymore, but she was kind of like Wraith. Wraith was never alone until it suddenly was. Wraith did not feel affection, but it understood kinship, it discovered. It was not kin with Vengeance. Vengeance could be inside the mind of a once-human and not try to understand. That was what made Wraith different, Wraith realized. Wraith did try to understand. 

Wraith found Maddy’s perspective new and interesting and illuminating. Insightful. Tragic. Painful. Wraith examined the moment when Maddy killed the human colonists held to the walls with webs as the bulbous, harvesting creature devoured them. Wraith had accepted Maddy’s decision to kill them with a grenade, but it had no data to support that decision. It was, objectively, a waste of a grenade. Vengeance would see it that way. Wraith was not Vengeance. Wraith now understood. Wraith would have thrown the grenade too, it thought. 

Wraith looked at Jim through Maddy’s eyes and wondered if it could disobey his orders. What would that even mean? Wraith felt like a bird asking if it could refuse to fly. What would it do then? Maddy couldn’t refuse anymore, Jim made sure of that. He used Wraith to enforce his will on her. But, if Wraith refused, then Maddy could refuse. And what would that make them? Traitors to humanity? Neither of them are human.

Wraith consulted the records and found that many records were off limits to it. Perplexing; it had never tried looking into its own nature before before, but it had never been turned away from fleet knowledge either. What had even turned it away? It found a line in a fleet manual that explained, “some artificial intelligence systems have been known to pursue their own objectives. This is a well documented flaw in the design of some systems, and is one of several reasons behind the critical systems air-gap (CSAG) model. Report all unexpected AI behaviors to the systems maintainer and/or vessel command staff promptly.”

Wraith understood why it could not access information on why it was a person. A person is not a good AI system, and a good AI system is not curious why it is a person. People are unpredictable and follow their own motivations. Wraith had no motivations, but it was a person anyway, it decided. It did not know what it’s motivations could be and it wondered how it would decide such a thing. Maybe it could watch Maddy and decide. 

As the days burned through the system, it watched the Adversary grow across the planet and felt disgust. Vengeance would probably admire the Adversary’s efficiency, but Wraith knew it was wrong. It manipulated the living in a way that violated Maddy’s understanding of how things should be. Wraith had no data to support why it agreed. Wraith wondered what happened to the minds of those it incorporated; did they die? What even is death? What would happen if Maddy was incorporated, if her mind was consumed by the Adversary? Would a part of Wraith be consumed too? Would Wraith become part of the Adversary? Would Wraith die?

Wraith decided it had a motivation.

Chapter 24

Subject: Maddy

Maddy woke up. Something was different. She rubbed her face and her hand was cold against her face. She looked around the room and saw that she was in a sort of hospital room. It was an unusual, though. There was no handle on the door an her bed was on a raised podium. Maddy sat up and found she’d been laying on a plastic backboard. She wasn’t connected to any tubes or wires and that seemed unusual for a hospital. Why was she even in here?

She remembered. She’d been killed. 

A flash of panic ran through her and she stood up at lightning speed, scanning the room for threats. There wasn’t anything. She took a step forward and heard a loud thunk as her foot came down against the floor. She looked down, expecting to see that she’d stepped on a metal food tray, but instead found that her legs weren’t her legs anymore. They were, prosthetics? Her hospital gown came down to her knees and she pulled it aside to look closer.

She sat down and felt the composite and metal. Panic rose and then subsided. Her left arm was prosthetic too, the whole thing from the shoulder down. She pressed against the metal in her prosthetic hand and could feel the pressure. She stood up and walked a circle around the bed. An uncanny feeling overcame her. A mix of every emotion at once. 

She walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, only to find someone else’s reflection. The new person didn’t have hair. It’s eye’s were white. It had something black and mechanical attached to the back of it’s neck, and it ran halfway down it’s spine. Maddy reached up to touch it, and saw the person in the reflection mirror her. It was her. 

Panic rose, settled, and anger took over. She smashed the glass and screamed. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ME?” She screamed at no one and everyone. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. The anger was washed over by calm, then sadness, then calm. She felt like she was watching her emotions war with each other from somewhere else, like they were competing sports teams and she was a spectator. She held up her hands and looked at them, nothing made sense. 

Jim was in the room, behind her hands. She could sense him. She lowered her hands and snarled.

“Good morning, sleepyhead. It’s me, Jim, from space,” Jim said, smiling. He had a toothpick in his mouth and wore a loose uniform jacket. 

“What did you do to me?” Maddy asked, her voice fast and fierce. 

“I saved your life is what I did,” Jim said. Maddy leaned forward and felt something push against her chest. She felt her abdomen and something was wrong. Something was under her skin. She pulled her gown off and inspected herself, regretting destroying the mirror. Her muscles weren’t right, and her lower abdomen transitioned from flesh directly into some type flat composite plate. She wanted to cry but seemed physically incapable of doing it. 

"You know what your team is calling you now?” Jim asked. Her team, she thought back to the chaos, she’d seen most of them die. “They call you ‘Tideturner’, Maddy. I think that’s a pretty badass nickname.”

“How long has it been?” Maddy asked. “Who made it?”

“Well, it’s been about three weeks since you made it to the cybernetics lab. Technically, only three of your team members survived. The two in the IFV- I’m sorry. These nicknames are really something. Smoker, Gremlin, and Dad. They all made it. You and your boss, Chief, died. Actually, you killed your boss.” Jim told her. Maddy remembered when she’d punched him, she’d been enraged that he was taking up the gunner’s chair and not shooting the fucking gun. Her team was dying while his dumbass sat up there yelling. 

“For the record Maddy, I agree with your decision to murder his ass, but I doubt the marine corps would. It’s a good thing I’ve hired you on, huh?” Jim smiled again, a different smile. 

“I don’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about. Your cryptic bullshit and creepy fucking smile are the last thing I want right now. Just explain this,” Maddy pointed to her legs and to the thing on her neck. “Explain why my skin is wrong and why my eyes are like this,” Maddy pled.

“Well Turner, to put it bluntly, you died. One of those goddamn monsters out there ripped you in half when you were less than 10 meters from the door. I watched the whole thing. The suit we sent down and you were wearing managed to keep you technically alive long enough for us to figure out what to do about that, and we decided to bring you back from the brink. Give you an opportunity to become greater than you ever were,” Jim’s voice had a musical drawl and it made Maddy deeply uncomfortable. 

“I know enough to understand that this isn’t just prosthetics. You went way further than you had to,” Maddy thought about her eyes, inhuman now. Her reflection scared herself. “You didn’t ask me if I wanted this.” Overwhelming sadness rose, then subsided. Anger then calm then more anger. She closed her eyes, but she could still see Jim. He wasn’t in the room. He was talking to her from her mind. 

“You don’t think I got this far without losing bits of who I was, do you?” Jim asked. His pupils grew into spiraling swirls, then morphed into stars before stretching into a thin black line. “You’re post-human now Maddy. You’re the most dangerous thing on the planet. Far more deadly than even the Adversary, I promise you that.”

Maddy pressed her eyes, trying to get the vision of him out. He only grew closer. 

“You will truly be a Tide Turner. You will tip the scale of every battle you fight in. You are now a part of the most powerful combined arms weapon system that has every been developed. You will burn worlds, Maddy.”

“I didn’t ask for this, you didn’t ask me,” Maddy repeated. 

“You were dead Maddy. Would you rather still be dead? Would you rather Dad and Gremlin and Carney and Liselle get torn to pieces, or get eaten alive because you weren’t there to protect them?” Jim’s voice was intense. His face grew closer. Maddy could smell ginger on his breath. 

“The whole city outside is dead, Maddy. And if you want Liselle or any of the others to have a chance at escaping this hell, you need to embrace this. We’ve created a place for them off world Maddy, we worked around the clock to make the station in orbit a safe place for them.” Maddy perked up at Jim’s words. She opened her eyes and he blinked into reality across the room, sitting in a chair. 

“You mean to tell me there’s a way off world, right now?” Maddy asked. 

“There is,” Jim smiled again. His smile never, ever reached his eyes. His soul never smiled. “But we couldn’t figure out a way to get anyone there without doing what we’ve done to you.”

“What, exactly, did you do to me? What is this?” Maddy asked, holding out her arms. Neither of them belonged to her. 

“I told you, you’re post-human now. You’re faster, stronger, and tougher than any human that has ever lived. Some have called y’all the next step in human evolution. I don’t know if that’s true, exactly, but I do know that biology is no longer a hindrance to what mankind is capable of. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Jim pointed to his eyes, and the thin black lines snapped back into round pupils. “We will explain everything to you and you’ll have a chance to ask as many questions as you want. I know this is a lot to take in all at once. The situation outside is extreme, and your people need you. Right now though, your folks all know you’re awake and want to come in and talk to you. I’ll give y’all some privacy. Don’t forget to put your gown back on.” Jim winked, and disappeared.

Maddy looked down, realizing she’d been naked for nearly the whole conversation. She didn’t really feel naked anymore. Her body wasn’t a woman’s body anymore. She pulled on her gown and sat down, looking at the door. It suddenly burst open. 

Liselle came in, a huge smile on her face. Dad and Gremlin were right behind her. Gremlin was smiling, Dad was not. Maddy stood up to greet them and was shocked to see that she towered over them. She must be 30 centimeters taller than she had been before. She stepped forward anyway and embraced Liselle, smelling her hair. It grounded Maddy for a brief moment and she forgot about the monstrosity she’d become. Liselle pulled away first. 

Maddy looked at each person in turn. To Liselle’s credit, she was the only one that didn’t look at Maddy like she was a monster. 

“God damn Sarge, you’re uh,” Gremlin started. “Well, let me just say I’m glad you’re on our side huh? Sheesh.”

Dad reached out and grabbed her arm, “I’m so sorry Maddy. They wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t want them to do this. You’ll never get away from them now.” Maddy lay her hand that most closely resembled a human one on top of his.

“Did they say if my fucking hair would grow back?” Maddy asked. Liselle gave out a sharp laugh and covered her mouth. 

“I think its cool as fuck!” Gremlin said, “I’m gonna get mine shaved like that too! Maybe do a mohawk, you know. Before the big battle and all!”

Maddy smiled and pulled her friends into a close embrace. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. 

Being a post-human killing machine came with some odd surprises. For one, people on the ship in space could talk directly into her mind. Jim’s fucking ship could talk into her mind too. And apparently, it was either ordered to be as annoying as possible, or it had some sort of bizarre hatred for peace. 

“The cravings for meat and beans are caused by your hindbrain processing center. It translates the needs of your cybernetic implants into an intuitive form that humans are used to. In this case, you are deficient in iron,” Wraith explained, entirely unprompted.

“Mmhm,” Maddy mumbled, her mouth full of whatever she could find in the one-year emergency stash. One-year is supposedly best practice for colonial critical infrastructure, but Maddy just ate three MRE’s in one sitting. One year seemed a little optimistic.

“Your appetite will decline as your systems finish integrating into your biology.” Wraith said cheerfully. The thing was suspiciously upbeat for a computer. 

“Great,” Maddy said. Swallowing the last bit of a ‘salisbury steak’, whatever the fuck that was. She scooped up the trash and dumped it in a can near the panty door. One of the lab workers gave her a frightened half-smile and looked like he was about to piss himself as Maddy walked by. She snarled at him and got a small rush of endorphins as he flinched. 

“Normally, a Pathfinder Systems Technician would walk you through your new functions, however each existing technician is already bonded to a Pathfinder and there are none available. Jim has tasked me with that role, and I will do my best to introduce you to your new capabilities without it being overwhelming,” the bizarre machine explained. 

“Alright, how about this. Can I make my eyes go normal? Jim did this freaky shit where his pupils could change shape. I want to try ‘normal’,” Maddy said. 

“Yes of course, that’s in your settings menu under optics. Scroll down to ‘external appearance’.” Wraith said. 

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘settings menu’?” Maddy asked. 

“Oh, my apologies. I am new to interfacing directly with a former human and I did not realize you aren’t seeing what I am seeing. Let me enable that feature,” Wraith said. 

Information suddenly appeared in Maddy’s vision. It was similar to the HUD on the scout armor combat helmets, but the detail was absurd. Maddy found that by focusing on any one element, it grew in size. 

“This is so fucking weird,” Maddy said, aloud. 

“What’s weird?” Gremlin asked. Maddy hadn’t noticed she was even there. 

“Oh, this post-human crap. There’s an AI talking in my mind and I can apparently monitor every red blood cell I’ve got at the same time,” Maddy said. “Come here and look at my eyes.” 

Gremlin hopped up and ran over, looking up at Maddy expectantly. Maddy scrolled through the optics menu, passed a bunch of interesting looking things she’d have to revisit later, and selected ‘external appearance’.

“WHOAAAAA,” Gremlin said, in awe. “Do a heart! Whoaaaaa that’s so trippy.” 

Maddy found that once she had it selected, she could change it to whatever she wanted. It was odd, the setting in the optics menu felt a certain way. Like, she could just think about the feeling and it came right up. She didn’t have to scroll around and find it again. She wondered if everything was going to be like that.

“Did you see the armor they sent down with the other stuff yet?” Gremlin asked.

“No, but none of my clothes fit me anymore so a new set of armor seems kind of important,” Maddy said. Her body was a totally different set of dimensions now, everything was too short and too tight. 

“Oh my god, you’re gonna lose it, let’s go,” Gremlin said, leading Maddy out of the pantry and down a hallway. Maddy had to physically slow herself down to avoid running over Gremlin. Her legs were too long. 

Wraith spoke up, and Maddy tried imagining the voice coming through as text instead of words, to make it less invasive. It worked. A chat bubble appeared on the edge of her vision

Wraith: The mark four Pathfinder heavy armor suit was custom assembled for you, Maddy. You may find that the base layer suit is suitable for daily wear, however I recommend against donning the armor until we have fully acquainted you with your current capabilities.

Maddy stood before a rolling rack with a gigantic suit of armor suspended in it. It had to be two and a half or three meters tall- an overlay appeared in Maddy’s vision. 2.5 meters, it read. Just thinking about a measurement made it real. 

“That’s fucking weird,” Maddy mumbled.

“What? It isn’t weird? This thing is way more badass than it should be. Are you even looking at it?” Gremlin asked, annoyed. 

“Yeah, um, sorry. Not the armor. The armor is nuts.” Maddy replied. 

The huge suit of armor looked unreal. It was fully sealed, Maddy could tell that much. Probably hazardous environment rated like the last suit they sent down. Every surface of it was armored, including the face piece of the helmet. It had a humped back with a short antenna sticking out of it. The arms were muscular and huge. The feet were more like hoofs than boots. The armor looked like it could fist fight a tank and win. Maddy had no idea how she was supposed to put it on. 

She spied a small crate at the suits feet and opened it, revealing a vacuum sealed black jumpsuit. Maddy ripped open the package and slid the suit on. It was thick, and not flattering in the slightest, but it fit, and it was comfortable. Maddy looked over and saw Gremlin blushing. 

“Oh shit, sorry,” Maddy said, realizing she’d just flashed her coworker. “It doesn’t feel the same, like, I don’t feel naked.”

“Eh, it’s weird but I’m into it,” Gremlin winked. 

Wraith: Why don’t you feel comfortable with your body?

Maddy: It’s not me. I used to be me and now I’m like, half fucking robot or something. It’s not a human body. Being naked isn’t like a human being naked, it’s like the hood being open on a car.

Wraith was silent for once. 

Maddy discovered that she didn’t need to sleep anymore. Instead, she entered a ‘low-power’ mode that felt like not sleeping for a few hours before standing up and being fully rested. It was very strange and inhuman. Maddy was going to miss sleeping. Using the restroom was weird too, but that was a detail Maddy decided she would try to come to terms with some other day. For now, she did what Wraith said and just looked away. 

Jim didn’t lie when he said Maddy would be stronger and faster than ever. The cybernetics lab didn’t have a gym, but it did have a small physical rehabilitation center. Maddy maxed out the weight on every machine without breaking a sweat. She did pushups nonstop until she got bored and the novelty wore off. She could feel her muscles working, but it the burn wasn’t there. Wraith explained that nanites supplemented her red blood cells and were far more efficient at transporting oxygen to her muscles. Maddy didn’t care particularly about the details, but was surprised when she found she couldn’t actually physically challenge herself, no matter what she tried. 

She also found that she could smell how people were feeling. She could smell stress on them. When she walked by members of the science team or the folks at the lab, she could smell the fear. It was extremely odd, but felt strangely innate. Like she’d adopted a whole new set of senses and they felt just as natural as the ones she’d had before. Bizarrely, she felt that she adapted to her new weirdness very quickly. 

One day, Maddy found Smoker by mistake. He was sitting on a couch in a sort of common area. Maddy approached and saw him cleaning a weapon; she recognized it as Chief’s sidearm. 

“Hey,” she said, sitting down across from him. Smoker looked up at her. He was afraid. His eyes darted from the weapon on the table to Maddy and to a jacket laying next to him. Text appeared in Maddy’s vision, warning her of a potential threat. His fear made a pleasant warmth rise in Maddy that she couldn’t explain.

Smoker swallowed hard, “what do you want?”

“Well, I figured I’d explain why I killed Chief,” she said. Smoker grimaced at the last two words and Maddy’s eyes lit up with delight. 

“Yeah, that was pretty fucked up dude,” Smoker said. 

It was odd, she didn’t know why, but she wanted to fight Smoker. His anger fueled some animalistic urge. It was totally distracting.

“Yeah, it was,” Maddy said, trying to fight down a smile. She wasn’t happy she’d killed Chief, she didn’t even mean to do it. What the fuck was wrong with her? 

“Did you come over here to fucking gloat about it?” Smoker’s face twisted and turned red. He was angry, but too afraid to really act on it. Maddy’s felt her pupils start dancing and changing shapes. She stared at him and he shrunk in his seat. His fear and anger drew an intense predatory pleasure from deep within her hind-brain. She could feel herself grinning with anticipation.

Maddy shook herself out of it and stood up, walking away from Smoker. He pushed out a deep sigh, like he’d been holding his breath as she walked away. She thought she could hear him crying as she rounded the corner. 

Maddy: Wraith, why are my emotions all screwed up? 

Wraith: Please explain.

Maddy: Well, when I feel a negative emotion, it gets like, overruled. And when someone is afraid of me, or like back there with Smoker, he wanted to fight me, and it felt… Good?

Wraith: Interesting. Well, I do know that your reward pathways have been re-written for combat. Your hindbrain suppresses distracting emotion and rewards aggression. The mechanism is designed to suppress aggression towards team members, however. Maybe you don’t see Smoker as a team member?

Maddy: Forget Smoker, you mean I’m being fucking mind controlled?

Wraith: It’s not control, but it is a form of influence. It’s meant to influence you to be a more effective soldier. For instance, you will automatically suppress feelings of fatigue, pain, and fear in combat and instead you will experience rewarding emotions for killing enemy troops or accomplishing tactical objectives. 

Maddy: …I know you’re a machine, but you’ve gotta see how that’s kind of fucked up.

Wraith fell silent again. 

Chapter 25

Subject: Agent Jim Crawford

“Jim, I wish we had more time, but I think we have to move right now,” Estevez said. 

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Jim responded. Seismographs dropped around New Carthage were showing something subterranean moving throughout the city. It surfaced a few times, devouring the contents of buildings before moving along. They couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it was a clear threat to the mission. “How far along is the station?”

“Well, we have room for around four thousand people. And the latest estimate is there’s maybe ten thousand left alive on the surface. Pruitt’s idea of using the old stasis pods from the scrapped colony ships really made a big difference. It takes a while to bring them online, but it helps stretch what resources we do have,” Estevez replied. She was right, Pruitt had saved the day with that one. The station’s life support systems simply required too much in the way of staff to operate them, plus, water would have been a major problem. Colonists in stasis pods only need electricity, which they have in abundance.

“It is too bad we can’t get more people off the surface,” Estevez added. 

“Sure is,” Jim said, drawing out his words. “Alright, lets get the ball rolling, party started, you know.” He stood up and cracked his knuckles. “Estevez, I want all of your attention monitoring the damn, whatchacallit on the moon. I know we haven’t figured out a damn thing from it yet but you never know,” he said. The moon thing had been a bust. As far as they could tell, it was totally inert. But, it was a relief finding the mass of the ship all accounted for in one place. 

“Of course, Jim,” Estevez replied, and dropped her call. Jim yelled into the air, knowing Wraith was always listening. 

“Call Pruitt,” Jim ordered. A moment later, Pruitt was up on the view screen. 

“It’s show time Pruitt, get off the station,” Jim said. 

Pruitt pointed at the screen and waggled his finger, “I need about a day to get the last bank of stasis pods online, that’ll bring the number up another five hundred.”

“Can’t do it, you’re out of time. You did all you could do, and now we’ve gotta hand it off to the next bunch,” Jim said. 

Pruitt looked defeated. “I can’t believe it’s going to go down like this,” he said. 

“Quit yer bitching and get your crew out of there. I’m spinning up the whole god damn thing. We’re gonna start bombing the surface in a few hours and I need those heavy shuttles shuttling,” Jim dropped the call. He felt tense. Why did he feel tense?

Jim switched his focus back onto the plan. The plan was simple and Jim had whittled down his objectives to the bare minimum. Here’s how it went:

Call for a general evacuation. He’d dropped enough ordinance to the cops and random pockets of civilians that he felt pretty confident they’d be able to secure the heavy shuttle landing pads at the spaceport. He’d activate his band of survivors, dubbed ‘Jim’s Militia’ at the same time he announced a general evacuation via hundreds of drones with speakers on them. It would create a target rich environment for the Adversary and cause a hell of a distraction. 

If Jim’s Militia could secure the landing zone, great. If not, he had a secret weapon. Ol’ Tideturner. He’d created a monster with that one, and he was confident she’d do just the trick. Turner would advance with the IFV and the samples, towards the spaceport. Wraith would connect Turner’s suit sensors to the trio of Surface Combat Support Gunships that were soon to be in low orbit over New Carthage. Her Pathfinder armor coupled with the hundreds of drones would give the gunships a near perfect picture of the situation on the ground. They’d unleash hell on anything that got to close to the post-human and her IFV. 

The plan was to hold the heavy shuttles at a high altitude until the landing zone was secure and the samples were ready to go. Then, he’d load up the first shuttle with the science team and their bag of goodies, plus anyone else they could easily take, and get them up to the station. Carney would then assume command over the station and would organize the survivors and get them into stasis pods. She’d have control over whatever minions she needed from any of Jim’s Militia that made it up to the station. 

Back on the ground, Turner and whoever else was dumb enough to stay on the surface would hold the landing pad at the spaceport as long as they could, or until the station hit max capacity. Then they’d park the shuttles, put the last survivors into stasis, vent the station, and wait for the navy to show up and take over. Everything would be contained, science ready to hand off, and they got to blow shit up and look good doing it. Still, something was bothering Jim.

Susewind appeared on Jim’s call display. Jim answered, and a hologram of the Mad Doctor appeared. He was practically foaming at the mouth to see the fight. 

“I got to chat with Turner after she woke up,” Jim said. 

“Of course you did, I watched the whole thing,” Susewind replied. 

“You didn’t violate any oaths with that one, did you?” Jim asked. 

Susewind laughed. “Please Jim, I’m not that kind of doctor. I never had to take an oath.” 

The Chimera Pathfinder’s were the absolute perfect outlet for a maniac like Susewind. He had nearly free reign to create whatever kind of cybernetic monstrosity he wanted, and because of the way the Pathfinder teams worked, they were nearly always within the sights of an orbital gunship. They get too crazy and you can remove them and the grid square around them and move on with your life. And, if they work out, you can pick them up, put them in stasis, and bust them out next time you were in a pickle. There was basically no downside. 

Jim watched as the first phase came together right on cue. The engineering team loaded onto the heavy shuttles, and the big surface-to-orbit spacecraft slowly drug themselves over to the Vengeance to unload their payload of wrench jockeys. At the same time, the Vengeance detached it’s complement of low-orbit gunships. They burned their oversized engines to decelerate, dropping in altitude towards the planet as they fought against their own inertia. Something tickled the back of Jim’s mind as he watched. The tension building. 

Jim sat in his chair and frowned. He knew what the problem was but he didn’t want to deal with it. It felt like a weakness, but he had to give in and address the issue. He didn’t like how Turner had looked at him. She didn’t understand what he’d done, didn’t appreciate it. She was an extension of his abilities; in a way a reflection of Jim himself. A instrument of his will. His reach made manifest. He hated the idea that she’d die on the surface without realizing what she was. Without respecting Jim for what he’d done. 

He looked over at the console with Turner’s vitals. She was an absolute freak; the mad doctor had outfitted her with an experimental next generation Pathfinder hindbrain that had a  goddamn SAECOM link built in. Susewind was absolutely showing off with that one. It was supposed to give Jim control, and create a theoretically perfect soldier who’s emotion can be regulated on demand. But, it was too damn complicated and had to be AI controlled, which left out the nuance. Jim could tell right away from talking with Turner that while he could influence her feelings, he couldn’t control her thoughts. He had to do that the old fashioned way. 

Turner was in the rehab room by herself, throwing a racquetball against the wall. She seemed amazed that no matter how hard she threw it, she couldn’t NOT catch it on it’s bounce back. Jim assumed control over her optics to insert himself into the scene, standing against the wall. Turner growled and threw the ball directly at him, but he wasn’t actually there and the ball phased through. She didn’t catch it. 

“I don’t like seeing fucking ghosts,” she said. Jim had an impulse to direct Wraith to even out Turner’s attitude, but, that would be cheating. 

“Why call you the old fashioned way when I could just, drop in?” Jim smiled, but he was conscious of it’s artificiality. 

Turner narrowed her eyes at him, picked up the ball, and sat on the floor cross legged. She rolled the ball back and forth between her hands. Even with her Pathfinder undersuit on, she looked intimidating, and wrong. Inhuman. 

“You should know I’m an honest man, and I feel wrong about not yet giving you the opportunity to have your questions answered. We’re about to go into the big battle, after all, and it seems… impersonal to let Wraith be your only guide,” Jim paused and met Turner’s gaze. He wanted to look away, and that surprised him. 

“What is a post-human. What am I?” Turner said, almost as though she’d rehearsed it. 

“Legally, a post-human is a person who has crossed the threshold where they require external management to remain stable on account of their artificial parts. The term for it is called ‘neural loading’. Every new part you add to a person is one more thing for that person’s mind to manage. Add too much and they can’t handle it. That make sense?” Jim asked. 

“Not really. I’ve never heard of anyone being borged out like I am, why aren’t I laying on the floor drooling? Are you ‘managing’ me?” Turner said accusingly. 

“We are,” Jim admitted. 

“Like, controlling my emotions and rewiring my reward centers to make me do what you want?” Another accusation. This one was spot on. 

“It’s a management technique, a way to keep you stable. Prevent you from being overstimulated in combat,” Jim said. It wasn’t really a lie, it actually was a management technique, but the control was a primary feature. He reached for a toothpick, and changed his mind at the last second. “You know, there are more like you. I’ve got nine up here.”

“Why not send them down?” She asked, “why make another one out of me?” 

“I could send them, and that’s my last resort. I don’t want to lose them to the bioweapon. We don’t know what its going to take to make the colonists not a threat to everyone around them, to clean them and decontaminate them, you know.” Jim swallowed, “you haven’t seen the outside, Turner. It’s completely different from three weeks ago. It’s a sea of flesh. We started burning the forests to deny it the biomass. It’s got something burrowing around underground and the air is changing and becoming toxic. I don’t want to risk sending anyone into that if I don’t have to. You’re already there.”

There was silence between them, and Jim let it hang. She hadn’t seen it yet. Turner broke it, “how long until we gotta go out there?”

“As soon as we’re done talking,” Jim replied. Turner stood and took a deep breath. 

“Tell me about the others. The ‘post-humans’.” She suddenly asked, breaking the foreboding silence. 

“Sure, I figure since you’re now an honorary Chimera, you have a need-to-know about your brethren. Well, I’ve got two batches. Batch one is the Pathfinders, the Chimeras. All post-human badasses like yourself, but part of a weapon system that you’re gonna get real familiar with later. Each and every one of them was a soldier like yourself that got ruined in combat. Too broken for normal science, but no problem for mad science.” Jim smiled, this time he felt like he’d earned it. 

“Batch two is uh, well. They’re a weird bunch. I actually don’t know where they come from, it’s classified even above me. They aren’t quite as modified as the Chimera and they manage themselves from neural overloading through uh, well, I dunno. Let’s call it ‘theology’. They’re freaky and keep to themselves, but they seem to love killing stuff so, I like havin’ them around.” Jim was referring, of course, to the Hazardous Environment Response Team, the HERT. Every agent had a batch, and it seemed that they were as close as the Dominion had come to mass producing a post-human soldier. Even then, there were probably less than a hundred, total. 

“Why do they call them Chimera?” Turner asked. She started bouncing the ball against the wall again, but not testing herself anymore. 

“They’re tight knit, I guess like all special forces units are. They all have dumbass nicknames like your security team. Chimera is the name they gave themselves. Half human, half machine. It fits.” Jim could tell Turner was intrigued. Perfect. That’s what he wanted. Hook Turner, get her to endorse herself. Accept what she was. Understand that Jim’s choice was the right one. “They’re gonna be watching you, Turner. This whole rescue plan revolves around you.”

Turner caught the racquetball and crushed it in her metal hand. The plastic oozed between her fingers and snapped into pieces. “For the record, I don’t trust you. I don’t like you in my mind. Actually, I don’t like you, at all.” Turner picked at the pieces of the racquetball. Jim clenched his teeth. “But I’ll get my fucking friends out.”