“Why don’t you just give the suits their own power?”
“We’ll do that, too. But if we don’t give them the ability to power their own suits, they will be in significant danger in battle. Their exoarmor will function only until it runs out of power, and depending on how much they use them, that could be in less than an hour. With their ability to continuously recharge the suits, they will be able to go for hours on end, powering down only when they want to, not when they have to.”
It sounded good, in theory, but he wasn’t looking forward to being shocked over and over again.
“What happens if his cells can’t take the electricity?” Her voice had become higher, more irritated.
The high medic winced. “I think we all know the answer to that, Fayelle. But the Ardaks have done some preliminary testing and found that some beings could hold more than others.”
“Of course they did.” Her voice was tipping over into real anger.
“We aren’t going to do what they did,” the high medic said soothingly. “In this case, the trick will be to slowly increase the electrical charge, allowing his body to acclimate to the increased levels. His levels will be increased all the time, and then when he puts on the exoarmor, they will be taken to supercharged levels.”
“What are the side effects?”
“Well, as I’ve already said, the body uses electricity to communicate between cells. Too much electricity in an uncontrolled environment could cause erratic heartbeats, neurological problems, memory loss, coma, or death. Obviously, we’re trying to avoid those outcomes,” he said dryly.
“How are you going to avoid them?” Fayelle asked.
“Well, we’re going to gradually increase the charge and lower the baseline. We’re also going to inject him with sodium and potassium, which will increase his electrical conductivity. Then we’re going to hope the Ardaks’ calculations were correct.”
“You’re going to hope? Haven’t you done your own calculations?”
“We can reproduce their calculations and come up with the same results. But to be honest, the Ardaks are ahead of us in general technology and the areas of live specimen experimentation, even though they haven’t tested these specific upgrades. I’m going to bet they will work.”
It was true, of course. The Ardaks had experimented ruthlessly, uncaring of the outcomes of their experiments in their pursuit to create the next best war machine.
“All right, we’re really out of time. I have to perform each of these surgeries to insert the crystal batteries individually, so while they aren’t long or complicated, I really need to get started to complete all six and give you time to acclimate before stage three.”
Only six.
He’d almost forgotten the fact that Bradan and Jadan were gone. They hadn’t died from the upgrades, but that didn’t make it less horrible. “Do you know what caused Bradan’s malfunction?”
“It appears to be some kind of recessed programming. We removed his chip to study it. Chihon is our best hacker, and he’s been looking into it. He’s going to be last for stage two to give him more time. I’ll let you know what we discover. Please lie back on the bunk.”
Mordjan did as asked, and the high medic poked him with a needle, hooking him up to the machine with a blue bag.
Fayelle looked worried, so he took her hand. “It’s going to be . . .”
Chapter Twenty
Fayelle
Her heart lurched as she watched Mordjan succumb to the icy blue liquid running down the tube into his arm. Watching him now that they’d been together was an entirely different experience. Before, she had been able to keep her distance. But at this point, she was filled with conflicting emotions —,she wanted him to survive the stage, though it was inevitable that it would take him from her.
She created a bubble of healing magic around his body, hoping this stage would go at least as well as the last. Hopefully, it would go better.
The high medic called Mordjan’s name, and when there was no response, he pressed the button on his wrist com. “Send me two more medics.”
He moved down Mordjan’s body with the small device, hovering it over Mordjan’s leg where it had previously indicated the altered energy waves were. The high medic brought the knife to Mordjan’s leg, feeling the muscle a few times before slicing into his skin. When the flesh parted, she saw the metal and tubes that made up the cybernetic limb.
The medics came in to stand beside him, watching him work.
He noted her worried expression. “These two are here just in case. They can help me work with the technology if something goes wrong.”
She wasn’t going to argue against having more help from those who knew how to work with their technology. The components inside the limb were complicated. She’d looked over enough files to know that some of the blood was his, and some was artificial blood that circulated only through the limb. The skin was real enough, albeit lab grown.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I just need you to keep him stable. Once I have this new power crystal in, we’re going to start increasing the charge. You can see the machine behind me. There is a circuit there that controls how much power is released into him at any time. What you will do is try to calm his cells and control how his body reacts to the electricity, asking the cells to remain open and integrate with the new charge. Your priority will be to keep him from going into shock, keep his cells talking as we let it go higher.”
He stopped speaking, obviously focused on removing the current crystal. He pulled it out and held it up to the light. It was beautiful.
But then Mordjan’s body jumped off the bunk.
“He’s seizing! Hold him down,” the medic ordered, picking up the new crystal a second before Mordjan convulsed again. This time, his foot hit the medic and the new crystal went flying.
“No!” he cried. “That’s the best crystal we have!”
Fayelle held out her hand and used her magic to cushion its fall with a burst of air. It meant loosening her hold on Mordjan’s bubble of magic, but what good was her magic if the crystal meant for him was shattered?
“Thank the gods,” the high medic said, grabbing the crystal. One of the medics had climbed onto the bunk and was sitting on Mordjan’s leg, just below the incision on his thigh. A mixture of blood and fluid was leaking out everywhere.
“Hold him still!” When the high medic was certain Mordjan was secure, he inserted the new crystal into the compartment. The seizing only worsened.
“Traako! Fayelle, get his body to accept it!”
She’d been trying to regain control of the energy, but once the new battery crystal was inserted, the energy was fluctuating so strongly that it was like oil in water and she couldn’t rein it in.
“Stay with me, Mordjan,” she ordered.
“Fayelle,” he groaned. “Fayelle!”
Her heart squeezed when he called her name. “Mordjan!” She glanced up at the medics, who were standing there helplessly. “Someone help me! Where are your healers?”
The high medic punched the button on his wrist com. “I need three healers, now.”
She’d been trying to focus on stabilizing the energy from the bubble inward, but seeing that most of the new energy was coming from the battery crystal, she changed tactics.
Focusing on the battery crystal, she began to stabilize the energy from the battery crystal outward, wrapping the tendrils of magic around his body’s energy, weaving them together. Sweat broke out on her body as she increased her energy, trying to match his.
She put everything she had into the magic, blending the energies together, focusing on nothing else.
By the time the healers arrived, Mordjan had stopped seizing.
The high medic nodded to the cabinets to his left, ordering, “Grab bands from over there and strap him down.” He glanced up at Fayelle. “I’m going to leave his leg open while we begin upping the electricity through his body. It isn’t the most ideal thing, but it wil
l be easier to get the crystal out if we have to.”
She nodded, wiping the sweat from her brow and wanting to ask what would happen to him if his body rejected the crystal. “I need the healers to stay with me for a few minutes, just in case.”
High Medic Tassarion nodded. “I’ll also be here for thirty minutes before I begin Simban’s surgery.”
Mordjan was stable but still unconscious as the machine began slowly increasing the cycles of energy. She could feel it go through him with her magic, but there were no huge fluctuations. Yet.
As she watched over him, guarding his physical body, she couldn’t set aside the fact that everything about these surgeries felt wrong. They felt like a perversion of nature.
And her part in it also felt wrong. Magic was supposed to work with the body, to sustain it and make it whole again. But she was using magic so that Mordjan’s body could be altered into something else.
Her primary purpose, the purpose of a healer, was to save a being’s natural life, but the cyborgs themselves were unnatural. She’d been able to accept it because it had happened against their will, done to them without their knowledge.
But Mordjan was crossing into a different territory. He was deliberately altering his physique to become a better warrior, a better killer. The more he altered himself, the less organic he became and the harder it would be for him to access the flesh and blood part of himself.
That was probably why her magic was rejecting him.
The new blood hadn’t called to her magic. It was almost as if it wasn’t there or as if it was suppressing his organic cells so swiftly that it was making him invisible to her magic. Not just her mating magic, but all of her magic. She could no longer feel his life force.
And with the new crystal battery, she’d barely been able to hold on to its power. When the bursts of electricity went through him, sometimes her magic didn’t feel him at all. It was as if he blinked out of existence for a moment, then back in.
The sad fact was, they did need soldiers. He was doing it to save all of them.
She just wished it wasn’t her potential mate.
The jumps in electricity lasted for hours on end. Mordjan’s cells continued to adapt, and there were no more seizures.
The high medic came back and took a seat by Mordjan’s head, bringing up some information on a monitor beside him.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m going to take a look at his chip.” He hooked up a wired connection to the back of Mordjan’s neck.
Fayelle felt a sense of foreboding. “I thought this stage was just about replacing their battery crystal and inserting the device to make more blood.”
“Well, the information on Ouirer’s device said that the cyborgs on Aurora were installed with a special section on their chips that would give them more information and capabilities.”
“So you’re trying to open that section? Weren’t you also going to remove the capability of the Ardaks to control him?”
“Yes, I will do that as well,” the high medic murmured distractedly.
Fayelle wished Mordjan were awake for this. She knew the high medic said something about the crystals, but they hadn’t really discussed it, so him rummaging around in Mordjan’s head felt like an invasion of privacy.
It didn’t take long for the medic to find whatever he was looking for. Star charts and maps came up on the monitor, garnering looks of astonishment from the other medics.
“Does he have secret files stored in his head?” one of them asked.
“It looks that way,” the high medic admitted. “Jaffete. His chip is full of stuff.”
The medic perused the files for a few more minutes. “Well, now that the block is open, Mordjan should be able to access these files at will.” He glanced over at the machine. “And only three more hours until he’ll be ready to try to the exoarmor. He should be fine now.”
He unhooked Mordjan’s chip and then left, taking the other two medics with him.
Fayelle was concentrating too much to object, and when the high medic finally returned to shut the machine off, she sank back into a chair beside the bunk, shivering with fatigue.
“How has he been?”
“Stable for the most part. His energy was still spiking with each increase, but the spikes decreased in length.” The high medic explained what he was doing as he adjusted the voltage from the battery crystal and sewed up Mordjan’s leg. “I feel confident that Mordjan is going to be fine when we try the exoarmor.”
She was happy that he’d made it through, happy for the resistance, but she couldn’t ignore the heaviness in her heart as she tried to find him with her magic and felt it barely tingle.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mordjan
Mordjan awoke, feeling much better than he had before. His eyes shot to the countdown timer on the wall. Eight hours and thirty minutes left. These elves were the most precise beings he had ever seen.
Fayelle was emerging from the personal room, and her hair was still damp. He inhaled a deep breath, taking in the smell of the elven shampoo in her hair from across the room.
Maybe his senses had been heightened by the upgrades. He’d have to ask the high medic. “What happened with the others? How did it go?”
“The surgery went . . . fine. How do you feel?”
He flexed his arms and then stretched. “I feel good.” He glanced down at his leg to see that the flesh had already healed.
“If you want to bathe, you should do it. When you’re done, we can go and check on the others. I haven’t had any news.”
He threw off the sheet and rose from the bed. “Yes, just give me a minute.” He shook his head as he walked. He couldn’t believe he’d made it. He’d known the chances were slim, but with each successful stage, his hope grew. Yes, he still had to get through stage three, but he considered the first two the most dangerous. He was sure much of it was due to Fayelle’s magic. He glanced at her once more before stepping into the shower. If he survived stage three, he would speak to her about staying together.
He showered quickly, anxious to see how the other cyborgs were doing. He also wanted to see what the Ardaks were doing behind them. It was time to think about how they would fight the Ardaks when they emerged from hyperdrive.
Fayelle was waiting patiently by the door for him, her golden eyes glowing as she watched him dress.
Part of him wanted to stay here with her. To hold her, have her hold him, forget about the outside world for another brief moment. That would be a complete abandonment of his job, though, and he couldn’t forget that he was leading this mission.
They went out to the main med wing, where the high medic was finishing a surgery. He glanced up at them. “Mordjan. Good to see you’ve recovered. I’m just finishing Jovjan here. No one else has had the reaction you did, thank the gods.”
He turned to Fayelle. “What reaction?”
She colored. “Sorry, I should have told you. Your body resisted the new battery crystal. I had to balance your energies.”
The high medic chuckled. “It wasn’t quite as simple as that. You began seizing and kicked the new crystal from my hand. Fayelle not only saved the crystal but also stabilized you at the same time. It was really impressive.”
Mordjan turned to her. “That’s your version of fine?”
She ignored him, arching an eyebrow at the doctor. “How do you know what I was doing? I didn’t think you could do magic.”
“My skills are rudimentary, at best, but I could certainly see what you were doing. It was impressive.”
Fayelle’s cheeks tinged pink by the compliment.
The high medic finished taping the incision and then took off his gloves. “The great thing about cyborgs is that we can zap them with a bit of healing energy and they will be as good as new in a few hours. I wish all my patients were like this.”
“Has everyone finished?” Mordjan asked.
“Yes, and once Jovjan has rested, we can begin stage three
.”
“Let’s go see Irielle and Simban,” Fayelle suggested.
Mordjan nodded, and they turned back toward the individual healing bays. Each cyborg’s name was displayed on a screen next to their door, and when he found Simban’s, he knocked three times.
Simban himself opened the door, looking surprisingly fit.
“I see stage two also went well for you,” Mordjan commented dryly.
“Better than for you, I heard.” Simban looked him up and down. “But you appear to be in good condition now.”
Mordjan winced. “Yes. I heard I had a rough time there for a minute, but I woke up feeling fine.”
“Good. Did anyone tell you that the Ardaks are slowly gaining on us? It looks like we’ll have a real battle when we finally slow down.”
“Really?” Mordjan’s brows rose. “How are they gaining on us in hyperdrive? I thought that was impossible.”
“Theoretically, it should be. They must have found a way around the physical limitations.”
“Are they going to reach us before we arrive?”
“No, but they’re going to be right on top of us.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Jovjan was telling me about it before he went into stage two.”
Mordjan almost asked if they should go down to engineering and begin discussing strategy, but stopped when he saw that Fayelle and Irielle had gone to the personal room and were deep in quiet conversation.
“We have four hours until the next stage. What are you going to do?”
Simban nodded at Irielle. “What do you think I’m going to do? The females are worried, Mordjan. And I would be, too.”
“Has Irielle said anything about her magic lessening toward you after the first stage?”
Simban frowned. “No. What are you talking about?”
“Fayelle told me that her magic decreased tingling by half after I was infused with the artificial blood.”
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