by M. D. Cooper
“No,” Julia mouthed the words.
“They saved me.” Rika said the words softly, shaking her head. “You think that we’ll defeat the Nietzscheans by storming beachheads and decimating their forces. But that’s not how we’ll win this war. We’re going to win this war because we’re going to save people. And when we’re done, when we stand atop Constantine’s toppled throne, our hands covered in blood, it’ll be the people we saved who are going to save us.”
Julia’s eyes lowered, finally breaking contact with Rika’s as she shook her head. “I…”
Rika didn’t want to hear Julia’s equivocations or apologies. She knew she’d stepped over the line, but what she’d said had to be said. Julia needed to understand what Rika was willing to do to see this through.
“I have to go, General. I’m sure we’ll talk later.”
Rika cut the connection, and the grassy plain with the storm raging in the distance faded away, replaced once more by the interior of the dropship, and Alice sitting across from her.
“You OK?” Alice asked. “You were breathing really heavily, there.”
Rika shook her head. “No, not really. I just had a blow-out with the general. I think I might be fired.”
Alice’s brows rose in amazement, but then a smile slipped onto her lips.
“You sure about that, Rika? General Julia just announced your promotion to the rank of colonel across the Marauders’ general net. Maybe you said the right thing.”
Rika’s mouth dropped, and she pulled up the latest command announcements. “Well I’ll…holy shit…was she putting me on?”
Alice shrugged. “Could be. General Julia is known for her skill at getting people fired up before tough missions. Either that, or you just made a dangerous enemy. One of the two.”
Rika leant her head back. “Or maybe both.”
MECH UPGRADES
STELLAR DATE: 09.10.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
The best description Rika could come up with for Finaeus was a combination of a mad scientist and some back-world cattle rancher.
It wasn’t just the way he talked, either—it was the combination of his languid, lackadaisical attitude and an excitement for creating new things, tempered by a wealth of experience that brought about no small amount of confidence.
Or cockiness.
Tanis winked at Rika.
Rika’s gaze slid back to the man who spoke with a slow drawl, while gesticulating wildly at the holodisplay at the front of the room. She felt like she was in the presence of titans, and they’d offered her the opportunity to join their number.
“To be honest,” Finaeus was saying, “we could really have a lot more fun with the SkyScreams. I could probably even make some that look like…dragons or pterodactyls. You know…we actually seeded pterodactyls on a world once. Stars…that place was nuts.”
Lieutenant Carson almost cackled with glee. “I can only imagine those fuckin’ Niets screaming their heads off when a mech-powered dragon swoops down on them.”
Corporal Stripes shook his head. “Yeah, ‘til you have to service them, or S&R a dragon on the ass-end of some world.”
“Who said they’d just have to be on a world?” Finaeus asked. “No reason why we couldn’t fit them with high-impulse grav drives. Could fly them through space, as well.”
“As amazing as that sounds,” Rika spoke up, gaining Finaeus’s attention. “We don’t have time to learn all new weapons platforms. The best options for us are to upgrade the power and efficiency of our existing systems. We’ve been at this for years with this same tech; we know how to use it to beat the Niets, we just need it to be more reliable in the field.”
“Right,” Finaeus nodded. “Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. However, I do think you should mull over mechanized space dragons. I think there’s something there.”
“Finaeus,” Tanis said simply.
“OK, moving along,” Finaeus gestured to the holodisplay, and it switched over to show a K1R mech. “First off, I feel really bad for these poor guys. So I have an idea to make every K1R an AM, and every AM a K1R.”
Rika shared Finaeus’s general sentiment. Everyone felt bad for what had been done to the K1Rs.
“The two mech frames are nearly ready for this—it’s clear they intended to go this route at one point,” Finaeus continued, “but what we’d do is give all AM and K1R mechs stub limbs, like your SMI and RR-3s have.”
“Is that feasible?” Rika asked, and Carson nodded.
“With the tech these people have, yes. And it would make our force a lot more versatile, and the repairs simpler. During the war, the GAF kept trying to standardize mech components to help with cost cutting, but R&D wasn’t always in the loop. The secondary, bolt-on upgrades were more generic, but then a new model would roll out with new specs, and we were back at square one.”
“He’s right,” Stripes added. “If mech platforms could have standardized buildouts, we could manage refit and repair a lot better.”
“Or…” Tanis drew the word out as she looked around the table. “You could get human frames, and use powered armor.”
Rika said ‘No way’ before Tanis had even finished speaking, and the other mechs at the table—Scarcliff, Heather, and the platoon lieutenants—also shook their heads.
“No offense, ma’am,” Heather said not unkindly, “but we’re mechs. This is what we are, and we have a mission to complete. Maybe after the war, some will want to be squishies again, but for now, we are mechs.”
Tanis smiled and raised her hands in mock defense. “I figured that would be your answer, I just wanted to put it out there to be sure.”
A wide grin stretched across Finaeus’s face. “Well, then. If you want to be mechs, let’s make you all the best mechs the galaxy has ever seen. Here’s what I have in mind….”
* * * * *
Rika came awake all at once, but didn’t open her eyes right away. A small fear lingered in the back of her mind, a worry that the last few months had been a dream, and that she was still in the Politica…or worse, in the GAF.
Actually…I don’t know which would be worse.
She checked the date, the information flowing into her mind, and breathed a sigh of relief.
It was no dream, everything she remembered was real. Which meant that she was out of what Finaeus had called the
‘Mechtube’, and was, for all intents and purposes, upgraded.
Most of the changes to her body would be as she’d requested—minor, just improvements and tweaks. But there was one change that she knew was profound, a change that she was both excited and scared to explore.
She felt a sense of agreement from Niki, a sense that came directly into her mind.
Rika said.
Niki snorted.
Rika knew of the different designations in human neural density and interconnectivity. L0 humans were the ‘vanilla’ version. Over the centuries, mods and DNA alterations—deliberate, as well as from the body’s response to unnatural changes—had spurred on an evolution in many people. One where they grew more neurons, longer axions, and more dendrites. Their brains just had more. These were designated L1s.
L2 humans were even more evolved, with massively interconnected brains, though few L2 humans were the result of natural evolution.
Rika said after thinking about the implications further.
Rika groaned inwardly.
Drawing a deep breath, Rika shook her head.
Despite her own words, Rika had been exploring her senses. While some of the mechs had undergone significant physical changes, such as the K1Rs and AMs—both receiving partial limb stubs, and all opting to go skinless, like the RR and SMI models—the SMIs had faced the fewest outward changes.
Though none of them were SMI-2s anymore.
The irony of Finaeus’s upgrades was that every mech had moved further from being a pure human. Every one of them would come out of the Mechtubes less organic and more mechanized than when they went in.
At the same time, Rika felt more human than she had in a long time. Her senses felt sharper, more acute. She wasn’t certain if it was from the mental enhancements, or the changes to her physiology.
OK, Rika. Sense your surroundings, feel where your body is.
She was on a bed of some sort, not a hard medtable. Her head was slightly elevated, and she could feel her hair against her ears and neck…and shoulders. Her prior skin had never been sensitive enough to feel that, largely because the matte grey ‘flesh’ that covered her from the neck down didn’t have the tiny hairs that human skin had, which had limited her sensitivity to light touch.
But now Rika could ‘feel’ the light brushes. She realized she could even feel the room’s air circulation systems blowing on her chest where the sheet wasn’t covering her.
Rika could tell that her limbs still ended at the elbows and knees, and it was strange, but the confirmation gave her comfort. Before going into the Mechtube, she’d had an irrational fear that she’d wake up with fully human limbs.
Such an alteration would have made her less effective at what lay ahead, and Rika wanted maximum effectiveness when it came to taking down Nietzschea.
She decided it was time to test things out, and moved her right arm. Though she’d intended to just slide it over a few centimeters, the limb whipped out nearly perpendicular to her body.
“Shit…that’s going to take some getting used to,” Rika muttered.
“Yeah…but knowing about it, and experiencing it are very different. I’m going to have to train a lot to get used to this.”
Rika slowly drew her right bicep back to her side, and then slid it across her torso until she reached her breast. It felt different…more natural.
She slid her arm further and let out a sharp gasp. “What? Do I have nipples?” Rika’s eyes snapped open, and she pushed herself up, staring down at her chest. “Shit! I have nipples!”
Her body was still a dark matte grey, though it seemed a little smoother than before, but where her breasts used to be indistinct mounds that had held backup batteries, they now looked like natural breasts.
Complete with nipples.
Rika felt a lump form in her throat, and an involuntary sob tore its way past her lips. Almost frantically, she pushed the sheet covering her further down and looked between her legs; tears spilling from her eyes as she fell back onto the bed.
Rika was about to tell Niki that it was too much, that she wasn’t ready, but she forced those thoughts back down. She wasn’t ruled by fear on the battlefield, she wouldn’t be ruled by fear of her own body.
she asked softly in the confines of her mind.
Rika opened her eyes once more and stared down at her body. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We’ve fallen in with the right group of people.”
As she examined her body, Rika was glad to see she still had her bio-ports. The future possibility of sex was one thing, but the thought of having to dispose of waste like a pure organic gave her the willies.
“You’re awake. Good,” a voice said, and Rika saw a medholo of a woman shimmer into view at her side. She had a kind smile, but also the vacant eyes of an NSAI. She’d come to realize that the ISF did that deliberately so that it was easy to tell when you were dealing with sentient and non-sentient beings.
“Better than the alternative,” Rika said with a wry smile, not sure why she wasted humor on an NSAI.
“Than asleep?” the NSAI asked.
“No, than never waking up.”
The medholo made a tut-tut sound and shook her head. “We’d never let that happen.”
Rika rolled her eyes. “So, where are my limbs?”
“Right here,” the NSAI said, and a rack slid out from underneath the bed, holding an assortment of appendages—everything from arms and legs that looked completely organic, to left and right GNR options, to something that looked like a cross between a whip and a rocket launcher.
The thought made Rika blush, and she almost screamed as her skin from the neck down shifted from the familiar matte grey to a light pink that was almost natural in color. It even had small goosebumps.
“Easy now,” the medholo said. “You have chameleon skin; that was a part of the spec you opted for. It’ll take some work to deal with, but you can change it to any color you want. Just concentrate on how you want to look, and it’ll pick up on the suggestion.”
Rika nodded silently, and imagined herself as she’d been for most of her life: a mech.
Her nipples and genitalia disappeared, and her ski
n took on the coarse texture she was familiar with.
“Damn…OK, gotta wrap my head around all this already,” Rika muttered before calling out. “Come in, Finaeus.”
A moment later, the lanky man entered the room and dismissed the medholo with a gesture.
“Ah, Rika, good to see that you’re experimenting with your new skin. It’s a recent invention of mine—well, more like an improvement on something Bob first made, which was an improvement on something Tanis bought on the Cho five thousand years ago….” His brow pinched into a frown. “Nevermind all that. What you now sport as an epidermis is the cream of the crop, the tippity-top of advanced biomechanical epidermi. It has all the capabilities of flow armor, stealth, kinetic impact, and light beam dissipation, but it also has more chameleonic aspects, in that it can change the shape of your body—to a degree, at least—and also change color, as well as various other ‘features’ that I can see you’ve already discovered.”
“It’s, uh…wild,” Rika said. “I really wasn’t expecting it to be so…real.”
Finaeus raised an eyebrow as he regarded her. “My dear Rika. I have built star systems. Topping what your GAF did to you is child’s play. But I’m not interested in topping them, I’m interested in making you the best you can be. Your skin is, effectively, flow armor. I call it the MK99. I first pioneered it on my niece, Sera, and she puts it through its paces, so I know it works.”
Rika propped herself up on her elbows as Finaeus walked to her side, standing next to the rack of limbs.
“Now, you’ll notice that you don’t have all those pesky mounting holes in your body anymore. Really crude stuff. Effective, but crude. I worked with your Lieutenant Carson to build a better system that gives you mechs more versatility, while still being maintainable in the field.”
Rika was amazed at how fast this man could talk and still sound like he had a slow drawl. She watched as he held up a right arm for her.
“Here, slide your arm into this.”
“I’d rather start with a gun-arm,” Rika said as she frowned at the natural-looking appendage, which had an elbow joint and looked as though it would slide almost all the way over her bicep.