“Calm down. I’m integrating,” a toneless voice said in his mind.
His adrenaline surged again as his head pounded. He cried out as his brain felt as though it were too big for his skull as battle hormones flooded his body again.
“Integration anomaly. Nanite implantation problem. Calm down!”
He breathed heavily as the pain subsided. “Are you fucking kidding me? Now there’s a fucking voice in my head!” Mark yelled. His combat pumps were flushing his system with a chemical cocktail, boosting his strength and dulling his pain. His augments went full bore as he clawed at the armband and tried to smash it against the containers.
“The voice you’re hearing in your head is normal. I am the NIAI.”
“What the fuck have I gotten myself into?” he yelled in his head, not listening to the voice. The cold feeling seemed to turn into molten metal, burning its way through his spine.
Mark gritted his teeth, his fingernails cutting the skin around the armband.
“Too much of an open-ended question but it’s my job to keep you alive, so I would advise you to put on this armor.” The coffin-like container opened, revealing one of the suits he’d seen running around. It was bigger than the ones he’d disabled by a few inches.
“The pain you’re feeling right now is because of a malfunction. Your combat pumps and augments interfered with the integration process and now they’re inside your nervous system. They’re only supposed to be overlaying it, sensing the electrical signals so we can communicate by thought and I can relay information through your nervous system.”
Mark gritted his teeth against the pain that was subsiding. He needed to get the hell out of here and fast.
“And you can read my thoughts?” Mark thought.
“Yes, I can. You really know nothing about me. I’m a Neural Interfacing Artificial Intelligence. Is there a name you would like to choose for me?”
He pulled a rifle from the holster in the container and a cylinder that was next to it. He slapped the cylinder into the back of the rifle. He’d used and trained on hundreds of weapon systems. He pulled on the cocking handle, loading a round into the weapon.
Seen one gun, seen a million. He felt better now with a weapon in his hands.
“Sarah.” He set down the rifle on a nearby container, and stuffed his clothes into the empty holster while he pulled down a cat suit. “Looks like you’re still using these things.” He wrinkled his nose as he put it on, stretching it drastically. As he dressed, the armor was pushed out of its coffin on arms.
The suit opened along seams in its sides. He pulled at and adjusted his cat suit before stepping backward into the powered armor.
“So, what did you mean by integrating problem from before?”
“Some of the nanites I use to connect to your brain where moved into other places than they should be because of your adrenaline, combat chemicals, and emotional spike. I was not aware of them being in these areas as it is not part of a normal NIAI programming.”
She didn’t reveal anything new but Mark wanted to check. “That sounds both bad and complicated.” The armor closed around him. He felt a hum as the darkness of the helmet turned to blue for a second. Then a heads-up display—or HUD—appeared in his vision. Icons littered his view.
“Is there a way to clear this up?” Mark wanted to take his sword as well but he didn’t have a scabbard for it, and there wasn’t any of those shields and swords in the coffin. He didn’t have the time to search for them.
“Just hold an image of what you want in your mind. I will put a guiding ball to the nearest person to turn yourself into.”
“You said you’re supposed to keep me safe.” He felt weird as he tried to talk with his mind. His HUD flashed to what he’d imagined, identical to his setup on his battle rattle.
“Yes.”
“All right then, Sarah, I don’t think that would be the safest option for me seeing as I disabled four of these suits. So I think for right now the best place to be is somewhere far away from here and safe.”
“Well, there’s nowhere exactly safe, but I’ll guide you to the safest place on the net.”
“All right, Sarah. Lead on.”
“Follow the bouncing ball.” The toneless voice was now more feminine in nature.
He didn’t pay any attention but focused on following the new bouncing ball, his rifle ready to put down any who got in his way.
He walked slowly at first, getting used to the new armor before picking up speed. It was surprisingly easy to use. He quickly left the cargo shuttle, making his way into a cargo bay filled with containers and more black coffins carrying powered armor and rifles.
“As you move and your reactions are recorded, I am able to pick up on your tells. The longer we work together, the easier it will be. After a period of assimilation, I might be able to predict what you need before you think of it,” Sarah said.
Was that pride I heard? Mark thought. It was hard to think of Sarah as just some machine. The effects of being able to predict his needs were alarming enough. One didn’t need to say how useful it would be in battle.
“Hold! Bellona tanks coming through,” Sarah said as Mark was about to run out from within a collection of cargo crates.
“Goddamn,” he muttered as he looked up at the mountains of armor that Sarah highlighted as being Bellona main battle tanks. Twenty-three thousand tons of super-reflective, purpose-built killing machines caused the ground to rumble. Every inch was covered in weapon systems. Sarah highlighted them, from the main turret hosting a 550mm revolving tribarrel with an anti-spaceship barrel and two area denial barrels characterized by their open-ended rectangular muzzles. On its frontal armor, there were two armored cupolas that controlled the point defenses of the small moving hill, including 10 to 150mm rail guns, an array of acceleration tubes, laser batteries, and blow-out panels lining the lower armor around the exterior tracks. Hatches on the hull and sides hid arrays of accel tubes and rail guns. Whoever had made it had believed more firepower was always better.
Mark ran between a break which appeared in the tank column, running into a corridor that led away from the interior of the wagon wheel-shape fort. He moved through armored doors, passing acceleration tubes that were nothing more than automated loaders tossing rounds into rail gun tubes that powered up, firing the projectiles into the ranks of apes.
A few people flittered around here and there, putting in new orders for the weapon systems and fixing those that were damaged.
He passed secondary batteries and clear defenses with armored personnel ready to move to the front to support or hold if the front was breached and collapsed under the pressure.
He continued to the exterior ring, his thoughts stuck on the sights he’d seen. It was clear this group’s tech was impressive and their combat abilities were high.
If they’ve got all of these weapons and preparations, those dumb apes have to be one hell of an opponent. Mark was still thinking about the tank when Sarah’s yells brought him back to reality.
“Maraukian breach!”
“So much for being the safe route. The fuck is a Maraukian?”
She flashed him a picture of the gray apes he’d seen on his flight in. They had gray fur, four eyes, and tusks protruded from their upper jaws. It had four lower legs to move and two upper limbs to manipulate tools. They were about ten foot from the four lower legs to head; over fifteen feet from rump to head. It was obvious to his eye something was definitely wrong. They’d obviously at some time in their past had genetic modifications, creating the now monkey, reptile, and mammalian creature in his HUD.
“The things I saw attacking this place when I flew in?”
“Yes. They’re making entry up ahead in about two hundred meters.”
Mark’s pace slowed. These weren’t his people—what was he doing, running into danger for someone he didn’t know?
He was just about to turn back when armored doors snapped shut behind him. He gritted his teeth, holding hi
s weapon tighter. It looked as if he had no option in the matter now. He’d rather go out fighting than waiting for the enemy to come for him.
“Get me the fastest path there.” He picked up his pace once again and ran forward.
“I thought you wanted to avoid others?”
“Shut up and do it. I need communications as well.”
“Patching you into the net now.”
The communications net came to life. Instantly, he could hear others as clear as if they were next to him, their voices automatically lowered or increased in volume so he could hear them clearly. “Support front and center at the breach. Alpha half left; rest right. Get those damn barricades up! Bravo, just lay down fire and hold the grenades.”
He ran into the battlefield. He was in a section that was shaped like a half moon with soldiers on the first floor desperately firing into the four man-wide hole that Maraukians were swarming. They didn’t care about wounds or pain as they scratched, clawed, and fired through the hole, expanding it and attempting to force their way inside.
They weren’t able to overwhelm the soldiers inside yet but it was a matter of time. The telltale screech of vibro-blades was dulled by Sarah automatically. The defending force had some shields in the ragged force moving to create a barrier in front of the defenders shooting through the hole in the wall.
By their actions, it was clear their morale was faltering. They were cut off from the rest of the base, with armored doors sealing them off. Either they would be able to contain this and hold out long enough for a stronger force to assist them, or they would fail and be wiped out.
Another section of the wall showed a vibrating blade slashing through it. Several more blades cut into the wall. The wall caved in as Maraukians piled in.
“Help!”
His eyes turned as Sarah highlighted a medico with a red cross on her arm.
She grabbed the rifle she’d put on the ground. She didn’t pause as she fired into the Maraukians, taking down one of them with a burst to the face. She switched targets to the next Maraukian. There was no sense of give in her actions; even if she died, she would stand there, killing Maraukians, protecting her patients until the very end. She actually advanced.
Mark’s face split into a rare smile as the hairs on the back of his head raised. He laughed, leaving his reservations behind. The ragged defending force couldn’t help her, barely holding together themselves. He could see without help, she and her patients would die.
He rushed past a soldier, ripping off their scabbard and drawing their sword. He flicked his sword, sending the scabbard flying.
Anger surged through his body. I’m not running away again. He spun his sword. Its edge glinted, the way only a mono-blade would, in his left as he raised the rifle with his right.
Sarah tagged it as the M19 rail gun.
***
Sarah saw memories flooding her processors. She felt the anger being radiated by Mark. It was ethereal; it wasn’t a thing of emotion but a physical object. Memories unknown to her flooded her—thoughts of battles with swords and powered armor, EMF troopers on either side as they fought against Harmony Chosen in their powered armor. The sense of anger, the sense of fear and being alive. She saw Mark didn’t care for his life, just wishing to save the medico and her people, to pit himself against the Maraukians.
Images and information of the Maraukians passed through her mind, recordings of fights, biological information. Sarah was no longer detached; through Mark, she had experienced real emotion. She wasn’t detached from it like other NIAI were; instead, it was so strong it felt to be a part of her. Instead of having an aloofness and overwatching of a NIAI, she felt the excitement, the thrill of the fight, the hunt. The relief of being able to finally do something that he knew after months of being unable to do so. Today the Maraukians might win but today the Maraukians would taste their anger. Sarah and Mark’s thoughts played off each other. The gap between the two of them seemed to break, blurring the line of NIAI and user. NIAI, suit, and user were forged together, the sum of their parts merged into a weapon.
They felt each other. Emotions freely passed between them—organic and inorganic, unexplainable, impossible—yet they felt it was somehow right and trusted in each other. Purpose filled them.
Mark growled. His body surged with energy; instead of the chaotic anger of before, now he was almost detached from it all. The world seemed to slow and his body come alive, every muscle, every fiber of his being alive with cold energy. His emotions underwent a change. It wasn’t uncontrollable rage, fiery and hot. It was as cold and deadly calm, precise and exacting as a scalpel.
“DADDY’S HOME, LADIES AND GENTS.” His voice was amplified by the suit’s speakers to its maximum volume as a mirthless grin spread across his face, unseen by everyone else shocked by the announcement. He jumped into the air; his HUD connected with the M19 as he fired while Sarah controlled the anti-grav. What Sarah knew he now knew; there was no break in knowledge, no pause in command and action. They were one whole. Creating a god of death. Maraukian heads snapped back, rounds piercing their brains. The medico didn’t look to see who it was as she continued her rate of fire. Sarah fired bomblets; Maraukians exploded and chunks of them flew everywhere. Mark dropped to the ground. His M19 moved as if it had sentience; with every press of the trigger, a burst took down a Maraukian. He cleared an area around the medico and her patients. He’d only got a few dozen before his weapon clicked empty. He threw his now empty rail gun with the power of his servo-assisted arm through a Maraukian that had passed through the growing hole in the wall.
He rolled to the side. His nervous system, the sensors of his suit, and all systems Sarah was connected to were linked together. He could’ve closed his eyes to fight as he ducked and whirled, grabbing the vibro-blade of a dead Maraukian on the ground. He stood, coming up and driving his own mono-blade upward underneath another Maraukian’s chest plate, killing it instantly. He left the blade there and ripped the vibro-blade from his victim’s grasp; he spun and took off the head of another. He threw the mono-sword, nailing a Maraukian to the wall. It thrashed about in its death throes as Mark grabbed the beheaded Maraukian’s vibro-blade.
With a flick of his wrist, Sarah streamed information through his HUD. A lifetime of training with every weapon mankind had ever thought of creating made him adjust his stance. The thirty-kilo blades danced through the air, the blue blood of the Maraukians spraying everything in the vicinity. He matched his skills with Sarah’s information: weaving, dodging, stabbing through a group of vital organs there, ripping another Maraukian’s vitals apart, dropping to the floor to have anti-grav catch him to avoid a blade before springing right back on the anti-grav and coming under their exposed guard to drive a blade through them, flipping as it was caught and grabbing the one in his latest victim’s claw.
Mark and Sarah’s coordination was unparalleled, trusting in each other completely, combining the information Sarah held and Mark’s reactions and training of his past.
Their actions weren’t just fear-inspiring; there was a beauty and a grace to every movement: their sword angled just so to wreak the most damage, their stance just so they could move back and cut across under a secondary attack Sarah had already simulated.
To those watching, it was as if Mark and Sarah were simply walking through a field, the wheat around them bowing to their existence.
It left them in a state of shock. This unknown, cocky, and arrogant man had charged in with abandon, going toe-to-toe with the creatures that plagued their nightmares.
Mark was focused on just fighting, a slight smile on his face. After months of running, hiding, it felt good to be doing something. This was where he belonged: tip of the fucking spear, in the middle of the shit.
***
“Who are you?” Ava Desialias was the medico behind Mark. She regretted her words, hoping it wouldn’t distract him as she reloaded her rifle.
“Someone who’s going to keep you alive,” the unknown man replie
d via his speakers. His voice was strangely calm as he surged forward—slashing, ducking, and spinning—wading through the Maraukians and using their own vibro-blades against them. His movements were complex and hard to read. It seemed as if the Maraukians were just running into his blades as he pushed forward, relentless in his actions. A Maraukian swung down, making him turn sideways and out of the way of its blade; his left blade moved in a flash, cutting off the offending limb as his right blade entered at just the right angle to the skull. It was dead before its arm touched the floor. Two more were dead as its body hit the ground.
Ava pulled her eyes from the bloody display and firmly closed her mouth to stop further comments. She knew the man was busy. She’d tend to the wounded and he could deal with the Maraukians now ten meters from where she worked on her patients. He deserved a little trust and by hell, she was going to give it to him.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing? Get that shield wall up. Prepare anti-matter grenades and continuous rate of fire. Leaders, sort out the rate of fire and get your people together. NOW!” The unknown man’s voice was dominating, his tone clear and precise. There was no room for argument. This was an order; those who dared disobey would feel his ire.
The ragged defense force gritted their teeth. Their actions became swifter, and they pushed the thoughts of impending doom from their minds. Now was not the time to think of the what-if’s—they were fucking legionnaires! They held the line and no Maraukians were going to stop them from carrying out that duty.
Shields meshed together, the disorganized rabble was now a wall, with M19s sprouting through gun ports in the shields.
Maybe we might survive the day, Ava thought. Her NIAI did not want to tell her the chances of that, which he’d already calculated as she worked on the wounded.
Ava focused on her patients. Everything else became background noise.
***
“Fire as they bear.” Tesserarius Michales took command of those behind the shield wall, sending a fire plan to every man and woman under his command to maintain continuous fire on the Maraukians.
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 2