“What a brilliant idea.” Pullo’s eyes went distant for a second, his men already reorganizing as Pullo gestured to the door. Mark took the lead, seeing as he knew where the hell he was going.
Once they were inside, with two guards inside and the other two outside, Pullo sat on a pallet of rations. Mark hardened the nanites on his legs to make it feel as if he were sitting in mid-air.
“Showboating, I see, Mark.”
“Me? Never, Sergeant,” Mark said, shocked.
The two of them hugged, something that made the bodyguards nervous.
“Last time I saw you was on Sacremon. As I remember it, you were as dead as dead can be.” Mark looked over his old section commander.
“Kind of.” Pullo took a seat, scratching his head. “The legion hires from the troopers. They watch every battle we have. If one of their possible recruits gets badly hurt, they make it look like they’re dead, pull our asses away, heal us up and offer us a place in the legion. It’s not a bad gig.”
“That explains a few things.” Mark thought of the ship he’d woken up in on Fernix, and then the other one he’d come to in, being transported to a station that he’d never seen in his life.
“You’ve been slated for recruiting for a long time. Nerva was a recruiter,” Pullo said.
“He’s alive?” Mark’s mind did flips as he looked at Pullo.
“Yes, he is. He’s one of the first legionnaires ever, and the longest serving recruiter of troopers. He’s brought in more troopers than anyone else. When he died serving the Earth Military Force, he was actually recalled back to the legion and Roma. He’s been fighting the Maraukians ever since.”
“Where is he?” Mark couldn’t believe his old commander, a man he thought of as a father, was still alive.
“At his estates in the Hellenic system. He went to Earth to try to get you, Tyler, and Alexis. It looked like all three of you were dead. He took it pretty hard, blames himself,” Pullo said. “I’m sorry about your losses.”
Mark looked away, scratching his head to hide his itchy eyes. He put the pain of losing his brother and sister-in-law away. He’d deal with it later. Right now, he needed to know his new situation and see whether it affected what was left of his family.
“Thanks.” Mark cleared his throat and got his emotions back under control. “So what happens now?”
“To confirm, were you the person who stowed yourself aboard a supply shuttle and disabled four suits with daggers?”
“Yes,” Mark confirmed.
“Are you the person who stole a suit worth 250 million credits, later destroying it and its replacement? Stealing a NIAI at the same time?”
“Is that how much it cost?”
Pullo nodded slightly in answer.
“Well then, yeah, I guess I am the guy who destroyed them, though I was using them to defend your troops.”
“I would like to say I have now picked Mark and seeing as we’re kind of in the same body, it would be hard for me to go back.” Sarah used an integrated sensor in Mark; she’d asked for it and Mark had agreed.
“All right, I can write the suits off as I can’t put a price on people’s lives. Still, according to the bean counters, including the power and material usage from the nanite tanks, you owe approximately 300 million credits, which by the exchange rate into Earth credits, would be 800 million credits.”
“Yowch.” Mark grimaced.
“It seems you have two options. One, you try to find the credits to pay off this debt.” Pullo gave Mark a considerable look. On Sacremon, they had saved a CEO, splitting a couple million credits. When Pullo had seemingly died, with his second-in-command, Gupta, Mark and his friend Jerome had taken on that money and used it to create the Victor Corporation.
“Or you re-enlist and show me how I can make an assault force.”
“Well, depends what kind of job you’re offering,” Mark replied.
“Interesting.” Sarah picked up on a hidden thought Mark had. “You own that?”
“Yes, fifty percent and paid off.”
“Nice.”
Pullo got himself into a comfortable position before he began.
“Around seven hundred years ago, someone found signals from a human planet. It was called Roma, based in the Hellenic system. Earth and Her Colonies determined they wanted to know what was going on. So they sent the Earth Military Force. They found a civilization that seemed to have been pulled from Rome and left to grow. They were advanced but they had remained on their planet for centuries. The EHC wanted to use them to make products and advance themselves. Eight months after the EMF arrived, things turned to shit. The humans weren’t the only things on the planet. Buried underground were creatures in a state of hibernation.”
Mark’s jaw worked but he nodded.
“Eight months after the EMF arrived, the bastards pulled themselves out of their hidden warrens and headed right for the nearest population centers. The troopers and the small legion of the planet fought the Maraukians. The EMF higher-ups wanted to cut and run. The troopers rebelled. They had bonded with the legion and the Roma people. They fought for two years, bleeding the Maraukians across Roma. Three billion people were reduced to less than a hundred million.
“They lost so much. Most of their cities were destroyed but they were able to stave off disaster and work to destroy the Maraukian nests so they would never come back.
“As they secured Roma, they used the Earth Military Force’s Carriers or EMFCs that had been left behind to move across the system, expanding across their system, harvesting resources and materials to fuel a technological revolution.
“They had an explosion of technology. After two hundred years or so, they had built their own craft, one based off the Alcubierre drive, allowing them to move at faster-than-light speeds, and the first generation of Neural Interfacing Artificial Intelligence.
“They went out to search for answers. They found other inhabited systems, covered with humans. They reported the same Maraukians moving about. The EMF personnel were now full-fledged legionnaires; they readied for a fight and they got it—the Maraukians. Once the legion landed on a planet seeded with humans, they would find Maraukians popping up right afterward.
“Some of these planets were more advanced than Rome but hadn’t reached the stars. Others had been fighting among themselves so much their level of progression had become stagnant.
“The legion needed more fighters. Nerva was one of the first people to go to Earth. He landed in the slums; he picked out people who would be an aid to Roma’s legion. If they were wounded or near death, then legion personnel hiding nearby were able to swoop in, take them and help them out. It gave the people of the EMF a second chance at life and it gave the legion people who had been in combat and didn’t need much more training to become legionnaires.
“Since then, the Ninth has grown to thirty-nine occupied solar systems and has a military strength of fifteen percent of those occupied worlds. Every person over the age of eighteen has also served a mandatory two years’ service.”
“That’s some serious military power,” Mark said, Sarah supplying him with numbers on his HUD.
“Biggest green machine in the known galaxy.”
“Sheesh.”
“So, want to join? You won’t get paid until you pay off the vat resources, though you’ll have meals and housing from the military.”
“Sounds good. Otherwise I might spend the rest of my life on a damned transport, never paying back my debt. Though I have a condition.”
“What would that be?”
“With my new body, I can no longer use the normal powered armor. I’m going to need to make my own.”
“That could take years.”
“It could but I was thinking in the ballpark of six months by myself from design to final suit. In for a penny, in for a pound, Sergeant.”
Pullo supported his chin with his hand as he looked at the ground thoughtfully. “You’re the only one who can use the suit anyway. Wh
at use would it have other than for you?”
“I can give others the ability to become merging capable, coupled with a body modification. I will only accept people I believe ready to not be human anymore and to wear the suit. Suits that emphasize the abilities a merging capable user has: improved speed, reaction time, capable of self-repair of both user and suit, armor and weaponry to fight toe-to-toe with Maraukians. Suits that could let us take the fight to the Maraukians, not wait in a base to soak up the casualties and attack them with Bellona.”
“Looks like you’ve done some research.” Pullo’s eyebrow rose in question.
“I had some time.” Mark shrugged.
“Sounds ambitious, but I can see you’re going to do it with or without my say-so. Have something on my desk in a week and I’ll submit it higher. You have a month and a half to see if you can make anything of this idea.”
“Understood.”
“You’ll need to pass the refresher course we have running as well.”
“Expected as much.” Mark sighed.
“So I take this as you’ll join as a legionnaire?”
“Yeah, as long as I can make my damned suit.”
The corners of Pullo’s mouth quivered. “Okay, here are your orders.” Pullo sent the information in a compressed file through his NIAI.
“Until your training, you are free to roam the base. Your quarters will be with the DD, seeing as you’ve had previous dealings with them.”
“Works.”
“It’s good to see you again, Mark.” Pullo rose and left with his guards.
Mark followed a few minutes after, his food tray being held by a drone. “Nice spread,” he thought-spoke to Sarah as he went back in the med bay, looking at the massive array of food.
“I got it made to fit your new nutrient requirements.”
“Nice.” He dug into what looked like a steak, vegetables, and potatoes, quickly devouring them. He allowed some of his nanites to fall from the shirt; they looked as if they were pulling apart his food and being reabsorbed into his shirt. They’d break down the food, sending it through his nanite-plasmid bloodstream to the areas it needed to be. Meaning by the time he’d eaten a plate of food, his body was absorbing the nutrients from the rest of the food.
“So looks like you’re a soldier again,” Sarah said as Mark stood, patting his stomach.
“At least this time I’m fighting for humanity and I know my enemies.”
“Why would you join another military after what you’ve been through already?”
Mark’s uniform changed to the right specifications as he walked toward the simulation area. Information passed through his HUD as he started to brainstorm about the suit. The major difference between his fatigues and those of the legionnaires around him was how his were as black as night. This and the fact his veins that traced his neck and hands were silver garnered looks and whispers from everyone as he walked.
“Weird, though—the way Pullo said it just made it sound like I was joining the Earth Military Force again. Not a legion that’s been missing for two and a half thousand years, believed to be defeated in Scotland but was actually just sitting in space keeping Earth and humanity safe. Without them ever knowing. It’s impressive and it’s damned unbelievable. I don’t think I would’ve believed it unless I spent three days absorbing information from the base’s data banks.”
“You’re still going to join up with them? You could focus on your venture.”
“Well, I was always a sucker for the posters: visit different and beautiful places, meet new people, discover new things, and kill them. Plus, it seems they’ve got decent food. All right, so seeing as my retirement’s over, I think it’s time we start on what we want this suit to be able to do.”
“For one, it’s going to need a hyper-complex storage and processing network to keep up with you, servos to let you move at rapid speeds…”
***
Ava woke slowly on the pallet in the med bay. She looked at the nanite vat beside her. “Where’s Mark?”
“He’s in the simulation area. Working on something apparently.” One of the medics nearby shrugged and turned back to their console.
“So he’s finally done.” She was a bit annoyed she hadn’t been awake to see him come out of the vat. “Shower, food, and then I’ll see what the hell he’s done to himself.”
Her stomach complained from a lack of food.
Maybe food first.
***
She walked into the simulation area, nibbling on some energy bars she’d grabbed after her heaping tray full of food.
The simulation area consisted of nanite bubbles suspended in anti-grav. These nanites were connected to a main computer, which gave them a scenario to mimic for the user, down to the wind, dust, and bugs. The bubbles could speed up the reality of those inside so it would feel as though it were a week but outside it would be three and a half days.
She walked in the women’s section, undressing and putting everything into an allotted locker. She walked straight into a nanite bubble, cold changing rapidly to her body temperature and adding the feeling of wearing clothing as she looked over a grassy plain.
“Connect me to Mark’s sim.”
“You can only watch. He’s going too fast for you to interact,” Kela warned.
“Okay,” Ava said warily. The grassy plain turned into Mark floating in the air. His arms moved erratically in a workroom bigger than him, yet he didn’t have to move to change anything—his arms were just the right length to get anything.
He was bigger than before. His hair had been cut down and his scruff was gone. He looked alert and focused.
She noticed his pointed ears. That’s weird.
“A mythological race called elves also had pointed ears. They were reclusive, with incredible organization and fighting skills,” Kela informed her.
Mark’s brown eyes found hers. They seemed to glow.
“Are you just going to sit there all day watching me?” Mark said through a private net. His voice sounded strange.
“No, I wasn’t staring.”
“I saw it from every possible angle. Plus, you’re in my simulation.”
“I was studying you. Definitely not staring,” she said stubbornly, tracking his net to find what was disrupting the communication. “Why are you routing your communications through the simulator’s main computer?”
“If I was to communicate with you using my upgrades, it would be extremely hard on your NIAI. If I was to do this at the four times speed I’m at right now, I’d overload its processor.”
“All right, so you’re faster. What else can you do now?”
“A lot. Here’s a brief.” A file appeared on her HUD. She opened it; notes cascaded out of it with information, statistics, and references to other projects—a book long by their own size. Kela highlighted the summary, which was three pages.
“Eighty-five percent of your body is modified or replaced. If you’re even capable of half of these things—hell, the nanite-plasma alone…do you know what this means?” Her voice wavered as she looked at Mark with new eyes.
“I’m a walking testament to technology and if I’m not killed by anything, I could live eons long? I will never have cancer or an illness, my organs can regrow themselves, and yes, I figured that out a long time ago.” The summary disappeared from the notes.
“Though someone will have to figure out how before I tell them,” Mark rumbled.
“Why wouldn’t you just tell everyone?”
“I’m a soldier, Ava. Always been fighting for my life and the lives of others. If people don’t want to put me on a battlefield to do what I’m trained to do because I can live for as long as I have power and nanites, then I’m damned well useless. It might show humans are idiots for using me on a battlefield if I get to one. But I’m doing what I want, not sitting around having scans, tests, and the like.”
“You really are an merger.”
“What?” Mark looked away for a second and then
back.
“Pointed ears, live for a long time, and a fighter.”
“Sounds better than calling myself a merging capable entity.”
“Has a bit of a better ring to it,” Ava agreed. “If you want to keep this all a secret, why would you tell me?”
“Always one for the questions, aren’t you? Well, you were the one who let me do this so it’s my thanks, I guess. I also looked into your files. You wanted to be a legionnaire, but you got overruled and given a position as a medico. You took it, but you still want to be a legionnaire and I would bet you’d be a good one.” Mark held her eyes.
“Thanks.” Ava, embarrassed, looked away and played with her hands. Maybe owing him a life debt isn’t so bad. She looked back at him. He was an incredible fighter and there were secrets to him. Ava was silent for a time, feeling as though she were at a tipping point in her life.
She took a breath. “I owe you a life debt. I’ll keep your secret.”
“Ava, look at me.” He stopped moving frantically, changing to her speed as they came face-to-face.
Blood flared through her body at his closeness.
“You don’t owe me a life debt. I don’t care what the rules are; I will not have your life becoming nothing just because some old rule says that. I free you from a life debt or whatever.”
“A life debt...”
“Is not something one owing it or receiving it can null.” A whip-thin man, his face worn from a hard life, with a thin mustache on his upper lip and a sword at his waist, entered the space.
“Well, what the heck rained on Mark’s sim time?” he said angrily, returning to floating in the air with a look of annoyance on his face.
“Ava.” The thin man nodded his head slightly, which Ava returned more deeply as a sign of respect between the two.
“Teacher,” Ava said.
The man clasped hands in front of him, staring and judging Mark. Ava could see from his expression he was not impressed.
“Sorry. Mark, this is my Uncle Chyna. My teacher and protector,” Ava said.
“Good to meet you. So what was this you were saying about a life debt?” His hands continued to fly in front of him.
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 6