A wave of dizziness went through him, and March almost fell, but he knew that if he went down, he would not get up again. Lorre and his Iron Hands would kill Taren, and then they would steal the quantum inducers and the Firestone and use them to manufacture more Wraith devices.
He yanked one of the knives from his sleeve with his right hand and flung it at the nearest Iron Hand. The Machinist commando snapped his metal arm up, deflecting the blade with contemptuous ease. It only took a half second, but that was all March needed. His left arm shot forward and drove his metal fist into the Iron Hand’s stomach. The Machinist commando doubled over with a wheeze, but straightened up almost at once, his cybernetic implants giving him the strength to ignore the pain.
But it also gave March the time he needed to hammer his metal fist onto the top of the Iron Hand’s skull. He hit the man three times in rapid succession, and on the third blow even the reinforced bone of an Iron Hand’s skull gave way. Something cracked, blood spattered across his sleeve, and the Iron Hand fell in a boneless heap to the ground.
March stepped back just as the final Iron Hand’s fist hurtled towards his face.
He threw himself to the side, and fresh pain exploded through his head as the metal hand clipped his right temple. March staggered and fell backward, landing at the foot of the pile of prefab walls, his head feeling as if someone had driven a spike through his forehead.
The Iron Hand plunged a knife into March’s chest.
That brought more pain. March wasn’t sure how many times he was stabbed. Two times? Three times?
He didn’t know.
It didn’t matter because it gave him the time he needed to seize one of the dropped plasma pistols, raise the weapon, and blow the top of the Iron Hand’s head off. The commando fell backward, and March heaved himself off the ground, swinging the pistol around to point at Lorre, who had stepped backward in alarm.
The fight had felt like an eternity, but it had lasted maybe ten seconds. Twenty at the most.
March lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger. Three times before Lorre had gotten away from him.
Not this time.
Except March was dizzy, so dizzy, and his hands were shaking, and his plasma bolt missed Lorre’s head by maybe an inch. Lorre whirled and sprinted for the cargo hatch as another volley of plasma bolts shot after him, spattering against the cargo boxes and the walls.
Taren jogged around the pile of prefab walls, pistol in a two-handed grip as she fired.
What had taken her so long? No, it only felt like a long time. Likely she had run after him the second he had vaulted over the prefab walls.
March started to pursue Lorre, but instead dropped to his knees, blinking. He felt so light-headed, which was kind of a relief because everything hurt. The front of his jumpsuit was sodden and wet. Had he been sweating that much?
No. It wasn’t sweat. It was blood.
“Four Iron Hands?”
It was Taren. She was staring at the dead men in amazement.
“You just killed four Iron Hands?”
“Get…get their hive implants,” said March. “Quick…get…”
He tried to keep speaking, and then realized he was having trouble breathing.
Taren looked at him, and her gray eyes went wide. “Oh, Jesus. You’re hurt.”
She really was quite pretty. An odd thought just now.
But March supposed there were worse things to see while dying than a beautiful woman.
He tried to speak once more, then fell on his face as nothingness claimed him.
Chapter 6: Past and Present
March fell through the blackness endlessly.
And in the blackness, he saw his past.
He dreamed of Calixtus, the world where he had grown up. Calixtus had been conquered by the Machinists before his birth, and the Final Consciousness had shattered the planet’s civilization. Most of the population lived in labor camps, watched unceasingly by Machinist soldiers and collaborators, with death the punishment for any infractions. Those who could survive the joining process to the Final Consciousness were taken.
His mother had died of illness and malnutrition. March had taken to stealing to survive. One day he had been caught. He should have been executed, but the security forces had tested him for compatibility to join the Final Consciousness.
March had passed.
So they had taken him and cut him apart.
He had been awake for every excruciating moment of the surgery as they cut off his left arm and replaced it with cybernetics, as they sliced open his torso and skull and added implants. The pain almost drove him mad, but the Final Consciousness had no patience for weakness, and as his hive implant came online, the thundering will of the Final Consciousness filled him, purging away all weakness and compassion and doubt and fear.
March had become an Iron Hand.
There had been the training, brutal and relentless, the punishments harsh. March had excelled, learning the arts of hand-to-hand combat, sabotage, infiltration, assassination, and all the other skills the Final Consciousness required of its Iron Hands, its elite assassins and operatives. March had gone on countless missions for the Final Consciousness, killing and killing and killing. He had been among the best, and he had known neither doubt nor fear. The Final Consciousness’s certainty filled him, drowning any doubt he might have known.
Then had come Martel’s World.
March had thought he would die from his injuries, but one of the families living in the slums had taken him in and tended him. When he had been well enough, he had left and rejoined the Machinist forces retreating from the system in the face of the Kingdom of Calaskar’s offensive.
And then the Machinists had bombed the world to deny it to the Royal Calaskaran Navy.
Billions of people burned to ashes in a moment.
Including the family that had taken him in.
When he had asked why they had helped him, they had said that just as the Good Samaritan had taken in wounded man in the Bible, so too would they follow Christ’s teaching and help March.
And the Machinists had killed them for no reason. Martel’s World was strategically useless, lacking the advanced industries and scientific farming to support an interstellar war economy. There had been no reason, no reason at all, for the Final Consciousness to destroy Martel’s World, save for spite.
And March had discovered something stronger than the thunderous certainty of the Final Consciousness.
Rage.
He had escaped, and Censor had found him. The Silent Order gave him surgery to remove most of his implants (he had gotten to go under this time), and the Iron Hand became Captain Jack March, Alpha Operative of the Silent Order. A torrent of memories blurred through him, missions on a hundred different worlds, Censor’s dry voice in his ears. Again he saw the Wraith device, saw the alien machines at their heart, and panic surged through him…
March’s eyes popped open.
He started to sit up, and a wave of dizziness went through him, and he fell back onto the bed.
He was in a small room with two beds, its walls lined with metal cabinets, an array of medical equipment and an expert medical pseudointelligence computer between the beds.
His mind came back into focus. This was the infirmary on the Tiger. How the hell had he gotten here? He ought to have been dead…
March looked down at himself. He was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, the massive Y-shaped scar on his torso visible. Spotted on his chest and left leg and side were the gray patches of localized healing nanobots. He recognized the burning, itching sensation as they rebuilt damaged tissues and bones. March felt absolutely exhausted, the way he did when the remaining Machinist cybernetic implants in his body and the nanotech in his blood had gone into overdrive repairing injuries.
Stabbed. He had been stabbed, multiple times. Plasma burns from the near-misses. Probably broken ribs and a concussion, maybe even a skull fracture.
How the hell was he still aliv
e?
There were electrodes on his wrist and temples, and March sat up. This time he stayed up, and he tugged off the electrodes. The expert system made an unhappy noise.
“Vigil,” he croaked. “Vigil?”
The smooth voice of the ship’s pseudointelligence filled his ears. “Captain March. What do you require?”
A dozen questions warred in his mind.
One popped out first.
“What’s the date?” he said. “Time and date, please.”
Vigil told him.
“Jesus,” muttered March, rubbing his face. Stubble rasped beneath both fingers of flesh and fingers of metal.
He had been unconscious for four and a half days.
“How did I get here?” said March.
“Dr. Adelaide Taren and Mr. Constantine Bishop brought you to the Tiger,” said Vigil. “You had previously granted Mr. Bishop access rights to the Tiger and had not rescinded them. Using those permissions, Mr. Bishop also granted Dr. Taren access rights to the Tiger. Dr. Taren and Mr. Bishop brought you to the infirmary and began medical procedures to treat your injuries, which were extensive.”
“Right,” said March, trying to gather his thoughts. “Right.”
There were a million things he had to do. The quantum inducers and the Firestone. He had to secure them. What about Lorre? He had probably gotten away in the chaos. Was Bishop safe? Was Taren? The quantum inducers and that Firestone thing had to be a priority, but his mission had originally been to secure Taren’s safety.
He looked around for his phone, but couldn’t find it.
“Vigil,” said March. “Where’s my phone?”
“Your phone is in your cabin, Captain March,” said Vigil.
March pushed to his feet, waited until the dizziness passed, and opened the infirmary door. He stepped into the aft end of the Tiger’s dorsal corridor. The ship was in standby mode, the lights dimmed, the faint hum of the life support equipment in the background.
He heard something else. Music? Was that music?
Metal clanked against metal. The door to the gym was open.
March walked forward in silence, his metal hand curling into a fist, his right hand braced against the corridor wall to keep his balance. The metal grillwork of the deck pushed against his bare feet. He gripped the doorway to the gym, took a deep breath to steady himself, and then swung around the frame and into the gym.
All the lights were on, and music played in the background, something with a thumping, pulsing beat. Some of the weights had been taken from their racks, and…
March blinked in surprise.
The first thing he saw was Dr. Adelaide Taren squatting in front of him as she prepared to perform a deadlift. She was wearing a pink tank top and a pair of black exercise shorts. Tight exercise shorts. Heitz had called her the historian with the nice ass who wore tight skirts, and March’s first unanticipated thought was that it was even nicer in exercise shorts.
Taren paused, straightened up, and turned to face him. Her dark hair had been pulled back, and her face lit up with a smile.
“You’re up!” she said. “The system thought you wouldn’t wake up for another day.”
“Yeah,” said March, blinking.
He was suddenly conscious of her toned body beneath the exercise clothes, and of the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything but boxer shorts. March hated, hated for anyone to see his scars, and his body was nothing but scars, proof of the monster that he had been.
For a moment he froze, unable to think of anything to say.
“You shouldn’t be standing up yet,” said Taren, frowning. Her eyes flicked up and down him, almost hungrily, and then they widened with chagrin. “Oh. I understand.” She crossed to one of the cabinets, drew out a robe, and tossed it to him. March donned the robe, pulling it on and tying the sash.
“What do you understand?” said March.
She smiled. “You must be ravenous. Why don’t we go to the galley and have something to eat?” She hesitated. “You…hell, Captain March. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“I might,” said March. “Food’s a good idea.” He stepped back and wobbled a bit.
Taren was at his side at once, one arm coiling around his waist. “Here.”
Together they walked to the galley. March settled at a bench with a grunt, and Taren busied herself preparing two cups of coffee and two of his prepackaged meals. Again, almost against his will, his eyes were drawn to her as she worked, the shifting of the muscles in her legs and arms, the curve of her hips and the graceful line of her neck. He grimaced and shook his head. Attraction was a liability for an Alpha Operative of the Silent Order.
As she turned, he caught a glimpse of a scar beneath the hem of the right leg of her shorts.
She saw him looking and paused, something flickering in her eyes. Then Taren sat, smiled, and passed him the coffee and the prepackaged eggs and simulated bacon. March ate with a will, barely stopping for breath.
“All right,” he said once the harsh edge of his hunger had subsided. “I have some questions.”
“I thought you might,” said Taren. “Can I summarize for you? It’s been a while since I taught undergraduates, but I think I remember how to do it.”
Despite himself, he smiled. “Summarize away.”
“About thirty seconds after you collapsed,” said Taren, “Bishop and his friends showed up. Evidently one of the freighter crewers docked here owes him a favor, and they were ready for a fight. I found them, and Bishop and I tried to figure out what to do while his men disabled the remaining hive implants. The first priority was to attend to your injuries. All the medical facilities on the station are controlled by Ronstadt Corporation, so Bishop and I took you and the relics to the Tiger. We locked down the ship, hooked you up to the expert system, and I injected some first aid nanobots and took care of your wounds. We thought about taking the Tiger to Antioch Station, but Veldt has ordered a lockdown and isn’t letting any ships leave Rustbelt Station. So, I stayed here to guard the artifacts and to look after you while we figured out what to do. That way the Machinists don’t go after my crew, and the Tiger’s point-defense lasers can fry anyone hostile who shows up, but no one did. I’ve spent the last few days on watch, tending to you, and keeping myself amused in your gym.” She grimaced. “Oh, and Lorre got away, of course.”
“Of course,” said March. “The bastard’s a cockroach.” He rubbed his face again and then took another drink of coffee. “How badly was I hurt?”
“Concussion,” said Taren. “Three cracked ribs, five stab wounds, three burns from plasma bolt near-hits, and a whole hell of a lot of cuts and scrapes. No damage to major organs, thankfully. I used almost all of your emergency medical nanobots.”
“I’ll charge myself extra for them,” said March. He hesitated. “Thanks. I thought I was finished.”
Taren grinned. “It’s only fair, Captain March. You did save my life. Twice. Laredo…Lorre, you call him, he would have killed me. He would have gone out of his way to kill me.”
“Yeah,” said March. “How did you know Lorre?”
Taren’s face went still. “You probably know already. Censor sent you the whole story. I didn’t look through your files or go through your computer or anything, but if I did, I bet I would find the records there.”
“He did,” said March. “But the official record is usually incomplete. Just what happened?”
Taren considered for a moment, and then took a drink of coffee.
“No,” she said.
March frowned. “No? You won’t tell me?”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” said Taren. “It’s too personal, and it’s too painful.” She leaned forward. “But I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What deal?”
“Tell me where you got your scars,” said Taren, “and I’ll tell you about Samuel Laredo.”
March felt himself scowl. “If you treated my injuries, and if you talked to Bishop, you probably know
where I got my scars.”
“I’m not stupid, Captain March,” said Taren. “I saw you fight. Four Iron Hands should have killed you, but you beat them all. Plus, you have that cybernetic arm. It’s obvious that you used to be an Iron Hand yourself. You have the scar of a hive implant on the base of your skull.” She tapped the table with her fingers. “So, you were an Iron Hand, and you defected to join the Kingdom of Calaskar.”
“What more do you need to know?” said March, irritated.
“The official record is usually incomplete,” said Taren.
They stared at each other for a moment.
March let out a long breath. “You’re persistent, aren’t you?”
“Patrick Orson usually says the same thing.” Taren smiled. “But not nearly as nicely.”
March sighed and gazed at the ceiling. “Fine. I suppose if you’re an archaeologist, you must like digging things up.” His gaze fell back to her. “And if you asked Censor, he would likely tell you the whole story anyway.”
“But I want to hear it from you,” said Taren.
“I was born on Calixtus,” said March, “in one of the labor camps. I don’t know my father. My mother died eventually, which was probably why I avoided the mandatory testing. I started stealing to survive, and I got caught. When the Machinist soldiers tested me, they found I was compatible, and so I was joined to the Final Consciousness and became an Iron Hand.”
Taren nodded. Her face was calm, but her eyes were solemn. He didn’t want to tell her about the horrors of the surgeries and the training. If she had seen his scars, she likely knew all about it already.
But, somewhat to his surprise, he kept talking.
“I was an Iron Hand for years,” said March. “I did everything you would expect an Iron Hand to do. During one mission, I crashed on Martel’s World. One of the slum families found me. I expected they would kill me, but instead they took care of me until I could travel again. And then the Machinists destroyed Martel’s World for no good reason.” He shook his head. “After that, I was finished. I left and joined the Silent Order, and I’ve been doing this ever since.”
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