Incursion: Merkiaari Wars Book 5

by Mark E. Cooper

  By order of the king and Sir Harry, every step of her enhancement had been recorded. Ellie didn’t understand why they wanted to document the process in such detail, but they did. Maybe they wanted a body of evidence to present in court after the war. And they might need it. She’d done her part by giving a statement on camera volunteering for an unspecified mission requiring augmentation, and she’d signed the consent forms someone had cobbled together. None of it meant anything to her, but it might protect those performing the work. It might not, too. Still, as William said not long ago, Faragut hardly needed to fear a trade embargo for breaking the Convention. It had to survive the Merkiaari first.

  Ellie studied herself on one of the monitors set up nearby for her. Her pelvic region was fully encased in armour now, lending her some dignity again, and her new legs were connected. They worked too. She hadn’t tried to run yet, but the walk-test had gone fine.

  Doctor Michaels hadn’t been kidding about the severity and invasive nature of the surgery. Thankfully, her pelvic armour covered the evidence, but internally and externally she wasn’t Human below her navel anymore. She’d tried not to notice the disgust on the engineers’s faces when they’d worked on her down there. They hadn’t exactly tried to hide their emotions.

  It was a relief when they fitted her legs and hid the horror beneath her armour. It shimmered silver under the lights and looked infinitely better. The shimmer was part of its reactive nature. It would reduce the effect of incoming fire. She’d be able to choose a camo pattern as a side benefit, but gloss black suited her mood better. That’s what she’d choose when they let her take command of her body again.

  Ellie passed the time listening to the arcane language of engineers, and tried to relate what they said to what they were doing to her. No one considered she might like to participate in their decisions. No one thought to explain them. They whispered their questions and replies to each other as if afraid to disturb her.

  Pass this thing or that. Don’t tighten it down yet. How’s the seal? Ready for the gel? Pressure is steady. No leaks...

  Ellie let it wash over her.

  During her first round of surgeries, the emergency operations that saved her life, Doctor Michaels had managed to preserve her upper arms. Both were gone now. He’d needed to amputate them in order to install enhanced shoulder muscles and strengthen the joints. Without those two essential items, she wouldn’t be able to operate her new arms. Reaper arms were heavily armoured, and extremely strong. Their internals would allow her to lift heavy weights, and mount special weapons. Without reinforced shoulders, she’d kill herself the first time she tried to use them. She’d need to run some tests on the firing range, but the engineers were still tinkering with reaction speeds. Too fast risked damaging joints. Too slow risked worse in battle.

  She made fists to judge progress. Her left hand reacted noticeably quicker than her right. She’d always been right-handed before. Not that it mattered now.

  “Try to relax while I calibrate your reflexes Major,” a technician said, not crossly, just distracted. She didn’t look up from her comp.

  “Sorry,” Ellie muttered and her hands returned to a relaxed posture by her sides.

  Another change among a raft of them, was her height. She was much taller than before. At well over 2 meters in height she topped everyone in the room, and would have to duck through doorways. She wasn’t as tall as a Marine in powered armour, but the floor seemed a long way down. It was a little surreal. She studied what she could see of her face on the closest monitor. In a strange way she had two faces now. The right side was entirely Human looking, but the left was not. Her eye on that side was a biomech replacement. It could supply her with all kinds of targeting data. Her face on that side shimmered silver from cheekbone to hairline, and then around to terminate just in front of her ear. She planned to wear a helmet even indoors, or get used to people staring at her.

  Doctor Michaels entered the room and nodded to her when he noticed her looking. He parked off to one side of the room to watch. He often stopped by, but he said little when he did. After performing the banned surgeries needed to interface a Human body with a cybernetic one, he’d taken no further active part. Instead, he observed, his eyes coldly clinical as they studied the naked horror of her torso. The horror he’d created.

  Ellie wondered what was going through his mind. Did the scars and bruises repulse him? Did he see the invasive implants he’d installed beneath them in his mind’s eye, or was he fascinated by the holes and tears barely healed around her armour’s mounting points? Maybe he just liked a good pair of tits, she thought bitterly. Hers were one-hundred percent natural; about the only part of her that still was. She snorted softly. It was probably the scars. Her bare torso revealed them clearly, and he was responsible for most of them. She didn’t care about scars. The new ones caused by his hasty surgeries were less severe than the invisible one on her heart.

  What did Michaels see when he looked at her? A badly scarred woman in need of his help? An injured soldier? A weapon to throw at the Merki? Maybe he regretted what he’d started. Did he wish he hadn’t shown her the Reaper on his compad? Was he horrified by what he’d created?

  He should be.

  She was the first augment to draw breath in centuries. An extinct species resurrected out of a history book—a trans-human. A cybernetically enhanced human being. An augment, or more accurately, a cyborg. Worse, she was a Reaper. A military cyborg patterned upon those who’d fought in the Corporate Wars for money, or fame, or the latest upgrades. All gone now. Destroyed with millions of other augments during the Hacker Rebellion when the hated Douglas Walden turned them into mindless zombies, or suicidal killing machines.

  She was a species of one and shouldn’t exist. By Alliance law she must not exist. The only exceptions to the Bethany Convention and the AI Edict were a handful of ancient AIs, and Burgton’s vipers. Both were strictly regulated and under Council control. No one and nothing controlled her. She was an outlawed abomination.

  “Raise your arms please.”

  Ellie did.

  A pair of engineers approached carrying one half of her torso armour trailing power feeds and various sensor connections. Another pair of men readied the back half of her armour. Like a turtle, she would be sealed inside her very own shell; a woman shaped carapace to cover the horror hiding within.

  “Nice touch,” Ellie said to Michaels.

  He shrugged. “A sculpted breastplate should fit your shape better. You do need room to breathe, and you’re not exactly flat-chested.”

  That was true. She was ample. More than, according to Nicky. Ellie forced herself not to think along those lines. He was gone and she was not. Not yet.

  The engineers made the various connections to the ports implanted in her torso front and back, and then fitted the two halves of the armour onto her battered body. They worked in silence, sealing her inside and hiding the horror at last. The armour’s nanocoat started shimmering silver as her systems energised it. More importantly, the darkened icons on her internal HUD awoke. A data window opened that only she could see, and a diagnostic began running.

  With a coded thought Ellie changed her nanocoat to black. Multiple gasps from around the room proved her command had been accepted. She glanced at the nearest monitor. Her glossy black surfaces shone under the bright lights. She flexed her right hand one finger at a time. Made a fist. Relaxed. Performed the exercise a second time with her left. The diagnostic came back all green. Her body was reacting as she’d expected, but then it should. Its operating system was more or less identical to one used in powered armour. She couldn’t feel anything in her cocoon of metal, but she hadn’t expected any different.

  The engineers finally stepped clear.

  Michaels approached. He held out a hand and one of the technicians handed him a control wand. He used it to lower the crane a little to gain some slack on the harness restraining the deadly Reaper in their midst. Everyone backed up.

  “
We have a deal,” Michaels whispered up at her as he unlocked the clamps. “They must pay.”

  Ellie loomed over him. This little man who had saved her life. This Doctor who threw away his ethics and broke laws to gift her with a metal body and a mission to perform. She was broken in body. He was broken in spirit. They deserved each other.

  She kept her voice low. “They will pay, and dearly. For Nicky. For your family. For King Richard and everyone who died with him. I swear it.”

  Michaels moved out of her way and Ellie stepped forward, her feet thudding heavily on the floor. She looked around at her audience. They’d made this possible, and yet they feared her. Old stories whispered in the back of their minds of death and destruction. Of cyborgs gone mad. Old stories made real again. She smiled for them. They cringed. Michaels was the only one who didn’t put distance between them, and he was as broken as she was. So be it. She had a job to do. One job. It didn’t need friends to accomplish. Just a lot of ammo.

  “More testing? Weapons?” Ellie asked.

  Michaels nodded. “Eventually. I’ll get you anything you need, but later. The king will want to see you first. I think clothes next, and then some food. Weapons and more tests this afternoon after your audience.”

  “I’m not hungry and I don’t need clothes. The armour is enough. Weapons first.”

  “As I said. King before weapons. Not negotiable.”

  Ellie glared. He ignored her and left the room without a word. She ducked through the door he left open, her steps thudding loudly as she hurried to catch up. People in the corridors turned at the sound and cringed at the sight of her approaching. Maybe it was her scowl? She tried a smile but that made it worse. They cowered into doorways and flattened themselves against the walls.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” she snarled when she caught up with Michaels. “What do they think I’m going to do, slaughter them?”

  “Yes,” Michaels said. “In here.”

  Ellie ducked to follow him through a door and into a storeroom containing a pile of crates. She opened the nearest one and scowled. Empty. It had once held grenades. She flipped another lid up, and then another. All empty.

  “There are no weapons here,” Michaels said.

  She noted the bed crammed into a corner. “Your room?”

  “We make do. I sleep here when the bed is free. Stand straight now.”

  “Ha… ha… ha,” Ellie deadpanned. The armour didn’t slouch. It kept her erect by default.

  Michaels held a uniform shirt and tunic against her body to judge the fit. “I had a Royal Guard uniform made for you, but I’m not sure it will work.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t need a uniform to kill Merki.”

  Michaels sighed and slumped onto the bed. He leaned his forearms on his knees, suddenly exhausted.

  “Are you planning to desert?”

  Ellie blinked. “Of course not!”

  “Did you resign your commission then? Before the attack I mean.”

  “No.”

  “I see. So you are still a member of the king’s elite Royal Guard? Just checking, because if you’re still a member I believe you’ll find you’re on duty. In fact, desertion in time of war is treason and punishable by mind wipe.”

  Ellie scowled.

  “If you want to fight in this war you’ll need information and the ability to choose your own battles. The first thing you’ve got to do is gain a place at the high table.”

  The high table was a euphemism meaning the king’s council. The Royal Guard had never been called upon to counsel the king, but the point was well-made. Her relationship with Nicky and her position as a royal bodyguard should be enough for entry as William’s confidante, but Sir Harry was the senior military man. Her rank of Major was unlikely to impress him, and he’d already assigned his own men to protect William.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Gimme those.”

  Michaels handed her the shirt.

  Ellie pulled it carefully on, knowing her enhanced strength could rip it easily. She couldn’t feel the buttons, and the nanotech surface coating her fingers was slippery.

  “Allow me,” Michaels said, taking pity on her. He closed the shirt quickly, and helped her on with the bottle-green stiff-collared tunic. He stepped back to admire the result. “It looks good on you.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Ellie said.

  “No need. I’ll show you.”

  Before she could say anything he’d taken a picture with his compad and offered it to her. She looked at the image on the screen, and saw a startled looking woman staring back. A woman with half a face, but still a woman. Her hair was long on the Human side, hanging at shoulder length. The other side was cold black metal. No hair. Despite that, she felt her spirits rise. The uniform cloaked her inhumanity. Her face? Well, she could pretend it was a mask. Not part of her.

  “I have trousers for you, but no boots yet. I might be able to have some made. We’ll need to measure you.”

  “I’ll take the trousers for now,” Ellie said, and he passed them over. She pulled them on, but again she couldn’t use the buttons.

  Michaels knelt and did the honours. “Thin gloves might help with this sort of thing. Something with texture to aid your grip.”

  “How do I look?”

  Michaels stepped back to admire her. “I would say very nice, but I suspect you’d prefer me to say dangerous?”

  “Good call.”

  “Food or the king first?”

  “How about both?” Ellie said, thinking about his earlier high table comment.

  “I’ll ask for an audience over lunch.”

  She nodded.

  * * *

  19 ~ Weaponise Me

  Silver Bay, Duchy of Longthorpe, Faragut

  Lunch didn’t work out. The king was too busy, but he did send a message inviting Ellie to have dinner with him later that day. She used the time before her audience to practice on the range, and badger Michaels into arming her properly.

  Ellie reloaded and fired using her left hand. The pistol was the same model she’d carried on Mount Cho. Her big ass gun Nicky used to call it. She remembered him whining about the size of his weapon that day. Their last day. She smiled at the memory and missed the target.

  Her smile fled.

  She reloaded and switched to her other hand. The target disintegrated, replaced by another drone. She nailed it. It spun and recovered. She switched to ten round bursts and emptied the pistol into it. The poor thing crashed. It tried to lift off again, but then lay still.

  Michaels watched her in silence, his compad dangling limply from one hand by his side. He wasn’t even trying to look engaged in the process anymore. He was supposed to be testing her response times, but he seemed withdrawn. Ellie didn’t need his evaluation to know her reflexes were fine. Her scores were in the mid-nineties. More than three percent higher than she’d been when Human. It didn’t seem like enough for a Reaper, but she had a handicap. Michaels had supplied inferior toys.

  She cleared her weapon, and put it down on the counter next to the others she’d tested. Despite its impressive size, it was a standard pistol that any of Faragut’s forces might use. She eyed the rifle she’d already discarded. Again, not a Reaper weapon. She was done playing with old toys. She wanted the new ones promised her.

  “Are you having second thoughts?”

  Michaels snorted. “Try fourth and fifth thoughts,” he said to his shoes. He couldn’t even look at her.

  “I’m up here,” Ellie said. She towered over him. It was a bit obvious, but he seemed to need a reminder. “Up here. Look at me.”

  He looked up. And up. And up.

  She waved. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Even tenth thoughts are fine with me, but I’m already here. You can walk away from this, but I don’t have that luxury.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just finish what you started. We made a deal. I’m holding up my end. What about you?” />
  Michaels stared up at her. “You’re actually glad I did this to you.”

  “Glad? No. The crash cost me more than my body. I’d do anything to go back and change things, but am I grateful you’re my Doctor? Hell yes, of course I am. If not for you I’d be a corpse, or out of the fight at least. I have scores to settle. Don’t you?”

  Michaels took a deep breath, and nodded. “Open your weapon bays.”

  Thank God for that. She’d been worried there for a minute. She could use standard weapons, but her real advantages lay in the technology built into her. If he hadn’t come through...

  But he had.

  Michaels left the room and reappeared moments later pushing a pallet lifter laden with drab green cases. Munitions.

  Ellie tried to strip down, but she still couldn’t handle buttons. “I can’t weapon up in this bloody uniform,” she grumbled.

  “If you want to fight in the buff like a mythical warrior goddess, be my guest, but you’ll wear clothes the rest of the time.”

  “Or?”

  “What?” Michaels said.

  “Ultimatums have an or attached to them. I’ll wear clothes or?”

  “Or you’ll scare people more than you do already, and I’ll stop helping you.”

  Oh-ho! He’d suddenly grown a backbone, had he? Good for him.

  “You do realise I’m wearing a full set of body armour?”

  Michaels shook his head. “The armour is you.” He stepped closer and attended to her tunic buttons. “I need to source some gloves for you,” he muttered. “Maybe surgical gloves would work.”

  “They might, but they won’t last long in combat.”

  “You don’t need them in combat. You want to be a warrior goddess, don’t you?”

  Ellie grinned.

  She finished undressing, and opened the cargo bays built into her thighs. They accounted for her extra height and provided ammo storage. A coded thought opened the rest all at once. All four in her arms. A bay in the underside of each forearm would house a mini-rocket launcher. The bays on the outer surface would sport her rotary cannons.