I woke the next morning and couldn't remember when I had fallen asleep. I was still cuddled up with Alyssa and was pretty sure neither of us had moved at all during the night. I tried not to sigh as I took my normal arm away from holding her and saw the developing bruises.

I wasn't sure why I didn't really feel it, and at the moment I didn't really care. I looked at my torn knuckle and saw what looked like a hickey there. I smiled and used my hand to play with her hair and moved it out of the way, then lightly kissed the back of her neck.

“Mmm.” Alyssa moaned, then she woke up fully. “J-Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Did... did we really...”

“It wasn't a dream.” I said sadly and sat up. “Good god, I wish it was.”

“So do I.” Alyssa said and sat up, then did her cybernetics check to confirm full functionality. “We have to be at the HQ at oh-nine-hundred.”

“Yeah.” I said and rubbed my face with my real hand. “I wonder what time...”

A knock interrupted me.

“Cleaning Patrol.” Nurse Deloris said.

“Just a minute.” I said.

Alyssa got out of bed and slipped on the unitard she wore yesterday. “Come in.”

“I know I'm a little early, but I know you have that briefing.” Nurse Deloris said. “Wow, you guys look horrible.” She said and went to the bathroom and came out with the proper cleaning supplies. “Did you sleep at all?”

“I think so.” I said. “I honestly can't remember for how long.”

“Me, either.” Alyssa said. “I'm grabbing a shower.”

“I'll be done before you.” Nurse Deloris said and I laid down to let her clean me up. Alyssa went into the bathroom and shut the door, and Nurse Deloris gave me a sponge bath and cleaned my synthetic parts. She had just finished applying the lubricating fluid to seal the parts when Alyssa came out.

“I think you're getting slow in my old age.” I said to Nurse Deloris, and she chuckled.

“I think if I was willing to cut corners I would be quicker.” Nurse Deloris said. “I don't do things by half-measures, though.”

“Unfortunately, neither do I.” I said, and she saw my sad expression.

“I heard about the battle yesterday.” Nurse Deloris said and washed her hands. “According to the scuttlebutt, it's going to go down as the very first decisive one-sided victory in Cavern history.”

“Notoriously, more like.” I said. Alyssa handed me a fresh camouflage unitard to put on. “Thanks.”

“You seem really sad about this.” Nurse Deloris said and looked at Alyssa. “You both do.”

“You should have seen it.” Alyssa said. “The other side, they...” She closed her eyes and sighed.

“They never had a chance.” I said.

“It couldn't have been that bad for them.” Nurse Deloris said. “I'm sure that...”

“They never even fired a shot.” I said and stood up. “Not one.” I checked the time on my HUD, and held a hand out to Alyssa. She took it without hesitation and we left the room, and a very stunned nurse stared at us as we left.

We went down to the ground floor and left the barracks, and I saw my AI Amanda was still sitting on the tech transport and keeping an eye on Hermes. I waved to her and she waved back, and she watched Alyssa and I walk across the space between the barracks and the main building being used as the HQ. We went inside and followed our HUDs to the proper meeting room and took seats at the very back of the room.

Personally, I thought it was stupid to meet in person like this, considering we all already knew what had happened in the battle the day before. I was glad that it was just the senior officers and their assistants. There was no way to get all the squad commanders in the room, let alone all of the troops, and then I was pinged by Hermes. A moment later, the Network initiated, and the colonel appeared as a hologram on my HUD.

“That's just great! He gets to stay in bed and we had to get up and come here.” Someone in the room said, and someone else laughed.

“If you had the choice, what would you do?” The second guy asked.

“The same, obviously.” The first man responded. “Why do you think I'm upset about it?”

The second guy laughed again, then they were hushed by a superior officer.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

After a few moments, the colonel's hologram lifted his hands and made a calm down motion.

“As you can see, I'm not in the HQ at the moment.” The colonel said. “I'm actually on a transport heading over to meet directly with some of the higher-ups and Hermes was kind enough to connect us.”

I snorted a laugh; but otherwise, I didn't comment that it wasn't in Hermes' nature to say no to performing his primary function.

“So, let's go over the battle, shall we?” The colonel said and the wall behind him changed to the same map that had been displayed in the tech transport. “Our analysts have already...”

I tuned it out and looked at Alyssa, and saw she was already looking back at me. Neither of us said anything as we sat there holding hands against proper protocol; but at this point, I didn't care. I was pretty sure that proper protocol was soon going to be a thing of the past... as was combat as we knew it. The so-called battle yesterday proved that.

All those wasted lives on the other side was the only proof we needed to present to the other Caverns. Once word got out about what we did, no one was going to agree to fight us. That alone wasn't so bad. What worried me was that everyone in the other Caverns were going to try their best to find out what we did to achieve that victory... and I could see that Alyssa thought the same.

“Jack...”

“Shh.” I said and kissed her. I heard several whispers about inappropriate behavior, and I ignored them. “Come on. We're not needed here.” I said and stood up.

Alyssa stood up as well. “But...”

“They are going to wallow in self-congratulations for a while, and then someone, probably one of the analysts, is going to point out what it really means.” I said and opened the door to the room. “If they need us after that, they know our com numbers.”

Alyssa nodded and followed me out of the room. I thought about going back to our assigned quarters, then decided I need a walk. She didn't protest or indicate that she wanted to do something else, so we stopped at the cafeteria and grabbed breakfast, then left the HQ building and started to walk. She didn't ask where I was going, and I didn't volunteer the information.

I actually didn't know where I wanted to go; I just wanted to go, so I went. We didn't talk or even indicate that we wanted to. We just walked. I walked until my real leg started to get sore, then I pointed to a good spot to rest. We sat down and just looked around. We were still technically on the military base; but, there were no buildings, vehicles, or personnel in sight.

“It doesn't seem real, does it?” I asked and motioned to where we sat. “I didn't think I could walk far enough to get away from all of that, and yet, here we are.” I said. “Not a trace of the military in sight.”

“Jack, I'm sitting right here.” Alyssa said, and I chuckled.

“You know what I meant.” I said and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Jack, is... is it really...”

“Yes, it's all going to change.” I said. “Once they see the... devastation from the battle, they are going to go into immediate production of Phase Two of my old operations plan.”

“Phase Two?” Alyssa asked, confused. “What was Phase One?”

“The squad transport tanks.” I said. “It was something I came up with and designed years ago, long before they let me take an honorable discharge.”

“The squad... oh, those things.” Alyssa said and remembered the tanks. “We spoofed them to deploy early and wiped them out.”

“I know.” I said. “In normal combat, they are quite an advantage. Lay down covering fire, open and launch the squad, then use to support the squad.” I said. “They work, but they are supposed to be used in conjunction with Phase Two.”

“What's Phase Two?”

I sighed. “I should just say you'll see it soon enough; but. I doubt they'll risk sending me and my security squad out to the front lines now.”

“Jack, what are you talking about?”

“It was just another crazy idea that I had.” I said and looked up at the cavern ceiling. It was hundreds of feet away, but with my cybernetic eyes, I could zoom in and see the striations of the rock. “You know Cali and her scout micro-drones?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what if they were about the size of your fist?”

“They'd be easy targets.” Alyssa said. “With our targeting software, we can pick off individual micro-drones. Larger ones would be easy pickings.”

“That's true.” I said. “But, that's only because the little guys don't shoot back.”

“Jack, they can't...” Alyssa stopped talking and thought about it. “The size of your fist, you say?”

I nodded. “Two recharge packs on the underside. One for the hover mode and one for the four hand laser emitters, one in each direction.”

“It wouldn't last long.” Alyssa said. “The power drain alone...”

“It doesn't have to last long.” I said. “One of them in a combat situation would be an annoyance. Ten of them a slight hindrance to a combat squad.” I smiled. “Now tell me what a hundred of them would do.”

Alyssa fell silent.

“Yeah, now you're seeing it. How far have we come along in capacitors and recharge rates in the last 5 years?”

Alyssa's face lost some of it's color. “It would be a major obstacle to overcome on a battlefield.”

“It sure would.” I said and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Now, tell me what it would be like with, say, an AI coordinating those hundred drones with an all-seeing Network in place and hundreds of micro-drones to show them everything?”

Alyssa's mouth dropped open and her face lost all of its color as she stared at me. “Oh, my god.”

“Welcome to the new age of combat, Sergeant.” I said. “Are you sufficiently scared, now?”

“I'm terrified.” Alyssa said. “If someone else gets their hands on this kind of technology...”

“I'm not too worried about that.” I said, and she looked at me with wide eyes. “Technology seems to spread pretty fast.”

“But... what about...”

“I'm more worried about our own people adapting the plasma weapons for it.” I said, and she stopped talking. “Especially after that last battle. We took everything the enemy had without a fight. All their stocks of weapons, ammo, and supplies for 10,000 troops.”

“Jack, I...”

“Yeah, I was crying last night for the lives that were lost, just like you were.” I said. “They were the enemy, but they were people, too.” I sighed. “After that, I cried for all the lives that are about to be lost.”

We sat there for about half an hour and held each other, then Hermes pinged us to let us know that the colonel sent a transport out to get us. I acknowledged the message and started a timer to see how long the transport was going to take. Ten minutes later, the transport came to a stop and I stopped the timer.

“Sir, we're here to...”

“We know.” I said and held the door open for Alyssa. She climbed into the transport and I climbed in behind her. No one said anything as the transport turned around. I started the timer again and we drove back to the military base. Just as it hit ten minutes, we came to a stop in front of the military HQ.

“Thanks for the ride.” I said and pat the side of the transport, and it drove off. “You don't have to come in with me.” I said to Alyssa, and she took my hand.

“I'm the head of your security team.” Alyssa said. “I need to hear this, no matter what it is.”

I nodded and we went inside to the colonel's office.

“Ah, there you are.” The colonel seemed in high spirits. “Please, have a seat.”

“No, thank you.” I said. “I don't think this is going to take long.”

The colonel laughed. “I suppose if anyone knows what's going to happen, it would be you.”

“I can make educated guesses, but that's all they are.” I said. “What are you going to confirm for me today?”

“You're being transferred to System Security to take over the plasma research division.” The colonel said. “Bump in pay, of course.”

“Like I need that.” I said, and he chuckled.

“You get to work on state of the art systems and technology.” The colonel said. “Not everyone can say that.”

“I told them to destroy it and erase it from history.” I responded. “Try again.”

“Your security squad is going to be reassigned...”

“You don't have the authority for that.” I said.

“I thought you wanted to get rid of the babysitters?” The colonel asked.

“Who told you that?” I asked, then sighed. “The higher-ups.”

He nodded. “They don't want any unauthorized personnel to have access to the project.”

“Well, that sucks for them.” I said. “I'm keeping my crew, or I walk.”

Alyssa's hand gripped mine harder and she pinged me.

SRGNT8356 YOUR crew? (smiley face)

Jack (RETCONNED) Yes, MY crew (tongue out). You are my crew.

“You signed a contract, Jack.” The colonel said.

“Yes, to work on the Network.”

“The contract doesn't specify what project you work on.”

“The reverse is also true.” I said and smiled. “Try again.”

“Jack, don't be difficult on this.”

“Oh, I'm not being difficult, colonel.” I said and smiled. “You'll know it when I'm being difficult.”

The colonel sighed. “You've got a few days leave.” He said and looked at Alyssa. “You all do. Take it and enjoy yourselves. We can discuss things when you get back.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” I said and gave him a parade ground salute, which was against protocol. I didn't wait for him to return it before I dropped it, then I walked out of the office with Alyssa and tried not to laugh at the colonel's surprised expression.