The boredom grated at the inside of his mind.

He couldn’t make himself meditate. He couldn’t make himself relax. He couldn’t make himself stop thinking in circles.

What did I do to deserve being trapped in a cybernetic body that doesn’t fit? There was an accident. Yes, I know that. Mission related. I should be grateful to be alive. But why does it hurt all the gods-damned time?

Don’t complain.

Just for something to do, something to distract himself, Coop went back in the scouring pod and ran himself through the cycle, letting the tiny bits of metal scrape away any hint of paint, biting into his armor, lighting up his HUD with faint warnings of pain.

Then, aching all over, he paced the circumference of transport, trailing the fingers of his upper right hand along the wall, counting the paces to complete the circuit, cutting a short diagonal to avoid the scouring pod. Thirty-two. Thirty-two paces to walk the perimeter. Then he started counting circuits, trying not to look at the timer tick, tick, ticking away in the upper left of his HUD. He knew if he looked he would have hours yet to wait before arriving at his first destination. He knew the longer he stared at a ticking timer the slower it ticked. He knew—

Bored

Pacing

Clawing the walls

“Commander?”

Coop jumped and spun. Every muscle from the base of his head to the small of his back tensed and protested, making him hunch in pain.

The back of the truck opened slowly.

He hadn’t heard the mechanism, too caught up in his own thoughts. The light on the other side of the doors was dim and his vision was blurry. He blinked several times to clear it before remembering he didn’t have eyelids. Or at least, if he did, he couldn’t feel them and they did nothing to impede his vision.

The shadow of a figure interrupting the dim light resolved into the shape of a person in faded, nondescript clothes with a stiff collared jacket. There were no emblems or insignias, though it still looked like a uniform.

“You the driver?”

“No, sir. This is an automated transport. My name is Lieutenant Azor. I’m an advocate general.”

Coop stumped to the exit and the shadowy figure, a woman by her voice, though Coop had been wrong about that before, backed up.

“You all right, commander?”

His vision cleared, sharpened, and he saw the woman looking at the claws sprouting from his upper wrists. He didn’t remember engaging the claws. A quick look around the interior of the truck told him that in his pacing, he’d torn up the insides. A look over his shoulder showed him the scouring pod was only twisted scrap. He shook his head, embarrassed.

“Went a little stir crazy in there.”

He dropped from the back of the truck and the Lieutenant backed up further. She tried to hide it, but her expression gave a flash of fear. Already, he was chasing off his new team.

“Hadn’t realized they’d assigned me a lawyer,” Coop said.

He retracted his claws quickly and flexed the fingers on his upper hands. Lieutenant Azor flinched. Coop knew engaging and retracting his claws could be startling to people who weren’t used to it. In the past, he’d tried retracting the claws slowly so as not to startle people but had been told that was infinitely more ominous.

“Yes, sir. I specialize in black ops law.”

“You’re the one who’s going to tell me it’s legal to assassinate a civilian.”

Lieutenant Azor squared her shoulders and stood up straight, not quite at attention. “I won’t know that until we see the details of the case, sir.”

Coop let it slide. Lieutenant Azor looked young. That didn’t mean she was incompetent, but it probably meant she was idealistic, and Coop’s mood wasn’t suited to arguing with an idealist.

“Where are the others?”

“They’ll join us on the way. We don’t want to look like a unit, sir.”

“And this beast?” He gestured vaguely at the transport disguised as a garbage truck.

“Once we’re out of range, it’ll drive itself back to Vesper.”

“Well Lieutenant, you seem to have everything well in hand. I will follow your lead.”

“Commander?”

Coop realized that wasn’t the first time she’d called him commander. The ranking system for the UPSF was simple: Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, Marshall and General. There were a variety of variations: first class and second, specialists and chiefs, but Commander was a little used designation, outside the normal hierarchy. It didn’t mean he’d been promoted from private so much as he’d been given command of this particular mission. Telling Lieutenant Azor he’d follow her lead had probably confused her understanding of hierarchy.

“I barely know where we are or where we’re going. I’m trusting you to set us on the right track.”

Lieutenant Azor saluted. “Understood, sir.”

“And you’ve got to stop doing that.”

“Right.” Azor put her hands behind her back and stood at stiff attention. “Incognito.”

“You gotta stop doing that, too. No saluting, no attention, no sir, no rank. My name is Coop.”

Lieutenant Azor swallowed hard. “Right. Okay.”

“How many times you been in the field, Lieutenant Azor?”

“This is my first time, sir.”

Coop cocked his head at her. He didn’t have facial expressions. His skull-carved faceplate could not emote, but he’d found cocking his head faintly conveyed all sorts of communication.

“Right. Sorry. This is my first time out of the office, Coop.”

“You’re an expert, but this is your first time… out of the office?” He smiled at the phrase. It was a clever.

She bristled. “You saying I can’t do the job… Coop?”

Coop shrugged. He wasn’t inclined to babysit Lieutenant Azor’s feelings, but he figured he should at least try to be friendly. “I wouldn’t know, kiddo. That’s why I mention it.”

She blushed. “I graduated top of my class. I clerked for the Chief Advocate on the USPF Skywalker for three years and served another two on a ship whose name I’m not allowed to tell you. I have argued cases from misconduct to sedition. I know UPSF law inside and out. Go ahead, you can ask me anything.”

“I would, kiddo, but I barely anything about UPSF law.”

Lieutenant Azor frowned at him before giving a small nod. “Jessica.”

“That’s your name?” Coop asked.

She shook her head. “She was a friend when I was young. But we’re incognito, right? I take it your name’s not really Coop.”

Coop laughed. “After a fashion, I suppose.”

“What’s that supposed to me?”

Coop wasn’t sure himself, so he shrugged and said, “Incognito.” She nodded stiffly, so he said, “Tell me where we are and where we’re headed.”

“We’re in Conway. It’s a tiny city by the standards of Vesper, but it’s not an outpost. There’s a population of 62,000 or so being torn up by a couple guerilla groups. The infrastructure is all shot to hell. Rumor is there’s some off-gridders holed up on the outskirts, but most people are fleeing for Vesper or one of the guerilla groups. We’ll be joining a caravan set to intercept the Gaia Beast and their guerillas.”

“I thought the folks on the turtle were considered zealots, not guerillas.”

“There is a legal distinction. Once I observe the leaders, I can apply their philosophy and actions to our classification rubric.”

Coop nodded. She definitely sounded like a lawyer to him.

The transport had parked itself in a ramshackle garage on the edge of an abandoned salvage yard. Coop’s HUD picked up the scrabble and scurry of critters amongst the semi organized piles of scrap, but nothing that registered as a threat. It had already started mapping the area based upon what he could see, but also the way light glinted and sound echoed and pressure felt.

Lieutenant Azor picked up a worn backpack and slung it on her back. Coop’s HUD picked up nothing within that could be classified as a weapon.

“You armed, Jessica?”

“No, sir. I mean… Coop. I was ordered to come unarmed.” She flicked a glance at the sheathed sword he held in his lower left hand.

He’d almost forgotten her. Coop gestured with the sword, like he might one of his hands.

“Special exception.”

Looking at his hand was a bit of a shock. The hide and plating of the beasts of Gaia IV used to create the armor was tougher and harder than anything manufactured by humans, so the armor hadn’t been damaged by the scouring pod, but the olive green paint was gone. It was strange to suddenly be a different color.

The sun was low and Coop’s HUD told him it was 06:03 and 7°. Lieutenant Azor shivered but didn’t complain. Coop couldn’t feel the cold.

Lieutenant Azor led them through the abandoned city streets. Coop’s HUD mapped their progress, and he kept an eye out for ambush. All seemed quiet, but that didn’t mean there were lingering guerillas or opportunistic looters who would see a pair of refugees as convenient.

Coop had seen worse fallout from city warfare. Windows were broken, doors off their hinges, and a few buildings had fallen to fire, but nothing like what he’d seen in Eos after the alien attack, with buildings gutted when they weren’t collapsed, bodies rotting where they’d fallen, scavengers in every shadow. In comparison, Conway looked like a city where everyone had just decided to wander off but might be back.

Coop tried not to let the walking bother him. His body was largely machine, and it could handle months of constant walking without needing to recharge, so long as that’s all he did, but it didn’t feel good. His ankles, knees, hips, even his shoulders soon ached with the repetitive movement. After only half an hour, his armor pinched at every step. He could feel blisters growing on his toes and heels even though he was certain he no longer had toes, heels, or even skin. The irritating sting would only get worse. He winced at every odd step and was glad the faceplate hid his expression.

He tried to ignore the pain, something meditation could have helped with, or so Dr. Ark would have said. But surely long distance walking and meditation were incompatible.

Maybe that’s why she sentenced me to this ill-fitting armor. The treacherous thought made him wince. I must have been a poor student.

At 08:13, they came upon a small group bundled against the chill and strapped with luggage. Coop swept his line of sight over them, letting his HUD count the people. It picked out seven adults, four children under fifteen, and one infant. There were a myriad of knives, utility grade, and three firearms, a pair of Gaia Class hunting rifles and a Defense Class pistol. The HUD flickered and a red targeting box appeared over the head of one of the refugees. His HUD sensors identified the man as a cyborg, factory series, only a few years out of date.

With a mental command, Coop banished the red targeting box and marked the cyborg as neutral.

Lieutenant Azor put a hand out and Coop stopped. His hips and knees throbbed with mechanical precision. He tried to ignore them. Lieutenant Azor looked up at him.

“How do you want to handle this?” She bit her tongue to stop from adding ‘sir’.

“You’re a lawyer, right? You know how to talk to people?”

She shrugged. “In the right set of circumstances.”

“You can’t be worse than me. If we’re traveling the same way, safety in numbers. Otherwise we want no trouble.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. That was nicely put.”

A man from the group approached. He was tall and broad with dark, weathered skin and stubble on his chin and head. His jacket was stiff and thick. He wore a backpack and a hip satchel.

His left arm had been replaced with mechanics that didn’t try to pass for human. From his shoulder down was a bright yellow robotic arm, marked with a serial number along what would have been the inner bicep. It had a ball joint at the shoulder and an elbow joint half way down, but it looked more like a crane than a human limb. It had three digits at the end of the arm, each of which was broad, flat and textured with crosshatched grooves. Coop didn’t know much about industrial cybernetics but he suspected the arm allowed the man to lift and grip with phenomenal strength. On the back of the man’s mechanical wrist was a nozzle with a flexible metal tube attached that Coop’s HUD identified as a cutting torch.

Coop’s HUD marked the man with a targeting box again. Coop turned it off with an irritated grunt.

“I’m Jack.”

“Jessica,” Lieutenant Azor said. “This is my uncle Coop.”

Coop was glad the faceplate of his armor hid his rolling eyes.

“Nice to meet you,” said Jack. “My friends and neighbors are headed out of town.”

“Like all the rest of us,” said Jessica. “You have a destination in mind?”

Jack shrugged, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance. “Away from the violence.”

“So not one of the guerilla groups,” said Lieutenant Azor. “We’re pretty sick of the violence ourselves.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Jack. “I was afraid, from that armor and sword, you might be a military type.”

The throbbing in Coop’s knees and hips spread to his shoulders, and he felt the approach of a headache. He tried to stand still lest stretching his aching joints be interpreted as posturing. “Private security. But I’d prefer something quieter.”

“The people who modified Uncle Coop took some liberties with the laws on approved modifications,” Lieutenant Azor said.

Jack snorted. “You mean illegal cybernetics.”

“He didn’t want to, you understand,” Lieutenant Azor put her hands behind her back but didn’t quite stand at attention. “Corporate kingpins have long established a pattern of coercing employees into shady contracts by holding livelihoods hostage.”

Jack nodded. “No need to be defensive. I’ve been there myself.” He bent his cybernetic arm at the elbow joint. There was no movement of muscle or stretching of skin, it was all mechanics moving with faint pneumatic hiss. The digits extended and bent then spun at the wrist. “I volunteered for this procedure because they said it would help me do my job better. They weren’t wrong, but the pay raise was less than they said, and the costs were more.”

“You might have a case against…”

Jack laughed and waved his biological hand. “You sound like a lawyer.”

Lieutenant Azor blushed. “I was studying prelaw.” She threw a glance at Coop.

“Then you’re probably aware that unapproved modifications are frowned upon in the capitol. Uncle Coop might be considered illegal just for existing.” He gave Coop an apologetic look.

Lieutenant Azor nodded. “There’s rumor of another option.”

Jack nodded. “You mean the Gaia Beast. That’s where we’re headed.”

Jessica gave a loud sigh of relief. Coop thought she was laying it on a bit thick but Jack’s shoulders relaxed, tension leaving his jaw.

“Glad to hear it. There are folks around here who consider us zealots just for not wanting to run to the capitol. As though the UPSF had ever done anything for regular folks.”

“So we can come with you?” Jessica asked.

“Absolutely,” said Jack. “It’ll be nice to have someone around who knows how to handle themselves in a fight. The more the merrier right?”

“Says who?”

Coop looked past Jack to the group of refugees. The man who’d spoken was tall and lanky, though not as tall as Coop or Jack. He had brown skin with a tinge of purple and short, tightly curled hair that was vibrant pink. Not all illness resulted in discoloration, but discoloration was a sure sign this man had survived some form of illness native to Gaia IV. The illnesses were as robust and aggressive as the flora and fauna of the planet and had been of great fascination to Dr. Ark, especially as she’d suffered from one herself, or, as she put it, “Enjoyed the hell out of becoming a vampire.”

Coop didn’t know what illness purple skin and pink hair indicated or whether the man had gained any sort of abilities from it.

“Easy, Kamala. We have to rely on each other in times like this,” Jack said.

A woman standing nearby with a backpack, shoulderbag, and suitcase, nodded while giving Kamala a side long look. “You’re suspicious of everybody,” she said. “Jack and I are trying to help folk.”

“Yeah, well, in situations like these,” Kamala persisted, “paranoia saves lives. We don’t know these folks. What if they’re spies?”

“Spies to find out what?” the woman demanded. “To gather information on refugees fleeing violence? What organization is going to care enough what we do to put time and effort into finding out?”

Kamala shrugged, surly. “The capitol.”

The woman snorted.

Jack turned and raised his hands, placating. Even with the large, cybernetic left arm, his posture was peaceful. “Easy now. We don’t need to start fighting amongst ourselves. Kamala, if you don’t want to come with us, you don’t need to. Nobody’s going to force you to do anything. As far as I’m concerned, Jessica and Coop are welcome with us. Any other objections?”

The gathered folks looked around at each other and all shook their heads.

After several moments, Kamala shrugged. “Whatever, we should just be careful is all I’m saying.”

Jack turned back to them. “Is that all the gear you have?” He nodded at Jessica’s backpack.

Jessica nodded.

Jack looked at Coop, glanced down at the sword. “You know how to use that thing, Uncle Coop?”

Coop nodded.

“I’m not a violent man, but there are folk around who’d like to take advantage of a group of refugees.”

Coop nodded. “Understood.”

Jack sucked on his lips a moment, brow furrowed, then nodded in return. “Let’s head out folks, we’ve got quite a walk ahead of us.”

The road out of town was in relatively good shape, and the only other people they saw were also just trying to make their way. A few joined them after a quick conversation with Jack. Kamala groused but no one paid him any mind. Coop set his body to a steady plod and tried not to let the ill-fitting mass of machine and beast parts drive him to madness by irritation.

He tried to focus on his HUD’s sensors. Since the city was largely shut down, there was no maintenance to keep the aggressive flora and fauna at bay. The biggest cities had biometric fields to keep the beasts out. Smaller cities, like Conway, relied on maintenance teams armed with clippers, pesticides, and shotguns. Without even maintenance teams, Gaia IV was quickly reclaiming the space.

None of the beasts skirting the edges of their party were especially dangerous, so he didn’t mention them.

Coop’s body supported a variety of sensors, most of which manifested as visual and auditory stimuli, but some of which picked up phenomena so subtle that his HUD displayed it with text.

Black mold detected in nearby buildings Rodent blood, possible fight Uptick in barometric pressure

None of it was enough to distract him from the slip of his left boot on his heel. Even with his body set to plod, the rub on his heel began to blister, and he developed a limp. The limp put a crick in his calf which pushed to his hip. By the time they were on the edge of town his whole left side ached and he felt like he was breathing hard even though he had no lungs.

He was so focused on ignoring the ache of his body, that he didn’t realize when the group of refugees stopped.

Coop had ended up in the back of the group. Perhaps Jack thought he was taking rearguard, but it was more because he didn’t like having strangers at his back. Jessica stayed at his side. He thought she might have tried to talk to him a couple times, but he hadn’t the attention or energy to focus on conversation.

He only realized everyone else had stopped when his HUD showed the knot of yellow blips behind him rather than in front.

Three men stood in the road ahead. They were clad in cast off fatigues and worn hiking boots. Each was armed. Coop’s HUD marked the men red, hostile, and identified the armaments: three Standard Class pistols and one Assault Class rifle.

Coop let his body stumble a few steps before coming to a stop. The wooden sheath of his sword was in the grip of his lower left hand. He tightened the grip, just to remind himself she was there. She sang to him, softly, calling for the blood of their enemies, eager to slay.

“General McCarty has put a tax on this road,” said the man in the middle. He was short and heavyset. His fatigues bore no marks of rank, but he had the rifle strapped to his back, which probably meant he was leader of the trio.

Coop had dealt with all manner of hostile forces, from highly-trained operatives to low rent thugs. This trio didn’t rise to the level of the latter. This General McCarty, whoever they might be, probably wasn’t much better. If this group was affiliated with a larger organization, it was likely the ad hoc paramilitary guerillas rather than anyone of consequence.

Coop was certain he could kill these men before they could kill him. He wasn’t certain he could kill them before anyone else got hurt. He doubted the accuracy of their marksmanship, so he stood up straight and spread his arms to show he wasn’t armed but for the sword. It was a headfake toward harmlessness, but he was also showing off his height, bulk, and beast-enhanced armor. His horned helmet and skull faceplate were usually enough to intimidate most foes. Perhaps negotiation would be preferable to combat.

“Gentlemen—“

The man in the middle swung his rifle off his back and into a mediocre grip. It wouldn’t be the most effective way to use the firearm, but it would still spray slugs at a bunch of unarmed civilians. Coop discarded negotiation and set his HUD to prepping his telekinetic shield and jumpack.

Coop glanced at his power armor’s energy reserves. He was at 99%. More than enough to deal with these hooligans and still be on mission.

“The tax is anything you have of value,” the man said. “Drop it and start backing up until I say to stop.”

Coop’s HUD showed him the refugees scrambling to do as the man said. He could hear their hurried steps, their mumbled frustration and fear. The man in the middle glowered at Coop.

“You think you’re some kind of hero? Drop the stick and back up, ‘borg.” The man approached, adjusting his grip on the rifle.

Coop took a halting step backward.

The man laughed. “A faulty ‘borg, just as I thought. They made you up to look all badass, some scary motherfucker to threaten drunks, yeah? Well, I tell you what, ‘borg, you don’t scare me.”

The men who’d flanked the man with the rifle each drew a pistol and followed. They grinned at each other in a knowing way, like they’d seen this before and knew how it ended.

Coop took another step, lowering his arms, allowing the scabbard of his sword to slide through his hand so the thumb of his lower left hand could rest on the rough, crosshatch of the handle. The metal of the blade sang to him through that barest of touch, and he no longer felt the ache of the armor on his body.

Coop allowed the man with the [assault rifle] to get closer. If he started spraying slugs, the closer Coop was, the less likely any were to get past him and strike the refugees. He hoped the refugees had the sense to find cover.

Coop took another step back and put a mental finger on the activation of the telekinetic shield. He cocked his lower left thumb on the sword’s rough-edged handle, pressed hard, and gave it a flick. The sword slid free of the scabbard like it’d been launched from a crossbow. It was a technique that shouldn’t have worked, but the blade he had forged from the metallic remains of Dr. Ark was always eager for blood. The sword didn’t have a traditional pommel, just the blunted end of the thick, metal handle, marked with the cross-hatch pattern leaving rough edges and barbed points. The end of the handle struck the man in the belly and stuck there, like a dart in cork.

The man grunted and staggered back, dropping his rifle to hang by its sling. He grabbed the handle of the sword with both hands and tried to wrench it from his belly. Coop could hear her let loose a soaring, triumphant tone like a hawk on a hunt. The man tried to lift the blade to strike at Coop, but she had hold of him by the belly at the pommel and the palms at the handle, the snaggle-barbed edges of the handle digging into his skin and pulling at his lifeblood.

The men armed with pistols, one to each side and behind their leader, reacted. It was the man on Coop’s right who reacted fastest.

Coop activated his telekinetic shield and charged the man leveling a pistol. The man fired two shots into Coop’s chest. The slugs shattered on the telekinetic shield. His HUD flashed a warning. The shield was about to collapse, but he was still at 97% energy.

The physical properties of the harvested beast parts had been easiest for Dr. Ark to incorporate into the tools she’d built: the hide of the Redeye behemoth, the claws of the Stonebelly ursine, even the bile of the Mudcoat bovine was simply a chemical mixture exposed to Gaian atmosphere. But the parts that produced effects thought impossible, like telekinesis, had been significantly more difficult. The Mk. 009 was the only power armor to incorporate the gallbladder of the Quietgaze simian successfully. But Coop knew it didn’t work as well as Dr. Ark had wanted. The Quietgaze simian could maintain its telekinetic fields for significantly longer than Coop could.

Nonetheless, it did its job in protecting Coop long enough to get close. He unsheathed the claws of the Stonebelly ursine, and plunged them into the chest of the would-be guerilla.

Another gunshot cracked from behind him, striking dead center of his back, shattering the telekinetic shield. He dropped to 94%. If he hadn’t had the shield in place, he’d have dropped much further.

Coop tore his claws from the man’s chest and engaged the jumpack. The bladder of the Kitewing condor exhaled, hurling him up even as he pushed himself back, sending him in a high, gangly arc. It wasn’t as precise a jump as it would have been had he allowed his HUD time to calculate, but there hadn’t been time. The man with the pistol tried to track him, sending slugs to arc through the air well wide of their mark.

He landed awkwardly, on top of the pistol-wielder. They crumpled together like a torn sack of garbage. He heard the man’s frail human body crunch under the weight of his armored frame, but he put the claws of his upper right hand through the man’s chest just to be sure.

With a grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, knees popping, shoulders aching. He approached the man who’s hands were still wrapped about the handle of his sword. The man was thin and pale, like the ashy shadow of a ghost. Coop lifted his lower left hand, still holding the wooden sheath of the sword and slid it over the blade. She sang to him, a quiet, happy, contented song as her sheath enveloped her blade and he lifted her from the dead man’s hands, skin flaking like ancient paper.