The next day oozes by in a haze. He gets what he wants, then testing, then learning, then testing, then “learning.” It just will not come to an end. Once we are finally done with everything he lets get get dressed and leave to rest for my depart tomorrow, reminding me that I should contact him if I am on base for a “check up.” Frankly I do not want to but he makes it quite clear he’s not asking me to come back. For the first time since I have become metal I just want to take a shower. Thing is, the odd looks I would get for doing that would likely get me into more trouble; hopefully I can sneak one on the ship soon. The icing on the cake is that rest is hardly restful; I sleep and do not dream but when I awake I just feel groggy and dirty still. I pull my blankets tighter around me and just to feel safe somehow, hoping that no one is looking at me.

Come morning everyone in the barracks is awake and active and so I begin to get ready to move out. Having more of my kind around helps a little, but I still cannot shake the feeling they are judging me for not stopping him. We got our separate ways to a degree. A lot of ground pounders are actually walking with me; this does not fill me with the hope of not seeing combat. As soon as I get onto the ship, MRS Foment, I am called to a meeting with the captain and some sort of politician, I don’t remember what rank Senior Adviser is, via ping on my HUD. I have not downloaded a ship’s map yet so the trip to get there is done at an exceptionally frenetic pace, made worse by the fact that so many people are going about getting the ship ready to cast off; few of them have time to give me any sort of directions. This ship is simply much larger than others I have been on and my direction sense has always been middling.

The meeting room is pretty small. The captain, Captain Eriks, and the Senior Adviser are waiting for me. I stand at attention upon entering the room until the captain tells me to stand “at ease” which I am pretty sure I botched but everyone is having the decency not to mention it to me. The political type, dark suit bland soul, just intones how I need to be “educated to expand my functions to accommodate my intended design.” I cannot tell if higher ups have an obsession with pretension or just a hard coded need to maintain maximum linguistic precision at all times; the lukewarm dread of becoming like that makes me perturbed sometimes. I realize I have been ignoring his, ummm, delightful rhetoric. It appears though that he said little of relevance by the slightly exhausted look on Captain Eriks’ face. He does end with “the particulars of this arrangement will naturally be the subject of the Captain’s purview as well as his personal responsibility.” Oh good, Captain Eriks’ looks slightly less amused than he did before; I get the sense between, right so I expect a bad week. He leaves shortly thereafter insisting he does not want to delay departure any further “given the gravity of the situation.”

As soon he leaves Captain Eriks looks at me and says, “I know neither of us wanted this and both of us are certainly a bit blinded sided by it so if we work together we can make this process a lot smoother. I am supposed to make sure you have a squad to lead as soon as we have any contact with an enemy but tell me Sergeant, do you feel ready to lead?”

“No Captain, I have no experience leading.” I assume honesty is most definitely the best policy, but…

“Expected. You are officially a marine and we have a sizable contingent on board thankfully so I will have you answer to Captain Salazar. He will be able to have you train with another Sergeant and help him as an assistant. As a general rule we keep full converts and not separated so we don’t suffer issues with you guys running the regular cyborgs ragged. Given what I was told about your capabilities I will recommend you are put with the shock troopers.” He seems like he is about done but gives me a once over. “Is everything alright Sergeant? I understand you faded a bit during that speech but something else is bothering you.” How is he so perceptive?

“Just some poor sleep Captain.” That was a bald faced lie and I can see from the look of his face he ripped right through it.

“Very well. I expect you to attend to your health aggressively from hereon out Sergeant. And to be clear, I am well aware of prone your kind is to lying; I respect that you have private issues you have been heavily ingrained to assume that we cannot understand but anything you do not say had best not matter to me at all, clear?”

“Yes Captain.” I answer with a snap. I do not want to make this any worse for myself.

“Good. Dismissed Sergeant.” As soon as he says that I walk out as professionally as I can. I don’t know if I should have told him what happened, I just don’t. I try to push yesterday from my mind as I once again try to make my way through this ship. I honestly don’t think it is that big, maybe two and a half million tons, but it certainly outsizes anything I have been on before. As soon as I have a moment I need to make sure that I get this ships general schematics! Okay, just stressed, just need to slip by down to where Captain Salazar is without touching. I would be more grateful for how easily I can do that with my added grace but, yea. So I just need to figure out how to just forget and put yesterday behind me. Honestly I think I am just making it out to be more than it really is; I just let my nervousness get the best of me. Makes sense, right? Okay, so I think I feel a little better about everything.

It takes some time for some to time exactly where Captain Salazar is in the ship, but it appears they knew there would be a lot of cyborgs here since everything is just very slightly larger, makes me feel a lot less claustrophobic actually. I see a man in a uniform with two silver bars on his shoulder, that is captain I think? He turns around more so I can see the name, Salazar. That is the guy. He seems to be surrounded by moving men, metal and meat, some of which are comparable in size to me, shock troopers, but most are a far smaller more efficient model. I honestly never really check how much energy I use up in basic activities but it must be pretty impressive. I stand at attention near the Captain and wait for him to acknowledge me; I honestly have no idea how protocol would actually work here and patience hopefully trumps a risked misstep.

It takes a few minutes before he turns to me, someone else nearby him. “Sergeant Kel. The Captain told me you would be coming and what you needed. This is Sergeant Jacobs. You will be working with him to try to acquire the skills you will need. I do not expect you to be fully prepared right away but follow Sergeant Jacobs’ orders and I doubt we will have issues.” He turns away from me without another word and begins talking to others who have been waiting for him as well. Sergeant Jacobs’ leads me away from the crowd.

“You will be bunking with me,” he says out loud. It was be by surprise since I am used to our kind keeping our discussions more private. “Don’t talk directly if you can avoid it,” he mentions, seemingly reading my thoughts. “It makes it look like you have something to hide.” When we reach a room he opens the sliding door and gestures inside. There are two small beds inside and a single tiny desk with a few pictures on it. “Where is your bag? We can split space on the desk if you want to set up anything important.”

I vaguely shrug, “No bag, Sergeant. I am wearing everything I own.” He seems genuinely surprised at this given the way he slightly cocks his head at me.

“Nothing? That seems sad and also not good from a leadership perspective, makes it look like you have no strong loyalties.” We are both squeezed in here, but the forced closeness actually feels nice; warm, strong, metal, is a big difference from flesh. I squeeze over to sit on the almost too narrow bed. “So you are some sort of government test-type. Do you have a decent idea of what you are capable of?” He sits down opposite me.

“Generally. They did some small upgrades two days ago and I assume unlocked some restricted features. I spent all day yesterday with Lieutenant Kies learning about myself. Learned a lot, but still need practice.” It was a good day overall but I am a bit tried for the experience. Sergeant Jacobs stands up for some reason and crams himself down next to me; I cannot bring myself to make room for both of us.

“Did he spend time with you at his place, in private?” I am starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Yes. It was a full day of self-discovery, learning, stuff like that.” I try to brush off the question. I know he was just a bit forward but we all had a good time. I just need to appreciate when someone shows interest in me, that’s all.

“Kel… I know what happened to you.” I try to stand up in anger at the comment, but he grabs me and holds me down. “Sit. You are not the only one, trust me. His appetites and brutality are legendary.”

I try to pull away but his grip is as strong as mine. “Nothing happened. Let me go or stop talking about this nonsense.”

He response by swiftly standing up and putting me off balance so I trip back onto the bed with a thud. “It won’t get better if you lie to yourself. Just tell me how you are feeling, alright? At least half the guys in our squad have had ‘private meetings’ with him, okay.” He sits back down next to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. “It is not your fault, but you cannot tell anyone okay? Captain Salazar cannot get in trouble again for going toe-to-toe with Kies; this is not a fight we can win. We just have to stick together more than ever.” I instinctively put my head in my hands, trying to cover my face. I know he’s trying to be nice but I am not like those other guys; I really wanted it, right. He just knew and helped me realize it, right. I feel myself shaking a little bit; why?

“Let’s just stay here for a bit. I am here. If you need anything I will be here. You did not do anything wrong.” I want to ignore what he is saying; I need to know that what happened was my fault. I should not have come on to the Lieutenant but he was nice enough to spend time with me. “He hurt because he could. You did nothing wrong. Just listen to me; you did nothing wrong. It is not your fault.” His voice is hypnotic and I just cannot bring myself to lie anymore. I just fall next to him and sob.

It was a few minutes but I am able to compose myself and all I can say is, “why?” His initial response is to just my back a bit.

“Because he wants to and can. People like him are sprinkled all over the Republic unfortunately. I am just glad I got to your early. Once denial sets in it gets bad quickly. Listen, this is not over for you but remember I am here to help. Don’t pull away from me, okay? As long as we are working together I will help you.” I just nod silently, glad that my emotional outburst left no visible markings on my person. “I have seen enough run into Kies or people like him that I have become depressingly good at handling it.”

“Have you ever…?” I don’t want to say the word, give it truth in my life.

“No, thankfully. Guys who like us are pretty rare but they exist. I like to pretend to myself that I am too tough for it to happen to me but I know that’s a lie. As long as I act like its true I find it makes people feel better, so it is better than nothing.”

“Should I tell the squad then? I am not sure that I want to.” This seems private but I really don’t want people under me thinking that I screwed up or am easy to abuse.; I don’t want to seem weak.

“Your choice I’d say. Early leadership tip: some things you literally cannot tell people under you; some things you should not tell; some things you should tell. The trick is knowing what you should and should not say, but I highly recommend you make sure you understand why you do and do not say the things that you do and do not. If nothing else put trust in those under you.” I nod. “That sounded a bit better in my head. None of us are writers though, so forgive the awkwardness.” He gets back up moves past me to the desk. A little piece of me wants to grab him and pull him back.

“Odd question Sergeant, but could I take a shower?”

He looks at me with shining eyes, “Sure. But call me Frank when we are alone. Same rank and in private so I am willing to cut out some formalities. We should get you some things but for now you can borrow one of my towels.” The fact he actually has towels gives me hope; maybe a shower is not weird at all. “What should I call you?”

“Just Kel,” I reply a bit shamefully. “Sold my name to the corps so Kel is all I got. Entered a raffle for a better one once but lost.” I gesture noncommittally. “It was worth the slight bed upgrade though.”

Frank just shakes his head. “Come on Kel. I will show you to the showers,” he mutters as he grabs to large towels from a hidden closet.

I follow him and follow his lead when it comes to interacting with soldiers, showing and accepting deference. The shower area is sizable, mostly to accommodate a good number of big guys. Frank seems pretty casual about stripping down and as I move to follow suit I suddenly feel dread at being expose and hesitate. It is hard even taking off my shirt; I don’t want anyone to stare. I get a private communication from Frank, trying to encourage me to act natural and promising to be near me just in case I need help. I just grit down and do my best to get through this. The water feels good in spite of the low temperature and I do my best to keep my eyes forward, but they cannot help but roam. The room is not particularly occupied so I don’t feel too guilty initially but I cannot take my eyes off of Frank; he moves less with the stumping power of our kind and with more of a deadly grace; it is honestly a bit of a treat to watch. He does catch on to my ogling eventually. I quickly turn away but I cannot help see if I can sneak a peak when I think he’s not looking. Mechanically he’s just another smash and grab body but the way he carries himself… I suddenly feel worse about myself and hope I can just be alone for a bit before I make things worse. As soon as the shower is over I dry off carefully, not looking at Frank, get dressed and slip back to the room, his footsteps following the entire time.