Neil stared at Valentine and flexed his right hand. The other Sergeant was running experimentally up and down the hallway, the black lab that had returned with him from his procedure trotting along beside him. Rivers was seated some ways away from them, her back against the wall and she tossed a small rubber ball at the wall, catching it as it came back to her.

“And really, nothing?” Neil asked.

“Swear to god.” Valentine said, pulling up. “Doesn’t seem real fair, if I’m being honest about it.”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna say it.” Neil said.

“You’re up.”

Neil sighed and stood. The motion was easy for him now, and he could almost walk without a hitch in his tenth step, but running was still a trick. He started off at little more than a walk in running posture, his hand out against the wall. The first length up and down went easy enough, but it was when he picked up his pace on the second that the sensation suddenly returned. His brain had slipped into the old muscle memory of where his foot used to be, not where his artificial leg was. They ended at the same place, down to the most precise measurement, and the nerve sensors made the impact feel much the same as his natural leg did. But sometimes, when he didn’t think about it too much, things just felt off.

Like right then, where his right leg caught, and crumpled beneath him. Usually in these moments, he would lay for a moment, harnessing his embarrassment and anger and marshal himself to get up. This time though, he didn’t have time before hitting the ground and receiving a warm, wet lick on the side of his face. Triss stood next to him, snout little more than a few inches away and her tail wagging. Neil hadn’t even noticed her trotting along beside him. She nudged his hand with her muzzle, and he gave her a rub around the ears, all thought of embarrassment forgotten as he hauled himself to his feet.

“Start again, same pace.” Valentine said, tossing a small rubber ball against the wall and catching it with the hand that had been burned to the bone. The ball smacked into his hand and he rubbed one of his ears as Neil came back down the hallway with his hand on the wall. “Rivers.” He said, taking the ball from Valentine. “You’re up.”

She rose without question and began her own jog down the hall as Neil threw the ball. It smacked off the ground, the wall, and back into his hand. It didn’t land home with the satisfying smack that had come from Valentine’s throw, but he caught it all the same and didn’t bobble it this time. Rivers returned from her second lap, grimacing and rubbing her thighs. She didn’t have the same clumsy gate that Neil was still running with at the time, but her muscle endurance seemed to be worse than either of theirs, even though they couldn’t see an obvious reason for it.

Then the cycle repeated itself, Rivers taking the ball, Valentine taking off down the hall, and Neil taking a break, flexing his right hand as he did. “How long are we supposed to keep this up?”

“Till she comes back.” Valentine said, turning on the spot and going for his second length.

Neil turned to Rivers. “You got any idea when that’ll be?”

“No Sergeant.” She said, catching the ball and rolling her shoulder experimentally.

“What’s wrong with you anyway?” He asked. “Why are you hanging out with us broke fucks?”

“Been a while since I got in any PT, I guess.” She said. “And the gravity in this station is sometimes spotty, does things to your muscle strength I’ve been told.”

“Sure does.” Neil muttered, getting to his feet again as Valentine caught the ball that Rivers tossed to him. But when Neil returned from his first length, Valentine hadn’t taken a seat, and the ball was still held in his recovered hand. “Bullshit.” He said flatly.

“Promise you, Sergeant.” She said. “Special Weapons Assault Force and Tactical Emplacement of Light Arms.”

“A SWAF and TELA unit? What was your job there?”

“I was in an infantry battalion?”

“Doing what?”

“Infantry stuff.” She said simply.

The two stared at each other, and Neil began his lope back for his second pass, Triss trotting along beside him. When he was finished he returned to find Valentine seated, throwing the ball with a bit more force than he had before, quizzing Rivers relentlessly on weapons and tactics. She was nailing each question easily, without hesitating for each one, and Valentine threw the ball at Neil, Rivers got up and jogged away.

“You think she was SWAF?” Valentine demanded.

“I couldn’t have answered some of those questions.” Neil shrugged. “Got a reason to doubt her?”

“If she was SWAF, what’s she doing out here?”

“What are you doing out here?” Neil asked, the ball slipping out of his hand. It was dutifully returned to him by Triss, who thumped her tail on the floor. The sound made Neil winced, and the tail went still.

“I don’t know.” Valentine muttered darkly.

“You guys in the Task Forces are all the same when it comes to that.” Neil said, catching the ball as slobber sprayed off it. “Gotta see someone in action before you’ll believe it.”

“That a bad thing?”

“Not always a good thing.” Neil said. “We’re stuck with her for now, might as well make peace with the fact that you don’t know everything about her.”

“Why Are we stuck with her?”

“Because she is in much the same boat as the both of you.” Rayne’s voice said as she came around the corner. “How are your exercices going?”

“Monotonous and boring.” Valentine said.

“Sergeant Ziggenbor, I heard from an old soldier one time that there are two ways to learn something while in uniform. Can you regale me?”

“Don’t both,” Valentine growled. “Mindless repetition and blunt force trauma.”

“Ah yes.” Beamed Rayne. “That was it. And we have learned today, yes?”

“Learned I don’t know jack about shit, if we’re going that way.” Valentine said.

“The beginning of wisdom.” Rayne said in a grave voice. “Your legs feeling alright then?”

“Not a bit sore.” Valentine said. “Except for this buzzing in my ears I feel just like I always did.”

“And there’s the fourth member of my little group of patients.” Rayne bent to rub Triss around the ears. “The most obedient out of the group.”

“Hey,” Rivers said.

“I am sure that Miss Trissy here wouldn’t have let herself be heard when approaching an objective.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still a little clumsy on my--” She cut off at a sharp look from Rayne, and fell silent.

“We done, though?” Valentine asked, getting back to his feet.

“I thought your legs weren’t a bit sore.” Rayne chided. “Out of the three, you at least should be ready to continue, but I haven’t heard a peep out of the other two.”

Valentine fell silent and tugged at one of his dreadlocks.

“But yes, you may retire. There’s been new quarters for each of you in the same wing. Communal latrines, I’m afraid, but you’re all soldiers and used to that sort of thing.”

They nodded their assent, Rivers slightly more reluctantly than the other two, and they made their way back to their wing. “There’s going be some assignment coming down from the Admiral. Busy work, from the sound of it, but it will keep you all busy at least. All I can ask for. Your food is in each room, and it looks like a higher caliber than you’ve grown used to, you’ll be sad to hear.” She looked down. “I am also afraid, that this is the end of my charge of you, as patients, Sergeants.”

Neil and Valentine looked at each other in surprise. “That kinda sucks.” Valentine said, the words surprising even him. “You’re being moved?”

“No one moves me unless I allow them to, Sergeant. It happens on the I have no basis to keep you all in my care any longer, and there are duties that I must perform elsewhere.” She straightened up, her eyes shining behind her stoic facade. “But I have grown fond of each of you, and look forward to seeing you all again someday. Hopefully soon.”

“Thanks, nurse.” Neil said, looking over to Valentine. The black man had his eyes downcast and his face was subdued. He walked forward, and Rayne wrapped her arms around him gently, placing one hand on the back his head and stroking his dreadlocks. “You’ll be alright. Eat your meals. Get full nights of sleep.” She whispered, only to him. Then she broke away. Rivers looked strangely emotionless, like the news was no great surprise to her, and Rayne nodded once.

“Till we see each other again, Sergeants.” And she nodded.

Rivers went at once into her quarters, but Neil and Valentine watched Rayne go.

“Something smells like bullshit.” Neil said.

“Sure does.” Valentine says. “We’ll step in it sooner or later. Triss, with me.” Then Valentine retired as well, leaving Neil alone with his thoughts. After a few minutes of pouring over them, Neil too went into his room, ate, and fell quickly to sleep.

The dreams that came with sleep did not lend themself to proper sleep. In his dreams the Martian sun beat down on him while he ran pelmel down a ravine. Someone ran with him, a figure shrouded by shadows and haze. Somewhere behind him there was an inaudible call, but even though in the dream Neil couldn’t understand the words, he knew what they were.

Broken arrow.

He tried to look over his shoulder as weirdly augmented mortar fire shook the air, impacts muffled but hard making the ground under his feet shake. Neil looked again to the figure running with him to see Vane, his head half gone and blood spurting from the mass of gore, bone, and flesh in a rhythmic cadence.

Then Neil was on his back, ribs aching from impact. A burnt and blackened figure with bones sticking through charred flesh. But the eyes of Specialist Troy were untouched, and his voice came from his lipless mouth as clear as it ever had in life. “Get down, Sergeant. I’ve got you.” Neil couldn’t scream as Troy’s arms closed around the back of his head. The chunking sound of the APES suddenly front and center with the angry hiss as a backdrop.

Then Neil was awake, though the line between the horror of the dream and the waking world was blurred and distorted. Hands grappled with him and he beat them away, screaming in a long, hoarse note as the hissing sound of the felbound lingered in his mind. The hands fell on him again, and he grabbed a wrist with one of hands and swung his other in a wide arch, connecting with something firm but not bone. Somewhere close, a breath left lungs in a loud whoosh.

Neil’s bed creaked and there was another presence there in the blur of lights and dream haze. Two paws hit Neil square in the chest, pushing him back. He flailed again, but Triss wriggled her way onto his chest and draped her front paws over his shoulders, liking his face. Only then did the dream haze fade away, Neil finding that his arms were wrapped around the dog's middle, squeezing tight as she continued to lick his face. She kept up her kisses until he relaxed, laying on his side.

Valentine stood in the corner of the room with Rivers. He was nursing some bruised ribs and she was still massaging her belly as they watched Neil sob into the lab’s fur. Each tear that fell was greeted by another warm, wet kiss. Neither of them spoke to each other as Neil lay there. Both took one of the chairs that had been suspiciously convenient chairs placed around the table that looked like it was certainly intended for one person. Valentine sat and crossed his arms as Rivers hit the light and took up her own chair.

There they waited.

It didn’t take long for Neil’s breathing to become less ragged but more deep, a steady in and out where there had been panicked rushes of breath. Valentine looked through the darkness to the pale reflections, Triss’s eyes as she lay awake in Neil’s embrace. “Come on.” Valentine said, tapping Rivers on the arm. “Time for us to go.”

The other Sergeant followed him out, and closed the door. “What happened?” Rivers asked as they walked away.

“I couldn’t sleep for this damn buzzing in my ears, and well enough too. Triss started losing her shit all of a sudden, bashing her shoulders against my door and barking her ass off. Couldn’t do much but open the door, and she ran straight to him. Scratching and clawing and kicking up an awful racket. That was when you showed up.”

“Door combinations from the out are four zeros by default, which it looks like ours are.” Rivers said with a wry smile.

“Good to know.” He shrugged. “You were there for the rest.”

Rivers stared at Neil’s door for a minute. “What happened to him?” She asked softly.

“You don’t know?” Valentine asked. When she shook her head, Valentine told her. “That’s my angle though.” He said. “His was worse. Wouldn’t press him on it till he’s ready.”

“Of course not. Yes Sergeant.”

Valentine nodded and went back into his room. Rivers went into hers, and the rest of the night passed without incident.

--

“Uh,” Natalie said, looking around the empty corridors of the Vulcan’s wing-Y. “This is where we’re supposed to be, yes?”

“This is where that Admiral type Neerson told us to go in this holorecording.” Damien held up the circular device. They had been dropped off in wing-Y expecting an escort, but there wasn’t. They had come down through the only logical route, through three very ominous looking airlocks, and ended up in the work bay they were in now. “Right before it died.” He tossed it off to the side and it landed with an impressive crash into a box of derelict parts. “That being said,” Damien’s eyes swept through the long dark work room. “I don’t know why he would send us here.”

It looked close enough to the cybernetics lab on the EMAR, but they were both smart enough to notice that it wasn’t cybernetic limbs and organ replacements hanging from the ceiling or inside boxes lining the walls. There were motherboards and processing units. These were robot parts, not cybernetics.

“I don’t understand.” Natalie said. “I thought you said that you spoke to the director of the station?”

“I did. Short woman, big glasses, nervous. And this is where she told me to come, and this is where that Reven guy told us to come. This doesn’t line up with…” He gestured to the both of them.

“And it’s robotics.” Natalie said in a hollow tone. “I think we should go back and get into contact with someone, tell them there’s been a mistake. Who sends two journeymen into an assignment area alone in any case?”

Damien’s hand dropped on her shoulder and he stepped in front of here. “Ouch! What the--” Then she saw the arm some five meters away swinging from where it hung. For about three more seconds in the dead silence it went back and forth in the almost total darkness, illuminated only by Damien’s flashlight. He panned it quickly to the right, almost at the same time that something scratched away behind two of the work stations. Natalie squinted in the darkness where the scratching had come from.

There against the dark wall she could just make it out. The outline of a vaguely humanoid head and shoulders crouched behind the table. It twitched, and scurried away. “Did you see that?”

“I sure did.” Damien said, and backed up, pushing her with him towards the door, where the only other source of light was coming from.

Then a long shadow cast itself over them and they both whirled. Standing there in the doorway was a figure that was indeed humanoid. It was perhaps a little under five and half feet tall with arms that were slightly too long for its frames and fingers that looked like it perhaps had too many knuckles. Its large round eyes glowed with illumination of their own, and its arms were held in a Y shape above its head. It reached to the side as Damien roared in fear and shoved Natalie off to the side.

“Wait!” The thing shouted, its voice… strange, as it flipped the light switch. “Wait, please!”

Over a few seconds of flickering lights, the work bay became illuminated. Natalie stood stock still while Damien had retreated a few steps back and quivered like a leaf. The thing standing in front of them was not some monster in the shadows, but was instead a robot. Now in the light Natalie could see that the eyes were not so large as they had appeared, the arms, while not natural looking, weren’t going be dragging on the ground, and the head was more or less proportional to the rest of it.

“I’m sorry for frightening you,” The robot said, holding its hands out. “I was not expecting anyone to be coming here. No one has in a very long time.” It’s voice was female, sure, despite the rapid cadence of the words.

“A robot.” Damien hissed, gripping his flashlight like a club.

“Yes.” The robot nodded. “A robot who is programmed to ensure its own survival. I will run from you if you pursue me.”

“I’ll chase you down.”

“I will run very fast from you.” The robot said. “I can run very fast.”

“Hold on,” Natalie said. “Why are you here?”

The robot looked around at all the robotic parts. “Where else would I be?”

“Stop talking to it, Natalie, you know we’re not supposed to interact with free thinking robotics.” Damien snarled. “Hell most of the military are on standing orders to destroy any that they find.”

Natalie thought about his words for a moment. He was right, technically. By protocol for apprentices and journeymen, all technology that gained any sort of even supposed autonomy had to be reported for decommissioning. But as far as Natalie had been informed, there hadn’t even been a robot with any sort of autonomous programming for almost two generations. The only things left were the old dummies that were shown in school to show what had been earth’s downfall, and nothing more. Looking at this robot was like… looking at some sort of cryptid.

“Wait, Damien.”

“What do you mean, wait?”

“I think if it wanted to hurt us it could have when we first walked in. How fast can you move?” Natalie addressed the robot.

“Very fast.” The robot said at once, its voice without inflection.

“Wait.” She said, and the robot went completely, utterly still. She thought about the casual reading she had done about the old, heavily redacted texts about anthropomorphic robotics. “Can you show us how fast you can move?”

“Yes.” The robot said.

“Okay,” Gritted Natalie. “Please give us a demonstration of your speed.”

In a blur of silver, but without hardly so much as the sound of scratching on the floor, the robot sprinted with tremendous speed, much faster than any human could run, about fifty meters to the end of the room. Then it sprinted back, turned deftly on the spot, and began another lap down. When it returned Natalie yelled, “Stop!”

The robot froze, and turned back to her.

“My god.” Damien said, and crossed himself. “That was terrifying.”

Natalie had to agree. “Can you please give us a demonstration of your strength?”

The robot walked to a work bench and picked up a long wrench and folded it twice back onto itself, then dropped it on the ground.

Both Journeymen stared for a time while the robot stood completely still while Natalie thought about what do say. “Do you have any intention of harming us in any way?” She asked.

“No.” The robot said.

“Do you have any programming that would allow you to bring any harm to us?”

“Yes. But under severely limited parameters.”

“Limited how?” Damien demanded.

The robot’s head snapped to Damien, who flinched. “Parameters that dictated that your death would only be mitigated by your harm.”

A terminal in the center of the room pinged once.

“What’s your classification?” Natalie said, inching toward the terminal.

“Completely Autonomous Robotic Guardian and Aid, model 3.”

The terminal pinged again and Natalie activated it. “Journeyman Sanderson?” Neerson voice came through the terminal. “Have you arrived at wing Y of the Vulcan?”

“Yes sir.”

“Ah. Why did you not make contact with me when you arrived, as I requested?”

“We ran into a little snafu.” Natalie said, her eyes on the robot.

The terminal was quiet for a moment. “You’ve met Carga, I presume?”

“If you’re talking about the robot, sir, then yes.”

“I see. She can explain everything to you. Your assignments and so forth. She’s got all the information you need going forward, and can contact me if needed.”

“I… don’t know if I’m sure on the regulation for this, sir.”

Again the terminal went silent. “I may have to send your cousin down there sometime, Journeyman, to explain the somewhat fluid nature of various regulations concerning the operations onboard the Vulcan. For now though, I would recommend you think of Carga as a very well programmed computer.”

Natalie felt her stomach twist into a knot. “Yes sir.”

“Should you have any more misgivings, please feel free to contact me to schedule a meeting. Neerson out.”

The terminal clicked off and Natalie stared at the robot. So did Damien, though he looked slightly more relaxed than he had before the call with Neerson.

“Alright, Carga,” He said. “What’s our assignment?”

“Your first assignment,” Carga said at once. “Is to study the current iteration of the armor classified 188-HH, codenamed: Hellhound, project classified under codename: Black Shuck.”