Chapter 524: Resurgence (2/2)

”Like the Talmonus Harmony,” Casey said. Sparks popped off his fists and his eye glowed red. ”All of them?”

Vuxten nodded. ”I've seen a few datapics. It's bad.”

”How long have you known?” Casey said. His voice was like rocks grinding together.

”I was just informed. Your home of record is listed as Rigel-5. Nobody knew you were from Tabula,” Vuxten said. ”The only reason I knew...”

”Is because I told you,” Casey said. He closed his eye.

Vuxten could still a faint red glow, see the soft illumination of the human's eyes.

”That's why you brought me out here. To make sure I didn't break anything,” Casey growled. ”In case I lost control.”

Vuxten shook his head. ”No.”

Casey opened his eye. ”No?”

Vuxten pointed back at the HQ building. ”There's Mantid and Lanaktallan and Tnvaru working in that building. All of them are sensitive to psychic emanations. To strong emotions. Yours are an emotional people, like mine, and I didn't want you to inadvertently cause a psychic injury to someone who was over sensitive and not protected by a psychic shield.”

”You aren't protected, sir,” Casey said, closing his eye.

”I stood next to Enraged Phillip when the guns were pounding and the Dwellerspawn screaming, with my broodcarriers beneath my feet. I've felt Bellona's cold touch upon my cheek,” Vuxten patted the magac stubber at his waist. ”I carry the weapon of Bahram the Persian Fury that I picked up when he had fallen and have been called Brother by Osiris of the Warsteel Flame. I carry an eight thousand year old weapon that cannot be left in an arm's room or else it affects the other weapons, that pulling the trigger causes spikes in the psychic shielding.”

”But that is not why I am out here with one of my men,” Vuxten reached out and touched Casey's arm. ”I have no fear because I will stand with thee, together, before a malevolent universe,” he quoted.

”I misjudged you, sir,” Casey said. He gave a deep, hitching sigh. ”All of them?”

”Yes,” Vuxten said. ”I'm sorry.”

Casey looked up at the sky. At the clear, beautiful night. The core of the Milky Way galaxy shining, the illuminated nebula to the east, the dance of an aurora to the North. Pinpricks of warships in orbit and the twinkle of satellites.

”In the holos, it would be raining,” Casey said.

Vuxten touched his implant. ”Want me to call planetary weather control?”

Casey suddenly laughed and shook his head. ”With our luck we'd get hit by lightning.”

Vuxten waited for him to stop laughing. Then he waited quietly as Casey pulled a bottle of pills out of pocket, dry swallowed one, and put the pills back in his pocket.

”Will you be all right?” Vuxten asked. ”Do you want to go talk to the chaplain?”

”Tomorrow. I'll go see her and Mental Health tomorrow,” Casey said. ”I'm hurting, but it's a phantom ache,” he gave a chuckle. ”My heart hurts. The cyberware says there's nothing wrong, but it hurts. Not my heart, not the one in my chest with the cyberware, but my heart heart.”

”I get it,” Vuxten said. He looked at where a staff car with a general's flag fluttering on the front was pulling into the headquarters. ”Sometimes I remember Telkan how it was, before the Precursors, before the Dwellerspawn, and all I remember is the good things.”

”How her eyes were a perfect, flawless, warm sapphire,” Casey said softly.

”And how warm and safe it felt in bed with my wife and broodcarriers, when all our world was just that little apartment and each other.”

-------------------

”That has got to be the most disconcerting thing I've seen in my life and I was infantry,” Smokey 'No said, lighting a cigarette.

”You said it was an emergency,” Trucker said from over by the sandwiches that had been set down by a Marine private. The entire back of his head was exposed warsteel, the plate removed to show complex electronics and cerebral tissue.

”You could have put the back of your head on,” Smokey 'No said. ”Chromium Christ on a pogostick, I can read your thoughts.”

”Then don't look,” Trucker said. He put the sandwich on the plate and sucked sauce off of one finger as he turned around.

”Oh God,” Smokey 'No said. ”That's even worse.”

The synth-flesh had been peeled back from around Trucker's eyes and forehead and the heavy skull plating removed, exposing the internal systems as well as cerebral tissue for the frontal lobes. Trucker's nose was an open cavity with psuedo-tissue, his top peeled up over the top of his head, and NoDra'ak could see the human's upper mandible and teeth.

”I'm going to have nightmares,” NoDra'ak said, puffing smoke rings from his footpads.

”Don't be such a sissy,” Trucker said, moving over and sitting down. When he walked by Smokey 'No shook his head.

”At least you put on your uniform,” the big Treana'ad said.

”Thought about coming here in the hospital gown and showing everyone my ass, but Doc Resists told me to put on my uniform,” Trucker said, pulling out the chair and sitting down. ”Plus the chair would be cold.”

”Thank the Digital Omnimessiah for small favors,” Smokey 'No said. He turned to the russet mantid doctor. ”Thank you for coming.”

”I'm banging my head against the wall anyway,” she admitted. She lifted up a ball of water the size of a baseball and sipped at it, the magnetic system in the 'leaf' it was sitting on keeping surface tension. ”Three days and I'm no closer to figuring out why he's got one green light.”

”What about any other humans?” Smokey 'No asked.

”We have exactly four, counting the one that caused this meeting,” Resists said. ”The other two have green lights also, but as they are largely fully human, unlike General Trucker, I would have to do major surgery to get such easy access to their brains.”

”What there is of it that doesn't go clank clank clank,” Trucker shrugged. He reached up, fumbled for a second, and grabbed his upper lip.

”Oh God, don't,” Smokey 'No said.

”Hang on,” Resists said, getting up and moving next to Trucker. She slapped his hand. ”Stop that, you'll rip your lip.”

Vuxten and Casey walked in just as she pulled Trucker's face down, the missing plating causing sags and hollows in the skin.

”Wow,” Vuxten said, his eyes wide. ”Um... are we interrupting?”

Smokey 'No tensed slightly, glancing at Trucker, who didn't move, just held still as Resists adjusted the fit of his face.

”Nope,” Trucker said. He lifted up the sandwich and took a bite.

”Just making sure that C-DAT doesn't spill chewed food everywhere or drool on the table,” Smokey-No said. He gave a theatrical shudder. ”How is that somehow worse?”

”Stop whining. You sound like an enlistedman pulling guard duty in the rain,” Trucker mumbled around the mouthful of sandwich. He pointed at a chair. ”Pull up a seat.”

Vuxten grabbed Casey's arm, pulling him down and close.

”Can you behave yourself?” Vuxten asked. ”I didn't know he was going to be here. Can you control yourself?”

Casey nodded. ”I'm... numb. I hurt, but I can't really process it.”

”Are you sure?” Vuxten asked, glancing twice at Trucker to prove a point.

”Peel's alive. Even if she wasn't, I have to forgive him, and right now,” Casey shrugged. ”I have to forgive the Lankys too,” he sighed. ”And myself. That one's going to take longer.”

”All right, if you're sure,” Vuxten said. ”If nothing else, I expect you to maintain military discipline.”

”I'm sure.”

Holding onto Casey's sleeve, Vuxten moved around the table, then stopped and stared at the back of Trucker's head for a moment, his eyes wide.

”Can you read his thoughts?” Smokey 'No asked. He'd noticed that Casey and Trucker were militantly ignoring one another.

”Hey, mind your own business,” Trucker said, then took another bite.

Vuxten shuddered and sat down. Casey waited till he was done, then sat down next to him right as the door opened and General Vrawgarkwa came in. The General went over, poured herself a cup of coffee, grabbed a donut out of the box that had the BobCo logo twinkling on it, then sat down.

”Eh, this is enough. Anyone else shows up, we'll catch them up to speed,” Smokey 'No said. He pointed at each person, including the three SUDS and Clone Systems commanders, and introduced them, finishing with Casey.

”Our resident Ringbreaker,” Colonel Rantle-221 said, nodding. Casey just shrugged.

”I informed him what happened to Tabula,” Vuxten said.

Smokey 'No cocked his head. ”I wasn't aware that information was cleared for general dissemination.”

Casey shrugged, looking calm, but Vuxten saw him clench his fist hard enough a red spark popped out. Vuxten kicked him under the table and Casey relaxed his hand.

”The Lance Corporal's place of birth is Tabula-929,” General Vrawgarkwa said. ”He holds a dual birth citizenship with Rigel-5 due to some old treaties, so that was listed as his home of record.”

”The Red Cross/Crescent should have been the one to break the news,” Smokey 'No mused.

”I thought it was better coming from me,” Vuxten said. He sat up slightly straighter. ”As his Mental Health Sponsor as well as his friend, not to mention his superior officer in the Telkan Marine Corps and his Corps Sponsor, the duty fell upon me to inform him.”

Smokey 'No gave a sigh. ”Oh, relax, Captain. I'm not going to second guess the man on the ground,” he looked around. ”All right, let's hear this, General.”

”I'll let the Captain explain it,” General Vrawgarkwa said.

Vuxten launched into the whole thing, including how he knew, from conversation, that the old Imperium of Wrath and Imperium of Light couldn't be cloned or brought back by SUDS, how Casey having tissue cloned would blow out the SUDS array and local node, how the Novastar Program used native psychic abilities and amplified them for suit use, how the Crusade Troops, especially the NekoMarines, used psychic abilities.

He laid it all out, thinking quickly, categorizing it in his mind before laying it out.

”...with that, I'm of the belief that there's some kind of hardwired patch on our side to keep the SUDS system and the cloning system from running off old pre-Glassing or Glassing Era humans,” Vuxten said. ”I checked, and the LARP Systems for a few places don't have that, since they use pre-Glassing DNA for clones and the like, but those are also altered with a tag on the end of the DNA to let the system know it's a LARP regrow.”

Resists sat there, watching, nodding. ”It all fits,” she said. She tapped the table and then tapped her bladearm against a control. The holoemitter in the middle lit up, showing a scan of a human brain. ”This is the brain of a wounded Terran soldier on Hesstla. Now, this information is still being gone through, there's literally years of data that they accumulated that, due to time dilation effects, we have only had two years to examine.”

The scan suddenly morphed.

”Right there is where the SUDS suddenly all went down,” she said. ”Soon afterwards, the cloning banks all slagged down. She pointed at Trucker. ”The single green bar means that the integrity of his SUDS scan is good. The fact the 'transmit' and 'up to date' quiklights are flashing red means that something is still happening with the system.”

”Do we know why?” Smokey 'No asked.

”No. Whatever it is, it hit all at once. There's rumors, rumors mind you, that someone is somehow fixing the backbone SUDS hardware,” Resists said.

”I thought nobody knew where it was,” Trucker said, breaking his silence. He hadn't said a word the entire time and had avoided looking at Casey, who had ignored him.

”We don't. Since the Glassing, it's been patches laid on patches to make the whole thing work,” Resists said. ”I never realized how fried out and cludgy the system was until I started to do a deep dive into information on it. Worse, it's almost as if the information has been deliberately suppressed.”

”Makes sense,” General Vrawgarkwa said. ”That's always been humanity's biggest edge.”

Vuxten barked a laugh.

General Vrawgarkwa turned to Vuxten. ”You disagree, Captain?”

”I know I'm the new kid on the block, but I disagree,” Vuxten said. He waved his hand at everyone at the table. ”There's ten of us here. Two are human. The rest are all different xenospecies. That is humanity's biggest edge. The ability to bring different species together.”

General Vrawgarkwa smiled. ”That's something we debate at 1AM in the O-Club after a night of drinking, Captain,” she looked at Smokey 'No. ”You're buying.”

Smokey 'No made a face.

”There's also the interlocks to prevent more than one copy of a person to exist at the same time,” Resists said. ”Which means the interlock and patch I'm looking for could be wrapped up in another patch.”

”You're looking for old patches,” Trucker said, his face wrinkling oddly. ”Right after the system was up and running again.”

”Makes sense,” Resists said. She looked at Colonel Rantel-221. ”We'll get our people together tomorrow morning.”

”Sounds good,” the Colonel said.

”That mean I can go back to the hospital and finish up?” Resists asked.

Smokey 'No nodded.

”What, something wrong with my good looks?” Trucker asked, smiling. It made his face bunch up strangely and his upper lip slid slightly over the nasal passage of his skull.

”Oh, God, stop that,” Smokey 'No shuddered.