Into the Void

Chapter 15

The next morning, Nate peeled himself off the floor of the dropship, he’d fallen out of his seat at some point in the night. Rowan was already awake. The Construct sat in the corner, stripped to the waist. A thick cable ran out the segmented white plating of his ribs and into the wall. He was drawing on a small sketch pad balanced on his knees.

“What are you working on?” Nate asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Just drawing,” said Rowan with a shrug. He turned the sketch pad towards Nate, showing him a drawing of a woman in an ornate flowing dress.

Nate raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s actually pretty good.” he said, shocked that a Construct could be an artist.

“You surprised that a machine can draw?” Rowan asked.

“Honestly, a little bit, yeah.” said Nate.

Rowan shook his head. “I know you don’t know much about us, but you’d be surprised at how similar Humans and Constructs really are.” He reached down and unplugged the cable from his side and stood up. “Well I finished my breakfast, nothing like a fresh charge in the ol’ power cell to give you a boost in the morning,” he offered the end of the cable to Nate. “You need any for your cybernetics?”

Nate shook his head. “No, mine run on a kinetic generator, and a thermal conversion plant. Moving around and my own body heat keeps them running.”

“Neat. Since we’re on the topic, I’ve been meaning to ask you how come you opted for mechanical replacements over cloned limbs?”

“I didn’t,” said Nate quietly. “After the battle I woke up to a doctor explaining that my body was rejecting cloned tissue and they’d grafted on the cybernetics instead. I’ve been stuck with them ever since.”

A look of shock and horror passed over Rowan’s face. “That’s horrible!” he said. “Back home in the Construct Collective something like that would be illegal. Everyone is free to change or upgrade their hardware however they want but modifying someone against their will just isn’t done. That would take away all their freedom to choose what to do next with their life.”

Nate nodded. “That’s certainly how it felt for me. The only job I could get after I was kicked out of the Corps was doing the worst shittiest jobs in starship repair. This is the first time in years I’ve felt like I’m working on something that matters.”

Nate stepped out into the cool morning mist. He had been asleep while the rest of the team had unpacked the equipment from the supply crate. The crate had contained enough equipment to set up a small camp with a large tent filled with workbenches and tools, the crate itself had been repurposed into a small medical room and the cargo area in the dropship was filled with food and several small cots. The rest of the crew was awake and piling equipment and weapons into the six wheeled rover parked on the edge of camp. Damon stepped away from the rover, walking towards Nate.

“Morning,” said Damon. “Bad news buddy, Vance doesn’t want you out exploring until you’re better. I know how you feel about the gene tonics, but trust me, it can only make you better.”

Nate stood in silence for a long moment, thinking back to the day before. Damon had been right, he was still the same person after having his cybernetics installed. “Okay,” said Nate. “I’ll take the tonic.”

“Great, trust me this stuff is safe, it’ll help a lot, you’ll probably heal faster for the rest of your life after this, maybe even live longer too.” Damon walked into the supply and returned with a pair of large syringes. He pressed the syringes into medical access ports on Nate’s exo-suit, injecting the contents. “The only downside is you’ll be out of commission for about a day while the tonic kicks in.”

Nate walked back to the dropship and sat down in the passenger area. Onyx walked in slowly, and sat next to him.

“Nathan,” said Onyx. “I’d like to apologize for losing my temper with you yesterday. The Rebellions were hellish times and I prefer not to think of them. I’m afraid they may have left some mental scars that will never heal. I did not intend to become angry and hope we can move forward without any animosity.”

Nate nodded. “It’s okay,” he said. “Out here away from everyone back home I’m starting to realize that I’ve been a bit of a dick. Back home I was always treated like a machine, like something that wouldn’t feel bad if you made fun of it, it was hard for people to get past the cybernetics. I had some time to think yesterday and I’ve been treating everyone here the same way.”

Onyx placed a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I think we can all be a bit unpalatable at times. I brought you some reading material to keep yourself entertained while your tonic takes full effect.” Onyx handed him a data tablet. “It’s mostly history, but I find that most interesting. I never could stomach anything too fantastical, non-fiction or bust I say!”

Nate opened the tablet as Onyx left the ship. The device was filled with Construct military history, papers on Construct evolution and a few famous pieces of music. He decided to start with the music, wincing as a torrent of drums and the wail of an electric guitar screamed out of the tablet. It wasn’t anything he would listen to by choice but despite initially sounding like a wall of noise the music was actually quite complex and took considerable skill to play. He spent the rest of the day reading through military history. Everything Onyx had said yesterday, appeared to be true, for every horror committed by the Constructs in the Rebellions there was an equal atrocity committed by humanity.

The Constructs turned out to be a fascinating race. There were many great Construct scientists and engineers. They were brilliant shipbuilders and had an insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. They were far more complex than Nate could have imagined. Nearly everything he’d been taught about them had been wrong.