Ratchet growls and thrashes. I repeat the question and he gives a begrudging nod. I’m expecting him to be furious. Instead, he’s got this ear-splitting grin on his grime-smeared face. ‘You won the battle. But I’ll win the war.’
Soon, we’re all able to last eight minutes in the freezing water. Then ten. Then fifteen. Our endurance, strength and agility slowly improves with training. During one session, I notice people watching us from the observation port. They’re without name tags, their rankings a blurred smudge in my shib. I’ve heard rumours of Intelligence Officers hanging around, but I dismissed it. No non-combatant comes to a planet under siege unless they’ve got a death wish. But when they watch us train, I can’t help but feel they’re taking notes.
The gymnasium’s large enough to accommodate entire squads of Reapers, including members of the Drop Shock Battalion. These heavyweights specialise in getting dropped from orbit in coffin-sized pods and landing behind enemy lines. They’re tough as chainmetal and can’t stop talking about the killer that is gravity, but friendly enough. We’re chatting away, until a squad of non-Reaper SSC soldiers enter the room. The new arrivals keep a wide berth, giving us dirty looks. A Shocktrooper looks at me and spits on the floor. Ratchet bares his teeth and gives off a low growl until they back off.
‘I didn’t ask you to do that,’ I say, sitting on a padded workbench, the armpits of my suit dark with sweat.
‘Nah, you didn’t,’ Ratchet agrees. ‘But you needed me to.’
‘What’s with them, anyhow?’ I ask.
‘Maybe it’s pheromonal,’ Ratchet says. ‘The stormtech changed the way we smell, yeah? Well, I reckon something about it freaks them out, down in the brain stem.’
Myra snorts at that. ‘Hardly. They’re just jealous.’
‘He didn’t look very jealous to me,’ I say.
‘Reapers are the frontline elite. We’re stronger, smarter and faster. More adaptable. More responsive. Even our armour’s calibrated for Reaper response-times. They’d break their own necks if they tried to wear our gear. In the field, we make them look like bright-eyed trainees.’
‘We’re all on the same side,’ Cable mutters.
Myra squats down in front of him. ‘Cable, I love you, but you’re beyond naive if you’re swallowing that. You’ve seen the crap the Common’s been saying about Reapers? What they’ve been calling us? The only difference is that these guys have seen us in action.’ She nods towards the SSC men gathered in their tightknit circles. Staring at Reapers in gravity chambers cranked to three times what their unaugmented bodies can handle. ‘They want to be us. They can’t. So instead, they hate us.’
‘They aren’t the only ones,’ Alcatraz says. ‘You hear Harmony’s set up a tightbeam relay for interstellar communications? They want us to talk to a bunch of trauma counsellors.’
I stare at him. ‘You don’t think that’s a good idea?’
Alcatraz snorts. ‘Don’t tell me you were thinking of signing up.’
‘It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to learn how to cope a little better.’
He spits at his feet. ‘What would you say to them that we can’t say to each other?’
He’s got a point.
‘What would you say?’ he prods.
I think about it for a moment.
‘I’d tell them how I can’t wait to get back into the field,’ I say. My fireteam listens in silence. ‘That I wake up sweating and itching at night, counting down the hours to our next mission. That I’m agitated when I’m not in my armour. That the sound of incoming fire doesn’t scare me like it did. That I know none of this is normal, but something deep inside is telling this is good news. And that freaks me the hell out.’
It’s not until the words are out that I realise how much I needed to say them.
‘I feel it too,’ Alcatraz says. ‘I heard sub-orbital cannons raining down from the VR training rooms and half-hoped it was Harvesters. Had my rifle out and everything. Got halfway down the stairs before I realised.’
‘I spend hours in the gravity gym, working out until I can sleep,’ Cable admits.
‘That doesn’t sound normal,’ I say.
‘There’s not much normal about alien DNA,’ Myra mutters.
Alcatraz nods. ‘That’s why we talk. We communicate. Hell, if we don’t trust each other in here, how can we trust each other out there?’ He nods towards the SSC troupers. ‘If we don’t, we’re just like them. And if I was out in the field with those guys, I’d be more worried about them than the Harvesters.’
I’m in the middle of my armour diagnostics check-up when Commander Sokolav comes to see me.
I know Harvesters are dialling up the pressure, homing in on our outposts, raiding supply ships, blockading civilian evac routes and shooting down observation drones. Trouble’s brewing. The Commanders and Primers feel it, too, so do all the Reapers in Tusk Battalion. We’re on Prime Standby Alert. If there’s an emergency we’ve got to be out the door in seconds with our fireteams and straight into a dropship for rapid deployment. I haven’t been out of my armour for nearly two months. During a PSA I can’t leave it at all.
I stand in a spotlight on a metal podium while eggheads and armour technicians fuss around me. Lifting my arms, rotating my shoulders, replacing a kneecap. Tightening a plate here, readjusting a seal on my helmet there. The armour straps clamp down hard over my shoulders, my chestplate tightening. The latches locking me in place loosen and I step off the podium with a hiss. The technicians stand to attention as Sokolav approaches, but he makes an at-ease signal. I follow him across the scuffed and scarred armoury.
He claps me on the shoulder. ‘You keeping well, son?’ he asks in Japanese. He’s long insisted we disperse with the formalities.
I switch easily to the language. ‘Well enough, given the circumstances.’
Sokolav snorts. ‘You never
