Recognized as the first vessel to witness the destruction of what would become the Durban Coup, the UES Prometheus was elevated to a propagandized celebrity status within United Earths territory almost as soon as counterinsurgency operations began. Once a fairly unremarkable peacekeeping cruiser, the ship received a refit near the first anniversary of the conflict that gave it the distinction of being armed with the Untied Earths' first anti-tidal Gestalt weapons.
While she was never directly involved in the destruction of any specific tidal Gestalt units, she is nonetheless credited with participation in nine t/G killsâtied for first in the fleet. Those who serve aboard the Prometheus are characterized in media as champions of humanity striking back at a vile, alien aggressor. In reality, like most of the modern UE navy, those who work the decks of the formidable battlecruiser have never seen a tidal Gestalt face-to-bow.
She is presently deployed to the sanctioned warzone blockade surrounding the Hjkor system, where she's rightfully earned a fearsome reputation among those lowlifes who think they can handle mascon any better than the United Earths.
. . .
Sinope stood, barely processing the words being spoken to her, as the officer glanced down at his tablet. A few meters behind him, a woman in a yellow overcoat was attempting to maneuver an empty stretcher out of the bathroom.
The officer's lips were moving, but whatever he was saying was lost to her. Her heart was racing in a way she'd never felt before--she didn't like it. Her mind raced with thoughts that hardly had the chance to form before they were exchanged for new ones. Try as she might to fixate on some specific memory or emotion, they rippled through her fingers like an unruly river. All she was left with was a sucking ache in her chest. Her biomonitor reported perfect sinus.
The officer looked up from his pad and said something that was probably directed at her. All she could do was stare blankly at him. Their eyes couldnât be more different, yet neither of them held any desire to be here right now. The radio on his chest mumbled something urgent-sounding.
âGo, sit, collect yourself. Donât go anywhere, weâll pick this up in a few.â
The officer turned towards one of the security robots standing guard near the bathroom. Sinope wasnât sure how, but when she looked down, she found herself sitting on a cold metal bench. It took until a hand clasped around her upper thigh for her to center back in on the real world.
The owner of the hand, Lysithea, sat at her side, glancing down the empty passageway anxiously.
âWeâre not supposed to be here, Syn, we gotta go.â
Lysithea spoke in an urgent whisper, turning her attention towards the officers currently consulting a security drone.
. . .
Among the sea of travelers on the intrastation tram, Sinope and Lysithea almost looked human. They sat like humans: shoulder to shoulder on a bench meant for a few less people than chose to occupy it. They postured like humans: hoods up, heads leaned against each other, the taller of the two wrapping her arm around a frightened and rattled Sinope. They spoke like humans: whispered, disorganized, doing all they could to suppress their grief on a shuttle full of people who were practically hardwired not to pay attention to anyone but themselves.
Lysithea's fingers squeezed tight against Sinope's arm. All she could feel coursing through her veins was hate for the faceless humans riding alongside them.
Sinope gripped Lysithea's so tightly her otherwise pale hands were practically white. No matter how many times the automated interpretation of her heart rhythm reassured her she was not experiencing a medical emergency, she felt like she was dying.
By the time they reached their stop, neither had the strength to stand on their own.
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A common side-effect of prolonged Gestalt inhabitance system usage is the temporary erosion of the user's proprioceptive capabilities.
Pilots that log sustained link-hours in Gestalt-equipped combat walkers often report extended periods of physical dissociation hypothesized to be the brain's failure to mentally separate the body of pilot and mech post-connection. Those suffering from Goliath's Syndrome often report feelings of generalized anxiety, body dysmorphia, fear of damaging objects around them, and a reduced ability to judge distance and depth. In all but the most extreme cases, this dissociation can be corrected with a break from the cockpit.
. . .
Whisper glared at the Remnant Walker standing opposite it. The two grotesque machines had each performed this dance many times past, but that did little to lighten the tension that rolled with each meeting. Fours had only engaged another bastardmech a handful of times, none skirmishes that lasted longer than a minute or two. The peacocking that tended to precede a tussle meant there was little more strategy involved in the fighting than to shatter something vital before the enemy got the chance.
"Stand down and stand by, we know these guys. Your walk-past clearance will arrive in a minute."
The halite sand particles suspended between the two mechs' idle gravity wells twinkled in the midday sunslight. In another life, the white deserts of Hjkor III might have been breathtaking to Fours. As things were, even with dozens of high-fidelity eyes and LIDAR emitters mainlined straight into her visual cortex, all she could see was the armored, mascon-wrapped prey before her.
Maiden of Moonlight stood taller than Whisper, if only because it didn't slouch nearly as much. The majority of its paint had been stripped by the abrasive salt-sand gales that followed the moon like a tide (which is to say that they never stopped, only waned), but the fact that the company sponsoring the machine still bothered to repaint its chassis made it clear they hadn't been here long. The particulates that scraped at Whisper's hull scattered across its armor without leaving a mark, if only because there was no more polyurethane left to sandblast away.
Whisper's engine growled with a foul whine, scattering circular fractals in the storm between the two machines. Maiden of Moonlight hummed with a dignified, shrill pitch, its own engine spinning up to match. Each probed the other, microgravity fingers seeking the weakest spot to wrap around. Neither required much searchingâthe two knew each othersâ bodies as well as their own. Whisperâs grasp poised to clasp around the gravitic well of the alien walker slid as naturally into place as it did the first time, met in turn by the familiar ripple in space that she could feel deep within her own structure.
She wasn't used to waiting this long to be told to leave the target be. No matter how anxious she wanted to be about the encounter, all she could really feel was the paxa blend coursing through her veins, wrestling her into a sense of peace. Even the lights within the cockpit, faintly visible through her faded organic eyes, were awash with a gentle blue.
High above, spotter drones circled the pair like a flock of vultures, each drinking in visuals from every conceivable angle to be fed straight into the mechs' combat computers. Even higher above, suspended in the black void, Sandfog Company's capital vessel broadcast a fourth as-of-yet-unanswered hail.
"Stand by, something's wrong. They're not answering... I don't--fuck it, Whisper, engage the target."
Fours almost certainly could not have heard and processed the command before the KRIEGSHIRN onboard parsed the data blast and pivoted into combat mode. Recycled saline blasted through the clone's reinforced veins, a tide shortly followed by stale synthblood pre-mixed with a dozen of the galaxy's most illegal reflex enhancers and aggression hormones.
Both machines lunged at each other in near-perfect unison.
Whisper's gravity engine, a three ton lunar spool that's largely responsible for the mech's hunchbacked appearance, is hardly fit for a machine twice its size. It's also capable of outputting peak impulses of nearly fifteen thousand Gs per picosecond squared. The microsingularity that ripped several square yards of armor and internals from the rear right torso of Maiden of Moonlight proved that such a trade-off was well worth the strain. Were the two walkers sporting matched gravity engines, their impulses would likely negate each other entirely. As things were, all Maiden could hope to do was throw off Whisper's aim.
Both machines slammed into each other with a crash that rippled across the empty tundra.
Claws and hands wrapped around each other, striking at every perceived vulnerability or target of opportunity. Both howled, engines racing to prime another crippling gravitic impulse before the other could land a crippling blow. Whisper raked for purchase against the wounded back of its prey, serrated talons scraping against exposed structure and bent armor in a desperate attempt to secure any kind of grip. One foot walked up Maiden's leg, failing to destabilize the knee, but finding a comfortable lodging spot at the front of its hip.
Exchanging potential for momentum, Whisper's engine discharged prematurely. Left hand wrapped around Maiden's back and right busy grappling with Maiden's left wrist, the hungry predator dragged itself downwards, the traction pads of its foot pressuring Maiden's hip until something gave way with a sickening snap. Whisper wrenched its foot free, pivoting backwards, planting itself firmly and using its left arm as leverage. It began to swing the other mech.
Maiden only survived one step before its hip gave way completely, leg crumpling beneath the walker and forcing it to the ground.
Prone, there wasn't much of a battle left. Whisper planted a foot firmly against the mech's lower back, anchoring its free hand at the opposite extreme of the gash it had opened with its initial gravitic impulse. Its claws bore deep, widening the wound until the mech's entire arm right arm and head became severed from the rest of the chassis, attached only by the twisted titanium spinal column, strands of insulation polymers, and bent frontal armor plates. The shrieking of Maiden's spooling gravity engine died with a bitter whimper as it was wrenched out of the internal cavity of the machine, closely followed by another solid slab of machinery Whisper didn't even bother identifying before launching it across the dunes.
The mech continued to disembowel her prey for several minutes, scattering its components parts across the white dunes dozens of meters in all directions. Leaking fluids and fuel stained the salt taiga beneath, boiling and bubbling in reaction with the chloride to create a sickening miasma. By the time Whisper was given the command to stand down, little remained of Maiden of Moonlight beyond unbreakable mascon strands splayed about and the in-tact piloting pod untouched in the midst of the thing's skeleton.
High above, Karabin was busy scrolling through their current contract to double-check exactly how much they'd be fined for abandonment. The salvage of a Remnant Walker wasn't going to last long on the surface, and she would much rather accumulate more mascon to staple to Whisper than waste time playing nice with insignificant corporate interests.
"Circle back to the pickup zone, we're calling this one early. Good kill, Fours."
The euphoria from the praise carried Whisper all the way back to the dropzone. Despite her eagerness to fall into her captain's arms, when the light of the hangar bay flooded into her tiny cockpit cell, Fours hesitated to grasp Lincoln's hand.
Initially established following the resolution of the Durban Coup as a combined fundraising and crime control measure, the United Earths' declaration of "sanctioned warzones" is generally seen as a triumph by everyone who doesn't live within the borders of one.
The income generated by naval tariffs and participation fees is advertised to directly support in-system reconstruction efforts, and while the UE Navy initially contracted uninvolved stellar naval corporations in securing the borders of sanctioned warzones, (alleged) diversion of postbellum aid funds to the reconstruction of the UE's crippled navy has since rendered this practice obsolete.
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KITSUKAMI ORBITAL SECURITY DIVISION
MINOR INCIDENT REPORT
ââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
CASE NUMBER: KOS-H-âââââ-01208
DATE FILED: 08 December âââââ
TIME FILED: 01:41 SST
STATUS:
â Open
â Active Pursuit
â Cold Case
â Closed
â Archived
Date of Incident: 07 December âââââ
Time of Incident: Approximately 22:17 SST
Location: Commerce Ring C, Promenade 7, Station Transit Terminal (Green Line), South Women's Restroom
Incident Type: Homicide / Attempted Robbery
Environmental Conditions: No Faults
Lighting Conditions: Standard Commercial Illumination
Name: UNKNOWN, Jane Doe
Estimated Age: Mid-20s
Sex: Female
Nationality: Martian
Identifying Features: Victim is a mid-20 year old female, 168cm, 56.3kg. White hair, blue eyes, equipped with extensive cybernetics that indicate as for government use only.
Condition:
â Deceased
â Injured
â Missing
â Other
Name: Unknown
Estimated Age: Mid-40s
Sex: Male
Description: Suspect is mid-40 year old male, approximately 180cm, thin build. Black jacket, grey pants, unkempt appearance, likely long-term station vagrant. Armed with ballistic handgun.
Current Status:
â Unknown
â Wanted (Identity Confirmed)
â Arrested
â Deceased
[Witness 01]
Witness type: Janitorial Maintenance Unit JR-7A-114
Statement Summary: N/A
Attached Files: âââââ1208221756.mp4
Unit visual feed depicts suspect approaching victim from front. Victim appears to surrender personal items voluntarily before lunging at suspect. Suspect discharges firearm twice into victim's upper torso at close range. Suspect retrieves additional property from victim before fleeing the restroom. Suspect shoves past two bystanders who are entering as the suspect exits.
Camera angle does not provide identifiable facial imagery. Suspect's face remains obscured by hood and shadow throughout recording.
No audio recording capability installed on maintenance unit.
[Witness 02]
Name: Unknown Martian Female #1
Approximate Age: Mid-20s
Relationship to Victim: Claims to be "a friend."
No identification produced.
Subject declined biometric scan.
Physical examination from a distance noted multiple visible augmentations inconsistent with commercially licensed cybernetic hardware. Several implants could not be positively identified using department recognition software, but appears visually similar to victim's modifications. Subject appeared elevated on scene, but remained cooperative with officers until departing.
Statement contains no useful identifying information regarding suspect.
[Witness 03]
Name: Unknown Martian Female #2
Approximate Age: Mid-20s
Relationship to Victim: Claims to be "a close friend."
No identification produced.
Subject declined biometric scan.
Physical examination from a distance noted multiple visible augmentations inconsistent with commercially licensed cybernetic hardware. Several implants could not be positively identified using department recognition software, but appears visually similar to victim's modifications. Subject appeared frantic and upset on scene, but remained cooperative with officers. No evidence indicating direct involvement in homicide at this time.
Scene interview incomplete.
Both accompanying females fled the scene shortly after emergency responders declared the victim dead. Officers were unable to detain either suspect, ongoing stationwide scans have yet to identify either.
Victim discovered lying lateral fetal against the bathroom sinks.
Personal belongings scattered across immediate area.
Two ballistic impacts observed to upper torso.
No signs of prolonged struggle.
Recovered blood evidence consistent with victim only.
Scene secured at 22:29 SST.
E-001: Two recovered ballistic projectiles removed during postmortem examination.
E-002: Victim's satchel and other scattered personal items.
E-003: Surveillance footage recovered from Janitorial Unit JR-7A-114.
E-004: Blood samples taken from scene and victim.
E-005: Partial footwear impressions leading toward Service Corridor C-19.
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TIMELINE
22:12 â Victim observed walking with two unidentified females (witnesses 2 and 3).
22:14 â Victim breaks away from group and enters women's restroom. Two unidentified females loiter near vending machine.
22:15 â Suspect emerges from men's restroom and enters women's restroom.
22:17 â Suspect approaches victim.
22:17 â Property apparently surrendered.
22:18 â Victim lunges at suspect and pushes him against a stall wall. Suspect pushes victim off. Victim stumbles backwards into sink.
22:18 â Suspect fires two rounds.
22:18 â Automated emergency alert generated.
22:18 â Victim collapses. Suspect removes items from victim's sling bag.
22:18 â Suspect flees.
22:24 â Patrol units arrive.
22:29 â Scene secured.
Responding officers located an unidentified adult female suffering two apparent gunshot wounds to the upper torso. Emergency medical personnel pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.
Video evidence strongly suggests the suspect intended to rob the victim. Following transfer of personal property, the victim attacked the suspect, whom discharged his firearm twice before removing additional belongings and fleeing.
No evidence directly indicates the two accompanying females participated in the robbery or homicide. Both identified themselves only as close friends of the deceased. Neither produced identification nor could their identities be independently verified. KOSD is currently in the process of contacting local government agencies in regards to the identity of the deceased or the accompanying females.
Although both female witnesses possessed advanced augmentations beyond the responding officer's familiarity and appeared visibly distressed by the incident, neither displayed overt hostility toward responding personnel. Both witnesses fled the scene shortly after the victim was confirmed to be deceased, neither have been located by station security as of writing.
SECSHIRN Station AI raise to Alert 4.
Canvass surrounding surveillance network.
Attempt identification of suspect through station records.
Ballistic comparison with other recent GSW victims.
Continue attempts at identification of victim.
Locate and re-interview unidentified female witnesses.
Station Security Intelligence reports no registered residents matching either female witness.
Augmentation profiles observed during contact remain unidentified.
No criminal indicators presently connect either witness to the homicide beyond proximity.
Officer's observation only:
Both subjects maintained uninterrupted visual attention on the victim during medical response. Both displayed distress typical of this type of incident. Despite concern for the victim and claims to be "close friends", both refused to identify themselves or the victim and fled the scene. This behavior is unusual but not, by itself, evidentiary.
Recommend follow-up interviews if identities can be established.
Isolated from all other variables, any single Gestalt connection is, statistically, quite safe to make. For decades, the only regular users of inhabitance technology were highly-trained military personnel and bespoke human synths designed specifically for the rigors of the connection. With the proper precautions in place, the chances of a Gestalt-linked pilot suffering even a minor headache from the neural bridge is practically zero.
Within the sanctioned warzone, untrained operators rack up hundreds of link-hours per month. Fortunately (for Gestalt-system manufacturersâ PR teams), these daredevils rarely survive long enough to notice the erosion of their ego or experience a total persona collapse.
. . .
âSystem command: please recite pilot licensure number to confirm cognizance.â
The voice of the automech reverberated through the metal harness securing Fours to the entrails of the walker. Sealed away in the darkness of the auxiliary plugcell, even if the Battery could see, it was unlikely sheâd be able to make out even the wisps of her frozen breath in the icy air.
âFour⌠four four⌠eight two⌠one⌠th-three⌠one nine sssixâŚâ
The pilotâs voice was small, ragged, but the machine was reading her vocalizations directly through the vibrations of her larynx. The elastic choker around her throat itched. Fours knew better than to scratch at it.
âSystem confirms: Battery cognizance. Please prepare for neural snapshot.â
The pilot's hands grasped nervously at the harness that secured her legs to the machine, knuckles white around the paint-chipped steel. All around her, she could hear some system begin to spin up, humming with a rising intensity and a heat she couldn't identity as real or imagined. Around her, she could see the vague glow of vestigial monitors and indicator lights signalling something she wasn't meant to understand to people who weren't her.
Beyond, she could feel the rattle of the shuttle beginning to meet air resistance. She didn't know much about how Whisper actually commuted from space to surface. In truth, she could hardly remember a time in which the mech actually made contact with the ground.
Beneath her idle curiosities, there was a small tickle against the inside of her mind. She hardly registered the static that buzzed across the surface of her brain. Very few of the systems aboard the mech were designed with the comfort of a battery clone at the forefront, but a neural snapshot captured in the middle of excruciating pain was hardly a useful imprint to restore from.
"System command: Look towards the flashing light."
All around her, every monitor and indicator were plunged into darkness save for a single blinking red light to her left. The clone turned her gaze in its direction, doing her best to focus on the exact source of the indistinct glow.
"System alert: Snapshot in progress."
Fours stared at the unblinking light. There was a looming silence that hung heavy over the frigid cockpit, punctuated only by the hum of the various systems around her and the occasional rattle of the still mech beneath her. She didn't know how long the process took. She couldn't ever remember what the system said when it was done capturing. It was one of the only lines the automech system spoke that she hadn't committed to memory. Maybe, once the mission was over, she could ask abo
The red light vanished. In its place, an avalanche of sensations crashed across her, all borne from a tiny sliver of the present that bordered the past and the now. Fours was bathed in heat, sickness, and pain. Her head seared with overexertion, every muscle strained and sore in ways she didn't know they could be. The agony lit her up faster than she could process--her screams felt like they took an eternity to follow. The clone bent forwards, spontaneously dry mouth doing all it could to heave up an empty stomach.
"System alert: Neural flash complete."
The support system's control over her body's autonomic rate made no allowances for the agony rippling through her, which meant that no matter how hard she tried, she could only breathe at a gentle resting rate. No matter how much she hurt, her heart only beat so quickly. No matter how afraid she felt, her adrenaline refused to kick in.
"System command: please recite pilot licensure number."
The automech voice didn't give her the chance to catch her breath, but it did do her the small justice of "correcting" her body's state with a calibrated mixed dosage of the dozen onboard stimulants it didn't bother to read her the names of.
Fours dug through her own throat to pry out her conditioned response to the synthesized voice, coughing out the dry phlegm that squeezed her throat shut. In the darkness, she couldn't really tell if anything actually came out of her mouth.
âFfffour⌠four... four eight... t-two⌠one⌠th-three⌠oneninesixâŚâ
The pilotâs voice was coarse, barely audible, but the machine was reading her vocalizations directly through the vibrations of her larynx. The elastic choker around her throat dug into her skin. Fours couldn't muster the strength to itch it.
No true solution for artificial gravity exists in space, although there do exist a myriad of gravity-like implementations for spacecraft that are expected to spend a significant amount of time in the black. Originally designed for asteroid mining bases, one of the most widespread industrial shortcuts is magnetic gravity, often shortened to gravmag.
Human beings aren't inherently magnetic, but by drinking a consistent volume of ferroactin suppliments, enough benign magnetic particulates can be metabolized into muscle and bone, permitting a human to be acted upon by a specialized electromagnetic array built in to the lowest deck of a ship. Original implementations of this technology were quite crude, but refinements to the antipolar fields used have reduced the damage caused to unshielded computers, minimized the side effects of metabolising excessive metals, and reduced the influence non-gravmag magnets may exert on a human.
The most distinctive element of a gravmag field is that, while those under its influence may be pulled downwards, their clothing, long hair, and small personal items are not.
. . .
Iâve been told that I donât really belong in the mechsploitation spaceâand, donât get me wrong, I can see where that sentiment is coming fromâbut itâs still not the most motivating thing to hear.
I really appreciate those of you who have become little regulars in my reblogs! Iâm really passionate about this project. Iâm the only one who really needs to be passionate for it to keep chugging along, but seeing a little outside enthusiasm is really validating.
More to come soon! Iâm looking to get some artwork done of Fours, Lincoln, Whisper, and Her Deafening Whisper, itâs just been a slow process and the dosh isnât really there yet.
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Humans were never designed to interface with a psylune engine. The emissions output, even shielded by a thick cockpit wall and absorbent metamaterials, require only a few minutes of exposure to terminally poison any living being in its presence.
For the Tidal Gestalt programâa cabal made up of the United Earthsâ most prolific geneticists and warmongers given an infinite supply of blank checksâsuch a hazard is considered little more than a speedbump.
. . .
The first thing she ever felt was a dozen nitrile hands running across her cold skin.
Some grasped and massaged at her muscles, others poked and prodded spots all across her skin. They swarmed across her figure like an army of ants, each vigorous in its mission, an entire battalion at war with her flesh. None of them hurt her. None of them felt pleasant.
The first thing she ever smelled was the chlorine-crisp air of a sterile laboratory. The very space around her smelled of an offensive void, as though not even oxygen was allowed to exist here without sterilization. The coolness filled her nose and lungs easily, chest expanding with a gentle first inhale. It was only as her lips parted that she realized there was a mask pressed to her face.
One pair of hands left. Another took its place. Indistinct, muffled voices exchanged hushed remarks with each other over her still body.
The first thing she ever tasted was the gentle breeze being delivered straight into her mouth. The first breath of medical gas was refreshing. The second was fine. By the twentieth, her tongue stuck to the inside of her mouth. Her finger twitched at her side, aching to pry the thing away from her faceâas though she had any idea how.
It took a moment of determination, but gingerly, she did manage to extract her arm from the cold embrace of the table she was sprawled atop. Almost immediately, one of the gloved hands took her wrist and held it in place. Her muscles shuddered as she exerted force for the first time in her life. The hands did not relent.
Somewhere above her, a loud sound echoed across an impossibly large space.
The girl whined, perhaps unconsciously. Her closed eyes pinched shut tighter, head twisting halfway to one side in an attempt to shake the plastic cup off her mouth. Her dry lips squeezed shut, nostrils flaring with each inhale. The muffled voices continued to speak past her. Another pair of hands wrapped around her other wrist. She didnât realize she had one.
Another deep rumble reverberated from somewhere high above.
A hand cupped around her cheek, thumb resting beneath one of her eyelids. Gingerly, she felt it begin to pull down on her skin, forcing her weary eyes to open. Tears streamed from pores she didnât realize had been crying. What was at first a blinding cacophony of light quickly resolved into her first glimpse of the world sheâd been born into.
The first thing she ever saw was Her Deafening Whisper standing tall in drydock above her.
It was an imposing, all-devouring sight. The bone-white mech stood in its bay, head twisted slightly to one side, gazing at nothing in particular with its obsidian face. One of its arms was flexed forwards, straining against flexible cables wrapped at its wrist. One of her fingers twitched. One of the mechâs fingers twitched. Transfixed by the sight, the nitrile hands clasped around her wrist took the chance to gently guide her arm back to the table. She watched as the arm of the mech relaxed back at its side.
For a brief moment, she forgot how dry her mouth was.
Emblazoned against the chest of the machine was its name and code, mirrored with the livery of the United Earths navy. She didnât know why, but her eyes were drawn to the white body of the machine like a mothâs to the radiance of the sun, filling her with a carnal awe that felt too right to be wrong. A voice beside her spoke softly into her ear. She didnât bother to look towards it.
âSheâs beautiful, isnât she?â
Somewhere inside, she felt her own voice stir.
ââŚSheâs beautifulâŚâ
âYou were made special, just for her. You two will be together forever.â
ââŚWhat⌠is sheâŚ?â
âHer name is Her Deafening Whisper. She will protect us.â
ââŚWhat⌠am IâŚ?â
âYour name is Sinope. You will protect her.â
Sinope remained transfixed, staring upwards from the table she lay on. Despite finding herself sprawled across a medical table placed in the middle of a mech hangar, attended to by a dozen masked doctors, she felt an overwhelming sense of comfort and calm.
The principle adaptation of the lunar tissue extracted from the cores of the moons that were lucky enough to harbor it was, most certainly, for warfare purposes, but that never stopped the UEâs Tidal Gestalt program from incubating other novel uses for the material. Perhaps the greatest medical breakthrough achieved with the help of such a material is the field of Psychemedicine and a much more well-rounded understanding of human exceptionalism. Practitioners of this scienceâAespersâare incredibly few and far between, but are highly valued by both the UE government and medical supercorps.
In the modern day, the human body is understood to maintain a polar field not dissimilar to a gravitational pull, which anchors the âsoulâ (not a literal religious soul, but rather, the human âââsparkâââ that is developed through emotional experience) to the mortal form. Damage to this Psyche both allows the human spark to leak out and the radiant entropy of the universe to seep in, a condition that can become fatal without intervention. Modern psychescience is still a fringe, experimental field, but shows great promise in filling in the gaps of neuroscience and psychology.
The âsparkâ within, finite as it may be, is a readily-accessible fuel source for the Remnant Walkers that scourge the sanctioned warzone to this day.
. . .
Lincoln, followed closely by Spider, sprinted across the access gangway towards Whisper's peeled-back form. Neither took the time to don radiation suits. The mech stood idle in its bay, blood-splattered and contented after another successful mission on the surface. The onboard cameras dotting its form tracked both tiny bodies as they ran eagerly into its waiting maw, straight to the plugcell at the back of its peritoneal cavity.
Lincoln gripped the hatch with both hands, pressing one boot against the steel spine of the mech for leverage. Behind her, Spider placed a portable biomonitor on the catwalk. Two hands rifled through one of the side pouches while a third powered on the device and began adjusting the settings.
The plug opened with a vile hiss, spilling stale air into the hangar. Within, criss-crossed by the overhead spotlights, Fours twitched lifelessly in her harness. Several red lights within flashed, vestigial monitors throwing up countless warning messages that the pilot would never have been capable of reading. Above the Battery's unresponsive head, Lincoln strained to pull the emergency release, and braced herself to catch the body that began to sag downwards as the metal supports retracted. The glassy pupils of the pilot gave no reaction to the light that poured in, nor the shade of Lincoln's body subsuming her.
One failed neural flash wasn't terribly uncommon.
Two failed neural flashes typically required a few hours of monitoring for health.
Five failed neural flashes is the pilot support system's polite way of communicating that its pilot had become unrecoverable.
Lincoln stepped up into the plugcell, awkwardly bracing herself against the rim of the hatch. She gripped a handhold above with one arm, placing her other hand against the back of Foursâ head to bow it forwards. Resting against the cloneâs spine, as expected, the mechâs onboard neurospike was cleanly contacting with her spinal buffer at the base of her neck.
"It's not a connection issue, I don't think."
"How many flashes has it tried?"
Lincoln twisted herself around to check one of the auxiliary monitors, tabbing through the screens to find an answer. When the answer did appear, she rather quickly tabbed past it. Only briefly did it warn of its ninth failed flash before the indicator was exchanged for an empty radar screen. Her heart began to race.
"Two."
Spider either didn't notice her uncomfortably fast response (or chose to ignore it), instead pulling a cable free from his portable biomonitor and offering it up to the woman halfway inside the cockpit. Lincoln hung back to grab it, although she had to stretch a little to pull it to the walker's external hookup. The mech's onboard support systems suddenly losing their capacity to squeeze the digitized psyche of the clone back into its head could only truly boil down to one of two failures: either there was a mechanical fault with the PSS' neuroflash suite or there was a fault with Fours' own neurology.
One meant her pilot's spirit was trapped within the mech's synaptic clipboard, waiting to be pasted back into a brain that would fit it. One meant that her pilotâs soul was fleeting through irreparable tears in the ephemeral barriers that were meant to contain the self. There wasnât much she could do about either. This wasnât how Lincoln wanted to lose her latest pilot.
While Spider began troubleshooting Foursâ body, Karabin adjusted her stance against the front of the hatch to get better access to the mechâs diagnostics. Her hand trembled as she began pulling diagnostics and reading through the systemâs event log, picking through every line for any indication of a hardware fault. Maybe the verification scan was misidentifying Foursâ brain? Maybe there was a dirty neurospike that couldnât secure a connection? Maybe the flash wasnât fully charging? No matter how far she stretched her imagination, the system log gave no indication of a fault.
âIts NP wave is pretty much flat, Iâm guessing the Psycheâs totally shot. That last flash was hardly a blip.â
Karabin turned her attention from the monitor to Foursâ unresponsive, twitching body, then down to Spider.
"Get her back."
âWhat? Linc, itâs not a medical issue, Iââ
âGet her back or leave.â
âIâm not an aesper, weâve got the money for a new one. Thereâs nothing I can do.â
âLeave.â
Spiderâs response died in his throat as Lincoln pulled the portable biomonâs cable from the mech and let it loudly retract into the device on the catwalk. The echo of the elastic whine rippled across the hangar exactly as long as Spider stood there, before the man squatted down to pick the monitor up.
Lincoln turned back into the cockpit, stepping one foot against Foursâ harness to boost high enough to pull the internal controls. With a sinister whine, the open cavity of the walker began to slide shut.
Spider watched as Lincoln disappeared into the mech. The shade blotting out all but the glare of her eyes did little to deter the simmering frustration he felt towards her recklessness. He knew she couldnât be objective about this, but it still never failed to bother him. Perhaps she simply wasnât made to be the rational sort. None of those things were ever rational.
No sooner had she vanished into the machine than he began jogging back down the catwalk. He had no desire to end up just as diseased as those clones they fed to the walker.
. . .
Fours pulled her knees closer to her chest. Her hands didnât look like her own. Sharpened, bladed fingertips scratched at her iron-plated skin. Her muscles were sore. The entire planet was silent and dark.
The KRIEGSHIRN hadnât spoken a word in hours. She couldnât feel its calculations white hot against the inside of her head. She couldnât feel the throbbing of dozens of IVs taped to her arms. She couldnât see.
She didnât know where she was. It wasnât hellâthe suffering of the walker was replaced with naught but the unfamiliar sensation of normalcy. She couldnât feel her burns, or her headaches, or her nausea, or her wounds.
It wasnât heaven, eitherâLincoln wasnât sitting by her side.
A hand gently clasped around her shoulder.
The pilot whipped around, blindly swinging her hands outwards, but the thing behind her remained still and calm. Her head whipped ferociously, a growl emanating deep from her core. She had no mouth with which to snap.
In the indistinct void too dark to be black, a single figure stood, crystal clear and thrice as tall as she. Her snow-white body hovered barely a foot away, so far out of reach yet so close as to be suffocating. Its gravity dwarfed hers, even as she felt her psylune engine rev to its maximum to compensate. It was unmoving, unyielding, the featureless face of a god poised to crush her beneath its thumb.
It didnât feel hostile. A glossy, smooth, devoid black head rested atop its shoulders. The towering thing stood out as a single focal point in the absence that surrounded it. Its movements were slow and graceful, as though afraid even the gentlest brush might break Fours.
When it spoke, it spoke with the voice of the only god the clone could fathom believing in.
Often observed as one of the most tragic and senseless events of the Durban Coup, the destruction of the Kitsukami Superorbital Megamall at MARS L5 is still memorialized every December 9th across United Earths territory.
The evening before, three Tidal Gestalt units launched without permission from the Icaran Crater Anchorage on Mars, and were lost within a matter of minutes. Early the following morning, astroseismic sensors aboard Kitsukami registered several gravitic spikes, which triggered an automatic response by nearby UE peacekeeping vessels. In the forty minutes between the automated hail and the arrival of the UES Prometheus, the entirety of the stationâa complex of over 400 square miles occupied by 2.3 million people at the time of the incidentâwas reduced to a field of debris.
The motivation to commit such an act, and even which Tidal Gestalt units took part in it, remain unconfirmed to this day.
. . .
Hand clenched tightly over Karabinâs, Fours eagerly trotted at the side of her handler.
Sabbaticals to local ports was a scant luxury for the clone, even more so those not concerning her health in some way. Almost every time she was taken off the ship, it was to see an eclectic doctor for some illness that Spider couldnât correct on-board, an experience rarely more pleasant than just living with the pain. Today, the two were engaging in a neolithic human custom known as âwindow shopping.â
Fours couldnât see much around her, but there was more than enough sensation to keep her thoroughly engrossed. The sounds of music and advertisements mingled with the ambient drum of a crowd that extended as far as she could perceive in every direction. Smells of street food vendors frying in a thousand types of oils and exotic perfumes made from the flora of dozens of worlds were a welcome reprieve from stale, recycled ship nitrogen. Even the gravityâcentrifugal rather than magneticâtickled her body with the sensation of her clothes draping across her shoulders rather than floating loose around her.
One small luxury of operating within the sanctioned warzone as an unregistered mercenary company is that thereâs no need to sign in and out of the war with the UE naval blockade that surrounds it. Smuggling wartime contraband in and out of Hjkor is a lucrative side-hustle for those with the stomach for it, and considering the bastardmech aboard is just about the most illegal thing one could possibly be caught transporting, some weapons or aid stashed alongside is hardly worth stressing over. Pockets flush with the profits of an arms deal carried out deep in the bowels of the station, Karabinâs wandering eye had become much less guarded to the small market pleasures of a consumer port.
Fours felt a slight tug at her hand guiding her out of the main thoroughfare and towards one of the glowing storefronts to her left. She couldn't see exactly what it was supposed to be (just about every inch of visible space was plastered with glaring neon billboards that made discerning anything through her hazy vision quite a challenge), but she could most certainly smell a minty, gentle, verdant aroma that reminded her of the conservatory Lincoln had taken her to visit the last time they stopped at a starport.
Judging by the line she was pretty sure she'd been pulled into, this didn't seem like it was another conservatory.
She wasn't entirely sure what they were waiting for, and Lincoln's other hand was occupied tapping away at her phone. The sounds of people talking, occasionally punctuated by a handful of the same voices calling out a number, didn't lend the clone much context as to where she'd been taken.
"...What is this place...?"
Lincoln's attention returned to the pilot she was guiding. Dressed in civilian clothes and free from the innards of Whisper, the thing looked almost like a regular person. She wasn't sure if she liked how that made her feel.
âRemember, the other night, when I was telling you about all the different things we use trees for?â
Four looked towards the indistinct, white frame of Lincolnâs hair. She nodded.
"This is one of those things. They use leaves to make drinks. I thought you might like one."
The wait in line wasn't terribly long, and waiting off to the side for their order to complete was even quicker. Fours wasn't entirely sure what they were waiting for, but she was cautiously optimistic about the prospect of drinking something that (hopefully?) didn't have gravmag powder sprinkled inside of it.
When Lincoln placed the drink she'd been ordered in her hands, Fours wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. The lid of the plastic cup occluded whatever it was supposed to smell like, leaving her with nothing but the faded green image of some sort of liquid in hand. It was pleasantly cold and slightly damp to the touch, topped with what looked like some sort of flat film rather than a lid. Punched through the top was a mercifully bright, distinct, wide red straw.
By the time Fours worked up the nerve to actually try what sheâd been handed, the two had meandered out of the store and found a spot on a bench near the main thoroughfare. No matter how good she got at practicing a normal routine, watching the masses of humans going about their days never lost its appeal to her. Fours couldnât make much of the glacial stampede, but being seated on a bench meant she could remain assured that Lincoln was nearby with her hip rather than sparing a hand for the task. All around, a win for all parties involved.
Fours took a cautious sip.
The drink was sweetâdifferent from the dehydrated cocoa squares the medic gave her every so oftenâwith a bitterness that tasted how dirt smelled. It smelled like a leaf and tasted like a milk-dipped flower, a sensation that fascinated her enough to go for a second, much less anticipatory sip.
Her second go was interrupted by the surprise appearance of a rubbery, gummy ball launching itself into her mouth, chased by a sudden murmur of surprise as she tried to figure out what sheâd just unwillingly eaten. Karabin turned her attention over in worry. As soon as she'd cleared her mouth of whatever it was, the clone gave an awkward 'bleh', still fighting the ghost of a sensation in her throat. Something smooth and gooey had hitched a ride in the drink.
"Are you okay?"
"It... has something inside it."
Karabin stared at her for half a second before the realization hit. A sharp snort escaped her nose despite herself, quickly collapsing into muffled laughter behind one hand. She probably should have felt bad for not forewarning the hapless clone about it, but the thought genuinely never crossed her mind.
Fours' eyes remained crossed with worry. She didn't seem to appreciate the schadenfreude at her plight.
"You swallowed a tapioca pearl."
"...A what...?"
"The little balls at the bottom."
"...There are more?"
"They're supposed to be there. You eat them."
"...Why?"
Karabin opened her mouth, paused, then shrugged slightly.
"I don't know. Texture, I guess."
Fours considered this development. Slowly, carefully, she poked the straw back into the drink and gave it an experimental stir. Now that she was feeling for it, she could feel the resistance of a multitude more floating towards the bottom.
"...Are they plants too?"
"I think so? They're made of sugar, I think. I don't really know."
The pilot took another cautious sip. This time, when one of the pearls shot up the straw, she was ready for it. She didn't expect it to be as gummy as it was, but paired with another mouthful of the creamy tea, it certainly made a better second impression.
Karabin watched the clone chew with the sort of concentration she didn't think she'd ever seen it make in the cockpit. A small nausea had begun to brew in her own stomach, enough so that she set her own caramel taro tea down for the time being. She didn't know how much longer she could do this.
Fours swallowed.
"...It is weird..."
"Do you like it?"
Lincoln's head was facing Fours, but her attention was fixated on one of the trash cans a few meters beyond the clone.
Fours made an indistinct noise, and after a pause for some contemplative chewing, she went back for another sip.
The exact methods used to arm and operate Remnant Walkers isn't standardized, but almost all solutions to get them running require some form of human* element to bridge the gap between traditional walker construction and the psylithic musculature that elevates them to superweapon status. Despite the tight inventory controls and legal status that typically protects such valuable product, there still exists an underworld pipeline that provides these ethically-sourced meatbags into the hands of the least ethical warfighters in the sanctioned warzone.
*See United Earths Charter of Human Identity for guidelines pertaining to legal humanity.
. . .
I see you. You want to know how you can end up in your very own plugcell, don't you? It's a tough gig to nail down, but if you're so inclined, here's a handy six-step guide to surrendering your body, persona, and metaphysical self to the embrace of a radioactive moon's eager arms...
Step 1: Donât be a ârealâ person.
While it can sometimes be difficult to define what makes someone ârealâ, your best bet is to be a recombinant clone or a genebankâsomething thatâs made of all the same parts as a human, but without the natural gestation or any citizenship to speak of. Robots and aliens lacking a centralized nervous system need not apply; Gestalt inhabitance interfaces were only really designed with humanlike neurology in mind.
Step 2: Fall through the cracks.
Human genestock is a high-value product, and the multi-billion Yero companies that deal in organ synthesis or full-body replacement generally do a pretty good job keeping track of their inventory. Every so often, whether due to a corrupt insider or robbery in transit, these bodies have been known to leak beyond medical application and into black markets. If you want a shot at being within twenty feet of a psylune engine, you've got to lose (or, perhaps by your perspective, win) this logistical lottery.
Step 3: End up in the hands of a dealer with Remnant Corps connections.
The vast majority of human simulacra that end up in the galactic smuggling network find their way into the hands of those who can't get their hands on a human body through legitimate means. While Remnant Corps are one such group, the galaxy is full of other organized criminal groups, disavowed humanitarian organizations, and NGOs that have both more money and more necessity to scoop up just about anything they can get their hands on. Should your cryobag land in the inventory of one of the few bodysale groups with unregistered mercenary companies on their list of customers, you're in the right place.
Step 4: Survive.
Presuming you're picked up by a Remnant Corp, you're likely part of a bulk order. Those who can afford it tend to purchase a few bodies at a time, so you'd better hope you're the most psychically apt of the bunch. While death during the cyberization process is unlikely, you'll next be exposed to a bevy of psychistimulants and egostatic compounds to prepare you for your first contact with a lune-infused Gestalt inhabitance inteface--a first date you're statistically unlikely to survive and guaranteed to come away from different than you were before.
Step 5: Keep surviving.
Your new life in the hotseat is one of constant mental strain. Your ego is the fuel that powers the machine you're now part of, and the team supporting you is going to do everything they can to keep your spring of willpower flowing. Your primary contact, typically a pilot liaison or drop captain, will tailor your every interaction with them to manipulate you into blind, zealous loyalty. While your body will inevitably break, the idea is to keep you determined and willing to continue the fight no matter how sickly you become, no matter how much pain you're in, and no matter how loudly your basic human instincts are begging you to quit. You will fall in love. You will dream of the day the war ends. She will be your world.
Step 6: Stop surviving.
How you die isn't particularly important, but it is inevitable. Most Battery pilots succumb to lune poisoning or experience terminal psychic erosion, neither of which are particularly pleasant ways to go. Odds are you'll die with your boots on--your handler's not about to lose out on one last deployment, no matter how frail and sickly you are when you're shoved back into the plugcell. You'll promise you're going to complete the mission for her, and when you fail to resuscitate or your neural flash fails to adhere properly, you'll end up either dumped in space or cut up and sold under the table to clandestine research institutes. Your handler probably won't remember you; she doesn't have that luxury.
You were never real, and so long as that remains true, nothing you said to her has to be real either.
Remnant Walkers are incredibly expensive to maintain, which encourages many companies that furnish them to hold a level of risk-aversion one wouldn't expect for a group of people with a superweapon on a leash. While these machines are quite adept at bowling over infantry forces, traditional armored walkers, and even entire fortified outposts, the expense of damage and the risk of losing access to their small investment in the finite supply of lune components means tussling with an equal is enough of a reason for Remnant Walkers to rarelyâif everâengage each other without significant motivation.
Should two companies find that the verbiage of their contracts don't directly conflict, unplanned encounters between these brutish mechs typically end quite civilly.
. . .
As Whisper approached the target strongpoint, the ravenous combat walker slowed to a gentle jog. Its sunken head fixated across the tundra, locked firmly onto the silhouette of an equally-grotesque lune-infused machine that approached to oppose it.
"Stand down, Whisper. Weâre negotiating a walk-past, do not engage.â
Not engaging didnât mean it couldnât advance, and advance it most certainly did. Both machines practically galloped towards each other, neither daring enough to move with enough gusto to signal a threat, neither willing to admit they were slower than the other.
Where they met, in a shallow valley between two dunes of salt, there was no room between them for anything more than muzzled malice.
The mechs stared daggers across the dozen meters separating them.
The thousands of sensors dotted all across Whisper picked and preened data from every visible surface of its opponent. Even as the biosupport system pivoted from stimulants to suppressants and rapidly flushed Foursâ body of all the irritant drugs it could, the mech couldnât help but hunger for the kill it was actively being denied.
Whisper began to pace a slow circle, prompting the other mech to do the same. Its claws twitched with hunger, engine pulsing with the same weighty bass of a predatorâs growl. The other mechâs back parted, spewing forth a short burst of flares. The rev of their psylune engines left fractal imprints in the white sand below, suspending particles between their opposing gravity wells. The two dogs circled each other, each snapping just gently enough so as to not incur the wrath of those above them.
Separated from the chemical and psychic influence of the walker, Fours was practically broken to Lincolnâs every syllable. Even jacked up on dozen of combat drugs and mind-melded with a superintelligence designed to kill, the womanâs voice cut through in a way that the faceless command operators simply couldnât. The most dangerous parts of these encounters was the strain such a counterintuitive command put on whatever ad-hoc pilot was buried insideâbut any group with the technical ability to maintain and deploy one of these wretched mechs certainly had the ability to effectively brainwash the single dumb, silly little peon thatâd be driving it.
Within the internal structure of Whisper, microgravity flutters rippled. She was being probed, tested by the other creature for a weakness with which to exploit. Fours did much the same, gently pulling small pockets of space in awkward, fourth-dimensional directions to feel her way towards something fragile within the lumbering shape opposing she. It didnât take either combat system long to feel their way straight to the cockpit, tiny gravitational ripples like the barrel of a gun pressed against the heads of the biological conduits within. Whisper knew its trigger finger was faster. Fear was a blacklisted emotional response. All she needed was the command. One word and sheâd splatter that weakling against the side of its own plugcell. Any second now. Just say it. Just say it. Please. Please say it. Please let m
âDisarm and get moving, theyâre playing ball with us. Your objective isnât here.â
Both mechs came to a stop, heads mere yards apart. The imperceptibly light, fluttering pressure over Foursâ chest loitered for a moment too long, then faded. Before she could even process the words, Whisperâs own gravity engine sank back to idle.
The other machine stared for a second more, before turning to depart. Whisper did the same. Even as the quiet settled back across the tundra, the barely-lucid pilotâs whimpers of desperation were imperceptible over the wind.
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Once physiological and genetic mastery of the human body was achieved, it didnât take long for pharmacological breakthroughs to flood the market with all manner of medical and recreational products taking full advantage of such a rounded understanding of the human body.
While not their original purpose, many walkerjocks across the sanctioned warzone swear by their own âhomebrewâ mix of stimulants to give them the edge in armored warfare.
. . .
Going to the commissary and picking up a bag of catnip treats but itâs stimulant-infused milkbones for your hound.
âThe taste all hounds love! Now with 15% more tritheric morpholone!â
âChoosy Handlers choose Fightiesâ˘!â
Brightly colored packages of cartoon mechs and snack bags in all different colors. Undoubtedly, a small warning at the bottom that these are not for unaugmented human consumption.
You grab a bag of whatever the Purple Flavor is. Your hound isnât much for words, but she certainly seems to prefer these over the orange ones.
Humans were never designed to interface with a psylune engine. The emissions output, even shielded by a thick cockpit wall and absorbent metamaterials, require only a few minutes of exposure to terminally poison any living being in its presence.
Within the sanctioned warzone, such a hazard is considered little more than a speedbump.
. . .
The first thing she ever felt was the stick of a ten gauge needle into the back of her left thigh.
Two hands held her downâone calloused flesh pressed roughly into the top of her leg, one cold plastic wrapped around her ankle. A third wiped away the blood from the injection, smearing it across her still-dripping skin.
The first thing she ever smelled was the chemical rank of room-temperature cryogel still clinging to her body.
A crumpled, clear plastic bag lay in tatters on the floor, the pale green stain of melted solution tinting what should have been perfectly translucent.
The first thing she ever tasted was stale, recycled air.
She didnât realize she needed to breathe until she felt the pressure rising in her chest. Laying prone on the sterile(?) medical slab put a weight on her chest the clone wasnât aware sheâd have to press back against. Her first inhale brought with it a wet glob of cryogel up her nose.
When the gel slid up her nose, she coughed. It was reflexive in a way that frightened herânew, yet natural, like a sort of physical dĂŠjĂ vu. Her body rocked on the slab, arms twitching for the first time as she lifted herself up to ease the pressure on her chest. There was a voice behind her, loud, authoritative, but the words were lost in the shock of the moment. A hand she couldnât see grabbed her bicep, another grabbed the side of her neck, a third wrapped under her opposite arm to stabilize her shaky arms.
She heaved. Eyes watered, and suddenly, fluttered open. She wanted to turn around to look at the person holding her, but the plastic hand gripping the bottom of her head held it firmly in place. Through the blinding light of the room against her fresh eyes, the impression of a face loomed close. The articulated plastic fingers roughly gripping her mandible released, replaced by two soft, warm hands that cupped her cheeks and lifted her face upwards. Softened by the heat of her body, she managed to hack the gel out.
The first thing she ever saw was the face of drop captain Lincoln Karabin leaning over her.
It was soft in a way nothing else was. It was inviting in a way she didn't quite know how to process. As the world slowly fell into focus, the white hair and gentle smile of the woman holding her eased her racing mind.
The first thing she ever heard (that meant anything to her) was the voice of that woman.
As the fourth Tidal Gestalt gravity mech produced by the United Earths government, the manufacturing processes and synth culture techniques were quite well-refined by the time she was launched. Piloting Her Deafening Whisper, Sinope-0003 served proudly during both colonial insurgencies, maintaining a perfect operational record and the second-most confirmed ship kills in the fleet.
Like most of the other Tidal Gestalts, t/G#0003 and her pilot would participate in the Durban Coup. After weeks of hit-and-run, the fugitive mech would eventually be brought down over Yaro IV, falling from orbit into a sparsely-populated polar region after a brief skirmish with a combined force of United Earths Peacekeeping vessels and Titan Stellar Securities' 4th fleet.
The pilot was never recovered.
. . .
â03, whatâs your ETA? We arenât showing you in the zone yet.â
The glimmer of smeared stars streaked across Sinopeâs vision. Very few things in the universe are capable of traveling faster than lightâfewer so allow the humble human eye the privilege of seeing such hallowed environ. From a perspective beyond light and darkness, the universe was a gorgeous tapestry of color imperceptible; a regular person might be rendered blind by the sight. A human synth bred and built specifically for this purpose was fortunate enough to get to enjoy the view without worryâeven if Mission Control loved to spoil the serenity.Â
The pilot didnât need to move, she only had to speak with the intention of replying to the hail. Her body and mind were one with Her Deafening Whisper, to open a communications channel and project her voice across the hyperley was as instant as willing such to happen.
âIâll be there in one. Make sure the fighters arenât in my punchout this time.â
The arrival of a Tidal Gestalt ripping back into normalspace, paradoxically, is incredibly easy not to notice. In a naval skirmish between ships hundreds of meters long, the sudden blip of a thirty meter astromech appearing might be missed on scope of an inattentive radar operator. The subsequent bulge in gravity, especially for those nearby the ingress point, is typically the first sign that the battle is about to end.
When Her Deafening Whisper arrived, she did so as the gentle ripple across the surface of a pond. She moved smoothly, mingling with the space surrounding as though born of the stars rather than the red Martian sand below, dragging a slow gravitational tide in her wake. Narrow muscular fingers grasped the void, wiggling idly as the dark head of the pale machine took in the world around her and prepared to impose upon the conflict.
As she entered realspace and connected to the fleetâs wartime frequency, Sinope caught the very end of a broadcast from her commanders back home.
ââers. Repeat, Tidal Gestalt support is arriving in the operational area. Maintain nonproximity of at least five hundred meters.â
The pilot seated at the apex of the elegant mech was the head of a small committee that brought the machine to life, but that didn't stop her will from being the absolute arbiter of Her Deafening Whisperâs actions. Across the battlespace, the picket line of Independence Front destroyers didnât appear to have noticed her appearance behind the United Earths Peacekeeperâs corvette. She would make them regret such a lapse in awareness.
Devoid of scale, the lune mecha didnât look all too dissimilar from a person. Her body was white as granite, bare save for the United Earths emblems painted across her form and the various more traditional weapons and defense systems affixed to her torso and shoulders. Every inch of her form, save for her head, was constructed from tissue harvested from the very core of a moon. The head, featureless and obsidian-black, reflected every flicker of a missile thruster and twinkle of a laser emitter.Â
The seat of power Sinope occupied would be suicide, undoubtedly, for a real person. It was perfect for something greater than.
Driving the machine to war took little more than a thought, a natural extension of the unnatural body she was gifted with. Only the faintest brush of her hand was required to enrapture the drifting debris of a scuttled starship. Binding such to the shape of a crude javelin demanded little more than her idle attention as she drifted beneath the Peacekeeper's corvette. Accelerating the wreckage from standstill to a blinding streak was as natural as batting an eyelash, accomplished with only the disinterested wave of her hand.
Never had the pilot seen something withstand whatever astral garbage she projected through it, save for another Tidal Gestalt. As one of the Independence Front ships began to list, sheared nearly in twine by the hypervelocity barrage, Sinope lamented that today would not be the day to change such an immutable fact.
Most Registered Mercenary Companies operating within the United Earthsâ sanctioned warzone run on extremely rapid timetables. Whether reinforcing a corporate client in a losing battle or deploying to strike a target of opportunity, those capable of getting armor planetside in a timely manner are valued above their competition.
For those mercenary groups operating beyond the registry, the pressures of fugitive business require their turnaround and deployment to be even faster. Faster, often, than their own pilots are even capable of processing.
. . .
The world spun in circles around Fours. Her eyes had long since faded a dull grey, but that didnât stop even the vague blobs in front of her from drunkenly sloshing side to side as she staggered across the cold hangar. Every step ached deep in her bones, the unrelenting tug of magnetic gravity scraping away at metal inserts she could practically feel sliding around inside her marrow.
Words were being shouted on all sides, but none of them were even remotely parsable to someone dosed on twice the lethal limit of dexothalimide. Two forces pushed her from behind: one, a gloved hand clasped firmly to her bicep, the other the cold steel of a weapon pressing into the small of her back. Foot by foot, they progressed across the hangar, drawing ever-closer to the beckon of the giant white shape at the other end of the room. Fours could feel it calling.
It didnât demand anything of her out loud, like the countless voices and echo of machinery in the busy hangar on all sides of her did. It didnât draw her in physically, like the uncomfortable tug of GravMag bolting her to the floor. Through the nausea and dizziness and weakness that wracked her body, the indistinct monolith before her was a clear and definite objective that demanded nothing and promised everything. The machine had never made good on any of those promises, as far as Fours could remember, but that didnât stop her heart from aching for the embrace of the cockpit. The iron maiden awaiting her deep within its bowels was the fastest way to make Lincoln proud.
Her toes caught on almost every step up the catwalk, scraping uncomfortably against the metal-tracted stairs. Sheâd long since outgrown the reflex of reaching outwards to steady herself on the handrails, stifled by the metal cuffs linking her wrists together behind her back. The further they climbed, the darker their surroundings becameâthe waiting maw of the machine as they stepped within was some small comfort. A tiny mercy of the mech's excruciating punishment was that it burnt the brain so severely that remembering the pain was practically impossible.
Whoever was guiding her withdrew their weapon only long enough to free their second hand. The haze of the pre-sortie cocktail coursing through her ragged veins dulled the sensation of the tight metal cuffs binding her so effectively that she hardly noticed her escort roughly drawing them off. The world lurched into smeared motion as she was spun around, the pulsing orange lights of the hangar masking the large shape of the hazard suit that was pressing her backwards into the plugcell. Things happened around her. Fours floated along with it.
The press of a few dozen hookups being jammed into various ports and plugs across her front and back hardly registered. The closest thing the clone gave to a reaction was a small flinch at the (primed) synapse bridge being set against the metal contact strips at the top of her spine. Even as the vague memory of hands pushing and pulling at her body continued to prep her for the cockpit and draw down the metal harness over her thighs, what little of Fours remained that was capable of direct thought could only think about her commander. The person loading her into the mech gave her harness a rough rattle before pulling the hatch to the plugcell shut and plunging the dazed clone into complete darkness.
Battery pilots were only ever meant to be a band aid solution. A century ago, there was a pretty large divide between the nine Tidal Gestalt mechs humanity cobbled together and every other armored walker. One was a product of mad science and cosmic terror that locked the universe into a protracted colony war, the other is just a vehicle. One could warp gravity and tear the largest warships in half, the other cost about fifty thousand Yero to mass produce. One was powered by largely theoretical forces, piloted only by a bespoke group of multi-trillion Yero synths that would go on to shape the universe, the other requires a CML and a free weekend to learn how to drive. One disappeared from the battlefield, one is still a mainstay fighting vehicle across the stars. You get the idea.
To say that the old t/Gs and their pilots disappeared without a trace wouldnât be completely accurateâthey left a lot of wake behind. Ten of those thirty meter titans provided enough raw material to be cut apart and cannibalized for parts come the (supposed) deaths of the irreproducible pilots, and while no galactic government would ever directly admit to using the lunar musculature from their bodies in smaller prototype mech designs, it wasnât long before specialized walkers were designed, deployed, and destroyed in one of countless intercorporate stellar warsâŚ
. . .
When Whisper arrived, it did so as a storm. It moved fast and low, mingling with the salt taiga as though one with the ground, dragging a crystalline cloud in its wake. It was one with the whipping wind and stone outcroppings, weaving across the exoplanetary surface with all the poise of a naturalized predator. Hydraulic fingers grasped the saline snowcaps, clawing for inertia in tandem with a hungry set of traction-padded feet that dug deep into the dune beneath.
Mascoweave muscles pumped with unimaginable force, heaving along an indifferent skeleton and unwilling organs towards the smell of vehicular prey. There was nothing else but the kill on this entire planet, no other sensation than the closing gap between the satmarker and the mechâs own location. Whisperâs head remained pinned forward, as though its eyes could cut through the gale it tugged in its stead.
Eleven meters of lust for the kill propelled itself through sparse foliage, battering petrified treestems and kicking up sharp chunks of calcified mineral as it barreled through untouched tundra. The machine was not subtle, nor did it need to be; it charged headlong, desperate, fixated in its entirety on the reward that awaited it on the other end of the slaughter. The terrain was burnt into its very mind, each rock and crevasse accounted for as though the orbital survey cameras mounted to the underside of its support craft were a third eye. All at once, the automech could see the slow progress of its target convoy, the pair of walkers maintaining a light jog to either flank, and its own approach to the east, data parsed through the onboard digimind before being run through the Battery for a final cognitive parse.
Fours wanted blood.
The creature shackled somewhere deep inside the lower spine of the mech was, objectively, the tiniest stakeholder in its own existence, but that didn't stop her hunger from influencing even the judgement of the KRIEGSHIRN warmind that was currently utilizing her brain as wetware. If the hunter-killer automech AI wanted to budge the pulsating white lune muscles that gave the machine its horsepower, it needed to forcibly inhabit a human brain. If that brain wanted to force those muscles to pump with the same vigor as its own, the flesh body it was hidden inside required a series of (eventually) fatal hyperradioactive particulate injections. Suicide, perhaps, for a real person. Perfect for something less than.
Synaptic oscillators wired deep within the clone's brain fired artificial pulses across neural bridges at the behest of the AI possessing her, but that couldn't entirely suppress her raw willpower from infecting the commands the machine gave her drug-hazed body. Even after the strain of the lunar synchronization and the skull burn of the digibrain's mind meld quite literally killed her, like divots worn away in a road, the very way her brain chemistry was wired predisposed it to hunger. Lust for the kill. Obedience. Above all, a pitiful desire to be praised for a job well done.
Shortly into the deployment, the agony within the mech faded to a shameful whimper. Well before the machine made contact, the onboard monitors no longer read a pulse. Even still, as the hulking tower of living death crested a dune and met the line-of-sight of the convoy it sought to terminate, the indomitable bloodthirst of the corpse within still burned bright.
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With roots tracing back to before the United Earths were united, Gestalt inhabitance is a niche control peripheral intended to reduce reaction time and improve combat efficiency. Utilizing a painless mind-machine bridge installed atop the cervical vertebrae, a single pilot of a Gestalt-equipped vehicle is capable of controlling systems using the flex of individual muscles in place of physical levers or switches. A hundred years ago, trained by the greatest military minds in the galaxy, Tidal Gestalt pilots once mastered exotic lune muscles and directed even gravity with a highly specialized evolution of this cutting-edge interface.
This system requires a long acclimation period and a high degree of training to master. In the present day, forced into auxiliary cockpits with crude approximations of this lost technology, Battery pilots are afforded no such privilege.
. . .
The machine staggering forth against the whipping polar wind, more than anything else, was an ungainly creature. Whisper was already an unsightly walker, even when it was operating at full capacity, but the state it was deployed in did it no favors.
A crude, stretched out skeleton wrapped in bands of limp white musculature that hung across it like a weight shambled over the empty tundra. Its short, squat head hung practically limp over its hunched chest, oversized arms dragging oversized hydraulic knuckles across the salt-snow beneath. A set of double-jointed legs labored with each painful step, hoisting above twenty feet of dead weight with an internal backup support system barely capable of sustaining its heft.
Within, buried in the lower spine of the mech, Fours floated in absolute darkness. The clone couldnât really tell if the floating sensation was literal or just a side-effect of the stimulants and suppressants being fed through the multiple tubes that hung from her bandage-wrapped arms. The gentle hum and sway of the machine melded with the whine of the narcopumps ebbing her vision and mind with splashes of red, orange, green, blue, purpleânone of which visible in the pitch black of the tiny cell she was locked within, yet each as vivid as the heat she felt as they melted over her mind. Even if she wasnât practically blind, itâs doubtful the clone would be able to see the mist of her own frigid breath.
The lumbering mech came to a stop, body unwavering as the white sandstorm beat against its hull.
The voice of the automech AI reverberated through the metal harness shackling her legs and the aural implants behind her ears all at once, briefly drowning out the sound of the walkerâs structure groaning with each uneven step. Surrounding the Battery, several beeps and blips signaled a switch in drug administration and the winding up of several more direct-control systems.
Fours didnât realize she needed to be afraid, but even without any conscious memory of the process, her body had become conditioned to the excrucia. She didnât know why the whine of the dialytic pump speeding up or the click of the artificial fibrillators implanted against her chest and side made her heart start to race, or why cold sweat began to condensate against the even colder air surrounding her. There were very few things that the clone did know, but perhaps the most important thing she took security in was that the walker captain would take care of her. That Head Karabin had her best interest in mind. That Lincoln loved her.
A light a few inches from the pilotâs face began to blink.
âYouâre starting to spike, Fours. I need you to relax.â
The pilotâs legs flinched together against her harness. Her breath caught in her throat. The machine, halfway through subsuming her bodyâs vital functions and unsatisfied with the respiratory interruption, pulsed her diaphragm to force the breath out.
âTake a slow breath for me, you can do that.â
The voice of the captain cut through the darkness and the cold in a way nothing else could. The heat that washed over her wasnât (just) from the spooling of the fusion turbines sitting a few feet anatomically superior of her cell, nor was it (entirely) the voice-activated dripdose of myphine intended to reinforce the sheer euphoria that was receiving even a small glance from her superior; it was something Fours never learned a word for. It was a hunger. It was a need. It was a borderline imperative. She could take a slow breath. She could take a thousand slow breaths if she was asked.
âThatâs looking better. Weâve still got half a bottle of that kvithe from the last stationâdo a good job for me and weâll polish it off together when you get back, okay?â
The pilot could only whine in response. She certainly knew the words to announce her desperate agreement with that proposition, but buried under an hour of the sort of chemical therapies that even the perpetratorâs execution couldnât come close to making atonement for, there was very little of the clone left to voice herself. Perfect synchronic harmony with the alien tissue surrounding the mech required a near once-in-a-galaxy genetic match. Good enough harmony required a lifetime of meditation. Foursâ version, a loose partnership rather than any meaningful harmony, requires a hospitalâs worth of narcotics.
The cloneâs brain flickered idly across thoughts of Lincoln, shared memories of theirs, and her own observations about the cockpit around her. She was excited to get to celebrate somethingâanythingâif it meant being in her commanderâs company. She wondered if sheâd be able to try food again. It had been a long time since sheâd been given the chance. Her breath crept back within the acceptable range.
âThis is going to be a walk in the park for you. I know you'll make me proud.â
There was a small greenhouse aboard one of the stations the company had stopped at. It wasnât as though a halite wasteland like Hjkor had trees, so experiencing (read: touching) real ones left quite the impression on the clone. Lincoln always did promise to take her to a ârealâ park. Maybe that would be soon? Her endocrine limiter reported the correct balance of hormones to indicate a peaceful state of mind. Quietly, a series of neural snapshots were capturedâenough to reconstruct her brainstate after the digimind transfer shattered it.
âThatta girl. Thatâs exactly where you need to be.â There was a short dead silence over the hyperley radio. Then, the light darkened.
Most of all, the clone wondered if all the flowers in the galaxy smelled as nice as the ones in the greenhouse did. Maybe, just maybe, one day, she could evenâ
A pair of pneumatically-primed three-inch nervespikes fired behind Fours, contacting two ports on either side of the top of her spine, just above the top of her neck. In an instant, the entire cognitive capacity of the onboard KRIEGSHIRN tactical-level warmind--a supercomputing organ roughly the size of a dresser--was forced through one tiny human* brain.
Whisper's stranglehold on the Battery's autonomic processes prevented her from screaming. Even if she could, nobody was listening anymore. Every neuron inside the clone's head burned white-hot with the agony of intellect thousands of times beyond a brain's capacity squeezed across its pathetic synapses. Every flinch of the waking muscles bathed Fours in sickening degenerate radiation. The only agency she was left with was the freedom to feel her pathetic biological makeup shatter at the seams beneath the strain of the machine using her like one of its many organs.
Fours wasn't the one thinking anymore, but the automech AI that made itself at home within her skull could feel the ghost of the Battery egging it forward. Fours wasn't the one moving anymore, but as her body twitched in tandem with the white lune muscles that now seized with life, the system reported her compliance with its directives. The Battery's last thoughts, frozen in time beneath the cognitive avalanche, were of her captain, plants, and hope.
The tundra surrounding the mech rippled like the surface of water as gravity leaked from the abominable weapon. Its bone-white muscles pumped with new life, no longer dead slabs of weight. Its head twisted, perhaps in agony, perhaps in satisfaction.
Whisper turned towards the rising suns and began to walk. Then, jog. Then, run. Then, bound. Alive and hungry, a creature no longer Fours and no longer an automated combat system sought only to complete the captain's orders. It wished only to plant its claws deep within the cockpit of its target. It hoped only to please Lincoln.
While a blank-slate human(-like, but legally distinct) body destined for organ harvest is far from the ideal mech pilot, these vatrats have select traits that make them acceptable for the task of slugging through desolate borderworlds at the behest of their masters. Aside from being quickly replaceable, these âbattery pilotsâ are fairly easy to cybermod, have nowhere else to go but the care of their employers, and only require the bare minimum neural activity to sustain walker functions. Onboard AI is more than capable of making choices, executing combat routines, and defending itself, but a human* passthrough is necessary to make use of the lunar musculature stitching the ramshackle Remnant Mech together.
A battery pilot provides the only two services no mechanical component can: a biopsyonic conduit with which to interface with lunar material, and a spring of raw willpower to force a tepid AI to keep the fight going no matter how overwhelming the odds may be. All they need is someone they care about enough to endure the waking hell for.
These naive clones are, mercifully, incredibly easy to manipulate.
. . .
According to Karabinâs vague understanding of lunar poisoning care, the pilotâs bandages didnât strictly need to be changed nightly. Lincoln still chose to.
Fours sat cross-legged atop the bed, white strips already covering her feet and calves up to where they disappeared into her nightclothes. Her shirt lay discarded on the blanket beside, left arm extended forwards as the Division Head delicately swaddled each of her lesions, blisters, and synchburns. It was a slow, tedious ritual, but one that the pilot had grown to find comfort in. Even if she couldnât see the woman sitting across from her very clearly, the warm white color of Lincolnâs long hair and the gentle pressure of fingers against her skin were all she needed to know she was in safe company.
âYouâre looking better. Iâve got some new lotion from Yaro waiting for us at the next port, itâs supposed to help with the pain. And it smells like meilfluer.â
âYou are⌠from Yaro, too.â
âI am. I told you that⌠what, last week, right? Surprised you remembered.â
The pilot couldnât help but smile at the praise. Linc was mindful to inflict her tone upwards, but her cheeks were far from risen.
âIs that where⌠dogs liveâŚ?â
âOh, no no, real yre pas are from the Earths. They canât live on planets out here.â
âThatâs sad.â
âIt isnât sad, they just arenât made for space. Besides, they live nice happy lives in the cities on the Earths, with nice happy people who take care of them. No walkers, no war.â
âNo walkers⌠no warâŚ? That's sad, tooâŚâ
Lincoln shook her head in silence, turning the pilotâs palm over as she pinned the final gauze strip into place. The pilot couldnât imagine a life without warfare; what in the world did people do all day, if they werenât wrestling three-story mechs to the ground or dodging installation rocketfire? What was the purpose of life, if not to fight?
âItâs not as strange as it sounds. One day, Iâll take you to see a real city.â Lincoln let go of the pilotâs hand, and began to return the various tools she was using to the aid kit. âFor now, shirt on, itâs bedtime.â
âWhat aboutâŚits faceâŚ?â
âThe air will help it heal faster. Just be careful when you lie down, you donât want to rub it wrong while you sleep.â
Fours gingerly reached up to touch her own face. It had been weeks since it wasnât covered in bandages, even longer since it had been exposed to the cool recycled ship air for any meaningful amount of time. In truth, she didnât even know what it looked like; her vision had always been poor, and the general wear and tear of being a lunar conduit had only worsened her sense. Tape-wrapped fingertips against the raw flesh felt novel: uncomfortable and new at the same time, some mix of painful and welcoming. But, how did it compare toâŚ?
âWhat isâŚits faceâŚlike?â Fours slowly managed, turning her sightless eyes towards the driver captain sitting across from her. Lincoln paused, one finger halfway through extracting a contact lens, contemplating how exactly to answer that question. The initial link had taken many different things from many different batteries over the years, but Fours was the first to lose her sight so aggressively to the machineâfor once, this was a question she hadnât had a dozen previous chances to answer, but sheâd yet to let such a hurdle crack her improv before. After a brief pause to think, Lincoln turned her body, and scooted closer to the waiting pilot.Â
Fours could only see the vague, indistinct blob of Karabinâs hand move to rest atop her own, cupping her hand tenderly. The Division Head took her pilotâs other hand and raised it up to her own face, placing Foursâ fingers against the curve of her cheek.
âYour cheeks are higher than mine. And your jaw is more narrow.â
The pilot felt frozen in time, her senses keenly attuned to her hands, comparing and contrasting the sensations. Lincoln moved Foursâ hand across the front of her face, tracing the bottom of the eye towards the bridge of the nose. She felt her left index finger glide across Lincolnâs vital, warm skin, while her right was guided delicately over her own raw, tingling flesh.
âYour eyes are bigger, and gray. My eyes are smaller, and brown.â
Fours blinked, silent. She had some idea of what Lincoln looked like, between catching crystal-clear glimpses while connected to the walker sensory suite and her memories of seeing the Division Head when sheâd first been woken up in Sandfogâs care. Still, never in all her life had she possessed a better mental image than this moment.Â
Lincoln lifted their hands upwards in tandem, curving the pilotâs fingers forward gingerly to allow them to comb across their scalps. Fours could immediately feel the difference: Lincolnâs was thick and straight, still damp from their shower, while her scalp was tender and hair thin and slightly tangled.
âMy hair is white and long. Your hair is short and black. Before I bleached it, my hair used to be brown.â
Fours nodded slowly, transfixed by the sensations. Never before had she felt such comparison, two things the same and yet so different cascading between her fingertips, guided by Lincolnâs hands. Slowly, her eyes drifted shut, the pilot more than happy to lose herself in her tactile sense for the time being.
âYour nose is smaller than my nose. A little more narrow, too.â
Lincoln pulled the Foursâ hands down gently, past her mouth and chin, letting them rest against the pilotâs lap, before cupping Foursâ cheeks tenderly. The battery had barely opened her eyes when the warm blur of Lincolnâs face subsumed her vision. So close, she could make out some of the larger details for herself, but her vision was just poor enough to protect the pale hesitation plastered across the Division Headâs expression. The heat of Lincoln's breath overwhelmed the stale, dry room air. If it weren't for the hands holding her cheeks, the clone wanted to lean closer to it.
Karabin lingered inches from Foursâ face long enough for her racing heart to catch up to her brain, then let her hands fall from the clone pilotâs face. The human among them couldnât will herself to push the envelope any further. No matter how badly she felt like she needed to pretend otherwise, she was alone in this room.
âOur mouths are different.â Her voice was low, hasty.
Just beneath Foursâ eye was a barcode string: tiny text printed into the skin, and a seemingly endless series of numbers. This sight, the human commander found, was much more grounding than immersing herself in the animus of the⌠thing sitting across from her.Â
With a long sigh, Lincoln closed her eyes and recentered herself. This was always part of the job, but that never made it any easier.Â
