Quote:It’s been four weeks since Jusenkyou.

Those bloody berserkers still scare the crap out of me, like looking at myself through a mirror darkly. They’re terrifying... but maybe not in the way you’d expect. The nightmare isn’t that I’ll face one in a darkened corridor, it’s worse than that.

I squashed that thought. Jusenkyou was my first mission leading the Engel Gruppe, supporting Tango Shoes. The Steelyard is my first mission where we’re taking the lead.

The ‘briefing room’ on the ship’s pretty small. it might once have been somebody’s cabin, but it’s enough to set up a monitor and get the important people involved; 6 Engels including myself, the Commissar and his command staff. Emperor’s finest Stormtroopers in hard carapace armour. Commissar Abnett just stared at me from beneath his peaked cap. The winged silver skull on the peak jeered.

“Alright, let’s begin.” I clicked the monitor over to an image of an asteroid, followed by a train of data.. “This is our target, 16 Psyche. It’s the tenth most massive asteroid in the main belt and at approximately one-ninety kilometres in diameter also one of the largest. Long distance Radar measurements have suggested that Psyche is almost entirely composed of nickel-iron, possibly being the core of a failed planet.”

I was reading from a notepad app I’d called up into my field of vision. A nice thing to have, it let me seem more intelligent than I actually was.

“About a week ago a Rockhounds prospecting expedition was dispatched to survey 16 Psyche, to lay the groundwork for the eventual exploitation of the asteroid. They disappeared. The last transmission from the expedition indicated that they were preparing to land on the surface. Assuming that they’d crashed a Senshi rescue force was dispatched. They also disappeared on approach to Psyche. Once was happenstance, twice was coincidence, nobody cared for a third confirmation. A pass by a Roughriders reconnaissance force gave us this:”

A new slide, a multi-spectral false-colour image of the ‘rock’ showing thermal radiation, Radar measured density, and a number of other things which really didn’t mean much to me. I’m not an analyst.

“The Rockhounds weren’t the first to have the idea of exploiting Psyche.” I continued, “Headquarters thinks that the survey team might well have stumbled across the Boskone facility, codenamed ‘The Steelyard’. I’m assuming everyone’s heard of it.”

There were a few nods, but nobody said no.

“Right. Well, they believe the survey team didn’t spot it, because it’s buried deep within the asteroid itself, and they’ve gone to great efforts to mask their thermal signature. It would have appeared to them to be a result of natural solar heating and re-radiation into space. Only with further analysis did it become clear that the heat was artificial in origin,”

Next slide. The radiation patterns on the surface. And so on. It’s dull, but necessary. Any little detail might prove important in the end. What finally gave the Steelyard away was an access hatch that was just a little too cool, and a little too rectangular to be natural. A single mistake gave them away.

After that were the more detailed passive scans from a number of stealth drones zipping by and these neat little ground penetrating ultrasound devices that fired their data back to a distant receiver with laser beams. Mix that with some prisoners taken by a destroyer who decided to tell all... feeling no particular loyalty to their masters... and we had a pretty damned good idea of the layout of the place, from the mines to the primary foundries deep in the core of the ‘rock’.

“This mine supplies about 75% of the needs of Shipwreck Island, we cut that off and we cripple their production ability. Our mission objective is to capture this asteroid and its mines as intact as possible. I don’t need to say how invaluable a base like this would be to us, especially now.”

The Imperials naturally grumble about using the tainted tools of the Great Enemy, but the Commissar shuts them up.

“We’re not expecting another Jusenkyou.” I still get chills to think about it. “Intelligence suggests that this facility is lightly guarded inside.”

“Military Intelligence, an oxymoron there.” Gant snorted. Old joke but worth a smile at least. It lifts the mood in the room.

“It’s a production base mostly. Most of the grunt work appears to be either automated, or slave labour. Only the administration blocks appear to be heavily defended. Recent intel suggests that the base is under the control of Stefano Valenzetti, one of De Leon’s lieutenants.”

A picture of a rather unremarkable looking man, in a pin-stripe suit appears on-screen.

“Subject to a Space Patrol D-notice, he’s considered an enemy commander not a criminal, so we can handle him in military fashion if situationally appropriate.”

I wear a strange wry smile at the euphemism. Everyone knows what that really means. It’s what the Commissar would call a ten-ninety. Next, to the plan.

The short form. The Kunstler would land on the rock under their own power, ahead of the main force of Stormtroopers. Our job was to take out the sensor grid first, followed by the defensive systems, then the power grid. Secure the main control room, and make anything that gets in the way regret ever being born.

Stormtroopers were to follow and do what the Imperial Guard did best. Mop up anyone that was still up for making a fight of it, cleanse and burn any thionite, and make sure the base was actually secure.

It’s nothing really special. I’ve done it all before, but never while in command.

“Another thing Commissar,” I click over to another slide, this one of pictures taken from Jusenkyou. “These are berserkers. If your men encounter anything like this, tell them to pull back and call for us. Your battle rifles will just piss them off.”

And using any sort of rocket launcher in a pressurised environment would be just plain nuts. The best way to deal with them was Panzer Kunst. That meant getting right up and in their face..... danger close.

“Of course,” Abnett nods, “The Emperor in Hiding does not expect that we die for our duty, he expects that we make the other poor blighters die for theirs.”

I like 40k fen, at least the sensible ones anyway who understood that all the GRIMDARK and skulls were supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. They were a nice break from the warsies who took things far too bloody seriously and who seemed quirk-bound never to hit the broad side of a barn.

There’s the traditional pre-battle speech, cribbed from Generation Kill. There’s more prep....Check. Recheck. Check my pistol in its holster strapped to my hip. Add two spare magazines of ammunition. Plug the gunscope in and load it’s kernel module. It’s like growing a third eye just above the barrel with a software-calculated crosshairs telling me exactly where the round will hit. Check the medkit strapped to my other hip, standard OGJ issue with added waved J-B Weld for the armour. Load up proper encryption and discrimination modules for my software radios, then cut my wifi and cellular links. Check my engines. Check my actuators are free and not binding up. Check my navigation is correct, my clock is accurate with and my batteries are well charged. Check off the boxes on my own personal pre-flight checklists and then make sure the others have done the same.

I’m making damned sure we get everything right. Of course I’m nervous... of course I’m being a bit OCD about the details, I’m in charge.

I just don’t want it to go wrong.

Red eye-black smells like Martian steel as I daub it on my cheeks. My blades lock into place on my forearms, deadly sharp and shining. The adrenaline is already starting to kick in, a fizz of excitement bubbling up through my veins.

I just want to get out there and get on with it.

Before we launch, I take a moment to centre myself, and undo all the mental locks I learned to put on at Grunthal.... the conscious controls that allowed me to shake a person’s hand without hurting them, or open a door without ripping the handle off. That was why I joined the Panzer Kunst.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, isolating myself from my senses for one brief moment, before allowing them all to filter back into my awareness, one by one integrating them into my being as they come back. I turn my controls off, and it feels like I’m shrugging a weight from my shoulders. My body instantly loosens up, all the tension of being so careful all the time just falls away.

It’s such a relief.

----->>

Space was quiet.

In space there is only myself. The others are kilometres away from me. A sparkle in the dark highlighted on my vision. Running under radio silence, there’s nothing but myself and my own thoughts.

For some reason I start thinking about the first time, about the poor fellow just looking up at me as stunned as I was. I went to punch him in the chest, and hit him so hard I drilled right through his body.

I’d knocked down clanks and mechs before that.... but this was the first time I’d ever killed someone human, an ordinary Mark 1 Homo Sapiens. Despite it all, flying, hanging in space without a helmet on, my training on Grunthal, up to that point deep inside I still felt like myself. Inside, there was a part of me certain that despite all the hardware, I was still just human being. Harmless to everyone.

That belief was bleeding out onto the deck.

Human beings aren’t able to do things like that to each other.

How did it feel? It felt god-awful, that’s how. It felt like I’d just driven myself elbow deep into a lump of thick warm jelly, which somebody’d filled with crispy biscuit.

There was no time to dwell on it at the time.... his mate had a coilgun and was determined he’d get his revenge. I cut that thought off with one sweep of a blade and carried on. The mission had to be done.

I can still see him, looking up at me with that astonished look of utter indignity and offence more like I'd insulted his mother than anything else. He’s joined the berserkers in my nightmares, demanding an answer from me. Why don’t I feel so... horrified... anymore?

Again, I shake it off. There’s work to be done. Psyche grows from a small spot, to a rock bigger than my old home country. A testament to how truly vast space is. I brake down, angling in for a deft landing.

Nothing special.

A quick flash of my engines and I touch down, kicking up wisps of ancient dust. I’m standing on the dark side of an asteroid, deep in the main belt. For anyone else, that might seem insane. Five quick text messages tell me the others have made it with no problems. Just a flash of bytes too quick to be detected.

Proceed to objective; the main hanger door.

It looks like solid rock, but it isn’t. A closer inspection shows the square outline of the hatch in the ground, large enough to fit a decent sized transport. Jash’ readies two krakatoa charges, planting them both on the door with magnetic clamps, right above the locks. The dark paint on his new arm still looks conspicuously fresh.

There’s always a flash of panic when explosives are involved.... a creeping unease that something could spark in the wrong place.

He signals a warning, and the charge detonates with an incongruous silent puffball of thick pale smoke. The doors underneath it seem to inhale, buckling inwards, before blowing out as the atmosphere behind it blasts its way to freedom. Water vapour condenses instantly into a fine mist of powdery ice crystals, exhausting out into space.

It takes about three seconds for the bay to be clear.

“Angreifen!” I yell, feeling the first rush of adrenaline. It helps that I pronounce it like ‘Angry Fen’.

We dive under power towards the transport ship parked up at the bottom of the shaft. It’s a big ‘un, about the size of a 737, and looks like the bastard child of a jet and an ocean going boat. The cargo door’s open for loading. Warning lights are flashing an angry red, while panic flares among those in the bottom. Only about half are wearing pressure suits, desperately trying to handle the decompression. The others are already beginning to pass out.

It takes fifteen seconds to secure the bay. Fifteen second of flashing blades, strobing gunfire and sparkling garnets of frozen blood. Outside, a vacuum silence. Inside, inside me, my heart is racing, pounding in my ears. A spinning slash takes down one suited stevedore readying an axe, while a thumping shot from my pistol bursts the helmet of another.

“Status?” I demand.

Everyone answers green. Nobody took an unlucky hit. Great. The Boskone transport is still sitting there, a few lights flickering inside her windows.

“Maybe there’s someone aboard,” Lenneth suggests. “If they’re in radio contact with the command centre...” she doesn’t finish. The conclusion is obvious.

The longer they think this was an unfortunate accident, the better. The slower their response time will be. The way we figure, their first thought will be an accident. Second, that the prisoners are revolting. Third, they might finally conclude that they’re under attack, hopefully when we’re already well inside, and the Stormtroopers are landing.

“Take the ship” I order. “Gant, go with her. Rest of us, carry on as planned.”

There’re two airlocks leading away from the bay. One goes down to the mine working. The other, armoured and originally guarded, leads to the main administration block. The mine door is jammed shut with a transport cart. The admin airlock is dealt with by our last krakatoa.

The damage control team rushing forward on the other side are stunned when the doors blow out in front of them.

----->>

Inside the administration block, I hit atmosphere. The alarms are going now. Of course they know we’re here.

“Engel Three. Target Baker down,” Tiegel cuts into my mind with his German accent. “No trouble,”

Good. They’re blind. Sensors down. Comms are down. I open a broadcast channel to the Imperials. “Blackshard.” I say, before retracting my wings and primary antennae. They slide back home with a ‘thunk’. I can feel the actuators move inside my body.

“Engel Four. Opportunity Secure. Moving to main target.” The ship had been taken by Lenneth, now on to her assigned target.

I call up my own map of the base, noting my own position, the others and their objectives. I mark a few things, take a few notes and compare what I’ve seen to the estimated map. So far it seems good.

That’s a relief.

I’m running hard down a corridor, my steel feet tack-tacking against the bare concrete. I’m hearing encrypted bursts of noise on a civil frequency... obviously somebody’s trying to coordinate something of a defence. It’s chattery and sharp, back and forth real fast... almost panicked.

That’s what we want. They’re still trying to catch up to where we were a minute ago. We smash our way in, going so fast we bypass most of the troops they’ve got. If we stop to fight we get bogged down and overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Each of us aims for a particular objective, cutting off power, communications, defences and command. Leave the henchmen bewildered and disorientated still trying to figure out what’s going on when their bosses are already dead or captured. Stormtroopers follow up behind. Not being loyal to anything but cash, and not being idiots incapable of realising the battle’s over, most of the mooks give up, preferring a cycle or two in Azkhaban to death.

The less outright fighting we have to do, the faster we go and the less chance one of us will get taken down by some stupid goon getting a lucky shot.

I come to a sealed hatch; they’ve closed all the emergency bulkheads to slow us down. It’s not a problem. Destroy the power supply to the lock and it fail-safes to a manual bolt-pull.

Moments after I get the door open, the power to the whole base fails, the lights above guttering and dying. Darkness falls for a few seconds, pitch black, well below what I can handle. I don’t have lowlight vision.... I managed to ruin a pair of USB IR cameras a week ago by pointing them at the sun, and still hadn’t gotten any replacements.

A tingling fear rises deep inside, bristling across the surface of skin I don’t actually have. Anything could be hidden in the dark.

“Engel Six. Delta is down,” Tyko’s voice cuts in. She sounds pleased with herself.

“Good work,” I radio back. Too dark to see, I spring my wings out once more, switching both antenna vanes over SA radar. It’s noisy and ghosted and difficult to make sense of. Hard edges and surfaces show up strong among the fuzzy noise of the concrete. It takes a fair bit of processing from the hardware inside me to filter the worst of it, but I’ve got something I can at least see by well enough not to plough into a wall.

I can feel the heat from the processors. The radar ‘images’ start to lag and stutter as the processors just can’t keep up with the data rate, I close my eyes and shake my head on instinct... naturally it does nothing more than make me feel silly for a few brief moments.

Battery-backed emergency lights kick in... casting a ruddy red light along the corridor. I kill the radar systems and retract both vanes.

I run on, coming to a sealed hatchway. Getting through it is trivial... cut the power to the locks and they fail-safe into the open position. Pulling the door open, I find the staircase leading down to the main control room, right at the core of the rock.

The thing is designed so that the defenders shooting up have the advantage, assuming both were right handed. The bottom’s a hundred meters down or more, lost in the gloom. Flashlights are rushing up; someone’s barking orders.

Really not wanting to run down so many flights of stairs, or take those troops on at any sort of disadvantage, I vault the railing and drop. For an instant there’s a flash of panic, a legacy of a time when a hundred meter fall was certain death, before it’s replaced by a rushing thrill. The squad of zwilniks flash past, too startled to take a shot at me. I could see the astonished look on each and every one of their faces as I dropped past.

They aren’t a threat.

The air around me roars for a few seconds, the green-painted concrete below rushing up to meet. Lights play across the floor, scattering and flickering, warning of another squad of troopers trying to catch up to their friends upstairs.

My training takes over, it’s something I slip on like a glove. It’s an instinct, running subconsciously.

With a braking flash from my jets, I land in front of them for the briefest of moments. There’re five of them, wearing flak armour and helmets, each one armed with light-looking sub-machine guns capable of putting out a deadly amount of lead. Just one bullet to the neck and I’m dead; unlike the others, I’m a true cyborg. If they’d been expecting me, they might’ve had a chance.

They aren’t.

They gawp in shock. Botched Combat Sense roll, I think. What an absurd thing to think about. One of them raises his weapon, readying it to fire. My body launches forward, pitching high and out of the way with a quick kick through my heel-thrusters. I place one hand on the shoulder of one of the troopers in front, pitching myself over onto my side. Something goes crunch in my grip. I can feel his whole body tense up, going stiff as a board as he takes my full weight.

I drive the blade on my other arm down through the neck. Simultaneously, my momentum carries my foot into another trooper’s face hard enough to knock him off his feet and send his empty helmet flying. I can read the labels on his flak jacket. Armaplas. Made in USA. I can read the serial number on his MP-5. I can see the other two already trying to aim at the spot where I’d been.

Still rotating in the air, my blade comes free, deflecting a little off something hard. Two down, two more in front of me. I carry my momentum, aiming one my feet towards the ground. My toe touches town and I pirouette around it like a ballerina... out of the line of fire of their guns. I spin right round until I’m standing between them, facing in the same direction. Their two friends are slowly beginning to drop to the ground, one going onto his back, the other just dropping into himself like a tower of man-shaped liquid.

The same reflexes that kept me from hitting bridges two years ago, kept me one thought, one move ahead of them. I was so much faster than an ordinary human…

The third one, on my right, gets a blade through the chest. The tip of the blade just goes straight through his flack jacket. The one on the left, a driving punch to the back that causes him to stagger forward and drop his gun. It probably broke his back, but he stands for a half-second or so, supported by his own inertia more than anything. Spinning around through another one-eighty, my blade comes free from the third for a moment, before I drive it straight between fourth’s shoulders. It slides out easy enough, and his legs just crumple beneath him.

That’s four. All in one trained and practiced flow.

The Fifth bringing up the rear sees it all.

“Oh dear Jesus,” He mutters, finally realising just what was happening. He’s terrified of me. He throws down his gun and turns to run. For the briefest of moments, every fibre in my body screams to finish him off... for the last few points, for one hundred percent completion.

I bite back on it.

No point. Let him go.

Instead, I stand there for a few second, panting, wearing a savage grin. My blood is boiling with electric adrenaline. I win. I’m alive. They’re not. I’m stronger. I’m faster. I’m powerful. I feel almost indestructible. Undefeatable.

Number five is still alive, halfway down the corridor and still running.

A little voice in the back of my mind tells me I can still get him. A whisper from the abyss promising that nobody would know... or care. He was just a zwilnik. He was one of them, the enemy. Don’t you want to keep feeling that powerful?

I stand still and let him go, waiting for it to cool. That’s not me.... that’s not the person I want to be.

That’s what Panzer Kunst is. It’s self control, right at the core that’s what it is. That’s why I went to Grunthal. To learn how to control my body and not hurt people. The first lesson I learned at Grunthal, the very first thing was that my body made me a deadly weapon... and not in the Bruce Lee fashion. More a waving a gun drunkenly around in crowded a room with your finger on the trigger and the safety off fashion.

Every time I shook someone’s hand I was effectively pointing a loaded gun at them with my finger on the trigger and the safety off. If I lost my temper and thumped someone in the face, same as anyone might do, they’d be lucky if only their jaw was shattered. It’s usually much worse. And the first part of my training was having all of that hardwired into my consciousness.... knowing just how much raw power I had.

Stage 2 was learning how to physically control it; how to shake someone’s hand without breaking an arm, how to be consciously aware of myself and my movements, how to concentrate all day on not breaking things, even when I’m tired and stressed, distracted or just plain bloody annoyed. And again, to have it all hardwired in, so it became as natural a thing to do as breathing.

All this before I ever started to spar. I had to learn how to put the brakes on, before I learned to take them off.

The squad on the stairs was hurrying down, taking the long way. They’re scared shiteless, half of them clamouring just to run back up the stairs and get away, while someone’s bullying them down to rescue their comrades. A single gunshot stops the argument.

Not wanting to wait for them, I haul the door behind me shut and activate the lock. It’ll slow them up for a bit.

I walk through the red-lit gloom, letting the adrenaline cool off for a bit. The distant crump of an explosion shakes the walls, loosening dust from the ceiling.

“Engel 5 Target Gamma destroyed,” Jash’ radio’s me. “And Oh Boy is it destroyed,”

I could hear the grin on his lips, even if his voice was just synthesised. It made me smile too.

“Engel One. Nice job Five. Join me down here, I’m about to move on Target Alpha,”

Being the effective leader has it’s advantages beyond a nice engraving on my shoulder.

“Wilco,” he answers. “I’ll bring Six,”

“Engel Two. I think we found something real special up here,” Gant breaks in. “Barbary-type alright. Looks like the whole thing’s intact, computers and all. We caught ‘em with their pants down... they didn’t even log out,” He sounds like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s got.

Okay... that is special. I knew of at least one Boskonian ship of similar size taken intact, most were just kludged trucks and buses. Getting another one in one piece, with her databases intact. The intelligence people were going to cream themselves....

“Engel One. Stay with the ship Two, keep it secure. Change their computer passwords if you can... do what you can to keep it ours,”

“Engel Two. I’m already on it. Sealed the cargo bays and airlocks. She’s ours for keeps,”

That makes me smile. Knocking out a production facility is worth a lot. Getting an enemy ship is priceless. The possibility that we might no longer have to rely on a quick lift from the Roughriders or Soviets flashes through my mind... That’d make our lives so much easier.

A nearby scream drags my attention right back to the corridor. It’s cut off with a wet gurgle that sends a shudder of apprehension through my body. Part of me’s asking what could’ve done that... but the rest of me already has an idea. I stop right before a junction and listen hard...

Pat... Pat... Pat.... The blood still dripping from my own blades. Distantly, I can hear something that sounds like breathing. Husky, heaving, almost beastly.... yet a mechanical rasp to it that makes my blood run cold.

An electronic howl of pure animilastic triumph resonates off the walls around me, and I’m suddenly very afraid. I stay dead still, listening to it.

It stomps around... and I know it’s looking for me. I call up my map, and see that I have to go right through it. No way around. The Commissar radios me to let me know his troops have landed, and I bite my lip. It’s all played inside my mind, hooked directly into my auditory nerves, but I still wonder if the monstrosity around the corner heard it. I acknowledge with a text message, not wanting to speak aloud.

It’s there, hunting.

Berserkers don’t just scare me, they terrify me. I want nothing more than to be as far away from it as I possibly can be. I know I can take it in a fight, that’s not what frightens me.

I swallow that as best I can. Clear and cool.

“All Units. Berserker, my location,” I broadcast by text. There’s no response... but I don’t expect one.

I hear it stop and know it heard me...somehow. If I had any skin on my body, it would’ve been prickling with fear. I check my blades are still on tight then check myself. All systems nominal. Deep breath. I let myself feel my whole body.

I come around that corner screaming.

What I see is hulking metal monstrosity, standing over the body of that fifth zwilnik I’d let run away.... at least, what was left of him. Vaguely humanoid, the beast machine looks at me, four glass lenses focusing and refocusing while I charge at it.

Already, I’m doing my best to analyse it. I can read the power flowing through it’s body. I can see how it’s tensing its actuators like some sinister predator, ready to pounce. Its jaw opens to reveal a human tongue at the head of a chromed gullet coated in blood.

They’re not just machines. It’s worse than that. They’re human beings. They were human beings. Some of them might’ve once been cyborgs just like me. Some of them might be fresh-built. They were all stripped of every single thing that made them human, so mindfried they can’t even remember that they every were human. Reduced to just a screaming brain in a handwaved monster jar killing for the merest jolt of sensation in the void they’re trapped inside, ripping forward on an insane narcotic rage powering through a cybernetic body easily capable of matching us for sheer brute force.

A razors-edge of murderous steel... stripped of human impurities to make a pure, untempered killing machine.

For a moment, covered in dirt and blood and racing forward on a surge of adrenaline, I’m forced to wonder why I’m so different from it. And I know just what I want to do to the ‘people’ responsible for it. I know how good it’d feel to just give in and go for it.

The ‘borg turns to face me... it’s quicker than something that big has any right to be and much too tall for me to get aerial in this. No easy boost followed by a Hertza Haon to the braincase.

It opens its mouth wide and emits the most god-awful electronic howl, resonating off the walls. Its lenses focus in on me, zeroing in on the new target charging towards it. I could see the power actuators in its legs tense up as it prepared to run at me.

I drop low, angling myself for an attack on it’s knee. It reaches to grapple with the space that had contained my head half an instant before. Sweeping low under it’s trunk-like arms, I drive my knee into its own, knocking it hard off balance. The actuators in it’s leg buckle and slip, spurting pink hydraulic oil.

Already, I’m moving to get behind. I see something moving towards my face. I snap back, and feel something slam hard into the side of my face. there’s a wrench of metal and I screw my eyes shut, Something bites hard on my cheek and my face goes chillingly cold as whatever it was passes right in front of my nose.

Swallowing a yelp, I roll with the blow. The smell of blood and steel and oil and ozone intrudes, immediate and shocking. The pain is stunning, burning hot and I can taste liquid metal in my mouth. Hardware errors from what was my visor spark up in my mind, USB ports under my ears biting as they short out.

I twist out of the way of the followup and jump back clear. Sonofabitch that thing was fast! I rip what’s left of my visor off and throw it on the floor where it clatters against the wall.

I’m looking on the metal monster with own my eyes and it’s no less horrifying.

It lunges at me, and I switch to a defensive Schatten Folgen, anticipating its attacks and dodging out of the way. It’s big and fast, but it’s just spraying and praying, attacking on raw instinct rather than with a trained clarity, lunging out with barely controlled thrusts and attempts to grapple. And I can stay ahead of that, hiding in the shadow of its attacks.

It’s a strange, mortal ballet, pinned inside a darkened red passageway. It drives its fist into the wall, sending flakes of metallic rock flying like shrapnel. I deflect a blow with one of my blades, using the force to turn me out of the way, cutting clean through a hydraulic line in the process. Pink transmission fluid jets out at high pressure, coating my armour, the walls and the Berserker itself. It took only a few moments to stop, hydraulic fuses sealing off the damaged circuit.

It doesn’t slow it down in the slightest. I slip into Einzug Rüstungen actively searching for an opening that’ll let me attack. It might be fighting random, but there’s still a rhythm to its attacks, a frequency to its movements. All machinery has its own natural rhythms, rhythms which give away it’s weaknesses. I have a picture of the structure under its armour forming in my mind.

I smash one of its actuators with an open handed blow to its upper arm. Hydraulic lines rupture with the shockwave, fluid spurting from seams. Bearings split and shatter. The berserker’s movements start to become jerky, thrashing and flailing... It swings high for my head with enough force to snap everything above the neck clean off. I duck under and see my opening. It clasps both it’s fists together and tries to crush them down on top of me, overreaching. It’s got arms like a steel gorilla, almost long enough to drag knuckles.

I kick my feet up high with a bang from my engines, flipping over onto my hands, pulling my head and chest down beneath and inside the blow. My hands meet the floor at about the same time both my feet meet the berserkers face coming down with the force of its own blow. Another blast from my engines throws my feet over, helping back flip me outside its arms.

I land with both legs together about three meters back.

Its eyes are shattered, the armour on its face buckled and smashed in. I can see trickles of what might’ve been blood oozing out from under its ear covers. It starts to scream in panic, lashing out senselessly, grasping at sparks and shadows and technological ghosts. It screams like a piglet.

It spins around, putting its back to me, guessing that I’m trying to sneak up on it.

The rest is almost a formality.

I jump forward, building a vibration in my arm actuators before slamming the palms of my hands into the back of the braincase. The shockwave generated by the Hertza Haeon jellies the grey matter inside and sends another tingling vibration through my frame.

A final boost from my feet sends me back to safety. The berserker topples forward and begins to spasm as stray neurotransmitters spark haphazardly. Three armour piercing rounds from my handgun make doubly sure it’s dead. All those Mads in their labs wanting a live one to study, they can come out and get one themselves.

Shaking, drenched in a mix of hydraulic oils and blood, I stood over the wreck. That was... close. I’m alive.

And now for the gits who created this thing and sent it after me. My adrenaline is burning hard, feeding my righteous anger.

“All Units, Berserker destroyed.” I radio, my voice a harsh bark.

I spit a gobbet of bright blood on the ground. Inside of my cheek must’ve split open on my teeth aswell. The pain tingles and smoulders, licking at my cheek where it had been torn open. It’s alien, and startling because of it. I haven’t felt anything like it for years.

It’s bringing tears to my eyes.

I grit my teeth and get going at a hard run, pounding towards the control room. My heart is thumping out the beat of my feet. I can feel it pulsing in my check. Taste it in my mouth. I can hear the Stormtroopers chatter as they move forward through the base sweeping up the stragglers left behind.

I can see the door to the control room, and I know what I’m going to. I can already picture the mess I’m going to make of them in there. It’s right and just and they deserve it for all the crap they’ve done. And right now, as far as I’m concerned, those ‘people’ on the other side of that door are going to get everything that’s coming to them. I know what I can do. I know what I will do.

I smash the door lock, then kick it so hard it flies open and nearly falls off its hinges. I press myself back out of the way of an expected volley of gunfire... but nothing comes. I rush inside, the door now beginning to close again slowly.

It’s a big enough room... walls lined with consoles and video screens, most of which have gone dark. In the red light I can see people moving to stand up, most wearing jacket. To my right, I catch a glimpse of a weapon being raised. A flash of light glints off a chromed gun-barrel. My hand trains my own pistol to it. I don’t even have to look at him, the gunscope relays an image of a man readying some sort of coilgun.

He seems almost frozen in time. Crosshairs on his chest.

Armed. Human. Target. The hardware does the rest. A solid bang fills the room, almost leading the muzzle flash. It stuns everyone in there. An ecstasy of shuffling follows. Six others stand up... hands up in surrender. I can see them all, anthropomorphic figures wearing industrial overalls with reflective strips shining. The seventh just sort of slumps over like a doll with half the stuffing taken out. He gurgles out a curse and then dies.

“Don’t shoot!” one of them pleads, “We surrender,”

The main lights switch back on, harsh and bright for a instant before my vision clears. I see them clearly for the first time. Just men... in orange jumpsuits.... terrified beyond belief. Their eyes wide and their faces pale as if they were looking at the very face of death.

“I didn’t think they had those things too,” someone mumbles, the fear and distaste in his voice making it obvious what he meant by ‘things’.

That stops me dead.

I stand there for a few moments, breathing hard, before looking over at my reflection in a darkened screen. Framed by my buckled helmet is my face, one cheek painted with red eye-black, the other bleeding badly down my neck. A little trickle is dribbling down out of the edge of my mouth. I’m coated in blood, dirt and hydraulic oil, my blades especially. They shine bright, sharp, hard and lethal. A pair of blue eyes stare back at me. Soft, natural, safe and human. It reminds me why I specifically chose to keep this appearance, even after I was told I could get my whole frame rebuilt to something more masculine....

That’s the face of a good person, not a monster.

The true nightmare of those berserkers isn’t that I’ll meet one in a dark corridor, it’s that I’ll turn around and see one staring right back at me in the mirror.

I look at them, and then down at the dead body. He’s wearing a dark pinstripe suit, with that coilgun pistol lying on the floor beside him.

“Hey.... don’t hurt us. We were only followin’ Valenzetti’s orders lady. You know what he’d do to us if we didn’t dontcha?” They’re on the verge of panicking.

“I know,” I say, fixing the speaker with as hard a stare as I can manage. Something I’m never very good at.

They’re just unarmed mooks in way over their head and then some. And I was about to kill them all. That little dark voice still whispers to me... nobody will know or care. In the dark, I could say, I couldn’t tell if they were armed or not. Nobody would have to know the truth but me.

A truth that’ll fester inside and rot me to the core.

I bite down on it. That’s not the person I want to be come. That’s not what I want to be. That’s not who I want to be.

“Where’s Valenzetti?” I demand, checking my pistol.

“Y-Y-You shot him,” the speaker stutters.

Oh good, I think for a moment. It feels like a relief. He was armed, he was trying to kill me... it seemed fair. It feels like it saved me a few points on my personal karma meter.

I take one long deep breath, cooling myself off as best I can.

“First thing. Yous’ll all be under arrest for violations of the Fenspace Convention.” I pause for a second, but then decide that I really don’t want to say anymore. I’m still furious... I’m still burning with adrenaline. I want to scream bloody murder at them and let them know exactly how I feel about their little Nuremberg defence. I want to blame them for every last little thing that’s happened over the last year. I want to pick them up by the scruff of the neck and beat all my little frustrations out on them one by one while the others watch. Throw ‘em against the walls like little crunchy ragdolls, like a playstation controller when a game refuses to go right. I sure as hell want to show them just how vindictive, vicious and powerful I can be.

Instead, I just sit down on top of one of the consoles and herd them into the corner to wait for the stormtroopers. I’m still shaking, but I’m trying to be rational about it. The adrenaline is wearing off.

What would Sierra think of me?

I make a few necessary radio calls and let them broadcast their surrender, before telling them that I really wish they would use their right to bloody silence... I don’t want to hear your life story excuses.

The battle’s over.

“Engel one All Units. Good work everyone. This was an important victory for us. You all did well.”

I’m still waiting for Jash’ and Tyko when they finally get down.

----->>

A couple of hours later, the control room is busy again. Rockhounds engineers are doing their damnedest to undo some of the damage we did taking the place. It’s not something I feel expressly compelled to apologise to them about either.

It saved us from having a tougher fight. It saved us from taking casualties... ones beyond the help of handwavium anyway... a few guardsmen met a knothole of thionite-addled reavers who just refused to give up. They always just keep coming.

Most boskonians just surrendered straight off, not putting up a fight. Just as planned really. I’m reminded of what somebody once said about military sci-fi where only the baddies die... but this is real life, my command... and nobody dying is a good thing in my book. No bad letters to write. It wasn’t really a difficult mission anyway... it was routine.

My helmet rests beside an hours-old cup of coffee in a #1 Dad mug, and I’ve got a bandage over my cheek... which still stings like all hell. It makes me glad for the armour. There’s a pool of blood in the corner where Valenzetti’s body had been.

He brought the berserker. He brought it to protect himself. He was the only person in the control room armed. He was the only person in the control room who tried to fight back. He was the only person in the control room killed. He was the real bad guy, the others are just a bunch of punchclock nogoodniks. He was the one with the D-Notice on him. He’s the only dead one. Fair enough.

It scares me to think about what I was about to do. I’ve killed people before... even some damn cold blooded stuff... but never murdered anyone. I’ve never done anything I’d be ashamed to tell Sierra I did.

It’s a good metric, I find. Can I tell the one I care most about about my day and still be respected by her?

Lenneth comes through what’s left of the door. She’s still as dirty as I am. She takes one look at me sitting on the console and starts laughing.

She holds up a hand. “Sorry JJ, I still can’t get used to seeing you with your legs crossed like that,”

I frown playfully, feigning insult. “I’ll have you know it’s a quirk, from those new actuators in my leg after Jusenkyou,”

It helps pick my mood up anyway.

“Well it looks a little weird still for you. Anyway...” she cuts back. We both chuckle to each other “What’re we waiting around here for?”

“To sign over official control to the Rockhounds,” I answer, showing my own frustration at being left hanging around. “Unless we don’t want to be paid, we’ve got to stay,”

“And the ship?” she questions. “Gant’s got it bent around his little finger by now. We can definitely fly it. We might be able to go back to Mars in it.”

“We’ll have to move it soon,” I say. “Hospital ship’s coming in to pick up the workforce. Anyway, I’ve already contacted HQ. They want to strip it for intelligence, but it’ll be ours once they’re done. Unless anyone wants to dispute that with another claim.”

Saving a few people’s lives is nice, but that ship and what’s on her is the real victory. And victory does feel good. Even if we have to escort it to Hephaestus.

“Great. That’ll make our lives so much easier,”

I nod “If I never see the inside of a poxy sports bus again, it’ll be too soon,”

“Never mind that we keep getting pre-empted by other faction’s needs” she adds.

I sigh, “Try being the one who has to organise it all. If I hear ‘Sorry, but Haruhi decided at the last minute she wants them for a random exercise in pointlessness...’ one more time I’m gointa throttle someone ”

A flash of frustrated anger runs through my body, and I know there’s part of me that means exactly that.

“AOL!” she grins, betraying her real age in the process.

Even when she’s left to begin preflight checks on the Boskone transport, I’m still in a better mood. I talk with Jash’ and agree to buy the first round at Four Winds when we get back, and generally the six of us just chat over our comm’s about the important little things in life.... like Motorball, what I have in common with an armadillo, and teasing Tyko for being a little more ‘anatomically correct’ than the rest of us.

Good natured stuff.

It clears my head.

I know what I was about to do, but I didn’t. I want to think I wouldn’t have... but I’m not so sure. The thing with a berserker, that rage, that violence it unleashes comes from the human brain inside, stripped of all compassion, fear, love or any capacity for rational thought. A human brain stripped of humanity. There’s nothing added except an unhealthy dose of insanity.

It’s a part of me too, like all human beings. Cruelty has a human heart.

It is me. There all the time. It was there before I knew what handwavium was. It’s what killed PS3 controllers when I got frustrated. It’s what sent someone through a drywall in my old school once. It’ll be there long after this little ‘war’ is over.

Every time I go into action, it’s there knocking at the door, trying to get out. And It gets louder and louder each time. Or the door gets thinner.

I hate hurting people. I hate it when people are frightened of me.... as odd as that might sound. I don’t like intimidating people. When I do it on purpose it feels so out of character for me. I hate how much I’m starting to hate them. I hate them for making me hate them. For killing Max and Rijn. For every catgirl, dogboy, buxom blank and berserker. For every colony taken in the night, or Fencar run down. For what thionite does to good, decent people who might’ve been a friend a few weeks earlier. For what it makes me do to them.

Most of all I hate them for what fighting them is turning me into. Berserker by the slow route, step by little step rather than all at once. It’s eroding me... I stare into the abyss and it whispers back louder and louder each time. I dread the day I finally do listen.

I’m walking the edge, that’s what it feels like.

The facility manager from the Rockhounds arrives to break the chain of thought. He’s all pointy haired and neckless. Poor fella; I feel oddly sorry for him to have to have that as a biomod. He’s smart and likable, and genuinely appreciative of our efforts while he efficiently gets about handling the paperwork.

---->>

I hate been cooped up on a ship, especially one as cramped as this. I feel like a caged bird... the bulkheads just seem to squash in and pin me in place, while the view out the portholes teases with a filtered glimpse of the whole universe beyond. I’ve been out there. I want so badly to be out there again. It’s something about spacecraft; even Grovers Corners feels small inside. A big cage is still a cage.

It feels hollow and a little false on this ship, standing in her cargo bay. I can open that hatch and leave whenever I want. The last group of people in here couldn’t.

I might be questioning my humanity but I’ll never question the fact that what I’m doing out here is right or worth it. This ship proves it.

“Yup,” said Gant beside me with a deep draw of simulated breath, “Looks like they dumped their last ‘cargo’ when the Space Patrol caught up to them. They used to distraction to run to ground for repairs.”

There’s none of his usual cheer in his voice, and for a moment I regret letting the survivors get arrested. I regret not taking them with us so we could stuff them in here and give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m pretty certain he feels the same way. The cargo bay’s rigged up with a number of large hatches, held shut against the pressure inside solely by fail-deadly electromagnetic locks. Cut the power and they blow open, blasting the contents into space. Tamper with the airlock, and they blow open. Tamper with them, and they blow open.

I could see blood dried around the rim of one of them. What might’ve been fingerprints....small fingerprints.

“...oh my....” and it just dies in my throat. There’s a silence. A real, palpable funerary silence. And cold, a ghostly cold. We’re standing in a tomb.

He just nods beside me, focusing on the far wall. I find myself wishing we’d taken the crew alive, solely so we could sit them down in that cargobay and push the little red button on the wall. Another gradual erosion of my sanity.

“He who fights monsters,” I finally manage to say, my voice quiet. I recall something the about men and dogs. And putting too many dogs down turns a man into a dog himself, doesn’t it Rorscharch?

“It’s getting harder.” he says. “Harder for all of us I think, when faced with things like this. It just wears you down, doesn’t it?”

I nod. I realise I haven’t had a break for R’n’R since before SerenityCon. Mission after mission, right at the teeth of things. It’s supposed to be two weeks on one week off, on a rotating schedule, but with eleven of us, some of us down for maintenance and repair, and constant demands from all corners of Fenspace, all the rest I try to schedule just keeps getting cancelled. Cancelling our R’n’R because they want us to do something, then cancelling our transport when we try and do it with a cheery ‘Oh hey, you guys don’t need transports, do ya?’. No, we need somewhere to fall back to if we get injured, somewhere to store our equipment…

I take a deep breath.... and make a quick note to spend a little extra time meditating before I sleep tonight. I’m being too bloody cynical about it. At least everyone in the Gruppe seems to be doing better than me, that’s the main thing. I can rest them… sort of… by giving them all the data-courier milk runs we get. I miss doing those... I miss being out and about in space.

“I’m trying to get us some downtime,” I tell him, do my best to sound calm “But too many people want us as backup. We’ve another job in three days after we get back, backing up some Roughriders on a thionite interdiction.”

Barely any time to cool down and get systems checked out, another day training Anfanger in advanced flight techniques because I still have to do that, Gruppe training, then back to preparations and planning. How do real soldiers do this?

He grimaces. “Needs must as the devil drives. And she’s driving us hard,”

Drives us like machines, not people. Even machines wear out. A little rest would do wonders. Some time to refill the humanity meter doing things I enjoy. Just a little bit more armour on my soul.

“Too hard.” I agree. “This can’t be over soon enough,”

It feels like a race, my sanity or the war... which finishes first?

“Then we can have some fun again.” he says, “I kinda feel sorry for folks who came up after 2012, they’ll never know what it was like before we had to worry about ships like this, and the people who crew them,”

For a few moments, I regret not joining that ship and her crew when I had the chance. I’m always a late adopter. I think, if I had, I could’ve been a proper gearhead like Sierra, a real spark. I might never have been biomodded. We could’ve been a normal couple....

I might never have gotten the chance to fly in space. I’d never have rescued her from the wreck. We’d never have spent six months figuring out that it was a little bit more than friendship. And the whole line of reasoning fell apart.

“I wish I’d gotten here earlier,” I say. Maybe I should’ve boosted as soon as I learned I could fly. “But at least I’ll have the benefit of never being nostalgic for the way things used to be, in the new ‘Golden Age’ that follows,”

I give him a wry grin, but he just shrugs his shoulders. “For some, the King will forever be yesterday. But...like Max used to say.... I want to think we’ll get what we’ve earned when this is done. If we sink to their level we only defeat them, but on the way destroy what we want to win. If we keep ourselves and what’s good within us, then we’ll truly win, because it’s that good that made Fenspace great before this all started. And that’s what’ll make it great again when it’s all done.”

“Righteousness alone is our King,” I finish the quote. It’s hard not to feel... inadequate. Like I’m a poor replacement. Right, firm leadership decision time. “I’m going to get Christmas week off for us. We should be able to get it for bringing this ship back at least.“

And I mean it, even if I have to kick down doors from her to Haruhi’s hellhouse to do it. Just a week will do us a power of good. I could spend some time with Sierra at Sara ….she’s been wanting to work on a project together.... spend more time with Sierra on top of that, maybe going somewhere else where there’s peace and quiet for a bit and enjoy a little ‘waxing off’. Christmas week will be good... no-one else will be doing anything that week either.

We leave the cargo bay and head forward, passing through a storage room packed with spare parts, then through the engine room where a pair of hydrogen gas turbines are driving two waved generators. It doesn’t take much effort to spot where corners were cut in construction, between bad welds, exposed live electrics and flaking paint. The ladder up to the main bridge and Captain’s cabin isn’t even properly straight. I get one of my heels caught on a ladder rung and curse.

Poxy feet. I have to pull myself up ladders with my arms. Sometimes I forget. Just another little irritation that comes with being a min-maxed RPG character made real. I could’ve gotten proper feet fitted, but I had bigger thrusters fitted instead. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a porthole, now cleaned up with the aid of a pressure hose. Jet Jaguar still looks like a good person, especially when she’s clean.

Nené’s vivid red hair, Priss’ face and Linna’s kind blue eyes on top of a handsome white-armoured figure; I see that reflection and it still seems a little more human than Gant does beside me. He’s more of an robocop type, Winry-built and almost totally mechatronic rather than the mash-up of biotechnology that I’m made of.

It would’ve been almost trivial to modify parts of my body to look more masculine, if a bit bishie, but I specifically chose not to. It just looks a little more natural, a little less threatening to others in a way I can’t quite quantify. It might be the simple reason that a gynoid has a few extra ‘cues’ for a brain to pick up on and flag as a ‘fellow human’, rather than the standard android form of 2 legs and 2 arms in near the right proportion. Despite being covered in a layer of white armour, I look just that little less alien.

It lets me feel like an ordinary person wearing a hardsuit for the few brief moments before some hardware diagnostic intrudes into my awareness, warning me that actuators in my right arm had come a little out of alignment again.

Gant slides the door to the bridge open with deliberate care. Inside, everything is dark and on standby, except for a few gauges emitting a dim green glow. I’m still struck by how quiet the ship is... even with the engine room running beneath I can hear the others laughing up front in the mess...something about grapes and boskonians and a little wine. It stops for a moment, and a funerary silence slips in.

Gant sits down at the controls.... he used to be an airline pilot. Funny, we all know how to fly, but none of us ever learned to fly a spaceship. “So Jet... what’re you going to do when it’s all done Jet?”

My mind spinlocks on that question.

“I have no idea,” I say with a self-effacing smile. “I’ve been offered a position as a full troubleshooter....”

And I gained a new lot of sympathy for Ciaphas Cain when it arrived in my inbox.

“Gonna take it?”

“Probably.” I say without much conviction. “It’s good money and having a full troubleshooter would help the Gruppe. And yourself?”

He grips the yoke in his hands. It creaks. “I wanna be a pilot again. Flying around in space is nice, but I really miss the feel of take-off in a 747. Sitting in comfort, with all that raw power under my control. Hate to break it to ya Jet,” he smiles “But having been both plane and pilot; I’d rather be the pilot.” He pushed a few buttons, flicked a few switches and grimaced as he flexed his metal hands. I could hear the gentle clicking of the actuators within. “Though I’m afraid I lost my touch in the accident.”

He gives me a regretful look. None of the Engels woke up one day perfectly healthy and decided we wanted to be space-bound combat cyborgs. Those who did got weeded out early in training. We’re all products of some sort of accident.

“You’ll get it back,” I reassure him, but it feels hollow.

He reaches up and opens a channel. “Hephaestus Control, this is Engel Flight. Requesting approach for internal docking in a secure hanger.”

“Engel Flight, Hephaestus Control. Vector 227 Mark 13 report arrival at outer marker then hold and await further instructions.”

“Hephaestus Control, Engel Flight, Vector 227 Mark 13, proceeding to outer marker.”

I can’t even see it out the window, unless I boot up my own navigation program to tell me which little spot is. I watch him fly the ship for a bit, throttling the acceleration drive with one hand, while pitching the ship over with the other.

“About what you said earlier.... He who fights monsters.” His tone is sombre as he stares out through the windows.

“if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you,” he intones morosely, before switching gears. “So you Poke it the eye!” He stabs his extended finger towards his reflection in the window. I smirk. “But the abyss counters with the two fingered poke,” He turns his hand around and aims both fingers at his own eyes, “So you block it with your hand,” He jams his free hand up vertical in front of his face, stopping his other hand, fingertips a centimetre from his eyes. “And then slap the abyss in the face with a ‘Why you!”

He slaps the air, flashing the thruster on his palm for a brief moment to make the crack.

I rest back against a console and laugh quietly. He smirks at me like the cat that got the cream. A little bit of humour picks me up no end. Laughter’s the best medicine, I suppose. Or colleagues. Or friends....

That’s the difference between us and the berserker. Pure un-tempered carbon steel is astonishingly brittle. Hit it hard enough and it just shatters. It’s the impurities in our blades that make them so strong. It’s these little ‘impurities’ of humanity that give us our strength and tempering that keep us from becoming monsters. It helps us face up to true monsters.

I gaze into the abyss of space ahead but it seems, for a few moments at least, that the abyss gazes elsewhere.

------>>

Quote:This is the one that you weren't sure whether I should pre-read, I assume... and I see why.