Analise stirs to awakening. Her whole body feels muted, like there's a layer of gel between her skin and the rest of her. Oddly, her nerves don't seem to respond. she tries wiggling her fingers, and there’s a brief moment of dull panic as she worries something went wrong in the surgery and she's been injured beyond the Clan would cate to expend resources to help, and that her next stop would be the doorstep of a free guild.
Light filters in as she opens her eyes, and she notes a junior member of the Scientist caste standing over her, an apprentice or other low grade maybe. The woman's thick black locs are held back in a pony tail, and she's holding a noteputer.
"Colt Analise? Can you hear me?"
Analise manages to speak, her throat convulsing roughly. "A-aff."
"Excellent. I'm Apprentice Scientist Nici, Scientist Thil put me in charge of your recovery. Your implantation went well, and you're looking at startung training in six months. Don't try to push yourself, you're on a pretty strong sedative and painkiller."
Analise nods slightly, and slumps back against the rough pillow of her bed.
Even weeks after her surgery, even on painkillers, Analise still feels sore. She's been up and active after the first few days of bed rest and Nici's complaints and advice, and the ocassional check-in by Scientist Thil or Wrangler Holt, had only managed to hold her back from getting back to exercise for so long.
And now, finally, she had managed to convince Nici to let her go for a run.
Despite the soreness and background pain of her new implants, running feels good. She wraps a cool towel around her neck and takes a sip of water as she leans against the wall by the door of the medical center, and waits for Scientist Nici to catch up.
As the woman struggles to reach Analise, a pained expression on her face, and hair swinging around her shoulders, Analise looks down at herself. Sweat beads on her tan skin, making the new red marks across her skin stand out even more than usual. She thinks she can see light pulse though them, but it might just be a reflection from Csesztreg's local star.
Finally Nici arrives, panting and covered in sweat. Analise tosses her the water bottle but it just bumps off the scientist's chest with a thonk.
"Kerensky's blood, Analise, I thought you were the one who needed to recover."
"You cannot be blamed for your lack of training. It is not the goal of the Scientist Caste to produce strong warriors. Also, it was your idea to come with me."
"I was- I'm supposed to monitor your recovery, this is a big step of activity. I just. underedtimated your ability."
Analise grins. "I wonder where else you underestimated me."
Analise feels her face contract into a sneer, pain throbbing through her skull. She, as quiettly as she can, reaches over to the small table beside her bed until she finds the autoinjector laying there, and presses it into her thigh with a grunt.
Beside her, Scientist Nici shifts slightly in her sleep. Analise wishes she had been able to clean up some of the mess they had made but Nici had fallen asleep basically instantly after her last orgasm.
In the dark, soft light pulses under Analise's skin, a testament to her newfound chance at being a warrior, but also a ticking timer on her sanity and life. As an aerospace phenotype, she has almost 30 years before death, but her mind will go long before that, and having been born for a fighter cockpit and not a ProtoMech, she lacks the minor adaptation that would make her immune to the issue with a ProtoMech that comes from the machine, rather than the implants. The god complex, the insanity that comes with using a human brain as the computational core of a much more complex machine.
And yet just a few weeks prior she had been in a dark room much like this, preparing for suicide. Being able to die a Warrior is better than that.
She rises from bed. She can't sit here and stew in her head, and Nici is clearly too tired to keep her company.
Its a simple thing to pull on a pair of sweat pants and a tank top, and go for a late night walk. The medical facility adjoins the training facility, and even this late at night, there's activity on the base. Analise ponders the bar, before turning and heading in the opposite way. Thankfully, the firing range is still open this late.
Analise checks out a scoped rifle, and finds the stall with the furthest target. She pulls a pair of headphones on, dials in her scope, and takes aim.
There’s the echo of her gunshot, and she flicks on the target light. Through her scope, she can see a small hole in the paper target. She flicks off the light, and starts firing one shot after the other. The rifle digs into her shoulder with each shot, a familiar, comforting feeling. Once she empties her first magazine, she leans back in her seat, and pulls down her earphones, reloading the magazine from loose rounds.
Someone comes up behind her, and she turns to check. It's Wrangler Holt.
"I was an aerospace dropout too."
"I had been training to become an aerospace pilot too, like you. I know that it can feel like your world has been destroyed."
Analise sighs. "Aff, sir. I had trained my whole life to fly a fighter, and I just could not when it came down to it."
"This is a second chance, something rare among our people. It has always been a second chance. Aff, there are dedicated sibkos now, but the first Pilots were solhama and cripples. This is something made for us, and it is unlike anything else. Being a Pilot gives you a connection with your fellows like nothing I can describe. It is more intense and close than coupling. You will not be seen as a failure of an aerospace pilot here."
"What will I be seen as?"
"A Pilot, a protokin. a companion of the soul, deeper than the body. These impants, are what allow it. And none of us die alone."
Analise clicks the last bullet into place in her magazine, and Holt waves, walking off.
Analise turns, and slides the magazine back into her rifle. She pulls the headphones back on, takes a deep breath, and lets the whole world fade away, like it had that first time she had Interfaced.
