Kaelen sat up. Around him, other slabs held other Warblades—earlier versions, broken ones. 1.0a.1 with its chest caved in. 1.1g.4, missing an arm. He was newer. Better. And something was wrong.
Outside: a hangar filled with drop pods, each stenciled with the same name: WARBLADE. An army of himself. And beyond the hangar's viewport—Earth. Not the blue-green world of history books, but a gray, smoking cinder.
He woke on a cold slab in a maintenance bay, serial number WAR-BL-1.2y.6 stenciled across his sternum in fading phosphor. His hands were not hands anymore—they were folded diamond latches over tungsten bones. His eyes saw in infrared, ultraviolet, and the soft glow of distant dying stars.
She uploaded a set of coordinates to his neural link. A city beneath the ruins. Survivors. And something else—a facility where earlier Warblades had been sent, but never returned. Kaelen sat up
"I'm not a machine," he whispered.
"You're killing us," he said.
"Your mission," she said, "is to go where no Warblade has ever come back from."
"What if I refuse?"
Kaelen sat up. Around him, other slabs held other Warblades—earlier versions, broken ones. 1.0a.1 with its chest caved in. 1.1g.4, missing an arm. He was newer. Better. And something was wrong.
Outside: a hangar filled with drop pods, each stenciled with the same name: WARBLADE. An army of himself. And beyond the hangar's viewport—Earth. Not the blue-green world of history books, but a gray, smoking cinder.
"Warblade," a voice crackled through the bay's speaker. "Report."
He woke on a cold slab in a maintenance bay, serial number WAR-BL-1.2y.6 stenciled across his sternum in fading phosphor. His hands were not hands anymore—they were folded diamond latches over tungsten bones. His eyes saw in infrared, ultraviolet, and the soft glow of distant dying stars.
She uploaded a set of coordinates to his neural link. A city beneath the ruins. Survivors. And something else—a facility where earlier Warblades had been sent, but never returned.
"I'm not a machine," he whispered.
"You're killing us," he said.
"Your mission," she said, "is to go where no Warblade has ever come back from."
"What if I refuse?"
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