Operation Steel Eye

They had gone through another attack. The rundi chairwoman had not been expecting it, but all of a sudden there were voices, and shouts, and people running this way and that, she had been hurriedly bundled into a truck and driven for over an hour in the opposite direction with no idea what was happening, and no one that seemed to want to tell her what was going on. When they finally stopped she was told there had been another attack, and they were trying to get her as far away from the fighting as possible.


They waited there for over half a day, and only began their return journey when a spotty call came in over their radio to drive them back. When they reached camp, a good portion of it had been damaged, especially alone the suwards side, though, as she got out of the truck, she was told they were lucky, and the ashfall cleared enough that their long range weapons became more effective, driving the Drev off for a time.


"However, I don't think I need to tell you how imperative it is that we get operation steel-eye up and running." The admiral was saying leading her through the camp, as the soldiers scrambled to repair and re-supply themselves for an attack that could happen at any moment. Ever since the supply ships had been able to get through the atmosphere, thing in camp were looking a little less bleak.


The wounded were better cared for, and the soldiers were receiving more rations.


Though the ash was still a heavy nuisance, and kept the days mostly dark, they did have occasional times of clearance that allowed them to see the sun.


She moved into place behind the admiral, who had led them to the new medical tent, less of a tent now and more of a pop-up shelter, with reinforced siding, and an actual door. Stepping inside, she couldn't help but gawk at the difference just a few days of supplies had made. The floors and walls were a uniform steel grey, and proper decontamination equipment was brought in to rinse ash from their bodies. Instead of suits to put over themselves they were washed off and given entirely new sets of clothes.


Stepping onto the ward was a much greater relief. The place was spotless clean, bright white lights shone in from above, and instead of rolled mats on the floor, there were cots, clean bandages, and monitoring machines hooked up to each of the wounded soldiers beeping away with their vital signs. Instead of moaning and pitiful whimpering from earlier, they were silent most of them asleep, all of them heavily drugged under vast swaths of pain killing medication. The first half of the room housed newly injured soldiers lying on cots their missing limbs bandaged and properly cleaned.


But the back of the room, well the back of the room was where things changed.


The fruits of operation steel- eye. At least twenty soldiers, this being the first medical tent, she was told there were twenty more soldiers in the second. They did not lay on open beds, but instead hung from the walls in various states of unconsciousness, pinned there by the thick metal contraptions welded to their bodies. A main rod of the metal was riveted down their backs curving around onto their hips and then locking at the knees, similarly with the arms.


Metal protrusions connected to the underarms and over the back of the hands.


It was a strange sight, and made her rather nervous as she somehow felt the wrongness of the steel next to delicate skin and bone.


Theadmiral stepped forward to examine the sleeping soldiers, "We lost 20% of these brave men and women after the first few hours out from the operation. Bacterial meningitis, and the occasional paralysis. A few of them just stopped breathing, but that could have been a reaction to the medication. This is all we have left.


The rundi chair woman stepped forward looking up at the sleeping humans their eyes close, their faces so much more peaceful now. As per usual she was drawn to one human in particular, the only human that she actually knew on sight based on their history together, or their acquaintance.


From her reports, this human had been the first human ever to meet nonhuman life, and had been instrumental in language acquisition for their linguists, and now here he was reduced to nothing more than a piece of hardware to be upgraded and augmented for the purposes of better battle strategy


The thought made her sick and uneasy. The more she thought about it, the more she was coming to realize that the humans and the Drev had more in common than anyone else on this battlefield, both of them were unwaveringly brutal, the Drev with tearing off limbs.... And the humans continually asking their soldiers to give when they had already given so much. With this thought her eyes shot down towards the human's new robotic leg still and silver in the painful overhead lights.


No other species had ever considered such a thing as an alternative option, adding machinery to bioology..... As far as she knew there was nothing human's couldn't replace, and that thought made her wonder.... How far could they go before there was no more human left before the machine took over completely?


As she thought looking up at the sleeping human the admiral came to stand next to her looking up at the face of the sleeping human.


Her eyes drifted downwards, noting a strange dissimilarity in one of the human's arms. With one hand she pointed out, "What is that."


He glanced towards, "Oh, well, that is a drug port."


"A drug port?"


"He nodded, unfortunately due to our time constraints we cant let their injuries fully heal, which means we will be mainlining morphine during combat, but due to the nature of the side effects of morphine, we are going to have to pair it with a drug classified as a stimulant to keep alert during battle."


The rundi chairwoman shifted nervously, "I... not to question your methods admiral, but havent you asked enough from them. First they lose their limbs, then you splice them with robotics, and now you are keeping them drugged."
The admiral looked down at her with a cold unreadable expression, "You wanted us to win this war, and sometimes we have to do things that don't make us sleep so well at night."


There was an awkward pause of silence between them, but she let it go.


What did she know.


The humans probably knew what they were doing.


***


Lieutenant Adam Vir woke slowly, but he did it without pain.


In a somewhat drowsy haze, he floated upwards towards consciousness like one would float upwards through a pool of warm salt water. lights , beginning as big fuzzy circles, soon condensed themselves downwards into sharp points of light. The buzzing in his ears followed suit morphing and churning before turning dowards and sharpening out into a baseless echo. The echo that soon turned and warped again until, "Lieutenant, Lieutenant, can you hear me."


The light jumped first to one eye and then the other.


He blinked past the pain squinting as he tried to make out the room ahead of him.


His fuzzy surroundings condensed, contracted, and then finally sharpened out, to the face of a woman. She was small petite, with black hair pulled up in a bun, and large, thick framed glasses. She had one hand on the side of his face as she flicked the light between his eyes.


He groaned slightly and shifted.


"There were are, that's good, can you focus here on the light and follow it please." It took him a moment to comprehend what she was saying, but finally followed the little pen light with his eyes. She clicked it off andplaced it in her pocket, "Very good." Reaching out she felt the side of his neck and up under his jaw, "Turn your head to the right.... Now left.... Now open your mouth.... Tilt your head back." He did as told, though somewhat groggily. As he tried to tile his head back, he felt something strange flexing with him, "Very good, now can you wiggle your fingers for me." He did as requested tilting his head down to look at his body, which he now realized was hanging upright instead of lying down.


He blinked again, trying to push a haziness from his eyes as he squinted past his hands and down towards his legs. They were bare mostly, which is how he noticed the metal prosthetic so quickly.


He missed her next couple of words as sounds and images came flooding back to him. Ashfall, a dark silhouette looming over him, the sharp point of a spear, and terrible horrible pain.


Something was beeping frantically off to his side.


A hand rested on his arm, "Come on back to us Lieutenant, you're safe here." He opened his eyes again looking over to find the admiral standing next to him, "There we go."


He blinked again.


"How are you feeling?" The man asked


"Not... in pain." He responded thickly


"Try flexing your toes."


He did as told looking downwards. His left foot flexed just fine, but the right remained still. He grew sick felt his stomach churn.


"Hm that.... Wait, hold on there kid, we need to power it on." A sudden relief washed over him as the woman bent down to engage the limb. The Admiral patted his shoulder, and suddenly his eyes widened, he could FEEL his leg, could feel the woman's fingers as they moved across the metal, could feel it as if it was his own skin.


He shivered, and then shuttered goosebumps erupting across his entire body. She looked up at him, "Can you feel that."


He nodded dumbstruck, eyes wide.


"That's good, now do what the good lady says and try to raise your arms."


He did as told, and nearly clobbered himself in the head as his hands and arms flew upwards. He jolted in confusion, staring down at his arms in shock. He flexed hs fingers watching as tiny metal bits flexed with him clicking softly. He flexed his arm again and it felt as if he wasn't even moving it, instead being dragged along by the metal frame which held his body.


He dropped his hands again.


"Reduce the response time on those," the admiral ordered, "Let him get the hang of it first." The woman adjusted something on the leg. He shivered again, feeling her fingers, the sensation was so real, he expected to look down and see his leg back, but predictably it was still metal.


"Go ahead and flex your toes now."


Nervously he did as asked,and this time the toes of the prosthetic twitched and then curled inwards. He moved one, and then the other and then rolled them tilting his head back and closing his eyes, feeling as if he was in ecstasy.


"Good." All around him, the other soldiers were doing the same. Across the way, a soldier, who was missing three of her limbs had tears spilling down her face as she flexed her new arm.


Another was blinking through a robotic eye and speaking for the first time.... With a mechanical jaw.


"Lets lower him down slowly let him feel the ground. They rushed to do as told racing over to the wall and slowly lowering him towards the ground. His feet made contact with cold metal.... He could feel it, the cold through the soles of his feet, the only difference was that.... Without skin, he didn't feel that subtle deflection as skin puckered and flatted about objects.


He tried lifting the knee of the new leg, and it came as told. He flexed the ankle, and the foot moved seamlessly with it.


"Wow."


It was almost as if his leg was back, almost as if....


Embers fell from the sky, and that dark shape moved closer to him fro the darkness.


A hand rested on his shoulder and he jerked away, "Stay with us lieutenant." The admiral moved forward taking him by the shoulders, "Look at me."


He did.


The other man's eyes burned hungrily, "This is your chance.... For revenge, to make them pay for what they did to you."


Adam nodded, but at the same time, something inside him felt very uneasy. IS revenge what he really wanted.... But of course it was... wasn't it, that roach had taken his leg..? But shouldn't he feel more?


"And, you will help win the war, no more casualties, no more pain. You do this and it will all be over, you'll have served the UNSC, the GA, and earth..... Can you do that for me?"


Of course the admiral was right.


"Yes sir." 

Comment