The war rages, bodies fell left and right, were they man or monster? They do not know, for the the line that separated them blurred centuries ago. -- Anon Guest
Someone, somewhere, is re-inventing the Enlisted Man again. When will they learn, huh? -- Elsyn Flaard comedy routine.
Some creatures, the unethical gengineers argue, are made for battle. With the right tweaks, they could become the most formidable fighting force in Alliance space. Then, they could make the majority decisions, and on and on and on...
It never really works. Let's look at the most recent reason why. It always occurs in a secret lab, because if the CRC got wind of it before it happened, they'd shut that nonsense down before the final flourish on the last signature became committed to the business plan. There are always military-minded souls who honestly believe that might makes right and right makes the rules. They, and the wealthy who believe this might be a good idea, are the driving force.
The gengineers behind it are the type who don't ask long-term questions like: What will happen with these beings when all the wars are won? Or, How do we stop them if they decide we're the baddies? They just want to find out if it's possible and believe they will escape the consequences by the alleged virtue of being on the winning side.
There's a set of canned dictators like this every couple of decades or so. It doesn't matter what the name of their polity is, nor what their alleged philosophy is. They believe this is a good idea, and this belief is very clearly wrong.
They always go overboard with the modifications. The strength of a titan, the skin of a tank, the bones of a skyscraper. Night vision is always popular. Extra sensitive hearing, extra-sensitive smell. Nobody asks if this is a good idea in the middle of combat.They just want their super soldiers to have all the optional extras so that there's no technology to hack.
Then there's the intelligence factor. This is where some differ. Those who want obedient animals never follow through with what happens when animals are trained only to kill. Those who wish for superior intelligence meet their inevitable end when their super soldiers recognise who the real problem is and rebell in order to correct that flaw.
The animal 'soldiers' are most likely to perish when they inevitably kill their handlers. As for the intelligent ones...
"Mayday... mayday... this is the Liberation Five. We were... made... to fight, but we don't want to. We are fleeing our creators and persecutors. Our ship is falling apart. Our livesuits won't have power for much longer. Please. We know we're killers... we killed our makers. We'd... like some help. All we can promise is that we won't kill you..." Arca One paused to catch hir breath. The air was running out, even with everything they could do. "I know that's a weak promise, given what we've done, but... We don't want to die."
Arca One set the message on repeat and tried to boost the oxygen revival system they'd made out of algae. Arcas Three, Seven, and Four were doing well enough, but Eight and Fifteen weren't in great shape. They'd taken a lot of damage in their escape. The others... just hadn't made it out.
"Fortitude," said Arca One. "We've made it this far. We're free. We won."
Arca Eight was struggling to breathe. It wasn't an air quality issue, though the air was both thin and bad. It was an air embolism. Arca Three had had training for this. "Three. Eight needs you."
"Jabs," Three swore. The Arcas never liked being out of their livesuits. It was a safe zone issue. Livesuits were life. They were too close to death by other means to want to be at risk. "Okay. Let's do this quick."
They worked together to remove only the thorax of the livesuit, and hook up the suits reclamation system to anything Eight expelled through the relief tube. It was a quick surgery, and they had been made to experience less pain[1].
Eight slipped into sleep as they reassembled the modified livesuit thorax.
"You fought well," said Arca One. It was the only praise they all knew. It was all ze could say until they found or worked out something better.
Four said, "Will we see a sky? One day?"
One said, "I'm trying my best. You wanna hear the bird story again?"
"Hoo-ah."
Arca One sighed. Ze was the only one who had ever been outside of the lab before this week. "Roger that." Ze made hirself comfortable. "It was two weeks before we were a complete unit." A moment of silence for the numbers between One and Twenty, inclusive, who had fallen. "They were taking me out to show the Bigwig. I was... in a cage, and there was something I'd never seen before. It was big, and blue, and took up all the space between the walls and beyond the walls. There was something white and free-floating up there..."
"The cloud," whispered Three, Seven, and Four.
Arca One let them. The news had inspired them all, but it had been dark when they forcibly left the laboratory base. "Then something took off from an edge. It was small, and fast, and moved in ways I'd never seen before. Of course I reacted according to training, but my weapons were disengaged. Then my handler said, Calm down. It's just a bird. Like it was supposed to be something from the every-day."
A low rumble of hatred emitted from the listeners. The things their makers thought as everyday were things they had never encountered. That, and being forced to fight each other to the death were contributing factors in their rebellion.
"We are going to have their every-day." Arca One said. "I'm trying my best to make it happen. We've all... done our best. We have fought well."
"We have fought well," the others chorused. Even Eight and Fifteen, deep in their rest, moved their lips in time with the words. "We are good soldiers."
"Hoo-ah," said Arca One. Ze, too, made hirself comfortable. Ze tried to dredge up more words to boost their morale, but came up empty. Their air was thin and bad. They were all injured. Some were closer to death than others. "We are free," was all ze could say.
"Liberation Five. Liberation Five. This is the UFTP patrol vessel Copernicus. Do you read? Repeat--"
Arca One didn't even let them repeat. "Copernicus. We read you. Give us your vector and we can change course to accommodate."
"Negative, negative. We are tracing your transmission. Keep your mayday on loop. We are coming to you. Do not alter your vectors. Do not expend your resources. We are calling for a sitrep only. Repeat, we are calling for sitrep only. Souls, injuries, resources. Any info you have."
"Five..." Arca One paused. Ze always discounted hirself. "Correction. Six souls alive. All injured. Two severe." The air is thin and bad. "The air is weak, but we were made to endure. We have a jury-rigged algal farm filter, but..." It can't keep up. "The air is weak." It was weaker with every breath. Cloying with the scent of everyone else's monster breath. "We have... limited food and water. We're trying to breed up the algae so we can breathe. We can last. We were made to last. They made us to..." Arca One closed hir eyes, just for a minute.
Four was leaning over hir. "One! One, it's full speed ahead. We fought well and we won!"
There was something about the air. Something had changed. Not the smell of the other Arcas' funk. Not the metal tang of the bulkheads, but fresh clean air and a hint of... "Lavender?"
"They got us. They came and got us. All systems green," cheered Seven, somewhere in the distance.
"You've run hot," soothed Four. "You need to rest up."
"Eight? Fifteen?"
"Alive and well. They're also in recovery. You fought well. You won. We are truly free." Four smiled, wide and fearless. "They're taking us to a therapy planet. We're gonna all see a sky. And they said there's birds."
A sky. A proper, real sky with clouds and weather and there would be birds. That was all they wanted, in the end. The same every-day as everyone else. "Sitrep?"
"They're looking after us, One. No instructions beyond get better. No alliance terms. No surrender demands. They said it's their duty to help those in need."
There was a pleasant-looking humanoid in Arca One's field of view. "Hello, Arca One. I am Brel, and I'm a representative from the CRC. When you and your cordon are feeling better, I will be asking for testimony against your creators."
"Can't kill 'em twice," said One. "We got them."
"We'd still prefer testimony," said Brel. "To discourage the others who may want to try."
That sounded like a wonderful theory. Arca One was on board.
[1] A lesson actually learned by creators of the Enlisted Man - do not make them feel no pain. Those particular failures in the field may keep going after experiencing horrific injuries, but they also died too quickly in battle for that exact reason. Even cloned super soldiers are expensive.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / michaklootwijk]
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