Eliana “Evy” Vissa, leader of Gecko squad, ducked behind the corner just as a spray of bullets peppered the nearby wall. Chunks of composite material pelted her armor and helmet.

  “Dammit,” she said between her teeth.

  The HUD inside her visor displayed a helpful timer counting down. Sixteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds to exfil. It was both not enough time and too much. In a fight, sixteen minutes felt like an eternity. On the flip side, Gecko had to reach their objective, secure it, and then depart the facility. The exfil was a hard deadline. If they delayed much longer, they would have to deal with the Andrani Collective. Then, they’d be hosed.

  Evy checked the mag count of her assault rifle, another helpful digital readout inside the HUD. She hadn’t fired the gun yet, but the number reassured her.

  The voice of Zekk, Gecko’s Choctan slicer and second-in-command, came through comms in a hard whisper. “Four of ‘em, cap. Now?”

  Four combatants. She’d seen Zekk take down more than that in a matter of seconds, but these weren’t run-of-the-mill security guards. They were inside the headquarters of Mamertine Solaris. Tough SOBs, every last one of them. Zekk probably could take out two of these guys, maybe even three on a good day, but four? She couldn’t stand to lose her slicer. Especially not now.

  “Negative,” she said.

  Things had gone pear-shaped not long after they’d arrived. The building was supposed to be empty. Like most Private Military Companies, or PMC for short, Mamertine Solaris operated twenty-four-seven. The op, which had required weeks of planning and preparation, had been carefully timed. The bulk of Mamertine’s forces were supposed to be quelling a small uprising in the Outer Vangles. This coupled with some greased palms and a fake emergency on Level 42 should have meant minimal resistance for Gecko squad.

  Initial progress had been swift. Gecko beat their time marks at each checkpoint. But those gains evaporated not long after they encountered a group of armored heavies and their light machine-guns. Pounder practically ran into them and was promptly turned into hamburger. Bits of him lay spread across the floor and walls all along the corridor.

  Another ballistic volley kept Evy pinned to her cover. Who uses ballistic weapons on a space station? she thought.

  Her rifle fired high-intensity hard light rounds. That was the simple explanation anyway. While it might still punch a hole in a bulkhead somewhere, it would take a lot of rounds to do it. Plus, there was a reduced chance of igniting the air. Explosions, even small ones, did not mix well with the carefully controlled climates of space stations. The tech aboard Gecko’s ship, the Gallant, had spent a long time explaining all of this to Evy.

  “Are they still clumped together?” she asked over comms.

  “Affirmative,” came Zekk’s reply.

  “Standby for burst.”

  A breath later, Zekk replied, “Roger.”

  A she waited for the rhythmic pounding of bullets against the wall to stop, Evy felt for the small canister on her left hip. The torrent finally ceased and she quickly flicked the red tab up, pressed down for a full second. She crouched and flung it around the corner, a practiced throw that rolled straight at her opponents’ feet. Then, she closed her eyes.

  A company special, the Non-Pyrotechnic Diversionary Device, NPDD for short, was a combined flashbang and concussive grenade. Using a compressed CO2 cylinder, bursting cap, and high-intensity LEDs, the NPDD provided both a sonic and concussive burst comparable to your typical flashbang, but without the combustion.

  Even behind the corner, the flash appeared red through her eyelids. The synthetic walls dampened the sound just enough that Evy was able to keep her wits. Shouts from the goons told her the NPDD had done its work. Staying low, she hefted the hard-light rifle and popped around the corner. In the span of a second, she fired three multi-shot bursts at the nearest goon. She targeted different points on his body in a seemingly random pattern. While she hoped to kill him, that was only a secondary objective. Her primary goal was to help Zekk. Even with the heaviest armor, soldiers still had to move. This meant certain parts of the body, namely the joints, had less protection than others. The trick was figuring out the weak points.

  In this case, the inside of the knee, the armpit, and, to Evy’s delight, the neck. A piece of armor covered most the goon’s neck except for a small spot just below the cheek. The goon let out a gurgle as blue-green blood erupted from the point of impact. The goon dropped to his knees and slumped down.

  Like a spider falling on its prey, Zekk the slicer dropped from the ceiling in the midst of the soldiers. Ignoring the disabled trooper Evy took down, Zekk whipped his carbon sword in and out half-dozen times in quick succession. Blood sprayed in all directions forming a macabre fountain of blue-green fluid. Finally, the blade sank into the last soldier’s neck. All four fell to the ground, dead.

  Evy looked at Zekk and, via a series of hand signals, told him to reengage his thermoptic camouflage and move ahead. The reptilian Choctans were naturally quick and silent, making them ideal scouts. Zekk nodded and his lithe form disappeared as thousands of microscopic cameras and projectors built into his suit worked in concert to render him invisible. Where most squads of the SaCaleta Mercenary tended to favor heavy firepower, Evy preferred precisely application of force, a strategy that relied on a good slicer like Zekk.

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  “Forward and fast,” said Evy to the whole squad. “We’re behind schedule and there may be more surprises.”

  Three different replies of “Roger” overlapped over on the comms. Three soldiers fell in behind her as she began moving.

  “What about Pounder?” asked Jingo, Gecko’s heavy. The big Darmjah took up most of the corridor and his head nearly reached the ceiling. Evy knew the question was not one of sympathy; the man wanted to loot his dead teammate’s body.

  “Leave it,” she said sharply as they ran.

  The profit-driven world of mercenaries, especially those in the employ of Carthage, Incorporated, left little room for social niceties. She was sure that if she fell in combat, some of the members of her squad would strip her body of anything they could either sell or use on future missions. Pounder wouldn’t have. Neither would Zekk or Spade, Gecko’s hacker and the only other female. Jingo and Tracer, Gecko’s newest members, had no attachments to anyone on the team. Evy hadn’t wanted them. They had trasnferred from Serpent squad, a team known for its ruthlessness both in combat and in general demeanor. But someone at Carthage had asked for Gecko specifically, and SaCaleta execs, in their eagerness to please, hadn’t given Evy time to properly vet these prospects backfilling the open slots on her team.

  She’d have to watch her back to make sure they didn’t try anything when they reached the objective. Especially Tracer, the sharpshooter. She’d heard the stories and seen his stat sheet. She also knew his squads had unusually high mission casualty rates from “accidental” friendly fire. Plus, the man talked a lot.

  She checked the timer. Fourteen minutes forty-five seconds. Right now, Evy couldn’t worry about what might happen, only what was in front of her. She segmented her concerns into the back corner of her mind and pressed forward.

  The team moved through corridor after corridor until they arrived at large chamber. The room was dark save for the red lights that ran along a central catwalk that passed over a larger space. A pungent stink filled the air.

  “Ugh, what’s that smell?” said Jingo.

  Evy checked the environmental quality on her visor’s readout. The air was breathable but contained elements of gases and trace organic material.

  She waved the light on her assault rifle over the edge of the railing.

  “Dear gods,” she said, feeling the air leave her lungs.

  Hundreds, possibly thousands of bodies lay in heaps and piles at the bottom of the chamber. They all looked the same, as though pressed and manufactured from a mold. She saw synthetic material blended seamlessly with flesh and muscle. Were those scales covering? It was hard to tell from this high up.

  “Don’t see that every day,” said Tracer in his farmer’s drawl.

  “Disgusting,” said Jingo, sounding a little nauseated.

  “What’s the matter, big man?” said Evy. “Never seen dead bodies before?”

  She could feel his glare from behind his visor as he straightened and said, “Seen plenty. We done wasting time?”

  Evy grinned inside her helmet and moved forward once again, this time at a faster pace. She wouldn’t admit it to the team, but the sight and smell had made her queasy. Just what kind of place was this? She hoped there would be no further surprises awaiting them ahead.

  -+-+-

  Specimen 2246B awoke. Sickly yellow fluid filled its vision. It then realized that it could not breathe. Wait, did it need to breathe? 2246B calmed as it realized that it did not, in fact, need to breathe. It registered sound from beyond the yellow fluid. It could not discern the nature of the sounds, but it thought it heard shouting and a rhythmic whine. These sounds sent a wave of distress through 2246B. Fear? This was a new sensation.

  Suddenly, a shadow passed over the fluid and stopped. The shadow said something, but 2246B could not make out what. Then came a muffled click and a ripping sound. As the ripping continued, the yellow fluid shifted and began draining downward. A few seconds after, 2246B followed the fluid and passed through a narrow gap in a synthetic membrane. It hit the hard ground and crumpled into a heap. Was that...pain? Another new sensation. The rhythmic whine was louder now.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” said a frantic voice. “Are you alright?”

  2246B had trouble seeing. The viscous yellow goop still covered its eyes and, well, everything else. It tried to wipe its face with its hands, but with its fingers covered in the goop, it didn’t help much.

  “Oh geez,” said the voice, almost shouting to be heard above the alarm, “what a mess. Hold on. Stay put.”

  2246B obeyed the command and waited. While it waited it tried to process what was happening. Within the span of mere seconds, it had gained consciousness for the first time, experienced its first emotion, and then its first physical sensation. As it took these things in, it experienced something else new: confusion. Questions like “How?” and “Why?” suddenly took on importance, meaning.

  “Here,” said the figure as it returned. “It’s not much, but it will help you get a little cleaned up.”

  2246B felt something soft in its hands, a thick sort of fabric. It took a moment to realize that the voice wanted 2246B to wipe its face with the fabric. 2246B did so and soon it could see more clearly. The room was dark, lit only by a series of small white floor lights and a pulsing red light above an open doorway.

  The figure with the voice sat crouched nearby. 2246B ran its eyes over the figure. Human male. Late-twenties to early-thirties. Thin and tall. Round glasses. Some of the yellow fluid had splashed onto his dress shirt and slacks. A plastic badge dangled from a clip attached to the breast pocket of his shirt. It had a picture of the man smiling awkwardly, a series of numbers below the picture, and below the numbers, in smaller print, was the name Nikolus Dimitriou. Was he an office worker? The lighting made further observations difficult.

  2246B stared at the name and then, to its own surprise, said, “Ni...ko…lus?” Its voice sounded childlike, neither male nor female, with a perceivable synthetic tinge.

  Nikolus blinked at 2246B. “That’s right,” he finally said with a smile. “Call me Niko, please. You must have a lot of questions.”

  2246B did have a lot of questions.

  “But they will have to wait,” continued Niko. “We’re in danger and we need to get out of here.”

  “Dan…ger?” said 2246B.

  Niko nodded. “There are some...bad people coming.”

  2246B took in the room once more. Behind, a pod hung from some sort of apparatus. An empty sack of fog-white translucent material hung limply. Several more pods hung to the right and left of 2246B’s former pod. Two more rows of pods sat behind this one, all of them were filled with the same sickly yellow goop and murky figures inside. Combined with the flashing red light, dark shadows, and loud siren made for a frightening place. Getting away from it seemed like a good idea to 2246B.

  “Can you stand?” asked Niko. He reached out a hand to 2246B. It accepted the man’s hand and got to its feet.

  2246B looked down at its own limbs, suddenly aware of their presence. It worked each digit in quick succession, marveling at the smooth, quick motions. It noted the scales that covered its body and how each finger and toe was tipped with a sharp claw. Then it caught sight of its own reflection in a dark screen.

  Somehow, something inside its bio-cybernetic brain recognized 2246B as a female/girl/woman. It also recognized itself as a dragon.