The air in Drone Bay #6 smelled of ozone, hot metal, and the faint, sweet-rot scent of active monster cores. It was a perfume of potential and imminent catastrophe, and right now, most of that potential was focused on the eight-foot-tall monstrosity standing in the center of the bay. To me, it was a thing of brutal, pragmatic beauty—a symphony of scavenged parts and desperate innovation. To the marine standing before it, it probably looked like a mechanized fever dream or a workout machine designed by the Marquis De Sade.

  Dirk, a mountain of a man whose copper-tier physique seemed to strain the very fabric of his utilities, eyed the suit with a skepticism so thick you could chip it off and use it for hull patch. His arms were crossed, the motion making the tattoos on his biceps—a stylized kraken and a Fleet anchor—writhe.

  “That’s armor?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that competed with the bay’s background hum. He leaned forward, squinting. “Looks more like a drone that lost a fight with a compactor. Or maybe a cyborg’s ugly cousin. I don’t have to do anything weird to wear it, do I? Like, bleed on it? Recite poetry to its motherboard?”

  I shook my head, my own nerves making the motion a little too quick. Stay cool, Roisin. You’re the expert here. Even if you feel like a fraud who’s about to get a marine digested. “Not even remotely. I paired some low tin-tier monster cores—mostly from those rock-skinned badgers you culled on Paxis III—with a base-level drone chassis. The control schema is a hybrid. It’ll be keyed to your nervous system, sort of like a Caliban implant’s secondary functions, but the interface operates more like an atmospheric fighter’s stick-and-rudder system. Simplified, obviously.”

  I gestured him closer and swung open the chest plate on creaking hinges, revealing the interior. The smell of new plastics and lubricant wafted out. “It’s a prototype, Mark One. I made sure your limbs don’t physically fold into the suit’s limbs like a standard Exo-suit. That’s a good way to get your arms and legs pulped if the hydraulics glitch. It’s going to be a little tight in there, a bit like being in a really aggressive hug. Right now, I am still working out the finer points of the control system, so hopefully it won’t try to… assimilate you. Like a pure golem sometimes does with organic matter it mistakes for spare parts.”

  Dirk’s eyebrows shot up. “Hopefully?”

  I offered him my best, most winning grin. It felt brittle on my face. “It won’t try to digest you. I promise. That’s why the core motivators are locked down under three separate safeties until it fully calibrates to your bio-signature. Think of it like… have you ever used a performance-enhancing enchanted item? A belt of might, something like that?”

  He nodded slowly, his eyes still wary. “Aye. Borrowed one once. Felt like I could punch through a bulkhead. Did punch through a bulkhead, actually. Got KP for a month.”

  “Right. It’s sort of like that. If you try to use a high-tier enchantment without giving it a blood signature, or time to adapt to your energy pattern, or without training your own body to handle the new power, it either fizzles or you wind up hurting yourself. Badly. Wrenching muscles you didn’t know you had, dislocating your own joints, turning your skeleton into a collection of suggestions.” I pointed into the cockpit. “That’s why the interior is as big as it is, with all this padding and negative space… so there’s no way for the suit’s movements to translate into shearing forces on your actual body. It’s all mental link, handles, and foot pedals.”

  There was also the small fact that I’d basically cannibalized a standard-issue maintenance pod for about sixty percent of the chassis. But since Dirk wasn’t a maintenance engineer and wouldn’t recognize the tell-tale mounting points for grapplers and laser scalpels, he didn’t need to know that. The thing looked like a maintenance pod that had hit the gym, gotten angry, and grown proportional arms and legs. Most importantly, instead of the standard, sluggish drone brain, I’d yanked it out and upgraded the whole system to a tin-rank matrix, adding a grand total of three monster cores to power and provide basic assist to the limbs.

  In theory, his foot pedals should drive the legs forward and backward. The arm cores should help power his limbs and allow them to act as quickly as he could mentally command, at least up to tin-rank reaction speeds. And the crude nerve-link interface I’d cobbled together from a med-scanner and a targeting helmet should help his own sense of balance and proprioception translate to the suit. In theory.

  “So why me?” Dirk asked, pulling me from my technical reverie. “Out of all the jarheads on this tub, why’d you pick me to be the first course for your potential people-eater?”

  I smiled, this time with a bit more genuine warmth. He was asking the right questions. “Two reasons. First, you are a copper-tier warrior. The suit’s arms and legs are only rated for tin-tier reaction and strength. That means you should be able to consciously tone down your own natural speed and power to match the suit’s limits, which is crucial for testing if the response curves are accurate without overloading the systems. You’ve got the fine control.”

  I pointed a thumb at the cockpit. “Second, and more importantly, the cockpit shell is only standard-grade steel and vacuum-molded plastic. That means if anything goes catastrophically wrong—if it does decide you look tasty—you are more than capable of ripping your way out like a newborn kraken.”

  I leaned in conspiratorially. “And if it works as it should? You get an ‘Experimental Systems Pilot’ qualification on your record. That’s something almost no Marines other than drop-ship pilots ever get. Means a pay bump, extra hazard-duty stipends, and…” I paused for effect, “…I will owe you a HUGE favor. The kind of favor a budding tech-mage doesn’t offer lightly.”

  That got him. A slow grin spread across his face. The promise of extra cred was one thing, but a marker from the ship’s emerging miracle worker was another entirely. He nodded, a decisive dip of his chin. “Alright, gremlin. Let’s do it. Where do I sit?”

  I pulled the command seat out on its swivel mount. Honestly, the thing was a nightmare of exposed wiring and hastily-routed conduit, a monument to frantic, caffeine-fueled inspiration. It would be useless in an actual fight; tin-ranked limbs were pathetically weaker and slower than what Dirk could do bare-knuckled. But for a proof-of-concept system, a first step on a road that could change everything for the troopers? It had to be fine. I hoped.

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  “Remember,” I said, my voice slipping into a rehearsed checklist tone. “Give it a few minutes after closure until the main screen flashes ‘Neural Link Established’ in green. It shouldn’t hurt, but it might feel… strange. Like a limb that’s fallen asleep, but for your whole body. When the link is solid, put your hands in the manipulator grips and test the fingers. Then put your feet into the lower pedal assemblies. You should be able to walk slowly and move the arms with up to tin-tier speed and strength.”

  He nodded, sliding his large frame into the surprisingly tiny cockpit. He swiveled the chair until he faced the front, the harness auto-latching across his chest with a series of solid clicks. “Okay,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the enclosing hull. “How do I start it?”

  I couldn’t help a dry chuckle. “You don’t, I do. Later models will hopefully be idiot-proof—no offense—and just work when you seal the canopy.” I moved to the external control panel, my fingers hovering over the activation rune.

  Please don’t explode. Please don’t explode. Please don’t turn him into chum. Not that I really thought it could… Dirk was TOUGH compared to the machine he was nested in. It would be like getting burned by one of those children’s cookie ovens that use a light bulb for a heat source. Possible but unlikely. I tapped the rune.

  A low, resonant hum filled the bay as the monster cores spun up. Lights flickered across the internal displays, casting a green glow on Dirk’s face. I held my breath. No screaming. No sizzling sounds. That was a good sign.

  “So if this is weaker than standard copper-tier armor,” Dirk’s voice came through the tinny, internal speaker, “and gives less of a force boost than just my own traits, what’s the point? Why not just issue better gear?”

  I relaxed a fraction. He was thinking. Good. “This is a prototype, Dirk. That means I’m experimenting with the core principles. I’ve purposefully cut back the strength and speed enhancements to safe, testable levels. But if this works, it means I can create a platform—a frame—that can be scaled. I can create enchanted armor that boosts your speed, durability, endurance, strength, and maybe even increases your weapons loadout without you having to physically carry the weight. It’s a force multiplier.”

  “Cool. So wait, you are going to do this for ALL the marines? Every single one of us?”

  I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “If I can. That’s the goal. Normal enchanted gear uses hefty materials, expensive runic inscriptions, and rare alchemical reagents to work. That makes it insanely expensive, even for minor boosts. A single copper-ranked sword can cost more than a marine’s annual salary. If this works, I can use the ship’s fabricators and common monster cores to give each of you a suit that provides significant enhancements. And unlike traditional enchanted armor, it won’t leech your personal core energy to function. It has its own power source. At a minimum, I should be able to incorporate drone systems for self-repair, all the enhancements I mentioned, and maybe more…”

  “More?” he asked, interest piqued.

  “Yeah. Imagine a powered suit that can handle environmental conditions meant for starships or heavy fighters, but with all your marine Close Quarters Battle traits and techniques unlocked and amplified. You could operate in a vacuum, under intense pressure, in an acid atmosphere… all while hitting like a freight train.”

  “Cool… Hey, it says neural link established. You were wrong, though; it does hurt a little. Not bad. Like a static shock running down my spine and out to my fingertips.”

  I winced and quickly adjusted the feedback dampeners on my panel. The initial power surge was probably a bit too enthusiastic. A final product needed to feel like a second skin, not a low-grade taser. That seamless integration was the holy grail I was chasing, the thing that separated this from a standard, subdural neural link like the one that was slowly killing David. Don’t think about David. Focus.

  “Alright, the shock is gone,” Dirk reported. “What next, boss?”

  “Go ahead and lift the suit’s arms in front of you,” I instructed.

  The massive, crude metal arms lifted smoothly, without a single jerky motion or hydraulic whine. A weird surge of pride washed over me, so potent it almost felt like a physical warmth. It works. By the lost gods, it actually works. He wasn’t a golemancer or a drone controller. He was a grunt. And the machine was obeying his commands as if they were its own.

  “Okay, now try to carefully tap the suit’s fingers together, one set at a time.”

  I heard Dirk chuckle over the speaker as he began tapping the thick, steel digits together. Click. Click. Click. Then he clenched his fists, and the suit mimicked the motion, the metal groaning in protest. He made the arms perform a slow, deliberate bench-press motion. After a moment, he started drumming the drone’s fingers rhythmically on its thick thigh plates, pounding out a complex, marching beat surprisingly quickly.

  “Okay, my fingers work great,” he said, a note of delight in his voice. “It’s hard to move the arms without wanting to move my real arms, though. The link makes my shoulders twitch. I can sort of feel my fingertips ticking together. Is this what success smells like? Smells like ozone and my own sweat.”

  I grinned. “That’s exactly what it smells like. Okay, let’s try the big one. Try to take a step forward. Very, very slowly. Remember, your actual knees aren’t moving; you’re controlling the legs with the foot pedals and mental impulses for balance…”

  I winced as the suit’s leg slid forward awkwardly. The whole rig overbalanced, teetered for a heart-stopping second, and then slammed sideways into the deck with a crash that echoed through the entire bay. Well, there’s the catastrophe.

  After a lot of swearing, grunting, and mechanical wrangling, Dirk was able to get the drone back on its feet by using one arm as a massive lever to push itself upright. “Okay,” he grumbled, his voice strained. “I don’t like this. Trying to balance with just my brain and my feet is a total pain. This is worse than my first zero-G drill.” He began to walk forward down the length of the drone bay, then backwards, his movements becoming more confident with each step. Then he tried a few hops. The thunderous CLANG of metal feet impacting the deck was nearly as loud as one of the ship’s assault golems on the march.

  I monitored the suit’s diagnostics frantically. No overexertion alarms. No hyperextension warnings. The reflexes were sluggish compared to Dirk’s natural copper-tier speed, but that was expected for a tin-tier control system. The structure was holding. The link was stable.

  “Okay, Dirk, it’s time for the hard part,” I announced.

  “The hard part? What, you mean there’s something harder than not falling on my ass?”

  “Yep. The mobility test was mostly successful. It’s time to shut down and exit the prototype. It didn’t try to eat you, did it?”

  Dirk’s voice almost squeaked. “No… what do I do?” The sudden vulnerability in the big marine’s voice was almost comical.

  I talked him through the multi-step shutdown process, my heart finally slowing to a normal rhythm. The first hurdle was cleared. Now I just needed to do it a few dozen more times, each iteration better than the last.