Two weeks later, the air in the armory still smelled of ozone and metal, but now it was undercut by the scent of lemon-scented polish and the warm, earthy smell of carbon-fiber weave. It was a cleaner smell, a more professional one. Progress.

  Chief Warrant Officer Wasserman stood before the suit of armor, his arms crossed, his head tilted in that familiar, analytical way that made my stomach do a funny little flip-flop. The suit was a world away from the Mark One abomination. It stood almost seven feet tall, but its lines were sleek, powerful, and unmistakably anthropomorphic. It looked less like a machine and more like a statue of a mythological warrior carved from titanium and polished to a muted sheen.

  “So this is the Mark Five?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that did nothing to calm my nervous system.

  I nodded, practically vibrating with the need to info-dump all over him. “Yes, sir. I haven’t gotten started on the heavy weapons platforms yet—the BIG suits—but I am hoping the captain will authorize a low-risk unit rift to give these a proper field test. Right now, I only have three operational. The reason this one is so tall is that I custom-designed it for Lance Corporal Steel. He’s a big man, Warrant. Like, ‘hits his head on standard doorframes’ big.”

  “And he’s tested it? Thoroughly?”

  I nodded again, my head bobbing like a drinking bird. “Both he and Corporal Lindsay have put their suits through the paces in the main cargo bay obstacle course. I fixed the Mark Three’s problems with energy channeling and focus bleed. And, umm… I had Dienne-Lar work on the aesthetics a little.” I braced myself.

  Wasserman’s good eye flicked over the suit’s muscular contours. “The aesthetics?”

  “Yeah.” I scuffed my boot on the deck plating. “Even Dirk said the Mark Four was an ‘atrocity against god and man.’ The self-repair manipulators… the tendril-like micro-grapplers… they uhh… apparently strongly provoked atavistic reactions that my research didn’t predict.”

  He didn’t even blink. “People have deep-seated, species-wide nightmares about scavenging tendrils bursting out of their joints and backsides like a nest of metal worms. It’s a common phobia, especially among veterans who’ve fought certain xenoforms. What did Dienne-Lar change?”

  I looked at David a little grumpily. It had been a beautifully efficient design. “He insisted on using miniaturized kinetic manipulator fields for the self-repair and fine manipulation functions. I mean, I get it, it’s less… visceral. But it’s also less energy-efficient and more complex to maintain. He said there are rifts where bio-mechanical monsters can do the tendril thing and that it would freak people the hell out right before a fight.”

  David nodded, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “There absolutely are. I’ve seen it. Good call getting him involved. His particular brand of paranoia is usually well-founded.” He gestured at the suit’s sculpted pectorals and defined abdominal plating. “Was he also the reason the suits look uhh… Muscular? Like a bodybuilder from a pre-spaceflight vid?”

  I felt a blush creeping up my neck. “Yeah, that was him. I sorta wanted to add more functional plating, more angular, armored segments. But he and Braxis both pointed out that if I tried to put reinforced servos and hydraulic packs at every joint, it wouldn’t just look inhuman, it would actively interfere with trained reflexes, flexibility, and certain close-combat traits. The form needs to follow function, and the function is a marine. Also,” I added, dropping my voice, “Dienne-Lar may prefer females, but he apparently also has a certain… artistic appreciation… for herculean male forms. He called it ‘optimizing morale for all crew demographics.’”

  Chief Wasserman let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. It was a rare sound, and it warmed me from the inside out. “Yeah, that tracks. But it was a good choice. It looks like one of those ancient Greek statues the Old World keeps in museums, but made out of modern composite and pure menace. Can you give me the full rundown? Impress me.”

  I stood a little straighter, appreciating the praise even as my brain scrambled to organize the specs into a coherent briefing. He wants to be impressed. Okay. Don’t screw this up.

  “Well, first off, a caveat: even with all of the Crow’s top-tier fabrication facilities, these things can’t be mass-produced. Each one is essentially a custom-built masterwork. If the wearer’s physical shape changes too dramatically—if someone gets too muscular, or, uhh… develops a fondness for the ship’s pudding rations—it would have to be significantly rebuilt and re-keyed. Each suit takes me a solid day just to assemble and calibrate, and that’s with the drone bays printing ninety percent of the components.”

  He nodded. “That’s still a monumental step up. Most custom-enchanted armor can take a team of master artisans a year to complete. Leaning on your unique traits and affinities isn’t a bad thing, Roisin. Just be mindful of your own energy reserves. Don’t run yourself dry trying to outfit the whole battalion by tomorrow.”

  The concern in his voice, however professionally veiled, made my blush deepen. I quickly adopted a more formal tone. “Understood, sir. Now, for the specs. These Mark Five models are officially classified as Class Three, copper-tier magitech enchanted armor. They provide full environmental and thermal protection: up to 1500 degrees Kelvin passively—that’s the melting point of standard steel—or 2000 degrees for up to ten minutes as long as there is sufficient energy for the active cooling systems. On the cold side, it’s rated for 12 degrees Kelvin passively, or near-absolute zero with the heating systems engaged. Radiation shielding is rated up to 80 kilorads. And it has the standard Fleet package of ten thousand hours of closed-loop air reclamation and filtration.”

  “Ten thousand hours?” he interrupted, a note of real surprise in his voice. “That’s… significantly beyond standard.”

  I couldn’t hide a proud smile. “Ten thousand, four hundred and twenty, modified by the fitness of the wearer, of course. Technically it’s standard for the scuttle pods, not combat fliers or worksuits. You can also extend that duration, or power the active thermal systems indefinitely, if you can replace the core energy cells as they are expended, or if you give the cores time to passively recharge in a low-draw environment. It’s all shielded magitech circulation, not standard electricity, as per Dienne-Lar’s suggestion. The primary electrical system uses a cool hydrogen micro-fusion bottle that can draw on your internal air supply in a pinch for catalysis, which, again, the cores can help recharge.”

  He let out a low whistle. “I am not even going to comment on how insane that energy system is on its own. That’s black-box tech most cruisers would kill for. Keep going.”

  Emboldened, I did. “Okay, umm, defensive enchantments. It has solid spiritual and necrotic protection, which Kessler helped me ward and attune. Rated up to low Silver Tier. I wanted to try for mid-silver or even gold tier, but the only gold-tier spiritual-linked individual we have on board is you, and your system is still…” I trailed off, not wanting to state the obvious.

  “Busy purging a lich’s farewell gift,” he finished for me, his voice flat. “Understood. Continue.”

  “Kinetic redistribution and absorption systems. The armor’s physical plating is copper-tier material, but with the integrated copper-tier kinetic absorption matrices, it can handle and dissipate impacts up to low silver-ranked attacks in most cases. Between that and the thermal diffusion systems, it should be able to handle brief bursts of high-ranked plasma. Acid resistance is only up to high steel rank, though. That’s a materials limitation I’m still working on. Fully electrically and Faraday shielded up to gold rank, but that’s just a matter of physics and sufficient grounding, as is the vibration and concussive shock-wave damping. Zero specific psychic shielding, but that’s basically because I have no idea how to ward against a mental attack without a psion’s help.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He gave a slight, approving nod. “If you have it EMP and Faraday shielded to gold rank, the nature of the shielding inherently provides a decent level of passive psychic damping. It creates a kind of white-noise field that most low-level telepaths find irritating or impossible to read through. How’s it start?”

  Here was the first real downside. I sighed. “That’s the trade-off. The initial neural adaptation for the core synchronization and data-system handshake takes almost half an hour. I tried to cut it down, but the more systems you add, the longer the initial link takes to calibrate. It’s a fundamental law of magitech interface; it’s true even if you’re adapting to gear piecemeal. Once you have it fully customized to your neural pattern, though, subsequent activations only take about twenty seconds for a full suit-up.” I gestured at the open suit. “That’s where the other downside comes in.”

  “Another one?” he asked, a dry amusement in his tone.

  I nodded and pointed to a large, boxy contraption against the wall that looked like a high-tech coffin. “Yes. You can eject the armor pieces manually in an emergency via explosive bolts—it’s a last resort—but getting it re-enabled, manually reconnecting all the physical and neural junctions, takes an engineer almost half an hour per suit. Alternatively, you can store it in a dedicated charging and maintenance bay like this one.” I patted the box. “It will let you suit up or de-suit in under thirty seconds, fully enabled and charged. The downside is that each bay is customized to a particular suit. That means we need to find space for these things in the main armory, or install them in individual marine berths.”

  I shrugged. “The Mark Four had a different solution. It could unfold and you could just sort of step backwards into it while it adjusted and sealed itself around you. It was faster. But Commander Taera took one look at it and said it was ‘too creepy, like climbing up Cthulhu’s belly button’—whatever that means—and that it was also a massive security vulnerability that enemy data-knights or electronic warfare suites could potentially exploit.”

  David actually smiled at that, a real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made my heart do a ridiculous little tap-dance against my ribs. “Taera’s analogies are always… vivid. And she’s right. The vulnerability is unacceptable. I’d rather deal with the logistics of installing armor bays in the berthing than have my marines locked into a compromised suit because an enemy hacker triggered a lockdown sequence. It’s a solvable problem. So far, this all looks and sounds amazing.” He paused, his expression turning serious. “I hope you put some serious transfer protection software in the core programming, though.”

  “Transfer protection?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Anti-theft countermeasures,” he clarified. “Roisin, this armor is damned close to an epic-rated copper-tier item. Actually, it might already qualify. That means every two-bit warlord, corporate security force, and rival privateer in the sector would kill to get their hands on it. We need to make sure that if a marine dies in the field, the suit doesn’t just become a prize for the enemy. It should have a dead-man’s switch, core meltdown protocols, something that renders it useless to anyone not authorized on its very, very short user list.”

  I blinked. I’d been so focused on making it work, I hadn’t even considered someone might want to steal it. You really are an innocent, aren’t you? “I… can add something, I guess. An energy feedback loop tied to the wearer’s lifesigns. But you might want to let the ship’s data security and intelligence teams have a crack at it afterwards. I am not really good at the… malicious compliance… part of design.”

  He nodded. “Consider it a top priority. I’ll have someone from that shop contact you. Now, you said there was more? After all that, you make it sound like you’re just getting started.”

  I nodded, enthusiasm returning. “Yep. Not a huge amount more, but when I said marine traits could be used, I wasn’t kidding. Since I couldn’t use traditional servos without making it look like a lumbering trash can, I talked to the Chief Engineer. Did you know we had a nanoweaver specialist onboard? In engineering?”

  He shook his head. “No, but with the number of high-level rifts this ship hunts, it doesn’t surprise me. What Tier?”

  “Silver,” I replied, still a little in awe of it myself. “But that’s another reason the suits look almost organic. The musculature isn’t pistons and hydraulics. It’s a carbon nano-fiber pressure-weave that simulates an endoskeletal muscular system. It responds to neural impulses. That means you can use your own copper-tier endurance or might boosts to multiply the suit’s effective strength. Dirk, for example, can easily out-lift and out-punch a low iron-rank opponent if he’s wearing the suit and pushing his traits, and his innate class-related durability bonuses TRANSLATE to the suit structure. We might need to invest in some new melee weapons, though, since the copper-ranked combat knives and impact mauls most of the troopers have as backups won’t hold up well to iron-ranked levels of abuse. They’ll shatter.”

  “Noted. I’ll speak to the quartermaster. We might have some iron-rank spares in the vaults.”

  “The same carbon-weave principle is true for the handplates, helmet frame, kneeplates, and the entire calf and foot assembly. It’s all nano-weave, but it’s sheathed in iron-ranked alloy plating I… procured… from the ship’s secondary strategic reserves.” I winced. “Yes, I got formal permission from Commander Taera, but it was a fight. Otherwise, a hand-to-hand fight against an iron-rank opponent would shred the armor. That’s also why we really need to hit a resource rift soon… Iron-ranked metal isn’t cheap. I kinda spent all of my recent shares and then some.”

  David laughed, a rich, warm sound that seemed to make the lights in the armory brighter. “Remember the awards ceremony after Kalisti? Dirk chewed out every person who was bitching about you getting an extra share. He said you were a tech, and that every credit would inevitably be funneled right back into ‘toys to keep our asses alive.’ Seems he was right.”

  I blushed, looking down at my boots. “Uhh… well, I also got some snacks. And a new, umm… outfit. You know, in case we ever have shore leave on a station that has something I can’t go to in uniform. And I saved a little. A very little.”

  He smirked, and my heart did that tap-dance again. “Priorities. So, is there anything else? Or have you finally reached the limits of your terrifying ingenuity for today?”

  I thought about it, running through the mental list. “There were some other systems I wanted to add—limited flight via gravitational manipulation, enhanced sensor spoofing—but Braxis put a hold on it. He said it would make the soldiers too dependent on the tech and let their own skills atrophy. Umm, what else… standard package includes mag-boots and mag-clamps for hull breaches and orbital insertions, full climbing kit, internal inertial dampeners rated for up to 200 G’s of sudden acceleration, standard in-rift comms package, multi-spectrum floodlights, standard weapon aiming and data-connection jacks, an advanced sensor suite with target acquisition, tracking, GPS, and IFF recognition…”

  I snapped my fingers. “Oh! And Murphy helped me set up an integrated emergency medical suite and a full medical lockdown system.”

  “Lockdown system?” he asked, intrigued.

  “Yeah. The medical suite is standardized—bio-monitors, auto-tourniquets, painkiller and stimulant injectors, the basics. Then I have a core-powered emergency field trauma system that can stabilize damage the standard autodoc can’t handle, buying time for evac. And then, if your lifesigns drop to zero despite all that…” I took a breath. “…the suit itself institutes a full, immediate petrification protocol. It’s revocable.”

  “Like… the actual spell? Petrification?”

  I nodded. “Yes. But it’s a revocable stasis effect, so it behaves like an instant, perfect cryogenic suspension system without all the mucking about with freezing fluids, cellular ice-crystal damage, and accidental shattering upon thaw. Murphy says that as long as the wearer’s head and spine are mostly intact, the suit will put them in stasis and she’ll have a fighting chance to bring them back. She calls it the ‘goblin option.’ Because sometimes, not being dead is just a matter of refusing to admit you’ve been killed.”

  Wasserman was silent for a long moment, just staring at the suit. He slowly shook his head, a look of profound respect on his scarred face. “That’s a hell of a lot of innovation, Gabrielle. Especially in only two weeks. How many ranks did your little cabal of mad scientists get out of this?”

  I blushed for what felt like the tenth time. “Murphy got two ranks in her Medic and Biokinesis traits. Kessler got one in Warding. Braxis got one in Systems Analysis, which surprised him because he’s a lot higher tier. Dienne-Lar got one in Magitech Integration.”

  “And you?” he asked, his single eye locking onto mine.

  I looked away, suddenly fascinated by a seam in the deck plating. “Three ranks. I’m high copper now, knocking on the door of iron. I also got a ton of trait upgrades. Technomancer’s Touch improved, Micro-Swarm Control evolved into Macro-System Integration, and I unlocked a new one: Magitech Synthesis. It lets me… feel the right way to put things together. It’s hard to explain.”

  I finally dared to look back at him. He was still looking at me with that same unreadable expression, a mix of pride, awe, and something else I was afraid to name.

  “You,” he said quietly, “are a force of nature.”

  And for once, the churning chaos of my thoughts—the fear, the anxiety, the constant calculations—went perfectly, blissfully silent.