I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Command restricted the C-19 report less than an hour after their return.

Nate discovered it when the transfer manifest disappeared from his terminal while he was reading it.

ACCESS RESTRICTED

He tried reopening the mission archive.

Same result.

Kellan noticed from the bunk opposite his.

"That was fast."

"You expected it?"

"I expected someone to become interested once Malvern showed up."

Kellan was cleaning his rifle. He had been quieter since C-19, though Nate had learned better than to question every silence.

"What was Malvern?"

Kellan kept working.

"An attrition site."

Nate waited.

This time, Kellan continued.

"The Empire tested equipment there before it reached regular units."

"Using soldiers?"

"Among others."

"What does that mean?"

Kellan slid the bolt back into the rifle.

"It means they preferred people whose deaths created less paperwork."

Nate looked across the barracks.

Two prisoners were arguing quietly near the far wall. Another man slept with a suppression collar around his neck.

Last Contact suddenly felt less original.

Before Nate could ask anything else, Cade entered.

"Calder. Medical."

"My restriction ended."

"This isn’t about the restriction."

The medic scanned Nate’s Circuit twice.

Then she went over the pathway beneath his shoulder again.

"You actually listened."

"Mostly."

"That wasn’t praise."

She moved the scanner toward the structure around Body Memory.

"The pathway is stable. The damaged section isn’t perfect, but normal circulation won’t reopen it unless you do something stupid."

Nate placed the Anchor Resin case on the table.

The medic looked at it.

"No."

"I haven’t asked anything."

"You brought Anchor Resin into my examination room."

"I want to know when I can use it."

"Not today."

"Tomorrow?"

"Two days."

Nate frowned.

She pointed the scanner at him.

"Two days, Calder."

He put the case away.

Two days was nothing.

What bothered him more was watching Last Contact deploy without him the following morning.

A recovery team had gone missing near an old pumping station south of the capital. Cade took Dax, Varek and three other members while Nate remained at the depot.

Kellan had been assigned to another field group.

For the first time since arriving at Last Contact, Nate had nowhere to go.

He trained without circulation until his shoulder started aching, then spent the rest of the day reading everything he could find about Node formation.

Most of it was useless to him.

Normal Awakened did not deliberately prepare an empty Node. Their Class expanded its structure when another Skill became available.

Path Reclaimer required Nate to do the opposite.

He needed the space before he found the Skill.

Two days after C-19, Nate locked himself inside one of the unused circulation rooms.

One vial of Anchor Resin sat beside him.

The second remained sealed in his locker.

He drank the first portion.

The liquid tasted bitter and metallic.

Nate closed his eyes.

His First Circuit completed a slow loop.

Then another.

He let the rhythm settle before guiding energy past Body Memory and into the unfinished branch he had spent weeks reinforcing.

Normally, the structure weakened as soon as he reduced pressure.

With the Resin moving through him, it held.

Nate widened the pathway carefully.

Pain gathered beneath his ribs.

He slowed rather than forcing it.

The shape remained.

He continued.

Time became difficult to judge.

Sweat ran down his back. His legs went numb long before the new structure was stable enough to support itself.

Body Memory corrected the worst of his posture whenever exhaustion caused him to slump, but Nate kept the Skill from taking more energy than necessary.

He needed almost everything for the Node.

The first dose began to fade.

Nate drank the rest of the vial.

The difference was immediate.

The unfinished pathway stopped resisting every adjustment.

He circulated again, tightening the structure a little at a time until energy could enter the new space and return without deforming it.

His Circuit shook once.

Nate stopped.

He waited until the tremor passed, then resumed.

Near midnight, the Node finally held without his help.

Nate circulated through it once.

Nothing occupied the space.

No Skill appeared.

No Echo answered.

He checked it a second time.

Stable.

Empty.

Exactly what he had wanted.

Nate opened his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

For the first time since awakening, he had somewhere to put another rejected Skill.

His terminal vibrated beside him.

RETURNING UNIT

CASUALTY REPORT PENDING

Nate picked it up.

The satisfaction vanished.

He left the circulation room and headed for the vehicle yard.

The transport arrived several minutes later, muddy almost to the roof.

Varek climbed out first.

One of the newer members followed with blood covering his arm.

Cade came next.

Nate waited for Dax.

The rear compartment emptied.

Dax never appeared.

"What happened?"

Cade removed his gloves.

"Pump station flooded during extraction."

Nate looked inside the vehicle again.

"No body?"

"We couldn’t recover him."

Varek walked past without speaking.

Cade continued.

"The access gate jammed while we were evacuating. Dax stayed at the manual release."

"He held it open?"

"Long enough."

Nate knew what that meant.

"How many crossed?"

"Five."

There had been six.

Nate looked at Cade.

"Could you go back?"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Nate remembered Nima disappearing behind the transport.

Dax had known what would happen.

That somehow made it different without making it better.

"Did he choose to stay?"

Cade nodded.

"He told me to get them through."

A medic called Cade from across the yard.

He started toward them.

Nate remained beside the transport.

His terminal updated a few minutes later.

DAX MERROW

KILLED IN ACTION

Nate closed the notification.

The next morning, two new profiles appeared on the Last Contact roster.

The first belonged to a woman.

LYSA FEN

PENAL SERVICE

ARSON

THEFT

ATTEMPTED MURDER

The second file was shorter.

GARR SORN

CONDEMNED

SUPPRESSION COLLAR ACTIVE

CONFIRMED KILLS: 6

Nate looked toward Dax’s old bunk.

Someone had already removed his equipment.

Kellan returned before breakfast.

He dropped into the seat opposite Nate and watched him eat for several seconds.

"You built it."

Nate looked up.

"How do you know?"

"You’ve checked your Circuit four times since I sat down."

Nate stopped doing it.

"Stable?"

"Yes."

"And empty?"

"Yes."

Kellan reached across the table and took a piece of bread from Nate’s tray.

"You spent most of your first payout creating an empty space."

"I still have the second vial."

Kellan paused.

"You didn’t use it?"

"Didn’t need it."

"Keep doing things like that and someone might mistake you for a responsible person."

Nate let him keep the bread.

"Dax died."

Kellan nodded.

"I heard."

Neither of them spoke for a while.

Nate opened the new roster and passed the terminal across the table.

Kellan read Lysa’s file first.

Then Garr’s.

"Six confirmed?"

"That apparently earned him the collar."

Kellan handed the terminal back.

"Or what happened after the six."

A guard entered the mess hall with two people behind him.

Nate recognized Lysa first from the profile. Short dark hair, narrow face, no restraints anymore.

Garr was much larger.

A black suppression collar covered most of his neck, and his wrists remained bound while the guard spoke to Cade near the entrance.

Yesterday Dax had been on the roster.

Today there were already more people than before he died.

Nate closed the file.

His attention returned to the empty Node.

He had prepared the space.

Finding something worth putting inside it was another problem.

"Where does the military handle awakenings?" he asked.

Kellan looked at him.

"That’s a sudden change of subject."

"Do you know?"

"Central intake handles most candidates. Important Classes get redirected from there."

"Can Last Contact enter?"

"No."

"What about with higher Field Rank?"

Kellan considered it.

"Maybe on escort duty. Intake security sometimes requests outside units."

Nate stored that away.

Every awakening produced rejected Skills.

He now had room for one of them and no reliable way to be present when someone made the choice.

The mess hall door opened again.

Cade entered.

"Briefing room. Ten minutes."

Varek looked up from another table.

"Deployment?"

"Potentially."

Kellan watched Cade more carefully.

"Where?"

Cade looked at him before answering.

"Malvern."

Kellan stopped eating.

Cade continued.

"Command decrypted enough of the C-19 reader to identify another active transfer. They want a recovery and verification team on site."

"How many?"

"Six."

"Team?"

"Me. You. Calder. Sol."

Cade glanced toward the two new arrivals.

"Fen and Sorn."

Kellan looked at Garr’s suppression collar.

"They’re sending him into Malvern?"

"They’re sending Last Contact."

Kellan stood.

Cade did not move.

"If there’s something I need to know before we enter, now would be useful."

For once, Kellan did not avoid the question.

"Malvern didn’t close because the program ended."

Cade waited.

Kellan looked toward the briefing room.

"They sealed the site."

"Why?"

Kellan picked up his terminal.

"Because they couldn’t clear it."

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