I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The Malvern briefing took less than twenty minutes.

Cade stood beside a map of the western border while the rest of the team gathered around the table.

Lysa Fen sat near the end with her arms folded. She looked younger than Nate had expected from her file. Two fingers on her left hand carried old burn scars.

Garr Sorn remained standing.

His suppression collar was linked to a control band on Cade’s wrist.

Garr caught Nate looking at it.

"First condemned man?"

"First one I’ve worked with."

"You’ll get used to us."

Cade enlarged the map before Varek could comment.

Malvern sat almost seventy kilometres from the capital, inside a section of abandoned forest with no settlement nearby.

The site did not appear on civilian maps.

"C-19 records show a transfer reaching Malvern eleven days ago," Cade said. "The cargo description was removed. No return transfer was logged."

Lysa looked at the map.

"We’re recovering it?"

"We’re verifying the site first."

"And if someone is using it?"

"We find out who."

Varek was looking at the reward estimate.

Nate had noticed it too.

Nearly twice what Greyhook had paid.

Kellan had not looked at the number once.

His attention stayed on the old structural plan beside the map.

Malvern had a surface compound and three underground levels. Most of the lowest section had been removed from the surviving records.

One designation remained.

ATTRITION DEVELOPMENT WING

Cade looked at Kellan.

"What do you know?"

"I’ve never been inside Malvern."

"But you’ve heard of it."

"Yes."

Kellan enlarged the lower section.

"Attrition sites handled equipment that wasn’t reliable enough for regular units. Armour, Conductive weapons, restraint systems. Some early Class-linked hardware."

"Who tested it?" Nate asked.

"Units the Empire could spare."

Nobody asked what that meant.

Cade pointed at the lowest level.

"You said Malvern was sealed because they couldn’t clear it."

"That’s what I heard. Something failed internally. Recovery teams went in afterward, then the site was closed."

"What failed?"

"I don’t know."

Garr gave him a look.

"You know a lot right up until the useful part."

Kellan ignored him.

"I worked transfer routes. Malvern was above my pay grade."

Cade closed the old plan.

"Then we treat the lower levels as unknown."

He looked at Garr.

"You stay within fifty metres of the team. The collar warns once. Ignore it and your Circuit locks."

Garr touched the band around his neck.

"I know."

They left before noon.

The drive took almost three hours.

The paved road disappeared halfway there, and Varek took over once the route became little more than old forestry tracks.

After the third hard impact threw Lysa against the side of the transport, she looked toward the cab.

"You trying to kill the suspension?"

"Do you want to drive?"

"I want someone who can."

Varek ignored her.

Garr sat across from Nate.

"You were at the Royal Academy?"

"For a while."

"What got you sent here?"

Varek answered from the front.

"He closed a door."

Garr waited.

When nobody added anything, he looked back at Nate.

"Someone on the other side?"

"Yes."

"Dead?"

"Yes."

Garr nodded once.

That was the end of his questions.

Kellan spent most of the journey reading the few Malvern records command had released.

Nate moved beside him when the transport slowed.

"Anything useful?"

"Maintenance logs."

"That useful?"

Kellan showed him a date.

"Emergency cells were replaced three months before Malvern closed."

"So they weren’t preparing to abandon it."

"Doesn’t look like it."

"How long between that and the closure?"

"Twenty-seven days."

The transport stopped.

Cade opened the rear doors.

Malvern was barely visible through the trees.

The outer fence had collapsed in several places, but the main security wall still stood. Moss covered most of the concrete.

An Imperial crest had once hung above the entrance.

Only the outline remained.

The main gate had been welded shut from the outside.

Lysa examined the seam.

"Old weld."

Kellan nodded.

"That should be the original seal."

Varek pointed farther along the wall.

"Someone didn’t use it."

A narrow section of metal had been cut away.

Fresh shavings still lay near the opening.

Cade crouched beside them.

"This is recent."

"Eleven days?" Nate asked.

"Possible."

They went through one at a time.

The compound beyond consisted of three low buildings around a loading yard. A watchtower had collapsed across one corner of the perimeter.

Heavy wheel tracks crossed the dirt.

They were recent enough that rain had not erased the edges.

The tracks led directly toward a freight entrance built into the hillside.

Kellan crouched beside one.

"Same width as the C-19 platform."

"So the transfer reached Malvern," Cade said.

The freight entrance had once been sealed too.

Someone had cut through it.

They entered.

Most of the upper level had been stripped before the closure.

Empty racks lined the walls. Desks had been overturned, and every terminal Nate passed had been smashed beyond recovery.

Kellan examined one of them.

"This wasn’t abandoned."

Cade looked over.

"What do you mean?"

"They removed what they wanted and destroyed the rest."

Fresh boot prints led toward an open security door.

Cade counted them.

"Four."

Varek checked his cutter.

"Same people as C-19?"

"C-19 had three," Nate said.

"Maybe these ones planned better."

They descended.

More equipment remained on the second level.

Old Conductive components sat inside locked cabinets, most too corroded to be useful.

One chamber contained seven metal lockers built directly into the wall.

Four names were still readable.

RELL

ARLEN

CORREN

VALE

The remaining three had been damaged until Nate could no longer make out the letters.

Kellan stopped at the entrance.

"You know them?" Nate asked.

"No."

Nate believed him.

Lysa opened Rell’s locker.

Empty.

Arlen’s contained the remains of an old field vest and little else.

Inside another, Garr found a metal plate beneath years of dust.

"Seven."

Cade came over.

The writing was faded but still readable.

ATTRITION FIELD UNIT

ACTIVE PERSONNEL: 7

Another line remained beneath it.

UNIT ARMAMENT LINK: ACTIVE

Varek looked at Kellan.

"Meaning?"

Kellan read it again.

"No idea."

This time he sounded genuinely uncertain.

Something struck concrete on the level below.

Everyone stopped.

It did not repeat.

Cade raised his rifle.

The next staircase descended toward the lowest level.

The fresh tracks continued.

Halfway down, they found a body.

A man in recent tactical clothing lay across the steps. His equipment carried no identification, and the rifle was gone.

Cade turned him over.

His chest had collapsed inward.

Lysa crouched near the wall.

"Here."

An impact mark had cracked the concrete beside the body.

Whatever struck him had thrown him into it.

Kellan looked down the stairs.

"If the old defenses survived, assume they’re still active."

Varek pulled the cutter from his back.

"Would’ve been good to know."

"You already knew the place was sealed because people couldn’t clear it."

Cade moved between them.

"Save it."

They continued.

The lowest staircase opened into a wide circular chamber.

Old barricades had been built around the room.

Weapons remained scattered behind some of them, half buried beneath years of dust. Dark stains marked the floor and walls.

Near one side of the chamber, however, the dust had been disturbed recently.

An old camp bed had been unfolded beside a water container. Several ration packs sat nearby.

Someone had been using the room.

Nate kept moving.

Seven grooves had been cut into the floor around a raised platform in the centre.

They were too regular to be battle damage.

One was empty.

The other six contained thin traces of black material fused into the concrete.

Nate crouched near one.

Kellan stopped him.

"Don’t touch it."

Nate pulled his hand back.

"What is it?"

"I don’t know."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

Nate remained crouched for another second.

Something felt wrong inside his chest.

His First Circuit was still circulating at the shallow level he normally maintained during missions, but the current had become uneven.

He closed it down.

The sensation remained.

A faint pressure came from the black material in the groove.

Nate shifted farther away.

It weakened.

Kellan noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Nate looked at the six marks again.

He had felt plenty of Conductive equipment before. Cells stored energy. Damaged machinery sometimes leaked enough to irritate the pathways of anyone standing too close.

This felt different.

The pressure wasn’t constant. It rose and faded in several faint rhythms, each coming from one of the black traces in the floor.

Nate moved another step away.

The sensation weakened again.

Cade’s light reached the central platform.

A body was pinned against it.

At first Nate thought restraints held the man upright.

Then he saw the black strands.

They wrapped around both arms and crossed the chest before disappearing into the metal behind him.

The corpse had been there for years.

Most of the uniform had rotted away.

Something covered the right forearm.

Black plates followed the shape of the arm from elbow to hand, fitted far too closely to be ordinary armour.

Nate stepped nearer.

The pressure returned.

Stronger this time.

His own Circuit reacted before he consciously reached for it. The current around his Core tightened.

Nate stopped.

Six narrow marks ran across the black plates.

None of them glowed.

The six marks carried the same faint pressure as the grooves.

Different patterns.

All preserved inside the same piece of equipment.

There was still an identification tag attached to what remained of the uniform.

RELL

Nate looked back toward the lockers upstairs.

Seven personnel.

Then toward the grooves around the platform.

Six filled.

One empty.

His eyes returned to the armament.

Six marks.

"Cade."

A voice came from behind the old barricades.

"Don’t touch him."

Everyone turned.

A rifle appeared above the barrier.

An older man slowly stood behind it.

His hair was almost entirely grey, and an old Imperial field jacket hung loosely from his shoulders. He looked exhausted, but the rifle in his hands was steady.

Cade raised his own weapon.

"We’re Last Contact."

The man stared at the insignia on his vest.

His eyes moved across the team until they reached Garr’s suppression collar.

Then back to Cade.

"You came through C-19."

Cade did not answer.

The man’s attention shifted toward the body on the platform.

"So they found the route again."

Kellan stepped slightly forward.

"Who are you?"

The rifle lowered a little.

"Arlen Vos."

Nate looked toward the staircase.

ARLEN had been written on one of the lockers.

Cade noticed the same thing.

"You were part of the unit upstairs?"

Arlen looked at him.

"Unit."

There was little humour in the word.

He lowered the rifle.

"We were the recovery team."

Cade glanced toward Rell.

"Recovery from what?"

Arlen looked across the old barricades, the weapons left on the floor and the black material surrounding the corpse.

"When Malvern stopped answering, they sent people in."

He paused.

"We were the last ones they sent."

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