I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Arlen kept his rifle lowered, but he did not put it away.

Cade looked toward the camp bed behind the barricade.

"How long have you been here?"

"This time? Nine days."

Nate glanced at the water containers and opened ration packs.

"So you don’t live here."

"No."

"Why come back?"

Arlen looked toward Rell’s body.

"C-19 started carrying traffic again."

Kellan stepped closer.

"You watch the old routes?"

"The ones that can still cause problems."

Cade pointed toward the staircase.

"Four people entered before us."

"I saw them."

"One died upstairs."

Arlen nodded.

"Malvern got him."

"Where are the other three?"

"Past that door."

He pointed behind the central platform.

Years of grime hid most of the frame, but a wide metal door occupied the far wall.

Nate checked the old plan on his terminal.

Nothing was marked there.

"The development wing?"

"Yes."

Cade lowered his terminal.

"What survived in there?"

Arlen looked at the door.

"Enough."

Varek rested a hand on his cutter.

"Useful answer."

Arlen ignored him.

Garr had been studying the grooves around the platform.

"Seven."

Arlen turned.

"What?"

"Your lockers upstairs."

Garr pointed toward the floor.

"Seven names. Seven grooves."

Six contained thin black material fused into the concrete.

The seventh was empty.

Arlen’s rifle rose slightly.

"Stay out of them."

Garr looked down at his boots.

"I wasn’t going in."

Cade faced Arlen.

"What are they?"

Arlen remained silent for several seconds.

Then he walked toward the platform.

"We came here as a seven-man recovery unit."

Nate looked at Rell.

"And that?"

"Graveshare."

Kellan frowned.

"Official name?"

"Unit Attrition Armament Twelve."

Arlen looked at the black plates covering Rell’s forearm.

"Vale called it Graveshare. After a while, everyone else did too."

Nate remembered the names on the lockers upstairs.

Rell.

Arlen.

Corren.

Vale.

Three others had been damaged beyond recognition.

"Rell was the bearer?"

"From the start."

Lysa crouched several metres from the nearest groove.

"How did the link work?"

"You didn’t choose it."

Nate looked at him.

Arlen continued.

"When Malvern accepted our deployment order, Graveshare read the official roster. Seven names went in. All seven of us became part of the armament link."

"Automatically?" Nate asked.

"Yes."

"Could Rell disable it?"

"Not after deployment started."

Nate looked again at the grooves.

"And when someone died?"

Arlen pointed toward one of the black marks.

"The first was Joren. A defense construct caught him while we were clearing the eastern wing."

His attention remained on the mark.

"That appeared afterward."

"A Mourning Mark?"

Arlen nodded.

"What does it keep?"

"The energy."

Nate waited.

Arlen saw that wasn’t enough.

"When a linked Circuit collapses, Graveshare has a short window before the energy disperses. It takes what it can and stores it."

Kellan’s eyes narrowed.

"The whole Circuit?"

"No."

"Skills?"

"No."

"Memories?"

"No."

Arlen looked directly at Nate.

"Joren died in that corridor. Nothing of Joren is walking around inside the armament."

Nate studied the mark.

"So the mark is what?"

"A record."

"Of the death?"

"Of a linked casualty that fed the reserve."

That was simpler than Nate had expected.

It also made the purpose of the armament harder to ignore.

"How much did Joren give it?"

"Not much."

Arlen pointed toward another mark.

"Mera gave it more."

Then toward a third.

"Siva gave it more than either of them."

Kellan glanced between the marks.

"Because Siva was stronger?"

"Partly."

"Second Circuit?"

"She’d closed hers three years before Malvern."

Varek looked toward Graveshare.

"So stronger people give it more energy."

"Usually they can carry more."

Arlen shook his head.

"But that’s not the whole answer. What matters is what they still have when they die."

Nate understood.

A Second Circuit who had emptied herself fighting could leave Graveshare almost nothing.

A First Circuit killed early in a mission might still be nearly full.

"Does every death make the reserve larger?" Nate asked.

Arlen looked at him.

"No."

"The limit stays the same?"

"Yes. Graveshare has its own capacity. Deaths fill what’s already there."

"What happens when it’s full?"

"Anything it can’t hold is lost."

That made the system much simpler.

A full Graveshare did not become larger because another person died.

It simply had nothing left to take.

"Does Graveshare generate energy itself?"

"No."

"Can Rell refill it without a casualty?"

"Not normally."

Nate caught the wording.

"Not normally?"

"Deaths were the only source we ever confirmed."

Arlen tapped the side of Graveshare with the end of his rifle.

"Once the stored energy is spent, it’s gone."

Varek looked at the six marks again.

"Until somebody else dies."

Arlen’s expression hardened.

"Usually."

Silence settled across the chamber.

Nate looked at Rell’s corpse.

"So what did Graveshare actually do for him?"

"Kept him going."

"How?"

"Rell could draw from the reserve when his own Circuit ran low. Techniques. Reinforcement. The armament itself."

Arlen paused.

"It couldn’t make his pathways handle more than they were built for."

Nate nodded.

Extra energy did not matter if the body carrying it failed first.

If his First Circuit could safely move ten, having a hundred waiting in Graveshare did not let him push twenty through the same route.

It only meant he could keep feeding ten for much longer.

Body Memory could use that.

Nate disliked how quickly he had reached the thought.

Cade looked toward the black plates.

"Why build something like this?"

Arlen looked at the Last Contact insignia on Cade’s vest.

"You work for Last Contact."

Cade said nothing.

"Someone in the Empire wanted a field unit that could keep operating as its numbers dropped."

Garr touched his suppression collar.

"And they needed people to test it."

"We volunteered."

Garr’s mouth shifted slightly.

"All seven?"

"That’s what the paperwork said."

Nobody asked him to explain.

Nate looked toward Rell.

"What went wrong?"

Arlen’s attention moved to the marks.

"Vale."

"The one who named it."

"Yes. He was our field lead."

Arlen walked past one of the old barricades.

"At first, nobody cared what Graveshare gained. We cared about who we’d lost."

He stopped.

"Vale changed first."

"Because of the energy?" Nate asked.

"He started measuring it."

Arlen looked back at the marks.

"How much came in after each death. How long the reserve lasted. How much Rell could spend before it ran dry."

Kellan’s expression tightened.

"And then?"

"He started changing assignments."

Cade understood immediately.

"Who took point."

"Yes."

"Who checked a room."

"Yes."

"Who pulled a construct away from the group."

Arlen nodded.

Varek glanced toward Garr.

Garr caught it.

"Try it and your borrowed cutter won’t be the thing you lose."

"Enough," Cade said.

Arlen continued.

"Vale’s orders weren’t stupid. That’s what made it difficult to see."

He leaned his rifle against the barricade.

"Someone had to take point. Someone had to hold a corridor. Someone had to draw a construct away while the others moved."

Nate watched him.

"Vale wasn’t killing them."

"No."

Arlen looked directly at him.

"He didn’t have to."

Varek frowned.

"If he wanted Graveshare filled that badly, why not?"

Arlen’s eyes moved toward him.

"Why not what?"

"Kill them himself."

Nobody moved.

Varek shrugged.

"I’m asking what Vale would’ve asked."

Arlen looked at Graveshare.

"Because it wouldn’t work."

Nate’s attention sharpened.

"If the bearer directly kills someone linked to the roster, Graveshare rejects the transfer."

"No energy?" Nate asked.

"No energy."

"No Mourning Mark?"

"No."

Varek looked back toward the grooves.

"So Vale needed someone else to do the killing."

"He needed the death not to come directly from Rell."

Arlen picked up his rifle again.

"A defense construct. A failed position. A route that couldn’t be held."

Cade’s expression hardened.

"And an order can still lead to the same result."

"Yes."

That explained why Vale’s decisions mattered.

He couldn’t simply murder a teammate and collect what remained in their Circuit.

He had to send them somewhere they might not return from.

"Every decision made sense by itself," Arlen said. "Corren was better at close range, so he checked the narrow rooms. Mera had the strongest defensive Skill, so she held the retreat."

He stopped.

"Siva?" Nate asked.

Arlen’s eyes moved to one of the darker marks.

"Best Circuit in the team."

Nate already knew what came next.

"When someone had to keep the suppression gate powered, she was the obvious choice."

"And she died."

"Yes."

"How much did Graveshare get?"

Arlen did not answer immediately.

"More than it had received from anyone before her."

Nobody spoke.

Siva had been the obvious person to hold the gate.

She had also died with enough energy left in a developed Second Circuit to refill a large part of Graveshare’s reserve.

Both facts could be true.

"Did Rell know?" Lysa asked.

"Not at first."

"And later?"

"Yes."

"What did he do?"

"Tried to stop listening to Vale."

Arlen gave a short laugh without humour.

"By then we were already down to four."

Nate looked at the marks.

"Corren?"

"Fourth."

"And after him?"

"Only Rell, Vale and me."

Kellan looked at the six marks.

"Joren. Mera. Siva. Corren. Vale."

He counted again.

"That’s five."

Arlen looked toward the corpse on the platform.

"The bearer was still part of the roster."

Nate followed his gaze.

"Rell."

"Yes."

"When Malvern killed him, Graveshare recorded him too."

Nate looked at the sixth mark.

Graveshare had marked the death of its own bearer.

Arlen was the only name from the original seven that had never been added.

Varek stared at Graveshare.

"How much did it have left by then?"

"Enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Rell could fight long after his own Circuit should have emptied."

"And if he tried to use all of it at once?"

"He couldn’t."

Arlen looked at him.

"His pathways were still his pathways. Graveshare gave him fuel, not a new body."

Varek considered that.

"Still useful."

Arlen stared at him.

"Vale said that a lot."

The expression disappeared from Varek’s face.

Lysa looked toward the empty seventh groove.

"Why is the old deployment still active?"

Arlen pointed toward the floor.

"Because it never closed."

"After all these years?"

"I got out during the lockdown. Nobody logged an extraction, and nobody completed the order."

He looked toward the sealed development wing.

"Malvern recorded seven people entering. The facility never received a proper mission closure."

Cade glanced at the empty groove.

"And you’re the only member of that roster still alive."

"Yes."

Nate counted again.

Six filled.

One empty.

Varek looked at the corpse on the platform.

"Then why is Graveshare still attached to Rell?"

"He died as bearer."

"Couldn’t it pass to Vale?"

"Vale tried."

Arlen’s face changed.

"Graveshare didn’t accept him."

Nate looked at the black strands pinning Rell to the platform.

"What killed Rell?"

"Malvern."

"And Vale?"

Arlen’s eyes moved toward the sealed door.

"Malvern."

Cade followed his gaze.

"The Supervisor?"

Arlen looked sharply at him.

"You know that name?"

"No."

"Then keep it that way."

A metallic scrape came from beyond the development-wing door.

Everyone turned.

Arlen raised his rifle.

Cade was only slightly slower.

"Positions."

Varek moved behind one of the old barricades and reached for his cutter.

"Don’t activate it," Arlen said.

Varek stopped.

"Why?"

"Some defenses track active Conductive equipment."

Varek left the cutter dark.

Lysa moved to the opposite side of the chamber with her pistol ready.

Garr stayed close to Cade. When he moved too far, his suppression collar gave a short warning tone.

He stepped back.

Nate took position beside Kellan.

Something scraped against the other side of the door.

Then stopped.

A voice shouted.

"Open it!"

Cade looked at Arlen.

"One of the intruders?"

Arlen nodded.

"Open the fucking door!"

Arlen pointed toward a lever beside Rell’s platform.

"Manual release."

Cade started toward it.

Arlen caught his arm.

"Wait."

"He’s alive."

"And something is behind him."

Gunfire erupted beyond the door.

Several rapid shots.

Then a scream.

Cade pulled his arm free.

"If he reaches the door, we’re getting him through."

Arlen watched him for a moment.

Then nodded.

Nate followed Cade to the platform.

Up close, Rell looked worse.

Years had destroyed most of the uniform and skin, but Graveshare showed almost no corrosion. The black plates still fitted tightly around his forearm.

Six narrow marks ran across them.

None looked quite the same.

One was smooth.

Another had split through the centre.

A third looked burned into the surface.

Nate no longer saw six pieces of dead Circuits.

He saw six deaths recorded by the same armament.

Six times Graveshare had taken whatever energy it could before a Circuit collapsed.

How much remained now, he had no idea.

He waited for Path Reclaimer to react.

Nothing.

Graveshare did not contain rejected Skills.

His empty third Node remained silent.

Cade grabbed the release.

"Help."

Nate took the other side.

They pulled.

The mechanism resisted before finally moving.

The door rose slowly.

A narrow gap appeared.

Then hands.

A man forced his head beneath the metal.

Recent tactical clothing. Blood covered most of his face, and one arm hung uselessly.

"Get me out!"

Cade caught his vest.

Nate grabbed the good arm.

Together they dragged him through.

"Close it!"

Nate pushed the lever back.

The door began descending.

Something struck it from the other side.

The frame shook.

The wounded man crawled away.

"Faster!"

The gap narrowed.

Something black pushed beneath the door.

Nate stopped.

It resembled a limb, but its movement made the comparison difficult.

Three long jointed sections unfolded across the floor.

The end narrowed into a metal point.

Arlen fired.

His round struck one of the joints.

The limb snapped back through the gap.

The door slammed shut.

Nobody moved.

A heavy impact struck the other side.

The centre of the door bent inward.

Varek drew his cutter but kept it inactive.

Another impact deepened the dent.

Cade grabbed the wounded intruder by the vest.

"What is that?"

The man tried to answer.

He could barely breathe.

Arlen did it for him.

"The Supervisor."

Kellan looked at the damaged door.

"I thought Malvern tested equipment."

"It did."

Another strike shook dust from the ceiling.

Arlen raised his rifle.

"That was the equipment they used to test us."

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