Page 53 of Command

CHAPTER 25

THREXIN

The day before the jump, Threxin attempted to avoid exertion, as Alina Argoud had suggested. He did so begrudgingly, knowing if he were not careful, he would be forced to call on her again to patch him up. He made a cursory appearance at the command center and spent the rest of the day monitoring vid feeds and directing his cohort from his quarters. Eventually, though, time had come to bite the hakstone and complete the procedure Threxin had been dreading.

He and Renza navigated to the medbay through his blood passage in silence. Threxin did not pause as they passed the spot where he had witnessed Orion Halen’s violent copulation with his female, but the memory came fresh nonetheless. It was not the sight of them at the forefront of his recollection; it was the soft body against him, her round flesh pressed into the hard planes of his thighs. His hand wrapped around a pliable stomach, encircling her easily to keep her cinched against him. The way her fear and arousal had grown almost indistinguishable as they witnessed the vile scene before them.

Threxin and Renza exited the passage at the medbay. Heknew now that this was the exit at which he smelled Orion Halen and his female most strongly. What had they been doing, sneaking here so often through these hidden passages? Was it the preferred entrance to enact their mating rituals? No… there was more.

Another thing to tackle after the jump was over.

Lesthin was already waiting for him in the medbay’s receiving area, his human equivalent—a medic—looking pale by his side. Lesthin was a competent biogineer on Apth, one who had taken considerable time to research and familiarize himself with the human technology onElysiansince he was assigned to his profession during childhood. YetColossal’stechnology was more advanced, and not all of it was within Lesthin’s or the other uhyre biogineers’ knowledge base. Much of the gap would be filled by records, but humans had been enlisted to speed matters along.

“Are you prepared?” Lesthin asked, twitching his apertures in greeting. The human beside him flinched at the sight. Threxin wondered if they would ever get used to it. He hoped not.

“Yes.”

Threxin followed Lesthin into an empty procedure room, apertures tightening with each step.

“Pl… please sit in the seat, Mr. Thraeggsin,” the human stuttered. Threxin flared his nostrils slightly, eyeing the overly small chair positioned in the middle of the room.

He could smell the burnt flesh and the synthetic hallucinogens in the air, transported back to the dark room where his limiter had been injected. He could see the spilled blood and exorin from those who came before him. Those who did not come out. He tamped down the shameful reaction—every one of his cohort had gone through the same experience, and none of them had such a strong negative association with these places to his knowledge. He had spoken about it withRenza once, who confirmed that he did not even remember his own limiter implantation. Threxin remembered it all.

He watched warily as the human medic began arranging equipment on the steel cart beside the chair. It was not just his pallid shakiness draining Threxin’s confidence. Renza had told Threxin of how another medic had tried to murder him when he was unconscious after the blood transfusion. He and Renza exchanged glances.

“Not you,” Renza pressed a firm palm to the man’s chest, pushing him back from the tools.

“How many ports have you installed, Lesthin?” Threxin turned to the uhyre.

“I have practiced on three human subjects,” he said. Threxin was surprised he had heard no complaint from Orion Halen about this fact. “But there was no way to test effectiveness… We tested simple network ports, nothing more.”

“You will do it,” Threxin said.

“Are you certain?” Lesthin appeared skeptical. “Such an experimental procedure so close to the jump is already a risk. This human is old. He installed the port of Orion Halen and that of his mother. Having an inexperienced medic perform it leaves much room for error.”

“Then you will be careful,” Threxin stated flatly.

Lesthin tilted his chin in assent.

The right armrest of the chair had been heightened, extended, and angled to strap Threxin’s arm upon it wrist up. Threxin watched in silence as Lesthin laid out the tools on a tray before him. First came an object that looked like a firearm fitted with a thick injection cartridge. Then a slightly thicker transparent tube. Finally, what appeared to be the device itself, suspended in a gel-like substance. It was a small metal cylinder with three veiny wires floating from one end.

“I will create an opening with the needle,” Lesthin explained. “I will then find the vein and insert the cannula. The port will fitinside it, programmed to automatically seek blood and lodge the vein. Once it is in place, a buffer ring will expand underneath, preventing the port from sinking into your bloodstream.”

Threxin nodded, showing none of the hesitation he felt as he swallowed down a pang of nausea. Those tendrils floating in the gel with the port reminded him of miniature versions of the limiter. That had been marinating in gel also, right before it was plucked from the suspension. The neural implant had been inserted in what to his memory was not an entirely dissimilar way, through an opening drilled within his temple. He shook his head to dislodge the memory, hand coming up reflexively to rub the slightly puckered injection point. Renza did the same, clearly reliving his own implantation.

Lesthin sat on a stool before him, taking the injector in one hand and tapping firmly at Threxin’s wrist with the other. He walked pressure up the forearm, avoiding the puckered puncture marks from the sampler probe that had pierced him repeatedly in the weeks prior. Threxin supposed Lesthin was searching for the most suitable place to access the vein, perhaps not too close to an aperture. The human medic behind him had edged closer and was now looking over Lesthin’s shoulder. His head bobbed up and down in a series of small nods as Lesthin honed in on a spot about halfway up Threxin’s taut forearm.

“Are you prepared?” Lesthin asked.

“Yes.” Threxin wished he’d had some damn hak before doing this.

The needle that first punched through his skin was thick, but the pain was middling at worst. It was the cannula that made bile rise in his throat. The skin of his arm blanched as the catheter stretched it upward, and the sensation of it was entirely unnerving. Threxin could not help but imagine the limiter lodging itself in his head just like that—rearranginghis tissues, making his brain blanch and twitch with the pressure.

The limiter now kicked in with a faint vibrating sensation in his spine, preventing the visceral disturbance coursing through him. Threxin fixed his eyes on the ceiling while Lesthin worked.

“You’re too slow,” the human medic chided. “Stop carving him up.”

Threxin did not open his eyes to look, but heard the man slam into the wall, sending some equipment clattering to the floor.

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