Daughter of Nox

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Freya spent the next hour under the care a medic while he did what he could to numb her pain and stabilize the damage in her knee.

"Your knee might feel better for now, but all I've done is hit the pause button on the damage," the medic told her as he unhooked the tissue regenerator from her leg. "You're going to need to spend some time in the infirmary for a permanent fix, got it?"

"Got it," Freya said, as she rose slowly and shifted a bit of weight on her injured leg. The joint felt stiff, but it was nowhere near as bad as before.

"Sure you do," the medic said with doubt in his voice. "You get it so well that you think it's a good idea to take on one of those monsters they brought in here to fight you all." The medic made a disgusted sound. "What kind of insane galaxy are we living in that someone actually thought it's a good idea to have kids fight those things?"

"Uh-huh," Freya said, though she was barely listening She focused on walking in circles, testing out her leg. "So am I good to go back?"

"You're as well as I'm going to get you." The medic made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "I just hope you don't get yourself killed out there, Novice."

Freya thanked the medic for his help and made her way back to the sparring site. She found Corporal Refsing there, and explained that the medics had cleared her for the second round. Refsing looked visibly uncomfortable with this news, but she didn't argue.

"When will the first round of matches be finished?" Freya said, looking around for her opponent. The medics had pumped her full of painkillers, but she didn't know how long they'd keep the pain at bay, and she wanted to get fighting while they lasted.

"They're finished already," Refsing said. "We're just waiting for the Caretakers to give us clearance to start the second round."

Freya tipped her head to one side. Did the cadre expect more violence like Pavo's to break out amongst the Novices, that they actually thought they'd need shock-troops to keep the peace?

As though in answer to her question, a pair of armored Caretakers marched toward Freya's sparring site. An absolutely massive man lumbered along between them, his camouflage uniform stitched with a bright orange 'E' on the chest. A tattoo of the Alter Corporation logo stood in thick black lines on his face.

It was an Esque.

Freya felt her guts twist as images of that day in the F.O.X. sim crawled from her memory, and it was like she was there again. She could hear the savage tearing sound of plasma rounds as they bored into flesh. Her throat tightened as the smell of charred meat flooded her nostrils, and she could almost feel the rough pavement against her palms as she fell. Freya staggered back, her heart thundering in her chest.

"What is he–" The words jittered over her lips as she tried to speak. "What–what is he doing here?"

"Not he, Novice. It." Refsing gestured to the tattoo on the man's cheek. "This is an Esque unit. One the combat prototypes on loan from Alter Corporation."

"I know what he is," Freya shot back. "What I want to know is, why is there a combat Esque at my sparring site?"

Refsing gave her a bewildered look. "All opponents for those Novices moving on to the second round will be Esque." She shook her head. "I thought you knew."

A feeling like long dead fingers slithered down Freya's spine at Refsing's words. She thought of that day in her uncle's ship, her cousin ordering the Esque to attack. The man had charged without a second of hesitation, launching his body like a missile until he'd literally bludgeoned himself into unconsciousness. And that, Freya thought, had been an Esque who'd been Changed for the sort of menial tasks Founders used Esque for every day. What sort of things could she expect from one of their kind who'd been literally programmed for fighting?