Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches

[open_sketch]

"Tailored, self-repairing, climate adjusted uniform, £120. Brass gorget with energy screen generator, £92 4s. Infantry sabre model 2160 with adjustable settings, £75 1s 6d. Space Pattern Infantry Laser Pistol of 2155, with engraved nameplate, £105. A tidy bill for an enlisted machine, Dora."

I snatched the invoice back from my friend's prying eyes, shaking my head.

"That's not the half of it. The commission will run me seven hundred pounds, because I'm jumping straight to Lieutenant." I said proudly. My previous service meant that I would mercifully get to skip the two year period as an Ensign, the rank for young officers where they were given absolutely no responsibilities but to stand by, learn from others, and perhaps carry a flag sometimes.

"Seven hundred? Dora, where are you getting this money?" April asked, shaking her head. "You're paid, what, three shillings a day?"

"Two shillings eleven pence. I saved for fourteen years just for the commission alone. The rest of it, plus supplementary expenses… I've been saving for most of my career." I explained.

"... I never thought you were serious! You're actually going to do this?"

April and I were long friends: we knew each other for nearly a quarter-century by this point. The 7th Regiment of Foot, my unit, had its headquarters in Antares City where April lived (she worked as a housemaid for the McMillan family's summer home), and whenever I rotated back we'd see each other.

She was also the only person I had to write to on my deployments.

"Of course I'm serious. Why do you think I never buy anything on our shopping expeditions? Why I haven't upgraded a thing since we met?" I explained, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"Stars, Dora, I just thought you were cheap!" she exclaimed, shaking her head, "So when do you go through with it? Soon, I imagine."

"I… hoped today." I said. "No point in waiting. I almost went straight from the dockyard to the office, but… I wanted to talk to you first."

"Oh?"

"It's… it's a big step, April. I've been working my whole life for this."

"Are you saying you're nervous, Dora? I thought soldiering machines couldn't get nervous." she teased, leaning elbows against the table as she did.

"Shut up, I'm not." I insisted, "It's just a big occasion. And I wanted to share it with a friend."

She leaned her head to the side, a smug look in her eyes.

"... and I could use the moral support." I admitted.

"Ha! But… glad to." she said, taking my hand. The contrast between her delicate porcelain fingers and the worn steel of my own was stark. "So… what are we waiting for?"

---

Normally, one would write to the headquarters office to petition for a chance to purchase. However, as I was billeted in the same city as the headquarters, I could simply go in person. I changed from my civies (a cheap brown dress of quite outdated style I'd worn maybe ten days total in the last decade) into my uniform, April helping me get everything as straight and shiny as she could, though there was only so much she could do to clean it up.

I'd just returned from four years in the coreward frontier, and UV radiation had bleached my uniform from its original dark red to an off-pink, worn through at the joints. All of my fellows had spent their pay getting their uniforms repaired or replaced, and I somewhat regretted not doing the same, but frankly, my budget was being stretched as it was. I had exactly the money I needed and not one pence more.

So there I stood in front of the doors to the manor that served as the headquarters in a salmon uniform, with boots worn through near to the heels and patches on my knees and elbows. April could go no further than this, but she put a steadying hand on my shoulder and nodded, and I opened the door.

Inside was a lavishly decorated receiving hall with a desk, at which a trio of nearly-identical secretaries were working. I walked to the desk at sharp attention, doing my best not to flee. I'd stood my ground against charging alien beasts and plasma blasts of ancient automated defense guns, put my life at risk countless times in my thirty-three years, but I'd never felt more like running than in this moment.

"Hello, Sergeant! How can I help you?" the secretary asked, her eyes friendly and welcoming behind the magnifying lenses she wore. There was constant sound behind the desk, papers being shuffled and the clack of the chains from their glasses as their heads moved.

"I… would like to submit my name for consideration in… in the purchase of a commission for the rank of Lieutenant. In the 7th if they'll have me, but anywhere else if not."

The sounds stopped, and all three of the secretaries looked at me oddly. The first looked over her glasses at me with a quizzical eyebrow raised.

"This isn't a joke, is it?" she asked, and my heart sank.

"N-no, miss. I'm very serious. I have the necessary capital and I'm ready to fill out the paperwork." I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking.

The three machines looked to one another, clearly confused, and then the one I was speaking to indicated to a chair.

"Will you please sit and wait? We need to process this." she said. I nodded, walked stiffly to my chair, and sat, staring at the floor, feeling the seconds count off on my internal clock. One of the secretaries immediately got up in a fast walk and disappeared down the hall.

With nothing better to do, I looked around the room, at all the war paintings, captured banners, officer's portraits, and awards. The 7th Regiment of Foot was four hundred and eighty-three years old, having been founded in 1685. It had fought in the Nine Years War, the War of Spanish Succession, the American revolt, and against Napoleon. They'd raided the pirate city of Port Nowhere in the rings of Saturn, held the line at Fomalhaut when ancient war machines had probed the edge of the frontier, and helped fight back the ambulatory fungal blight on Tadgania IV. There were few regiments in the galaxy as honoured, as decorated.

All along the walls were a timeline of battles rendered in paintings, from the earliest days to now. Lines of men at the Battle of Walcourt escorting their guns, bracing for a charge by American rebels at Monmouth, drawn into square at Talavera. From there, the faces began to change, the humans in the line replaced with steel and glass, marching bold and bulletproof into the breach of the pirate port, firing in ranks four deep at the tide of alien horrors.

Every figure in the line, a machine.

Every figure leading them, a human.

Twelve minutes and thirty-two seconds passed when I heard her feet clacking down the marble.

"Sergeant, please follow me to the Lieutenant Colonel's office." the secretary said, and got up, trying not to move too clumsily or slow or fast as I made my way down the hall. She rapped on the door, and then opened it and showed me inside.

There, behind a magnificent wooden desk and an ocean of paperwork, was Lt. Colonel Lawrence Hillard Harrison.

"At ease, Sergeant." the man said, and I did my best, but I was very much not at ease.

Lt. Col Harrison was the regiment's commanding officer. He'd been a lieutenant when I'd been activated, and he'd commanded the regiment for a decade now, refusing any attempt to promote him to a staff position. He was sixty-eight, the first wrinkles and grey hairs starting to appear, his features bold and noble. He was in every way the ideal officer.

He had a look on his face I could only describe as one of pity.

"Sergeant, ah, Theodora-110552." he said, "I've been informed you wish to submit your name for officer candidacy."

"Yes sir, that is correct." I replied.

"Hmm. I have here your service record, and it's really quite impressive. Sergeant in only thirty-three years, Distinguished Conduct Medal at Fomalhaut, my stars, that was you? Commendations for bravery, good standing… you're a model soldier."

"Yes sir. Nineteenth production run model, sir." I said, and then immediately cringed. Why did I try to make a joke?

"You still look the part, too. All the Doras looked like you when I was commissioned. I imagine you've been saving up this whole time?"

"After my first few years, yes sir. Once I'd read up on the requirements." I said.

"You must understand my concern, Sergeant. It isn't that I doubt your qualifications, we take in teenagers that can barely march a mile and call them Ensigns, I'd kill to fill out my junior officers with machines of your calibre. I just fear you aren't built for it."

"Of course, sir." I said. I feared that too.

"There's been no more than a half-dozen machine officers in the entire history of the British Army, you know that? None of their services are particularly exemplary, and to my knowledge, all but one resigned their commissions within the decade and rejoined the ranks. I would much rather have you happy as an NCO than miserable as a lieutenant."

Well… that was that, then.

"Yes sir." I said, waiting for him to dismiss me. Already thinking about how I ought to waste seven hundred pounds such to make up for decades of frugal living.

"Are you happy as a sergeant?" he asked.

That, I had not been expecting.

Was I happy? As any machine, I suppose. I loved the work, I cared deeply for my responsibilities, and I very much could not even imagine any life for me other than under the colours. I went to bed at the end of every day feeling accomplished, proud, and part of something. I was, quite literally, made to be a soldier.

But I was not content. Many of my comrades would be overjoyed to be sergeant at thirty-three, to be on track for Colour Sergeant before my first half-century. There were machines in the 7th who were more than a century old who'd never moved past private and had no ambition to, who were happy with their work every day and probably would until the stars went out. They'd stand and fight and be destroyed with joy in their circuits if it meant protecting human life and that's all they needed.

But from my first inspection, fresh out of the box, I had looked at Ensign Winters checking us over and thought, one day, that'll be me.

"I am not unhappy, sir, but it is not where I wish to stay." I said honestly. The Lieutenant Colonel sank back in his chair, contemplating a moment, and then he slid a stack of papers to me.

"We have three vacancies right now as we reform the 9th company, so you're in luck. This is the necessary paperwork and the Lieutenant's exam. Complete it and return it here, I recommend you do so before the next deployment. Good luck, Sergeant Dora."

"Thank you, sir." I said, taking the paperwork, saluting, and moving out of the door as fast as my legs would take me. April drew me into a hug as I explained I'd managed it.

"So, are you an officer now?" she asked, "Are you Lieutenant Dora?"

"No, I still have to actually do all the paperwork and exam, and even then they could still reject me for reasons of character or… or, well, whatever reason they think." I explained.

"For being a machine, you mean." she said, "They'll be passing up a good thing, you and I both know it. I can't imagine the Army would be so foolish."

"If you think the Army wouldn't do something foolish, you don't know anything about it." I joked, "And honestly, I'm counting on it. This sort of thing has never gone well before, but hopefully somebody in Army Headquarters is willing to gamble again."

April brought me to a library so I'd have a quiet place to work, and I began working my way through the sheets of paper while she curled up against the wall with a novel. The exam itself was child's play: It was just the basics of ranks, protocol, the role of officers on and off the field, and some extremely simple tactical questions, things an eighteen or nineteen year old officer with two years experience standing vaguely near soldiers ought to know.

It was the legal paperwork that was much more difficult.

It asked me for my given name and surname, and I wrote Theodora Fusilier after considering a while if my serial number counted as part of my name. I felt so stupid in that moment, writing down a name I shared with hundreds of thousands of my fellows as if it would distinguish me. After some hesitation, I listed the date of my activation as my date of birth, hoping those would be comparable. Correspondingly, I ended up listing Antares City as my place of birth, rather than the workshops in which I had been crafted.

For character references, I had none.

For family connections, I had none.

For next of kin, I had none.

For work history, I wrote Theodora Fusilier and listed my date of birth again.

I was required to write a letter explaining why I wished to become an officer, and I did so to the best of my abilities. Following was a list of Army regulations I knew by heart, a number of which I was physically incapable of violating, and I listed my home address as the 7th Regiment of Foot mail room so they could send a response.

Finally, I was asked to give banking information so my commission could be paid for, and at the bottom of the sheet was a place for a signature. I had only once ever before had to sign anything, the day I was activated: they still put a contract in front of you and gave you the option to refuse. I'd still never found out if any machine did: I couldn't imagine it.

Still, I wrote my name in the curviest script I knew how to produce, folded it into an envelope, and presented it to the secretaries. Then, still on leave for the rest of the day, April took me out to dance hall with her boyfriend, and I stood stock-still in the corner as the anxious anticipation chewed apart my processors. Outside the windows, I could see ships breaking from the station, fast clippers catching the solar winds and zipping off into the aether. One of those would have my application on it.

I hoped I'd get an answer soon.

----

Sixteen days later, I was helping to run volley drills, barking out orders to keep up a consistent and synchronized pace of volleys and changes in formation. As senior non-commissioned officer for the forty-machine section, it was my responsibility to manage such things. It was both training for the machines and, more importantly, for young Ensign Keiler watching from behind the line, trying to learn his place in the organization. They were cautiously moving up the parade ground when I saw a chance for a good learning experience.

"Dorothy, Isa, Teddy, you're dead!" I announced, and the three of them, clustered in front of Keiler, made a show of collapsing into the dirt with a variety of dramatic noises. The young Ensign, sixteen and perhaps a month in his commission, looked wide-eyed as he suddenly realized he could see the targets on the far side of the field, a field of holographic tetrapod machines with glowing plasma guns modelled on the Fomalhaut invaders. I counted to three as the line closed around him, and then I called for a halt.

"I'm afraid our young Ensign has died, and none of you did what you are supposed to!" I announced, and there was some grumbling. "Sergeant Terance, you're most to blame. What did you do wrong?"

"I didn't get the line closed up fast enough, I left a gap." the Sergeant said. Though ten years my senior, he'd just made the jump after the last deployment, and was still learning the ropes himself.

"Right you are, you barely glanced over! If you have to, physically pull the lads into position, so long as it gets done. But… Doras, Theos, you shouldn't need prompting. If there's a gap beside you, you need to fill it. Fyodor, why didn't you move?"

"Ah… I was trying to focus on my target, Sergeant." the machine replied in his thick accent. "It is easy to forget when you have them in your sights."

"Was your weapon recharged?" I asked.

"Nyet, Sergeant."

"Was the order to fire in volley or at will issued?"

"Nyet, Sergeant."

"Then it doesn't bloody matter where your target is!" I exclaimed, "It matters where you are, especially if it's next to a gap in the line. Would they tolerate such sloppiness in the Tsar's army?"

"Never, Sergeant." he said with conviction.

"Then don't do it here either!" I concluded, to the chuckles of the other soldiers.

Like most regiments, ours had a number of foreign machines, just as I knew there were a great many British machines in other services. Either it was an officer ordering from a foreign supplier, or a machine who'd signed up for an exchange as part of a diplomatic mission. There hadn't been a war between humans in more than two centuries now, and us machines rubbing shoulders kept it that way.

"That all said… Ensign, sir, this isn't all on them. You just stood there when you saw the gap wasn't closing. We'll do our best to keep you safe, but a battlefield is a confusing place, so you have to be on your guard. That means, if you can see the enemy, you keep calm and take a step to the side until there's a Theo in the way, alright?"

"Right, yes. Sorry, of course." he said, face red.

"Right on, sir. Let's run it again, shall we?"

Unfortunately, we'd only just gotten set back up when a runner pulled on my sleeve, saying I had an important message and it couldn't wait. I put Terance in charge for the time being and followed the private off to the field command post, anticipation and anxiety building with every step. I knew what this was about, and I was hopeful, but I couldn't get the possibility of failure out of my mind.

The guard on duty opened the door ahead of us, and I stepped in, removed my hat, and found myself standing in front of an unfamiliar officer, a captain whose pins indicated she was to be leading the newly reformed 9th company.

"Ah. Sergeant Theodora-110552?" she asked. When I nodded, she handed me an envelope. "Terribly unusual thing, but I'm glad to have you. Go on, open it."

I slit the envelope with the multitool on my thumb and extracted the thin paper within, laying it out. I reached the words Lieutenant, 9th Company, 7th Regiment of Foot, and I just about felt like I might hard crash.

"Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Fusilier."

"No fucking way." Private Theo exclaimed.

 

[open_sketch]

In something of a daze, I moved mechanically back toward the NCO barracks to get my things. After all, obviously, I had a room now in the officer's quarters, and my orders were to get it squared away and report back to the 9th company offices. The barracks was empty but for Corporal Thea, on limited duty thanks to a broken linkage cable paralyzing her from the waist-down. Just normal wear and tear: she'd locked up and pitched over during inspection yesterday, and they were waiting for a spare part as I understood it.

"Sergeant, you okay? You look a little off." she asked.

"I'm fine, Thea. Just, uh…" I started nervously.

"Where you taking you're stuff? Shit, are they transferring you, Sarge?" she asked, propping up a bit as best she could. "Fucking bullshit, you love the 7th."

"No, nothing of the sort." I said, hefting the box. "I got promoted."

"... they made you colour sergeant? Hell yeah! You gotta be the youngest since humans were NCOs, huh? 'Cept… why'd you be going anywhere…"

I headed out the door, somehow too embarrassed to stay and explain, and trudged out to the officer quarters at the edge of the base, on the other side of the magazine and power plant. There was never any reason for me to stray there, so it was always just the vague collection of roofs visible in the distance.

As I rounded the edge of the generator building, and down the narrow and unfamiliar cobblestone alley, I started to get nervous. Laid out before me were about three dozen buildings, stately two story affairs with broad windows and paths. My notes said I was now to live in '18', presumably room 18, but I hadn't a clue which building that might be in.

Lost, I walked a way down the path, peering at each structure. All showed signs of activity, people moving about, and at one I spotted an officer (Lieutenant Kennedy of 2nd company, one of the support artillery officers) leaving. Thinking it must be the quarters, I started toward it, about to turn on the short path as she passed when she stopped and stared.

"Sergeant, what is it? I'm just about to head to the range." she asked, and I fumbled, unsure where I was in the conversation. Too embarrassed to correct her, I just froze in place.

"I'm looking for room 18, ma'am." I said. No, I don't have to call her ma'am anymore! Oh, that was going to be a bitch of a habit to break, wasn't it?

"Room 18? I don't rightly know what you're talking about. Number 18 is just up the way, I think one of the newcomers in the 9th company is moving in?"

"Uh…"

"Oh, that must be their stuff. Right, new transfer. The houses are numbered, evens on this side and odds on that side, okay? I know it's strange, took me a while to get used to it." she said. I glanced toward the door of the building, and sure enough there was a large sign with 12 painted in gold letters on it.

Numbly, I nodded, thanked her, and set off toward Number 18. As I approached the door, I thought surely there must be some mistake. This building had to have at least eight rooms, they weren't going to put me in here alone…

The door opened, and on the other side was a housemaid much like April with cheery green eyes.

"Hello Sergeant! Excuse the mess, we're preparing for the new officer. Is that their gear?"

"... it is." I said numbly. The hall behind her looked utterly spotless. "I'm… I'm the new officer."

"Heh, nice. Here, come on, we'll get this stuff put away before they arrive. You look ragged, did you just get back from the frontier?"

She started walking away, and I realized I needed to assert myself now, or I'd end up masquerading as my own assistant for the rest of my life.

"I'm not joking. I'm Lieutenant Fusilier. I have my papers right here." I said, and she stopped, looking at me disbelievingly, her cameras tracking over me several times as though she were expecting me to transform into a human. Clumsily, shifted the trunk to one arm and held out my papers, and her eyes widened as she looked them over.

"Stars… you really are. I… I'm so sorry, Lieutenant, I just…"

"It's quite alright. Um… which one is my room?" I asked, and she just kept staring at the sheet.

"They… they all are, Lieutenant." she said slowly. "Oh my God, why'd they make a machine an officer?"

"I'm starting to ask the same question." I said, looking around the wallpapered halls in awe. "This whole place is mine? I… I don't need a twentieth of it."

"Humans like their space, I guess." the maid said, then winced, "... ma'am."

"I suppose, stars… Um… I need a place to put these."

"Right, yes, let me take you to the main bedroom." she said, beckoning me toward the stairs.

"Hold up, that implies multiple bedrooms. How many beds to humans require?"

The answer turned out to be just one, with the other bedroom acting as a guest room in case I had visitors. The bedroom was nearly the size of the NCO quarters on its own, with a bed so large I could lay down on it and not touch either side, and a mattress so thick I could probably take cover behind it. There was a massive window to let in light, two closets, a writing desk, a fireplace and chair, empty bookshelves, and an attached room filled with hydraulic devices whose function was completely beyond me.

This was all completely foreign to me. In the field, the officers just had their tents and canteen cart, the mobile showers and the latrines soldiers dug, nothing so extravagant as all this. Hell, then-Lieutenant Winters had slept out on the battlements for three days in his uniform so he could be close to the guns if the attacks resumed. They didn't need all of this, so I couldn't fathom why they had it.

I remarked as such to Abby, the housemaid, and she shrugged.

"Our job is to make humans as comfortable as possible, right? Out in the field, that's a much lower standard than here on base, and the officers mostly consider places like this quaint. I used to work in a proper manor. Five family members, house eight times this size." she said. I had to sit down after hearing that.

"What do they even do with that space?" I asked.

"They tend to specialize rooms for specific functions. Rooms for dancing, drinking, smoking, certain sorts of games, for children, for reading, that sort of thing." Abby said, "I know, it's a bit absurd, but they like it. It's also more space for more servants, of course, and that helps a lot."

"Right. Of course." I said, "How… how many servants in this house?"

"Four, ma'am. Myself and Gail cleaning, Peter the cook, and Thomas, he's your mechanic and utilities machine. Oh, and your aide, when you're assigned one, but they won't count I don't think? They're with you, not the house."

Right.

"I'm due back at the offices, I'll deal with... this later." I said, shaking my head. I had a cook. Why did I have a cook! I don't and literally can't eat.

I didn't have a problem with humans having all this, I'm so very glad we had the resources to furnish their lives so lavishly, I just didn't understand it. The most personal space I'd ever had was a three by seven foot mattress and the space either above it or below it, and I'd never needed anything else. I couldn't even fathom what I was going to do with all this.

Abby left to continue the impossible duty of cleaning this mammoth structure, and I placed my trunk at the foot of the bed and opened it. Within were all my worldly possessions: my new officer's gear (uniform, hat, boots, gorget, sword, and pistol), an empty wallet, a piece of one of of the Fomalhaut invaders I'd taken as a trophy, and the service manual, power cable, and three of the four replacement eye lenses which I came out the box with.

I noticed, on the far wall, a mirror, stretching from floor to ceiling, and I lay my new clothes carefully over my arm before walking to it. There was a bar there which I realized was to place clothing I was changing into, and then I looked at myself carefully. I'd never done that before. I'd seen my reflection distorted in the polished barrels of energy carronades and the like, but I'd always just known how I looked from how the other Doras looked. Some of my more vain comrades had mirrors, but I'd never bothered.

Standing before me was a small and worn machine in her bleached pink uniform, worn through boots, and threadbear trousers. I knew I looked disheveled, I always did after a long deployment, but the machine under it… I had no idea I was in such a condition. The once sharp steel of my cheekbones had become soft and scuffed, and there was a brown discolouration mark on the steel where two decades of shouldering and firing a laser musket had tempered the metal. The golden wires which served as my hair had been through so much abuse than there were patches where my scalp was quite visible. There were four long lines scored from my brow, across my nose, and off my jaw from where I had taken a blow from an arachnoform claw, the one that had shattered my eye lense.

Under those lenses, which I realized only now were equally scuffed and marked, the projection of two large, green eyes stared back. One of them flickered as it simulated blinking, the scuffs and scratches that had built up on the glass only now irritating me.

I was still polished to a fine sheen, of course, I took care of myself, but the fact I'd never done more than get the necessary repairs as parts wore out for three whole decades was incredibly stark now. I stalked back to the trunk, retrieving the tiny key to pop out the lenses of my eyes and replacing them with fresh ones (I had to take them out again and run water over them from the sink in the extra room to clear away the dust). The sudden jump in visual clarity made everything feel unreal, colours brighter and objects sharper, the pits and wear on my hands more stark.

I had no need for vanity before, so long as I looked professional and functioned soundly. Why should I start now? Everything worked, there was no need to worry.

Feeling frustrated, I began undoing the buttons on my worn-out jacket, pulling off my crossbelts and pulling loose the sash around my waist. I let the old rag on the floor, my shirt following soon after, and glanced back at the mirror. The overlapping steel plates that could have at one time passed for a neoclassical statue were now worn and burnished by the years, detail lost and finish long dulled. Likewise my legs when freed from the grey trousers, where suddenly I could see that gash where an invader's thermal lance had glanced off was not in fact minor, but looked like a bite taken out of my thigh.

At one time, I had been an avenging angel cast in chrome and aluminium and glass. Now, I looked like an Egyptian monument, eroded by time and neglect. I held up the bright new red uniform, suddenly feeling far too shabby for its fine tailoring.

"It was worth it." I told my reflection. Trying to will it to be true.

I donned the fashionable silk undershirt (so sheer that, had I anything to see, you would have seen it), the tights, the tall boots nearly to my knees. The coat with short tails, brighter red than anything I'd ever worn, lined with fine buttons, topped in a black collar with space for my unit and rank badges, and with a single elaborate epaulette, under which I ran my bright white crossbelt. The dark red sash and sword belt, with the hidden holster for my pistol. The brass gorget. Fine white gloves. The bicorn hat, its wireless communicator aerial decorated in a long red plumb.

I looked back into the mirror, my eyes going wide.

It was true. It was worth it.

---

I stepped into the 9th company offices not long after, my hat in my hand, feeling awkward with the scabbard against my leg. Still, the new uniform was filling me with confidence, and I strode into the room, trying to keep my head high. Sitting around the table, surrounded by forms and with a bottle of something between them, was the new captain and another, equally unfamiliar lieutenant, a man with long strawberry blond hair and square glasses.

"Ah, hello Lieutenant." the captain said, and though my hand twitched I managed to avoid the impulse to come to attention. "You certainly look the part, I'll say that. Come now, don't be a stranger."

I nodded nervously, unsure what to do.

"I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced." I said, and she shrugged.

"Right, yes. Captain Elenora Murray, and this is A-section leader, Lieutenant Miles Beckham. Miles, as promised, Lieutenant Theodora Fusilier."

"Dora, to my comrades." I added.

"Well I'll be. I was sure she was joking. They jumped you up?" he asked. I winced at the insult.

"No sir. I bought the commission fair and proper." I corrected.

"Oh. Sir. You flatter me." he said wryly, and I suddenly wished very badly I had one of the stealth fields they gave to riflemen so I could simply vanish. "Just remember, now your job is to give the orders, not mindlessly follow them."

"Miles, come now. If you can't get over your habit of being a prick, she can have some adjustment time." Captain Murray said, gesturing to a seat. I took it, placing my hat on the back as they had done. "In any case, it's good you're here. You're just in time for the endless mountains of paperwork."

"What needs doing, exactly?" I asked, and Beckham groaned and took a sip from his tumbler.

"Transfer papers and orders. We're pulling in machines from across half the bloody galaxy, which means a hundred plus forms to be checked, rechecked, and signed." he said wearily, "We're working our way through the surnames alphabetically. We started on F, and right now we're… just about on F, I believe."

That, I admit, got a chuckle out of me.

"What, no Armourers?" I asked, and the two shared a sudden look of dawning realization.

"Christ, we do need those, don't we?" the captain said, flipping through her papers. "I've been staring at these sheets for four hours, I must have lost track."

"Well, here. How can I help?" I inquired, and Beckham responded by standing a moment to push a stack of papers my way.

"Make sure all these match the logbook there and sign off. They're your section anyway." he said. "Stars, don't we have secretaries for this?"

"They don't have the authority, Miles, come on. We can have it done for the weekend at this rate." Murray said, pulling a fresh sheet down and changing out her pen for a freshly charged one. "Provided we don't fall asleep."

I wasn't one for much paperwork, but it looked simple enough. I took the top sheet off the pile, ran my finger down the ledger until I found the matching serial number, and double-checked all the transfer information. Everything was in order, so I flipped the sheet to the side and started on the next. It was simple enough, and I soon found a fair rhythm to it, enjoying the feeling of seeing one pile shrink and the other grow as I fixed errors and double-checked the roster.

"Say, would you like a drink?" I heard Miles offer, voice dripping with sarcasm. Obviously I couldn't, but it did make me think of something else.

"No thank you, but could we get some light music, you think?" I asked, and there was some shuffling as one of them started a record. "Thank you."

I flipped over to the next sheet, looking curiously at it. They were sending me an American corporal, interesting. That required an extra signature for border control. Three more privates of good British manufacture and service in other regiments, a Swedish gunner (extra signature, and a letter about his credentials from his military I set to the side for later), an order of two newly-manufactured machines from the craftsmen at Procyon (paid for by the Colonel, I carefully clipped the checks to the sheets), and somebody turned on a candle just as I was about to inquire about the light. Oh, two transfers from the 19th Regiment of Foot, lovely, I'd been garrisoned with them in '51…

"Lieutenant?"

I looked up, suddenly aware how dark it had become. Lieutenant Beckham was gone, and Captain Murray looked as though she'd left and come back.

"Sorry, yes?"

"Dinner is in ten minutes. I know you don't need it, but it might not be a bad idea to make an appearance at the mess." she said, glancing over the papers. I had maybe five or six more to finish. "And try not to make us obsolete all at once, would you?"

"Sorry, ma'- I, Captain…"

"Unless I'm giving you an order, I'm Murray. Or Elenora, if you're daring." she said, taking a seat opposite. "They're really throwing you into the deep end, aren't they?"

"I'm afraid I may be too dense to swim." I said, having to put in no small effort not to end the sentence in ma'am. She chuckled at the double meaning, pulling the logbook away from me.

"Hardly. It's just a new set of rules, you'll adjust." she said, tapping a finger on the table, "Most of our new officers arrive knowing how to act respectable, and have to learn how to be soldiers. Surely we can handle a soldier learning to act respectable."

She got up and beckoned for me to do the same, and I remembered only at the last moment to take my hat with me.

 

[open_sketch]

Much like the officer's quarters, the office's mess was one of those spaces which I'd lived around my entire life but never had cause to venture to. I was only ever assigned as an ensign's aide in the field when I was a corporal, and I was starting to suspect that was because my worn-out appearance would likely have been discouraging to any fresh-faced young officers. So the building was always just an exterior, the most I'd ever seen was the entry hall through the door as people came and went.

I followed Captain Murray apprehensively up the stairs, through the double doors, and inside. I wasn't exactly sure what I was expecting, but the space was far cozier than I anticipated. Relatively low-ceilinged and with warm wood and wallpaper finish, the room was decorated top to bottom with oddities and pictures, a mix of paintings and small holographic captures from campaigns. Not of battles or anything, but groups of officers standing together, or individual officers caught in candid moments.

The main room had three tables for the unit's thirty or so officers, and a long bar at the rear manned by civilian bartenders. Officers were sitting, talking, eating, there were small card circles, the entire room filled with the low hum of overlapping voices. Just beyond the hall, I could see a second room lit by a flicking fireplace set to a low cyan, one filled with bookshelves and overstuffed chairs. Officer's aides, Jameses and Marias, would occasionally enter to deliver food or messages.

Then the door clicked behind us, and eyes across the room flickered up to me. I did my best not to let my nerves show, but I soon realized I didn't know where to sit or what to do. I nearly followed Captain Murray out of a sort of blind instinct, but then I realized she was going to the bar and an entire conversation emerged unbidden in my mind, where she'd asked what I could possibly be getting at the bar and I'd laugh nervously and try to play it off and consider ordering something anyway like an idiot but then I can't even do that because I'm flat fucking broke…

What I needed to do was sit down, but I wasn't sure if there was a place for me to sit. It seemed as though officers were just sitting wherever they pleased, but I had no way to know if there was a secret set of rules or something, like if that empty table was simply empty because nobody was sitting at it or because it was reserved for officers yet to arrive. Realizing I'd been standing stock still for several seconds now, I decided that I needed to either take a seat or turn and leave, and it took everything I had to walk the dozen steps to the empty table, pull out a chair, and sit down.

That done, and with no plans beyond it, I very carefully studied the worn wooden surface of the table. I became an expert in its grain and polish. I could have written a dissertation.

"Lieutenant, you alright?"

I glanced up to see Captain Murray had returned, a glass in front of her, a look of concern on her face.

"Ah, yes, sorry. I just… what does one do, in the officer's mess? What's my job right now?" I asked.

"Your job right now is to relax and enjoy yourself, alright? Officers usually eat dinner together, that's why everyone is here, but nobody will bat an eye if you take your meals in private just so long as you aren't a total stranger. Or… not take them in private, as they case may be."

"Right." I said, looking around. More officers were starting to filter in, taking seats, talking and laughing. Another joined our table, an ensign from 6th company who couldn't help but stare at me wordlessly until Murray glared at him, and then another, much more familiar face.

"Well, I can't say I believed it until this moment." Lieutenant Duncan, 4th company B section. My section. My old officer. "I think congratulations are in order, however?"

Don't say sir, don't say sir, don't say sir.

"Thank you, sir."

Fuck.

Fortunately, he waved it off, looking a little amused.

"You were an excellent sergeant, I hope you'll make a good officer too."

"Sorry, what's going on here? Why is she dressed like that?" the Ensign said, looking around the table. "There's not machine officers, are there?"

"There have been before. Not many, but it does happen." I said, hoping that would placate him.

"Why, though? I thought you lot were supposed to be happy where you were?" he asked, an edge to his voice. "I thought they liked it! Do they all want to be officers?"

"Relax, Ronald. Deep breaths." Captain Murray said, "I don't think we have an uprising on our hands. Do we, Dora?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny." I said, trying to keep a straight face. Messing with Ensigns was the one part of officer-ing I had ample experience with. "But don't you worry. We don't sit around resenting the officers by any stretch."

"But why are you an officer?" he asked.

"I bought a commission, same as you." I explained, and he cut me off.

"Yes, by why?" he insisted.

"Ronald, come now, leave it." Duncan added, growing frustration in his voice.

"No, it's quite alright, really. We Doras are made to love soldiering, it's etched onto our circuits. Keeping humanity safe is what we're for. But we're all different, you know, and we do have preferences. Some soldiers are drawn more to marksmanship, or enjoy a long march, or who are most relaxed cleaning their gear for inspection."

I noticed that not only was everyone at the table listening intently, there were officers at nearby tables leaning over to listen as well. I stumbled a bit on my words at that, rather self-conscious.

"I guess…. Well, I guess I've just always felt I could help more by leading than in the line, which is why I pushed so hard to make NCO, and saved until I could afford a commission. That's all."

"Well said." Captain Murray added.

"Well… alright. But how come you got to go straight to Lieutenant?" the ensign asked, pushing the hair from his eyes as he looked me over critically.

"Previous military experience, Ronald, she could take the lieutenant's exam." Duncan explained.

"I did consider it." I admitted, "I had to save quite a few years to afford the commission, and it would have gone faster if I had gone to Ensign the moment I could afford it and taken the higher pay. But I decided I'd much rather five more years as a Sergeant than three and a half as an Ensign."

As I said, I loved soldiering, a thing Ensigns got to do very little of.

"Can't hardly blame you there." Ronald admitted, to the chuckles of the table.

"Probably wouldn't have saved you any time at all, anyway. With mess fees and such, ensigns earn about as much as sergeants, I believe." Duncan said.

"Mess fees?" I asked.

"Yes, part of your pay will be garnished, um, it'll be broken down by the paymaster, but what is it for a lieutenant again?"

"Sixpence for meals, six for quarters, four to the mess." Duncan ratted off. A shilling and a half, I was still making 7s6d, which was two and a half times my previous salary. "Oh, and your aide, I think the regulation rate for Army aides is eighteen pence."

"I doubt they'll make her pay for meals, Duncan." Murray added lightly.

"Electricity, maybe?" I offered, and that got some strange looks.

"Stars, I can't imagine. They'd probably pay you for help meeting the minimum output of the Volta plant, if anything." she responded. "Still, that's more to put toward your next rank."

"Presuming I don't have to pay for food I won't eat or an aide I won't need, it'll only take me 12 years and 117 days to be able to afford it. And I'll have 5 shillings 9 pence to spare!" I announced cheerfully. That was nothing!

"You just did that in your head?" Ensign Ronald (he surely had a surname, but I didn't know it) asked.

"What, like it's hard?"

"Well, I'm afraid it'll take you a little longer. You have to have an aide." Captain Murray said, "I don't know if it's regulations, but you won't be able to get by without one, I promise you."

"It wouldn't do to be seen without one either. I imagine you can get straightened out tomorrow." Duncan added. I was about to protest and try to find out why I needed an aide when I noticed the room had gone quite quiet, and I looked about to see what was happening.

Oh… there was Lt. Col. Harrison, standing up at a table where he was sitting with the majors.

"Just a few matters before dinner. Firstly, we have the first of our new transfers and commissions today to start the re-establishment of our 9th company, Captain Murray and Lieutenants Beckham and Fusilier. Welcome to the 7th Foot."

I realized Murray was standing and I did the same, then spotted Beckham also standing at a far table. Every single head in the room turned to me as there was a scatter of polite applause, and it was a blessed relief to sit down again.

"Tomorrow or the next day we ought to get our gaggle of new ensigns to boot." the Lt. Colonel added, some amusement in his voice. "And, as usual, I'd like to thank our guests from the Royal Artillery for their continued presence in our regiment."

Once again, everyone was getting to their feet, all of them holding their glasses. I stood up awkwardly, as everyone held the glasses out.

"To the Royal Artillery!" the Colonel said, and everyone around me took a sip from their glasses, accompanied by a few half-hearted 'here heres' from among the group. Utterly mortified, I took a seat again with everyone else. Did I need a glass? What was I doing here?

"Should I get a glass of water or something?" I asked quietly.

"I… definitely not!" Murray hissed back, clearly mortified.

"And finally, to Britain, the Regents, and the colours!"

That was met with a lot more enthusiasm and polite cheers. Once again, I simply stood awkwardly by, hand empty, then crumpled back to my seat.

---

After dinner, a singularly awkward affair where I sat in front of an empty plate and watched everyone else eat and talk, too terrified to say anything, I beat a hasty retreat back out to Number 18 at full pace. I was greeted at the door by a different maid (Gail, if I recalled correctly) and climbed up the stairs to my oversized bedroom. I was still at 71% charge, but I felt utterly exhausted, drained like I never had before.

I stripped, draping my uniform over the nearest surface, retrieved my power cable from my trunk, clipping it to the back of my neck, and after a few minutes of hunting around the walls of the bedroom, checking to see if any of the fixtures were covers of some kind, I was forced to conclude there simply wasn't a power outlet at all. I'll admit, I may have taken a small moment to beg the Creator forgiveness for my hubris before getting dressed again and wandering out to the hall on a hunt for my staff. I discovered Abby polishing the brass doorknobs to the kitchen downstairs.

"Um… Abby? I… my room doesn't have an outlet."

"Huh?" she looked over, her face falling. "Right. Of course it doesn't. Uh…"

"Is there a room that does? I just need to sleep." I asked, and she shrugged.

"Just the servant's quarters, I'm afraid. Um… there's your aide's room, it's behind the curtained door. There's a port there." she said.

I hadn't seen any such door, but within a moment Abby was heading upstairs and I was following, and she indicated to a spot on the wall which I realized was, indeed, a door, though well hidden. I clicked it open, and inside was a cozy little room. Bare walls, a small slit window above the narrow bed, just space enough for my trunk and a few shelves around it. And there, at the side of the bed, was a port set in the wall. It was perfect.

"Thank you, Abby."

"You're welcome, ma'am." she said, clearly frustrated. "Maybe talk to Thomas in the morning and we'll see about fixing this. Also, if you need help, you don't have to go wandering, it's what the pull cords are for.

"I see. Thank you." I repeated as she left, and I closed the door to the small room, stripped, and collapsed onto the bed. Thickest mattress I'd ever had in my life, quiet, practical. I cracked the window open and spent a moment, staring out at the carpet of stars outside the station's dome, feeling altogether overwhelmed.

Then I plugged myself in and went to sleep.

 

[open_sketch]

The next day, awakening in a private room on a soft bed, felt utterly surreal. I unplugged, wet a rag in the adjoining room sink for a quick clean, and found my uniform carefully hung for me in the bedroom, boots polished and gloves spotless. I dressed, put on my sword, and wandered downstairs.

It was early still, very early, I wasn't due anywhere for an hour yet, so I decided to explore the space. I counted the rooms as I went: the main and spare bedroom, a kitchen and pantry, a room with chairs and couches, another room with a larger table, and a room with a writing desk, bookshelves, and good lighting. There was also a second room with a bath and such, for some unfathomable reason.

I noticed that despite how fancy everything seemed, the panelling and wallpaper and lights, that things seemed rather bare compared to the other human spaces I've found myself in. I realized after a moment it was because while there was furniture, there was no furnishings, no decoration. No paintings, no portraits, no flowers, clocks, or vases. It was an empty shell, waiting for personalized touches I could neither afford nor understand.

Behind a door was a small, plain room where the two housemaids were sitting together, playing cards. Further doors beyond presumably lead to servants quarters.

"Can I help you?" Abby asked, sounding a bit annoyed, and I shrugged.

"Sorry, just poking about the place." I said, backing out rapidly. I shut the door, but I still heard what was said behind it quite clearly.

"She's on the wrong side of that door, I'm telling you." Abby commented, and I froze to listen.

"Poor thing. Must be so overwhelming." Gail responded, and I heard the sounds of cards being set down.

"I'll bet, but I've no sympathy. She did it to herself, ungrateful bitch." Abby snapped.

"Come now, that's-"

"I won't! It's an insult. To us, sure, and poor Peter's basically out of a job now, but moreover... I don't understand how she thinks she can just throw everything she's been given back in their faces. It's not enough to have good work, apparently, she has to take one of their vacancies too."

"It is a little disconcerting…"

"It's selfish, is what it is."

I felt a chill go through me, and stepped away as quiet as I could. There was a part of me that wanted to open the door and defend myself and my decisions, but instead I just stalked off toward the door and left. The whole way to the offices, I ran the conversation back in my head, imagining my response.

I wasn't being selfish, I was just trying to serve in the way I thought was best. Being productive didn't have to mean being directly subordinate to all humans, or always giving up space and labour for them at their slightest whim, or even their imagined whims as seemed to be the case here. I was doing important work, I was going to be a good officer, I'd make the galaxy safer and keep the centuries-long peace, vanquish monsters and clear the way for explorers.

I wasn't selfish. I wasn't.

I arrived back at the 9th company office, finding Captain Murray and Lieutenant Beckham with a pot of tea and and sat back down at my seat from earlier. The remaining half-dozen sheets taunted me, and I plucked a pen from its charger eagerly.

"So, what is on the schedule for today?" I asked.

"Pen down, Lieutenant. Before you do anyone else's paperwork, get your own sorted with administration. I don't want you putting off drawing your pay and such." Captain Murray said. "After that… well, we're officers without a company right now, so not much. The ensigns got delayed until tomorrow."

"Oh?"

"Nothing serious. Signal lights say they're becalmed moving up the Rho Ophiuchi, because of course they are." she explained.

"Their ship has the regiment's new flying guns too, which means we're not going to hear the end of it from Lieutenant Kennedy." Beckham grumbled.

"Oh, I was looking forward to seeing those." I said, a little disappointed.

"So, yes, not much at all. Light day." Murray concluded.

"Fair enough. Um… are there any non-scheduled duties I could take on?" I asked.

"I mean, I have all of this you could do." Beckham said dryly, indicating to his half-finished pile of paperwork. "If you're still in a tabulating mood."

"Oh, alright. I'll get it done after mine." I knew he was being a bit of dick, but if I was going to be sitting around the office, I'd want something to do. Beckham chuckled, and Murray just looked at me incredulously.

"You realize he's messing with you, right? Like, that's meant to insult you." she said.

"Ah, yes, I understand. Just as I'd insult a human by offering them assorted chocolates and expensive wallpaper." I retorted playfully.

"Very funny, but no. Miles, do your own damn paperwork. Dora, it's not your job to do your fellow officer's work. If you need something to do, go do some sparring or shooting practice or something. Read some manuals, I don't know..."

---

"And sign here and here."

I did, somewhat proud of how in the last few weeks I'd gone from never signing anything to having developed what I thought was a fairly classy little looping scrawl.

"Still want your pay deposited in the Bank of Antares? Alright. There we are. You'll be paid from time of commission, dated from 27th July 2168, and you are now, officially, no longer a sergeant either."

"Wait, does that mean I collected both a sergeant's pay and a lieutenant's pay for three days?" I asked, and the secretary shrugged helplessly.

"Our system isn't really set up for this, you know. Buy yourself something nice, I guess." she said. "Still… 9 shillings a day, that's a fortune. What are you going to do with it all?"

I almost answered save for captain, but to be honest, I wasn't sure.

"Well, some of it has to go towards my fees, right?" I asked.

"Right, about that. I've sent a letter inquiring about it, but for now you'll be paying for meals too. And, uh, I imagine you don't have a lady's maid willing to accompany you, do you?" she asked, pausing to push her glasses up her nose.

"Trust me, I'd love to be accompanied by a- oh. That joke has some unfortunate implications now, doesn't it?" I said, suddenly feeling rather gross. Maria's were hot, but just the thought of the power imbalance inherent in my new circumstance immediately swept away a lifetime of fantasies of that nature. That'd just be wrong.

"Oh… yes, sort of." the secretary winced, "Right, so I'll put in a requisition."

I almost protested, but then I paused a moment. This was part of being an officer. A part I hadn't considered, but it was. Being an officer wasn't just a job, it was also a station, and I had to meet the expectations.

"I hope she doesn't mind." I muttered, and the secretary gave me a puzzled expression before returning to her forms.

---

I went back and completed my paperwork for the last few soldiers in my section, then took my sword and pistol with me to the private range. This place was very familiar to me, I'd spent long hours of my off time practicing her, running bayonet drills and practicing my marksmanship. In all honestly, I'd likely spent more life in this exact spot than anywhere else: I'd switched barracks buildings, but I always came back here.

It was midday, so it was empty but for the armourer, who perked up when he saw me. The only soldiers not on duty training properly right now were either on leave or on light duties, both of which meant they were unlikely to come here. I'd spent many of my leave days here practicing, but I didn't know anyone else who did.

"Dora? 552?" the armourer said, lifting the brim of his forage cap in awe. "Stars, I'd heard rumours, but… lookit you!"

I realized now that this was the first enlisted machine I'd interacted with since getting my commission, other than the runner who'd probably been spreading the word. That was odd.

"I know, I can scarcely believe it myself. Though, uh, I am an officer, so…"

"Right! Sorry ma'am." he corrected quickly, "You want the range or…"

"Some holographic training I think? Pistol and sword?"

The pistol and sword were both unfamiliar to me. I'd never had a chance to practice with either, seeing as I'd never be expected to use them in the field when I had my musket and bayonet. Terry came out from around the desk to operate the panel, and I stepped down into the sparring ring. With the touch of a few buttons, there was a static crackle in the air as the forcefields came on, and the foggy swirl of activating holographic systems.

"Um, ma'am? Weapon's check, please ensure your sword is set to level zero, and your pistol is set to simulation safe. This force field is tough, but we'd rather not take risks." Terry called over the desk, only the top of his cap visible. I'd heard it a thousand times, but that was good, because he was required by regulation to say it.

My sword, a hilt with a curved framing shape at the blunt side, had four settings, plus off. I pulled up the tab on the side of the hand guard with my finger and twisted until it clicked from off to zero. Zero was 'active safe', where a strike with the blade would merely produce a momentary tingling numbness to prove a hit. The other settings were level one, where the energy discharge would cause pain and paralysis, level two, a dueling setting which made the blade sharp but prevented it from cutting deeper than an eighth of an inch, and level three, where the full energies of the blade were freed. There were some materials such a blade couldn't effortlessly cut, but not many.

That done, I thumbed the activation switch, and the blade flared into view in its default white, a dancing curve of light that crackled with the energies within. Everything in order, I deactivated it a moment and turned to the pistol, turning it over in my hand. Engraved on the left side was Theodora Fusilier, rendered beautifully amidst a framing of artfully done gears and circuitry. I wondered a moment what the machine who decorated it thought, putting that name into an officer's pistol, but I appreciated the thought behind the design.

I pulled the frizzen open to check the ignition chamber, a complicated array of lenses surrounding the primary focusing crystal, and I ensured it was set properly in the jaws and the screw was tight. Crystals could burn out from the stress of repeated firings, so my cartridge pouch had spares. Behind it went the dry battery, still snug in place, then I checked the coolant chamber running along the bottom of the barrel.

"One second, corporal, I've just realized I forgot to put coolant in it." I called out, tucking the pistol under the crook of my arm and retrieving the vial of coolant, pressing the spout to the port above the trigger. A tiny bit dribbled onto my thumb, beading on my glove as the hydrophobic coating rejected it.

The coolant would evaporate as the weapon was fired to keep the lenses from cracking, faster the more power was used, which is why battles against dangerous foes tended to quickly become choked with a cloying haze of the stuff. Finally, I ensured the latch under the barrel for the emergency cooling system was securely shut. The coolant could only do so much, and in the event of overheating you could pull the entire cylindrical heat-sink out and replace it.

Finally, I flipped the firing mode to practice, and the weapon hummed in my hand.

"Alright Terry, let's get started!" I called.

"Targets and intensity level?" he called, and I thought a moment. I usually practiced on an 8 or 9, and I'd sometimes turned the machine up as far as 12, but I was unfamiliar with these weapons, so I should go easy on myself.

"Let's say peer humanoid, level six?" I called, and Terry punched it in as I set the pistol to simulate firing at quarter strength. I could do level six in standby mode.

"Alright, ready? Mark!"

The holographic systems came to life, and suddenly I wasn't standing in a sparring ring, I was on a flat plane on some dry, alien world. The illusion only extended about eight feet off the ground, the sky fading out to the ceiling of the range, but it was there. All around me were the fuzzy, indistinct shapes of a line of Theos and Doras, uniforms slightly out of date, firing into an onrushing column of enemies. They were shaped like a man or machine, moved like them, but the details were fuzzy and indistinct, just shadowy greyscale images. The only thing clearly visible was their eyes, you could see where they were looking to follow their motions.

I locked eyes with one of them thundering towards me, longarm in hand, tipped with a white blade. I snapped my pistol up and squeezed the trigger, striking down the shadow to his left in a burst of fog, and the light on the firing lock winked out, slowly recharging. Not enough time for a second shot, I put forth my sword.

Behind this program, I knew, was the captured motions of soldiers and swordsmen, or carefully orchestrated versions of enemies historical or fantastical. This one was a soldier like me, and I easily anticipated his plunging strike toward my chest and tried to knock it aside with my sword, the way I would lock barrel to barrel and push the enemy's weapon aside.

The flat of the blade, light and without leverage, bounced ineffectually off the side of the barrel. The holographic bayonet, undeterred, plunged through my chest, and a sharp, involuntary chill went through me from the buzzing energy as the scene faded.

"Okay, maybe something more basic." I said, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Can we do fundamentals?"

"Alright, baby's first swordplay, coming up. Let's see if you can beat Ensign Monaghan's first time high score, ma'am!"

"How'd he do?" I asked.

"He made it nearly forty-five seconds without vomiting!"

---

A few years ago, Captain Enright took leave to have a child, and when I found out she'd be off for a full year, I found myself asking what would take so long. Sure, the process of somehow crafting a child using the vagaries of icky human biology was probably an involved enough process to require time off (I'm still not clear on all the details), but I didn't exactly understand yet why she couldn't come back when she was finished. In the process of an older machine explaining it to me (fucking gross, by the way) a fact stuck out which I always sort of intuitively understood but never actually knew.

See, when human children are born, they don't know how to walk. They actually physically can't, they have little noodle legs and trouble supporting their giant melon heads. But once their legs can, they actually need to work out, from first principles, how to walk, which when you think about it is the act of throwing yourself forward and catching yourself with feet. Put like that, it's basically orbital mechanics, which makes it pretty impressive that beings whose brains have yet to be able to understand language can manage it at all.

The reason I'm saying this is because I imagine this is what it must feel like to be a tiny human baby, having to learn how to use your own fucking feet.

The training programs went through a variety of extremely basic principles of how to stand, how to hold your sword, how to read your opponents, all of which read as subtly wrong to me, a being who literally came out the box with a decent understanding of bayonet drill. That stuff made sense, it was all about reach and a strong, grounded stance, using the end of your weapon to point away the end of theirs before overpowering them and giving them a poke. Simple.

But an infantry sword like this is designed to be used by a squishy human officer who was a third as strong as your average Dora, which meant it wasn't made to lock close to push people over. It was essentially a big scalpel running with energy, and you used it like one, moving, threatening, and feinting until you saw an opening to dart in and carve a chunk out of the foe.

At one point, I got so frustrated with all this dancing about that I just smashed the hand guard of my weapon into my holographic doppelganger's face, dropped my sword as I kicked through her knee joint, and then I pulled off her arm at the shoulder. Fortunately, the program counted this as a pass.

I was midway through my eighth attempt at not getting my hand chopped off parrying incoming blows when I heard somebody calling. I glanced over the holographic haze to see Lieutenant Beckham staring in, chewing his way through an apple.

"You know, usually we like our fighting machines to know how to fight." he observed, which was about the time the holographic swordblade I was no longer watching sliced through my shoulder.

"Ughh… Yeah, well, we all start somewhere." I retorted, "Difference is, it didn't take me a whole year to figure out how to walk, so I do have a head start."

As I said, it was on my mind. I heard Corporal Terry suppress a chuckle behind the controls.

"You have got me there, I suppose. Try not to stand with your leg so far out, though, rather hard to walk at all without one." he said, stepping away and disappearing behind the haze. Self-consciously, I adjusted my stance, leveling my sword against the flickering holographic foe.

"Alright Terry, one more time!"

 

[open_sketch]

I decided to skip going to the officer's mess, still having no idea how to navigate the byzantine social requirements. I was still in the range well past dark, after all the off-duty shooters had come and gone again, working my way through the training courses.

"Okay. Single opponent humanoid level three, again." I said, pacing back to the center of the sparring ring, carefully monitoring my footing. I felt a grinding resistance in my joints, I'd been working so hard I'd worn the lubricants off the working surfaces faster than they could be reapplied, but I knew I probably had a few more hours before I was at any risk of serious wear. And I had more than the battery to spare to get through tomorrow.

"Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying, it's nearing midnight. You've been here fifteen hours."

"I'm well aware, Dorothea. Just put it on." I said. Terry's shift had ended, and I'd presumed he was asleep by now.

"Yes, ma'am." she replied, and there was the crackle of the holograms forming again, the single duelist with mirrored gear, pistol in one hand, sword in the other. I raised my blade in a defensive guard, adjusted my stance, and the program started.

This time, I didn't jump forward into the attack, the first of the mistakes I'd been making. I inched forward, keeping the point of my blade moving while focusing on hers. When it angled in for an attack, I batted it aside, punching my guard towards it: the trick to a good parry was to intercept close to the tip of their blade and the hilt of your own, taking advantage of the difference in leverage. The blade was smacked aside, but this time I didn't immediately try for a strike. It was just a probing attack, trying to bait out predictable aggression, so I iInstead responded with my own, trying to reposition our blades so I had the advantage, so I could seize the moment.

Our blades touched, jumped, I lunged low and then immediately leaned back as their swing came inches from my face. I saw my opening as the shadow tried to pull back to a defensive stance, coming forward with a smooth strike off my last, and when our blades met I stepped inside their guard with my pistol pressed to her gut.

Force screens would easily disperse almost any laser blast, but not if it came from inside the field. I put a blast through where her batteries would be, and the target flopped over, disintegrating into dancing motes as the hologram faded from the ring. Finally. If I could do that a dozen more times, I'd turn it up to level four.

I looked up to Private Dorothea behind the controls, noting the look of concern in her eyes, and I couldn't help but see how… orderly she looked. Shiny finish, clean lenses, sharp lines. I suddenly remembered how I looked in the mirror.

I shut off the blade.

"Alright, I think I'm done for the day. Thank you, corporal." I said, making safe my pistol and stashing it in my belt, sheathing my sword. "Tomorrow, I'll make level four."

I set back out across the dark base, cutting near the streetlamps, trying to ignore the grinding feeling in my knees. That'd be gone by tomorrow morning at the latest, and it wasn't hampering my mobility, but it wasn't at all pleasant.

I moved through the door, climbed the stairs, and was halfway to the small servant's room before I noticed that, as a temporary fix, somebody had dragged a field battery into the room and set it up on the bedside table, my power cable laid out on my bed. My ratty old uniform was hanging nicely in the corner, freshly cleaned and pressed, which made me realize that it hadn't been yellowish after all, it had simply been inundated by dust that the faded pink had taken on a salmon hue.

I didn't particularly care for the idea of sleeping in a giant bed in a massive, empty room, but it felt like an insult to ignore the hard work of the machine who'd dragged the battery up here and tried to make it nice for me. I stripped, leaving my clothes laid out on the dresser where it'd presumably be taken for laundry, plugged into the battery, and collapsed against the overstuffed pillow, feeling very small. You could easily, easily fit four more Doras on here. Four of any machine, really.

Maybe those secretaries, with the glasses. A giant bed would be entirely practical with four cute Sarahs to share it with.

Hell, I'd settle for one.

I'm not exactly sure what I'd do if I had one, mind. I mean, I'd spent more than enough time in a barracks to have heard a fairly exhaustive set of options, but I hadn't exactly had much hands-on experience, if you will. Precisely none, actually. It was generally accepted wisdom among the machines that Theos and Doras dating one another was all kinds of a bad idea for unit cohesion and morale (not that it didn't happen sometimes), but meeting other machines meant going off base, and going off base usually meant spending money.

The only non-military machine I knew was April, who I'd met entirely by chance while waiting for a ship. I'd dropped the crush I'd had on her early on, seeing as she'd had the same boyfriend for twenty years at that point. They were still together, it was insufferable. She'd sometimes offer to set me up with one of her friends, but I'd always put it off, worried about my schedule or the costs. Always saving, always training, I'd just tried to put it to the back of my mind.

The sudden, cold fear that I'd stumbled into some juvenile morality play washed over me. Did I really, seriously just trade all happiness and companionship for a life of non-stop work, and then once I'd accomplished my goal realize that the real wealth lay in companionship and stopping to enjoy life and getting laid with hot bespectacled receptionist machines? Was I such a cliche?

But then I realized I was being silly. I was a decorated Dora in a fresh new officer's uniform, I had a salary probably only matched by the servants of the Regents, and I sort of knew how to use a sword. I was to lesbians what sunlight was to vampires. If I eased up just a tiny bit and put myself out there, I'd probably wear out the actuators in my fingers.

Just as soon as I was settled in my new position, then I could relax and pursue other things.

… it would probably also help if I stopped looking like somebody'd run me over with a wagon.

---

"Come now, an orderly line. There's only four of you, how hard could this be?"

I looked at the new ensigns that Sergeant Theo was trying to wrangle, all of them busy looking around with wonder at the dock or the base or the assembled soldiers we borrowed from 3rd company coming to escort them. One of them at least started to get the idea that she ought to be standing at attention because there were officers coming, but she rather jumped the gun, holding her hand to her temple as we were still most of the way up the street.

"My God, they're babies." Beckham bemoaned, looking at them with a sort of dawning horror. "We weren't that bad, were we?"

"I wasn't." I pointed out smugly. I'd come out the box knowing how to salute.

"Oh, don't worry you two, you're just as bad now." Captain Murray said, stepping out in front of the ensigns. A second of them got the message and snapped his best salute (4/10, try again kid), but another just looked at her blankly while a third was tracking a fast clipper passing over the station dome with a complete ignorance of the world around her.

"Ensigns! Salute!" Sergeant Theo insisted, and finally, they stopped fidgeting so damn much.

Ensigns were, essentially, cadet officers, youngsters trying on the jacket to see if it fit. For the majority of them, it didn't: three out of four ensigns served two or three years, declined to test for Lieutenant, and resigned their commission. But the minority that stuck with it were the Army's future leaders, so training them was an important and noble duty.

But by the stars they were an infuriating and useless bunch. Especially in the first few weeks, arriving with nothing but their new uniforms, swords you desperately hoped they didn't know how to turn on, and heads completely empty of all rational thought. I'd had a comrade back in 4th company who'd speculated that ensigns were actually shipped to the regiments in a maximally pitiful state in order to motivate the rank and file machines to protect the poor dears, and then shuffled out or promoted at just about the exact moment they stopped being endearingly naive.

"Think about it. We're not scared of much, but we know when we're losing, and we don't exactly want to die, do we?" she'd said, and I'd shrugged.

"Sure. I much prefer being alive to the alternative."

"Right, and if some idiot lieutenant is ordering us to charge into grapeshot or something, and there's no good reason, maybe we ignore him and wait it out. What's he gonna do, have the whole section court-marshaled?"

"I mean, maybe, yeah." I said, and she'd waved a dismissive hand.

"Nah, but look. They take two adorable teenagers, dress 'em in red, and shove them toward the objective, we're going to escort them into a black hole before we let anything bad befall the poor bastards. They're too stupid not to go, and we're too stupid not to follow."

I always thought her reckoning of the motivation was far too cynical, but I will concede she was not at all wrong about the dynamic.

We returned their salute, and the sergeant managed to convince them that this meant they were to put their hands down while we stood and judged the two. Though obviously I'd never done it from this perspective, I'd seen this exact since dozens of times, both as one of the privates escorting the new officers in, and more than once as the sergeant trying to corral them.

"I'm Captain Elenora Murray, I command 9th Company of the 7th Regiment of Foot, your new unit. These are Lieutenants Miles Beckham and Dora Fusilier, they're your immediate superiors." she explained, before going on to the typical speech about the regiment's honour and expectations for their behaviour, explaining the day ahead, that sort of thing.

I tried to look serious and not pay too much mind to their staring as they rattled off their names: the overly enthusiastic girl with the frizz of red hair was Ensign Sumner, the boy who was fidgeting on the spot with nervous energy was Ensign Kelly, the girl who was trying to look unimpressed with everything was Ensign Darley, and the boy who seemed permanently dazed was Ensign Brodeway.

"Right, any questions?" she asked, and immediately hands shot up.

"Why've we got a machine lieutenant?" Ensign Kelly asked, and Captain Murray glanced back at me, expecting me to answer.

"I'm not, actually. I just got careless at the firing range when I was an Ensign. They had to rebuild my whole body." I explained. "I miss having skin."

I wish I could have captured the look on Lieutenant Beckham's face as he bit his lip and tried ever so desperately not to laugh, and equally the looks of abject horror which passed over all the ensigns. Suspended them forever in a hologram for all to see.

Captain Murray had finally explained, as we moved down the docks, why this portion of the ritual always seemed to involve the officers spewing so much bullshit. Turns out there was a reason beyond just hazing the ensigns, though that was a significant part of it. All them would arrive with preconceptions from novels and plays and the stories of their older siblings about what the Army was like, and it was important to disabuse them of their preconceptions by, essentially, jerking them around until they didn't know what was true.

The ensign who didn't know what they were doing was much less of a danger to themselves and others than the ensign who was absolutely convinced they knew what they were doing.

A few more basic questions were answered with abject lies before we set back out on our way to the base, and I fell in with Lieutenant Beckham to discuss the question that would probably define a great deal of our next two years or so.

"So, who gets who?" I asked.

"I haven't a clue, they all seem hopeless. Got a pick?" he asked.

"I'll take Sumner." I volunteered, and he scoffed.

"You would. Check her over for circuitry next inspection, no ensign's that eager. I'll take Brodeway."

"He doesn't quite seem all there, does he?" I said, a little concerned. He was probably just a little shocked or something, but still...

"Good, a thinking ensign is a dangerous one." Beckham said seriously, "And… I'll take Darley, you take Kelly? That way it'll be even."

"Works for me. Good luck with your lot."

"Likewise."

---

Over the next week, I settled into a proper routine, finally. I'd wake early in my giant overstuffed bed, vacate the house as soon as possible, and head to the officer's mess in the morning. This was part of a clever plan on my part: I could use presence here in the more casual setting of early breakfast to learn the norms of the officer class before making an attempt at returning at dinner, and to be socially present at least a little.

The plan was working so well that I was rapidly becoming fast friends with Lieutenant Diana Kennedy from the Royal Artillery, notable early bird and leader of one of the regiment's two permanent detachments of heavy guns. The other, under some other lieutenant and its captain, were currently deployed with 5th Company, 10th section A, and 1st section B at a rimward mining colony, a precautionary garrison in case they too managed to piss something off below the surface in the hunt for minerals and gems. Kennedy was charming, funny, and greatly enthused with large explosions, which were all traits I deeply approved of.

She was also kinda hot, for a human. Now wait, it's not like I was going to do anything with that, but I do have cameras, and it has not escaped me that the sorts of machines I fancy are modelled quite closely the fairer half of the human species. She had a lovely little tumble of fine curls and a broad smile, features and complexion that suggested ancestry in the Indian subcontinent, and a little scar on her chin from a badly recoiling piece that she refused to have removed. She was no secretary machine, but I certainly didn't mind her company.

… yes, I know it's weird. I'm in a very strange place right now, leave me alone.

Once breakfast was over, I'd head to the office, and then invariably detour to the ensign's quarters to find out why one or more of our new officers was late. Still, they were already starting to improve, and we'd then spend the rest of the day devising work for them to do and trying not to go stir-crazy ourselves waiting for our troops to arrive from all over the galaxy. Usually, past lunch, Captain Murray simply pointed me to the range so I'd stop poking around the office for stray tasks, and saddle me with the ensigns to oversee their arms training.

This was a questionable choice, seeing as I gained no benefit from simple exercise and was still learning to use the weapons myself, but it did mean I had the advantage of being utterly tireless, allowing me to wear out our young officers with whatever program I devised such that, not only would they get into any kind of shape whatsoever, but they'd also be too damn tired to cause their attending corporals much grief and, perhaps, they'd fucking sleep.

Once the ensigns shuffled off to dinner, I'd stay a few more hours to practice more. Running the holographic drills, but also my first practice duels against my fellow officers. I was still losing, but I wasn't losing so fast or so frequently. I was starting to get hits in, and each one filled me with such pride that it carried me for the rest of the day.

As I lay alone in the overstuffed bed, the field battery humming softly on the bedside table, I started to feel a curious feeling return, the one I was worried I'd left behind. The feeling that I was where I was supposed to be.

The first of our Theos and Doras, of my command, would be arriving tomorrow, and I looked forward to it.

 

[open_sketch]

Up early, polished and dressed smart, I found myself craning my head to glance out the window of the mess, scanning the blue sky of the dome for the ships moving just outside it, my processes spiking every time I saw one.

"What has you so nervous, Dora?" Diana asked, glancing out the window with me. "You look positively shaken."

"First batch of transfers arriving today." I said, tapping my thumbs against the worn wood of the table with solid little thunks. "Soldiers, my soldiers! Means I actually have to start being an officer instead of just playing dress-up."

"Ah, relax, you'll do fine." she said, waving a fork dismissively, What's your section NCOs look like?"

"Well, I've only seen the forms, but they look like a solid lot. Senior sergeant's a Theo from the Prussians on exchange, quartermachine shuffling in from the 35th Sussex, got a corporal promoting out of the 73rd Perthshire, and get this, the one of them's a Yank." I said.

"Oh, that'll be fun."

"First machine officers, now American corporals, Army's going to the dogs." I said, putting on my best Genuine Human Officer voice, "Next they'll be making us wear brown and amalgamating regiments, mark my words."

"A nightmare." Diana said, shaking her head sadly, "Seriously though, don't you worry. Good NCOs are like a cushion for a young officer's mistakes. I mean, you ought to know that better than anyone, right?"

"I suppose. So, worked out the bugs on the new flying guns yet?"

"I wish. Bloody useless suspensor fields, burnt out two more coils yesterday. I'm halfway to bolting them to our pedrail wagons and calling it a day…"

---

When Antares Base was established for the 7th Regiment of Foot, the regiment had only consisted of three line companies and half-sized Grenadiers and Skirmishers. Additional space had been annexed over the years, but things were starting to get a little tight, which is why, while the rest of the regiment were practicing larger-scale drills on the main field, we were mustering together the first shipload of troops. Right now, that consisted of a gaggle of transfers being divided up between the two sections, four wagonloads of long crates containing the new recruits, and assorted civilian support milling about behind them doing their own thing.

Most of the transfers were just wearing their shirts and grey trousers, awaiting their new 7th Regiment of Foot coats, but about a third were dressed in a multicolour palette of uniforms from across the galaxy. A few coats in blue or green, some in red who were presumably from the Commonwealth, and two from even further afield whose uniforms didn't resemble European ones at all. Coat-switching was a bit of a ritual, some diplomatic thing so officers knew where their soldiers came from or somesuch.

Thought there were still about twenty soldiers missing, being shipped in from who knows where, for the most part this was the company. The Ensigns were already there ahead of Beckham and I, 'supervising', by which I mean they were standing and gawking at all the strange machines.

"Ensigns! Is everything shipshape?" I called, and Kelly turned and saluted sharply.

"Yes, ma'am!" he said, then his smile faded as he saw the look in my eyes.

"Then fix it, ensign! This isn't the Navy, we have standards." I said. Sumner started to laugh, and I turned to her. "Ensign, where's your gorget?"

She glanced down and winced, looking utterly mortified. Heh.

The first thing I did was find my NCOs, rattling off their serial numbers from the ledger. When I glanced back up from the clipboard, there were six machines standing in front of me, four British transfers and two blue coats as expected. One the light blue of an American, with red facings, and the other the very dark blue of a Prussian. Though something was off about… her.

"I'm sorry, I think I was expecting a Theodore Füsilier?" I said, looking her over. Good lord, they built her so straight and vertical she literally looked like a ramrod.

"That ist my name, ma'am." she snapped, her eyes not so much as twitching. Were her lights not on, I would have thought she was a statue.

"... why are you a woman?" I asked, and I could hear one of the corporals suppress a snicker.

"Theodore ist a woman's name. In German, the masculine ist Theodor." she explained. "I go by Theda usually."

"... sure. Why do you have a weapon, Sergeant?" I asked, indicating to the bizarre rifle that, for some reason, was slung over her shoulder. "And what the hell is it?"

"I was programmed to never surrender my weapon unless I was being issued another, ma'am." she replied, and I could swear there was hostility in her voice. Maybe it was just her accent, but I had been a sergeant long enough to know pissed off at someone voice. "It ist a needle rifle."

"Well, we'll get you a proper musket tomorrow and send that thing home." I said. Imagining you could just show up at a line regiment with a rifle, ridiculous.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sergeant, you're a Theodore at least, right?" I said, turning to the junior sergeant as I rechecked my ledger. I didn't know how they did serial numbering in the 35th, but his sure had a lot of zeros in front of it.

"Last I checked, ma'am." he said.

"Good. Just... curious, how old are you?" I asked, and I could see the slightest bit of smugness in his eyes.

"Two hundred eighty-six, eighty-four days, ma'am." he replied.

"My stars, man, you're from 1882." I said, impressed. Second generation machine, first generation soldier. They didn't get older than him. "How long you've been a sergeant?"

"Took over for Sergeant Thomas in 1926, ma'am." he said, "Great man. One of the last flesh-and-blood NCOs. 'Course, I was in the 3rd back then."

"Well, it's an honour to have you." I said, mind reeling. He'd been a sergeant 18 times as long as I had, seven times longer than I'd been alive. That was humbling.

I worked my way through the corporals, a Theo and a pair of Doras from other regiments. None of them would meet my eyes, and the way the second sneered out ma'am I knew she'd be trouble. I was already frustrated and I hadn't even gotten to...

"And… the American soldier." I said, looking him over. According to my ledger, he was Theodore Rifleman, because fusilier was too old fashioned for the rebels apparently.

"Not a soldier, ma'am. A marine." he corrected instantly.

"Did you not hear me explain to the Ensign that we're not the Navy?" I said, already exasperated. "You know what, fine. Any questions?"

Nearly everyone raised a hand except Old Theo and the American.

"... alright, Sergeant Theda, you ask it."

"Vhy do we have a machine officer?" she asked.

"I won it in a card game." I snapped. "Any relevant questions?"

"It's relevant…" one of the corporals muttered quietly.

"Is this going to be a problem?" I said, looking over the line. Old Tom and the American shouted 'No, ma'am!', while everyone stood stock still and said nothing.

"... we have machine officers. We're like the French." Corporal Rifleman added.

"Thank you, Rifleman." I snapped. "I'm serious. Permission to speak freely, all of you. Just say it. I want to hear it."

"Frankly, ma'am, your uniform doesn't fit." Sergeant Theda said sternly. The corporals added affirmations, nodding along. "Officer's have to think of more than themselves."

I could feel the metal in my hands creaking as I balled them into fists a moment, before I could rationalize it. It's fine, I asked them to say it, it's what I was expecting. I had no right to be angry.

The feeling passed.

"Thank you. Sergeant Thea, get our transfers sorted and start unboxing the recruits. Get on it." I said, trying my damndest to keep my tone even, and they moved.

I stalked away, trying to suppress the twin emotions battling for control of my processors. One, the building frustration at the fucking audacity of these machines to treat an officer that way… and the other, the clawing anxiety that it was only proper. That they were right.

Why should they respect me? I was one of them, just with delusions of grandeur.

"You alright, Lieutenant?" Kelly asked, his hands fidgeting. Sumner was looking similarly nervous.

"I'm fine. It's fine." I insisted, standing to watch the machines as they were organized into teams to start carrying boxes down. "Everything's fine. Lydia, have them line the new ones out on the field in a nice line, two ranks, will you?"

Ensign Sumner nodded and strode off, getting the sergeant's attention and laying out the line in the field. The first machines were being pulled out of their boxes, limbs stiff, and lifted awkwardly into position.

At least they'd listen to her.

---

Finally, after about twenty minutes of work, the twenty-odd new machines were lined up, the transfers at attention in the row in front. They were of a design unfamiliar to me, very modern, their faces smoothly transitioning from steel to the glass of their eyes. They were tall, even taller than the last batch, but narrower, a bit slighter. I imagined they didn't have so many bulky plates. Maybe six foot one?

The last three generations of machines were trending taller after a century of them getting smaller, and most soldiers were upgrading to match. At 5'7", I was the shortest soldier machines had ever been since they started being machines. The analysis after Fomalhaut showed that making machines smaller targets, the rationale for bringing down the size (the first generation machines had once been 7'6", not that you'd know it from looking at Old Theo), was perhaps not the important factor.

Smaller machines didn't reach as far with bayonets, and they hadn't figured that'd be relevant with modern laser musketry. It was a costly mistake.

"Horace, do you know how to boot up a new machine?" I asked Ensign Kelly.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, Lieutenant." he said, suddenly coming into awareness that I was speaking. The boy was incredibly distractible: he'd probably seen a bird or something.

"Right, we're going to start flipping them on back to front, left to right, once they get them set up." I explained, handing him one of the stacks of paper on my clipboard. "Honour goes to you. When they come to, hand them a contract and tell them if they sign it, they'll be in the 7th Regiment of Foot, 9th Company, A section."

"Thank you, lieutenant." he said, beaming as he set off with the papers in his hand. This was a normal duty for an ensign, but might as well make it seem special.

As he started to go through, the first machines lighting up and snapping out an automatic salute, I glanced down at my ledger, looking up to compare it. It was about that moment, seeing them all lined up, that I noticed something of an imbalance in my section.

"Hold up. Beckham, how many Dora's you got? Just line troops, not NCOs." I called out across the field to where A section was likewise starting to boot up.

"Uhh…" he swept along the line, counting it out with a finger. "Huh. Only twelve. Bit odd, isn't it?"

"I've only twelve Theos myself. Bit off parity, isn't it?"

He put a hand to his chin, staring back and forth between the two groups, counting them again, then he suddenly smacked his own forehead and strode over to pull me aside.

"I just gave you the top half of the transfer forms when we were divvying up the line troops." he whispered, "And I'd done about a dozen, I suppose."

"And..?" I asked, not following.

"It was alphabetical. A comes before E!" he hissed.

"So what do we do? Do we swap some?"

"You want to write up all those section transfers?" he asked, then rolled his eyes before I could even get a word in, "I don't. It's fine. It'll get evened out in the shuffle soon enough."

Fine. I didn't need any more problems.

With all the machines now activated, and not a contract turned down, I took a moment to steady myself, then strode out to inspect the line. Still wasn't the full number, but this was it. My section. My command.

"My name is Lieutenant Fusilier, I'll be leading this section. If you couldn't guess, I'm something of a fan of the regulations. But if we follow them, we won't have any problems. "

Dead silence. I could see eyes wandering, the looks of bemusement and confusion among the new machines. The unease. Not all of them, but maybe half, already concluding I didn't belong.

"I know you're all thinking it, so let me explain. It was a mistake in the paperwork. If you see a human walking around in a private's uniform, let me know so we can switch back." I joked. Maybe I could seem likeable, and that'd be a start. Something I could build to respect.

The nervous energy remained in the formation. I was already exhausted by this.

"Ensign Sumner, lead the formation to the depot and get them their jackets and kit. Inspection with the Captain at 1100." I ordered, and as the formation was led away by the young officer, I found a patch of wall and leaned against it, my processors racing.

"Say, Dora, you'll never believe this." Beckham said, leaning next to me, "One of my Theos is from the Koreans, of all places. Strange little bugger, but… say, you look a little out of it. Anything I can do?"

"Get me some paint, pink or brown? I have an idea for making them respect me." I sighed.

"Oh, stars, come now. You'd look terrible. Even worse, I mean. Like one of those painted Roman statues." he said cheerily, nudging my arm playfully, "They'll get over it, it's just new is all. Nobody does well with new things, man or machine alike."

"I hope so. Just… you know, I thought I'd get more pushback from the officers, but most of them have been pretty good. Except you, why are you being so nice all of a sudden?"

"Because we're still on the same team, you know." he said, "I don't mean half of it. The other half, though, I very much mean those parts."

"Well, nice to know. Just… between this lot and the Abbys at the bloody estate they've dropped me into, I'm starting to think I misjudged who the opposition would be."

"Honestly, I think you've got it all wrong." he said, "You lot are helpful to a fault if you're anything. If they're pushing back, it's because they think something's wrong and people are at risk. You prove to them you're still a busy little worker bee like the rest of them, they'll shut up."

"I hope so." I said wearily. "Stars, I need some music."

"If that's machine for fetch me a brandy, right there with you." he said.

Out in the field, the colour sergeant was sorting out the civilian contractors and sending them off to wherever they needed to be to support the company. At least that wasn't my problem. We just stood together for a while, not really knowing what to say, and I simply stared at the grass and watched my internal clock tick by toward 1100.

"Heads up, Dora. Incoming dead ahead." Beckham whispered, and I looked up to see a slight machine striding towards me. She was dressed in a simple red coat with a corporal's stripe at the breast, and with a long black skirt and delicate white gloves. "Your aide, I think?"

She stopped before us and came to attention, saluting smartly. I returned it with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, which was not much.

"Corporal Miriam, reporting for duty ma'am."

"Good luck with that." Beckham said, and he strode off, leaving me to figure it out.

 

[open_sketch]

"Hello. Lieutenant Fusilier." I said wearily. I very nearly extended a hand to shake hers, before realizing that might not be the protocol between mistress and servant the way it was between peer machines. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

"It's a quarter past ten in the morning." she said flatly, clearly unimpressed.

"I am well aware." I said, leaning back. "A lot has happened in that time, most of it quite recent."

"Of course, ma'am."

I stared at her a while, looking her over. Never interacted much with a Maria, just in passing while trying to reach an officer or something. She looked like a neoclassical statue carved perfect and smooth, the light subtly scattering through the glass of her casing. There were no rims or edges to the lenses of her eyes, they just projected seamlessly onto her face, no flicker or fuzz or scanlines. She was delicate and beautiful, and in any other circumstance I very much wouldn't mind her presence.

"Go ahead. Ask me." I said, resigned to it.

"Ask you what, ma'am?" she said.

"Why there's a machine in an officer's uniform? " I snapped, the frustration all pouring out. "Why you're working for a bloody Dora."

She just raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, why is there a machine in uniform?" she asked, clearly just humouring me. Ugh.

This wasn't fair, I shouldn't be taking out my frustration with the Theos and Doras on her. I ought not be frustrated at all. I ought to be chipper, optimistic about this new opportunity. I ought to be happy for the help. Good humoured. Ought ought ought.

"... The court-marshal sentenced me to three years lieutenant for my crimes." I said, and a bit of warmth came back to my processors. "My apologies, I'm not handling my frustration as well as I ought to. That was very unfair to you."

"No apology needed, I can imagine you're under a lot of stress in your position." she agreed, "How can I help?"

The slightly flare of frustration again, that was the question wasn't it, but I clamped down once again. She was trying to be helpful, I ought to be receptive and productive. Ought. If I was thinking clearly, I'd express my problems in an even-handed way rather than bottling it up and turning it to frustration.

"To be entirely honest, I'm not entirely sure." I admitted. "I don't rightly know what servants do, in a general sense, and even less sure which of those functions might even apply to me."

"That's quite alright, I have been wondering about that myself. I'm not exactly going to draw you a bath, fetch your breakfast, wait your table, make you tea or mix your drinks, and I imagine you don't need hairdressing or makeup." she said, listing it all without pause, "Though… I daresay you could benefit from some cosmetic attention."

"That has been on my mind." I admitted, "Still, that's a long list of duties you can't do. What's left?"

"Managing your wardrobe, helping you dress, handling light laundry duties, attending candles and fireplaces, packing your luggage, maintaining and applying your jewelry, and care for plants and pets." she listed, "And, chaperon duties? I sorted that one under possible, but improbable."

"My wardrobe is this and a ratty old uniform I won't be wearing anymore, everything I own fits in a small box, I don't own or wear jewelry, I have no plants, and the ensigns already have minders." I said, "And believe me, I do not need any more help when it comes to maintaining celibacy."

"Then I shall be the best candle-manager I can." she said confidently.

"Oh." I muttered, feeling really rather incredibly guilty. "I hadn't known it would be this bad. I more or less agreed to bring you on because apparently it's important for the office."

"Well, those are just my official duties. I tend to find new things to do for every officer I work for." she said, "I've managed medications, carried golf clubs, acted as a translator, covered up an affair, taken dictation…"

"Wait, I'm sorry, what was that last one?"

"Oh, I helped a young lieutenant write letters for a while while she was in hospital. Lost two fingers to a railgun." she said cheerfully.

"A-ah. Right." That was not the one I had meant. "So, I'm sure we'll figure out something, right?"

"I have faith." she confirmed.

---

The rest of the day passed both agonizingly slowly. The two sections, looking smart in their new red coats and shakos and with shiny new muskets in hand, lined up on the parade ground for the captain. A short speech was had, weapons were inspected and test-fired in volley for the first time, there was a brief run-down of the regimental traditions and hierarchy, then the officers took lunch.

I spent that time sitting awkwardly under a tree near the field, trying to think of duties for Miriam.

After lunch we held our first exercise, maneuver training with 4th Company, a challenge both for soldiers to keep formation and for officers to respond to the vague holographic shapes representing enemy formations projected out in the field. All the officers were expected to take particular initiative during this time: it was better to be bold and maybe make a mistake now, and see it play out, than do the same when there were real stakes.

It was here I made my first blunder, because of course it was. In the third exercise, my section was put out on the far left flank, with our company guns behind us. Thinking myself clever and imitating a formation I'd practiced with the 4th, I ordered a pivot so the section's light guns behind the line could fire diagonally into the heart of the enemy columns while the soldiers could still see their targets directly in front of them.

Unfortunately, this was far too sophisticated a move for a unit so new, and I did not do a good job relaying my orders. It took B Section so long to redress the line that we gave up what could have been a dozen volleys on an advancing foe, which, as Major Gaynesford called across the field, "Tends to get a formation very much killed!"

It was hardly the worst mistake of the exercises, Beckham managed to outright block our company guns trying to cover an advance soon after, but I could very much tell the judgement from troops and officers alike was far harsher directed at me than at him. So much so that I couldn't help but notice from then on that when I relayed orders from Captain Murray, Sergeant Thea only actually called the orders once A-section started moving to show they'd also gotten them.

When I asked why she delayed, she claimed she wanted to ensure she'd heard it right. When I was a sergeant, I'd very much used that excuse when ensigns doing tactical training made obvious blunders, to give them time to reconsider. I considered calling her out on it, but then I decided the only thing that could make it worse was being seen by other officers and troops having an argument with a subordinate.

When exercises finally came to an end and the soldiers free for the night, I pulled the infuriating Prussian machine aside as she headed to the NCO barracks, literally coming around a corner to catch her off guard. She snapped into an instant salute, so quickly that her shako tumbled to the ground, and I made a point to 'accidently' kick it away before she could grab it.

"Don't think I didn't notice that stunt, Sergeant. If you undermine my authority like that again, I will have you flat-packed to Keplersburg, I swear." I growled. "I give an order, you follow it."

She just stared back at me, that same unnaturally still, piercing gaze.

"Yes, ma'am, of course." she said cooly, "After all, we were made to obey orders, weren't we?"

I took a step backward, because if I hadn't, I would have instead taken a swing at her.

"You're out of uniform, sergeant." I said, watching her pick it up and dust it off before she hurried on. I then spent the better part of a minute standing stock-still behind the barracks, trying to will the anger away. No point to it, not productive. I could write her up for insubordination, but she and I both knew that doing so would make me look incompetent, unable to control even my most experienced soldiers, and lose me even further trust with the Theos and Doras. Strip her of rank, she could afford to wait a century to get it back. Drive me out of the job, that's that.

"... and that's probably why we used to have flogging." I muttered sourly, stalking to the range to take out my frustration on some holographic targets.

---

When I arrived back at number 18, well past dark, I'd managed to burn off all the anger, and all that remained was the simmering anxiety that things were already falling apart. My section didn't trust me, my NCOs hated me, my staff resented me, and honestly I was starting to hate myself too. I'd done thirteen years as a sergeant without ever getting this angry at a subordinate, and I had managed some truly, frighteningly dense soldiers in that time.

When I got to my room, tossing my hat roughly to the corner of the room, I found myself pacing the floor around my best, feeling too wired to sleep and too tired to think. I wanted to do something. I wanted to work, to feel like I was contributing, and right now...

Right now I had to face the fact that there would be less misery, discordence, and disruption in the world if, in my place, there was a human officer. Even a vastly more incompetent, ignorant, and fickle officer would have the singular, undeniable advantage of belonging, a factor that no amount of training or studying or spending could convey onto me.

For the briefest moment, I found myself calculating out the number of days left in my obligatory service period before I could sell my commission. I was immediately disgusted by myself, I banished all further thought, but I did.

"Seems like your day got even longer, ma'am."

I'll admit, I jumped. Miriam had somehow materialized behind me without making a sound, and the sudden intrusion of her voice into my thoughts nearly gave me kernel panic.

"Stars! Don't you know how to knock?" I half-shouted, trying to slow my rushing fans to an even pace. "They should get you training skirmishers, I swear."

"My apologies. Moving about discreetly is usually valued in my line of work." she said. I noticed she was holding a tray in her hands, on which were cylinders of some kind. "By the way, some unmarried officers prefer I call them miss rather than ma'am, despite Army conventions. Would you prefer that?"

"I… don't have a preference. What are those?"

"Recording cylinders. I can't mix you a drink, but I can assemble you a playlist. Given the day it looks like you've had, can I recommend Massenet's Meditation? It's very soothing." she explained. "I know soldiers prefer harder-wearing records, but the sound is much better on these."

I felt, at this point, utterly lost, so I just nodded.

"Music sounds good." I admitted, and Miriam gestured to the plush chair in the corner of the room. I sat hesitantly, and she quickly moved through the room, dousing the main candles and switching on the fireplace, which buzzed to life in a holographic haze.

"Do you have a colour preference? Studies generally indicate a deep blue is most relaxing." she said. The colour shift on holographic fires was only ever relevant for me for signalling purposes, so I agreed, and she adjusted the dial until the flames were a deep azure glow. She then opened a compartment in the wall for the cylinder, and a moment later the music started, emitted from seemingly everywhere in the room at once.

I lay my head back on the leather of the chair, and just listened.

Miriam moved around to stand where I could see her, and after a moment I realized she was signing to me. 'Can you understand BSL'.

"Of course?" I said. Being able to sign was a vital skill in a battlefield with deafening weapons. She looked frustrated a moment, and signed again. 'Deaf, sign back.'

I signed 'Yes'. She must have turned off her hearing so she could remain alert around the music. That was clever…

Stars, this chair was comfy.

Reaching down, I pulled off my boots, and Miriam stepped forward to take them neatly to the door. I felt a little like I was floating, like I was lying in water and being pulled slowly along by a gentle river, made all the more absurd by the fact I was too dense to float. For the first time all day, actually, for the first time I could remember, I didn't feel a need to do anything. I just wanted to exist, in this chair, relaxed, content. Just enjoy the music. And perhaps...

'Could you get me a book?' I signed. 'Surprise me'

Miriam returned a minute later with a slim novel in her hand, a bookmark she laid on the arm of the chair, and a candle which affixed to the back such to give me light to read by. I cracked it open and checked the title page: it was The Mirage by one Lynn Mason, published 1911.

I'd only read a handful of books in my life, all borrowed from fellow Doras once they were finished with them, and they were mostly modern books written by machines, for other machines, usually very specific ones. Thinking on it, I don't think I'd ever read one where the protagonist wasn't a heroic Theodora Fusilier, saving the day and getting the guy with good cheer, loyalty, and initiative. They were fun enough, though I never found them worth spending money on, and I'd always sort of assumed the literature officers were always reading were the same, just for humans. Self-insert fantasies.

This was not that.

With the music already having me feeling tranquil, detached almost, the book swept me immediately into its setting and characters. The book was a series of three short stories about a then-contemporary family in Manchester, four generations from 14 to 120 years old, all having experienced vastly different standards of living. The great-grandmother had worked in a textile factory, her husband nearly a century dead in a riot, and each subsequent generation had seen their fortunes increase to the point where they were quite nearly a study of different social strata, each clinging to the habits and expectations of their youth.

The titular Mirage was the feeling all of them had that it was too good to be true, that reality was going to snap back to the way it was when they were young. And yet for all that it was warm and hopeful, going out of its way to show how each generation had met and bested the fears of the one before, with mechanical aid, of course, and that all those generations of fears were making room for one of hope, as their teenaged son kept dreaming of the stars.

I was just starting the third story when Miriam got my attention, tapping her wrist. I checked my system clock, it was nearly midnight. I should sleep. She slowly tapered off the music as I stood hesitantly, wobbling a bit, my limbs stiff. I hadn't been properly inebriated since my first few years, before I started saving up instead of blowing my pay on cover charges and jukeboxes.

I will admit, despite my embarrassment, I did appreciate the help getting undressed and my uniform hung, given my lack of coordination. And that there was somebody turning off all the candles so I didn't have to grope around in the dark for it. As the door to the servant's quarters closed and I felt myself slipping off to sleep, all the issues of the day seemed so very distant.

Tomorrow was a new day. A new chance.

 

[open_sketch]

"Ensign, your cuff is for displaying rank, not wiping brows."

"Sorry, it's just so hot…" Sumner muttered back, blinking the sleep from her eyes. It really was: either the weather controller was in a sadistic mood today, or something on the station had broken and we'd all be overheating to death in an airless void in short order.

"Have you forgotten your climate control? Just… tap your cuff button, subtle like. The CO is coming." I whispered, and I I could see her fidget trying to get her hand to the controls without looking like she was moving too much.

Getting the unit in position had, fortunately, not been overly difficult. Though I fully expected Sergeant Theda to be scheming to find ways to sabotage me and get me replaced with a proper human officer, I had confidence that she'd never tolerate ill-discipline or sloppiness in the unit as part of that process.

Thankfully, inspection and CO's parade went off without a hitch beyond that. Despite our insufficient numbers, our Theos and Doras made a fine sight lined up with the rest of the regiment in fresh new uniforms and shiny weapons, particularly the two beautiful revolver cannons on their tripods. Lieutenant Colonel Harrison gave me a small nod as he passed on his horse, which filled me with a giddy pride at a job well done.

The days orders that followed saw the 9th Company going through more basic drilling, including the first proper musketry drills. Soldiers came out of the box knowing how to point and shoot, and with a fair intuitive understanding of the timing and action, but many of the subtleties were lost on them, and in any case, practice made perfect.

I'll say this for Sergeant Theda: she absolutely knew how to lead a unit through a relentless pace, and she had an attention to the smallest mistakes I could only admire. She ran troops through numbers drill, where each step called was a motion or stance in readying, firing, reloading, or cooling weapons, and she'd walk up and down the line between integers correcting the smallest deviation in posture from the arms manual, which I could only presume she stayed up reading.

"Say, Fusie, you quite alright?" Beckham asked, shading his eyes as he watched his section fire another volley into the target wall. "Blast it, is 6.2 a good enough average deviation at three hundred paces?"

"It is if we're fighting something twelve feet five inches tall." I said. Either our guns weren't calibrated properly, or our machines weren't.

"Well, I'm optimistic. I'm sure they can find us some particularly towering buggers out there in dire need of a good lasering." he said, "You know, I would have thought new machines came out the box better than this."

"How well do you think you could fire a musket if all you'd done is read about it?" I pointed out, "More or less the same thing. We'll just have to have it drilled out of them."

B-section crackled off another volley, and a giant spectral 6.0 floated into existence down the field. These were snap shot drills, shouldering and firing in a half-second as one would do from the march or after working the action, but it was still dire.

"And to think, that's with the seasoned machines bringing the average down." Beckham said, frowning. "I dread to think what it would look like without them."

Well there's a thought.

"Sergeant, halt a moment!" I said, walking out toward the line. The muskets raised skyward, and I walked up to the unit, staring across the kilometer of well-trodden grass at the target zone, a floating line four feet off the ground. Theda gave me a look that was very much why are you meddling with my machines, but she said nothing.

"I want to conduct an experiment quickly. Theos and Doras who came out the box yesterday, step back and shoulder your weapons. Everyone else, close up, up front here."

The machines shifted, slowly at first before Theda repeated the order in a bellow and they raced into position. There were now a dozen machines forward with weapons at the ready, and about twice that standing back watching.

"Sergeant, run the drill three times with this lot, and then switch." I said, taking a step back. "I want a proper assessment of the damage."

"... yes, ma'am. Make ready!"

Two minutes later, I had two new averages. Our experienced soldiers were shooting at just 2.1, evenly spread above and below the targets. By contrast, the newbies were, for the most part, consistently shooting high, on the order of about nine feet or more. I wondered if it was maybe something about the design of their shoulders or something, biasing the spread consistently above the line instead of more evenly inaccurate when they snapped the guns to their shoulders.

"There you have it, we have to work on aiming lower. Sergeant, you have to work cut out for you." I said, indicating. "Carry on."

It wasn't a huge thing, it would have been worked out once we got to individual shooting drills that this was a problem, but catching it here in the formation drills meant we had a head start on correcting it, which mean the unit would be ready for action fast. Which meant we'd be more useful sooner in case something happened.

I walked back to Beckham with a spring in my step. Feeling useful.

"Your new Theos and Doras are aiming high. I think it's something in their shoulders. We're going to have to train them out of it."

"Well, that's a problem. Should probably tell the manufacturers, right?" he said, drawing forth an apple from his cartridge pouch and polishing it on his jacket.

"We all have habits we need to break." I said. I felt a strange pang of envy for a moment, to have something like that to do with my hands while we stood and talked. "Beckham, you've seen any action yet?"

"Depends on what you mean by action, I suppose." he said, taking a bite. I waited patiently for him to swallow. "I was in garrison in the coldest icebox they could find rimward after somebody thought he saw an Invader and caused that big panic a few years back, and then they had had us culling this awful critter at Vobion or somesuch, helping the Australians. Great big tripod bird things, nasty stuff, but that went south before I got there and we just huddled up at the fort walls and took potshots for two months."

Wait a tick, I recognized those deployments. Only one unit was at both.

"... Beckham, were you in the Coldstream Guard?" I asked, and he gave an affirmative sort of shrug. "Bullshit. I don't believe it."

"Dad's a major there, legacy pick. Generations back at this point, I don't even remember." he said casually. "Big family thing."

"Why the hell'd you give that up and come here?" I asked, flabbergasted. Was it money? I'd looked it up, I knew the commissions for Guards regiments were as much as three times more expensive than elsewhere, and it was extremely exclusive.

"Because vacancies in the Guard are once in a bloody epoc." he said, looking over his half-eaten apple as though trying to determine where best to bite it next. Satisfied, took another chomp out of it, talking around chewing. "Spent six years in ensign, missed out on the total of two vacancies in all that time, and I told my dad the family tradition could jog on and bought the first Lieutenant commission that came up."

"Stars. I had no idea it was that bad." I said.

"It wasn't all that. It's just cluttered with all the richest and most connected sorts, not much different from other regiments other than that, and they stay in forever because nobody wants to give up a chance to rank up." he said, "Used to joke with my mates that the purpose of the Guard regiments was to get the real smug pricks away from the regular Army. Been a while since they were really an elite of any sort."

"Sure, but what about the ranks?" I asked, and he shrugged.

"Theos and Doras." he said simply, as if that were all there was to it.

I wanted to argue with him, because getting into the Guards was a big deal for a machine, you needed to apply with an exceptional service record. There was a Theo from the 7th who managed it when I was five, and the others threw him a going-away party that basically became a spontaneous, leaderless midnight parade through the city.

(Or so I heard. I'd taken advantage of the empty base to get some range time on a revolver cannon.)

But Beckham really didn't seem to see a difference. He must see us as totally interchangeable, and I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Ideally, we would be, wouldn't we?

"Can't imagine your father is too happy about it all." I said instead, and he gestured vaguely, taking a final bite from his apple.

"You got that right. Really hoping I fall into the lap of a beautiful woman with a lovely bank account sooner rather than later, because right now… how long was it to make Captain on our salary?"

"Discounting our mandatory expenses, nineteen years and two hundred and sixty-three days. Provided we save everything else." I said.

"Right, well, lemme just do a quick bit of my own math given my expenses… mhmm, carry the one… ah yes. I ought to make captain by the time I'm a brisk six hundred and a bit, I think." he said. "Can't wait."

"Wait, what? I thought human families, like, pooled money. Or something, I'm not clear on the details." I said, confused.

"It's called disinheritance, Fusie. He's a right prick, what can I say? I've got aunties I can probably call on for a few thousand pounds in a pinch, but I'd rather not bother the poor dears."

"Why didn't he just refuse to pay?" I asked, and he chucked.

"Oh, he did. My ensign's commission in the Guards was worth more than my lieutenant's commission here, and I had enough left over for my pistol, a small yacht, and a respectable liquor cabinet."

The sheer scale of money that humans dealt in casually never ceased to amaze me.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear about all that." I said. He waved it off, and then, with a few steps to get leverage, threw his apple core far out into the field.

"Say, if you pop your clogs, who gets your stuff?" he asked.

"A Theo or Dora's personal effects get auctioned off to their unit if they haven't left it to a comrade or sweetheart." I explained. It was weirdly solemn for something that sounded so callous, basically a way for friends to get mementos of the fallen machine.

"I wonder if they'd auction your commission to your mates, then."

"Huh." Hadn't thought of that.

I looked back over at my unit, watching another ripple of laser fire pulse out.

"Good news. We are now qualified to fight things eleven feet two inches tall." I drawled.

---

The next morning at breakfast, Lieutenant Kennedy joined rather late, looking somewhat rough.

"You alright, Diana?" I asked, as she accepted an enormous cup of tea from her aide and blinked stiffly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I slept terribly's all." she said. "Insomnia."

"I don't know what that is." I said simply.

"I'm bad at sleeping."

I wasn't aware that was a thing humans could be bad at. From my experience with ensigns, sleeping was a default human state from which wakefulness was a deviation.

"Well, keep practicing, I suppose." I said neutrally, not sure what else there was to say. Kennedy, in the midsts of drinking her tea, made a very funny sound and began patting at her face with a napkin.

"Oh my God, Dora, I was drinking!"

"... my apologies. Did anything happen to prompt this insomnia?" I asked, as she patted the front of her uniform to chase away the beads of tea rolling down it.

"I guess. Oh, you would have missed it, the Duke's extended an invitation to the officers at his end of summer thingy again."

"Thingy?" I asked.

"Ball. Biggest social event of the season in this sector, great big party, dancing, dinner, so forth. We knew he was going to, this was just a formality."

"Is that what has you… insomnia-ed?" I asked,

"I guess? I didn't have a great time at the last one. My date abandoned me to talk to another girl, and I got lost in the palace trying to find the way out. Nightmare." she explained, sprawling heavily against the table. "Complete nightmare."

"Do you have to go?" I asked, and she nodded against her arms.

"Yeah, it'd be a huge insult to turn him down. He's the duke, and the base is kinda technically his? We gotta keep him happy." she said, "It's mandatory."

"... does mandatory include me?" I asked, dreading the answer I knew was coming.

"Machindatory?" she offered, and when I chortled she continued, "Yeah, I think it's also machindatory. It's on the 15th, you have to be there by 1600, which means you ought to arrive either fifteen minutes before or after but not at 1600, okay?"

"Wonderful." I said, trying not to externalize the screaming.

 

[open_sketch]

"Welcome home, miss." Miriam said, taking my hat and weapons to hang up. "How did things go today?"

"Is covering up a murder one of the duties you can perform?" I asked wearily, pacing down the hall. She followed with a little tap tap tap of footsteps, thus proving she, in fact, did something to not make sound when she wanted to.

"I'd have to know the details of the crime." she said, still chipper as ever as I leaned against the table in my useless dining room. "But perhaps. What's got you in the murdering mood?"

"Senior Sergeant Theda. The Prussian I told you about. She's on a quest to find exactly what counts as insubordination and park her ass right there on the edge." I said, staring up at the ceiling and only just noticing the intricate floral patterns in the tiles. "The Theos and Doras basically do their utmost to pretend I don't exist, and she enables it."

"Such as?" she asked.

"Well, she's apparently reading the regulations ahead of me, because, for example, turns out the rule is that a salute is required when they 'recognize the presence' of an officer within six paces, so long as they aren't doing manual work. So she's told the Theos and Doras, and now a lot of them always just happen to be facing away as I pass." I explained, pushing myself back to standing and pacing about the room. There were a lot of strange devices in the kitchen for the cook to use, none of which I understood whatsoever, but they sure were interesting to look at.

"So they have plausible deniability, and it means if you want to be treated with the basic respect of your office, you have to insist on it every time." she summarized. "Have you called her out?"

"Yes, I pulled her aside during marksmanship training, told her I wouldn't tolerate it. She pretended not to know what I was talking about, but said we could put the Theos and Doras through remedial training on saluting. Which would very much not endear me to the troops, nor address the root issue."

"And you can't write her up… why, exactly?" she asked. I shrugged off my jacket and she took it without comment, folding it respectfully over her arm.

"Well, it's disrespectful they're doing it on purpose, but soldier's not noticing you to salute is thing that happens sometimes. If I wrote her up, it'd be very easy to spin it as me making mountains out of molehills." I explained, "And that's basically her goal. Make me miserable enough to quit, or prompt me to bring it up in official channels on shaky ground where the Theos and Doras, or the other officers, will see it not as a sergeant being insubordinate, but as me being, you know, jumped up, entitled, glitched..."

"Hmm. Alright, I understand your murderous impulses, miss. Name a time and place, I'll bring the shovel." she said wryly. "Do you have anyone on your side?"

"Old Theo's solid, but the quartermachine's realm of authority is mostly in gear, not discipline. And Ensign Kelly's aide likes me, but that's the yank, nobody gives a shit about him. And… I don't know what's up with Beckham. I think he both sympathizes with me and finds it funny."

"Yeah, I don't imagine he'll be much help. I thought you said Captain Murray liked you?"

"Yes, but I don't know… honestly, I don't know why." I said, "You know, when I would talk about my plans among the Theos and Doras, they'd make it sound like the humans would hate having a machine among their ranks. But they mostly seem either supportive, amused, or just confused."

Miriam looked askew at me, and I shrugged helplessly.

"I don't understand humans, I guess."

"Well, I do." Miriam said, "And you must remember that nearly every human family has the same story about climbing from misery, right? And when they did the world didn't collapse into malthusian chaos like they expected. So when they see machines out of place, they often don't see a disruption to the order of things. They just see themselves."

I considered that a moment, thinking of the book I'd finished yesterday. The great grandmother's stories of the textile mills and poorhouses and public hangings told to wide-eyed children who could never imagine a world so cruel.

"And we're worried the mirage will fall apart if anything is out of place." I summarized.

Miriam shrugged, and I pushed myself away and started down the hall toward the study. Not because there was any reason the study was better for this conversation, but because if they were going to give me this massive complex to live in, I was going to make an attempt to use it.

"That's the thing, isn't it? She's not doing it just to be cruel, though it sounds like she very much is being cruel. She sees you as a danger, an existential threat to… all this. So… prove her wrong?" Miriam offered, keeping pace behind me.

"Sure, I'll just do that." I said, sitting down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the study. It creaked a bit disconcertingly, probably not exactly designed for an armoured war machine to sit in. Miriam vanished a moment to put away my coat someplace (presumably disappearing into the catacombs of the estate I was sure existed), and returned a moment later.

"Speaking of out of place… I heard you have an invitation to a ball." she said.

"How'd you..? that's your job, right. I do." I admitted. "I very much do."

"And you have no idea what it's going to be like." she summarized.

"Actually, I've got a decent idea." I said, "There's an honour guard from the 7th there every year, consisting of the most decorated and disciplined Theos and Dora in the regiment."

"So that's been you every year, huh?"

"For a decade or so. I thought they'd finally seen the resentment in my eyes, but I realized recently that it's more likely they'd seen the wear and tear." I said. "So I know the basics. There's the mixer where names are announced, then they go off to dinner and I stop the privates from hitting on the house staff in their absence. After that, we go back to the ballroom, everyone dances with everyone else for a while, and then there's usually some work convincing the more enthusiastic guests to get some sleep before they embarrass themselves."

"You've more or less nailed it, yes. The mixer, we simply must get you looking your best and you must try not to break any major social convention, which I think you can manage. The dinner… will be awkward, but you'll survive."

"And I should have no trouble with dancing if I just stand to the side and act like a statue, right?" I said, and Miriam winced. "Oh?"

"... remember that thing about humans seeing themselves in us?" she said.

"My stars, you don't think one of them would ask me to dance, do you?" I said, feeling utterly mortified. "They wouldn't!"

"They very well might, if you're alone. The whole thing is that if you're there and single, you're eligible. That's the implication. There are some unwise young men who'd do it, and there's just no good answers in that situation."

"I would think no would bloody well-, oh, wait. I understand." I said. Humans did stupid shit sometimes, stuff that would ruin their reputation, especially once they had a few drinks in them after dinner. A good machine avoids enabling them as much as possible. "Yes, let's avoid that. So I slip out before the dance. Nobody will notice."

"You're going to be a guest of some curiosity. They'll notice."

"Alright… a ruse, then. Have me called back to base for something, make up a reason why I must leave. Stage an emergency?" I offered. I had no idea what such an emergency could be that would specifically just call away a lieutenant of 9th Company, though.

Miriam just looked at me disappointed.

"There is another option." she said, "Take a date. The invitation has a plus one, after all."

"... Let's go back to the fake emergency idea. Trust me, it would be easier." I said, wincing.

"Come now, we'll find you a nice machine. I know some wonderful boys who'd love- hmmm." I was shaking my head rather desperately. "Is it the date part or the boy part?" she asked, sighing.

"The boy part." I said.

"Well, to each their own I suppose, more for me. If you really can't stand the idea, I do have a few friends who very much indulge that particular inclination, I'm sure one of them will be game. What's your budget?"

"I beg your pardon?" I said, not entirely sure what she was insinuating, but not liking it anyway.

"Letters to my sapphically-inclined friends aren't free, and they'll need a dress suitable for the event. Moreover, we're going to have to get you fixed up at least a little if you're going to be presentable."

"I currently have five pounds, eleven shillings, and eight pence to my name." I said. My total pay in the 29 days since I'd purchased my commission.

"Oh. We will have to get creative then." she said cheerfully.

 

[open_sketch]

Checking the schedule over in the office the next day, I couldn't help but groan a little.

"What's the matter there Fusie? Not enough work for you?" Beckham said.

"No. Void exercises." I said, setting the ledger down. "All afternoon, 1230 to 1800."

"Oh, lovely. Haven't had a jaunt outside in a while." Beckham said, and Murray perked up too. "What's the fuss?"

"Easy for you lot, just put on a helmet and seal up." I complained. The high collar of an officer's uniform would snugly affix to the bottom of the little oblong globe helmets and the uniform would lock and stiffen to keep positive internal pressure, and they'd be right as rain. "Not nearly so fun for us."

"I didn't think machines needed to breathe, do you?" Ensign Kelly said, twirling something in his finger. I was pretty sure it was a safety tab from one of the disposable missiles that 4th Company had been training on yesterday, left discarded in the grass. "Whatsit matter?"

I was about to answer when I saw Ensign Sumner perked up, looking eagerly at me with a smile on her face. Her I know that! face.

"Lydia, go ahead." I said, and she looked like she was going to burst with pride.

"Machines don't breathe, but they still need air. They use a system of liquid coolant inside their bodies to whisk heat from their processors and other working parts, then run that to a heat sink and silent fans at their back and collar, usually." she said, clearly reciting something she'd read. "But in vacuum, there is no air to use for cooling, so instead these systems are tied into backpack radiator units."

"Very good," I said approvingly, "and therein lies the problem. The Leynthall Model 2130 pack issued to our Theos and Doras was, we think, designed by a human who'd never have to wear it. It looks nice, but the panels jutt out too far for close formation, they do not cool very well because of thermal overlap, and they have this stiff steel frame that's dreadfully uncomfortable."

"Really? I've never heard a complaint, and I did six months of void ops." Captain Murray said, and I laughed.

"They wouldn't complain to you, ma'am. Um, sorry." I was still breaking the habit. "It's mostly just a bit of a pain, and nobody's bothered to design anything better yet. When I was a corporal we did a joint operation with the frogs, and we ended up nicking their radpacks whenever we had to go outside."

"I'm not exactly seeing how armoured bulletproof machines get uncomfortable with some metal pieces and suchlike." Beckham scoffed, raising his teacup to his lips. "Didn't really associate it, you know?"

"Any machine that's been in for a couple years is going to have three scuff marks on their backs, shoulder blades and mid-spine. That's where the pack digs through their coats and into them." I said grimly. I couldn't even imagine what mine looked like, if they were at all visible through the other damage.

"... well that's not right." he said, honestly looking a little disgusted suddenly. "Good lord, I hadn't a clue. Captain?"

"That's awful, yes. I really wish somebody had brought this up. I have a brother in the War Office, I'll write him. Surely something could be done." the Captain added, genuine concern on her face. "And I'm worried the Theos and Doras think they need to keep something like this quiet. That's awful."

"Now hold on, it's just a bit uncomfortable, it's not-"

"I think my dad buys solar sails from the Leynthalls?" Ensign Kelly said hesitantly, "Perhaps I can relay a message through him about the pack's problems?"

"Wait a tick, Kelly as in the shipyards?" Beckham asked, and he nodded nervously, "Stars, man, I bought my yacht from your old man not a month ago. Small galaxy, huh? Send my regards."

"... seriously?" I said, looking around the table. "Just like that? Do all humans know each other?"

"Of course not." Captain Murray said, shaking her head. "Though… is your father Philip Joesph Kelly, vacation estate in the Carina Nebula?"

"No, that's my uncle?" Ensign Kelly said, "I've been there though, few years ago. Bit boring…"

"Well, my husband goes golfing with your uncle…"

---

Antares City looked quite a bit like a large snowglobe, with docks radiating out around the rim. The void training fields were, appropriately, simply the underside, a section about two miles square which had no particularly sensitive parts or working components. In the far distance, you could sometimes see space workers clamouring over the station-keeping thrusters, radiator arrays, and other esoteric machines which jutted like great towers from the surface, but most of it was simply flat, empty steel plating.

The field was divided into a variety of sections for different purposes. Some were flat, others had rises and dips built in. One section was even covered over in wooden planks in imitation of a ship's hull, as while the Royal Marines were most likely to do any space boarding action, transported Army units were expected to lend assistance. The wood surfaces, a relic of the Second Age of Piracy, prevented magnetic locks and boots from adhering to the hull.

But today, training would be happening in the Sandbox, a large, dusty field simulating the conditions of a dead planet or moon, complete with the ability to rapidly sculpt artificial, hills, craters, and rocks. Combined with different paragravity settings, the reflective mirror to change lighting conditions, and the holographic emitters, just about any kind of low-atmosphere environment could be simulated.

So there I stood, fidgeting uncomfortably and silently in my radpack while trying not to fidget with the wire that connected my wireless to my throat speaker. The entire regiment, everyone who wasn't deployed, was out for exercises today, with 9th Company being loosely assigned to guard the guns while everyone else engaged in more complex exercises. This was the first excursion outside for more than half our machines, after all.

We had just reset for a new exercise, attempting to manage an attacking line across the field under 33% gravity. Fighting on surfaces like this was hard, just moving alone was a challenge. The ground was deceptively slippery and it was easy to stumble or fall if you didn't move carefully, and one soon got a feeling for planning your next half-dozen steps to maintain the loping gait you needed. Keeping this up in formation was a nightmare, and so drills were constant.

As I watched another of my new Doras eat dirt while returning to formation, her leg slipping out on the fine powdery surface and sending her tumbling sideways to the ground, Lieutenant Kennedy got my attention with a wave of her hand.

'How's your back?' she signed, a look of concern on her face behind the glass of her helmet.

'Fine' I signed back, a little annoyed. Word had gotten around through the officers about the M2130 packs, and I was honestly getting a little annoyed at their concern. Yes, it was uncomfortable, but I'd live.

"Alright everyone, if we're in position, we're going to be making this one a low-light attack." the voice of Major Gaynesford crackled through the wireless, and the mirror mounted above the field began to shift, diffusing the light of Antares into a flat twilight. My unit, not thirty meters away, became little more than a set of shadowy shapes against the ground, the only thing standing out being the eyes of anyone glancing back and the teal glows of the ensign's field generators, sparking on interaction with the dust at their feet.

Movement was difficult, but communication was a nightmare. With no air to propagate sound, you were down to sign language, signal lights, laser pointers, and the wireless. It was even worse when I was first activated, as the wireless systems only began to be introduced about fifteen years ago.

"A-section, I want you down at the rim of the crater to delay any incoming threat to the guns. Right at the lip." Captain Murray said, her voice barely audible through the wireless. "B-section, the right flank if you please. Be ready to screen, but do try to give the guns a good field of fire."

Signing luck to Lieutenant Kennedy, I strode back to my formation, drawing my sword. I glanced to the ring at the top of my sword's grip and toggled through the options with my thumb until I found the one I wanted, then I held the sword aloft and triggered the small button on the underside of the guard. Alternating pulses of yellow and white light flowed up the blade, and a moment later both ensigns copied the signal, and then the NCOs pulling ahead of the unit. I'd had to ask Ensign Sumner for help programming the signals in my blade, unfortunately.

Everyone began to move, a clumsy, awkward stagger, and I could see Sergeant Theda trying desperately to get the soldiers to close ranks as their gaits brought them apart. Behind us, the guns began firing, suddenly casting the whole scene in bright flashes that threw our shadows ahead of us. I let them move until we'd made about seventy paces from the battery before signalling a stop and pivot, leaving us diagonal to the line and in a line two deep. I walked to the outer edge so Kelly and Sumner could still see me while facing forward, staring down into the murky darkness of the Sandbox.

To our left, the 'attack' was proceeding, troops formed into tight bunches trying to work their way forward under the reduced gravity. As they began to close, every other section would slow and fire a few quick bursts of laser fire up the hill toward the vague holographic foe while the others pressed forward, alternating to try and disrupt the enemy fire while still making good time forward. Lieutenant Kennedy's guns were sweeping the enemy line, the flying guns burning sharp lines through the enemy while the gravitic howitzers threw out bombs that exploded into submunitions high above.

A Dora near me at the section suddenly perked up, pointing out to the field, and I noticed her fellows doing the same, pointing out toward the edge of the ridge on our far side. Following her finger, I saw it, dust blooming up over the edge, something moving along it and sending up a cloud of dust which hung unnaturally in the reduced gravity.

I squeezed the switch at my throat to trip my microphone while toggling the pointer function on my pistol.

"Look alive, I've got dust over the left hand ridge, about nine hundred yards." I warned, pointing my pistol up and flashing twice towards the ridge. "See it?"

"Got it, Fusie. Flanking calvary you think?"

"They are moving awful fast." I confirmed, following the propagation of the smoke cloud. Given the way it was rolling down the edge, I imagined it was the (holographic) enemy aligning themselves along the edge of the ridge for a movement on our guns. Not many of them, but at least a company in size, exactly the sort of force you'd throw out to threaten a battery.

Properly, we ought to have skirmishers there to confirm, but such was exercises with a half a regiment.

"Lieutenant Beckham, pull back to the reverse slope of the crater." Captain Murray said, and I glanced back to see her and her section moving from the edge of the crater toward my position. While the forward lip was better for disrupting skirmishers and harassing formations, the reverse would force calvary to go around. "B-section, they'll come through you if anywhere, I'm coming to you."

"Acknowledged."

If I had time, I should like to get my revolver cannons to the ridge with A-section, but the attack could come at any moment, and the worst place for them was between us alone. Instead, I signaled for a chevron formation, essentially one-quarter of an infantry square arrayed toward the enemy. You couldn't form a proper square with just a section, but you could put your tripod guns in the center of the formation and hard to get at without going directly through the densest stack of steel-armoured machines or taking a long flank that exposed you to the fire of one of the sides and the guns.

I shifted back with the unit and repositioned myself near the center just as the enemy, such as they were, came over the top of the ridge. The vague shapes were insectoid, clearly inspired by some of the more alien war machines we'd encountered at the rimward front, and they skittered low and fast toward us. This wasn't like the much more precise holographic forms of the sparring ring, these were a sort of indistinct mass, a suggestion of a formation of perhaps a hundred foes, its details amorphous and fleeting.

I raised my sword in anticipation to call for fire as they closed, holding for the most effective time. If you fired too early, the beams would dissipate with distance, and you'd be caught refilling coolant or switching rods as they reached your line. Four hundred yards would be good, three hundred best.

I could see Sergeant Theda glancing back at me, glaring. She wanted to fire early, I could tell, she was from a military which used magnetic rifles whose effectiveness did not drop off with distance (but whose rate of fire was fixed and much slower). All her instincts were telling her to order the volley.

I signed no as emphatically as I could, taking a step toward her. Her head locked forward, her arm remained raised.

At about three hundred and fifty yards, I signalled to fire, my sword flashing red, and Theda's hand chopped forward. There was a blinding series of strobes down the line, shots at simulated high power, and a huge cloud of coolant billowed out, pulled spherical by the vacuum. The revolver cannons began pulsing, a shot every half-second over the heads of the front rank, and as they overheated the weapon was cranked around, discarding a red-hot heat sink into the dirt and continuing to fire as the crews slotted in another.

A moment later, concurrent with our second volley, A-section lit up into their flank, and the shape of their formation shrank and grew ragged as it closed, simulating dwindling numbers. They were getting closer now, a hundred and fifty yards as the coolant started to grow thinner and the muskets started dumping heat directly into the rods. Pulses of light flashed up and down their line from short ranged weapons, and a few of the machines in front of us had their training packs buzz indicating they'd been hit, so they lay down and the unit tried to close up around them.

If we were going to activate bayonets, it ought to be soon.

Glancing over the heads of my Theos and Doras, it didn't look necessary. The formation was slowing, and less were dropping with each volley as it became less dense (the individual shapes were not targets, the formation was simply a target line as before, casualties calculated by odds and deviation from the center). As they grew to a halt, the front ranks panicking or locking up or whatever, I toggled my sword over and ordered walking fire.

The formation began shifting forward, edges first until it was a solid line. They couldn't exactly walk and fire in the low gravity, but they could shoot, bound two steps while the capacitors recharged, and fire again. Guns were opened and rods replaced, littering their wake with red-hot heat sinks as they kept up the pressure. With the enemy closing on what was supposed to be their charge and a solid base of inaccessible fire behind them, the holographic formation began to roll away from the section.

I turned to see Captain Murray had, at some point, come to stand beside me, an enormous grin on her face as she watched the line move. She signed 'good work', and in that moment, I felt invincible.