Battalion 1

Rhodes set off walking through Coleridge Station not knowing where he would go. Where in this lunatic asylum could he go to get help? He didn’t even know what help he needed.

He went to the loading dock, but it only sent him spiraling into an even deeper panic. No one here knew anything that could help him.

Then he had it. He charged down to the landing bay. All the battalion’s Strikers were there.

Rhodes didn’t know whether the technicians had repaired any of them or which ones they had repaired. He just had to rely on the one SAM he knew he could trust.

Rhodes climbed into his cockpit and interfaced with Rio. “Something’s wrong with Fisher, Rio,” Rhodes panted. “Can you fix him?”

Rio furrowed his brow, but he couldn’t look serious if he tried. “You’re both suffering from malfunctions. Your brainwave patterns and stress responses are off the charts, Captain.”

Rhodes shut his eyes and groaned. “I know. Can you correct it—whatever it is?”

“I’ll try. Did something happen?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just fix it—and bring Fisher back online.”

“He’s already online, but his base Grid is way out of normal parameters.”

“Just bring him back. I don’t care what you have to do.”

Rio concentrated on something out of sight for a minute. Something clicked in Rhodes’s head. He couldn’t tell what it was, but someone switched the volume back on.

“Oh, thank you, Captain!” Fisher breathed. “That was awful!”

“What did Neiland do to you?” Rhodes asked.

“I don’t know. She was trying to adjust your behavioral default protocol. She must have made a mistake.”

Rhodes stiffened. “Why would she adjust that?”

“I have no idea.” Fisher cocked his head. “You’re suffering from a malfunction, too, Captain. Whatever she did threw off your base equilibrium.”

“I know,” Rhodes choked. “Rio was trying to adjust it for me.”

“I can’t adjust it,” Rio replied. “You’ll have to go back to the lab.”

“I can’t go back to the lab. Neiland is the one who did this to me.”

“I can’t correct it. I’m sorry, Captain.”

Rhodes collapsed back in his seat. This was not good. He couldn’t stop the parade of memories flashing before his eyes.

Each image and sensation brought a devastating tide of emotion with it. Whatever Rio did to Fisher didn’t help Rhodes at all.

He got out of the cockpit, but he couldn’t keep still. He paced around the station for two hours before he dared to go back to the barracks.

He actually looked forward to being around his people again. At least they would understand that something was wrong with him. They wouldn’t hold it against him that he suddenly flipped a switch and couldn’t function anymore.

He could function just fine. That was the problem.

If someone put him on the battlefield right now, he would have been able to unleash all this fury on something. He would be able to kill anything that stood in his path. He would be unstoppable.

Was this why Neiland adjusted his emotions and behavior? Was she trying to make him unstoppable?

He didn’t want to believe that. He didn’t want to be unstoppable. He wanted to be normal. He wouldn’t be if he stayed like this.

He didn’t trust Dr. Irvine or Dr. Montague to fix it, either. Who else in this madhouse was qualified to adjust his neural system?

He made up his mind to check in with his people and then go see Colonel Kraft. Kraft would understand enough to get the doctors to change Rhodes back to the way he was before.

Rhodes halted in the barracks threshold and stared inside. Oakes paced back and forth at the end of the room. His eyes flashed and he kept biting his lips and clenching his jaw. Rhinehart lay in his capsule with his eyes closed.

Fuentes sat on the table hugging his knees against his chest. He rocked back and forth casting sidelong glances around the room, but he didn’t sob or moan or wail or slam his head into the wall.

He actually glared at his comrades in fuming rage. Rhodes shuddered at the sight. The technicians must have made the same changes to each person here.

Coulter stood in a corner banging his forehead against the concert wall, but he did it gently this time. He kept his eyes closed.

Thackery and Henshaw stood across the room grappling with each other, lunging for each other, and trying to scratch each other’s eyes out.

Thackery overpowered Henshaw by size and strength, but Henshaw held her own with pure ferocious rage.

The two women howled and shrieked. Thackery tried to jab her hand toward Henshaw’s face. Thackery gouged with her fingernails and then bellowed when Henshaw caught her wrist.

Henshaw either didn’t know her own strength or whatever modification the technicians made caused her to overcome her better judgment.

She wrenched Thackery’s arm back with brutal force. Thackery yelled out in pain. Such a powerful move would have broken a human arm, but it didn’t break Thackery’s arm.

She fought back, kicked out with her foot, and tried to trip Henshaw. Henshaw stumbled, caught her balance, and then headbutted Thackery right in the nose.

Henshaw obviously wasn’t in the habit of fighting anybody like this. She threw herself off balance and both women hit the floor.

Only one person in the whole barracks looked happy. Dietz stood off to one side leering at the two women. He grinned in maniacal glee.

The light in Dietz’s eyes made Rhodes quake to the marrow of his bones. He should have realized when Dietz fired his thermal cannon at Fuentes that there was something wrong with Dietz.

Now Rhodes saw it all as plain as day. Zen said he encouraged Dietz to torment Fuentes in the interest of science—and Dietz did it. Zen and Dietz were each as psychotic as the other.

Rhodes didn’t have time to mess around with that right now. He barged into the barracks, snatched Henshaw by the arm, and yanked her away from Thackery.

Henshaw screeched and bellowed even louder, fought against his grip, and tried to struggle free so she could make another lunge for Thackery.

Thackery tried to take advantage of that moment to pounce on Henshaw. Rhodes’s temper got the better of him. He used the limb closest to Thackery and kicked her away harder than he should have.

She pitched onto her back and sprawled across the floor roaring in fury. Dietz burst out laughing.

None of the others moved to intervene when Rhodes dragged Henshaw kicking and spitting to the other side of the room. Thackery got to her feet.

Rhodes saw her about to make another play to get to Henshaw. Rhodes dropped all sense of propriety and raised his scourge gun to aim at Thackery to hold her off.

He gave her such a vicious glare that she stopped where she was. She narrowed her eyes at him in pure venomous fury, but at least she didn’t attack.

Rhodes threw Henshaw against the wall on the other side of the room. She roared again and tried to break away to go after Thackery.

He straightened his arm and didn’t even try to be gentle when he slammed her back. He made her stagger and she fell flat on her ass. Dietz wouldn’t stop laughing at the whole despicable incident.

Rhodes cast another hopeless glance around the barracks. Where should he even begin to deal with these people? He couldn’t even control himself.

He had to change that. Colonel Kraft was his only hope.

Rhodes didn’t dare to leave the barracks—not yet.

“You’re all malfunctioning,” he croaked. “Whatever the technicians did, they altered the way we think. We can get them to change it back.”

“YOU BITCH!!” Henshaw shrieked. She rocketed to her feet and charged across the room to close with Thackery again.

Rhodes barely dove in front of Henshaw in time to stop her. Her armored body smashed into his. It threw him off balance for a split second, and in that moment, Oakes turned around to face the room.

He’d always been so steady and reliable. He never suffered from any difficulty or distress. Oakes being so solid had lulled Rhodes into a false sense of security.

Oakes’s expression cleared. The rage and agitation of a moment before evaporated. He actually looked calm for a second….before he raised his arm and pointed his scourge gun at his own head.

“NO!!” Rhodes yelled, but he couldn’t get there fast enough to stop Oakes from shooting himself.

Rhinehart opened his eyes. He didn’t even see Oakes about to blow his own brains out. Dietz smirked at the whole scene in lunatic delight.

Coulter caught one glimpse of Oakes, spun around, and crossed the floor in a split second. He got there just in time to wrench Oakes’s arm sideways.

The gun went off and the blast exploded into the ceiling. Oakes flew into a rage trying to wrestle his arm out of Coulter’s grip.

Rhodes finally untangled himself from Henshaw and sprinted across the room to help Coulter. Rhodes still didn’t get there quick enough before Oakes fired a second time.

He came perilously close to hitting Coulter. Coulter wrestled Oakes’s arm aside and the second shot hit Rhinehart’s capsule. He jumped up, but Rhodes was already closer.

Dietz watched the whole show with a huge grin plastered across his face. Then, out of Rhodes’s worst nightmares, Dietz raised his own arm, pointed it at Oakes, and said in a perfectly calm tone, “I’ll do it for you.”

Rhodes collided with Dietz at the last moment, smacked Dietz’s arm aside, and then Rhodes had to use every ounce of his strength to stop Dietz from turning his weapon on anyone in sight.

Dietz put up one hell of a fight. His cheery expression turned deadly. He kept grinning like a death’s head while he fought to free his arm from Rhodes’s grip.

Dietz tried to turn the weapon on Oakes again. When that failed, Dietz tried to shoot Rhodes.

Rhodes shoved himself between Dietz on one side and Oakes and Coulter on the other. Oakes overcame Coulter’s efforts to restrain him, but Coulter held him until Rhinehart got there.

Thackery took a step forward to help Rhodes, and at that moment, Dietz fired. He yanked his weapon toward Rhodes’s head. Rhodes threw all his weight against Dietz’s arm to push the gun away and the shot exploded across the room.

The blast hit Thackery in the side of the head and she buckled on the spot.

End of Chapter 32.