As it of-ten hap-pened in mil-i-tary life, the worst day of Sobon's life was also his last. Some might even call that a re-lease, a mer-cy; Sobon him-self would have dis-agreed.

  Sobon was a mil-i-tary cy-borg aboard the Crestan De-stroy-er Iri-des-cent Rapi-er, on ex-tend-ed pa-trol when they re-ceived word that a hos-tile force was set-ting up a por-tal re-lay out-sys-tem. They and a hand-ful of es-cort ships warped in to find that their force was out-matched by two bat-tle-ships, both hun-gry for blood. A fight-ing re-treat made the en-e-my pur-suit cost-ly, but the Rapi-er couldn't last.

  As a Mixed Ma-rine, Sobon had no role in ship-to-ship com-bat, and was in a troop car-ri-er in the launch bay when a par-ti-cle beam blew out the Rapi-er's de-fens-es and sent most of the ship's crew to join the In-fi-nite Cy-cle.

  The troop car-ri-er's own shields blunt-ed the blast--a safe-ty pro-to-col de-signed to in-crease sur-viv-abil-i-ty in ex-act-ly these cir-cum-stances--but the boat was still crip-pled, and sev-er-al of the more fleshy Marines didn't sur-vive that ini-tial shock. Sobon was a Class IX cy-borg, less than 10% flesh, and his sys-tems sur-vived in min-i-mal-pow-er mode, his brain and heart--the last rem-nants of his orig-i-nal body--bruised but still func-tion-ing. He could do lit-tle but watch as one of his squad-mates worked for hours to re-store pow-er, and chan-neled what re-mained of the aether bat-ter-ies and one half-crip-pled dy-namo into an im-promp-tu in-sys-tem jump us-ing her own flesh as a ma-trix.

  In short, she drained the mag-ic bat-ter-ies and de-stroyed her own body to tele-port them clos-er to home. That would have been a no-ble but trag-ic sac-ri-fice, if it had worked.

  They came out in a civ-i-lized part of the as-ter-oid belt, but rocks out-num-bered peo-ple by a fac-tor of thou-sands to one, and the jump al-most im-me-di-ate-ly smashed the trans-port into an as-ter-oid the size of a large build-ing. Sobon and at least one oth-er sur-vived that im-pact, but the crash only pushed them back into the rocky field, and it wasn't long be-fore the derelict ves-sel drift-ed be-tween two rocks, which gen-tly touched to-geth-er in the way that only two un-stop-pable forces could.

  Sobon's con-scious-ness sur-vived, but most of his cy-borg body, and his last re-main-ing com-pa-tri-ot, did not.

  It was an-oth-er eight hours be-fore, mer-ci-ful-ly, a metal-lic as-ter-oid rough-ly the size and shape of a small freight ve-hi-cle ap-peared from nowhere he could de-tect and put him out of his mis-ery. Con-sid-er-ing how long he had been wish-ing for death, it was long over-due. All he could do was won-der as the light glint-ed strange-ly off the front, as though it was shin-ing lights in his eyes, and then that light swal-lowed him.

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  Sobon jerked sud-den-ly, his sud-den-ly un-fa-mil-iar body twist-ed in agony. He was un-cer-tain ex-act-ly where he was, but some kind of shod-dy im-plant--far too slow and im-pre-cise to be mil-i-tary, in fact, worse than any he'd ever used--slow-ly fill-ing him in to where he was and who was around him.

  They were not friend-lies.

  A large man, at least halfway to mor-bid-ly ob-sese with dis-gust-ing-ly thick jowls and a thick coat-ing of oily black filth cov-er-ing near-ly every ex-posed inch of his skin, was pin-ning his up-per body down, while an-oth-er, sim-i-lar-ly aw-ful man was stand-ing in front of him, wip-ing what looked like brass knuck-les with a dirty cloth. Both, by the time he reg-is-tered their ex-is-tence, were star-ing at him, and both had iden-ti-cal brain-less, malev-o-lent stares.

  "Ere," said the one hold-ing him down, "looks like he's not dead af-ter all, mate."

  "Coul-da sworn his breath-ing stopped." Knuck-les turned and squat-ted down, well into kick-ing range, and Sobon's in-stincts kicked into over-drive.

  He threw his weight down, and his legs sprung into the air, land-ing his heel in the oth-er man's face. In the same mo-ment, al-though it felt like the grip on him was sol-id as steel, he twist-ed him-self free, putting every scrap of strength he had into push-ing him-self away from his cap-tor.

  It took an im-pos-si-bly long mo-ment for him to re-al-ized he was hold-ing him-self in midair with trem-bling mus-cles, be-cause nei-ther the man he had kicked in the face, nor the man he was push-ing on with his whole up-per body, had moved an inch. They had no pan-ic, no flinch-ing in-stinct, as though not only had they felt no pain, but his weight was noth-ing to them.

  "Oh, he's got some heat from 'is brush with death." Knuck-les reached up and grabbed Sobon's an-kle from right in front of his face, and Sobon re-al-ized in that mo-ment just how small he was com-pared to them--far small-er than his body should be, at least in re-la-tion to an av-er-age male. His cy-borg body had been lithe, yes, but of av-er-age height. "Best we beat that out of 'im in case he keeps on livin'. No good comes of a street rat that don't know his place."

  Sobon's body was burn-ing with pain. He had bruis-es all over his tor-so, and now that he'd moved, it was clear he had at least one bro-ken rib, though it had mer-ci-ful-ly missed his or-gans. More than that, though, this lit-tle bit of ex-er-cise was drain-ing what lit-tle strength he had, and he re-al-ized he had noth-ing left to re-sist.

  Knuck-les land-ed a blow to his side with those nasty brass knuck-les of his, and Sobon could feel his kid-ney light up with agony, that in-ef-fi-cient im-plant-like as-sis-tant feed-ing him data all too slow-ly. More blows came, and every one of them crip-pled him in a dif-fer-ent way, un-til he was curled up, dark-ness threat-en-ing to over-take him once again.

  The last thing he heard was the oth-er brute snort-ing a laugh. "Cheeky bug-ger ain't even got a bit of qi in 'im any-way, what good is he? Worth-less street rat."