Earth Song: Etude to War Read Online Free

Where the flesh ended and the cybernetics began, was evident on both legs by angry red swelling.
    A year was gone since the accident and still his body hadn't adapted to the prosthetics like hers had. The codex data had helped, for sure. Without it they would have had to remove the artificial limbs months ago or risk losing him to catastrophic rejection. “Maybe it’s a little better.” His body was fighting the nano-tailored dualloy fusions between his body and the limbs. It was a rare and painful side effect.
    Minu gently massaged the flesh at his mid left thigh, just above where that leg ended. The muscles underneath were just as strong as before, but the skin was a mishmash of scar tissue and inflammation. The other was the same where it ended, just above his knee.
    It was ironic that he'd healed from the repairs that had saved his right arm, while the replacements to his severed and melted limbs which should have had him walking and running in weeks were still struggling to heal. The doctors said they thought they would eventually succeed, it was just taking a long time.
    “How was the meeting with the board of governors?” he asked, changing the subject.
    “They cut me by five percent.”
    “What? Why?” he asked.
    “Realigned some research grants. Environmental sciences.”
    “Oh.”
    “Ted says hello,” she said. “He was wondering how you were.”
    “Offering his pity?”
    “Don't be like that.” He snorted and got to his feet, heedless of the pain. She tried to cut off his mood. “He just hopes you’re getting better, that's all. People care about you, Aaron.”
    “That's why the fucking council forced me into retirement?” She sighed, it was too late. “They'll wait two years for Pip, and don't even make him retire when he comes back as a sexual deviant with a metal plate in his head.”
    “Aaron!”
    He looked back at her as he stared out the office’s lone window. Outside the sun bore down relentlessly, but the window’s UV shield and the building’s atmosphere processor made it a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius inside. “You're right, I'm sorry.”
    Minu got up and came over, putting her arms around his waist from behind. They were so close to the same height it was a comfortable thing to do. He tensed then relaxed, caressing her right hand.
    “You're the lucky one, you know?”
    “Lucky?” she asked. “I didn't feel lucky when that kloth was gnawing on my arm, or when the Tanam tore my legs to shreds.”
    He looked down at his naked cybernetic feet, both indistinguishable from his originals. “We've both been pretty fucked up, haven't we?”
    “You can say that again.” Minu looked over to his desk. A model of the AX-1 sat there, and a large 3-D image was on the wall behind his desk, only slightly smaller than an artist’s mockup of the AX-2.
    She'd sat in the operations center as he’d piloted the AX-1 on its first reentry. Stood there, unable to breathe as he sent his last transmission. “Controls are unresponsive.” The controllers begged him to eject, but the records showed he never once reached for the bar, even when the manual attitude control jets he’d used to ride the dying shuttle all the way down from orbit ran out of fuel, only twenty meters above the runway.
    At four hundred KPH, a twenty meter fall was like being dropped in a wood chipper. For all his effort the prototype was still a complete loss, and his legs were melted in the fire while he waited for three eternal minutes as the fire crew fought through the wreckage to reach him. The fire crew chief had been in tears when he saw Minu later.
    “He never once screamed,” he had told her, “just calmly led us to him asking if we could hurry but be careful. We thought he was fine!”
    “Why are you pushing yourself so hard?” she asked him, as he stood there in obvious pain. She'd felt that pain as she fought to get used to prosthetic muscles in her legs after the fight with the Tanam. The cybernetic