Part 1

Introduction of the first main character - Koltor Bryants. Part human, part machine.

HE SAT BOLT UPRIGHT, HIS BODY LATHERED IN SWEAT.

At least, those parts of him that still could sweat.

FlightAdmiral Koltor Bryents slowed the breathing of his part tissue, part mechanical lungs. The nightmares were back. Back to haunt him with fiery images of the war he had paid so dearly a price to win.

His hands, both flesh and geared, balled into fists, grabbing chunks of the bed sheets. He could feel the few non-organic fingers on his left hand bite into his palm, but all he could sense from the right hand was the sound of the cloth tearing from the inhuman force with which his sharp metallic appendage gripped them. Nerve impulses could be sent down the intricate path of wires to command and control the imitation arm, but it had no way to send them back. He couldn't feel anything from the last three fingers on his right hand, his right arm, the right part of his rib cage, his right hip, even the right edge of his face. No feeling from any of them ever again.

Six months.

Had it really only been six months since the explosion that had taken all but one man from his platoon, ripped the right half of his body to shreds, and won that fool's war all at once?

That would make it five months since he had woken up in a military hospital from the surgery that had replaced the hashed tissue on his right side with the latest model in cyborg technology. They had even done him the favor of fixing up an old war wound that had blasted away part of his left hand. You must get favors for being a war hero.

Sitting up, he couldn't help but hear the whirring and gyrating of the gears that infested his body now. Wherever he went, everyone always stared, as if they could hear it. 

Or were they staring at his face, a mass of scars and metal? It must be quite the sight. He hadn't looked in a mirror since the day they woke him up, but he was covered in bandages then.

He must look hideous.

Karina had thought so. That was why she had given back the ring he had given her before this whole stupid war even began.

As he swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor, he felt the familiar vibrating of the rotary engines that kept the airship Arboretum, his home, air born. With metal everywhere around them, why was it that people stared so openly at a person made of metal?

Author's Note

If you notice any weird html codes strewn about in there, let me know. I submitted this to a different website earlier, and when I downloaded the text file, it gave me a really weird jumbled version. Anyway, hope you like it.