Fallen Fragon

They never expected this conversion to be carried out in one clean switch. Various avenues would be explored over generations. Mistakes abandoned. Successes built upon. But slowly and surely the divergence from terrestrial humanity would grow until the final generation could walk naked under an alien sun and breathe the air without technological support.

Z-B's briefing had explained all this to the platoons. The emphasis had been on cellular adaptation, giving the impression of ordinary-looking people with slightly different lungs. It had never mentioned just how great the physiological changes would be.

Looking at the inhabitants of Roseport, Lawrence knew the briefing had barely touched the history of Santa Chico. Whatever had happened here since settlement began, it wasn't going to act in the platoon's favor.

In the begi

The platoons lining the shore were ordered to advance up into Roseport. Their audience moved aside, filling the air with a loud, high-pitched cluttering sound, as if a whole jungle full of chimpanzees were screaming at once. Later, the AS up in the starship would decipher the cluttering as a very-high-speed hybrid of Spanish and Valley English. Captains ordered snatch squads forward to fix collateral necklaces. Skin amplifiers boomed out instructions, telling the new-natives not to resist, that they were being held responsible for...

The fight started immediately. New-natives swarmed down the rocky slope into the line of Skins. They didn't seem to have any weapons, but they were strong and extremely fast, easily a physical match for Skin. There were so many of them, and the platoons were so closely bunched still, that using darts and other nonlethal weapons was difficult What appeared to be a hairless ape leaped on Lawrence, carrying him to the ground. Huge clawed hands were either trying to remove his Skin helmet, or more likely just rip his entire head off. Lawrence gripped the thing's wrists and tried to prize them off. His Skin wasn't strong enough. Sheer surprise made him freeze for a second. Nothing in training had dealt with a situation like this. Skin always gave squaddies the advantage.

He pushed down with his right leg, shifting the pair of them over. Then he punched the thing on its sternum. It grunted in pain but kept twisting its claws round Lawrence's neck. Lawrence punched it again, feeling the tough amber hide give fractionally. After a few more seconds of futile wrestling, Lawrence ordered the Skin to fire its electrical pulse. The ape-thing screamed, its limbs locked as the charge ripped through it, then resumed its attempted decapitation. Something like a baby elephant joined in, kicking Lawrence in the ribs. He was left with no choice. His Skin's nine-millimeter pistol deployed through the carapace, and he shot the ape-thing at point-blank range. The first bullet simply enraged it further. Lawrence had to pump half a dozen shots into the demented creature before it finally lay motionless on the tigergrass. Vivid scarlet blood spilled out from the bullet holes in its torso and neck.

Lawrence staggered away from the thing, his ribs aching from the kicking administered by the baby elephant. He ignored that. Nausea and giddiness threatened to knock his legs from under him. He'd never killed anyone before. Not another human. And that's what this was, however distorted. Those clever Skin weapons had always absolved him, turned it into a nonissue.

Now the air around him crackled with weapons being discharged. The agonized screams of mortally injured new-natives cut through it all. Something approximating a Neanderthal ran straight into Lawrence, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Lawrence brought his pistol arm around automatically. Targeting graphics centered on the prehistoric throwback's head. It had a tall, scalloped ridge ru

"Fuck off," Lawrence bellowed. He jerked the pistol nozzle up and fired three shots into the air. The new-native rolled aside and scrambled to its feet, sprinting away. Lawrence slowly clambered up as his Skin's peristaltic muscles pushed fresh ammunition along a feed tube into the pistol's magazine.

There was movement on every side of him, with a hundred voices shouting into his communication link. It took Lawrence a long moment to realize what was happening. The fight was breaking up. New-natives were fleeing back up the slope into the streets and buildings of Roseport, ru

Shots were still being fired into the backs of the retreating new-natives. Sergeants and captains yelled to cease fire.

"Sweet Fate," Lawrence whispered. Skins were on their knees around him, helmet valves open, allowing them to vomit. Lawrence's Skin AS reported it was infusing a cocktail of narcotics to help him cope with the shock its medical monitors had revealed. He felt light-headed, as if everything he'd just witnessed were part of some terrible i-drama. He didn't want to move, to take part, help his injured comrades. Just wanted someone to switch the whole image off and wipe the memory clean.

"Hey, look," Nic shouted. "Look up there. Jesus God, what is the deal here?"

Lawrence pushed his sensor focus into the cloudless sky above. He almost laughed; the numbing drugs made it seem fu