Read Blood of Heroes (The Ember War Saga Book 3) for Free Online

be a stretch but we can make it.”
    “Put it on the board.” Valdar clasped his hands behind his back and walked across his bridge. “Get Durand and Hale up here. This will be their fight.”
     
    ****
     
    Lafayette worked a thin screw tip into the base of his cybernetic wrist and made a slight adjustment. His left arm ended with a stump, the hand missing. The machinery whirled around, changing directions several times. He shook his head and picked up a different tool.
    His workshop was in the same purpose built container as the omnium reactor. The great machine hummed with energy, thick cables ran from its center to the Shanishol control stations bolted to the floor next to Lafayette, tiny stickers with English script were stuck atop the original language of the last users of the machine, rough translations to the function of each control and lever.
    “I can hear you,” Lafayette said.
    “How?” Steuben stepped from around a container. “I could sneak up on a fiilka without being noticed. Your ears are much smaller.”
    “Well, old friend, I don’t exactly have ears anymore. Do I?” Lafayette tapped the metal that encased his head from beneath his jaw up to the top of his skull.
    “The humans taught me a word, ‘cheat’. It means to do something beyond the limits of rules,” Steuben said.
    “Well, I didn’t choose this augmentation. I’m hardly the one doing this cheat thing you speak of,” Lafayette pointed his stump to an open box. “Give me a hand, would you?”
    Steuben rummaged through the box and took out a hand, dissimilar to the four fingered hand with talon tips that he had.
    “ Five fingers? You’ve been with these humans for too long. I’ll report you to Kosciusko for treason,” Steuben handed the appendage to Lafayette.
    “You’re the one wearing their armor and I’m treasonous?”
    “I wear the armor for a purpose. Standing out on the battlefield is a sure way to attract attention, and bullets. You understand the etymology of the word ‘uniform’, correct?” Steuben crossed his arms.
    Lafayette snapped the new hand against his wrist and flexed the hand against the range of motion. He tapped each forefinger against the thumb, and encountered some difficulty making the ring finger move as he desired.
    “My nervous system is meant for four fingers. This will take some getting used to,” Lafayette said.
    “I don’t understand why you bother. Use your four fingers as your three parents made you.”
    “Improvement, Steuben. Self-improvement. After the Xaros left me with…so little to work with, I had to recreate my own body. Fiddling with capabilities has become something of a hobby,” Lafayette tried to pick up a wrench with his new hand, and fumbled with it. “You’re heading to the surface, aren’t you? Normally you’d spend this time glaring at people.”
    Steuben pulled the broken pieces of his short sword from a sack and put them on a work bench.
    “Again?” Lafayette asked.
    “Yes, again. Just fix it.”
    “Very well, let me show you something amazing at the same time,” Lafayette picked up the broken pieces and brought them to the omnium reactor. He opened a cabinet near the end of the machine and set the pieces inside. The control panel came to life with a flip of the switch. The two pieces of the sword came up on a screen. A grid overlay with Shanishol language slid across the screen.
    “The engineers on Bastion promised the schematics for a better interface will be waiting for us on Earth. I’ve had to make do with what I can figure out in the meantime,” Lafayette said. His nine fingers danced across the controls and a puff of air and light flared in the cabinet. The sword vanished from the screen.
    Steuben put a heavy hand on Lafayette’s shoulder, claw tips working into the exposed joint. “Lafayette. What have you done? That blade has been in my family for almost a thousand years.”
    “Relax. This is the neat part,” the reactor hummed to life.