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Bahran sprayed the washing cleaner, attempting to get the waste containers cleaned.The wall was covered in muck and waste, and he got the job of cleaning it.The sprayer fanned out and removed a bunch of the gunk on one wall, and he narrowed the tip to get a particularly nasty bit that wasn't coming off.
The smell didn't really bother him anymore.At least he could turn off his nasal receptors so he didn't have to smell the waste.That was a benefit, anyway.Being a cyborg did have some advantages.At least, other humanoids said as much.
He was not supposed to care about what tasks or protocols he was given to perform, either.
But he did.Deep down, he knew.
Being Tarnished, he was put in positions to do the least appealing jobs.And whether cyborgs used them or not, they had feelings.The repressors turned most everything off, and not many tapped into that resource.
Probably because relying too much on emotions tended to get one Tarnished.
Bahran was an example of that.He'd made some difficult decisions in the past, the kind of decisions that no cyborg would want to make, but he had them.Being an -An series, he had a different type of programming running through him.
He was supposed to be a more advanced, or maybe just a more evolved version of a cyborg.More in touch with emotions and learning to work with them better than previous versions.
Drygok, all of it.If anything, the variance in his design and programming made him weaker than others without the excess emotions.Emotion versus logic, it was easy to see which side mattered to the Rhimodians.
When he made a hard choice, he lost his Shine.
Plain and simple.
They were cyborgs, and all they had were their Shine.He'd lost his because of a choice he made in battle.Now, many of his brethren were gone.
So many of their people had died in the foolish starfield war with the Terran Empire.A fight over who had the right to live where.
The Rhimodians had acquired the Sol system through the Galactic Alliance.They chose to respect the galactic laws and established their position in Sol, an uninhabited dead system.The Terrans claimed that they had the rights to the system since it bordered their territory.
It should have been a simple situation.
Follow Galactic Alliance's decree.
But the Terrans didn't do that.It was a war that made no sense.Supposedly, the Terran Empire followed Galactic Alliance law.Yet, they refused to accept their ruling on the state of the system of Sol.
The Rhimodians would have been content to live right where they were, to not engage with the Terran Empire outside of trade.It seemed no matter what they did, it was their lot to be fighting.They fought for years with their original makers.They fought to find a home.Now, they fight to keep it.
They just wanted to be allowed to survive on their own, without any interference from anyone.
Unfortunately, the Terrans did not see it that way.
Many believed the Rhimodians came in and stole Sol from the Terran Empire.Allies of the Terran Empire did not make life in this sector of the galaxy easy.They attempted to craft truces with certain groups outside of the Terran Empire.Still, even without having claimed systems, the Terran Empire had its influence in the area.
It made the war even more difficult.There were enough people out there who would not deal with the Rhimodians because of the Terran Empire.
It frustrated him that so many of the Rhimodians were gone.They had yet to determine how to extend their numbers.Part of the work the Orlicians did to the Rhimodians when they began their experiments was to control their population.The Rhimodians were strong and dumb on Orlicia.They were, in essence, slave labor for them, at least until the Rhimodians got smart enough to figure out they didn't have to stay on Orlicia.
So they left.
And took as many embryos as possible with them.The idea was to keep their population full.
They didn't count on war wiping them out.
Many of his friends were gone in the war.He knew the Terrans lost many as well, but he didn't know how many.It had to be a lot--they lost far more ships than the Rhimodians did.He and his people didn't engage like the Terrans did--they were always trying to get inside, to defeat the Rhimodians with subterfuge.The Rhimodians only held their ground.
Hoping not to lose more of their people.
Bahran had lost enough of his friends because of his own mistakes.Initially, he believed they were dead.He had no reason to think otherwise.
