Battle for Proxima by Michael G. Thomas Page B

offline,” explained one of the men over the intercom unit.
    Anderson breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them make a few more subtle fixes to the unit, before sealing the hatch back down. It was dangerous and time and, as ever, was against them. He’d already lost two men because of an overloaded capacitor storage unit blowing, and he expected more to follow.
    The massive underground complex was buried deep inside the planet. Tunnels and corridors ran for kilometres underground. Great rooms had been built into the hollowed out rock. It had been used until recently as a secret factory run by the Zealots, powered by the sweat and blood of slave labour. The real shock had not been the shipyards that were churning out small frigate sizes ships, but rather the harvesting areas where humans were stripped of body parts and organs to be used in the production of the Biomechs. The officer looked at the reports in his datapad, the latest information only just arriving from the sensors connected directly into the computer system. On his own datapad, Kowalski checked the figures. His expertise in computer security and networking proving especially useful in keeping the system functioning, at the same time stopping any data loss.
    His latest assignment was to work his way through the masses of accumulated data on the site, the facilities, technology and specimens to get a better understanding of the Biomechs. Until now, everything had been based upon analysing the bodies. The intelligence collected so far had not been useful. He looked once more at the numbers from the harvest room, before handing the datapad to Anderson.
    “You were right, Commander. The latest generation of the Biomechs seems to be using less and less of the component parts. The last iteration just used the brain, organs and nervous system of the host humans. From the analysis on those still in the cylinders, it looks like the newest models are almost fully synthetic, right down to the nervous system. The machines in the factory behind the harvesting rooms were growing bone, tissue and flesh for the creatures over a period of months. We have similar technology in Confed labs for growing replacement organs, but nothing this advanced or extreme. These Biomechs are a radical advance over the first generation we met on Prime. They are not far from being able to produce an almost fully synthetic creature. All they have left to do, is to perfect the construction of synthetic brain cells.”
    Commander Anderson examined the data, his expression changing slightly as he read his findings.
    “Incredible, truly incredible! The Union have the technology to ultimately create an unlimited number of synthetic creatures to carry out all kinds of tasks. They must have been working on this technology for years.”
    “Longer than that, Sir. From the reports I have sent back to Naval Intelligence, the most recent operations being carried out on official Confed Labs, was for replacement organs and bones. Fusing the nervous system with artificially grown material is something that so far hasn’t been perfected, at least not officially.”
    “Apart from the Biomechs of course.”
    “True. I still don’t understand the whole brain and programming part. That kind of technology could transform the entire medical profession. Not forgetting that, we could engineer workers or warriors when required,” suggested Kowalski.
    Commander Anderson looked at the data on his screen for a moment, specifically the numerical data on the organs and fully completed Biomechs in the tubes. He looked back to Kowalski.
    “You don’t think that is what they were trying to do all along? To construct facilities that will allow the building of a new caste of human, one that is programed and malleable to suggestion? They can already make soldiers that are stronger and easier to control than our own men. From the research I’ve seen, they come out of the tubes fully capable of movement, basic orders and