Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor (17 page)

Truthfully, she found many officers
over proud. Others were dull or narrow-minded like Corporal Box.
But Mak wasn’t stuffed with pride, merely confident of his
abilities. And he wasn’t the least bit dull as well as being very
intelligent. Everything a genius doctor could want in a
man.

This mission had taken on a horror
that might scar all of them before they completed it. But Mak would
suffer the most. She felt a fool for not considering how Mak would
identify with these lab creations they were chasing down. When he
wouldn’t let Andy kill those on Julian she should have spotted it.
Then again, psychology wasn’t one of her areas of study.

Molly took a quick shower and then
returned to the lab. Helen muttered to herself as she readied
samples for the high-powered scope. Molly took her personal AI
device and went to her small desk. She tapped into the data stream
and searched out psychology journals. She might not have a degree
in psych but she was a genius. She could learn to understand Mak.
And maybe figure out her own reaction to him and why she cared
whether or not he’d ever made love.

Chapter Ten

Arid Four had few areas suitable for
human habitation. Mak found it before they broke atmosphere but he
flew around the planet anyway to check for other populations.
Nothing human and very few animals. The people living and working
at the lab would have had to ship in every bit of food and other
raw materials.

No jungle or forest had tried to take
over Arid Four’s landing pad. Not even dust had covered the tarmac.
More stone than dirt comprised the surrounding ground without even
a breath of wind to erode the rock to dust.

“
Go see if the doctors are
ready,” Mak told Pender. “And bring the corporal forward. He can
watch the sensors while we’re off ship.”

Despite Box’s surprising ownership of
the blame for his injuries, Mak knew if he hadn’t hesitated to
shoot, the corporal wouldn’t have been injured. He did a full
sweeping scan of the area again. No signs of life. There hadn’t
been signs of life on the space station either but they’d found
lots of danger.

The stark gray metal of the lab
buildings stood out against the browns of the barren landscape. Not
one green plant or scurrying lizard. The outside temperature ranged
on the cool side.

Box eased into the copilot’s chair. “I
could go with you, sir.”

“
Looks like a simple recon
mission. Let me know if you see anything moving besides
us.”

Mak strapped on his prepared weapons
belt, leaving his rifle behind. Instead he picked up the foot long
bomb sniffer. The tube-like instrument flared out on the sensor end
and had a small boxy attachment near the handle where readings
would present. And he was going first everywhere they
went.

Pender waited with the doctors. Molly
looked at him as if she had a question or lots of questions but she
didn’t vocalize any of them.

Dr. Loren fussed with his pack, his
hands trembling. “You’re sure there’s no life out
there?”

“
Yes, doctor.” The man
didn’t looked reassured and Mak didn’t blame him. He’d much rather
face an armed enemy than more discoveries like they’d stumbled on
last time. “Nobody enters a door or walks through an open area
until I’ve cleared it.”

“
You said there wasn’t
anything out there,” Dr. Shear said.

“
Nothing living. They may
have left traps behind like they did on the space
station.”

“
Yes, sir.” Now Pender
looked as worried as the doctors.

Mak led the way out the door,
wondering how good a commander he was. Both the soldiers with him
had been injured and could have been killed. He’d never worked with
regular soldiers before. None of his Recon Marine brothers would
have made the mistakes that Pender and Box had, but Mak still took
the blame. He realized he had five people to protect instead of
only the three doctors.

“
Damn, it’s cold here,”
muttered Dr. Loren as they walked the fifty yards to the
lab.

The quiet wasn’t comfortable. Mak’s
instincts stirred restlessly but not so much with warning as the
sense of something wrong. Then he saw the body.

It wore a one-piece jumpsuit, the
front dark with a long, dried stain around the collar and down over
the front. The arid climate had sucked the moisture from the body,
leaving a shriveled husk topped with a fuzz of short hair on the
scalp. Its mouth hung open, exposing a mouthful of white teeth. It
gave it the appearance of a silent scream, but the expression might
have been produced by the contraction of muscles and
skin.

Mak swept the sniffer over it, though
he saw no sign of tampering. The man had leaned back against the
rock and died. The others hung back, not able to see why Mak had
stopped. “Doctors, you might want to check this one.”

He moved forward a few steps to allow
them access. Pender lingered with the doctors, looking around like
he didn’t trust the sensors that no enemy lurked there. Good
boy.

Mak looked around also but not for the
living. The body laying untended in the open didn’t bode well for
what else awaited them.

Molly joined him, her tone grim. “He
died of a neck wound. Looks like it was torn by a wild animal, not
a weapon.”

Except there were no wild animals on
this planet. None beyond those probably created in this lab. Would
it never end? Mak regretted his agreement to lead this mission more
with every stop. But if he hadn’t come along, Molly would still
have been right here. Then who would have protected her? Soldiers
like Pender and Box?

“
Stay behind me.” Mak
started off again. No more bodies at least. A trail of dark
splashes on the walkway marked the dead man’s escape from the doors
they approached. Like the first lab they’d found, this one had a
set of cargo doors nearest the tarmac to receive supplies. A hover
unit sat right inside the door, intact and still
charged.

Mak checked the entire area before
allowing the others to enter. The interior set of doors opened into
a familiar hallway lined with doors on each side. “There must be a
basic floor plan for secret illegal labs.”

For some reason the doctors laughed.
Maybe it was that nervous civilian laughter Molly had described.
Mak still wasn’t sure he believed in such a thing.

The generator room opened for Mak’s
code. The machine looked undamaged. It took Mak and Pender only a
few minutes to find the reset and power it up. Lights came on down
the hallway.

The storage area bore a faint
remembrance of spoiled food. Crates of goods filled the shelves.
Another door held a large hunk of a dead machine.

Mak had never seen one so massive, but
he recognized it as a water purifier attached to a pump. They must
have drawn their water from deep below the surface.

The office doors were all closed, but
Mak found none of them locked. Mak swept them first, the sniffer
finding no explosives. A mug sat near an older model of computer
tablet. A shelf contained papers, a rarity anywhere let alone on an
isolated planet. From all appearances, the office’s occupant had
stepped away for a moment. The sense of wrongness grew in
Mak.

“
We’ll come back and look
around after we explore the rest,” Mak said when Molly peeked in
from the open door.

Excitement lit her eyes. “They left
everything behind.”

“
I’m more worried about
who killed the guy out there and why they all left in such a
hurry.” Mak opened the next few doors, finding similar scenes of
abandoned workspaces. He debated sending the rest of them outside
until he found what caused the knot in his stomach.

“
Hey, I’ve heard of this
guy.” Dr. Loren stood beside Mak in the doorway of the last office.
He pointed at a gaudy nameplate on the desk. “George Johnston. My
professor of early childhood treatments for genetic illnesses used
Johnston’s research journals as required reading.”

“
I met him once,” Molly
said. “I haven’t seen any new research from him for a long
time.”

“
Probably because he was
here.” Mak backed out of the room. “I doubt he could make public
anything he was working on.”

“
I can’t wait to read his
computer,” Dr. Loren said.

Mak led them down the hall, finding
civilian living quarters behind the next doors on the right and the
left. Clothing hung in closets and other personal objects lay in
causal disarray in the lounging areas. Shared bathing areas held
faint aromas of scented soaps though everything had dried long
ago.

“
The next areas should be
labs, barracks and training areas.” Mak slowed, checking the
readings on the sniffer with each step. It detected nothing. He
opened the door on the right, revealing a long open barracks, each
cot perfectly made. The door on the left hung open a few inches.
“Stay back.”

He reached out with the bomb sniffer.
Nothing. He used the head of the device to push the door open. It
swung halfway before something behind it stopped it.

The silence beyond the door didn’t
feel empty. “Wait until I say it’s clear.” Mak walked two steps
into the room. The rest of the facility had been so orderly and
undisturbed that the total chaos didn’t make sense at first. Heavy
metal lab tables lay on their sides, a few on top of desiccated
bodies. Some of the bodies died only half clothed and wearing
standard military grade underclothing. The rest of the dead wore
the same style clothing as the dead man outside.

At the far end of the room wide
windows overlooked an indoor training area. Something had shattered
one pane of the thick glass. More bodies sprawled among the weight
lifting machines and padded wrestling areas.

“
Can we come in?” Molly
asked from the doorway.

Mak checked the readings on the bomb
sniffer. Still nothing. Perhaps all this death had pinged at his
instincts. “Stay near the door for now.”

What had happened here? The doctors
would figure it out. They would only have to dig through another
stack of dead people, a long process with these numbers. The very
thought made Mak a bit nauseous. And the dry air irritated his eyes
and stuffed up his nose. Even his mouth had a bitter…. “Out!
Everybody out!”

Molly stumbled into the other two
doctors as she turned toward the door. Pender still stood in the
doorway. He reacted quickly and hauled Dr. Loren into the
hallway.

Mak threw aside the sniffer and
wrapped his arms around the two women. Dr. Shear gagged and sagged
in his arms. Molly wilted, her weight pulling him off balance and
causing them to run into the hallway wall.

Pender struggled ahead of them with
his arm around Loren’s waist. The doctor moved his legs but the
soldier supported his weight as Mak now did for the two
women.

The hallway stretched on, the burning
in Mak’s lungs making it longer. Pender coughed and gagged as he
staggered through the door into the cold sunlight. He dropped Dr.
Loren and fell to his knees.

Mak dragged the two women a few steps
from the door and put them on the ground near Loren. He tapped the
radio as he pushed the doors closed behind him. “Corporal, get to
the medical lab. We need cortical steroid treatments for gas
exposure. Find it. I’m on my way.”

Before leaving the others, Mak rolled
all the doctors to their sides. All of them coughed and wheezed.
“Pender, make sure they don’t choke on their vomit if they get
sick.”

The soldier nodded, his eyes red and
swollen.

Mak sprinted toward the ship, the
clean air helping his body expel the toxins. He leaped into the
ship without using the steps.

Box leaned into a cabinet, nosily
pushing vials and bottles aside. “What happened?” The corporal
turned, holding up a glass case of prefilled syringes.

Mak grabbed it and ran back down the
hall. His leap out the door carried him thirty feet out onto the
tarmac. He heard Box pounding down the steps behind him.

Pender crouched near the doctors, his
eyes swollen to mere slits. Mak snapped open the case and handed a
syringe to the soldier. “Jab it right below your collar
bone.”

Mak didn’t watch him. He took out
another dose and rolled Molly to her back. He yanked open her
shirt, tearing off the snaps. He stabbed the needle into the muscle
above her breast. By the time Box arrived, grimacing with his arms
wrapped around his cracked ribs, Mak had treated the other two
doctors.

Box handed Mak a water bottle. Exactly
what he needed. Mak took a long drink and then offered it to
Pender. Some of the swelling already eased around the soldier’s
eyes. The doctors stirred. Loren sat up and reached for the
water.

Mak nodded to Box. “Well done,
corporal.”

“
Don’t you need a shot,
sir?” Pender croaked.

“
I’m fine.”

Dr. Loren ran a trembling hand over
his pale face. Molly and Dr. Shear coughed and groaned, neither
trying to sit up. Even with the antidote, their bodies would suffer
from the poison.

“
Corporal, see if you can
help Dr. Loren. Pender, help Dr. Shear.” Mak lifted Molly, cradling
her in front of his body like a child. “They all need to get out of
their clothing and shower. All of us, including you, corporal. The
gas particles will cling to your skin and hair.”