Blood Relative (16 page)

The Nort laughed off the insult. "Always the same with you Suds, all full of yourselves when you come through the gate." He smiled, and it was an ugly sight. "Just wait a while and you'll change your mind. Once you see what the ice queen's got planned for you, you'll beg to be my little doggie." The soldiers marched them down into the dome, through ranks of cage-like cells. "She likes to have live ones, dak?" said the guard in a languid voice. "Tries out her new toxins on you." He shook his head in mock concern. "It's a very poor way to die."

"I'm a civilian!" Ferris blurted out, his nerve breaking. "You can't do this to me, it's against the War Compact!"

Zeke gave him a hard look. "You ain't got no rights here, kid," he said grimly. "None of us have."

The holding chamber resembled a cross between an interrogation cell and a medical examination room, with a table and chairs mounted on retractable rods and a spidery device in the ceiling that concealed arms ending in probes and las-scalpels. A cluster of sensors above the door tracked Rogue's movement as he examined the perimeter of the room, looking for anything that might be useful as an escape tool. Schrader had obviously prepared Volks for him. On the way in, the kapten covered the GI's head with a hood that masked all sound and vision, leaving Rogue with only his sense of direction to map the route that had taken him from the airlock to the room. If the opportunity arose, he would be able to flawlessly back-track, but he doubted that the kolonel would allow him the chance - not after his failed attempt to flee on the landing pad. The GI contented himself by shifting to a passive mode; he was gathering information with every passing second, assembling it into a framework that he could manipulate.

In fact, escape was a secondary consideration to him now; the Genetic Infantryman was exactly where he wanted to be, deep in the heart of Domain Delta. It was only the manner of his arrival that was problematic. His circuit of the room complete, he considered the spider-mek in the ceiling; any one of its limbs might serve him well as a makeshift weapon, but that was a card he didn't want to play just yet. He sat and waited. The next move was Schrader's.

She did not disappoint; little time passed before the woman entered the room with Volks and a hovering orb-drone.

The robot drifted toward him and Rogue eyed the fan of needles in the machine's manipulators.

"I'm not going to torture you," Schrader said, anticipating his thoughts. She gave a mirthless smile and sat opposite him. "The droid will give you something for your injuries."

"I'll heal just fine on my own," said Rogue.

"I insist." Her smile froze and Volks let his hand drop to the gun in his hip holster.

The GI said nothing and let the robot do its job; with quick, insectile movements, it shot a stimulant-biotic cocktail into his bloodstream and then applied a salve to his swollen eye. It didn't escape Rogue's notice that the machine also took a blood sample and a skin scraping. Once it was finished, the drone floated away and out of the door.

"Now then," Schrader began, "here we are." Her scrutiny made Rogue feel like something on a microscope slide. "I'm very pleased to finally meet you, Trooper. I've studied your career with great interest." She produced a sheaf of digi-pads and document files. Rogue saw indistinct reproductions of Souther paperwork among them, no doubt the copies made by some backroom spy concealed in Milli-Com. "I'm going to enjoy working with you."

He nodded at the papers. "Would you like an autograph?"

The woman's face twitched in a poor approximation of a smirk which spoke volumes to Rogue. Schrader was someone to whom emotion was a dislocated concept, a cold personality that exhibited responses only because it was expected of her. He glanced at Volks, wondering about their relationship.

"How about you?" Rogue addressed the officer. "Are you a fan of mine as well?" He nodded in the direction of Volks's rank tabs. "Kashar Legion, right? Maybe we met before, out in the Zone?"

"Speak to me, not to him!" Schrader snapped, and Rogue smiled inwardly. Good, a flash of the Kolonel-Doktor's real self. Obviously, there were some things that would get a rise from her. Schrader's voice returned to a conversational tone once more. "We have to discuss your future, Rogue."

He flexed his hands absently in the cuffs around his wrists. "Becoming one of your lab rats isn't on my agenda, Schrader. I know what you're doing here."

She shook her head. "I don't think you do, but don't worry, I'll tell you all you want to know in good time. No, I have an offer for you, Rogue. An opportunity."

"And what would that be?"

Schrader leaned a little closer. "Help me end the war, Rogue. Once and for all."

The GI's face twisted in a sneer. "I'll die before I see a Nort flag rise over this planet."

"Nort, Souther..." she shook her head. "I don't care about nations! Just lines on a map, names for fools who send others to their deaths. I said 'end the war', Rogue, not win it. Neither side deserves to take Nu Earth for themselves, they've done nothing but squander life and turn this world into a charnel house. The time has come for a new order to be created."

"With you in charge?"

Schrader's gaze was hard and intense. "I am the visionary, Rogue, but you..." She reached out a hand and touched him. "You are the catalyst."

Something about the look in her eyes revolted him and the GI drew back from her. "Yeah, well let me know how it goes with that."

The woman smiled again. "Of course you have your doubts. I would not have expected otherwise... But I can offer you something in return."

Questions were churning inside Rogue's mind like a hurricane: questions about Zero, about the Traitor General, the Quartz Zone. "I don't think so," he said.

She tapped a slender finger on a bio-schematic of a G-Soldat. "You've seen my creations first-hand, you know they're vastly superior to anything Clavel or the Southers created-"

"Not so superior that I couldn't kill two of them without breaking a sweat," Rogue interposed.

Schrader continued, ignoring the interruption. "There are new crops in the tubes as we speak. Your comrades entombed on those pathetic slivers of silicon, I can give them life again. Do you really believe that Milli-Com will regen them when you finally turn yourself in? They'll be erased, cancelled like the rest of the GI programme." Her eyes flashed. "I can make them whole again!"

"No one's going to collaborate with you, Schrader," he replied, a little too quickly. Rogue hid his thoughts with a scowl; in truth, he couldn't be sure that Gunnar, Helm and Bagman wouldn't be swayed by the offer of a new life after an eternity of artificial non-existence.

"I think you will, Rogue." The scientist nodded to herself, a chilly certainty crossing her pale features. "Because only I can provide you with the single thing that drives you, the object of your quest..." Schrader selected a digi-pad and pressed the activation stud; on the screen the faces of four men scrolled past in quick succession. Each was a Souther general, one of a contingent of officers stationed aboard the Milli-Sat known as Buzzard Three - and one of them was the traitor who had caused the destruction of the GI platoons at the Quartz Zone drop.

Rogue's expression turned to stone as he remembered his showdown with the men on Buzzard Three, the attack that had destroyed the station and the flight back to Nu Earth in a sabotaged escape pod. Only one other lifeboat had made it down - and on board, the man he knew as the Traitor General.

Schrader saw a change in the GI and knew she had put the hook in him. She touched another switch on the digi-pad and a voice, thick with distortion and static, spoke in low, urgent tones. "Buzzard Three agent-in-place, debrief session nine. Subject, Souther Special Programme two-two-eight. It is my opinion that the development of the Genetic Infantrymen is the single largest threat to the Nort domination of Nu Earth-"

She silenced the playback. "The voice of your Traitor, Rogue, from my data files. His intelligence on the creation of your kind was quite extensive." The four faces continued to flicker across the screen. "Which one is it? That's the question. You've stared at these faces for hours, haven't you? Searching their eyes for some glimmer, some clue that could reveal which of them was your betrayer... I can give you that knowledge. I can tell you where to find him." Schrader's voice dropped to a hiss. "I can give you justice!"

"You're lying."

Schrader shrugged. "He's a traitor, worthless to your side and to the Norts. His life is a pitiful price to pay for your goodwill, Trooper."

Rogue's eyes never left the digi-pad. After a long silence, he asked, "What do you want from me?"

The kolonel-doktor's milk-white face blushed with genuine excitement. "All in good time, Rogue. I need you to rest first. I want you fit and well."

"What about my buddies?"

"They're being held in the armoury," she replied, then tapped a communicator tab on her collar. The door slid soundlessly open to reveal a pair of Nort troopers. "These men will take you to your quarters. You will be monitored, so please do not attempt anything rash."

Rogue said nothing and followed the guards.

When the door sealed behind him, Volks turned to the scientist. "This is a dangerous game, Lisle. If the GI suspects you are misleading him, he'll kill you."

"You will address me by my rank or as madam director, Kapten Volks," she said without pause, "and while your juvenile concern is touching, it is misplaced. The identity of the Traitor is only the lure that will bring Rogue closer to me." Schrader licked her thin, blood-red lips. "He'll understand soon enough. You all will. I'm going to change the face of Nu Earth forever."

As he walked, Rogue mentally ticked off his checklist of observations about Kolonel Schrader's personality; she was insane. He could see it in the motions of her eyes, the shallowness of her character, voice and manner. The icy heart of a sociopath beat in the scientist's chest and the GI knew that she wouldn't hesitate to burn him or anything else to get what she wanted. He needed to get off the defensive, and fast - but he couldn't do it alone.

The two guards hustled him into a cylindrical elevator. With a slight jolt, the lift began a quick ascent. Rogue glanced up; in the middle of the elevator roof was an unblinking camera eye.

He waited until the lift had passed the second level and then hit out, fast as lightning. With his manacled hands he punched into the camera and shattered the mechanism inside; at the same instant he kicked with his leg, breaking the knee of the Nort to his left. The first guard was still falling as his elbow came down and shattered the other trooper's nose. Wet crimson exploded from his nostrils and he yelled.

Rogue was on him, forcing the manacles into the soft meat of his throat. There was a sickening crack of breaking bone and the Nort died choking on his own blood. The GI turned in place; hand-to-hand combat inside the confined elevator was an exercise in the controlled application of force. He flicked the emergency stop switch and the lift ground to a halt just shy of the third level. The Nort with the smashed leg tried to prop himself up on his rifle and failed, slipping to the floor. Rogue took a handful of the Nort's chem-suit and hauled him up, bouncing the soldier off the wall. The guard landed a couple of hard punches to Rogue's ribcage, but the GI shrugged them off. With the economical motions of a thousand combat kills, Rogue hit the Nort again and he went limp in his hands, dangling like a rag doll.

His guardians dealt with, Rogue reached up to the hatch in the elevator roof and tore it open. Above him, the lift shaft extended away to the upper floors.

TEN

TURNCOAT

The guards had their weapons trained on the doors as the elevator arrived, the emergency override automatically returning it to the lower levels. The body of a trooper toppled forward and landed in a heap and from inside a second figure in Nort battle gear gave a weak wave.

"The hatch..." he coughed. "The blue-skin went up through the hatch..."

"Verkammt!" swore the korporal in charge of the unit. "Get to the upper tiers, seal off the shaft!" His men, used to following his orders without question, broke apart into two-man teams and headed to their assigned positions. The soldier glanced at the injured man. "Are you all right, comrade?"

"Dak..." wheezed the trooper. "I'll be fine." He got to his feet and pushed past the korporal and into the corridor.

The other soldier accepted this with a nod and then climbed into the elevator, using his rifle's torch to illuminate the shaft. Higher up, he could see a vent cover torn open and a shadowy shape in the dimness. Someone was up there. The korporal began to climb and called back over his shoulder. "You there! Come with me!"

The guard from the lift didn't acknowledge him and continued to walk away. It was then that the korporal realised the other Nort trooper was wearing his chem-suit hood up.

He should have recalled his men. He should have approached the figure with backup; instead he strode over to the guard and spun him around. "I gave you an order-"

The korporal's words died in his throat as he matched gazes with the reptilian yellow eyes staring out at him from the goggles of the full-face hood. "GI!"

"Mistake," replied Rogue, and buried a stolen vibro-dagger in the Nort's chest. He held the korporal towards him in a deadly embrace, watching life leave the soldier's eyes. Acting quickly, Rogue recovered the knife and threw the Nort's corpse into the elevator along with the dead guard. He glanced up through the vent in the roof; he wouldn't have long before the Norts who were searching the levels above discovered the body of the second guard stuffed into one of the vent shafts. Sealing the lift door shut, he turned on his heel and made his way toward the armoury.

The voice was muffled as it came through the heavy hatch. "There's been a prisoner breakout on this level! The Genetik Infantryman is loose!"

Master Sergeant Kolt gave his subordinate Lars a sharp look. "The equipment!" he snapped. Kolt raced over to the holding area where the GI-issue helmet, rifle and backpack were lying. "He might try and recover his gear-"