Blood Relative (18 page)

"Master alarm!" cried the co-pilot as the broken ground of the test range rose up to fill the cockpit window. "Lifters are gone! Fire in the engine spaces!"

"The nose, bring up the nose!" Yest managed, dragging himself to a kneeling position.

"We're going down!"

Kommander Yest stumbled and found himself face-to-face with a portrait of Domain Delta's base director, displayed on his fallen digi-pad. "Bitch!" he swore, the instant before the Vulture struck the top of the ridge.

The camera followed the stricken atmocraft down into the hills of the no-man's-land and watched it collide into the ground in an orgy of smoke and shattering metals.

"Three confirmed kills," Volks said in a tight voice. "One probable, pending confirmation."

Schrader gave a sullen nod. "No one would be able survive a crash landing like that. Domain Delta is safe again, for the present."

Rogue studied her carefully, keeping his blunt features perfectly inert and emotionless. He could see it in her eyes; the kolonel was about to make her play for his co-operation. No one dared to speak in the command centre; the room was silent but for the soft sounds of the working consoles.

"Do you understand what I have done?" Schrader said, after a long moment. "I'm like you, now. We have both turned against our own commanders. I too have become a rogue." She looked away, as if the pressure of it all was almost too much to bear. "I have turned my back on Nordland and embraced my own path. I choose my own destiny from now on, like you!"

"You're nothing like me," he said flatly.

"Don't be so quick to judge, Rogue," she retorted. "Look at all you've done, and you were just one man! I have this facility under my guidance - together, there's so much more we can achieve!"

Rogue glanced at Volks; a storm of conflicted emotions exploded on the kapten's face as he tried to comprehend the orders he had just received. "I'm not sure the rest of the men here will share your vision."

Schrader made a dismissive gesture. "I have the loyalty of the men that I need and the fear from the others. Don't concern yourself with those matters." She paused and drew closer to him. "The Nort High Command tried to shut down this dome - don't you want to know why, Rogue? Don't you want to know about poor Zero or the NexGen? What about all the other GIs who died out there in the Quartz Zone?" The scientist waved at the walls and the glass plains beyond. "Don't you owe it to them?"

Rogue's jaw hardened. "What I owe them is to find and terminate the Traitor who betrayed us." His voice was like steel.

A flicker of fear crossed Schrader's face for the briefest of moments, but then she swallowed it down like some rare delicacy. "And you will, with my help."

The GI sneered. "You seem pretty convinced that I'm going to buddy up with you. Let me tell you, my experience with Nort dames ain't exactly making me partial to your charms, Kolonel."

"I think you'll see the merits of working with me soon enough."

"Convince me, then," Rogue demanded. He held his hands up in front of her; there were still lines of bruising around the wrists where the manacles had been placed. "Taking off the cuffs and putting me in a room with a comfortable bunk... If that and a bunch of empty talk is all you've got to give me, you're gonna fall a long way short."

She frowned. "Some areas of the dome are restricted but you're not a prisoner here-" Schrader began.

"Only because you know you couldn't stop me if you wanted to," Rogue broke in. "You want to earn my trust, you tell me where my friends are, right now!" He stepped closer to her, baring down on the woman.

To her credit, Schrader did not flinch or back away and she waved off Volks as he drew his weapon. "Gunnar, Helm and Bagman? You want to see them?" She smiled. "You only had to ask." The kolonel beckoned him with a hooked finger. "Come with me."

It was too generous to call it an exercise yard. The rectangular area was surrounded on all sides by three tiers of cage-like cells accessed by metal steps, and it resembled more a fighting pit or gladiatorial arena than a prison. Ferris learned the rules of the place quickly; when night fell, they were locked in the cages and in the day they were herded into the yard. They fed them at noon and other than that, the Norts left them to their own devices. For strength in numbers, the pilot automatically gravitated to Zeke and his team, but all of them soon realised that there was hardly anyone among their fellow prisoners that were interested in rousting them. There were perhaps twenty, maybe thirty men and a few women. Most of them were Southers, but there was a handful of Nordlanders in the mix too. They varied from the hollow and malnourished to ragged, wild-eyed types who were little more than human wreckage.

Ruiz sat quietly and watched, his face pale and sweaty from infection. Zeke used brackish water from a feeble standpipe to tend his soldier's wound, while Purcell and Ferris watched their cellmates like hawks.

"This ain't no POW camp like I've seen," the woman said. "Look at these poor bastards. This is a death pit."

Ferris nodded as a figure approached. "Company coming."

It was a man; he'd been olive-skinned once, but now he was pallid and drawn. "Specialist Sanchez, Savanna Battalion. You?"

"Rangers, One-fifty-first," answered Purcell automatically. "How long you been here, Sanchez?"

The soldier sat down, but not too close to them. "Since the push for Dix-I. Got captured on day one, they shipped me here. I lost count of the time-"

"Dix-I only fell a few weeks back," said Ferris.

"Lost count," repeated Sanchez. "It's bad here, you know? The ice queen, she treats us like animals." He pulled up a sleeve to show a series of laser burns. "Tests," he said, as if the word would explain everything.

Out in the middle of the yard, one of the other prisoners stumbled and dropped to his knees. Without warning, he pitched back his head and began to scream.

"Skev!" Purcell bolted to her feet. "What the hell?"

"No!" Sanchez waved his hands in front of her. "Back, stay back, sister!"

The prisoner was clawing at himself, ripping his tattered fatigues away, tearing red streaks in his dirty skin and still screaming. On the observation balcony above, Norts were moving to investigate, and down in the yard, a guard pushed his way into the open.

"What's wrong with him?" Ferris gasped.

"Got the rips, man. He's cold meat," Sanchez shook his head.

His eyes wide with the madness of agony, the prisoner writhed and Ferris heard the cracking of bones. Blood flooded from his nostrils and his skin rippled like water. The pilot was horrified but mortified curiosity got the better of him; he could not turn away.

The prisoner staggered to his feet, his arms flapping and contorting; he broke into a run, clawing at the air as he saw the Nort guard in the crowd. The enemy soldier aimed at him and fired. Shots tore into the ragged figure, casting off bits of flesh, but still he ran on, screaming his pain.

The Nort fired again and this time all the other guards in the gallery joined in. The combined las-fire reduced the man to a scar on the yard's soiled floor.

Ferris fought down the urge to vomit.

Sanchez gave a solemn nod as the stink of burnt meat washed over them. "Tests," he repeated.

Schrader led Rogue into a section of the dome fitted as a drill area, with exercise gear, a sparring ring and other items of training equipment. Volks followed him in with a pair of troopers, his eyes nervous.

The GI's face soured as he recognised the room's other occupants; green-skinned NexGen were hard at work pumping iron and running on treadmills. Rogue threw Schrader a disgusted glance; he knew what would come next. Volks would force him into the ring at gunpoint and put him up against the Nort GIs. He'd barely recovered from the beating in the Shard Orchard and now the sick witch was going to have him battered all over again for her perverse amusement.

Schrader gave him a quizzical look. "Is something wrong? Don't you recognise them?"

One of the Soldats stood and swaggered toward him. "Eh," it said. "Never realised how puny you looked, pal. Like last year's model."

"Gunnar?" The GI's face creased in confusion.

"In the flesh," he tapped his chest, "so to speak."

"It's a kick, huh, Rogue?" said a second clone soldier. "Like I said before, 'new and improved'."

Rogue shook his head. "Bagman, you too?"

"All three, actually," the last of the G-Soldats spoke, this one with Helm's voice. Each was a deeper, harsher variation on the synths he had carried with him for months.

Rogue turned on Schrader. "What did you do to them?"

The scientist smiled. "I made them better."

ELEVEN

DEATH AND REBIRTH

Every warning instinct in Rogue's brain tugged at him as the implications of Schrader's words became clear. The trio of Nort-created Genetik Soldats standing in front of him were the vessels for the minds of his long-dead squad mates; it was an astonishing thing to comprehend and the GI felt a wave of conflicting emotions wash over him.

The three figures were nearly identical, mottled green skin covering broad torsos packed with engineered brawn; hard, hairless faces with cowls of cultured bone-armour over their skulls. Rogue found himself automatically scanning them for weak points, for places to land a nerve strike or knife stab. His hands reflexively balled into fists as he struggled to take it all in. On some basic level he couldn't shake the sense that these things were the enemy.

Schrader watched him with faint, lofty amusement. "Quite an improvement, don't you think?"

Rogue showed his teeth. "You had no right!"

The scientist raised an eyebrow. "Really? Who are you to determine the fate of these men? Surely you wouldn't think of denying your comrades a new lease on life?"

"You stole those biochips!" he said hotly. "You plugged them into your toy soldiers!"

"I admit, there was some resistance from your teammates at the outset," Schrader allowed, "but that quickly passed once the capacities of the G-Soldats became clear. I told you, Rogue, I no longer serve the Nort military." She waved a hand at the three figures. "I did this as a gesture of good faith."

"I never thought I'd feel like this again," said Helm, studying his own hands. "Man, I didn't realise how much I missed just breathing in and out!"

Rogue ignored him and pressed on Schrader. "You're just using them as lab rats! That's what you did with Zero, right? You just want some GI meat for your slab!"

"Oh, come now," she said. "You cannot deny the great gift I've given them! Life, Rogue, true life - not some synthetic silicon analogue of consciousness, but a real existence." Her eyes narrowed. "Far more than your own people ever gave you."

"They would have been regened once we went back to Milli-Com," Rogue denied. "That was the plan. Once the Traitor was dead, I'd go back to the Genies."

"And do you really think that they would have accommodated you? Just welcomed you back like the prodigal clone-son and decanted new bodies for your friends?" Schrader shook her head, giving him a pitying look. "The GI programme is an embarrassment to the Southern Command, a costly failure - and you are a living, breathing reminder of their mistake."

"They never would have regened us," growled Gunnar. "I always knew it."

"No-" Rogue began, but Schrader cut him off.

"Be realistic, GI! No matter what you've done, dead Traitor or not, the moment you stepped back into a Souther gene-lab your life would be over! Your dog-chips would be drained of every useful byte of data and then thrown on the scrap heap... The last chapter of the GI legacy would be ended."

Rogue gave her a steady glare. "I refuse to believe that." The tension in the room came to an edge and for long seconds no one spoke.

The passion on her face melted away. "I'm disappointed. I expected better, Rogue, but perhaps I was wrong about you. All this time it seemed like you had the best interests of your fellow GIs at heart, but perhaps it is only your demands that were being served."

"What the hell are you saying?" he growled.

"This quest of yours to find the Traitor General," Schrader replied. "Did it never occur to you that four GIs searching for him would have been better than one? You survived, you had the opportunity to return to Milli-Com, but you didn't take it. If you really thought that Gunnar, Bagman and Helm would be regened, why didn't you at least turn them over to your own side?"

"We stick together," Rogue said tightly. "We're a team."

"Only because you commanded it," said the woman, "but now I've given your friends the chance to decide their own futures."

Rogue looked back at the three G-Soldat faces. They were all expressionless masks, unreadable and impassive.

Schrader sighed. "I can see that you will not accept any answer I will give you, Rogue, but perhaps you will listen to your fellow troopers." She dismissed Volks and the guards with a look. "There will be men outside to escort you back to your quarters when you are ready."

Rogue then looked up and he was alone with the Soldats. They stood in a semicircle around him, all of them a good half metre taller. It took every bit of his self-control not to tense into a combat stance.

Bagman broke the silence. "It's really us, Rogue." He tapped the back of his neck. "She re-implanted our biochips."

Rogue stepped backward, extending the distance between them. "You'll understand I'm a little sceptical." He paused for a moment. "Helm, what was the name of that loudmouth Souther who led the breakout at Glasshouse-G?"

"You're testing me now?" Helm retorted. "You don't trust us?"

"Answer the question."

The NexGen's face twisted. "Rogue, it's me-"

"Answer it!" the GI snapped.

"Helm wasn't there," Gunnar replied, "and neither was Bagman. It was just the two of us. The guy's name was MacInrow."

Rogue glanced at Gunnar. "So, you'd remember how we aced that master computer in Veygas City, right?"

Gunnar frowned. "We ain't ever been to Veygas. Norts wiped it off the map with a dust-storm bomb."