Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor

THE MARINE’S
DOCTOR

By

Susan Kelley

( c ) Copyright March, 2014,
Susan Gourley

( c ) cover art by Jenny
Dixon, June 2014

ISBN 978-1-60394-

Smashwords
Edition

New Concepts
Publishing

Lake Park, GA
31636

newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters,
events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be
confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is
merely coincidence.

Dedication

To my five sons, who
understand

the meaning of brotherhood.

Chapter One

Her hair swung back and forth across
her shoulders with each step. The dark mass had caught Mak’s
attention but her confident stride held his gaze. That she headed
in the same direction as him meant he could enjoy the view. Until
the men following her ruined it.

Recon Marines weren’t officially
trained in urban warfare but Mak understood hunting and trailing
prey. The tall woman in front of him with the tantalizing hair had
drawn some predators. Four men ghosted her steps, not walking
together but communicating with hand signals to each
other.

The woman strode on, clueless to her
danger. When she turned left toward the military section of the
sprawling space station the protection of the crowds thinned out,
as did the ability of her stalkers to remain hidden. The four men
looked young and fit the mold of the few soldiers moving in the
same direction. One glanced over his shoulder, his gaze skipping
over Mak. A mistake.

As the hunters closed ranks Mak made
his move. None of them heard his approach or noticed him until Mak
grabbed the nearest man’s arm. Mak swung him around, sweeping his
feet out from under him in one smooth move. As the man fell, Mak
punched him in the temple, a blow that could be fatal if delivered
with too much force. Mak held back and only rendered the man
unconscious.

The shock of his attack held the other
three men motionless for the space of two breaths. Mak struck
another one in the middle of the chest. The man staggered back, his
hands going to his throat as all his breath rushed from his lungs.
The other two came at Mak together.

Mak noticed the woman spin around to
face her attackers. He caught only a quick glimpse of her face
before the two men were on him. Neither fared any better than the
first two. Bones cracked when Mak’s foot struck one man’s calf. He
punched the other in the jaw.

Shouts from uniformed soldiers running
toward the melee rolled across the open tarmac. The dark-haired
woman stood nearby, her mouth turned down in a frown. She flicked
her gaze over the fallen men and then up to Mak. Her eyes appeared
to be some odd color between brown and green but the strangest
thing was the lack of fear in her steady stare. She
looked…fierce.

The man with the shattered jaw sprang
toward the woman, a long knife in his hand. Mak leaped the few feet
needed to tackle the man. His momentum carried them to the ground
on top of the man clutching his broken leg. The knife swept toward
Mak’s neck but he caught the wielder’s wrist. Despite the man’s
thick arm muscles, Mak forced his wrist down and slammed it hard
against the tarmac. The knife fell from his hand.

Pounding boots surrounded them and
strong hands tugged on Mak’s shoulders. He allowed the soldiers to
pull him away from the injured men. He lifted his hands above his
shoulders in the accepted manner of surrender while the soldiers
secured the four stalkers. Two of the soldiers took the woman’s
arms and hustled her toward the army compound’s gate.

She looked back over her shoulder at
Mak with that direct, fearless expression. Then she turned away,
her mass of dark hair swinging like a silken scarf across her
shoulders. More armed soldiers spilled from the gate, running
toward Mak and the mess he’d made. The woman disappeared behind the
walls so she had something to do with the military. Was she a
soldier herself?

“
What happened here, sir?”
a sergeant asked Mak.

Mak wasn’t wearing any uniform and
certainly not any evidence of his rank. Still, soldiers recognized
soldiers. “These men tried to attack that woman.”

“
Good thing you were here,
sir.” The sergeant directed his men to secure the stalkers, two of
whom had to be carried.

Mak followed them toward the gates,
hesitating only a moment before entering. Back. Back to the army.
The last place a Recon Marine wanted to be.

****

The giant of a man shot out his arm,
striking a soldier in the chest. The young man’s ribs collapsed
with an audible cracking sound. Another soldier fired a weapon at
the behemoth, the bullet passing through his arm. The giant didn’t
flinch.

A wiry man, dressed in high tech
camouflaged armor, threw himself into the fray. The vicious fight
that followed lasted only moments before the large man pinned the
smaller man to the grassy surface. The smaller man lifted a gun
toward the giant’s head, but the monster struck at the gun hand and
broke it to pieces. Blood gushed from the wounds opened by
splintered bones pushing through the skin. Heedless of the pain,
the pinned man struck at the giant’s head with his other fist. The
big man jerked the arm aside, dislocating the poor man’s shoulder.
Then a round struck the giant in the forehead. He collapsed on top
of his injured opponent, dead before his body settled to
rest.

The vid feed stopped there. General
Drant cleared his throat and swept his stern gaze around the table.
“Any questions? Lieutenant?”

Mak had many questions but he’d rather
ask Vin, the Recon Marine taking the beating in the vid. And he’d
rather not speak at all in front of the strangers in the room, who
were all staring at him now that the general had singled him out.
“No, sir.” Besides the general, the only person Mak recognized was
the woman he’d saved two hours ago.

“
What did you learn from
the autopsy?” one of the civilian men demanded.

A short older woman tapped the
artificial intelligence tablet in front of her. A diagram of the
human body replaced the still vid picture. “DNA test show
significant post natal manipulation of the genes responsible for
growth and strength development. The work likely was done in
adulthood. Areas of the brain had been surgically incised and
destroyed, including pain receptors and emotional functions
regions, primarily those connected to empathy.”

A soldier wearing a corporal’s badge
took up the explanation as the short woman used her AI tablet to
call up an image of a tubular electronic device. “Also we found
this impulse generator at the base of the man’s brain. We believe
it was used to train and then perhaps control this
monster.”

Mak’s gut tightened at the way the
corporal spat his last word out. The stares of everyone swung back
toward him. Nearly a year living among civilians had enlightened
Mak to the attitudes some held toward the Recon Marines and their
origins of an experimental epigenetics program. Mak avoided meeting
any of their gazes until his snagged on the dark-haired woman
sitting to the general’s right.

Her greenish-brown eyes were filled
with the same authority as any senior officer. She’d acknowledged
him with a nod when he’d entered the room but said nothing about
the incident outside the gates. Her voice was low for a woman, but
still very feminine. “Have you encountered anything like the man in
the video, lieutenant?”

Surely they knew Vin was a Recon
Marine just like Mak. “You mean the one that was shot?”

“
Yes,” General Drant
snapped.

Mak looked at Drant. Speaking to the
supreme commander of the military was easier than speaking to the
striking woman. “I’ve never seen anyone that big or strong, sir.
The only person who ever beat Vin in hand-to-hand before was Joe.”
Mak blamed Joe for putting him in this uncomfortable room with all
these stiff, stern people. Joe had volunteered Mak for the mission,
whatever the hell the mission was.

The two civilians … a man and a woman
… stood up. The woman addressed the general in the cold dismissive
tone Mak had come to associate with powerful politicians. “You will
give us regular updates and keep this off the media waves. This is
the last thing the council and your military needs after the
scandal with the Recon Marines and then that mess from last month.”
She made a vague gesture toward the projected picture of the brain
control device.

“
Yes, Madame Chairman.”
General Drant waited until the door shut behind the departing
chairman and her escort before speaking again. “Bring up the star
chart, Dr. Shear.”

An image of solar systems with their
yellow and red stars brightened the gray wall. Drant walked over
and pointed to a speck in a yellow star system. “This is the
planet, Julian. It has no human settlements on record though there
could be persons living there that we’re unaware of. When Admiral
Ben Lester was arrested and questioned, he gave us only this one
location. We believe there are others and hope you’ll find leads to
them on Julian.”

Dr. Shear switched off the projection
though she kept the tablet alive beneath her fingers. Mak saw her
skim through a list of supplies. Shear noticed him watching and
smiled at him.

Mak looked away though he interpreted
her expression as friendly. Unlike his fellow Recon Marines, Mak
felt confident in his growing skills at reading civilian body
language and facial expressions.

“
Mak is the last addition
to your expeditionary force. I’m only a light burst away if you
discover something and need assistance.” Drant looked at the woman
beside him, waiting as if for her to speak. When she did nothing
but fold her hands on the table in front of her, Drant sighed.
“I’ll do the introductions for Mak.”

Drant walked to the woman with the
tablet. “Dr. Helen Shear, the leading expert in glandular and
hormonal studies. She did some work in the Recon Marines program in
the early stages. She oversaw the levels of hormone influence and
when it was introduced during the embryonic phase. Since then,
she’s worked in various medical facilities, fighting disease on the
cellular level.”

After patting Shear on the shoulder,
Drant walked to a young man sitting with his own AI tablet on the
table before him. “Dr. Hector Loren is an expert in numerous
medical fields and will assist in data interpretation, DNA testing
if needed and can also serve as ship medical officer.”

Drant walked around the two seats
vacated by the council’s representatives and touched the corporal’s
shoulder. “Corporal Andy Box. He’s an experienced science officer,
the highest ranking I could steal away from their duty station
without raising questions. He’s worked with the civilian doctors on
other missions.”

The next soldier smiled and nodded at
Mak when Drant spoke. “Ensign Kory Pender, able to pilot any ship
in the registry. He’ll help with protection and other security
issues as well as serve as copilot to you, Mak.”

“
I know all of you have
read your brief on Mak,” the general said as he circled back to his
seat beside the woman he hadn’t introduced. “Some of you have
voiced your skepticism of including a genetically enhanced soldier
to hunt other scientifically altered men, but I assure you that Mak
will prove his usefulness many times over. Any
questions?”