Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor (8 page)

Molly had her team prepared, all of
them armed with backpacks and other bags in their hands. Corporal
Box waited with them, spreading his glare between Mak and the
doctors. Mak didn’t need the man to like him, only to follow
orders.

“
No one can go off on
their own,” Mak ordered. “Stay in one group. If you see something
that needs a longer examination, we’ll all stop.”

“
Is there someone here?”
Molly asked.

“
Nothing living. Corporal,
you’re with me.” Mak led them to the door. He kept his rifle slung
on his back, leaving his hands free to open doors. He handed the AI
unit to Box. “Keep an eye on the scanners.”

Molly slipped in between Mak and Box,
her familiar footsteps trying to distract him. He led them down the
first flight of metal stairs, the air stale and smelling of rust.
Mak used the override code the general had given him to unlock the
door into the residential levels. It slid open, a rush of warmer
air greeting them. Mak scented old sweat and spoiled food. Lights
came on with a wave of his hand over a panel. They stood in an
eating and socializing area with two halls leading off from both
sides.

“
The hall is a circle if
this is a standard design. Everyone wait here and I’ll check. It’s
a waste of time for us all to walk around.” Mak took off at a jog,
finding the rooms empty with beds stripped. Fifty double occupancy
rooms on this level. They found the same abandoned rooms on the
next level. After returning from his quick check of that floor, Mak
led them down the next set of stairs. The feeling of apprehension
came over him again.

The locks gave way before his codes
and the lights answered, throwing harsh brightness over a wide-open
area that looked like a training room. Equipment for obstacle
courses, strength training and other exercise devices lay scattered
and broken.

Molly walked over to a metal press
bar, bent at the middle. “What could do this?”

“
Someone strong.” Mak
couldn’t have bent the metal, but some of his fellow Recon Marines
had such strength. The spacious room offered no clues. They
traipsed down the next set of stairs but Mak bade them stay in the
stairwell until he called them. The lights came up and for a moment
Mak closed his eyes, glad the others weren’t with him. Cells, not
quite cages, lined every wall. The bars were as thick as Mak’s
wrists and solid walls separated the side of each pen. “You can
come in.”

Box led them in, doing his job as
guard. The doctors murmured quiet curses that matched Mak’s
thoughts. At least no bodies filled these cells. Mak took a slow
tour of the room. Tables like in a conference room sat at one end
of the middle space. Perhaps the subjects had eaten their meals or
had lessons of some sort. Taller tables like in a doctor’s
examining room crowded the center but at least they weren’t
operating tables.

“
They gave them beds and
bathroom facilities this time,” Dr. Loren mumbled.

“
Are we done here?” Mak
asked the doctors.

“
Everything appears to
have been sterilized before they abandoned it.” Molly gave him that
sad look again, though Mak wasn’t sure he interpreted it correctly.
Why would this room where men were treated like animals affect
her?

The next floor held what they were
looking for. Three operating rooms, computer work stations and
every type of medical equipment imaginable. The doctors went to
work, searching cabinets, drawers and even crawling under desks.
They found nothing.

“
I guess we should move
down to the next floor.” Molly joined Mak where he waited by the
door to the stairway.

“
The bottom floors should
hold nothing but the power station, water purification and waste
facilities.”

“
We still need to
look.”

Mak knew she was right, but a cold
dread had joined the unease nagging at him. “I’ll go and call you
if I find something that needs your attention.”

The look in Molly’s narrowed eyes
matched the general’s. And reminded Mak he shouldn’t be thinking of
her as Molly. “You might not recognize what I think is
important.”

Damn. She was right. “Just you and me.
Corporal Box, keep everyone on this floor until I
return.”

Mak led her down the stairs, twice the
number of steps as the upper floors, while the stench of garbage
grew stronger. And another smell, the one he’d dreaded, now overlay
the garbage odor. Death. Molly probably couldn’t smell it. The
scent was old and covered with the tang of acid. When he turned on
the lights, a cavernous room opened before them. Metal vats forty
feet in diameter were interspersed with pipes of varying width that
would carry power and water to the upper floors and return waste to
this level.

“
There must be something
in those waste vats,” Molly said with a hint of
discouragement.

Mak tapped the radio on his collar.
“Bring them all down, corporal.”

Molly sighed. “This could take a
while.”

Mak went to the first vat, tapping on
it with his knuckles. It bonged of dark emptiness. The next one
sounded as empty. But the third one emanated the death stench.
“This one.”

The others came in the door, clearly
hesitant. Mak saw relief on their faces as they observed the empty
room. It wouldn’t last long once they opened the vat.

Mak identified three more vats that
held the odor of decomposition. Once Pender and Box opened the
emergency doors on the bottoms of the containers, Molly and her
comrades found splotches of dried blood and a few soiled cloths.
One held some empty medicine bottles that went in the doctors’ bags
for later study. He ordered Box to stay with them while he and
Pender checked the lowest level. The quiet hum of crystallized iron
power generators greeted them. Nothing seemed suspicious or out of
order so they returned to the upper room.

The doctors had made slow progress,
still only on the second vat. Mak ordered Box and Pender to assist
them as they could while he stood watch by himself. Though
convinced the structure was devoid of life, something about it put
him on edge. Five hours later, the doctors declared themselves
satisfied with their tubes and full sacks.

“
Sir, there’s an
elevator,” Pender said.

Mak knew that, of course, and wondered
why the young soldier needed to tell him.

Dr. Shear clapped her hands.
“Wonderful idea, Kory. I’m too old to walk up all those steps
again.”

Mak didn’t like the small, enclosed
structures but he wanted to get the doctors back on the ship and
perhaps ease the tension between his shoulder blades that wound
tighter with every minute they explored. They used the freight
elevator rather than the smaller personnel one near the stairs. It
easily had room for them all. Back on the space dock level, Mak
urged them toward the ship.

“
Box, help the doctors get
their things stored away. Pender and I are going to the station
control center.” Any clues about where they might locate more
recent labs would be found there. “Doctor Drant, any ideas how long
ago this place was used?”

Molly shrugged. “It’s difficult to
know. We might be able to tell once we take a close look at the
samples, Mak.”

Mak suspected the sparkle in her eyes
when she used his name had to do with his reluctance to address her
by Molly in front of the others. Use of her first name implied an
intimacy of a sort he didn’t wish the others to know of. “We’ll
leave as soon as Pender and I return. Lock up, corporal, and keep
an eye on the outside sensors. Pirates have been known to use these
abandoned facilities as hideouts.”

He hadn’t seen any sign of pirate use,
but Mak wanted to keep Box alert. He and Pender took the stairs,
five flights, to reach the top level of the station. The door
opened with the override code as the others had.

The lights came up and revealed a
two-story high operations base. Wide viewing screens showed an
infinite expanse of darkness punctured by spots of bright stars.
“Stay behind me.” The tension across Mak’s shoulders tightened
though he saw nothing unusual. He took his time crossing the open
area at the head of the steps to the long counter holding the
communications gear. Unlike the lighting, the comms hadn’t
awakened. The subspace radio equipment looked outdated, none of it
of a kind that Mak had ever used.

He looked it over without touching.
One small light flashed, probably a power switch.

“
I saw something like this
when I was a boy, sir,” Pender said. “My grandfather had some old
ships he used for hauling his produce to off-world
markets.”

Mak pushed the pulsing button but
nothing happened. “The power must be cut off at its
source.”

“
There’s probably a
breaker switch underneath, sir.” Pender dropped to his knees and
looked under the console. “Here it is.”

“
Don’t touch any….” A
sharp snap cut off Mak’s words. Pender’s scream overlaid it. Mak
grasped the young man’s shoulders and pulled him back from the
console.

Lights flashed and blinked as the
communications and other computers powered up, but Mak saw only
Pender’s bleeding arm. The flesh in his forearm lay open, exposing
both bones. Blood flowed in a crimson gush.

Mak took the flaps of torn skin and
folded them across the wound as best as he could. Then he took
Pender’s other hand and forced the soldier to squeeze his wound.
“You hold it shut. Don’t let go and don’t pass out.”

“
Is that an order, sir?”
Pender tried to smile, his lips paler than his ashen face. Tears
hung unshed in his eyes.

“
Absolutely. Don’t you
dare disobey me.” Mak picked up the ensign like he was a child. The
soldier matched Mak in size, not a light load. But they only had
five flights of stairs. Mak considered the elevator but feared more
traps.

He ran down the steps, unable to see
where he placed his feet but going as fast as his muscles allowed.
The movement jarred Pender, but he bit his lip against crying out.
When Mak hit the dock level, he sprinted toward the ship. He
twisted his head and used his chin to tap his radio. “Open the
door, Box. Now!”

The ship’s door opened and the four
steps slid out just as Mak reached them. Box’s mouth dropped open
as he jumped out of Mak’s way. Mak carried Pender directly into the
lab and lifted him onto a table. Tubes and small bags of samples
scattered but the doctors reacted as well as combat
surgeons.

Molly snapped out orders. “Hector,
universal blood and an IV. Helen, get antibiotics and a stitching
kit.” She swept her gaze up and down Mak’s body. “Are you
injured?”

Mak looked down, realizing blood
covered his front. “All Pender’s.”

“
What happened?” Molly
bent over Pender’s arm. He still held it tightly and squeezed his
eyes shut nearly as much. His breathing came shallow and rapid.
“You did an excellent job applying pressure, Kory, now let go so I
can see.”

“
Can’t, sir.”

“
Yes, you can. I know it
will hurt, but I need to look at it.”

“
Not allowed to,
sir.”

Mak put his hand on Pender’s shoulder.
“You have my permission, soldier, and you may pass out
now.”

“
Thank you, sir.” Pender’s
grip on his forearm loosened. Fresh blood flowed out. His face
looked gray as his eyes rolled back in his head.

Molly clasped a thick wad of sterile
pads on the fist-sized wound and then glared at Mak. “He wouldn’t
let go because you ordered him not to?”
“Had to keep pressure on it, and I needed both hands to carry
him.”

“
You carried him the
entire way down?”

“
It was only five floors.”
Mak stepped out of Dr. Loren’s way as he moved to put the IV in
Pender’s uninjured arm.

Molly scowled at Mak but then turned
her attention back to the wound, lifted the dressing she held on it
to take a quick look. “What happened?”

“
It sounded like a small
explosive device. I’m going back and have another look.”

“
Why was he messing around
with explosives?” Molly let Dr. Shear take over holding the
dressing tight. She walked over to a sink and began washing her
hands.

Mak joined her and scrubbed Pender’s
blood from his hands. “It was a trap. I didn’t stop him in
time.”

“
Why would someone booby
trap a deserted place like this?”

“
To hide their
destination, I hope. I’ll see what I can salvage.” Mak looked over
his shoulder at Pender. The soldier looked younger in his helpless
condition. “Will he be all right?”

Molly shook water off her hands.
“He’ll live but I have to get a closer look to know how much tissue
damage there is. I don’t think you should go back to a room where
you know there are traps.”

“
We need the information.”
Mak dried his hands off and walked out of the room.

Box caught up to him at the steps to
outside. “Do you want me to go with you, sir?”

“
Stay by the radio, Box.
No one leaves the ship.” Mak didn’t want anyone else stumbling
around where there could be more traps. Pender’s injury was his
fault. The nagging tension had disappeared when Pender sprang the
trap. Now that Mak understood why his instincts had been whispering
to him, he could do what needed to be done. He should have realized
the place was too sterile, everything too neatly cleaned up but the
control room left intact.