Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor (33 page)

“
I know I asked for your
help in questioning her, Dr. Drant, but are you sure you’re up to
this?” Dane Edow asked.

“
I am. Should I ask the
questions?”

“
I wouldn’t know where to
start,” Dane said. “Be my guest but I have to record everything for
future court hearings.”

“
Doesn’t she need an
advocate?” Hector asked.

“
No,” said Dane. “She was
working for the military when she branched off into this insane
project. I think you should stay outside, Mak. I’ll go in with Dr.
Drant.”

Mak frowned and looked over his
shoulder and down the hallway. “Are all the rooms cleared on this
level?”

“
It’s all offices and
sleeping quarters for the scientists and officers. More training
areas, barracks and the infirmary are all on the level above. The
storage area for their hovers and other equipment was under the
hangar.”

“
Every area has been
searched? Has the armory been cleared?”

“
What’s wrong, Mak?” Molly
trusted his instincts and his uneasiness seeped into
her.

He shook his head but a tense
readiness emanated from him. “Is Dr. Shear restrained?”

“
We’ve scoured this place
top to bottom but tried to leave everything intact,” the captain
answered. “We’re all experiencing that creepy feeling along our
spines from being in this house of horrors. Shear is wearing cuffs,
and she’s not the soldier type. Dr. Drant will be fine.”

Molly touched Mak’s hand and then
followed Dane in through the door. Mak and Hector would be able to
watch and listen through the window and open intercom. Helen
watched them approach, her expression calm. But the glint in her
eyes Molly had once thought an intellectual curiosity now looked
like arrogance.

The captain and Molly sat facing Helen
across the table. Edow placed a small device on the table between
them and spoke the time, the date and the names of the people
present. “Dr. Drant headed the investigation into the illegal
surgical and hormonal procedures being conducted by Dr. Helen Shear
and her colleagues. This is a brief questioning session before we
transport the subject for judgment.” He nodded at Molly when he
finished.

Important questions related to the
ethical and moral issues needed answers, but Molly had thought a
lot about the answer she most wanted. “How could you do those
terrible things to all those soldiers? You’re a doctor who pledged
to heal and do no harm to your fellow humans.”

Helen folded her hands together and
set them on the table, leaning toward Molly. The ties binding her
wrists together ruined the casual affectation. “If you had spent
the years as an army surgeon that I have, you would understand my
desire to create a better soldier. Sewing and patching young men
and women torn apart by explosions and bullets. All those modern
advancements and humans still kill each other for sport or pieces
of gold or real estate. I’m not the first one who thought the
answer was to create a soldier that could serve at the front and
end the terrible loss of young soldiers.”

“
Don’t compare what you
did to the Recon Marines,” Molly said.

“
It’s very much the same
thing. Your Mak and the other marines were designed to put their
bodies in front of real people. Their only purpose is to die so
humans don’t. If we could have devised a thinking, agile robotic
soldier by now then we would have. The Recon Marines are organic
machines. The only difference between them and my soldiers are the
methods of their creation. Without the resources and time allowed
for the Recon Marines to be designed from conception I had to be
cleverer. Admit it. My work has been brilliant.”

“
Brilliant? Helen, you
carved up the brains of those men, robbed them of their
personalities, their emotions and their compassion. You dosed them
with chemical and hormones that reconfigured their bodies in
grotesque ways and probably took years off their lives.”

Helen snorted. “One of the reasons the
Recon Marines weren’t permitted to interact with civilians was so
they wouldn’t know how real people lived. The theory was that they
couldn’t resent or desire what they’d never known. Since I had to
work with adults who’d grown up among society, I simply took away
their memories and desire for such things. It took me a few tries
to get it right. I’ve discovered more about personality and
behavior than any other doctor in the history of
medicine.”

“
Do you intend to publish
your results?” Molly couldn’t believe how deluded Helen had become
as she spoke of her work with such passion.

“
But the time the Recon
Marines had entered their teens we knew the politicians would never
approve another round of experimentation. And most of the research
and methods that went into them had been buried so deeply that I
doubt even your father could find it all if the military had any
desire to share it. Which they didn’t and still don’t. I intended
to share everything I’ve learned once I presented my super soldiers
to the army. So much of it can be used to fight mental illnesses or
brain injuries. Huge strides in medicine will be the result. And my
men will take orders without hesitation or question. The military
will clamor for more of them.”

“
All the public will know
is that you conducted viciously, cruel experiments on young men and
either killed them or turned them into monsters.”

Helen stiffened at Molly’s harsh
words. “A few of the earlier results might have been termed
monstrous. But the men receiving care in the infirmary are prefect
soldiers. Despite their performance against your Recon Marine, they
lack only experience and further training.” Helen sat back in her
seat with a sigh, rolling her shoulders as best as she could with
her hands tied in front of her. “Would you mind if I walked around
a bit, captain? I’ve been forced to sit for hours now with only
short walks. My old bones are getting stiff.”

Without waiting for permission, Helen
stood up and paced along her side of the conference table. “If you
think you can hide my accomplishments with the power of the
military, captain, you’ve underestimated me. I’ve already uploaded
my notes and video of my soldiers to a dozen places. The
information capsule will flash to the attention of other learned
scientists, open-minded politicians and media nets who will ensure
mankind knows what I’ve accomplished here.”

“
Well, Dr. Shear, if you
think to mount an insanity defense you’ve done a fine job of paving
the way here today.” Captain Edow stood up and picked up his
recording device. “I think we’re done here unless there’s something
else you want to ask her, Dr. Drant.”

Molly stood up also. “A few more. Is
this your last facility, Helen? Where is the base you had prepared
to flee to when your ship arrived?”

Helen paced to the far end of the room
from the door. The wall before her held nothing except for a few
power receptors and a light knob. “I always have a next move,
Molly.” Helen pushed the light knob. Alarms blared and filled the
room with ringing that seemed to come from every
direction.

The wall slid open behind Helen. Two
of her giant men entered, each armed with short ugly guns. Behind
Molly the door burst open.

“
Get down!” Mak
shouted.

Captain Edow grabbed Molly and threw
her to the ground as the roar of gunfire filled the low ceiling
room. Bullets thudded into the hard floor near her and then a hot
fist punched into her side. Her breath left her and darkness crept
in around the edges of her vision.

Mak’s voice came as if he yelled from
the end of a long corridor though she felt his presence nearby.
Then his shadow fell over her. Gunfire erupted so close she scented
hot metal and burning. The sound pierced the rushing of blood
filling her ears. Her heart pounded loudly and matched the deep
throbbing in her side. Then the pain hit her. She gasped, but each
breath added another layer to the agony. Shot! She’d been shot.
Then she was looking at the ceiling, unaware of how she’d changed
positions.

Hector leaned over her, asking
questions as his hands went to her side. Her head rolled to the
side and she saw Mak’s back. He knelt beside her, firing his pistol
at something beyond her sight. Did he have armor on?

The shooting quieted but her ears
didn’t work correctly. Neither did her eyes. Mak’s face floated
above her, his mouth moving. But she couldn’t hear his words. Some
part of her rapidly fogging brain recognized the expression on his
beloved face though she’d never seen it on her Recon Marine before.
Panic. She must by dying.

****

Mak wanted to shake Molly and demand
she open her eyes. But he’d seen enough wounds to know better.
Hector used his bare hands to cover the ragged tear in Molly’s side
as he shouted orders to the three soldiers spilling into the
room.

Captain Edow clutched his arm, blood
welling between his fingers. He too called orders to his men,
sending two of them into the opening in the wall.

“
Don’t, captain. They’ll
only get killed.” Mak had no doubt the secret tunnel would be
booby-trapped. He turned back to Molly, her blood creeping across
the floor and pooling around his boots where he squatted beside
her. “How serious, Dr. Loren?”

Loren panted as if he’d run a long
distance instead of four steps into the room behind Mak. The fear
widened his eyes so he looked very young and close to panic. “Bad
enough that I’m not going to move her until I have something to
stop the bleeding and an IV in her arm.”

Mak reached across Molly and wrapped
his fist in Loren’s shirt. “Is she going to make it?” It was hard
to speak when all the air seemed sucked out of the room. His orders
didn’t matter, the mission didn’t count, only Molly’s survival. He
finally understood what Vin had felt when he’d lost Yalo. All
meaning for living would end for him if Molly died.

“
Let go of him, Mak,” Edow
ordered. “Let him care for her.”

Mak obeyed. Molly looked as pale as
the white floor beneath her. Even her lips drained of color. His
stomach roiled, all the food he’d recently consumed threatening to
come back up.

“
If their facilities are
good, we can save her, Mak,” Loren said. A soldier burst into the
room, handing Loren an armful of things.

Edow tugged Mak away so the soldier
could take his place at Molly’s side. The man acted like a medic,
following Loren’s orders quickly and efficiently. “Mak, come on. We
have to stop them.”

“
I’m staying here.” Mak
brushed the captain’s bloodstained hand from his arm.

“
Lieutenant,” Edow hissed.
“You will obey my orders and go after them. How many of my men do
you think will die because you want to play guard here?”

Mak’s early training urged him to obey
the command, but it was the thought of the young soldiers dying
that sent him to action. Two more of Edow’s men had come into the
room. “I’ll go, captain, you stay by Molly’s side and all these men
with you.” Mak pointed to one of the newly arrived soldiers. “I’ll
need your weapons belt and your rifle.”

At a sharp command from Edow, the man
stripped off his belt. Mak knelt near Molly’s head where he
wouldn’t interfere with Loren and the medic. Uncaring of all the
men watching, he kissed her lips. Instead of being soft and
welcoming, they felt stiff and dry. A thick lump closed his throat
as he made himself stand up.

Edow’s radio chirped. Mak heard the
tense words shouted into the mike from one of the captain’s men.
“Sir, the two injured men escaped from the infirmary. Two of our
men are down, one of them dead.”

“
Did you see where they
went?”

“
No, sir. Sergeant Rivers
sent me and three others to reinforce our men here when the alarms
went off.”

“
Stay there and hold that
position. We’re bringing a casualty to you shortly.” Edow looked at
Mak, a question in his eyes.

“
After I go in the tunnel,
close it behind me. Station at least three men here with guns on
full auto.”

“
You just told me not to
send my men in there after them. Shouldn’t we be looking for where
they’ll emerge?”

“
You’re not sending your
men. You’re sending me. And call your pilots. Get your ships in the
air or they might try to take one.”

Edow cursed and shouted into his
radio. Mak went to the tunnel, wishing for quiet but not likely to
get it. Loren barked orders at men to get a gurney. Mak tried to
put Molly’s condition out of his mind but the taste of her cold
lips remained with him. And the cold lit a fire inside him. Never
in the midst of the fiercest battle that he’d ever fought in had he
experienced a killing fever. But it raged through him
now.

Mak sniffed the air. The odor of
burned metal from weapons’ fire lingered. The tunnel ran straight
for about twenty feet before it became a down staircase. The walls
and floor were bare, gray metal lit by the faint glow of a light
strip running along the middle of the ceiling.

He stepped over the threshold, seeing
no controls on this side of the door. Unless it worked by remote
they had needed Shear to open it from her side. She’d planned well.
Likely her useless flight from Edow’s men had been a ruse for her
additional giants to hide and prepare to free her. They’d never had
a proper idea of how many giants she had, only assuming they’d all
fled with her. Shear might even had suggested the conference room
for her questioning.