The Lazarus War: Legion (31 page)

“Directorate Special Ops,” I whispered. A sword emblem, against a stylised image of Mars, was displayed on her armoured chest. “They call themselves the Sword Battalion.”

Highly trained and well equipped, the Swords were the Directorate’s response to the Simulant Operations Programme.

“Where’d they get the name?” Williams asked.

I pointed to the sword scabbarded at the commando’s waist. It looked so archaic as to be almost absurd: flat-bladed, nearly as long as my arm. Not the sort of weapon that had been employed in the last few hundred years by any civilised military. But I knew better than to be taken in by the simple appearance of the blade. It was a powered mono-sword; capable of slicing through reinforced ablative plate with ease.

“The Swords of the South Chino Cluster,” I said. “I once read that the battalion took the name from a historic reference – back before the Directorate had even been formed.” My brain was too addled to dredge that up. “She didn’t get here on her own. This isn’t a solo operation.”

“How many more can we expect?”

“Enough to take the ship. You fought the Asiatic Directorate before?”

“No,” Williams said, recoiling from the body like he really didn’t believe she was dead. “Any tips?”

I flipped the body back onto its back. The trooper had a backpack wired to her suit; it blocked heat signals and gave limited life support. Her eyes were still wide open: yellowed and bloodshot, like she hadn’t slept in months. Bar-codes and battle honours were tattooed over both cheeks, down the neck.

“Probably hopped up on methaline and battle drugs. Probably been awake for a long time before she died; dropping adrenaline tabs.” I pointed out a row of dulled metal staples in the back of the woman’s head. Those reached up the nape of her neck, into her skull and the strip of dyed-blonde hair. The surgery looked crude but I knew it to be effective. “Those are nerve staples. Makes them fearless and resistant to pain.”

The small metal studs were chemical-inducers: rough neurosurgery. At specific programmed points, they would cause a near battle frenzy. The Directorate states had a long history of drug abuse in their militaries and corporate structures. The staples were another dirty example of the drug-race.

“Best advice I can give you is don’t let them take you alive.”

The overhead lighting abruptly went off. We both froze, and I cocked my head to listen for the tell-tale sounds of battle. Instead, that non-audible hum generated by shipboard systems wound down: the gentle vibration of the air that you hardly ever feel, unless to note its absence.

I knew what was happening before the declaration came.

“Preparing to go dark in T-minus sixty seconds,” the AI declared.

Luminous arrows appeared on the floor. A guide-path to the nearest evacuation pod or safe muster zone.

“Shit, shit, shit…” Williams whispered. “This is so not fair…”

“We’ve got more company inbound,” I said. “Let’s move.” I edged towards the nearest corridor junction. “Which way is Medical?”

Williams pointed down the corridor. “Next sector. We should be able to find a comms station there as well. Needs be, we can defend the place: it has a lockdown facility.”

“Good enough for me.”

Minutes later, we arrived at Medical. Amber lights were inset around the big bulkhead door, which was thankfully open. Whatever was happening elsewhere on the ship, at least Medical was still functional.

We entered the main corridor dividing up the SOC and the infirmary.

“The SOC is this way,” Williams said, pointing in the opposite direction to that in which I was moving.

“I need to check on someone first,” I said. Shotgun up, I stayed low to the ground – made for a smaller target. “And the infirmary is this way.”

Williams mimicked my movements. He looked like a gangly teenager copying combat moves he’d seen on a tri-D action flick rather than a trained soldier.

“Why are we going this way?”

“Because I said so.”

Mason
. She was the reason. I had to see to her first. Get her into an evac-pod, if I could, or at the very least I’d make sure she was comfortable – whatever that meant in the circumstances.

A figure moved at the end of the corridor, from behind a desk. Wearing a
Colossus
-issue yellow vac-suit which almost glowed in the low light.

“Hello?” someone called.

“Stand down,” Williams rumbled, grasping my shoulder. “It’s just a tech.”

A medtech emerged from the infirmary area, from behind the reception desk. It was Bailey; the girl I’d seen when I’d last checked on Mason. She raised two gloved hands in the air and stepped out into the open.

“Don’t shoot,” she called, far too loudly for my liking. “I was about to evac Medical…”

“Shut up!” I hissed. I beckoned that she stayed low behind the desk. “The ship is under attack.”

The woman’s face slackened. “Oh. Sorry.”

I turned to Williams, looked back into the empty corridor we had just come from.

“Don’t ever tell me to stand down,” I said to him. “Not when there are Directorate aboard my ship.”

Williams gave a nod. “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

Back to Bailey, I said, “Where are the rest of the staff? Where’s Private Mason?”

“Almost everyone else has already left,” the medtech said. “The private is in there.”

She pointed to the plate-glass doors leading into the infirmary. Those were closed and the area beyond was mainly unlit. The familiar location had suddenly taken on a frightening aspect; everything immediately new, rendered horrifying by the basic absence of light.

“Williams, get us inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Williams moved up, thumbed the DNA scanner beside the door. In a ragged formation, with me covering the corridor with the shotgun, the three of us deployed into the main infirmary. The amber warning bulbs in the central ward area illuminated in response to our presence, leaving most of the side-chambers in darkness. Two of those were still partitioned off with plastic concertina-style curtains. At the end of the ward, the auto-doc sat at the ready to receive its next patient – or was that victim? – with a variety of surgical implements gleaming in the low light, all poised over the reclining treatment couch.

I nosed the shotgun into the room. Panned left and then right. The immediate area was empty.

“Seal the doors,” I ordered Williams.

“Solid copy, sir.”

The doors slid shut behind us.

“I’ll lock down Medical as well,” he declared. “That bulkhead on the way in is six inches of hardened steel. Nothing is coming through that door without a demo-charge or a plasma rifle.”

“Fine.”

The tech scurried ahead, to a drug cabinet on the wall beside the auto-doc. She noisily and anxiously started to sort through medicines – no easy task considering that she was wearing vac-gloves.

“You look like you need something for your ears,” Bailey said. “What caused the injury?”

“An unplanned decompression incident.”

“You want me to take the gun?” Williams asked.

“No. I’ll keep it.”

“Then you mind if I smoke? I always need a smoke when I get nervous.”

“Whatever. Just stay frosty.”

He pulled out an oversized cigarette. Flipped the ignition, and the tip lit. The smell of chemical compound immediately filled the infirmary ward.

“We need access to the comms station as well,” I said to Bailey. “Williams, get it working.”

Williams dragged hard on the cigarette. “I’ll try.”

“The comms station is in the SOC,” Bailey said. “We can go there afterwards.”

She gave a feeble smile. Tapped a syringe, shook a bottle of tablets. “The injection will deal with air in the blood, and these smart-meds will keep you running until we can get you some proper attention.”

“I just need to keep going, is all. Make sure that my team is all right.”

I took the smart-meds from her and swallowed down a handful of them. Big, dry tablets; they were medical nano-tech, designed to repair internal damage at the cellular level. How they worked wasn’t really relevant to me; far more important was that they just worked. They did that almost immediately.

“Forget about the injection,” I said, dismissing the large hypodermic that Bailey had produced.

“Are you sure? I’d advise that you take it.”

“Forget it.” I looked back at the exit door to the infirmary. “That the only way out of here?”

“Yes,” Bailey said. “The SOC is on the other side of Medical, straight down the main corridor.”

“All right. Now I need to see Mason.”

Bailey nodded. “Of course. She’s over here.”

She pointed to a cube off the infirmary. Not the same cube Mason had been assigned last time I’d visited, I noticed. The curtain was pulled across, and I couldn’t see inside, but a light shone through the thin plastic material. Bailey went to the handle, fumbled with it inside her gloves, and turned to give me a half-smile.

There was a metal trolley beside the cube and for just a second I caught Williams’ reflection in the mirrored tray on top of it.

I had the shotgun over my right shoulder, cocked. My finger tightened on the trigger.

Suddenly, for no reason that I could really explain, everything in the room just felt
wrong
.

A dark realisation hit me. That awkward smile wasn’t scared: it was fake.

Bailey pulled back the curtain, all the way, and dodged sideways.

A body lay on the bed. Wearing a smock, but so heavily bloodstained that it was almost impossible to tell that the fabric had originally been white. Arms dangling freely from the side of the bed, eyes open, mouth smeared with even more crimson fluid.

“What have they done to you, Mason…?” I said.

Not Mason: Dr West. Her wild grey hair escaped into a frizzy mass, now slicked with her own blood.

“Now!” Bailey screamed. Her eyes flitted in Williams’ direction.

Williams and Bailey tried to take advantage of my surprise, to capitalise on my shock at seeing the body.

But I was already reacting. Before I’d properly registered the thing behind the curtain, I spun sideways. Gun up: aimed at Bailey.

Whoever or whatever she was, she was not a professional soldier. Instead of moving out of my kill zone – the shotgun only had a limited range – she froze, put her hands up to her face.

Williams slammed his bodyweight into the right of my ribcage – hard enough to disrupt my aim. I fired the gun once, just missing Bailey. Shotgun pellets sprayed the wall of the cube and peppered the ceiling.

“You useless old fuck!” Williams yelled.

We crashed against the far wall. Williams was much stronger than he looked. I dragged the shotgun around to face him with one hand, grabbed for the slide with the other. Damned thing needed to be reloaded before I could shoot again.

He punched me in the face: a full-on blow. I felt a cheekbone snap, hot blood gushing from somewhere.

“Get him on there!” Bailey shouted, with a determination that marked her as a long-term accomplice. “The auto-doc!”

I scrambled against Williams. Brought the gun up again. He slammed into me once more. My fingers fumbled with the slide and I lost my grip on the shotgun.

I was shaking, so weak.

Bailey glared back at me. Smirking.

The smart-meds, I realised, weren’t smart-meds at all.

Williams’ elbow rose up. Connected with my face. I stumbled back, now feeling even more sluggish.

Bailey and Williams appeared in triplicate—

Jesus Christo.

Couldn’t speak.

I collapsed against the side of the auto-doc, then into the waiting pod.

I felt the contoured plastic treatment table moulding around my shoulders, restraining me. There was no need for that: my body didn’t seem to want to respond to my orders any more. The auto-doc’s canopy whined as it descended over me – sealing me inside. It was an automatic reaction to snake my arms back, to avoid being caught as the pod sealed. The machine itself powered up with a nauseating purr.

An array of the auto-doc’s medical tools was mounted inside the canopy. Wicked bladed forearms hovered overhead; laser-tipped probes cycling through treatment functions. Like a twisted metal spider, suspended in a web.

“Just kill him!” Bailey commanded.

Williams shook his head. “It isn’t that easy. He’s been a pain since he got here, and I want my pound of flesh.”

“There’s no time for that!”

“Like I said, it’ll be the Warfighters that crack the Artefact. The Lazarus Legion is history.”

Everything was blurring, sickeningly so. The room lights above me flashed. Williams loomed closer, a blot over the sun – a grinning idiot.

The auto-doc began to stream audio warnings so quickly that I couldn’t keep up. Williams punched some keys on the control unit beside me. I pounded against the reinforced transparent plastic but it was useless. I was trapped inside.

“Shit out of luck this time, Lazarus,” Williams said.

He roared with laughter. The auto-doc is a revolution in medical treatment, capable of treating the most hideously injured military personnel. If not healing, then at least getting them back on their feet. Williams didn’t give a shit about those aspects of the machine. He wanted to inflict maximum damage. Bailey stood beside him, arms crossed over her chest, and they both looked down into my pod.

Inhumanly fast – machine fast – one of the super-sharp blades came down on my left arm. It was a clean, medical cut, but the location was random: piercing the mid-wrist, through muscle, through the ulna and radius bones. It missed the data-port in my forearm by mere centimetres.

The pain would’ve been unbearable, I’m quite sure, but at least Bailey’s poisoned drugs had taken the edge off. Even so, I screamed – a slurred, drunken sound. This was real pain in my real body. I thought of Carrie. Thought of the tired old veterans with their metal hands. I remembered in that instant how I had feared ending up like them. Now it was happening.

The blade scythed right through my limb: powering down as it completed the amputation. Arterial spray coated the inside of the canopy and, seen through it, the two faces above me. I shouted some more through gritted teeth, tried to move inside the cramped confines of the pod. The procedure took seconds to complete. The auto-doc probably didn’t like doing this sort of work: the continuous warning chime was evidence of that.