Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor

by Susan Kelley

  “So we have no leads on where to go next?”

  “Maybe. Most of these people worked to support the facility though they were never permitted inside when the army was still here. Some of them might know.” Mak’s mouth quirked though he didn’t quite smile. “They won’t tell me, but one of you might be able to find out.”

  “This was a long trip for nothing,” Helen muttered.

  Mak took a deep breath and left it out with a sigh. “Maybe not, Dr. Shear. The villagers were actually thrilled to see a soldier. Seems that since the army and scientists left, it’s not safe to go out at night. They’ve lost most of their goats and all of their guard dogs. They’re afraid to go into the trees even during the day. It seems there’s a monster terrorizing them.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mak barely listened while the headman of the village, Charles, talked to Molly and the others. The man launched into his strange tale of their thriving community while the lab was working. Once the scientists packed up and left, the settlers had helped themselves to anything left behind in the large building. Things had seemed fine at first, with civilian supply ships stopping by at least once every month. Then about ten months ago, the problems had started. First small animals disappeared, always after the visit of a supply ship. A woman and a young man had been the latest victims, taken from the paths in the woodland that led to the scattered clearings where the village planted crops. Three days ago a man had gone missing from the village itself.

  “We stay inside at night now and no one is permitted to go about alone. We found large tracks, prints of a big man, on the trails a few times but none of us have seen him. It’s like he’s got some supernatural powers or such,” Charles continued. “When the lieutenant showed up here, we hoped the army had returned and could rid us of this demon.”

  “We’ll look into your problem,” Molly said.

  Mak watched the surrounding forests. The villagers thought the monster’s visits coincided with the arrival of ships, attracted by it in some way. Though lately it had become bolder. It or them?

  “Let me consult with the lieutenant,” Molly said.

  Mak sent Pender and Box to the other end of the single, narrow street while he watched the trail that connected the village to the clearing where he’d set down the ship. The deep shadows beneath the tree defeated even his superior vision. But he’d sensed a watcher when he’d approached the village though sensors had shown no heat signatures lurking in the dense forest. He didn’t turn when Molly came to stand by his side.

  “What do you think is out there?” Molly stood close enough to him that her arm brushed against his.

  “The same thing you do. They left some of their victims behind again.”

  “That’s rather bold, to leave them behind on an occupied planet.”

  “Maybe it was part of an experiment.” The thought sickened him. Had they wanted to see if their latest creation could exist with other humans?

  “Do you think there’s more than one out there?”

  “Could be.” Mak tapped his radio. “Corporal, join me. Pender, stay where you are. Move back from the trees a little so you have a bigger killing field. Remember how fast the…the enemy was on Julian. A few steps may be the difference between you having time to fire or not.”

  “What is the plan?” Molly asked.

  “I’m going back to the ship to pick up a few things.”

  “By yourself?” She looked toward the dark wood.

  Mak’s mood lightened. She sounded worried about him, though it was probably only that kind heart her father spoke about. “Yes.”

  “Take your men with you.”

  “They’ll stay here.” Mak waved Charles over. “Are all of your houses made of baked clay?”

  “Actually, sir, we imported some cementing agents so the walls are sturdier than clay.”

  Mak looked at the squat buildings, seeing the structural weakness in the doors and roofs. It would take him about ten seconds to tear his way inside with only his bare hands. “What kind of weapons do you have?”

  “We’ve never had weapons. The army was here and there wasn’t any trouble.”

  Mak unslung his rifle from his back. “Do you or anyone else know how to use this?”

  Charles reached for it but hesitated before taking it. “I haven’t fired a rifle since I was a boy, and it wasn’t anything like this one.”

  “Corporal Box, show the man how to use it.” Mak took his pistol from its holder and handed it to Molly. “Keep this with you.”

  Molly wrapped her arms around herself and stepped back. “I’m not taking your weapon and leaving you defenseless in the woods.”

  Mak pried her hand away from her waist and set the pistol in it. “I’m sure you know how to use this. And I wouldn’t be defenseless even if I went into the woods naked.”

  Her lips tilted into a smile. “I would like to see that.”

  Mak’s face heated, a totally inappropriate vision of him and Molly unclothed filled his thoughts. He turned away before his thoughts appeared in his expression or elsewhere on his body. “Corporal, keep the village secure until I return. Everyone inside except for you and Pender. I’ll be back in less than thirty minutes.”

  “Why do you have to go to the ship?” Molly asked. “Why are you going alone? I could go with you.”

  “You would only slow me down. If I leave now, we should still have enough daylight to examine the deserted lab.” Mak nodded to the corporal and then entered the woods.

  He ran without sound through the silent trees. The malevolent stare no longer touched his instincts but a hostile atmosphere hung in the gloom. It took him only a few minutes to return to the ship.

  The first thing he did was check the sensors on the bridge. They showed only the life signs in the village. With a few taps, he expanded the range. With the wider view it didn’t differentiate individuals as clearly. He set it for a three mile radius around the ship and then took the AI from the control panel. The ship would broadcast the information to it. Then he collected a small generator, hoping they could restore power to the lab facility. He stuffed it into a large pack, adding a few chemical light sticks and a larger portable lantern.

  Next he stopped at the weapons locker and rearmed. Two more rifles and another pistol. He kept the pistol in hand as he set out, holding the AI in the other. Only the people in the village showed on the screen. He ran through the trees, reaching the village within twenty minutes of leaving.

  Molly stood beside a grim-faced Box when Mak jogged out of the trees. She held the pistol out toward him.

  “Keep it for now.” Mak used his radio to summon Pender to join them.

  The other doctors escaped the curious villagers as they emerged from their homes. Mak handed another rifle to Charles. “Give this to someone who can use it, but make sure neither of you shoot at us. We’re going into the lab.”

  Charles called out to someone to take the rifle but then spoke to Mak. “We think the monster goes in there at times. Doors we kept closed have been torn open. There’s damage in most of the rooms. I don’t know what you could be thinking to find. The army took everything of value with them. Not a single computer left behind.”

  “We might still find some scraps,” Dr. Loren said.

  Charles shook his head. “They didn’t even leave bedding behind. We didn’t steal anything, only made use of some tables and chairs they abandoned.”

  “We know you didn’t steal anything,” Molly assured the man. “The scientists and army officers who ran this lab were renegades. They didn’t have the sanction of their superiors. We’re looking for clues of where they went next.”

  Charles pressed his lips together and then took a deep breath. “My job was keeping the trees clear of the landing field so I often heard the pilots talking when they were doing pre-flights on their ships. They spoke of moving their loads to someplace called Arid Four. Took them eight flights to get it all out of here.”

  “Thanks, Charles.�
�� Molly touched the man’s arm, gracing him with one of her smiles and irritating Mak at the same time. “That helps us but we still have to search the facility.”

  “Will you take care of the monster before you go?” Charles asked.

  Mak caught Molly’s gaze. “We will.”

  Pender jogged up to join them. “Where do you need me, sir?”

  Mak gave him the AI unit. “You hold onto this. Let me know if you see anything moving even if you think it’s a bird.”

  The lab sat thirty feet from the opposite end of the street. The forest had encroached on the path, narrowing it to the width of two people. Molly walked beside Mak. He should have asked her to stay behind him, but he liked having her nearby.

  The forest sought to reclaim the lands the lab had disrupted. A legion of small trees sprouted close to the walls. The path led them to a set of cargo doors, one bent inward and one outward. Paths branched around each side of the building, vines and bushes making inroads into the crushed stone pavement.

  Mak swept his arm out and gently forced Molly to move behind him as he slipped in between the wreckage of the doors. The hallway stretched forward into darkness. Numerous doors lined the walls on each side. The lighting panel hung in shattered pieces from its frame. Mak took a light stick off his belt and switched it on. With a twist of the focus, the beam spread out and lit the entire hall. The doors were labeled, the first one being the power station.

  He handed the light to Molly. “Box, watch the rear while I try to get the power on.” The door was intact but stuck. Mak kicked it open. A stale odor of burnt crystallized iron lingered though a gaping hole in the machinery showed they’d taken the fuel with them when they cleared out the lab. Mak crouched in front of the machine that took up the entire wall of the ten by ten room. It was an older model than he’d seen before, but generators were generators. He wasn’t a machinery expert like his brother, Vin, but he’d never met a generator he couldn’t fix.

  After taking his backpack off, Mak pulled out the emergency generator. Molly held the light high over his shoulder as he tugged the connections out of the fuel pocket. It took a few adjustments, but he wired the generator into the power station. He turned on the portable, and the big station lit up. Lights blazed on in the hallway.

  Mak resettled his pack and took the light from Molly. The other doctors trailed behind as Mak led them deeper into the facility. They checked each room as they went, finding most of the doors had been forced open. By the monster or the villagers? Except for bent metal shelving and empty desks, every room was bare. One of the massive desks appeared to have been flung against the wall, indenting the metal siding. Mak didn’t want to contemplate the strength needed to do such a thing.

  The hallway had no branches, running onward for another fifty yards beneath the glare of the overhead lights. After the offices they came to a wide-open area outfitted like the previous labs they’d seen. The doctors spread out, but they didn’t find even a hint of blood evidence. The bastards had improved on covering up their crimes. The hall continued on the other side of the lab. Living quarters. The first half dozen rooms, though dormitory-like, had generous dimensions and a few remnants of beds. Doors hung off empty closets. The search of the four rooms didn’t take long. The third door on the right opened into a different setting.

  Long rows of cots, bolted to the walls and the floors, at least forty of them, ran down both sides of the room. The bathing facilities were open toilets and showers at both ends of the room. Not a scrap of cloth remained in the room. Though there had been signs of vandalisms in every room this one appeared untouched. Mak wondered what that meant.

  Across the hall they found a long room to match the barracks’ size but set up as a training area. The equipment looked as old fashioned as the generator had been, but Mak recognized the purpose of the pulley weights, slant benches and wrestling mats. Dr. Loren found a spot of something near the mats and scraped a sample into a tiny bottle. Nothing else remained. Back in the hallway again they found only one more small empty room at the end of the hall.

  “Guard rooms.” Mak gestured at the barred windows looking into the barracks and into the training room on the other side. Each room also had a barred window looking outside. The thick glass had been smashed in on each one, hit from the outside. The thick door to the outside was as mangled as the one on the other end of the facility had been. Knee high bushes and shrubs sprouted over the three-acre clearing. The fifteen-foot high wire enclosure had gaps in the fencing, torn by someone or something, where it had once surrounded a prison exercise yard.

  Molly touched Mak’s arm. “This is more wide-open than any of the previous facilities, less restricted housing. They even bunked everyone together.”

  Mak turned and looked at the barred windows, not having to imagine the cold stares of scientists and doctors. He’d spent many hours in a similar setting, wrestling, exercising and learning hand-to-hand combat and other techniques to survive. How many times had he wanted to smash through the windows and grab the stern observers? “Are you finished here, Dr. Drant?”

  She touched his arm again. “We are.”

  “I guess we’re going on a monster hunt then,” Box said with a sneer on his face that Mak hadn’t noticed since Julian.

  “It would be helpful to take the renegade alive,” Dr. Shear said. “Andy, you’ve been on numerous expeditions with us before. I know you love science more than you do the military. I don’t understand your attitude.”

  “I do like natural science.” Box made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “There’s nothing natural about this. This is criminal, monstrous. We shouldn’t be studying these freaks. They should be exterminated, every DNA sample, every note, picture or other piece of evidence of their existence wiped from memory.”

  Mak didn’t always understand words left unsaid, but he knew Box included him in the freak category. From the awkward glances of the doctors at him, they understood it also. But Box didn’t understand Recon Marines. How could words hurt a man who’d been trained to withstand intolerable cruelty like Mak had? How did words compare to the physical hardships he’d endured from his earliest memories? Words from a simple soldier like Box amounted to nothing compared to the psychological horrors of being molded into a trained killer who’d fought his first battle at age fourteen.

  “Corporal, you have the rear guard. We should return to the village before dark.” Mak took the lead back through the lab, moving quickly now that they’d investigated everything. They paused long enough for him to retrieve the portable generator, and then started back on the path to the village. The air seemed fresher once out of the deserted facility. Though the lab was old-fashioned compared to any Mak had spent time in, its odors and confines touched the edges of too many nightmares.

  Pender looked relieved to see them as did the two village men holding the rifles. Charles jogged from the south end of the village to greet them.

  “Will you join us for dinner, sir?” Charles asked Mak.

  Mak had never overcome the soldiers’ desire to eat whenever the chance occurred. “Yes. We’ll be staying here tonight if you have sleeping quarters for the doctors.”

  “What is this, Mak?” Molly asked as Charles scampered away and ducked inside one of the central huts. “We weren’t expecting to spend the night here.”

  “I don’t want you unguarded on the ship. My men and I will be staying here. If the arrival of a ship attracts their monster we should be here to meet him.”

  “Isn’t it likely to go to our ship?” Pender asked.

  “It might,” Mak said. “It can’t hurt the ship too much, but what if it comes here first? It might equate the arrival of a ship with the import of food. We don’t know how it thinks or how high its reasoning faculties are. Do you want to leave this village unprotected when it will be our fault the monster comes tonight?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Give me the AI and both of you go get something to eat. Report back here as soon as you fini
sh.”

  Charles’ wife hustled the doctors and the two soldiers into his house, leaving Mak alone in the middle of the street. He checked the status of the ship and found nothing amiss. The AI showed nothing in its radius of study.

  He took a circuit behind the huts, searching for signs a watcher had hidden in the past. He might find some sign among the trees but dark was less than an hour away. His hunt would leave the village undefended, leave Molly unprotected. Pender and Box didn’t count as efficient guards.

  Molly waited for him in the middle of the village, a plate in each hand. He joined her, holding the plates as she folded gracefully to the rough pavement. They sat side by side on the dirty hard ground. The food was plain and the portion small, but the company made it delicious.

  Molly didn’t say anything until Mak finished his last bite of the vegetable pie. “I’m sorry, Mak, that my father asked you to do this.”

  “I was the best…soldier for the mission.” Mak handed her the plate and checked the AI though he didn’t need to. It would alert him to anything suspicious.

  “Should we try to take this renegade alive as Helen suggested?”

  Mak didn’t look at her, figuring he would see that sympathetic look in her eyes. “It’s murdered people. Whatever was done to him, he can’t come back from what he’s done. What would happen to him if we did? He’d end up in a lab being studied and tested. Maybe some other unethical army officer or doctor gains access to the work being done and decides to recreate the experiment or improve on it. I’d rather kill him.”

  Molly sighed and picked up their plates. “You’re right about what would happen but other people have said the same thing about the Recon Marines in the past.”

  Mak stood up and helped her to her feet. “Some still do. Corporal Box is one of them. And he’s probably right. The Recon Marines should never have been constructed. We’re not part of the natural order.” He walked away without waiting for her response. What could she say when any person of science would have to agree with him?