"Where are the worst?" I asked, implying more than the words meant. She wiped her brow with a soiled towel and pointed to a room separated by a thick plastic curtain.
"In there. Alone." I smiled weakly and made my way over, passing a soldier who was writhing on his bed as he tried to escape the grasp of the orderlies trying to pin him down. I pulled the curtain apart and stepped in.
The room was dark, the lights dimmed to the minimum. There were eight beds in a row, each one occupied by a motionless figure that breathed loudly. I stepped slowly towards the first and found a frail, bloodied hand hidden amongst the sheets. I took it in my own and leaned over to whisper.
"What's your name, my friend?" The man's face was turned the other way, his blonde hair dirty and caked in dust. Slowly his head turned on the pillow and I stifled a gasp. Most of his jaw was missing and one of his eyes had been removed. I looked at the card above his head on the wall, read off the name. "Jack?" The man nodded. "Well Jack, the moon is out, I can't sleep and it's too cold to stand outside. You don't mind if I stay a while, do you?" He shook his head, a tear escaping from his one good eye. "Good. I don't like being on my own."
CHAPTER 13
At some point during the night I'd dozed off in my chair. It felt like years since I'd last seen my bed and decades since I'd had a good nights sleep. I jumped into alertness as a tray of surgical tools crashed to the floor.
The lights had been switched off as patients slept but I could make out four of the Commander's personal security staff fumbling with something, making their way to the door with difficulty. Their gold epaulettes shone, refracting the moonlight coming in through the windows.
"What is going on?" I asked, raising the light level. All four turned their heads and I realised that the object they were struggling with was a black plastic body bag - a heavy one at that. None of us knew quite what the next step was, but I could see that they were beginning to panic, like a criminal caught in a spotlight. I'd stumbled onto something and it was just starting to dawn on them.
"Forget what you're seeing and you may just live to see tomorrow," one of them said, the biggest of the four and more than likely the leader.
"Who the hell is in there?" I asked, reaching up for the digi-com control on my lapel.
They moved quickly, dropping the body and drawing blades from their thighs. Before I could get a word out they had crossed the medical bay and I was forced to go for my side arm. The nearest one got the first round and the report was deafening. Then, dropping to one knee I fired again, double tapping another in the chest. The room was suddenly alive with patients waking up screaming and the lights went to full brightness just as the third intruder reached me.
The knife came down from my left at an angle, one I sidestepped and followed up with a crushing blow to his knee. The man stumbled forward, grabbing hold of the nearest bedpost and dropped the weapon in the process. The fourth man swung and just caught my shoulder with a wide arc, slicing away at the padded part of my jacket. I pivoted on the balls of my feet, went down awkwardly and fired - the shot scorching a red track across his cheek. It was enough to send him reeling backwards and I fired again from my prone position, slamming another round into his chest. Blood vaporised out of his back and coated the wall like surf on a beach.
The man who'd dropped his knife was up and running to the door, the ward in utter chaos now that shots had been fired and people were dying. I got to my feet and ran after him.
In the corridor I saw him descend a set of stairs to ground level and I followed, passing Doctors scrambling into their smocks. I took the steps three at a time and began to load a fresh magazine into the pistol. At the bottom I looked franticly round for him, just catching a glimpse of his uniform as he rounded a corner to the left. I tapped my lapel.
"Shap, Burns. Code six in progress, University ground floor. Three suspects dead, in pursuit of a fourth, I need assistance." I reached the end of the hallway and hugged the wall before sticking my head around the corner. I didn't want to run round and find a knife waiting for me. As I looked I saw a door swinging on its hinge - the fire exit. Somehow he'd managed to avoid tripping the automatic fire alarm; maybe they'd planned on leaving that way and had rigged it earlier.
I ran down the hall, reached the exit and checked carefully for an ambush. When I found none I made my way out into the moon dappled grounds of the university and searched. Gone, melted into the night. On the other side of the building I could hear the rush of heavy boots and clattering weapons, the back up I'd asked for. I had one last look and then turned around, heading back inside.
*
"It's one of them," someone said from the back of the crowd that had gathered around the corpse. The body had been lifted onto one of the operating tables and was now laid bare under a spotlight; Doctors and surgeons busied themselves around it. Burns was stood opposite me, examining the identity tattoo on the cadaver's arm.
"Look at his body - it's a mess, and that was before he died," Rebecca Frakes said as she ran a gloved hand over the many lacerations on his chest. "He's been tortured."
"And you're telling me you knew nothing about a POW being held captive in your University?" Burns spat at her.
"No, we knew nothing. The dead and wounded come in here all the time, half of the time we don't even know who they are until afterwards," she said, attempting to ease his anger a little. Green appeared from a doorway at the back of the room and looked paler than when he'd gone in.
"Sir, I think you should see this," he said.
I followed Burns and Green down a dark corridor, took a right at the end and went down eight steps to a solid steel door. It swung open, the lock having been forced apart by Green and we went inside, but from the smell we were able to guess at what he'd found.
It was a makeshift holding cell with handcuffs fixed to a rung in the floor. The walls were white above waist level, but below they were covered in smears of shit, urine and blood. The whole room stunk of decay and body waste.
"They were getting rid of the evidence for when ARC overrun the place," Burns said, examining the room with disgust. "So they wouldn't be punished for it, maybe survive as POW's themselves."
"Who's behind it then? Commander Frakes?" Green asked.
"I thought the bastard was a coward deep down, ever since that briefing. This is why. He was afraid we'd find out about his 'plaything'."
"I don't understand. Was it interrogation?"
"Maybe it started that way. When it looked like he wasn't going to talk, maybe he just became a target for their pent up anger. Maybe Frakes came down to vent his frustrations and take a little revenge out on him."
"Green, I want a new lock on this door in half an hour."
"How come, sir?" Burns began to leave.
"It'll have a new guest soon. I'm going to talk to Frakes."
*
"You can't do this!" Frakes yelled as he was frog-marched from the command centre to the University by Wulfgar and Tekoa. The men on the wall had turned and were watching the spectacle. Burns walked in front, I followed up the rear as he writhed in Wulfgar's iron grasp.
"Commander Frakes, you are charged with the imprisonment, torture and murder of a prisoner of war, thus breaching the 2023 Mars convention. Until we can arrange a court marshal, you shall be held in confinement."
"LET ME GO!" he screamed.
"I am now assuming command of this city and you have forfeited all the status your rank provided. May god have mercy upon you, because I don't believe the courts will."
"We'll all be dead before then. I hope they kill you first! I hope..." A fist slammed into his chin and suddenly Frakes went limp, his feet dragging on the ground. Wulfgar rubbed his sore knuckles.
"Well done, Private," Burns said.
As we passed out of the night and into the warm glow of the University, Rebecca was stood at the bottom of the stairs, her beautiful eyes stained red from the tears. As we marched her father past her, she took one last look at him,
and then turned away in disgust.
As we made our way out, one of the students grabbed my wrist.
"Sir, I think you need to look at this." He led us to a computer tucked away inside an office and once he'd sat down he began tapping away at the keyboard, the light from the monitor giving him an eerie blue face. "I noticed something odd about the dead guy."
"I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked young man and I would appreciate a little more respect from someone in your profession." I gave Burns an approving sideways glance. The student flushed red; even the blue didn't hide it.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Well go on, don't keep us in suspense, lad."
"Well I came across a blood sample a few months ago, one that had no name to it and at first I'd dismissed it as contaminated. It had some strange DNA results when I ran it through the machine and at first I didn't think anything of it."
"Where did this sample come from?"
"I was handed it as part of a wide selection from the city. Routine blood testing you see, part of the health and well being program. Anyway, when you found the body tonight, I got to thinking about this sample and so I took another - from him. It matched." He began to work feverishly at the keys, his eyes darting left and right. "I'd been given the sample while he was alive, being held without us knowing."
"For what purpose?"
"I always put the information on the mainframe, we're quite honest here. Frakes would have had access to the results of the original test."
"What would those results have shown him? That the blood contains some odd DNA?"
"Not odd, no I can see it now I've got the entire picture."
"Go on." The student turned the screen round for us all to see. It showed two simulated strands of coded DNA like you'd see in biology textbooks. The one on the left was marked by a citizen's name; the right was simply 'ARC'.
"The left one is pretty normal and contains data from both father and mother. But the right...” he tapped more keys and the image changed, overlapping the two pictures. "Can you see it?" We leaned in further.
"No," Burns said.
"The ARC DNA has had alien elements introduced. This strand has been altered."
"We already know they are genetically altered. Tell me something new.”
"I'm getting to that but to confirm it I will need more samples from other ARC soldiers, but I think the results will be the same. They're being engineered, not as an enhancement because there seemed to be nothing special about the ARC soldier. But the evidence is there, they have been through some kind of alteration at birth, something that changed the very identity of their make up."
"Could it be somehow woven into their beliefs? Could it be something to do with their leader? A ritual of some kind?" Burns said to me.
"It's possible, like Jewish circumcision. If it has no obvious physical or mental gains, then that's the only possible answer."
"They aren't being born like this, a mutation perhaps?" Green asked.
"No, this is trademark GM breeding. They're being altered during the foetus development."
"It's a long shot theory," I said after much thought. "But could they be trying to introduce an alteration into their population, a sort of forced mutation."
"But why? I can't see anything to gain, they haven't increased speed, agility, healing. They've just changed the genetic..."
"Image," the student said. “That's what I discovered. They all have the same DNA that has come from a single source.”
"That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to change their DNA image. This ritual is designed to change their very structure at the most basic level, not just physically like you would wear a mask or grow a beard. They're changing their origin, remaking themselves in their own image." I jabbed a finger at the coiling DNA strand. "That alien element will be the very DNA of Rorsch being implanted into every new-born ARC member."
“That's just fucked up.” said Green.
“Tell me about it.” replied the student.
“Can you put this information on a disc?” Burns asked. “I want a copy. If we get off this tomb world I want it taken to M.O.”
“Yes, I'll do that now.” The student tapped away at the keys just as the crackling digi-com burst into our ears.
"Tekoa, Burns."
"Burns receiving go ahead."
"Sir, the enemy is preparing to launch a fresh assault. I think this is it."
"Received. Stand by." I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. Burns turned to us. "Regardless of who - or what they are, they're hell-bent on killing us. Everybody to their posts."
CHAPTER 14
Spotlights across the length of the wall came on and lit up what was fast being nicknamed the 'killing field'. Tekoa had been warning the Lieutenant that a night attack was imminent from the first day. Now that it was a reality, the battle took on a new and more terrifying form. Darkness had always had that effect on people, especially people thrust into a combat situation without proper training. I had only fought in two large-scale night assaults, though it had been my squad launching the attack - not repelling one.
"Sir, we have enemy units on the entire western side of the city. A large concentration of tanks and troops have gathered in the south but they appear to have their eyes on the hole they made in the gate," Tekoa said as we climbed the ladder to the western ramparts. The lights inside the city were poor and only the odd lamp here and there punctuated the nothingness. As we reached the top Tekoa had to lead us to the lookout post.
"Is this it? After what you saw in their camp, do you believe that the entire force is here?"
"Short of some reserves, yes I think the bulk of it is here."
"Then they mean to finish this tonight, press the advantage of the western breach and take the city." Burns turned to the other six of us who had assembled there on the wall, Brand, Wulfgar, Walker, Green, Phillips, Tekoa and myself and said, "This is it, men. They're going to come at us with everything they've got and I can't help but accept that they'll breach the wall again, pour in here like ants and finish the job. But take solace in the facts - we've dealt a crippling blow to their forces on this planet, we've forced them to waste their men trying to take this humble city and hopefully diverted them from whatever their main objective had been here on Sidon. We've given them such a bloody nose they'll remember this for centuries whether they want to or not. In my opinion you have gone beyond the duty of any soldier and have conducted yourselves in such a way that I feel honoured to have served along side you. Give them no quarter when you face them. Let them work for every inch of this city and when you finally go down, make sure there's a hell of a lot of them piled up around you to soften your fall." He looked around the walls, looked at the desperate faces on the volunteers.
Finally he cocked his rifle and turned to face the foe. "To your stations."
*
The moon glistened like molten silver in the clear sky. There was a chill in the air, a cold biting breeze that sunk into my clothes and the smell of burning metal stuck to my nostrils. The line before me, the brave men who volunteered at the beginning were now nothing more than terrified people clutching their half-loaded guns with the same tenacity of a child with it's favourite teddy bear. They shivered where they stood and their faces were lined with dry tears as I assumed thoughts of their families in the basement of the church had crept into their minds.
"Any regrets, sir?" Someone asked me from the line.
"None. You?" I replied.
"Plenty. Things I should have done and didn't. Things I should have said but never said."
"I just wanted one more night with my wife," someone else said, further down.
"I just want to hold my son again," another added.
"Right now I just want to see tomorrow." Another. One by one they poured out their last requests, things they would have done had they a little more time. But it wasn't really an issue of time, it was that now they could see their own mortality and they realised t
hat they should have made the most of it when they had the chance. It had always taken the finality of death to understand the importance of life.
The first wave hit the wall like a thousand hammers. Tank shells slammed into the stone, rupturing the already brittle structure. Siege cannons pounded the whole western flank. The very ground beneath us shook like an earthquake. Civilian buildings collapsed. The command centre began to shake itself apart. Troops struggled to stand upright, grabbing hold of each other while trying to cover their ears.
"Hold your positions!" I yelled over the madness. Several flares from the ARC side shot up into the air, bathing the entire city in a sickly orange glow. Stray shells that were being shot too high over the wall decimated buildings behind us and the men began to panic. "STAND FAST!" I cried, just as part of the wall broke away and three volunteers went over the edge with it. The gap was quickly filled with a barrage of machine gun fire and two more fell into crumpled heaps. Grenades were thrown, detonating below but making little impact on the enemy guns. I tapped my comms.
"Shap, Burns. We can't hold this wall!" I shouted and hoped he'd hear.
"Burns, Shap. Fall back to the settlements, let them in. REPEAT - fall back to the settlements by squads."
"FALL BACK!" I cried, grabbing shoulders and dragging them away from the crumbling defenses. "FALL BACK TO THE SETTLEMENTS."
The men swarmed towards the ladders as more sections of wall collapsed. ARC didn't need the flares - the muzzle flashes from the siege cannons were doing a good enough job of lighting up the sky. As the last of the troops descended, a huge section of the south wall fell like a house of cards. We could see it from where we were stood. It went down in a brilliant burst of concentrated shellfire, taking ten of the troops there with it.
On solid ground we dispersed into the nearest buildings, some finding cover behind wrecks of tractors or trailers, others climbing up into the higher floors of the houses and poking their weapons out of the windows. I took several men with me to a babbling stream that ran across two farms and it served as an excellent trench, it's walls just high enough to see over. As we settled in, the western gate finally fell with an almighty crash. The enormous steel doors melted apart, fusing into each other at white-hot heat and a huge tank fitted with a ram shoved them out of its way. The tank was instantly met by Wulfgar's team - grenades and gushes of fire from the flame units bombarded it as ARC troops surged around its flanks. Men burned, firing as they went down. The troops around me gasped as Wulfgar bravely met them head on, blasting away at their ranks with his heavy machine gun and urging his team forward.
Soul at War Page 10