by Susan Kelley
Andy and Kory waited twenty feet away, also dressed in camouflage though not the high tech gear that Mak wore. Kory stood with his back to their approach, watching the forest as if expecting an enemy regiment to charge out of the trees. Andy scowled at Mak, his rifle held carelessly in his hands. Mak walked by him without giving notice to the insubordinate expression on Andy’s face.
“Do you need me to carry something, Molly?” Andy asked, slinging his gun over his shoulder so it hung down his back by its strap.
Mak didn’t turn around but his deep voice carried easily in the sparkling air. “Gun at ready, corporal. The scientists will carry their own packs. Rear guard at twenty to thirty paces as ordered.”
“Son of a bitch,” Andy muttered.
Mak stopped and turned. “Corporal?”
Andy went pale and took his gun back into his hands. He backed up a few steps.
Molly marveled for a moment at Mak’s exceptional hearing, but she couldn’t allow Andy to be reprimanded because he’d tried to help her. “Could we proceed, lieutenant? I’m not sure how long daylight lasts on this world.”
“Fifteen hours, doctor.” Mak gave Andy a long look, his eyes more obviously blue in the sunlight as she’d suspected. He then joined Kory at the front, leading them toward the forest.
Molly and the others walked single file on the trampled grass trail forged by Mak and Kory. A light breeze stirred the knee-high stalks, creating a light rustling sound. As they neared the trees, the thick trunks blocked the small wind. The forest canopy allowed little undergrowth to flourish so they could move through the trees with ease. Though the same cover meant a gloomy aura more like twilight than midday.
Mak took them on a course that zigged and twisted around the trees until Molly had no idea which direction the ship lay. The musty odor of old leaves and damp ground rose as they shuffled through seasons-old leaf litter. The smell added another level to the spookiness sending shivers along her spine. The silence, no birds or insect noises, added to the haunted, watchful nature of the forest.
After another ten minutes of walking, Mak halted and held up his hand in a signal for them to stay back. He continued forward alone, disappearing into the shadows after only a few steps. Molly heard nothing but her companions’ breathing as they waited. She glanced at the others, seeing her trepidation reflected in their wide eyes.
“This way.” Mak’s quiet words sounded like a shout. He led them to a clearing lit by a large oval of sunlight near the center. Brush and young trees pushed through what had once been a paved landing pad. The forest worked on reclaiming its lost land. Mak circled around the middle, avoiding the patch of light, and then stepped into the forest on the other side.
Molly cringed as they walked beneath the thick limbs again, but in only a few steps they caught up to Mak standing in front of a corroded metal door.
“Please stay behind me.” Mak took a laser pistol off the wide weapons belt he wore and melted off the lock and doorknob. He lifted his booted foot and kicked the door open. Taking a stick from another pocket on his belt, he shook it and then tossed it in the door. It flashed with brilliance and then settled into a soft whitish glow. Mak walked inside the building with Kory hard on his heels and the rest of them trailing behind.
Beyond the door a hallway of disappointing dullness stretched into dimness. Simple military gray covered the metal walls, ceiling and floor. Mak stopped at a panel along one wall, jerking on the simple latch a few times before it opened with a reluctant squeal. He leaned in, studying the interior for a full minute.
“What is that?” Helen asked when the silence stretched.
Mak didn’t answer, reaching into the panel and flipping switches. After a few echoing clicks, overhead lights flickered and then decided to stay lit. “Power grid is still active. It must have a crystallized iron source.” Mak met Molly’s gaze. “That kind of energy generator is only available through the military.”
“So this is what Admiral Lester said it was, a military lab.” Molly’s earlier enthusiasm for discovering new things wilted. Lester and the other traitors who’d conducted these experiments had been real monsters. Their evil would hang like a shadow over whatever useful things Molly might glean from this mission.
Mak took the lead again. No doors lined the hallway but after twenty yards it opened into a work area. Metal lab tables still gleamed beneath a thin layer of dust.
Molly hurried forward, but as she looked around, she saw that the tech units had been cleared out. Not even an old fashioned computer remained. She headed for some drawers and cabinets set into one wall.
Mak stopped her and clipped a radio to her collar, his warm fingers skimming her neck. “I’m going to secure the rest of the facility. The corporal and Pender will remain with you. Call me if you see or hear anything disturbing.”
After he left, they all took a section of the storage and searched it. Andy Box helped them but Kory stood guard, sending uneasy glances toward the hall Mak had disappeared into. They found medical supplies, tubes and hoses used for testing, but no paperwork or clues to what had been done in the room.
“They really cleaned up, didn’t they?” Hector said.
The radio on Molly’s collar woke up before she could agree. Mak’s voice echoed oddly through it as if he stood in a vast cave. “Dr. Drant, you should join me. Just follow the hallway.”
They pushed the drawers and closets closed and hurried down the hall. Hopefully he’d found some indication of where the researchers had taken their work after this base was closed.
Molly stopped so suddenly at the end of the hall that Hector bumped into her. Mak stood in the middle of a round room as windowless as the previous one. This room had a set of operating tables in the middle, stained with dark splotches. Old blood, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
Cages lined the wall, some occupied by piles of…of bones, skin and hair. Carcasses of something or someone. Molly heard the others gasping and cursing behind her as she walked toward one of the cages. A skeletonized hand stuck out through the thick-wired squares. They’d kept people penned in here.
Aware of Mak at her shoulder, Molly squatted down to look closer at the body. The nails of the long, thick fingers curved into sharp, but chipped weapons as if the poor thing had tried to dig its way out. Only a faint odor of decay remained. The dry air of the facility had nearly mummified the carcass. Shaggy dark hair covered its head, having grown long in a tangled mess. A thick beard covered its face and hid its mouth. No clothing covered its male parts that lay as shriveled bits in the thick hair growing from its groin and spreading down its legs and up to join the pelt of chest hair. She saw no visible wounds.
“I wonder how it died.” She spoke softly, thinking of the place as a crypt for these poor creatures. The man looked like he’d been tall though death had shrunk him with its merciless touch. The thick bones suggested massive musculature.
“They might have starved to death.” Mak peered into the adjoining cage. “But you should test for pathogens before we open the doors.”
The next hour flew by. Molly and the other doctors put on protective gloves and masks as they tested for disease. They found no presence of microorganisms or toxins.
Mak allowed Andy to help them lift one of the bodies onto one of the operating tables. Helen and Hector did a quick autopsy while Molly examined the other bodies. All men of large size. Had they volunteered for the experiments or been selected? Had they been promised physical improvements and then been given drugs and hormones that turned them into something so dangerous that they’d been caged?
Kory helped Mak search the lab for other clues and evidence of what had happened in the grim place. Mak crawled under a workstation fixed into the wall. It looked as if it might have once held computers.
Molly appreciated that at least in this part of their mission Mak seemed more helpful and less obstructive. Hector spoke softly into the recording device as he took a vid of the autopsy. Andy looked pale beneath t
he bright light shining on the body while Helen worked with her face set in fierce concentration.
“Come look at this,” Helen said a minute later.
Mak stood up and joined Molly across the table from Helen. She had cut the scalp back and opened the brain case. Though shrunken by drying the brain retained its loopy appearance. Molly had never performed any kind of brain surgery but she understood what Helen pointed at.
A dark line scored the grayish matter. Molly shook her head. “They did brain surgery?” She looked around the room. “They did surgery in this room while the others watched, knowing their turn would come.”
“What kind of people would do something like this?” Kory asked.
“Crazy people who think they can improve humans. People who think they’re smarter than nature,” Andy answered with a sneer in his voice.
Molly looked at Mak, wondering if he understood Andy directed some of his disdain at him. But Mak looked toward the door they’d entered through. He made a sharp gesture with his hand that even the doctors understood meant to be silent. After a long breath-holding moment, Molly relaxed. But Mak didn’t.
“Guns,” he hissed at the other two soldiers. He glided toward the opening to the hallway, his pistol in one hand and a knife suddenly in the other.
Andy dropped the sample tube he’d held when he clumsily unslung his gun. It crashed to the floor. Dark silence followed, more menacing than before. From up the hallway came an odd shuffling and heavy breathing.
Mak waved his hand at Molly, signaling for her and the other doctors to move out of the middle of the room. She trotted over to stand behind him as he took up a position to the right of the door leading to the hall. Kory took up the left position. Andy stood back, putting himself in front of the other two doctors.
A feral wild animal-like odor wafted from the hallway. Something grunted, a question in the sound.
Mak looked over his shoulder at Molly, mouthing words to her. “Stay back.” He took a big quick step into the entrance, lifting his pistol to firing position in the same smooth movement. His usually cool expression lit with surprise. “What the hell is this?”
Chapter Three
Mak kept his weapon steady on the…creature. He swept Dr. Drant behind him when she stepped from cover to his side. Her gasp matched his shock.
“What is it?” The doctor peeked around Mak’s shoulder, setting her hand lightly on his back.
Her touch distracted Mak though he could barely feel it through his gear. He moved forward enough for her hand to drop away. The creature tensed when he moved.
Its wild dark hair brushed the ceiling, making it nearly eight feet tall. Slabs of muscle couldn’t conceal its starved appearance. The sharp angles of its hipbones topped bowed legs and shrunken privates. Though it wore no clothing, the thick hair growing on its body would serve to keep it warm. The sharp odor of unwashed skin and filthy hair hung heavily around it. It grunted again, exposing strong teeth, yellowed but otherwise the same as any human’s.
“It’s one of their experiments,” Helen said from across the room. Her voice drew the thing’s attention.
As it swung its blue-eyed gaze around the room, Mak’s stomach tightened. Seeing the cages and the victims left behind had disturbed him. Their utter helplessness, probably men who’d been soldiers, had roused his unexpected sympathy. And now this strange beast with its confused, very human eyes raised questions about the mission. Was this pathetic creature one of the monsters they hunted?
“Shoot it,” Corporal Box said.
“Quiet, corporal,” Mak ordered, not liking the edge of panic he heard in Box’s tone.
The creature’s brow lowered into a fierce frown. It glared at Mak and then shifted its stare to the gun in his hands. It retreated a step and then another.
“Shoot it!” Box yelled.
It turned and ran, taking long graceful strides that carried it with amazing speed out of sight. Box pounded across the room, pushing Dr. Drant aside and lifting his weapon. He got one shot off before Mak grabbed him.
Mak didn’t break Box’s arm but it would be a while before he lifted much with it. The corporal cried out when his back slammed into the metal wall. Mak held him there with a hand around his throat. Box dropped his weapon and tugged uselessly on Mak’s wrist. “Explain yourself.”
Box fell to his knees when Mak released him. Pender picked up the corporal’s gun and stepped back.
Dr. Drant herded the other doctors back toward the center of the room. Mak spared them a glance and found he was glad none of the anger in their eyes was directed at him.
The corporal coughed and rubbed at the red mark on his throat. “That thing is an insult to nature. It needs to be destroyed like the rest of them.”
“You fired your weapon without waiting for my order.” Mak had never had another Recon Marine disobey his orders. Only two other marines held rank above Mak’s and many times he’d led small units independent of his superior officers.
Box blinked and swallowed as if he had a lump in his throat. He struggled to his feet and moved a few unsteady steps back from Mak. “That thing was dangerous and Dr. Drant was right behind you.”
“We had no evidence it was dangerous.” Mak scooped up his knife he’d dropped when he grabbed Box. The corporal backed up another step. “Are you justifying your disobedience with the conjecture that I couldn’t protect our charges against one unarmed enemy?”
Box shook his head but no words came from his mouth. The sour stench of fear sweat rose in the dry air.
Mak noticed the doctors watching them with wide eyes. “Pender, keep this room secure until I return. No one leaves. Make sure Box doesn’t shoot me when I come back.” He ran down the hall after the creature. Its gamey odor hovered in the narrow corridor.
It had passed through the outer room and then out the hall that led to the exit. Mak paused before exiting, listening for any sound indicating the odd being’s presence. Instead he heard rapidly approaching steps behind him. Her scent chased the last remnants of foulness out the door.
“You were to stay behind with Pender.”
“Kory can’t order me to do anything.” Dr. Drant leaned around him, peering out the door.
Mak gently eased her behind him. “I’ll go first, but when we return to the ship, we’re going to review the command structure.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing.”
Despite her words, Mak suspected she wasn’t really agreeing with him. He stepped out of the doorway, centering himself so the doctor wouldn’t be exposed. The overgrown path to the landing pad was empty. He found fresh scuffle marks in the old leaves to the left of the path. The creature had run into the trees, his strides almost twelve feet each. He could easily be more than a mile away by now. Mak couldn’t track him with the doctor on his heels.
“I didn’t see any blood so I assume Andy missed him. Are we going after him?”
Mak started back through the hall. “You’re going back to the ship. Gather your people and what you want to take along.”
She hurried after him. “We need more time in that operating room. I’ll tell the others what to do and you and I will go after that one.”
“Why?” He stopped and faced her. “Why go after it?”
He couldn’t interpret the expression crossing her face. “Because we need to learn about it. See if there are more of them. Did you see how confused he was? We need to help him.”
Mak searched his experiences for a way to interpret her expression or her words. “Help him how?”
Her mouth turned down into a frown and she shrugged.
Mak continued to the operating room, nodding to Pender who stood alertly by the door. The other two doctors had continued their work on the cadaver. About half a dozen little jars filled with samples lined the head of the metal table.
Corporal Box searched through the metal cabinets along the back wall. He avoided looking at Mak though he glanced toward Dr. Drant. Mak wondered at the best way
to discipline him. Sending him back to base would be inconvenient and leave them short a crew member.
“You have thirty minutes to collect what you need. We’ll stay on planet for twenty-four hours in case you need to return for more samples.” The three doctors frowned at him but Mak ignored them. He crawled beneath the desk he’d been searching earlier. The previous occupants had thought they’d stripped the lab of anything that might give away their plans, but like many civilians and even some soldiers, they’d forgotten to take the galactic security chip affixed directly to the batteries of the communication equipment. The emergency memory unit’s existence wasn’t widely known but it stored all communications of any unit using military grade devices. Admiral Ben Lester should have known better.
The doctors spoke quietly amongst themselves, all of them glancing now and then at Mak. Whatever they discussed, Dr. Drant ended it with a firm order. “Get what we can now, and we’ll catalogue it back on the ship.”
Mak put Pender at rear guard on the return trip, trusting the young man to obey orders and stay alert. He kept the corporal at his side. The sun greeted them when they cleared the trees. Once they started through the grasses, Mak switched with Pender and took up the rear position himself. Though he heard and saw nothing, Mak knew something watched them from the shadows. More than one thing.
Every instinct warned him to flush out their stalkers. But if they all moved as fast as the interloper into the lab, Mak could only stop them by shooting them. The thought of killing them sickened him. How much choice had they had in what they’d become? Perhaps no more than Mak had had in his own creation. He watched the tree line thinking he might have more in common with the humanoid creatures lurking there than the people walking in front of him.
****
Molly gasped at the readings from the tissue sample. The levels of testosterone alone would have driven the man insane. The invasions into the frontal cortex had completed the erasure of their humanity. Hector searched for DNA manipulations in the bone samples they’d collected while Helen used her AI device to enter the data they’d recorded on bone size and density.
