Unstrapping the heavy basket, Daniel watched as a small olive-skinned woman, holding a small cylindrical object, passed her hand over his head and down his back.
“Clean, sir, no bacteria. He’s got the usual round of parasites, and he is anaemic and malnourished,” the Technician reported.
With a nod, Gummell dismissed the Technician to her other duties.
“How many?” Gummell asked the Landing Trooper Officer who commanded the Security Detail, and was scanning the colony.
“Fifty-one life signs, sir,” the silver-visored Officer reported, “with two dead.”
“Perimeter secure?” Gummell asked as Daniel carefully let the heavy basket drop to the ground.
“Yes, sir,” the visored Landing Trooper Officer confirmed.
“Right, send them in,” Gummell ordered and turned to Daniel. “Come with me,” he beckoned and started to walk towards the big pale-blue object that seemed to fill the entire world.
Slowly, the five Landing Ramps of the Troop Transport began to lower with a shrill mechanical whirr. Terrified of this new development, Daniel hung back as Gummell strode forward confidently.
“Come on, they don’t bite,” Gummell called back to the reluctant Daniel, who edged forward a few more steps.
As the Landing Ramp finally opened fully, Gummell leaned into the craft.
“Large Qar’gah, if you please!” he ordered as a strange object, full of blue clad people, with a sharp, pointed nose sped out of the gap and hurtled down the slope.
The first sharp nosed object, an Alliance Personnel Carrier, was followed by two more in short order. Watching with terror and amazement, Daniel saw the Personnel Carriers speed down the slope and then disappear into the early morning darkness and shadows of the colony.
“Here, eat,” Gummell ordered, handing Daniel a large bowl of something hot with a long thin object sticking out of it.
Warily, Daniel stared at the hot, steaming bowl.
“It’s not poisoned,” Gummell sighed, and took a small taste from the spatula. “Here, try,” he scooped up more Qar’gah and offered it to the ragged young man.
Nervously, Daniel tasted the hot, sweet porridge-like substance. And, discovering that he liked the taste, he took the bowl and spatula and began to scoop it into his mouth greedily. After several mouthfuls, Daniel realised that he should be saving it for the people down in the colony. With a guilty look, Daniel slowly slid the spatula into the bowl and began to set it down on the ground.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got more than enough of that for everyone, go on eat it all. Get me some bread, please.”
A few moments later, a full circular loaf of bread was passed out to Gummell from within the Transport.
“There you go.” Gummell passed the loaf over to Daniel. “Stick in until you stick out, as our First Admiral says.”
With great gusto, a very hungry Daniel discarded the spatula and began to tear lumps from the warm bread and dipped them into the Qar’gah before shovelling them into his mouth. The sweet taste and the warmth of the Qar’gah seemed to flow into every corner of his half-starved body as he devoured the dipped bread.
With his cheeks bulging from the dipped bread, Daniel saw the first rays of the sun lighting up the floor of the colony. Stepping forward to join the pale-blue clad creature, Daniel watched the beginning of the rescue mission. The sharp-nosed Personnel Carriers formed a rough circle on the colony floor with the black Med-Evac Shuttles congregating in the centre of the circle. People in pale-blue uniforms were already tending to some of the dark-clad, ragged lepers, who were eating from bowls like the one Daniel held in his hands.
Other lepers, on seeing the arrival of the Shuttles and Personnel Carriers had fled into the rocks and were being coaxed from their hiding places with bread and promises. Anxious figures, clutching their pathetic rags around them, were nervously edging towards the kindly voices and offers of food. Meanwhile, Landing Trooper Squads were scouring every square centimetre of the cave network upon which the colony existed. The Troopers worked their way methodically through every tunnel, passageway, gallery and fissure in the rocks where a person could hide. And slowly, the weak, frightened and half-starved creatures who lived in the darkness, were found and rescued.
Those too weak or ill to walk were wrapped in whatever filthy rags they were covered in and bodily carried by the short, squat and muscular Troopers. Many protested feebly at being lifted from what would have been their death beds, but the Troopers were under strict orders to bring everyone that they could find. Even the dead were to be brought up to the surface. First Admiral Caudwell had ordered the entire colony cleaned out and the dead given decent burial. The weak protests were ruthlessly waved aside with promises of food and medical help.
Back on the surface, Daniel saw one of the black Med-Evac Shuttles lift off with the quiet hum of its anti-gravity generator before the deeper roar of the single Thrust Engine cut in and drove the vessel off towards the north at very high speed.
“Where do they go, Your Lordship?” Daniel mumbled to Gummell, his mouth full of bread and Qar’gah.
“They’re going to the hospital on our estate, we send the really serious cases away first.”
“I should like to see this hospital, Your Lordship?” Daniel asked distantly. “It must be a very good place.”
Down in the colony, more lepers, having been prised from their hiding places in the rocks, were shuffling nervously towards the Medical Technicians. The Medical Technicians would trot out to meet the newcomers and immediately scan them before delivering the medication that would kill the leprosy bacteria and arrest the progress of their disease. The people able to shuffle under their own power were then escorted by Integration Technicians to the Personnel Carriers where food was being distributed. There, they could find somewhere to sit and eat whilst the Technicians began to take details of who they were.
Over towards the caves, Daniel saw black-clad Landing Troopers carrying bundles of what looked like rags towards the Medical Technicians. He saw the olive-skinned woman who had ‘scanned’ him stopping some of the bundle-carrying Troopers with the silver faces and lights shining from the top of their heads. She would open the ‘bundles’ in their arms and scan them. Then, she would direct the Troopers to the Personnel Carriers where other Medical Technicians waited.
With one, however, she scanned the person being carried, but directed the Landing Trooper to an isolated spot behind one of the Personnel Carriers. An Integration Officer spread out a large light-blue cover on the ground for the Trooper to gently lay the person down on one side of the material. When the body had been laid flat, the Officer covered it completely with the other side of the cover.
Daniel, stopping in mid-chew, realised that one of the lepers had been found dead, and felt a wave of sadness and regret sweep over him.
“You can’t save them all, lad,” Gummell said, noticing Daniel’s sadness, “you can only do the best you can.”
Setting his near-empty bowl and the remains of his bread on the ground, Daniel discovered that he had lost his appetite. Down in the colony, more Landing Troopers were emerging from the caves carrying their pitiful scraps of humanity towards the waiting Medical Technicians.
“Where do they get buried?” Gummell asked Daniel. “Do they get buried here or elsewhere?”
“I carry them to the holy brothers with the black robes,” Daniel replied.
“We’ll take them with us, they may have family amongst the living.”
“Medical Officer reports that we’ve got them all,” the Landing Trooper Officer close to Gummell reported.
“Right, start bringing them up.”
In the colony, the Integration Technicians began to load the shuffling lepers into the Personnel Carriers. Over a dozen people, plus their escorts, would be loaded into each Personnel Carrier before being brought up the rocky slope to the Troop Transport.
“Trouble, sir,” the Landing Trooper Officer announced, “checkpoint five.�
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“What kind of trouble?” Gummell asked nervously.
First Admiral Caudwell had instructed that this was to be as secret an operation as possible. He had made it clear to Gummell that they did not need any attention from the local authorities, especially the military.
“Sounds like the local bully boys out for their jollies,” the Landing Trooper Officer replied, “they pulled weapons on the Troopers at the checkpoint and had to be pacified,” he added.
“Anybody injured?”
“Seven of the locals got a bit roughed up, our boys are all fine.”
“Better bring them here then.”
It was just another one of those unexpected things that happened on operations. But, it was another headache that Gummell felt he did not need. Seven local ruffians out for some vicious entertainment were one such headache. The orders from First Admiral Caudwell were clear, no one was to be killed unless in dire emergency. The orders also instructed as few witnesses as possible to avoid awkward questions. A leper colony was not something that would be unduly missed by the local population. There might be a bit of head scratching and local speculation amongst the gossips, but the most likely explanation would be that they all just moved away in the night. Now, there were seven young men who could identify the presence of the Landing Troopers at the time of the lepers’ disappearance. Gummell knew that one or two witnesses would be dismissed as cranks or lunatics, but seven was an entirely different story.
“Stand by!” a female called from the Troop Transport. “First Carrier coming up!”
Moments later, a host of Integration and Medical Technicians began to scramble down the ramps to receive the first of the lepers. The first Personnel Carrier zipped up the rocky slope, the anti-gravity generator humming quietly, and pivoted to allow access to the rear ramp. Some of the escorting Technicians vaulted over the high sides of the Carrier to assist with the unloading as the rear ramp lowered and the first lepers were helped down by strong, willing hands.
Daniel noticed several of the lepers still clutched their bowls and bread close to their chests as they were scanned once more. The Medical Technicians made sure that no one had been missed with the anti-bacterial medication before allowing them onto the Troop Transport. Once given the all-clear, they were escorted, shuffling slowly, up the ramp of the Troop Transport to further waiting help. As Daniel continued to watch, one of the shuffling lepers on the ramp stumbled.
Instinctively, Daniel stepped forward and caught the falling figure’s arm, preventing a catastrophic fall from the ramp.
“Steady there friend,” Daniel said as the escorting Technician recovered the figure.
“God bless you, Daniel,” a soft female voice said as the figure drew the black shawl over her disfigured face.
“And, God bless you, Tirza,” Daniel smiled softly.
As the figure disappeared into the Troop Transport, Daniel felt a strange mixture of happiness that Tirza was going to the hospital these creatures had created, and the sadness that he would miss Tirza and her quiet friendship.
And, as Tirza disappeared, another Personnel Carrier stopped in front of Gummell, this one driven by a Landing Trooper.
“Right, on your feet you lot!” the Trooper ordered, clambering from the driving seat over into the well of the vehicle as the rear ramp lowered. “Out, the lot of you!” he barked.
Seven scruffy and unkempt young adult male figures rose to their feet in the well of the Personnel Carrier, their arms pinioned to their sides with the force-shielding restraints that had been applied by the Troopers at the checkpoint.
“Come on, move,” the Trooper ordered applying his boot to the backside of the prisoner teetering on the edge of the ramp. The helpless, bound prisoner, a large muscular young man, tumbled forwards onto his face on the ramp before being hauled to his feet by two other Troopers and shoved before Gummell.
Held by the restraints at the wrist, elbow and upper arms, the surly looking young man stared with defiance at this new creature, who at least had a face. The Landing Troopers had orders to remain visored at all times, and so this was the first face he had seen of the strange creatures.
For a moment, Gummell scrutinised the powerfully built young man as his cohorts were unloaded from the Personnel Carrier with no little kindness, and was met with the insolent stare of a creature who was not afraid of anything.
“Report!” Gummell barked to the Landing Trooper from the Personnel Carrier.
“Checkpoint Five, sir, Trooper Garak reporting,” the Landing Trooper snapped to attention. “Standing watch at Checkpoint Five, sir, when these…individuals…approached from the west, sir, we challenged them to return from whence they had come, in accordance with standing orders, whereupon the leader, this one, sir, decided to make an issue of it with Sergeant Zill by drawing a weapon, sir,” the Trooper continued throwing a short dagger onto the ground.
“Continue, Trooper Garak,”
“As this one here attacked Sergeant Zill, his comrades also drew weapons and attacked the other members of the section. We were forced to defend ourselves, disarm our attackers and take them into custody, SIR!”
With a sigh, Gummell visualised the short, brutal and viciously one-sided battle that was described by the Trooper as ‘disarming our attackers’ and ‘taking them into custody’. The veracity of the image was confirmed by the cuts and bruises on the other young men brought before him.
“Name?” Gummell asked the leader of the group.
“Get lost!” the muscular youth replied with a defiant hiss.
“Answer the Officer!” Trooper Garak snarled jamming the spindly stock of his seven-barrelled pulsar rifle heavily into the youth’s midriff, doubling him over with a loud gasp. Gasping with pain, the muscular youth was hauled to his feet once again.
“We’ll try that again, name?”
“I said get lost,” the youth replied, and braced for another strike as Garak raised the pulsar rifle once more.
“Wait!” Daniel called out from behind Gummell causing Garak to pause. “His name is Lothar.”
“You!” Lothar snarled at Daniel. “I should have known that you were behind all this leper-lover.”
“Lothar, don’t be a fool. These creatures have flying ships and can light up the darkness, they can kill you in the blink of an eye...”
“Shut up leper-lover, keep your tall stories for frightening your leper friends. I’ll deal with you when your friends are gone.”
“What are you doing here at this time of the morning, Lothar, don’t you have work or a family to look after?” Gummell asked.
“Go chase yourself,”
“Interrogation Disk,” Gummell ordered.
Trooper Garak reached into the pocket of his overall uniform and produced a small circular piece of black metal, which he pressed onto Lothar’s right temple just behind the eye. Originally designed to elicit information from enemy soldiers newly captured on the battlefield about their comrades’ dispositions, the Interrogation Disk was a highly efficient synapse stimulator.
It detected when someone was telling lies or being evasive by reading their biometric signs and then delivering a sharp, painful burst of Kathalan radiation which stimulated the nerve connections in the brain to produce an unbearable agony.
“Name?” Gummell began again.
“I said...AAAAAARGH!” Lothar began defiantly as the Disk kicked in.
With a loud shriek, Lothar fell to the ground feeling as if his head were being pierced by a million red-hot needles. Three seconds later, the Disk deactivated leaving Lothar gasping and sweating despite the early morning chill.
“I said name?”
“Go to….AAAAAARGH!!”
On the ground, Lothar screamed and began to thrash, his arms still pinioned, as he felt that his head was about to explode. After three seconds of agony, the disk deactivated once again.
“The next one will kill you. Name?”
“Lothar,” the youth replied with a gasp.
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“Better! What were you doing here, Lothar?”
“We came to get something to eat and have a bit of fun with the leper-lover.”
“What do you work as?”
“We don’t work, we steal what we can and hide from the soldiers.”
“What about your family? Do they know that you’re a thief?”
“Don’t have a family, mother’s dead, no idea who my father is.”
“What about the rest of you? Are you all orphans too?”
To a chorus of ‘yes, sir’ and terrified nods, the other six young men all indicated that they had no family either.
“Put them in the Transport,” Gummell ordered. “We’ll take them with us, well done Trooper Garak,” he praised and dismissed the visored Trooper.
“Are you taking them to the hospital, too?” Daniel asked as the seven pinioned young men were dragged and driven towards the Troop Transporter.
“No, we’ll give them a chance to do something productive with their lives.”
“Sir, we’re just loading the last of them into the Transport,” an Integration Technician announced as Gummell approached the big, light-blue ship.
“Good,” Gummell replied, pleased that the operation had gone off with very few hitches. “Get the dead loaded onto one of the Med-Evacs, and then get everyone out of here.”
“Sir!”
Down in the colony, Daniel saw another black Shuttle lifting off. The dead were leaving.
Landing Troopers were running back to the other shuttles from their perimeter duties as the empty Personnel Carrier was loaded back into the transport.
Climbing determinedly up the ramp, Gummell scanned the area to make sure there was no trace of their ever having been there as the Personnel Carrier with the Troopers from Checkpoint Five returned. Climbing into the Transport, Gummell turned to Daniel as the ramp was drawn back into the ship. The heavy anti-gravity generator began to whine as Gummell raised his hand to Daniel.
Raising his hand in reply, Daniel felt the disappointment of not being able to go and see the marvellous hospital where his many friends in the colony would now be living. Turning away, Daniel thought that the sadness would overwhelm him, when he heard a loud whistle from behind him over the rising whine of the slowly lifting Transport.
The Master of Muscigny (The First Admiral Series Book 5) Page 10
