Estelle said nothing. She didn’t really blame Dodds for refusing. She had chosen to flex her muscles as the commanding officer and delegate an undesirable duty onto another. She imagined that the idea of cutting open the woman was no more appealing to them than it was to her. Certainly not for Kelly or Enrique, who had been the first to bail, and clearly neither for Dodds or herself.
Which only left …
She looked to the only person in the room who hadn’t yet expressed an objection to the task. “Chaz?”
The big man looked around at her, his focus having still been on Barber, his expression remorseful.
“You were keen to get in here and get this done.” She held the scalpel out to him, trying to keep it as steady as possible. It gleamed where it caught the light.
Chaz looked once again to Barber, then to the scalpel, before he plucked it gently from Estelle’s grasp, without a word. Dodds and Estelle gave one another a worried look as Chaz held the instrument, acknowledging neither of them. He stood with his eyes focused on Barber’s face, as if stuck in his own world.
“Chaz?” Dodds prompted him after a time.
“Just give me a second, okay?” Chaz said in a quiet voice.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Estelle said.
*
Sweeping into the central hall, the six soldiers were met with the same reception as they had in the airlock corridor; though here, with its far greater populace, it was significantly louder and more chaotic. The screams and shouting began at the first sighting of the black suits, and, as one, people rose and started to run. There were casualties even before the soldiers began their slaughter – limbs were tangled, bones were snapped, and heads were crushed in the stampede.
Their weapons already drawn, the lead soldiers fired upon those immediately in front of them, bursts of plasma bolts burning through clothes and ripping into flesh, repeated hits opening up gaping wounds and spilling blood. Bullets performed to a lesser degree, but were no less deadly for their accuracy. In the space of just a few seconds, the area around the soldiers was splattered with blood, torn clothing and burnt lumps of flesh that had been torn from their victims. Grenades were tossed into the thickest of the throngs, having the immediate effect of killing many, maiming others and causing even greater panic.
The opening act over, the soldiers advanced after their prey. No one was to be spared – men, women, old and young were all fair game. There was no return fire from any of the refugees, not even the slightest attempt to defend themselves, the men and women all too aware of the futility of such actions.
*
Dodds heard running feet echoing down the corridor leading to the mortuary, the distinctive sound of Kelly’s voice leading the way.
“I’m not going back in there!”
“Given the choice, I don’t think you’d prefer to be out there, either!” Enrique answered.
Dodds, Estelle and Chaz jerked around as the two came sprinting into the morgue.
“Enrique, wh—” Estelle began.
“Soldiers!” Enrique panted. “Imperial soldiers have just entered the port! They’re armed and firing on the refugees! One is coming this way!”
“What?” Dodds said. “They’re attacking the refugees?”
“Imperial soldiers?” Chaz interrupted. “You’re sure?”
“Positive,” Enrique said. “Saw them through the window in the door at the entrance to the main hall. One looked straight at me. I’m not sure if he saw me, but they were—”
“What are they wearing?” Chaz demanded.
“Huh?” The question seemed to catch Enrique off-guard.
“Enrique, what are they wearing?” the big man raised his voice.
The look on Chaz’s face made Dodds feel the most unsettled he had all day. The man was worried. Very worried.
“Black uniforms,” Enrique started, “completely black, with these bright red visors or something around their eyes, and—”
“And one’s heading this way?”
Enrique nodded.
“Hide!” Chaz said, putting the scalpel down on Barber’s belly, gathering up the sheet and hurling it back over her body.
“From one solider?” Estelle started, “but, there are five of us—”
“Believe me, we need to hide, right now,” Chaz said, his voice grim.
Dodds glanced around the mortuary, before turning back to Chaz incredulously. “Where?!”
XXV
— Dead Man Walking —
The sight that greeted the soldier as he opened the door to the morgue was nothing out of the ordinary. Six bodies, covered in sheets, lay on gurnies lining the walls. Two were bloodstained. He inched through the door, pausing as more details of the inside of the room came into view. Several roused his suspicions. The first was the presence of five backpack-like objects, bundled into a corner next to a locker; the second, a small pile of random items, including two pairs of boots and socks, stuffed under one of the bloodstained gurnies; the third, a round, reflective object under a trolley. It looked like a flight helmet. He swept his shotgun around, marking the corners and the ceiling, before checking behind the main door itself.
Just as with all the examination rooms he had investigated before arriving here, he was met with no immediate opposition. Someone had fled this way though, as they had locked the entrance to the medical wing behind them. It hadn’t proven a difficult obstacle to overcome, a shoulder barge enough to break the lock.
He turned his attention to the bodies on the gurnies, moving first to the one with the many items deposited beneath it; the one closest to the door. He watched it closely for signs of movement, before reaching down and snatching aside the linen cover. He was momentarily distracted by a tinkling sound as he did so, but quickly discovered it to be nothing more than a small surgical instrument that had tumbled to the floor. He returned his attention to the body on the trolley. The woman’s eyes were closed, her skin pale. Her face seemed to lack warmth. He studied her for a moment, before nudging her face with the barrel of his gun. There was no reaction; the woman really was dead. Even so, he would check the others.
He circled around the gurney, coming to stand by the next in the row. Shotgun still poised, he extended a hand to remove the white sheet …
A bumping noise coming from the far end of the room drew his attention. He swung around to face it, steadying his shotgun in preparation to tackle the threat. The sound appeared to have come from the same locker the backpacks had been dumped next to. He waited, studying it closely. There then came another bumping sound, followed by a soft groaning. Here was his quarry, hiding in the locker. The soldier moved to it, taking up a ready position in front of the door and flinging it open, the person hiding within lunging immediately for him.
He discharged the shotgun at point-blank range, sending his attacker crashing back inside. The man crumpled down like a puppet that had just had its strings cut, stiff limbs dropping. The soldier eyed the man closely, preparing to fire again, should the first round have failed to do its job of permanently downing his opponent.
But the man made no further movements, and the soldier bent down over the body to examine it. Like that of the woman lying on the gurney, the man’s skin was pale and cold-looking. There were no signs of respiration, the blank eyes already staring ahead. His attacker had been dead all along. He had shot a corpse.
The deception uncovered, he turned around in time to face his true opponent.
*
Dodds lunged for the shotgun the black-suited invader still held tight in one hand, in an attempt to disarm him, as the soldier made to fire the weapon once more. With the element of surprise on his side, Dodds succeeded in directing the shotgun into the air, where it discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. This it did several more times as the pair tussled, before the soldier released his grip on the shotgun and struck Dodds hard across the face with the back of his fist.
Dodds’ vision exploded in a dazzling array of indecipherable s
hapes and colours, blurring together into one, before morphing into huge black spheres. He felt himself fall to the ground, completely disorientated by the blow. Shouldn’t have gone for the gun! Dodds thought. But what else could he do? He couldn’t exactly hit the soldier over the head with anything, not with that great big helmet they were wearing! And besides, there wasn’t anything to hit them with! As he tried to make sense of his world, he heard a short, sharp click, followed by the clatter of several objects bouncing on the floor close by. Spent shell cases! A rapid clicking followed and Dodds realised that the soldier had begun reloading his weapon, slotting in fresh cartridges in place of the old ones.
Hell! Get up! Get up!
He hadn’t even started to his feet when he heard the soldier load the seventh and final shell, snap the gun shut and cock it. Time seemed to slow. He looked up into the bright red eyes of the eerie black helmet as the shotgun was swung in his direction, finding himself staring down the barrel.
Dodds tensed. There came a bang. The shotgun fell away and the soldier grunted, stumbling backward. Three more explosions followed, accompanied by cries of pain from behind the black helmet, before the soldier crashed down onto the floor. Two more bangs came and the rear of the locker buckled in two places, as bullets slammed into it. Blood could already be seen glistening on the soldier’s suit as it began to pour from numerous wounds, collecting into a small pool on the floor. The soldier clearly wasn’t wearing any form of body armour, and what little protection the suit might’ve offered hadn’t served the owner very well this time around.
Dodds turned to see Estelle, breathing heavily and steadying a pistol in both hands. He recognised it as the gun that had belonged to Barber, the one Chaz had removed from a holster inside the woman’s jacket during his search for the data card. Estelle must’ve picked it up during the scramble to hide. She stared down at him, not saying a word. Her eyes were an unreadable mixture of feelings. He knew that his own only offered an apology for attempting to tackle the man single-handed. He began to stand as the other three Knights emerged from their hurried hiding places.
As Enrique had relayed the warning of the soldier’s impending arrival to the mortuary, the Knights had wrenched off their propulsion packs and hidden beneath the sheets of the spare gurnies, feigning their own deaths. Their packs had been thrown into a corner, next to a locker, and their flight helmets had been dumped next to the trolley of surgical instruments. There had only been four empty trolleys, and so Chaz had pulled the raider’s body off his table and pushed him into the locker. Though there had been no time to hide any evidence of their recent activities, Dodds, Estelle, Kelly and Enrique had hoped that the soldier would take one look around and then leave.
Chaz seemed to have expected otherwise.
Their saving grace had come in the form of the raider that Chaz had put in the locker. The bundling of the man’s body into the storage cabinet had resulted in it crumpling down, knocking against the insides as it did so. The soldier had gone on to mistake the corpse’s sliding for someone trying to hide themselves away.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Chaz said, throwing off his sheet. He glanced in the direction of the fallen soldier that was lying unmoving on the floor, on top of the body of the raider. He then hesitated, for a time appearing to be caught up in some internal debate as to which task he should attend to first.
Dodds followed his eyes to the body. “I wouldn’t worry about him,” he said. “Estelle put four bullets in him and he ain’t breathing any more.”
“Check again,” Chaz said.
Dodds gave the body a once-over, seeing it still and silent, blood seeping out of the wounds in the torso. “I’d say he’s dead.”
“Positive?” Chaz said.
“Very,” Dodds confirmed. Odd question.
Even so, Chaz stared uncertainly at the body for a moment, before heading back over to the gurney on which Barber’s body rested, snatching up the scalpel from where it had fallen to the floor. The jacket already undone, he used the scalpel to cut apart Barber’s bloodstained vest, though he stopped short of cutting into her flesh, and once again ran his fingers over her skin.
“Chaz,” Estelle started, fiddling with the pistol she still held. “If you can’t do it—”
“I can,” Chaz said, “just give me a second.”
“—I can do it, instead,” Estelle finished.
“I said give me a damn second!” Chaz shouted back. After just a few seconds of mental preparation, he found the will to begin and immediately plunged the scalpel into Barber’s stomach. He began cutting downwards, working fast and making rough, sawing actions with the blade as he went. He acknowledged nothing else around him as he did so, the world seeming to have all but disappeared. It was as if he had slipped into a trance. Dodds watched him for a time, before the rapid reddening of the man’s hands caused him to turn away.
“I’m sorry,” he thought he heard the big man softly say. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, you okay?” Enrique asked, as he and Kelly approached him.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dodds said, even though he wasn’t so sure.
“Your face is really bruised,” Kelly said.
Dodds touched his cheek, feeling it hot and a little swollen. The strength of the blow when the solider had hit him had been tremendous. He found himself surprised that the force had even taken him off his feet. Now that he thought about it, he was starting to count himself lucky that he hadn’t actually been knocked out. He recalled how, during his struggle with the soldier over the shotgun, his feet had almost been lifted off the floor as the soldier had pulled against him. Something about that whole sequence wasn’t right. No one was that strong.
No one normal, anyway.
He wandered over to where the soldier had fallen, Enrique and Kelly trailing behind him. The soldier still held the shotgun in one hand and Dodds kicked it away, before squatting down next to the body. He noted that the soldier’s suit, which he had originally thought to have been constructed from ceramics, was actually composed of little more than leather. It was thicker in some places than others, giving the impression of armour plating. The texture varied in parts, mostly around the joints and where one plate met another. Dodds reached for the helmet, tilting the head from side to side, and pushing it this way and that.
“What are you doing?” Kelly asked suspiciously.
“I want to see what this bastard looks like,” Dodds said, eager to discover what lay beneath that ominous-looking black helmet. It was round in shape and all encompassing, betraying none of the wearer’s features to the outside world. Two tubes and a thin black cable ran off the back, feeding into the main suit. It looked as though the tubes were there to aid with respiration, although since Dodds had never seen anything like it before, they could’ve existed for any purpose. He found that they were all easily detached and, after doing so, he slipped the helmet off the soldier’s head.
“Wow,” Kelly said, drawing closer.
Dodds couldn’t say exactly what he had been expecting to find beneath the mask, but it certainly wasn’t anything like this. The peaceful face of the man that he now looked upon was – in a word – beautiful. His skin was flawless, with no moles, scars or even any signs of stubble present anywhere. Not even the tiniest of cuts or imperfections. The skin was so smooth and healthy-looking that the man could well have been wearing make-up. Dodds ran a finger over the man’s skin a few times, to see if any caked-on compound came off. Nothing did. The man was dark-skinned, the hair on the top of his head short and almost uniform in length. He looked more like a model than a soldier.
“What’s that?” Enrique asked, drawing Dodds’ and Kelly’s attention away from the man’s face. On the left breast of the soldier’s suit was a circular white emblem, depicting the outline of a man holding a spear in both hands, upright in front of him. The spear was set at a shallow angle, the tip pointing to the top left of the circle. A sash, tied to the top of the shaft, just below the poin
t, curled around his body. The man himself was bald and appeared to be naked, apart from where the sash preserved his modesty; although since he was depicted more or less from the waist up, it was difficult to tell.
“That’s not an Imperial military insignia I recognise,” Enrique said, running his fingers over the emblem.
“No, I’ve never seen that one before, either,” Kelly added.
Neither had Dodds. Like most others, he was accustomed to the noisy Imperial coat of arms – a clutter of swords, laurels, felines and just about anything else the artist had been able to cram into the space the design afforded. This symbol, by contrast, was a lot simpler, more akin to the disjunction of a few basic shapes, as used by the CSN, UNF and INF.
“There’s another one on his right arm,” Dodds said, indicating the identical symbol just above the dead man’s bicep. He looked over at the helmet he had removed, but discovered that it was devoid of any such markings. He peeked inside, noting the clear eye sockets within, unlike the red colouring of the exterior. Two ear-level circular grilles on each side appeared to aid hearing. What looked like a small inset, unmarked button resided on the left temple. He pushed it in, hearing a low buzz and noticing how the once-clear interior eye sockets had changed colour. A gentle glow illuminated his hands.
“Looks like the helmet has some sort of built-in optical enhancements,” he said. He toyed with it a little longer, before he handed the helmet to Enrique, more intrigued with the strange white pictorial image on the suit.
As he and Enrique continued to try to make sense of the emblem, Kelly reached down to the man’s right leg and removed something that was holstered there.
“You’re being brave,” Dodds said. Kelly said nothing. Perhaps her interest in the soldier had pushed aside her fear of bodies for the moment.
“What’ve you got there?” Enrique asked her.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 36
